Novice Game 21 Discussion Thread

[RobWorham]

Novice League Game 21 has closed for submissions. Please feel free to discuss your game in as much detail as you want. The more we talk, the more we can learn from each others successes and failures......

A handful of starters, but only two managed to finish this time around. Good to see a cultural win getting first place!! Congratulations Hokiemon!!

1st :Hokiemon : Won Cultural Victory - 1912AD - 2882 points / 13537 points

2nd : sk1 : Won Space Race Victory - 1998AD - 3841 points / 7049 points

Congratulations also to all those who took part!!!

[Hokiemon]

My N21 Game

Another 1st place Wasn't sure how well I did since I decided to go for a cultural victory after I was well into this game.

I settled in place and started building a warrior, followed by a worker after Mutal had grown to size 2. Pretty much my standard starting gambit. Initial research was Bronze Working (switch to Slavery Civic), Hunting & Animal Husbandry. This let me build the Mayan UU (Holkan), plus I wanted to be able to grab any nearby copper and horses in case there was a weak neighbor close by. I don't recall having any horses n the game, however.

So the first Civ I encounter is Mr. Genghis Khan. He's aggressive, so I don't want to start anything with him. Next I meet Tokugawa. He's aggressive and protective, so don't want to mess with him either. The third guy I meet is old Gus Caesar. The last thing I want to do is get him made and have him sent over a bunch of Praetorians to make me an offer I can't refuse. So, no early wars for this Mayan!

I got a lucky break early in this game, popped a Settler out of a goody hut on turn 11, and had my second city founded by turn 16. Built Lakamha 4E & 1S of the capital, on another river with several hills within the city's fat cross. It made a very nice production city!!

Next I researched Agriculture and Pottery, and starting building cottages to take advantage of Pacal's Financial trait. After that, it was Masonry and Archery for city defenses; didn't want to take any chances with all those aggressive neighbors. Next was Writing, Polytheism, Priesthood and Iron Working.

Founded 3rd city, Chichen Itza, 5W of Mutal, on a river with Ivory and 2 Dye in city's fat cross; made a nice Science City. The 4th city, Uxmal, was founded to the SW of Lakamha, on the coast and near a copper and stone deposits, with several hills nearby too.

In the capital city of Mutal, I managed to build Stonehenge (turn 49), The Great Wall (turn 69) and The Oracle (turn 82). Took Code of Laws with the free tech from The Oracle, and Confucianism was founded in Uxmal. I converted, and it soon spread down to Mr. Khan, who also converted and was pleased with me for most of the game, and never worst than Cautious toward me. Pretty nice having a normally aggressive warmonger be you buddy for a change. I made sure to trade techs and resources with him to keep him happy and looking elsewhere for victims.

I like to try and get Stonehenge and The Oracle in the same city, if possible, because it pretty much guarantees that you'll get several Great Prophets during the game. In this game, I used those Great prophets to research Theology for free (founded Christianity), reduce the time required to research Devine Right (founded Islam), and to research Civil Service for free. I was also the first to research Philosophy and found Taoism in this game, and got enough Great Prophets to build all four holy shrines.

The other wonders I built in the capital were also Great Prophet producers, like Chichen Itza, The Spiral Minaret, Angkor Wat, The Apostolic Palace. That's another thing I try to do if I can; build wonders that generate the same type of great person in the same city. In this game, I was building all the Great Artist producing wonders in my second city, Lakamha, and mainly using the Great Artists as Culture bombs in my top thee cultural cities. I built The Great Library, The University of Sankore and Oxford University in Chichen Itza, and used the Great Scientists to get a free tech or build a Science Academy in the top three culture cities. Uxmal was a coastal city, and the holy city for my state religion. I tried to build The Great Lighthouse and the Colossus there, but got beat out on those two. But it was still a nice Wealth city for me, and I eventually build the Wall Street National Wonder there.

With Khan friendly with me, and everyone else on other continents, I never fought any wars in this game. Managed to capture a couple of barbarian cities up to the NW, and pretty much had all of north and central "Africa" to myself, with Khan to the south. I managed to spread Confucianism to all the other Civs, but never could get elected for a religious victory.

After not getting elected a couple of times, I decided to go for a cultural victory. I didn't research Drama unitl after I had researched Liberalism, so got a late start on bumping up the culture slider. Being a Civ with the financial trait definitely helped. With cottages around all my cities, I was able to bump up the culture slider to 20% right away, and then up to 40% a little later. By the end of the game, I had the culture slider at 100% and was still getting decent research times.

[RobWorham]

Great review!!!