The Impossible Walkthrough (PART II)

Ghandi creates a super-fortress

Level: Monarch

A short while ago I showed how it was possible to win without lightbulbing AND/OR building any cottages on monarch::

The Impossible Walkthrough (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=231222)

Critics mentioned a couple things, mainly that it may have been a fluke, and also that such a strategy can not work on Emperor. Hence, I then rapidly went through a second walkthrough using the same leader and similar mechanisms on Emperor::

The Unreal Walkthrough (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=231469)


However, it seems critics have since mentioned that it is somewhat of an exploit of the industrious trait that made this work. While, yes industrious can help in certain situations, it is not a sole reason of what makes this work. I have currently run through another game this weekend which I will post here, dispelling yet the new myth that such a strategy can only work with industrial traits. BTW, I found the latter reasoning interesting, as many posters on the c-fanatics forum have insisted that industrious traits can’t work well on monarch, and are even useless on Emperor+.


Today’s leader will be Ghandi. While he used to be industrious in Vanilla cd, that was changed and now he is Spiritual/Philosophical. I generally don’t like philosophical leaders because I think it is generally a trait that doesn’t blend too well in most cases, but nevertheless, this will make for a much more interesting game than the typical Pratorean army right out from the gate & conquer the world strategy (who hasn’t seen that a hundred times?).

Thanks for this walkthrough goes to my girlfriend for asking me to baby-sit her youngest sister this weekend, which by NO coincidence was introduced to civ IV recently. And since we both played (at least half of) this walkthrough together, she should get half the credit :P


Notes: Same old story, default settings with continents and normal speed to prevent exploits and time/movement scaling advantages.

Disclaimer. Playing Monarch+ in a system which does not rely on lightbulbing or cottage building is considered to use expert play. Thus, proper knowledge of operating SE cities & optimizations are a standard requirement.

And now… let’s get on with it.

4000 BC

I generally don’t like these starts very much. One off from the ocean side always hurts the production in one way or another. And even though you are able to work sea tiles later on, civ IV prevents you from building harbours, etc in this spot, which is something that really pisses me off.

But alas, we have 2 food sources, which the game seems to generally give in these sea-side scenarios. There are some hills we can turn into production, and the trees will either serve us some good health, or help us in rushing things. The lake is a useless plot to us now, and will be for most the game. But we don’t have much control over that,

I am very tempted to move here, however, moving will possibly place us in a worse position, or lose turns. Usually, the system is supposed to start you off in the best AVERAGE spot, so lets just close our eyes, and accept this spot even though we’re 1 off from the sea.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/4000bc.jpg

3880BC, popped a hut, and was awarded with a hunting tech. That’s great, considering I’m used to barbs coming out any other time…

2440BC

A prime objective is getting the Great Wall asap. However, since we had food ready to grow, I ended up making a worker from the get-go. Generally 12 to 15 turns will be spent there getting that worker ready. That means you can go after techs like agriculture, etc and it will be researched by the time your worker is ready in this case.

Also, we beelined for BW as well. There are multiple reasons for this. #1 finding early bronze is of big importance, and even if we don’t use it for warfare, if it is within our cross, that is a big production boost to our city. But most importantly, I want to chop, and we do have trees here to take advantage of. Now, it’s not that I WANT to chop away our precious trees, but without industrial traits, we have to make some compromises. We can change the terrain later on to something else. And besides, Ghandi starts off with mining already, so we are just 1 tech away, though it is a slightly expensive tech ATM.

Also note, BW allows us to run slavery, which when coupled to our food resources, will also give us a big boost. All things said, BW really is a good candidate here.

Some other points... I went after animal husbandry which we just researched now. There were reasons for this deteur. Popping hunting tech earlier was a very big reason. Always adapt to the situation at hand. Also we don’t want to research polytheism TOO fast, as we don’t want to grab too many religions here. It’s much more wise to stay neutral and let the other civs run into their religions wars. This is a lesson I’ve learned after repeatedly catching 4-5 religions by accident. It’s just not worth it because the person controlling the other one ends up getting the world to turn to his favour, and that’s not a spot you want to be in.


http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/2440bc.jpg

1800 BC

An inside look at our city. After our GW was completed, we immediately went back to working on Stonehenge. Also, we just slave-rushed to shave off 3 turns. Remember, food & hammers is what my games are all about. Exploit the former to convert into the latter. I also can not stress enough the value of RUSHING wonders, as any tie will automatically award the race to the AI.

Note, we immediately worked on improving horses tile, that’s +2 free hammers and is a big early boon.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1800bc.jpg

1440BC

Oracle about to be completed. We could have speed this up even more by chopping, and the stonehenge could have been build sooner than we did as well. However, there is a reason for the little delay. We want our great wall to keep generating engineer points longer. Stonehenge and Oracle contribute prophets, which while we can’t complain, I prefer engineers a slightly bit more than the prophets. In any case, once your citizens run into unhappiness, you might as well whip-rush. We don’t want to wait TOO long either.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1440bc.jpg

1320 BC

And alas, our engineer emerges. We had a smaller chance to get a prophet, and in that case, we would have absorbed him for +2 hammers and +5 gold each turn. Our engineer will give us +3 beakers and +3 hammers, which is even better. However, we do have a chance here to use him to instantly build the Pyramids. It’s a tuff one. That +3/+3 is a big boon early, but so is the pyramids. Though as time goes on the power of pyramids will drop off, until it becomes absolutely useless. It’s one of those rare wonders that doesn’t become obsolete in an instant, but has a slow decay rate.

If we had stone near by, we would have chopped it, but we didn’t get that lucky, so I’m thinking of rushing it here. We have too many benefits for pyramids here. There are…

#1 We are spiritual, so we can use any pyramid civic without going into anarchy.

#2 Our absorption strategy will greatly benefit from Rep civic, which means the sooner we get rep, the better.

#3 Good source of food means we will need to adjust some room-height for optimal play. Rep gives us enough happiness we will be able to grow quite a bit larger without resources.

#4 We will gain Engineer pts, which both fills the G-Person pool, while acting as an artist/merchant diluter.


And again… there are some bad reasons. However, I think weighing everything into consideration here, we should use him to build the pyramids. While I do plan to run for constitution early, and this weakens the weight for getting pyramids, it will still take quite a number of turns to get there. All in all, getting the pyramids now comes out a little ahead in favour I think, so we are going to do exactly that.


850BC

Another engineer emerges. And while we could use him to rush-build something else again, I am somewhat hesitant on this. Pyramids was favourable for this, with 500 hammers needed, however we can build what we want/need manually for the rest. Any wonders rushed besides Pyramids would be a waste. And technically, we did waste hammers on the pyramids as it was, we didn’t get anything in return for the excess hammers over 500, but that was a compromise.

So, instead of that we are going to lightbulb him off to discover the Fishing tech for free, and then see if we can trade that for Iron-Working. Just kidding…

Absorb him into city!

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/850bc.jpg

700BC

Shaka runs into us. I don’t like this one bit. Shaka is a maniac and can never be trusted. While we did meet Mansu earlier, and Huayna, I wasn’t worried in the least with those two. Now, I understand people fear Mansu because they can’t compete with his tech. IMHO, Ghandi is the tech master, not Mansu but it doesn’t matter. We’ll deal with Mansu, one way or another. I’ve never had him run away on me in tech before, and I don’t plan for that to happen now.

450BC

Founded Confucationaism. Damnit. We were a little too fast in teching and founded a religion by accident. Now that’s not the worst thing in the world, but we will most certainly grab Philosophy before the AI, which means now we will have a total of 2 religions. That’s not really optimal play, but sometimes it happens.


350BC

Another great engineer arrives. Time to lightbulb him and grab the Fishing tech that we haven’t had a chance to grab last time. Alright, alright…. Just kidding again.

Absorb the guy.


325BC

Lets take a look at our little fortress. That’s a lot of nice wonders built, and in fact we could have chopped even more. I really wanted to grab Temple of Artemis earlier, however I didn’t like the fact that we didn’t have any marble. Usually you want to look for some sort of chop overlay, but we didn’t have much to work with. There was also some risks in that sometimes artemis is beelined for right from the start by the AI.

We could have taken it though, and while I don’t care early about the 100% trade-route yield, the free priest that comes with it is of great interest to me. This is because everyone knows I love priests. That also would couple with Rep, to give another +3. Not to mention, we’d get +3 and +2 great person points with the artemis temple as well. But oh well, sometime’s we wish we had gambled, but other times we’ll be wishing we hadn’t. Don’t worry about it for now, just remember on Emperor+ it is a very big gamble, and hardly doable without marble.

Note: We are doing fine for research now, even without running caste (no need). 2 running scientists for now, and 2 more come from the GL, with our great engineers contributing as well coupled with Rep. We are building a confucation temple now, to increase happiness, and unlock priests to be run soon.

While mines are not being worked, we can still have strong production here because we didn’t lightbulb off our GEs. This means we can focus on food tiles, while still having great production AND running specialists. This is a ‘WONDER’FULL feeling for any SE strategist.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/325bc.jpg

100BC

Great Priest arrives, and we show him his new PERMANENT residence.


1AD

Finally, AD has arrived. And we begin by working on Angkor Wat. Now, we are not getting any overlay on this. No stone near by, no wonder production bonus either for Ghandi. However, I do have a soft spot for the Wat because I can unlock Rich-Engineers with it. And so, I’m going to slow down my tech race to grab this on the way. It’s quite alright though, I’m sure we will win the liberalism race. I am refusing to trade my CoL with them, and this does slow down the liber race with them significantly. Just keep an eye on them now and then to see if they get any jumps, but those are very rare on monarch.

Ohh, and just as I feared. We founded Taoism as well. But that’s actually a good thing, since it means no one on the other continent sling shotted over us so far.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1ad.jpg

175AD

Great Scientist emerges. I direct him to work for us in our little super-fortress that is getting noticed. He begins work by setting up an academy for us. He felt so relieved when I promised I wouldn’t lightbulb him away.


450AD

Another scientist emerges. I had an option to lightbulb him off on Paper, interesting, as we were researching paper at the same time. However, being as we were in the tech lead, there was no catch-up emergency needed so I let him settle in, and our fortress now makes another 1h/9b BEFORE modifiers.


500AD
Time to look inside our fortress again. Our boys have shut down the mines, and gone back to focusing on food to supply the specialist economy again. No need to run caste again, as our Ankor Wat can unlock more than enough priests as we need. Now it is true that running a scientist gives 3 more beakers than priests, but I have my reasons. I prefer great priests over great scientists. Also note the Wat doubles our running priests from 1h to 2h. That comes in quite handy, as even an engineer only gives +2, but the priest will also give an extra gold ontop of that.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/500ad.jpg

640 AD

We are researching education, still in the lead of course, and I double checked to make sure that tech-savvy Mansu didn’t get any jump on us. Nope, he’s still very far behind us.

A great engineer shows up again, attracted to our growing SuperFortress. He takes up residence and adds a little bit of more perm production power…


820 AD

We still only have one other city besides the capital, a small one. However, it will grow eventually. In the meantime, we are now researching the Holy liberalism tech. And a good thing too, as we will switch to free religion asap to ensure we don’t get involved in any religions wars. Funny thing is, so far our 3 opponents have been switching from confucasionism to Taoism and back again repeatedly, not making up their minds. And along with them was us following suit. Always try to keep up foreign relations, at this point, ESPECIALLY when Shaka is around. We have plans for big wars, but right now isn’t the time, we have other importance.

It should be noted that in most cases, the AI will not attack you even though it SHOULD, due to your relations status. DO NOT GIVE IT AN EXCUSE TO DO THE RIGHT MOVE AND ATTACK YOU. Keep people like Mansu from dropping below cautious to be absolutely safe, he can be trusted, though he is capable of being bribed. At least Shaka the IDIOT is off in the distance, which does help us out here by letting us focus more on infrastructure & science at the moment, instead of military backup.

We now convert to Taoism, because 2 of the 3 opponents have done the same. We have shared the same religion with Shaka for a bit, so he will have worse diplo with the others, as well as border/culture anger, etc. We really do want to get into liberalism though so we won’t have to walk this tight-rope and keep flip-flopping about.

P.S. Our little sister city has been off making some units this whole time, but those units kept running into unreal luck with a local barb city.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/820ad.jpg

960AD

Alright, last round for the liberalism race. It is OK now to trade vital lib race techs, as the AI can not sling over us now. Also, once we hit liberalism next turn, we may not get any trades because of WFYABTA, so trade NOW.

Huayna is a sucker. Giving me archery and horses, can only result in me making horse archers. Does anyone see the military potential in this? <grin> And IW as well? Gee, thanks! He really must want to get conquered now…

As for Mansu, he’s even more stupid. Giving me both construction AND Music. He must not see what’s coming either. Hell, and he even threw in Monarchy to boot. Great! One more stop for feudalism, and we are ready to gain a vassal!

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/960ad1.jpg

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/960ad2.jpg

1000AD

Another engineer arrives attracted to our mega-production city, and decides to work on our fortress too, calling it the Flying Super-Fortress.
-ni

1060AD

Our little sister city is Bombay. You can see it in the upper right here. It’s actually a holy city of 2 religions now (something seems wrong in that). In any case, remember when I said it was having some bad luck? Well yes it was. I had it pumping out axemen very early, and TWICE I sent a big stack of axemen to take a tiny barbarian city in the West. And TWICE I got OWNED by ridiculous dice rolls. I couldn’t win as a god damn favourite to save my life. First attack was bad enough, but when I regrouped, and went after again, only to have the same ridiculous dice-rolls do me in, (despite the odds calculator told me I was a sheer favourite). And you know what…? I went a third time with a big stack, and AGAIN got rapped by only 2 stupid silly archers. I DON’T GET IT!!????

But at least now… I FINALLY took it. Used those hose-archers (thanks to Huayna) and attacked with a stack of them. Next I will promote them, and when the time comes, upgrade them to cavalry.

Note. There is some marble near the city, which is why I wanted to get it NOW. I want to hook that up ASAP, and then build our golden-age wonder-merbobber machine, so we can get that free G-Age. I’ll be able to pump out cavalry 1 a turn with ease when the techs become available.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1060ad.jpg

1110AD

Lets take another peek in the fortress. Not bad, 165 beakers without a single running scientist or production to science funneling (ignoring TGL). Also note, that even just the 5 GEs alone which we had absorbed, are giving us 15 H and 30 B! Again, by avoiding needless lightbulbing & rushing throughout the game, we are really starting to get a big ROI here.

Note: Last research turn on MT. Next tech-- gunpowder and then we go to WAR. Also, Taj Mahal to be worked on next item, which will have marble FINALLY ready to go. We will have the G-Age timed to hit right when cav are online and POW… away we go.
Always plan your builds & units ahead. Get the timing for everything right.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1110ad.jpg

1150AD

A great prophet visits us and takes up residence in the Flying SuperFortress.



1240AD

War has begun! Poor Mansu just got stabbed in the back by us. All those cav, and he didn’t see it coming. Our golden age is still going, and we have dropped all money spending on tech to 0, and we aim to keep it there for probably a few hundred years at least. Our rep & specialists will see to it that we still keep teching up the tree regardless. This lets us use all cash to upgrade the remainder of horse-archers I stockpiled. And of course, we’ll be collecting lots of gold from each city we plunder.

Notes: The three opponents have 3 different religions now. Huayna founded his own. Also, Mansu just recently got into a war. This is surprising, but he declared war on Shaka, NOT Shaka on Mansu. How often do you see that?!

But it was just a matter of time. Both of them sharing opposite religions so long, with culture border grudges, etc. Meanwhile we stayed and watched the brewing hatred on the border-lines, staying out of trouble…. Until NOW.

Take that Mansu!

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1240ad.jpg

1390AD

Lots of fighting all over place. But Mansu has it on two fronts (haha). Ours is going great; taking city after city, boom, boom, and boom.

The odd pike-man kills some cav on us, but we are managing fine. Right now… we have just captured Mansu’s capital. What a LOT OF COTTAGES! Maybe if he had spent the time and resources making something USEFULL instead of stupid cotts, he wouldn’t have lost his capital (and the cotts!) But its the AI, it’s stupid.

I thought this maybe THIS city would have finally broken his back, but nope, he doesn’t want to capitulate even still! Argggh, ok so we push on. Note, even with slider still on 0, we are running up a debt now, but that’s ok. We are still teching like Mofu regardless. In fact, even if we run the entire god damn economy into the ground (which we are), we will still be teching like a mofu, and not a thing that Mansu can do about it.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1390ad.jpg

1400AD

No surprise… another Great Engineer came to work on the super-fortress.


1440AD

Alright, took one more city (on a hill), and then I think we’ll halt here. Mansu STILL doesn’t want to capit, and he’s just made peace with Shaka, meaning he WONT capit probably if I take his capital AGAIN. In any case, I just saw a ton of macemen, and while they are no match for our cav, I think a rest is in order. I want to start beelining for the SoL soon and snatch that away from anyone else. So time to bring our economy out from the red and put it back into the black.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1440ad.jpg

1500AD

Alright, couldn’t resist. There was a small barbarian city down south. I just took it out now. Only reason it was still there is because my borders cut off the other opponents from getting down there.

We have now moved up to middle position, phew. Though we are still missing an AI somewhere…

And I see I still have tech spending on 0… :P

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1500ad.jpg

1585AD

Alright, we are at war again. I bribed Shaka to once again bring his forces to bear against Mansu. And of course, after watching Shaka pillage a bit, but do nothing, I decided to jump into the battle and attack for myself. Poor Mansu, this just isn’t his day at all is it?

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1585ad.jpg

1590AD
We are working on SoL now, and building it very fast. Also a Great Scientist popped by town to see what all the fuss was about. Then, he joined into the fun.

Science spending still seems to be on 0, but that didn’t discourage the guy at all.


1615AD

After taking out his capital (AGAIN), we finally get the poor bastard capitulate. There is a second city of his near by and while I could get to it now and take that also, I don’t want to risk him vassaling over to Huayna right now. I’ll take the vassal now while I have the chance.

Note: I gave Shaka a good tech just to force him to make peace with Mansu earlier. This way I also avoid risking Mansu becoming a perm vassal to Shaka.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1615ad.jpg

1625AD

Lets take another look at the SuperFortress again. I have completed SoL and with no more buildings to complete, I am converting all shields (hammers) to pure science. Please note, in this shot, even without ANY running scientists, we are running at 497 science a turn FROM THIS CITY ALONE. Again, the power of well run SE city, and the halting of lightbulbing is really starting to show off in the science department. Half a grand of science a turn from just one city (without even a damn cottage) is a huge boon. Also note I did not build any NE here. The only G-Point bonuses we have been running have been pacifism (but very little), aside from our built in philosophical trait. I don’t want to use the NE here, because it will take up a slot for our IronWorks, and the original slot I kept open for our Oxford, which is put to optimal use right now.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1625ad.jpg


Note:: Not always does a mine under-perform to a scientist for beakers. As the game grows on, a city with a 6 hammer mine, and full production modifiers begins to run very close to a scientist EVEN when that scientist is coupled to Representation. Something to think about….

1705AD

Ok, after you have seen all this… how on earth does this statement make any sense? I can’t figure it out. Especially considering I had cavalary ohhh… 500 years ahead of Shaka even, and if Shaka even has one by now, it is only because I gave him the techs for them!

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1705ad.jpg

1725

Another priest arrives. And I have a chance to lightbulb him for a junker tech called theology. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I’ve purposely been rejecting free offers for this stupid tech the whole time. Now I am being offered to lightbulb this precious gem like a total newb? I have better plans for him…

Note: My pathetic city of Bombay at the bottom with city size of 4. I knew I’d have a problem with it. Those mines need to be changed to windmills soon, and I’m working on it. The reason for the excess mines is to increase the chance of gaining a metal. I seem to always get screwed on not getting any iron.

Also, I can’t really build farms there yet, which sucks. So I have to wait for biology… grrr. Actually that’s ok, we are going to trade right now… Electricity for biology, and do some other tech trades with the group on the other continent. We are only trading electricity NOW because we are 1 turn from completing it. We won’t risk running into a build-rush.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1725ad.jpg

A bit later, and lets look at pacts. Huayna and Shaka sitting in a tree…. Hmm, guess I’ll postpone my planned attack on shaka for now, and the same goes for Huayna.

And Isabella the religious fanatic, ended up in what I can only guess is a religious war… Nice. I think I’ll sit on the sidelines for a bit and watch again…

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/relation1.jpg

1846AD

Damn. We get a great artist from what was once Mansu’s FIRST capital. Oh well, I hate artist pollution but that’s just how it goes. Huayna was culture pushing against that city, so the game ran some artist specialists. Unfortunately, these guys are not good for anything, in fact, even lightbulbing isn’t feasible for them, as their tech trees usually suck so bad. But we can make some use out of him. Rep will give +3 beakers from him, and then we get +4 gold as well, before filters so we’ll get something nevertheless.


1850

We are 1 turn way from completing the UN, and 1 turn away from getting plastic tech. But, we are NOT going to complete the UN. We will put it in the que, and wait for someone else to build it, then we’ll grab a bunch of gold from it when that happens. This way, if we decide we really want to build it in an emergency, then it will always be just 1 turn away for an insta-build.

1854

We have completed the Pentagon, and all the media wonders…(Broadway, Eiffel Tower, RocknRoll, Holywood) Except, for the UN which we don’t want.

Time to look at our super-fortress again. Just look at that beaker power, 800 a turn from just one city! Eeek, and it’s STILL growing.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1854ad.jpg


Note: We really did screw up somewhere. For some reason, I had been planning on building the Thee Gorges Damn in the super fortress. You’d think being so close to the ocean, and a nearby river, with a lake we’d be set, considering the SoL was no problem. But nope… My over-sight. We simply are not allowed to build it here.

Solution? We are going to rush-build it in what was Mansu’s second capital. Wish I had found out earlier though!

And…. Here is our emergency fix-it mode, for rushing big wonders after a foul-up like that. Note that OR is being used here because Huayna spread his stupid Islam to all our cities. GEE, THANKS ! WAY TO GO AND HELP YOUR OPPONENTS.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/rushcivic.jpg

1886AD

Another GE arrives, but instead of absorbing him, I’m going to use him to help rush the Damn. After our little error, we really don’t want another AI beating us to such a big wonder.

Also note, all our other cities have built their factories without any pollution producing power sources. They are all counting on us!
Now.. let’s do some math.

At our current rate, it will take 14 turns to complete the dam. That’s 14 turns that may be safe for us, but we don’t want to risk losing this powerful wonder to another AI, a very big AI which will benefit of this with all his cities, leaving us to have to waste time building pollution causing generators.

We could lightbulb him off for 1330 B towards our current tech, Robotics, but that’s such an idiotic tactic right now, that we are not even going to discuss it…

Fact: We will get 820h from the engineer if he use him to rush. It won’t be enough though, but we can complete the rest with a gold rush. In fact, we have tech spending turned off to stockpile gold in order to use it to aid in rushing this piece… and in face we HAVE been rushing the factory, forge, etc in this city already just for this wonder building purpose! Not to mention, running my workers around like an idiot getting water-wheels and workshops up and running asap for this emergency fix!

We are already 558 of 1750 h total needed for investment in this wonder. So… after the GE pours his hammers in, we instantly switch to US civic again and fill in with gold and BOOM, Gorges damn in record time….

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1886ad.jpg

Dohh!!! Forgot that I have to wait a couple turns because of recent civic switch! What an over-rated trait this silly spiritual gimmick is!

1900AD

Remember that first capital Mansu had which I plowed over with cavalry? Well, he had spammed so many cotts around it (very bad strategy), and I didn’t have time to pillage em all. I found a good use for them though. I am turning it into a Gold production SE. I generally don’t do these, but time to adapt to the situation. So much gold, but so crap production. This is why cottages really hurt on power conversion. But alas, we gold-rushed the Wall street, and now the Grocer. Even without the grocer we are doing almost 200 gold a turn here. What do you guys think?

So now we have a Production/Science SE in the capital (fortress), and a Gold SE in another capital…


http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1900ad.jpg

1906AD

Another great engineer arrives. There is only one world wonder left, hehe. To absorb him, or keep him handy is a good question. Reason being, there are not that many turns left, so absorbing is questionable. Of course, even if we were free to lightbulb him, at this stage the techs are so costly that lightbulbs only make up a very minute piece of stack of beakers needed. Both those options take big performance hits in the very late stage of the game. It may be best to keep him handy in case we need to build the Space-E in another city (other than capital) that fits the degree requirements.


1912AD

Alright, silly Shaka went to war against Frederick, who is on another island. (Yup, stupid). I decided to take a chance and go after him as well, now that he has no defence pact with Huayna. I hunkered down for a turn in Mansu’s two cities and waited for the onslaught. Nothing happened, so I decided to move my units out and see what was going on. Found a gigantic stack awaiting me.

At this point, I decided to slowly roll a couple artillery up there, and break down that 60% culture defence before slamming into it. And knowing the dumb AI, if I keep mounting mass units outside his city, he will divert almost all units from other cities into that one spot to defend it. Which means I can break his entire army in one fell swoop here when I take that city. And just maybe… I can vassal him right after without needing to go after the others. It’s a long shot, but would save some time for me.

BTW, wouldn’t you know, the bastard started attacking my stack of Mechanized infantry with a bunch of trebuchets! Like I said.. Shaka is an idiot.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1912ad.jpg

1914AD

I began work on the space elevator. Actually, I was able to build it in my fortress, so there was no need to build it elsewhere. That meant I could bring my pure hammer power online, and not really need any GE to speed things up.. So I then absorbed that GE I had hanging around into the city. Now granted, this may not be optimal, as the number of turns left is getting quite short. However, I did it because I could!

It really wasn’t going to take me many turns at all to make the space elevator. But even still, it can be argued to use the GE anyway to help rush, and then I could shave off a few turns to use for space ship parts building, or more units for the war effort. I didn’t bother because obviously… mechanized armour vs trebuchets? Come on, who needs the optimization right now???


1921AD

Another GS arises. I then set him to work inside the flying super-fortress.


1922AD

I finally decided enough was enough! I killed around 30 units trying to hold onto that stupid city, lol. Poor Shaka still had his cavalry hiding inside it, as though cavalry were going to get some culture defense or something. And to say I hurt him here, is putting it lightly. I took the city and totally broke his back. Unfortunately he wouldn’t talk to me so I couldn’t see if he’d capit, but the next turn he sure did…

He capitulated to Frederick. Damnit! That sorta sucks, but at least it wasn’t to Huayna. In any case, next turn a spy arrived in his capital, and now I think I see what may have also caused Shaka to capit to Frederick here…

Though I still feel robbed of a Vassal here!

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1922ad.jpg

1923AD

I’ll be cranking out modern tanks next turn. Not bad, considering I haven’t been spending money on tech for most the game! Also note the hammer production. This turn alone I am pouring in 957 hammers into the current project component.

That’s a whole grand of hammers in one turn!

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1923ad.jpg

1932AD.

SCREW UP! I screwed up. I forgot to pay attention the Fortress que for one turn.. and I accidently completed the UN. LOL. I can’t help it that we’re so advanced that after multiple generations… no one still has built the thing! Oh well… We won’t even attempt to vote for ourself, there is no real chance of getting the votes, lets just hope no one at all gets secretary.


1934AD

Alright, time to fix my stupid mistake. We COULD reload from some auto-save, which I am tempted because it was an honest mistake, however I’d still feel guilty. Lets try to fix our problem by getting Qui to war vs Frederik. We wont even care about asking for his gold, just get him to war. Frederick will drag his vassal Shaka into war with him, and since I wont vote either, and even my Vassal Mansu hates Qui, we may be able to breath and not worry about a secretary during the voting.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1934ad.jpg

1937

Do you see this?! 905.60 beakers a turn! One city, and this many beakers and it’s STILL GROWING! We can push this over 1 K beakers to set a record, but then it would start to heavily starve down, and we don’t want a starved city. Nevertheless, one very well run city, is worth many smaller junk-cities (don’t let anyone fool you on this). In fact, my single super-fortress is worth more power than Shaka’s entire empire!

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1937ad.jpg

1940AD

Another GS arrives. Woohoo!



Lets look at the tech trade menu and see who’s in the lead.

Holy tech-whore batman! Someone actually managed to find a crappy tech that we don’t have yet. Alright!!! Time to get cracking!


http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/showtech.jpg

Alright, lets just put some of our toy modern-armours to use here. Lets try and take some more cities… and jump into the war. Looks like everyone now is having some fun… except for Huayna who thinks he can sneak by me and somehow win the space race.

Actually he’s pretty much zooming along in the race… Grabbing the pieces left and right. Unfortunately for him, I’m always one step ahead… and he simply can’t beat me here. There isn’t a way in hell he can surpass me, and I’m going to time things to finish off with him still short by 1 piece. Because that’s always my style.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/relations2.jpg

REDICULOUS!

Remember how I got totally screwed by chance with that barbarian city in the very early stages of this game? Like three times???

That same luck continues now. I just lost another 99.8% chance to win battle!

Some explanation. Frederick just went and captured this city on my continent which was owned by Isabella. This is why there is no culture defence in it, and also why all fredericks units are badly damaged. So I came along and attack with fully healthy and promoted MODERN ARMOUR. LOL….

I mean… 99.8% is what the indicator says. Yet first attack…. And my tank dies? I’m still so LMFAO… I don’t think anyone would believe it, so I tired to get a shot here. Unfortunately I can’t scroll the battle result vertically to fit, only horizontal but I think you can still see what happened. Looks like I lost EVERY wave of battle there, even with my first strike modifier. Geezus.

In any case, I had plenty more tanks, so it’s not really that hard a break. These things happen once in a while…. Ummm.. err…. Depends on the definition of a while I guess.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/rediculous.jpg

1946AD

Ok, and on the opposite side of the flank… we take yet another city from Shaka. A little culture problem, though that will be fixed as soon as we take the capital. Ummm.. well we are just about to launch so we won’t make it there in time.. but if we were behind in the space race… we’d be taking it at least.


http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1946ad.jpg

1948AD

And of course… the year before 1948 it was already over. Our space ship launches and that is the end of that. Poor Huayna, thought he could actually get his last space ship part off in time. Nope, not going to happen. And even if there was a chance in hell of that happening… we would have sabotaged his production back into the stone age.

Note: Ignore the UN window again, the text in middle bottom already indicates Space Race is won. Also note, even though there wasn’t even a point in marching units towards Shakas capital at this point, I just did it for the hell of it. I also moved artillery undefended and out towards the west here. This never fails to lure enemy units out to HIT it, which is great because now you attack the cities with less units hiding behind the culture defense and fortification bonuses.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/1948ad.jpg

Wow, would you look at that. Somehow, our capital was awarded #1 city. I would have never guessed…

I wonder if it’s only because we have so many world wonders built that they can’t all fit for a single view.

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/info1.jpg

And notice, that despite Qui was a gigantic monopoly…. We still held #1 in manufacturing goods. Again… do you suspect that perhaps our super-fortress had something to do with that?

http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/info2.jpg



And again, as can be seen & listed, all this arised from just our capital and sister city. And in fact, our sister city really didn’t do anything and wasn’t even needed. This sole effort was from the flying fortress.


http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/info3.jpg




And there you have it…. Once again we did not build any cottages, and never lightbulbed a single thing. Impossible? I think not.

Saves

Initial (http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivWarlordsSave)

Liberalism Race (http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/LiberRace.CivWarlordsSave)

SoL (http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/Liberty.CivWarlordsSave)

1946 (http://www.highpoly3d.com/civ/proof3/AutoSave_AD-1946.CivWarlordsSave)

OBSOLETE, nicely played again and thanks for doing this for a PHIL/SPIR leader (although people will now say you can only do this with Spir leaders :lol: ) and your were on the coast.

I mus admit I am using the settled GP's in quite a few games myself and I am quite pleased. I have also tried to go more towards food/production for the capital and again pleased here. So your posts, while the caused alot or arguments, have helped my game. Some comments from my games that used some of your techniques.

1) Prince/Marathon/Huge random map (ended with snaky/fractal thing) with Louis XIV. Paris started on shore (2 seafood) I think 5 hills, elephants, bananas/corn and edned up being an absolute beast. I had stone in my third city (I did quickly settle 2 other cities). Got almost every wonder I wanted (built Parthanon in another city), the great lighthouse and pyramids were the most important since I had ALL costal cities and ran representation the whole game. Used the first great person (merchant) to bulb metal casting (fast forges too tempting and I did miss out on the oracle) and built an academy in the capital with fourth great person (scientist). Otherwise I settled 4 great engineers, 6 great scientists, 3 great merchants no prohpets or artists. I was getting 100 GPP/turn and at one point 750 beakers/turn from Paris until I ended up teching scientific method/corporation/chemistry. I never ran cast system and went straight to democracy from slavery. I had a large tech lead and will evntually launch the space ship if I continue the game.

2) Monarch/Marathon/Huge randon map (another fractal mess dead center) with Cyrus. I am good at Prince but only have 1 win on monarch. Got GW/pyramids/great library in capital which turned into a GP farm, production monster. Spend first GE on pyramids I believe, bulbed PHIL and settled the rest, the capital is again a powerhouse. Waited until someone attacked me to utilize the imperialistic/GW combo since I had alot of land to settle which took until mid-middle age era. AT this point I used what I learned from ABIGCIVFAN's war-maniac walkthrough and I am doing rather well in this game. For me that's a big thing on monarch with huge maps (I know most think marathon is easier but I am still considering if it is).

3) Currently Saladin, early start, no GP yet, only Oracle which I used to get confuscism. We will see where this goes but I am pretty sure I will use the great prophets (I will get these with the Massadra) to found theology, at least one shrine but will likely settle most once my religious duties are done.

I do mean to go one about my own games, but I did want to say that your posts have helped my games tremendously. I still cottage and bulb because I think they have strategic value at certain times, but I do see the value of settled GP's and more of an emphasis on food/production (although I do cottage spam in some of my other cities).

You may have had bad luck with your attack rolls but amazing luck with the early wonder rush. I have a hard time being able to complete Stonehenge, Oracle, GW and Pyramids before someone grabs at least one of them.

You have proven your point about the super city and the long term benefits of settled GP.

Again, thanks for the interesting read! :goodjob:

Like the above post comments, you're cutting it finely with the early wonder-rush and could have lost 1 or 2. Then again, as long as you get the pyramids, I suppose it's ok.

I was almost going to comment that four food resources and horses is still a pretty darn good starting location, but then I noticed you never hooked up the fish. Why wasn't the fish hooked up in e.g. the 1923 AD save? You had coastal cities, so why no workboat for Delhi?

You have my sympathies on those attack rolls. Losses at 98% sometimes almost make me feel like shaking and screaming at my computer monitor :)

Question: I imagine it does happen at times that you really get quite unlucky and lose a bunch of early wonders. How does this influence your strategy? Just keep on aiming for wonders, or do you spend the gold to fund war/expansion?

Now, can you do one on Emperor as Gandhi without Pyramids? :D

Again, thanks for the interesting read! :goodjob:

Like the above post comments, you're cutting it finely with the early wonder-rush and could have lost 1 or 2. Then again, as long as you get the pyramids, I suppose it's ok.

I was almost going to comment that four food resources and horses is still a pretty darn good starting location, but then I noticed you never hooked up the fish. Why wasn't the fish hooked up in e.g. the 1923 AD save? You had coastal cities, so why no workboat for Delhi?

You have my sympathies on those attack rolls. Losses at 98% sometimes almost make me feel like shaking and screaming at my computer monitor :)

Question: I imagine it does happen at times that you really get quite unlucky and lose a bunch of early wonders. How does this influence your strategy? Just keep on aiming for wonders, or do you spend the gold to fund war/expansion?

Very unlikely we would have lost a wonder on Monarch. Immortal is another story though...

We chopped a bit on the GW, and we also used the whip just to be sure in some spots. I stalled the Stonehenge a bit, but that was on purpose. Oracle was still far ahead of its time, even though I stalled that one too a bit. And I made sure to not even think about trading alphabet or literature for that matter until we were 1 turn away from completing GL.

As for the fish... I had problems. Any cities early I had that were on a coast, were very poor production wise. And I'd have to snake work boats all around to my crappy capital location. But the problem gets worse because of all the wars. I'd have to snake more ships all around just to protect that one stupid friggen tile. In the end, it just wasn't really worth the time/resources/hassel.

Again, how ironic I have a super fortress 1 hex off from a coast, and yet I can't even put a lousy boat inside my own fat cross. I hate sea-sides, and this is just one of the many problems.

I had 3 ocean tiles, which could not give me any production, and I could not work those tiles with even so much as a lighthouse or even build a harbour. Also note that stupid lake which was almost as bad. That is 4 water tiles, giving no production, and very little food. That counts as 4 workshops I'm missing in the late stage of the game.

Workshop = 3-4 hammers a piece before modifiers. As you can see... I should have had even MORE power packed in the super-fortress.

Nothing I can do about that though... But firaxis really needs to fix this issue. Any water tiles within a fat-cross surely should be able to have a lighthouse and other things improve the tiles, despite having a single hex block off the sea.

BTW, if I lose a bunch of wonders... I end up getting a crapload of gold. Then I figure out the best way to put it to good use...

Now, can you do one on Emperor as Gandhi without Pyramids? :D

As far as I could surmise from the discussions in the "UNREAL" thread, general agreement is that this strategy and pyramids are pretty much joined at the hip. Settling specialists is so much weaker without them.

Emperor with Gandhi would be interesting though. :)

Now here is a different game.
Not an exceptionnal win, but still a convincing win.

i see you used the GE's abilities well and didn't go into "settle settle settle" madness, :goodjob:.

What we can see in this game is
On the plus side,
- futurehermit's gandhi opening
- cavalry rush
On the minus side:
- bad understanding of power/capitulation mechanics (why didn't you wait until Shaka was ready to talk to you before crushing his army?)
- bad understanding of the management of your "sister city"
- bad use of artists (why didn't you settle him in your gold city or in the culture battling city, which may be the same?)

Only one thing impresses me : a win in 4 hours :goodjob:

As far as I could surmise from the discussions in the "UNREAL" thread, general agreement is that this strategy and pyramids are pretty much joined at the hip. Settling specialists is so much weaker without them.



I don't think this is true. I'm currently playing as the Dutch on a Monarch archipelago map and had marble in Amsterdam's BFC so I figured I'd go wonder-crazy. Well, right after I axe-rushed Huyana (I like placing a few extra civs to make things interesting).

Since I didn't have stone, I didn't go for the pyramids at all initially, instead taking the Oracle and Metal Casting as the free tech. The thing that makes representation so awesome in the early game is not just the +3 :science: per specialist but also the +3 happiness. I figured that if I'm going to be relying mainly on 1 uber-city, I would need to lift my happiness cap early, so I went to Monarchy as soon as possible. Since I didn't have hunting, I was able to spam warriors for military police which allowed me to keep growing my capital very quickly. Note that I did have 4 cities at this point, 2 from Huyana, which made producing the warriors quite practical while allowing my capital to build other things.

As for wonders, I built the Oracle like I said and then the Temple Of Artemis, the Great Library and the Colossus in my capital and the Great Lighthouse in the former Incan capital. Combined with Financial, this has made for a very good economy on a water map and I'm getting about 900 :science: per turn on a sustainable 80% rate at 1060 AD. Roughly half of that is from my capital and this is without Representation. Incidentally, I did get the pyramids later as I found stone on a nearby island but haven't changed to Representation until now as the +10 happiness in my capital from military police was more useful.

Anyway, my point is that while the extra beakers from Representation are very useful, Monarchy can be even better for raising the happiness cap of your capital. And higher population means that the science rate might not be slower at all if you have commerce tiles to work and your production is higher if you work hammer-heavy tiles. In any case, Constitution is not that far away if you want to beeline for it, especially if you burn a great scientist or two for lightbulbing in the Liberalism race.

Anyway, my point is that while the extra beakers from Representation are very useful, Monarchy can be even better for raising the happiness cap of your capital. And higher population means that the science rate might not be slower at all if you have commerce tiles to work

This is true, I can't argue that Hereditary isn't also good for large cities. However, I was merely pointing out that if you are going to settle specialists aggressively, then Representation is quite a big boost to your tech rate (rough out of my hat figure: ca 20-30%). It all depends on how many commerce squares you have of course.. but lacking cottages you are pretty much tied to gold/silver/gems or calendar resources, none of which were present in the current game.

Hereditary Rule has always been my favorite for cottage heavy empires with lots of cities, though.

I don't think this is true. I'm currently playing as the Dutch on a Monarch archipelago map and had marble in Amsterdam's BFC so I figured I'd go wonder-crazy. Well, right after I axe-rushed Huyana (I like placing a few extra civs to make things interesting).

Since I didn't have stone, I didn't go for the pyramids at all initially, instead taking the Oracle and Metal Casting as the free tech. The thing that makes representation so awesome in the early game is not just the +3 :science: per specialist but also the +3 happiness. I figured that if I'm going to be relying mainly on 1 uber-city, I would need to lift my happiness cap early, so I went to Monarchy as soon as possible. Since I didn't have hunting, I was able to spam warriors for military police which allowed me to keep growing my capital very quickly. Note that I did have 4 cities at this point, 2 from Huyana, which made producing the warriors quite practical while allowing my capital to build other things.

As for wonders, I built the Oracle like I said and then the Temple Of Artemis, the Great Library and the Colossus in my capital and the Great Lighthouse in the former Incan capital. Combined with Financial, this has made for a very good economy on a water map and I'm getting about 900 :science: per turn on a sustainable 80% rate at 1060 AD. Roughly half of that is from my capital and this is without Representation. Incidentally, I did get the pyramids later as I found stone on a nearby island but haven't changed to Representation until now as the +10 happiness in my capital from military police was more useful.

Anyway, my point is that while the extra beakers from Representation are very useful, Monarchy can be even better for raising the happiness cap of your capital. And higher population means that the science rate might not be slower at all if you have commerce tiles to work and your production is higher if you work hammer-heavy tiles. In any case, Constitution is not that far away if you want to beeline for it, especially if you burn a great scientist or two for lightbulbing in the Liberalism race.

You cottaged your capital, yes? And you were Financial.

Anyway, this game was quite a close one. Huayna was only a few turns away from obsolete.

You cottaged your capital, yes? And you were Financial.



I didn't actually. Since it's an archipelago map, I figured production would be hard to come by so I didn't chop the forests which meant that I had no tiles to place any cottages. I'm getting about 100:commerce: per turn mostly from the sea and trade routes. But yes, financial accounts for 12:commerce: in Amsterdam.

This is true, I can't argue that Hereditary isn't also good for large cities. However, I was merely pointing out that if you are going to settle specialists aggressively, then Representation is quite a big boost to your tech rate (rough out of my hat figure: ca 20-30%). It all depends on how many commerce squares you have of course.. but lacking cottages you are pretty much tied to gold/silver/gems or calendar resources, none of which were present in the current game.

Hereditary Rule has always been my favorite for cottage heavy empires with lots of cities, though.

That's true. I guess what I really took away from obsolete's games was that one giant city can be extremely helpful, especially when you get Bureaucracy and later Oxford University. Representation helps with getting that city to grow but it can be done with Hereditary Rule as well. For me the main reason of settling specialists like engineers and priests are the hammers which get boosted by Bureaucracy, a forge and Organized Religion, making the city an industrial powerhouse.

There is certainly great synergy in having a city that produces wonders, functions as a great person farm because of those wonders and settles quite a few of those great people as specialists to further boost the hammers and especially in the case of Representation, science. However, I think the city can still be able to provide enough science without the Pyramids so that a quick beeline to Constitution is possible if Representation is desired. In that case, burning a few great scientists in the Liberalism beeline might make sense.

I didn't actually. Since it's an archipelago map, I figured production would be hard to come by so I didn't chop the forests which meant that I had no tiles to place any cottages. I'm getting about 100:commerce: per turn mostly from the sea and trade routes. But yes, financial accounts for 12:commerce: in Amsterdam.

You had commerce from sea tiles while he had better specialists. Fair trade. And of course the two games had very different circumstances. Pyramids was important in getting obsolete where he was. If you had played a standard continents map, you would have needed it too or you would have been forced to lightbulb. obsolete himself did not settle every single GP here.

You had commerce from sea tiles while he had better specialists. Fair trade. And of course the two games had very different circumstances. Pyramids was important in getting obsolete where he was. If you had played a standard continents map, you would have needed it too or you would have been forced to lightbulb. obsolete himself did not settle every single GP here.

I agree. I'm not so much trying to argue in favor of settling every specialists since I think using one priest for a shrine is helpful, as can be hurrying projects with engineers (I used one on Moai Statues to get my Heroic Epic city running). I normally lightbulb some techs with scientists in the Liberalism race as well, although I didn't need to do it in this game as my tech speed was so fast and my competitors were light years away.

What I am arguing for is the viability of a super-city that produces wonders and functions as a great person farm and science city at the same time. Personally, I still would get a few other cities running so they can produce military and continue to expand while the capital keeps the science going. I've tried this strategy in my last three games, and my tech rate has been insane compared to what I'm used to. This works just fine without the Industrial trait, but I probably would try some other tactic if I didn't have either stone or marble near the start.

On the minus side:
- bad understanding of power/capitulation mechanics (why didn't you wait until Shaka was ready to talk to you before crushing his army?)


Each round I waited, was another round that I could run into big problems. With the insane cheap upgrades the AI gets here, in one turn I may suddenly be facing an entire stack of infantry instead of riflemen, etc. That is one risk that was going through my mind.

Also, Shaka is an aggressive leader, and always tend to not want to vassal until near the bitter end. I wasn't figuring he'd be happy to capit so easily while still having other cities left. I can never get an AI to vassal to me if my capital isnt on his continent, so I was shocked to see he'd still capit to Frederik.

It just so happened in this game, Frederik wasn't doing a FAKE-WAR, and instead did land with a real army... that's just our luck.

I've had many times where even with 100 to 1 army ratio against shaka he wouldn't commit until he was stuck with only his tiny capital.

And of course, in the odd case he were to do a friendly vassal agreement to Huayna this turn or the next to get us off his back, at LEAST I'd be able to remove one decent sized city away from his empire, GUARANTEED.

- bad understanding of the management of your "sister city"

I KNEW I'd have problems with its growth etc. The problem was there wasn't ANY good sites at all down south for a city. I simply had to make a compromise, and wanted a land grab to ensure my copper on the fringe of my border would be protected. That's just luck of the terrain issues, and I can't really control it if I don't get food resources generated there. I was hoping to fix things better with CS, but still had other issues and priorities, etc.


- bad use of artists (why didn't you settle him in your gold city or in the culture battling city, which may be the same?)

Yes, the Gold-SE was having some culture problems. But I was debating on the time to fix that issue by taking out Huayna, or at least a city or two. However, I ended up changing plans and going vs Frederik/Shaka instead.

That great artist was going into my fortress because I had all commerce buildings in there too, but with less spoilage and Buaracracy 50% bonus, so that is sort of a no brainer; especially since rep gives +3b to the artist, and my fortress already had:

- library
- university
- observatory
- academy
- oxford
- laboratory (If I didn't have this one yet, it was coming for sure)

This was the primary issue. I couldn't care less about the CULTURE from the GA.

Well played game. However, of course, still a very high-production capital, which I would say is essential to the strategy (although not a bad thing of course!!!).

Getting a GE early and using him on the pyramids is of course a great strat. Is this strategy as powerful without the pyramids? Probably not

Also, although you are winning, you are winning in the 1900s. With some cottages and some lightbulbing, I am able to win consistently in the 1800s. So, is your strategy as efficient as other approaches? Maybe not. Maybe so. If you were to win convincingly in the 1800s then that would probably convince me.

All in all though you dispelled the necessary reliance on industrious leaders, which is good!

But I do believe a high-production capital is of course necessary as otherwise you aren't going to be building many wonders.

Still, a very nice strat and helping us to think outside the box!

Thanks for playing another game to respond to the various objections in the other threads. I wish you'd do it on Emperor next, but I know it takes a lot of time to play a game for posting. There's just one thing I'd like to debate

Nevertheless, one very well run city, is worth many smaller junk-cities (don’t let anyone fool you on this).

Why not have both? Build one city and run it the way you have, then build a second city, and use it and it alone to fuel an expansion. Granted, it'll be a lot harder to expand without the help of your capitol, but I think it would still be worth it.

Tried the strat again tonight. With Louis. Same settings as this game.

*Barely* got horses with culture. I think if you don't get horses you could be in for some trouble. Then you'd have to go for grens instead. Good, but certainly not as good as cav.

I also struggled a bit with my tech pace. I wasn't able to hit cav as early as I would've liked though I did get liberalism first and most of the wonders I wanted. I didn't get parthenon though cuz I didn't get my settler out soon enough. I also REALLY got cramped in by multiple civs and also lost a number of warriors early despite good odds. That put a real cramp in my early scouting (e.g., failed to reveal a patch of stone although it was in a very poor location anyways!)

I think with some more practice I could get things smoothed out a bit. I had a high-production start which of course is key to this strat. My opening tech path wasn't the best. I went ah early and I think I should've just gone myst-mining-masonry-bw instead. I had cows that i wanted to improve, but I also had floodplains and hills which would've sufficed.

I quit after getting the SoL ca. 1600AD. I was running into rifles with my cav after taking Brennus' capital and a couple other cities that were cramping my empire. However, he still had many cities and with him having rifling it was a stalemate for the time being. I think I probably could've won in the long run, but with copper nearby this game and a lot of close opponents cramping me, I think an axe-rush would've been significantly more effective.

Interesting game again. I see you used Gandi this time with faster GPs to help your strategy and a very good production capital.

However I still consider this an intermediate "simcity" approach at best. with just 1 or 2 cities, your empire is extremely vulnerable to unexpected AI invasions on higher levels. There is no chance your capital can produce all the wonders and adequate military protection at all.

Also note that you consistently trailed in scores for most of the game even just on Monarch. In my "unreal walkthrough" Emperor shadow game, I was leading all scores at 420AD with a very powerful 7 city empire. The difference is HUGE. The idea of the game is to grow an powerful empire while manage different aspects of the game: City management, empire Economy, diplo, trading and at higher levels MILITARY.

Your approach(spamming wonders in capital and NOT expanding) while fun for beginners, might only work 1% of the time on Emperor given a very good starting location and weak neighbor AIs. On Immortal+, it has no chance.

I am on business trip this whole week, will finish that game and post result by next week.

I don't care if it may not work all the time. I have to say I am simply impressed by his simple approach that appears to work. Well done obsolete. Keep them coming.

speaking about shaka
Each round I waited, was another round that I could run into big problems. With the insane cheap upgrades the AI gets here, in one turn I may suddenly be facing an entire stack of infantry instead of riflemen, etc. That is one risk that was going through my mind.

Also, Shaka is an aggressive leader, and always tend to not want to vassal until near the bitter end. I wasn't figuring he'd be happy to capit so easily while still having other cities left. I can never get an AI to vassal to me if my capital isnt on his continent, so I was shocked to see he'd still capit to Frederik.

It just so happened in this game, Frederik wasn't doing a FAKE-WAR, and instead did land with a real army... that's just our luck.

I've had many times where even with 100 to 1 army ratio against shaka he wouldn't commit until he was stuck with only his tiny capital.

And of course, in the odd case he were to do a friendly vassal agreement to Huayna this turn or the next to get us off his back, at LEAST I'd be able to remove one decent sized city away from his empire, GUARANTEED.


What are you talking about?
you had an army bigger than his just outside his capital (or am I mistaken?).
What triggered his vassalizing to germany is not the fact that fred send an army. It's the fact that you crushed his army.
If you had waited for him to talk to you before crushing it, it would have been your turn = you could have entered the diplo screen and checked for his willingness to capitulate.
In fact, I would have killed most units then opened the diplo screen after each unit killed :lol: = not taking away his power I could use against the next target.


about the sister city

I KNEW I'd have problems with its growth etc. The problem was there wasn't ANY good sites at all down south for a city. I simply had to make a compromise, and wanted a land grab to ensure my copper on the fringe of my border would be protected. That's just luck of the terrain issues, and I can't really control it if I don't get food resources generated there. I was hoping to fix things better with CS, but still had other issues and priorities, etc.

You should have chopped and irrigated the grassland forests. not brilliant food, but still better than what you had.
Other priorities for your workers? I don't think so, with just 2 cities.


about the unwanted GA

Yes, the Gold-SE was having some culture problems. But I was debating on the time to fix that issue by taking out Huayna, or at least a city or two. However, I ended up changing plans and going vs Frederik/Shaka instead.

That great artist was going into my fortress because I had all commerce buildings in there too, but with less spoilage and Buaracracy 50% bonus, so that is sort of a no brainer; especially since rep gives +3b to the artist, and my fortress already had:

- library
- university
- observatory
- academy
- oxford
- laboratory (If I didn't have this one yet, it was coming for sure)

This was the primary issue. I couldn't care less about the CULTURE from the GA.


You didn't care for culture, but you let the governor assign artists to fight it :crazyeye: .
You have better gold modifiers (duh) in your wall street city than in your "superfortress", so settling the great artist there was a no brainer.

I don't care if it may not work all the time. I have to say I am simply impressed by his simple approach that appears to work. Well done obsolete. Keep them coming.

But remember, the point is that it should work for you, in your game. That's the reason for a lot of the criticism here, not that anyone wants to put down obsolete (who has gone through a lot of trouble to put up these walkthroughs).

His strategy is appealing to newer players, because wonder spamming and turtling is what newer players like to do. I did it too when I first started (in each Civ game separately, believe it or not). And if I saw this walkthrough when I first started I would also think it's great, because it would affirm my strategy to me and make me hope that I don't have to learn other aspects of the game (such as balancing teching with expansion etc.).

But it isn't an optimal strategy. And as ABigCivFan points out, one can most of the time do much better, and play a much more solid (and reliable, as in: bad luck won't immediately kill you off) game, by using better strategies.

Like pointed out in the "UNREAL" thread, there as aspects of the strategy that might be useful. But on the whole, if you don't believe the arguments here, the best argument against the strategy is: Try it (on Monarch/Emperor or above). You'll find out in due course why some people have been aggressively (but hopefully not dogmatically) defending early expansion, lightbulbs and cottages. Things tend to work out better then.

[EDIT] I'm still slightly confused about what people think is so new about building a few extra wonders if one is Ind or Philo or has stone/marble/high-capital production. This, as far as I know is nothing very new, and slightly "fortressy" cities often happen for me as the game goes along. It's just the scale things I'm opposed to. There are often more productive things than wonder spamming to be doing during large parts of the game.

The main point of this strategy is settling great people and focusing on production. Lightbulbing is overated and works well only in specific situations i.e grad philosophy first.

Cottages on the other hand are needed, perhaps not in the capital or your other 1-2 high production cities but somewhere.

After obsolete's articles I have to admit that I win easier on Monarch by focusing on GP settling and high production capital. I do not go after all these wonders but still Obsolete's aproach has helped my game.

Kudos to Obsolete.

Cottages on the other hand are needed, perhaps not in the capital or your other 1-2 high production cities but somewhere.

Yes :goodjob:

Lightbulbing is overated and works well only in specific situations i.e grad philosophy first.

Overrated? NO! :mad:

Eminetly bulbable:

Education
Chemistry
Printing Press
Scientific Method
Electricity
BiologyEspecially the education/chemistry combo is extremely powerful and can on Monarch often get you steel through Liberalism. Overrated. Bah.


After obsolete's articles I have to admit that I win easier on Monarch by focusing on GP settling and high production capital. I do not go after all these wonders but still Obsolete's aproach has helped my game.

Kudos to Obsolete.
GP settling is ok. Just don't forget that there can be better uses for them (especially in the cases I mentioned above).

sidenote about lightbulbing (cottaging is a different matter):
it's a lot (!) more powerful on slow games (epic or marathon), because on quick, the turns you save with a lightbulb are just around 5 or 6.
The beakers you get from the settled guys are then a lot better, and the "side benefits" (production or gold or culture or food) matter much more.

Same matter, who would use a GE to rush something you can build in 3 turns anyway (2 if you settle him)?

IMHO on normal speed, lightbulbing and settling have very comparable values.

sidenote about lightbulbing (cottaging is a different matter):
it's a lot (!) more powerful on slow games (epic or marathon), because on quick, the turns you save with a lightbulb are just around 5 or 6.
The beakers you get from the settled guys are then a lot better, and the "side benefits" (production or gold or culture or food) matter much more.

Same matter, who would use a GE to rush something you can build in 3 turns anyway (2 if you settle him)?

IMHO on normal speed, lightbulbing and settling have very comparable values.

Yes, I also agree about this, and freely admit that I mostly play epic. Lately I have played a few normal speeds.. the most recent being a Gandhi/Monarch (inspired by obsolete) and, yes, settling was pretty good. Still couldn't resist bulbing education though ;)

I think on epic and Marathon the advantage of settling is even bigger in the long run.

Calculate in how many turns you would get back the 1200 beackers from lightbulbing part of Education if you settle the scientist. You will find it is no more than 40 turns. So essentially after 40 turns you make a huge profit from settling. And yes you might be able to get to Liberialism or steel first but in the long run, all other things equal, settled GP will outpace you.

I think on epic and Marathon the advantage of settling is even bigger in the long run.


Well, all I can say, is just keep on settling and completely ignoring lightbulbs. If its fun for you then more power to you. But you will perform worse, and that's a guarantee.

I am not completly ignoring lightbulbing, just using it for when absolotely needed. The most common case being going for a cultural win and needing religions. And yes if I know an oponnent is 2 turns away from liberialism and by lightbulbing I can beat them to it then I will do it.

But out of 15 - 20 GP that I will make I will settle at least 12-17, that was warlords mind you, things have changed a lot in BTS, Golden ages and corporations!

And yes if I know an oponnent is 2 turns away from liberialism and by lightbulbing I can beat them to it then I will do it.

You'll have a hard time lightbulbing the liberalism tech unless you started without fishing and haven't researched it (otherwise the scientists prefer sailing->calendar->optics->astronomy). Maybe if you ignore machinery.. but that's suicide.


But out of 15 - 20 GP that I will make I will settle at least 12-17, that was warlords mind you, things have changed a lot in BTS, Golden ages and corporations!
By the time you have 17 great people settled the game is over.

You are right about liberialism...bad example. I guess religions only.


Yes 17 is a lot, 12 is more logical, but in his game obsolete had 17 settled in the capital in 1854 (that is including 2 GG). I usually finish my games after 1900, only had a couple of dominations before that and a ridiculus conquest in 20BC in marathon using War chariots and great plains map.

One other thing that makes a huge difference here is the size of the map.

Think about what the most powerful wonder in the entire game is. I'd say most people would go for either the Pyramids, Great Library or Statue of Liberty. I say it depends.

On a One City Challenge, the most powerful wonder is clearly the Globe Theater.

On a Huge map with just a couple of Civs, Statue of Liberty is going to give you a whole lot more bang for your buck than the Great Library did even though the Statue of Liberty is so much more expensive. On a Duel map, I'm thinking Statue of Liberty is not so very impressive.

Similarly, the Super-city is going to be extra impressive in small maps where single cities can make a very big difference. It will be less significant (although still important) in a Civ that holds 40+ cities.

I know that this should be obvious, but I think it is still worth mentioning.

On the maathon speed/lightbulbing issue. I play exclusively on marathon speed and I think certain techs are great to bulb, theology from a prophet to found christianity, philosophy from a scientist to found taosim, a good chuck of education from a great scientist, metal casting from a merchant if you are industrious and missed the oracle. 30 some turns to research any of these techs is alot of time and the trade value with AIs is extremely high, so you get alot of return. Academies from great scientists I think are better than settling a GS in very high commerce cities (usually the capital also). Great Merchants are useful for the gold mission IF you need it, otherwise settling or bulbing metal casting is preferred. Engineers I think are best for the pyramids (if you get one early enough) then settle them. Prophets are great for shrines with a highly spead religion. Great artists are good for either cultural wins or culture bombing a large captured city. Aside form the above examples I plan to settle most of my grat people in my capital for now on, I am convinced it is a big longterm benefit.

Did I mention that the output of the great person when lightbulbing scale with speed?
It also scales with empire size, and thus isn't very impressive when you only have 2 cities.
When your GS can lightbulb all by himself a tech like scientific method, you know your empire is big enough :lol:

Did I mention that the output of the great person when lightbulbing scale with speed?
It also scales with empire size, and thus isn't very impressive when you only have 2 cities.
When your GS can lightbulb all by himself a tech like scientific method, you know your empire is big enough

Did not know that! The bigger your empire the better the lightbulbing?
Impressive, I will try it.

Did I mention that the output of the great person when lightbulbing scale with speed?
It also scales with empire size, and thus isn't very impressive when you only have 2 cities.
When your GS can lightbulb all by himself a tech like scientific method, you know your empire is big enough :lol:

I have had very large and very small empires at the scientific method era and never been able to bulb the entire tech. I play on hug maps so sometimes I have had 20 + mega cities at that point.

Very impressive walk-through, obsolete. hammers truly are more powerful than many people realize. The pyramids helped a lot, but so did going for all of those early wonders with total disreguard to settler spamming. What can you do with a protective/financial combo? ;)

I think the benefit of this strategy (settling GP) is large only if the following is true:

1. You get your Great Persons early. The earlier you get them, the better this works. 2-3 GP before 1AD.

So if you fail to get your early wonders in, this strategy will not work as well. For instance, at higher game levels (immortal), where you will fail to get some of the wonders because of the AI discounts. This will delay the effectiveness of such a strategy. Also, you need to get the right wonders in and it might be difficult to time since you need all that in one city.

2. Research speed of AI is slow. Lightbulbing in essence is large because it provides trading possibilities. For instance: if u bulb philo in time, you can normally trade it for tons of tech you did not have. This is only large if you are trailing in techs. At monarch/emperor, you might still be on par for tech. At higher levels, you often fall behind in tech and lightbulb might be more worth it than settling.

3. You MUST get pyramids for this to work at immortal. The early representation is needed to maintain tech parity if you don't do lightbulbing.

--------------
I think this is really good strategy for emperor level games. But for immortal, you really need luck for it to work. Lightbulb + settlling +early warring is probably better.

That said, i love to see obsolete (or anyone!) try a similar immortal game but doing the following:-

A. No Lightbulbing
B. No Industrious/philo
C. No pyramids
D. 4-3 cities until you hit calvary or rifles (no early expansion/war/AI absorption).

I tried obsolete's strat @prince with Gandhi. In my map, I had marble, pigs on a hill, corn, and a ton of forests, but no good commerce tiles (tundra start). I went for bw early, discovered copper in my bfc, took out saladin (Hindu holy city, jungles w/dyes)), & Monty (fish start), and i got all of the wonders but Great Light House & Spiral Minaret. Like obsolete, I accidently founded too many religions, so I went cultural and won before 1700 with 10 cities. I really like this strat for high hammer starts. The settled GP + hammers make for an awsome city, and when this strat works, it really works! I agree that the pyramids makes this strat viable, since no cottages=no gold w/o the odd resources (though the dyes helped). While it was fun getting all of the GPs, I wouldn't rely on this strat w/o philo or industrial. Also, jungle starts or true sea starts (w/seafood as your only good food sources) really would cramp this strat. -MickeyD

sidenote about lightbulbing (cottaging is a different matter):
it's a lot (!) more powerful on slow games (epic or marathon), because on quick, the turns you save with a lightbulb are just around 5 or 6.
The beakers you get from the settled guys are then a lot better, and the "side benefits" (production or gold or culture or food) matter much more.

Same matter, who would use a GE to rush something you can build in 3 turns anyway (2 if you settle him)?

IMHO on normal speed, lightbulbing and settling have very comparable values.

You make it sound more clear than it actually is. If you can manage to research education in 6 turns on quick speed, that equates a saving of more than 20 turns on marathon speed (320 max turns vs. 1200). If you consider lightbulbing on marathon, then you should also consider it on quick. Don't fall for the absolute turn saving fallacy.


I think on epic and Marathon the advantage of settling is even bigger in the long run.

Calculate in how many turns you would get back the 1200 beackers from lightbulbing part of Education if you settle the scientist. You will find it is no more than 40 turns.


I would like to see your figures for the percentage boost the GS requires to hit 30 beakers a turn, which would hence result in 1200 beakers in 40 turns (essentially you need more than 225% research bonus for 9 beakers of the GS - with representation - to get to 30 beakers)
Your figures seem to be off.

Again, don't be impressed too much by the slower speed settings. While your settled scientist can work his magic for more turns, lightbulbing would have netted many more beakers. Now count in that techs require many more beakers than in a normal game and your decision to settle or lightbulb won't be so easy any more.
If you can lightbulb for 5000 points, a "representation" settled GS with an average research bonus of 200% over turns needs almost 200 turns to pay off scientifically. And the bonus from acquiring an important tech earlier via lightbulbing (like education -> universities) is not yet factored in (as isn't the 1 hammer profit from the GS).


A. No Lightbulbing
B. No Industrious/philo
C. No pyramids
D. 4-3 cities until you hit calvary or rifles (no early expansion/war/AI absorption).


Hm, if you desperately want to make your game more difficult, go ahead ;) Just make sure that
E. some of the other ai's are industrial and
F. you play on a huge map

I've read all of the recent game reports from you, obsolete.
First of all, congrats for all the wins. You were now challenged to do it on immortal and I'm almost sure you could get a win there, too, if you improved on some aspects of your gaming. I think you really relied too much on one city in this game for too long.

While I see the synergy effects and experimented with them myself earlier, I fail to see the point for settling some of the great people. Especially the settling of late game GS seems a waste for me. Really late into the game, your dreaded lightbulbing or a golden age should be their uses. At any time, you are almost always better off, using the GS for an Academy and its 50% research bonus. That is, if you paid more attention to other cities earlier. Even without cottages, your SE approach could have netted a nice amount of beakers in a big second/third city with an Academy.
It seemed to me that you were settling those scientists just to make your powerhouse appear even more impressive.
As the science rate of your powerhouse is indeed very high, the overall science rate of your empire is what counts in the end. And this is, correct if I'm mistaken, just average at best.

Generally I have to side with frob in saying that while I agree that your strategy is a possible way to win the game (in earlier games I was successful with this strategy on monarch, too, but not on emperor due to military aggression of my opponents), it isn't the best one to do it.

I've read all of the recent game reports from you, obsolete.
First of all, congrats for all the wins. You were now challenged to do it on immortal and I'm almost sure you could get a win there, too, if you improved on some aspects of your gaming. I think you really relied too much on one city in this game for too long.

While I see the synergy effects and experimented with them myself earlier, I fail to see the point for settling some of the great people. Especially the settling of late game GS seems a waste for me. Really late into the game, your dreaded lightbulbing or a golden age should be their uses. At any time, you are almost always better off, using the GS for an Academy and its 50% research bonus. That is, if you paid more attention to other cities earlier. Even without cottages, your SE approach could have netted a nice amount of beakers in a big second/third city with an Academy.
It seemed to me that you were settling those scientists just to make your powerhouse appear even more impressive.
As the science rate of your powerhouse is indeed very high, the overall science rate of your empire is what counts in the end. And this is, correct if I'm mistaken, just average at best.

Generally I have to side with frob in saying that while I agree that your strategy is a possible way to win the game (in earlier games I was successful with this strategy on monarch, too, but not on emperor due to military aggression of my opponents), it isn't the best one to do it.


The settled GS also gives you one hammer before modifiers which adds to the production powerhouse. I am still undecided whether to settle GS or pop another academy in another city. I do think bulbing after education with a GS is a waste though.

I do think bulbing after education with a GS is a waste though.

Nonsense. After Education theres still usually Printing Press, Chemistry, Astronomy, Scientific Method, Electricity and Computers.

Nonsense. After Education theres still usually Printing Press, Chemistry, Astronomy, Scientific Method, Electricity and Computers.

I have bulbed most of these at some point but never seam to get as much return as I expect. Bulbing Phil gets your taoism, a great trading tech, or a big edge in the liberalism race in not traded. Bulbing education helps getting to liberalism faster. I have bulbed scientific method to get to physics faster and usign 2 GS (one from physics) to almost research all of biology but again it doesn't seam to give me as much as settling the GS or building an academy. On marathon it usually amounts to saving 10-15 turns which is meh.

Printing press and chemistry are automatic lightbulbs indeed for an immediate advantage, thereafter it depends on what the situation is, shaving 1-2 turns of techs like electricity is not always worth it might be better to save for golden ages or an especially good academy in this case.

Bulbing Phil gets your taoism, a great trading tech, or a big edge in the liberalism race in not traded. Bulbing education helps getting to liberalism faster. ... almost research all of biology but again it doesn't seam to give me as much as settling the GS or building an academy. On marathon it usually amounts to saving 10-15 turns which is meh.

Well I wouldn't exactly settle a GS around the time of biology. To be honest great scientists are best spent on golden ages around then. Can help you industrialize really fast.

Well I wouldn't exactly settle a GS around the time of biology. To be honest great scientists are best spent on golden ages around then. Can help you industrialize really fast.

OK, I'll buy that argument although I usually use the golden age while building spaceship parts, if ou time it right all part production can be accelerated with a golden age.

OK, I'll buy that argument although I usually use the golden age while building spaceship parts,

There isnt just one golden age. Work your specialists right and you can routinely have two or even three.

Using 2 for a golden age is one thing, using three for a second (or third if I get the Taj mahal) is a bit. I play marathon speed so a 16 turn GA is not that thrilling, definitly not worth 5 GP.

An excellent walk through and definitely some food for thought! Thanks Obsolete :D

Using 2 for a golden age is one thing, using three for a second (or third if I get the Taj mahal) is a bit. I play marathon speed so a 16 turn GA is not that thrilling, definitly not worth 5 GP.

Golden ages look to be a lot more attractive an option with BtS, though.

One can argue forever whether it was "actually easy", "actually awesome" or "actually cheating". All I'm going to say to the critics is: <nothing really>.

This is simply example of "fine play". I believe the next challange he/she/it should confront is try winning conquest on Monarch, BTS. I heard it's hard.

I believe the next challange he/she/it should confront is try winning conquest on Monarch, BTS. I heard it's hard.

Yes, I agree. Things are bound to be shifted in BtS, so it would make sense to reevaluate everything in a while when people are becoming familiar with the new mechanics.

Your approach(spamming wonders in capital and NOT expanding) while fun for beginners, might only work 1% of the time on Emperor given a very good starting location and weak neighbor AIs. On Immortal+, it has no chance.



O_o

This is how I've often won Immortal. In any case, I know what's coming... prove it.

Well, just for you ABigCivFan, I took some shots of yet ANOTHER game that I SHOULD NOT HAVE EVEN BEEN WASTING MY TIME ON!

I will try and do the write-up for it today and hope to get it posted soon because I am going out at the end of the week and will probably not have any computers around me for a week or more.

Hopefully, it'll teach you more than one thing on what CAN and CAN'T work on Immortal.

And BTW everyone, I'll call it 'The Insane Walkthrough' thanks to Sjaramei, who came up with that one in one of the earlier threads.



P.S.

Now PLEASE, don't ask me to do it again but on Deity. I haven't played Deity since they re-vamped the AI a while back, and while I am a stronger player now, I think I'd rather pass until I get some 'rainy day' time-bank handy to take a few runs at it.

Your approach(spamming wonders in capital and NOT expanding) while fun for beginners, might only work 1% of the time on Emperor given a very good starting location and weak neighbor AIs. On Immortal+, it has no chance.


I said that because after seeing how brutally bad you managed your empire, I just did not think your play was close to Immortal caliber given a "Normal" game setup. I did not mean that the approach you used could not win an Immortal game. Of cause, you can almost win on any level if you are determined to by using a super map and run a series of "trial and error" until you get a win.

While I had some harsh views of your overall game management, I truely appreciate you going through the length to prove that the
game can be won given the right circumstances by focusing on some very specific synergy strategy.

Although many people including myself had pointed out that your games were played far from "optimal" by neglecting some fundamental gaming ideas, I am sure some new players had learned a lot about the great synergy among wonders, settled GPs and great power of a super city. Your approach is almost like an OCC game where the player try to build a super-mega city by stuffing all the wonders into it because they have no other choice.

Anyway. Thanks for your effort and I am looking forward to your "Insane walkthrough". Challenges are always good.

To be honest I am rather underwhelmed by this. Having only the capital and one small city by 820AD is a pretty bad advise for new players. If you want to build a super fortress why not just play OCC? uberfish's guide basically does the same Pyramid/settling and it works on immortal. Honestly just playing normally will also win, perhaps even more convincingly, on monarch.

Obselete, your posts are absolutely great. I'm a newbie and besides reading about micromanaging, your threads have really taught me to use my mind in this game. Thank you! Before any lashing, I admit my mind is gone. :lol:

Obselete, would you change anything for vanilla?

Can you even buy the vanilla package anymore?

I would like to see the changes for BtS myself.