Hey everyone.

I was playing a multiplayer game with a friend of mine in a team game vs computer teams, and I chose everybody's favourite sociopath: Montezuma . My friend chose Augustus Caesar. Well, I ended up playing Montezuma as he should be played, a brutal brutal brutal fierce strong opponent whom you never want to cross, even if just for a moment.

It's been a rough game, but I managed to support a Montezuma style army.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/BigArmy/BigArmy01.jpg

Yes, zero science and I'm LOSING money! Just like the carefree everloving Montezuma you all know and love.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/BigArmy/BigArmy02.jpg

Even seen an army of 52 Knights? You don't want to. Especially when I'm running Vassalage and have Stables and Barracks everywhere...and one city with my Heroic Epic and 2 settled Great Generals (soon to be 3, as you can see by my Combat Experience.)

Now for the funnest picture:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/BigArmy/BigArmy03.jpg

:lol:

This graph makes me grin from ear to ear. I have an army strong enough to make all other empires tremble in fear simultaneously. Montezuma would be so proud.

Sorry about the selfish bragging post, but I just thought this was a considerable accomplishment and I'm having fun skirting bankruptcy while playing as an oppressive brutal dictator. Peace!

I've seen an army of over 100 knights...even fielded one!

That's impressive though. If you want to take even more land throw down some courthouses/markets. Commerce multipliers, specifically the gold multipliers, really help pay the bills. In madscientist's first shot @ no CoL (no courthouses as a result!) hammy I basically won domination off the strength of cottages + markets, with a few cities specialized to keep spamming units. At the very even wealth helped, as did a shrine...but when you take over 1/2 the world, one does expect to get a holy city or two ;).

I've seen an army of over 100 knights...even fielded one!

TheMeInTeam,

Oh man, if this map was a "normal" map I'd probably have it. But as you can see, it's a very very dry aired map. One civ started in the middle of plains and plains hills, no grassland, no food resource, no nothing around him other than plains, and plains hills. On top of it, no river or fresh water ANYWHERE to daisy chain even after Civil Service.

I'm playing on the Huge Europe map, and I've taken over the the middle east, and most of the Sahara while my friend has most of northern Persia/Turkey and Greece. Some places that I've built cities have zero workable tiles, I built cities there just to fogbust. Some cities have as few as 1 or 2 workable tiles, and some require 10+ squares of daisy chained farms to grow above size 2.

Anyways, the whole map is like this, as you can tell because with my army is 2x as powerful as anyone else, and 2nd place is my ally, John, who is still a bit above everyone else.

It's been a fun map. :D

Don't you think it's better to just put a longbow on top of a hill for fogbusting? Costs much less.

BurnEmDown,

First, there were no hills... Most of it was flat worthless desert land.

Second, it is actually cheaper to build a city while running a Specialist Economy. A size 1 city produces 12 Science or 6 Gold and 6 Science from specialists while adding to my population, soon it will be 18 science or 9 gold and 9 science. Currently I'm running my slider at 100% gold, too, so add 1 gold per trade route (currently I have 2 trade routes per city,) so add another 2 gold.

Third, a city can fogbust a MUCH larger area than a single unit, even a unit on a hill. After 30 turns the city will cover a huge area for fogbusting purposes.

Fourth, a higher population means more "free support" for military units, and because they're never going to grow past size 1 they won't need a garrison unit. A fog buster would take away from both free support and foreign free support, while a new city would add to both of those, a tiny amount of adding, but every bit helps.

Of course there's still the problem of producing the Settler to beging with. However my empire has been pretty well developed and I have a few large cities that can pump out Settlers in about 10 to 15 turns, so it isn't too big of an issue.

Hi Kesshi,nice stack,you've just gotta love them Knights.

Funny,cos i too am currently playing a sp game on the Huge Europe map, but as Liz of England.I think it's a great map, but now my computer is starting to groan under the weight of all my Redcoats.

I don't know what level you were playing on, but one thing i did notice in my Prince game.I couldn't understand how the AI did so badly on this map.I put all the other European civs in the game and only Joao has done ok.I wondered whether it's cos there's so much land covered by forests.

Anyhow,i did get a much better starting position than you ,with the fertile lands of France,rather than the deserts of North Africa.Still a great map thou'.