Welcome to Monarch Student Prime I.

So given the virtual go-signal, and by limited demand, let's test the waters for a new Monarch forum game. Feel free to play on different difficulty levels, however. We will start off with a powerful leader and civ to ease players into a new season of High School Monarchy: Elizabeth of England.

Atomic Betty features one of the best trait combos in the game. Problem is, Financial and Philosophical aren't exactly the best of friends. I'm certain that only the rare super-city (such as a wonders-and-cottages capital) can take advantage of both traits at the same time. Still, both GP farms and cottage spam cities get to benefit, nothing to sneeze at.

England starts with Fishing and Mining. Mining gets us straight to Bronze Working. While Fishing... well it's not so useful for today's start.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m131/robo_mike/civpics/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg


England's Unique Unit is the Redcoat. Gone are the glory days of sheer Redcoat and Cossack dominance, but they are still very difficult to stop during their time.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m131/robo_mike/civpics/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg


England's Unique Building is the Stock Exchange. You can't really say no to a Bank that produces 15% more wealth. Problem is, Banking isn't a high-prority tech for players going to Liberalism. However, those on the warpath and taking the south end of tech tree can easily take a detour to Banking after Guilds and enjoy its benefits immediately.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m131/robo_mike/civpics/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg


Map Settings...
Map: Standard Fractal
Oppnents: 6
Sealevel: Medium
Climate: Cold

I think I'll be joining the ranks of evil map makers soon. No, I don't like depriving anyone of valuable strategic resources, but you'll see why. Oh, and if you think that's a good start below, I invite you to go ahead scout Monty's crib. :lol: (I didn't edit it at all, that's the start the map generator gave him!)

Also the Fractal map this time seemed to be VERY generous with resources. I actually had to remove a lot of the resources on the entire map. But still, the amount of resources is mind-boggling. I played through it, and I feel this is an easy but fun map.

Oh by the way, this popped up in one of my trials for this map:
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m131/robo_mike/civpics/Hmm.jpg
I wonder what's going to happen next...

The historical journey of the English begins here:
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m131/robo_mike/civpics/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

The Worldbuilder save is below. It is good for Monarch or Emperor starts. Nobles and Princes may need to remove archery from the computer players. Immortals and Deities may need to give the computer some more free techs.

Unzip the file and place it in your Documents/BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game by choosing Single Player -> Custom Scenario, where you may adjust the speed and difficulty to your liking.

As it is my first time making a public WB save, please feel free to point out any errors before any disasters happen. :lol:

Recommended Checkpoints:
*1000BC or 1AD
*500AD
*1000AD or Liberalism
*Victory!

Please remember to put the journals of your adventures inside spoiler tags.

Hey hey hey. Here we go!

Atomic Betty! I like that. Haven't heard that one before - but she is in my opinion probably the overall strongest leader when you consider traits, techs, UU and UB. Atomic indeed. I'm going Monarch because although I did ok on Emperor in NC32, I didn't win - even with a good start. Plus it's Monarch Student, so maybe more people will want to play on that level anyway. I'm really a Monarch level player.

Now... move 1SE!!! for the silver? Move 1 N for the extra production in capital?? Or (having read the "map spoiler") panic and settle in place?! :lol:

Will report back at 1000BC...

edit: Yeah - I meant 1 SE. I got really excited and made several misspellings and then wet myself.

Assuming warrior 1SW reveals no new resources, settling 1SE seems pretty obvious. You get ample production, silver, and enough food.

I'm playing this on Immortal / Epic speed, just to get some practice.

1000 BC

I decided to settle SE for the Silver, and I moved my warrior SE as well, to see what's beyond the Silver. Tech Path is going to go Agriculture (For Corn + the 2 Rice revealed) -> Bronze Working (Chop lots of settlers) -> The Wheel -> Pottery. After that, I might go Mytiscism -> Writing -> Meditation -> Aest -> Drama -> (Philo on 2nd GP), or I could go up the CoL / Civil Service line, who knows.

I got 60 gold and a map from my first two huts, the map revealed everything north of me. Looks like I have a fair bit' o land that I can block off, so settling southward (and most likely towards greener land) will be best.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/CivIVMonarch1Elizabeth.jpg

I found Isabella, Monty (Buddhist Founder) and Mehmed (Hindu Founder), and a couple turns after that I got the Herbalist event, which I chose option #3 (I got -1 population, 2 unhappiness). My capital went Warrior (Size 2/3, forget) -> Worker -> Warrior x3 (NOTE*** I built 2 in 2 turns by whipping away the unhappiness from the herbalist event, so I now have 3 warriors fogbusting all the northern tiles, and one exploring south).

Turn 50 - 80 was mainly exploration and improving the capital. I met Hammurabi! I also made the decision after I whipped my warriors to go and start on another worker, to chop out settlers quick-time. After the worker I went warrior (3 pop) -> warrior (4 pop) -> Settler.

Once I finished my settler I made open borders with Monty for diplo bonus + possibility of him spreading his religion. I also founded York and met Kublai and Catherine on the same turn, while Hammy founded Judaism. I decided to go Library -> Settler in my capital next, so that I can get a big enough tech lead that once I crash my economy from expanding, that I'll be able to tech trade and still stay alive and good. I believe that I'll go either Library (whip) -> Worker -> workboat in York, and it will be my GPP farm until I can get a better site.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/CivIVMonarch1York.jpg

After the Library I whipped a chariot than began on a settler. Monty spread Buddhism to me and Kublai (YUS!) so I'm going to wait for one of them to request me to switch before I do. Mehmed declared on Hammy already, so this game looks fairly easy to pull out a peaceful win.

The tech path I decided in the end was Agri -> BW -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Mysticism -> Meditation -> Writing -> AH (Found Horses by York) -> Aest (Binary).

At 1000 BC I am nearly finished Aesthetics, and I nearly have placed my third city (blocker site). Both Izzy and Monty are at Cautious, but soon to be pleased once the religious bonus kicks in in 10 more turns. I will be going for a cultural victory this game, or I might beeline Rifling and take over the world. Who knows.

Here's another vote for warrior 1SW, likely settling 1SE. FIN and PHI can work great together in an empire under HR. Lots of happy police keep your cottage cities growing and your GP farm running a bunch of specialists.

I love Liz, so maybe I'll take a break from getting my you-know-what handed to me on deity and shadow this at monarch this weekend.

1 AD


Nothing too major happened this turnset. I finished Aesthetics, traded it to Monty for Alpha, then traded Alpha / Writing around for Sailing, Poly, Priesthood, IW, Hunting, Archery, Masonry, Monotheism and Monarchy. The AI are REALLY slow at teching on this map.

I founded Hastings in the Fish / Silver site, and everything is going good. I'm leading in tech, and just finished Monasteries / Granaries in York and London, so the BPT are building up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/CivIVMonarch1Hastings.jpg

The path this round was Aest (Traded for Math) -> Drama -> Literature -> Music (Got the GA). I then decided to go CoL and plan to go to Civil Service.

I dec'd Mehmed for diplo reasons, and I got my first GP and settled in the capital for an academy. The second GP will be used to bulb Philo, and if I'm the first to found it I'll try and shoot for a Great Prophet, to get a good Wall Street City.

**NOTE - Switched civics in golden age from GA.

Currently the diplo situation is good with everyone except for Hammy and Mehmed at Pleased / Friendly. Nothing to worry about though, as Hammy and Mehmed have no friends at all.

I'm about to settle my next 3 cities, and I'll get my 2nd GS 1 turn before my GA ends, meaning that I can switch back into Slavery and hop into Pacifism as well. Game plan after that is to abuse Monarchy to get huge cities, and then either dominate through power or go culture / space race.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/CivIVMonarch1World1AD.jpg

@Kadazzle
You seem to be in a very good position now. Looks like you are on track to win via culture, assuming Hammy and Meh's stacks don't get to you.

Perhaps because it's Cold weather, there are a lot of plains except in grasslands under jungle areas, so AI may be having difficulty making their cottage spam cities.

Will I be able to play this save with the 3.17 patch, or will I need an additional one? I'd like to give this a shot to see how far from I am from being a capable Monarch-level player.

Thanks

I think Worldbuilder saves don't care about versions, except when No Espoinage option is used. (I think.) Feel free to give it a try.

Hi, I've just discovered this forum and it looks pretty interesting. I play on Monarch all the time, but cannot seem to find a strategy that will consistently win. I think I'll try out the game, but am unclear on the overall idea. Is there someplace where I can learn more about the student concept. For instance, does everyone play and learn from each other? Is there a time limit like on the GOTM (I rarely have time to finish a game per month)?

Is there someplace where I can learn more about the student concept. For instance, does everyone play and learn from each other? Is there a time limit like on the GOTM (I rarely have time to finish a game per month)?

It's a revival of a level up from Prince thread run most recently by Ai Shazuka. Here is the index: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7976360#post7976360

The idea is just to play, discuss and post in spoiler tags at the years suggested.

Nice to see this back - will play and report tomorrow hopefully.

FYI for forum newbs: this is a world builder save. In order to access it, use the instructions provided by Bleys over at NC:

"The WB-save is attached (zipped, they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, I suggest checking out the BUG MOD [or maybe now Buffy (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=329225) is the standard]), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC VII - Sitting Bull".This allows you to play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice."

Tapping on it opened it for me but I lost the interface. Is that typical?

Enjoy, and please post to help us revive the Monarch Student! :deadhorse: :goodjob:

Hi

Monarch, Marathon, 110 AD


I guess it the massochist in me. After having a REALLY nice game in the last NC Lousis series I figured I would give this game a try b4 I start feeling TOO good about my playing ability hehe.

I moved down so I could get the silver in my capitols bfc and then teched ag while I scouted around.

Goodyhuts got me two scouts, two techs masonry and wheel, and bout 220 gold. I also managed to scout out the landmass and found this lil curiosity:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/weirdbarbies.jpg

VERY sophisticated babries for 2380BC hehe :P

The way the map looked I decided to settle south as hard as I could to block off land then backfill the north later. I also chopped GW so I wouldnt have to worry bout barbies from the north being a headache since that area was gonna be empty for awhile.

My empire looks like this:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/110adempire.jpg

Not sure if this is good or bad or anywhere in between but I still have PLENTY of room up north so as long as I can avoid being dead I SHOULD have nice lil empire going at some point.

Tech sitch:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/11adtechsitch.jpg

Way behind a few civs but I guess it not as bas a it might have been. Least Im not bringing up the bottom :)

Demos:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/110addemos.jpg

Waaay behind on power but I am working on that now. Right now biggest priorty is get my military up, settle out the north and develope my land. NOOOO idea of plan for victory at this point I am just HOPING I wont get killed hehe. ANyways thats it for now. Wish me luck :)
Kaytie

@Kaytie:
Hmm... didn't think the Stone Age Theater I added would be so effective. :lol:

Oh well, thanks for discovering it, now my reputation as a map maker is... uh, never mind.

You seem to be in a good position with lots of cities. Hopefully you can keep Monty or Izzy at bay long enough to rebuild and fix your economy.


FYI for forum newbs: this is a world builder save. In order to access it, use the instructions provided by Bleys over at NC:
Hmm... I guess I'll add instructions to install and play the saves then. Thanks!

Hey Fidardorist,

I plan on playing this one but I have to work all weekend so I may not get to play till Monday but I have the thread bookmarked and look to learning with everyone!

Hi

Monarch, Marathon, 1588 AD


Hehe yep NOWHERE near as good as the nc louis game :P.

I finished backfilling my land. I satyed away from a religion until AP was built then I spammed christian missionaries all over. Diplo wise it workd out VERY nice. Monty and Izzy been DoWing on each othe rback and forth and Cathy been warring with Meh and Hammy so that left everybody off my back for the most part.

Unfortunately I am now waaaaaaay behind so I need to move quick. With that in mind I made as nice a stack as I could while teching out riflinf then:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/dowmonty.jpg

It time to go after Monty. I TRIED to be sneaky and attack thru Izzy's lands. Monty been in wheooh mode again and I think he is gonna take another crack at Izzy so I was TRYING to hit the city that had his big SoD but the dillhole moved it further south grrr. Hopefully I can still take him out though.

Meanwhile here is my empire and rest of world at this point:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1588empire.jpg

And the ABYSMAL tech sitch:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1588techsitch.jpg

I didnt even TRY for lib andonly reason I am NOT further behind is cuz I whored out rep parts and rifling to all my friends for techs and gold. It helped do mass upgrade a lil quicker but it also pretty much gave Cathy Cossacks which I might end up regretting. Especially if she ends up capping Izzy before I can take her out for myself. But I figured first things first and Monty is at top of list at the moment.

Demos:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1588demos.jpg

Behind cathy in just about everything :( Seems like I am gonna have to deal with her at some point.

Still no idea how I am gonna get a win. No way I can get culture. Spaceship and UN loooong way off still and if Cathy ends up building UN I am in BIG trbl. MAYBE dom win if I can take out Monty and Izzy and then maybe go after Kublai but not sure if that will be enuff and cathy is WAAAY too powerful to mess with at this point.

But one step at a time. Right now I am just gonna worry bout killing off monty and then see where I am at if I can get that done. So wish me luck :)
Kaytie

Assuming warrior 1SW reveals no new resources, settling 1SE seems pretty obvious. You get ample production, silver, and enough food.

Well if you agree with the above, then this is what you get:

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk101/Fidardorist/CIV/4000BC0000.jpg
This would be my first Monarch win...

So what is it going to be, warrior or worker? Then, for techs, ag or mining? I'm inclining toward ag. Some concern over food with all those plains, but looks like we will squeek through til bio with about 10 cottagable plots while maintaining moderate growth and part-timing the plentiful mines we have available. Begs the question whether to farm the floodplains at the start. I think yes. Later, not sure how much, convert it to cottage.

What is the big picture tech path here? Wonders? Mids or HR for happy? We may be okay with resources for happy and or healthy, I guess that remains to be seen. How about religion? Do we want to snap up the Oracle on the way to Monarchy/HR or should we be prioritizing libraries to leverage financial on the way to Aesthetics and the covetable Parthenon? To put it more briefly: tech path top or bottom?

Another binary - growth: vertical or horizontal?

My default would be to milk the silver/financial cottages while trying to get a specialist farm up ASAP and begin warring while coming into our UU way up on tech and then milk their long life (25% bonus vs gunpowder) to establish supremacy around then, with a bunch of steroidal banks & maybe a nicked shrine to ensure a bright economic future as we pick off rivals. Simply put, win the tech race until gunpowder and then blast/grow my way to mili/tech total dominance. That would probably be a walk in the park on Prince for yours truely, but don't know on Monarch. Or should war come much earlier? With what units?


Finally, is the evidentally suggested more pure SE economy the right way? <---not my forte. Should go back to the Future Hermit SE Monarch walk through (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=310071).

Okay, tons of big picture questions and a couple first turn ones. So? :twitch:

What is the big picture tech path here? Wonders? Mids or HR for happy? We may be okay with resources for happy and or healthy, I guess that remains to be seen. How about religion? Do we want to snap up the Oracle on the way to Monarchy/HR or should we be prioritizing libraries to leverage financial on the way to Aesthetics and the covetable Parthenon? To put it more briefly: tech path top or bottom?

Another binary - growth: vertical or horizontal?

My default would be to milk the silver/financial cottages while trying to get a specialist farm up ASAP and begin warring while coming into our UU way up on tech and then milk their long life (25% bonus vs gunpowder) to establish supremacy around then, with a bunch of steroidal banks & maybe a nicked shrine to ensure a bright economic future as we pick off rivals. Simply put, win the tech race until gunpowder and then blast/grow my way to mili/tech total dominance. That would probably be a walk in the park on Prince for yours truely, but don't know on Monarch. Or should war come much earlier? With what units?



@Fidardorist & KaytieKat (includes first round spoilers! :))

These are the questions aren't they? And this is where I could use a little help and comparing with other players! Here's my thoughts on Monarch/Epic...



We're on a decent peninsula. Room for 8 decent cities at least, maybe 10 or 12 including later ones (I haven't dot mapped em though...)

Settling SE is the way to go. Usually I'd pop some warriors and let London grow, but I'm thinking tech AGR and WHL while building a worker. Then Pot and BW for cottaging and chopping and we're away!

Isabella and Monty to the south. No easy access to copper or iron (or horses either for that matter). Plenty of other goodies like gold/calendar resources though - IF you REX quickly to the south and block off Monty and Izzy. I'm taking an approach very similar to Kaytie. Rex south from West to East. I'm not inclined to go for either GW or Oracle. The Colossus appeals though for that extra +1:commerce: on the water tiles. So my tech looks something like Agr/Whl/Pot/BW/IW for jungle clearing/Writing for open borders with Monty/Izzy to share religion and get monastaries for the science and culture. Probably neglect military as Kaytie has done and make nice with Monty and Izzy for round 1. Then Math/Calendar/MC

Lots of settlers and workers. Granaries/Libraries. Monastaries in border cities. Then forges/Colossus when copper hooked up. Aest/Lit and the GL.

In short this map screams massive rex/no early war to me. Get things up and running and when more room is needed in round 2 bend Monty over.

What do you guys think?

@Kaytie

Maybe Beaker rate would help if you started Binary teching (ie. running 0% or 100% ... nothing in between beyond writing) ... but i'd really like to see a screen or three of your lands (and your primary cities) since even then your beakers is dreadfully slow ... at 1500 your biggest Science city should easily be able to turn out ~300-400 beakers alone and being able to run at least 1000 beakers a round empirewide at average

@Kaytie:
I remember one of your more recent games where you had to deal with a runaway Monty in another continent. :D

But this time... I think you are in a good position. You have a huge army, you can vassalize Monty and he can be your trading partner to catch up in tech. You can vassalize Izzy too for more trading, then it will be 3-on-3 your team vs Cathy's. Just don't ignore Kublai, he seems to be happily teching away in his deserted island. Is he winning via culture yet?

@yank:
See, you have space to expand. That sort of makes a map easier than you have a Creative or Aggressive neighbor.

Without spoiling your future, GL+Colossus combo might work if you can somehow build your next 4-6 cities along the coast while maintaining peace. Speaking of peace, there are two good ways to ensure it:
1. Monty and Izzy don't have the same religion. You don't have a state religion. They war each other for aeons. (Worst case scenario: You refuse their requests for aid and to adopt their state religion. Eventually they declare on you because you kept refusing.)
2. Monty and Izzy have the same religion. You adopt theirs. (Worst case scenario: You leave Monty at Pleased. He attacks you anyway.)

Even though they have AI bonuses they still have difficulty penetrating the jungle, so that should give you time to block them off.

Apparently the presence of more than one religious zealot just makes the diplo situation much easier to manipulate.

To all aspiring monarch players out there:

Top 1/2 in land/pop and a military tech lead on the opponent you're fighting is a GOOD position, not an iffy one.

On higher difficulties getting to #1 in land/pop without war is very difficult, and map ----> blocking dependent (or if you get a fast run to astro to settle a large island somewhere).

If you take care of stack composition and diplo, redcoats + cannons will last you a while. Maybe the whole game (might need infantry/arty if you can't cap/conquer fast enough).

I decided to give this scenario a go. I can pretty regularly beat Monarch but there's always room for improvement. I'll have to post saves and screen shots later.

I settled in place, wanting to reserve the silver for another city site and I liked being able to work both the corn and the rice early with just agriculture.

My build order was worker, warrior, settler, warrior, warrior, warrior, settler, worker. I used the warriors mainly for fog busting since there was a lot of unoccupied land.

I first research agriculture, popped Mysticism and Animal Husbandry from huts, researched The Wheel, Pottery (for early cottages) then went on to Sailing and Iron working.

I explored NE, North and NW then SW. I met Izzy and Monte first. Izzy was SW and Monte SE. I decided to settle SW, S and SE to block off the penisula from the AIs.

York was founded to the SW first and grabbed a pretty decent production, coast city.
Nottingham was founded to the S and is my primary GP farm.

I built the Great Lighthouse at York. Izzy grabbed the Oracle.

Both Izzy and Monte were Buddhists so I converted to keep them at bay while playing the consummate tech whore. I ran a mostly cottage economy. I did use caste system and pacifism to generate more GS GPP and bulbed lots of techs and traded for some. I got Liberalism first and took Nationalism.

I also met Cathy, Mehmed II, Kublai and Hammurabi. Oddly, even though we didn't share a religion Cathy was my best trading partner. Izzy kept demanding things even at pleased. She was just about everyone's worst enemy I think. She even went to war with Monte at one time even though he shared her religion.


I did everything possible to keep the peace (with Izzy and Monte) throughout the early and middle game. Then once I got Redcoats, Izzy and Hammurabi declared on me out of the blue. They brought mostly Cats, Maces, Trebs and Knights. The Redcoats decimated them. After destroying both their incoming stacks, I moved on Izzy, capturing two of her cities with about 30 some odd Redcoats, 2 Calvary and the help of a few Spies. I quickly made peace with Ham to focus just on capturing the Spanish cities. Monte is at Pleased but I know he sometimes declares at that. I'm keeping an eye on him.

Cathy and me are way ahead of the rest the AI in terms of Technology. She is at war with Meh and also hates Izzy and Ham so it's likely we'll be allies for most the game. Kublai Khan is something of an unknown. He seems far away but he could launch a naval battle. Ham is his worst enemy for now so that seems unlikely.

I saved at 1650 AD. At this point, the possible scenarios for winning are still open.

Hi

@chruchdown

Thats kind of the way I went. Only be warned if you skip GW barbies out of the north could be a pain. especially since like you noticed no metals convenient. I kinda teched bw after agg since no ah resources handy and I got masonry from a hut so I go a nice jump on gw. Another thing that was nice ws JUST having BW and then building GW so early made my power rating high enough that I think it helped Monty prefer picking on Izzy to me.

Diplowise I got lucky. Monty hated Izzy and kept attacking her. Cathy kept attacking Hammy and Meh early on. And what REALLY made it nice was for SOME reason Meh had it out for monty and kept DoWing him. What made that nice was I could DoW on meh and get the diplo bonus and have enough room to stay out of it between Izzy and Monty. Between that and just caving into to gold, resources, tech demands I managed to keep the AI's off my back for most of the game so far until I was ready to go the offense.
@sian

I really have NOOO clue how to do binary researching. How do you even calculate how many turns you stay at zero b4 you know its time to move move the slider up to 100? ALso what happens when while you at 0 and banking gold ai's start demanding all you saved up? That happens LOTS to me at least. I do know my bpt is sucky at that point. It is a lil better now but really I have no idea how to make it higher. Ok that NOT completely true I probably could have done stuff like building wealth and/or research more but that really not my style. I just find doing that as an absolute total last resort (or if its endgame and there is literally NOTHING else that city could be building) so if I can keep my cities building stuff without going on strike I usually do.

And I have NEVER had a 400 beaker city going. At that point in game my BEST city was like 130 bpt. I just never get cities to work out like that. And I have TRIED. I have had games where I cottaged the bejesus out of its bfc (AND worked them) and have done cities where I have maxed food and run scientist out the gills with caste. But they still NEVER get 400 bpt. I tend to do better trying to get most of my cities doing 40-60 bpt on average with one city doing 200 or so. Thats kind of where I am at in my game now and I got my bpt up to over 1400 wich is LOTS better than where it was.
@Meatbuster

Yeah Monty wasnt as big a headache this game. And funny you should mention Kublai he isnt going for culture but he is now becoming my biggest threat. ANd for most of game I thought I wouldnt have to worry bout him so :/

Kaytie

Kaytie@

untill you get it on and instictly know how much you need you could allways swing between 33-100% of your score as money ... (ie. if you have 3000 points then go 0% till you have around 3000 cash, then go 100% till you have 1000 cash, cleanse/repeat

about beaker rate, do you have a dedicated Cottage city which have Libery/University/oxford/Academy ? ... that really brings in a ton ... usually when i'm playing a phil leader i turn off science completely at Writing, and first reboots it after i've built a Libery and built an Academy with my first Great Scientist, and then i use my money deposit to decifit Research (together with tradewhoring Aestetics/Alphabet) myself to a decent Tech leading position

Try to post a save and i could look closer, pointing out specific points ... i know where you are since i only just managed to win somewhat consistently from a decent position with a good leader (with Philosophical, Creative, Spirituel and/or Financial) on Emperor

@Kaytie,


Did you specialize a few commerce/science cities? Liz has the financial trait so you usually can't go wrong with a cottage economy. Also, it greatly helps to know what techs the AIs are likely to want to trade for. Every tech you get in trade essentially doubles your tech rate. Aesthetics is an easy one to trade. I also find they tend not to go on a beeline to Civil Service or Liberalism. In my game I also built the Great Lighthouse which increases trade income. In the early game, I didn't build much military, choosing instead focused on tech and diplomacy.

Hi

My latest spot report, Monarch, Marathon, 1696 AD


Monty went down pretty easy. The BIGGEST headache he gave was he had one city on an island and I had to wait until I finished astro and got a cpl of galleons to go finish him off.

After astro I did chem then steel and once I upgraded my seige:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/dowizzy.jpg

Sorry Izzy but there really no other way.

I will give Izzy this tho:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/izzycounter.jpg

Unlike monty she did at least TRY to put up a fight hehe.

After a few turns I finished off Izzy. The wars got me a few shrine cities including the christian holy city so now I go the shrine to the biggest religion on the map :)

Here is what my empire looks like now:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1696empire.jpg

The tech sitch:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1696techsitch.jpg

Im still behind and ONLY reason its not worse is cuz I whored out steel for ALL I could get. I think in the end I got Democracy, Economics, and sci method and about 2000 in gold. I probably got hosed on the deals but at least the gold helped me upgrade to cannon :)

The demos:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

Staring to FINALLY get some leads in some categories. Cathy still ahead in Hammers and Power tho :(

The diplo sitch:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1696diplositch.jpg

Now here is where it is getting DANGEROUS. I HAD Kublai at friendly for the LONGEST time but he eventually went free religion and then he was actually getting along with both Monty AND Izzy and I got a -6 total diplo hit for decalring on them. It dropped him down to pleased AND he is now in WHEOOH mode. And since he still friendly with Cathy and Im only othe rnon vassal around looks like he is gonna pick on me AND he has Infantry already :(

The ONLY shot I THINK I have is that LUCKILY Cathy can be bribed into DoW at friendly so my plan is b4 I DoW Cathy get her to DoW on Kublai THEN attack her. Hopefully that will keep Kublai off my back and IF I can get Cathy lands and Hammy's that should get me to a dom win.

So I am still behind and it seems good odds Kublai may kill me off BUT at least NOW I have a plan for win so wish me luck :)
Kaytie

KaytieKat, try bureaucracy/oxford/academy, you should be able to get over 500beakers easily. If you settle and run representation 700-800 is not so hard.

infrantry is no issue if you get machine guns and/or pinch cavalry, you might want artillery, if he has too many mounts.

@Kaytie,


It looks like you're doing pretty well. I probably would've just vassaled Monte, his lands are basically junk, but that's not going to hurt too badly once you get courthouses. At this point, you need to play catch-up tech wise to compete with Kublai and Cathy.

Cathy is the primary threat because she is a warmonger with a tech advantage. Kublai is more likely to go for the space race. I would try to figure out what tech Kublai needs and tech towards that. Trade with him and keep him happy for now. I would also look for ways to bump up the GPP rate for GS. Izzy did build a lot of cottages so that's a good thing.

@murky:
You seem to be in an excellent position. I'm surprised Cathy isn't the one demanding stuff from you. Girls, they're a fickle bunch...
@kaytie:
Heh, I knew everyone would ignore the guy on the island.

Try this, I think you can build tons of ships of the line, scout out KK's place and see where his stack is located. Watch, when the army loads on ships, you declare and crush his army in transit.

Failing that, you will need to rail up your shores and still build enough ships to scout your territorial oceans. Enable "show friendly moves" and you will see KK sneaking his guys to your place.

Emperor/Normal

1000BC:


Went 1 SE for the silver, was hoping for another food resource in the BFC but alas they are outside. However I farmed the floodplains which acts as another food resource anyway. Lots of cottageable land and hills for hammers anyway so good beuracracy capital here.

Teched AG-BW-pottery-AH-writing, popped wheel from a hut which was very nice!

Went worker then warriors until size 5, was going to go size 6 but I noticed an awesome goldmine+3 food resource spot next to issy and I just had to have it! So chopped out a worker/settler and grabbed it asap:

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg

After this grew capital to size 6 then chopped out another settler for a decent-ish hammers city below right:

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

Teched alpha first hoping to trade for IW but none of the AI want to trade it so will have to divert to it myself. Next will be currency then COL.

With the gold hooked up I built a library in the capital while growing to size 7, finished that and immediately put 2 scientists to work for that speedy philosophical GS. Now that the techrate is solid I am building/chopping a couple more settlers in the capital to claim one or two more spots close to montezuma along with the silver/fish site above left. Also cranking out a few chariots because I'm woefully undefended, had a close call when a barb archer attacked my capital with 1 warrior defending (!), thankfully he survived.

1000BC:

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg

Looking back I think more settlers early on to box in issy and monty would perhaps have been better, plus I think aesthetics would have provided better trade bait over alpha. With all this gold/silver the techrate is nice, I'm thinking get to maces/cats asap and take out the two closest neighbours since I won't have enough land here otherwise.

@Inso:
You're the only one who went for the Gold site first thing you can. I'd love to see how your game fares compared to everyone else's (at Emperor).

There are allot of tantalizing posts under spoilers out there that I hesitate to open bcs, well they're in spoilers.

Can I suggest that we try to date the game time that the spoiler reaches for most or all spoilers? That way, you can poke in as you go along. It would be swell if folks would edit their former posts to let some of us know if we can peek.

@Inso,

Nice start. I settled York 1 NE of where you did (to get the horses in the fat cross) and I settled 3 cities near where you settled your SE one. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out on Emperor. Good luck.

@Murky:

Thanks, I tried it a bit different than I normally start, which would be to crank out 3-4 settlers straight away at happy cap. Only reason I didn't settle a city for horse was because I saw the horse was going to come into the capital's borders in good time, although the barbs were quite annoying and it would have been nice to have some better defenders earlier.


@Meatbuster:

Normally I'd go for horse/bronze with 2nd city but I knew that issy was going to try for somewhere near that spot soon and I really wanted it since it has great GP farm potential plus financial goldmines are very enticing. :)

@ Kaytie:



Why not just go AL, bribe cathy to war w/ KK, let their stacks collide, then pile on KK? That might be enough for domination pop and is diplomatically the safest it seems (cathy won't backstab at friendly if not bribed, and there will be nobody left to do it).

Anyway, you already won this game. You are too far ahead in land/pop and in a fine tech position given that. Even if he has infantry, you can beat KK using your cannons to soften up any pathetic invasion he can field (he is behind you in soldiers and the AI never fights with as large a % of their military as humans). You'd probably want your own infantry (or pinch cavs) for when you press into his land though. Or arty so you can do more damage to cities while losing less siege.

Or, you can just convert your land to more production, and win with cannons/redcoats/cavalry outright.

Can I suggest that we try to date the game time that the spoiler reaches for most or all spoilers? That way, you can poke in as you go along. It would be swell if folks would edit their former posts to let some of us know if we can peek.

:shifty: Did you hear something?

:nope: No. What?

:shifty: What? I don't know. Nothing.

Hi

Monarch, Marathon, 1855 AD


Well it took a WHILE but I THINK I have things all settled and can work my way to a dom win.

First I took advantage of Cathy's backstab willingness and bribed her into war with Kubbie. That took him out of wheooh AND made her his worst enemy.

With them two out of my hair for awhile I kept on teching. I got this event where one of the options was free Gspy so I took that and had a GS hanging round so I used them for a GA (A 24 turn one it turns out cuz one of Izzy's old cities had MoM :) )

Once GA was over and all my units in my attack stck upgraded and reienforced with more modern units I figued:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/modernstack.jpg

Okies that ought to be enuff. Especially since I can now airlift reinforcements as I go.

So FIRST I bribed Cathy into a war with Kubbie again just so she couldnt bribe him into one with me and then:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/dowcathy.jpg

Yeah I know we were at friendly and I DoWed anyways but it snot like SHE doesnt do that either hehe :P

Here is how my empire looks now:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1855empire.jpg

Cities starting to look pretty now. They taking a lil hit cuz I lost some resources when I DoW'ed Cathy BUT I am planning on getting those back soon hehe :P

The tech sitch:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1855techsitch.jpg

It doesnt LOOK as godawful as it has earlier in game BUT remember there are techs behind Radio that I cant see so no telling how far past radio they might be. But still it IS a BIG improvement on what it used to be I think :)

Demos:

Demos are looking waaay better now :)

Okies so plan is Take Cathy's cities and see if thats enuff for a dom win. If not it should be VERY close so Hammi next if need be or maybe even if I dont hammi has been hogging LOTS of shinies so he NEEDS to learn to share by giving them ALL to me :D. So my economy is reasonably sorted out. I have decent mil lead and have a plan to win so hopefully things will work out now wishe me luck :)
Kaytie

@ Churchdown Yank up to 2475BC

Well, I did peak in your spoiler and it didn't give to much away. Uncanny, I did the same tech path: Agr/Whl/Pot/BW/IW, though I did BW after AG. I thought I was being unconventional and daring to skip on Archery and go straight to the long-to-develop IW :D And the west to east thing, though I haven't looked under Kat spoilers so... Point is I have one city at the gold and I'm 11 turns from Iron work, and all about rexing south to cut off those two. Also thinking in terms of surviving and growing and not wonders. Definitely Alpha.

My main concern is defense on this level, against these leaders. Avoiding the dogpile. Surely Monty is first on the list and whether we like it or not conflict won't wait for gundpowder as I said before. Will it be with cats? How do we keep the ladies off us while we bust on Monty?


...hope to discuss dot map soon

@anyone passed 2000BC

The more think about it, it would have been so much better to settle the capital on the grassland hill so you could get the rice in the BFC. The silver could've been settled 3rd, while the Sugar, Silk, Fish, Gold, Rice (1 SW of Inso's York placement) could've been placed 2nd. I still haven't finished my next turnset, but if I lose I will try again with that settlement plan.

Monarch/Normal 1605 AD:


The English Empire
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2628/3865821984_1edbc7aaa2_o.jpg

London - Main Commerce city
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2574/3865847438_8c2837636e_o.jpg

York - Main Troop Production
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3497/3865822202_93656db203_o.jpg

Nottingham - GPP Farm
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2439/3865036199_9af87cc367_o.jpg

The Troops Invading Spain
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3542/3865036449_160fd77862_o.jpg

The Technology situation
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3502/3865036341_43400739b4_o.jpg

Hi

@Sian

I wonder if gamespeed affects binary reseacrh too. Like the amount of beakers needed is tripled from normal but the amt of commerce you can get from a cottage or trade route or whatever is the same. It just seems like a LOT of turns needed to bank up to spend any reasonable amt of time running a big deficet. Like alot of times in anceint or calssical era once I hit the wall its like ok I have 50 gold in the bank at 0 I am making 5 gold at 100% I am at -240 so thats like 40 turns to be able to spend ONE turn at 100% and THAT"S assuming noone makes a demand for all my gold or something. Where as at 10% I am makeing -1 gold can tech out what I am after in 45 turns and in meantime I can get those courthouses or libriaries going or my cottages will be turning into hamlets or whatever so by time Im finished I'll be running in green again.

I have to admit I am not a big fan of cottages. Thats not to say I WONT build em. And I DID cottage the bejuesus out of the southern part of my land. But even in games where I do just cottage the HECK out of stuff that 10 plus cottage city just NEVER turns out into that 400 plus beaker city for me. And its not about not working and thats part of it tho. I have NEVER figured out how to get a heavily cottaged city going and STILL build anything. Whipping seems counter productive and if its working hammer tiles then its not working cottages. When that lib takes 40 plus turns and a uni over 60 and then oxford at 80 or even longer. I just get waay more use out of farms and mines build em 4 times as fast and then run specialists that the farms alow.

Part of it was also just being slow. Like I didnt get mids so no rep. I didnt get GLH or Colossus so no help there. I didnt get oxford going til late cus I didnt get Edu until late. Although once I DID get edu and get uni's and oxfrd going the beakers started mking a comeback and now they are at around 2500 bpt which I think is decent rate for modern era.

Oh yesh didnt make any saves of the early game--well just quicksaves and they got overwritten. But next game I will keep saves and post em too.

@murky

Yeah I tried to run cottages althing I admit I am not their biggest fan so for what is for me a LOT of cottages is probably not even barely enuff :/. And yeah I tech whored for all I could. Otherwise my tech hole would have been MUCH worse hehe

As for vassalizing mont and/or Izzy I didnt want to do that cuz Cathy hated em both so the diplo hit wouldnt have been worth it since by time I killed em off neither one of em had any techs and didnt have and wouldnt be teching at any speed to be helpful so I just killed em off. Good thing to since not having diplo hit for having vassals and not having that hidden modifier stuff that happens when you have vassals Cathy stayed at friendly which let me bribe her into war against Kubbie which was VERY helpful :)

@bestss

Yep I ran bur, oxford academy and rep. Well as soon as I could get em. I didnt get edu or Const till pretty late.

@Fidardorists

Most actual game reports are dated at the top along with diff level and gamespeed usually. If you are talking about the spoilered replies--usually starting with "@" so and so. No those usually arnt dated. I think its just SOP to assume spoilers like that refer to the last dated game report since they are usually just follow ups on questions discussions that started there. I can se ehow it can get confusing to someone just jumping in and not keeping up with whoile thread or even just trying to remember date opf last report the follow ups could be refering to. However its like that it just about every thread like this in LHC, NC, PYL, etc so ppl so used to doing it that way all the time it might be diff to start getting everyone to change SOP now :/.

@TmiT

I kind of followed along the lines you mentioned. I got to AL as fast a I could. Bribed Cathy to DoW Kubbie to get him out of wheeooh mode. Only I decided to backstab cathy just cuz you know me and naval wars-- I avoid em if I can hehe :P

@meatbuster

well SoL's are nice to have but since I didnt have Mil Sci at that point they werent an option for me. So i went the bribe cathy into war on kubbie mode instead :)

Kaytie

I've attached a save @ 100 turns in. Let me know how much of a mess I've already made of things.

Thanks

@hou jing

So far your game looks good, your tech rate is good and once you place that new city, you will have a lot of land to block of.

Things I noticed:

1) Your city placement was good to get all of the resources, but it would have been better if you could've got both of your cities on rivers, for the later levee bonus.

2) You need 3-4 more workers. Cottage up the wine / grassland in York.

3) Once you settle your 4th city (hopefully by the Rice / Corn), make it your GPF. Run lots of specialists.

4) Use binary research.

Ok – I need a break from getting beat down on deity. Monarch normal to 1 AD - very lazy play too.



Settled 1 SE and quickly realized I can block myself a nice chunk of land by expanding south. Normal worker techs, AG/BW/Wheel/AH/Pottery/Myst/Writing. Met Izzy – Buddhist, of course, Hammy and Monty. Nice neighborhood. Nice cottage land too post IW.

City 2 here:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

Quick diversion to IW before aesthetics to start cottaging that site up. Two more blocking cities south:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg

A few workers, and given how tight the borders are, i decided a quick diversion to music made sense to fight the cultural war. Tech is fine:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg

I'm 3 turns from my second GS to bulb philosophy. Next up, get a few more cities down fast, including a good production site, and get some defenses up for the inevitable backstab. I haven't chosen a religion yet, but think I'm going to go with Izzy, as the jewish block appears to be on her other side, and she'll hate them. So I'd be protected from all but monty under Izzy's religion. Seems like the safe approach for now. Beakers are at 120 per turn, so well on my way to lib around 1000 AD.



To 1000 AD - 2 turns from lib.

More lazy play - playing this like my recent deity games - not settling the land all that quickly, and I have a small number of cities. First, I get this request:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg

Of course, Izzy. Monty makes a couple demands, which I give into - he DOWs Izzy shortly thereafter. Easy enough - let them fight while I tech and overrun them later on.

The all important philo bulb:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg

And then just improving the land while building a few protection units. Sort of figuring on ruling the world with redcoats at this point. 1000 AD empire - only 7 cities - pretty mediocre.

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg

And tech:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg

Figure from here, I need to start massing settlers and workers to finish populating the land, and head toward rifling. Not a particularly food heavy map, but I need to find a drafting site. I've been using Liz's financial trait a lot more than PHI.

Ok - finally - first report to checkpoint 1 at 1000BC. It's a bit early for the first report, which is why I guess a lot of people opted for 0AD or so. But this is where I'm at and I was busy all yesterday and I'm a little busy today (Saturday) so it might be tonight before I get round to the next phase.

I'll try and explain what I did, but the dog ate my notes so it's from memory mostly...



I went for the strategy I described in my post to Fidardorist. Tech was something like... Agr/Whl/BW/IW/Pot/Writing/Med (for monastaries - see later)/now Poly.

Build was something like... worker/warrior/settler/warrior/warrior/settler x 3...

5 cities.

The idea was to rex and box off the south as fast as human possible. In my game I had to chop 2 settlers and build escorts as fast as I could to get the 2 sites N of Izzy. First the coast fish/gold site. Then immediately afterwards the banana/silk/spice (and everything nice) site. Third was the iron site to try to get iron hooked up asap and then the fish/silk site N of Monty - who was much slower to expand north than Izzy in my game. So 5 cities at 1000BC. Economy's groaning a little, but it will recover quickly. Iron is about 1 turn from hookup for axes. Good thing too, because the barbs are coming. Monuments are up (except in last city).

So I've got the South settled as I want it. Goals for next round are get some axes up quick. Build libraries and monastaries in culture border cities and get calendar pronto. As meatbuster points out there are two flavours of this game early. Either Monty and Izzy share a religion, or they don't. I think games will be radically different (certainly early on) depending on which situation you're in). And meatbuster sums up those differences pretty well above.

Except I've bucked the trend. :p Opened borders to Izzy for Hindu. Monty's a Bhud. I'm not going to convert, but I will spread for Monastaries (and culture - you do get the culture even if the religion is not your state religion right?? I need to double check.) I may even do the same with Monty until Bhud spreads and do the same there. Once the religion is spread I may close borders again. Or I may not depending on military strength and whether Izzy and Monty are beating on each other yet.

What's allowed me to be a bit cavalier (I believe) is that I've settled the good sites south early, *plus* got early access to iron (not easy - for me anyway :crazyeye:). I was kind of looking at it as an either/or situation, but I've sort of managed to do both, although as I say, my economy's making creaking noises. Calendar will fix that tout de suite!

That's where I'm at. I gotta run! I'll read others reports, field any questions or comments and post again this evening!

http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p459/gcm4738/msp1layout1000bc0000.jpg



edit: I should have said Monarch/Epic

@michimbk:
That was really bold settling IN the jungle early. Especially your second city away from the fish or cows. I am wondering if doing that hurts in the long run compared to having the second city in a... place with fewer jungles or a food resource not covered in jungle. Of course, the city does grab gold, and Monty and Izzy are killing each other, but still...
@yank:
Try Notepad, it is immune to dogs. :lol:
No worries, ya do get culture for religion buildings even those that aren't your state religion.

Canterbury is settled very aggressively. Now this presents a bit of a problem... what's the chance you won't get attacked while on no state... you can adopt Izzy's religion, but Monty will be on you. And vice versa.

I love this map. And not just because I "made" it. :lol:

Part 2 - 1060 AD Emperor/Normal


Started off by expanding the rest of the available land, starting with two cities to further block off montezuma:

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg

Got my first GS and used it for an academy in the capital. THen did some nice backfilling trades, alpha for IW+sailing to catherine, and math for hunting+meditation+priesthood. Hooked up some the iron source that appeared in my borders and got some axes/swords online, montezuma is a bit close for comfort and I don't fancy chariots vs agg axes!

Research path went currency, math (for philo bulbing), COL, calender, CS. Got my 2nd GS with which I bulbed philosophy while getting the gold city ready for GP farming, then took the two scientists off in the capital to focus on growth now the happy cap is higher from hereditary rule+calender resources.

Settled a city above left and captured that barb city because I could see issy thinking about it with a few swords going up there:

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0000-1.jpg

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0001-1.jpg

After CS I had to decide which religion to take since I wanted to use pacifism to get some quick GS for education bulbing, sadly hinduism which 3 AIs had wasn't spread to me, had to pick confu (izzy) or buddhism (monty). Decided on buddhism since montezuma is far more likely to attack me for being a heathen plus I wanted to take out izzy first later because of her annoying culture raping my cities at the bottom.

Switched civics to caste+pacifism+bureaucracy and cranked up 4 scientists in the GP farm city. Got some quick GS and researched paper then bulbed most of education, got my universities frantically built (love the cheap philo ones), then stopped just after 1000AD with oxford ready to be built in a few turns time. Have just got Lib a few turns ago too from which I took nationalism in order to open up the path to constitution.

State of things:

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/kdm_uk/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg

I really slacked on the military building throughout this and messed up the diplo too, had to give izzy calender and monty alpha to ensure they didn't declare on me hehe. Also I didn't even notice the barb city above right until it was too late and isabella got it, plus I didn't grow my capital enough I think, have happy cap of like 15 there.

Once representation and oxford are here in ~10 turns time, should have a much better techrate and be able to get up to redcoats pretty quick. Then its conquering time! Isabella followed by monty I think.

Hi

Monarch, Marathon, 1886 AD


Grr its still now over yet. The fight with cathy was a pit of a pain just cus by this time here culture was sooo huge it was like take a city and that city was swamped. Slug through the culture and take nxt cit and BOTH those cities STILL swamped grrr. I sped it up a lil beit by getting a second stack of nothing but tanks. They couldnt drop the culture defenses BUT with all her cities so near each other guided missles REALLY made a diff. People always talk about how useless they are and I admit I have never really used em b4. But in a sitch like this with tons of cities close together, they are cheap, you cant stack as manny as you want in a city, and they cant be intercepted so you can just throw as many as you need to wear down the garrisons. So as of now Cathy and meh are sleeping with the fishies so now its just down to me, hammy and Kubbie.

Here is what vic conditions look like at this point:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1886vicon.jpg

I have necessary pop pretty much locked but am still a bit away from land needed.

My empire now

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/empire1886.jpg

English colors starting to slowly but surely dominate the map :)

Tech sitch:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1886techsitch.jpg

FINALLY I am not behind anybody anymore and actually have a bit of tech lead going :D

Demos:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1886demos.jpg

Demographics are looking nicer now too.

So. Basically it looks like if I want to end this thing soon I am gonna have to kill someone else. Either hammy or Kubbie. Diplowise Kubbie is best bet just cuz I'm friendly with Hammy and Kubbie doesnt like me too much.

But I am gonna go after Hammy anyways hehe :P

Why? well several reasons. First, I dont enjoy major naval invasions. They can be such a pain. Besides while I have enuff of a navy to guard my coast I dont have a navy big enuff to launch that kind of attack so I would have to build enuff tranports for my units and enough escorts and Id really RATHER not do that hehe. My military pretty much built for land conquest and they are already at Hammy's borders so it just simpler, quicker and easier to go after hammy next.

Second reason is this:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/hammyborders.jpg

Hammys cutlrue is REALLY pressing on a LOT of Cathy's old cities. I'd have to keep back like half my army just to keep those cities from flipping but since cities cant flip to civs your at war with (at least I dont THINK they can) if I DoW hammy i wont have to worry about it. (and even if they CAN flip still taking out those cities of hammy's will put a stop to THAT hehe)

Finally Hammy is just being a annoying. I mean look at this:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/hammybegs.jpg

I FINALLY get a lil bit of tech lead going and he comes a begging. Where was he when he had techs that I didnt yet? Did he drop by and offer me some help? NOOOOOO. But now all of a sudden he's expecting freebies and thats just rude :P

Also:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/1886top5.jpg

He's keeping England from a clean sweep of top 5 cities and that just WONT do.

And if you also notice from that pic--he's HOGGING ALL the shinies!!! they SHOULD be mine dang it. ESPECIALLY Eifel tower. Why eifel tower? Well by now I have probably played hundres of games. True lots of games are over by time I get to modern era but there still LOTS of games which have. And of those games I its probably like less that 10 where I DIDNT build Eifel Tower. Eifel Tower is MINE dang it. I been reduced to building broadcast towers in my cities and I NEVER build braodcast towerscuz NORMALLY I dont have to thanks to MY eifel tower :P. ANy civ TRYING to build it is being insulting and any civ who ACTUALLY builds the thing well thats just an act of WAR GRRRR.

So you can say from a logical and objective standpoint Hammy has to die :)

So thats the plan now. Get MY eiffel tower un my control the way it SHOULD be and hopefully the land taken in the Eifel Tower Jihad will get me over the cap for a dom win :)

So thats the plan wish me luck :)

Although honestly I am pretty confident at this point I wont need much luck. I THINK i have enuff mil power to take out hammy and keep Kubbie from getting froggie. People who been following my game know its not always been like that though since I started out waaay behind and it took a LOOONG while to get a decent tech rate. Part of it I think was not using the land well. Up north:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/northempire.jpg

This area up here just didnt LOOK all that cottage able to me so its mostly farms and mines. But that said it also wasnt all that food heavy either. And down south:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/southempire.jpg

I did TRY and use cottages and I count like around 15 or so in that area which for me is a lot but still I guess I should have tried to figure out ways to get more. I think that ws the problem up north no cottages but not enuff food to really run tons of specialists so I didnt use philo trait much. And down south SOME cottages but not enough to use Fin trait really. I think on my regular levels noble and even prince I would have made up for it a bit by being able to grab a cpl of xtra wonders to boost GP rate but I didnt here. Only wonder I made was GW and then I TRIED for GL but lost it by like 10 turns. After that NOOO wonders till Pentagon. It was soo bad that that lil city up north brighton actually spawned a great scientist from its national park specialists. Yeah THATS how SLOW my GP rate has been. A national Park city ACTUALLY managed to get enough points to spawn one. NORMALLY so many GP's would have spawned by time I get a nat park city up and running that it would have NOOO chance of getting enough points in time. And fact that this time it did and I even had a philo leader it just inexcusable I SHOULD have figured out how to get more even without wonders.

Looking back another thing that MIGHT have hurt me was I bulbed philosophy whit a GS. And then IMMEDIATELY whored it around for ALL I could get. In short term it got me LOTS of techs. But in long term giving it away to all the ai's might be reason why they were able to get so far ahead so quickly once my economy started tanking so maybe next time I should just hold on to techs like that for awhile.

Oh well it doesnt seem like I used Lizzys traits, the map, or even tech brokering very well. But despite not playing all that well it looks like SOMEHOW I still got to a point where I think win is all but guaranteed. YOu know what they say. SOmetimes its better to be lucky than good hehe :P
Kaytie

PS.

Just a cpl of screenies I thought were amsuing:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/Mehcaraval.jpg

I must have missed the part of the attacko guide that said caravals are superior when Tanks and Bats are headed your way hehe

and:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/whipbarbies.jpg

wow those barbies been busy hehe. All those rifles and only ONE pop even though that city has sheep and rice and a windmill? Can Barbies whip units? It the only reason I can think of that city being one pop at this point in game :/

Meatbuster:


I always try to settle aggressively when i can - it did cause me to self-tech IW, which is typically pretty rare (usually trade aesthetics for it), and it just looked like such a great cottage city (which it has been). Somewhat risky if an early DOW happened, but on monarch, I figured I could easily defend if that happened. Each of my southern cities quickly spit out a couple units, so I had enough defense if Izzy or Monty got uppity early.

It is a great point for aspiring monarch players though - always be cognizant of your military - I like to have one of my first three cities spitting out units exclusively. Here it was my fourth city that did that, but it still worked out.

I did make the mistake of not settling any of my seafood sites early enough, so health was an issue early in the game, which should never be the case.

Monarch normal 1000 AD to about 1650 - still a short mop up round to go.



I decided to hold off on lib a bit since no one else has edu yet. Head toward rifling instead. As I’m starting to settle the rest of my land, I see this:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg

He has a few more units in another of Izzy’s tiles. He’s also annoyed with me and likes Catherine, so I wonder who he’s coming after. Sure enough:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

Let’s make it tougher on him:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg

That sends most of his units back to his borders. Upgrade a couple horse archers to knights, and it’s a minor inconvenience - didn't see another unit for the rest of the "war". No one has education yet, and I’m at replaceable parts…so continue to save lib. Building maces for the quick upgrades too. Not surprisingly, this happens:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg

He’s already at war with Hammy, so he doesn’t even have a Monty stack. A few knights and catapults cause some minor inconveniences, but I had half a dozen longbows in the city closest to him anticipating his DOW. All meaningless since we’re closing in on redcoats. Let’s give him more to think about though:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0014.jpg

I didn't realize Kublai wasn't on our landmass - he's not going to be an effective war ally like that!

And lib-rifling.

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0016.jpg

Pop a GM – send him with a few knight escorts on a trade mission so I can upgrade some of these maces to redcoats. Time to die Monty…

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpg

And now it’s time for some unhappiness…

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0019.jpg

Here I come hindu holy city:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0020.jpg

Oooh…Notre Dame and Pyramids too. Meanwhile, I run a couple trade missions to keep deficit researching toward the first of the three game winning techs – communism. A couple more cities, and he’s ready to cap, but I’m not taking him as a vassal with just 2 cities. He won’t trade a tech for peace, so I have to march onward. He of course gets grenadiers to frustrate me a bit. And he's off the continent:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0022.jpg

Of course, he has a little island city, so I just take a cease fire. I have plenty of happiness resources, so no matter. Kublai beats me to communism - he’s starting to take off. Bastard. Oh well, I use my next GM for a golden age and all important civic switch:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0023.jpg

And my sweet princess Izzy, it’s time for me to backstab you for a change…

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0024.jpg

Still not using any siege – redcoats don’t need siege against muskets and below. Siege is being built for the next target (Cathy), but Izzy gets mowed down with relative ease…

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0026.jpg

Another holy city too. Next up will basically be a few turns of healing, heading to AL & artillery and continue destroying. What’s made this easier is all the warring izzy and monty did –neither of them had nearly the troops they usually would in a more peaceful game. I was late on Kremlin, so Kublai beat me to it. Haven’t built a single world wonder this game, and it looks like I won’t be at this point – that was the last one of any interest to me. Cities and tech:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0027.jpg

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0028.jpg




Edit - to mid 1800s dom win.



Everything on autopilot now – cannons & redcoats, soon to be artillery and infantry. You know what’s really funny:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0029.jpg

Check out his traits. I forgot I still had my modded leaderhead info in custom assets when I was toying around with creating a PHI/IND leader. I would have thought he’d do better as PHI/IND, but apparently the AI can’t maximize that combo the way we can! Anyway, some healing, tech off after artillery to upgrade, and here comes the onslaught:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0030.jpg

Cathy was willing to cap BEFORE I took a single city, but I was concerned about the land limit for dom, so I quickly split my stack into 3 and raced through her cities. Teching to mass media as well for possible diplomation win – we’ll see what’s fastest.
I opt for some one on three action!

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0031.jpg

Fight Hammy, Mehmed and Cathy all at once. It doesn’t go well for any. Cathy:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0032.jpg

Mehmed:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0033.jpg

And the dom limit is hit as I'm finishing off hammy:

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0034.jpg

Builds below – not one world wonder built, although I controlled most by game end. Score about 95k – about right for a lazy game.

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii402/michmbk/liz%20monarch/Civ4ScreenShot0035.jpg

Immortal / Epic
To 790 AD


This round was more or less fine-tuning diplo and teching like a mad man!
Philo-bulb, 1 turn before the golden age ends (civics switch!)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/PhiloBulbMonarch1.jpg

I continued teching to Civil Service. In the meantime, I trade CoL + Music to Izzy for Currency + Calender. I also dec'd Mehmed for diplo reasons, and gifted Monty a couple techs to get him up to Friendly.

After that, nothing really happened. I went a whack tech route, going Civil Service -> Feudalism -> Nationalism? Yeah, I went for Nationalism :D

Mehmed vassals to Hammy, and I bribed Monty back into war with Izzy. I destroyed the barb city up north, and re-settled it in a better position.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/BarbiesGone.jpg

In the meantime, I built walls and barracks in all my cities to boost my power and prepare for a Cav or Rifle war vs. Monty. I also started to customize my cities better, and started to whip some courthouses.

My GPF, York:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/York.jpg

I bulbed Paper half-way through Nationalism and starved York to bulb most of Education the same turn I finish Nationalism:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/EducationBulb.jpg

Once I finished Education, I started on Gunpowder. I also finished the Courthouse and University in London, and started on the Taj Mahal.


This is where I decided to end it. I would like people's opinions on what I should do. I am almost 100% sure I should do a Cav / Spy war vs. Monty, then switch it around and go for Izzy right after. I will switch all my Espionage points to Monty now.

Demographics:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/Demographics790AD.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/Overveiw790AD.jpg

However its like that it just about every thread like this in LHC, NC, PYL, etc so ppl so used to doing it that way all the time it might be diff to start getting everyone to change SOP now :/.
Kaytie

Point taken. :dunno:

Kadazzle:


The difficult part might be production with only 8 cities. I had a bit of the same challenge initially as it was slow going producing units with only 8 cities. Do you have any more land you can settle? If you can fit a couple more cities in that have decent food, you might be able to whip your way to an edge. Once you get Monty's or Izzy's land, should be easy to then snowball your way through superior production to a win - that's how I played it. I started with 11 cities as I was approaching rifling though.

But I like the cav/spies approach - probably would be faster than my redcoat drafting approach with the 2 move units.

@Churchdown Yank & All City Placement Commentators

Below is a still-quite-early dot map and city placement querie. Have a go at a dot map, blank enclosed.

Spoiler to 2175BC



Update 2175BC [/SIZE] Okay, we got two new resources not shown below. I'll explain after the original copy.

So I am eyeballing that far southern site I've called Aggro and I just wonder if that would work. When Monty's boarders pop, they won't take the stone. It may provoke Monty to war sooner, which is not along the lines Chrchdwn and I were exactly thinking. And it is distantly extended , with the accompanying distance penalty, but I have no way of calculating the balance those two factors. Nice city, and war with Monty is coming whether I like it or not. If I did get the city of Aggro, then I would go after Coveted in a heavy rexing plan. Followed by Fill-in, perhaps. Or rather than Fill-In for the 3rd one, I could go north for econ resources to catch up on research and start paying for all this rexing. I like Aggro's cottaging/river opportunity potential in addition to the great resources...But is it madness? :crazyeye:

This decision has everything to do with war and survival. I have a worker in the cue, followed by a settler, then garrsion troops, maybe tech to arch. (currently just 3 warriors).

Update 2175BC (continued)[/SIZE]
One new resource: cows near proposed near copper and now I'm all in. Kind of a pet project, now. One that has reasonable odds of getting me killed. 2nd new resource is Iron that could be cought by a slight adjustment to proposed Coveted city. This undermining the copy appeal at aggro, of course. But lots of hammers from these two sights. I'm still all in... We shall see. Burning question remains: when will war come?

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk101/Fidardorist/MonarchIearlycityplacement0000co-1.jpg

Here's a blank version if you want to post your own dot map.

Thanks

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk101/Fidardorist/MonarchIearlycityplacement0000.jpg

fidardorist:

It makes sense to aggressively settle towards the neighbors, especially if it means blocking land. Placing a couple more cities south effectively blocks your whole peninsula for development.

Having said that, you'll want to quickly get a site with food and hills to start churning out units. I wouldn't necessarily go to archery yet - on monarch, there's time to tech both BW and AH before dealing with barbs. If you don't get either nearby, then yes, archery. Otherwise, you can build early defensive units based on horse or copper.

Looking at your screen, i would have been better served settling the plains between the corn and the rice - it gets three hills that can be worked early. At size 5, it can churn out units pretty fast. If you settle near the stone, you might make the corn rice site a priority, and make it a unit pump (granary/barracks, then units).

@Kadazzle:
Well the land between you and Monty/Izzy seems rather sparse. Barring culture, I'd think there would be room for two cities there.

You seem to be in a pretty good position for immortal. Your scientists are really well-timed.

I know another reason why the AI is slow... I gave the player 2 silver and 1 gold. :lol:

A cav/spy war isn't something I've done before, I'd love to see it unfold on the big screen.

@Fidarionist:
I wouldn't really settle #1. It's far too aggressive and costly in maintenance for my taste. And you'll get easily beat to that site as well.

Round 2 Report. Monarch/Epic.

Not particularly happy with this round, but not really sure why. I guess I feel it was a little sloppy. I didn't stick entirely with my plan... read more below.



Didn't build either Colossus (Cathy) or GL (yet - no one's got it, but I haven't started it either). I did build up my military, but that's lagged again near the end of the round while I'm waiting for machinery to finish (next round) and start up some xbows on the way to CS and macemen.

Didn't bother with monastaries and culture buildings to pop out borders with Izzy either. Decided that other buildings (granaries/forge for instance) and some defenders were more important.

Popped a couple of more cities up north to backfill that land in a measured kind of way. Was tempted to go for calendar, but went more along the lower tech path for metal casting/forges which gives the +2:) from gold and silver along with the production bonus. Did a lot of tech trading with Cathy/KK/Mehmed to get Monarchy, Calendar amonst other things for CoL and MC.

Cottaged a lot. Popped 1 GS and built academy. Like michmbk I'm finding that I'm using FIN a lot more than PHI. Gave away a surplus resources for diplo. Gave in to all demands except religion change and war. The diplo situations kind of a mess, although I'm #3 in approval so that should be ok for now, although who knows when Monty might explode. If he does though it should be at Izzy. They've fought once already. Mehmed joined in beating on Izzy.

Teching well - although Cathy is running away atm. I'm hoping to get CS off her for machinery so I can open the can of proverbial whoop ass on Monty with maces/cats. Cathy's friendly so that's one less thing to worry about.

I think I'm in a pretty ok position, but have a feeling I should be doing a little better. No wonders, 1 GP, nearly last in military again and only 3rd in GNP bugs me. Also I'm not really filling out my world map.

I'd really like to start leveraging the PHI trait and bulb my way to Edu/Lib quickly and find a way to get banking quickly along the way to get banks and universitys up. Get maces up and going for either solid defense or Monty attack. Would like to be tops in land, pop, GNP at the end of the next round along with at least mid level diplo, military and near the top in tech. That's the goal really.

Then many victory options should be open

http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p459/gcm4738/msplayout5050000.jpg

http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p459/gcm4738/msptechs5050000.jpg

http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p459/gcm4738/mspdemo5050000.jpg



and @Fidardorist re city placement



My cities are placed exactly where I wanted them. Wouldn't change one thing about my game there. So compare my map to your dot map and you've essentially got my comments. Your city 1 is too aggressive and not worth it. Will get eaten by culture (or attacked) and for no real reason other than the stone. I don't think you want to be the meat in the Monty&Izzy sandwich!

Your other blocking cities are essentially where I've put mine, although mine were a little more south to capture a bit more territory and resources



edit: this time I should have said 505AD :)

Hi

Monarch, Marathon, 1891 AD dom win :D


Well I started the eifel tower jihad as planned. Like Cathy slogging thru Hammy's culture was a PAIN but eventually:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/takingeifelcity.jpg

We managed to take dur something or other which:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/eifelmine.jpg

Eifel was mine :)

So with mission accomplished we diced to be merciful and call off the jihad.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/Hammycaps.jpg

Hammy agreed and with that I checked Vic conditions:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/finalviccon.jpg

Everything looked peachy now so I hit shift return and:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/vicnotice.jpg

I get a dom win :D

The final graphs:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/finalgraphs.jpg

Not exactly sure WHAT is up with the AI's and their EP points but they were POURING it on WHOLE game at me :/.

Final demos:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/finaldemos.jpg

They look nice at the end but I DID have to struggle a bit to come from waaay behind so it isnt REALLY as lopsided as final demographics makes it look.

That all adds up to:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll203/KaytieKat91/civalbum3/MSLizzy/finalscore.jpg

A pretty spiffy score considering how bad I played this gamer. Poor use of traits, poor use of the land, poor city selection, poor tech brokering. I just have NOOO clue how I won this game. ONLY thing I can say I did well was diplomacy. Not just keeping monty off my back but at one point I had FOUR AI's friendly with me. And aside from Mehmed who was just a one city boytoy for Cathy I was NEVER anybodies worst enemy until I actually attacked em. Which was waaay diff from NC Louis game in that game I had such a strong start going I just told ALL the ai's to go take a leap when they bugged and at one point I was EVERYBODIES worst enemy at the same time hehe.

But even with that I was lucky. Any other AI besides cathy who was pleased with Kubbie when he started feeling froggy and I WOULNT have been able to bribe her into dowing on him. But its still a nice win at the end specially since its waay above my regular diff level so I'll take it :)
Kaytie

Relaxin' Time
Monarch/Normal

1AD



http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0000-9.jpg

Moved warrior SW and settler NE - decide to let 2nd city work silver and grab rice/corn with the capital. Very short term silver is better, but intermediate short term the extra food will make for a better bureaucracy city.

Tech out - AG, BW, Myst, Wheel, Pottery, IW, Writing, Sailing, Math, Currency, Poly, Aes, Lit, PH, Monarchy, Fuedalism, MC
Very odd tech path I know - getting CS earlier would have definitely been smarter, but I was not playing that well apparently :crazyeye: Long term goal is Calvary from Lib, however the land is nice and the neighbors are being bribed to war so tech pace is slooooooooow. Only trade was MC to Cathy for Calendar and a stack of gold shortly after 1AD. Use only GS so far for Academy in London. Diplo is precarious as Monty will attack me and kill me if I let him drop out of constant war with someone.

Settle silver/rice, jungle gold/fish, jungle banana/spices initially. Get library/GS in London then pump out 3 more settlers for NW silver/fish, wine/deer, and corn/iron. Machinery is slotted, but up next is actually CoL > CS.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0001-8.jpg


1000AD

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0002-6.jpg

This game is over essentially. Only a surprise Monty DoW while he's at war anyway would be trouble and even then he'd take my southern cities, force me to take them back and then start in on the war earlier than I had desired. Next couple GS build academies in the jungle commerce cities (the SW two). Grab Music GA for Golden Age and swap civics. No bulbing so far and after PP will probably self research Education. Get down Oxford to finish push to MT, RP, and Chem (for workshops), then take Rifling from Lib. Upgrade Knights and go take over the world. Still missing a leader though, so just rolling over the map for a quick series of capitulations seems to have a snag.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0003-9.jpg

Heh, I see most people in this thread are waiting for redcoats before attacking. UU respect?
Perhaps the next post of MS^ should have a more aggressive settling conditions to it, with an earlier UU. I want to see some medieval warfare! :lol:

@Yank:
I don't really see much problems with your save... just a few cents:
1. If your first GP was a scientist, then you're actually good to go. Just make sure you get more in the future.
2. Nottingham could be 1NE to be in the river and still grab the calendar resources.
3. Maybe you can chain farm to Canterbury and remove all the jungle too. Plus it is unhealthy. Short-term, plopping a plantation on the sugar and clearing more jungle may solve your health problems. I see you're already on the way to guilds, so Grocer might be just the key. Oh wait, do you have an aqueduct up yet?


@Lansky:
You're... an Immortal player right? Ya have a pretty good tech lead.

PP before Education? Whoa. :D Staring at your map, I can see the immediate benefit.

Hmm... why haven't you backfilled your land yet?
I think Newcastle may be better 1N for slightly less desert.

@Kaytie:
Good job winning, and you didn't even have to deal with KK! :lol:

Meatbuster


Yeah I play immortal and lose deity these days. Fun leader and a nice map so gave it a go. I actually think that the silver enticed many into a subpar capital. Lots of plains with only unirrigated corn and a flood plain for food. A few extra food/grass cottages with a financial leader will be a much better mid game capital, while a second city working the rice, silver and a few farms post CS makes sure the silver does not get wasted.

My tech path has been dumb to put it kindly. Delayed CS far too long and not going for Education earlier with a philo leader is also really um... yeah... :rolleyes:

Only one more city worth settling now would be to the far NE to claim 2x deer and the whale. At this point though just steam rolling the map seems like more fun. Getting some spies in London and have espionage focused on Issy/Monty. Cavalry/Spies will destroy them in less than 10 turns each. Cathy might be a bit tougher, but at worst she'll have muskets by the time I'm ready to move on. Long term Newcastle would be better 1N for sure. Just put it there so it could work a few hills/horse/fish and probably stagnate around 10 pop.

The way religions fell on the map for me not having a tech lead would be rough. Mehmed, Issy, and Monty all claimed one and Kublai shows up a bit later as a Confucian. Bribe them to war and sit back to watch the show.


Edit - Medieval warfare? Ewww!

Heh, I see most people in this thread are waiting for redcoats before attacking...


I might do some damage to [our southern neighbour] with macemen depending on the situation at the time! But yeah the major part of any warring will be with redcoats. Thanks for your other comments. My replies below...

I don't really see much problems with your save... just a few cents:
1. If your first GP was a scientist, then you're actually good to go. Just make sure you get more in the future.

CY: Yeah. This is a change I've made lately. That first GSci builds an academy. Then you can really wait to pop them for Phil/Edu etc. for Liberalism. So waiting to pop them out later is no big deal. I guess I fondly imagined I'd have a GEng by now (for GL?) or a pile of GSci's that I could use or save... It's just not happening.

2. Nottingham could be 1NE to be in the river and still grab the calendar resources.
CY: Possibly - but I think it's under enough pressure that I'd lose the banana. Not a big deal I guess considering there's food aplenty there. I just wanted to push as far south as possible really.

3. Maybe you can chain farm to Canterbury and remove all the jungle too. Plus it is unhealthy. Short-term, plopping a plantation on the sugar and clearing more jungle may solve your health problems. I see you're already on the way to guilds, so Grocer might be just the key. Oh wait, do you have an aqueduct up yet?

CY: That's in the plan. I probably don't (No - actually I KNOW I don't) have enough workers. 6 workers... so essentially 1:1 with cities and we all know 1.5:1 is better. I can get away with 1 to 1 on some maps. But heavy jungle, calendar resources, lots of cottaging and rexing means I really should have 3 or 4 more - although I'm just barely managing to not have to work unimproved tiles, so it's not dire. But the little guys are running around working all the time! And road building has suffered as a result. As to the sugars. Well they're pretty much the worst calendar resource aren't they? +1:food:, +1:commerce: w/plantation. Wow. As long as I've got plenty food and don't need it for anything else - cottage that sucker. It will be worth more in the long run. I guess eventually you might plantation over the cottage, but there's no need for that yet IMO.

I'm not that worried about health. No aqueducts yet. One thing I've given up on as I've moved up is completely obsessing about health (and to some degree happiness as well). They are important for sure, but if I have to run unhealthy for a while - so what? :) Unhappy is a little different. Although there are some times when I *don't* want to whip, and either monarchy or a calendar resource or something is coming online soon and there's no good way to completely stifle growth where I'll run 1 (or even 2) unhappy for a little while. The key for me is to try and make a reasoned decision about it and not just freak out and sell out my strategy to get rid of one unhappy dude. Which is what I used to do.

@Lansky



I agree about the silver/settling SE to get it being a bit of a sucker move. Not entirely, but long term London is not great for either food or production. It's really a cottage farm for me and that's part of why I'm not popping many GP. Of course that extra commerce early in the game made a *big* difference for me, so maybe ultimately it was a "pick your poison" type situation. But as the game has gone on, I've wished I could have it SE for the early game, then move it back for the food! :p Don't think that's legal though.

Edit - Medieval warfare? Ewww!
Er, what's wrong with attacking with Praetorians? :lol:

@Yank:
It depends actually, I fix health when happy cap is high, and I leave the unhappy citizen alone if I have a surplus of food. But if it can be fixed by a quick aqueduct, temple, cheap military unit or improving a resource...

Final two parts - quite a few random pictures

Monarch/Normal
1610AD



http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0000-10.jpg

Well Monty and Issy fell pretty easily! Longbows against Cavalry + Spies are a bit lacking. I ran a second Golden Age with a GS and the GM from Economics and used this Golden Age to swap to Free Religion and Free Trade as well as build the Taj Mahal. Researched Corporations and then Democracy followed by shutting down research, using the TM Golden Age to swap to Universal Suffrage and Free Speech. After a few stock exchanges went up in the larger commerce centers via rush buying the rest of the army was rush bought/upgraded and took out the backwards southern neighbors.

Rush buying is fun!

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0002-7.jpg

So let’s see, what does Cathy have to stop me? Oh goodies – NOTHING!

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0001-9.jpg

Without even taking a city and just destroying her SoD in the field she has seen enough. To be fair Mehmed had taken a few cities and decimated her interior up until a few turns ago when I bribed him to peace. He was dangerously close to capitulating her himself.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0003-10.jpg

The two city empire of Hammurabi is no longer “doing fine on its own”. I demand he become my vassal and he decides it may be best. Mehmed had also rampaged this guy and his two cities are far up north.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0004-10.jpg




1690AD – Conquest/Domination


Mehmed and I are roughly equal in power, however I am not too worried. His best units are the Janissaries that *just* came online. Meanwhile my rush buying is only gaining power from all this city capture gold.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0007-7.jpg

A few spies and pinch cavalry still mop the floor. It takes two turns but while my 40 unit SoD whittles down his enormous stack of roughly 90 units a small incursion force backs into his capital. No SoD. No capital. The route is on.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0005-9.jpg

Just a few turns and a few more cities later he’s willing to be reasonable.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0006-8.jpg

Okay now off to Kublai. My only 3 port cities on the east coast are rush buying a galleon per turn (~1100 gold) until I run out of funds. Funnel old/new troops to the SE coast by Mony’s old holdings and take a look at the Khan’s available units.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0008-5.jpg

Muskets behind CI enforced defenses. Will be the most annoying battle yet due to a lack of espionage to revolt cities, but at this point pure brute force will win it. When I have enough galleons to move about 30 units over I begin the invasion with another 12-15 coming every few turns. Start a final Golden Age (GS/GE/GM) just for the heck of it. I guess it speeds up Galleon rush buying. Kublai will talk, but not about giving up yet.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0010-4.jpg

This still does not change his mind.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0011-5.jpg

Slaughtering the rest of his reinforcements from the east does however.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0012-4.jpg

End game city shots:


London – Capital (Oxford)
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0015-3.jpg

York – GP Farm (NE/Great Library)
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0016-3.jpg

Canterbury – HE City
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0017-5.jpg

Nottingham – Commerce City (…that I wish I put Oxford in post Bureaucracy)
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/lanskyj13/Civ4ScreenShot0018-6.jpg

Nice win Lansky.

I lost my last save for this game, so I'm going to have to retire for this game. I feel like I was in a good position to snag Replaceable Parts with Liberalism (with a PP Bulb) and maybe dominate Monty / Izzy with Cavs + Spies.

Aw, too bad. I would've liked to see how you fare on this "easy" map on Immortal. Probably going to rout the AI but it would've been fun to see your progression through foreign lands.

Round 3 to 1200AD. Monarch/Epic



This round was pretty much on cruise control. Get existing cities growing/happy/health. Build unis/courthouses/some monastaries and a few units... that type of thing. Tech my way to macemen really. Then to Liberalism.

Still no wonders built. Built Nat Epic in London and turned scientists back on and wouldn't you know it - popped a GArt instead of a scientist :mad: So I started a Golden Age and ended up teching Liberalism the hard way. Cathy wouldn't trade anything towards it, and I couldn't bulb any of it! She should have probably got there first since she's got all the prereq's but went for Nationalism directly (?) Whatever. 1 turn and I'm there with Nationalism the pick.

Started the war with Monty about half a dozen turns ago. When I decided to go for it about 1000AD or so, he didn't even have MC yet and I thought my maces and cats would roll him easy. But when I DoW'd he had a couple of maces so he must've made some trades. No matter. 2 cities gone already and he'll lose at least a couple more. He'll either be gone or a non-factor. Captured the Bhud shrine and SoZ. Cathy's still friendly. My approval was up to 3 at one point, but after I DoW'd Monty I'm down to last?? C'mon give me a break! I even "fought" a war against Hammy last round. I hate the diplo in this game.

Still I'm tops in GNP, Production, Land area. 2 in Pop. Decent tech lead. Heading up to Redcoats and Stock Exchanges. Should be able to roll from here.

I'm still not happy with this game. I mean - I'm having fun playing it and all. It's a fun map. But I have this nagging feeling I should be doing something differently - or better, but I can't think what. Still not happy about lack of great people and production feels poor to me. I'm really surprised to be tops. Must not be a very production heavy map.

I'm going to feel almost bad thrashing Izzy. After that it's not so easy with Mehmed and so on though. But the redcoats should be able to handle it.

http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p459/gcm4738/msp1200layout0000.jpg

http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p459/gcm4738/msp1200techs0000.jpg

http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p459/gcm4738/msp1200demo0000.jpg

Heck, I'll give it another go. I'll settle differently this time, and potentially do a different tech path. Lets see how it goes.

Immortal / Epic, Attempt #2 (Lost the First Save)
To 2275BC


With the knowledge of the map, I decided to settle NE to get the Rice in the BFC. First build was a Worker, while I teched Agriculture. We meet Monty (Who founded Buddhism) and we also met Izzy.

After I finished Agriculture, (And found Cathy!) I went The Wheel -> Pottery -> Animal Husbandry.
After my worker I went Warrior -> (Size 2&3) Warrior -> (Size 4) -> Warrior -> (Size 5) -> Settler.
I used my Warriors to fogbust the north, like I did in my first game.
I only got two huts this game, first one gave me 51 gold (Had to spend 10 on a dumb event) while the second gave me another warrior! (Which I actually needed to help fogbust!)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/Monarch%20Student/GoodyHuts.jpg

After that I decided to get Mysticism -> Bronze Working.
After the settler, I went Warrior -> Warrior to finish off the fogbusting, then I will most likely go Worker -> Worker -> (Chop) Settler.

York:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/Monarch%20Student/York.jpg
I'm going Monument (Working Goldmine) -> Worker I think.

London:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/Monarch%20Student/London.jpg
Not exactly sure what I should do in London. Should I go Worker -> Worker -> Settler -> Settler? Or how about Worker -> Settler -> Worker -> Settler?

Here's my potential dotmap, depending on if I can snag those spots quickly enough (Might move #2 1S depending on if there's food down there):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/Monarch%20Student/Dotmap.jpg

Help and discussion appreciated.

@Yank:
I bet it's because you know that you're not really on top. Cathy has a tech lead, while KK has 12 cities and a score lead. You know that you should be attacking someone soon.

Also... red faces... unhealthy citizens... I wonder if there's anything you can do about it... trade resources? Aqueduct? Troops or resources?
@Kadazzle:
City placement is fine, just ya need to pop borders soon, perhaps I can see a settler or 2 slipping past them. And since you played already, you know 2 is where the iron is.

I attempted to play to the first checkpoint but I have got to work on my diplo. I told Monty to screw off too early and too little military and didnt work out to well. General question.....what does everyone do when EVERYONE requests open borders? I hate allowing neighbors OB because they will settle behind my line of border cities. But, am I screwing myself in terms of diplo negatives? Just curious to what everyone's feeling is about using OB.

The BTS AI will not cross over your borders to settle new cities. If you culturally block off an area open borders will not change that early in the game. Much much later they may do it after they have exhausted all other locations. You only have to worry about them capturing barb cities behind your borders in the early game.

I tend to liberally open borders, however in this game I never did so with Monty. I just bribed Issy to war with him (different religions!) after alphabet. Granted it sounds like maybe you didn't make it quite this far? Also keep in mind that you will not get negative diplo for closing an open border agreement on your own. Only for refusing to do so when requested. If you open borders with lets say Shaka and then see everyone hates him you can close borders without any demerits. You only lose the open borders bonus. All depends on who you want to please more, everyone else, or the guy they are all afraid of/hate.

Hi

Just a lil warning. The ai's tend not to like settling cities behind your borders but they do LOVE to capture barbie cities that spring up even ones far away from rest of their empire so watch out for that. I put off doing open borders for that reason to. I just made up for it by pretty much giving in to pretty much everthing else they asked for or demanded. That at least kept me from being their worst enemy and made them all prefer attacking someone else.

Kaytie

PS in posts where you actually give specific details like leaders or resoruce locations or other map info etc or whatever it usually best to put the post in spoilers :)

Emperor / Normal - 75BC
Moved the settler to get silver in London's BFC. Forgot the techpath. Have 6 cities and an academy in London. Isabella founded Judaism, which caused Monte, Mehmed and KK to dogpile her. Monte had enough on his hands and demanded rice. I gave in and he DOWed Lizzy instead. I still have no religion. I played a little sloppily without taking notes, so I don't have much to say now.

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz01.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz02.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz03.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz04.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz05.jpg

Wow, thanks for the information you all. I had no idea about that. Doesn't exactly say anything about that sort of stuff in the manual!!! I will remember that for the future and when i post my first checkpoint in a few hours!!!

Epic/Monarch 1st Checkpoint

Aight, here goes it!!! Any advice welcome!!!

Early techs started with agr/whl/myst/pot/wrt/AH/Alpha/IW/Cur/CoL/ researching Philo now

Early build order worker/war/set/war/wkr/war/war/war/set/gran/wrk/set/wrk/wrk/set/lib/ worker now

My granary is sorta in the middle of my order because I had a random event with a slave revolt!! Grrrr!!! And lost 2 pop down to 3 and needed somehting to get my pop back up. Also had two events in capital where i lost improvements and also lost my monument in the middle southern city as soon as it was built!!! Grrr again!!! Three warriors in the middle were to get fogbusters and increase pop to 5 which i promptly lost to that event.

In reference to techs popped BW on first hut (very sweet) was thinking initially writing-->alpha then backfill especially for IW b/c i already had two blocking cities, BUT no one was trading IW yet and i really was getting low on power rating and needed something other than warriors....had a barb archer almost take my cap!!! Missed founding Tao by a few turns on CoL then thinking beeline Liberalism for right now. Here's my land.
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0036.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0037.jpg

And my capital

http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0038.jpg

In reference to my cities, I have York producing mostly units axes/chars running 2 sci as well. Nottingham will also be producing units once i finish my lib, haven't decided if i will be running any scientists yet there. My cap is also running 1 scientists and i have one GS ready to pop in about 10 turns and the other in cap in 20ish, however I will be close to finishing phil (yes, i know missed the phil bulb) but hopefully i can build one academy and save the other for bulbing most of edu (let me know what you think about this) Here is the tech list, I am comparable with most civs cept a little behind cathy.

http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0040.jpg

The diplo situation is this:
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0039.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0041.jpg

Basically, I did a lot better with diplo and just gave into to everyone (I hate it but they will ALL pay later, trust me). Monty as already WE with Issy and Mehmed and already at war with both. If I can't get a stack together I might try and dogpile steal a city or two...what do you all think about that or should i just stay out for now and tech away to lib? I am friendly with Cathy and have been trading lots of techs with her, she is the tech leader right now and is very friendly with most cept for Monty of course. So, thats where I am at now.....thoughs?

Should really spoiler that. Giving up the name of an AI that Meatbuster spoiled anyway no biggie, but that's a lot of information up there.

[*spoiler]
[*/spoiler]

Just take out the asterisks and put the text in between.

Sorry didn't even think about spoilers.....first time posting a full shadow!!! Excited to see what people think...it should be fixed now!!!

Hi

@Teelman

I hate to be nag but really any posts with specific game info ESPECIALLY screenies really need to be put in spoilers. People are always at different stages of the game so spoilering your reports and making clear the date of the game they are in helps people avoid info they might not want to see. And even thought lots of people have finished the game people pick up games like this all the time. Sometimes months or even years after they were frist posted. So keeping things in spoilers is just good manners for them.

Kaytie

edit :hehe oops lansky beat me to it, sorry

Sorry about hijacking but i'm lost. Trying to post screens in the ffh2 forum and all i get are url stuff. i thought a i had a shortcut to a how and wow of photobucket but i cant find it.

@Teelman:
Let's see. I don't think you should bother with a war until you're REALLY ready. So while the prospect of taking a city or two is nice, if the AI's are leaving you well and alone WITH SPACE TO EXPAND, you probably should humor them. When you don't have anywhere left to go but into their territory, then it's time to start building up forces. Make sure you have A LOT. As you play more civ, you will be able to gauge how many forces you need in a given situation.

If the first set of capital letters is any clue, you have space, so backfill that damn land! You can wait until your UU for sheer dominance. Try getting rifling or at least rep. parts from Liberalism. Attack with coats and trebs (who are only there to batter down city defenses).

@d72:
[*img]http://direct.link.to/image.jpg[*/img]
Remove the asterisks and replace with the correct address, and you're ready to go.

@Meatbuster

Thanks for the input....i think your right i still can fit in another 4-5 cities easily. Do you have any input so far on my tech choices/build order/city location etc. I'm here to improve so if i did something stupid or unadviseable, pile it on me!!!

2nd Checkpoint 585ADHere's the pics
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0042.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0043.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0044.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0045.jpg

Southern border cities growing nicely. Room for three more cities dotmaped. Popped another GS and bulbed paper, saved me 25 turns!!! Switched to caste to get another GS to bulb most of Edu, GS coming in about 20 turns. Diplo wise not doing bad, pleased with 3, friendly with cathy, Monty is a little mad but still +2 with him. However, Cathy if friendly with almost EVERYONE and is teching very fast. She is giong to be the biggest threat I think.

@Teelman:
I noticed that your land is very sparsely improved. I can't see a cottage anywhere! I don't suppose you are using a mod that makes cottages invisible right? Where's the cottage spam I'd expect to be seeing in a Financial leader?

Oh I see what you're doing... improving a minimum of tiles, the only ones that citizens can work? Hammer-heavy economy? No cottage challenge?

Tech rate of estimated 125/turn at 100% in 500's AD? That's low!

Well, if we're going to look to the future, I would suggest going into Serfdom and building Hagia Sophia and more workers! Cottage every tile you don't plan to farm or plop a workshop/mine/windmill on! Unless you're on no cottage challenge, but still.

I'm a little lost here. It's been a while since I played a game and had no idea of what to do. Well, here I am again - I have absolutely no plan. I'll really appreciate it if someone can enlighten me.

Emperor / Normal - 1350AD

I don't know what to do of my land. It took me far too long to start improving it seriously and it cost me at least 200 yeaers. I only settled my northern cities very late and think I've hit the limit of my peaceful expansion. I have Liberalism pre researched, but I don't know what to take. Should I wait for Rifling? Do I take Steel now? Do I wait a while and take Democracy - build Kremlin and gold multipliers everywhere and crush the world at once? I think I could even wait until Biology because none of the morons has Education yet. They keep fighting each other over and over and don't seem to go anywhere. The save is attached in case anyone wants to take a look. I'd really like it if someone did have a look because I have the impression that I haven't played so badly in a long, long time.

Pics:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz06.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz07.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz08.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz09.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz10.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz11.jpg

@Meatbuster

Yeah, I got too focused on clearing all of the jungle away and working the resource tiles instead of cottaging ASAP. Will remember for future. Thank you

3rd Checkpoint 1500AD's Missed the third one by a few hundred years but here it is :)


All right. Basically I've been teching as best I could. I beat Cathy to Lib by two turns but couldnt get the pre-reqs for rep parts or even rifling so had to go with nationhood from lib. Monty is now vasseled to Issy but they are both behind in tech from wars and I think i can take them both on with a good redcoat/treb SOD which I am currently building. 21 turns away from steel and cannons. So things are looking up. Heres the pics
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0046.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0047.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0048.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0049.jpg

^ IT:


What's the problem? You have a massive tech lead and can just pick any VC (though Diplo might be a bit hard without bonking some heads, and Culture a bit time consuming) and do it. When you choose that just pick an appropriate tech for it and Lib it (Steel/Rifling/SP/AL for warring, Democracy for space, etc). Even the Economics GM is just free for the taking without competition by normal teching. Redcoat/Cannon domi would probably be easiest but the most obvious(-> boring :D ) choice. Cavalry with optional spies could be more fun.

Cottages aren't very mature or numerous but Emancipation fixes that in case you need more BPT. Only obvious improvement I see is some resource trades from Mehmed (nobody's worst enemy) and various gpt trades. You can also cancel some tribute trades.

P.S. How the heck is Monte 2nd in tech? Never seen him be anything but the last after renaissance :crazyeye:

@Silu

even on emperor i wont bother w/ spies, cav w/ flanking 2 to rule 'em all. 2-3 (top 4) defenders by city don't even deserve any extra micro to send spies {you need to have selected the target and switched espionage towards then built several spies and sent them beforehand}

I suppose it's a good practice to learn the revolt technique, though.

^
Yeah I was just trying to think of something a bit less boring or just not something-everyone-has-done-a-million-times like a rifle/cannon push. Most every game in this thread already did that (because of the awesomeness of red coats and bayonets) :p

Wouldn't bother with spies against pre-gunpowder units. Actually this could have been over already with a planned Cuirassier campaign with MilTrad from Lib, and even those wouldn't necessarily have needed spies. Still it can be fun to mess around with the espionage slider when you have an overwhelming tech lead :)

Looks like some of you guys are already finishing up this game. :D Time to start the next one. Hey, it's already September 3 here. Happy birthday to my girlfriend :lol:

@IT: Heh, so much sarcasm... about to get steel from liberalism... on Emperor...

Emperor / Normal -1822AD. The game finally got interesting!

Part 1:

I was preparing to take Silu's suggestion and do a variant of the cav/spy war: the tank/spy war vs Monty. I already infiltrated 2 GSpies in his cities and am building spies. I took Democracy from Lib, got the Merchant from Economics. I ran a trade mission with him and the next turn Monty demanded all the gold. :mad: Monty made everyone in the continent a vassal, except for Hammy and me. Then he went WHEOOHRN.
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz12.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz13.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz14.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz15.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz16.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz17.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz18.jpg


Part 2:

Then the inevitable happened:


http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz19.jpg






The problem (for him) is that, on the same turn, English scientists mastered a concept:


http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/msliz20.jpg





I haven't researched Combustion yet, but that's alright because he doesn't have Artillery or AL yet. In 100% :gold: I get almost 800 gpt IIRC. He's so gone! The save is there in case anyone wants to play "Let's spend some money and crush Montezuma like the vermin he is."


@Meatbuster:
It wasn't sarcasm, I was really unsure regarding the way to go. Monty solved it for me.

@Silu:
Thanks for the help. As you can see in the report, I am trying to follow your suggestion and do an unexpected type of war.

Epic / Immortal


To 1 AD

I decided to go Warrior -> Settler -> Worker -> Settler -> Worker -> Worker -> Library, grow to happy cap (7) for my build path in my capital, I also decided to settle the east city before the middle city site.

I got lucky, Monty and Mehmed declared on Izzy, so I was easily able to get down the 3 blocking sites I wanted. I kept everyone at Cautious / Pleased so diplo was decent,

Tech Path was BW -> Writing -> IW -> Sailing -> Aesthetics. After that I traded techs around and went the Lit -> Music path.

Currently, I'm doing the same tech-wise as my first attempt, but my cities are more mature and I have more room to expand still.

Empire:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/55ADoverveiw.jpg
I have enough room for about 2-3 more cities.


To 1000AD


Well, this turnset was fun. At the beginning everyone was still dogpiling Izzy, so as soon as Monty got Feudalism, he vassalized her. After that, I teched up to Liberalism, bulb Paper, Education, Liberalism (so it was 1 turn from completion), and Printing Press. At this point, I decided to tech up Guilds/Banking/Nationalism/Replaceable Parts/Military Tradition, and nabbed Rifling off of Liberalism.

As soon as I hit Liberalism Monty dec'd me and attacked me with a so-so stack, as he was still at war with Mehmed. Luckily I had been building Knights for my Cav + Spy approach and easily took it out. I got the Great Merchant from Free Market and used it to upgrade my units.

Currently how the map looks:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Civ%20IV/1000ADoverveiw.jpg

I will continue to take Monty's cities until I have his capital, and I also want to eliminate Izzy. At which point, I think I will just sit back and go for a Diplo win, as I know I'll be able to get it, and it will be quick.

*Note - Civics are Rep/Bureaucracy/Caste/Free Market/Pacifism.


I'll post one more time once I've finished the game.

Emperor / Normal - 1916AD.

I already won the game. I don't feel like finishing it up. In case anyone wants me to, please let me know that I'll do it.

Montezuma had three huge stacks and eventually took one of my cities that I quickly retook. I razed two of his cities and took another that I gave back for peace. After a while, I saw myself with two GMs that I used on TMs. I used the money to run deficit research to get to Flight and then I turned research off. Right after that I declared war on Montezuma. He lost all of his vassals, except for Cathy, who's now his voluntary vassal. He doesn't have the power to resist and, after I finish him off, the rest of the continent falls easy. I don't have to fight KK to get Domination, so it's all very easy. I can either switch to SP or run Mining Inc, that I founded. Some screenies:

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/ms/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/ms/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/ms/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/ms/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/ms/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/ms/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/ms/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/rafawalt/ms/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg

damn, that post didn't belong here x.x

Victory!!!
So, Issy vassalized Monty before i could ready my SOD. So i just killed them both and vassalized monty with his one city left on an island. Things got a little tricky cause KK invaded at the same but I took care of his inferior stack. Soon after, Cathy declared but I was able to hold her off and sue for peace while I teched AL. But, she vassalized with Hammy, so when I was ready i warred hammy, cathy(killed her first), and mehmed (another of hammys vassel). They fought like the scum they are because
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0051.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0052.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt232/ethiel/Civ4ScreenShot0053.jpg

First Monarch Victory, wasnt pretty but it worked!

@Teelman: Good job getting your first win on Monarch. Granted it was with a Financial leader. :thumbsup: Now time to work on the non-Financial non-Roman leaders. :D And don't forget cottages. Plus I forgot to tell you that plains are not just for workshopping. Depending on the city, sometimes a farm (w/ Biology) or cottages make it great.

Immortal / Epic


I finished off both the Aztecs and the Spanish (I was going to sue for peace with the Aztecs because the 8 unhappiness was really starting to hurt all of my cities. I took a look at my forces and realize Monty only had 2 more cities, so I took the push and eliminated him.

My army after the war:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/ArmyM1.jpg

Mid-war, Cathy dec'd Mehmeh and soon Vassalized him. I easily decided to tech up the Radio / Mass Media path, and decided that Cathy would be my next target of war. As soon as I finished Scientific Method I declared war on Cathy. I took one city (I camped between the mountains greek-style, and waited for Cathy's SoD to enter her city before I took it) then I healed in my newly captured city, waited for Cathy to rebuild her stack, then attacked again once her stack was in the city.

I decided to take peace because of war unhappiness, and because I acheived the goal of securing the gems I wanted. I will heal up my army, add some more troops then pillage through Cathy's land once more.

Cathy's old cities:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/PeacewCathyM1.jpg

After I made peace Cathy made the silly decision to dec on Hammy. Needless to say, I teamed up with Hammy after my peace treaty ended, and this happened:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/VassalizationofCathy.jpg

and this..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Mehpeace.jpg

I decided to put research down to 0% and run Culture 100% (Was still getting 500+ beakers because of SoL + Rep + Caste + Pacifism, so I was still teching decently) to try and get the Dom win as I was nearly at the land limit.

I still needed 8% more land area so I got my troops near Hammy's borders and prepared to attack. Just in case something goes wrong, I decided to build this and suite-up for a Diplo win:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/UnitedNations.jpg

Then, only after 2 turns of war vs. Hammy...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/DiploWin.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/ppplushies/Winscreen.jpg

A 1515, 283,958 Diplomatic Victory! :D My best score to-date!

Good game, and thanks for hosting Meatbuster! I'm going to sit out MS^2, as I've over-used the Romans, but I'll be sure to participate in MS^3! :D

@Kadazzle: A sort of backdoor, but still a win!

You're welcome.:D I hope to have the same "success" in MS^-3. No more powerhouses like Lizzie and Darius for now.

After thoroughly enjoying Monarch Student II, I gave this one a go. Here's how it unfolded. Alas, my noobish skills will pale in comparison to those of the seasoned veterans, but perhaps may offer some paltry amusement. :p

Monarch / Standard.

Settle in place...probably a mistake. Build worker->worker. Tech bronze->AG->AH. 31 gold from hut. Run into a bear on turn 9 so I have to flee. Then a wolf gnaws on my warrior so I have to heal, with the result that 16 turns in I still haven't explored worth a damn. Warrior recovers, immediately gets attacked by more woilves. Next turn, gets attacked by even more wolves. Pop a warrior from a hut. There are few trees so my chopping potential is limited but I hack out a second worker and use a couple more forests on a settler.
Turn 35 - find Isabella. Was starting to get lonely up here in the tundra with only hostile animals for company. Begin Mysticism because I anticipate needing to expand some borders on my cities soon.
Settle York down by the gold, sugar and river, can't do much but mine the gold until IW. Pop a scout from a hut. One of my warriors surprises me by defeating a bear in single combat.
Meet Cathy. Research pottery. lose a warrior to a barbarian warrior. I meet Monty, who has a high score and copper, and is near stone and floodplains too. Pop some hostiles from a hut.
So far I'm unimpressed with my start and my effort. Just haven't ound that many city locations that make my eyes pop and haven't hooked up any military resources yet. I found horses but in sub-ideal locations.
I somehow contrive to lose another warrior to a barb warrior, despite his being fortified on a jungle hill. Impossible, you say? I agree. The good (?) news is that I have nothing else to build than warriors anyway, thanks to my slow start, so there will be more where he came from. Reluctantly I settle Nottingham near some horses, but I'm not very enthusiastic about the poor quality site with all that barren desert. I build some barracks(es) in my cities for lack of anything else more immediately worthwhile to make.
Iron shows up in a pretty decent spot to the south with two food sources and plenty of hills. I research horseback riding since I need some excitement in this game.
Hammurabi turns up. It's 1000BC and I have done nothing really.
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/9421/civ4screenshot0106.jpg


Jump ahead to 500BC and I still haven't done anything really, yet I don't seem to be falling too far behind. Made a few tech trades here and there. Instead of my usual overexpansion I have grown slowly, plus the financial trait seems to be keeping me afloat. It's late at night and I'm sleepy so that may explain my lackadaisical approach - normally I'm whipping ferociously and rexing (badly), in this game I'm really lazy. Haven't even adopted slavery yet.
I have met the whole cast by now, but haven't explored much.
425BC - Catherine threatens me with doom unless I give her alphabet. Not in a compliant mood, I decline, probably foolishly (I have no army - a single chariot). I adopt slavery, now that she is pissed at me. Montezuma and KK declare hostilities on Isabella.
Catherine has "enough on our hands right now" so it looks like war is on the cards. I still have no metal hooked up. A generous trade with Monty nets me archery and organised religion for mathematics. Now at least I can make archers. I erect some defensive walls around York. Let them come, I say, somewhat fatalistically.
Then, even more foolishly, I acquiesce to KK's request to join his Spanish war. My armed forces at this stage consists of a chariot (which is off exploring the Ottoman empire) and some not-yet finished archers. Suicide? Probably.
In 200BC two good things happen - the borders of Hastings expand, allowing me to finally join the modern world and mine metal, and I finish researching calendar. My tech rate is decent. I deduce that financial is a good trait, considering that with my frankly pathetic effort in this game I am still somehow in the running. I research construction, fondly imagining that someday I may have the capacity for war.
The diplo picture is settling. Hammurabi is bugged about me trading with Monty. Catherine has just turned Hindu, placing her in Isabella's camp. I might as well go Buddhist since my potential ally Montezuma is the founder.

1AD - Now Mehmed is angry at me for refusing to forsake Hammurabi. Bad move. What the hell am I doing in this game? I seem to be offending everybody despite the fact that I have no armed forces to back up my tough guy attitude.
50AD I spot a smallish stack of Ottomans coming my way. I have York walled and archered so I'm not too worried, but this reinforces my feeling that have made an unholy arse of this game.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9281/civ4screenshot0107.jpg
Next turn, Mehmed makes it official.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6485/civ4screenshot0108.jpg
125AD My brand new shiny axeman (hooray!) gets well blooded as the Ottomans hurl their small stack onto the fortified York. Isabella declines my peace offer.
225AD - I make peace with mehmed, which costs me 5 gold.
350AD - Monty makes peace with Lizzy, the coward.
375AD - Imagine my surprise when Catherine finally declares war, not on me, but on her co-religionist Isabella!
520AD - I have now got a nice city-busting stack bristling with rock-chucking onagers, with which to pummel Isabella. She sends a stack towards York. Are we finally going to see the first actual fighting in this centuries-old war?
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6719/civ4screenshot0109.jpg
I send my axes out to meet them to prevent pillage. Catherine captures one of Isabella's cities, a former Barbarian settlement.
Faced with my axes, chickenshit Isabella retreats her stack. Then she moves it around in an annoying manner, not doing anything but tying me down as I must commit troops to defending my . .. .. .. . and there are too many jungles for her to hide in. I graciously give her ten turns of peace for five gold.
620AD I'm at peace and effortlessly keeping abreast of the tech even though I really don't deserve to. Financial trait = easy mode? So it would seem.
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/9062/civ4screenshot0110.jpg
840AD - Hammurabi makes a rather cryptic request...I have no idea what he wants, but whatever it is the answer is no.
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/7628/civ4screenshot0111.jpg
900AD - I was going to attack the Spanish, but then I discover she has massed axes and they are all shock promoted (probably from a quest or random event), and that I don't stand a chance against them. I am forced to rethink my attack plans and start building crossbows to counter all these melee units and researching civil service for maces.
1000AD- Finally convert to Buddhist. research engineering.

1090AD - Diplo picture - I'm not too popular, at least KK and Monty are pleased even if evryone else hates me - techs I'm about average. Adopt theocracy and bureacracy
1100AD - Great news as Monty declares on Isabella. The timing is pretty good, I'm still building troops on her border in anticipation of war.
Next turn Mehmed attacks Hammurabi
1140AD - Monty requests war with Izzy, I say hell yes. My stack advances on Santiago. The city is captured on the next turn with the loss of a few outdated axe-wielders. Catapults knock down the defences, axes kill the archers through attrition, then crossbows decimate the mostly melee defenders.
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/4099/civ4screenshot0115.jpg
Seville is a little tougher.
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8986/civ4screenshot0117.jpg
I sacrifice a couple of catapults, sacrifice a few axes, and then storm the town with maces and crossbows to massacre the melee units. It's cool that Spain has no horses, you rarely get to see crossbows play such an active offensive role. I raze the city since it is pretty close to York and Santiago and covers many overlapping tiles.
1250AD - Capture the wonder-festooned Madrid, decimating the assorted sword, spear and axe-armed defnders with my anti-melee wargear and wickedly effective trebuchets. Tech paper and start work on univeristy of sankore, my first wonder attempt.
Bulb most of education with my first GS.
1320AD - As I'm finishing off Spain (they have three cities left) suddenly Russia decares war on me. Turns out that Isabella has become Catherine's vassal. Hmmm. I'm currently teching Liberalism.
1330AD AP vote - declare war on Catherine. Sounds like a fine idea.
1360AD - Russian stack sighted near Madrid. I lose out on Sankore to the obnoxious Babylonians, who use a GE to thwart me.
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/7761/civ4screenshot0118.jpg
My main army starts back from the capture of Toledo to try to reinforce the cities of Madrid (which is quite well garrisoned) and Barcelona (which is not). In 1380AD the Russian column, well equipped with siege engines, elephants, maces and crossbowmen, assaults Barcelona, causing heavy causlties. The city holds, however.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/5208/civ4screenshot0119.jpg
A relief force of knights from Madrid descends on the remaining Russian forces and annihilates them with aid from the sallying defenders. "Sallying" is a misleadingly effeminate word for what they did, which was violent in the extreme.
Something I have never seen before - Montezuma as tech leader:
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/8694/civ4screenshot0120.jpg
1410AD - the wonder-filled Madrid gives me a GP, who I use for a golden age (boosted by the Mauseleum, which also came with Madrid).
1420AD - I get Liberalism and take the old reliable Nationalism. My armies have healed and head for Cordoba.
1470 - The Spanish civilisation been completely annexed.

1480 - Oddly enough, Mehmed takes exception to something KK said and declares war on his ass. A fresh stack of Russian troops is spotted coming through the mountain pass. Huzzah for sentry-promoted mounted units and their early warning capability.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/2489/civ4screenshot0121.jpg
1490 - The ever useful Madrid gives me a Great Engineer. The Taj Mahal is looking too good to refuse, so I throw it up right there in Madrid. :D The opportunity to stick that in Hammurabi's face is too good to resist, as I know he has been bulding it for some time. Cascaded Golden Ages for the win! I still have 4 turns of my present one left. There is much jumbo action at the mountain pass with elephants all over the place.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/427/civ4screenshot0122.jpg
I'm a little disturbed by Catherine's mighty stack of trebuchets, pachyderms and crossbows as it is tailor made to splatter many of my men (which are mostly knights, maces and crossbows). I give her a ceasefire in return for some gold to give me time to get more pikemen and dictate a battle on my own terms.
1500AD - Kublai Khan makes peace with Russia and asks me for aid in his war against the Turks. I consent, being a loyal kind of guy. My first stock exchanges start to appear, and holy crap I've suddenly got money.
1510 - The Ottomans surprise me by appearing through the mountain pass much sooner than expected. It's unfortuinate that Catherine controls that pass, a fort there would be most useful. Catherine annihilates an Aztec army (those two are still going at it). I attack and destroy the small Ottoman force which basically consisted of only a couple of knights .
1520 - I gain control of the Apostolic Palace.
1525 - The Ottoman army proper arrives, presumably wondering about the disappearance of their advance scouting vanguard. It's a balanced force of horse, pike, crossbow and macemen, with outdated but plentiful siege hardware. Quite formidable and I'm a little concerned.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6264/civ4screenshot0123.jpg
What's more, negotiations indicate that Mehmed is playing hardball.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/8310/civ4screenshot0124.jpg
However, I manage to talk him down to 100 gold, which is no problem for me, in the midst of back-to-back golden ages.
Researching gunpowder->replaceable parts->rifling and redcoats. Then my enemies will face my wrath.
1540AD - Great Artist at Madrid. Not sure what to use him for. Think I'll save him up for more golden age goodness, or a culture bombing situation may arise.
Kublai Khan is now supplying Russia with horses. Bummer.
1590AD - Declare a new war on Catherine, since she is annoying me with spies. I have cuirassiers, will get redcoats and cavalry in a feew turns. Montezuma is still warring with her and sending medium-sized stacks so we shall be fighting alongside him. Incredibly, I get another great person from Madrid - a prophet. This is madness. my golden age has just ended and I can start another one immediately if I wish...I haven't even completed the national epic yet (which is going in Madrid to capitalise on this insane GP fecundity).
1600 - Enter Russian territory.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/9200/civ4screenshot0127.jpg
1605 - Catherine inflicts a defeat on Monty north of Thracian. I tech rifling and start on Chemistry, begin building redcoats. Thracian is strongly defended, I lose about half my trebuchets to Cuirssiers which will slow me down, but the city cannot hold against my overwhelming numbers. I use the spoils to convert some units to redcoats. Surveying Catherine's crappy lands I don't expect her to live much longer, but she must be commended for a spirited defence.
1625 - A Russian stack gets mowed down by redcoats as it tries to attack Thracian. I decide to start that golden age now. What's the point in waiting? The sooner I have cannon the better. I will get another GP from Madrid in 6 turns.
1655 - Realising the hopelessness of her predicament, Catherine capitulates before losing any more cities. I turn towards Mehmed, who was caught red-handed stirring riots in Thracian. He will pay. My latest GP was a prophet who I settle in London. Before my golden age ends I want to change to representation, so I change from researching steel to put a couple of turns into constitution in order to trade for the rest of it.
In 1670 I discover steel, and thanks to my seemingly endless state of golden agedness I have so much money that I convert all my trebuchets to cannon immediately. I invade the greens next turn, joining KK in his ongoing war against them.
1680 - I use the Apostolic Palace to declare a crusade against the Turk. My redcoats vaporise a sizeable Ottoman stack in the field. Poor Mehmed simply has nothing to counter them with.
1685 - AP vote passes and now the Aztecs are in on the action too. Mehmed is facing four nations, including my Russian thralls.
1690 - Yet another prophet appears in Madrid (wanted a scientist) add him to the artist I got from Barcelona a few turns earlier and I have nearly enough for ANOTHER 12-turn golden age. Where will it all end?
The Turkish city of Samsun falls almost without a fight, its defences pulverised by a brief cannonade and its garrison routed by vastly stronger units. Mehmed decides discretion is the better part of valour and concedes defeat, laying down his arms.
The rest of the game is played on autopilot.
Declare war on Babylon, 1755. Hammurabi surrenders unconditionally in 1770 after losing one city.
It would be child's play to turn my all-conquering army, the sight of which makes nations surrender without a struggle, on my former friends and finish it quickly, but screw that. So I start working on SM->Physics->Electricity->Radio->Mass Media for the UN. The game lasts until 1840 something, diplo victory, 69,370 points.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/3932/civ4screenshot0133.jpg


Fun game, if unexpectedly easy. I should have been outplayed but just like in the Augustus game the AI was really dragging its heels where tech was concerned. Also in common with the Augustus game was a highly explosive selection of AIs who were destined to not get along and make for a lively game. :lol: Fun stuff, but I think I'll try something a little more subtle with the Bull, rather than just massacring the entire human race again. Thanks to Meatbuster, keep 'em coming. :)

@Nihil:
Financial does make it easier in general, but you don't seem to be that much ahead in 1100's AD.

I see your people are unhappy especially in the early eras. Funny how you left London undefended at one point. Try researching Calendar or switching to Hereditary Rule.

You allied with Monty... Everyone else on this thread seems to be content to eliminate him first. And yet, Monty still votes for KK in the UN elections. Sigh.

Haha, yes, undefended London...that was careless! :lol: I may have had somebody up north making sure there were no barbs, or I might have just left it empty out of thoughtlessness. Note that a chariot is about to complete that turn so it's not as bad as it looks. My opening in this game was a complete mess in most respects and I was lucky to come out of it with any sort of playable position.

The reason I befriended Monty was that Isabella was closer and thus more of an obstacle, and in my experience she is a completely impossible AI to get along with. Monty is often amicable enough as long as he has somebody else he'd rather be attacking than the human, or so I find anyway. I agree about the importance of calendar, getting that was (and usually is) important what with the plethora of calendar resources around the starting position.

Hoping it's OK to play old games. I'm going to play it. Never played as Liz.

Monarch/Epic to 1200BC


Moved settler 1 SE for the silver. Build order wen worker, war, war, settler, worker, war, settler, granary(whip), chariot x2, worker.

Tech path went AG, BW, AH, TW, Pottery, IW, myst, writing, aest,

Found 5 huts 4 was gold (186 total) and 1 barbs.

3375BC meet Izzy

3050BC meet mehmed

2525BC meet monty

2275BC settle york (gold,horse,rice,fish) but mainly it blocks off izzy. Builds war, monument, barracks

2200BC meet cathy

2100BC meet kubai

1700BC meet hammy

1575BC settle nottingham (corn, rice, iron city) builds monument, barracks

Land
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/landlizzy0000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/landlizzy20000.jpg

DOT map enough for 8 cities I'm thinking.

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/dotmaplizzy0000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/dotmaplizzy20000.jpg

Izzy is SW and monty is South. Looks like all other civs are west of izzy. I always try to rush monty when he is close by. I could use some advice here, If i rush him or settle peacfully. I have horses and soon iron will be hooked up. I think i can get 8 cities, all not great cities though. I've never really played a PHI civ before. Should i have had shot for writing earlier for libraries? As for FIN i only have 1 cottage, I know this is bad.

Any advice or problems in my play greatly welcome.

Thanks Mike

@ Mike:
Since you asked for advice...I can't remember too well as it's been a while, but I do remember that most of my PHI stuff came from conquering the Spanish and building my NE in Izzy's wonderspammed capital. :D I got crazy amounts of golden ages, have a look at my writeup sometime (it may contain spoilers...possibly not at this stage though).

Your first three cities are similar to mine I think. I never took out Monty as we shared a religion and common enemies. I did build some cottages, probably a few more than I usually do (ie very few) but my economy was never a problem on this map, especially once I got stock exchanges.

So my advice is pick somebody to kill, then once you get to redcoats you should be ready to conquer the world. I had a pretty easy time with Izzy when I eventually built a big enough army for the simple reason that she had no horses. Axes, crossbows and maces really splatter melee units.

@mjg:
Well there's nothing stopping anyone from playing old games. In fact, I want people to touch old games again in the future, that's why they're linked in the bullpen thread. :D

For this first game, I made sure this is a pretty easy map, and it should be clear at 1200BC about how advantageous the leader and start is. It's much more than a dream start.
An alternative to cottage spam would be going Monarchy instead so you can improve the three wines.

You could build a Lib in London or Nottingham to produce your first scientist.

Also yeah, you should've been building cottages earlier. Do you have enough workers? :D

@Nihil

Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll go after Izzy then. Just I am always scared Monty will backstab at some point. Maybe I'll open borderrs with monty and hope to get his religion.

@meat

Thanks. I lurked the other MS games but not this one. So i decided to play. I usually play Vic not Liz when I play english.

I might try the other MS games but I know the maps on them, since i lurked in on them. In the Nappy game I didn't look at others games til I was done mine.

I plan on building libraries in london (after the worker) and nottingham (after barracks). If i recall the worker coming out in london is the 3rd. I just got caught up connecting my cities and the gold and silver for the happiness.

@Mike:


Well Monty is always at war with somebody, so he must always be treated with caution. If he's fighting somebody else then it is possible to be his friend. If he doesn't have any other target, then he's probably coming after you...

I delayed adopting a state religion until it was clear on which side everybody's bread was buttered, which made it possible to dictate the diplo picture. I could also have sided with Izzy against Monty, but Izzy was a convenient target, and I can't stand that awful whiny woman. :lol:

To 250AD and it's not looking good,

Making a mess of this so far.

Tech order went math,masonry,construction,HBR, currency,

550BC settled hastings (fish/silver)

440BC settled canterbury down south (fish/rice/silk)

110BC finally raze barb city to norht of cap.

220AD fist GS born (really late considering I'm PHI.) academy in london.

This is where I am at. I was trying to build units to rush either izzy or monty, but can't seem to get a war started. Also I have made no trades and can't seem to pick a side to join and start trading. I am dead last in score and cities. I am not concerned about score, but last in cities and slightly under in power concerns me. I have done a horrible job getting economy going. I think I made bad teching choices.

Haven't taking Meatbusters advice going to monarchy for the wine and to raise happy cap. I have only 6 workers for 6 cities and few them are in jungle. It's like I'm just aimlessly playing this game.

Advice really needed and this time I will listen to them better. (sorrry meatbuster).

Land and tech.

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/liz250adland0000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/lizland250ad20000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/liz250adtech0000.jpg
Izzy and Monty's land.
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/montyandizzyland250ad0000.jpg

I don't have alphabet yet. Can't pick a trading partner. And don't know which tech to go for next.

Damn, looks tough. Izzy and Monty are co-religionists so you can't exploit any division there. But, you do have techs. Maybe you can bribe somebody to start a war that would be to your advantage.

I don't have BUG, but those fists mean a lot of people are gearing up for war, right? That's a little worrying, but with any luck they are going after each other and not you, which should open up opportunities.

edit - Hang on a second, after looking at your save I see that there are already a couple of wars going on! In that case, attacking Izzy may be feasible. I see you refused all requests for assistance in war. When I played this map I helped Monty and made friends with him that way.

Your power graph is plenty high enough to go after Izzy's perfectly rounded ass while she is engaged with the Aztecs. :D

Watch out for all those WHEOORHRNs, though. You don't have land borders with anybody but Spain and the Aztecs so you are probably not a target for now.

@Nihil

Izzy is at war with monty. Mehmed is at war with hammy. Cathy is in WHEOOHRN. Think I'll do what you suggested. I also need make few trades. Prolly with monty and kubai.

To 1565AD

Took Nihil advice and attacked Izzy. But before i did made some trades.

Tech path for this round COL, lit, CS, paper, calender, edu, mach, gunpowder, lib (took nationalism), guilds, banking, PP(bulbed), eng, RP, rifling (just finished.

250AD trades aest to mehmed for alpha
aest to monty for hunt, sail, med, and 130 gold

265AD trade aest to hammy for poly, PH, arc, and 130 gold

280AD trade aest and 95 gold to izzy for monarchy and switch to HR

430AD finally declare on izzy

475AD capture Cordoba and keep it

520AD settle warwick above london

610AD capture Madrid keep it and it has oracle
capture seaville and keep it
got GG settled in nottingham my HE city

625AD peace with Izzy for 120 gold and monotheism switch to OR

880AD bulb Philo but monty beats me by 4 turns for religion

925AD trade philo to cathy for fued

930AD complete SP and switch to theocracy

1250AD cathy declares on me and i play defense war.

1305AD complete TGL in london.

1335AD Peace with cathy AP vote.
Mehmed declares on me and again I play defensive. I am just beeling rifling and this point.

1370AD first to liberlism take nationalism

1380AD Use GE to finsh Taj and start GA

1400AD peace with mehmed AP vote.

1500AD Gspy pops and use for another GA.

1525AD trade paper to kubai for music.

1565AD is where I am at just finished rifling and now teching MT for Cavs. Gonna switch to nationhood and draft a bunch of redcoats. Mass produce some trebs and cavs once online.

Suggestions and advice always welcome as well as mistakes I have made.

land and tech

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/lizzyland15650000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/techs1565lizzy0000.jpg

Hammy and mehmed are annoyed with me. Cathy and izzy cautious. Izzy has 1 city and is monty vassal. Monty and kubai are happy .

To the end, 1851AD domination/conquest


I beelined steel and AL after i got MT. Then i just turned down slider to 0% science and used the gold to upgrade all units. Nottingham, Madrid, and york just spammed cavs, cannons, and redcoats/infrantry.

1695AD Declared on Cathy (didn't see def pacts with kubai and mehmed) so they declared on me.

1720AD Cathy vassals to me.

1740AD Redeclare on Mehmed after our peace treaty expired.

1746AD Mehmed caps to monty.

1754AD I declare on monty/mehmed.

1766AD Izzy finally dead. She had 1 city and was montys vassal almost all game.

1778AD Monty and Mehmed vassal to me.

1784AD Declare on Hammy.

1802AD Hammy vassals. Only Kubai left and he is on another continent. I had my 3 coastal cities producing frigates and galleons while i was vassaling Hammy.

1830AD Declare on Kubai.

1850AD Kubai vassals ending the game.

Domanation win although could have been conquest also.

Summary, I was in bad shape early. I took Nihil advice and declared on Izzy while she was fighting monty. Took her capital and 1 other city. This helped economy alot. Then i just beelined to get redcoats while holding off some defensive wars. Once i had redcoats it was cake walk.

Final screenshots.

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/Domwinlizzy0000.jpg
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/mjg5591/winningscorelizzy0000.jpg

92,977 one of my highest scores on monarch, so I'm pretty happy.




Thanks goes out to meatbuster for hosting game.

Thanks also goes out to people who helped me get this win. Was looking pretty glim at start.

@Nihil

Thanks for the help on the game. Attacking Izzy and getting her capital was prolly what I needed to win the game. Madrid was great city to get my economy back on track. Prolly could have one without it, but it made the game so much easier.