RemoWilliams
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2006
- Messages
- 183
Edit: The basic strategies outlined below are still sound, but the step-by-step walkthrough will not work, because the map changes every week. Many good points are made in the thread below, and I plan to write a new article/guide to the economics win, soon, using that, plus everything I've learned. Stay tuned!
Thanks to Vale in the 2k forums for the general idea. (see his post here: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18056&page=3)
I will now lead you in a step-by-step guide to achieving an economics win in the demo. The map changes once a week (if my information is correct), so this guide only applies directly to this week's map. However, the general information contained herein should allow you to win economics on any map, against the AI, at least. I'll give an overview of what I'm doing as I'm doing it.
Keep in mind, you may get different rewards from the barbs (I think?). It's okay, just follow the general strategy in that case. Kill Monte as fast as you can, get a settler out for a second city, and pump out settlers as fast as you can to Rome.
Start a single player match, Chieftan difficulty, as the Romans.
First, we need to wipe out Monte! Also, we need to get a settler factory going. With Monte's capital, and the one you build, you'll have two. You'll only have 3 cities throughout the entire game.
4000 BC: Move your warrior north 3 squares
3700 BC: Attack the dirty barbarians. Rush another warrior at your capital. Send him on his journey, to end up one square east of Teno.
3600 BC: Rush another warrior. Send him to the same spot. Send your third warrior to the same spot, as well. Accept peace.
3400 BC: Build settlers in Rome. Rush the settlers. Send them 3 squares north, and one square east of Rome.
3300 BC: Manage your workers in Rome. Either select science, or manually choose one worker for science, one for food. Heal the warrior who has arrived at his destination in Teno. Found your new city with your settler. Call it Pompeii (because I'm going to, for the rest of the guide).
3200 BC: Build settlers in Pompeii.
3000 BC: Form a warrior army at the hill at Teno. Attack!
2900 BC: Attack again!
2800 BC: Attack again, for the win (I think there is a bit of randomness, so if you don't take the city this time, heal next time, and you'll get it in 2600)
2700 BC: Build settlers in Teno. Heal your warrior army.
2600 BC: Heal your army again. Manage your workers in Rome. Select two science squares, and 1 production square. Rome isn't growing on purpose, we're going to hire a bunch of settlers from the other two cities to grow our population in Rome.
2500 BC: You should have completed Alphabet. Now choose Bronze Working. Move your warrior army to the tile two squres north, one square east of Teno (to the right of the mountain). Rush the settler in Pompeii. Switch to library in Rome. Switch workers in Rome to two production, one science. Move the new settler to Rome.
2400 BC: Build settlers in Pompeii. Add the settler that arrived in Rome to the city. Manage your workers in Rome, 2 science, 2 production. From now on, you will not work any food tiles in Rome.
2200 BC: Move your warrior army 2 north.
2100 BC: Research Pottery
2000 BC: Attack the barbarians. Rush the library in Rome. Rush the settlers in Teno. Send the settlers to Rome. Build more settlers in Teno. Build Collosus in Rome.
Now our goal is to rush as many settlers as possible to Rome, until we have 20 there, and then build the Hanging Gardens in Rome on the next turn after that.
1900 BC: Send your warrior army north to the barbarian camp. Research irrigation.
1800 BC: Rush settlers in Pompeii. Send 'em to Rome and build some more.
1700 BC: Join both Settlers to Rome. Manage your workers in Rome, remove the food workers, just leave them in the city because they'll add production.
1600 BC: Attack the barbarians. Leave the galley there if you get one, just choose defense. We don't care about it.
1500 BC: I got Imhotep (great person) here, and completed the colossus with him. Normally, this early in the game, you'd probably want the 50% to every new building, but this is the demo and we don't have a lot of time, and we can't get advanced buildings anyway. Send your warrior army two squares southwest. Here I started Hanging Gardens in Rome, and switched the tile back to science, because we don't want Hanging Gardens until we have 20 pop in Rome.
1400 BC: Now we've got irrigation, make sure to manage your workers in Rome.
1300 BC: Move your army southwest again. If you have the cash, rush settlers in Teno and Pompeii, send 'em to Rome, you know the drill.
From now on I'll just assume you're building settlers like mad, until I say so, or you get to 20 pop in Rome. Make sure you don't get Hanging Gardens before then! Manage your workers to food tiles around this time, if you're getting too close (I was ~10 turns off from finishing).
1200 BC: Kill the barbs with your army.
1100 BC: Send your warriors back to Teno. You should have finished currency. Research Democracy. Send your caravan to Athens.
700 BC: You should have finished Democracy. Pick whatever you want next, we are now going to turn off research. Go to the Rome city screen, and switch from beakers to gold. Remove any workers who are in the cornfields, and stick 'em back in the city. At this point in my game, I'm getting 44 gold per turn, and Hanging Gardens is getting too close for comfort. Switch to the Trade Fair wonder. Don't forget to rush settlers from Pompeii and Teno. If it's a choice between the two, choose Pompeii, since it's closer.
Continue rushing settlers to Rome until you have 20 there. Don't let Trade Fair build before that happens! We need to switch to Hanging Gardens and put all those hammers into it, so we can have 31 pop ASAP. If you can't stop them from doing it, building Gardens a little early won't kill you. Once you get 500 gold, you can build a bank, but I'd prefer to wait until Gardens because that would be a lot of wasted hammers. Also, it won't kill you to rush the Gardens. You can use your judgment.
200 AD: By now, by hook or by crook, by rushing or whatever you need to do, you should have build Trade Fair, Hanging Gardens, and a Bank in Rome (and you should have near 31 population. As soon as you have all these, switch to Democracy. (edit: I only had 29 pop at this point, but it's okay, I switched anyway. You'll likely get 30 with a great person, and 30 is enough, seeing as I won with 30)
350 AD: You should be generating 1500-1700 gold per turn in Rome now (remember not to grow your population!). Spam caravans to Athens, for the win.
If Alex starts to threaten you, spend some money on some Piker armies. He won't reach you in time anyway.
850 AD: I have 20,064 gold, but it won't let me build World Bank. Probably because I got the last little bit with a caravan. I'm angry.
900 AD: I'm building the world bank, and I'm somewhat mollified. May as well spam some pikemen armies to defend my cities, just in case Alex gets hungry!
950 AD: Cleo got hungry instead. Alex is willing to take a bribe to "flay them without mercy."
1175: I win with 3 turns to spare.
Thanks to Vale in the 2k forums for the general idea. (see his post here: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18056&page=3)
I will now lead you in a step-by-step guide to achieving an economics win in the demo. The map changes once a week (if my information is correct), so this guide only applies directly to this week's map. However, the general information contained herein should allow you to win economics on any map, against the AI, at least. I'll give an overview of what I'm doing as I'm doing it.
Keep in mind, you may get different rewards from the barbs (I think?). It's okay, just follow the general strategy in that case. Kill Monte as fast as you can, get a settler out for a second city, and pump out settlers as fast as you can to Rome.
Start a single player match, Chieftan difficulty, as the Romans.
First, we need to wipe out Monte! Also, we need to get a settler factory going. With Monte's capital, and the one you build, you'll have two. You'll only have 3 cities throughout the entire game.
4000 BC: Move your warrior north 3 squares
3700 BC: Attack the dirty barbarians. Rush another warrior at your capital. Send him on his journey, to end up one square east of Teno.
3600 BC: Rush another warrior. Send him to the same spot. Send your third warrior to the same spot, as well. Accept peace.
3400 BC: Build settlers in Rome. Rush the settlers. Send them 3 squares north, and one square east of Rome.
3300 BC: Manage your workers in Rome. Either select science, or manually choose one worker for science, one for food. Heal the warrior who has arrived at his destination in Teno. Found your new city with your settler. Call it Pompeii (because I'm going to, for the rest of the guide).
3200 BC: Build settlers in Pompeii.
3000 BC: Form a warrior army at the hill at Teno. Attack!
2900 BC: Attack again!
2800 BC: Attack again, for the win (I think there is a bit of randomness, so if you don't take the city this time, heal next time, and you'll get it in 2600)
2700 BC: Build settlers in Teno. Heal your warrior army.
2600 BC: Heal your army again. Manage your workers in Rome. Select two science squares, and 1 production square. Rome isn't growing on purpose, we're going to hire a bunch of settlers from the other two cities to grow our population in Rome.
2500 BC: You should have completed Alphabet. Now choose Bronze Working. Move your warrior army to the tile two squres north, one square east of Teno (to the right of the mountain). Rush the settler in Pompeii. Switch to library in Rome. Switch workers in Rome to two production, one science. Move the new settler to Rome.
2400 BC: Build settlers in Pompeii. Add the settler that arrived in Rome to the city. Manage your workers in Rome, 2 science, 2 production. From now on, you will not work any food tiles in Rome.
2200 BC: Move your warrior army 2 north.
2100 BC: Research Pottery
2000 BC: Attack the barbarians. Rush the library in Rome. Rush the settlers in Teno. Send the settlers to Rome. Build more settlers in Teno. Build Collosus in Rome.
Now our goal is to rush as many settlers as possible to Rome, until we have 20 there, and then build the Hanging Gardens in Rome on the next turn after that.
1900 BC: Send your warrior army north to the barbarian camp. Research irrigation.
1800 BC: Rush settlers in Pompeii. Send 'em to Rome and build some more.
1700 BC: Join both Settlers to Rome. Manage your workers in Rome, remove the food workers, just leave them in the city because they'll add production.
1600 BC: Attack the barbarians. Leave the galley there if you get one, just choose defense. We don't care about it.
1500 BC: I got Imhotep (great person) here, and completed the colossus with him. Normally, this early in the game, you'd probably want the 50% to every new building, but this is the demo and we don't have a lot of time, and we can't get advanced buildings anyway. Send your warrior army two squares southwest. Here I started Hanging Gardens in Rome, and switched the tile back to science, because we don't want Hanging Gardens until we have 20 pop in Rome.
1400 BC: Now we've got irrigation, make sure to manage your workers in Rome.
1300 BC: Move your army southwest again. If you have the cash, rush settlers in Teno and Pompeii, send 'em to Rome, you know the drill.
From now on I'll just assume you're building settlers like mad, until I say so, or you get to 20 pop in Rome. Make sure you don't get Hanging Gardens before then! Manage your workers to food tiles around this time, if you're getting too close (I was ~10 turns off from finishing).
1200 BC: Kill the barbs with your army.
1100 BC: Send your warriors back to Teno. You should have finished currency. Research Democracy. Send your caravan to Athens.
700 BC: You should have finished Democracy. Pick whatever you want next, we are now going to turn off research. Go to the Rome city screen, and switch from beakers to gold. Remove any workers who are in the cornfields, and stick 'em back in the city. At this point in my game, I'm getting 44 gold per turn, and Hanging Gardens is getting too close for comfort. Switch to the Trade Fair wonder. Don't forget to rush settlers from Pompeii and Teno. If it's a choice between the two, choose Pompeii, since it's closer.
Continue rushing settlers to Rome until you have 20 there. Don't let Trade Fair build before that happens! We need to switch to Hanging Gardens and put all those hammers into it, so we can have 31 pop ASAP. If you can't stop them from doing it, building Gardens a little early won't kill you. Once you get 500 gold, you can build a bank, but I'd prefer to wait until Gardens because that would be a lot of wasted hammers. Also, it won't kill you to rush the Gardens. You can use your judgment.
200 AD: By now, by hook or by crook, by rushing or whatever you need to do, you should have build Trade Fair, Hanging Gardens, and a Bank in Rome (and you should have near 31 population. As soon as you have all these, switch to Democracy. (edit: I only had 29 pop at this point, but it's okay, I switched anyway. You'll likely get 30 with a great person, and 30 is enough, seeing as I won with 30)
350 AD: You should be generating 1500-1700 gold per turn in Rome now (remember not to grow your population!). Spam caravans to Athens, for the win.
If Alex starts to threaten you, spend some money on some Piker armies. He won't reach you in time anyway.
850 AD: I have 20,064 gold, but it won't let me build World Bank. Probably because I got the last little bit with a caravan. I'm angry.
900 AD: I'm building the world bank, and I'm somewhat mollified. May as well spam some pikemen armies to defend my cities, just in case Alex gets hungry!
950 AD: Cleo got hungry instead. Alex is willing to take a bribe to "flay them without mercy."
1175: I win with 3 turns to spare.
