Monarch Specialist Economy Walkthrough 2

In this case, I also wanted to bulb liberalism in order to get started on the Taj earlier because I didn't have marble. In many of my offline monarch games I bulb education, but not liberalism directly. With a philosophical leader though, bulbing through liberalism directly is appealing because you are usually swimming in GSs. If you have pyramids then settling them all is another possibility, of course. Even without pyramids, you could also settle them, but it just depends on the game situation.

In the pregame thread it was suggested to me that I should talk more about diplomacy. So, I thought I would share my thoughts on diplo this game.

The closeset opponent was Napoleon. Napoleon's personality is that he will simply be content to grow in power until the renaissance age where he will come at you with large stacks. He can be difficult and demanding to get along with. He was close, I had horses, so I figured rather than give him a chance to come at me, I would strike first.

The remaining opponents on my continent were Churchill and Gandhi. Churchill is similar to Nappy in that he will be more likely to come at you in the renaissance. I didn't really fear an early attack, especially since he had a ton of land to settle to his east. However, I didn't want to totally upset him, so I caved to one of his demands and didn't do anything to really upset him. I wanted him to remain peaceful and expand to his east, while I beelined to hit him with rifles. Fortunately for me, he overextended his expansion, crashing his economy, and he teched very slowly this game.

In contrast, Gandhi is a punching bag. You can hit him as often as you want, and he won't hit back. He was also teching like crazy this game and founding religions. To me, this means, a late-game cultural victory if left alone. He can be a very nice ally in these situations because he will trade a lot of techs with you, especially if you get him to Friendly, which I did, by sharing religion, trading techs and resources, opening borders, and so forth. I buddied up with Gandhi for the tech trades, which meant that Churchill fell further and further behind in tech because neither me nor Gandhi were really trading with him (Gandhi hated him because of different religions). I knew that Gandhi would never be a threat militaristically, so I was content to keep him around as long as he was useful.

I will talk about overseas diplo after my next post.

Also, I was advised to talk more about city specialization. I will try and do so more when I post rounds, but let me say a few general things about city specialization in a SE. All cities will want granary/barracks. Granary is an essential building and in a SE all cities will be producing military. In cities that will run a lot of scientists, whipping out the science buildings (library/university/observatory) is a good idea. However, since running merchants for a crashed economy can be a semi-common occurence whipping out the gold buildings (bank/market/grocer) can also a good idea. In addition, due to high from whipping/drafting, whipping out the buildings is a great idea (market, theatre, colosseum, forge, etc.). This is a lot of infrastructure, so it is important to prioritize, depending on your needs. If you know you are going to be settling down to tech for awhile, then focus on the science buildings. If you are gearing up for war, it is a good idea to focus on the buildings first. If your economy is shattered and you need to rebuild, focusing on the gold buildings and merchants is the way to go. If you are spiritual, swapping into organized religion can be a very beneficial move for getting that infrastructure up. Buildings in a SE correspond to your cycles and should be built accordingly. Science buildings during your tech cycle. Happiness buildings during your war cycle. Gold buildings during your recovery cycle. Rinse, repeat as new buildings become available.

...Continued

Ok, this round my focus was on beelining to rifles in order to invade Churchill.

1050AD-GP #9, a GS:



I keep him in reserve for a second. I give fur and crab to Churchill for Ivory and 6/turn; also monarchy/lit to him for mono/50. I get something (can't read my own handwriting!), machinery, feudalism, and map from Gandhi for Phil/Ed. Then I use the GS to bulb most of Printing Press.

1080-Give Lib to Gandhi for Theology/Optics
1090-Finish PP, return to researching gunpowder
1140-GP #10, another GS, settle him in the capital:



1150-Gandhi settles an annoying city, signaling to me the need to settle my islands asap:



1160-Theo to Churchill for currency/40; need this for my economy
1180-Finish gunpowder, start guilds (unfortunately Gandhi doesn't have it yet); GP#11, another GS, settle in the capital (missing pic)
1230-GP #12, another GS, settle in capital (missing pic)

Found Eretria, a pretty strong islands city. I plan to put production improvements on all the land tiles:



1240-Finish guilds, start banking; guilds to Gandhi for HBR/940 (!!!) helps fund deficit research

1270-Finish banking, start replaceable parts
1290-Found Pergamon:



1310-GP #13, a GM (keep reserved):



1320-Complete the Taj:



This allows me to make a civic swap anarchy free:



I figure HR can't hurt, although I didn't really need it to this point with all the happiness resources.

1340-GP #14, a GS, settle in the capital:



1350-Replaceable parts in, start rifling
1360-Complete another National Wonder:



A shot of Athens post-Oxford:



A shot of Paris working hard:



1370-Found Miletos:



1380-Complete another National Wonder just in time for war preparations:



1400-Golden Age from Taj ends, use our GM in reserve to trigger another GA
1410-Meet our first overseas rival:



He's not teching as fast as I would like as he is embroiled in war...I give him lit for 10/map and OB with him

1420-Rifling is done, start Military Tradition. Gandhi has it, but won't trade. We dropped out of Friendly because he went into free religion. I will need cavalry I figure to finish clearing my continent. I have some high production cities, but not a lot of good drafting cities, so I figure this move makes sense.

We also prove the world is round this turn.

Then, since we are on a Golden Age, I cycle into war civics anarchy free. Some pics:





1430-Meet our next overseas rival:



He's relatively tech-backwards and buddies with Willem. They share confucianism. I give him CoL for 60/map and I OB with him.

This round something terrible happens. I swear the AI can tell when I am getting ready to stomp them! Gandhi vassals voluntarily to Churchill Bah! Why not make me the offer instead of your hated nemesis? This was totally unexpected. Now I will have to take them both on. If this was anyone other than docile Gandhi it could really make things complicated. Fortunately though, it IS docile Gandhi.

1440-We meet our last overseas rival:



Yep, our buddy Toku. He hates us already and is embroiled in war. I don't bother trading with him. He's supremely tech-backwards as usual and in a war with Willem. I figure we can buddy up with Willem and Gilga and then invade Toku as a target if necessary (so long as he does not capitulate to Willem, which I sort of expect).

1460-reject Toku's demand for war against Willem; Banking/Optics to Willem for Engineering.
1480-Join in a fake war against Toku to build relations with Willem:



Reject a demand from Gandhi:



Um, no.

1500-GP #15, a GS. Settle in the capital.

...to be Continued.

I will give my diplo thoughts, since I also played this:

The closeset opponent was Napoleon. Napoleon's personality is that he will simply be content to grow in power until the renaissance age where he will come at you with large stacks. He can be difficult and demanding to get along with. He was close, I had horses, so I figured rather than give him a chance to come at me, I would strike first.

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I'll make this a little more accurate. Nap is #1 in the game in ibuildunitprob, with a low peace weight. He declares at pleased. The only better thing about him than shaka as a neighbor is that he isn't AGG for the rush and his UU comes later. He's still a top notch warmonger and demanding and his favorite civic isn't till mid game. Futurehermit and I reacted to him similarly for a reason.

The remaining opponents on my continent were Churchill and Gandhi. Churchill is similar to Nappy in that he will be more likely to come at you in the renaissance.

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Churchill isn't like nap at all. First of all, churchill does not declare at pleased, and his peace weight is higher. Initially, churchill and gandhi were in different religions in my game. I sided with churchill because gandhi, in addition to being a punching bag, is the only leader in the game that doesn't get pissy when you refuse requests, and he's extremely unlikely to attack. By just getting churchill to pleased, you have 100% war immunity until post astro.

Note that there is no trade cap on friendly AIs, so I did what I could to broker techs extensively on our land.

The other land was FULL of AIs that declare at pleased and in my game, they were at each other's throats. I actually got gilgamesh to friendly for a good portion of the game thanks to shared civic bonuses. Toku and willem could shove it since they absolutely hated each other.

Given the diplo climate, I got extremely lazy since I was 100% immune to war for most of the game after cutting nap down.

From the micro end, I unfortunately don't have too much to mention because I went the auto worker route. For me and the cottage/hammer game, I used the governors and auto workers to create the improvements. Note that while the auto workers actually aren't too bad at this form of specialization once you have all the techs (aka late renaissance), they waste a lot of worker turns early building questionable things like cottages in hammer cities and not planning ahead. In my game MM only had a few noteworthy facets:

- Moved the cottage bureaucracy capitol to corinth, to make the usual abuse of cottages + bureaucracy + library + academy early and later on adding obs/uni/oxford.
- Made 1 more cottage city, directly east, which had a lot of green land.
- Athens and paris both had "emph great people" checked. Up to lib I used scientists, after that I just ran any old spec slots en masse' post emancipation.
- The diplo climate was excessively favorable, I built wealth more than usual in this game to run more gold through the super science city.
- It really doesn't take a lot of skill to beat redcoats with tanks and fighters.

I wasn't worried because the AI beaker rate on monarch isn't too impressive and with immunity to war and decent science cities it was easy to run away.

Trades are huge. In fact, if you can manipulate diplo such that you open up a couple trade partners, you can really abuse it. Trades are the greatest beaker multiplier in the game and intelligent trading can make an OK or even somewhat crappy tech rate seem far better than it is otherwise. If you create a trading block and isolate some hated AIs, you can easily get backward opponents that your friends won't even care if you stomp down. In fact, they might like it.

Trades are how I win on immortal with crap beaker rates like 1k beakers per turn, yet still somehow have infantry on rifles. Hmm. I see players with better tech rates struggle on lower levels occasionally!

Churchill isn't like nap at all.

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To be more precise, what I meant is that IF he IS going to come after you, it will likely be in the Renaissance era. In terms of friendliness though, they do differ.

futurehermit said:

To be more precise, what I meant is that IF he IS going to come after you, it will likely be in the Renaissance era. In terms of friendliness though, they do differ.

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I don't see anything in the XMLs that dictate that napoleon is any less likely to smack you down than shaka pre-renaissance, other than a tiny peace weight variance.

What interesting is that if we'd let nap live he and gandhi would probably have been worst enemies on sight due to peace weight modifiers.

I'm not talking in terms of XMLs, just from my experience with these two guys across all my games. I rarely have Nappy attack me in the early game, unlike Shaka. Sure, if you call him little man and thrust his demands back in his face, and so forth, he might come at you. But, the real threat, imo is his large renaissance stacks.

...Continued

1505AD-Military tradition is in, start chemistry. I'm undecided about my tech path at this point. I figure Chem goes up the Biology path and a military path so I'll nab that.

I also give compas to Gilga for 50/map.

And, I decide that my window of opportunity is closing, so:



I declare on Churchill and Gandhi. I don't anticipate an assault from Gandhi, although I keep an eye on him. I focus instead on Churchill, hoping Gandhi will break free at some point so we can take peace and then redeclare on Gandhi when we are ready.

1510-Finally get our first GG, which I use on a MASH chariot unit.



1515-Sack Coventry

1520-A quick glance at the power graph now, after only a century of drafting/whipping an army from a small core of cities:



1525-My economy is on the brink, so although I don't want to, I decide it is necessary to swap into caste system (1 turn anarchy) so I can run merchants

1530-Merchant economic stabilization:



1535-Sack York (marching through Churchill's core empire and killing his largest stacks of medieval units)

1550-Sack London, get GG#2 who I settle in Paris:





1565-As I hoped, Gandhi breaks free from Churchill. I negotiate a ceasefire with him.

1570-Sack Canterbury; trade fur and crab to Gandhi for banana and ivory, plus I open borders



1575-Sack Nottingham; Willem has declared peace with Toku, so I follow suit and end my fake war:



1580-Willem makes a demand and I give in for the diplo:



1585-Complete another National Wonder:



In Paris. With Moai and HE and some settled GGs, it will be a nice troop producer, as well as a navy producer later.

Also, sack Warwick (moving now through Churchill's empire with not much resistance. Splitting my army into smaller stacks to quickly take his smaller cities)

1595-Raze Norwich; GG#3 is born (yes, I'm killing a bunch of outdated troops and it adds up quick); settle him in Paris:



1600AD-Sack Oxford

1610-Sack Newcastle

1615-GP#16 is born, a GS (keep in reserve); Sack Nubian; Sack Hastings



1620-Constitution done (finished Chem awhile back too), go for Scientific Method; crab/gold to Willem for wine/12 per turn; Nationalism/Education to Gilga for Astro; Gold/fur/wheat to Gilga for dye/spice/16 per turn

1625-Sack Birmingham; Sack Reading
1630-Sack Liverpool
1635-Sack Brighton; horse to Willem for Gem and 1/turn
1640-Lose Hastings temporarily to an overlooked maceman; Raze a barb city that sprung up in the only place it could:



1645-Take back Hastings
1650-Sack Dover, Eliminate Churchill:



Just a few workers there to help me with bringing Churchill's empire up to code!

Post-War (former Churchill) Empire:



Synopsis of the War with Churchill:

I started the war with around 40 rifles and about 8 catapults to marginally help with defenses. I kept them concentrated early because I had a clear path south through the core of his empire. I took out his large stacks while taking the first couple core cities, including his capital. Once the core of his army was broken, then I fanned out my core stack into multiple smaller stacks, which were all fed by reinforcements, with the reinforcements forming their own small stacks on occasion. Fanning my army out in this way allowed me to march through his large empire quite quickly. I continued to draft heavily early on, but as my need for units diminished, I only continued to draft in my GT city. My main production cities, especially Paris, pumped Cavalry as well. These premiere renaissance units are a terror on open land and also take cities quite well without support up until the AI gets its own gunpowder defenders, especially rifles.

Now that Churchill is gone, I can focus on consolidating my empire and attacking Gandhi. I am in the process now of beelining Communism. If I win the race I am planning on using the GSpy combined with a GS to trigger a golden age to make a civic swap, which will include a swap into state property, which will really, really help my economy. I am hoping this will be the last civics switch I will have to make this game, but we'll see.

Being in caste system and not slavery really hurt, because it meant I couldn't whip Churchill's cities as they came out of revolt. As a result, I lost a lot of population due to starvation. Alas, not having spiritual and not wanting to suck up the anarchy here really hurt (and not being able to afford to crank up the luxury slider any more). I thought long and hard about whether or not to take the hit and swap into slavery, but I didn't want to risk the possibility of a strike. Maybe I made the wrong move here, but I don't think it will hurt me in the long run. With farms about to be enhanced by biology it won't take me long to regrow the population.

I am almost finished this game. I plan on finishing it tonight and hopefully posting the last round tomorrow.

Here is a teaser:

Great writeup

Looking forward to the conclusion. Really appreciate the summaries that get into the details of what happened in the round.

Thanks, glad you find it useful

I enjoy them as well, I would never think of playing like this myself. I'm more of a cottage man, see.

Cool historical accuracy in that you got both Aristotle and Hypatia as GPs

Alright, here goes the conclusion. A couple of things to understand:

-As I moved to close this game out, I transitioned into a hybrid SE/hammer economy. I see this as one of the natural endgames for a warmongering SE. Basically, as state property, workshop improvements, railroad, and industrialization (factories, coal plants) become available, swap into a civic arrangement that looks like rep-nationhood-caste system-state property-theocracy. This allows specialist cities that use rep and caste to run max specialists and a majority of production cities that work caste/state property workshops and state property water mills and get the 10% bonus production from state property. This leads to a VERY productive empire as you will see. If teching is less of an issue, police state can be added instead of rep. If generating gp is still a concern, pacificism can be used instead of theocracy. In this set up, cycling becomes less necessary (i.e., this is good for non-spiritual civs) because you can simultaneously tech and produce. Furthermore, state property MAJORLY cuts down on the maintenace costs of such a large empire (great for pursuing domination victories). You will see what I mean as I post the report.

Alright, I'll say more as I go along and post some final reflections afterwards.

1655AD-Scientific Method is in, start Communism. Do we have oil?



Yes, plenty of it.

1675-Wheat/Banana to Willem for incense/corn; lib and part of constitution to him for economics



1690-1st to Communism; use the GSpy + a GS for a Golden Age. Swap to rep/state property (no anarchy). Swapping into state property provided us with an amazing additional 173 gold/turn!

A shot of Athens:



Cycling:



Great Spy:



Golden Age:



1700-Gandhi offers himself up as a vassal. Too little, too late. Fortunately, Gandhi pops a GProphet and builds the Hindu Shrine!!! I decide that since Judaism has not really spread and since the era of monasteries and organized religion is past, this frees up my GProphet-in-reserve to be used in a future golden age.



1715-Bio done, start steel
1730-Steel done, start corporation; golden age finished; declare war on Gandhi; sack Lahore



1735-Complete a world wonder:



I figure this gives me the option of extensive late-game whipping, should I decide to go that route, which I never do.

1740-Corp done, start Steam Power; Willem declares on Toku; Sack Calcutta; GG #4 is born (settle in Paris); GPers #17, as GS (keep in reserve)





1750-Sack Varanasi; Sack Pataliputra
1755-Reject Toku demand; Sack Apache; Sack Hyderabad



1765-Steam power done, start assembly line. Do we have coal?



Yes, we do.

1780-Found Megara; Sack Bombay:



1785-Found Phocaea; Sack Agra:



1790-Join Willem in fake war vs. Toku; MilTrad+Bio to Willem for Physics; Bio to Gilga for Demo/450; Sack Delhi; Since London can produce the SoL in < 10 turns, I go for it; GG#5 (settle in Paris); Found Sicyon:











...to be Concluded

...Concluded

1790-The benefit of buttering up to Willem:



Friendly financial AIs make nice tech-trading allies

1795-Finish Assembly Line, start Fascism; start industrializing empire wide (factories/coal plants everywhere)

1804-1st fo Fascism, settle GG in Oxford (future IW/WP city); start Railroad; sack Vijayanagara; Raze Madras

1806-Complete IW; Also, a shot of our uranium:





1810-Raze Bangalore; Gandhi RIP:



Postwar Empire:



GPerson #18 is born, a GM:



I reserve him for a golden age.

1812-Toku vassals to Willem. I guess I could have intervened to stop this, as I will explain below, but it is ok. I use my GM/GP/GS on a golden age.

1814-RR is done, start combustion
1816-Complete the SoL:



1822-Pentagon as well:



Combustion done, start electricity

1824-Found Tiryns:



1826-Elec done, start industrialism; a useful warmongering national wonder:



Found Samos and Mytilene:





1828-Found Chios, Paros:





1834-Willem offers a defensive pact:



A friendly offer, but I have more devious plans. Industrialism is done, start radio. Do we have aluminum?



Yes, yes, we do.

1836-Another national wonder done:



A nice troop-producer Oxford has become.

1840-Radio done, start refrigeration (need the health now badly from industrializing)

1844-Refrigeration done, start medicine
1846-Complete another world wonder:



Also, grow our 19th Gperson, a GS. Since I doubt I'll get another golden age, I settle him in the capital.

Synopsis of the war with Gandhi:

Pretty straightforward. I fan out stacks of rifles/cavalry along his borders and then move in to take cities simultaneously. I make sure to bring enough units to get the job done. I raze his awkwardly placed northern islands cities to make room for better-placed cities that at least have food resources. In short order, he is only remembered in the history books as a peace-loving cultural-victory pursuer who was a casualty of the Greek Empire's plans for world domination.

...to be Concluded

...Concluded

1848-After a very short period of industrialization, which involved a swap to caste/state property, as well as a farm/mine/workshop/watermill spam empire-wide, and a factory/coal plant spam empire wide, we have a tad bit of production:



When your production looks like that, a domination victory is not far behind!

1850-Reject Toku's demand. He's pretty demanding for an extremely backwards vassal.



1852-Finish medicine, start flight (for empire-wide airport spam to support intercontinental warfare)

1854-Complete another world wonder (I always go for late-game wonders if I have a tech lead, regardless of leader; these wonders are quite strong):



Now we can micromanage our civics to our heart's content, which to me involves only minor tweaking here and there. Still though, anarchy free! A good wonder to target for non-spiritual civs looking to cycle late-game.

1858-Complete another national wonder:



Another nice infusion of gold, which always helps.

1860-Flight done, start plastics (we have some offshore oil and I want to take a shot at the 3GD)

1864-Declare war on Willem/Toku; sack Kyoto; Sake Osaka:





1868-Also, complete Rock and Roll (the extra happiness is always useful, especially because emancipation mad faces are >5 in many of our cities):



Red cross in London (can't hurt, might help):



1870-Plastics done; sack Satsuma; start Computers
1874-Sack Yokohama (I had produced another stack in the SE of my empire, which I sent via an additional navy stack to Toku's weakly-defended SE islands); sack Tokyo:



1876-Give in to a request from Gilga as I don't want him suddenly coming to his friends' aid; give him hit musical/hit single/sugar for dye/spice/25; sack Izumo:



1878-Sack Dorestad (I am now able to take my extra stack of tanks and start hitting the weakly-defended SE edge of Willem's empire):



1880-Computers done; sack Kagoshima
1882-Toku splits from Willem, but I keep up war with each; sack Haarlem on the SE edge of Willem's empire again; Willem sacks Satsuma with a very large stack; I sack Mauryan

1884-get another GG (#6), which I settle in Oxford:



1886-Retake Satsuma slaughtering Willem's huge stack in the process. This leads to a shocking development:



Yep, Willem takes a look at my power and production graphs and looks to spare the rest of his empire. I accept and turn my sights to eliminating the Japanese civilization.

1888-Hit Singles/Hit Musicals/Sugar to Willem for Deer/Incense/Wine; Sack Nagoya

1890-Sack Nagasaki (Toku RIP); take a look at the victory conditions screen:





Very close now. I decide to build gold empire-wide, crank the culture slider to 100% and swap into free speech:



1 turn later:

Final Thoughts:

A subpar early empire in terms of land kind of delayed my plans of early conquest, but once things got rolling Churchill and Gandhi fell to my early guns. It was a fair slog though clearing my continent. By the time it was over, Toku had vassaled to Willem and Willem gifted Toku a bunch of military tech that led me to believe that going the mass-production of industrial units was a better strategy than slamming a bunch of renaissance units into protective/aggressive Toku. I don't know if it was necessary, but at least it showed off the benefits of transitioning into a late-game hammer economy. No shortage of production this game, that is for sure.

Keeping the peace with Willem and Gilga and staying in a fake war with Willem against Toku kept things very, very stable for me diplo-wise. I never had to fear any kind of invasion. When I invaded Willem and Toku, I had to trust that Gilga (pleased) would not betray me. My power graph may have had something to do with that as well. At any rate, Gilga remained docile and I was able to put a lick on Toku and take down Willem in the process.

I should mention as well that before I invaded overseas, I upgraded a small stack of catas to cannons and the majority of my rifles to infantry. I had accumulated > 2000 gold, which I put toward these upgrades. It definitely paid dividends in my later war efforts. In addition to these troops I also produced tanks and bombers, which is my preferred method of late-game warfare. In the modern era, this becomes modern armor and stealth bombers. Very quick conquering if you have enough units.

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

What do you think is better for the SE Industrious or Philosophical ?

assass1n said:

What do you think is better for the SE Industrious or Philosophical ?

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I think they are both quite strong, but just cater to different strategies or versions of an SE. Industrious involves wonderspamming for a lot of your, especially early, gpp. Pyramids enables early representation, which is huge for your early economy. Nabbing GL, Pyamids, Parthenon, NE, as well as warmongering wonders, much earlier/easier can pay major dividends.

However, with philosophical you get faster and more pure gpp from running a lot of specialists. Usually this means swimming in early GSs, which are a more direct help for bulbing up the liberalism tree. To the extent that wonders are harder to get at higher levels and bulbing and trading is much more powerful, I would say philosophical > industrious as you go up in skill level. On the lower levels, where the AI techs poorly, if philosophical, it is important to settle those GSs because you are going to be teching the majority of the tech tree yourself.

I would say that any combination of creative/philosophical/industrious/spiritual will enable a strong SE. So, to me that means the premiere SE leaders (not taking into account UBs) are:

Ramesses
Pericles
Louis (cre/ind)
Hatty (cre/spi)
Gandhi (phi/spi)

However, any non-financial leader that has at least one of these traits can run a nice SE as well.

Can you showcase an SE with Washington who has neither an early UU/UB nor one of those traits .
Thanks for the reply

What did you empire look like after you drafted the 25 or so rifles? Did you take 3 from each city?