Monarch Student II - Climbing from Prince (Joao II)

as i intended, moved warrior 1nw to see if there are any bouunties. saw none, but no bad tiles too, so i decided to grab banana by settling 1nw.
researched BW while building worker and exploring surrounding land.
made contact with hanny and brenn
1-st screen (bronzeworking) after researched bw
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swith research to wheel, build worker while choping forest
i regretted then for delaying agri, but i was horribly afraid of barbs and wanted copper asap.
made some nice shopping for cheap workers, screen (chpooers)
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3340 brenny founds hinduism (target number one i guess)
research:wheel -> agri -> pottery -> AH
lisbon:worker -> worker -> filler barrack ->settler (whip) -> axe -> barr(whip) -> filler axe -> gran (whip) -> axe
workers: chop2E -> mine copper -> chop SE -> road ->farmed corn->farmed wheat near oporto-> farmed ban -> cottaged around a bit to stop jungle -> pastured cows
screeny (oporto) is oporto
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oporto build order - filler barracks -> gran (whip) -> barra (whip)
2400 bc brenny found judaism (double holy city! definitely #1 todie)
starting warrior killed some animals and got woods 2. i sent him to steal and rampage celts who had no BW, but founded 2 rels.
screen (target) their capital
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i whipped a few axe platoons and they headed sw )

started war by stealing worker and then invaded with axes (screen 2000bc)
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vienne had an unpromoted hilltop archer with no cult.def. CR axe dies at 20%, next captures the city.
it survived attack and i kept it. much overlap with bibracte, but i have few cities, so who cares.
screen (vienne)
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worldmap screen and my cities screen, and a save follow
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5axes would barely be enough to finish celts, so i guess i need some more of them or just plain swordsmen.
after that we have a huge landmass for us and for us only, with some cities already kindly settled by barbs.

and that's hannibal too with hith numidian uu. we aren't likely to be running FM soon, and i am afraid shared religion will not be enough to feel safe (as i recall from history lessons, he didn't hesitate much defore putting his arms to proper use.) i have little experience playing civIV so do not know if he is truthworthy enough to rely upon pleased dip.state while peacefully RElaXing.

if he is a backstabber i guess i know where to put those jumbos with a barb city atopof them . His UU will regret they have reduced strength!
any thoughts?

I decided to settle 1 NW, to maximise river tiles for a future beauracracy capital. My warrior goes north taking a map from a goody hut. Further along the way he finds

Hannibal. Shortly after we find this in our repositioned capitals bfc

Axe rush. The wheel was finished by the time the worker had the mine built and the axemen started flowing out of my two cities. This guy was also discovered

with about 12 axes I dow Hanni, taking the closest city with one casualty, and taking his cap shortly after. His last city was sub-optimally palced so was razed for resettling in a better position. Brennus had the good graces to spread his religion to me during the war. A GG was acquired and settled in Lisbon (Hannis cap would have been better, as it makes a better early production facility.

950BC the war ends, I have 4 cities. Time to rex without crashing economy further than I have. Workers and cottages first.

Do you know where hannibal is? Why worry about barbs, a good tech path would have been agri=>BW, allowing your first worker something to do as soon as he is built. The barbs do not arrive till about 2000BC.

well, all i know about hannibal is he is to the north

this and delaying agri for 26 marathon turns were - i admit it - serious errors

Was 2/3 of the way through building an army to attack Hannibal in 1000 BC. Got a few horse archers up as well with a city near the horse site SW of the capital. Hannibal is dead - he built the Oracle one turn after I attacked him, so I've got that now, as well as Carthage, which founded Buddhism.

The copper is in my BFC cause I moved 1 NW to settle Lisbon as well. Not sure about this map so far. The problem with posting a game you want to play is that you don't want to muck around with it too much and spoil it for yourself, but you want to make sure it's a playable game. Joao seems suited for an early peaceful REX, but I don't think that was ever on the cards with Hannibal boxed in up north (with copper and horses for his UU - yikes!) I think axe rushing him was an ok idea, but while I've done that Brennus has been filling in down south and I'll have to check his diplo habits, but my guess is that he'll be going for attack fairly soon, and I'll have to war soon to get some decent land I think. Not sure really, will have to think about the next step now.

a very tough round, mostly to my haste and stupidity.
and strangely, not much to tell about:
the next turn after previous round ended i met this guy
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after finishing off brenny i made OB with hanny and explored his land.
he had stone already hooked and began wonderspamming:
henge, GW, mids and HG in a rapid succession
i decided to take him off with cats after beelining constr, so i was glad to see him do all hard work.
but joao's lack of economical traits (or mb my lack of brains and planning) prevailed!
after planting 2 more cities along with 2 captured celtic (6 total, and quite far from lisbon) i found myself running slider at 30%.
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libraries helped, although, specialist rule.
after the whpiing anger from the first celtic war dissappeared, those damned healers came in with their multiply cursed herbs! how could i refuse
every child knows that health is a bedrock of world domination
i decided to combine tech paths to arrive at both CoL and Constr so that my army, once built, could be supported.
i researched masonry -> myst -> medi -> priest -> CoL -> bulb Maths -> constr.
by the time cats came i had already whipped CH in all but the smallest cities and quite a stack of axe-moppers and spear-stack defenders.
then quickly whipped 7 cats and thought hanny is over, but not!
he managed to build quite a stack too, and i suddenly realised that spearmen are no particularly good against that bloody numidian cavalry, to say nothing about axemen - i would as well had no axemen at all.
during the war, btw, sold CoL to Suly for IW. He had a great bunch of techs over me, but mostly old ones. (alphabet, monarchy and IW were the only worthwhile)

i had to whip the whole portugal again and again and finally hanny was defeated - with all my cities beeing 1 or 2 and at happy caps.
slider was 0, beakers 7 and gpt -13. i thought the game is lost and i am to report my humilating defeat
but after i captured carthage itself the situation drastically changed!
it turned out that Rep-boosted scientist can hold research afloat even with 0% slider, and capturing a city once per 5-7 turns compensates very well for -13gpt.
i thought i'm quite proficient with monarch, but this game is truly a revelation.
when hanny was mostly over, zara yacob came bringing a huge heap of tech to trade (mostly same as Suly) i quickly sold CoL to him for alpha before he understood that he was trading with an infidel .
once i had alphabet i extorted 3 obsolete techs from hanny and let him live for a while.
representation was kind of salvation for the empire: specialists kept science afloat, and +2HF meant the cities can regrow a little after mad whipping.
i popped also a GS and burned him for Philosophy, founding Taoism in carthage. Now i'm almost equal at techs with turks and ethiopians, and, all in all, future seems quite optimistic. slider is 0, gpt is -17 even now, but research is quite fast and remaining Hanny's cities provide gold when captured. after all, i can always switch to CS and run Rep-merchants.
Game full of insights... - i guess it could be reffered to as
"Rep and pillage economy".
now building courthouses in newly conquered cities.
screen world map, domestic screen, tech screen, and save follow
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After my axe rush my economy is in heaps, but my conquest gold helped me tech to Math, where I researched a few low beaker turns into Alphabet, then went on to currency, and hopefully be able to trade it for alpha and backfill. I also started a bid for the mids in carthage, my production site. As I figured, about halfway through the build the mis were built somewhere else, netting me c. 350 gold, which got me finished on alphabet in good time, giving me a monopoly. Hammy also made himself known. Sully gave me alpha for currency, brennus poly and IW. Next round I got Mono, priest foe alpha, and the following round I got monarchy off hammy. I revolted to OR and HR as soon as I had both.

My empire of 6 cities (a little room for more)



Lisbon


Carthage


And the tech situation


Now I really am clueless where to go from here, a war with Brennus is a must, as I am completely boxed in, my economy is fragile, I doubt I'll get a military tech advantage to Brennus. I'm thinking of building swordsmen, ans as soon as cats are online, whipping out a few and strike through to Brennus' cap. I fear he will have Longbow before I get that far though. What do others suggest?

And it was a disaster. I've never played Joao before, but know of his reputation for powerful REXing. So, I thought I'd make that the startegy. I settled in place, then built another city to the north (by jungle rice) to block Hannibal. I then place a city badly to the south (1 sw of wheat) When I should have placed it all the way to the coast south to get the second fish resource. I move to place another city by the small lake to the way southwest to block in Brennus (north of the cows). That was a big mistake as it crashed my ecomony. I then get a barb uprising of 4 spears and a few warriors that I fight off, but it was distracting.

I did everything wrong this game.

My tech path was Agriculture - Bronze Working - Wheel - Animal Husbandry - Mysticism - Horseback Riding - Masonry - Iron Working.

By this time I have 6 cities (20 AD) and my slider is at zero. (One city captured from the barbarians) I don't have iron working finished so I can't clear jungle and others are already at writing, metal casting, and someone just bulbed Theocracy to found Christianity.

I'm too embarassed to post screenshots, and it's a lost cause. I made way too many mistakes to begin with. This definitely was a learning experience and I suppose that made it worth doing. Good luck everyone! I'll be eager to see how you do.

What map script did you use? The whole map is explorable by workboat by the looks of it. Unusual map, I must say, and tough. Poor starting locations compared to Brennus or Hannibal.