Monarch Student VI- Pericles

I moved my scout 1 NE, discovering the pig, which led me to relocating my capital 1N to gain both the Corn, the Pig and the Deer. Planned to make it a GP farm.

Started building worker, researching agriculture and the scout headed east. Hut popped a new Scout, one headed NE, other SE. Next hut gives Agriculture, begin on Mining, spot a nice city spot with Wheat, Marble and Silk just south of HC and make it a priority.

Worker finishes, farm the corns and camp the deer, Athens building warriors and growing. When it reaches size 4 it starts on a settler, powered by 2 corn and the deer, taking only 20 turns. Settle sparta on the planned spot south of HC, build another worker in Athens. Teched BW after Mining which finishes the same time as my settler, locate Copper in the southern ice and will settle it next. Workers are chopping the forests of Athens into settlers and soon Corinth is settled next to the copper and Argos to claim the Stone/Cows/Wine spot. At this point my economy is pretty much dead, I've researched Masonry and the Wheel and am working on Pottery. Luckily my scouts have found gold in 2 huts so I'm fine for the time being.

Athens begins on the Pyramids, two workers head south to connect the Copper and Stone, the Worker that Sparta did as it's first build starts to build a connection back to the main empire. Build a few Phalanxes to defend Sparta, Athens finishes Pyramids and my gold has now reached 0. I switch to Representation and run citizen specialists because the small cottages I have are no use in comparison and I have ample food. Teching Writing. HC settles south of Sparta, I don't really mind since there's no food in that spot. Little did I know that it would soon prompt an attack. HC declares, suicides a few units to Sparta which is walled (yes I know, walling Sparta is an atrocity) and drags Kublai into the war as well. I'm now cut off in terms of trading and it's looking a little dire. KK heads for Knossos, settled between Athens and Sparta and I whip all over the empire to hurry troops to defend it. Knossos loses 4 people to the whip but is spared from Mongol occupation. HC continues on Sparta and parks a huge stack on the Wheat while doing nothing. Meanwhile, my tech pace picked up due to getting libraries and running scientists and while I was still dirt poor I could make due. Researched Polytheism, Aesthetics (which I traded around) and finally Literature. Miraculously, all 3 Great People spawned in Athens were Engineers, one of which I used to hurry SoZ in Sparta (culture battle between Cuzco and Ollantaytambo), one for Great Library in Athens and one was finally settled in Athens. Argos had the Parthenon built/chopped there. After I researched CoL, I switched to Caste and am building NE in Athens. Traded around and my economy is fine at the time of the save.

HC took peace for free, gave Aesthetics to KK for it and did a lot of trading with everyone. Screenshots to show the current state of the empire.

Northern parts of the empire:



Southern cities:



Athens:



Glance:



Tech situation:



All in all I'm feeling really confident about this. Cities are good, I've caught up in techs, atleast a little, and unless KK and HC pile up on me with something really big I'll be on my way in no time. I'll most likely build a medieval army and take out HC's main cities because he isn't that large and it'll be a nice increase to my empire.

Tough map - i might try to start again and give it another try tomorrow, not sure. I was ahead in tech @1000AD except for Hannibal. Pretty close to getting Lib but just didn't have strong enough cities - needed to focus more on production in a couple spots. Just took forever to get my happy cap up anywhere so really didn't have much pop to work with.

Basically just got wine and HR up, plus calendar resources so cities were starting to grow and HC declared on me with macemen and war elephants (maybe 20 unit stack) and i hadn't teched feud or machinery yet-and didn't have enough of the units that were available to fight him off. Need to get monarchy sooner than i did to have a chance. Didn't convert to a religion until really late since HC and KK were different faiths and i didn't want to chose yet - probably should have just gone with one.

Napoleon declared on me pretty early too - but he had like 2 cities and his stack was only maybe 4 swordsmen/4 spears/4 chariots. Fought him off pretty easily and sued for peace later.

No wonders + no ivory/gold/gems/silver/religion + emperor = tough. Couldn't settle the stone quick enough since i was at 0% research and couldn't put another city down for awhile - so i didn't even try to get the pyramids. I think if i had of gotten the stone and then got the mids things might have been a lot easier since i ended up running a lot of scientists.

I went to caste also, but didn't have the pop to use it - ran 3 scientists in the Cap for awhile, but other than that it was useless. Would have been better off whipping units every 10 turns out of a couple cities.

Here is a couple 1 AD screenshots- didn't take any later ones. Did a pretty good job rexing - economy crashed pretty hard though.

After moving the scout, 1N is the clear place to settle, trading a wine for corn and pigs. My scout explored the immediate area, also getting some gold, a warrior and sailing from huts. It seems like we're in serious danger of getting boxed in by Kublai and HC, so blocking cities are a priority.

Build order in Athens was worker, then warriors until at the happy cap, then I got some settlers and workers out. I settled 1S of the marble to block any of HC's thoughts of settling south. This city will also make his capital (also the Buddhist holy city) the first to go when I take him out. Hopefully he gets some wonders and Ramses doesn't hog them all. My other city was to the southeast picking up horses, wine, and some other stuff on top of blocking KK. Unfortunately it will stay small until Civil Service.

My big mistake of the round was teching mysticism, anticipating culture pressure on my blocking cities, completely forgetting my being creative. The ~10 turn delay cut into my research of writing and set me back until I razed a barb city for gold to run a deficit to get writing and libraries up.

Research is going well. I got a lot of money off of building half of the Parthenon and the Pyramids. I teched to aesthetics and traded for alphabet, iron working and polytheism. I built the GLib, and have monopolies on literature and currency. Now I just need to wait for the AI's to part with math and HR and then I can bulb philo and start working towards CoL and civil service.

I'm just now backfilling the rest of my land, the first two cities really set my economy back. Seems like 6 good cities, although 2 are food deprived. That should be plenty to get me into position to take out HC. Him and a small Hannibal are the only Buddhists, so the big Hindus won't mind me expanding through him.

I popped copper on a hill in Athens, unfortunately I had already settled Argos and Knossos. If I knew I was going to get a second copper, 1N for both of those cities would probably have been better.

Here's my set up at 55AD, I think I'm in a solid position:

This time frame is definitely my biggest weakness in this game, and it doesn't seem like I played this round too well. Nothing significant happened, just righting the economy and peaceful teching. I'm 10 turns from liberalism, I figure I can try for steel. I'm way ahead of my continent. My concern is the other one, only Confucianism was founded there, and no GG's, so its a big lovefest.

As for the AIs on my continent, the ones to the north are easy targets when I'm ready. HC only has 4 cities, I'll probably wipe him out in 3 turns. Hannibal got taken down by Napoleon, he only has 2 cities, and will probably vassal to Napoleon soon. I haven't seen Nappy's land yet, but he's at the bottom of the scoreboard, and really backwards. These 3 shouldn't be a problem if I have even a 1 tech advantage.

To the south, KK will be a hard fight, he's at ~9 cities, although a lot of them are junk tundra ones. He's my biggest concern militarily. Ramses is the bigger concern overall though. He has the Hindu shrine, which has to be bringing in ~50 gpt at least, along with a lot of wonders, including the AP. Thankfully, he's boxed in by KK, and if I can surprise him, he shouldn't have a big force built up.

Still seems like the game could go either way. I was way too late in getting my cottage/bureau capital running, so now I have to wait to get the good benefits. Hopefully the AIs let me get steel off of liberalism. I really want control over this continent before I meet the other one.

In this segment everything went my way. The early AD's I spent building and enjoying the GP farm that is Athens and in 670 after bulbing Education I discover Liberalism. Not my best date but certainly not the worst.



Took Nationalism since I have Marble. Actually the next turn a Great Scientist spawned and I used him for a GA, so I build the Taj during that GA and enjoyed another one right after. I used the golden ages to build a medieval army of Macemen and support troops in order to take out the Inca and Hannibal. Since I didn't quite have all the techs I wanted, I did trade Lib and Nat around. (To my friends)



Which eventually put me on top, both scorewise and techwise. (Atleast for a brief moment)

And here, at the end of my second golden age, my first soldier are ready to advance to Inca lands. Athens also got an event for 1 extra settled scientist.



The three Inca main cities fell like dominos and in 965 HC was ready to call it quits:



In the previous screenshot you can also see the miserable situation of my economy.-8 gold per turn at 0% science. Lack of any proper commerce cities and the AI's all using Mercantilism really hurt me but I managed to stay afloat with the money I got from capturing cities and trading. I also started running merchants.

With HC's capitulation I was able to trade him for horses and finally make some Knights to reinforce my army, though the main focus was the upcoming war with KK which I intend to do with a Cuirassier army. Oh, and after HC capitulated I got contact with this fellow:



Isolated Cyrus on a smallish island. Too bad for him. Anyhow, during the Inca war I had noticed Hannibals stack moving through to wage war against Ramesses (who is also really backwards and the only buddhist so everyone on the Hindu block hates him.) so I knew that I could start a war on him with little to no consequence. He did actually get cuirassiers towards the end of the war but my medieval spam-army came through, although when Paris was captured I had like 2 maces and 5 trebs left at the end of the battle : ) I'll just call it well calculated.

Prize no. 1:



Prize no. 2:



Carthage puzzles me though. First of all, it has 2 Marbles in the BFC - and not only that, but they're right next to each other. Secondly, Carthage has 2 settled scientists. Not Great Scientists but those regular guys. Hm, makes me wonder. Anyways, with the war on Inca, Carthage and France over I now consider the game pretty much won. I already went over the population limit for domination but in order to have enough land I'll have to take over the entire continent. KK has Gunpowder but no Cuirassiers so I guess I'll just roll over him. We're equally strong in power and I now have like 15 cities which I can use to hurry an army of cuirassiers and when it comes to Ramesses... well:



Yeah. He's so backwards it's not even funny. Everyone hated him from the get-go and no-one traded anything with him, except me and that was when I needed some urgent gold during my war. But seriously though, no Engineering, no Civil Service, no nothing.

First off, the start – I moved my scout N and saw pigs, and decided that by moving 1N, I could have pigs, 2 corn and deer in the BFC – that seemed like a no-brainer for a philosophical civ. Athens can be a super GP farm, and I can move my palace later for a better bureaucracy site.
Didn’t take long to have a good break, as my scout popped this:



In hindsight, that turned out to be a big break since it got me closer to phalanxes. Tempted to start on BW to see if copper nearby for really early phalanxes, but with that corn and the free mining, I figured I could give my worker something useful to do, so I decided to start AG and then head to BW/AH. Next hut reveals a map which tells me this:



Gee, thanks a lot, tribal elders - I appreciate you telling me there's lots and lots of ice. I better have some good land to expand to the east, or else this start sucks. Meet Kublai on turn 10 – he’s close to the east. Huayna on turn 11 – appears to be coming from the north. That’s a good rush target if I have copper, especially since he founded Buddhism. And on turn 15, I lose my scout to a lion, so my ability to explore really sucked. I have to build a scout after my worker as a result. AH reveals horses halfway between me and Kublai – guess I need to think about racing there second. The land I’ve scouted so far really seems mediocre – I hope I have copper nearby. More scouting reveals a second set of horses near Kublai, so no way I can block both. He’ll have keshiks, so I’m going to need to be friends with him. I meet Napoleon on turn 46 – he must be further away.

Bronze working reveals copper – in a really mediocre spot. And to add insult to injury, Huayna has copper apparently in his BFC, and I am apparently boxed in pretty well by him and Kublai, with nothing but mediocre land between us. Thankfully get a break with this random event – I’m going to need all the help I can get.



I decide that there’s only two options here – one is to settle aggressively right toward Huayna/Kublai to block a few sites and leverage the creative trait – the other is to rush Huayna, take out his copper, and take his holy city. Leaning toward the latter. I settle Sparta here for copper – thank goodness for creative in this game.



It’ll be an ok site one day, but I need the copper now. Use all my food to get a few workers going, as it’s going to be an axe chop special, and speed is key.

I lose both scouts to barb warriors – this game is really starting out poorly. So, hook up the copper, use my 4 workers to chop, and mass production of phalanxes (I generally build lots of workers early - it never fails me at monarch level). I hope it’s enough – usually Huayna doesn’t mass produce units, so should be ok. Off to the races:



This is late, as I like to start an early rush before turn 100, but I’ve got little choice on this map, and I brought 13 phalanxes to the party, have one staying behind in case Huayna's exploring axe tries anything funny, and a couple more in production about to follow along. I assume he has minimum 2, likely 3 cities. Goal is to take his capital. Here goes nothing. Success on city 1 without a hitch:



Two casualties - which will soon be replaced by my trailing units anyway - glad I built a road leading up to him. Racing to cut off his copper, which I do, and send the whole stack at Cuzco. It was almost not enough – I sent 12 phalanxes there against 2 axes, a spear, an archer and a quechua – all my phalanxes had at least CR 1 (3 had CR2), and he still beat them down with ease. Really frustrating to watch a CR2 phalanx against a defending axe lose, and only knock the defender down to 4.2. That happened twice – seems like whenever I get attacked by other axes, the losing axe is beat up pretty good. So I as down to two phalanxes against a full strength spear and quechua – lost to the spear and beat the quechua. So I had to wait one extra turn, but thankfully he couldn’t whip anything. So after a promotion to a wounded phalanx, Cuzco is gone. Forgot the screenshot, but it was a huge win.

Now I have land to work with, and Huayna has two cities left. How does he get 3 settlers out, 3 workers, and is still able to build all these defending units by turn 120? Amazing – sometimes I wonder about the production bonuses. No metal and no horses for Huayna, so only a matter of time before I take his last 2 cities. Send my 5 surviving phalanxes into Cuzco to heal, and build reinforcements to send up to finish off his remaining cities. Then it’ll be time to rebuild and start running specialist economy a bit. At least I now have two capitals, and some room to backfill, especially if I can block Kublai a bit more. I meet Hanny, who’s north of Huayna – this will be an interesting diplomacy map, for sure. Thankfully I have a nice force of veteran axes, and Hanny is apparently already Buddhist, so if I can get Kublai to Buddhism, I’ll have neighbors who are buddies.

And then a lousy break – barbs:



They settle right near where I was going to settle to claim horses, cows, silk and wine. So I decide to move the settler here – not fantastic, but with seafood, stone and silk will be ok.



That barb city blocked a decent site, especially post monarchy and civil service. It’ll be interesting to see who takes that first, me or Kublai. And Huayna is done.





State of the empire:



Time to rescue the economy. 7 cities at 675 BC is pretty good, thanks to the three settlers Huayna built for me. However, I now have a bunch of cities, no cottages, and no happiness resources up and running, so the economy is soon to crash now that my war booty has run out - hope I get to alphabet before running out of gold. I also need to probably get Buddhism spread to Kublai fast – if he, Hanny and I are Buddhist buddies, will make diplomacy easy for awhile. Amazingly though, Kublai has not claimed either horse site - the barbs got one and the other is outside his cultural borders. Still going to build a few spears to be safe.

I think I’m going to move my palace to Cuzco and cottage it up, as it looks like a great bureaucracy capital. And once I can get some happiness up (probably through HR), look out for Athens - will be a ridiculous GP farm. I thought this was a good time to break to think about next steps, but my guess is I'm going to try to trade after getting alphabet to get to monarchy as fast as I can, because that's my most important tech at this point I think. Once that hits, Athens should start generating great people like crazy.

I do think this start is a tad over powered for this leader. you dont learn games by giving such an easy starting location.

All that forest and 2 farm resources and copper. Not to mention a stone resource a stone throw away. The copper may have come from an event actually.

Add in philosophical for GP heaven. Also creative for double production on libraries and you have a GP farm from heaven and an easy dash for mids and liberalism.

I think you could of easily got steel from liberalism. This would of made the final assault much easier. Not sure nationalism was even needed due to small size of map and how packed in the Ai were.

Researched up until 1 turn of lib, and then started gathering the prerequisites for steel. I probably could have taken rifling before any of the people on my continent got it, but I'm still worried about the other one. Everyone has been warring this entire time, this is right after Ramses made peace, I think AP:



As a result, their tech rate has been pretty bad. Unfortunately, my approval rating with everyone else took a dive thanks to stop trading and declare war requests.

I hit lib in 1320AD.



I'm now building up for war against HC. He has a lot of units running around his cities thanks to warring with KK, so I need to be ready to counter all of his knights. Hopefully I can take out HC (4 cities) Hannibal (2 cities) and Nappy (3 cities) with 1 SoD. I'm friendly with KK and Ramses, so no threats of a backstab.

Tech situation is good, Ramses is teching steel, and he's the only one with anything other than muskets:



Should be lots of warring in the next update.

The copper right in Athens' BFC came from a random event for someone. The only copper really nearby was in an interesting spot, because it forced settling a mediocre at best city to claim it. I actually thought post-exploration it was a pretty tough start (other than the capital - the capital is a super GP farm, which is ideal for a PHI leader. But boxed in near tundra by two other civs, one creative, is a challenge.

I've tried twice on Emperor - resulting in two losses. Granted I'm not that good at Emperor yet - but Monarch was getting a little too easy for me so I'm trying to figure out how to play the next level proficiently.

There is no gems/gold/silver/ivory/fur on this map for us - meaning that without mids our happy cap is at 5 in capital, 4 everywhere else until Monarchy. Neither game have I been able to get the mids which makes it very challenging. No way you can abuse a philosophical leader with lots of food in the capital until that happy cap is raised. In both games I've been unable to do this in time in order to have good enough research and production to avoid being declared on - first game it was HC, second game it was KK - even though we even shared religion. I did get my population in the capital up to 10 in my 2nd game (around 300 AD)- and began running 5 scientists rather than only 2 - but it was too little too late.

You're probably right but there are two points to consider.

1. Liberalism to me is always a race. I try to get it at the earliest possible date. As a result of this, I always get either Nationalism or Replaceable parts as the free tech. I agree that Steel would probably make it easier all things considered but at that point I was just eager to get it out of the way and it wasn't a huge stretch for Hannibal to tech Liberalism so I wanted to get it out of the way.

2. This map is easy as is. No need to make it any easier

This map is too easy. I can't really speak about the entire "series" of Monarch Student, but this map was too easy. There's no adversity except the slight lack of commerce which is not a big deal and the only way I can see anyone losing this is through very badly executed early game and a rush from both HC and KK. Even with HC and KK rushing (I had that) it still is far from hard or educational. Not to shoot you down entirely; I do love playing a leader like Pericles with starts like that.