Rat 10 - Revenge of the warmongers

Rat 09 confirmed that it is much tougher to win by conquest even on prince. The additional restriction of razing all AI cities did not make this easier.
This follow up game would be on prince as well but without the razing condition. Still, it will be a real challenge to win by conquest, since all other victory condition would be enabled as well.

Suggested SG

Level: Prince
Civilization: to be discussed
Map Type: Continents
Size: Standard
Others: all victory conditions enabled, but we need to win by conquest

Roster:
ThERat
reserved
reserved
reserved
open slot

I am keeping some spots reserved for Rat 09 players in case they would like to join again

sweet....revenge! count me in

If there's a spot I'll join up. Could always brush up on my military tactics.

I am willing to try again.

count me in

Looks like the schedule is filled Welcome Goraemon! Read Rat09 and you know why we're up for some revenge....

nice to see that you all want to play again and welcome
goraemon...

Now, I was thinking of playing as Russia. What do you people think. Their UU can be quite powerful and we have time to build up our empire. I think it will be important to concentrate on empire building before thinking of too much war. Once we have been established ourselves well, then we can take on the enemy.

Roster:
ThERat
Xarathas
Dimy
Greebley
goraemon

Thankee

Catherine is one of my favorite civs with financial/creative; the early culture expansions help as we don't have to build anything extra to be able to grab resources. Cossacks of course pwn. With the financial trait, we can afford to build up our infrastructure and research early on instead of necessarily going for an ancient-era rush, and make sure that when we eventually go to war, our advanced armies will be well-supported by our economy.

All in all, I'm somewhat familiar with playing her and have no complaints, although to play a completely counterintuitive civ would be a different challenge altogether.

ThERat said:

Now, I was thinking of playing as Russia. What do you people think. Their UU can be quite powerful and we have time to build up our empire. I think it will be important to concentrate on empire building before thinking of too much war. Once we have been established ourselves well, then we can take on the enemy.

Click to expand...

Yeah Russia is good for me..i havent played them yet, so would be a good chance to get to know them . Yeah the building strategy early on seems to work out fine in DG01 even though it wasn't planned in that game but forced to it
Should be interesting to see how this develops. Oh...you sure you don't wanna turn of at least Spaceship? I really hate that victory condition

Russia's a fine race, late enough UU(love the UU, btw) so we can work on tech'ing is always good. Fin is good for supporting a vast empire which we will undoubtedly have, though I like Organized better for warmongering. Not a big fan of the creative trait for warmongering, though. I wouldn't be against using Russia, but I'd like to toss in a few more nominees.

1) Japanese. - Agg/Org is a very good warmongering combo IMO. I really like Agg for warmongering because of the myriad of options that free combat 1 opens up, and the cheap barracks is always nice. Samurais are late enough and fairly long lived(provided that you tech appropriately) and in a very convinient spot for tech'ing. Civil Service is a tech you want to get to fairly early anyway (for beauraucracy) and Machinery is just a hop and a skip away from Metal Casting. If you beeline for those 2, you can get some serious mileage out of samurais.

2) Incans - Yeah, the UU is really early, and really only good vs barbarians and extremely early capital sacking (more for small sized maps, but we may get lucky and find a neighbor nearby this time), but it's another one of my favorite warmongering trait combo. Not to mention starting with Mysticism is nice as we don't have to waste as much time scrambling for religions. As for the UU, in the first 40-50 turns or so, there's really not a whole lot to do other than making military/worker/settlers.. and if we happen to find a civ nearby, there's no reason to make the latter.

3) Indians (either) - having fast workers will help boost our start a bit.. and we don't really have to worry about gearing up for war for a certain era either. Starts with mysticism, Gandhi's good if you want to go for wonders and Asoka's good for the Org trait. Not to mention the idea of Warmonger Gandhi....

I was thinking of Japan too, but Tokugawa is usually hated amongst the rest. We need friends to win this, spreading religion for that might help.

So, India might be a good choice too...

Well, I think Tokugawa's just hated amongst the rest because of the way AI plays him Refusing to open borders and trade with everyone doesn't really help your relations. I don't recall having any problems with him when I played him, hehe.

I think Tokugawa is mainly hated in the game because of the AI personality...he doesn't want to trade, or open borders... if you play him as human it shouldn't be so bad. I don't think the AI are hard-coded to dislike a specific leader/nation.


**EDIT** Oops, Xarathas just beat me to it ** EDIT **

so, shall we play as Tokugawa? I am ok with that

save

Pre-Turn
start as Russia. Also use epic speed to make it possible to win by conquest. Set AI to aggressive

this is our start I called it Garden of Ivory

settle on the dot
we get 185gold from 4 huts, we have now 1 scout and 2 warrior
went for bronze working so we can chop forest, 6 turns for agriculture so we can work the wheat
currently on worker, ready in 10
there is also one more hut and we are alone on a continent which has copper in the south

our land



Roster:
ThERat
Xarathas - up
Dimy - on deck
Greebley
goraemon

since this is epic, suggest to play 20 turns in the first round (I played 30 turns myself)

Alone again on a continent? You generate some weird continent maps But it's a good thing for our new strategy in this game...and the continent is big enough to keep us expanding for a while.

You generate some weird continent maps

Click to expand...

I also don't know what is that. But either I get AI gallore with 4-5 on the same continent or those isolated starts.
By the way the southeast/east isn't totally explored, there might be more land and Islands. We should go for sailing also soon.

We have copper on our Island and since we do not want to go fighting immediately, I think iron working has lower priority. Maybe get archery for barb defense and then go for the Oracle, CoL path?

By the way, the reason why I did not select Tokugawa is simple. Right at the same time, there is another SG starting with Toku and a conquest goal. I didn't like the same setup...

Holy Ivory, Batman..
Unfortunately, aside from those, it looks like our resource distribution across the continent is less than stellar. Add to that no neighbors..oh well, we'll just have to accept that we'll probably be behind technologically in the early going and try to expand quickly, keeping watch for barbs.

Hmm.. war elephants.. *drool*. Never played with Aggressive AIs.. do they trade much?

If anything looks like our capital should be able to pump out some decent science early on with all those ivory. Library should be built ASAP after the oracle.

If Oracle'ing for a CoL is doable, that would be great.

We should make a point to get Sailing early to get a few contacts, though. I have a bad habit of ignoring seafaring techs.

Great Library is always a nice boost to science and usually easily obtainable if we beeline for it.

We could also try for Great lighthouse / Colossus, as it is very likely that we'll have a good bunch of coastal cities.

Monarchy for wine/hereditary rule should be done once we the few early wonders out of the way.

Argh, so many choices

once we can work the phants and wheat, our captial will be a shield and commerce powerhouse initially. This will be very good for early research. However, the whole Island doesn't look that great with a lot of desert in the east.
Suggest to get to galleys asap to be able to explore. We need contacts once we get to the alphabet.