Monarch Student XVII - Frederick

In place – horses or copper 1 NE? I have mining, so might as well start BW. If it’s copper, someone has to get rushed with all these trees. Popped a scout from the hut and started scouting. And here’s my rush candidate:



She’s a long way away though, so I’m not even sure with the copper I pop in my capital it’s worthwhile. Plus if she has horses, I’m dead. So I figure with all the land I’ll try to settle what I can. Build a couple warriors and workboats while growing to size 4, and start getting a few settlers out. Hamburg goes here:



and I quickly realize I need workers and iron working to get rid of all this jungle. And my crappy cities are slow growing too. Not a good start – this capital needs to carry me. First great person shows up:



He builds an academy in the capital. Went on to build this:



Helps the tech rate, but man, Hatty has me boxed in something bad. I am really out of practice, as I did not aggressively settle at all. I only got 5 cities out by 10 AD, and am stuck on that all the way to the end of this round due to lack of production. This has not gone well. The good news is diplo – I have Hatty friendly and Justy pleased thanks to religion, so no fear of a backstab. And I popped two scientists in the last 12 turns, who are about to start my bulbing.



First Philo, and then decide to settle the next for beakers. The next one comes and he bulbs most of education. Then speed toward lib and that’s where I cut off. 5 lousy cities:



Tech situation:



I made a huge mistake not walling off the west side of the island I share with Hatty - clearly rusty. As you can see though, it’s not all bad. I need to fit two more cities in here – will need major overlap to succeed this game, and have no choice really except to take on Hatty. And I'm pretty confident she's huge - her stupid creative trait is killing me, and this map was tailor made to get boxed in from the get go. I’m thinking about delaying lib and trying to beeline steel to destroy Hatty - I'm relatively certain she's got the Jewish holy city, and has shrined it. I think that may be my best choice, although not even sure I'll have enough production to pull that one off. Not sure yet how to win, but clearly a month off has me rusty!

Settle in place. I get a map from the hut...



Yeah, that'll help me wtfpwn this...?!

Later on hut luck improves!



Warrior fogbust knowledge allows for some...aggressive settling. See nooby hatty? You're not supposed to whore religion.



I spit lots of settlers out since I was in a hurry to block hatty. I actually LOST a city to a barb but took it back the next turn (got caught out of position and a little too over aggressive on not using units). Otherwise the fogbust warriors worked to perfection here and I won a lot of city sites w/o war...





Dag gummit. I tech aesthetics and nobody goes alphabet by 1 AD on immortal!



But, the position is strong regardless. Lots of room for backfill and hatty will be at a severe hammer disadvantage later.

Well, not winning lib



Dag, yo. Only religion anywhere else is buddhism...hatty founded every other one.

I really didn't deserve circumnavigation, but I got it.





I am now prepping for war vs hatty. I went democracy due to having a lot of cottages. Hatty is threatening for culture (and as a result annoying me). I can declare on her w/o repercussion as the other jews are friendly, and cyrus is pleased. Cannons/cuirassers are the order of the day (I can make both), and I'm on my way to medicine with a merchant banked.

After taking down hatty, I am going to play for UN, with my backup being culture (4 religions and a strong tech position means I can get at least 350% culture in all my cities, with a very strong culture corp and mature towns for over 700-800 culture/turn).



Hatty should go down easy due to having 2x her cities.

Won a space victory pretty late. This game was much harder than it should have been.

Great play #1: Sent 1st settler up north for a blocking city vs Hatty. Settled next to a barb warrior ( with warrior garrison). City razed end of turn by barb. Really tempted to restart but didn't.

Great play #2: Managed to get that city rebuilt - and put up another blocking city. So i still got Hatty blocked all the same. Then decided to build the great lighthouse and other nonsense instead of more settlers. Only had 4 cities at 1 AD. Hatty starts putting cities up north, and along the west coast.

Great play #3: Hatty even managed to settle on the west coast iron. This is pretty significant because you need iron for cannons. I don't think of this and get steel from lib around 1100 AD aiming to take over the continent with cannons/whatever. Can't trade for iron from anyone.

Great play #4: Decide i'll just go for Cuirassiers. I'll build enough to take the iron city and defend against counter attack - then build cannons and upgrade trebs. Feel good about this plan until i find out you can't build Cuirassiers without iron either.

End up building 10-15 trebs or so, and drafting the crap out of my cities after rifling. Easily take the continent but much later than planned. Somehow i was still ahead in tech when i eliminated Hatty. I was really expecting to fall way behind since i drafted max in all cities including 20% culture slider + theaters everywhere. Anyway the game was still won easy despite the late launch. I was far ahead on tech all game - just had to conquer Justinian to stop his culture win in the early 1900's. He was also 2nd in tech to me, so with him gone (capitulated with 2-3 cities left) it was easy.

Settle in place and pop this from the hut. Great start right?



From the 2nd hut:



Here's where i cancel out any advantage those 2 free techs gave me. 1st try of settling Hamburg it got razed next turn by a warrior. I settled right next to the barb and left it to chance that i would survive - big mistake. I'm really tempted to just restart but play on. Still get the two blocking cities up even with losing my first settler.



This is the 2nd horrible play i make this game. Built this instead of settlers. This hurt me more than help me as you'll see later.



Did i really have 4 cities at 1 AD?



Have monarchy/code of laws/currency and an academy in cap around 800 BC. Can't trade for math but otherwise tech is good. Just really should have built a couple more cities.

I let Hatty take a lot of land as you can see. She settled on the iron by the mountains.



I switch to gunpowder this turn and save lib for steel. This wasn't a great idea because i had no iron. That means no cannons and that was my entire plan.

Still haven't met everyone although i can see them now. Didn't really explore much this game. (never built a caravel) This is where i'm working on oxford in a golden age while teching to rifling. I got military tradition ASAP to make up for not being able to get cannons - but apparently you need iron for cuirassiers too. Who'd of thought? Still no one will trade it so i need rifling. Don't really play too often without iron so i don't know these things. Losing my first settler and building TGLighthouse probably put me 50 turns behind by the end of the game. 4 cities at 1 AD = not good.



Doesn't matter all that much since i'm out teching them easily.

Have a small empire with little production - chemistry/guilds/caste workshop help a little but drafting is where most of this comes from.



Still have only met Izzy - i'm anti-social and refuse to expore. They can come to me. I'm way ahead on tech somehow - very bad start, small empire - must be the gems



Drafted 30 rifles - didn't get globe up until a couple turns before i declared so it only helped reinforce. These 30 guys came from running 20% culture plus a theater everywhere (with dye). I destroy all my population except in my capital. 30 rifles, 15 trebs then i declare on unsuspecting hatty.



100 year war and she's eliminated.



No business still being ahead in tech after that draft and spending the entire 1700's at war. Still ahead so the game is won.



1931 tech:



Justinian is 2nd in tech, but also about to win a culture victory (20 turns or so). Send this stack in to capture this culture cities. Sury actually declared on him a few turns earlier and took a city (not culture) so i had to bribe to peace. Didn't want him capitulating to sury and still go culture. Could still have stopped him but then i'd be dragged into a war with the alien.



Finally launch the ship. Sury declared on me with a whole lot of modern armor and helicopters. He took 2 cities on his side - i was tempted to just let him have them all since i knew i could still launch but then decide to take all cities off wealth and defend over there. I had the transports and production to beat him so i figured i'd fight him off. Then the UN vote pops up and i just get peace. Very anti-climatic but saves time.



So 12 turns later...

Philosophical leader with a high food capitol? The obvious solution is cottages!! .

Let's see how this went:













Early in this round Sury declares, gets repelled like nothing, then I go to work on Hatty. I take all her continental cities but not capitulation. From there it's grinding science and sushi en route to mass media.

It got easy from there. #1 in land/pop, I never fell behind in tech, easily nabbing all 3 mass media wonders. As you can tell, I was in position to win culture with DPs with cyrus, justinian, and sury, but UN came first (Sitting Bull was #2 in pop, so I just build UN myself). I also had assembly line and combustion from trades in case izzy wanted to throw down. She had a large fleet and was in war mode but the DPs probably messed up her decision, they sat there a long time.

Overall this was practically won on REX. As soon as I got a renaissance tech lead (in terms of military, anyway) on hatty, it was nighty night. It was fun to get cuirassers through trading for MT...definitely some extra oomph over the usual musket/cannon. Hatty got cuirassers mid-war, and even took a city for a turn. It was still an easy war.

Obviously with all the cottaging the early emancipation helped a lot. I doubt we're going to see a lot of "no early wonders cottage spam" with fred in this one, but it works out pretty well if you can get the land.

Don't play for a month and I forget how to play. Looks like we made the same mistake, and it will at least allow me to plan ahead for my next segment. I also let Hatty beat me to the iron city, which means no cannons, as you pointed out. No idea how i can win without cannons, even with my tech lead. This is an awful game for me, all because i let a creative civ control our land. Not sure I have enough production to even build trebs, because you lose too many of those.

My only hope might be to take the iron city with trebs and start massing cannons, while hopefully stopping her from taking any of my cities. This will be a challenge for sure - don't think I've ever had just 5 cities in 835 AD except in an OCC.

Treb -----> cannon is a relatively cheap upgrade. Possibly send a merchant off somewhere, otherwise just kill the slider a bit. If you have 15 trebs they can become 15 cannons mighty quickly.

Well, i don't know if you have even less land than i did in my game, but you could try doing what i did. My game certainly wasn't optimal (1982 victory...) but it gets the continent easily around 1800. At around 1695 or so i attacked with 30 rifles/15 trebs. Most of this by drafting ALL my happiness away at 20% culture +theaters. If you get globe up in the 1500's this would be easier. I just started building cannons on the 3rd turn of the war (when i took the iron). Keep drafting rifles and it should be easy unless Hatty does much better in your game for some reason. I took very few losses, it was probably 10 to 1 ratio - even counting siege. I actually had more rifles than i needed and could have attacked earlier. Anyway by 1800 i eliminated Hatty - this could be even faster if you play epic speed rather than normal. (not sure which you are playing on) I hardly wasted any turns - only maybe 6-7 turns of healing through the entire war. Kept the rifles/cannons moving as fast as possible but she has too much land, just no way to do it in under 100 years unless you use cavs/spies or something.

I'm sure there was a much better (earlier) way to conquer the continent though. (other than just not losing that iron spot to Hatty )

Hatty had settled three squares north of the iron, but it wasn't yet in her cultural borders. So I sent a settler up to claim the iron ASAP. What a major major move that was - reading Tempesta's writeup probably saved my chance of winning.

First, a golden age is needed to speed me along to steel.
Somehow I get this, despite not building a single military ship – power of map trading.



That'll sure come in handy later. I desperately need iron, so right on top - I thought Hatty's city had claimed this already - thank goodness I was wrong.



Now how fast can I get an army of cannons to beat up hatty? We shall see. Lib-Steel:



Steel in 1160 AD is pretty good for me – only issue now is I need to get about a dozen cannons built plus a few cleanup units and beeline toward Hatty’s capital. She’s been building lots of nice shiny stuff, so I am sure Thebes is a super city. Here goes – speed speed speed. Turn to every ounce of production I have, switch to slavery, whip like crazy, beeline rifling and am ready to go in 1410 AD with a modest stack – I hope I can make enough headway to get to her capital. Here goes:



One city down – no casualties, which is huge. Whipping everything but Berlin – I’ll deal with the ramifications later, but I must take Thebes ASAP. Take a second city and hit nationalism. Time for ruthless drafting to go with ruthless whipping. On my way to Thebes…and



It’s mine. I see it all turning now with my vicious drafting and capital producing cannons every 3 turns. She can’t keep up, and I need to just mow through the rest of her cities to take this landmass. Amazing how an awful start can be turned around with whipping/drafting cities. Thank goodness Hatty is pretty peaceful overall. Someone like Biz would have killed me for sure.

And after slogging my way through, I have a continent to myself:



I cut off after finishing forbidden palace in Thebes. At this point, I should be able to come back and win with this whole continent to myself, after a really lousy start. All my cities are pretty darn small except Berlin, because I whipped/drafted them to the bone, but I have a lot of land now. Empire:



And tech:



Sitting Bull is a bit of a problem, as he’s the tech leader, but I have an engineer sleeping, so mining inc looks to be in my future, once I get wall street built in thebes, it’ll be a good wall street city.

Plus, it would probably be smart to get heroic epic and oxford down as well - I don't even have enough universities built. So I need universities, banks, my three key national wonders and mining inc in the next segment, all while growing my cities as fast as I can. At least I’m back alive now...I'll have to deal with Sitting bull at some point - either that or go for a win condition I'm not used to, like space. Should be interesting final round.

Your game is very similar to how mine was up until around 1400 AD. I think i got steel from lib right around the same time as you did. Big difference now obviously is i could do nothing with it and you built cannons - you took the continent 150 years sooner than i did so you really shouldn't have a problem winning. I agree Mining Inc. is important - i missed it in my game since i didn't get the engineer at 80% odds and the next one was too late. I was really hurting for spaceship production - founded sids sushi for 7 food/city but i had so much health problems late game that i doubt it helped all that much. You can definitely win in other ways rather than space though - maybe you can get buddhism somehow and win with UN? Any of Sury's cities have buddhism in them? Conquer the other continent, or half of it and give UN to the other guy.

I initially was thinking SP and kremlin right after I finished Hatty - I put one turn into it, realized I had my engineer (and SB was done with communism, so he'd get kremlin first), and immediately switched down the path towards railroad for mining.

So yes, i avoided what would have been a dumb move with only one wasted turn into it. I've put about 20 more turns in before I had to break until tonight, and am worried a bit about SB. He only has 10 cities though, so with mining and all the cities I have, I should be able to demolish him with production, which is what I typically do in the late game anyway...this is just a bit later than I'm used to.

I do have two big civs at pleased, so I might be able to get them to friendly and pull UN too. I'll have to ferret that out in the next 20-30 turns.

I think if I win this I'll give a go at the Shaka game on immortal too, to test myself with a first try at immortal. This should have been a loss given I had only 5 cities at 900 AD.

Final segment. Teched to railroad while getting banks and universities built, so I can actually get a few national wonders down. Pathetic that my only national wonder is national epic in the 1700s. That’s about to change – we’ll see if it’s too little too late.

First off – Mining Inc:



And this is a slight problem.



I know the AI never takes the right path when it comes to space, so he probably won’t launch a ship for at least another 150+ turns, but clearly I’m going to have to start to take action, either against SB or everyone else. As I spread mining, get my assembly plants down and tech toward panzers, I need to decide whether to attack SB first, or just go after everyone else, as I have a tech edge on the rest and may be able to get a chain capitulation out of this.

Artillery…turn tech down a bit to upgrade my cannons, and head to industrialism. I decide to go after Cyrus and Izzy first – hoping I can get them both to cap quickly via war, and then make them my allies in the battle against SB. Here goes:







I took his 2 best cities and thought he would cap for sure. Of course not. So have to keep mowing him down a bit…wasting time for later. Once my panzers land, he realizes the error of his ways and capitulates:



Give him his cities back, take his coal for mining inc, and gift him techs. Next up…Izzy:



First city down, with Statue of Zeus, which was nice. Tank reinforcements coming too. And Madrid…shockingly, it’s shrined.



She won’t cap yet though. Only a matter of time. Meanwhile, Justy DOWed SB, which is perfect for me, as I beat up the little people. They can kill each other’s units off. Finally, she gives.



Give her those cities back, and one last civic switch for the stretch run:



All about units now. And I go after Justy – quickly take the capital:



Then have to hold it while reinforcement comes – he sent a lot of units my way, but tanks against panzers…please. First time the UU has really paid off for me. And built this for my attempt at diplomation:



First vote I was 60 votes short, so just need either Justy to cap or to take enough of his cities. Once my reinforcements show, I start mowing him down. Second try comes the turn before I get Justy to do this:



So he abstained. Oh well – next vote is mine for sure. I figure I’ll keep all of Justy’s cities to ensure I have enough pop, but now it’s just waiting for one more vote to come up and it’s a diplomation win. And in 1922, it comes:



Stats below. A late win, score was about 53k, but once I got mining and started building panzers, there was no chance. I actually killed numerous tanks with them, so this was the first time I really got meaningful use out of the german UU. Made up for an ugly boxed in start with nasty whipping and drafting, and once I took the continent, it was game over. Sitting Bull was huge and powerful - more pop and more soldiers, so fighting him would have been tough. Glad I went down the path of beating everyone else up.





Now, to keep my ego in check, I’m going to go download the shaka game to start tomorrow, and get my butt whipped on immortal.