[BNW] Warmonger strategy for Songhai/Mongolia

I agree, but my post was an answer to Shahjahan, who was struggling to get the money for the first push on prince. Once the puppets kick in, money is no longer an issue.

Resonance said:

I agree, but my post was an answer to Shahjahan, who was struggling to get the money for the first push on prince. Once the puppets kick in, money is no longer an issue.

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Winning on Prince is pretty easy.
I wanted to practice the strategy on Prince to move up though.
Here is a save file on King.
Could anyone get 6 mandekalu cavalries on turn 80 here?

ShahJahanII said:

Winning on Prince is pretty easy.
I wanted to practice the strategy on Prince to move up though.
Here is a save file on King.
Could anyone get 6 mandekalu cavalries on turn 80 here?

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Sure, that start is actually pretty awesome. It ticks all the boxes - plenty of horses near the capital and around that area, friendly cultural CS, great resources and great production.

It should be noted that turn 80 isn't really par for the course, that is a really fast time and usually is achieved by getting a bit of hut love clearing out a tech on your path. But that's deity I'm talking about, on king it's easy to get it done around 80, or a bit before, because you can build the GL. If you don't build the GL then add about 7 - 10 turns on top which brings you to around the mid 80's mark which is about the average once you know this opening inside out.

snarzberry said:

Sure, that start is actually pretty awesome. It ticks all the boxes - plenty of horses near the capital and around that area, friendly cultural CS, great resources and great production.

It should be noted that turn 80 isn't really par for the course, that is a really fast time and usually is achieved by getting a bit of hut love clearing out a tech on your path. But that's deity I'm talking about, on king it's easy to get it done around 80, or a bit before, because you can build the GL. If you don't build the GL then add about 7 - 10 turns on top which brings you to around the mid 80's mark which is about the average once you know this opening inside out.

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Really? I got it around my mid 90s.
Pretty lost here.

It will help to know what part is slowing you down. Does it take too long to unlock chivalry or are you waiting for the culture to clear liberty? Or is it that you don't have money available to upgrade in time or are you not getting all the CAs built soon enough?

snarzberry said:

It will help to know what part is slowing you down. Does it take too long to unlock chivalry or are you waiting for the culture to clear liberty? Or is it that you don't have money available to upgrade in time or are you not getting all the CAs built soon enough?

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It is one or the other.
If I have the culture, I'm low on money from allying the CS.
If I have the money, I'm low on culture.
If I had a GS ready to bulb on turn 80, that would be great.
The save was on King difficulty, BTW.
Thanks for all the help.

It's hard to say what the problem is. It could be just some basic stuff like getting 3 workers out early enough, or ensuring that you grow pop in your cities high enough before focusing on hammers. Try researching pottery-writing-AH and take liberty-settler, you might have better success going that way.

snarzberry said:

It's hard to say what the problem is. It could be just some basic stuff like getting 3 workers out early enough, or ensuring that you grow pop in your cities high enough before focusing on hammers. Try researching pottery-writing-AH and take liberty-settler, you might have better success going that way.

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Thanks for the tips.
The game is coming long pretty well.
On turn 220 I have only 2 capitals left to take.
But it may not work out the same way past King.

This strategy is gold. I used an adaptation of it to get my first Deity win. I was Mongolia playing on a Pangea map, Duel, 4 CSs. Gandhi was my target. I won at about turn 120 (kinda late) but I couldn't generate enough resources to sell to Gandhi (because he had similar resources) so it took me a little bit to upgrade my horsemen to Keshiks. Between my two cities I had 8 horses, which would prove essential. I popped Chivalry at around turn 98, upgraded my horsemen, and I was off to war across the rugged map. Two turns later I chose Khan as my GP from Liberty tree (GS woulda been pointless now, I didn't have cash to pay off a cultural CS to bulb Chivalry earlier). Now Gandhi being Gandhi had only 4 warriors, 2 pikeman, and 3 archers (he did manage to build 8 World Wonders by the time I got to his capital) guarding his two cities (only two!) and luck would have it that his capital was in front of his second city so I went right for the jugular. I half-mooned 7 keshiks and started to whittle away. The city was up at 31 Defense already due to Great Wall and Himeji Castle so my Keshiks were only doing -1, sometimes -2 damage against him. After about 5 turns, and a few Knight rushes against me, I had him in the red, he tried a plea deal with me for about 2000 gold and resources (no second city), but I laughed and one turn later victory was mine!

Now this was my 10th attempt at a deity victory. The first 9 attempts were with several different strategies, map sizes, and VCs and all were huge failures. Never had a problem at Immortal however, but Deity would kick my butt.

Thanks again for the good strategy!

Becomedeath said:

Apologies for the necro, but tried this yesterday and what a magnificent difference it makes, thank you for the guide. I'm at turn 200 and have 3 out of 7 civs left to conquer, shaving at least 100 turns off my normal game. Chivalry at turn 85, awesome!

However, this rapid expansion comes at a price. Happiness is the only thing slowing down my progress and I've already had to fight one war bordering on severe unhappiness the whole way through. I've started annexing cities to reduce the pressure but that's having knock on effects in culture which I'd rather avoid.

How are you handling the hapiness factor when you've got such rapid expansion vs a lack of infrastructure\social policy that is normal for this period in the game? I'm coping, but could be doing better I feel.

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Recently, I tried this tactic to increase my happiness which had sunk to -26:

1. Find a city that is not working for you. It is usually one pulling down happiness, remote from your capital, and sticks out on the far edge of your empire. It might be in a difficult-to-defend terrain.

2. Find a civ to trade or give it to. Not a civ on your borders. A civ that can't easily move a defender there. And a civ that won't get the city attacked immediately by any neighbors.

My result was an immediate uptick in happiness and an end to revolts. A great bonus, confusion was sown among all nearby players. A drain was placed on the new owner. Nearby invasion that had seemed imminent, now calmed.

Within a few moves, I was able to restart my CS conquests. (A rival eventually took the undefended city. Then, they inherited the problem.)

Are there any tips that will help me make the jump from King to Emperor as the Mongols? I was planning on using all of the 5 Asian civs in the game, along with Russia, the Ottomans, Germany, Persians, and Rome. All on a large map. All victory conditions. I do not expect to win, but I do expect to gain useful experience. Thanks for any tips it should be interesting.

1. Obtain horses.
2. Build Keshiks.
3. Don't let Keshiks die.
4. Obtain more horses.
5. Goto 2.

I've been trying this and I have one of two things stopping me form succeeding.

The first is early DoWs and Im talking EARLY, like before turn 30 I get DoWd and then everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

The second is even at Turn 80, how are knights any good against a wall of pikemen?

I've also been trying to adapt this into a Landsneckt carpet o' doom, unfortunately the earliest I can get CS even with the RA is turn 70, my tech path goes:
Pottery-> Writing-> 1st Lux tech(If I get 4 friendly neighbors I can skip this, saving 10-15 turns) ->
Philosophy(RA as soon as it finishes, hopefully the AI will have 200g on hand) ->
AH ->Trapping-> CS.

I've been wondering if I should try slipping in Mining/Bronzeworking and build a bunch of spearmen while I'm waiting for the RA to finish.

Also since I wouldn't need the GS from Liberty I'd go instead: Liberty- worker settler then go Honor - GG - 10% flank bonus.

DaveMcW said:

1. Obtain horses.
2. Build Keshiks.
3. Don't let Keshiks die.
4. Obtain more horses.
5. Goto 2.

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I have six horses so far, and I will follow the rest of your plan to the letter. Thanks

I lost my game after my capital was taken. I'll try again.

Much, much, much better start. I have made a DoF with Russia and we both denounced Japan, who had been hostile and denounced both Russia and I first. So its nice to have a friend instead of an extra enemy this time. Rome is still a threat though. I built the Temple of Artemis, good for producing ranged units faster. Japan my enemy has built the Statue of Zeus. I want to take it from him.

My plan at this point is either a culture or domination victory. My big threat is Japan because of the samurai. Rome on the other hand will be inpudent later in the game so my target should be Japan. My second should be Germany, I want to kill them soon after. I have eight horses, and will have ten after I build my third city after NC is built. My keshiks hopefully will be able to dominate Germany's landschenkts. I want to kill Germany before he gets panzers. Rome will be my third target if possible later in the game. I am going to go liberty then honor for SPs, fill both those trees first.

snarzberry said:

It's hard to say what the problem is. It could be just some basic stuff like getting 3 workers out early enough, or ensuring that you grow pop in your cities high enough before focusing on hammers. Try researching pottery-writing-AH and take liberty-settler, you might have better success going that way.

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I've been using this opening with Mongolia, starting on Prince, and most lately, at Emperor, trying to refine my starting play. Even though I've yet to get Chivalry before the mid 90s, I always seem to have strong games. Some I've played out, others I've written off to practice, and moved on. I've had some really good starting positions, but never quite seem to be able to get in a position to bulb Chivalry. I usually wind up finishing up the Liberty tree about the time Currency and Civil Service. Even if I build the Great Library, I still seem to get bogged down hard teching, and end up finishing the liberty tree before Chivalry is available to bulb.

So it seems like my science is lagging way behind what it needs to be, and if I understand things correctly, that means my population is too low. A few specific questions, related to the quote above:

1. Pop-wise, what is "high enough"? 3? 4? 5? More?
2. How many workers do you consider enough? 2? 3?
3. For this kind of start, would it be better to hard-build libraries, and go NC, or is the GL worth it?

Building GL for the free library and free tech seems like a no-brainer, but I wonder if this is where I'm going wrong. I don't want to have my stock strategy be dependent on something like a wonder that at higher levels, I may not be able to get. Would I be better spending those hammers on a worker, for more tile development earlier, then follow-up with National College?

DarthGrumpy said:

Pop-wise, what is "high enough"? 3? 4? 5? More?

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5 pop in the capital is a good size before stagnating to focus production on the NC, so work max food tiles within reason until you grow to about 5. This is starting area dependent, but is a good rough guide. With an all plains start with little or no good food tiles this might not be feasible and you may have to settle for slightly lower population which will cause a few turn delay in clearing to currency, not a game breaker or anything but you'd prefer to have a couple of good food tiles to get good growth.

DarthGrumpy said:

How many workers do you consider enough? 2? 3?

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Usually I'll get three, one bought, one stolen and one from liberty. If you decide not to steal, and save your free DoW for later preserving the diplo situation for longer, then it's probably a good idea to throw in a worker build at some point. Though 2 workers will not fail drastically at getting everything improved/sold. I prefer getting 3.

DarthGrumpy said:

For this kind of start, would it be better to hard-build libraries, and go NC, or is the GL worth it?

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The GL speeds things up by around 8 - 10 turns, and is available on all levels up to immortal. If you plan on playing deity then you're better off learning to play without it. With GL then you're definitely looking at slightly quicker than a turn 80 time on average to bulb chivalry, without it around the mid 80's is par.

DarthGrumpy said:

Building GL for the free library and free tech seems like a no-brainer, but I wonder if this is where I'm going wrong. I don't want to have my stock strategy be dependent on something like a wonder that at higher levels, I may not be able to get. Would I be better spending those hammers on a worker, for more tile development earlier, then follow-up with National College?

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If you're going to go liberty - settler, then you want to tech pottery - writing/AH (the order of these two depends on when you expect the settler to pop out, for instance if you find a culture ruin then you want to go pottery - AH) and plant the settler near horses. Buy the worker in the second city and improve the horses while building library. If you go liberty - worker, then you want to tech pottery - writing - resource tech, improve a resource to sell to help purchase library in the second city.

The slow down you're experiencing in clearing the techs to currency is possibly due to two things - low pop, as you said, but also a slower than optimal finish to the NC. So you may just need to tinker with things in order to get the NC built a bit faster. Library is your first priority in the second city always.

You didn't mention culture being a problem, so you're getting the cultural CS ally early enough to finish liberty by around 80 now it's just getting the order right in the other areas to time everything to finish together. good luck.

I managed a turn 80 Chivalry last night on Emperor, but it took the GL, and the Oracle to do it it. That sort of took the shine off it, lol.

Check me on this. The start I had was plains/desert/river. A couple adjacent wheat tiles, so food was never a problem. AH popped horses next to my city. There were sheep and cattle hexes within reach as well.

The difficulty, for me, was the lux. An ivory, and a silk. Ivory requires two techs (AH and Trapping) to reach before it really kicks in. It gives gold, but working that tile means less food and production. Silk, of course, requires calendar, which diverts off the "optimal" research path. My second city was almost a mirror... wheat, cattle, horses, ivory.

Oh, and Monty was running around, warring any and everyone, though he didn't come at me until after turn 80. The constant threat, however, meant that I had to make sure I had some defense. With this tech path, warriors seem kind of a waste, since they're stuck in the Ancient Era until you finally get around to researching iron, so I tend to try and get archery early, so I can buy a couple archers if need be for defense.

With a start like that, how would you prioritize production and tech?

DarthGrumpy said:

Oh, and Monty was running around, warring any and everyone, though he didn't come at me until after turn 80. The constant threat, however, meant that I had to make sure I had some defense. With this tech path, warriors seem kind of a waste, since they're stuck in the Ancient Era until you finally get around to researching iron, so I tend to try and get archery early, so I can buy a couple archers if need be for defense.

With a start like that, how would you prioritize production and tech?

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Chariot archers would make more sense. Especially for Arabia/Mongolia as they keep promotion after upgrade. But also for Siam/Spain/Songhai. The trick is to pull them back right before they get first promotion or to go straight for HBR and build horsemen. In addition this strategy, afaik, never suggested to ignore luxes techs. This cash is precious. Nothing would have happened had you taken a little detour and delayed Chivalry for few turns. There is no difference whether you get it on turn 80 or on turn 85.