BTS – A guide for higher difficulties for standard speed and maps (emperor+)

Turnset 6: 900 AD – 1000 AD

All our cities are having a market, forge, theatre and coliseum (or are about to finish them), so we can draft 2 times in each city without crippling our research due to the massive happy power we generate… ...and we sold education to Pacal, because we are going to stomp him next anyways

A short tunset, lasting only 10 turns… …but our caravel reached the other continent and showed us the devastating tech situation there:

6-1.JPG

Oh, and by the way, we upgraded our army to rifles, drafted for 3 turns, declared on Mansa, took 3 of his cities within the next 6 turns and can now vassalize him if we want:

6-2.JPG

6-3.JPG

...

The save:

View attachment Snaaty AD-1000.CivBeyondSwordSave
 
ooh, I've been enjoying your adventures of DD so I'm definitely looking forward to getting around to this thread. looks like it's mostly done. thanks for the write up ;)!

If you're switching to and from slavery a lot (not sure havent read article yet) would you go with a spiritual civ like mansa, whom i believe is spiritual and financial right?

I did all switches during the two golden ages I was running (I only had to do the last AFTER because I was stupid enough to forget a revolution again, like in the DD threat...)
 
I did all switches during the two golden ages I was running (I only had to do the last AFTER because I was stupid enough to forget a revolution again, like in the DD threat...)

ALT+M will save you.... Just make a note on the last turn of the golden age. "switch civics" ;)
 
Turnset 7: 1000 AD – 1070 AD:

We have decided to vassalize Mansa. In the same turns, an AP resolution result popped up and we have indeed now enough votes to block any resolutions Pacal proposes… …so we declare on him the same turn we vassalized Mansa, prepared or not. Only 8 turns later, half of Pacal’s land is under our control, his army is destroyed and we have captured 3 of his 7 cities.

We still are able to run science at 90% and only need 10% culture to support the war thanks to our massive happy build-up.

Pacal won’t capitulate, but accept peace on our terms.

7-1.JPG

The rest of his cities are quite far away, so here I decided to end this demo game, because it was getting late and I was tired... ...and the game is won anyways. The save is attached and it should be no problem for anybody who wants to finishe the game to

a)
make peace with Pacal now and happily tech towards space

b)
continue the war and take all his cities, then turn towards Toku and the other conti, winning domination

c)
do something in-between


A last look at the power graph:

7-2.JPG

Oh, and the GE we hoped to get turned out to be a GA who is still hanging around in our capital…

...

The save:

View attachment Snaaty AD-1070.CivBeyondSwordSave

...

END, thanks for joining

Snaaty
 
Great high-level game! I'm currently stuck on immortal, around 70-80% of my games some AI is kicking my ass, and I find this thread very educative. I think my biggest mistakes are not producing enough units, not growing capital to happy cap early enough, and founding too many mediocre cities. I have something like you showed in my mind, I'm just stuck in my old, bad habits which work only up to emperor.

Great thread, five stars! :)
 
As Ilnev stated, one can at least try to avoid the archery-path, I usually manage this in 2 out of 3 games even on Immortal+. Your 90% archery sounds too high.

I can only second the 2 early scientists+GLib+academy+NE in a cottaged, early city,
preferable the capital, this is a really powerfull strategy for lightbulbing.

You stated starting the build-up of cottages during Literature, in most of my games with financial leaders I prefer to begin establishing cottages earlier in the future academy city and I found having a dedicated commerce city early on helps a lot.
 
Wow, again. Thanks for the walkthrough. Just a few questions.

1) I assume you played with Darius, not Cyrus. Can this strat work as well with non-financial/philosphical leaders?
2) You settled the copper city third not second I would have done. Was there any concern the Ai would settle that first compromising the plans?
3) How did you use you great generals, if you actually got any.

Thanks again.
 
I will have to try this out myself. I used to play worker - warrior till 2 then settler but I'm starting to reconsider this opening. Assuming 2 special tiles than can be improved by worker techs + 2 hills, it seems like worker - warrior - warrior (till 4) then settler + whip seems like a better strategy? Or maybe even skip the whip entirely for the settler and save it for a granary.
 
Snaaty,

I have a question.

How did you handle Happiness? This gets worse at higher levels, right? I have trouble even on Noble keeping cities growing and not going into Unhappiness mode. Is it because you grabbed so much land early that you were able to hook up lots of Happiness resources?

Cheers.
 
the happy handicaps have been toned down in bts. It stops increasing after monarch I think. So you're really only working with 2 less :) than noble. I think capital is size 5 and other cities cap at 4 with one unit for military police.
 
BTS deity is a lot more forgiving than warlords, honestly, and aggressive AI even easier (think, think).

My way of playing is similar, except I'm slower, and I'm more appreciative of traits other than financial and philosophical. I tried your strategy Snaaty, and it seems to work very well... if you do manage to get maceman in time. That usually doesn't happen to me though.

Got 2 questions:

1) You mentioned expanding quickly before cottaging your lands. However, I find myself getting dogpiled by multiple AIs during my pacifism years, usually between 300AD and getting liberalism at around 500AD (you can get it 375AD, good for you, I can't beat 450AD-ish). The real trouble is, under pacifism, I cannot both keep up my science slider and keep an army large enough to prevent an outright dogpile, the kind where 3 civs suddenly declare war on you. Remember you told us to stay away from machinery during this time, and you obviously did not have horseback riding either, so... am I supposed to try to hold off using axeman?! You didn't even have construction for catapults that could soften their invasion stacks.

2) I understand the obvious need to avoid any techs that are not absolutely necessary, but I got two that I've been wondering about: monarchy and calendar. How did you reach such high hapiness levels with neither the pyramids, hereditiary rule or calendar resources?
 
BTS deity is a lot more forgiving than warlords, honestly, and aggressive AI even easier (think, think).

My way of playing is similar, except I'm slower, and I'm more appreciative of traits other than financial and philosophical. I tried your strategy Snaaty, and it seems to work very well... if you do manage to get maceman in time. That usually doesn't happen to me though.

Got 2 questions:

1) You mentioned expanding quickly before cottaging your lands. However, I find myself getting dogpiled by multiple AIs during my pacifism years, usually between 300AD and getting liberalism at around 500AD (you can get it 375AD, good for you, I can't beat 450AD-ish). The real trouble is, under pacifism, I cannot both keep up my science slider and keep an army large enough to prevent an outright dogpile, the kind where 3 civs suddenly declare war on you. Remember you told us to stay away from machinery during this time, and you obviously did not have horseback riding either, so... am I supposed to try to hold off using axeman?! You didn't even have construction for catapults that could soften their invasion stacks.

2) I understand the obvious need to avoid any techs that are not absolutely necessary, but I got two that I've been wondering about: monarchy and calendar. How did you reach such high hapiness levels with neither the pyramids, hereditiary rule or calendar resources?

Not to answer for Snatty, but those happiness resoruces maybe coming from trades.

I will try this but I also see the approach (fast expansion, Aesthetics/GL, very fast liberalsim rush via bulbing) as another valuable tool. Very similar to the wonder spam/sellted prohet approach of OBSOLETE (working fantastically in my current game).
 
Your simple guidelines helped my game immensily.

I kept my capital at size 3 repeatly for settler building instead of growing it at the start and then wasting precious start turns not building military.

Thanks!
 
Some quick answers:

@ madscientist:

1. Yes, Darius (sorry if I mixed it up)
2. I was afraid of loosing the spot between site C (=site B) and the capital, else I would have settled copper first to fend of barbs easier
3. one healer, one settled in HE city for faster unit producition (which I obviously didn´t need) because I had no better use

...

@ Belisar:

I usually get killed by Barbs (or slowed down WAY to much = slow death) when not going Archery except I have bronze or horses in capitals BFC, so I would stick to 90%

Another point:
I only cottaged the capital after lit, the hybrid and the commerce city I have built up right from the start with cottages, as soon as pottery was available

...

@ shyuhe:

I never whip in capital except when costal and building workboats because a BIG part of my early game strat is about working capital at max. size for the massive worker/settler wave

...

@ sylvanllewelyn:

You should always try not to fall below 50% of the power of the most powerful civ, then you are rel. save, when playing your politics right (no worst enemy etc.).

I usually manage to do the last bulb for lib around 100 -250 AD, then trading machinery and mass producing them for 10 - 15 turns usually does the trick. Off course, if your economy is stong enough you also can do without bulbing lib (=selfresearch) and can get machinery earlier.

1. Try not to get dogpiled AND keep some money in case you do. Then you can always upgrade your units in case of an emergency. Besides, if you get dogpiled by various AI´s, your power is way to low (I think I mentioned somewhere that you should have about 8 axes/swords around 1 AD and baracks all over your cities to prevent getting backstabbed)

I don´t play agressive AI, so not so many units needed for preventing backstabbing

2. Trade for them (I traded for 3 or 4 happy resouces)

...

@ manu-fan

Your assumption is right:
Big land = lots of stuff to trade with
 
Another question.

What exactly was your build order right in the beginning? I think you posted the start, and then in the next pic, the capitol was size 3 and producing a Settler. You mentioned something about 5 archers, but you must have produced workers also?

Thanks.
 
Another question.

What exactly was your build order right in the beginning? I think you posted the start, and then in the next pic, the capitol was size 3 and producing a Settler. You mentioned something about 5 archers, but you must have produced workers also?

Thanks.

I kept strictly to the production guideline mentioned in the strat. overview in the beginning of this thread, before I started the demo game. You can look there for the whole of it, but right at the start it was:

worker, warrior, archer (5x), worker, settler

(and the capital was size 5 (= happy cap) when starting to produce the second worker and the first settler)
 
Yeah this sounds about right. I've been killed by barbarians many times when I wasn't able to find a copper mine, get the borders popped in time, or get it mined and roaded. REXing is now more cost effective than a lot of axe rushes, since you're hemmed in less than when the AI got free workers and since you need a lot of units to take them out.
aesthetics/trading it is the consensus, and of course there's liberalism. People don't always go rifling, and you left out spy usage.
And yeah, if you REX, you can't waste production on barracks/granaries early. I prefer to shift worker/settler production to other cities if I can commerce or library my capital. I don't think you need so many workers unless you're fueling your REX through chops. You just need one in the capital for cottagers, and the rest can spend around ten turns in each new city then move on to the next one.
 
Top Bottom