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

Just looked at your save...



Snaaty,

Here's the after action report on your advice.

Bulbed Printing Press (I forgot I had a saved GP), teched Replaceable Parts, Gunpowder, bulbed Liberalism (GS), chose Rifling, teched Nationalism, built Taj Mahal.

Between 1350 and 1465 took all good cities of both Brennus and Hammurabi, vasssalized both. Easy cruise from here.

Made some mistakes:
-Forgot to whip the last univ., delaying Oxford and Shakespeare by 4 turns each (the 7th univ. was in Gordium).
-Used the end of the TM GA to change civics for war with Brennus, then the start of my first paid GA to change back, then the end of that GA to change again for H.
Result: 3 turns of anarchy to get back on a peace footing after the 2nd war. Should have stayed on a war footing as I redeployed. Alternately, could have delayed TM by 8-9 turns, but at that point I didn't yet know that no one on the other continent could race me for it.

Sidelight: Now in contact with all on other continent, open borders with two, selling commodities to three. But none will sell me commodities. Is that because they don't have Astronomy, or ....?
 
I was still thinking in terms of warlords and vanilla when eternal war was pretty much the only reliable way of winning deity. I guess BTS AI makes this impossible now, but then they're slower due to less bonuses too, so sure, a more peaceful path is something I have to get used to.

One thing I have always wondered about is the emphasis on one's capital in your empire. Curiously, even in builder games, my capital doesn't usually end up being the best one too. In fact, whenever I found or capture a city, I assign a role to that city, and soon my capital is just like another city, with a role assigned to it. Most often that role is "general support", but half your research is just exaggeration. My capital generates 20% of my total research at most, and that's with a good one.
 
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One thing I have always wondered about is the emphasis on one's capital in your empire. Curiously, even in builder games, my capital doesn't usually end up being the best one too. In fact, whenever I found or capture a city, I assign a role to that city, and soon my capital is just like another city, with a role assigned to it. Most often that role is "general support", but half your research is just exaggeration. My capital generates 20% of my total research at most, and that's with a good one.

Disagree. In the game Snaaty evaluated above, I had, as of AD 1030, >50% of research coming from my capital (8 cities). Other 7: 2 production, 1 mixed, 1 food/drafting, 2 commerce but less developed than cap. No master plan; just best uses of land available.

Snaaty was right that the best thing to do was reinforce further by putting Oxford in my capital. 20 turns later my total research had doubled, still 50% in cap.

It is now 1740-something and the cap. produces maybe 20% of science (17 cities). But this is the late game.
 
Okay I've just noticed something: how come this is not in the strategy articles sub-forum? It's got theory, build order and example, definitely deserves to be sticked.

About the rushing versus REXing part: the first time I tried this strategy I was hopelessly hemmed in, so I basically had to raze 2 AI cities to make space for my own sixth. But sure, I see what you mean when you are suggesting that you should gain a temporary tech advantage and attack the AI, so you can have a land advantage, which is what ultimately matters. It's still quite a feat to expand to 6 cities, each with enough production to build a university for the Oxford University though.

Is the Taj Mahal that important though? I don't see early golden ages being that powerful.
 
@ sylvanllewelyn:

Getting Oxford:
I usually whip the uni´s in most cities (works quite well, when you have build some farms)

About Taj:
Isn´t a crucial wonder, but REALLY easy to get when you pick Nat as FreeBee from Lib. Best it does is allowing you to switch civics without revolution and THAT really helps:
Go caste for getting a GM, go Teo for getting CR2 Maces you can then upgrade to Rambo-Rifles:goodjob:

...

@ Lstewart4:

Sorry for the late answer, haven´t looked at this thread for quite a while:blush::

I usually play continents, and there it works quite often quite well. If you want to make sure it works (not beeing squeezed in), march inland with your innitial settler when you are costal or regenerate the map untill you start inland

...

EDIT:

I already asked for it to be moved to the waracademy/strat-articles because it was requested already some time ago by several people... ...maybe you can´t ask for your own thread to be "upgraded" to there???

Will ask again though...
 
The strat is quite good imo and gives a very good overview of what to do if you can get to 6-8 cities peacefully. Get all the machinery like globe and an early (military) tech advantage in place starting to build backup units early,you can walz over your opponents on immortal almost any time, you don't have to go rifles, cannons'll do (more save and bulbalble imo) but also early cuirassiers as U Sun and Rusten have shown on several occasions.

Taj mahal will greatly help with the buildup, oxford doesn't help and it's a wonder that i typically build right after i've won the crucial first renaissance war.

I'm not so sure about regenerating maps or walking settlers inward (bit of a gambit), in this case other strats like an early rush trying to recover afterwards can work quite well and make for another sort of interesting game.
 
Vanilla / Warlords:

Replace Aest with Alpha

Stick to the path towards lib

Then go lib (nat freebee) MilTrad

Pick up gunpowder on the way

Draft about 15 muskets

Build/whip about 6 - 8 siege

Upgrade some eles/HA/knights to cav

Whip some more cav untill you have 15 or so

Go kill (is easier then the longer path in BtS:))

...

Klick the link "Deity fun" in my sig to get to a sample pre BtS game
 
Snaaty,

I have followed your outline, more or less, with good success in four attempts at Emperor. Won 3 on first try, 4th (Ottomans, Terra), required 3 reloads back to very early dates (pre-3000 B.C.) before I managed it. I think the differences in the final attempt were better micro early and abandoning the idea of a Maceman-era war. (Being Imperialistic, that seemed unnatural, but it did work.)

Now plan to try Portuguese, Terra. Obviously requires prioritizing Optics and the expense of parts of the rest of template. Plus neither Phil. nor Fin. Have you tried Joao yourself? Suggestions?

Thanks.
 
ive tried snaatys' guide on immortal. it was a huge challenge since i usually only play on prince. and indeed i have a problem. after settling the first wave of settlers my economy keeps collapsing. i have to lower my research rate to 20-30% for a very long time. before this occurs i usually manage the game - i can find the good spots, block the land, get my military up, etc - and it gets better after a while, but during this time i get behind in tech race and it ruins my game.

i dont know whats wrong. i dont settle my cities that far, so maintenace cost is usually low, i dont pay that much for my army either, i cottage like crazy, etc.

it wont work. what do you think why not?
 
You probably don't grow your cities enough or don't have enough workers, get monarchy or happiness resources early so you can grow your cities. During the first period of the game your capital is most often carrying most of your research. Grow it big and work cottages under currecracy or loads of specialists or something...
 
ive tried snaatys' guide on immortal. after settling the first wave of settlers my economy keeps collapsing. i have to lower my research rate to 20-30% for a very long time. before this occurs i usually manage the game - i can find the good spots, block the land, get my military up, etc - and it gets better after a while, but during this time i get behind in tech race and it ruins my game.

This happens to me often even on Emperor--usually because 4-6 cities is enough to cost killing amounts of maintenance. But it usually ameliorateseventually and then I catch up.

i dont settle my cities that far, so maintenace cost is usually low, i dont pay that much for my army either

So where exactly are your costs coming from? Can you provide a snapshot of your cities/army/costs/sliders?
 
My big problem is that if I start with a coastal location--a good one might have c. 4 resources, 2-3 water and 1-2 land--I am torn re my first build. FB or worker? 2nd build? So far I haven't found a first 25-35 turn plan that works.

There must be micro-management issues that I'm not getting. .....

Help?
 
ive tried snaatys' guide on immortal. it was a huge challenge since i usually only play on prince. and indeed i have a problem. after settling the first wave of settlers my economy keeps collapsing. i have to lower my research rate to 20-30% for a very long time. before this occurs i usually manage the game - i can find the good spots, block the land, get my military up, etc - and it gets better after a while, but during this time i get behind in tech race and it ruins my game.

i dont know whats wrong. i dont settle my cities that far, so maintenace cost is usually low, i dont pay that much for my army either, i cottage like crazy, etc.

it wont work. what do you think why not?
Getting currency early helps a lot, much more than col. The second trade route helps, especially if you have a lot of cities. Sell off all rubbish (techs and resources) and you can often have the slider at 100% or at least 70%.
 
I find it always takes time if playing on a new, higher level, to get used to stuff like AI tech pace and maintenance cost. Play a few games and you'll get used to it.

To help with maintenance, scout for a blocking site with 1-2 food resources and gold/silver/gems. It's great to have a city that seales off land and provides lots of early commerce.
After the REXing phase the slider doesn't need to be high, often part of the research is provided by scientists.
Selling techs is also great. When trading around, try to get some (cheap) techs few AIs know and broker them around for money or more techs. It's often better imo to get money as it doesn't put you in WFYABTA early and your multipliers are nearly all for :science: (academy and library). Also a "trick" to maximize earlygame research is to put research to 0% after you discover writing and put it back to 100% after your library (in the cap) finishes as it generates the most commerce. I often get to research aesthetics and 2-3 more techs on 100% with the money I get from running 0% and from selling cheap techs once available. This way you get a great start in the liberalism race, together with a few bulbs it's nearly in the bag in most games :thumbsup:
 
It looks like a Religious victory should be possible at this point. Keep hitting Pacal until he's small and capitulates, but don't take the AP (so he's your competition for religious victory and his vote isn't big enough to prevent your victory), then get Astronomy, switch to the AP religion, and build missionaries and galleons to get them over there. You want Astronomy to do some of the work spreading AND you don't want too many of them guys converting to the AP religion - they just need to have it in 1 little city. Some may convert, that's okay. Suck up to everyone so they like you, and when the vote comes up, you should hopefully win.

If you take AP away, Mansa becomes the next highest candidate, and if he's using that religion, then by himself he will be forced to keep you from winning. You need like 5/6 of the votes, so it's tight.

A few questions of my own; I've only loaded up the final save to take a look at it:

Why haven't you got OB with Mansa? You're missing out on trade route money here!

Why haven't you traded for his tech yet?

You have your gold % set to 0, losing you 215 gpt; you need 60% gold to get out of the red (+5 gpt). Where have you been getting gold? Is this just a temporary deficit from selling Education and capturing cities?

Opening borders with Mansa brings income to 17 gpt at 60%. Buying Astronomy, thanks to all your OBs with everyone else, lets you drop gold to 50% and still make 22 gpt. Running at 40% gets you Chemistry in 3 turns (vice the 2 you had it at before) with a much smaller deficit. There's 43 gpt available through trade when you get Astronomy, plus some resources, which you need some happiness to stop burning money on Culture. You should snag Mansa's spare resources if you can so you have more to trade with. You don't have anything else getting you income (Spiral Minaret, Merchants, Priests, Shrines, selling off resources) so you're totally dependent on the slider, tech-trading, and pillaging for income, and you've only got Markets, no Grocers, Banks, and one Courthouse.

I guess the questions there would be: did you have a reason for not getting Astronomy/OB? You could've been doing Mercantilism if you're waiting for Astronomy. I think the OB with Moose was just an oversight (you can't lose by having it), and the lack of money-multipliers simply because you're busy building units. Also, were you holding resources in reserve for when Astronomy kicked in?

Edit: Oh geez, I didn't realize this thread was 5 pages long! Sorry if any questions/observations are stupid.
 
Just wondering about this:

"Then build a second worker and then go settler, worker, worker, settler, worker worker, settler (helped with some chopping; but try to keep 3-4 forests for later)."

Am I supposed to put the whip away at this stage and only use the axe, since queing up all thoose settlers and workers won't let the city grow back to size?
 
Just wondering about this:

"Then build a second worker and then go settler, worker, worker, settler, worker worker, settler (helped with some chopping; but try to keep 3-4 forests for later)."

Am I supposed to put the whip away at this stage and only use the axe, since queing up all thoose settlers and workers won't let the city grow back to size?

good question, I thought worker, grow to happy cap, settler, worker, work, settler. whip settler for 2 pop then grow back. which is the best way?
cripp
 
I don't know what's optimal but I generally whip every 5-10 turns (depending on :) cap and food resources available; more food surplus allows more whipping (faster regrowing)) and regrow while building a military unit. You should NEVER neglect your army, especially early. Often if you have a couple of axes to spare you can get yourself a free barb city or at least the cash for razing it. Also, if military power is decent (power rating ok and barbs are under control) I use the overflow for another settler/worker.
 
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