The Impossible Walkthrough

The Impossible Walkthrough….

It is becoming apparent that many on this forum are having problems thinking out-of-the-box. While this is not an issue newbies tend to have (they think any strat can work), a lot of the slightly more experienced users do suffer from this.

Case in point, most players when leaving Prince levels behind and trying to tackle the higher levels, fall into a case of basing everything around lightbulbing. While that is a strategy that works, and has its use, a lot of players get so entrenched into it, they think it’s the only way. In fact, they feel certain it’s impossible to win Monarch+ without lightbulbing. And believe the sole purpose of a GP farm is only to lightbulb.

I have been asked to do a walk-through which shows how winning without lightbulbing can be done. And I’m going to take some time off now (I really shouldn’t) to run through a game and do that. Another thing I’m going to show you, is that you DON’T need to spam cottages! This is another thing many newbs plaster all over the place when first starting out in civ IV. But even intermediate players are doing this, and not only doing it, but there seems to be a misconception that you MUST use cottages, or you can’t win. Not just do you need cottages to win, but to even keep up in tech.

I’m going to show you that no, you don’t even need to build even one cottage to hold a tech lead on monarch, it’s that simple.



There are some other things I want to bring to attention. The game settings themselves. I could cheap out by tweaking all kinds of settings for this, which others are maybe suspicious of. So let me set the record straight here and now.

I am going to play Ramessess on a STANDARD & DEFAULT map. That means, no epic speed, and no Marathon speed. Straight up normal speed. What does that mean? It means, this is going to be much harder than your slower speeds. The human has such a ridiculous advantage on Marathon for example, that difficulty becomes almost a joke. This is something that all top caliber players know about, and it becomes apparent if you ever have to play at different game speeds. There are many factors that contribute to this, and I won’t list them here, but rest assured, if I can show you a win using normal speed, it is guaranteed to work on a slower turn setting.

Another issue is the map. I do believe Continents was default on vanilla. Fractal was default for Warlords at one time but it can really skew you some big favours. I’m going to leave it on continents though to keep things well rounded. This forces a player to use many different thought processes and strategies. On a SINGLE-MAP it is far too easy to win with domination/conquest, etc. Why? Because the snowballing vassal effect. These can be won a dime a dozen and take so little effort, I am not going to waste my time (or your time) by walking through some cheap hack like that.

The continents system prevents these types of exploits. Even if you conquer your own continent, there is no happy free-rolling ride. You can’t just vassal everyone else at a whim, you must come up with other solutions still. Diplomacy is a problem.. space race is a problem…. Etc. You must keep your priorities organized and come up with the best solution. This is often dynamic.

So… to sum things up, I’m going to make this quite harder from the regular maps most people tend to play with. But rest assured, if you see me pull off the impossible on this map, then surely it’s possible on the easier settings. Besides, it’s what is SUPPOSED to be default anyhow!

And one last thing, no silly perm-alliance enabled tricks, or altered barbarian settings. This will be all straight up, & legit.




*** Update ***
I have completed the run. And I took so many screen-shots, I had to cut some out. I ended up doing this in two sittings, and then I went back just now and ran some notes through my thought process at the time (man this has taken hours!).

I’ll try to copy & paste my word file here with all images compiled quickly. If people start replying to me while I’m still in the process of posting these, I promise to reply as soon as I’m done (if not sooner).

4000 BC, our starting point. Unfortunately no stone, or other build resources, but we’ll be off to find some in a bit. I can’t complain though, as long as we are not sitting on a shore-side (I absolutely hate shore sides, even if they come loaded with food).

Each tile here I will make use of. Except that ghastly lake north of my capital. Nothing I can do about that though. The trees in the plains are so-so. I don’t plan to chop them though, not without VERY GOOD REASON. I know a lot of people go chop crazy early and take down everything, but that’s a bad strategy. I’m thinking ahead and have use for them later.

Ok, popped a hut, and was rewarded with….. a totally useless map. Ughhh. Oh well, I guess it wasn’t totally useless, better than popping more barbs. Time to go off and scout some more.

Speak of the devil. I found another hut, and wouldn’t you know… I pop a barb, not even a useless map! That’s just the luck of the draw I guess. I really want to find some stone!

Alright, 3400 BC, my worker has just arrived. Unfortunately we didn’t have a neighbour close by so we could use our (steal a worker) tactic. But that’s ok, we have no problems doing things the old hard-way. I want to get food hooked up asap. And of course mines would help. Food and Hammers is what the game’s about. And under no circumstances will be peddling around building silly cottages. Not unless, a rare situation comes up, and if it does, I’ll let you know.

3000 BC. Got a mine built, and a food resource going. I’m pretty certain we will be the first to get Stonehenge, even without the building resources or whipping. But, I’m still going to go after bronze whipping. It will help us during emergencies, and also getting use of hammers when our happiness cap is hit. Due to our food resources, I expect to hit the cap soon. Normally I skip bronzeworking with Ramesses, but we are all situational dependant here. Everything has a reason for it. We are always planning on years ahead of the current turn.

2560 BC, wheat is hooked up to capital. Stonehenge is complete, and we are off working on Great Wall. Now some people build this for the GG accumulation pts. I’m going to tell you that’s silly. Going after GW just for GG pts is a poor strategy. And certainly here without any stone. However, we do have our reasons. My industrial trait does help a little bit here, and I do plan to get some more hammers pouring in asap. When/if I get this, I will not have to worry about barb protection for ANY of my cities. That means, hammers used now, are hammers saved now, and later. The GG pts are just extra bonus. And of course, it does affect the power rating, if that is what you are worried about. Even with no units, the GW makes the AI think you have some power, (wonders do count). And of course, we want great person points. Every little bet helps, and we won’t have to worry about great artist pollution which is the best thing.

1960 BC. And away we go! Completed GW. I said I wasn’t going to chop trees, but you will notice some trees missing on the hills. I am planning to put mines over those, it’s ok to remove the forests. We will have no choice in the matter. At least the other trees will still support us some health benefits now. I wanted to chop the hills first, just to make sure we don’t get beat by any wonders in this wonder race. Again, had we got stone near by we wouldn’t have to improvise like this, but it’s all luck of the draw. This is what the generator gave us, and we have to make due with what we get.

Planning to get Pyraminds online soon…

Alright, I put the mines where I promised I would. My happiness cap has been reached, so I tweaked the city plots for best production here and keeping things in balance. City is not growing or shrinking. I’m keeping it like that for now until we can increase the cap somehow. Speed of the pyramids is most important right now! We are not doing any forge-engineer slingshot gambits. This is straight up solid planning. No lucky dice shots.

7 turns left to the Pyramids, we stick it back into the que and shift to Oracle. I took a screen shot here because we got our first GP. A great engineer. Most people would waste them by burning them off on finishing wonders here, but that’s an overkill waste of hammers if you ask me. I’m not going to lightbulb him either, and that’s exactly what I promised. He’s going into our city, that’s +3hammers and +3science. That’s not just this round, that’s next round.. and round after that… and so on, indefinitely. And there is not a thing the AI can do to stop that. Add up all those rounds, and you’ll understand the power of this system.

Also note, I am timing all these wonders perfectly. Oracle will be completed at the exact moment writing is discovered. This means 2 techs in the same turn, no wastage. I will get a big jump and have an interesting tech path fork to chose from there. And yes, my city is starving a little. That is my balancing, to time things well. Anyone who wants to leave those low prince levels behind, should really focus on micromanagement. Though I have to agree I still get sloppy.

775 BC. Everything went according to plan (as expected). I wasn’t sure whether to choose mathematics or alphabet. Often I take courthouses with the oracle, but I don’t want to grab the religion. I usually end up teching so fast on monarch I grab too many religions, then end up with problems and no one else wants to go to war amoungst themselves when sharing the same religion.

Instead, I’m going to go after mathematics, and chose alphabet with the oracle. Alphabet is expensive, so we are getting a bargain. I am going to need math anyhow, so I’m going to research that myself. I also think I can pull off hanging gardens, even without stone. Usually I won’t bother but…. It’s all situational. Let’s go after it, and if it doesn’t work, then forgive me for leading you astray here. But my estimate of our city production tells me we should be able to pull it off.

A couple rounds later I believe, I traded a little bit to Kong who was the runt of the litter. Here is a shot of the tech menu. I think it’s safe to say, we pulled far ahead of everyone when finished the oracle. And the fact I can backwards trade now, and no one else can, only puts me even farther in the lead. Those poor bastards won’t ever catch up to us now.

That being said, my original barbarian ran all over the place looking for stone. Unfortunately, this was just not the map that would let us find it ANYWHERE. But I did find some marble patch a little off in the distance. It’s not in the best location but I am going to build a sister city next to it and we’ll see if we can put the marble to use down the road.

625 BC. My sister city is founded a little towards the West. I was stuck in a spot where I just couldn’t make my mind on which tile here to lay it on, as it always sacrifices something production/food wise. Anyhow, in this spot I am a bit off from getting my culture to harness the marble, so you can argue if this was ok or not.

I used my worker to cut the trees down from the hills to make the Parthenon. It’s ok though, I’m going to put mines on those hills anyway. It’s not like I was chopping plains.

And now… I’m going to whip-rush the rest of the Parthenon with civilians I think. We don’t want an AI beating us on the last turn! Happens a lot. Also, too bad we couldn’t have marble hooked up already, we lost a lot of chopping bonus etc, but again, these are all lucks of the draw, etc. You can’t have everything land in your lap.

350 BC. Another great person arrives. We are going to lighbulb him so we can get courthouses. (Just kidding).

Our great prophet is perfect. I love priests and priests tend to own in this game. After I absorb him, I’ll be getting 2 hammers and 5 gold.. Not only that, but +3 also for running representation. This should help point out why burning them off on silly shrines is very rarely worth it. A lot of newbs go after shrines like there is no tomorrow. But it’s a bad strategy, let the AI do it, it’s suppose to play bad!

Also note, hanging gardens is on the way… literature is being researched. We want to get that great library. And just maybe… we can get that marble ready in time.

150 BC. Let’s take another look inside our capital, which will be our super fortress. Our couple super-specialists are hard at work, being good little boys. Also I noticed the AI put another scientist to work. I didn’t plan that, time to change it to a priest!

Our cap has changed from 5 to 8 now (due to rep.) So more power to us. And our city will get more stronger ever yet. Actually, it’s a nice feeling looking at all those buildings on the left side. Not bad considering we had no wonder-resources for those. We may not have any metals either. But that’s ok, they are coming. As far as the AI is concerned, we are a power house. This is because our wonders add to our rating.

Let me tell you some advice… the power ratings are often wrong. They are rough approximations and often way off base, so don’t focus on them too hard.

Also, as you may have noticed from another shot, Ghandi was close by. I really hate this guy, the tech master. But we will do something eventually to cripple him. For now, we can just relax and take our time, because we know he won’t declare war on us, even if we vacated our cities and killed off all our units!

75 AD. Ahh, finally we are AD. I agreed to open borders with Ghandi. It doesn’t matter if he thinks he’s powerful (the charts say he is), and he can see we are weak in our cities. He is not going to declare war on us. Someone would have to bribe him a LOT of things in order to do this, and we haven’t given anymore much reason to do such a thing. Early in these phases, we want to stay out of trouble, unless a civ was right next door. Then of course we would have already been sitting in that person’s capital by now. Too bad we didn’t get that chance…

But…. We are scouting him now, to determine how to attack HIS cities. I definitely plan to attack him in the future, you can count on that. The rich bastard doesn’t even know it’s coming yet… Ohh but it will, even though I only plan to use my capital and sister city to do it.

Yes, that’s right, 2 cities is enough to take on an empire on Monarch. And often I do it with just the single capital. Micromanagement at work…

You see this capital? It’s going to fall, because I’m going to take it. Not sure how yet, but I have a few ideas in mind. I wonder if his silly great merchant will still be standing in there when my army arrives…

Could you post some saves for those screenshots?

100 AD. We discover horses. Actually this was very late for me, but the way things panned out in the early phase, I didn’t feel like going after it that hard. The reason was the food plots by our capital could get us to speed without needing AH. And we didn’t really feel we needed to RUSH an AI capital. We are taking it one step at a time here, but going along it well.

In any case, these horses have made up my mind for the future course of action. I am going to beeline for cavalary, and then bring Ghandi to his knees, then the rest of them.

Also note, national epic is being built. This will help with our great person generation. Though it does add some artist pollution. However, because we were careful to put the parethenon inside our sister city, the pollution will be cut in half. Also, the sister city and its artist points will never catch up to our capital, so all the artist points in that city will go to waste. That is actually both a good thing, and a bad thing, depending on the way you look at it.

P.S. Don’t even THINK about putting a globe theatre into your GP city. Bad bad bad… It’s NE with ironworks, or NE with Observatory. Do NOT nerf yourself by listening to those players telling you that GT is a great wonder for the GP city. There can only be TWO national wonders in your GP farm. So barring some very lopsided circumstances, there is always going to be one of these three national wonders that is dominant over the GT. You want a production, or science, or hybrid of these two type farm. If you want a happy farm, there are many ways to do it. But don’t go about it by removing one of your key national wonders for the GT! Only in rare situations is this ok. And when I say rare, I don’t mean half the time or at a whim....

200 AD. Alright, we are on our way to Chichen Itza (chicken pizza)? This is not really that much a wonder to go after. Especially without stone. However, we have a very strong production city now. We MAY win this wonder race. Certainly extra city defense isn’t that much a game breaker (they can be knocked down so easily), but it DOES give more GP points, and no artist pollution. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, then no real loss. I figure what the hell, lets put our production force to work here, that’s the whole point of getting an industrial city up and running.

*** Note to Frob:: I have a couple saves, they are coming ***

At 350 AD, another great prophet came out. I lightbulbed him off so I could jump up to the paper-route. (Just kidding).

580 AD, we got a scientist. I don’t like scientists much. I prefer priests. Priests own in this game (though technically engineers rule!). I’m not going to turn him in to a super specialist though, but I will absorb him. We are going to use him to run our science academy! But this is the only time we will bother to run an academy. All other scientists that may come along, will have to run as specialists.

I also have some bad news, we lost the race for Chicken Pizza. But don’t blame me, it’s the STONE! Someone else must have got lucky, but it wasn’t us.