The Impossible Walkthrough (PART II)

The Impossible Walkthrough (PART II)

Ghandi creates a super-fortress

Level: Monarch

A short while ago I showed how it was possible to win without lightbulbing AND/OR building any cottages on monarch::

The Impossible Walkthrough

Critics mentioned a couple things, mainly that it may have been a fluke, and also that such a strategy can not work on Emperor. Hence, I then rapidly went through a second walkthrough using the same leader and similar mechanisms on Emperor::

The Unreal Walkthrough


However, it seems critics have since mentioned that it is somewhat of an exploit of the industrious trait that made this work. While, yes industrious can help in certain situations, it is not a sole reason of what makes this work. I have currently run through another game this weekend which I will post here, dispelling yet the new myth that such a strategy can only work with industrial traits. BTW, I found the latter reasoning interesting, as many posters on the c-fanatics forum have insisted that industrious traits can’t work well on monarch, and are even useless on Emperor+.


Today’s leader will be Ghandi. While he used to be industrious in Vanilla cd, that was changed and now he is Spiritual/Philosophical. I generally don’t like philosophical leaders because I think it is generally a trait that doesn’t blend too well in most cases, but nevertheless, this will make for a much more interesting game than the typical Pratorean army right out from the gate & conquer the world strategy (who hasn’t seen that a hundred times?).

Thanks for this walkthrough goes to my girlfriend for asking me to baby-sit her youngest sister this weekend, which by NO coincidence was introduced to civ IV recently. And since we both played (at least half of) this walkthrough together, she should get half the credit


Notes: Same old story, default settings with continents and normal speed to prevent exploits and time/movement scaling advantages.

Disclaimer. Playing Monarch+ in a system which does not rely on lightbulbing or cottage building is considered to use expert play. Thus, proper knowledge of operating SE cities & optimizations are a standard requirement.

And now… let’s get on with it.

4000 BC

I generally don’t like these starts very much. One off from the ocean side always hurts the production in one way or another. And even though you are able to work sea tiles later on, civ IV prevents you from building harbours, etc in this spot, which is something that really pisses me off.

But alas, we have 2 food sources, which the game seems to generally give in these sea-side scenarios. There are some hills we can turn into production, and the trees will either serve us some good health, or help us in rushing things. The lake is a useless plot to us now, and will be for most the game. But we don’t have much control over that,

I am very tempted to move here, however, moving will possibly place us in a worse position, or lose turns. Usually, the system is supposed to start you off in the best AVERAGE spot, so lets just close our eyes, and accept this spot even though we’re 1 off from the sea.

3880BC, popped a hut, and was awarded with a hunting tech. That’s great, considering I’m used to barbs coming out any other time…

2440BC

A prime objective is getting the Great Wall asap. However, since we had food ready to grow, I ended up making a worker from the get-go. Generally 12 to 15 turns will be spent there getting that worker ready. That means you can go after techs like agriculture, etc and it will be researched by the time your worker is ready in this case.

Also, we beelined for BW as well. There are multiple reasons for this. #1 finding early bronze is of big importance, and even if we don’t use it for warfare, if it is within our cross, that is a big production boost to our city. But most importantly, I want to chop, and we do have trees here to take advantage of. Now, it’s not that I WANT to chop away our precious trees, but without industrial traits, we have to make some compromises. We can change the terrain later on to something else. And besides, Ghandi starts off with mining already, so we are just 1 tech away, though it is a slightly expensive tech ATM.

Also note, BW allows us to run slavery, which when coupled to our food resources, will also give us a big boost. All things said, BW really is a good candidate here.

Some other points... I went after animal husbandry which we just researched now. There were reasons for this deteur. Popping hunting tech earlier was a very big reason. Always adapt to the situation at hand. Also we don’t want to research polytheism TOO fast, as we don’t want to grab too many religions here. It’s much more wise to stay neutral and let the other civs run into their religions wars. This is a lesson I’ve learned after repeatedly catching 4-5 religions by accident. It’s just not worth it because the person controlling the other one ends up getting the world to turn to his favour, and that’s not a spot you want to be in.

1800 BC

An inside look at our city. After our GW was completed, we immediately went back to working on Stonehenge. Also, we just slave-rushed to shave off 3 turns. Remember, food & hammers is what my games are all about. Exploit the former to convert into the latter. I also can not stress enough the value of RUSHING wonders, as any tie will automatically award the race to the AI.

Note, we immediately worked on improving horses tile, that’s +2 free hammers and is a big early boon.

1440BC

Oracle about to be completed. We could have speed this up even more by chopping, and the stonehenge could have been build sooner than we did as well. However, there is a reason for the little delay. We want our great wall to keep generating engineer points longer. Stonehenge and Oracle contribute prophets, which while we can’t complain, I prefer engineers a slightly bit more than the prophets. In any case, once your citizens run into unhappiness, you might as well whip-rush. We don’t want to wait TOO long either.

1320 BC

And alas, our engineer emerges. We had a smaller chance to get a prophet, and in that case, we would have absorbed him for +2 hammers and +5 gold each turn. Our engineer will give us +3 beakers and +3 hammers, which is even better. However, we do have a chance here to use him to instantly build the Pyramids. It’s a tuff one. That +3/+3 is a big boon early, but so is the pyramids. Though as time goes on the power of pyramids will drop off, until it becomes absolutely useless. It’s one of those rare wonders that doesn’t become obsolete in an instant, but has a slow decay rate.

If we had stone near by, we would have chopped it, but we didn’t get that lucky, so I’m thinking of rushing it here. We have too many benefits for pyramids here. There are…

#1 We are spiritual, so we can use any pyramid civic without going into anarchy.

#2 Our absorption strategy will greatly benefit from Rep civic, which means the sooner we get rep, the better.

#3 Good source of food means we will need to adjust some room-height for optimal play. Rep gives us enough happiness we will be able to grow quite a bit larger without resources.

#4 We will gain Engineer pts, which both fills the G-Person pool, while acting as an artist/merchant diluter.


And again… there are some bad reasons. However, I think weighing everything into consideration here, we should use him to build the pyramids. While I do plan to run for constitution early, and this weakens the weight for getting pyramids, it will still take quite a number of turns to get there. All in all, getting the pyramids now comes out a little ahead in favour I think, so we are going to do exactly that.


850BC

Another engineer emerges. And while we could use him to rush-build something else again, I am somewhat hesitant on this. Pyramids was favourable for this, with 500 hammers needed, however we can build what we want/need manually for the rest. Any wonders rushed besides Pyramids would be a waste. And technically, we did waste hammers on the pyramids as it was, we didn’t get anything in return for the excess hammers over 500, but that was a compromise.

So, instead of that we are going to lightbulb him off to discover the Fishing tech for free, and then see if we can trade that for Iron-Working. Just kidding…

Absorb him into city!

700BC

Shaka runs into us. I don’t like this one bit. Shaka is a maniac and can never be trusted. While we did meet Mansu earlier, and Huayna, I wasn’t worried in the least with those two. Now, I understand people fear Mansu because they can’t compete with his tech. IMHO, Ghandi is the tech master, not Mansu but it doesn’t matter. We’ll deal with Mansu, one way or another. I’ve never had him run away on me in tech before, and I don’t plan for that to happen now.

450BC

Founded Confucationaism. Damnit. We were a little too fast in teching and founded a religion by accident. Now that’s not the worst thing in the world, but we will most certainly grab Philosophy before the AI, which means now we will have a total of 2 religions. That’s not really optimal play, but sometimes it happens.


350BC

Another great engineer arrives. Time to lightbulb him and grab the Fishing tech that we haven’t had a chance to grab last time. Alright, alright…. Just kidding again.

Absorb the guy.


325BC

Lets take a look at our little fortress. That’s a lot of nice wonders built, and in fact we could have chopped even more. I really wanted to grab Temple of Artemis earlier, however I didn’t like the fact that we didn’t have any marble. Usually you want to look for some sort of chop overlay, but we didn’t have much to work with. There was also some risks in that sometimes artemis is beelined for right from the start by the AI.

We could have taken it though, and while I don’t care early about the 100% trade-route yield, the free priest that comes with it is of great interest to me. This is because everyone knows I love priests. That also would couple with Rep, to give another +3. Not to mention, we’d get +3 and +2 great person points with the artemis temple as well. But oh well, sometime’s we wish we had gambled, but other times we’ll be wishing we hadn’t. Don’t worry about it for now, just remember on Emperor+ it is a very big gamble, and hardly doable without marble.

Note: We are doing fine for research now, even without running caste (no need). 2 running scientists for now, and 2 more come from the GL, with our great engineers contributing as well coupled with Rep. We are building a confucation temple now, to increase happiness, and unlock priests to be run soon.

While mines are not being worked, we can still have strong production here because we didn’t lightbulb off our GEs. This means we can focus on food tiles, while still having great production AND running specialists. This is a ‘WONDER’FULL feeling for any SE strategist.

100BC

Great Priest arrives, and we show him his new PERMANENT residence.


1AD

Finally, AD has arrived. And we begin by working on Angkor Wat. Now, we are not getting any overlay on this. No stone near by, no wonder production bonus either for Ghandi. However, I do have a soft spot for the Wat because I can unlock Rich-Engineers with it. And so, I’m going to slow down my tech race to grab this on the way. It’s quite alright though, I’m sure we will win the liberalism race. I am refusing to trade my CoL with them, and this does slow down the liber race with them significantly. Just keep an eye on them now and then to see if they get any jumps, but those are very rare on monarch.

Ohh, and just as I feared. We founded Taoism as well. But that’s actually a good thing, since it means no one on the other continent sling shotted over us so far.

175AD

Great Scientist emerges. I direct him to work for us in our little super-fortress that is getting noticed. He begins work by setting up an academy for us. He felt so relieved when I promised I wouldn’t lightbulb him away.


450AD

Another scientist emerges. I had an option to lightbulb him off on Paper, interesting, as we were researching paper at the same time. However, being as we were in the tech lead, there was no catch-up emergency needed so I let him settle in, and our fortress now makes another 1h/9b BEFORE modifiers.


500AD
Time to look inside our fortress again. Our boys have shut down the mines, and gone back to focusing on food to supply the specialist economy again. No need to run caste again, as our Ankor Wat can unlock more than enough priests as we need. Now it is true that running a scientist gives 3 more beakers than priests, but I have my reasons. I prefer great priests over great scientists. Also note the Wat doubles our running priests from 1h to 2h. That comes in quite handy, as even an engineer only gives +2, but the priest will also give an extra gold ontop of that.

640 AD

We are researching education, still in the lead of course, and I double checked to make sure that tech-savvy Mansu didn’t get any jump on us. Nope, he’s still very far behind us.

A great engineer shows up again, attracted to our growing SuperFortress. He takes up residence and adds a little bit of more perm production power…


820 AD

We still only have one other city besides the capital, a small one. However, it will grow eventually. In the meantime, we are now researching the Holy liberalism tech. And a good thing too, as we will switch to free religion asap to ensure we don’t get involved in any religions wars. Funny thing is, so far our 3 opponents have been switching from confucasionism to Taoism and back again repeatedly, not making up their minds. And along with them was us following suit. Always try to keep up foreign relations, at this point, ESPECIALLY when Shaka is around. We have plans for big wars, but right now isn’t the time, we have other importance.

It should be noted that in most cases, the AI will not attack you even though it SHOULD, due to your relations status. DO NOT GIVE IT AN EXCUSE TO DO THE RIGHT MOVE AND ATTACK YOU. Keep people like Mansu from dropping below cautious to be absolutely safe, he can be trusted, though he is capable of being bribed. At least Shaka the IDIOT is off in the distance, which does help us out here by letting us focus more on infrastructure & science at the moment, instead of military backup.

We now convert to Taoism, because 2 of the 3 opponents have done the same. We have shared the same religion with Shaka for a bit, so he will have worse diplo with the others, as well as border/culture anger, etc. We really do want to get into liberalism though so we won’t have to walk this tight-rope and keep flip-flopping about.

P.S. Our little sister city has been off making some units this whole time, but those units kept running into unreal luck with a local barb city.

960AD

Alright, last round for the liberalism race. It is OK now to trade vital lib race techs, as the AI can not sling over us now. Also, once we hit liberalism next turn, we may not get any trades because of WFYABTA, so trade NOW.

Huayna is a sucker. Giving me archery and horses, can only result in me making horse archers. Does anyone see the military potential in this? <grin> And IW as well? Gee, thanks! He really must want to get conquered now…

As for Mansu, he’s even more stupid. Giving me both construction AND Music. He must not see what’s coming either. Hell, and he even threw in Monarchy to boot. Great! One more stop for feudalism, and we are ready to gain a vassal!

1000AD

Another engineer arrives attracted to our mega-production city, and decides to work on our fortress too, calling it the Flying Super-Fortress.
-ni

1060AD

Our little sister city is Bombay. You can see it in the upper right here. It&#8217;s actually a holy city of 2 religions now (something seems wrong in that). In any case, remember when I said it was having some bad luck? Well yes it was. I had it pumping out axemen very early, and TWICE I sent a big stack of axemen to take a tiny barbarian city in the West. And TWICE I got OWNED by ridiculous dice rolls. I couldn&#8217;t win as a god damn favourite to save my life. First attack was bad enough, but when I regrouped, and went after again, only to have the same ridiculous dice-rolls do me in, (despite the odds calculator told me I was a sheer favourite). And you know what&#8230;? I went a third time with a big stack, and AGAIN got rapped by only 2 stupid silly archers. I DON&#8217;T GET IT!!????

But at least now&#8230; I FINALLY took it. Used those hose-archers (thanks to Huayna) and attacked with a stack of them. Next I will promote them, and when the time comes, upgrade them to cavalry.

Note. There is some marble near the city, which is why I wanted to get it NOW. I want to hook that up ASAP, and then build our golden-age wonder-merbobber machine, so we can get that free G-Age. I&#8217;ll be able to pump out cavalry 1 a turn with ease when the techs become available.

1110AD

Lets take another peek in the fortress. Not bad, 165 beakers without a single running scientist or production to science funneling (ignoring TGL). Also note, that even just the 5 GEs alone which we had absorbed, are giving us 15 H and 30 B! Again, by avoiding needless lightbulbing & rushing throughout the game, we are really starting to get a big ROI here.

Note: Last research turn on MT. Next tech-- gunpowder and then we go to WAR. Also, Taj Mahal to be worked on next item, which will have marble FINALLY ready to go. We will have the G-Age timed to hit right when cav are online and POW… away we go.
Always plan your builds & units ahead. Get the timing for everything right.

1150AD

A great prophet visits us and takes up residence in the Flying SuperFortress.



1240AD

War has begun! Poor Mansu just got stabbed in the back by us. All those cav, and he didn’t see it coming. Our golden age is still going, and we have dropped all money spending on tech to 0, and we aim to keep it there for probably a few hundred years at least. Our rep & specialists will see to it that we still keep teching up the tree regardless. This lets us use all cash to upgrade the remainder of horse-archers I stockpiled. And of course, we’ll be collecting lots of gold from each city we plunder.

Notes: The three opponents have 3 different religions now. Huayna founded his own. Also, Mansu just recently got into a war. This is surprising, but he declared war on Shaka, NOT Shaka on Mansu. How often do you see that?!

But it was just a matter of time. Both of them sharing opposite religions so long, with culture border grudges, etc. Meanwhile we stayed and watched the brewing hatred on the border-lines, staying out of trouble…. Until NOW.

Take that Mansu!

1390AD

Lots of fighting all over place. But Mansu has it on two fronts (haha). Ours is going great; taking city after city, boom, boom, and boom.

The odd pike-man kills some cav on us, but we are managing fine. Right now… we have just captured Mansu’s capital. What a LOT OF COTTAGES! Maybe if he had spent the time and resources making something USEFULL instead of stupid cotts, he wouldn’t have lost his capital (and the cotts!) But its the AI, it’s stupid.

I thought this maybe THIS city would have finally broken his back, but nope, he doesn’t want to capitulate even still! Argggh, ok so we push on. Note, even with slider still on 0, we are running up a debt now, but that’s ok. We are still teching like Mofu regardless. In fact, even if we run the entire god damn economy into the ground (which we are), we will still be teching like a mofu, and not a thing that Mansu can do about it.

1400AD

No surprise… another Great Engineer came to work on the super-fortress.


1440AD

Alright, took one more city (on a hill), and then I think we’ll halt here. Mansu STILL doesn’t want to capit, and he’s just made peace with Shaka, meaning he WONT capit probably if I take his capital AGAIN. In any case, I just saw a ton of macemen, and while they are no match for our cav, I think a rest is in order. I want to start beelining for the SoL soon and snatch that away from anyone else. So time to bring our economy out from the red and put it back into the black.

1500AD

Alright, couldn’t resist. There was a small barbarian city down south. I just took it out now. Only reason it was still there is because my borders cut off the other opponents from getting down there.

We have now moved up to middle position, phew. Though we are still missing an AI somewhere…

And I see I still have tech spending on 0…

1585AD

Alright, we are at war again. I bribed Shaka to once again bring his forces to bear against Mansu. And of course, after watching Shaka pillage a bit, but do nothing, I decided to jump into the battle and attack for myself. Poor Mansu, this just isn&#8217;t his day at all is it?

1590AD
We are working on SoL now, and building it very fast. Also a Great Scientist popped by town to see what all the fuss was about. Then, he joined into the fun.

Science spending still seems to be on 0, but that didn&#8217;t discourage the guy at all.


1615AD

After taking out his capital (AGAIN), we finally get the poor bastard capitulate. There is a second city of his near by and while I could get to it now and take that also, I don&#8217;t want to risk him vassaling over to Huayna right now. I&#8217;ll take the vassal now while I have the chance.

Note: I gave Shaka a good tech just to force him to make peace with Mansu earlier. This way I also avoid risking Mansu becoming a perm vassal to Shaka.

1625AD

Lets take another look at the SuperFortress again. I have completed SoL and with no more buildings to complete, I am converting all shields (hammers) to pure science. Please note, in this shot, even without ANY running scientists, we are running at 497 science a turn FROM THIS CITY ALONE. Again, the power of well run SE city, and the halting of lightbulbing is really starting to show off in the science department. Half a grand of science a turn from just one city (without even a damn cottage) is a huge boon. Also note I did not build any NE here. The only G-Point bonuses we have been running have been pacifism (but very little), aside from our built in philosophical trait. I don’t want to use the NE here, because it will take up a slot for our IronWorks, and the original slot I kept open for our Oxford, which is put to optimal use right now.




Note:: Not always does a mine under-perform to a scientist for beakers. As the game grows on, a city with a 6 hammer mine, and full production modifiers begins to run very close to a scientist EVEN when that scientist is coupled to Representation. Something to think about….