Monarch Student^ XIV- Ramesses II

Fractal
Temperate
Medium Sea Level

Settling in place looked good - I didn't want to chance losing hills by moving. The warrior popped a couple of techs:



Opening build was worker, warrior x2, settler (at pop3). I settled Memphis to grab the stone - no food except for the cow until after CS, crappy peaks blocking any decent settling in this area. After the 2nd warrior I built another worker, then Stonehenge. Tech order was AH, pottery (hut), fishing (hut), mining, masonry, BW, writing. Lost the first 2 scouting warriors to barbs. I met everyone - must be a pangea map. Ashoka popped up due west and close by. The plan was to block him first (jungle south means no need for early blocking in that direction), and then scout him out for metals. Meanwhile the next settler founded Heliopolis to block Ashoka. Copper showed up under Memphis once BW finished, and I hooked up the horses NE of Thebes. Meanwhile, Thebes finished the GW and 'Mids, then joined Memphis in cranking out WCs. Ashoka had no metals, and was busy building the ToA and Oracle (he took MC apparently), and founding Hinduism and Judaism. In 635BC I DOWed him:


By 325BC the Indian civ was dead. I kept all 3 of his cities (Thebes had ToA and was the hindu holy city, Bombay was the Jewish holy city, and Vijayanagara was on top of marble and had a forge). I researched aesthetics and poly, trading aesthetics to Wang for alphabet and alpha+poly to Han for IW and hunting. I'm 4 turns from lit, so the GLib should be mine with no problem (nobody but Wang has aesthetics, and I have marble). WCs are being sent out in all directions for some much-needed scouting. Religions have split in a very interesting way: Shaka founded buddhism Darius and Cyrus are jewish, Wang and Bismark are hindu. My first GP from Thebes was a GP, which I settled for the and and another is due in 1 turn. If it's a GP I'll use him to build 1 of the shrines.

Egyptian empire at 325BC:


Tech:


Wonders:

I've built or captured every wonder in the game so far.

I settled in place while teching AH-mining-myst-BW, building worker-warr-warr-SH. Got the henge then settled a city on the plains hill next to Asoka making a decent early hammers city with corn and plains cow. Horses within the 2nd border pop so a war chariot rush is in order, made even more certain by the lack of decent city spots near the capital, what's up with all those peaks below? Never seen that on temperate-fractal before.

Successfully rushed Asoka taking 4 nice cities with lots of very good cottage land and 2 holy cities. I attempted the Pyramids but they went at 1080BC which is very early for this level. The land isn't food heavy anyway and is perfect for cottages so no bother not getting the early SE boost. From here I just expanded into all the land and cottaged everything, grabbing GL+NE in the capital.

The religious situation was a bit tense here with lots of different religions everywhere so I didn't switch to one despite having jewish and buddhist holy cities. In retrospect I should have used the obelisks to get some early great prophets and get some shrines up there, didn't think at the time. Shaka was Jewish while the two below me Hannibal/Cyrus were Hindu. I was trying to keep everyone on a level playing field however Shaka was having none of it and when I refused to help him in war against Cyrus he promptly made peace and declared on me the next turn. I should have taken his religion earlier given how much of a danger he is. Now he has this stack building next to one of my best commerce cities:



Despite some frantic whipping he takes the city, then brings yet another stack out of nowhere to garrison it.



I think I'm pretty much screwed now, not sure I can build/whip troops quick enough to stop another few cities going down. Might try and play on anyway but I think a restart is in order, not happy with my religious/diplomacy play here, must remember to get psycho AIs on side as soon as possible!

Rest of empire:

4000bc- Obvious to settle in place, worker, AH started

3950bc- Oh joy, a map!

3625bc- Warrior is bear food

3550bc- AH done, horse to the NE just one border pop away. Stone to the SW a border pop, IND+stone. I see some pyramids in the futture. Start Myst to go Stonehenge

3500bc- Osaka's archer appears from the NW

3425bc- Worker>Warrior I need to scout some more

3300bc- Myst in start Mineing>BW

3175bc- Warrior>Warrior

3075bc- Warrior finds the bear that ate the other and kills it.

3050bc- Damn wolf eats him

3000bc- Mining, go BW. Warrior>warrior

2925bc- Meet Shaka founder of Buddha

2875bc- Warrior>SH

2650bc- Get a Woody I warrior

2550bc- SH>warrior BW in the next turn

2525bc- BW>Pottery copper to the W

2375bc- Meet Cyrus Osaka founds Judaism and found him to the SW. Horse almost done, nice holy city for my chariots

2275bc- War Chariots hooked up!

2200bc- Pottery>Masonry

2175bc- warrior>barracks missed settler out 5 turns earlier

2125bc- found Memphis for copper/corn/2x wine

1975bc- Masonry>Writing to scout out Osaka

1950bc- Thebes barracks>WCs

1925bc- Meet Hannibal

1625bc- Writing>Math sign OB with Osaka

1375bc- Meet the German Bismark

1000bc- war party ready for Osaka. Thebes will start to finish Mids next turn.

I settled one west for riverside and guess what? STONE!!! WITH AN IND LEADER!

You know what that means:







Free UB in every city, no barb trouble, and early rep. Nice. Even though horses were near, I decided to go for the stone wonders instead. I actually tried to do both from a reload just out of curiosity. It didn't go so well.

I debated what religion to go, but when I saw both my neighbors (and Shaka) go Confucian, that's what I did as well. The world is in war right now, with Hanni and Shaka beating up on Asoka, and Bis coming in on Asoka's side against Hannibal.

One thing I like about GW is the early espiaongae lead, that's lets you steal techs like this:



Which is always nice. I also got a GE from the Mids which I used for GL.

My current empire:



A modest six cities, with 2 more going to be settled. I think I can take MT from lib, then smash the continent with cavalry. The AI tech rate is pretty slow ATM, and if I get philosophy first I will be able to take something high up from lib.

Lib was delayed forever and eventually took rifling from it, after teching out military tradition as well:



Now it's time to use those cavalry! You're up first Asoka:



He really sucks, no resistance as all really. I stomp all over his FIVE cities and he's off the map.



Wanted to pull an AP win, but it didn't work so it's time to say hi to Shaka:



Take all but 4 of his cities and cap him:



And that's were I stopped, cause I'm tired. I guess I'll finish it by smashing Bis, who somehow still has no rifles. I'll kill his huge stack in his vassal's former capital, destroy his vassal, then cap him, or if I need to kill him for Dom, I'll do that. If that isn't enough I'll have to slog out and kill Cyrus. Game is pretty much won, though.

Btw, Wang was wiped off the map by Shaka

No screenies for this one, but it was my best Monarch showing to date. I figured the land would be worse than it was because of all the Plains I saw.

I opened with AH>Mining>Myst>Masonry>BW>Pottery>Writing IIRC. Settled my second city in the Stone/Copper/Rice spot and built Stonehenge and Pyramids early. I ran a heavy amount of Specialists, with Henge, Mids, GLib, Parthenon, and eventually the AP in my capital.

I warred early with Asoka to kill him off. He had a few techs that no one else had (Metal Casting, for one) but I decided to kill him off (Delhi remained with a forge )

Delhi was also the Buddhist holy city, which I promptly shrined via Priest Spam in my capital. I stayed Jewish for a while to make everyone else happy.

Wang Kong was killed off by Cyrus, IIRC. Regardless, Wang's capital was the one city Cyrus had with Buddhism, and Hannibal and Shaka each had one as well. I bulbed Theo, built the AP under Buddhism, held off a war from Shaka and Hannibal and won the AP without anyone else's vote in 1100. I definitely got sloppy at the end when victory was in sight, and some better MM could probably have bettered my score and saved me from endless pillaging at the end of the game. I ignored units for a while to keep my research up after my early war with Asoka, but once I switched out of Judaism and everyone started to hate me, I got pillaged to death in my two later wars.

I'd never played Rammy before, but I liked the traits. I have played Hatty, and I actually don't like the War Chariots . But they certainly helped with Asoka.

Settled in place, AH first, worker first. Improve tiles and expand to 6 cities.



Tried stone early to get a cheap henge/gwall. Asoka and bismark got them quite early. Picked up mids and hanging gardens. Cottaged the capitol like hell, specs elsewhere.

I sat there with my 6 cities and good tech rate all the way until lib, teched out to rifles, and drafted AND whipped them to put them forth before Asoka could get rifling himself, and hit. That war bogged down slightly, but I got all of his cities.

Problem is, bismark capped shaka and was big, fortunately happy with me. I go rep/nationhood/caste/sp/theo and workshop spam, building all the EP buildings and focusing it on hannibal (I would change between hannibal and bismark as needed). I also moved the palace close to hannibal.

This turned a tech hole into parity within about 10-15 turns as I stole steam power, railroad, combustion, assembly line, fascism, physics, and artillery from hannibal. After that I switched into police state and emancipation (didn't want to bother with the ) and just hammered out infantry/arty everywhere while capping hannibal, cyrus, wang in rapid succession. Shaka broke free of bismark right before I hit, else I'd have slapped them both. Instead, It's just bismark I kicked around. The game ended while I was marching on shaka having 6x the power of the next strongest civ and at least tech parity with everyone.


















When you can get that kind of obscene conversions from espionage, a lot of tech can be had in a very, very short time.

Also, as you can see, panzers suck as much as ever. They got completely wasted by infantry/arty, I didn't even bother with anti-tanks because he didn't have industrialism very long before I hit (after stealing it of course). Pre-robotics (or advance flight) AIs are like butter when using arty. I did not stop to heal during any war after asoka, they all ended before that would have been necessary.

Starting off, I went for StoneHenge, and then I noticed stone near by. This was a little over-powering an area, don’t you think? Anyhow, I also went after all the wonders you can buy, though SH cost me TGW because someone beelined it. That was bad because it funneled more barbs against me, and I had some really bad luck. I even would attack a single barb with two fully healthy UUs in one turn, and still lose both UUs! Ughh.

Eventually, I got more stabilized, I think! But then Catharage decides to backstab me early in the BC years. He wouldn’t let up, so this cost me the Hanging Gardens. Actually, if I wasn’t playing so sloppily bad, I would have had the gardens so I can’t blame it all on the backstab, but it was just another nuisance.

Eventually he took a barb city that I was going to take, but I took one of his cities, and then we made peace. This piss-poor city was hopelessly culture-crushed between both him and India, but I decided to get Cistine Chappel, that way I was able to fight back culture and finally get all tiles working again.

Some mistakes the AI did, was let me get AW for my priest ecconomies, and of course allowing me to get Mids basically meant it was game over for them. I continued to steal wonders until I hit rifling, then I upgraded all cuirassiers and in 3 turns I had captured more than half of India’s empire. He capits, and then I heal, and DoW on Carthage for payback. Carthage is actually SMART ENOUGH to capitulate to me before I had to take his capital too. Wow, not all the AI’s are that dumb? You got to be kidding me

Then I DoW on Cyrus. Even easier capitulation. Unfortunately, my stupid Vista crashed the game around here, and by the time I re-loaded, I didn’t do my standard check each turn like I normal (am supposed to). This was a big disaster because stupid India ended up giving away the rifle tech to Wang, that I had given to him! I had told him earlier to refuse trade with Wang, but it looks like they don’t listen and gift it away anyway in 10 turns or so. What a cop-out! So now I would have to face CG III rifles in his empire. Argggh.

I decided to screw it, and instead go after Shaka. For some reason Shaka didn’t want to capitulate right away. So I just rolled right up to his last city, and then we finally made the capit deal. I guess the only reason I left him alive was to save 1 lousy turn, and get the free happy.

I then doubled back and got ready to blast Bismark. Healed, and then DoW.

At this point we played the waiting game. I kept waiting for the AI to make a big mistake (like they always do), and he kept randomly moving around big SoDs.

My vassals were pouncing around a bit, but not with much force. But eventually Bismark made a huge blunder by moving his largest SoD right in front of my own largest SoD of promoted cavalry. Yup, way to leave all your seige out there in the open like a ******. Firaxis has a lot to learn from their own game it seems.

Well to make a quick story even shorter, I can sum up that battle in one word/turn.

Boom!

It was then a race to his capital, and other cities. Two of my other vassals were laying seige at one of Bismark’s cities and were actually able to capture it. That had me shocked, it’s the first time I have ever seen one of my vassals ever do anything. Of course, if they had not teamed up by chance, I doubt they would have succeeded at anything again. Well, I had another SoD standing by to do the job incase they failed so it didn’t really matter.

When I finally blasted into the Capital, Bismark capitulates. Now this has me stumped. Why the hell would an AI be willing to capitulate if it means IMMEDIATE DEATH? I ask this because, sometimes I get an AI to NEVER want to capit, when it clearly SHOULD. But in this case, by him capitulating to me, would give me enough land percentage for a domination win. Of all the times for an AI to capit, this is DEFINITELY NOT the time to capitulate!

Ughh, will Firaxis ever learn? I have my doubts.

Anyhow, I had far in excess of the requirements for domination win after that capitulation. In the end, it was a quick and fun game. Now if only I had micro-managed I could have done this a few hundred years earlier.


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Other note: Right from my first war I had captured the AP from India. I could have gone for a very quick & dirty AP win, but that felt far too cheasy. So instead I continued with my seigeless war.

Tried stone early to get a cheap henge/gwall. Asoka and bismark got them quite early.

TMIT, I wouldn't say the wonders went early. You chose the Immortal save after all, and you know clear well Asoka and Bismark beeline them. Going for StoneHenge AND TGW both would be pushing it (but can be a nice gamble), as you'd not get both on this map, but you should have got one or the other if you targeted it early. Usually you can get both on Immortal but on deity hardly ever.

I was surprised you went AH first. I thought your goal for that was to find where the horses were first, and then use that to propel your way to a quick victory. Early UU rush, and then with stronger mounts. However, I see this was not the case, as you decided to go for a very slow and tiresome seige-war, when I think you could have shaved off perhaps around 200 turns from this game.

Yeah I pretty much gambled on the wonders. I realistically didn't expect to get stonehenge given that I started it late but figured I had a chance on the wall. Failure gold from them was helpful as I was not counting on either (would have been nice to get them but I was ready vs barbs for example)

I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do strategically, long term. I didn't want to rush a distant AI because on immortal, even against pudwackers like asoka, it's a little expensive to do it and not really necessary. Plus in hindsight one of the guys who did that got to deal with a Shaka DoW on himself rather than Asoka. I should have invested more EP on asoka early so that I didn't have to slam rifles into full defense cities so much.

Ironically, though you say the siege war was slow, that was the part that WASN'T slow. My rifle war took 34 turns. The other war times:

Hannibal (was held by peace treaty for 2 more turns after I took the SS because I forgot I made a demand): 7 turns
Cyrus: 7 turns
Wang: 3 turns (!)
Bismark: 15 turns (world's #1 AI took some time to cap)

So I should have either gone a mounted blitz, used spies, or built more rifles (or units to upgrade to them) so I could stack-split on Asoka. The tech catchup was a little slow due to 2 AIs going culture, too. for other AIs 1 move units move plenty fast when you only need to take 1-2 cities for capitulation. Even bismark, from whom I took 7 cities, didn't take all that long due to being able to stack split easily.

Realistically this map can be beaten quite fast with UU abuse but lazy tech rifling + mass draft kept me from using any real effort :/.