Sons of Monarchy IV: Boudica

Removed a mountain peak to our west so that the small land there was accessible without navy. No other edits.

zoom all the way in, open worldbuilder, and add the appropriate techs to the barbarian civilization. This means archery at monarch or higher, hunting at emperor or higher, agriculture at immortal or deity, and the wheel at deity.

Kublai can get a ton of cities here if you don't cut him down to size quickly and expand aggressively. He REXed like a mother and then turned his monster of an army on Darius. Needless to say, the wars with him were fun.

REX'd to 7 cities and chopped out the Pyramids in Bibracte, which I'd settled 2N (on Iron as it turns out, huh). With oodles of food, I ended up turning it into a pretty nice GP farm. In the meantime, the religious blocs worked out rather smoothly, with Hannibal, Bull, and Darius as the Buddhists and Kublai, Caesar, Mansa, and me as the Hindus. Despite all this, diplomacy was shaky because Kublai was being a butt, making demands and settling close to my borders, so I decided, hey, screw it and went with a HA rush. Ended up taking two great cities and one that would be good once I could wipe him out, but midway through the war he got Longbows and I hung it up. In the meantime Kublai turned his attention back to Darius, taking about three of his cities to make up the ones he lost, while Caesar beat up on Hannibal and forced a capitulation (but ended up in a stalemate with Bull). Caesar built the AP, which went back and forth between him and Mansa all game until the end.

Lib'd MT for Advanced Military Tactics 101 (Beat Enemy With Cuirs) and took on Darius, who was weak. Took a few cities and got his capitulation. Everyone was building huge armies this game except him--even peaceful Mansa had a pretty huge stack thanks to Kublai declaring war on all and sundry. Mansa ended up being my next target since Timbuktu was the double Jewish/Hindu holy city. Took that, got his capitulation, and by this point had Cavalry ready for the big showdown with Kublai. Kublai had a lot of hill cities, Chichen Itza somewhere (I didn't bother to check), and an absolutely monstrous stack of outdated units, so I lured his stack out of his cities and attacked on open ground. Took heavy losses (and he recaptured two cities), but smashing his stack set him back eons, and it was just a matter of being able to produce more and better units quicker. Took his capitulation shortly thereafter.

At this point, I realized that the only one without Hinduism was Darius, so I sent some missionaries out and converted him while gearing up for war with the unaffiliated and backward Sitting Bull. Then on the turn where he offered capitulation, I accidentally accepted a Cease Fire because I'm an idiot.

That's okay though because then this happened:



Slow game, slow teching, probably not my best. I didn't really leverage the Pyramids as well as I should, but ah well, a win's a win, and the war with Kublai was a ton of fun.

SiP, Fishing,AH, BW, Mysticism,Wheel (thinking Ironworking for jungle next). I put my 2nd city 2E of the Stone. My scout was eaten early so I've only met Darius and have no idea what the remaining territory looks like. I've pumped out 2wb, 3 warriors, a worker, a settler so far. I have about half Stonehenge waiting for failgold.

Everyone's a tad far away for that, and with Boudica you're more likely to be building Scouts than Warriors early. Your closest neighbor is Kublai, and you don't really want to raise his ire until you're ready. You could give it a try with Mansa, but he's a little far. On this map, I'd focus more on aggressive settling than worker theft.

That Gem/Corn site is begging for IW to be self-teched.

Well, the key for me was to expand towards Kublai and kiss his *** at the same time so he would look another way even with border tension.
I joined his religion and gave him some nice tech deals. So he attacked Persia and Darious capitulated and then Kublai was now at friendly with me so he continued with a war vs Sitting Bull. Meanwhile I tried to build up my economy and cities. Mansa was kissing *** and teching like crazy so I lost both Oracle and Lib to him. He was way ahead of all the other AIs. Since I lost lib I decided to backstab Kublai with 30 Curassiers since he was on the other side of the world fighting Sitting Bull. After I took out his main army that came back I swept through his land and totally annihilated him. Darius broke free and capt to me. In that same turn Mansa willingly just vassaled to me. By that time I was the only one with Cavs so Rome and Carthage just got bulldozed. Rome had like 10 wonders...
While I was wiping out Native America, the last opposition(well, it was slaughter) I got a domination victory. Just a few more turs and it would had been conquest....

Kublai had me boxed in my little peninsula FAST. I was bitten by the wonder whore bug like a fool and got SH, GLH, Moai and the Colossus (GM bulbed MC). My tech rate was ridiculous. RIDICULOUS! Unfortunately I just didn't have the unit spamming power to break free so I saved myself a headache and abandoned this one. An interesting thing about this map is that all the AI required friendly to be bribed onto Kublai. Despite shared religion, good trade, OB, and Kublai being their worst enemy I could NOT get Augustus, SB, Hannibal, Darius, or Mansa to friendly to dogpile KK with me. BAH!

The early techs were: Agr, AH, Whl, Min, BW, IW, Mas. The early builds were: Wrk, War, Set, War, War, Set, Wrk. All the competitors had been met by 575.

Bibricate did go 1N; Vienne 1NE of the wheat; Tolosa on the Eastern gem (a very poor placement in terms of using that resource and the peninsula development); Gergovia went on the wine to maximize the FPs; Camulodunum 1E of the N horse. (It would be educational to know how others placed their first five or six cities). Bibricate has The Pyramids for HR.

The Celts are fifth in soldiers, land and population. The three civs that can trade techs are well ahead.

The two eastern cities are well garrisoned, Kublai Khan is at war with Darius I and there is a fine barbarian city 2N of the silk. "Manage" the Mongols? It is a reasonable option as Rome is rather powerful.

If Kublai's at war with Darius, it's a great time to go to war. It's very likely that he'll roll right over Sitting Bull, and Mansa may well peace vassal to him. Rome and Mongolia are best positioned to be the powers on this map; Mansa shapes diplomacy but little else, Bull is useless, and Hannibal and Darius are both in a position to be steamrolled. Take the fight to Kublai for sure while his army is in Persia and before he managers to roll over everyone else.

Screenshots and/or a save would help of course.

Bam. My first legit, solid Monarch win. I learned a lot from this game, namely that you cannot expect to war-monger successfully and also Tech/wonder whore better than the AI(on Prince I find you can do 2 or even 3 of those things all at once). Also I learned that a huge stack of cannons/trebs and maces/muskets can defeat an enemy who has the ability to build cavalry, rifles and airships: just because the AI can build a counter to your stack does not mean the AI will correctly use those counters. My favorite fact about this game: the only wonder I built was The Kremlin, but by the time I won I owned every single wonder in the game.

Regarding my earlier question about worker stealing: I recognize that it would not have been an advisable strategy on this map, but what is there in the opening to tell you not to do it? You do not know that your neighbors are actually a little too far away, and sine it is pangea you know everyone is on your continent. I was reluctant to build a worker early since my tech path was gearing towards fishing/workboats, but I knew I would want a worker eventually. In the end I chose not to attempt worker theivery (and in the end I won anyways) so I suppose it is a pointless argument. I guess I just feel that the opening 25 turns are perhaps the most important, and the part of my game I most want to work on.

There was not a great race for Liberalism which Mansa Musa snared in 1270. In terms of expansion the Celts added Verlamion 2S1E of Tolosa and the barbarian city 2N of the silk. Bibricate built The Great Library, The National Epic, The University of Sankore; Camuldonum built Moai Statues.

Time, has not been totally wasted. Boudica follows the Jewish faith as do Kublai Khan, Sitting Bull and Darius I - MM founded it but has moved on to FR. By offering KK "pretend" support in his numerous Roman wars he is actually friendly. The Celts are the only power with Military Tradition and 2Ts away from Steel.

A cuirassier/maceman army has just arrived at the Mali border when AC declared on KK, MM declared on KK and Hannibal declared on MM. This world will now know "real" war.

Thank you for the excellent 100 BC strategic advice. It would have resulted in a radically different game and I should have seen the possibilty.