A weird start? How would you play it

[coconuts]

Hey everyone,

I've recently moved up from Prince to Monarch difficulty and it has certainly been an adjustment. Whereas I used to dominate the AI in tech, wonder building, religion founding and pretty much whatever I wanted, I've found Monarch a struggle. Both of the wins I have picked up have been SS wins, and my launch date is improving (from 1984 in my first win to 1909 in this one, though that was normal speed and this is epic). Anyways, I wanted to share this start because I found it interesting, as it was very difficult to keep up in the tech race for me. I eventually eeked out a space race just before India in 1909...India had Apollo done almost 40 turns before me! Phew.

Check it out and tell me how you would have played it, I have a rough sketch of my strategy in the spoiler below.

Difficulty: Monarch
Size: Stardard
Speed: Epic
All standard settings (play now)
Map: Continents, temperate, low sea level
Civ: Qin Shi Huangdi

Spoiler :

So the reason I had problems with this game was because the continent I started on was empty but for me. I'm trying to get my tech trading game up to scratch so not meeting any other civs until almost 1000 AD with the discovery of optics made me rather backward compared to France, Mongolia and the powerful India. In the end, I was never able to fully catch India in the tech race until I built the Internet (though I was able to more effectively choose my space-race techs to slip by Asoka). The strangest thing is this is only the third continents game I have played, but the second time I have been alone. How common is this?

I followed my normal strategy of choprushing. Warrior-->Worker-->Settler IIRC. Took BW and got Shanghai up in 2440 BC just down the coast to the southeast, Guangzhou up the coast to the northwest in 1600. Knew by that point that I was alone so I rushed through to the Oracle and got Confucianism in 1100 (For some reason I also built Stonehenge in Shanghai because I could and didn't have much else to do). Took some time to consolidate, then built Nanjing by the floodplains to the north in 640 BC, the Parthenon around 300 BC and built both Xian and Chengdu around the same time at 350 AD. Those would be my main cities for the game, though I ended up with about 5 or 6 more to cover the continent.

Was late in getting my copper hooked up and suffered at the hands of limitless barbarian hordes for a long while because of it; they even captured a border city of mine for a turn. I've always played Pangaea maps so prioritzing Optics was weird for me, but I was the first one with Caravels to sail around the world and meet everyone, and realized when I did I was not in good shape. Made friends with Asoka and Kublai, and managed to leverage a few techs from them. At that point I was 3rd or 4th in score.

Both Japan and France would declare war on me during the course but never make more than one or two galleons worth of landings. I had to buy off France to keep my coastal cities safe, but Democracy wasn't that big a loss.

Eventually, with cottage spam around most of my core cities, two shrines in Shanghai with Wall Street and the other +gp buildings, I was able to run at 90% for most of the game. With later diligence in spreading Confucianism I was able to push that to 100% without a serious damper on my treasury (ie one turn of 90% would get enough revenue to run 8 turns of 100%). I was able to slowly crawl back up into the tech race. My Apollo program came in about 40 turns late because I didn't get the aluminum tech until halfway through. Thankfully though, I got fusion first and another great engineer and was able to rush through the space elevator and launch the ship in style in 1909 (Asoka was completing casings and a thruster before my Apollo finished, but I never saw her get engine, life support or stasis).

Anyways have fun playing this one if you go for it and tell me what you think the best way to approach the game is. I really don't know how to win any other victory but SS, and would love to hear how a warmonger or cultural/diplo would go about it.

Final score by the way: 13541, rating of Abe Lincoln

 

[Jasmine_]

Good, now step it up one more level.

 

[cleverhandle]

I didn't actually check out the start, but a couple comments on solo island games...

1) Barbs are easily controllable once you know the tricks. They only spawn in the fog, so as soon as your scouting reveals that you're alone on an island you want to take the somewhat counter-intuitive route of spamming military and/or scouts. Station 5-6 units on hills across your island and you have no more military concerns until Astronomy. This is incredibly beneficial in terms of tech, hammers, and money. Better yet, *let* the barbs spawn/settle in one corner of the island you don't want to settle right away. Station an archer/axeman or two on a hill and let the barbs suicide against it - this gets you a Level 4 (10XP) unit pretty quickly, which lets you build Heroic Epic, which is enough to keep your entire island supplied with the modest military it needs throughout the entire game. I've found that proper barb control as described above is key to doing well at Monarch and Emperor, regardless of map.

2) In my experience, it's actually a bad idea to beeline for Optics. Your biggest problem in an island start is economic - you have tons of great land to settle, but can't afford the city maintenance. If you push for Optics, you get a bunch of useless techs (Iron Working, Compass, though Sailing is OK) and will find yourself having cities with nothing to build. At the very least you want Alphabet so that a city can build Research when it has all the buildings it wants and you can't yet afford a new city.

 

[coconuts]

That's a really good thought on managing the barbs, I'll try that in my next game.

I don't really feel like moving up to Emperor yet, heh, seeing as I only know how to win SS on any difficulty level. Next up is the cultural.

Attached are two later saves if you want to look at them.

 

[Theodorick]

Here's my crack at this start. I worked on it for about 2 or so hours, but I'm too sleepy to continue. I'll go for the win tomorrow.

Spoiler :

As you can see I threw all my attention into my economy, and I also used slavery A LOT. I was cracking whips left and right like no tomorrow. I'm doing alright right now, and am just about to launch myself into a hopefully abundunt tech rush now that my cities are more establish and the barbarian threat is contained. I don't care about optics right now.

 

[Theodorick]

Here's an update.

Spoiler :

I rushed toward Liberalism and then waited for the world to find ME. When they found me I traded the techs I rushed toward to get liberalism, used my liberialism free tech to get the printing press for the extra cash, and am now rushing towards banking. I am currently equal with most of the world in techs, and have no enemies.

Now all I need to do is rush toward gunpowder, establish an unbreakable fortress, and then rule the world with my economic powerhouse. I haven't even researched optics yet (I actually bought it from Asoka)

I should be in the industrial age by the 1500's, probably even sooner. Once I build a bunch of universities and then build a bunch of banks I will be unbreakable. Also see the city 'Goth'? It was PURE LUCK that I was able to take that barbarian stronghold.

 

[coconuts]

Thanks for taking a look, more stuff to experiment with in my next game. =)

 

[Theodorick]

Here's an update.

Spoiler :

I'm about to enter the modern age yet for the longest time Asoka was trailing me. In reply I spent 200 years sucking up to him and getting very friendly with him so I can destroy him later through diplomacy. I then signed a defensive pact with him and started to provote the Japanese into war with threats and trade embargos. They fell for the trap and I started a world war. I then pulled Khan into the war, destroyed all the Japanese attempts to attack me, and then sat back and watched as the world beat itself up.

I gained +150 in score in only a few turns and am still gaining, while the entire world seemed to 'pause'.

Also the French, who I also sucked up to, seems to hate Asoka. So in reply I pulled the French into the war by bribing them with electricity. Asoka made peace with the Japanese, but now he has a huge neighbor against him, and I have a feeling this war is going to last a LONG time.

My plan is to maintain these world wars for as long as possible so I can continue to sit on my big continent alone and safe as the world rips itself apart. It's a technique I commonly use to win games if it seems I can't catch up or maintain the lead. Also since I sucked up to most of the world I can throw them into war after war and they will do it. The -1 for 'you pulled a war ally against us' won't do anything to the +11 they already have. I will try and make peace with the Japanese ASAP, but if I can't I'll just let the war wariness hurt them. It's not hurting me much since I'm doing no fighting.

Also I hit the industrial age only 50 years after I predicted I would. The only reason for the lag was I was busy sucking up to Asoka and that French guy--I can never remember names--so this slowed me down a bit.

(Also the file upload thingy refuses to work so I'm going to upload it to a webspace somewhere.)

Here - http://members.shaw.ca/theodorick/CIV4/Saves/Alex AD-1726.Civ4SavedGame

 

[Theodorick]

I just won with a score of 17083 in the year 1889 with a space race victory.

Spoiler :

My 'toss the world into war' technique toward the end gave me enough of a plus to beat everyone in everything. Toward the end it seriously seemed like everyone was at war with everyone. I was able to rip the world apart with all my trade embargos and bribing, though toward the end I also was in three wars. My modern armor destroyed all amphibious attempts thankfully.

I'm not sure how a warmonger would play this.

 

[COUGAR69]

Death and destruction I would think.LOL.The first vic.I had on civ4 which is only one was a SS victory.I always won by culture on Civ 3.