All Leaders Challenge Game Strategy Session: Montezuma

[Sisiutil]

(5th Round: to 1050 AD)

I'm posting a little late tonight--not that that's unusual for the people who frequent this board. Hey, fighting a war is a time consuming process.

Ah, yes, the war with Egypt...where to begin?

At the beginning, I guess. I took everyone's advice and signed an Open Borders agreement with Hatty. I sent a Jaguar and a Scout in to Egyptian territory to have a look-see. I found that Thebes was indeed a coastal city, and even had a marble quarry to its immediate south! Visions of mid-game wonders danced before my eyes. Other valuable facts were revealed as well, especially regarding Egypt's resources--or lack thereof.

Poor Hatty; not only did she not have iron, as was made obvious in the previous round of turns when she came begging me for some (for fish, no less--ha!); she also did not have copper, the poor girl. And as for those horses that were giving me pause? Check this bit of intel out:



Check the lower left of the screenshot; I had the mouse over the horse tile when I saved it. Figure it out yet? That's right, on the previous turn, her worker had just finished the pasture and was just now getting it hooked up with a road. She'd probably only just researched Animal Husbandry a few turns before, after Iron Working didn't pan out. If she'd been human, I'll bet Hatty would have been thanking her lucky stars that she just happened to have a city with horses in its fat cross. "Now I can build War Chariots!!"

I never gave her the chance. I had my first Stack of Doom (2 Axemen, 4 Jaguars, one Spearman) ready to go; I just had to pull the Scout and Jag out of her territory (no telling where they'd land if I declared while they were in country). As I did so, this happened:



Ha! My third (and final, it turns out) religion. I've never founded so many in one game before, to be honest.

A turn later, the war trumpets blared as I declared war on Egypt. Elephantine was first to fall. The horse pasture stayed within Thebes' third ring, so I pillaged it to be on the safe side. The Jaguars did it all on their own, and without casualties. As you may have inferred from the 1st screenshot, Hatty only had Archers and Warriors to defend her lands. Not much challenge for an Axeman, let alone a Jaguar. Or so you'd think.

Thebes, you see, was another story. As I'd feared, its cultural defense was at 60%--and me without Catapults! It was defended by a five Archers, most with a City Garrison promotion. Five grew to six before I could bring all my forces to bear. I had to pillage the quarry and position units on the forest tiles around Thebes to slow down how fast she could build more defensive units.

I took Thebes, but it was costly. I lost all four Jaguars--they had the misfortune of being Catapult substitutes. I'll miss their Broadway-style showmanship when they dispatch a foe, their brightly-coloured garb...but not those sucky 5 strength points. A couple of Axemen died in the assault as well; fortunately, when I saw Thebes' defenses, I brought reinforcements. In the end, even the Spearman I'd brought with Medic I and March had to join in, and the day was finally won by my last available unit--the City Garrison II Archer I'd brought to secure the city after I'd taken it!



Thebes was the only city I kept, and only because it was the capital and was in a decent, if not perfect, location. I think I would have preferred it one tile south and one east to get that cow, but on the other hand, it's on a river and has an Academy.

Stack #2 was now ready and first razed Alexandria:



You might notice, based on the border, that Hatty had a city just to the south of Alexandria, in the jungle. A complication. I decided to bypass it for now.

After I discovered Alphabet, guess who showed up expecting something for nothing?



"Friend"? Yeah, right. Remember how I told you Peter and I don't get along until mid or late game when he's an also ran? I don't wanna be the one to say I told you so, but...

On top of that, notice that he'd converted to Hinduism. He cancelled our Open Borders on account of religious differences. Then he discovered philosophy and founded Taoism and converted a few turns later. Fickle, our Peter. My next war may have to be with him. You'll see why shortly.

Alphabet did allow tech trades (and extortions), of course. I managed to snag Mathematics and Fishing from Ghandi, who is much more relaxed about religious discrepancies than Peter.

I had razed Heliopolis and was marching on Memphis (City 3/A on the battle plan), when Hatty showed up begging for a peace treaty. She was offering me all her gold and Sailing; I had her throw in the only other tech she had--Literature! Which Ghandi had but was not willing to trade! YES!!

Okay, Hatty, you got your breather. My boys needed to patch themselves up after reducing most of your cities to rubble. Plus I was only six turns away from Construction and Catapults!! War Elephants too! I maxed my tech slider and got Construction four turns later, then changed my unit production.

I also obtained Calendar from Qin, IIRC. So much for Stonehenge, but now I can build plantations for all those luxury resources. Well, once I finished chopping like a madman to beat Ghandi to...



The way my research slider is in free-fall, I'm gonna need it.

Then, just to kick me in the teeth, as I'm about to declare war on Hatty again, this pops up:



"Montezuma the PUNY!?!?!??!" WTF!?!?! Oh, man, people are gonna die. I sincerely hope this Thucydides is Egyptian...

Just before I blew the war trumpets again, though, I got my second Great Person--Imhotep, a Great Engineer. Y'know, usually I'd be thrilled. But I was really hoping for a Great Prophet so I could build a shrine. I've even got a priest specialist in Mexico City to try to push the odds in my favour there. Oh well, I have marble, and the Pantheon hasn't been built, so...AAAAARRRGGHHH!!!



Fortunately, I have an outlet for my frustration. Now with new and improved Catapulty goodness, my two Stacks of Doom razed Memphis and Pi-Ramses. Hatshepsut is no more! Now, if she'd been Cathy, or Isabella, or Liz, well, there'd be an opening among my palace concubines...

Ahem. Sorry. Too much information.



I wish I could feel completely satisfied with the war--I have several veteran units now, and I'm building Heroic Epic, and one foe has been well and properly dispatched. But more challenges are looming on the horizon--or even closer. Check out the border colour on the left in the above screenshot. That's right, Peter snuck up there and plunked a city down. Typical opportunistic AI. And he's not the only one. Check this out:



Yes, my good buddy Qin sent a Galley up there with a Settler and some Archers. It'll probably flip, given time, especially after I build shrines in Cancun and Mexico City. I'm building a Settler in Thebes because I really think I should plunk down a city in one of the gaps before someone else does. Any thoughts on where it should go?

Here's what the rest of the map looks like:





So now I have to decide who to go after next--and I do have to go after someone. I've captured a lot of workers and I'm cottage spamming, but I'm not financial and they take a while to mature. I've discovered Currency and I'm building Markets, but I'm still only able to break even at 40% on the slider. I have just over 300 gold in the treasury, but that won't last long.

So, more decisons on which I'd appreciate everyone's input.

Economy: Hey, at least it hasn't made a big, ugly hole in the floor yet! 40% after an early war, all things considered, ain't so bad. Courthouses, Markets, and cottages will all help. But I could really use those shrines. Any tips?

Religion: Speaking of which--Qin converted to Confucianism! I was getting all ready to convert to Christianity, but I'm moving towards Confucianism to keep relations with him on the up-and-up for awhile. Plus it will give me line-of-sight in to his cities (I'm thinking of closing the border to cut off Chengdu--thoughts?). Regardless, I'm thinking I should build monasteries for all my religions, spread each one, and be prepared to convert accordingly, if and when it's beneficial.

War: Since he's the leader on my continent, I would dearly love to go after Ghandi. But he's quite far away. And Peter and Qin are both getting annoying. Who should I go after next, and how soon?

Great Engineer/Wonders: So I have a GE sitting around and I'm wondering what to do with him. Heroic Epic will get built just fine without him. National Epic I haven't started yet, but I'm rather loathe to burn a GE on a national wonder. The only World Wonder I have available is the Sistine Chapel, and what good is that going to do me? So what do i do with this guy?

Thanks again for any and all suggestions. The game save is below.

 

[The Tyrant]

You or someone else has mentioned bringing enough units to cycle through the defenders twice. How do you change that rule of thumb if you need to account for extenuating circumstances like the following?

What if you need to attack another city (Heliopolis) on the way to your primary goal (the capital)? How do you account for casualties? Do you bring 3X, reinforce while you heal?

What if you have high amounts of defense (hills, walls, creative culture) to deal with? Do you forget about that city and come back later with catapults? Just bring more guys?

Do you worry much about pillaging? For example, Egypt looks like it has only one fairly isolated source of horses (near the gold mines). Would you try to pillage that or just hope you finish the war quickly enough that you don't need to worry about additional chariots?

That's a lot of questions. ;-) Thanks in advance.

Sorry for the long delay in responding. I'm usually incommunicado most of the weekend.

In early wars when I see a well-defended city, how many extra units I bring depends on whether the defense is city defense or unit defense (by unit defense I mean one strong unit you have to kill before you can attack the weaker defenders). If the problem is unit defense then an additional two heavy hitters will account for him (one unit already in the stack plus two more = 3 units sent to take one). The rest of the stack can remain the same. After the top defender is gone, the odds fall back into a reasonable range.

City defense (including walls, hills, culture) is going to apply to every single attack and is therefore more of a concern. If the city defense is 20%, I don't worry. Axemen vs. archers with 20% city defense isn't a guaranteed win, but you won't lose too many. They may be quite weak after the battle, but most should live to heal. When city defense gets around 40% I start worrying. I'll bring as many units as they have, plus half as many again. And remember, I'm building units that are stronger than the ones I expect to attack, so that's 3-to-2 odds with the attackers being stronger to begin with. Above 40% city defense and things can get really messy without catapults. As Sisiutil proved, however, even high city defense can be beaten with brute force.

If I think I can win the war in a short time, I don't pillage. The opponent won't have many turns left to use that resource, taking the nearby city will often deny them the resource anyway and I don't want to spend the turns rebuilding the improvement after that land is mine. If the war could be drawn out, I'll pillage just to keep them from being able to produce a lot of units with that resource. If I get into a situation where I have a stack near a city but it doesn't look strong enough to take it, I'll send a back-up stack to join it and in the meantime that stack pillages strategic resources first, then production tiles, then happiness resources, then food. Never cottages.

 

[The Tyrant]

I'm planning on a risky, direct route to City A (Alexandria)

I don't think this is risky at all. The risk would be wasting 7 turns

I agree. Also, considering that your approaching stack is stronger than the units which could counterattack it, the danger is minimal. Speed is essential to maintain the element of surprise and prevent the opponent from strengthening their defenses and/or bringing in units for an effective counterattack.

Sisiutil, I’m glad to see you went ahead with the assault on Thebes, even with that 60% cultural defense. It is best to accept the losses and take Thebes rather than leave her alive until catapults. She would have continued to send out settlers, making the final war even longer, and you would have been guaranteed to face stronger units in the end. Good job. In fact, you did a good job all the way around with the war. I normally don’t pause the first war, but for gold/Sailing/Literature, hehe… you bet!

Now, the repercussions from the war. With the science slider at 40% you certainly won’t be able to keep any cities you might capture for a while. If you go to war again soon, you’ll obviously be razing cities, going for the loot and simply to hurt the opponent. Machiavelli said something about being sure that you never hurt someone just a little. They’ll come looking for revenge. If you war on someone, make sure you hurt them to the point that any retaliation they could possibly take would be just a mild annoyance.

Economy:In addition to the courthouses, markets and cottages you’re building, there are a couple of things you can do to help your economy. First, don’t set the research slider higher than 70%. Above 70% and the number of turns you shave off researching that tech come at a very high monetary cost. Not that you should use 70% the entire game (lose one turn on each tech and before you know it you’ll be 20 turns behind in tech). It is just that when your economy tanks and you really need to balance tech vs. income, 70% seems to be a sweet spot. Since you would still be losing money at 70% right now, you could also try to reduce expenses.

There’s not much you can do about the distance and number-of-cities factors in upkeep, but you can lower the city maintenance by building courthouses everywhere (they take forever to build) and by whipping excess population away. Higher population means higher upkeep. You trade immediate production ability (the extra tiles you can work with the higher population) for immediate production (granaries, courthouses) and lower upkeep costs. War would allow you to pillage and raze, but 1) You’ll pay increased “away costs” for unit upkeep, and 2) Your cities would have to build units instead of infrastructure.

Religion:I think you’re on the right track. Confucianism will help keep good relations with Qin, and will help offset the “close borders” penalty because he settled right up against your borders. Monasteries are a good idea – they’ll give you a research bonus and let you spread the faiths.

War:Your economy is in no shape to go taking on Qin. Peter had his initial growth stunted by his need for copper, so he might make an easier target. Also, most of Qin’s territory is too deep in the jungle. If you’re at war with Peter and Qin declares on you, you can easily fall back. The only road through the jungle to Qin’s cities is on the far eastern side of the continent. If you’re at war with Qin and Peter declares, you would have to backtrack through the jungle. If you do decide to war with Qin, try to establish a more central road through the jungle before you do. I’d use religion, trade and open borders to remain on Qin’s good side and make Peter the next target, if for no other reason than so you don’t have to look at that face every time he makes an arrogant demand. If you decide to war with anyone soon for the war loot, you could bypass the cities that have no chance of growing soon (the ones deep in the jungle) and take out the richer, more productive cities.

Great Engineer/Wonders: I also would have preferred a Great Prophet for the shrine, but a GE is never a bad thing. I would save him for the Hanging Gardens. The HG are likely to be the next really expensive wonder that will have a useful empire-wide effect so they are worthy of burning a GE to rush-build. Besides, I like the idea of spending a GE on a wonder that gives GE points. There are so many wonders that give Great Prophet points, and quite a few that give Great Artist points. There just aren’t that many that give Great Engineer points, so I try to make sure to snag those wonders when possible.

Dr Elmer Jiggle – I like the sound of your alerts mod. Downloading to try it out.

 

[Sisiutil]

Hanging Gardens, did you say, Tyrant? Unfortunately, that ship has sailed:



I really don't have another attactive World Wonder within reach. If I burn Imhotep on a tech, he'll give me Machinery, which I've only committed one turn out of nine into researching. (Does anyone know if you keep those research points if you burn a GP for the tech you're currently researching, or are they lost? Just curious.) Then I could switch research to Monarchy -> Divine Right and snag Islam (and here I thought I was done with religions!). Then if I pop ANOTHER GE (a definite possibility, though the odds are in favour of a GS at this point), build the Spiral Minaret.

I've taken your advice and gone to 70% research; I'm running Caste System right now, so I've been able to allocate a couple of Merchants. I have 348 gold in the treasury, I'm losing 15 per turn, but I'm building some Markets and Courthouses and have some cottages maturing--so I may actually be able to break even at 60-70% soon. Unit cost is 15, unit supply is 7--I don't have any units in enemy territory, but I do have several in neutral ground. Would that account for the unit supply costs? Would I save 7 gpt if I pull them all back to my own territory ASAP?

I'm thinking I want to go after Feudalism pretty soon too--switching to Vassalage would give me 8 free units at this point. And Longbowmen! Sweet.

I'm reluctant to whip away population (actually, on Caste System, I can't) because I don't know if it would balance out what the specialists are giving me. Also, I've been a bad boy and most of my cities don't have Granaries (hey, I had a war to fight).

I'm building a Settler in Thebes and I have two possible locations for him to go:



I'm definitely leaning towards A. It would be a decent commerce city, which would help immeasurably at this point: two gold mines, six coast tiles, a horse tile for some production, clams for food (the fishing boats are still there--bonus), an oasis, and two flood plains--I would have it take the cottage tile from Tijuana, which would free that city to work a production tile instead. The only downside are the four desert tiles and one desert hill. I'd have to build around 10 farms to get it to size 20, which just ain't gonna happen, so that city will max out around 14 or so, which is okay. (Correct me if I'm wrong on my math, there.)

City B would seal off the area behind it and allow me to build A later, but it's not the best location for a city and will not contribute much beyond maintenance costs for some time. Plus it will be competing for tiles with Peter's city. I'd much rather go to war with Peter, raze that annoyance to my south, and plunk down a city in a much better location afterwards.

Thoughts?

 

[The Tyrant]

Oh, that's right. It's Imhotep. Don't use him! J/K -- GE's are valuable enough that I never burn one on tech. Even if you stockpile him for a long time, it will be worth the wait. Just knowing you have a GE on tap and can finish any wonder in one turn will give you peace of mind and flexibility.

Yes, I agree with your choice of City A. If you went with B, you would have to close borders with everyone or someone else would snag A. Even if Peter builds in the vicinity of B (probably NW of your chosen site) you can raze it later.

Edit: In case I make any more obviously-impossible suggestions, like going for Hanging Gardens, please forgive me. I'm not downloading the saves, as I'm finding it much more fun to follow along here. I'm afraid if I downloaded, I would be tempted to play ahead and then I would have advance knowledge. On weekends (like right now) I pay for online time by the minute (at Kinko's) so I can't take the time to review all the earlier posts, either. Especially on weekends I'm likely to make some boneheaded blunders.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Does anyone know if you keep those research points if you burn a GP for the tech you're currently researching, or are they lost? Just curious.

Good question. Do us a favor -- if you don't use him for Machinery (and I think you shouldn't), reload from this point and find out. Or I might just do it myself with your save.

City A is definitely better than City B.

Edit:

1) I forgot to mention before, I'm quite certain that moving your troops out of neutral territory and into your own will reduce the "away" costs. I'm not sure by how much. Something on the order of 1 gold per 2 units, but it will definitely be lower.

2) I loaded the save and burned Imhotep for Machinery. The 114 beakers that were already invested in Machinery were lost/wasted.

3) I don't think the next thing is a spoiler, but I'll wrap it in a spoiler tag in case you don't want to read it. I clicked the button 10 times until Machinery was researched and looked to see what technology you'd get next from Imhotep if you waited. You can figure that out manually if you look at the right information in the game's XML files, so I don't think it's a big secret. Anyway ...

Spoiler :

If you wait until after Machinery, Imhotep would give you Civil Service. I agree with Tyrant that I wouldn't use him for a technology no matter what, but it's worth considering. I don't know if you have enough need for farms or enough need for macemen to make Civil Service a huge priority.

4) If you load your saved game, all the advisors indicate that you're generating 78 beakers per turn. If you click through to the next turn, you've actually researched 94 more beakers toward Machinery. I've noticed this phenomenon before. Does anyone know why it happens and/or if there's any way to figure out the real number of beakers you're generating? Note that it's not due to changes that happen between turns (like a newly built library). On the next turn the advisors show 80 beakers (not 94). Also, if you look at the estimated turns to completion, that number is clearly based on the correct number of beakers, so the game knows the right number somewhere. It just doesn't display it in the advisors.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Does anyone know if you keep those research points if you burn a GP for the tech you're currently researching, or are they lost? Just curious.

Other way around, I think. The GP provides up to 1000+ research on a tech; if you don't need that much, the rest is wasted. Much like an engineer rushing a building, in fact, except that you get the tech now (before the next turn of research is applied), where for a building you have to leave it in the queue, and get the next turn of production as overflow.

Oh, and with the building you have the option of taking the building off the build queue after you have finished it. That's a new idea for me - "finish" the oracle, take it off the queue until the tech you want is about to become available, stick it back on the queue. Til now, I've been trying to micro manage the oracle to come in step with the tech, but that's hardly necessary, is it?

Of course, if you take a wonder off the production queue, you can start it somewhere else, right? So an engineer can rush a wonder in two different places - one gets the wonder, the other has the production translated to gold. Hmm, a back door trade mission. Interesting. Sub optimal, but interesting.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

4) If you load your saved game, all the advisors indicate that you're generating 78 beakers per turn. If you click through to the next turn, you've actually researched 94 more beakers toward Machinery. I've noticed this phenomenon before. Does anyone know why it happens and/or if there's any way to figure out the real number of beakers you're generating?

To the best of my knowledge, not a practical way.

You can get a rough cut at it by (a) adding 1 to the number of beakers that shows up in the advisor, then (b) working out the bonus for which prerequisites you know. But the remaining part is based on the number of civs who have already learned this tech.

An alternative approach to the rough cut is to estimate based on the number of turns remaining. If you have 300 beakers of research to go, and are being told it will take 6 turns, then your real research rate must be between 50 (300/6) and 60 (300/5).

Theres a Strategy Article describing a lot of this.

 

[Sisiutil]

Thanks for the input. All right, Imhotep goes to sleep until I can use him. Don't let me forget about him! ("Im-ho-tep...Im-ho-tep...")

I'm playing another game right now where I'm at war, and watched the effect on my income when my troops left my territory. Sure enough, as soon as the ol' Stack o' Doom left my civ's turf, I went from a budget surplus to a deficit. So I'm going to pull my boys back home, pronto.

I'll take a few turns to build up some infrastructure and put that city in location A, then I'm probably going to take on Peter. He's getting as annoying as Hatty was. I don't mind Qin as much, just because his city is in a typical stupid AI location. Both Mexico City and Cancun are going to expand their boders at 500 in a few turns, and then that city is going to starve. If I wasn't trying to keep Qin friendly for now, I'd close my borders to China to make it harder for him to reinforce it.

Speaking of Qin, I've been thinking I should stir up a little diplomatic trouble to keep my rivals at one anothers' throats, and therefore, weak. A war between Ghandi and Qin, perhaps? I could go into it with Qin and probably never fire a shot, which, given that I'm about to convert to Confucianism, will make us absolute best buddies for a while. Thoughts?

And it's not likely to come up in the next round of turns, but there are two other civs out there, IIRC. How soon should I send out a caravel to encounter them? Or should I just wait until they show up at my door?

Anyway, my next post will be about the next round of turns. Thanks again, and see you then!

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

If I wasn't trying to keep Qin friendly for now, I'd close my borders to China to make it harder for him to reinforce it.

I think you benefit more from open borders at this point. It should gain you some trade, it will definitely make him a little happier (and you have all the enemies you need; a friend or two is good), and it will help spread your religions which will give you visibility. If I remember the map correctly, I don't think there's any significant unsettled land to worry about.

As far as reinforcements go, the more units he moves out of his mainland up into the tundra, the better. He can put 20 guys up there in that city, and you'll still be able to take it on turn 2 with a big enough stack. But if those same 20 guys are in his main cities, you've got problems.

Speaking of Qin, I've been thinking I should stir up a little diplomatic trouble to keep my rivals at one anothers' throats, and therefore, weak. A war between Ghandi and Qin, perhaps? I could go into it with Qin and probably never fire a shot, which, given that I'm about to convert to Confucianism, will make us absolute best buddies for a while. Thoughts?

That would be cool if it works. Like I said, it would be nice to have an ally for a while. What about war weariness? Will it stay low enough as long as you just hang out and watch Qin and Gandhi duke it out? And what if you declare war and then Qin decides he doesn't want to join in? Then you might be in a bad way. Make sure he likes you enough before you try this.

And it's not likely to come up in the next round of turns, but there are two other civs out there, IIRC. How soon should I send out a caravel to encounter them? Or should I just wait until they show up at my door?

I always try to get the caravels out fast, but that's at least partly because I really like being the circumnavigator. The other obvious advantage is that it's 2 more people that you can try to avoid pissing off for a while. By the time you find those 2 guys, you're probably going to have 2 or 3 out of 3 enemies on your homeland.

On the other hand, you don't want to fall behind in the arms race. My recollection is that Gandhi seems to be ahead of you and Qin is about even in terms of military technology. Peter might be lagging a bit.

 

[vormuir]

Wow, Sisiutl -- this is great stuff.

I'm playing at Prince, but I'm only winning maybe one game out of ten or fifteen. Many, many false starts. Oddly, I usually try to start just the way you did here -- grab an early religion plus Stonehenge. But my early wars don't usually go so well. I need to improve my tactical skills, and also my city placement and management.

Anyway. Please keep this going! Thanks very much.


Waldo

 

[Sisiutil]

(6th Round: to 1320 AD)

First off, just to respond to Doc on a couple of points:

Trust me, you'll find out where the arms race stands shortly. Regarding starting a war between Ghandi and Qin, it was my intent to stay out of it. Then again, as I recall, the AI knows if you've done something like that, so Ghandi could very well declare. Anyway, I'm not bothering, as I have a war of my own to worry about now.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I spent most of these few turns building infrastructure and getting my economy (and indirectly, my research) back on track. I also made a few tech trades for items like Compass and such. I also built my 6th city, Puerto Vallarta. Look at where the AI thought I should put it:



My favourite is, of course, the same place Hatty had it--one tile away from the coast, to make those tiles close to useless. Typical. No wonder I raze so many AI cities.

I didn't get a Great Prophet, but I did get a Great Scientist, and built my first Academy in the capital:



Imhotep is still sitting around, twiddling his thumbs. Every now and then he wanders into the throne room, says he's just wondering how I'm doing, and isn't it a wonderful day? It was amusing at first, but it's getting old fast.

Qin encroached on my borders again, too:



Ya gotta love it when the AI does this and then gives you a ding in diplomacy for "Our close borders cause tensions". Well, DUH, and whose fault is that?

Qin managed to get to Divine Right and found Islam; now that he has his own religion, I expect he'll spread it and convert before too long. That will be a little dangerous. It's gonna be tough deciding who to go after once I'm done with Peter: him or Ghandi.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It took a few turns, but I got back in the black. I was even able to push the research slider up to 70% and still have a surplus most turns. The whole time, though, something kept nagging at me. I couldn't shake the feeling that time was passing and that I had something important to do. The game even felt a little--boring, unsatisfying. What was the problem?!?

Then I realized: I wasn't at war! I was itching for battle! Yes, playing as Montezuma has finally, once and for all, cured me of builder addiction; I am now a devoted warmonger. A barb city sprang up again just south of Thebes, but even razing it didn't satisfy me.



I was about to automatically create a Settler around this time, because the slider was in the 60-70% range. But I caught myself; I'm ready to expand, alright--but through conquest! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!

I still have that builder's desire to wait until things are just right, though. I waited until a few more tech discoveries were done: Feudalism, Civil Service, Engineering, Guilds--all, obviously, for more powerful medieval units. Once I had CS done, I almost made a very bad mistake:



Yep, I nearly traded Civil Service to Peter for Music and some gold. Not only would it not have been an even trade, I know Peter has Machinery, which means he could have started building Macemen! Bad enough he's built a few Crossbowmen.

How do I know that? Well, I used the same tactic I did with Hatty: signed an Open Borders and sent a Scout and a Horse Archer south to gather intel. While I was at it, I signed an OB with Ghandi, too.

Here's a look at the heart of the Indian Empire:



Go figure why Dehli and Calcutta are so close together. And it seems to me as though Ghandi's slightly higher power rating is because of Longbowmen--and it's not like he has a few dozen in each city, not even close. Now that I'm pumping out Macemen and Catapults, I'm not that concerned. But he'll have to wait.

As for Moscow:



Isn't Moscow a plum? Wine, Corn, Ivory, virgin forests, flood plains (wasted with those farms)... yes, I covet Moscow. And notice how it's not much better defended than Thebes was. This time, however, I'll have Catapults to deal with that pesky 60% city defense. Its maintenance will be a pain at first, but the first two builds are going to be a Courthouse and then Forbidden Palace. Heck, I may snag Divine Right and try to beat Qin to Versailles.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I have just declared war. I could not have waited too much longer, as Peter's cities are mostly defended by Archers and Axemen, and I need to press my advantage before he can produce too many Crossbowmen, or research CS and produce Macemen. I'm still finishing a few civilian builds in some of my cities, but once they're done, the war machine starts grinding. I've already changed civics to Vassalage, Slavery, and Theocracy, and can I just say again how much I love doing that without a single turn of Anarchy?

I have two stacks with veteran Axemen, War Elephants, Catapults, a couple of Medic I/March Spearmen, and my first few Macemen headed for Peter's northernmost city, that little 2 pop burg he snuck in at the end of my war with Hatty. The battle plan looks like this:



The two stacks will quickly deal with those 2 northern cities (Yakutsk is on a hill and has a Crossbowman, but other than that, it's lightly defended). Then they'll proceed to Moscow; once the Russian capital is taken, the stacks will diverge to lay waste to the rest of the Russian empire.

(Yes, I did miss one Indian city out there in the desert. I'll get a look at it soon enough.)

I've lowered my research slider a little, and I'm planning on using the extra funds from that and from war booty to gradually upgrade some units. I'm perfectly willing to lose some Level 3 Axemen, since they'll quickly be replaced by more powerful Macemen. It's the Level 4 guys I want to preserve and upgrade, especially once a couple of them reach Level 5. I also want to beef up the units protecting the home front. Just in case. In fact, may be I should plunge the slider down to 0% for a few turns to raise the $$$ for the upgrades. Whaddya think?

Regarding razing: my current plan is to raze everything but Moscow and Novgorod. Truth to tell, I was tempted to keep those two Northern cities just because they'll provide a route to Moscow. But they're small and badly placed; I'm going to build a Settler or two and plunk down my own cities in those areas before Ghandi or Qin beat me to it. No sense having Moscow cut off. I'm hoping that when they see the space opened up by the razing of St. Petersburg, Rostov, and Yaroslavl, they'll place cities in the south rather than the north, closer to their own capitals. Does everyone think that would fit with the AI's preferences? It would certainly fit with mine.

(I also just love how Peter was kind enough to build cities all around Moscow. No foreign borders pressing in and starving this city once I've taken it!)

I may have to keep Novgorod as well--Peter managed to found Taoism, and it's the Holy City. That's a pain, because it's so far from my capital--though FP would definitely help with that. On the other hand, it's going to be VERY vulnerable when I go after Ghandi. Opinions?

Speaking of which, should I do that as soon as Peter is dispatched? I mean, if everything goes according to plan, at the end of the war I will have two stacks of veteran units down near India's and China's core. It's tempting to have them turn either left or right and work their way back north through another rival.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

At this point, I feel like a certain Roman general in Edward Rutherford's Sarum. Rutherford depicted the man writing a dispatch to Rome detailing how his forces took a British town...while his troops were still getting prepared to do it. I mean, I'm already thinking of what to build in Moscow once I've taken it! I'm trying to remind myself not to be over-confident, but I've seen Peter's forces, and they're just not that impressive. I just have to watch for him beefing up his defenders before I get to his southern cities.

Opinions and advice are welcome, as always. I plan on waiting for a few opinions, then playing the next rounds through to the end of the war, if it doesn't take TOO long.

 

[Sisiutil]

Wow, Sisiutl -- this is great stuff.

I'm playing at Prince, but I'm only winning maybe one game out of ten or fifteen. Many, many false starts. Oddly, I usually try to start just the way you did here -- grab an early religion plus Stonehenge. But my early wars don't usually go so well. I need to improve my tactical skills, and also my city placement and management.

Anyway. Please keep this going! Thanks very much.


Waldo

I just read your post after finishing mine. Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad to hear that this thread is proving useful to other players, and that others are learning just like I am.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I'm not sure I'd actually recommend this, but I'll throw out the idea as a brainstorm. What if you keep Novgorod but briefly gift it to Gandhi before your war so you don't need to worry about defending it? Then take it back when you're ready. With it being a holy city and so close to his main empire, I'm sure he'd accept the gift.

 

[Sisiutil]

I'm not sure I'd actually recommend this, but I'll throw out the idea as a brainstorm. What if you keep Novgorod but briefly gift it to Gandhi before your war so you don't need to worry about defending it? Then take it back when you're ready. With it being a holy city and so close to his main empire, I'm sure he'd accept the gift.

Interesting idea. I'm going to wait and see what conditions are like when I get there. I may be turning and attacking Ghandi right away, so gifting him a city may not make sense. We'll see.

I forgot to attach the saved game:

 

[The Tyrant]

Hmm... looks good. As long as you keep good relations with Qin, I don't think you'll need to upgrade the home defenders just yet. Of course, if Qin declares then research should immediately go to 0%.

After playing about half a dozen games as Montezuma, to learn how to use his strengths, I've become very spoiled by the Spiritual trait. I just love being able to switch civics with no anarchy. Just last night I tried a game with random leader and ended up with Elizabeth. When I saw 2 turns of anarchy to switch to Slavery, I thought "TWO TURNS?! No....." LOL. Spiritual is so sweet. I've gotten spoiled.

Don't you just hate when they have a holy city you would like to raze? Agh. Well, there are three options the way I see it:
1) Take and hold. The upkeep for that city alone will cause at least a 10% drop in research rate until the Forbidden Palace can be built in Moscow (which could be quite a while). Still, this option means not having to retake it later.
2) Take and gift. Interesting idea. It would mean having to retake it later, but in the meantime relations with Gandhi should be good. Depending on what he has to trade in terms of tech, this could make for better deals.
3) Leave Peter alive in his holy city until the FP is built, then take it. If the rest of his empire is captured or razed he won't be a threat. He might send a settler out to grab another city site, but that would still be laughable. Since his only city would be a holy city, he will certainly have religious differences with the others, keeping him diplomatically isolated. Of course, he would then stack longbowmen and macemen to protect his capital.

Does anyone know if razing a holy city becomes known to *all* civilizations? If you razed it, would the other civs that are still out of contact know about it?

If Qin converts to Islam, the religious situation could get ugly. Hopefully it will take a while before it spreads to enough of his cities. Right now he has three Buddhist cities and two Islamic. The second Islamic city was almost certainly from the free missionary. Random spread is just slightly in favor of Buddhism, but he might be producing missionaries.

Oh, one final note about the war machine: I frequently use suicide catapults, but this means I have to remember to keep a city or two dedicated to producing replacements. That is probably the one thing I most frequently forget if I try alternating builds. When I used to alternate catapult/heavy-hitter I would often forget to build catapults in the heat of the moment. I found that simply dedicating a city to auto-build catapults means I can't forget. If your memory is better than mine, that shouldn't be a problem, though.

 

[JoeBlade]

After playing about half a dozen games as Montezuma, to learn how to use his strengths, I've become very spoiled by the Spiritual trait. I just love being able to switch civics with no anarchy. Just last night I tried a game with random leader and ended up with Elizabeth. When I saw 2 turns of anarchy to switch to Slavery, I thought "TWO TURNS?! No....." LOL. Spiritual is so sweet. I've gotten spoiled.

Heh, I have exactly the same feeling. Being able to switch between civics and religions on a whim is far more powerful than I imagined at first. Even oddball strategies such as temporarily switching to Caste System + Mercantilism + Pacifism to pump out one or two GP's of a precise type becomes viable with this trait. No way I'd ever do that if I had to take the anarchy penalty each time.

Does anyone know if razing a holy city becomes known to *all* civilizations? If you razed it, would the other civs that are still out of contact know about it?

Unfortunately, yes. I was quite miffed to find myself at -2 with all civilisations for razing a holy city even on continents maps (where I met several of the other civs well after the destruction of the city in question) Having to hang on to such a - often badly placed - city to avoid that penalty can be painful.

 

[pigswill]

Have you still got Imhotep? If so you could use him to rush forbidden palace or versailles in Moscow once you've taken it.

 

[Nares]

I really think it's a great seed. I used my first city to grab the gold near Hatty on it's first expansion, and close off the north. I used my second city to get the stone to the southwest. My third city was used to grab the copper. I used my fourth city to block off the southeast by placing it on the hill bordered on the north and west by mountains, southeast of the capital. My fifth and sixth cities were both barbarian built, one of which had a good location (near the Ivory, but on the coast), and the other was pretty much destined to suck, and was there to backfill my borders. From this base I expanded on Hatty, but allowed her to live in return for tech. I built Markets, then moved on Peter. I used Qin, who I had spread Confuscianism to through Open Borders and we both had adopted as state religion, to occupy Peter's eastern border, while I came down on him and Hatty from the north. I captured down to Moscow, then razed to allow Ghandi and Qin to expand. I made the mistake of allowing Peter to survive, mostly because I needed to begin consolidating and building my infrastructure. I had fallen to 20% research rate by this point, and made the mistakes of researching first for CoL/CS, blowing my Oracle on garbage, and then finding myself 20 turns behind in tech when I saw the first medieval units of the game.

I ended up with a domination victory in 1900 AD, but I'm sure I could bring that down a bit if I do a better job of planning my techs, and a better job of extorting/trading techs from the AIs. I'm debating between doing that and then starting a world war, or just power tech to FT and starting a world war, or just finding a new map altogether (despite the pleasurably combination of Aggression and Spirituality.

 

[Sisiutil]

(7th Round: to 1640 AD)

Have you still got Imhotep? If so you could use him to rush forbidden palace or versailles in Moscow once you've taken it.

NOW you tell me. D'Oh!! I used Imhotep for Spiral Minaret, and Ghandi beat me to Versailles. Oh well, that just means I'll have to take it from him, and it will help with maintenance in his cities.



I think I was in a mood for religious wonders, because...



I GOT MY PROPHET!! I GOT MY PROPHET!! KA-CHING!!

(Chuang-Tzu, too. Seems appropriate.)

I built the Kong Miao in Acapulco pronto once Chuang showed up. Once I had guilds I went for Divine Right and beat Qin to the SM thanks to Imhotep. But you're right, I probably should have kept him to use for Versailles.

I dunno, it probably evens out in the long run. In fact, the extra culture from SM in Mexico City may have helped this happen:



Before you get too excited, this is the first revolt. It hasn't flipped yet, and may not--but I suspect it will. It's down to 38% Chinese and falling, and Qin has only two units there.

The war with Peter progressed. He came begging for peace once I took Moscow:



Sheesh, Pete, you're not exactly in a position to be a hard bargainer. Three words, buddy: Stack. Of. Doom.

I have to give Pete some credit though, he gave it the old college try. Somehow he either traded for or managed to research Feudalism and Civil Service. He also somehow managed to get gold for upgrades to his archers and axemen. So it made for a tough slog, and my citizens weren't the only ones suffering from war weariness by the end of it.

But my catapults, as usual, made the difference. In fact, my losses were minimal, aside from the catapults, and even many of them survived their collateral damage attacks. I highly recommend combining Barrage I with City Raider I for the cats; in my experience, it seems to double their chances of survival.

I used two stacks for St. Pete and Yaroslavl, but they got maimed and had to limp back to Moscow to heal. I used one mega-stack for the last four cities.

Yes, four. Pete had one more down on the tundra, and he sent a Settler out with a Crossbowman and a Spearman back to the desert where St. Petersburg had been, desperate for that copper, I suppose. His desperate attempt at survival against all odds had a sort of Battlestar Galactica-esque romantic charm, but I razed that nascent little city with Moscow's city defenders anyway.

I also plunked down a city on the road south to Moscow, because Ghandi and Qin were sniffing around with a settler each and would have cut me off if I hadn't. Even so, Ghandi put a city to Moscow's northwest, Qin put one to the northeast, and their borders are threatening to cut off Moscow and Novgorod. Annoying.

Oh well, there are always bright spots:



Yes, I managed to get to Nationalism before anyone else and build the Taj. The timing was perfect--it completed just as the war ended, and the Golden Age gave my post-war economy a big boost. Helped me snag Military Tradition, and I'm now working on Gunpowder. West Point will get built in Tijuana soon--with HE and TM there, it's going to produce a Great Artist sooner or later. Culture Bomb!

I had some very useful tech trades to help me keep up with everyone else, obtaining Music, Drama, Philosophy, and Banking. This is because the other two AI civs showed up: Bismark and Alexander. Bismark is terribly pleased with me and keeps laughing his damn fool head off, unaware that I'm imagining it stuck on a pole. Alex considers Bismark his worst enemy, so now he's ticked at me. But since Qin joined in on the war against Peter, he and I are best buds. So I have at least two friends. For now.



That's good, because I'm in my post-war rebuilding phase. I'm pursuing the 6 universities for Oxford now...while researching military techs, to balance things out.

Here's what the world looks like in 1640:





So two down, four to go. Who's next...Ghandi or Qin? Both have a few Wonders that would be nice to have, several nice-sized cities, and both have annoying little burgs that are intruding on my territory. Ghandi is higher in score, but Qin is higher in power:







If I go after either of them with my current forces, it's going to be a tough slog against evenly-matched units again. Not a lot of fun. I'm thinking I'd prefer to grab Rifling and then Steel now that I have Military Tradition, then lower the slider to 0% for upgrades. I have 800 gold already and 20 gpt, so I plan on having a stockpile before then as well. That should allow me to get the jump on one of them with Cavalry, Riflemen, and Cannons, at least for the first few rounds of the war.

Given Qin's high power rating, I'm thinking he'd be the one to go after if I can manage to get a slight tech advantage. He's a bigger threat. Then again, I can go after Ghandi and be pretty certain, thanks to not only religion but our "mutual military struggle", that Qin will watch my back, more or less.

What do you think? Who's next in line to fall beneath the mighty Aztec juggernaut? Should I wait for those techs and upgrades, or strike now with the massive SoD that's assembled in Novgorod?

And looking down the road, how do I deal with Bismark and Alex?

Here's the save: