Help! We can't win! :) Horrible start.

[gorilladf]

Ok, my sportscar club forum has some guys who play Civ4. We decided to have our own GOTM. I setup a random game on Monarch. We've had 5+ guys play this over and over and over. I've played countless hours. Numerous strategies. All failing.

I'm attaching the 4000bc save. You are the Persians. I don't want to give anything away, but want to see how you guys play it. Its really driving us nuts!! I've obviously tried the CS slingshot. Missed it by a few turns

Lets just say the start....is realy realy real bad

I think the longest I've lasted is 1650 AD, but was wiped off the map. I've never come close to leading. I'v always been the lowest civ. Same for other guys.

We are all dieing to know how you pros would play this. Cause we're pretty sure, we can't figure out how

 

[Sparts]

I only played a few turns, so I might not see the obvious, but what's actually so horrible about this start?

 

[gorilladf]

Compared to what your about to come up against....a lot!!

Catherine is to the south. She got placed in a prime location, mines the hell out of it, and can produce like crazy.

A few years later, barbarian city from the north, continualy moves in on you. Followed by another civ to the north.

In short, you are left sandwhiched in an area that doesn't produce fast. At best you will still be sandwhiched in the middle. You are very lucky if you can find the key resource to Persians...horses.

Catherine also has the only copper. And if your not careful, you won't have Iron either!!

In short, as you play the map out, you are royally screwed

 

[xdeath2]

I'm going to try and play it out now, but you really didn't need to .zip that file. It's only 72 KB

 

[hollebeek]

It's not TOO bad ... Roosevelt loved me, and the barb city to the north fell
fast (I was building lots of units anyway since Catherine was so near).

Catherine was a royal pain, but after she went down, you have a very
nice position.

 

[xdeath2]

I just finished playing it for a bit, and I discovered a source of iron near Persepolis which I could have used to try to produce swordsmen as fast I could, but I didn't beeline to iron working. I went mining to bronze working and then beelined to alphabet. Roosevelt had iron working but he wouldn't give it up until I had drama then he would trade it, and by then Catherine was too powerful. She declared war on me and crushed me.

 

[katank]

You guys are researching up to drama and trying to trade for ironworking?

Usual start should be Bronze ASAP for chops and seeing copper. If no copper, then research iron working or animal husbandry. Not having at least two of the three resources is great reason to go to war and grab em.

Cyrus is a rushing civ. You shouldn't even go up the alphabet/drama line until you smash some heads.

Immortals are insane. Crazy bonus against archery units plus receiving defense bonuses and 2 moves all for the price of a chariot/archer?

I just had a AW game where my ChuK/sword/cata/spear army got slowed to a crawl fighting hordes of immortals. Some bad dice rolls and crazy withdrawal rates on the immortals left me with a new sense of respect for those bad boys.

 

[Islandia]

Not a terrible start. The only thing you are really missing is copper. I played it out to about 1000 bc and other than a minor skirmish with Catherine (which she initiated), you can pretty much coast with an expand early pacifistic strategy.

 

[GenericKen]

Or, you could play super-agressive and slingshot into powerhouse by 0 BC.

The attatched save is for 580 AD. I had all but petersburg by 200 BC, but I mistakenly decided to pull back and that damn city held for forever.


Poaching an early worker is a great way to contain your neighboring AIs. Peacable leaders like cat may even accept peace before their retaliation forces come anywhere near finding your undefended home city. The start had a ridiculous number of trees, so bronzeworking beeline was clearly the correct play.

I paniced a bit when there were no horses and no copper, but ironworking paid off in a big way. The gold sealed the decision (when a site has gold, you can support 3 cities and have them all be military production houses with 3-5 turn axes and swords). Gimped the economy for a bit to build a stack of 10 swords & axes, and it was enough to take the capital and 4 anscelarry cities in the space of 20 or 30 turns, even without cats.


I didn't do any bad re-rolling loads. As a matter of fact, I played very sub-optimally, neglecting to promote a defending warrior vs a barb warrior and losing a very early worker in what should've been 75% odds (and the city & it's rax for a turn), the aformentioned St. Petersburg decision, and several others. I did happen to luck out, though, and Cat finished the pyramids in her capital the VERY TURN before I declared.

So the savegame is 580 AD, the empire is straining under its own weight but has currency, code of laws, and pyramids-represntation, and is most of the way to calendar with around 5 luxes opened up by it. I'm beaten to a seattle spot by two turns (you can see the settler automoved to the newly founded city thanks to RoP) and lost out on the only shot at horses; however, washington lacks iron, and his newest source is right on the border along w/ the horses (and chicago cultureflipped! woot!).

The axeman waiting for the settler could easily take seattle, but the empire is in no economic shape to fight another war, and washington does have chariots to retaliate. With representation in the bag and upward growth looking extrodinary, peaceful co-existance may be an option, especially as the tech-pace of the other continent is thus-far unknown. I gotta say, though, it feels good playing on NORMAL speed again. (*shakes fist at epic*)

Research has been stretched thin, and the persians still do not know mysticism, archery, or the alphabet.


EDIT: Given that Catherine had managed to build WINERIES before I took her capital, I probably should have learned alphabet before suing for peace before the last city...

 

[Firebot]

This game isn't bad at all, you just have to use your civ's strengths, in this case the Immortals. First thing I did is learn Animal Husbandry to use the cow next to the city, and to spot where horses were (building a worker + settler in the meantime). I found a horse in the northwest, a bit further then I like, but for this strat to work you need horses. I got the cow, then created a road to the northwest while building my settler. I settled near the horse, and once the horse got locked, I started building Immortal mania (going for Bronze Working in the meantime). No copper anywhere near, but Catherine sure has some, so...time to get copper!

Built up 5 or 6 Immortals (sending one to the north barb villages to poke exp out of them), then sent my Immortals to attack Catherine who only had archers. Archers are no match to Immortals of course, and city after city fell after a while (she had already built 4 cities). Once she was down to her last city, I held her there until I finished Alphabet(I beelined straight to Alphabet once I had Bronze Working), and I then asked for peace in exchange for 4 techs. Used those 10 turns to rebuild my army for the final push, and try to make some type of economy (10-20% science rate). By 500BC, Catherine was no more (she still didn't have better then archers) and I had the whole southwest to myself along with copper and great city locations.

Started building my economy with cottages, and making a mix of axemen, swordsman, immortals and spearman to turn my attention to the North with Roosevelt. I attacked and razed cities and pillaged to keep myself afloat (I was in negative money even at 0% due to so many units and so far away). I finally ended my journey to the North by taking New York and keeping it (it's very far, but it had a very nice position along with stone, horses and dye), then asked for peace for currency and sailing (he had longbowmen at this point). Currency made me go in the positive for the first time in a while. After that I just concentrated. I am currently around 1000AD, about 150 points behind Bismark while 400 points ahead of Roosevelt, and actually able to research. I also managed to chop rush both the Hanging Gardens and the Great Library while I was warring (getting stone from New York gave me the final push for GL). Still fairly behind in techs, but I'm finally catching up and holding a lot of territory. Current plan is to get Code of Laws, and build courthouses in all my cities, once ready will push on Roosevelt a bit more to get a couple more techs (I think I stole his only iron).

Here is my saved game for the heck of it - I'm also planning on making a city to the west of the capital in the middle of the rice, gold and iron.

 

[gorilladf]

Hmm....I didn't try taking over rosevelt. I suppose as long as I get the iron and horses, I should work North, and leave Catherine alone?

Holebeek. how on earth did you take her out?? I've tried! She gets dug in so fast. I'm still trying to do the peacefu lroute right now, but I have no horses

I'm checking out those saved games now. I had to zip it when I posted it on my car board. Hence the zip

 

[Firebot]

Just to follow up I played this game through till about 1800AD after my saved game, at which point I think this game might not be winnable for me unless I'm lucky. Reason being that my original war against Roosevelt got me well behind in tech, and while I was researching at an extremely quick pace in the late game, I may have been better off making an ally with Roosevelt and concentrating on my Catherine cities rather then pushing through Roosevelt and bringing my science rate down to 0% for a bit.

I allied myself with Bismark as his border extended to mine over the ocean and was the first civ I met from another continent, but as I found out everybody else absolutly hates him (I had -4 trading with worst enemy with all other civs as I met them later, and no one would trade techs with me unless I joined their religion for that turn which meant falling behind even further). The biggest problem with this map by far though, is that Mansa Musa has 2(!) continents to himself without any other AI on it, one which makes Catherine's starting position look quaint. By the time I found out about it, he was 8-9 techs ahead of everyone else. This is the main reason why this game is extremly tough, as there is no way to know this unless you've played the game through once. I am actually the points leader in the game, but I either have to take an all out gamble and make a D-Day assault to detract him a bit (he's been building without any interruption on 2 continents the whole game). While I can definitly win if I went back to my old 1080AD save or even the one before I declared war on Roosevelt around 100 BC, without prior knowledge of the map and every civ's position, this would be an extreme challenge for most players. This is also my first time trying out REX, and I am not used to normal game speed so that may have attributed to me thinking I was doing better then I actually was.

 

[greentea]

I played it for a while and though I screwed it, cause I have almost no experience in Monarch, it is certainly not because of a bad starting location. Mansa alone sounds almost unstoppable though.