Monarch Student^ III - Sitting Bull

[Murky]

I've done a few test games with these settings. It's similar to playing an Archipelago with snaking continents. The basic strategy would be to claim as must land as possible then go SE to gain tech. There's a tendency to turtle with this leader. The UB only helps Archers, the UU is weak at attacking cities but good at defense against swords/axes. If you can grab the Mids for Rep, you can be the early-mid game tech leader. Another thing to know about this map is the barbs go nuts pretty quick. You definitely want to do some fog-busting.

 

[Meatbuster]

Save is up, please download it from the second post and enjoy!

Or here's a quick link:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=227397&d=1252505540

 

[Silu]

Well I was going to just play a checkpoint or two... But got a bit carried away.

Immortal/Normal

To 1AD:

Spoiler :

So after thinking long and hard I settled 1N. The extra plainshill from the fog was a pleasant surprise; now this capital looks like a possible production powerhouse.

Terrain looks pretty brown, but plenty of food around and very nice chokepoints to reserve a big area with just 3 cities. Fogbusting galore:



Tech is Hunting->AH->Mining->BW->Mysti, for a try at SH. A settler, 2 workers and some hasty chopping later I get SH at 2000BC. Pretty lucky to get it this late, but I won't complain. I'm planning for a WE/SSE and Prophets are infinitely better than spies from GW. First city grabs Horse&Gem&Wheat&Fish and blocks Mao if he learns how to use boats. I pop a tech from a hut. HBR! Very very nice. It nets me IW and half of Alphabet.

So of course I make mids and limp towards Currency. Meanwhile, my second GP pop is an engineer, so I decide to make a try at TGL even though my tech pace is horrendous. With the whole nation building Wealth/Research I get there in time. 100BC! Sure is a slow map. Militarily I'm very weak, but Toku seems content with bashing Mansa and Mao is just gimped with the water gap. Mao DoWs me once because of a random event, but never sends any units. Beaker rate is still pretty bleak (like 90 at 1AD, horrible for a Mid game), but TGL means happy days for a PHI leader even in the worst case. 7 cities settled, grabbing the Marble peninsula and blocking Mansa in the mountain range & lake.

To Liberalism:

Spoiler :

The SSE capital starts to pick up steam. At 250AD I bulb Philo (missing Taoism by 1 turn) and make Angkor Wat. Soon after I tech Paper and build UoS and Temples&Monasteries everywhere. I pop a GE and settle it; I pondered about saving it for Taj Mahal but now that I have Marble I'm pretty confident I'll get that anyway; planning to take Nationalism with Lib straight away even though I have a huge lead to all the known Civs. Better not to risk it when I haven't met everybody. Popped 4% and 9% artists also. Mansa capitulated to Toku at some point as well. Mao and Toku are constantly weehorn but they never DoW me.

To the end:

Spoiler :

So about at the time when I get Taj Mahal my only horrible plunder in this game manifests itself: I didn't bother to scout around the continent with a Work Boat or even a Scout until pretty late, which is when I see French borders in the fog on another continent. Soon after my culture touches Rosie's near Cahokia. Seems everyone is pretty backwards in tech. I also realize who has kept everyone busy (also the reason for Toku being weehorn all the time):



Oxford kicks in at approx. 1250AD. Not optimal, but with this slow tech pace game I'll take it. I was in slavery but didn't actually end up whipping any Unis, or much else for that matter. Would have been much better to milk extra beakers from the Repr&Caste combo the whole time.



Heading to Democracy with a solid tech lead, only Mansa and Rosie are even close. After popping 11% and 14% artists SoL comes online at 1500AD. Tech after that:



I missed the Economics GM by 1 turn, and now the Kremlin by 1 turn. No biggie though, I have plenty of wonders and GPs even without.

So I'm happily teching away while Napoleon keeps everyone busy; still havent fought a single non-barbarian battle. The usual "Radio wonder shot" (also note that everyone is weehorn except Mansa, who's a vassal ) :



Not much to say here really. I manage to keep Toku Friendly so I don't have any real worries except him going for Domination. Mao DoWed me once when I was building my spaceship; turns out a Cannon&CKN combo doesn't fare that well against Infantry. He took away my pacifist conduct though

My WE/SSE didn't end up being that massive, as I didn't get THAT many wonders. It served it purpose, though. (The shot is after UN forced me to Universal Suffrage)



Tech at end and statistics. Was a really easy-going game, the map was quite friendly and the diplo situation favored me massively as Napoleon kept everyone busy until the 1800's when Toku finally capitulated him with Nukes. Fun fact: switched to Repr, Bureu and OR each at first opportunity, and never switched out (except Repr by UN). End result: 1925 Space Race victory with 30289 points.

Thanks for hosting, Meatbuster!

 

[Meatbuster]

@Silu:

Spoiler :

I should really stop giving the AI so many plains tiles.

Haha, it's not really the coast that gimped Mao, it's the tundra.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Immortal/Normal No Events

Spoiler :

I finally show up for one of these. Let's do it.

I target only one wonder with stone (though I do build pyramids temporarily for some failure cash)



Scouting finds china, this blocks him (later I notice that china is actually on another continent...smooth...), but nevertheless it blocks.



So, we are surrounded by protective civs, and mali with a 4 STR archer UU. The logical conclusion? HORSE ARCHER RUSH!








First GG is a medic, after that they'll just get settled. The first war was pretty costly to grab the mali capitol, the 2nd doesn't look so bad.



And at 1 AD:









After razing MM city near me I will take peace, and prep for toku.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMM/Normal no events (splitting due to lots of images this time)

To liberalism + circumnavigation

Spoiler :

Toku was in war mode before I even declared on Mali, so I knew what would happen.



A move toku shouldn't have made, though it barely mattered



We push on and BARELY take kyoto





And grab a nice tech given the weak war position



Back to war (notice that I mauled the tech rate on my continent by doing these wars. Taking caps ASAP really slows down feudalism.)



Trade



And the first AI bites the dust



China was bribed to war vs mali (I guess he was cheaper than me) and lost a surprise city to them. My next target is MM again, and this city he can keep so that I can fleece tech and largely ignore him (he later vassals to mao)



Tech at that time



And off we go to beat down mali some more:



Gimme gimme









Post war with mansa tech picture:



Circumnavigation:

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMM/Normal No events

1910 UN

Spoiler :

What did we do with great spies? We settled 2 in the capitol and build SY with another.











Mao goes after roosevelt (he was annoyed with that guy, pleased with me). Nappy was pleased with me from early on and I worked on him, even going as far as false war vs gandhi. I worked nappy up to friendly to keep the only serious warmonger left in the game off me.



And...tanks



Wait, what?



Yeah. Tanks vs longbows. Idiot mao went culture (gandhi tried earlier but nap took his good culture cities). Gandhi wouldn't cap to nappy because of mansa musa! HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. Broken vassal mechanics work out in my favor for a change. Eat that, AI. Anyway I got to tanks via a couple tech steals (only what I showed), emancipation cottages on a huge amount of the world's land, and judicious trades (having nap friendly for trades helped). With all that land I went from a sorry tech rate of like 200 bpt to well over 1000 bpt by around 1700 AD, and it kept climbing to actual respectable rates. With a tremendous production and tech lead, lights out:











Mao was willing to cap before I even took his capitol, but I wanted to end his culture script. More importantly, I only vassaled him rather than wiping him off the map completely because nappy dowed him too. He had mass media (the only civ even near it other than me who had radio) and built UN shortly after our war stopped. I knew before the war that taking the cities he had on my continent plus a little more somewhere would give me enough for UN with nap's support. Originally I was just going to finish off late domination with tanks on roosy and probably MA vs all else, but UN works too. With internet and a tech lead, even space would have worked.

But, I'll just take the cap and win.





This probably won't look like a typical TMIT final tech picture, but...



And just to spite I bought the tech off mao before:









Score was ~ 65k due to having so much land/pop (had 40% pop including 1/2 of mao's, similar in land).

Final civics were US/FS/Eman/Environmentalism/FR. In other words, straight up UN civics, but by choice! Environmentalism really helped with the health as I used coal plants + levees and some cottage cities came out OK. Good enough to build up a respectable force of tanks once I got there. There was always $$$ rush if I needed it. I didn't.

Almost the entire empire was done with automated workers, too.

If mao didn't build UN, I could have just gifted MM to someone other than nappy FTW too. Or just won space. Or killed everyone. This game went pretty well for me.

 

[cas]

Anyone else have a problem with odd vassal / DoW mechanics in this game ?

I was at war with civA which vassaled to civB. Instead of the normal/obligatory peace, civB was immediately at war with me. And the game won't let my caravels pillage civB workboat improvements ?

Maybe I'm just tired...is there an explanation for this I'm not thinking of ?

cas

edit: nevermind...I thought caravels could pillage...shows how much I use them other than circum globe. And IgnorantTeacher answered the question about the peace/war. Wasn't allied with CivB, so he declared when civA capitulated.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I don't believe that caravels can pillage improvements.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

I was at war with civA which vassaled to civB. Instead of the normal/obligatory peace, civB was immediately at war with me.

There's only peace in case civB was your war ally and civA capitulated to them. In case civA became a peaceful vassal of civB that's the way it's supposed to be (the war). What was the case?

 

[Kadazzle]

Lots of Immortal-level players showing up, which is nice!

Immortal/Epic 1825 BC

Spoiler :

I decided to go with my latest settling plan, which involved settling 1E of the Sheep. Good call, as it reveals lots of food!



Here are some lame RNG rolls (both times I was on forest! =( )





Tech path was Hunting -> Animal Husbandry (We meet Mao!) -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> The Wheel -> Masonry -> Mysticism -> Writing.

Build path was Work Boat (While working the Sheep) -> Worker -> Warriorx3 (Size 4) -> Settler -> Warriorx3 (Size 5) -> Worker -> (Chop) Worker -> Settler -> Worker.



The same turn my 3rd worker is chopped in the capital I grew to size 2 in Poverty Point. Time to switch to Slavery! (Civic switch!). I didn't actually whip anything (yet), but I decided it was a good time to switch to Slavery.

NOTE*** I settled Poverty-Point on the Wine as I previously said I would. I liked this because I could borrow the food from the capital as soon as the city was put down, and it gave me a little science boost to get all the techs I needed quickly. I will cottage if not all, but most river-side tiles here while running a SE everywhere else.

Note that I also deleted a warrior due to bad planning on my part, as I didn't need him for fogbusting.

Once I was 1 turn away for Mysticism I whipped in Poverty Point, to get the over-flow into a Worker. One more turn of building a Worker I switched to a Totem Pole (Worker isn't complete). I then whipped the Totem Pole after 3 turns (so I could grow back to size 3) which then again over-flowed into the Worker. I chose to make sure I stayed at size 2 (whip at size 3 down to size 2) so that I could work both the Quarry'd Stone and the Fish. There are lots of great hammer-overflow articles on this forum and they should be read up upon, because if you do it correctly, you can speed your beginning game up by multiple turns!

I decided to settle Mound City in a nice long-term site:



This ends my current round at 1825 BC.



Plans for the future involve building a settler next in my capital and placing it to nab the horses/clam site and to block the Mali. In Poverty Point I plan on using the 2/3 workers I have there to whip out the 'Mids. Once I research Writing I plan on using Binary research. Not sure where I'll head after Writing though.

All comments and questions are appreciated!

 

[cas]

There's only peace in case civB was your war ally and civA capitulated to them. In case civA became a peaceful vassal of civB that's the way it's supposed to be (the war). What was the case?

Yep, too tired to remember whether I was allied or not. Heh. Looked back at the log and I wasn't.

cas

 

[Lansky]

Odd map Meatbuster and here’s a correspondingly odd game – fun though since I managed to win haha

Deity/Normal

1AD

Spoiler :

Well this has less to do with the map and more to do with divine intervention. That’s right, Sailing, AH, Masonry, and the Wheel from huts. Grab two more as well but those cheap bastards only gave gold and experience – opening HE.



Mansa and Toku are a good ways off so I go for SH and GW prior to first settler. Get SH and miss GW, but do get almost full failure cash. After a settler I go after the Pyramids chopping the grassland forests, which ends in a successful wonder.



Land around is food rich, but sucky for cottages so I actually want the ‘Mids to run representation - the fact that there’s stone just made it a much less agonizing decision as I loathe building the hammer sink wonder. Meanwhile the settler goes to the SW and claims the bananas, horse, tons of hills, quasi blocking site. It also proceeds to get some fail cash out of ToA - also see a decently early Christianity grab by the AI (I played with choose religions on, however that is Theology’s religion).



After spitting out another couple settlers the capital grabs HG. This is purely a “because I can” build. Someone on the other continents – or someones – is grabbing wonders however as I do not even get a sniff of building either The Great Lighthouse or The Oracle. Both wonders would have been very nice. Right now I am taking my sweet time settling the land due to this –



Full scale world war as far as I know the world. Mansa is lagging in tech severely poorly for him. He’s not beating me by 20 techs yet! In fact he’s losing ground to Toku and his tech pace is barely a crawl. Later Toku asks me to join the crusade against Mansa and I oblige. It is a proxy war of course as I keep up the Lit path and grab The Parth and HE in the Banana city, while the capital gets The Great Library and NE. Despite running 2 scientists and getting TGL up in the BC’s I still do not have a freakin’ academy. The capital is just spawning priests and engineers so far, which would be lovely, if I could get one stinking scientist.

Now THIS is weird. He was cautious the turn before and several turns after. Of course he does not need to have open borders to attack Mansa either. Oh well, he still won’t tech trade so I guess its only a slight oddity.

1080 AD Lib+

Spoiler :

300AD and my first GS! Academy! Wooooo! On the plus side I do have 2 engineers and 3 priests already settled.



Not much else happens. Greedily explore past Toku after he opens borders finding the rest of the competition including the bastard who took The Great Lighthouse – Roosevelt. I tech almost entirely off of the capital as it is supplying roughly 70% of my research and as such every other city is being set up for production either via mines or workshops – incidentally greatly speeding up the date Oxford went up. The workshop cities are running a few scientists with the excess food to help push things along until I get the full gamut of support techs.



Take Lib in 1010AD and decide to go with Communism. The choice came down between that and Biology. While Biology is a more expensive tech I still had a one person Golden Age to use and with the GSpy was able to swap to Free Religion (I still do not have an auto-spread to any of my cities… wtf) and State Property. Also the Golden Age will end up lasting just long enough to tech straight through Biology.





After bio research Military Tradition and trade around obsolete stuff for Guilds + prereqs (last workshop modifier) and start in on the army. First step is knocking off Mansa, probably followed by Toku then I’ll figure it out.

Diplo

Spoiler :

Get a newcomer to the map when Hammy spins off a colony. Welcome Cyrus who ends up shockingly, being a non factor the rest of the game.



But anyway the war with Mansa ends very quickly. In fact I apparently have no shots of the war. I bribed Toku off twice, but he kept getting back into the fun and actually took a few more cities. None of the nice ones, but its just more land I’ll have to take back from him now. Oh yes Toku is next.



Here is a shot of one of his 4 SoD’s. All of the stacks are highly promoted swarms of older, but not completely pushover units. Toku is actually doing okay this game and if left to his own would turn into a monster. Hence why he’s getting cut down.



Even with his core cities taken out early his ability to pump out well promoted reinforcements makes taking him out a pain. After a 30+ turn war he finally goes down. Sadly, capitulation is not an option as something freakier than Toku doing well has happened. Gandhi started next to Napoleon and war broke out… Gandhi won. Handedly. His power exceeds my own – by a lot. His GNP is at least triple mine currently. He’s on the sub 100 turn countdown to a cultural victory. Gandhi is the run away AI! I’m scared.



Anyway taking Toku as a vassal was not an option as I did not want to fight against Gandhi with his French lackey. Roosevelt is universally hated and likes to build wonders however so a short jaunt down the Mass Media line, a few gifts, and my loophole.



But you say that only Mao and Gandhi seem to like me at all and both are only pleased right now. With Mao it is only a matter of time as I just swapped to Islam and with Gandhi it is the ultimate role reversal! Hidden modifiers favoring the human player!




He is only a shown +7 with a vassal that really dislikes me. Buuuuut he’s Gandhi! You could kick his dog and piss on his cereal and he’d still like you. What a swell guy. Thanks for throwing the game!

A few shots of end game stats

Spoiler :

Just to show how insanely far ahead Gandhi is. He’s rolling around with tanks right now. I’d have had to nuke him to have a shot and he just tech’d Fission in 2 turns! If the UN failed me this is probably a loss.









Stopped producing units after Toku went down and actually ended up deleting a ton to save some cash.

 

[Murky]

@Lanksy,

Spoiler :

I went the WonderSpam route but not quite as heavily. I just grabbled SH, Wall, Mids and GL. Everyone except China is Hindu but Toku declared on Mansa in my game too. He might have gotten bribed, but who knows. This is definitely an SE oriented map since it's lousy for cottage spaming.

 

[Lansky]

Murky -

Spoiler :

I wish I completed all the wonders I tried to build!

SB is actually a great leader for this map, which is an odd thing to say. Given the surroundings his traits at least definitely shine. Pro gets the shaft but I really like being able to fall back on awesome archery defense. Just makes me feel safer regardless of whether or not I use it. Ind/Phi might have been better but yeah... good ole "Leader Not Appearing in this Game"

 

[Silu]

TMIT:

Spoiler :

Nice - our games couldn't have been more different and they lasted exactly the same time to the minute

6 Great Spies while only popping max 1 of another type - now that's something as well. Almost like roleplaying the AI Bull

Lansky:

Spoiler :

Holy hut popping, batman ! Nice game - I guess you used Caste the whole time? The map seems to be really powerful for this kind of economy; I didn't consider the fact that because the AI has crappy (brown) terrain and sucks at using it, beaker rate isn't that much of an issue until quite late in the game.

Overall, a funky map, this is...

 

[Meatbuster]

@everyone who already played above me:

Spoiler :

OMG, stop rubbing it in. I should've learned my lesson from MS^I's Cold climate. Plains gimp the AI. For your punishment, next map will be Tropical!

No, I'm not really angry. I enjoyed reading about your weird and varied strategies--apparently there are so many different tactics possible with PHI trait; and strange experiences--Gandhi kicking Napoleon's ass is quite the best thing I've ever seen in Civ.

EDIT: Nice to see SSE in action and a rehash of TMIT's light brigades.

Thank you all for playing!

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

This is the first time I play on Immortal and I have no idea how I'm doing. Can anyone please take a look and hopefully some advice?

Immortal / Normal - 1240BC

Spoiler :

I settled in place, which was good because I saw later that I can settle another city to claim the deer in the future.

Build order was: Workboat, Worker, a bunch of warriors to spawnbust, settler, Dog Soldier (had started to grow pop and forgot to revert to worker), worker, settler, worker, settler, worker and began Library.

Research was AH/Mining/BW/Masonry/The Wheel/Pottery/Writing and began Aesthetics.

I got 66 for missing the Great Wall in Poverty Point. Now I'm not sure whether I should complete Aesthetics or switch to Sailing to start getting Trade Routes. What do you think?

Mansa Musa founded Hinduism and probably Judaism too because he is Hindu and Toku is Jewish. Mao is pagan.

Cities and dotmap (I'd appreciate feedback on the dotmap):

 

[Silu]

^ IT:

Spoiler :

Well that dotmap certainly looks familiar I guess the map heavily favors certain spots with 1 tile differences here and there.

I'd take Mysti and Sailing before Aes, but I guess it's a matter of preferences. Waiting for a religion to pop borders would be a good option if the Monument wasn't the quasi-useful UB. Pyramids with stone + PHI + semigood prod capital (with tons of forests) certainly look enticing.

 

[Meatbuster]

@IT:

Spoiler :

Capital 1S. That's where I'd put it in my test games for this map. But yeah, it's hard to tell what the peninsula looks without replaying or WB.

I don't see the need for sailing right now as everyone you know already has routes with you.
EDIT: Ok this is true... but please see next page. Not having Sailing is baaaaad.