Bismarck Strategy

[Larsz]

I am pretty comfortable and confident going for Space Race and Culture wins with Philosphical, Financial, Spiritual and Creative Leaders at Prince difficulty. So I did a few random starts until I ended up with Bismarck to try something different. I have restarted this game a few times now trying different things and I just can't get my mind around to a play style that works I had really thought that the starting location was about as ideal as you could get for an Industrious leader with Stone inside the fat cross.

Anyway, if some successful Industrious player(s) could give this save a whirl and give me some starting strategy and tips I would really appreciate it. I run 1.52 and this is a standard Epic Terra Prince game.

*Edited, my apologies, hadn't remembered that I was trying a Terra game, it is Terra and NOT Continents

 

[CivCorpse]

I love playing Bismark. The key is to play builder early on. Use the industious trait to grab the better early wonders. The cheap graneries and forges mean you can have fewer cities because they will grow faster and have higher production sooner. Then wage a late medevial war using your higher production advantage combined with fewer cities to defend, thus freeing up more troops for the attack. Completely absorb your neighbor. Build the new larger empire to it's fullest with more balanced cities than specialist cities. Beeline for tanks. With the added bonus versus armor your panzers will be able to gobble up larger empires quite nicely. When modern armor arrives on the scene the panzers with the +50% vs armor will still stand up.
If you're going for spaceship victory, just keep the panzers running about pilliaging and razing cities until the rest of the world is just a poverty stricken gog of smoking rubble while your happy little core cities from your start and your added 2nd empire build parts....Cultural...i have no clue. But the added health bonus should help with GP farms and the extra wonders for culture.

 

[Vonreuter]

I'm playing Bismarck on Monarch level right now, and I think I've played contrary to your advice. I thought that the Expansive trait would be good for expansion, so I expanded and built many cities. Now I'm in the pre-industrial era, and I need to build one more city to get all the juicy resources I've been hiding behind my closed borders (my neighbours are fuming and I need to open them soon). Unfortunately, I'm already down to 30-40 percent in science, so I'm looking forward to my economy rising so that I can start a science race.

Strange enough, this is the best game on Monarch I've ever played. Nobody's attacked me, and only Teddy and the Aztecs (what a great name for a music group - you're free to use it, artists) are ahead of me in points. The land area my nation occupies is simply huge and I have lots of resources (yet no stone or copper!). Usually, by this time, I'm stuck in a war, because I've tried winning a cultural/scientifical victory over the others on Monarch, yet now I haven't been attacked once. I have two powerful friends despite keeping my borders closed, and Isabella even thinks that I'm her hero.

Hmm. Perhaps I should create the city quickly and stabilize my economy by opening up the borders for trade. I didn't think of that before (I haven't played that many games yet). I wonder if the income I get from trade will be enough... Well, just one way to find out!

 

[ElJojo]

maybe you should be more specific about the difficulties you face with Bismarck ?
Do you get bankrupted ? attacked ? outeched ?
I played the game you put in your post. You're right that's a great start, stone, food ressources, marble nearby ( northwest), lots of gold to the east with flood plains begging to be cottaged. Iron and copper are not an issue neither.
So overall, a great place. Sure it's terra so everybody's is cramped on the old world but that also means all the civs are reachable for a good fight if you feel like it. That was my case I won by conquest in 1730 or so.
the advise i would give are very classical :
Found your capital, build worker, chop a second worker, chop two settlers, build another settler normally. Between the settler, insert a warrior to let your city grow to size (to use the two food ressources you have).
Do not go straight to masonry since you won't use stone too soon. Get the tech you need to make a good use of the ressources.
Don't forget to make almost one worker per city.
Then choose your way... I researched mysticism and I made stonehenge in something like 8 or 9 turns thanks to industrious + stone. One of your neighbours is Catherine so you need to fight her creativity!
Then I went for the pyramids, i chopped the last forest around berlin for that (but you have plenty of health because you're Bismarck!).
In my second city i built the oracle to get Code of Laws and founded Confucianism.
Then I started to pump swordsmen and attacked the russians, then the americans, the mongols, the chinese and finally the egyptians which were well developped but stucked by the chinese who were a nice buffer (I managed to convert them to confucianism while the egyptians were buddhists so Mao never agreed to open borders with them).
Quite a straightforward game if you ask me. I used the industrious trait a lot, building pyramids, stonehenge and Oracle to begin with. After that it depends of your tech path.

I can send you the saves if you want. Or do you want more details ?
Now thanks to you I have a guy named Larsz who is the first in my Hall of fame!

 

[Larsz]

maybe you should be more specific about the difficulties you face with Bismarck ?
Do you get bankrupted ? attacked ? outeched ?
I played the game you put in your post. You're right that's a great start, stone, food ressources, marble nearby ( northwest), lots of gold to the east with flood plains begging to be cottaged. Iron and copper are not an issue neither.
So overall, a great place. Sure it's terra so everybody's is cramped on the old world but that also means all the civs are reachable for a good fight if you feel like it. That was my case I won by conquest in 1730 or so.
the advise i would give are very classical :
Found your capital, build worker, chop a second worker, chop two settlers, build another settler normally. Between the settler, insert a warrior to let your city grow to size (to use the two food ressources you have).
Do not go straight to masonry since you won't use stone too soon. Get the tech you need to make a good use of the ressources.
Don't forget to make almost one worker per city.
Then choose your way... I researched mysticism and I made stonehenge in something like 8 or 9 turns thanks to industrious + stone. One of your neighbours is Catherine so you need to fight her creativity!
Then I went for the pyramids, i chopped the last forest around berlin for that (but you have plenty of health because you're Bismarck!).
In my second city i built the oracle to get Code of Laws and founded Confucianism.
Then I started to pump swordsmen and attacked the russians, then the americans, the mongols, the chinese and finally the egyptians which were well developped but stucked by the chinese who were a nice buffer (I managed to convert them to confucianism while the egyptians were buddhists so Mao never agreed to open borders with them).
Quite a straightforward game if you ask me. I used the industrious trait a lot, building pyramids, stonehenge and Oracle to begin with. After that it depends of your tech path.

I can send you the saves if you want. Or do you want more details ?
Now thanks to you I have a guy named Larsz who is the first in my Hall of fame!

Thanks for taking the time to play through it. I think my problem was focusing on building wonders even from the start to the exclusion of just about everything else. I tried choprushing up to 4 cities but Catherine and Mao both declared war before I could really get the new cities defended (only 1 defender in each city). I don't mind running my research level down, but I think I was down to 30%. Berlin was making very little commerce, so research was taking forever. I did get Stonehenge, Pyramids, Oracle, Parthenon all built and founded Confucianism.

Retried start, I tried expanding slower and building up but ended up pretty much falling behind in everything. I had thought that with Bismarck I could "wonder" myself to the same kind of game I was used to with other leaders. Just to make sure my previous wins on Prince weren't flukes, I fired up a new game and ended up with Hattie and already have a sizable lead before 1AD. What you have described has made me rethink my strategy, I really tried focusing on the wonder building techs. Gonna give this another shot. Thanks again What was you score? errr, I mean my score

 

[CivCorpse]

I'm playing Bismarck on Monarch level right now, and I think I've played contrary to your advice. I thought that the Expansive trait would be good for expansion, so I expanded and built many cities. Now I'm in the pre-industrial era, and I need to build one more city to get all the juicy resources I've been hiding behind my closed borders (my neighbours are fuming and I need to open them soon). Unfortunately, I'm already down to 30-40 percent in science, so I'm looking forward to my economy rising so that I can start a science race.

Strange enough, this is the best game on Monarch I've ever played. Nobody's attacked me, and only Teddy and the Aztecs (what a great name for a music group - you're free to use it, artists) are ahead of me in points. The land area my nation occupies is simply huge and I have lots of resources (yet no stone or copper!). Usually, by this time, I'm stuck in a war, because I've tried winning a cultural/scientifical victory over the others on Monarch, yet now I haven't been attacked once. I have two powerful friends despite keeping my borders closed, and Isabella even thinks that I'm her hero.

Hmm. Perhaps I should create the city quickly and stabilize my economy by opening up the borders for trade. I didn't think of that before (I haven't played that many games yet). I wonder if the income I get from trade will be enough... Well, just one way to find out!

Have you founded a religion? if you have open those borders and spread the crap out of it. As for the expansive trait, it is good for expanding your population not land mass/cities. That is the organized trait. Bismark is a slower build.

 

[Vonreuter]

No, for some reason, unless I go for Buddhism or Hinduism (usually Hinduism, because the computer seems to favour Buddhism), I always lose on the Religion race. I tried rushing for Christianity after the preliminary expansion, but I lost by a few turns. Then I tried Islam but failed once again. It just never seems to work out for me: the computer is very keen on getting those holy cities.

However, my game as Bismarck needs no more inspection. Genghis and Montezuma ganged up on me and razed my lands from North to South. At first it looked like I would be able to turn the tide, but then two cities fell in one turn (either my luck turned, or the computer cheated). After that, one city at a time fell to their invasion. My two strong "friends" backed out as soon as Genghis joined the fray.

I weep for Berlin.