BTS – A guide for higher difficulties for standard speed and maps (emperor+)

[madscientist]

Let me start by apologizing for the accusations of cheeting or faking and for my mistakes about the terrian and leader/techs. I'm sorry Snaaty and anyone else who reads this thread, MY BAD.

With that said I would like to humbly request another example of this using a more average common starting map position and starting resources. Another example to compair to the first would go a long way to better understand all the techniques explained here.

Also what is a "AFAIK map generator" ?

Thanks,

Psyberken

A Class Apology

I will say the strat works. If I get time from my own RPC game I would post a game myself as I know it works, and I am no where near Snaaty's league. Pick a leader.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Also what is a "AFAIK map generator" ?

Thanks,

Psyberken

As far as i know map generator can "upgrade" tiles for starting position, like getting patches of grassland on tundra starts which really shouldn't be there or making uncommon resource/terrain combinations (there are several threads about this).

 

[URSExelcior]

Hm, as long as you have forests in the capital's BFC and no AI's in your backyard, this is a viable strategy.

I had to regenerate a few times (I'm sure Snaaty did his fair share too, there's no shame in it! ) but the game is pretty fun with the right map type. Just dropped in to say thanks for the guide.

 

[Snaaty]

@ ALL:

Thanks for the discussion, input and criticism (no offence taken) going on here.

...

Some additional points:

1. This strat works for pretty much every leader up to immortal with an average start
2. You need land to block for this strat, else you (quite obviously) have to go to an early war, so this strat is, like most (or maybe all others) map dependant.
3. But you can still use you capital as settler pump, after it has grown to a decent size, even when you go to an early war, so you can still adapt this strat in most cases
4. Good thing when trying this strat is, that you can use it on any level, just selfresearch more on the lower levels
5. One of the biggest problems when playing this strat is the timing of production, research and power. Most of the people who now seem to have managed it have first written of some games lost. It seems pretty simple with this short guide, but in fact, it isn´t
6. Deity is a different thing. Thats why I never claimed to have a strat for a "save" win on deity.
7. I´m not good enough to compete with a random leader on deity, so I usally handpick the strong (phil and/or financial) ones
8. Additionally, I only start a game on deity with a good start (doesn´t have to be amazing, like with gold or gems, but at least good), because else I loose , so I reroll quite frequently before starting a game on deity

...

Hope this answeres some points/questions

 

[Yesod]

Yeah there's no shame in rerolling a bit, especially on Deity. I tried some of your strat last night on emperor - or at least the settler pump idea. I like your worker/archer/archer/etc. build a lot. I had so much land by liberalism I just quit. I thought that the REX would be slowed down without chopping (what i used to do) but I stayed on top of the AIs in city volume the whole time. I cant seem to master the lightbulbing pathways for the life of me though, maybe theres a guide out there or something.

GG and thanks for the tips

 

[madscientist]

@ ALL:


3. But you can still use you capital as settler pump, after it has grown to a decent size, even when you go to an early war, so you can still adapt this strat in most cases

This is very true and works in most of my games with a few exceptions where I really need the capital to produce early.

A) When I am hemmed in and need an early rush attack. Blocking the AI does not always work if they get to it first.
B) Occasionally but not often a map gives you limited food in the capital slowing growth to the happy cap. These times I start producing at least 1 settler early.
C) There are times when wonder production is advantagous. Example my current game as Pericles who starts with stone in the BFC 3 seafood. Since he is creative and phil, I built 2 settlers and 1 worker (I did tech archery first) in Athens before starting on the stone wonders (got stonehenge and GW, working on Pyramids).

So starting about 10 games using your strat (just to learn the nuances about it) I have started to play the map as usual. I have really learned the art of cutting the AI off, and settler/worker spamming (that really gets the empire going ) in addition I typically go after Asthetics now (also opens up parthanon and statue of Zues).

Only 2 items I still cannot do well

1) Bulbing. I'll use a GS for PHIL and EDUCATION, but I end up messing the timing to bulbing liberalism usualy to my detriment. I would rather tech paper and liberalism.
2) Rifle rush. To be honest waiting this long to rush never works for me, I prefer the pike/mace/treb attack earlier and have found more use to using muskets.

I am also still on Monarch and plan to move to emperor permanantly once I finish my last 2 preset leaders, Pericles and Bismark. At that point I would played every civ with multiple leader in BTS.

Thanks for this thread, I would say this has helped my game more than any other since I read my first walkthrough on this site!!! Well, Obsoletes helped me appreciate GP settling too.

 

[StuntedAzrael]

I have the same problem as you on Emperor:

1) Bulbing. I'll use a GS for PHIL and EDUCATION, but I end up messing the timing to bulbing liberalism usualy to my detriment.

I also have problems with cottage addiction and I'm always thinking that any kind of military buildup will only slow down my development. Often AI can catch me later in the game while I'm holding my 6 or so cities all cottages no military.

 

[Yesod]

Thanks for this thread, I would say this has helped my game more than any other since I read my first walkthrough on this site!!! Well, Obsoletes helped me appreciate GP settling too.

They should add a walkthrough sub forum.

 

[Kelvenor]

Is there a way to concise this tread (without our comments) into a walthrough and put it into the War Accademy?

 

[oyzar]

Can't it just be moved to the article section? Or maybe duplicated?

 

[ajil]

@ Kelvenor:


When you play your politics right and your neighbours like you, you only get attacked when your power is way too low (lower then 50% of the strongest known AI). But it seems, that once one of your neighbours has "too much on his hands" and you fear it is you he´s gonna attack because he´s an opportunist (not declaring because he dislikes you), you can prevent getting attacked by building up your army ASAP and rising in strenght. The " too much on his hands" will go away then

How much do they have to like you? Caesar was +1 with me and declared. So I loaded up the auto from 4 earlier turns, and sure enough he had too much on his hands. Just out of curiousity, I gifted him 2 techs, raising him to +2 and gave myself enough units to raise my soldier number in the demographics to 1. He still attacked 4 turns later. Then I loaded the save from 8 turns before the declaration, gave myself a bunch of axes, archers, and swords. He still declared. So you can't always just produce military to avoid being declared on, even if they don't dislike you. (he was annoyed with 2 other civs)

 

[Dirk1302]

^^Yes i wonder about that too, i always thought that "enough" means a definite attack (the ai considers itself at war with you already in this case, nothing can be done). The only case i know of that "Enough" goes away by itself is when it's caused initially by an AI build up for taking out a barb city.

So basically i think you'll have to have enough military to prevent the "Enough" message from appearing.

 

[mystyfly]

it also is dangerous with gilgamesh. in my last game i found out (after reloading 1 turn before the declaration (and not changing anything...)) that gilgamesh didn't have full hands (i was kind of surprised: hadn't i checked carefully for some centuries..??). at that time gilgamesh didn't have close friends but disliking china iirc. he was cautious towards me...

 

[Snaaty]

I think there are mainly two different reasons for the AI to declare war on you and for the message "we have enough on our hands...":

1. Some AI simply has decided to attack you
I think you can´t do anything about it. If you produce more troops, the AI will produce more troops also and attack you some turns later

2. Opportunistic AI
You are too weak and some AI has decided to profit from it. You can avoid it by producing some troops ASAP and the "we have enought..." will go away

...

At least, this seems to be possible with the later patches and in BtS from my experience, but I´m not sure about it, so everybody who knows for sure, feel free to correct me (I´m curious about that also)

...

Sometimes you can´t avoid beeing attack (and killed) because you simply have bad luck and an unpleasant neighbour, but having enough troops to keep your power rating up and taking care on religion and politics helps reducing that risk greatly

 

[ajil]

Do you do anything different if you find out your continent has only 2 AI's? I waited on the cpu to get alphabet, and I suppose boudica and ragnar are more interested in war, since they still didn't have it in 500 ad! I suppose I need to know more about how the different leaders play under AI control.

EDIT:
I'm also curious as to how you change things up when you start on the coast where you need work boats to work resources. (and might need to research fishing)

 

[ungy]

Snaaty-
I'm also curious about you deal with the situation where you have 1 AI with you on a continent. Lately I've had a few of those games without success (immortal). Now maybe I had bad draws (protective, etc.) but seemed like they were too far to rush and/or I had no copper,etc.
Do you always plan on a rush with whatever you have available? Seems like you're in trouble if you don't--you still have to compete for land and build army but you won't trade tech until optics.
I found that waiting for a catapult army turned into a real slugfest--and I was waaay behind the tech curve and didn't have time to catch up before I got invaded by much more advanced AI.
Maybe I've been running bad--like I said the AI seem to be protective or in one case aggressive and DOW'd me early.
Still it seems like a challenge on immortal and likely impossible on deity.

 

[Gliese 581]

I think there are mainly two different reasons for the AI to declare war on you and for the message "we have enough on our hands...":

1. Some AI simply has decided to attack you
I think you can´t do anything about it. If you produce more troops, the AI will produce more troops also and attack you some turns later

2. Opportunistic AI
You are too weak and some AI has decided to profit from it. You can avoid it by producing some troops ASAP and the "we have enought..." will go away

...

At least, this seems to be possible with the later patches and in BtS from my experience, but I´m not sure about it, so everybody who knows for sure, feel free to correct me (I´m curious about that also)

...

Sometimes you can´t avoid beeing attack (and killed) because you simply have bad luck and an unpleasant neighbour, but having enough troops to keep your power rating up and taking care on religion and politics helps reducing that risk greatly

This sounds reasonable to me. My problem is usually that the AI keeps a much larger army, I guess they get discounts on maintenance or something? Although I'm only at emperor.
Sometimes opportunistic AI can work to your advantage though;

In my current game I started in the middle of the continent with 2 AIs to the south, one to the west and one to the north. Fortunately, Boudica to the north had no strategic resources so I could pull of an axe rush taking her out without losing to much development to make sure I had two fronts secured (north and east). Then Charlemagne to my south founded christianity and everyone converted so I joined in. After a while the land got filled up however and I wanted to expand but was afraid of the diplomatic consequences since everyone was playing nice.
My solution: Monty was on my doorstep to the SW and we all know Monty.. I let my power rating drop a bit while maintaining pleased or friendly status with the other two AI and started to piss Monty of as much as I could. When he attacked I switched all build queues to units with one turn left to completion and started whipping more, so now Monty's empire will be mine and the others still love me..

 

[Snaaty]

Snaaty-
I'm also curious about you deal with the situation where you have 1 AI with you on a continent. Lately I've had a few of those games without success (immortal). Now maybe I had bad draws (protective, etc.) but seemed like they were too far to rush and/or I had no copper,etc.
Do you always plan on a rush with whatever you have available? Seems like you're in trouble if you don't--you still have to compete for land and build army but you won't trade tech until optics.
I found that waiting for a catapult army turned into a real slugfest--and I was waaay behind the tech curve and didn't have time to catch up before I got invaded by much more advanced AI.
Maybe I've been running bad--like I said the AI seem to be protective or in one case aggressive and DOW'd me early.
Still it seems like a challenge on immortal and likely impossible on deity.

It is very hard to compete in tech when you are isolated (or have only one neighbour), so your only chance is to adapt the tech-path a little:

Don´t go for Aest-Lit, but go for CoL-Math-CS directly, and use your first GS to bulb Phil. You need to run Cast EARLY and need two foodstrong cities generate GS (no GL and NE). Your only chance to compete is bulbing EARLY while sticking to your techpath towards lit and waiting to be found... ...but this is really a BIG gamble and I only have managed to pull it of on deity one or two times (I tried this strat on a big islands map some time ago)

 

[ungy]

I only have managed to pull it of on deity one or two times (I tried this strat on a big islands map some time ago)

Was this alone or with another AI?

I've found the isolated starts no harder than multiple AI--yes you don't get to trade but you don't have to build military and can expand at your leisure.
My problem comes with specifically one AI--you lose the tech trading but still have to compete for land and build military. I think I've lost my last 3 games like that (immortal).

 

[CivSetä]

My problem comes with specifically one AI--you lose the tech trading but still have to compete for land and build military. I think I've lost my last 3 games like that (immortal).

In that case all you can do is rush, start as soon as you realize that you have only one neighbor. It might work, then you usually have enough land for space win, or it might fail...