BTS Monarch game marathon/huge maps

[madscientist]

OK, this is the first time I am actually attaching some screen shots on a game so please bear with me.

Since I play exclusively Marathon speed/huge big/little maps I thought I would get advice on my current game in order to improve myself on Monarch (I only had one Monarch win in warlords) and perhaps to help others feel better after seeing my meriocre play!

Random leader gives me Mansa Musa. A great techer, maybe a few religions, probable space game or maybe cultural.

So here is how I started

4000BC (see attachment)
Lots of forrests, small river, hills aplenty, clams, only a few coast tiles, and GOLD!!!!!! After I moved one tile west I found cows were my only other resource.
My thinking is I can build either a decent early army or maybe 1 or 2 wonders by chopping and mined hills. Also taking advantage of the Mali UU and get early skirmishers
Tech: Fishing/hunting/archery
Build: Warrior/workboat/worker

3085 (2 screen shots)
As you can see There is quite a bit of land without a nearby AI, very common on huge maps. Looks sort of like a snakey continant, lots of shoelines. Not much as far as rivers and thus I cannot really explode with cottaged to fit Mansa's Financial trait but I can have alot of costal cities. Also southern jungle looks like a nice natural boundary from Agustus.

So my plan is this. Get 8 cities, Timbuktu, one on coast to the east, one to the west coast, 2 to the north, 2 skirting the jungle to clooect resources while staying on the shore, one other fillin. On Huge maps i need 8 courthouses for the forbiden palace, 8 for oxford etc... I decide to settle two cities first then try for the great lighthouse in Timbuktu. The easterne city would eventually be a GP farm (I hope). Also stone is near Industrious Agustus so pyramids/great wall/stonehenge are out for this game.

Tech: BW/Sailing/Mysticism/Animal Husbandry/Masonry/Agriculture/Writing

1430 (screen shot): I am building the great lighthouse. Found alot of competitiors but ni copper in sight. I can get horses eventually. Got a random event saying vandals expanded and plan to wipe out civilization! Going to have build an army to take out Vandal but i need more than chariots and Skirmishers. I prioritize iron working in case it is to the south and Agustus claims it. I am also looking at alot of seafood and rice so perhaps Sid's Sushi could be a good corp to found, especially with some week food resources in the capital.

950 (last screen shot): GL built!! Oracle BUILT (chopped quickly, can't beieve I got it) and took metal casting (mali mints!). Plan to Build Colossus in capital which goes well with financial Musa and all my coastal cities. Also hope to be spitting out great prophets and merchants from the capital.

I have met the Khmer leader who is a concern, as you can see there appears to be 2 camps setting up, the Buddhists and the heathen conficists. I also plan to give Hyuna and Agustus whatever they want to get fridnely with them. I founded a city more south than I wanted since that was the only iron source but I can claim one of the gems. I plan to settel and collect the 3 dyes, and take the barbarian city to claim the other gem. So 1 gold, three dyes, 2 gems hopefully plus colossus and great lighthouse Should give me eough commerce until I can get some cottaghes going.

Well, that's enough for now. Any comments or criticism is appreciated, again I alooking elevate my play to win consistently on monarch.

 

[madscientist]

OK, I know nobody responded which I do not blame since the screenshots pretty much stunk. However, I did finish the game which ended in a loss and I think some of my observations may help for understanding BTS .

One note: I did add the patch created by Solver on teh BTS forum, which made adjustments for marathon speed and helped guide the AI to try certain victories (Oh did it ever!!)

1) What I did and did wrong
ended up founding 9 cities, with Agustus as my only land border and Cyrus as my east ocean border. I teched well and lead the entire way althougbh I missed out on communism and physics, I think mostly because I delayed liberalism too long (I got military tradition for free. I kept Agustus as my protective sugar daddy which worked until the end. I kept a defensive pact too long with Agustus and got drawn into battle with Cyrus (Cyrus declared on Agustus' vassal Wang Kon). Even though I got ane arly peace Cyrus hated me. After industrialization Cyrus went after Wang Kon again, then to my horro shreaded Agustus. I stabbed Agustus in the back and declared on him late in that war, took one border city. Tried my best to butter Cyrus up but after about 25 turns of peace he declared on me and noway I could hold back the persians. I resigned rather than watch my beloved Mali torn to pieces.

2) OK, What have I learned and what can help in understanding the AI

I definitely teches fater than the AI, early on with somewhat of a seafaring economy (I think brought up in another post and it worked), then moving to a hybrib SE/CE. Bottom line I could tech just fine, even on Monarch. However the AI techs slowly bu does seam to really rmp it up occasionally, and some take different tech paths.

I founded Sid's Sushi and owning a corporation is really powerful once you get established and IF you have a decent sized treasury. Even though I ran envirmentalism all the time (see health issues below) I still broke even with every icty I spread it too, but I was making enormous amounts of money from foreign cities and the AI started spreading it fast too. I would have started one of the mining corps also but one I got a GE both were already founded. Lot's of wheeling and dealing going on, corporations definitely removes the monatany of the late game.

Espionage was definitely an issue late in the game. Without going into detail, I got wate rpoison quite a bit, had one of my spaceship thrusters wrecked when almost completed, and required constant adjustments. I will disregard espionage again, and will setup a spy supercity somewhat as described by futurehermit in another post.

The Khmers are not as insane as I thought. Yes they ar edangerous, but once well behind in tech he did not declare a war he could not win. He tried to feably bully me but never went to war (nor with other powerful AIs) but he did amphibiously invade the isolated and weak justinian, who he vassaled.

Polution Sucks!!! Once you get assembly line and build factories/plants the fun begins. Large cities are just tough to handle well with alot of the production boosting buildings. Factories are getting -5 health (-1 for the building, -2 for having oil, -2 for having coal) coal plants -2, industrial parks, ect... In my game only the capital had a small river so limited fresh water bonus' and no hydroplants (except in timbuktu). Agustus got the threeriver gorge plant early. I had to run environmentalism after medicine the rest of the game.

The AI actually tried to win!!!! Ramses II was obviously going for a cutlural victory (three cities at arround 30,000 culture points each) but apparently I wasn't teh only one to notice. Cyrus declared war out of nowhere on him and took out two of the three cities, then vassaled him. Cyrus also backstabbed William who was fighting the Khmers and di alot of damage there. Cyrus was definitly going for a domination win especially after he trashed Rome and came after me (the two leaders in the space race). Hyuna, Qin , and Agustus were trying for the space race win. But I gotta say I have alot more respect for Cyrus, I always thought he was a peaceful get along with guy, but man what a military performance he put on. He did not just march stacks right away but send fast forces to cut off my oil, killed me with espionage early in the war, totally crippled my fleet and razed air assaults like crazy. Then he started sending the stacks, slowly to take one city at a time just like he to the Romans.

3) How close was I to victory

Sadly, I think pretty close . I had the maximum amount of thrusters built, the stasis chamber, and life support. I had the cosking bay halfway built and was closing in on robotics so I could rush the elevator with 2 saved GEs. If Rome had not crumbled to Cyrus I definitely think I could have won the space race. The space race is definitely not as easy as it was and requires some real key decisions along the way, beelining for the ability to build labs first cost the chance to defend against Cyrus (which probably would have futile anyway).

4) Immediately after waving the white flag I started a new game with a random leader, picking Stalin. The start is more crowded than the Musa start and I see a good start. Wonder spamming and GP settling in the capital, ala OBSOLETE, coupled with some nasty agressive leader warmongering (after the Musa game I gotta get it out of my system, and god help any persians I find!). Already have 4 cities with stone, iron, horses locked up, got the random even for free shock promotions to axemen D ) and the quest for rewarding me after building 12 swordsmen D )


If anyone is interested I can post the progress of my new game with Stalin, if noone is I'll understand.

Noone seamed interested in this game which is fine, but I think some of my observations regarding the AIs performance and the BTS game itself may help.

 

[sveint]

Feel free to post a report on your Stalin game.

 

[madscientist]

well the Stalin report is very short. I took out HC who had no military resources significantly overtaxing my economy, I switched successfully to a SE sicne I had the pyramids. A hedged in Joao (some bad territory) decalred on me which I handled well Razed the holy confucous city) then I went to war with him again with some very highly promted swordsmen. I took Lisbon then did a stupid thing and not sue for peace, which Joao took back, and I foolishly suicided most of my swordsmen trying unsuccessfully to relcaim it. I was rather irate at myself, quit the game and started a new one, only then remembering I could have loaded one of the autosaved games.

A poorly played game (even for myself) probably due to being annoyed from losing the Musa game. I may retry the game again from my 950 BC save but I really hate restarting a game that I know where/what things will happen.

Stalin was producing some incredibly promoted units. I got the quest completed (gave me free city raider I promotions). With a barracks and settled GG I could pump out combat I (agressive AI), city raider III swordsmen right off the bat. I was also getting a free shoc promotion to axemen. Really stupid to quit with military potential like this but it happens. I still have the 950 BC save (before the wars) so I may replay the game from there, but I really hate restarting a game that I know where verything is.

I am playing a similar wonder spamming game with Roosevelt and maybe will post that one.