"Builds" Thread

[disjointaccount]

Thought it might be fun to have a thread for this. Basically just post any examples of combinations of leaders/civs/mementos/anything else that you've tried/want to try that make for good synergies/fun games.

For a couple to start off:

Harriet Tubman War Support
- Leader:
- Harriet Tubman
- Civ(s):
- Any
- Mementos:
- Ankus
- Anti-Machiavel
Other:
- Gate of All Nations
- +1 War Support from Militaristic attribute tree
- +1 War Support from Militaristic CS bonus
For a total of 11 war support on defensive wars. Hilarious and definitely worth doing if you've not tried it.

Trung Trac Supercharged Commander XP
- Leader:
- Trung Trac
- Civ(s):
- Greece, for their Strategoi tradition
- Mementos:
- Lion Capital
- Art of War
- Alternatively could take a memento that gives yields per Commander XP/level
Other:
- Terracotta Army
- Commander XP bonuses from Militaristic CS in each age
- Imperialism II gives a Commander XP policy, though it won't be around long enough to do much
Does exactly what it looks like. The exact percentage varies but you get a lot of Commander XP. Very fun.

One-City Metropolis
- Leader:
- Pachacuti
- Civ(s):
- Khmer
- Few good options in subsequent ages. Dai Viet into Qajar is probably the most obvious.
- Mementos:
- Brush and Scroll
- Something to boost yields on specialists, most likely
- Alternatively, something for food. Chakra, or Gold Snuff Box, if you play around it
Other:
- Hanging Gardens
- Angkor Wat
- Thanh Hue
- Eram Garden
- 5% growth rate boost from Expansionist attribute tree
- As many food/growth boosts as you can grab from Expansionist CS
Get a ton of food and turn it into production in one megacity. You can probably get away with not having various things listed but the more you have the more the number goes up.

 

[pjotroos]

One-Punch Man
- Leader:
- Xerxes, King of Kings
Civs:
- Achaemenid, Mongolia, Qajar
Mementos:
- Corona Civica in all three ages
Other:
- El Escorial
- expansionist and militaristic city-state in each age for settlement limit

Keep the empire small in the first two ages. Grab all settlement limit increases you can. Research Neẓām-e J̌adīd civic, declare war. Observe damage bonus.

 

[Berrern]

City-State Bonanza

Leader:
- Tecumseh

Civ(s):
- Greece for Influence generation and the Xenia Tradition which gives +50% Influence towards befriending Independent Powers, not to mention the +1 Combat Strength per CS for Hoplites.
- Tonga to discover the Distant Lands early on and their Kava Ceremony Tradition which gives +100% Influence towards befriending Independent Powers in Distand Lands.

Mementos:
- Shisa Necklace (+100 Influence every time you Suzerain a City-State).
- Imago Mundi (+2 Sight instead of +1 for your Scout's Search ability) OR Merchant's Saddle (+1 Movement for Scouts, Settlers, and Explorers).

Other:
- Oracle (+1 Wildcard Attribute Point, choose Diplomatic, you want the +50% bonus towards befriending Independents!).
- Emile Bell (+2 Influence and a Diplomatic Attribute Point).
- Weyiang Palace (+6 Influence).

Get your Scouts out, find those Independent Powers, Suzerain them and enjoy the bonuses!

Tip: Play on a Large or Huge map for lots and lots of IPs! Pangaea if you choose Greece, and any map type with AIs in Distant Lands if you pick Tonga.

 

[uppi]

City-State Bonanza

Leader:
- Tecumseh

Civ(s):
- Greece for Influence generation and the Xenia Tradition which gives +50% Influence towards befriending Independent Powers, not to mention the +1 Combat Strength per CS for Hoplites.
- Tonga to discover the Distant Lands early on and their Kava Ceremony Tradition which gives +100% Influence towards befriending Independent Powers in Distand Lands.

Mementos:
- Shisa Necklace (+100 Influence every time you Suzerain a City-State).
- Imago Mundi (+2 Sight instead of +1 for your Scout's Search ability) OR Merchant's Saddle (+1 Movement for Scouts, Settlers, and Explorers).

Other:
- Oracle (+1 Wildcard Attribute Point, choose Diplomatic, you want the +50% bonus towards befriending Independents!).
- Emile Bell (+2 Influence and a Diplomatic Attribute Point).
- Weyiang Palace (+6 Influence).

Get your Scouts out, find those Independent Powers, Suzerain them and enjoy the bonuses!

Tip: Play on a Large or Huge map for lots and lots of IPs! Pangaea if you choose Greece, and any map type with AIs in Distant Lands if you pick Tonga.

Greece and Tonga usually generate enough influence that you don't really need to stick in mementos which generate even more influence. I would instead try to profit from those city states even more and take War Club and Wampum Belt for even more combat strength and production off city states. On a Huge Pangea, you can get 15+ city states, so your enemies might be getting a glimpse at your +45 combat bonus for Hoplites (for a few milliseconds until they get pulverized)

Also, Greece and Tonga are both diplomatic, so you can guarantee that you get two diplomatic points for the +50% bonus towards befriending without any wonders. You will get one point for suzeraining a city state and you can choose a second one on researching the last unique civic.


Anyway:
Rule the waves

Leader:
- Isabella (for bonus towards ship purchasing)
- Edward Teach

Civs:
- Carthage (more bonus towards ship purchasing, reduced maintenance costs)
- Spain (+5 CS for heavy naval units) / Chola (more maintenance cost reduction)
- Britain (for the Revenge)

Mementos:
- Medicine Chest (+5 Healing for naval units)
- Hermione Model (+1 Movement for naval units)

Wonders:
- Great Lighthouse (+1 Sight on naval units

 

[Kurtbob]

Tall Towns ICS

Leader
-Ibn Battuta
Civ's
-Carthage
-Han

Memento's
-Corona Civica: to up that settlement limit
-Groma: move down the expansionist attribute tree faster

Strategy - Get to the "Gain +1 Population in Towns. New Towns start with an additional +1 Population" expansionist attribute as soon as you complete the Chiefdom civ using Ibn's ability and Groma. Start spamming pop 3 towns. Can work with Han too, but Carthage lends itself to more ICS, town specialization (which Carthage has bonuses for farming/mining towns) and the extra money that comes from towns to create Urban Center sprawls. Ibn has an expansionist trait, which means you can continue down the expansionist attribute tree for further town specialization bonuses, settlement limit increase, and "food in cities per town" bonus.

 

[NoCure]

Do It All

Leaders
-Himiko High Shaman
-Xerxes King of Kings

Civ
-Assyrian

Mementos
-Kusanagi no Tsurugi
-Sword of Brennus

Strategy - Grab a Pantheon then head up the Assyrian tree to pick up their unique buildings. With a Cultural Endeavor and a Celebration you can be making 30 Culture/turn very early on with Himiko. Hard build a commander (you unlock with Tupsarrutu) and THEN research Discipline so you have two commanders. Get some troops and murder some independents for experience, then go to war. Your model is to take a weak settlement or two from the AI, then give it back in exchange for a different settlement. So, every time you take a settlement, you get at least 1 tech, at least 1 codex, and 400-500 gold. You don't need to build culture buildings because your happiness and influence buildings are culture buildings. You don't need to build science buildings (apart from Royal Libraries) because you are conquering. So you can focus on building wonders and troops instead of many costly buildings. You get:
Production: From the Citadel, from codices, and from Himiko's bonus to producing certain buildings
Influence: Himiko builds these fast (the Villa is especially insane). Also, when you give away a lot of settlements during a peace treaty, you get influence and can sometimes trigger an event with a free celebration.
Culture: From Himiko, Xerxes and the memento. You are rolling in culture.
Science: From conquering. You can push into MANY future techs; I've had games where I delayed conquering a bunch of defenseless settlements until the countdown at the end of the Age and then captured them them to cash in for ~250 turns worth of science.
Gold: From conquering and returning settlements.

You don't get extra food. So there's that.

 

[Berrern]

Trung Trac Supercharged Commander XP
- Leader:
- Trung Trac
- Civ(s):
- Greece, for their Strategoi tradition
- Mementos:
- Lion Capital
- Art of War
- Alternatively could take a memento that gives yields per Commander XP/level
Other:
- Terracotta Army
- Commander XP bonuses from Militaristic CS in each age
- Imperialism II gives a Commander XP policy, though it won't be around long enough to do much
Does exactly what it looks like. The exact percentage varies but you get a lot of Commander XP. Very fun.

I just gave this setup a go, and had an absolute blast!
Unfortunately I made a mistake when it comes to the Terracotta Army - I went for the Tactics Civic early, but forgot that this Wonder has to be placed in Grassland... As such, someone on the DL continent built it - but that then became my main goal in Exploration: Conquer it! It turned out it was Tubman who had built it along with 6 wonders in her ex-capital Waset, and with her +5 war support (and playing on Deity), conquering it was tough, but following a tight 35-turn war with massive casualties on both sides (and loads of promotions!) my highly ranked Commanders got there in the end

The number of promotions you get with this setup is incredible - especially during Celebrations! If you pair a new Commander with a higher ranked one, you'll get the Order Commendation in no time
Thanks for the great tip, I had so much fun that I'm going to start another game with the exact same setup, and hopefully get the Terracotta Army this time...

 

[vorlon_mi]

That could have been a nightmare scenario -- Tubman leading Egypt (with bonus for building wonders), in Distant Lands (so unreachable in Antiquity), and her leader attribute makes it an uphill battle to declare war upon. Kudos for a successful conquest!

 

[kotpeter]

Augustus Carthage (straightforward and good for new players)

Leader: Augustus
Civs: Carthage -> Spain -> British

Mementos: idk (I don't use them, so I can't advise on them)

Strategy:

Augustus has natural synergy with Carthage: extra settlers means faster expansion, more towns -> more discounted purchases, more coastal towns - more unique buildings which are purchaseable in towns. You can also buy monuments in towns due to Augustus' unique ability. Augustus provides a purchase discount, but there's another discount unlockable in civ's civic tree. And while you're expanding, your capital gains more production, which you can use to build wonders.

If you create a steady gold income, you'll be able to purchase unique quarters in all towns and set yourself up nicely for the Exploration age. If you want to, use Numidian Cavalry to capture coastal settlements and finish the Pax Imperatoria legacy.

In the Exploration age, you have multiple ways. If you have a lot of coastal settlements, I recommend going Spain and colonizing distant lands. The more distant settlements you have, the more gold your unique quarter provides, and distant land settlements are more powerful when playing Spain. You can purchase your civ's unique building in all towns with the discount from Carthage's tradition.

Ideally you want to achieve Economic golden age in Exploration and have a few good cities (5-6). If some of them are in distant lands, great job! If you managed to do so, pick Britain in the Modern Age (to unlock it, you need two Fleet commanders) and use Economic golden age to keep your cities. This way, you'll bypass Britain's penalty of converting towns to cities, but you will have lots of production in them. Even more so if you manage to grab "+10% production for settlements in distant lands" militaristic legacy. With this setup, you'll have a few very productive cities, and the rest will be powerful specialized towns (buffed by Carthage's tradition). You can go for any win condition with this setup, but economic will probably be the fastest. Cultural should also be fast, especially since you can purchase museums in towns with a discount.

 

[Berrern]

City-State Bonanza II: World Suzerainty

Leader:
- Ibn Battuta

Civ:
- Tonga to discover the Distant Lands early on and their Kava Ceremony Tradition which gives +100% Influence towards befriending Independent Powers in Distand Lands.

Mementos:
- The Travels of Marco Polo (+50 Gold for every 100 Tiles explored)
- Merchant's Saddle (+1 Movement for Scouts, Merchants, Settlers and Explorers)

Other:
- When you discover Chiefdom, use Battuta's ability to select 2 Diplomatic Attribute Points, which means you'll get +50% towards befriending IPs already around Turn 10.
- Research Discipline early on, and with the Survey Policy you'll get +1 Movement on your Tahinas (Scouts), meaning they now have 4 Movement.
- When you suzerain the first IP, you get an Event where you can choose to give your Tahinas +1 Movement, meaning they now have 5 Movement!
- When you discover (not suzerain) the the first IP in Distand Lands, you'll get another Diplomatic point, meaning you can choose +2 Culture and Science for each City-State.
- Try to settle next to Coastal tiles for Tonga's +1 Influence bonus, and build your Monuments next to Coastal as well for an additional +1 Influence on those via the Lapita Origins Mastery Civic. Archipelago map is ideal for this.

Tip: Play on a Large or Huge map for lots of IPs and plenty of land to discover.

You'll make tons of Gold from the Marco Polo Memento, and the Diplomatic Attribute point bonus ensures you won't struggle for Culture and Science.

Here's what my world map (Large Archipelago) looks like after only 53 turns: