Climb the Ladder V: Stalin - Emperor

[dankok8]

Continents - Temperate - Medium sea level - Standard size map - Normal Speed - Emperor Difficulty. Choose Religions is ON, everything else default.

Our Leader:



UU:



UB:



The Start:



I'm finally resuming this series after a temporary leave from civ 4; the holidays and all.

Either way, here we are. Those that followed the pregame discussion on the Wang thread know I was split between Stalin and Hatty. Ended up going with Stalin - I prefer some war!!

Cossacks are underestimated I think; I've just played with them recently and the mounted bonus does come in handy in many situations. If you are ahead in tech, it makes you practically invulnerable in the field since quick units weaker in HP like Cuirassiers and Knights stand no chance at all against Cossacks. The Research Institute is very good - 2 free scientists but comes very late; never used it.

EDIT: Starting techs are Hunting (not great but may help with barbs as it enables Archery) and Mining. I have no idea what the synergy between Aggressive and Industrious could be?!? I don't see any...

The start is pretty good; flood plains, clam, cow. Not amazing, but good.

 

[assass1n]

I feel all the Warmonger traits have great synergy with anything that helps a SE
just go conquering and see your beaker rate never drop
and Ind helps in getting wonders like the Glib,Mids and HG and SH

 

[Joshua368]

The UB is extremely helpful in a space race -- makes sense, considering they're the USSR -- but if you plan on a military victory don't worry about it.

 

[Bleys]

Good looking start. I suck horribly at Normal speed though, and really dont mind enough to work on it, so I am converting it to Epic.

 

[nanomage]

Emperor is tough for me, but i will try it and hope for good (and convert to marathon). start looks truly great for me!
are shadow reports welcome? (in spoilers, of course.)

 

[PaulusIII]

Definitely going to shadow this one. I need a break from immortal.

 

[ppciv4]

aggresive & industrious...
I don't know what's the use of these.

 

[nanomage]

i think assas1n is right - if you manage to get 'mids, either Ind-building them or Agr-conquering, further conquest will be much easier without need to care about research slider.

 

[oyzar]

Agg and ind are two of the weaker traits with the least synergy, hence why stalin is not a very popular leader, that said agg obviously helps with conquering stuff and ind help with building economic wonders. Mids are still too expensive without stone though imo, but great ligthouse might be a good idea since you are coastal. This start looks a bit rough to get going but powerful once you do, definatly a burrecracy capital in the midgame. Tech path something like AG -> AH -> BW -> archery(if you don't have copper or hoses nearby) -> fishing? Build worker first, aim to farm two of the floodplains, pasture the cow and mine the two plains hills, grow to size 5 then spam settlers and workers and expand, build GLH before anyone else if situation allows and attack when the opponent is close enough.

 

[vicawoo]

Lot of approaches here.

I kind of don't like a 1 seafood start, especially if it's not fish. You can get a harbor for health later on. Your low production will make great lighthouse difficult.

Oyzars is the highest production approach for workers/settlers.

If you wanted to do a fast commerce, you could go fishing/agriculture->pottery.

Or you could gamble on fast bronze.

 

[oyzar]

Gamble on fast bronze seems a bit senseless given that you give up so much to do that and you'll get the location of bronze soon enough anyways through my aproach...

Fast commerce is certainly an option, but stalin doesn't really have anything that invites that aproach, you aren't finacial and you don't start with either of the 3 techs that lead to pottery(he needs wheel as well), and you don't actually require all that expensive techs to unlock GLH and mids(if you get stone) anwyays...

While some(like obsolete) would feel that industrious means you should wonderspam, there really isn't anything with this start that leads me to belive that is a better strategy than expansion. Expansion means you'll get more production which can later be used to take more advantage of agressive. If there is someone very close an early rush is not completly out of the picture, but since this is emperor i wouldn't feel like that is the defauly aproach.

 

[Single Malt]

I played out the start (changed to epic tho)

Spoiler :

Lots of room to REX. Its fairly low on production, plenty of food for cracking the whip. Its not a bad start, winnable even for me.

 

[KingMorgan]

Not so much a climb up the ladder as a fast sprint

Ozyars approach is the one i'll be taking, suspect there is an extra plains hill under that NE forest, tbh it's health that's worrying rather than production. Not a wonderspam capital imo, more cottage friendly.

 

[nanomage]

don't still know if shadow spoilers are welcome, but i've played 1-st round (to 1920BC), and, as results are substantional, i'd like to share my thoughts and progrees. If dankok8 wouldn't allow posting shadow replies, just tell me and i'll remove it.

Spoiler :

first of all, i dislike settling on FP, but i dislike settling 1tile of river and 1tile of coast too. So i lost two marathon turns to find out what the surroundig terrain is. i found this place:
View attachment 200023
it's riverside, it's coastal, it's plains hill. it has 7FP's to farm and later cottage.
it has a few forest tiles to either conques someone or just reap the health benefits.
it has no food resources, but with 7FP's who cares.
This screenshot also show the birth of chrisitanity. I almost guess who did it, and i'm right:
View attachment 200024
sharpen your axe, this mad woman must join her beloved god in his heavens!
our 1st scout dies promptly, but we train one more and explore a bit. We find also Ragnar, and bah - hi's but a few tiles away and not even hilltop.
techpath so far - Agri-Bw-wheel
i discover Copper between moscow and nidaros and drop a city to grab it.
no food -> crappy city, but soon we have copper online and start axespam.
atack ragnar by stealing a worker and move axes to surround his capital.
View attachment 200025
i would never have taken the city if not the AI stupidity. He spammed archers all ok, but when he had 4-5 in the city he moved away 1 or 2 and my axes killed them. so i caught him with only 2 in the city and captured it.
View attachment 200027
So horny madman is done by 2090 BC and, seeing Izzy has tribalism, i decide to go after her too. After all, she would make the least desired neighbour, and she's unlikely to trade techs to me too.
btw, teched wheel - pottery-writing(i guess with all that warlike expansion scientists from libs will be nearly only source of beakers)
View attachment 200028
without slavery, she has but 2 hilltop archers in madrid, and my seasoned veterans bring them to the axe soon. +christ holy city.
her second city, conf. holy, had but ONE archer and fell even more quickly.
exit isabella
View attachment 200029
i guess it's now an isolated start with all continent at my disposal. GW would make sence, if not too late. even if there's a 4th civ somewhere nearby, i have much land, allready 5 cities and no external threat, and i'm industrious to spam wonders.
quite optimistic.
View attachment 200030

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This game seems to be getting a lot of attention. I'm @ around 1700 AD. It's a game that I've actually played fairly well, but circumstances will make it hard anyway . I'm pretty sure I'll win though.

Edit: Used initial save as-is which includes normal speed and things I hate like events/huts. Have to stay sharp once in a while .

To 1 AD

Spoiler :

What? Mids? GLH? Nah.



Time to just spit out cities constantly. Cottages will win the day. Cottages, and spies.

I start expanding northwest realizing I can block ragnar this way. It looks like I get to be part of a christian (choose religions is on in his save) love fest between the 3 of us. With relatively early favorite civics for both these clowns, I'm definitely running their civics and getting them to friendly. No chance of being declared on = neglect military on purpose and friendly = unlimited trades.

1 AD settled.

To ~ 1700 AD as so far this one's not been too exciting in my case:

Spoiler :

I shot up the western coast. I even beat izzy to the barb city on the northern tip. Cottages and trades carry me here a bit. Settled first great spy, then got a prophet, then got another spy for a SY in Moscow. Once bureaucracy rolled around (late for me, but I stole feudalism off ragnar and traded it to izzy for machinery but CS took more time...) I really abused the spy bureaucracy capitol and same religion/OB nonsense. This is a pretty incredible approach if one uses binary research. The AI has roughly NOTHING to counter such an overwhelming amount of early EP. This means that techs...yeah they're cheaper in espionage than they would be in beakers. Perfect for keeping someone on a settling spree afloat.

I grab colossus really late:



Here's the dismal tech picture in 1040 AD:



Of course a large city count and no war chance by default meant good shape, watch how this unfolds:





Izzy wins lib in 1410 AD ---> again not too concerned.

I steal chem from Ragnar, and trade that too:



This keeps me up reasonably, and when I meet the other AIs I trade with whoever I can without making enemies. It's a significant change:



I eventually get my hands on education in the massive trade swapping, keep the slider off, whip in universities/build oxford, kick research slider up, and start beelining techs I really need. I traded for sci meth then beat the AIs to communism for:



Now all that's left is to $$$ rush the map into oblivion.

Techs look good:



My bad problem is that THE ENTIRE OTHER CONTINENT is JC's VASSAL! . Talk about a raw deal. JC is WHEOOHRN. He's pleased with me, cautious with izzy/rag. I'm hoping he hits them. Of course, I'm quite close to a massive cavalry army that I intend to use to betray my allies, so that could possibly help. After that I'll probably be best off going for industrialism and using marines to raze or liberate (into a colony) all of JC's coastal cities/kill Asoka. Doing that would probably let Sal break free, then I'd need to shake the war with JC (likely if I actually do manage to take many of his cities) and get capitulation out of sal. If sal capped, it'd be game over. JC would be a land target for him. It's not going to be nearly as easy as I was imagining though due to the mass vassals.

There's actually an alternative though, and since I'm lazy I might pursue it. After wiping my continent out, it's quite likely that I'll have more raw pop than JC. If I go FR/rep I can probably get him to friendly (religion is our only demerit and will be our only permanent demerit until I change). If I have more pop than him, gifting one of his vassals down the mass media line (probably sal since sal is the only one that doesn't like me) would pit me vs Sal in the UN. Caesar would then vote for me. I'll probably go that route. The snag is that I need the pop, although mr salad won't shed any tears if I take it from my "allies".

 

[nanomage]

played to 500ad

Spoiler :

after conquering rag and izzy i dropped a few more cities to strain my economy even more, and then started building/chopping 'mids for representation.
I would say that even the fact i was able to build them justifies the Industrious trait - 'mids are great!
not much to tell about this round - i was falling behind in tech (not surprisingly) but still able to research at 100+- bpt and get all techs i really need. i founded more cities + captured barbarian ones and grabbed about 3/5 of continent. if the other 5 civs share another continent, i must be HUGE. (and will be even more huge)
after discovering CoL (surprisingly, it gave me a religion, i chose Taoism for cheaper cathedrals with copper) and whipping courthouses i switched into CS.
i'm runnin a hybrid type of economy with villages-towns in moscow, madrid and barcelona and +6beaker scientists in other cities.
missed GL though- but that's what happens when you don't get marble!
city list, territory view and save follow
View attachment 200045
View attachment 200046
View attachment 200044

 

[dankok8]

I'm cool with shadows as long as they are in spoilers; no worries guys.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

played to 500ad

Spoiler :

after conquering rag and izzy i dropped a few more cities to strain my economy even more, and then started building/chopping 'mids for representation.
I would say that even the fact i was able to build them justifies the Industrious trait - 'mids are great!
not much to tell about this round - i was falling behind in tech (not surprisingly) but still able to research at 100+- bpt and get all techs i really need. i founded more cities + captured barbarian ones and grabbed about 3/5 of continent. if the other 5 civs share another continent, i must be HUGE. (and will be even more huge)
after discovering CoL (surprisingly, it gave me a religion, i chose Taoism for cheaper cathedrals with copper) and whipping courthouses i switched into CS.
i'm runnin a hybrid type of economy with villages-towns in moscow, madrid and barcelona and +6beaker scientists in other cities.
missed GL though- but that's what happens when you don't get marble!
city list, territory view and save follow
View attachment 200045
View attachment 200046
View attachment 200044

You forgot to change the # of turns in WB when you edited it to marathon speed (I recommend just making speed=0, #turns=0 because then all the speed settings will work properly with # turns). Your game is going to end pretty soon with someone winning time .

 

[nanomage]

that was the first time i ever opened the world builder to actually do something
I just didn't know how to do this properly, and yes, i was surprised to see the game is soon to end. I'm just afraid to opened the WB again because i can see spoiler info so i would be eternally grateful to one who could change those variables in my save (or provide me with instructions how to do it quickly myself without much looking at the screen)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To 1904 AD (landslide UN win)

Spoiler :

I get to find out who JC and vassals was planning on hitting:



Oooh, mass war. All Jewish civs vs all christians except me. I'm not so nice. I'm a turncoat.

Sal asks me to join vs rag. OK sal.



This is painful but I agree:



Izzy has rifling and is actually near steam power. I have rifling/MT and the kremlin however. Izzy does very little offensively, and even as Rag vassals to her I kill him. He only had grenadiers...very easy to kill grenadiers with cavs.



Even though Izzy had Infantry when I hit, the flanking II and combat/pinch cavs overpowered them easily. $$$ buy mauls her.



Tech picture after the war:



Yeah...game over. Pacal is teching for mass media. I want him or sal to build the UN since I'm friendly with JC. He's friendly with sal too but I realize I can just swap sal into FR to null that.

Doesn't matter. Pacal beats me to MM by a turn and builds the UN. This is exactly the outcome I wanted. JC isn't eligible because I have more pop.



Specifically, I had friendly status with every single civ left in the world, they weren't near culture, and I was #1 in pop and well on my way to winning internet (only person with plastics and computers, 9 turns on internet).

Blowout after all. That's what happens when you settle 16 cities without having to go to war.