Deity/BNW/Montezuma. Any ideas?

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I'm sure that with a really good start (i.e., not a ton of jungles as is usual) and good play one could take enough advantage of the Floating Gardens to turtle to your standard Tradition SV, but I'm interested in going for a Domination victory, or at least taking over a Civ or two by turn 100 -- plus, taking advantage as much as possible of the possible early culture boost from kills.

I've tried almost a dozen times so far, and I'm having a tough time. No OP setups, that's for sure. I don't even think I've had a game where I could at least run an early caravan to another civ to at least get a quick +5 to science.

Right now what looks like may be optimal is something similar to what MadDjinn did in his Let's Play with the Japanese -- have a two city core, and once they get up to size 4 or so, churn out archers with the goal of popping them into CB and then rushing whomever is closer. (I've tried it with Liberty with 3 cities and there are some big happiness problems.)

Problem with the 2-city-archer-upgrade strategy right now (other than not yet optimal battle strategy) I'm having some serious cash-flow problems. In MadDjinn's game, he had a ton of luxuries he could sell for mass $$ (this was pre-BNW) and in general, in a Monte start, I'm not drowning in luxuries or the ones I have access to take some jungle-clearing to access. But it's tough to support an army otherwise, and of course I'm concerned that even if I'm successful, I'll be so far behind in the science race that the fact I take an opposing capitol is moot.

Another problem is that because there's so much goddam jungle, it takes awhile to walk anywhere, plus there's no guarantee I can circle cities easily.

Any uber-players out there want to post a Monty game that's battle-centered that works? No fair generating maps until you start next to 3 salt ...

Of course, it's possible that I'm just being a glutton for punishment here, and The Jungle is just too slow and stupid for Deity. I guess we'll see ...

 

[livsbrand]

Though I'm only an Immortal level player I wanna give you thumbs up for your ambition. I love Monty and wanna try it myself. What if the first start I roll is OP? Do I re-roll until I get a regular-looking Monty start?

Edit: So... As my very first start I managed to roll this:

Spoiler :

Edit #2: Screen won't load at the moment. I'm on a river hill, coastal with mostly plains. 2 salt, 1 gold, 1 fish, 1 lake. Lots of forest to chop. Only one jungle tile.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Wow-do you have start bias on or off? I never get that start with Monte!

Let me know how it goes ...

 

[Deau]

Well I was looking to try it real quick and probably provide the save. On my first map spawn, with 3 turns played felt like I had seen enough to tell this save would allow you to achieve your desired results.

Step1 move on the mountain to settle, move your warrior towards the same SE path
Step2 laugh - this single tile move gives you 4 different luxuries within 3 tiles of capital...
Step3 laugh even more, you can steal workers from pocatelloa around T5 and keep it going through T25-30 get yourself 4-6 free workers, ask for peace before planting 2nd city - he will ask you for peace shortly after(at least my experience with early aggressor w/o taking any cities and asking for peace is that they ask for DoF shortly after peace) and you will get trade routes and the option to sell luxuries...

If you can't make the start work, I'll give it a shot later.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Interesting idea --never tried stealing multiple workers from the same civ before, just ran away. I'll try it! I guess I always figured I'd get rushed by their multiple units.

Cap sounds good. You should play it anyway as there is very little chance I wil do this optimally ... Do you think the general 2 city/archer/upgrade rush is the best plan?

Also curious re SPs. I am tempted to do some early honor pre or post liberty. Bad idea? I seem to get a lot of culture with monte ...

 

[Deau]

The main thing about jungle starts and achieving literally anything "early" is also having the capacity to offset the jungle issue early. This typically means stealing workers far earlier than the typical T20-25 from CSs.

By far the biggest tool in the save I posted is Shoshone within 10 tiles for worker steal. Stealing multiple workers from the same AI is, sadly, almost always a joke. I haven't fully figured out why but AIs dowed prior to T20 or so tends to be overly defensive yet still sends its workers out without them being guarded. All you have to do is stand 2 tiles from border and from a tile that is not yet improved. Be careful when you move in however as 2 warriors+city attack will typically kill your warrior.

What's actually even better with Shoshone is that they often grab a 3rd ring tile early which is even easier to steal workers from. Esp since these are the horse/iron/lux tiles, you can just go pilage them, move 2 tiles away and steal the next worker a few turns from now.

Liberty can somewhat offset a bad jungle start but it is rarely enough to allow for a full CB rush. At least now that you can't quite get lump gold from trades.

 

[livsbrand]

Wow-do you have start bias on or off? I never get that start with Monte!

Let me know how it goes ...

Start-bias is on. I just got lucky. Apparently I had set the map to fractal for some reason, so it was an incredibly chokey, weird thingy where I just couldn't get any pre-artillery conquering done. Maybe I'll try it on Pangaea some time soon.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Liberty can somewhat offset a bad jungle start but it is rarely enough to allow for a full CB rush. At least now that you can't quite get lump gold from trades.

Well, we'll see. Even on Immortal it wasn't as though the game was a gimme with Monte if you started in the thick of the jungle -- but my play is definitely better than it was back then, so maybe I can make it work on Deity.

(Half of the reason my game is better is that now I know I can get away with mugging actual *civilizations* for workers . I will try to increase the mugging!)

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Argh! I am getting the "DLC not installed" message again, even after I made sure I had Babylon, Denmark, Korea, and Polynesia. I would hate to waste $50 on the Gold Edition after spending so much adding on individual components.

Any idea what I might be missing?

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Update #1: 2nd random map put me within 12 spaces of the Shoshone. Unfortunately, after I stole the first worker, he sent three Pathfinders after me! What an ass. He did as expected ask for peace very soon thereafter, and then 10 turns after that I robbed another worker.

No panoply of other civs to trade with, though -- going to try another map ... Got to turn 40'ish and it just wasn't happening.

 

[Buccaneer]

Just a general observation not so much about this game but in games like this. It seems that a lot of Immortal+ strategies are based on assuming the opponents will act in a certain way or not act at all. People talk about a specific tech order (with bee-lines) and build orders - all assuming nothing happens in the game that affects that. So, does one supposed to throw out strategies if you cannot steal workers, get DoF, sell luxuries or have to fight early wars? It seems a lot of games go that way, just like with Update #1.

 

[Deau]

Update #1: 2nd random map put me within 12 spaces of the Shoshone. Unfortunately, after I stole the first worker, he sent three Pathfinders after me! What an ass. He did as expected ask for peace very soon thereafter, and then 10 turns after that I robbed another worker.

No panoply of other civs to trade with, though -- going to try another map ... Got to turn 40'ish and it just wasn't happening.

At what turn did you DoW? Did you sit your warrior 1 tile or 2 tile from his borders after the DoW? From experience, pre T20 DoWs are safe from retaliation. Post T20 you'll be chased right off. I have NO clue why this is.

I must say Shoshone can be more painful for multi steal because the AI doesn't actually scout with the pathfinder. They use them like an additional warrior and defend/attack with them. I ended up meeting maria within a few turns of Shoshone in the game I linked (she plants her 2nd city within 10 tiles of capital) and just stole 3 workers from her instead. She was the first AI to ask me for DoF 5-10 turns after peace which I accepted as I intended to take Shoshone's capital first.

I bribed Shoshone to DoW Maria in the game I posted above to get both their trade routes towards me and because I expected to DoW Shoshone 15-20 turns later and wanted to thin his ranks/at least get half his army out of the flank. First thing I saw is him sending his Pathfinders offensively.

T164 I got both Shoshone and Maria's best 2 cities. Maria had wiped Shoshone out of the map but I didn't have it in me to go fight through forests and hills/mountains to go resurrect Shoshone.

Still, T164, I have a winnable game. Not quite by domination, there are 2 capitals that are more than half a map width distance across.

 

[Deau]

Just a general observation not so much about this game but in games like this. It seems that a lot of Immortal+ strategies are based on assuming the opponents will act in a certain way or not act at all. People talk about a specific tech order (with bee-lines) and build orders - all assuming nothing happens in the game that affects that. So, does one supposed to throw out strategies if you cannot steal workers, get DoF, sell luxuries or have to fight early wars? It seems a lot of games go that way, just like with Update #1.

Well but most players are asking for strategies that will get them from point A to point B and the reality of the game is that not all games lend themselves to all strategies. Aka if you play Montezuma in dense jungle with no close neighbor, your best bet is probably just to plan on an artillery rush and play a 3-4 city trad opener.

It's like if you start a game completely cornered by a hills/mountain absurdely naturally defended Inca neighbor. Even if you are running with Attila or Assyrian because you wanted to go with domination, the start just doesn't lend itself to that early rush. You won't get a city if you have at best 3-4 tiles to attack from. So if you are stubbornly looking for a very specific "I want to play monty and do early/mid game rushes", well then at least get yourself a viable start for this very goal. It doesn't have to be removing start bias or legendary start or respawning until you have el dorado or Solomon's mine within 5 yards from start but at least a 10 tiles neighbor to steal workers from and/or receive trade routes early is a good place to start.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

At what turn did you DoW? Did you sit your warrior 1 tile or 2 tile from his borders after the DoW? From experience, pre T20 DoWs are safe from retaliation. Post T20 you'll be chased right off. I have NO clue why this is.

It was before turn 20 -- it makes sense that if they see a hostile unit, they're going to follow it. Though if they don't see it, even though it's obvious it's there, they don't . Wish I could load the game you put up here, still no idea why I keep getting the message that I don't have the correct DLC.

I've tried some worker-sniping in the games I've been trying and at best I think I've gotten two -- if they're on the other side of a river, or surrounded by jungle, etc., it's just tough to flee fast enough.

 

[Deau]

Ah sorry yes I play with all DLCs.

However, you don't need to steal both on the same turn. For so long as the tile you steal from is unimproved, they will keep sending workers there. Maybe not every turn...but every few turns.

I think it was the 1v1v2v4 DC in GnK where I DoWed Greece early and stole 6 workers with my same warrior. I would keep on healing enough that city+warrior hit wouldn't take me from 100-0. I'd see the worker come, hit wait to keep on healing, go out, hit wait to heal again, come back in the next turn and then that +20 hp was enough for an extra steal. AI can be pretty dumb.

 

[glory7]

if you can build floating gardens and can aviod early wars, tradition is usually easiest way to win.

if you cannot, (and/or you want to rush early), Liberty 3 cities CB rush almost always works well. Check recent Poland DC - that one has a crappy start with hostile neighbors where I did Liberty 3 cities CB rush. It is pretty much applicable to more than 95% of the situation.

 

[Buccaneer]

Well but most players are asking for strategies that will get them from point A to point B and the reality of the game is that not all games lend themselves to all strategies. Aka if you play Montezuma in dense jungle with no close neighbor, your best bet is probably just to plan on an artillery rush and play a 3-4 city trad opener.

It's like if you start a game completely cornered by a hills/mountain absurdely naturally defended Inca neighbor. Even if you are running with Attila or Assyrian because you wanted to go with domination, the start just doesn't lend itself to that early rush. You won't get a city if you have at best 3-4 tiles to attack from. So if you are stubbornly looking for a very specific "I want to play monty and do early/mid game rushes", well then at least get yourself a viable start for this very goal. It doesn't have to be removing start bias or legendary start or respawning until you have el dorado or Solomon's mine within 5 yards from start but at least a 10 tiles neighbor to steal workers from and/or receive trade routes early is a good place to start.

That makes sense, thanks. I think the trap some fell into, esp. soon after release, was that the game was going to be played nearly the same way every time, esp. stating that the AI will be passive. Take the good Poland CV strategy. That's making a lot of conditions and assumptions and good luck to achieve similar results. But what is the rule and what is the exception?

 

[slowcar]

My main issue with your "battle plan" is the general plan, not Montezuma.
I tried to play a few games with my old G&K Liberty rush style, and i failed spectacularly as the big army is quite a drain on resources, the whole world hates you and you get quickly ganged upon.
I had no issue fighting 3 deity AIs side by side (with one nearly beaten anyhow), but without any caravans and monuments costing money i was totally broke.