Earth 18 civ early dominations

[MrFelony]

lol i hate it when that happens. just try again, or WB the archer out of there . one other thing, in the past i've been sending my warrior to explore just so i'd have the map, but then i realized that i needed him to guard my base so if you want ot explore a little with your warrior, make sure to not let him stray too far so he can make it back to Rome when it hits population 5

 

[illram]

Do you think the AI starting with warriors is a bug, or part of the patch? On regular maps the AI still starts with archers, right? (Haven't been playing much else besides the LHC games and this map, so not sure.)

With that said, that is a good idea to settle on the copper instead of the original start. I never would have thought of that and that makes me wonder if I should do that with my India start too- move to the east and settle the copper beneath China and rush them. (I never usually move my settler too much in general, but on this map maybe it's not such a bad idea as you know where everything is...)

I was getting my butt kicked with India so I decided to give this one a go for fun, and on Monarch it's even worse for the AI- you can rush all the way to Asoka before they get longbows, it's kind of ridiculous. (The lack of early archers makes it very easy on monarch).

 

[MrFelony]

I'm not sure why they don't start with archers. If they did, then i'd probably settle in place, expand to the copper site with a settler, and beeline IW. It would slow down the expansion into Europe a decent amount. I did look in WB to see where everything was situated and decide which locations were best for what cities. This is the only time i've ever gone into WB to do this mainly because I didnt feel like playing a full game just to find out the same things lol. I dont think it's better to move asoka's main capital because it would take ages for you to get over there and by the time you did, Qin would already have archers if not his own copper and it would be very difficult to try and take him over with a ~15 turn deficit. I'd just settle you first city to block off Cyrus' expansion, your second on the ivory to your SE which will claim the Iron in it's BFC, and then settle near where N Korea is to block china's expansion and go for a space race or something. I would suggest you try it on emperor illram. I'm not usually an immortal player, but I feel even immortal isnt a huge challenge. I'm going to play another round focused on continued conquering and recovering your economy tonight. may or may not write it up though

 

[MrFelony]

Okay, I dont have time since its past 8am and i have to get to bed so just pictures for now...lots of pictures

Spoiler :

firstly, we need to start teching our way to CoL, most likely we'll have to research it manually.

In these next city screen shots, I'm showing how i'm prioritizing citizen employment. I am having all of my citizens working almost all tiles that bring in, or will bring in, the most . these usually revolve around cottages in Berlin, Hamburg, and Orleans (note, on Deity, Spain founds this city instead of france and buddhism is founded here typically). Also, we NEED the great lighthouse. it's 100% priority, hence why we're sacrificing building military for it.

notice how we're now able to research at 20% now without running a deficit.

Also, we're building up our military to take over athens. the money from capturing it, and having a launching point for our invasion of egypt will help sustain us researching 100% in order to get CoL ASAP.

watch the difference between praets and normal swords

 

[MrFelony]

And here's the 2nd part

Spoiler :

watch on how specializing our city's tiles boosts our economy dramatically. all i do is move one tile in our capital from a mined hill to a river side hill. notice how we get 1 more gpt?

remember, work and grow those cottages. also, libraries are going to position us to not only catch up research wise and make up for the 20%, but slingshot us high above the competition when we finally get courthouses.

we got 2-3 of these during this round

time for war!

this city sucks hard, raze it

finally! was afraid those revolts was going to cause us to lose it. notice how we jumped 22gpt surplus AND 4 research points as well!

nice

silver in madrid hooked up

notice that? we're 3 turns from finishing the pyramids...I think since our economy is slightly recovered, i'll complete them instead of saving them for money, which was my original intent

notice the difference between us and cyrus? it involves our resources lol.

we were being pressed here culturally, but building/whipping a library and any culture producing building has helped us fight back in the cultural battle. also we forgot we need agriculture for farms in madrid.

gave catherine a tech. +1 to diplomacy and 10 turns of guaranteed peace are worth it.

In the last few SS's you see I finished CoL, and have whipped/built courthouses in as many of my cities as possible. next round will show you the results of building 6-7 courthouses. also, egypt is essentially crippled.

 

[MrFelony]

and the final segment is more of an overview of the results of rebuilding and continued conquering.

Spoiler :

 

[Gooblah]

On Vanilla, you can use India effectively. Usually, Cyrus leaves his area undefended, so he'll have a Warrior by pop 2. Thus, you can declare on him and capture Persepolis instead of auto-razing it. Found Buddhism in Delhi, and pump Settlers to grab all of India and Tibet. Qin usually REXes quickly, so whip/chop (this means grab IW) jungles to make 12-15 axes with City Raider I. Conquer China and Mongolia. Wait till you have Iron, and maybe Catapults to make a Galley stack and grab Japan. Now use the Galleys to settle Indonesia, and (I think its possible) Australia. Pump Courthouses in every city, and beeline for Communism, picking up important military techs enroute. Now declare on Saladin, then on Egypt in rapid succession. Blitz em with Maces or Muskets, and again huddle down. Build huge stacks of Rifles, Grenadiers, and Cavalry to mount an assault on Mali and Russia. Once these are taken care of, build Settlers till you have all of Africa settled. State Property will really help research costs and things.

 

[Morgrad]

OK - what am I missing? Although by moving the capital I was able to smash all of Europe by 1000 BC - so it is a great tip - no matter what I tried I couldn't get a single axeman to Berlin before he had a defending archer (I started over 4 times trying to get it perfect). This is going to end up as my strongest domination win ever on Earth 18-Civs, so I can't say I'm complaining - I just don't understand how to get an axe to Berlin before they have an archer, as was shown.

Help?

BTW - I don't have BTS, so I'm using patched but no mods Warlords.

 

[MrFelony]

what difficulty are you playing at? if it's deity i could see that happening. it could also just be a difference between BTS and Warlords. I actually think it'd be nicer to have them start with archers since it's more realistic. Since you said you tried it so often, i'm assuming that you're getting your first axe there by turn ~42. also, does all of europe have archers or is it only germany? I noticed that on immortal I have the same problem with alex. he always seems to start spamming archers pretty fast. I think it most likely lies in the difference between BTS and Warlords AI. the best advice i'd probably be able i can give is to just deal with it and build more axes to take germany over before sending in your first one. If frederick seems to be pretty close to getting his copper set up, then i think it's best to get your axe in there to stop that from happening and to also cut him off from horses and then keep building them to conquer him, but I dont think there is much you can do to stop him from building his archer.

 

[Cleverbeans]

When I play for domination as Rome on Earth 18 I normally Attack Greece/Germany/Russia first then work on the closer neighbors. The French are generally building wonders, and Spain is teching up religions so I prefer to take out the more agressive neighbors first. Normally I hit Greece and Germany at the same time, then take both sets of forces into Russia and once that's cleaned up head towards Madrid. I can then start to pump out some Cats and get roads built for the Middle East/African campaign. I find if I take Europe first then push to Russia I have a rougher time since Cathrine is better prepared for war.

 

[MrFelony]

Russia isnt that hard to take over if you get to her before she researches IW. the tech rate is miserably slow in the BTS earth map so by the time i'm done conquering europe, she is either just getting the city with copper by finland and sometimes lacks IW. the problem is it just takes too much effort to take her over when compared to egypt/mansa. I actually think your idea of letting louis sit around for a while to build wonders isnt bad, but i'm not sure if i want to deal with his insane culture. I think it might be worth an effort to try it, but i think it will probably end up that it's just better to take him over and move on and be thankful you get either the henge or GW. and if louis doesnt build them, then it's usually either Egypt or Cyrus.

 

[Cleverbeans]

I agree Russia isn't that hard to take and it's a matter of personal preference. In the game you posted I would have taken Russia before Egypt because Egypt can be easily conquered later even without Cats since they focus so heavily on religious techs and often don't have a source of copper.

Germany is alway and early priority to me because if I don't take them out soon, they seem to put a settler up in the deep north and my conquered cities long for their motherland which pisses me off. Generally I send my main group out to Germany, have a second group take out the Greeks, then double back to pop the French/Spanish.

 

[MrFelony]

well as early as i get the germans, i dont really have a 2nd group that can take out the greeks. they start spamming archers in every game I play and i usually need my entire army to take them out. Russia is easier to take over, but they are tech backwards almost the entire game until she starts to recover from her REXing. she can be left alone. Egypt and Cyrus are you main competitors and they should be taken out first. with all those FPs they tech pretty fast and will get LBs long before russia. What i usually do is send my entire army out to take over egypt/saladin (usually it ends up sacrificing itself on saladin and loses steam before cyrus). I then build up a 2nd army to take over russia with or to flank cyrus. that and egypt builds a lot of wonders that france doesnt get (if china or cyrus doesnt build them)

 

[Morgrad]

Monarch, and all of Europe has them, so it's gotta be a warlords thing. Exact same tech and build choices lead to 1 axe staring at 1 archer in Berlin, with an off-side city with 2 warriors in it.

Build to 4 axes as fast as possible and you face 2 archers with still only 2 warriors in the other city (this includes whipping). 2 of the axes survive, giving you 2 CR2 axes to slap Paris with.

Was fun, though - thanks for the tip!

 

[MrFelony]

no prob. I might do the write up friday (test thursday), but wont be playing any more rounds until at least then since i uninstalled civ...though i installed poker so i'm getting no where towards finishing my papers

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Easy to take out Russia with legions, but then their cities are too far away and maintenance will cripple you, not to mention barbarians. I like rebuilding the Roman empire like he did, just... don't make the Napoleon and Hitler mistake of trying to take down Russia. Unless you're Subotai.

 

[Blue_Lines]

I just started an earth game because of this thread (Romans, Immortal, Marathon, BTS) and found that preats are just ridiculous. I moved settler to the copper as suggested. I ended up taking Berlin with initial warrior and as soon as was possible started pumping axemen. By the time I finally got iron-working and the wheel (~100 turns) I had taken all of continental Europe, Saladin and Egypt's capital. I started pumping out preats and ended up going on a massive war campaign. By switching civics and religions to get anarchy and avoid paying too much maintenance (was about -40 a turn with 0 sci) I ended razing all of the Indian cities, all of the Russian cities, as well as 4 Chinese cities and 2 Mongolian cities. No one even had axemen yet. I think it was around 1000 BC. Anyway, my economy was crippled and I had no trading partners except for Mansa Musa but the game is pretty much in hand.

 

[illram]

I dont think it's better to move asoka's main capital because it would take ages for you to get over there and by the time you did, Qin would already have archers if not his own copper and it would be very difficult to try and take him over with a ~15 turn deficit.

I tried it out (on monarch) and was successful in taking out China and Genghis before turn 90, as well as taking over the two cities Toku tried to settle. You get to the copper on turn 10. The copper in the south is the only source of near-by copper in the Far East besides Japan, otherwise there is only Iron and horses. Qin had no archers by the time I had 1 axeman at his capital. (Around turn 40 or so.)

This may or may not be possible above monarch. I also wouldn't do this but for the fact that the AI starts with warriors on this map for some reason, which I am now convinced is a bug.

Spoiler :

Sorry the pic is so cluttered. Delhi is right on top of the copper at the south, you need it to be or else you waste time building a mine. I was able to get all the way to Karakorum and Beshbalik, Genghis' only two cities. My economy tanked and stalled my run on Toku after this pic was taken.

I got lucky twice; once against Qin (56% chance for victory against a chariot he just produced, if I'd lost I would have had to wait a few more turns and that would have stalled it) and once against Genghis (30% chance for victory against and archer, still won). Even so, worst case scenario is you severely weaken Qin early on and soften him up for a later war, and in the meantime expand westward and settle the original spot where Delhi should be. Seems llike a win win to me.

The only drawback I see with this is Cyrus becomes very powerful if you concentrate entirely on taking out Qin and Genghis, as he gets most of the land in India for himself. China is so rich though that really, once you own the Far East you have a very strong "core" empire with which to pursue any victory you choose.

In sum, not the same as your complete and utterly dominating Praet uber-rush, but still feasible, at least at monarch and below.

 

[MrFelony]

the one thing i'd need to figure out is if qin gets archers by then on immortal. i geuss 10 rounds isnt too bad. I have to take 4 turns to move Rome so it's not like its a whole lot more. cyrus porbably shouldnt be too big of a problem for you though because at worst, he'll get his iron up, but on immortal he doesn't get LBs until after the BCs end (i have a feeling around 1-300AD) so if you can deal with the maintenance, you could sent a giant army over there. but i have a bad feeling you can't sustain the war and keeping most of his cities because you already have 6, you dont have calendar, and i dont know if asoka is organized. maybe if he was organized and you could get CoL then I think your economy wouldnt collapse (e.g. in the red at 0%), but part of what helps you keep your economy stable until it can semi-recover is the continued conquering of cities lol. maybe if you could reach and conquer mecca if he's built the shrine?

and you're right, lucky really plays a factor in it. in the game i'm giving an example i made a big mistake of trying to split up my forces to try and take out saladin while i finished ramsese, but someone decided to trade him copper at some point so he had a couple of axes (that are actually about the same as his 2CG arcehrs. I got my stack next to his capital to see the terrible predicament, but decided to try just one praet (these were all my inexperienced 2 CR praets). won a 25% victory, then won a 2nd 25% victory.

I actually do this a lot. attack with just one unit to see if i get lucky, then if i dont then stop. This is what i think the AI does a lot of times where it will park it's stack outside your capital and then attack with one unit and then stop. I can't confirm this though :/.

 

[MrFelony]

recovering the economy updated.