RFC BtS Monarch
OK. I tried this a bunch of times last night and here are my conclusions:
1) You cannot prevent the Arabs from spawning in Saudi Arabia. If you block Mecca on the Red Sea, they just spawn and settle near Kuwait. They spawn with Divine Right, so as soon as they settle their first city there goes Islam.
2) If the only achievable religion is Islam the UHV is mistaken anyway. You might as well have the UHV for Rome set so that the only way you can win is for Rome to found Islam. Ethiopia founded Christianity and Islam only made in roads through force, a lot of it.
So that means to me that the solution must be to found Christianity. And if that is not the situation this UHV can be discarded as flawed (but I assume that is not the case as all the other UHVs I have tried are quite good and historical, IMHO)
So focusing on Christianity:
1) You only have about 20 turns before someone else founds it
2) You start with 1sword, 1axe, 2archers, 2workers, 2settlers
3) Egypt has chariots and 20%+ defenses
4) Egypt is building Stonehenge (I think)
So, go for Egypt, take over their cities and wonders. Pump out G.Prophets. Bump Theology. EXCEPT you do not have anywhere near enough time. You need some siege equipment to tackle those Egyptian cities, or you will lose all your military. You cannot possibly research Math, and build a catapult and get it up there in Egypt, and take cities, and get them out of revolt in 20 turns! Let alone generate a GP!
I tried attacking without catapults, but it is futile. I suppose you could get lucky and Impi's could damage some of the Southern Egyptian cities, but even that seems unlikely to help much. I did once manage to run units all the way up to Greece, and got contact with them... but not much help.
I was thinking maybe the key is to trade techs with Babylon and Greece and Egypt ASAP and try to get that to help towards Theology.... but it seems unlikely to me.
I also trained a scout and sent him south looking for villages, hoping for a lucky discovery of Theology or Divine Right. I just got gold, though it helps to keep research at 100%. BTW: there are a lot of animals, but remember the first 3-4 are automatic kills. The problem I had was that I never met an Impi until I had burned through my auto kills. Then the scout died. Still I got 2 villages out of it for about 150gp.
Some more thoughts if you have time:
My thinking is that the Stele must be for something. Tried setting up my second city on the Red Sea (one tile south and east of the fish). Then the natives spawn a city in Yemen (Asan or something?), and it flips to me. Then cover Mecca area with units. Arabs spawn in Kuwait. I got unit next to them where they spawn. They start with Divine Right (I asked to trade and they had it), so 1 turn later they got Islam. There is no way to cover all of the Saudi Peninsula with units, and the Babylonians are no help. (I already tried giving them all my tech, hoping they might do something with it.... but that is just desperation).
Also, I kept saving, and restarting from save points to try different things. And every time I reloaded my game crashed. This never happens on other games. Could there be a bug? (Say I am 10 turns in. Save. Then 10 turns later realize I am going to lose UHV. Click LOAD GAME. Load up the save from 10 turns in. Game crashes. Every time. Only with Ethiopians. I restarted the computer a couple times. Loaded from different saves. Every time.)
+++
Anyway, at this time I am of the opinion that the 1st UHV cannot be met on Monarch. Of course a really lucky start, or finding Theology in a hut somewhere might do it... but that is not the point.
Ryry
OK. I tried this a bunch of times last night and here are my conclusions:
1) You cannot prevent the Arabs from spawning in Saudi Arabia. If you block Mecca on the Red Sea, they just spawn and settle near Kuwait. They spawn with Divine Right, so as soon as they settle their first city there goes Islam.
2) If the only achievable religion is Islam the UHV is mistaken anyway. You might as well have the UHV for Rome set so that the only way you can win is for Rome to found Islam. Ethiopia founded Christianity and Islam only made in roads through force, a lot of it.
So that means to me that the solution must be to found Christianity. And if that is not the situation this UHV can be discarded as flawed (but I assume that is not the case as all the other UHVs I have tried are quite good and historical, IMHO)
So focusing on Christianity:
1) You only have about 20 turns before someone else founds it
2) You start with 1sword, 1axe, 2archers, 2workers, 2settlers
3) Egypt has chariots and 20%+ defenses
4) Egypt is building Stonehenge (I think)
So, go for Egypt, take over their cities and wonders. Pump out G.Prophets. Bump Theology. EXCEPT you do not have anywhere near enough time. You need some siege equipment to tackle those Egyptian cities, or you will lose all your military. You cannot possibly research Math, and build a catapult and get it up there in Egypt, and take cities, and get them out of revolt in 20 turns! Let alone generate a GP!
I tried attacking without catapults, but it is futile. I suppose you could get lucky and Impi's could damage some of the Southern Egyptian cities, but even that seems unlikely to help much. I did once manage to run units all the way up to Greece, and got contact with them... but not much help.
I was thinking maybe the key is to trade techs with Babylon and Greece and Egypt ASAP and try to get that to help towards Theology.... but it seems unlikely to me.
I also trained a scout and sent him south looking for villages, hoping for a lucky discovery of Theology or Divine Right. I just got gold, though it helps to keep research at 100%. BTW: there are a lot of animals, but remember the first 3-4 are automatic kills. The problem I had was that I never met an Impi until I had burned through my auto kills. Then the scout died. Still I got 2 villages out of it for about 150gp.
Some more thoughts if you have time:
My thinking is that the Stele must be for something. Tried setting up my second city on the Red Sea (one tile south and east of the fish). Then the natives spawn a city in Yemen (Asan or something?), and it flips to me. Then cover Mecca area with units. Arabs spawn in Kuwait. I got unit next to them where they spawn. They start with Divine Right (I asked to trade and they had it), so 1 turn later they got Islam. There is no way to cover all of the Saudi Peninsula with units, and the Babylonians are no help. (I already tried giving them all my tech, hoping they might do something with it.... but that is just desperation).
Also, I kept saving, and restarting from save points to try different things. And every time I reloaded my game crashed. This never happens on other games. Could there be a bug? (Say I am 10 turns in. Save. Then 10 turns later realize I am going to lose UHV. Click LOAD GAME. Load up the save from 10 turns in. Game crashes. Every time. Only with Ethiopians. I restarted the computer a couple times. Loaded from different saves. Every time.)
+++
Anyway, at this time I am of the opinion that the 1st UHV cannot be met on Monarch. Of course a really lucky start, or finding Theology in a hut somewhere might do it... but that is not the point.
Ryry
