[BTS] Hannibal Monarch game

[Tonny]

Long overdue, but here's my round up to turn 80.

Spoiler getting started :

turn 0-35

Doing the obvious first and settled Carthage on turn 2 on the marble.

Build order:
workboat - worker - workboat
After the last workboat I started to micro some things. First I put the overflow from the workboat into a settler. Directly after that I switched to a warrior to grow to size 3. At size 3 I immediately switched back to the settler working 2 clam and the goldmine. The warrior is on hold. On turn 35 the settler is ready and I put the overflow into Stonehenge.

Tech order:
bw - wheel - mysticism - hunting - ah
I figured that I don't need agriculture for a long time, therefor I chose the cheapest route towards ah. At turn 34 I got ah.

Spoiler I want Copper :

turn 35-55
While my settler walks towards its designated spot (on the timely placed roads) I switched to slavery.

Spoiler x marks the spot :

Utica is founded on turn 36 and starts directly on a monument while my worker is already chopping.
Carthage puts 10 into stonehenge and directly after that continues on the warrior which was put on hold earlier.

build order Carthage after the warrior finishes:
worker - lighthouse (for only 1 turn) - granary (immediately when pottery was teched) - lighthouse
build order Utica:
monument - barracks (for 3 turns) - granary (immediately when pottery was teched) - overflow into stonehenge (14)

tech order:
sailing - pottery - writing - math
I went sailing first for early trade route and my cities weren't ready for granaries yet. At turn 50 I got writing.

Eventually copper is hooked up on turn 55.

Spoiler some pictures :

quite pleased with my tech rate at 27 bpt

Carthage

Utica. Look at how many I will have put into barracks next turn .

Spoiler getting prepared :

turn 55-67
Long story short...
Both Carthage and Utica 2 pop whipped barracks.
Both cities are only building my army ending up with 7 axes and 1 spear (Pacal has a chariot).
I got 24 for failing Stonehenge in the meantime.
Tech order:
math - masonry - construction

Spoiler should I not go to war? what am I doing??? :

Wait... what?!?

GLH?!?
I'm just greedy .

Spoiler It's mine :

turn 68-80
It was time...
I declared war at turn 68 seeing that Mutal 3 pop whipped a settler size 7 to 4.
One turn later Mutal was even smaller! Pacal cold whipped another archer.
Unfortunately for him my forces were too great to be stopped.

Spoiler 8 vs 3 :

Or will it be 8 vs 4?
Nope, the next turn both the chariot and settler were gone from this city. They fled the scene hoping for a better future.

I took Mutal on turn 70 suffering 4 casualties.
While I healed I waited for a cease fire until I was ready for the next big prize. Pacal was ready to talk on turn 74. He gladly accepted my offer to cease the hostilities.

In the meantime Carthage was doing something completely else.

Spoiler what a view :

The Great Lighthouse is mine! Finished on turn 74.

I could not wait. There was a worker to be taken hostage and I want another holy city. Lakamha had to be mine too.
War declaration on turn 75 with 4 axes and 1 spear against a single archer in Lakamha.

Spoiler Lakamha :

That should be doable. Although Pacal whipped a Holkan I took the city with no losses at all at turn 76.
This time Pacal immediately raised the white flag to talk things over. A cease fire was agreed upon.
With a total loss of only 4 axes I expanded my empire with 2 holy cities, 2 granaries (both cities had them), 188 gold, and a worker. Not too shabby if I may say so.

Now some "boring" stuff.
Tech order:
construction (teched turn 78) - currency
I figured that all the techs I ignored so far are still not needed. Alphabet therefor was out of the question. Currency seems to be best to fuel my economy for now.

Another city was settled on turn 78 (Hadrametum) between horse and ivory. Nice spot on its own, due to being coastal and it can help Mutal growing its floodplains cottages.
Another settler is being built to make a resort close to Carthage and claim 2 more clams. It will have a nice view on the GLH.

Spoiler resort :

Offshore traderoutes!

If you want more information, just ask. I've saved the game each turn.
Last but not least, save is added.

 

[Izuul]

I would love to see you perform such a rush here @Izuul

Spoiler to T49

Spoiler :

Well, here is the Feudalism Oracle. I wanted to see how early i could get it and T49 is quite early. That's early to enough to get it pretty close to 100% on Immortal and almost certainly 100% on Emperor and below. It would even be fairly reliable on Deity, but you would lose out occasionally.

The tech path was BW > Myst > Med > PH > Writing > Monarchy. Went WB > Worker > WB (chop). Worker chopped then mined the gold.

Research is the limiting factor here so you want to avoid Masonry despite the cap being settled on marble. It's also sometimes better to work 1F3C coast tiles than production tiles. I built a library as soon as Writing finished. The only thing i would probably do differently on Imm+ is build another unit or two for fog busting.

From here you could just go Hunting > Archery and start building LBs, but since this is a Monarch game and the AIs expand slowly, it might be better to get a little more infrastructure in place first while waiting for them to actually settle a few cities.

 

[6K Man]

Spoiler getting started :

Utica is founded on turn 36 and starts directly on a monument while my worker is already chopping.

Spoiler :

Why not found Utica 1S of X? You could have hooked up Copper immediately without waiting for the Monument chop and 10T for the border pop, and got the Axes going sooner. The Cows would have been workable when Carthage got its second border pop.

 

[Tonny]

@6K Man
The reasoning behind settling Utica like I did.
1. I value a 42 tile more than a 15 tile.
2. More forests to chop.

 

[lymond]

Carthage grabs the cow for you though. I wanted Coppah online asap

 

[Tonny]

Carthage grabs the cow for you though. I wanted Coppah online asap

I agree, but I just wanted the earlier food. A matter of taste I believe.

 

[pigswill]

Settling to get cow earlier means you need culture to get copper, getting culture via monument means researching mysticism then building the monument then waiting ten turns which is fine if you're going peaceful but probably slows down an axe rush (if you're one of those nasty aggressive players who attacks neighbours on sight). Settling for copper delays cow until capital border pop but does save you a monument.

 

[Tonny]

Update at turn 86

Spoiler The quest continues... :

turn 80-86

Lakamha has been pacified. I chose to build a lighthouse first to benefit from the fish and ocean tiles.

Spoiler Lakamha :

Nothing special happened until I got my settler to found Hippo (turn 83) and create the offshore traderoutes.

Spoiler The power of GLH :

Here's the comparison at 100% research rate:
80 bpt and -24 gpt before settlement
95 bpt and -27 gpt after settlement
A net gain of 12!!!

I got bored, so I sent my veteran CR axes out to find Pacal again. Another opportunity rose to steal another worker a wipe out the Mayan civilization.

Spoiler Chichen Itza :

It was a gamble to attack with only 4 axes and a spear. I like how Pacal settled his cities. Another 23 city center to be mine.
Luck was on my side when I attacked. My CR3 axe killed the fully fortified archer at just 30% odds. With only 1 loss the Mayan civilization had been whiped out.

Still ignoring some of the early cheap techs I decided to go for hbr first knowing that Lincoln is already teching alphabet for me. Currency was teched on turn 85.

I do have some questions...
1. What would you do from here on? There are just so many options.
2. Should I settle the other 2 islands as well?
3. Is building a library first in Mutal a good call or should I have gone for pults immediately? Or should I not have started pults at all? I just like to go on warring with axepult/elepult.
4. I only have 6 workers at the moment. Enough for now?
5. I'm thinking to make Mutal a future capital and make Carthage a strong production city for soldiers. Would you do the same?
6. Any other critique/help/suggestion is appreciated.

Save attached

 

[Tonny]

I'd like to elaborate on my first question. Some of the other questions depend on the chosen path. These are the things I'm thinking about:

1a. Continue with aggressive expansion and take out Gandhi first.
I could go HBR - Metal Casting - Machinery - CoL - CS. This would eventually result in an army of Macepults. The entire game would result in just wiping everybody out asap. 6 out of my 7 cities are capable of producing units fast enough for the first push.

1b. Having marble I could stop expanding like crazy and start building wonders and establish a decent core for my empire.
I need to move my capital to Mutal. This is imo an excellent bureau cap with TGL. Carthage will switch to be a HE city and churn out more military and continue with axes, pults, and or jumbo's. Utica and Lakamha can take care of Parthenon and MoM. Hadrumetum will assist Mutal in growing cottages for Mutal and can build workers/settlers eventually. Unfortunately Hippo has no production at all, but could build the NE for an insane amount of scientists. This certainly depends on what I can conquer at the same time. I can produce enough units at a reasonable pace to take Gandhi's cities.
Tech path would look like HBR - Aesthetics - Literature - CoL. I don't know where to fit in Calendar yet.

1c. Settling a few more cities on the other islands and leverage the GLH and unique building (cothon). Mix in colossus for even more coastal commerce.
This is a niche approach on its own, but well suited combined with 1b. I only slow down a bit for a few more settlers and workers for the islands. I need to mix in Metal Casting, IW and Compass.
It can even be done combined with 1a. Only IW and Compass to mix in.
For having so many coastal cities the Colossus and cothon would increase my commerce income by a lot!

1d. All of the above at the same time. Am I greedy to get it all done?

1e. A complete different approach that I did not think about.

Thanks

 

[pigswill]

Decide what victory you want to pursue. You can no doubt do all of the stuff on your bucket list but its not very focused.

 

[sampsa]

1. 1e for me, I'll come back to this.
2. I would not settle islands, but it's reasonable if you pick a peaceful strategy.
3. I wouldn't have built a library, but again that is connected to the grand strategy.
4. I would like to have more, since you have plenty of forest. I would've whipped one in Lakamha. I don't think the lighthouse is a good build there. +1 for 60, sure it will pay back eventually, but an extra worker chopping units pays back much better.
5. I wouldn't move the capital, but that's again connected to question 1.

1.

Spoiler :

So, my way of playing is just to win as quickly and efficiently as I can. You don't need to take this approach, there are many other ways to play. But if you want to end their suffering quickly, I think the techs you need to win this game are (HBR)-medi-ph-monarchy-feudalism. The ability to capitulate makes the conquest a lot faster. After feudalism the need for is nearly zero. Perhaps you have such a huge tech power that you just can't shut it down fast enough (by producing tons of units), and can get MC-mach-engineering in time. Catapults and phants are strong enough to take down even AIs with feudalism (which they won't have in a long time). I would not build any buildings, only units. With the I think I'd launch a golden age, even if it's not massively useful. Can switch to vassalage+buddhism for free at least and get extra /. Oh one more thing springs into mind - HAs are excellent even if your main stack is the snail of death (cats+phants+axes).

 

[Tonny]

Thank you both for your input. The key lesson here is to stay focused and pursue that without any detour.

1. 1e for me, I'll come back to this.

Spoiler :

I like your plan!
Although I've done some things that did slow down that approach a bit, it is still "only" monarch difficulty.

2. I would not settle islands, but it's reasonable if you pick a peaceful strategy.
3. I wouldn't have built a library, but again that is connected to the grand strategy.
4. I would like to have more, since you have plenty of forest. I would've whipped one in Lakamha. I don't think the lighthouse is a good build there. +1 for 60, sure it will pay back eventually, but an extra worker chopping units pays back much better.
5. I wouldn't move the capital, but that's again connected to question 1.

Spoiler :

If I understand this well... I could do all of this, but that is the peaceful approach. When going to war all the time I should forget the peaceful approach.

 

[pigswill]

A peaceful approach is also fine, you just have to decide on which victory you're pursuing and focus research and production to achieving the victory. This applies just as much to culture or space as it does to conquest. But doing a bit of everything makes it harder to achieve anything.

 

[Tonny]

But doing a bit of everything makes it harder to achieve anything.

I totally agree with you.

 

[Tonny]

Having a brainfreeze

Spoiler :

I could still Oracle Feudalism if I'm lucky.
If not... It's at least failgold.