[BTS] How to play Stalin effectively? (Monarch level training)

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Hello altogether,

I view myself as a solid monarch player, knowing how to build cities, creating wonders. I am unexperienced at how to use specialists effectively. So it works for monarch and it works even for the K-Mod, which changes the AI a bit.

So, well, I want to work with you through a game and gather some input of better players now
I like Stalin for being aggressive and industrious, which matches with early warfare and my love of wonders.

But how to get a good start with him?
He needs actually masses of techs, which makes priorizing hard. He lacks in commerce-oriented techs.

I a normal game we need:
- Agriculture and/or animal husbandry => food (of course)
- Roads and Pottery for commerce
- Mysticism, thenafter going into priesthood for early Oracle
- Bronze working for early warfare

So thats a bit much. But let's see a real game... second posting

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

1. First Game

Map:
Tectonics, Small, 5 factions

Game:
K-Mod, no tribals, no random events

1.1. Starting position

So I get a plains hill at start and one where my scout is standing with 2 floodplains.

I decide for founding the city where my scout stands. Moving scout SE-SE. to get known the land

First question: Would you do the same?

Here's the result:

O my god. South is Augustus Caesar, east is Victoria, both in border battle. Important are the elephants.
From south there's an early strong UU.

So I plan now:
1. Agriculture, setting up farms at the wet corn and on one floodplain
2. Archery for defence, building archers in every free time, trying to steal a worker
3. Mysticism, followed by masonry, thenafter polytheism, priesthood and pushing Oracle for the culture, getting monarchy
4. Thenafter bronze working, expanding northwards
5. Thenafter pottery

What are your thoughts about this plan?

What would you do at my position?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

- Mysticism, then after going into priesthood for early Oracle
- Bronze working for early warfare

3. Mysticism, followed by masonry, thenafter polytheism, priesthood and pushing Oracle for the culture, getting monarchy
4. Thenafter bronze working, expanding northwards

You need to pick a lane - Religious line for Oracle or BW for early warfare. Looking at this map, given the leader you picked, Mys / Mas / Poly / PHood is a mistake. I wouldn't bother with archery either, Agriculture then BW and go kill your neighbours.

 

[sampsa]

So I plan now:
1. Agriculture, setting up farms at the wet corn and on one floodplain
2. Archery for defence, building archers in every free time, trying to steal a worker
3. Mysticism, followed by masonry, thenafter polytheism, priesthood and pushing Oracle for the culture, getting monarchy
4. Thenafter bronze working, expanding northwards
5. Thenafter pottery

What are your thoughts about this plan?

Why are you obsessing with Oracle? Like you say, Stalin doesn't have the best starting techs and only IND points towards Oracle, very slightly. Delaying BW and pottery are massive sacrifices. I have no idea about K-mod though and don't know if it changes something that is relevant.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

K-mod though and don't know if it changes something that is relevant.

With K-mod the AI is very aggressive so delaying BW is even less of a good idea, although it does make Archery a better idea - hadn't thought of that.

 

[konata_LS]

Some mods might change things dramatically. For example in unmodded BTS people don't bother building many Markets, but in GEM mod ("Kaitzilla vs. the world" is an example) Currency doesn't automatically give +1 trade route, and people need Market to have +1 trade route in a city. I've never played K-Mod, so unfortunately I'm unable to help you.

About the Oracle: Oracle can only give you 1 free tech. But you can get much more techs from AI if you use correctly "extorsion economy": for example, a Deity player, @ Fish Man, used Aggressive Phalanxes and got at least 6 or 7 from a peace treaty with an AI.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Some mods might change things dramatically. For example in unmodded BTS people don't bother building many Markets, but in GEM mod ("Kaitzilla vs. the world" is an example) Currency doesn't automatically give +1 trade route, and people need Market to have +1 trade route in a city. I've never played K-Mod, so unfortunately I'm unable to help you.

That's not a huge problem. K-Mod makes AI more aggressive, expanding a bit more intelligent. Some differences in the other culture output of some buildings, and some little changes in the civics (vassalship gets -25% upkeep for example). I think on monarch level the most advices stay the same. You just cannot assume that the AI is dumb ;-)

About the Oracle: Oracle can only give you 1 free tech. But you can get much more techs from AI if you use correctly "extorsion economy": for example, a Deity player, @ Fish Man, used Aggressive Phalanxes and got at least 6 or 7 from a peace treaty with an AI.

Little Question: When I get some cheap techs from the AI by peace treatment, then it could trigger WFYABTA ?
I tried to develop most cheap techs for myself instead of trading to prevent that in my last games. So getting 6-7 techs could be a brutal gain in WFYABTA, isn't it?

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

1.2. Going into Agri and Bronze

@NobleZarkon, @konata, @sampsa:

Thanks for your advice. So I will go directly into Agriculture and BW, skipping the Oracle.
I now have the problem to find Copper. What would you do, when there's no copper at first?

My thought is to develop Archery, thenafter Wheel, Pottery, Masonry to get commerce up.

To get known about the land, I scouted the hill south of victoria first:

So london seems to be a strong material city, having an additional solid commerce supply, and the area south of london can be very strong in commerce.

What would you do with the scout now?

A) Sending to Augustus to get information about his land
B) Sending directly northwards to get information about possible copper resources?

_____________________

Plan for city building at start:

It seems that the city can progress until 6 civ. I cannot plan the elephants, cause Victoria will get it first. Only question is: Will I really build the farm on the floodplains or not?

______________________

Last question:

I read, that some find some useful information from the demographics screen. I post the relevant parts.

End turn 2:

Start turn 3:

This way I see:
- Everyone settled for now
- I am the only one having a city on plains hill, giving a little bit more production
- The most players have no strong food tiles in the inner cross (I have 2 and additional 2 more in the BFC)
- One AI switched from to +2
- My commerce is bad, meaning I will be behind in tech development for a longer time

Unclear:
- Soldiers have differences - what does that mean?
- There's just one other player who has only land tiles. The 8000 seems to be a coast, maybe the 8250 Victoria?
- It seems to show not the average, but the median in the 3rd column? (look at the goods line!)

But for what could this information be useful?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Don't have much time right now but the scout's job is to unfog everything around your capital to find coper and help you plan more cities. Scouting out other lands is very low priority right now.

 

[sampsa]

What would you do, when there's no copper at first?

Either go archery or defend with warriors. I don't know if the latter is a real option with this mod. Anyway, the point of BW is not to get copper, it is to unlock both chopping and whipping.

My thought is to develop Archery, thenafter Wheel, Pottery, Masonry to get commerce up.

I don't know about masonry, it's not very useful.

What would you do with the scout now?

First duty with your starting unit is to find the location of your 2nd city. Revealing enemy land has very little purpose. You can scout that at open borders.

Plan for city building at start: It seems that the city can progress until 6 civ. I cannot plan the elephants, cause Victoria will get it first. Only question is: Will I really build the farm on the floodplains or not?

I wouldn't improve the marble, masonry is expensive and marble is useless for now. After you farm the corn, if you don't have access to chopping you should start farming a floodplain. I don't build mines, but maybe the plains hill mine is ok here. Alternative is cottages.

But for what could this information be useful?

Nothing much.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Soldiers have differences - what does that mean?

Someone could have a unique unit, or start with Hunting like you.

But for what could this information be useful?

Some people can make amazing deductions but at Monarch I wouldn't worry about it.

I don't build mines

I do, as long as you have enough food to work it so yes I would be farming the FPs at the moment until you get Pottery.

masonry is expensive and marble is useless for now.

IMO Marble is a nice productive tile but I would rather get the religous techs (Myst/Masonry/Poly/Med/Mono) from the AI once you have Alphabet.

 

[Fippy]

Think i would go Wheel - Pottery after Agri.
BW is good but they are just Monarch AIs and shouldn't be that fast or dangerous early (even with K-Mod).

You have 3 floodplains and cottages on them would make everything else faster soon.
+ Moscow is good enuf without early chopping
+ Floodplains farming feels like a waste of time with this Cap, worker could road towards city 2 (go scout go) until he can cottage.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Listen to @Fippy, she is the best

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

OK, thanks altogether.

I decide:
- Delaying Masonry
- Scouting the north now

First Question: Research

Then there are 3 real possibilities now:

A) Agri -> BW -> whip second city, possibly near copper
B) Agri -> Wheel -> Pottery
C) Agri -> Wheel -> BW

I would intuitively decide for A, cause without a second city roads won't have an effect. Farming the floodplains is disputable. Maybe I just farm the plains near the river?

Let's do some maths:

Worker finish in 11 + 1 turn movement + 5 turns farm = 17 turns
Agriculture in 7 turns, 10 turns left.

Pottery needs ~16 turns (don't know about the beakers bonus by agri), the worker could immediately build roads.
Bronzeworking needs ~13 turns, the worker needs to do "something" for 3 turns, before he can chop.

Roads mean, that less wood will grow for chopping.

Let's try it out in both variants.

Second Question: Build order

Would you prefer

Worker-Worker-Warrior-Settler or
Worker-Warrior-Settler here?

And why?

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

1.2.A. Agri-BW

Here's the situation when Wheel starts:

No Copper - which could be expected. It needs13 turns now to get Pottery, but I can chop and whip now.
When would you change to slavery? Immediately?

1.2.B. Agri-Pottery (Thanks @Fippy)

Here's the situation when BW starts. Theres a road NW and a road 2N2W

Result

Now for me I think, variant B is stronger. Commerce is more important for commerce-lacking Stalin. When there were Copper, I had the possibility to whip/chop some early axes to get the second city by conquering instead of settling. But it was not likely in terms of probability. But what do you think?

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

So, let's progress. I scouted the northern area and thenafter the coast in the west:

Victoria has elephant and 2 cows, Augustus has 2 elephants, 2 cows and 2 unknown tiles. Augustus has no room to spread, means early warfare. I do 100% of esp now into Augustus.

The northern area is not that strong. It is an OK commerce area, but not strong in hammers.

For a second city I found the spots A,B,C. Which would you choose? Or would you settle more northwards?

Victoria has improved the elephant, means it could be an idea to plan Writing and conquering the area by a library, getting additional bulbs too.
Other plan is to go into IW as fast as possible and try to kill Augustus. Then a second city oriented in commerce is not that helpful...

What would you do?

 

[jnebbe]

I'd probably instinctively go AH next in hopes of finding horses, but it's a pretty big gamble since it puts you in a commerce hole if you haven't gotten pottery yet.
I don't know exactly how trading strategic resources works but gifting a city and trading for ivory -> elepult might work. I think Ai needs to have a surplus of strategic resource so you'd want to gift a city to augustus.
If all else fails you could try some funky archer/catapult attack. It might fail spectacularly but it sounds fun
edit: you have marble+IND, perhaps go for the fabled oracle-feudalism into longbow rush???

 

[Noble Zarkon]

For a second city I found the spots A,B,C. Which would you choose? Or would you settle more northwards?

I'd probably instinctively go AH next in hopes of finding horses

Stalin is AGGressive so you want to be using melee units, which means you can't decide on a location for city 2 until BW is in.

 

[Snowygerry]

Yes - I think option 1.2.A in post 15 there reveals there is no copper near no ?

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Stalin is AGGressive so you want to be using melee units, which means you can't decide on a location for city 2 until BW is in.

But what would you do, when no copper is available? At some point you need to decide and delaying the second city may be no good strategy. Copper could be opened at the 3rd city too. In general I wouldn't plan with copper, seeing it just as a nice to have. Planning with iron or maybe horses seem to be easier.

Here we see, that no copper is available without paying massive upkeep and building a far away city in the north.

_______________

So these are the research possibilities:

(1) BW -> Writing (for rushing library, getting the eles and foreign trade routes, the borders then let me look into Augustus city)
(2) BW -> AH -> Writing (for seeing if there are horses and improving the cows)
(3) AH -> BW (gamble for horses, immediately improve of the cows near spot A, finding maybe better place for second city)

Religional research seems to be far too slow for now.

I tend to option (1), building second city at spot A.