[BTS] Improving My First Attempt at a Quechua Rush

[MonkeyBusiness]

Hey there,

Long time lurker here. I played Civ4 a bunch ages ago and used this forum extensively to improve at the game.

But I'm now getting back into the game (no other strategy game comes close, imo).

I used to be a pretty competent player (Emperor was generally winnable, but Deity kicked my but ), and would generally focusing on conquest / domination victories.

But lately, I've been trying to expand my skills by trying different things so that I can win with any leader on any map.

I recently read up on and tried a Quechua rush. It took a bit of trial and error (it's pretty different from an AxeRush), but after landing a pretty good map, I gave it a crack with the attached saves.

Background
The start was awesome. Lots of hammers with Size 1 city, so started spamming Quechua's right away. No workers, no barracks (until after Suleiman).

I nailed the rush (a first for me) - I killed Suleiman early (despite him being defensive) and captured a holy city in the process (although don't have any preist points so the shrine will have to wait).

I then focused on Hannibal, starting my attack just as his cities hit 40% cultural defense. It would have been nice to be a few turns earlier, but I managed to topple him anyways.

The problem
After the good start, I then followed a REX plan, not putting in too many cities, but rather picking good spots.

Now, that I've done that, I feel that my Civ has been stagnating a bit too long while I'm trying to get my economy under control.

This is the area I'm looking for tips on improving, but I'm open to any and all tips on the game thus far.

Since the early conquest and REX I haven't really been able to get my slider above 30% science. And I don't have CoL yet for Caste System.

What could I have done better?

I ignored a lot of the smaller back fill techs and bee lined for Aesthetics (to spam wonders) and Math (on my way to catapults and to help chop wonders from aethetics). Was this a mistake?

I managed to trade for most of these smaller techs, but perhaps could have been a bit smarter about things.

I think I've probably neglected happiness resources a bit - there are lots, but they generally require calendar or monarchy to improve. I'm not sure if / where / how i could have prioritized these techs earlier (before aethetics, since the happiness would help build / chop / whip the wonders?). What other options do I have for happiness so my cities could get bigger and better utilize the Financial trait?

I definitely should have made sure that I had expanded to include some elephants so I could Elepult Egypt as my next target, but I was too slow to think of this so didn't get there in time.

I have older saves along the way that I can upload if you'd like. But I've attached the start and my current position.

The game is 100% winnable. But I think I could have improved my 'economy stabilization' phase.

Any tips on how I could get my research slider higher sooner would be appreciated.

I feel like by 200AD I should have another stack attacking my neighbors again (if conquest is the goal), but I wanted to get my economy running properly again. (I should I have done this anyway and relied on pillage gold instead of taxes?)

Other tips?
Also, given the civ, the map, the cities, etc. - what other victories (aside from conquest / domination could I look for? I could probably aim for theology and built the apostolic palace and go for diplomatic using a minor religion. Culture is probably a bit late, since I missed so many early wonders. Space race would also work, but I've got a lot of aggressive neighbors, so I may as well prepare to wipe them out. Any thoughts and suggestions on this would be appreciated to.

But really anything else would be apreciated too (city placement, for example).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Pangaea]

Have you read this thread? If you haven't, DO
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ace-strategies-from-a-10-year-veteran.574724/

A great bunch of tips about playing with the cheesy Incas, including loads of micro tricks and ways to use the Quechuas. It's easy to crash the economy when you capture a pile of cities early on, but 30% is not a crashed economy. -100 at 0% is more like it

Do keep in mind, though, that this game is on Marathon speed, which greatly extends the shelf-life of Quechuas, which makes it easier to pull off many city captures than on faster settings.

 

[MonkeyBusiness]

Thanks for the link. It looks like a treasure trove of info.

The goal of the thread is super ambitious - "my goal is actually to aim for a BC spaceship landing"

I think the Wonder Bread economy is what I was looking for to get my economy running.

I just get the impression that I should have been able to conquer much more of the map by the time of the second save. But I think I was too focused on technologies wihtout really getting my economy / science running propoerly.

 

[sampsa]

I think the Wonder Bread economy is what I was looking for to get my economy running.

You are likely in for a disappointment. Marathon is a LOT different than normal speed, and while fail from wonders is useful also on normal, it's difficult to base your game around like in WT:s marvelous space game.

If you haven't looked at Lain's youtube-games, I heartily recommend them. There are tons of things you can learn from them. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBiPHqnZ3mwIqtraltox6jg

 

[Lennier]

Not to take anything away from his accomplishment, but be aware that WT used mapfinder to generate a lot of maps so he could get a truly awesome start. I think many of his tricks would be less effective on a "normal" map. Getting some failgold from whipping into wonders that you have the multiplier for will pay off, but the payoff is delayed until someone builds the wonder.

 

[5tephen]

I think you need Buffy too? No gold overflow in unmodded BTS?