cheffster
Deity
I've had some free time on my hands and have played a little further.
Spoiler :
King of the World, Open game, Chapter I :Hatshepsut
- Thread starter r_rolo1
- Start date
My monarch game is almost at the point where I want to replay it. The save is attached if anyone wants to take a gander, sorry for the lack of any SS but my imageshack account was getting a little crowded and I need to clean it up. (It's a 3.13 save I believe, it's also huge earth so make sure your PC can handle it!)
It's 1890 and I am researching Industrialism, on my way to what I thought was a domination win, but Qin has just become too damn powerful. I own half of Europe (Qin has the western half, oddly enough) and 70% of Africa, (Cyrus vassalized Mansa while I was taking him over, another tactical error on my part) and I am at around 1000 beakers per turn with about 15 or 16 cities. I have been very slow in my tech pace for the last 3/4 of the game, which is another reason I am not too pleased with this one and want to try a different route next round. I never really built many universities, observatories, banks, etc., as I was going mostly military from 1300's onwards and I never really had many cities until I took over Europe.
Qin just vassalized Catherine, who I was beating up and trying to vassalize myself, and he has rocketry so I am sure he is building the apollo program. If I didn't have to worry about the space race I'd just sit back and relax and wait until I had a massive enough force to take over the entire continent (which is what I would have to do if I went to war with Qin- he practically controls everything besides Europe and Africa) but I don't want to take the chance that I'd play out another 100 turns and lose to a space race.
As for general strategy with this map: Hatty's start is deceptively difficult. I say "deceptive" because it seems great to have FP, marble, stone, and horses, but in reality the unhealthiness and lack of any good sites other than the initial two or three cities on the floodplains makes it not as good as one would think. It becomes a production powerhouse once you settle all the plains hills on the southern end of the continent (and US helps immensely) but it takes some time to get things rolling to the point where you are really churning out units. (I am at that point now, but its just too much of a time investment to make without really being positive I am going to win.)
I think I should have farmed more of the FP's and gone with a specialist economy from the beginning, and tried to take over Europe quicker to get some of the good grassland for a late switchover to CE. Therefore a move two places north by the beginning settler to settle thebes on the coast is a wiser move, because this allows me to build galleys to transport troops over the Europe quicker than having to go to Carthage and settle that area in order to get a navy up and running. Taking over Saladin is also risky and difficult as he is protective and has CG 4 archers on all of his hill cities, which is an absolute nightmare. All in all I think a redo with a northern push coupled with an earlier destruction of Mansa is the way to go for me. I'll give this a try and report back.
And nice game so far cheffster, your methods to really max out your beakers in all your cities is impressive.
It's 1890 and I am researching Industrialism, on my way to what I thought was a domination win, but Qin has just become too damn powerful. I own half of Europe (Qin has the western half, oddly enough) and 70% of Africa, (Cyrus vassalized Mansa while I was taking him over, another tactical error on my part) and I am at around 1000 beakers per turn with about 15 or 16 cities. I have been very slow in my tech pace for the last 3/4 of the game, which is another reason I am not too pleased with this one and want to try a different route next round. I never really built many universities, observatories, banks, etc., as I was going mostly military from 1300's onwards and I never really had many cities until I took over Europe.
Qin just vassalized Catherine, who I was beating up and trying to vassalize myself, and he has rocketry so I am sure he is building the apollo program. If I didn't have to worry about the space race I'd just sit back and relax and wait until I had a massive enough force to take over the entire continent (which is what I would have to do if I went to war with Qin- he practically controls everything besides Europe and Africa) but I don't want to take the chance that I'd play out another 100 turns and lose to a space race.
As for general strategy with this map: Hatty's start is deceptively difficult. I say "deceptive" because it seems great to have FP, marble, stone, and horses, but in reality the unhealthiness and lack of any good sites other than the initial two or three cities on the floodplains makes it not as good as one would think. It becomes a production powerhouse once you settle all the plains hills on the southern end of the continent (and US helps immensely) but it takes some time to get things rolling to the point where you are really churning out units. (I am at that point now, but its just too much of a time investment to make without really being positive I am going to win.)
I think I should have farmed more of the FP's and gone with a specialist economy from the beginning, and tried to take over Europe quicker to get some of the good grassland for a late switchover to CE. Therefore a move two places north by the beginning settler to settle thebes on the coast is a wiser move, because this allows me to build galleys to transport troops over the Europe quicker than having to go to Carthage and settle that area in order to get a navy up and running. Taking over Saladin is also risky and difficult as he is protective and has CG 4 archers on all of his hill cities, which is an absolute nightmare. All in all I think a redo with a northern push coupled with an earlier destruction of Mansa is the way to go for me. I'll give this a try and report back.
And nice game so far cheffster, your methods to really max out your beakers in all your cities is impressive.
cheffster
Deity
I personally didn't find the start difficult at all once I settled my second city to the far west where I had access to fish/sheep to raise the initial health cap. My capital was settled 1NW of start to avoid the initial unhealthly citizen at pop1. I also took mathematics from building the orace (which i rarely do) in order to build aqueducts and hanging gardens asap, my health was fine since then.
I usually cottage spam almost all my tiles, but this game I decided to try balancing towns with workshops, (+4hammers with caste system), and keep representation and settle/hire loads of specialists. Floodplains with castesystem/leeve/SP, give a whopping +3
, +5
+1
, my military city has taken full advantage of this. I also built UoS, SM, and AP, and then expanded as fast as possible to build those cheap temples in each city that give +2,
, 
. I founded islam, built a shrine and spread it to most of my cities too keep up my flow.After building some infastructure, I conquered Musa thus claiming the entire african continent. I then ventured overseas to hook up some much needed corn that was availible in South America. Then the Persians and some other civs declared war on me, but by this time I had calvary/rifles to fend off their maceman/muskets/trebs, and soon after I massed infantry and did some serious conquest. Qui Shang however kept making other civs his vassals so the war waged on for a long time and he is still quite powerfull. I didnt bother conquering europe yet, but I did make some nice $ pickups (see ss's)
Once I hit about 1600AD, i started to slack on the time consuming micromanagement so alot of improvements/buildings aren't ideal since I set most workers on auto and put building in the production que for my less important cities.
I founded sid's sushi, but I still think adopting SP is best for now since I have lots of workshops and distant cities and +10%hammers is not to be taken lightly. I might switch to FM later if I can found Mining inc.
Here's my SS"s (most of em from my current date of 1806)
Spoiler :
I settled that city as well (the Carthage city site in the 24 civ version) but it's a ways away and not exactly the ideal 2nd city site due to its distance. It was my 3rd city I believe.
However, on my second run I've found that heading east to Israel/Palestine for your 2nd city nabs you some sheep and some wine, and it is close enough to be a good second city site. It also has 2 dye, and 1 FP if you put the city in the right spot, plus some hills and forests for chopping. It also boxes in Saladin. Finally, it lacks any culture pressures from Spain and Rome.
I think my problem at the get go of my first game was I settled my second city directly south on the floodplains so I had zero production coming out of it.
I guess "difficult" wasn't the right word as it's not exactly hard to get things going if you do it right. I just don't think it's as great a start as it seems at first glance. Also, Africa isn't the best continent in general in the beginning due to the low food and massive amounts of jungle. IMHO the best start on the map is China. China is always a powerhouse in every incarnation of the Earth map.
My second attempt at monarch. Normal speed, update circa 780 AD
Spoiler :
r_rolo1
King of myself
Nice game illram... better than mine ( that is stuck somewhere in turn 180ishs ( had a small car acident: no injuries but had all the car issue to resolv ( a new bumper, new lights,.... ) ) And nice luck with the barb ( this is BtS : anything can happen 
)
)
Morgrad
Attack Rodent
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2007
- Messages
- 367
I agree! Nice game so far, Illram!
There is some killer land in Africa that needs settlin' - south Africa with gems/iron/copper/crab all in one city, and just a heapin'-helpin of jungle that needs to be cleared, and we all know what tons of grassland is good for.
I also agree 100% about Europe - if you're going to attack it, be prepared to take all of it (though you can let England pass - not too much cultural push once you get Paris cranking out the notes, and Liz is easy to keep happy and a good tech-trading partner).
There is some killer land in Africa that needs settlin' - south Africa with gems/iron/copper/crab all in one city, and just a heapin'-helpin of jungle that needs to be cleared, and we all know what tons of grassland is good for.
I also agree 100% about Europe - if you're going to attack it, be prepared to take all of it (though you can let England pass - not too much cultural push once you get Paris cranking out the notes, and Liz is easy to keep happy and a good tech-trading partner).
On my way to domination win. Update circa 1927
Spoiler :
r_rolo1
King of myself
Well, you really got Cyrus with his pants down... Rifles vs tanks + arties is not a fair fight . But India and China can be troublesome....
. But India and China can be troublesome....
cheffster
Deity
My game is progressing quite nicely.
I cripled the Chinese economy by blockading all their costal cities. On other fronts my tanks are making gradual progress on world conquest:
I cripled the Chinese economy by blockading all their costal cities. On other fronts my tanks are making gradual progress on world conquest:
Spoiler :
i just played a new game. i was set to have annihilated mansa, saladin, AND cyrus by turn 90, until a motherf#$@$%% barbarian uprising of 6-7 SPEARMEN! i mean WTH 
. luckily i was able to hold mecca despite defending against 4 spearmen with soley war chariots 
. I made the mistake of going for mansa first i think. I think i should have gone for saladin first, then alex and cyrus. they are a lot closer, and mansa has such terrible land.
hmm my game froze so I think i'm going to start another game and this time not screw up/get pwned by barbarian random events. This time i'm going to go straight for saladin and cyrus, or possibly go all the way up to alex. my goal is to get around a 1600 AD domination victory on emperor. however, i doubt i will actually be able to play it all the way through unless I get a MUCH better computer to play on
.
. luckily i was able to hold mecca despite defending against 4 spearmen with soley war chariots . I made the mistake of going for mansa first i think. I think i should have gone for saladin first, then alex and cyrus. they are a lot closer, and mansa has such terrible land.hmm my game froze so I think i'm going to start another game and this time not screw up/get pwned by barbarian random events. This time i'm going to go straight for saladin and cyrus, or possibly go all the way up to alex. my goal is to get around a 1600 AD domination victory on emperor. however, i doubt i will actually be able to play it all the way through unless I get a MUCH better computer to play on
.Well I replayed the game and the war in the middle east went much better. though when i went into greece, my war chariots and swordsmen broke on the spartan city. my chariots just couldnt stand up against crossing a river to attack a city on a hill . but other than that this is going to be a very fun and challenging game from the looks of it. Qin Shi is keeping up with me in points and is close behind in GNP. I'm still not sure if I'll be able to get the 1600 dom/conquest win, but it's looking like it. even with capture 4 cities very quickly, i was able to pull off a CoL slingshot via the oracle. I've also built the parthenon, GLib, Chicken pizza, and SoZ. europe is very ripe ATM, so I may just go into europe and ignore the rest of africa and let mansa fill it in for me. however, he has some very mature cottages now, so it may be worth it to nab those cities for the boost to research. he's also researching at a pretty fast rate.
right now i'm on the path to construction, and then i'm going to probably try for CS/Machinery and then military tradition via liberalism slingshot. I plan on taking over Asia with cavs. I still have no idea what city i should make my HE/WP city. I already settled one GG in my capital, and have one saved atm. europe is doing a lot of war with Caesar so there will probably be a pretty nice city with GG's settled already. I think i'll save him until i conquer europe and make one of those very nice cities it. anyway, here are some pictures
. I think for an early domination victory, that settling africa is probably a bad idea. later on when you can produce settlers in one turn, it becomes much easier to finish settling africa. the only probably is taking care of mansa, and stopping europe from taking it. However, by settling africa, you just give your opponents much more time to advance militarily. that's why it's so important to rush Saladin and Cyrus early. however, by taking out cyrus, a huge void is left in the area that he usually settles, so i'm expecting to face a much large china and russia. hopefully they over expand and stifle their economy, though they will eventually come huge powerhouses if i dont do something about it eventually. China appears to already be the main contender for this entire game. I think i'm going to take a page from your book cheffster and blockade china.
EDIT: a note, you'll see that my soldier count is very low. that's in part because i had very bad losses towards the end against cyrus and alexander. and i've been focusing solely on rebuilding my infrastructure. I think the next x amount of turns I need to build up a huge army that will be able to sweep across europe before most of the countries get long bows.
. but other than that this is going to be a very fun and challenging game from the looks of it. Qin Shi is keeping up with me in points and is close behind in GNP. I'm still not sure if I'll be able to get the 1600 dom/conquest win, but it's looking like it. even with capture 4 cities very quickly, i was able to pull off a CoL slingshot via the oracle. I've also built the parthenon, GLib, Chicken pizza, and SoZ. europe is very ripe ATM, so I may just go into europe and ignore the rest of africa and let mansa fill it in for me. however, he has some very mature cottages now, so it may be worth it to nab those cities for the boost to research. he's also researching at a pretty fast rate. right now i'm on the path to construction, and then i'm going to probably try for CS/Machinery and then military tradition via liberalism slingshot. I plan on taking over Asia with cavs. I still have no idea what city i should make my HE/WP city. I already settled one GG in my capital, and have one saved atm. europe is doing a lot of war with Caesar so there will probably be a pretty nice city with GG's settled already. I think i'll save him until i conquer europe and make one of those very nice cities it. anyway, here are some pictures
. I think for an early domination victory, that settling africa is probably a bad idea. later on when you can produce settlers in one turn, it becomes much easier to finish settling africa. the only probably is taking care of mansa, and stopping europe from taking it. However, by settling africa, you just give your opponents much more time to advance militarily. that's why it's so important to rush Saladin and Cyrus early. however, by taking out cyrus, a huge void is left in the area that he usually settles, so i'm expecting to face a much large china and russia. hopefully they over expand and stifle their economy, though they will eventually come huge powerhouses if i dont do something about it eventually. China appears to already be the main contender for this entire game. I think i'm going to take a page from your book cheffster and blockade china.EDIT: a note, you'll see that my soldier count is very low. that's in part because i had very bad losses towards the end against cyrus and alexander. and i've been focusing solely on rebuilding my infrastructure. I think the next x amount of turns I need to build up a huge army that will be able to sweep across europe before most of the countries get long bows.
Spoiler :
Chickened out and went diplo win, 1965. Got kind of bored so I ended it. (Could have done it earlier but I wanted to persevere...oh well) Certainly not a 1600AD domination win, but I was impressed at how much money you can get spamming corporations to your rivals.
Spoiler :
I'm thinking it's not going to be near 1600. FRANCE just vassalized to CHINA. how are they even friends 
. China is becoming a huge problem fast. they're power is sky rocketing, and my only hope is that they don't bribe their best friends russia to gang up on me too. currently i'm at war with qin shi, frederick, tokugowa, julius caesar, and louis XIV...wiped out alex, about to wipe out julius, and then moving on to either louis or frederick. and only reason why i said 1600 was because i wanted to beat my all time record 
. but in that game i was more than twice 2nd place's score by now...and now mansa just decided to become catherines vassal out of the blue...
so I think my initial thoughts that taking out cyrus would allow qin and catherine to become power houses was right :/
. China is becoming a huge problem fast. they're power is sky rocketing, and my only hope is that they don't bribe their best friends russia to gang up on me too. currently i'm at war with qin shi, frederick, tokugowa, julius caesar, and louis XIV...wiped out alex, about to wipe out julius, and then moving on to either louis or frederick. and only reason why i said 1600 was because i wanted to beat my all time record . but in that game i was more than twice 2nd place's score by now...and now mansa just decided to become catherines vassal out of the blue...so I think my initial thoughts that taking out cyrus would allow qin and catherine to become power houses was right :/
I'm thinking it's not going to be near 1600. FRANCE just vassalized to CHINA. how are they even friends
so I think my initial thoughts that taking out cyrus would allow qin and catherine to become power houses was right :/
Sounds similar to my first game that I quit on monarch; Qin vassalized just about everyone. My second attempt I got lucky in that for some reason Asoka and Genghis put up a good fight on Qin and kept him under control for most of the game.
Any domination win on this map before 1900 is an impressive feat though, I think, particularly with BtS and the additions to the tech tree (notably, no more ridiculously early Cav rushes!). My earliest is 1921 I believe, with China.
shyuhe
Deity
You can still do a cav rush on this map. I finished in 1655 with a score of about 211k. I could have done a lot faster if I had vassalized Qin 100 years earlier... but I wanted to wipe him out because he was being annoying. And I didn't even end up killing him in the end 
Cathy and Toku voluntarily vassalized around 1000 AD (by which time I was preparing to destroy Europe with maces/trebs/knights, quickly followed by cavalry/rifles/cannons. I finished the game after vassalizing Khan and Monty (who took forever). The only non-vassal civs left were Qin and Huayna.
My finishing demographics:
I attached my save file from the turn before victory... but it's a massive 700kb
My game started with a chariot rush of Saladin, Cyrus, and Asoka. I also boxed in Alex (who was destroyed by the other European powers eventually) and I took out Mansa fairly early (he only had 2 cities when I killed him). I then built infrastructure via the AP + SM + UoS for all of my cities (a free 4 hammers, 4 beakers and 4 gold with both a monastery and a temple). After that, I built up a small army of maces, trebs, and knights and started to attack Europe by going Alex --> Caesar --> Frederick (who had killed off Alex, Isabella, and Louis by this point). I got Cathy and Toku as vassals around this time.
Frederick didn't last too long - WW was doing more damage than his army. I then built some boats and quickly took out Liz while I moved my army eastward and started to attack Qin. I took a long time on Qin and eventually just took peace (I didn't want to adopt police state and WW was killing me). I turned around to attack the Americas and wrapped up my domination after that.
The AP was a very useful tool in my game. I used it to start many crusades against the infidels and constantly stopped trades between the AI. That definitely slowed down the overall tech rate as at the end of the game, the most advanced civ was Cathy who was researching military tradition. Toku teched decently (he was at banking) but the others like Monty were still waaaaaay back.
Cathy and Toku voluntarily vassalized around 1000 AD (by which time I was preparing to destroy Europe with maces/trebs/knights, quickly followed by cavalry/rifles/cannons. I finished the game after vassalizing Khan and Monty (who took forever). The only non-vassal civs left were Qin and Huayna.My finishing demographics:
I attached my save file from the turn before victory... but it's a massive 700kb
My game started with a chariot rush of Saladin, Cyrus, and Asoka. I also boxed in Alex (who was destroyed by the other European powers eventually) and I took out Mansa fairly early (he only had 2 cities when I killed him). I then built infrastructure via the AP + SM + UoS for all of my cities (a free 4 hammers, 4 beakers and 4 gold with both a monastery and a temple). After that, I built up a small army of maces, trebs, and knights and started to attack Europe by going Alex --> Caesar --> Frederick (who had killed off Alex, Isabella, and Louis by this point). I got Cathy and Toku as vassals around this time.
Frederick didn't last too long - WW was doing more damage than his army. I then built some boats and quickly took out Liz while I moved my army eastward and started to attack Qin. I took a long time on Qin and eventually just took peace (I didn't want to adopt police state and WW was killing me). I turned around to attack the Americas and wrapped up my domination after that.
The AP was a very useful tool in my game. I used it to start many crusades against the infidels and constantly stopped trades between the AI. That definitely slowed down the overall tech rate as at the end of the game, the most advanced civ was Cathy who was researching military tradition. Toku teched decently (he was at banking) but the others like Monty were still waaaaaay back.
I played another game and went about exactly the same route you did. but instead of massing an arming, i've been building infrastructure. except I got lucky and India was killing by either barbs and seized by china. I also got lucky cause khan had asuccessful war against china and took his capital, thus neutering my only big threat. though frederick is kind of powerful. I'm massing an army of elephants/knights to upgrade to cavs and will see how my. Also, Saladin didnt found hinduism for some reason, but luckily it became the holy city for both confucianism and christianiy.
Nice. I often eat my words on these forums. But I would still say the warlords days of the 1100's era cav rush are over for average players such as myself since you can't grab cavs with liberalism as easily anymore.shyuhe
Deity
If you want to cav rush, you should grab rifling from liberalism and tech MT after that (assuming the AI isn't even close to liberalism). In the meantime, build HA and knights (you may want to keep knights so that you can flank attack enemy trebs). Upgrade as you see fit (economics GM can be useful for this as well), then go to town.
I played it pretty far, but pre-attack phase. I've placed it in my "to play later when i'm at home with my brothers muhc better computer" file since i can't justify playing 20 hrs for a game that can take 6 at home. my research rate was such (thanks to 2 repeated GAs) that I was getting any tech like MT, democracy, etc in 3-5 turns so i decided to take advantage of my research rate to save liberalism. I should plan a trip home soon so i can finish the game . do only fredericks actory UB get 50% increase in production rate with coal?
. do only fredericks actory UB get 50% increase in production rate with coal?Similar threads
