Monarch Student II - Climbing from Prince (Joao II)

[djvandrake]

This is actually why I love playing these games, because I learn so much from them. After seeing TMIT's approach (edit..) I really learned a different perspective and maybe a different approach the next time one of these is hosted. It's what makes these games so valuable in terms of improving.

Very much agree. I'm already looking forward to the next one. Even consdiering giving the game as Pacal a shot too, although I really don't like Pacal.

 

[michmbk]

Monarch/Epic to 1130 AD:

Spoiler :

When I last left off, I had beaten down Hannibal and captured his capital. I decided I was low on units, and really needed to try to beat Brennus to all the nice juicy land to the west. So I got peace from Hannibal - let me digress by saying I'm playing this while watching the national title game. With that as background, idiot me just gave Hanny peace for nothing - didn't even try to exploit a tech. I decided I'd finish him later on after I rexed.

I switched to settlers in three cities, and moved my axes and two workers down to get ready to escort them. Whipped them all FAST and RACED to the west...



Say hello to three new cities (I forgot to take a screenie right when settling - sorry, and notice the city ruins - the barbs had a size 2 city there..since I brought along 6 axes with my settlers, why not take a pit stop and beat up some barbs. Also notice the crashing economy - I limped to currency big time - was on 0% research, using scientists, and hunting for every last coin to avoid strike. Met some new friends, Zara, Washington, and Hammy, and saw Zara was in the tech lead, with Suleiman up there as well. Once I hit currency, I could feel the tide turning. First things first...



That feels like a LONG way off at 20% tech...better backfill some techs and get some gold so I can get my courthouses.



Hated to trade currency, but had like 6 workers chopping trees out west at the time, so i thought the 50% extra from chopping would come in handy as I try to build those cities.



Sure, Hannibal, you can have alphabet - use it to write your will when I come back.



I wanted the gold, and wanted to get closer to mono and Brenny's favorite civic. Normally I would have minimal interest in these techs this late, but I want Brenny pleased for now.



Did I mention I hated to trade currency, but happy faces until I get calendar and more gold are nice things for my economy. The game is turning in my favor, and then...



Why hello nice barbarian city size 5 with 2 gems, bananas, cows, hills and spices. Please come and join our portuguese family, you shall be rewarded with my forbidden palace at some point. I have no idea why the celts left you alone, but I certainly appreciate it. Got to code of laws, then teched calendar for all that nice dye, the bananas, and the spices. Needed to keep teching at a deficit, so did this...



I'm trading a bit more than I like at this point, but I have one eye on the football game, and am impatient, because I know once I lay down the courthouses and start getting some resources up for happy faces, trading them for cash, my economy will be rocking, and all this land will vault me ahead. Then, another pleasant surprise. I had forgotten about this random event popping up, so nice to see a good random event after those stupid slave revolts. Thankfully no more of those revolts tonight.




I seemed to have all the bad breaks last night when i rushed hannibal, I was ready to give up - tonight, everything seems to be going my way. Time to beeline lib. I'm behind, so I figure I have to skip civil service, and try to backfill it just before I hit lib. My goal at this point is the lib/nationalism slingshot into Taj, and civic changes galore. I have little fear about Washington beating me there, so.....



Hello catapults and elephants. Hanny, have you made arrangements with your next of kin? We're coming...in hindsight here, I should have traded for theology instead - manually researching that was dumb in the lib race. A funny shot:



I found this screenshot humorous - my army of workers. I think I have 12 total in the picture, because 4 are pairs and 4 are singles. I have 3 more on the other side. It takes a lot of workers to clear all this land, yes it does.

And then, here's an example of a mistake. This was a dumb trade - I have no use for horse archers when I have elephants and cats. Not enough gold in the deal to make it worthwhile.



Suleiman then comes in and wants philosophy.



Wonder if he's going to beat me to lib with this. Probably not - I assume he and the others will all divert to nationalism. I had forgotten about metal casting (again, I'm watching the game too), and 100 gold helped some deficit funding. I was also a bit too agressive with the whip in Lisbon. Should have kept it growing and kept scientists running, because I didn't pop a GS in time to bulb half of education. I might lose the lib race.

So my force is ready to go finish Hanny. He had two cities, it took 2 turns - here I'm taking hungry hungry hippo...



And here's where I cut off. I'm about 12 turns from lib, no one else has education, but no one wants to trade me civil service either. Plus, I think Suleiman is 6 turns from nationalism, so Taj is going to be a race I think. There's marble out west, but I can't quite get my borders to pop to pick it up. Since there's gold right with it, even though the site isn't optimal pre-biology, I may throw a settler there real quick to hook up marble, because Suleiman doesn't have marble. Might be only chance to beat him to Taj.

Here's my empire - 13 cities. My big decision when I pick up tomorrow is whether or not to tech civil service, or tech liberalism and hope someone's ready to trade. Think I'll at least take liberalism down to 1 turn and then see if someone's ready, because if I don't trade for civil service, I don't think I'll be able to beat Suleiman to Taj. But in any case, my cottages are all growing, my research rate is good, and I have a ridiculous amount of land. Suleiman and Brennus are pleased and friendly, so I'm in good shape with them. Zara is annoyed, but I think he's unlikely to attack with my tech and power situation.



Oh yeah, and I'm building the AP to get all those nice buddhist hammers. Brennus and I are buddhist buddies, so one of us will win the election for sure. Still unsure about victory plans. Either thinking domination or making sushi friends with Suleiman and Brennus for a UN victory. Depends on how long I can play nice with Suleiman and Brennus.

 

[assass1n]

To 40AD -Epic

Spoiler :

Settled 1E
5 hills with exp/imp (with horses after AH)
went agri > bw
copper was just outside BFC so settled city #2 1N of Bananas
met Hannibal and hes quite close so settled a city near his capital which claims ivory,rice and clam
3rd city went 1NE of cows claiming wheat cows and fish
4th went 1NW of iron or somewhere like that with rice in BFC
Hannibal declared on me
My entire stack was in the city near his cap and he promptly suicided it
Then my stack took carthage and another city and I was low on reinforcements so took peace for masonry and maths
Met Suleiman,Washington
Suli founded Hindu Washington is in Buddhism and Brennus just founded Confu
I was going rex but Hanni declared and his capital is great so Brennus is clearing the entire continent of all its jungles for me
I was tops in score until the last turn

 

[gcm4738]

to 1600AD

Spoiler :

Peaceful teching/building up to 1600 or so. I won the race to Liberalism. Picked Nationalism. Built the Taj and the University of Sankore for the extra beakers from my Buddhist buildings. I'm actually doing a reasonable job keeping up in tech for the first time ever - whipped courthouses, markets, grocers, banks, observatories, etc.

The problem is... Brennus has something like 20 cities now. He's huge. Suleiman's #2 They are both pleased. I'm #3 (although surprisingly #2 in land area?) Everyone else hates me. I don't think I've managed diplo all that well. This is a lesson learned because now I'm kind of stuck.

Production is poor. I've got 2 Great Eng stashed ready for the UN, but there's no way (I don't think) I'll will diplo figuring Brennus will vote for himself. I can tech for space, but can't build for it. I don't think I can completely take Brennus out - either militarily or economically.

I needed more land earlier. My espionage has gotten much better this game - also use of mid-game civics. I'm building an army of rifles/cannon/cav to take some of Brennus's land, but I'm not sure how far that will go. He'll be grumpy then.

I really have to read up on managing my diplomatic status. Ready for war, but I can see this one slipping away...

I agree these games are a really good way to learn. I'm in a painful place right now. Prince is too easy, Monarch seems really difficult. I think I'm going to have to get beat on Monarch for a while.

 

[assass1n]

to 1600AD

Spoiler :

Peaceful teching/building up to 1600 or so. I won the race to Liberalism. Picked Nationalism. Built the Taj and the University of Sankore for the extra beakers from my Buddhist buildings. I'm actually doing a reasonable job keeping up in tech for the first time ever - whipped courthouses, markets, grocers, banks, observatories, etc.

The problem is... Brennus has something like 20 cities now. He's huge. Suleiman's #2 They are both pleased. I'm #3 (although surprisingly #2 in land area?) Everyone else hates me. I don't think I've managed diplo all that well. This is a lesson learned because now I'm kind of stuck.

Production is poor. I've got 2 Great Eng stashed ready for the UN, but there's no way (I don't think) I'll will diplo figuring Brennus will vote for himself. I can tech for space, but can't build for it. I don't think I can completely take Brennus out - either militarily or economically.

I needed more land earlier. My espionage has gotten much better this game - also use of mid-game civics. I'm building an army of rifles/cannon/cav to take some of Brennus's land, but I'm not sure how far that will go. He'll be grumpy then.

I really have to read up on managing my diplomatic status. Ready for war, but I can see this one slipping away...

I agree these games are a really good way to learn. I'm in a painful place right now. Prince is too easy, Monarch seems really difficult. I think I'm going to have to get beat on Monarch for a while.

Spoiler :

I think you should have gone in for a medieval war with trebs and taken out Brennus as he would have been busy developing all that jungle

 

[nanomage]

playeed to 1598 AD

Spoiler :

in this game i decided not to cottage, but instead adopt late SE.
reasons were:
1. i captured tons of hannibal's crappy cties, often with 7+ tiles overlapped. The inly feasible way to make use of them was appoimting numerous specialists.
2. i got +2 extra health from cursed herbs event along with +2 from exp trait.
3. i thought i was aiming at UN VC, so i wanted more votes with larger population.
4. i felt obliged to the Great God of Specialist Economy for saving my people after i annexed Carthage, and i decided he is worth worshipping in this game.
5. i generally hate cottages
6. i really love SE

so the techpath was essentially beeline to biology to get those farms and rock. i was farming all green land save for fully mature towns and building those nice anvil-yielding workshops in the brown.
after biology beeline and some trade to backfill i erected infrastructure in my cities and made them grow. changed economy civic to FM. all the world was a lovefest despite religious differences, anf even noone was noones worst enemy.
i was the first to physics and electricity and planning my peaceful win (although spamming cuirassiers to keep power graph up) when
suly made a strange move.
he liberated all his overseas posessions, including 3 towns on my continent, making 3 new civ - byzantium, france under napp, and england under churchill. churchil was next to me.
then he got hammy as voluntary vassal and DoWed washigton, triggering his DP with Zara.
Washigton was enslaved in something like 10 turns, and zara wouldn't stay long too, so i was forced to DoW Suly and all his party (gladly Hammy left it 3 turns before). i upgraded my cuirastack to cav and captured both churchill's cities. now i have a stack of 20 cav's but i fear suly will have rifling by the time i build up enough fleet to take my troops across the channel and raze his capital. (it's but 1 turn to sail, but all i have now afloat is 2galleons and a SotL)
i have a tech lead however and i think i can utilize it to get either infantry or destroyers first.
So my plans are changed- now the only feasible VC seems to be domination after rampaging Suly's core cities while his stack fights zara.
however, maybe a backdoor diplo will come earlier.
screens of tech, my cities and a save follow
View attachment 199715
View attachment 199716
View attachment 199714

 

[nanomage]

this game was surely a ince way to learn
for example, i understood how to overwhip, how to underestimate enemies, how to miss wonders, how to lose circumnavigation race, how to chose wrong tech paths and how to ignore religion completely. i think this game is much like Stalin RPC, which i wanted to play earlier

some positive knowledge was there too, although. i finally understood what is mystical "true specialist economy", that one with slider at 0 as i was forced into it for quite a long time/

 

[assass1n]

To 1385 AD

Spoiler :

I DoWed Hannibal again
Revenge is FUN killed him off though after suffering -1 hits from Suli and Brennus
Brennus went and settled all that nice jungle and his workers were toiling at it for the next 700 years while I built up my army
I got this

took the free Engineer in Cap
DoWed Brennus in 1000ish AD he had Gallic Warriors and Chariots running around and was woefully behind in tech
took Confu Holy city, Capital with Mids,MoM,Chichen Itza and one more wonder which I dont rem
Hanni had already given me HG
Lib was hard to get
used GE for GA and set cities to research pipped Hammy by 2 turns
Took Astro from Lib which was a total waste should have gone Nationalism for Taj
took peace just now and rebuilding stack and going to wipe of Brennus
This game is the first since I stopped playing the lower levels and moved up to Prince that I am tops in everything that matters
Prod, Land and Pop
Also religions in my game turned out very differently
Zara + Hammy = Jew
Suli = Hindu
Washington = Buddhist
Brennus got Confu which helped as no lovefest and no trade whoring

 

[Single Malt]

gcm

Spoiler :

You should have given up lib and went war on Bren as soon as you had siege.

 

[nanomage]

to 1724 ad - dom. victory.

Spoiler :

this time i was overestimating my enemy - suly's units proved to be both few and obsolete. i invaded with an army of cav/rifles, supported by airships. later rifles were upgraded to inf.
well, invaded is a loud word - actually i smuggled them across channel with 2 galeons while his ships were away.
his army turned to be so small, that i even decided to keep his cities - it was easily possible.
It turned out that ai have a very different approach on how to counter rifles and cavalry. In suly's opinion, best counter were nukes, which he was researching all the time.
as i was conquering his land, washington broke free from he again, and i signed peace with wash. then pressed suly to the end, regrouped, dowed wash and capitulated him in a 3-turn war. this gave me 66% of land and a dom victory.
i was researching steam power-assembly line-medicine-fashism, trading with my ally zara to get railroad and something else. I even managed to found sushi, also it would be better to burn merchant+spy for a GA and switch to SP. score screen and a pre-victory save follow
View attachment 199740
View attachment 199741
first time saw a domination movie, btw
great game, great learning, great score too (i suppose)
let's play next on tectonics

however i see now that my game was a sample of poor planning and not utilizing civ's strength.
i have never built a single carrack, about half number of workers operating on my continent were captured, i have built only 13 cities (and about 10 while actually RExing, not backfilling)
i built feitorias, though, prioritizing them much more than usual customs houses. but they do not change much, especially for a building that comes that late (just compare to a dike). So, all in all it was a good game, but Joao II's truly potential remained unrevealed.
the style i played would much better fit leader like JC, nappy of hamurabi

 

[KingMorgan]

Normal to 400AD

Spoiler :

Nice start, headed 1NW with the settler, mainly to work the bananas later on, also in the hope there will be some seafood and i can squezee a prodsuction city in the hills along the coast. I know its a left over habit from Civ 3 but i hate overlap and wasting good hills. From the start it looks like there will not be many hills.



I pop 2 maps and hostiles.




I find what looks like some Celts. Hannibal to the north. Too close for my liking.



Builds are Worker-warr-war-war-worker-settler-stonehenge-war-Oracle

techs Ag-BW-Twh-pot-mys-med-pri-writ-mon- (Oracaled CoL) maths - CS.



First city, bit of a minger. However i felt it important to block Hanni, i'm not keen on AI cities right next to my Cap.



CoL from the Oracle. As the capital is a good bury placement, i'm happy to take CoL other situations may have called for MCast or even Monarcy. As i have self reserached Monarchy, CoL it is. I find it very advantegous to research monarchy resonable soon if there are no happy resources to hand.



Change civics to HR and Slave. Lots of commerce cities and no many hills so slavery will be useful later on.



Easy capture of a barb city, a keeper.



lots of nice land filled with resources, perfect for a REX monster like jaoa.



Typically brennus has to mess it by placing a city, might have to rasie it later. brennus is a weakling at the mo, the only hindu, so later will be a good target, although with all this land peace is a good option.

 

[michmbk]

Monarch/Epic to 1900 and end - I took a lot of screenies early, so this is a long post.

Spoiler :

Ok. My strategy to win from my last update was this: Hit the lib/natlism slingshot into Taj, and then use that golden age to beeline democracy. Hopefully pop a second golden age with a GP shortly thereafter, and get into US, Emancipation, Free speech and let my cottages roll in the dough. If I hit all this - I think it's a big if - the rest of the game should be easy to cruise to domination or diplo. If I don't hit this all, I should still have a good shot at winning, because I have a lot of land, but there's more risk, because suleiman and zara both seem to be doing ok. If the Taj approach fails, my thought is sushi for sure - I've only popped two great people, so I can run merchants for awhile and hopefully get one for sushi - with 15 cities (which is where I expect to be soon), sushi will be tough to stop late game. So here goes.

First off, a settler for the marble, because Suleiman is likely to have a head start on Taj.



If I don't get Taj, this city placement could blow up in my face. But I hope marble, org religion and forge should make Carthage spit out Taj fast, so I hope I can catch up.



I finally got someone to trade civil service...of course, it's suleiman - I hated to give him education still 5 or so turns from lib - but he gave me 4 techs and 200 gold - I felt like I had to do it.

Finished this in Carthage a few turns before lib - figure Brennus or me will win, and the hammers with all my buddhist temples will come in handy in all cities:



Tech to lib, nationalism, and use my marble to start racing out Taj. With Carthage's production power, it was no problem:



Popped this right when the golden age started - he's sleeping for a second GA at democracy. My tech rate is too good to bulb with him.



It suddenly dawned on me that a culture win wouldn't be too tough, because 1) Brennus had spread all his religions to me, so temples and cathedrals would be easy, 2) I was culturebombing Brennus out west with that super barb city, and 3) my capital obviously has plenty of culture. Check out the culture power of the former barb city:



Teched to democracy, used my sleeping GS for a second GA (I love the two golden ages from Taj to Democracy trick), and started building statue for the extra artist, and chose Guimares as my third city to start thinking about culture. I wanted to switch to representation, but Sulei's favorite civic is HR, so I figured he and Brennus are keys to a UN win if I don't go culture, so I stayed in HR. All of a sudden...



The inevitable DOW from Zara and vassal. I was caught with pants down big time, as my units were out west. This was nearly the biggest mistake I made all game. Brennus and I were friendly and I have no happiness issues - why on earth did I have more than 1 unit in any city near Brennus. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Their stack:



Not big, but big enough against a longbow, a maceman and a knight. Of course, the AI's ineptitude at war bailed me out. Instead of attacking my culture city right away (they likely would have taken down my 3 defenders), they went after the reinforcements who were just outside of the city (I couldn't quite reach the city with them in time). So it weakened them enough that I got reinforcements to the city before they could take it. Then I see this:



Sure enough, Suleiman was in WHEOOHRN mode. At pleased??? I guess he's a backstabber. I asked if he could spare 1 gold, which he was nice enough to do, and delayed his potential backstab by 10 turns. Then, I watch him unload units into my land anyway - wonder if he's going after Brennus? That's concerning - I like my BFF Brennus, so I gift Brennus gunpowder just in case.

Brennus and I are hopefully going to be BFFs to the end of the game. Hilariously, Suleiman's troops appear to retreat right back - I'm convinced he was going after Brennus. I pop my sushi merchant, and keep teching toward rifling while waiting for Zara to come back. No chance anyone beats me to statue, and then Carthage starts mass producing units so no one dare fight me again. Then, the happiest moment of my game:





I've been on the other side of this dogpile before, so this is fantastic. I could almost make it succeed by myself. Why yes, I would like to propose that the entire world dogpile Zara. Payback is hell, you better get creative about survival now (pun intended). I love this screen...not just for my cultural pressure on Brennus's city, but the ultimate dogpile on Zara and his vassal.



So my 10 turn peace treaty with Suleiman ends, and sure enougH;





Look closely at the second pic. What really upsets me here is that I see no ships anywhere in sight. I have no idea where on earth he landed these guys, but it's a meaningless stack, because I have a mobile stack 2 turns away. This felt very glitchy - I don't understand where on earth his ships are? Galleons don't move that far in one turn. Maybe he Ctrl-W'ed me and added them in. No big deal, I killed the stack without any problem.

Oh Brennus, I'm sorry, your citizens prefer portuguese culture. There will be no more riverdance in Durnovaria, they shall all sit and admire the Calcada throughout the city.



Finally I finish this - and look, rifling is one turn off, just in time for my heroic epic city to start massing them.



And these next two screen shots show why I'm glad I built the Apostolic Palace.





I figured either I get peace from everybody, or somebody is going to get some angry faces...Suleiman decides he wants angry faces. I'm starting to figure culture is my best hope for a quick finish, because after his backstab, he probably won't like me. So cathedrals are going up everywhere, and sushi is going to carry the day. Did I mention I was popping great merchants? I now have three pretty good GP farms, and they're focusing on merchants. I popped two more (and am still saving my sushi one), so here they are, for the rare back to back trade missions.



Now switching to artists, to hopefully add a few great works, but once sushi hits, i expect culture to go bonkers with all the cathedrals I have in my three main cities. Founded sushi, started spreading it, and beelining to mass media and UN. Forgot to take screenshots, but here's the situation at 1800. Only a matter of time now.



Completed Rock and Roll, UN, Eiffel and Hollywood. Continued spamming artillery and cannons out of Carthage, and signed defensive pact with Brennus. I gifted him every tech I researched, so no way anyone would attack the two of us. All my sushi cities were running artists, and I popped 6 great people the last 100 turns, 5 artists and a spy. Empire in 1900, 1 turn before victory:



I also took a couple shots of the culture pressure on Brennus - I love these. I flipped three of his cities and was beating back his borders big time.





Final stats - first the three cities, and then the score:











Ultimately a pretty nice score. Once I hit Taj and ran basically back to back golden ages, there was little chance of a loss from there, although I could easily have been set back 100 turns if the AI had any common sense in warfare. Zara totally could have razed my culture city if he had been intelligent about it. Early rush and then basically peace the rest of the way, except when I got backstabbed.

 

[gcm4738]

@michmbk

great game... interesting strategy too!



I'm halfway through my big war and it's going ok. 1850 and I'm still gobbling up turf, so maybe I can turn this one around yet...

 

[assass1n]

Edit : posted crap

 

[michmbk]

gcm - thanks. I keep finding that those late cultural victories with sushi are actually pretty easy, as long as you're diligent about spitting out units with at least 1 city. as to your game:

Spoiler :

I was reading up on your issue on diplomacy, and I find the two biggest things about managing diplomacy are religion and favorite civic. I ran organized religion the whole game because it was Brennus's favorite civic. Was also in hereditary rule instead of universal suffrage for quite a while to appease Suleiman. Even though I wanted to be in free religion, it kept Brennus at friendly the whole end of the game.

The thing I need to brush up on is who declares at what level. I need a chart that indicates who will backstab at pleased, friendly, etc...I wasn't expecting a backstab at pleased and sharing favorite civic. Is there something in the strategy articles that lists who declares at what? I know TMIT has committed these things to memory, but I'm not there yet.

 

[gcm4738]

to 1900 or so - retired about middle of the pack

Spoiler :

Not in a bad position. Probably one of my best - if not *the* best Monarch games I've played.

The Good: Kept up or even led at times in tech. Probably a first for me in a Monarch game, and I wasn't even FIN or avoiding war completely. Successfully killed Hannibal early, built a few wonders (don't think I've ever managed this on Monarch either). Managed espionage reasonably - although there's still room for improvement. Took about 1/2 of Brennus's empire by 1850 and was #1 in land at the end (but last in pop due to whipping/drafting!) However, I did whip effectively in this game which really helped. Had a good GP factory (Carthage - Hannibal's old cap) and spit out a lot of GP's which were used - and I'm happy with how they were used. Got 6-7 Great General's too.

The Bad: Did definitely wait too long to do anything about Brennus, that cost me. Bad diplo as mentioned. I did not actively start going for a victory condition (maybe with another as a backup) until too late and they all started getting shut down on me. At the end I missed out on UN (still had 2 Great engineers sat waiting). Did not have the ability to go for Dom and was too far behind in tech (5-6 techs to each Civ except Brennus) to go for space I believe due to late war with Brennus. If I'd gone for Brennus earlier - or managed to outrex him to the west (neither of which I did) that would've kept my options open much longer.

I didn't get totally creamed, so it's progress. Learning more each time I play one of these!

@michmbk - there is a guide which I got from the strategy forum (attached). I can't find the original post, but I'm sure someone can give credit where it's due (although it's in the guide). The leader traits section will tell you what you're looking for.

 

[Trynthlas]

So I know I'm a bit behind the curve here, but here's what I've got ... and I could use some pointers on how to proceed.

Turn 0, I decide to move both the warrior and settler to explore a bit.

Spoiler :

Seeing that, I settle 1NE of that coast...which is one tile away, but I don't have any wasted coastal tiles in the BFC. Great commerce site with 2 hills for ok production.

Tech Agri->Wheel->Pottery->BW
Build Worker->Warrior->Warrior->Settler

Going exploring, I find hannibal up on the end of the peninsula. Awesome! I can block him in and kill 'im dead easy. Well, I build a settler with the intent of doing so and he beats me to the spot, AND he has copper (I discovered BW before he did but not soon enough to axe rush). Second city goes to the SE coast for grassland hills production powered by fish food!

Anyway, time goes on, here's the current situation:

Spoiler :

4 axes in Lisbon, just discovered HBR and plan to build stables+horse archer zerg...which oddly is exactly what I did in the Pacal game (which I played some before this one). But that's my first thought, anyhow.




World: Brennus is a weenie, so I can ignore him until I've dealt with Hannibal, who will NEED to be dealt with since he's boxed in by me.



Current techs, tentatively queued writing but unsure. I'm leaning towards a calendar run to take advantage of the dye and bananas.




So...any advice? Current plan is to build up some horse archers and swarm hannibal with those + the axes I already built. No need to build more cities at the moment because I'm about to capture 2-3 (though I'm not sure I like his city placement for his 2nd site...may raze it).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So I know I'm a bit behind the curve here, but here's what I've got ... and I could use some pointers on how to proceed.

Turn 0, I decide to move both the warrior and settler to explore a bit.

Spoiler :

Seeing that, I settle 1NE of that coast...which is one tile away, but I don't have any wasted coastal tiles in the BFC. Great commerce site with 2 hills for ok production.

Tech Agri->Wheel->Pottery->BW
Build Worker->Warrior->Warrior->Settler

Going exploring, I find hannibal up on the end of the peninsula. Awesome! I can block him in and kill 'im dead easy. Well, I build a settler with the intent of doing so and he beats me to the spot, AND he has copper (I discovered BW before he did but not soon enough to axe rush). Second city goes to the SE coast for grassland hills production powered by fish food!

Anyway, time goes on, here's the current situation:

Spoiler :

4 axes in Lisbon, just discovered HBR and plan to build stables+horse archer zerg...which oddly is exactly what I did in the Pacal game (which I played some before this one). But that's my first thought, anyhow.




World: Brennus is a weenie, so I can ignore him until I've dealt with Hannibal, who will NEED to be dealt with since he's boxed in by me.



Current techs, tentatively queued writing but unsure. I'm leaning towards a calendar run to take advantage of the dye and bananas.




So...any advice? Current plan is to build up some horse archers and swarm hannibal with those + the axes I already built. No need to build more cities at the moment because I'm about to capture 2-3 (though I'm not sure I like his city placement for his 2nd site...may raze it).

Spoiler :

If you're expanding west, you need iron working. This means teching it directly or teching alphabet on monarch. The AIs do not reliably get to alphabet in time on this difficulty to use the tried n true aesthetics line seen on higher difficulties. If you're going writing, use alphabet, otherwise take advantage of iron working directly.

You have multiple resources already available to you in the west. Hannibal is a threat just like everyone else's game on this map (he actually declared on me by your point in the game already I think).

Calendar is a good bet but it won't be useful until you can get rid of that jungle!

 

[Trynthlas]

Spoiler :

If you're expanding west, you need iron working. This means teching it directly or teching alphabet on monarch. The AIs do not reliably get to alphabet in time on this difficulty to use the tried n true aesthetics line seen on higher difficulties. If you're going writing, use alphabet, otherwise take advantage of iron working directly.

You have multiple resources already available to you in the west. Hannibal is a threat just like everyone else's game on this map (he actually declared on me by your point in the game already I think).

Calendar is a good bet but it won't be useful until you can get rid of that jungle!

Spoiler :

Actually I was planning on expanding north - taking out Hannibal. West can wait until I'm done with that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Spoiler :

Actually I was planning on expanding north - taking out Hannibal. West can wait until I'm done with that.

Spoiler :

I think I'm the only person that COMPLETELY cut hammy off from settling to his north by hitting the REX west .

I understand that hannibal is somewhat threatening, but if you survive the very early game with him and he gets to pleased, he won't declare. Hammy is the same.

The way I look at it is this: If you REX, hammy and hannibal each get to 6-8 cities top. If you rush Hannibal, you get the same amount of cities as just expanding west, but now hammy gets 12+ and hannibal is gone.

I almost always prefer 2 small AIs to one big one. Even if they get ahead in tech you can just stamp them out with production or play nice and trade past them with all the cities then kill them. I'd be more inclined to rid myself of backstabbers earlier but neither of these guys do that. You get them to pleased, you can focus on empire development until it comes such a time that you want even more cities .