Monarch Student V - Catherine

[Tempesta13]

1150 AD to 1655 AD – Domination victory. Ended up being my second highest score yet - just behind my JC Earth 18 game.

Spoiler :

I think the AI was way too crowded to ever get dangerous this game. No one had enough land to ever get big, except me by settling towards Sury and taking him out early.

Spoiler :

Nice win - wish my game had of ended that soon...

I agree - no one in this game really was ever a threat - i was behind Zara and AC in tech while fighting them, and also got dogpiled by Hannibal every once in awhile, but never got worried. The AI's just can't do too much with only 6 cities each.

Emperor/Normal to 1938 (end)

Spoiler :

Won a UN vote once i conquered enough land for the votes. I had Darius at friendly so i had his votes too. Despite being a little behind in tech it was only a matter of time before i'd take over the AI's land. I must have been outproducing them 10 to 1 at the end. I turned off research after i had tanks/artillery/SAMs and just spammed units. War weariness was really bad since i was at war for the entire last part of the game. Had to run 50 or 60% culture to keep up production.

 

[Gwynnja]

I'll give this a go, although I did recently play a wonderspaming game recently with Stalin, it gave me an appreciation of the Russian Cossacks. I've been meaning to go REX-crazy with Cathy for a bit.
To 1690BC

Spoiler :

Marathon* Turn 0 Settle 1 E for the extra FP. Turn 1, begin researching AG, Pop AH from hut. It seems I've settled on to of a herd of horses.
Build order: worker--> Warrior--> Worker--> warrior--> Settler--> Warrior--> Settler--> Warrior--> Library(Whip)--> Barracks
Tech order AG(AH, hut) BW> Wheel(half from hut)>(Pottery, hut) Writing> Fishing> HBR. Axemen get shock promotion Random Event!
Sury has the Buddhist Holy City. I'm going to try to take caesar out with horse archers before he gets Praets. Sury will die soon thereafter. Hopefully I can befriend Zara.

 

[nanomage]

it seems i've missed the beginning of the round.
however i'm glad i have time now and surprised to see cathy in here! (i was expecting it to be pericles game)
Россия, вперед!
I guess i should put my ushanka on when playing this game, and victory will surely be mine

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Cathy isn't getting much love, maybe the map was too easy.
Bumping this anyway, in case someone missed it.

And I still don't know who's hosting the next game. Sian? Assassin? If nobody confirms, I'll post the next game friday or saturday.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sian is taking the next noble's club game, or so he told me. Someone - I think assasin, has a pericles map. If he doesn't get to it though, just post another .

 

[michmbk]

This was a fun game - I think you're right that the map was a bit too easy once we learned how much land we could block off with the creative trait, and none of the other AI could get big enough as there wasn't enough land for them. One of these times I think it might be interesting to take one civ off the map, to allow for more land. More land for the AI makes for a better challenge (although the more land we get, the easier it is for us - guess that's the flip side).

Looking forward to a pericles game - I've never played him.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

If assassin doesn't host the next game, I'm leaning toward Phi and another not-so-popular leader.

Probably Suleiman, or even the Sitting Turtle.

 

[Tempesta13]

Either of those leaders sound good.

I like to play standard/fractal at low sea level, and add either 1 or 2 extra AI's. I think it makes it a little more interesting having 7 AI's instead of 6, and with low sea level there should be enough room for everyone to grow a bit.

This map was unusually crowded for normal settings i think though - basically because of our starting position giving us a lot of land to ourselves and sandwiching Caesar in between two AI's.

 

[Gwynnja]

Monarch, Marathon @ 10 bc

Spoiler :

Sury founded buddhism, which is weird, he doesn't start with mysticism. Auggie and Zara both Cornfucianism, so they didn't care when I crushed Sury. I don't like sharing a map with that guy, he's too much of a pr*ck. After he was dead and gone I went after Auggie. I don't trust him with praets. He managed to bribe Zara into DOWing me even tho he was pleased so I cut off both their coppers, made Auggie give me some back fill techs before taking him out once and for all. I'd planned on letting Zara live to trade me techs, but I don't think I will now. My economy I s pretty much destroyed; I'm building units only and once Zara is in his grave I'll concentrate on building settlers and hiring scientists.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

I think a game as SB is in order...I have a hard time using him, tbh, and I think it'd be a great learning experience.

 

[assass1n]

I can host Pericles on Friday

 

[djvandrake]

Cathy isn't getting much love, maybe the map was too easy.
Bumping this anyway, in case someone missed it.

I'm still playing along, just haven't had time to post an update. Cathy is good. My kind of leader. I just won the Liberalism race and things are going pretty well. More to come.

 

[Gwynnja]

420 AD

Spoiler :

Zara is no more. Continent is mine, my economy is in shambles. I have three cities building wealth and have 20 turns or so until I can start whipping courthouses, and I'll be able to fill in and start using all this land. I'll station all my horse archers along the western sea in case hanibal gets any big ideas about settling on MY continent. I don't think he'll want to trade with me but I have so much land that once I can get some courts and cottages everywhere I'll jet past everyone in tech.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

I can host Pericles on Friday

Ok then, let's go with Pericles. Wasn't sure you was still going to host it.

 

[djvandrake]

10 AD to 1000 AD. Monarch / Epic

Spoiler :

In the process of destroying that Barb city and taking that premium city spot to the west (with the iron to the SW) I run into Augustus Caesar and Zara. Zara is Buddhist and Augustus is Hindu. Sury is Hindu and I'm Confucian. I see that isn't going to work. Sign open borders with everyone and start a little trading. I discover I have two sources of Iron and Caesar has none. This is a problem. He wants my iron.

I beeline to Aesthetics > Literature > Music and go on a wonder building spree.











I spread them out among the three cities I'm developing for cultural victory attempt. I also manage to get Judiaism and Buddhism spread to my empire. Zara is going nuts (NUTS! I SAY) with the missionaries and that's making it easier for me.

He manages to convert Caesar to Buddhism, and spreads it to all but one of my cities. So when he asks me to convert, I say sure. Now it's Zara, Caesar, and me as the Buddhist block and Sury the only hindu. I butter up Caesar with lots of favorable trades for tech and resources, and even trade him my extra iron (for silk, sugar, and gems). I'm friendly with Ceasear and Zara, cautious with Sury.







Not doing too bad on techs and managed some very good trades. I didn't rex as much as I could because I was building wonders, but I still managed to get 6 cities and have room for two more. There has also been no wars this game, which is a touch surprising and maybe not what was in mind when the game was planned out.

All in all I'm doing OK, but have recognized some really dumb rookie mistakes I've made.

 

[djvandrake]

OK, I finally had time to finish this one. It shouldn't have taken this long but life gets in the way.

1000 AD to 1935 AD, Cultural Victory.

Spoiler :

I finally managed to meet everyone else. I did a lot of good trading with Hannibal for health resources. I build a few more wonders....





And I win the Liberalism race!



More wonders....



And this was about the last one. Augustus Caesar (mister industrious) kept beating me to them. I lost several by less than 5 turns. Ironic because Augustus is one of my favorite leaders to play for a cultural win.

War finally breaks out in 1520. I'd been buddying up with Caesar and Zara all game by converting to their religion and with trades and requests. I was friendly with both. Caesar attacks Sury and I let him beat up on the little tewrp for 6-8 turns then I jump in. I ended up taking 4 of Sury's cities and Caesar took 4 so he was left with not much to work with in a small corner. forgotten. But, I did manage to lose a 99.2% battle during the second round of Khmer dogpile.



In the end it didn't matter though because I made it to victory. This is much later than what's typical for me (by 60-100 years game time). Two of my legendary cities were in less than optimal locations for running a bunch of specialists, and I only had access to 4 religions for much of the game. I did get Taoism spread later in time to build a few pagodas.









Ironic since Augustus was in the game and much more advanced than me. Score is really low too, but it's still a victory and on Monarch I'll take it.