Monarch Student^ XIV- Ramesses II

[Nothingontv]

Monarch-normal till about 1 AD

Spoiler :

Sorry no pictures for this part.

I settled in place started on a worker and teched to AH. I met the other civs pretty fast (all coming from the west).
When the horsies showed up just outside my BFC i decided to just wait till my borders popped and not settle another there.

I settled a city to the west near some copper. Asoka seemed to be expanding the other way. After building barracks in both cities i started producing chariots.

Asoka's cities were very poorly defended and my chariots took over all 3 of his cities. He had founded both Judaism and Hinduism and had constructed SH.

Having scouted large portions of the continent noticed 2 important things. The first was that the 3rd city i took from Asoka blocked all the other civs (except Bismarck) from the eastern half of the continent.
The second was that Bismarck still only had 2 cities. Since i had all the chariots i decided to send them south. I razed one city and took over Berlin. He had built the pyramids and TGW in there.

With Berlin i now had 6 cities and was effectively blocking half the continent from the other civs

1665 AD conquest victory

Spoiler :

To make a long story short. I kept reinforcing my border cities while constantly settling new cities. My research was at 10% most of the time but i kept up in tech.

One turn before reaching Liberalism i traded Education to Hannibal for Gunpowder and took Chemistry for my free tech after which i started on Steel.

Hannibal had taken over a barb city in the middle of "my" half of the continent and added a mediocre city next to that. Once i had cannons i took those 2 cities after which he capitulated.
Next was Cyrus. I had been in war with him before but he wasn't very smart in his attacks so he never did any harm. After taking 1 city he also capitualted.

After taking over 1 city of Wang Kon he also capitulated and it was all over.

Some pics

For me this game really showed how powerfull it is to be able to block large portions of land.

 

[Phalanxer]

So Ive got my first monarch cultural victory from the buddicah game, now Im trying for my first domination win

monarch / normal

Spoiler :

Im sure I took a similar approach as many other people given the availability of both stone and horses just outside the big cross....
So I managed to get both the pyramids and stonehenge in my first and second cities, respectively.
Then I was able to kill asoka with some chariots, took 2 of her cities. now Im basically waging war against my finances, while cyrus is attempting to settle in my territory...
Even though I have the buddhist holy city I think its advantageous for me to do judaism at this point since basically the civs I want to make friends with (bismark, shaka, and hannibal) are all also jewish, while cryrus and wang kon are hindu. I think my second war is coming sooner than Id really like:

 

[huerfanista]

Monarch/normal 1635AD domination:

Spoiler :

I finished teching lit and popped a GE in Thebes. I decided to save him for a machinery bulb. CoL >MC> machinery (bulbed)> CS> music (got the GA). Popped a GP in Delhi and built the jewish shrine in Bombay. Built the GL in Delhi, Parth in Thebes, Soz in Bombay. Shaka DOWed Cyrus, but I stayed out of this one until I was good and ready. After music I researched engineering (partially bulbed with another GE from Thebes). I built a stack of maces/trebs/xbows/swords and DOWed Shaka. By 1210AD he was dead.

I headed down the lib path (paper> edu> lib (partial)> nationalism), planning to take MilTrad. Meanwhile, I moved my army to Han's borders and DOWed, taking 3 ccities rather quickly. I infilitrated a GSpy and quickly stole gunpowder and drama from him. He capped, and I gave him one of his cities back and directed his research to PP. However, before he capped he bribed Bismark in, so I decided to just keep this war going and try to get domination by taking him out. Once MilTrad was in, I built cuirassiers everywhere while teching to rifling. Eventually I upgraded all cuirassiers to rifles, along with 8 C1CR3 maces, and took all his cities. A couple of turns later I crossed the land limit (I was 2 turns from steel).

I played pretty sloppy at the end - too much worker MM in the middle of a war, and WW was getting pretty severe, but I decided to just push through it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm curious now to see how things would go when benchmarked for deity in this game. The problem is I don't think I will be able to get MOTIVATED enough to do proper micro-management again. So that would defeat the point again.

Maybe if I post the game under the story forum I can finally get motivated enough to pay attention to 10 full turns in a set each day. You want to run another test in parallel TMIT to cross compare data at the finish? Of course, it's not for certain I will go cav again, or you with infantry.

I'm willing to try, but remember that I'm am still extremely shaky on deity and winning at all is still nice. I'm not sure that would give us an accurate benchmark. Maybe if you could bring U Sun out of retirement or get Dirk (since he likes the steel shot a lot) it would be a bit more reasonable to compare.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Empire of the Sun Tiger
Monarch, marathon
640 BCE

Spoiler :

I decided to go for a SE game, preparing for that time when I am able to play as Pericles a lot better. I am starting to rethink my approach, because Pericles is not industrious, and this game has already shown to me the power of this trait that I had once considered second-rate. (Because I considered wonders to be of lesser importance, but it's amazing how the benefits of more wonders outweigh the sum of the benefits of the individual wonders ... one changes one's mind about industrious once one sees the power of wonders combined )

Anywhoo...
Settled in place, immediately started teching AH and training a worker.
After worker was done, he farmed the wheat and pastured the kye, while cap trained a warrior or two. Cap then went on to train a settler, worker did some chopping, started some roads. Settler took the horses to the east. If I were to play this again, I wouldn't do that anymore, I think that having horses as a strat resource could have been postponed for another 40ish turns for cap border pop and that settling west for stone and production would have been wiser... a lot wiser.

Meanwhile, after AH, I teched mining, BW, masonry, mysticism. When mysticism was done, and after cap had already produced another settler and another two or so workers, I started stonehenge, which I eventually finished in the 2200s, I think.

I went on to train a lot of war chariots, and with 8 of them, I took the Indian Empire, which was dust before the 1500s, I think. Delhi is my new production city and Bombay is my cottage city.

After stonehenge was done, and a few WCs were done, I started the Pyramids in the capital, which were ready before the 1000s. (This is marathon speed, so that's rather modest)

Back to techs, after mysticism, I went for writing, then aesthetics, but still no one to trade me the alphabet after. No biggy, took polytheism next, in order to enable the Parthenon. After poly I teched pottery, to cottage Bombay.

I trained a few more WC, went after Shaka, but thanks to trying to limit losses, he managed to get Impi out, so I actually had to wait longer, train some axes, but he was eventually off the map as well.

Delphi built the Parthenon, and a few turns later, capital was producing the first great person of the game, and behold my luck, it was a GE. I checked the stat screen, saw that no one had it, so I immediately started and finished the Temple of Artemis in cap.

A bit later I traded for alphabet, got a great prophet, teched monotheism, priesthood, meditation and bulbed theology with the GProph, so I have now founded xtianity, judaism, I control the founding city of buddhism.

Plans:
1. I have to war Cyrus sooner or later, as he's the biggest land-threat to me. I also have to do this while keeping peace with Hannibal and Bismark. I might even have to convert to hindu, temporarily, until I can spam buddhism to Bismark and Hannibal.
2. Tech wise, I want to tech currency, CoL and monarchy. Currency offers a great boost to any civ with ToA, CoL founds a religion and helps maintenance, monarchy offers gold, as I have a few vineyards here and there. I have decided on currency, though, which I can grab in the next two centuries, and it will jump start my economy.

Question about wonder

Spoiler :

There's a good chance that, if I take that path, I am able to build the AP. What conditions are there for asking believers to war the infidels? Do I have to be at war with the infidels?

If I am fast enough, I can probably convert both Bismark and Hannibal to buddhism, build the AP for that religion, and have them help me against Cyrus.

 

[BigTime]

Emperor/normal to 1720 AP win

Spoiler :

I decided against hitting Bis because I saw an easier and quicker way out. Originally I was beelining UN, but the turn I got MM I won an AP victory. I switched into vassalage to accumulate diplo favor with Cyrus. Turns out that was enough for an AP victory as well.

The two important graphs:

And the demos/top five/builds

Nice to see thebes at the top. I was playing just like Ramesses!

And finally, the nice score:

That was a fun game, but that start was a little overpowering with stone and an IND leader. I was planning for a Dom win, but AP and Diplo wins are just so much easier after you have conquered a lot of land. I think I'll stick to normal speed from now on, I like it better than epic because it's less tedious to wrap the game up and to war. Micro-managing units can be really time-consuming on slow speeds.

 

[TheBoboni]

My attempt. I tried to keep this short, I really did, believe me.

Monarch/Normal, Cultural @ 1866AD

Spoiler :

After researching AH i realized I have stone (and wonders) to the left and horse (and war with the UU)to the right. At that time there was something around ~20 turns to the next border pop, so I had to choose something.

I went for War Chariot and steamrolled a poorly defended (but quickly expanded - 4 cities!) Asoka. Expanding so much he didn't have even one wonder, but luckily founded judaism.

Seeing Asoka wasn't much of a threat I quickly switched gears in the meantime and quickly chopped and whipped Stonehenge, so I had those obelisks and Great Prophet points.
I didn't build Great Wall, because I didn't want to risk getting a great spy.

After finding marble I went for Oracle in the Stonehenge city, for even more great prophet points. He appeared a few turns later and I had my first holy city. For the tech I chose CoL, and a second holy city was mine. Another great prophet later I had two holy cities.

At this point I realized marble+industrious+cheap temples from spiritual+2 holy cities means a cultural victory.

The rest of the game was then setting the pieces in place.

The holy cities+capital were my culture cities. I built a few wonders - especially the great artist ones, zeus and parthenon (IIRC). I had a big tech lead, so no rush there. Then I switched to caste system and spammed forth legions of missionaries.

I got Shwedagon Paya early to switch to Free Religion a LONG TIME before Lib. Had to keep no state because of the political situation, so might as well get the +10% research and happiness.

Other important wonders were the Sistine and Hermitage, one per city.

Politically I kept everyone except Wan Kong at pleased. Wan was weak and everybody hated him, so when someone wanted to throw some punches he was the go-to guy. At some point I converted the AIs to Judaism and that put them to friendly. Sadly, a few years later Wan decided he doesn't want to be bullied anymore and went to Cyrus for protection. Cyrus was second weakest, so everybody ganged on them both. After that they both vassaled to Shaka.


This was not exciting for a long time, just hitting enter and watching everything is going smoothly. In the late stages of the game Shaka was exceedingly needy and nagged me to give him this, that, join him in wars etc. When in 1850 or so I both culture flipped one of his cities and refused to go to war he declared on me. He was twice as powerful as I.
I bribed another AI (Bismarck or Hannibal, can't remember now) to go to war with him, and pushed my cities into starvation switching all of the citizens to being artists.
The AI help and my army bought me time and the artists shaved a few last turns. The culture cities dropped 1 population a turn, but that was irrelevant at this point.
In 1865 I killed Shaka's main SoD (he walked right into mine, so catapults+all the crap I built during the game was enough), hit enter and won.

And now for the images (since most people probably scroll to them anyway )


This is were the late game action was:

The power graph:

Demo for those who understand it:

Play time and stuff:

Top cities:

The score:

And the three cities 1 turn before winning:

 

[budweiser]

A God from the machine

Spoiler :

I accidentally managed machinery in 550BC on Monarch so I guess I can win.

 

[obsolete]

I'm willing to try, but remember that I'm am still extremely shaky on deity and winning at all is still nice. I'm not sure that would give us an accurate benchmark. Maybe if you could bring U Sun out of retirement or get Dirk (since he likes the steel shot a lot) it would be a bit more reasonable to compare.

Come on... come on. You've already seen the map once before, so that should give you enough COURAGE. Just remember that deity barbs get FOUR starting techs, so you need to add AGG, Wheel, Hunting, & Archery.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

After disappointing loss in MS wash game I took a brief lil break from civ and played a cpl of other games but saw Ram game and I like Ram and egypt so thought I would give it a go

Monarch, Marathon, 1 ad

Spoiler :

Early game settled in place, scouted around saw stone nearby so got Henge, GW done in capitol and Mids done in mephis. I tried to settle out as fast as I could considering the early wonderwhoring and get some cities out but then Asoka started STEALING my city sites. So:

I go let him know it wasnt appreciated. I wasnt TOO worried bout anyone doing a backstab just cuz as you can see LOTS of fighting going on elsewhere. (SOMEHOW Shaka founded a religion all by himself and it making him a TAD unpopular cuz EVERY body else been going confusionism for most part so he been DoW everybody left and right.)

Grrr I REALLY should have paid better attention. Asoka has NO metals it looks like so he would have been EASY pickings TURNS ago. As it is he gets longbows JUST as I start to attack his cities.

Im not really up to sending swords on longbows with no seige and I DID take out the cities up north so I get the deer and squirrel sites he tried to snatch from me so:

I figure thats good enuff for now.

My empire at this point:

techsitch:

It not looking as bad as it NORMALLY does at this point in game. I also noticed as I made the screenie that I could probably get Cal from cy so:

Cost waay too much but I do have LOTS of calandar tiles in a cpl of cities so I take it.

Demos at this point:

Number 2 in some categories and middle of pack in most of the rest.

Diplositch:

Even after the war Asoka not THAT ticked with me. Shaka like I said been doing his best to tick off as many civs as he can and been doing a good job hehe. Bizzy decided to xian so doesnt like me much now.

Not sure what plan is gonna be at this point. Bizzy seems like good target next. he close by, diff religion from most others and he a bacstabber anyways so not a good idea to keep him alive if I can kill him. Besides:

He's been poking me and I HATE ppl poking me GRRRRR.

True he IS about to get xbows BUT as soon as HBR all done I can go Cataphant on his spiky lil head so I dont think that will be TOO hard a problem. I hope not anyways. So thats plan at this point, wish me luck

Kaytie

 

[BigTime]

@ Kaytie

Spoiler :

Bis got philo before 1AD On monarch??? That doesn't even happen on emperor in my games. Your position looks strong. As long as you can fill out the land you could easily sweep the continent with something like rifles and cannon, or since you're playing on marathon, swords + cats or maces/phants + cats/trebs would be an option too. Don't get discouraged your tech position is fine and I hope you win! The only important demos in this point in the game are land, prod, and GNP. But land the most. Number 1 in land means you're doing good!

 

[Bisque]

Monarch, Epic, to 1000 BC. Advice needed....

Spoiler :

I settled on the coast for Horse-Fish first. then west to settle bronze while I spat out 7 quick war chariots which took out both of Asoka's cities. It was close one with last chariot attack taking her 2nd and last city, Bombay.

Followed up by taking a barb city to the south of Bomday with reinforcements that were on the way to the war when it ended. I now have Stonehenge and some good cottage land looking ahead. I have 6 cities at 1000 BC, which leads the pack, but boy is it crowded !

I got to alphabet before my economy crashed, but all I can get for it is hunting and IW (from 3 different AIs) while writing can get Sailing from wan kon. Shaka already has metal casting, and I will soon share a border. ick !

I'm building Lib in Delhi as its the best place I see to run 2 scientists and get a GS for academy. but stonehenge is there, and I'd like a great priest, so as to capitalize on this being the Buddhist religious city.

where to go from here ?

save attached... uses BUG 4.2

ignore the pink dot map location..... thought about going there before I was beat to it.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Monarch, Marathon 1100 AD

Spoiler :

Well in keeping with my excuse for a plan as soon as I had a decent stack going:

It took awhile though. Since not only did he have chicken pizza but pretty soon he started having castles in ALL his cities. ANd since rather than waiting until I got the bagillion cats needed to take down chicken whatsit powered castle defense I just suiciced enuff cats at each city until my guys could take it and since that only required half a bagillion cats I was able to speed up the pace from very slow and tedious all the way up to just slow and tedious.

While all that was going on I had another annoyance. Pretty much EVERY other leader trying to vassalize them is like trying to pull teeth from a cat. But Hanni, for SOME reason I cant get thro a game WITHOUT him running up going ohh ohh vassalize me please. Even when he doesnt like me and we go to war its like "uh oh you killed one of my mine Im ready to cap so vassalize me now ok?" and sure enuff:

This started poping up like every 5 turns. For the most part I ignored him and just clicked him away (like THAT EVER does ANY good)

Until I FINALLY finished off bizzy after like 600 hudred years of war.

That left me with some decisions to make. While I was fighting bizzy Asoka was out shakaing shaka. I mean even I was embarassed for poor shaka. First Asoka goes into wheooh FIRST then He declares on shaka and then starts taking shaka's cities. Yeah Shaka is getting picked on by INDIA. And at abou the same time I kill off Bizzy Shaka caps to the civ that been tearing him a new you know what. And in case you might have missed it the first that civ is INDIA. Sheesh Shaka and to think I put you number one as the MOST scariest AI to have in a game :/.

That left me torn. While I was getting Bizzy down to his last two cities Hanni in an effort to show how helpful he can be takes it upon himself to dow on bizzy and brings in a stack--of 1 tred and 15 longbows. That means hanni has NO metals and no horseys. which does make him easy pickings. And since he also built the ap taking him out would be best way to 100% gurantee that thing wont end up causing me problems.

But luckily for hanni with shaka turning out to be an even BIGGER weenie and capping to Asoka who is the leader of INDIA (ok true Asoka IS the more agressive of the India leaders but that kinda like saying someone is the skinniest kid at fat camp) that made Asoka the number one problem. And since by spamming confuionism to all of bizzy's old cities ap SHOULDNT cause me any problems. (I hope anyways).

So I took hanni as a vassal (mostly to add his land towrd a dom win and alos hoping at very least Asoka and shaka decide to target his cities when I make my move) and am making plans to go take out rampaging war machine Asoaka and his vassal Shaka (and NO I didnt get that backwards).

Here is my empire at this point:

Tech sitch:

my tech rate has been slooooow and lib race is looooong over and I still dont even have paper. It was won somehow by that 3 city tech machine and '80s one hit wonder wang chung.

I do HAVE banking on most of them but cant really get anything for it. Hanni will over fork over drama and egineering which I aint willing to do since egineering is almost all teched out now and drama isnt THAT much. And wang wont even offer techs just gold and his world map.

Victory conditions:

If I can get most of asoka's cities and the shaka I should get a dom win and even if I get em to cap early that should be even better since with them out of the way Cy and Wang should fold pretty fast then.

Demos:

No comanding lead but HOPEFULLY I have enuff land now to start turning things around.

The ONLY thing I have going for me at this point is I am waaaaay bigger than the two civs who are out teching me and the civs who ARE big enuff to still be a threat I AM out teching them or at least keeping up militarily. So clinging to that little bit of hope I am gonna TRY and break my Monarch losing streak and get a win somehow. Wish me luck

Kaytie

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@game

Spoiler :

At some point, overextending proved costly: both Hannibal and Bismark attacked me at the same time, both of them having larger armies than I was barely managing to support anyway. Monarch just isn't yet for me.

So... game lost... again

@Kaytie

Spoiler :

How ever do you manage to train so many troops? Whenever I look at your reports, I see armies with a lot of soldiers in them and I really don't understand how you manage to train so many of them so fast... or how you deal with the costs. The most soldiers I've used for the offensive was around 20, divided in two stacks, in the Asoka game, and I think it's lower than the slimmest stack I've seen in your reports. I am seriously undertraining, though, but... I just don't get it. How do you do that?

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

@Civ tiger

Spoiler :

Getting lots of troops early for like a rush or early BC war is kind of like for me anyways build a unit when enuff hammers have been put into to whip and overflow I whip and hopefully tha means next unit is done in one or 2 turns then when that one is doen start another, while all this is going on a worker has been chopping a forest if one is handy and I time the chop so that (at this point 3rd unit gets done with enuff over flow to get 4th in 1 or 2 turns) and just repeat the whip, build,chop build pattern. If i am in a bigtime rush I will whip my cities to the bone if I have to.

Later on its just a matter of constantly building as much as you can while warring. It gest easier later on. At one point pretty much ALL I was building was cats just cuz I had enuff melee and after you war enuff you should get SOME well promtoed troops and after a while CR3, combat1, combat 2 untis are pretty sturdy once the suicide cats done their work.

But it DOES cost. MOST of this game my beaker rate has been PATHETIC. its 1100 ad and it is JUST starting to get over 200bpt. And thats ONLY because I just recently got banking teched out and warring all that much JUST starting to pay off a little in that running merc with LOTS of cities means LOTS of instant free specialist and thanks to mids and rep that helping to jumpstart my bpt. But like I mentioned I lost lib race to a civ that just has THREE cities. Thats how slow its been. The plan though is now I have 20 plus cities that once they all get up and running sheer quantity will help me catch up and even pass em. It does get harder on higher diffs though. Thats why even though I still like largish stacks before I go to war it still not anywhere near the size of some my stacks I could get on noble once I got the hang of that diff.

For me anyways its just a choice war or tech you cant really do both so just hope by time you stop warring you in position to that will help you catch up. But yeah Im gonna have to say 20 unit stack is on small side depending. (also kinda depends on make up of the stack) For taking on a 5 or 6 city empire it might be enuff as long as you keep reinforcements coming (Id still wanna be at least on other side of 30 tho hehe). It might be good for a limited war where you just want to take a cpl of cities then force a peace or something ( good example is my first war with asoka this game my biggest stack 19 units was NOWHERE near enuff to get job done of taking him out but it got me the city sites up north I really wanted and at that point it was ALL I was really hoping to get). But Im just a timid war player so I always try to make sure my stacks are kind of biggish if I can. But espcially once I moved off noble it gets expensive and slows your teching and wonderwhoring down and like I mentoned I still cant get stacks anywhere near the size of what I could on noble. (although I DO miss those times when I could hammer out 80 plus units send em off to DoW on somebody then have all my cities go back to making buildings and shinies--but then ppl start nagging you have to move up level hehe )

Kaytie

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Thank you for the insights!

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Monarch, Marathon 1452 AD

Spoiler :

Lots of turns were spent teching and trying to get my empire all sorted and to try and get a decent economy and tech rate going. ANd in case I forgot I also had to attack Asoka and his vassal at somepoint:

They kept poking me. Here some tips tho if you want to be intimidating. A) have more than one city and b) try NOT to get steamrolled by INDIA :/

Anyways I actually manage to get a cpl of shinies I got NortreDame and UniSank and Taj and really I wasnt actually EXPECTING to get them especially ND since the ai's ALL had engineering waaaaay b4 I got it so I was hoping I would get a few hammers in iem then get some upgrade money but actaully getting em works too

Another minor problem was Cy and wang started attacking Asoka and shaka(which may actually have been why I got the shinies since they all went to war mode)

The first war wasnt to bad. They just traded cities then stopped. But then Cy attacked again got waaay to close to wiping out shka and capping asoka so I bribed into peace.

I teched out rifling used spiritual to some civic switching and drated xtra rifles while keeping slider on zero to build up upgrade money and once I felt I had everything ready:

Im making my move. The one good thing about cy warring with asoka earlier is that means NO diplo hits for going after asok.

My empire at this point:

The techsitch:

Still no techlead but not that I actually have a semis decent tech rate it starting to get a lil better. Asok has mil sci on me but I have rifles and cav so that SHOULD be enuff to overcome the gren (I HOPE hehe)

The demos:

Actually managing to to start getting some leads in most of the categories but things still pretty close.

And thats where game is at this point. War declared but curbstompage hasnt commenced yet and will happen next session. HOPEFULLY I WONT be on wrong end of the curbstomps so wish me luck

Kaytie

 

[DrakenKin]

Yay @ new monarch student!

I will post a detailed journal when I finish, but for now I need some quick advice :

Spoiler :

I went for a cultural win while experimenting with multiple GP cities, doing fine so far. Number 1 in score and culture good population %, and I don't need military for now as I keep diplomacy in check (but I do have fairly good military production cities in case things heat up, I can build an army fast).

However that is not my problem. I see a possibility for an easy aspotolic win, and thus I have been pursuing this victory condition for a while But I keep running into problems.

Mainly AI leaders that I have more diplomacy with (8+) that vote for another person that they have a much lesser relation with (2?). Couple of questions :

1) what is going on? why not vote for me?
2) I have a pleased AI that I want to get to friendly... I have done everything, same religion, +4 from trades, used its favorite civic, etc. But I am still missing some point to get it to friendly 8+ and to vote for me. What can I do? Is there an article somewhere with a list of all bonuses to diplomacy you can get so I check if I have not forgotten something?
3) I try to get a vote each election, so I am attaching 2 screenshots of two different votes. The second one I have +8 with osaka, and he has +8 with my opponent... So I am guessing he refrains from voting. Again I need an extra edge on diplomacy with him but I ran out of things to boost it. I already gave techs, money, even tried cities but I am getting no extra points.

[screenshots included]

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

@sarassin

Spoiler :

There are hidden diplo modifiers in the game. One has to do with peaceweights. Each ai has one with some like Asoka having it very high and some like Bizzy and Shaka having it very low. The closer two civs are in peacewight the morre they like each other and the farther apart they are the more likely they will dislike each other. So like getting Shaka to like you better than Bizzy is harder than getting Shaka to like you over Asoka. (might be also why asoka is just abstaining you having gotten him high enuff to vote for you but if the other choice is a more warlike ai he doesnt like them enuff either so just abstains.)

There are other hidden diplo modifiers as well including just a base negative against the human that can go up as you go higher in diff. And REALLY messed up hidden negatives that can happen if you start taking vassals so be VERY careful about that.

As for raising diplo points--resource trades are big ones. if you dont have any trades going with asoka try to get some even if its just trading something for gold will help.

Def pacts also help lots. But they CAN be trickly. As soon as you sign one you get a minus with other ai's BUT you dont get a minus for it with other ai's you also have def pacts with. So like say both shaka and Asoka are willing to make a def pact. But if you ask asoka first it drops shaka down to where he isnt willing anymore. But if you ask shaka first it wont drop asoka down as much and he is still willing or vice versa and once have it established with both you wont get any diplo hits either. (you kinda have to try and experiment or figure out which order to do it and it can get more complicated the more civs youre trying to get onboard)

Shared wars also help and it looks like Hanni is odd man out rel wise so if you get a war going between asoka and hanni and join in (even it you dont actually help in the fight) you can get bonuses for that. (you just have to watch and make sure your ap election rival doesnt join in)

"you voted for us" also gets points but to get that you need a specific situation where like say a vote to liberate a city from one civ to another. You will get the bonus with the civ you vote for (but will get it a negative from civ you voted against so something like that is diff and doesnt come up often but watch for it in the options if you are the one who is controlling what resoloutions come up)

I hope this helps a lil and dont worry Im sure you will get better advice soon from the smart players hehe

Good luck

Kaytie

 

[uberben]

@tmit

Spoiler :

Been watching your vids for awhile, and I've often wondered how you get such a large army. Do you ignore the from your cities and just press on with whipping/drafting? Just a Monarch player looking to get better