Monarch Student^ XIV- Ramesses II

@Kaytie

Spoiler :
I already joined their wars against hanni (yes all of us declared him) and got diplomatic points from it. I am also giving 2 resources to Asoka for nothing for a while, techs and even tried gold and a city. Already had bonus points from favorable trade with him, and it is not getting any higher. I also tried defensive pact, but it gave no points at all. Is this normal?

Too bad I miss an apostolic win just by a couple of points... I think I might have to declare on someone and get some extra population. Problem is, we are all allies with the same religion (100% Hinduism apart from hannibal, Asoka did a great job spreading it!) so the world might turn against me if I attack any of them.

Oh well... I might just go back to pursuing a culture win then. :)
 
@Kaytie

Spoiler :

Problem is, we are all allies with the same religion (100% Hinduism apart from hannibal, Asoka did a great job spreading it!) so the world might turn against me if I attack any of them.

Oh well... I might just go back to pursuing a culture win then. :)


@Sarassin
Spoiler :
You're Spiritual - you can convert to another religion, then bribe your target to do the same. Then convert back to Hinduism 5 turns later.

 
Hi

Monarch, Marathon 1496 AD dom win :)


Spoiler :
It went easier than I thought. I take a city of of Asoka's and then:



I guess at some point Shaka broke free of Asoka before I declared war cuz I wasnt at war with him after Asoka capped. So after healing up and getting some xtra guys:



They mosey on across the map and go say hi. Shaka only had that one city so he dead pretty quick.

After healing up and waiting until steel is done and upgrading my siege:



We make a move on Cy and wang. Cy had a HUGE stack in this one city that was getting swamped by both asoka and Hanni's culture so thats where I attack. I kill the stack and raze the city and then:



Both cy and:



wang willing to cap. So that just means I need to hit shift return and:



FINALLY my Monarch losing streak is broken :D

The final demos look like this:



Which added up to:



One of my better all time scores :)

ALthough since ALL my wins on monarchs have been on maps where all the upper level players talk about how easy the map is so this map probably like that too. But still it IS nice to break my losing streak. So I'll take it and can now go back to prince diff with head held hi and not slinking with tail between my legs so thanks bigtime and everybody :)

Kaytie
 
Immortal/Normal 3240 BC
Spoiler :

AH first, popped mining and a scout, got a W2 warrior and found Asoka. From here its barracks-worker-WCs. I'll go writing - alphabet after BW. That will allow me to build research into currency/Code to deal with all the cities I'll have. That the best idea?

Popping the scout was the difference for going WCs.



 
Hi everyone, took me awhile to get around to finally finishing this game but I ended with a 1690 Domination win.

Monarch/Epic

Spoiler :


Maybe kind of an overpowered start with horses, copper, and stone all close by to the start. I built the GW and Mids using the stone and quickly hooked up the horses to go for a war chariot rush. My rush was slowed down a lot from the two early wonders but I eventually took all of Asokas cities in the late BC's. He was the only one with Hinduism and didn't have a lot of units so it didn't take long to get all his cities.

10 AD after Asoka destroyed



After that I built up my economy again, I used espionage a lot to keep up with the AI by tech stealing many techs from Hannibal. Great spys from the GW in my capital helped me out a lot. Then I went into unit spam mode and built lots of catapults and mostly elephants to take out Bismarck because he was the only one in his religion besides the very weak Wang Kon. He had quite a few cities and I decided to take all of them because I was going to go for domination. In hindsight I should have just vassaled him when he offered because I ended up vassaling all AI's anyways.

It was pretty easy after this, Hannibal and Wang Kon fell very quickly only a city or two then capitulated. Persia and Shaka were the only two left and they had they were the two strongest of the AI's in this game. They each had some decently sized stacks so I decided to bribe Shaka into war with Persia to weaken each of them. This worked perfectly, Shaka's stack was completely destroyed and I soon vassaled him. Persia fell soon after I killed his stack and took one city.

1690 Domination Victory





Overall, I defintely could have played better and finished it earlier. I did a lot of mindless unit spam but I guess sometimes it works.


 
Argh. Written a detailed journal, then Firefox crashed when I hit submit. :eek:

So I'll be brief... very brief and just spam screenshots.

Spoiler :


Early on I see Asoka left of me, and since all other AI I met at that point turned up to be warmongers and I was a bit fed up with warfare (been practicing that my last few games) I decide to not attack Asoka and use him as a shield. Maybe go for a cultural victory or something as I have not tried winning culture yet on monarch. I expand peacefully south and west :



The mass mountains were a strange sight, but some spots were still nice for cities. In the placement I cover chock points in case I get into a defensive war later, come to think of it these mountains are perfect for that. They are my big fat natural castle.

Having met asoka in my last 3-4 games, I know he will be annoying by tech leading and garbing all my wonders. Not this time buddy!



Check the "490 gold" on top of the screen. I beat him to haegia by 10 hammers (if only AI could feel pain!) and a few others by very close too. I had no marble and was tech late (he got oracle and i am guessing was lucky with huts too) so I had to use engineers to rush a couple of marble wonders. He still got the library and whatitsname, but no biggie.

He spread hindouism to ALL AI except hannibal and the koreans. So hell, I'll steal the apostle palace with my other engineer. :D



Check top, he had 290 hammers into the apostle. Engineers FTW.

I keep making wonders and seeing hammers turn into gold.



I come close to an apostle victory a few times, always missing a couple of points to get someone to friendly. It seems they won't vote for you even if they are 8+, they need to be friendly. A win here could have been cool, 666 votes needed :



At some point Asoka takes #1 score position from me and start getting an annoying 2-3 techs lead. He does the incredible stupid move of dropping hindouism for free religion, and I bribe to get a war started between him and Shaka!

At that point Shaka had vassaled the weak koreans and hannibal, so it was the perfect attack dog. Bismark sides with Asoka (as planned) and the two sides were evenly matched. I keep feeding techs to the losing side (knights, gunpowder, etc) to keep the conflict balanced and not create a superpower that would be hard to stop later. At that point I have a defensive force and enough barracks and decent production to make a decent army fast if needed, but I won't have to since the side effect of going apostle victory (even if no luck with it) was that I had a firm grip on the diplomatic situation.

The war goes on for a while, and I manage to get my cultural victory. My little multiple GP farm experiment gave decent results too, I got 17 great persons : 6 artists, 4 engineers, 4 prophets, 3 scientists.

The end screens, Production :



Notice the 53 farms but only 27 towns. I was surprised to still having the best economy, and by far :



My empire :



Asoka got thrashed at the wonder game :



Little secret : I put enough EP on Asoka to be able to see what he is researching, then I raced him to it and built the wonders he was going for. Espionage seems his weak point in general.

The 3 legendary cities (which also happen to be GP farms) :







Culture slider was at 100% yet I was somewhat up to date on tech (kthx GP economy) :

Notice how all 3 cities are synchronized. I was getting a GP from each of them, alternating.

And yes I could have made more GP with more farms instead of the few cottages I made, but keep in mind I was keeping all 3 cities under a precise ratio so that they all generate great persons and none fall behind.





Now, I can finally open these spoilers and see how you guys played the map!

Btw, I am loving this monarch student activity, the next one can't come too soon!! :goodjob:
 
First off, I love these Monarch student threads. I've learned a lot by reading the previous ones and I've finally joined the forums to actually do this one. Sorry I don't really have any screenshots...

Beginning -> 720AD
Spoiler :

Went AH->Mining->BW and Worker->Warrior->Settler

Popped a few huts and got gold from both of them. Asoka found me fairly quickly and I decided to expand towards him. Settled Memphis by the Cows and Corn, and then when BW hit the next turn I was pleasantly surprised to find copper there. I ignored Stonehenge to make sure I would get Great Wall and then massed up War Chariots for the war on Asoka.

Due to spending all my resources on WC, my tech was lagging a little bit. I took Delhi and Bombay and destroyed another city (bad placement) before agreeing to peace for a few techs (including IW). After 10 turns I went and finished off Asoka's last city and found myself in a bit of a hole financially. I was going to turn my attention to Shaka, but then decided against it as his score was fairly low and he had my religion(Judaism). Hannibal had a much higher score and had founded Christianity so I decided to take the war to him. Turn after I DoW, Shaka comes across the border with a stack of death. Wonderful.

Any tips or advice is welcome!


 
That's what I did... I have 3 saves: IMM/MONARCH/NOBLE monarch student ramesses. What do you mean? Put like MSXIV IMM Monarch student Ramesses?

Hey BT...sorry for not getting back to you sooner on this

Yeah, basically adjust the naming convention so that there is a standard "mask" to the save, like say "MSXIV Monarch....." "MSXIV IMM...." instead of leading with the "level". This allows the saves to queue up in the directories nicely. I really have to search around for it.
 
@Bigtime, also could you please post here (in this topic) when you get the next MS up?

Reasons :

1) Most of us are subscribed to these topics, but we don't necessarily check the strategy forum on a regular basis. So if you post here we can find the new MS faster.
2) On the long run, posting each new challenge in the previous one will create a continuation. The person who will do these some time from now can do them in order instead of having to dig through the forum to find each one of them.

Back the topic, I have a question :

Spoiler :
On the following screen shot, what are import/export and why mine are negative?


 
Hi

First: I think the MS bullpen is best place to post notices for newgames. Not everybody plays every single game but by subscribing to bullpen thread they can get notices when new games go up even if they miss a game.

as for Sarassins question-- your import/export totals are negative cuz your import trade (what your bringing in) is smaller from your export trade(what other civs are getting from you) Its actually GOOD to have negatives in that category cuz it means YOUR cities are BIGGER than the other foreign cities they are trading with. True it DOES mean they are getting MORE benefit out of the trade routes than you but youre STILL getting xtra income you otherwise wouldnt be getting --just not as much as the ai's youre trading with are getting. (it also means if thsoe routes cut get off for any reason it will hurt them more than you economy wise)

Kaytie
 
EDIT :

I was not aware of the Bullpen thread!

I am now subscribed there, thanks. :goodjob:
 
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