Monarch Student XV - DeGaulle

[Ai Shizuka]

Back to our standard thursday schedule, this time with the French. No Ind leaders after the very first MS game (Ramesses) so we play DeGaulle.

A very good trait combo coupled with some of the worst uniques in the game.
The UU is a musketman replacement with 2 movement points. You can use them with knights or later with cuirassiers to quickly defend the captured cities. Most likely you are going to use them like standard muskets.

The UB is not only useless most of the times, but potentially harmful. It's an Observatory replacement with the dubious bonus of a free artist. What to do with him if you are not playing a culture game? Nothing, just hope he doesn't screw your GP farm with multiple artists.

And the start:

Barbs are on, events are OFF. Play Custom Scenario to enable them.

A single tweak on the map, with spoilers about a leader:

Spoiler :

A certain leader with annoying rexing tendencies has a big continent all for himself. He can probably squeeze 15 cities over there. In the original map he was isolated, but I've added a little island/coastal bridge for an earlier contact.
This way we prevent him to become an hopeless caveman and hopefully he'll pose some late-game challenge.

Don't worry, he's not Sury. He's quite a peaceful guy. Annoying, but peaceful.

Any problem with the save, let me know.

 

[Kazile]

Thanks for another MS Ai Shizuka!
Will try tonight after work.

 

[budweiser]

I guess Shaka.

I like DeGaulle, his traits are suited well for BTS. I will try on Monarch, since its Monarch Student.

Edit: Fur means hunting which sets up AH and fur leads to markets and currency. The trees will be chopped later, maybe even after Math for some real fast Wonder builds.

Fur hats are IN this spring. Did you try the Brie monsieur?

 

[pigswill]

Musketeers useless? I would have to disagree. In one of the earlier PYL games I had a go with Napoleon, got gunpowder and nationalism reasonably early, drafted like crazy and wiped a pangea map for a fairly respectable fifteenth century domination victory.

 

[Gooblah]

Hmm...i will certainly try this.

Spoiler :

Will probably settle in place (i wish the gridlines were on), head AH -> Hunting -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Mysticism; settle near Horses in the first ring, even if the city sucks, then rush with Chariots. Maybe move the Warrior 1NW to view more of the starting location.

 

[Tempesta13]

Furs aren't great tiles if there's not enough food so this doesn't look like a great bureaucracy-research capital. Settle in place, build farms and use capital for production all game is possible. Can grow to size 8 right away, with furs and monument. Other possibilities are 1NW, 2N, 2N1W all costing 1 turn. Too bad we cant' scout that first.

 

[Gooblah]

Round 1: till 1300 BC

Spoiler :

Opened up the save. I changed it to Random Events being on, since I like them, but aside from that nothing. However, that did reveal the names of two AIs, so I won't post it, but both I met within the first few turns regardless.
Tech Path: AH -> Hunting -> Mining -> BW -> Fishing -> Sailing -> Mysticism -> Writing (in progress)

I began by looking around. The tile lines show me that I'm one away from the coast, something I don't want to happen. I opt to move 1SE, as it keeps all the resources in the fat cross, nets the coastline, and a Plains Hill under the capital.

While exploring, I stumble upon this beauty:

Stone + Industrious = Win! Meet my first competitor. He exists somewhere to the north by my knowledge.

With AH in, I find an awesome city spot:

(Ignore the Fishing thing, accidentally hit; didn't put any beakers into it, though, so it's all good!) Meet the second competitor. He's closer than Bismarck, which is nice...all set for a Chariot Rush!

After chopping and building Warriors and Scouts (high production and low food made the capital grow really slow), I pushed a Settler out into the world and settled Orleans in the city spot highlighted above. A Worker accompanied in order to hook up the Horses. However, without Sailing, it would take too long to establish a road, so I start chopping forests to get a Barracks and Chariots up in Orleans.

In the meantime, I settle Lyons next to the Corn and Gold (no screenie, sorry), netting some Floodplains. To ensure Charismatic Monuments, I grab...

With my large force gathered up, I declare war on Mehmed II. He's going down....

I raze the first city, using a Combat II Warrior to inflict damage, then a Flanking Chariot, and finally a Combat Chariot (who then receives Shock). I hustle down to Istanbul to find...

What the hell? One Axeman?! Is he stupid or something?! And, judging by the lack of fortification bonuses, just whipped! I assume that an Archer Settlement Party has headed somewhere to save the Ottoman Empire. Anywho, the wounded Shock Chariot takes down the defender, and Istanbul is ours!

Free Granary! I split the Chariots into two stacks after the battle; one heads south to find the settling party, the other heads west to Edirne.

There they are! Sadly, on the same turn...

A free Granary here too! Damn, good luck! And, with that...

Our illustrious Empire. I'm gonna be REXing like crazy, probably throwing a crap city up near Bismarck to prevent his expansion southward.

Thoughts? Criticism? Anything?!

 

[Gooblah]

Round 2: Till 155 BC

Spoiler :

Tech Path: Writing -> Iron Working -> Alphabet -> Currency -> Code of Laws (in progress)

The round began with an economic collapse, the likes of which will probably never be seen again on the continent of De Rien. Charles de Gaulle looked out his window in the Presidential Palace of Paris. The river Seine did not form a mouth here, at the Parisian Bay, but instead found its source. He sighed, watching the construction of the massive tomb. He had ordered a large pyramidical structure to be built for him in case he died, but that was doubtful. More likely, his advisors whispered, he wanted something grander than his nose. He was the Cyrano to Madame de Gaulle's Roxanne. An advisor rushed in.

"President de Gaulle! We've discovered a source of iron near Paris! We can use it to fabricate powerful weapons!"

"Better yet, the swords we create can be used to dissuade those pesky Germans from settling to our north! Our charioteer scouting parties to the north reported a group of colonists heading south from Munich!"

"Merd!" shouted the President. But before he could finish his rant, an impressive party of five came in, the lead wearing a massive red hat. With a regal bow, the man straightened up. How he managed to do so without tipping over his hat remained an elusive mystery, one that the French scientists were immediately commissioned to study. However, for the time being, he brought not-so-welcome news.

"Your majesty! My name is Joao II, an equal in rank. I control the burgeoning Portuguese Empire, to the south...or a la sud, as you would say." He smirked. Sadly, his words did not have the desired effect. De Gaulle cut right to the chase. "Have you any goods worth selling? No? Then I would beseech you to return to your boat." And so he did, grumbling as he walked out of the palace doors.

After the construction of the Pyramids were complete, an advisor requested an audience with the president. He informed the leader of the presence of a great engineer and architect, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had fled the religious persecution of Isabella's Spain to reside in relatively religion-free France. For now, the kingdom had no use for his services. The centuries between the Ottoman Wars and the development of a French currency - the franc - were fraught with economic peril. The development of multiple cities, combined with the upkeep costs of a large army and a lack of domestic labor, brought much pain to the french, grounding the famed fiscal system to a halt. With the discovery of the alphabet, many cities were ordered to cease production on Barracks and soldiers, and instead focus on making France once more the research capital of the world. For a brief time, the Ottoman city of IStanbul became a center of learning, before its crown was usurped by the city of Lyons. Eventually, a breakthrough was reached - Currency was discovered. The kings coffers were suddenly filled with money.

-------

Currency brought up my GPT at 20% research by 20, and I could then ram the slider up to 60% by building Wealth in Paris and Orleans. I should be able to finance more cities as Courthouses start coming in, and I plan on building a Galley to find Joao II and snag some intercontinental trade routes.

IR is pissing me off; Izzy should be at Saladhead's throat, since they have different religions, but currently they're cautious and i can't bribe either one. The tech situation looks good. I'm going to make nice to the Buddhist bloc (hopefully get a religion spread), and then trade techs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Immortal/Normal

1 AD

Spoiler :

1 SE for the hill and not losing any resources.

Stonehenge

Settle the stone early for more wonder whore. I actually built this @ pop 1 in stone city:

Mids

I also had enough expansion to get room for 8 cities peacefully. Screw off, AIs. Here's the tech situation around then:

To Liberalism.

Spoiler :

More wonderspam.

Now as you can see I moved palace to floodplains. Even under rep this is good cottage land. This changes my war plans a bit in renaissance.

I take economics off lib

I'm going to go the cannon route, I'm building gold multipliers in my cities. I'm going to sell out on getting cannons rapidly via $$$ rush (pyramids also open US and most of my cottage improvements are or will be towns) Since Joao/izzy are hindu I'm starting to spread that. I'm going to go US/FS/Caste/FM/Theo, using $$$ rush CR II cannons to march through mehmed and hopefully bismark before having to consolidate. From there I'll just go for either domination, UN or AP cheese (bis has AP in christianity).

Despite my wonder whoring and ok city count, I'm still not teching quickly. You'll note that all the AIs managed to make different religions and run them. No one religion is held by more than 2 civs! Not much in trade going on here...and my pulling ahead in tech shows it, even if my speed compared to other games won't.

 

[Gooblah]

@TheMeInTeam:

Spoiler :

Your city placement and early decisions are wayyyy different than mine. Any pointers as to why? I can see the placement of your second city, it makes sense, but the cities around the floodplains and decision not to rush Mehmed...

 

[Bleys]

Very fun map, has some textbook situations that are very common in this game. I like De Gaulle anyway, and its going well with the adjustment to Normal speed. I sense Musketeers + Cuirassiers in my future.

I think a lot of the re-playability of this game lies in trying out new styles and looking for outside the box tactics. This isnt anything special, its just I rarely have 2-move wars because I have been playing Epic, and its Cannons that lead the way for me. But if there is one thing to practice on Normal speed, its warring in a time efficient manner. Time flies by and before you know it, the AIs are swapping Rifling around and you are 3 techs from AL.

Emperor, Normal, through 760 AD:

Spoiler :

I am hoping to test the Musketeer-Cuirassier-Spy combo, with the land shape we have (all the AIs in a row along a thinnish landmass).. Perfect map/leader situation for it.

I decided to be different, and settle 2N, on the plains hill, away from the Beavers, and take my chances on resources up there. If nothing else, I would hav grassland to farm, and as it turned out, there wasnt really much else up there. It got me closer to the good land though, and it gave me TONS of forests, and IND with Forests and Stone, well, you do the math.

I teched Myst kind of early, and chopped out Stoney, and added the GW (just as I hooked up the Stone) and the Mids. Seeing all that Floodplain, and the shape of my land, I started brewing a plan I have been trying to pull off. The "Move Cap to a big-cash city and found a religion there and plan Wall St in Capitol" trick. Sure enough, I got the GS for Philo right on time as I settled that city and founded Tao there (I have Choose Religions on, so its ironic).

After I finish the Forge, I will move my Cap there, which is also in a good, central location for the first round of my future war, taking Mehmeds land. From there, Bismark should make a nice staging area to assault the AIs past him. I chopped out the GL in Paris as well, and that will be my GP Farm with the combination of Wonders and farm-fed Specialists. Once it isnt my Cap anymore, no Cottages wont be anything, since the Future Cap will have 6 FP Towns soon enough.

Heres the screenies:

Spoiler :

My current Cap, will be pure GP farm. Sucks no big-food tile, but I gambled on there not being Fish, and was right, I just wasnt right about there being food to the North. Works out though.

Heres the overview of my Empire, only 5 cities, but I will be taking more soon enough. All 3 Border cities are going to have strong Culture too, I have SoZ in the Elephant city, and the MoM in my planned HE city, the Westernmost one. The center one is my Future Capitol.

Here are my Future HE city and my Future Cap:

I am building AW in Paris to generate another Prophet for the Shrine in Future Cap. My plan is to try for MT off Lib, and Draft Musketeers while building Cuirassiers and Spies. I already have a GSpy settled in Paris too, so I should have good EPs on everyone I need. I may just take some of Mehmeds cities with Maces and Trebs first, he needs a thumping. He got the Missionary from Tao, and I quickly sent another to Bis, so we are all Tao. Been ignoring the threats of the AIs past Bis, heh, he is a good buffer. I hope I can take his cities near me, then vassalize him so his land is in the path of the other AIs. Mehmed, I think I am going to totally kill, but Bis, I want to live.

We'll see, the years go by fast on Normal speed. I have this other cool screenshot. I turned Events back on, and got a Massive Barb Uprising, that I was "going to take the brunt of". Since I built the GW, they got stuck, LOL. Here they are, I wonder where they will go when I pop those borders again. I should use them to try and unlock the HE though, that has me behind in military a bit.

Spoiler :

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@TheMeInTeam:

Spoiler :

Your city placement and early decisions are wayyyy different than mine. Any pointers as to why? I can see the placement of your second city, it makes sense, but the cities around the floodplains and decision not to rush Mehmed...

Spoiler :

Did not know where bismark was. Mehmed does not declare @ pleased. I wanted to go wonderspam since we had stone and a little room so no rush (will murder in renaissance with tech lead). As for city placement, I rushed to the cow/hills as a 4th city and site, and put another city to block/capture more flood plains. I placed them so I could fit more cities, too, so I can get more production when I need it. Lyons is a strong site for a capitol and I moved my palace there before 1 AD (got it on cottages early).

But, remember that I generally just settle resource clusters then fit cities. I don't do much long term planning really, though I do specialize cities at least. I'm too impatient to bother with whether the city will be marginally better if moved 1 tile 100 years from now.

Bis and mehmed warred vs each other in my game and that left me alone entirely thus far.

Edit: I'd consider rush on lower difficulties but it can be brutal vs a unitprob 40 guy (aka same as shaka) on immortal/normal...and at high cost considering I could probably keep him off me.

 

[Gooblah]

Spoiler :

Did not know where bismark was. Mehmed does not declare @ pleased. I wanted to go wonderspam since we had stone and a little room so no rush (will murder in renaissance with tech lead). As for city placement, I rushed to the cow/hills as a 4th city and site, and put another city to block/capture more flood plains. I placed them so I could fit more cities, too, so I can get more production when I need it. Lyons is a strong site for a capitol and I moved my palace there before 1 AD (got it on cottages early).

But, remember that I generally just settle resource clusters then fit cities. I don't do much long term planning really, though I do specialize cities at least. I'm too impatient to bother with whether the city will be marginally better if moved 1 tile 100 years from now.

Bis and mehmed warred vs each other in my game and that left me alone entirely thus far.

Spoiler :

Ohhh. Thanks, TMIT. I try to settle resource clusters, but then I get attracted by the idea of packing in a ton of cities and running through the city list... Oh well.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

I guess Shaka.

Do you consider Shaka "annoying but peaceful"?

 

[Crusher1]

I'm gonna play this when I'm off work but judging by the settler screen shot I am most definitely going to pull a Snaaty.

 

[Lansky]

Don't like the start, but I love the leader. Will definitely give this a go when I get home.

Spoiler :

So if you think anything like I do about leaders then Willem or maybe Joao are isolated. Hmm or perhaps Zara but I don't find him that annoying. Now I want to find out who it is hah.

 

[Nictel]

Spoiler 1000BC :

@Monarch, Epic
4000BC: Thinking of going 1S to get a coast capital, don't want to have a sea square I can't use. This is my first Monarch game and I haven't really beaten Prince yet but no better way to learn than to challenge yourself, right? Going for a CE, as the surrounding land seems to lend itself quite well.

Build order: Warrior -> Warrior-> Worker -> Barracks
Research: Hunting -> AH -> Fishing -> Mining -> Masonry


3200BC: Hello Mehmed!

2950BC: Hello Bismarck!

2675BC: Masonry -> BW

2525BC: Steal a worker from Mehmed, end up with one of his archers near Paris. Becomes a game of tack with one of my warriors.

2000BC: Build GW, chopped two forests.

1975BC: Make peace with Mehmed. Need copper or at least horses before I go to war again.

1500BC: Settle Orleans.

Spoiler :

1050BC: Settle Lyons, those barbs are a real pain.

Spoiler :

1000BC: Third settler waiting, having bit of a difficulty finding the right spot, here is the screenshot. I would like to take the copper, but with the mountains it is quite hard for me to find a good spot.

Spoiler :

Also this is my capital now:

Spoiler :

Any advice? On what I should do, what I did wrong? That would be most helpful!

 

[Phil725]

It seems like the series is gaining some popularity which is good. I'm a few hours late and I'm already near the second page.

Emperor - Epic - 10AD

Spoiler :

Settled in place, getting fishing and some gold from huts. I explored the surrounding land, showing a lot of flood plains, gold and a lot of good land. I quickly got some settlers out. 1 city claiming the stone, and another for the copper. These cities split 11 flood plains and a gold mine.

I started on some wonders after that. I built SH to about half way, getting a good amount of money for failing to get it. After hooking up the stone it only took a few turns to build the Great Wall. I also built the Pyramids. I'm not sure if it's a great idea since the land is so geared towards cottages, and there's 5 or 6 extra happiness from resources to make representation look worse, but we'll see. Rep does help the Great Library which I finished ~200BC though.

Building some wonders did slow my expansion quite a bit though. Bis and Mehmed boxed me in after that. I don't have much experience with a small compact empire, but I should be fine. I have 6 cities, with 3 of them being very good. Here's the land at 10AD:

I settled Rheims out of desperation when I realized Bis beat me to the only horse close by. The culture war is going well. If I finish the SoZ there then I'll definitely get it. If not, I just have to hope that monument/library/religion is enough. The rest of the land is pretty good.

And techs:

Weird, it seems like if you don't settle 4 or 5 cities on the other side of the world early on then you actually end up in a strong tech position.

It seems like the game is in good shape. The biggest and most advanced are Mehmed and Bis, and they're currently at war with each other, and will be wiped out in the renaissance anyway.

On another note, I don't think I've met the leader who's supposed to be a late game power, but my guess is Zara.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Nictel:

Spoiler :

I don't like your city placement. Orleans 1SW from your position still claims horses in the first ring and claims stone and elephants as well. This way you don't need to settle Rheims where you did. And you can send your second settler over those floodplains. No matter what economy you are running and wich wonders you are building, you WANT those floodplains.

Don't worry anyway, barbs are always a pain when you move up a level.

About that leader:

Spoiler :

He's one of the three mentioned by Lansky. I hope he'll do something and not just sit there with his 15 cities. But usually my tweaks fail miserably or simply don't work at all. So don't worry about him.

 

[Gooblah]

Nictel:

Spoiler :

Well, always good to see another Prince player!

I would suggest whipping some troops and taking Ghuzz. Nice city site IMO (founded a city there myself). Also, Orleans could have have been 1SW, as it would have snagged a ton of good resources with minimal overlap. Finally, the amount of cities you have concerns me somewhat, but on the flip side I love to REX . I think overall you'll be in a solid position. Just use the Settler to block Ottoman and German expansion, carve out a nice territory, and eventually war for some control.