Monarch Student XVI - Victoria

[Bleys]

If a city founded on an FP is razed, the tile becomes a desert.

The other possible reason for certain riverside desert tiles to not be FPs is they have a resource that isnt revealed yet, like Oil or Uranium.

 

[Lansky]

Immortal/Marathon
1AD
Have not played marathon since I moved up from uh... Warlord? Figured it would be fun.

Spoiler :

Settle in place and get AG from a hut. Research BW and discover the Copper in the BFC. Grab wheel next and begin to chop out a bunch of axes. Wait hoping Asoka will build SH so he can shrine up his capital (he founded Hinduism) but he doesn't and I get bored and just knock him out. Proceed to hook up the stone and half heatedly chop out The Pyramids in order to run HR. There is a definite lack of other happy resources in the general area though a silver pop near Nottingham is a very welcome boost. Shaka DoW's Charlie and they grind to a halt in their development so I grab Alphabet and trade for IW and Sailing. At 1AD I have 7 cities and am fueling my research almost entirely on begging gold from Shaka/Charlie. Once the Forge is done in Nottingham the military build up will begin.

1265AD

Spoiler :

While building up the military to take out both Charlies and Shaka I run 0% science and accumulate gold while waiting for a GS to bulb most of Education. After Education is done war is declared on Charlie while I try to decide what to take from Lib and whether or not to delay it. Decide not to delay after all and belated grab PP. Not really much to say regarding the war, Charlie had mostly swords and axes so a large stack of catapults and maces made quick work of his garrisons and in 900AD he gone. After a very short build up period I come back at Shaka with more maces and now Trebs. He puts up a much better fight mainly because at some point he finishes Fuedalism and all his archers quickly transform into longbows. He still goes down after a bit of reinforcements and is wiped out in 1265.

1848AD

Spoiler :

Decide to go for a Space Vicotry so I try to please the foreign AIs as best I can while consolidating the island. London spits out a GE in 1530 just in time for Mining Inc and a lot of time is spent spreading that around to every city and also eventually putting down WS in London. Dehli would have made more sense for this IF I had ever gotten a freaking GP to put down the shrine there. I have the Hindu and Taoist holy cities but no shrines. That is a waste of probably around 100gpt after multipliers. I popped out plenty of low odds artists though solely from the NE GPP. Bleh. Anywho I use the GE from Fusion to knock 10 turns off of the SE and get my ship reaches wherever it is they send it in 1848AD. The only threat was Isabella had the AP and forced both Nap and HC to capitulate. She spread Buddhism to me and there was a mad dash to spread it around enough to prevent her from winning via that route. It was very close all game but by spreading it to all my larger cities I managed to hold her off.

 

[Bleys]

My apologies for the lack of detail in my report, but after reading some of the other games, its obvious I didnt do anything out of the ordinary.

Emp, Normal, through 1600.

Spoiler :

I settled in place, and naturally built the gamut of Stone Wonders. Had the stone hooked up for the final chop into Stonehenge, and then built the GW, Mids, HGs, and UoF in the cap. I also built the GL there.

After popping the Copper in my BFC, I went for Asoka with about 10 axes, which was about 5 too many, LOL. He was pathetically slow for some reason, not like him at all, especially with all that seafood. Maybe I just got him extra early, but many of my Axes were built while going for Wonders with whip/chop overflow, so it wasnt like I was busting out Axe, Axe, Axe with 2 Workers chopping to get it done. I did have 3 cities in a line on his border, and forests to chop and workers to chop em, but still, he was super slow. Oh well, in the end, I kept 2 cities, razed another, and turned Delhi into my Globe city.

It took forever to get the landmass religion to spread to me, and of course Shaka had to flex. I was kind of impressed with his trick actually, he had a scout near one of my border cities, and and a stack of Impis sneaking through the forests. He waited until I cleared out my Axes to go raze a Barb city that popped up, then attacked, LOL. He took the city, but I had a BUNCH of Axes left from Asoka, so it was short lived. Plus, by then (200 ADish), I had 6 strong cities up and 3 settlers ready to build more once I got a few Courthouses up and finished teching Currency. Anyway, after that first stack, I also found and destroyed another stack of Impis and Axes mixed, and by then I had the religion, so I took peace. Never heard from him again until now, when I am going to run over him shortly.

I also had a "Culture" war against Charley. He got some cities up in that middle area, but I had culture all over him. I actually popped 2 GE pretty early, and used them to rush Parth in one border city and SoZ in another. It killed him, and by the time I was ready to attack, I had my culture right up against his city. I waited til Cannons (Steel from Lib at 1000 AD) and 1-turned 4 cities, razing 2 and keeping 2. Then I just turtled up, let him ruin a stack trying to re-take one of the cities, and took peace.

Since the war with Charley, I have been cranking out Galleons, Cannons, and Macemen as I get ready to invade HC on the other landmass. I actually got the Cover event, so my Maces rock. Half of the first 10 that killed Asoka are still alive, and have Combat 1, CR 3, and Cover. They are going to make nice Redcoats. Getting ready to go to Nationalism shortly and draft up more Reds, then send 10+ Galleons full. I have a good sized tech lead, too, so this should be cake. Maybe Nappy first, though, he is closer by water.

I know I should have taken both Charley and Shaka down, and had the continent to myself, but I didnt feel like it. I was fine with my crop of cities. I will take them now, time to draft about 50 Redcoats. I have the populations and the happiness to do it.

One pet-peeve, this is NOT a complaint on you Al, its a personal peeve of mine with how the game picks opponents.

Spoiler :

Why do they have to put 2 yellow guys next to each other? This happens all the time, and it bugs the crap out of me. I wouldnt mind if there was another yellow on the other continent, which there is actually, HC is yellow. Blues are the worst, but the game cant even put 2 distinct ones side by side, like Pacal and Louis, instead its always Pacal and Wang, or De Gaulle and Gilga.

Drives me NUTS and I actually STOP playing offline games and re-start from scratch when it happens, and I have even been known to drop a few online games because of the color, KK LHC comes to mind, I killed a couple AIs and ended up with a HUGE border with Sitting Bull, and I couldnt tell us apart and started making horrible mistakes.

I wonder if there is a way to fix it? I think there should be an option to give your opponents whatever color you want, but I dont think thats possible with the current system. I know you can change them in your XML definitions, but that only helps a little, I am still going to end up with Sury next to Lincoln next to Gilga while playing Napolean.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Bleys...mess with your graphics settings or your terrain mod. I can tell borders based on their shading with COMPLETELY IDENTICAL colors (such as when I make myself black and border press the barbs).

Edit: What gays out a close game and justifies a reload?

A: You left click your war ally without touching a damned key on the keyboard (other hand is on your face), and it DoWs him.

Note: This is now the 2nd machine on which I've experienced this issue.

I'm quite late in the game too and the war is quite close. So annoying to go back a few turns though, especially on this machine. It's almost as frustrating as madden, but thankfully EA didn't make this game.

Still, this whole "DoW when you didn't DoW" seems problematic. I might have to resurrect my original bug report on this (where it was claimed it was a unique hardware problem to my laptop keyboard).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Which, of course, implies that I actually got a spare moment to play this.

Immortal/Normal

1 AD

Spoiler :

I settled in place. Went AG, AH, BW. Heyo! Copper. I fogbusted with warriors, got beat to the corn site since it's immortal, and chopped out a stack o axe.

It's slow going but I block Asoka's access to metal and eventually cut down his last archer.

Not fog busting...barb busting...

1 AD I have some land, not great.

Tech rate was slow hell. I used warrior chopwhip overflow to avoid striking/tech a tad faster.

To...ridiculously sloppy backdoor garbage victory in 1924.

Spoiler :

This is NOT something you see everyday.

Yes. Seriously. As I would come to find out later the game's super wonder whore was on this map too. What happened? How did I get them this late? I was thinking $$$ failure money for sure.

Teching aesthetics at 1 AD you wouldn't think I'd take lib but yes, I do.

Shaka was in WHEOOHRN. He declared on Charley earlier. DECLARED on him, but charlie won't take a bribe here. Charlie's power is RIDICULOUS, too. I did see this coming. Shaka's medieval stacks lack knights, and I have about 14 horse archers and cats each. His stack get smoked. I then turn the tables, take 2 cities, kill a lot of units with cannon/leftovers, and

At this point charlie starts to run away. I want to cap him but as I mentioned, his power was utterly insane. Fortunately, I had shaka to absorb some of that nonsense, and redcoats. I actually attacked before he got infantry (barely) JUST so I could cut his power down while I had a UU advantage.

I did get 2 cities, it wasn't an easy war.

I am then behind, so I use my favorite tech deficit window in the game (the time frame where being backwards is least painful):

I lose 2 cities to him counterattacking while I attack. I kill 30-40 more units in my territory and probably more than that defending his cities. PRO sucks to invade . Nap had declared though and eventually I turned the tables, took my cities back, and got almost to his capitol when I saw I could get:

Now, HC is very, very, VERY close to culture. I start massing up some troops. Being a culture whore, HC built the AP AND UN. For my part, I'd forced shaka and charlie into rep (nap went FR so religion didn't matter) to keep nap as not-hateful as possible. Nap went war mode ----> definitely on HC since he's furious with him.

I get a meager stack together to go on a raze coastal city mission:

And while sailing over there...

WHAT? I mean, I'll take it but...WHAT? Well, peace weights pushed nap/shaka to <3. I had -7 with nap, but also fair trade/OB/rep bonus/shared war/resources/etc. Nap is friendly with me and shaka, annoyed with charlie.

So...I win? Did I seriously...just...WIN...on hidden modifiers?! Absurd. Let's go through the ending pictures, including an unusual display of diplo:

As you can see, I was close to losing. However, I tested it and yes, I COULD raze tiwanaku, however HC would cap to nappy shortly thereafter. The only way to win that game w/o UN would then be to cap izzy, get to future era troops, and just try to bash the HELL out of nap's navy/raze all of his and HC's coastal cities.

Laughably, due to all the throwdowns nobody was remotely near space!

I guess it still counts. After all, people have lost this way too. Did the game feel like it owed me one and decided to pay me back ? Still don't like hidden modifiers though.

 

[Phil725]

@ TMIT

Spoiler :

There was no significant effect from hidden modifiers in your win. AIs don't factor in attitude with your vassals when voting for UN/AP. AFAIK, it's the only time they don't factor in attitude with vassals. It wasn't really a backdoor UN win, you had your vassals and a friend. Just pretend you beelined MM and gifted it to HC.

There was a good example of this in one of Mad's RPCs (Darius I believe,) where Justinian declared on him, despite being friendly, because of vassals, and then voted for him for diplomatic victory a few turns later while still at war.

 

[Phil725]

Emperor - Epic - ~150AD

I'm a little late on this one. I played the first round earlier in the week, but must not have saved, and I overwrote the auto saves, just now getting around to playing it again.

Spoiler :

Settled in place, got gold from the two huts I got. In my first try, I axe rushed Asoka very early on. That went as planned, but Charley ended up getting very big, so I decided against it this time. Instead I got some blocking cities out west early on. I started building SH for the failure cash (I started them ~1900BC,) but no one ever built them, and I ended up getting it built in the capital.

Asoka still needed to go though, I decided horse archers would be better for a late attack. I traded Asoka my stone, hoping that he would build the pyramids for me. Turned out to be a waste, although he did build the GLH for me. I was finally ready to go ~200BC.

Asoka was nice enough to just spam missionaries and build wonders instead of units. 200BC and he only has 4 cities (including his capital) and they're all defended by an archer and a melee unit each. I made sure to pillage his copper and iron mines first turn, so he couldn't even reinforce with spears.

I took Bombay without losses (got a little lucky there,) and Asoka took it back next turn, leaving Delhi near undefended in the process. I took that before moving on to Vijay, since he was whipping it a lot. When I got there it was defended by 5 archers and a spear behind a wall. I lost one HA taking that one. I eventually got Bombay back, and I razed the city that he settled to the south since it was poorly placed. Shaka decided to help me by dogpiling Asoka. Hopefully that keeps him off of me, but I doubt it. Asoka was left with a crappy culture pressed city that he settled during the war, so I decided to sue for peace.

Not the greatest haul, I could have taken everything but math, but I decided on this. Either way, Asoka is done. Shaka will probably finish him off soon, if not I'll just redeclare in 10 turns and finish him. It won't hurt me diplomatically since he's a heathen anyway. His land:

I'm thinking GP farm for Delhi and HE city for Vijayanagara.

The rest of my land:

And techs:

Monopoly on alphabet is always good. I'll get monarchy off of someone and go towards lib. Looks like cuirassiers or cavs for the rest of the continent.

 

[Tempesta13]

Emperor/Normal to 1 AD

Spoiler :

Met Asoka pretty close and found out i had copper in the BFC. Settled 1st city here grabbing the 2nd copper just because it made sure Asoka didn't get it, and was a decent city anyway. Helped build a couple axes, although the capital built most.

I declare in 1240 - 2nd city is on a hill so i go for the capital first.

Meet Charley - finish off Asoka 1000 BC. Have lots of nice land.

Figure i'd build Mids since stone in BFC - happiness really will help - also lets me get a decent tech rate early.

Empire at 1 AD

As usual AI's are slow on non-Pangaea maps

to 1907 victory

Spoiler :

Shaka declares - knew that would happen. This city is on a hill with walls - most of his attackers are horse archers (he sends a few more to join this stack) so 4 or 5 spearmen defend easily.

Didn't take anymore screenshots until the end. It wasn't a close game at all so i just played through it. Here's a quick recap though...

Give Shaka a cheap tech later for peace. Got steel with lib around 1100 AD and used cannons to eliminate shaka. Think he was gone around 1600. Charley was friendly all game. I was actually planning on attacking him but he got infantry before i did despite me having a big tech lead all game. I didn't get nationalism for a long time so i was behind on that line of techs.

Nappy attacked me a few times this game - he actually took a couple coastal cities temporarily but never really landed more than 4-5 troops at a time. Eventually i got destroyers and ended that nonsense.

I decided to go state property with workshops/watermills for lots of production instead of corporations. Wasn't really spread out maintenance-wise until the end, but had no need to tech any faster since i was already ahead and didn't plan on going space. At one time i actually had 5 GP's sitting in my capital -used them for a 2 and 3 GP golden age back to back. That was probably in the 1700's - didn't get any more GP's until really late - i think it was a merchant i air lifted to HC for some gold.

Gifted HC mass media but was short of votes because Izzy was going culture so was not in a religion or theocracy. That made it hard to get her votes. I easily conquered Nappy with artillery/infantry and then later bombers/tanks. Made the mistake of having HC cancel trade w/ Izzy rather than the other way around (she was pleased with both of us come the first UN election). That gave me a -1 with her and i think i would have won around 1815 if i didn't screw that up. She was +8 or +9 with me but still abstaining from all votes.

Even after i conquered Nappy i was 1 vote short around 1875ish. So just decided to make sure and attacked Izzy with tanks/bombers and quickly took a few cities and now had plenty of votes. Charley was +17 or something with me so i wasn't worried about the -1 declare on our friends. He really liked me this game. I could have gone for domination or space but figured the UN required the least clicking.

 

[gskyes]

Mid game update - Monarch, Epic

no screenshots, I don't even remember the date (I'm posting from work )

Spoiler :

I moved the warrior SE, and spotted coast, so I moved the settler SE too. No seafood, but I found horses in my BFC, so Asoka got chariot rushed instead of axe rushed. Then I tried to fill out as much land as I could. Charlie spammed settlers like a mad man. I should have REXed more or tried to block him off. Also it took forever for Budhism to spread to me, but now all 3 of us are Budhists.

The barbs built a city on the hill near the wines and cows, and had 3 archers in it before I had iron working. I was waiting for swords (and maybe even catapults) to take it, but Shaka sent some impies and took them down to one wounded archer. A chariot attacked and died but an axeman took it for me. Charlie beat me to a city spot south of that with my settler one turn away, so that settler went south, and the two cities are putting a cultural squeeze on the HRE city.

That's pretty much it so far. Shaka declared war on HRE, but that war was a stalemate. Charlie has lots of land and a Budhist shrine (I think), but I'm leading our continent in tech. I was first to optics and got the circumnavigation bonus. On the other continent, the Incans are large and backward, and Isabella is small but advanced (and also in free religion, so she will trade with me). Napoleon is backward and small with a large army and is demanding stuff from me already, but he doesn't have astronomy yet.

I will probably try to conquer my continent when I get cannons and redcoats, then build a spaceship. Hopefully I can finish this one soon. I've also been seduced by the siren's call of Fallout 3 .