Monarch Student^ XXIV Montezuma

[BigTime]

Hello forum members, and welcome back to Monarch Student Prime! I have decided to come back to Civ 4 after being gone for some time and being rather disappointed with Civ 5. So here I am again, to resume my hosting duties in Monarch Student Prime. I appreciate CivilizedTiger's attempt to restore this series about half a year ago in his Freddy game, but now its time for MS Prime to come back swinging!

But enough about that! Let's turn to our fearless leader, the best diplomat in all of Civ!



Oh yes. Everyone's favorite featherhat is here to lay down the smack on these AIs! I always like spiritual, being a good all-around trait to abuse diplo and to quickly change civics when needed. Aggressive is aggressive. Easier spawnbusting early on and a more powerful military base.

His UU is the Jaguar:



A resource-less swordsman that is cheaper as well and starts with woodsman I, but has 5 strength rather than 6. I quite like it, especially the it being cheaper. If used with siege support, the strength doesn't really matter a whole lot, and that extra hammers you save means that you can pump out more military.

His UB is the Sacrificial Altar:



Absolutely awesome. Quite often cited as the best UB in the GAME, this courthouse replacement is cheaper, but cuts whip anger in half. This is simply amazing to the point where whipping has a more amazing return than before. Whip til ya bleed with this UB!

The Start:



A nice plains hill to start on as well as corn, although it will not be irrigated pre-CS. The wines are alright, providing decent early commerce if cottaged early and average commerce when Wined. Not a bad start, I've seen worse.

I will try to vary the maps more from now on, this is fractal though, as it is my first host in a while, but I will try to put out some different map types.


Huts and Events are OFF, add events in the custom scenario if you wish. (just make sure to cover the top part with your hand so you don't see the AIs )

And a cut-and-paste from Meatbuster's Monarch Student games:

Save the file and place it in your Documents/BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Then unzip it into your Documents/BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Then use Playing a scenario to play your desired level. Or use custom scenario if you want to remove huts and/or events.

Recommended Checkpoints:
*1000BC or 1AD
*500AD
*1000AD or Liberalism
*Victory!

Please remember to put the journals of your adventures inside spoiler tags.

For Monarch+ players please try to add archery back to the barbs in WB. If you don't, AIs will capture cities with archers very early in the game, which is no fun. If you prefer easymode barbs, that's fine too, just don't go wondering why an AI captured a barb city in the very early BCs!

Thanks go to TMIT for making an excellent map creation guide and to mjg5591 for getting this series back on track!

And finally, the save!

 

[huerfanista]

How about adding a pic of the starting location?

 

[BigTime]

I knew I'd mess something up Fixed...

 

[Gwynnja]

I'm going to settle on that wine and research ag. Emp/normal.

 

[Gwynnja]

to 700 BC

Spoiler :

Not much room. I researched Agriculture>AH>wheel>mining>BW>writing>HBR>Archery. Built worker>warrior>settler>warrior>worker>settler>worker>worker>*chariots>stable. Frederick is crippled, relegated to living in the snow. Now I'm getting ready to crush Zara with horse archers (and mao if he doesn't have feudalism when zara's dead.) Sucks to spawn next to Monty, he'll declare on you at cautious. I'll research Alpha>Currency>CoL and WHIPWHIPWHIP!!! next.

 

[vranasm]

@gwynnja

dunno...we are already at PH for bigger oomph... I will probably sip. and start aggri

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Although I'd probably not recommend it, you can get early religion for almost certain by settling ON the wine and working the other wine tile; doing so is 4 commerce + palace, something only HC/Pacal with an oasis tile or their own riverside calendar resource can match.

Doing that, however, forfeits the plains hill city tile hammer and slows down access to the corn. It might still be worth it, but unfortunately it's just not plausible to determine whether it is best or not until too late on most maps.

 

[drlake]

Looks like it might be a challenging starting location, with only one food visible and lots of brown land. I may give this a try later if I have time.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Looks like it might be a challenging starting location, with only one food visible and lots of brown land. I may give this a try later if I have time.

The game has some pitfalls, but it's winnable for certain. I'm wrapping things up with nukes after capturing a controlling interest in the world with tanks/bombers...and only my vassals are ahead in tech .

 

[huerfanista]

AD205, monarch/epic:

Spoiler :

So I dropped down to monarch - sue me. I wanted an easier game after playing a bunh of emperor games.

Settled on the wine, since I planned to oracle CoL and rush somebody (anybody!), and I wanted the techs I would need for a rush out of the way quickly. Worker> warrior> settler x2> warrior x2> worker> *chariots. Tech order was AG> AH> mining (partial)> wheel> mining> BW> IW> poly> PH> writing (I realized that I was going to have nothing for my worker to do when I was halfway thru mining ).

Fred showed up right next door, followed soon after by Zara and later by Mao. Fred became target #1. I was tempted to settle the gold/FP first, but secided to go with horses and a chariot rush, figuring that I'd get the gold anyway. After the first settler was out I decided to gamble with a 2nd settler to grab at least one gold if Fred didn't settle in a way that blocked them. Luckily, he went coastal rice so I was able to grab 2x gold + FP + plus nice riverside cottage land. With gold hooked up, I decided to head straight for IW, figuring that the gold would get me to writing/pottery with no problem.

I declared on Fred around 1500BC with 6 chariots, and jags in the queue. He had 4 cities, 3 of them on flatland. My chariots grabbed Berlin, and Hamburg feel to chariots/jags. The double seafood was guarded by a single archer, so I parked a couple of Jags there until the border popped and then took it without loss. His last city was on a tundra hill up north, taken with Jags and razed. Meanwhile, I built the oracle in the capital, taking CoL to enable sac alters and founding confucianism.

Of course, Mr Creative Annoyance, founder of buddhism, settled right up against my 2nd city to try and steal the jumbos. Since Mao was buddhist as well, I adopted it as soon as it spread. I let Zara enjoy his new city for exactly 2 turns before I declared. I sent a couple of W2Shock jags to pillage his iron and sent the main stack to capture his capital (a couple of CR3 vets, a C2Shock axe, and a few CR1/2 jags. With only a couple of axes/swords, his cities fell easily. Mao, ever the opportunist, smelled blood in the water and declared on Zara as well. His troops only managed to see action on Zaras last city, when he suicided his entire stack of swords/axes and let me grab the city easily. thanks, Mao!

After writing I went for math. I traded math + poly +PH to Mao for alpha, then bjuilt research/ran scientists until currency was in. After that it was fishing> med, and I'm currently 6 turns from monarchy. I built a temple in the capital and ran a priest - combined with the oracle, I popped a GProphet and built the mahabodhi in Aksum, which was a big boost. Then I sent my vets to capture a triple-spice barb city on a hill to the SW, and finished off by settling a marble/gem site nearby to block off more land from Mao. OFC, Mao won't trade any more until I can get him to friendly, which may be more work than it's worth. I'm trying to decided between aesth/ lit/ music, or construction/HBR to take him out with cats/jumbos before he gets to feudalism.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Immortal/Normal

1 AD

Spoiler :

Settled in place and opened AG/AH. Worker, grow to 2, settler. This turned off to NOT pay off for a rare change, as barbs hampered me from settling for a long time (note that I didn't lose the settler, but played ring around the rosie for 15 turns which sucked enough).

Nevertheless I made 6 good cities and whatnot. The BIG problem here is that this is immortal with immortal tech costs and maintenance, and yet not one of the 3 AI I met bothered to get alphabet for a LONG time. I should have gone for it but marble ----> literature/music was too tempting. Ooof. Diplo situation keeps me out of wars at least.

Liberalism

Spoiler :

This massed GPP thing is getting old hat now. No cottages, no problems. Great library/parth, and even statue of zeus (in a border city to get culture vs Zara after trading for his ivory with my horse X_X). I also picked up sistine to virtually guarantee no AI culture wins. Lib race was a LITTLE tight, but AIs only got education around the time I was 1 turn from lib.

1912 Conquest

Spoiler :

Obviously my tech started sagging in the renaissance. Rep helps, but without settled specs and having only 6 cities it wasn't great. I still made rifles before freddy, and the cities I had put up some good hammers. He foolishly went demo/steam power before rifling, but he never finished steam power...I trounced all of his cities with very very few losses (check out endgame produced/killed)



Having fallen behind a little in tech by this point, I opted to catch up. Factory/coal plant using SP/BIO boosted farms/workshops. I was able to stay in caste too so very strong in production, while building wealth/research was hitting around 1700 bpt...enough to get tanks/bombers. I had them all set up against Zara, and even had bombers set on scouting runs to locate his stacks. I was ready to off my biggest ally this game, but he had other plans.



Wow, a rare PAssal to a human on Immortal. I took it; he'd been good to me all game giving friendly trades and wasn't a legit threat to win, so this took care of him basically. I re-routed forces to china.



AI isn't good at modern war. We had the same techs, except he didn't have flight. That's too bad for him.



And the tech:



Notice how the remaining chumps will never, ever catch up in time to stop nukes. Once I built enough paras/tac nukes, this game ended VERY quickly.











Basically just using nukes/paras to city hop multiple cities each turn. Kublai broke away from alex, then took him as a peacevassal, then capitulated, then alex capitulated, all within 10 turns lol. End stats:





For a CHANGE, I put up some elite kills/deaths. Coolness.

 

[Wulf38]

Monte is one of my favorite leaders to play as, so definitely doing this. Emperor, normal speed, no vassals (Monte takes no prisoners )

Early game exploits (up to 250BC):

Spoiler :

I figure if I'm going to play as Monte, I might as well play like Monte. Which means spamming units early and declaring war on my nearest neighbor. I chose Fred as the target of my aggression because he's closest. It helps that he's also not PRO or CRE like the other neighbors.

This start is favorable for early IW and a Jaguar rush with all the commerce around. I settled in place and went worker first, teched Agriculture and AH to improve my food, then farmed the wines and worked those for 2F1H2C each. Also settled the double gold site SW of the capitol to help speed me through Mining -> BW -> IW and fund my conquests.

Turn 38: Settle second city.
Turn 51: Discovered IW. Iron pops next to the capitol, not that I need it.
Turn 72: Declare war on Fred. Run a stack of 8 Woodsman II Jaguars through the woods to Berlin.
Turn 73: Capture Berlin.
Turn 76: Capture Hamburg.
Turn 80: Capture Cologne (auto-razed). Take a ceasefire to heal and regroup, quick healing thanks to Woodsman III.
Turn 84: Redeclare war and capture Munich. German civilization has been destroyed.

I love Jaguars. They're resourceless, cheap and spammable, practically indestructible in the woods, and if your target's land is covered in forests (it usually is) they're also very mobile. Definitely an underrated UU.

Now the continent is all Buddhist. Mao and Zara are Pleased which unfortunately won't stop either of them from attacking me. But I'm Monte, I declare at pleased too . Finally settled another city peacefully to grab that ivory before Zara does. Started on the SoZ because it's cheap with ivory and I don't want to fight it later.

 

[BigTime]

Emperor/normal to 1 AD. Trying to get back in the swing of things!

Spoiler :

Settled in place and gained extra pigs, nice. Opened with AG-AH then went down to BW to clear some of these forests. Neighbors are pretty good with only Mao being a backstabber but he is blocked by Zara. I thought that somebody would found a religion, but Buddhism, Hindu, and Judaism all founded on other continent! That made me go down to CoL to see if I could pick up Confu. I picked up a nice suprise on the way:



For currency, providing a great trade chip. Oh and did you notice I was 1 away from CoL?



With so many trade routes and no other religions, it spread like wildfire, converting Zara and Mao after 1 turn, and I used my free missionary to convert Fred. Now we are all 1 big Confucian continent!

In terms of expansion, I only expanded to 6 cities, but they are six good cities. Capital makes a good bureau cap and eastern gold provides a lot of commerce. I will prob use my tech lead to get to cavs and stomp the continent.

Current Lands:





Techs:



Zara is as always, a good techer, but everyone else is painfully slow. Looking pretty good for now, maybe I should go back up to Imm

 

[BigTime]

Emperor/normal to Liberalism

Spoiler :

With everybody confucian, no wars happened on our continent at all. I managed to get a Great prophet who did make me profit:



Every city by the end of this report had confucianism, netting me close to 30 gpt. Not bad. I also picked up a fairly late tao:



Giving me some time on lib.

I picked up a few wonders on the way:



Hagia was just for culture help against Zara but the AP was incredibly good. Every city would get a free +4 production just from the two basic religious buildings. Very nice. I was elected leader as well.

All this peaceful teching allowed me to cruise to get a very nice lib tech:



Workshops and watermills are going up everywhere and turning all the plains garbage tiles into powerhouse production cities. Plan is to get to cavalry and take out as much as the continent as I can before they get rifles. Then I will just go to artillery and infantry and seal the deal. Other continent is backwards as hell, KK and Alex have been in a nonstop war I assume.

Lands:





Should be smooth sailing from here.

 

[Gwynnja]

@gwynnja

dunno...we are already at PH for bigger oomph... I will probably sip. and start aggri

Monty doesn't start with worker techs (unless you have deer/ivory/fur) and with all those forests I wanted to get the techs for him to have stuff to do quickly. Was it optimal? I dunno, but he didn't stop to rest. Plus, I often forget to hook up wine because of the immediate happiness boost from HR anyway, and now I'll have it instantly.

 

[BigTime]

Emperor/normal to 1780 UN via Vassals

Spoiler :

Continued with the plan from last time and spammed shops and mills. One slight problem, I realized I didn't have horse.... So I decided to just mass rifles against Fred because he didn't have grenadiers anyway.

We see a rare total destruction of an AI:



Alex seems to be a huge military power, too bad he's backwards as hell.

DoW stack against Fred:



Problem was, I forgot Zara and him had a DP, until after I declared Doesn't matter, Zara has no military of consequence, and I actually manage to poach some cities from him. Of course Fred gets grens when I DoW, but massed rifles with pinch destroy him. I add some cannon to the mix to help speed things up at the end. I don't really want to slog, and I see both Zara and Fred will cap, DUAL CAP:





And Zara is still pleased with me due to theo and religion

I thought I could win UN with my vassals and Mao who is safe at friendly, so I beeline Mass Media and build this:



But alas, it was not to be. No matter, neither Pacal nor Alex has rifles, and Alex is not even close, now that I have horse I mass cavalry, galleons, and frigates to go say hi to the number 1 military power in the world. Great thing is, he DoW on Pacal, meaning all his forces are on the other side of the continent, this allows for a nice sneak attack with a bajillion cavalry.



Frigates bombard coastal cities, cavs take it 1 turn later. Mid-way through war he does get rifles, but when you have 5 cavs vs. 1 rifles cavs still win.

I see I pass diplo limit, so I take a random city for peace from Alex to buff the pop up. Pacal is now next in Pop, but it doesn't matter:




Leading to diplomation! Fun game, but I think I can move back up to Immortal, this seemed really easy and we didn't even have that good land.

Power graph tells the story:



Workshops with state property and caste are ridiculous. I didn't even bother switching out of caste cause I just ran culture slider after I saw I didn't need to tech anymore.

K/D:




and Score:



Decent score. Early finish and vassals mainly caused that. Pretty fun map, montezuma is one fun leader to use! And in case you ever doubted the power of cavalry, even against rifles, voila:

 

[vranasm]

try number 3 to 400BC... oh it's emperor normal, forgot to write ;-)

Spoiler :

Actually I could have continued from first try, because at 1280BC I had Zara's capital and 2nd city, but his last city was hill defended madness and didn't want to let him live.

Dunno if it was intent but we have 2 rush targets at beginning and horses nearby, so the obvious first pick was chariot rush (btw in that first try I settled on wine and got hindu and succesfully rushed zara).

i decided with gold nearby I will try HA rush with 4 cities as basis (well actually 3 would be better, but the 4th gets me silver, but whatever).
To my bad my beloved Zara is to east and the ivory that was mine is now claimed by his damned city 1T east of them... should have really wipe him instead of Frederick, but the power ratio decided otherwise.

I dunno the exact turn where I got HA's but it had to be before T70, maybe around T65. Didn't pay that much attention to whole try.

at T99 I own 8 cities and am totally crashed one mistake though instead of teching alpha right after pottery I went with Aest for trade bait, but the other 2 ai's have their own small battle too.

I think there is relatively enough place if someone doesn't want to rush, but I think it's better to clear at least 1 neighbor.
Well I got Frederick to 2 marginal city spots in north and will let him live.

screens

Spoiler :

 

[BigTime]

@ vranasm

Spoiler :

You look to be in great shape, as long as you get alphabet and build research to get through currency and CoL. I suspect Hinduism is going to be a dominant religion on this continent, so adopt it if you get the chance. I don't think you need to take out Frederick right away, his land is pretty terrible and you need the chance to rebuild.

Overall your position looks great, and you can use that large amount of land you captured to power away to a commanding tech lead!

 

[vranasm]

@ vranasm

Spoiler :

You look to be in great shape, as long as you get alphabet and build research to get through currency and CoL. I suspect Hinduism is going to be a dominant religion on this continent, so adopt it if you get the chance. I don't think you need to take out Frederick right away, his land is pretty terrible and you need the chance to rebuild.

Overall your position looks great, and you can use that large amount of land you captured to power away to a commanding tech lead!

Spoiler :

exactly that is the plan.
I will probably stop the aesth madness, switch to alpha, set slider to 0% (losing gold there btw ;-)) and try to whip lib everywhere asap and run 2 scientists. should really help.
Don't trust Mao/Zara that they get soon Alpha since they have their small war. Should have done it after the pottery right away, stupid thinking on my part. Could have been 4T off Alphabet with looking at 100g with -15gpt after getting it.

 

[Wulf38]

Up to Lib in 840AD:

Spoiler :

After my quick slaughter of Fredrick, time to build up my economy. I'm going quite cottage heavy here, because while food is not very plentiful around here, there is a lot of riverside. Planning on rush buy later. Zara is Friendly now because I share his religion and I gave him stuff. Mao still only pleased.

75 BC: Complete the SoZ. One obnoxious wonder I won't have to face later. And if anyone declares on me they can eat my WW.
620 AD: Complete probably the latest Parthenon ever on Emperor.
740 AD: Bulb Philosophy, found Taoism.
840 AD: Win Lib, take Nationalism because I intend to roll these backward fools on my continent with cuirassiers. But first, to Democracy so I can use US/Emancipation.

I really don't get what these AIs are doing. I did not deserve to get the Parthenon or Taoism. It's 840AD and Mao doesn't even have Alphabet yet! I actually checked the settings to make sure I didn't accidentally set this game to Chieftain or something, but no, it's Emperor.