Monarch Student^ XXXI Shaka

[i_imperator]

To 1 AD

Spoiler :

No pics for this as i've had four attempts so far. This map is'nt that difficult, i was restarting because i was trying different things. First i tried a sword rush by teching to alpha so i could trade for IW, I was able to get a decent force by 70AD and dow,ed on china. However a sudden backstab from mansa ended that.

Seccond attempt, i tried the same thing eccept a early tech to calender, but this attempt annoyed me as China settled right inbetween my cap and the Gems,Horses,Banana city. Another version of this attempt worked but qui kept taking pot shots at the cities i captured from him and recaptured them, this annoyed the crap out of me.

Third attempt, i did the sword rush/alpha tech thing again but this time i got 6 cities at 1 AD and managed to block off pacal and mansa. Everything was going fine, i captured two of Qui's cities but he got his UU and was teching machinery. Im sure i could coitinue and capture beging but i would loose alot of units. I think i will restart again and do what TMIT did- Wheel-pot-IW-Construction beline, or i could Impi rush somebody.
I think the problem with my attempts is that they're too slow, i ususaly don't get my force built in time. I will try again tho, but i might not be able to update for two weeks as im staying up in college next weekend.

 

[NihilZero]

Yesterday I got a hankering to play Civ for the first time in months, and I came back to Civfanatics to discover that not only is the Civ 4 S&T section still alive and well, but Monarch Student Prime has returned too!

I am pretty darned rusty, but I managed to survive this one:

edit - oh yeah, I forgot to state my settings: Immortal, normal.

Spoiler :

Land is decent enough, very good for commerce, however as Shaka I would have liked to kill some people ASAP, but it really wasn't on the cards. Nearest neighbours are both rather impervious to anything I might throw at them early, so I settled down to build five respectable cities and nab another from the barbs. I tried to get another barb city but Pacal beat me to it. So six cities it was.



The religions broke down thusly:



Undiscovered in this screenshot, Washington would join the Bhuddist block eventually.

With all the HR fans around, diplo was pretty much a no-brainer. My land was wealthy but I was small, so the tentative plan was to tech up to lib and use my decent food to mount a draft war. The draft is a great equaliser, enabling small empires to upset much larger ones if you can set things up right.

Unfortunately, I encountered some bumps in the road in pursruing this strategy:



Giggles beat me to Lib narrowly, and the annoying thing is, I could have had it if I hadn't been over-confident and got sidetracked trying to tech Gunpowder (hoping for Chemistry from Lib) for a few turns before realising that I might lose the race...which I then did. These are the things that happen when you haven't played Civ in several months.

Surprisingly, losing Lib turned out not to be such a biggie, as my diplo position was so good that I could easily tech-whore like a brazen harlot and keep in excellent position techwise. So the plan went ahead anyway, I teched up to rifles and built a nice Globe city in the pigs-iron-double-sugar city (also my NE site).

The second bump in the road occurred when Huayna and Qin (tech lagger and my intended target for an ass-whuppin') signed a defensive pact. Whatever about going David and Golitah with my six cities against Qin's fourteen, a war on two fronts was really not an option.

In short, I was screwed. Or was I? My diplo situation was indeed splendid - I don't think I've ever been more popular in a game, and with master-diplomat Shaka to boot! So I decided to see if I couldn't turn my predicament into a cheap win and went all out for plan B, the UN.

My surprising tech pace (boosted by endless reserves of trade cash and the Economics Great Merchant) allowed me to blaze a swift trail to Mass Media. I even had a Great Engineer handy to do the honours.



I still had one problem, however. I had buttered up everybody with tremendous charm and panache, and was beloved by everybody except Washington and Mansa. Problem was, as anticipated, Qin had the highest pop, despite my witholding happy and health resources from him. And I was a few votes short.



But, the margin was a narrow one. If Qin lost just a few pop points, he would vote for me instead of himself and it would be in the bag. Send in the spies!



My civ switched gears into espionage mode, I pumped out leather-clad dominatrixes en masse, and the waters of China were duly spiked with all manner of unpleasant stuff. This had the desired effect, tipping the balance.



A shockingly peaceful game, with no wars fought anywhere by anyone!

 

[Heliac]

@FlyingSwan:

Spoiler :

Once I got Currency, I was able to manage my income through building , while keeping my research slider at 100% for as long as possible (I am a big fan of binary research) and by spamming cottages. The Ikhanda's helped a lot in this case.

Just wondering as you left the rush till later did you use axes as well as Impi?

No, almost exclusively Impi's (just lots of them). I had a few chariots as well, but that was it; I didn't want the slower Axes to bog me down.

The whole continent was Hindu by this stage though, so I had to focus on spreading it to all my cities but in the end, the other AI's just liked "Giggles" better. 1160AD! Bit of a let-down.

 

[Danelius90]

Monarch/Epic
up to roundabout the 1300s
last time

Spoiler :

Started to prepare to declare on Qin. He converted to confucianism now, so that will help to avoid the diplo hit from other leaders.
Might do civil service for bureaucracy then go along the metal casting > machinery line to get maces (and start to get workshops)
Actually, changing route now. Mansa just adopted bureau, so will go MC now, and look to trade some techs.
Agh, think Mansa traded to get MC... lets try machinery... Mansa bulbed philosophy too. At least I know what to do with my GS now. Academy in cap for +14 wait till bureau
Mansa has vassaled to Pacal. What is the deal with this.



war is going well, a few war elephants around taking different cities.
I teched Literature in view of getting the HE and NE, Pacal is building the GLib (We have our reasons ) so I am making an attempt for it in my cap. Hangzhou (chinese) has marble - I captured it but didn't have any culture, so made a quick blitz on Shanghai and took it. So now I have marble connected to my empire, bureau cap building Glib in 13 turns. Neat. (Also had a chop saved up, as I was building wealth)


Got paper now, and have a good tech rate (well, better than I usually have.) Keeping it to myself, otherwise it will eventually end up in Mansa's hands and thats the lib race gone! lol

860AD 4 pop whip for great Library.
Gilgamesh and Huayna declared on Pacal, thats good it should slow him down.
His culture is infringing on some of my cities, need to regain control

I also have my super-medic impi


I may use my next GS for a golden age, go into caste for a few turns (run artists in NE city) and back to slavery after, get a GS to bulb education, and an artist in the GP farm to get some tiles back.
Didn't notice, but china had the mausoleum of mausollos. So 15 turn golden age

Mansa is no longer a vassal of Pacal, so he could be next war target. He's a pain. And has like 4 cities.
I'm top in score now, thanks to Pacal's war.

[I do this sometimes: I don't get why I placed nongoma where I did. Would have been better 1S]

Finally managed to steal another tech from mansa - optics.

destroyed the chinese civ in 1280AD. Yes that was one continuous war. I don't think it hampered my economy much though, the initial preparation was ok, and it was relatively quick (I didn't need to stop to replenish units or heal for ages)


Would someone mind taking a look and giving an opinion on the shape of my economy? Maybe not enough cottages.. or grown ones..

took nationalism from lib. Build Taj, then go into free speech is an option but don't think it will benefit me as much. I think I've whipped the cottage cities a bit too much without having sufficient farms, so there aren't alot of towns about. (And the cap especially, has mainly been using the dye) So Bureau is prob better for a while.

can't upload save yet of course...

 

[huerfanista]

1935AD Space, emperor/normal:

Spoiler :

This was my 2nd attempt at this one. Settled 1N for the 2 city tile, settled aggressive towards Qin and attacked with cats/axes/swords. I took all but 1 of his cities (he was left with one in the SE corner) in order to grab all of his techs (which I desperately needed). He had bribed Gilgamesh in, but I was able to get peace after wiping his stack. Qin peace vassaled to Gilga the next turn.

With tons of land and being way behind in tech, I decided to go for space. Lib was long gone, but I was able to get to tech parity by researching steam, steel, and bio and trading them around. I soon pulled ahead. Washington was the only heathen, everyone else was jewish (Pacal) so diplo and tech trading was easy. I won both the AP and UN chairs, but couldn't get diplo. A couple of wars started (Pacal v Wash, Gilga v Pacal) but I was able to stop both (I didn't want anyone getting too big, and I had a clear tech lead). Built the intertubes and launched in 1925AD:

Ship landed in 1935:

 

[FlyingSwan]

After reading Heliacs little disaster I Decided to completaly change tactics at the 1000ad checkpoint.Playing Monarch/normal

Spoiler :

From 500ad to about a 1000ad I warred with giggles and he eventually Capitulated,I was just using HA and Impis so I concentrated on wiping out his Ivory source first.Took some nice wonders from him too-collosuss an GL-so my economy was on the up.

At 1000AD I noticed HC had got theocracy so not wanting to get stuffed by the AP I decided to build it myself with a GE.HC was buddist,Im Confucian(as was Qin till he changed to Judaism for whatever reason)and Washington was Buddist.I had open borders with HC so quickly got a confucian missionry in 1 of his citys.Washington took longer as I had to send the missionry by Galley.

Anyway I missed the first vote by 6,the 2nd by 10 and eventually got the diplomatic victory on turn 214.Meanwhile the economy was performing stella and with Giggles researching techs like Mach/Eng which Id then trade from him then Trade around I was Blasting through the tech tree.

At about turn 205 I started a GA with the TaJ and Had enough Great people to keep It going for 24 turns(didnt have the MoM though).Self researched assembly line by this point with techs like biology only taking 4 turns.

The save below is turn 222 where Im 1 turn off Lib.From there Id probably take Physics as the free tech,use the free GS to put a bulb in Bio then bulb all the GS from the GAs to Fission.I reckon Id have nukes in the 1600s on this game.

OOPs upload failed,maybe add it when the forums fixed.

Thanks to Bigtime for posting these games.

 

[Danelius90]

diplomation 1879ish

Spoiler :

game was almost in the bag from last time. wasn't sure which victory to go for. First it was peaceful diplo (had 2 friendly civs) then when I got barely any votes it became domination. built appollo just in case, and ended with diplo via vassals. had a huge tech lead in the end, pretty solid. I've been thinking lately I might go back to normal speed, and after some games maybe try my hand at emperor (i tried one game and I killed economy pretty quickly lol)