Monarchist Cookbook Game 3, Hammurabi of Babylon!

[Ginger_Ale]

Hi All,

I just found out about the MC games a few days ago and am working on trying to catch up to you (by playing through the best ball games--so that I can get a feel for what is going on). I just started trying to work on winning monarch level games but I keep getting totally whipped, so hopefully playing here will help.

Anyways, I have been noticing that some of you put markers on the map where you plan on placing cities. How do you add/remove those markers? Is this something from the BUG mod, or is it just some feature of Civ that I have somehow missed?

Thanks!

Pressing Alt + S allows you to place a "sign" (that's the official name, at least) on the map that you can label. Similarly, you can remove a sign by holding down Alt + S and then clicking on the tile. Welcome to CFC!

 

[ranion]

beyond that, if you zoom out enough, you can select the strategy layer, that allows you to place signs and even draw lines on your map as you see fit, i tend to use that to dot map out my land in most games rather than export a screenie to paint or photoshop or w/e. useful tool that. and certainly part of the game.

if there is still no choice by tomorrow after my round of golf i'll finish my round and post, otherwise lets give'r.. (this means if you feel like waiting until Saturday at ~16:00, then you may have another, admittedly probably poor, round to choose from.)

 

[Bleys]

Time for some input folks, we need to choose a save.

I vote Rolo's, even if I could vote for my own. My "flyer" move of a switcheroo AP is , and even though rolo likely cannot get a diplo win (at least not without being on the verge of Domination), his save is pretty solid for all the other winning conditions.

I sense a diminishing interest in this game though, much like the others, so I am going to make a suggestion that we can discuss in the Bullpen thread. That suggestion is moving this series to Emperor. I know, I know, we wanted to keep it as a comprehensible guide for the Monarch level player, because many of us feel the jump to Monarch from Prince is one of the toughest to make (AIs get Archery, which is pretty big). But I most of us are too strong for Monarch these days, we seem to be whipping the maps pretty easily. Once rolo's save does his planned sweep through KKs lands, this game will be over. Sending the discussion to the Bullpen, link is in my sig.

 

[Negator_UK]

I'm still a monarch player myself (in fact I lose more games now than when I started "improving", but now I always lose late game "

However I don't mind trying emperor - is there any way we could make the "upgrade " it provisional ? ie a trial to see how it goes, rather than commit the series.

As for loss of interest, I'm not sure about the others but I have found that by picking the best save I miss the wars, which limits my ability to learn somewhat. Maybe we could reconsider the criteria for the saves we pick.

But this is the first group civ game I have played, and I'll be playing the next few anyway, so my tuppence is based on a sample of 1...

Haven't check rolos save yet, will do so now ...

 

[Negator_UK]

rolo - you have named your save as bleys - damned confusing

My vote is for bleys (I think ) it has a better bpt, even if it is partially colossus based which I think expires eventually.

 

[ChromiumL]

I realize that this is probably way late to actually be considered (and mine is far from the best anyways), but am just too excited not to post now that I have finally caught up with everyone else! I usually really struggle with war, but I think it was easier since I was sorta pushed into it . Playing this has been a great learning experience for me so far--especially when it comes to war.

Spoiler :

I can't remember exactly when everything happened (I forgot to turn on logging and my memory isn't all that great), but in general this is how things went:

I kept war with the Inca, and as a result got pulled into war with KK. Survived his onslaught while taking Cuzco. Accepted peace from them shortly after while I healed up and prepared to take the last mainland Inca city (Machu Picchu--which I later took).

I ended up building both the Spiral Minaret and the University of Sankore. Started building tons of Buddhist buildings to take advantage of the and . Also built the AP as Buddhist.

Other than that, I just did everything I could to build up the economy and shoot ahead in technology. Had finished Nationalism/Steel/Printing Press and was working on Military Science when the round ended.

With a few more cannons, everything will be ready for a war with KK. (or Persia). I have started to save up some espionage points (about 1000) for each of them.

Some Pics:

Babylon:

Spoiler :

Army at Machu Picchu slowly building up to attack KK:

Spoiler :

Tech Situation/Tech Tree:

Spoiler :

Diplomacy Situation:

Spoiler :

Pros: Good economy and far ahead in Tech

Cons: Starting to let military lag a little, not a whole lot done to curb Darius' increase in power

My vote is for Bleys--I think getting the AP in Taoism may have been a really smart move (at least after he builds Taoist religious buildings!). He is also in a really good position to start attacking KK very quickly.

Is there any way to upload pics without having to save them to someplace like photobucket?

 

[Negator_UK]

Is there any way to upload pics without having to save them to someplace like photobucket?

look for the "manage attachments" button in the advanced reply screen. You can upload the pics, then copy their url, then paste them between the image tags.

Welcome to the game

 

[Bleys]

OK folks, I have made a decision here. Since we are down to 3 or 4 players still following at this point, I am "calling" this one, similar to the Bismark game.

Play it through the end, using whichever save you feel is strongest (or even weakest, as a learning tool), and then do a report. You can make your reports as brief or extensive as you wish, but I would like to see at least the following info:

Which save you chose and why.
Which win condition you chose and why.
Synopsis on how you achieved that win condition.
Attach a save of turn or 2 before victory.

For example:
"I chose Rolos save, and decided to go into Space. I consolidated my cities, avoided any other wars, and focused on teching and production, and launched before any other AI even had a single spaceship part built"

Or:
"I took Bleys' save, sent a Tao missionary to all the AIs who didnt have it, and managed a Diplo win"

Or even:
"I played my own save, and went for a Domination win by taking out KK, then Shaka, and half of MM's cities"

Any of those would be good enough, but of course you are absolutely welcome to write a longer report with as many details as you wish, and I want to thank everyone who played in advance, this was a good game with a tricky map and a leader who doesnt get much play on the boards. I learned some good stuff in this one, and I hope you all come back for MC 4, which will start in a week or so, maybe a tad longer to give Diamond and a few others a chance to get back into it. Currently, I think we are going to be staying at Monarch, and looking for another tricky map with a "weaker" leader.

Many thanks to Sisuitil for making this map for us, I think it was perfect for us to show a few different ideas and such. A great set of AIs to test us, along with a few twists and turns. Anti-archer civs as neighbors, and aggressive warmonger types as "next over" neighbors, as well as an isolated techer with lots of land to develop in peace and build. Good job, S-man!

So lets have some fun, play it out, even write multiple reports at various times if you wish. I truly enjoyed this game, and I am actually looking forward to finishing it. Personally, I am going to play my own save and go for a cheesy back-door AP win, heh.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, way back when I did my ill-advised warrior rush to screw around and submitted it, I actually played this out in legit fashion after that. I still went for HC (pre knowledge I shouldn't have had, I DID scout anyway but still), this time with bowmen. In that game I kicked my religion over to tokugawa and we were buddies all game...allowing me to gradually capture pretty much all of the cities to the west that weren't toku's. I got backwards using cavalry against infantry against KK...and MM went culture. However, I forced KK to capitulate with sheer #'s and since MM went culture he went down the mass media line.

Because MM built the UN and not me or Toku, HE was eligible instead of toku. Everyone in the world voted for me except MM, who voted for himself, so I won...

I will probably post actual saves in the next one again . Having gone attacko and everything then seen things well ahead of the saves I figured I'd just play this one out as a shadow.

 

[Negator_UK]

Since we are down to 3 or 4 players still following at this point, I am "calling" this one, similar to the Bismark game.

Good call.

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, i picked my save ( just because I was more familiar with it ) and.....

Spoiler :

I won a AP win in 1770

Well, it was not exacly my plan, but it saved me from prolonging the inevitable....

longer version of the story:

I had left the game in a point where I was in war with KK and HC, and where I had some new and shiny cannons to try on keshiks. I had captured the AP , but was not the AP resident. Well, HC vassalized to Darius and when I had a KK city with only 2 damaged defenders ( that showed me that I was making too much of cannons ). But I learnt my lesson: I knew I had 13 turns before the next AP vote: so I prepared a bigger and nastier SoD and waited... when the AP proposed a pan-OB I dowed without hesitation. Took 4 cities ( Turfan was quite a PITA: 3 Guerrilla II archers in a hill city ) and vassaled KK ( not everyday that you enslave the pope ).

I started to move the army west ( no need to have a Sod guarding me from a vassal ) and was planning a naval landing on Mansaland. Then I noticed that Shaka was beelining rifling. That had to be stopped:

Spoiler :

4 turns, 2 cities, one SoD less..... Shaka is in my shopping list as well

If you noticed ; persians were still defending with lbows A lesson, dear friend Darius: If you have a neighbour that beelined steel, Mil Science and Rifling ( got MT shortly after ), that adopted police state and Nationalism with heavy use of the draft and that had vassaled a civ only marginally weaker than them in 4 turns..... maybe it is a good idea to not beeline electricity

Well, after the last paragraph I think it is not exactly a surprise that I dowed darius Darius proofed a little harder than I thought because he was making a huge espionage output ( he had 4 (!) Scot. Yard ), so I could not use the revolts I had used in the others with the same efficiency. But as Darius proofed to be a complete idiot in military terms ( he fought with me with cuiraseers ( last call military tech ), lbows, airships and even axes and immortals ).... let's say that the main factor against me was the geography, not Darius.

But my B plan kicked in:

Spoiler :

As you can see, mansa has received the gift of budhism.... I took some effort and sent a galleon filled with missionaries to Mansaland ( don't laugh: 4 religion cities are hard to spread a religion: it took the 3 missionaries to spread it ot one city ). i was hoping that Persia would be the oponent ( that would assure me a clean vic ), but the guy dodged me and adopted FR, a thing that putted KK as my oponent. I took some measures: vassalized HC and Darius and....

Spoiler :

I love this graph.... to those that think that I'm a peacenik.

well, nothing like a nice war game........ lol

 

[futurehermit]

Nice work Rolo! Sorry I've been out of the loop guys, fantasy football has gotten into full swing of things the last couple weeks My Civ playing has thus taken a big hit. Hopefully will get back into Civ soon

 

[Winston Hughes]

I've fixed my machine, and played my third round again from the start (having lost the previous save along with everything else on my hard drive).

Here's a brief description of where I'm up to, along with the save for anyone who's interested:

Spoiler :

As before, I vassalised Toku, although this time I chose to liberate all of the newly captured cities back to him, lifting our relations to Pleased, and keeping my maintenance costs to a minimum.

I then set about conquering HC's mainland cities...



...before adding him to my list of minions:



As a result I now have a quite ridiculous number of wonders, including the Parthenon, Pyramids, Colossus, and Great Library, as well as a bunch of extremely potent production cities. And, if I can pop a Prophet (I'm building the Angkor Wat for exactly that purpose), I'll have a shrine drawing income from more than 50% of the world's believers.

The remaining civs are already lagging in tech, but my economy has barely even begun to kick into gear yet. And with the Mongols unlikely to keep their independence for much longer, a diplomatic win might offer the most humane conclusion to this game.

I think I'll play it out from here, rather than switching to fh's save. It should be an easy win either way, but my plans have all come together very nicely, and I'd like to see it through.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Victory in 1585ad!

Spoiler :

The first decision I made after taking up my own third round save (thus making this a shadow game) was to refrain from taking any diplomatic shortcut to victory. I've pulled that stunt, with either the AP or the UN, too many times. Besides, playing as a militaristic leader on a warmonger's map, and having forced 2/6 of the AIs to capitulate already, I felt the most natural course was to continue to a conquest victory.

Part One

Spoiler :

My next victim, unsurprisingly, was Kublai. I waited just long enough to bring up some reinforcements, and to use a GM trade mission (the first of several) to upgrade my Axes and Swords to Maces, and then...



You'll notice that I also had Trebs by this point, although only one of them had reached the front line. More arrived as the war went on, helping my army storm through KK's northern cities:



The city of Beshbalik might have been better razed, as it required a fairly substantial garrison for the rest of the game to keep it from revolting (actually it did revolt for several turns later on, despite the garrison).

Indeed, deciding which cities to keep, which to raze, and which to leave to your vassals is an important aspect of this kind of strategy. Although you get the full fat cross of all your cities even if the cultural pressure from your vassals is intense, that cultural pressure can render a city virtually useless if you're not careful.

Anyway, with most of his best land under my control, it was time to accept KK's submission:



So I set about cottaging up the green and pleasant lands I had captured, with a view to the long term health of my economy. In retrospect, though, I would've done better to build farms and workshops, since the game didn't last long enough for the cottages to really kick in.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to get a Great Prophet to build the Buddhist shrine in Cuzco. After missing out a couple of times at fairly poor odds, I decided to go the whole hog. First, I added a Cathedral to the Angkor Wat (and two temples) in Babyon, so as to run more Priests. Then I started a Golden Age with the Great Artist I had picked up from Music, and made a civics change:



This time I was determined to get my man:



To my great relief, this plan came off, and I got a very juicy 45gpt (raw) from Cuzco. Along with the Merchants I was running almost everywhere (courtesy of Caste and Merc), and the plunder from my conquests, this allowed me to keep the science slider relatively high, despite my continual troop buildup.

On that subject, the centre of my military industrial complex was Dur-K, which never stopped building troops after this time:



At the end of the GA, I made what would be my last civics change of the game:



Caste System meant I could fire up the economy whenever I needed to, and allowed me to use Artists to quickly pop borders in captured cities. Also, since I already had Guilds, and would soon have Chemistry, it made workshops a very potent improvement.

Mercantilism might seem a little odd for a civ with the GLh, but by this time my only trading partners were my vassals - Darius had gone Merc himself, I needed Astronomy to trade with MM, and Shaka hated me. Plus, since I was running Representation, those free specialists were very profitable.

Theocracy hardly needs explaining - two promotions for every unit built in a city with a barracks. It also meant that Dur-K would produce 9xp troops.

Part Two

Spoiler :

With three of the AIs under my thumb, I now had to address the remaining three. Darius was the most obvious target, being both the strongest and the closest. However, the lay of his land was somewhat troubling.

My game, thus far, had been built on lightning strikes to the heart of my victims' empires, smashing their capacity to fight back before they had any chance to build a proper army. The Persians however, had their best cities in the south, with a ring of crappier cities and a whole lot of hills and mountains in the way. I had no doubt I could beat him down, but I worried that it might turn into a bit of a slog, giving Shaka and MM time to tech up and prepare better defences.

So, I hit upon the idea of sending my troops through Darius' lands to reach Shaka, who would go down much easier. With the Zulu broken, my army could then turn back to strike at the Persian heartland. By then my power rating would also be much higher, making Darius easier to vassalise.

Anyway, while preparing for the invasion (and marching my armies almost the whole circumference of the planet to get there), I had taken advantage of my growing economy to snag the GM from Economics, before moving in on my Liberalism target:



This came as my troops neared Shaka's border, so the initial attack was made by the Trebs I'd been spamming. But, once the first Zulu city fell...



Shaka's defences crumbled in the face of my superior firepower, and soon I reached his capital:



He would've capitulated earlier, but I had a few turns to kill whilst waiting for some developments on the domestic front (see below). After Ulundi fell, I went back to the table:



While the war in the west was going on, I made some other notable moves:

Firstly, I used my huge power advantage to bully some cash out of Musa, netting 10 gold-per-turn. I love doing this kind of thing to far off civs - I mean, it's not like I could attack him at this stage (except with Caravels).

Secondly, I used a GE that popped in Machu Picchu to build the Ironworks in Babylon. Subsequently, I also built the Moai Statues for a few more hammers. You'll see the results of this later on.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I came up with a plan to take down Darius and MM in super-quick fashion. Like a pool player thinking several shots ahead, I was already looking past Shaka to the wars that would end the game.

My tech path after Liberalism went Printing Press (bulbed by a GS I had saved for the purpose) -> Replaceable Parts -> Rifling. At the same time, I had popped yet another GM, and run another trade mission (there'd be at least one more before the end of the game). That gave me enough cash to upgrade the Maces I had been building back home, but the ones still waging war in Zululand would cost a small fortune.

At the same time, however, I really wanted to have Astronomy before I attacked Darius. For one thing, this would keep the supply-lines open to the cities I had taken from Shaka. More importantly, though, it would let me have a navy ready to ship troops to Mali as soon as the dust started to settle in Persia. Indeed, I had already built Drydocks in many of my cities in anticipation of this phase.

My solution was the Total Merchant/Representation SE Warmonger's Upgrade Economy From Hell - a trick I've used several times in the past. It's time consuming, since it involves a complete rejig of almost every city. But it allows the generation of large sums of cash without slowing your research too much. These screenies should explain what I mean:

Part Three

Spoiler :

The big upgrade came in 1500ad - the end of the fourth turnset - with my troops sitting right on the Persian border:



Meanwhile, I had moved a second army into place in Japanese territory, ready to take advantage of my vassal's cultural reach:



Ghulaman fell on the first turn of the war, and was razed for cultural reasons:



Meanwhile, as if he needed any more problems, Darius was coming to regret making the switch to Free Religion:



Not that he helped his own cause by choosing to build things like Caravels and Settlers as my armies advanced through his empire. :suicide:

Back up north, Sardis fell the turn after Ghulaman, and met the same fate:



By this time, Darius was ready to submit. But, as with Shaka, he would have to wait until I was ready for my next war. So I took a string of Persian cities, razing most, but keeping Persepolis and Ecbatana, each of which housed a couple of wonders.

Toku also lent a hand, taking Dariush Kabir for himself, and thus proving that vassals can help out in a war (if you leave them with a few half-decent cities and gift them a load of military techs ).



And, as the plans for my little overseas trip came together, I finally let Darius join Club Babylon:

Part Four

Spoiler :

From the moment I reached Astronomy, I'd started pumping Galleons from all of my cities on the Great Ocean. The main contributor was my capital:



As the war with Persia drew to a close, my troops streamed northwards into Japanese territory, to meet up with the ships coming around the northern coast from my heartland. I waited long enough to get a few Galleons loaded with veteran troops, before launching the fleet:



However, my real weapon against Mali was not the top-class army being ferried across the sea, but the staggering difference in our power ratings:



Bearing in mind that, in Musa's eyes, the power ratings of my vassals had to be taken into account as well, you can see why this war was going to be over in a flash.

Indeed, all I had to do was land, and then take two cities (each with a bare handful of low-grade defenders) the following turn.



And Musa did the sensible thing:



And with the end of the One Turn War, my victory was complete.

As you can see, this was just the latest in a long line of stunning Conquest wins:

Thanks to Bleys for hosting the game, to Sisiutil for picking a most enjoyable map, and to all the contributors for your wit and wisdom. I haven't been able to play much civ in the last few months, but my game seems to have improved considerably. I'm certain that reading and participating in the MC has been a major reason for that.

 

[Bleys]

Nice work Winston, well done indeed!

I still havent gotten around to this game, sigh, I get all caught up in other games, and I end up procrastinating forever.

 

[Negator_UK]

Sorry for taking so long to play this round, not due to lack of interest, but..... indecision, which save to choose.

So although I could have gone with my own I went with bleys and I'm glad I did, since it showed me a path through the tech terr I had not tried before (the bottom line, steel/grenadiers.)

Spoiler :

So my first act was to change the tech being researched to Military Science and started building spies to see if war was safe - managed to ge the "here is your first spy" announcement - hey bleys - build SPIES so us chickens can see who its safe to attack....

Meanwhile cut back on research for some cash to upgrade about 4 macement to grenadiers, eventuall they all got upgraded apart from the commander who for some reason had left his chariot at home and was loitering among his men dressed as a common maceman, must have some sort of Henry V complex...

After flinging my spy accros the border to see a load of Keshiks in Turfan, Dow'd Khan and started the final phase proper. He tried to counter but his horses bounced off the SoD. I cut a loop from Turfan-Karakorum, then south to make a pocket which a second smaller staack cleaned up while the main SoD moved east.

Eventually reached the end of the road, literally, I was hoping to go out of Khan and up Shaka's... well with a big stack and no navy it couldn't happen.....

So the men marched allll the way back to Japan to say hi to Darius instead. Meanwhile some of my people were comp[laing about not being "emasculated" or something so I beelined Democracy. Then triggered a golden age and switched to Rep/Mercantilism, later building the SoL and my tech boomed to 1500+ BPT.

When the SoD arrived in Satsuma, split it up for max impact, then said hi to Darius. Blitzed him all the way to his capital.

Meanwhile beelined mass media and built the UN (very difficult without factories or levees, good job a GE showed up when he did..).

After capturing his capital, vassalised Darius and voted myself the Kofi Annan prize of world domination

It should be noted that ALL the wars I fought this round were Grenadier/cannon based, plus elephants at the beginning, plus riflemen the end. I was well impressed by that bottom line tech advance, must try it myself sometime..

 

[Bleys]

I only started to appreciate the strength of this line recently myself, from these MC games actually. I used to be a Nationalism from Lib kind of guy, build the Taj before anyone else has Nat., and use the Golden Age to switch civics and draft some Muskets while pushing for Rifles.

However, Steel is such a strong tech. Cannons not only decimate stacks, they tend to live as well, especially vs LB armies. They reduce the enemies health to the point where you dont even need Rifles, a few CR II Maces and some Pikes and Knights are good enough to mop up. I used to go with Trebs and Rifles, but didnt realize how many siege units I was losing each war until I started going with Cannons and Maces/Muskets instead.

 

[Negator_UK]

However, Steel is such a strong tech.

I guess you Lib'd it. Do you have problems losing the liberalism race when going for chemistry ?

 

[Bleys]

Generally, if I think its going to be trouble, I will research most of Lib, then switch to Chem, then finish Lib when its gone. Hopefully, by that point in the game, I have enough espionage to see what others are teching. Quite often, you can tell who is and isnt heading for Lib by what techs they dont have (Want in the trade-window).

On Monarch, its not hard to get Steel from Lib every time. On Emperor, it takes a bit more effort, you want to generate the GSs to bulb some of it to make it as close to a sure thing as possible. If I ever think there is a danger of losing the Lib race, I can always finish it out quick and take Nationalism or Astronomy, which are usually available by then.

Learning to manage my GP production and generate those GSs is what I am working on now to make the jump to Immortal. Take a look at Dirk's Diety thread, Rusten took Biology from Lib in 700 AD or some crazy thing. I would consider that incredible on Immortal, and this was Diety.