MONTY The Mad Scientist

[madscientist]

What are you doing???

Mad MOnty indeed, Trying to run a specialist economy, and your NOT building the most important building for it, the GRANARY. Whip in Granaries..then next you build a SACRIFICIAL ALTER. This will reduce maintance costs and unhappyness (No unhappyness allowed in Aztecia)

Build order ( New or conqured city, Grannary, Alter, Library, worker THEN)

Then and only then do you build Libriaries. (whip them, let the alters run red)

Building War Elephants WITHOUT a Stable....

I'd go Shinny in Capital, (It will Bedazzel Monty) and build the hanging Gardends. If your so worried about whipping away Citizens, why not get a few free ones.

Grannaries can be whipped after 1 turn of building, Alters may take a few more depending on cities. GROWTH, HEALTH, ALTERS.

Tech Currency and DEMAND gold from your victi...errr Neighbours.

But first shinny capital, build hanging gardens, and then tech Lit, for GLibrary

AND if you ever get a Random event of a set back in Research, SACRIFICE ALL THOSE USLESS SCIENTISTS.

Good lord, where to begin!!!!

First my background: I played the game a good tear and a half including Warlords before finding and posting on this website. I came up with the SE on my own, so it is different than what is usually posted in the excellent articles, maybe not better though. MY belief is a library or 2 in one city, start the scientists there, let others build up graneries/courthouses, once done then libraries and the other cities switch off. Maybe unorthodox but my style.

That said, some other ideas

The whip: Yes I am more prudent mostly because this is a marathon game and pop takes longer to recoup. Still once we get alters I promise to be more agressive with it.

Graneries: YEp, I need some in key cities, good point and I will readress that.

Workers, yeah I need some more, but got enough for now. Perhaps a few from one city but to be honest I prefer infrastructure.

Alters: Come now, we just teched CoL before the save. Give Monty a little time

War elephants: You are probably right there. I was thionking of getting the best units out in case ther agressive AIs decide to butt heads. Settlers/Workers are probably the way to go

Shiney capital: Hanging gardens, hmmmm. A useful wonder I almost forget about except in a wonderspam game. Pyramids and HG in the capitals can get us perhaps at least 1 GE, which I will stow away for Mining Inc.

Good advice!!!! Perhaps my approach to a SE is a little different, but we have ALOT of Aztec gold to boost the economy for a good while.

 

[Kev]

Don't forget that if we demand and receive the tech/gold/whatever that we will not be able to declare war after that for 10 turns.

Did not see what civic you adopted with building the pyramids. Being spiritual, we can look to Police State if a lengthy war is upon us - though I think this early the benefits sometimes are not worth it.

Love fighting early with Cats/Elephants.

 

[madscientist]

Don't forget that if we demand and receive the tech/gold/whatever that we will not be able to declare war after that for 10 turns.

Did not see what civic you adopted with building the pyramids. Being spiritual, we can look to Police State if a lengthy war is upon us - though I think this early the benefits sometimes are not worth it.

Love fighting early with Cats/Elephants.

Went to representation for the SE. Police state if WW becomes an issue.

I love war elephants cats also. We shall see how much Peter likes them.

 

[madscientist]

MONTY the Mad Scientist: PArt D

A rather dull round as far as I am interested although the Boss had a blast (Sacrifices to the aztec gods on our new alters, AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!). Yep kept him quite bust and happy, he didn't even realize we went the entire round without war. But a question on what to do with a GP and the next victum for our alters>

We start off by taking the advice and straighten out our SE and do things the Aztec way. We proceeded to slave away graneries, alters, and libraries. We settled three cities although we lost some key sites to Peter and HC. I am thinking our shift should be towards the Incans. We adopted Hinduism as the official Aztec religion and adopted theocracy. We also razed a femore barb cities and got 600gold by missing the Colossus!!! Monty was a bit disappointed as he wanted that big shiney statue of himself.

But onto the game.

First the diplo situation



Well, I can either start siding with the Dutch or the Incans. I can get Peter on my side if I go with William which is what I do, we convert to Hinduism after teching theology.


we make a nice trade with Willy,



Calender helps as we have ALOT of calender resources, especially arround Nidros.


Also HC is starting to press our borders



And we lost out on the coastal jungle city. Well, let Hyuna cut through that for us.

After getting teh infrastructure slaved away, we focused on military, walls, baracks. We may start needing some markets for cash, remember the rules say we can only run scientists not merchants (The hell with the rules, we need that tax money). Well you are the boss


we meet another AI, yep another cottage lover



Monty insists on bullying him but he won't cave in (Damn Brat). That's 2 AIs who do not like us.


This is the time we converted to Hinduism



Earn just a little more diplo points.


At this point we are loading up on War elephants, catapults plus our outstanding Jag army. We are teching CS and halway through.

We then popped a Great Scientist, and I cannot quite figure out what to do with him, so I saved.

Some shots of our situation

Our cities, note all pretty spread our in beakers. The capital already has an academy.



The world



And the tech staus, not doing too bad with our pure SE although Willy is a little ahead.



Power graph is fine



So several questions

1) The GS: either bulb Philosophy or an academy in Nidros which should be our #2 science city. SE writeups says bulbing is the way to go.
2) Monty wants to start warring (We need more bodies!) so where do we head? Logic dictates HC, which means MONTY wants to invade William. I have military veto power, so we attack HC at dawn. Looking to build a little more troops, get some spears for HC's HAs and start cracking some heads. Oh, HC has no iron or jumbos!
3) Trading: DO we trade for CS or finish? Do we declare war on HC and then get everyone else to dogpile by trading techs???

The economy is a bit stretched already and more Incan cities will slow us down even more, but I say the hell with it. A SE with MONTY? That calls for some bgi war-mongering and if we get some new middle ages techs (we already have crossbows) we need to check them out!

OH, one final question, do we switch out of slavery for caste system for some mroe scientist specialists. we will also be needing the ational epic soon (we lost out on the GL).

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Bulbing Philosophy seems to be the stockstandard way to go, but its the TRADING of Bulbed Techs for 2-4 times the beakers worth is where the specialist Economy has edge.

At the moment, you can get 1/2 of Civil service, 11 turns or Lit and Astectics, with Compass, Ho hum.....

Personally I'd just settle the GS in your designated science city, which should be Nidros, with a market grocer bank uni and wall street, it'd be a great science centre, freeing your capital to be Iron works production centre. 5 calander resources (If I recall correctly), plus 2 sea food.

Science in Nidros, GE's out of Capital, Troops so needs Iron works and Westpoint, with settled GG's. Build a Few HA's and Pillage HI's lands...then take cities....

Rinse repeat on Peter, Villhem, Pac boy etc...

 

[TRJS]

Noted that Hinduism is not in all your cities. Suggest amending this to improve troop exp with Theo.

I also vote for settling the scientist. Philo not that great.

 

[vicawoo]

First, you're spiritual, so you can switch every 4 turns. So if you want to run merchants, run caste system and just switch civics to slavery periodically. Capital should runs scientists, of course. Oh yeah, there's absolutely no reason to build monuments once you have caste system and are spiritual, although you have calendar now anyway.

About trading, well, the opponent have to have techs that you want. If you're out-teching them, then you can just delay.

One or two stables is usually more than enough.

If you're warmongering (you teched construction early, right?), I don't see the need to get so many wonders, like pyramids, hanging gardens, great library. Montezuma's advantage is his amazing production from his unique building, you're playing marathon, shouldn't you be attacking? And on a side note, I forget how marathon scales. Are the hammers/growing ratio the same? If it's lower, than maybe you should have played epic.

I'm not a huge warmonger, but maybe you should just start razing cities.

 

[Zanttu]

Yeah as other posters have pointed out, there's no idea in bulbing philo now. Bulbing only works if you can get monopoly for that tech and that way get much more techs via trading. And btw, SE doesn't need bulbs. It's one way to play SE, but my way is usually settle almost all the GS's. Works good as well. So I would build academy in Nidaros.

 

[absimiliard]

How 'bout a meta-rule. A rule about breaking rules.

You shall break any rule, for you are Monty, but you may only break a given rule once.

So, for example, killing Ragnar was a lawful act of disobedience due to Monty. But having broken that rule once you no longer kill anyone else?

-abs

 

[madscientist]

How 'bout a meta-rule. A rule about breaking rules.

You shall break any rule, for you are Monty, but you may only break a given rule once.

So, for example, killing Ragnar was a lawful act of disobedience due to Monty. But having broken that rule once you no longer kill anyone else?

-abs

Ah, a rule about classifying how many times MONTY can breaks his own rules.

Abs, Monty requests a personal conference with you to discuss the matter. Just you, him and the cerimonial blade on top of teh alter.

 

[madscientist]

MONTY the MAD Scientist: PArt V

A good round that amounted basically to 2 major wars with HC. By the save Hyuna is down to one city, we are at peace but William is still at war with him, and our economy is in shambles although research is doing pretty damned well. SO I will need suggestions on how to keep this SE afloat, Axtec gold only goes so far. Also suggestions on the next phase of the war, er game.

First of all, I pretty much agree about Philosphy so I used the GS to build an academy in Nidros. We popped one more GS later which I used to complete reaerch on education. While we have not teched economics or liberlaism yet, no AI has education yet giving us a good chance for both or 1.

But onto the game, First of all we make a trade with Peter



AI heavey but no problem. We proceed to build maces and war elephants for the up coming Incan assault. We made good use of the whip to get alot of infrastructure built. Then we get one of those random events.




Well well welll. We splurge and have one of the most festive weddings arround. THe next turn HC declares war on us. Peter happily joins the war for free!

Here is opur main stack heading towards Vilcos and then up the shopre to Vitros, the site we wanted our city earlier.



We get a boost to our population



And the conquered Vilcos



We made a good trade with William, closing the tech gap



Which gives a good view of the world now.



This solidifes what we were all thinking, the Incans are the next to completely go. Remember he has no iron.

We start to intrude on HC's core



Which cuts his empire in half. He has two cities to the east and the rest of his core south and west.

Peter declares peace and we follow soon



A decent backfilling trade



The boss was none to pleased declaring peace and undertook some more massive whipping in a rather embarressing temper tantrum. But as I said before, I am running the wars. We have as many cities running 2 scientists as we can, but sood we shall have to switch to caste system.

After recouping and building knights and trebs we declare war ro finish HC.



After the border city we move onto the core



Planning to take the moutain city, Cuszc and the western city.

HC offers peace but MONTY is not interested in vassals, he wants sacrifices.



While the main groups assaulted the core, a smaller force attecked the 2 eastern cities, razing the one bordering William and keeping the coastal city.

After taking what we want from the core



We moved onto Machu Pichu. At this point William cowardly declares war on HC, previously William and Peter had enough on their hands.

Finally we take peace and a tech so we have one Incan city left to use on the Aztec alters.



We make one minor trade with Peter for needed cash



At this point I saved the game.

Our empire recap


cities, they certainly can grow some more.


Power graph



Tops is friendly Peter and Pleased William is lower, Hmmmm.


And the demographics



We are in representation, bureacracy, slavery, base economy and of cource theocracy.

Some other points:
We have the most votes for the AP, allw e need is for the vote to go our way.
We got alot of wonders from cuzco but alas, no shrined Budhist city
We pillaged all cottages from HC, but there were really not that many.

So wherre we are.

1) Our empire is very large, but our economy is on the edge of ruin. We are teching economics in hope of getting the free GM for a trade mission as well as free market.
2) We have whipped markets/grocers/banks as much as possible, there is more to do.
3) We definitle need caste system to run more cisnetists and may have to consider running some merchants.
4) The Forbidden Palace is under constructuion and boy do we need it!!

So aside from teh crappy economy, which leader is next on the chopping block??? William is further along in tech but weaker militarily while Peter is lagging in Tech but highest in power numbers. I ampretty sure Peter can be taken out with Cavalry, just a matter if William can be knocked out first.

The l;ast AI appears to be one of the Persians.

 

[TRJS]

Looking good so far Mad. One way I know of improving economy is to run some merchants. Outside the rules I know but you could do it when the boss isn't looking.

Another thing, your screen shots seem to be coming out on top of eachother. Not sure if it is just me seeing this or if other have the same problem.

As for the next target. I would say Peter but I have a soft spot for Wilhelm.

 

[UncleJJ]

And soon after



THE critical wonder to the SE. MOnty was veyr happy and views it as the mother of all Sacrificial Alters! Now alot of players say the pyramids are not needed to run a SE. I am not that good and pretty much need them. We switch to representation which also gives us the needed +3 happiness!!

I think that most players saying that the Pyramids are not needed for a SE do not hamstring themsleves by saying "no-cottages" and assume they will be running Pacifism for a non Philosophical leader like Monte at least some of the time. Since you've voluntarily given up those two options then the Pyramids are pretty much needed quite apart from the historical authenticity of all those Aztec pyramids where you do all that dreadful sacrificing.

It seems to be a fun game and very entertaining for us, thanks for posting

 

[Zanttu]

Looks great so far. Time for economical recover for a bit, but not for too long . Beeline for cavarly, and then decide your next target. It would of course be better to go after Willem, since he's higher in score and bigger threat in future. But if he keeps teching good and has rifles in his cities when you get good-sized cavarly force up, it may be better to attack backwards Peter instead.

 

[madscientist]

Looking good so far Mad. One way I know of improving economy is to run some merchants. Outside the rules I know but you could do it when the boss isn't looking.

Another thing, your screen shots seem to be coming out on top of eachother. Not sure if it is just me seeing this or if other have the same problem.

As for the next target. I would say Peter but I have a soft spot for Wilhelm.

Thanks TRJ. I am palying the game so I should update it later, But merchants are still out for the time being.

Screenshots look OK from my ernd, let's see if anyone else has problems.

 

[madscientist]

I think that most players saying that the Pyramids are not needed for a SE do not hamstring themsleves by saying "no-cottages" and assume they will be running Pacifism for a non Philosophical leader like Monte at least some of the time. Since you've voluntarily given up those two options then the Pyramids are pretty much needed quite apart from the historical authenticity of all those Aztec pyramids where you do all that dreadful sacrificing.

It seems to be a fun game and very entertaining for us, thanks for posting

Indeed, a SE to the max. To be honest I can not understand why anyone who wants to run a SE or even a hybrid (2 scientist specialist and cottages) would not make a run at the pyramids. In this game they are essential and paying off dividends. Police state has been valuable also.

Glad it is entertaining, hopefully the best is yet to come.

 

[madscientist]

Looks great so far. Time for economical recover for a bit, but not for too long . Beeline for cavarly, and then decide your next target. It would of course be better to go after Willem, since he's higher in score and bigger threat in future. But if he keeps teching good and has rifles in his cities when you get good-sized cavarly force up, it may be better to attack backwards Peter instead.

Economy, yes that Aztec gold only goes so far. MOnty is definitely a bit upset about all this economy stuff, true great MAd Scientists like him do not consider how to fund their research. That is up to henchment like myself and several million Aztec slaves, er citizans.

I defeintely have my eye, or more exactly my knight's eyes on the Dutch.

 

[Zanttu]

Looks great so far. Time for economical recover for a bit, but not for too long . Beeline for cavarly, and then decide your next target. It would of course be better to go after Willem, since he's higher in score and bigger threat in future. But if he keeps teching good and has rifles in his cities when you get good-sized cavarly force up, it may be better to attack backwards Peter instead.

Hmm I started thinking about what's wrong in my post.. Then I realized cavarly is actually spelt cavalry. Or at least I think so now. Or not. . .. .. .. .. How in the heck should it be written?

 

[Kev]

I thought there was a rule of not taking Holy Cities (rule #6 - but I guess rules were made to be broken! )...

If that's out, the Hindu Holy city would be GREAT. There has apparently been a great spread of the religion. Not sure if the shrine was built there, but it would be a great boon of course - assuming that would be allowed... Perhpas if it is our OWN chosen religion's Holy City?

 

[madscientist]

I thought there was a rule of not taking Holy Cities (rule #6 - but I guess rules were made to be broken! )...

If that's out, the Hindu Holy city would be GREAT. There has apparently been a great spread of the religion. Not sure if the shrine was built there, but it would be a great boon of course - assuming that would be allowed... Perhpas if it is our OWN chosen religion's Holy City?

Hmmmm, you are correct. More of an oversight on my part rather than a broken rule. Keeping our own Holy city is probablt acceptible, but I played somemore and inadvertantly captured another. We can address that in the nest posted round, but I think a captured Cuzco is acceptible and one of those broken rules that help the flow of the game.