MS` XXIII - Frederick

[stopstopp]

mrdoe

Spoiler :

I'm thinking it might be either a blocker or an ok production city, but onlly ok.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMM/Norm

1 AD

Spoiler :

Settled in place. Buddhist split to justinian/hannibal, hindu to darius. With justin and hannibal @ pleased I am pretty safe vs war. Since my settler reach grabbed marble and I went aesthetics for trade bait (annoyingly, I had to self-research alpha because the AIs chose not to go there). I am in good shape for great library and am making a run at music (trades well, culture help near darius, hopefully sistine). Justinian already has theology and founded the religion, so a buddhist AP is likely.

As for expansion, I split up cottage and hammer sites and played very vanilla. No reason to reinvent the wheel on this one, just stay alive and take what land one can get.

Liberalism timeframe

Spoiler :

I really didn't make a special effort at it, mostly researching things that would allow me to trade. I got sistine, ran bureaucracy, and hammered out sankore to go with the AP hammers. I narrowly edged out the AIs to lib.

Took astro since I'd managed to trade for optics (I last-second traded edu for a lot of things), and the trade routes with those AIs would be helpful.

I get some AP help ^_^

I don't really gain a big military tech lead in this one, at any point. However, I opt for opportunism, using cannon + musket vs darius (nobody really likes him anyway). Yes, he is close to rifles:

But he lacks iron and he's about to lack horse, which means that even after he does get rifles, he will have very little to answer for cannons.

And get them he does, after I take out the northern cities. As predicted, this loses me maybe 2-3 extra muskets I'd not have lost otherwise. Boo hoo. And darius bites it.

One thing that REALLY, REALLY annoyed me here: After capturing his capitol, darius switched to buddhism for his last 2 cities (not sure why). The AP called a resolution to stop the war . I wasn't having this horse @#%@, because you KNOW he'd peacevassal to someone in 2 seconds after that resolution and cause me culture problems for the rest of the game (even with sistine). I just defied it. My allies at FRIENDLY? Yeah...they voted against me. I ate villian anger for it but he died. I then was sure to spread hinduism around to cut the anger time should I have had to defy once again...

By the way, my civics were HR, vassalage, caste, FM, theo.

1896 UN...sort of. If you count nuclear holocaust-based UN wins.

Spoiler :

I get to AL and infantry a little ahead of hannibal, and HE TOO lacks horse. Away we go!

OF COURSE, he picks up both infantry and arty after I take about 2 cities. Of course...that doesn't matter. Airship rounds from me followed by collateral and heavily promoted infantry (remember, 7 xp out of gate in all cities) keep the losses very, very low regardless. Gilgamesh dogpiles him, I bribe him out (don't want him to cap while I go for his best cities). Ultimately, I crush his core cities:

And take one for the road:

The nice thing about this deal is that taking a city in a peace deal like this clears its culture. Literally 0 of the captured cities carry any carthage revolt chance whatsoever even 1 turn after the war...WITHOUT garrison!

So...Justinian completes manhattan project, and gilgamesh DoWs him. Brilliant. I bribe justinian and churchill out of this, so I can cap him:

Weakened, without a decent navy (churchill must have demolished it), and facing my #1 power rating, Giggles gives up quickly since I lose ZERO units in this war and capture 2 cities.

Now, here's a problem. Justinian still has nukes. He is decent in power. He has mech infantry and is closing on gunships/modern armor. He is way out in front techwise, a space threat, and has enough techs and diplo with churchill to bribe a dogpile if I go after him. With gilgamesh as a vassal, justinian can declare on me. Bad bad bad. However, I DO have the land/power/pop lead, and I DO have a production lead. Finally, I *DO* have nuclear weapons too:

Here is the scheme for blasting justinian to hell almost instantly - each pair of letters represents a city that is packing tac nukes + paras, and the city it will target. My navy will cover the 3 points in the south from e.

I have also located his primary stack, and prepared a nice surprise there also:

I DEMAND 1 gold from churchill (#1 power rating helps in some way at least) and he gives in. I have 10 turns.

THIS is his vaunted empire the SAME turn:

and DAMN IT this game REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY should have play-tested its expansions. 15+ nukes hit those executives (about 5 per location), and not a single one died. Think of every curse word imaginable, and put it here. BUT, I was prepared for this stupid garbage, being a nuke veteran and all, so I just made sure no reinforcements could get into those cities and held all 8 of his core cities the following turn.

2 turns after declaring, he capitulated.

So I have captured the AP and UN. Churchill is pretty massive and has the french as a cap vassal after taking 1 city (this marks AI #2 on this map that got double it's average expected allotment of land - louis and darius got RAPED by their starts to fork over god positions to churchill and hannibal). He also has nukes now, but only recently. I could have gone nuke/para and ran through all of his cities, but I didn't want to deal with it.

So instead, I rush bought ~40 ICBMs, waiting for the UN diplomatic victory resolution, picked it, then declared:

Well, with the growth of Justinian's cities I might have won w/o doing that, but this was more FUN. Did I get desert fairy magic in this game? You bet! Oh well. Shove it, mr. hat.

And how did we do in kills:death and power?

That's what I like to see! It's a shame the UU/UB suck so hard, but good traits and some opportunism/tactical play take care of business!

The way Freddy was MEANT to act . This is also a good picture of how to use nukes to turn a kind-of tough position into a devastating lead, rapidly.

 

[Hunkney Tolpeck]

I'd like to get involved in this game. It is my first MS though and I have some questions, some embarisingly basic ones. How do I take screen shots for instance? I use a mac so I don't think I have a 'print screen' button.
I've already played out to 1BC and saved but it will be tough for me to get any feedback without those visuals.
I attached the save file for anyone interested in taking a look.

My strategy in the beginning was to block the AI from taking any land north of Berlin. One of the cities became a strong financial city with an academy and a shrine (Conf, which I got from a chopped oracle). The other one is pretty lame but blocks well enough. I was dissapointed to see there was less land up there than I expected. Oh well.
Picking COL as the free oracle tech seemed wiser than MC because I wanted to take advantage of Fredrick's cheap courthouses ASAP.
One problem I have though is I have focused on spreading Confucianism to get everyone all chummy-chummy and expanding, which has left my military very weak. I have horse and iron though as well as a barracks in the capital. So hopefully that will work itself out.
Literature is almost ready and I plan on building the GLib if possible.

Any advice or criticism would be great.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@TMIT

Spoiler :

So two AI did get too good a start, eh? I didn't think about Churchill, I thought him and Louis would be competing for the same land and cancel each other out, but it seems I was wrong.

dalamb placed 2 extra AI on the map for the latest NC game, I guess I should have done the same. I'm glad you were able to win, though, it should mean that it's at least beatable at monarch level

@Hunkney Tolpeck

Spoiler :

You should be very careful, as Hannibal is a warmonger and if he senses a weakness, he attacks. I'd rather build more military, per the fact that a living empire which gets philosophy in 1 CE is better than a dead one which got it in 500 BCE.

Unfortunately, I don't know about taking screenshots in Mac. There might be third party software available, but that should be the last resort, really.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's probably beatable on any level. Actually, the fact that two different AI were given boosts while two other screwed, rather than one AI getting super land %, contributed to why I was able to win with...well moderate difficulty I guess. It should be a lot more balanced on monarch.

 

[Hunkney Tolpeck]

@Hunkney Tolpeck

Spoiler :

You should be very careful, as Hannibal is a warmonger and if he senses a weakness, he attacks. I'd rather build more military, per the fact that a living empire which gets philosophy in 1 CE is better than a dead one which got it in 500 BCE.

Unfortunately, I don't know about taking screenshots in Mac. There might be third party software available, but that should be the last resort, really.

[/QUOTE]

I agree. He is the only brute on the visible map. I have a small plan to keep him off my case. I floated my free missionary his way and had him convert to my religion. Now he is my strongest ally in the area while the other civs are comparative heretics. Hopefully he will direct his war rolls to the Buddhists.
Still, you are right. I'm amassing arms. Thus far, no trouble.

 

[drlake]

@mrdoe

Spoiler :

Commerce, early production (though mediocre), blocking. I didn't want to go all the way down to the horses in one shot, because of the huge gap between that city and Berlin. I thought about putting Hamburg where Frankfurt is, but decided to "settle toward the enemy" and position myself so that I might still be able to get the horses.

I thought about settling Hamburg 2S and relying on the border pop to get the cows and horses, but decided I liked the situation the way I settled it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

About the AIs on this map:

Spoiler :

Of all the AIs on this map, NONE of our immediate neighbors plot war at pleased. Use this to your advantage.

 

[Hunkney Tolpeck]

About the AIs on this map:

Spoiler :

Of all the AIs on this map, NONE of our immediate neighbors plot war at pleased. Use this to your advantage.

Spoiler :

Confirmed. I checked that out before I set my missionary down to him. Making sure the most violent dude on on the map is your buddy seemed like a good move. I like Hany usually. I feel like he is a good attack dog. Easy to get to pleased but generally full of rage.

 

[mrdoe]

@drlake:

Spoiler :

Also, if you look at your dotmap, the light blue and dark blue spots cover a lot of food resources (rice/clam/fish) and they can probably be merged for a very good GP farm, I'm thinking. Just farm the surroundings and whip lighthouse/granary.

 

[drlake]

@mrdoe

Spoiler :

I couldn't settle both, I crashed my economy as it was by settling the light blue site and taking the barbarian city NW of Frankfurt, but that cut off the North before Darius got a settler up that way. I need to get some cities up there now (about 100AD) but it's challenging keeping the economy up with no luxury resources at all (no calendar, yet).

 

[mrdoe]

@drlake:

Spoiler :

Well, I guess it's time to build research/wealth D:
Also, I guess, switch to Organized Religion and whip libs and courts.
What I do in times like these: plan an invasion. It calms me down about the economy, cause I know something better's about to come

 

[drlake]

@mrdoe

Spoiler :

I can't build wealth yet, no currency. No Code of Laws either, but I am building research, and whipped out some libraries. I'm in HR now so cities are getting bigger, improving the economy, so I can probably build another city in the north soon. I've got room for 3-4 up that way, and need to get a scout boat out soon as well.

 

[Archredbeard]

Monarch, marathon.

Spoiler :

I founded Hamburg as a blocker/grab horses, cows after first culture expansion. proved out to be a good move, cause Darius planted hes 3rd city a bit further south, effectively blocking off Justin( hate to be near him)
Next was the northern to claim Copper Whales, also my Maoi city. then one more blocker to the south, also a good comm site, to stop Hannibal. My luck was, that the Barbs then plunked down a city on the cost, near Hannibal, AND a city just north of Darius on the costjust west of the lonely Mountain.
I therefore rushed out a settler, to close the gap north, effectively sealing off the northern part. Next city was south, to close Hannibal from the coast, after that it was just expanding all the sites,
I had my 3rd GS out in 40 AD, PB for me, never done that before . First bulbed Maths, cause my teching was a bit behind at that moment, all 4 of us were Buddhists, so it was only the Our Close Borders etc, between Darius, Hannibal and Justin, that caused some sparks, Darius btw took the Barb city near Hannibal, while I took the northen , that blocked Darius so nice
I won Lib in 950 AD, and shortly after the circum, due to maptrading
Gotta love getting paper first, cheesy way to win Circum, but effective
In the meantime, Justin and Hannbal went to a long war with Churchill and Louis, Justin peacevassaled to Hannibal, as did Louis to Churchill.
Out of the blue Gilgamesh DOWed me, even though I was way above him in Powerrating He was Hindu, Churchill/Louis Jewish, but they were busy with Justin/Hannibal For some reason, hes landing party only consisted of 2 knights and a swordman, rest of hes fleet was 2 tiles form landing, and within reach of my navy, stationed in Essen, my HE city. Hehe, sank hes navy and picked the spoil on the shores.
Then we could talk peace, which suited me just fine, as I had plans involving Darius . I decided to use the window, now where Justin/Hannibal still !! were on it with Louis/Chuchill. No vassalising here mate .
Killed Darius right off with Maces/trebs still, getting Muskets and eventually Cannons at the end of the war.
Peace settled between all after hes demise, after which Justin decided to renounce hes vassalat of Hannibal . I went begging for money all over, and since I was pleased with all, .........Declared on Justin, and wiped him with Cannons/Infantry.
He only had 7 cities, including the Notorius one tile fishing one While I was busy doing that, Gilgamesh decided/bribed in after the peacetreaty ran out, to try again, with same bad recipe
In the meantime, Churchill had declared on Hannibal again, so he was too busy to get something done me versus Justin
Justin dead, , peace between Gilga and me, time for the BIG backstab, declared on Hannibal, and after I took hes 3 bordercitys closests to me, the rat attacked me somewhat in the next round, whereafter he Vassaled to CHURCHILL, whoom he had been fighting with all over the centuries Well, guess he didnt like backstabbers much
I waited 2 turns, to heal my army up., then declared on Hannibal again, this time wiping him off the continent, and since he didnt had any 1 tiles, out of history.
However, after hes demise, where Churchill send help in form of pillaging fregates/destroyers and a small army of 12-15 varius troops, Churchill didnt want peace, unless I gave him a city
That was annoying, since my warweariness was over the top etc But, after I sank hes fleet of destroyers and a loaded Carrier, peace came.
I was researhing Rocketry, while my Ironwork, Darius' former residence, was working diligently on the manhattan Project
Worked hard on the ICBMs and Tacticals+Subs, whereafter war was a reality again. I didnt Declare, Chuchill did, came with a huge fleet and this time many transports in the first round.
Second round, NO fleet in sight anywhere, Gone had taken them
Also, Gone had taken its heavy taxes on 5 huge English cities, incl the ones near me, loaded with fighters etc
I mean, seriously, if you didnt even research Fission, and you get teh message, that the MP is done, its REALLY time to get that tech. otherwise you are looking for
Long story short, I nuked him and Louis to before the stoneage, then got peace. Louis renounced again, so I thought, ok, ill vassal Louis, but, He was to scared of my enemies
Then he vassaled to Churchill AGAIN He wasnt scared of being nuked, it seemed
I went for Gilga thereafter, and he was willing to vassallise after i razed 5 of hes cities, and nuked the crap out of the rest, but NOT before , I checked him every round
While we were at it, Louis once again renounced, and this time there was no turning back i DOWed him right after, effectively blocking him from vassaling again, cause Churchill had learned hes lesson.
Louis Vassaled after 5 more nukes, 3 of them again on Paris He had been wonderspamming the best Louisstyle all game long
I declared on Churchill same round, where Louis capped, but, that was suffice to get the DOM vitory in 1867
Aftermath:
I think it was a fun map, I realize I was lucky in the beginning, with Darius settling a 4th city toward Justin instead of Me, also where the Barbcitys spawned, but then again, Luck comes to those who seek it out
I DOWed first time in history at Darius in 1454, and from there, I was more or less, (more in fact) in war the rest of the game.
During the lengthy war against Hannibal, I had to adopt Police State, AND run my Cultureslider at 30%, and yes, I DID build the Mount Rushmore. That didnt keep my precious Scientists from resigning from work and ragequit their important work
I guess I should have waited for my tanks to dow, but, the mirror of opportunity was open at the time.........
Well, I have to be better at stopping wars, it seems
Enough ranting, and sorry for missing pics, still havent figured out how to upload them

 

[oppy]

Spoiler :

I have 57 cities and I still don't have enough for a domination win.... Gilga started with 15 cities and an easy vassal... I killed Justin and Hanny ages ago but this game just will not end ARGGGGGGGGGGGG I attacked Louis because Church was vassaled to gilg and the next turn he vassals to a guy he's pleased with and never been in a war with.... This game has made me hate civ4.

 

[vranasm]

The story of no cottage ruler continues...
Monarch/Epic 10 AD.
Will look for your comments.

Spoiler :

The game from last breakpoint went very peacefully I just tried to get more "good" places. I lost the bananas in the middle though :-(, hell that darius is quick. To my surprise the northern location offers at least 1 very interresting place, actually i made there 3 cities.
Techs I went to currency, CoL and because the AI tech really slow I started alphabet to fillback some techs.
The money is not that bad as I expected, after I get calendar, it will be even better.

I think it starts to be seen my inexperience on monarch level, still no "right" preparation for war, am really low on units, but it's very peaceloving everywhere.
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[CivilizedTiger]

@vranasm

Spoiler :

You've managed to block the north up, and you can have three cities working some scientists up there, so, good land, all in all.

As per TMIT, none of your neighbours attacks at pleased, so you have quite a good chance of staying safe.

As for war... if you haven't gone into an early war, I'd suggest you wait for canons. Well ok, canons might be exaggerated, but anyway, you need some powerful units. Longbowmen are just too strong in defense, so I'd at least try to use Trebuchets with Muskets, maybe Knights if you can. There's no point in preparing for war at the point of the game where you're in, though, as you'll face tough defense and will only lower your tech acquisition rate.

 

[jinxed]

Hey all. First time poster here and this will also mark my first game at Monarch difficulty. Been doing pretty well at prince and figured this thread would be a good opportunity to try my hand at monarch. So, all that said, please bare with the noob (Me)

Spoiler :

So i decided to settle 1W and get the wheat, corn and cows in the BFC of Berlin. Sent the scout north first and popped a goody hut (or two, can't recall) for some cash. Meanwhile, met scouting parties of Darius, Hanny, and Justin. Teched something along the lines of AG/AH/BW/fish/sail/wheel/pottery/archery. Anyways, after discovering the whereabouts of my neighbors, I figured an axe rush on Darius looked pretty tasty since it would serve to both augment my city count and block off my (surviving) neighbors from the lands in the north. So I settled 2nd city on the coast to the north to grab copper/cows/whales. Shortly after, settled 3rd city to the SW, south of the ridgeline to grab more cows/some floodplains and some hills. This city would help further block off the north and will act as a mediocre production city once established a bit.

Anyways, chopped/whipped barracks in my 3 cities and around 10 axes plus a couple spears (wasn't sure if Darius had horsies, so better safe than sorry) First city was on the coast and was a site I had surveyed as a future city to grab marble/fish/rice, but I wasn't paying attention to pop and it autorazed. So, I decided to stop screwing around and headed straight for the capital!

View attachment 253998

Took a few losses, maybe 3-4 axes, but worth it! Nice future GP farm. I'm thinking a merchant farm this game to try to leverage PHI trait and settle all those GMs for lots of gold and food (to run even more specialists! ). Would love to found a future religion here for a mega-gold city, but I digress. I still had plenty of axes at this point, and Darius still had plenty of cities. How convenient!

View attachment 253999

Had to swallow another loss IIRC, and I probably should've razed, but I guess bloodlust got the better of me as I was already looking ahead to the next city...

View attachment 254000

Suck it, Darius. Thanks for the cities! Unfortunately, this last one will be junk until IW/calendar...

So, I played a few more turns. Anyone seen a barb spawn within city borders like this?

View attachment 254001

But anyways, I've come to a bit of a crossroads so I thought I'd post and get some feedback/advice. I'm currently 1 turn from poly. I'm thinking tech path is either writing->alpha or mono/monarchy. Writing would allow a library and some scientists (and quickly a GS thanks to PHI). Alpha would be nice to open up tech trades. But monarchy seems critical at this point for the happiness which would allow me to start working some cottages, subsidizing a REX of the northern lands. Happiness is probably necessary for running specialist too lest I rob one (or all) of my cities of production. Mono would also allow OR for some more efficient building production plus quick religion spread. Note that one city has hindu and another has bhudda, but so far I have held off on converting until I actually have a religious civic to go into. Leaning toward Hindu since that's Hanny's religion and I know he's got a bit of a warmonger reputation.

Anyways, I'll close with some images and the save.

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Awaiting your comments and advice.
-jinxed

 

[vranasm]

@vranasm

Spoiler :

You've managed to block the north up, and you can have three cities working some scientists up there, so, good land, all in all.

As per TMIT, none of your neighbours attacks at pleased, so you have quite a good chance of staying safe.

As for war... if you haven't gone into an early war, I'd suggest you wait for canons. Well ok, canons might be exaggerated, but anyway, you need some powerful units. Longbowmen are just too strong in defense, so I'd at least try to use Trebuchets with Muskets, maybe Knights if you can. There's no point in preparing for war at the point of the game where you're in, though, as you'll face tough defense and will only lower your tech acquisition rate.

Spoiler :

Thanks for so kind words. Ok I will not overbuild my army then now, but have to jump a bit in strength and I think those 3 "neighbors" are only friendly (will have to check) so I will try to get them to pleased.

One thing I didnt mention is that I switched to caste after CoL and made some merchant specialists, when I got to bed I realized how stupid decision it was. I think better would be all scientist and drop slider to 0%. For merchants I have no buildings but scientist are bumped with library + academy in cap.

What you think about courthouses in this situation? I read some posts about not using them until maintenance is above 10, but now that I dont build cottages they could pay for themself quicker as I see it?
Would you consider castles for no cottage economy? I looked at some cities and was please that maintenance of some of them is paid through trade routes after Currency. I think Astronomy if we are on continents map (will have to check, always forget such things) would be huge too.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Sorry, but I'm still busy today, so just a fast answer for now.

@vranasm

Spoiler :

Pleased is lower than friendly. They are already pleased with you.

Caste System is very important to no cottages, so it should always be a priority in no-cottage game.

I don't know about castles, and I haven't yet tried a no-cottage game, but think of it this way: one extra traderoute offers 3 commerce, I think. With 100% wealth slider, that means 3 gpt. How much do castles cost? If in stead of castles you were building wealth, you'd get the cost of castles in hammers translated into gold 1:1. And from there you do the maths and see how many turns it takes for castle to be more profitable than wealth.

As for map, it's Continents and Islands, basically a Big and Small map, just that the islands are the size of snaky continents. I've edited the map a bit, so that there can't be early contact between the main landmasses, so you're probably not going to meet the other AI until you get optics. I assume it's safe to say this, because on maps where the landmasses can be discovered by galleys, you meet more AIs by the time you get to where your game is now.

@jinxed
Welcome to the Civ Fanatics fora! I hope you have fun here

Spoiler :

First, I think you made some small mistakes so far. They aren't big, but from monarch on, mistakes start to cost a bit more.
You shouldn't have researched sailing, unless you wanted to go for the GLh, but then early warring becomes more difficult. Also, considering that you had copper in your empire, you had no need for archery, so you should have teched something else.

About the GP farm: getting GMs isn't optimal, and not if you wish to settle all of them. Some GMs are good, but the most common SE is with scientists (and I'd say it's the most common for a reason), or, with leaders such as the two Egyptian ones, SE with priests. I think you'd be better served with GS. (the biggest point with them being bulbing techs, but only bulb important ones)

As for diplomacy: neither of your remaining neighbours attacks at pleased. Try to give them some excess resources and to be in the same religion as them. Be careful that Hannibal is a warmonger, so you either get him pleased with you before he decides to go to war, or you get ready for war. I'd advise the first choice, since you're already in a position where building your empire up is a better choice.

Last, techs: you've researched Poly, and I don't know why, but I do know that the only good application this can still have for you is allowing the building of the Parthenon and researching literature, which allows building the GL. Thus, I would research aesthetics next, start building the Parthenon (not in a GP farm), and when it becomes possible, trade aesthetics for alphabet and other important techs you might need.

Try to have at least two production cities which should have barracks and pump out some troops.

~~~
These are from a SE perspective. If you want cottages, monarchy is better, but I'd also say you've wasted too much time warring if you want to go that route. You'd be better of capturing cottage cities from your neighbours later.
Anyway, I'm only a student monarch player, so take these with a grain of salt.