MS` XXIII - Frederick

Joined
Nov 11, 2009
Messages
523
The Monarch Student games are back in action, aiming to help you get better in the monarch difficulty.

This time around, our leader is Frederick of Prussia.

Philosophical - 100% more GPP, so a potential for more great people during the game; we also get cheap universities

Organized - less maintenance cost for civics, cheap lighthouses, assembly plants and courthouses

UB is a factory which offers 2 extra GE spots and is produced faster with access to coal; it is also produced faster by an organized leader like our own

UU is a boring tank which gets a 50% bonus against tanks

Map is based on the Continents and Islands map script, which is basically Big and Small, but with some changes, including larger islands.

A warning to higher level players and a request
Spoiler :

I've read complaints that in higher difficulties, an AI with enough cities can run away with the game too easily. Though this map is with medium sea level, I am not perfectly certain that the AI are all placed decently.

I'm mostly concerned about a certain warmonger who starts in a position from which they block 2 peninsulae, on our own continent.

If any higher level player is willing to verify this and shed their opinion on whether the AI can be too strong or not, I would be very grateful. :D


To play the map, simply extract the map script of your choice to <documents directory>\[My Games - if your OS has it]\Beyond the Sword\Saves\Worldbuilder\ and then run BTS and choose "Play scenario".
You can also go with custom scenario if you want to change some things, such as removing events.

The maps are for four difficulty levels - noble, monarch, immortal, deity, to offer the different bonuses the AI should get. All difficulties come either with goody huts or without, so choose whichever you wish. Note that you still need to choose the difficulty of the scenario in game.

Advisable points in which to post about your progress would be:
1000 BCE
1 CE
1000 CE or when you get liberalism, if you go that path
end of the game, hopefully with the utter demolition of the AI :)

If you want to play this immortal+, you might want to add archery to the barbs in the world builder. Hat tip to TheMeInTeam for the info on this.

(Just to double check - monarch AI gets archery, immortal AI gets archery and hunting, deity AI gets archery, hunting and agriculture)

Thanks to TheMeInTeam for his Map customization guide.

View attachment MS 23 Frederick.zip
 
great 3x food, a lot of forrests :)

I will try probably no cottage game as we talked in other thread, could be interresting for comparison.
I will play Monarch as it's monarch student thread, but am really new to monarch, so I would choose noble save to have it a bit easier.

To the map - I would just SIP. Discover techs for worker, BW seems like priority. Then beeline Writing, currency probably.
 
Germans! And Frederick, one of my favorite leaders, awesome for early economy and UU/UB are awesome for late game warfare.
I start this one soon on Monarch/Normal.
 
@vranasm
Just because it's monarch doesn't mean you should play monarch, no one is upset with people playing other difficulties. The actual difficulty in these series isn't so strict, anyway. ;)

The point is, if you're new both to monarch and to no-cottage, you should probably not try both of them at the same time. I guess you'd get quite a confidence boost if you tried and succeeded, though, so, good luck!

As for the food, it's not super good, unfortunately. It becomes better after Civil Service when you can spread irrigation.
 
I recommend turning off events for every save
 
Monarch/epic to 1k BC (from noble save), would love some well advice/criticism etc.

Spoiler :

Ok basically i tried to catch every food resource I have near me, that went to getting 3 cities + cap, one very close to one of AIs.
I have feeling that i got libraries a bit later then I should. techs were ag->ah->bw->fishing->tw->archery->writing.
diplomacy is positive, 2 pleased and the one that is not has someone other as potential target.
Want to explore a bit north and probably prepare for war against Darius, but he has some really good soon UU? that would complicate things.
To the south it's a lot of jungle with bananas, so no good land for no cottage game.
Very tough to decide what to do.

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Finally, a monarch student that isn't .7z. I can play it :)

Will make report
 
Monarch/epic to 1k BC (from noble save), would love some well advice/criticism etc.

Spoiler :

Ok basically i tried to catch every food resource I have near me, that went to getting 3 cities + cap, one very close to one of AIs.
I have feeling that i got libraries a bit later then I should. techs were ag->ah->bw->fishing->tw->archery->writing.
diplomacy is positive, 2 pleased and the one that is not has someone other as potential target.
Want to explore a bit north and probably prepare for war against Darius, but he has some really good soon UU? that would complicate things.
To the south it's a lot of jungle with bananas, so no good land for no cottage game.
Very tough to decide what to do.

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Spoiler :
You need to get a settler out quick to close those borders. That was quite a leap across the land to grab the fish/rice - Darius could still sneak through.

I think your copper city is a mistake. Either settle one south or coastal and put 2 cities in that area. 1 off the coast isn't good and you do have whale up there.

Watch out for Darius - he attacked me at Pleased on Emperor. I have to restart.
 
Spoiler :
You need to get a settler out quick to close those borders. That was quite a leap across the land to grab the fish/rice - Darius could still sneak through.

I think your copper city is a mistake. Either settle one south or coastal and put 2 cities in that area. 1 off the coast isn't good and you do have whale up there.

Watch out for Darius - he attacked me at Pleased on Emperor. I have to restart.

Spoiler :
thanks for response
just to defend myself a bit... i wanted there to have wheat+cows in bfc and the copper was just something on the +side. After I made like 10 turns I realized that i was wrongly thinking that i have wheat in cap bfc (which is not true) so i immedietely came with plan how to have wheat in at least some city.
I saw the whales, but they become available after optics (or something like that) and that is a long long way. Cows are not spectacular food resource on itself, so that place didnt look "great".
with closing the gap you mean settling purple city or bananas? or both?

I see you consider Darius biggest threat for me (somewhat I wanted to act more like biggest threat for Darius myself ;-), so war preparations are in order). What technology you would suggest to attack with? Wait for cats? or sooner some kind of rush. Hmm i dont have horses, so it's almost only axemen rush, but i should 'check' IW somewhat.
 
Doesn't that cost money?

I download the trial version and use it just to extract. After the 30 days or whatever, if you open the app it will asked you to buy it, but I just right click on the zip file and choose extract here. In other words, if you use it just to extract files and not the full features you can use it forever.
 
Spoiler :
thanks for response
just to defend myself a bit... i wanted there to have wheat+cows in bfc and the copper was just something on the +side. After I made like 10 turns I realized that i was wrongly thinking that i have wheat in cap bfc (which is not true) so i immedietely came with plan how to have wheat in at least some city.
I saw the whales, but they become available after optics (or something like that) and that is a long long way. Cows are not spectacular food resource on itself, so that place didnt look "great".
with closing the gap you mean settling purple city or bananas? or both?

I see you consider Darius biggest threat for me (somewhat I wanted to act more like biggest threat for Darius myself ;-), so war preparations are in order). What technology you would suggest to attack with? Wait for cats? or sooner some kind of rush. Hmm i dont have horses, so it's almost only axemen rush, but i should 'check' IW somewhat.


Spoiler :
1 south still would have given you all that and far less crap tiles. It's still an okay city nonetheless.

Axemen rush on Darius would be very hard unless you bring a good handful of spears. His UU eats Axe for breakfast and occasional snacks. Rush would not be the right term at this point and given the distance. I'd say IW/Constr for swords/cats with some spear support.
 
Doesn't that cost money?

As has been mentioned, they never lock it so you can use the trial forever. Or you could download 7-zip, which is freeware. Pretty much the same program.

Anyone else thinking 1ne to get the wheat, grass hill, and open irrigation to the 2 grains?
 
Spoiler :
1 south still would have given you all that and far less crap tiles. It's still an okay city nonetheless.

Axemen rush on Darius would be very hard unless you bring a good handful of spears. His UU eats Axe for breakfast and occasional snacks. Rush would not be the right term at this point and given the distance. I'd say IW/Constr for swords/cats with some spear support.

Spoiler :


I settled in place and expanded normally...plenty of land on IMM to skip a RNG hax rush and just develop for a more sure - and less expensive - thing. Wound up cutting down persia with musket/cannon since he didn't have horse (he got rifles about mid-war, and they did roughly nothing defending against CR II cannon).

 
Anyone else thinking 1ne to get the wheat, grass hill, and open irrigation to the 2 grains?

Well that blank spot surrounded by forest is very suspicious, I'd bet that it has a yummy strategic resource, which NE would loose. 1N might be interesting but looking at the fog I think it will end up with a bunch more plains.
 
1N might be interesting but looking at the fog I think it will end up with a bunch more plains.

1W would get the resources in question, while leaving the bald tile in the cross and avoiding the predicted plains. This is likely what I will do.
 
Spoiler :
1 south still would have given you all that and far less crap tiles. It's still an okay city nonetheless.

Axemen rush on Darius would be very hard unless you bring a good handful of spears. His UU eats Axe for breakfast and occasional snacks. Rush would not be the right term at this point and given the distance. I'd say IW/Constr for swords/cats with some spear support.

Spoiler :

you're of course right with 1S better, but I see it just now.

hmm spearmen are copper based too, so that would be possible, but I am really limited in the types of units (no chariots against axemen, horse archers to have easier time against archers) so it screams for catapults. But I will have to build strong military base, the problem is that i want to try no cottage economy and I cant even imagine where I will get that gold for running the show :).
 
Monarch/Epic to 975BC:
Spoiler :

I'm not sure what to make of this start. I'm having trouble figuring out where to site my cities, to best take advantage of the resources. I think I'm doing OK, with 5 cities at this point, but maintenance is starting to become a problem. I just got copper hooked up, and will have horses in another turn or so.

I've encountered three neighbors, and suspect that is it for the continent - Hannibal to the S, Justinian to the SW, and Darius to the W. Justinian founded Buddhism and Darius Hinduism, which really makes me wonder what other civs are in the game. Hannibal is also Buddhist and apparently has it in for Darius, so I should probably convert to Buddhism to appease he and Justinian.

Here's the map, with a couple of future city sites noted:

I'm torn between expanding down the coast next, or into the land to the NW, but first I need to get the cities I have built up a bit, and get some libraries going.


I'm going to whip the library in Hamburg out when I can, to get rid of the unhappiness. Not much in the way of happiness resources in the area, which is going to be a problem until I get Monarchy.

I just founded Frankfurt and Cologne, and need to get a couple of workers out ASAP.

Tech:


VCs:


Demographics:


Now that I've played this far, I'm going to see what the rest of you are up to...
 
drlake:
Spoiler :

What will the purpose of Hamburg be? The city is questionable because:
> It has plains cow for a food source, and nothing else
> Brown land abounds in its BFC
> A mountain, an oasis (which you can't really improve) and two other desert tiles
I'm guessing you wanted it to be a cottaged-up riverside research city, or just a blocking city (it's south of the mountains for a reason, I guess).
This is just to figure out your intentions for that city, I have lots of room to improve as well, and I'm not trying to criticize your gameplay.
 
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