NC CL Cyrus of Persia

[matthew9890]

@Elitetroops

Spoiler :

Good idea with the barracks thanks for the feedback.

I didn't try and build the GLH, I usually don't tech sailing very quickly (you can see that is the tech I'm researching at 10 AD ) so I usually miss it and don't even think about it even when it is a good wonder to get. The Egyptians built it in 395 BC, so I didn't even have the tech to build it until it was finished

The Wonders I usually go for in the earlish game are:
The Oracle
The Pyramids (if I have stone)
The Great Library
The Parthenon

Are any of the other ones that I ignore powerful enough that I should beeline to them?

As for Specialists, I usually build a GP farm if I'm going for a cultural victory or if I have a peaceful start (then I micromanage and specialize cities more and focus on getting the Great Library in a city with lots of commerce or food to make a super science city). Usually when I start with war it goes build troops -> get too many cities -> panic about how bad my tech rate is -> cottage everything. How should use Specialists in this situation? If I had the Pyramids I would go representation and farm everything and run scientists but since I don't the scientists will only make 3 beakers so cottages are better right...?

 

[elitetroops]

@Matthew:

Spoiler :

GLH is sometimes an almost gamebreaking wonder, especially on low commerce maps with lots of coast. The two extra traderoutes often provide 3-4 extra commerce/city early on if you open borders with all your neighbors, which is a huge boost in the early game. Once you get some intercontinental traderoutes the value of GLH eaily becomes 8 commerce/city. That's more than one extra goldmine per coastal city!

This map is an ideal GLH map, because it's hard to generate commerce in other ways. Plains cottages are bad, because they are food negative. In fact, anything on standard plains without a resource is usually bad. But don't despair, as mentioned there are other ways of teching as well (or you can just take the GLH from the Egyptians )

Regarding teching, you should first set a goal for what you are trying to achieve by teching, then decide on how to best do it. Unless you are going to space, there is no need to plow through the entire tech tree. In case of a military victory, all you need is a tech for an offensive unit that can conquer the world for you. Any other techs are just means of getting you to that target military tech. Once you have that tech, you need no more research, only units to stomp the world.

One of the most popular units to stomp the world with is the cuirassier, because you can beeline it very well and it has quite a long window of opportunity if you get there early. The fastest way (at least on a commerce poor map like this) is usually bulbing. Run lots of scientists, build TGL, NE and maybe parthenon and possibly run pacifism after philosophy to get a ton of Great Scientists. These can bulb Philo, Paper, Edu (double bulb) and Liberalism (to grab MT). Then the only big techs you need to research yourself are nationalism and Gunpowder. Anything that is not on your path to Lib you can trade for with your bulbed techs (though avoid giving edu away until you are ready to lib). Once you get MT, set your empire into full military production mode and start the slaughter. (In case you still need rifling for cavalry, the capture gold you get from your conquests will help you get there.)

There are of course other ways to conquer the world as well, but this is a great strategy to start with, then you can learn other military beelines later.

 

[HeliosDisciple]

In which I suck at war.

Spoiler :

I moved my Immortals to England's border and declared war on turn 84, killing a Warrior right on the border. Right after I met the Vikings and got Open Borders with them.

By turn 88 I was outside London, but then a lone English archer appeared from the fog outside City #4, which was undefended. I attacked London the next turn in hopes of ending the war before that archer got to my city, but my Immortals proved to be very mortal indeed.

England took city #4 the next turn. I traded Math for Iron Working to the Germans, and Egypt offered Archery for Bronze Working, which I also took. Hinduism then spread into my lands, so I converted.

Turn 91, the English rolled out of London to finish off the last Immortal, and the "caring for wounded gives a chance for peace" event popped, so I jumped all over it since my army was now completely gone.

So i went back to building up. Turn 95 I settled a new city on the NE of the inland sea, and t104 I completed the Great Lighthouse. Elizabeth got the Oracle two turns later.

Christianity was founded elsewhere on turn 115/1 AD, which was cute.

T119, Elizabeth offered Open Borders, but I refused, intending to attack again soon.

T125, a horde of 4 Barbarian Spearmen came rolling in from the north to attack city #2, but I'd begun building Axemen and was able to kill them off pretty easily.

T127, I attacked England again, and two turns later I recaptured City #4 with a single Immortal. Ragnar joined in and attacked Liz three turns after that, so I had good hopes.

The English had built a roadblock city here. I sent five Axemen against it, losing one to the garrison but taking Hastings on turn 137.

Egypt also attacked England, but I'm not sure when now.

On turn 140, I finished the Hanging Gardens in Perseopolis...and Oliver Cromwell spawned in London. The Germans send me Ivory through a "help our religious bros" event.

Six turns later, the English army of Axemen slaughters mine to a man outside London. I switch to Organized Religion and Monarchy at the same time, and after the anarchy, begin producing Horse Archers to fight the Axemen.

T147, the Colossus is completed, and I bulb Code of Laws with a GP. Hastings falls to the English on turn 150.

T153, Cortes spawns for me, and I kill a wandering English Swordsman to my north.

At turn 160, 1000 AD, I move my new army, lead by Cortes, to block the English army from moving into my borders here:

I just researched Machinery too, and I'm pretty sure the Vikings and Egyptians are still at war with Liz, though I haven't seen any units from either.

 

[Learner]

@HeliosDisciple

Spoiler :

If you want to get better at warring, you should learn about windows of opportunity and siege units. I think you should tech constructions if you haven't and build catapults. (Constructions also allows war elephants, but I don't remember anymore if this map gives you elephants...)

 

[Gumbolt]

@ helios

Spoiler :

Your army stack only has 5 units??? How was this ever going to take the English city???

Learn to build much larger stacks. Come 1000ad you should have at least catapults and maybe even trebs? By this date on Immortal level I could have 20-30 strong stacks at least.

Perhaps your first war here should of had 8-9 immortals? Around 1500bc or earlier??

It's not a great start food wise. Yet once you roll over 1-2 Ai capitals you have a decent base.

70 science a turn at 1000ad is not great.

 

[matthew9890]

1940 Domination Victory

Spoiler :

If figured that I should finish this game before I started the next one (or GOTM104), but I barely remember some of the stuff that happened so I'll try and keep this brief.

After 10 AD I started trying to fix my economy/tech rate by building cottages, libraries and markets. After a while (960 AD) I got bored of that when I noticed that one of the English border cities was poorly defended and it was a holy city so I decided to attack England. Didn't bother waste time building enough troops especially siege and the exact turn (960 AD) that I DOW the English the Egyptians DOW me (bribed by the English I imagine, they were tech leading I think). This was a lot more then I had bargained for, but I attacked the holy city anyway and after I captued that I continued on to attack a much better defended London and basically ended up suiciding my stack against stronger troops (swords, axes and immortals against crossbowmen and a city with 80% defense That didn't work of course, don't even remember why I would try that )

Had to spend time building up more troops while defending against stacks that Egypt was sending at me, eventually signed a peace treaty with Egypt (so I was only fighting one war) I built enough troops and trebuchets this time and attacked London again (I really wanted London because it was the holy city of Buddhism and that was the main religion on my continent). Halfway through lowering the defense of London (slow going due to walls, a castle and good culture) the English did the Apostolic Palace "Stop the war against Elizabeth" vote and I didn't want to defy the vote so I suicided all my trebuchets against the city and attacked but actually managed to take the city this time . Next turn the vote came back and I was forced into peace with the English.

Ragnar started fighting the Egyptians and asked me to help, and since I couldn't restart my fight against the English it seemed like a good idea (they also had the GLH and it was at about this time that I read elitetroops advice to get it) I conquered all of the Egyptian cities with little trouble as my macemen and trebuchets were superior to the Egyptian war chariots and longbowmen. I teched towards Military tradition to get cuirassiers and attacked the English while waiting for the tech. Without London England was an easy target and halfway through the war I started building cuirassiers. Finished off the English and thanks a lot to the GLH teched rifling pretty quickly, upgraded my troops to riflemen and cavalry and attacked the Vikings who were about the same power rating as me and had grenadiers. The same turn I attacked the Mongols DOWed me (thanks a lot Ragnar ). Took 4 of Ragnars better cities quickly to weaken him but the war started to slow down as I captured the rest of the bad cities that were spread out a bit, Mongols didn't attack me at all which was nice as a lot of my cities were poorly defended (warriors and immortals).

At this point I had conquered all of the AI's on my continent, but I didn't have enough land to trigger the domination victory condition. I was still at war with the Mongols and they had capitulated the Chinese (I had forced the Chinese to DOW on the mongols using the apostolic palace vote to declare war on the infidels, they did not do well in that war) so I just built some boats and captured some of the islands the Chinese had control over and that was enough to get me over the domination limit.

All in all a bit of a strange game for me, the 1940 win with 36971 normalised score was pretty average for my domination games, but I usually get that time using tanks to vassal the AI, so really the dry snaky map altered my game a lot because it slowed my science down and the AI's even more and didn't let tanks be a good option.

I think to improve my domination games I will have to try and tech quickly to strong Military techs and then use them to massacre the AI like elitetroops suggested, I spent most of this game fighting constant wars and that causes later victory dates because it hurts your economy too much.

Sorry if some things don't make much sense it's currently 4:30 am here

 

[elitetroops]

Well done Matthew!

Spoiler :

The dry map certainly makes it hard to get to tanks within a reasonable time frame, but I think it's a step forward for you to win a map with earlier units! I also used to win with tanks and even modern armor while I was playing noble and prince, but to move up in difficulty I had to learn to win with earlier units.

Axes and swords in 960AD sounds very very backwards... by then you should at least have trebs and maces. Though with enough trebs it doesn't really matter if you have swords or maces to go with them. If you go the siege route, make half of your stack siege weapons and force your way through any defenses you face. It's not always worth bombarding away all the cultural defenses, often it's better to just suicide some trebs to get the city sooner.

From the info screen it appears your worker count is very low. 1.5 workers/city is an often stated rule of thumb. It's of course situational, but mostly that's a lot better than <1 worker/city. In the early game you want enough of them to make sure no city needs to work unimproved tiles and still have worker turns to spare for chopping and preparing roads to new city sites.

 

[tijup]

I gave it a try this weekend, I am aiming for a late victory with "space race" ..

Spoiler :

I DoWed Germans as soon as I got 4-5 immortals, and took his cities.
I then peacefully rexxed for centuries, occasionally dragged into phony wars with Ragnar by Ramses or Eli.
I libed Steel, and mopped up Ramses, Ragnar and Eli at the same time.

I would have waited for a couple of turns before wiping and army of Galeons to bring war to the other continents, but decided instead of rebuilding my economy and pursue a Space Victory (something I barely bother, it's too long at Marathon speed imho)

So, well, I'm in 1870ish, about 10 turns to finish Life Support. The AIs are so much backward in tech that I just press return since dozens of turns (their best units are grenadiers).
I may try to unleash a nuclear war for the fun of it after ship launch.

 

[tijup]

late space victory, 1937, marathon speed, prince.

Spoiler :

In the last ten turns before victory, Mao DoWed mongols, I gifted some tactical nukes to Mao, that he used straight away.

Nice map, I could have won via domination way earlier, I find space race boring at that level.

 

[Hortulanus]

Spoiler :

Returning to Civ after a long hiatus, I played this at monarch, normal speed to knock the rust off. I settled in place. My second city was settled on top of the horses. I rushed Egypt, kept Thebes and Memphis and razed one city. I immediately turned to Germany and timed my attack to the turn they hooked up iron. I captured the worker and burned the mine as my opening salvo. I took Berlin, which had the Great Wall, and Munich, which was settled on the far side of the bay from Berlin. I probably should have razed it. Since Hamburg was on a hill. I waited to get some swords before taking and razing it. After doing so, I had three capital cities, plus a few others, a huge area of land and hopes of an elepult war against England. Alas, my economy was in such shambles that it was not to be. I actually bulbed compass, so I could trade it to England for Monarchy. I turtled for quite a while, slowly rebuilding an economy and stockpiling siege. England, Vikings and I were all Buddhist, but I knew Ragnor would eventually declare on England, who was crowding him. By the time he did, I had grown large enough to win the Apostolic Palace Resident election and had found the Mongols and the Chinese, who had no religion. After letting Ragnor and Elizabeth go at it for a few turns, I launched my attack against England with trebs, maces and a bunch of catapults and other obsolete units. I took York, which was settled at the base of the isthmus linking Elizabeth&#8217;s and my lands, and then London. I took England as a vassal, since I was afraid Elizabeth would capitulate to Ragnor. Looking for the quickest way to end the game -- which I been in the bag for a long time -- I carried a Buddhist missionary to China. Before I could get one to Mongolia, Buddhism spread to them automatically, and the Diplomatic Victory came up as an Apostolic Palace election option. My votes plus my vassal&#8217;s were enough for the victory in 1470 AD.

 

[Ohblivion]

Tried it on Immortal after 2 warmup games on emperor on random maps after a long absence. I keep coming back to this wonderfull game.

Spoiler :

Went the AH route but then decided not to go for the Immortal rush. Figured I could get the Great lighthouse out, but I missed it by a few turns
I have no idea how the other dude playing on immortal managed to go both GLH AND full out war early.

So the slightly effeminate Persians ended up Settling peacefully around the 'mediterranean' up till 7 cities, using a handfull of immortals to take a barb city.

Spoiler :

I then abused failgold from the

Spoiler :

marble wonders. All. of. them.

to do a boring librace. I somehow managed to get music, bulb philo, double bulb Edu, AND get 2 merchants. Those were used to upgrade

Spoiler :

elephants that I had built before by trading horse for ivory

.

Spoiler :

2 turns !

Various Errors during the conquest period slowed me down a bit, but luckily the techrate of the opponents was abysmal. I only stopped the cuir > cav thing atfer doing a minor naval invasion to capitulate

Spoiler :

wang

which at that point STILL did not have rifles.

Spoiler :

Kublai Kahn

did though, and he was sitting on 20 cities, so, being fed up with the the warmongering and very rusty as to lategame warfare, I teched up to the UN and got a late 1820 Diplo Victory, 165kish.

Spoiler :

All said and done this is only my 5th immortal win, so I 'm still very satisfied. I ended up almost not using any cottages at all, besides the ones I conquered. The failgold was what carried me through. I'd say this is a very easy map though. I have not seen anyone do this on deity yet? Surely if newbies like me can clear it on Immortal, the denizens of this forums could post a nice deity youtube vid

 

[Olfart]

Tried this on Noble. Managed a Conquest win in 1884.

Spoiler :

With horses available early, built a pile of Immortals and took out Germany and Egypt very early. Then it was just a matter of building up enough units to wipe out the rest of the world. Probably should have played this at Prince.

 

[FlyingSwan]

emporer normal,huts and events.

Spoiler :

did the obvious,as im sure most people did,and chariot rushed freddy.I could of took berlin 1 turn earlier but there was a wandering worker I wanted so I waited an extra turn before I took berlin.An extra worker at this point in the game is worth more than the immortal I lost by waiting.

Anyway its turn 61 and Freddys out the picture,I have my 1st Great general and(deja vu after just playing the Kublai NC game) I have the "build enough stables" event.With the couple of gold mines and cottage potential in Berlin and I can see my self going for a Knight rush again.

The stables event gets you 7 free Horse archers which is definitely worth going for.Ramasees and Elizibeth are in different religions-so I should have some tension and opportunities there for war bribes.

The only thing that's going to stand up to my knights are elephants,so Im hoping neither have them.Me having no iron would throw a spanner in the works though..although I don't see copper so its unlikely I don't have it somewhere.

After the rush,building the oracle seems unlikely.In fact I think ive missed the boat on the early wonders.Depending which tech route IND ramasees takes I may even gift him some marble if he hasn't got any so he can build me a few.

View attachment 379744

1AD

View attachment 379752

Spoiler :

Knight rush not looking too great,looking more like a Knight dawdle.Found Ragnar and switched to his religion and ramasees.Lost a settler and immortal to barb spears.Bit of a set back for settling the 2 fur sites.

Going to persevere anyhow.

900AD

View attachment NC 150 Cyrus AD-0900 guilds.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :

totally limped my way to guilds,just too much land to settle put a strain on the tech rate.Good news is Ramasees doesn't have feudalism yet,and ragnars at war with elizibeth.I have control of the Apostolic palace.By the time I declare war hopefully ramasees will of built some more wonders with the marble I gifted him.

Time for a whip-a-thon...