NC XIX: Napoleon

[JTMacc99]

Monarch/Epic 220AD:

Spoiler :

Well, I marched a stack of axes and swords into Holy Roman lands, and very quickly captured 4 cities, including the holy city capital, and picked up a half dozen much needed workers along the way. I actually attacked before I was completely satisfied with my stack, because my units were just starting to strike and I really needed the plunder cash. Heh.

Does anybody think it's probably not a good idea to crash the economy BEFORE the early rush? Oh well, this is the path I chose.

After that was done, I used my Stonehenge prophet to build the Church of Nativity (I have choose religions turned on), and I started to whip out some libraries in order to generate some sort of research while I wait for my cottages to mature.

As of 220 AD, I am hopelessly behind in research, and need to run at 0% on the slider. I managed to research meditation and priesthood on my own, and even traded one of those for sailing, which at least brought me up to +1 on the cash side at 0% research on the slider.

I used meditation to build monasteries, and am using the monasteries to build Christian missionaries (as I can't afford any more units, and don't have the technology to build any useful buildings) and will just attempt to spread my religion to as many cities as possible. With any luck, I can up the gold per turn from my shrine from 7 to 30 by the time I can build a market, and then maybe I'll be able to climb out of my research hole.

I am researching Code of Laws, because there really isn't any other option for me right now. Hopefully, I'll start generating enough research to get it done before the 30+ turns it currently says it will take. If I do, not only will I be able to build all the half price courthouses I need to un-crash the economy, but I might also be able to trade it around to catch up a little bit.

As for the diplomatic situation, well, that's a little sticky right now. The Vikings and I are the only ones going without a religion, which is going to be a problem. Frankly, I should figure out a way to hook up the gold in that desert and see I can possibly build the SP. At least if I go into free religion, I can maintain some sort of peace with everybody for a little while.

Basically, Rome is Christian, and I could spread the word to the Vikings as well once I end my phony war with him at the request of the Germans. With those two civs completely converted, I COULD convert to Christianity myself with the knowledge that I've only got a one front war to fight. Not to mention, both of them would be highly useful to have on MY side during any future wars. Neither of them has the land and resources I have at my disposal, so it is a distinct possibility that I could keep them both in check and also use them as attack dogs when the time comes.

On the other side, Bismark has built himself quite a nice little army. Even with my numerous swordsmen and axes, he has a slight power advantage over me. Brennus probably does as well, but I don't have a view into that yet. The religions are two and two between Bismark, Victoria, Brennus and Izzy. I forget how they are paired up at the moment.

I'm concerned about Bismark, as I have two cities down to the Southwest of Paris that share very close borders with him. I have what is probably the common one with all of us, which is 1N of the Iron and works the cows. I also recently captured a Barb city founded on the river in a spot that misses the coast by one tile, BUT it picks up both Gems and the Dye, and should be a really good city if it doesn't get overrun by the the Germans.

Even though I am in NO condition to add any more cities, I had to capture that one, and the barb one they built right on the copper (2N of the sheep) northwest of Paris, because all sorts of enemy troops have been sniffing around them. The gems/dye city was too juicy to pass up, and the copper/sheep city is no place for an enemy city to be showing up.

While I was at it, I also actually founded one more of my own cities down at the southwest corner of Holy Roman territory. This one will work a fish, a clam, a copper, and I think a dye. It should make an outstanding Moai city.

If I live long enough to do so, I can still found 4-5 more cities in my own territory. I can get the crabs/stone up above the barb Copper/sheep city. I need to found the very nice coastal city with the spices to the southeast of Paris. I still haven't picked up the pigs and horses to the NE, and there are a couple of big gaps with lots of grass and hills still to fill in after that.

All I need to do now is get the economy out of the tank, while attempting to stay alive in a world filled with religious fanatics and overly aggressive military dictators. Sounds like a good job for a guy like Napoleon.

 

[Single Malt]

Grrr

Spoiler :

I didn't think Otto van would DoW at pleased!!! He's one hell of a war monger for AI

 

[michmbk]

Monarch/Epic from 190 AD to 1620 AD. I played way way too late last night so couldn't post until this morning. Also, I had my laptop next to my home computer, so I was typing along the way, and taking a bunch of screenshots. So this is a LONG report, but hopefully entertaining. Open at your own risk.

Spoiler :

Ok, when last I left off, I had 8 cities, a lousy tech rate, and an annoyed Charlie to the east. I’m still learning at monarch, and this game has offered a good learning experience. The two things I’ve learned so far in this one is: 1) Commit to one approach or the other – i.e., in my case, don’t worker steal and build wonders simultaneously. If I had just built units instead of mids in Paris, I could have obliterated Bismarck and peacefully backfilled all the land between us. Also probably could have played friendly with Charlie until later, since he’s protective anyway. 2) When blocking off land, don’t waste time. I got away with #2 in the Joao game, as I was lucky the good land didn’t get settled while I rushed, but this time, I lost two good city sites screwing around with Bismarck after the worker steal. Having said that, it’s time to pick up on my game.

First things first – After one click of the end turn button, Vicky asks me to war with Ragnar. No one seems to like him, not the hindus (Brennus, Izzy, Bismarck, or Vicky) and not the buddhists (JC or Charlie), so I decide to join her in her fight. Same turn, since I had all day at work to think about it, I decided that my GE should build this:

This turned out to be my best move of the game. I decided not to build in Paris as I wanted to keep my GE pool clean there for one more GE, and I think Tours with the cottages I’ve laid down will actually be a good research site. Priority techs now are currency, COL and CS for cash, courthouses, and bureaucracy – Paris’s production will be off the charts in bureaucracy. The other priorities are cottages and military buildup. With 8 cities on good land (I have 2 good production sites, and 2 good wealth sites once the cottages are laid down), plus a couple backfill spots, I still feel confident as long as I get units built before Charlie DOWs (I assume that’s only a matter of time). I decide to stay in slavery awhile, because of all the production sites and no random events. I can afford the unhappiness with my charismatic trait. Since I sided with the hind u block (again, with hindsight, I would have gone Buddhist and buddied with JC and Charlie – Bismarck isn’t a threat and Izzy is irrelevant until she gets her conquistadors), I’m a little stuck as to my next military action. Attacking Bismarck will upset my brothers and sisters of the faith, and protective Charlie is two techs from landsknechts. I assume this map was built on purpose to put me right in the middle to have to decide who to align with, and which way to war. I’m probably not going to bother to send anything toward Ragnar, as I think he’s too far away. Sending a chariot down that way to scout, but nothing more.

Also building workers and monasteries. I have 8 workers, need to get cottages and chop fast. The great library is helping immensely with teching, and I backfill for monotheism and gold with JC (the hindus seem ok with me trading with him, so I’m trading with him and avoiding Charlie at all costs). I also make three trades like this:

Nets me a total of about 200 gold. So I’m racing to code of laws now, and saving my whip for cheap courthouses. Then I get this:

Vicky is way behind in score, and it gets Izzy to friendly. I go for it - my happy cap can handle plenty of WW. I haven’t seen Ragnar, because I think JC has closed his borders to him and he can’t get to me. I sent a chariot exploring, and got close to one of Ragnar’s cities, he had a stack of 12 in the city, but I haven’t seen one unit show up in my territory. I’m currently safe from Izzy and Brennus backstabs, which is not easy to do, and even Bismarck is starting to warm to me. Decided to tech construction after CS, then beeline gunpowder for muskets while building cats. Will then use cats, trebs, maces and musketeers to go after Charlie.

Then I crack the whip for the last significant whipping – 5 courthouses in 2 turns. Organized is nice. Tech civil service, and trade it to Izzy for construction and a bunch of gold. Now I’m beelining gunpowder starting in 610 AD. I even have Bismarck pleased – if I get him friendly, I can concentrate 100% on Charlie, because all the hindus won’t backstab at that point. As you'll see later, that idea didn't work so well. Oh, and that stupid Atlantis galleon showed up and chewed up my fishing boats. Arrgh. Then, a hindu war? Bismarck must be boxed in as he DOWs on Izzy. Thankfully when Izzy asks me to join and I say no, she’s still friendly. So it’s 500 years of building cats, trebs, cottages, popping another GE, which I have sleeping for now, and beelining gunpowder. The GE points from Mids and Hanging Gardens came in REALLY handy this game. Also, Paris's unbelievable production power - I built this in 12 turns:

My happy cap is sky high right now, so even though I run the risk of popping an artist, that's not the worst thing in the world if I'll be warring constantly soon. I actually start building the Hagia Sophia for the first time ever I think, as I’d like to keep my chances of popping an engineer high. And in 1130 AD, right as Charlie techs Engineering:

Hello musketeers. I decide to share it:

Only with Izzy, to keep her friendly and for potential diplomation or domination later. I wanted gold for a mass upgrade of axes/chariots to knights/maces. She has that super hindu holy city, so gold is coming out of her ears I'm sure. 3 turns later, in 1180, an AP vote to DOW Ragnar comes up – I say yes, because I don’t care about him. I then proceed to DOW on Charlie. He’s researching philosophy - not a good idea - here we come:

We’re heading straight for Aachen – 1 pit stop at Nuremberg along the way. Musketeer reinforcements are coming behind this stack as well. The best part of these units is that I can DOW before they get there, and leave them behind to defend a city while everyone else races forward, and then catch them up once I'm sure the city is safe. No need for longbows to stay behind, and really kept the fight going, especially later when I get cannons. A sidebar - I had a woodsman 2 warrior I attached my first GG to, he's about to join this stack and has woodsman 3, medic 1 - I upgrade him to a pike and keep him winning battles - by the time Charlie dies, he's to medic 2. In the late game, I'm hoping to get him to the fabled woodsman 3, medic 3 level through more mop up work.

Back to the summary - someone else builds Hagia, and so I get a nice chunk of gold. Beelining steel now to continue the slaughter. Military only in Paris and Rheims, wealth-type buildings in most other places. Nuremberg:

I didn’t lose one unit, not even a treb. Then Aachen:

That's my woodsman medic warrior - finishing off the last defender! I continue mowing through his cities one by one, losing nothing more than a few suicide cats and the occasional bad break. I take and keep all his good cities down on the peninsula - he's actually done a good job building cottages, so I decide to eliminate him completely, to avoid the motherland hit and get all these cities online faster. He’s down to 2 desert cities of size 3-4 left, I just teched steel, and then, Bismarck accepts him as a vassal and DOWs me? Why on earth would Bismarck do that – does he realize how big my empire is now? Bis does catch me with my pants down a bit, as I only have a couple of troops in Lyon and my other westernmost cities, so, just to make sure I protect those cities a bit, I do this:

Steel is the last tech I want to trade at this point, especially to Ms. super holy city Izzy, but all I need now is to keep my cities, because my empire is now very large and will be very efficient at state property. And two decent techs in the deal, so no complaints. I assume Bismarck will have his hands full. My only concern is that he might have some units lurking to the east as he was fighting Ragnar. Then, I see this at my border:

That is one GIANT stack. So, I guess I need to make sure that he has some other things tying him up:

So I bribed both Brennus and Izzy into war with him. This could be a bit of a problem later as they’re both pretty big, and if they vassalize him, I could be in a bit of trouble facing another big empire. Plus I gave up some key military techs to do it, but size is what matters now, and I'm growing to the east and just want to maintain to the west. If I need to war later with Izzy or Brennus, I have a nice chokepoint with those western cities to do it. Sure enough, Bis's stack retreats - I cackle with glee watching Bis deal with wars on all sides. It then dawns on me though, just how huge Brennus and Bismarck have become - they each have a LOT of land. I am also now huge, but they have big empires too, so this will be an interesting game once I finish Charlie off. Another reluctant trade with Brennus gives him steel, so I’ve traded my cannon edge to the two other biggest civs. The good news is it got me education, drama and a LOT of money. I then popped a GS in Paris, who bulbed most of printing press, so suddenly I can 100% research for awhile, and commerce is about to take another boost. I think I have to keep warring with Bismarck – would be great if I could get him to capitulate to me. It’s a crazy war over there too – everyone keeps trading cities – Izzy has lost 1, Brennus 1, and Bismarck 2. Until:

Bismarck just lost city #3 - he took it back from me later, but it's not that great a city. And finally, 260 years later:

Charlie is dead. I sue for peace from Bismarck and get 220 gold in the process. Now my trades with Brennus and Izzy reveal another problem: Bis is behind us all in tech, and he’s starting to get beat up by Brennus and Izzy. I can’t afford for either of them to make him a vassal, because they’re both already getting pretty big, and he has plenty of big stacks - if he capitulates to them, they'll give him all their techs and he'll be a powerhouse too. So I do this:

And this:

And now, peace throughout the world. I don't know if I've completely and utterly mismanaged diplomacy in this game, or managed it incredibly shrewdly - I just can't tell. JC is my next target, with his four measly cities, but in between, the short peace gives me a few turns to start getting my universities in, teching towards Democracy for Statue because of my sleeping great engineer. I pop this:

Another GE on the way to democracy, to finish Ironworks in Paris - more engineer points, but this ended up being a big mistake, for reasons I'll explain later. I hit democracy 2 turns behind Brennus, so with my GE, I pop way ahead in the Statue race - only 13 turns to about 20 free specialists. It's also time to DOW on JC. The next turn, Bismarck comes after me again, but this time I’m waiting for him. I have a dozen cannons in Lyons waiting for his stack of doom. Not much else, but cannons are fantastic against his pikes, knights, trebs and cats. His stack has a lot of knights, so I’m moving a few of my pikes down there too. Not bringing in an ally this time, because he could capitulate to any war ally, so I'm going to fight him off and when I do, I'm coming after Berlin. I figure collateral damage will beat down his stack pretty good. Here’s the first of two stacks he sends my way:

Meanwhile, as I’m fighting JC, I see this

Ragnar wants to take JC’s last city. It’s really late on another work night, and I don’t know what to do. I do know that bed is not an option, and I decide I also need to do this:

I devastate Ragnar’s stack with my cannons, and do the same on the other side of the world to Bismark’s stack. Bis is left with 5 knights at strength 2. One turn later, I finish off JC:

Side note: liberalism went 2 turns earlier than this - see how I'm 1 turn away. It never dawned on me that someone hadn't won the lib race in the 1500s. I could have gotten rifling for free, but I never prioritized it in any way - far different from my usual thinking. I find when I'm warring I tend to pay less attention to some of the little details and more to the war.

I’m two turns from the Statue of Liberty, when I see that Brennus pops a great engineer – are you kidding me???? Sure enough:

This infuriates me, and now I’m too upset to go to bed. Why didn't I save both GEs? I could have built Statue in 1 turn, instead of the 13 it took me. And how on earth did he pop a GE in just the right time - what a rotten break. Sure the 1200 gold is nice for deficit research, but 20+ specialists would also have been nice. So I stay up another 20-30 minutes of starting to beat down Ragnar, taking one of Bismarck's cities (the closest one to Berlin, which is my next target) and beelining to communism for state property, and for…

My first golden age. Right in the middle of two wars – look out. I decided to call it a night right at that golden age. Going to bed – tomorrow night will be a battle for sure. Civic changes (four in total - didn’t go police state yet – have the rest of the golden age to decide) and empire – 22 cities.

It dawned on me this morning that I haven't even examined all my captured cities - too busy warring, so I have no idea if I picked up any wonders or not. I do know that I'm heading for Berlin when I pick this back up, because Mr. Industrious had to have built some in his capital.

It also dawned on me that I still haven't had more than about -1 happiness in any of my cities (except a few turns where Charlie's old cities wanted to join the motherland). Charismatic plus Notre Dame has been a fantastic war tool.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Grrr

Spoiler :

I didn't think Otto van would DoW at pleased!!! He's one hell of a war monger for AI

Spoiler :

There are precisely two AIs in the entire game that prioritize "collateral" as a unit choice: Mehmed and Bismark. Of the two, Mehmed builds more units (mehmed is actually tied with shaka, ragnar, and napoleon for most units), but Bismark declares at pleased. Bis has a middle-of-the-pack peace weight of 6. In games where the RNG variance pushes that down, he can be aggressive and dangerous for certain.

To put it in laymans terms, Bismark is underestimated. He builds equal units with the likes of tokugawa, julius caesar, and a host of other fairly nasty opponents, but his unit composition is usually better. Certainly not an AI you want to see with a lot of cities (though I hate shaka having a ton of cities even more).

 

[Anexus]

Spoiler :

There are precisely two AIs in the entire game that prioritize "collateral" as a unit choice: Mehmed and Bismark. Of the two, Mehmed builds more units (mehmed is actually tied with shaka, ragnar, and napoleon for most units), but Bismark declares at pleased. Bis has a middle-of-the-pack peace weight of 6. In games where the RNG variance pushes that down, he can be aggressive and dangerous for certain.

To put it in laymans terms, Bismark is underestimated. He builds equal units with the likes of tokugawa, julius caesar, and a host of other fairly nasty opponents, but his unit composition is usually better. Certainly not an AI you want to see with a lot of cities (though I hate shaka having a ton of cities even more).

Spoiler :

Interesting. I'm fighting a war with Bismark right now and the amount of units he has is absurd. The guy forced me to do peace through the religious resolution Oh well, gave me 10 turns to build more infrastructure. Thankfully he's woefully behind in techs. Brennus should be the only roadblock to a domination victory at this point. This was an interesting game with the Atlantis AI. I'd like to earn victory sooner in my next game, but a few more wins on noble and I might try an even higher difficulty level.

 

[michmbk]

On the "not-so-normal civ" added:

Spoiler :

I just checked my game save, and it appears they've built the Spiral Minaret, as well as a few other wonders. I'm not sure how many units it would have at this point, but +2 gold per religious building from mid-game to computers is a nice bounty. I may have to rethink my strategy and see how well defended that city is.

 

[Single Malt]

TMIT

Spoiler :

Its not that he prioritises collateral, its the fact that he also brings more than enough units to mop up. The amount of time the ai comes at you with a SoD comprised of 70% siege is not funny, but that stack is no problem, as it rarely has enough units to mop up. Bizzy gets the ratio right, and that makes him more fearsome than even Shaka IMO. I always found shaka an annoyance, not a threat, because he doesn't have the same logic in stack composition.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Noble,Marathon, up to 1000 AD

Spoiler :

I kept going back and forth about settling on stone or not. I figure settling on it would help short term but in place long term. Finally since my games usually take awhile (unless I get STOMPED early) I decided to settle in place.

I tech through to BW and find copper near by in two places one off to west and off to east by BK. I settle on the east with a plan to axerush him. I KNOW axe rushing a protective civ who founds a holy city NOT the smartest move to make but I have NEVER been accused of being smart player hehe

Meanwhile I have a cpl warriors off exploring. To the east is kinda slow going but west I get mapped out pretty fast just cuz goodyhuts let out 2 scouts and xtra warrior. So I meet all the AI's in west and guess I still have bad influence from reading all of sistuli's alc games. One of my warriors sees a worker by brennus's cap and snatches him hehe. The COOLEST part was I walk him alone all they back to paris and he makes it .

Okies by all this time I got three cities done, and gw and even got stonehenge and I started pumping out axes and spears. My stack goes over to say hi to BK and we get 4 of his cities and BK all gone

By this time maintainance is crushing and beakers are sucky. But Julie is close so I am like trying to expand off to west to block off everyone there and get iron and build courthouses and markets and later cats and swords and ellies to go after julie.

It takes a lil longer than it should cuz RAGS is being a TOTAL dillhole. He DoW's on me TWICE during build up. So I have to take care of his incoming stacks, heal up and wait till he willing to go for peace. Only upisdie to all this is now my ellies getting VERY nicely promoted hehe.

But I finally get going after Julie and start taking his cities. And during war with Julie rags DoW's TWO more times slowing me down more grrrrrrrrrr. SO thats where I am at this point. Taking Julies cities as fast as I can while having to deal with Rags being a pain.

Meanwhile all the civs to west are one big happy jewish family so once/if I settle Julie then Rags they are gonna be a PAIN to deal with since they ar egetting waaaay ahead on tech by trading with each other.

Here is what my empire looks like:

Still TONS of unsettled land around me but I have it all blocked off and will get to it as soon as I am done with Julie and Rags.

This is eastern warzone with newly captured rome cities:

here is close up:

Notice fist by Rag's name and that stack by neopolis? That lil %&^*&^ is gonna DoW AGAIN grrrrrrrrrr.

Also notice the fist by brennies name? He doing a build up to for somebody even though he pleased with me. I guess he still holding grudge over that worker thing hehe. So now I have to ship some guys over to west as well as keep up with war in east.

Diplo sitch:

Yep brennie still holding grudge for that working thing sheesh I HAVE been nice to him ever since then. Some ppl just need to lear to get OVER it already

Tech sitch:

is DISMAL. I am waaaay behind and dont have ANYTHING to trade and even if i did everybody with anything useful is NOT willing to trade grrrr.

Powerwise I am doing ok tho:

My demographics screenie didnt come out but I am number one in land and pop but BIG question is how long I can stay that way if I keep falling behind so much.

My cap:

Not THAT great a city but still ok I guess

Lyons is my only other really nice city it is my unit pump:

Right now it making so triemes just cuz cities are reaching health caps and I dont have any seafood hooked up cuz I need to deal with barbies first but havent had time since I been too busy with wars and stuff.

ANd one last thing I noticed:

No idea WHAT Rag's evil twin supposed to be but he is hogging ALL the nice shinys

ANyways thats it. Seems like sitch I am ALWAYS in if I can somelast to this point. Lots of land but HOPELESSY backwards techwise so have to figure out how to catch back up and to do it before I get whomped. NOOO clue how I can do that tho but hopefully I can figure something out. Wish me luck

Kaytie

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Kaytie-

I think I see you have a settled spy or two...focus all your
EP on the tech leader and steal some techs! You built GW so I'd imagine you've got good EP output compared to the AI. Besides, stealing techs is fun

 

[djvandrake]

Couple things:

Spoiler :

The city count isn't bad, but it isn't great. It's fine though. You do want to settle some more while you have time, and you want to improve your military somewhat.

I'm going to call you mainly on two things (nobody can improve every aspect of their game at once): Tech priority, and infrastructure. You have way too many unimproved tiles right now. I had more with my cities scattered every which way going for conquest. You need more workers and sooner. You might also wish to review city specialization, although I can't tell the extent that is lacking from just the screen shots, because the improvements don't make it 100% clear.

Even with the underdeveloped cities, you could bet at or ahead of parity right now if you researched different techs first. Try to research things the AI doesn't have so you can trade them. Alpha or aesthetics can both be traded for monarchy/iron working/etc as needed. Math is a very common tech for the AI to research.

Your other main problem I see is a bunch of cities with . Monarchy would help this, and if you'd gotten aesthetics or alpha earlier you'd have had it much sooner.

Just a fun note: On immortal, philosophy going in the BC's isn't that uncommon . There are players far better than myself who get it first easily anyway (it's a great trading tech, actually). Regardless, you should probably get the basics like growing your cities, expansion timing, and what to tech next in order to improve.

As for this game, you're still in it. See if you can't trade something for your partial researched monarchy ASAP, get more workers in the field, improve your tiles, finish expanding, and set a dedicated military city or two to protect yourself (or if diplo is secure, just crank military garrisons for HR). This is assuming you didn't get mids...I don't remember in your game. If you got them, forget monarchy altogether.

Thank you TMIT for your feedback. Couple of questions if you don't mind...

Spoiler :

First of all, I had a forehead slapping *duh* moment when you called me out on tech priority. Guilty as charged. I'm not chasing wonders or religions this game so I just kinda when deciding what to do next tech wise. That's stupid and I know it, but it took you pointing it out for me to see it. Thanks.

Regarding expansion: I think I'm a bit gun-shy after blowing the previous monarch game as Joao by over expanding early. My tech slider went to 0% there and I was stuck. Well, in this game my tech slider has been as low as 30% (it's 40% now, and I'm running a defecit but can afford it for a touch due to barb city busting booty! Arrr!) But at what point do I stop expansion in favor of keeping things moving on the tech front? I know I really need to push into the southwest ASAP and claim those river spots with the dye and gems, but don't want to crash things even more. I've been lucky so far because Bismarck has been fighting for his life against Brennus.

Workers: OK, thanks for that. I thought I was doing OK because I try to stay on par with what the city can work as it grows. None of my larger cities are working more than 1-2 unimproved tiles and the cities that have almost no improvements were literally just founded. But, I am usually chasing growth and my workers never have a dull moment. So, I'll definitely get more in the field asap.

Bismarck built the Mid's, then Brennus stole them from him. So, I need and will get monarchy asap.

Thanks again.

 

[Anexus]

Here's the rest of my game from 1600 AD - 1921 for a domination win.

Spoiler :

I spent the next couple hundred years solidifying my tech supremacy and building up tons of units. by 1862, I was ready to take out my first victim with my new and improved military. By 1892, I get Bismark down to one city and one troop left, but my Vassal, Spain had many troops poised to take the city next turn. I promptly call a cease fire so Spain's troops are forced to leave. I need the city for domination victory. My plan was to take it out in a couple turns.


However, things don't go according to plan. Bismark decides to become a vassal of Rome. Then Ragnar becomes a vassal of Brennus. However, Ragnar and Caesar are at war so... Brennus declares war on Rome, as does England since Victoria is Brennus' vassal. Brennus takes Dusseldorf, slightly irritating but manageable.

Well I certainly didn't want Brennus to take over any Roman cities. Rome was going to be my next, easy target while I recoup from the costly german war. I couldn't let Brennus use my railroads, so I immediately cease open borders with England and the Celts. I declare war on Rome a turn later.

I take over the Roman Empire with little difficulty since his troops were very outdated and he had been warring with Ragnar for quite some time. Unfortunately, this didn't give me enough cities to win Domination. I'd have to take out the Vikings, which means war with the Celts and England. Fun.

In the meantime, I build the UN, get secretary general. I hold no elections since there's no way I'd win. I think I do trade routes one first, then don't hold anymore elections.

One thing I noticed is that wasI getting sabotaged a lot. I neglected Espionage mostly this game... which is probably a mistake. I think I need to read a guide so I understand it better. It was irritating, but I had such a giant tech lead and cities that could pump out modern armor's in 1-2 turns, it wasn't going to matter.

Taking out Ragnar was cake... Taking on Brennus was another matter. He had infantry, but thankfully few tanks. He just had tons and tons of Cavalry, some infantry and hordes of leftover units from eras past. I take Dusseldorf, but he gets it back. However, he was just no match for modern armor, which could take out 4-5 of his guys each, if not more. He eventually lost through attrition. Victoria throws some calvalry at me, but once they die she does nothing.

I used Bombers to whittle down city defenses and troops. I used artillery a bit, but mainly relied on planes/destroyers/battleships for bombardment. Then I sent in the tanks/modern armor and get these two cities you can see in this last screenshot. Once Ragnar's cities come out of revolt, I win domination.


Was a fun game, and I learned a lot. I will definitely be more focused at the beginning in terms of city specialization, expansion and placement. I was right taking out Charlemagne early to give me plenty of room to expand. Vassalizing Spain turned out to be a big asset as she fielded quite a few troops and diverted the enemy away from me. It also meant I didn't have to worry about her anymore and could focus on other targets. And next time I will try and use espionage, or at least counterespionage more effectively so I'm not losing buildings/improvments all the time. Bad thing about domination, is it takes forever. I will probably disable battle animation for future warmongering.

Seems organized gets better with vast empires. I was able to maintain 70% tech rate, 10% culture rate through all my warring, and making 50-120 gpt most turns. I used the money to rush buildings I needed, like airports and such at the end. Napoleon is not my favorite leader, nor did I really take advantage of France's UU and UB.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Thank you TMIT for your feedback. Couple of questions if you don't mind...

Spoiler :

First of all, I had a forehead slapping *duh* moment when you called me out on tech priority. Guilty as charged. I'm not chasing wonders or religions this game so I just kinda when deciding what to do next tech wise. That's stupid and I know it, but it took you pointing it out for me to see it. Thanks.

Regarding expansion: I think I'm a bit gun-shy after blowing the previous monarch game as Joao by over expanding early. My tech slider went to 0% there and I was stuck. Well, in this game my tech slider has been as low as 30% (it's 40% now, and I'm running a defecit but can afford it for a touch due to barb city busting booty! Arrr!) But at what point do I stop expansion in favor of keeping things moving on the tech front? I know I really need to push into the southwest ASAP and claim those river spots with the dye and gems, but don't want to crash things even more. I've been lucky so far because Bismarck has been fighting for his life against Brennus.

Workers: OK, thanks for that. I thought I was doing OK because I try to stay on par with what the city can work as it grows. None of my larger cities are working more than 1-2 unimproved tiles and the cities that have almost no improvements were literally just founded. But, I am usually chasing growth and my workers never have a dull moment. So, I'll definitely get more in the field asap.

Bismarck built the Mid's, then Brennus stole them from him. So, I need and will get monarchy asap.

Thanks again.

Spoiler :

You want to work unimproved tiles as little as possible (exception, claiming priority land might force you to settle it before you can get enough workers). Also, growing cities to their cap is a priority, which means attaining a means to increase the cap is also a priority. WHAT improvements you make matters too.

I expanded to 0% in the Joao game too. It's fine if you're doing something like running rep (or just regular) scientists to power you along or growing enough to work a lot of cottages (which grow over time and continually hand out higher yields). Imagine where you'd be right now if all your cities had 2-2.5 times their pop, and 75% of that pop was working cottages or hamlets! Suddenly the slider isn't so painful.

It's hard to balance perfectly though. I win at immortal and I still have a ton of room for improvement myself.

 

[gcm4738]

Monarch/Epic to 1605 AD

So far so good. Oh and a question - what building allows me to assign a 2nd engineer in a city??

Spoiler :

Ok - my new diplomatic strategy is paying off I think. This is like no other game I've played so far. This round was a round of two halves. The first half was much like the last round. Quite a lot of peaceful building all around. A couple of minor skirmishes amongst the AI's which didn't seem to amount to anything. However, the political landscape became clearer as the Izzy/Bizzy Buddhist bloc was gaining power and the me/Charle/JC Hindu bloc was slipping downwards. Brennus and his Jewish block of 1 were at the top and remained there throughout the round.

Izzy and Bizzy were staying friendly and when I noticed the above I decided fairly early on to switch to Buddhism. Charle was not pleased, but I figured out of the AI's left, he was the best target next anyway. Plus he was pretty tight with the tech trading. I had some good trades with JC, who was teching well even though he was near the bottom. This allowed me to take the tech lead, and get gunpowder to start cranking out musketeers - which were sorely needed cause I was at like an archer, or an archer/spearman in each city!

I won the liberalism race in 1300-something and picked nationalism. Got gunpowder around the same time so I switched from infrastructure to military and started drafting/whipping muskets like crazy. This continued until I got Military tradition and then I started going on the Curaissers (sp?). I've stayed on a military tech path most of the way now. Bulbed Chemistry and printing press (or most of them anyway) with great scientists. Used 2 great generals to build Mil academies in my two "production" cities.

Now my original thought was to get the muskets up for defense while I built a force of curaissers and then riflemen, but I had to go earlier than planned because in about 1450? or so this happened...

Pretty much everyone DoW'ed everyone else. Anyone that didn't declare, did soon afterwards because Izzy put it up for vote in the AP - DoW on Brennus, which passed. So I gathered what forces I had and pushed out one city to the west at Brennus's expense. Pushed out east at the same time taking 3 of Charle's cities - 2 of them just before Bismarck did - including his capital which I was able to found the hindu shrine in for the due to the fact that a great prophet popped just before war started...

So I'm up to 14 cities now. May manage to get a couple more from Charle if I can beat Bizzy to them. Charle vassaled to Brennus, but it's too late for him. Vicky and Ragnar are alread vassaled to Bizzy. Bismarck is fearsome in my game too. I've seen some pretty impressive stacks wandering around. Brennus has a good military as well, but it's starting to look pretty dated as he can't keep up in tech.

So we've got Brennus/Charle at the top (grumpy), then Biz (Friendly)/Vicky/Ragnar, then me and Izzy (Friendly) swapping places with eachother right behind Bizzy. JC a bit further behind and then Atlantis.

Here's a shot of the heart of the French empire

and the tech situation... Not too bad!

Right so from here - it's take more land from Charle before Bismarck does, hope Brennus a) doesn't attack me cause he's too busy with everyone else, and I'd like to keep the one city I nabbed from him, and b) hope that actually Brennus stays powerful enough so that if I can get to the UN (hoping for a great engineer or two soon) then I won't be up against Bismarck or Izzy. I can get Izzy/Bizzy votes if Brennus is the competition. However if one of them is the competition... I don't think I can.

I've struggled with production on this map, which makes domination and space difficult. tech and commerce is ok - running 70-80% science most of last round until war/expansion started. I'm number 2 in land area - could be close to number one maybe. Need my population to start growing back.

 

[michmbk]

Monarch/Epic – 1620 AD to 1850. It's basically over now, but it'll take 20-3o more minutes of mowing down opponent troops. I was too tired to finish late last night. I finally gave in and started learning some of TMIT's tips on speed civving. It probably slowed me down at first getting used to the hotkeys and the waypoints, but I can see how that will be faster going forward. I can't handle these 10 hour epic war games. Doesn't help when I keep getting distracted to do things around the house, and can't really focus on the game until 10 PM!

Spoiler :

When I last left off, I had hit communism, gotten the great spy, and used him to kick off my golden age. Before starting, here are my short term goals: 1) Quickly get Ragnar to capitulate. 2) Build jails for WW and EP while moving to take Berlin from Bis to see what nice shiny wonders I can gain. 3) Replace farms with workshops in most of my production cities now that I’m under state property – almost all my workers will be focused on that. 4) Once I hit biology, get national park and national epic built in Dijon, my newly founded and heavily forested city. I believe that will mean 9 specialists for free – not a bad late game GP farm. It may take 50-60 or so turns to get online and really have a bunch of non-citizen specialists, but once it does, should pay dividends. Long-term, ideally I’d like to get capitulation from Bis if possible, and then will decide what to do with Izzy and Brennus, friendly and pleased, respectively. Diplomacy or war will be the decision, before starting, the lean is war. 9 turns to decide, because if I want to war, I need to revolt to police state in my golden age.

Well, this is nice – this didn’t even take 1 turn:

Goal number 1 accomplished. My new BFF:

Lots of nice gifts for him - I basically get him to tech parity with me the next few turns. Now my stack and my near super-duper medic are headed back to Bismarck. I continue building during the golden age. Check out what JC left me in Rome – 10XP for each unit from settled GGs.

Add in 4 for vassalage/theocracy and 5 for barracks/stable and that’s 19XP per horsey - later when I get Pentagon built, that's 5 promotions out of the gate for each unit. Pretty clear I’m not going for diplomatic victory. At the end of my golden age, I decide to check one more thing before concluding on victory approach, and I check the top cities. Bibracte is #2, behind Goth (the Atlantis civ’s city). It has SoZ in it, so that helps me reach conclusion. Police State, jails and beeline fascism for the GG and for Rushmore. I notice Goth has Spiral Minaret – with +2 gold per hindu temple, I need to see if I can take that city – I have a lot of hindu buildings built because of the apostolic palace bonuses. So I decide after biology, astronomy, then beeline fascism (even though I have mids, I want another GG, and assembly line is useful on the way to fascism anyway). I’d like to see if I can take Goth for the gold. Meanwhile, Brennus DOWs Bismarck, which is again, a problem – I don’t want Bis to be his vassal. So I send a dozen grenadiers straight to Berlin without siege and take it. I then ask Bis for peace, and he offers this:

Bingo – needless to say, I accept and give him back Berlin – all he had there was Stonehenge. Nice job Mr. Industrious. I’m keeping the one city, Essen, I took from him as a landing spot for my next war – which will be against either Brennus or Izzy. I gave Bis techs and resources, and he's back to pleased! I took some time to decide while teching to fascism for the GG and Mt. Rushmore. So, 35 or so turns after getting Bismarck to capitulate, I decide it’s time, and I’m going after Izzy first. She has 90 gold per turn pre-multipliers from her Christian and Hindu holy cities. Those are what I’m after, along with Apostolic Palace in Madrid, so she doesn’t stop the war. She and Brennus are friendly with me and pleased with one another, so very possible Brennus could join the fight. I leave behind about 20 cannons in Essen just in case. Mt. Rushmore is 1 turn from being built, jails are in all key cities, and West Point and Pentagon are being built. It’s time. Here we go for the win:

One city down awfully quick. I don't feel bad about backstabbing Izzy at friendly at all. Some leaders just don't inspire me to honor diplomacy - Izzy is atop that list. I love the fact that Rome is producing horse units, and every one is coming out with 19 XP - 4 promotions right off the bat, and 1 XP from the 5th. I then finally get my naval stack down to Goth and take it in 2 turns – check out the beautiful Spiral Minaret:

Why did the 1 tile island built great wall? And how did it do that?? Anyway, Spiral will be healthy for the economy. That picked up about 40 gpt with all my temples. Another Izzy city - Madrid is next.

Yay super medic!

Then the game locks up. So I have to restart – thank goodness for autosave as I only have to redo a turn or so. Not surprisingly, here this comes:

He is not kidding when he says "numberless minions"! I’m slowing down teching a bit to upgrade units…even though Brennus is huge – he teched down combustion for destroyers? I’ve been teching the land military line, which makes more sense. So he's a big nuisance with all my seafood, but military on land is behind me. Hey, check out this super GP farm: 8 free specialists – now it just needs specialist buildings.

We then go through about an hour of nonstop back and forth. Brennus has an absolutely ridiculous number of units – a stack of about 80 shows up, but it’s mostly longbows, muskets and knights, while I’m on cannons and cavalry (and upgrading/producing infantry). He takes Essen, which I take back and give to Bismarck. He then sends a stack at Lyons with about 25 longbows, some muskets and knights. It then dawns on me - I'm Napoleon, so I'm french - I think of Monty Python: "I'm French, why do you think I have this outrageous accent"? I envision my french cannons taunting them: "Your father was a hamster, and your mother smelt of elderberries. Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!" If you've never seen Monty Python & the Holy Grail, you won't get that, but it was funny to me at the time.

I destroy his weak longbow-laden stack, and I’m slowly finishing off Izzy’s last cities, and then it’s time for every last unit to come after Brennus. He then brings the most ridiculous stack I've ever seen from the AI, but it’s a bit outdated. He takes Essen from Bis, I move my stacks to 1 tile outside (I miscalculate my move as I moved two stacks from separate locations, and one had my supermedic and bunches of artillery, the other had infantry - he attacked the supermedic stack, and managed to kill my supermedic. Really frustrating, although unlikely to matter. Check out the epic battle - I have never had anything like this yet in Civ - even with Monty or Shaka - they've never brought a stack this size at me.

My stack is the highlighted 95 units, and you can see his on the left. He has a stack of 151 units in Essen! 49 grenadiers! 50 horse units! However, I have artillery, and many of my units are cavalry with blitz and about 4 other promotions. One turn later:

I lose 7 units, he loses 66 - I'll take that trade. One turn later:

The city goes. I lost 30 units. Not a bad tradeoff – 30 units for 151. I check in on capitulation - he would pay me 2 cities, 540 gold, and 42 gold per turn for peace at this point, but no capitulation, so I decline. I have 5 reinforcement units showing up per turn (thank goodness for learning the waypoints - I love that feature), and the stack will march on. Every turn, 1 artillery, 2 cavalry and 2 infantry show up, because I have 5 different cities with military academies producing 1 unit per turn. I gave up for the night at this point because it was again way too late – it’s only a matter of time now. I'll post a quick update later when I finish with the highlights.

 

[JTMacc99]

Monarch/Epic to 1020AD:

Spoiler :

Since 200 AD, I've managed to get the slider back up to 60%-70%, and now research things very well. Using a Great Scientist to pop Philosophy (although there was a 15 turn panic as I had to research Math first) was EXTREMELY helpful with the whole catching up on techs.

Actually, before that, I had to use my Holy Roman war booty to keep afloat, while I pulled as many citizens as possible to be scientists to obtain Code of Laws. With lots of whipping, I got courthouses up and the slider eased up to 20%. Also, only tech-whore Izzy had CoL, so I managed to trade it for pretty much all the good stuff like Monarchy, Alphabet, Horseback Riding, Monotheism, and eventually Calendar (after a couple turns of research). THEN I popped Philosophy a little while later and traded that for everything else like currency, construction, Feudalism.

The whole "go to war when you can win the wars, and then aggressively trade your way back into the tech race" is something I've found to be an extremely important difference between Prince and Monarch. Even here with Monarch Light, it's still a very effective way to go about things.

ANYWAY, to finish up the tech situation, I researched machinery, civil service, paper, and printing press on my own. I just used a great scientist on Education, and in four turns will complete that important tech. I'm debating what to do next, and here's why:

The political situation is not bad, but I'm running a big risk right now. I decided to convert to Hinduism because Izzy, Bismark and Victoria were running a happy little block. JC has been at constant war with the Vikings, and I've been repeatedly asked to join the fight by various civs (I usually cave in when Bismark asks.) The Celts are big and strong, but are Islamic all by themselves. Since I've got German cities separating us, I see no problem with having him annoyed with me for this portion of the game.

While I don't have a lot of Hindu cities, it is keeping me out of war with Bismark and Izzy, which is very important for my long term goal here.

The goal is to to be running 7 or 8 full blown cottage happy cities when I get to democracy. The sudden addition of 7-8 hammers per city is going to flick the switch from peace to war, especially since I'll be researching techs at a brisk 3-5 turns by that point. It looks like I could get to artillery and infantry well before Bismark, and that may actually be the only way I'll be able to deal with him in this game. (By the way, levees are also going to be a HUGE help for me in this game. I'm going to have giant cities generating tons of commerce and tons of production in the industrial era, provided I live that long.)

The other option is to start thinking about a German war RIGHT NOW. If I finish Education, research Liberalism up to a turn away, and then make a switch on the path and see how much effort it will take to complete Chemistry before I finish Liberalism. Education opens up gunpowder, but I'll need to figure out how to get Engineering in there as well. I hate like heck to trade away something like Education or Gunpowder, but that might be what it takes to get cannons far enough ahead of Bismark to knock his ass down a peg or two.

As for the risk I'm taking, all of this cottaging and economic work I've been doing has resulted in a VERY low power rating versus my Hindu friends Bismark and Izzy. I'll need to switch over the entire empire to Musketeer and Cannon production for 30 turns just to put together the appropriate invasion force.

Well, that's it for now. I guess we'll see how it all works out. Interesting game so far, even if I don't normally enjoy Pangaea games, I am having a good time with this one.

 

[Single Malt]

Monarch/Epic to 1605 AD

So far so good. Oh and a question - what building allows me to assign a 2nd engineer in a city??

Spoiler :

Ok - my new diplomatic strategy is paying off I think. This is like no other game I've played so far. This round was a round of two halves. The first half was much like the last round. Quite a lot of peaceful building all around. A couple of minor skirmishes amongst the AI's which didn't seem to amount to anything. However, the political landscape became clearer as the Izzy/Bizzy Buddhist bloc was gaining power and the me/Charle/JC Hindu bloc was slipping downwards. Brennus and his Jewish block of 1 were at the top and remained there throughout the round.

Izzy and Bizzy were staying friendly and when I noticed the above I decided fairly early on to switch to Buddhism. Charle was not pleased, but I figured out of the AI's left, he was the best target next anyway. Plus he was pretty tight with the tech trading. I had some good trades with JC, who was teching well even though he was near the bottom. This allowed me to take the tech lead, and get gunpowder to start cranking out musketeers - which were sorely needed cause I was at like an archer, or an archer/spearman in each city!

I won the liberalism race in 1300-something and picked nationalism. Got gunpowder around the same time so I switched from infrastructure to military and started drafting/whipping muskets like crazy. This continued until I got Military tradition and then I started going on the Curaissers (sp?). I've stayed on a military tech path most of the way now. Bulbed Chemistry and printing press (or most of them anyway) with great scientists. Used 2 great generals to build Mil academies in my two "production" cities.

Now my original thought was to get the muskets up for defense while I built a force of curaissers and then riflemen, but I had to go earlier than planned because in about 1450? or so this happened...

Pretty much everyone DoW'ed everyone else. Anyone that didn't declare, did soon afterwards because Izzy put it up for vote in the AP - DoW on Brennus, which passed. So I gathered what forces I had and pushed out one city to the west at Brennus's expense. Pushed out east at the same time taking 3 of Charle's cities - 2 of them just before Bismarck did - including his capital which I was able to found the hindu shrine in for the due to the fact that a great prophet popped just before war started...

So I'm up to 14 cities now. May manage to get a couple more from Charle if I can beat Bizzy to them. Charle vassaled to Brennus, but it's too late for him. Vicky and Ragnar are alread vassaled to Bizzy. Bismarck is fearsome in my game too. I've seen some pretty impressive stacks wandering around. Brennus has a good military as well, but it's starting to look pretty dated as he can't keep up in tech.

So we've got Brennus/Charle at the top (grumpy), then Biz (Friendly)/Vicky/Ragnar, then me and Izzy (Friendly) swapping places with eachother right behind Bizzy. JC a bit further behind and then Atlantis.

Here's a shot of the heart of the French empire

and the tech situation... Not too bad!

Right so from here - it's take more land from Charle before Bismarck does, hope Brennus a) doesn't attack me cause he's too busy with everyone else, and I'd like to keep the one city I nabbed from him, and b) hope that actually Brennus stays powerful enough so that if I can get to the UN (hoping for a great engineer or two soon) then I won't be up against Bismarck or Izzy. I can get Izzy/Bizzy votes if Brennus is the competition. However if one of them is the competition... I don't think I can.

I've struggled with production on this map, which makes domination and space difficult. tech and commerce is ok - running 70-80% science most of last round until war/expansion started. I'm number 2 in land area - could be close to number one maybe. Need my population to start growing back.

A factory is the next available. There is also the industrial park, which gives a free engineer, and 3 additional slots, in return of unhealthy.

Someone mentioned waypoints earlier, can someone remind me how to set them again, as I have forgotten.

 

[KingMorgan]

You can i think, right click a city to get a menu at the bottom of the screen, then holds shift and right click on the place you wish to send all new build units to.

 

[Single Malt]

Thanks KingMorgan, thats answered my question.

 

[gcm4738]

Hmmm... Now 1756 AD and I could use some advice (save attached).

I'm now #1 in land area. My pop's coming back after being drafted and whipped. Military's ok for defense. No real offense capability (no siege weapons atm). I'm still ok on tech. Even basically.

The diplo thing's gotten a bit... I dunno. It's Bizzy and me at the top now. Izzy not too far behind. So that's bad because one of them will vote for the other no matter who it is. Brennus is 4th now and looking slightly vulnerable. JC is further back and Vicky and Raggy are still vassalled to Biz.

I'm teching biology for the farm boost to get my population growing for whatever strategy I choose, but then what? Peace or War? And if war - against whom?

However it turns out, this is probably my best effort on Monarch so far. I've learned a lot this game.

Like I said - save attached if anyone has any help to offer that would be great. Otherwise, I guess I'll decide in the morning. I have to say I'm leaning towards artillery/infantry at this point, while I see how everything shakes out and decide who to use it on. My hand has been forced twice in this game already though by the Biz/Iz - I had to join in and take Charle and some of Brennus lest they get it all. Maybe it'll happen again. Maybe I oughta try and butter up Brennus now and go for Izzy...

 

[Single Malt]

gcm, spoilers

Spoiler :

I haven't looked at your save, but I will say this. Its a tough map. Its pangea, this game was the first I had played, and it favours war. I made the mistake of not hitting Bizzy early. He is a force to be reckoned with as he likes to build an effective SoD. It is probably best to get him as he is doind his early wonderspam. In your situation, are you at friendly with Bizzy? Leave Brennus be, as he was Bizzys whipping boy in my game (until I vassalised him, then I was DOW from bizzy in the modern era while building my spaceship.) Charley makes a better target, as he likely has no friends and a lucrative shrine. It also leaves Bizzy to vent on Brennus