NC XX: Montezuma

[TheMeInTeam]

Tried deity ... two times.

Spoiler :

First time the plan was to get glh and try blocking gilg from the majority of the island. (move the capital so maintenance wouldn't kill me)
While I was still building glh, gilg vulture rushes me... game over.

Second time took a more standard path. Focused more on expansion with archers with the plan to attack gilg after IW. Gilg vulture rushes me again just after I settled my second city...
Anyways jaguar vs vulture ... would have very few success I would guess. I think this is a hard set up. =/


Funny thing is after these two losses I started a deity game with Kublai Kahn. Doing fine and having a big stack of axes ready to dow Saladin. GILGAMESH VULTURE RUSHES ME!! Even though: 1-Pacal was between me and him. 2-I didn't get any diplo penalties with him. 3-Other and bordering civs had a different religion. 4-I actually had a sod, just not in the right place.

F this guy.

Thanks for ruining my day TMIT, now I developed a Gilgaphobia.

Spoiler :

I didn't think about the matchup ver much when I made this layout. That said, it CERTAINLY isn't balanced for deity . I should have swapped one of the other leaders in there probably, I wasn't thinking .

Nevertheless, on non-deity chariot rush would do it, and he's not THAT overwhelming on lower levels (I took him out on immortal)

 

[Anexus]

Ok, I tried posting this earlier, but the forums were buggy.

1500-1872 Conquest victory

Spoiler :

Left off with a tech lead. After getting scientific method and steam power, I realize there's only one coal and one oil on my whole continent. I had settled a city on the coal in the northern tundra, so that wasn't a problem. but the oil was off the coast,which means I needed plastics to make an offshore platform for tanks, and more importantly transports. I could have gone to fission for transports, but plastics makes more sense.

While doing that I get a quest to build 8 musketmen and get an additional bonus for controlling taj majal and if I'm in the vassalage civic. Well, monty is spiritual so that's easy enough. I start building Taj Majal, takes about 20 turns to finish, get my first golden age, I switch over to vassalage a couple turns later, finish my musketmen, and this is my reward.

Sweet, another golden age. I have a GP in reserve for 3 golden ages back to back. OF course, switch back to representation.

Meanwhile, Sitting Bull is being a needy jerk. witness.

mhmm, sure thing SB.

I do hit a little snag, the island I colonized was a bit underdefended, and Horn Hat attacks one of the cities, but I take it back next turn. I sue for peace 5 or so turns later.

While beelining plastics, I'm building a bunch of cannons that I will upgrade to artillery, which I planned to research after plastics. I didn't have much else to do with the money. I also built some frigates. Once I research plastics, I start pumping out a bunch of destroyers, tanks and transports. I also had gotten a great engineer, so I decided to use him to help build 3 gorges dam since I was going for plastics right away, rather than build coal plants in all those cities.

I'm also having trouble with health, so I do Bio-medicine for environmentalism civic.

By the time I research bio, medicine, artillery, my army of cavalry/artillery/transports/frigates/tanks (about a dozen) go after the first victim, Wonder Spammer. figured it would be a good idea to get the strongest one out before he could counter cavalry/tanks.

Take out 3 cities, and he capitulates. Gift em back, use the same army against the meh. He capitulates quickly as well. I'm still spamming tanks/transports/destroyers from my main continent. Since most of the AI cities are on the coast, the destroyers are nice for bombardment and I just use the artillery to attack AI troops.

I pack up my troops, gift back The Meh's cities, and head over to Dike Hater. He capitulates after I take 4 cities in 2 turns.

I have about 16 more tanks to use against Sitting Bull. I take his capitol and 3 other cities... but he actually fights back and gets his capitol back. But he used everything he had and my tanks took it back the next turn. He capitulates after I take 7 cities, definitely less willing than the other ones.

I've amassed another couple dozen tanks waiting on Horn Hats eastern coast while I take my army from Sitting bull's land and attack the wester/southern side. I expected more of a fight, but I guess all that war with sitting bull wore down his troops. He capitulates after I take 3 cities.

Conquest victory next turn.

I probably could have finished this game sooner, but I didn't want to use galleons to transport my army across the ocean, and I like having tanks for overseas conquests because it's safer, they have blitz, and it's faster. Having that oil only off the coast slowed me down because I couldn't access it til plastics, which is kind of late.

Was a fun game, but felt too easy once I eliminated Gilgamesh. there was no threat from anyone else until they got astronomy. I think the next game I do, I'm gonna try prince and see how it goes I improved over my napolean win, finishing about 50 years earlier.

 

[BurN]

@ TMIT and Single Malt

Spoiler :

Didn't get to AH before gilg rushed me. Actually in retrospect this was a pretty dumb move. Didn't play against or with gilg that much so vultures were rather new to me.

Anyways after that tip I gave it another try which went better. Deity/normal till 1210AD. I will do somewhat of a write up when I finish the game. For now I'll keep it short.

Spoiler :

Settled 3 cities (including capital), spammed chariots like mad, captured 5 cities. Then I had to stop warring since my economy was crashing. I could war forever since gilg just kept making cities all over the island.

Teched Aest and afterwards col and build sacri's just in time before getting strikes. Finished Parth in Uruk & finished GL+NE in Teno.

Settled 1st GS, academy with 2nd, bulb paper & bulb education.

Been playing a pure SE, which I pretty much suck at. But I had to since I needed a lot of food<->hammers for charriots and the land doesn't have a lot of cottage potential anyways.

Edit: Made a stupid mistake. Trading phil for machinery, so I couldn't bulb lib. I'm first to lib anyways but it would've sucked to lose it by a few turns.












Not sure where to take this game. Liberalism->Nationalism->TM->constitution seems a solid option. I could try teching Nationalism and pick const from lib but I'm not too sure about that really, my science output is rather .. crap.

On the other hand maybe Lib->Astro wouldn't be a bad choice either and get some trade routes and resource trading going.

Diplo is a bit annoying. Mehmed is friendly to Gilg, which could form a problem for when I go to war with gilg (I'm thinking the standard CR riffles approach, since Monty is aggressive and I got the shock upgrade event for melee. But I need a GM for that, which I could probably get from TM GA).

On another note ... deity AI's are sure teching slow on this map for some reason. Not that I'm complaining, my science output is pretty sad anyways.

 

[Kadazzle]

I'm going to go and try this now, and see how it goes. I'm not sure whether I'll try it on Noble (My standard) or move up one. If I do move up, I'll need your guys' help!

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Noble, Marathion. Played until like 1840 AD or so.

Spoiler :

I settled like one west so I could grab the marble in caps bfc. started building a scout and saw giggles was neighber. Yikes he is like the anti monty, protective archers behind creative defensives plus a uu that he gets before Montys that can stomp all over jags :/. I figure best plan is take him out early. So switched to pumping warriors. Scout pops archery from goody hut so with 3 arriors and an archer they rush giggle b4 he becomes a prob.

Then find out giggles is ONLY one on whole flippin' island :/.

Chopped GW just to keep barbies from being aheadache. Also got GLH. Got Oracle to and took machinery and build Col a lil later. Also got trieme quest and took the rewar taht give 2 commerce per harbor so with all that I figured coastal city economy should do ok.

But it was a PAIN for me to settle continent. It seems like knowing how to place cities is very crucial on this map. once you get off you lil strip and movbe on to north and east it is some of the MOST god awful land I even scene. Even wehre it green it pain to get cities going cuz it was tricky for me to irrigate. Most of cities up there are pretty much junk.

Lil island off to west MUCH nicer but cept for gold is VERY resorce poor but nice mix of hills and rivered grassland that it looks like those cities will be good eventually.

A win globe race and meet everybody. Mehmed starting to be a pain right from start I am his worst enemy second we met and he INSTANTLY in wheooh. So I am trying to expand, and build units to get ready in cas emeh ever invades. This all goes PAINFULLY slow since it hard to any decent cities going for me.

I win lib race but HC and willy are still keeping up in tech pretty much. But it still looking ok as I get into indy age techs some of my cities are getting a LIL better. Meh still building for war so I KNOW he gonna make a move soon but I am very close to AL and infantry so I figure once I get that I will invade and take over HC and Mehmed's cont.

But THEN after I do a trade for sci meth--NO freaking oil cept for ONE patch on ocean grrrr, That mean no oil till plastics unless I take some but by now closest oil is in HC land and he and MEH are close to combustion. Good news is one of HC's oil has a city built right on it so I figure take the city and problem solved BUT I have to go NOW if I want to hit HC before he get combustion so I take my stack which is biggish but still nowehere near as big I think I need. I take HC's cap and then the oil city. BUT both cities are SWAMPED in culture and taking both those cities used up most of my stack they have to stay put just to hold those two cities But oil city is so swamped it cut off so no oil anyways.

Then meh Dow's and all of sudden hist destroyers are floating around my coasts grrr.

At this point I just quit. I am not scared of invasion at the mopment cuz I can have infantry and MG's repel anything that lands BUT I have NOTHING to stop the destroyers now till plastics. Luckily AI not a human cuz if I were meh or HC all I would do is just PARK a destory on the oil patch so then EVEN when I do get plastics I STILL would be able to get to oil. I DOUBT AI is THAT clever tho but it still gonna be a PAIN losing all my seafood.

I already been through something liek this with Shaka in last LHC which was NOT fun and that was having to struggle just for 30 or so turns to get combustion. At this point plastics several HUNDRED turns away. I was already losing enthusiasm for this game just cuz of the pain settling land was giving me plus fact that ONLY neighbor was one AI where it best to build units OTHER than jags and jags obsoelete by time I meet every one else so never even got to build ONE single jag .

Maybe I COULD grind it out even though I HATE doing preflight overseas wars. Especially when I DONT have anywhere near thr production I like to have to do that yet but with destroyers about they pain enuff WITH oil. Without oil it is just not something I would want to try to do even if i thought I COULD do it. And there is NO guarantee I would be able to. It just wouldnt be fun at all. PLUS one of my junk cities got ap religion and cuz it post sci meth no monastaries so no missionaries unless I switch out of free religion into organized whch opens up a whole bunch of other diplo headaches. If it wasnt for everthing else it just be a minor pain but WITH everything else it just one more annoying thing in this game that makes me NOT want to deal with it anymore.

I guess going back instead of settling junk land I should have just invaded HC as soon as I had galleys with maces and trebs and stuff but those wars even bigger pain than doing it with infantry so I decided to wait. I just didnt think map would be so stingy with oil plus I didnt realize just HOW bad that junk land up north would be until AFTER I spent the time and hammers on actually setting it :/.

So I guess that it for me this game. I just couldnt get anything good going and it just got less and less fun and the whole oil thing just sealed the deal :/

And am really sad map and nieghbor wasnt ideal for doing jags cuz it is FUN to be able to do a spam jag attack and very disappointed I didnt get to. SO I think I will go make a rainforest or arboreal map and play mnonty and go jag happy until next game hehe

Kaytie

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hi

Boble, Marathion. Played until like 1840 AD or so.

Spoiler :

I settled like one west so I could grab the marble in caps bfc. started building a scout and saw giggles was neighber. Yikes he is like the anti monty, protective archers behind creative defensives plus a uu that he gets before Montys that can stomp all over jags :/. I figure best plan is take him out early. So switched to pumping warriors. Scout pops archery from goody hut so with 3 arriors and an archer they rush giggle b4 he becomes a prob.

Then find out giggles is ONLY one on whole flippin' island :/.

Chopped GW just to keep barbies from being aheadache. Also got GLH. Got Oracle to and took machinery and build Col a lil later. Also got trieme quest and took the rewar taht give 2 commerce per harbor so with all that I figured coastal city economy should do ok.

But it was a PAIN for me to settle continent. It seems like knowing how to place cities is very crucial on this map. once you get off you lil strip and movbe on to north and east it is some of the MOST god awful land I even scene. Even wehre it green it pain to get cities going cuz it was tricky for me to irrigate. Most of cities up there are pretty much junk.

Lil island off to west MUCH nicer but cept for gold is VERY resorce poor but nice mix of hills and rivered grassland that it looks like those cities will be good eventually.

A win globe race and meet everybody. Mehmed starting to be a pain right from start I am his worst enemy second we met and he INSTANTLY in wheooh. So I am trying to expand, and build units to get ready in cas emeh ever invades. This all goes PAINFULLY slow since it hard to any decent cities going for me.

I win lib race but HC and willy are still keeping up in tech pretty much. But it still looking ok as I get into indy age techs some of my cities are getting a LIL better. Meh still building for war so I KNOW he gonna make a move soon but I am very close to AL and infantry so I figure once I get that I will invade and take over HC and Mehmed's cont.

But THEN after I do a trade for sci meth--NO freaking oil cept for ONE patch on ocean grrrr, That mean no oil till plastics unless I take some but by now closest oil is in HC land and he and MEH are close to combustion. Good news is one of HC's oil has a city built right on it so I figure take the city and problem solved BUT I have to go NOW if I want to hit HC before he get combustion so I take my stack which is biggish but still nowehere near as big I think I need. I take HC's cap and then the oil city. BUT both cities are SWAMPED in culture and taking both those cities used up most of my stack they have to stay put just to hold those two cities But oil city is so swamped it cut off so no oil anyways.

Then meh Dow's and all of sudden hist destroyers are floating around my coasts grrr.

At this point I just quit. I am not scared of invasion at the mopment cuz I can have infantry and MG's repel anything that lands BUT I have NOTHING to stop the destroyers now till plastics. Luckily AI not a human cuz if I were meh or HC all I would do is just PARK a destory on the oil patch so then EVEN when I do get plastics I STILL would be able to get to oil. I DOUBT AI is THAT clever tho but it still gonna be a PAIN losing all my seafood.

I already been through something liek this with Shaka in last LHC which was NOT fun and that was having to struggle just for 30 or so turns to get combustion. At this point plastics several HUNDRED turns away. I was already losing enthusiasm for this game just cuz of the pain settling land was giving me plus fact that ONLY neighbor was one AI where it best to build units OTHER than jags and jags obsoelete by time I meet every one else so never even got to build ONE single jag .

Maybe I COULD grind it out even though I HATE doing preflight overseas wars. Especially when I DONT have anywhere near thr production I like to have to do that yet but with destroyers about they pain enuff WITH oil. Without oil it is just not something I would want to try to do even if i thought I COULD do it. And there is NO guarantee I would be able to. It just wouldnt be fun at all. PLUS one of my junk cities got ap religion and cuz it post sci meth no monastaries so no missionaries unless I switch out of free religion into organized whch opens up a whole bunch of other diplo headaches. If it wasnt for everthing else it just be a minor pain but WITH everything else it just one more annoying thing in this game that makes me NOT want to deal with it anymore.

I guess going back instead of settling junk land I should have just invaded HC as soon as I had galleys with maces and trebs and stuff but those wars even bigger pain than doing it with infantry so I decided to wait. I just didnt think map would be so stingy with oil plus I didnt realize just HOW bad that junk land up north would be until AFTER I spent the time and hammers on actually setting it :/.

So I guess that it for me this game. I just couldnt get anything good going and it just got less and less fun and the whole oil thing just sealed the deal :/

And am really sad map and nieghbor wasnt ideal for doing jags cuz it is FUN to be able to do a spam jag attack and very disappointed I didnt get to. SO I think I will go make a rainforest or arboreal map and play mnonty and go jag happy until next game hehe

Kaytie

I do forget some map specifics TBH, but...

Spoiler :

Don't forget that uranium and fission open up the navy too.

I do consider it a mistake to not swap someone else into gilgamesh's position, but quite honestly if the player cuts him down they're in excellent shape. Most cities on the continent are workable. My guess is over 20 cities on the land mass is doable, and those cities will be viable contributors (some are strong).

GLH or Colossus would probably help a lot pre-astro, but IMO you'd need neither. Just some cottage/hammer city balance should do, especially with the reduced cost UB (which unlike the UU could potentially see a lot of utility if you pick up the kremlin).

I thought there was oil somewhere on the land though...but I could be mistaken. Still, uranium is close to as good.

I stage pre-flight invasions all the time (perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I stage non-flight invasions far more often than not, almost exclusively). Flight is an overrated shipping means. Until you have a vassal or a bunch of cities on another continent the airlift can hurt timewise, rather than help. Circumnavigation navies move decently fast, once you have transports/destroyers it's usually in the realm of 3-6 turns to get to most areas on a standard map. Waypoint your units to one city (preferably your closest port to target) and then just load them up there. Take them over in waves or if you really want to simulate the airlifts in small escorts of 2-3 transports.

I don't get why people favor flight over naval shipping so much. In order to airlift you have to have:

1. Airports in your production cities, and the requisite unhealth. By the time you put up enough airports, how far were you set back just making some transports?!

2. Flight. You can have other invasion troops long before flight, especially in the renaissance.

3. Oil, which I think you noticed.

None of that is to say that flight is bad, but hating intercontinental war merely because one doesn't have it? I recommend trying to set waypoints and using some shipping logistics...this supply line is not to be underestimated and once you get past the 3-5 turn initial lag in travel your troops might as well be traveling something faster than roads en route to the enemy (even with galleons!).

A good reference for you would perhaps be Tryn's game 2. That was on a faster speed, higher difficulty, with less land than what we get in this NC (assuming the hard part, putting sumeria down ASAP is cleared). I transferred a massive cavalry/cannon force using just galleons, so some metal navy logistics should certainly be viable here, if you can learn the micro that makes it less time-consuming to do it in real time.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

@tmit

Spoiler :

I never thought about fission :/. I guess I am too used to chasing factories/infantry that fission is usually put off for quite awhile. I know I SHOULD have been in better position than I was. I killed giggles early and id have a TON of cities. By point I gave up I must have had close to 30 cites but I swear at least a dozen of them where TOTAL junk. And outside of my cap none where all that great maybe two others average and some with potential if I played through. Maybe If I placed em better some more could have gotten going faster. There was like about half a dozen cities who struggled growing FOREVER just cuz I was waiting for a border pop that would allow me to start irrigating that area unitl I finally got tired of waiting and just built a setteled a junk city whose SOLE purpose was just to have that one riverside saqure in my cutlurtre I needed to irigate all that other land which is one of those things that bug me cuz I KNOW i shouldnt have needed to do that and fact that i did means I messed up somewhere in my city placement.

But that aside maybe it just play style. I am probably other way around if I can avoid it I will forgoe big overseas invasions until I have flight. I have done pre flight invasions but it rare. LHC shaka is example where for LONGEST time I relied on transports ferrying stuff across in suppior of first attack but it is just too tedious for how I play.

To me it like having to build a whole second stack. First the attack stack it self with all the city busters stack defenders garrission units siege etc needed but then ALSO a second big stack of galleons to carry em all PLUS a stack of frigs and SoL to protect em.

And without flight you then gonna need at least one more smaller navy stack like that to start ferrying stuff over. And that is just way more tedious to me than take a foothold city wait 4 or so turns in that city which I would have to do anyways to heal up and fend off counter attacks while 4 garriosn units airlifted during the wait. Then cuz by that time most cities are in 60%-80& culture range it gonna take that stack another 4 turns or so to get to next city meanwhile stuff still being flown in and then repeat with next city only this time instead of units going to one city they going to two then 3 and soon it snowballs and before you know it if you dealling with a big enough empire you trying to take over you not just sending in garrisn anymore but you airlifted in enough units to for a stack in their own right and it just kind of snowballs very fast.

I dont know maybe its a relaive thing. Maybe technically it doesnt take any less turns to fferry a unit but with flight it is like turn that unit is built it is airlifted where its needed and then by next turn it in the action where by ferrying it is built then has to move to port then unless there already other units also built it sits and waits just cuz I dont like to send transports half full if i can help it, and even then it have to wait for a transport if they all not back yet from ferrying previous units and then it has to wait on transit time. Thats a LOT of turns between a units build time to actually in someplace useful and maybe in long run it might actually be quicker to that early with galleons than waiting for flight but to me it still FEELS dull and tedious and slow compared to just airlifting it off as soon as it built which just FEELS lots quicker even if maybe its not it just not as tedious for me.

But I will do THAT if I think there no other option cuz I would RATHER go through a lil bit of tedium to get to win which is never tedious hehe. However prospect of having to that WHILE waiting to somehow get a destroyer navy going is a lil TOO much tedium for me . especially in sitch like that where if I DONT get oil somehow then there no strong chance of me winning so then it is going through all that and still lose which is NOT fun. I didnt think about uranium like I said cuz normally my tech priorities usally get me oil first but even if I had thought of uranium I probably would have been thinking something like ok who would have thought there would be just ONE oil pacth on whole landmass and it offshore and if coal hadnt popped on a mine early after steam power there would have been only one coal on whole landmass too and uranium LOTS more rare than coal or oil so what are odds?

I most likely probably still would have did what I did at that point. Made a play for HC's oil and if I didnt get it in time to have my own destoyers to counter HC's and Meh's then I would have just said the heck with it. Even if uranium were 100% gurantee I proably still would have just said nah. I had JUST gone through game like that with LHC Shaka, in middle of war I get infantry first but other AI's get to destroyers first so its long slow teching to combustion while my wooden ships hide in port and my coasts get pillaged and citys starve and shrink. In that game I finnally did get oil hooked up rebuilt the fishing boats, pressed on wiith war sending in transports etc until I finnally had flight all done and then it went quicker. At least in that game it had novelty of being something I never really attempted befoe, most times I would have just given up being that far behind in power as I was by that point in game and then the destroyer thing just adding on to the challenge.

And it was nice to see if I could do it and it was coolies to see it turn around and that made up for all the annoying stuff but now it was like been there done that dont need to again. At least not so soon after the first time hehe.

Kaytie

 

[Phil725]

I've been lurking around these forums for a while reading up on strategies. I figure it's time I played some of the games.

Prince - Epic - To 1954

Spoiler :

Just a disclaimer, I played this game extremely lazily/poorly, so nothing is really optimal.

I settled in place and explored some. Met Giggles and got the wheel and some gold from huts. I killed Giggles with a warrior rush, cheap I know, but I failed 2 other quick rushes, and I didn't feel like waiting for Construction while getting boxed in. 2 warriors cleared the continent for me.

In my first try, I was actually doing very well before my rush, but I lost all the early wonders I went for. Lost the oracle at 2 turns left despite having marble, lost the Pyramids with 5 turns left ~700 BC. I didn't even think it was possible for the AI to get it that fast on Prince. Meeting Wonder Spammer later made things a little more clear though.

Anyway, I figured I didn't have much time to pump out settlers and workers, so I started on SH after I got some work boats out. I ended up getting SH, TGW, Oracle (CoL,) and the Pyramids before I settled my second city.

I ended up with 6 cities, with 3 that actually mattered, and 3 to meet Oxford/GT requirements. The capital ended up becoming my GP farm (not optimal because of all the wonder pollution, but it still did it's job.) I settled 1S of Giggles old capital. Good overall city with 2 cows, copper, and 4 wine in the BFC. My 3rd city was between the two, where Giggles kept settling his blocking city. Another nice city with corn and seafood along with jumbos. After that I just got lazy. I didn't bother settling the desert, or even exploring it. In fact, I never explored past the optics limit around the starting position.

After the starting techs, I went down the drama route getting all the wonders. It's funny actually, if I hadn't started with marble, I probably would've gone an entirely different route.

After that I just continued on with the basic Monty strategy. Turtle up and go cultural. I met HC after the optics sight boost, but didn't meet anyone else until ~1900. I could tell the world was battling constantly from the GGs, and as I expected, everyone else was hopelessly backward. Ragnar was the first to rifling, at 1945. I probably could have taken radio or MM with Liberalism.

Everyone was at someone else's throat, so I had no reason to worry about war. I built 7 units the entire game. 1 lost taking out Giggles, and 6 more for city garrisons.

I probably could have won a lot earlier if I had stopped research way before MM. That only netted ~100 more CPT, while turning up the culture slider increased it much more. I didn't even finish RnR and Hollywood. And it takes a long time to get from liberalism to MM.

With no unit upkeep and only 6 cities, along with 2 shrined holy cities, I kept the slider at 100% research until I changed to culture. I was never in any danger of losing. Even if I had gotten declared on, I could have drafted an army and fought a defensive war. No way could anyone stop me once I turned the slider to 100% culture.

Tenochtitlan hit legendary culture twice as fast as the other 2 thanks to all the wonders. A combination of national wonders and GA's got the other cities up.

Obviously no one was afraid of my army.

This was actually a really cool map. I might replay it differently, REXing out and conquering the world.

 

[flipsix3]

Ooh goody, a new NC. Been steadily improving such that Noble is generally seeing me win out now - this looks like a nice one to "go public" with my Noble skills and get knocked down a peg or two

At work now, so dropping this in as a reminder to myself. Will aim to post some early thoughts later today.

 

[JTMacc99]

Checking in at Prince/Epic to BC 700s:

(Chose Prince over my standard Monarch, because I peeked at what other people have found and done early in the game. I wanted to try something, and decided to make it easier on myself.)

Spoiler :

Settled in place, and send my scout off to the North.

Since I was aware of the Giggles to the north, and the fact that he features a particularly brutal counter to my UU, I wanted to possibly rush him before any Vultures could be built. The thought was either archers or chariots.

However, since I'm playing prince, my first action was to research Polytheism. If I'm going to be a crazy warlike spiritual leader, I am going to need to rely on religion to run some of my economy. Also factoring in that decision is the map type. I'm pretty sure that global highlands means fewer grassland tiles to run a cottage economy. So, I'm hoping for a shrine or three to chip in significantly.

I got my early religion (chose Confucianism) and then went for fishing next. (Note that neither of my first two technologies had anything to do with my early goal. This is me feeling overconfident about dropping down a level.) On the other hand, first build in the capital was a barracks, second was a warrior, and then I figured that when fishing was done I would build workboats while I eventually got around to researching the worker techs.

The first scout popped a hut for a second scout. The second scout popped a hut for a third scout. After that, my scouts circled Giggles territory to get the lay of the land, and as they completely scouted the rest of the continent, they popped huts for Priesthood, Archery, Gold and Gold. I was not aware that Giggles and I were the only two civs on this land mass from my pre-game peeks, so it made me reconsider killing him off so early.

For like 2 seconds, and then I came to my senses.

The hut-pop of Archery came right as I was about to complete fishing. That set the plan in motion. I started work on Archers. I built two, and sent them up to Giggles border with my warrior. I had hoped to nab a worker, but they ran away when I approached. I declared war and found his city defended by two warriors. I attacked first with the warrior. He died, but did some damage. The first archer had lower than 40% odds, but killed the full strength defender. The second archer had better than 70% odds, and killed the second warrior.

War over, I'm now all alone. The first part of the plan is a raging success. Let's see how part two works out, eh?

I decided to skip animal husbandry for now, and start work on Mining/Bronze Working. After that, I went with agriculture, the Wheel, Masonry, and then Writing. I went with writing next because, as you remember, I popped Priesthood from a hut and therefore could build the Oracle as soon as possible. By picking writing at this point, I cleared the path for the VERY important Aztec technology of Code of Laws.

After I completed the Oracle and chose CoL for the tech and Taoism as the religion (founded in Uruk, so now I have two holy cities) my two capital cities built archers (for fog busting) and workers. I founded a third city on a plains hill to the southeast of Uruk. It picks up the corn, the clam, the fish, and a bunch of hills. Should be an outstanding production city.

I researched Pottery (which is an important companion technology with my whip-based economy), meditation, and then started work on Iron Working. I obviously am not in need of jaguars to attack anybody right now, but I am certainly in need of those gems in the jungles.

I'm not sure how I am going to settle the gems yet. It seems like I might be able to get a couple of nice commerce cities settled to the north and north west of my capital. I would prefer to settle everything on the coast, but it does look like I could found a city dead-smack in the middle that would be really nice. As there is no particular hurry to claim any specific spot, I will see if I can dot-map out the best plan.

 

[michmbk]

My son is sick, it's snowing, so I'm at home instead of work. What better way to pass the time while he's napping then get a fast round in.

Monarch light to 10 AD. Early exploring saved me from being in deep trouble this game.

Spoiler :

I decided to settle in place &#8211; two seafood and cow makes for a good whipping site&#8230;that becomes even better with corn too! Can&#8217;t wait for sacrificial altars to start whipping! I decide to build warrior first &#8211; go against my normal worker build, as I tech fishing. Figure I&#8217;ll try warrior then a couple workboats to get the city bigger and then start getting workers and settlers out. My scout starts exploring north, and comes across Gilgy in turn 10 (he&#8217;s been in every single game recently it seems &#8211; I&#8217;m tired of him at this point). Then, I send my warrior south to find that we&#8217;re on a peninsula, and as the scout explores a bit further, I realize that all Gilgy has to do is get a settler out and settle a city 5 spots south of his capital, and he&#8217;ll claim ivory and box me in with his stupid creative trait. That&#8217;s not good - I&#8217;m going to be boxed in by a creative & protective civ if I don&#8217;t act quickly. At a minimum, I have to try to claim all those juicy resources to the north (ivory, gems, more corn, more seafood, etc&#8230;

So, my warrior is frantically racing north while my scout explores Gilgy&#8217;s land. It&#8217;s clear from the scout&#8217;s exploration that Gilgy can&#8217;t go north, so no doubt his second city would be down by me and the ivory and probably block me in. So clearly, I need to stall him:

And a worker steal &#8211; bonus! I have a warrior coming to meet him so he gets home safely. I finish BW and he has copper close to his BFC, so my thought is I need to stall him as long as I possibly can - I ultimately didn't do as well with this as I would have liked. Meanwhile, starting to get my first settler out and have to decide where to settle. I&#8217;m thinking the ivory is most important, followed by the seafood/gems site. There are a number of solid sites here, and I think I&#8217;m really going to try to focus on overlap this game, to see how I do with more smaller cities &#8211; would seem to benefit the whip, I think.

Gilgy&#8217;s capital will be great post-monarchy with all that wine, but for now it&#8217;s only ok, so if I can slow him down, I can get that site pre-monarchy. Since I have no copper, and he does, I decided I need his capital too. Once I tech AH, I see there are horses right outside my second city, so chariots and horses are going to be my avenue for success against him - hope he builds more vultures than spears. No one had founded Hinduism by about turn 40, so I figured at most one other civ was going down the Oracle path. Since I had mysticism as a starting tech, decided to race to Oracle to try to slingshot HBR. I know it&#8217;s not the most expensive tech, but I have a creative civ with copper who can block me in if I don&#8217;t act fast, so that was the approach. Gilgy beats up my 2 warriors blocking his capital and starts to develop his capital, which means he&#8217;ll have vultures and/or spears up soon. Success on the Oracle in 1375 BC:

Tempting to get COL and all the sacrificial altars, but I go HBR and decide to tech COL manually instead. I wanted HA spam as fast as possible. I had 4 cities all trying to spam them as fast as possible, but still took awhile. Was crashing my economy as well. Finally, a force ready to take Uruk - forgot a screenshot, but it was 12 HAs and 3 chariots. He has 1 spear, 2 vultures and an archer - like those chances, since all HAs have 1-2 flanking promos. And, success:

He did manage to settle two other cities, but I&#8217;ll take peace, regroup a bit, and then go get his other cities (he shouldn&#8217;t have any copper it appears). Hit COL in 365 BC

Amazingly I still discovered Confucianism, which is nice since I need a bit of happiness. Time to whip the altars out, and then whip whip for the next 1000 years or so is my plan. Time to fill out more cities and right the economy, but I don&#8217;t want to wait too long to finish off Gilgy either. 5 cities in 365 BC is ok, but I think I can easily fill in 3-4 more cities as well as take Gilgy&#8217;s other 2, so want to do all of that fast and then work on growing and meeting other civs.

Just teched monarchy so I can get Gilgy&#8217;s capital up and running to its full extent, and get the copper mine going so I can finish him off. I then will need to tech sailing because my first stupid barb galley showed up (and to get Moai built, because I have two possibilities for a great Moai site). Also need to tech iron working to get those gems up and running. State of the world at 10 AD:

Gilgy has 3 cities, I have 7, and he kind of has me blocked in now, so I think I need to finish him and take those other cities in the near future, but will be difficult until I hook up copper or iron (he appears to have iron somewhere, because it looks like he's still building spears). I still feel much better about him blocking me in with 7 cities instead of 2-3, which could have happened if I didn't take the offensive quickly. Unfortunately, I may not be able to finish him easily until construction and elephants.

What is for sure is that there are some phenomenal production sites out here with all the hills, so I suspect Monty will be a production/whipping power later in the game. I don't know that I handled Gilgy as well as I could have. In hindsight, I probably could have gotten chariots up there quicker to block him and force him into having only archers, but all in all, I appear to have claimed the land I wanted (although there is some great land west of the desert too), and have Gilgy handicapped enough that I should be able to finish him off without too much trouble.

Edit: Seeing what others did, some got Gilgy really quick - I need to learn to do a better job at speeding up the early rush when using units other than axes. I find when it's axes, I mass a force super quick, but for some reason, building chariots and HAs I do it much slower. I think because I build the stable too, so it takes even more time. Building the oracle probably cost me a few hammers too, but not many given that I had marble.

 

[Fierabras]

@JTMacc99

Spoiler :

Don't forget to build 2 cheap temples and run the priest specialists to speed up the Great Prophet generation for your shrines. Early shrines will help you to keep expanding.

 

[flipsix3]

Noble Epic - Initial Thoughts, and Early Moves

Spoiler :

Won't post any screenies, as we can see the start point in the introductory post.

Having moved my Scout 1NE my initial thought was to consider picking up the marble with a move 1N for my settler. However the resulting Plains Hill was no improvement on the starting point, and would lose me the two clams (making it difficult for a second ciy to pick them up)

Therefore settled in place toget things started, by the look of the land the capital could become a solid GP farm once other sites are expanded, and in the meantime can really work on churning out workers and settlers. Teching AH for the cows

Got straight to work on Worker, whilst the scout popped a hut for... another scout, nice . I don't usually go Worker first, preferring to build a warrior whilst the city grows to size 2, but I want to get things up and running this time so opt for a differnet approach.

Scouts split up, netting me a gold hut, and more scouts! and revealing that I'm settled at the southern end of a peninsula of sorts - clearly north is the way I'll be looking to expand then - and the corn that will be in the second ring of the capital will probably become the primary food for a second city, which will be focussed on hammer production

 

[flipsix3]

Noble Epic - 3550 BC

Spoiler :

Okay, pretty obvious - thanks to my extensive scout network - that we're going to be looking at an early war here.

Set up my capital per previous post

whilst meeting "Giggles" to the North

So my plan is already looking like it might need to adapt. AH is in - gone straight to Mining for BW and whippage, I'm thinking that a small force to take out Giggles should take precedent over a settler to found a second city. I can certainly get the land I want - but with the pair of us hemmed in by desert, the sooner I can off my neighbour the better!

So Warror building just while city grows a little, then it'll be barracks and whatever military units my resources allow by then.

 

[JTMacc99]

@JTMacc99

Spoiler :

Don't forget to build 2 cheap temples and run the priest specialists to speed up the Great Prophet generation for your shrines. Early shrines will help you to keep expanding.

Spoiler :

Indeed. I've already slapped up the first one in my capital/Oracle city, and am running a priest whenever I haven't whipped him away temporarily. I wasn't thinking straight at the time, and send my Taoist missionary (from Code of Laws) from Uruk to my newly founded city rather than down to the capital for the second religion/temple.

To be honest, I've probably got a pretty decent shot at founding at least one more religion here. After I generate the second Great Prophet, I'll switch over to scientists, which will mean that my GPP will be a mix of scientist or prophet. That GP will most likely have a choice of popping Theology or Philosophy.

Heh. Funny thing is, I can actually see a pretty clear path to the Montezuma cultural victory here. The world will be great admirers of the Aztec culture, especially the sacrificial altars.

 

[michmbk]

10 AD to 1325 AD - Monarch/Epic - Not my best 100 turns ever played, but this game will be a challenge the rest of the way, so that's good - I like a good challenge of trying to come from behind.

Spoiler :

I forgot how fun it is to whip with Monty. Every 7 turns, time to whip. Whip, build, whip build. Great stuff. Getting settlers out too because I want as many cities for whipping as I can. This’ll ideally pay off in the late game, but I ended up struggling big time this round with the economy. Also focusing on how to finish Gilgy – would like to do it before elephants, but that may not be possible. His culture is swarming my borders, and I’m afraid he’ll beat me to all that great land east, so whip whip whip.

I see him start teching construction, so I start heading that way too. Realistically, there’s no way I can finish him without elephants or cats, because he’s got a mix of vultures, spears and archers in his cities, so I’m whipping while beelining construction. Then, it appears he does me a favor:

Please suicide that stack into my city – I’m ok with that. Of course, he just sits there and causes me to wait him out. Frustrating because my economy is in brutal shape and I need to hit construction to pull out of it. Running scientists in every city I can, and the economy is struggling:

Problem is my unit cost, although they’re not quite strong enough to take any of his cities until I get elephants online. So it looks like he’s going to force me to limp to elephants, and then beat the living you-know what out of him. So I decide I need to put my units to use – get a 5 unit pillaging stack and start going to town. One of his size 1 cities is lightly defended, so I use the pillaging stack to take it – 70 gold, which means I get construction 5 turns sooner. Time for elephants. Whip out catapults, and turn off the slider for a bit. Time for war, not research. I have a bad feeling I’m going to be miles behind the rest of the world, but I’ll hopefully make up for it later. Currency seems like a long way off:

I really aggressively crashed my economy this game, didn't I? I hope it pays off later. This stupid war has dragged on ridiculously long. I have no idea how he’s able to produce so many units. I know there’s a small production bonus, but he’s got like 10 units in each of the border cities of mine with only 2 cities with any production. This stretch of the game has gone really poorly. I should have rushed Gilgy with chariots instead, because it could have been much faster and I could have finished him without this dragging. Finally, I take Kish:

I need to just finish him now – off to his other nearby cities. I finally take his last two cities in back to back turns - Eridu below:

But I think my economy overcrashed this game – I wasted way too long with Gilgy, and I suspect I’m going to pay for it this game. I’ve gotten to where most monarch games are wins, but this one is going to be a tough one to overcome. I’m clearly miles behind in tech, my economy is struggling, but I do have a ton of land to myself. I actually had to build wealth in most cities while getting key infrastructure down in the newly acquired cities, just to survive the economic problems. So it’s time to take on the challenge of trying to right this game. Once I hit currency, it was markets everywhere useful, and finishing exploring the island. It is a great island overall - another good opportunity for sushi with all the seafood I'll control once I finish settling. Sushi could be a good way to come back in this game too.

Barbs helped me out with a city. I'll trade one lost elephant for 110 gold plus a settler.

It's a decent site, and at this point, I just figure I need to pile on as many cities on this island as I can. Even if the economy stagnates awhile, I'll make up for it later with the phenomenal production throughout the island. So I'm producing forges and settlers in just about every city (did I mention I finally teched metal casting 1n 1200 AD? That's not good). State of the world in 1325:

I have a lot of great land to settle, but I'm sure I'm way behind in tech, since I almost always have liberalism at this point, and this game I still don't even have paper. Forget lib - I'll be teching the banking path first to try to turbocharge the economy a bit. I did just get forbidden palace down out east, so that'll help immensely. Starting to see the tech rate pick up, and I also have lots of cottages recently laid down in several cities, so those will pay off with printing press and free speech. Finally going to switch out of slavery and into caste to run merchants - think it's time to take a break from slavery for awhile. Merchants and rex rex rex.

What was tough about this was the starting point - I think if Gilgy had started on the eastern side of this island, and us on the west, we could have both peacefully expanded, and helped each other trade. As he was so close, it made it impossible for both to expand peacefully - I didn't think I could get any meaningful land with him where he was.

 

[Fierabras]

Emperor/Epic, 825 BC - 900 AD

Spoiler :

After continuing with Sailing I built some lighthouses and took a shot at the great lighthouse rather late. To my surprise I got it anyway, which was a welcome commerce boost on this hilly map. I teched Math-Construction next as I needed cats eventually. Around 250 AD I had a large enough army to attack the heavily fortified (vultures! and lots of them!) closest city, Eridu.

I was relying on axemen most of the time an used up all my accumulated spy points to incite revolts to take down defenses.

After clearing out the land to the north, I stil had a large army left and decided to continue the war to the east.

I wanted that green land for cottages.

It was a pretty long war and I wanted the techs from Giggles, so I decide to make the trade:

The power screen shows how tough this war was:

Oddly enough I think this game is close to lost, because I must be way behind the other civs by now and the lack of commerce is preventing me from catching up. It's time for drastic measures like building science in all my hammer-heavy cities. I did tech Poly - Mono - Currency (all pre-war) and MC - Aesthetics (??, not sure what I was thinking there), but those last 2 took me ages.

Giggles' rexing made him survive for now, so I'm considering another build-up with cats and elephants to finish him off, but I suspect he will get those protective longbowmen before I declare.

 

[JTMacc99]

Prince/Epic 700BC to 1200AD:

Spoiler :

The years fly by when you're all alone on your continent, don't they?

Well, unlike my strategy in the Napoleon game, hanging around until the cottage economy hits its stride isn't going to work. So, mostly I've tried to found cities with lots of mines and at least one food resource. I find that I'm building farms just to get some cities up to size 10-12. The economy is being driven by the two shrines from Polytheism and Code of Laws. I also managed to grab a third religion by using a Great Scientist to pop Philosophy, and that one was also shrined recently, as I'm generating quite a few Prophet points in the capital, even though I'm running a couple scientists there.

Oh, and research is a combination of 60% on the slider and a few scientists. Uruk built the Great Library, and I also used a scientist there to build an academy there (rather than bulb calendar, which was only a 7 turn research item at that point), so the plan is to run specialists as a supplement until I can go ahead and settle the eastern half of the continent.

So, as of 1200AD, here's the deal:
- While I was working the homeland, I set up a wall of Guerrilla Archers on the hills in the desert to fend off the barbs. This worked FABULOUSLY. I even got a level four Archer from this move.
- I also sent over a trio of CR jaguars to raze the barb cities, mostly for cash and XP. I got a CRIII Jaguar out of that exercise.
- 10 cities, with the first one east of the desert founded very recently. It will be a cottage heaven, with lots of river and floodplains. Settlers and workers will start heading over there frequently now.
- After getting around to metal casting, I decided to go for optics and see who else is around. Machinery was also a good one to get, as I could use a few windmills.
- Since there was a little lull there between being able to expand to the east and having things to build in my cities, I build a couple wonders. Slapped up the Parthenon, Statue of Zeus, and the SP. The last one seemed like a good fit for me now, with three religions of my own, and the ability to switch civics anarchy free.
- I flopped over to free religion right before I sent off my first caravels to seek out new civilizations. This actually had a pretty nice impact on the economy as well. I will put some effort into spreading all three religions into each of my cities as I continue to expand.
- The first caravel headed west and found what seems to be a reasonably large barb-controlled island. After I circle the globe and find everybody else, I'll come back and check it out thoroughly. Maybe there is a resource or two on it for me.
- The second caravel headed for the yellow cultural border spotted to the southeast of my capital. It first found Mr. Meh and then immediately after found his Islamic buddy The Wonderspammer. They were both willing to open up borders and trade me some of the techs I skipped.
- Since Wonderboy was more advanced, and would require me to trade him Machinery or Philosophy to extract the same techs I could get from Meh, I gave Meh Metal Casting, Code of Laws and Alphabet for Construction, Calendar, HBR and a pile of gold. The nice thing about that trade was that Wonderboy had all three of the techs I traded, so he won't benefit at all from it.
- Wonderboy himself has some techs he's unwilling to trade like Theology, Drama, and Music. I'm not sure I want to put him on the path to Optics or Education for any of those techs anyway, so he can keep them.
- My next research project is Feudalism, although I should probably seriously consider Civil Service first. After those two, I'll need to figure out exactly how I'm going to be able to settle the rest of my continent before anybody else gets astronomy and then start the military build up to prepare for intercontinental war.

 

[Anomander Rake]

I've been pretty sick for the past 2 days and not had a chance to play.

Spoiler :

I have had a look at other reports and it looks like I'm going to have to try and take giggles out sooner rather than later.

 

[michmbk]

I forgot how long it takes to complete a space race, especially when you're as far behind as I was at one point in this game. This game is taking forever. I think I finally am pulling ahead, but man, it's going to be a long, long time to complete space. I started a report on what I hoped would be my final round last night, but had to give up after still not even being close to finishing.

Also, a question to TMIT, in spoiler because it gives away something:

Spoiler :

Did you purposely take oil off of our continent, or did it just so happen that the only oil was offshore (requiring plastics instead of just combustion)? I got so mad when Meh DOWed me for the second straight game with about 30 frigates/galleons just before I got combustion, and i couldn't really do anything about it since I didn't have oil on land.

I ultimately after getting peace DOWed on his vassal Huayna, who had settled right next to oil way down south in the tundra, so I could take the oil city, but it was a setback no doubt.

EDIT: Never mind, looks like my question was answered in one of the spoiler sections above - it wasn't intentional apparently.