MassRiflemen
Dr. Draftingstein
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2022
- Messages
- 108
Bro, Toks got the nastiest draft redcoats ever. First time I won on Emperor with the stated conditions (from most to least impactful) (I honestly found this to be more difficult than immortal on stock settings)
1. No tech trading.
2. No vassals.
3. Huge, Pangaea, 18 civs, aggressive ai
4. Marathon
For Tok of the English
5. Barracks first, followed by 2 starvation warriors with cover accept starts with 3 seafood make three workboats after. Make two more warriors after this.
6. Worker steal and pillage all immediate neighbors wtih these four warriors while growing to size 3. Avoid Bowmen and Skirms. Go bronze working during this
7a. Do not give peace unless you are totally done choking them. The lack of tech trade and 18 civs on the same continent makes repeated war decs diplomatic suicide.
7b. Chop the Great Wall. Do not put any other wonder or run specialists in this city. You will be under so much pressure, that the Great Wall allows you to farm GG's and make superlongbows (Drill IV) for the Turtle phase and double medic elephants. Basically you have gained half the imperialist trait. You will also need to steal early medieval tech (temporary EE), such as feudalism, machinery and aesthetics.
7c,. You will make an early choice of a Warmonger ally (long term choice for a Perma Alliance). You will declare war on every civ he tells you to. Do not engage with Khans/Russians, they rarely accept PA's, even with perfect diplo . Shaka and/or Monty are the best choices, because they will be behind in tech, and accept your PA just for the tech lol.
8. Park two warriors each on forested hill in enemy BFC and forget them, the AI will be bugging out making archers.
9. Chop the oracle, get Metal Casting. Make forge run an engineer and build Colo. Do not research Astro at any point in the game. Bulb or steal machinery. When you steal aesthetics, get the Statue of Zeus then steal or self-research currency. Hostile civs will be under so much war weariness that they will give you all their gold (2k+ gold), all available GPT (often 12+) and sometimes even a city to end the war.
10a: Self tech monarchy. Heredity Rule > Rep in this game mode, because you'll have +20 happiness in every border city and +5 in every non border city. Keep spears/pikes dueos with formation between cities to knock off mounted pillagers.
Then self tech Code of Laws and chop the chicken pizza (chicen itza). Chicen itza is the only MUST HAVE wonder in this game setting (although I'd argue the colossus makes this a safe strat). The defensive bonus is crucial because 50% ( t least 200 turns) of the game is spent face tanking multiple stacks of dooms contained 10+ trebs/cats and 40+ elephants nearly every other turn. Castles, hills and Drill IV is a must (oh yeah, and no less than 20 longbows per border city, I call this the Kingdom of Heaven Strat, since half these AI Stacks of Doom take place on a desert tile lol). Your warmonger ally will have an easy time destroying super techers like Mansa and Willem while you facetank 8+ AI civs for 200 turns.
10b: You will lib nationalism after gunpowder and draft twice from each city. This will give you 20-24 muskets depending on your size. You will then self tech towards rifles.
10cA fter this double draft, pop your golden age. Switch to organized , get a market in each city during this golden age and beeline to banking. Also, immediately after this double draft, threaten/beg every civ for their stockpiled gold. Almost all of them will give it to you, allowing you to run 100% research. If you were able to safely build market places before this, then go pacisfism, caste, rep, and run as many scientists as you can in starvation without reducing city pop, then go to organized religion one turn before gold age ends)
During this entire techline, whip and chop grocers, harbors, banks. You hide behind Castle Longbows (all border cities must be hills, raze any ai cities next to hills that weren't on hills in the initial axe conquest). You will most likely be at war with 6-7 civs during the turtle phase. Do not replace pillaged cottages with cottages, replace with watermills or farms. Replace pillaged mines with windmills. Run an eng spec in every city that has a forge (which should be nearly every city). Gold is the important resource now. Since this a longbow turtle strat, most of your forests should be intact for this building phase. After these four buildings are complete, make trebuchets, make up 6 trebs per enemy civilization you intended to attack (24 should be sufficient).
Keep two mobile elephant groups (10-12 elephants) with three moves of your two border cities on either side of your empire to soak enemy collateral. Promote elephants with medic upgrade and longbows with First Strike (You'll be face tanking trebs with longbows, so collateral reduction is essential with Healaphants).
When Rifles come out, stop researching, upgrades the muskets. All muskets and Rifles should have Cover to punch through longbows. There will be no siege during your easy domination victory this beyond the intial set of trebs that you made to smash the initial resistance from each civ. You first make peace with all civs and extort them for all their gold (except the one civ you're going to kill).
Your first target, no matter how far they are, will be the civ with the pyramids. Capture this and go police state with a second golden age (overall this strategy requires three GP's for two golden ages). Set all cities to starvation maxing out of hammers + engineer specialist. Also switch back to nationalism. If timed correctly, you'll have no draft unhappiness.
Double draft from all cities again, then switch to Police State, Vassalage, SERFDOM and Theocracy (if you followed the tech line, you shouldn't have any economic civics unlocked. Toko's drated Redcoats are a true terror.
You will need serfdom to replace most enemy cottages with farms(unless the enemy city has market/grocer, in which case leave the cottages and build a bank and completed the market/grocer duo in this city.) , most mines with windmills, and all undeveloped AI land with watermills/workshops and farms. You will remain in serfdom until you have researched Railroads and completed your critical rail arteries across your conquered empire. The captured workers from defeated enemy civs do nicely or this. You will also need serfdom to rapid chop remaining forests for courthouses. You workers should be moving with your army during this.
If you get another GE and GM, then go seek to go Mining Inc and Sushi and get a perma alliance warmonger civ.
When up a get warmonger ally like Shaka or Monty, remember to buff his cities with corps and sit an entire research cycle at 0% (20 turns) and give him all your gold, and watch him convert all his impis/jags into CRIII Rifles/grens/cannons and CDIII machine guns, all their HAs and Knights into Cavalry. While your warmonger AI washes away the fiflth, you you should be building unis, observatories and teching Democracy, grabbing the Statue of Lib, then beelinling Assembly Line, Artillery, then straight to Plastics for Three Gorges. Any civ with Hanging Gardens and/or Notre Dame should also be your first target with a warmonger ally.
When you get assembly line, you will stop researching again, upgrade 40-50 of your best rifles, then give another 5k gold to Shaka. If an enemy civ actually managed to runaway (Mansu is usually the runaway civ), you will stop all research and upgrade all rifles and triple draft from each city and kill this civ with a 100+ infantry stack of doom. UPgrade all siege to cannons and only sac one cannon per city.
If Sitting Bull (or any other protective civ) is running away you will stop all research FOR THE REST OF THE GAME. Draft to 6 Pop, , swtich to slavery and whipe intafnrty to 1 and tell yor warmonger ally to attack the enemy capitol in diplomacy options while take every other city. Once the city has no population left, gift it to Shaka/Monty. Yuo'll only have your Globe City at the end of it + capitol. Switch to State Property, because the new cities you capture will become your new cities and they'll be light years from your capitol.
Quite simply, this is such an intense path to victory, that any Protective runaway civ is an immediate game ending threat (learned this the hard way while slugging it out with JC in a rifle/cannon war that went off script (cuz its JC) and took nearly 80 turns, only to show up to Gates of Cahokia to see SAM Infantry, fighters and Tanks...gg)
Most fun I ever had in CIV 4.
1. No tech trading.
2. No vassals.
3. Huge, Pangaea, 18 civs, aggressive ai
4. Marathon
For Tok of the English
5. Barracks first, followed by 2 starvation warriors with cover accept starts with 3 seafood make three workboats after. Make two more warriors after this.
6. Worker steal and pillage all immediate neighbors wtih these four warriors while growing to size 3. Avoid Bowmen and Skirms. Go bronze working during this
7a. Do not give peace unless you are totally done choking them. The lack of tech trade and 18 civs on the same continent makes repeated war decs diplomatic suicide.
7b. Chop the Great Wall. Do not put any other wonder or run specialists in this city. You will be under so much pressure, that the Great Wall allows you to farm GG's and make superlongbows (Drill IV) for the Turtle phase and double medic elephants. Basically you have gained half the imperialist trait. You will also need to steal early medieval tech (temporary EE), such as feudalism, machinery and aesthetics.
7c,. You will make an early choice of a Warmonger ally (long term choice for a Perma Alliance). You will declare war on every civ he tells you to. Do not engage with Khans/Russians, they rarely accept PA's, even with perfect diplo . Shaka and/or Monty are the best choices, because they will be behind in tech, and accept your PA just for the tech lol.
8. Park two warriors each on forested hill in enemy BFC and forget them, the AI will be bugging out making archers.
9. Chop the oracle, get Metal Casting. Make forge run an engineer and build Colo. Do not research Astro at any point in the game. Bulb or steal machinery. When you steal aesthetics, get the Statue of Zeus then steal or self-research currency. Hostile civs will be under so much war weariness that they will give you all their gold (2k+ gold), all available GPT (often 12+) and sometimes even a city to end the war.
10a: Self tech monarchy. Heredity Rule > Rep in this game mode, because you'll have +20 happiness in every border city and +5 in every non border city. Keep spears/pikes dueos with formation between cities to knock off mounted pillagers.
Then self tech Code of Laws and chop the chicken pizza (chicen itza). Chicen itza is the only MUST HAVE wonder in this game setting (although I'd argue the colossus makes this a safe strat). The defensive bonus is crucial because 50% ( t least 200 turns) of the game is spent face tanking multiple stacks of dooms contained 10+ trebs/cats and 40+ elephants nearly every other turn. Castles, hills and Drill IV is a must (oh yeah, and no less than 20 longbows per border city, I call this the Kingdom of Heaven Strat, since half these AI Stacks of Doom take place on a desert tile lol). Your warmonger ally will have an easy time destroying super techers like Mansa and Willem while you facetank 8+ AI civs for 200 turns.
10b: You will lib nationalism after gunpowder and draft twice from each city. This will give you 20-24 muskets depending on your size. You will then self tech towards rifles.
10cA fter this double draft, pop your golden age. Switch to organized , get a market in each city during this golden age and beeline to banking. Also, immediately after this double draft, threaten/beg every civ for their stockpiled gold. Almost all of them will give it to you, allowing you to run 100% research. If you were able to safely build market places before this, then go pacisfism, caste, rep, and run as many scientists as you can in starvation without reducing city pop, then go to organized religion one turn before gold age ends)
During this entire techline, whip and chop grocers, harbors, banks. You hide behind Castle Longbows (all border cities must be hills, raze any ai cities next to hills that weren't on hills in the initial axe conquest). You will most likely be at war with 6-7 civs during the turtle phase. Do not replace pillaged cottages with cottages, replace with watermills or farms. Replace pillaged mines with windmills. Run an eng spec in every city that has a forge (which should be nearly every city). Gold is the important resource now. Since this a longbow turtle strat, most of your forests should be intact for this building phase. After these four buildings are complete, make trebuchets, make up 6 trebs per enemy civilization you intended to attack (24 should be sufficient).
Keep two mobile elephant groups (10-12 elephants) with three moves of your two border cities on either side of your empire to soak enemy collateral. Promote elephants with medic upgrade and longbows with First Strike (You'll be face tanking trebs with longbows, so collateral reduction is essential with Healaphants).
When Rifles come out, stop researching, upgrades the muskets. All muskets and Rifles should have Cover to punch through longbows. There will be no siege during your easy domination victory this beyond the intial set of trebs that you made to smash the initial resistance from each civ. You first make peace with all civs and extort them for all their gold (except the one civ you're going to kill).
Your first target, no matter how far they are, will be the civ with the pyramids. Capture this and go police state with a second golden age (overall this strategy requires three GP's for two golden ages). Set all cities to starvation maxing out of hammers + engineer specialist. Also switch back to nationalism. If timed correctly, you'll have no draft unhappiness.
Double draft from all cities again, then switch to Police State, Vassalage, SERFDOM and Theocracy (if you followed the tech line, you shouldn't have any economic civics unlocked. Toko's drated Redcoats are a true terror.
You will need serfdom to replace most enemy cottages with farms(unless the enemy city has market/grocer, in which case leave the cottages and build a bank and completed the market/grocer duo in this city.) , most mines with windmills, and all undeveloped AI land with watermills/workshops and farms. You will remain in serfdom until you have researched Railroads and completed your critical rail arteries across your conquered empire. The captured workers from defeated enemy civs do nicely or this. You will also need serfdom to rapid chop remaining forests for courthouses. You workers should be moving with your army during this.
If you get another GE and GM, then go seek to go Mining Inc and Sushi and get a perma alliance warmonger civ.
When up a get warmonger ally like Shaka or Monty, remember to buff his cities with corps and sit an entire research cycle at 0% (20 turns) and give him all your gold, and watch him convert all his impis/jags into CRIII Rifles/grens/cannons and CDIII machine guns, all their HAs and Knights into Cavalry. While your warmonger AI washes away the fiflth, you you should be building unis, observatories and teching Democracy, grabbing the Statue of Lib, then beelinling Assembly Line, Artillery, then straight to Plastics for Three Gorges. Any civ with Hanging Gardens and/or Notre Dame should also be your first target with a warmonger ally.
When you get assembly line, you will stop researching again, upgrade 40-50 of your best rifles, then give another 5k gold to Shaka. If an enemy civ actually managed to runaway (Mansu is usually the runaway civ), you will stop all research and upgrade all rifles and triple draft from each city and kill this civ with a 100+ infantry stack of doom. UPgrade all siege to cannons and only sac one cannon per city.
If Sitting Bull (or any other protective civ) is running away you will stop all research FOR THE REST OF THE GAME. Draft to 6 Pop, , swtich to slavery and whipe intafnrty to 1 and tell yor warmonger ally to attack the enemy capitol in diplomacy options while take every other city. Once the city has no population left, gift it to Shaka/Monty. Yuo'll only have your Globe City at the end of it + capitol. Switch to State Property, because the new cities you capture will become your new cities and they'll be light years from your capitol.
Quite simply, this is such an intense path to victory, that any Protective runaway civ is an immediate game ending threat (learned this the hard way while slugging it out with JC in a rifle/cannon war that went off script (cuz its JC) and took nearly 80 turns, only to show up to Gates of Cahokia to see SAM Infantry, fighters and Tanks...gg)
Most fun I ever had in CIV 4.
