OMG! Hereditary Rule: My Missing Piece!!!

[futurehermit]

Well, I didn't finish the game I started tonight with Mansa because I got too tired, but I believe it well could've been my first emperor domination win.

AND IT WAS EASY!!!!!!!!!!

What did I change?

Well, it was an experiment, following the logic of Pete's games if you've read his emperor/immortal domination games.

I told myself I would do the following:

1) Beeline hereditary rule instead of alphabet after worker techs are in

2) Cottage spam all non-production cities (1 gp farm ok if available); ratio of about 2:1 or 3:1 cottageroduction

That's it!!!

I had CRAP terrain really with a coastal capital (lots of basic coast tiles), one decent city, and some marginal tundra and other cities and was boxed in pretty hard by Alex and Churchill. However, with only 4 cities (I had in addition 2 tundra barb cities captured that were size 1 because they needed forever to get a library to expand borders to work 2 fish tiles each; in retrospect I probably should've ran caste system briefly for artists to pop borders--I always forget about that!!!). I was able to have chemistry, steel, and rifling ca 1200-1300AD. Not too shabby!!!

Because of the CE, I wasn't able to whip/draft an army as fast as I would've liked, but I had a substantial tech lead on everyone, including the other continent (that had 2 civs, mine had 5). I had alex and hc as friendly and would go to war with whoever I wanted. I had churchill in my line of site to double my empire and then could go on to mop up either my continent or the other one (astronomy due in 2 turns and not too many turns to state property).

What was the secret? How about a capital at around size 15 by about 100AD!!! That's HUGE since in most of my games I'm lucky if my capital is HALF that size by that point, lol! This is because I wait for the AI to trade me monarchy!!!

I am going to try this strat again (research monarchy before alpha), but this time with a philosophical leader and going for FE/SE. Because did I mention that even with the diversion for monarchy that I was STILL able to get the GL?

The nice thing about just self-researching monarchy instead of oracling it like Pete does is that I was able to get only GSs instead of GPs. As a result, I was able to lightbulb: Philosophy, Education, Printing Press, and Chemistry. I could do much more lightbulbing imo with a philosophical leader!!!

Alternatively, I might try it with an industrious leader and chop the pyramids and parthenon and try that out as well

I urge everyone to try this out if they don't do it already: research monarchy early and crank units under hereditary rule to get your population of your early cities up.

I can't believe how much easier this skill level felt when I did that. I went from struggling to coasting!!!

 

[Mutineer]

It is one of valid ways, especially for financial civ.

Happiness as soon as posible.
For Masta Monarchy probably bets, for other dramma route could work well, if one does not afraid to run 30% culture slider for a short time untill other happiness source appear.

I did calculations somewhere. Bouth are valid ways.

 

[shyuhe]

Is the GL going to be a problem if you run cottages with a non-financial civ up to monarchy? Or will the larger cities negate any problems you may face with that?

 

[futurehermit]

Is the GL going to be a problem if you run cottages with a non-financial civ up to monarchy? Or will the larger cities negate any problems you may face with that?

I'm not sure what you mean. How is the GL ever a problem?

 

[Lidjis]

I have also recently discovered the value of HR, a civic that i usually waited until the middle ages to adopt. It really shines with an expansive leader though, since it essentially lets you have cities that are 2 sizes bigger. Its good with a CE, but better with FE/ SE since you can quickly regrow the population loss from the whip, letting you have more big cities longer.
It also helps you keep higher on the scoreboard though, which can have its own upsides and downsides.

 

[notagoodname]

On the other hand though i play above emporer difficulty and i genrally hold out getting monarchy for a while.
On immortal and diety you really have to slave a lot to keep up. Growing cities to 7 or 8 (typical max hapiness without monarchy on immortal) then slaving 2 pop means that your cities are never bothered by unhapiness (assuming oyu time growth and unhappiness from slavery correctly).
So beelining for maths, code of laws and civil service before monarchy is an entirely valid strategy, provided you can time your growth and slaving correctly.

 

[KMadCandy]

sweet! glad to hear it's working for you.

the military police you crank out ... do you do this early enough that you can crank out cheap ones? i do that for culture games, to the extent that i'll mine bronze for the extra hammers but not road it so that i can still make warriors but in those particular games i aim for peace all the way thru, handpick opponents, etc, it's certainly not a normal situation.

i haven't read any of pete's threads and the name doesn't even sound familiar. got a link handy, or his official civ username? if it's just the name "Pete" i'm gonna feel pretty dense but i'm kinda used to that.

"in retrospect I probably should've ran caste system briefly for artists to pop borders--I always forget about that!!!" tsk tsk *giggle*. it's surprised me how much i've learned from peaceful cultural wins that i apply to ruthless cut-throat kill-em-all games, that's an example.

 

[futurehermit]

I used archers in my game (skirmishers actually). Worked fine. This is the strat that has worked the best for me so far. I'm going to give it another go soon. I'll probably try it with Hannibal. Charismatic means additional and also a military bonus, which I'll need for going domination...

 

[shyuhe]

sorry I wasn't clear about my question. IT was about teching to literature + building GL if you sidestep all the way to monarchy first. Is the number of beakers required to do that manageable?

 

[futurehermit]

^^^do you mean there is a risk of losing the GL if you side-step to monarchy first?

i would say only to an industrious leader with marble who beelines it. i was able to build it comfortably in my mansa practice game--and i had crap terrain really.

--my capital had sea to the south and to the west. to my east was tundra and desert and i only had space for one city to the north before hitting more sea and one ok-ish (commerce, but about 0 production) city to the east before getting boxed in by alex to the NE and Churchill to the E (I took two fishing barb cities with some tundra/ice to the SW). i built a 6th city up by alex, but his culture from his capital took most of the good tiles from it away

p.s., @kmadcandy: it's pete2006 i believe and his games are titled inca emperor domination/immortal domination or something like that. some masterful play there using h. capac...

 

[aelf]

IMO, you don't need to rely on HR to beat Emperor comfortably. There are certainly other ways of doing it. I typically don't like to rely too much on military police because the effects would be gone once you switch out of HR, which I always do for various reasons. Maybe it's because I don't go for early domination and my games always last beyond the Industrial era.

 

[Storminator]

IMO, you don't need to rely on HR to beat Emperor comfortably. There are certainly other ways of doing it. I typically don't like to rely too much on military police because the effects would be gone once you switch out of HR, which I always do for various reasons. Maybe it's because I don't go for early domination and my games always last beyond the Industrial era.

But if you build big cities under HR, then switch away, you can whip away the excess pop if you have to.

In general I've found that when I first started (been playing since Xmas, LOL) I under valued the Civics techs. No longer!

PS

 

[futurehermit]

IMO, you don't need to rely on HR to beat Emperor comfortably. There are certainly other ways of doing it. I typically don't like to rely too much on military police because the effects would be gone once you switch out of HR, which I always do for various reasons. Maybe it's because I don't go for early domination and my games always last beyond the Industrial era.

Couple comments:

1) What are you going to switch to in the early going unless you capture/build the pyramids? None of the other civics are available until much later in the game and by that time I don't mind disbanding some out-of-date archers...

2) I appreciate that there are other ways to beat emperor, but I haven't managed it yet and this strategy felt far more powerful than anything else I've done so far!!! I just can't seem to get other strategies to work because I either fall too far behind in research or can't generate enough military. In short: I can't seem to get the FE/SE to work at this level. Like Acidsatyr said: there's something I'm still not grasping...But after watching Pete tear through his emperor and immortal domination games with an early hereditary rule strategy I've come to appreciate the power of early large cities...and too small of cities seems to always be my main problem...

 

[cabert]

HR isn't the only way to have higher happiness.
In your emperor domination trial, you have gold and silver at hand.
A few forges will make that +4 happiness, and that's enough for a start.
Then if you start your domination trial, you will put your hands on other happy resources.
My usual "happiness" strat relies on resources. Of course you need to adapt to the map a lot more than "HR is my missing piece", but it's usually either beeline to forges or beeline to markets.
If I have a "market" resource and a "forge" resource, I try to trade it to an AI for another that matches better (for instance, if I have silver and fur, I'll trade fur away for gems, and build forges)

 

[sooooo]

To be honest I don't find HR that useful unless I'm going for culture win. Sure I normally go into it, because unless you have the pyramids there's nothing else, but I don't build troops to serve as police and grow my city. If I build lots of troops, I expect to use them before they go obsolete. And if I have grown my city then I use the troops offensively, the city is unhappy again. I don't like building endless cheap troops (usually useless on offense like archers or longbows) for temporary hapiness.

In a culture win, it's really useful because you need a decent army but are not going to attack anyone. You often need the hapiness because you will be in caste system and suffering emancipation weariness.

 

[aelf]

1) What are you going to switch to in the early going unless you capture/build the pyramids? None of the other civics are available until much later in the game and by that time I don't mind disbanding some out-of-date archers...

I didn't say in the early game. In fact, I even said: "Maybe it's because I don't go for early domination and my games always last beyond the Industrial era." It's true that you can whip away the excess (unhappy) population when you switch out of HR, but a sudden depopulation of my empire just screws up my long term planning. All of a sudden my empire's performance drops and there's no reliable way of planning ahead when I don't know how I'm going to be doing post the HR boom. Therefore, I must either convert all my excess population into troops and go for a military win or win before I need to even think of switching out of HR, both of which I don't do.

2) I appreciate that there are other ways to beat emperor, but I haven't managed it yet and this strategy felt far more powerful than anything else I've done so far!!! I just can't seem to get other strategies to work because I either fall too far behind in research or can't generate enough military. In short: I can't seem to get the FE/SE to work at this level. Like Acidsatyr said: there's something I'm still not grasping...But after watching Pete tear through his emperor and immortal domination games with an early hereditary rule strategy I've come to appreciate the power of early large cities...and too small of cities seems to always be my main problem...

Well, you left out two other factors: Financial and the availability of neighbours. I know there are people who condemn the Financial trait. I agree it's inflexible, but I do not doubt that it is one of the best traits in SP. It often makes your game a lot easier.

The availability of neighbours also matters. If you have 4 or 5 ppl sharing the same continent, you can invade or even wipe out one and still have 2 or 3 to trade with. And not to mention every discovery is potentially more rewarding with more people to trade with early in the game. In most of my Challenge games, I find myself on a 3-civ continent, which makes things a lot more difficult. Even one more neighbour would really simplify things.

Actually, Industrious is also one trait that I could use to deadly effect. It's practically a free ticket to the Great Library. With two crutches (Financial and Great Library) supporting you, you can do anything. And there are other wonders you can nab that would help put you in a very good position.

I'm not trying to belittle Pete's or your achievements. I'm just trying to demonstrate that HR is not THE key factor. I've also tried this with Napoleon, who is Charismatic. It's good, but nowhere as powerful as you seem to be saying.

PS: Don't forget that more population means more upkeep.

 

[Ruler]

HR and lots of units has been my favorite strat since Prince. It's "nice to know" strat if you have no happiness resources so you are definitely missing something out and I was thinkin how much you whip, whipping too much can definitely bring your economy down in my opinion and definitely not needed on Emperor.

 

[Snaaty]

Cool futurehermit congratz on your first (hope you will win in the end) emperor dom. win.


Concerning your strat:

I tested and posted both ways of play recently (in the early game strat. post):

H.rule:

Main advantage is that you can grow your cities earlier and bigger (which most of you know).

But the main setback is, that you cannot influence relations early enough via tech gifting and therefore run a much higher risk of getting invaded...

alpha - lit - CoL or monarchy:

You can techtrade earlier but your cities stay smaller up to maybe 500 - 200 BC...

...


In the end, both strats. result in more or less the same tech speed (as always, in my opinion and experience), but h.rule is much more risky when having lots of (agressive) neighbours, so I would go for the alpa route. On the other side, when isolated h.rule may be the better choice so I think it´s always a matter of starting pos and preferences

...

Concerning CE:

As you already mentioned, the main problem of CE is that it´s not flexible enough (like slow army raising speed...) so I would always advise to stick to FE (with some cottages in the beginning).

...

Meanwhile I would even say, that the teching speed of FE rivals (is maybe even better) that of CE also in earlygame, when you build some very early cottages (like 3-5). You can have a look at the actual saves from the game going on (isolated emp. start), to see this (CE: shyule, giaur; hybrid: multineer; FE: me). You can also compare h.rule with huge capital (multineer) and only average sized cities under extreme whipping (me)

 

[lilnev]

If you can avoid Hunting, you can keep building warriors for a very long time. So for 15 hammers, you get a . Much cheaper than a temple/theater/market/forge, etc. Cabert can have his Forge for , and I'll take 8 warriors for . Spread amongst different cities, wherever I need them most. Of course, those warriors come with a unit maintenance cost; but the income from a cottage is more than the maintenance of a unit. And when you look at it that way, it becomes clear why this strat is much better for a Financial leader: the profit margin (income from one cottage minus the costs of the warrior) is substantially larger.

peace,
lilnev

 

[futurehermit]

I didn't say in the early game. In fact, I even said: "Maybe it's because I don't go for early domination and my games always last beyond the Industrial era." It's true that you can whip away the excess (unhappy) population when you switch out of HR, but a sudden depopulation of my empire just screws up my long term planning. All of a sudden my empire's performance drops and there's no reliable way of planning ahead when I don't know how I'm going to be doing post the HR boom. Therefore, I must either convert all my excess population into troops and go for a military win or win before I need to even think of switching out of HR, both of which I don't do.



Well, you left out two other factors: Financial and the availability of neighbours. I know there are people who condemn the Financial trait. I agree it's inflexible, but I do not doubt that it is one of the best traits in SP. It often makes your game a lot easier.

The availability of neighbours also matters. If you have 4 or 5 ppl sharing the same continent, you can invade or even wipe out one and still have 2 or 3 to trade with. And not to mention every discovery is potentially more rewarding with more people to trade with early in the game. In most of my Challenge games, I find myself on a 3-civ continent, which makes things a lot more difficult. Even one more neighbour would really simplify things.

Actually, Industrious is also one trait that I could use to deadly effect. It's practically a free ticket to the Great Library. With two crutches (Financial and Great Library) supporting you, you can do anything. And there are other wonders you can nab that would help put you in a very good position.

I'm not trying to belittle Pete's or your achievements. I'm just trying to demonstrate that HR is not THE key factor. I've also tried this with Napoleon, who is Charismatic. It's good, but nowhere as powerful as you seem to be saying.

PS: Don't forget that more population means more upkeep.

I agree that, although financial is inflexible, it is a strong trait when running CE. I also agree that the availability of a neighbour and the # of neighbours/continent is a huge determining factor on whether early warfare is possible. Of course if it is possible, the best strategy is to axerush (or equivalent). But if it's not possible then one must look at playing peacefully possibly until gunpowder. In this situation, it's all about developing economy and detering invasion. In this case the hereditary rule-boom your city strat is probably the way to go...

Finally, I'm not saying it's the be-all-end-all strat, I'm just saying that this is something that is working for ME I can't seem to get a domination win with what I've been doing and the two problems I've been having are: too small cities and not enough $$$. So, I'm going the other extreme to try that out for awhile. I will probably ultimately end up back at FE/SE because I believe it is stronger, but I need to incorporate some other things into my game and this is one of them imo. Having size 6-7 cities at 1000AD is probably not the best position to be in...

I will try and look for other sources of happiness as well. Sure, if I have gold and silver, I can envision going for forges, no problem. Or market resources, go for market. However, inevitably, I have few pre-calendar happiness outlets and it is in this situation that hereditary rule can really show its strength imo (or drama, I will have to try that with FE/SE first!!!).

I agree with you also that incas are kinda lame in the sense of the fact that fin+ind+quecha makes things a LOT easier. That's why I don't play Incas