Plains-Cow and Shikhar Agrawal Play Earth18Civs India on Monarch

[Plains-Cow]

Great, just one question. Was there any particular reason you went for rifleman instead cruis or cavalry.

Yeah, because I want to be able to draft and slam them into other countries to build more stacks faster. You can't draft cav units. They would certainly make conquering a bit faster for civs that don't have rifling, but I like the image of Indian armies marching across the world more. Plus, Saladin has decent teching, and Saladin (protective trait, on hills, in cities) with rifles would be difficult against cavalry. Once someone has tech parity, that tends to be the end of most cav rushes. My footmen will be more useful to me over a longer period of time, or so I think. If I was rushing, I'd probably do something else in earlier eras in general. I plan to surround countries with small armies and attack from all sides, more-or-less, and I want to be able to upgrade them to Infantry once I get Assembly Line. Cavalry can only be upgraded to gunships. I'd need to make a whole new army and move it into position.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

475AD, T134

In a parallel universe, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was established in Nanjing. "There are no coincidences in this world".

Spoiler :

Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai under our lord the saviour Jesus Christ. .

Religion can found and spread on the same turn.

Yes, this game is turning out to be quite different.

Spoiler :

I attacked Germany first because they had the pyramids and coastal cities to benefit from The Great Lighthouse in Paris. I don't like libraries while I am expanding but Berlin already has an academy so I think it's worth it. I built courthouses throughout. Normally courthouses are bad but the leader is organised and I am getting choked by distance penalty.

I don't intend to finish the Chichen Itza, I just want the gold from the unfinished wonder.

 

[Shikhar Agrawal]

So, time for the next update.
1300 AD, T190

Spoiler Update 2 :

After getting calendar, my economy skyrocketed, I was also in a settling spree and was able to settle pretty much all of south east asia and australia and one city in south africa and now in process of setting few in south america. I use the GA from music and pacifism to snag a few GS to pop education and printing press. My set-up is ready and I am gonna attack this turn. I build this much units because i am gonna attack mongolia and persia next while continue to settle south america, build some stack and attack monty and roosevelt, they are ages behind.

One thing though nanjing has AP, should I raze it or not, I am bit confused. Please advice.

Spoiler Tech Position :

Spoiler Units :

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

What victory are you going for?

Spoiler :

You are not attacking the more advanced players. Instead you are trying to get more land and on another continent. I presume you are going for space victory? Impressive that America is still alive.

 

[Shikhar Agrawal]

What victory are you going for?

Spoiler :

You are not attacking the more advanced players. Instead you are trying to get more land and on another continent. I presume you are going for space victory? Impressive that America is still alive.

Spoiler :

I am going for the domination victory
Well china is advance player and i am gonna attack persia and mongolia next. I am getting economics to get GM to upgrade my trebs to cannons. I will declare the war this turn. I settling america because in 30-40 turns, I will be able to get whole of america easily since they are so behing tech wise.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Spoiler :

I am going for the domination victory
Well china is advance player and i am gonna attack persia and mongolia next. I am getting economics to get GM to upgrade my trebs to cannons. I will declare the war this turn. I settling america because in 30-40 turns, I will be able to get whole of america easily since they are so behing tech wise.

Question so that I can learn: what is the point of stacking cuirs with trebs? The cuirs have 2 movement, but are reduced to 1 when traveling with the trebs, which they need to because the trebs need protection. However, you can't take advantage of terrain defense bonuses during your invasion then. Typically when I see cuirs, I see people using them alone to rush down a technologically inferior civ.

 

[Harv]

I was going to check in on the off-topic, but decided to check out what was going on in the Civ4 strategy forum - and found this gem! I love the Earth18 scenario and can't get enough of it! I played a couple of times as Egypt and intended to start some game as India to explore the scenario in order.

Are we going to see a Plains-Cow version of King of the World? Have you seen any KotW threads? His writeups were amazing!

What were your specific settings? This might tempt me to play a game!

 

[Shikhar Agrawal]

I was going to check in on the off-topic, but decided to check out what was going on in the Civ4 strategy forum - and found this gem! I love the Earth18 scenario and can't get enough of it! I played a couple of times as Egypt and intended to start some game as India to explore the scenario in order.

Are we going to see a Plains-Cow version of King of the World? Have you seen any KotW threads? His writeups were amazing!

What were your specific settings? This might tempt me to play a game!

No, I don't even know what that means. I recently returned to this game, found plains-cow and he suggested Earth18 play.
Monarch difficulty, standard speed, default settings(tech trading, events, huts on).
India is great, it snowballed quite well, definitely try India, fast worker is amazing as well.

 

[Shikhar Agrawal]

Question so that I can learn: what is the point of stacking cuirs with trebs? The cuirs have 2 movement, but are reduced to 1 when traveling with the trebs, which they need to because the trebs need protection. However, you can't take advantage of terrain defense bonuses during your invasion then. Typically when I see cuirs, I see people using them alone to rush down a technologically inferior civ.

Because just attacking with cuirs will be suicidal, destroying their walls, and weakening them a little, helps a lot.

 

[Harv]

No, I don't even know what that means. I recently returned to this game, found plains-cow and he suggested Earth18 play.
Monarch difficulty, standard speed, default settings(tech trading, events, huts on).
India is great, it snowballed quite well, definitely try India, fast worker is amazing as well.

I don't know if you meant you don't know what I meant by King of the World, so I linked his very first thread. It's old, but classic in my opinion. Enjoy!

King of the World #1: Montezuma

Round 0: The lay of the land (4000 B.C.) Round 1: Bricks and Buddhas (4000 B.C. - 3200 B.C.) Round 2: The Drums of War (3200-1040 B.C.) Round 3: Welcome to Washingtlan (1040 B.C.-750 B.C.) Round 4: I think we're alone now (750 B.C.-475 B.C.) Round 5: Swords to Plowshares (475 B.C.-375 A.D.)...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[Plains-Cow]

I was going to check in on the off-topic, but decided to check out what was going on in the Civ4 strategy forum - and found this gem! I love the Earth18 scenario and can't get enough of it! I played a couple of times as Egypt and intended to start some game as India to explore the scenario in order.

Are we going to see a Plains-Cow version of King of the World? Have you seen any KotW threads? His writeups were amazing!

What were your specific settings? This might tempt me to play a game!

What is KotW? From reading what you've posted, I think it just might be that sort of game I'm playing... I suppose you'll have to read on to see!

Right now, it's Monarch Earth 18 civs BTS India. Feel free to join in!

Because just attacking with cuirs will be suicidal, destroying their walls, and weakening them a little, helps a lot.

Walls and castles don't matter because cuirs ignore them in combat. I feel like going to rifling faster might be better if you aren't going to make use of the 2 movement the cuirs offer, and you can draft rifles, but you do you if it works out. Most cuir rushes take place with plenty of walls up because cuirs are technically gunpowder units and they ignore wall/castle defense in combat. The only thing left is a cultural defense.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Spoiler Update 3: Taming the East; Chaos in the West :

Here's a look at one of my cities. I'm building cannons while most AI are building cats or trebs. I also have a lot of great happiness resources, too. Apparently, some folks find things a bit too crowded. Thankfully, we have a few buttons to help with that.

Well, that's certainly A city you've got there, Qin...

Also, while smashing northeast, a new hero joins the fray: El Cid, famously known for helping to kick the Muslim Chinese out of Christian India.

...speaking of Christians, everyone's favorite zealot is finally met! She's a nothingburger of a civ, clearly stuck in her peninsula an unable to expand despite founding Buddhism. In a Hindu world, her faith just ain't flyin'.

A shot of some of my core land. There are some tiles that could be better optimized with workers, but I only care about that DRAFT button, baby! El Cid will be well put to use as another Medic III explorer to suss out the finest medicinal teas in China, which I have recently vassaled after kicking Qin into the frozen hinterlands (which I will also colonize later for more landmass under my culture).

While I'm crushing Qin like he's a leaky paper cup, it seems as though a Sunset Invasion has started from the New World! England is losing their core lands to Monty! He also controls Huayna Capac, meaning that aside from a few jungle cities in Brazil, Monty has total dominion of the Americas.

After railroad is discovered, I put my pairs of workers to use slapping down fresh tracks from newly-liberated Chinese lands back to Delhi. In a classic style, they leapfrog ahead of one another to help speed the deployment of Indian rifles into China and up towards Mongolia, who I've just declared war on in order to keep the steamroller rollin'.

The recently freed Mansa Musa contacts me and asks, "Would you still vassal me even if I was a worm? " Of course I say yes, and unlike his other flings, he'll be sticking around for the rest of the game under India's gentle, yet elephant-strong touch. Of course, I immediately extort him for African resources.

I take most of Genghis' cities quite easily, but he has about 30 units in New Sarai, which puts a but of a damper onto things. Still, I set a rally point and decide to grind him into dust. My drafted riflemen are Combat IV now lol

Mewlius Sneezler apparently thinks that Mansa getting all that curry from vassaling to me is a great deal and decides to duplicate the act. It looks like it was him and Louis that knifed Germany early on in the game. Louis is still stronger than Monty, but who knows how many units that feathered madman has rolling around in the English countryside.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Spoiler Update 3 continues: A Growing Menace? :

Even Hatty joins the club. I'm sure it's because she's hated by literally everyone on Earth just about. I'm a bit reluctant to take her under my wing, as I know I'll need a lot of land to get to Domination, but I reluctantly accept so that she doesn't wind up under the thumb of an ever-growing Montezuma.

......who just destroyed the English! Not only does he increase his killcount this match to 2, but he even manages to launch a successful naval invasion in order to do it! Very impressive, Monty.

It's about time for me to go on a rampage westward. I've been drafting rifles non-stop in my lands and alternating building cannons with other industrial buildings. Cyrus, who is the master of Saladin (who has out-teched him!) is next on the list.

I surround Cyrus from my own cultural lands and Russia, and declare war. He's worthless, and despite having Sally as a vassal, doesn't have any of his superior military techs until he's about to die. I take ALL of his land in the Middle East along with everything else he's willing to surrender so that I can keep creeping closer to that sweet, sweet 51% land control!

After surrendering to me, Genghis was left with only one city that was culture-pressed by Egypt. He took it because he had a roaming stack of knights awhile back around Africa and sniped Thebes from them. However, the now-free Saladin and his Arabian Infantry decide that they're tired of arrows being shot in their general direction and mow the Mongol remnants down. Hey, I was getting happiness from that runt of a civ! You're totally losing all of your cities next, Saladin...

In order to achieve rapid victories over the Europeans, my workers railroad their way from my newly-liberated-but-really-just-conquered lands to tiles that I plan on staging armies in. I have multiple battle stacks now, and I use multiple generals to make Medic III Explorers so that they all can keep healing and moving ASAP. Getting Infantry of my own means that drafting is now much more costly, but it's still worth it for the time being, especially in China and Mongolia! I upgrade loads of riflemen and plan to go for Tanks next to further speed the march of India's finest!

Outside the famous Hindu holy city of...uh, Mecca, we are tasked by the Pope of Hinduism to undertake a crusade! He must have just woken up, since we've been at war with Arabia since they were vassals of Persia, but I'll let it slide this time. Those nights hitting the देसी दारू must be starting to add up.

Regardless, we already have armies marching their way through the smoldering deserts towards Saladin's core cities, and it is certain that WE will be the saviors of the Hindu faithful.

Channeling my inner Ragnar, I decide to just blast my way through his Protective Infantry. My attack confidence threshold pays off for a change, and I get to feel what it's like to be a Barbarian unit capturing a capitol city after I win multiple ridiculous odds (the two screenshots show different combats).

The drums boom, the horns sound, and the curry hits extra spicy today as the sweating Indian infantrymen make their assault on the Blessed City. Kartikeya smiles upon us this day as we capture it with relative ease, and blesses us with additional soldiers who have been inspired by words of our grand successes!

A final image for the day: St. Augustine of some minor religion that Hatty's founded made a list and placed India third. India super power 2025? Only time will tell in the next exciting update!

 

[Harv]

Right now, it's Monarch Earth 18 civs BTS India. Feel free to join in!

I will! I played the first 50 turns. This is much more than is normal for a post in this forum for getting good advice, because a lot of turns have gone by and a lot of bad decisions have already have been made and it is too late to undo the effects and save the game. While typing this, I'm playing the Fall of Civilization podcast, Vijayanagara. From listening to this podcast, I might have finally learned to pronounce the name of that city.

Since this is your thread, I will put my report inside a spoiler, along with a couple of pictures.

Harv Part 1 - Turn 50 - 2000 BC

Spoiler :

Start:
Our Warrior started at 1E1N(1,1) just like yours. We decided to settle in place, start a Worker, and research Agriculture.
Our starting technology really does not help us at all, because we need Agriculture and Hunting and even the Wheel will help. Mining just shortens our path to Bronze Working and maybe Iron Working.
Our Unique Building is not available for a long time and I will have to look into how useful it is.
Our Unique Unit is always useful in all eras, in war and in peace. It might be one of the best Unique Units!

Leaders contacted:
T5 3800BC Chris of the Persians
T34 2640BC Quinn of the Chinese
T44 2240BC Sal of the Arabs - and no religion
There shall be peace in our time!

Villages explored:
T8 3680BC (-6,5) We got a map. It's better than a kick to the Barbs!
We now have a map of a bunch of Silk Road terrain.

Combat:
T10 3600BC - Warrior 1 beat a Lion
We were across a river on a forested hill and were winners 99.4% of the time.
T36 2560BC - Warrior 1 beat another Lion
We were on a jungle hill and were winners 99% of the time.
We took Woodsman 1 as a promotion for the combat bonus and the possibility of a movement bonus which might help us later and we have a bunch of jungle in the area.

Growth, Production and Development of Delhi:
T0 4000BC Bombay founded (0,0)
T15 3400BC Fast Worker 1
T19 3240BC Rice Farm
T21 3160BC Size 2
T24 3040BC Wheat Farm
T25 3000BC Size 3
T27 2920BC Warrior 2
T29 2840BC Size 4
T30 2800BC Green Cow
T32 2720BC Size 5
T32 2720BC Warrior 3
T34 2640BC Brown Cow aka Plains Cow
T36 2560BC Elephant Camp
T38 2480BC Settler 2
T38 2480BC Ivory Road
T41 2360BC Worker 2
T45 2200BC Worker 3
T46 2160BC Warrior 4
T47 2120BC Warrior 5
T48 2080BC Size 6
T48 2080BC Warrior 6
T48 2080BC Wheat Road
T49 2040BC Sugar Farm. Plains Road to nowhere.
At the time we did not think though our settlement plan and lost 2 worker turns on a road going nowhere. We also lost a worker turn on the desert wheat we might not use in the near future.

Growth, Production and Development of Bombay:
T41 2360BC Bombay founded (3,-5)
T42 2320BC Jungle Road
T43 2480BC Green Cow
T44 2440BC Spice Road
T46 2160BC Connected Road to Delhi
T47 2120BC Size 2
T47 2120BC Elephant Camp

Technology:
T0 4000BC Mysticism - Starting Tech 1
T0 4000BC Mining - Starting Tech 2
T10 3600BC Agriculture
T16 3360BC Hunting
T27 2920BC Animal Husbandry
T36 2560BC The Wheel
T41 2360BC Fishing
So we played the newbie mistakes of researching hunting before animal husbandry to collect a discount, then repeated it for fishing before pottery. Then we started on Bronze Working instead of Pottery because I believed it was more likely we might need a chop or a whip before we might need a cottage or a granary. This difference might amount to 8 turns or so. In the mean time, we have to make a decision on what other technologies to place ahead of Iron Working.

World Events:
T10 3600BC Buddhism founded
T12 3520BC Hinduism founded
T48 2080BC Stonehenge built
T50 2000BC Judaism founded

Here are our cities:

Spoiler :

Delhi - So far I am impressed with the SIP location. We are Size 6 working 6 special tiles and running 11f surplus and 10h.
Size 7 requires an increase in happy cap and healthy cap and will then give us one more food and one more coin.
With our settlement plan, we are very likely to lose some of these tiles to sharing.
When we get a whip going, our happy cap changes to 5 and we probably lose 2 food and a coin.

Our side of the continent did not get a religion. Sal lost the race. So I am guessing Monty, Izzy, and Mansa.

Bombay - is located on the wrong side of the subcontinent.
We are size 2 working 2 special tiles and will soon be size 3 working 3 special tiles. Size 4 on the sugar will not count and I did not check if we could farm it.

Settlement plan:
Plains Hill (0,-3) - This loses a coastal location, but saves us the iron tile.
Forest River (-3,1) - This is a junk location, but we gain a floodplain and can share a couple tiles with Delhi.
Desert Hill (-1,6) - I think we capture a sugar tile.
Jungle (0,-9) - This captures the green cow at the tip of the continent.
So this settlement plan will take us to 6 cities and maybe that will be enough to start figuring out the jungle.

Posted early. Editing in some final details. Edit: Added.
Did I make a bad choice in how to insert screenshots? I am experiencing a lot of lag!

 

[Shikhar Agrawal]

Walls and castles don't matter because cuirs ignore them in combat. I feel like going to rifling faster might be better if you aren't going to make use of the 2 movement the cuirs offer, and you can draft rifles, but you do you if it works out. Most cuir rushes take place with plenty of walls up because cuirs are technically gunpowder units and they ignore wall/castle defense in combat. The only thing left is a cultural defense.

Going for rifling would have been better but, that would have delayed the war for another for another 10 or so turns. I simply used cuirs because they were the best unit I had

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

This is probably my last update. I attach the saved file for 820AD.

I have decided what to do. I am just not interested in going through the motions.

Spoiler :

My goal is religious victory. The AP religion is Christianity. I will spread Christianity to all my cities using the Organised Religion civic.

One of the conditions is that all remaining players must have at least one city with Christianity. Spread it to their smallest city. If they won't talk, build a new city, spread Christianity, and gift it to them. Gifted cities are accepted if the Euclidean distance is 10 tiles or less. I got optics already, getting engineering to cover the vast distances.

The three Christian players will be India, China, and Japan.

The AP victory needs 75% of the votes and that you yourself must have less than 75% of the votes, so someone friendly has to vote for you. I will suck up to China in every way, +5 from shared religion and +6 from shared civic (bureaucracy) should be enough. Do not actively spread Christianity to China too much.

We also need an opponent that runs Christianity as state religion, to run against us. I chose Japan because they don't have many friends. The trick is to make sure that Japan has a higher Christian population than China. So I will build cities in the pacific islands, spread Christianity there, and gift those cities to Japan.

I wanted to do this because it is faster than domination or conquest. See if you can pull it off.

If China's Christian population suddenly grows and your own population falls, then use your military units to conquer more cities. I am looking for Russia. Take their cities and farm every tile. Only if necessary.

 

[Harv]

This is probably my last update. I attach the saved file for 820AD.

I posted before reading about your game. It gets first prize in my opinion and I never knew warrior rush was possible or practical with India in the Earth18 scenario. Because of a couple of the quirks of Earth18, it might be possible the only civilizations it is not possible to warrior rush would be England, Japan, and Inca. So you had 10 cities by Turn 60 and at 820AD it might take 15 minutes to run a turn.

As for my game, the suspense is killing me. I took a peek turn last night to verify Saladin did not get a religion. It would be hilarious if he founded Judaism. Here is what I think:

Spoiler :

Buddhism - Izzy
In game, she is a religious nut and beelines one or the other.
Hinduism - Monty
Monty often wins a race.
Judaism - Mansa
This is more complicated to acquire and more random.

I am at a loss to think of who can beat Sally fair and square in a religion race.

 

[Harv]

Second update - T70 - 1200BC

I actually did a few plays up to this point, to change a couple of decisions, because our cities were moving faster than our workers and we should dig our wells before we are thirsty.

Spoiler :

T51 Work Boat 1 in Bombay made a fishery.
T52 Bronze Working
T53 Settler 3 in Delhi. Parrots at (-1,-3).
Somebody built the Great Wall. So Stonehenge and the Great Wall are both gone.
T54 Founded Vijayanagara at (-3,1).
T57 Pottery. Settler 4 in Delhi. Monument in Bombay.
T58 Founded Pataliputra at (0,-3).
T59 Granary in Delhi and Bombay.
T61 Warrior 7 in Bombay.
T62 Barracks in Delhi. At this point there was a major event:

Vedic Aryans. Somewhere in the known world, there is a massive barbarian uprising. This is actually quite a few turns in the game, so the AI should be able to handle it just fine. This event kind of ruins games if they show up at T21 and is often a reason random events are turned off.

T64 Writing. We signed open borders with Chris, Quinn, and Sally.
T67 Settler 5 in Delhi. Worker 4? in Bombay. The ratios say we do not have enough workers.
T68 We whipped Delhi and Bombay and switched back to Tribalism for a few turns.
T69 Library in Delhi. Worker 6 in Bombay. Founded Varanasi at (-1,-6).
T70 Sailing. Monument in Delhi.

We stopped here because we have a decision to make. We can probably make it to Iron Working in about 10 more turns, or about T80. If we run a gambit and get Masonry first, then this will delay us to about T85.

The gambit would be to make a run at the Great Lighthouse. We're Organized and we might get help from that - and bonus failgold if we don't make it. Our city only produced 5h and is probably competing against Louis. We have no chops available, just an occasional whip.

We also have to figure out what Chris is up to.

Here is what our empire looks like.

Spoiler :

It can also be seen the barbarians have founded a city and trapped one of our warrior explorers in Malaysia.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Because of a couple of the quirks of Earth18, it might be possible the only civilizations it is not possible to warrior rush would be England, Japan, and Inca.

I think it's only India. Everyone else can't or have better options.. The key condition is 5 production in the starting capital.

 

[Harv]

I think it's only India. Everyone else can't or have better options.. The key condition is 5 production in the starting capital.

Some time I will look around for your key condition. I thought Spain had it. But when I saw what you did, then I might have learned something - more likely now that you explained it.

Also - I thought of a name for the game you played on this title:

Earth18: Afghanistan takes over the World!

Added: I thought about this even more. There is almost a history / linguistics lesson.
A lot of invasions came out of the mountains. Isn't this where the Medes took out the Assyrian Empire? It looks like you recreated that at the start, then avoided the Greeks.

If your invasion plan took out Persia, Russia, Greece, Rome, Germany, France, Spain and England, then we captured all the Indo-European languages on the Earth18 map, except for the USA.