Play the Map and Civilization (PTMaC) Part 2. Mastering Prince

[Stoner68]

Is there a range limit to an early conquest? Is there a distance to rival cities where you just say, I should build out what I can settle until I get to Medieval even if your UU is early?

 

[Htadus]

Is there a range limit to an early conquest? Is there a distance to rival cities where you just say, I should build out what I can settle until I get to Medieval even if your UU is early?

Early conquest is very dependent upon the ability to reach all AI. So on a pangea or other single land mass maps and up to about Monarch and sometime on higher for real mongers, BC victories are achievable.

However, if you are refering to just a conquest of a single Civ nearby, then it depends on the type of units you are using. If you look at the way obsolete played this game, he successfully conquered the continent early and suvived into mid AD's domi. The distance is not a real issue as long as you have learned the recovery techs.

For me, I will settle a city 12-15 tiles away to get a needed resource or if I find a great city site. So if the site just happen to already have an AI Capital , I would definately go after it. obsolete showed how well the HA can do the job. I prefer to make the move a little early with chariots or axes. Chariots are preffered because they can attack from dioganol tiles on the same turn you declare war.

As for early UU, I do try to use them when they are good. I've played aztec several times and have tries jag rushed and found them to be less than good at the job. So I chose not to try that again in this game.

 

[Htadus]

PtMaC 2-Prince
Phase 5- Set 1: Heading for Conquest

First off this set is a replay because I accidently got a domination win in the middle of the last war with the remaining Civ. And I played so late at night and did not take that many images describing some things I wanted to share such as using a GA and building wealth to speed up crucial techs, galleon chains and generating and using multiple GPeople to launch GA’s. So here goes.

At the end of last set the continent was all Aztec and the empire was well into the end game. The main continent had enough tiles to win by domination but the Aztecs are heading to a complete conquest, the Vanilla Civ4 style. This was meant to be a two front attack with Cannons and Maces with knights playing a assistant role. However, while waiting for the forces to gather at two embarkation points, we were well within reaching Rifles. Here is how everything worked out….

Initially, the plan was to get to Economics and use the economic GM to launch a GA with one of the GS’s that has been around for a while.

Spoiler :

First we learned

Working on cannons and galleons for war and wealth for higher science slider.

Spoiler :

Realizing we are very close to Rifles, I decide to use the Economics GM for a trade route and decide to generate another GPerson to use with one of the GS’s

Spoiler :

Meanwhile we finish the AP and win the residency later

Planning for the last war, an Aztec explorer scouting Roman Empire

Spoiler :

We learn Economics and get the GM and send him off on a trade mission.

Spoiler :

Nearly Starving Carthage to get a non GS GP

Heroic Epic City

Spoiler :

Continue building 2 turn Cannons

Carthage working on a bank with the hope of building the Wall Street.

Spoiler :

Multiple GP GA's

Spoiler :

Ok here is a situation that usually give new players a head ache. We want to use a 2 GP’s to launch a GA, and we want to make sure that the GM is not one of the two. As you can see we have 4 GP’s right now.


The trick is to select the two desired GP’s and click the GA button. In this case I have both GP’s on the same tile and selected to launch the GA.

Galley/Galleon/Transport chaining.

Spoiler :

Both delivering and receiving ships on the same tile. The GM is on the Galleon.


Select the unit to transfer, GM in this case and tell it to load. If there are choices, then choose the carrier with movement points available to continue motion. If mistake is made, no problem, reload the unit to the correct vassal.


The carraval is ready to move out with the GM

With the GA things are ready to move on technologically.

Spoiler :

2 turns for rifles.



Trade Mission

Invasion forces

Spoiler :

West



East

 

[Pangaea]

I didn't get the point with the GM ship swapping deal

Looks like you have a very good tech rate, and I don't envy the shock the Romans and Viking will get when probably a mass of units land in their territory.

 

[Htadus]

I didn't get the point with the GM ship swapping deal

Well it was just an intro into the idea of Galley chaining. In this case I wanted to speed up the trade mission by 1 turn. So I had the caraval comming from Viking side meet the Galleon coming from mainland and made the swap.

The purpose of Galley chaining is to get units from 1 continent to another in a single turn regardless of the number of tiles the continents are separated by. I will be using galleon chaining to supply 3 units to each of the fronts every 2 turns. I will illustrate it clearly in the final set. I can switch to US for a few turns to buy a few Galleons.

If I were to keep an AI city in each end, the units will be ready to defend the landing site on the same turn they embark from the mainland. I think i will risk an accidental domi again and keep one Roman and one Viking city to show the effectiveness.

BTW, those are CR3 rifles in those galleons.

 

[Htadus]

PtMaC 2-Prince
Phase 5- 2nd and last Set: Heading for Conquest?

The forces were on the way to Roman Empire to bully the Caesar. 2 groups were sailing to attack from both sides of Roman Empire.

But First

Spoiler :

This is insane. Look how many happy trades we are getting from JC.



Most of the cities are not ready to lose all these but oh well….here goes….



Eastern force get to Roman Empire early and landed at 2 cities.



They razes the cities since we want a conquest. Another group will land to the north and attack the 3rd coastal city on Roman West Coast next turn.

What I like to do with a GG.

Spoiler :

Yup that is a warrior who will become a CR3 Rifle

Techs, Capital and more Techs.

Spoiler :

This GS can nearly fully bulb Scientific Method



First comes Corps



And then SM

Galleon Chain

Spoiler :

From Aztec mainland to



Roman in 1 turn (T213)



This GG and team is ready to attack next turn.

Great Generals are not the only way to get super healer in the game.

Spoiler :

There is a Jaguar on this tile that can heal a unit as well as a super healer. The difference is that he will only heal units on the same tile. He has Woodie 3 and Medic 1. This damaged rifle will heal in 2 turns in enemy lands.

Second Aztec front.

Spoiler :

Actually this is the 3rd front for Aztecs since the Original Western Group has been engaged with Romans for several turns now.



And after razing 2 cities capture MoM city.

During this period, the Aztecs learned Physics (1 GS bulb), Bio and Communism.

Spoiler :

Then decided to see if State Property is a good choice to make. It really is not regardless of the gold saved from Distance Maintenance since we are going to lose our free specialists. But I want to get a bit more food and hammers.



Here is the science outcome.



Note that the research did in fact increased due to higher science slider.

Another city captured and kept for World Wonders.

Spoiler :

In this case for the Temple of Solomon. The irony is that I am razing cities that would generate gold in order to avoid hitting Domination limit.

Well I messed it up again. Aztecs triggered Domination again. This time much later that the original game. Oh well.

Spoiler :

Last tech



Top 5 Cities. Look I reached one of my goals as a builder. We own all the World Wonders.



Stats. I am not nice to my cats. Killed many of them.



Demo screen



The last GG went to capital warrior and promoted him to a 2 movement rifle as thanks for providing protection for the capital. I am nice to my old friends.



Capital



HE City can build 1 turn Rifles with SP and without a GA.



Science progress. I avoided my favorite tech in this game: Assembly Line.

Well that is the end of PtMaC 2. Mastering Prince walkthrough. I hope someone got something useful from this. Sorry I could not show the benefits of Wall Street since it is not complete at the end of game due to poor game play.

I will do a post mortem on the Aztec Game and identify how well/poorly I used the process of Playing the Map and Civilization when I have sometime soon. I intend to do PtMac 3: The Monarchs. Obviously it is going to be played at Monarch level and I hope I get Gandhi or Elizabeth for a culture game. I suppose I could choose the playable Civilization and leave all others to be random.

 

[Htadus]

Play the Map and Civilization (PTMaC) Part 2. Mastering Prince

Post Game Summary
As stated before, this game was focused on helping players from Settler through Prince Difficulty levels. Play the Map emphasize the use of available resources to guide the development of the game.

For simplicity the game was broken into several Phases. Following is a summary of how the map knowledge and the civilization was used…or not used well.

Phase 1: Capital and initial techs, builds and exploration.

Spoiler :

Settling the capital: Food is the most important aspect. This map gave an option to move and settle on a plains hill wine tile without losing the primary food source, the wheat tile and known flood plains. What is there not to like about fast growth due to early worker and faster techs from the extra commerce from the city center? Luckily there were no seafood to west.

Exploration: The initial scout explored the surrounding land and discovered there is an AI nearby and realized we need a blocking city to north as soon as possible.

Started a worker by default. There were no other logical choice. Then allowed the Capital to grow while building warriors for fog busting and city garrison. Once the capital was size 3 started the first new settler.

Techs: Even though learning BW is good for learning where copper is located, allows chopping and can switch to slavery, the choice here was to learn Pottery via agriculture to start on the cottages soon. This site was begging to be a Bureaucratic capital. Then after that headed to BW.

The playable Civilization, Aztecs started with hunting and finding the Ivory in BFC enabled an additional pop in the cities. Extra happy population is always welcome. The power of spiritual nature of Aztecs will be put to good use with frequent civic changes and its unique building was never really put to use in this game since there was no need to use the whip too to stay ahead of AI. I have failed with jags before and did not use them well except for creating 2 super healers with Woody3 and Medic 1. Neither survived the end game, the last super healer Jag died with 85% chance to capture the Roman Capital.

Phase 2: Peaceful Expansion

Spoiler :

First we setup the blocking city to north and very close to HRE. There was a risk of “close border tension” issue but the site had potential to become a production monster. Which it did reach, as the HE city building 1 rifle unit per turn at the end of the game. This city had Sheep, Deer and shared the capital’s wheat when needed to grow fast. Since Aztec are not creative, the first build in the new city was a monument while working 2 hammer tile.

After the settler, the capital was allowed to grow to happy max while building a granary and more units. Then built the second worker and settler for 3rd city. There was no need to build the second worker immediately after the settler since the capital already had 4 improvement to work and the road to the second city was nearly completed and we did not have BW yet to chop.

The expansion phase ended around 1 AD with

• 8 city empire with size 8 capital. The number of cities should have been about 10 but I did not chop aggressively since I was saving the forest to build Maces.
• CS sling, Currency, Alphabet, Calendar, Monarchy and Metal Casting via trade or/and primarily self learning. 4 turns to start building maces.
• Secured gems, horses, copper and Stone. The stone and copper city was a quite a bit far from the Aztec capital.

Since the tech rate was at 70% and other open land was available for expansion, there was the option to continue expansion. But past experience begs for a force full expansion via war around this time. So ended the second phase and started building a military. Here I used a trick. Since I knew I would build Maces soon, I stopped several Axes in different cities from being completed by switching to other units. So once the Machinery was learned, those hammers spent on Axes transferred to maces. Capital also had an academy.

Phase 3: Wars.

Spoiler :

This game was full of wars and Monti would have it no other way. Hanny was the first target since he had some choice lands. The units were primarily cats and maces with a few spears and jags for support. Hanny was fully conquered and other wars were started. This phased continued until all 3 remaining local AI were down to 1 city and then extorted known techs and gold. These civs were eliminated after the mandatory peace turns and during the recovery phase of the game. City capture gold paid to maintain the science rate during this time as well as Representation powered specialists thanks to the Pyramids.

Phase 4: Economic recovery.

Spoiler :

Well this phase was about infrastructure in this game. Building Granaries, Sacrificial alters, Markets, Forges and libraries mainly. Since I was generating Great People with the use of Caste System, not a single building were whipped. I could have done a 5 turn switch to slavery and whipped many of those buildings but I was too lazy. Once the cities had the needed buildings they started building wealth. Some cities only built a SacAlt and a forge after the granary until the health or happy limit was reached. Most cities got farms and mines. Later some of the farms became workshops but not much. Techs took us toward Astro and Steel. Used Golden Ages to aid the recovery process and timed the one turn wars between GA’s to eliminate the remaining local AI

.

Phase 5: End game.

Spoiler :

What is there to say? It was one war after another. This time the bulk of war was done by rifles of which most were upgraded CR3 maces and cannons. Used galleon chains to continue troop supply to the front. However I did stop building new units by the time Aztecs triggered a domination due to keeping too many cities in Roman lands.

Well I hope I wrote better this time around and will be back with a Monarch level game soon.