PYL V: Builder Blast (IND leaders!)

[Krick19]

Yeah, for some reason I can't get to the "extract files". If it's not too much work could I get Qin-Monarch(not lite)/Epic

 

[Ibian]

Okay, repackaged in a normal zip format. Still thats an impressive compression you got there.

 

[Groogaroo]

I uploaded the Monarch (Not Lite) save, Attached!

EDIT - Opps! didn't attach, never mind ibian beat me to it anyway.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, I'm screwing around with the American start, which is pretty rough, but officially:

Bismark, Emp/Epic to 460 AD:

Spoiler :

Settled in place. Teched AG, then BW. Wound up doing normal techs and actually got stonehenge. Copper between myself and france so I settled it + cow+corn site to go for an axe rush.

I axe rushed de gaulle took 2 cities and razed a third, took peace.

Then I built roads over to Inca, who founded buddhism. I took a city with a gold resource from HC, then went for his capitol and grabbed that. I got a prophet off stonhenge so I made a shrine - buddhism is the religion of all but 1 AI on the continent.

After taking HC capitol I sued for peace - shrine culture should be enough to push borders. France declared on me when i declared on inca so I just took another city of his and took peace for some minor techs again.

After going the BW, AH/potter, writing route, I went for HBR to make horse archers...poor man's siege. I then declared on stalin with my forces in tow:

Took his only city with iron, and de gaulle declared on me AGAIN. I don't know why he insists on doing this, because it's not effective. I took moscow and sued for peace (monarchy!), and then took a pop 6 french city and sued for peace to take sailing. My current state:

Overexpansion is a myth.

View attachment 189256

 

[semirami]

MIT's Note: For some reason it's still giving you the option to choose any leader regardless of save. DISREGARD THIS AND PICK THE LEADER WHO YOU EXTRACTED, and it will work fine as far as I can tell through testing. I'll sort out the details with Bleys or Rolo later so that it auto-skips that step...but for now these all work with proper bonuses if you match the leader you select to the save

By default all leaders are playable. Set to 0, if you want a leader to be locked.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've discussed it with Bleys and Rolo and gotten similar responses. To be honest, I was almost 100% sure I'd already done this, but I could be mistaken and just thought I did and didn't. Reproducing it I've managed to get it going correctly...but I didn't see much need in hiding leaders in PYL, since we know who everyone is after all .

 

[Quotey]

It'd be nice if you gave some images of the start in spoilers like in the first PYL.

BTW, calling the next one as I have a good idea. DIBS!

So what happens if you select another civ at the select screen?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Bismark Emp/Epic:

to 1480 AD

Spoiler :

So like...when you've got HAs and axes and spears, and 13 cities? What do you do? You do what DaveMCW says, and make some cottages (I started using cottages very early - even with a shrine 11 cities pre-CoL is pushing one's luck a tad), and then....

MOAR WAR!!!!!!!!!!!

After all, Stalin's city there was cutting me off from his former capitol. Copper pillaged instantly on DoW, although he settled more iron also. This didn't matter, because everyone had longbows. Axes vs longbows anyone? Just kidding! The HA mass production did most of the legwork, although the axes, particularly the CR II and CR III ones I had left over, were very handy on occasion too, depending on the defender. I took St. Pete and the city below me, and monotheism for peace. MMMMMM, lots of techs from war!

Hey...I'm doing pretty good! Wait no...I'm NOT Themeinteam...I left the leader name in by accident. I am Bismark - doing not so good techwise. Crap. Oh well. I have land and land and more land.

Once courthouses/FP/etc were produced the beakers weren't bad. I wasn't going to catch up so easily but I'd seen that the AIs hadn't prioritized Philosophy so much so I teched that, traded it for about 7-8 techs, then beelined engineering/guilds, which would last me until cannons or rifles or whatever. Not a long time teching, you might guess:

I DoW'd shortly after.

He's teching replaceable parts and has 5 techs on me! Oh noes! Surely he'll be a hard target then?!

NOT.

I figured out why "themeinteam" (the fake) had too much on his hands:

Apparently not me after all. Or maybe he got cold feet because I have DOUBLE HIS POWER.

Bye Egypt. I'll take the AP and the wonders.

So now I have cuirassers, as you can see. I've been clicking on that "draft" button a lot because I have so many cities and resources that I can make like 20 muskets in 100 years and not even be bothered with the slider or anger or anything negative. Guns not butter.

Note that due to my slapping France and Russia around early on, they've voluntarily vassaled to Inca and Rome respectively. Comically, I think it's time to betray my pleased "friend" augustus and his vassal, because he thinks he can fight abroad. why not HC? For some reason, HC is still friendly to me. Well no, I know the reason. It's because I'm in his religion, favorite civic, I'm gifting him some garbage resource, and the trade relations are fair. Speaking of trades:

What my games lately have proved is that it's possible to war aggressively and take everyone's goodies the entire game and get away with it if your initial rush and early empire management skills prevent a tanking.

You might argue that I'd be in a better position if I'd teched to rifles, cavalry, or cannons and THEN went on a warpath. Nah. I'll take the cities. As I have the production basis to easily outclass the emperor bonuses, I can just spam units more. As if I need them, I have 2x everyone's power as I said. Note that careful wars at parity don't have much in terms of losses like this. My combat VI knight (now a cuirasser) can mow things down. I lose about a treb and maybe a unit or so a city.

Knights and cuirassers are amazing units for where in the tech tree you can get them. AI doesn't use knights very well. Taking shock knights into even minimally collateral damaged city troops is pretty favorable. Longbows don't hold up well, and even pikes look bad if they're damaged. Score!

It's possible to win domination by holding enough of the main continent on this map and I intend to do so.

@ quotey:

It won't be that big a deal. YOU will start with an archer and the archery tech, and some poor hapless crap AI will start with warriors and get bent over by the first aggressive neighbor that finds them. Basically, you just get an extra tech at the expense of an AI. Go for it if you like I guess.

 

[Bleys]

So what happens if you select another civ at the select screen?

You will start with Archery yourself, and the leader the save is set up for wont, so you could just run him over.

 

[hal08]

Roosevelt's start is pretty rough. Spoiler until the surrounding area is discovered:

Spoiler :

Any idea how to deal with this? No production tiles; no . I was thinking cottage spam a good deal, especially the capital, which unfortunately is also only the only option for a real GP farm. Maybe mass farm several cities to for expansion, infrastructure, and HR police. I would feel alot better with this start as Monty for sacrificial alters.

Then work towards Optics for trading, and then Guilds so you can eventually have some production via farms and workshops. Then go for Astronomy, Nationalism, and Rifling -- aided by trading -- while whipping trebs, then draft rifles and try to take over a neighbor. Not sure if this is plausible at your normal playing level, so may have to go down a level.

Eventually get to Communism for SP and start spamming workshops (later watermills?) to finally get some production. Even if you weren't able to take over a neighbor with rifles/trebs, you may be able to now with 2 4 workshops.

Probably try to grab as much land as possible while the getting is good, as your economy should be fine with SP.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Bismark Emp/Epic

To an 1812 AD finish.

Spoiler :

Like I said, the real TMIT was looking to the fake. Stupid fake, the real thing doesn't fizzle so easily in naval war.

Ah, but events in this game would cause me to delay my war with my impostor:

Good timing, Stalin. Break free RIGHT as I'm about to swamp the crap out of the entire eastern portion of the continent. I declare on Stalin with my cuirassers and while it's parity in tech the #'s are so ridiculously in my favor at this point that he really has no chance alone.

HC gets into the mood too:

Well...the AI doesn't know how to whip so this was just a question of when rather than if.

The 2nd civ eradicated is Stalin.

OK, NOW I can take on AugustusInTeam:

Er...crap! Look how close he is to rifling! Better hurry and capture cities before I fight cavalry! Or that's what I wanted to say, I only took 1 city then he insta upgraded everything to rifle/cavs. It's amazing what large volumes of trebs and well promoted stuff can do though. I took a 2nd city, and decided to leverage my bloated power rating a bit (and keep the stylishly named leader in the game ):

Now, apparently De Gaulle needs history lessons. He though "hey! I'm going to copy Stalin and make it EASIER TO DIE!".

Before he could vassal to anyone else, I declared instantly even though I wasn't 100% ready. It's not like it's hard at this point though.

Yup...think I have a chance here.

He grabbed that 1 tile island so I just let him capitulate:

Another look at power a bit later:

So over, especially because of HC's teching decisions:

He ALSO got rifles mid war, but artillery kind of beat them.

So...I leveraged my trait. I built stonehenge! And west point which isn't usually worth the hammers! Go IND!

 

[Krick19]

Qin-Cultural-1955AD

Spoiler :

Yeah took a long time since I only had 2 religions spread to my tiny rock of an island. 6 cities+2 religions=4 cathedrals . Thanks to protective I was able to defend against enormous Bizzy.

Thanks TMIT! First Monarch win ever!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Congrats, Krick .

 

[Groogaroo]

Qin-Cultural-1955AD

Thanks TMIT! First Monarch win ever!

Well played Krick I'll see if I can join you soon on that first win! I've been a bit busy this weekend so I still havn't started.

 

[Krick19]

Well played Krick I'll see if I can join you soon on that first win! I've been a bit busy this weekend so I still havn't started.

Thanks, I think it should be pretty easy for you.

 

[pigswill]

Asterix De Gaulle. Monarch. Epic 50bc.

Spoiler :

Wonders. Pah, 'oo needs zem.
Ze axe rush against Ze Germans wiz some catapultes.
Zat is what you need.
No more Germans.

 

[brades]

Well Im gearing up for war with DeGaulle, Ramsess II start is great with the floodplain river for commerce, but man I have like 2 hills for my entire nation. Looks like this army will be built with the whip;

 

[pigswill]

Asterix and Obelix. (De Gaulle. Monarch. Epic 325ad.)

Spoiler :

Zat Ramses 'e waz a fool.
He thought zat ze Great Wall and ze longbows would be enough to save 'im.
Ze axes and ze catapultes zey teach him sharp lesson.
Pfft. No more Egypt.

 

[KingMorgan]

Bismark - Monarch/Normal to 300AD

Spoiler :

This week i have been mostly perfecting the rush du Ax. Settled 2nd city to the NW, hooked the copper and took a stroll down the champs elyesee. The frogs were kind enough to build me 4 resonable cities, then like a cowboy builder they vanished never to be seen again. Despite the strong smell of garlic and the onion plantations my SE is running well, planning to settle SW for the horse, then may follow TMIT's Horse Archer strat for some Incan gold and coloumbian goodness. Despite a slow start, Rammy should build me a few wonders, then i may visit Uncle Joe, show him some good ol faishoned german engineering of the pointy stick varity

 

[andersw]

Haha, this was insane.
My first go on monarch, I'm not sure I used it correct but I hope I did.
I got the repackaged zip from Ibian.
I should also admit that I do cheat some (I sometimes reload here and there but not to any extremes) because the game is more fun for me that way.

Spoiler :

Choice of Leader, Difficulty and Speed, Years covered in report.
Stalin, Monarch, Epic, I also turned off Tech Brokering (since I'm a looousy diplomat).

I've learned some from those who say wonders are better conquered than built now was the time to really put it to the test.
I.e. lets go for copper and build those axemen.

Well, even before Copper was settled, the road was well ... laid out, paved, strewn with flowers and ready for war.

so much for free archery trait, gimme gimme shock treatment

I thought Rome was too far away so I did a somewhat late rush on Bismark he falls about 1300.


I thought I'd give Rome a try after all I had several upgraded axes and I proceed building more going for Rome, well who need cats when you got free shock ....

since they were busy building wonders I had to fight a whopping one pretorian, look at the date!

I had some work regaining my echonomy but I still went for vassalage first.
When I got alphabet and currency it just rolled on.

Here I got Memphis from Gaulle and went on for Egypt, I also had a nice stack with cats for gaulle.


Egypt fell chop-chop and I could in a fairly smooth fashion roll in over Inca.


I got Tiwanaku before I vassaled Hyana.
My 10% research now didn't matter much.

I back filled 3 pretty lousy sites since I did'nt want any of my vassals to break free when suddenly oops...

I wasn't prepared for that, by far my earliest victory ever.

our land


Power to the people!


I didn't pick many screenies during the game so I had to backtrack my saves to find some older ones, I can put up more if you want.

save added
View attachment Stalin AD-1320.zip