RFC RAND UHV Discussions

[onedreamer]

I just won the Persian UHV (Monarch, Large Map, Medium Likeliness), so it's not impossible, but of course I did have luck with my Immortals in China. I built every single wonder in the world, except Stonehenge which I took from Egypt

 

[brucedecatz]

Ok, the Chinese UHV is doable if the player has a decent starting place with some food resources. I was lucky to have a 2 gold/2 floodplains city which hosts both religions, so that solved the research early on and finance later. I was sloppy once I hit music (in 470AD!); in retrospect I could be more focused.

Several things to note apart from the RFC guide:
1. Do not found cities too far north, especially to the northwest. Dealling with the mongols later is ok, but when the Russians spawn they may flip those cities, which is a pain when the player tries to build temples/cathedrals. Instead, expand to the South.

2. Persia is an opportunist. It will spawn close to China, instead of India. Make sure to get Bronze working and the Wheel before Calendar, and have 1-2 spearman or the ability to whip 1-2. An early DOW when China only has warriors is not fun. But their presence makes the game easier later on...

3. Trade for construction in order to build the Great Wall. It is almost a must for RFC RAND, since the barbarians are a lot less predictable. Even if that means sacrificing music. We need it.

4. Instead of building the 6th, 7th and 8th settler, take those cities from the Persians if possible. The Persians will not have a huge army. Watch the mercenary situation and hire those instead of letting the Persians have them. 5 Axes, 5 Catapults and 5 Spears are enough in my game, with reinforcement coming. Persian cites are less likely to be flipped by Russians or Mongols, so this is safer than building your own cities.

5. When Russian spawn (hope that they did not flip your cities, otherwise UHV is practically impossible), gift them sailing and open borders, convert them to your state religion, and they will be fine until the Mongols spawn. When the first UHV is fulfilled, build lots of elephants.

6. When the Khan comes, get Russia to DOW on them (you almost definitely have a tech on the Russians). This distracts the Keshiks away. Get all the elephants and kill the Mongols. Turkey may flip one of your Persian cities; give in. We do not want any more wars.

7. Never trade for engineering, so you can train spearman. If you are desperate, you may even blow up your iron/copper so you can train warriors... Tech paths should be Code of Law-Civil Service-Paper-Education-Gunpowder mostly for deterrence. after that scratch research. Build military everywhere.

8. Mercenaries count towards your army count.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I've never been able to trade for construction before the wonders are built, even from Greece (who's usually trading-friendly).

If you did research engineering, catapults are equally cheap, but you have avoid gunpowder, and catapults aren't melee.

 

[brucedecatz]

Incidentally, I found that the +50% melee production only applies to my capital for some reason. Do you also have the bug?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Don't remember about the melee bug, but it's been a while since I played China.

Rome is f@#$ing impossible. I started out in the middle of Russia, with lots of forests, and I got to being the largest empire, 5 barracks, 5 aqueducts but only 3 amphitheaters, and that's with a great start conquering Athens and Uruk/Babylon. The problem is that as currently stated, the Roman Empire's goals are conquer/chop/whip, and that takes too long since there's no compact Mediterranean Sea. It took me more than 20 moves just to capture Athens (first of all to find out where they are, and then to kill their units in 2 rounds since my Praetorians have to rest). And this is only with a large map. Maybe one can try again in a "normal" map.

 

[brucedecatz]

Try restart a few more times; I sometimes start near Egypt, and of course their war chariots are no much for the prats.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

If Paris and Madrid can only get to size 8 in 1450, what could a jungle-locked Angkor do without all those bananas and fish do? Size 5. And get captured by barbarians. And if there's no population to spare, it's impossible to get great artists in time.

It's not even funny.

 

[ledat]

I've got to agree about the Khmer. I've yet to have a start that would let me get the city to pop 10 in time, let alone pop 10 and spawn three artists. If the Khmer spawned with a couple bananas and perhaps spices/sugar, like the Euros spawn with cows and wheat, it would be a lot more manageable.

Speaking of the Khmer, I see them spawning in Africa in about half of my games. I had one game (thankfully I wasn't playing them that time) in which they were sandwiched between the Ethiopians in the east, and the Malinese in the west. Their cultural borders were literally touching. Not only were they harassed by barbarians that game, but Impis too. This is on high Earth likeness, btw.

 

[onedreamer]

Don't remember about the melee bug, but it's been a while since I played China.

Rome is f@#$ing impossible. I started out in the middle of Russia, with lots of forests, and I got to being the largest empire, 5 barracks, 5 aqueducts but only 3 amphitheaters, and that's with a great start conquering Athens and Uruk/Babylon. The problem is that as currently stated, the Roman Empire's goals are conquer/chop/whip, and that takes too long since there's no compact Mediterranean Sea. It took me more than 20 moves just to capture Athens (first of all to find out where they are, and then to kill their units in 2 rounds since my Praetorians have to rest). And this is only with a large map. Maybe one can try again in a "normal" map.

actually I don't think the map size makes that much difference in spacing of supposedly neighboring civs like Rome and Greece. The main difference is in the number of civs. If the number of civs was the same, then spacing would definitely be a factor.

About Khmer I have modified 2 xml files so that pastures can be built in jungles, no prereq (for pigs), but not remove jungles, and Rice can be obtained from a plantation as well (which yelds a +1 food).

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The Khmer never had to deal with barbs (except if you didn't build Hanoi) if they didn't overexpand towards the west. And they had plenty of sea even if cities like Pagan can't immediately have plantations. Now it's plain jungle and a clear path for impis/barbs to your capital. Occasionally I do get some sea but no fish at all.

I think adding bananas and/or dye/spice around Khmer should be done, a la medieval Europe with the cows.

 

[Corm]

Rome is f@#$ing impossible. I started out in the middle of Russia, with lots of forests, and I got to being the largest empire, 5 barracks, 5 aqueducts but only 3 amphitheaters, and that's with a great start conquering Athens and Uruk/Babylon. The problem is that as currently stated, the Roman Empire's goals are conquer/chop/whip, and that takes too long since there's no compact Mediterranean Sea. It took me more than 20 moves just to capture Athens (first of all to find out where they are, and then to kill their units in 2 rounds since my Praetorians have to rest). And this is only with a large map. Maybe one can try again in a "normal" map.

I have been completely unable to make any inroads with Rome at all on Monarch on any size of map. I've given up for the time being as I think native cities are/were essential to the win in standard RFC.

 

[Barak]

On several starts as Spain, my hapless starting military was overrun by horse archers.

 

[onedreamer]

The Khmer never had to deal with barbs (except if you didn't build Hanoi) if they didn't overexpand towards the west. And they had plenty of sea even if cities like Pagan can't immediately have plantations. Now it's plain jungle and a clear path for impis/barbs to your capital. Occasionally I do get some sea but no fish at all.

I think adding bananas and/or dye/spice around Khmer should be done, a la medieval Europe with the cows.

you can do it yourself with worldbuilder and see how it plays... it's not like it's that much different from a script. Just ignore the rest of the map when you open the builder. The problem is that a script would probably only add those resources in the capital place, but the other cities would still suck.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The Vikings are both easier and harder in RAND. Settlers are dirt cheap, which means that as long as you are the first to get to the New World (and make sure your conquistidors don't spawn on islands!), you can whip a settler out from a size 5 city in 3 turns). Hence no need for astronomy until when you're ready to sink some ships. The main problem is lack of a discrete Scandinavia and bellicose neighbors like France who declared war on me, but I beat them back. Also, if you start out in tundra without any trees, reload, because that game is going to be impossible. I had to sit partly in French territory (see how Bergen's pressured by Paris' culture?) to get any good cities going.

Also, trading techs seems to be nonexistent in RAND, mostly because the AI is so behind like everybody else. (E.g. theology was discovered by the Arabians when the spawned, and nobody has even built the AP yet, that's why I haven't chosen a state religion yet). I don't know how I'm going to spend my 5000 bucks in 1500, but nobody's selling me anything.

Then the dreary slugfest with privateers begins...I'll finish it some time this weekend.

 

[brucedecatz]

I think the conqueror's event should be disabled. It makes all the games by all non-American civs too similar in a way.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Au contraire. China, for example, can get the conquerors too, but this helps its UHV in a different way (you have to build at least 10 less troops). Japan gets to conquer American civs for a higher score but has to defend them which make it harder, not easier. And compass/guilds/optics is not the most optimal tech path for some civs like Khmer, India, Turkey and Arabia, so a suitable reward should be to get some free troops.

 

[Spielosoph]

I think the cheap settlers are a bug. It only happens in some of the games.

 

[Barak]

I have had a successful Viking UHV.

I spawned on an island that could sustain three good cities (lots of seafood near this island).

Interestingly enough I achieved the UHV after sinking only 24 ships (love it when you are the first to have Privateers).

Has anyone succeeded with Rome? I keep missing the "largest empire" requirement.

 

[brucedecatz]

Well, Khmer and India are simply not playable at this stage, UHV or not, so I don't count them. If the Khmers want to have any hope of winning the game they should beeline optics and astronomy, since the Jakatar islands and Australia is better than their homeland in most of the games.

Because of inflation, the ancient and classical civs have little way to compete on science with the European powers (I have to chuckle a bit here, the Europeans are good because they managed their money well! Or as the game told us so) so they really have to win by UHV. (Is the Chinese capable for a cultural win? Interesting to try) and if they pursue their UHV, then some of them do not need to get optics on time while others always get the conquerors. (Greece, Carthaginian, Japan because you want to trade).

I just think conquerors gave the player a lot of early advantage so beelining optics may be optimal in many cases. (even a case can be made for Arabia: getting missionaries to SAm early may be better if the early conquest goes well, and they already have guilds).

 

[ledat]

Has anyone succeeded with Rome? I keep missing the "largest empire" requirement

I've been able to get the Roman UHV once. I said in an earlier thread that Rome needs Independents to conquer to make the UHV achievable. My win actually does more to confirm this than refute it. I spawned 7 squares from the Persians, who just so happened to have already built a nice second city. 3 settlers + 2 Persian cities = requisite 5 cities. Had it been a stronger opponent, say Greece with its Phalanx or even a highly developed ancient civ (walls, tons of defensive units, etc.), I would not have been able to grab their land in time. In my case though, praetorians owned immortals and archers. So yeah, Rome needs some weak neighbor to conquer for the build part of the UHV. There just isn't time to make settlers.

As for largest empire business, I've found that generally 5 cities with one cultural expansion each and minimal overlap "usually" is enough for the largest empire in the world. At least on Monarch anyway, I have no clue what the threshold on Emperor is. Sometimes China will be larger, but the odds are in your favor if you can get at least 5 cities quickly.