[RI] A Realism Invictus walkthrough
- Thread starter Nitrah
- Start date
I originally felt the same way, Keilah. Once you learn the base units though, the mystery starts to clear up. Everyone has the same basic types of units and then two or three national units (which are the real uniques) - you just need to be aware of the idiosyncracies of the individual units if you're planning a war against someone. Turnset is following shortly.
960BC to 720BC
Welcome back! In this episode we fight back against an attack by Lincoln of the Americans and set ourselves up for a transition into classical civics.
To start off, let’s discuss the early classical civics
Government:
Getting out of despotism is a goal one should push towards fairly early. The +1
for each city cripples vertical city growth and the +50% costs due to distance from the capitol cripples horizontal growth. The two options are really one option IMO – Monarchy.
Monarchy, available with dynasticism, gives +2
to your capitol. It also enables several later synergies with other legal civics to create feudal monarchies, absolute monarchies and empires.
The other possibility is oligarchy, available with Politics. It gives +50% to your great general rate, gives your capital +25%
, but comes at the cost of +25% maintenance costs due to distance from your palace. Personally, I think this civic needs to be redone. If it’s designed for warmongers, it shouldn’t increase the costs to wage war in this era, and the culture bonus is pointless. If it’s for culture with small civilizations, then what’s the point of the great generals?
Legal:
There is only one new option in the legal branch – Civic Service. This civic is available with city planning and gives a small bonus of +5%
and +5% 
to each city, as well as providing some free unit maintenance. Staying in rule of fear is the other possibility if your civ has a shortage of happiness resources, but you lose the opportunity to get the Colosseum world wonder which gives extra happiness. One item to note about this transition – Ragnar, Shaka, and Genghis Khan all have Rule of Fear as a favorite civic. It is around this time that they start hating your guts if you do switch.
Labor:
Slavery, available with mining, doesn’t work well as it’s currently designed. Don’t do it. It’s getting an overhaul for 3.2. Several things about the civic are neat, but whipping into food shortages is a surefire way to kill your budding economy. You will occasionally (10-25% chance?) capture slaves from defeated units which can be burned for 30. You will also have to hold a mounted unit or two back to defeat slave revolts which put a relatively weak unit somewhere in the city radius. They give experience and GG points, so they’re not all bad.
Economy:
Guild Monopoly is great. It gives +10% in your cities, extra commerce from plantations, wineries, and whaling boats, and lets you build guild halls which increase your trade route income at a small malus to GPP and research. It also gives you access to the Hanseatic League world wonder which adds another trade route to coastal cities. Pair that with the great lighthouse, harbors, guild halls, caravan houses, toll houses, and the extra trade route from calendar, and you will have 6 extremely profitable trade routes in every coastal city. If you can get them both, it’s worth throwing down trash cities just for the 12+g the trade routes rake in.
Religion:
Civil religion increases the construction rate in cities which have the religion present by +25%, just like Organized Religion in BTS. It increases your espionage by +25% in all cities. The downside is only if you have multiple religions present, other religions will create unhappiness.
Monasticism acts as the other half of BTS Organized religion, allowing missionary construction without monastaries. It also adds a slight boost to commerce for cottages and allows the monastic order once you have the theocracy tech which gives a +2 food boost to the city at production and gold costs. I think this civic also needs a little love to make it worthwhile. Note, that you won’t be able to build the missionaries until you have the requisite tech for the specific religion.
Pacifism is the earliest available religion civic. It is pretty powerful, giving +50% GPP and an additional +50% GPP if you have the state religion in the city. It comes at heavy penalties to unit production, war weariness, and unit maintenance.
One last note - if you have planned for it, staying in Paganism is also a viable alternative through the classical era.
I am going to be shooting for Civil Religion, Civil Service, and Monarchy for my first revolution. I will eventually work towards guild monopoly as well, although my low food cities will be hurt by the transition. I will probably work towards irrigation to get the Lemon plantations up before I switch.
On with the turnset:
960BC/Turn 254: I turn off my research to build up some cash before hitting end turn. I also switch Pasargadae to start working on the cottages I have built next to the river. To recap, Lincoln had 9 units – all militias and archers – threatening Ecbatana.
950BC: I spot a settler that Robert is moving up the coast of the southern great lake. Lincoln moves his units to the forest NE of Ecbatana.
940BC: Lincoln attacks. He kills 2 or 3 of my archers, but doesn’t pull the trigger. He retreats 4 units. I counter attack and kill off his damaged survivors. I got another great general from the assault. I’m parking him in a city for a later tradition or doctrine. I build my replacement Immortal in Persepolis, and start work on a trireme to reclaim the ocean trade routes.
Welcome back! In this episode we fight back against an attack by Lincoln of the Americans and set ourselves up for a transition into classical civics.
To start off, let’s discuss the early classical civics
Government:
Getting out of despotism is a goal one should push towards fairly early. The +1
for each city cripples vertical city growth and the +50% costs due to distance from the capitol cripples horizontal growth. The two options are really one option IMO – Monarchy. Monarchy, available with dynasticism, gives +2
to your capitol. It also enables several later synergies with other legal civics to create feudal monarchies, absolute monarchies and empires. The other possibility is oligarchy, available with Politics. It gives +50% to your great general rate, gives your capital +25%
, but comes at the cost of +25% maintenance costs due to distance from your palace. Personally, I think this civic needs to be redone. If it’s designed for warmongers, it shouldn’t increase the costs to wage war in this era, and the culture bonus is pointless. If it’s for culture with small civilizations, then what’s the point of the great generals?Legal:
There is only one new option in the legal branch – Civic Service. This civic is available with city planning and gives a small bonus of +5%
and +5% to each city, as well as providing some free unit maintenance. Staying in rule of fear is the other possibility if your civ has a shortage of happiness resources, but you lose the opportunity to get the Colosseum world wonder which gives extra happiness. One item to note about this transition – Ragnar, Shaka, and Genghis Khan all have Rule of Fear as a favorite civic. It is around this time that they start hating your guts if you do switch.Labor:
Slavery, available with mining, doesn’t work well as it’s currently designed. Don’t do it. It’s getting an overhaul for 3.2. Several things about the civic are neat, but whipping into food shortages is a surefire way to kill your budding economy. You will occasionally (10-25% chance?) capture slaves from defeated units which can be burned for 30
. You will also have to hold a mounted unit or two back to defeat slave revolts which put a relatively weak unit somewhere in the city radius. They give experience and GG points, so they’re not all bad.Economy:
Guild Monopoly is great. It gives +10%
in your cities, extra commerce from plantations, wineries, and whaling boats, and lets you build guild halls which increase your trade route income at a small malus to GPP and research. It also gives you access to the Hanseatic League world wonder which adds another trade route to coastal cities. Pair that with the great lighthouse, harbors, guild halls, caravan houses, toll houses, and the extra trade route from calendar, and you will have 6 extremely profitable trade routes in every coastal city. If you can get them both, it’s worth throwing down trash cities just for the 12+g the trade routes rake in.Religion:
Civil religion increases the construction rate in cities which have the religion present by +25%, just like Organized Religion in BTS. It increases your espionage by +25% in all cities. The downside is only if you have multiple religions present, other religions will create unhappiness.
Monasticism acts as the other half of BTS Organized religion, allowing missionary construction without monastaries. It also adds a slight boost to commerce for cottages and allows the monastic order once you have the theocracy tech which gives a +2 food boost to the city at production and gold costs. I think this civic also needs a little love to make it worthwhile. Note, that you won’t be able to build the missionaries until you have the requisite tech for the specific religion.
Pacifism is the earliest available religion civic. It is pretty powerful, giving +50% GPP and an additional +50% GPP if you have the state religion in the city. It comes at heavy penalties to unit production, war weariness, and unit maintenance.
One last note - if you have planned for it, staying in Paganism is also a viable alternative through the classical era.
I am going to be shooting for Civil Religion, Civil Service, and Monarchy for my first revolution. I will eventually work towards guild monopoly as well, although my low food cities will be hurt by the transition. I will probably work towards irrigation to get the Lemon plantations up before I switch.
On with the turnset:
960BC/Turn 254: I turn off my research to build up some cash before hitting end turn. I also switch Pasargadae to start working on the cottages I have built next to the river. To recap, Lincoln had 9 units – all militias and archers – threatening Ecbatana.
Spoiler :
950BC: I spot a settler that Robert is moving up the coast of the southern great lake. Lincoln moves his units to the forest NE of Ecbatana.
Spoiler :
940BC: Lincoln attacks. He kills 2 or 3 of my archers, but doesn’t pull the trigger. He retreats 4 units. I counter attack and kill off his damaged survivors. I got another great general from the assault. I’m parking him in a city for a later tradition or doctrine. I build my replacement Immortal in Persepolis, and start work on a trireme to reclaim the ocean trade routes.
Spoiler :
930BC: Lincoln counterattacks my counterattack, killing 2 archers and my shortswordsman. I don’t worry terribly much as he is down to two archers and my elephants and immortals from the SW are almost back. Robert is moving his settler into one of my proposed city sites. This makes me grumbly.
920BC: My elephant and immortals are back in Ecbatana. I attack and inexplicably lose a veteran immortal. I turn on my research again.
910BC: Robert founded Verlamion. It’s not where I would put it, but he does get whales in the BFC. I take out the rest of Lincoln’s assault force. With the territory swept clear, I start moving up the Helepolis and my rams. My settler finally starts moving out.
900BC: Lincoln is doing a bonehead move and bringing a settler into my lands. I found Tarsus at the wine site and start work on a monument (oops). I find Atlanta. Pasargadae finishes an elephant and hits happy cap. I decide to finish the library next and then work on a well.
890BC: I finish my first Trireme in Persepolis and I start on another replacement Immortal. With perfect timing, Pasargadae gets a pandemic and loses a population point. The Pyramids are built somewhere. In RI, they give free city squares to every city – they’re no longer an ‘I win’ button. I start my assault on Atlanta with no losses.
880BC: I research City Planning. Pasargadae loses another population, and is back down to size 4. Dynasticism will take 10 turns, but I don’t have enough money to keep the research up, so I set it to 0. Maybe someone will research it by the time I save up enough money. I realize I wasted 3 turns of production on the monument as they’re obsoleted with City Planning. The city squares are really expensive for a pop 0 city with no improved tiles, so I start on a library. I take and raze Atlanta. My trireme kills the first Barb galley, but takes heavy damage. I retreat it to the city to repair. I switch Persepolis to grow its pop a point to happy cap (it had been working all production/commerce tiles).
870BC: I have fully mapped the Roman lands. I promote my trireme to combat 1. Not sure if drill would have been better.
860BC: Susa finishes the last elephant. I waffle and decide on a granary to lower the pandemic chances. Probably should have picked something else, in hindsight. I start moving my new assault force out to take New York
850BC: My library finishes in Pasargadae. I start on a well next. My income drops to +13g at 0% due to away costs and cut trade routes. My cottages in Pasargadae need 14 & 20 turns to grow to 3C
840BC: I finish an axeman in Ecbatana. A reminder, mine are strong vs. melee, but weak vs. archers. I start working research there. Buddhism is spread to Tarsus. Mod Developers – there is some sort of a bug here. Tarsus hasn’t been getting the open border +1 culture. My Rome exploring chariot meets up with the Atlanta elephant/immortal group to take on Lincolns other city. My assault force gets to New York. It has +30% defense with 3 archers, 1 militia, 1 shortswordsman, 1 chariot, and 1 skirmisher as defenders.
830BC: Lincoln founds Chicago up on the North side of the lakes. Even though it fits my dotmap, I couldn’t take this city due to the huge amounts of jungle nearby. I check on Pasargadae’s pandemic chance – it’s 7%, 6% of which is due to the 3 jungles. Chicago would have a 14% chance at least. My Helepolis and rams start working on New York’s defenses. My trireme takes out another galley. It had better odds this time, but still took heavy damage. Retreat and repair again. I finish a replacement immortal and move him towards Chicago. I start trades with the Incas again, which turns on my OB culture.
820BC: Lincoln moved some defenders out of NY for some dumb reason. I switch Ecbatana to build an archer in case New York’s Parthenon survives the assault – should have done this earlier, but didn’t think. I am ready to attack Philadelphia
810BC: NY defenses are down. The helepolis has 82.6% attack odds against his best defender with full fortify on a hill. This is the best odds you could generally expect in this situation… unless you have a cover 3, combat 1 elephant. I take no losses with light damage leaving 1 defender in New York. I start the attack on Philadelphia as well.
800BC: The Inca trade routes are cut again, heavily dropping my GPT. My well in Pasargadae finishes, and I start on research and turn a citizen into a scientist. I capture and raze Philadelphia for 147g. I also capture New York. Unfortunately, the Parthenon didn’t survive the assault, so I put the city to the torch. With the war spoils, I turn my Dynasticism research on.
790BC: Susa finishes its granary, and I start on a sawmill. Ecbatana builds an archer and I start on a settler (to block off Rome from taking New York’s land and possibly Washington’s land depending on finances). I retreat my rams to my territory and rest my troops for the final assault on Chicago.
770BC: Nelson built Kashi Vishwanath. I hope he enjoys his 3gpt. I start moving my troops up, but move the Helepolis back – it can’t travel through Jungle. It won’t be needed for the assault anyways.
760BC: Lincoln (I assume) got a spy into Pasargadae to pee in my well. Luckily, my food stores are decent so I won’t have any starvation. I cleared another barb galley and hook up my wine in Tarsus. I start attacking Chicago.
750BC: Chicago autorazes. Lincoln is dead. I forget to take a screenshot. Wonderful turn all around!
740BC: I lose my trade routes to Robert and Augustus. I must have had access through Lincoln somehow? I’m not entirely sure what happened here. Luckily, the income loss is only a little, but I do lose my sheep from Robert. I finish a trireme in Persepolis which I put to guarding the clams. I start on a workboat next.
730BC: I juggle production in Pasargadae to get my third trireme 1 turn faster because I’m going to get Dynasticism next turn and will be revolting then.
720BC: I complete Dynasticism and start on Iron working. I build my trireme and send a pair of them off to explore NE. Start work on a work boat to claim the pearls and then will want another trireme to guard the pearls. Augustus is the only one who I will get a relations boost with for this revolution.
Here, I pause. I am at a little bit of a crossroads, and I would like to know what everyone would be more interested in seeing. I have the opportunity to use a great general to found Imperial Glory. It buffs melee units, and goes obsolete at Divine Right. Divine right, however gives the Holy War doctrine, which also buffs melee units. I could skip Divine Right until I’m ready to push into the renaissance, but will miss out on a few nice wonders. Alternately, I could save the general until later in the middle ages to get chivalry which buffs mounted. If I do this and wait to wage my medieval war until then, my national cataphracts will go obsolete almost by the time I’m ready use them.
The question I have is what sort of a slugfest does everyone want to see more? A late classical war with swordsmen, cataphracts, and catapults? An early medieval war with various types of weaker foot soldiers? A late medieval war with knights, heavy foot, longbows, and trebuchets? I would like to have some synergy with the doctines and traditions I found for the desired timing.
Thanks for reading!
Spoiler :
920BC: My elephant and immortals are back in Ecbatana. I attack and inexplicably lose a veteran immortal. I turn on my research again.
Spoiler :
910BC: Robert founded Verlamion. It’s not where I would put it, but he does get whales in the BFC. I take out the rest of Lincoln’s assault force. With the territory swept clear, I start moving up the Helepolis and my rams. My settler finally starts moving out.
Spoiler :
900BC: Lincoln is doing a bonehead move and bringing a settler into my lands. I found Tarsus at the wine site and start work on a monument (oops). I find Atlanta. Pasargadae finishes an elephant and hits happy cap. I decide to finish the library next and then work on a well.
Spoiler :
890BC: I finish my first Trireme in Persepolis and I start on another replacement Immortal. With perfect timing, Pasargadae gets a pandemic and loses a population point. The Pyramids are built somewhere. In RI, they give free city squares to every city – they’re no longer an ‘I win’ button. I start my assault on Atlanta with no losses.
880BC: I research City Planning. Pasargadae loses another population, and is back down to size 4. Dynasticism will take 10 turns, but I don’t have enough money to keep the research up, so I set it to 0. Maybe someone will research it by the time I save up enough money. I realize I wasted 3 turns of production on the monument as they’re obsoleted with City Planning. The city squares are really expensive for a pop 0 city with no improved tiles, so I start on a library. I take and raze Atlanta. My trireme kills the first Barb galley, but takes heavy damage. I retreat it to the city to repair. I switch Persepolis to grow its pop a point to happy cap (it had been working all production/commerce tiles).
Spoiler :
870BC: I have fully mapped the Roman lands. I promote my trireme to combat 1. Not sure if drill would have been better.
Spoiler :
860BC: Susa finishes the last elephant. I waffle and decide on a granary to lower the pandemic chances. Probably should have picked something else, in hindsight. I start moving my new assault force out to take New York
850BC: My library finishes in Pasargadae. I start on a well next. My income drops to +13g at 0% due to away costs and cut trade routes. My cottages in Pasargadae need 14 & 20 turns to grow to 3C
840BC: I finish an axeman in Ecbatana. A reminder, mine are strong vs. melee, but weak vs. archers. I start working research there. Buddhism is spread to Tarsus. Mod Developers – there is some sort of a bug here. Tarsus hasn’t been getting the open border +1 culture. My Rome exploring chariot meets up with the Atlanta elephant/immortal group to take on Lincolns other city. My assault force gets to New York. It has +30% defense with 3 archers, 1 militia, 1 shortswordsman, 1 chariot, and 1 skirmisher as defenders.
Spoiler :
830BC: Lincoln founds Chicago up on the North side of the lakes. Even though it fits my dotmap, I couldn’t take this city due to the huge amounts of jungle nearby. I check on Pasargadae’s pandemic chance – it’s 7%, 6% of which is due to the 3 jungles. Chicago would have a 14% chance at least. My Helepolis and rams start working on New York’s defenses. My trireme takes out another galley. It had better odds this time, but still took heavy damage. Retreat and repair again. I finish a replacement immortal and move him towards Chicago. I start trades with the Incas again, which turns on my OB culture.
Spoiler :
820BC: Lincoln moved some defenders out of NY for some dumb reason. I switch Ecbatana to build an archer in case New York’s Parthenon survives the assault – should have done this earlier, but didn’t think. I am ready to attack Philadelphia
Spoiler :
810BC: NY defenses are down. The helepolis has 82.6% attack odds against his best defender with full fortify on a hill. This is the best odds you could generally expect in this situation… unless you have a cover 3, combat 1 elephant. I take no losses with light damage leaving 1 defender in New York. I start the attack on Philadelphia as well.
800BC: The Inca trade routes are cut again, heavily dropping my GPT. My well in Pasargadae finishes, and I start on research and turn a citizen into a scientist. I capture and raze Philadelphia for 147g. I also capture New York. Unfortunately, the Parthenon didn’t survive the assault, so I put the city to the torch. With the war spoils, I turn my Dynasticism research on.
Spoiler :
790BC: Susa finishes its granary, and I start on a sawmill. Ecbatana builds an archer and I start on a settler (to block off Rome from taking New York’s land and possibly Washington’s land depending on finances). I retreat my rams to my territory and rest my troops for the final assault on Chicago.
770BC: Nelson built Kashi Vishwanath. I hope he enjoys his 3gpt. I start moving my troops up, but move the Helepolis back – it can’t travel through Jungle. It won’t be needed for the assault anyways.
760BC: Lincoln (I assume) got a spy into Pasargadae to pee in my well. Luckily, my food stores are decent so I won’t have any starvation. I cleared another barb galley and hook up my wine in Tarsus. I start attacking Chicago.
Spoiler :
750BC: Chicago autorazes. Lincoln is dead. I forget to take a screenshot. Wonderful turn all around!
740BC: I lose my trade routes to Robert and Augustus. I must have had access through Lincoln somehow? I’m not entirely sure what happened here. Luckily, the income loss is only a little, but I do lose my sheep from Robert. I finish a trireme in Persepolis which I put to guarding the clams. I start on a workboat next.
730BC: I juggle production in Pasargadae to get my third trireme 1 turn faster because I’m going to get Dynasticism next turn and will be revolting then.
720BC: I complete Dynasticism and start on Iron working. I build my trireme and send a pair of them off to explore NE. Start work on a work boat to claim the pearls and then will want another trireme to guard the pearls. Augustus is the only one who I will get a relations boost with for this revolution.
Spoiler :
Here, I pause. I am at a little bit of a crossroads, and I would like to know what everyone would be more interested in seeing. I have the opportunity to use a great general to found Imperial Glory. It buffs melee units, and goes obsolete at Divine Right. Divine right, however gives the Holy War doctrine, which also buffs melee units. I could skip Divine Right until I’m ready to push into the renaissance, but will miss out on a few nice wonders. Alternately, I could save the general until later in the middle ages to get chivalry which buffs mounted. If I do this and wait to wage my medieval war until then, my national cataphracts will go obsolete almost by the time I’m ready use them.
The question I have is what sort of a slugfest does everyone want to see more? A late classical war with swordsmen, cataphracts, and catapults? An early medieval war with various types of weaker foot soldiers? A late medieval war with knights, heavy foot, longbows, and trebuchets? I would like to have some synergy with the doctines and traditions I found for the desired timing.
Thanks for reading!
Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
IIRC, you should only get culture from open borders if target civ is at least pleased with you.
And to clarify Oligarchy a bit - it is mostly intended for scenario civs that are unable to expand normally, and thus usually have a low amount of cities. Its usefulness for human player is indeed lower than that of Monarchy. We may rework it a bit for 3.2, although as I mentioned above, it serves its intended purpose now as well.
And to clarify Oligarchy a bit - it is mostly intended for scenario civs that are unable to expand normally, and thus usually have a low amount of cities. Its usefulness for human player is indeed lower than that of Monarchy. We may rework it a bit for 3.2, although as I mentioned above, it serves its intended purpose now as well.
