SE 1 - Brennus

[drlake]

@michmbk

I thought I was doing OK, until I read your write-ups. Damn...

 

[drlake]

Monarch/Epic to 190AD:

Spoiler :

Odd spot to take a break, but such is life.

I HATE being (semi-)isolated! I never even considered a chariot rush (d'oh!), so Ragnar and I are still sharing the continent, and will be until I get to construction. At that point. I'm going to build a pile of catapults and wipe him off the landmass, which may not end him since I think he's founded a city on an island already. In the meantime, I'm a lot stronger in points, but his military is probably bigger. Since he's not WHEOOHRN, I'm gambling that I can keep pumping research.

Here's my area of the continent:


And Ragnar's:


The Gold that spawned by Bibracte is very nice! In general, I think I got more of the "good" land (except for the area right around Nidaros). I could fit a couple more cities in my area, but at this point I'd rather expand into his empire and remove the threat he poses. Good thing the AI sucks at war, though.

Cities:


I'm trying to get the Galleys out to find more civs for tech trading, as well as to explore the islands in the area for good city locations. I'm pumping research in a couple of my best production cities to speed the research process up, as you can see.

Diplomacy:


Ragnar is reasonably happy with me, such as it can be.

Tech Race:



I'm ahead of him, but no idea on the rest of the world (of course). I hope I'm not too far behind...

Tech Tree:


I'm thinking finish Currency, then Archery > HBR > Math > Const > Calendar. Being unable to trade is really wrecking my teching, and I'm really struggling with figuring out how to tech under these conditions. I could probably skip Archery and HBR in favor of Math > Const > Calendar to get Cats ASAP and then boost happiness. That would probably be smarter.

VCs:


Well, I'm bigger than Ragnaros. I guess that's something...

Demographics:


But only something. I think I'm doing OK, but I do need to pump out more military given my neighbor.

Any advice?

 

[michmbk]

Drlake - When I stopped playing regularly a few months ago, I was a regular immortal player. While most of my games involve a fair amount of cottaging, the strategies generally hold true even without cottages, so a monarch game with a no cottage restriction isn't too bad for me. A thought on your game:

Spoiler :

Remember Rags has a high unitprob, so be sure to bring a few more units to the party than you would with most civs. He also seems to war better than most AI, so he can be a tough opponent.

Anyway, here's the summary of the rest of my game - lib to 1847 dom win. Took a fair number of screens this time.

Spoiler :

Took nationalism with lib and started building taj. I’m out of practice on epic as most of my games have been on normal lately. Forgot how slow everything goes. Anyway, I headed toward constitution for the obvious rep civic, which bumped my tech rate by about 100 beakers/turn. Should have built mids right after the chariot rush, obviously.

From there, headed to the game-winning tech, steel, and started to amass an army. Brennus is awesome for this type of economy, because I can switch to vassalage/theo while building units, and back to nationhood (cheap civic) and FR when teching. Just after steel, this came in:



Nice timing for the golden age. Took a barb city and added another city on this island to the south - overseas trade routes help out.



Thanks to the world map trades, I can see that one of the Caesars appears isolated, so he’s an easy first target – he’ll be way behind in tech, and allow me to effectively double my land pretty cheap.

After my taj golden age, economy started getting a little ugly (barely breaking even at 0%). So I decided instead of heading to rifles first, it was time to go towards communism and SP. Check out Nidaros – what a GP farm!



Running 12 scientists there currently – amazing. And as I send my invasion force toward Augustus, another scientist pops – time for a golden age. And here we come:



That’s the first wave – second wave coming shortly. And nice war booty - I knew Augustus would wonderspam for me:



And as I’m wiping out Augustus, the dumb capitulation mechanics kick in.



It forces peace on me as I've got stacks bearing down on 3 cities - kicks them all out of his land. How irritating. At this point, it’s too much micro to delete the cottages Augustus had built, and the game is in hand, so I’m not bothering. Redeclare on Augustus & Mehmed. Mehmed sends about 20 cuirassiers in Roman lands – fine by me. A stack of 40 cannons & knights mop them up. Civics are rep-vassalage-emancipation-SP-theocracy. Heroic Epic city producing 11 XP cannons & 13 XP knights every other turn.

Of course, the annoying sneak attack by Mehmed where I wasn’t guarding:



Whatever – a bunch of units get massed and sent that way to deal with him.
And Augustus is done at last:



I make peace with Mehmed at that point for a bit, so I can finish teching to infantry and round up all my troops for the next assault. Pretty much turn tech to 0% at assembly line – no other techs matter when warring on monarch. AI can’t keep up with mass produced infantry/artillery, especially with Brennus's insane traits. I was hoping for a chain cap from here, but it wasn't meant to be. I decide to go for a full assault on liz, since she’s pretty advanced and usually pretty weak militarily – assault on three fronts:







Oh, and I just finished whipping twice in just about each city, so I have about 50 units of reinforcements coming right after the initial assault. It doesn’t go well for her – I absolutely destroy her, but because she has a vassal, she takes way too long to cap, so I just finish her off.



Rest of the game is a simple avalanche – way too much power. Izzy caps quickly, so does Willem, and while it takes me 10-15 turns to get my units down toward Mehmed, he gives pretty quick too. And all done in 1847.



Builds here:



AI can’t handle cannons/artillery at tech parity, and it's even worse with a tech lead. Brennus is ridiculous in this era too – he’s spitting out CR3 cannons and artillery, which eat everything alive. Look how few I actually lost of those units during all the wars.

Game was fun although the restriction was frustrating - too much micro for my tastes. With cottages, Bibracte would have been an insane city. It already was pretty good though – check it & Nidaros out at the end:





If I hadn’t whipped Nidaros like crazy for a few turns, and had built NP there like I intended, it probably would have gotten to size 35 at this point. I haven't played brennus in awhile - I forgot how excellent his trait combo is in the later game.

 

[Mutineer]

Immortal Normal, up to 100BC.

I settler in place and went exploring.

Spoiler :

Initial analysis.. that is not really SE suitable start. There no any easy available source of commerce available, not mach food/rivers. No sea food?!! around.

There is no any happiness resources, no commerce resources about.

The only way to do it with out cottages is to secure GL and /or Colosys.

When I count how mach research I will have, I see I will not have beakers to research tech I need in time.

Well, so, Initial tech is evident, farming,AH, Mining, but after..

Writing! The only chance is to run 2 scientists got get some beakers going.
So, build went workers warrior*3, stonehenge why growing to side 6, library(grow to size 7. Size 7 city running 2 scientists and working 7 river ties did provide enough research to get tech I needed.

Writing- Sailing-BW-masonry-

Production went library-settler-warrior*2-worker

Settler went to coastal location with ability to share corn, some river ties, 2 calendar resources and lots of forests.

Research after masonry went pottery-metallocasting. I want to try for Collosys and it is good trade bite.

Early on Ragnar adopt Judaism, which tell me he has contact with some one, So I accelerate exploration workboats.

I made some contacts, Ragnar get alphavit and I gift his city to bring him to pleased.
I finish after I broker Mettalocastingz to everyone, may be making mistake with my last trade (But I needed Monarchy and that was the only way to get it).

Still, they are all far away and with time trade - will fade.

I did get GL, with help of lots of chops and whip.

So, there some pictures and saves..

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[SillyGoat]

Played to 1125 BC

Spoiler :

Moving the scout didn't reveal anything that would make me want to move away from two +5 food specials, so I settled in place. Techpath: Ag, AH, wheel, mining, bronze, meditation, priesthood, writing, fishing, pottery (in progress).

Built a worker (who farmed the rice, pastured the pigs and horses then roaded the horses and the hill one tile south to hook up the horses, then mined two grasshills and the plains hill)

After the worker, I started Stonehenge with any eye to collecting some failure gold. Once the horses were revealed, I decided on a plan. Changed build to warrior/barracks/chariot x9/worker/settler. Two lions, a panther and a few barb warriors later I had 6 chariots at level 3.

In 1825 BC a final solution to the Viking problem got underway. Rags had rexed out to 3 cities by this point, and his defenses were thin. He had one! archer defending Nidaros when I declared (he whipped out another the next turn). My flanking 2 chariots went first, and shortly thereafter Nidaros was mine. It came complete with a granary, lighthouse and 4 netted seafood.

His other two cities fell quickly (one auto-razed, the other I kept) and the Vikings exited stage left.

Bibracte in the meantime, had finished up it's second worker and settler and began work on the Oracle (with the intent of taking COL from it). However, at 1600 BC I noticed a funny thing. I still hadn't gotten my 20g from failing to build Stonehenge. So I decided to take a chance, swapped builds to Stonehenge and completed it in 1500 BC with the help of two chops and a 3 pop whip. Oracle finished in 1375 BC and Nidaros became the holy city of Confucionism.

The game looks to be well in hand.

Plan from here:

GPs: 1st: Great Prophet for my shrine (due in 25 turns)
2nd: Great Scientist for an Acadamy in Bibracte (I'll micro Nidaros so that it doesn't finish before the Prophet)
after that, I'm not sure. Nidaros will be my GP farm, and abusing Spiritual to swap between Caste/Pacifism for GP production and Slavery/OR to whip out infra will be my overall plan. I'm toying with the idea of generating mostly Great Merchants to settle in Nidaros plus a couple of scientists for bulbing Education/printing press.

In terms of land development, Bibracte has 16 river tiles and 17 cottageable tiles including resources. Screw the rules of engagement, this city is getting cottage spammed. The rest of my cities will get farms/mines/workshops.

Short term goals: Spam out a bunch of warriors (to complete the fogbusting, the war with the Vikings unlocked the HE so no need to farm xp from barbs), workers, and settlers. Once sailing is in, I'll settle a couple of offshore cities for the intercontinental trade routes. Once HR is in, I'll spam out warriors and grow Bibracte to max size ASAP.


The empire at 1125 bc:

Spoiler :

 

[Mutineer]

From 100 BC to 980 AD

Start could be found http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9256167&postcount=44

Spoiler :

I managed to get Collosys.

Researched machinery-Compass-Optics-calendar-CS

Traded for the rest. Sorry for no pictures. Settle 4 cities on south island, more settlers in pipe.

 

[michmbk]

Sillygoat:

Spoiler :

Your thoughts were the same as mine. Although I followed the rules this time, without the rules, I would have cottaged bibracte, used nidaros as a GP farm, and everything else would be production based.

Those two cities would be enough on monarch to fuel tech pretty much the entire game. Again, it illustrates the point that city specialization is more important than solely using an "economy" type.

 

[SillyGoat]

Sillygoat:

Spoiler :

Your thoughts were the same as mine. Although I followed the rules this time, without the rules, I would have cottaged bibracte, used nidaros as a GP farm, and everything else would be production based.

Those two cities would be enough on monarch to fuel tech pretty much the entire game. Again, it illustrates the point that city specialization is more important than solely using an "economy" type.

Spoiler :

I've played on a bit.....crashed the economy massively.....running Caste Merchants in the cap may well have been a better play. We'll see.

 

[Mutineer]

Played until liberalism.

start can be found
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9256167&postcount=44

100Bc 1000AD there
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9256728&postcount=46

Spoiler :

Basically tech paper-education-philosophy-Liberalism

Traded for the rest.

Noticeable decisions, did not adopt any religions.
Run slavery all the time, practically did not run any specialists, except push out GM and cash it for 2400 gold in Rome. That let me to do deficit research.

My city cost on south island get to >-20/city, which I remove by building courthouses and forbidden palace in one of them, making cost acceptable.


One turn before liberalism I traded education around, getting banking which let me take economics from it. I wanted free GM. They are very profitable on this map.

Check save and see how mach commerce my coastal castle/free market/GL cities bring.

Tech situation:

Spoiler :

 

[NihilZero]

As I mentioned above, things got off to a rocky start in my game, but I saw it through to the end.

Immortal, normal speed.

Up to 1000AD:

Spoiler :

Opening was pretty standard stuff for the Celts - a little slow because of the poor techs. However we find horse in the BFC so barbs were not be a problem. Surrounding land is pretty poor. Not much food to be had, hardly any luxury resources.

I settle a second city and then:



Stonehenge is a nice build for the Celts because both of their leaders are Charismatic and they start with crappy old Mysticism. Charismatic also means that they can grow their cities early to compensate for lack of starting worker techs and compensate for lost time with larger cities - assuming that there's still land to settle. Ragnar didn't seem too close so I reckoned I could afford to build a wonder.

I built something else too:



That's right, Pyramids with no stone! An awesome build for the no cottage strategy. Representation will also combat the lack of happy resources. It's always a big gamble to build instead of making settlers, but I went for it anyway since I hadn't found many top quality sites yet.

My first GP was a prophet, he settled in Bibracte.

Then Ragnar did what Ragnar does best:



...and went for the jugular in the BCs. I though I was dead, but thankfully I had foreseen trouble with the hairy one sooner rather than later and had the good sense to build my closest city to him on a hill.



Note how even the barbs are joining in the fun.

Lots of fights follow in the surrounding countryside. He takes a crack at another city too:



I'm able to even up the odds by fighting on my terms, picking off stragglers (axe stacks with no spears are easy prey for my chariots). With no commerce I am forced to work unimproved riverside tiles to fend off strike.

As the BCs turn into the ADs the war wears on with countless engagements. My unit pumping eventually gives me enough to put together a counter-attack:



And my first cottage pillaging ensues! It's actually quite lucrative.



The timing is perfect as I now have Alphabet allowing me to extort techs, and in 50AD I get peace for IW and HBR. Now teching Currency with my rep scientists and build research. The war was a big setback as I couldn't run many specialists during it, having to work the mines instead, but the peace terms compensate some.

Then we meet another AI at last.



This is good news as it means I can tech trade (and trade on the ocean, eventually, if I ever tech sailing...). Better still, she has become ol' Hornhead's worst enemy. I knew the English were over there from earlier scouting but had not actually met them, so I sent my scouts back again once I had open borders.

250AD get another prophet against the odds. He gets settled too. Where are my scientists?

Ragnar starts squaring up for fisticuffs again and enters WHEOOHRN mode. Liz was his worst enemy briefly, then he adopts her religion (Cofucianism). He could be after her or me, not sure.

I live peaceably for a while running two rep scientists in each city and trading with Liz. I'm in a gruesome tech hole but at least Ragnar is doing even worse.

760 AD Ragnar attacks...



...the English.



I agree to Liz's request to join. Unfortunately this closes down all my trade routes, which pass through Vikingland, thus screwing what little income I had.

We start brawling with the Vikings again, pretty indecisively for a long time. Such wars are terrible for the already sluggish development of my civ, but there is no real possibility of coexisting peacefully with them so I might as well get stuck in.

My third great person is an engineer, of all things. I decide to save him for a bulb.

Just like the first war, this one strains my coffers to breaking point. At 0% research I lose 20 gold per turn, but at least I can build wealth.

In 940AD I meet this guy:



Another AI who likes to trade, excellent. I get a major trade out of him:



The acquisition of MC allows me to bulb Machinery with my GE, and build crossbows to break the war open. Ragnar has no horse so he is easy prey for the shooty killy things.

It's 1000AD and I am so backwards it's just ridiculous, but Ragnar will pay for ruining my game, of that we can be sure.

edit - it's interesting to see how many different approaches we have had to this map. Some early rushes, a couple of different wonder-building strategies.

 

[Mutineer]

NihilZero

Spoiler :

I would never build Pyramids with out stone and no industrial. It is too expensive, slow one down too mach. Ragnar actually easy to befriend, there was space near his capital, I build and liberate city to him, getting him to pleased.
Pyramids actually were preventing you from using his favorite civic, Monarchy.

On fall of spending soo mach on mids was you did not send any exploration workboats, Land exploration reveal 2 connected islands.

 

[NihilZero]

NihilZero

Spoiler :

I would never build Pyramids with out stone and no industrial. It is too expensive, slow one down too mach. Ragnar actually easy to befriend, there was space near his capital, I build and liberate city to him, getting him to pleased.
Pyramids actually were preventing you from using his favorite civic, Monarchy.

On fall of spending soo mach on mids was you did not send any exploration workboats, Land exploration reveal 2 connected islands.

Spoiler :

Everything you say is true, but i still like the Pyramids. It's too expensive, it cost me expansion and exploration. I didn't have any early coastal cities (no seafood) so workboats were not an option.

The Pyramids worked out quite nicely for me in this game, I would have been dead without them.

I never trust Ragnar in any game. Getting him to pleased is no defence. He attacks sooner or later unless there is somebody else he'd rather go after. Circa 500BC is pretty typical, and there's no way either of us were going to get to Monarchy before then.

Once Ragnar attacked I would not have been thinking of settling offshore cities, I needed units and more units.

You had the same number of cities as I did at 500BC, so I guess it didn't hurt me too bad.

 

[michmbk]

I fiddled with this game under a normal approach (cottaging where appropriate), without the restrictions to compare the two games - some thoughts & comparison screens on my two different games in spoiler. I really didn't have a ton of cottages other than the capital in my second game, so the bureau capital was the most significant difference between the two games.

Spoiler :

Still rushed rags, although I technically had some advance knowledge, so I pillaged his copper on the first turn of the war. Wanted to make sure the comparisons were valid though. Here's the cottage game at 10 AD:



Original no-cottage game at 10 AD:



I had one more city and a lower beaker rate in the cottage game, and I flipped that barb city about 10 turns later (ironically, I did a better job fogbusting in the first game, so no barb cities on the mainland to take/flip). I used one of rags cities to build GLH in the second game, while I was running more scientists with my extra cities in the first game. Again, since I wasn't focusing as much on specialists in the second game, production & cottages helped me with wonders and beakers. Even though things look worse at 10 AD, those cottages in the cap are growing nicely, and Nidaros is still becoming a nice GP farm.

A couple other comparisons, at spots where I took screens in the first game - cottaged capital game at 340 AD:



Original:



At 340 AD, the beakers are almost the same - cottage game is still a bit behind, but it's about to take off. Check out the next comparison, at 805 AD - cottage game:



Original:



Admittedly, the GLH in game 2 is skewing this a bit, and I failed at mids in the no cottage game, whereas I got it in the cottage game (by accident - was building for failgold!). But even when I remove those two wonders, I still had 130 beakers per turn in the cottage game, vs. 98 per turn in the other game, and I had almost fully maxed out settling my island in both games at that point. The big difference - check out bibracte at this point:



It's pulling in a ton of commerce already, and it's going to keep adding to those beakers with the cottage growth. I probably won't finish the second game, but I bet based on where I'm at I would finish a lot sooner given how strong my tech rate is at this point.

 

[NihilZero]

@ michmbk:

Spoiler :

I agree that the map is more cottage friendly, the capital site specifically has a ludicrous amount of riverside. However, the food economy is not just about beaker rate, it's about whip production and GPP.

Had I rolled this map myself, I certainly would have been thinking cottages. But it was very interesting to play my first no-cottages game and I was surprised by not completely failing at it, even with land that didn't really suit it. My beaker rates were okay when I wasn't at war (when a lot of my would-be specialist citizens were busy in the mines).

 

[Timhotep]

Round 1?:

Spoiler :

Preempting the fury of the northmen...

The entirety of our island:


So Ragnar is indeed sitting on a hill, and he has a fair number of archers hanging about. I still might have been able to pull off the chariot rush, but it would have been painful. So instead I decide to push on towards Gallic Warriors. They look cooler anyway.


The eve of battle. Ragnar's found him some copper, but to this point he's only built one Axeman. Chariot's job is to remedy that while the GWs march for plunder and glory.



Nidaros falls without too much complication, and once it emerges from rebellion I notice I haven't yet bothered to research fishing. Well, at least there's floodplains aplenty.


The other two cities fall in short order.

The Vikings are out of the way, so it's time to get serious about economy. My research is hurting pretty bad. Time to have my scientists limp their way to currency, crank out some settlers and fill this island.

I notice that the Pyramids haven't gone yet, but if I'm going to have any shot at them I need to start them up and grab that stone as soon as I can. Failure gold wouldn't be terrible either. We'll see. Other than that, I'll probably throw a galley together and see if anyone's close enough to talk to. Trade routes would not be unappreciated.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Round 2... and loss

Tech

Spoiler :

So, after the last point, I teched pottery... whatever purpose, I have no clue, as till the end of the game I wound up building no granaries. Then I teched mathematics and bulbed alphabet, in order to build research.

War

Spoiler :

I then started researching currency, while building an army of axemen to attack Ragnar, my idea being that axeman vs axeman would offer better chances than swordsman vs axeman.

I declared war, took 6-7 axemen to Nidaros which was defended by 3 units and I captured it.

A few turns later, my workboat met one of Lizzy's archers and the mystery of Ragnar's few defending troops is explained: he attacked her earlier on. To be honest, I was a bit surprised, as I don't remember him ever being in WHEOOHRN.

Regardless, 3 turns into the war, my prize is... well... my prize:

Blunder

Spoiler :

From this point, I got overconfident and tried to capture his new capital and copper city. If I had succeeded, he's have been very very weak, as he'd have lacked any and all strategic resources for most of the game. But the problem is that his copper city was very well defended.

I kept training axemen in most cities, which lead to losing money very badly, and when I was about to go broke, I decided to try my luck against his copper city. And my luck didn't appreciate it, so I abandoned the game.

A better idea would have been to raze the city between Nidaros and my empire, which was defended by few troops and not on a hill, and to use Nidaros as the scientific jewel of the empire, but I guess I won't know that now.

So... I'll be reading the reports you've offered and I hope I can see better strategies.
Also, considering how this one went and the fact that I didn't organize the thread well enough, I think all the next games will be in a format similar to the Nobles Club and I'll offer saves for the 4 main difficulties which have different WB saves.

 

[SillyGoat]

Not an update, just some comments.

Spoiler :

First off, thanks for posting this CivilzedTiger, it's been a fun game so far.


Nidaros is just plain sick. I just 5 pop whipped a market at size 14. It's regrowing at one pop per turn all the way back to size 14. On Epic speed. Good Goddess. It's at +31 Food ffs working it's seafood and farmed floodplains.

I'm actually not sure what to do with this city. It makes an awesome GP farm, an insane Globe Draft/whip centre, it's got a shrined religion so it'll make a great Wall St. city. National park will give it infinite health to grow to an obscene size earlyish and I still have 2 forests for bonus specialists if I build it.

And I can only build 2 National wonders there. *sigh* Gonna have to make some tough choices.

 

[Mutineer]

Update 1300AD-1500AD

start can be found
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9256167&postcount=44

100Bc 1000AD there
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9256728&postcount=46

1000ad-1300ad

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9257380&postcount=49

Spoiler :

Golden age exploitation,
Communism rush.

Research went Nationalism-Printing press-Sci method-Communism
Economics GM was cashed in for 2300 Gold, provide this research run.

Order Taj Maxal in capital, finish it started golden age.
Used it to push out Gp's and collect more gp points.

So, when golden age started I revolted to Nationalism/castle system, order as many merchants as I can.

Result was 2 GE's and 1 GM. I send this gM to cash it, used 1 GE to rush Kremlin.
Got GSpy from communism.

Right now I am considering, what better, use Gspy for second golden age and push out more why researching steel-rifling or start whipping straight away. did not decide yet.

Technologically I am a leader, but William with his huge commercial empire breathing on my neck.

Tech

Spoiler :

 

[Isikien]

Monarch/Epic to 190AD:

Spoiler :

And Ragnar's:

Oh god Nidaros. I would kill many vikings for that land.

Spoiler :

MANY MANY VIKINGS

 

[Mutineer]

well, I finished game with space victory, took Ragnar along the way, achieve tech parity with help of some GSpyes and run to space with help of internet.

Save a turn before victory. beat william cultural attempt with some wars bribing

Not a single cottage whole game.