Struggling with mid-game techs choices.

[sampsa]

Would pumping out more warriors be more beneficial?

Yes, I believe a few fogbusting warriors are useful even if the barbs are unlikely to cause you much problems at this level. With riverside corn you'll grow to size 3 in no time though, so you wouldn't have so many of them anyway.

 

[lymond]

I agree with Sampsa that a settler shoulda been started at Size 3 since you have such great improvements to work...cows combined with the corn is awesome for settler production. However, with a Gran in two turns I would go ahead and finish..it will be great for future settler/worker whipping.

Fish city is nice, especially with Creative leader. Try to road to city first if you can. If you have road in place to point adjacent to tile you settle on you will get insta-trade route to that city. Trade routes are important. (note: Rivers and coast can connect trade routes as well if within culture if both cities sit on either.)

edit: nevermind..you are size 4 ...so whip settler first to finish granary as sampsa said. gran bonus will then kick in at lower population which mean you will grow back super fast anyway.

 

[Arromir]

I'll try to post on update after I get back from work, however quick question for now. Is it worth getting stables up before getting elephants going, or are those hammers better spent elsewhere?

 

[Randy Random]

If you are alone with Ragnar then you should be ready to war with him. If you're on a map with other AI, he can be bribed to backstab others at cautious, which is pretty beneficial to you diplomatically. It's it's especially good if there's a protective AI who unitspams, like Sitting Bull or Charlie or Toku because Rags will bang his head against the wall attacking him, causing both of them to research poorly. It's good too if you can bribe him against good researchers like Darius or Pacal to slow them down, just make sure Raggy doesn't capitulate them. The same strategy can be used with many of the crazy war monger AIs like Shaka or Aleexander or Monty. Use them to your advantage, and when you have a tech lead swoop in and take some cities.

 

[sampsa]

Is it worth getting stables up before getting elephants going, or are those hammers better spent elsewhere?

I usually build stables in one city (probably the one with most ). This city is dedicated to only elephants. Secondary cities build mostly catapults. Note that not all your phants really needs to start with 5 xp, you'll get plenty of experience by winning fights. You can of course scout his cities to see what you are facing, but something like 8 cats + 8 other units should be easily enough to start a war.

 

[Arromir]

Spoiler :

So I finally unlocked elephants on turn 81. I already have four catapults completed, which will soon be eight as the others are done. All I need now is a handful of elephants and the carnage can begin.

I don't think it'll take much as Ragnar still has no access to metal, and Saladin stole the spot to the west right from under him.

How well can elephants go against protective archers?

As far as techs, I'm thinking Currency is the obvious one next. CS after that?

 

[sampsa]

Spoiler :

Your empire looks solid. Your cities have enough improved tiles for now so you can focus on chops. Perhaps grab all the cottages with the capital and whip other cities at size 4->2 or 5->3. I wouldn't whip away a riverside cottage but have no qualms whipping away a 13-tile. Actually, you might consider skipping that stable to just attack faster. Protective archers don't have much of a chance against phants. You can always suicide some cats to get better better odds. I believe it is possible from your position to kill all AIs even without getting more techs.

Currency sounds like a good choice to me. If you go for a madman-strategy, things like feudalism (to cap civs) and engineering (trebs) are useful. Or you can just expand a bit via this war, win lib etc.

Oh also, build some (like 4-5?) vultures for stack protection and as mop up troops. That way you can start the war a bit sooner. No need to wait for 8 phants if he has barely any defence.

edit: you should open borders with everyone, especially Ragnar to see what exactly he has.

 

[Arromir]

Spoiler :

So I finally finished mopping up Saladin in 350 AD. I'm sure it could have been done quicker, but he managed to sneak two settlers out to plant a couple garbage cities I had to raze. Unfortunately his placement for his first two cities is also pretty terrible, as they both miss out on the two fish. There's a lot of improvements to be down in the south and east, so my workers will be busy for quite some time.

I guess the next step is getting Cuirassiers and mopping up everyone else. What is the most effective way to do that? Which techs should I bulb and how many Great Scientists will I need? Should I sneak trebs in there at some point and build up a stack of those? What ratio should I look to build?

I'll stop with the questions now .

I'll also attach a save in case anyone wants to take a look.

 

[sampsa]

Spoiler :

Looks good. You are completely running away with the game. Big lead in tech, territory, etc. It's just won any way you want. The position is so good that I'm going to suggest this is your last game on monarch. You should probably be playing immortal, if you want to improve further.

If you want to end this with cuirassiers, I'd do the following:

• Switch tech from philo to music-line to win it asap
• Choose which religion you are planning to be in
• Spread this religion to some (say 4?) cities that will be your -farms during the incoming golden age. Grow these cities as big as you can before the GA
• Start the GA with the music artist
• revolt to HR+caste+pacifism+religion
• run scientists in 2 cities, merchants in 2 I guess since I'd go for 3 bulbs (2*edu, lib) and you have one GS in store
• get compass, bulb edu+lib, get nationalism+gunpowder, finish liberalism, pick MT
• you can pre-build HAs and upgrade them with the you make from merchant trade mission, if you want to be efficient

This is probably quite a good pattern to learn as you can do pretty much the same thing on deity. If you are taking this route, I'd simply ignore trebs.

Now time for some brutal honesty

Spoiler :

You could have already finished the game, if you just built units instead of buildings. Colosseums are close to useless (if you need switch into HR), monasteries are mediocre outside bureau-cap, courthouses/ziggurat-thingies are for games that last way past liberalism, forges are good but they don't win the game for you. Games on this level can be won by just building units that can capture cities, like cat+phant. You also have roughly 1000 lying around in those unchopped forests. That is about 20 "free" units.

Don't take this as criticism per se, just digest these thoughts a bit.

 

[Arromir]

Spoiler :

Looks good. You are completely running away with the game. Big lead in tech, territory, etc. It's just won any way you want. The position is so good that I'm going to suggest this is your last game on monarch. You should probably be playing immortal, if you want to improve further.

If you want to end this with cuirassiers, I'd do the following:

• Switch tech from philo to music-line to win it asap
• Choose which religion you are planning to be in
• Spread this religion to some (say 4?) cities that will be your -farms during the incoming golden age. Grow these cities as big as you can before the GA
• Start the GA with the music artist
• revolt to HR+caste+pacifism+religion
• run scientists in 2 cities, merchants in 2 I guess since I'd go for 3 bulbs (2*edu, lib) and you have one GS in store
• get compass, bulb edu+lib, get nationalism+gunpowder, finish liberalism, pick MT
• you can pre-build HAs and upgrade them with the you make from merchant trade mission, if you want to be efficient

This is probably quite a good pattern to learn as you can do pretty much the same thing on deity. If you are taking this route, I'd simply ignore trebs.

Now time for some brutal honesty

Spoiler :

You could have already finished the game, if you just built units instead of buildings. Colosseums are close to useless (if you need switch into HR), monasteries are mediocre outside bureau-cap, courthouses/ziggurat-thingies are for games that last way past liberalism, forges are good but they don't win the game for you. Games on this level can be won by just building units that can capture cities, like cat+phant. You also have roughly 1000 lying around in those unchopped forests. That is about 20 "free" units.

Don't take this as criticism per se, just digest these thoughts a bit.

Spoiler :

Don't worry about brutal honesty, it's what I'm here for . I played the game a bit further, but I'll probably call it good here as it's pretty much a wrap. I think I will try an immortal game next as you suggested. I did roll a couple emperor starts - the first had three green gems in the BFC, the second a river corn and pigs with a close neighbor I chariot rushed by turn 60. Needless to say both games didn't look like they were going to be much of a challenge after that.