Superslug Monarch Attempt #1

[superslug]

Well, my placement on the Chieftain level bolstered my confidence, and I think I can successfully avoid several incredible mistakes in that game, so I'm going to jump up a few levels.

Mistakes that I made in that game (despite placing #4) included (but were not limited to) building too many defensive units, packing my cities in too tight, bad city placement and improper build priorities during the milk phase.

I can't wait for Conquests to play again, so I'm going to go for a run at the Monarch level. While it may not be the best thing score wise, I'm in the mood to go 'retro' before Conquests and bypass PTW in favor of Vanilla 1.29.

I'll post my starting location and specs as soon as I settle on a map.

 

[superslug]

I went with the usual settings of warm/wet/pangaea/5bill. I have 8ai with sedentary barbs. My domination limit is 3946 and here's my starting location!:

 

[superslug]

By 130bc, neither my city number nor military might is of impressive strength. However, I did build the Pyramids and the Great Library. As soon as my preRepublic anarchy subsides, I anticipate a settler rush and generation of some serious cash which I will use to upgrade Horsemen to Riders, once the Library is generous enough to get me there.

One thing I am quite proud of and don't usually accomplish this early:

 

[Darkness]

I'm jealous of your start superslug! And those luxuries you managed to secure. Good luck!

 

[superslug]

All that food at the starting spot, five luxuries, a high tile count. The map is awesome. It almost makes up for the headache of not having the PTW unit buttons and espionage screen...

 

[Darkness]

Why didn't you use PTW for this game. The scientific civs get more random techs at the beginning of the new eras with patch 1.27f, which leads to a faster tech pace. (I've got 3 scientific civs in my game: Me (Ottomans), Germans and Russians, and some nifty trading netted me monotheism, engineering and feudalism in one turn... )

 

[superslug]

The free tech doesn't apply to the first age, and my possession of the Great Library gives me all the second age entry techs for free. If all goes as planned, few to none of the AI will make it to the industrial age...

As for the vanilla vs ptw, playing the vanilla version of a game is something I like to do whenever an XP is coming out. I can't really explain it anymore than I could explain why I still have a copy of Doom.

 

[Darkness]

Yeah, I guess that's what's different in our games. You have the Great Library. I don't. I could have had it but I preferred to go for Leo's instead. Now I can keep building horseman for my upgrade to Sipahi's, otherwise I would have gotten chivalry through the GL and I would have had to build knights (which cost far more shields). I know I could try to disconnect my iron source but that is not possible because my only iron source popped up under one of my early cities after I discovered IW....

 

[superslug]

@Darkness: Would it be too expensive to abandon the city?

 

[Darkness]

Originally posted by superslug
@Darkness: Would it be too expensive to abandon the city?

I abandoned the game... ...

 

[superslug]

Originally posted by Darkness
I abandoned the game... ...

I've done that a thousand million times. Consider it an investment in saving yourself time.

Fortunatly, I don't think my current game is going anywhere but completion. Once the GL gave me Feudalism and Monotheism, I researched Chivalry in six turns and started upgrading Horsemen to Riders, attacking Russia and triggering my Golden Age.

The funny thing is that I'm having to be careful where I build my Riders during the GA. I'm momentarily out of room and have dozens of Settlers cooling their heels, but I continue building them to keep all my river towns 6 or under since I'm preparing for a Palace Jump. I sent a Settler to the other side of the world many moons ago with a dozen or so workers and defensive units, and they finally arrived.

I'll have settler space soon enough, as my Riders are rubblizing Russia.

 

[superslug]

My long wandering Settler (with warriors and workers) finally arrived at the far end of my pangaea, the bottom right corner indicated by the white box on the minimap. I jumped my Palace down there (the rest of my Chinese empire is the pink in the northwest). As you can see by the before and after stat boxes, corruption was significantly reduced.

In general news, the Aztecs are impossible to see on the map as they only have two towns left. I've also deprived the Romans (red) of a good chunk of their territory. I hope to have the two of them finished off soon so the Riders in those areas can join my main force fighting the Russians (brown).

The score is 1675 in 800ad, so I know this game will make the HOF, but as yet, I have no idea where...

 

[EMan]

............with such a HIGH Domination Limit!

Wish you MORE luck during your Monarch level attempt. I just finished a Monarch game (took 6 months.....hope there's no time-limit!)........and had MY luck in 2800BC......but the Dom Limit was only 3609! (Game posted for Oct 27 update.)

Your start position/Dom Limit really makes one think about spending some time BEFORE you even make the FIRST move!

How long did it take you to get the start position?

 

[superslug]

Originally posted by EMan
How long did it take you to get the start position?

Several hours, at least. I suspect that my using Vanilla 1.29 has something to do with it, but I can assure you, I'll probably never go back to 1.29 again, considering how much I miss the espionage screen, the command buttons, the-well, you get the picture. Although I assure you I will be carrying this game to the bitter end...

 

[EMan]

Originally posted by superslug
Although I assure you I will be carrying this game to the bitter end...

That's a very admirable attitude.............you will learn something new, probably several things, on a Milk Run.

GOOD LUCK

 

[superslug]

This game has resulted in much more massive amounts of warfare than I was anticipating. However, the steady 'trickle' of GL's has come in handy. I used the first to rush Smith's, which doesn't help me much until the milk phase, but I consider a must have.

The second leader I used to rush Leonardo's. While my precious Riders are serving me well, I'm less than ten turns away from railroads, at which point I'll double back and take Military Tradition. I had laid wasted to over half of America and most of Germany but was getting spread thin on the double front, so I declared peace with Lincoln and lunged into the heart of Germany for Leipzig, which has Sun Tzu. In the process of taking it over, I generated another GL, which I immediately popped in Leipzig for Bach's.

I then declared peace with Bismarck. During the 20 turn double-peace, I'm going to get Steam Power and Military Tradition then upgrade all my Riders to Cavalry and finish the AI off for good.

EDIT: Forgot to mention this: while I'm at peace with Germany and America for 20 turns, the two of them are oddly enough at war with each other. I wonder how that happened...

 

[superslug]

I finally worked up the nerve to run two consecutive turns of score through the calculator. I'm currently projected at 13389. This estimate is seriously conservative however, as I have yet to build a single aqueduct, and as I am still over 1000 tiles short of the limit.

 

[Darkness]

With all due respect to SirPlebs score-calculating utility, but I found it's basically useless for projections before everything's maxed out. If not everything is maxed out, all it will do is give significantly lower projection....

 

[superslug]

Oh, trust me I know what you mean! That's why I'm so ecstatic over the estimate! I should theoretically place pretty high...I've come to seriously rely on the calculator, it's just the first time this game I've used it.

 

[superslug]

My updates will likely be spaced out by several days apart now. My turns are taking upwards of 20 minutes a piece to complete. The reason for this post is that I've reached the milestone of having cleared the AI from my pangaea.

Obviously, the remaining civs have a 'stronghold' on the eastern island, but that's about to be invaded by several hundred cavalry. After that, I'll likely have to clear out a few cities on the dozens of islands around as I keep seeing boats with settlers floating out.

My intention is to go ahead and hit the domination limit on my pangaea, but continue to establish cities as I abandon ones in not so good terrain. Once I eliminate the AI (save the one token town), I'll settle the islands and abandon a second round of cities.