It's been a couple of years since I managed to finish my Monarch Histo game. I've been saying for a while that I will make an effort to improve upon that score but I always manage to find a different game to play rather than do the one thing that will boost my QM score.
Actually my life seems to revolve around doing one thing in order to avoid doing another. I'm meant to be moving house in the next week or so, which means that in my eyes it's the ideal time to start a Deity milk attempt. After all, it will take my mind off the fact that I should be packing all I own into big boxes!
I should mention that I have chosen a Pangea map so it's never going to break any records, but hopefully it will help me learn a few lessons on how to milk at the higher levels. It should also be a bit quicker than a 'pelago map (none of that messing around with boats and airstrips) and so should be played out in a reasonable time. I chose the Iroquois and managed to roll a start with a domination limit of 3941, which is pretty good for a Pangea map. Agri plus MWs-love it!
My rivals? England, Ottomans, Aztecs, Byzantines, Mongols, Americans, Russians and Portugal. I've no idea what I was thinking when selecting some of those opponants. It was a while ago when I set mapfinder running but I'm sure that I had a good reason for choosing them at the time.
My eyes were growing pretty wide as a saw that I had a couple of luxes nearby to pair up with the beef.
The plan was min research on Writing and then max out on CoL followed by Phil for the Rep slingshot. It worked just fine, but I realised later just why many players go for Monarchy when looking to carve out an empire at this level.
By the start of the ADs I had expanded about as much as I could and was considering who my first victim would be. Unfortunately the Byzantines were also thinking along these lines and one of their warriors, escorting a settler across my lands saw an opportunity to steal a city and so they declared war on me. You might be able to see him in the north west outside Kiehero just before he pounced on my undefended city.
The first war was quite painful. Those blasted dromons redlined any unit stupid enough to finish by the coast and war weariness quickly accelerated. I took a few cities but was forced to sue for peace due to mass unhappiness, despite me having four luxes.
A few hundred years later when the PT was up I renewed the conflict. WW kicked in again pretty quickly and I was stupid to think that I could convinnce the Byzantines population to side with me. I rolled their armies over pretty quickly but their population kept revolting and I had numerous flips to contend with. In the end I had taken all their cities but they had a settler somewhere in one of the 20+ dromons that were still sailing the seas. Fortunately I had left a drop off point for them and after about five turns the settler landed.
First victim dealt with! Now I could finally overcome the resistance in all those Byzantine cities and turn my attention to another neighbour.
Next up were the English. They had several sources of Dyes that they were supplying to a variety of my rivals and they also had a supply of wines that would take my lux supply to six. I had timed my trades with them badly though and had to wait five turns for the current deal to end if I was to keep my reputation intact.
When I finally declared war they had gained Nationalism and so losses were higher than they might otherwise had been, given that their only home strategic resource was a single supply of horses. Queue more WW!
I had decided to avoid the flipping problem by razing everything in sight. This was sure to make the world mad with me but I was strong enough to cope. However my supply of settlers was not flowing to the front as fast as it should have done (another lesson learnt!) and so I was playing a game of blocking rival settlers along with holding back attacks until I had my settlers in place to claim the soon to be vacated land.
I left them with a few towns south of Mongolia (plus a few island towns) and traded for Nationalism as part of the peace deal. I'm not sure if razing Sistine was a good idea but no doubt I'll find out in a while.
I completed my research of Steam and then built a flimsy strategic rail network before taking on the Mongols. I finally declared on Mongolia in the late 800s but at least rails were helping me get my settlers to their destination pretty quickly.
They Mongols had an MPP with the backward Portuguese and my alliances with Russia and America helped kick off a mass conflict. As usual, the AI cannot fight against rifles and so I've been able to roll over the Mongol lands whilst they slug it out on the other side of the world with no real gains for either side.
I'm now at 960AD and I could take out all the last Mongols cities on the main landmass this turn, leaving them with an island city. I'm just about to claim my own source of silks, leaving just the Ottoman spices to claim for a full set.
So, where next?
The Aztecs are getting far too powerful ad these are the civ that I really want to take on. If they haven't got Rep Parts already they can't be far away and they've managed to keep out of the current conflicts so far so they haven't been weakened by war. Unfortunately they are also shielded by the Americans and the Russians and so getting to them would be too messy IMO.
(The Portuguese are too far away at the moment as well and they could make a good candidate for the final victim.)
If I'm not going to hit the Aztecs before they have infantry, then I could take a detour to the backward Ottomans and seize that final lux. However I have no navy to transport me over to their island and so this will take a while to organise. I also have a current lux deal with them so maybe they can wait a bit longer yet.
This leaves my two allies-the Russians and the Americans. I guess I'll wait and see who breaks the alliance with the Mongols first. The Russians would be my next target as they have built both the Pyramids and JSB but maybe a few turns to consolidate the newly gained lands wouldn't be too bad an idea. I could even do a bit of research again.
Current domination tiles: 2286 (38.3%). Score: 6478.
Actually my life seems to revolve around doing one thing in order to avoid doing another. I'm meant to be moving house in the next week or so, which means that in my eyes it's the ideal time to start a Deity milk attempt. After all, it will take my mind off the fact that I should be packing all I own into big boxes!
I should mention that I have chosen a Pangea map so it's never going to break any records, but hopefully it will help me learn a few lessons on how to milk at the higher levels. It should also be a bit quicker than a 'pelago map (none of that messing around with boats and airstrips) and so should be played out in a reasonable time. I chose the Iroquois and managed to roll a start with a domination limit of 3941, which is pretty good for a Pangea map. Agri plus MWs-love it!
My rivals? England, Ottomans, Aztecs, Byzantines, Mongols, Americans, Russians and Portugal. I've no idea what I was thinking when selecting some of those opponants. It was a while ago when I set mapfinder running but I'm sure that I had a good reason for choosing them at the time.
My eyes were growing pretty wide as a saw that I had a couple of luxes nearby to pair up with the beef.
The plan was min research on Writing and then max out on CoL followed by Phil for the Rep slingshot. It worked just fine, but I realised later just why many players go for Monarchy when looking to carve out an empire at this level.

By the start of the ADs I had expanded about as much as I could and was considering who my first victim would be. Unfortunately the Byzantines were also thinking along these lines and one of their warriors, escorting a settler across my lands saw an opportunity to steal a city and so they declared war on me. You might be able to see him in the north west outside Kiehero just before he pounced on my undefended city.
The first war was quite painful. Those blasted dromons redlined any unit stupid enough to finish by the coast and war weariness quickly accelerated. I took a few cities but was forced to sue for peace due to mass unhappiness, despite me having four luxes.
A few hundred years later when the PT was up I renewed the conflict. WW kicked in again pretty quickly and I was stupid to think that I could convinnce the Byzantines population to side with me. I rolled their armies over pretty quickly but their population kept revolting and I had numerous flips to contend with. In the end I had taken all their cities but they had a settler somewhere in one of the 20+ dromons that were still sailing the seas. Fortunately I had left a drop off point for them and after about five turns the settler landed.
First victim dealt with! Now I could finally overcome the resistance in all those Byzantine cities and turn my attention to another neighbour.
Next up were the English. They had several sources of Dyes that they were supplying to a variety of my rivals and they also had a supply of wines that would take my lux supply to six. I had timed my trades with them badly though and had to wait five turns for the current deal to end if I was to keep my reputation intact.
When I finally declared war they had gained Nationalism and so losses were higher than they might otherwise had been, given that their only home strategic resource was a single supply of horses. Queue more WW!
I had decided to avoid the flipping problem by razing everything in sight. This was sure to make the world mad with me but I was strong enough to cope. However my supply of settlers was not flowing to the front as fast as it should have done (another lesson learnt!) and so I was playing a game of blocking rival settlers along with holding back attacks until I had my settlers in place to claim the soon to be vacated land.
I left them with a few towns south of Mongolia (plus a few island towns) and traded for Nationalism as part of the peace deal. I'm not sure if razing Sistine was a good idea but no doubt I'll find out in a while.
I completed my research of Steam and then built a flimsy strategic rail network before taking on the Mongols. I finally declared on Mongolia in the late 800s but at least rails were helping me get my settlers to their destination pretty quickly.
They Mongols had an MPP with the backward Portuguese and my alliances with Russia and America helped kick off a mass conflict. As usual, the AI cannot fight against rifles and so I've been able to roll over the Mongol lands whilst they slug it out on the other side of the world with no real gains for either side.
I'm now at 960AD and I could take out all the last Mongols cities on the main landmass this turn, leaving them with an island city. I'm just about to claim my own source of silks, leaving just the Ottoman spices to claim for a full set.
So, where next?
The Aztecs are getting far too powerful ad these are the civ that I really want to take on. If they haven't got Rep Parts already they can't be far away and they've managed to keep out of the current conflicts so far so they haven't been weakened by war. Unfortunately they are also shielded by the Americans and the Russians and so getting to them would be too messy IMO.
(The Portuguese are too far away at the moment as well and they could make a good candidate for the final victim.)
If I'm not going to hit the Aztecs before they have infantry, then I could take a detour to the backward Ottomans and seize that final lux. However I have no navy to transport me over to their island and so this will take a while to organise. I also have a current lux deal with them so maybe they can wait a bit longer yet.
This leaves my two allies-the Russians and the Americans. I guess I'll wait and see who breaks the alliance with the Mongols first. The Russians would be my next target as they have built both the Pyramids and JSB but maybe a few turns to consolidate the newly gained lands wouldn't be too bad an idea. I could even do a bit of research again.
Current domination tiles: 2286 (38.3%). Score: 6478.