The main pronlem with Civ 4 is...

[Krill]

Ah, to hell it, I want sleep...

[StarLightDeath]

You throw out all your numbers...but AOC is an 8 year old game and AOE 3 is out and you have only 400 ranked players. Of those 400 how many are inactive for 2 weeks or more? AOC has that many people in just 1 room at any given time. The people who are actually playing games on the ladder are 1/10th of the people actually playing games in civ4 at any given time. That means that in 6 months only about 30% of hte current people will still be palying this game on a regular basis and of that 30% the majority won't be on your ladder. On the other hand, there are 600+ people playing rated in AOC at any given time and more than double that playing unrated games. I know you aren't too bright (I've seen your picture), but even you can do the math and see that AOC kicks Civ4's ass period. The AOC MP community which is basically dead still has 10 times as many people playing. How's that? I won't even get started on the other 90 different MP games out there that kick Civ's ass all around the room. You are part of the problem CS and it's why in Civ2 we ****ing kicked the **** out of cases ladder. The simple fact is that nobody wants to start a ladder from scratch and there are no other free ones out there. So don't think that people actually enjoy C4P or cases because it's really not the case.

[StarLightDeath]

Here's a good example of how much C4P sucks. http://bskzone.com/ This is just one of the 90 different clans in AOC.

[Enigma_Nova]

This **** is Bananas!
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Again this **** is BANANAS!
B-A-N-A-N-A-S

[Aeson]

Nicely done Krill. (AU 666? )

Eyes wants to blame it all on the map, but there are some pretty awful things going on management-wise on his side. (I'm glad he's ignoring me. Don't have to worry about him learning anything.)

His capitol at -3 Health. There are 3 seafood resources waiting to be hooked up. FIN especially gets good value from Coast tiles. But since it doesn't count for Score, Eyes has ignored it, and thus all the indirect ways Coast can count towards score.

2 of of those seafood tiles (Crabs, Clams) could be claimed by a single city for one of those awesome specialist cities. Look at Krill's Scientist city for a good example. Eyes has 2 Priests as his specialist total. No Metal Casting for Forges and Engineers is probably one of the big reasons Krill won most of the Wonder races.

Vassallage or Bureacracy are available, but is in neither. Mainly because his empire has been set up so that neither would be much help. He's in Hereditary Rule, needing a crapload of units in his capitol to keep it Happy, while there are 4 Calendar resources he could have hooked up. Stonehenge isn't worth passing up that Happiness.

8 Forests outside any city borders that could be chopped and not impact Health at all. 13 other Forests that could be chopped without negatively impacting Health in the short term, most of them not being worked. That's 21 chops Eyes passed up.

Using 7 unimproved Plains Tiles! All of them in his 5 best cities... Think about that for a minute. That's roughly 1/7th his civilization (7/51 pop) working on absolute crap, in the cities with the most potential. 5 Workers just isn't enough, even if he did go for Feudalism.

7 Hills that could be mined (a few of them Chopped first) but only 1 mined, and several missed due to city placement.

[Enigma_Nova]

Geez, I'm a newb and even I wouldn't make mistakes like that.

[polarnomad]

Originally posted by Krill
Krill 1, SLD 0

Yay!

[StarLightDeath]

last time I checked, mid game is more important than late game. Look at what he has in his capital. His capital has 3 hills and has flood plains and 2 gems. Sure I could have used the water...but again I still have no production. You talk about irrigating plains squares, but those only started being used in the very late part of the game and you are only talking an additional 7 food...again I can't keep up with all those cities with flood plains and other ****. Who gives a **** about a specialist city when he's getting all kinds of free **** from wonders? The simple fact is that not only did I not have hardly any irrigatable land, but alot of the land I did have to irrigate was plains. That's also not counting the zillion different resources he had. Are you trying to say those 8 chopped forests would have built me the 10 wonders he built early on in the game? Wow, I'd sure love to learn your math because I like that little world you live in alot more than mine. The simple fact is the majority of his cities had both high food resources and high production resources. Is this a big problem? It sure as **** is when I can't get units in there to mess up his economy. Resources have a cascading effect as the numbers are factored in over time. You looked at the end of the game and saw some minors changes to be made and somehow think this would change the entire game? Surely you aren't this stupid. I'll just end this discussion right now. If resources aren't the problem and he's just better then why can't he play on a mirror map? Let alone a duel size map that is actually made for 2 players instead of a tiny map that is made for 3-4 players on hub no less. What's that? He needed the map screw to win? Oh, ok, that's what I ****ing thought.

Vassalage isn't **** on hub dumbass and I didn't get civil service until turn 95. What am I going to do, build an army and march it accross the 35 spaces to his place? Yeah, real smart. I'm sure that makes up for the 10 wonders he built before then? Idiot. You talk about hills, but the hills in those cities were either down in the south where I had no irrigation to use the hills without sacrificing population, which was obviously one of the biggest point gainers in the game, or you're talking about the ones in the north that I was trying to build pop in. Does that somehow make up for the vast amounts of hills and irrigation and resources in his beginning cities? Nice reasoning. Oh, and Krill won the wonder races because he had triple my MFG at one point. Face it Aeson, you're a ****ing idiot.

[CanuckSoldier]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
You throw out all your numbers...but AOC is an 8 year old game and AOE 3 is out and you have only 400 ranked players. Of those 400 how many are inactive for 2 weeks or more? AOC has that many people in just 1 room at any given time. The people who are actually playing games on the ladder are 1/10th of the people actually playing games in civ4 at any given time. That means that in 6 months only about 30% of hte current people will still be palying this game on a regular basis and of that 30% the majority won't be on your ladder. On the other hand, there are 600+ people playing rated in AOC at any given time and more than double that playing unrated games. I know you aren't too bright (I've seen your picture), but even you can do the math and see that AOC kicks Civ4's ass period. The AOC MP community which is basically dead still has 10 times as many people playing. How's that? I won't even get started on the other 90 different MP games out there that kick Civ's ass all around the room. You are part of the problem CS and it's why in Civ2 we ****ing kicked the **** out of cases ladder. The simple fact is that nobody wants to start a ladder from scratch and there are no other free ones out there. So don't think that people actually enjoy C4P or cases because it's really not the case.

You are very amussing Eyes, you try and support your feable cause by comparing a RTS game with a TBS game, you might as well compare CIV to Quake, just as meaningless. How bout we compare C4P with Civleague at it's prime? My memory is not perfect but I guarentee Civleague never exceeded 300 ranked players at anytime, and at this time C4P has 551 ranked players, 1400+ players total, but I doubt any amount of stats or success will change your narrow mind, after all since your arguement is failing you have resorted to a personal character attack....very classy indeed.

CS

[Aeson]

You're having trouble figuring out the ignore thing I see. I'm glad you're back!

last time I checked, mid game is more important than late game.

Post your mid game saves then and I'll happily critique them too.

Look at what he has in his capital. His capital has 3 hills and has flood plains and 2 gems.

I didn't compare your start to Krill's at all, just pointed out areas where you were operating sub-optimally. All your whining about what he had... I simply don't care. I'm not trying to make a point about you in relation to Krill, but rather you in relation to game mechanics. You claim there is no wonder about CIV, yet you obviously should be wondering about how to make better use of your land. And that stands regardless of what your opponent is doing.

Sure I could have used the water...but again I still have no production.

21 Forests to chop is a nice bit of Production. 15X21= 315... plus you're IND, so it could be worth up to 630. (We'll ignore that with Bronze and on the Collosus you could have even surpassed that.)

The 6 Hills you didn't Mine, claim, and/or deem worthy of including in a city radius also represents Production.

But that's quite beside the point. If you have no production it doesn't mean making use of what you have is any less important. Your "fishy" town could have helped with Health, which you were struggling with. It also could have used one of those Hills you deemed not worth using, and the Horses too. In short, it could have been one of your best cities, but you simply didn't build it. Not only that, but Food can be Production into Workers and Settlers, and that site would have been a very good producer of those units. Instead, you had to produce Workers/Settlers in other cities which weren't as well suited for it, thus limiting your own overall production ability.

You talk about irrigating plains squares, but those only started being used in the very late part of the game and you are only talking an additional 7 food...

No. There are many ways you could have gone with it.

You could have used Specialists instead. You weren't going to be growing anymore in a useful sense, meaning even if you did grow it was only to throw more Food into the Health pit. So that food was worthless. Trade it in for the output from a Specialist. A Priest will give you the Production and a Commerce with GP points on top of it, which is better than the Food and Production in that case.

You could have used Workshops on some of those Plains tiles to give more production, since you didn't need to grow anymore. That is, if you had deemed Metal Casting worth going for. Why you ignored Metal Casting and Machinery is beyond me, given your Production situation and the fact you were Chinese with Iron. Forget what settings you were playing on and had to go for Feudalism?

Or you could have at least put those spare Cottages you have on Grasslands that aren't being used on the Plains being used instead. 1F1P1C or 1F1P3C tiles are better than a 1F1P tile, and with time will become much better. And in one case, you could have put a Plantation on that Plains Silk tile, if you hadn't deemed Calendar (and the +5 happiness you'd get from it) as less valuable than Stonehenge.

And yes, Farms are also a possibility. 2F1P is obviously better than 1F1P. Even if it doesn't grow, you could move "down" a Food on another tile, up a Production or Commerce. But since you didn't hook up your Seafood or Calendar resources, and didn't want to Mine any Hills or Cottage and Plains, they weren't going to do you a lot of good.

The simple fact is that not only did I not have hardly any irrigatable land, but alot of the land I did have to irrigate was plains.

So now you are back to whining about Food, which you deemed not worth grabbing at the Seafood buffet. Irrigation which you deemed less valuable than Feudalism.

That's also not counting the zillion different resources he had.

You had:

Health: 6 different, 12 total
Strategic: Copper, Horse, Iron
Happiness: 5 Calendar, 1 Gold

Krill had:

Health: 9 different, 12 total
Strategic: Copper, Horse, Iron
Happiness: 1 Ivory, 2 Gems, 1 Wine, 1 Whale
Building: Stone, Marble*

(*Before you go there with the Wonder whine, neither was ever hooked up, so couldn't have played a factor in the Wonder races. And If I'm giving Krill Marble and Deer, I should probably count your Furs and second Iron on "your side" of the isthmus... which I didn't.)

His happiness was easy in 2 cases, hard in 2 cases, while most of yours were inbetween. You ignored your Calendar Happiness resources (5 of them) in favor of Stonehenge. You didn't really make much effort towards the Gold (+Fish or +Rice) site either.

Anyways, I'm not going to analyse the comparison of resources between you, I just wanted to count to a zillion.

Are you trying to say those 8 chopped forests would have built me the 10 wonders he built early on in the game?

It's 21 Forests available for "no-tradeoff" chopping (ie. no negative Health impact within the game's timelimit), not 8. 15*21=315. (You'd have had to place your cities better to get full effect from the chops though.) You were IND, that's +100% on Forest Chops towards Wonders. That's potentially 630P towards Wonders. Chopping Forests could have grabbed you at least a couple of them, and may have even allowed you to build more Wonders than Krill in conjuction with actually using the Production potential you had with your Hills instead of wasting them almost entirely.

Oracle is 100. Hanging Gardens is 200 (which you sorely could have used). Parthenon is 268. Pyramids is 301. How many of those would 630 production have helped you get? Well, I can't actually say because you seemed to have figured out a way to make Qin inept at Wonder building and teching, which is one of the most amazing accomplishments I've ever seen. But it's enough Production for 3 of those Wonders straight up, assuming you could get to them in time tech wise. Whether or not you could have done so, I don't know.

Wow, I'd sure love to learn your math because I like that little world you live in alot more than mine.

I know in your world 21 means 8, and 22 means a zillion. I can't compete with that.

The simple fact is the majority of his cities had both high food resources and high production resources. Is this a big problem? It sure as **** is when I can't get units in there to mess up his economy. Resources have a cascading effect as the numbers are factored in over time. You looked at the end of the game and saw some minors changes to be made and somehow think this would change the entire game?

Quote it where I said I thought it would change the entire game. You're just making that up because you can't deal with reality.

The Seafood could have been claimed with your second-fourth city, as it was definitely a top 4 city site. That would have affected the whole game. (There, now I've said "it". Notice I didn't say it would make you win, just that it would have changed your overall potential if you had claimed that site and make good use of it.)

I'll just end this discussion right now. If resources aren't the problem and he's just better then why can't he play on a mirror map? Let alone a duel size map that is actually made for 2 players instead of a tiny map that is made for 3-4 players on hub no less. What's that? He needed the map screw to win? Oh, ok, that's what I ****ing thought.

Argue with yourself all you want about who would have won the game. I don't care. All I care about is that you obviously made mistakes in that game and they are there for me to point out. And doing so has got you steamed enough to respond to me again, which is always good for some laughs.

Vassalage isn't **** on hub dumbass and I didn't get civil service until turn 95. What am I going to do, build an army and march it accross the 35 spaces to his place? Yeah, real smart. I'm sure that makes up for the 10 wonders he built before then? Idiot.

You're the one who researched Feudalism. I probably wouldn't have wasted my time with Feudalism in this type of game. It's your fault for going at the techs backwards, or rather, for wasting time researching Feudalism when you could have been going for useful things like Calendar, Metal Casting, Machinery, Drama. You know, things which would have helped you address the problems facing your empire.

You took Feudalism in a game with no real threat of warfare before Civil Service. You could have used Bureaucracy if you had set up your Capitol to be anything other than a Health abyss, and also benefitted from the ability to string along Irrigation which you've correctly identified as a somewhat of a limiting factor in your case.

Of course, you would have had to build another couple Workers because you wouldn't be running Serfdom. But Caste System is pretty nice in peaceful games too, so that might have been a plus actually to be running the best Civic for the situation. (Especially if you had set up that Seafood city.)

You talk about hills, but the hills in those cities were either down in the south where I had no irrigation to use the hills without sacrificing population, which was obviously one of the biggest point gainers in the game, or you're talking about the ones in the north that I was trying to build pop in. Does that somehow make up for the vast amounts of hills and irrigation and resources in his beginning cities?

It is what it is. Hills represent Production potential. You could have used most of the Hills and been more Productive, and have as high a population or higher, but you chose to use only 1 of them.

the Hill 87 (think keyboard) of Chengdu is unmined and not being used. Chengdu is using 2 unimproved Plains tiles!

Chengdu itself is built on a Grassland Hill, which can often be a good thing, but not if there isn't a tactical reason for it. Chengdu is not really in the most tactically important spot, so you could have built your city on another tile instead of the Hill. Though it would have thrown off that nice little box you formed out of those 4 cities... is that what you were worried about?

The Grassland Hill by the Clams and Crabs is obviously one you missed (Chopping it too). That one easily could have been used given 2 Seafood resource tiles in the same city.

The Gold Hill is far away, but a city could use it and the Rice up there, which is plenty of Food to use a Mine with. Or you could have settled on the Gold Hill, got the +1 Production in the city tile, got the Gold for Happiness, and used the Fish, getting it for Health.
Either option is better than not using the Gold, Fish, or Rice at all.

Or that Rice could be used by a city to the E on the river, which could have used 2 Grassland Hills and 4 Grassland River tiles you never made any use of, not even to chop the Forests on them.

Xian has a Grassland Hill 77 which is a total loss as it is also using unimproved Plains tiles, and would still have all the tiles it is working in it's radius if it was moved 8 so it could use that Hill.

The Desert Hill by Shanghai could be used instead of the unimproved Plains tile that is being used. It would give less Commerce, more Production. (I'd improve the Plains tile myself, but you seem to have an aversion to that.)

The 2 extra Grassland Hills down S could have been used by any city placed down there. Shanghai should have been built 2 of where it is, as that would have allowed it to use 2 of those Hills instead of the 2 unimproved Plains tiles it is using, in addition to the decent terrain it already had. It would not have lost any tiles it is using by doing so. Though you wouldn't have been able to found on the Copper. As you say, warfare potential in this game was limited, so why build on the Copper? That's losing you Production too!

If you had gone for Civil Service earlier, instead of wasting your time on Feudalism, maybe you could have gotten the Irrigation necessary to use the... wait... you could use all the Hills anyways except the one the Desert Hill the Seafood city would be founded on.

Nice try, but I wouldn't have suggested you use the Hills if it wasn't possible, and even optimal, for you to do so. You say you were not using your Production because you wanted to maximize growth, but your growth is being limited by low Health due to not claiming your Seafood resources, and you're missing out on the best growth site by not building a city to use the Seafood. You want to argue against using the Seafood because it's not Production, and the productive potential of the Hills because it's not Food. Talk about looking at things backwards.

Oh, and Krill won the wonder races because he had triple my MFG at one point.

And possibly because you didn't chop or make any use of what Production you did have. Maybe he still would have beat you, I don't care. You probably would have won at least a couple more Wonder races by chopping though, unless you're terribly inept at doing so. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on the research required to get to the techs fast enough so that the Wonders aren't already build, though given how pathetic your GNP is with a FIN civ that might not be warranted. Even if you didn't chop for Wonders though, there are other ways to chop and get good value in return.

And I thought you said you were winning early on... "Nah, he didn't cheat because he was behind all beginning of the game. It really wasn't even close." Or are you one of those people who think MP score is "Early religions + Stonehenge for teh win!!!" (ie. Points that mean you're actually sabatoging your point potential with misdirected early production and research.)

Face it Aeson, you're a ****ing idiot.

Name calling didn't get you out of playing with Krill's settings, and it won't get you out of my posting style either. I'm sure you'll run away and hide behind something like, "I ignore you because you address all my points" soon enough, as you can't actually address an argument and make anything approaching an intelligent response. Until then, thanks for the entertainment.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Screw chess, have him play a game of GO / Othello.

I don't get this comment.
go I cant almost understand but what's the argument for Othello?

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Aeson
21 Forests to chop is a nice bit of Production. 15X21= 315... plus you're IND, so it could be worth up to 630. (We'll ignore that with Bronze and on the Collosus you could have even surpassed that.)

Ind is a 50% Bonus to wonders.
However, I usually get 30 Production per chop.
If you're considering Chopping up a Forge (which -would- get double production), then I have to wonder why you had no Settlers, Workers or Wonders to build!

[Krill]

Thanks for the compliment Aeson And thanks for the evaluation, you've helped me as well with it

---

SLD built: Stonehenge in capital , Buddhist shrine, Hindu Shrine

Krill built: Oracle, Pyramids, Great Library, Notre Dame, in the Capital, Chitchen Itza, Colossus, Great Lighthouse in second city at the base of the isthmus (oh, and a great work to give 105% culuture defence by the end of the game). Confucian shrine wqas built in the holy city.


I went for Bronze striaght of the bat, as I wanted to see where copper was. Only visible source was just inside the isthmus, and I went for that as the new town would be able to use a fair few other decent bonus. Pigs, mainly, and 2 hills, enough to make it a decent production in the early game and a good base of operations if SLD came knocking in the early game with a few units to harrass with.

After bronze I went for AH, to hook up my plains cow, and it was finished just after my worker finished mining my gems. By using the gems instead of tiles that produced more shields, I managed to pull ahead in tech right from the off. then I got wheel, agri, archery (not in that order, but you get the idea) to just get the basis down for the economy. Third city was settled to the west near iron and rice, coastal and with a few hills and a bit of coast. This became the Confucian holy city latewr on.

After this I went for pottery and metal casting, only taking 15 turns on metal casting, and then, as the oracle was not built yet, I went for preisthood and the oracle, and then for civil service as the free tech. That got me my religion, and bureacracy and caste system. It was about here I started wondering what SLD was doing...

...then I just built up some axes and spears and a few extra archers to hold the isthmus, while research to get cats, get to music for the free Great Artist and the therefore free great work in the isthmus city, as well as drop some wonders into my cities. Flushed out some barbs from the north, and expand to get some more points.

I ended running 60% sci towards the end, I think Imight have dropped to 50% on occasion. Colossus for extra trade from coastal tiles, GL for extra trade routes, and the fact that all but 3 of my cities were coastal helped alot in this regard.

I think I ended up getting 2 or 3 great Engineers, from the pyramids and the GE specialists. Aeson is right, those helped alot with the wonders.

---

Aeson, I did not research Claender myself, but that is simply because I decided to play it a bit lax. The Deer had just come within my borders, and I was planning to hook it up, but I thought that the wonders would have helped my score more than hooking up deer at that point in the game. Stone and Marble were within reach towards the end of the game aswell, and I will freely admit I could have prioritised them. Thing is, Stone was right next to a barb city, and Marble was further up the Isthmus, so both entailed a risk I was not willing to take.

Now, the reason I like Bismark...

3 Forest chops get you a forge and a granary. Quick growth and quick production. And with Coastal cities providing the gold...I think Bismark is underrated by most players.

[Mergle]

Aeson,

I'd just like to thank you for that detailed analysis of the situation in the save. I kindof knew all the things you said, but the practical example pulling it all together has shown me several weaknesses in my own strategy's. So even if your intended listener isn't listening, I for one have benefitted anyway.

[Enigma_Nova]

Bismarck is a strong player if you use his traits in conjunction with each-other.
Quick Harbors and Quick GLH = Kaching
Bronze working + Expansive = Chop n Pop
Starts with hunting = Scouts for Huts

Though, I'm going to have to try a different playstyle sooner or later.
Mao and Gandhi look pretty good at the moment. =]