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**Phaedrus1313** · April 19, 2006, 17:12

and... lest anyone think otherwise... the "xxx" in the name is simply thirty, and nothing else :-) i guess that means it's my 30th game since I started keeping a line of leaders named like that :-)

(well, at least, my 30th game that got far enough along to have a saved game :-)

Lee

**Mr Justice** · April 21, 2006, 08:49

hi Phaedrus1313

i d/l the save and looked at it briefly last night.

wasnt looking specifically at your questions but i'll try answer from memory.

1. i would agree bejing is ur best option for GP factory, tho ur a bit snookered in terms of happieness, ur almost at happy limit on pop of 18 or so.

2. i can see how ur production was low, u mostly had grasland and plains. was much of it forrested oriiginally? if so i would have left 4/5 forrests arround one of thew cities, especially plains forrests.
after putting lumbermill and railroad on plains forrest u get 4 hammers. thats same as grasland hill. it is long time to wait tho.
otherwise ur options are workshops and watermills. most likely workshops. best used on city with 2 good food sources and just workshop the rest of the tiles. (farm a couple more, mabey every 3rd tile a famred grass , rest workshopped)
thats ur only option if ur limited by terrain.

3. well tbh its way to late to do specialization in ur game atm. i plan for specialization in ancient age, (pick city sites). in the classic and mideval times i actually go about implementing the specialization, i'bve no prob completely reworking a cities tiles to fit to what i want to specializre in. certainly by the 1200's or so i will definately have at 1 major prod city no commerce , no cottages in its fat cross, a GP city and a science city. my capital is not included as grenerally its good at production and science (thanks burocrocy). all my other cities tend towards science, but i will have more production in htose than a pure science city, with mabey every third or forth being strong on production.
for production ur best prod city should be ur ironworks city (future plan that decision, whats ur best prod city ~1200 may not be ur best prod city ~1800). next best can be ur heoric epic city.

to meh, in that game i would go for space win, to much work for conquest or domination. or diplomacy win. culture is out the window.

my comments on ur game:

you have to many specialists imo, in some cases ur losing out, i noticed on one city u have 3/4 specialist (1 free i know) and an unworked tile with fur i thoink it was, by removing a scientist and working the tile the science figure went from 123 to 127 and u got 1 extra gold. i appreciate ur philo leader, but i heard the rule here that tiles with 4 commerce or more contribute more than what a specialist would. stick to it. you should check all ur cities every 10/20 turns to make sure they are working the best available squares. with specialists i only really go for them in GP city and otherwise only if there is benifit (ie need production so put on engineer instesd of working a no production tile).

you started no religions, and the religions that are in your cities are all different. for happiness sake you should devote more reasources into reaserching/building religion stuff. (ie start religions, building temples and missionaries, not to mention religious money shrines) other aspect of this is that in several cases ur lands have been impinged by other civ cityies with high culture. focus more on this area in your early game. religion gives u to things when u create it, gold and happiness, both in short supply in emporer. my hint is to try start hinduism, any leader has good chance of being first to reaserch this so long as u dont reaserch anything else before hand.

fromn the above point i reasoned that u didnt slingshot. you should, tho its even harder at emporer.

i'll just mention ur armies and general strategic situation, tho i normally play epic or maraton , so my understandin of the mechanics under 'normal' conditions is limited.
i think you leave to much of a border with other civs, this requires u to heacvily garrison border cities. i try not leave lone cities from other civs near my border, i would have got rid of them way before now. you have a lot of outdated units (chariots) and loads of cash. upgrade them! or if ur low on gold and high on production just delete them and build new ones.
ur spending on military is right, but a lot of it is old military, and as such not that useful. also not enough catapults. nothing better than those for dealing with enemy invasions. cities nowere near border (3 squares away) and not on coast only need 1 unit in them. try get as many of ur cities into this category.

another thing i notices it that u ignored the steel reaserch tree, dont, destroyers are very important, even on pangea maps, i notice lots of ur sea based reasors had no work boat on em, i can only presume u were unable to defend them. plus for coastal based enemy cities the destroyers bombard is very handy.

overall ur game was fine, and you were heading for victory, but to increase ur chances at emporer u goto be more aware in the early to mid game. late game is just too late to pull rabbits out of hats, especially on emporer.

Best of luck Phaedrus1313!!

**Metaliturtle** · April 21, 2006, 09:04

Nice SPDG tag, you might want to put your name on the citizens registry...

**Mr Justice** · April 21, 2006, 11:59

that forum looks interesting. will check it out. anychance of d/l more free time here.

**Blake** · April 21, 2006, 13:36

Well one serious flaw is you are trusing the governors without giving them any instructions.

Take the city Nanjing for example, it is size 13, has 18 health, and 17 happiness. So essential it's a minimum of 3 population smaller than it should - really 6 population, since a granary and aquaduct are yet to built.
Here is where the governor is messing up, it has assigned 2 specialists while there is an unworked grassland silk and plenty of coastal tiles. By maximizing food it will gain an additional +4 food/turn - bringing it from the measly +1 surplus under governor to +5 food surplus, a 400% increase in growth.

Many other cities suffer simillary, they have specialists assigned while they could work another +2 food tile and double, triple, quadruple growth...

Another micro example is Santiago, which is suffering from a negiliant governor. South of it, Macchu has an unreasonable amount of food, you could steal one farmed grassland from Macchu and set Santiago to maximize food, bringing surplus from +3 to +11, quite a decent improvement! Another example is Cuzco, which could go from +1 surplus to +7!

So basically go around all your cities and see if you can dramatically increase growth by tweaking the maximize food/production/commerce settings. Generally it is best to use Maximize Food alone, or Maximize all 3 - which is basically "Don't use specialists", ocassionally max food+max hammers will work best.
If you want specialists for GPP purposes then lock them in manually - this will avoid GPP pollution by the governor assigning random specialists.

One other comment is that you seem to have quite heavily garrisoned cities, you could probably put those units to use by mass upgrading then finishing off Inca, or relieving the cultural pressure Spain is exerting on Santiago - along with acquiring some holy cities.

Also militiary, I see that Saladin is in a real cozy situation with that giant hindu block. What would probably work for breaking that up is bribing Caesar to attack Isabella & Napoleon and Hatty to attack Monty, then you finish off Capac followed by attacking Saladin. With Saladin's minions fighting each other you would be fairly immune to dog pile.

**Shaka II** · April 21, 2006, 21:36

Blake beat me to it.

Also militiary, I see that Saladin is in a real cozy situation with that giant hindu block. What would probably work for breaking that up is bribing Caesar to attack Isabella & Napoleon and Hatty to attack Monty, then you finish off Capac followed by attacking Saladin. With Saladin's minions fighting each other you would be fairly immune to dog pile.

Here are my suggestions for a domination win:

Switch all production to infantry and upgrade all riflemen first, followed by grenadiers. Infantry will lead the charge toward domination. Trade physics for steel with Saladin and upgrade cats to cannons. Give most of them city raider with some barrage promotions.

Saladin would be the best to take out, but unfortunately, he is in good with Caesar. A switch to Hindu will help your diplomacy, but it may be better not to since you don't want unhappiness due to fighting "brothers of the same faith". You could switch to pacifism and just convert Beijing for the 100% GP boost, my suggestion, then you get better diplomacy and a reasonable bonus.

I have a strong suspicion that Napoleon will attack soon and you can bribe Caesar with Physics to fight him. Meanwhile attack Isabella to the North, while converting to a total war time economy. By 1850 you will achieve number one in military power. After taking out Isabella, there is a critical choice to be made. Remember, you can always take out weak opponents later on, but it is very difficult to take out strong opponents, especially if they are friendly, or worse, in defensive pacts with other strong players. Keep Caesar fighting and if he asks you to join in, do it. He is your ticket to victory, but focus on Isabella, and then Saladin.

After Isabella, I'd go after Saladin, since Caesar will be distracted with Nappy. A -1 for "you attacked my friend" will be balanced by the +1 bonus of fighting a "mutual struggle." Your military supremacy will make weaker civs back off, while you over take the rest.

By 1900, you should have Saladin overtaken, with tanks by that time. Cut back science to 50% to allow upgrades to infantry and cannons, but not more, and then full research ahead to tanks and beyond.

After Saladin, everyone else but Caesar goes, keeping a contiguous empire (very important) unless Caesar is threatening 30%+ land area, then I would say to take him out when he is weakest (fighting Napoleon). Caesar will probably overtake Nappy by the time you get around to deciding your next course of action. If so, he will then have to be taken out.

All in all, you have a tremendous manufacturing and science lead. Now is the time to convert it to a military advantage. At the latest, you should have domination by the time mech infantry is available. Don't be afraid to completely shut down science at that point, by rushing units with the spare cash. Beijing is a great GP city. It looks like you held off for the late game in that respect, since the GP level is only 1200, but I'm used to building Pyramids and GL with Bureacracy, so I get an early GP pump going.

Your FP is very close to Beijing, so you'll need to trade for communism at some point to get state property as your empire gets large. Otherwise, I hear Egypt has built Versailles. It would make a nice side trip at some point.

**couerdelion** · April 26, 2006, 06:13

Any chance of seeing the starting position. There is a need to think wonders in your starting strategy for any philo leader since your trait bonus is useless until you are generating GP points.

**Phaedrus1313** · May 3, 2006, 00:34

thanks

I want to thank everyone for their strategies -- unfortunately I had a series of family emergencies distract me from Civ almost immediately after posting, which is why I never replied to all the helpful advice :-( I did find time to finish an unsatisfying space victory in the last half of the 20th century, and I may go back and try the fine-seeming advice for a focused attempt at domination.

It seems that my main weaknesses are my faulty trust of the governors and a lack of early forethought for city specialization. If I find some time to start some new games soon I'll focus on those points.

many thanks for all the wise advice - I'm sure I'll be back around these ways soon.

Lee

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