Carry on or fold? (Game save attachment inside)

[snoopy369]

3 workers is definitely a problem... you should have 2 workers per city, at all times, at least until cities are fully developed.

Great Wall is certainly a poor choice in a small area; unless you need the great spy, it doesn't do that much for you. Now, that said, take advantage of it; try to kill your enemies on YOUR territory, for the bonuses; and once you get that GS, instantly go use it to get espionage points on an opponent, then grab alphabet ASAP and build spies to steal their techs

[Krill]

Originally posted by snoopy369
The crossbows are far superior for what I am suggesting (primarily defensive, either stack-defend or city-defend). The fact that they can hold their own on attack is purely incidental

I'n not saying that one should build no crossbows, I just think that if you are going to build an attacking stack that it would be wisest to have what you suggested, minus all of the crossbows save 3-4 for a 30 unit stack, and use swords to attack with as they can get CR and are cheaper.

For the other things such as defending a city or a hill in your land, yeah, crossbows are solid choice.

[Krill]

Originally posted by snoopy369
3 workers is definitely a problem... you should have 2 workers per city, at all times, at least until cities are fully developed.

2 per city after you've killed an AI, you can get away with 1.5 before hand, and if you can swap into serfdom as a SPI civ for 5 turns while you rebuild population after slaving you can get away with less than 1.5 after killing an AI, but only really do it if you need to stay in slavery to hold your gains or fight off a flanking attack etc (NFIH is playing with Hattie...)

[wodan11]

You guys are posting a general rule which is anything but. Particularly if using Serfdom long term.

Wodan

[NFIH]

4000 BC save attached.

I'm also going to restart from here and see if I can't improve my efficiency.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Seedle

The Great Wall seems bad because you said you were hemmed in from the start. If you are surrounded by rival civs, there is no where for barbs to spawn, so the wall is pretty useless. Not knocking the Great Wall in general necessarily, but in this game I think it was counter-productive.

Ah, good point. But here's the thing: Being aware of my encirclement by the other civs, I did try a start where I skipped the Wall, precisely for the reasons you state. Imagine my surprise when I proceeded to be swamped by an endless stream of barbs! It was as if they were purposely ignoring the AI land they were crossing just to get to me. This tied up my production making Archers and just enough that taking out a rival civ early was impossible. So I went back to the GW start and that's the one I happened to post about. (I restarted many times looking for a better opening strat.)

You have 3 workers for the second largest empire in the world in 1440 AD. This would be your main problem I think.

Yep, but I only had two cities and needed to pump military units to try to rush a nearby civ. How should I have approached this?

[Theben]

I tried your 4000 save and can only think you're doing something wrong. My guess is that you either went military before you expanded, or you expanded in the wrong direction. You are somewhat fubarred in that there is no nearby horse and your UU is the War Chariot. However you do have sufficient copper and iron nearby, as well as stone (and if you really want it, marble). There is also excellent land to the east, and somewhat less so to the south. It's those flood plains and rivers you want to colonize. You start with the Wheel so you're one tech closer to Pottery.

The 1st thing I did was move my starting settler in the 7 direction to get the cow in the BFC. I scouted out the nearby land with my warrior, built warrior->worker->warrior->settler. After that Thebes switched back and forth between building archers and settlers. I researched mining and BW of course- didn't really need to chop forests so much as slave settlers. Founded Judaism (which peeved my neighbors) set Thebes to building nothing but library and wonders, while everyone else was gearing towards war with Justinian. By the time any barbs showed I had 5 cities, nestled snug against the AI borders. I think I saw at most 4 near me.

That being said I still screwed up a lot. I fought a war with Justinian that lasted longer than it should have. I took his capital and 1 more city, and that's when I should've asked for peace. Instead I continued fighting and wasted time and resources. The other thing is that I shouldn't have bothered building wonders. I built almost all of the early ones, but only the Oracle gave me any tangible benefit. What I should have done was build more workers and more missionaries, b/c I definitely had a window to convert most of my neighbors but let it slide.

So give it another shot.

EDIT: After checking your other save it seems you BOTH expanded the wrong way and didn't expand enough. You have waaay too many units, and they're in the wrong places. Why do you have offensive units bolstering your defenses in the rear?

Next time, Start in the other direction. The AI won't attack you early on unless you attack 1st (or is Monty or Tokugawa). Get Slavery, churn out those workers and settlers, and expand expand expand until you run out of land or money. Then settle in, improve your tiles, build your army, and take out the AI civs.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by wodan11
You guys are posting a general rule which is anything but. Particularly if using Serfdom long term.

Wodan

Why would you run serfdom long term

I post this as a general rule because the #1 mistake of players who can't hold their own on Monarch or below is not enough workers. Even if it means they end up buildign a few 'extra' workers, it never hurts to go overboard and then eventually work your way back to 'just right'...

[wodan11]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Why would you run serfdom long term

Because it has viable pros/cons vs the alternatives. For variety if nothing else, it's a good civic. And, for some strategies, it is clearly superior.

I post this as a general rule because the #1 mistake of players who can't hold their own on Monarch or below is not enough workers.

#1? Hmm, have to think about that.

Even if it means they end up buildign a few 'extra' workers, it never hurts to go overboard and then eventually work your way back to 'just right'...

It does indeed hurt, so I disagree there. I do agree that what you suggest is probably a better tactic than continuing to not build enough.

If a player never goes overboard, then the player will have difficulty gauging what is "just right" in the first place. It's a question of accumulating experience. This applies to pretty much everything, not just workers.

What's that saying? "Everything in moderation...."

But what's "moderation" mean anyway? Until you go in excess, hard to tell.

Wodan

ps Yes I did in fact just justify all that "going overboard" that I did in college.

[Theben]

People do things to excess in college??

[snoopy369]

I've never come across a good reason to run serfdom long-term. Variety is not a good reason. Serfdom is, in my opinion, a short-term civic used during golden ages or as a SPI civ exclusively for the minimum duration of civics changes.

[rah]

definately a short term civic. one that I rarely run except for the exceptions that snoop mentioned.

[wodan11]

Variety wasn't intended to say that was a reason to pick something that is otherwise suboptimal, but that it was a reason to pick something that was equitable pros/cons in it's own regard.

If you want to discuss merits of serfdom vs alternatives I'd be glad to but we probably should do it in a new thread.

Wodan

[Krill]

Use it late term when you have a heavily workshopped land and you are running state property for the +1 hammer to the workshop.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Theben
I tried your 4000 save and can only think you're doing something wrong. My guess is that you either went military before you expanded, or you expanded in the wrong direction.

I went early military to rush Justinian to the east. As for direction, my second city was southwest of City 1 to take the copper. On a less military start, I built a third before arming myself and that one was northwest of City 1 to take the gold and rice special immediately west of Justinian. By the time that third city was taken I was hemmed in on all sides--and that's building worker-->settler-->settler. I don't see how it's possible to go faster than that, although there is also a slight possibility of still taking the cow to the northwest of City 1. But the Ottomans' Suleiman almost always got there first.

There is also excellent land to the east, and somewhat less so to the south.

Yes, but how do I get to that land in time. With a worker-->settler (chopped) build off the top I can get to the copper and found a city. But after four or five turns of growth, IIRC, my border butts right up against one of Suleiman's cities. There's just no further land to settle in that direction.

The 1st thing I did was move my starting settler in the 7 direction to get the cow in the BFC. I scouted out the nearby land with my warrior, built warrior->worker->warrior->settler. After that Thebes switched back and forth between building archers and settlers. I researched mining and BW of course- didn't really need to chop forests so much as slave settlers. Founded Judaism (which peeved my neighbors) set Thebes to building nothing but library and wonders, while everyone else was gearing towards war with Justinian. By the time any barbs showed I had 5 cities, nestled snug against the AI borders. I think I saw at most 4 near me.

That being said I still screwed up a lot. I fought a war with Justinian that lasted longer than it should have. I took his capital and 1 more city, and that's when I should've asked for peace. Instead I continued fighting and wasted time and resources. The other thing is that I shouldn't have bothered building wonders. I built almost all of the early ones, but only the Oracle gave me any tangible benefit.

How in God's name did you build archers/settlers, as you say, and all the early Wonders? I don't see how you would not have lost out on most of them to the AI or had no military units whatsoever. And even then, somehow none of the AIs attacked you?

In the many tries I had at this, Suleiman attacked me almost no matter what--regardless of whether I was stronger than him or not. And it must have been pure luck that the aggressive Alexander didn't come at me. So how you pulled this off is a mystery to me.

EDIT: After checking your other save it seems you BOTH expanded the wrong way and didn't expand enough. You have waaay too many units, and they're in the wrong places. Why do you have offensive units bolstering your defenses in the rear?

I assume you're referring to my eastern border facing the Ethiopians and the Ottomans. I had to leave units there because I already knew from my previous attempts that the Ottomans would attack me while I was engaged with Justinian. And sure enough they did. But those eastern units repelled them.

Next time, Start in the other direction.

Honestly, I've tried it (although I can try it again) and run into the problem I mentioned at the start of this post--even going full out on settlers doesn't move me east in enough time to found more than one city in that direction. The other AIs are spawned almost on top of me, it seems.

Do you have a save of your game I can look at?