comparison game for woodan and whom else

[rah]

I usually play on a pangea world with the aggressive AI option turned on so the odds of multiple AI's declaring on me is greatly increased, So I'm used to it and as you say, you prepare for it. My point is that 2 stacks of 50 vs your 50 is not really different then 2 stacks of 200 vs your 200. or something similar. It's just a matter of scale. A human can always utilize any stack better than the AI. (as stated by others) Even 3 to 1 or higher is manageable if you're paying attention.
I don't usually fear AI attacks. I fear Attacks from other humans.

[wodan11]

This map was built for it in my opinion. Give it a shot when you get a chance and take a look.

Oh, absolutely. And you're right I haven't even looked at it yet. I have done some strategic planning based on what people have said about the map, and hope to play tomorrow. We'll see.

I absolutely agree that there are maps and strategies where Colossus is a natural.

I have games like that but then look at a city and it tells me only 4 or 5 turns to build it and I say what the heck. It's worth it to deny it to another player. But then, I've never really run the numbers on it either. It's like early in the game if you've connected stone and your cap has the choice of building an axeman in two turns or GW in 5 turns. Even If you weren't even thinking about it, you sometimes go "what the heck:.

The problem I have is that your city governors automatically work the coast sites. And, say you're non-FIN doing a CE. Think of all those cottage-turns that you don't get -- all for what, a very small amount of commerce that goes away as soon as you get hamlets?

[brandonjm8]

What's your basis for this conclusion?

just that in all games we all have thus far, the AI's are huge. with that said, their potential for much larger stacks is multiplied by the fact they will be bigger, im not saying you still cant dominate, but it wont be easy depending on your diplo skills with them.

As I said before, I personally don't think minutae = more difficult. We're just going to have to disagree there. But anytime you say "more difficult" I'm going to read it as "more micromanagement". That's what you just said, right? They're one and the same? Since I don't think they're one and the same, I'm going to have to use the words I think you mean, in my vernacular.

This also has ramifications on discussions of difficulty level.

when i say more difficult, i just mean more managing and longer times, not that your odds per say will go down, but that the more mistakes you make means the longer for you to reach your goals thats even if you can per say.

as for difficulty level, thus far in my exp with prince only once have i easily outpaced the AI in cities and techs. most of the games thus far, i fall behind in both (tech sometimes since i dont kill it early game) but then catch up quickly during the mid game, then build up and either slow down the others or dominate them (voting, wiping out, vassalizing). im almost ready for monarch, maybe after this game since we had such a bad locale and most of them got bigger with enormous armies, it just took longer to catch up power wise. im not too concerned with # of cities, as soon as i get infantry, i'll just start taking theirs , hopefully.

Agreed. But that's the result of difficultly level, not size of the map or number of AIs (crowdedness of the map).

Why are you behind in # of cities? Because you're playing on Prince. (And also because you spread your cities out more than the AI does.) If you played on Deity it would be worse... you'd be even further behind in # of cities. If you played on Settler you would surely be ahead on # of cities.

everythings easier if you have similar amount of cities as the AI's.

as far as why im behind on cities, not much now, ive got 35 now, a few others have more, but as soon as my army is built and i can refocus on infrastructure for the ones that dont have much, and while im harassing the others while i surpass tech wise to infantry, i'll then add alot more of cities through domination (mainly since our continent sucks). the other reason our continent sucks, poor resources, alotta seafood and two rice oh and a silver (got lucky and found some gems through mining, that and more copper and iron , , all strategic resources tho but spread out. not many rivers either just alotta lakes and a big sea in the middle. lack of food resources made cities less productive and making settlers take longer and then you hit the maxes of health/happiness much sooner since lack of variety. i havent struggled YET, if i get brennus as an ally once i get communism, this game will be in the shoe, my power is skyrocketing and ive defended my three cities that are isolated easily with my superior units and only killed off alotta their units, got two GG's and almost a 3rd, sent my warlord (decided a cavalry for my warlord, hope it pays off, 90% withdrawal should help keep him alive for a long time, i hope i picked the right unit, either that or a riflemen, thought the cavalry would be better, any advice would be welcomed) to one waiting for them to attack again, cant quite go on the offensive yet since well i dont want to leave my cities unguarded. this game might take awhile tho.

[Calvin Vu]

Well, assuming that I have a few coastal cities and I want to build a forge in that Colossus city in first place, then the Colossus only costs 250 hammers (or 125 hammers with Copper which is often available). That is equivalent to 3 or 6 swordmen, the strongest units in that era.
Around that time, I have little incentive to build swordmen/axemen since I should be getting macemen pretty soon, so Colossus is a good use for the hammer comparing to building units which will shortly become obsolete.
So, unless I'm in some sort of emergency situation and can't afford the hammers on buildings, I build the Colossus. If the city is my GP-producing capital, it gives additional incentive to getting GP points for Great Merchant which boosts the capital growth.

[wodan11]

just that in all games we all have thus far, the AI's are huge. with that said, their potential for much larger stacks is multiplied by the fact they will be bigger, im not saying you still cant dominate, but it wont be easy depending on your diplo skills with them.

Your statement is that the human must keep on par with the AIs with number of units. Your reasoning for that conclusion is that "AIs are huge" and "their potential for much larger stacks". I'm sorry but I still don't understand why the AI having 200 units means I have to have 200 units, whereas on smaller maps when the AI has 50 units, I don't have to have 50 units. That just makes no sense.

In all my games playing CIV, I have never seen the AI fighting as intelligently as a human. The human is always able to compete with the AI using fewer units. This is true on small maps, big maps, huge maps.

when i say more difficult, i just mean more managing and longer times, not that your odds per say will go down, but that the more mistakes you make means the longer for you to reach your goals thats even if you can per say.

Yeah, I get it, I just disagree. To me, difficult means lower chance of success.

everythings easier if you have similar amount of cities as the AI's.

I disagree. "Easier" in your vernacular means "less micromanagement". I believe micromanagement would scale up with absolute number of cities and would be irrelevant to the ratio of how many cities the AI has.

[wodan11]

Well, assuming that I have a few coastal cities and I want to build a forge in that Colossus city in first place, then the Colossus only costs 250 hammers (or 125 hammers with Copper which is often available). That is equivalent to 3 or 6 swordmen, the strongest units in that era.
Around that time, I have little incentive to build swordmen/axemen since I should be getting macemen pretty soon, so Colossus is a good use for the hammer comparing to building units which will shortly become obsolete.
So, unless I'm in some sort of emergency situation and can't afford the hammers on buildings, I build the Colossus. If the city is my GP-producing capital, it gives additional incentive to getting GP points for Great Merchant which boosts the capital growth.

Calvin, do you consider whether it would be good to Build Research?

[Calvin Vu]

No. Hammers are more valuable than beakers so, I only turn them to beakers for cities which are pretty much useless only. Or maybe for absolute emergency (like getting COL completed in time for the Oracle->CC).
250 beakers is a little over 1/3rd of the cost of Machinery. It's not of much help. Since not all of the 250 hammers/beakers are returned within the research time of Machinery, that probably just speed up its completion by a turn or two.
For an average game with around 3 coastal cities, I should get at least 20 sea squares. Considering the effect of trades, libraries, markets, banks, academy, bureaucracy on capital, I should get between 20 beakers/gold per turn earlier and up to 40 later from the Colossus. That means I could get back my 250 beakers investment within a short time.
The biggest cost of wonders are opportunity cost. At the time of Colossus availability, usually there aren't many good opportunities around.
Talk about opportunity, I like Philosophy for the seemingly not-so-great reduction in the cost of universities. At around that time, it seems every AI wants to go to war to get rid of their obsolescent military units so building enough universities to satisfy the Oxford university requirement involves quite a big risk. Cutting the hammer requirement for universities in half at that time is a huge help.

[wodan11]

Hammers are more valuable than beakers

Really? What makes you think so?

I only turn them to beakers for cities which are pretty much useless only.

But isn't building a wonder with dubious benefit pretty much throwing your hammers away? You're basically sayng "I have nothing better to build, so I'll just make the Colossus". That's pretty much saying that that city is useless.

You value hammers, why waste them on a wonder when you could instead just work cottages or specialists and get as good if not better benefit?

250 beakers is a little over 1/3rd of the cost of Machinery. It's not of much help.

Machinery is expensive early game. And beakers are beakers. I'm amazed to see someone shrug them off.

The biggest cost of wonders are opportunity cost. At the time of Colossus availability, usually there aren't many good opportunities around.

Right, and you said it's not even worthwhile to build Swordsmen.

I guess if I'm going to piss away hammers, I'd just as soon turn them to beakers, is my feeling.

[brandonjm8]

I haven't decided if I'm going to REX in the first place. You talk like that's the goal. Nowhere do I recall us saying "the goal is to have the most cities".

thats not what i meant, win by any means necessary and pursue any victory type.

More cities can be a benefit, because you have more build queues, but it's also a considerable negative, particularly in regard to maintenance costs and micromanagement effort.

im a good builder, thats my specialty (not so easy with this kinda starting locale tho), im usually pretty good on costs, only the early game do i need to stop expanding so i dont kill my science, which is why i stop at 50% science and dont start up again til 60% or higher). but im sure when i get up there on the levels no more sub-par cities early, only resources, rivers, and coasts. i'll learn, i have thus far.

Honestly, since I don't really enjoy micromanagement I don't see a lot of reasons why I should choose a REX strategy.

play to your strengths and win however you want, be yourself here. im sure this is the first 2x huge map you've played right? goodluck.

Well consider the fact that you'll be even further behind in # of cities, and that seems to be one of your main benchmarks. On Deity you have to play smart and use mistake-free and top efficiency in strategy. You've got your work cut out for you, I think.

yes i do. but i feel if im more selective early on and wait til i can afford sub-par cities i should be alright, SHOULD BE. but will see eventually.

[Calvin Vu]

Really? What makes you think so?

Someone at civfanatics actually claims that a beaker is worth .8 gold and .5 hammer. While I do not go that far, there are the infrastructures that can be built to boost either beaker or hammer, roughly in order of occurrence:

Library (+25% beakers)
Academy (+50% beakers)
Forge (+25 hammer)
University (+25% beakers)
Observatory (+35% beakers)

So, you have a long stretch of time where coins can be turned into beakers at 2x multiplier or more (until you get factory which is very expensive to build with Assembly Line)

Not only that the hammers are not as plentiful to start with. Without counting special resources, the best squares for hammers give you 5 hammers (plain squares with Caste system and Chemistry or mined plain hill with railroad) while the best coin square give you 8 coins (Town + Printing Press + Free Speech + Financial trait). So you have more coins than hammers and bigger multipliers at all time as well. That means hammers are harder to come by than beakers.

Also, if you can buy the production with gold, you have to pay a lot more than one gold for each hammer (assuming gold is the equivalent of beakers)

But isn't building a wonder with dubious benefit pretty much throwing your hammers away? You're basically sayng "I have nothing better to build, so I'll just make the Colossus". That's pretty much saying that that city is useless.

Hmmm, I was saying that the Colossus would give me between 20-40 gold/beakers per turn after it is built with little opportunity cost. The city is useful but at that time, library should have already been built, market may or may not be available but it can wait since it can't give me 30 gold/turn for the next few hundred turns. Other buildings are not available yet and units are getting obsolete.

You value hammers, why waste them on a wonder when you could instead just work cottages or specialists and get as good if not better benefit?

Anything which gives me 30 gold per turn for hundreds of turns is not a waste when the investment is just 250 hammers at the time when there are nothing MORE important to build.

[brandonjm8]

I usually play on a pangea world with the aggressive AI option turned on so the odds of multiple AI's declaring on me is greatly increased, So I'm used to it and as you say, you prepare for it. My point is that 2 stacks of 50 vs your 50 is not really different then 2 stacks of 200 vs your 200. or something similar. It's just a matter of scale. A human can always utilize any stack better than the AI. (as stated by others) Even 3 to 1 or higher is manageable if you're paying attention.
I don't usually fear AI attacks. I fear Attacks from other humans.

if im looking at a possible 3 to 1 against ratio, time for overkill building up. then send all the extras to mop up. i have beaten larger stacks then me while only losing a handful, i guess im not as aggressive, im over losses but what can i say i like high kill ratios in my favor . but yeah id have to agree with you.

[brandonjm8]

Your statement is that the human must keep on par with the AIs with number of units. Your reasoning for that conclusion is that "AIs are huge" and "their potential for much larger stacks". I'm sorry but I still don't understand why the AI having 200 units means I have to have 200 units, whereas on smaller maps when the AI has 50 units, I don't have to have 50 units. That just makes no sense.

what im thinking and what i write are sometimes two different things , thats my fault. i mean like if your smaller and say three huge AI's come at ya the same time, it be nice IF you had alotta cities so you could build enough in short time to guarantee victory, i hate relying, if i can id prefer to build overkill when that happens then use all extras with the now stronger units to wipe them out after they lose their SoD's. as far as the AI's intel goes at least they programmed them to send variety in their SoD's but your right they are dumb almost all the time, sometimes they can be tricky but even those are easily dealt with. 50 superior units either tech wise or promo wise can easily take down 200, but that is alot riding on those 50 , ive done it before, not 200-50 but 3 to 1 before, i had less than half my stack left tho , but their power plummeted afterwards then i mopped them up , had very strong lvl 7+ units .

In all my games playing CIV, I have never seen the AI fighting as intelligently as a human. The human is always able to compete with the AI using fewer units. This is true on small maps, big maps, huge maps.

i agree, itd be nice to be able to play REAL AI.

Yeah, I get it, I just disagree. To me, difficult means lower chance of success.

me too, i left that possibility open (i think i worded my response that way or to at least include that, hmmmm, shouldve payed more attention in english class ) but difficult is a vague word and situational, i shouldve used a better word, oh well.

I disagree. "Easier" in your vernacular means "less micromanagement". I believe micromanagement would scale up with absolute number of cities and would be irrelevant to the ratio of how many cities the AI has.

alright im gonna try to clarify beyond doubt now:

hard/difficult: low odds, longer (possibility for failure goes up with this and mistakes which adds to low odds), facing superior units, facing unbeatable numbers, no productive cities for crunch time (dont have the ability to amass an army quickly), this list could go on and on, will add in time if needed.

easy/very predictable: the opposite of above basically, im suffering a brain fart here cant think.

i think you get my point, micromanaging for me helps, i strategize alot, sometimes too much and go overkill when its not needed but "better safe than sorry" is what id say, then just go kill everyone once your done .

[brandonjm8]

Calvin, do you consider whether it would be good to Build Research?

only if your science rate is maxed out, otherwise id rather build wealth and just raise the science slider, thats my view on that. i pick wealth so i can get some extra coin too for upgrading units when needed, nothing like having 5000+ gold ready to upgrade 15-20+ units.

oops and assuming you dont need any units and/or buildings.

[Brael]

only if your science rate is maxed out, otherwise id rather build wealth and just raise the science slider, thats my view on that. i pick wealth so i can get some extra coin too for upgrading units when needed, nothing like having 5000+ gold ready to upgrade 15-20+ units.

oops and assuming you dont need any units and/or buildings.

Wealth requires currency, research requires alphabet. It's considerably easier to build research early on than it is to build wealth. A low commerce empire gets bigger benefits from research building as well.

what im thinking and what i write are sometimes two different things , thats my fault. i mean like if your smaller and say three huge AI's come at ya the same time, it be nice IF you had alotta cities so you could build enough in short time to guarantee victory, i hate relying, if i can id prefer to build overkill when that happens then use all extras with the now stronger units to wipe them out after they lose their SoD's. as far as the AI's intel goes at least they programmed them to send variety in their SoD's but your right they are dumb almost all the time, sometimes they can be tricky but even those are easily dealt with. 50 superior units either tech wise or promo wise can easily take down 200, but that is alot riding on those 50 , ive done it before, not 200-50 but 3 to 1 before, i had less than half my stack left tho , but their power plummeted afterwards then i mopped them up , had very strong lvl 7+ units .

Overkill is compensation for poor strategy. Larger maps allow more overkill. The reason is because of how siege scales.

me too, i left that possibility open (i think i worded my response that way or to at least include that, hmmmm, shouldve payed more attention in english class ) but difficult is a vague word and situational, i shouldve used a better word, oh well.

Spell checkers are standard in browsers now, grammar checkers are available via plugin.

i think you get my point, micromanaging for me helps, i strategize alot, sometimes too much and go overkill when its not needed but "better safe than sorry" is what id say, then just go kill everyone once your done .

If you use overkill consistently it's not really strategy, it's just brute force.

if im looking at a possible 3 to 1 against ratio, time for overkill building up. then send all the extras to mop up. i have beaten larger stacks then me while only losing a handful, i guess im not as aggressive, im over losses but what can i say i like high kill ratios in my favor . but yeah id have to agree with you.

Siege makes a 6:1 kill ratio a joke to obtain. Bombers can push that ratio even higher.

im a good builder, thats my specialty (not so easy with this kinda starting locale tho), im usually pretty good on costs, only the early game do i need to stop expanding so i dont kill my science, which is why i stop at 50% science and dont start up again til 60% or higher). but im sure when i get up there on the levels no more sub-par cities early, only resources, rivers, and coasts. i'll learn, i have thus far.

You have a lot to learn about building. Delaying alphabet, not stacking holy cities, city locations (especially this one), minimizing city maintence costs, and so on. Your 1500 save was only using about 30% of your land. It's tough to be a builder when you're wasting 7 out of every 10 tiles.

[brandonjm8]

Wealth requires currency, research requires alphabet. It's considerably easier to build research early on than it is to build wealth. A low commerce empire gets bigger benefits from research building as well.

i go for currency before alphabet, two reasons, markets and +1 trade routes, early game i dont use research, id rather be building up infrastructure or units. the only times i build research are when ive built all buildings or ones i want and dont need anymore units for the time being or rushing to discover a tech (its usually early game IF and when i build either, mid and after you can almost always use more units). and i almost always go for the SE approach so i rely on specialists which wont pay off til they (cities) get big, i like having good production, with CE not til you get democracy for US your production will languish unless your blessed with resources.

Overkill is compensation for poor strategy. Larger maps allow more overkill. The reason is because of how siege scales.

not when you plan on attacking someone else afterwards with minimal wait, theres a reason i go for overkill and not broke, once i have a large army im constantly using it, thats why i built it. when i say overkill im not saying 200 units , like my previous game my overkill stack was 70-80 strong with cannons/cavalry/riflemen, my army has yet needed to stop taking cities, ive even split the group, ive lost only two units and sending reserves constantly, probably got over 100 now, once i vassalize them (as soon as i go back to finish that game) im heading for another then another all on a straight line to the domination victory hopefully.

Spell checkers are standard in browsers now, grammar checkers are available via plugin.

i try, i was never good at the english language, too many silent letters, same word means 5 different things, adverbs, pronouns, adjectives, who needs them , jk

If you use overkill consistently it's not really strategy, it's just brute force.

answered above.

Siege makes a 6:1 kill ratio a joke to obtain. Bombers can push that ratio even higher.

kinda sucks they cant kill units anymore unless they themselves are attacked, and generally i put CR on them so if they are attacked they are probably dead. i admit, i dont build many cats/trebs unless im invading that early in game. otherwise once i get cannons, time to build alot of those, and yes bombers even airships make beaten SoD's and taking cities very very easy til they fighters/sam's.

You have a lot to learn about building. Delaying alphabet, not stacking holy cities, city locations (especially this one), minimizing city maintence costs, and so on. Your 1500 save was only using about 30% of your land. It's tough to be a builder when you're wasting 7 out of every 10 tiles.

we have different tech paths you and i, during the early game if i can i'll wonder whore to help set me up for easy victories later on and to take those added effects away from the AI. i dont like to overlap alot with cities, two squares sharing is the most i like to do, if our continent was more solid w/o that huge sea in the middle youd notice i build in circles avoiding high maintenance costs and keeping them close thus making them easier to protect. only once im cruising and expanding doesnt hurt will i go out the way, otherwise i like to build circles one after the other. overlapping cities takes away productive tiles for that city hurting its size and hammers, and since i run SE i need all the farmland i can get to support my specialists. as far as me only using 30% of my land, that continent sucks and now im really done expanding (fast anyways, im build up buildings and army for domination and tech leads, its after 1700 and itd take too long to fill up my continent), im actually pretty good making huge cities that can amass huge armies fast and be very specialized when needed. i will not make poor cities unless to get a resource or act as a port or something in those lines. when on a good piece of land i start small (maybe 8 cities at the most by 1 A.D.) but expand very fast after that til i either fill up my land or have enough. the only time i will put cities in not ideal locales is when im almost done filling up my land and dont want open spaces for the AI to come settle and force me to DoW on them to rid them off my land, starting a war prematurely. every games different but i like having them side by side in a circle sharing minimal tiles as to have huge cities down the road capable of either huge gold/beakers or great production.

and i try to manipulate holy cities but not always effective, most of the time im able to stack and others im not.