comparison game for woodan and whom else

[brandonjm8]

damn, i was trying to upload my current game, its barely over 1.91 megs so this site wont let me, and i cant compress it down to 488kb, everytime i compress it, it only compresses to 1.71 megs, oh well.

[Brael]

You can upload it with http://www.mediafire.com/ if size limits prevent putting another save up.

i like having good production, with CE not til you get democracy for US your production will languish unless your blessed with resources.

If anything, production in an SE economy is what's worse. The reason is an SE really needs caste system to be effective. By using caste system you aren't going to be able to whip. Earlier in the game you're constrained by health/happy resources so there's no harm at all in whipping. Whipping is even the best form of production around at the time. A size 6 city if you have a granary requires 195 food and gives you 3 people for 270 hammers. Effectively turning 1 food into 1.38 hammers. That means a grass corn for example is worth 5.54 hammers/turn due to 4 surplus food. Whipping is insanely powerful, there's really no need to switch out of slavery until you're either forced to use emancipation (which can be delayed a long time with enough whipping) or until you have several towns and can use printing press+free speech+US.

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.

Siege don't have to kill the units themselves, they just have to weaken units to the point that anything can kill them.

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.

This is interesting, I have to wonder... is it a case of "needing" all the wonders which is generally a sign of an unrefined strategy, or an instance where you actually want to go for culture victories. If you like playing the wonder building game, why is your best leader Tokugawa? He's not really built for the wonder game. Something that has Industrious is much more suited to building them.

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.

Just by giving everything a fat cross you're sacrificing 16% of your space (4 tiles out of the 5x5 square aren't available). If the land is equal that's 16% less production ability, 16% less commerce, 16% less specialists, 16% less research. It adds up a lot more than you might think.

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.

Think about it this way, what's the point of giving a city 21 tiles when health/happy/maintenance constraints force you into keeping the city in the 10-12 range (and until banking really it's more efficient to not even be above 8). Now you're not wasting 16% (4/25) of your tiles, you're wasting around 16/25 or 64% of your tiles. An SE economy should also use even less land. Lets take a size 8 city with a food resource, how about we call it a mined grass hill, 4 grass farms, and a plains cow. That's 16 food, 6 hammers, and whatever commerce on the tiles. There's 6 people used for that, consuming 12 food meaning that city would be running 2 specialists in addition to what the land provides. Essentially, 6 tiles for 8 people. A CE on the otherhand, is going to be using 8 tiles for 8 people. Using only 6 tiles but carving out 25 tiles for it to work means you're only using 24% of that land, or 32% for the CE. I think I have an idea of your thought process here, In civ 3 I played the same way, early in civ 4 I did as well, but then I realized the flaw in it, and that flaw is it's built for an old civ 3 ICS type strategy, civ 4 isn't made the same way. What's efficient is much different, and the short term is just as important as the long term, sometimes even more so.

Does that make sense? By giving less land to your earlier cities, and then gradually expanding the land given to them as you go out further, you're able to decrease your distance maintenance costs, have a more space efficient empire (easier to defend), and make use of the vast majority of your good territory, making things more productive overall. Later on you can give tiles from one city to another, giving you large cities with small filler cities inbetween.

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)

The lack of resources really sucks Hannibal has 23 cow for trade, that's absolutely ridiculous (which is why him or Mansa makes a valid military target), but the design of it is quite nice I thought. Tons of forest, little jungle, great sea access, good supply of fresh water, few peaks, no desert, and mostly grassland.

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.)

8 by 1 AD is huge. This is more a difficulty setting than anything though. On higher levels or with some more challenging settings it's not unheard of to just be founding your fourth city by 1AD, and that's when you're lucky. I think you'll like the map someone puts up for the next game. If nothing else, you'll learn a lot.

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

Going by one of the earlier saves from this game, it didn't look like it was set up at all judging by city sizes and religion spread. Stacking religions requires a larger and larger investment for every one you add on, due to an increasing number of cities and higher number of religions to spread around.

[Brael]

Oh, an 1800 for you. http://www.mediafire.com/?nllzztzn2t4

Turns out I was right about Ragnar too. He attacked around 1780. His axemen slaughtered themselves against my rifles, then he took peace a couple turns later.

Right now I'm building towards more corporations. I might not have the resources to run them, but I've got the city setup to generate tons of profit. Aiming for sushi, aluminum, creative, and jewelers. You'll notice I've already got my great people for them set aside too.

If I abandon my goals and go for a military victory, Hannibal is first on the list. His only oil is sea based meaning he's extremely vulnerable (and can't even access it until plastics). Next would be Brennus who's only oil (and uranium) is coastal making it trivial to bomb. Best of all, I would be able to hang out in the ocean, meaning the best that either of them could possibly do against my destroyers and battleships would be frigates and airships. That continent is one big pinata. I would rather win through space or diplomacy than make an invasion force though, I'm not a fan of the naval component of civ. It's far more simplistic than land warfare.

[wodan11]

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.

I'm thinking about doing a 0% slider game just to show a different way to play.

That means hammers are harder to come by than beakers.

Sure. But shouldn't we take the "demand" side of the "supply and demand" topic into consideration? In an average game, we need many less hammers than beakers. Let's go to the extreme you started with (which you said you "do not go that far"), where it's 2:1 beakers to hammers. If we need more than twice as many beakers during the game, then that would indicate that beakers need more priority to generate.

What are beakers used for? Techs. How many hundreds of thousand beakers do we need to generate during the game? Depends on speed of victory, of course, but by and large the answer is "a whole bunch."

What are hammers used for? Lots of stuff... buildings, units, wonders, etc. Again, depends on type of victory, and some games you need a lot more units than others, for example.

But do the hammer needs even compare to the beaker needs? I don't have anything other than experience to go by but my feeling is it's probably around 5:1 to 4:1 beakers to hammers.

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.

Right but that's based on the assumption that the coast cities would be working the coasts anyway as well as that there aren't land tiles they could be working. If they're island cities, sure, it's a no brainer. If, as is almost always the case, they're coastal with a majority of land, then it's pretty likely they could be working cottages or specialists.

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.

Again, your "30 gpt" number must be measured against what you would be making otherwise, not against ZERO, which is what you're doing. Right?

[wodan11]

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

Still don't get it... yes, more cities means more build queues. But AIs have more cities too, with more build queues themselves.

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 .

Sure, that all makes sense. But micromanagement is possible on small maps as much as big ones. There's just less of it. Less = volume, not less in quality. Since the effect of micromanagement is focused upon fewer units and fewer cities, the results of each micromanagement action are more pronounced.

Having more units/cities and more volume of micromanagement means that each individual micromanagement action is less significant and has less effect on the game. Individual actions which are sloppy or poor decisions can be compensated for much more easily. Which indicates that the bigger maps are actually easier in difficulty, not harder.

[wodan11]

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.

That's a given. We're talking about what to do if you don't really have anything else worthwhile to build. Make a semi-useless wonder or Build Research (or Wealth, same difference).

[And I grant that we're still talking about whether Colossus is "semi-useless" or not... that's a separate question. Instead of Colossus, perhaps we should use... I don't know, Chicken Pizza maybe.]

early game i dont use research, id rather be building up infrastructure or units.

Why build units with barbs off and underpopulated AIs so no map pressure?

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

I think the point is that browser plugins are easily available to compensate.

[wodan11]

SE really needs caste system to be effective.

SE has several quite varied implementation types. Some use Caste System, some don't.

Earlier in the game you're constrained by health/happy resources so there's no harm at all in whipping.

There's no harm if constrained by health, there is harm if constrained by happy. The latter takes careful timing and micro to minimize.

Whipping is insanely powerful, there's really no need to switch out of slavery until you're either forced to use emancipation (which can be delayed a long time with enough whipping) or until you have several towns and can use printing press+free speech+US.

If running a CE, yes. If not, then there are plenty of reasons to switch. The aforementioned Caste System for example.

Just by giving everything a fat cross you're sacrificing 16% of your space (4 tiles out of the 5x5 square aren't available). If the land is equal that's 16% less production ability, 16% less commerce, 16% less specialists, 16% less research. It adds up a lot more than you might think.

I'll add to this and point out that overlap can be hugely powerful by having the cities share / swap the tiles. Consider if there's a wheat being shared. City A works it until max size, then gives to city B. As B gets to max size, A whips, then they swap it again. As A get to max size, B whips, then they swap.

Furthermore, consider this: only when both cities get to size 19 is it even really an issue whether they have 1 or 2 more tiles to work. So, for the majority of the game, the fact that they slightly overlap doesn't hurt in the slightest.

BUT, I'll grant that with your strategy, Brandon, where you build up all game and then finally go to war in the Modern era, this may be more of a consideration than other strategies, where frequently the outcome of the game can be decided before then. (But even in your strategy, it's not as big of a deal as all that.)

Brael's thoughts about limits of health/happy are spot on. What's it matter if you only have 19 tiles to work when the happy limit is 12?

A much more valid reason to spread out slightly is to ensure each city has a core of high value tiles. The first 5-6 tiles to be worked by each city is MUCH more important than the 19th tile. The 19th tile is worked very little of the game (if at all). It's going to be the absolute least desirable tile to work. Frequently something like an unirrigated, unforested plains, desert, tundra, etc. In fact, it's almost always better for the city to run a specialist than work that tile.

[Theben]

[And I grant that we're still talking about whether Colossus is "semi-useless" or not... that's a separate question. Instead of Colossus, perhaps we should use... I don't know, Chicken Pizza maybe.]

Chicken Pizza? Hadn't heard that one. It seems there are a lot of useless wonders in this game, but Col may not be 1 of them. Of course I say that b/c normally copper is available... sounds like it isn't here.

Why build units with barbs off and underpopulated AIs so no map pressure?

Right! From what I've read this game screams for 1 warrior per city until Astronomy.

I wish I could try this one- I'd try for Pyramids and an early Uni Suff I think (after a stint with Rep of course)... it would depend on whether extra food > Great people or vice versa, and the amount of available .

[wodan11]

[q=Wodan]Why build units with barbs off and underpopulated AIs so no map pressure?[/Q]

Right! From what I've read this game screams for 1 warrior per city until Astronomy.

My thinking exactly.

[brandonjm8]

http://www.mediafire.com/?z3zcntnuahd

hope i did it right, should be my 1740A.D. game save.

[brandonjm8]

If anything, production in an SE economy is what's worse. The reason is an SE really needs caste system to be effective. By using caste system you aren't going to be able to whip. Earlier in the game you're constrained by health/happy resources so there's no harm at all in whipping. Whipping is even the best form of production around at the time.

my SE style is more of a hybrid than one or the other, but my production is great. for example: this game was DoW by mao and ragnar, so i built 47 cavalry in less than 20 turns along with some riflemen. since i prioritize getting multiple religions for their buildings and angkor wat, my production is quite awesome, even now before levee's/factories i have several cities with 30 or more hammers/turn, bout 15 out of 35. once i get levees/factories i will have several cities with 100+ hammers/turn. and with my trades in resources ect those cities are getting bigger, once i get some health techs and if needed i can use the culture slider for happiness if i really need it, my cities will get huge (just taking alittle longer this game since lack of resources), even now i have several cities approaching 20 with more on the way, and as soon as i get biology thats many more specialists and much faster growing cities. we have different playing styles, its ok. if i get many religions or more than one and angkor wat, i have no need for caste, perfer serfdom for chopping/working on tiles faster. as far as slavery goes, i dont whip alot, only in emergency or trying to get a wonder, otherwise with my style it hinders more than helps, when you whip thats +1 unhappy for 30 turns each time you do it, big cities can whip yes but those cities can grow that turn back well before 30 turns, but with big cities comes high production and many specialists, i feel its better that way than to whip. now when its mid game or later, drafting is something i do for quick units since my limits for both will be much higher than early game so getting that 1-3 unhappy for 30 turns will never be hindering, get my point? id rather build and keep em growing then to whip and have them stand idle. for most games besides this one, i limits continually go up so almost never do my cities need to stop growing. but you would be right if a city is 12 and hit both limits and you wont be getting any resources/techs to increase it for awhile so whipping then would make more sense for me (even this game i was able to keep growing for the most part, remember i got some gems from mining which was +2 happy for me, and i looked to settle other continents with resources i needed and could use for trades).

Siege don't have to kill the units themselves, they just have to weaken units to the point that anything can kill them.

agree, it'd be nice tho sometimes for them to kill whomever they are attacking. plus in real life artillery and cannon shells/balls did kill the enemy not just weaken them

This is interesting, I have to wonder... is it a case of "needing" all the wonders which is generally a sign of an unrefined strategy, or an instance where you actually want to go for culture victories. If you like playing the wonder building game, why is your best leader Tokugawa? He's not really built for the wonder game. Something that has Industrious is much more suited to building them.

you would be correct for my preferred method of playing, if i get two or more religions and angkor wat, my strategy gives me high production and high science w/ rep gov't and alotta GP. if i dont get what i want, i switch it up and do whats needed. my best leader is not tokugawa, i thought we'd be pinned on that large continent and fighting early like my last game. with toku's inherent military traits makes for powerful units throughout the game, 3 free promos for gunpowder units, 2 for archer's, 1 for melee (except samurai's they get combat and drill). with that said making for easier defending/attacking numerous close AI's. my fav thus far (i havent played all leaders yet) is roosevelt with lower civics costs and industrious makes my strategy optimum. to be honest i didnt want this game to be a "builder" game, which is why i picked toku for early fighting, but alas i wouldve been alot better with roosey with this particular game.

Just by giving everything a fat cross you're sacrificing 16% of your space (4 tiles out of the 5x5 square aren't available). If the land is equal that's 16% less production ability, 16% less commerce, 16% less specialists, 16% less research. It adds up a lot more than you might think.

dont use this game as a basis for how i place my cities, if we didnt have that large sea and most of the time you wont/dont, my cities you'd see fit nicely together wasting little to no space. plus i build for the future since on these maps you wont win early or before biology so your cities can get huge if you want them too, and i want them too for more economy and hammers. think of it this way: if you have 40 cities right and 20 of them have 100+ hammers/turn doing it my way, would you want that or maybe 5 out of 40 with 100 hammers/turn doing your overlapping technique? i know this is dependent on duration of game but as said with these size maps, games take longer which is why i build to max out and make each city huge thus making winning easier/quicker by outvoting with population, out producing with superior production ect ect. if i was going for the earlier win playing smaller maps then i would do as you say more often than not.

The lack of resources really sucks Hannibal has 23 cow for trade, that's absolutely ridiculous (which is why him or Mansa makes a valid military target), but the design of it is quite nice I thought. Tons of forest, little jungle, great sea access, good supply of fresh water, few peaks, no desert, and mostly grassland.

mana musa does look like the target for me as well, hes weak too on my game, i could take some cities but my armies not big enough to dismantle him and defend me at this time, once i ally myself with brennus pretty soon and get some buildings built and add to the army, his time will be near. and this map is very customizable even for peaks. the only thing is that the resource generator aint the greatest, but it is the same as normal maps and upscaled but does seem to have a bug in it sometimes to make a pretty much worthless continent like ours .

8 by 1 AD is huge. This is more a difficulty setting than anything though. On higher levels or with some more challenging settings it's not unheard of to just be founding your fourth city by 1AD, and that's when you're lucky. I think you'll like the map someone puts up for the next game. If nothing else, you'll learn a lot.

thats just my max, i usually average around 5 by 1 A.D.. with increased costs on higher levels, my expansions will be later and longer, will only add to my experience and make me better.

Going by one of the earlier saves from this game, it didn't look like it was set up at all judging by city sizes and religion spread. Stacking religions requires a larger and larger investment for every one you add on, due to an increasing number of cities and higher number of religions to spread around.

i was too busy wonder whoring for the most part, my priorities were whoring and expanding mostly, it is alot easier manipulating stacking holy cities being small, i expanded fast this game, 8 cities by 1 A.D.. it happens, usually i dont that many ancient wonders and instead prioritize missionaires and im usually smaller so its easier.

[brandonjm8]

Chicken Pizza maybe.

mmmmmmmmmm, pizza.

Why build units with barbs off and underpopulated AIs so no map pressure?

i got to astronomy fast and so did some others, i did it more to keep myself within reach and to not become an easy target for mass invasions and then i just upgrade them, and units at riflemen or above take awhile to build so upgrading them while building them is ideal and your power skyrockets and your almost ready to start conquering or securing new lands ect.

I think the point is that browser plugins are easily available to compensate.

the thing with plug-ins is well you dont know when they are spyware

but i hear ya, im too lazy right now to go look for one tho.

[brandonjm8]

riflemen/cavalry is modern??? infantry maybe, modern tanks and stealth bombers and mech infantry YES. i hardly ever build up units early game unless needed, but during the time to mid game i do build SOME units to later upgrade and not have to wait for possible long build times for em.

brael, i checked your 1800 save, im not bashing you ok but im only at 1740 and by the time i get to 1800 i'll be more advanced much more powerful and much bigger. im already over 1700 beakers and thats w/o oxford yet (building up delayed that, one univ short), and im running at 90% easily w/o WS yet (one bank away too ), i'll have those both built and crusing, i have an artist and engineer waiting for the corps too. need two scientists tho, one for corps and the other for my oxford city, i cant put both WS and OX in my cap since i put NE in it, my GP rate is ridiculous too, another reason i like my hybrid style of the SE approach.

i'll upload my 1800 save today if and when i get there for you to compare or anyone else for that matter.

goodluck all.

[wodan11]

we have different playing styles

I never understand when people say things like that. I would go bonkers if I had a play style. I can't imagine anything more boring than playing the same way all the time.

in real life artillery and cannon shells/balls did kill the enemy not just weaken them

Actually, I can't think of a single instance where cannon/artillery killed an entire unit. Damage to a Rifleman troop, for example, means the unit has suffered casualties. So if the unit represents 100 people, some number of those people are killed or incapacitated. But the artillery doesn't kill all 100 people, even with multiple shots.

i did it more to keep myself within reach and to not become an easy target for mass invasions and then i just upgrade them

Upgrading is really expensive. It's often much better to simply build new, modern units.

and units at riflemen or above take awhile to build

Depends on whether you have some solid production cities to churn out units, at least one with Heroic Epic. But then, didn't you say you don't specialize your cities? If so, then there are negatives to that.

so upgrading them while building them is ideal and your power skyrockets and your almost ready to start conquering or securing new lands ect.

Upgrading is useful sometimes, yes. But I get the feeling you do it pretty much every game.

the thing with plug-ins is well you dont know when they are spyware

They are no more spyware than any other software. Just be sure you get it from a reputable company. Look on cnet.com and other places for product reviews. If it's there, it's a reputable company.

[Boracks]

Up to 1506 AD, save attached.

Not sure how much longer I can play something this big, I'm already getting jerky movement on the screen (dual core processor with 4 GB ram, good graphics card, admittedly limited hard drive space due to partitioning).

Not getting any demands except to stop trading with Germany (who is largest), definitely behind on power graph but starting to build up so no big deal so far.

Oddly enough, I miss espionage at this point, be nice to get something else useful out of the courthouses and I'd like to know what the neighbours are researching.

Running the science at 20% while expanding, enough specialists to keep it going, but likely too slow.

To be honest, I don't expect to win this, too many differences from my usual set of options and I already see a lot I would do differently.

Again, the beauty of Civ, its so many different games.