The "I think I might be losing this one, what do I do?" thread

[Theseus]

Cerby: Should I mess around with the Korean game too?

I was going to start a new game (finished a game as Japan last night... they may be back to being my favorite civ), and was planning on starting a new one to feed the thread I started on 'starts'... but I'm game for this Korean one too.

[steoc4]

Yea I see you've evened things up a bit, I've tried continuing back from my save to see if I could do the same, I've been taking their cities and they've been taking them back but the important thing is that they haven't taken any of mine. Getting the Netherlands was involved was a good idea, Japan lost loads of units invading the Hague and when they eventually got it I walked in and took it
A huge factor in my survival has been the army I got, which has been absolutely lethal while I try to build up other forces. Halfway through researching the cavalry tech which should be a boost.

[vmxa1]

Footballgod128 with CivIII.PTW and C3C it is a good idea to mention which one you are using.
I DL it, but I am cashing for the night will check in AM.

[Footballgod128]

my bad, im using conquests, ive gone quite a bit further in my game though, ive already killed the mayans and about to start a war with carthage, i tried to upload the game and stuff, but, its to big, then i try using the upload service, and it says it messed up.... what do i need to do?? o yea, and i have the latest patch for conquests also, sorry i didnt mention this earlier.....

[ducki]

i tried to upload the game and stuff, but, its to big

If you're using an AutoSave, it'll be bloated.
Try loading the AutoSave, then manually saving it. You'll be amazed how much smaller the file will be.
Maybe that's the issue - I recall having that problem long ago.

[vmxa1]

Footballgod128 if the file is over 500K you have to use the file server for it. It is possible that the autosave could be the problem, but late in the game with 16 civs, it may be too large anyway.

So one thing that I saw right away way you built or are building a barracks every where, no need to waste the shields and pay the support for 18 barracks for 18 cities.

Pasargadae is building one and has no lib and no cath at size 12.
I would not have a size 12 with no lib. The cath is mandatory in higher levels as well. It could allow you to use those two entertainers.

Your capitol does not have a cath either.

No wonders, not one? At sid, ok, even demi, but lower than that you should get at least one wonder. I suspect you have no chance to complete leos with 38 turns to go, so you may want to reconsider or use as a prebuild for universities.

You are down Print Press, Education and Chemistry. This will get much worse if you do not get libs/uni up in the bigger cities and get more land.

I would have made some trade or war to get horses before now, it will be very rough with out horses. If you do not have salpetter either and have not expanded more it will be a real nail biter.
It may be doable at this level, but in emperor games I would expect to be toast very soon.

You are burning up all your income on support at 92 units, you pay 120 each turn. You cannot sustain that and make advances.
I would prefer to not have made all those pikes (41) and made more immortals back when they were king. Used them to get me some horses.


Pikes cannot be used on attack, so I do not want a lot o them.

What size is the map? If it is standard 16 civs is very crowded, given the new resource rationing. If bigger than that you needed to rex much harder to get more land. The game is all about land really.

At regent you should be the tech leader by now and have most of the middle age wonders.

So what happened? The city placement is not all that bad, they seem to be reasonablly worked. Maybe not enough mines, but you do have a lot of desert tiles.

[Footballgod128]

i already save manually, i never auto save, but, its just way to big, its on a huge map with max amount of civs, i tried uploading it into the server, but, it messed up or something, it said all this stuff at the top and then said that it couldnt upload, i dunno why, so.... i tried changing the name and stuff with no spaces, but, didnt work, and with vmxa replies lol, rember, im not very good well, about how many barracks would i need, i had that cause i was building ALOT of units for my war against the mayans which in my game now is gone, and they had my source of horses i was looking for, and as for wanders, i usually try to build more settlers at the very begining and dont worry about wonders, i just try to expand really fast, but, like you said i didnt expand fast enough, how do you expand so fast, i do do the warrior warrior grannary then warrior settler for awhile till i take up all the land i can, and with the techs in my game i have now, ive almost caught up, im maybe just one or two behind and going for the hoover damn and the evultion thing now, and once i got to gunpowder i was suprised to see i have two sources and even two sources of coal, so, i got really lucky and i dunno what happened, i guess i dont really have a good start, cause it usually takes me till i get to steam power when i am caught up and im even or ahead of the AI, early on when i fight wars, ill have about 15 to 20 units before i attack, i like to be able to get alot of thier cities fairly easily, is that maybe my prob...?

[Cerbykins]

Theseus - It's worth a look, even if only because it's unusual to get that far behind an AI player. For me at least, because I tend to bail too early
The Japs are about 3 times your size...but can still just about be stopped

Steoc3 -

I'm continuing the game. 1595:
Netherlands taken out - one city was too tempting to miss once the Japs were subdued
Once I took back all the former Egyptian/German/Korean territories, I got rid of china as well. Cities that close to the capital may prove useful later anti-corruption wise.

Switched to democracy, started new war with Japan. Might have been a bit of a mistake, as WW is now going crazy much earlier than expected. Still, I don't care if the economy is crippled - using the Hwach'a the casualty rate is now basically 0% so reinforcements are only necessary to hold the new captures. Using the old knights-now-cavs to fill that role. Now holding 20%+ of the map , going for the lot/ the magic 66%.

Footballgod128 - zip the file perhaps? If the zip ain't an accepted extension, rename it afterwards
I like a surplus, but it doesn't normally hold me up. The big difference for me, apart from manual worker management - is only building improvements ON REQUIREMENT. If necessary, stick to barracks and units until such time as you're ready to go onto other buildings like marketplaces.
Basically - your problem is getting enough units in time. You need to decide what you're willing to give up to get your guns

Vmxa1 - I lose a lot of units on the attack to culture-flip control. Pikemen - cheap defenders, brought along...solving the problem without as much expense!
Sadly, it's not that easy. Ideally, I'd like you guys to feed into this, or even tell how you use it/why to avoid it. Perhaps another thread?

[steoc4]

Happy New Year!
I haven't gotten around to continuing that game today for various reasons but I intend to tomorrow.
Just one question:

'using the Hwach'a the casualty rate is now basically 0%'

Umm, how exactly are you using the Hwach'a? I've never found bombard units to be able to do anything other than slightly injure the enemy, seems like building a proper knight or cavalry is a better idea. I'm obviously missing something...

Also, I did intend to take out the Netherlands eventually it's just they'd paid me off for peace treaties a couple of times and I figured attacking them would hurt my reputation. I don't like declaring war without it being declared on me first. Obviously signing peace treaties when I was supposed to be in an alliance hurt my reputation just as badly though.

[Cerbykins]

Aye, Happy New Year and all that

The Hwach'a is the only unit to be able to bombard AND destroy in PTW. Air units do so as well now...

At the late point of the game I'm at now, I can afford to have 50 Hwach'a roaming around

Knight and Cavalry forces are the norm, use of the Hwach'a is an experiment on my part. Normally, you use big arty stacks when fighting defenders you'd normally struggle against (e.g. cavs vs infantry), or to reduce large populations (genocide kids, don't try this at home ) so you don't have to leave a gigantic garrison.

You'll be perfectly ok if you don't use the Hwach'a, it's just a little experimenting on my part

[Footballgod128]

if this didnt work, its new years and im pretty mesed up, if it did, kool............................, but, happy new years guys

[vmxa1]

Footballgod128 I would start by building two camps to produce troops and a settler or worker from time to time to keep their size down (well that may not be need at Regent or lower).

Anyway a barracks in the two camps is all I need until I see trouble coming. Then I will make a barracks in any frontier town that may see lots of action. Late in the middle ages I may add more barracks if I am not gong to have SunTzu to make upgrades less of a hassle. I will add a barracks to the town that builds Zeus or Templars if I get either.
I do not want to build troops in cities other than the camps for the most part.

So that would mean I may have 4 to 6 barracks in you situation.
Only the first 3 would have been early in the game, so I would have saved lots of maint and the cost of building the others.

[vmxa1]

Footballgod128 to continue. With your capitol, I would make a few settlers and a worker or two once I got the granary up. I may skip the granary if AG and lots of food bonus tiles.

The exact order of the builds to start can be flexible. Something like warrior warrior and then evaluate. Do I need a granary here or a settler. If EMP/DEMI I may need to crank out a worker or settler to offset the unhappy pop. If granary, then after it I can start the settler. I want to get those two camps up now.

After they are up I can look at my next goal. What is my empire looking like? Close neighors or not, lots of good land or not. What do I have for tech. I would expect to start a wonder build in the capitol soon at regent. If I am able to get a town soon on the coast, I can start to gear up for Collossus there.

You may have to toss in a temple before any wonders, depends on your level and the availabiliy of luxs. You will need a temple at Mon or higher before trying to make a wonder to get that extra citizen working.

[vmxa1]

As too catching up at Steam, I maybe should add in the caveat that I have not play any game at regent in C3C, so it could be different that my recollection. So bear that in mind.

I would expect to not be behind at all in tech given a good start.
You should be ahead by early middle ages, unless you are fairly isolated. If you are then you did not expand enough and need to check your use of the tiles and workers.

Get in some trading of techs that you got first to get some of the tech you skipped. You should be able to beat the AI to a few tech and trade them, if you get contacts.

Those two camps and an assist from the capitol should allow you to out rex the AI and have plenty of workers. If you find you are hard up against a Civ that blocks your expansion, then use you troops to push them back. They wil not have any extra units to start, so it will be easy, unless you are near a special early UU like hoplites.

If you find that what I have mentioned is not working out, start a thread with a 4000bc save and we can play it out to see why.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Cerbykins

Vmxa1 - I lose a lot of units on the attack to culture-flip control. Pikemen - cheap defenders, brought along...solving the problem without as much expense!
Sadly, it's not that easy. Ideally, I'd like you guys to feed into this, or even tell how you use it/why to avoid it. Perhaps another thread?

I don't know about this culture flip stuff I keep hearing about. I don't see any in my games. I flip a rare city to me, but none of mine flip.
I am currently taking cities from Hammy in an emperor game. They have powerful culture as you can imagine. Two cities I took in the last war (they were bigger than me (Celts)) had their borders shoved back by a new ciy hammy build (replaced one I razed). But no flips. If the Babs can't flip you, who can? See what I did was raze the close city to cripple any culture impact for a time.

I merely hook any city to the capitol right away. Any city I conquer gets a garrison. I tend not to try to hold metros or far off large cities (size 10-12), but I will on occassions.

I do not care for pikes as defenders for very long. If they are still viable, then I don't need defense. I mean once knights hit the streets, I do not want to rely on pikes to hold the city.
Before that I do not need troops in any of the non-border towns.

So with 41 pikes and about 18 cities, that is over kill. He can only muster 40% for research due to the overhead. Pikes can not attack, so I do not need all that many. I would guess 8 cities is enough to have defenders at 2 each. Maybe three in 1 or two.
Call it 20, now 4-6 to move with my attackers. Heck make 30 all total, you have 41.

I look at what could have been done with 41 immortals and 20 some pikes, instead of 22 immortals and 41 pikes.

You could have more land more cities and the cost of maint would be easier to bare.

I am just not much of a fan of pikes, they were spearmen before and were so far from becoming rifles or better it is scary. Even as pikes they need two more upgrades to be worth much. I really don't have a great regard for riflemen. It is not till you get them to infantry or MI that they shine.
I want atackers and mobile troops. Atackers candefend and attack. Pikes can only defend.