Your SID level experiences

[ErikM]

Iroquois on the March - part IV

Many things Nokomis taught him
Of the stars that shine in heaven;
...
Then the little Hiawatha
Learned of every bird its language,
Of all beasts he learned the language,
Learned their names and all their secrets:
How the beavers built their lodges, // Construction
Where the squirrels hid their acorns // In the bank of course. -- Currency

It is not mentioned in the poem, but Hiawatha also learned secrets of Monarchy and The Republic. Following these discoveries, Hiawatha decided to change his (previosly slightly despotic) ways and to adopt a more representative tribe council. Iroquois unanimosly agreed to elect Hiawatha as a Lifeteime Great Chief. Well, strictly speaking it was not quite unanimous, and some Iroquois whose relatives were sacrificed during construction of temples to Great Manito in Izmit and Allegheny even organized a small uprising, but it was relatively short lived (4 turns). Hiawatha's advisors suggested sacrificing dissidents to build some more temples to Manito, but Hiawatha decided to promote them to Tax Collectors instead, and things calmed down by 690BC.

[ErikM]

In 800BC, Hiawatha's alliance with Ottomans (against Sumerians) expires. Rather than renewing it, Hiawatha undergoes a sudden change of heart and declares war on Ottomans instead. He argues that according to intelligence, Ottomans develop weapons of immense destructive power (code name "Sipahi") and it is better to deal with them before this project is completed.

Bled dry by Sumerian wars, Ottomans had only two poorly defended cities (as Iroquois spies have determined through diplomatic channels). Ottomans fought bravely but they were no match for Iroquois warriors (recently equipped with the newest sword weaponry).

In 710BC, it was over:

[ErikM]

Iroquois on the March - part IV

690 BC Stats:

16 cities
Income 186
Corruption 51
Foreign payments 40gpt (from Literature sales to Celts and Mongols)
1 granary, 2 libraries, 2 temples, 3 barracks

45 units, support 20

17 workers
25 slaves
7 warriors
4 archer
2 spear
10 swordsmen
1 catapult (captured from Ottos)
3 MWs
2 curragh

Screenshot of Iroquois core lands:

[ErikM]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Maybe you guys can straighten me out on the traits for Sid. I am vacillating and not sure what would work best.

I think you don't really need straightening out Vmxa as you are obviously a good player, but here is my opinion on civ traits on Sid.

I have argued above that starting with Alphabet is essential. If you go after GL, you must discover literature 75-80 turns into the game, or it would be to late. I have not mentioned it in my report, but Sumerians discovered literature in 950BC in my game. I investigated their capital when I established an embassy, and Ur was at size 12 generating 20spt. Given Sid discounts, GL costs only 160 shields for the AI, so they would complete in in 8 turns. So I have only beaten them by two turns despite starting my prebuild at ~2000BC.

Even if you don't go after GL, Alphabet greatly expands trading options and lets you build curraghs to find other civs, which is always a good thing.

So either Seafaring or Commercial is a must imo.

Other traits:

Expansionist - crap. You are not going to find any settlers on Sid.

Industrious - Ok but agricultural is better since faster growth basically gives you more workers. Extra shield at size 6 is useful... but it will be eaten away by corruption in many cities, and only applies to size 6, so it is not immediately useful.

Agricultural - good but map-dependent. Obviously, you need rivers to make full use of this trait. Although cheap aqueducts, +2 food from deserts and +3 food from city squares are very nice in their own right.

Militaristic - Ok, but not great. Cheap barracks are nice, but barracks are not that expensive regardless. Both seafaring and militaristic give discounts on harbors, so sea+mil is a duplication of effort.

Religious - I don't like this trait. You don't really have time to build temples in the early game even at 30 shields. And temples are of dubious value for happiness since using luxury slider is easier. On Emperor/Deity, I kinda miss expensive cathedrals since they are convenient to use as a pre-build. Short anarchy is nice, but if you revolt to Republic early enough, anarchy is not going to be very long.

Scientific - very good. You need some culture and, unlike temples, libraries are useful. Free techs can be leveraged for lots of gold if you are lucky.

Now, commercial or seafaring? In C3C commercial is actually useful due to the way corruption works, but its effect is still very small. According to alexman's thesis, distance corruption is not affected by commercial trait at all, while rank corruption is affected implicitly through higher modified OCN.

For standard map, Sid, republic or monarchy, no FP:
non-commercial: mOCN = 10
commercial: mOCN = 15

Rank corruption is Rank/(2*mOCN) if RankmOCN

So for non-coms rank corruption is Rank/20, for commercial it is Rank/30. The actual difference in corruption is (Rank/20-Rank/30)=Rank/60, from less than 2% for Rank=1 to ~15% for Rank=10. The average reduction in corruption is ~5-6%, then. With FP and courthouses, the difference is even lower. Commercial helps a bit more for cities ranked 11..15, but these cities are not going to be powerhouses by any definition anyway.

Extra arrow at size 6 is helpful, but it is nothing to write home about.

The bottom line is that commercial is crap.

This can be offset by good UUs. Iroquois and Romans have strong UUs so they seem to be the best among commercial civs. Given that Iron is scarce in C3C, Iroquois get my vote. France starts with Masonry (very useful); Greece/Korea are Scientific (useful) but their UUs are so-so at best. India has a resource-free UU but it is expensive. I'd rather have 2.5MWs than 1 elephant. Religious is not great, which rules out Spain and India.

From Seafaring, Dutch are good but their UU is not very useful (not offensive, hard to start a GA). Carthage has Masonry (good) and a decent UU but again, it is expensive. Ditto Vikings. Byzantium seems very good to me. Scientific + their UU is amazingly useful. Great flexibility when to start a GA, too since dromons rule supreme basically all the way before ironclads.

I'd choose Byzantines for my Sid attempt but I've played a previous game with them and wanted to try something different.

So I guess my ranking would be
1. Byzantium
2. Iroquois
3-4. Dutch/Rome (tie)
5. Carthage
6. France

Of course, this is just my $0.02.

[Edit: corrected calculation error in the rank corruption discussion. -ErikM]

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by ErikM

"Even if you don't go after GL, Alphabet greatly expands trading options and lets you build curraghs to find other civs, which is always a good thing.

So either Seafaring or Commercial is a must imo."

Ok that is what I was interested in, the logic behind people choices.
I agree Alpha is a must if you decide to go for the GL. I have not opted for this so far, but have had Alpha civs.
My take on those traits is they are fine, but are so map dependant. I am playing on what looks like an island map (large). Having curraghs was of no value as I could not reach anyone for a long time. At least three ocean tiles and I did not even know that for a time. I may yield that one as if I had the extra movement, I may have gotten out sooner. It has not been a favorable map for my ships. I waited for gallies to do suicide runs. So as a seafaring one, I could have tried sooner. Maybe next time.


Commercial - this is also useful, more so when the empire is larger. If I get to be a large empire I am not concerned about commerce or corruption, only destruction.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by ErikM

"Industrious - Ok but agricultural is better since faster growth basically gives you more workers. Extra shield at size 6 is useful... but it will be eaten away by corruption in many cities, and only applies to size 6, so it is not immediately useful."

Well for 20 workers it like having 25 and only paying for 20. This is usefule, but not critical.

"Agricultural - good but map-dependent. Obviously, you need rivers to make full use of this trait. Although cheap aqueducts, +2 food from deserts and +3 food from city squares are very nice in their own right."

This one is strong, even if you do not have rivers every where. Extra food in the city center, is good. The problem I am thinking is at high levels it is not so easy to switch out of despotism.

"Militaristic - Ok, but not great. Cheap barracks are nice, but barracks are not that expensive regardless. Both seafaring and militaristic give discounts on harbors, so sea+mil is a duplication of effort."

I would want this only for the promotional aspect and the increased chance to get a leader for making an army.
I have not tried this trait, but if added to something else good, maybe useful in some spots

"Religious - I don't like this trait. You don't really have time to build temples in the early game even at 30 shields. And temples are of dubious value for happiness since using luxury slider is easier. On Emperor/Deity, I kinda miss expensive cathedrals since they are convenient to use as a pre-build. Short anarchy is nice, but if you revolt to Republic early enough, anarchy is not going to be very long."

Has never been one of my favs and I can't bring myself to give it a go so far.

"Scientific - very good. You need some culture and, unlike temples, libraries are useful. Free techs can be leveraged for lots of gold if you are lucky."

I like this more at Demi, where I can actually get to some techs first. At Sid I find it very hard to get contacts quickly enough to trade those start techs and after that no much to offer, unless I find a back water civ.

So if I knew I was going to be on map with high water levels or at least not pangea, I think you have won me over to trying a seafaring trait. I have used random lately, but only to not have to think about it.

Of those I agree that Dromons are sweet. Thanks for your time. Just wanted to get some input to shake up my thinking.

[vmxa1]

Deleted

[vmxa1]

Well it is starting to get ugly. Rome has been at war with me since, I can't remember and they are in a dead heat for 1st.

Calvs are landing in 1's and 2's. The other civ tied is Japand and they just declared on me.

I get pikes next turn. So far they have landed near cities that have cats to hurt them. If they wise up, it could be rough.

[ErikM]

Screenshot? Stats?

[vmxa1]

It is so unspectacular that I figured it was not worth showing.

[vmxa1]

and:

[vmxa1]

As you can see Japan has about as much culture in one city as I have all total.

[vmxa1]

more:

[Paddy]

this is interesting

[vmxa1]

Not bad, the top three civs have all declared war on me now.
I have not found all civs yet.