Help to play as american civ

[binyo66]

I used to play as roman with PTW, and make war all the way with my legioners, got peace for techs, and war again . and if necessary take all wonders from other civs.
In conquest 1.0, Randomly, regent, 16 civs, I was American (which, IMO, has bad UU), so I decided to play peacefully in ancient and just expand, and building a lot of cities.

In my current game, I was a leader in tech, and total city. But I always lost many wonders (I tried to reload the game so many times back to 1 turn before getting philosophy, and always lost in wonders) Is there somehow to get
1. pyramid
2. Suntzu
3. Temple of Artemis.
The most I could get was collosus and temple of artemis.

[vmxa1]

America is not as good as it was before and it was not all that good in PTW. The reason is they nuked Industrial trait.

If you are playing at Emperor or higher, you will be hard pressed to get many ancient wonders. There are too many wonders in that age now.

If you want to get Pyramids, you need to get Masonary early so you can have a palace as a prebuild. Use your second city to do it.

If you are at an even higher level you may need to have a worker farm to add workers to that cities pop to get the city up to size 12 to build a wonder faster than the AI. First use the workers to mine tiles in that city.

Middle Age wonders require that you get the tech first or have a prebuild timed to be ready when you get the tech. The AI will not be willing to trade any tech that has a wonder pending, unless you have something they really want.

Watch out for being on a land mass that is not doing as well in research as the other contient. If they get tech much sooner than you, it will be hopeless.

[Donegeal]

You don't need to stop fighting just because you don't have leigions.

One of the best things about American Civ is it is great for early expansion. They start with Pottery and have industrious workers to chop near forests to build it quickly.

As an expansionist civ (on regent level), it would also be smart to set research to 10% (or 20% at the start as the case maybe) and select Cerimonial Burial as a 50 turn tech (or go ahead and go 100% and get it over with). Your first build should be a scout. Possibly even your second as well. Now go nuts popping huts faster than ever. Expansionist Civs get "better goodie huts". Now if a goodie hut pops a tech, it will give you the cheapest tech available that you are not researching (this would be Cer. Burial). Since you are already researching CB, it will give you Warrior Code (then Wheel, BW, etc). With two or three scouts running around on a huge map (you did say 16 civs), you should almost be able to have the entire Ancient Age techs done and have at least a 4-5 tech lead on everybody. Proceed to crush militarly as you see fit.

[binyo66]

Originally posted by Donegeal
You don't need to stop fighting just because you don't have leigions.

ne of the best things about American Civ is it is great for early expansion. They start with Pottery and have industrious workers to chop near forests to build it quickly.

As an expansionist civ (on regent level), it would also be smart to set research to 10% (or 20% at the start as the case maybe) and select Cerimonial Burial as a 50 turn tech (or go ahead and go 100% and get it over with). Your first build should be a scout. Possibly even your second as well. Now go nuts popping huts faster than ever. Expansionist Civs get "better goodie huts". Now if a goodie hut pops a tech, it will give you the cheapest tech available that you are not researching (this would be Cer. Burial). Since you are already researching CB, itO will give you Warrior Code (then Wheel, BW, etc). With two or three scouts running around on a huge map (you did say 16 civs), you should almost be able to have the entire Ancient Age techs done and have at least a 4-5 tech lead on everybody. Proceed to crush militarly as you see fit.

1. I just wanna try to play peacefully with American. I'm not sure if I could beat anybody with swordsman (if no choice I would try it)
2. Its true, I build more towns and got some free tech from goodie huts.
3. I got middle age first, but by the time I finished feudalism, greek was also got currency (and entitle him to middle age), and sumeria got mono, and then they traided each other, so I was behind
4 . By the time I finished artemis, all ai switched to other wonders and finished them in 1-2 turns (including suntzu) and just left me collosus

5. Is it a good idea to chop up tree in ancient time? As far as I know, from reading this forum, its not highly recommended?
6. I read from this forum, artemis is not as good as it sounds. When it expired all temple is also gone. So, Is this a good idea to just building pyramid, which I'm sure I would get, and then prebuild artemis for suntzu ?

[Donegeal]

If you wanna play peaceful, go with Babylon. The Sci/Rel traits means you get Temples/Libraries/Cathedrals/Universities all at half price.

Swords vs Spearmen is a win for the sword (generally). The attack value of the Sword is just as good as a Legion (the legion is a sword with an extra defensive point). You can win with Swords. You can also win with Archers, it you have enough. Actually, you can even win with Warriors, if you find the AI fast enough. Hell, I've taken out an AI civ on Emperor with warriors (ok, they were Jag warriors with PTW, but they are still warriors).

Now if you did want to play peaceful as the Americans, then you really need to pick your wonders. In the ancient age, Pryamids is by far better than Artemis.

The best thing about Atremis is the culture (which a city DOES NOT loose once the temple dissappears). The temples (happiness) are nice, but you shouldn't need them on Regent level as long as you aren't affraid to play with the slider. The bad thing is once you build Artemis, you can't build temples in any of your cities. Then is goes obsolete with Education and there are instantly 2 extra unhappy people in most of your cities. Now you have to go and build temples in all those cities so you can build cathedrals later.

The pryamids give you a free grainery in every city on the same continent and it doesn't expire. That means that your civs population grows twice as fast as the AI, and population in the key to this game. It is the best and most powerful wonder in the game.

If you are playing America as a Peaceful civ, what do you need Suntzu for? Just build a couple of cities with baracks and do nothing but build units in those. Now if you are concerned with early Mideval wonders, I would concentrate on Sistine's or Leo's. Both make a much bigger difference than Suntzu's.

[vmxa1]

I think the chop is a good move to get that granary finished. Leaving a forrest to use the 2 shields is a short term idea. As an industrial civ, you can chop it and then mine the tile or some other tile to get the same effect.

[binyo66]

Thanks for the response. I wanna barrack because its expensive for American . I forgot I made a mistake that I always set AI to be the most aggresive, since I enjoy playing as roman, and make it easy for AI to declare war. I took one of summerian city with warriors (because of ivory and I wanna get the zeus), and I found to kill 1 Sumerian UU (whatever is called), I need 3 vets warriors (I got a bad time or the sumerian UU is powerful). On lower side, there are greek and roman. On the left side, there is babylon. I think I will reload the game 1 turn before I got philosophy and free tech and get pyramid and follow your advice try to get sistine.
BTW I am not sure I could play peacefully (I will try, at least until I got knights)
Vmx thx for the input as well, I will chop the tree to build granary (taking advantages as american).

I would be happy to play as germany for sci or roman (most of the time). I could win in monarch with Germany and Roman in PTW. I just start Conquest recently, and try to play everything random (but on regent). In my other laptop, ptw, the random give me as chinise (and its better than american for ancient time).
One more thing I learnt when I play as roman in my first game with Conquest (huge map, random, monarch, 31 civs). It's very, very slow in modern time. So, I just took the diplomatic victory. So, actually I mod this game (standard map with 16 civs, random out of 31 civs, and the rest are random). I did try 31 civs in standard map, but I gave up

thx for the input guys. I donna want to give up playing as american for this game (try to play peacefully if I could in this game, most likely not)

[vmxa1]

IMO C3C is harder than PTW all things being equal. China is still a good civ as the Mil trait and the powerful Rider can do a lot of damage.

Expansion civs are better on std map with 8 or less civs. Adding moe than the default civs to any map hurts them.

[Mad Bomber]

Playing as America is a uniqe challange IMO. As they start off withe the Industrial and Expansionist traits they are well suited for large maps with a moderate barbarian level. With the americans, scouting is absolutely critical. I typically use 4 scouts initially and build 1-2 more if a coastline is not close to the capitol.

As an industrial civ it should be rare that you are beaten to the Pyramids unless playing at Emperor or higher (you start with Masonry) . After producing the scouts, I usually pop out a couple settlers and a spearmen and then start constructing the Pyramids.

As a Expansionist civ you must focus on what time you want your GA as the GA will have to come from a wonder to be useful. This assumes you have already built the Pyramids.

If you want an early GA the most critical is the Great Lighthouse or, if starting out very near the coast, the Colossus. Triggering it early will greatly enhance your REX, but with cities not fully developed should only be used if you have room to grow.

If you are more inclined to a Midieval or Industrial GA then Copernicus or Magellans is the choice for you. You can also trigger it with the F-15 but a modern GA is largely wasted as the game is usually won or lost at or near the age of cavalry.

Military wise, the best time to start warring with the Americans is the early Midieval era as you will likely be ahead of the AI in tech due to your scouts. The best offfensive units are the Swordsmen, archer, and of course, Knights. Cavalry eventually replaces these as attacker of choice.

I usually beline to Philosophy and use the free tech to get mapmaking and use the scouts and trading to achieve/maintain a tech edge. This advantage ends at the end of the ancient age, but by then you should have about 10 cities that are pretty welll developed and able to take the main research load from thereafter.

[vmxa1]

16 civs, if on a std map, will really kill the expansion trait.

[Mad Bomber]

16 Civ's on a standard continental map will certainly nerf it, you can get some use out of it on a pangea map however.

In general, Expansionist civ's should be played with the default number of Civ's for a given map size (8 for standard) The best map to play expansionists is a huge pangea map, the worst is a tiny pininsular map. Obviously the lesser number of civ's you have in the game the better it is for the expansionist civ's. You should also try to limit the number of other expansionist civ's in the game.

[joncnunn]

On how to play the Americans, prior to Conquests they had the best combo in traights. That honor now goes to the Mayas. (Industrious + Agricultural)

Main early game tactics with America in single player is on Monarchy or lower:
Scout, Scout, Warrior as Police, a 3rd Scout if map supports, then second warrior as police, followed by granery. Time forest chops such that the first tree falls right after starting the granery so you can get a second chop in with full benifit.
For Emperor and above, the plan should change to Scout, Warrior as Police, Scout, Warrior as Police, then maybe a 3rd scout, followed by granery.

If my capital is close enough to the coast, I can generally build Colosus on Emperor level. As America this will satisfy the Expansionist aspect for a Golden Age so you just need an Industrious wonder. At higher difficulty levels Pyramids generally isn't an option, but one of either (the Great Wall or the Hanging Gardens) is if there's not too many civs and your capital has several productive tiles, but you need to switch out of despotism before finishing or else you'll waste your GA in despostism so you'll need to add either the Republic or Monarchy to your reserach list. The if all else fails option for your GA is Hoover Dam to turn a small tech lead into a huge one and/or hurry along completion of Factories / Hospitals / Stock Exchanges.

[binyo66]

From all the input. I will restart the game as american, standard map, random 8 civs (actually, I like playing with more civs), regent, normal AI aggresiveness. I've to win this game If I do win, I will play again as american standard map, random 16 civs, regent. I didnt expect playing american on regent is harder , And let see how the game end up

[vmxa1]

No reason why you can't win with 16 civs in your setting. It is only that the setting will cripple one of your traits and the other trait was already crippled in C3C.

You can still win, but it will be a less than optimal setting for the Americans. Good luck.

[binyo66]

Not so bad so far, 8 civs, standard map, normal AI, random. I got some techs from goodie huts (gee, I never got that much techs when I was playing roman in PTW). The good things are:
1. I got 2 SGL that I used to hurry Pyramid (built at 1725 bc).
2. I used another SGL to rush Great Light House (I found that I was the only one in that island). So My 2 scouts were just idling on the rightes corner. My 3rd scout been killed by barb.
3. I got so many ivory (I bet, I am the only one who have it), so I'm not in hurry to build zeus.
4. The island had many gems (not so bad for 2nd lux)

The bad things are:
1. I didnt know when I rushed GLH, it would trigger my GA (so my GA still in despotism ). Most of my cities are currently building library, taking advantages of GA.
2. The closest island (smaller) were occupied by Egypt and Carthage.
3. There was only one iron (occupied by the bard), and that was the rightest corner, and almost been occupied by culture border of one of Carthage city.
4. On left side, I just met spain (he needs GLH) to reach my island.
5. There was no "HORSE"

My plan are :
1. Filling up, the rest of the islands during my GA (I currently have 10 cities), I should have 4 more cities (2 on the left, and 2 on the right).
2. By the time GA ends, I would expect the carthagian city which on my rightest island have 3 citizen, so I could save a settler (with bunch warriors, and archers). If necessary I switch to monarch before war with him.

I got 9 workers divided by 2 groups. One working on the rightest side (hooking up the cities), and the other working around the palace, and trying to irrigate from Washington to Philadephia (which growth currently 0).
My settler factory was used to be my capital (but, during the GA) I moved to New York (spear-settler).
I set 90%sci, and 10%lux. Expecting to be the 1st who touch middle ages (might be got another SGL for SunTzu )

This is a *sav file. Any inputs are welcome (especially do I need to switch to monarch after GA or Not)