Sid games C3C: how to improve our skills

[vmxa1]

Hum, what about the world map number in the ini? Is that only for scenaios?

[Mountain Sage]

Sorry Nathan, but since I’ll be on holiday for the next 10 days, I thought to put in writing the final stages of my two games. Nothing really secret about it…, you’ll see.

Vmxa1, that’s not a scenario (you’ll see a REAL one on my next try), both games are 1.15 vanilla C3C…


My first game: GLibrary and C-T-T-C spacing:

500AD:
My rexxing is completed, we have now 40 cities. Japan is no more, its cities are now worshipping Anubis.
The GLibrary gave us Monotheism and Theology. Chivalry and Feudalism were traded. The Republic and Engineering were researched. All in all, a very dubious expenditure.
At least, we have 5’893 gold, to be spent on Libraries, Marketplaces and the such.
We are (just) in Republic.
Our military: 2 Archers, 5 Horses, 1 Knight and… 31 Workers and 3 Settlers.

Wonders:
Egypt: Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, GLighthouse, Oracle (ex Japanese), Great Wall, Sun Tsu, Sistine, Magellan’s Voyage, Copernicus (in Osaka!), Leo, Bach, temple of Artemis, Knight Templar, Smith (under construction…)
Mongols: Colossus, Statue of Zeus.
Hittites: Mausoleum of Mausollos.

The top 5 cities? All Egyptian.

And they started colonizing the southern islands…

Well, a pic for the records… without giving away much…

[Mountain Sage]

The 2nd version: no GLibrary and C-T-T-T-C spacing
320AD:
My rexxing is completed, including the islands towards the Zulus and the 1st of the southern islands. 38 cities total (islands included).
We have Feudalism and Engineering and just discovered the Republic by ourselves (at 50 turns, of course). We are just switching to it…
5’651 gold, to be spent soon.
Our military: 12 Warriors, 5 Galleys, 5 Curraghs and…33 Workers.

Wonders:
Egypt: Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, Great Wall, Sun Tsu, Sistine, Magellan’s Voyage, Copernicus (in Osaka!), Leo, Bach, temple of Artemis, Knight Templar.
Mongols: Colossus, Statue of Zeus.
Hittites: GLighthouse, Mausoleum of Mausollos
Arabs: Oracle.

Well, we were just content to be the second of the pack, when one day… and we will stay in anarchy for another 8 turns…
End of the game.

[Arrian]

Nathan's REX's always amaze me.

MS:

Egypt: Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, GLighthouse, Oracle (ex Japanese), Great Wall, Sun Tsu, Sistine, Magellan’s Voyage, Copernicus (in Osaka!), Leo, Bach, temple of Artemis, Knight Templar, Smith (under construction…)

That's a monstrous KIA you've got there.

Good luck to all who are playing: I'll be reading along with the others in the peanut gallery.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Mountain Sage, did you notice whether Egypt ever got thrown back from Republic into Monarchy fighting Japan in your game? It's happened in mine; Japan has three cities left at the moment, and will probably be gone completely before much longer, but at least they're presumably slowing down Egypt's research for the moment. Unfortunately, in the long term, the conquest of Japan will make Egypt stronger due to the extra territory gained.

(Initially, with the route I'd taken to discover Japan, I'd thought Japan was on a separate island. But it turned out to share a continent with Egypt, and the disparity in size between the two sharing a continent - possibly due to war chariots during Egypt's GA? - is what makes Egypt such a monster. (Not to mention, in my game, the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens, and the Great Wall, with Sun Tsu's and Sistine on the way.)

I'm up to 150 AD now, and have just started a 5-turn transition to Republic (having spent a lot of gold researching it myself at maximum in the hope that it will pay for itself in the long term). I now have contact with all the other civs. Egypt is ahead of me in tech, the Zulus are behind me by Republic, and everyone else is lagging significantly behind. I blew some gold on embassies and determined that the Hittites and Arabs are at war; from F11, I suspect that the Hittites are likely in a golden age from it, for better or for worse.

Nathan

[Arrian]

Wouldn't you be able to see if the Hittites were in a GA from the embassy you established? Or did you only establish one w/the Arabs?

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

By the way, unless I missed something, Mountain Sage's blockade in his first game has a couple holes in it. The Zulus could slip galleys between his galleys if they wanted to attack Maastricht, but could not get farther up or down the coast. Still, if the Zulus didn't want to land outside Maastricht and knew they couldn't get farther, I can see how the blockade could work in practice. And with land units on the tiles Zulu galleys could get to near Maastricht to prevent them from unloading, the blockade could be fully effective in spite of allowing Zulu galleys to enter Dutch territory.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Arrian
Wouldn't you be able to see if the Hittites were in a GA from the embassy you established? Or did you only establish one w/the Arabs?

I wasn't looking for it when I originally established the embassy. (Is there a way to tell other than when the embassy is first established without spending gold on an investigation?) I went back to the same turn (just a couple turns ago) and repeated the process of establishing the embassy, and their shield production is at normal rather than GA levels. Looking some more, I'm guessing that the reason I dropped from second to third in GNP is probably a combination of lack of growth in outlying areas due to staying in Despotism so long and losing some size pop rushing courthouses in cities that were totally corrupt without them.

[Arrian]

(Is there a way to tell other than when the embassy is first established without spending gold on an investigation?) I went back to the same turn (just a couple turns ago) and repeated the process of establishing the embassy, and their shield production is at normal rather than GA levels.

Nope, I did mean just looking at the shield/commerce when you first establish the embassy.

If I just missed it in one of your AARs, sorry, but have you built your FP yet? If so where, if not, where are you thinking it should go? I imagine that corruption on Sid is brutal.

-Arrian

[Krill]

I played this just as an practice game. With no AI (near enough to kill me), it seems identical to an emperor level game. That is probably because the only thing that forces you to change an opening strategy is the number of content citizens.

My opening sucks to be honest: No prebuild for the GL screwed up the whole game. If I continue, I'll get slaughtered. Only to settler pumps. I traded my 1200+ gold + 35gpt to the Zulus for all the first tier techs. They have all the 2nd tier as well.

I did not manage to start digging myself out of the hole' I dropped a nuke in it and jumped in as well.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Arrian


Nope, I did mean just looking at the shield/commerce when you first establish the embassy.

If I just missed it in one of your AARs, sorry, but have you built your FP yet? If so where, if not, where are you thinking it should go? I imagine that corruption on Sid is brutal.

It is very brutal in Despotism. I'll find out what it's like in Republic in a few turns.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with my FP. Prior to C3C, the issue would have been almost a no-brainer: build the FP where I jumped my palace to and hope to move my palace with a leader when I conquer one of the AIs. But with how C3C works, centering the palace is a lot more important, and with the palace centered nicely in a civ that isn't especially big (at least not anywhere near "conquer half the world" big), it's hard to figure out a really great spot for the FP.

If anyone wants to suggest any ideas on the matter, I'd love to hear them. You should be able to see where I've jumped my palace to on one of the screenshots. Also, discussion of whether I might have been better off with some other palace location once the FP is factored in would be useful for future consideration.

Nathan

[ToeTruck]

Disappearing Impi?

I've had a blast playing this game. Built the GL from a SGL way back when and am now building up infrastructure while waiting for contact with a second civ.

So...the Zulu got bored and have declared war. But the strangest thing is happening. The Zulu land an Impi or two on their turn (and I see the Impi on the map), but by the time it's my turn to play, they have disappeared. Poof! Vanished!

The only explanation I can come up with is that the Zulu are way overtaxed with unit maintenance that they have to disband units and the AI chooses those the farthest away from the capital.

My questions are:

- Has anyone else experienced this?
- Does my explanation fit with your understanding of the turn order (disbands happen after moves)?
- Is there a way to exploit this under Sid?

Thanks for the game MS.

- TT

[Krill]

TT,
1) Yes, but not in this game
2) Yes, I think it happens after the last AI move of the turn
3) I doubt it

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Krill

My opening sucks to be honest: No prebuild for the GL screwed up the whole game. If I continue, I'll get slaughtered. Only to settler pumps. I traded my 1200+ gold + 35gpt to the Zulus for all the first tier techs. They have all the 2nd tier as well.

Was there any reason to be in a hurry about that? One of the fundamental principles of playing archipelago maps (also applicable to other map types but most important for archipelago) is that the more civs that have a tech you've met, the cheaper the tech gets. Therefore, unless you actually need a tech right away, you're better off waiting a while until you've met more civs before you pay gold for it. Even with tech-for-tech deals, waiting until you've met more civs is often (but not always) worthwhile.

Nathan

[Krill]

Basicly, I could only build three units: warriors, workers, and settlers. The only techs I had were Alpha, writing, philo and Lit. The Zulus had all the first, second-Lit and CoL, and I would bet that they had at least one third tier tech.

The reason that I traded was that I needed Spearmen and archers to finally get rid of the barbs. That and I wanted to see how far ahead the Zulus were. It looked like they were researching Lit, because they wouldn't pay the same price as the turn before.
They had more gold, and I didn't add gpt into the deal, so that is not a reason.