Early game - when to switch govt?

[Arrian]

Playing as China, I can't imagine not prebuilding a bunch of horsemen for Rider upgrade. Even with the more expensive upgrade costs in Conquests.

20 horse -> Rider upgrades would cost you... 2400 gold. Wow, that 50% increase to upgrade costs hurts. But if you can finagle Leonardo's, that gets cut in half.

YOU CAN STILL DO THIS. All you gotta do is intentionally cut your iron supply. Then you cannot build Riders, and the build list will offer up horsemen again. So, you may want to consider building a few Riders to assist your war and trigger your Golden Age, and use your GA to build Leonardos and a horde of horsemen.

Then, once you have Leos, do a massive upgrade and layeth the smack down.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Other general comments:

1) You need to get irrigation to your south and east. Bring it down from the river by Beijing, through Tsingtao, and irrigate those plains! To do this, you want more workers.

2) Terrain improvement in general: many undeveloped tiles... much unchopped forest. Chop that forest to speed builds and to then road/mine or road/irrigate under it. More irrigation in general would be good, actually. You need more population.

3) In order to help accomplish 1 and 2, I suggest trying to turn one of your cities into a "worker pump." Beijing is actually the best suited, but it's your capital and is already up to size 10. I suggest Tsingtao, since irrigation should be going on around there anyway. What you want to aim for is +5 food per turn, and +5 shields per turn. That way, if you build a granary first, the city will grow every 2 turns and build a worker every two turns, which translates into no pop change, but a new worker every 2 turns. You may have to readjust which tiles the citizens of Tsingtao are working each time, since the computer likes to default to less excess food intake (it will aim for +2).

Workers can be used to develop terrain, and as Krill said, added to cities. Because the size of the food box increases once a city is above size 6, adding workers is the fastest, most efficient way of growing cities to size 12. I don't always have the discipline to do it, but many expert players create 1 or 2 worker pumps and leave them pumping for THE ENTIRE GAME!

One extra tip: if you have a choice between irrigating a bonus grassland (shield) and a regular one, irrigate the bonus grassland. Reason being that during your Golden Age, tiles producing at least 1 shield get a bonus shield. If you have a mined bonus grassland (2 food, 2 shields) and an irrigated regular grassland (3 food, 0 shields), the GA will give you 1 extra shield (for the bgrass tile). If it's reversed, though, with the irrigation on the bonus grass tile, you will get 2 extra shields (one for each tile).

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Arrian
So, you may want to consider building a few Riders to assist your war and trigger your Golden Age, and use your GA to build Leonardos and a horde of horsemen.
-Arrian

Oooh, I like that!

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Solomwi
I stopped it a long time ago, thinking of it as an exploit, so I don't know if they've fixed it, but doubt they have.

I wouldn't consider this an exploit if you're only playing a SP game. I'm positive the ai does this so why not you too?

I definately think this might be a problem if playing against other humans however. Just my thoughts...

Arrian:

Thanks!!! That's the kind of advice I was looking for. I've read about worker pumps a while ago but completely forgot about that. Thanks for the reminder, I get it now.

[Solomwi]

Two things, Cookie Monster:

1. It's obviously not how the mechanic was intended to work, which is the exploit litmus test, IMO, and...

2. It sounds better than admitting the main reason I stopped was out of laziness upon discovering the Shift-U command.

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Solomwi
Two things, Cookie Monster:

1. It's obviously not how the mechanic was intended to work, which is the exploit litmus test, IMO, and...

Agreed. While I admit that I would do these things against the ai I would definately feel ashamed to pull stunts like that against another human.

[Cort Haus]

I reckon that the AI does move units the same turn as it upgrades them.

I saw two Pikes march out of an enemy city the same turn as I traded it Iron via Big Picture on discovering the tech.

[Tattila the Hun]

I think something about shift-U upgrading was fixed in PTW/C. I can no longer upgrade units, that have attacked, with no movement left, and are in cities with barracks. As far as I can remember, in civ3, I could do just that. Wage war with 100 riflemen, attacking stacks of invaders at the city gates, then with only one still moving upgrade all of them to infantry, and get them fully healed at the same time....

[Theseus]

That is correct... in C3C, units must have at least 1 movement remaining in order to be upgraded, including via shift-u.

[Cookie Monster]

Here is an update on my current situation in my PBEM game.

I've tried my best to take the advice of those who helped me here. I've irrigated down to the southern portion of my empire to try to grow my towns down there. I've also increased my worker force but most of my energy has been in building up my military.

You see my human opponent began grabbing all the remaining free land on my continent. I've just declared war on him in an attempt to drive him from my shores!

[Commy]

The fact that all of his (or her) cities have NEW in them means that the person is probably very, very powerful. ALthough, depending on map size, that could be average. THe French don't exactly have a lot of city names in the first place. Anyway, if you have Conquests, my advice is to build the Knight's Templar as fast as possible...

[Cookie Monster]

Yeah unfortunately he already has the knights templar. This is going to be one big fight!

I'ts been a while since I've sent him my turn. I can't wait to see how he responds.

Here is a shot of the minimap. He is pink I'm light blue.

[BCLG100]

I generally switch to monachy as soon as possible, then depending on circumstance switch to democracy later on in the game.

[Cookie Monster]

I've driven my opponent out of my continent with the exception of New Bensacon. I have proposed a peace treaty and am awaiting his repsonse.

[Cookie Monster]

Just another update.

He didn't accept my peace proposal. The war dragged on and then I discovered theory of gravity putting me in the industrial era. He is two techs behind me.

He still has New Bensacon but cannot resupply it anymore, due to my frigates stopping his caravels. He asked for peace but demanded war reparations. I have will accept peace only if he agrees to not further colonize my continent.

He wants me to pay him for me starting the war and winning it?!?!

What would you do in this situation?