Taking my Game to the Next Level

[vmxa1]

You do not even know if there are any better civs around, unless you have gotten those history notes to tip you off.

Smyrna has no production and it could. All citizens are entertainers? If you want to starve them, ok. You can still starve them and have a few working to get some production from them.

How did you manage to get to 390AD with so many neighbors and not have any armies? This is the key to gaining the upper hand in a map like this to me. You have to either out produce them by superior management or you have to out trade them or you have to smash someone. Best to combine all of these elements.

Your window of power for the MW is closing or maybe closed already, so you needed to have used it with a vengence before now. Once pikes and knights show up, you won't be getting a lot from MW's.

My position is that players should stick to standard maps size, until they are well schooled in managing an empire. Then move to other sizes. I feel that huge maps are an invitation to bad habits at most levels. The large number of civs will mean early contacts for the AI and cheap researching.

This will lead to danger at emperor level and beyond for players that do not run a tight ship. In a huge map, I intend to have the contacts with all civs first. On a panga, that may not work, but it should still be possible.

[QuestGAV]

Thanks for the additional tips. I probably should have mentioned also that I'm playing the AU mod. I think that plus it being my 2nd/3rd serious game on Emperor has me closer to the learning curve than I felt initially. It also means a couple of the things v mentioned may not work as well.

I've definitely been starving off the captured cities, as v noted. I'll try to balance some production with some starvation as I go forward. I think I got into that habit from dealing with resistances and flipping them all into entertainers to avoid the city going into unrest (with it's +flip chance) as the resistance was put down. But there's obviously no reason to continue that when the resistance is done. That'll help some. I garrisonned the cities fairly heavily because I had suffered 3-4 CFs on that border already and the free pikeman was slowing me down immensely. That's really how I decided I needed to take peace and move on.

Smyrna was one of the cities I had just captured so it's really the Byzantines fault that it sucks... of course, in the extra 500 years I played last night I didn't make it better. I have a habit of improving tiles for most of the game and then not maximizing cities themselves until steam power. I think that's probably related to preferring huge pangaeas, if I'm not lazy I'd micromanage workers to the point of boredom and throwing another game in the CD drive. I had been thinking it would probably be better to play a standard map to maximize my learning because huge just means alot more playing time to fix whatever mistakes you've made, but I just love the epic feel of huge maps.

You're right about the missing contacts, I'll explore more aggressively next time. No reason not to send some chariots or MWs through the cracks and get familiar with everyone early on.

I did have one army and lost it promptly after its first victory to a counterattack. I have to work at managing my elites better, but playing the AU mod seems to reduce their worth significantly. I'm not entirely sure using my army completely differently for a few chances at extra HP and an extra MP is worth the losses.

I missed out on every wonder so far. I'm trying to get into the prebuild habit. I have one now for ToE and Hoover's as I rush for electronics. If I don't get Hoover's I'm fairly screwed so we'll see what happens.

I had actually intended to go for Republic rather than Monarchy, I even rushed in that direction research wise. But then I looked at the AU Mod's version of Republic in the Civilopedia. The extra support costs would have destroyed me. And with all the river cities waiting for Feudalism seemed foolish. I stuck with Monarchy and then switched to Democracy. I'm not sure I can do everything I want in Democracy but it sure helped me close the economic gaps.

Is the one gold for barracks in all cities a big problem? Even if I can't support troops being made in all cities, it would seem better to be able to make troops in all and oscillate the troop cities along with economic buildings.

But that brings me back to the question I had earlier... it seems more efficient to mass-produce troops and steamroll an enemy rather than produce troops at a more leisurely pace and get into protracted conflicts. Then, when you're at peace, binge on improvements until you're ready for another war. Is the extra support cost worth ending the war earlier and with the enemy producing less? I know Theseus had signaled his preference for massive armies and I've always liked to have 10 units to start an early ancient war, 20 to start a late ancient war, 40 for medieval, 60-80 for industrial, and 200+ in modern times. Sure, the support costs can hurt, but so does waiting for reinforcements being produced at a leisurely rate.

Thanks for the tips guys, I'm definitely getting a ton of info from this thread. My empires are definitely growing more formidable daily.

[vmxa1]

Ok you are correct, if I knew this was an AU mod game, I would have refrained from responding as I have not used the C3C version and know not a thing about it.

At the risk of irritaing the AU crew, I would strongly suggest players be beating emperor level solidly before using the mod.

Its main purpose is to help the AI and if players (not saying this is you) are not beating the level they use it on already, they will probably have troubles.

I do seem to recall that armies have been reduced in the mod, but I would not risk an army unless it was life or death. That is too much of an investment to take chances on losing.

The cost of maint for barracks in an issue early in the game. In the save you had -11 gpt with 46 in hand. If you have 14 barracks counting those under construction and you could get by with 4, that nearly covers the deficit. That does not consider the production used, that could have done something else.

Flips at emperor should be very rare. If you get up a few temples and a couple of libs, you should be fine. It is not like the highest levels where you will be way behind in culture for most of the game.

If 4 of those barracks had been temples, you would probably be safe for any border cities. It is not like you are grabbing cities in the core next to their capitol at this point. If you are then they are probably a cultural wasteland anyway. If flips are a real problem raze them and build new towns. I would surely say having already gotten 4 flips is a problem.

As I mentioned, going for barracks everywhere and troops en masse, is fine for an all out warrior, in a war government.

[Theseus]

Some comments:

* Traded with Zulus as v recommended.
* Scared up bits of cash by selling Ancient Era techs... no reason not to.
* Peace with the Byzies... cost them 195g+25g per turn!!
* Sold gems to Byzies for 9gpt.
* Land is dramatically unimproved. CP is too loose. Change all MW builds where growth is more than 5 turns to Settlers. Will mix in Worker builds ASAP.
* Caughnawaga in wrong place... will build done to 0 pop, and re-build at 1.
* Really need Markets.
* Disband all reg Warriors and Spears. Forget MPs in core... lux slider for that... move vet Spears to border cities.
* Two neighboring incense beg for war on Russia... declared.
* Gathering MWs at Oka.
* Research Invention at 90%, 12 turns, have 278g, -38gpt.

[joncnunn]

I disagree strongly with disbanding MPs in favor of the luxary slider. MPs are much cheaper than the luxary slider, because of how inefficent the luxary slider is. Grabing 10% of money everywhere instead of how much gold if any the MP is costing to maintaign.

[QuestGAV]

It's amazing the difference that being willing to sell some techs can make. I'm up around 1600 AD now and concentrated on economy after taking the Byzantine peace. I'm 4 turns away from motorized transport and have 30000 gold in the bank with a +400 surplus at 100% science. I've got a slight tech lead that I'm periodically mortgaging for the cash. The only reason I haven't started the total war process is that my neighbors all have infantry, it'd make cavalry assaults bloody at best. Tanks, on the other hand, should make them cry

As far as the flips go v, I didn't get my temples/libraries up quickly enough and was already facing a big culture deficit by the time I posted that save. I've made up some of the difference but it's still not in my favor. Next game I'll definitely focus on a few troop pumps and have a few temple/library cities that fill make settlers/workers. I'm definitely starting to see where the balance lies.

[Solomwi]

One note I didn't see anybody mention (and I haven't looked at the save, so if this isn't applicable, never mind): v said you had all of Smyrna's citizens as entertainers, and you replied that yes, you're starving them down. Nothing wrong with starving the city. I do it all the time. But if every citizen is a specialist, who are they entertaining? Might as well squeeze some gold or beakers out of them.

If there are resistors that may end their resistance next turn, and you're trying to keep the city out of disorder, I can see switching some to entertainers, but I generally eat the turn and squeeze another two gold out of the guy that would have starved off that turn.

[joncnunn]

Using the cities I'm starving down have active resitance. They are enteraining any citizens coming out of restiance that turn so the city doesn't go into disorder. Cities under disorder have double the normal flip risk. And in addition they seem to consume an extra randomly generated number.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by joncnunn
I disagree strongly with disbanding MPs in favor of the luxary slider. MPs are much cheaper than the luxary slider, because of how inefficent the luxary slider is. Grabing 10% of money everywhere instead of how much gold if any the MP is costing to maintaign.

That was specific to this game... heavy WW required using the lux slider anyway, and once I had it set I realized that with only a couple of exceptions I could do without MPs.

Maybe 200 years later I had access to all 8 luxuries, so issue became moot.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Using the cities I'm starving down have active resitance. They are enteraining any citizens coming out of restiance that turn so the city doesn't go into disorder. Cities under disorder have double the normal flip risk. And in addition they seem to consume an extra randomly generated number.

If I understand your point correctly, jon ( ), I agree complelty... when starving cities down, I leave the cits as entertainers until the end of the resistance, and then after that I switch all entertainers to taxes.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Theseus


If I understand your point correctly, jon ( ), I agree complelty... when starving cities down, I leave the cits as entertainers until the end of the resistance, and then after that I switch all entertainers to taxes.

Does that work? I thought I read somewhere that cities that lose population automatically get all citizens reassigned before the effects of taxmen and scientists are figured in.

[joncnunn]

It keeps them out of disorder; the disorder check is before the reassignment.

All taxes and sceince are calculated prior to the cities even being looked at.

[Theseus]

PITA, though, re-setting after every turn of starvation.

[QuestGAV]

Yeah, jon's reasoning is why I had them all as entertainers, though I'm now seeing that it's possible to balance that with getting some cash/science from the city as well.

I switched to a standard map and started over - I'm finding it much easier to find the balance between war and economy. I think part of my problem was the vast amounts of open space was too tempting - I was too focused on it. Laying claim to that was taking up too much time and I was losing out on a chunk of "power" time for my UU.

[Theseus]

BTW, I am still having fun with your game... lotsa MWs/Knights make for big fun! I've done a lot of re-arranging of city placement, and also have gotten Temples, Libraries, and Markets built out most everywhere useful, have established the tech lead, and have all 8 luxes. A *LOT* of terrain improvement to catch up on, and I'm still banging away at that, especially in the western empire.

/me quite enjoys his Iroquois latifundia (esoterica: Roman slave farms ).

I want to take it up to 1000AD, then post and compare what you and I did... I'm at 870AD, and will get there prolly on Saturday.