Civ Clinic (No Iron)

[Electrius]

Hi. I'm playing on Regent as the Mayans, one of my first really successful games. The first war I fought I was little bit, um, unprepared-for. It was against the Mongols, and I lost my source of gems, but luckily Carthage was willing to trade with me for them. The reason I've been doing so badly in wars is because I have no iron. Sumeria, which has extra iron, won't trade with me. I'm fighting a war against Spain to gain control of Iron, but unfortunately Spain is using iron-based units (Medieval Infantry, for example) against me.

Any critiques are appreciated. Screenshots on demand.

[Thrar]

I thought about playing this for a couple of turns, until I realized there's imo no reason to complain about the lack of iron.

The good news:
1. You're one tech away from military tradition. Why are you researching physics?? With MT you get the best military unit until tanks an age later, and on top of that, it's iron-free!
1b. You have both horses and saltpeter.
2. You are tech leader. You could think about trading for republic, but as non-religious, I'd probably research democracy. However, MT has highest priority, and after that I might think about first going for the industrial age and railroads. Then, back to democracy.
3. The tech you are researching is almost done. Ok, it's just physics, but that allows you to quickly proceed with MT. Go back to 7-3-0 (minimum to finish) for one turn, then for MT as fast as possible.
4. You have good terrain improvement. Although, when railroads come around, you need more workers.

things to improve:
1. a couple of more cities. I'd build one on the saltpeter, two in the jungle south of Chichén Itza (eg 333 and 3222 of C.I.), one between Lazapa and Cuello on the coast (999 from Lazapa), one in the desert near Spain (eg 336 from Quiriguá), and one on the hill 777 from Mayapán.
I would probably have built everything more closer from the beginning and squeezed a couple more, but at this point, it's not longer necessary. Still, those are 6 more you can easily build on unused tiles.
2. Some cities are not using their full potential. Terrain improvement is quite good, some have too many entertainers, I recommend checking that on F1 every few turns (I do it every turn to avoid disorders), sort by population for better overview.
3. Make peace with Spain, you have no offensive units anyway. Those 20 turns will give you plenty of time to build some cavalry (30 should be enough, maybe even less) and come back. If you get bored before, play around with Carthage (14 turns for trade, 20 if you renew the gems deal). I'd probably wait 20, there's no need to hurry into a war.
4. You're probably playing on a difficulty below your skill.

certainly there's more to comment, but I'm out of ideas. What's important is that you go for Military Tradition next turn, then it'll be really hard to lose this game.

[Modo44]

You look pretty good.

Things that can be improved upon:

• Use the lux slider! Turn it up to 10%, and all your useless Entertainers will be back to work. This will probably not change your income much, but it will greatly increase growth and production in many cities. (Or, get more luxuries...)
• Like said above, research Military Tradition next, and build Cavalry. You might even start by building some Horsemen now, and upgrading them as soon as you get that tech.
• Like said above, you can make a couple more cities. Just put them in the empty spaces you created earlier.
• You need many more Workers. That is both to improve the land not improved yet, and to prepare for Railroads. The usual number of Workers should be at 1 to 1.5 per city. You have less. You can use the size 12 cities to make one Worker each when their food box is full, as they will grow back next turn.
• Your tile improvements look almost good. You need to make less Irrigation, and more Mines for cities at size 12. They should be at around zero surpulus food whenever possible, to maximize production (as growth is over for them, at least until Hospitals).
• You need to build Courthouses in cities away from your capital. A lot of income, and production is lost to Corruption, especially in the nortern, and eastern regions.
• Build more offensive units over defensive ones. You need to make your defenders mobile. Use offensive units to kill attackers, rather than defensive ones to stall. If you sit still, you are inviting them to pick their targets, instead of you picking them off. This seldom ends well (choke points being the only exception I know of). If you have no Iron, use Trebuchets, and Longbowmen!
• Trade your outdated technology for cash and/or luxuries and/or resources. You can get Wines from Mongolia. You can trade Sumeria up to the Medieval Age, and then offer them a tech for Iron, but that is costly (not recommended). Did you break any deal with them to make them so paranoid?
• Do not automate Workers.

And yes, you should be able to move up a level. Certainly with an Agricultural civ.

[Electrius]

Thanks a lot for the feedback! I'm not automating my workers to the best of my knowledge. The game has progressed significantly: I've made peace with Spain after grabbing control of two cities, and then getting back all the cities that I lost. I traded Carthage Nationalism for MT, a world map, and one other technology. I'm building up riflemen and cavalry in preparation for another war with Spain.

I also made contact with the other half of the world, which includes a number of technologically backwards (but not by much) civilizations, including Rome, which has a huge amount of territory. Researching Democracy and thence to Steam Power.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by electrius
I'm not automating my workers to the best of my knowledge.

I saw one Worker move after opening the save, so I just assumed he was on autoamtion. But maybe you just told him to Road to that specific spot?

[joncnunn]

Since I don't see any screen shots, it's hard to give specific advise, but the general advise without iron in a single player game is the moment that it's apprent start planning for an ancient era war to cease the closest iron with Horse Men. Much easier to capture the iron against archers and spears and one or two swords than against med inf and pikes or worst yet, Knights

This may involve forming temp cities (camps) to pump unit the needed Horses (with Baracks as the only improvement.) These temp cities will later produce workers to disband when the nearby permenant cities start needing the tiles the temp cities are taken up or if your empire grows large enough to where the temp cities are causing more shields lost to corruption than they are bringing in.