Strategies to Use in This Game

[cavebear]

My apologies to the Ministers of anything this question involves (I don't want to step on any toes here), but I want to try and get some sense of how we should be trying to win this game. We are in a very weak position, but we do have some time (abvout 150 turns). How should we approach winning this very difficult situation?

The usual approaches are trade, sea power, land power, tech advantage, Wonders, diplomacy. We have limited ourselves of some and cannot do others in our weakness. So what do we really want to try?

I suspect land units are our only option, but I would love to haer any other ideas. Espionage seems a very long ways away, so it is unlikely we can steal advanced techs. Communism and Fundamentalism seem almost as far to reach.

If land units, do we want to form a horde of Crusaders and try our luck, or do we want to hold out for Musketeers for their balance of attack and defence? Should we wait for something better with less time to use them? Should we go for Knights immediately and try those.

Should we target nearby cities for capture to get techs and to spread geographically or should we focus on specific cities with Wonders advantageous to us and hope we can hold them?

Should we set up some target cities near opponent civs to be taken so we can take them back and gain techs?

I think we need to decide how to play out the rest of this game.

[Bloody Monk]

I am glad to see this new thread as I have been thinking the same thing. So

Looking at the Wonders list, UN, CfC, and Hoover have been built. It is a good bet that nearly everyone has Conscription/Riflemen. That is both good and bad. The good thing is that IF we manage to take a city we can get Conscription to bolster our defenses (and it is required for Fundy, something the AI eschews, usually, until they have no other choice). The bad thing is obvious; we will be attacking Rifles with obselete Crooks. Our only hope is that only our Crooks are vets, there is only one defender, and the city we hit does not have walls. Even then we may need a gob of Crooks to take and hold a city, even though vet Crooks attack at 10.

But what else can we do?? Waiting for muskets?? Too slow and too weak -v- Rifles or, Heaven forfend, Alpines or Calvary, or Mech Infantry. Knights are little better. We need punch...and a lot of luck.

Based on Killdeer, the Suefolk are between us and the Egyptians. Our hope lies in the absense of purple WOWs. If that means they are laggards, we may stand a chance -v- them.

But not now!! Not until we have more cities, more roads, and better tech. That screams out to me not to send our Explorer in that direction, now. I will take any odds that a chance meeting will immediately cause a War. So, I say we continue our building program and hope for the best. Apolyton will probably have its supply freed when the Salt is delivered. A change to another camel would then allow a delivery for more cash and beakers.

(I highly dislike having Apolyton make settlers at this point. We need it at size 12 for maximum Xinning and delivery bonus, and we really don't have time now to celebrate. Wait until most of the colony is size three and celebrating will make sense, but not now...IMHO.)

That's my take. I hope everyone else will weigh-in with a 'vision thing' kind of piece.

Monk

[cavebear]

The colony cities are making Settlers. I think we can relive Apolytonia of that duty. But there may be times where Apolytonia has no better option to build, so I wouldn't forbid it.

[Sparrowhawk]

Cavebear: No need to Apologize to the Minister of Trade or the Minister of War, both Ministries are somewhat in Limbo right now without Units or Caravans (but we will soon have plenty of both I am certain!!)

Espionage is indeed a long ways away (minimum 12 techs by my count......Warrior Code, Iron Working, The Wheel, Engineering, Invention, Physics, Steam Engine, Bridge Building, Railroad, Industrialization, Communism, Democracy and Espionage) but I think we should not forget it as a goal, as the key to this game will still be catching up in the tech race (or if not catching up, then at least closing the gap) and I don't think we can do so without spies.

On that topic, perhaps I am not so afraid as others that we are so far behind, the Zulus are obviously in a class by themselves, judging by Wonders of the World alone. The Celts on the powergraph are not far behind and could be similar to them in tech. However, judging by the AI research in most of the games I ahve played, I suspect the others are not so far ahead as many seem to fear (but I am often accused of being an optimist ).

On exploring, I would like to see us with more boats (Galleons won't cause unhappiness and are only 4 techs away, plus they carry more units making the long trips more worthwhile). Boats are also less likely to cause a war then units, as they won't initiate contact (as land units do).

But the key to our success is more cities, and I would like to see Apolytonia and the colonies continue to produce settlers for new cities until we run out of land to place them (lets take advantage of the one opportunity that we have.....open land). As for needing temples, if we have the gold, use it.....one turn to have at least one shield produced, and rush the rest of the temple. As for Apolytonia needing the max size for the delivery bonus, we have 3 full slots and no Caravans, if this were different I would consider the arguement, until it is, I think the settlers adn more cities are more important.

/me who could go on talking for several more paragraphs, but will stop there before you are all

[Bloody Monk]

O Great Minister of Trade, on this you are wrong...

"As for Apolytonia needing the max size for the delivery bonus, we have 3 full slots and no Caravans, if this were different I would consider the arguement, until it is, I think the settlers adn more cities are more important."

We do have a Caravan, the itinerant Salt, and when it gets delivered, it will almost certainly free up a supply slot. So, it is different; please reconsider the arguement. Thanks.

Monk

[Sparrowhawk]

I had already posted about that Salt Caravan and already forgotten about it!

You are quite correct in that we have a caravan....and I will assume you are correct that it will result in freeing up a slot (though I realize that we cannot be 100% sure of this), but....while I will happily support a Caravan next using that newly freed slot, which will once again fill the supply slots, and if this pattern does not continue (and I don't think we know that it will) then I propose we continue with Settlers in Apolytonia and for the few Caravans we are delivering from there, we should be fairly certain that the city will be size 12 when the delivery is made.

I question I would like to see answered is one I posted in the game progress thread regarding Xinning.

I think we should stop Xinning now and switch our tax rate to either 70 S, 20 L, 10 G or 80 S, 20 L, 0 G until we bring down our surplus enough so that we can at least contact the AI which is most receptive to us at that point.

[Hydey]

If want to bring down the surplus, just rush buy things that are required now.

[Sparrowhawk]

Such as the two temples we are currently building in the colonies I agree. It is after that that it gets a little questionable as most of our cities are building settlers, and rushbuying them only works once I think (most of our colony cities cannot support more then one settler I think). But this may not be a problem if we settle in the sites proposed, as they are all fairly close to our cities. (and will need temples....which will also need to be rushed).

[Bloody Monk]

I know you are 'hot' to talk to someone in this game and I too would like to talk to the Celts and/or the Persians at some point. But let's keep in mind the cash requirements for ~ 7 Temples and 13 Colosseums. Ideally, it would be as you suggested, one turn and rush.

I like the idea of changing the sliders to 1.2.7 and stopping the Xining. At 6/turns for discoveries and only -5 g, that sounds good to me. As the number of Tem/Col add up, a further change to 2.2.6 seems like a good plan to me.

I question the efficiency of making Setts in Apoly' and shipping them to the Colony or elsewhere, to say nothing of the Population hit, now that the Colony is up and growing. Set the B/Order to Caravels and either build boats or shift to camel if a slot opens up. We need more boats, too.

Monk

[Sparrowhawk]

okay, though I don't recall which minister is supposed to poll on tax rates there isn't much for Trade to poll on, and this would make sense for the Minister of Trade to start a poll (and if I wasn't the Minister of Trade Iwould probably think it wasn't the Minister of Trade's responsibility).

Working on a poll now.....not sure about how many options (10/20/70, 20/20/60, etc) but I will try to cover the major ones at least.

/me

[Bloody Monk]

better add a stop the madness, err, Xining option.

Monk

[Sparrowhawk]

as I am putting in the poll, I think that is a Science question, but one I think I can safely assume you won't mind me asking on your behalf

(in other games some Ministers...present company included....get a little annoyed at others stepping on their "turf")

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by Sparrowhawk
as I am putting in the poll, I think that is a Science question, but one I think I can safely assume you won't mind me asking on your behalf

(in other games some Ministers...present company included....get a little annoyed at others stepping on their "turf")

Not very Democratic of them was it!! Not my turf, anyway; I'm just renting for the nonce.

Monk

[cavebear]

The Salt Caravan is only 2 turns from either Giza or Killdeer, so that will be out of our way soon. It might be best to change Aploytonia to another Caravan in anticipation of the next trade good. And since a Caravel is heading back to Aolytonia now, it will be able to ship out a new Caravan quickly (4 turns).

[cavebear]

A couple of other points...

I would love to stop Xinning (for entirely selfish reasons). It takes a lot of time, and it is not something I am used to doing. If we get any more cities able to Xin (and on different schedules) I will lose what is left of my tiny ursine mind :LOL:

I think we should rush the Settlers and Temples in the colony cities to get them free for more Settlers until we have reached our temporary limit on cities and have enough Settlers to build our Road network. Then we can start thinking of Crusaders!