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Thoughts on a different strategy
In my Civ game for the month, I am playing on a small map (world_small) for the first time (emperor, 7civs, RT). I am struck as to how different my strategy has to be. Here are some experiences, thoughts and questions…
I started in the jungles of Africa and built my first city on a river square along the coast next to a gold mountain (can you say Super Science City?).
For some reason, I was not able to expand like I normally would. At 200BC, I only had 3 cities on the Africa continent. I then proceeded to bribe the 3 German cities in Europe. I think one of the reasons is that early on, I was constantly besieged by the German, Zulus (from the Americas), Celts (from Asia) and quite a few Barbs. I had to spend more time on defense fending them off (building barracks, military units and a few walls), instead of growing and expanding. I did bribe one Celtic outpost city in Europe. In doing so, it gave me an option I had never seen before - Subvert City x2 Gold. What's the idea behind this, as oppose to outright revolt?
The Barbs at first were all over the place but since then, they had swarming the Zulus keeping them occupied. This is one of the key advantages of playing at RT or RH.
My tech advances have been slow - always between 11-15 turns. I may be #1 in science, but not by much. That's one big difference for me. In fact, for the first time EVER, I did not get Philosophy first. Consequently, I'm at 1100AD and I had only built 2 Wonders (Colossus and Sun Tzu) with caravans. I really had to think about which ones to build, unlike before where I could usually build at will. I got Leo coming up soon, but the main problem is that I had to interrupt building caravans in my handful of cities to build military units. Since the Celts have been bugging me (alternating between war, peace and cease fire), I need to clobber them. I got 12 vet knights closing in on their territory (I learned this from Graag). So that's another difference, in my perfectionist conqueror style, I usually have a set of cities building caravans and another set building military units, but in this game I can only do one or the other. Not sure if I'll get the Happy wonders, so that'll be interesting to see.
Another question. I had a settler finished building roads connecting all of the cities and then I built a city at the southern tip of Africa (my 9th city under Monarchy). This settler had been supported from a city in Europe and when the new city was built, that supporting city went into disorder. It was size 4, food box half full, 3 shields, two martial law units. Even though it looked like the 2nd citizen went red (thus causing the 4th to go red in the happy screen), why did it do this? I have one still further north which did not change. What caused this disorder when I built that new city?
Another change is that I'm using the Tim's HiRes units for the first time. I really like these units.
All in all, this is somewhat of a self-handicap game for me. A small map forced me to deal with enemies early on and prevented expansion in isolation. It also brings to light the close link between a wonder and a strategy.
Sten: Thanks for the suggestion from awhile back of playing small maps (for non-OCC games), this is turning out to be my favorite regular game experience so far.
I started in the jungles of Africa and built my first city on a river square along the coast next to a gold mountain (can you say Super Science City?).
For some reason, I was not able to expand like I normally would. At 200BC, I only had 3 cities on the Africa continent. I then proceeded to bribe the 3 German cities in Europe. I think one of the reasons is that early on, I was constantly besieged by the German, Zulus (from the Americas), Celts (from Asia) and quite a few Barbs. I had to spend more time on defense fending them off (building barracks, military units and a few walls), instead of growing and expanding. I did bribe one Celtic outpost city in Europe. In doing so, it gave me an option I had never seen before - Subvert City x2 Gold. What's the idea behind this, as oppose to outright revolt?
The Barbs at first were all over the place but since then, they had swarming the Zulus keeping them occupied. This is one of the key advantages of playing at RT or RH.
My tech advances have been slow - always between 11-15 turns. I may be #1 in science, but not by much. That's one big difference for me. In fact, for the first time EVER, I did not get Philosophy first. Consequently, I'm at 1100AD and I had only built 2 Wonders (Colossus and Sun Tzu) with caravans. I really had to think about which ones to build, unlike before where I could usually build at will. I got Leo coming up soon, but the main problem is that I had to interrupt building caravans in my handful of cities to build military units. Since the Celts have been bugging me (alternating between war, peace and cease fire), I need to clobber them. I got 12 vet knights closing in on their territory (I learned this from Graag). So that's another difference, in my perfectionist conqueror style, I usually have a set of cities building caravans and another set building military units, but in this game I can only do one or the other. Not sure if I'll get the Happy wonders, so that'll be interesting to see.
Another question. I had a settler finished building roads connecting all of the cities and then I built a city at the southern tip of Africa (my 9th city under Monarchy). This settler had been supported from a city in Europe and when the new city was built, that supporting city went into disorder. It was size 4, food box half full, 3 shields, two martial law units. Even though it looked like the 2nd citizen went red (thus causing the 4th to go red in the happy screen), why did it do this? I have one still further north which did not change. What caused this disorder when I built that new city?
Another change is that I'm using the Tim's HiRes units for the first time. I really like these units.
All in all, this is somewhat of a self-handicap game for me. A small map forced me to deal with enemies early on and prevented expansion in isolation. It also brings to light the close link between a wonder and a strategy.
Sten: Thanks for the suggestion from awhile back of playing small maps (for non-OCC games), this is turning out to be my favorite regular game experience so far.
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