A mini tourney- Spoilers

[Alkis]

Sir Ralph,
I finally had a look at your saves. Your position after the first save was imppressive. Later saves though show that you started having problems. I think you were too obstinate in the way you built your cities. Cities two tiles away may have plus and minus when on grassland but on hilly terrain? It's obvious that Haidelberg, Munich, Nurnberg and Erfurt will not grow much.

I think the problems some of you had start from one very simple thing: One AI civ became too strong. This didn't happen in Nathan's game because he killed the French early (what an intuition ) and neither England nor Russia grew that strong. I also made a mistake because I didn't predict France's strength in time. If I did I would have researched chivalry, upgrade my horsemen and either ally with England to keep France weak or ally with France earlier and grab more land from the English.

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[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Alkis

I think the problems some of you had start from one very simple thing: One AI civ became too strong. This didn't happen in Nathan's game because he killed the French early (what an intuition ) and neither England nor Russia grew that strong.
-

It wasn't intuition. It was GREED. A city that already has the Pyramids and is probably going to get the Great Library? Too good to pass up!

I'm curious: did the French build those wonders in other people's games, or was my game unusual in that respect. If Joan's building those wonders was typical, it might explain how the French were so consistently powerful, though.

By the way, I'm up to 1290 AD (managing workers in such a huge empire is monstrous for a person unwilling to turn it over to the computer) and Egypt just declared war. I don't THINK they have infantry yet, but I'm not sure. In any case, the war shouldn't be more than an inconvenience. I underestimated my research rate in my last update; I've been doing a steady four turns per tech with a good bit of gold to spare, and should continue at that rate (give or take on the spare gold) for the rest of the game. The neat thing is that the spare gold lets me rush buy improvements in my outlying cities, which ultimately gives me more gold. A vicious circle - for my enemies .

Nathan

[Harovan]

Alkis,

I don't consider it a problem if my cities don't grow above size 12. This is intended. I built exactly 5 hospitals, needed for the Battlefield medicine. Smaller cities are happier, need less improvements and produce less pollution. And on hilly terrain, they haven't much chance to grow anyway, I could have built significantly more dense, as a city there typically needs only 2-4 tiles.

I had no serious problem with the French for almost the whole game. They were mostly cautious towards me, changing to polite and even gracious for the short time of our MPP. My main problems were low culture (have to work on this) and the poor decision to sign a MPP against them in the late game. An alliance would've done it too. The French were ready for peace very soon. But my ally forced me to stay at war.

[Gen.Dragolen]

0 BC. and still alive ?

Alkis,

This is one tough nut to crack: at 0 BC, I have only managed to destroy one Russian village, got the treasury wiped out by a 15+ barbarian horseman uprising that also cost me 3 spearmen and an archer, lost one of the 5 walled towns I'd managed to build so far to the russians, loosing 3 spearmen and an archer to their 8 horsemen and 2 archers, and to add insult to injury, I lost a 2 spearman and 8 archer stack attacking a Russian village defended by 2 (now elite) spearmen...

I'd hate to have to ready the actual casualty reports, because in actions away from my towns I've destroyed Russians and English at a 2:1 rate for my units, but I have lost 8 spearmen and 25+ archers so far. I started to loose track they were going down so fast. At one point just before 0 BC, I was down to 1 spearman in each village and that was with two cities cranking out an archer every other turn...

Needless to say I still hate the combat model the game uses and it sucks beyond belief to loose an full hp elite archer by attacking a 1 hp enemy archer standing in open ground... just too "random" for me. I like attacking only when I have 5:1 or 10:1 over the enemy to make sure they die and I live but it still doesn't gaurentee success in this game.

And how much luck did you guys have in making GL's ? I have gotten one so far and he made the Pyramids for me so I could pop rush troops.

Needless to say, I will die too soon as the Russian horde of horsemen will arrive at Berlin next turn and I only have 3 spearmen on the walls now. Guess I need a different approach to survive at this level other than ICS style REX'ing and then drop a barracks and build a couple of spearmen, a worker and lots of archers...

Back to the drawing board for the restart...

D.

[Harovan]

Gen.Dragolen: I feel with you, you certaily had bad combat luck. And also with Barbarians. I had no massive uprising in that game. Bad luck, happens.

But tell me, where did the Russians get horses from? In my game, they had no horses. I stopped their expansion at the southern end of the mountains. I have no map here right now, but I don't remember a horse resource there.

What concerns leaders, I had also not much luck with early ones, despite nomerous wars with elite victories. Got my first about 400AD, that made the FP. The second about 800 or 900AD, he made Bachs. And four (!) I made in the final war with France, during about 10 turns.

[Alkis]

I agree with you on the combat model. It is too much randomness for a strategy game IMHO. But others, like Nathan for instance, like it. I have many ideas how to "improve" the combat model but I don't think FIRAXIS will want to listen. As it is now is like a turn-based shoot them up game.

What I do is I avoid fighting and when I' m forced to, I always seek an ally. This way I use AI power against itself (like judo). Nevertheless I build military units for protection and because I have more options when I have an army. When I started my war against France I had 26 cavalries and some dozens infantries to spare, so you see I am not a fanatical builder.

I got just one leader in that game, which I used to move my Palace to Bonn. Bonn stood where London once was and it grew to a size of 29!! A size 29 city using all its tiles and corruption free, that is really something.

Sir Ralph, I respect you very much and I got your point on the small cities strategy but still I prefer my way of putting them. I also consider specialists rather useless in the late game, so I want my cities to have free tiles to put my workers on. The only worthwhile use of specialists is at the beginning where you can set research to zero (sometimes) and have a scientist somewhere.

Nathan, in my game the French built the Hanging gardens only. The Pyramids were built by the Iroquois and the GL by the Romans. In Sir Ralph's game the French got the HG and the Great lighthouse. Iroquois again got the Pyramids and the GL was built by the Egyptians. Give me your email to send you my saves, it's a zip file of 1600k.

-

[Arrian]

My Russians didn't have horses either... and I'm at a loss as to where they would be getting them from. Perhaps they're trading for them?

Anyway, I feel your pain General. Though I'm not in danger of swift destruction, as you seem to be, I'm in pretty bad shape. In fact, I didn't play at all last night, preferring to get some pride back by beating the crap out of Monarch with the Chinese.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Surprise, surprise, I'm thinking of a Chinese monarch game too, right now. My settings will be

- Chinese at Monarch
- 7 pre-selected AI's: Japanese, Americans, Russians, Germans, English, French, Egyptians
- large continents, warm/normal/young
- diplomatic, cultural and space race victories off

The game thema will be "Industrial and modern warfare". I usually don't bother to build modern armor and radar artillery, and nukes I use only to prebuild spaceship parts. In that game, I will build all these cool modern weapons. And marines, and paratroopers. And I will do, what I usually avoid to do: massive modern age invasions. Ought to be fun...

[Velociryx]

I've only had two brief opportunities to play (one last night, till about two in the morning), but so far, it's really a fantastic game! I waited to post/read here until the inertia of my strategy would not be influenced by anything read here, and last evening, I reached that point!

I'm writing these initial notes at work, so I'll expand on them later on, and include by saves and such.

First of all....I must agree with everybody who's chimed in so far...*fantastic* game!!! It's been a real nail-biter so far, and there's still a LOT of play left!

Bright beginnings

Got myself off to a good start with that initial city build. With such a blessed starting position, I knew I could play it any number of different ways, but considering the importance of happiness on Emperor, I reckoned that gaining access to those dyes ASAP would be of pivotal importance....and since beginnings are very telling, here is *precisely* how I structured myself with that first city:

1) Moved the "pop point worker" (city view) from the wheat tile on the river to the rocky grasslands tile just north of Berlin.

2) Moved my worker to that same tile and begain building a road.

3) Began working on a warrior (5 turns to complete).

That initial worker uncovered "cowage" to the north and east, and spent his time building roads through the cow pastures, with an eye toward speeding my first settler on his way to a city site (minor mistake in that, since the city I eventually built there was unable to continue rapid expansion on that frontier--I was loathe to tie up my early settler production sending guys into the jungle) it meant that settlers coming from there had further to go...ah well.....

Once the first warrior was built (striking north along the one tile of road I had constructed, and thence into the jungle to get some sense for how big it was, and how much of an obstacle to me), I began working on a second worker (time to build was *exactly* the turn that the city would grow from size one to size two). IMO, this move was what defined the entire game for me. Having two workers in the field that early enabled me to combine their efforts on the dye tile in the jungle (5 turns to build), and then build out roads to future city sites, which *really* helped my expansion. As the basic road network came to completion, the earlier than expected mines were a tremendous boon.

Once that second worker was in the field doing his thing, we did another pair of warriors (one for defense, and another for exploration--this second warrior struck out west and then south, and was the last exploration unit I ever built or needed--and I was in full-blown expansion mode!

My singular city sprang up to nine VERY quickly as I skated the edge of the jungle (a very nice bit of terrain there, at the jungle's south-western periphery....three cities fit cozily into that pocket), and expanding toward the already annoyed--and in first place--Rus.

My explorations revealed only two goody huts, but both were excellent. Got 25g from the first, and Pottery from the second. I was also very aggressive in hitting barbarian villages upon the completion of my early explorations, with my two tag-team, roving warriors....got three of them for another 75g, and discovered Liz and Joan were amicable trading partners, and kept me from falling too far behind while I was churning out settlers and connecting up roads.

The ladies on the continent were not, however, very amicable toward each other. England and France commenced to beating on each other VERY early, and The Rus joined in the fray in support of France, marching through my territory to terrorize English workers (at least, I guess that's what they were doing, since they didn't capture any English cities).

Oh how I longed to jump into the thick of that fight! A golden opportunity to expand my holdings at the expense of my neighbors!

Alas....with cities growing more rapidly than I was comfortable with, and absolutely no infrastructure in place, the first order of the day was to bite the proverbial bullet and start working on expensive temples, so that project commenced across the breadth of Bismark's smallish empire. (Note - every city I founded after Berlin built a spearman for defense, rather than the (much cheaper) warriors....I was going for "build it once, build it well" approach.

The temples took quite some time to complete, and by the time those and the barracks in all my cities were done, the fighting had come to an end, with Liz coming out on top over the French (expanding their territory nominally, but vastly reducing French power), while The Rus played no real role, aside from trolling for workers which would occassionally flow back through my lands to the Russian homeland beyond the fierce mountains that served as my western frontier.

Trouble was brewing, and I could smell it.

England had emerged dominant over the French in the north, and The Rus were dominant overall on the continent, with me trailing even behind the recently subdued French.

Essentially then, I was wedged between two emerging titans, and if that situation was allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, Germany would wind up as a footnote in the pages of history, and a small, unassuming appendage of somebody else's empire.

That was a pretty stark realization, and taken together with the frightening pace of tech acquisition in the game, and the forbidding lay of the land, told me in no uncertain terms that this would NOT be a cake walk.

One thing that helped though, was that I snagged the Great Library, which enabled me to coast along on everyone else's coattails, tech-wise....pivotal in the sense that I didn't NEED to trade with anyone. No more of this begging tech nonsense for a while.

Taming the Russian Bear

Attacking England first was out of the question as it would not solve the "Germany in a vice" problem.....all that would accomplish would be to shift my problem of being wedged between England and The Rus, to a problem of being wedged between France and The Rus....so that was no solution at all. Besides, better to give the English a chance to clear the jungle for me before striking there.

Of course, the notion of the weakest member state on the continent attacking the strongest (and strongest by a wide margin, at that), was none too palatable in and of itself, especially with that rugged terrain lying between our two empires....but that was the choice before me.

It very nearly broke the German treasury to do it, but we duly set about building an army to challenge our betters. Mostly horsemen, backed up by spear and a few swordsmen.

My thinking here (after having made the map-trading rounds and getting the latest scoop), was that, although the horses would be slowed down getting across the mountains, the terrain that the Russian empire was nestled in was good indeed, and condusive to effective use of my fast movers.

Also, I noted that it would be possible to begin work on a "highway" through the bad terrain to help speed reinforcements--with a plan to start on the Russian end of that highway via captured workers. Taken together, that should enable me to firmly control my end of the continent.

So...plans were drawn up, workers built lots of mines to spike my production in all cities, and troops massed on the border of The Rus.

When we were ready (IIRC 50BC, tho I will need to go back and recheck that....brain is a bit fuzzy from playing too late last night) (21 Horsemen, 2 Sword, 4 Spear, 1 Settler along for the ride in case we needed to raze rather than capture), we struck three Russian frontier cities on the same turn, capturing all. We holed up in our new acquisitions and waited with much fear and nail biting for the expected counter attack.

It came with a vengeance....seemingly endless stacks of archers, horsemen, and spear, all intent on pushing the plucky upstart Germans back on "our side" of the mountains.

But we refused to go, stoically defending our new holdings, batting away counter attacks, and grinding forward any and every chance we got.

And for the bonus round, we waylaid two archers guarding settlers mulling around inside German borders.

Slave labor....Three new cities on the first wave, more added as we could.

Sweet.

As I type this, the war is ongoing, with some half a dozen cities captured (one razed, as I lacked the troops to defend it properly....besides, with a settler already in the neighborhood, I could rebuild at my convenience), and although The Rus are still showing up as the highest on the power bar, Germany's star is rising, and rising fast, at that (Russia's "lead" is barely a blip above Englands, and I'm now right behind England in overall power, and climbing fast, having eclipsed France many turns ago).

The plan is to locate our Forbidden Palace somewhere in former Russian territory, strip The Rus of all their cities on "my end" of the continent, and then spin the army 'round, upgrade to knights when able, and execute a repeat performance against England.

In any case, our long-term growth is being stunted by the fact that we are still in Despotism. If we want to hang with the big dogs, then we've GOT to get away from Despotism after we subdue the Bear completely and before we tangle with the English. That, coupled with a LONG period of rebuilding after the two planned wars, *should* put us in a position of comfortable dominance.

More news when there is news (prolly not gonna get to play again until Saturday)

-=Vel=-

[nbarclay]

With the way strategic resources can appear and disappear, the initial settings are not carved in stone. At the moment, I do have horses in the western part of what was once Russia, but I don't know offhand how long they've been there. I don't remember seeing any Russian mounted units, though.

Nathan

[Harovan]

Horses do not appear/deplete

[Catt]

Re: The Importance of Hospitals

Originally posted by nbarclay
Never underestimate the importance of hospitals as a wealth and science improvement! A size 16 city can generate as much as a third more gold than a size twelve city, maybe even more if it gets you using high-wealth, zero-production coastal tiles.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I don't consider it a problem if my cities don't grow above size 12. This is intended. I built exactly 5 hospitals, needed for the Battlefield medicine. Smaller cities are happier, need less improvements and produce less pollution. And on hilly terrain, they haven't much chance to grow anyway, I could have built significantly more dense, as a city there typically needs only 2-4 tiles.

I went back and looked at some of my saves and screen shots, and have concluded that my losing the tech lead in the modern age was due to the inefficient use of my land.

It is quite obvious now (but I was of course blind to it at the time, with other things to worry about ), that I mixed and matched two play styles that should never, ever be mixed and matched.

First Style: I tend to play a "spread empire" -- i.e., building cities so that there is little or no overlap of workable tiles, even at the expense of losing a few tiles when tactical advantages may dictate a slightly greater spread. I did that in this game.

Second Style: I was concerned about city happiness levels for most of the game, having secured only 3 local luxuries, and, with a largish empire, having to pay throught the nose for foreign luxuries -- I don't think I ever had more that 4 or 5 luxuries at one time. In most of my games, happiness is not nearly as big an issue. Only on reading Sir Ralph's post did I remember that my initial decision to hold off on hospitals was also happiness motivated (I expected a war, and was quite frightened of size 20 cities suffering from WW with only 4 or 5 luxuries, in my democracry, with my non-religious civ). So I decided to hold off on hospitals for a long time (much longer than ever before) for two reasons: (1) to control happiness, and (2) to focus on my military buildup. I wholeheartedly agree with Sir Ralph that keeping cities at 12 makes it much, much easier to keep a civ happy, and even in WLTKD with only a few luxuries.

But, of course, I hadn't used a dense city build like Sir Ralph did. How I can miss this while playing the game, and even miss it in writing my summary (see my post for my own lessons "learned" []: "Go ahead and build a denser city build – spread empires look nice but the productive power of a denser build may have made all the difference in this game").

End result of blending two styles: cities with 21 tile opportunities working 12 tiles = 40% of productive power wasted. I will put on a pointy hat and go sit in the corner now.

Catt

[Arrian]

Horses and Rubber you can count on. The others move around.

Vel,

That just confirms my mistake: I NEVER should have hit England. I should have hit Russia. I'm so pissed about that. My army (19 horse, 6 sword, 1 elite warrior) was roughly comparable to yours, except that I believe I had it ready 300 yrs. earlier than you. ARG!!!! Oh well. I lose, I stupid. Well, I haven't lost just yet, but I probably will.

Lesson learned. Emperor allows for fewer mistakes. I should have bought somebody's world map prior to attacking. Had I done that, I would have realized that Russia was the proper target. Instead, I looked at the bloody rankings, which had the English 3rd, just ahead of me. All my playing experience up to this point told me the English would be pushovers. They always were before!

-Arrian

[Catt]

Originally posted by Alkis
You just research a later technology. Mathematics/Currency or literature. Suppose you go after literature and you are currently researching writing. If you meet someone who has it, you buy it and start on literature. But you have to allocate a lot on research.

Oh, I know how to do it. I just haven't been very successful at it. Even when targeting a later tech that the AI doesn't beeline to, I have too often failed to discover it first, and am then left with no tech trades and no gold . It is particularly impressive (and very, very risky, I think, on this map) to have employed and succeeded with this strategy -- after all, you are bordered by 2 expansionist civs, and the risks of one or both of them getting techs by popping multiple goody huts is certainly very real.

I saw that you didn't build any navy. I on the other hand, build large navies as soon as Destroyers become available. I usually destroy enemy fleets easily and then go on to bombard the enemy cost. This is probably a habit I got from Imperialism .

I usually build a decent navy; at least enough for basic defense and the projection of power into two or three locations around the world. With this game set-up I didn't feel I needed it. I considered France my only real threat, and we shared a continent. BTW, France apparently didn't feel the need for a navy either. By the end of the game Joan had 296 mechanized infantry, 1 galleon, 1 transport, and 1 destroyer!

About your game, I can't tell you where you went wrong because I don't know the exact position, but I always prefer Rebublic over Monarchy. Ok it depends, but to get technology fast you need Republic or Democracy, big cities and powerfull infrastructure.

Yeah, I stayed away from Republic in favor of the happiness producing monarchy, intending to switch to democracy when I got there. See my post above for why I believe I actually lost the tech lead .

Originally posted by nbarclay
I'm curious: did the French build those wonders in other people's games, or was my game unusual in that respect. If Joan's building those wonders was typical, it might explain how the French were so consistently powerful, though.

France built an early wonder (maybe 2) in my game, but believe it or not, the Iroqoius and the Aztecs were actually the early wonder leaders (Pyramids, Oracle, Colossus, maybe more).

Catt

[Alkis]

Ok there's something else. I expanded very quickly and had more resourses. The first thing I ever built was a settler. Then I made another town on the dye tile near Berlin. It doesn't matter that it was a temp city. I had 3 cities by 2430 BC, 4 cities by 2150 BC, 7 cities by 1500 BC. Also, I got some goody huts myself mainly to deprive others from taking them. I didn't get anything good from them, of course.

On the subject of city placement, even though I generally put my cities several tiles apart, there are times where I build in Sir Ralph's style. This happens when there are tiles that no city uses. I build a new city there with the idea not to build a hospital in that one. Also, I build a couple of temporary cities in every game. I don't build any buildings there, other than a barracks and then I have them building units and workers.