AU501 - Post-game comments

[Catt]

Random Post-Game Thoughts and Observations

I played stock rules, demi-god level.

Weird AI research choices. We all know that the AI often researches optional techs when it would be better served by focusing on certain required techs. Many have also probably heard how the AI has devalued Literature quite a bit in C3C, too. Nonetheless, I still experienced what struck me as odd situations regarding AI research choices. In 400 ad, while I’m researching Navigation, three AI civs are building the Great Library; all three civs have already discovered Education. I researched Literature just after Map Making and built libraries as quickly as I could since I was running max research from move one. I never traded Literature despite requests and a demand to do so – I wanted to keep it to myself to aid in research, and keep it I did until the early middle ages (the Dutch discovered it when I was 2 turns from Education, whereupon I traded it around for available goodies).

Later in the game, I kept waiting for someone to discover Printing Press, Democracy, and Free Artistry. Russia finally did discover Printing Press – Catherine must have been as far as Electronics and Combustion in the tech tree at the time. I had just completed Mass Production and the Dutch were probably working on Flight at the time. No AI got to be a democracy until I was practically into the Modern Age.

No hard facts or certainty, but the optional government techs after Nationalism were either slow to be discovered or very slow to be put to use. The Dutch were the first to go Fascist in 1275 ad, about the time they had already discovered Combustion and Atomic Theory / Electronics. This despite hundreds of years of war, including cities changing hands, etc.

War Weariness Exploits I’ve never seen it present much of a problem before, but the availability of “war happiness” is a large potential exploit – I came to this view by exploiting it considerably in AU 501. AI civs declared war on mewhen they had absolutely no way to attack me – either because they hadn’t discovered Map Making or hadn’t discovered Astronomy and wouldn’t risk the seas. Additionally, given the AI’s well-known inability to launch a credible overseas offensive except in rare circumstances, I was content to stay at war (rather, my citizens were happy to stay at war ) with Japan for a long time (that one actually came back to haunt me) and with the Hittites for the better part of two and a half ages. With sufficient long range interceptors (from dromons to bombers), most AI invasions can be killed off or turned around before ever making landfall. So even a technologically competant foe presents little threat. In somewhat isolated starts where luxuries may be hard to come by, war happiness can be very valuable. Although unlikely to be changed, I think WH should degrade over time (10 – 20 turns) even if no “war weariness” actions eat into the net war happiness.

Power of Seafaring I said it in my DARs, and also said it on the forums before AU 501, and I’ll say it again – the reduced sinking chances are too powerful. Combined with the extra move for naval units, it’s wildly out of synch with other traits (although map dependent, of course). This map wasn’t particularly clear in showing it because one need only risk a few sinking chances to find everyone. With a seafaring civilization, a galley has a better-than-even chance to travel safely between coasts that are twelve tiles apart. Even with curraghs, covering such an expanse runs a sinking risk of less than 60%. With curraghs available from the start (because of starting with Alphabet) and a very strong chance to start on the coast, the opportunity for early exploration is immense.

Unlike expansionist, which is also a map-dependent trait to a great degree, seafaring also gets (i) cheaper “sea-related” improvements, and (ii) a bonus gold in the city center when built on the coast. When faced with a water-laden map like ours, the seafaring trait is huge – and I think many underestimate the single bonus gold available on the coast. In games that remain tight in the middle ages or even the industrial ages, that extra gold, once operated upon by city improvements like markets, banks, libraries, or universities, can translate into two gold per city – across 15 cities, that can be significant (I could buy an extra source of rubber for 40 gpt in my game – the seafraing trait, at the time of RP, was worth almost as much as a source of rubber!

Power of Dromons First time I’ve used these babies much, but they are monsters. On their stats, they seem relatively unremarkable – powerful yes, but not the dominating force I found them to be. The ability to bombard so early, and with force, is magnified by the lethal sea bombard. Used on their own, they’re okay – used in stacks of four or five and they’re practically unstoppable. That means they’re wonderful sea defenders, and transports that can win half the land battle for your forces. I was getting solid use of a large fleet of Dromons well into the Industrial Age, both as a defensive intelligence net but also as a swarm of bombards that can substanially weaken any wooden-hulled interlopers despie the more than full age difference in technologies. Heck, they were useful against ironclads.

Catt

[Catt]

A couple of Learnings

A few specific learnings to share (perhaps learned in the past but worth repeating.

Protecting Distant Colonies

When adopting a peaceful research approach, or at least an opening “farmer’s gambit” as some call it, it is pretty easy to get by with very few military units and rely on being able to switch productive power to units in a hurry if absolutely necessary. It’s easy to forget that this is not the case with distant colonies that require sea transport for reinforcements. Unless one is willing to invest in a large number of sea transports and rely on ship chaining, one must either invest upfront in defenders and attackers for distant colonies or run the risk of a surprise attack that can really do a bit of damage quickly (especially where lack of technology prevents sea pickets well away from coastlines for an early warning system).

I re-learned this when the Dutch, taking umbrage at my rapid settling of the far west island, nearly kicked me off the island completely before even my first reinforcements could arrive – and in my case I had units and ships in home port ready to go at the first sign of hostilities. If you enjoy the logistics aspect of offense and defense, island maps are a lot of fun; and if you don’t enjoy the logistics side of things you can get into trouble in a hurry.

Timing of Research Slider at “Full Stops” in the Tech Tree

There are several times during any given game when one might be inclined to turn off all research: building the Great Library, awaiting a ToE build, or, for example, securing a certain tech enabling upgrades and then saving cash for upgrades. One can either slow research to time a discovery to a certain external condition (timing of ToE build, for example). I, and others I suspect, would more often than not choose to ease up on science spending to make available more money sooner – a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. But with the advent of SGLs in C3C, I think it’s better in many cases to go full bore and then turn sicence to 0% once a tech is completed until the defining event occurs, whatever it may be.

For example, in my game I was unable (or unwilling) to establish a decent pre-build for ToE and was able to research both Atomic Theory and Sanitation after Scientific Method but before ToE completed – with ToE 7 turns away, I could research Sanitation in 5 turns at max research, or 7 turns by easing the tech slider and raking in cash. Pre-C3C I would almost certainly have milked the tech slider for 7 turns, enjoying cash for rush-builds as it came in, caring little if I got the tech first or not – the biggest risk I ran would be that another AI discovered it first and traded it all around. With C3C and the possibility of SGLs, I decided to go full bore to Sanitation in 5 turns and then shut off research for 2 turns – the opportunity to get an SGL, especially when playing a scientific civ, and the risk that an AI civ could get an SGL by beating me to a tech by 1 turn, tips the balance towards quick research in most cases where the tech at issue is available to others in the game.

No, I didn’t get an SGL not with Sanitation or any other tech for that matter.

Power of C3C Specialists

The power of specialists in C3C is hard to overestimate. In the early game, converting a citizen to a scientist will almost always produce more science than leaving the citizen working a tile. I’d say there’s a better than average chance that taxmen will produce more gold than a citizen, too. You generally do not want to waste growth (i.e., no food production from a specialist) unless necessary, but again in the early game oftentimes specialists will be required to avoid rioting (ineffectiveness of luxury slider for various reasons, lack of trade network for luxuries, lack of contentedness improvements, etc.).

For those games that remain competitive or at least interesting well into the Industrial Age, the new Civil Engineer and/or Policeman make the Scientists and and Taxmen even more intereting, indirectly. The use of CE’s can substantially improve outlying territories, even for those players who don’t have a taste for micro-management. Take a look at the screenshot below – I can generate 34 beakers per turn by using scientists and still providing for a healthy growth rate in the city, even without a university or happiness problems despite only having 5 luxuries at this point and no content-making city improvments.

[Catt]

Alternatively, if those beakers might be wasted due to beaker-cost rounding of tech prices, I can switch over the specialists to CEs to build a university in only 5 turns, and bump base research from 13 up to 18 (a courthouse might be better here at this time). For those who enjoy some MM, swtiching to scientists when worthwhile and then CEs or taxmen when scientists are a waste, can offer a powerful boost. For those who don’t care much for MM, just setting them all as taxmen would produce an extra 14 gold per turn – not bad when repeated by numerous cities. And MM is reduced in another aspect of the game – all workers around these cities need only clear terrain, irrigate, road, and RR – not much thought on what to do and when to do it.

(BTW, the aqueduct, hospital, market, and library were built through a combination of CEs and rush-buying but could easily have been done by CEs alone if ready cash was not available).

Catt

[Catt]

Questions or Issues from AU 501

In one of the DAR threads, jshelr opened for discussion what, objectively, is the best approach to early research given a defined set of circumstances (like the same game, difficulty level, etc.).

I want to open a similar discussion – what, objectively, is the best approach to early tech trading / tech research approaches given a defined set of circumstances?

I don’t have an answer, but I’ll share what I did and why I did it (although I didn’t give it a lot of thought at the time – this comes only in retrospect). The nature of tech pricing, in trade and in research, is such that contacts with many civs who don’t know of each other is a powerful advantage. The advantage is twofold: (i) early contact enables trading before techs you know are discovered or traded for by AI civs, and (ii) contact with civs who already know a tech reduces the research cost and trading cost of the tech for you. I best of all worlds is to have ultra-early contact with all civs when they don’t have contact with each other. With a desire to speed tech along, you are free to trade or gift techs to all, allowing multiple AIs to put there research advantage to work for you; with a desire to slow tech for any reason, you are free to withhold techs and benefit from tech brokering and/or reduced tech research costs. I noticed that many players were willing to make trades with AIs as those AI civs were discovered – something I do in most games, too. In this game, I elected to forego any trades for some time; I did this for four principal reasons: (i) I wanted a slower tech race to bring Philosophy and the Great Lighthouse into play; (ii) I wanted a slower tech race to give me a bigger jump on Map Making enabled settlement of overseas islands; (iii) I wanted to maintain limited contacts for a slower overall pace while I manually built my FP on an island; and (iv) I wanted to march towards more expensive techs knowing that, with the slower overall pace, I could research / buy / trade for first level techs at 4-turns / next to nothing / one-for-many rates.

On archipelago maps I’ve had good anecdotal results with limited early trading, whereas on continents and especially pangaea maps waiting to trade can be very costly. In an “early-launch” challenge I play it differently – but how, and more importantly why, did you approach early tech trading opportunities?

Catt

[Catt]

There is some heat on scenario creators' choices of how to lay out a map, particularly with respect to resources.

First off, thanks to Dominae for setting up this scenario! And thanks to the other AU participants who both set up maps and play and report on them. You can't please all of the people all of the time, so complaints and constructive criticism are to be expected. This map in particular provided an awful lot of entertainment and learning by just looking at the starting position and debating what to do with the little information available from the get go!

On the subject of resources in particular: I'm of two minds about Nathan's and Dominae's arguments. On one hand, I agree that as a general rule we should not be promoting abnormal or significantly "out of normal" experiences with AU games -- the principal points of AU are to learn, share, and have fun. When we do choose to impose abnormal game conditions on players it is announced beforehand and intended to shine a spotlight on a neglected or underappreciated aspect of the game. On the other hand, responding to adversity and showing flexibility in approach after circumstances, or expected circumstances, is to be admired and its examples offer an awful lot to learn from for those who weren't adequately prepared for such adversity. Challenge brings out interesting responses. Plus, there is always the subjective analysis of whether a given circumstance is both adverse and abnormal.

I wasn't supportive of the resource approach taken in AU 208 -- Total War, because I felt it opened and closed windows of opportunity on the player without giving any hint that windows were opening or closing, based on the totality of circumstances available to the player and general "normal game" experience with Civ. At the time I wrote: "I think [the set-up was] a bit unfair -- not because it was challenging per se, but because the player, not knowing of the unusual resource changes made to the map, was deprived of the ability to make certain strategic decisions and play out the choices with alternate approaches / strategies remaining available. With a landmass the size of our home continent, I think we could reasonably expect a more representative sample of available resources. Choosing to wait for the discovery of key enabling techs to facilitate an action could prove fatal -- but only when the unusual distribution became known.

While one should certainly be prepared for unpleasant surprises, depriving the home continent of all resources after iron sets up a "strategic death spiral" whereby each turn that the player delays an overseas invasion puts the player further at a disadvantage. Waiting for muskets for a musket/knight assault? A mistake. Researching north towards Education and therefore not learning of the lack of saltpeter for some time? A mistake. Instead beelining for a cavalry rush (and bypassing Chivalry)? Less of a mistake, but still problematic depending on how you prepared for the cav rush. With no saltpeter, deciding to wait for infantry/artillery for the all-out assault? Compounding the mistake. With no access to a navy except for lightly-defended transports, any delay in securing England hurts. Sufficient delay may prove to be fatal."

My fundamental criticism back then was that generic civ experience brought to the game proved to be inapplicable, and also fatal or at least a serious blow, to the AU course at hand. My view remains unchanged that deliberate reworking of maps in a way that invalidates or substantially devalues prior civ experience isn't helpful. I think AU scenario makers should err on the side of caution when devising maps and layouts.

Did this specific map cross the line? I don't think so. In fact I don't think it came very close to the line, but I do fully understand how one could argue that it pushed the limits. I don't think that every resource should necessarily be available or even be within easy reach of our start -- but if it is not, I think there should be a variety of ways available to the player to acquire the resources. Example: placing the sole supply of coal, or rubber, or oil deep in the heart of an area designed to produce a killer AI reduces strategic options for the player. Placing numerous sources of any given resource throughout the map at least allows the player to choose between military conquest and non-violent means of acquiring the resource (trade), or at least gives the player a variety of targets to choose for the forcible taking of the resource. Resource scarcity can be addressed in a number of ways; so long as the various ways remain available and interesting choices to the player the goals of any strategic game and AU games in particular are not weakened.

I'm not convinced that this map is a great exemplar for discussion of scenario-making approaches, but I think the discussion is worthwhile. Don't let the heat of the argument distort any light that might come from the discussion.

Catt

[vmxa1]

Well said Catt. I would offer that AU208 was special in that it came after a number of courses and hence extremes were sort of needed. I would say that going to the extreme of allowing no resources after Iron on that huge land mass for a PTW would have been better if it was announced.

Then at least you would be able to plan your research to try and learn where some were located.
To me it was probably the most memerable map of all. It still gets mentioned from time to time.

With a new addon and a new AU mod, it makes sense to not stray very far. After 5-10 games, another wild one may be needed.

[Dominae]

Wow, Catt.

Your comments, both in depth and volume, I'm sure are very much appreciated by everyone here. Nice game, too.


Dominae

[jshelr]

Quiz

1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?
Answer: Seafaring is the strongest trait in the game at higher levels, allowing the human player to have tech parity or better right from the start. (This is also true on pangea maps, by the way.)

2. About Civ3 in general?
Answer: Bombers are more important than they used to be.

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?
Answer: Didn't explore enough early, although I thought we were emphasizing early boats, it should have been even more so.

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?
Russia. They were the most effective tech researcher, most bellicose, and close to our Eastern Island.
5. What did you think of the Plague?

6. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?
Answer: Not sure it did very much. I don't understand the changes in technology sufficiently to have an opinion.

7. Did you find any Easter eggs?! Too early for that, IMO.

I could not build flak.

I also ran into the "bug" where research in the modern era failed to finish a tech that should have finished according to the end of turn information.

Thanks for the game setup, Dom. I enjoyed the linear appearance of new obstacles that kept the game seemingly in doubt much longer than usual.

[lockstep]

Re: AU501 - Post-game comments

1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?

A sinking chance of only 25% is rather unbalancing, even with the changes to curragh/galley movement in the AU mod. It needs to be at least 33%, maybe even 50% (same as for none-seafaring civs).

2. About Civ3 in general?

Micromanagement may be a pain in the ass, but it pays off - especially in the first 40-60 turns. I will try to avoid any food loss and big shield losses from now on.

(Sidenote: Why, o why did Civ3 not adopt SMAC's solution to transfer the first 10 surplus shields to the next build item?)

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?

From my AAR's, it is quite obvious that I should have paid more attention to wonder cascades and to the defence of secondary islands. Additionally, I've learned some lessons from other people's games:

• Build more workers, and don't be afraid to use temporary irragation.
• Build larger artillery stacks.
• Be more aware of tech costs and what makes a tech deal 'reasonable'.

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?

I was on good terms with the AI civs most of the time. Russia's periodical war declarations without being able to actually attack me were in fact more helpful than annoying - Catt already mentioned the 'war happiness' phenomenon.

5. What did you think of the Plague?

I seem to have been lucky - no plague for me.

6. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?

I wasn't able to observe all AU mod changes in practice, but the mod seems to work out very well. Some notes:

• The changes to curragh/galley movement are a must - they don't completely eliminate the 'suicide ship' strategy, but make it more costly.
• Without my attempt to go for a 20k cultural victory, I would definitely have switched from Republic to Democracy in the mid-industrial age because of the lower support costs.
• 5-attack cavalry seems to be balanced, and I didn't feel the need of an additional mounted unit. If you want to attack in the industrial age, build some infantry. (Or guerilla.)
• Double-strength entertainers really seemed to help the AI.
• The changes to Philosophy obviously worked out. I went for the free tech and succeeded, but from other people's DAR's it seems that people also failed or didn't even try this approach.
• The Statue of Zeus ... well, at least I have to invest a reasonable amount of shields now, and AC's aren't that overpowered. But I still think that my criticism of the ivory requirement is valid. The fact that a small neighboring civ without contacts had the only sources of ivory - and that, therefore, most players opted for the 'destroy Japan ASAP' approach - partially turned AU 501 in the 'pre-scripted scenario' I was afraid of.

7. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

The distribution of strategic resources was sort of an anti-easter egg.

EDIT: Thanks for setting this scenario up, Dominae!

[ducki]

Re: AU501 - Post-game comments

I'm not quite done with the game - I'm mostly just waiting for the AI to finish the UN so we can pick a winner - slow turns have broken my momentum, plus I have something else I want to start working on, but I wanted to get this in so I don't forget.

On the issue of resources, maybe I just put a higher premium on mid-game unsettled small islands - they ALWAYS seem to contain some resource in the late game, most often for me, oil. I was able to beat the AI to the all but one island and tied the Maya for the rubber(or was it oil?) island, which caused a war in which I took the whole island. England or Russia was happy to sell me saltpeter, though it was mostly useless to me. I expanded on the Coal island fast enough and rushed culture to make sure my Sumerian neighbor didn't flip my cities, so I had coal from very early on.
The only resources that I couldn't get enough of was luxuries, since Sumeria, my obvious target, was also my biggest tech client paying the most GPT for most of the game, and since I had oil other than the one at the bottom of the sub-Hittite island, I didn't need to take them out.

So in my experience, in my game the resources were well-distributed, albeit interestingly so. It made the game fun, though I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't expanded so widely as to have oil, coal, aluminum and rubber without a fight(save the brief one with Maya).

Now, on to the Q&A.

Originally posted by Dominae
1. What did you learn about the power of Seafaring?

Extra commerce per town is a huge income boost and big help on research. Added movement for ships is always nice. No comment on sinking chances, as I still lost more curraghs/Dromons than I was willling to and had to postpone final contact due to an unwillingness to throw shields away.

2. About Civ3 in general?

1. Democracy + War + losing 2 luxuries + 20-turn alliance = not good. Few riots by turn 10, several, including core cities by turn 12, widespread + most core by turn 15, pain and suffering by turn 18.
2. It (nearly) never makes sense to use a scientist instead of a working a shield in ring 1 or 2 cities and often neighboring islands as well.
3. MMed laborers + Pop. change = PitA. I want to lock citizens to certain tiles.

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?

I can't really think of anything. Maybe go ahead and build the UN myself so I can get this game done with, even if I lose. Other than that, I was happy with my off-beat decisions - 2 gov changes(Mon->Demo, Shakespeare's theatre, Ignore Philo, skip SoZ and sell Ivory, forgo Cavalry war, wage Infantry war*

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?

Logistically, the Sumerians - they were a prime target, but also my premier client.
Conceptually and strategically, the Maya. There was the 7-tile Island War(for rubber or oil) where I failed to garrison strongly enough to fend off a single longbow, there was my over-optimistic attempt to plant a 3rd spy in a row in Maya resulting in a Looooooooooooooong democratic war where I allied with Russia and tied in GPT so they went the full 20, dammit.
I was planning to war with Maya due to their strong culture and proximity to Uranium and two luxuries, but 20 turns was too long.

5. What did you think of the Plague?

N/A

6. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?

I'm not really sure. The Dutch did really well until they maintained a multi-age war against Maya, so Seafaring is strong, he just wasted his lead(he was strongest) waging an unwinnable war.
I skipped SoZ, Philo so can't speak to those. Some of the AIs seemed really strong, very competitive while some just stagnated. I'm not sure if this is due to the mod or the map or a combination, but there was a pretty strong line between the strong and the weak(at least until I started gifting techs and opening the 99cent tech store.)

7. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

Not sure if this qualifies, but it was a real surprise to find rubber on a tundra tile that just happened to have forest on it. I had hoped for just one oil on all those islands and was pleasantly surprised when I accidentally found rubber waiting for me - several turns after it became visible, I might add - I didn't even bother to look there. Chalk it up to inexperience.


Other thoughts:
Bombers are, well, the bomb. When I invaded Maya, I sent two transports of MechInf and one of Arty. Once I had a carrier, I had 2 bombers(later 4) and about 6-8 ships completely dedicated to 3 things : disconnecting the area of the Wine penisula from the rest of the empire by destroying Railroads and roads; disconnecting Wines, Coal, Iron; making my MI/Tank job easy by reducing defenders to as few hps as possible before bothering to attack - being on a mountain made this viable.

I was able to isolate 3 towns, remove insta-reinforcements from the equation, kill Maya trade deals, make their citizens unhappy, and whittle away at their military all without endangering a single unit. Since I didn't want the territory other than as a beachhead and to take away the wines, tile destruction was acceptible.
Being in democracy and having replaceable parts made this even more acceptible.

Bombardment, while making the war seem slower, is too strong not to utilize, IMO. Especially with the range on Bombers and fighters, if you have enough, you can control the flow of reinforcements or even willingness to wage war by unconnecting entire sections of your enemy.

I really, really, really miss 8-unit transports. 6 is just too small, IMO. By the same token, having so many means using one to rush a harbor/airport in a beachhead doesn't hurt much.


In all, what a great course! This was a complete blast! I didn't have the resource problems that some did - maybe because I got lots of world maps in trades and was able to see that there were islands to be settled before the AI got back to them - and so I might be a bit biased.

[ducki]

doublepost

[nbarclay]

Dominae, to re-iterate:

1) Having not a single instance of any of the five industrial and modern resources on our home land mass, or the two land masses that were home to our three nearest neighbors, or the easiest island for us to REX onto once we start settling other land masses, felt seriously contrived. Having a continent with neither horses nor iron is rare enough, but having three starting land masses without a single instance of any of those five resources? Anything is possible where random chance is concerned, but that doesn't mean everything is reasonably likely. (Keep in mind that if you deliberately start players in an area that is relatively poor in industrial and modern resources, that alone provides a worse than average starting position in that regard. From there, it doesn't necessarily take much deliberate modification for the map to go from below average to highly improbable.)

2) The choice of whether or not it makes sense to seek out and settle distant islands is normally governed by the rules of the map generator. On the plus side, an island might have a useful resource. On the minus side, settling and defending an island far from home costs resources that have other potential uses, and my suspicion is that it may even sometimes drag a player into an unwanted war. I made my choice not to seek out and settle distant islands in remote oceans based on my knowledge of Civ 3. When I found out that the game was deliberately rigged so that my strategizing based on the normal rules of Civ map generation had been deliberately rendered worse than useless, I felt something along the lines of cheated or betrayed.

As for what kind of game I enjoy, what bothers me is not the kind of game I was pushed into, but rather that the nature of the push felt so contrived. If most of my starting terrain had been sweeping grasslands or plains empty of forest and jungle, doing without rubber would not have come as a particular surprise. If aluminum or uranium one had been readily available, having to chase after the other would not have been particularly surprising. It's not inconceivable that the map that came out of the map generator was a statistical fluke that required only minor modifications to achieve your goals, but from where I sit, the end result looks heavy-handed and contrived even aside from the absurd overabundance of resources on remote islands.

[Mountain Sage]

Some comments:

1. Seafaring: I just *LOVE* archipelago settings for the increased challenge of exploring, logistics and trading.

2. The Mod is *GREAT* (I still have to go back and learn all the differences, though).

3. Dromons *ROCK*. In my wars with the Hittites and Sumeria, I put a few of them in harbours and used that as early cannons).

4. Japan was a tough nut; it took 15 Infantry to get rid of the 150+ spears and bowmen.

5. As somebody said: protect your far-flung settlements. The best part of my army was glued in towns, defending them from possible attacks. A tip: build a Wall immediatly and bleed the city if it gets over size 6.

6. Don't hold back technologies. All the trades fuel your research, military, happiness and improvements.

7. Why didn't I build the FP before (it was 1410 AD). First of all, I did not invade Japan soon enough, then I did not want to spend 80 turn building it on Hittites' land. A mistake? possibly.

8. Resources scarcity *SUCKS* I had to start 3 wars just to get rubber, aluminium and uranium. Coal was annexed via a far-flung perfecty indefensible city (I did not even bother to put a warrior as defense).

9. Corruption is as bad as usual. The cities in the other islands were just useless. Therefore, you build cities there only for future resources but nothing else.

Now, some highlights:

My first and only GL:

[Mountain Sage]

A clash of civilizations? You don't see it wery well, but the unit in front of the MA is a longbowman

[Mountain Sage]

A perfect example how NOT to found a city...