Training Succession Game 201

[punkbass2000]

"Now, we are near teology, I tried to set cities to produce 5 or 10 shield per turn and worker are grouped together."

Ten is a great number, and five works too, but it's not as important. Nine and 11 are both poor numbers up until Knights, at least. Nine is only useful for things 40 shields and over compared to eight, 11 for 70 and up compared to ten (well, it would be good for 55 and 65 too, if there were such things). With any numbers around five you probably want the highest spt possible. You can always MM to the nth degree, of course, but if you're not excpecting the city to grow or get a mine, etc., consider looking at what you're building compared to what you're producing. A common example would be Spearmen/Archers, where five is as good as six.

[dmd175]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
BTW, Writing and Scientific Method are also pivotal techs. Writing as another opportunity tech, particularly one at 50-turn speed, and Scientific Method for the knockout blow in the Industrial Age, doubling the efficiency of your factories.

Whoa, I must have missed something about scientific method? I never heard anything like this and can't find anything about this in the civilopedia. Are you referring to SM --> TOE --> AE + Elec --> Hoovers?

[dmd175]

550-570

550 AD: Looked around empire. MM'd every city. Brought gold from -6 to 0 gpt. Three cities switched to temple that were building units w/o barracks and where border expansion was key. Nimrud to barracks before units. We've got a lot of swordmen sitting at English border. I would like to start bringing them into upgrade to MI. Problem is 30 gold a piece. Upgraded 1 this turn in London.

Contacted all of our friends. Demanded monarchy and money from England and Sumer with no luck. No one else will trade techs with us. Hiawatha is the only one with chivalry, furthering his KAI status if he chooses to use knights.

560 AD: Galleys exploring. Babylon makes MI. Next in 4 turns. I MM to get 14 spt instead of 12, so we can kick it out in 3 turns. This comes at the cost of switching one plains from irr to mined, which costs us 1 gpt in babylon, which came out of entertainment. Net result babylon had 3 unhappy and now has 4 unhappy.

Sci slider down 10% to get 27 gpt for this turn instead of 0.

570 AD: Iroquois build Knights Templar. Theology obtained. We can get eng'g in 9, PP or chiv in 10, or educ in 15. We go for PP as discussed on the board. 10 turn pace, 3 gpt positive. Oh no, change of plans ?!?!? See pic.

[dmd175]

570 AD - 750 AD

Because of this tech research treachery by Aztec and Iroquois, we must reevaluate strategy. PP will now only have value to trade to Zulu. We cannot expect it to mean anything to England and Sumer, if they are still around. That means we will get one tech maybe from Zulu. We are not researching Chivalry b/c we can defend for now and will likely have cav by the time any major offensive is underway. Everyone has eng'g and we can get that anytime. I thus propose education for now, possibly MT next if it looks like London can put up JSB. BTW, London has just passed # shields required for HE. With education, I'll try to time prebuilds for Universities in at least Babylon, Nineveh.

Eridu galley sinks barb galley. New Akkad founded on N peninsula. Now +5gpt.

580 AD: Iroquois come offering ROP. They actually will give us 1gpt for it. Ok, sold.

590 AD: Moving workers. MM'd all cities to get from educ in 13 turns/7gpt to 12 turns,12gpt.

600 AD: Akkad courthouse --> granary. Zamua temple --> settler.

610 AD: Tenochtitlan builds Leonardo.

620-630 AD:

640 AD: Zulu get PP, a few turns before we would have gotten it. So in retrospect, in this particular instance, PP would have not worked very well for us. I also spotted an Iroquois musket. Thus we are about 5 techs behind (eng'g, PP, inv, gun, chiv; 6 if you count monarchy).

650 AD: Upgraded two more swords. Temple in Telloh. Ready to attack England. Educ in five turns, switch Bab and Nineveh to univ prebuilds. No one else has education.

660 AD: Demand Oxford from English. No dice. Educ in 4.

670 AD: Ellipi builds courthouse, and now gets 10 sh uncorrupt = 1 turn worker pump if needed. Zamua builds library. Educ in 2 turns. Iroquois have education, upgrade sci to get it next turn for trade.

England sent out galley and in MA. Declare war this turn. Archer killed by elite sword, got 2 more slaves. Two more slaves captured. IX Corps W.

680 AD: Spear attacked SE of Hastings, defends vs. archer and promoted. Vet MI 36 of Warwick attacked by two archers, no hp lost, promoted to elite. English archers are buzzing around NW of York. MI #1 beats down Hastings spear, -2hp. Another Hastings spear killed, MI-2hp. Sword vet attacks Hastings, kills spear, -2hp. Elite sword attacks and kills, -1hp.
Warwick spear killed, vet MI -3hp. Reg MI kills Warwick spear, -1hp. Vet MI kills warwick 3 spear -2hp. 2 archers remain in Warwick? IX Corps beats down Oxford archer, -3hp. Army unscathed kills Warwick archer; attacks again, -3hp, takes Warwick. Spear up to defend MI. MI moving on York.

Education obtained. Universities going up in Bab, Nineveh, Shurrupak, Uruk. Music theory in 11 turns, 8gpt positive.

Education can give us either PP or eng'g from either Aztec or Zulu (Iroquois have education). I think we should skip PP for now, and try to obtain eng'g and maybe invention? I traded to Aztec first for eng'g and 90 gold. Zulu then is "close to deal" for invention trade for education and 115 gold. Maybe I will wait until next turn, even though we can get PP and 3 gold for education right now. I think it is safe to wait because Zulu has nothing to trade Aztec or Iroquois for education (tech, 3 gold, no excess lux or resources). AI is hanging on to monarchy and will not trade it .

690 AD: Zulu come offering PP for education. Still no deal for invention, so refused. Now comes our turn, Zulu will trade invention for educ and 128 gold. So the dilemma - even trade educ for PP, or educ for invention and we're out 128 gold. Invention gets us closer to gunpowder, IA, cav, and Newton's. PP won't be useful for a slightly longer time until we are ready to revolt to democracy. I've noted though that democracy does not provide such a big commercial/corruption advantage over republic; and the main advantage is worker eff. I wonder if it even makes sense in every game to head for democracy and just not stay at republic. Thus right or wrong, we are buying invention from zulu.

Now we are behind monarchy, PP, and gunpowder (and Iroquois have chivalry). To me, that's really a deficiency of 1 tech. And for some reason, Aztec are polite to us now - I guess it was trading with them.

IX Corps killed. MI S of Hastings killed. MI attacks York, kills spear, -2hp. MI kills archer E of Warwick, -1hp, no promote. Elite sword kills Hastings spear, -3hp. MI Hastings S kills last defending spear in Hastings. We will probably take casualties from Archer counter. Sword from Coventry toward Hastings; warrior from Nimrud too. Vet sword at Hastings W kills exposed archer. Army moves to York after fortifications arrive in Warwick and capturing slave on the way.

700 AD: Hastings builds spear. Hastings MI @S kills it. 3/4 spear attacks Hastings for KO, but dies. 1/5 elite sword finishes job and takes curragh with him.
Army attacks Warwick and captures it. MI watching lone English archer coming from Oxford.

710 AD: New Uruk founded. Resistance over in York.

720 AD: Civil disorder in York, resistance over in Hastings and Warwick. Babylon builds university. New Eridu founded. England killed a spear and recaptures a slave. I kill that archer and will have my slave, thank you. Actually I'm going to run an experiment and not capture it right away, but have it basically boxed in. I hate when AI workers disappear after they capture them from you, so I'm going to see what happens. MM'd all cities: London has 407 shields, 600 needed for JSB. Got extra 1gpt from MM. (oh wow!)

730 AD: Courthouse in Samarra. Harbor in Eridu. Iroquois building Copernicus. We still cannot trade with them.
Slave recaptured. MI at the gates of oxford, kills a spear, -2 hp.

740 AD: Nineveh builds univ. New Samarra founded.

750 AD: Eulbar mkt. New Bab temple. Oxford captured by army = english dead = street cred. MM'd all cities. Getting English citizens working took turn off MT and added 9gpt.

[wertyu70]

Uhm , they haven't education, maybe we can try to get it ASAP.
Have you tried to buy Printing Press from them?

EDIT : Sorry, cross post...

[dmd175]

Western Front

The Western half of our empire, showing off the new lands conquered in the Anglo-Babylonian smackdown of 730 AD.

[dmd175]

East

The Eastern half, showing development of the NE frontier and southern Arctic zone.

[dmd175]

Save

Review of previous 20 turns:

• Pop from 4.5M to 7.95M (#1)
• GNP up 50% from 402M to 608M. (#1)
• Mfg 103M to 140M. (#2)
• Land area 40300 to 50500. (#1)
• Annual income 12, stable. (#1)
• Productivity 408 to 564 (#1)

Plans for next emperor:

• Consolidate gains
• Courthouses and marketplaces
• Trade MT around for everything we can get, hopefully PP, astro, and gunpowder.
• Put up JSB in London. FYI, if we get astro in trade, Copernicus is an option, though we already have > 400 sh.
• Upgrade military to the extent cash is available
• Pick next patsy. I recommend Zulu, as we have avg. military vs. them, and we are weak vs. Aztec and Iroquois.

[dmd175]

Originally posted by wertyu70
Uhm , they haven't education, maybe we can try to get it ASAP.
Have you tried to buy Printing Press from them?

Wertyu, just saw your post snuck in here. I did get education ASAP and traded for eng'g and invention. I thought it better to get invention vs. PP for now. We are a few turns from MT, which hopefully we can trade (see above).

[Modo44]

Looks good.

The thing about Printing Press versus Education is not certain, as you noted. Might be some civ traits rule over this choice for the AI. At least you knew about it before starting the research, so everything went well. Checking possible trades often is very important, as you can see.

Getting Engineering and Invention was a good move. It's usually best to get mandatory techs first.

I was talking about Democracy, but only because you are playing a Religious civ. You can afford to switch, because of the short Anarchy period, otherwise it might not be so useful. The overall boost will be visible because of the sheer size of the empire, that's for sure. For now, I'd try to get a firm lead in the tech race, and only then go for Democracy, preferably by getting it from the AI. It will come in handy, once you start on Railrads.

[dmd175]

Culture graph question

Please take a look at the culture graph attached.

I'm really interested in what caused our rate of culture growth to decline (green oval). You can see there is a pronounced drop in the rate of culture increase sometime before 550 AD. The only explanation is that other civs started massive cultural improvements at this time - cathedrals I guess?

The pink oval is relatively easily explained I think - education shuts off TOA for Aztecland. Should have built temples, Montezuma

EDIT: Darn, forgot culture graph and cannot attach it by editing. See next post. Guess Montezuma has his "revenge".

[dmd175]

graph

the graph

[punkbass2000]

Shifts like that in a relativistic graph are not easy to identify the causes of. It could be any of a million things.

[Modo44]

I think that Monotheism can be the reason here. Aztecs and Iroquis are both Agricultural, so they should have big cities by now. And, since they didn't seem to have many wars, they are probably in heavy builder mode. This means that many of their cities switched to Cathedrals shortly after they got Monotheism. A similar thing happens, when Scientific AI gets Education.

[wertyu70]

Questions:
Now we have a whole continent for us.
My standard strategy on lower level is:
1) switch to "builder mode"
2) Wait until we get Cavalry (a lot)
or Infantry+Artillery
3) Start the invasion
Is this strategy right for this kind of game?
Or should we try to manage an early attack?
I fear that attacking zulus as dmd175 suggested is risky,
because Iroquis are near to them...