AU 105: The Power of Gold: Q & A thread

[vmxa1]

If you want to really help newbies, then I would recommend turn by turn advise. I suspect that the first 10-15 turns is where people are unsure of the proper move. I agree Monarch or even Warlord is a more likely start for new players. Maybe Civ2 champs tried Civ3 on high settings, but most of them learned that was not profitable, until they figured out the game.

[Theseus]

Well, I've played up to researching Education.

Any questions, thoughts, or ideas prior to that, use this thread, and I'll try to give guidance without spoilers.

[Taian]

So Egypt's a religious and industrious civilization...how did Sun Tzu's trigger a GA for me? I was trying to delay the GA as long as possible and was under the impression that the War Academy only triggers for militaristic. Is that normal or has anyone seen it before?

[alexman]

Sun Tzu is indeed only militaristic. If it triggered your GA, something really wacky is going on. The Great Wall OTOH is also industious. Are you confusing the two?

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Taian
So Egypt's a religious and industrious civilization...how did Sun Tzu's trigger a GA for me? I was trying to delay the GA as long as possible and was under the impression that the War Academy only triggers for militaristic. Is that normal or has anyone seen it before?

Did you have captured wonders that satisfied (or helped satisfy) what you needed for a golden age? From what I've seen, building a wonder seems to trigger a search through all wonders in your posession (not just ones you've built) to see if you have a combination matching your traits. I'm not positive that it always happens, but I've definitely seen it happen, and so have others.

Nathan

[Felch]

Looks really good. I never thought of things that way before.

[Taian]

Originally posted by nbarclay


Did you have captured wonders that satisfied (or helped satisfy) what you needed for a golden age? From what I've seen, building a wonder seems to trigger a search through all wonders in your posession (not just ones you've built) to see if you have a combination matching your traits. I'm not positive that it always happens, but I've definitely seen it happen, and so have others.

Nathan

That might be it. I had captured the pyramids a few turns earlier and hadn't built any wonders since then.

[vulture]

Originally posted by Taian



That might be it. I had captured the pyramids a few turns earlier and hadn't built any wonders since then.

The Pyramids alone is enough to trigger the GA for Egypt, so it looks like Nathan is spot on.

[Taian]

So pretty much you have to get really lucky or have built very few wonders to have the Iron Works during your GA..

[Theseus]

No, the Pyramids is the only one that have both Rel and Ind characteristics. Of the others, the one's that are Ind are what to watch out for... Great Wall, Hanging Gardens, and Hoover Dam. All other GWs are OK.

I can live without the first two, but gotta have Hoover, so that's when my GA will come.

(For newer players: Hoover is often the most-guaranteed significant GW... make sure to get ToE and Hoover by timing two pre-builds to the completion of research on Scientific Method; get Atomic Theory and Electronics for free, and voila! This is also a great time to sell techs for mucho gold).

If I do it right, I'll have my cities highly improved, growing over 12 pop, and the IW up and running.

[alexman]

I believe Nathan's point was that if you have captured the Pyramids, since it satisfies your trait combo, you will get a GA next time you complete any Wonder! I don't like this feature/bug, BTW. Captured Wonders should not count for GA purposes just like they don't give culture.

Just to spark a discussion in this Q&A thread, I have a question:

***SPOILER***

We all agree that the first move in this game should be to eliminate Rome before they become dangerous. But what next? Persia is across the channel, Greece is, well... Greece, yet our empire is not very large. So what is the best strategy for Late Ancient/Early Medieval period:

a) Go for Persia
b) Go for Greece, or
c) Build up and wait for Cavalry

I would imagine the best choice would be to go after Greece with loads and loads of Knights. If you can avoid Chivalry until you're ready, and upgrade horsemen all at once, all the better. Immortals are dangerous, and ferrying two units at a time across the chanel requires many galleys, unless you manage to get a foothold on their continent before the war.

In any case, I would definitely keep fighting until I get a GL for a Palace/FP.

[Theseus]

After disposing of Rome, they respawned in the jungle, so I had to take care of them first. Pretty funny actually, as I immediately made peace with them, and took a Worker and 100 gold, same as vulture did.

Greece had not hooked up iron, so all I was facing were Warriors and Hoplites. I don't think 3 defense is the end of the world, especially if you can get to Greece while it's overextended from REXing. And I'd rather face that then Immortals.

So that's what I did... in the Swordsmen war, I took 3-4 border towns, then extorted. As a side note, I also used up the Greek GA early.

During peace, I used the power of Industrious to carve out a clear path and then build a road through the jungle...

When I realized that the only saltpeter was in Greek hands, as well as the wine, I went back, this time with Knights. Captured a couple more cities, got a few GLs, and extorted again. Moved my Palace to Delphi. By this time, Greece is my punching bag, although I still had not captured Athens.

Last night, I had wiped Greece off the continent, with Cavs.

The Persians will be visited with Tanks.

[nbarclay]

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains material indicating who two of the opponents are and a little about what the home hemisphere of the map looks like.



If you build a city on the southeastern tip of the starting area, the Persian Channel is no problem because your city controls two squares on the other side of the channel. Further, even without the Great Lighthouse, a little finesse makes it possible to carry across two sets of units per turn. The sequence is (1) Unload the units loaded at the end of the previous turn. (2) Move into the city. (3) Load. (4) Move to a tile adjacent to both the city and the far shore. (5) Unload. (6) Load more units even though your ship is offshore. With the Great Lighthouse (or galleons), add another cycle of going into the city, loading, coming back, and unloading, and you can get three sets of units across per ship per turn. A single galley can preposition four to six units per turn, and since you unload in your own territory, you can repeat that process for several turns before attacking. That makes the channel essentially worthless in Persia's defense. (I actually didn't work out the entire crossing parameters until after I didn't need them any more for my own game, but the idea is handy for future reference.)

Greece and Persia are near the top of my list of least favorite civs to go after with knights. Both have ancient-era UUs that all but guarantee them (especially Greece) a golden age if you attack (unless they've already used it up, of course). Greece's Hoplites give it a defense as if every single spearman were upgraded to a pikeman, and their low cost makes them even more annoying. Persia's Immortals are much more dangerous to knights than to cavalry because knights can almost never get in attack range without exposing themselves to a Persian counterattack whereas cavalry can usually stay "safely" (barring culture flips if they stay more than one turn) within a city and still be in range to attack the next city. My own approach was to see how far I could get against Greece with an initial force of knights upgraded from war chariots (even cheaper than horsemen in production terms) and longbowmen upgraded archers, but I didn't want to compromise my city development the way I would have had to to keep reinforcements flowing in.

One note: if you wait to get cavalry before launching an attack, always make sure you have saltpeter available. (If you only have one source, it may be very much worth disconnecting or not connecting it until you're actually ready to use it.) If the first you realize you don't have saltpeter is when you're ready to start building cavalry, you're probably in some pretty serious trouble.

If I remember right, it's possible to build the FP in a fairly reasonable location the hard way by around the time Leonardo's would be ready for a reasonably priced upgrade to knights. I built mine in the former Roman city of Cumae, which juts out into the water across from Persia about eleven tiles south of Thebes. That's a reasonably good location for the eventual capital of the western hemisphere, and then I can move my palace to the eastern hemisphere when I capture a good location for it (assuming I get a leader at a reasonable time). By the way, rush-building a courthouse to reduce corruption and a marketplace to help get WLT?D can be a big help in building a FP the hard way in a location not all that close to the capital.

Nathan

[ducki]

First off, great tips on the opening.

Second, *bump* for everyone doing AU 205.

Third, ack! I read a spoiler!

Hehe, just kidding.
Great starting info, though.

[ducki]

Question about AU205 ***SPOILER***

Hey guys.
I didn't want to clog the Results thread, so hopefully this is the place to ask.

I've got an opportunity to build either Sun Tzu's or Leo's - it's up to me - but which one do you guys feel is worth more?

I've looked at the "Must Read" link "Wonder Guide" but it didn't shed much light.

I'm leaning towards Leo's, but instant free healing in captured towns is nice too.

If you have to choose only one, which do you choose?

I have to decide now, because I let it go too long, and I'm 1 turn away from completion.