AU 106: Hints and Tips

[Arrian]

jshelr,

I'm not really sure why, but I don't like the idea of the "palace bounce." I'm fine with relocating the palace via a leader (and in that case it DOES pay to build the FP near the original palace), but not by disbanding my capitol to get it to "hop" to a desired location. For some reason it strikes me as too contrived. I know it's not logical, but neither is my refusal to switch to borg city spacing.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Originally posted by jshelr
In return, I'd be happy to help anyone with fortran coding problems. Fortran was in vogue when I was last fully up to speed with computers.

Good God, is this language still alive? DO, IMPLICIT and EQUIVALENCE, anyone? Those were the days...

[Harovan]

About the Palace/FP axis: As I had a wonder in my capital, a Palace jump was no choice for me. So I built the FP in a 50% corrupt city in the N part, and a new Palace in a city near my old capital, but better located. Since a FP is cheaper than a Palace, both were ready in the same time (just a couple of turns apart), and caused a huge economic boost. I have low corruption in all my cities. A leader is in this scenario of course no choice.

[vulture]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Good God, is this language still alive? DO, IMPLICIT and EQUIVALENCE, anyone? Those were the days...

Worryingly, it is still one of the most popular languages in certain sections of academia (in my experience), mostly because quite a lot of the older professors can't be bothered to learn anything more modern (my old supervisor still uses Pascal), but also because a great many scientific libraries - the well tested ones anyway - are fairly old and written in Fortran. I prefer programming in C, which is already considered rather passe by some people, and linking with the Fortran libraries, which isn't really that hard to do. But Fortran is certainly alive and well (okay, it's not very well) in astronomy. VMS is only just doing its final vanishing act!

[Konquest02]

When do you want to trigger your GA? Relatively early to get your infrastructure up and running early or later in the game when you'll control more territory and looking to expand on the AI players...?

I wanted to keep it for the late medieval/industrial age. See the spoiler thread to see how I triggered mine.

--Kon--

[Theseus]

I think after contact has been made, and you are more or less at tech parity. Say, early industrial... good to get your factories completed.

[Catt]

I'm far enough along to read the tips thread (even though it's supposed to be spoiler-free, there's no way to make it so if you're playing the same game ).

I experimented with a radically different starting strategy than usual; thought for a while that it was a stupid mistake; then thought for a while that it was brilliant; now not so sure what the heck it was.

Tips so far: (1) Recognize that without an enemy on your landmass, you may pursue non-military objectives without significant risk to your populace. (2) Know your happiness challenges - no matter the game or scenario, difficulty-level-generated-happiness can be the biggest challenge in the early game.

ON GA timing - I planned for it to be after contact, and it hasn't happened yet, so I'll wait to post the results in this game experiment . But in the spirit of general tips and advice, the GA is a very powerful weapon, and one that should be deployed with forethought, if possible. I generally look for my GA to do one of two things: (1) put me on equal footing with other civs (i.e., catch up! through a successful war or infrastructure project); or (2) seal the victory against other civs (i.e., put the game away). If it just "happens," it might very well be wasted.

Catt

[Jawa Jocky]

Due to limited playing time (3 hours Sunday morning minus feedings and diaper changes) I never got far enough to make contact with the rest of the world.

NOTES:

Due to the TRUE isolation in this game, I have played completely different from the norm (duh). I actually looked at the tech tree and made some long term research decisions I will have to wait to compare my strategy with everyone else, but I have a feeling I didn't due very good.

I intend to use my GA for my 1st invasion, but I may change my mind once I make contact.

One civ has already been knocked-out in my game.

[nbarclay]

(1) For a Republic, under the unique circumstances of this game, both troops and barracks are a useless drain on the economy until contact is made. Even under Despotism, troops are useful/needed only as MPs and for transferring production from one city to another. It is quite possible to build regular rather than veteran troops for MPs during the early game, then disband all of them when changing to Republic, and later build barracks and new veteran troops for actual fighting. The disbands can both provide a city infrastructure boost in outlying cities and make extra gold available for research and/or rush buying by avoiding centuries of unit upkeep costs.

(2) With regard to the Great Library, there is a major potential down side to avoiding Education in order to get lots of techs from it once contact is made. A nation with universities and banks has a huge advantage in research over a nation without them. So the advantages of getting several free techs even past Education from the Library must be weighed against the slower research rate. (And if you wait to get Education from the Library, you still have to build the universities and banks before you can use them, so your research disadvantage lasts a while even after you make contact.) Also note that Navigation is only two techs past Education (three if you stop for Banking), although the techs involved are relatively expensive.

(3) The player who gets Navigation first has a big advantage in terms of being able to either sell contact and maps or take advantage of temporarily being the only one who has the contacts to trade with the whole world. Being able to trade for lots of luxuries can be an especially useful advantage. The question is, CAN it be you? (Keep in mind that if you bee-line for Navigation and the AIs don't, you don't necessarily have to out-research the AIs to beat them there, although you do have to be competitive.)

(4) Since you only have so much land available until Navigation/Magnetism, a relatively dense city pattern makes sense. Also note that if an extra city adds significantly to the number of water tiles you can work, it can eventually be worth a significant amount for gold and science even if it doesn't add a single tile to the number of land tiles worked.

(5) Watching for when wonders are built can provide some hints about AI research rates.

Nathan

[Theseus]

Nathan,

Excellent tips. A couple of comments:

1) It can be helpful to pre-build offensive units (i.e., Horsemen), but you are correct, no need for MPs under republic.

2 and 3) I thought about an exploration strat as a main thrust, but you can't know how isolated the AI civs are... what if you bet the ranch on this strat, and everybody else already knows each other?

4) And it makes sense to have primarily coastal cities anyway.

[vmxa1]

I think that item #2 is very astute. I have suffered for the lack of Universities, due to folloing the idea of using the GL for free techs. It is not an issue for me in EMP or Deity as I rarely get the GL anyway. I did in my current EMP game, but when I made contact the AI already had Education. They seem to beeline for it if you get the lib.
As an aside, the Ai is not as dumb as some claim as it either knew enough to block me attacking a common enemy or it was some accident that they left troops all around my nearest town so I could not get out to grab the next one. This was three different civs leaving units exactly were I would have to go way around.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
Nathan,

Excellent tips. A couple of comments:

1) It can be helpful to pre-build offensive units (i.e., Horsemen), but you are correct, no need for MPs under republic.

I fully agree with the usefulness of pre-building IF you're reasonably close to a time when you'll use the troops. But under Republic, every turn early you pre-build a unit costs you one gold. So prebuilding too early saps off gold you'll need for research and for upgrading the prebuilt units when the time comes.

2 and 3) I thought about an exploration strat as a main thrust, but you can't know how isolated the AI civs are... what if you bet the ranch on this strat, and everybody else already knows each other?

Since this isn't the spoilers thread, I'll keep the discussion in terms of games LIKE this one, i.e. how I would think if I played another game with the same basic parameters.

The question is, which risk do you want to take? The risk of gambling that you can beat the AI to Navigation, in which case failure could leave you way behind in tech at the time of contact without the Great Library to help out? Or the risk that you'll end up being even with or behind the top AI in tech instead of ahead because you delayed construction of universities and banks? There's no such thing as life without risks, because refusing to take a risk is itself a risk of missing a good opportunity.

I think the ideal in this type of game, at least given a starting position that looks like it has potential for competitive research, is to position oneself to be able to take either path. If you have the Great Library, you don't have to decide which way to go until you're ready to start researching Education, and you aren't 100% committed until you finish researching Education. So if an AI is stomping you so badly that it can finish Sistine or Sun Tsu's before you get Education, there's still time to abort the race for Navigation and wait for the Library to do its thing. On the other hand, if not even the Hanging Gardens are finished yet, even the worst-case scenario probably isn't too terrible trying to compete in research. (Am I remembering correctly that even F7 won't show you wonders an AI is working on but hasn't finished yet if you don't have contact?)

Also note that the game description indicated that there would be varying levels of contact among the AIs - some isolated, some not. In such a scenario, even in a worst-case situation where gambling on a bee-line to Navigation backfires, there are still almost certain to be targets available to conquer to build up size to get back in the game.

One last thing: the Great Library approach only brings you essentially up to the top AI's level in tech if number two is close. Otherwise, it is at least possible (albeit unlikely) that you could get little or nothing beyond Education as repayment for research time lost. (For example, what happens if an AI takes a page out of our book, trading with a neighbor early and then swallowing it?) In such a situation, you end up tied for second and have a monster ahead of you, a monster you've let widen the gap by not bothering to do your own research. The "race for Navigation" approach probably does have the higher risk of leaving the player in a deep hole if AI research is better than anticipated, but both strategies have some rather nasty worst-case possibilities.

Nathan

[Theseus]

All valid, and thanks for keeping it "unspoiled."

As you may have noticed, I've been very focused on tech leads as a strategic imperative, so I totally get your argument.

As you point out, Navigation is not that far beyond Education... reading your last post, I realized that my subconscious thought in terms of choosing the Great Library or Navigation gambit was to keep both options viable.

Whichever one chooses, there is going to be be a period of tension / apprehension, when coming to the end of choice, with the only clue being completed GWs (you're right, btw, F7 only works for civs in contact), and while finishing off the non-Education branches and hoping for contact.

BTW, as this is the tips thread, let me say to anyone starting or playing the game, this dilemma made the medieval era a nail-biter!!

[Killerdaffy]

The GL or not question is even more interesting (and more pressing) if you managed to get the Pyramids. Go with the early GA (assuming you are playing Persia) not knowing anybody or hold off...

[Dominae]

Since you don't get to leave your island (and therefore meet any other civs) until Navigation, I'll post my main strategies/decisions up until that point.

1. Romans versus Persians

This choice seems clear to me. On a large map archipelago map with small landmass, the cities you manage to conquer/build on any continent other than your own are likely to be completely corrupt even with the Commercial trait. The Militaristic trait is better on Pangea-type maps, where early rushes are ideal. Since you're going to need to do a lot of your own research anyway (at least up until the end of the Middle ages), why not go Scientific? I've also really like the 3 Culture Libraries produce for purposes of establishing a foothold on another continent: borders of newly-conquered cities expand in 4 turns instead of 10 as with Temples, which cost 20 Shields more, not to mention the fact that the extra culture reduces the chance of flips. Finally, the Industrious trait is useful regardless of map type (example: any invasion force benefits greatly from a team of Industrious Workers ready to build roads and Fortresses).

The Immortal is also superior, as he is potentially still useful when you get to meet other civs (during the era of Knights and Pikemen), while the Legionary will be obsolete.


2. The Great Library

From other posts, people have adopted one of two strategies concerning research: either build the Great Library and avoid Education, or research everything yourself. I think the second option is better, for a bunch of reasons.

First, assuming the other civs are as secluded as you are, they should be researching tech at more or less the same rate as you are (since they can't engage in a tech loop). Thus the Great Library is only likely to grant a couple of techs, even if you choose a wholly different research path.

Second, by going straight for Navigation, you could potentially reach it first and exploit the fact that you're the first to meet all the other civs. I can't stress enough how advantageous this is in negotiations. Although I don't recommend it, selling Communications with other civs will net you a king's ransom every time.

Third, denying yourself Education means losing out on Universities, Copernicus's Observatory and Magellan's Expedition, which are all fantastic in this scenario.

Fourth, denying yourself Navigation means you're waiting for the other civs to contact you, which could actually take a while; why not press your advantage or level the playing field earlier rather than later?


3. Research

Generally, it's a good strategy to research a tech that no other civ has discovered in order to net a great profit by selling it to everyone else before they get to trade it amongst each other. Certain techs are invaluable in this regard; although the AI never goes for Monarchy, it will pay dearly for it every time. However, in this scenario, you won't get to do any tech trading until Navigation, so this strategy is nullified. If anything this caused me to rethink my game the most.

In light of this, what's the best to go about getting all the techs? I would say a sound strategy is to beeline for The Republic (vastly superior to Monarchy since you won't be engaging in any wars for a long time, and the techs leading up to The Republic are better). After that, I suggest checking out which techs have depreciated the most: these are the ones that take the least amount of time to research, indicating that most of the other civs have discovered them already. Pick the one that takes the least amount of time to research (there should always be one that around 4 turns) and research that one. This way, you don't have to spend a lot of time researching the undepreciated techs (Currency and Polytheism come to mind) because by the time you get to them (after Potter, The Wheel, et al) they'll have depreciated in turn. This method is also useful for monitering what techs the other civs have, before ever meeting them.

When in the Middle ages, beeline for Navigation, hopefully allowing you to trade your way into tech and economic superiority. Quite conveniently, Navigation lies on a straight path from Monotheism, which should be your first Middle age tech.


4. Pre-buildling

Long before you get to build Caravels, you'll be itching to build some Military units and conquer someone. I recommend giving in to this feeling. By the time you build your fleet of Caravels, you should have masses of your best military units, Settlers and Workers ready to go out and exploit the world. The loss of gold per turn under Republic due to (admittedly idle) military forces is nothing compared to the time lost building an army on the fly (this is debatable).

Taking this idea one step further, a few turns before you discover (or, ugh, trade for) Navigation, all your coastal cities should be pre-buidling Caravels (I use Colosseums, but any expensive Military unit is good too). Again, the power of meeting the other civs early cannot be underestimated.


5. Forbidden Palace

I recommend against building the FP on our original continent. The landmass is small enough that even your most "remote" cities will suffer from relatively little corruption. Rather, save the FP from another continent you plan to conquer after you explore the world.



Whew! I hope all this helps!


Dominae