AU302: One City - Strategy, Spoilers and Comments

[Wizard55]

I'll try again

[Wizard55]

I also took some Englishmen with me when I died!!!

[Konquest02]

Kon's Second Game

I've played a second game this afternoon and it really was different from the first one. PTW 1.21, regular rules, regent.

I chose Spain this time for two reasons. 1- I liked the commercial and religious combo. Commercial for the extra commerce and religious for the ultra early temple and no anarchy. 2- I wanted to try them for once

I decided to build The One and Only II on the hill south of the starting position, which was a pretty good choice. I got control of the furs and the ivory through appropriate unit placement... I just lost one to the Koreans near the end of the game.

I was much more successful on wonder building this time. My first wonder built was the Colossus, which accidentally triggered a GA for the Spanish people. Unfortunately, they were still governed by a despotic regime so they could not enjoy their GA. It's because their leader, el Rey Kon Questo, diverted all the funds to build nice houses on the beach for himself and his family.

My research path was much more consequent this time. I popped BW, WC and Mysticism from huts. I beelined to the GL and then made a push for Monarchy, which I traded for lucrative profits. I was able to get out of the ancient times with a nice 1-2 tech lead over most of my opponents.

My main goal in this game was to take care of all the AIs and to get them all about the same size to prevent a quick launch by a killer AI (such as England in my first game...) So I traded a lot with the Celts and the Romans in order to stop England to expand freely on the continent. It was fairly successful. The Celts went at war a couple of times with the English and were much more powerful, but their empire was fairly improductive so I managed to retain the upper hand. I got good deals with both the Indians and the Koreans. I must admit I traded a little more with the Indians, as they got overrun in the first game. I think I did a good job as no AI escaped from the pack. This allowed me to be rather competitive throughout the whole game...

I managed to build The Colossus, Lighthouse, GL, Oracle, GWall, Sistine, Shakespeare, Leo's, JS Bach's, Universal Suffrage, ToE and Hoover. Not bad!

--Kon--

[Dominae]

Re: Kon's Second Game

Originally posted by Konquest02
My main goal in this game was to take care of all the AIs and to get them all about the same size to prevent a quick launch by a killer AI.

My theory is: if I'm not the big bad civ, no civ should be the big bad civ.


Dominae

[Konquest02]

This is the state of the world throughout the ages... Notice how England was run over by the Celts and the Romans.

[Master Zen]

This reeealy sucks... Rome for no reason whatsoever is hardly doing any research while Korea is getting all the techs like crazy... plus, neither wants to go to war with another....

So much for trading and screwing them separetely

I have a bad feeling I ain't going to win this one, but REAL MEN PLAY CIV UNTIL THEY DIE...

[badams52]

Re: Kon's Second Game

Originally posted by Konquest02
My main goal in this game was to take care of all the AIs and to get them all about the same size to prevent a quick launch by a killer AI (such as England in my first game...) So I traded a lot with the Celts and the Romans in order to stop England to expand freely on the continent. It was fairly successful.

Very interesting. Does this mean you traded (luxuries) with only the weaker civs and left England to stand on it's own? or that you gave..er..traded techs at cheap prices with the lesser civs? I'd like to know how you were able to wheel and deal to keep the civs at around the same power and if this is truly effective.

I never really thought of trying this before, it's always, if they're weak, and can't afford it, then why give it to them, but I see that it may be beneficial to strengthen the weaker AIs to keep the stronger AIs from beating up on them and taking their cities and land. Thereby, when I come to take back their borrowed land, I won't have to take out a killer AI, just mop up the weaker ones.

I'm thinking in terms of continent playing and manipulating the other continent to keep the other AIs similar in strength.

I have used ROPs and military walls to keep AIs from wiping out one another, but if I have to do that, I didn't succeed in keeping the other AIs on a level playing field. Of course sometimes you reach that second continent and 1 or 2 civs cease to exist or are already extremely small...

[Dominae]

badams52, I'll post a full AAR of my game when I get around to finishing it. But concerning your question to Kon about how to keep the AI civs more or less equally powerful, I've myself have been employing the same strategy in my game.

I did not plan the map this way, but it just so happens that there is no Iron on the Indian/Korean island. In my game Korea got the upper hand early, but I made sure to gift techs to India as well as Iron to keep them from being overrun. Iron was essential to India's survival all the way through the Medieval ages (as you can imagine) as well as in the Industrial age since Railroads require Iron. India actually got their rail network down before Korea, even though they were much much smaller. Also, in my game England has taken the Celts' Iron, and so I'm selling that for cheap to ensure the Celts have a fighting chance.

What I did with Iron is also possible with Luxuries. With an Ivory monopoly in this game and all other Luxuries pretty evenly distributed, you can pick and choose which civs are going to have to pay (Entertainer-wise) to keep their citizens content.

Tech-wise, I've found that when you're selling a tech no one else owns, it is best to sell it first to the civ you want to "bring down to size". This is because the AI gives top dollar the first time the tech is sold, while it depreciates for all subsequent sales. Thus you'll get something like 200gpt from the first civ, seriously stunting its research, and around half that from the others, which will end up surpassing the first civ in research. Sometimes I've taken all the gpt from a civ which I wanted to get weaker (say, the English), even though this amount was less than I would have gotten from another civ. But it worked, and the English actually fell behind a couple of techs, and have had to fight to keep up, even though they've got the largest Land Area.

Finally, and most importantly, you really have to attempt to control who goes to war with whom. Ideally you want to pit the civs who will gain little to no ground against in each other. It is sometimes not obvious to gauge if this will be the case, but careful Resource and Gold gifting can "correct" any significant advantage. Wars are extremely costly for the AI, since they produce so many units and switch to Monarchy or Communism almost immediately. To accomplish this sort of diplomacy, I've found that it is actually better not to be too friendly with the AIs, since they will never make demands and therefore will never declare war on you. Let them declare war on you, sign some Alliances, sit back and wait 20 turns and all works out well. Obviously this works best with civs that are very far away, since they can never threaten you (which would be bad, with only one city in your empire). So, in my game, I've never declared waron the Koreans (rather, I've never let them declare war!), since they could wipe me out whenever they wanted to. Luckily other civs declare war on Korea periodically, meaning Korea never gets the chance to pull ahead technologically.

Phew! Long post. Guess I had more to say that I thought...


Dominae

[cumi]

Hi,

this is my first AU game. I didn't know, what is expecting me, so I played on warlord.

Civ:

I made a mistake right in the beginning, because I choosed France, as always. Later I realized, that I have only a few benefit from this civ.

City Placement:

I founded my city 1 tile easter from the starting position.

City Improvents:

I build Templa, Cathedral and Colloseum, too, so my city could be (and was) in short time 12 size! I also had revolution without anarchy. Not bad for non-religious civ. I also build library, university etc, but no granary, no walls.

Government:

I decided to go ASAP and stay in monarchy. I had no worries about corruption, could cool down my unhappy people with 3 units and needed a lot of units per city (18/1).

Wonders:

The next thing to think about is, which wonders to build? A lot of wonders are useless for one city, BUT if I build it, the AI can NOT build it . So I went for GL, then made contact to Korea and India with a Galley, bought/traded contacts to other civs and got about 6-7 free techs.

My next goal was Copernikus's and then Newtons wonder, my only chance to keep being the most advanced.

Trade:

I had very good relation to Koreans. I sold them Iron, got one lux. I was also trading Ivory for another lux with other civ. I got about 600 gold at the beginning from raised barbarian nests , so I could also buy something, when needed.

Military:

I build 5 worriors, 2 to stay in the city, 3 for gathering the tax from barbarians. Later, I build -temporaly- baracks and build about 6 swordsman, later Mid.Inf.-s.

Than bagan the game. The english declared war on me. I "sent" the celts on them. Few turns later, the Indians declared war on, me I sent the Korea on them. Cool. Finally, without having any combat, I made peace with India and English, and guess what, the ugly Celts and Romans signed military alliance against me. Why the Celts? They got probably pissed, because I didn't attacked England... And the first galley were starting to arrive into my "empire".

Going down

And then, Korea finished the Copernicus's O.

My scientist were slower and slower. When I play non-OCC, I am getting a new tech in about 4 turns in Mid-age and later. In this game I was starting to suffer from waiting 20-25 turn for a new tech. I know my only chance is if a double 2 times the science output. I didn't succeed.

I will read your articles here and I will try to everithing better next time.

I also could not sign a peace with Celts and Rome. They wanted enormous mount of money per turn.

Does it makes sense, to be militarly aggressive in OCC? I mean, to hurt the unpatient and aggresive civs badly.

Could have anybody 3 lux in the city border? I could have only 2.

cheers

cumi

[vulture]

I decided to drop down two levels to Regent for this - my second OCC game ever (the first one was a warm up for this, on a tiny pangea - with the Mongols, Romans and Scandanavians. I lost when the Mongols wiped out the Romans, then the Vikings, then me... lesson: play against low agression civs), which was probably a mistake as it has been plain sailing to date.

Civ choice: I decided I wanetd scientific, for the cheap science buildings (minor point, but still, its about as useful as a trait can be for OCC) and bronze working (early defence, Colossus) and commercial (just for starting with the alphabet, to get to literature as soon as possible).

Next decision: where to found the city. I ended up one square east from the start position (the same as Konquest02, but he calls it SE...). I figured that I would get all the ivory there quite easily, whichcan easily be traded on a luxury for luxury basis to other civs (since they are going to be much larger). So from the time we can trade, they are going to be worth 3 or 4 different luxuries. Plus I might be able to keep the furs.

The opening moves: build warrior, warrior, warrior, start colossus. Research writing at 10% (possibly should have gone 100% instead). Huts produced barbarians, nothing, ceremonial burial, barbarians, 25 gold. A reasonable haul. All 3 warriors were sent out exploring, but one was brought back for military police duty as we approached size 3 (it seems like a luxury being able to get to size 2 without military police having played on emperor for a long time now).

Having researched writing, we started on Literature at 100% science, and finished exploring our island. A warrior was parked on the southern tip looking for action on the land to the south, while the third warrior hunted barbarians. Pretty soon we saw a Korean settler and made contact with them and the Indians. Traded for warrior code and iron working, and saw that we had iron in the mountain to the SW. Hurrah! At this point I would have bet a lot of money that we would be able to build the iron works later.

The colossus was finished in 1900 BC (before we got to literature, scuppering the pre-build for the Great Library option), and a second worker was produced to help deal with the forests in a quick enough time. Then we started building barracks as a Great library pre-build

We bought the wheel, finished researching literature, and started on map making, since we wanted trade and more contacts. 1250 BC we grew to size 7, and had to start playing with the luxury slider. After map making, the plan was to head straight for republic (which we did with no problems).

The library was finished in 800 BC, triggering our golden age (still in despotism). At least it produced some benefit - since with roads, rivers and the colossus (and despotic tile penalty) the GA increased gold production from 2 to 3 for many tiles. The golden age produced a galley, library, barracks, hoplite, hoplite, harbour and another galley - not bad for 20 turns. Researched republic durinfg the GA, but waited until it ended to switch governments.

After this we started building the pyramids (hey, its a free granary, and there's only that and the lighthouse to build - ended up with the lighthouse though, after deciding it was more useful). Korea demanded the republic, so we gave in. Then we donated it to India to make them like us.

The evil Indians however, built a town next to the furs. This wouldn't do at all. Once we finished the lighthouse, we churned out a small stack of swordsmen in record time, razed the Indian city just as our boders expaned to cover the furs, and donated 100 gold to Korea to keep them on our good side. Made peace with India shortly afterwards, having parked a load of swordsmen in the area to try and stop anyone settling too near the furs.

[vulture]

At this point, our brave, lighthouse-enhanced galleys found the Celtic people, and soon made contact with the rest of the world. Before too long we entered the middle ages with the help of the library, and started work on a cathedral. We also donated free techs to the new civs to make them all gracious too.

The plan to block off the furs was interrupted by the need to hunt down barbarians, especially the 10 or so wandering around in the north after the middle ages began. They were all dealt with, but our newly elite swordsmen were a bit too slow getting back south, and a new city was founded near the furs. It left me with access to one of them, but only until its borders expanded. Decided we could avoid a war until such a time, since the Indians might take a long time to get around to building some culture there.

Stupidly managed to lose a worker to a barbarian horseman. Grr. 340 AD we finally hit size 12, and once the food box was full, moved some citizens to hills and mountains to boost productivity. we also got monarchy from the GL, and started building the hanging gardens (25 shields per turn, 12 turns - beat that if you can AI). Got the gardens, started Sun Tzus as a prebuild for the Sistine, and started doing my own research again up the military tradition branch - gunpowder for the moment.

Got Sistine, started Leos, got education and switched to university, then restarted Leos while researching astronomy. Switched to Copernicus when it became available, and got that easily. Built a courthouse, which might surprise some of you, but a courthouse reduces corruption in the capitol from 4% to 2% (gving me 1 extra shield and several extra science).

Made a bad mistake in the trading at this time. I had physics, and I traded it to Korea for banking, before checking all the civs. England had banking and metallurgy Should have got metallurgy off England first, then got baking from Korea.

I parted company with the AI research path at this point, ignoring the optional techs (didn't want MT, economics or navigation particularly, didn't care about democracy, wouldn't have minded free artistry for the wonder though). So I got to the industrial era first while they researched those (and I got Newton's - up to 228 science per turn now).

Since i had a small lead I decided to head straight for sanitation (after getting nationalism as my free tech). I figured the hospital and extra growth would make up for the lost time researching sanitation first. I also produced a few extra workers around this time (and had traded for quite a few over the years - by the time I got steam power I had 4 native and 12 or 14 slave workers). England and the Celts went to war for some reason, and England soon swallowed up much of the Celtic empire.

I got worried about my trade reputation, and built a frigate (and later a few ironclads) to block the channel to my city, which otherwise would be vulnerable to being trade-embargoed by a single ship. The started Bach's as a prebuild for a hospital (which amused me). When I got sanitation I started researching steam power, finished the hospital and went back to Bach's. After getting steam power I changed to the Iron worls, while the worker crews got going on the railroading of everything. Still with the tech lead, I went for industrialisation before heading for scientific method and the ToE.

In 1435 AD the indian city's cultural borders again expanded, and we had to go to war for the second time, with my elite swordsmen against 1 spearman and two conscript riflemen. We won, razed the city (more workers), and camped out swordsmen there for good to stop it happening again. Just for fun, we started a huge world war at the same time, with Greece, the Celts, Romans and English against the Indians and Koreans.

Along the way we got our factory, build Magellans in about 3 turns (starting 30 turns after the AI, built the ToE, intelligence agency, Hoover Dam and Universal Suffrage, made peace with everyone, and re-integrated native workers into the city to bring us up to size 19, very soon to be 20.

With Hoover in place we were churning out 154 shields per turn, and 380 science (running a 100% with a cash surplus from selling techs). Korea has kind-of caught up in techs, having got to Steel first, but being 4 behind elsewhere in the tech tree. I planted a spy and tried to steal steel, (safely to boot, for 2300 gold) but failed. Grrrrrrrr......

I suspect that the Ai will catch up a bit during the late industrial era, so will have to make sure I get the UN first. I'll probably win culturally before too long, given the number of wonders I've snagged, but will play on to see if I can get a spaceship launch first anyway (or will the AI not bother going for it if the game is alredy gone?) Might go for a replay on Monarch level instead.

[Konquest02]

Dom, you've put it much better than I could have done...

But basically, I tried to trade my techs cheaper to the weaker AI (India, Celts and Rome) than to the English or the Koreans. I usually went at the Koreans first, trading some industrial techs for 100-150 gpt, which slowed down their research quite a lot. Then, I went to see the other AI and see which one could pay more for the tech I was selling. Then I sold it to them. Rinse. Repeat.

It is really important, when you decide to sell a tech, to sell it to anyone who can buy it in the same turn. You don't want the first AI to make some money on your back by selling it to the AIs you've not visited....

This process is really effective as the AI civ can't research as effectively and you're getting much richer in the meantime, allowing you to get richer! It's the best of both worlds!

You can compare on my two minimaps review how effective this technique was...

--Kon--

[BlueWaldo]

Originally posted by BigDork
Okay, I'm stupid. Can't dominate if you can't build more than one city. I guess it's conquest. That's definatly gonna be hard.

BigD

That is where I built my city. I wanted to be on a cost, but it still has a lot of land squares in the city radius. I think getting Colossus is helping me keep up with tech, but I am not even through the first age yet so time will tell.

[Dominae]

Woo-hoo!

I finished a game with the improved scenario (version 2, the one with the Gold on the Mountain). Standard rules, Emperor difficulty. Approximately 7 hours play time (the screenshot is lying!). A more thorough report to come after my exams tomorrow.

[Krakan]

victory is mine!

I finally finished AU302 after three tries: two with Greece and one with Babylon. First ended 8 turns before cultural victory after a stack of ~16 tanks attacked my capital. Stupid Romans, I even had an MPP with them and they were "gracious". Oh well. I got behind in tech too early somehow with Babylon, even with the GL. I tried Greece again and finished with a cultural victory in 1990 a.d. I built 8 wonders: The Colossus, the Great Library, Newton's University, Sistine Chapel, Theory of Evolution, Smith's Trading Company, Hoover Dam, and the Hanging Gardens. I settled south of the starting location on the hill for iron works and the colossus. I don't think I did bad for my fourth Monarch game and my third OCC game.