Koreans and the Early Game

[Arrian]

For the newbies among us: I remember a thread about the most useless unit, and Arrian said hands down, the archer.

I did, in fact, say that. I retract that statement. I was wrong.

As for # of cities prior to (main) attack...

I will often have 10-12 cities on a standard map by the time I open up the big can 'o whoopass (this does not count early settler bopping and whatnot). So, I guess I'd say 12-15 on a huge map.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Originally posted by TheArsenal
Interesting. It seemed like there was more room per civ, but I've never seen the math. How does this break down with max civs a Large Map?

130x130/2/12 ~ 704

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

A standard map has 100x100/2 = 5000 tiles (land and water), with 8 civs that is 625 per civ.

A huge map has 160x160/2 = 12800 tiles, with 16 civs that is 800 per civ.

Both values have to be multiplied by 20%, 30% or 40% to get the land tiles available on average. The huge/16 map gives more tiles per civ.

Interesting. It seemed like there was more room per civ, but I've never seen the math. How does this break down with max civs a Large Map?

[Harovan]

If you're archerrushing 1 civ, 2 cities with barracks are enough. If you have more neighbors (like on a huge map) and need more forces, 3-4 cities. If you attack later, with horses and swords, you should have much more cities, like 8-10 at least. Not because these units are worse than archers, but because by then the AI also has more military.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

So, if a huge world offers about 125% land of the standard world, how many core cities should one build before attacking?

[vmxa1]

I have to cop a plea on that as well. I was not fond of archers as they upgrade to Longbows and that is a long time later.
I am much more tolerant of them now and have a bit more respect for longbows as well.
So I will take my lumps as well. Won't be the last time I get the foot in mouth disease.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Arrian
I've come to really enjoy early archer wars.

You will join us. Resistance is futile!

For the newbies among us: I remember a thread about the most useless unit, and Arrian said hands down, the archer.

About the land issue:

A standard map has 100x100/2 = 5000 tiles (land and water), with 8 civs that is 625 per civ.

A huge map has 160x160/2 = 12800 tiles, with 16 civs that is 800 per civ.

Both values have to be multiplied by 20%, 30% or 40% to get the land tiles available on average. The huge/16 map gives more tiles per civ.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Arrian

Regarding the distance issue... is there more land per civ on a huge/16 than a standard/8?

-Arrian

I'm not sure. That's a good question. I will say, though, assuming that everyone is with equal amounts of land to expand to (never the case) and that everyone is expanding at the same pace (also never the case) there's about room for 15 cities per civ before you have to start cramming cities into lousy areas like jungles, mountains, etc.

The question is, when to stop building and start attacking? Before or after you reach that limit? Maybe that's not "the" question, but it's a question.

[Arrian]

I've come to really enjoy early archer wars. My ridiculous Roman game (mentioned as a p.s. above) started with an archer rush on Japan (they repopped, which gave me 100gold & a worker for peace), followed by a pruning attack on Persia (which generated a leader, who gave me the Pyramids), followed by a war of attrition with the Arabs (in which I had 8-9 elite archers, and then lost nearly all of them taking Mecca, which was on a hill), followed by the total destruction of the Arabs, Persians and Japanese with Legionaries backed by horsemen. Knights took down India.

I never really stopped fighting for very long, but went republic early and eventually went for Demo too.

Regarding the distance issue... is there more land per civ on a huge/16 than a standard/8?

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Arrian

I no longer really pay attention to how many cities I have when I start wars... which is probably because I will now start wars at the drop of a hat. If I see a worker I can grab, chances are I'll grab it.
-Arrian

Me too, I can not resist taking down the spearmen/settler if it gets in range, even if we just signed a peace deal.
I am not going to let them drop a city on the land I have mark for me. Forget flips, I just got two more free workers and the AI lost a spear and settler. That can't be helpful to them.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

No, I definitely like to take 'em down early. I just wouldn't want to send 3 archers and 1 spearman into the wide open plains to take Ta Tu for example, and then not have enough to go take Karakorum... I prefer to have 8-10 horsemen to take Karakorum right off the bat, and then mop up the remaining cities, razing where I intend to rebuild and keeping good city sites.

(note: for the above, please replace Karakorum and Ta Tu with Kyoto and Tokyo, or Dehli and Calcutta, etc.)

I guess I just need to learn when it's time to stop building settlers and start building units. A balance issue (made harder, slightly, by Korea's lack of good "war" traits)

[Arrian]

If you do it right, you can build and fight all at once. Some cities are building settlers/workers, some build units, some build improvements or wonders.

If your initial build/upgrade of units is enough to do the job, you don't need reinforcements (unless, of course, you want to bite off a bigger chunk of the AI).

I no longer really pay attention to how many cities I have when I start wars... which is probably because I will now start wars at the drop of a hat. If I see a worker I can grab, chances are I'll grab it. I'll do a 1-city archer rush (barracks, 3x archer, spearman - KILL!).

But again, you don't necessarily have to fight early to do what you seem to want to do.

You could also stay peaceful until the middle ages, angling for Leos while building hordes of horsemen. Say about 50. 50 knights will put a dent in the map.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Hmmm.... seems like to make this work, I'd need one (maybe two) settler/worker pumps, 3-5 decent-sized producer cities, and one "super" producer to build my GL. That size sound alright to you?

That way I could start conquering at around 7 or 8 cities... I always feel I build too many, and then have to spend time defending them, or expanding their cultural boundaries. (I'm talking 12-15 cities here, before I stop REXing, typically... or does that number sound better to you?)

[Arrian]

Hmm...

I'd probably go:

1) pottery @ 100%
2) writing @ 10%
3) IW (probably via trade)
4) mathematics @ 10%

If you get masonry via hut or trade, whore it around. I don't care if you get 1 gold for it! Give it up! If your neighbor builds the pyramids right before you drop 15 swordsmen on them, you'll thank me.

The reason you don't have to beeline for IW is that the first priority is REX, and the sword rush can come later. It does not take much time to pump out 10-20 warriors. If a city produces 5 shields/turn or more, it's a warrior every 2 turns (10 shields/turn is 1 per, but often those cities are better off being used for bigger projects). With 3-4 of those cities going, your army will grow quickly. Then connect iron and go.

I'd bring along a few spearmen too, to eat up archer counterattacks and to hold captured towns.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Yeah, I think it does make some difference actually, on a huge world. I want to be in a position to dominate a large continent - if I start on an "Asia only" continent I would consider restarting (I find conquering/colonizing other continents a bit of a hassle) - and hence I want to be putting my neighbors out of commission, the sooner the better.

So, 15 swordsmen aimed at, say, the Mongols, or maybe the Japanese, or whomever has techs I want to extort, seems like a good plan.

I assume, then, that my research path might be Literature-Iron Working-Currency? Waiting to trade for IW seems like too long a time...