Opinions or strategies for my current game

[The diplomat]

I normally play the Egyptians or Persians or Romans because they fit my style pretty well.

But I thought I would try a different civ for a change. I am playing the Germans (dark blue on the map). This is my first semi-serious game with them. I am playing at Regent level, standard map and all.

I started on a large continent, with the English and Russians as my neighbors. I defeated the English. Then I proceeded to defeat the Russians. it is now the 1600's, and I own virtually the entire continent. However, I wasn't able to trade tech, and I am hopelessly behind in tech. I am still in the Middle Ages, the other cives have are in the Industrial Age. And now the Persians who are #1, have come knocking on my door. They declared war on me out of the blue, and taken a small costal city.

I haven't built the Forbidden Palace yet. I was busy with the war against Russia. So I used the 2 Great leaders that I got to build swordsman armies. I can build the FP, but it would take about 40-50 turns.

My advantages:
-large territory
-lots of cities
-plenty of ressources.
-I am number 2 (Persians are #1, Chinese are #3)

My disadvantages:
-crippling corruption (50%, no forbidden palace)
-serious tech lag
-war with Persia
-still in monarchy

I realize that I made some crucial errors. I should have traded tech a lot more than I did. And, I should have already built my Forbidden Palace.

I am slightly embarrassed to show this game, I know that I am not doing well. I usually plau much better than this. I guess I am not used to playing the Germans.

Anyway, does anyone care to comment on my game? Any comments/strategies?

[jshelr]

IMO, you are doing well. Reasons:

The AI does not do a good job of invading across water. You will probably be able to fend off the Persians, but don't let them get too much of a foothold. Whatever the cost, get them out of there.

Meantime, relax about tech. You can buy old tech cheap. Work you way slowly to tech parity by buying tech -- but not from the tech leaders, if you can figure out which one are ahead. (Sometimes you can't really see how far behind you are.)

Build up the economy to max out the advantage of your early war success. Plan on winning with a tank invasion or, if a bit later, with a MA invastion.

I couldn't see your map. It might be possible to build the FP close to your capital, instead of in just the right spot, and then to use a palace jump. This is particularly true if you have not built lots of goodies in the capital. The technique cuts down corruption in the FP building city and usually reduces the time to completion materially.

I believe many of us have had games where early wars focused attention completely on the battle and left us behind the other continent in tech. Most turn out well, particularly on difficulty levels where AI research rates are not painfully accelerated. Good luck.

[vmxa1]

Do you still have the 4000bc save?It might be fun to see it.

[The diplomat]

sorry, I don't have the 4000 bc save.

[vmxa1]

I looked at the game and here is what I have seen. This is just my thoughts and not gospel.
Why research Music Theory, was it a tech you got in trade? I would be working on either the Econ path or the Military Tradition path. I do not know if it is too late for Adams wonder, if not I would try for it, hoping to get a leader to do it.
Size 6 cities with no temples is playing with fire and that is the reason you are using 30% lux slider. On regent you should not need lux slider much and not till later.
I am not fond of making any units after spearmen (not even them really) with out a barracks. The difference in reg and vet is death often. I would say do not ever make walls, or nearly never.
Cities that take 30-40 turns to make something should not bother with anything other than the temple until they get stronger. I see a city with 6 commerce trying to build a structure, that it can not afford, just set to wealth until it is generating some shields.
Too many irrigated tiles, some not even worked, if they had a few more mines you would be better. This is the results of auto workers. You just can not afford them this early in the game. They waste time in going the long way around and building improvements on tiles that are not going to be worked for a long time if ever.
I used the knight in New Berlin to kill the persian archer or longbow (forget ), moved some knights up to grab the persian city. Move some workers to better use and farther away from danger. This could get rough if China goes after you very soon. I am not sure how far behind you are in tech. At this stage I would expect to be close or tied in tech on Regent. You have lots of land. The good news is the civs are mostly on other land masses.
I set research to 10%, 0% for lux and started some temples, etc. I will take the Persian city and then seek peace. I will set up my knights/swords and try to take out all of China cities on my land mass and try for peace after that. The AI is poor at going after you from another land mass. You have roads on most of the circumverence of the land and can respond. Need some cannons to drive off any ship bombardments. The real problem is to catch up before they send in really good units. You need Calv to have some three move defenders soon. If Adams is not in play then I will switch to Calv path. I just have not checked for wonders and do not know if any pronoucements were made (sire the abcs are building adams). Pump up shields and get all cities completely connected.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I looked at the game and here is what I have seen. This is just my thoughts and not gospel.
Why research Music Theory, was it a tech you got in trade? I would be working on either the Econ path or the Military Tradition path. I do not know if it is too late for Adams wonder, if not I would try for it, hoping to get a leader to do it.
Size 6 cities with no temples is playing with fire and that is the reason you are using 30% lux slider. On regent you should not need lux slider much and not till later.
I am not fond of making any units after spearmen (not even them really) with out a barracks. The difference in reg and vet is death often. I would say do not ever make walls, or nearly never.
Cities that take 30-40 turns to make something should not bother with anything other than the temple until they get stronger. I see a city with 6 commerce trying to build a structure, that it can not afford, just set to wealth until it is generating some shields.
Too many irrigated tiles, some not even worked, if they had a few more mines you would be better. This is the results of auto workers. You just can not afford them this early in the game. They waste time in going the long way around and building improvements on tiles that are not going to be worked for a long time if ever.
I used the knight in New Berlin to kill the persian archer or longbow (forget ), moved some knights up to grab the persian city. Move some workers to better use and farther away from danger. This could get rough if China goes after you very soon. I am not sure how far behind you are in tech. At this stage I would expect to be close or tied in tech on Regent. You have lots of land. The good news is the civs are mostly on other land masses.
I set research to 10%, 0% for lux and started some temples, etc. I will take the Persian city and then seek peace. I will set up my knights/swords and try to take out all of China cities on my land mass and try for peace after that. The AI is poor at going after you from another land mass. You have roads on most of the circumverence of the land and can respond. Need some cannons to drive off any ship bombardments. The real problem is to catch up before they send in really good units. You need Calv to have some three move defenders soon. If Adams is not in play then I will switch to Calv path. I just have not checked for wonders and do not know if any pronoucements were made (sire the abcs are building adams). Pump up shields and get all cities completely connected.

I got Music Theory from the Chinese.

One of te reasons why so many cities don't have temples, is probably because of the corruption.

This is not a usual game for me. Like I said, I never played the Germans before, as I prefer a builder approach.

I usually do build temples first, and do everything to set luxuries at 10%.

I don't have the 4000 BC save but I do have some early saves that should give you an idea of how the game progressed up to this point.

[The diplomat]

here is the game at 1240 AD

[The diplomat]

... and 1465 AD

[vmxa1]

Dropping an FP with the second leader could have helped with that. Cities have low production without markets/libs and the like. With an FP and temple/libs in pop 6 cities your culture would be putting pressure on those Chinese towns to flip. Anyway it will be painful to kick them of the continent, but I think you must. Other wise they will be able to bring in top level troops and you won't be able to. I got the persians off the land and stopped. The big concern is ships will be bombarding improvements and you have nothing to stop them now. I guess a few cats may be able to if they can get in range. I will use the swordsman to try to break down the out in the open calv and the knights on the towns. I have to see how many units they have on hand. The good news is the loses will save maint cost and they can be replaced with vet knights.

[vmxa1]

I took the 910AD and played it out to 1240ad. See what you think of that position. I am about to launch the final push on Russia to get them off the contient. I have all spearmen as Pikemen, I think all warriors are swordsmen and 3 horsemen. The big chinese city is mine and the two russian ones are as well. The one outside of Moscow is gone. Chiv is 10 turns and I have more than 100 left. I took the chinese city because they landed a settler and I don't allow that so it was war. I took the city and gave peace. Later I had troops next to moscow and gave peace for 10 gold and theolgy. Look at the increase in research and still have income higher, due to build up of infrastructure. If one was to press on hard from here by 1465 or the next sav you posted, I would expect to have all the land there and many knights. Then look for shipping and he next target.

[vmxa1]

Ok it was interesting and this is as far as I go. Around 1380 adI cleared of all Russians and have 2 small chinese cities. Gunpowder is 6 turns away, Egypt is 1st due o culture, but that can;t last as many cities are fully up. Need to get to other lands.

[The diplomat]

I looked at the 1380 AD save. What you did was very interesting. It looked like you cleared the continent of Russians a bit sooner than I did. It also seems that you razed a few cities in the middle. It looked a bit empiter than what I did. I guess you did so as to reduce corruption, and maximize the number or workable tiles.

cool!

[vmxa1]

I do not recall razing any cities, except the one between Moscow and your city on the coast. It was rebuilt 2 times by russia and finally by china when I stopped. You may have create a city or two in those areas that I ignored. From there I would fill in any places that could stand a city that would be self sustaining, Soon all the land will be under your culture and safe. I was starting to get a few cities ready to go to size 12 with ducts and increase the shields to get that research running. I just do not like to have any incursion into any of my emire. I do not want to watch my back or hope for a flip. Having all the land there is going to pay big dividends. The sooner infrastructure is in place the better. I ignore trading, but that would need to be looked at now and get the lay of the world. I beat the prediction of clearing russia by nearly a century. I had forgotten how a vet/elite sword can chew up spearmen and often even pikes. I massed 5-10 units to smash the large cities.

[The diplomat]

yeah. I am always a bit surprised how well swordsman do against pikemen.

Swordsman have a longer shelf life than I thought. Especially since the AI does not always upgrade their units right away, swordsman are often good well into the Middle Ages.

[vmxa1]

BTW the reasons I ran this game was 1- to see it and 2- see if strategies had much impact. So I could see if what I am doing is a good idea or maybe needs to be reevaluated.