Civ-Specific Strategy: Americans

[Arrian]

Charis,

One thing: that was a standard map, not a large.

I just got a very big continent... I wonder if I chose 60% water... don't think so, though.

I have no doubt that I overdo it a bit with trying to redeem what are essentially worthless cities. No doubt at all. Plus, I am emphatically not into the math and detailed analysis required to figure out whether I am or not.

Personally, I think the decision of exactly where to set up your Palace and FP revolves around two factors:

1) How do you plan to do it? Do you have, or expect to have (plan for) a leader to rush either the FP, or a Palace move? If you don't, you're going to have to either use the palace jump (disband original capitol, and make sure it moves to where you want it) or just leave it and manually build the FP in the best spot you can manage. Then it's a choice between an "ok" spot where you can use a courthouse + WLTKD to get the FP built with reasonable speed, and a "perfect" spot that will take 200 turns.

2) Where, exactly, is the best land? It's all well and good to put your Palace & FP in the most central spots (Dominae's question of centrality), but if the land immediately surrounding those spots is poor, is it not better to place the Palace & FP in slightly less "optimal" spots so that you can get the cities with the best terrain mix as your cores? I've encountered that situation, and decided to place the FP in a central spot, but the city itself pretty much sucked (whereas it ought to be one of your best, perhaps your very best) and the surrounding cities were ok but not great.

Dominae, in your example, I would say get as many good cities in that first ring as possible. I would almost never put a FP or a Palace on a bottleneck.

In the Chinese game I posted, I definitely planned on leaders, and I had a pretty good spot to build the FP quickly so I could use a leader to move my Palace to Egypt.

In the Babylonian game I started tonight, I'm praying like hell for 1 leader to move my palace to Mecca (which is yet untaken). I'm taking brutal casualties using hordes of horsemen because I have no iron (I just captured a city w/iron, but I need to hook it up) and I normally would be using swordsmen as "finishers" to reduce casualties. I'm getting a pretty good reminder of how useful that is. Ack. I have 3 elite horsemen... things are not looking all that good. Still, I've crushed China, held off Japan, and am starting to cut up the Arabs. They are, however, in possession of another iron on the other side of their empire, and must be close to feudalism. *shudder* I need Mecca. Great Library, and all. I already built the FP near Babylon (nicely placed if I can move my Palace), but w/o a leader I'm screwed.

-Arrian, the rambler

[Charis]

Placement

Question: Is it better to place Palaces centrally on landmasses so that there are many cities around the first ring but at the cost of having overlapping rings, or is better to make sure the first rings do not overlap at all so that the distance from any city to a capital is minimized?

In most circumstances, unless the distances involved are very large or the number of cities unusually small, the distance is quite a bit less of a factor for a given city than the number of cities closer to the palace or FP than that city. Specifically, for both the Palace and FP a ranked list is generated by distance, one for each. Then for each city the *smaller* of those two rankings is taken and used in the corruption formula.

For example if a city is 5th farthest from the capital and 8th from the FP, it's treated as 'Nc=5' in the NC/OCN part of the formula.

So what you want is for as many cities as possible to have as big a difference in their distance to FP and palace. Picture putting the palace and FP two squares for each other. Each city's rank would be very similar, say 10 in one list and 11 in the other. Instead *widely* separate the FP and Palace, so that a high rank to one means a low to the other. 8 cities placed in the first manner might have 'min' rankings of 1,1,2,3,4,5,6,7
where the far-spaced FP list would be 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4, a vast improvement.

Answer -
Space your FP and palace a bit farther apart, seeking to avoid overlapped rings rather than to minimize the distance from FP to 'best sites'. Note however on 'small' maps that distance from FP to sites takes on greater significance. This answer is opposite to Arrian's, is a consequence of the math, but is not what most people do or would guess. I'm still trying to see whether in 'practice' this works out better!

Charis

[aaglo]

I think that the industrious trait is at it's best with large and huge maps with lots of terrain. When you have a lot of terrain to be improved (road/irrigation/mine), it helps being quick at it.

Industrious helps especially on jungles.

[badams52]

Re: Placement

Originally posted by Charis


In most circumstances, unless the distances involved are very large or the number of cities unusually small, the distance is quite a bit less of a factor for a given city than the number of cities closer to the palace or FP than that city. Specifically, for both the Palace and FP a ranked list is generated by distance, one for each. Then for each city the *smaller* of those two rankings is taken and used in the corruption formula.

This is very good to know!

In my most recent game, I built the FP next to my capital setting up the later GL palace move and noticed a drastic improvement in research and gold when I finally got to move the palace pretty far away. Though by the time I got the move I was only a couple of captured cities away from domination.

Sometimes I've moved the palace and haven't noticed any production/research/gold improvement. Means I already had them in peak cities.

[Zero]

I like the fact that Americans are the only one who starts the game with Mansonry and pottery. These two techs are the only techs early in the game that lets you create a population boost with granary and pyramid. I usually build 1 settler farm pump cities whileworking on pyramid right away in hope that I can get pyramid with the Americans since I start with Mansonry. When playing as Americans, my civ often has more and numeosu cities due to 1st granary, pyramid and scouts.

[Zero]

I like this thread so much, that I want to start a series of individual civ strategy discussion thread.

Actually it would be cool if mods created a section for just individual civ strategy discussion forum. I goto this forum for a fighting game and they have sub forum for each character...

[Nor Me]

Originally posted by Dominae
If the strategy is to drop into Communism (yay! Religious) and pop rush, then that's pretty good, but I haven't heard that argument yet. Similarly, if you're doing some major Forest planting and chopping, I'm impressed, but no mention was made of this. So, again, I'm assuming that at a lot of gold is spent over a large period of time to redeem Berlin at some future point.

Now, here's what I did with Berlin. I irrigated everything, made sure they it had an Aqueducts and that it wouldn't revolt. Then I took off the extra Laborers that I didn't need and made them Specialists. Irrigated Grasslands with Railroads produce a bunch of food, so I could get at least 5-6 Taxmen or Scientists in Berlin. In the AU mod, Taxmen are worth 2 gold,

My inclination would be to use drafting and disbanding to improve these cities even in republic.
Obviously you can't use foreign citizens. But I would normally use taxmen to starve it down to about 6 and regrow with railroads and irrigation anyway.
AU entertainers effects are doubled as well as taxmen so the unhappiness would ,in effect, cost 20 gold. 1 citizen in a city costs 30 food,which ,by feeding taxmen, could give 30 gold. A conscript unit would then set you back 50 gold (or 35 unmodded/with granary/Longevity.)
A conscript infantry can be disbanded anywhere for 22 shields. This is marginally more efficient than communist pop rushing and much cheaper than buying.
Alternatively you could make military use of them. On that map I couldn't resist putting an SOD on every offshore rubber source before anyone had tanks.

[ducki]

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
Could someone defend the Commercial trait now? It has moved to the bottom of my list where Expansionist used to be. I was going to start a new thread with a poll to re-open the entire trait debate yet again, but I have 2 minutes of lunch time left.

If you despise corruption as much as I do, commercial is easier to defend. Corruption is the bane of my existence, perhaps because I still don't have the whole P/FP placement thing down pat - heck, most of my games, I never get around to building an FP until late middle ages.

And if you tend more towards "builder", it's easier to defend than Military, IMO.



Actually, I tend to put Scientific at the bottom of my list.
2 or 3 free techs? By the time Scientific buildings come around, I usually am productive enough that half-price/full-price isn't that big a deal. Of course, this is at Monarch/Regent, maybe that's skewing my thoughts.





On the "build a temple or not" issue - in conquered or corrupt towns, I'll always build a temple first - my next nearest town can normally either spare a defender or churn one out in 1/2 - 1/4 of the time, and it'll be a vet.
Also, this new town is going to grow to unhappiness far faster than it will become productive. I'd rather get the temple going sooner than have a few extra Regular units.

There are only two exceptions to this "rule".
1. If I am militaristic, I can get a barracks up and running and churn out almost obsolete units or defenders.
2. If I cannot, cannot, cannot spare a worker or a town to build a worker, I'll build a worker then a temple. After that, I may just use the town as a worker/settler drip or I may try to make it productive, it depends.

None of this temple stuff really depends on Religiousity, though. That just makes it a bit faster, that's all.

Maybe I'm going about things all wrong, but I like to get improvements up asap - I can always use my other cities for units/workers/settlers if necessary.

[Action]

Is there a thread that explains the exact mechanics of corruption? And if so, can someone link to it?

EDIT: NM found it.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Nice thread. You can check out some of my threads from the beginning of the year when I was still a regular civ3 poster. These were before PTW came out and they also detailed how America was one of the best civs (contrairy to popular opinion. I see that some of it still hasn't changed.) But to cut a long story short, Dominae's points are exactly the ones that I made.
As for PTW, I'm looking at the Vikings as one of the better civs.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Nice thread. You can check out some of my threads from the beginning of the year when I was still a regular civ3 poster. These were before PTW came out and they also detailed how America was one of the best civs (contrairy to popular opinion. I see that some of it still hasn't changed.) But to cut a long story short, Dominae's points are exactly the ones that I made.
As for PTW, I'm looking at the Vikings as one of the better civs.

I always get the feeling that a lot of what is being said on the forums these days is not new material. At the same time, it does become tedious to do a thorough search of the many many threads. I'll gladly concede that most (if not all) of what I've posted recently is not original. If you want to link to your thread, feel free to do so.

I believe the informal consensus for the best new civ is the Arabs, because of their awesome UU (cheap Rider, basically). The Vikings are definitely up there though; amphibious assault just wrecks the AI.


Dominae

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Hey, I'm not here to show that 'i've thought of this before' If I came across that way, I'm sorry. I'm trying to get back into the game (lotta work lately with college apps and stuff.) I just wanted to add weight to your ideas (and yes, it does become extremely tedious to look in the archive. )

Anyhow, I like the Vikings because of their amphibious assault unit is stronger on attack then anything else at the time. Since people tend not to build a lot of ships, yours wont be in much trouble. Just load em up with say two Beserkers, and a musketmen, and then sail up and down enemy coast. If there are three defenders, your Beserkers spend their turn on the boat, so they are safe from counter attack.

WHen you take it, plop your musketmen in there for some decent defense, and then next turn burn the city and leave.

[Dominae]

Check out my report of AU205 for my observations on the Vikings and their UU. Pretty much what you just said, but with a couple of additions.


Dominae

[Zero]

my trait ranking is still the same as it has ever been:

Top three: ind rel exp
bottom 3: mil com sci

I love the top 3 and its almost a must have at least one trait for civ in order for me to play, (exception of romans and germans.. it works out strangely)

bottom 3 doesnt suck. Its nice to have. but is not as incredible as top 3 IMO.

only thing about exp is that its not a good combo with sci or com IMO... but ind is excellent (America aka the topic of this thread) i dont think i need to state that exp is good with mil and rel since many people think that way too

[Theseus]

WOW!!!

I hadn't been looking at the civ-specific strategy threads before vacation, and now I'm catching up...

Hmm, where to start?

First off, GREAT original post Dominae!

Second, we need an advanced tactics thread. I know I'm not good enough at poprushing temples in captured towns, and Dominae's irrigation in AU 202 was an EYE-OPENER!!

Third, we should somehow cross-link Charis' posts with the big corruption thread.

Fourth, America. To be honest, I don;t think I've played this civ since the beginning of the year (which was, of course, a completely different "era" of Civ3, both in game-quality and knowledge). I would tend to agree with Dominae, that in the earliest phase of the game, Exp / Ind is pretty tough to beat. I don;t mind the lack of a UU... as I've said before, I think Swordsmen are the most overpowered basic unit anyway (and Horsemen are just fine too).

But I guess for me it's that I like to play a 'balanced' game, adapting my style to the specific civ... meaning, I like my empire to excel at each aspect of the game. Yeah, I'm a bit of a warmonger ( Wait'll you see me AAR on AU202!), but I also want to build, take advantage of *relevant* multiplicate GWs (e.g., Sistine if Rel), use different governments, play at geopolitics, etc. I know Arrian and Catt, among others, feel the same way.

America doesn;t really lend itself to exploring different facets of the game, for me at least. From a Seven Pillars perspective, it feels to me like a monotone approach... bang out a production / gold advantage in the early game (yeah, I know there's other stuff, especially with Ind, like military road networks, but you know what I mean). Probably the next thing I would do would become a unit powerhouse, which is sort of boring.

Not to knock America entirely, as I just haven't played it in so long, and I'll be interested to see how well it performs in MP... on my list for future games.

Again, great thread.