What I've Learned on the Way to Emperor

[BRC]

Alva: I definitely agree that I should have plopped a city down up top. I debated a long time on the southern one, and finally said no. My OCN corruption was starting to kill me, as I didn't get my FP down as quickly as I would have liked to.

MZ: I was debating on grabbing the Persians or Ottomans for this game, and finally decided on the Ottomans, due to the later GA and the fact that I thought that I would have a bigger window with the Sipahi than the Immortals. I am pleased with my decision.

[Dominae]

Re: What I've Learned on the Way to Emperor

Originally posted by BRC
One of the first things that I saw was Arrian's thread on Ultimate Power. I saw what he had accomplished in his game, and I said "That should be me."

Ah-HA! So that's where your UP/perfectionist bias comes from (not that there's anything wrong with that...).

Nice, very dominating game, BRC. Now you need to follow it up with the "things you learned" section...I'm expecting it!


Dominae

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by BRC

MZ: I was debating on grabbing the Persians or Ottomans for this game, and finally decided on the Ottomans, due to the later GA and the fact that I thought that I would have a bigger window with the Sipahi than the Immortals. I am pleased with my decision.

The Ottomans was a great decision, they are actually my favorite civ to play with and the Siphai the best UU IMO. The Siphai with its attack of 8 has a huge advantage over the best defending unit 4 (musketman). The Cavalry, at 6 vs. 4 is not as good as it looks since at the time many of the AI's cities will be cities, not towns.

I do not like civs with early-medieval UUs (except the Berserker) because none gives too big an advantage against the best defenders 4 (knights) vs. 3 (pikemen). The other exeption are the immortals and the mounted warrior, good units in the early ages.

[BRC]

Post 9 updated. Check it out.

Ah-HA! So that's where your UP/perfectionist bias comes from (not that there's anything wrong with that...).

What can I say?? I was a playstyle-jacker. Although, now, my game probably looks more like yours than Arrian's (except the OCP spacing around my new FP/Palace. I'll never let go ).

Another thing. I was so bored at the end of the game. I just wanted to end it. Maybe UP isn't so much fun to deal with when you have a whole continent to yourself.

[yxhuvud]

Regarding that you stated that you thought it was a mistake to build instead of making war overseas after taking your continent:

When you are in the position you where, you have won regardless, it really didn't matter..

[ottok]

no best,way it is lot of messages...
What you nice paint try tell?

[badams52]

Re: What I've Learned on the Way to Emperor

Originally posted by BRC
Walking step by step through my game:

10) Culture. You can clearly see that I didn't have a whole lot of it in the beginning of the game. Later I came on strong. Most of my early shields went towards units. With no temples, my first sources of culture were the libraries that went in. I had 4 or 5 cities flip, yet only lost 2 or 3 units due to IDGAFIYF strategy. Jawa Jocky will explain this later if you have any questions.

Spoken like a true warmonger esp. points 13 & 14, though I'll have to agree that sometimes the cure for what ails you is war with a neighbor. See the evaluation coming up later on my Dry, Hot game.

On the culture flipping, sure the IDGAFIYF strategy works, but I rarely employ it, maybe because I usually build culture improvements earlier than the AI. I prefer starvation and buying workers, which I learned from the AI. Though if you're really, really lacking in culture (try an NIC game), neither method works.

My favorite example: I build a city, it flipped while not at war because of it's proximity to the border with India (many cities flipped in my NIC in this manner). After I retook the city and destroyed India's cities that caused border dispute and put up my own cities that encased said city in my own borders, it still flipped to India. There were 2 Indian nationals compared to my 3 Chinese citizens inside, and that was enough.

[badams52]

Originally posted by BRC

Another thing. I was so bored at the end of the game. I just wanted to end it. Maybe UP isn't so much fun to deal with when you have a whole continent to yourself.

Ah yes, I've felt that way many times on a UP game,

[Shameless Plug]
but had that feeling even more so in my NIC game (warning for those of you who think you want to try one). But you'll learn a lot if you do decide to take it on and be sure to post your results.
[/Shameless Plug]

[badman]

Good points, BRC

3) I'm not sure if I get your point (probably my English isn't good enough). You built regular units on purpose? I always build barracks before I built any units other than my first defender.

5) Of course it depends on your way of playing (builder, warmonger). But a Republic can fight pretty long wars and only the Republic can give you the ability to outresearch the AI especially if you are scientific. I like switching from Despotism to Republic and then keeping it for the rest of the game.

6) I agree, recently I have experienced that it isn't all that important to build wonders (except for ToE and perhaps Hoover's). I still love to build all of them

[Dominae]

Wow, BRC, it's scary how much of an influence I've had on your game-style. I have to agree with all your points, because I remember defending most of them myself!

Re: Despotism, MP, and Vets. The only MP unit really worth it is obviously the Warrior. The only Regular unit I use are Warriors. I therefore tend to use a lot of Regular Swordsmen, if I need them. If you're expecting the unit to get into a fight, make it a Vet. The exception to this rule is Draft units, which sort of break this whole paradigm because their cost is flat (1 pop).

Again, nice game, BRC. Now go back and do the 'Son of SVC' AU. Heh.


Dominae

[BRC]

Originally posted by Dominae
Wow, BRC, it's scary how much of an influence I've had on your game-style. I have to agree with all your points, because I remember defending most of them myself!

Re: Despotism, MP, and Vets. The only MP unit really worth it is obviously the Warrior. The only Regular unit I use are Warriors. I therefore tend to use a lot of Regular Swordsmen, if I need them. If you're expecting the unit to get into a fight, make it a Vet. The exception to this rule is Draft units, which sort of break this whole paradigm because their cost is flat (1 pop).

Again, nice game, BRC. Now go back and do the 'Son of SVC' AU. Heh.


Dominae

I quickly reached my maximum allowable units in Despotism and did not want to exceed it. So, instead of turning out more warriors for MP units, I built regular spearmen instead. I was able to use these in battle, just more or less as a distraction. I still had Vets covering my stacks. Some of these spearmen were upgraded, but I was able to build Vet Musketmen and Rifleman pretty efficiently, and so therefore disbanded some. I didn't even attempt a swordsman upgrade, but instead built horsemen and had massive upgrade to Knights when I hit the Zulu. I had to stop research for a few turns, as I had been researching at pretty much full speed. The treasury needed a little boost.

[BRC]

Originally posted by badman
Good points, BRC

3) I'm not sure if I get your point (probably my English isn't good enough). You built regular units on purpose? I always build barracks before I built any units other than my first defender.

5) Of course it depends on your way of playing (builder, warmonger). But a Republic can fight pretty long wars and only the Republic can give you the ability to outresearch the AI especially if you are scientific. I like switching from Despotism to Republic and then keeping it for the rest of the game.

6) I agree, recently I have experienced that it isn't all that important to build wonders (except for ToE and perhaps Hoover's). I still love to build all of them

#3: While I love barracks, I don't think that they are worth the upkeep (and cost) if you'll be building units sporadically in them. I waited to build barracks until I thought that the city would only be producing units for a while. This allowed me to keep researching at 100% for a long time.

#5: I had a lot of cities, so my free units support was fairly high. While this was nice for keeping a large military, I really believe the key was the large amount of workers that I was able to keep working. I really think that I would have gone broke in a Republic, had I tried this type of game.

#6: The Medieval Wonders are nice, but the only essential one was J.S. Bach's. Adam Smith's helped out a lot later on. Make sure you get the Industrial Ones.

[Theseus]

Great job and great thread. More "learnings" please.

[nbarclay]

If you still have the 4000 BC save of that by any chance, I might be interested in giving it a try and showing how our approaches differ - if I can ever find the time.

Nathan

[badams52]

BRC - there's a typo in your links (or at least I'm having problems with them). Your links look like:
"http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread/.php?s=&threadid=69974" when it should be:
"http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69974"

There's a backslash there in the first one after showthread where there shouldn't be.