Playing as Friedrich

[polarnomad]

Thought it might be good to have a thread in which people could jot down their experiences playing as Frederick.

Personally, I'm finding that virtually the most important task is to get access to luxuries. If there aren't any to be had I find myself banging my fist on the table quite quickly.

[UnOrthOdOx]

UnO's challenge #1

I think I can help a little with some of that.

I damn near restarted on seeing this as it's way beyond my comfort zone. But, played on, and despite some obvious mistakes (and losing), I think I would make Kloreep proud...

Difficulty Monarch:

[UnOrthOdOx]

teh start

[UnOrthOdOx]

Highlights include being alone on an island, my failing to found a religion, and most the 'continent' being plains or tundra and hills with little fresh water.

Despite all that I scraped out to number two, and should have won but i wanted to test something out (namely buildermongering), and should have won doing THAT, but I am not a micromanager and made foolish errors. This is quite winnable, plus I learned a good deal. Most pleased with the loss, frankly.

[UnOrthOdOx]

And I continue to learn. Apparantly, loading the autosave to get the above picture zaps all other autosaves... So, I can't get you the final pictures.

Anyway. Founded the capital one tile south because it encompassed more floodplains and hills. Setup to build worker, research bronze.

By the time the worker had finished, I had scouted my second city location to the south, on the coast, tundra, which included in it's radius 2 furs and a deer. I think a fish too.

Bronze finished, switch to slavery.
Worker finish, build settler, choppy choppy.

2nd city up, getting workers up, and out to clear fog, prevent barbs, and I damn near quit seeing the landmass. 3 decent city sites, no copper on the island, the rest plains, hills, tundra, and desert. Furs and spices the only happy resources, and no religion.

At this point I would not blame anyone for trying a CS slingshot. I, however, went the other way. Grabbing Iron Working and then Casting with my free tech on the Oracle. Poprushed some forges everywhere, and with easily accurate prediction, got a Great Prophet in the capital followed by a Great Engineer in my second city a few turns later. Great Engineer built the Library in the capital, and my midgame was powered by the resulting scientists. At one point the capital cranking out some 82 gpp/t. Scientists alternated joining the capital or going towards a tech, and easily powered me to my later tech lead.

My third city built up north to encompass some fish, also got lucky to grab an iron source, and become my production house. Building collossus and great lighthouse. Eventually this site also encompassed Coal and was cranking a beautiful 120 hammer per turn.

From Iron Working, I made a beeline more or less for Astronomy, and DID NOT TRADE IT until I settled an island to the NE with a gorgeous city site with 3 gold sources and floodplains, and one island to the SE that gave me gems and crabs.

It was at this point I became tech leader briefly. Russia went attacking Persia and my warmongering nature KNEW I should go stop Russia. I wanted to play out buildering though.

Eventually got a slew of wonders, most notably the Kremlin, which is absolutely sick in it's power.

So, it was all going great. The mistakes:

• I should have squeezed a few more cities into all my landmasses. This game showed me how powerfull little **** sites workign nothing but water can actually be. Granary, poprush buildings, boom decent commerce income. Lesson learned.
• Micromanagement apathy is a continued plague on my playing in single player. The damn governors really ****ed up my second city site every time growth happened. Losing 10 gpt in the name of growth, and I didn't always catch it, nor was I bright enough to click the 'focus on gold' button. This doesn't plague me in PBEM's though.
• Poor planning on the island hopping. Simply not enough settlers ready. There was another island to the NW I should have also grabbed. Lesson learned.
• Absolute baffoonary: On getting railroads, I clicked a number of workers to 'build trade network. They absolutely KILLED my core where I had forgot I put some cottages on spices LONG ago. Thought I had the 'do not mess with current crap' option enabled. Fixed.

Even with all that, I COULD have won this game, and was leading in the tech race. Russia was voted UN rep or whatever though. And, with the first vote passed world civic: environmentalism. This absolutely raped me financially and took me completely out of the tech race, having been running state property to pay for the cities on far flung islands. Nice job by the AI. This was where I had stopped playing calling it a loss. There was still the possibility of snagging a SS win by attacking russia to slow em down coupled with the Kremlin helping me snag some more wonders. Unfortunately, the save has been lost. It would have been doubtfull I would have been able to protect all my little islands in the event of a full scale attack on one of them though.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Anyway, to address your happiness problems specifically: What level are you playing at? I consistently play with little/no problem at Monarch and only having really 1-2 +happiness things. Be they religion or lux.

Hereditary Rule, Drama, lux enabling tech, and whatever buildings add extra happiness to your existing lux should be your focus.

[rush]

Playing with Frederick

Posted this previously. Might as well grouped it together in this thread.

Tried 4 games yesterday with Frederick (Emperior level, continental setting, played upto beginning of Alphabet/Iron Working). Not that easy to play.

The advantage were 1. creative - border expanded very fast, hence possible to close off chokepoint quickly. 2. Hunting - can build extra scout, better odds with huts, 3. Can chop forest once bronze is found, 4. Axeman rush if copper is nearby.

Disadvantages were 1. started on coast a few times but had no fishing tech, 2. started on island two times, so the scout became quite useless. 3. unable to build cottages for a while, 4. if no copper nearby, then need to learn Archery to build archers to protect against barbs

Most of the time, i found myself moving & settling on a plain hill tile with freshwater (for the extra hammer), built scout, then warrior and changed to worker when population grew to 2, used the worker to chop some trees to build settlers. Researched bronze working at 100% tech rate, which was possible after getting golds from huts. Scouts should end turn on forest, jungle or forest hill tiles for extra protection. After finishing bronze working, what to research depended on the situation, it's usually the wheel to road to the bronze, fishing or agriculture when there were relevant resources, masonary when there was stone or archery when the copper was far away.

Added now : I think my struggle with Frederick is I suck playing Philosophical. Did not have properly plans on how to max GP points and utilize them, and did not use the CS slingshots.

[polarnomad]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Anyway, to address your happiness problems specifically: What level are you playing at? I consistently play with little/no problem at Monarch and only having really 1-2 +happiness things. Be they religion or lux.

Hereditary Rule, Drama, lux enabling tech, and whatever buildings add extra happiness to your existing lux should be your focus.

I play at Prince level, and have been having some difficulty. I have to admit that, to my surprize, I am a timid builderer... this also means that I am generally slow at expanding.

Today, however, I played my best game thus far with Freddy simply because I decided to go all out and destroy Alexander. Currently am at war with Elizabeth and she is springing up bloody redcoats everywhere!

Like rush, I find that I suck at playing Philosophical. I have yet to fully understand the advantages of GP.

Otherwise, I once asked someone to explain the CS slingshot, but got no response... Could someone clarify this for me. I learnt to play Civ on my own without any specific strategies, and only joined Poly in Oct.

UnO, I will try your save sometime tomorrow evening, though I have never attempted Monarch.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Best CS explaination I know of: http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showt...hreadid=147474


I was lost on GP as well until the day it just 'clicked' when I was playing Alexander. This is how I find allot of my play occuring in CIV. Suck, suck, suck, it clicks, and bam, I hardly need to think on it from then on, it's natural.

The thing with philosophical is you want GPP. LOTS of GPP, and you want to try to taylor cities to producing a specific TYPE of GP.

For instance in my game above. Early on I grabbed the Oracle, and got Metal Casting to poprush forges.

My capitol was going to get a Prophet, at 4 points per turn. Not by chance, but because of the Oracle. However, I also KNEW my second city would get an engineer from it's specialist thanks to the forge soon after, gaining 6 points per turn. I used this to my advantage to guide my tech to get Lit the turn I got the Engineer.

Joining the various GP can further specialize your cities already. You want to join them in the right places to maximize the effect. For instance, Prophets or Engineers go great in a production center. With Philosophical you should be getting ALLOT of GP, too. Each one is like working a free extra tile in a city. And, CIV is all about big cities and working lots of tiles.

[rush]

If you don't have too much time to read Velociryx's post, here is a summary.

Scroll down to the post by VirtualM.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=160012

[polarnomad]

Thanks for the links, guys! I looked them over some this morning before I went to work and will have another look at them in a bit. I already learned a few things just from the first glance.

@UnO: Why do you construct cottages on spices?

I took a look at the start location that you posted, and I groaned. How the heck did you even have the patience to continue with the game? I would have taken one look at that and said, "Yeah WHATEVA!"

To tell you the truth I hardly ever make it to the modern age simply because I want to try different strategies all the time, and keep starting over. I have actually only finished 3 games that I've started since I got CivIV in November...

I also realized that I NEVER pop-rush anything... I have to try that out. I guess I'm too nice...

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by polarnomad
@UnO: Why do you construct cottages on spices?

For gold!

Seriously, it's going to be a while before calander anyway, good tiles for cottages early as they get a base commerce boost anyway. Once Calander comes, I only need 1 source for myself, the others were more valuable staying cottages rather than as trade bait in my eyes. This can apply to allot of lux resources. Weigh what the improvement to connect them can do for your city vs another improvement. It's not always best to connect everything.

I took a look at the start location that you posted, and I groaned. How the heck did you even have the patience to continue with the game? I would have taken one look at that and said, "Yeah WHATEVA!"

I said I nearly did. Curiousity got the better of me, and I think I learned a considerable amount from the effort.

To tell you the truth I hardly ever make it to the modern age simply because I want to try different strategies all the time, and keep starting over. I have actually only finished 3 games that I've started since I got CivIV in November...

I'm the same way. Usually retire when it becomes apparant I'll win.

I also realized that I NEVER pop-rush anything... I have to try that out. I guess I'm too nice...

Yeah, Kloreep is coming around nicely on that area, I'm sure I can influence you towards the dark side as well.

[polarnomad]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx

For gold!

Seriously, it's going to be a while before calander anyway, good tiles for cottages early as they get a base commerce boost anyway. Once Calander comes, I only need 1 source for myself, the others were more valuable staying cottages rather than as trade bait in my eyes. This can apply to allot of lux resources. Weigh what the improvement to connect them can do for your city vs another improvement. It's not always best to connect everything.

*slaps himself

I need to start thinking with my head!

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Yeah, Kloreep is coming around nicely on that area, I'm sure I can influence you towards the dark side as well.

Yeeees Maaasta!

[Kloreep]

Actually, I'm coming around to it in Civ3. Civ4 I simply have not played much at all I'm afraid, but I think I'm going to need to be re-convinced. With corruption gone, all population is valuable. Unless you're running a serious worker deficit, the temporary loss of population (and the happiness needed to sustain it) doesn't sound like it will often be of superior benefit. (Though it would always be good for emergency situations, like an invasion by a superior military force.)

[UnOrthOdOx]

Yeah, Kloreep's poprushing and I'm setting up settler pumps and mourning over a lack of workers. We've definately impacted each other's style in Civ III.