Barbarians!

[i_like_salmon]

Hi guys

I've just been v frustrated by CTP1. Playing it for the first time in ages so I've forgotten somethings that I was thinking someone could fill me in on.

I started at 4000BC with England. On the easiest mode with the barbarian threat set to the lowest. I built up my empire, only the Phonecians had anything that remotely even came close.
I had 35 labourers (including entertainers, scientist etc, whatever you call all of them collectively) in Birmingham and London, and about 6 other cities all on the grow, save a couple which were struggling a bit.


This was around 1500 AD and I was just about to start a fully fledged military capaign to take over the world. - made up of about 15 musketeers and 5 cannons. Everyone was intensly happy and everything was thriving. (despite a few anti-war protesters)

Then I was suddenly presented with about 8 messages (one for each city) saying, "the barbarians have taken over *whatever city*".

All my cities were controlled by Barbarians and I was defeated.

SO FRUSTRATING!

Does anyone know how this could have happened. There were no warning signs of any kind, I had a hapinness ranking of around 85 average for my entire civ.

There were somethings that I think might have had something to do with it. About half of my cities had been converted early on in the game to a "bad" religion. Also in one city production was brought to a halt by a lawyer.

So there was definately a lawyer snooping around (although I couldn't see him). I also had pretty extensive trade routes, apart from that I can't think why this happened to my utopia!

Any ideas? Anyone?!!



Thanks in advance for any help!

[Grandpa Troll]

Welcome to Apolyton i_like_salmon



A few points to look at:

Any Wonders could have expired?

Subversive attacks by enemy

Did any civ build a certain wonder?

did you have city walls and if not did slavers take off with citizens?

If you ever build AI Entity, thats a bugger


Did you build a city over the limit of that govt.?

Maybe post a zipped up savee here

Hope this helps somewhat

Grandpa Troll

[i_like_salmon]

Thanks for your help,

I did recently change to another form of government around the time the "incident" occured. So I'm thinking that was probably to blame.

If this is so how can you check how much growth the government can deal with? I had two cities on 35 and I think I may have converted to democracy,

The only wonder I'd completed was the emancipation act or maybe someone else did. I had slavers in two or three of my cities when it was completed, could this have been an issue?

I did have city walls built and due to the emancipation act they were all gone anyway.

I definately didn't build the AI Entity.

I'm still having problems working out how it could have wiped out 7/8 of my civilization in one turn!


In addition to this, is there anyway to protect yourself from enemy clerics converting your cities?


I've attached the zip file, I think it should be about 10 or so turns before.


Cheers

[Keygen]

With the information provided I can think of two reasons:

1) You had slaves within the revolting cities when a rival civilization built the "Emancipation Act".

2) You had lot of war discontent citizens and when switched to Democracy - the government type that suffers a lot from war wariness - and your cities revolted as a result.

[Keygen]

I reviewed your turn (I didn't see the attachement earlier) and none of the above was an issue. What I got, several turns after I switched to Democracy, is a message that citizens revolted due to lack of income. I kept the sliders in their default position (I noticed that was what you did with the previous government type) and also kept the building queue when possible intact.

In few words you lead your civilization into bankruptcy. Always keep an eye in your income. And don't try to build capitol to all cities as only one city can have one at a time.

[Keygen]

To analyze it a little further, your wages' slider was automatically moved to the left to deal with the ablsolute lack of gold and the negative income. Moving the sliders right and left influence happiness positively or negatively. In your case the latter, which resulted into a revolution for the cities that their happiness level dropped way down the allowable bound (73).

[i_like_salmon]

Thanks for all your help guys

Ok so to review:

I just need to make sure I only build a capitol in one city in my civilization, and to ensure that I don't go bankrupt!

One more question. Where it specifies the amount of gold, does green mean + and red mean - or is that your income for the turn or what?

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by i_like_salmon
One more question. Where it specifies the amount of gold, does green mean + and red mean - or is that your income for the turn or what?

where do you see this?

[i_like_salmon]

The part where it says how much gold you have. I find that some times the amount of gold is either red or green. I'm not sure what this means.

[Keygen]

Originally posted by i_like_salmon

I just need to make sure I only build a capitol in one city in my civilization...

A capital is automatically created when you build your very first city, your capital that is

So you don't really need to build a capital.

However as soon as you start building other cities keep in mind that the further away from your capitol a city is the more unhappiness it suffers, so depending on the geography and the expansion pattern you choose you might consider building a new capital in a more central city to balance unhappiness.

[Keygen]

Originally posted by i_like_salmon

The part where it says how much gold you have. I find that some times the amount of gold is either red or green. I'm not sure what this means.

If your gold is red it means your expenses were greater than your income for that particular turn. That can happen a) if your total earnings are less than your total expenditures which is dangerous (what happened to your case) or b) when you spend a greater amount of gold to rush buy units or buildings in your cities than you earned in a turn.

When your gold is green it means your income is greater than your expences which is healthy

Keep your gold green

[Keygen]

Just a couple of fundamental tips for better results.

The more cities you build and the bigger they grow the better, keeping always in mind each government type's limitation and be able to control unhappiness caused by population (it comes into play in larger cities and higher difficulty levels). Also try to build cities with two or more goods of a kind within its radious, construct marketplaces and bank in them, and send goods (up to 4 is the limit) of the same kind from other cities using caravans. The more cities like this you have the greater income (and higher research rates) you will have. Specialists (what you call workers and that is what they are when working a tile), world wonders and buildings can also improve science as well.

Visit the Multiplayer section and read the Multiplayer Strategy Guide for more tips and tricks.

[i_like_salmon]

OK cool thanks for all your help guys!

[Keygen]

You're welcome