Sisiutil: not one of your best games and the fates weren't kind. Everyone has a naff game from time to time and that's just how it is. Not so easy when its public.

The ALC does generate a lot of suggestions, often contradictory, good as a brainstorm but not so good as a template.You still have to pick out the appropriate ideas and fit them into a coherent strategy.

More fogbusting would have helped at the start. You may also have benefitted from being more cautious in diplomacy, you weren't in a position to alienate anyone. Better in those situations to take the cr*p until you've caught up: revenge is a dish best served cold.

I do think that as the series continues you should take what the map throws at you and adapt your game to the situation, that includes playing virtual pangeas and isolated starts. You may not always get to showcase a particular leader's strengths but you do get to showcase versatility in adapting to a difficult environment using the leader's strengths.

Nothing I can really add, everyone covered what little I might have had to offer already. :(

But, I do offer this:

:salute:

I used to try and prolong the "inevitable" in my Starcraft games - one of them I actually came back to win because the guy I was playing was less of a strategic thinker and just learned the rote "He has X, so you build Y" order of battle. But I always like seeing someone take a last desperate stand and die fighting if he/she must die at all. Well fought! :goodjob:

REMEMBER THE ALAMO! No, wait...REMEMBER MARSIN! :mad:

(I already forgot its previous name :lol:

PS Hanging on like that used to really piss off the live players I was playing - I even got a disconnect on one of them by dragging the game out. :crazyeye:

I hate Huayna Capac. He's just that hard to get along with. Even Cathy is a lot easier to please. Maybe I just have a thing for volatile, difficult girls :mischief:

I'll also be avoiding isolated starts. Though it was worthwhile to try one, it doesn't allow me to highlight the leaders' unique characteristics to their best advantage, which is the whole raison d'etre for the ALC series.

Maybe you should have tried in an offline game ;) Still, it's good to see some valiant effort rather than a case of mopping the floor with the AI.

after this is done do a new game with mehmed. this was not fair.

Another reason getting Monarchy early for a CE is that you wind up with better power rating inadvertantly just by constantly making troops for happiness. It's always an early priority for me anyway, but especially when isolated. Monarchy will take you a lot farther early than spending all the turns on COL and Civil Service, etc. The extra cottages being worked will make those research paths come quicker anyway. I also like to head for Optics when I'm isolated. The sooner I meet the rest of everyone, the better. Plus the navagation bonus is key in either defending my land or helping me go take theirs.

That all being said, still much credit for you Sis. You'd more than likely kick my @** most of the time. Your threads (along with some others around here) are part of the reason I can beat monarch games even though I never even heard of Civilization until this past Christmas.

Nothing I can really add, everyone covered what little I might have had to offer already. :(

But, I do offer this:

:salute:

I used to try and prolong the "inevitable" in my Starcraft games - one of them I actually came back to win because the guy I was playing was less of a strategic thinker and just learned the rote "He has X, so you build Y" order of battle. But I always like seeing someone take a last desperate stand and die fighting if he/she must die at all. Well fought! :goodjob:

REMEMBER THE ALAMO! No, wait...REMEMBER MARSIN! :mad:

(I already forgot its previous name :lol:

PS Hanging on like that used to really piss off the live players I was playing - I even got a disconnect on one of them by dragging the game out. :crazyeye:
Oooh...that's fun once and a while. Some players have even asked me if I was an AI or not. The best fun was playing one of those Starship Trooper maps. We were losing slowly, but stayed to the bitter end. That was awesome...so many Zerg, and our little guys holding heroically and suicidally in the middle...

A tough loss, but as they say "you can't win 'em all."
Mehmed and the Ottomans are the primary reason I want to buy warlords. I was sad to see the Siphai go(they made early industrial warfare oh so fun), but they still look ready to conquer in warlords. This game, although unsucessful, was still an excellent look into how to, and how NOT to, play and isolated start. A loss fought valiantly is more instructive than a victory easy to obtain.



A lot of fun though. PLEASE start the next pre-game thread so we can discuss the next game as Cyrus while you recover your bruised ego as Rome so that when we're ready, we can conquer with the power that was Persia

Thank you for playing out a terrible situation. I've often thought that my game would have gotten better if some of the losing games had been played a couple dozen more turns. Sadly, those good intentions went the way many do, and a lot of early games were ended simply because I lost the race to Hinduism! A tip of the hat, and more . . .

If you have Horses close by, Cyrus is an even better leader than the Romans to get some payback on the AI :sniper: On the land heavy maps I prefer (Pangaea, Oasis, etc), I've taken out one opponent and crippled another in the first fifty turns or so. What an irony-- if you get Horses, you could turn a start with two AIs on a continent into an isolated start if you go at it hammer and tongs. Hopefully you'll get a Pangaea, and I'll get to see how you handle diplomacy when all the opponents are known before the ADs start.

I'll agree with the "a loss is more instructive than a win" crowd. How often have we mostly been saying after these threads "well, you could have done x instead of y, and won 5 turns faster with a slightly higher score." It's nice to see some more analysis of how to win in the first place.

Aside: I just played a standard Pangaea game, and there were NO horses. Not just none close to me, but none in the world. Anyone ever have that little oddity occur?

I'll agree with the "a loss is more instructive than a win" crowd. How often have we mostly been saying after these threads "well, you could have done x instead of y, and won 5 turns faster with a slightly higher score." It's nice to see some more analysis of how to win in the first place.

Aside: I just played a standard Pangaea game, and there were NO horses. Not just none close to me, but none in the world. Anyone ever have that little oddity occur?

Have you research AH (Animal Husbary (can't spell it :S)) that might be your problem because horses aren't revealed until you researched that tech.

Or it could be a custom made map where there are no horses

Agreed -- try Mehmed again. There wasn't really a chance to see him shine here.


Waldo

Just out of curiosity I decided to try this same map again last night. Granted I know some stuff I normally wouldn't, but I tried to play it honestly. I founded the 2nd city in between the copper and cows and already had the road between it and the capital in place, so I had Axemen available quickly. The barbs were not nearly as much of an issue as they were the first time around. I ignored all wonders and focussed on expansion and getting a cottage economy off the ground.

Even so, Cathy showed up and was miles ahead of me as in the first run-through. She discovered Liberalism and took Astronomy as her free tech while I was still researching Machinery (I had CS already). I ended the game there, seeing a repeat of the previous ending in the offing.

I'm thinking of giving it one more go with a Specialist Economy just to see if that will put me in a more competetive position vis-a-vis the AI when they show up, though I have my doubts. It's hard to compete with the AI when they get such a fabulous start and yours sucks. :sad:

Just out of curiosity I decided to try this same map again last night. Granted I know some stuff I normally wouldn't, but I tried to play it honestly. I founded the 2nd city in between the copper and cows and already had the road between it and the capital in place, so I had Axemen available quickly. The barbs were not nearly as much of an issue as they were the first time around. I ignored all wonders and focussed on expansion and getting a cottage economy off the ground.

Even so, Cathy showed up and was miles ahead of me as in the first run-through. She discovered Liberalism and took Astronomy as her free tech while I was still researching Machinery (I had CS already). I ended the game there, seeing a repeat of the previous ending in the offing.

I'm thinking of giving it one more go with a Specialist Economy just to see if that will put me in a more competetive position vis-a-vis the AI when they show up, though I have my doubts. It's hard to compete with the AI when they get such a fabulous start and yours sucks. :sad:

I tried a shadow game of yours (CE) oracling COL and expanding like mad. When i first met civs i had expanded all over both islands, and was tech leader. (Cathy still declared on me later on, since i went builder mode and had almost no military.. of course i quited then :p, so i lost too :()

It's winnable but it would be hard, as you said it was stacked against you. I don't know why everybody suggests SE to keep up with AI teching on isolated starts, from my experience it's about getting the $$ up as soon as possible. :) From a CE view the capital was good and was a good cash city for me at least.
And stay away from archery! :D Horses/copper is the way to go vs barbs.

But better luck next time :) Make sure you have Cathy in the next game for some sweet payback ;)

I don't know why everybody suggests SE to keep up with AI teching on isolated starts, from my experience it's about getting the $$ up as soon as possible. :) From a CE view the capital was good and was a good cash city for me at least.

An SE gives you a reasonable chance to do pointy stick research and win the Liberalism race for free Nationalism. From there, you can beeline to Democracy (at least some of the other civs would probably have met you by now, so you can backfill). A full-fledged CE can be set up very quickly with Emancipation. This strategy helps to ensure that you're not playing a desperate catch up game.

An SE gives you a reasonable chance to do pointy stick research and win the Liberalism race for free Nationalism. From there, you can beeline to Democracy (at least some of the other civs would probably have met you by now, so you can backfill). A full-fledged CE can be set up very quickly with Emancipation. This strategy helps to ensure that you're not playing a desperate catch up game.

I usually spend 2 scientists when running my CE before Liberalism. One for academy in best $$ city and one for bulbing philosophy. That is usually enough for me :)
(does this make my economy hybrid?)
I've won the Liberalism race 90% of the time with this strategy. (the times i lose it usually because of excessive warmongering)

I usually spend 2 scientists when running my CE before Liberalism. One for academy in best $$ city and one for bulbing philosophy. That is usually enough for me :)
(does this make my economy hybrid?)
I've won the Liberalism race 90% of the time with this strategy. (the times i lose it usually because of excessive warmongering)

Hybrid is fine. My definition of an SE is one where you consistently run (not free) specialists in at least a few of your major cities. This is a natural thing for a GP farm, but you could use some scientists to help put in beakers for your pointy stick research, especially early on. You are limited to 2 per city for a long time.

I tried a shadow game of yours (CE) oracling COL and expanding like mad. When i first met civs i had expanded all over both islands, and was tech leader. (Cathy still declared on me later on, since i went builder mode and had almost no military.. of course i quited then :p, so i lost too :()

It's winnable but it would be hard, as you said it was stacked against you. I don't know why everybody suggests SE to keep up with AI teching on isolated starts, from my experience it's about getting the $$ up as soon as possible. :) From a CE view the capital was good and was a good cash city for me at least.
And stay away from archery! :D Horses/copper is the way to go vs barbs.

But better luck next time :) Make sure you have Cathy in the next game for some sweet payback ;)

Going SE dont mean you cant have cottages, at least in your capital.
In my own attempt i could have reached liberalism first without any problem if i had not invested some unneeded turns in avoidable techs. I did some very weedy moves with diplo so was doomed, but that is only my fault, the game was winnable at that point.

SE first rules via lightbulbing if you are phil, but also by the shear size of your cities. Problem of CE is that growth is slow, or you cant build any infra without whipping hard, hence reducing your cities to pityfull sizes.

With SE you solve the problem elegantly, just by firing the scientist when wanting to grow. there is a very big difference with having a +3 or a +6 surplus. More, Memhed traits and UB give an advantage for early bigger cities, so SE leverage that in a way not reachable via CE. With HR, cities size 12 or more in the early AD are acheivable, and very powerfull.

In the late game (post emancipation), CE is better true, but in that case, all is decided in the early part.

Problem of CE is that growth is slow, or you cant build any infra without whipping hard, hence reducing your cities to pityfull sizes.

This getting off topic, but I don't really see why this should be true. If your city size is 6 (for example), then you're working at most 6 cottages. What's preventing you from building a couple farms on some of the remaining 14 tiles that you work during high growth phases? Later on, when you have enough population that you can actually work all of your tiles, then you can convert those farms into cottages, but a cottage economy doesn't mean you aren't allowed to irrigate.

nothing is more honorable than retirement (civ's answer to sepoku) ~ :goodjob: w/what you had ~ the phrase "making bricks without straw" springs to mind.

At least you'll get your own back next game; Cyrus was MADE for smashy-smashy :hammer:

Let's all hope that cathy and Huyana end up close by, they need to be taught a lesson. Cyrus's immortals are like war chariots except they can fortify so you don't need to produce any other units unless you're attacking hilled, walled, or old holy cities.

I gave the start another try tonight and fared much better with a Specialist Economy, and probably would have fared even better if I was more skilled and experienced with the SE. I didn't play all the way through, of course--just to when I was making contact with the other civs. Monty and Huayna contacted me first (Monty won the circumnav race), but I was the one whose Caravels contacted everybody else. Oh, I also managed to hook up that stone quickly and built both the Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens! :D

I was able to trade several lightbulbed techs to near-parity with the AI; I suspect if I'd kept going I would have overtaken them. If I'd kept going I probably would have tried aelf's trick of bee-lining to Democracy, then shifting gears to an Emancipation-powered cottage economy.

Lesson learned: when isolated, the CE just takes too long to get going. Even if you're not Philosophical, the SE is the way to go in the early game.

"Running a Specialist Economy when not Philosophical" would be a good article.

Anyway, looking forward to the next game.

cheers,


Waldo

There were a few mistakes I saw with the game, but first, the ones that aren't a mistake:

- The oracle was not a mistake. It's a very "meat-and-potatoes" wonder, and courthouses for an organized leader is very useful.
- Second city: I suggested horses, but copper won't be wrong either
- internet beeline attempt: duh.

The mistakes:
- not building warriors or not researching archery. I usually have 2-3 warriors per city if I'm not doing a rush against an enemy, just in case the RNG tries to do anything funny. Fogbusting is also useful. They aren't useless against archers, and axeman don't really show up until you do have a strategic resource. If no strategic resource, research archery.
- not beelining for liberalism. No AI should ever beat you to liberalism when the human player makes a dedicated effort. You don't even have to take astronomy with liberalism, just take anything you can get your hands on, since you'll need optics badly anyway.
- Specialist economy: 'nuff sad.
- Diplomacy: check the AI every few turns to see whether "we have enough on our hands right now". Maceman could've held off for a while.

I've started the pre-game thread for the next game HERE (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5398634).

Lesson learned: when isolated, the CE just takes too long to get going. Even if you're not Philosophical, the SE is the way to go in the early game.

I don't think that's a fair conclusion to draw based on your limited experience.

I think there's a consensus that SE is strong early and CE is strong late. The main issue with an SE is that if you can't find a way to win the game early you need to make a very tricky SE->CE transition in the mid-game. In your case you used an SE to stay competitive early but then quit the game before dealing with the hard part :( . All you offered was a rather cavalier comment that you would have done a bee-line to Democracy before switching to a CE. There's no doubt that expert players can pull this off, but most can't (including me). I don't think it's fair to conclude that SE is the way to go until you've actually played the game out to some sort of a victory (other than diplomatic).

Personally I think CE is the way to go with this start. If you're going to have to win the game late you might as well use the economy that is strongest in the late game. I think the fundamental problem with the way you played the game was that you didn't expand properly. I understand that the barbs caused problems early, but by the 580 BC save the barbs seemed to be under control and yet you only founded 4 cities in the next 100+ turns. You didn't start REXing until 1100 AD, and that's just too late. Also you didn't prioritize founding the right cities. Despite knowing that economy was going to be the big problem in the game you left some of your best commerce cities for last.

I played a shadow game starting from your 2260 BC save and focused on founding the commerce cities as quickly as possible once barbs were under control. When I met the AIs I was behind in tech (but not as bad as you were), I was last in power and last in GNP, but my economy was getting better each turn. I got lucky as I didn't get attacked until 1709, but if I had been attacked in 1448 as you were at least I would have had Janissaries. Eventually I ended up #1 in GNP and power and reached tech parity with the AIs. I allowed myself to get distracted by a war with Cathy (during which you'll be glad to hear she lost several cities ;) ) until WW forced me to make peace. After that I finished off the game with a space race win in 1923.

I'm not saying that the game can't be won with an SE, but I think it will require more skill than needed for a CE based win.

The main issue with an SE is that if you can't find a way to win the game early you need to make a very tricky SE->CE transition in the mid-game. In your case you used an SE to stay competitive early but then quit the game before dealing with the hard part :( . All you offered was a rather cavalier comment that you would have done a bee-line to Democracy before switching to a CE. There's no doubt that expert players can pull this off, but most can't (including me). I don't think it's fair to conclude that SE is the way to go until you've actually played the game out to some sort of a victory (other than diplomatic).The SE to CE transition isn't actually that horrendous once you've got democracy for emancipation. You just need a decent number of workers (which can be built quickly enough at that stage if you need more - especially with the potential food surplus in your best cities).

At that stage of the game you'd likely be running representation anyway (possibly free religion too) so the main hit you're taking is swapping caste system for emancipation. Use teams of workers to cottage farms in your most developed cities and sure, there may be a bit of a slowdown for 20-30 turns, but once things start to fire up you'll slingshot ahead without a problem.

The SE to CE transition isn't actually that horrendous once you've got democracy for emancipation. You just need a decent number of workers (which can be built quickly enough at that stage if you need more - especially with the potential food surplus in your best cities).

At that stage of the game you'd likely be running representation anyway (possibly free religion too) so the main hit you're taking is swapping caste system for emancipation. Use teams of workers to cottage farms in your most developed cities and sure, there may be a bit of a slowdown for 20-30 turns, but once things start to fire up you'll slingshot ahead without a problem.

I understand the part about using workers to replace the farms with cottages. The problem I have is how do you get to Democracy soon enough, keeping in mind that the SE is getting weaker at this stage and that a true bee-line for Democracy would leave you without military techs unless you can trade.

I know that in the general case proponents of SE talk about using SE to gain an early advantage so they're making the transition from a position of strength. In this case the isolated start doesn't allow any way to leverage the early strength of SE. If you're playing catch up in techs with the AI as you head to Democracy you won't be able to trade for any military techs, and we saw how well ignoring military works ;) .

I'm not saying that the transition isn't doable, but I don't think that most Monarch level players would consider it to be easy.

There's a difference between ignoring the military and ignoring military techs. If you've got Catapults and Macemen in sufficient number, you're going to be able to hold off most armies up until Riflemen, because the AI won't land enough of them. So you can build up your military, you just won't have the more advanced units.

Bh

That, and having military plus walls (cheaper with stone) to boost your power rating as a deterrant. Unfortunately I don't know how much you need to act as an effective deterrant, but being leagues below everyone else as Sisiutil was in this game doesn't help.

I know that in the general case proponents of SE talk about using SE to gain an early advantage so they're making the transition from a position of strength. In this case the isolated start doesn't allow any way to leverage the early strength of SE. If you're playing catch up in techs with the AI as you head to Democracy you won't be able to trade for any military techs, and we saw how well ignoring military works ;) .

I'm not saying that the transition isn't doable, but I don't think that most Monarch level players would consider it to be easy.

I don't understand what's so difficult about it. The key to the Democracy beeline is grabbing Nationalism for free with Liberalism. First, you get an expensive tech for less (comparing the beaker costs of Nationalism and Liberalism). Second, you research an important branch of the tech tree (the CS/Education route) that you need. And, lastly, you will have valuable techs with which to backfill for military techs like Machinery and Engineering. The AIs are not going to attack you right away when you meet them. In between first contact and tech trading and the AIs posing a serious threat, you have enough time to build up or update your military. If you do this right, the AIs are not going to have grenadiers on you (it's Monarch, so this is hardly possible if you were the one winning the Liberalism race). And, for Mehmed, you have Janissaries to help you out during this period, when the AI still has piles of older units.

It's not that hard. Have you tried it?

I loved it. Learned a lot too ;)

I ran a hybrid economy pretty much throughout my shadow. This wasn't really an issue. I think the keys to this game (from my experience at least) were early fogbusting, early rex (I stopped expanding when research was down to 30%, I should have carried on until research was 10%) and staying neutral and inoffensive during the catch up period. If you don't annoy people they're less likely to go through the hassle of an oceanic invasion when they have neighbours they can invade instead.