Hi.

For the ones expecting pretty advices, read some other article, this one is just a log of some observations from an apprentice :-)

Eager to learn new things, I read the post of VirusMonster about 500k+ game. So I started like him : Caesar (the good one ;)), a big map and normal pace (I don't have enough time for a marathon game), and monarch (because that's more than what I have ever overcome at this game !)

In fact, I started the game twice. First time, it started pretty well, I stole a worker from Ragnar, then crushed him, but was later annoyed by Napoleon. Reading a bit more, I restarted the game, this time applying much more whipping, and REALLY, I learned something ! This is completely new to me !

Then, I switched to an hybrid economy, as mentionned in the book. Well, I thought it was an hybrid economy... but when I read the tutorial on HE, I saw that the definition is science from cottages, and wealth from specialist. Funny thing, I did exactly the contrary ! Probably because I had writing way before currency !

Now this is also very new to me. Just after learning cottage spamming, I learned that it in fact sucks, and that in this game, food is everything ! Hammers through whipping, economy through specialists...

Another thing I learned is that it's much more micromanaging that I used to do. Quite exciting at the beginning, but then it becomes quite heavy with a rolling 10 cities ! How do you guys remember when to whip a city to prevent unhappiness or something else ?

Now more remarks : after my initial pretorians rush (really, those pretorians are beasts against archers, but quite ineffective against axemen... next time I will focus a little less on city raider promotions, and will build a few cover pretorians !), after first two wars (against the gentle Ragnar, really, does this men EVER gets upset ??? and Napoleon, silly bastard, took two ONE SQUARE islands not to be crushed immediatly, I had to research a few water techs to eliminate him :-P), my economy was a wreck, but after a few turns of regrowing and hybrid economy, it went back quite well. The postponing of ALL the science to after the first war is also quite new to me :)

Now I'm ahead, Justinien is second, having vassaled Staline after I went after him. I have two excellent friends, Ramses (I converted to his religion, then to buddism to prevent a loss from the pagode, then, after being elected president, back to hinduism to be close friend with Ramses) and Wang Chu, or something like that, who, quite strangely, has NO RELIGION !

I can see I still have problems dealing with the middle game : especially focusing on city specialization (which I started quite lately, except for the choice of my science city), and not building everything everywhere. But my economy is quite strong : after acquiring Scientific method, I'm still at 670 beakers a turn (at 0% science rate) and +250 gold per turn... I'm proud of that, but surely one can do way better, and it's only Monarch !

I went back to war against Staline, and Justinien, but this time they both have quite strong units, it will not be so easy. I'm beelining to tanks, because I like it so much, but maybe I could win before that.

In the process, I gave quite a lot of techs to Ramses and my other friend. They are quite behind in score, I hope they won't rush to space win. I think I will go for a diplomatic victory, but there is still many turns before that (1650 now, going for Facism).

I'll post the remaining of this log tomorrow, or maybe the day after... if I win !

In the meantime, if you have advices about all this, they want be greatly appreciated !

\bye

As I mentioned last night, I'm not very good in the middle game.

I continued my "hybrid" economy, quite well : in 1800, I'm at about a thousand beakers per turn, roughly independent of the slider position (from 750 to 1200), and my economy is positive at about 30%. I focused a few coins to espionage, explained later.

I beelined to riffle, and then Tanks. On the way, I was forced to research Democracy to avoid big penalties from emancipation. I suspect Wang Cheon (my best friend, remember ?) is the one who opted for that civic ! 6 unhappy people in a single town after a few turns... Really, that's big ! BTW, I forgot to mention that as it is a learning game, I reloaded when I saw what this cost me.

At about exactly the same date, Justinien, having become first on score, thanks to his two vassals (Ramses is now the second) declared war to me, and sent me a huge stack of doom : about 12 units equally shared between his special horsemen and riffles, and 14 (14 !) grenaders (hope it's the same name in english ?). I countered with canons and infantry, but it was close. My capital built units like hell (with 15XP, thanks to the settled GG), and the captured capital from Ragnar helped too.

When his attack failed... ahh, so good it was to counter-attack, crushing 2 of his towns, one from Ramses and another from Staline (who, BTW, is my strongest opponent, strangely, being last on score with the best units !).

After showing strength with my first tanks, I offered peace to Justinien, who lost his first place in spite of his two vassals :-P

Since espionage looks quite attractive those days, I focused some energy on Espionage Points. But I don't know what good it does to me. I have a spy city, with all improvements... And I use some spies to remove city defences when I attack, but that's all : no science stolen, no over spying miracle... I'll have to read more to understand this.

Now I'm back in first place. Speaking of religion, I had to switch back to buddism, because Justinien regained the Palace. I'm going to beeline to the tech obsoleting this . .. .. .. ., I hate it, it's too powerful in my opinion, and it arrives too soon. And mind you, you're against ALL the AIs, it seems ! I improved my diplomacy, but not enough, clearly :-P

Wang Cheon has about half my score, but he gets all the wonders, and we are about at the same tech level. I'm afraid HE could win the space race. One more reason to build the UN fast. Mind you, he's a very close friend of mine, we both attacked against the trio Justinien-Ramses-Staline, and he helped me a lot. But he clearly manage to keep some energy for science AND wonders !

Tomorrow, this game will be finished, one way or another. If I loose, I loose, but it will have been a great learning game :-)

Hope this was not too annoying for the guy who read up to here !

\bye

How do you guys remember when to whip a city to prevent unhappiness or something else ?

Get the BUG mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=268), among others, it shows:
* City X can whip Granary for 2 pop and 12 overflow;
* City Y will become unhappy next turn.

It's improved the fun level of the game a lot for me, and now I can use Slavery to its potential.

Nice write-up, good luck with your win :)

So there it is. My first win at Monarch level !

Of course, the score is ridiculous : 33000 :cry: But it's a big step, you know ? I learned a lot from this game. But back to the log.

Where was I ? Ho, yes, war was going well against the trio Justinien-Ramses-Staline. After a few turns of recovery, I decided to wipe out Staline from the map. My huge tanks stack took, helped with some bombers, took care of this. One less opp' to vote for Justinien at the elections.

I beelined to the UN to be able, but took Staline too late, so Justinien came out from the elections :cry: That's the time when I decided to wipe Staline out, and weaken Justinien. Ramses is too far to be fought before I wipe Justinien out.

Then, it was a simple matter of attacking, taking cities from Justinien, to build a domination victory, while in the meantime beelining to the spaceship, just in case, and wait for an eventual UN vote in my favor.

Domination came first :)

A few things I learned (beside about EVERYTHING) in this game : clearly, I was to shy in my initial Pretorian rush. I could have made more damages, but the diplomatic situation took me away from my initial plan (well, VirusMonster's plan, in fact, thank for the great article :) I could also have prevented two of my soft targets to become Justinien's vassals. It could have quicken the victory.

Speaking of speed, I think marathon helps a lot here if you want a domination or conquest victory : clearly there is more turns of war between each tech, so much more cities to be taken sooner. I'll think of it in my next game (which may be a Quechua rush, or something like this, but definitely I'd like another kind of economy. AND a noble game, or better :cool:).

I'm still quite unsure about all the points I invested in espionage. At the end of the game, I had about 8000 treasury, I pumped about 2000 beakers a turn (with the help of some research in the cities I couldn't find anything valuable to build in), and 750 EP. What did I do with those EP ? Well... nothing very interesting. Of course, I triggered a few revolts to soften the cultural walls during some city raids, but that was about all the visible part of it. I caught a few enemy spies... Not sure this was well invested.

Religion was better treated, I think. I opted for hinduism (from Ramses) the very first turn I saw it on my land (I had been wishing for this quite for quite a long time), then switched from buddism to hinduism and back when the situation asked for it.

At the end, I had a few problems due to the fact that my investment in naval weapons was too shy. So a few valuable sea resources were wasted. Quite hard to think about everything with all those cities. I have two choices here : try the BUG/BAT mod (thanks Mike :)), or win sooner ;) I definitely want to choose option... two :lol:

I still have to enhance my middle game (the "renaissance", and the two eras close to it), because I feel like I don't have anything interesting to do in those eras. And I definitely don't want to micromanage more than I did in this game ! Or I have to use some sort of organisation tool to help me with it (still the BUG option).

And I could also be better in the tech exchange and resources trading part of the diplomacy.

So here it is. You know what ? I'm happy. And tired ;)

I hope this can be of any value to someone. If not... well, that's also the good part of CIV : tell stories of great victories like true Klingons, for endless drinky nights :D

\bye