Space 5 - Old hands can be newbs too, getting back in the game

[ainwood]

From north to south 6,2,6. The source in Venice is 6. Isn't it the case that there are two irons per hammer?

No (well, not as far as i know, but you could be right). AFAIK the hammers are a function of the base terrain type, and whether there is a mine.

By the way - buying the iron tile to the south would be a good idea, to stop Venice getting it.

 

[gozpel]

lurker's comment: Space Station have got 8 iron. So if you like to take over this continent, I think 8 longswords would do the trick!

Cities like SS will just explode when you play further, so for your shortcomings in happiness, there is a choice to make. Will you buy happy from City-states or grab happiness from your neighbours?

I'm waiting with abated breath, this is a nice map and 3 jealous AI's.

 

[TedJackson]

OK, I've got the save.

Will catch up later today and probably play tomorrow evening.


Ted

 

[mad-bax]

If we get the hanging gardens done, I do like the idea of building swords and taking the French out.

I am also not sure what role these little independent states play. How do we make them work for us?
How does puppeting work?

 

[gozpel]

lurker's comment: You can attack one CS as far as I know and take it, if you attack another CS you might be in eternal war with all the rest of them, except your allied ones. Looooong time since I played Vanilla.

In G&K there are far more quests to help the CS, so basically in this game, you have to wait for quests to open up or just invest money. Which is very expensive early on, so maybe by checking the CS's every now and again will make you what quests are on.

@mad-bax, sure swords can do the damage too, but being patient and building up your empire too can be a winner. THEN the Longswords take over the world.

 

[leif erikson]

Oh, how beautiful, look at all that Iron.
Suggest we immediately spend 110 Gold to purchase the Iron tile west of Venice before they claim it. Can never have enough Iron in this game, especially if we need it to build siege units.

And Cathy at war with Nappy is an invitation to take Nappy's capital with its Spices and Wine.

There are now two choices on how to proceed:
1. War and taking out our opponents on our land mass.

or

2. Civilization development. Build Libraries in Ted's Keep and SS and research Currency, Trapping, Philosophy (National College = +50% Science and +3 beakers/turn) and then Civil Service (Pikes plus food from farm increased by 1 with access to fresh water) will make Ted's Keep and SS explode with population)

I am also not sure what role these little independent states play. How do we make them work for us?

If we get them to friendly or allied, we get the use of their resources (happy and strategic) and they provide us something depending upon what their specialty is. For example, militaristic CS provides us with units while a Maritime CS provides our capital with additional food.

How does puppeting work?

From the Civilopedia:
If you make a conquered city a puppet, you gain the benefit of the city's research and its output of Gold, while taking a much smaller hit to your citizen's happiness. However, you do not control the city's production. It makes the buildings it chooses and creates no new units nor wonders. Thus, you will have to provide for its defense, and if you want to make the city more efficient, you'll have to order your civilization's Workers to improve its land. You can annex a puppet city at any time by clicking on the city banner.

 

[mad-bax]

It was certainly a good call to found Space Station there.

I'm happy that we have the opportunity to fight a successful campaign.

 

[Optional]

You can annex a puppet city at any time by clicking on the city banner.

lurker's comment: Yes, when you first grab a city you always puppet it (if you're not razing). It'll be in resistance for a while first and do nothing for you at all. When it's out of resistance it'll go on gold focus, meaning your citizens will work tiles with gold on them first. You cannot change this for a puppeted town, but it's not too bad anyway. You can let your workers make trade posts to even increase the gold output.

A small town is normally left a puppet. Annexing increases increases unhappiness and culture cost of new policies. Also some buildings, like the National College, require a type of building to be built in all your towns - for the National College you need a library everywhere. But for puppeted towns you don't need to worry about this.
If a town is really great, with great production, like a capital, I would still like to control it (meaning annexing). Then the first thing needed there normally is courthouse, to lower unhappiness. A courthouse is expensive to maintain, so that's another reason to not annex smaller towns.

...if I'm explaining something you already know, then please forgive me!

That's my posts as well! I'm assuming I'm stating the obvious for most, but there are a few here who aren't vets of Civ 5.

 

[leif erikson]

That's my posts as well! I'm assuming I'm stating the obvious for most, but there are a few here who aren't vets of Civ 5.

Or who may be but play G&K, so forget all the vanilla rules.

 

[mad-bax]

I am grateful for all advice. This is my first game, and the whole idea is to learn it from scratch. Doing it in an SG is both fun and a quick way to learn. So, thanks to everyone who is contributing to that.

 

[AlanH]

Don't worry about stating the obvious as far as I'm concerned. You can accurately assume I know absolutely nothing about this game.

 

[gozpel]

Don't worry about stating the obvious as far as I'm concerned. You can accurately assume I know absolutely nothing about this game.

lurker's comment: This is where I should shut the h**l up! I keep on forgetting that this is a newbie game, except for one or 2 players, that knows some stuff.

So I apologize for giving hints that are not in the "team-spirit"!

Someone mentioned swords, right? Well, you have the chance to make them now and go for France to put a dint in them. Can you afford a war right now or can you not?

This question has been in all my SG-games, either my own or when invited. It is a very relevant question. Think about it.

I've played with Optional in a couple of games on G&K, and he understands the game in the same way as many players from CIV3 did then, the mathematicians. He knows the stuff I never cared about, so against me me he would probably win.

I'm carefree and want to have fun, not calculate every number, except playing CIV3 and creating 22 cities by turn 1000BC. "ramblings over!"

You have some great decisions to make here.

 

[ainwood]

If we get the hanging gardens done, I do like the idea of building swords and taking the French out.

Me too!

I am also not sure what role these little independent states play. How do we make them work for us?
How does puppeting work?

OK - my recollection is a bit sketchy, lacking in detail, and confused between vanilla and Gods & Kings, but let me try anyway...

City states are like little independent civs, except that they don't build settlers. They progress at a tech rate ~ on par with probably the top-quartile (can't remember the exact details), and under 1upt (one unit per tile) they are actually pretty good at defending themselves. I have actually seen city states take on other cities states and other civs and put some serious dents in them. Don't underestimate them.

In terms of the game mechanic, the vanilla version city states are a bit bland. Essentially, you do things that they want you to do (which are limited to attacking other city states or barbs, gifting units or gold and perhaps road to them - I can't remember what "quests" are in the vanilla version; its greatly expanded (for the better) in G&K) to earn influence. The more influence you get, the better the rewards. 30 influence makes you "friends", which gives you a minor benefit based on they type of city state (maritime, militaristic etc). Higher friendship levels make you allies etc (note that the city states can only be allied to one civ, and that will be the one with the greatest influence), and allie bonuses are better, including them sharing whatever resources they have with you - and they always have at least one luxury resource.

It is actually entirely possible to ignore city states in games, and playing vanilla I used to largely do this. However, they do have their usefulness (particularly in diplo games). The "problem" is doing enough to keep them happy and maintain freindships (particularly if you don't have a lot of commerce to bribe them, but gifting units can work).

Puppets are different. When you conquer a city, you have the option of razing it, creating a puppet, or Annexing it.
Razing
Razing means that it reduces by 1 population / turn until it disappears, and you suffer unhappiness while that happens.... It also has a diplomatic penalty. You can raze a city that you have captured afterwards, but you cannot raze cities you have founded, nor any capital city.

Annexing
Annexed cities are like Civ4 captured cities - you have full control over them (what they build, what tiles they work etc), but they add a lot of unhappiness to your civilization. This can be reduced / removed with a courthouse, but they take ages to build and cost a lot in maintenance.

Puppets
Puppets are part of your empire for things like being allies. Buildings they produce contribute to your economy, as does gold and research generated. But they have their own governer who does whatever the hell he / she likes, and you don't get to control them. They don't typically build what you want to build, either. They only build buildings (no wonders, no units), and as such you have to provide units for defense and also workers to improve them. They can be quite frustrating at times, but the benefit is that they don't contribute anything like the unhappiness that an annexed city does (I am pretty sure that you can actually annex them at any time with the click of a button, but once a city is annexed you can't then puppet it).

As a random point to make, there is another factor in capturing or razing cities. One niggling issue that occurs more frequently than you would hope it would. If you have (say) 8 units of aluminium, and build 8 units that require aluminium, you have no aluminium left. If you lose one of your sources of aluminium (say by conquest), all units that rely on it fight at only half strength (IIRC). In capturing cities, there are some buildings that require aluminium (eg hydro plant, spaceship factory). If you capture a city that has one (or two) or these buildings, then they start using your aluminium... creating a shortage. So your units fight at half strength. Can be really painful when your Rocket Artillery lose all effectiveness, simply because you have captured a city...

By the way, here is a link to an online civilopedia if you don't want to fire-up the game to read the in-built one.
http://www.dndjunkie.com/civilopedia/default.aspx

 

[TedJackson]

I've looked at the save now. Everything's coming along nicely M-B.

Here's the general outline for my turns. Comments/advice welcome.

Objective(s):
Prepare for assault on Orleans, Paris and Lyon. I'm thinking that the Wines & Copper gained From Orleans and Paris will offset the extra unhappiness we'll incur by expanding our empire - anyone who knows better please advise - and the extra resources at Lyon should be tradable for some extra coin.

Buy the extra Iron at SS. Is it worth buying the Wheat on the river at TK? (55g)

Start another Workboat in M-BR when HG completes. Will complete well before Market becomes available.

Stick with the CA in SS. Add Sword when we get Iron online.

No sure about the Barracks in TK (my kind of town ) at this point. 24 turns seems a long time or am I missing something?

Bring the troops (including Trireme) back closer to home.

Idle thought(s):
What would be the long-term effects of stealing Venice's worker? or Cape Town's or both!

Answers on a postcard please.


Ted

 

[leif erikson]

Prepare for assault on Orleans, Paris and Lyon. I'm thinking that the Wines & Copper gained From Orleans and Paris will offset the extra unhappiness we'll incur by expanding our empire - anyone who knows better please advise - and the extra resources at Lyon should be tradable for some extra coin.

Do not think we will be trading luxury resources for Gold much longer. With a military campaign in the offing, we will need all the happiness we can get because making cities puppets is tough on happiness. Will most likely be looking to Russia to trade for a Silver.

But we shall see how that progresses.

Buy the extra Iron at SS. Is it worth buying the Wheat on the river at TK? (55g)

Wheat on river is ours by cultural expansion next turn.

Start another Workboat in M-BR when HG completes. Will complete well before Market becomes available.

If we complete Hanging Garden, we get +10 food in the capital and if we intend to go to war, then we will have enough food and it is time to start building an Army. Think a couple of Cats and Swords to start.

Capital should grow rather quickly, so think we should send the Worker in SS and the newly captured Worker to the Capital to mine some hills and improve the Stone. Also need a road to TK, suggest it goes from the Jungle tile 2 east of the capital over the 4 tiles NE to TK, least number of tiles due to maintenance.

Also, if Hanging Garden completes, need to work the sea tiles to get our gold production up.

Stick with the CA in SS. Add Sword when we get Iron online.

No sure about the Barracks in TK (my kind of town ) at this point. 24 turns seems a long time or am I missing something?

I actually rarely build Barracks in Civ5 as they cost maintenance and units get promotions fairly quickly in combat. If we are going to build a Barracks anywhere, should probably be in the capital as that is where we are likely to build the most units.

Be interested to hear other opinions on Barracks building.

Bring the troops (including Trireme) back closer to home.

Idle thought(s):
What would be the long-term effects of stealing Venice's worker? or Cape Town's or both!

Do not think this is advisable. ainwood talked about City-States being capable of defending themselves. If Alex or Cathy decide to attack, the worst thing that could happen is one of those CS's joins them and we have to defend our backside as well.

Also, more Workers means more maintenance and we will soon have an Army to support.

 

[Optional]

What would be the long-term effects of stealing Venice's worker? or Cape Town's or both!

lurker's comment: That means a declaration of war against the CS, but you can sign peace again the same turn, so it's very easy to steal a worker.
The negatives are that your influence drops by 60 with the CS you're stealing the worker from (I think it's immediately back at where it was in G & K at peace, but not in vanilla) and it's a diplo penalty for warmongering you're getting, just like when declaring on an ordinary civ. Although you'll probably need to commit a few more war crimes before you really see the diplo effect, and then it's still up to the other civs to judge you. Someone like Gandhi will be quick to put you in the black book, denounce you and become reluctant to trade with you, but the civs you have around you just now are pretty tolerant towards warmongering.
Some players do it first thing - stealing a worker from a CS, and then it's very helpful, but you already have 3 workers and maybe you're not even expanding anymore, not peacefully at least, so another worker might not make a big difference to you anymore.

Be interested to hear other opinions on Barracks building.

Not so useful in Civ 5, is my opinion. Some players build it in every town, so they can build the Heroic Epic, giving the Moral promotion to units built there (15% extra combat strength, if I'm not mistaken), but it's a hell of a lot of hammers you're investing that way. I did it once, but noticed in the war that followed that I would rather have had a few extra units.
In itself it is good to get units up to better promotions, especially ranged units; logistics means being being able to fire twice, which basically means having 2 units for the price of 1, and also extra range is very good.
Those promotions only become available after triple accuracy or triple barrage, so don't mix accuracy with barrage; if an archer has accuracy, continue the accuracy line, if it has barrage, continue the barrage line.

 

[TedJackson]

Do not think we will be trading luxury resources for Gold much longer. With a military campaign in the offing, we will need all the happiness we can get because making cities puppets is tough on happiness. Will most likely be looking to Russia to trade for a Silver.

But we shall see how that progresses.

I didn't look at trade possibilities but will certainly try for the Silver.

Wheat on river is ours by cultural expansion next turn.

How do you know that? Not being argumentative, just curious.

If we complete Hanging Garden, we get +10 food in the capital and if we intend to go to war, then we will have enough food and it is time to start building an Army. Think a couple of Cats and Swords to start.

I'll check our Gold income possibilities after HG and probably pop one more workboat before switching to Swords and Archers.

Capital should grow rather quickly, so think we should send the Worker in SS and the newly captured Worker to the Capital to mine some hills and improve the Stone. Also need a road to TK, suggest it goes from the Jungle tile 2 east of the capital over the 4 tiles NE to TK, least number of tiles due to maintenance.

Agreed.

Also, if Hanging Garden completes, need to work the sea tiles to get our gold production up.

See response to HG above

I actually rarely build Barracks in Civ5 as they cost maintenance and units get promotions fairly quickly in combat. If we are going to build a Barracks anywhere, should probably be in the capital as that is where we are likely to build the most units.

Be interested to hear other opinions on Barracks building.

@Optional & leif: No-one seems to have any love for Barracks I'm sure I can swap it for something with a sharper edge

Do not think this is advisable. ainwood talked about City-States being capable of defending themselves. If Alex or Cathy decide to attack, the worst thing that could happen is one of those CS's joins them and we have to defend our backside as well.

Also, more Workers means more maintenance and we will soon have an Army to support.

OK. No picking off neutral Workers (mutter, mutter, grumble)


Ted

 

[Optional]

How do you know that?

lurker's comment: In the city screen purple squares are drawn around the tiles the city will expand to next. Usually several tiles are considered of equal value, sometimes there's just one tile earmarked.
In a box in the upper left corner can be read how many turns til the next expansion.

To buy tiles becomes more expensive with every tile you buy. I would certainly buy that iron tile before Venice gets it, of course, but you wouldn't easily buy a tile that's yours in a few turns anyway.
Hills and especially mountains are more expansive than flat, foody terrain.

 

[ainwood]

I like barracks!

Yes experience is a bit easier to gather (at early promotion levels at least) in Civ5, but I still think a barracks, at least in the high production cities which are being used as unit factories are a good idea.

My rationale is that in Civ5, units are a bit more precious than in earlier versions – you have less of them, they take longer to get to the front lines, they cost “more” (I guess they don’t die as easily as earlier versions, which is a benefit). Essentially, I am much less inclined to sacrifice a unit in Civ5 than in earlier versions. From this perspective, if a barracks gives you a slight edge and keeps a unit or two alive that would otherwise have died, it is worth it.

If you think of it simply in terms of would you prefer the hammers to go into a barracks or another unit, then a barracks only costs as much as a single swordsman.

Picking up on the point re the Heroic Epic – yes, that is worthwhile. But, linking back to my point on puppets: you have no control over what a puppet builds. Fortunately (if I recall correctly), the pre-requisite building issue does not apply to puppet cities. Best to build it early (when you only have a few cities) than later, otherwise (as Optional notes), you invest a hell of a lot of hammers building barracks in cities that don't need them.

I would suggest annexing the main French cities, rather than creating puppets.

@Ted: Once we have the hanging gardens and we get some growth, keep an eye on overall happiness. If it starts to cap out (or even before this), we should consider appointing a scientist or two in MBR. The Hanging Gardens will push us towards a Great Artist IIRC. Would be nice if our first GP was a scientist, allowing us to build an academy (this is a space race, after all!). I think we should tech towards Philosophy for the National College soonish, but probably after we have the French lands.

 

[leif erikson]

I like barracks!

Yes experience is a bit easier to gather (at early promotion levels at least) in Civ5, but I still think a barracks, at least in the high production cities which are being used as unit factories are a good idea.

My rationale is that in Civ5, units are a bit more precious than in earlier versions – you have less of them, they take longer to get to the front lines, they cost “more” (I guess they don’t die as easily as earlier versions, which is a benefit). Essentially, I am much less inclined to sacrifice a unit in Civ5 than in earlier versions. From this perspective, if a barracks gives you a slight edge and keeps a unit or two alive that would otherwise have died, it is worth it.

If you think of it simply in terms of would you prefer the hammers to go into a barracks or another unit, then a barracks only costs as much as a single swordsman.

Picking up on the point re the Heroic Epic – yes, that is worthwhile. But, linking back to my point on puppets: you have no control over what a puppet builds. Fortunately (if I recall correctly), the pre-requisite building issue does not apply to puppet cities. Best to build it early (when you only have a few cities) than later, otherwise (as Optional notes), you invest a hell of a lot of hammers building barracks in cities that don't need them.

All of this is logical and makes sense. Building some are fine with me.

I just dislike paying maintenance on them.

I would suggest annexing the main French cities, rather than creating puppets.

@Ted: Once we have the hanging gardens and we get some growth, keep an eye on overall happiness. If it starts to cap out (or even before this), we should consider appointing a scientist or two in MBR. The Hanging Gardens will push us towards a Great Artist IIRC. Would be nice if our first GP was a scientist, allowing us to build an academy (this is a space race, after all!). I think we should tech towards Philosophy for the National College soonish, but probably after we have the French lands.

Do we not need a Library in every city in order to build National College? If so, the same principle applies to Barracks and Heroic Epic, sooner the better. If we wait until after we take the French Cities and we annex them, then we have to wait until we build Libraries in them. Puppeting them initially would allow us to get the National College built in the capital sooner.