Dr kossin #37

reading the discussion about the overflow and how you could build such a big army so quickly really opened my eyes. I learned a lot through this page of reading and I feel like I can crush any immortal AI. I can't wait to go play my next game. Thanks Kossin for talking about those mechanics.

kossin said:

Sury is one of the best leaders in the early game and with a monster capital like this... as soon as I had managed to dodge my neighbor's DoW checks, there was never a doubt in my mind that victory was guaranteed.

Click to expand...

Quoted for truth. Sury is a good early game leader - you just have to be careful you don't expand too fast with him since it's so easy with fast workers and border pops.

The early game dow was probably the only big risk factor on this map. I think the AI were very slow in your game because they were at war and probably workshopped over their cottages and vice versa. I've seen AI cripple themselves going workshop happy, BEFORE they have all the workshop improving techs. Nicely done though!

CRE / EXP = free border pops, cheap worker, granary and library in every city (very powerful at the start of the game), and the +1 synergizes nicely with the EXP +2 helping to run an extra specialist in each city.

Sury also offers one of the most powerful non Fin / Org rexes - you can rex like mad early on, crash your economy, but set your cities up way faster with the cheap workers, granaries and library, and run two scientists per city while building a Baray and teching to COL, then I try to get a courthouse whipped in each city, switch over to Caste, and go go merchant flood for a powerful recovery.

If you manage to grab the Pyramids (probably not possible on Deity), you can build the most powerful SE possible in the game.

I didn't take many good screens from my game, but heres some highlights.

I didn't farm any tiles in the capital which I think is the difference between our tech rates here. I settled pigs and flood plains first I believe using slavery to whip out settlers there. Then went aesthetics first and traded for alphabet at 1000 BC.. Also got the academy in the capital a bit earlier.. Biggest differences were: I was boxed in by 2 barb cities which I took (giving me more gold early) and I found the open marble near the Ottomans on that peninsula and settled it shortly after this screen:



Allowing me to get the Great Library and the NE in the barb city I captured in the west (copper/corn/sheep) Also I grabbed the GA from music.



Which triggered a GA 200 AD giving me a second GS for an academy in the flood plains city and a couple GMs. With another academy I had two huge science cities so the GMs were no brainers to keep things going.



Between 2 turns Peter asked in trade for education + 95 gold then education + 375 gold at one point which allowed me to determine his tech rate and that I could go liberalism - Assembly Line. I triggered a golden age and got another from building Taj which ended here at lib:


Toku had his stack off attacking Hammurabi for some reason (hehe) so I split 4 stacks of infantry and took 4 cities in first 3 turns of the war. His samurai defended over his PRO longbows at 59% odds for me which was unexpected, but I had extra infantry.

I stopped after the Ottomans cap'd. I probably finish in 25-30 turns - 1600 AD at the latest. I have a 1/3 of my troops on the doorstep of Hammurabi, but its a long march through to Bismarck and its deity so I will face a few stacks of 30-40 cavalry and be slowed a bit.

^Grashopa:
wow, this is the first time I see liberalism techs assembly line on deity. You own this game .

@grashopa: wow those are fast infantry. How did you manage to out tech the ai so much? can you post screenshots of your city screens?

@Grashopa
Clearly not whipping hurt my game here. I only had 1 farm in the capital so that's not much difference really. Very nice game, very nice.

@Grashopa

Just... Just....

:'(

I tried to take screens every 25 turns, to make a better comparison, but I didn't have many.

At 250 AD I was only ahead by about 1000 beakers. The difference after that was the 3 golden ages I had thanks to the GA from music, and getting the marble which gave me an extra GP from having the National Epic built and gave me Taj. Also built a second academy for more than 2000 additional beakers by lib.. Outside the GA's my beakers were probably about 50bpt more than Kossin primarily due to the second academy.

300 BC capital, about 150bpt total. Oh yeah I also built wealth early everywhere, I could always whip infrastructure in.


200 AD, top 2 science cities. 374 beakers/turn total. I'll have an academy in the FP city in 5 or 6 turns after starting the GA and getting a GS first. During the GA I get 6 universties out and Oxford is done in 5 turns after that.


760AD during the back to back GAs which gets me to lib-AL.


Obviously on deity lib never goes at 960 AD, but the AIs were so slow.

Round 7, revisited

As promised, I revisited round 7 where the army was whipped in 9 turns.

I didn't play the same way as I did a few days ago, simply because I couldn't remember every detail I did... and the RNG acted differently of course. I didn't try optimizing anything, just whipped about every 2~3 turns. There was also about 0 micro whatsoever so you may notice weird tiles assignments!

Anyway...

Fast-forward 16 turns, we're now ready to whip the army.

We start off with the F1 screens. Before and after.


The research is similar, albeit a little bit lower.

Now on to the cities... before and after again.




Clearly the whipping was pretty hard and the cities are less good now... but that's nothing that can't be fixed in 20~30 turns of re-growth. After growing is done, you can either go hammer economy or just cottage spam.

A sample of a whipping turn... 1060AD, 1 turn after starting Cavalry.


The following turn, we take a look at 2 low production cities.


When whipping an army, taking away: plains tiles and specialists doesn't really hurt you. Anything under 2-food is free to go. For farms/cottages.. it's up to personal preference. More farms will let you whip more while more cottages will let you tech more. On Deity I prefer to whip more to get more units out but on a lower difficulty you can get away with a lesser army (20 Cavalry is often more than enough on Immortal whereas ~30 is often needed to start on Deity).


And, being a bit more free with the whip this turn.... we end up with 28 Cavalry on t175.


I have included the save from where Cavalry production starts if anyone cares to try their hand at the whip fest.

Thanks. That's really helpful. Actually it also thought me that i cottage spam too much apparently . You only built cottages in 2 cities, and 1 cottage in 1 other city (is there a special reason for that or you just couldnt waste that nice flood plain?)

Initially that cottage was used by the second cottaged city. At some point I had to swap a few tiles to keep working the best tiles and decided to keep it that way (when whipping the cottaged city had difficulty working all of its cottages for example).

You can cottage and then switch improvements later. For me theres no real reason to farm some cities early - you don't really need the production I mean before going to war at cavalry for example what are you whipping into your cities? The only buildings it needs are granary forge barracks to be useful in the whipping stage and you can always farm over when you get to the point you need it. Obviously you have to bother to redo your improvements which I decided not to do in my game

I'm having real trouble building an army at Noble level. I really just seriously started to read how real pros (at least in comparison to me!) do. I'm still not understanding some key basics I think.

What exactly determines beakers?
So you should only have cottages in a few cities, rest are farm heavy? (Also, cottages always on FPs?)
What determines happy cap? (One of my biggest problems...)
Also, how many villages should I aim for before the map fills? I usually only get to 4 but they're pretty spread out. I think this play through and #38 give me a good idea of things to take into account when planning where cities should go better than the blue circle

I learned a lot here, especially what to do for late game improvements and city placement. I'm getting a better idea of how to handle the tech tree in the later game too. I usually get a decent start but then find myself to be lost in the middle deciding on how I want to win the game. This one would have been an easy space victory if you wanted too, right?

Settle food resources, not blue circles! (Although sometimes the blue circles are right and hint at something good).

Don't associate improvements to various tiles, decide the city specialization. Every city's first priority should be a >>good food surplus<<. Then you can decide on production/commerce/specialists/pure food whipping.

This map would have been easy space victory yes, but just much longer than all-out war

While not specifically aimed at high-level players, I do not focus my play-throughs on the basic mechanics of the game, you might benefit more simply from reading the War Academy and some of the Strategy Articles in the subforum.

kossin said:

Settle food resources, not blue circles! (Although sometimes the blue circles are right and hint at something good).

Don't associate improvements to various tiles, decide the city specialization. Every city's first priority should be a >>good food surplus<<. Then you can decide on production/commerce/specialists/pure food whipping.

This map would have been easy space victory yes, but just much longer than all-out war

While not specifically aimed at high-level players, I do not focus my play-throughs on the basic mechanics of the game, you might benefit more simply from reading the War Academy and some of the Strategy Articles in the subforum.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I figured. But now I have a much better idea of mid-game and late-game play (sorta, you didn't get too far ) That's where I mainly trip up...but I figured I'd ask you some of these basics while I was at it. Thanks for the help and congrats. Nice game.

There's 36 other completed games if you're interested, hit the bullpen (link in my signature). I think I've featured every VC at least once. (although not always very detailed)

kossin said:

There's 36 other completed games if you're interested, hit the bullpen (link in my signature). I think I've featured every VC at least once. (although not always very detailed)

Click to expand...

Thanks a ton

I spent 3 hours reading this one...so I have a feeling I'll have to get to it later. I'm working at a summer camp and I will be without internet! OH NO! It's ok though. I guess it will give me time to contemplate my next game.