Conquest 12: Hunting tips.

The purpose of this thread is to help conquest players with their games.

The rules:

1. Any conquest-class player is free to post their saves in this thread.
2. Ideally, they should have reached the start of the middle ages, but if they feel that they are really struggling, they can post earlier.
3. Conquest players are also encouraged to post details of how the game has gone so-far, and what good things they have done, and what has gone not-so-well.
4. Any player from any class who has POSTED THEIR ANCIENT-AGE spoiler is free to download the saves, analyse them, and post feedback.
5. Feedback must be constructive - please no harsh criticism, just encouragement.
6. Don't just post "Do this" or "you should not have done that" - this is a learning event, and so you must post "WHY".
7. Any player is welcome to ask for clarifications on points.
8. No spoiler info should be given - no "Do this (because you'll need it in the middle-ages)" posts - use your judgement.

Edit:We will open one of these threads with each spoiler, so please don't post post-ancient-age stuff here. - thanks!

These rules may evolve over time, so if you have any suggestions to refine them, please post those, too. Please try to make sure that every conquest player who posts a save gets some feedback (even if its a "you're doing fine!"). Please also try to balance things so that the good info and suggestions don't get lost, and that its not information overload.

Thanks!

Am I correct to assume that only Ancient Age saves should be posted? If this is not the case, players may be spoiled if someone posts a late Middle Ages save, and reveals, for example, that there's a source of saltpeter over here.

In fact, it occurs to me that this possibility occurs even if you limit the saves to Ancient Era saves. For example, if I haven't devoted many resources to scouting, I may not know that there are no horses near my starting position but there are horses in American territory (to pick an arbitrary example; I don't know whether there are Americans in COTM12 and if so, whether they have horses and we don't). Once I open a Conquest player's save to help him, it may make me decide to expand toward America so I can get the horses.

Techs:
Warrior Code 3550 BC (goody hut)
Alphabet 3550 BC (Korea)
Bronze Working 3550 BC (Korea)
Masonry 2950 BC (Ottomans)
Mysticism 2670 BC (goody hut)
Horseback Riding 2630 BC (goody hut)
Iron Working 2630 BC (Korea)
Writing 1870 BC
Code of Laws 1400 BC
Map Making 1325 BC (Russia)
Philosophy 1200 BC
Polytheism 1150 BC (Ottomans)
Currency 1150 BC (Korea)
Republic 510 BC
Literature 390 BC
Construction 210 BC

I decided to settle at the starting location since I didn’t feel confident enough in my abilities on this level to walk for 4 or 5 turns. At the start I wasn’t for sure about my victory condition, figuring I’d probably go either 100k or Space Race. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to really get into building culture improvements until around 800 BC which may be too late. So far I seem to be keeping ahead in the tech race, or at least towards the front.

I was in a two phony wars towards the beginning, with both Russia and Korea. Both wars consisted of their one warrior attacking Mecca and nothing beyond that.

I believe currently I am doing fairly well. One thing I have noticed is I have stopped sending out settlers and there is still more unclaimed land. I’ll probably switch Baghdad’s production to settlers soon to keep up my expansion. My expansion phase pretty much stopped when I realized I wasn’t building culture improvements.

Due to it being a more difficult level I have been building more barracks than I typically do. I realize that I need to keep my units up in case of wars. I also am thinking of building up my horseman in preparation for when I learn Cavalry. Eventually I realize war will be required, even though I am not very experienced in warfare.

Please ask any questions as I'm unsure what else I should have stated. I look forward to all suggestions/advice/criticism.

Edit: Almost forgot my QSC score was 3410

Jason - Only Ancient Age stuff should be posted here as per item #2 in Ainwood's list of rules. As for any AA resource spoilers, players are supposed to have a map of the starting continent before being eligible for the AA spoiler and so should know where all AA resources are.

Methos - The single biggest question for you right now is: 100k or Space? They have pretty different strategies and choosing now and following through is your most important task. In general, both would require aggressive early expansion. 100k needs the land for mass towns and Space needs the land to fuel your research. Once into the Middle Ages you will need to know whether to keep aggressively expanding for 100k or settling in and boosting your research. As for the warfare, lots of Ansar Warriors makes for some fast, fun battles. I think you can get some more detailed help once you've decided on which direction you want your game to go.

v1.22


Firstly, I forgot to set the noaipatrol variable when I started play. Is it too late to change it? Secondly I wasn't planning on submitting and didn't think I'd need to take notes because I didn't think this thread was going to exist to start with. Things changed and I started taking notes in 260AD. My attached Save Game file is my game position in 690AD, just after the fall of Amiens. I entered the Middle Ages in 310AD, but haven't done much since then:

330AD - Traded Furs for Silks with the Ottomans, established embassies in france and russia.
340AD - We love the Caliph day in Damascus.
350AD - And in Medina. Finally linked the desert road up.
370AD - The french settled Cherbourg on the last free bit of coast to the north of Mecca, just where I had a settler one turn off production planned for.
610AD - Galley contacted Korea.
620AD - Settler in the Galley created a city on the Korean borders. Some spare land over that way. Russia appears to be fighting the Koreans hard. And losing.
640AD - The galley was sunk by pirates whilst following the Korean coast line.
650AD - War declared on the pesky french. I think they started it. I should have noted. I'd been trying to get them to declare for some time.
660AD - Tours fell swiftly, this city gave me the furs the french had taken from the ottomans (by culture expansion). Plus the next point up that line (over two tiles of ottoman territory and back into france) has three gems. A good target.
670AD - Two Medieval Infantry took out Cherbourg, raising it and capturing some more slaves. Amiens had only red-lined defenders.
680AD - Amiens was heavily re-enforced and I pushed as many forces towards it as I could.
690AD - Amiens fell. So I'm pushing into france on two prongs. One over the land bridge in the lake, the other up the side. My MI and Soldiers with Catapaults are just breaking on the walls of the next city, defended by mere spearmen.

Now, I think I didn't expand fast enough. I think I should have been pumping Settlers and Workers early on. Is this right? Filled in the gaps over the desert and expanded. But, I've been building city improvements. I can't seem to do everything at once. Some tips on better cities would be more than welcome.

My scientific rate has been pretty poor. I've had between 30 and 100% invested in science, making sure my cash was always breaking even or increasing by the smallest amount to focus science. Using citizen entertainers in towns instead of investing in the happyness slider. So I don't know why science was so slow. Perhaps because of my small size?

People always seem to be trading for techs. The other civ's are forever telling me "I don't see how that deal can be done" for the techs I need. So I'm behind because of my slow scientific rate and their unwillingness to trade.

My military conists of MI and pikemen. With a bunch of older units defending cities mostly. But they can't take towns defended by a couple of regular spearmen! I go through 4-5 MI to take one small town. SirPleb on Sid was losing almost no units at a cost of hundreds of Zulu. I get no armies.


The places I attack, I don't attack over rivers, or onto hills or anything. So I don't quite get why I lose so much. All advice welcome!

Oh I'm particularly shocked to see how late in time I hit the MA compared ot people in the main spoiler. I'm so poor at this game...

Oh and please note my file naming sucks. And I've only got two save games. Um. Doh?

THEmike- Id like to know some more about your beginning. Why did you settle your capital where you did and what was your research path at the beginning if you can remember?

I looked at your 260AD save.

It looks like you wanted to settle outside of the desert, which was smart; I would suggest settling on a river (no need for an aqueduct to grow to size 7 and increased commerce) or an inland freshwater lake (no aqueduct needed but loses the river commerce) if at all possible in the beginning of any game. I see that you have mined several plains around the capital; with your city site, an alternative is that you could have cut the game forest in your capital radius and irrigated it, followed by irrigating the brown plains tiles all around your capital. This would allow Mecca to grow above size three, generating more commerce for your science and shields for your production. I know that you realize the benefits of cutting game forests and irrigating them, as your city NW by the does have irrigation on the game tiles. Food is power in the beginning of the game.

Something you can do in the beginning is press F11 (or is it F10, I forget) and click view space race. This will show you who your opponents are. Since you start with ceremonial burial and pottery as the Arabs, you can figure out what beginning techs will be most tradeable. If no one else starts with your beginning techs, you will get a lot of value out of them. As a general rule, Alphabet is the most valuable, followed by Masonry and the Wheel.

I would also play around with the science and lux slider to optimize the benefits to your civ.

Everything I can remember is here in the main spoiler thread.

My early research was an attempt at Republic slingshot, from the vague idea that most people talk about it so it was a good thing to try. I got some other techs somehow. Must have been goodie huts and a couple of times the French and Russians approached me with offers like Iron working for 18gp. Tho Ican't remember for sure if I did get iron working, and did get it for 18gp.

See, I was all excited about what a fun thing the C/GOTM was and so sure I'd die so fast I was just rushing round experimenting.

The biggest problem I had though to be quite honest is that I am playing multiplayer at work every lunch time. So I've ended up with a terrible habit of playing incredibly fast because of the turn timer, so not enough was thought out. We'd had an extra long session on the friday lunch time, I came home and kicked off my attempt at the COTM at the same breakneck pace I'd been playing at lunch, and am pretty sure that's screwed up my game, plus my ability to remember what happened.

No worries. I think you can win pulling away. You have a formidable army, and control the critical iron. Just take it to the others with gusto.

About the pregame spoiler thread: It's great and there are great players who give excellent tips there, but having said that, no one there knows what really lies outside the visible and fogged tiles. Generally, I wouldnt move very much from a starting point unless it was really obvious that a spot 1-2 tiles away is much better than settling in place. Your second city can always claim a nearby great spot. There are SO many variables that go into strategy though, that quite often there is no "right" place to settle.

Methos' game
Here’s an attempt to try to express some constructive criticism on Methos’ game. One should allways have to remember that it’s just how I look upon some aspects. Any other person could very well have different opinions. So take from it what you find useful and ignore what you don’t find useful.

I’m afraid my post it’s not a very structured layout, but anyway…

General
Make use of the strong points:
- expansionist: build scouts
- conquer the world with ansars
- in foodrich locations: build granary and settlers/workers
- in shieldrich locations: build barracks and military
- in low-corrupt area’s build libraries

Behaviour:
I normally give in to demands, unless I want the war. Mostly I prepare for war and simply dow the AI when I’m ready. Premature/unwanted war’s can be very contra-productive.

I rarely build temple/cathedral/colloseum. With a few lux, cities under size 6 and 10% entertainment everything could be fine. Cities that are getting to large can build a settler or a worker. Avoid having entertainers, they’re just a sign that your city is to large.

Victory goals
You are considering 100K or space. A victory goal is a strategic decision. To accomplise a strategic goal you build a powerful base first and then work towards the goal. The only exception is 20K. For 20K you reverse it: work towards the goal and then build a powerful base.

By a powerful base I mean a number of cities that’s about twice the number by which you can build the FP. The base cities typically will have barracks and libraries. When there are sufficient luxuries around you can build some markets and duct’s too. This powerful base will be responsible for producing the military to conquer the neighbours and for providing an acceptable researchspeed in the MA.
From this point the 100K- and space-goal start to work out differently.

100K:
- conquer the whole continent
- maximize number of cities
- build the temple of Artemis
- stop research after chivalry/theology
- hurry as many libraries/cathedrals as possible
- after that hurry as many collosea as possible

Space
- conquer the whole continent but don’t eliminate the scientific civ’s
- maximize population (irrigating)
- only research mandatory techs
- differentiate between corrupt and not-corrupt parts of your empire
- in non-corrupt cities: libs and uni’s and let everybody work
- in corrupt cities: as much scientists as possible

Specific points towards Methos’ game
I’ve run your QSC up until 3550BC where I got BW and not WC from the hut and didn’t meet a Korean warrior. I therefore couldn’t replicate your trade and so there was no point in further imitating your QSC. But in general terms I followed what you did. Some things that I’ve noticed were:
- you were a bit unlucky with the missed slingshot and with the agression of your neighbours
- your movements and builds are generally the same as what I would have done, with the following exceptions:

You somehow prioritise temples. Though they are cheap to build in this game it’s useally better to spend the shields and maintenance on libraries . Their science-beakers will become increasingly important in the game and they also provide any need for culture. In my general remarks I pointed out some alternatives for the temples. A temple could be handy when you’re culturally battling an AI-city or when a city needs to be somewhat larger then the other cities.

You generally seem to prefer shields over food (the forest/game are not chopped) and you don’t have specialized cities. There a 2 sites nearby with 2 forest/game. Chopping the forest would not only speed up a granary-build but also free 1 food. After irrigating one and mining the other deer you have 5 surplus food. Having 2 of those settler/worker-factories would enable other towns to concentrate on military and science and therefor build barracks and libraries. It’s kind of unusual in the early game to have cities with both a granary and a barrack. Mecca for instance could stop building settlers and with two mined hills would produce a healthy 11 shields at size 4.

Even in 210BC you could steal the deer from Otto. Antalya has still no culture so if you settle one NW of the horse and hurry a temple (here the cheap temple is handy), you get the horse and the two deer. Irrigating both deer and mining the horsehill along with some irrigated plains should give you a nice settler/worker-factory.

Looking at Najran hurts my eyes. It has four surplus food and can’t grow. It should build a settler or worker immediately.

In 210BC you’re already paying 30 gpt for your army. So your army is too large or you have too few cities. Attacking a neighbour will be healthy on both issues. When going for space victory a Russia that consist of one or two tundra-cities would be very good.

I’ll stop now because the post will get unreadable. And once again, pick up the things you fin useful.

Redbad-I do not totally agree about the temples. In this game there were very many luxuries available and I think it was best to use those first to keep people happy. Then use a temple later to allow you to reach size 7. The reason being that at size 7 your city can support 2 more troops in republic. This is very powerful.

Yes, you are absolutely right. Certainly in this scenario where there a quite a few cities at fresh water, which only have to invest 30 shields (1 horseman worth) and then save 3 gpt on maintenance.
But for Methos it's still good to realize the limited value of temples and not to start on temples as his first or second improvement.

Regarding THEMike's game:

In general I would issue the same criticism I had on Methos' game in a somewhat stronger way towards THEMike:

1. There is a strong emphasis on production over food (mined plains, forested deer, even a deer out of cityrange). You really have to treasure food in the early game: it's the key to successful expansion early on.

2. You have a defensive military attitude: citywalls and spearmen. Even when defending against the AI it's useally better to have offensive military. The AI has to stop within your culture before they can attack and then they are very vulnerable to your attacks. You only need some defensive military to escort your own offensive military and to protect a few outlaying or chokepoint cities.

3. Again a strong emphasis on temples. If they had been libraries you probably would have less trouble researching. And with the odd tech trading would improve dramatically, thus gaining even more techs and money.

4. In 260AD Medina allready at size 8 with a granary and no barracks and lightyears from the front is building a horseman. It really should be settler. And then 2 or three more of the same. Realize that every city, even if it isn't buiding anything speeds up research and income. Especially in your situation, when you only have 7 towns in 260AD.

The above are the things that spring most in mind at first glance at your 260AD save.

@the-mike

Mike there are a lot of bad things in your game:

You fortified two workers in baghdad??? There is a lot of work to be done.
Those two are eating your GPT by 4 gold per turn and realy not doing anything.

Your cities are too far apart you need to build them a closer. And you have too few.

Dont build swords and MI when your UU is a knight replacement. Build horsemen instead, and upgrade them to ansar later.

Dont use enterteiners use LUX slider. When you are using LUX slider you only lose money to happines, but when you use entertainers you lose money, shields and food to happines.

You picked a wrong oponent to fight. You should have started a fight with otomans because they have no iron and no horses so you would face only spears, achers and longbows. While france has Great wall and have horses and half of their territory are mountains.
Dont mine plains ( you mined two tiles around mecca).

You should have sent some galies on a suicide mission to reach the other continet.

When you are in republic build marketplaces in most of your cities they give you money and they keep your people happy.

You have too much defensive units and to few ofensive units. For example you have 15 defensive units(11 spears + 4 pikes) and 9 offensive units (3 MI + 2 horses + 4 Swords) that's 24 total (not counting catapults etc.). It's beter to have 20 offensive units and 4 defensive units.

Most of your units are regulars . Dont build units in cities which dont have barracks.

Redbad - You and your libraries! There was no need for libraries in this game. They cost way too many shields. I played predator and I found the expansionist trait, republic and a large population more than enough to keep ahead in tech. I never built a single library.

Granted, libraries are good in most games. But, given our traits in this one, I think temples were a better investment. But you need to know when to build the temple. Unless you are in conquest mode, then you dont need the temple until your town is at pop 5-6 and can build the temple quickly. Before that, get a barracks and build some veteran horse units or make workers without a barracks.

budweiser said:

Redbad - You and your libraries! There was no need for libraries in this game. They cost way too many shields. I played predator and I found the expansionist trait, republic and a large population more than enough to keep ahead in tech. I never built a single library.

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Ainwood said:

5. Feedback must be constructive - please no harsh criticism, just encouragement.
6. Don't just post "Do this" or "you should not have done that" - this is a learning event, and so you must post "WHY".

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@Budweiser: If you feel it could have been done in a different way than please give us your suggestions or tips . Recall that this thread is to help us less-experienced players so that we can improve our game and hopefully move up to open class or possibly predator class someday. So far both TheMike and I have posted our games in the hopes of other more experienced players enlightening us with their experience. Redbad has been kind enough to do just that.

@Redbad: Thanks for the great suggestions. I went the route of the temple early as at that time I was planning on going for 100k. I felt an early temple would benefit more at that time. I realize now that it was probably a mistake. I should have instead worked on building something that benefitted me more at that specific point in the game.

Without going into detail I will state I am going for a Space Race now. I wasn't aggressive enough in my expansion and so didn't feel I had enough cities or space for a 100k.

Thanks again for the help. I plan on going back and looking at your notes with my game to see exactly what I did wrong. Thanks.

I believe there is no single answer to what are better or worse, libraries or temples.
Obviously, due to price reduction, temples are probably better for religious and libraries are better for scientific civilizations.
What if we are neither or if we are Babylonians who manage to combine these contradictory traits?

Libraries are slightly more expensive, but they give more culture and help research.
Temples give one happy face.

I think what to choose depend on your goals and a game style. Since I always go for domination and I do not like to research (ignorant warmongering is my stile), libraries are not a good choice for me. This is probably different for those who go for space, diplomacy or 100K.

In C3C I prefer simply to own ToA and I do not build either of these buildings unless in a city which is located outside of a major continent.

If my goal were conquest, I probably would not worry about these two buildings at all.

Just a few quick observations from someone who has never played Conquests (or even PTW for that matter!) I guess you'd call this old-school advice.

Firstly, some victory conditions require a particular build style from day 4000 BC. I believe that 100K is one of these. You want to plan your build pattern from the very beginning to cram as many cities as possible into a small area. Then you want to use a farmer gambit and build as many settlers as possible, to claim land, which you will backfill with cities. Production is less important than having a nice build pattern. Build only a few units to keep the AI off, but focus on growth first and foremost. There is a tricky decision to make as to when you start pop-rushing temples instead of using the population to build more settlers - the 1000 year cultural doubling makes it worth while getting a lot of temples by ~500 BC. Then you also want to calculate the cost of each culture point for temples/libraries/cathedrals/colleseums.

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that if you are going for 100k you should tailor your play from the very beginning.

If you are going for dmination/conquest then you would play differently, and there is lots of useful advice in this thread regarding productivity and other pointers (offence is the best form of defence!).

Almost all of the best players are VERY good at early war, weighing up who to attack, and how much of a force is required. That comes with experience, so I would suggest that most new players should start out trying for domination victories (or at least dominating the starting continent ASAP, and then thinking about other victory types). Then once you know all of the tricks, you can start steering your games towards particular conditions.

Just to defend myself a little from the deserved critisism.

Durkz said:

@the-mike
You fortified two workers in baghdad??? There is a lot of work to be done.
Those two are eating your GPT by 4 gold per turn and realy not doing anything.

Click to expand...

Attacking enemies had recently captured a few workers near border towns so I'd squirreled them away. And then forgotten I'd done so.

Dont build swords and MI when your UU is a knight replacement. Build horsemen instead, and upgrade them to ansar later.

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I never have any spare cash, even now I can't upgrade units (I'm way ahead of this in the game now) and the horsemen were a waste as they were failing to attack people.

You picked a wrong oponent to fight. You should have started a fight with otomans because they have no iron and no horses so you would face only spears, achers and longbows. While france has Great wall and have horses and half of their territory are mountains.

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I had already attacked the ottomans, then the french started to get on my nerves and needed pruning back a bit as they were pushing at my borders.

All other critisim was more than deserved. I've tried to alter my play style taking into account everything said in this game, but I think it might be a little too late for some of the advice.

As I mentioned, I'm way further on. I stopped taking specific notes again because I got lost in the game after a few turns with nothing specific to note. I've built up a much more offensive army, and with a military alliance with the Frogs and the Koreans I've reduced the Ottomans to one city way way away from my empire and have their (former) capitol under my control. Next stage I think is to recover a little, refresh the military and then take the french out before pushing north into russia. Still no great leaders.

I can't really say more because it's too far ahead. When's the 2nd spoiler due ;-)

THEMike said:

I never have any spare cash, even now I can't upgrade units (I'm way ahead of this in the game now) and the horsemen were a waste as they were failing to attack people.

All other critisim was more than deserved. I've tried to alter my play style taking into account everything said in this game, but I think it might be a little too late for some of the advice.

Click to expand...

The "advice" is meant to be just that, not criticism. You obviously won't be able to use all this information during this particular game, but you can start your next game differently taking into account at least a few of these pointers.

As far as the horsemen go. I never build horsemen either because I spend all my gold on research and never have enough money for upgrades until late in the game (IA for me). You are right in realizing there is no need to pay upkeep on horsemen that you can't afford to upgrade. This is a differing playstyle.

I know I have learned tons from these and other players like them so just keep at it and try to pick up a few new things each time you play. Most importantly though, have fun!!

Some Ansar Warrior strategy tips for the middle ages:

Use them in groups. They are very weak to counterattacks, so you must wipe out everything in sight before it can attack back. And it's really annoying to redline a couple defenders but then run out of units. 6-8 fully healed Ansars should be enough for any city. (Maybe a couple more for the capital.)

Turn off research and conquer the continent once you get Chivalry. You're pretty much guaranteed to win if you own the continent. And it doesn't take long if you use all your money to buy and upkeep Ansars.

Capture all the iron. Your opponents will be defenseless until Gunpowder. The iron placement is very generous in this game, with all 3 sources relatively close to your borders.