KrikkitTwo
Immortal
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- Apr 3, 2004
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Sisiutil said:
Actually it works like Mercantilism, it just gives you an extra specialist... For a noncitizen specialist it still requires buildings/Caste System
All Leaders Challenge Game Strategy Session: Montezuma
- Thread starter Sisiutil
- Start date
Actually it works like Mercantilism, it just gives you an extra specialist... For a noncitizen specialist it still requires buildings/Caste System
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
(12th Round: to 1976 AD and VICTORY!)
I knew I had to get a move on soon after I started this round:
Yes, my supposed buddy Bismarck was pursuing a space victory--while still at war with Alexander! It seemed unlikely, but I obviously couldn't let that happen. After cultivating Bizzy as an ally all game, I was disinclined to attack him. So I had to step up my war with Gandhi and then see where things stood.
It really gets me how tenacious the AI can be about that Space Race victory. Here's Gandhi down to his only city, the capital. It's hemmed in by warships on one side, Tanks and Marines on the other. It's defenses are gone. Things look grim. But is Gandhi valiantly building defenders? No! He's still trying to get to Alpha Centauri:
Dreams die hard, but die they do:
I now had the population and was only a few % points shy on land mass for my domination victory. Several Indian cities were still in revolt. Instead of starting another war, I decided to wait until the cities stabilized and see if I had my win.
Along the way, I built another wonder:
I figured it would help allay war weariness if I did have to go after someone.
The cities came out of revolt, and I did my level best to make their borders expand as quickly as possible. I even raised the culture slider for the first time in this game, and built a couple more cities to claim additional tiles. I switched to Universal Suffrage so I could rush cultural buildings with all that war booty sitting in the treasury. I built missionaries and spread religions for more of a culture boost.
And after a dozen turns, what did all that get me?
AAAARRRGGHHH!!! THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO ME WHEN I TRY FOR A DOMINATION WIN!!!
I mean, look at the few measly acres of land I needed:
So now I had three choices: (a) build one more city on the ice south of Lahore and wait for its borders to expand; (b) turn on my good buddy Bismarck and take Nuremburg, his one city on my continent; or (c) attack Alex and take one or two of his cities.
The smart thing to do would have probably been a combination of (a) and (b). So what do I do?
Go after Alexander, of course!
It's hard to explain. The last part of the war with Gandhi was your typical Civ rout of an outmatched AI. Not too thrilling. At this point, I guess I just felt like giving myself more of a challenge to finish things off. Besides, I'd been building Transports, Destroyers, Battleships, and Bombers and really wanted to use them.
My spies helped me pick my targets: Pharsalos, Knossos, and if needed, Heraklia--three cities at the southern tip of Alex and Bizzy's continent. Of course I brought that Great Artist along to see if I could grab a few more tiles with him.
My fleet closed in on their primary objective:
Then they attacked. Marines are awesome for this, of course:
Following the capture of Pharsalos and the culture bomb, I was now at...63.88%. I had only gained one land tile, the city itself. Sheesh, what's a guy gotta do to conquer the world around here?!?
My tanks rolled towards Knossos. My Bombers relocated to captured Pharsalos and punished Knossos' defenders for their temerity. Battleships and Destroyers joined in. Then the tanks had their say, and...
I gained four, count 'em, FOUR land tiles. Would it be enough, or would I have to take Heraklia as well?
YES!! Just enough. Only my second Domination victory on Prince, and a very satisfying one at that.
Now, onto the post-mortem...
I knew I had to get a move on soon after I started this round:
Yes, my supposed buddy Bismarck was pursuing a space victory--while still at war with Alexander! It seemed unlikely, but I obviously couldn't let that happen. After cultivating Bizzy as an ally all game, I was disinclined to attack him. So I had to step up my war with Gandhi and then see where things stood.
It really gets me how tenacious the AI can be about that Space Race victory. Here's Gandhi down to his only city, the capital. It's hemmed in by warships on one side, Tanks and Marines on the other. It's defenses are gone. Things look grim. But is Gandhi valiantly building defenders? No! He's still trying to get to Alpha Centauri:
Dreams die hard, but die they do:
I now had the population and was only a few % points shy on land mass for my domination victory. Several Indian cities were still in revolt. Instead of starting another war, I decided to wait until the cities stabilized and see if I had my win.
Along the way, I built another wonder:
I figured it would help allay war weariness if I did have to go after someone.
The cities came out of revolt, and I did my level best to make their borders expand as quickly as possible. I even raised the culture slider for the first time in this game, and built a couple more cities to claim additional tiles. I switched to Universal Suffrage so I could rush cultural buildings with all that war booty sitting in the treasury. I built missionaries and spread religions for more of a culture boost.
And after a dozen turns, what did all that get me?
AAAARRRGGHHH!!! THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO ME WHEN I TRY FOR A DOMINATION WIN!!!
I mean, look at the few measly acres of land I needed:
So now I had three choices: (a) build one more city on the ice south of Lahore and wait for its borders to expand; (b) turn on my good buddy Bismarck and take Nuremburg, his one city on my continent; or (c) attack Alex and take one or two of his cities.
The smart thing to do would have probably been a combination of (a) and (b). So what do I do?
Go after Alexander, of course!
It's hard to explain. The last part of the war with Gandhi was your typical Civ rout of an outmatched AI. Not too thrilling. At this point, I guess I just felt like giving myself more of a challenge to finish things off. Besides, I'd been building Transports, Destroyers, Battleships, and Bombers and really wanted to use them.
My spies helped me pick my targets: Pharsalos, Knossos, and if needed, Heraklia--three cities at the southern tip of Alex and Bizzy's continent. Of course I brought that Great Artist along to see if I could grab a few more tiles with him.
My fleet closed in on their primary objective:
Then they attacked. Marines are awesome for this, of course:
Following the capture of Pharsalos and the culture bomb, I was now at...63.88%. I had only gained one land tile, the city itself. Sheesh, what's a guy gotta do to conquer the world around here?!?
My tanks rolled towards Knossos. My Bombers relocated to captured Pharsalos and punished Knossos' defenders for their temerity. Battleships and Destroyers joined in. Then the tanks had their say, and...
I gained four, count 'em, FOUR land tiles. Would it be enough, or would I have to take Heraklia as well?
YES!! Just enough. Only my second Domination victory on Prince, and a very satisfying one at that.
Now, onto the post-mortem...
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Game Post-Mortem Part 1: the summary screens
First of all, to sum things up, here's the power chart for the whole game:
I love seeing other civs' lines drop off to nothing like that. I'm just plain evil that way.
And the top 5 cities and Wonders:
Nice to see Mexico City at the top. And I never did get the dam built, but I was close. I was mainly trying to keep it out of Bismarck's hands, since he'd beaten me to Plastics and I didn't like the boost it would give him building space ship parts.
The game stats:
Nearly 23 hours. One of my longest games. But that's not surprising; I find the more I war, the longer the game lasts. Culture wins are relatively short for me--6 hours, usually.
And look at how many cities I razed! More than three times as many as I built!
And my place in history...
No wonder Monty looks so smug there. (Can't say the same for the guy he's wearing on his head, though.)
Now for some analysis...
First of all, to sum things up, here's the power chart for the whole game:
I love seeing other civs' lines drop off to nothing like that. I'm just plain evil that way.
And the top 5 cities and Wonders:
Nice to see Mexico City at the top. And I never did get the dam built, but I was close. I was mainly trying to keep it out of Bismarck's hands, since he'd beaten me to Plastics and I didn't like the boost it would give him building space ship parts.
The game stats:
Nearly 23 hours. One of my longest games. But that's not surprising; I find the more I war, the longer the game lasts. Culture wins are relatively short for me--6 hours, usually.
And look at how many cities I razed! More than three times as many as I built!
And my place in history...
No wonder Monty looks so smug there. (Can't say the same for the guy he's wearing on his head, though.)
Now for some analysis...
Dr Elmer Jiggle
King
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2003
- Messages
- 811
Well done! 
They are. I loves the marines! However, I wonder why you took certain promotions with them.
I see a whole ton of City Garrison marines in that stack. Wouldn't offensive promotions like Pinch, Shock, Formation, Combat II, etc. be more effective? I think of marines as an offensive tool to raid from the boats, then after you capture the city you move in some other units to hold the city.
The other one that surprised me was March. I think marines heal aboard the ship just like if they were fortified on land. The ship is moving, but the marine isn't. I don't think March gains you anything on a marine unless he's on shore and then you're better off with a tank.
Sisiutil said:
They are. I loves the marines! However, I wonder why you took certain promotions with them.
I see a whole ton of City Garrison marines in that stack. Wouldn't offensive promotions like Pinch, Shock, Formation, Combat II, etc. be more effective? I think of marines as an offensive tool to raid from the boats, then after you capture the city you move in some other units to hold the city.
The other one that surprised me was March. I think marines heal aboard the ship just like if they were fortified on land. The ship is moving, but the marine isn't. I don't think March gains you anything on a marine unless he's on shore and then you're better off with a tank.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Game Post-Mortem Part 2: analysis
Okay, so, first, I won! Yay for me. Pretty handily too--with my chosen victory condition, and the top leader rating at the end. Nice.
I certainly could have done much worse, and let me thank everyone for the good advice and insight I got here that helped me to this victory. I honestly doubted that I could win playing as Monty; I thought he had too many disadvantages--an awkward trait combination, two almost-useless-out-of-the-gate opening techs, and what is generally considered the worst UU of all the civs in the game.
But as with everything, it's all a matter of what you do with the hand you're dealt. Combining Spiritual with the Pyramids allowed me to access advantageous government civics early in the game and switch to them whenever I wanted. I exploited the Hunting tech to build Scouts and glean as much early information as I could. Mysticism paid off too, allowing me to get an early religion and Stonehenge. Even the Jaguars served a purpose, however briefly--they were a key element in the capture of Thebes.
Now, could I have done better?
Well, you can always do better. I certainly enjoyed playing as Monty, more than I expected to, but I have a few things in mind for next time.
Without either the Financial and Organized traits, Monty seems to have money trouble--or at least I did with him, and that means tech trouble. I had to tech trade a LOT in this game just to keep up. As much as I enjoyed warmongering as Monty, if I had not kept good relations with some of the civs I was not warring with--Bismarck in particular--I would have been sunk. Only after I conquered Qin, and kept most of his cities, did I start to see some stability and growth in my economy, research, and treasury.
The religions I went after helped with this to some extent, but I probably should have tried to generate at least one more Great Prophet for another shrine. Setting the capital as the GP farm was not the right choice, as its specialization and wonders meant I mostly got Scientists and Engineers. Not that I'm complaining, they're great, but one more Prophet and a shrine would have really helped.
I also could have done better spreading my religion(s) to more cities, both foreign and domestic. It certainly would have helped with intel--even when Gandhi and I had closed borders, I could have seen what forces he had in his cities if I'd spread my State Religion to more of them.
I did raze a heckuvalot of cities, and I think I should have kept far more of them. That stupid little city on the hill in the desert proved extemely annoying...or should I say, those THREE stupid little cities. If I'd kept just one of the first two (Russia's or China's), I would not have had to invade Greece for my domination win. I could have done it all on one continent.
Lesson learned: keep a few more cities when warmongering. Build courthouses, spread your state religion to them, build commerce multipliers, and you'll be fine.
At this point, I'm going to take a back seat an encourage everyone else to weigh in. What do you think went well here and should be repeated, what went awry and should be avoided?
I look forward to your responses!
Okay, so, first, I won! Yay for me. Pretty handily too--with my chosen victory condition, and the top leader rating at the end. Nice.
I certainly could have done much worse, and let me thank everyone for the good advice and insight I got here that helped me to this victory. I honestly doubted that I could win playing as Monty; I thought he had too many disadvantages--an awkward trait combination, two almost-useless-out-of-the-gate opening techs, and what is generally considered the worst UU of all the civs in the game.
But as with everything, it's all a matter of what you do with the hand you're dealt. Combining Spiritual with the Pyramids allowed me to access advantageous government civics early in the game and switch to them whenever I wanted. I exploited the Hunting tech to build Scouts and glean as much early information as I could. Mysticism paid off too, allowing me to get an early religion and Stonehenge. Even the Jaguars served a purpose, however briefly--they were a key element in the capture of Thebes.
Now, could I have done better?
Well, you can always do better. I certainly enjoyed playing as Monty, more than I expected to, but I have a few things in mind for next time.
Without either the Financial and Organized traits, Monty seems to have money trouble--or at least I did with him, and that means tech trouble. I had to tech trade a LOT in this game just to keep up. As much as I enjoyed warmongering as Monty, if I had not kept good relations with some of the civs I was not warring with--Bismarck in particular--I would have been sunk. Only after I conquered Qin, and kept most of his cities, did I start to see some stability and growth in my economy, research, and treasury.
The religions I went after helped with this to some extent, but I probably should have tried to generate at least one more Great Prophet for another shrine. Setting the capital as the GP farm was not the right choice, as its specialization and wonders meant I mostly got Scientists and Engineers. Not that I'm complaining, they're great, but one more Prophet and a shrine would have really helped.
I also could have done better spreading my religion(s) to more cities, both foreign and domestic. It certainly would have helped with intel--even when Gandhi and I had closed borders, I could have seen what forces he had in his cities if I'd spread my State Religion to more of them.
I did raze a heckuvalot of cities, and I think I should have kept far more of them. That stupid little city on the hill in the desert proved extemely annoying...or should I say, those THREE stupid little cities. If I'd kept just one of the first two (Russia's or China's), I would not have had to invade Greece for my domination win. I could have done it all on one continent.
Lesson learned: keep a few more cities when warmongering. Build courthouses, spread your state religion to them, build commerce multipliers, and you'll be fine.
At this point, I'm going to take a back seat an encourage everyone else to weigh in. What do you think went well here and should be repeated, what went awry and should be avoided?
I look forward to your responses!
pigswill
fly (one day)
First of all: well done! Not just for winning though that was obviously good stuff but also for sharing your game and decision-making. It's interesting observing and commenting on a game from the outside: you see the wood easily but you don't know all the trees.
I'd reiterate a comment I made earlier: you emphasised military at the expense of infrastructure. Obviously you're playing a psychotic war-monger to type and you're going for domination so its hardly surprising BUT if you'd spent a bit more time at the start of the game establishing a few more cities around your capital your research, money and military production would have been higher throughout and you'd have war-mongered more effectively.
Once you'd got open borders you could have produced more missionaries to recon other civs and made money at the end of it. One of the ideas I've played with is if you got a couple of shrines spread one religion to one neighbour and a different religion to the other; instant heathen penalties between neighbours and you can switch between to change sides quickly.
I'd reiterate a comment I made earlier: you emphasised military at the expense of infrastructure. Obviously you're playing a psychotic war-monger to type and you're going for domination so its hardly surprising BUT if you'd spent a bit more time at the start of the game establishing a few more cities around your capital your research, money and military production would have been higher throughout and you'd have war-mongered more effectively.
Once you'd got open borders you could have produced more missionaries to recon other civs and made money at the end of it. One of the ideas I've played with is if you got a couple of shrines spread one religion to one neighbour and a different religion to the other; instant heathen penalties between neighbours and you can switch between to change sides quickly.
Dr Elmer Jiggle
King
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2003
- Messages
- 811
Sisiutil said:
I'm currently thinking the same thing in my current game (Gandhi, prince, overall strategy not unlike yours here -- get some religions and beat the crap out of everyone on the continent). During the early part of the game I was doing really well. Huyana Capac got out of control with a very fortunate flood plains starting location, but I kept up with everyone else, and Huyana is currently in his death throes.
The problem is, my economy is in a shambles. I'm struggling to make ends meet at 50% research, and other than building a shrine (I've been getting very bad luck with great people), I don't think there's much I can do to fix it. I have tons of cottages, lots of markets and grocery stores, good civics, quite a few merchant specialists, and I'm just bleeding money.
My current theory is that although you certainly don't want to be keeping poorly placed population 2 cities, once you get into the mid-game, things have developed pretty nicely. Economics are no longer a reason to raze a city. With a population around 6 to 10 and properly developed land, even the worst city should be able to pay for itself after a courthouse is built. You still want to raze if it's in a horrible spot or if you expect major cultural pressure, but in your game and mine, cultural pressure is mostly a non-issue, since the ultimate plan is to exterminate all enemies.
I should probably be keeping more of Huyana's cities instead of just clearing the land and picking up the war booty. We'll see how it goes. I think if I want to win this thing, I'm facing a foreign war campaign against a technologically advanced AI (Qin or Alexander) and hoping for either domination or diplomatic (Qin might like me enough to vote for me by the end).
If you do this again, and I'd be glad if you did, I'd love to see an attempt at a non-warlike victory condition. I don't necessarily mean you need to play as a pacifist, but in my own prince games, I feel like I have no chance at cultural victory and I can only win space race or diplomatic by beating everyone into submission to the point where I could basically win any type of victory I please. I've been thinking about undertaking an "All Leaders Challenge" of my own, but for that very reason, I think I would probably wind up doing it on normal, and I usually find normal to be to easy by the end of the game.
This is getting off topic, but what I'd really love to see with the difficulty levels is an escalating difficulty factor where you start out even during the early stages of the game and then only gradually ramp up to a big AI advantage. One of the problems with the current system is that you either need to give the AI a low handicap where you eventually totally outpace them or you need give them a high handicap that severely limits your strategic options in the early game.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Thanks!Dr Elmer Jiggle said:Well done!
I see a whole ton of City Garrison marines in that stack. Wouldn't offensive promotions like Pinch, Shock, Formation, Combat II, etc. be more effective? I think of marines as an offensive tool to raid from the boats, then after you capture the city you move in some other units to hold the city.
The other one that surprised me was March. I think marines heal aboard the ship just like if they were fortified on land. The ship is moving, but the marine isn't. I don't think March gains you anything on a marine unless he's on shore and then you're better off with a tank.
For the compliment, and for the astute observation and good point.
I built most of the Marines early in the war with Gandhi. Most of my offensive units were Infantry upgraded from Riflemen or Grenadiers (I was still building my first few tanks). Upgrading the city defenders was a lower priority; I planned to wait and see which city Gandhi attacked and upgrade its defenders.
But that left me with very few strong city defenders. Gandhi attacked Novgorod and very nearly took it. It was only by rushing a couple of City Garrison II and III Marines there that I managed to hang on to it.
Since I knew I'd be keeping nearly all of Gandhi's cities, I knew I'd need to defend them, so I kept giving the Marines City Garrison promotions without even thinking about it--except to give them some Medic promotions, so they could heal the stack (and themselves, hence March) after Indian Artillery savaged it. Gandhi had Artillery, remember, and lots of it, and that was the other attraction of Marines: their bonus versus Artillery.
Still, I should have given the promotions more thought. I knew war with Alex was a possibility, after all, and that meant--initially, at least--an amphibious invasion.
Fortunately, I did have a few offensively-promoted Marines, and all of them went over in the transports, and performed their duties in an outstanding manner.
I've been thinking the same thing. A couple of previous posters, IIRC, requested something similar--watching a cultural victory unfold. I've achieved one on Prince and one on Noble, and I quite enjoy them for a change of pace--especially from the war-mongering in this game!Dr Elmer Jiggle said:
If starting conditions lend themselves to it, I will post a similar thread as I pursue a cultural victory. As I've said many times, I prefer to have a good sized continent (enough for 9 to 12 cities) all to myself (right off the bat or after an early war to clear out one rival) to pursue a cultural win.
Then again, it might be an interesting challenge to try for a cultural win on a continent like this one. Hmmmm...
Point well taken. Given my remark above about the capital not being the best choice in this game for a GP farm, I'm wishing I had rushed down to a spot in all that lovely jungle before Peter or Qin got there and built my GP farm there. That would have helped on the religion/shrine/income side as well, if I'd been able to more reliably produce one or two more Great Prophets.pigswill said:
In most games, my capital is usually my science city and my GP farm, so I mostly get Great Scientists, and that suits me fine. In this game, though, I could see why many players like having a GP farm that does not serve another, potentially-conflicting purpose. In addition to the Great Prophets, I also could have really used a Great Merchant once or twice to finance upgrades, too. Instead, I had to plunge the research slider down to 0% for a few turns more than once, and that hurt me tech-wise, too.
VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2005
- Messages
- 3,663
Post Mortem thoughts.
I like opening with the scout builds a lot. This game finally brought it home to me that failing to build scouts right away wastes the major benefit of starting with Hunting (it's still not my favorite starting tech, but it's no longer a complete waste).
After some thought on this, I'd tend to choose Polytheism over Meditation in most cases as Monty. It worked well here, but had you the misfortune to draw Isabella instead of Gandi, it would have blown up. That's a dice roll - you almost aways have to commit to your research before you know who else is in the game. However, OrgRel and Theocracy are the real prizes for a spiritual civ, so I think a push toward Judaism is the right call - if you happen to pick up Hindu on the way, that's just a bonus. Notice your comment about not converting early - until you've got the civics, there's not much point.
Longer term, Polytheism is the more immediately useful of the two (as it unlocks Literature vs. Philosophy).
Given the location of the stone, the presence of the forrests, I think you missed a bet by not building Stonehenge at Teo... wait, no Tijuana. The extra culture boost would have sealed the upper continent for you more quickly, in addition I think to getting it done sooner (since your only immediate need would be to connect the stone to Tijuana). In particular, I'm thinking of the pictures here, where you have the cities connected, but not the stone, and Tijuana building a settler at size 1.
Chasing the copper up into the locked continent was an error, I think.
First problem is that the location is too remote. Notice that you managed to finish researching Iron Working before you got the copper hooked up. Second, even if the Iron is absent from your region, you can get by with Jaguars for a time.
You've already got a production center on line, which should be able to support the military needs of your first three or four cities, so commerce should be your priority, rather than more production.
You've also got a prime city site (15C at size three) that seals that corner which had you concerned, and gets you gold (not only an extra happy now, but another on top of that with forges; I speak in general terms here - with the religions you had at hand happy wasn't so much an issue). But this site is in a contested area, where Cupertino can definitely be settled at your leisure. (Of course, if you go this route, postponing fishing becomes much touchier, as you only have the shared floodplains to poach for surplus food).
It's this decision, I think, that really set your game apart from mine, in so far as I think it delayed your war on Hatty.
Just a note in passing - I've found that I don't like the capital/GP farm combo very much, because specialists and Bureaucracy don't mix well. Using your first city as the GP farm totally makes sense (when the map so dictates), just sneak a palace build somewhere else.
I like opening with the scout builds a lot. This game finally brought it home to me that failing to build scouts right away wastes the major benefit of starting with Hunting (it's still not my favorite starting tech, but it's no longer a complete waste).
After some thought on this, I'd tend to choose Polytheism over Meditation in most cases as Monty. It worked well here, but had you the misfortune to draw Isabella instead of Gandi, it would have blown up. That's a dice roll - you almost aways have to commit to your research before you know who else is in the game. However, OrgRel and Theocracy are the real prizes for a spiritual civ, so I think a push toward Judaism is the right call - if you happen to pick up Hindu on the way, that's just a bonus. Notice your comment about not converting early - until you've got the civics, there's not much point.
Longer term, Polytheism is the more immediately useful of the two (as it unlocks Literature vs. Philosophy).
Given the location of the stone, the presence of the forrests, I think you missed a bet by not building Stonehenge at Teo... wait, no Tijuana. The extra culture boost would have sealed the upper continent for you more quickly, in addition I think to getting it done sooner (since your only immediate need would be to connect the stone to Tijuana). In particular, I'm thinking of the pictures here, where you have the cities connected, but not the stone, and Tijuana building a settler at size 1.
Chasing the copper up into the locked continent was an error, I think.
First problem is that the location is too remote. Notice that you managed to finish researching Iron Working before you got the copper hooked up. Second, even if the Iron is absent from your region, you can get by with Jaguars for a time.
You've already got a production center on line, which should be able to support the military needs of your first three or four cities, so commerce should be your priority, rather than more production.
You've also got a prime city site (15C at size three) that seals that corner which had you concerned, and gets you gold (not only an extra happy now, but another on top of that with forges; I speak in general terms here - with the religions you had at hand happy wasn't so much an issue). But this site is in a contested area, where Cupertino can definitely be settled at your leisure. (Of course, if you go this route, postponing fishing becomes much touchier, as you only have the shared floodplains to poach for surplus food).
It's this decision, I think, that really set your game apart from mine, in so far as I think it delayed your war on Hatty.
Sisiutil said:
Just a note in passing - I've found that I don't like the capital/GP farm combo very much, because specialists and Bureaucracy don't mix well. Using your first city as the GP farm totally makes sense (when the map so dictates), just sneak a palace build somewhere else.
pigswill
fly (one day)
On the subject of Stonehenge and Tijuana I started a ghost of your game (I gave it up early on because I was following your game and had too many spoilers to make it worthwhile) but I built Tijuana town on top of the stone because of the instant access and it was still a reasonable site for a production city. Once I got masonry I was able to chop stonehenge quickly at 40 hammers a chop without the tedium of building a quarry. That was in fact my second city.My third city was over by the gold/floodplains to help block of Hatty and that left me with a bunch of space to backfill at leisure.
Certainly building scouts early helps because you get the lay of the land and can start planning your city layout before you commit yourself too far.
The fact remains that you won despite these niggles which reinforces the idea that players make better generals than the AI.
Certainly building scouts early helps because you get the lay of the land and can start planning your city layout before you commit yourself too far.
The fact remains that you won despite these niggles which reinforces the idea that players make better generals than the AI.
The Tyrant
Prince
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2006
- Messages
- 445
VoiceOfUnreason -- I'd like to echo Sisiutil's comments. It was informative seeing how someone else handled the same situation. While reading your Shadow game I had an epiphany (of something that really should have been obvious). I realized that I need to pay more attention to modifying my strategy based on the number of opponents I have. I enjoy playing on packed maps and that leads me in certain strategic directions, such as eliminating one opponent before moving on to the next. After seeing how effectively you managed switching back and forth between war targets I realized that was a viable strategy because of the distances and empire sizes involved. Thanks for posting your Shadow game.
Sisiutil -- I agree that the post-mortem should be here. No need to separate it from this thread. You may want to edit your original post, though, to add a link to the post-mortem section so that anyone coming here later won't have to read the entire thread if they're only looking for the strategic-level conclusions.
Sisiutil -- I agree that the post-mortem should be here. No need to separate it from this thread. You may want to edit your original post, though, to add a link to the post-mortem section so that anyone coming here later won't have to read the entire thread if they're only looking for the strategic-level conclusions.
VALIS Ashwa
Chieftain
I just wanted to thank you Sisiutil for taking your time to post this thread. I have enjoyed the civ series since civ 2. However, I do not play many games and had recently switched from PC to mac. I have been planing on purchasing Civ IV for the mac for some time now, and reading this thread has bumped my excitement up a couple of levels. Again Thank you.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Yes, I thoroughly agree on the early cities. Putting Stonehenge in Tijuana would have made GP generation easier; having all the wonders in the capital made it harder to control. And I'm so used to going after copper for axemen that it's almost an obsession. In my another game I started while this was going on, the two closest copper sources were in even worse locations (one in desert, the other in tundra), so I just shrugged and beelined to Iron Working. Bingo! Iron in the capital's fat cross.
(And this is embarrassing to admit, but because of this copper obsession, it wasn't until this game that I realized you can build Axemen with iron.
)
Even so, once you seal off part of a continent for backfill, it's been my experience that you can't wait to do that too long. Look at what Qin did in this game, sneaking a galley up north to found Chengdu. Very sneaky, especially since we had Open Borders at the time, and you'd think he would have taken the easier road (literally) and marched a Settler up there. But I was watching for that and would have cancelled OB if I'd seen Qin's Settler. I'm tempted to think the AI is programmed to be aware of this, hence the galley instead.
And I like the idea of moving the palace to take better advantage of Bureaucracy and GP farming. Usually I've only done it to make the capital more of a central hub to allay maintenance costs.
VALIS Ashwa, thanks for the kind words. I was worried that this thread might be overly self-indulgent, but so many posters like yourself have assured me that it is, indeed, useful (and fun!). So I promise, I will do this again.
(And this is embarrassing to admit, but because of this copper obsession, it wasn't until this game that I realized you can build Axemen with iron.
)Even so, once you seal off part of a continent for backfill, it's been my experience that you can't wait to do that too long. Look at what Qin did in this game, sneaking a galley up north to found Chengdu. Very sneaky, especially since we had Open Borders at the time, and you'd think he would have taken the easier road (literally) and marched a Settler up there. But I was watching for that and would have cancelled OB if I'd seen Qin's Settler. I'm tempted to think the AI is programmed to be aware of this, hence the galley instead.
And I like the idea of moving the palace to take better advantage of Bureaucracy and GP farming. Usually I've only done it to make the capital more of a central hub to allay maintenance costs.
VALIS Ashwa, thanks for the kind words. I was worried that this thread might be overly self-indulgent, but so many posters like yourself have assured me that it is, indeed, useful (and fun!). So I promise, I will do this again.
Dr Elmer Jiggle
King
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2003
- Messages
- 811
Sisiutil said:
I usually don't worry about that too much. I figure if the AI wants to waste a settler building a city that I can easily conquer whenever I please with either culture or might, then let them. That's one less settler I need to build myself.
It's more of a problem if it's someone you want to cultivate as an ally, because then miltary takeover isn't so much of an option, but if you plan to go to war anyway, it's almost like they've gifted you a city.
That's a new one for me too. A very good idea that just never occurred to me. I'm always reluctant to move the capital though. It just seems weird to make Seattle the capital of America or Lyon the capital of France.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Good point. It's usually pretty easy to either flip or capture those cities. On second thought, I'd only worry about backfilling quickly if there's a crucial resource in that territory.Dr Elmer Jiggle said:
I know! In one of my best games on Noble, I was Rome on a continent with Spain, which I conquered. It made complete sense, given the barbell-shaped continent, to move the Palace from Rome--which was tucked away one one coast--to the centrally-located Cumae (with the FP in Madrid). But I was so reluctant to do it! How can the Roman Empire be Roman unless the capital is Rome?!?Dr Elmer Jiggle said:
(Well, historically, you just move it to Byzantium...)
pigswill
fly (one day)
Moving a capital can be worth doing especially if you start off coastal and want a more central location to reduce distance maintenance. If you're worried about names just swap them round once you've built the palace.
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
One thought on the final push. If I remember correctly territory you have taken takes 20 turns to show up in your score, does it also take that long to show up in the domination %? because otherwise you could have just waited until all the newly taken Indian territory registered.
VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2005
- Messages
- 3,663
Sisiutil said:
Like copper, for example
Another case is where you have a permanent alliance/team, and need to fill territory before your AI ally gets a settler in there and screws up the dotmap.
TechJinx
Chieftain
Just want to say thanks and no thanks for this whole post
--Thanks for a great read and a gripping run through
--No thanks because I thought I was safe from obsessing about this game whilst at work, now I can't wait to get back and play it again!! I'm playing at home and reading about it at work!
I'd like to throw a crazy suggestion into the mix and say that unless you do really badly there are no poor strategies. In my experience, (thus far mainly Civs I-III on just got a couple of IV games under my belt), whatever you choose just presents a different set of challenges later on and lets you see more of what the game has to offer whilst challenging you in a different way. Just my 2 pence worth.
--Thanks for a great read and a gripping run through
--No thanks because I thought I was safe from obsessing about this game whilst at work, now I can't wait to get back and play it again!! I'm playing at home and reading about it at work!
I'd like to throw a crazy suggestion into the mix
and say that unless you do really badly there are no poor strategies. In my experience, (thus far mainly Civs I-III on just got a couple of IV games under my belt), whatever you choose just presents a different set of challenges later on and lets you see more of what the game has to offer whilst challenging you in a different way. Just my 2 pence worth.
pigswill
fly (one day)
One final post-mortem thought: if you're playing domination and expanding territory probably the best single thing to do with a GE is to keep him to rush Versailles.
Edit
ne of the better things, I must stop being so opinionated!
Edit
ne of the better things, I must stop being so opinionated!Similar threads
