From demigod to klutz
- Thread starter walletta
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I didn't know that.
Desertsnow
πr²
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Artificial Stupidty: Strategy Games
About one-sixth of this is devoted to Civilization (scroll down about one-third) and about half of that to Civilization III (and most of the rest to Civilization V).
About one-sixth of this is devoted to Civilization (scroll down about one-third) and about half of that to Civilization III (and most of the rest to Civilization V).
Lord AJ
The Quartermaster
So does the AI get shorter anarchy periods (1T , 2T) at other difficulty levels too (diety, demigod)
walletta
King
Pretty funny.
Yes, it is up to 1 turns at Deity and Semigod, up to 2 turns at Emperor and up to 3 turns at Monarch. In the editor its shows one turn more because 0 means that no special upper limit applies, so the 1 for Sid means less than 1 turn for anarchy.
Lord AJ
The Quartermaster
Hmm interesting.
Never noticed that. Thanks for the info.
walletta
King
This time. 1270 AD. I hold the tech lead, having just completed the TofE. India and Rome, my neighbours, are the other great powers in the game, with India out in front and the Mayans second. Carthage just launched a war against Rome. All the powers on the other continent are backward. I have an MPP with India. Ideally, I would like to join with Carthage and Rome to emasculate India but that's not possible just now.
The secret? The Great Library plus no stupid military blunders. A couple of times, when I would have been tempted to dash myself to pieces, I have pulled back and consolidated instead. Apart from the hyper-aggressive Hittites (sadly no longer with us) and the permanently frosty Romans, no one has declared war on the mighty (but peace-loving) Mayans.
With the railway system almost complete and factory-building about to start, soon the Mayans will learn to fly and then there will be trouble.
ETA and a totally awesome start position helped - two cows-plus-incense capital, more cows and wheat nearby, plus silks or spices or whatever the pink ones are. Iron not far away. Horses and saltpetre were a problem but England kept selling me horses until I got my own and I returned the favour by separating England from her saltpetre in a massive alliance which put them out of business forever.
ETA and so far, no cheating.
The secret? The Great Library plus no stupid military blunders. A couple of times, when I would have been tempted to dash myself to pieces, I have pulled back and consolidated instead. Apart from the hyper-aggressive Hittites (sadly no longer with us) and the permanently frosty Romans, no one has declared war on the mighty (but peace-loving) Mayans.
With the railway system almost complete and factory-building about to start, soon the Mayans will learn to fly and then there will be trouble.
ETA and a totally awesome start position helped - two cows-plus-incense capital, more cows and wheat nearby, plus silks or spices or whatever the pink ones are. Iron not far away. Horses and saltpetre were a problem but England kept selling me horses until I got my own and I returned the favour by separating England from her saltpetre in a massive alliance which put them out of business forever.
ETA and so far, no cheating.
Lord AJ
The Quartermaster
Things going very well. Nice. [emoji106]
walletta
King
Thanks, AJ. Still possible to screw it up. India might very well take off leaving me in the slip stream, but an awesome late-middle and end game is in prospect. This is another reason I should have mentioned for shooting for DG - to have challenging play well into the later part of the game.
walletta
King
Here's an idea. Why not wait until India declares war and only then go into anarchy with a view to coming out commie on the other side? That way, you get nine frikkin' turns in which you can't replace any losses against a more highly developed attacker with bombers and everything. Where does this nine turns nonsense come from? I've survived four but another couple and I'm done for. Is there a table of expected anarchy turns-per-civ somewhere?
I play chess the same way - deep strategy that ignores the opponent's killer tactic right in front of my face.
I play chess the same way - deep strategy that ignores the opponent's killer tactic right in front of my face.
This not likely a good strategy against AI. What however works well is to go into mobilisation and builds lots of militar so that you can afford to go into anarchy with quite a safety margin. This can be convenient when you cannot negotiate a proper peace treaty but would like to leave the mobilisation which requies peace. During anarchy you get neither production nor culture(?), so the mobilisation does not hurt.
walletta
King
That would definitely have been better than what I did. Another game junked.
Why did you go into anarchy again? If you need Communism to beat Demigod, you are doing something wrong... 
(Ok, that had to be...
)
But seriously: "Republic + Science Farms in the boondocks" is just fine. No need for a second anarchy period, especially as an anarchy late in the game almost always gets 9 turns. (The length of the anarchy period is not yet fully understood. I used to thing it was a function of map size, difficulty level, number of cities and a random factor, but tests recently conducted on civforum.de did not show any correlation to map size and difficulty level. Only a correlation to the OCN. [And as the OCN depends on the difficulty level, the difficulty level indirectly influences the length of the anarchy period.] Anyway, to make a long story short, all you need to remember for practical purposes, is the following rule of thumb: "the more cities I have, the longer the anarchy period is going to be".)
In my opinion, the game must still be quite long, before a second switch of governments really pays off. The loss of the income and production of 9 full turns and the starved citizens is quite severe. In my opinion, on a standard map it never pays off. On larger maps it may be different.
(Ok, that had to be...
)But seriously: "Republic + Science Farms in the boondocks" is just fine. No need for a second anarchy period, especially as an anarchy late in the game almost always gets 9 turns. (The length of the anarchy period is not yet fully understood. I used to thing it was a function of map size, difficulty level, number of cities and a random factor, but tests recently conducted on civforum.de did not show any correlation to map size and difficulty level. Only a correlation to the OCN. [And as the OCN depends on the difficulty level, the difficulty level indirectly influences the length of the anarchy period.] Anyway, to make a long story short, all you need to remember for practical purposes, is the following rule of thumb: "the more cities I have, the longer the anarchy period is going to be".)
In my opinion, the game must still be quite long, before a second switch of governments really pays off. The loss of the income and production of 9 full turns and the starved citizens is quite severe. In my opinion, on a standard map it never pays off. On larger maps it may be different.
walletta
King
Thanks for the comment. Had I known I was in for 9 turns (according to information here, the range is from 2-8) I certainly would not have dreamed of it although, even four or five turns of anarchy was enough for India to inflict severe and practically irreparable damage.Why did you go into anarchy again? If you need Communism to beat Demigod, you are doing something wrong...
(Ok, that had to be...
But seriously: "Republic + Science Farms in the boondocks" is just fine. No need for a second anarchy period, especially as an anarchy late in the game almost always gets 9 turns. (The length of the anarchy period is not yet fully understood. I used to thing it was a function of map size, difficulty level, number of cities and a random factor, but tests recently conducted on civforum.de did not show any correlation to map size and difficulty level. Only a correlation to the OCN. [And as the OCN depends on the difficulty level, the difficulty level indirectly influences the length of the anarchy period.] Anyway, to make a long story short, all you need to remember for practical purposes, is the following rule of thumb: "the more cities I have, the longer the anarchy period is going to be".)
In my opinion, the game must still be quite long, before a second switch of governments really pays off. The loss of the income and production of 9 full turns and the starved citizens is quite severe. In my opinion, on a standard map it never pays off. On larger maps it may be different.
There is a second transition problem as one moves from the MA to the IA. India just took off in tech. I got only a temporary lead with the TofE before India shot past me (bizarrely stopping to research ironclads when well on the way to flight
). It was taking me 8-9 turns to research each new tech while India must have been going twice as fast. Still, but for my blunder, I think the long term prospects were with me. A complete network of railways and massed artillery can hold just about anything. I was in alliance with Carthage, Rome and Iroquois and a long war would have ground India down with the Maya being in the best position to profit. But, the people were ungrateful, despite the luxuries and benefits of life graciously bestowed upon them, and rose up against an overly kind and indulgent ruling class. I will sacrifice more virgins next time.Anyway, the Great Library in this game proved to be immensely valuable and maybe a better use of the slingshot is literature rather than Code of Laws (assuming one can't get that before Philosophy). The AI seems strangely uninterested in researching literature for some weird reason.
walletta
King
Ah, question. Which path is best in the Industrial Age?
1 steam power and industrialisation to get the railways and factories built ASAP
2 beeline to Scientific Method to build the TofE
3 nationalism before anything to get the defensive strength of riflemen (one Carthaginian rifleman, firing on open ground, heroically bumped off half a dozen Indian units, including cavalry, in one turn in this game).
4 medicine and sanitation to grow the pop.
All things being equal, of course (which they never are).
1 steam power and industrialisation to get the railways and factories built ASAP
2 beeline to Scientific Method to build the TofE
3 nationalism before anything to get the defensive strength of riflemen (one Carthaginian rifleman, firing on open ground, heroically bumped off half a dozen Indian units, including cavalry, in one turn in this game).
4 medicine and sanitation to grow the pop.
All things being equal, of course (which they never are).
If not at war, and I don't need the Rifelemen, then:
Prebuild ToE and Hoover Dam -> Steam Power, (Industrialization if you have money to build factories), Medicine, electricity, Scientific Method, Replacable Parts, Atomic Theory, Electronics.
Then the path from Industrialization/Corporation to Motorized Transport.
It is only 20%.
OCN does not depend on difficutly level. OCN is a function of map size only.
Nopt does depend on the difficulty level but Nopt is attribute of a city and will vary depend on the amount of (small) anti corrruption buildings and whether you have a WLTKD, but that counts for waste only.
The anarchy period is 5 to 9 turns for big empires. It is 3 to 7 turns for small empires. It is 4 to 8 turns for medium sized empires. The period is always a base value depending on empire size(amount of cities ralative to OCN) plus the variance of 5 turns.
The term slingshot is limited to getting republic. Simply taking cheap low value bonus tech like literature or map making is not the slingshots as it leaves you in despotim. The point of the slingshot is to leave despotism early.
Steam, electricity, replacable parts. No doubt about that.
Then you can choose. If AI treatens you to get ToE, than you got for medizin and scietific method, alse you can go for industrialisation and/or sanition first. Preventing AI from having any prebuilds can prove helpful.
As for ToE it is best to choose atomic theory(200) and electronics(180) as bonus tech because they are the most expensive techs in the IA.
Even if at war riflemen may be skipable. Cheaper musketmen suffice and cavalry to attack the attackers before they can attack is more important anyway.
I would not buy factories with money. Factories cost 3 gtp in maintence and together will railroads factories introduce a new era where shields are no longer scare, at least compared to money. Simply building factories via regular means should suffice.
Railroads increase production by about 40% and you can use collosseums or banks as prebulilds for factories. So rushing them will save only a few turns, maybe 5 on average.
Lord AJ
The Quartermaster
I think you should go with steam power (just the fact that you can railroad makes this a no-brainer) , electricity (can irrigate everywhere) , replaceable parts (faster workers, infantry which makes you pretty much unbeatable until tanks which are far far away) and then industrialization for a factory in the town you'll be (pre) building ToE in.
...if you desperately need them to defend yourself. Which sometimes happens.
I agree that it's better to build a strong Cavalry force with few defenders.
I prebuild them if I need the production then finish them asap. The extra shields are worth it. And pre-factory towns can be low on production, so waiting for them to be finished can take too long. I find it a better solution to rush the factory, then with the added shields finish the other buildings quicker.
You pay for the shields once, but the ROI is faster production quicker.