From demigod to klutz

With two cows and being agricultural and industrious, you could try for the full Republic sling-shot. If Monarchy works better for you, you are doing something wrong... Especially if you are trying to compete with the AI research-wise, Republic is a must. Can you post the start save?

If Monarchy works better than Republik it is likely that you do something wrong. There are however exceptions. The most important exception are the Iroquois. Their UU is so powerful that building them in huge numbers is better than any alternative, but in order to keep up with both unit maintence and war war weariness monarchy is a must. Also the Maya can be an exception if you want to use their UU in truely big numbers for slave farming. But let us be honest: Excessive farming is not a good strategy. The maya UU is expensive and can thus not be used in big numbers early. Also the maja are industrious, therefore their workers are usually(meaning prior to replaceable parts) 3 times as fast as slaves. The unit support for workers will be low because less workers are needed. This strongly favours the republic as you have less units to pay for and more citizens that profit from the commerce bonus. Utilize that commerce bonus for proper research and you can build cavalry soon. The UU of the maya may be the worst UU because it tricks you into playing wrong. It may be even worse than feudalism which under very rare circumstances is at least a good choice.

In general any industrious civilization should use republic, anything else is a waste.

Lanzelot said:

With two cows and being agricultural and industrious, you could try for the full Republic sling-shot. If Monarchy works better for you, you are doing something wrong... Especially if you are trying to compete with the AI research-wise, Republic is a must. Can you post the start save?

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justanick said:

If Monarchy works better than Republik it is likely that you do something wrong. There are however exceptions. The most important exception are the Iroquois. Their UU is so powerful that building them in huge numbers is better than any alternative, but in order to keep up with both unit maintence and war war weariness monarchy is a must. Also the Maya can be an exception if you want to use their UU in truely big numbers for slave farming. But let us be honest: Excessive farming is not a good strategy. The maya UU is expensive and can thus not be used in big numbers early. Also the maja are industrious, therefore their workers are usually(meaning prior to replaceable parts) 3 times as fast as slaves. The unit support for workers will be low because less workers are needed. This strongly favours the republic as you have less units to pay for and more citizens that profit from the commerce bonus. Utilize that commerce bonus for proper research and you can build cavalry soon. The UU of the maya may be the worst UU because it tricks you into playing wrong. It may be even worse than feudalism which under very rare circumstances is at least a good choice.

In general any industrious civilization should use republic, anything else is a waste.

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LOL I bet I'm doing a lot wrong. I jacked in the last one just after I posted above upon seeing how enormous the gap in techs and power had become. I'm not sure whether I'm doing one big thing very wrong or a lot of little things slightly wrong (or both) but whichever it is I continue to find demigod too stiff a challenge. It's fun though. I can get to the Middle Ages (sometimes) in good shape but then it slides down hill fast.

Justanick, I'm only using the JW to harvest slaves from barbarians. I only build a couple of them. You are right, they are darned expensive.

I'll try to post the save, Lanzelot. Always a challenge for my little brain.

Here she is

walletta said:

I can get to the Middle Ages (sometimes) in good shape but then it slides down hill fast.

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I usually make the experience that it is the other way around. In the early middle ages the tech advantage of AI is at its all time peak and slowly but steady over the time of 100 to 300 turns the human played civilization closes in an finally emerges as the superior power.

You need to understand that monarchy can be slightly superior in the early game. Low unit costs and 3 content faces from military police. That is steady but stagnant advantage. The republic has to counter this with one additional base commerce per tile. The amount of tiles will be low early but grows and grows and grows. Once you reach the city size cap of 12 citizens the advantage, if measured in gold per turn or beaker per turn, continues to grow because marketplaces, libraries, universities and courthouses increase your utilization of the base commerce by a lot. This by far outweights any initial advantages of monarchy or feudalism for that matter. If you want to compete with AI at the higher levels you need to use what AI lacks most: Long term thinking.

justanick said:

I usually make the experience that it is the other way around. In the early middle ages the tech advantage of AI is at its all time peak and slowly but steady over the time of 100 to 300 turns the human played civilization closes in an finally emerges as the superior power.

You need to understand that monarchy can be slightly superior in the early game. Low unit costs and 3 content faces from military police. That is steady but stagnant advantage. The republic has to counter this with one additional base commerce per tile. The amount of tiles will be low early but grows and grows and grows. Once you reach the city size cap of 12 citizens the advantage, if measured in gold per turn or beaker per turn, continues to grow because marketplaces, libraries, universities and courthouses increase your utilization of the base commerce by a lot. This by far outweights any initial advantages of monarchy or feudalism for that matter. If you want to compete with AI at the higher levels you need to use what AI lacks most: Long term thinking.

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Well, taking this advice, I have reached 310BC in anarchy, about to convert to Republic, which I somehow reached first despite not making the slingshot.

walletta said:

Well, taking this advice, I have reached 310BC in anarchy, about to convert to Republic,

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Do consider this to be an achievement or a sign of surrender? Please do me the favour and try to aim at 1000 BC or earlier. Leaving despotism as soon as possible has to be your first priority.

Looking at your save is a shock to me. If you have not done already you should prepare yourself for some more harsh judgement.

All your cities are controlled by AI. You want to play better than AI, not to emulate its flaws. So do it yourself.

Yours cities have all kinds of unneeded buildings. You will not need temples prior to the industrial age. You will need no barracks prior to leaving despotism. Chances are you need no walls either. Your are short on granaries, though. Only your capital has one.

Your cities are way to big. Why are they greater than size 2? By building more settlers you might have 50% to 100% more cities by now. So you have 15 cities while you could have about 25 cities but have only 10 workers? This is a joke and a bad one. As a rule of thumb you should have 2 per city. As an industriuos civ 1.5 might suffice, but you need to compensate for the increased grow due being agricultural, too. Also the jungle will need some attion, so you might not be ill advised to have about 2.5 workers per city or about 62 in total.

Your army consists of 11 warriors, 23 spearmen, 4 swordsmen, 8 horsemen, 5 catapults and 3 javelin. Call me an optimist, but this army is too big. As a republic this army would costs you 94 gtp albeit you lack about 52 workers which would costs another 104 gtp.

You need to pay close attention to what you need. You need land, you need cities, you need properly improved tiles and citizens to use them. You also need to pay some attention to what you donnot need. Keep your costs low, and increase your yields instead.

justanick said:

Do consider this to be an achievement or a sign of surrender? Please do me the favour and try to aim at 1000 BC or earlier. Leaving despotism as soon as possible has to be your first priority.

Looking at your save is a shock to me. If you have not done already you should prepare yourself for some more harsh judgement.

All your cities are controlled by AI. You want to play better than AI, not to emulate its flaws. So do it yourself.

Yours cities have all kinds of unneeded buildings. You will not need temples prior to the industrial age. You will need no barracks prior to leaving despotism. Chances are you need no walls either. Your are short on granaries, though. Only your capital has one.

Your cities are way to big. Why are they greater than size 2? By building more settlers you might have 50% to 100% more cities by now. So you have 15 cities while you could have about 25 cities but have only 10 workers? This is a joke and a bad one. As a rule of thumb you should have 2 per city. As an industriuos civ 1.5 might suffice, but you need to compensate for the increased grow due being agricultural, too. Also the jungle will need some attion, so you might not be ill advised to have about 2.5 workers per city or about 62 in total.

Your army consists of 11 warriors, 23 spearmen, 4 swordsmen, 8 horsemen, 5 catapults and 3 javelin. Call me an optimist, but this army is too big. As a republic this army would costs you 94 gtp albeit you lack about 52 workers which would costs another 104 gtp.

You need to pay close attention to what you need. You need land, you need cities, you need properly improved tiles and citizens to use them. You also need to pay some attention to what you donnot need. Keep your costs low, and increase your yields instead.

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Thanks Justanick. This is good stuff. I am playing the game all wrong evidently.

On the city governor thing, the governors are managing moods only during anarchy. This is a tip of Lanzelot's. I don't entrust city government to the governors except to tell them to emphasise production to get extra shields in the IBT when the city grows.

If I build more cities but fewer fighting units, won't I be attacked? How the heck I am supposed to hit Republic 1,000 years earlier baffles me. I thought I got there quite fast in this game. The slingshot was not possible as someone got Philosphy first.

I have taken due note of your previous post about the advantage of Republic over monarchy and seen it in action in this game, with Mayan research soon hitting the four turns per tech rate of advance and income rising rapidly. I got pretty much wiped out, though, by a monstrous horde of German cavalry. I shouldn't have rejected their ultimatum. That's another tricky area. Sometimes they mean it, sometimes not. What's the best policy there in your experience?

walletta said:

If I build more cities but fewer fighting units, won't I be attacked?

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Maybe. Having less military can increase the chances of being attacked. Having more cities itself should not pose a problem, but settling near to the capital of an AI may provoke this AI to take the urgently needed land by force. So such cities would need some proper protection. Cities that are not at the border are not in need of serios military. Cheap warriors for military police should be more than enough there. Warriors for military police can increase research, but as a republic you will be tempted to disband them. So they are a dead end.

walletta said:

How the heck I am supposed to hit Republic 1,000 years earlier baffles me. I thought I got there quite fast in this game. The slingshot was not possible as someone got Philosphy first.

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Be faster and you might get philosophy first. Donnot let yourself be slowed down by expenses. Temples and barracks costs 1 gtp and thus decrease your research by 1 btp. Increasing the city size beyond the current happy cap will make you need to increase the luxury slider and thus decrease research. Early on your priority is having many cities even at the price of having to abbandon some of them later if you short on land early. In the more corrrupt towns you might use scientist. They will effective reduce your growth, but they give 3 beakers per turn, which might save you the philo race. Also donnot be shy about the coast. You need harbours to utilize coastal cities and you will likely not have harbours prior to leaving despotism, but coastal cities are a great contributer to research once they have harbours and later even commerce harbours.

walletta said:

I shouldn't have rejected their ultimatum. That's another tricky area. Sometimes they mean it, sometimes not. What's the best policy there in your experience?

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Give them what they want unless war is what you want. Once they have chosen another poor victim you may chose to let your self be hired by that victim and make the aggressor become the new victim. Sometimes it is also convenient to create victims of your own:

You have neighbor A you donnot want have as an enemy. A has a neighbar B which you donnot care about. Declare war on B and hire A to fight B. Whenever A breaks the alliance hire A again. Devour or be devoured. It is your choice.

walletta said:

On the city governor thing, the governors are managing moods only during anarchy. This is a tip of Lanzelot's.

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I wrote once that I use the governor to manage the mood in captured enemy towns while they are in resistance. (That has nothing to do with anarchy...)

justanick said:

Your cities are way to big. Why are they greater than size 2?

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Cities can never be "too big"... Especially the ones around the capital. Better have a few big ones around the capital than many small ones spread out. That way you get much more commerce and shields from the same number of citizens, simply because of less corruption. (Of course you will later need many small ones as well, to keep unit upkeep at bay, but that's not important in the beginning. Better let the AI build those towns for you and save the effort of building so many setters... Rather let the cities grow and build something useful like horsemen instead...)
Also happiness should not be a concern. If a city is "too big" for your happy cap, you can always turn some citizens into scientists instead of increasing the lux slider. It's better having that scientist/taxman than not having that citizen at all. So I can never understand, why people voluntarily slow down growth because of "happiness problems"...
With all the rest, however, justanick is dead right!

Didn't have time today to try your start save, but perhaps tomorrow. One thing however, that I noted from the 4000BC save: no river near by So it's not that easy after all despite the two cows. No river has two serious disadvantages: a) it negates the agricultural bonus when you need it most (in the beginning) and b) it means less income. Both are important for fast research. We also need to take into account that this is a huge map with very high tech costs, and therefore I think Republic in 1000BC is indeed quite hard to achieve, especially if you miss the slingshot (which is always possible on Demigod and has even happened to the best players). But I can say more when I have tried the save and see, whether there is some fresh water not too far away.

oK, tried that. Results not inspiring. I pegged out a lot of ground, built nothing but minimal forces, workers and settlers, traded OK, but missed the slingshot by a distance and only came out of anarchy in about 280 BC which is worse than before. The trouble is my cities all stayed at size 1 or 2. I guess I am supposed to create specialist scientists when there is nothing to build. I was rushing too much so I'll try it again but this time with more attention to growth to levels which don't run up any unit costs.

Interesting was that no one declared war. I just had to pay a small amount of tribute and watch foreign units amble about inside my borders.

Lanzelot said:

I wrote once that I use the governor to manage the mood in captured enemy towns while they are in resistance. (That has nothing to do with anarchy...)

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Oh, sorry. I thought it was quite a good idea. What else can productively be done during anarchy anyway? I'm sure I read that trick somewhere here. Must have been someone else. Apologies, Lanzelot.

ETA growth I guess, huh?

Crosspost with waletta... See my update in post #110.

Looks like you found out about the many small cities yourself:

walletta said:

oK, tried that. Results not inspiring.

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Now try my advice (a few productive big ones and then conquer the small ones from a neighbor instead of building them yourself)...
(The AI is much better at building settlers than you are, so take advantage of that and let them do the job for you! )

Why are you so determined to play on Demigod?

Buttercup said:

Why are you so determined to play on Demigod?

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Oh come on. If a person is trying to learn and improve his play style by seeking advice from others and playing at higher difficulty levels, that's something to be appreciated. Most people, I believe (myself included) have this goal of winning at all of the difficulties in civilization 3 one day. You should instead be advising him if you can, but if you can't then you can simply let him be.

Buttercup said:

Why are you so determined to play on Demigod?

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It's a test of virility. Several reasons, Buttercup. One is boredom with emperor games which, if I win them at all (I do not win all the time) are usually over (except for mopping up) by the late middle/early industrial age. Two is curiosity about the game's depths. We now have a fascinating doctrinal dispute between Justanick and Lanzelot who suggest two radically different playing methods, in itself an indicator of the games richness. Three is to stretch myself and play at the edge of my ability. A fourth is enjoyment of the discussion here and wonder at the skill and ingenuity of the stronger players.

It's my personality always to be dissatisfied with myself so if I get comfortable with Demigod (a long way off) then it will be on to Deity.

I am beginning to wonder whether I need a minister of finance. I have never really thought that much about the economics of the game. It's complicated enough already plus Im not very good at the type of maths involved. Take the question whether to build a temple. The temple costs what, 60 shields? That's three spearmen or two horses. Once built, it allows, permanently, for one extra non-unhappy citizen in the town/city/metro at a cost of 1gpt. That means a tile which may yield (say) two shields, two food and perhaps 3 gpt. In shields, it pays for itself in 30 turns and in that time yields 90 gold that you would not otherwise have. I guess Lanzelot would argue that, while all that is very well, the two horsemen might have joined with others and captured an enemy town or two but the economics don't obviously favour that approach. The war might be a failure and also, the temple brings other benefits, increasing the culture of your Civ, making aggression from other Civs less likely and perhaps even causing neighbouring cities to switch allegiance.

But that carried me too far from pure economics, as to which, I need to acquaint myself better with the game's more basic equations. I only learned yesterday (another shameful admission) that extra gold is yielded in Republic.

Btw. I think the start position in this game is pretty poor. No river for the capital. The only nearby river runs through jungle and swamp, which means a lot of work to render it habitable, while the next nearest is on the far side of a desert about 6-7 towns' distance away and is pretty much indefensible.

Heh, I had a first yesterday. I had a warrior waiting in jungle to be joined by a settler and, while he was waiting, he keeled over and died of disease. LOL

Atishay Jain said:

Oh come on. If a person is trying to learn and improve his play style by seeking advice from others and playing at higher difficulty levels, that's something to be appreciated. Most people, I believe (myself included) have this goal of winning at all of the difficulties in civilization 3 one day. You should instead be advising him if you can, but if you can't then you can simply let him be.

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I was genuinely curious, I'm not trying to deter the guy/gal, it's just that an awful lot of their posts over the entire forum relate to not understanding this, that or the other, not just on difficulty, but a lot of basic game functions and features. If someone is attempting to build a house while they are still learning how to plumb then the best advice is normally to set your goals lower and get a professional until you're better versed with the process by practicing on something smaller than a whole new house.

I continue this point in response to Waletta's post:

walletta said:

It's a test of virility. Several reasons, Buttercup. One is boredom with emperor games which, if I win them at all (I do not win all the time) are usually over (except for mopping up) by the late middle/early industrial age. Two is curiosity about the game's depths. We now have a fascinating doctrinal dispute between Justanick and Lanzelot who suggest two radically different playing methods, in itself an indicator of the games richness. Three is to stretch myself and play at the edge of my ability. A fourth is enjoyment of the discussion here and wonder at the skill and ingenuity of the stronger players.

It's my personality always to be dissatisfied with myself so if I get comfortable with Demigod (a long way off) then it will be on to Deity.

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I believe it was justanick (or someone on a justanick thread) who said the ideal difficulty is the difficulty where you win and lose with equal uncertainty. This seems to be you on Emperor, but you're bored with that, so you must be the kind of person who likes losing and learning more than even potentially winning, so why ask for help if that reduces your long-term enjoyment? ie: you're spoilering yourself...?

You get bored when the game is always 'over' by the late middle ages/early industrial, but that is the key era for the game. That would be the make or break point for any difficulty level as to whether it looks like you can win or whether it's a give-up game.

The game has quite a bit of depth, but not a huuuuge amount. It mostly boils down to manipulating whatever the human player's advantages are:

1. Armies (the AI doesn't get them)
2. Dumb AI (finding out the AI's predictable flaws in battle/trade/Tech choices etc)
3. Maximising your Government choice (not having a standard set-up then changing all the time)
4. Picking a nice start location in combo with your Civ's traits
5. Spending an awful lot of time on each turn, never being impatient
6. Trying your best to have Settlers/growth/Worker/military production at top speed by means of careful city micromanagement.

The difference in details will be minor differences in how to achieve the above depending on the game itself, mostly.

To me, the fact that you're attempting Demigod while still using auto-manage features suggests that you're simply not ready for Demigod yet, hence why I posted. You might well get more enjoyment from learning than winning, but this seems at odds with your preference for auto-managing and distaste for micro-management - it's just an extremely odd proposition. Which is why it would make more sense if you didn't move to Demigod until you'd completely dominated Emperor. You want to learn to run before you've learnt to walk, etc etc etc.

Hope that's answered why I asked the question, and I hope this is something you can see as advice rather than something ulterior...?

Buttercup said:

I was genuinely curious, I'm not trying to deter the guy/gal, it's just that an awful lot of their posts over the entire forum relate to not understanding this, that or the other, not just on difficulty, but a lot of basic game functions and features. If someone is attempting to build a house while they are still learning how to plumb then the best advice is normally to set your goals lower and get a professional until you're better versed with the process by practicing on something smaller than a whole new house.

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I agree with some of what you said. walleta's questions might be basic and his skipping Emperor without actually mastering the Emperor AI to play demigod wasn't something that should've been done. But even then the person's still learning things, albeit the hard way, that is falling and getting up again to do it right. Perhaps after he has won this demigod game, even if with reloading and all, he'll be able to do much better at Emperor because what he's facing makes him move out of his comfort zone. What I feel is that learning and improving is important, no matter how you do it.

Buttercup. bring it on. I don't mind advice from any source. But I do not entrust management of my cities to the governor except in anarchy when I tell the governor to manage citizen moods. I see nothing wrong with that. For the rest of the time, I manage all my cities. You may be right that I am simply not familiar enough with the game mechanics to be playing demigod but for some, maybe I am one such, titling at windmills is what they do.

I must have played hundreds of emperor games by now. They are often fun but just for a change, once in a while, I like to set myself against a harder test and, right now, that means another bout of demigod masochism.

Tell me, do you think there is something wrong with my asking questions here on the forum? It seems to bother you slightly. I thought that was what it was for ...