This is embarrassing.

justanick said:

That seems extreme. By using big groups you will lose a higher percentage of turns just moving to yet to be roaded tiles. Groups larger than 2 will usually be a waste. When dealing with swamp or even jungle groups of 3 or even 4 may be suitable.

Click to expand...

By using 3 workers to build a road, in terms of worker turns (ie counting worker movement points used) we use 6 worker moves. Agreed. But in actual turns we get a road in just 2 turns. That is 1 (2 in Republic) extra commerce. Plus, whenever you send workers to improve a tile it's rarely just to get it Roaded. Almost always when we want a city to use that tile, we'll improve it fully. That's when the larger groups come in even more helpful. Standing right there they can start mining and give the city an extra shield in just 2 turns.

justanick said:

I tend do do the opposite. By having them relativly equally distributed less turns are wasted on moving and improvements might get ready on time for growth if growth is distributed equally aswell.

Click to expand...

On huge maps with 31 civs, land is scarce. It pays to have a bunch of powerhouses with fully improved tiles producing horses, archers or swords every turn. Diverting workforce to cities where 1-2 Shields are gobbled by corruption is just effort wasted. Of course I don't say that these cities should be left without a worker but that the core should be improved first seems more appealing to me.

Lord AJ said:

Civ Assist works fine on Windows 7. In fact, I ran out for the first time on Win 7 only. Currently, I have it working absolutely fine on Windows 10 as well.

Click to expand...

Didn't work fine for me, not even after installing that elderly version of .net (though that allowed the installation to proceed), and not when running as admin in XP SP3 compatibility mode. I have a lot more patience for gameplay practice than I do for techie tweaking and experimenting. Had to nullify one of M$'s patches just to get C3C to choke to begin with.

Lord AJ said:

On huge maps with 31 civs, land is scarce. It pays to have a bunch of powerhouses with fully improved tiles producing horses, archers or swords every turn. Diverting workforce to cities where 1-2 Shields are gobbled by corruption is just effort wasted. Of course I don't say that these cities should be left without a worker but that the core should be improved first seems more appealing to me.

Click to expand...

Well, 31 civs plus Barbarians seems a bit too much, handling that amount of diplomacy is not appealing to me. The important thing however is that on huge maps corruption is very low, so that argument does not seem to apply in a relevant manner. All core cities, and on huge about 90% more core cities than in standard map are possibly, should be improved fast. Any tile used by a citizen should be fully improved in time.

Lord AJ said:

By using 3 workers to build a road, in terms of worker turns (ie counting worker movement points used) we use 6 worker moves. Agreed. But in actual turns we get a road in just 2 turns. That is 1 (2 in Republic) extra commerce. Plus, whenever you send workers to improve a tile it's rarely just to get it Roaded. Almost always when we want a city to use that tile, we'll improve it fully. That's when the larger groups come in even more helpful. Standing right there they can start mining and give the city an extra shield in just 2 turns.

Click to expand...

For each additional worker in a group a worker has to exist for one more turn for each tile to be improved, in fact even slightly more. So when for each city 12 tiles are to be improved a workers has to exist at least an additional 12 turnd for each city. That is 12 turns he could have been added to a city using a tile. That would seem to be the paramount concern.

Having enough workers to ensure that each tile used is improved is something that should be achieved shortly after the settling phase is over. Once a postdespotic government is assumed it certainly should be the case. One approach for this is to build more workers during despotism than needed in despotism. That will reduce (low) yields during despotism, but it will cost no unit support. When republic is assumed some tiles are improved in excess of immediate need. But population will grow fast until city size is reached, so some excess is needed. After reaching city size growth will take twice as many turns, thus a shortness of workers is less likely. Once harder to improve tiles like hills need to be improved a few more workers may be recruited, but once city site is reached unit support should be less of an issue. By building improvements in excess of need during despotism the amount of workers during early repulic will be minimized, thus unit support expenses are minimized as well. Mimizing unit support during early republic and minimizing the turns of existence of workers will help to maxime the net economic output.

What i said should be well appliable on standard size map on regent, monarch or emperor. Also i believe it to apply on huge maps like stated at the start of this thread. The main improvement by this approach should be net commerce and thus research in the early repulic.

One weakness of the approach are the short term considerations. Shields in depotism are reduced to gain a lot once repulic is reached. But in times of war one needs shields immediatly. In that case the approach of larger groups seems more suitable. The higher the difficulty setting and the less space per civ there is there more like war is. At Demigod and above the applicability will be reduced.

justanick said:

That seems extreme. By using big groups you will lose a higher percentage of turns just moving to yet to be roaded tiles. Groups larger than 2 will usually be a waste.

Click to expand...

Exactly. I usually try to build roads by just one single worker, and once the road is finished, I move additional nearby workers on that tile (with no loss of time) to help with the irrigation/mine. This seems to be the most efficient use of available worker-turns.

Let's look at an example: I have 3 workers and want to mine 3 grasslands.
a) Single worker approach:
Turn 1: each worker moves on a separate tile.
Turn 2-4: they build 3 roads
Turn 5: all 3 of them move onto one of these tiles and (in the same turn) start building a mine
Turn 7: the first mine is finished and all three of them start the mine on the next tile
Turn 9: the second mine is finished and all three of them start the mine on the next tile
Turn 11: the third mine is finished, the workers are free to seek new employment.

b) Stacked worker approach:
Turn 1: worker crew moves to first tile
Turn 2: they build a road
Turn 3: they start building a mine
Turn 5: the first mine is finished and they move to the next tile
Turn 6: they build a road
Turn 7: they start building a mine
Turn 9: the second mine is finished and they move to the next tile
Turn 10: they build a road
Turn 11: they start building a mine
Turn 13: the third mine is finished, the workers are free to seek new employment.

So we can see, it takes 2 full turns longer that way. A total of 6 worker turns are "wasted" (two in turn 1, two in turn 5 and two in turn 9, when three - instead of just one - workers move onto an un-roaded tile).


Of course there are exceptions. For example, if happiness is a big problem, I might move 3 workers to an un-roaded gem mountain in order to connect the gems in 4 turns instead of 10 turns. Or if food is scarce for a certain town, a banana jungle tile may also be worth sending a crew of 4 workers onto it to get the jungle chopped quickly.


Let me also add a comment on whether or not to upgrade units. I usually do it in two situations:
1. When I'm going for a quick military win. In this case you want to use both, shields as well as commerce, for creating a big army, and upgrades are simply the most efficient way to use money for military: you pay 3g per shield whereas with rushing you pay 4g per shield. So when you have reached the tech for the weapon you want to use (let's say Chivalry/Knights or Military Tradition/Cavalry, depending on map size and difficulty level), you stop research and produce a monster army as follows:
a) Turn 1: pillage your iron (or saltpeter) resource. Set all cities to produce horsemen. Restore the road on the resource.
b) For the next three turns (or how long it takes to produce the horsemen) just rake in the cash. (You need marketplaces and as many luxuries as possible...)
c) When the horsemen finish, you go into the city popup, right-click on the horseman and upgrade to Knight/Cavalry. They will already be "ready to go" in the same turn they were produced.
d) Go back to a)...

2. When I'm going for a research victory (UN or Space Race). Here I need only a minimum military to prevent my neighbors from getting any stupid ideas. Of course my cities need all their shields to build urgently needed improvements (libs, markets, courthouses, aqueducts, universities, Copernicus, Newton, Bach, etc.) The less shields invested into military units, the better. So I build an initial army and keep it up-to-date with upgrades.

No need to be embarrassed.

At the risk of reiterating, overbuilding is a common impediment to success. I usually under build military, keeping a small defensive garrison on the periphery and concentrating on offensive units, keeping wars on the enemy's turf.

Building barracks in productive cities and only building units there helps. Occasionally having a barracks near the border for fast healing is useful.

As an exercise, a no research game is fun. Keeping all our wealth for buying tech, eschewing libraries and Universities and really practicing establishing first contacts and sharpening your deal making skills is good fun and useful.

Welcome to the forums! It's great to see people still paying this great game.

Thanks, splunge. I am being a lot more judicious about buildings than I was in the past. Far fewer Marketplaces. I have to keep money up to maintain a decent military under Republic, but another priority is getting culture flips from the neighbors' border cities. Republic offers enough money to get the culture broadcasts emanating from my border cities. In the days of CivAssist II (which I tried and cannot get to work), it would tell me which of my own cities were vulnerable, and I'd keep adding garrison units until they came up non-vulnerable. However, as I was taught, in time of war the enemy would go for the least defended cities first, so it makes sense to put larger garrisons in the border cities so that a sneak attacker would try to bypass them, thus giving my standing army time to react while I crank up the unit production machines in the inner ring.

The battle goes well enough (except that I haven't had any battles yet, except counterinsurgency warfare against barbs). Core cities at 12s and Barracked, building the nucleus of a strong force. Constantly insinuating new cities into frontier niches, then building Temples real fast and continuing to advance the culture war. Stacks of 4 to clear abundant jungle and marsh. I got kind of a weird start point, at the panhandle tip of an inland sea shaped like the US state of Florida, without nearby access to the open ocean.

I see now how the Republic explosion works. Yeah, the army costs a lot more, but you earn a lot more money to afford it, and when you are not buying key improvements, you have money for various other adventures. Yeah, you can't use police, but you can afford to dole out luxuries that are more efficient than entertainers. And since it makes your trade explode, that fuels not just gold, but research.

Had not realized that in the Dutch, while they get their UU much earlier than Musketeers--and it's a good one--they do not actually get the Musketeers, even if they have Saltpeter. Aw, hell. Okay, whatever, no whining, buck up. Now is a good time to pick a quick fight with a beatable opponent, to trigger my GA and take a tech lead I will never relinquish (I hope, given my ignorance of the world outside my home continent, or even the size of said continent). What's the best way to irritate some hapless neighbor of my choice into being fool enough to declare war on me? I understand that, under the Republic, wars need to be short and vicious, in addition to victorious.

I suppose first I'd better do embassies, just so that I know who is allied with whom. I don't fear any of my neighbors alone, but all of them in union would give me a run for it.

jkk said:

Had not realized that in the Dutch, while they get their UU much earlier than Musketeers--and it's a good one--they do not actually get the Musketeers, even if they have Saltpeter

Click to expand...

Not technically true, because the Musketman (60s) actually upgrades to the SMerc (30s, like a normal Pikeman). I was surprised as well, when I got the Dutch as my Random-Civ in my first (nearly) All-Random Emp game (linked in my signature), but that is how it works.

So if the Dutch have Salt but no Iron (as also occurred in my game), they can build Muskets rather than SMercs -- albeit for twice the price. They can also upgrade their Spears to Muskets, if they have the cash (I did, because I also built Leos, IIRC). If Iron is then acquired after Saltpeter, the Musket --> SMerc 'upgrades' are free -- but it makes very little sense to do this, because if you later want to upgrade those ex-Musket-wielding SMercs to Rifles (80s) or Infs (90s) it will cost you a lot more than it would have if you'd just left them as Muskets in the first place. In that situation, you would be better off building SMercs from scratch.

What's the best way to irritate some hapless neighbor of my choice into being fool enough to declare war on me?

Click to expand...

The 'simplest' way to get yourself DoW'd by an AI (in the early game) is to appear Weak against them (e.g. run a military that's heavy on defence -- the SMerc is great for this -- but with only relatively few strong attackers and/or multiple weaker/resourceless units, vs AI-Swords/-Maces/-LBMs). They are then much more likely to demand tribute, and refusing them is more likely to result in a DoW. The danger is that such tribute-demands always arrive on the AIs' turn, so you have to be sure that your border-town(s) can weather their initial fast-unit assault(s) -- but this should not be a problem at Regent level (where AI-stacks tend to be relatively small), especially if you also have some bombardment units (say, one per garrisoned unit per town). After you've repelled the boarders, you can then take the fight back to them. Or, if your intention is simply to trigger your GA, just leave a SMerc or two stationed on the borders, since units in the field will usually be attacked more readily than equivalent units in towns.

A particularly sneaky way to force a DoW is to tie a Peace-Treaty (re)negotiation to a Military Alliance ('MAPT-deal'). When your erstwhile Ally(s) sign peace with the common foe, they then automatically DoW you instead. This is primarily used to obtain War Happiness, when the Allies/Enemies are on a different Continent (i.e. where you're very unlikely to have to do any fighting yourself). Doing it on your side of the pond will mean that the WH doesn't last as long, because your territory will get invaded (enemies on your territory, and attacks on your units, increase your WW-count). But if you can fight off the initial rush quickly (because again, the AIs will sign PTs/ DoW you during their turn), and capture your targets quickly, you should be able to manage the WW.

I understand that, under the Republic, wars need to be short and vicious, in addition to victorious.

Click to expand...

If you can be sure that the war will be short and vicious enough, you can also DoW your target yourself -- just make sure that you won't break any deals, and be prepared to buy in some allies on your side (so that your victim can't). After DoWing, let the AI send its attackers to you first, kill them off, then use a sufficient stack of your own attackers to go after several border-towns (the AI rarely puts more than 2 defenders in a Pop6-er, so 4-5 decent same-era attackers per town should be enough). Having taken those towns, sue for peace (try and get more towns if you can), use the next 20T to (re)build your military, then do(w) it again...

I suppose first I'd better do embassies, just so that I know who is allied with whom. I don't fear any of my neighbors alone, but all of them in union would give me a run for it.

Click to expand...

The AI doesn't usually buy Allies on the first turn of a war, and even if your intended victim currently has an MA with CivB against CivC, they would still need to sign an additional and separate MA against you, to get CivB to fight you as well -- which they won't do if they can't afford it. But there's no reason why you shouldn't pay CivB to backstab your enemy, if you can afford it.

In the Ancient and early Mid-Age, the only thing you really need to watch out for is RoPs that can let distant civs put slow-but-strong units over your borders sooner than you expected them -- this can be especially dangerous after Steam is known and Rails have been laid, and is all the more reason to break up AI-AI treaties (especially MPPs) wherever possible. Sign an MPP with everyone (on your landmass) that your target already has one with, DoW your target without invading him, and watch him get dogpiled...

Lanzelot said:

So when you have reached the tech for the weapon you want to use (let's say Chivalry/Knights or Military Tradition/Cavalry, depending on map size and difficulty level), you stop research and produce a monster army as follows:

Click to expand...

The upgrade knight to cavalry is definitely sensible. But the upgrade to knight has some costefficient alternatives. You can skip researching medieval techs and simply spam out horsemen. That can be done using cashrushing in a monarchy or be done while by staying in despotism as switching governments is an avoidable delay to world conquest.

Lanzelot said:

2. When I'm going for a research victory (UN or Space Race). Here I need only a minimum military to prevent my neighbors from getting any stupid ideas. Of course my cities need all their shields to build urgently needed improvements (libs, markets, courthouses, aqueducts, universities, Copernicus, Newton, Bach, etc.) The less shields invested into military units, the better. So I build an initial army and keep it up-to-date with upgrades.

Click to expand...

I wonder how that happens in detail. Do you save building 10 shields at the expense of 30 gold, so that you get an university one turn earlier to get additional 15 beakers? That would be poor tradeoff unless gold is gained in excess of need by selling tech to AI etc..

Once universities are built one usually reaches a point when enough shields for building a military by regular means are left over. Once that army exists one will still continue to produce enough shields. Those could be put into wealth or into building military that will be disbanded in cities that need further improvement.

jkk said:

I have to keep money up to maintain a decent military under Republic, but another priority is getting culture flips from the neighbors' border cities. Republic offers enough money to get the culture broadcasts emanating from my border cities.

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You might want to have look a this formula:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=41933

Personally i would not count on getting flips, just avoiding to suffer flips should suffice. Getting cities is done by means of war, keeping them is done by culture and that is mostly global culture. Also completely wiping a civ from the map is a very good measure.

jkk said:

However, as I was taught, in time of war the enemy would go for the least defended cities first, so it makes sense to put larger garrisons in the border cities so that a sneak attacker would try to bypass them, thus giving my standing army time to react while I crank up the unit production machines in the inner ring.

Click to expand...

I wonder whether this really applies to inner cities. Or does it only refer to which of the outer cities will be targeted?

jkk said:

Constantly insinuating new cities into frontier niches, then building Temples real fast and continuing to advance the culture war.

Click to expand...

Are you buying temples with money? That would be a huge waste. Money is meant to be put into researching. If you need more than 4 turns per tech your research output is too small. That is at least how i think about it. Once the industrial age has been reached techs become a lot more expensive. On huge maps at the start of the medieval age techs cost about 1280 beakers or 320 per turn. At the end of the medieval age it is 2720 beakers or 680 per turn. At the start of the industrial age it is 4800 beaker or 1200 per turn. At the end of the industrial age it is 7200 beakers or 1800 per turn. In the modern age it gradually increases to 14400 beaker or 3600 per turn.

Temples can often wait till the industrial age. 1 happy face for 1 gtp is a net gain of zero, that is not worth it. It becomes worth once you have universities and banks as that way 1 base commerce not put into the luxury slider will give 2 gtp or 2 bpt.

jkk said:

Had not realized that in the Dutch, while they get their UU much earlier than Musketeers--and it's a good one--they do not actually get the Musketeers, even if they have Saltpeter. Aw, hell.

Click to expand...

Well, they can build musketeers, but those are upgraded into the UU. After all the UU is twice as efficient.

jkk said:

I understand that, under the Republic, wars need to be short and vicious, in addition to victorious.

Click to expand...

Longer war are possible if you keep your fighing very effecient. But i think you got the basics. If you want to know some details take a look at this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=61628

tjs282 said:

If you can be sure that the war will be short and vicious enough, you can also DoW your target yourself -- just make sure that you won't break any deals, and be prepared to buy in some allies on your side (so that your victim can't). After DoWing, let the AI send its attackers to you first, kill them off, then use a sufficient stack of your own attackers to go after several border-towns (the AI rarely puts more than 2 defenders in a Pop6-er, so 4-5 decent same-era attackers per town should be enough). Having taken those towns, sue for peace (try and get more towns if you can), use the next 20T to (re)build your military, then do(w) it again...

Click to expand...

If the war is too short you risk breaking the military alliance you brokered at the start of the war. That should be avoided. Usually AI will be eager to break a military alliance, but counting on that might not work with the desired precision. What you decribe should work relativly well at emperor and above, but for regent it might be oversophisticated.

At regent i estimate 2 kind of wars to make sense. A limited war like you describe. About 50% of the cities of AI will be taken in very short order, then peace is signed. That is best done without an alliance simply because the war might be too short for AI to break alliance.

The alternative is to start a war intended to wipe out an entire civilisation. In that case buy every other civ into the war. If they break the alliance simply buy them back into the war. Let AI fight themselves for about 3 turns, than start your own invasion. It will be a total invasion with fast forces like cavalry. Your goal is to take as many cities of AI for for yourself and to do it in a fast order.

I rather advise for the later kind of war. That way you minimize culture flips and you only declare war once. Each time you declare war relations suffer. If you break a peace treaty within 20 turns after signing it counts as if you declared war twice, but no other (diplomatic) penalty seems to apply.

jkk said:

What's the best way to irritate some hapless neighbor of my choice into being fool enough to declare war on me?

Click to expand...

If an espionage missions is detected by another Civ it often declares war on you. You should have built the intelligence agency for that. The advantage is that you control the time of the DoW and a spy tells you exactly how many units the enemy has.

Another option is to ask "leave or declare war". Usually AI will declare war, but only if your military is not too strong. For the diplomatic option to appear AI must have military inside your borders and no right of passage to be there.

tjs282 said:

Not technically true, because the Musketman (60s) actually upgrades to the SMerc (30s, like a normal Pikeman). I was surprised as well, when I got the Dutch as my Random-Civ in my first (nearly) All-Random Emp game (linked in my signature), but that is how it works.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation. It reinforces my belief that I should just be glad I got almost the same combat value, much earlier, for half the price. Plus, I need to keep them around anyway, at least until I get the AI to bang its head against one on a mountain, and trigger my GA.

Lots of ways to get the trouble started, thank you. I think I'll prefer picking someone who seems to have a main ocean outlet, because it feels really weird to be this deep in the game and not even know the extent of my home continent. For all I know it's gigantic.

justanick said:

Personally i would not count on getting flips, just avoiding to suffer flips should suffice. Getting cities is done by means of war, keeping them is done by culture and that is mostly global culture. Also completely wiping a civ from the map is a very good measure.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was not really going for flips at first, except for the cities that my land surrounded on three sides and I knew might flip, probably eventually would. Especially if I restricted their growth by crowding them.

justanick said:

I wonder whether this really applies to inner cities. Or does it only refer to which of the outer cities will be targeted?

Click to expand...

I do not know. Even if the latter, though, it works out well. A reasonable frontier defense that can offer resistance until the main force gets there to go onto the offensive.

justanick said:

Are you buying temples with money? That would be a huge waste. Money is meant to be put into researching. If you need more than 4 turns per tech your research output is too small. That is at least how i think about it. Once the industrial age has been reached techs become a lot more expensive. On huge maps at the start of the medieval age techs cost about 1280 beakers or 320 per turn. At the end of the medieval age it is 2720 beakers or 680 per turn. At the start of the industrial age it is 4800 beaker or 1200 per turn. At the end of the industrial age it is 7200 beakers or 1800 per turn. In the modern age it gradually increases to 14400 beaker or 3600 per turn.

Click to expand...

Okay, a few questions:

What else should I be doing for culture defense in small frontier cities that are not far from well-established foreign cities that will presumably be playing their rock music at us on 10?

If the Temple leads to Cathedral, and especially if one angles for the Sistine, does that change anything? Or are Cathedrals even worse cost/benefit arithmetic than Temples in your view?

Is this buying Temple stuff in the category of "stuff you might get away with on Regent but that will be a bad habit to overcome once you step up in difficulty"?

justanick said:

Temples can often wait till the industrial age. 1 happy face for 1 gtp is a net gain of zero, that is not worth it. It becomes worth once you have universities and banks as that way 1 base commerce not put into the luxury slider will give 2 gtp or 2 bpt.

Click to expand...

This suggests that you believe luxury slider moves should be the primary tool to keep things calm for at least the first couple of ages, with entertainers where absolutely necessary. Fair summary?

justanick said:

Well, they can build musketeers, but those are upgraded into the UU. After all the UU is twice as efficient.

Click to expand...

I am beginning to see what happened. In this game, I got both Horses and Iron as if I had some right to them, right on time. So I was building Swiss Mercs long, long ago, and the AI assumes that I'd never want to spend twice as much to get twice the attack factor. To which I suspect you would say: "To the AI's credit, that it assumes no one would be unwise enough to want that."

justanick said:

Longer war are possible if you keep your fighing very effecient. But i think you got the basics. If you want to know some details take a look at this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=61628

Click to expand...

My takeaway from that is that it's better to provoke a DoW by the AI than to DoW them, and that one wants a very short war with very few friendly losses. Which I would think is the definition of efficient: win a high percentage of the battles, defensively and offensively, to keep the relative loss ratio high.

And it also suggests that one of my past uses for really obsolete units--let them act as stumbling blocks and guerrillas because getting them killed will mean I don't have to pay their support any more--is likely to generate a lot of WW.

jkk said:

What else should I be doing for culture defense in small frontier cities that are not far from well-established foreign cities that will presumably be playing their rock music at us on 10?

Click to expand...

First one should question this assumption. Ideally the fatcross of your border town does have only few overlapping tiles with the fatcross of the foreign city. After all it is foreign tiles in our fatcross that cause flips. The fatcross are those 20+1 tiles that you would have after the first cultural expansion.

What can be done generally against culture flips is to increase your global culture by building many libraries and universities in your core towns. If your total culture is thrice as high as that of the other civ, than one garrison unit(warrior or better) can balance out 3 tiles under foreign culture. The combination of high global culture and some military police can completely prevent flips of your own towns. This does not depend on the ability to gain happiness from military police.

Each of your cities should sooner or later have enough culture for the first cuture expansion. Usually a Library will do that. Further cultural expansion does not matter much.

jkk said:

If the Temple leads to Cathedral, and especially if one angles for the Sistine, does that change anything? Or are Cathedrals even worse cost/benefit arithmetic than Temples in your view?

Click to expand...

Cathedrals are better, especially with the Sixtine. But they may be unneeded once you get 20 happy faces from 8 luxuries. Spending some shields into the military helps to aquire those luxuries, market places will optimize the utilization of those luxuries. Not building any temples, cathedrals or colloseums might be perfectly reasonable.

jkk said:

Is this buying Temple stuff in the category of "stuff you might get away with on Regent but that will be a bad habit to overcome once you step up in difficulty"?

Click to expand...

That could be read as that it actually makes sense at regent. It does not. It is complete utter nonsense. If you want a city take it by force. Using culture for flips is extremely inefficient. Using the military is the obvious approach.

It should be mentioned that are are many things one can get away at Deity, but not at Sid. But lets stick at regent for know. Once you feel safe at regent you might try emperor.

jkk said:

This suggests that you believe luxury slider moves should be the primary tool to keep things calm for at least the first couple of ages, with entertainers where absolutely necessary. Fair summary?

Click to expand...

Only while the underlying assumptions hold true: Donnot spend money on upgrades or cash rushing unless it is a military necessity, it is necessary to avoid unreasonable slowing down of growth or it is necessary to avoid waiting unreasonable long for a needed courthouse.

Ideally no money is spend on any of them, but at least some money on courthouses where corruption is between 50% and 85% is required as the thereby gained money will be greater than the money spent on cash rushing.

Now under those circumstances it will take a while till building temples becomes reasonable. You do need scarce shields for aqueducts, libraries, courthouses, market places, universities and of course the military. Building temples should wait till nothing better can be done with those initially scare shields. That usually takes well into the industrial age if tech advances fast, universities cost a lot, banks are to be built aswell and a major cavalry force is to be built.

jkk said:

My takeaway from that is that it's better to provoke a DoW by the AI than to DoW them, and that one wants a very short war with very few friendly losses. Which I would think is the definition of efficient: win a high percentage of the battles, defensively and offensively, to keep the relative loss ratio high.

Click to expand...

It is absolute losses that count. Keep your losses low and avoid being attacked and your WW will remain low and possibly zero.

jkk said:

One trend I need to develop, that this statement in particular highlights: better accounting. I need to do a more diligent job of squeezing out bang-per-buck in every way. I need to remember to dial the research down on the last turn of discovery, to be alert to when growth will hit size 7 provided there is an aqueduct, and so on.

Click to expand...

I was going to mention the "dial down the research" tip, but you're already on it.

The other tip which I learned here is to freely tech trade with your allies and your enemies in the Ancient Age, to avoid having to self-research all of the techs. After you've achieved the Philosophy slingshot (and received the free tech), go ahead and sell Philosophy to everyone else, on the next turn. They will still pay a lot of gold for it, even though they won't get the benefit. And depleting their gold supply will further hobble their ability to cash-rush any units or improvements.

vorlon_mi said:

The other tip which I learned here is to freely tech trade with your allies and your enemies in the Ancient Age, to avoid having to self-research all of the techs. After you've achieved the Philosophy slingshot (and received the free tech), go ahead and sell Philosophy to everyone else, on the next turn. They will still pay a lot of gold for it, even though they won't get the benefit. And depleting their gold supply will further hobble their ability to cash-rush any units or improvements.

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Yeah, that's a good one. I remember from before that the AI will trade a tech if they get it, which if they are the ones to make the offer to the human player, and one accepts, that's a bad idea. More sensible to decline the trade, then turn around and make the offer--then also trade it to everyone, for whatever.

Okay. When the enemy masses and violates your territory, clearly, they will declare war next turn. At that point, is there any point in doing something to make them less interested in attacking, or is it locked in? It just happens to come an an inconvenient time (namely, I'm just about geared up to get revenge on another neighbor).

Well, you can still declare war on your intended victim and buy your "eager to attack you"-neighbor into the war. That might not stop him from attacking you, but at least it will be three 1 vs. 1 wars.

I once tested this by reloading from the same .sav, when I was in that situation:
- gifting a lump sum
- gifting gpt
- gifting a resource
- trading a resource
- gifting a tech
- signing a RoP
- signing an MPP

Nothing of the above made any difference: they attacked next turn. (Even if it meant losing a large amount of gpt to them!)
Can't remember whether I tested signing an alliance against a third party?! Could be we didn't know a common third party yet at that time.

Lanzelot said:

Nothing of the above made any difference: they attacked next turn. (Even if it meant losing a large amount of gpt to them!)
Can't remember whether I tested signing an alliance against a third party?! Could be we didn't know a common third party yet at that time.

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Depending on geography, might it then make more sense to postpone your intended war against CivA, and tell CivB to leave or declare? If they're already on your land, they'll probably DoW, but now they're doing it during your turn, so you can still exercise some initiative. And now you're at war, you can also sign up CivA as a temporary ally.

That way, rather than two 1 vs. 1 fights, you get a 2 vs. 1 fight against CivB. Worst case, CivA sends no units into the fray before it's over, but if you're paying them for the MA, they're also less likely to sign one with CivB against you. Best case, CivA will suicide most of his/her attackers (an RoP would 'help' them do so), making it easier to take out their cities later, after they sign peace (or the MA+ROP ends after 20T).

tjs282 said:

Depending on geography, might it then make more sense to postpone your intended war against CivA, and tell CivB to leave or declare? If they're already on your land, they'll probably DoW, but now they're doing it during your turn, so you can still exercise some initiative. And now you're at war, you can also sign up CivA as a temporary ally.

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Good idea.