How to play as Sweden?

Abraxis said:

"Fun is subjective, and whatever you think is fun." aside...

Possibly it's because playing sub-optimally is a fact of life and conducive to fun if you embrace it. It is arguably the definition of a game, an artificial rule-set self-imposed for the sake of entertainment.

If you go out for a game of golf with your niece, are you going to refuse her a handicap, try your absolute hardest, then rub her face in the sand after the 18th green to really push home how well you played? Would this be satisfying for you? You'd be playing optimally, but I can't think of anything more boring and shameful. How is doing this to, an AI no less, any better?

Many of us use our own rules, relative to our ability or self-imposed standards, in order to best challenge ourselves to adapt to novel circumstances. Because fun is a function of self-improvement and a tenacity of wit, not trouncing an inferior opponent with the rules which make them the most trounced while still making us seem skillful for the trouncing.

There is a joy to be had in knowingly burdening yourself with self imposed restrictions, or a sub-optimal play style; and still succeeding, or just not losing quite so badly, or even just seeing how things play out under such circumstances. That's creating resistance, there's no competition or challenge without resistance.

Click to expand...

Maybe (maybe) if Tom was to play the game of golf optimally, his niece would learn more (about golf and other things) than if he would concede shots and play like a clown, generally. Depends how you define fun here: is it fun to allow her to win and feel good about herself? Or is it fun to challenge her, hoping she will get character and skills as a result, instead of just tickling her ego? How is it boring and shameful to teach his niece playing the game well by showing her how it's properly done? In other words: challenging yourself by taking the free great general, while playing on emperor/immortal, is not really a challenge, but more of an ego tickling exercise, proven by the fact that there are far more challenging conditions one can put himself into.

It sounds to me like you challenge yourself only against absolute standardized values, the only benefit I could see to doing this is to pad your ego or garner recognition against a widely acknowledged watermark. I can't imagine you're as short sited as you claim though, I assume you take on the handicaps above (prince?) without any complaints, so what's your problem with imposing your own? How is it any different? How do you justify those being okay, while any self-imposed handicaps are not?

Click to expand...

He means that "own handicaps" like the free general do not create good habits for playing highest levels of difficulty and multiplayer, where the biggest resistance is. And since he sees S&T as standardised forum for high level power play, he finds it strange when role playing adepts showcase "fun" but less efficient strategies. I guess he secretly wants a role players section created someplace, far far away from S&T.

I think that Sweden is very adaptive. With the abundance of great generals (most of them you won't need, let's be honest), while being in constant wars, it is great to create pools of happiness, culture, food or faith as needed. % GP generation bonus, on the other hand, will grant an edge in peaceful games, be it science or culture. Therefore, there is good synergy in staying peaceful and friendly, and waging small wars throughout the game.

Forget it, apparently I'm too stupid to play this game well.

Monthar said:

With the fall patch's addition of more science from trade routes based on your cultural influence level over the civ the trade route is going to I wouldn't gift any of the GWAMs.

Click to expand...

Shrugs, IF everyone is playing Tradition tall "because that's the only way to play even if you get a POS coastal Tundra Start" why aren't all of your late game (after Musician's guild) trade routes internal anyway? Why should it matter if you get 2 beakers on top of a trade route, it should be food/production anyway right?

Moriarte said:

Maybe (maybe) if Tom was to play the game of golf optimally, his niece would learn more (about golf and other things) than if he would concede shots and play like a clown, generally. Depends how you define fun here: is it fun to allow her to win and feel good about herself? Or is it fun to challenge her, hoping she will get character and skills as a result, instead of just tickling her ego? How is it boring and shameful to teach his niece playing the game well by showing her how it's properly done? In other words: challenging yourself by taking the free great general, while playing on emperor/immortal, is not really a challenge, but more of an ego tickling exercise, proven by the fact that there are far more challenging conditions one can put himself into.



He means that "own handicaps" like the free general do not create good habits for playing highest levels of difficulty and multiplayer, where the biggest resistance is. And since he sees S&T as standardised forum for high level power play, he finds it strange when role playing adepts showcase "fun" but less efficient strategies. I guess he secretly wants a role players section created someplace, far far away from S&T.

I think that Sweden is very adaptive. With the abundance of great generals (most of them you won't need, let's be honest), while being in constant wars, it is great to create pools of happiness, culture, food or faith as needed. % GP generation bonus, on the other hand, will grant an edge in peaceful games, be it science or culture. Therefore, there is good synergy in staying peaceful and friendly, and waging small wars throughout the game.

Click to expand...

I think there's a hugely important distinction to be made between suboptimal tactical/technical play and suboptimal grand strategy. The former includes things like not working science specialists, not prioritizing growth, choosing bad city locations, bad city build orders, etc. Those can be categorized as mistakes, and it's good to try to optimize and eliminate these sort of errors.

It's a totally different thing to try to play a different grand strategy that may not be the strongest possible. An Honor game really does play significantly differently from a Tradition game. Being able to have a variety of experiences is fun, and it's fun to try to explore alternative strategies. If I choose to play a game using the Honor tree, I'm still going to try to play as efficiently as possible within those conditions, and I'll still gain new experiences that will help my general technical gameplay.

A lot of people enjoy exploring everything that Civilization has to offer. Attempting to explore and execute an unusual gameplan as efficiently as possible in no way contradicts a general belief that pursuing efficient and optimal play is valuable. There's nothing wrong with wanting to explore the strategic nuances of a non-optimal grand strategy.

Monthar said:

With the fall patch's addition of more science from trade routes based on your cultural influence level over the civ the trade route is going to I wouldn't gift any of the GWAMs.

Click to expand...

Do you realize that the bonus is only 1 BPT for each level of influence? Going for tourism just for trade route beakers is a pretty bad plan. Especially when you can be getting 90 CS influence for each GM.

Not to mention that around the time you have Acoustics, I intend to blast ahead in science.

I can see how using Great Musicians this way would play out. Grab the +2beaker/specialist SP in Rationalism, build and work Musician's Guild in capital, beeline ideologies, fire a golden age for the %bonus to culture/turn, burn a writer for the temporarily boosted culture to pick up a level 2 tenet, and then gift the ensuing GMusician for an instant alliance. Sweden can do that and make it even better. I personally ignore tourism most games, Sweden would let me exploit an aspect of the game that I typically underutilise.

Manpanzee said:

I think there's a hugely important distinction to be made between suboptimal tactical/technical play and suboptimal grand strategy. The former includes things like not working science specialists, not prioritizing growth, choosing bad city locations, bad city build orders, etc. Those can be categorized as mistakes, and it's good to try to optimize and eliminate these sort of errors.

It's a totally different thing to try to play a different grand strategy that may not be the strongest possible. An Honor game really does play significantly differently from a Tradition game. Being able to have a variety of experiences is fun, and it's fun to try to explore alternative strategies. If I choose to play a game using the Honor tree, I'm still going to try to play as efficiently as possible within those conditions, and I'll still gain new experiences that will help my general technical gameplay.

A lot of people enjoy exploring everything that Civilization has to offer. Attempting to explore and execute an unusual gameplan as efficiently as possible in no way contradicts a general belief that pursuing efficient and optimal play is valuable. There's nothing wrong with wanting to explore the strategic nuances of a non-optimal grand strategy.

Click to expand...

Well, honour tree is lazily designed and in no way supports military campaigns the way it should. It was specifically designed for warfare, but fails at that miserably, when you compare it to tradition or liberty. Sure, you can handicap yourself and play with a free great general, but i don't see it as being part of grand strategy, more like a suboptimal technical play (choosing less efficient social policy path). For me, optimal Grand Strategy in this instance would include: choosing the best available victory condition to pursue on the particular map. Optimal technical game play would include: social policy path, creation of army, improving correct tiles, accumulating gold per turn, selling/exchanging resources, tactical warfare, allying city states, etc.

I can understand the desire to go against the flow, but i think it's more along the lines of role - playing and less along the lines of optimal grand/technical strategy, something, i think, you general line of thought supports.

Forget it, apparently I'm too stupid to play this game well.

Moriarte said:

Well, honour tree is lazily designed and in no way supports military campaigns the way it should. It was specifically designed for warfare, but fails at that miserably, when you compare it to tradition or liberty. Sure, you can handicap yourself and play with a free great general, but i don't see it as being part of grand strategy, more like a suboptimal technical play (choosing less efficient social policy path). For me, optimal Grand Strategy in this instance would include: choosing the best available victory condition to pursue on the particular map. Optimal technical game play would include: social policy path, creation of army, improving correct tiles, accumulating gold per turn, selling/exchanging resources, tactical warfare, allying city states, etc.

I can understand the desire to go against the flow, but i think it's more along the lines of role - playing and less along the lines of optimal grand/technical strategy, something, i think, you general line of thought supports.

Click to expand...

When is your next LP coming?

Monthar said:

Yes so that's up to 3 or 4 per trade route on top of what you get for the trade route from them having a tech you don't have. Even if you're in the lead with the key beelines for a science victory the odds are everyone is going to have some techs you don't.

Now multiply that out by the max number of trade routes and it adds up quickly. That's on top of the extra GPT that will help with buying your science buildings.

Also, keep in mind those great works are also adding culture which helps get you thru the policies you need faster.

Plus getting and keeping alliances with the CS's is insanely easy without gifting the Musicians.

Click to expand...

Science per trade route per technology is irrelevant because it happens regardless of what you do with your GPs.

Compared to overall culture output at the time GMs become available, the culture provided by a GWoM is negligible. Compared to overall science output at the time when it is feasible to achieve even the first level of beaker-generating influence over other civs, the science per trade route per influence level is even more negligible. But while GMs are rather useless to most civs, Sweden can turn them into 90 CS influence, which is basically a new CS ally from scratch. This option is far superior to the others.

BlackWizard said:

When is your next LP coming?

Click to expand...

When i'm in a great mood.

For me there is one surefire way to make the most out of Sweden's ability: kill your neighbour.

Start the game with the social policies that you would get in any normal warmongering game. No need to go Honour, that tree is horrible. I like Trad-Lib mix (open Tradition, complete Liberty, go back for the 3 middle Trad policies before Rationalism), but full Liberty is just as fine, and probably full Tradition can work as well, but this is a wide empire strategy.

Aggressive scouting is necessary, because you NEED to find the CSs that give happiness. As soon as you find one and find your nearest neighbour, DoW him and conquer as early as possible, with either chariots or archers. CBs take too long. As soon as your first GG comes around, give him to the happiness CS. You will have enough happiness to take your neighbour's capital and settle your own cities.

Now, depending on the quality of your neighbour's surrounding lands, it might be a good idea to settle there as well, so you will have his capital (I always burn other cities) and at least 5 cities of your own. For this, I usually build the Writer's Guild as soon as possible, find a second happiness CS and gift my first GW.

From then on you should know what to do. You are basically playing with twice as much stuff as every other player. Sweden is a pretty strong civ, it makes Egypt and Persia look like noobs in the additional happiness department.

Moriarte said:

Well, honour tree is lazily designed and in no way supports military campaigns the way it should. It was specifically designed for warfare, but fails at that miserably, when you compare it to tradition or liberty. Sure, you can handicap yourself and play with a free great general, but i don't see it as being part of grand strategy, more like a suboptimal technical play (choosing less efficient social policy path). For me, optimal Grand Strategy in this instance would include: choosing the best available victory condition to pursue on the particular map. Optimal technical game play would include: social policy path, creation of army, improving correct tiles, accumulating gold per turn, selling/exchanging resources, tactical warfare, allying city states, etc.

I can understand the desire to go against the flow, but i think it's more along the lines of role - playing and less along the lines of optimal grand/technical strategy, something, i think, you general line of thought supports.

Click to expand...

Well, yeah, the Honor tree is definitely pretty bad. I actually think it's a reasonable choice when playing Sweden, but in general it's unquestionably suboptimal.

I guess I view the initial social policy trees as avenues to create "different" games, in much the same way that playing a different Civ is a "different" game. Like, if truly "optimal" play is your goal, you would never choose to play as Sweden in the first place. It's a completely suboptimal choice when you have the option of being Poland. From that perspective, I think it's clear that even the most hardened optimizers are ok with making "suboptimal" choices when they provide a route to a different gameplay experience.

maybe its a suboptimal topic but we:
The b/t from trade routes got VERY LOW value. There are like no early key techs which you want get bit faster and in medium run due to the decreased tech costs if others have the tech allready u get the early techs superfast anyway.

What matters quite a bit is the point of which u can get the tech lead to be able to grab wonders - and thats usuaully at about turn 100+/ren era when NC in cap and universities are up. And then the bigger pop from internal trade routes got way bigger value as few unmodified trade route bakkers.

Same for gold - bigger cap = bigger city conection gold.

Agreed, I definitely like to focus my first 2-4 trade routes on internal food routes, any extra gold is incidental.

Not to mention, extra science from food/pop helps me *now*, while extra gold just sits there. Science snowballs constantly, while gold only snowballs once you sink it into something.

Nick Carpathia said:

Agreed, I definitely like to focus my first 2-4 trade routes on internal food routes, any extra gold is incidental.

Not to mention, extra science from food/pop helps me *now*, while extra gold just sits there. Science snowballs constantly, while gold only snowballs once you sink it into something.

Click to expand...

The extra growth along with a market and some developed resources should make your cities more attractive as trade destinations from external sources.

Did anyone mention high Faith per turn during industrial to dump on CS? Possibly with Glory be to God?

Don't know about that, you're usually aiming for GScientists and GEngineers anyway because they're valuable regardless, and that's already (1000 + 1500) x 2 faith. I usually bank my faith for those, I'm not going to bank it for a measely 90 city state influence.

Nick Carpathia said:

Don't know about that, you're usually aiming for GScientists and GEngineers anyway because they're valuable regardless, and that's already (1000 + 1500) x 2 faith. I usually bank my faith for those, I'm not going to bank it for a measely 90 city state influence.

Click to expand...

Lets say you have 100 FPT and Glory be to God. You can buy a GP for 1000 every ten turns for 80 or 90 turns. That's 8 or 9 allies.

budweiser said:

Lets say you have 100 FPT and Glory be to God. You can buy a GP for 1000 every ten turns for 80 or 90 turns. That's 8 or 9 allies.

Click to expand...

My view on any game of Civ is that any advantage you get on turns 1-20 is roughly twice as beneficial as an advantage that you get on turns 30-60, four times as beneficial as a benefit you get prior to 120 or the renaissance and probably 20 times more beneficial to public schools etc. That's why I value Babylon so high, that free GS is what makes them top tier. It is for this reason that I support going full honor with Sweden on Tundra starts. Honor provides you with a fast initial tree via gifting your first GG that you'll get somewhere around turn 20. You don't need the GG to support your archers that are clearing barb camps or farming XP on other civs and the maintenance cost is largely probative any way. You'll usually get another GG around t60 when you want to start clearing Civs and another GG around t90 that you can gift or keep as needed. I like splitting my forces at this time into two separate armies finally You can gift another GG around t130. After that I usually keep them as I'll have several different army groups depending on map size.

Honor is a bad tree but it does have some limited uses; One being Sweden on Tundra starts. Honor provides you with a fast Policy path via gifting an early GP that doesn't count against your GSEM or GWAM trees. Its much easier to clear barb camps using honor. It provides you with border expansion on puppets and some happiness mitigation. Honor provides you with a ton of cheap swordsmen to provide support to your pre-made archers especially if you get a religion and holy warriors. Buy your warriors for 50 faith and then upgrade to swordsmen for 50 gold. Plus those swordsmen get a 15% combat bonus for adjacent units, finally you get gpk which scales with unit strength.

Nick Carpathia said:

I'm not going to bank it for a measly 90 city state influence.

Click to expand...

Please consider that liberating a CS wins you only 60 influence. I was skeptical of this gifting GP approach until I tried it. It just seemed like a very poor use of GP, pretty much wasting them. It actually works quite well, and is a great deal of fun. Thinking about how CS influence works, it makes sense to me in hindsight. The value of CS influence points is not really linear, even though it is presented that way.

Resipsa said:

...One being Sweden on Tundra starts.

Click to expand...

I don’t disagree with you at all, but what is the significance of Honor for a Tundra start? Why not “one being Sweden on any start?” I have been following this thread, but I am not understanding the tundra angle, except for Sweden possibility being less bad on tundra than other civs? When and how is a tundra start a strength? How is it particularly a strength for Sweden?