Shooting the Moon tips

Huh. Ok, but is it worth doing a two-pop whip if you have to MM like that? Maybe TunaTown (once it relinquishes the cottages) has enough food for it to be worthwhile. Otherwise, I think I'd prefer the extra turns of growth.
 
My thought is that you should keep researching normally, and here's why!

I get what you're saying with the empire-wide thing, but it seems like a bit of a ruse because one main city might contribute the bulk of the espionage (like with a settled Great Spy). An academy does only benefit one city, but by design that city will usually have gobs of commerce plus Bureaucracy, making that one (capital) city as powerful as multiple smaller ones. Strictly speaking you're correct, but we can't simply say that Espionage trumps Academy research because it leverages the empire.

Another thing to consider, is the cost of "turning off" your academy, which effectively wastes the generated Great Person until you return to high science slider.
 
^^ Well, I mentioned that I was considering turning my research slider off, but I guess it's not worth it. I don't have the Espionage cost formula memorized, but my only advantage would be the 50% reduction due to waiting. 50% empire-wide bonus versus 75% in your single best commerce-heavy city? It's hard to say which would be stronger. But then I got to consider that Espionage makes techs more expensive, too. I guess I should just straight out research things. That Academy really makes a difference!

Yup. I said that the Academy in my chief source of commerce should be powerful enough to overcome "espionage acquisition methods" if you will. I was saying here that espionage should've trumped regular science if it weren't for the Academy.

Even now, it's probably really close, so I'll hold off on the bad diplo from when your target catches your spy.
 
Yeah, the archery path was a mistake. Also, you needed to settle the gold mines in the north earlier for research to keep up tech for trades. Early commerce is, um, important at that speed and map size. Otherwise, I don't know. One of the things about Marathon is that once you fall very far behind, it's hard to muster the fortitude to continue.

Also, I never know what to do with the first GS. You know what I mean? If you get the Academy you've forced yourself into keeping the science slider up, which means you can't expand as much. Also, the Academy is pretty useless for Espionage. 40% science with Academy is inefficient.
 
You may well be right that going for archery was a mistake, but I replayed the start several times and in none of them could I get the copper hooked up fast enough. I can see how, in a start that has fast and easy production, one could simply build the three warriors that I would've needed to defend the capital, but I didn't have that advantage.

I do see what you mean about the GS. It's tricky to get the timing down right, unless maybe you have the bulb path memorized or something. I don't think it has anything to do with the settings; I think that it's just one of those things that take practice to learn :)

40% science with Academy isn't inefficient; it's just not leveraged. Inefficiency is not using all the means at your disposal; leveraging is about pushing your comparative advantages to the max. As long as you're using your best tiles, have made your tiles as good as you can, and are not building or researching something wasteful, you're efficient.
 
Are you spawn-busting, and how many warriors did you build from the capital?

The initial spawn-bust warriors should buy you enough time to get the copper hooked up.
 
I can't remember any more. That could definitely have been my problem. All I know is that on the archer playthrough, I didn't fight a single barb in my territory until well after the third city was founded, whereas without archery I had to fight off four barbs on the same turn or several archers stacked together.

Part of the problem is that spawnbusting is only good if you have defensive terrain or two move units, it seems. Otherwise, your warrior will walk into a death-trap of archers on the North and South (Eastern jungles work great for spawnbusting, and of course I don't have to watch the west for barbs).

Edit: of course, none of this would matter if I'd only noticed the horses to the south. Chariots are awesome spawnbusters and decent anti-pillagers.
 
I see relatively safe paths North and South that a warrior could have taken. With so much cleared land you can take advantage of the sight bonus when on a hill. Before stepping down from the hilltop your scout can peer into neighboring terrain, to ensure a "safe" move to an open tile. (A 2-move animal could still get you, but I think even chariots are subject to that danger.)
 
A scout is a two movement unit that requires advanced technology ;). Anyway, it wasn't a matter of just the path, but of avoiding the units that are already there. When I scout the south, I can count on there being at least two lions. By the time I get a fourth warrior, they'll have barbs.

What I ended up doing in the north is follow the coast up to the hill. If I felt adventurous, I'd go up the middle, but hills really aren't enough protection if you're not fortified yet.

I think that I'm just too short on production until I can mine hills, which takes a long time to do.

Well, I hope to get the next turnset in tonight. I've actually played it out, but I played it really stupidly and I'm going to do it over. Stay tuned to hear about the Arab Winter!
 
Turn 215 through turn 260: The Arab Winter

My exploration plans literally did not survive contact with the enemy, as Saladin brought the realities of war to my fair city Buena Suerte four turns into this turnset:
Spoiler :


Note: this is the second wave within three turns; the first wave devastated my stack. He brought a remarkably devastating stack to bear. He used a catapult to weaken my swordsman and spearman and his chariots decimated my axemen, which made up the bulk of my defenders. Man, and I'd just gotten the technology for catapults. :cry:



What's worse, I was just about to bring more forces to bear. If I only had one more turn...bah, at least I retook the city
Spoiler :

The archers are actually my garrison troops. I have so much extra happies that that wasn't an issue, but it still scared me to leave cities completely undefended. I also had to whip the rest of those guys in.


The Storm Breaks
Finally! I can start earning points for flawless victories (by which I mean that I win battles without losing troops); hopefully, I can get him to declare peace soon. This war was really painful. All of I've gotten from it are brownie points from my blood-thirsty neighbors (which has admittedly given me around 100 gold and Meditation).

Diplo screen
Spoiler :



For a moment, I thought I was starting to catch up as I traded MC around. But no such luck. Now, several AI's have Feudalism and some even have Civil Service and/ or paper. Gah!

Spoiler :



I did manage to grab Music first, though. Should really help in catching up once again. Btw, I ran into Toku's WFYBTA limit, but now that he's friendly that shouldn't be an issue. It's just a reminder that others are going to stop trading soon.

Spoiler :


Yay! GA for GA! :lol: That is, a Great Artist for a Golden Age. It's about time to grow the Capital again so I can make the most of the GA. Cornucopia will be my designated GP farm once the capital is large enough to take those two cottages back.

Broadening Horizons
Also, if you're observant you may have noticed that I have discovered the location of two more civilizations: the Ottoman Turks and the Koreans. Unfortunately, I found them via buying a map (traded literature for it plus some gold to the only guy who didn't already have lit.). I only just now got a scout and still haven't outfitted an exploratory boat yet. I can just reach the Ottoman Empire by foot and will need a boat to reach Wang Kon.

Going Forward
My plan last time got so derailed that I made almost no progress on it. I'm in a stronger position now so I should be able to go back to it.

I'm going to see if I can trade Music for peace with Saladin as soon as I make contact with Suleiman. I should be able to get some pretty decent deals with Music even with the delay unless the scout dies.

Oh, I forgot the religious side of things. I can now use OR to start building forges and other needed infra! That means investing in missionaries, as well, but it should be worth it.

Any more ideas on what my goals should be? I eagerly await your comments below :D
 
Turns 260-350

Well, nobody spoke up since last update and it seems I forgot an update. Honestly, without any commentary, this game is getting old. Yes, I'm needy. Don't judge me! :lol:

Game-wise, it's mostly a matter of dying the death of a thousand papercuts: Nobody is actively out to get me at the moment, but it feels like it's just a matter of time.

Since this game thread is going nowhere fast, I think that I'm going to give up. If somebody asks for screenshots, I'll post some. In general, I have the same number of cities, I used the GA for the GA like I posted I would below (my cities were really too small to take advantage of it, but I thought it was worth it at the time to avoid Anarchy), I'm behind in techs (my neighbors all have Engineering and somebody managed to get Liberalism before I got Philosophy) and I think that my empire is too small to build Oxford. My only bright spot is my diplo--the warmongers and Suleiman all love me, HC is cautious and Saladin is impotent.

Frankly, I think that this game is unwinnable at this point. I think that my cities developed too slowly without a good food resource (except for Cornucopia, all of them had rice or worse. The capital had wet rice, but it had to share with Horsies).

If it is winnable, perhaps I can use knights (I'm going for guilds atm; nobody else has it) to take Saladin's two biggest cities. They are full of wonders and they're probably his production centers.

Thanks everybody for your kind comments. I had fun.
 

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It seems we abandoned you when the going got difficult, oops!
Deity seems like a hard place to have an enjoyable game... but then a DoW can throw a wrench into a game plan at any modest difficulty.
Getting Music was a strong play, and knights could work as a breakout unit, I suppose.

The more complex the situation becomes the harder it is to give appropriate advice. So I think this thread did quite well in the early turns. Maybe a fresh game is just what you need!
 
i wouldn't advise to go for knights as break out unit... couple of AI's can tech Engineering and surely will be there.

the diplo screen looks surprisingely well... if the AP ends being buddhist I think you could get AP victory.

with the GA now I would concentrate on getting couple of GS's for Philo and Edu and lib something useful.
I have the feeling that you didn't abuse the Marathon speed enough (you should have waged some classic era wars imo, since Marathon screams "abuse AI's" due to the relative speed of units)
 
I'd not give up on Deity. I'd choose another leader. I'm not saying that it has to be HC, but JC can also be very nice to play, Praets are just so powerful on Marathon. Imho Joao is a weakling that is drinking too much, just take a look at his nose, and you know whoom you're dealing with :D

I think you would have had a lot more chances on this map, if you had skipped more techs, went earlier for BW and went directly for Oracle after that, I actually would not know how to play competetive without it. This is actually just my opinion by my games / style and not hindsight. I also think that you did a very good job on Diplomacy, you really had some very ugly opponents in this game and I wonder that you made it so far without getting involved in a war.

Anyhow, some maps are simply not winnable, and I noticed that lack of good food also when playing the save you posted. I do think though, that you'd still have a chance if you beelined to Cuirrs. Knights suck, ask ahcos if you don't believe me, they're expensive and you'll face castles if your enemies have Engi, therefor, useless. The timespan for Cuirrs though is enormous, especially if you were the first to have Music. I don't know, you said your cities were too small to make use of the GA, but using the GA to only avoid Anarchy is a waste imho. Aim of your first GA should be to generate enough additional GPs to get a tech-lead / be the first to Cuirrs. Anarchy on Marathon is very short as I got told, and a good time for the GA is when your GP Farm reaches Size 10+ and has the NE, maybe even a little earlier when you've only reached Philo if you're really having problems to keep up.

To cheer you up, I'd suggest trying the first start I posted in the awesome starts thread, that's a really really good and powerful one, you can have tons of fun with it and you could actually retailiate upon Peter for killing all my Checkers and ruining my dreams of beating WastinTime ;)

Cya, Seraiel
 
@Vranasm: Yeah, the problem is that "classical" for me was like Medieval for the AI. It's 1 AD and somebody I haven't met has Liberalism. Is that normal? I thought the tech pace would be sluggish with all these warmongers, but apparently not.

Unfortunately, the AP is Hindu. I could maybe, possibly take it, though. I think it was ole HC who built it, though, and he hasn't been involved in any wars up to now.

@TheWillToAct: Yeah, thanks for your constant encouragement. I know the settings made it hard for others to (want to) follow. Part of that was just using what I'm used to, part of it was to keep spoilers to a minimum, and part was I rolled the map before deciding to post here.

I think if I post a fresh game, it had better be something others can follow along--no Mara and load BULL into custom assets.
 
if the other continent formed some religion based lovefest and looking at yours distribution (hind+budh) that certainly is possible, especially when your own continent is slow going thanks to the warmongers (imagine Zara+MM on the other continent with MM peacevassaling to Zara both running Juda... yuck).

That's why i don't like Seraiel's advice of self researching religion... you basically give the AI with the other early religion free card for free vassals and skyrocket tech.

From my experience you want as much hate as possible between AI's at highest levels and religion is your basic tool...
that's why I like to Oracle->CoL... you get free Conf mish and if you find AI without religion then you have guarantee of pissed AI's around... you for sure need to stay out of course ;-).
 
@Seraiel: oops, I type too slowly, didn't see your post. I think you're right on everything you wrote about this game.

The comment about knights was more desperation than anything; I went for guilds so I could have another valuable tech to trade around (to leverage my one big advantage).

I think this is the first time I've played as Joao on a non-watery map. I thought that his trait combo would work well with the gems start, but I know think that his traits conflict with each other too much for it to work. Ironically, it probably would've worked just fine if I had more production in the capital instead of gems. Maybe I should've allowed a second city to pick up the gems, letting the capital to really crank out the workers and settlers.

Oracle would've been good, too. I bet it's a lot more powerful on Deity than lower difficulties, due to faster tech pace.

Lastly, I was surprised to discover that everybody and their brother started out with gold nearby. The fact that I had some gems was only enough to keep me even with them.
 
if the other continent formed some religion based lovefest and looking at yours distribution (hind+budh) that certainly is possible, especially when your own continent is slow going thanks to the warmongers (imagine Zara+MM on the other continent with MM peacevassaling to Zara both running Juda... yuck).

That's why i don't like Seraiel's advice of self researching religion... you basically give the AI with the other early religion free card for free vassals and skyrocket tech.

From my experience you want as much hate as possible between AI's at highest levels and religion is your basic tool...
that's why I like to Oracle->CoL... you get free Conf mish and if you find AI without religion then you have guarantee of pissed AI's around... you for sure need to stay out of course ;-).

It's very rare on Marathon that someone will have no Religion by the time one Oracles CoL, because Religion also has tripple chance to spread ;) And not everybody wants as much hatred as possible in their games, for achieving high-scores i. e. it's better if there is a big love-feast in religion. Anyhow, there are enough Civs that can be bribed, even if they like someone, take Zara, MM or the AGG-AIs as examples. And not to disagree with you more without reason, but Liberalism by 1 AD is not unusual for Marathon. The Timeline is totally different, in the game I did the Liberalism -> Medicine Slingshot, MM would have reached Liberalism by 300 BC, even with me sabotaging him with 10 Spies, and I could already have completed it some centuries earlier if I didn't have wanted to get Medicine by it. In standart / normal games, you i. e. won't have something like 2k+ :science: at 1 AD ;) .

@Seraiel: oops, I type too slowly, didn't see your post. I think you're right on everything you wrote about this game.

The comment about knights was more desperation than anything; I went for guilds so I could have another valuable tech to trade around (to leverage my one big advantage).

I think this is the first time I've played as Joao on a non-watery map. I thought that his trait combo would work well with the gems start, but I know think that his traits conflict with each other too much for it to work. Ironically, it probably would've worked just fine if I had more production in the capital instead of gems. Maybe I should've allowed a second city to pick up the gems, letting the capital to really crank out the workers and settlers.

Oracle would've been good, too. I bet it's a lot more powerful on Deity than lower difficulties, due to faster tech pace.

Lastly, I was surprised to discover that everybody and their brother started out with gold nearby. The fact that I had some gems was only enough to keep me even with them.

If everybody started out with Gems / Gold, you don't have to feel bad about loosing the tech-race, that's totally unnormal. I have played about 20 maps last week, and there were actually only 2 gems once and 1 gold on another map, that was owned by a Civ I conquer. I conquer 1/4-1/3 of the Civs there are on the map, so take that amount by 3 or 4 and divide by 20, then you have the chance for someone starting with Gems / Gold.

Oracle imho is a must on Deity, or especially on Marathon, as :hammers: come cheaper and :science: is more valuable. Some 400 :hammers: to get a tech worth 2k of :science: is an enormous jump in tech, also because one actually has a tech to get everything up till Calendar. It actually allowes one to expand a lot more without having to fear to ever fall behind in tech, then, when it comes to CS / Paper, ones empire is so large, that it can really make use of the GA from Music and put out some really high amount of :science: . That's actually the point where the 2 Gems of yours would have been needed for, with an empire as small as yours, Gems do help, but you could not abuse their advantage into higher expansion as much as possible.

Sera
 
Btw, I've thought:

Why can't one even better spread hate if one founds a Religion oneself? By founding Buddhism, one actually has quite a long timespan to spread Religion because the AI founding Hinduism won't have Missionaries, and even after that, one simply can convert AIs by spreading Religion to their biggest cities! By even founding 2 Religions like Buddhism + Confucianism, one has even more control and create patterns, like all neighbours with Buddhism, all neighbours of neighbours with Confucianism, all neighbours of the neighbours of the neighbours again with Buddhism a.s.o.

It's actually quite hammer-intensive, but if one has the related Shrines, it pays back in no time. I actually did that in some of my games where I conquered a 2nd Shrine, I converted the AIs I wanted to trade with to my Religion and their neighbours to different ones, iirc I stayed totally out of wars at that time and was always able to make allies the top of the list, and best thing, they liked me so much, that they even vassaled by free will!

The longer I think about it, the more I don't understand what people have against the religious approach to Civ... Even the tech-line is awesome, Priesthood unlocks Oracle + Writing, Theology unlocks Paper and is awesome traid-bait, ok, Divine Right is weak compared to Philosophy but that could actually be solved by running more than one GP Farm, with one producing great Prophets in the beginning (for the Shrines and the Techs) then switch to farming GSs followed by GMs, which are the best in late game. One could actually totally miss out on the GSs as GMs with their Trade-Mission basically allow the same but with more freedom than GSs, or am I missing something completely?

Sera
 
as I remember it was prevalent strategy back in time which was abandoned because of the associated costs involved...

it certainly is not cheap hammer wise... would have to look a bit into civpedia, but from what I remember mish costs 80H on normal, compared to library 90H (or 45H with creative) it is pretty steep cost at bad point of the game (you basically have to spam mishes right from start to hold on the AI)

AI values selfteched religion higher, so you can't convert Hindu, Juda, Tao founder if you happen to not get the religions (and Juda and tao come a bit later to judge who will land them).

And then are diplomacy complications... spreading Confu is fine if you go CoL since you go CoL not for religion. Doesn't work that great with budh imo.

I know you pick AI's by hand, but that is not the usual way how to generate map and you can't seriously compete with Izzy for budhism ;-)... always funny when I get into some SG game and even on emperor T11 comes budhism and everyone is "ooooh... that has Isabella written all over itself"

And trust me you don't want to compete with Izzy/Charle with religions...especially when they got bonuses and you don't.

edit:
another thing that comes to mind is...that we try to find here CONSISTENT ways how to win, but you try to find ways how to get MAXIMUM gains with a little bit of luck...
where as you don't care that with your strategy lose 5 games and win 3, we otoh care that we lose 5 games for 3 won and want to find strategy where we win 6 games and lose only 2 regardless of end score and date.
 
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