This is embarrassing.

No probs, I'll get you out the hole and talk for a bit

agonistes said:

There was actually a post not too far back about a Russian start and spamming scouts to pick up goodie huts, and how well it worked.

I don't usually play with goodies huts, but there is no question that they are highly valuable.

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I never have much luck with the Russians and goodie huts. The best way to fix your luck in this regard is to manage your start very heavily, like turning off Barbarians, making sure none of your opponents are also Expansionist, reducing the number of your opponents, being on Pangaea, then finally getting lucky that the huts give you lots of techs instead of all the other things it can give you (Maps of the Region and a 2-bar Warrior are my most common results).

Having any techs at all is obviously a bonus, but my tests with it have always resulted in me not liking the game that resulted as I don't like the straight jacket of all those elements combined with not really enjoying keep starting a new game till I get the luckier one, I like to continue with games where I've played a good few turns and got into my setting. On a completely abstract level I find the whole brownness of the Russians boring for some reason and dearest Catherine is not the nicest picture to look at all game.

agonistes said:

Spam demands for a city. Later on, you can try using submarines.

edited: I talk too much

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Not at all. I read and appreciated every word you wrote.

Yea, if you don't mind restarting, aim for a couple of cattle on grassland with rivers and hills.

In other post, someone mentioned they like Maya, and as I recall, I used to play as the Maya quite a bit, until it felt like cheating. So try Maya, and look for a good start.

Another decent start can be wheated floodplains with hills/forests nearby. A little slower on the start, but, if agricultural, potentially deadly.

I would also restart if you have a volcano close to your first city. Never trust a volcano.

My best start was actually in a game where I was just farting around, and had told myself I wasn't going to restart. I think it was 7 cattle. Maybe 5, but even so, that is still mind blowing. Seriously. Map was smaller than huge, and that may have had something to do with it, I dunno, I almost never play anything less than huge. I think I posted a screen shot of this somewhere.

But when I started out on Civ III, I usually waited til I had at least 1 cattle, and all grassland/hills with a river.

On that note... I DID however, lose on Call to Power (which actually taught me a few things for Civ III). One HUGE tip I have is to never give up. I remember one game where I was proud to get my first mounted unit out, only to have an AI tank roll by. Later I discovered that on the higher levels, you can often be way behind in techs, but will usually catch up. And, even if you lose, you will probably, hopefully, learn why (most likely too slow to expand, not enough workers).

I tend to avoid diplomacy in a 'competitive' match, but if you are struggling, diplomacy can win games for you, so be sure to make an effort to meet and greet AIs and see what they have to offer every turn. Forgetting to do so on even one turn can be very costly - I think the sneaky devs actually programmed this in... "if player forgets to say hello to AI, then run script 'screw player' (which has the AIs trade every possible tech amongst themselves)."

And, finally... yay... personally I feel that conquest is the easiest way to win. On regent, just spam knights and wipe the floor with everyone. Again, hills and grasslands are great for this. If you get any one wonder, I would go for Leonardo's. I always upgrade everything.

Also (okay, not quite finally) try to find Bamspeedy's post Beyond Sid, or something like that, where he mods the game to be even harder than SID. He really uses quite a few exploits very well in that game - island map and so forth. And it also shows how the player can catch up from what appears to be a hopeless position. I think its in the legendary games section.

agonistes said:

Also (okay, not quite finally) try to find Bamspeedy's post Beyond Sid, or something like that, where he mods the game to be even harder than SID. He really uses quite a few exploits very well in that game - island map and so forth. And it also shows how the player can catch up from what appears to be a hopeless position. I think its in the legendary games section.

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http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=66169

Thanks Justanick.

You'll notice in that game that Bam was way behind in techs early on, but then caught up. Notice in the second screenie how many workers he has per city.

And those are industrial ones. In PTW they were 100% better than regular one compared to only 50% better in Conquests.

jkk said:

So, when in initial start turns, does one want at least 1-2 warriors to explore the surrounding area and pick up goody huts? (Are they still called that?)

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Another tip, not covered by others, I think ...

As you're getting ready to pop a goody hut, check all of your cities' productions. IIRC, the goody hut will *not* give you a free settler if you are making one in any of your cities. I will go through and change production to something else in those cities that are making a settler; pop the hut; then change production back.

Note that will not change the probabilities of getting a settler, but it will remove the barrier to getting one.

I only do this in the very early stages, when I have fewer than 5 cities and the free settler would be very useful. I'm not a huge fan of micromanagement, in most cases.

vorlon_mi said:

As you're getting ready to pop a goody hut, check all of your cities' productions. IIRC, the goody hut will *not* give you a free settler if you are making one in any of your cities. I will go through and change production to something else in those cities that are making a settler; pop the hut; then change production back.

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This is a really good idea. A free early settler has a lot of value, though I'm also a big fan of getting free techs.

As for the later it helps to research the cheap techs first. Thereby you increase your chance to get more expensive ones from huts.

Yeah, in a similar vein, it can't give you the Tech you're currently researching which can be a bit of a bummer as you can't hedge your bets, you'll be researching the tree you actually want least in the hope of getting the one you do want for free. This has the chance of leaving you disappointed with with your results as both your research and free techs produce not much of any great interest. Relying on research/trade alone is at least predictable.

Also, getting a free Settler from you're first hut, for example from an expanding Capital boundary, is one of the most overpowered bonuses you can get in some games. But getting one halfway across a huge map in a big swamp is near on useless.

What it comes down to, seems to me, is this: the game is like investing. Each early action, each shield, each trade item, each population point, each gold, will ripple forward with great force. So if one does everything right in the early turns, as you all have emphasized at length and in detail, the later game will take care of itself. Much as, in investing, one must seriously consider the costs of trading because those costs will reverberate ever after in gains never made.

In anyone's opinion, is there a generalized preferred build order for town structures? Early, of course, the emphasis is settlers and workers; this I grasp. And circumstances vary; never follow any rule off a cliff. But on balance, as a general habit, is there an order of building considered optimal?

It depends on goals and priorities, and on what civ you play. Many buildings get 50% discount due to traits, say scientific civ get libs and unis at half their price. This makes you get more bang for the buck.

A very vague list might be

0. Harbour
1. Aqueduct or granary if freshwater is available
2. Courthouse
3. Library
4. Marketplace
5. Uni
6. Barracks
7. Hospital
8. Factory
9. Coal plant
10. Police station
11. Commerce harbour

If corruption is low courthouses are less important. If luxuries are expected to remain low market places are less important. If you expect to go all in with military tradition you will not spend a penny on research after military tradtion and will not build unis. Having at least 1 barrack in your empire has some priority even early on.

In the industrial age hospitals are the most powerful building, but of course only if the settling pattern is designed to utilize hospitals. Coal plants are meant to be build immediatly after factories. Factories are expensive, the coal power plant will give you the same benefit for two thirds of the shields at at 50% higher production, thus measured in turns invested you get 2.25 times the bang for the buck. If you can get the Hooverdam coal plants (on that continent) are to be sold immediatly or not to be built in the first place.

If corruption is high policestation have a high priority.

If a city is at the coast a harbours have a high priority. Harbours make using coast tiles efficient. They donnot require workers and they give you a great deal of commerce. In the long run commerce is usually scarce, so optimizing for it has some priority. You do want to be as technologically advanced as possible.

Commerce harbours might be build more early if you have the needed tech, but usually by the time you can build commerce harbours you have built everything else. At some point in time your production of buildings is not limited by shields but by research.

Optimizing your settling pattern to utilize coast and sea tiles helps with commerce and thus research, but coastal cities might be low on production, at least until offshore oil plattforms are built. In most games they are not built at all, so this until condition remains abstract.

I expected to see no temples, but you also do not recommend colosseums or cathedrals. So dissent is controlled entirely through the luxury rate, luxury distribution at marketplaces, and entertainers?

Since my earlier game is almost done, I'm just sort of going over the precepts and logic again here.

jkk said:

I expected to see no temples, but you also do not recommend colosseums or cathedrals. So dissent is controlled entirely through the luxury rate, luxury distribution at marketplaces, and entertainers?

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The underlaying assumption is that luxuries will soon enough give 20 happy faces and that the culture from the mentioned buildings is not required either. Entertainers are not to be used.

Practically speaking there is nothing wrong with building temples, cathedrals and even collosseums once you have nothing better to do. Chances are that will have better things to do, namely building and using military units until you have 8 luxuries.

Once that is the case the mentioned buildings are reduced culture and excessive happyness that can be used to hedge against war weariness or to trigger WLTKD. That reduces the corruption of shields only. Once you have police stations that is hardly worth the effort, thus only culture remains. I leave open whether that is worth it.

One "good" reason to build them is of course to simply remove them from the list of buildable buildings.

Okay. For a Republic in the ancient times, and in the industrial, what is a reasonable luxury % to strive for during peacetime? I qualify that because, as you say, circumstances vary and the change from peace to war is one of the biggest variant circumstances.

jkk said:

Okay. For a Republic in the ancient times, and in the industrial, what is a reasonable luxury % to strive for during peacetime?

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Obviously zero.

Before republic zero luxury rate is doable, at least for some turns shortly before leaving despotism, after all you want no riots during anarchy. Once you have 8 luxuries luxury rate will be zero, no need to waste.

In between there will be some need for luxury rate. It is best to distribute growth to your cities in way that all of them will be barely content with a certain luxury rate. If you fit your growth perfectly to your luxury rate your "approval rating" in F11 will be 50%, but usually it will be slightly higher due to the usual inefficiencies. Some compromises have to be made, optimizing for one goal endangers 3 other goals.

Acquiring luxuries in one way or the other has a high priority. For a while you may import, but the sooner you exploit the luxuries at the source, the better. It saves you a great deal of gtp you would need to pay for importing. The price AI will demand seems to be proportional to the additional happy faces. So assuming you have 20 cities with marketplace the second luxury will give you 20 happy faces in total, but the seventh luxury will give you 80 happy faces. If the amount of your cities increases further the cost for importing luxuries will increase. Luxuries are something to go to war for, possibly even it it is only so you can export them for some nice gtp. Your research wants to be well funded.

jkk said:

I qualify that because, as you say, circumstances vary and the change from peace to war is one of the biggest variant circumstances.

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Still efficient warfare means that you donnot need to increase luxury rate. One might insert here that luxuries no longer being imported due to war may necessitate luxury rate for a few turns, but the idea is to get those luxuries soon into your borders.

Wars are meant to be ended soon. Taking cities too soon however has the disadvanatge that you reach you territorial goals before AI will agree to an audience required for signing a peace treaty. Once you have taken your first city you usually want to the end the war soon. Preferably by eliminate the civilisation, but if necessary also by signing a peace treaty.

justanick said:

Acquiring luxuries in one way or the other has a high priority. For a while you may import, but the sooner you exploit the luxuries at the source, the better. It saves you a great deal of gtp you would need to pay for importing. The price AI will demand seems to be proportional to the additional happy faces. So assuming you have 20 cities with marketplace the second luxury will give you 20 happy faces in total, but the seventh luxury will give you 80 happy faces. If the amount of your cities increases further the cost for importing luxuries will increase. Luxuries are something to go to war for, possibly even it it is only so you can export them for some nice gtp. Your research wants to be well funded.

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Okay, I'm a little confused here. If I understand the mechanics, with Marketplace, seven luxuries causes four happy faces in the city. And that is enough to keep dissent down, without entertainers, without allocating a luxury rate, without building happy-making buildings?

no the seventh luxury causes 4 happy faces with a market ON ITS OWN, 1 each for the first 2, 2 each for the next 2 , 3 each for the next 2 and 4 for the 7th making 16 in total.

not jkk said:

Okay, I'm a little confused here. If I understand the mechanics, with Marketplace, seven luxuries causes four additional happy faces in the city. And that is enough to keep dissent down, without entertainers, without allocating a luxury rate, without building happy-making buildings?

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Yes. 7 luxuries with market place cause a total of 16 happy faces, at emperor and above that suffices for metropolises of size 17. With 8 luxuries it suffices for size 21, but only up 20 tiles can be used, therefore any citizen above that limit is necessarily a specialist and does not require any happy faces from luxuries or luxury rate or war happyness or any content faces from buildings or military police.

justanick said:

Yes. 7 luxuries with market place cause a total of 16 happy faces, at emperor and above that suffices for metropolises of size 17. With 8 luxuries it suffices for size 21, but only up 20 tiles can be used, therefore any citizen above that limit is necessarily a specialist and does not require any happy faces from luxuries or luxury rate or war happyness or any content faces from buildings or military police.

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Ah, so it's incremental, as both you and RFHolloway have described. This I did not know. I looked around the articles for a discussion of happiness, but didn't come up with anything specific. This changes everything, because the Marketplaces become available fairly early.

This is the sort of thing I didn't realize, somehow never picked up on. I figured the best you could get on luxuries plus Marketplace was four happy faces: one HF for the first one, the second one did nothing, two (total so far) HF for the third, fourth one did nothing, a third HF for the fifth, nothing for the sixth, and the best you could do was seven, creating four HF. Going for eight did nothing except give some cushion against losing one--or so I reckoned.

I see now why you so deprecate Temples as a way of keeping dissent down. Compared to Marketplaces plus lots of luxuries, their return is laughable.