Loving this mod but, struggling too

Evil Beejeebers

Evil Beejeebers

Warlord
Joined
Oct 23, 2008
Messages
144
Location
In a bush outside your window.
I have been lurking in this section of the board for a couple of months and as you can see by my post count I am a serial lurker.

So basically I have this problem of struggling to achieve the UHV for most of the CIVs I play. I would love to become a lot better at the Russians, the Chinese and I find I always run out of time as the English for getting the foreign colonies.

With China There seems to be two philosophies(see what I did there) about where the capital should go. I am curious as to what the advantages are of 1SE as opposed to on the plains hill as TD said that offers a better long term capital. I also don't really know a good build order and where is the best spot for my second city?

I am mostly concerned about China as they have really good music in this mod mod and I like listening to it.
 
Key with England is don't just wait for Astronomy and found colonies, there are much better ways.

For Africa you can sail a galley from England along the coast of Africa down as far as the Cape and found Cape Town then Durban on the gold east from there. Then you can either conquer Quelimane and Mombasa or use Durban to build settlers once you have Astronomy.

For S.America you should beeline Optics then send a Caravel to find the Aztecs asap. If you are the first European civ to do this you get a free army to conquer then, which will help towards your S.America goal.

For N.America you need to found them - make sure to send settlers with knights and crossbows to kill the Dog Soldiers.

For Asia research Economics and build a Trading Company - that gives you free armies outside cities in India which will allow you to conquer five Indian cities. Reinforce them with troops from Durbin and England and you'll easily conquer India.

For Australia there are currently no barbs or civs in Australia, so just send three settlers in a galleon.
 
Evil Beejeebers said:
I have been lurking in this section of the board for a couple of months and as you can see by my post count I am a serial lurker.

So basically I have this problem of struggling to achieve the UHV for most of the CIVs I play. I would love to become a lot better at the Russians, the Chinese and I find I always run out of time as the English for getting the foreign colonies.

With China There seems to be two philosophies(see what I did there) about where the capital should go. I am curious as to what the advantages are of 1SE as opposed to on the plains hill as TD said that offers a better long term capital. I also don't really know a good build order and where is the best spot for my second city?

I am mostly concerned about China as they have really good music in this mod mod and I like listening to it.
Click to expand...

For China, the important thing is to beeline Writing immediately (Animal Husbandry -> Writing), build a Taixue and run max Scientists until you spawn a GS while researching Fishing and Sailing (to enable Calendar) as well as Masonry (for whipping). Use the GS to bulb Mathematics to found Confucianism, then research Calendar from there to found Taoism. That will allow you to get the religions before anyone else and also have your economy doing okay from Plantations. Also, send a Warrior to meet the Classical civs and trade techs pretty early on (remember you need Alphabet to trade, though Rome will spawn with Alphabet and the other Classical civs will research it early-ish).

As far as your capital, the plains hill (Luoyang) is definitely the best site, though you can make do with founding on the spot, too. Your second city can be pretty much anywhere; I think Shanghai is a good choice, but Beijing (on the coast, not one inland) is also solid.
 
Swarbs said:
Key with England is don't just wait for Astronomy and found colonies, there are much better ways.

For Africa you can sail a galley from England along the coast of Africa down as far as the Cape and found Cape Town then Durban on the gold east from there. Then you can either conquer Quelimane and Mombasa or use Durban to build settlers once you have Astronomy.


For Australia there are currently no barbs or civs in Australia, so just send three settlers in a galleon.
Click to expand...

you can also send settlers from england through cape town once you found it.
 
With China, one of the most important moves you absolutely have to make, is to settle a Yunnan city (to grab the Gold) ASAP.
You need it to help with your wonder grab while you take the happiness hits for founding Confucianism & Taoism before Calendar resources are available.
If you're feeling greedy, you can snag all the early religions too (Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism) which will be profitable in the long term.
 
Tomorrow's Dawn said:
With China, one of the most important moves you absolutely have to make, is to settle a Yunnan city (to grab the Gold) ASAP.
You need it to help with your wonder grab while you take the happiness hits for founding Confucianism & Taoism before Calendar resources are available.
If you're feeling greedy, you can snag all the early religions too (Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism) which will be profitable in the long term.
Click to expand...

I agree that a Yunnan is great for pre-calendar happiness

Regarding pantheon wonders: To be honest I found this to be a gamble, that can be costly. China has no access to marble except trade, and is at a disadvantage at grabbing most early wonders, having a slower start than Babylon or Egypt, and definitely behind Greece and Rome when they spawn. I couldn't reliably repeat Youtien's results, so not sure they qualify as a strategy.

When I did win the UHV, I followed a more classical approach.

I did settle the capital 1 SE. My tech order were animal husbandry - writing (immediately run 2 scientists - masonry (slave labor) - bronze working (to chop) - bulb maths - calendar.

Masonry and Bronze working are to speed up the settling phase.

My 8 cities were: Capital 1SE, Beijing, Yunnan, East China - north, East China - south, Korea (on the pig, after razing their capitol), Mandchuria (S-S-W from the Northwesternmost deer) and Philipines.

With this setup I was able to win with relative ease. Get compass relatively fast though, as Persia can sometimes go for it super early for some obscure reason.
 
I must say that while I agree with the strategy, there is the problem of Instability. So either you let go of your colonies, or you rush towards Fascism in order to get Autocracy + Totalitarianism.

I find that conquering the Aztecs is not necessary nor productive nor historical (if you're the sort that actually cares about that ;) ) on the long run. What you could do instead is move the troops out of Aztec lands and settle Guatemala.
Then you could go and quickly (I mean REAL quick) settle down Georgetown a couple blocks away from the oil tile that should be Caracas. That way you also prevent an eventual settling of Venezuela and angering the Spaniards.
Finally you can go and settle the Falklands, the small islands close to Argentina. Bonus points if you tamper with the World Editor and add Sheep and Oil nearby...

Other than that, I find this strategy to be very useful and fun. Just be prepared for the US/India declaring independence, and if you still have the time; to prevent France or Sweden settling on Canada. Also, get ready to defend South Africa; as Pombos/Impis/Dutch might try to take it.
 
Pavel Chichikov said:
Whaddaya mean? Any player worth his beans will scout them both out.
Click to expand...
How soon can you scout them (China & India) both out as England? France? Spain? Do you try to OB with Russia or Arabia? Or do you settle Cape Town to get around Africa? Hopefully it's before the Mongols/Mughals collapse them.

As for Arabia, you can't tech trade with Europeans unless you vassalize them. So there's no middle-man advantage.

I'm not counting the Classical Mediterranean civs (Rome, Greece, Byzantium, Carthage) because they don't need to trade with the Medieval Europeans, being much more advanced to begin with.
 
TC, I wrote up a little guide/playthrough of England a while back,
and it's still for the most part relevant.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11448982&postcount=47

You can disregard stability, as England by the way.
Just gift cities you don't need after you've hit the threshold.
Screw stability, I've got Euro modifiers.

Here is my city-settling guide for China; just note that a Yunnan
city as your 2nd or 3rd is now the most optimal strategy.
Corea, give or take, isn't worth conquering anymore, as youtien demonstrated
that vassalizing them can give you a huge leg up on teching.
Japan is still an option but requires a good amount of hammers,
and really is just a vanity project in the current version.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11539706&postcount=106

The AAR in my signature, Dawn of the Middle Kingdom
will also help you somewhat, although it is outdated.
 
Thanks for all the pointers I have read quite a few of the threads already, sometimes I find it better to try and get a few fresher ideas.

I think to be fair I would struggle to conquer japan as I find it is hard to get an army to defend yourself never mind a navy to carry those troops to japan with. I guess I should focus on spear-men/pikemen whilst I await the Mongolian horde?
 
Evil Beejeebers said:
Thanks for all the pointers I have read quite a few of the threads already, sometimes I find it better to try and get a few fresher ideas.

I think to be fair I would struggle to conquer japan as I find it is hard to get an army to defend yourself never mind a navy to carry those troops to japan with. I guess I should focus on spear-men/pikemen whilst I await the Mongolian horde?
Click to expand...

You only need 5 Galleys and 10 troops (all CKNs) to conquer Japan.

Riflemen & Cuirassiers actually to fight the Mongols.

Barring that, War Elephants + Cannons do the job nicely, although most people finish the UHV before the Mongol spawn now.
 
archcapitalist said:
you can also send settlers from england through cape town once you found it.
Click to expand...

To Australia? Never managed to get very far without Arabs or Independents taking me down tbh. I found Durban by going through Cape Town, but those are the only two good sites in S. Africa so there's no point sending more settlers from Europe early in the game instead of developing your homeland.

Wondering Kid said:
I must say that while I agree with the strategy, there is the problem of Instability. So either you let go of your colonies, or you rush towards Fascism in order to get Autocracy + Totalitarianism.
Click to expand...

Never ever had a problem with England's stability, even playing Emperor. I switch to Resettlement as soon as I get Astronomy, so there's a guaranteed bonus of 20 points (5 from N. America, at least one 1 from S. America, at least 1 from Africa, 3 from Australia). Hard to become instable after that, particularly with 90% of colonies in a historical area.
 
Swarbs said:
To Australia? Never managed to get very far without Arabs or Independents taking me down tbh. I found Durban by going through Cape Town, but those are the only two good sites in S. Africa so there's no point sending more settlers from Europe early in the game instead of developing your homeland.



Never ever had a problem with England's stability, even playing Emperor. I switch to Resettlement as soon as I get Astronomy, so there's a guaranteed bonus of 20 points (5 from N. America, at least one 1 from S. America, at least 1 from Africa, 3 from Australia). Hard to become instable after that, particularly with 90% of colonies in a historical area.
Click to expand...

I see, I've always disregarded it... I'll use it from now on.
Besides South Africa you can go for Pretoria and Salisbury. Other than that if you have been beaten by the Dutch, for example; you have the option to settle on a small island between South America and Africa. Crappy spot, but still counts... I think.
 
Wondering Kid said:
I see, I've always disregarded it... I'll use it from now on.
Click to expand...

Then there's your problem. Imo the only reason you can ever have stability problems with a civ if you are going straight for a UHV is if you haven't researched / used the right stability civic.

England is a prime example - IIRC you get stability penalties the more cities you acquire. Some are direct (settling in foreign areas), some are indirect (more cities usually means more religions so more penalties here) England will almost always end up with the most cities of any civ en route to UHV, so those penalties build up. Resettlement basically counters all of them as you grow.

Wondering Kid said:
Besides South Africa you can go for Pretoria and Salisbury. Other than that if you have been beaten by the Dutch, for example; you have the option to settle on a small island between South America and Africa. Crappy spot, but still counts... I think.
Click to expand...

Not sure where those ones are, but I usually get Cape Town, Durban, Quelimane then raze Mombasa and found one 3N of Quelimane to get the crab, gems and silver in the BFC. So you get all three Forge resources from Africa, which gives you +6 happiness back home for max pop, science and specialists.
 
Cape Town is a drain on your economy and doesn't have any production to speak of. Too many desert tiles in the BFC also. I would avoid this location. But I agree with Durban.

I don't like Quelimane either as it doesn't have enough additional food to grow fast enough, but agree that a city to the north that can work the Crabs and Silver and the freshwater lake is (eventually) a good location for a colonial civ.
 
blizzrd said:
Cape Town is a drain on your economy and doesn't have any production to speak of. Too many desert tiles in the BFC also. I would avoid this location. But I agree with Durban.

I don't like Quelimane either as it doesn't have enough additional food to grow fast enough, but agree that a city to the north that can work the Crabs and Silver and the freshwater lake is (eventually) a good location for a colonial civ.
Click to expand...

Aye, neither of them are ideal (tho' Cape Town gets a lot of commerce when cottaged up, with only two or three desert tiles and isn't a drain with Summer Palace in Durban). But Africa doesn't have many great sites unless you go for North Africa. And personally I find England very easy, and so prefer the additional challenge of building historically accurate cities which aren't that great from a production point of view.
 
I prefer to go for Alexandria (Great Lighthouse :king:) and a city in Ethiopia on the coast (so much production its ridiculous) over Cape Town and Quelimane.

Getting and securing Alexandria is enough of a challenge in terms of my African ambitions to be honest.
 
blizzrd said:
I prefer to go for Alexandria (Great Lighthouse :king:) and a city in Ethiopia on the coast (so much production its ridiculous) over Cape Town and Quelimane.

Getting and securing Alexandria is enough of a challenge in terms of my African ambitions to be honest.
Click to expand...

Durban is such a great city, though. Alexandria is powerful for the Great Lighthouse but so hard to get early on. How do you get the Moors to open borders?
 
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