001 Monarch Series--Germany

[serttech2003]

I'm going to edit some of mine to reflect information I learned.

So read albatros13 and tjs282 first. I was very confused about shields/corruption and stuff.

 

[Lord Plebian]

Alright, since we're not doing turnlogs, here's a brief overview of what I've done.

Infrastructure: I change a lot of the bank builds to riflemen or cannons to help get our military set up. Newton comes in halfway through my turns. I rush a few marketplaces in some of our bigger corrupt cities for happiness reasons.

Growth: I do what I can, but I'm pretty stingy with cash. It's something I need to work on. I mostly use excess cash to rush some buildings rather than settlers to help keep some of the larger outer towns happy.

Military: I focus a lot on defensive builds and cannons. We already have more than enough cavalry (20) to get by. For the MDI, Crusaders, and ACav, I keep only the elites, just in case. The rest are disbanded. After my round of cleaning, we just have 1 MDI (Barbarossa, I would feel bad about deleting him, as he's our first MGL). All the crusaders go. 3 ACav are left. You can delete these if you want to, but I figured keeping elites around is a good idea just in case. I upgrade our musketmen where possible. By the end of my set, I have the 20 Cav, 10 Defenders (8 rifles and 2 muskets), and 20 cannons.

Diplomacy: I build embassies with all of the AI. They're all pretty standard late-medieval republics, it looks like. Babylon and China sign peace again early on. I also look into selling techs, and it looks like we're up Banking, Metallurgy, and Astronomy on all three of our western friends. I decide to trade banking to Russia and India. Japan had nothing to offer us (1 gold and a map). We get a total of 42 gold, 72 gpt, and a couple world maps. Near the middle of my turns, I go ahead and sell to Japan for 30 gold, 9 gpt, and his world map.

Worker Progress: I put a lot of focus into getting the railnet up. There were some workers who were off by their lonesome or taking a really roundabout path to other cities. I merged them into groups where I could and focused on the quickest way to get this up as possible. Our homeland, former Babylonia, and former Incaland are pretty much connected at this point. Former England is also connected at the end of my turns. Former China is the biggest issue at the moment and barely has rails at all. There's also a couple jungle cities in former England/China that are going to need some attention.

Technology: We got Medicine, Electricity, and Scientific Method. Theory of Magellan is switched for Theory of Evolution, but we still have a few turns until it completes. In the meantime, I'm chose Industrialization. A lot of our core cities are idling on wealth right now, and it will be good to give them something to do (even though the bank will help when we start deficit research later.

Other notes: The game crashed for me during my fifth turn. I think that's the first time it's crashed in all these years. Thankfully, I had auto-save on. Needless to say though, I now manually make safety saves a bit more often, just in case. The game switched to five year intervals near the end of my turnset, which is why the year looks off from the others we've seen. I had to move the slider up a bit for some techs to get four turn research. Just a warning. We're going to need to really start optimizing beaker output soon. No picture this time because really nothing much has changed.

 

[tjs282]

Technology: We got Medicine, Electricity, and Scientific Method. Theory of Magellan is switched for Theory of Evolution, but we still have a few turns until it completes

Just checking -- when ToE is built, you're presumably planning to choose AtomTheory and Electronics, the 2 most expensive techs of the Industrial, as your freebies? If so, do you also have a Hoover-prebuild going somewhere? Because even if you only build Factories in your 6-8 core-cities, a free Hydro-Plant in each of them (never mind the rest of your continent's cities) is not to be sniffed at: according to my cheat-sheet (which I think is wrong) Hoovers only costs 800s, making it cheaper than hand-building ≥4 Hydros (at 240s each). Even if Hoovers rather costs 1000s (which I'm pretty sure it does), then you're way past break-even with just 5 Hydros.

Also, don't forget to ensure that your current research-project is completed (and SCI% is set to zero) before ToE gets built, or the game will 'waste' one of your free techs to finish the job -- which would really suck if you were going to get the tech in 1-2T anyway.

In the meantime, I'm chose Industrialization. A lot of our core cities are idling on wealth right now, and it will be good to give them something to do (even though the bank will help when we start deficit research later.

The boldface part is not necessarily true, as I explained in my post above. Banks only multiply the TAX%-slice of your raw CPT, and if you're running deficit research at high-SCI%, then almost by definition, TAX% will be low/zero, and the utility of Banks will therefore also be minimal/zero.

BUT if you're researching Industry anyway, you can use Banks (or Colosseums) as prebuilds for your Factories. At 4T per tech, so long as the town is making less than 40SPT (which I would expect, before you've got a Factory in there!), then the prebuild won't complete before you get Industry.

 

[albatros13]

Okay, first things first - now it may be too late, but please, when you are railroading, first do railroads on base tiles like grasslands and plains, not mountains - MUCH faster that way. For example the city building theory of evolution has workers railroading mountains. While the logic may be true that it takes less tiles to connect to another tile of railroad, it takes triple time to railroad a mountain than a base tile. You could railroad two tiles of grasslands nearby(with shields on it) and then go ahead with a hill railroad further or something like that - The wonder would get at least 10% boost of completion. All those little things add a lot, you know.
You should have done banks first, then military, not the other way around, though(other continent is still far away from magnetism). And now the industrialization comes in, factories are first priority. Of course banks will be built later, cause they have no upkeep.
And yes, of course, atom theory and electronics - there is a palace prebuild already to make hoover. Logical choice.
Before the ToE is built, i will research replaceable parts(worker power, mostly) - we will see where is rubber and can start doing strategic takeovers for rubber.
Thre is one thing, of course... You made gpt trades with the other continent and the first one to go obsolete is 9 turns away... It takes away my option to make war and peace at my playtime, so you wouldn't have to hassle with it. Maybe that was intentional, i don't know. No big deal, i guess.
It's better to use cash right now to make science farms(settlers) than later make 70-90% science rate and get less bonus with money improvements. Besides - workers cost max 36 gold and settlers 116 gold.
Anyways, will play the game in a day or two. I have a lot to do in uni atm.

 

[serttech2003]

i'm having serious computer issues with my laptop, so i might not be ready to take my turns. keyboard isn't working on a new dell laptop. might be shipping it back...got to find my desktop stuff o guess

 

[Lord Plebian]

When I use the term "bank," I meant the overall amount of gold, not the building itself. I should have said "coffers" to avoid confusion I guess. We have a palace prebuild for Hoover's, and yes, I was expecting us to use ToE for Atomic Theory and Electronics. I should have been clearer.

I did mine flatlands where I could. There's a couple worker teams that are working in the mountains, but most of it is flat terrain. As far as the war and peace thing goes, I'm sorry about that. I thought we had agreed to just milk the other continent for cash. I didn't mean to step on your toes. I would still prefer peace myself, but if I'm outvoted, then I'll gladly go along with whatever.

Sorry to hear about your laptop issues serttech, and I hope they're resolved soon!

 

[albatros13]

Ah, i see(banks, okay, got it).
Also, two accounts and same avatar, confusing.
About war - we have different playstyles. While i negate luxuries and strategic resources by force, you are trading. I hardly ever trade. In one game i play atm(the korean game of the month) i'm 'trading' gpt only when negotiating peace - Two ais are already giving 15gpt in their start of medieval era(plus some other goodies).
Tomorrow night, i can play. It's the deadline for one of the uni projects

 

[serttech2003]

So, my DELL laptop died, and I'm on my wives machine with is a mac. I don't have Civ for mac. I'm working on getting a replacement but it might take a few days.

Sorry.

 

[albatros13]

So, i finally got some time to play(over different days).
I will keep it short. On first turns i did a lot of workers in corrupted cities. I think in those 10 turns i made about 20 more workers(if not more; i didn't yet hit the unit support cost). Made prebuilds on colosseums and cathedrals, then switched to factories(after i got industrialization).
I did a lot of 'investing' - buying improvements in cities here and there, cause i knew the next players go 'wealth' instantly i finish my turns, even in 30-50% corruption cities. I couldn't get income up too much though, it was more 'shield' day cause of railroads and the core is pretty much railroaded. Even semi-core areas got a lot of railroads. I didn't connect some cities with railroads(right away) in the south, cause we have cavalry covering everything anyway.
I did some settling here and there, something like 5-6 cities.
Tech - Industrialization was first to be completed, next was replaceable parts. Corporation comes in 1 turn. Everything was done in 4 turn per tech.
So comes the jewel - theory of evolution comes in 1 turn(i railroaded everything i could what the city was using). So i guess we will get three techs next turn - corporation, then i guess atom theory and electronics(you know, the hoover)? Then next player can switch from palace prebuild to hoover. I guess it will be completed under 10 turns. What's next, i don't know, up to you. Sanitation?
We have only one source of rubber and it was out of our border, so i made a town near it, naturally.
I traded economics for music theory(and some gpt) the turn indians got music theory. One turn after that a core city produced a factory and it's building bach atm - will be complete in 10+ turns.
Didn't make any wars, cause everything was tied anyways and there is no use fighting the chinese nor babylonians, they don't have anything. I didn't build any military and i didn't disband anyone either.
I guess the process goes on - some more settlers to fill the gaps, maybe some more workers. Maybe make magellan in some coast city after all, we have the shields for that. Start universal suffrage? But since we will not be doing any wars, it can be just a side-project.
Techwise we can still go 4 turns per tech in this era. If we make sanitation, it will be easier to grow for next techs, but we will lose those 4 turns. Dunno what's important for you.
So... yeah... that's it.

 

[albatros13]

Forgot the save file.

 

[serttech2003]

I'd pick up sanitation.

Thanks albatros13 for changing how I look at the game.

I have a lead on how to play the game, it involves setting up an old hard drive I found with XP on it and installing Civ3 with patches. Should be a hoot.

If someone else wants to play, they can take my turn.

albatros13...what would your next build moves be in our non-corrupt cities? I know what I would do, but you;ve convinced me I'm wrong.

What about the semi-corrupt ones?

 

[albatros13]

Hey, that wasn't my intention to change the playstyle of others(at least drastically).
Only some days earlier i understood that the specific playstyle i play isn't good for score(like for games of month), but how big is the economy/tech gap between me and ai.
Anyways, just go on like you did, with some variations - semi-core should get all the basic stuff like library, marketplace, university, bank and courthouse. I think i already built most of that stuff in those semi-core areas. Temple build is very specific for this scenario, cause without it 12 population will riot(with 0% lux rate) - we have exactly so many luxuries to support population till 11 without problems. Of course, when bach comes, temples are not needed anymore. P.S. I call semi-core till 50% corruption with a courthouse.
About workers - The most crucial stuff is already done, so i guess now it's your free call.
Core? Factories first, i guess?
Really, if we are going space victory, there is not much going wrong anymore.

 

[serttech2003]

I'm not focused enough to get high scores in GoTM. I do like to play at as high a level as I can with the understanding that at some point, when I know its over I can drift off task and still win.
Where I need help is what you showed me as far as not abandoning the semi-corrupt cities to be worthless.

I should have my game up and running tomorrow. So I'll post a got it when I get set.

 

[albatros13]

Hey. Something happened? It has been half a month or so without any replies. Is the game going?

 

[Lord Plebian]

I'm not sure... I know it was serttech's turn, and he appears to been away. If need be, I can take the game this upcoming weekend.

 

[thepiwizard]

Hey, strangers-

I've been reading this thing for a bit and looks it like something on about the level I want to put my feet in. If none of you mind (I've only just come back to Civ3 now, but still remember some of my old skill), I can pick this up for the weekend. I have some time to play as I write this (Friday afternoon) and plenty on Sunday, I should be able to get one set done this weekend. So if you don't mind, I'd like to play.

 

[albatros13]

I don't mind, but plebian has atm bigger authority on this game since he started this game.

 

[thepiwizard]

I have 6/10 turns played and a tentative report for them written, but let's see what he says.

 

[Lord Plebian]

Sorry, I didn't see this until now. you're very welcome to join in, thepiwizard! Go ahead and play, I certainly don't mind. Things are a little hectic for me right now, anyway.

 

[thepiwizard]

Pre-turn:

- I change most of the wealth builds to harbors (A lot of cities really need the food) or libraries (this is space race, after all, and the libs are cheaper since we're Scientific) Feel free to reprimand me if those served a purpose, but I didn't find anything. Assessing things: The sacred ToE is done in 1 turn, coinciding with Corp research. So once I hit enter, I get Atom and Electronics, switching the Hamburg palace prebuild to Hoover's. Enter.
1320 AD (1):

- Berlin Factory - Stock Exchange.
- Canton Worker - Worker.
- York expands culturally. Whee.
- Ollantaytambo Market - Univ.
- Vilcabamba Aqueduct - Courthouse.
- ToE completes. Hallelujah.
- Atomic Theory and Electronics are researched, and I start on Sanitation.
- Nuremburg ToE - Factory.
- Arequipa expands.
- New Salzburg Library - Market.
- Palace prebuild in Hamburg magically morphs into Hoovers, due in 2.
- Worker brigade builds a frighteningly large number of roads and rails.
- Enter.
1330 AD (2):
- Cuzco expands.
- More rails.
- Enter.
1340 AD (3):
- Hoover completes in Hamburg!
- Hamburg Herbert Clark Hoover - Factory (Hamburg doesn't have a factory? Shame.)
- Hannover riots. Should've been more careful. I hire a scientist to fix it.
- Something about the shovels of a large block of workers is oddly hypnotizing...

After this, my report corrupted. Basically, I got a ton of rails, a good number of hospitals, ToE, Hoover, and JSBach's, but a few cities rioted. I also hooked up some extra resources you didn't have connected .