England map

[mbbcam]

@BlackWizard I can't remember -- I think I installed everything. Give it a go and see if it loads.

@raider980 Some screenshots:

Spoiler :

I went Honor.

 

[Tiberiu]

I got it started! It's gonna be an interesting game for sure.


Edit: Turn 37 update:

Spoiler :

I initially planned to go for a quick Oracle and finish Tradition tree, but meeting Ethipia and stealing a worker from him gave me the idea to get Honor and forward settle him and get all those riches from his area. However, I found Mt.Sinai after that, and this was just too tempting so I planned to attack Polynesia instead. My scouts were very effective, with 2 of them upgrading into archers and managing to get 2 religious CS allies, on top of 1 merc and 1 military friend.
Making a lot of faith but I will have the last pantheon and the other pantheons are faith ones so going for God of the Sea or Fertility Rites might be risky. The safe option would be Tears of the Gods or One with Nature but God of War also looks appealing.
Now, the war has begun.

 

[mbbcam]

I'll be fascinated to see how you progress. It's not an approach I would have thought of -- and I doubt I could carry it off if I tried it!

 

[Tiberiu]

I'll be fascinated to see how you progress. It's not an approach I would have thought of -- and I doubt I could carry it off if I tried it!

I'm excited to see how this empire ends up too, so far it's looking pretty good. I stopped my session now at t81 since another major war will soon start.

Spoiler turn81 :

Polynesia's empire is reduced to a composite bowman as he couldn't both defend from me and from Denmark's onslaught. Kamehameha built the Great Wall just a few turns before his capital fell, this is indeed a very fortunate event. Statue of Zeus and Terracota are also cool in case of Cultural Heritage in the future. China launched a vicious attack on the city of York but the river that flows there was decisive for defense and China lost more than 10 units for nothing.
Venice absorbed my ally Jerusalem but I don't mind it since he's sending caravans to me. I have DOF with Venice, Portugal, Indonesia and Ethiopia. I am expecting a backstab from Ethiopia and for this reason I am using up all my income for loans from him. I have a great general ready to defend the capital when that happens.
The plan is to farm XP from Polynesia and get an elite army while the capital grows. Staying on just these 4 cities until Modern Era seems ok.
Religion: Tears of the Gods, Tithe, Pagodas, 15% prod, 25-50% faster spread. It's impossible to spread my religion but I like to have extra gold and production in the capital.

 

[mbbcam]

Fascinating. Certainly shows the benefit of early war. But my tactical ability is so poor that I wouldn't dream of trying to take a city with archers. They'd all be dead in minutes! My game below:

Spoiler :

Opening: moved my Settler one tile east to hill next to river.
My initial build order was: Scout, Scout, Monument, Scout.
Tech order was: Pottery, AH, Mining, Archery, Sailing.
I had the advantage of already knowing the map, as I have played it several times before. Moved my Warrior east, took the ruins to the east, then stole a Worker from Ethiopia. Camped my Warrior two tiles from the Salt and stole two more Workers.
In the meantime my first Scout moved south-east, met Hanoi and Colombo, and discovered the Great Barrier Reef (useful gain of two Happiness). The Scout was waiting to the north of Hanoi when its first worker came out, and that was captured.
I had had the luck to find a cultural ruin very early, so I opened Tradition to get the extra border growth and culture, but my intention was to play peddroelm's Honor-Commerce-Autocracy strategy. I find this more interesting than going Tradition, and in any case I seem to play Tradition badly. HCA seems to result in a slow game, but I'm used to it.
My second Scout went north, found a weapons upgrade ruin, met Polynesia, then came back down the coast to the west of London, and attacked the Barb camp near my capital.
The third Scout went north again, and scouted to the west.
In my previous attempts, Polynesia had been aggressive very early, so I built a Caravan asap and sent that to him, after which he stopped coveting my lands. The Science leech was also very useful.
I started building Settlers quite early, and had three cities by about T50. I kept Ethiopia at war until I had secured my preferred settling spots (coastal, because I intend to use Ships of the Line later, if possible) then made peace, and sent a caravan to Ethiopia for more Science leech. Meanwhile, I was farming experience from Hanoi, though I had very few units because of all the other things that had to be built. (I usually build a Library first in my third city, while my second city usually builds Monument-Library.) I managed to get National College finished by T87. The intention was to tech to Machinery as fast as possible, then go to war with Longbows. Everybody was being very friendly, which allowed me to sell all my iron and horses for lump sums for unit upgrades. I calculated that the declarations would run out about the time I wanted to go to war. I reached Machinery on T108, which is about average in my experience, having finished Honor a few turns earlier. I suggested to Indonesia that we should declare war on Ethiopia, and a little to my surprise he agreed. I also bribed Portugal to join in, because I didn't want them to come in against me behind my back, particularly as they had some city state allies nearby. Lailibela was fairly easy to capture, Addis took much longer. The AIs can pump out units at a fair rate, and I spent a lot of time killing them before I could take the city. It was worth it, however, as Haile built his last wonder two turns before the city fell, and I found myself with eight wonders I had not built, and second in the list of wonders. I was therefore suddenly producing a lot of culture.
I decided to pause the conquest at that point. My army was quite small (nine Longbows, a couple of melee and a Knight) and my navy non-existent, so my coastal cities would be vulnerable (particularly to Portugal and Venice). I decided not to make peace with Ethiopia, but to farm experience while I waited to complete Commerce, reach Scientific Theory, and build up a navy. Several of the civs have a large number of cities, so they are going to be able to make a lot of units.

 

[Tiberiu]

Cool write up! So, your game is not yet over, no? Looks like a win to me.
I have a few comments:
I like how you took tradition opener, HCA is cool but I think Tradition Opener+HCA is even better. Autocracy also works very well for England because of extra spy for industrial espionage. It's all a matter of getting the 2 tenets first, and this might be easier said than done.
I haven't yet found Great Barrier Reef but when I see this wonder I try to only get 1 tile and "save" the other one until a few CSs give mission. Then, you can quickly complete their quest.
About selling horse/iron for lump sums, what I do instead of sell for 45 is to sell for 51 by first trading 1 resource for 2 gpt and then get 51 gold per those 2 gpt. Not a big advantage but I try to milk each gold I can.
Not sure that this is your same method, I was curious if you do it the same way.

One thing that I am not sure I understand is the reasoning behind keeping that gold and the gpt you have there, or maybe you save up for factories? I usually get ideology by Radio as it seems faster (ideally bulb Porcelain tower GS for electricity and time Oxford for Radio). This has a few advantages over 3 factory approach, especially for China and England who might want a bit more time to build UUs for better Gatling guns.
Lastly I am curious, since you seem to like external caravans, if you try to maximize their efficiency by intentionally not discovering techs? (By leaving them at 1 turn unfinished) it's not much but early game it means 1-2 extra science per caravan. I rarely send external caravans but I like this mechanic.

 

[raider980]

I too opened Tradition, as I usually do, and then went Liberty. I wish I would have just stuck with Tradition, for me it is just so much better than any other starting tree. It’s really a shame they couldn’t figure out how to make the others better. But that’s interesting @mbbcam that you say you don’t like it, I always do much better with it. Sometimes I don’t go with it because it’s boring to always do the same thing, but I always feel like I would’ve done better if I’d have just been boring.

I’m on T144 now and have started my attack

Spoiler :

on Ethiopia. I too am amazed at how well you conduct early war @Tiberiu . I saw that sweet city spot up north where you get 4 different luxuries plus Mt. Sinai in your city borders. I wanted to go for it but chickened out, it was way too dangerous for me. I have only ever once taken a city with Archers; I usually have to wait until XB because even CB are not enough. For example, in this game I was going to attack Ethiopia with CB but then up pop some Ethiopian Pikemen so I had to scratch that idea, and that is always what seems to happen.

When I got my LB, Ethiopia was number one in tech and high up in military. But I decided to attack anyway. Then right away Muskets show up and I’m like dagnabit. It takes way too many hits from an XB/LB to kill a Musket. Luckily he’s at war with China too so I’ll continue on and hope I can at least take Adwa with my LB.

Spoiler T144 Screenshot :

 

[Tiberiu]

Spoiler t115 update :

Guys just to clarify, I didn't really use Archers to attack Honolulu, it was Denmark who brought the city health down in the red and then I just sniped it, giving the last hits. Archers just attacked units around the city mostly. I can't say I had no merit because I kept track with a scout over the danish army to see how it was positioned and I bought the Horseman just in time, but on my own I couldn't have captured Honolulu at that point. Vs. Polynesia I just wanted Mt.Sinai and to farm generals.

Ehtiopia backstabbed me by denouncement immediately after I captured Honolulu while to my surprise instead of a war declaration from Denmark I received an invitation to friendship, which I accepted. With Denmark covered, I decided that I should try to start a war with Ethiopia as soon as possible, before he gets crossbowmen. He was the first in literacy. As I had 2 generals I decided to use them right away to capture some goodies and I brought my elite units down there. Polynesia actually settled one more city close to me which was useful to make more XP. Portugal attacked Ethiopia too on its own, and I used this to my advantage.

20 turns later, Ethiopia is destroyed.

The capital is growing nicely now that I finally have an aqueduct. With 20 citizen it might be ime to build a library soon but I might not find the time for it as Portugal has denounced me and I'm going at war together with Indonesia against Maria in a few turns.
I captured 6 wonders from Ethiopia and the city also had a university so that's quite nice.

 

[Tiberiu]

I too opened Tradition, as I usually do, and then went Liberty. I wish I would have just stuck with Tradition, for me it is just so much better than any other starting tree. It’s really a shame they couldn’t figure out how to make the others better. But that’s interesting @mbbcam that you say you don’t like it, I always do much better with it. Sometimes I don’t go with it because it’s boring to always do the same thing, but I always feel like I would’ve done better if I’d have just been boring.

I wanted to make a few comments about your thoughts, Raider. I don't intend to contradict what you said, just to give another opinion because I like the subject and find it interesting to talk about.
I know that the dominating point of view on this forum is that Tradition is the best starting tree and that it leads to a better game compared to other trees but I think this depends on what the player is hoping to accomplish. For fastest wins by number of turns, it's quite possible that a 4-tradition empire is in general "meta" because of how mechanics work with tech/policy/golden age penalties for each city and all.

However I would argue that there are other aspects of the game that should be considered when comparing the social policy trees. Tradition is without doubt a very strong and reliable tree that takes care of the border expantion, happiness, and growth for the empire. It also gives considerable defensive power via Oligarchy that could even be used in offense. Also gives good income.

Liberty has the potential to give you a religion where you wouldn't be able to have one at all with Tradition. It also gives you the option of building strong wonders like Temple of Artemis and Pyramids much more reliably than Tradition. On continental huge maps in theory even Admiral can be chosen by finisher and give interesting diplomatical options and tech discounts even though this is more situational and has it's own costs, but what I mean to say is that in theory at least, it can work. In rich maps where you have a lot of stuff to improve and sell, the extra worker+speed is very useful to kickstart the empire and start selling things faster. In huge maps if you want to expand a lot (because happiness+science penalty for cities is reduced), Liberty will help more than Tradition with securing the best spots. Liberty (with pyramids) also allows the famous 1 turn repairs that can give you unique warring abilities and stuff.

Honor gives you some options that neither Tradition or Liberty give. You can use the general to do many useful things like wipe out/cripple your immediate neighbour, or steal a valuable Natural Wonder or luxury/strategic resources. The advantages obtained this way can help the empire to snowball even though compared to Tradition or Liberty a Honor empire wouldn't seem to receive that much bonuses. Worth pointing out that the free general is really free and doesn't increase the cost for the next general so it's easy to get the next one after that. Having a stronger and a better promoted army is without doubt always useful and gives offensive and defensive power to your empire. As as a side kick, the Barbarians are much less of a problem early game with Honor and knowing where the camps spawn can be quite useful for certain civs like songhai and aztecs.

With Piety I think the idea is that it's a very specialized tree, based around the idea that it should give good potential to the religious-intensive civs like Maya, Byzantine, Celts, etc. Piety is either very bad or very good. Some civs can use it better than others and the most common reason to take Piety first (in my opinion) is if you really, really want a certain pantheon that would help greatly for your empire (for example start in desert and you want Desert Folklore.). Bad as it is, the Piety opener can really make the difference not only between having a certain pantheon or not, but between ending up with a religion or not. Given how costs for new pantheons increase, even 1-2 turns less for the shrine can make all the difference in the world when it comes to the religious race. Some reformation beliefs are really powerful or interesting, too, but of course they are quite a gamble as there are always AIs who will finish Piety before the human player on Deity.

My point is that all trees serve their own purpose and I think they do it quite well, but of course each of us can have different experiences based on our style of play and of what we are trying to accomplish. Personally the only thing I'd have wanted in the final patch is for the piety opener to also give 1 faith extra for shrine and nerf organize religion to apply just for temples. This way long term things are the same but short term, Piety would have done better what it's supposed to do, help you obtain a pantheon and a religion.

 

[Tiberiu]

I hope I'm not annoying with another post, I just want to say that I have continued the game and it's going really well. It's the first time since I play civ 5 that I manage to build Leaning Tower of Pisa! and the second time when I build Globe Theatre. So cool!

Spoiler t164 update :

I continued my warmongering vs Portugal and took two cities from her. I then sent 4 elite units to capture Venice, who was defenseless because Denmark killed their units. Kathmandu razed Jerusalem to the ground and I founded another city in that area to serve as a base of operation. My BFF Denmark was loyal to me all the game despite me being the most hated civ. Only Denmark and Indonesia are somewhat competitive but they're nothing special. Polynesia, Venice, Ethiopia, China are severely crippled and will not stand the test of time. I just won World Fair and the extra policies will now make me runaway and my capital can produce 1 longbowman/turn even without caravans so a domination victory is in reach even before flight. On the other hand my empire is now bankrupt as I will lose 90 gpt tribute from Portugal and I took massive loans (~400 gpt) from Denmark to get my happiness. I might have to backstab Denmark to get my money back and I'll suffer a few turns of unhappiness or I'll have to give away a puppet to somebody. I hard built 3 wonders (pisa, globe, helicarnassus) and I captured 10 others. I recently stole the secrets of Theology (corrected from Philosophy) from Polynesia who keeps sending all his caravans to me to leech my science and I haven't built a library in the capital because I don't want my techs stolen. Now stealing from Ethiopia and Venice. who still have 1 tech ahead of me. I have no fleet but maybe I'll build some Galleas now that I also have The Great Lighthouse and Exploration.

 

[mbbcam]

@Tiberiu Thank you for a VERY interesting write-up. Fascinating to see an approach that is so different from others I have seen -- and from the ones I habitually use.

I'm very glad you posted the screenshot. It reveals some things that I find very striking.
For example:
- You seem to chop EVERYTHING. There doesn't seem to be a forest left on the map! You even chop the forest from under the Deer, which I knew was possible, but wasn't sure of the benefits/losses.
- Also, you build farms EVERYWHERE! I don't think I can see a single Trade Post (which the game seems to be programmed to regard as a highly important improvement -- not something I agree with!).
- No Library in the capital -- which must mean no National College. It has usually been an article of faith on these forums that you need to get the NC built asap.
- Not many units, but perhaps they are off the edge of the screen?

Massive win on the World's Fair! Something I have never even tried for -- I usually just aim for 350 hammers.

You don't mention Social Policies, but I assume you went Tradition. But what about after that? Honor? Commerce? Exploration? Liberty? Rationalism? I could see how any of those might be useful. Your reasoning for choice of the second tree in this game would be interesting to hear.

Do you remember your initial build order? It looked like you didn't build many military units early on, though I noticed you built Chariot Archers, which I almost never do. I guess the corollary of having a small army is that you have to be attentive to Diplomacy to avoid being attacked.

---

My own Honor-Commerce-Autocracy game went quite well, though very slow, but I was beaten to the Spaceship by one turn! Venice launched. I could have won if I had not lost focus during the late game, partly due to being tired.

I then had yet another go using Tradition, which was an interesting experiment for me. I think I need to practice it more. I'm not used to it, and don't know how to play it to best advantage.

---

In answer to your previous questions, I'm not organised enough, nor good enough at calculations to do most of the things you mention. And it hadn't occurred to me to use the trick when selling iron and horses. I will use it in future! I think many of those who play this game best are good at making calculations. Underneath the pretty pixels, this is all just numbers. And I am useless at calculations!

Thanks again. I have learned a lot, and will probably change my play-style as a result!

---

Edit: looking at your T81 screenshot again, I'm guessing you must have taken left side of Honor first, otherwise I don't see how you could get an Archer with three promotions that quickly. But perhaps you are just much better at tactics than I am. You could hardly be as bad as I am! Did you then go back to Tradition for growth?

 

[Tiberiu]

Hi mbbcam. I am happy you found something of worth in my game, and thanks for the kind words. I will try to explain some of the things I do and give some opinions about the things you said.
Also, It was great finding out that Venice AI can actually win games, Venice always dies in my games for some reason.

-I usually chop all forests/jungle that I can including outside of territory, especially when I rely on ranged armies, because of how they tend to hinder the possibilities of attack (not being able to shoot over forrested hill), and your movements. I find it easier to deal with opposing armies in open ground vs rough terrain. However sometimes when founding a city who is exposed, keeping 2-3 forests around the city can really help with it's defense as it can deny shooters to attack and makes the melee armies waste time to enter the forest.
- I cut forest on deer unless it's on tundra (that would lose production point for nothing), I like +1 food more than +1 production, in the capital especially. I am a bit growth obsessed so I try to get each extra food that I can.
- very rarely I choose lumber mills - 1 food 2 prod instead of 3 prod until chemistry if I feel that the city doesn't have enough food available.

About trade posts: I think that farms really pay off, I see them as a sort of investment in the future. They give you citizen that in return give other yields. My theory is that trade posts are a late-game improvement, meant to replace farms around 50-75 turns before the game ends. They are also useful on "useless" tiles, like empty desert or tundra, to use as temporary currency when using "Wealth". Another reason to replace farms temporarily would be longer periods of unhappiness in the empire, but this shouldn't happen. River hills can be used for extra food or extra production according to the needs of the moment. I usually temporarily replace all hilled farms with mines to be ready for World Fair or International Games, and reverse them back after that, unless I am confident I can win the project without doing it, as it takes quite a lot of worker time.

About science: I think there is more than 1 way to get a successful empire (especially in Single Player like most of us play). Building NC quickly has it's benefits for sure, I won't dispute that. However, using up resources for a few extra early units can give other benefits, too. Most importantly, the great general generation. You also pillage lands, get tributes, and later with those units you capture powerful cities that contain wonders outright. Being slightly behind in science in the early game is partly offset by the other mechanics: extra science from international caravans, bigger tech discounts as most civs already know the techs you need, your spies steal the techs faster. There is another thing worth of mentioning - even if an empire isn't building libraries or universities, as long as it is growing, I think things are quite ok as it means that when it does build those libraries and universities, the effect will be bigger, and each new citizen gives a bit of science anyway. Usually I try to first take care of the the growth buildings - granary, water mill, aqueduct and then of the libraries, but if I run out of happiness I will have to build the colloseum/Circus maximus so that growth can continue. In this particular game, staying in the Medieval for a bit longer allowed me to buy Mosques + Cathedrals (ethiopia's religion gives them) in most of my cities for only 200 faith instead of 300. That means extra faith, culture, happiness available earlier from that. And I am only 4 techs away from the tech leader. I will also say that there's a strategy where you try to get Hagia Sophia to found a religion and of course there I think building 1 - city NC might give the best chances, but this is mostly a Babylon strat, I think it's awesome.

Units: the army I had in that turn with the screenshot is composed of 9 scouts (for garrisons), 2 camel archers, 5 chariot archers (only 3 well promoted), 1 jannisary, 1 knight, 4 longbowmen (2 basic and 2 former scouts with logistics, march, cover), 1 musketman (the initial warrior, heavily upgraded), 2 pikemen and 1 longswordsman. I have 1 great general. I had a few triremes but I gave them to CSs for influence. I also had to give away a swordsman who got trapped and would have died. It is a small army but it does its job well. More army can be quickly produced if the need arises. The core of the offense is the Musketman with 3 shock+2cover+march promotions as it can fortify in a citadel adjancent to a city and never die.

I am now wondering if it could have been better to just put 1401 production in World Fair to make sure I win and then just let others finish. Somehow I think I "wasted" 700 extra production, but to be honest, it's good to know that AIs were denied some bonuses.

Social Policies: Tradition opener and Honor 2 (left side of tree) were my initial policies. I then took 2 more in tradition (for happiness and gold reduction for garrisons) and 2 more in Honor, and latest I took 3 policies in Exploration.
Now during World fair I will have a few policies to take in short timeframe, and there are many good options, but I need to start another golden age so taking either Liberty or Aesthetics for their Golden Age options are my first thoughts.

In retrospect I don't think I could have done better than I did with Honor and if I were to replay the map I think I'd go the same route again. Expanding to Mt.Sinai without a citadel is too risky at that point and it relies on luck to keep that city. And missing out on Mt.Sinai and of all the goods (4,5 unique luxuries there) is just too much, I think. Tradition Opener is still a good call for the first policy even when going for Honor because it "pays for itself" and greatly helps border expansion at the same time.

Build Order was 4 x scout and then I produced 2 more workers and then the settler. The early worker I stole from Ethiopia was very important because he cut forests for the other workers. I also obtained 1 extra worker from a barb camp close to Hanoi. I bought the Chariots with gold. I really like having a few chariots early game, they never let me down when I used them, with a few promotions they become "mini camel archers" so that's quite nice to have.

@Tiberiu You don't mention Social Policies, but I assume you went Tradition. But what about after that? Honor? Commerce? Exploration? Liberty? Rationalism? I could see how any of those might be useful. Your reasoning for choice of the second tree in this game would be interesting to hear.

I will first say that I almost always take Tradition opener regardless of anything else, unless I want to complete Liberty for Prophet, and taking tradition would delay it too much in that case.

The most common second policy tree would have to be Patronage for me, I think. It seems to offer the most versatility and possibilities, and that is even more true for Huge games where there are more CSs involved.

[edit- I haven't finished what I wanted to say about Policy trees but I gotta go, sorry about this, will edit later]

 

[mbbcam]

Thanks for that detailed explanation. Now, at the risk of asking too much, I am wondering what your tech path was.

 

[Tiberiu]

Finished! T227 domination victory! Interesting map! Thank you mbbcam for proving this game for us to play.

Before the spoiler I'll finish what I wanted to say about policies and also you asked me what the tech path was.

Tech path: with 6 fish, I said to myself I have to hurry the lighthouse so I went Pottery. > got Animal Husbandry in a ruin. > Took mining to be able to chop. Found Mt.Sinai so I switched from Sailing to Archery+The Wheel to unlock Chariot Archers, then Optics. Calendar for the silk and Masonry for the Marble were needed, and then I kept to the lower part of the tree and stole the upper part.

About policies I wanted to say that I think each civ has certain trees that work better for them, but probably a bigger factor for what should be picked is based around what happens in the game and what the conditions are. Thus it's somewhat hard to make generalizations as each tree can be good or bad. My "default" secondary tree is Patronage.

Personally, when it comes to secondary policy trees, even though I like Commerce, it's my least used tree. I take the opener sometimes but rarely build the Wonder. Same with Rationalism, I'll take it usually only if I want to build Porcelain Tower. Most common after Patronage is Exploration if I have coastal capital otherwise Aesthetics if I have good faith output. Having access to Artists and Writers is quite cool.

Spoiler t227 victory :

After I won World Fair I went to capture Portugal's capital and then it occured to me that I can win a domination victory pretty soon if I hurry a bit to capture the other 3 capitals (china, indonesia, denmark.)
I took Aesthetics and bulbed 2 Writers in order to get to the Artist and start another Golden Age. This was a bad decision because Liberty was better - it also had access to Meritocracy who could have solved the happiness issues. This cost me probably a few extra turns until victory too. At least I could build the Hermitage for a lot of culture, and bulbed 2 more faith-bought writers to get to Meritocracy faster.
I started to build a road to Denmark and went there, the attack lasted ~ 15 turns. I then built Oxford University for Dynamite and started making a few artillery to be able to capture Jakarta. Sold all my science buildings to discourage others to steal my dynamite.
Venice was eliminated by Denmark but I freed Venice and used him as my citydumpster, I gave him 3 of my puppets to get rid of happiness issues.
I hoped to win in turn 215 but then something bad happened and my melee unit who was fortified in a citadel adjancent to Jakarta died after heavy focus fire. Thus I realized a peace deal would be best and accepted 4 cities as tribute, I gave them to Venice for free since I had no happiness for them. I easily captured Beijing who had Petra and Pyramids inside.

After 10 turns my army was ready, I built some artillery to make sure I take him out this time. To add insult to injury, I bought his city Surabaya for 800 gpt and sold it to Portugal for 90. A good battle! Yay.

 

[mbbcam]

Fascinating. I'm glad you found the game interesting, and that it enabled you to build some wonders you had not got before. Maybe you should post on @Nizef's thread, too, as the map also appeared there. Perhaps he might be encouraged to try it himself.

It seems to me that you approach Civ in a very analytical fashion and that you think about the mechanics of the game -- something that I have not really done as much as I should. But it also seems to me that your approach is quite situational, in that you react to what is on the map at any time, rather than using too rigid a formula. In other words, you adapt to the situation. There is a lot of "received wisdom" on these forums that I shall probably re-evaluate as a result of seeing this! For instance, you swap between policy trees quite freely, when it has usually been said that completing whole trees is the best way to go. You have a wholly different approach, and it seems to work very well. I can see that your choices are rationally motivated, however. You always seem to have some benefit in mind, and it also appears to me that you are not just thinking of the immediate benefit, but that there will be a kind of chain that gets you another benefit from the one you are taking.

I think I count 38 Artillery on the map, an impressive number, and one I would not have thought possible! Then again, London is 46 pop, and I have never seen anything like that before. Astounding growth, yet you only took a couple of policies in Tradition.

I think I will be approaching Civ rather differently in the future!

Thanks again.

 

[TMNTurtle]

I decided ty try out this map. Things are progressing, maybe less than ideally, but progressing still.

Spoiler T66 :

My first attempt ended with a bang, as I took your advice on easy workers to the east a bit too literally and had my army killed by the ethiopians (with no actual workers stolen).

For my second attempt things went smoother. Since I found the start to be heavily biased towards tradition I decided to be obstinate and pick liberty trying for something like an "ICS coastal empire" with a huge capital and tiny cities along the western coastline, probably with a few invasions of the nearby city states to complete the plan. Workers were recruited from ethiopia through the use of a very auspicious salt tile. Getting them home required some complicated logistics due to a nearby barb camp.


Bring 'em home!

At T66 I am at two cities with NC set to finish at T70. Unfortunately I have missed out on both creating a panteon or getting a religion, and I consider pagodas critical to what I was about to do next. Also I have been encircled by the AIs and I am expecting to have to go to war with at least one of the leaders I'm in a DoF with in the near future, which is always a risky prospect in my book. Hoping to report a crushing victory in the near future.

...is composed of 9 scouts (for garrisons)

Hadn't thought of that! It's like one of those things that once you get it it's so obvious, but I don't think I would've thought of it myself in a million years.

 

[mbbcam]

Hadn't thought of that! It's like one of those things that once you get it it's so obvious, but I don't think I would've thought of it myself in a million years.

It seems to be fairly standard practice if you take Honor. It is one of the ways you get Happiness from the tree. I first learned about it in peddroelm's posts on Honor-Commerce-Autocracy.

Glad you are doing well so far! Watch out for neighbours with an interest in seafaring and conquest, not to mention those who have an interest in Culture.

 

[Nizef]

Maybe you should post on @Nizef's thread, too, as the map also appeared there. Perhaps he might be encouraged to try it himself.

I have not got around to it yet. My excuse is, that I have posted 66 new games during the year so far (258 days / 66 games = a new game every 3,9 days). But I tried Tiberiu´s game with Portugal (EDGE#65) and beetle´s Denmark (EDGE#72) so there is hope for Elizabeth as well.

 

[mbbcam]

@Nizef No pressure! I'm amazed you can play as much as you do -- and do all the other things as well.

 

[raider980]

I wanted to make a few comments about your thoughts, Raider. I don't intend to contradict what you said, just to give another opinion because I like the subject and find it interesting to talk about.
I know that the dominating point of view on this forum is that Tradition is the best starting tree and that it leads to a better game compared to other trees but I think this depends on what the player is hoping to accomplish. For fastest wins by number of turns, it's quite possible that a 4-tradition empire is in general "meta" because of how mechanics work with tech/policy/golden age penalties for each city and all.

However I would argue that there are other aspects of the game that should be considered when comparing the social policy trees. Tradition is without doubt a very strong and reliable tree that takes care of the border expantion, happiness, and growth for the empire. It also gives considerable defensive power via Oligarchy that could even be used in offense. Also gives good income.

Liberty has the potential to give you a religion where you wouldn't be able to have one at all with Tradition. It also gives you the option of building strong wonders like Temple of Artemis and Pyramids much more reliably than Tradition. On continental huge maps in theory even Admiral can be chosen by finisher and give interesting diplomatical options and tech discounts even though this is more situational and has it's own costs, but what I mean to say is that in theory at least, it can work. In rich maps where you have a lot of stuff to improve and sell, the extra worker+speed is very useful to kickstart the empire and start selling things faster. In huge maps if you want to expand a lot (because happiness+science penalty for cities is reduced), Liberty will help more than Tradition with securing the best spots. Liberty (with pyramids) also allows the famous 1 turn repairs that can give you unique warring abilities and stuff.

Honor gives you some options that neither Tradition or Liberty give. You can use the general to do many useful things like wipe out/cripple your immediate neighbour, or steal a valuable Natural Wonder or luxury/strategic resources. The advantages obtained this way can help the empire to snowball even though compared to Tradition or Liberty a Honor empire wouldn't seem to receive that much bonuses. Worth pointing out that the free general is really free and doesn't increase the cost for the next general so it's easy to get the next one after that. Having a stronger and a better promoted army is without doubt always useful and gives offensive and defensive power to your empire. As as a side kick, the Barbarians are much less of a problem early game with Honor and knowing where the camps spawn can be quite useful for certain civs like songhai and aztecs.

With Piety I think the idea is that it's a very specialized tree, based around the idea that it should give good potential to the religious-intensive civs like Maya, Byzantine, Celts, etc. Piety is either very bad or very good. Some civs can use it better than others and the most common reason to take Piety first (in my opinion) is if you really, really want a certain pantheon that would help greatly for your empire (for example start in desert and you want Desert Folklore.). Bad as it is, the Piety opener can really make the difference not only between having a certain pantheon or not, but between ending up with a religion or not. Given how costs for new pantheons increase, even 1-2 turns less for the shrine can make all the difference in the world when it comes to the religious race. Some reformation beliefs are really powerful or interesting, too, but of course they are quite a gamble as there are always AIs who will finish Piety before the human player on Deity.

My point is that all trees serve their own purpose and I think they do it quite well, but of course each of us can have different experiences based on our style of play and of what we are trying to accomplish. Personally the only thing I'd have wanted in the final patch is for the piety opener to also give 1 faith extra for shrine and nerf organize religion to apply just for temples. This way long term things are the same but short term, Piety would have done better what it's supposed to do, help you obtain a pantheon and a religion.

Oh, no problem, I too find it interesting to talk about. I do agree that Liberty and Honor have some useful aspects and I do play them occasionally. I love those faster workers; when I don't take Liberty I keep wondering why is it taking so long to improve my tiles. And I love going after barbs with Honor.

I think though, that compared to those two, Tradition makes the game "easier". It makes victory more likely. And that may be it - Tradition allows average players a better chance to win. For very good players who can use the nuances of Liberty and Honor to do certain strategies it may not make that much difference. I used to always play Liberty on lower difficulties. When I started playing Deity I continued with using Liberty and I got crushed every time. So I tried Tradition; and while I still didn't win, I could tell I was doing much better. As of now I have won 4 or 5 Deity games and all of them have been with Tradition; whenever I try another tree I just feel like my game is weaker.

Piety, however, I just think is not very good as a starting tree. Taking it makes the game harder. For example, Tradition gives two free buildings (awesome ones) yet even though Piety is geared to religion all it does is make two religious buildings take half the time to construct. Also, the AI loves Piety and half of them seem to take it every game, so getting a good reformation is usually very hard and that's the best policy in the tree. Like you said its a very specialized tree and in the hands of good players it can be useful I'm sure but I could never make it work. However, I think it even makes the game harder for good players; I remember watching a Let's Play by a good player and he took Piety with the Maya to see what would happen. He lost and I remember him saying something to the effect of, Well, we won't be trying that again. The idea of Piety sounds fun so I may try it in a lower level GotM game and see how it is on the lowest levels.