i am not very good

[Jamesds]

I'm back!

My turns from 775bc to 170bc

Lots happened here, but I won't write a timeline. Just write the main stuff. Mw worker count is now 13-14!! Hooray!! I am going to build Pyramids and Forbidden Palace in under 10 turns, I've been mainly building cities, workers and spearmen. I've built cities near luxeries, like gems, and furs to capture them, and am working towards getting roads to them. One city is just building a library to let the cultural borders expand over some dyes!

I'm researching Republic, and after will discover Mathematics. I can also see some land to the NW! Building a galley to explore it. If I'm the first to do so, I'll get the money from it, not the AI. So it's essential I get there first! Maybe with a settler too.

I see you've explored that bit already cracker!

If there are any more tips to improve my gameplay, they would be welcome. I am trying to beat the game at Regent, as the Babylonians and it's going O.K, but it could be better. Maybe if I built more workers!! It just seems that only more workers don't make a great difference though compared to your score (about 3,000 above mine!! )

Keep the tips coming!!!!!

Download my Save-Games in a zip (254kb)

 

[JaxomCA]

Regardless of difficulty level, I believe Republic is the only government worth switching too, unless your civ is religious. It is the only switch that provides a significant increase in commerce, thus allowing more research or more gold depending on your need. Even Democracy is rarely worth the switch.

I would be curious to see the final result Cracker as I don't intend to switch to Democracy. I think if you would go the way of democracy, I would beat you by at least 10 turns to the spaceship. I also don't intent to build more cities past my 170 BC save point. Maybe a couple to better fill out the first ring around the FP and a couple more to claim the 2 luxuries I don't have, but then only if I don't have to fight for the spots.

Playng at this diffilculty level made me realize something rather disturbing. The AI is not worst or better based on difficulty, the AI simply doesn't know how to play the game, at any level. It's a shame really, I can only dream of how good the game would be if the AI would use even the most basic strategies.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

JaxomCA, problem with Republic on higher levels (emp. and up) is if your stuck with meager resources you have to funnel too much taxes towards luxuries to keep afloat. Compound that with some major military efforts and there can sure be games when Republic should come after Monarchy. Guess it depends on how you play the game though, seems like when there is a will there is a way.

 

[erez87]

i am not very good

i'm worst...

 

[Jamesds]

Well, I'm planning on a switch to Democracy, because it cuts down on corruption even further, therefore, hopefully (based on how many cities you have) raising your science rate!

 

[JaxomCA]

Cartouche, if you are making so little commerce that Republic would leave you short for cash, then Monarchy will not be any help either, specially if you plan some major military effort. Granted Monarchy will allow 3 MP per city for crowd control, but in most of your city you will have only 2 units supported for free, so you end up paying support for you offensive force. On top of that, since you don't have enough commerce to keep your population happy, you don't have enough commerce to rush improvement either. You would be better off in Despotism in that case, with 2 MPs, 4 free units per city and you can pop-rush. The only time I would go for Monarchy would be with a religious civ if I was lucky enough to acquire the 3 requisites to Monarchy before I am done with my first couple of research projects.

James, acquiring Democracy on your own will cost at least 8 turns of research, plus 3-8 turns of Anarchy, most likely on the 8 side if you have enough cities to justify Democracy. If you built your Forbidden palace in a sensible place and have built your courthouses, you will not get enough reduced corruption to be worth it. Agains, unless you are religious and can buy democracy for obsolete tech, then it it worth the switch.

 

[Jamesds]

I see Jaxom, my Forbidden Palace is about 5-6 squares away, is that O.K? To build it far away it's hard, with so much corruption!!

 

[cracker]

Here is the power graph for the save game date up through 170bc:



(this graph does not include the last three save games for Borealis of the 170bc data for controlfreak.)

The period between 570 and 370 bc was dominated by transitions from Despotism to Republic for most players. Jaxom beat us all into Republic by at least 12 turns and James is still at least 12 turns away.

 

[cracker]

Here are the three graphs specializing in Units, Infrastructure, and Population:







Some things you will note:

1) Jaxom gets a huge infrastructure surge from the Pyramids in 470bc since he gained granaries in 14 new towns all in one stroke. The impact of this jump may be different in the long run because Jaxom has virtually stopped expanding by 170bc and is focusing on infrastructure, units, and internal growth to sustain his research run at the space shuttle.

2) James is dying the slow death of too few workers, too few people, and no infrastucture to support growth, happiness, culture or research. Every other player is in Republic nad kicking out techs at 1 per 4 turns and James has no libraries in any city and is researching new techs a 1 per 10 to 12 turns.

3) look at the units graph together with the infrastructure graph to see the impact of the outbreak of hostilities between cracker and the treacherous Iroqs. Shifting shields from infrastructure to military units is restructuring the power balance.

4) You can compare the two lines for Jaxom and Cracker to see the impact of two different strategy decisions. Jaxom is has built the FP 6 tiles away from his palace and is letting population in many cities climb above 7 uniformly. Cracker is still expanding and pulling out workers with most towns in the 4 to 6 pop range and only one or two larger towns. The growth rate of population at 7 and above is 1/2 the growth rate between 4 to 6 pop points.

 

[cracker]

The QSC scoring formula rewards you for the Forbidden Palace based on the distance between the FP and your Palace.

Jaxom has already built his FP in a town that is 6 tiles away from his Palace and several other players are working on the FP.

The Palace define the center of a set of concentric rings of productivity and corruption that radiate out across your empire. How wide these rings are will depend on the difficulty level and map size/Optimal City Number (OCN) that your play. Smaller maps will have smaller radiuses while larger maps will allow larger radiuses.

The FP defines the center point of a second set of rings of power. When the FP and Palace are close together there can be a great deal of overlap of the effects. When the FP and Palace are far apart each ring of power has its maximum but almost independent effect.

Having the FP rewards you with internal jumps in cash and production but the scoring formula only gives you 15 additional points for each terrain square that you are away from the palace.

On a map of this size the value of the FP will continue to go up substantially as the distance increases but as James has observed build the FP by hand goes way up as the distance gets out beyond 9 ot 10 tiles.

The power of the FP continued to go up out to distances of about 15 tile on this map size.

As Cartouche Bee has already observed, this map was a primo example of a situation where you could build a town immediately next to Persepolis and then build the FP right there. The location of this town would probably have been ideal just two steps North-Northeast. You build the FP while you use Persepolis to keep cranking out settlers and workers at the max rate and then pick a new future palace location way off in the boonies to make sure you get the population of that new town way up in first place by any means possible. Because food production is uncorrupted and because you can use the Pyramids to throw a granary out the far reaches of your empire, you can often build a huge frontire city by growth and adding workers. Then you collapse Persepolis by rush building a couple of extra settlers and "Wala!!" your palace jumps away from the FP by 10 to 15 tiles of distance.

 

[cracker]

James,

The missing elements in your game so far are not related to the FP.

Look at you Pasagardae town again in the 570bc save and you will see another example of settler fixation. In that example you are wasting enough shields that you could have built half a library or an extra spearman. If you are doing this regularly in the game it causes your settlers to cost an average of 40+ shields instead of 30 and this is one of the reasons you are lagging so far behind.

Look closely at the balance of shield and food production in towns that will produce workers or settlers because there are two conditions that must be met in order for these units to come out. A town must have a population of 3 and a shield bin of 30 shields in order to produce a settler. If you have a town a pop 1 that is producing 4 shields per turn and only 2 extra food per town with no granary, it will take 20 turns to grow the food for the settler and only 8 turns to build the shields. If you do this you will waste 8 to 12 turns of shields at 4 shields per turns which would be 32 to 48 shields out the window.

Your save files have already shown this problem twice in two different years so you have to be doing this a lot in order to get this problem.

Look closely to fix this management issue and it will really boost your game.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Actually I did not build a FP, in the BC's. I popped my palace north 6 squares by rushing at settler from Persepolis at an appropriate time to disband the city and take advantage of my growth. The Palace popped north to a city that I had prepped with population as a new capitol and then I reestablished Persepolis with the settler that was rushed. This allowed me to get some production out all that flood plain now that the palace was more centered in my developed area, this is much quicker than building a FP (but this is a banned thing if you play in the Epics, sorry). Since the jungle to the north would take too long to develop I would have probably expand out to the east between the Iroquois and the Zulu's and then formed another nucleolus out in that area. I like to get my palaces in the center of fertile land formations so that you can maximize the palaces effect.

 

[cracker]

Guess who donated us a great leader leader during the assault on their capital in 70bc (turn 125)?

 

[JaxomCA]

James, it is not hard to build the forbidden palace but it does require patience. The FP is 200 shields so even at only 2 shields per turn it is only 100 turns to build it. If you plan on doing a lot of warfare, it is usually best to build your FP near your capitol and then move your palace with a leader gained from the wars.

I often build my FP on the site of an enemy capitol but I had no intentions to do warfare in this game. My location is not ideal but the fact that it was built so early should more than compensate for that fact. I built it where I did because I had no plans to get more cities than what I already had by 170 BC. It turned out that I had quite a few cities in the jungle so building the FP further north would have been better but it would not have made on a difference on my final result, except to delay the spaceship launch by many turns.

As for moving the Palace by disbanding the capitol, it is considered exploitative of the game in many circles, including most high skill deity players, because you get something from nothing.

I have played the game to its conclusion. From the 170 BC save point, my launch date can be beaten by 10 turns at most. 2 techs were researched in 5 turns instead of 4 to have cash to rush the research buildings. 2 optional techs were researched (sanitation, economics) which may or may not have helped researching all Modern times techs in 4 turns each. The spaceship was launched on the same turn the Laser was discovered.

Edit: make that 14 turns, my free tech for industrial era was Nationalism, an optional tech. With luck someone could get Steam Power or Medecine instead.

 

[Borealis]

650 BC: Traded Math + 24 gold for Map Making from Hammurabi.

630 BC: Founded Sardis on the horses, and started a temple there.

Interturn: Trade Map Making for Philosophy + Territory Map + 2 gold from Shaka. Start research on Republic.

590 BC: Samaria founded near dyes in jungle.

530 BC: The Pyramids are completed in Persepolis.
Hamadan founded.

510 BC: Arbela builds a library.

490 BC: The Aztecs have Polytheism, but lack Writing and Math. No one else has it, so they won't trade it for anything.

470 BC: Persepolis builds library and is microed to stop growing until I get more lux and a marketplace- at size 9, it's large
enough. Ergili founded.

390 BC: Forbidden Palace built in Susa.

370 BC: I'm one turn away from Republic, and so I micro cities to avoid disorder when I revolt.

350 BC: Republic is discovered interturn and anarchy begins!

270 BC: We are now a Republic!

250 BC: Persepolis builds Marketplace; starts Courthouse prebuild for Colosseum. Arbela builds Temple; starts Marketplace.

230 BC: Cleo met; I trade her my World Map and Math for contact with the Romans and Territory Map. Caesar trades me his World
Map + 35 gold for Mathematics before Cleo can give it to them. Neither of them have contact with the other civs on the map, and
both lack Literature and The Republic.

210 BC: Library built in Susa; Marketplace started. I trade Territory Map for Shaka's Territory Map + 20 gold, repeating the same deal with Hammurabi and Montezuma. I hurry a temple in Sardis for 164 gold, a steep price, but needed to keep the horses and stop it from flipping.

190 BC: Sardis builds Temple and starts a Library.

Looking back, I realize that I should have hurried a cheaper library in Sardis before a Temple but there's not much else I did that was noteworthy. Sorry about the delay in posting this- I started to post it and had to run out the door before I could finish it on Wednesday.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA10_Borealis_bc570.sav

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA11_Borealis_bc370.sav

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/HA10_Borealis_bc170.sav

 

[Jamesds]

This is all very helpful, but will my score be permanently bottom, or is there ANY way to grow? I'm just not a great player, the whole reason I came here in the first place!!

James is dying the slow death of too few workers, too few people, and no infrastucture to support growth, happiness, culture or research. Every other player is in Republic nad kicking out techs at 1 per 4 turns and James has no libraries in any city and is researching new techs a 1 per 10 to 12 turns.

Hmm, what about settlers? Cities are also improtant though, but I guess I'd rather have done it your way, is it really possible to get a library while waiting for the city to grow for a settler??

 

[hotrod0823]

James, one thing I have learned through many games is to coordinate your efforts. Build military from a city with a baracks and move them around to the others, build settlers (or workers) from cities with food bonuses, build libraries or temples in cities that aren't doing the first 2. And don't neglect the worker actions, try to make sure all the city workers are using improved squares. There are some very good info in Sirians Training Day game on all these subjects as well as the TDG by Sullla, and Lee.

Hotrod

 

[hotrod0823]

cracker: are you posting another data, charts, maps etc? or should we be on to the next 3 save points?

Hotrod

 

[ControlFreak]

Finally my 12th round.

Turns 111-120
121 350 parsar blt spear order spear. Antioch blt spear ord lib. Bactra blt worker ord settler. Sardis blt worker ord lib. embassy w zulu. their oracle in 46. iron and ivory.
122 330 susa blt sestt, ord barracks. This will be military. Trade Tm for WMs.
123 310 Ergli blt worker ord spear. Egypt building oracle.
124 290 Persep blt sett ord temple. Aztecs building oracle. Aztecs blt colossus. Tyre switch to lib. Romans foudn Ravenna on our penisula.
125 270 Parsargae blt, ord spear. Zohak founded on E of cove. ord lib.
126 250 Hanaman blt spear ord barracks. samaria blt settler ord worker. sci 20/20 +14 currency in 1.
127 230 Order construction. Arbella order market. Iskahr on SE coast. sci 40/10 constr in 9.
128 210 Ergili changed to lib. Moves towards border towns.
129 190 Parsargae blt spear starts another. Tyre blt library start GL as prebuild for Sun Tsus. Embassy with rome for 51g. They have 5spt working toward Great library in 84. 3 spices and 2 spears in capital. Their 100% sci, have no improvements in capital.
130 170 Lumberjacking goes toward Zolak lib. Susa blt spear order another. Zulu are building GLib.

HA1_ControlFreak_BC170.zip

Not to many posts recently. Everything OK?

 

[Jamesds]

Cracker, one request. Can we see the tables for the savegames please? I like to see what I've lost in to see how and what to improve in! If not, just put the files themselves on the server for downlaod.

Thanks!!