Qs on bulbs, citadels, catapults, city conquest, science.

[Grotius]

I've won once on King, and come oh-so-close on Emperor, and only managed to survive in the TSG47 on Immortal. I've watched some of MadJinn's Lets Plays, which taught me the trading value of luxuries, the importance of teching up, etc. But I still have a variety of general strategy questions:

1. Should I plant Great Scientists, bulb them immediately, or save them and bulb at the end? I assume they cost maintenance, but I noticed that some players in TSG47 saved them to bulb at the endgame.

2. Do Great Generals work, or is it always best to turn them into Citadels?

3. I don't seem to manage my catapults/trebuchets/cannons well. I get the general idea: have them trail melee units (who can spot for them), and optimally get them to bombard cities. But in practice, my lead units get mauled by city defense and ranged defenders, leaving my siege units vulnerable. I just have trouble taking cities. I suppose the answer is: bring more units?

4. Also, if I ever do conquer a city, should I annex it, raze it, or puppet it? Annex if I have the happiness, puppet if it's a useful city, raze it if not?

5. I struggle with getting enough science on these higher difficulty levels. I beeline Education, I put Specialists in Universities and Public Schools, I plant GS's, I build every science building, I don't destroy jungles, I take Rationalism -- and still I struggle to catch up to the lead AIs. (In my one and only Immortal game, the GOTM, I ended up third in Literacy.) Also, all this investment in science means I lag even worse in Culture. I suspect the problem is that I don't build (or conquer) enough cities.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[Matthew.]

1. I usually plant them unless I need a critical tech ASAP, or it is late game such as modern era, when planting won't payoff. I believe the math supports this as well. 8 turns after research facilities before bulbing I believe.

As for saving them, I would only do so if you know you are going to speed through the tech tree through other means, such as research agreements.

2. As in do they give combat bonus? Yes. I generally keep one GG in my main army and use subsequent ones on citadels.

3. As long as terrain allows, it is best to surround a city at 3 tiles away, then move in your entire force in one move. At best, the AI may be able to kill one unit. Then the following turn you will drop the city.

If it is late game, just have artillery and bombers drop the city, then run a tank in to capture.

4. Depends upon your grand strategy. Generally:

Raze - If city is small with crap tiles.

Puppet - If you just need the land and luxuries under your empire, but have little to no interest in building up the city.

Annex - If you are serious about building up the city. The ability to purchase buildings/units and micromanage the city is greater than the minor unhappiness modifier and culture policy increase.

I will typically puppet/raze and only annex "checkpoints" at areas far away from my empire, so if I need to purchase quick units then they are closer to the action.

5. Chances are you don't have enough population in your main cities, letting runaways runaway, or a combination of both.

What are some of your science numbers at certain points in the game? If it is just a general game and I'm not pushing science with cooked settings, I will usually break 400 science around 1000 AD and break 2000 science by around 1800 AD.

 

[Grotius]

Thanks for taking the time to reply; I appreciate it very much.

Yep, I was asking whether Great Generals function correctly, since the tooltip sometimes seems to indicate no benefit. I gather that's just a text-display issue. Even so, I like your advice about planting all of them after the first. They cost gold, and my second one is usually superfluous.

And yeah, my science numbers are nowhere near that good when I play on Emperor or above. (They are in that ballpark when I play on, say, Prince.) I think you're right -- I just don't have a large enough population in my cities. And I rarely do anything about a runaway leader. I guess I need to change that.

Thanks again.

 

[Tachii]

break 2000 science by around 1800 AD.

2000? That looks crazy, not at all a "general game without cooked settings" for me. 1800 is around T270ish? I win the game around that time without hitting 2000 beakers. So I dunno, puppet large empire w/ trading posts including your own cities that's 20+ pop + ally every CS?

 

[manu-fan]

Just a bit more on #3.

Map out the city you are about to attack. Where are the spots 2 tiles away that will have LOS to the city? Are there hills and/or forests that are 2 tiles away? Will I have spots that are 3 tiles away that I can use for melee that can get to 1 tile away in one turn? Then, as Matthew says, move the melee to 1 tile away and the ranged to 2 away, and hopefully, you can take the city the next turn.

Note that sometimes you'll need to take an extra turn because of the terrain, or because you can only move 1 tile at a time because of the Civ.

Cheers.

 

[Storminator]

On #4, you should never Annex upon capture. A captured city is useless for a few turns (equal to its population) after capture, so you should Puppet it instead. If it's a city you want to Annex, wait until the resistance is over, then Annex it.

PS

 

[Browd]

Even better, after rebellion is over, cnsider deferring annexation until you have the gold to rush-buy a courthouse.

 

[Jelster]

Don't forget that if you rase the City, you lose the land. Puppets make a great boarder between you and the next Civ, if they go to war they will have to take the puppet cities before they get to your Capital.

Also, remember that you can only heal your navy in friendly waters, so it's often handy to have some coastal tiles you can move your navy to when it takes a few hits.

Generally more puppets = more gold (and science), all those trading posts are money spinners. If you take a capital that has some decent specialist buildings left, wait a few turns and then annex it, put specialists in and watch your science/gold/culture go up.

Finally, manage your cities early on for growth (food focus). Every now & again I rotate some cities between growth and production. When I'm not in desperate need of units or particular buildings I switch them to food so the population goes up, then back to production to build those wonders/units/buildings.

 

[Storminator]

Even better, after rebellion is over, cnsider deferring annexation until you have the gold to rush-buy a courthouse.

Indeed. And still only Annex if you want control of the city.

PS

 

[Grotius]

Thanks for all the advice. I used some of it to good effect just now, playing the first 100-odd turns of Game of the Month TSG43 -- the Huns, on Immortal. I did manage to take several cities, so I'm getting the hang of it. I left everything as puppets. I gather puppets generate 25% less culture/production/food now, and no base science without science buildings; but they still seemed like welcome additions to my empire.

But I think I messed up the diplomatic aspects of aggressive play. In particular, I Friended a civ and then DOWd it without warning a few turns later. This in turn ticked off all the other civs.

So what's the diplomatically "safe" way to declare war (short of hoping the other civ attacks first)? Don't befriend; denounce; then wait a turn to declare?

 

[Matthew.]

2000? That looks crazy, not at all a "general game without cooked settings" for me. 1800 is around T270ish? I win the game around that time without hitting 2000 beakers. So I dunno, puppet large empire w/ trading posts including your own cities that's 20+ pop + ally every CS?

Just played a game to confirm, as I was trying to remember the exact numbers. I never pay much attention to the actual year. For clarification, the second number is end-game science, for whenever I finish the game. I usually finish around 1850 AD-1950 AD depending on several variables and my boredom level.

To amend my original post, ~400 science by 1400 AD and ~1000 science by 1800 AD are good checkpoints for general play. I have hit some crazy numbers with Babylon and Korea, but most civs I tend to get the above numbers.

I have hit 2,000 several times before, but depends on which Civ I am running with and how the game plays out. I just finished a game a couple days ago as Japan, and broke 2,000 at finish.


Details of the game I just played:

Spoiler :

Standard, Pangeae.
Iroquois - For "non-science" civ
Emperor

Hit industrial era right on 1400 AD exact. Didn't plan it, so a bit exciting to get it on the exact turn. Public schools in my main cities up 15 turns later and hit 400 science at 1500 AD. This is about average for me, and falls in line with the figure I gave above. I was stalled just slightly due to early wars.

Harald Bluetooth was being a pain and prevented me from puppeting as aggressively as usual (Yes, Harald was kicking ass for a change). I manage to finally break through and I hit around 1,000 science at 1850ish AD.

Odd map with almost no aluminum and tons of oil. Decided to drop my usual science victory, pumped out tons of bombers, and took the rest of the capitals by around 1900 AD. Even with most of the map under my control, I topped out at just under 1,500 science at finish.

Siam, Boudicca, and William all managed to keep up with me up til late Renaissance and all played very strongly -- more so than I usually experience. Yet I was able to fly past them once I hit industrial. So Grotius if you read this far, the above numbers should be more than enough science for Emperor. If you are still struggling, it may be due to other areas of your play.

 

[EditorRex]

On puppet vs. annex, I've sometimes worried about annexing if I feel like I'm going to want one of the national wonders that requires a certain building in each city. I'm wondering if I'm not being foolish to let this get in the way. Is there any solid thinking on which NWs are really worthwhile, specifically if I'm playing for Domination?

 

[Browd]

I can't think of many wonders that require annexation to maximize benefits. There is no reason to annex a city to get access to wonders that provide empire-wide benefits, and that is most of the wonders - e.g., Angkor Wat, Big Ben, Chichen Itza, CN Tower, Eiffel Tower, Great Wall, Machu Pichu, Oracle, Pentagon, Pisa, PT, Pyramids, Sistine Chapel, Taj, ToA, etc.). Of course, some of those provided one-time goodies to the builder of the wonder, but you can't get those even if you annex.

What that leaves are the VERY short list of wonders that provide a specific production benefit only in that city (only Alhambra and Brandenberg come to mind) or provide a specific cultural or similar boost in that city that a puppet would not efficiently utilize (Great Mosque, Sydney Opera House, and again Alhambra).

 

[chmcclellan]

Browd, I think EditorRex meant National Wonders which require a building in each (non-puppeted) city, (Barracks for Heroic Epic, etc).

EditorRex, I would say Heroic Epic is just as doable because I usually annex to source units so I usually buy barracks/armory if I have the money. The only other one that is always really useful is Oxford University for the free late game tech when you need it. That may be harder although buying/building universities is definitely doable if you intend to use Oxford later in the game. The market and workshop ones, forget the names (+8 and +8 respectively) are nice but with puppets you should have lots of gold in a domination game and you can make production with citizens and other buildings.

Those would be my thoughts, although Domination is not my favorite, frequently Heroic Epic is the only National Wonder I don't build.

 

[Browd]

Ooops. Mis-read his post.

I agree on Heroic Epic and the gotcha for Oxford. I can't count how many times I've annexed some city (for a reason that seemed compelling at the time) and then realized, many turns later when I wanted to build Oxford, that the #$%& annexed city didn't have a university (face-palm!).

I rarely build Heroic Epic and can't recall ever doing it after I've started the conquest campaign. IMO, its real weakness is that its benefits apply only to units built or bought in that one city and that city is (at that point in the game) likely to be quite far from my front lines -- even with roads, I find it hard to justify the time delay associated with rush building/buying units in that city and transporting them to the front lines - buying/building in cities closer to the front lines often seems more useful.

 

[Tachii]

Heroic Epic should apply to ships and stuff too imo. If barracks could why not this? :/

 

[Alpedar]

I like (does not meen manage to actually have it) to have some coastal city with Heroic epic, branderburg gate, alhambra (and all barracks line buildings). Building/buying all permanent military units there pays off. But this requires 2 wonders and start where 1st, 2nd or 3rd city have good location near on coast or it costs LOT of production later.

But when costellations are good, it leads to extremely strong sea,air and land units.

But I play on king difficulty, so I have very good chance to get at least one of these wonders, on higher where more units are needed sooner and player does not build so many wonders it would probubly not work.