17th century crumble

[setonfire]

Dear all,
In my games I usually end up losing my lead around 1700 AD. I do not know where I am going wrong. Please have a look at the saved file and be so kind as to point me in the right direction!

More screenshots in my next post (please scroll down)

 

[Sian]

Screenshots helps for those unable to download and review games that way

screenshots of the whole empire (in small bits prefererly), tech screen, tech trade screen, relation screen and prehaps of your military screen as well (as to see what you have of units ... a classic problem is not enough workers to go around .. even though thats usually seen by just looking at your empire)

 

[oranje willem]

You are in a very, very good position. I think the fault you usually make is not to make use of this great position. You have steel AND rifling without anyone else having them, this is the point to prepare for war. WvO seems a very easy target, so what you have to do now is let every city produce units. A common mistake is to attack with a too small force, so just make 10 cannons and 10 rifleman and bring some older units you have as well to whipe up wounded units or to defend captured cities. Put them all in a big stack and move from city to city. Bombard with your cannons then check what the odds are for rifleman, if they are below 80% you might want to send in 1 or 2 cannons to weaken the defence even more, so none of your rifleman will die.

Some other points:

-You have unhappiness in a few cities and a lot of people are willing to trade luxury resources: just trade them and your cities will be a lot stronger (and it saves you hammers for temples etc.).
-Civics: Looking fine except for your economy civic; you have both mercantilism and free market available yet you don't run either one of them.
-More city specialization required:You don't have a GP farm and you don't have a clear production city which brings me to the next point: no heroic/national epic build yet. Since you want to war very soon I suggest to make heroic epic in your best production city, which at this point is Corinth (not counting bureacracy hammers). Ignore a GP farm for now, just make the units I suggested and attack WvO (and later perhaps Isabella)
-Knossos is build on corn and doesnt have any other food resource, very odd city placement here. I suppose you wanted it to be coastal, because of The Great Lighthouse, however 1 east is also coastal (diagonal touch with the sea is good enough).

Take this advice, play 30-40 more turns and show us how it all went.

 

[setonfire]

More screenshots -

 

[setonfire]

More screenshots -

@oranje willem - Thanks for the reply! Will play on like you said and post back.

 

[vranasm]

As mentioned tech wise you are relatively good, but there still is a lot of mistakes and you got away nicely only because it's Warlord diff. So that's why you are here and I will try my best to move you a bit forward.

OK.

Biggest problem - number of cities. 7 is not enough except for situations where you aim for cultural victory and I think that is not the case here.

City specialization, it seems to me that everything is just commerce. i dont see any sort of GP farm/prod city, you should have at least 1 from those kinds given such low number of cities.

Civics - to some degree US gives you good since you almost everywhere have towns. But you should then take the Free speech too. Why are you not in FM? being in Theocracy brings you nothing since you build units in 1 city, everywhere else you build buildings.

I switched to Rep (that one is questionable, US isnt that bad in your sit, but it gives happy), FS, FM, OR, Caste (that is neutral since it allows specs that is nice synergy with rep, but you dont have gp farm to really abuse this) and am sitting at 500 bpt

Land - not enough workers, corn unimproved, should be first thing improved?

City settling - i wouldnt settle knossos the way you did expecially when the fish is locked by dutches. Remember food is top priority and you killed the only food that city will ever have. settling 1E would be better.

Scouting - you dont know enough about world. You can buy some world maps around from AIs after paper...

Victory - at first sight one would say that you are in good position for diplo victory, but at the second sight you will realise that you are not. I dont know if you use BUG mod, but there is in diplomacy advisor screen called "glance" and it shows you which AI is with what AI friendly/pleased etc and more important the correct number as calculated from mouseovering them in relationship.
You would realise that Gilga is more good on the way to diplo victory and he is top leader in pop, so he will probably be in voting after UN.

I think you should get more land. get some troops asap and use your tech lead. i see you didnt tech for cavalries, so you will have to go with rifles+cannons

Buildings in cities - I just realized that you are kind of builder ;-). You have streamline a bit specialization. Btw in cap you shouldnt have moai as second Nat. wonder but Oxford uni, it gives +100% research multiplier.

I hope next game goes better! Oh and read some strategy articles about city spec, sisutils beginners guide. I will allow you dominate on noble in quick time.

Gl and HF

 

[setonfire]

@Vranasm, that was very helpful. I have much to learn.
I placed Knossos where it is because the AI had placed a blue circle there! I guess I should have used my own head

 

[vranasm]

@Vranasm, that was very helpful. I have much to learn.
I placed Knossos where it is because the AI had placed a blue circle there! I guess I should have used my own head

blue circles are often misleading. you should generally ignore them.

Next game try please on normal speed, quick is not that good balanced.

I tried some turns from your save... you will get drag into religion war against dutches, I managed to amass quickly some force, but russians quickly capped them before I could get really in...

I think you should start another game, this is really tough to get out of. (i probably could, but have no willpower and the quick speed is just too quick not enough turns for me)

 

[Higher Game]

Don't make lame infrastructure if you have adequate military. Get extra happiness and health through force if at all possible.

 

[6K Man]

You CAN win with 7 cities, but on any map other than the smallest ones, you ought to have 7-10 cities by 1 AD, 15-20 cities by 1000 AD.

Winning the game is easy if you have the most land.

Once you have the land, make sure you have enough workers to improve it. 1.5 workers per city is a good benchmark in most cases.

 

[Ghpstage]

It appears you really hate overlap, in fact you hate it so much you are willing to cripple yourself to avoid it!
National Epic is a key building, as is the Heroic Epic and Oxford University yet none have been built.
You have also built a number of improvements in areas that are not in any cities BFCs, these can never be worked.
Your Sugar should have a plantation not a farm

 

[6K Man]

National Epic is a key building, as is the Heroic Epic and Oxford University yet none have been built.

Ghpstage's post illustrates my point about having only 7 cities... you'd practically need a University in each (depending on map size) to build Oxford.

And with no dedicated military production city and no GP farm, HE and NE would have little effect even if they were built.

 

[Siran]

You CAN win with 7 cities, but on any map other than the smallest ones, you ought to have 7-10 cities by 1 AD, 15-20 cities by 1000 AD.

Winning the game is easy if you have the most land.

Once you have the land, make sure you have enough workers to improve it. 1.5 workers per city is a good benchmark in most cases.

7-10 at 1 AD? At which level?

 

[6K Man]

7-10 at 1 AD? At which level?

Monarch, usually.

 

[vranasm]

7-10 at 1 AD? At which level?

7-10 by 1 AD is something i would usually aim for up to emperor. I am not sure about Immortal+deity.

 

[prophesy.]

how does the # of cities vs. time benchmark change at the difficulties change? Lower at lower levels and higher at higher difficulty levels?

 

[vranasm]

how does the # of cities vs. time benchmark change at the difficulties change? Lower at lower levels and higher at higher difficulty levels?

hehe I would say completely reverse. At lower diffs experienced people can get a lot more cities then on higher.

 

[Siran]

how does the # of cities vs. time benchmark change at the difficulties change? Lower at lower levels and higher at higher difficulty levels?

The other way around. The AI settles a lot more aggressively in higher levels and builds settlers faster than the player. So your chances to get a lot of land for a high number of cities are limited. It's a lot easier on lower levels.

 

[oranje willem]

The other way around. The AI settles a lot more aggressively in higher levels and builds settlers faster than the player. So your chances to get a lot of land for a high number of cities are limited. It's a lot easier on lower levels.

That plus the fact that maintenance is a lot higher on higher levels, so you can't afford to expand as much as on lower levels.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

As long as the new cities/land are not a massive drain on the economy, it's preferable to have a larger empire with a lower science slider than a small empire with a high slider. More land has more potential than less land, considering you control it in the first place!

Regarding Knossus, I'm thinking the computer's blue circle was made so to encompass both the fish and the corn resource. That's probably a bad idea because WvO's culture had likely been sitting on it for ages, meaning it would be incredibly difficult to flip.

Another thing I noticed was massive problems with unhappiness. I would have gone into representation for that, universal sufferage is best with a mature empire with lots of towns and enough economy to afford gold-rushing. Slavery is fine for rushing in general.

I also noticed that you farmed over a sugar. That's actually a good idea pre-calendar, but you should have replaced it with a plantation to get that +1 happiness. Drama is also good for happiness considering your dyes. It has an excellent happiness/hammer ratio, especially as you lack market happiness like furs and silks. Since you have so many dyes, trade around to your religion brosefs like Isabella and Gilgamesh for anything you can get.

Another thing, you could definitely fit a city to the west of Athens, probably on the flat grassland tile. 2 fishes would make a decent GP farm, and it could borrow Athen's mines for infrastructure. Don't waste those excellent resources!