advice needed
- Thread starter gallego
- Start date
Personally, I'd have to say you probably waited too long. The Chinese have the Egyptians as Vassals, not to mention having a a higher tech level. And no one likes you enough to coerce them into wars with other Civs. Unless you could manage to get a war ally, you'd likely lose - you just don't have enough units.
I noticed a fair amount of your cities aren't working to their full potential because you haven't done a lot of tile improvements. Plus, in most cases you only have a single road leading between your cities, making it very easy to pillage them, and cut your cities off.
Unfortunately, there's no better option to attack either. Brennus would be a good choice, but as he's a Vassal of Ragnar, he's out too, since Mao has an Open Borders with Ragnar.
If you do decide to risk a war, you'll need to focus more on building Trebs. Taking down the city defense bonus is paramount, and to have a decent chance of winning, you'll need to do some CD as well. Switch a few more cities over to Trebs.
Bh
I noticed a fair amount of your cities aren't working to their full potential because you haven't done a lot of tile improvements. Plus, in most cases you only have a single road leading between your cities, making it very easy to pillage them, and cut your cities off.
Unfortunately, there's no better option to attack either. Brennus would be a good choice, but as he's a Vassal of Ragnar, he's out too, since Mao has an Open Borders with Ragnar.
If you do decide to risk a war, you'll need to focus more on building Trebs. Taking down the city defense bonus is paramount, and to have a decent chance of winning, you'll need to do some CD as well. Switch a few more cities over to Trebs.
Bh
carl corey
Deity
You're behind in techs, low on military power, low on production power and low on GNP. I don't see how you can win any war right now. Why don't you have Code of Laws and Civil Service yet?! That alone would have helped you a lot. Code of Laws gives you courthouses, so smaller maintenance costs, and Civil Service gives you Bureaucracy that could boost your capital. You also have two unirrigated wheat tiles that you could irrigate once you get Civil Service.
Alex's Philosophical trait means you can lightbulb your way to Liberalism (Great Scientist for Philosophy, GS for Paper, GS for Education). That means more techs to trade so you can keep up with the others. I'd say settling the GSs is a criminal misuse here.
A few other questions: why were you working Artists in one of your cities? What would a Great Artist achieve?! Also, why are you working tundra tiles? You have a city that works three 1 food tiles instead of forests (1 food 2 hammers) or windmills (1 food 1 hammer 1 commerce). Your coastal city doesn't have a lighthouse yet it works 4 water tiles! That's 4 wasted food!
By the way, I just checked and Mao has protective Grenadiers and Rifles, while Ragnar and Hannibal have Rifles and Cavalry (they have the Defensive Pact option). Your Grenadiers & Trebuchets will be dead meat. I fear it's too late for you to win this by any means. Or you could go for Diplomatic victory and hope no one declares on you?!
Do you mind me asking why you're playing with Aggressive AIs? You're clearly not at ease on Monarch, why add the difficulty? Play a normal game and post an earlier save if you want more advice. I'm sorry to say but this one's beyond hope.
Alex's Philosophical trait means you can lightbulb your way to Liberalism (Great Scientist for Philosophy, GS for Paper, GS for Education). That means more techs to trade so you can keep up with the others. I'd say settling the GSs is a criminal misuse here.
A few other questions: why were you working Artists in one of your cities? What would a Great Artist achieve?! Also, why are you working tundra tiles? You have a city that works three 1 food tiles instead of forests (1 food 2 hammers) or windmills (1 food 1 hammer 1 commerce). Your coastal city doesn't have a lighthouse yet it works 4 water tiles! That's 4 wasted food!
By the way, I just checked and Mao has protective Grenadiers and Rifles, while Ragnar and Hannibal have Rifles and Cavalry (they have the Defensive Pact option). Your Grenadiers & Trebuchets will be dead meat. I fear it's too late for you to win this by any means. Or you could go for Diplomatic victory and hope no one declares on you?!
Do you mind me asking why you're playing with Aggressive AIs? You're clearly not at ease on Monarch, why add the difficulty? Play a normal game and post an earlier save if you want more advice. I'm sorry to say but this one's beyond hope.
Thanks a lot for your time to look everything over and detailed suggestions. I agree that my city management needs improvement and I've been reading articles on the site to get better.
I did get liberalism in a previous monarch game with Alexander (that also ended poorly) so I'll try to go for that more consistently in the future. The thing is that in this game, I didn't have sailing and compass researched yet, and I didn't want to take the time to get them so that my GS's could lightbulb more advanced techs but I'll do that next time.
I was trying to get a great artist for some cultural support in newly conquered territory...but it won't be any use this time.
I play on monarch because I am trying to throw myself in the deep end. I think doing it that way will make me climb the learning curve quicker by paying more for my mistakes. And even with aggressive AI, nobody has attacked me in this game and Mao even gave me Feudalism for free. Not very aggressive...
By the time I had an army of swordsmen to take down Egypt (which I would have done had they not become Mao's vassal), the Chinese were already just too strong so I held them back, hoping to get to chemistry and attack. Sometimes I can grab a few wonders in the early game if I have resources, but often the AI just races ahead and I never catch up. Do I just need to manage cities better, choose my techs more wisely, use GPs better and strike sooner? Thanks again for all the help.
I did get liberalism in a previous monarch game with Alexander (that also ended poorly) so I'll try to go for that more consistently in the future. The thing is that in this game, I didn't have sailing and compass researched yet, and I didn't want to take the time to get them so that my GS's could lightbulb more advanced techs but I'll do that next time.
I was trying to get a great artist for some cultural support in newly conquered territory...but it won't be any use this time.
I play on monarch because I am trying to throw myself in the deep end. I think doing it that way will make me climb the learning curve quicker by paying more for my mistakes. And even with aggressive AI, nobody has attacked me in this game and Mao even gave me Feudalism for free. Not very aggressive...
By the time I had an army of swordsmen to take down Egypt (which I would have done had they not become Mao's vassal), the Chinese were already just too strong so I held them back, hoping to get to chemistry and attack. Sometimes I can grab a few wonders in the early game if I have resources, but often the AI just races ahead and I never catch up. Do I just need to manage cities better, choose my techs more wisely, use GPs better and strike sooner? Thanks again for all the help.
carl corey
Deity
That's the way to go.
You can lightbulb Paper even if you don't have Sailing yet. The lightbulbing order isn't the order in which the techs are available. For detailed lists for each Great Person take a look here: Great Person Tech Preferences. Thus, unless you research up to Optics, you're pretty safe in trying to get Philosophy, Paper and then Education through lightbulbs. Even if you do get to Optics and a GS lightbulbs it instead of Paper just research Paper on your own, then lightbulb Education. Paper is pretty cheap anyway.
I've had the occasional Great Artist settled in a conquered city, or build a Great Artwork in it, but it's really situational. I'd rather have GSs.
Receiving techs for free isn't a good sign. It usually means you're so far behind the others don't see you as a threat. I wouldn't play Aggressive AI anyway at first. That's usually like a Monarch+ level. Pretty tough if you ask me.
Wasn't there anyone else you could attack early? Egypt with the War Chariots and the protective Chinese aren't the best targets. If I can I usually attack with Axemen in the first war. But in this case they might not have been enough had you attacked one of those two AIs.
On Monarch I choose my wonders very carefully. Often going for Pyramids or some big wonder is too high a risk to even consider. The Great Wall is a pretty good one, especially combined with defensive starts to your wars; with some luck it might get you a GE for free Pyramids! The Great Library on the other hand is usually easy to get and it's especially useful for a Philosophical leader. But everything depends on the situation at hand. Take a look at aelf's EMCs and IMCs and Sisiutil's All Leaders Challenges to see how different wonders work with different leaders.
Yes, yes, yes and yes.
There are some pretty important techs out there that you want to take full advantage off. Things vary of course with your leader's traits (ex: Code of Laws becomes more important when you're Organized and have cheap courthouses), but here are a few that are most useful:- Alphabet: early tech trading can make you friends; usually you can also trade it for Maths and/or Iron
- Literature, especially if you're Philosophical (or Industrious) for the Great Library
- Currency & Code of Laws for extra trade route and courthouses: means you can expand your empire to more than 4-5 cities without driving your economy into the ground
- Civil Service - Bureaucracy gives your capital a huge boost: 50% more hammers and 50% more commerce!
- Liberalism - gets you a free tech and some pretty good civics (especially Free Religion if you can't afford to adopt a state religion)
Being Spiritual also opens up other paths. For example you can get and spread an early religion and get a shrine for it to fund your expansion. Or build the Oracle to get Code of Laws very early.
You can even get down a level to try different approaches, it's nothing to be ashamed of! Then, once you have a few things worked out, go back to Monarch and you'll have more fun and learn more if you do it this way. Struggling game after game isn't that much fun...
Thanks for the follow-up. I took some of the advice to heart and am doing much better in a new monarch/agg AI/raging barbarians game (just for realism's sake) with Russia. I have two wonders including the Great Library, founded Taoism (and have the shrine built) and am close to Liberalism with a good GP city going, so the tech part seems to be in good shape, the only question is military. If you don't mind taking a look at this save, could you tell me how/when I should strike? Hopefully I haven't waited too long again.
carl corey
Deity
Glad I could help. I was probably a little pessimistic in the first post... I'm not used to coming from behind at that point in the game. Probably concentrating on some of the key techs would have helped a bit, though I'm still not sure that game was winnable.
Anyway, I'll take a look at the save later today. You can start by giving reasons why you'd strike or not at a particular AI then I'll see if there's anything to add/correct or provide alternatives for, ok?
I was probably a little pessimistic in the first post... I'm not used to coming from behind at that point in the game. Probably concentrating on some of the key techs would have helped a bit, though I'm still not sure that game was winnable.Anyway, I'll take a look at the save later today. You can start by giving reasons why you'd strike or not at a particular AI then I'll see if there's anything to add/correct or provide alternatives for, ok?
Well at this point, I am doing well compared to the other AIs--just two of them on my continent, all of us the same religion, and pretty even scores. I just want to avoid another situation like the last game where I waited for too long and let the AIs develop too much. I was thinking I could attack with elephants/catapults now, or I could sit back, spread Taoism, lightbulb with GPs and develop my cities and attack as soon as I get cossacks. The question is, am I too weak now, or is it going to be too late later? I don't want to stall my growth with a bunch of whipping and chopping for an army of catapults that will just be destroyed, but I also want to avoid a situation like the last game in which I am in the 1500s and overpowered even more. There is also the other continent to think about; I want to dominate mine soon and have a lot of land to secure the upcoming resources of coal/aluminum/uranium/petroleum to prevent the other continent from running too far ahead of me.
Edit: Nevermind; I attacked Korea, took their holy shrine and am now at peace again. The game looks to be going well.
Edit: Nevermind; I attacked Korea, took their holy shrine and am now at peace again. The game looks to be going well.
A general truism is that it's always better to attack earlier rather than later. This assumes, of course, that you are capable of mounting an attack.
In your case, it would depend on what you are facing. I'm guessing that if you have Elephants/Catapults, the enemy is likely defending with Longbows. Assuming they have 2-3 per city, you are looking at a minimum of 2x that amount of Elephants (so 6), and enough Catapults to quickly pull down the defense rating of the city and provide some collateral damage. Those Catapults are going to die attacking to do the collateral damage, so you'll need to keep them coming as replacements. You'd likely do well with anywhere from 4-6 Catapults. And finally, you'll want to consider "counter-units". Luckily, Elephants are only vulnerable to Spear/Pikemen, so having 1-2 Axemen will do. Oh, and you'll likely want to have some units ready to defend the city if you take it so your attack stack can move on as soon as they've healed.
Bh
In your case, it would depend on what you are facing. I'm guessing that if you have Elephants/Catapults, the enemy is likely defending with Longbows. Assuming they have 2-3 per city, you are looking at a minimum of 2x that amount of Elephants (so 6), and enough Catapults to quickly pull down the defense rating of the city and provide some collateral damage. Those Catapults are going to die attacking to do the collateral damage, so you'll need to keep them coming as replacements. You'd likely do well with anywhere from 4-6 Catapults. And finally, you'll want to consider "counter-units". Luckily, Elephants are only vulnerable to Spear/Pikemen, so having 1-2 Axemen will do. Oh, and you'll likely want to have some units ready to defend the city if you take it so your attack stack can move on as soon as they've healed.
Bh
carl corey
Deity
Ugh, forgot about this thread, sorry. Just took a look at my subscriptions and saw it. How are you progressing, gallego? In this game and in general too, I mean.
