Advice on Earth18 game

[cabert]

you will want something to keep your economy in the tracks
alphabet(trade around), then currency, then CoL

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks. My economy is stretched now with so many cities, so it made sense to go straight for Currency (didn't see cabert's comment until now either). Trading around Alphabet is a good idea too, so I will do that next. After that, is it a good idea to beeline all the way to Liberalism for the free tech, possibly dropping by Engineering for Trebuchets?

It's 725BC now, and I've had some progress. Spain is now history

Spoiler :

I only lost three swordmen in the attacks on Bercelona (razed) and Madrid, which I thought was pretty lucky given I faced 3 archers and a chariot in Madrid and an archer and 2 warriors in Barcelona. As you can see from the red bars two units barely got out alive though. Amazing what 20% city attack does with the odds. Went from 30% to 61%

I have a couple of fresh catapults ready now. Will produce some more while the men heal up and march east towards Russia. Would be nice to take them out by the turn of the millennium, though that is perhaps asking too much as Catherine has three cities now. I'll send a scout over and have a look.

Despite the frustration yesterday, this has now turned into a pretty nice game and I should have it well under control. Think I am already well ahead in tech so it should be possible to take out Russia and then consolidate the economy a bit. Currency should give me that opportunity.

I settled on that Marble spot btw. Looks nice, and three food is probably needed given all the production tiles there. The other settler wasn't sent up north. I sent him east instead and founded a city by the Black Sea close to Russia.

I suddenly noticed England had founded Judaism, so I sent my Great Prophet over there and built a shrine. That gave me some more leeway financially.

 

[revengeofmakno]

Looking at the game score and given the difficulty level you are playing at, you are well on your way to a crushing victory without major challenges. Currency, then building a market and library in London should put you over the top. Paris can be a Wonder factory (or a unit factory along with Madrid). Rome and Athens provide further good options. If Russia has only 3 cities, they should not be much of an obstacle.

The only challenges I can conceive of are;
1) The Buddhist bloc of Saladin, Cyrus and Hatty and others who might join it, somehow uniting against you.
2) China becoming very dominant in the Far East if you somehow start to stagnate.
3) The Aztecs conquering the USA very fast in the Americas and getting on big roll.

Frankly, you are so far ahead that I would even consider, after currency, bee-lining the tech tree up to knight production and with that mobile army rolling over the middle east quickly and bringing the game to a fast conclusion.

 

[Pangaea]

A nudge short of the millennium, and Russia is no more. She had 5 cities by the time I was ready to attack her (took a while to move the troops around), but there was nothing she could do. Took two cities and burnt three others. China has been slow so far, but they usually get on a massive roll towards the end. Persia has expanded a lot now with 8 cities. The game is effectively in the bag though.

It's been a fine mess with the Wonders. I've put one here and one there, trying to not mix too much between different Great People points. How do people usually do this? I've tended to build almost everything in one city, but I got the impression that wasn't such a great idea.

Saladin is rather angry with me due to religion, so I wouldn't mind taking him out. Probably have the troops for it too, though it will take some time to shift them all the way south to him. Building an army of knights was an interesting idea, which may make it faster.

I'm attaching the save from 25BC, when Russia got canned, if anybody want to have a look.

Also, how do you best use a Great General? Earlier I have taken them into the city for more free upgrades, but wasn't sure what to use him for, so right now he is sitting around. Took him on the road with me a while as I was wondering if there was a boost like in Civ 5, but that didn't seem to be the case.

 

[cabert]

A nudge short of the millennium, and Russia is no more. She had 5 cities by the time I was ready to attack her (took a while to move the troops around), but there was nothing she could do. Took two cities and burnt three others. China has been slow so far, but they usually get on a massive roll towards the end. Persia has expanded a lot now with 8 cities. The game is effectively in the bag though.

It's been a fine mess with the Wonders. I've put one here and one there, trying to not mix too much between different Great People points. How do people usually do this? I've tended to build almost everything in one city, but I got the impression that wasn't such a great idea.

Saladin is rather angry with me due to religion, so I wouldn't mind taking him out. Probably have the troops for it too, though it will take some time to shift them all the way south to him. Building an army of knights was an interesting idea, which may make it faster.

I'm attaching the save from 25BC, when Russia got canned, if anybody want to have a look.

Also, how do you best use a Great General? Earlier I have taken them into the city for more free upgrades, but wasn't sure what to use him for, so right now he is sitting around. Took him on the road with me a while as I was wondering if there was a boost like in Civ 5, but that didn't seem to be the case.

about wonders, there is no need (except specific strategy, like going for cultural) to keep the pool clean. However, some great persons are less useful on your settings. Specifically great spies, when your neighbours are so far behind in tech isn't a good one. You can use one for a golden age, to avoid anarchy when you chenge civics, but it's not really exciting.
If you don't go for cultural, the artists are also lesser ones. You can use one for a culture bomb in a newly captured city, but it's not always a big gain.
You other GP can be settled, in different cities, depending on their type and on specialization of your cities.
So I suggest building all wonders in one city except for those giving GPPs of a type you don't want.

And your general can be settled in your military city.

If you want to go on killing (unnecessary at this point), you're better off going for persia, saladin being protective.

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks. I should probably have kept the Wonders in Rome or Berlin then. I don't play with spies so cultural isn't really feasible given I need 3x100,000 points. It would be fun to get a domination or conquest victory as I haven't seen the videos for those. That will take a lot of time though, and I already notice the turns are slowing down a bit (couple of seconds now).

Going for Persia would probably be the best idea yeah. They seem the most expansive right now. Saladin is nothing really, he just hates me. With quite a lot of cities right now it's probably a good idea to consolidate a bit anyway. Will perhaps settle a couple of cities further north and start to creep across Asia. Looks like it's pretty terrible land there. Just woods and the odd resource.

Good to hear about the General. I'll settle him in one of my bigger cities which produce units fast.

 

[cabert]

Good to hear about the General. I'll settle him in one of my bigger cities which produce units fast.

Did you build the heroic epic yet?
That's where a general should go.

Just to brag (although some people around here could get it 1000 years earlier), and because I played it through, I finished my own try (with spies, if it matters to you, although I don't think I even built a spy).
Space victory in 1590 AD.
I thought that's what you were trying to do, now if you go for domination, there is no comparison.

 

[Pangaea]

Haven't built the Heroic Epic yet. Is that the one I need a high-level unit for? I settled one general in Munich (I think), in Eastern Turkey, as it was a good spot then with lots of production for taking on both Africa and Asia. But I put the other one in Berlin (or Paris, I don't remember). Have built some Wonders in Paris and will keep them to my biggest cities I think. Have put up a lot of cottages, which will hopefully pay off, and trying to make England a good commerce place, together with Spain. England has actually founded two religions now. Weird. Brand new city in Scotland, and it founded Taoism.

Went to war with Persia about 300AD (attacking from two directions, three really), and now at 560AD I settled peace with them. They had two villages left. I took one off their hands for peace (which happened to be right south of a Barbarian one, so I hope they don't take it before my defenders get there).

Space shuttle in 1590AD is impressive. I've not played very many games yet, and have gotten a space win, plus one near-call. Given my very strong position in this game I'd like to try and grab a domination victory. Not sure I can be bothered with the Americas, even if I could probably do a conquest. Saladin hates my guts, so with troops on his border it's tempting to waste him, and then roll into India and further to China and the Mongols. Or maybe I should just do that right now, and take out that pesky Saladin later. He's no threat, and neither is Mansa Musa. But China tends to expand wildly at some point. They have swordmen and spears though, so it won't be a rollover like the Archers and axemen (and the odd swordman) as it was with Persia.

I'll upload the save just in case somebody want to have a peek.

 

[RustedCorpse]

Sorry for a newbie, may I ask what mod you're using that has the green face in the upper left? I assume it's what's giving you the great people summary? I'd like to use a nice streamline interface like that if you could share the name? The mod area is a little overwhelming where I tried to find on my own. Thanks.

 

[Pangaea]

I agree, that area is very overwhelming. Was hard to find what was sensible mods and what was for the specially interested. I'm using the BUFFY mod. Tbh, I'm not sure we need that, as I'm not playing any Hall of Fame games. So we may be better off with the BUG mod. I went with the BUFFY one and it works fine, so haven't bothered with anything else. Just a shame we can't load different ones too, like special maps and such, while still using the interface from BUFFY/BUG.

I think maybe the BULL changes are included in BUFFY and not BUG, but I'm not sure about that, and not even sure exactly what BULL does. But as long as it works, right?

BUFFY mod
BUG mod

I played some more yesterday, and went to war with China. They had a lot of nasty ill-named troops, but I took the first city. The long supply lines is a bit frustrating. Have just discovered railways and put some workers on automate trade network, so hopefully they upgrade my road network. It gets very tedious to command workers around all the time. Really wish they were more intelligent.

Both domination and conquest is going to take a while on a map like this. I'm already up to 50% population, but need the same for land and "only" control about 20%. Will therefore try to take over all of Asia too. India and Egypt are vassals now, so I hope those deals can be cancelled. Cause I need those land areas too for domination.

It's a little tempting to drop my plan and go for space, but I want to see the videos for domination or conquest!

 

[Pangaea]

What is it with the utter overload of cities wanting to join other empires? All of them are my vassals ffs, why join the losers? It doesn't make sense either. For example, I've been founding some cities in the south of Africa, and on the first turn of their existence, they want to join Mali (or Egypt). And cities which have long been mine in China, suddenly want to join the Chinese, who only have one city left off on an island somewhere. It doesn't make an inch of sense.

I get these annoying popup boxes just about every turn now. Here is a screenshot to illustrate. I believe the X for the fist-like icon means I've gotten such messages for those cities. When I go into edit mode of that page it says "Liberate". Is there a way to remove them, or automatically turn them down? Why would I give away cities I've just conquered?

Spoiler :

Still haven't finished the game btw. Got it in the bag a long time ago, but it takes time to take over the whole world. Can certainly understand why people don't bother with that, and just go into research mode to get a space win. Especially on huge maps like this, with continents. That said, I'm finally starting to land some troops. Montezuma has some pretty huge stacks, which just took over a US city, but I'm attacking him anyway. If he comes after me it'll be nasty, but I'm not terribly far off nukes so he'll taste my revenge one way or another. Muahahahahhaha!

Edit: If you check that save, why can't I build an Ironworks in Munich? It has access to coal, but for some reason the option is greyed out. I therefore added it to the queue of another city, Berlin or one of the other big ones. Are there any pre-reqs the city doesn't have?

 

[cabert]

question 1, the nagging boxes
well, live with it or have overwhelming culture in them. You'll get those because there is no option to not have them, which is a pain.

question 2, ironworks
You need a forge to build it. You don't have a forge in Munich. This being said, I wouldn't build the ironworks in munich, because you have enough production power there without it to get troops built.
Better build an airport then troops non stop.

Not a question 1 :
you have too few boats.
Monty doesn't big stacks, you have small ones!

Not a question 2 :
where are your panzers ?
those guys need nothing more to take medieval cities

Not a question 3 :
why would you promote so many cannons to barrage?
barrage is kind of a suicide promotion. With so many cannons fighting macemen, you want city raider, this way you lose almost none.

Not a question 4 :
destroyers and fighters can bomb cities, so you can bring the culture to 0 before your footmen get there.

Not a question 5 :
you can keep troops in the boats and attack from the sea, with enough numbers/support (boats for bombing, carrier + fighters to get the defenders down)
Boats move a lot faster than your troops.

Not a question 5 :
you still have a lot of unimproved tiles, and some cities are unnecessary small (madrid for instance).
Either you don't have enough workers, or you're not using them right + you didn't use the governor buttons nor did you check the cities.

All in all, you're bound to win. You can even get a conquest (if you vassalize all your opponents, it may even be fast! Monty is about to vassalize (I just played your turn to the end, and he capitulated! Hyuna being his vassal will capitulate too)

 

[Pangaea]

I finally played through to the end yesterday, then after it I saw these comments. Funny you should mention the lack of Panzers actually. Think I had some in queue in the last save, and by the end of the campaign I had so many I didn't know what to do with them. Didn't lose a single one either. They just waltzed over everything. I won domination in 1745, scoring about 96,000 points.

question 1, the nagging boxes
well, live with it or have overwhelming culture in them. You'll get those because there is no option to not have them, which is a pain.

Shame there is no way to do this, as it was incredibly annoying to have them popping up once or twice every single turn.

question 2, ironworks
You need a forge to build it. You don't have a forge in Munich. This being said, I wouldn't build the ironworks in munich, because you have enough production power there without it to get troops built.
Better build an airport then troops non stop.

Thanks. Didn't know I needed a forge. At some point I built one and got up the Ironworks there. Perhaps overkill, but I put it there anyway as it was my main troop producing city. I did build quite a few airports, but it looked like I can only airlift one troop a turn. Ended up transporting them via Transporters instead. Probably took more turns than if I had waypointed to for example 10 of my airport cities, but couldn't be bothered by that.

Not a question 1 :
you have too few boats.
Monty doesn't big stacks, you have small ones!

Not a question 2 :
where are your panzers ?
those guys need nothing more to take medieval cities

How many should I be having? By the time I got a decent amount of troops over I had 5-6 destroyers along the coast, which wasted culture defence and picked off galleys and triremes. Should probably have spammed more transporters earlier so I could get troops over faster though. Also, while invading China I had most of my troops in one stack, so that one was large (at least to me ). Took time to get them over to Monty though, and I had some parked close to Egypt too, as I hoped they would defy me so I could invade. Then I waypointed everything to send them to the Spanish coast for my transporters, so I ended up with a pile of Panzers and Infantry/Marines there.

Not a question 3 :
why would you promote so many cannons to barrage?
barrage is kind of a suicide promotion. With so many cannons fighting macemen, you want city raider, this way you lose almost none.

Ah okay, so that's what people choose when they suicide them? I wasn't sure, so had a mix. Though I did go over to choosing city raider more often as it was a walkover anyway, and it gave me better odds.

Not a question 4 :
destroyers and fighters can bomb cities, so you can bring the culture to 0 before your footmen get there.

I did have some fighters, but annoyingly 4 of them died as they were sitting on top of an American city Montezuma took. Didn't think they would simply die as there was no way he could do anything about them. Figured they'd just be moved out of the border when he took it. Lesson learned I guess. Destroyers were pretty sweet though. Those things are tough, and can really smack up a city defence.

Not a question 5 :
you can keep troops in the boats and attack from the sea, with enough numbers/support (boats for bombing, carrier + fighters to get the defenders down)
Boats move a lot faster than your troops.

That's a really good idea. Wish I had tried something like that. Would probably have been faster. As I was going after Montezuma first (and only needed him as it turns out) and he was inlands, I landed the troops and moved them towards his cities.

Not a question 5 :
you still have a lot of unimproved tiles, and some cities are unnecessary small (madrid for instance).
Either you don't have enough workers, or you're not using them right + you didn't use the governor buttons nor did you check the cities.

I probably didn't have anywhere near enough workers after I conquered so many cities, but didn't produce many either as the game was already won. Then I put a lot of them on auto. This seemed to work okay for trade network, but even though I had ticked both worker boxes in options, they kept building forts on top of late resources, like oil and uranium. Even copper. So I'm pretty sure they destroyed mines and put up forts over them. Wish their actions were more intelligent. Sadly it looks like worker automation is a big fat no-no as they tend to wreck up the place.

All in all, you're bound to win. You can even get a conquest (if you vassalize all your opponents, it may even be fast! Monty is about to vassalize (I just played your turn to the end, and he capitulated! Hyuna being his vassal will capitulate too)

Montezuma was actually willing to capitulate fairly soon, after I took a couple of cities off his hands. At that time I wanted domination though, as I didn't fancy bringing troops over to the south too. Though I suppose both would have vassaled had I done it before the Incas broke free. Sounds like I made lot of mistakes btw. Was it really that bad? I know I'm not a good player by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought I was doing quite well in this game. Late game was probably poor because I just wanted to get it over with and automated most workers and spammed Panzers. Was my early and mid game okay? If it's possible to tell from these saves and screenshots.

The percentage of land needed can't be close to correct btw. I needed 51%, and by the end controlled virtually every inch of land in Europe and Asia, half of Africa and a good portion of the US and Canada. The rest of Asia and Africa were my vassals, which I think counts for 50% of the land and population. I can therefore only assume that they count the oceans too, which is pretty ridiculous. Perhaps ice also. Certainly looks like I control enough to get to 51% earlier than I did.

(Don't look too much on the hours spent btw. Yes, I was very, very slow, but many of those were because the game was sitting in the background while I was doing other stuff. Plus terrible lag at the end)

Spoiler :

 

[cabert]

a win can't be really bad, don't you think?
and 96k is quite a good score, so no sweat.
You can even brag about it

Next time, play noble

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks. I did think it was a fairly good game, as I got off to a great start. Even if it is only Warlord. I'll try Noble next and see how that works out. What is the biggest change? Will the barbs harass me a lot?

Was very happy with 96k points, but did wonder where my other scores had gone. Only a couple of failed attempts were recorded, when I tried to get Paris early and their lone warrior strolled into my empty city.

 

[cabert]

Thanks. I did think it was a fairly good game, as I got off to a great start. Even if it is only Warlord. I'll try Noble next and see how that works out. What is the biggest change? Will the barbs harass me a lot?

Was very happy with 96k points, but did wonder where my other scores had gone. Only a couple of failed attempts were recorded, when I tried to get Paris early and their lone warrior strolled into my empty city.

you only see games played with your current mod.
thus here with buffy, you only see this one game.

 

[Pangaea]

Ah okay. Thanks. Guess it will be cleared again now then, because I installed BUG 4.4 and started a game with that.

Something very odd happened btw. I'll write it here instead of creating a new thread. This is sort of my cry for help thread anyway

Started a Fracture map just to see how the mod was without BULL (and BUFFY). All random. Got Alexander. My scout was exploring and got attacked by a lion. Afterwards I noticed he could be promoted. That's early I thought, but clicked on an icon. Was puzzled when more upgrades were available. This kept going until I had chosen all upgrades possible! Same thing happened with my first warrior. Could get all promotions right off the bat. Noticed a ton of icons on other scouts and warriors too, so it was obviously a global thing. Then I came across a hut which gave me another warrior. This one could not be upgraded. Until a few turns later. Then he too could be promoted all the way. From the mouseover of my warrior you can see the ridiculous amount of promotions in the screenshot below.

Has this happened to anybody else? Is it a quirk with the BUG mod, or something else?

Spoiler :

Also, it would be great if you could comment on some city placements. I played 50 turns of the game. Guess I went overboard with the exploring as I'll probably lose my 2nd city to a barb warrior who just appeared outside the city. And with a thousand promotions I wouldn't be able to beat him even if my other warriors got there in time. 27% chance. WTH?

Think I made somewhat poor decisions about technology. Guess I should have beelined iron working so I could chop away some jungle, and should perhaps have gotten agriculture before too. Trained a worker first and teched Animal husbandry to get to the pig. Should I have trained a work boat first instead of a worker? Clams available off the coast.

Please comment on my general gameplay. And especially on city placement. 2nd city is Sparta to the NE of capital. Placed it there to get coastline and with time get another pig, plus health from the river. It's on top of copper, which I don't think is ideal. Where should I have put it?

3rd city is Corinth to the NW of capital. Also next to a river, with access to corn, dye and banana. Game wanted me to place it 1SW, which would give access to all the same, but no river, but with one more hill. Would that (or something else) have been a better choice?

Coast is to the south, Isabella to the west (either right by the coast or on a landbridge), Justinian is to the north by the coast. I have also run into Zara, Hammurabi, Julius Caesar and Joao II, though I haven't seen their borders yet. Guess they are all to the east of me.

 

[cabert]

I guess there is a bug with BUG.
Notice how julius' warrior has a lot of promotions too?
better post it in the BUG subforum, I have no idea.

city placement isn't great. your copper city makes it impossible to work the fish. This is bad. Food is holy
1E would be better. + a later (when you have IW) city for pig + gold
you corn and banana city is not good right now.
It will be great, but a lot later, with culture and IW and calendar
there are good city sites in the south for the time being.

 

[Pangaea]

I decided to post over there too today. More likely to get a modder to look at it. It's not happened since, but it was very odd. Every single unit I ran into had all available promotions, whether it was scouts, warriors or axes. Very strange.

Sacked Spain's three cities, but it was pretty pointless to play it out when a serious bug like that cropped up. Was a nice start though, so could have been a fun game to finish.

Any thoughts on the city placement btw in that screenshot/save? It's something I'm always unsure of.

 

[cabert]

Any thoughts on the city placement btw in that screenshot/save? It's something I'm always unsure of.

cross posting
I edited the previous post