ALC Game #7 Pre-Game Show: Playing as Frederick

[futurehermit]

Well, don't WAIT to war until panzers, lol, or you'll be peaceful the whole game.

But, DO plan on making use of them if you can. And planning of using them means planning on an aggressive game: domination/conquest. Sure, if you can win prior to their appearance, then that's fine. But, if you can't, then you can certainly make use of them when they appear.

I'm not saying base your strategy around using them, but I am saying base your strategy around the possibility of using them at some point in the game.

And basing on the spirit of these threads, I would say you want to try and make use of everything the leader has available.

So, with creative + philosophical, you could easily say cultural victory (and you should, probably, if you get an isolated start). However, with a specialist econ you can also use creative aggressively and go for a domination victory, which I think is a good plan considering the fact that you have the panzer for use late game. Hunting-Mining makes for a pretty nice aggressive start: bronze-anhusb. Gives you chop- and pop-rushing and also reveals both early military resources. Follow this up with the wheel-ag-pottery (for granaries), secure a military resource, and away you go.

 

[NaZdReG]

heres another thought for the specialist based econ.

this leader is kinda suited to generate a culture based victory. while it is a good idea generally to go 100% specialists if you are focusing on a conquest victory.. if you want to stay peaceful you could try this as an alternative.

DO go for pyramids.. weather you are using the oracle to go for metal casting and using a GE to build them.. or just produce them outright.

DO switch to civil service and representation as soon as possible.
then later try to run: representation, free speech, caste system, mercantilism, pacifism.

DO try to get the parthenon and switch to pacificm resulting in 250% gp production.

if you can, wipe out an agressive neighbor. make sure it helps you buddy up to a few other neighbors.. and gives you enough room for 8-12 cities.

the big debate at that point would be if you really do need to run specialists to be your only source of science.

I would suggest cottaging up anyway, as you will still be able to generate a decent # of beakers, and you wont be working on conquering the world if you go for a culture victory.

my thought would be though.. assign your capitol 2 scientists from the library.. and use your first GS to put an academy there.. and if you generate a couple more, so much the better.. also put the great library there. if you want additional scientists just adjust the # of specialists out there so it can finish its gp pool to go get another academy.

there is a study on the forum showing that it is nearly impossible for extra cities to produce great people if a single city is a gp farm so we need to consider this carefully.

if you want to go for a culture victory.. under representation artists produce 4 culture and 4 beakers.. (4 beakers and 6!!! culture if you have the sistene chapel)

not quite as good as a scientist but still good.
and can still be magnified by science buildings.
science buildings also have a good synergy, as they all put out culture.. every bit helps.

set yourself up 3 "gp farms" while odds are the # of gp's produced will balance out, theres no harm in running that many specialists anyway. use the creative trait to build theaters and colloseums everywhere.

(run scientists in other cities.. no more than a couple each, to supplement science output)

run nothing but artists in those 3 cities. while not producing as much science as they could, over the centuries that culture will certainly pile up. particularly if you use part of your slider to increase culture output.
obviously use the great artists for the 4000 culture.. that cant be made up by assigning the guy as a super specialist by the end of the game.

also follow the usual culture path, getting multiple religions and building the +50% culture religious buildings in those 3 cities.

I think the net result would be a decent commerce output, enabling you to trade for happiness resources as well as upgrading troops etc.

a decent science output between the slider and the specialists
(I would shoot for something like 40% science 30% culture.. higher on both if you can manage upkeep)

a HUGE culture output WAY early in the game. if you have the right civics you could be producing tons and tons of culture. perhaps you will even flip some of your neighbors cities.. if so all the better!! (particularly if you make a close to border city one of the culture centers and keep it heavily garrisoned)

heck I may even try this myself well we'll see how viable after warlords is out.

my apologies that my thoughts are a little scattered, but hopefully you get the gist of the suggested strat. I guess the biggest point here is that with a bit of commerce emphasis, you could use artists instead of scientists and still produce a decent research rate WHILE you are bombing your neighbors with culture.. also w/o sacrificing your military abilities.

hermit and jiggle, care to weigh in?

best of luck sisuitil!

NaZ

 

[Eggolas]

Creative and Philosophical: The traits have some synergy, but much of the potential benefit is situational at best in my opinion.

Creative is a warmonger's trait, both early and mid-game prior to Universal Suffrage, if one heads in the direction of the latter. The best part of it is the ability to found cities with resources in the expanded cross and wait for them to come in relatively quickly. Another use is the ability to either grab territory from a non-creative civ's city and the ability to better fight cultural border intrusion.

Philosophical is a nice trait that can be used either in a GP farm or for tactical advantages. I like using it in a true CS Slingshot by chopping out a library in one city while the other builds the Oracle, then assign two science specialists to produce a GP Scientist before the Oracle city produces a GP Prophet, with the result being an Academy founded in the capitol and bureaucracy as the civic.

Together? Hmmm . . . that one I'd have to think about a little. Philosophical can also be used to burn GPs for technology, to move ahead of the AI or produce a large tech advantage. If that advantage leads to a major military tech early enough, then you've got the makings of a war of opportunity.

Otherwise . . . these are situational traits and you'll just have to see what the game presents.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I had suggested Archery and Archers early on because you want a land grab, but don't want to be caught with your pants down. Further, I've been noticing myself denied key resources (one game I had to build Horse archers to finish off Rome when niether of us had metal. He had Iron in his area and Copper just out of it, but I was keeping him choked out). Archers make such games at least salvageable. I think I need to Cottage spam until I can build the farms to sustain a specialist economy though. Science can tank otherwise...

 

[Sisiutil]

The game thread is now underway, with the starting position posted. Go to it, gang!

 

[cabert]

The game thread is now underway, with the starting position posted. Go to it, gang!

sorry, I'm late for the pre game show, but i thought you were tanning somewhere in the bahamas...

Too late, i know but i still think the traits are warmonger's traits, starting techs also are warmonger friendly :
- creative let the borders expand without any work
- philosophical makes the specialist strategy more worthwhile
- you start with mining!

My advice is to go straight for domination = war all the time + aggressive settling.
You need to rush to drama then music (don't let a free GA go away ) to use the cheap theatres with a high culture slider to fight war weariness.
Don't be afraid of a high culture slider, since you'll be running a specialist economy (needing caste system? at some point, you'll have libraries everywhere you want scientists and markets everywhere you want merchants. Later in the game you may need to switch back to caste system then to cottages).
You need the pyramids. Building them is cool, taking them by force is better. But continents = high risk that the pyramids are out of reach. Better building them at a high cost than letting them go = chop everything in sight, whip hard, ...