Ask Me Anything

[Funak]

Assuming that you have full Tradition and Aesthetics, and then some other policies that give specialist buildings... on a very Late game, how high must your population be, assuming a fully built and very impressive capital on Info era, to fill in all those specialist slots and then work some tiles?

On my Japan Trad/Auth/Aesth game (yes, abuse of GP) I never have enough population on my Capital and satellite Culture cities to work all the slots. The cities have nice food and no AI dares to pick a fight with me for long since it's a small continents map(I have a small continent for myself) due to my nice navy and coastal defenses. Problem is, I have vast swathes of unworked tiles cuz most of my cities don't have the population to support both my specialists buildings and my nice desert farm land... How should I balance specialists and population growth? I'm planning to restart that game and I'd really love some advice... Should I settle cities at the minimum range this time?

P.S. I said desert farmland cuz the lower half of my continent had vast deserts with a river, 2 oasis, and lake Victoria nicely spaced on it. Then I plopped down a city in the sweet spot and built Petra on it. Any desert tiles w/o fresh water were mined/manufactory/academy'ied

Also, should I give up Town chaining for farm chaining? there were a few coastal tiles where I placed my roads and they had freshwater on it...

Completely depends on how the rest of your land looks. Eventually if you choose to adopt the freedom tenet that halves food cost for specialists you're probably going to work all specialists available anyways, but in general this is a place where you have to make a decision, do I want yields now or do I want the city to grow so I can have more yields later on?
When I play tradition I try to work all engineers and all cultural specialists in the capital, while focusing the city on growth as much as reasonable, this usually ends with me having to add merchants because my economy is failing and scientists because I'm falling behind on science . Seriously though, the more you can grown your cities the better, my non capital cities usually just work engineers, or no specialists at all if good mines are available, I mean getting those essential buildings up is just as important as growing the cities.

As far farm-clusters versus villages go, I'm really out of touch with that subject, I tend to build as many villages as I can reasonably fit, but that's because I'm running the extra events mod-mod that generally tend to strike you down with a '-1 food on all farms for the rest of the game' event fairly early on, and after that farms just feel weak. In general I believe that farmclusters are superior to other improvements, and for that reason you should probably build the villages you want on hills, but a lot still depends on the situation.

From your explanation is sounds like you've severely neglected your growth and is paying the prize for it.

 

[Lifariz]

Completely depends on how the rest of your land looks. Eventually if you choose to adopt the freedom tenet that halves food cost for specialists you're probably going to work all specialists available anyways, but in general this is a place where you have to make a decision, do I want yields now or do I want the city to grow so I can have more yields later on?
When I play tradition I try to work all engineers and all cultural specialists in the capital, while focusing the city on growth as much as reasonable, this usually ends with me having to add merchants because my economy is failing and scientists because I'm falling behind on science . Seriously though, the more you can grown your cities the better, my non capital cities usually just work engineers, or no specialists at all if good mines are available, I mean getting those essential buildings up is just as important as growing the cities.

As far farm-clusters versus villages go, I'm really out of touch with that subject, I tend to build as many villages as I can reasonably fit, but that's because I'm running the extra events mod-mod that generally tend to strike you down with a '-1 food on all farms for the rest of the game' event fairly early on, and after that farms just feel weak. In general I believe that farmclusters are superior to other improvements, and for that reason you should probably build the villages you want on hills, but a lot still depends on the situation.

From your explanation is sounds like you've severely neglected your growth and is paying the prize for it.

I guess so. My religion is clutch on Mandir/The specialist belief so it's hard to let go. I guess I can let my cities of growth focus for a bit. My cities are close to each other so I'll just let them take turns on the farms.

Next one! The AI begs for strategic resource on the normal trade screen. What gives? I'm used to playing on immortal, sometimes deity when I feel like playing Japan or Korea, and at times they keep begging for my strategic resources. Not saying I don't use them since it mostly happens on early game where my military powerhouse city/ies aren't finished yet...

Also, what's the interpretation of the diplomacy value rating? I know higher values mean better on the AI's pov but how much in our human terms?

 

[pandasnail]

As far farm-clusters versus villages go, I'm really out of touch with that subject, I tend to build as many villages as I can reasonably fit, but that's because I'm running the extra events mod-mod that generally tend to strike you down with a '-1 food on all farms for the rest of the game' event fairly early on, and after that farms just feel weak.

You can't get that event if you don't let the Foreign Adviser go on their mission. I realize there are positive results too, but if I'm planning on using a decent amount of farms, I just say no, so as to avoid the frustration.

 

[Funak]

I guess so. My religion is clutch on Mandir/The specialist belief so it's hard to let go. I guess I can let my cities of growth focus for a bit. My cities are close to each other so I'll just let them take turns on the farms.

Next one! The AI begs for strategic resource on the normal trade screen. What gives? I'm used to playing on immortal, sometimes deity when I feel like playing Japan or Korea, and at times they keep begging for my strategic resources. Not saying I don't use them since it mostly happens on early game where my military powerhouse city/ies aren't finished yet...

Also, what's the interpretation of the diplomacy value rating? I know higher values mean better on the AI's pov but how much in our human terms?

The AI asking for those 1 for 0 deals on the normal trade window is either a bug where they try to add something to the table and fails to. Or it's them trying to refresh a deal, most likely them asking for help or them extorting you. I'm fairly certain you can just decline these deals.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by Diplomacy value rating.

You can't get that event if you don't let the Foreign Adviser go on their mission. I realize there are positive results too, but if I'm planning on using a decent amount of farms, I just say no, so as to avoid the frustration.

I guess that girl is never going on her mission ever again....

Seriously though, that's a completely insane downside, -1 food on all farms for the rest of the game, I mean I guess you can finally remove it in modern era or something by paying a fortune.

Might still use it on civs that don't really care about farms that much, like Shoshone or such, but are there even any great benefits from that mission? She's the one forcing you to trade away all your horses for worthless ivory as well if you're caught without gold during one of the events?

 

[pandasnail]

I guess that girl is never going on her mission ever again....

Seriously though, that's a completely insane downside, -1 food on all farms for the rest of the game, I mean I guess you can finally remove it in modern era or something by paying a fortune.

Might still use it on civs that don't really care about farms that much, like Shoshone or such, but are there even any great benefits from that mission? She's the one forcing you to trade away all your horses for worthless ivory as well if you're caught without gold during one of the events?

Yep, same woman. Its been quite awhile since I let her go, but I think the benefits are plantation yields, and things like that.

 

[Funak]

Yep, same woman. Its been quite awhile since I let her go, but I think the benefits are plantation yields, and things like that.

Yeah that event is pretty worthless as well, definitely not worth risking your horses or your farms.

 

[Y.O.]

Is there ever a point where you say, "that's enough cities?" I'm playing the Celts as authority and found a lot of prime land around me, but I already have 13 cities and I'm just reaching medieval (I play on epic). I'm hesitant to make more cities, due to the science + culture hit, along with the fact that it will take a while before those cities start to be productive. On the flip side, if I continue to, I can effectively choke off Morocco from the rest of the continent and then proceed to wipe him out.

 

[peterw1987]

Yeah that event is pretty worthless as well, definitely not worth risking your horses or your farms.

What event are you all talking about? I have play VP for almost hundreds hour and finished almost 10 games, and never see this event you are talking about.

 

[Funak]

What event are you all talking about? I have play VP for almost hundreds hour and finished almost 10 games, and never see this event you are talking about.

It's a mod-mod, that adds more events.You can find it here https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/community-patch-events-development.569321/

Is there ever a point where you say, "that's enough cities?" I'm playing the Celts as authority and found a lot of prime land around me, but I already have 13 cities and I'm just reaching medieval (I play on epic). I'm hesitant to make more cities, due to the science + culture hit, along with the fact that it will take a while before those cities start to be productive. On the flip side, if I continue to, I can effectively choke off Morocco from the rest of the continent and then proceed to wipe him out.

Short answer, no.
Long answer, yes. As soon as a newly founded/conquered city wont have enough time to get infrastructure up before the game ends. Or if a new city is in a such a bad position that it will never be generating more science than it drains.
Expanding on this, building a city that you can't depend is never worth it, building a city that is so impossible to defend that you'll lose more than just it is even worse.
This last condition is a lot more tricky, because it requires knowledge of how the game is going to change in the next few turns. Founding/conquering a city when you're in negative happiness and your happiness is trending downwards is pretty much suicidal, it's a lot worse than the first condition, if a city got bad science output you might lose some science over all, if a city ends up a huge drain on your happiness it could drag your entire empire down.


I usually play on fairly small maps, because they load faster, mainly small or standard. And on those maps you rarely run into the first situation, but I can imagine that on larger maps this is more of a problem.
Of course this also all depends on your civ and policy-choices, if your civ is heavily compact focused you're going to lose out a lot more by overexpanding than for example China.

 

[Y.O.]

Thanks for the advice! Keeping everything you said in mind, I can definitely afford to expand more. I had another question, this time about non-resource forest and jungles. Do you keep them, or do you make them into farms and trading posts. I'm on the fence whether or not I should start chopping down now while my growth is OK, or wait further into the game. There are enough forests and jungles around my territory where going industry and maximizing mills is an option, but I could just cut them down, build trading posts, and rev up my science through rationalism.

 

[tu_79]

Thanks for the advice! Keeping everything you said in mind, I can definitely afford to expand more. I had another question, this time about non-resource forest and jungles. Do you keep them, or do you make them into farms and trading posts. I'm on the fence whether or not I should start chopping down now while my growth is OK, or wait further into the game. There are enough forests and jungles around my territory where going industry and maximizing mills is an option, but I could just cut them down, build trading posts, and rev up my science through rationalism.

Funak already said (look three or four pages upwards) that chopping is the best answer. A good farm with a good mine beats two good forests, because you can focus on growth and production with better results.

 

[Y.O.]

Funak already said (look three or four pages upwards) that chopping is the best answer. A good farm with a good mine beats two good forests, because you can focus on growth and production with better results.

Thanks! Missed that.

 

[peterw1987]

Thanks! Missed that.

Chopped all of them, especially hill one, so your archer attack range is not blocked when you are defending your territory. And you dont want enemies to get extra defense in your territory.

On side note, lumbermill is too weak to be useful. I never work jungle/forest late game, probably because my playstyle tend towards specialist/great person.

 

[CrazyG]

I think there is definitely merit in leaving up forests. If a city has very few hills available its a source of production. If you intend to build workshops or universities quickly they become strong tiles, much better than farms without adjacency bonuses. The lumbermill itself is weak though

 

[tu_79]

I think there is definitely merit in leaving up forests. If a city has very few hills available its a source of production. If you intend to build workshops or universities quickly they become strong tiles, much better than farms without adjacency bonuses. The lumbermill itself is weak though

Yeah, forest are good when terrain is too flat or tundra.

 

[Funak]

I think there is definitely merit in leaving up forests. If a city has very few hills available its a source of production. If you intend to build workshops or universities quickly they become strong tiles, much better than farms without adjacency bonuses. The lumbermill itself is weak though

First of all, I did not say that 'chopping is better' (at least I hope I didn't ), I think chopping is better.
Now as far as actual forests vs farms/mines, there's probably merit to both of those choices, as you say universities and (although by the time they're available they're probably irrelevant) research labs. If you could yield per yield, forests probably end up on top, but using farms/mines gives you a bigger control over your yield income, you can mix and match to maximize growth or production (really powerful tools) while if all you have is lumbermills, you're just going to be working lumbermills.

That being said, there are some places where there's absolutely no point to build farms, for example tiles where you can't fit at least a farming-triangle. If you have forests on such tiles, by all means lumbermill them, you can probably work a few mills into your city's full production mood (after all, citizens still needs to be fed)

As mentioned before, if the city is really lacking in hills, keeping some forests around is probably your best bet to get some production going. Unless you want to dump several manufactories near the city, which is definitely a valid option.
The reverse is also partially true, if the city is really lacking farmable tiles, keeping some hill-forests around as lumbermills can at least make the city grow a bit.


Also, as another man mentioned, while forests might seem defensive and good, keeping them around for defense always seems to backfire.

 

[peterw1987]

Also, as another man mentioned, while forests might seem defensive and good, keeping them around for defense always seems to backfire.

Am i the another man? -_- lol. Yes, forest for defense mostly backfire because your archer range is blocked and damage is reduced.

 

[Funak]

Am i the another man? -_- lol. Yes, forest for defense mostly backfire because your archer range is blocked and damage is reduced.

Are you?

Yeah I hate forests. They are good for some civs, but most of the time they're just asking for trouble. The problem is that a larger army has the advantage in a forest because everything is slowed down and archers are worthless, and the AI always has a larger army. You can't really rely on weakening their troops with horse-units flanking and raining down arrows from above.

 

[Blue Ghost]

How do you handle runaway civs, the ones that are leading across the board in every category? Do you try to war against them when their troops outmatch yours in both quality and quantity? What if they're too far away to fight?

 

[Funak]

How do you handle runaway civs, the ones that are leading across the board in every category? Do you try to war against them when their troops outmatch yours in both quality and quantity? What if they're too far away to fight?

This is pretty much impossible to answer, way too dependent on the situation.

If you have the chance to gobble up a neighbor, you can go for that, if you think you can snag a specific victory condition, then focus on it.

I'm rarely in a situation where I don't think I can catch up somehow. Recovery-mechanics in this game are strong.