Cavs or Cuirs?

[ben-jammin]

I don't recall ever saying oxford is an 'optimal strategy.' People are essentially saying you should never build it. Cseanny has played a number of deity games recently building oxford and, it seems to me, winning easily and early. Like any of the accepted strategies, it works for you if you beeline it as part of your overall game. Cuirs aren't much good either if you take too long. If you get oxford up in a very strong commerce capital by 200AD, it would appear that you can benefit quite a bit from it. This is not some far fetched 'avoid bronzeworking' so called strategy, it's foolish to assume it's worthless because you don't do it.

 

[noto2]

I just don't see how building the Oxford makes any sense if you anticipate game-ending wars with curs and/or cavs. Certainly, if you anticipate the game going into the industrial age before you are in a winning position, then yes, the Oxford is viable.

 

[cseanny]

I've built Oxford in the Pepe26 Gandhi game so I guess I'm super noob!! The timing of everything has to come into account, and to beat a dead horse 100X more, I like to play the map. Now when did I build Oxford? Well, first I built 30+ HAs while in my 1st GA and during PS. Then I produced an absurd amount of GPP via MoM > Parth > TGL and upgraded a lot of units. I used GA/Guild/Caste Ws' to power 3-4 turn Universities and Chopped out Oxford in 3 turns.

That helped get me to Communism in the 900 ADs and then to Cav from there something like 7-8 more turns. So I don't know, really, lol? Did each city, by taking 3-4 turns for a University and Oxford (w/stone) actually slow me down or speed me up? I tend to think it helped speed me up at least a few turns. We are in REP so the extra research in conjunction with Oxford seems like a nice addition. O, ended up finishing Oxford around 700 ADish. Who knows.

Just saying, I'm definitely not against Oxford if I think its going to help. Yada yada!!, whatever, lol. All I know is I built the damn thing .

 

[noto2]

When did you win? Did you need to win the game with infantry or tanks and artillery? or did you just win with cavalry/cannons?

 

[cseanny]

When did you win? Did you need to win the game with infantry or tanks and artillery? or did you just win with cavalry/cannons?

Haven't won yet but the game was effectively over at Cuirs (But yes, CAV will finish things off). Here's a few screenies of what's happened after my mass unit upgrade:

Spoiler :

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

4:40 AM... You should get some sleep!

 

[ben-jammin]

I just don't see how building the Oxford makes any sense if you anticipate game-ending wars with curs and/or cavs. Certainly, if you anticipate the game going into the industrial age before you are in a winning position, then yes, the Oxford is viable.

First of all, most deity games are not winnable with cuirs, or even cavalry. You might be in a surefire winning position at that point, but then you'll be facing rifles and often infantry by the end. And in that case you need to go much further along the tech tree, and if you start falling too far behind a 'winning' game can suddenly becomes hopeless. Or you hope you can just make it to fission.

Then even if the game IS winnable with cavalry, you need to get through rep parts and rifling while at war, presumably having lib'ed MT. And then you ideally want gold to upgrade. If for example you're Gandhi with a cottaged capital (stone is just icing on the cake), focused bulbing to education will lead to a super early oxford which can nearly double your BPT, halving the time it takes to get through all of lib, nationalism, rep parts and rifling. Then if you need to go through steam power->railroad->assembly line, and maybe to steel, or combustion and industrialism....you're talking about tens of thousands of beakers at a point when bulbs can no longer help you, and only so much can be made up in trades.

If I'm not mistaken cseanny has done exactly the same strat without the philosophical trait recently as well. Sure it's map dependent. Isn't everything?

 

[cseanny]

If I'm not mistaken cseanny has done exactly the same strat without the philosophical trait recently as well. Sure it's map dependent. Isn't everything?

Yep ^^. Apparently I'm super noob!! My preference's are if the land will allow me horses, marble, some nice natural production and some trees, then I'll just do a traditional beeline up Nationalism while bulbing, trade missions, and upgrades or whip (prefer upgrades) into Cuirs > and an eventual transition to Cav (some games to Communism first, others Cav first).

However, and as you've said before Ben, I'm also fond of a super early Oxford in the 200-300AD ish time frame (usually whipping + globe + some upgrades; 1gm is enough [normally CR2 trebs > Cannon]). In these types of games I find myself normally heading up the Steel path which takes more research.

Alternatively, if you're going to Rifles a super early Oxford enables you to skimp on some GS (not altogether but fewer than normal) and concentrate more on GMs; usually 2-4 with help from Economics. This lets you easily upgrade 30+ CR2 Mace to rifles.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

4:40 AM... You should get some sleep!

Just after 6 AM...up pretty early for a Saturday .

Actually, people who post here are from all over the world so timing isn't 100% reliable to figure when they're posting on their time zone.

 

[Manco Capac]

Yep ^^. Apparently I'm super noob!!

Oh come on! Stop with that attitude. You know you are sided. You have my vote towards your arguments for instance and I'm a good playernot a terrible player (not a expert or genius though).
Your playstyle combines a good management of random start (although they seemed to be good as far as I remember; could be different on a hard and terrible map) with dates that scares some HoF dates from being potentially stolen (and those top dates are often cheesed out). Such situation shows enough of its worth as a strategy.

 

[Manco Capac]

Just after 6 AM...up pretty early for a Saturday .

Actually, people who post here are from all over the world so timing isn't 100% reliable to figure when they're posting on their time zone.

Ah you americans thinking the whole world works like US.

 

[noto2]

I work the night shift, which is how I can be an adult and still play Civ - I play Civ at work. Otherwise this game just takes way too much time and I wouldn't be able to still play it.

Anywho - cseanny - so you're saying you needed Oxford even though you finished the game with cuirs? I mean, I guess rifling and steel are far enough away from education that you do still have a lot of teching to do, I just can't get the Oxford up that fast, it depends. It's rare for me to have 6 cities that can get a uni up quickly. I'd like to see your game if you'd be kind enough to post a link

 

[Manco Capac]

I play Civ at work.

Then that's how everyone gets the supplementary time.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Just after 6 AM...up pretty early for a Saturday .

Actually, people who post here are from all over the world so timing isn't 100% reliable to figure when they're posting on their time zone.

I had a final exam yesterday at 9:00, so I was cramming last minute... And a 6- month old girl. No sleep for me these days. 32 years old, engineering school, full time job and part time side work, new baby... And I still find time for civ! Granted, I haven't touched my Xbox since I finished Mass Effect 3 in March, but hey, something had to go!

 

[noto2]

haha Flyin, my coworker and I were discussing the other day how a married man never really has a day off (and this is exponentially more true of a father) congrats, btw

 

[Izuul]

I have a 6 week old girl (my first) here with me right now. Mom is gone for the day. Yikes! She's still in the stage where she sleeps quite a bit at least.

 

[Ormur]

I'm not sure Oxford was optimal in my game even if it did speed up my research a lot. The guys that it made most sense to attack first were getting pretty close to rifling and I even lucked out capping Mansa in three turns after he had researched rifling but before he upgraded everything. Without universities I might have got to him long before he reached rifling but maybe just with cuirs.

I still figured I wouldn't be able to cap everyone with just cavs or cuirs beforehand but it turned out that after getting Mansa all the others were still backwards and never reached rifling. I also wasn't sure I'd go domination at all. Before some opportunities in my own religious block presented themselves I figured I'd just cap the two heathens and go to space.

So I think going Oxford was playing it safe, but then again I'm just an emperor player.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ah you americans thinking the whole world works like US.

Haha. People DO work odd shifts here also. I used to have a very odd schedule myself (if you look back on some of my older posts, you'll see literally times from pretty much anywhere in a 24 span; 4:00pm, 5:00am, pretty much everything represented).

What time is it? TMIT time!

I post at work, but I won't play here. I post between things I need to get done, which on a day to day basis usually means "sometimes", but occasionally means "more often" or "don't even have time to open the forum". The main reason I haven't been recording videos is that I want to get a new setup first (Fix the chronic audio de-sync issue), but I've no energy to bother with it when I get home from work. I also do a lot of console stuff and so need to find a working setup for that too.

I had a final exam yesterday at 9:00, so I was cramming last minute... And a 6- month old girl. No sleep for me these days. 32 years old, engineering school, full time job and part time side work, new baby... And I still find time for civ! Granted, I haven't touched my Xbox since I finished Mass Effect 3 in March, but hey, something had to go!

Just give the girl civ and let her learn from that exclusively.

Achievement unlocked: Quality parenting?

And ugh...Jaguars. I'm using them in an online franchise in Madden '13. That team...haha. I'm definitely cherry tapping.

Oxford is definitely a no-go for cuirs; you need maybe 1-2 more techs to reach them! Even cavalry+ it's usually not a good idea.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Yeah Jags are the worst team in football, but you don't bail on your team. I grew up a Notre Dame fan, started rooting for them in like '92 when they had Rick Miirer, so I didn't get to enjoy any of the glory years. But finally here we are, 21 years later and they are playing for a NC.

Oh and my girl is getting old enough now that when she sits on my lap if Im civving, she tries to press buttons and will hit hotkeys, totally screwing me. Shes making me play Emperor Plus.

 

[noto2]

heh, my cat occasionally jumps on my laptop while in the middle of a game. The most memorable time was when it was a close game and my main rival was asking for fission and trying to trade me a bunch of garbage like military science and divine right, and I was about to decline the trade when my cat decided to sit down on the keyboard and accept the trade. Bad kitty....