Conquest 04: First Spoiler

[SirPleb]

Looking at these openings, i have a question to those who have 16/17 cities at 1000BC, hopefully opening some discussion.

I have build settlers only from my settler factory, and workers mostly from my other cities with granaries to give my remaining cities the opportunity to grow.
At 1000BC, i only have 12 cities, but with 44 total population vs 30 pop in darkness' 17 cities for example.

The difference is that you invest more in future growth by building settlers from your non settler factory cities as well.
The more you invest, the later your cities start growing tall and production will rise, but the bigger the production can be in the end.
On deity/sid, the amount of investment is mostly decided by what the AI lets you get away with (due to available ground and your lack of defence)

I don't have experience with the lower difficulties, but i would expect it not to be optimal to invest as much as the AI allows you. The AI is so weak, i would guess you can finish them off earlier if you make a lower investment. On the other hand, i could say the higher OCN favors a bigger investment on these difficulty levels.

Interesting points!

On reflection I think that the total population number is probably a better indicator of strength than the number of cities. Perhaps the best overall indicator of expansion speed, and maybe also of strength, would be (TotalPopulation + NativeWorkers + Settlers.) That might be used both as an indicator of effectiveness of food use so far and of potential empire productivity.

I'm a strong believer in rapid expansion but my reason for it is more to increase my number of citizens than to increase my land. (Though I do like both )

Almost every time I build a settler in the early game he is a fairly short-term investment which I expect will soon be converted to new citizens and/or workers. The settler costs me two citizens wherever I produce him. Suppose he settles after moving for four turns. He then forms a town with one citizen. At a location with no food bonuses, ten turns later he's a town with two citizens. So far I've lost four turns of 2 citizens' work and ten turns of 1 citizen. Now I'm breaking even. In another ten turns I start gaining - I have 3 citizens in the new town. In a total of 28 turns after producing the settler I have finally broken even, I've had the same number of "citizen turns" of work done as I would have if I had not built the settler. And from then on I'm gaining.

Two other effects which come into play in expansion:
1) After some time it becomes expensive (due to unhappiness) or impossible (due to reaching size 6) for a town to continue growing as quickly as it used to. Building settlers before this point seems a good idea because they essentially cost less in this situation, the loss of citizens can be treated as a renewable resource.
2) Citizens further from the core are less productive due to corruption. This is the only balancing factor aside from running out of land which will eventually limit the other factors.

My feeling is that it remains valuable even at Monarch or Regent levels to begin by expanding to take all available land. The larger OCN makes it possible to have a larger productive area. Increasing your city count for unit support in Republic doesn't hurt. It won't be hard to attack Monarch level rivals after they've grown a bit more. And while they're growing they can be useful trading partners.

However some players have shown that early attacks against opponents without building up a lot first can result in very early completion dates. I think a conquest goal can especially benefit from an early attack but other goals may also be able to do so. I don't think it is clear whether a particular approach is best

 

[SirPleb]

It looks like only a handful of players have explored using the Maya's Unique Unit, the Javelin Thrower. I was wondering what thoughts people had on them?

...

First: The tech race. I think most would agree that slowing down the tech race is, in general, counter productive. However, is it that much of a handicap? It would certainly depend on the game, but in many I'm not sure it would be a huge factor. I wouldn't want to try to do it on a single continent game, as there would be far too much chance of one AI taking an every growing the lead in technology. However, with islands or two continents, as long as your neighbors are equal or less, there isn't too much to worry about. In this game, I don't really care if the civ's on the other continent take a tech lead. As long as I don't see bombers coming after my knights, I'm not worried. Shear production of having the most landmass always allows for a comeback.

I think that if you aren't going for space or diplomatic, slowing down the tech rate can actually be very productive in some games. And that can be true even on a large Pangaea Monarch map - see this GOTM Spotlight page for a description of my GOTM18 game where I played through to a conquest+domination position using only an Ancient Times UU.

Second: The Javalin Throwers, as stated above, nothing special about the unit in terms of combat or cost. Being a low level ancient time unit they are game-wise weak, but certainly equal to their times. So what it all really boils down to is their unique ability: Enslavement. Can enslaving make up for a slowed tech research?

To most, a worker is a 10 shields inexpensive but required unit. Even the building of a single mine will quickly pay for the worker. But is this all a really all a worker costs? I think not. First, you have upkeep. Not many advanced games let you have total units below that of the free unit costs of your chosen Government. So for simplicity, lets assume a worker also costs 1 gold per turn. There is more though, a worker also represents a unit of city population, which means one less tile being worked. That means the loss of (the reasonably low estimate) at least a shield and a gold as income. This raises the cost of a worker to perhaps 6 gold per turn? Even more in the later game. Now, Maya's are industrial, which means that workers work 50% faster, and slaves work at only 50%. Two Mayan workers can road a tile in one turn, where as it takes 6 slaves to do the same. (No, the industrial trait of the Maya's does not appear to carry over to slaves.) 1.5 vs .5 So a Mayan worker is worth 3 slaves. Therefore, a Mayan slave, in Ancient times, is worth about 2 gold per turn. Not much, but not to be ignored either. Now, corruption has not been factored in here, but for now, consider the fact that a slave is free, or at least zero city shields, and we'll call it even.

That sure is an interesting question. My guess was that enslaving wouldn't compensate for the cost of building many Javelin Throwers. The price in terms of shields, slowed tech to maintain easy targets for them, and slow invasions seemed too high. But I'm not sure. By the end of this COTM we should know better, your game and a few others will probably tell us a lot about this.

About comparing the cost of slave vs. native workers, I think there are more factors which make the comparison even more complicated:
1) I consider workers produced by a town at size 6 to be much cheaper in a sense than other workers. Once a town grows to size 7, it needs twice as much food to produce each additional citizen. In an important sense this means that pumping out workers from a town as it hovers at size 6 costs 1/2 a citizen per worker. Two workers produced at this size cost as much food as one citizen if the city is instead allowed to grow.
2) In towns which have stopped growing because they have no further food, the opportunity cost of pumping out a worker is only the cost of what one citizen could do during the time the town regrows to its maximum size. It is not a cost over indefinite time.
3) Workers produced by totally corrupt towns are pretty much free in terms of production cost.
4) Once I have enough cities, usually not very long into the game, my native workers cost no maintenance at all even in Republic. (In Conquests.)

Third: Once you destroy another civilization, you can take all your slaves from that civilization and safely turn them into population in your cities, therefore gaining the full income of a shields, gold, food, etc. which could easily add up to the equivalent of 5 gold or more per turn/each.

By the time I would no longer prefer to have those workers building improvements, I have no cities they can join except totally corrupt ones. So, pre-Conquests I would say there was little value in doing this except increasing score. (Which certainly does matter.) In Conquests the value has become higher and also depends on the stage of the game. Conquests scientists are very useful at any time. Civil Engineers (once one has Replaceable Parts) can be extremely useful.

 

[bed_head7]

I took relatively opposite route of SirPleb, going for the same goal. I have stopped tracking carefully my games, but I will give some quick highlights.

At 1000 BC, I had 14-15 cities and three settlers, which I was relatively happy with, but only two granaries and not much military.

I was forced into a despotic GA by the Aztecs, who attacked a barb farming JT, but discovered Republic one turn later and lucked out and got a three turn revolution.

At the Middle Ages, I have fairly well crippled the Aztecs and the Americans, who built the Temple of Artemis for me. Upon capturing the Temple in 150 BC, my decision for cultural victory was cememted despite the fact that I only had a couple of libraries. Tech rate is going really slow, because I do not play to get to Education, and the AIs on my continent have been useless, though barb uprisings show that the other continent has reached the MA. I plan to slowly research to cavs and the Theology and then shut off research. ICS, which I have never used before and thus have screwed up a bit, should net me 150-175 cities. Only about 40 of these were built when I captured the ToA, so the boost at 850 AD won't be huge.

At about 400 AD, the Iroquios are still untouched, I have 120 cities, am finishing up bottom tier MA techs (so I am overstepping spoiler bounds by a bit), and I have reached 250 cpt and 6000 total culture (all approximate). At this point I am building and rushing libraries in earnest, though I still have very view (literacy is under 10%) and will work on Cathedrals and Colloseums next.

By the way, I stole this strategy from someone who used it in COTM1, so credits to whoever that was, though I can't remember the name, and they probably did a better job with it than me. The fact that I got ToA and I am competing with SirPleb pretty much puts me out of the running for best date, but it has been and will continue to be a learning excercise.

 

[klarius]

Therefore, I generally remove goody huts from near the start location. There is normally some at a reasonable distance, so a settler there needs to be marched-back to the starting area, or form a largely corrupt city (although it still contributes 'points'). The other alternative is to put in extra goody huts to improve the odds that people will get settlers (even it out that way), but then some might get zero and some might get two.

Well, generally seems not to apply to GOTM 34 and COTM 4.
In the former I had luck and got a top notch direct town, in the latter the Americans got a town right in front of my warrior at a location, which would still be very good and only a few tiles away from the inner core.
I also consider the solution with many goody huts in COTM1 a failed experiment. Not because some got 2 settlers, but because some got settlers in very good positions, while others got only late useless towns or settlers (I got an intermediate there, not very useful right away, but fitting nicely after some expansion).

 

[grs]

Please leave goody huts in and settlers from huts too. There is some randomness in the game - so what? - this is no chess. If you take a look at a couple of GOTMs and COTMs the similarity of names in the top spots does not seem like an indicator of luck being a big factor.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Once again my respect for Sir Pleb - who says you have to choose between many cities and a large population

Below is my (brief) QSC timeline. Overall strategy and comments:

- like many, I did not think the JT of much value. I used it to trigger GA shortly after 1000BC and in total enslaved 2 workers using my one JT. Maybe I should give them more credit

- Given the size of the continent I decided to go for horsemen - knights - cavalry. I did not build any real military until the middle ages - the AI doesn't know how to attack anyway, and then it seemed to make more sense to wait till chivalry, do a mass upgrade and take the continent, get MT, another mass upgrade and get the next continent. For an idea, by 700 BC I had only warriors (I think 9 of them), by 350BC I had 13 horsemen and was researching feudalism, and by 1AD my 23 knights were happily conquering my fellow heathens. From this moment on, the only thing I really did (except for building basic infrastructure and the Sun Tzu) was building and conquering.

- One strategy question: if one wants to go for a quick domination/conquest win, should one just keep on building more army or also spend time building cultural improvements? My army was around 30 knights most of the time, which meant I could easily eat a couple cities per turn but I couldn't really open up a second front to speed things up. What kind of army size would people go for given this map size?

4000 BC
Worker to wheat, road, bg, road, irrigate, wheat, irrigate
capital founded north on river
built two workers, #1 going south then east, #2 going north then west

3400 BC
(worker sequence done, two warriors built, building granary)

3000 BC

Met americans N, Aztecs SSE, did some good trading to get 3 techs and 56 gold for one tech

2750 BC

GRanary done, CI 5 (1t); From now on, CI is 4t settler factory
First city builds 2xMP, barracks, JT, but cannot find any barbarians to enslave
Other cities build one warrior, worker, temple
Peacefully expanding to all directions, no particular targets except for getting two luxuries

1250 BC

Rep. slingshot succeeded, traded writing & philosophy for iron working, math, myst., riding and 260 gold (all they had)
Have decided against JT tactics, will probably go for horsemen -> knights upgrade and be peaceful until then
Will now go into anarchy to become republic after finishing iron settler

1075 BC

RepubliC!
Enemies still don't have anything to sell.
Will invent literature, build up my core lands, go towards chivalry and conquer my continent
Am building three more settlers to finish settlement of immediate area, will build some more workers and then just build up empire & horsemen to upgrade

1000 BC
QSC over, stats:

13 cities, 1 settler (+1 1t, 1 2t), 9 (native) workers
total population in cities: 44, total pop units 55
8 warriors, 1 spearman, 1 jt
gov: rep
4 aa techs missing, local tech leader
pop/gnp/mfg/land: 1.3M / 129 / 43 / 141

 

[dmanakho]

Please leave goody huts in and settlers from huts too. There is some randomness in the game - so what? - this is no chess. If you take a look at a couple of GOTMs and COTMs the similarity of names in the top spots does not seem like an indicator of luck being a big factor.

100% absolutely agree... I just can't understand people who want to take randomness out of this game... It will lose all the fun...

 

[Alphons Rodulfo]

There was a little debate about armies going on earlier. I believe that the traits of a unit are only transferred to the army when the whole army is made up of that unit. So a mixed army would not allow enslaving, even if the JT won the battle. Perhaps I am wrong, but I do know that a marine army must be made up of all marines in order attack amphibiously.

Because I'm curious about how this works exactly I will do some testing with putting a javelin thrower in an army. An army not being able to make an amphibious attack when not made up of units that posses this trait seems like a slightly different matter to me. I can easily envisage a knight unit drowning when the army leaves the boats, but I do think it would be proper to have a JT in an army mantaining his enslaving capabilities. Stay tuned for the results of my experiments..

 

[Florian K]

I’m new to civ fanatics. I used to play a lot of Civiliaztion (mainly Civ1 and Civ2), but never seemed to be able to get interested in Civ3 for very long. My last game of Civ3 was sometime in 2003. I discovered this website a few months ago, and decided playing in the COTM would be fun. I finally had some time this month and downloaded the open class game. After reading some of the posts, and playing half of the game I’ve discovered I need to polish my skills some. I’ve had fun though.

I didn’t keep a log, but I’ll try and recap what I can remember (dates are estimates).

4000 BC Chichen Itza founded (I still don’t quite understand why everyone else moved onto the river); start research of warrior code at 100% science (I figured since I was the Maya I’d use a few javelin warriors); started producing warriors and settlers (I should have produced a granary, but as I said it’s been some time since I’ve played);

3300 BC meet the Aztecs; trade for warrior code; start alphabet research

2500 BC meet the Americans; trade for ceremonial burial

1800 BC meet the Spanish and the Iroquois; trade for bronze working

eventually research alphabet, then writing, then philosophy; take mapmaking as free advance; trade for mathmatics, iron working, mysticism;

research code of laws, currency; trade for construction

research polytheism to enter the Middle Ages in 570 BC

have 17 cities
4 barracks
0 granaries
many warriors, several spearman, two javelin throwers, about 10 catapults

have remained at peace throughout (had to pay one tribute of 10 gold to the Aztecs; I’ll repay that in the near future)

republic, monarchy and literature have not been researched by anyone at this time; I figured the AI would research these and I could eventually trade for them; I didn’t realize just how pathetic the AI was at research (I hadn’t played a game at monarchy since the mid 1990s); I was stuck in despotism until 580 AD before I could change to another government, but that is the story of middle ages

 

[dmanakho]

...I still don’t quite understand why everyone else moved onto the river...

Welcome to Cifvanatics.com!!!

and to answer your question - It is very important to build cities near the rivers... If city has an access to the fresh water you don' tneed an aqueduct and it can grow to size 12, if city is not next to the fresh water you will have to build an aqueduct in order for city to grow above size 6....
That alone makes a huge difference...
Plus since Mayan's are agricultural if capital is built next to river it gives instant 3 foods even in despotism instead of 2 food when city is built away from river... This is also very important at the early stages of the game.
THose were the main reasons why almost everyone moved a setter to the river

 

[Danger Bird]

First GOTM/COTM, and first time taking notes. I read the pre-game discussion carefully and so I was able to set up my settler factory in the capital and progressed in much the same way as others, but a bit more slowly.

Some milestones:
Second city (Copan on the silks): 2950BC
First luxury (silks) connected: 2670BC
Iron connected: 1325BC (delayed this to have cheap warrior MP)
Philosophy and free republic: 1275BC
Horses connected: 1000BC
Revolt to republic: 690BC (3 turn revolution)
First war (with America) and trigger Golden Age: 450BC
Research currency and enter MA: 370BC

Being my first game where I used a lot of strategies from these forums, I was unsure of a few things...

Initial builds:
In my capital I built warrior, warrior, settler, worker, granary, and then 10 settlers. I see that many others got the settler factory working first, but I was too impatient for that first settler. I thought that settling a second city on the silks and connecting it would help reduce the need for MP (which it did), but I think I used too many worker turns doing this rather than on setting up the SF.
Also, I think I should have built more than one granary. In Ancient times, I think I only built one settler from a city other than my capital.

When to switch to republic:
The slingshot worked well and I had philosophy, republic in 1275BC. But I felt it was way too early to switch and didn't revolt until 690BC. I see many had a much earlier republic: What's the secret to making an earlier republic profitable?

First war:
I think my first war with America went on too long. After my initial onslaught, they were willing to give up half of their cities for peace, but I wanted a military leader, so I kept going even though my units were slow getting to the front. This gave them time to retrench (and slowed my research) and when I had finally destroyed two more cities they were not willing to give up nearly as much. And still no leader. I think I should have built way more horsemen before starting.

Enslavement:
I got far fewer slaves from JTs than I did from capturing/destroying cities. Slaves from JTs was insignificant really. I guess if I had had an earlier all-JT war it would have been different.

Status at 1000BC:
11 cities, 30 population; 3 settlers are 0 to 3 moves away from settling in NW.
Improvements:
- granary: 1 (Chichen Itza)
- temples: 2 , 2 under construction
- barracks: 2
- harbour: 1 under construction
- wonder: Mausoleum under construction
Research: all AA techs but construction, currency, monarchy, literature researched. Now researching at 100% for literature in 8 turns.
Treasury: income 57; research 49, corruption 8, maintenance 5; total: 299; deficit -5.
Military:
3 settlers, 9 workers, 4 slaves (1 more settler in 1 turn)
11 warriors, 6 spearmen, 4 javelin throwers (building 4 spears, 1 JT)
1 curragh (building 1 galley)
Score: 271 (America 247, Aztecs 238, Iroquois 236, Spain 169)

 

[eldar]

Everyone else I'm seeing managed the Philo slingshot quite comfortably. Was anyone else beaten to it? I'm beginning to wonder where I went wrong now, and can't figure it out.... I finished Philosophy in 1050BC, ahead of known Civs. The Mausoleum was finished in 825BC by (presumably) this other Civ, which leads me to think they got lucky with huts rather than straight researched it, and all of the necessary techs leading to it.

Neil.

 

[The Moose]

Everyone else I'm seeing managed the Philo slingshot quite comfortably. Was anyone else beaten to it?

Unfortunately, I was also beaten to it (by a then unknown civ). Maybe one of them got it from a barb hut? I wasn't that happy but luckily it was an easy game this time around so I was never on the edge of losing.....

 

[eldar]

My most annoying experience was getting Philo from a Goody Hut myself whilst I was still researching CoL! (not in this game, of course....)

Neil.

 

[Ambiorix]

Haven't reached MA yet, but won't be able to play beyond the QSC.
QSC stats :
14 cities, 35 pop
1 settler, 9 workers + 2 barb slaves, 11 warriors, 5 javelin throwers, 1 curragh
1 granary, 5 barracks, 1 temple
missing construction (another 11 turns), currency, literature, mapmaking, polytheism and monarchy.
306g

A rather uneventful QSC.

 

[Alphons Rodulfo]

About putting Javelin Throwers in an army: Luckily I could find an old Mayan saved game that I could test with. Here are the results:

-The first unit added to the army will be the first to attack or defend.
-In a mixed army, it is easy to determine which unit is doing the fighting by watching the battle animation.
-A javelin thrower in an army keeps his ability to enslave. This does not mean the entire army can enslave, there is only a chance of enslaving when the javelin thrower wins a fight.

I think this means that if playing the Mayans, it might be a good idea to first add one or two javelin throwers to an army, followed by whatever is the currently the strongest other unit.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

100% absolutely agree... I just can't understand people who want to take randomness out of this game... It will lose all the fun...

Just a reflection: There is nothing random about CHESS, but it's still great fun, and has been for hundreds (?) of years.

IMHO, strategy and randomness doesn't mix very well. A little randomness is fine, but not game-winning randomness.

-- Roland

 

[grs]

Just a reflection: There is nothing random about CHESS, but it's still great fun, and has been for hundreds (?) of years.

IMHO, strategy and randomness doesn't mix very well. A little randomness is fine, but not game-winning randomness.

-- Roland

Once I beat Sir Pleb and Drazek on fastest conquest or domination because of an early settler I will agree. Till then, I stand by my above statement about luck and success

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Once I beat Sir Pleb and Drazek on fastest conquest or domination because of an early settler I will agree. Till then, I stand by my above statement about luck and success

Maybe you simply are not as good as them by a long shot, but immagine sir pleb getting a settler from his first hut and drazek never getting one. Almost certainly Sir Pleb would be the winner of that gotm and Drazek won't.

 

[Danger Bird]

IMHO, strategy and randomness doesn't mix very well. A little randomness is fine, but not game-winning randomness.

-- Roland

There was a lot of randomness in real decisive battles though. The Mongols invading Japan being wiped out by a typhoon is one example.

Part of the fun is watching unexpected things happen, even if they sometimes happen to you - and I usually forget about it 1000 years later anyway. Still, if it's a competition, I agree that an early settler is pretty unbalancing.