Since I posted part of my of my game already on this thread, I might as well update on the rest of the story... BTW, currently my game is in the early Modern Age. Based on the descriptions given in these threads, I shouldn't post anything here from Industrial or on, but I shouldn't post anything in the final thread unless I was finished with the game... Am I correct in posting info in the thread, prior to finishing my game, as long as I avoid any spoilerish info???
Anyhow, after my long-delayed fight for the starting continent really got going in the 700's AD I quickly ripped through the Germans and the Romans. Neither posed much of a military challenge, weakened by centuries of war with each other. Consolidating the continent apart from one annoyingly well-defended Aztec outpost went quite smoothly, and I entered the IA far ahead in land/pop/score and near parity in tech.
Politically, the Aztec and Zulu had anhilated the other continent's civs except for a token Viking player. The Aztec and Zulu managed to balance each quite nicely, engaging in numerous see-sawing wars that I facilited by MPP from across the ocean. However, both civs had developed too many rifleman to allow my current military level to compete with (the little outpost on my island alone had 5-6 veteran rifleman + calvary
It later culture flipped to me though
) I needed far more artillery units before that would happen. It was frusterating realizing that the military initiative had been lost by my slow early play
, but little to change at this point other than to let China's superior economy take back the advantage. I set about to building artillery and infantry, and expanding a toehold that I had gained on the other land mass due to razed territory.
I quickly built an overwhelming military that probably could have easily taken the necessary land for domination 50 turns earlier than I when started doing so in the Modern Age. But I decided to spend extra time tinkering around with my economic settings (and my newly downloaded Civ Assist II) and also to enjoy some modern warfare (it's been a while, and the units really are quite awesome.
)
A few thoughts/questions/observations:
Governments:
What really struck me in this game is the productive powerhouse in Conquests that is Communism. The OCN is huge, the immediate GPT boost when switching from Monarchy was about 120, not to mention the incredible boost in productivity in so many of the outlying cities. I had 64 cities on the mainland once post-conquest, and Monarchy over half were experienceing 90% corruption, even with a nicely placed FP. With communism, I never had a city over 40% corruption. Combined with the Hoover Dam (and factories), the boost in production was breathtaking.
My prior experience with Communism had always been that the trade in increased outlying production was not enough to offset the corruption increase in the inner core. My last game before the COTM was a archipelago domination victory where I had switched to Fascism specifically over Communism based on this bad association with socialist goverment, but in hindsight I'm sure I hindered my victory date by a large margin. I gave Communism a chance in this COTM based on articles in these forums and I 'm now a big believer in socialist goverment, at least in Civ.
To be fair, according to Civ Assist a change to Democracy would have netted me slightly more GPT, even when the SPHQ was built, but the increase in unit support, lack of war weariness, and far most importantly, the shield boost makes communism the far better
economic choice for this size of empire. The only drawback I experienced was not being able to rush with gold , which I find to be generally far more convenient in the latter stages of Civ.
Strategic Focus:
If I tried to pinpoint the greatest mistake I made in this game, it would be my long term strategy. The greatest advantage humans have over the AI is the ability to think longterm while remaining flexible in the
tactical details of working out the strategy. In this game, I had started attempting for a domination victory, but the lack of immediate horses really threw me. Rather than change my
tactics and build a killer army using slower troops, I slipped into a kind of weird semi-builder strat that lost me all early initiative and focus on my longterm goals. Moreover, as the middle and end game rolled around, while I was able to pull of a dominating empire anyways (at least on this difficulty level) I wasn't in any great position to
end the game quickly. Sure, I could've hung around and won a 100K victory somewhere in the mid 20th century (quicker if I went on a building spree). Sure, I could've eventually built the spaceship or the UN, but again, nothing quick. Lastly, I really didn't have the numbers for a quick onslaught onto the other continent. So, in the future, I resolve to be far more single minded on my long term objective and far more fluid in how I tactically accomplish that goal.
FP/SPHQ Values:
I know that the FP and SPHQ raise the OCN (by about 30 apiece from the OCN calculator based on the other game settings and government/civ.) What is the exact formulae for their values, or is it pretty complex?
Captured City Buildings:
Another nagging question: When capturing an AI city, what buildings are given over to the captors? I know that all cultural/small wonders are destroyed, and all Great Wonders are preserved, but what about the rest of the improvements? I'm sure a test would be easy (spy before the battle, etc.) but I'm away from my Civ game at the moment...
Last quick (honestly!) thoughts:
I got an stupid early trade rep hit with a trade deal with Mongols. Those durn AI's never forget, and they made my diplo life a big stinkin' mess. Way too much of , "well, you're offering an insanely good GPT + gold for my insignificant optional tech, but what about those Mongols 4 THOUSAND YEARS AGO???!"
Airfields/airports are a great way to quickly transport troops across continents (although empty army units/artillery can't be airdropped...
)
