Critique

[rantzzz]

Hi guys,

I think I have come a long way from the early days of being a CIV noob. From my initial struggles to grasp the game's economics and combat mechanics, I feel that I have progressed quite steadily, with room for improvement.

I recently completed Chieftain level, and currently am playing on Warlord level, 5 player standard size map, on normal speed using Alexander. I've already eliminated Stalin and one other guy (forgot his name).

I have attached my save for you guys to take a look, and would love feedback.

Some things you might notice:

1) I'm ahead of the AI in terms of score (probably due to a very very lucky gift of 2 settlers early on in the game)

2) I had earlier phalanx-rushed one opponent and clobbered the other with maces

3) I don't have many wonders (I can't seem to get enough production to build these quickly)

4) My tech rate is one of the fastest that I've gotten in the games that I've played thus far

5) My initial build queue was worker, warrior, settler. (Worker comes out first to build cottages, and then warrior to explore and let city grow to size 2, and finally a settler to found a city near a copper resource right after bronze working was researched)

6) I favour a more hybrid type of economy. I only specialize if it's really clear cut. Like the city of Theodas - super high food, great for a GP farm. My rationale for hybrid cities is because I get more units if each city were producing one. I have never favoured production specialized cities unless I am able to produce 1 maceman or 1 catapult per turn (is that even possible!)

I am consolidating my economy after a short war which saw me capture Moscow and eliminate Stalin. I am at a loss at what tile improvements to build from here onwards.

Your feedback is much appreciated, thanks!

 

[Shadzy19]

I took a look at your game , I put some city markers in the save game file to all the potential city's that are very much needed and will easily pay off themself in a very short tile while also helping your other city's .

Notes :
1) Tech path : I dont quite understand why you dont research calender , you have at least 4/5 happy resources in your borders that need to get hooked up and will improve your other city's a lot allowing them to grow a lot more aswell , same story for sailing , you can build 2 or 3 nice fishing city's that will up health cap wich is very much needed since your growth is halted by lack of health / happy resources (just remember you need optics to be able to work the whales)

Next in line is engineering , its not only a key tech since it unlocks trebuchets and pikeman , it also gives your units 3 move points on a road for every movement point they have and is VERY important .

You also skipped theology and philosophy , both of them have very nice civics .

Theology is quite strong for his +2 xp points since it allows your units to be upgraded twice from the bat , usually its a civic thats not very much needed since usually you build your units in maybe 2 city's at most and these city's usually have a military instructer to be able to get 5xp.
Use this civic when your building up your army .
But since you have no clear production city that builds all your army your making a lot of 3xp units that are quite bad imo.

Philosophy has the nice civic pacifism that is a nice peacetime civic since it gives a 100% boost to your GPP and is also needed if you wish to reseach liberalism.

Education is next in line , it would give you a huge boost since your philosophical that means your university's get build twice as fast wich will mean a big increase in science rate and its also a prereq for liberalism .

Lastly offcourse liberalism itself , getting a free tech is nothing to sneeze about so if your able you often want to beeline for this and make use out of it , if the AI's are lacking behind try to get the most usefull tech for free that U can get .

So some changes maybe for next time :
Get calender early , the extra always come in handy .
Skip the guilds > banking > gunpowder > paper press > replaceable parts line next time ad instead try this tech line
Engineering > philosophy > paper > education > liberalism .

2) Civics : You are running representation , slavery , and OR atm .
However , I looked at your city's and none of them have whipping anger wich means you dont use slavery quite much .
You are also able to work with mercantilism wich has a fantastic synergy with representation so the suggestion is change to serfdom so your workers build faster (and they still have lots of work!) and mercantilism .

3) Chopping : You really chopped all the tress from all your citys big fat cross , usually this isnt much of a problem but since you lack health this isnt such a good thing , if you arent in direct need of the hammers its better to save the forests for healthiness since you arent using the tiles yet anyway .

4) City's : I would switch Mecca into a production city , farm the grasslands so you can work the hills you really need some production city's .

Also Thebes your GP farm is cottaged up , usually you want to farm everything and work only the high food tiles , if you need a building whip it .
You are only using 2 specialists there but I guess that is because of the happy cap .

I also dont quite understand why you razed all the Russian city's they where in nice positions and quite developed .

Keeping a spy in the border city from other civs is also usefull to see if a big amount of troops is comin , this usually means a declaration of war .

Lastly get some units on your border with Pacal , a single warrior defending a city on the border with a rival civ is dangerous!

 

[rantzzz]

Wow, thanks a bunch for taking the time to go through my game! It means a lot to me and I'll definitely take your advice! Some answers to your questions:

I took a look at your game , I put some city markers in the save game file to all the potential city's that are very much needed and will easily pay off themself in a very short tile while also helping your other city's .

Notes :
1) Tech path : I dont quite understand why you dont research calender , you have at least 4/5 happy resources in your borders that need to get hooked up and will improve your other city's a lot allowing them to grow a lot more aswell , same story for sailing , you can build 2 or 3 nice fishing city's that will up health cap wich is very much needed since your growth is halted by lack of health / happy resources (just remember you need optics to be able to work the whales)

Next in line is engineering , its not only a key tech since it unlocks trebuchets and pikeman , it also gives your units 3 move points on a road for every movement point they have and is VERY important .

You also skipped theology and philosophy , both of them have very nice civics .

Theology is quite strong for his +2 xp points since it allows your units to be upgraded twice from the bat , usually its a civic thats not very much needed since usually you build your units in maybe 2 city's at most and these city's usually have a military instructer to be able to get 5xp.
Use this civic when your building up your army .
But since you have no clear production city that builds all your army your making a lot of 3xp units that are quite bad imo.

Philosophy has the nice civic pacifism that is a nice peacetime civic since it gives a 100% boost to your GPP and is also needed if you wish to reseach liberalism.

Education is next in line , it would give you a huge boost since your philosophical that means your university's get build twice as fast wich will mean a big increase in science rate and its also a prereq for liberalism .

Lastly offcourse liberalism itself , getting a free tech is nothing to sneeze about so if your able you often want to beeline for this and make use out of it , if the AI's are lacking behind try to get the most usefull tech for free that U can get .

So some changes maybe for next time :
Get calender early , the extra always come in handy .
Skip the guilds > banking > gunpowder > paper press > replaceable parts line next time ad instead try this tech line
Engineering > philosophy > paper > education > liberalism .
I was trying to beeline to get riflemen out early. Usually after riflemen I'll research all the previous earlier techs like Calendar that I've missed out. Or I'll trade them in

2) Civics : You are running representation , slavery , and OR atm .
However , I looked at your city's and none of them have whipping anger wich means you dont use slavery quite much . You are damn observant! I don't normally whip to speed build. I'm on slavery only because in preparation of emergencies (like if there's a sudden war and I wanna whip alot of units)
You are also able to work with mercantilism wich has a fantastic synergy with representation so the suggestion is change to serfdom so your workers build faster (and they still have lots of work!) You mean more tiles to be improved on? and mercantilism .

3) Chopping : You really chopped all the tress from all your citys big fat cross , usually this isnt much of a problem but since you lack health this isnt such a good thing , if you arent in direct need of the hammers its better to save the forests for healthiness since you arent using the tiles yet anyway .
I'm not really sure about forest health. You mean they have to be in the city's BFC for them to contribute to health?

4) City's : I would switch Mecca into a production city , farm the grasslands so you can work the hills you really need some production city's .

Also Thebes your GP farm is cottaged up , usually you want to farm everything and work only the high food tiles , if you need a building whip it .
You are only using 2 specialists there but I guess that is because of the happy cap .

I also dont quite understand why you razed all the Russian city's they where in nice positions and quite developed . I can't support the extra cities... So I only kept Moscow

Keeping a spy in the border city from other civs is also usefull to see if a big amount of troops is comin , this usually means a declaration of war .

Lastly get some units on your border with Pacal , a single warrior defending a city on the border with a rival civ is dangerous!

Thanks for the help again!

 

[Shadzy19]

" I was trying to beeline to get riflemen out early. Usually after riflemen I'll research all the previous earlier techs like Calendar that I've missed out. Or I'll trade them in "

Trying to beeline is very good , and if you werent killing all your enemy's you would have more trading options

But skipping techs like Calender when U have 4 diffrend happiness resources is not the way to go , its been like maybe 70 turns or so since you past the tech , imagine all your city's with a extra 3 or 4 and some more health from fish you should have hooked up .

Also the liberalism route would perhaps have been faster to get there even though its more beakers and more techs but thats where your cheap university's and your free tech comes in (offcourse wait to reseach liberalism untill you researched RP so you could have gotten rifling as free tech!

I'm on slavery only because in preparation of emergencies (like if there's a sudden war and I wanna whip alot of units)
You mean more tiles to be improved on?

In a CE based economy with so many cottages there indeed isnt much room for whipping , its usually a easy way to get the city's you just captured a courthouse and a granery .
However just keeping it on slavery just in case of a attack when you could be using serfdom to speed up your lands improvement is a no go , besides switching back to slavery only takes a turn .

You cant really build much more improvements indeed besides some farms and at your new city since you cant hook up your resources but you should have had more city's and your calender resources to hhook up .

I'm not really sure about forest health. You mean they have to be in the city's BFC for them to contribute to health?

Indeed for every 2 forests in a city's BFC you get +1 health in the city .

I can't support the extra cities... So I only kept Moscow

Im sure it would have been fine , if I remember correctly you where running at 70% science with surplus .
All you had to do was whip a courthouse right away in the captured city's and cottaged them up (unless you wanted to make a production city)

Thanks for the help again!

No problem , we all need some help with something here and all the players help eitch other improve , thats the great thing about CFC !