ct3 - Chieftain Training Day (for newbies only)

[Padma]

Attention to detail is the big key. But to give the details the right attention, you also need to have a strong grasp on military tactics, and game mechanics. At Deity, you can lose not only from making the wrong move, but from such subtle things as making the right move at the wrong time! If one has the time to immerse oneself in it all, and play for long hours in a single session, fantastic! But for me, I only eak out a few hours playing time per week, so I would barely get started remembering where I was in a continued Emperor/Deity game, and it would be time to quit! Regent gives me a required level of detail that I can usually manage.

 

[Chieftess]

Did I just give one? Unless someone went quickly.

 

[Chieftess]

It's there. (talk about attention to detail! ) About a dozen posts or so above this one.

 

[rwprice]

Originally posted by Padma
But for me, I only eak out a few hours playing time per week, so I would barely get started remembering where I was in a continued Emperor/Deity game, and it would be time to quit! Regent gives me a required level of detail that I can usually manage.

I couldn't have said it better myself! In fact, it was a discussion on just that topic that led me here. Over at Apolyton (gasp), I was asking if it would ever be possible for me to enjoy this game on only a few hours a week (tops). Even after a long time, I still struggle to feel like this game is truly fun. Lately I've hypothesized that this is because there's just too much to grasp in the limited time that I can give to the game.

Well, stwils suggested that I come here and see if I can join the game, which I have done. I hope to learn a lot from participating in this group. I'm anxious to see how it turns out.

 

[Chieftess]

:aargh3: It's the 'A' word!!

 

[Padma]

Yes, CT, the critique is there. but it ends with:

Overall, good turn. (more city critiques when I get back from work)

So our eager pupils were waiting on the additional critique. I'm sure mcdan would be more than willing to get started.

 

[Padma]

Originally posted by rwprice


I couldn't have said it better myself! In fact, it was a discussion on just that topic that led me here. Over at Apolyton (gasp), I was asking if it would ever be possible for me to enjoy this game on only a few hours a week (tops). Even after a long time, I still struggle to feel like this game is truly fun. Lately I've hypothesized that this is because there's just too much to grasp in the limited time that I can give to the game.

Well, stwils suggested that I come here and see if I can join the game, which I have done. I hope to learn a lot from participating in this group. I'm anxious to see how it turns out.

Maybe one thing that helped me was, when the game came out, I was able to devote 3 - 4 hrs per day to it, rather than per week, so I had the chance to immerse myself in it enough to get that "one more turn" feel. But even then, I didn't get very good at the game until I started reading the Succession Games here, and checking out the strategy threads, etc.

And be sure to check the Improve Your Opening thread I linked to a few posts back. It has reinforced in me many things I "knew", but never thought about to that extent. Cracker has helped us all with that one.

@Chieftess: C'mon, the "A"-word isn't all that bad. We even have an embassy in Apolytonia, and they have one in Fanatika (as you know, of course ). Good feedback between the sites keeps us all with our heads screwed on straighter.

 

[mcdan]

Got it!

was waiting for that city critique - will assume all is OK that I go ahead -

- will play and post asap when I return this afternoon after a couple of coaching/ family events -want to get those Zulus and build more!

 

[stwils]

Cracker's article is wonderful and I'm just beginning to study it. He gives a table listing the most powerful terrain squares before improvement and after improvement.

My question is simple (and I feel like I should know the answer to it but I don't.)

After you road a square and build a mine on it, can you then irrigate it. When I try to do that something pops up and asks if I really want to change the square. So if I irrigate over the mine, does that destroy the mine and the shields the mine has given that square? I want to get the most I can from a square.

stwils

 

[BoBtheBUILDER]

A mine and irrigiation can not exist on the same tile, so if you irrigate a tile then try to mine it, the game is going to ask you if you're sure you want to destroy your previous tile improvement. The reason why what improvements you decide on are so important is that if you decide to change them you waste a lot of earlier productivity.

BoB

 

[stwils]

Thanks, BoB.

That makes sense.

stwils

 

[mcdan]

570 BC: PRETURN-
Science is set at 70%, gold is +3 pt, total g 468, code of laws in 9 turns. I reduced the science to 50%, receiving +7 gpt, total g468, code of law in 11 turns.
Diplomacy: Just Shaka. He is furious, but willing to trade - but has no gold and can only trade world map. Same as our map. Goal will be to take Shaka out in early moves of this turn.
Checking cities to make sure all are utilizing citizens and tiles - previous player has left cities in great shape. Susa is at zero growth but no moving of citizens will improve this. Will have to watch city development. Meanwhile growth includes granaries, temples, and Immortals. Fortify spearman at Ulundi and Susa
Goals: Take out Shaka, Build Galley to explore in case nearby land, one or two more cities to be built, more workers, one or two Wonders. Raise Production/Gold.

530 BC: TURN ONE-
In Ulundi- Moved two stacked workers who have completed irrigating to a flood plain tile NE of current tile. Goal is to build road and irrigate and then move towards iron and gold in the NE. This flood plain tile is by a river so we will gain 1 extra gold.
By Babiti- Two stacked Immortals advance one tile towards Bapedi.
Pasargadae- Two stacked workers move one tile to clear forest (tile has F1, S2, G2)
Settler located between Peresepolis and Susa moves E - I plan to move him below Zimbabwe for new town after road is completed.
In Antioch: Triple stacked workers build road to game on forest tile in town
In Arbela, two stacked workers move one tile outside of city to build road to furs. The tile is a forest/furs tile with F1, S3, G2.
Ulundi is only protected by a spearman - move Immortal that is in Jungle two moves away from town to Ulundi with plans to fortify him there upon arrival. (Previous player has Immortal on way to Bapedi - I remember in Stwil's game that Chieftess reminded us that we need 3 Immortals stacked to attack, but since the Zulus have been twice attacked by us - and have fallen quickly - and primarly that Bapedi has had little time to grow since its "jump" - I am going to take on Bapedi with two IM's - go ahead - insert smoking gun here )
Fortify Spearman outside of Ulundi - he will not be helpful during battle but can remain in place to help fortify and defend town once we are victors
Note: In the top five cities - Persopolis is still #1 with the100% approval, in fifth place is Babylon.
Antioch and Susa are our slowest growing towns.

530 BC: TURN TWO-
Shaka approaches us - we backpedal or it is war - "goodbye" we say.
In Ulundi - Our captured Zulu and Babylon Workers stacked are building road to iron. Road is on tile F2, S2, OG
Time for Stacked Immortals to attack - Immortal attacks Bapedi - our immortal was unfortunately wiped out with Impi left with "three green bars"
Second Immortal attacks - defeats one Impi and the second Impi has only 2 yellow bars. (perhaps should have moved other Immortal afterall but our Immortal has 4 Green bars - we will attack again.)
Our captured Babylon two stacked workers still building road from Arbela to Forest/Fur tile.

510BC- TURN THREE:
Settler moves along road to Zimbabwe - plan to build road to new town site may not work - worker may not be able to complete in time.
Immortal foritied in Ulundi
Triple stacked workers in Antioch finish road to cattle and move N in one move to build road to Iron with plans to build road N of Iron.
Next move is to take out Zulus at Bapedi - Impi has regained strength to 3 green vs our 4 green bars.
Hooray! We capture Bapedi (our IM went down to 2 yellow bars but we were victorious) - We liberated 0 gold - disappointing but we knew they had no gold from previous negotiations, if I remember correctly. Keep town and "install a new governor."
Building a worker in Bapedi, will fortify city with surving Immortal
Foreign Advisor tells us - Zulu is destroyed. We have 3 other countries to trade/ battle etc
Our GA is OVER
Forest Harvested - 10 shields to Parsargadae

490 BC - TURN FOUR:
498 G, +6 pt, Code of Laws in 8t's
Using 2 stacked worker to Mine tile in Parsargadae -tile is grassland F2, S0, G1
Antioch stacked workers building road to iron
Zulu and Babylon workers stacked - irrigating in Ulundi after completing road, will them move towards iron and gold.
Bapedi Immortal foritifies - still weak though
Below Zimbabwe: Worker moves to complete road before settler gets to location

470BC- TURN FIVE:
Begin Oracle in Persopolis (60 moves !)
Begin Galley (finally) in Susa (which is still not growing)
Change tiles in Bapedi to go from zero growth to growth in 20 turns - still not good though. Need to watch this town - Easy attack/ take over site from enemy in future. Immortal fortified in Bapedi
Immortal also fortified in Persopolis
Workers (stacked) have completed road to furs below Arbela - Workers are now on tile that is Grassland with F2,S1, G1.
Fortify Immortal in Ulundi
Worker is sadly building road behind settler
Settler founds the town of Tarsus below Zim.
Building worker at new town of Tarsus to stack with worker already on town tiles.
Ulundi workers move to iron to build road
Arbela worker still building road

450 BC- TURN SIX:
Two workers build mine below Parsagardae- F2, S0, G1
Antioch workers move beyond border - stacked as 3 - toward cattle - to build road

430 BC- TUIRN SEVEN:
Babylon building Barracks- need to watch city growth - Moving citizens on tiles - some variations and this improves the growth rate slightly.
Stacked 2 workers building road to Ulundi from iron outside of town
Tarsus - moved worker by mistake when checking land - worker is now on hill- so next turn will build road. Not part of my plan but...

410BC: TURN EIGHT-
2 stacked workers build a second mine below Parsagadae - F2, S0, G1 - Grassland with road
Forbidden Palace in Zim

390 BC: TURN NINE:
3 stacked workers N of Antioch working on road to cattle

370BC: TURN TEN-
move workers SW of Ulundi to begin road to gold and to town of Tarsus
Check on cities - Susa not growing - move citizen to mining tile - Galley will be ready in 7 turns

POST TURN:
Summary: 529 GOLD, +4 pt with science at 50%, Code of Laws in 1 turn, Despotism. (If sceince is at 40% - we would get +11 gpt), IN Demos: 96% approval rating, moved form 5th to 4th place in military service (4 yrs)
Two workers being built, a galley, two temples, one granary - Immortals and Spearman are fotified in all cities, Oracle in 38 turns and Forbidden Palace in 66 turns, one Immortal in Pasargadae, Barracks in Babylon. Needed to build settlers to continue growth. Zulu eradicated. Want that Galley! Ready to explore...

 

[mcdan]

RWPrice - after Chieftess gives her critique it will be your turn.

Get ready!

As you can see - if you have read some of our posts - questions are welcome etc

McDan

 

[BoBtheBUILDER]

McDan!

Nice play!

I think the best part was finishing the war as the Golden Age ended. I know that you had no idea when that would be, but I think disposing of Shaka before we lost our GA bonuses was a good move.

Just one question... why build the FP in Zimbabwe? My guess for a solid FP site (if we were wedded to the idea of putting it on this continent) would be in a new city we'd build near the wheat tile on the east coast of the island. It would be a strong city and we'd get more of an advantage in corruption reduction at that site than Zimbabwe, which isn't that far from our capital.

That's the only major question from me, it looks like you had pretty solid play the whole way though!

BoB

 

[Chieftess]

:aargh3::aargh3::aargh3::aargh3:
Bad News!

My monitor on the computer that I play Civ3 just died on me, so I can't see any of the game saves. I have others, but they're either generic, or "ancient". (the Tatung replacement being on my ORIGANAL 286 computer!!). So, Padma, you'll have to help critique until I get a new monitor...

Also, I'd like to analyze the FP site, but without a monitor, I can't. Personally, Zimbabwe seems too close. The capital could be moved more inland. Or, we can try this stratgey:

Build the FP central to our continent. When we discover another contient (which the land masses appear to be), attack the civs, and found the capital there (i.e., with a Great Leader, if we get one).

 

[Padma]

Okay, CT, I'll see if I can look at it after work, this evening.

Until then:

FP - I would build it more inland. Normally, it doesn't pay to have the FP within a 2-city radius of the capital. It's primary effect is to provide a second "core" area of low-corruption cities.

Oracle - ??? from 60 turns out??? Oh, wait, this is Chieftain, we may have a chance. I'll get a better feel after I can look at the save.

2 Immortals to take out Bapedi = , but you got lucky. If the RNG had gotten a string of bad-for-us results, we might not have taken Bapedi at all on your turn. But as someone once said:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Worker on hill (Turn 7) - This is one instance where a reload from an autosave is generally "allowed": mismoving a unit. Of course, one must be able to reproduce the actions that were done already up to that point. Then again, many of us just bite the bullet and consider the incident to be a case of garbled orders from headquarters.

I will give a more detailed/complete critique after I get home and can download the game to have a good look.

 

[Padma]

Okay, I had a chance to look at the save tonight. Here are some of my thoughts, in no particular order:

Oracle: If you guys want it, I suppose it will work. We don't really need it. We already have 4 luxuries, so we should have 4 happy people in each connected city. I usually don't even start a Wonder unless I can do it in under 40 turns, but by the last turn here it was down to 38. One key word here: micromanage! Make sure you are getting the most "bang for your buck" out of this city. You should be getting a new citizen the next turn. Make sure he is working his @ss off! you will probably get another citizen before the thing is built, too. Same thing.

Workers North of Antioch building road to iron - You do realize that we can't use that iron until it is within our culture borders, right? We could build a colony on it, or build a new city up on the peninsula to cover it. But then my question becomes: why are we connecting a second^h^h^h^h^h^h third iron? We can only use one at a time, and we don't have anyone to trade with (yet).

Worker SE of Susa building a mine. This tile is outside our borders, and will not be within them anytime soon. (Susa doesn't even have a temple to expand culture.) He should be working somewhere where his energy will be useful now.

Micromanagement note: You have a citizen in Susa in a forest tile. Move him to a roaded forest tile, and you get the same food/production, but you add 1 gold.

I would probably build the FP at at Arabela, in the middle of the continent. It may do us more good there. For one thing, it would ease corruption at Babylon, which looks like a powerhouse city.

Why is Pasargadae building Immortals? I would gamble here on the AI not discovering us soon enough to settle/attack us, so crank a settler, then maybe a temple so our borders can grow.

worker usage
Worker usage looks like a key area for improvement, here. In general, they are all doing good, useful things, but they are not doing them in the best places, or at the best times. We should build up the area around Persepolis a little more. Maybe mine some hills, or at least road that forest. (Don't chop the forest as long as we are building a wonder, though, or those shields are wasted.)

Zimbabwe is going to need some new workable tiles soon. My recommendation: that bonus grassland east of town - mine & road it.

Get the road out to Bapedi finished ASAP. You will then be able to keep it happy with luxuries.

Overall, a pretty good turn. We need a few more settlers to lock up the continent, as well as some temples for border expansion. The galley should be ready soon, so we can start looking for the others.

rwprice, you're up next. Play 10 turns, from the current point, and report back here like the others have.

And I'm sure archer007 is chomping at the bit.

 

[rwprice]

I've got the save file and hopefully will have my turns and log posted within the next day or two. Here goes...

 

[Padma]

Some clarification on my thoughts about hooking up those iron resources:

Strategic Resources deplete, and disappear, at random times. However, they don't deplete and disappear if they are not connected to the trade network (i.e., roads).What we have here, is a case of possibly causing all three of our iron resources to vanish overnight, without being able to use more than one of them.

In my mind, we should not connect the northern iron at his time, and possibly even pillage the road on the one down near Ulundi. That way, if our current iron ever runs out, we rush a few workers over to one of the others and connect it.

Remember, only Strategic Resources (i.e., Iron, Coal, Saltpeter, etc.) deplete,and they do so at the whim of the Random Number Generator. They only deplete if they are roaded/railroaded. It generally pays to keep a "spare" outside your road network just in case.

 

[rwprice]

Well, here's my first attempt at this sort of thing. Doing this made me think a little more than usual (there's one of my problems, don't you think?). Anyway, it definitely revealed many weaknesses. Realizing that I should have a better reason for the move I just made, but not knowing what that reason would be, pointed out to me just how far I have to go. Be gentle with me!