[BTS] DAR - Prince - Pangea - Normal - Default settings

[Swordnboard]

Spoiler 125 AD comments :

Good:

• More improved tiles
• Claimed a good amount of land peacefully
• Cities are streamlined with mostly important buildings (granary, library)

Bad:

• Representation is really underutilized here: your cities could grow to an enormous size and work many specialists, but they are languishing at low populations
• Stopped trading with hannibal. Maybe OK (I don't know who asked you), but that generally lasts a long time before you can trade with him again.
• City builds should follow a more coherent theme. Military everywhere (for the upcoming war), or peaceful builds everywhere (if you want to advance in tech more, say to cuirassier, before you fight anyone). But this mix of units, missionaries, and the Mausoleum don't really work optimally towards any of these goals.

Ugly:

• Roman Lion???

 

[Gumbolt]

Thoughts -
On plus side you have 9 cities.

The capital should be size 10 or so by now. Why are you working 1 food cottage when it can be working those flood plains or grassland cottages? The helper cities should not hold onto those 3f cottages. I switched city to a flood plain and it grows in 1 turn. I don't like running specialists in your capital when you have a happiness cap of 16. You have 2 grassland tiles NE of capital that probably should of been cottaged by now.

No need for 2-3 defenders per city. Keep warriors in cities and a stack to contend with AI.

These religious buildings are a waste of hammers. You don't need the happiness.

Your relations with Romans and Carthage are not good. You could of gifted them resources early on. I note a few of the resources not on rivers are not hooked up.

Tech wise. Don't ignore the music route. You have already gone mids and should be focusing on techs to help use this. The free artist from music is great for a golden age. Eventaully you will want larger cities to use specialists.

Workers - You have 7 working on Kassite. Way too many for a size 1 city. The capital and other cities need more work.

The Romans have a lion. What have you been doing in world builder?

 

[2popbulb]

The Romans have a lion. What have you been doing in world builder?

That is historically accurate. Gladiators have fought lions in ancient Rome. Some of them must have escaped from colosseums

 

[lymond]

Actually, Mauso is more than fine if you have marble. But going Theo makes no sense. You should shoot for Music for the Great Artist and Mauso boosted Golden Age, then Civil Service asap ..or vice versa. Meanwhile, grow our cities before the golden age, so you can max out on specialists while in Caste System temporarily. No real need to build units if not planning war near term.

(AP? very expensive non-bonus wonder. Let the AI build it then capture it later. Theo is generally not something you would tech yourself)

Some whipping of key buildings okay, but otherwise cities can grow now, especially Yas. Make sure cottages around Yas continue to progress. Cottage all riverside tiles there.

If cities have the required infra, then build wealth for now.

You can probably setup a bulb/Lib to Military Tradition strategy commonly used on high levels, and then run the map with Curs.

And Mishes not bad here since you are running the religion. You can probably do a Philosophy bulb soon and run Paci during the Golden Age.

edit: (viewed save)

1) Yas needs to focus growth and cottages -grow it as large as it can before CS...Yas takes FP from Har...Har runs scientist (still grows)
2) Farm Raj immediately where workers stand and as Yas grows it can take FP from Raj and Raj takes farm
3) cancel units and units with no hammers into them. Build wealth. Can have one city do Chicken Pizza for fail gold (switch wonder around when other cities finish builds)
4) Start Aesths right now at 100% research

5) Trades:

Poly to JC for 40g

Gilgs - Here is an example of what I talked about earlier regarding evaluating trades and checking if AI is teching something:

Gilgs trade screen 1:

Spoiler He has 30g :

Gilgs trade screen 2:

I checked all techs he needs against his gold. He will give 15g for Calendar, so he is obviously very close to finishing it. Trade it for the 15g:

Spoiler :

That should give you enough to finish Aesths in 2turns, and you may get more later to finish LIterature after that while maintaining 100% research for the next few turns. Always evaluate this stuff constantly.

Next turn look to trade HBR/CoL to Darius for Metal Casting and hopefully some gold. Mansa has CoL so no harm in this trade. If not much gold in the deal, look to beg about 70g from Darius too. MC will allow you to start forges in most cities too..a generally good building for most cities.

6) Resource trades

You've really done nothing in this regard. Granted you don't currently show any extra copies of resources, but that does not mean you don't something to trade. They are just not hooked up. However, you are also Expansive, so you have extra health anyway. Don't be afraid to trade even single copies of health resources.

Things like Sheep and Cows can be traded for something you don't have or GPT. You will have extra rice soon, so trade that if you can.

Note that resource trades boost Diplo over time, so it is something you want to initiate if you can sooner than later.

7) I'm assuming Darius requested a stop trade on Hanny, as they are Worst Enemies. Probably a bad move there since Darius is not a threat with good relations. -1 diplo from refusing the request not a big deal here. Try to gauge these requests/demand against the overall atmosphere at the time and potential threats. Sometimes it is fine to give into them, but avoid it if it is not going to hurt you. Now you are unable trade with Hanny nor do you get trade routes from him.

8) I think running Buddhism is fine here. You could just not run a religion but OR is good now and Paci later for Golden Age. Plus, 2 close neighbors are in it. Other AIs are not overly zealous leaders anyway.

Unfortunately, JC is getting a huge malus to you for diplo from close borders. Wow..-4. Get a resource trade to him..maybe banana for clam trade for now. Some tech trades/gifts later will help too, plus the religion. Idea here is just to keep him off your back until ready to attack later.
(Next turn I might gift Currency to JC or trade it for whatever gold he has next turn. Should get a Diplo boost either way and Currency not bad now to give out. It increase his trade route capacity as well, which can give you more as well as an indirect result)

9) Don't really like Banteay Kdei city. Not necessary and Thom better city with the Rice. Cow is not great food.

10) As mentioned, probably too many workers around Kassite, although a couple not bad since much to do, but others could be elsewhere. Kassite would have been better 1S of position to grab that other gems. Really nice city. (Oh this was barb city..right? Don't be afraid to raze a badly positioned barb city..just have a settler ready to resettle)

11) Wat could have had workers chop out Mauso as well. Mauso is a good wonder. Boosted Golden Age is huge.

Lastly, attaching save where I placed some signs with some suggestions. Farm (CS) means that you can build farms in that spot with irrigation feature from Civil Service tech. The irrigation allows chain farming as well to some of the resource like wheat and rice that are currently not irrigated - for food boost.

Oh..and Har looks like your best food city here. This city should get farms outside those tiles obviously shared with Yas for cottages (although existing cottages North of Har can remain). So farm the rest of the city. Might build Great Library here too after Literature and NE. CIty has copper to help and a forest to chop.

Oh and stop cottaging other cities with non-riverside tiles. Either farm if you can or later cities can be workshopped like Kassite. Most cities are going to run scientists now anyway other than their bonus tiles.

edit: Roman Lions? Have you been peaking in World Builder ..shun

 

[Gumbolt]

I would say more than peeking. Roman lions don't just magically appear. How much editing he has done is another matter.

 

[lymond]

I would say more than peeking. Roman lions don't just magically appear. How much editing he has done is another matter.

Well, all that matters is that we know DA went into WB. He may not have done anything. A lion default appears if you just click on the map by accident, because in the mode you go in by default the lion is the first item.

 

[diegoami]

Well, I made no mistery that I used the world builder to convert the prince game to monarch. I added an archer to all other civs, only in case of the romans I added by accident also a lion. You can check that yourself in the save file attached in this post.

The world builder is kind of confusing for me... Anyway, I wonder if that influences the game that match.

 

[lymond]

Ah yes, we did forget..ha. No worries. All you need to do in WB when you adjust the difficulty like you did is add the barb techs. AI should adjust automatically based on difficulty. As mentioned, Lions can appear accidentally when you click on the map. Actually done that myself many times when doing exactly what you did.

 

[diegoami]

Thank you all for the tips and thanks to lymond for the saved game with the notes.
This is my thoughts / how I went about it:

• So the general idea is to cottage your commerce town(s), typically on a river, but in most towns you will concentrate on specialists. Food towns can be far away from rivers when you have civil service. I guess lately I got obsessed with cottages.
• I know I am not actually benefiting from Representation because I have few specialists, but could not think of a better civic as of now. Despotism does nothing either way, and happyness problems are actually solved as of now, so don't need Hereditary rule. Was thinking of police state when / if I go to war. How else to use those Pyramids ?
• I have built / whipped monasteries to try and spread buddhism - I got monarchy and organized religion pretty late. Those monasteries do give 10% science, culture and can produce missionaries up to the end of the game - isn't it a priority to build them ? Might be more useful in Marathon games, though.
• I have built a standing army because "if you want peace, prepare for war". I mean, I have lost many games when I had few troops and somebody DOWed me. Isn"t it better to be carrying a big stick ? I don't remember in this game either Rome or Carthago or anybody else asking me for tribute yet. Also, an army means being open for opportunities, but sure, as of now I should gather it into a stack. Maybe I have whipped a couple too many, that's why I have few pops - now I will let towns grow.
• Speaking of which, when does "gifting" improve relations ? I have been gifting stuff to civs in previous games and there was no improvement in the relationship. It seems to work reliably only when they come and ask for some tribute.
• Yes, Persia asked me to stop trading with Carthago. In some games it happened to me that two enemies would keep asking to stop trading with the other one. If I kept refusing the end result would be that they both disliked me. I reasoned that I would pick Persia as a friend over Carthago because we are the same religion, and I am planning to take on Carthago either way. I am assuming that my army is stronger than his. But I understand that this way I have given up on trade opportunities, but is it really that important that Carthago likes me ? If I start trading with them, the Persia will complain again...
• Well, obviously the surge in workers around Kassite is temporary, there was a lot to do there. Kassite was barbarian and I took it, had no settlers handy. I was actually planning to settle between Kassite and my main, but the Romans beat me to it by one turn and that's how the map was born. I had an extra settler, and could not find a better place for them than Banteay Kdei. Now the only place left to expand is the elephants area south of my main, not sure if it is worth to settle there.
• Ok, beeline to music will be, I should definitely use that mausoleum. Should I enter the golden age with a specific goal ?
• In some games I had to liberate a conquered town because of the Apostolic Palace and I thought I could use this to my advantage to make Caesar "liberate" Arretium and Sarmatia. Its benefit is limited, though, I agree.
• I will try to get the hang of selling technologies that the AI is about to get anyway. I remember getting frustrated with this dynamic and turning off at least technology "brokering". (I mean, come on, two kings talk, magically a technology is immediately available to a whole country without overhead) .

 

[Gumbolt]

Happiness from resource trading. You get 1 point a turn for each resource you trade with an AI. Once you reach 50 points you get a +1 modifier with that AI. On your game I gifted the Romans 10 resources. Eg food/happiness or war resources. After 5 turns I have a +1 diplo modifier. The maximum this will go up to is +2 for each AI.

On higher levels some players will gift a nearby Ai 2-3 health resources early on. You soon get +1 diplomacy after 17 or so turns. 34 turns later +2. It's the difference between cautious and pleased. AI are much likely to go to war with you if annoyed or cautious.

Shared religion give you a +1 happiness modifier with an Ai for each 10 turns. With Persia you have +5 from this. On some maps swapping into a religion is almost asking the Ai to attack you as like Carthage they get to annoyed.

In terms of stacks. You have to just watch what they AI are up to. If you see them building up units and in war mode then you should be preparing for war and have a few units whipped to match any stack they may send your way. Vs Praet you want axes/phants.

Ignore the AP. It's distracting you. Theology is poor play.

Religion spreading seems a waste. The Ai normally send missionaries your way anyway. Monastry are situational but sometimes good in your capital.

The rep civic is very strong. Especially for science and your top 5 cities. You ned to grow cities to use it. That and run scientists. This is not a food rich start. As lymond has shown on map you can build farms for the city south of your capital and maybe run scientists here.

 

[Swordnboard]

@Gumbolt if you attempted to give each AI an archer to appropriately modify the difficulty, and clicked the map after selecting Rome but before selecting Archers, Rome would get a lion.

@Diego Amicabile Representation is a great civic, and yeah probably the best of your options for now, but you should just endeavor to use it better by growing your cities and working more specialists. Monasteries are kind of "meh" as far as buildings are concerned. Compared to a library (25% beakers for 45 hammers since you are creative), 10% beakers for 60 hammers is not so great. Also, spreading your religion is good in limited circumstances, like when you need happiness or are trying for an AP victory. So maybe here if you want to win via AP, but then again maybe not. Carrying a big stick is OK, but if you have it you might as well use it. The best way to avoid DOWs is to maintain strong friends (like you are doing with Persia, nice work!), and attack your enemies before they get the chance to DOW you. Especially on higher difficulties, it's really tricky to maintain an army big enough to act as a deterrent for the AI since they build such big ones themselves.

 

[NickGabben]

What have you been doing in world builder?

"What of you been doing" surely.

 

[Gumbolt]

Apologies, the 4000bc save does indeed include the lion. My imagination ran a bit wild here.

 

[lymond]

Thank you all for the tips and thanks to lymond for the saved game with the notes.

you are most welcome

This is my thoughts / how I went about it:

And I want to point out that it is very good to get your thoughts even if wrong. This feedback allows us to understand better what you are thinking so we can correct any lines of thought that are astray. But most importantly...you are thinking!

So the general idea is to cottage your commerce town(s), typically on a river, but in most towns you will concentrate on specialists. Food towns can be far away from rivers when you have civil service. I guess lately I got obsessed with cottages.

This in part brings us to an old topic called city specialization that actually doesn't get mentioned as much anymore. But first and foremost, ideally your starting capital will be setup for Bureacracy which maximizes commerce. Note though that some starting positions are not ideal for Bureau cottage capital (you can move your Palace to a better spot. But the idea here is a city with nice riverside tiles to cottage and grow. And ..like in your case...well positioned overlap cities to help those cottages grow. (just in case you have not figured this out, cottages only grow when worked by a citizen)

Cottage type cities are not "typically" on a river. They are always on rivers or have an abundance of river tiles. This does not necessarily mean that a city on a river will be a commerce city. It is all about balance and what your empire needs.

Not all cities will "concentrate" on specialists, but generally if a city does well food wise it is going to grow and run some scientists early. Later on you will have these cities max out on specialists during a golden Age (another note - Golden Ages boost great person production by 100%)

But really one of the major points to get across here when we get on your case about this cottage spam is th the thing I bring out often about worker management. You are building a useless improvement for a city when the workers may have far more important things to do.

The point is to think about your worker actions and what your empire needs. For example, Kassite with so many workers does not match the cities output currently. And you are going to whip some infra there now anyway. Other cities are neglected.

And one more key point on this matter that is a major component of the game that I've alluded to before. Civ IV is about the snowball effect. More stuff early/better play early leads to better results later. The more mistakes early the hard it is. And all this becomes more of an issue as you move up difficulty.

You will really benefit from checking out the play of the Succession Game of the Month (SGOTM) that starts soon and just see how the experts play.

I know I am not actually benefiting from Representation because I have few specialists, but could not think of a better civic as of now. Despotism does nothing either way, and happyness problems are actually solved as of now, so don't need Hereditary rule. Was thinking of police state when / if I go to war. How else to use those Pyramids ?

The point Sword and others was not that you were running the wrong civic, but that you were not making taking advantage of it. If you build Mids, Representation is the no brainer civic to run. It is hugely powerful civic early. A civic that actually is not activated to the player until a tech much later in the game (Constitution).

Don't overthink this, but what I want to you to think of is that ..and you have generally done here..you expand early and build infra with the whip.. then you start to look at growing some of your cities for various purposes. Cap to grow on cottages and take advantage of Bureau a little later. In the case of rep, some food cities should start growing into scientists after the Library is in to take advantage of those bonus beakers.

I have built / whipped monasteries to try and spread buddhism - I got monarchy and organized religion pretty late. Those monasteries do give 10% science, culture and can produce missionaries up to the end of the game - isn't it a priority to build them ? Might be more useful in Marathon games, though.

Not really. Monas are not a terrible building though. One in Yas is certainly not a bad idea, but you don't need them everywhere. Or just one city to build those mishes to finish the Bud spread.

But sometimes you would not build them at all. All depends on the situation and what you are trying to do. For instance if you are focused on war then you are not going to waste time on these buildings.

I have built a standing army because "if you want peace, prepare for war". I mean, I have lost many games when I had few troops and somebody DOWed me. Isn"t it better to be carrying a big stick ? I don't remember in this game either Rome or Carthago or anybody else asking me for tribute yet. Also, an army means being open for opportunities, but sure, as of now I should gather it into a stack. Maybe I have whipped a couple too many, that's why I have few pops - now I will let towns grow.

It's not completely out of the question to build "some" units but the whole empire does not. The whip always allows you to get up an army quick when needed. Deterrence is logical, but there can be a diplo way to maintain order. On higher levels unit maintenance goes up significantly, so it really becomes a balancing act of diplo and maintaining a small force to reduce costs.

I guess I should add that most of here are approaching this learning process with you from the standpoint of a) learning the basics of the game to apply anytime/anywhere b) from the viewpoint of moving up and succeeding on higher levels.

Speaking of which, when does "gifting" improve relations ? I have been gifting stuff to civs in previous games and there was no improvement in the relationship. It seems to work reliably only when they come and ask for some tribute.

What exactly are you gifting? There are two components to gifting/trading techs. Fair trade bonus and sharing technology. In the case of fair trade it generally relates to the balance of the trade. So trading or gifting old smaller techs may not do much. Something more expensive and newer should give results. Sharing tech bonus is based on the number of techs given to the AI via gift and/or trade (both ways apply) and the number of techs for each +1 bonus varies among leaders. So in other words it is something that builds over time with an AI from years of trading techs with them. But Fair Trade (up to +4) can be instant but is based on the value of the trade - in their favor. (Also, note that when you first meet an AI and gift them any tech or trade a tech for gold or a small tech - balance in their favor, you will get an instant +4 fair trade.

Fair trade decreases over time though, but can be reboosted anytime. Share technology once earned is permanent.

(Note: Ofc, be judicious when trading or gifting techs. Don't give a way a valuable monopoly tech or military tech that gives you the advantage in the time period)

Yes, Persia asked me to stop trading with Carthago. In some games it happened to me that two enemies would keep asking to stop trading with the other one. If I kept refusing the end result would be that they both disliked me. I reasoned that I would pick Persia as a friend over Carthago because we are the same religion, and I am planning to take on Carthago either way. I am assuming that my army is stronger than his. But I understand that this way I have given up on trade opportunities, but is it really that important that Carthago likes me ? If I start trading with them, the Persia will complain again...

Your reasoning here is not unsound. You are thinking about it the right way. But you also have to think about the ramifications..the cost/benefit at the moment. Also, it sometimes depends on the Leader you are dealing with. That is something that will come with time, i.e., learning the personalities of some of these Leaders. Some are psyhco warmongers like Monty, Rags, Shaka and Napoleon. Some are rather passive like Darius. So with Darius there was no harm in rejecting the request in order to keep relations open with Hanny for now. If that was Shaka down there it might be a different story.

And yes, sometimes you will have to choose a side or a bloc of AIs to keep friendly and some, or one, to shun. Often this can be based on religion, but other factors can apply.

So giving in to Darius request was not totally bad, but we're just saying that it is probably not what we would have done.

Same applies too for those tech/resource/gold demand/request you sometimes get. What are they demanding? Who is demanding it? Who might be bothered by you giving into the demand/request? Just things to thing about. Conversely, giving into those demand/requests can be a good diplo boost as well.

Well, obviously the surge in workers around Kassite is temporary, there was a lot to do there. Kassite was barbarian and I took it, had no settlers handy. I was actually planning to settle between Kassite and my main, but the Romans beat me to it by one turn and that's how the map was born. I had an extra settler, and could not find a better place for them than Banteay Kdei. Now the only place left to expand is the elephants area south of my main, not sure if it is worth to settle there.

In hindsight..ha..as mentioned, that settler could have been used to resettle the area around Kassite. No worries on Banteay Kdei..just saying that I think the city was unnecessary.

And I've already touched on the workers around Kassite. Again, just think about what that city needs. What will the citizens be doing? How much stuff needs to be whipped for that city. 20 improvements are not needed for a small city that will whip some infra while other older cities are craving some improvement or chopping.

Ok, beeline to music will be, I should definitely use that mausoleum. Should I enter the golden age with a specific goal ?

I totally think Mauso was a good play here. Again, if not all your workers were down in Kassite, you could have chopped a couple of forests for Mauso. Calendar is a fairly popular AI tech and you may have traded it away some too. Didn't check that. Point is that even on this level AIs can prioritize that wonder so no certainty. But also you could have fail gold it internally as well.

Generally, your goal during the first early golden age is great person production with a well timed anarchy free civic switch. In most cases this would be for as many Great Scientists you can get to bulb your way through Liberalism to get some advantageous tech like Military Tradition.

In some games I had to liberate a conquered town because of the Apostolic Palace and I thought I could use this to my advantage to make Caesar "liberate" Arretium and Sarmatia. Its benefit is limited, though, I agree.

Yep..this gets into a mechanic that probably we don't even want you to think about right now. AP is kind of a cheesy and problematic mechanic. There are ways to deal with this but I think it is too much info for now. Point is to just ignore this for now and focus on the important basics.
(I understand the point of losing cities to AP votes but there are other ways around this that will come later..in other words that stuff was happening cause you did not know what you were doing. It is all just a distraction to you now)

As for your strategy here, you are talking about a tremendous amount of hammers, time and sidetracked research for a situation that may or may not be feasible/successful. In other words...no

I will try to get the hang of selling technologies that the AI is about to get anyway. I remember getting frustrated with this dynamic and turning off at least technology "brokering". (I mean, come on, two kings talk, magically a technology is immediately available to a whole country without overhead) .

IMO tech trading is the way the game was meant to be played. It is the standard option.

Well, why not. First off you have to think of "time" in the game differently. But technology was passed on from civilization to civilization in history. Yeah maybe not in 10 seconds of game time in a trade dialogue screen, but you really have to think of that differently time wise as a microcosm. It is just the mechanic in this game that facilitates that passing of technology.
(there are mods to the game that have played with the idea of technology where in some cases the knowledge gradually suffused from civilizations to other civilizations based on who knows what and how many know it, and the passage of time, by increasing the bonus on the tech)

 

[diegoami]

I played on until 660 AD, trying to follow tips. What happened ?

• As adviced, I beelined to Mmusic, got a great artist and after letting my popolation grow a little I started a golden age, which is still in progress. I had made sure to research Civil service first so that I can use Burocracy and Caste system to get the most out of it.
• Turns out that even with civil service you cannot immigrate starting from rice. However, I am slowly expanding irrigation starting from the rivers to the towns I want to turn into food powerhouses.
• Done some minor technology trading.
• Sumeria asked me to join a war against Carthago. That is why you want a standing army, because neutrality is not an option. This allowed me to take two towns from Carthago. The war is still in progress, I am leading it with low intensity as my priority is building up my economy.
• I have been mainly building Forges and the unique building of the Khmer replacing acqueducts, which gives +1 food. This also opened the way for building another wonder, the Hanging Gardens, in my production center (AWat).
• It is now imperative to modernize the army, as I have still a lot of ancient units.
• It has been hard to keep the Romans happy. At one point they asked for 220 gold in tribute (refused), to stop trading with the Malinese (accepted) and to declare war on the Sumerians (refused). Luckily they declared war on the Sumerians, who are now their worse enemy. However, I would not want them to win and get a vassal. I have been giving the Romans resources so that they are at least neutral.
• No new towns settled, but aggressive cultural expansion
• I have used a scientist to bulb to Paper (kind of a waste in hindsight) but I am doing well with Great People and in 4-5 turns should get another one. The goal is to get to Liberalism asap.

Saved games here.

Spoiler 660 AD :

 

[Gumbolt]

War with Hannibal now is pointless. He has longbow/crossbow. You'll never take Utica with that weak stack.

Golden age wise.
Angkor Thorn should be running 4 scientists. Why would you even run a 1f 2 hammer tile?
Hariharilayla - Should be running 3-4 more scientists. Don't worry if the food bank is run dry. As long as the city does not shrink.
Kassite should of been running 5-6 scientists too.

Overall I would aim for military traditions now and vassal world with cuirs.

Scrap the military builds. At this stage they are useless unless you intend to whip all citieis for units? You would need trebs and phants to make any impact here. By time Ai has castles they would not be very effective.

Scrap the worker too.

Try running wealth in cities to help your science.

No National epic built yet you have marble?
No level 4 unit for Heroic epic? You need a 10xp unit. Bit late now.

I was able to beg 130 gold from persians.
70G to JC for COl.

I tweaked cities. At 0% science I was +156 gold and +156 science a turn. My next great person was in 2 turns time. At 100% science I was over 500 beakers a turn.

I would be bulbing edu. As you have teched machinery you can no longer bulb liberalism.

Still not sure where you are taking this game. In last attempt you managed to wipe out Hannibal. Here you have struggled likely due to lack of units. That and not whipping enough units.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, bulb Paper not so good. Value to bulb not good. Bulb things like Philo and Edu (possibly double bulb if no beakers into it), and part-bulb Lib (avoid Machinery, tech Compass)

I might restart back to the beginning of the golden age and do things better like what Gumbo said above.

As I stated earlier, you want to maximize GPP in all cities that can run them. Even using the food bank in a city to starve it temporarily - as Gumbo mentioned - but not shrink.

(Note: there is two ways to think of the GPP generation in a Golden Age spurt. THere is the usual short term gain of as many great people popping in that time - usually GSs for bulb strategy. The other thing is each cities overall GPP production in long term if playing a longer game like space. You are still maxxing the GPP in a given city even if it does not pop a great person during this Golden Age. But later on in another Golden Age you will produce more then too, as those cities had accrued a significant amount of points earlier)

because neutrality is not an option

Yes, it most certainly is

Rome may be your likely first target here if you go for Curs.

I would not have stopped trade with Mansa. It would take some dire emergency to stop me from trading with the best trader in the game.

Still not sure where you are taking this game. In last attempt you managed to wipe out Hannibal. Here you have struggled likely due to lack of units. That and not whipping enough units.

Well, DA was going to go for more of an expansion, economy game here. I think he can go for Cur approach here and stomp everyone.'

edit: in other words, part of this is the process of going through the motions - to learn. There does not necessarily need to be an end game here.

 

[Fippy]

I was curious if attacking Utica works, teasing Gumbo and so

Spoiler :

Waited ~4t for the units close.
2 Cats only, so ofc many Axes and stuff died but..as you can see, Cats are good enuf on this level.

With 3 more or so, most melee units would have survived.
Main reason why i wanted to show that, some lesson in there
If using siege, try ~50% of your stack being Cats, Trebs and so on.
Old units can beat better units after coll. damage.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah if you add 5-6 more units and bombard for 4 turns it's more possible. Attacking with swords/axes and 1 pult would of been a big ask. On higher levels the Ai would be whipping 1 unit a turn.

 

[floydmcw]

I added an archer to all other civs, only in case of the romans I added by accident also a lion.

Now I want to start a game where I worldbuild myself some bears and ride them to glorious victory. (Or maybe panthers, which I guess are the cuirassiers of animals.)

I assume that animals can gain XP but cannot spend it since they are not eligible for promos?

Could you attach a GG and get the warlord-only promos?