Deity Isolation Workshop (Stan/Norm/Fractal/NH/NE)

[Fippy]

Uh you have 3 river tiles in cap, Osaka on a river with great food, seafood, river spot west..
maybe i judge this wrong, but it's much much commerce richer than Mao or Sally.
Imo it's average, but not close to low. Most maps have some rivers, but here they are in good places and with lots of food (easy on scientists).

 

[Pedro78]

Ofc it's much commerce richer than Mao or Sally. It's also richer than the Charly and Toku games I posted a while ago. But these are the only map that we've played here that had lower commerce than this one. 2 scientists were pretty easy to get, but one had to be squeezed in the clam city -- couldn't grow past size 5 because of this.

Then again I'm not saying that it is a very hard map (cos it obvsl isn't), but it's definitely a low commerce start. If you consider this average, then you must consider most maps we've played here very rich.

Anyways, there's no real point in arguing about that, we might have conceptions of what is "low commerce" etc. My main question was: who would you attack? I planned to attack Vicky, and 10T later it does still look like it's a good option. (I'm not the one who said we should focus more on the post-Optics stuff )

 

[Fippy]

I rarely pick my first attack target early, there's not much point imo cos things can change and galleons move out from anywhere.
But Vicky and Pacal being on 1 continent and not that many cities surely fits.

 

[Rusten]

I think you played that Toku game too minimalistic @Pedro78.
I'll expand on it and upload a save zip later. But for now, do indeed finish the game.

 

[Pedro78]

Too minimalistic? I'm @T160 atm and it doesn't look too bad (even though trades are not great, AIs going Merc etc.) -- for now it has that "well-played game" feeling. Ofc I've made a few minor mistakes but I can't spot any big thing that I could've missed. Now I know you have that nasty habit of proving me wrong, so I'm really eager to dig into your saves

Btw why did you play this particular toku game? It's by far not the most thrilling map of the last few weeks. Oh and don't forget to take saves of the mid & late game aswell, I really open everything

 

[Rusten]

It's a good game. I just feel that you perhaps stayed on 4 cities for too long as there are so many good tiles available. Especially settling fish+pigs next to capital so late must be a mistake. I refuse to believe that's right! It goes against my philosophy.

I just took the most recent game in the thread.

 

[Pedro78]

Update on my game -

Spoiler :

She has Rifling, Steel and AL in sight, so things are not so bright.. Probably should've attacked Brennus, but I didn't expect her to tech so fast. I definitely won't take off Pacal after that -- he has Rifles and is 1 tech away from AL. Not sure if domination is winnable from here.

Edit - @Rusten yeah, but what are you going to do with the fish+pig spot before Optics anyway? It will be at a net negative on maintenance and will delay your Optics date (mine wasn't great already). That city had a forge ready in time to whip units, so it didn't feel wrong to settle it so late. But then maybe you'll manage to settle it early & get a decent Optics/Astro date.. not sure if it's possible (I couldn't do it)

 

[Rusten]

I think it's a map where it's feasible to tech CoL. With caste you can use this city (and others) to run 5 specialists at size 7.

 

[Fippy]

Did Monty attack someone in your game Pedro?
18 cities was 14 on the last save oO

 

[Lain]

I played the Stalin game . Noticing some improvement for sure, had to attack vs Rifles and might even win. Still unhappy with some stuff though.

Spoiler :

4 cities, ignored island & stone (not for ethical reasons, just felt too far away). Teched Steel, upgraded ~8 cannons, teched Rifling, drafted a couple of times. Felt much smoother than going in with just cannons and medieval stuff.

But as always, fell hopelessly behind in tech while trying to win the war... the production should save me this time at least. And if someone happened to be Friendly with him for peace vassal or bribe, it would be game over. So much room for stuff that can go wrong when you fight 30+ turn wars . Happiness situation becomes bad, can't afford the transition to workshops, everything goes to hell. One bad fight and gg. For example he almost took back an important city, survived with one defende and took cease fire. Shouldn't be that hard?

Diplo situation pretty terrible.

Any tips from 1240 AD onwards? Not that I played great until that point, but that's where it usually falls apart. Pretty sure I would run into similar issues even if I magically managed to attack 5T earlier

 

[Pedro78]

@Fippy yup Monty DoW'd Mehmed and kicked his ass, and there was nothing I could do about it because of "we'd rather win the game, tyvm". But now Mehm has Rifles so it might be a bit better. I'll bribe Featherhead off him ASAP

@Rusten I'm interested to see how you play it with CoL. In my game that would have meant really late Optics, especially if settling more cities.

 

[Pedro78]

@Lain actually if you have some land I think it can be good to slowly transition to a workshop economy from Chemistry onwards. Then you can make a double switch to Nationhood+CS when reaching Rifling. That's what I did in my Toku game and I'm not having any unhappiness/production issues.
(haven't looked at your saves though as I plan to play this map)

 

[Lain]

I always try the workshop transition thingy, but it's kind of too slow. I killed like 90 units just to take out one guy, basically.

The cottaged cities produce like one Rifle/Cannon every 7-8 turns, doesn't cut it. Would be more elegant though. I know I could have played better with the micro and everything, but I must be missing something in the later game, because attacking 5T earlier can't be the solution. 1250 AD Rifle/Cannon combo should be good enough to win average games, no? :/

 

[Fippy]

Nice Lain, i can look at your Optics save now (but not further)..have my own, been slow with playing today
(def want to play this one until the end too)

I saved 1t before Optics, thought this maybe shows some planning for that turn a bit clearer (like Pedro's nice trick with whipping a settler + chop into Cara).
Only 2 Caras for me i think, all on the same side anyways..one from island city which is crappy but can contribute something this way.
Would be interested in what you think about the added Engi in Nov, for a faster either GS or Engi (golden age if Engi, or maybe can do something else?)

 

[Pedro78]

Depends on the game, on who you're attacking etc. It's "easy" to have a good cannon stack when you reach Rifling (say 15-20 cannons). Then drafting should give you enough production. Here's toku @1330AD save -- Vicky was a walk in the parc, capped her after taking 3 cities (GLH & Kremlin ) because she had just gotten Steel, was close to AL&Rifling so I didn't want to take risks. Now I'll re-ship my troops to visit Brennus (he has Rifles but not close to anything dangerous and I have a bunch of troops). Can see that I have manageable unhappiness and very good production (it's a good island though). An important thing is that you don't always need a city to have its own food source if you're going for workshops+drafting. The endgame is going to be pretty rough, but I think I'll have a good shot at domination (unless I fail taking Brennus out).

1250 AD Rifle/Cannon combo should be good enough to win average games, no? :/

In some (iso) games, you can have 1000AD Rifles+Cannons, on others it's not possible until close to 1400AD -- you shouldn't focus on the attack date, but on what AI you're attacking and what it takes to beat it

Edit - @Fippy Can't look at the save, but did you build Scouts/Explorers for the Caras? It's pretty good to meet AIs / circumnavigate faster -- with only 2 Caras I'd say it's almost required. Else you can board them with a GS -- just be careful with barb galleys in this case

 

[Fippy]

Yep i have 1 explorer and will try getting the first GS (after Academy) into the other one.

So we settled all cities in the same spots

 

[Pedro78]

It's lunch time for Toku

Spoiler :

Played a few turns later, and it seems like the AI won't send many units at you when you've got too big a stack (he only throwed a couple of Grenadiers). Brennus not having iron for Cannons does definitely help though.

 

[Pedro78]

I'll stop here. Notebook lagging and not much fun anymore -- I'd rather play the Stalin map sooner than spending another 5h taking this to domination or Space. Would've been more fun if the AIs were more advanced -- but here I'll get tanks before Monty. A few screens..

Spoiler :

Brennus had a bunch of units for an 8-city AI

(I deleted a bunch of units to save on unit costs with Pacifism)

War weariness slowed Oxford down a bit -- not an awesome place for Oxford anyway, but not much else to build and I still have at least 3 big techs to get (AL, Physics, Industrialism) -- then it depends on whether aircraft is required (most likely not, Pacal has gone culture mode so he won't have anything dangerous (only Inf & maybe tanks)

What are the chances for an AI getting this many great priests?

Pretty nice city btw (low size because I got a GP here).

@Rusten how did your game go?

Edit - @Lain From what I've experienced here, when you're attacking an AI that has Rifles the most important thing is to land with enough units (gotta scout him out first, which I didn't, but really had lots of units from previous war). It's also quite important to initially land on a hill, because your stack is going to sit there for several turns and take out lots of units. Then the AI will likely be weakened and it won't be able to counterattack against your big stack. Just gotta have enough units.

The real problem imo is when everyone has Inf or MGs or Artillery by the time you attack, or if the AI you're fighting gets these units very early in the war. I have yet to see a game where this is the case, but I'm sure it can happen. In this case the best is probably to settle more land (islands etc.) and tech to Artillery yourself (has to be planned early, though). Also, not every map allows for this..

 

[Izuul]

It's possible to get 1T cannons in most cities on the turn you get Steel by whipping Trebs ahead of time and then putting them back into queue (combined with 20 OF or chop hammers from elsewhere), right? Or i guess with forges you can also just whip them at ~25/80 and that will also result in 1T cannons.

I'm playing the Stalin game btw, and it seems to be going well. Looks like i settled my cities in the same places as you guys as well. I thought pretty hard about settling the island city, but decided trying to get the galley would mess up my plans to get a 3rd great person.

The only thing i really regret is not building a 3rd worker early on. It didn't really hurt with my initial 4 cities, but i wasn't able to do much of the prep work for cities 5-7. I think for awhile the worker would've cost nothing, and then only 1 GPT after i built the trireme.

Also not wild about the GE points in the GS pool, but i wanted the Academy early on and Novgorod is also kind of slow to get started due to lack of forests so the library and scientist specs there were kind of late. Spoiler: I do eventually get a GS at 80 something %. With an Engineer i guess it would've been 1 Astro bulb and then a golden age to finish it. Not as good, but not a complete disaster.

Attaching my Optics save.

 

[Fippy]

Almost the same game as me Izuul, really funny

Pedro shows the real problem with "regular" games..in multiplayer you want to complete them, in gotm or HoF you also want cos you play against others..and here he will not if i understand right.

Civ4 end game is boring, i always said that.
It's not on us that we stop so many games.