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

[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.

 

[Izuul]

Yep, once you reach the point where you feel pretty certain you will win the game, there isn't much left to play for.

Also, probably not THAT much of a coincidence our games are similar considering how many other games we have played together.

 

[Pedro78]

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.

It's even easier than that -- just put anywhere between 1 and 4 hammers into a treb and 3pop whip it -- that's a "free" cannon (assuming you have a forge ofc)

Civ4 end game is boring, i always said that.

I wouldn't call it boring. The main problem is that there is so much stuff to micro if you want to play it "well". So if you are already in a winning position it's boring to keep playing. But if you have a clear goal in mind (good win date, or just are not in a great position and want to win), it can probably be very interesting. Going space can be fun aswell.

 

[Izuul]

It's even easier than that -- just put anywhere between 1 and 4 hammers into a treb and 3pop whip it -- that's a "free" cannon (assuming you have a forge ofc)

Very true.

 

[Lain]

@ Toku game... interesting that you only pre-built 5 Trebs. I guess going for Rifling really gives enough time to just build up normally. Did you even whip that much? Or mostly workshop-production? Because I usually whip about 200 times, I guess that's where problems start. Never recover from that and reinforcements slow down. Maybe it's a illusion that whipping is really "faster". Anyway, since I added Drafting to most preparations, everything works much smoother... having to whip Galleons+Frigates+Maces+Pikes+Cannons is just too much... in too little time.

It's really rare that I can just go pure cannons. Don't know why, but they are all teching like pros. When playing Pangaea or just normal Continents, they sometimes don't get Rifling until 1300 AD ... but once I play isolation they start playing serious suddenly and race to Artillery. Or you have Monte who is a bit behind but has a 40 units SOD.

I still have many questions about the actual war... Guess you need a lot of experience to bring exactly the right amount of units for the "first wave". But just the workshop thing is a bit of a conceptual breakthrough for me already . Just sometimes there doesn't seem to be enough production for what's needed.

Kind of stopped believing in Vassalage a little bit. If you tech to Rifling the beaker loss is kind of tough to take, no? You stayed in Bur too, Pedro.

PS: You got more saves from 1000 AD or so?

 

[Fippy]

When are you switching into Vass usually, Lain?
I find Bur really important, after building up a cottage Cap with Academy while still teching

Hmm there was something i wanted to add too about Pedro's Toku game, oh yep..
we can see attack date is so much more important than pre-building 5xp units, only longbows and old stuff still for Vicky.

I think spreading a Reli for Theo works much better than Vass if you can do so, cos Bur Caps are often 50% of our research. And they can even get more units with the 50% hammer bonus.

 

[Fippy]

An interesting question, when should we include cheap techs in trades?

Spoiler :

I usually use those for info (Civ Illustrated is nice too), Ramsy and Justi both have low on being too advanced..think i will just take Masonry and Myst then, what do you think about that? They are cheap techs, but fast catching up is also imortant now

 

[Fippy]

Funny how different games can be, this should be an "easy" one..

 

[Revent]

What is the latest game being played here at the moment? I may jump on and have some fun too. Plus, with everyone else playing it, it'll be a great learning experience.

 

[Pedro78]

@Lain Most of the initial samurai/trebs/cannons where whipped. When I reached Rifling I immediately switched to Nationhood+CS. Later I double-switched to Bur+SP (it's critical to have 12 cities or less when doing a double switch -- with 13+ cities it takes 2 turns, and with 25+ cities even a single switch takes 2 turns)

Vassalage can be good in some games. When you're not going for Rifling immediately, then Vass is very strong. When you're attacking with Rifles then it's less important to have 5XP cannons.

Guess you need a lot of experience to bring exactly the right amount of units for the "first wave"

Who talked about "exactly the right amount"? You only need to bring "enough"

Btw the two things that I messed up the most in my game were forgetting to trade CoL+Philo+Nat early enough (had to give away expensive techs for CoL&Philo) & bringing too many reinforcements to Victoria (could have attacked Brennus sooner). 1000AD & 1200AD saves attached.

I think spreading a Reli for Theo works much better than Vass if you can do so

From my experience this is rarely possible, and even then it's usually a questionable move. On these fractal maps adopting a religion early might really screw up your trades. Plus you have to get the right religion spread early enough AND invest the necessary hammers into it (60h Monastery + 200-300h in Missionaries). And even then it's an extra 1T of Anarchy. Not saying that it cannot be good in some games, but it's usually not a good option imo.

@Revent https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...rm-fractal-nh-ne.612863/page-34#post-14981058

 

[Revent]

@Revent https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...rm-fractal-nh-ne.612863/page-34#post-14981058

Just had a go. Probably a bit too hard for me. Need more Deity practice first.

 

[Pedro78]

If you want an easier map, you can play the Hannibal game linked in the first post

 

[Rusten]

@Pedro78 My game is going fine, but I can't keep up with your rate of playing/finishing games.

At astronomy now. Will probably get a save zip up later tonight or tomorrow morning. Think I got optics 2 or so turns after you, but with 6 matured (size 6ish) cities. I'm sure there were room for improvements. Also got a little screwed by super early Chicken Pizza.

 

[Lain]

When are you switching into Vass usually, Lain?
I find Bur really important, after building up a cottage Cap with Academy while still teching

Hmm, usually as soon as available. Other option would be to tech until Steel and then switch while pre-whipping units. But I think ~20 turns of Bur are not worth the extra anarchy? And then I go Nationhood anyway, so... much easier with SPI

Cuirs are just too easy to get for the AI and they have too many cuz they love building Knights and upgrade, so ... go Team Rifling~