Discussion of HOF power plays

SirPleb

Shaken, not stirred.
Joined
Jan 1, 2002
Messages
1,415
Location
Nanaimo BC Canada
(This is a continuation of a subject started in the Civ3 High Score HOF Opens thread which didn't belong there.)

Last message from other thread, Grey Fox said:
I usually play at Emperor, and I recently started my own Deity game on a Huge map with 8 Civs. Both times I had no horses within miles, and I was playing China (Indoustrois must ROCK on huge maps, and Militaristic is always good...). And both times I never came to the stage were I needed to Pop-Rush, It just made my cities worse, I could actually produce an archer every 4th turn in 4-6 cities and a Settler every 4-6 turn in 3 cities, without Pop Rushing.

Questions to the 2 Deity-Rockers Aeson and Sir-Pleb:

When do you pop rush?
How fast must the city grow to be a good pop rusher?
How many citizens should the city have?
Do you ever waste more then 1 citizen by poprushing?

And about the Tech-Race on the Higher difficulties. I always go for the Great Library, I build it in a River-City with improvements concentrating on Mines, I always build start building a Palace when I'm about to get Writing, then I start Literature and I almost always gets it. Then I lower my tech research to 10% and sometimes 0% when I now I won't get the tech before the comp.

Well, I've currently gave up on Huge-Deity, and will play Huge-Emperor instead...

Locking forward to any tips from you!

I pop rushed in this game from the beginning. I put a city beside each each wheat or cattle tile I found, seven of them before the string of them gave out. I irrigate that tile. (Even if it means irrigating a number of tiles to get water there - when this is necessary it is useful to place the city where it will save one connection, the city passes the water on once you bring it to one side of the city.) Put one military unit in the city for happiness. Rush granary first, then barracks, then military units. I rush the city every time it grows to size 2 and has at least one shield already toward whatever it is currently producing. If it can't produce its next task with one citizen (e.g. granary or cavalry) then I switch production to something which costs 40 shields, rush that, then switch production back to the real target. Next time it reaches size 2, rush the real target.

There are variations of course. It can pay off to have a single city working 2 cattle/wheat for a while. Sometimes (especially early on) it can be good to let the city grow larger than size 2. If unhappiness doesn't prevent it, it is good to get the extra cash from more working citizens. You can often squeeze a warrior out of the city before rushing its granary. It might be worthwhile to squeeze a temple or worker out of the city early on.

When a size one city has one irrigated wheat/cattle tile it produces 4 extra food/turn. So that's .4 of a rush per turn. You can squeeze a Horseman out of it every 2.5 turns. I got 7 of them up and running as soon as possible, for 2.8 Horsemen/turn.

I haven't set up pop rush cities with less than an irrigated wheat/cattle. It could work of course but the number of turns between rushes would go up. The ideal is a wheat on an irrigated flood plain, for 5 extra food/turn. I think that if you found the city on a flood plain itself, that also gets extra food, am not sure. If you get two food bonus tiles within one city's area, you could use two warriors to control unhappiness and increase the rush rate.

The only times I've used pop rushing of more than one citizen at a time is when I deliberately want to reduce population. E.g. if I capture a city which has 8 citizens remaining once resistance is over, I'll often rush a Colosseum to use up 5 citizens.

About the tech race: It sure would have been nice to have Great Library! But by the time I learned (i.e. beat it out of another Civ :) ) Literature, it had already been built. It wasn't necessary for my strategy anyway and I didn't have any town I prepared for serious building. For most of the phase when Great Library would have helped me, I had research at zero, money was more important. I got most of that era's tech by buying it from, or beating it out of, rival Civs.
 
I'm always babbling on until things get off topic ;)

I was able to build the Great Library on my game with a leader, the difference between Emperor and Deity is night and day when it comes to wonders. On Deity it would have been built long before I could have gotten that leader as it was my second one, the first having made an army. I didn't get a single tech out of the GL because of the number of advances from huts, but it was worth it to slow down the AI's tech progression.

Sounds like our expansion plans were quite similar. The only difference is I built a scout, scout, settler, barracks and then granery in most cases. My city garrisons were mostly handled by warriors that I was able to get from huts. A few Impies would switch back and forth between any cities needing to grow to size 3 for settler production. My main pop rushing cities were all built next to two 4 food squares. This wastes a bit of food and takes an extra garrison, but keeps each city producing a unit every other turn with a granery. Later on I set up cities to use a single irrigated flood plain wheat tile each, which also results in a rush every other turn. Also, I was able to take the city that built the Pyramids as one of my first conquests, which was a great help.

Pushing the domination limit, so far I've built about 30 more cities from the point I thought it would be triggered. It definitely isn't 2/3rds of the landmass as the manual states. In most of the games I've played to domination, it's been more like 4/5ths. Whether this is because of coastal and sea tiles counting or not is beyond me.
 
Great Help, from both of you...

I haven't poprushed a thing in my game, and it's 170 BC. The main reason is because I didn't need to and I hadn't met any civs yet... they are a long way from me.

I recently found a desert with alot of Floodplains, The Floodplains cover over 30 Tiles, and there is 4 Wheats. So I will build at least 10 Cities in that area...

Im also packing my cities real close, they get 12 tiles each, and they share 9 tiles with 6 other cities, so each city will have about 13,5 tile.

I also built the Collussus, and the G.Library.

I only researched Ceremonial Burial, Mysticism (I needed to switch from Pyramids to Oracle to G.L because I built it in the Capital.), Pottery, Alphabet, Writing and Literature.

And now I only have Constr. to go to the next era...

Edit: I just noticed one thing, my closest neighbours, Japan and America, none of them have Iron... Will I Rock when I get Riders or what...

Edit 2: Uggh! I just noticed another thing... I don't have any Iron either...

Edit 3: Hey, I got Construction in a Goody Hut! Means that I am in the Lead...

Edit 4: I just bought the World Map... both the Japanese and The americans have Iron, and I have iron far far south...
 
Originally posted by Grey Fox
and I hadn't met any civs yet... they are a long way from me.
That sure adds to the tension at these levels! I worried for a long time about how the "other" Civs were progressing. I was on a continent with 8 Civs plus a 9th one a Galley-hop away. But there were 7 more out there somewhere. (A long way out I eventually discovered.) The constant worry is, are they ahead in tech? Far ahead? I was especially nervous once I'd significantly hurt a number of the locals, impairing their ability to do research which I could subsequently squeeze out of them.

Something which surprised me when I first encountered it a few games ago: Don't under-value your maps! You can trade your maps for a fair bit when you first encounter one of the others. Maps and communications seem to get traded very quickly among the AI Civs, so I try to do all major trading related to this in a single turn at the first chance. I lost that opportunity in my current game, the two continents first connected through one of the other local Civs. But I still got a bit out of the initial contact, they hadn't completely finished trading communications (which they also value very highly) and maps throughout the entire world of Civs by the time I got to the bargaining table.

The Pyramids sure are a help, and especially nice when pop rushing. I couldn't get them of course, doubt it is often possible at Deity. And unfortunately the Civ that built them was on the other continent. (If they'd been local that would have put them high on my priority target list :) ) The first wonder I got was Sun Tzu's.
 
If the both the Computer and I finish a Wonder on the same turn, who will get it?

My guess is that I will get it, but you'll never know.

Both have 12 turns left, so if you are fast. I might read your post before I actually knows the answer...
 
Originally posted by Grey Fox
If the both the Computer and I finish a Wonder on the same turn, who will get it?

There`s a fixed order for whose turn it is. That means if it says 1 turn left for you and at the same time you spy out the other and it says 1 turn left, it depends on that order who gets it. You can see that in After Action Replay: the order the cities are founded is the order you play in
since the AI always slaps the first city down right away...

I hope I`m right on that one ;)
 
Originally posted by Killer


There`s a fixed order for whose turn it is. That means if it says 1 turn left for you and at the same time you spy out the other and it says 1 turn left, it depends on that order who gets it. You can see that in After Action Replay: the order the cities are founded is the order you play in
since the AI always slaps the first city down right away...

I hope I`m right on that one ;)

Don't want to "off-topic" this thread one more time :p , just a reaction to killers post! I also observed that after EOT the comp first processes AI units, then processes cities, with at least my cities going from oldest to youngest.

For the powerplayers, is a humble short-in-time monarch / emperor HOF player still welcome in the thread? :) :)
 
Originally posted by Killer


There`s a fixed order for whose turn it is. That means if it says 1 turn left for you and at the same time you spy out the other and it says 1 turn left, it depends on that order who gets it. You can see that in After Action Replay: the order the cities are founded is the order you play in
since the AI always slaps the first city down right away...

I hope I`m right on that one ;)


I actually think I would have gotten the Wonder if we would have had the same building speed all the way to completion, but his city grew (Mine was already a 12 size city, tweaked to hell and starving... I even had workers standing by to fill the starvers place.) so I didn't get the Sun Tzu's... I had to build the Sistine, which did not fit in my plan. I would never build a single Cathedral...

Anyway I have started a new game, because at the time I had about 50 Horsemen marching towards America and Japan, they had Pikemen and my Pop-Rushing of Riders didn't satisfy me...

So I'm gonna play as Iroquai and Really Pop-Rush Monted Warriors from the start, now that I know the Pop-Rush technique...

I built my cities on the Floodplain area pretty tight, but if I would have squezed them in a little tighter, like every other swuare, and not placing them on the Floodplain. I would have gotten twice the amount of Pop-Rushing Cities, and about 12 or so Horsemen every Turn... probably even more.
 
I think this is a good place to digress, many of the posters on this thread (me for sure) will happily run off on a tangent without knowing it. It isn't a "sticky" type thread where it matters much. Don't go quiet on us Beammeuppy, we'd get worried :)

Grey Fox, too bad you didn't learn more about the order of completion for us :). Sounds like you are off to a fun new game though!

Flood plains really are deadly for rushing. I never saw it before but one of my attempted starts for my current game had two wheat/flood tiles right at the start. Seemed like a very lucky fluke - at first I thought WOW this is going to be great. Then I thought, no, I'll blast right through and then won't feel like I really accomplished much, it was too easy. I think I said before that I wouldn't rush less than a cattle/wheat. On reflection that isn't true, at the start of a game, if all I can get is an ordinary flood plain tile then I'll irrigate and rush that to get rolling. I guess I've become a bit addicted to the whip. I wonder what the upcoming patch has in store for us in this regard?
 
GREY FOX HERE

The only thing you really need for Horseman/Sworsman Whipping is one worked tile that generates 3 or more food.

But when it comes to knights you need to have cities grow to Size 4 quickly and you have to use 3 citizens to rush them...

then I recommend one floodplain/wheat tile and 2 other irrigated tiles... My cities had 2 content and one unhappy that had to become a specialist so it might be good to have a Temple in the city to...
 
Originally posted by SirPleb
I think this is a good place to digress, many of the posters on this thread (me for sure) will happily run off on a tangent without knowing it. It isn't a "sticky" type thread where it matters much. Don't go quiet on us Beammeuppy, we'd get worried :)

Grey Fox, too bad you didn't learn more about the order of completion for us :). Sounds like you are off to a fun new game though!

Thanks for the encouragement SirPleb :goodjob: :goodjob:, I was just in doubt how to start my next game, dammed job causes a time management issue, yet just decided next game is a fun, time-efficient, HOF worthy Large Emperor game. Alternative was a lower level game, given the low number of entries in HOF, hell that has a reason isn't it? Promise to keep you informed, I'll ask you for advice!
 
I'm beginning my cleanup phase at last. I finailly encountered the Domination threshold on this map. It is about (I wasn't counting, just a guess) 400 tiles more than the point where I originally stopped expanding. It sure is a lot more than 2/3 of the land!
 
The player always STARTS the game first ALWAYS. Or else the save game editor would be in trouble trying to give correct positions AS the A.I would have already build cities.

Only if the player never build a city in the first turn would the A.I have a city first.
 
Might wanna rethink our strategy's...

I have to test the Despot pop-rushng and see how much the penalty is, and see how to use it effectly...

Or we have to concentrate on building concentrated production centers...

I hope that the Courthouse and Police building works better against waste.

Seems like Im going to use the Chinese alot in the Future, with the ability to upgrade the horsemen to Riders they will be great.

It would really be cheating if I load my game with 50 horsemen and upgrade them right... :D

Of course I won't do that... :)

Seems like I never will be able to beat the AI on Deity :(

Just as I'm beginning to really learn about despot-pop-rushing It won't be as effective....

Chinese, Militaristic and Indostrios and with the ability to upgrade horsemen, that will Really ROCK!
 
The Duke promised to allow some time for 1.16 games, so do not worry to much for current games. But Deity will be way harder on 1.17 if I read the posts well!
 
Yes it is going to make Deity much more challenging. The same basic strategy will still work, just another means of production will have to be used. This means longer military buildup stages than with constant pop-rushing. The fact that you can upgrade to later UU's should offset this somewhat, the Japanese, Russians, and Chinese are looking much stronger now. Have to see just how much difference the retreat %'s change mobile combat though.
 
I've finished my monster game and it worked! :) :) :) Deity, huge, with 15 rival Civs. Standard map settings for everything but huge size.

It is a six-way win - all victory conditions can be had from the 2049 save. Final score 34564.

I had some bad moments right up to the end worrying about the Diplomatic win, thought for a while I'd blown that one. That is the victory condition which I think adds the most challenge to the mix when going for all of them at once. Cultural was more challenging than at Monarch level - I decided to time a city to pass 20,000 in this game because I could not be sure (at the start) that I wouldn't have a rival left at the end with over 50,000.

A very challenging game, it was great fun. I wonder if it will still be possible after the patch. We'll have to see just how the changes work.

Oh no! I just tried posting this message with the save file. It zips to 501xxx bytes (max compression.) The limit here appears to be 500000. Not sure what to do to post it...
 
SirPleb, congrats on the Monster Game! I am downloading it right now. Do you remember the victory sequence, if possible with years and what were "early" score bonusses?

btw, just saw a close call in the Monarch section of the HOF. :D :D :D :D

Good luck next time!
 
Thanks Beammeuppy! And congratulations on your HOF placements, well done!

I was hoping I'd get my monster game to The Duke before the next HOF update but it looks like I wasn't in time. Oh well, I'll just have to wait.

The zip file I posted includes a .txt file with instructions for playing the last move to get each of the victory conditions. There's no speed bonus since I timed all of them to happen in 2050.
 
Top Bottom