Discussion of HOF power plays

[Bamspeedy]

And this SECOND Core area (with the F.P) should be built sometime when the OPTIMUM city # are almost reached (might be later in a POWER PLAYED HOF game, with the massive expansion), or atleast try to BUILD the F.P (Yes build, not rush) relativly early. If possible in the Ancient Era, but most likely in the beginning of the MIDDLE AGES.

My first try at Monarch level:

I'm currently BUILDING the Forbidden Palace in my game (beginning of the middle ages). What really helped out is that I'm having a golden age. The city was about 15+ squares from the capital (Huge map/pangea/ 8 rival civs). I have about 65 cities, so that city is 50-60% corrupt even with a courthouse, but with a golden age it will take 19 turns (fits in perfect for the golden age!). I haven't fought a battle yet, so have no great leader. Playing the Aztecs, so I got the golden age from Sun-Tzu's (with pre-building the palace, when I finally bought Fuedalism it took only 11 turns to finish the wonder).

I decided to set myself up for Monarchy by putting not 2, but 3 units in each city, so the max 3 Military Police were already in place (for Monarchy). Refused to connect my iron to roads (pillaged them if auto-workers did build a road). This way I was able to pump out jaguar warriors like crazy (don't need fancy, expensive units for military police). I did take the time to build the Pyramids myself, joining settlers to the capital and boosting luxury expense helped it take only about 30 turns to complete the wonder.

It's currently 800 A.D. I have about 30 of my cities producing nothing but knights, each completing a knight every 5-7 turns (5 knights/turn). So it won't be long before I have a force ready to conquer. In my original cities I am just building temple, courthouse, aquaduct, marketplace. I have 3 luxuries hooked up, with another one soon to be connected. So I won't bother with cathedrals and colleseums like I had done in the past. Set science to 0%, so no libraries. Those darn Egyptians (which I had everyone ally against) advanced all the way to Astronomy before Engineering. I was almost worried I wouldn't get JS Bach's (I couldn't buy Theology until I had my golden age, then found out I was 2 more techs behind in that part of the tech tree )

I've done no whipping in this game. Now I'm just wondering what the other 3 civs are up to, they are somewhere out in there in the unexplored territory.....

 

[SirPleb]

Wow Aeson, you've got your settler flood up and running at deity level! Very cool demanding those early cities and getting away with it at deity!

I've been thinking about your Scientific+Expansionist Knight idea more. It sure sounds appealing. But the squeeze to get Chivalry early enough might not work with 1.17. But the next patch may create a bit more room in the timing again.

By what date do you think an Expansionist Civ can get all the Ancient Times techs? The research of Feudalism and Chivalry might be slow I guess - does 20 turns each for them sound about right?

 

[wohmongarinf00l]

the aztecs are finished and i now lead the tech race and have the greatest land area.
my next target is the iroquoi to the west. they are already itching as well...i have had to keep them happy since we tore up the aztecs. i am counting on my MPP with russians to the north to help me in my upcoming campaign against them. the japanese live halfway accross the world and are leading in score.

if i can manage to squeeze theory of evolution in next 3 turns without it being built elsewhere since everyone has converted their universal suffrage shields to theory of evolution, it will help me widen the tech lead.

do MPPs keep other civilizations from attacking u?

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Grey Fox
When is the perfect timeand place to build your F.P?

I'm not sure, and it certainly is a key decision in each game! I usually build my FP at the first possible opportunity, i.e. with the first great leader. My thinking is that doubling the number of productive cities is a top priority. I usually build it at the center of the most productive area I've seen so far, as long as that doesn't have much overlap with my Palace region. I sometimes wait a bit until I have a good enough area available. I haven't worried about the FP region connecting with the core region - if it happens to even be on a separate land mass that's fine with me, I just want a highly productive region.

 

[Grey Fox]

Originally posted by SirPleb
I'm not sure, and it certainly is a key decision in each game! I usually build my FP at the first possible opportunity, i.e. with the first great leader. My thinking is that doubling the number of productive cities is a top priority. I usually build it at the center of the most productive area I've seen so far, as long as that doesn't have much overlap with my Palace region. I sometimes wait a bit until I have a good enough area available. I haven't worried about the FP region connecting with the core region - if it happens to even be on a separate land mass that's fine with me, I just want a highly productive region.

I don't think i mind them Overlapping anymore... I even think that that is the key to make the most Superproductive cities in the game.

Have the two Palace's so close so that you get an area that will make many high shield cities. But not too close.

 

[Aeson]

On a Huge/Pangaea map where most of the landmass is on one continent, I usually to get to the Middle Ages by 1500BC. This is assuming a Settler in the first 10 or so turns, and build nothing but Scouts and Settlers until you get at least 15 Scouts. To get a power lead on the Deity AI, you need the right map and an early Settler.

Never open a hut on 4000BC if you can help it. I'll often delay my city being built one turn if there is a hut next to my starting spot, just for the chance at a Settler. 2 Settlers on 3950BC are more valuable than 1 on the first turn. After the first 10 turns it should be apparent whether the start is a keeper or not.

In my current game I could have researched Chivalry by 1200BC using a Scientific Civ, building Libraries instead of Temples, and maxing research once I got into the Middle Ages. I was able to research techs in 20 turns at maxed science, even without the Libraries. I just left it at 40 turns though, because I didn't even have Horses or Iron hooked up yet. I really got screwed on resources so far this game.

If you can get Horses hooked up early on and pre-build Chariots, it should be possible to have 50+ Knights by 1000BC. I wouldn't even build Barracks, just Chariots. If your Scouts are holding all the Iron it shouldn't matter that your Knights just start out regulars. If you can beat the AI to Gunpowder, you can target the Saltpeter sources and extend the life of your Swordsmen and Knights. Without Horses I just build Warriors, upgrade them to Swordsmen, and take out the nearest neighbor until Horsemen can be built.

The most interesting part of playing an Expansionist Civ is using Scouts effectively. While at war they can be a huge nuisance, just about on par with Jag Warriors. Cheap, Fast, and can pillage. In my current game I have 1 Scout who's been leading 30+ Chinese units around and around in circles, stopping to pillage roads every once in a while. I had another Scout doing the same, but he got caught about 6 turns in. I moved him up against a Coastline without thinking, and the AI caught him the next turn. I have 3 other Scouts on their way to help. The Chinese are ready to surrender, but I need to cut off their Iron before I make peace, that's why I picked the fight in the first place. I really don't want to have to deal with Riders later on.


My take on maps for Expansionist scoring games:

Every player has their own skill level. The difference between scores in a players own games are going to be based mostly on luck, the map being one of the biggest "luck" factors. If I'm going to spend hundreds of hours maximizing score for a HOF submission, I wan't to have a map that won't be keeping the score low. It's fun to play on difficult maps and still win, but for a game specifically for HOF submission, Ctrl-Shift-Q is a players best friend.

The more Civs the harder this type of game is. 15AI means that almost every city will have some sort of resource within 3 tiles. Even if you have the power lead, no one will have cities which can be demanded. The more Civs the less goody huts to go around. Also it's just that many more resources to keep out of the AI's hands. 8-10 AI is about perfect, the Civs will be nicely spaced. Not too many of them to deal with, but not so few that there won't be anyone to conquer or make demands of.

Contacts often take a while for non-expansionist Civs, the Persians in my game still haven't met anyone but me! Warm/Wet settings are good for keeping contacts down, at least between North and South. All that jungle is great later in the game for population, and hinders AI expansion early.

I usually play on Warm/Wet/Pangaea settings on "score" games. The best map I've ever seen was a Temperate one, but on average they have too much tundra and not enough jungle. I've played enough of these kind of maps that I can usually tell by the latitude and terrain distribution what kind of landmass I'm on.

Good large landmasses tend to have Grassland further towards the pole, in wider bands. Segmented landmasses often have extra Grassland mixed in with the equatorial Jungle. If you see wide bands of plains or desert early on, it's probably not a map for maximizing scoring. It's not an exact science, but can help save you 50 turns just to find out you're stuck on a small landmass by yourself. The multi.sav "feature" is a great way to get a feel for different map settings. It's not something you can use for the actual HOF submission game though, but it will help you recognize the signs of a promising start.

On Warm/Wet/Pangaea settings, I like starting positions close to the center East to West, and near one of the poles. The thickness of the Grassland band should be apparent within the first few turns.

 

[SirPleb]

Those are great tips on assessing the landmass Aeson! And on starting an Expansionist game.

Hmmm, Chivalry by 1200BC, that sure sounds like it has great potential. Sure has me thinking

 

[Aeson]

I'ts 430BC, I'm at 84 cities, and about double the powergraph of the next closest civs. As you can see from the picture I built just about every city with only a tile spacing. I think I'm a little bit ahead of my American game even, but that's more to do with having captured 8 cities and not wasting as much production time on Barracks. Once I get some irrigation down and switch to Monarchy I should hit critical mass and quickly fill up the rest of the map.

I could have researched Chivalry by 800BC on this game, and that's without free Monotheism or cheap Libraries. There wasn't any point to it though, as I just barely got Horses. I hope to have built about 30-50 Mounted Warriors in the next 40 turns, upgrade them to Knights, and then sweep through the Greek holdings.

I should just about take out the Persians by then with my Swordsmen. They have captured most of the Persian's core cities already. My Swordsmen have been taking heavy casualties, but they need to be retired anyways, they wouldn't be any good against the Greeks.

I get 2-3 cities every 20 turns from the Russians. I should be able to take them out eventualy with only the cities I've demanded from them. They are somewhat backwards, and dirt poor. They don't have Horses or Iron either.

The Egyptians have recently passed the Chinese for second place, which is a good thing. I was able to demand 2 Chinese cities, giving me a hold on some northern territory. After my Knights are done with the Greeks it will be the Egyptians turn. I'll ally with the Chinese and hope their Riders don't take too many cities. My Scouts never could quite get to the Chinese Iron to pillage it. One of them made it onto the Iron, but there was a Horseman waiting to kill it. I made peace to save my Scout and took out my frustration by pillaging everything not within cultural borders, not that it did much good. The Egyptians still don't have Iron.

I have a few cities on the other continent. I keep having the Romans, Babylonians, and English fight each other. None of them seem very adept at war though, no cities have changed hands at all. The only casualties of the wars were my cities. I gave them to the Persians whenever enemy forces got too close, I didn't want to lose the units or gold.

EDIT: attachment deleted as it's no longer needed

 

[Aeson]

Just thought I'd mention something about the Pyramids.

In my current game the AI built them in 1250BC. To have built them myself I would have had to take one of my first 2 cities, basically cutting my expansion rate in half. On lower difficulties it might be worth it, as you could start them in one of your cities after 8-10 had been built, not making as much of a difference. On Deity though, it's probably suicide to try.

Besides, just give Masonry to your neighbors and let them do the work.

 

[SirPleb]

That's awesome Aeson! Looks like you are well on your way to an amazing game. The 430BC snapshot is quite something

 

[Grey Fox]

I just noticed the Amount of gold you have Aeson!!!


7000 and increasing with over 200/turn @ 430 BC!!!


WOW, I bow before you... mighty God!

 

[Aeson]

7000 and increasing with over 200/turn @ 430 BC!!!

Actually this was my biggest mistake. I forgot I was playing a Religious civ and was holding off on becoming a Monarchy. Also I didn't notice my treasury had filled up so much until I actualy took the screenshot. I never expected to get so much money so fast! I should have been using all that lovely gold to rush Settlers.

I think I'm going to abandon this game. No way can I finish it before the 1.16f deadline. I just wanted to see how it would work on Deity.

As of 30BC I have 172 cities, 10 Settlers on their way. That means I doubled my number of cities 8.25 times in 126 turns. On average about every 15 turns.

The Greeks backstabbed me while we had a ROP, otherwise it would be closer to 200 cities. I ended up having to rush about 8 Pikemen with gold, each one costing another Settler. All my production cities had to switch to Mounted Warriors, each one costing another Settler. The war was uneventful, I took 2 greek cities and then demanded 3 more for the peace treaty. To think I had been so nice to the Greeks the whole game, extorting them for cities and gold, instead of destroying them. The response rate was much better than I expected, score another for ICS. I had 20 Mounted Warriors and 20 Pikemen at the Greek front in only 2 turns. They weren't able to take a single city (not counting the 2 I gave to the Russians that were sure to fall!), even though at the start of that war I had a total of 5 military units on that side of my empire.

My score is 3308. That's about double my Zulu/Emperor score at the same date. I think a score of 50k would be possible by playing this type of game to 2050, without using the governors or automating workers. I'm going to try a 1.17f Deity game like this. I doubt I'll do quite as well.

EDIT: attachment deleted as it's no longer needed

 

[Aeson]

Rules for an Expansionist ICS scoring game: (so far)

1. Settlers, Workers, and Scouts are the most valuable units. Buy every Worker you see, and try to have roads to each city site before the Settler gets there. Build 15-20 Scouts before switching to (hopefully) Chariots. Use your Scouts ruthlessly, any road outside cultural borders is fair game, pillage it. Start wars with distant civs (preferably not the Aztecs), just so they will build military instead of Settlers. Let their military chase your Scouts around until they are ready to surrender. If you have a Scout on someone's Iron, keep the peace though.

2. Switch to Monarchy as soon as possible. Use all the gold to rush Settlers, saving just enough for military upgrades. A Settler today is worth 2 tomorrow.

3. Hook up Horses as soon as possible, even if you have to break the ICS pattern. Then build Chariots to later be upgraded.

4. Don't help the AI's tech rate at all, except in special circumstances. It's nice to get extra gold by tech trading, but not worth speeding things up. Gold is not a limiting factor, just time.

4a. Give your neighbors Masonry at first contact, unless they are Industrious of course. They should have a decent chance of building the Pyramids for you.

4b. If your first conquest target doesn't have Republic, give it to them right before you strike. Most AI will go into revolution right when they get it. Hitting an AI while they are in anarchy is good revenge for all the times they try to do the same to you. Once they get into a Republic they won't be able to support as many military units.

5. The FP isn't needed with ICS. All the FP will do is move half of the "productive" cities to a new location. This can be useful later in the game, to move part of your "core" to a front where it is most valuable. Not building the FP until later means you can use it to pre-build wonders along with the Palace as well.

6. Use the early Leaders for Sun Tzu's and JS Bach's. The Hanging Gardens are the first Wonder I would consider building, but only if luxuries were rare. In my game I mistakenly built Sistene Chapel, thinking it was JS Bach's. Don't do this!

7. Keep only a small number of defensive units on your borders. The response rate of building up a military is unbelievable. You may lose a couple of hopelessly corrupt cities in the first few turns, but it's not worth slowing down expansion to defend against.

8. Always give away cities that are at risk of being captured. Your treasury won't be sacked, and any units in the city will be teleported to your capitol. In a crisis you can give away those far flung cities which have been building nothing but Warriors and Settlers. The Warriors can then be upgraded at your Capitol and used to defend your main holdings.

9. Only 1 Barracks is needed, and not even that if you get Sun Tzu's. Regular Swordsmen still do a pretty decent job against Spearmen, Warriors, and Archers. Regular Knights have no problems against Iron deprived civs.

10. Sign ROP's with everyone but neighbors. I was getting 3-25 gpt from each AI for ROP's. The value of ROP's is highly linked to power rating and number of cities. Signing ROP's with neighbors is just inviting a sneak attack though. Try to time the signing of ROP's to coincide with invasions 20 turns later. There is no reputation hit for using a ROP to get into position and then strike after the ROP expires.

11. Use your demanded cities to build Settlers to block AI expansion and claim luxuries. Give the priority to luxuries. You won't be able to trade for luxuries for any reasonable amount. Having hundreds of cities means each luxury is worth hundreds of happy faces. The AI realizes this and tries to get huge amounts of gpt in compensation, not realizing that no one in their right mind would accept such a deal.

12. Hook up these luxury cities to the AI's road network, you can use their Harbors, all you need to do is build a Harbor back home in most cases.

 

[Grey Fox]

Do you build cities as close you can to your cities, that is every other tile. Would you grab territory before you build a city so you can fill in the holes afterwards?

Give me an edited picture with numbers and arrows!

I learn a lot from you, as well Sir Pleb, keep up the good work.


And did you know you can use the Worker- Pop-rush - Factories exploit/strategy in HOF games. Or at least that's what I get from the Duke.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Grey Fox
Is it allowed to use the Worker-Poprushing teqnique?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Duke of Marlbrough's answer:
As long as it is something that can be done in a normal game, it is allowed.

 

[Bamspeedy]

10. Sign ROP's with everyone but neighbors. I was getting 3-25 gpt from each AI for ROP's. The value of ROP's is highly linked to power rating and number of cities. Signing ROP's with neighbors is just inviting a sneak attack though. Try to time the signing of ROP's to coincide with invasions 20 turns later. There is no reputation hit for using a ROP to get into position and then strike after the ROP expires.

What if your neighbor starts with iron in their territory? I have a game, where this technique looks almost perfect (3 cows next to the second city site, free settler after about 3-4 turns, etc.), but one problem....The Persians (my neighbor) has iron on a mountain two tiles from their capital! I did get a scout on that tile before the Persians got iron working, but if I don't have a ROP, they will get that tile roaded. Good thing though is that they aren't my only neighbor. There are the french and chinese nearby also.

Do you build cities as close you can to your cities, that is every other tile. Would you grab territory before you build a city so you can fill in the holes afterwards?

I was wondering about this also. Do you place a city two tiles apart in EVERY direction? So do you have 8 cities or 4 that are two tiles from the capital? I realize some exceptians have to be made, like not placing a city directly on a cow, but since most cities won't need more than 3 grassland tiles to make settlers, you could have a super 'dense build' (the quicker you can place a settler, the sooner you can get another settler built).

Also, when do you decide to start spacing them further apart? When you get so far away from capital they won't produce a settler faster than 30 turns no matter what terrain/improvements you have.

Lastly, how many workers do you use, and when, where do you build them?

 

[Aeson]

Scouts in AI territory:

You should be able to hold that Iron tile with your Scout almost indefinitely. Just don't send any regular military units into Persian territory and they won't demand that you remove your Scout. In my experience, the more powerful you are in relation to them, the longer they will allow the Scout to stay. I've never had an AI demand that I remove my Scout before 40 turns. In my Iroquois/Deity game I've had a Scout in Egyptian territory at least 60 turns.

City Placement:

Refer to the picture for the letters.

A. Where I started, looked good.

S. Got a Settler from a hut a few turns in, built the city here. Think I had to move 1 space.

B. Had built a road to here before my capitol built its first Settler. City was founded the same turn the Settler was produced.

Somewhere around this time I made Contact with the Greeks. Was able to demand a city about 15 tiles to the east. Also was able to buy a Worker from them.

C. Had a road 2 tiles towards here, Settler moved onto this spot and built a city the next turn. Would have built closer to A on the road, but didn't want to cover a shield. I should have built the road on the unshielded grassland so the Settler could have built it's city the same turn. This city was using the Cow by A most of the time, and A was using the Game.

D. Gold hills for good commerce. S built the Settler for here, no roads. Built on the 3rd turn.

Somewhere around this time I made contact with the Persians to the east. Bought another Worker.

E. Good food area, Settler was produced in C and built here the first turn as the road was already in place. E and C built Settlers exclusively, one every 14 turns.

F. My first "spaced" city, just wanted to be able to use the Cow and build on a Hill to increase overall food potential.

G. Needed to get that luxury hooked up. This city was basically dedicated to building Workers. It only had 1 workable Grassland tile until forests were cut down. I had bought another by this time.

After this I have no idea which cities were built when, but the placements are right. Most of the cities to the west were built on forest, this picture is from after a lot of the trees had been cleared. Because of the forest my expansion was more east than west early on. Only Grasslands to the east. Whenever possible I built my cities on Hills. Adds an extra food to the city radius.

EDIT: attachment removed as it is no longer needed.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Grey Fox And did you know you can use the Worker- Pop-rush - Factories exploit/strategy in HOF games. Or at least that's what I get from the Duke.

Yes, that's my understanding too. Best get it while you can - seems fairly likely the next patch will end this. I haven't used it in my current game, had enough of managing pop rush towns in my previous HOF game

 

[SirPleb]

I'm in the milking stage of my current monster game. I ended up deciding to milk this one hard. I really wanted to get past 40000 if possible and that looked debatable if I just ran it off quickly. I've been production-shifting and managing entertainers. It now looks like I may end up around 45,000.

One interesting thing I've found is about pollution. I used to think that the level of global warming was tied to the number of pollution symbols in all the cities. I think that was just a bad assumption I'd made. In this game I've hurried all Hospitals before hurrying any Mass Transit. I'm fairly sure now that pollution is a two stage process: The city pollution levels determine the probability of new polluted tiles occuring. The number of polluted tiles on the map determines the probability of global warming. So the main thing while one's Civ is generating a lot of pollution is to have lots of workers. (Easy enough after a major conquest. I just happened to have something well over 500 of them floating around. Maybe much higher, I didn't count ) As long as the workers clean up pollution quickly, not much global warming happens. Aeson noted this already, that it just isn't a big deal, if you peak at 5 or so tiles changed due to warming at the worst point, that doesn't seem important compared to getting the population up quickly. I only reached that level for a while, with 6 tiles changing in one turn, 5 in a number of turns, but usually a fair bit less.

 

[SirPleb]

Aeson, for a change of pace between sessions of milking I've tried a few quick starts using your Settler Flood / Expansionist strategy. I hope you won't mind if I end up going a full game with a variation of it, it really is cool!

The quick tries I've done so far are as Russia with 1.17, 8 opponents, huge wet-warm type maps. One fast shot at each of Monarch, Emperor, Deity so far. It got off and running wonderfully for me at Monarch and Emperor, but my Deity try didn't go as well - the AIs STILL got ahead of me in tech! The huts seemed to pop "deserted" more often and I didn't get all the Ancient Times tech. Maybe it was just an unlucky map.

I think Russia may have a good shot with this technique. Their advantage in cheap libraries could be interesting. I'm wondering if it would be possible to use the cheap (pop rush with one citizen) libraries to launch either a science based or culture based strategy. Science based: try for a tech lead through the Middle Ages and tech brokering to drain the AIs. (Since Firaxis seems to have tried to kill tech brokering in 1.17, an approach which uses tech brokering now seems like fair game to me. ) Culture based: go for a big enough culture lead to cause some flipping. In the deity start I tried I did manage to take a substantial culture lead on the histograph. Early libraries at 3 culture/turn, with lots of towns, sure add up quickly. Faster again than temples. But of course more happiness control is required to offset the rushing. Both of these variants might fail, it might be better to focus all energy on expansion.

I'm getting a big kick out of the way you are mixing in the use of your Civ's power, taking cities for ongoing peace. (And giving back problematic ones.) Makes this whole approach more powerful and more fun!

 

[God]

Question: How do you guys catch up to the AI in techs? I know you heavily rely on goody huts but that only really supplies for the ancient era.
Great Libary is almost impossible to get, so how do you keep up into the Middle Ages.
Does having a large army make it easier to trade with the AI even in 1.17f?
often in my games the AI will give me some tech for 300 gold which is only for one. How would i manage so many.

Also where do guys make all that money. Tech trading seems out of the question.

I'm thinking that maybe lowering the tech rate and earning alot of money which is used to buy techs is the solution for later in the game.
Oh well i'm just a regent player progressing through monarchy... Just amazed by Aeson's and Sir Plebs numbers.

I think i will start a large or maybe huge game on regent. Probably go for spaceship but i want to try to get a continent.

Interesting stuff.