earth 18civ tutorial

[pirus]

Hi Joe - thanks for your continued input

I've rolled over Monte now - though it took me a lot longer than I was hoping so I'm actually behind in my techs compared to Eurasian and African civs.

I'm starting to catch up through trading and cottage spamming is really helping now I've got Currency and Banking but the lead AI civ (Cyrus) is still a good 500 points ahead and its 1600 AD - so I think I've most probably lost this one already (although I am beating my friend)! I've also yet to colonise Eastern South America but I think thats my next best bet to launch an African attack!

 

[BlackShabbat]

Brilliant tips (this is a bump i want more posts!)

 

[JoeHollywood]

Feel free to ask me anything if you have something specific. I still play E18 a lot, as well as some of the earth mods like E35, etc.

Also you can check out www.civearth.com

 

[BlackShabbat]

any tips on playing China? im guessing it would in a way be similar to playing Japan in the sense that take out ghengis then either india or Japan

 

[madscientist]

To play China I usually worry about expansion first to keep Toku off the mainland and India out of South East Asia. I will usually declare on Toku if he get's a foothold on the continent.

Grandpa Khan can be managed through diplomacy and intelligent expansion until catapults, however a rush on Mongolia is still a reasonable approach.

The biggest ealry issue with China is destroying Mongolia and keeping Toku off the mainland. Once that is accomplished you should exploit the terrain for trade and commerce and build up a mighty economy and military. Expansion generally is through India/Persia/Arabia then Europe or Africa. Central Asia I generally leave to Catherine and Cyrus unless they become overly hostile.

Late game I generally find hitting the west coast of the America's an interesting gameplay.

 

[markiz2001]

there are 2 ways to play china

easy way - kill mongolia
hard way - kill japan

what you want to do as china is to 1) expand to mainland china 2) expand to the islands to the south, and get all the good ones.

your main rivals to the islands are japan, and india. india can be dealt with by simply closing borders, when they send a galley to settle the islands. japan on the other hand, can be blocked with closed borders, but thats more difficult, it's better to just kill them and take their super capital. but that's the "hard way". if you can't manage this, then you'll have to share the islands.

the "easy way" is to kill mongolia, take their capital, and perhaps 1-2 other cities to the NE of china, since they are good cities. the rest of the cities suck, so dont bother with them. just make peace and continue settling.

it is better not to attack mongolia however, since you should focus all of your energy at building settlers,galleys and colonizing the islands before your rivals do. also keeping mongolia as a buffer between you and barbarians is also good. but, if they attack you, you have to defeat them and take their good land.

-----------------------------

-on earth18 map, you should always build Stonehenge
-also, tech to calander ASAP, since that's the only way you will get commerce and happy resources.
-it's also good to send your warrior to the west as soon as you can (open borders) to meet all the other civs and hopefully have religion spread to you.

 

[Sidney Magal]

Joe, I started a thread to discuss strategies when playing Spain. Take a look if you can.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=367901

 

[JoeHollywood]

I'll do China first...YAY powerciv!

China rivals Rome and Aztecs as the games "power civ"

First suggestion would be to settle one east on the coast, the lighthouse/harbor/etc will be make it worthwhile. It also puts you closer to the horse.

Tech Strategy would be to put a major emphasis on calendar. You won't have any happy/health issues and expansion will be much easier with the ability to work calendar resources.

Now for how to handle the nearby civs.

Kill mongolia...fast...fast as you can.

Genghis AI will build rediculously large armies. They will be behind you in tech but they will throw swarms of 50 keshiks on you and overwhelm your higher tech units mid/late game. Put them out of their misery with your first couple warriors and your first chariot. If Mongolia is a human, warrior rush against their scout.

Genghis as an AI WILL declare on you somewhere around turn 70 every game, no matter what your relations are. Save yourself the headache and just make him dead.

Mongolia land also secures you a uranium for late game play.

Japan as a human, make a deal. A human japan can stagnate you in a war all game and put both of you out of contention. I'll normally let japan have all the islands, or even all the islands and korea and give them like 150 turn peace treaty.

As for an AI Japan, the AI is TERRIBLE at japan.

Oftentime they will only build the one city on Japan proper and try to get their second city either around north korea or in southeastern china.

If they land on the mainland, just take their city, as for taking their island cities, hit with overwhelming force. It's better to take 5 galleys full of 10 units, than 1 or 2 galleys and spending 5 turns to ferry stuff. So for land cities, declare and then take peace after you take the land city. For the islands, hit once, very hard, and take it out.

Wonder strategy...Try for

Mausoleum
Apostolic Palace
Sankore
Spiral Minaret

General rule of thumb with China...ABE

Always Be Expanding

Hope that helps, if I let something out drop me a follow up.

Joe

 

[JoeHollywood]

I put a quick reply on your Spain thread.

Your placement looks good, just be bloodthirsty and kill them before they kill you.

 

[wertyu70]

Could someone post a dot map for city placement for china?
I find difficult to get all those juicy resources.

Currently I'm playing a modified Earth 18 map, mongols starting position is different,
they start near a horse west to their original position.
I noticed that in this way they can expand more and they are a better rival.

 

[dalamb]

I don't know enough to do a China map, but just for grins here's a map based on JoeHollywood's plan for England:

I decided to plant cities with the WB instead of doing a dotmap 'cause it shows city order (London, York, Nottingham, Hastings).

 

[Sofar Sogood]

I have been interested in Earth 18 civs as of late, and I've been wondering if anybody has a map, like a big picture, (with resources and all) stashed somewhere for reference. I always have a lot of trouble with remembering exactly what's where early on in my games, and I think that partly hurts the whole "Play the same map, but get a different game every time" feel. :S So if anybody'd be willing to share one, that'd be cool.

Also, any suggestions on city placement for the Japanese isles, ala the English city direction?

 

[dalamb]

Here was the main Japan post I could find earlier in this thread, but Joe didn't mention specific locations there -- other than getting 3 cities on the initial island.

BTW I earlier doubted Joe's claim you could reach the Americas pre-astro, but I figured out where he meant to plant a city and use an art bomb -- just west of the 2 mountains in furthest east Siberia. A 4k art bomb expands your territory 2E of the easternmost mountain -- the furthest you can expand your territory across water. You can just barely reach land that way, though you can't sail a ship down the coast (ocean in the way).

 

[Sidney Magal]

Joe, I was playing with OvO the other day and he said that Paris should be settled on the horse to rush Rome. What do you think about that?

 

[Alki]

Drama is a very good tech for Japan...don't forget your culture slider. Remember galleys can travel on the ocean if within cultural limits ( for those of you thinking about dropping a great artist to make the early drop on america, you get a bonus point )

OMG. I never knew that's how galleys worked. I'll start a new game and try that tonight. Thanks, Joe.

 

[JoeHollywood]

If rome settles in place, warrior rush it.

If you see rome move to settle on iron, then settling the horse and chariot rushing is viable.

I like france where it is, a lot.

However if rome kills you on turn 35 then it's irrelivant.

 

[madscientist]

Joe, have you ever played the 34 leader earth-map that NEAL plays occasionally on teh King of World series?

Would be interested in your opinions on Hammurabi and how much you Bowman rush.

 

[JoeHollywood]

Haven't played E34, but I do play E35.

I tend to play on the very aggressive side so I'm sure I'd go nuts with them.

I also tend to bias my responses based on a multiplayer perspective.

Which means I tend to go from simpler diplomacy rules, no tech trading, and balance my strategies based on the strength of the player rather than the strength of the civ.

 

[BlackShabbat]

Thanks for the china tips i think i already generally do what youve said but dispite what joe said i prefer to place my capitol where it starts than one place to the right (east) i then take the only none resourced place in korea and then place a city on the hill below a single mountain that is at the thinnest part between us and india next city is on the cows in east china before this time ghengis has been killed by a couple of warriors and couple of chariots after that i expand as much as possible as fast as possible evn though it reduces my research to about 20% soon as these cities have started to pay for themselves i may be behind in tech but im catching up fast and hope to have the colossus in korea for when im taking the pacific islands, even though Japan takes some of these islands i dont declare war and eventually take over australia (about 8 cities) and liberate it purely so i dont pay maintenance and tokugawa, asoka, cyrus and saladin cant make use of it then take india then japan (vassalising them) (india as a buffer) at this point often catherine had got several vassels sometimes even cyrus :s this is my problem as i cant declare war without getting swarmed by catherine and co also if anyone could post a pic of the map for china with where they think is the best city placements i would be very grateful thanks

 

[Spectrite]

I've been playing as Greece on Earth18 recently (single player), and I've found what I think is a better place to settle the capital than the starting position.

I think it's a better city site overall. Note that there is copper on the hill 1E of the city tile, so you get earlier access to phalanxes. It also blocks Rome, and you can always settle the peninsula later. I usually follow up with a warrior or phalanx rush of Europe (depending on difficulty), starting with Rome.

Is moving the capital to this site a good idea, or is it unnecessary?