Elizabeth - Emperor - Fractal

[citizenofdoom]

I would be grateful to receive some helps/adivce/stragegy to play next. Currently, i'm going to settle a city near iron + attack khmer empire with construction then build wealth in all of the city for a couple of turns.
Any advice will be welcomed.
Thanks.
A save file of 4000BC and a save file of the turn i'm playing is here :

 

[Swordnboard]

I hate to say it, but you should probably start over. There are some really fundamental things about your game that are way off, and even though you can win from here you'll learn more with a re-do of the early game.

I can give you a few examples of things to work on for now:
-Expansion (5 cities at T108 is quite slow)
-City placement (York is way too far away for a second city, Hastings should have prioritized stronger first-ring tiles since we aren't creative)
-Worker management (Lots of extraneous roads, yet some cities are still working unimproved tiles)

Also, you just seem downright afraid to use certain mechanics (slavery and forest chopping) which will immensely improve your game. London has far too many forests around doing no good, which could be 30 each and be turned into strong financial cottages.

But I think you would be more helped to play just a little bit (say, the first 50 or 75 turns, or even less if you are especially patient), and have others provide comments as well as "shadows" of how they would play the game up to that point. I'll try to post a save at turn 75, as well as some commentary on the choices I made, sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, you could play to T75 yourself, trying your best to build 5 well-placed cities, working all or almost all improved tiles, by that point.

By the way, don't take these comments too harshly: you've done several things quite well, including prioritizing great people and building roughly the right amount of infrastructure, which are subtle and very important. And again, you could certainly win the game from here (I would recommend elephants + catapults for as many neighbors as you can conquer).

 

[citizenofdoom]

Yep, u r right. I did to turn 225 and didn't conquer with war elephant but i build reasearch + get gold from louis xiv to 100% reasearch to Rifing but it's just a epic fail

Thanks for ur stragegy correction ( and i did "building roughly the right amount of infrastructure" thanks to the post "building wealth vs reasearch that manyone argue)
I'll start over again.

 

[mscellaneous]

Had a go at this. For future games I'd advise you to reconsider some game options. Including huts is tempting, but it makes it very hard to compare games and strategies with other players. In my game I popped BW (!) and Mysticism from huts, making it hard to compare progress and early tech path with those players who haven't.

Seeing this is a large map I made some assumptions at T0:
(a) early rush probably not going to happen as neighbors are usually far away
(b) no barbs so no need for early military units and techs (AH and archery)
(c) want a 2-move unit for my wars, probably not HA as I expects I can REX to at least 7-8 cities easily so probably cuirs

Spoiler My empire at T40 :

T0 moved warrior 1N, SIP. 2 cities, 2 workers. Tech: Agri > Hunting > Wheel > Pottery > Writing (in progress). If I hadn't gotten BW from a hut I'd probably research it right after Agri, probably skipping Hunting.

3rd settler will be 2-pop whipped in a few turns, overflow + 1 chop will go into a granary. 3rd city will probably be build NW of the gold. London will re-grow and build 1-2 workers and then either a library or another settler.
4th city will go NW of the Wheat. I will not go for Mids as I expect I need Monarchy for happiness.

The lay of the lands...

 

[citizenofdoom]

That sounds good (and extremely lucky). Mr mscellaneous
but what does REX means and cuir means the 12 pwr unit ?

 

[citizenofdoom]

6 cities at turn 85 3 cities has no improvements.

 

[Zavior]

REX is a shorthand for rapid expansion and cuirs do mean cuirassiers.

 

[sampsa]

My strategy on this map would be to expand to 4 good cities asap, then re-think if I want to expand peacefully or via an early war. The river has lots of good tiles so I think it's clear that next few cities will grab those floodplains.

For example like this:

Spoiler :

I'd also go agri-BW to be able to chop to get those cities asap. The sooner you found them the sooner they contribute. Next techs probably hunting-AH-wheel.

 

[sampsa]

6 cities at turn 85 3 cities has no improvements.

It's not bad, but could be improved a lot by using your workers better. Always prioritize improving food tiles and work those tiles! You have over-improved around your capital and your workers are doing secondary things like building a road or mining a plains hill... You have not chopped at all, while it's the first thing I'd start doing after improving food tiles.

If you want to improve your game, I'd suggest looking at some deity opening play by Lain: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBiPHqnZ3mwIqtraltox6jg/playlists

 

[citizenofdoom]

but chop without mathematics is just a bit ineffecient, i think or rush library by chopping is better ?

 

[sampsa]

but chop without mathematics is just a bit ineffecient, i think or rush library by chopping is better ?

No, it's not. 20 on turn 25 might be worth more than 30 on turn 70. Don't aim to chop libraries, chop settlers and workers.

Expanding quickly is extremely efficient, because every new city wins you (and the first few ones win , especially the lower difficulty level we are). Even on deity people try to expand to the first 3-4 good cities as fast as they can and the rapidity of the expansion is limited mostly by barbarians (without barbs expanding is a lot swifter).

 

[citizenofdoom]

Expanding quickly is extremely efficient, because every new city wins you (and the first few ones win , especially the lower difficulty level we are). Even on deity people try to expand to the first 3-4 good cities as fast as they can and the rapidity of the expansion is limited mostly by barbarians (without barbs expanding is a lot swifter).

Now i know the real power of imperialistic trait.

 

[mscellaneous]

6 cities at turn 85 3 cities has no improvements.

That looks a lot better! I had a look at the save and noticed you skipped granaries in all cities and focused on libraries. I do not think that is optimal here, granaries are such a powerful building allowing you to regrow fast (thus whip more often). You only have 4 workers for 6 cities, that is not enough.With all those forests and flood plains you need more! At least 1 worker per city.

edit: quick update on my game

Spoiler T67 :

4 cities, 4 workers. Alphabet in. London & York have granaries. Haven't build a monument yet. Might change as Nottingham is getting some culture pressure soon. London will start a settler soon, which will probably settle near the double phants east (to block the Khmer). The double gems + fish + silk spot up north is looking tempting. Maybe a 6th or 7th city, pretty far away though

The lay of the lands

Spoiler T85 :

6 cities, 5 workers. So much for at least 1 worker per city Monarchy in 2 turns. In the middle of a Buddist love fest, so might wait a bit to get Monoteism to switch to Hereditary Rule and Organized Religion at once.

The lay of the lands

 

[Swordnboard]

OP, I took a look at your second attempt to T85 as well. I think you might actually have the right amount of workers, but your improvements are too clustered for your city placements. For example, London has a cottage, cornfarm, and camp all unworked, while 3 cities languish unimproved! Also, you've built far too many roads for this stage of the game. But all in all, this is a gigantic improvement, nice work! I played to turn 75 (1000 BC) myself, feel free to ask any questions you have about my play.

Spoiler Comments on my game :

I'm with mscellaneous, saves with huts are really hard to compare. I ended up getting both BW and metal casting from huts that game, which really does make comparisons difficult.

Only built 3 workers so far, though there are more in the works. Made this work by clustering my cities quite close to enable tile sharing and liberal use of the whip. Also tried to minimize waste of worker turns, and only built 4 roads (total) so far since they aren't a very high priority and I was able to make good use of river connections. Liberally whipped all of my cities to build more workers and settlers, as well as put up some granaries and libraries. York is working on a GS which will probably be an academy for london. Planning to research towards horseback + construction and do some conquering with elephants next, louis first since he is so near. Also will probably build a couple more settlers in the next few turns to complete settlement of what's good in the surroundings to the east.

 

[Fish Man]

Endgame spoilers:

Spoiler :

Seems like Willem is isolated. If we switched starting positions this could make for a good deity isolation workshop map, or something for @Lain to play. Then again that island is stellar on its own, and Lizzy is one of the ezmode leaders, so it might be too little of a struggle.

 

[citizenofdoom]

i have an idea, why don't we pyramid failgold to gain 500 beakers from 250 production ( with chop ).

 

[citizenofdoom]

how to convert normal save file into bat save file

 

[Swordnboard]

It's actually a bit better than 500 beakers, since the gold lets you run the slider higher and utilize your library multipliers (and later an academy too), so I like that idea quite a lot. You better do it pretty quickly though, since this is about the time AI start thinking about building the mids themselves. You can also do failgold in multiple cities if you like, just can only be building it in one place every turn.

At the same time, I might rather push the advantage and conquer some land, sitting on our heels and researching into the medieval and renaissance is not as appealing as just getting a dominant position as soon as possible. On that note, it could be better to put the chops into military units instead. Look at Suryavarman's capital! Only 2 weak defenders for some really nice land... and all of the AI will probably be defending like that for a little while longer, so I'd say seize the opportunity.

 

[citizenofdoom]

currently, this is the 5th tries.

 

[citizenofdoom]

I reasearched Cuir by now what should I do next