Enders Game 1: The Training Game Competition - Team 1

Emperor vs. lower levels.
  1. Happiness. Only 1 happy person sucks!
  2. Faster AI build, say goodbye to ancient age wonders.
  3. Faster AI expansion/build/research. Its so hard to keep up.

What I learned.
  1. Place second/third city to take advantage of surplus BG.
  2. If there's nothing worth researching, shut it off. Republic is worth research.
  3. Attacking early without roads is possible.

What do I still want to know.
  1. Worker priorities are still a mystery to me.
  2. City placement when jungles surround me confuses me.
  3. When should I stop making swordsmen and start making horsemen?

What to do next.
  1. Get a forbidden palace.
  2. Research towards MT for our UU. Build at least Leo's and make lots of horsemen.
  3. Contact the other continent.

Please tell me where the FP should go, when it should start building and what to do to make it finish faster.

Since I am AWOL over the weekend, I can't finish my turn until Monday. Is that OK? If not, skip the rest of my turn and use the save above.
 
Q1 - 1. We don't have to do our own research in the ancient era, can just sit back and accumulate the gold. I expect this to change later of course, but for now it seems Min Sci. has been the way to go.
2. Happiness and unhappiness. Now your second citizen automatically finds your lovely town too crowded and this puts extra strain on your economy and puts extra emphasis on hooking luxuries up earlier.
3. The AI expands just that little bit faster, meaning there is more pressure on prioritising your city sites and grabbing the best land as quickly as possible.

Q2 - 1. Amount of workers - This may sound trivial but I never really built enough workers. This game has taught me that a lot of workers really make a large difference to the game, and I can really see the difference.
2. Building an army that only becomes useful after upgrade - I never realised the power of upgrades before this game. I never built warriors or chariots for mass upgrade and I can see now what a very useful tactic this is. If you have enough gold it saves you tons of shields.
3. Research can be actually stopped - The thought never even crossed my mind that you may not even want to run a 40 turn minimum on a tech you aren't going to need - instead just cash in on the gold and wait for a more useful tech to become available. In particular, not researching Monarchy and instead waiting for The Republic to become available.

Q3 - 1. What to do about trading for luxuries? I've never been any good at this. Do I pay loads for them? Ignore them and slide up the Luxury Tax? Do I sell them for gpt as often as possible, or try and use them in a deal for another luxury?
2. Do I switch to running at a high science rate in the middle ages? Or can I still get away with minimum science runs on techs?
3. Do I want to build wonders? Or should I just steal them off the AI?

Q4 - 1. Establish ourselves as the dominant world power ie to have the most land (hopefully destroy both Vikes and China in the next age?) and to be tech leader or joint tech-leader at least.
2. Get ourselves into such a position that we are ready to war with our Cossacks.
3. Get our forbidden palace up in a solid spot.

Q5 - One thing I want to learn from you Speaker is about build priorities in my cities. At the moment I generally opt for town improvements over military units in times of peace - is this right? Or should there be a mixture so that I ensure I have a strong military in case I ever have to go to war? Which improvements get priority? Universities or Banks? Is a marketplace more useful than a cathedral for happiness (depends on number of luxuries I suppose)? Do I need to build many defensive military units or are they mostly just upgraded?
 
1) What are the 3 biggest differences between Emperor and lower levels?

I find it a much more intense game. PLaying MOnarch in a casual way would often as not land you in victory.
In emperor you must pay much more attention to what your workers/citizens are doing.

Trade often, trade sharp.

Do not hestitate if you are about to wage war. Better to spend all your assets to a short powerful war, than some
half measure that quickly leads to a stalemate.

2) What are the 3 best things you have learned in this game?

The AI is not smarter, just more powerful.
Stay low on research, cheaper to pull up from behind.
Do not waste shields trying for wonders. It is often more powerful using shields to build infra/pop/military.

3) What are 3 questions that you still have?

When to start trying for wonders ?

How to time prebuilds for wonders.

For how long is it needed to carefully MM each and every city.


4) What are 3 goals you have for the next age?

Get answers for the above questions. :)

Try to learn how you skillful players manage a win with Knights/Cavalry. I usually have to wait for Tanks/Modern Armor.

Try better to learn what aggravates an AI. I want to learn how to keep them happy with me.


5) What is 1 thing you would like from me in the next age?

To keep up the good work in commenting our rambling accounts on what happened. You are doing a great job thus far.

Grimjack
 
I managed to get some time to post.:)

Change all temples to librarys. Move warrior from Moscow towards Kiev. Upgrade veteran warrior in Kiev. Warrior in Tblisi moves to replace Moscow's MP.

BT Tblisi built spear>barracks.
Celts built Collusus
English start Great Library.
Stack of 3 viking archers don't attack sword in jungle road but move N off road, still in jungle. Single archer next to scout/sword heading to pillage horses.

(6) 630BC

Viking war: Scout move and pillage horses. Sword covers scout. Sword kill archer outside of Trondheim on grass road. Remaining swords could stay in jungle hitting Trondheim in 3 turns or all step over archer corpse and attack next turn. I decide speed is better than defense and all move to the grassland S of Trondheim. Spear on mountain heads N towards Molde, replaced by Tblisi. Swords near Yakusk, move onto the road for better mobility. I'm not chasing archers into the jungle. We'll hit them when they move into the grass land NE of Yakusk.

China war: Scout move onto road towards Novogorod. Sword south of Sverlovsk ignores warrior on the hill and heads W. Elite sword moves into Yakusk but waits for warrior to emerge from jungle onto the fur road before attacking. Choose not to attack with sword on slave stack in Sverdlovsk either. The Sverdlovsk has two warriors and the attacking warrior is only a regular. The town won't fall. If the sword loses the attack it would leave slaves exposed. He shouldn't lose on defense being in the jungle. Hope the warrior dies or at least loses a lot of HP in its attack on Sverlovsk. Sword fortifies. Swords and settler advance on Bejing. 2 ready to attack next turn. 1 with settler 1 turn away. Fortify wounded in Novogorod. Send the well sword to cover the mountain as that is the only tile withing attack range of the Chinese roads. Wounded swords fortify.

Upgrade veteran warrior in Kiev. Switch all sword builds (2 due next turn to horsemen). We're making enough progress that swords men would take forever to get to the front. Plus we'll end up upgrading horsemen rather than swords as thats our UU track.

Trade:
Vikings will give Bergen, Odense, worker and all 7g. They're in the middle ages but lack our Monotheism. No deal til we take Trondheim.
China wont talk.
Ottomans have traded up to middle ages and got Feudalism. They want Monotheism and 32g for it. I wait for now but I am confused since Montheism is worth more than Feudalism IIRC. They have 3g and will be recieving our maps soon.
England has 1 gold but only offers WM for WM. They still lack Currancy.
Egypt offer 1g for WM. OK. They're in the middle ages, lacking Monotheism but having 214g, and 6gpt. They offer all they have for Monotheism so I know market value is higher.
Monotheism and 32g to Ottomans for Feudalism.

Map Trading
Celts have no gold so Trade WM for WM.
England WM for WM. 1g from Ottomans and Egypt. Galley move SW instead of W so I can learn 1 tile in 2 turns rather than 2 tile in 1 and no tile in 1. 1g from Otto, Egypt and England. Galley move; if my eyes aren't deceiving me, there is sea, three tiles over (breadcrumbs). Good place to try suicide galley but not with this one, he's still making money. 1g from Otto and Egypt. England is out. Back to coast. 1g from Egypt and Ottomans.

Monotheism to Egypt for 210g + 6gpt. This still isn't market value but I don't want to miss out on the gpt which slows their research. Choose to sell Monotheism because it opens 2 techs they could research.

Moscow gets wheat and uses river road for 1 extra gold, worker and growth in 1. I left Odessa working coast last turn though instead of wheat. This turn it can make the horse using mine instead of forest for better growth, but still needs coast to avoid luxury slider increase. :( MM-Kiev to food. Horse in 2. Once we grow, we can get 10spt. Same MM for St. Petes.

BT Warrior on hill takes 1HP from warrior in Sverdlovsk and then dies. Warrior leaves Beijing to the north. Archer leaves Canton and goes into Jungle around our fortified Mountain. Archer near Beijing goes N. Looks like they're heading to Novogorod.

Moscow worker>settler, set to 6spt, 4fpt.
Minsk horse>horse. Odessa horse>horse

Ottomans start Great Lighthouse.

(7) 610BC

Horses are sent to Smolensk because China war still has too much jungle. Krasnoyarsk founded, starts harbor but next leader can change. Library (for border expansion) would also be good.

Viking war. First sword redlines but kills spear in Trondheim. Second sword captures the city without losing a HP. There are 6 resisters. I just keep the conquering sword in town while the other swords stay nearby, covering the wounded. Start worker. Can't starve because they are all resisting. Only improvement is the Oracle. Slave heads to end of road and will road his way back to Vladivostok through the gems. New capital is Stavenger which is about as far from Moscow as possible and not connected to any resources, only 1 town (Reyjavik). It's a high food, low sheilds town with floodplains and soon a cow. Scout joins sword stack. His cover just makes it back onto the road. Spear advances to Molde and verifies a spear covering. The viking SOD of 3 archers is now back on the road (where they were 2 turns ago). But now we have four swords on the road within striking distance. Interesting to note that Chinese warrior fortified in jungle rather than advancing to the fur square. I wonder if leaving Yakusk undefended would draw him out. I move the elite sword E. First veteran sword kills archer and promotes to 5/5. With only 2 archers in the stack left, they can't kill our entire SOD near Trodheim and even if they win their 2 battles, they'll be left on grassland. I'd rather attack there than in the jungle. so remaining swords fortify, waiting for counter attack or something from China. Plus our new elite would be uncovered if the veteran attacker loses. Actually, realizing there is only 1 road, the swords covering our wounded are moved along the road to the dyes. This prevents Archers from approaching Trondheim. Even if they both win, They'll be split up and vulnerable. They still offer Bergen and Odense but doubtful on Oslo (size 1 in the desert so probably sitting on a resource) and Molde (1 gem connected). Others are Insulting. I wonder if peace is more expensive since we're at war with China?

China: Scout roams all the roads near Novogorod and notices an Ottoman conscript near the dyes. Ends on the same tile as he started, watching for military from Xinjan. Sword on mountain fortifies. Other two stay fortified as they will be full strength next turn. Archers nearby are in jungle and on hill. They can't strike Novogorod next turn so I let them be. Swords at Beijin fortify waiting for the others to catch up. Nearby warrior would be attackin across river.

Map Trading. England wants WM + 2g for theirs. That makes me curious. I look around and see a green border sticking out N of where the 2 exposed tiles were. There is another galley crossing there. I check but no one has contact with the other civ. Our galley is still 10 turns from the first crossing and 13 from the green border.:(
Celts WM for WM. Egypt and Ottomans pays 1g. England WM for WM +1g. England explored the two dots area which turned out to be a two tile island.:lol: Egypt, Celts and Ottomans pay. Galley move, England, Egypt, Otto pay. Repeat for other 2 moves. BTW, founding a city also counts as a 1 tile map change and I could have gotten 2 more gold from Egypt and Ottoman if I had waited to found Krasnoyarsk until the map trading was done.:(

Odessa takes the wheat. We are strong against China and Vikings so I switch Kiev to library to gain a few tiles with border expansion. Same in St. Petes. We need some culture too and earlier culture is better than later culture. Smolensk changed from pike to catapult. (cheaper) Tblisi changed to worker.

BT Viking archers attack swords redlining one and yellowing the other but we win in the end for both.

(8) 590BC

Vikes: Scout first moves SE of archer who appeared from Bergen and is on the wheat. See no new units coming. Elite sword kills archer. Scout retreats towards Trondheim to be on the road again. No resisters were quelled last turn. Wounded sword enters Trondheim to heal. His healthy comrade moves out to protect the jungle SW of town as that is accessable in 1 turn from Molde. Swords wounded by suicidal archers move into the same jungle to heal with protection. Swords on road move to jungle tile NW of Molde. Sword and spear in jungle join in jungle SE of Molde. Molde will autoraze if conquered.:( They now offer it in peace with Bergen and Odense. This is exactly what their willing to pay, not 1g or WM more but I accept. Twenty turns from now we should take Oslo and potentially finish them off. Peace.

China: Swords attack Beijing. First dies redlining his foe. Second redlines but kill spear. Third finishes 1HP spear and takes Beijing. With low culture, China is not a flip risk so I keep the city. Sword on Mountain kills archer on grassland next to Novogorod. There is still an archer and a warrior but they'll be attacking a well healed Elite over a river so I leave the sword on the mountain rather than bolstering city defenses. This may be weed. Warrior we were waiting on by Yakusk has run away. Sword goes W and finds him. Horses head for Yakusk. They will be needed more for next Viking war. Settler near Beijing just waits. I wish he had gone with the Viking Task Force. China will now give Chendu or Xinjian for peace but not both. Xinjian is near our empire. Chendu is worthless to us, in desert near everyone but us.

Trading. Vikings offer 4g for our world map. They have 2 workers for sale. That would help prevent them from rebuilding in the next twenty turns. I sell them Monotheism for 2 workers and all 14g + WM. Mono won't help them much in 20 turns but Feudalism would have. All four civs give 1g for WM. Galley move, 1g from 3 civs. Repeat twice with 2 civs. Slaves move to river road to mine for Krasnoyarsk.

Odessa uses forest and coast for no growth but happiness and horse in 3. Moscow takes wheat. Kiev mm-shields library due next turn.

BT Chinese warrior we're chasing moves to hill. Warrior attacks Novogorod across river and takes 1HP before dying. Archer uses 2 attack to pillage.

Kiev library>horse as SunTsus is probably lost to the cascade. Yakusk worker>library for border/culture. Sevestopol library>worker. English built Great Library. English and Celts start Great Wall.

(9) 570BC

On the viking front, 1 Elite sword returns to Yakusk. Remainder move towards Bergen as build up for Oslo.

Elite chasing warrior moves W next to Xinjian. Horsemen approach Yakusk. New worker starts roading process back toward Smolesk. Viking slave starts road toward Vladivostok choosing to go one extra tile to avoid Celt border expansion. Scout near Xinjian moves N then S seeing no units.

Celts have no gold but get WM for WM. Sell to all others for 1g. Vikings pay 3g. Galley move, 3civs give 1g. Repeat. Last move reveals nothing.

Moscow MM-gold, 7spt, +4fpt. Odessa gets wheat but this is the last time until Odessa gets an aqueduct. With hill mined, Odessa can get 10spt with no growth. Minsk MM food, adding 1 turn to horse but shaving 4 turns off growth.

BT warrior moves toward Scout. Archer fortifies in jungle.
Egypt switches to and completes Great wall. Celts and London are building Great LightHouse but that's all on the wonder front. Beijing quells resistor and riots.

(10) 550BC

Switch Kiev to SunTsu due in 66. We can use this as a prebuild for Leos or one of the other wonders but it has a slight chance of succeeding because Celts don't have Feudalism. If England gets before celts get Feudalism, its ours.
Swords move to gap between Bergen and Oslo. Scout sees archer fortified on Reykjavik border.

Hire scientist in Beijing. Smolensk citizen put back to work. Trondheim hires 2 taxmen for starvation. I'm in a standoff with China as I wait for forces to heal and units to group up. I opt not to attack fortified archer in jungle. Sword follows prey again. Other sword moves towards Xinjing.

Moscow takes wheat. Odessa can do 10spt at no growth but figure we can peel worker off in 2 turns. MM as necessary to grow or not. Svedlovsk could switch to worker due next turn if the threat from China is small.

I leave the galley moves to the next player because trading with AI is involved. Trade for Celts WM and sell until noone wants it, leaving civs that offer WM for WM til last. Repeat as necessary. Then galley move E, trade, galley move NE, trade and head for safe waters.
 
1) What are the 3 biggest differences between Emperor and lower levels?

The sheer amount of unhappiness. Civil Disorder in a size 2 city?!

The fast tech pace. If you try to research every tech at max in the Ancient Age, you’ll be several techs behind and have nothing to trade.

The expansion of the AI. If there is a good spot for a city that’s not by your capital, odds are it’ll be taken by the time you can send a settler there.

2) What are the 3 best things you have learned in this game?

How to run a no-science gambit in the Ancient Age and still manage to keep tech-parity. Be able to get to the Middle Ages with only research one tech is sweet!

“Advanced Micro-management 101” Sure, I did some micro-managing in my other games, but I never would’ve thought of switching control of a irrigated wheat, that was deep in the radius of the capital, between two cities.

How useful upgrading units really is. I never upgraded my units in my games, and never in the large-scale of our Warriors to Swordsman army. Heck, sometimes I can find Spearman in my cities in the Modern Age in my other games.

3) What are 3 questions that you still have?

When should one start clearing jungles? Especially jungle that is so close to our capital.

Should I trade techs to a Civ that is several techs behind for junk change?

At what point should we start our own research, and stop with the no-science gambit?

4) What are 3 goals you have for the next age?

Start a war with the Chinese and finish off the Vikings.

Build our FP in a good spot.

Grab Leo’s if possible, make a lot of horseman, and do a Cossack rush!

5) What is 1 thing you would like from me in the next age?
Umm, I don’t understand the question.
 
Well played ControlFreak. Your tireless trading of world maps has expanded the treasury nicely. I'm almost wondering if this continual sale of WM after each galley move could be considered an exploit (If this is the case at least then I have an excuse other than pure laziness for not doing it).

I feel sort of stupid saying this, but good luck Speaker! :)
 
@ControlFreak: First things first. Map trading every turn to pick up some extra gpt is a great thing to do, although it does border on exploitative. Some (including myself) would argue that a human player would never give his entire income each turn, as the AI often does, for map information that is not really changing. It has never really been discussed much, though I did bring it up once, in LK38 I think, and Sirian felt the updated information was worth the 1 gold, so I let the issue slide. With that said, I think trading, then moving the galley and trading, then moving the galley and trading, then moving the galley and trading is definitely exploitative and I would request that we do not do that anymore in this game. I think we can all see why it is a cheap (though definitely beneficial to us) move. To be totally clear: map trading once per turn is okay, but using the galley and trading several times per turn is not okay.

1) Hiring a scientist instead of using 10%. If you have a far-flung and corrupt or recently captured or jungle-covered city that can spare to lose a citizen, or if you have a city that needs a specialist, but doesn't need an entertainer, hiring a single scientist is a great move that can save you lots of cash.

2) Your micromanagement is top notch. Efficiency is key and we are starting to understand how to best manage shields vs food.

3) Battle management was generally great. You kept the high ground, didn't sacrifice units unnecessarily, and had enough force where necessary. We could afford to be leisurely in our pace here because neither of our foes have mounted units. In a different circumstance, we might not have been able to afford to let units hear for a couple turns, so barracks near the front would be a necessity.

4) Switching swords to horsemen was great move. :goodjob: The age of swords is over. Soon we will find the age of Cossacks (I intend for us to be war-free until Military Tradition so we can work on peaceful building) and swords will be outdated (too slow).

5) Your trades were good. I was planning on having us do an exercise in brokering, but I don't think I was clear enough in saying that, so you picked the save back up where you left off. In any event, it appears that there weren't many trades to be made anyways, so no harm no foul.

6) Starting a few libraries was good, but you didn't start enough. I will be breaking out the veto stamp very soon.

7) Why a catapult in Smolensk? :smoke: There's gotta be something better to build (like perhaps a worker??)

8) SunTsu in 66? :smoke: That is way too long to waste building a mostly unnecessary wonder from a core city. Kiev still lacks a market, temple, and granary and will need a university and bank before those 66 turns are up. Furthermore, now that we are in Republic, we should soon start irrigating some of our mined grasslands. This will require happiness buildings though.

Overall a good turn ControlFreak. As always, your report was thorough and easy to follow. Peace will be made with China soon (after some leader fishing) and we will start to consolidate our empire.

@All: I was wondering when someone would notice that there was a Civ missing. Does anyone besides me know what Civ it is?? First player to report who it is wins a prize. ;)

Edit: Looks like I was hitting the :smoke: myself. I don't know why I thought we were in republic, but you can ignore the comment about us needing to irrigate our mined grasslands. Sorry!
 
Originally posted by Speaker
@All: I was wondering when someone would notice that there was a Civ missing. Does anyone besides me know what Civ it is?? First player to report who it is wins a prize. ;)

It's those sly Greeks hiding away on another continent.
 
IT- I pull out the Veto stamp and make liberal use.

Novgorod: Looks like a great place for the FP to me. Let's get it a courthouse and start the FP as soon as possible.
Smolensk: No need for a catapult now. I switch to a worker, wasted shields be damned.
Odessa: Library for basic culture and because we want the flexibility to be able to turn on research if we want to.
Minsk: See Odessa.
St. Pete: See Odessa.
Kiev: Marketplace to raise our income and help with happiness once our luxuries are connected to Moscow.
Tblisi: See Odessa and to expand borders in that central area that we do not have full control of yet.
Molde: See Tblisi.

Galley moves toward green borders. I take a slight risk and attack the Archer across the river with the vet sword from Novgorod. Shuffle a few troops to get closer to Canton.

IT- Warrior moves onto hill. 1 resistor is placated in Trondheim.

530BC (1) Smolensk Worker => Library. St. Pete Library => Marketplace. Vet sword takes down warrior near Sverdlovsk. Workers clear forest near St. Pete. Workers mine hill near Tblisi. Swordsmen approach Canton, staying on high ground. I will take one extra turn to make sure I am not attacking across a river. Trade maps around getting 1 gold from everyone. Galley continues to move toward mystery civ.

IT- Chinese archer tries to act threatening but fails.

510BC (2) Odessa Library => Marketplace because aqueduct will not be useful until we are a republic and can irrigate grassland. Borders expand and Sevastopol now has access to the wheat. I start chopping the forest and work on a granary. 5 swords move into range of Canton, only 1 of which will be attacking over the river.

490BC (3) Trondheim starves down to size 5 and has only 1 resistor.

Attack on Canton
Vet Sword dies to Reg Spear, taking 1 hp.
Vet Sword kills Reg spear, losing 2 hp.
Elite Sword kills wounded Reg spear, losing 1 hp. No great leaders is spawned.

Canton is captured and 3 slaves are caught.

I make a decision here to attack Xinjian with the three Elite swords who are there, rather than take the city for peace. At this point, I find a potential Great Leader to be more valuable than a jungle-infested city. It is too bad that it didn't work, as Xinjian is razed for nothing, but the chance for a free FP was definitely worth it. We can now get Chengdu for peace, but I will hold off to try to leader fish a bit more.

I micromanage Kiev to slow down growth. Why? When it grows it will require a specialist anyways, so may as well get some extra shields before that happens.

470BC (4) Chinese ablige by bringing two warriors within range of Canton. Elite wins without a scratch but alas no leader. Resistance ends in Canton and Trondheim. England shows up with the Republic.

IT- Chinese warrior attacks and is skewered.

450BC (5) Moscow settler => Worker. Continue to start Trondheim which is down to size 3 now. I switch it to a library since starvation will get it down to size 1 faster than building a worker. We can get the Republic in 13 turns with no loss by upping science, so I go ahead and do that. We have a ton of money and no use for it until we become a Republic and it doesn't seem like anyone else wants to discover a technology for us to buy. We are not really prepared for Republic, with little irrigated grassland, but our luxuries should all be connected in the next 10 turns and the better corruption will help us tremendously.

430BC (6) Found Riga in the jungle south of Trondheim. Protect it with a sword and start Library. Republic is now due in 11 turns.

410BC (7) Moscow Worker => WOrker. I change the Governor setting for Moscow to "emphasize food in this city" so we do not have to keep selecting the wheat tile every time Moscow builds a worker. This is not a bad thing to do to make micromanagement easier on yourself in worker farms. Beijing and Trondheim both starve down to size 1 and go to work on Libraries. Minsk Library => Marketplace. I have sent my elite sword from Canton wandering toward the other Chinese cities to try to get an attack in before I make peace.

390BC (8) It appears that England made contact with Greece and traded it to the Vikings for Monarchy. We make contact with Greece ourselves as our galley stops next to theirs. Alexander has 119gold but lacks many techs. He has Incense and Silks that we can get our hands on as soon as we have a harbor. I trade him Math and Horseback Riding for 119 gold and his WM. He has a decent sized island with 10 cities. I trade the contact around because if I don't, someone else will. Anyone who doesn't have any (or much) money to spare gets it for free for a rep improvement just for the hell of it. We are now the top-ranked Civ with 489pts.

370BC (9) Moscow Worker => Worker. I beat the Celts to a city spot near the dyes by 1 turn. Sorry Brennus! England is a Republic and Scandinavia is in Anarchy.

350BC (10) Dyes are connected so I go through and reassign citizens to their best tiles. I misclick with a worker next to Kiev so he uses up all his movement. I don't reload because it's really not worth the effort at this point. Keep in mind that I do think it is okay from a moral standpoint to reload here, but I just don't feel like it. I make an ill-advised attack with the elite sword on a Chinese spearman on a mountain and barely win. I take Peace with China for Chengdu, 47 gold, and their WM. Tsingtao was "getting close" but I don't want to pass off the turn still in war, giving the next player a mixed message. :) I also build an embassy in Athens, which is protected by 3 hoplites, produces 12spt at size 6, has a granary and temple, and has access to horses. Greece is running 60% science and 40% tax.

Conclusion- A pretty standard builder's turn following a war. We are in a very powerful position and will not have to go to war for a while. When our treaty is up with Scandinavia in 8 turns, we may want to attack them and take Oslo and Hareid and try to leader fish a bit. A leader to build our FP would be quite beneficial though we should not count on it. As soon as we get into Republic we should rush the Courthouse in Novgorod and start the FP. We will be in peace mode for a while now, building infrastructure, clearing jungle, developing tiles. The slower the tech pace moves, the better for us. I don't think we could ask for a better position starting the Medieval Age. :goodjob: to all! Let's keep it up.

PS- I have been rather vague in my reasoning for what I did because I want you to ask questions. Ask me to explain a specific act further and I will gladly do so.

EG1-Team1-350BC
 
And a screenshot for lurkers and players alike.

EG1-Team1-350BC.jpg
 
Here are my "answers" to the quiz:

Biggest Differences between Emperor and Lower Levels:
1) The AI starts with extra units and workers, meaning they expand that much faster.
2) It is unlikely for the human player to be the tech leader so it is best to broker and buy and carefully use minimum science.
3) The increase in happiness requires special attention to be paid to the luxury slider.

Three best things I have learned
1) Jungle takes 18 turns to road with a non-Industriaous, native worker. Thanks ControlFreak for the great table. If I had a printer I would print it out and keep it by my computer.
2) Expansionist is such a powerful trait every time. Scientific has barely helped us this game, while Expansionist helps right from the start and puts you into a powerful position right away.
3) There are lots of good Civ3 players out there who are willing to put in the time to get better. You four will be beating Deity in a month or two without a doubt.

Three questions I have
1) When do we start clearing jungle?
2) How is Team 2 doing? The suspense is killing me. (@Lurkers: Don't give us any spoilers, we will find out soon enough)
3) What happened to Infoman? He joined and was kicked out and never even made a fuss about it!

Three goals I have
1) Continue the fine play that we have had so far.
2) Improve our peacetime skills and put ourselves in a strong position entering the Industrial Age.
3) Make the world bow down to our Russian Imperialism. :worship:
 
Emperor vs. Lower Levels
1) Three of you remarked about the change in happiness. SHard says that there is an increased emphasis on hooking up luxuries earlier. We didn't put any such emphasis and in fact, I advised you guys away from hooking them up at the detriment of our tile improvement. Careful use of the luxury slider and getting MP where it is needed most easily can take care of the extra unhappiness. Isn't this what happened?

2) ControlFreak says it is hard to keep up with the AI in research and expansion, but that didn't seem to be the case at all. We easily dominated the first age by making smart trades and hording cash without wasting money on techs that others would research for us. Orbit really hit the nail on the head with his comment about research.

3) The AI is not smarter, but just has more advantages. These can be negated through solid, fundamental play as we showed here. We are now tops in score and are definitely on track for victory.

The best things we learned
1) How to manage research using Minimum Science. Sometimes even turning off research can be a good move. :)

2) If you manage your research and brokering well, you can liberally upgrade your army and cause massive damage. Poor Scandinavia and China.:hammer:

3) How to best make use of our land by specializing our cities to take advantage of what we have. Those two early barracks pumping out troops while Moscow took care of settlers and workers worked awfully well.

Questions we still have
1) When do we start clearing jungle and more broad, how do we manage our workers?
Difficult to say. We will start clearing widespread jungle when we have enough workers to do it quickly and when we don't have a lot of other more important projects to take care of. We still have plenty of grasslands to irrigate and hills to mine so the jungle will have to wait.

2) When do we start doing our own research?
Keeping the tech pace leisurely is helping us right now. I usually don't go full bore until I can get something from the AI for my researched techs. Another great move is to pick and choose what you research. For example you turn on max science to get Printing Press, which you then trade for Invention, Gunpowder, Banking, and Astronomy.

3) When do we start building wonders?
As soon as our core cities are developed and can build them in faster than 66 turns.:) Also once we are strong in terms of infrastructure and and military. The only wonder that I would really go out of my way to get in this age is Leonardo's Workshop, but not if we have to start a prebuild now and not build a library, marketplace, etc. in the wonder city.

4) When do we stop making swords and start making horses?
Now. The age of infantry are over and it is now onto the age of Cavalry.

5) Do we trade for luxuries or use the luxury tax?
Best is to do whichever is cheaper. We will have 4 connected native luxuries in a few turns, so the 5th luxury will bring us a lot of happy faces. Generally, if you save money by paying for the luxury rather than raising the luxury tax, then it is a good idea to trade.

6) How long is it needed to carfully MM each city?
As long as you can stand it.:)

7) Do we trade techs to a Civ that is behind for junk change?
I believe that was answered, so I'll cut and paste.

I keep trying to catch the Ottomans up, but they have no money in their treasury.
This is a tough decision. Catching them up will lower prices, but it will also speed up the tech race and possibly take away brokering opportunities. I would say that unless they have some real money to give us, let them stay backward unless catching them up will really help (ie. gifting them the last tech of an age so we can get first crack at their free tech).

Goals
1) Get our FP built in a good spot.
2) Become the tech leader and world economic power.
3) Cossack rush!
 
Looks like a nice couple of turns there people.

Good to know we have the Oracle before we had any temples :)

Grimjack

Ps, This sunday , the 22nd, I will lose internet access for two weeks. Will take family to holiday in Greece. Probably be lots of :band: and some :beer: as well.
 
Thanks for all the comments Speaker! And good turn also :) That is a nice little empire we have there - by the looks of things we've claimed all the jungle there is for miles around.

If either China or Scandinavia has no iron , could we finish them off with knights? No iron means no pikemen and would it not be better to use our cossack rush on a couple of more powerful civs than those two.
 
Thanks Speaker! As always your comments have made me think about Civ in new (and better) ways.

Questions about your turn:
If you're leader fishing, why would you destroy Xinjian rather than just sitting outside and waiting for units to show up? Or better yet, send the elites to towns that we couldn't get for peace. What is the fate of Chendu? Do we have to defend it heavily or are we just going to abandon it if the AI attack?

Questions about your comments:
How much irrigation is to be done? Do we destroy mines to do it or just irriate the unimproved tiles?

Are we planning to attack Vikings with our swords or horsemen or something better? Will a courthouse help Novogorod? It seems to be far from the capital and way down on the list of closest cities. Workers should prioritize the FP build? I never now whether to move the workers over from the core to the second core or make a new worker force from the second core.

What is to be done with the eyesore Eborecum (Celt) sitting in OUR part of the map? Can we handle a short war versus them?
 
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