Oaq
Chieftain
That's funny. I had never thought of such a manipulation. 'Tis a bit cheesy, but clever. I might try it.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 27,068
@Oaq Appears that you do not use the BUG/BULL mod. Highly recommend that you install it. Installing BUG/BULL with the SP Custom Assets option in great for forum games as well. Mod is not loaded and will work for you current game as well. You can BUG/BULL here, as well as Blue Marble too:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/download-bug-and-bat-here.274636/
FYI - BUG/BULL great enhances the user interface and information without changing the game, as well as some other nice little features to improve the experience.
I don't really consider city gifts cheesy, except maybe in the context of AP victories, which in themselves are cheesy. Otherwise, building settlers for a city gift is quite an investment for this strategy. Can be good for diplo reasons on high levels. Right now, this strat is not something I think worthy of consideration for you at this stage.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/download-bug-and-bat-here.274636/
FYI - BUG/BULL great enhances the user interface and information without changing the game, as well as some other nice little features to improve the experience.
I don't really consider city gifts cheesy, except maybe in the context of AP victories, which in themselves are cheesy. Otherwise, building settlers for a city gift is quite an investment for this strategy. Can be good for diplo reasons on high levels. Right now, this strat is not something I think worthy of consideration for you at this stage.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 27,068
Yep, Sulie Oracled Feud. That is unfortunate but happens sometimes on Emperor. Still, that is quite a late date to be rushing with axes. You could have done so much earlier, though I'm not sure that is necessary here.
I might play this a bit, but will note the following observations in your current game:
1) 3 cites by 2100 is not terrible. I think your first city date could have been improved either by chopping or whipping...not sure on timing of this yet.
2) But 3 cities at 675AD is most definitely bad. Generally, consider 3 to 4 cities timed with Writing, and then 6 cities at least soon after ....conquering may apply in situations.
3) AH was probably ok here, but BW after Agri may have been a good call as well with the plethora of chopping fuel.
4) As folks mentioned, chop chop chop. Can also be timed well with whipping overflow. (BULL adds a nice feature as well where workers prechop forests...stopping on the last turn)
5) I actually find this next concept common among less experienced players and that is the being adverse to city overlap. There's a few reasons why city overlap is actually a good thing, but first and foremost it allows tile sharing. One benefit of tile sharing is obviously sharing food resources - adjusting cities as needed. Or even things like commerce resources like Gold if applicable. Also, in the case of the cap or cottage type cities, it allows sharing of cottages to keep them growing. Another factor that is important is distance to cap maintenance costs. The more compact the empire in relation to the cap the lower this maintenance cost. Especially beneficial on higher difficulties as this cost increases signficantly.
6) The axe rush has been mentioned, but I'd state again that the efficacy of an early melee or chariot rush decreases a lot based on difficulty and timing - without siege. 675AD is very late here. You might grab a city, but its a lot of investment at this stage for dubious results. And in this case you found yourself hitting a brick wall with LBs. You could find that to be the case with archers as well or if the enemy had metals themselves.
7) Once you get that nice fast Creative library in your cap you should be running two scientists asap. With a Philo leader getting this going asap I will often just bulb Maths. The next one will come not that long after and can be used for an academy in the cap or a Philosophy bulb. Regarless, the scientists are naturally going to boost your research rate and any other good food cities you may have should be running them as well as soon as they can ( you really don't have that here though)
Note on city placement:
I like Sparta either on the silks to share cows or even closer like on that hill between rice and cows. Horse grabbed by a city later. On the hill 3W of Athens does open a better spot for wheat city later 2N of cows.
No food resource to pair with copper and stone but you do want those resources. Corinth here though is not a good settle. We can resigned ourselves to Corinth being what I call a "resource city" meaning the primary purpose is grabbing essential resources. In this case, I would probably settle right on the stone - good for a Mids play as well. If an early Phalanx rush was my strat here, I might even just settle directly on the copper. Not super spot for a city but brings copper online immediate for producing axes, and well desert copper is a rather bad tile. (If some seafood there it would be a no-brainer)
(horse/furs later would be essentially a "resource" city as well)
Depending on Sally's timing of that city SW of your current Corinth, I likely would make a play for the rice/ivory. Eliepults always a nice option for some BC warfare. Maths bulb plays well into that strategy.
Clearly some iron 1S of your Phalanx stack there but may or may not know that yet to determine settling around there anytime soon. But I clearly see at least 6 reasonable cities that could be settled here with some being quite productive while others in the short term bringing valuable resources.
On Emperor, I'm inclined to tech Alpha myself as AIs can often be too slow to do it themselves, as is the case here. Opens IW trade and other possibilities. Or I might go for some better military techs like getting HAs online or Eliepults (which would be effective against longbows and dominant otherwise) and let someone else eventually tech alpha.
quite the Hindu lovefest going on here...that can be a good thing but also annoying.
Oh..and avoid growing into unhappiness unless you plan to whip it away. You could easily put one turn into a settler and 3pop whip it next turn to eliminate that issue, then grow into scientists.
With Phalanxes online early you could consider doing some early harassment of Sulie at the least. He does tend to be a fast expander which is annoying so you could steal workers, kill settler escorts and overall nerf him.
I might play this a bit, but will note the following observations in your current game:
1) 3 cites by 2100 is not terrible. I think your first city date could have been improved either by chopping or whipping...not sure on timing of this yet.
2) But 3 cities at 675AD is most definitely bad. Generally, consider 3 to 4 cities timed with Writing, and then 6 cities at least soon after ....conquering may apply in situations.
3) AH was probably ok here, but BW after Agri may have been a good call as well with the plethora of chopping fuel.
4) As folks mentioned, chop chop chop. Can also be timed well with whipping overflow. (BULL adds a nice feature as well where workers prechop forests...stopping on the last turn)
5) I actually find this next concept common among less experienced players and that is the being adverse to city overlap. There's a few reasons why city overlap is actually a good thing, but first and foremost it allows tile sharing. One benefit of tile sharing is obviously sharing food resources - adjusting cities as needed. Or even things like commerce resources like Gold if applicable. Also, in the case of the cap or cottage type cities, it allows sharing of cottages to keep them growing. Another factor that is important is distance to cap maintenance costs. The more compact the empire in relation to the cap the lower this maintenance cost. Especially beneficial on higher difficulties as this cost increases signficantly.
6) The axe rush has been mentioned, but I'd state again that the efficacy of an early melee or chariot rush decreases a lot based on difficulty and timing - without siege. 675AD is very late here. You might grab a city, but its a lot of investment at this stage for dubious results. And in this case you found yourself hitting a brick wall with LBs. You could find that to be the case with archers as well or if the enemy had metals themselves.
7) Once you get that nice fast Creative library in your cap you should be running two scientists asap. With a Philo leader getting this going asap I will often just bulb Maths. The next one will come not that long after and can be used for an academy in the cap or a Philosophy bulb. Regarless, the scientists are naturally going to boost your research rate and any other good food cities you may have should be running them as well as soon as they can ( you really don't have that here though)
Note on city placement:
I like Sparta either on the silks to share cows or even closer like on that hill between rice and cows. Horse grabbed by a city later. On the hill 3W of Athens does open a better spot for wheat city later 2N of cows.
No food resource to pair with copper and stone but you do want those resources. Corinth here though is not a good settle. We can resigned ourselves to Corinth being what I call a "resource city" meaning the primary purpose is grabbing essential resources. In this case, I would probably settle right on the stone - good for a Mids play as well. If an early Phalanx rush was my strat here, I might even just settle directly on the copper. Not super spot for a city but brings copper online immediate for producing axes, and well desert copper is a rather bad tile. (If some seafood there it would be a no-brainer)
(horse/furs later would be essentially a "resource" city as well)
Depending on Sally's timing of that city SW of your current Corinth, I likely would make a play for the rice/ivory. Eliepults always a nice option for some BC warfare. Maths bulb plays well into that strategy.
Clearly some iron 1S of your Phalanx stack there but may or may not know that yet to determine settling around there anytime soon. But I clearly see at least 6 reasonable cities that could be settled here with some being quite productive while others in the short term bringing valuable resources.
On Emperor, I'm inclined to tech Alpha myself as AIs can often be too slow to do it themselves, as is the case here. Opens IW trade and other possibilities. Or I might go for some better military techs like getting HAs online or Eliepults (which would be effective against longbows and dominant otherwise) and let someone else eventually tech alpha.
quite the Hindu lovefest going on here...that can be a good thing but also annoying.Oh..and avoid growing into unhappiness unless you plan to whip it away. You could easily put one turn into a settler and 3pop whip it next turn to eliminate that issue, then grow into scientists.
With Phalanxes online early you could consider doing some early harassment of Sulie at the least. He does tend to be a fast expander which is annoying so you could steal workers, kill settler escorts and overall nerf him.
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Oaq
Chieftain
Your comments are clear, informative, thoughtful, pertinent and thorough. They are appreciated and have been carefully read, with interest.
floydmcw
Prince
Did anyone try the Mao game that Oaq posted? Was curious what the better players would make of it.
I win 90-95% of my games on Emperor. This is a tough map because:
On the other hand
Here is what I did:
Now on T155 I have 13 cities and shouldn't have any trouble winning. My MM (micromanagement) wasn't so good and I had dumb luck with huts and events. Also I did some things that wouldn't work on higher levels like going for AH first.
I may replay with a better tech path and better MM to see if I can shave some turns off my Mach date.
I win 90-95% of my games on Emperor. This is a tough map because:
Spoiler :
On the other hand
Spoiler :
Here is what I did:
Spoiler :
Now on T155 I have 13 cities and shouldn't have any trouble winning. My MM (micromanagement) wasn't so good and I had dumb luck with huts and events. Also I did some things that wouldn't work on higher levels like going for AH first.
I may replay with a better tech path and better MM to see if I can shave some turns off my Mach date.
