Featured Game #3 Spoiler 1: Pre-Renaissance

[Dunkah]

Apparently I just suck at Non Coastal Starts because I couldn’t do a thing with this game.

I have played this game 4 times so far. The first time normal. The 2nd game I said well I’ll have a little bit of an advantage but I will try and play as if I would normally and not try and deliberately take advantage, 3rd game I said screw it I’m just going to go for the good stuff just to see if I can beat this, 4th time I decided I would try a One city challenge to see if I could slip under the radar.

Believe it or not I got closest with the 1 city challenge. Suleiman won with a science victory about 4 policies short of my Cultural victory in that game.

In all of the games basically I fell so far behind in tech that I could not compete, by turn 200 I was 15 – 17 techs behind the leaders. In all four games Askia declared war on me very early in the game and would not concede until very late in the game if at all. Hundreds of turns of inactivity yet every ten turns or so he would pop up and give me some ridiculous terms for peace involving everything I own. Basically from Ancient times through to Industrial I was at war in all 4 games. The one time he decided to give me a straight up peace deal the next turns he was asking for a declaration of Friendship (after 150+ turns of war that he declared).

Suleiman gobbled up every inch of free space there was whether it had a luxury on it or not and never ever had problems with happiness or keeping his populations down. All of the Civs except Monty had at least one or two cities that had higher populations than me even when I was doing the one city challenge and concentrated on pure population growth.

I was never able to gain a positive income of more than about 200 gold per turn even when I had a Golden Age going, thus I was never able to get more than one City State on my side for more than 30 -50 turns at a time. It was just pathetic. I don’t think I was able to complete even one CS quest.

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Some weird things that I noticed. Dublin and Stockholm were both just to the west of the starting location, in all four games they set a quest for a Barbarian camp that was off the coast behind Monty when there were two camps at that time that were closer to them and harassing them.

Secondly, in one of my games when I was at war with Askia I lost somewhere near 12 – 15 or more population in my capitol. I am guessing it was due to starvation, but I don’t really know. I had just Micro’ed my city and turned on a 4 hammer hex to hurry the building of a knight I am pretty sure at the time I was not starving, but can’t be 100% sure of that. I think my pop at the time was like 22. Then I admittedly got caught up in the war with Askia and didn’t go back to check on my city for 10+ turns. But when I looked next it had a population of 2. I had no warning or anything?
Once you hit starvation do you lose a pop per turn until you hit 1 pop? Why isn’t there a notification that says, "hey shmuck you may want to go check on your city! You just lost a point of population and this will continue until you get over there and get them some food!"

Either way this seems harsh. Not right. I thought you were supposed to go through food the opposite way that you gain it. So you need to lose so many excess food before you lose a point of population.

Askia’s UU is super powerful. In my first three games I was doing fine right up until the point he started pumping those Horse Axemen out. I had somewhere near 8 immortals that had been upgraded to pikes and then even to muskets that had 3 or 4 promotions on each of them standing besides several Long swords and I had to throw sometimes 5 units to kill even 1 of his. Where he seemed to kill me by hitting me with as few as two units and him losing maybe 4 hit points per attack. He just ate through my massive ranks until I had nothing.

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Lastly, I keep reading about people who can win Science victories in 250 turns, and Culture victories in less. I would like to see someone who can do this actually post some of these strategies in the VEM forum so that I can see what the heck it is that I am doing wrong. Would like to see strategies for this particular start as well, as far as what hexes you improved to what, and what your populations were at what turn, so that I can compare.

Everyone always seems to have gold to burn, population to burn, and happiness and I can’t seem to get far out of the box.

Super Frustrated.

 

[Txurce]

In all of the games basically I fell so far behind in tech that I could not compete, by turn 200 I was 15 – 17 techs behind the leaders. In all four games Askia declared war on me very early in the game and would not concede until very late in the game if at all.

On King level, this happens only because your population's not growing fast enough. Make it a priority with a food focus, granaries, water mills, etc.

I was never able to gain a positive income of more than about 200 gold per turn even when I had a Golden Age going, thus I was never able to get more than one City State on my side for more than 30 -50 turns at a time. It was just pathetic. I don’t think I was able to complete even one CS quest.

I often have similar results when I focus too heavily on production instead of gold or, again, population.

Once you hit starvation do you lose a pop per turn until you hit 1 pop? Why isn’t there a notification that says, "hey shmuck you may want to go check on your city! You just lost a point of population and this will continue until you get over there and get them some food!"

That's how it works. There used to be a warning for it. And you are supposed to get a notification of some sort from City Notifications, if you have the option checked.

Lastly, I keep reading about people who can win Science victories in 250 turns, and Culture victories in less. I would like to see someone who can do this actually post some of these strategies in the VEM forum so that I can see what the heck it is that I am doing wrong. Would like to see strategies for this particular start as well, as far as what hexes you improved to what, and what your populations were at what turn, so that I can compare.

Let's talk about a science victory in this game in about 300 turns. You could do that by focusing on a Tradition/NC start, then focusing on Chichen Itza (not essential), Porcelain Tower (more important), Taj Mahal (less essential), and Statue of Liberty (shaves turns off SS build times). You wouldn't need more than 4 cities, which are very easy to nicely situate on this map (east and south of the capital, then further south for a coastal city). Build them asap after the NC (south, then coast or east).

The focus should be on growth and some defense. Build the granary and water mill in the capital, try to become allied with Stockholm and Dublin for growth and defense. To do this sell the silk asap and then expand south for the other one. Balance the speedy building of necessary buildings versus a default focus on food.

Delay your first GA (easy enough with this expansion) until you have Chichen Itza. Then near-perpetual GA's along with Villages will give you both the gold and science to win in around 300 turns.

 

[RedRover57]

@Duncan

Could you post your specific strategies in your attempts so that we can better offer advice? What was your build order? Tech order? Policy choices? How many cities did you settle, and where and when? When did you build the NC? How quickly did you get to Education and build universities? Did you build any wonders and when? Did you sign DoF's, open borders agreements and RA's? What tile improvements did you prioritize? Did you build many Great People? Did you use specialist slots?

I was also running at around 200 gpt for the mid-late game, but was able to easily support 6 CS allies (2 each of militaristic, cultural and maritime) even though I got into bidding wars with other AI's for some of them. Admittedly, I was able to do quests for some (like build them a road, discover Arabia for them, discover a new natural wonder, clear a barb camp. etc.). Sometimes you just have to get lucky with the quests.

The AI seems to do a decent job of teching in this mod. I think it is because RA's and GS's are more fair and not heavily biased toward human players like in vanilla. In vanilla, human players can game the system easier by hoarding GS's to use more strategically and by tech blocking for optimizing RA's. So outpacing the AI in tech in VEM requires conquest/expansion or high growth (population = science) as well as proper strategies with respect to city and tile improvements, social policies, tech choices, etc.

 

[Txurce]

The AI seems to do a decent job of teching in this mod. I think it is because RA's and GS's are more fair and not heavily biased toward human players like in vanilla. In vanilla, human players can game the system easier by hoarding GS's to use more strategically and by tech blocking for optimizing RA's. So outpacing the AI in tech in VEM requires conquest/expansion or high growth (population = science) as well as proper strategies with respect to city and tile improvements, social policies, tech choices, etc.

The AI also got a era-based science boost recently.

 

[Dunkah]

Generally I start Scout Monument Scout... Or Scout Warrior Monument Scout... depending on the immediate threat to my area. I generally start by improving luxuries then food tiles before any mines or villiages. Typically I put farms on rivers and villiages away from rivers. I usually keep my woods and forests unchopped for mills and typically I put mines on hills. Overall letting the surounding area dictate what kind of focus I am going to have in any given city.
I generally try not to settle any area that doesn't have at least one luxury resource.

I typically get the Openers for Liberty and Tradition then go for the free Settler/Worker and the 4 free Culture buildings.

In the first two games I went wide. Settling all over the map. Was trying to balance happiness out right from the very start. (Seems in this newer version of VEM few of the Civs will trade fairly). There was only the Silk nearby to settle on.

I went for happiness techs and made Coluseums and Circuses a priority.

Overall I seemed to be gaining, until Askia got his UU. Once that happened he was unstoppable. Wiped out Egypt, Monty and then me in succession.

In my third game I built a couple of cities then attacked Monty and wiped him out early. Not to mention I settled right next to him, then settled in his siland area. Thought that was a pretty good start but then Askia showed up with his UU's and I was all done again.

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In my one city challenge I grabbed Oracle and The Great Wall early so I could claim as much land as possible before anyone settled near me. I barely explored that map with just a splash of the other Civs showing.

 

[Txurce]

Generally I start Scout Monument Scout... Or Scout Warrior Monument Scout... depending on the immediate threat to my area.

I typically get the Openers for Liberty and Tradition then go for the free Settler/Worker and the 4 free Culture buildings.

In my third game I built a couple of cities then attacked Monty and wiped him out early. Not to mention I settled right next to him, then settled in his siland area. Thought that was a pretty good start but then Askia showed up with his UU's and I was all done again.

I think that's too long to wait for a worker - especially in this game. You won't need the land the monument's culture gives you before the worker's done improving something in your inner tiles.

Your policy mix is good, but you could try a straight Tradition opener if you want to play conservatively and achieve the sort of Science victory you mentioned.

In retrospect it sounds as if the Mandekalu Cavalry was a bigger problem than everything else. When facing a likely enemy like this, a defense pact with the Ottomans or Egypt can also help. It's not likely to backfire because they're not likely to drag you into a war with anyone else in the midterm.

Diplomacy aside, though, you should be able to hold them off with a mix of drill-promoted muskets/longswords backed by crossbows and a medic. The range units are key to softening them up.

 

[void_genesis]

Wow....I guess it's a bit of a relief to see I wasn't the only person who didn't find the start to be a doddle.

I think I made the same problem of pushing my early cities too hard on production focus and crippling my population development. Strategically attacking Suleman early I think makes the most sense given he is geographically isolated- it means no counter attacks from neighboring civs when your focus shifts later on.

All that open jungle/river space cries out to be settled, but if you push too hard to expand into it there are no extra luxuries to balance out the unhappiness. I am only now populating the eastern end of the jungle river in the 1750s- and now with a horde of spare workers and the cash to buy culture and food buildings the cities are growing so fast that there was little penalty in waiting a long time. I had forgotten how well VEM balances out late cities. I am also putting settlers out to island cities on new luxuries (and also to be in position to attack Siam later if they get close to a science victory).

Jungle/marsh starts are very demanding on workers, so I think the pyramids and faster worker policy in Liberty are essential as well (moreso than anything about golden ages- Persia already has GA points to burn there).

 

[Gamewizard]

All that open jungle/river space cries out to be settled, but if you push too hard to expand into it there are no extra luxuries to balance out the unhappiness.

I chose to settle on the silks and then trade them away for other luxuries and concentrate worker time on roads and trading posts on the jungles. I did end up expanding too fast and dipped into some happiness problems, but once I fixed that problem the extra gold and science sure paid off.

 

[RedRover57]

I agree - it sounds like you tried to REX too fast, which would be difficult on this map due to the lack of unique luxuries plus the rough terrain making it slow to improve your cities. I would suggest fewer cities to start, but having at least one to the east in the tangle of jungle and rivers is a good plan as a buffer against Askia. A city over there is virtually impregnable by cavs with that terrain. The key for defense would be to have a few crossbows plus your Immortal pikes (or some of the defensive units like levys fortified on rough terrain to guard your ranged units). I have found the the AI doesn't really use cavs very well, particularly on rough terrain. Certainly not as effectively as human players. Askia DoWed me fairly early but could never get close to my eastern city with 4 crossbows guarding it (all gifted to me from militaristic CS and promoted to rough terrain). But in my case Askia was also at war with Egypt and getting the worst of it, so he was never much of a threat.

 

[void_genesis]

Funnily enough on my replay Askia didn't DOW me at all. I think it was either from having Hanoi as a long term ally right on his doorstep, or attacking Suleman quite early and making him realise I was a force to be reckoned with.

Does the AI take into account the number of enemy CS allies near it before DOWing?

 

[Dunkah]

I find it funny that no one else found Askia to be a problem in this game. I have now played 4 times and have started a 5th and he basically declares war on me very early, (turn 60 in this past game), then never ever gives me agreeable terms no matter how much I crush his troops early on. Don't know how he can afford to send 5 troops at a time to the other side of the map and still compete. I am planning on building many crossbows once the Medevil era hits this time around to deal with his UU's.
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So 5th game. I decide to follow Txurce's advice and go straight for the National College. Founded my Capitol city in place then Bee Lined for NC. Managed to get the Great Library on the way. I checked Info Addict and it seems I had an early production lead, and since I was hitting the next era at the same time as most of the others I figured I had a 1 or 2 turn advatage on that wonder.

After I finished the GL I founded another city next to the Incencse on the Western coast. That set me back about 10 turns on the NC until I got the second Library in place but managed to get that in as well.
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Advice Please:

So now it seems as if I have a good start. Askia is Bee-lining to the Medievil era to get his UU's and has all ready declared war on me as usual. Sulemain is expanding to the east coast, Monty has taken a couple of eqypts city's. (His best start so far).

I just founded my 3rd city just east of my capitol. Dublin and Stockholm are just barely hanging on as Ally's even though I am spending all of my gold on that.

The question is, once you get the good NC start, where do you go from here?

I was in first or second place points wise right until I finished the NC and Askia declared on me. Since then I have started building defensive units and have dropped severly to second to last place again. I currently have 4 workers, 2 out of three cities connected, All of the luxuries camps and Quarries set up. I have a bowman, swordsman, Immortal, Charriot. earning about 25 gpt. Spending all of that on Dublin and Stockholm. Have no RA's (can't afford). Open borders with just about everyone. Selling all of my Luxuries as soon as they come available.

 

[Txurce]

I find it funny that no one else found Askia to be a problem in this game. I have now played 4 times and have started a 5th and he basically declares war on me very early, (turn 60 in this past game), then never ever gives me agreeable terms no matter how much I crush his troops early on. Don't know how he can afford to send 5 troops at a time to the other side of the map and still compete. I am planning on building many crossbows once the Medevil era hits this time around to deal with his UU's.

Some of this is a matter of perspective. I was more or less in the same position with Askia in both games I played. But I didn't view it as a problem - more as an easy way to promote my units, as long as I didn't get too greedy. It gets trickier once he has his UU, but 2 or 3 well-positioned crossbows by your eastern city should stop him. (The blitz promotion for crossbows is probably my favorite.)

Also keep in mind that he's more likely to seek peace once he's at war with someone else (which will happen), if you have a decent-sized army. With a couple more unit builds and the Dublin contribution, you should get there.

So now it seems as if I have a good start. Askia is Bee-lining to the Medievil era to get his UU's and has all ready declared war on me as usual. Sulemain is expanding to the east coast, Monty has taken a couple of eqypts city's. (His best start so far).

I just founded my 3rd city just east of my capitol. Dublin and Stockholm are just barely hanging on as Ally's even though I am spending all of my gold on that.

The question is, once you get the good NC start, where do you go from here?

I was in first or second place points wise right until I finished the NC and Askia declared on me. Since then I have started building defensive units and have dropped severly to second to last place again. I currently have 4 workers, 2 out of three cities connected, All of the luxuries camps and Quarries set up. I have a bowman, swordsman, Immortal, Charriot. earning about 25 gpt. Spending all of that on Dublin and Stockholm. Have no RA's (can't afford). Open borders with just about everyone. Selling all of my Luxuries as soon as they come available.

The 4 workers and your army mix are great. You may want to build another Immortal or two, although Dublin tends to give these units (and levies). If you don't intend to take any cities, skip siege units until much later, if at all.

In terms of beelining, in an ideal world I'd aim for the PT (via the HS or not), then also CI and TM, before moving on to Scientific Theory and Biology. The tricky part here is whether you can afford to tech Education before moving to the lower half of the tree. Astronomy isn't as important, given that you aren't planning on expanding, and can already sell your luxuries to the high number of civs on your continent. You'll meet the other civs in plenty of time anyway, thanks to your coastal city.

Raising your population is key to more gold, especially once you start building Villages. Once your happiness can handle it, I'd consider a fourth city south of the capital, to take advantage of the two cattle and hills, as well as snagging that silk (if you don't have it already). And of course build Satrap's Courts for the GA gold, then banks to augment along with aqueducts and, eventually, universities.

Your eastern city is also a good launch point for quests. With a little luck you'll gain a free alliance.

 

[RedRover57]

I would not be the least concerned about score, since that is heavily biased toward wide empires. If you build some wonders your score will improve, but will eventually be far surpassed by the heavily REXing AI. All that really matters is your tech position. By the end of my game I was near the bottom in score, but I was 5 techs above the score leader (Siam) and more than 10 techs ahead of the rest of the pack. I was in Modern Era long before some civs even made it to Industrial.

My advice would be to improve several mine and river farm tiles in each of your cities if you haven't already, then focus on improving river jungle tiles first with villages (science and gold). Beeline Education and build universities ASAP, then build your Satrap's Courts, banks, etc. When you have enough production in each city to build things in a reasonable time frame, start to focus on population growth. Don't neglect structures like walls, etc. since they give you free food and help you defend. Build granaries, aqueducts, hospitals, etc. And don't neglect culture buildings either. I found that the combination of Tradition, Piety, Enlightenment and Freedom was fantastic for a tall, science and culture-focused empire.

 

[Dunkah]

Thanks for the advice. I will give it a go this afternoon and see what happens.

Txurce is telling me to go Saatraps, Banks Aquaducts then Universities, RedRover57 is saying Beeline to Universities.

Well we'll see what happens I guess.

 

[Txurce]

Thanks for the advice. I will give it a go this afternoon and see what happens.

Txurce is telling me to go Saatraps, Banks Aquaducts then Universities, RedRover57 is saying Beeline to Universities.

Well we'll see what happens I guess.

Aqueducts are researched well before any of those. I presumed you would build at least one Court to launch your big GA before you research Education (and others as and if needed to keep it going). I always build universities before banks - but if your queue hasn't hit universities yet, you need the gold, and have researched Banking, you may want to build a bank first. Given the GA's multiplier effect, this makes more sense for Persia than it does for other civs.

 

[black213]

I find it funny that no one else found Askia to be a problem in this game. I have now played 4 times and have started a 5th and he basically declares war on me very early, (turn 60 in this past game), then never ever gives me agreeable terms no matter how much I crush his troops early on. Don't know how he can afford to send 5 troops at a time to the other side of the map and still compete. I am planning on building many crossbows once the Medevil era hits this time around to deal with his UU's.
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In my game he declared war on me early too, but he was willing to make a draw.

 

[Zaldron]

As late as the arrival of Korea, I was winning some science victories with Korea, Babylon and even the Aztecs in under 250 turns. At that point I began playing more for domination, and when I've tried science again since, have experimentally steered away from my standard Tradition/NC-first approach. As I mentioned, I'm doing much worse. It could be the change in approach, and I'll play a game with Babylon in the next couple of weeks to test it definitively. I don't know if anything in the game other than the RA mechanic has changed since - maybe less specialist slots?

Does anyone have an opinion on this?

I've also noticed that science wins take much longer in VEM, presumably because RAs are significantly weaker. I also assumed I was just doing something wrong because I can almost never get a science win before getting culture or diplo by default.

 

[Zaldron]

I actually can't remember much about my start because it's been close to a week ago and I didn't write it up at the time.

A few highlights:
I think I started scout, scout, worker, and policies liberty+free settler, then into tradition for happiness and wonder production. I didn't build any settlers until after the liberty settler policy. For some reason I seemed to have a lot of happiness problems the entire first half of the game or so.

I can't remember my tech order, but my first settled city (Apparently unlike everyone else) was NW on the coast on top of the incense. I only built two more settlers, which were both east on the river. I did manage to get Stonehenge to expand out my borders early (so slow with all the rough terrain normally), but I think the GL would have been better if I could have snagged it.

Askia declared on me relatively early even with no apparent cause, but a couple archers with my scouts dispatched everything he could send at me.

 

[black213]

I actually can't remember much about my start because it's been close to a week ago and I didn't write it up at the time.

A few highlights:
I think I started scout, scout, worker, and policies liberty+free settler, then into tradition for happiness and wonder production. I didn't build any settlers until after the liberty settler policy. For some reason I seemed to have a lot of happiness problems the entire first half of the game or so.

I can't remember my tech order, but my first settled city (Apparently unlike everyone else) was NW on the coast on top of the incense. I only built two more settlers, which were both east on the river. I did manage to get Stonehenge to expand out my borders early (so slow with all the rough terrain normally), but I think the GL would have been better if I could have snagged it.

Askia declared on me relatively early even with no apparent cause, but a couple archers with my scouts dispatched everything he could send at me.

For good early Happiness, you could try the Liberty policy that gives 1 happiness per trade route and -5% unhappiness per citizen combined with the Honor policy that gives happiness per garrison.

 

[Gamewizard]

For good early Happiness, you could try the Liberty policy that gives 1 happiness per trade route and -5% unhappiness per citizen combined with the Honor policy that gives happiness per garrison.

The Liberty happiness policy is weak early on. I would rather go into Piety as soon as its available for a quick 3 happy and then grab the monument, temple, monastery (which are buildable in all cities) happy policy if its still a problem.