Feedback om BtS Emperor game

[andreasb]

Hi all.

I usually play pangea maps, but was inspired by the latest ALC to play Wilhelm (Dutch) on a Big_and_Small map. I have played until 760 AD and doing OK so far, but was hurt pretty badly by a somewhat failed early rush that went on for way too many turns. Difficulty is Emperor.

Anyways..let's get down to business. I have attached the opening save and the 760 AD save. Its BtS 3.19 and you might need BUG mod to open it..not sure.

I quickly met my two neighbours, Alexander and Ramses, and quickly decided that we should punish Alexander early (proactively, since he WILL attack us later anyways..). Ramses founded Judaism pretty early and all three of us are running it as state religion.
I failed to get horses, so chariot rush was not an option. I had to get close to him for quick reinforcements, and also saw an opportunity to block a Copper resource close to his borders, so I build The Hague on a plains hill close to Sparta. Once we got open borders, I noticed that he had Iron in his BFC which was unfortunate but not unexpected.

I built a stack of 12 CR1 Swordsman, and attacked Sparta. The Greece Phalanx was more trouble than I remembered, so lost more than half my stack, but at least took Sparta. I quickly pillaged the Iron mine after that to avoid more Phalanxes, but he already had two of them in Athens and a whole bunch of Archers. I decided to build some reinforcements before trying to take Athens. In the mean time, I walked around with a couple of Swordsmen and razed one or two smaller cities. Also checked out Corinth, but noticed that it was on a hill and had a Phalanx, which practically made it impossible before Catapults. After way too many turns, I was able to take Athens and required Construction from Alexander for peacy, which he accepted.

That's basically where we are now...the war and city maintenance has hurt me a bit, but still pretty much on pair with Ramses in tech. Started building courthourses and will research Currency soon. Will also try to get a Great Prophet to build a shrine since we managed to found Confucianism. Going for Civil Service now as well ASAP with slider at 100%, which will ruin me, but once I get all courthouses/markets up in combination with Bureacrucy, I think it well even out.


Anyways..I would love to get some feedback from more experienced Emperor/Immortal players on what I could have done differently with the war against Alexander. Should I have waited for catapults? Problem I saw was that he was expanding north, and would probably expand to other islands, which would make him hard to get later. Therefore I decided to hurt him early, but failed to take his Phalanxes in account.
What about Ramses? I don't see him as a threat right now, so will probably wait a while before attacking him.

The other thing I feel a bit insecure about is city placement and city specializations. Where would you have placed your cities, and in what order? Would you expand to the Island north anytime soon? I have only initiated some citiy specilization..like Utrecht will be a Commercy city and The Hauge and Rotterdam production cities. Hm..now I don't remember the name of the south city with sheep, corn and fish, but was considering to make it a GP farm, but then again, I will be needing coastal cities with high production. Will also build one more production city NW of Amsterdam (on the plains hill between the Copper, Pig and Wheat with coastal access). Oh, and I need more commerce cities. Thinking of spamming both Sparta and Athens with cottages. The Island north would make for some good commerce cities as well.

Techwise, I will get Civil Service and then more or less beeline to Liberalism. Not knowing if I could take Athens or not, I decided to go for Music during the war so that I could culture bomb Sparta if Athens culture would be too painful. I have popped two Great Scientists which I have build Academies with in Amsterdam and Utrecht. Next goal is to get a GP to build the shrine. Since I haven't decided on a GP farm yet, I haven't started building National Epic..but will have to do that soon. Oh..and I tried to get Great Library, but was beaten to it by an unknown civ by 5 turns or so. Will probably not bother with any wonders since I'm not IND and don't have access to Marble and Stone. The Haugue will get the Heroic Epic.

Sooo...feedback and comments are warmly welcome. I have won a few games on Emperor by now, but its still a bit shaky. Oh..I play with all victories enabled besides Diplomacy (hate the AP) but always go for Conquest/Domination myself. Also, No Barbarians (don't understand why people have them on..just annoying), No Tech Brokering, No Vassal States (The AI usually vassals to another AI, which just makes me angry..so disabled until I've learned more about that), No Espionage (usually have it on, but want to focus on naval strategies so it would just be a distraction).

Images (resized them too small by mistake, bare with me )

Center (Amsterdam on the left, Utrecht north, Rotterdam east, new city (forgot name) south

East/Egypt (Rotterdam on the left)

West/Greece (The Hauge with the copper, Sparta left of it and Athens by the coast)

North Island

Greece NorthWest

Tech tree

 

[Fleme]

A few pictures would say a lot more than the 840 words you used and would also get you more feedback on your game as a whole.

 

[andreasb]

A few pictures would say a lot more than the 840 words you used and would also get you more feedback on your game as a whole.

Hm. Good point. Don't have access to the game right now but will take some screenshots later.

 

[andreasb]

Added some images now. Unfortunately I resized them too small, but with text above them it should be possible to make conclusions. Please look at the save for more detailed info.

Anyone care to comment?

 

[JBossch]

You city placement is a bit questionable. They seem really spread out and are often missing decent tiles like riverside grassland. Try pushing them together a bit more, overlap is not that bad. Rotterdam, for example might be split into two cities, one getting the pigs and one getting the corn. Also, settling one away from the coast is generally a no-no.

Why haven't you settled the wheat/pig/copper west of Amsterdam?

 

[andreasb]

You city placement is a bit questionable. They seem really spread out and are often missing decent tiles like riverside grassland. Try pushing them together a bit more, overlap is not that bad. Rotterdam, for example might be split into two cities, one getting the pigs and one getting the corn. Also, settling one away from the coast is generally a no-no.

Why haven't you settled the wheat/pig/copper west of Amsterdam?

I agree with what you are saying. I'm somewhat allergic to cities overlapping more than two tiles or so, which often leads to spread out placement and higher maintenance. I realize I have to change this mindset on smaller maps...Usually I try to squeeze as many resources as possible into each city, which also tend to result in fewer, spread out cities.

I was about to settle a city on the plains hill close to wheat,pig,copper. Have prioritized the other city locations so far.

 

[JBossch]

I agree with what you are saying. I'm somewhat allergic to cities overlapping more than two tiles or so, which often leads to spread out placement and higher maintenance. I realize I have to change this mindset on smaller maps...Usually I try to squeeze as many resources as possible into each city, which also tend to result in fewer, spread out cities.

Try to come up with a settlement scheme before founding you second city. This means having pretty solid scouting early on. Also, if you are using the latest BUG mod, alt-x allows you to place useful city markers and see exactly what tiles each will get. Its ok to take good spots that are far away as long as you backfill later. Avoiding overlap is much less important than making sure you can work all the good tiles.

 

[Ghpstage]

Your working a lot of unimproved tiles , and you only have 5 Workers! You also appear to be wasting your scarce worker turns by farming Plains tiles, cottaging a grassland tile is more productive! Why don't you have Currency yet?
Cities are in odd places as JBossch mentioned, but there are several sites still worth settling on your continent, let alone the small continent North and several islands for great overseas trade routes You can also ask Ramesses to give you something i.e. Monotheism

 

[andreasb]

Your working a lot of unimproved tiles , and you only have 5 Workers! You also appear to be wasting your scarce worker turns by farming Plains tiles, cottaging a grassland tile is more productive! Why don't you have Currency yet?
Cities are in odd places as JBossch mentioned, but there are several sites still worth settling on your continent, let alone the small continent North and several islands for great overseas trade routes You can also ask Ramesses to give you something i.e. Monotheism

I had a war going against Greece until some turn before the 760 AD save, so couldn't improve Sparta much (and Athens was just captured). I had 5 workers on basically 6 cities, but there was not much more I could do with Utrecht, and I was waiting for Metal Casting/Machinery to build Workshops and Watermills in most of the forest tiles that have not been chopped. I like to keep some forests around until then for the production bonus, compared to just grassland/plains which I'm not sure what to do with in production cities before MC/M. Which unimproved tiles are you referring to? I probably could use some tips here...

And about the farmed plain tiles..I want The Hauge to be one of my main production cities, so I decided to farm some of the tiles so that it could grow before I switched to Workshops/Watermills...I don't want to cottage tiles in my production cities..just food and hammers. One of my problems is that I tend to forget about micromanagement while I'm in a war, which I've been for ages in this game

I was hoping to trade for Currency with Ramses, but was unsuccesful at that point. I ended up researching it myself after CS.
I plan to settle the island north of me soon, but I have to improve the economy a bit first and build enough courthouses so I can build the Forbidden Palace over there.

Anyone with input on the early war?

 

[Killroyan]

Can you explain to me why at 750 AD you haven't settled the wheat/pig/copper city yet? That is an incredible spot. Go 1SE of the copper and you have a production heaven. 3 plains hill, copper, pigs, wheat and a couple of workshops. That city just screams HE and BUILD ARMY

 

[andreasb]

Can you explain to me why at 750 AD you haven't settled the wheat/pig/copper city yet? That is an incredible spot. Go 1SE of the copper and you have a production heaven. 3 plains hill, copper, pigs, wheat and a couple of workshops. That city just screams HE and BUILD ARMY

Weeeeelll...I CAN explain it, but not sure you will find it as a valid excuse
First of all, I prefer settling all riverside locations first for the commerce / irrigation bonus.
Second, the war and settling The Hague hit me financially, so decided to wait until the was was over before settling it. I have settled it now, 15 turns after the 760 save.

However, I settled it on the plains hill NE of the copper instead for coastal access. I realize it would have more hammer tiles SE, but with Moai Statues it should still be a fine location. Would you prioritize more hammers over coastal access? I want it so I can spam out naval units...

 

[Killroyan]

Well in this case I would definitely prefer the production power of 1SE. That site is just incredible strong. And there are a lot better Maoi cities then the NE one (for example the last conquered city on the west). NE means also missing the pigs which is one of the strongest starting resources in the game. And I wouldn't really care about riversides. You are playing Willem so riverside is the least of your worries. SE has as I said pigs/copper/wheat/4 hills/4 grassland. That is an amazing city at size 10. And would have been by far your best production site, especially since you are lacking a good production city. Next advantage is that this city with HE is close to your next victim so less army travelling.

But you are doing ok so far and propably are a better player since I am a monarch player but should go up a level since I start to win these to easily.

 

[andreasb]

NE means also missing the pigs which is one of the strongest starting resources in the game.

Nope. The pigs are in the BFC there as well (the most SE tile). Otherwise it would be a no-brainer to settle where you suggested.

 

[Killroyan]

Oops, you are right. Need more coffeeeeeeeeee