Five items of importance...

[PRIMEMOVER]

Thought I'd go straight to the top for some help...

Visited the HOF recently and was really amazed by the scores . So I thought I'd ask those of you who are playing at this level consistently...

Can you recommend five items (five because it's not too many and not too few) that a player like me (scoring in the 3000s on Regent) can do to improve my score. ONLY FIVE SO PICK YOUR TOP FIVE STEPS TO IMPROVEMENT...

Also, those of you nearing the HOF scores, how many opponents are you playing against?

---An aspiring admirer

 

[superslug]

My primary suggestion would be to do some reading. Well, do a lot of reading. There's a good number of articles in the War Academy that illustrate good technique and strategy. Good specific point by point game play advice can be found in the Succession Games. Overall general strategy, as well as settings we use can be found in many threads here in this forum, as several of us maintain threads with the status of our current games.

 

[Moonsinger]

#1. Follow Superslug advice and read all the article in the War Academy.

#2. Territory - gain as much territory ASAP as you can.

#3. Happiness - take control all 8 luxuries and build a lot of market ASAP.

#4. Population - focus on population growth by taking control of the Pyramid ASAP. Also irrigate everything after you enter Republic/Democracy to max out the city population first, then come back and mine the land to improve production. If needed, use cash to rush units since we couldn't take our weath to the after life anyway.

#5. Make it a priority for taking control of the Sun Tzu and Cleo's Workshop, and the Smith Trading Company.

For me, I refer a huge wet-warm map against 8 random opponents.

 

[EMan]

1. ALL those mentioned by Moonsinger...........for Advanced play, read posts by Moonsinger, SirPleb, DaveMcW, Aeson and many others. If worried about public embarrassment or need general info about Hall Of Fame (HOF), Private Message (PM) superslug .....hope you don't mind me taking the liberty of saying that superslug!?

2. Game Of The Month play & forum are superb.......if you have some (viz. LOTS) of time on your hands.

3. Develop your own style (that you are comfortable with).....I like to warmonger before "retiring" to dairy farming (Milking the game for points), so I do Egyptians (with max rivals) because you can bang out fast-moving war chariots for only 20 gold.....then attack other civs to gain control of their cities......never raze 'em till you get to the Domination Limit....AND, in the battles, you might get lucky and get a Great Leader (GL) .......then you can build the Pyramids in one turn!

4. Remember, there are many ways to score high and probably more game concepts, yet undiscovered, that someone will stumble over in the near future.....could be you.

5. Play, play, play.

Enjoy

 

[superslug]

Originally posted by EMan
1. If worried about public embarrassment or need general info about Hall Of Fame (HOF), Private Message (PM) superslug .....hope you don't mind me taking the liberty of saying that superslug!?

I don't mind at all my friend. Given my post times and who all I see listed online, I think it's safe to claim I hit the HOF more times a day than anyone...although I'd rather have higher scores in the HOF as my claim to fame...

 

[Takeo]

definately follow the advice of those above...especially play, play and more play. i learn something new every game to make myself better for the next one. one of the number one things i have read at this site to get better is to play out every game, no matter what the situation is. playing thru the adversity that we all sometimes find our civ in will make us better in the long run!

 

[EMan]

.......you've helped a WHOLE bunch of people here on HOF!

A Feather in YOUR cap!!

 

[puremorning]

As another relative newb to HOF games (and to CivII in general), I'm wondering if you incredibly helpful guys can confirm/deny some of my beliefs on HF scores?

(Oh and please do drop by my Help with Dom. Limit thread, please!)

When to start building Aqueducts in corrupt cities? I have nearly 350 or so cities in my HOF game now and obviously a vast majority are corrupt. Since pop. growth is a key, do you guys build aqueducts sooner or later? 100 shields will take 100 turns in such cities (w/o rushing of course) so does it make sense to get started on building asap and 100 turns later switch to hospitals (another 120 turns, but still perhaps 100+ turns at the end of the game of full pop..)??

I have been using an approach of colonizing/conquering, stealing good land from the AI and turning out (so far) a couple of GL's. I used the first to build Forbidden Palace to help with production. Depending on my dom. limit (again, a plug to see my Help with Dom. Limit thread!), I'm either there or very close... would using the 2nd GL to jump a palace to a corrupt area be worth it, or would you save for a wonder? Right now I'm almost finished with Smith's and have Pyramids (of course) and Szu's. (My tech research is not where it should be at this point!)

To summarize, what are the best uses for GL's in general, esp. once you've reached dom. limit?

The no. of workers. As a general rule of thumb, how many workers do you typically have? Say, in relation to cities? I have populated quite a large jungle area anxiously awaiting to clear it quickly. Should I be pumping out workers now to clear it - and save for upcoming railroads? I hve about 275 workers for 350 or so cities.

City switching. Now that i'm at (or very near) my dom. limit, and have a nice little army looking for something to do... I've thought a decent strategy would be to attack AI civs on prime land and give my non-productive (read: very bad land) cities to the AI. Thereby keeping my total civ size constant while improving the quality (and population potential). Is this a viable strategy? Has anyone done this or do you just gobble up the best land from the get-go ... or, stick with what you have?

Lastly!!!! Related to the last point, I have about 9 AI civ's left (killed off 3 or so) and since the prime land is with 5 diff. civ's, and being in Democracy, I would like to take them all on the same turn (or 2). I plan on giving away a poor city each time I conquer a good one, but I have a minor concern about war weariness. Is it cumulative? Since I've engaged in quite a few battles already, I'm concerned that on the off chance my city switching plan results in a few extra turns of war, will my populace "remember" I was just in a war 10 turns ago and immediately start becoming unhappy? Or do they wait a couple of turns each time?

Whew, thanks for reading this far Thought I'd get 90% of my newb questions out in one shot.

 

[superslug]

@puremorning:
You should try and wipe out all the AI except for one last city (which you save to avoid Conquest win). That way you can take all the good terrain for yourself.

In response to the workers, build as many as possible (preferably in the cities that are population capped). Do this so that you may finish irrigating/railroading all tiles as quickly as possible.

Once you have those two things accomplished, back off the science and generate as much cash as possible. Rush aqueducts in all cities, then marketplaces (especially if you have Smith's), then hospitals. Then resume your science.

If you get a second GL, a Palace jump is a great idea. Try and get it as far as possible from your FP, the other side of the empire if possible.

 

[fret]

1 - settlers, settlers, settlers, workers, workers, workers

2 - From the instant you find out the location of a neighbouring civ, start building a road towards them

3 - From the instant you have 3 or 4 cities making military units, send 'em down the road youve built and kick some butt. No waiting building up a sizeable army, just do it.

4 - If you only build two wonders - make sure they are the pyramids and Sun Tzu's. At Regent level its worth gambling that you will definately be able to get these and therefore, take a risk by not building any barracks and only build granaries in 1 or 2 settler producing cities, put the production effort into settlers workers and military instead of city improvements.

5 - Get divorced.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by fret
5 - Get divorced.

Great advice! Otherwise, it could take year to finish a game.


@puremorning, I pay cash to rush aqueduct and market in all cities aproaching size 6 regardless of their shield production. Therefore, it doesn't really matter if they produce only 1 shield per turn, it shall be done in the same amount of time as any other city in my empire.

Moreover, I also pay cash to rush hospital and mass transit in all cities that can potentially grow beyond size 14), if they can't possible go beyond size 13, I wouldn't waste time and gold with the hospital (just re-assign their tiles away to another near by city instead).

 

[superslug]

Originally posted by fret
4 - If you only build two wonders - make sure they are the pyramids and Sun Tzu's.

Ok, we're fully agreed on the Pyramids, but I've got to really disagree with you on Sun Tzu's. Don't get me wrong, it's powerful beyond belief, but I don't make it a tier one priority. Actually, lately I've tended to having only needed a singular Barracks, and that's only been to upgrade Horsemen to Riders.

There are Wonders I consider more important that Sun Tzu, on all levels. Bach's for sure, for the blanket happiness. Smith's, for the free marketplaces. Hoover, for the boost in the milk phase.

Depending on the level I'm playing, the Great Library is a game maker in itself.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by superslug
Ok, we're fully agreed on the Pyramids, but I've got to really disagree with you on Sun Tzu's. Don't get me wrong, it's powerful beyond belief, but I don't make it a tier one priority. Actually, lately I've tended to having only needed a singular Barracks, and that's only been to upgrade Horsemen to Riders.

Technically, we don't really need the Sun Tzu. However, I enjoy the game much more when I have control of the Sun Tzu (unless I have a Great Leader, I have never build it from scratch, but to make it a near top priority in taking it). The Sun Tzu does speed up the conquest phase quite a bit because without the Sun Tzu, it could take up to 5 turn to completely heal a unit.

 

[superslug]

I take Sun Tzu when I can, just to get it out of AI hands. The immediate healing powers of barracks in a single turn would be pretty nice, except that five turns is quite often shorter that it would take for one of my Riders/Cavalry to get to a town, sit, and go back.

Funny, I guess Sun Tzu is more powerful for players who don't raze every city the come across. In my current game, I only kept one! (It had Sun Tzu...)

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by superslug
I take Sun Tzu when I can, just to get it out of AI hands. The immediate healing powers of barracks in a single turn would be pretty nice, except that five turns is quite often shorter that it would take for one of my Riders/Cavalry to get to a town, sit, and go back.

True! It's really defending on your game style. Since I usually do not launch any offensive until I have cavalry and railroad, my unit usually can attack and move back into town within the current turn.

Funny, I guess Sun Tzu is more powerful for players who don't raze every city the come across. In my current game, I only kept one! (It had Sun Tzu...)

Well, if you raze a lot of cities like I do, just use your assault settler to rebuild them instantly in the same turn. You have to do that anyway to expand your territory.

 

[superslug]

I think you hit the primary point when you said it's depending on play style. You're typically playing on higher levels than me, so there's a faster tech pace and more AI road building. That, and you wait for railroads.

Me, (so far), I like to have my conquest finished by railroads. The longer I can have the advantage of the Riders before anyone shows up with Cavalry in response.

My Settlers are constantly in motion, but without railroads, it takes them three times as long to get to the ruins as the Riders who cause the ruins.

If I move up a level or two, I'm sure our playstyles would be more in synch...