Ghandi and his many hordes (Let's play!)

[lymond]

answers in blue

.. I just get so wrapped up in the game that it's hard to not just do one more turn lol.

patience grasshopa


1.) How do you build scientists?
Libraries provide 2 scientists slots. Some buildings provide slots for other specialists. Caste System allows infinite slots. You will see this in the right middle of a city screen. Just select the scientists and then adjust the rest of your citizens to improvements to balance the city needs. (early game I micro the heck out of my citizens every turn, including between cities that share tiles
2.) What is MP? You keep mentioning that Vijay has none? (I tried racking by brain to think of what you could be using that acronym for)
sorry..military police..one unit in a city affects the happiness of that city. Very very early you don't bother as you want your warriors scouting/spawnbusting. As cities start to grow though you want a unit in there. Always keep tabs on each city's happiness factor. Another note about happiness is the impact of some civics. For instance, Hereditary Rule (from Monarchy tech) gives 1 happy for each unit in a city. Do familiarize yourself with the civics.
3.) Don't think Aksum is blocked as I see roads coming to it from two different tiles.

hmm..maybe I saw it incorrectly, but it seemed you did not have a full road connection from Aksum to Delhi just west of it. Once gem city is in place with a road from Bombay, that will connect to via the sea
4.) Changed religion to none
immediate diplo boost as you see
5.) Trading Toku and Gilgs for their religion
I assume you mean gold
6.) How do you groom for bureaucracy?
I've mentioned this before but it probably did not really register yet. Bureaucracy is one of the most powerful civics in the game. It boosts commerce and production in your cap by 50% each. A strong Bureau cap will have nice cottage tiles which are generally river grassland and floodplains. You will cottage them fairly early and try to keep them working, oftentimes with helper cities (think Bombay) that can work them early while cap produces Settlers and/or runs your first scientists. Once develop and after teching Civil Service, you switch to Bureau and the cap start taken on more of those juicy cottages, many of which have grown to villages or towns by now. This huge boosts in commerce gives you a huge research boost..and gold depending on the sliders

Stopped all horseman training as I can, if not I will build the other buildings as needed. I got agra and aksum working work boats.
read my comments above on buildings again just to make sure we are in synch on that point

Edit: Gilgs will not give me gold for my writing unless I through in HBR as well. Same with Toku, unless I give him myst and math
Toku should trade myst for his 40g I think.. Can't remember if I checked Gilgs. Keep in mind that an AI may have part teched a certain tech which will decrease its value to them. This is actually something important to note as once you get Currency you gauge each turn what they are teching by the gold value balance against X techs. Anyway, just click the tech and click their gold and make the trade. If they don't accept, adjust the gold or click to see what they will accept. Nooo..don't give them bigger techs yet. If they don't give gold, then forget it
Edit2: What the heck.. I put in myst first and then asked what do you want for it and he gave it to me.. but I tried to put in gold first then myst and he wouldnt take it.. silly AI
something is not right there..I don't know what happened. Don't really know what to say..you broke the game
Edit3: Annnd.. .I'm also the worst enemy of everyone.. lol

this should change almost immediately just switching out of religion...also, I should probably mention that AIs will sometimes beg or demand gold or techs. This is actually something you don't always just say no to depending on the conditions or the relationships. You may want to confer with us first before making a decision.
Also, note that you can beg as well, if you are Pleased or Friendly with an AI and have known them for a while. I usually beg around 50 or 60g ...this can be done about every 20 turns

 

[lymond]

You know..I should probably give you a short primer on commerce commerce and sliders. This is probably one of the most confusing things to newer players, or oftentimes they just don't pay attention to it.

First of all, commerce commerce is not gold gold. Commerce is represent by those little gold coins on the map or in trade routes. (probably why it confuses)

However, commerce is converted to beakers (research) and gold via the sliders. Your primary purpose for it generally is research (beakers) as that drives teching. But sometimes, you want to generate gold so you reduce you research slider. (Note how as you lower the research slider you increase your gold generation denoted in the very top left of the screen. As you start running deficit due to costs, the game will lower the slider automatically to make up for it. I try to control the slider manually as much as possible though)

Gold (or more specifically Gold Per Turn - GPT) can also be earned statically by running merchants, holy shrines, some settled great people, resource trades, religious buildings with the Spiral Minaret wonder, and corporations). You can also build wealth, turn your hammers into gold.

Beakers can be earned statically by running scientists. (spies and artist provide a little as well) The Representation government civic boosts that amount (Pyramids opens it or Constitution tech)- very powerful early but Mids is expensive without stone. Also, statically by religious buildings and the University of Sankore wonder. Some corps provide some static beakers as well. You can also build research, turning your hammers into beakers.

However, generally the bulk of your research comes from converting commerce into beakers via your research slider.

Generally you want to run you slider at 100% as much as you can. However, as you've well noticed, once you found even your first city you start to run a gold deficit. A lot of new players get concerned by this fact. What you are doing is increasing your overall maintenance cost. Founding cities is just one expense. Certain civics increase cost and, ofc, more units increase cost. You should also realize that not just the fact that 1 unit cost more, but having units outside your cultural borders is more costly as well, so bear that in mind.

Overall, though I just want you to start becoming cognizant of commerce in general. You want to find ways of increasing your overall commerce. One way is developing cottages in certain cities. As mentioned, your Cap is often one city that will run a lot of cottages. (not all caps are suited for it due to the land...if so, you might look to settle a city in a location that is and move the Palace there to take advantage of Bureau.) You can also settle a city or two that focuses primarily on cottages, i.e., river cities.

Resources like gold and gems provide a lot of early commerce. These are prized early, and one of the main reasons I had you settle Bombay (although also as a helper city to Delhi and overlap city) Gold and Gems are prized by experienced players, although not always available. In HOF games, players generally try to roll gold or gem starts...hopefully you start playing HOF games. Anyway, they are a huge boost to research early not to mention the nice extra happiness, which means more growth or more whippage.

Trade routes are another important source of commerce, and why I harp on you making those city connections early. But even more important are Foreign Trade routes after Writing and Open borders as they boost your overall trade income in cities. You should try to leverage that as soon as you can spare turns to connect them. Depending on map, Sailing will often do this for you as well.

Overall, commerce is a big driver of much of the game mechanics, so start to be aware of it. Although you don't bother much with culture slider or espionage slider right now, commerce drives those sliders as well. You don't have to think much about them right now.

Lastly, distance maintenance can be managed quite a bit by settling a compact empire. Overlapping cities is not a bad thing in this game at all, although certainly sometimes you just have to settle a city where it is because of what it offers. Note, that as you move up difficulties these costs increase, so it must be managed more carefully.

 

[lymond]

Cox...I want you to replay your 7 turns...there was a lot missed and there is just so much going wrong at the moment that it is much do deal with.

I like you to post the save you would like to start from, and then I will guide you through some actions. I may post some screenshots to help you and/or post some signs in game.

As mention, some of these cities you do have to move units into them for happiness. Also, there are some bad areas that are generating barbs that you could remedy, like NW area above Delhi. You have this warrior just standing on a hill just W of Delhi doing nothing.

As for the research slider thing, I touched on that a bit just above. There is nothing you can do about it. Once you start losing gold the slider goes down. But no worries. There is nothing wrong with running 100% tax. In fact, I often early game run other 100% research or 100% tax, rarely in between (except when I start kinda finessing the slider.

When you start back you will run 100% tax (or think of it as 0% research). In other words, you are turning all your commerce into gold for now. You will do this X turns, while maybe building some wealth in cities doing nothing important and trading for gold when you can. Then you gauge what you need to finish off Civil Service. (If you've not noticed, there can be a bit of math involved in Civ IV - at least if you want to get good at the game) Anyway, I plan to walk you through a bit of this process in the short term. Don't worry over time, with practice, you will get a better feel for all this stuff. You are still very new and I've been throwing a lot at you. Ha..you could just ignore me, turn it down to Settler level, build units and go kill peoples and not think about anything.

 

[TheCox]

Trust me when I say thank you. I know I'm a complete noob at this game, but for some reason, even though I am way older than the civ series.. ok well maybe I was 5 years old when Civ 1 came out, I have tried playing it before but could never get into it.. I am completely hooked on this game and its like crack for me. I will do anything to become better at the game and learn anything I can.

So with that being said, let's go back to T116. This is the end of Zara, before I trade anything to gilgs or toku for their gold. I'm still building horsemen which I need to cancel etc.. you will see when you get in game.

And yes, there is a lot of information that has been thrown at me, I am processing it as I can, but it's definitely a process. In regards to toku and gilgs trading.. I had to click my techs first before they would give me any gold.. I couldnt ask for gold then click writing and it work.. Strange I know..

Here is the save
View attachment TheCox-Ghandi - Wet CornTurn116.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Qactus]

Whenever CIV fever gets me every couple of months and I return to CFC, I see Lymond teaching the game with a level of patience and dedication that is just incredible.

 

[Pangaea]

Just want to say that lymond is doing a great job in here explaining game mechanics and the like. You are getting excellent help, and I hope many new players are reading this thread for help and inspiration.

Btw, a good way to figure out what an AI is willing to give to you in trade is to select something, and then ask "What will make this trade acceptable", or however it's worded. If you for instance ask 35 for mysticism and the AI will only give you 30 for it, he'll ask for another tech instead of lower the gold amount. Therefore it's better to ask them what is acceptable instead.

I hope that made sense, the mechanic is a little wonky.

Think of it as a bartering process, with an honest salesman (I know, right, totally unrealistic! ).

"I have 30 dollars, what will that buy me?"

As opposed to:

"I have 30 dollars and want that watch. How can we make that work?"
"Well, since you lack the money for the item, throw in your car and we'll call it even"

Okay, maybe not entirely honest

 

[TheCox]

Haha.. yeah, I totally get that and I'm so grateful that everyone has patience here and is in a teaching mood.

 

[lymond]

Hey Cox -

I will be out-of-pocket most likely all day.

I suggest putting this game on ice today, and encourage you, if you plan to play, to reread some of the advice here and start a new game for practice..try out what you learned. You can certainly report back on your progress there as well.

I will try to get back to this game tomorrow.

edit: Nvm..I think I can take a look now to at least get you going a few more turns, but then can't address it until tomorrow. You can then think about doing the above in the meantime.

 

[lymond]

Ok..I'm attaching the save. I've started a few adjustments in cities, changed to no state religion, and trade for the gold. (Gilgs was teching Writing, so that is why he would not trade for his full gold..you can just select Writing and his gold and then choose "What will you give? and it will adjust for you)

So:

1) I have you set at 100% tax for now. I think you need to run it for at least 3 turns depending on if you have more ops to trade for gold. It's all bigger techs now, but IW to Toku may be worth some gold soon since AIs always tech it anyway. Always check each turn to see if they somehow come into a large chunk of gold. Maths is not too bad to trade either, but don't trade your stuff unless it seems a good thing. Check relationships between Ai, as unless they are Mansa Musa, they will usually not trade with others. Toku does like a couple of leaders right now and he has Alpha, so keep tabs on that. In other words, Alphas value is decreasing now so may be worth a trade for something soon with the right leaders. (oh..and you should look to pick up techs when you can like Poly, Masonry and PH...you will probably look to trade for Monarchy in near future as well so you can switch to Hereditary Rule for more happiness. Mids is strong for Gandhi with Representation instead, but you don't appear to have stone)

2) 1t into settler in Vijay and then 3pop whip into a library. (I should have some stuff queued for you). In some cities if nothing to build other than grans, LHs if needed, or libraries, then build wealth.

3) Aksum wb scouts E along coast. 1HA will scout Sumer coasts once Gilgs OBs with you in next turn or so. Others can just bust that fog around to prevent barbs.

4) Remember check cities each turn to micro citizens and make sure they are working good things. You have cities with unhappies so check what the citizens do once they do become happy. With MP, and soon Gems online, and maybe resource trades, you will get more happiness soon.

5) Cities with libraries can run scientists as well as they are able

6) get GEms online asap. In I think 2 turns you can switch to Caste System for a bit. In cities that new border pops, you can run 1 artists specialist for culture ..just until the border pops, then switch citizen to a good tile.

7) In Caste System, cities that can, like Delhi, may hire even more scientists to speed great person points (GPPS) and get the Great Scientists.

8) I was thinking at this point that you will use your GSs for bulbs, but lets go ahead and use first one for Academy in Delhi, which will be a strong research center. Academy gives +50% beakers and is super strong early in the right place. (Usually you only need one of these ever, in your capital) Bulbing with GSs later is very strong.

9) Check math on beakers/gold needed for Civil Service to finish it out..otherwise you can maybe post up here again after playing 3 or 4 turns for a check. I can probably at least peak in once again today.

10) oh..and get those spices online S of Krak asap to for more happy

(these notes should be combined with the other advice I gave some posts above)

 

[TheCox]

I am just appreciating the help.. I know you might be out of pocket today, so don't stress yourself.. I may make another game and just use what I have learned to see what I can do from there. I will look over these steps that you have outlined and go from there =)

Thanks again.

 

[TheCox]

So I don't have enough time this weekend to sit down and fully digest my Ghandi game, so I made a new game that I can just pick up and put down as needed.

Would a 3 clam start in the original borders be a good start for food?

 

[Pangaea]

It's plenty of food, but personally I don't like seafood capitals because the start will be slower when you need workboats.

I really like a river in my capitals, so I can cottage up riverside grasslands and groom the place for bureaucracy later.

 

[civfanchambers]

It's plenty of food, but personally I don't like seafood capitals because the start will be slower when you need workboats.

I really like a river in my capitals, so I can cottage up riverside grasslands and groom the place for bureaucracy later.

I agree with Pangaea, I don't much care for coastal capitols either. The workboat is like a one time disposable worker. At such an early part of the game, turns and hammers are precious. Spending time on not just 1 but 3 workboats is a serious investment in turns and hammers, which could better be spent elsewhere. On the plus side however, is the possibility that a coastal capitol can be the city with the Great Lighthouse. But imo, an inland capitol with lots of rivers is much better.

 

[TheCox]

Sorry about the long wait for a response.. Work and wedding planning have been taking up most of my free time.

I will read over the last few posts again, then make a few turns and we can go from there.. I haven't lost the gumption or motivation to play, just real life in the way haha

 

[Testhero]

It depends on what the city needs first. Usually in the early wars, the AI hasn't done a good job developing the city, and it has a small population already so you want to get the granary up as soon as possible.

I go for culture mainly if your pushing at the border of an AI that you aren't about to kill, or if there is a high priority resource (sometimes this is food) in the second ring. Especially in the early wars, you often just want to raze the city as the AI settled in a place that wasn't good and you lose more than you get out of the city for a long time.

Always check the city for what buildings it has. Even a junk city in the desert is probably worth keeping if AI managed somehow to build a wonder like the mausoleum of maussalos. If it's a city that kept a lot of buildings, its often worth it to keep, especially if it kept the mote expensive ones like courthouse or forge.

How do you check what is in the city before you see the Keep city install a new governor Or Raise city Burn baby Burn decision box ?

 

[ShiVvV]

Testhero
There should also be a third option available immediately upon capture--inspect city.

 

[lymond]

Although that option is not available in Vanilla and..I think..Warlords

 

[ShiVvV]

Ahh...that explains that, Lymond. And that's just silly!

 

[civfanchambers]

Testhero
There should also be a third option available immediately upon capture--inspect city.

The inspect city option was only added in the 3.19 patch. Base bts doesn't have it.

 

[Testhero]

Testhero
There should also be a third option available immediately upon capture--inspect city.

Yes that is it As you could tell by the little icon top left of my posts I am playing vanilla (1.61)

ShiVvV you have finally come across a real reason to move to BtS more meaning full than now you can play without the disk in the drive when you start the game! :

Unless 1.72 update adds that feature or is there a mod that does?

Yeah at the moment it is pure guesswork of course all culture buildings are toast and you can check the stats screen to see if there is a wonder there but after that it is a crap shoot.

Does it show what buildings will survive? Or just what is there just before you take it before the accursed RNG empties some prime building land for you?