[C3C] Going agricultural

[patinthedesert]

So for a new game I decided to try a civ with the Agri trait. One reason was viewing a couple of Suedeciviii Youtube videos where he discussed strengths/weakness of traits. Start a new Regent game, map is small-continents-70%-random for climate-roaming barbs. And picked Iroquois. As I have discovered there are 2 continents with 3 civs each plus a few small to medium islands. My continent is long but not very wide. Iroquois have the South, Korea the middle and Germany the North.

It has been going well enough. The big challenge so far is that I had no iron. And it turned out no saltpeter either. The early expansion was brief as not much room between the civs. I had 5 or 6 cities when I Declared on Korea (K). Mounted warriors were very effective against mostly spears and warriors. The first war stopped when K still had 4 cities, 2 not connected on the mainland and 2 islands that appeared insignificant.

I could see that Germany (G) had iron, 2 of them. One was fairly close but would require taking 2 cities plus probably settling a new town of my own. I built up what I thought was a good force of the Mounted Warriors plus several Trebuchets and a few spears. Not enough spears. I was able to take first G city quick enough, and was approaching second city which was his capitol Leipzig. Defenders now showed up in groups, mostly swords and archers. Mounted Warriors are great on offense but if you have to defend a city or a position they are weak.Also Med Infantry were coming too. I was about to lose a big part of my attack force (3-4 trebs plus 3 Mounted Warrions, all on red) when G offered peace deal. So I took it and brought back the forces to safety. While I built more spears and considered my options, I tried a trade. G agreed to trade Iron, for a high price, and I took it and started to build Med. Infantry quick. When I got Gunpowder I discovered no Saltpeter. No Saltpeter showing anywhere on the continent. Also my now caravels had explored and found the other continent and England, Egypt and Portugal. Search using ctl-shft-M showed Saltpeter on one of K's islands, with only 2 tiles. Kind of a surprise. So back to war with K.Took his 2 mainland cities while preparing for caravel invasion of the island. Very glad to see he had no navy except 1 galley. Conquered the island and built harbor as soon as resistance ended. Upgrades to cannon follow. Also eliminate K by taking last island.
2nd war with G is stronger. Med Infantry + cannon + few longbows + first few Knights and leftover Mounted Warriors. Conquer 3 southern G cities with most of the best land. Plus iron and dye. I settle 2 new cities in the gaps.
Now building up and developing. added several universities and banks. Added workers to build rails after Steam. Approaching Rep Parts for infantry. I had a discussion in Strategy forum about optional tech improvements. I skipped some but felt I had to have navigation, economics, and nationalism. So I need to decide the strategy from here. The 3 civs on the other continent have roughly the same size territory and nobody is getting destroyed. First will be to take out G who is now weak. Then go into trade and diplomacy to make alliance with one of the 3 others and upset the balance?

Corruption and culture flips are going to be a problem when I get over there. The distance between the 2 continents is about as far as it can be on this size map. Almost the same distance East or West.

 

[patinthedesert]

Also is there a way to turn on tile edges in this version of Civ? Makes it easier to get the distance right on moves at sea,

 

[need my speed]

Also is there a way to turn on tile edges in this version of Civ? Makes it easier to get the distance right on moves at sea,

Do you mean Ctrl+G?

 

[justanick]

Mounted warriors were very effective against mostly spears and warriors.

Of course they were. In fact they are effective against pikes or even musketmen. There is no better offensive unit than mounted warriors before cavalry if you take into account the required shields. Mounted warriors need to be used in numbers and they are meant to be used without artillery support. Your first few attackers will likely die or retreat, but this will soften up the defenders and leave other mounted warriors to clean up the weakened remains. Mounted warriors require a totally different playstyle. You need to attack, you need to advance fast and you need to have the numbers when you start the war so you can end the war soon to your liking. It is meant be to a Blitzkrieg, not a slow drag as with artillery.

Now building up and developing. added several universities and banks.

Why do you need banks? Is your research rate that low? Banks only the increase the income that is not spend on research or luxury sliders. Skipping banks is the standard producedure. If you worry about flipping, then tempels are actually more useful than banks. It is global culture(compare the graph in F8) that matters for flipping.

 

[CKS]

Why do you need banks? Is your research rate that low? Banks only the increase the income that is not spend on research or luxury sliders. Skipping banks is the standard producedure. If you worry about flipping, then tempels are actually more useful than banks. It is global culture(compare the graph in F8) that matters for flipping.

If you are playing a long game or a culture game, you need 5 banks so you can build 5 stock exchanges so you can build Wall Street. You can sell them after WS later, though.

On the other continent, corruption will be an issue, but don't worry about culture flips, patinthedesert. Just raze a couple of towns and build your own. Or raze them all. (Depending of course on how you want to win.)

 

[Buttercup]

If you build Smiths then Banks are free upkeep anyway so no reason not to build them, unless you really can't spare 6 or 7 turns of shield production for whatever specific reason.

"Also is there a way to turn on tile edges in this version of Civ? Makes it easier to get the distance right on moves at sea"

I see you are not familiar with the options and setting menu in the top left of your screen. Click the top-most, left-most button and then click "Preferences" and then click "Show gridlines".

 

[patinthedesert]

Of course they were. In fact they are effective against pikes or even musketmen. There is no better offensive unit than mounted warriors before cavalry if you take into account the required shields. Mounted warriors need to be used in numbers and they are meant to be used without artillery support. Your first few attackers will likely die or retreat, but this will soften up the defenders and leave other mounted warriors to clean up the weakened remains. Mounted warriors require a totally different playstyle. You need to attack, you need to advance fast and you need to have the numbers when you start the war so you can end the war soon to your liking. It is meant be to a Blitzkrieg, not a slow drag as with artillery.

Yes I can see that. I started invasion with 10 or 12 mounted warriors. Should have had about 20. If I had been able to take his second (and capitol) city, I wold have settled for peace after securing iron and damaging his civilization. When they could conter-attack with swords and such, it got expensive. On your second point, yes mounted warriors and trebs did not make a good combination.

Why do you need banks? Is your research rate that low? Banks only the increase the income that is not spend on research or luxury sliders. Skipping banks is the standard producedure. If you worry about flipping, then tempels are actually more useful than banks. It is global culture(compare the graph in F8) that matters for flipping.

I build banks to boost city income. Is it the most efficient use of shields? I don't know the answer to that. I will also build factories later on for similar reasons.

 

[r16]

am a slow player but if you can force the Al to fight in the place of your choice , you can bring fire support and defenders to hold the conquered cities into play . The first city in the other continent is always fun , with everything thrown at you . lf you don't consider it as a cheat , leave some city undefended and the Al you are fighting will send its units to get this juicy plum . You can attrite them a lot on the way . They probably will not even notice your redlined units if sufficiently out of their route .

for a slow player , banks will work , with continious care for the tax slider . ı will always maximize tax rate when it is just one turn to a new tech , your financial buildings can very well cover their cost in a single turn and operate at a loss for maybe 10 turns during scientific research . Will certainly do good in your core , to buy cultural stuff to enlarge your borders at the periphery or buying a courthouse or two .

 

[tjs282]

I build banks to boost city income. Is it the most efficient use of shields? I don't know the answer to that.

The answer is no, more often than not.

To understand why, you need to grasp the difference between "commerce" (harvested from your tiles with water, roads, rivers, and/or bonus-resources and illustrated by the gold coins on the map in the city-view), and the actual in-game currency of "gold" used to pay maintenance on buildings and 'excess' units, and for making deals with the AI-civs.

Your raw commerce is converted to beakers and happyfaces (and gold) according to the settings of your science- and luxury-sliders, with any remainder converted to 'tax-income' (gold):

SCI% + LUX% + TAX% = 100%

or in other words

TAX% = 100% – SCI% – LUX%

However, unlike Factories (which boost unwasted raw shields) Banks don't boost a town's raw (uncorrupted) commerce, they only boost "tax-gold", i.e. what is left over from your commerce after your science- and luxury-spending have been subtracted from it (NB Markets also boost tax-gold, but you will generally be building them for their ability to increase Lux-happiness, rather than tax).

This means that if you are playing optimally, with the luxury-slider set just high enough to prevent riots — depending on factors like difficulty level, average town-size, government type, access to Lux-resources, existence of Markets, etc. (LUX%=10-20% is a fairly typical setting required for a peaceful Republic at Emperor level) — and the science-slider set to convert the remainder of your commerce to beakers, then for the majority of your game-turns, you will obtain no tax-gold. A Bank will therefore have nothing to boost, and hence will cost more to maintain than it will provide in income, acting as a net drain on your Civ's economy.

Once you can obtain 4-turn research comfortably (i.e. without requiring max. SCI%), then Banks may become worth building in your (high-commerce) core towns (your capital, 1st-ring and maybe 2nd-ring towns). But if the game is close to being won by that point, then a Bank would still likely be a lower priority for shields than e.g. additional Cavalry (1 Bank = 2 Cavs) or Tanks.

 

[patinthedesert]

I got to the advance for Refining, and no Oil showed up. And I have a whole continent now. I searched and the nearest oil was on another small island to the east of my continent. A weird map. So I brought a settler and workers and got it hooked up.

A comment on the bank building. Thanks for all the research tjs282. I did an experiment because I wanted to see what it showed. After a save I went to a city that already had a bank. And I sold the bank.. Production of shields was unchanged. Commerce was deceased from 22 to 18. I closed the city screen and went back to the main map screen. The value for gold per turn had gone from +59 to +56. So I do see an improvement to the income. The tax rates were set at 3/7/0.

Edit: I forgot to add any conclusion on this experiment with the bank. It does NOT add any shields or gold to the city. But it does add gold income to the civ. At 160 shields to build the payback is rather long.

 

[justanick]

I got to the advance for Refining, and no Oil showed up. And I have a whole continent now. I searched and the nearest oil was on another small island to the east of my continent. A weird map. So I brought a settler and workers and got it hooked up.

In general it makes sense to not wait for a tech show up the resource. Just settle anyway.

 

[patinthedesert]

In general it makes sense to not wait for a tech show up the resource. Just settle anyway.

On a more inviting spot I would agree. This island was 5 tiles. 4 tundra and a mountain. But the oil made it much more attractive

 

[md4]

A junk city in the middle of nowhere is still better than not having that junk city. Even if it yields no resources it will still make more than it costs. In some cases, cities like that can become a strategic asset if, for example, you build a Harbor and use it as a forward ship repairing facility so your navy doesn't have to cross an entire ocean for repairs, and be back in the fight sooner.

 

[patinthedesert]

I completed the map to a Domination victory. This one was easier. My best win at Regent yet. It worked out even with 2 late-game mistakes. I was down to the last 2 viable civs. Egypt and Portugal, who were 2/3s of the other continent. I wanted to fight Portugal first and keep Egypt friendly. To invade Port I had to go thru Egyptian waters unless I took a long detour. I managed to irritate Cleo into a war. It didn't make too much difference but Egypt wreaked some havoc into the lands I had captured from England for a few turns. The worst damage was to the Civilian attitude (war weariness). I kept up the counterattack until I had a couple of her cities including Thebes. Then settle for peace. After a period of peace to develop and build up, went back to war with tanks, cavalry, artillery, 2 armies and an airforce. I was a bit overconfident when I declared war and started moving 2 stacks forward towards the strong cities remaining. And was surprised when several cavalry units conter-attacked. The most clever of the moves was to move one cavalry into my lands and reach a small city (pop 1) that I had left temporarily unguarded. And capture it. Then 2 more cavalry units followed, down the roads or rails in the Now Friendly territory to attack the next city which had only 1 redlined unit in it. Lost one other city, small and corrupt, too. So this caused a huge drop in the civilian attitude with 3 lost cities. After going thru the many cities that were rioting to settle the unhappy types, I moved the Lux from 0 to 20. Oh 2 of the cities were pop 1 and got destroyed. I kept up the war, took back the territory and kept up the pressure. While attacking and taking most of his cities, started building settlers to replace the destroyed cities and fill in the gaps. I offered peace to Egypt when at 61% of area. Filled in with settlers to finish the game.

Next game I may try a 'weaker' civ or some other changes to mix it up.