GOTM 44 - hunting tips

[ainwood]

Yes, even in warlord you can always improve your game!

This thread is for conquest class players to post their saves, and get feedback from the more experienced. Whilst we hope that warlord is within your abilities, you can always get general advice on how to improve your game, in a situation where you're not just trying your hardest to stay alive!

Please note: Open and predator players should not read this thread nor post in it until they have reached the middle ages. Conquest players should not post any saves from beyond the ancient age.

 

[THEMike]

Firstly, I decided to play open class though I am clearly a conquest class player (as I quickly found out...) through a case of "Hey it's only warlord, I can beat civ on warlord! Pah, I'll kick that AI all round the map...". Of course I neglected to remember it was a GOTM fiendishly designed to be difficult evn on warlord. The AI kicked me all around the map.

Hopefuly, the fact I played on Open won't disqualify me from posting here, because I should have played on Conquest. In fact, I am now playing on conquest just to prove I suck, and am getting kicked around the map again

I played for just under three hours, which took me to a loss at 1802AD when I was still firmly in the middle ages, a bit far in to put any details. But, as it was only a three hour session, I didn't actually make any saves at all, so I have nothing to post.

I took notes to my tactics, and I'd like some suggestions as to where I went wrong, here we go:

After reading pre-game I decided to go for a culture victory of one sort or another. I decided to play as peaceful as I could, just cruise to a 20k or 100k without trying to take out the big scary AI Civs. This tactic seemed to work for a long time...

I moved the worker 1W which was enough to convince me the Island was as tiny as I expected so I settled in place and started a temple build to start boosting that culture. Science on 100% with Map Making as the target.

My one worker ran round the island chopping, roading then mining each square of the map. Starting near babylon.

In 3250BC I started to build the Collosus, this was finished in 1910BC so I built a settler. 1675BC the settler founded Ur on the southern most tip of the Island. Ur started a temple. Culture, culture, culture! In 1600 I built another setler and then started a barracks. The settler founded Ninevah in 1550 on the northern most square of the island and started to build a temple. In 1400 I switched to wealth in Babylon. 1250 Granaries came available and I switched to build them. 1050 I was back to wealth in Babylon.

In 975BC after the ranking popup I was No 2. Yay for bablyon, the backward island nation!

In 730AD Greek cultural borders hoved into view, Map Making was due in 4 turns, so I built a settler ready for when I built the galley. In 670BC I started to build the galley, 750BC the galley was done, I started to build a spearman and sent the galley looking for land. By 470BC I had founded Ashur on the mainland, which was working on a Temple, and started pushing bowmen for some military protection on the mainland. I built a harbour in Babylon, then a settler I'd found more empty space to settle in. In 270AD, Knosos which was right by the ivory did a culture flip. EXACTLY as I'd hoped for.

The AI were refusing all trades for tech. So I switched to build the Great Library at babylon. I was nearly there when greece built it. Damn them.

290AD Sparta flipped, Sparta had the iron. But the iron wasn't in my cultural boundries, so temple time. 440AD I finished the great lighthouse in babylon and in 500AD the iron was mine!

960AD Greece invaded me to terrible cost, I got the french to help me but lost E to the greeks and it was taken back by the french. I paid the indians to help, so the greeks kicked the indians really hard after I paid for peace. I switched back to my culture plan.

I can't post more due to the restrictions, the greeks attacked again later and ultimately wiped me out. There wasn't much to note in the war. But I was dead in 1802 AD. I managed to buy very few techs. The AI just thought it couldn't be done, unless I paid like 400gp for a tech way behind their latest.

Watching the histogram, at 500BC I had about 40% of the histogram on culture. After 960BC as my empire was looted by the greeks, it slowly crumbled.

I know there isn't much detail to go on to correct it and no saves, but any help would be appreciated.

I'd post my end of game save, but I'm into the middle ages a good way (bout half-way?) and the AI are well ahead of me and the whole map is exposed. So other than the above notes, sorry there isn't anything to pick appart too much.

 

[brennan]

Ouch!

All of us posting on the Open spoiler thread have varied from your gameplan in one important respect: We made our goal to get off that horrible little island asap by researching Map Making. To achieve this we all founded 2 or 3 new cities very much earlier than your second to maximise commerce and thus research.

From this start point we all seem to have grabbed a small space, but enough for at least a couple of cities, on the continent, and to have attained tech parity through either trading or conquest once there. Looks like all the stronger players have the game in the bag at this point, Warlord AI is no challenge for a player from here. Entering Medieval at around 0AD...

 

[Twonky]

Sounds like the biggest problem was that you couldn´t keep up in tech. I guess 750bc (the time you made contacts) was too late to trade MapMaking?
Then again, with Sparta and the iron, you might have been able to build up some military better than bowman and pointy-stick research some.
Your development sounds quite good to the point until you got Sparta.
One exception: building wealth in your capitol should have been avoided. Maybe some extra bowmen or even warriors would have served you better.

 

[Chamnix]

I played for just under three hours, which took me to a loss at 1802AD

Slow down!!

I decided to play as peaceful as I could, just cruise to a 20k or 100k without trying to take out the big scary AI Civs.

20K and 100K are very different games. 100K is generally not peaceful. In order to reach 100K you need to have lots of cities.

In 3250BC I started to build the Collosus, this was finished in 1910BC so I built a settler. 1675BC the settler founded Ur on the southern most tip of the Island. Ur started a temple. Culture, culture, culture! In 1600 I built another setler and then started a barracks. The settler founded Ninevah in 1550 on the northern most square of the island and started to build a temple.

If you are playing for 20K, you don't need culture in any cities other than your 20K city. If you are playing for 100K, it is more important to get more cities than to build a couple early temples.

In 1400 I switched to wealth in Babylon. 1250 Granaries came available and I switched to build them. 1050 I was back to wealth in Babylon.

In 730AD Greek cultural borders hoved into view, Map Making was due in 4 turns, so I built a settler ready for when I built the galley. In 670BC I started to build the galley, 750BC the galley was done

Pre-building is not just useful for wonders. If you have a new tech coming up with an improvement that you need, use the most expensive item to pre-build. You can use settlers as partial pre-builds if that is all that is available.

I second Twonky's motion against building wealth. An extra worker will always be useful long term. In my game, I found that building spearmen with the sole intention of disbanding them for 5 shields later was more valuable than the 4-5g I would have picked up by building wealth. There is always something better than wealth early in the game.

The AI were refusing all trades for tech. So I switched to build the Great Library at babylon. I was nearly there when greece built it. Damn them.

My one worker ran round the island chopping, roading then mining each square of the map.

To keep up in techs, you need money. More workers=faster roads would help a lot. The temples were also draining your economy. If you are playing 20K, you need 1 early temple. If you are playing 100K, you need to wait until you have more territory before building temples - they are just too expensive in the early game unless they are absolutely necessary.

Also, it helps a lot to go for techs the AI ignores including Polytheism, Currency, and Literature in the Ancient Age. Take your time with trades - when you do get a monopoly tech, don't trade it unless you are getting something in return that you can turn around and trade again to someone else. One monopoly tech can often net you 5-6 techs if you trade in the right order.

 

[THEMike]

Thanks all for the good feedback. I've just tried out CivAssist II and I can't beleive I've never used it before, the ability to get alerts on tech trading opportunities will save me the endless frustration of polling the other civs each turn for techs, which I soon tire of and thus miss loads of opportunities. Loads of other neatness too.

I think I'm going to start again again on conquest, for the experience and try and do better. On the other hand it's sunny, I might just go and sit in the garden and drink more for the experience.

 

[Abegweit]

This is an absolutely impossible map for 20K. You need a good productive city and you don't have any until you get off the rock. 100K is fine. Go out and conquer the world and then build libraries and temples everywhere. Remember, though, the first step is to conquer it. Culture comes next.

BTW, the build order in each city should be library-temple-uni-cath. This is true unless your civ is religious but not scientific. And every city should have its library and temple before you start on any unis (unless, of course, you need them for research).

 

[tao]

If you look at the spoilers, you will see that a number of players went for 20k (including me). As Chamnix said, 20k is very very different from 100k. And even more so in this case.

Doing the OCC (one city challenge) approach, the total focus is on culture. Whenever there is a Wonder or culture building available - go for it. Adjust your research and trading to give you always access to culture buildings.

In this case, The Great Library with 6cpt was a "shouldn't do without it" build. It is in most 20k games, because aside from the 6cpt, it allows you to save money for hurrying temples, libraries, cathedrals, universities as well as infrastructure (market, harbor, aqueduct). You want to deviate as little as possible from building Wonders.

And always remember that the cpt double after the first 1000 years, i.e. Great Library in 370BC means 12cpt after 630AD.

Building wealth is always bad, and even more so in a 20k game. If there is no building avaliable, build units to disband towards the next building you get access to.

Also look at the position for Babylon: settling in place will not allow to work the hill, which gives the most shields once out of despotism. Thus moving the settler SW is IMHO a smart initial move. Of course first the worker went west to the bg to see if any other goodies were available.

And the nice thing about a 20k OCC game is its shortness. You should try again and do better, maybe not in 3 hours but in 10.

 

[jayeffaar]

Hi. I'm not a very experienced player and I've mostly played C3C so far, so maybe there's something obvious at play here that I'm missing...

Even though I have built barracks in a number of cities, I haven't been able so far to upgrade any of my units. I have the money, the resources and I've already built some of the newer units from scratch, so I know I can make them, but when I activate a unit to be upgraded in a city with barracks, I'm don't even get the Upgrade button in the UI. I also noticed that the little barracks icon doesn't appear next to my cities with barracks, nor does it appear next to any foreign cities anywhere on the world map. Or is that a C3C-only feature?

Is there something in this GOTM that disabled the Upgrade feature, or am I doing something wrong? I'm at a point where I desperately need to upgrade a few units to survive, and I just can't do it...

 

[tao]

The city in which you want to upgrade not only needs barracks, but also access to the resource. Is the required resource (e.g. iron to go from spear to pike) visible in the city screen? maybe you need a road or a harbor?

And there are no barracks indicators in pre-c3c maps.

 

[jayeffaar]

I'm in the middle of the MA right now, so I won't go into specific details, but I have an active spikeman standing in a city with barracks and access to saltpeter and iron, a city where I currently have the option to build a musketman in 3 turns, but the button to upgrade the spikeman doesn't appear anywhere. Same thing with any other city where I should be able to upgrade as far as I can tell... I'm stumped...

 

[Offa]

...in a city with barracks and access to saltpeter and iron, a city where I currently have the option to build a musketman in 3 turns, but the button to upgrade the spikeman doesn't appear anywhere. Same thing with any other city where I should be able to upgrade as far as I can tell... I'm stumped...

Have you got enough cash?

 

[jayeffaar]

Yup. But even if I didn't, the upgrade button should still show up, right? It's just not there.

Anyways, the entire world ended up declaring war on me and with no way to upgrade my defences, I quickly lost a lot of terrain. I just gave up and retired.

Pretty pathetic for a Warlord game (which happened to be my rating in the end, btw ).

 

[bio_hazard]

@jayeffaar
a weird and unfortunate situation. Are any of the following possible causes?

*your only source of iron or saltpeter was exhausted that turn
*you aquired one of the above through trade, but then war/embargo cut your access
*Someone bombed/pillaged your resource and cut your access?
*someone stole/detroyed Sun Tzu's?

maybe somehow there could be a lag where Muskets would show up as buildable but you couldn't upgrade to them. I think you are at least allowed to finish a build even if your resource gets cut before completion?

 

[jayeffaar]

Thanks B_H... but that's not it either. I had actually been aware for a while that I wasn't getting the option to upgrade at any of my cities with barracks but I didn't worry to much about it until it was too late: when I really needed a few upgrades right away. Every time I thought I should have been able to upgrade but couldn't, I made sure I had the necessary resources in the resource box of the current city and the city had barracks as indicated by the list of city improvements on the left of the city menu. The resources were mine and hadn't been aquired through trading and the barracks were built, not generated by Sun Tzu's...

If anybody wants to take a look at one of my game saves to see what I'm missing, I'm attaching one. Note that the save is from well into the Middle Ages, so anybody who hasn't made it that far probably won't want to open it.

I still have a feeling I'm just missing the obvious and I'm going to end up embarassed by all this, but I'd really like to know what I'm missing...

 

[berserks01]

Just took a look at your save. Lagash has the iron and barrack, and can upgrade the swordman to medieval infantry, but cannot upgrade the pike to musket cuz you ain't got enough money. But Bangalore does not have barrack so it cannot upgrade it's swordman to medieval infanty. I'm using these 2 cities as an example here.

So the problems are you're missing barracks in some city, and you don't have enough gold to upgrade. Remember that it cost more to upgrade if you don't have Leonardo's Workshop.

 

[jayeffaar]

Ok... feeling a little stupid now...

I was apparently operating under two wrong assumptions: that the update to pikeman to musketman was for 30 gold, and that the upgrade button would appear even if you didn't have enough cash, if only to tell you how much you would need to perform the upgrade, if you had enough... I must have played too much SMAC...

Sorry for the wasted bandwidth, guys and thank you for your help and patience. At least, I learned something...