GOTM70 - First Spoiler

[scoutsout]

I had some tough sledding in the early goings of this one too. I decided early on to pursue a 20k Cultural Victory, so my initial research was set to Mysticism.

I squeezed a couple of settler pairs out of Madrid and sent them to some decent locations for food, in the hopes that a couple of towns producing settlers would offset a capitol-based settler pump enough to allow my capitol to build Wonders...

As it turned out, The Oracle would be the only Ancient Wonder I would build. My Pyramids-as-a-pre-build-for-The-Great-Library ended in a wonder cascade that left me with a Granary that cost me about 400 shields.

Tack that one on to the GOTM "Scout's Ouch" list.

Fortunately (?) for me, the initial German attack was not against my capitol. I had just founded a city north of Madrid, guarded by a warrior. There were a couple of German archers on a nearby mountain, and they torched my new town in the IBT.

I had purchased Warrior Code from Germany earlier... I think in a trade using Ceremonial Burial. I didn't exactly 'contain' germany... I defended with archers against whatever Bismarck sent, and paid gold and GPT for peace when he would negotiate.

The second (and third) wars against Germany were fought in the Middle Ages. I think it's taken me 4 wars against Germany to effectively take them out of the game.

By the time I got to the Middle Ages I was half an age behind... and having to buy my way along the tech tree. I got a MGL in the 2nd German War and reserved it for a wonder build... managing to snag Shakespeare's Theater as my only Middle Ages wonder. The other wonders got completed before I even got the tech.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Predator class, going for space (just because PaperBeetle said he was going for space in the pregame discussion, and if we are going to fight it out for the #2 GPR slot, it seems fitting we should go for the same VC ).

I gotta learn to keep my big mouth shut eh? Well now you've called me out, I'd better stick to my guns. Ah wait, if I just pretend I'm switching to 100k...

In 825 BC, the massive Barbarian uprising occurred. I was only lacking Mathematics, Iron Working, Construction, Currency, Warrior Code, Mysticism, Polytheism, and Horseback Riding (and a government) to get out of the Ancient Age

See now, how is that fair? I met those clowns on Alpha in 330bc and they were all still in the ancient age. I had to do Polytheism for them and we went medieval in 250bc. Now you might say that's my own fault for not finding Alpha sooner, but I blame the downloads page: although I had it in the back of my memory that this was a continents game, when I copy the game blurb into my log file, I take it from the downloads page, where it says this game is a pangaea . So I played most of the QSC with not a thought for getting Mapping, putting out early boats, building Lighthouses etc. And I spent bucketloads of shields on a stream of axes to trudge through the jungle and try to squeeze past that barb camp in the far north, believing that this must be some tortuous route to the other half of the pangaea and the rest of the civs.
So somewhen towards the end of the QSC I realised that the downloads page was in error. But I didn't have anything to trade for Mapping, and was relying on Republic to sort out my short-term tech deficit. It wasn't until I had that tech in 650bc that I could buy Mapping from Otto and begin the world's greatest feat of engineering; an artificial land bridge to Alpha, built on the sunken hulls of my galleys, piled up from the sea floor.

 

[Megalou]

Yes, spoilers without dates are not very interesting.

That's a pretty odd generalization. A write-up without dates is far better than none to keep the interest up. Everyone who enjoys the game more than the result probably care more about the what than the when.

 

[Più Freddo]

A write-up without dates is far better than none

Of course.

Everyone who enjoys the game more than the result probably care more about the what than the when.

The what is usually fairly given. What differs between players is the how, the why and, as a result, the when.

I conceed the generalization was a bit hard-nosed; the how or the why would be fine also without the when. But when did someone tell us how or why the last time? And the information "I went for The Republic as fast as possible" means something completely different if The Republic was discovered in 1700 BC or 250 AD.

(I would like to take this opportunity to thank you Megalou for explaining how to abandon a city through the production of a Settler or Worker once upon a time. Thanks!)

 

[Wotan]

Actually had some time to sit down and look at the interim saves I made between sessions so might be able to recap the game (for once). Sorry about my bad habit of not reporting on my games. I enjoy the initial phases of games but sort of lapse into a slight boredom when it sort of moves into the inevitable end game phase. Lots of sloppy play in that phase, unfortunatley. But nevermind that, here goes:

Setting up Madrid as a Settler factory.
(I am forever indebted to offa for developing the excel spreadsheet to help plan your initial builds.)
Founded Madrid E of the starting location and let the Worker first road the tile he started in then move to the Cow to irrigate/road it. Then back to the roaded BG and mine that. Followed by a move to the BG S of the Cow and mine/road that. Then back across the river to mine/road the BG 2 NW of Madrid. A second Worker in 3350BC helped develop the area by assisting with irrigation N of Madrid and also irrigating the Wheat.

Builds in Madrid:
Warrior 3700BC(Sent to hunt for trading partners but only found Germany),
Warrior 3500BC(helped uncover the fog in the neighbourhood of Madrid),
Worker 3350BC (Speed up improving area around Madrid)
Settler 2950BC (Barcelona founded 4 NW of Madrid)
Granary 2430BC (All set for a four turn 4-6 settler factory (6+8+8+8))
Warrior 2350BC (Adding food to set up the factory as intended, teh Granary finished just as Madrid grew so needed 10 food in it)
Settlers every four turns after this and until very late in game.

1st ring at 4, 2nd at 9.

QSC
12 Towns, 29 pop, 2 Settlers, 9 Workers, 1 SM, 3 Archers, 9 Warriors and a Galley.

Neighbourhood watch
Met Germany pretty early but have no notes on exact turn or trades I made. They DoWed around 1500-1700 BC but after some skirmishing I negotiated a peace treaty pretty soon, around 1300BC.

2nd war started around 400BC and was in full swing when I reached the MA in 190BC.

Research
Pottery first then The Wheel for info on where to find Horses (I think?). I like using HMs in the AA, unfortunately none were near my starting location so no HMs saw service in the AA.
Followed by Writing, CoL, Philo and finally Republic.
Germany helped me a lot by trading a few key techs like IW and MM.
Researched Republic in 210BC and immediately revolted for Republic in 190BC.
Lots of trading during that turn bagged the rest of the AA techs and we entered a new era using Republic to trade for the only tech the Science AI tribes recieved for free, Feudalism. Germany at war and still way behind with half a dozen techs to go so they were excluded from this trade event.

 

[Megalou]

(I would like to take this opportunity to thank you Megalou for explaining how to abandon a city through the production of a Settler or Worker once upon a time. Thanks!)

No sweat. The student has clearly surpassed the teacher. (This makes the world go around.)In the case of my own spoiler here, I could also have made it clear that I lost a lot of ground in the starting phase and I wasn't very proud of the dates in the first place.

 

[Lanzelot]

My game seemed to have gone very differently from what you all described here so far... I had a very peaceful Ancient Age and excelent relations with the Germans...! I don't know why you say Bismarck is "aggressive": after all his intelligent strategy gave Europe one of the longest peace periods in its entire history, from 1871 to 1914! (And if his braindead successors wouldn't have been so stupid, WW I could have been avoided as well.)

Thanks a lot to all the nice people on this forum! My start in this game was already much more successful than the one in GOTM69, and I think this is due to all the advice that you give so freely and to the many useful tips in the War Academy and in the Spoilers.

Now to the game:
Screenshot

As I already explained in the pre-game discussion I settled on the spot and first build a couple of settlers, workers and warriors. After that I immediately build an early temple, which was completed in 2030BC. As I had suffered such a horrible 100k defeat in GOTM69, and as I've learned about the "1000 year effect" since then, I decided to take advantage of the fact that Spain is religious and get that cheap temple early. My other two cities (Seville and Barcelona) also got an early temple in 1150BC.

Next I noticed pretty soon, that the three cows in the west as well as the two wheats in the east would make great locations for settler factories. (The War Academy article about settler factories and Bamspedy's "Deity Settlers" article were very enlightening in that regard!). So I decided to let Madrid grow (so that it would be fit for some Wonder building) and let Seville and Barcelona produce my settlers. The early plan I formed, was as follows: when Herodot (or Plinius or one of those guys) published his first epic work on history, I noticed that none of my seven rivals were religous. So I thought I might have a good chance for completing the Oracle, considering that I only needed to research one tech for it, while everyone else needs two. So after I got Pottery for my granaries, I immediately went for Mysticism and indeed managed to finish the Oracle by 1275BC. I had already started building temples in a few other cities, because I think with the Oracle, temples are really worth their money! Might enable me to get that luxury slider down to 0% early on.

Meanwhile I also got my two settler factories up and running, so they were pumping out settlers like I've never managed to do before! (And I play Civ since 1992 !) However, I soon noticed that there weren't any good places on this lousy continent for them to settle down! So I ended up sending my settlers north along the east coast and west coast until my empire resembled a "U" with the big desert in the middle. Looking at Chamnix's screenshot it appears he placed his early cities a bit closer than I did. Perhaps on a map with such a limited number of good squares this is the way to go. Will try it next time.

I didn't write down, when the first contact with Germany was made, but it was pretty late. I guess I had already a large lead in culture by that time, and that's why they have been so friendly with me so far...
I also keep trading something with them every few rounds just to keep them happy. (Thanks again to the War Academy for the article about the mechanics of AI attitude!) So there haven't been any wars whatsoever and we were peacefully trading our techs, which helped to not fall behind too much.

Before and after the Oracle, Madrid only produced warriors (and later spears) for quite some time, which would give the necessary protection for the new towns that the two settler factories were producing. All the other towns were producing 10-turn temples as the first thing (Found town, wait 10 turns, then the town has 10 shields in the bin and grows to size 2. This second inhabitant can immediately be sacrificed to pop rush the temple.) Don't know if this is smart, but I got temples in all my cities long before 1AD! Then sometime around 500BC the first German town culture-flipped and decided to join me... Up to now I got 3 German cities for free and the Germans are still very happy with me Bremen just flipped around 400AD. By the end of the AA I now rule about two thirds of our continent and have 4 to 5 times as much culture as Germany (judging from the F8 screen).

Also I noticed something else, for which this "temple rushing" is quite useful: even when the Germans had beaten me to an important resource (like the Silk on the western coast - see Nuremberg on my screenshot), I simply drop down a settler on the other side of that resource, wait 11 rounds and then the resource is mine...!

On the science front the following happened: after Mysticism I immediately went for Republic. Didn't want to repeat the bad mistake from GOTM69 and stay in Despotism for too long. And as the "peaceful co-existence" with Germany seemed to continue permanently, Republic seemed like the better choice. I was able to keep a decent research rate, unlike in my usual games, where at one point in the AA I always have to go "lone scientist", as I can't effort researching anymore. (This is very surprising, if I consider the expenses for all those early temples and granaries I built...) But those reoccuring barb camps close to my capital, which gave me 25 gold once in a while, came in quite handy here...

However, when I wanted to research Republic itself, it turned out that it would take like 37 rounds, so at that point I decided to go for Libraries first, which could still be done in less than 20 rounds, and then try again with a few Libraries in place. This worked ok, and in 10AD I could finally switch to Republic. (I really admire, how Chamnix and Più Freddo managed to get there by 630C/530BC! Incredible! ) After disbanding all my warriors, I was making sufficient profit to get like an 8-turn tech output, and after the core towns had Libs and Marketplaces, I finished the rest of the ancient techs quickly and am now going into the middle age with a 4-turn tech output.

Germany is approx. 2-3 techs ahead of me. I haven't met any of the other nations yet, but judging from the World Wonders they built so far, they are 5 techs ahead of me. I think, this is not bad, because it makes researching a bit cheaper for me. The only drawback is that I didn't get any World Wonders after the Oracle anymore. Germany tried two or three times, as I noticed in F7, but always got beaten closely by some other civ. I guess all those lost shields has weakened them and this is probably another factor, why they haven't tried to attack me yet. Also I really miss trading tech with the other nations! I hope I'll get contact soon, or otherwise I will definitely fall behind eventually. I tried to send a galley across as soon as I got Map making, but the first one was sunk by barbs and the second one took a while to complete and I haven't dared to leave it on open ocean yet. Only going out two steps and then returning to the save coast again...

I noticed something very strange in this game: when I build Marketplaces, they don't seem to have ANY effect on happiness!! Is this a bug in PTW? I didn't notice this in GOTM69. For example: I had a number of size 6 cities, which were 3-0-3. I have two luxuries hooked up, so after completing the Marketplace I would expect them to turn 3-3-0. (One content citizen for the first luxury, two for the second.) But they stayed at 3-0-3!! Because of this I'm forced to keep my luxury slider at 20%, while normally I have it down to 0% by this time! (Especially with all those temples+Oracle!) This is really annoying. Does anybody experience the same?

So I picked Monotheism as my first MA tech and already started Colossea as prebuilds for some quick Cathedrals, again taking full advantage of being religious. This should also help with my culture... I hope a few more German cities will join me, before I'll finally start a war with Medieval Infantry!

Cheers, Lanzelot

 

[Chamnix]

Looks like you've got a good game so far Lanzelot !

Looking at Chamnix's screenshot it appears he placed his early cities a bit closer than I did. Perhaps on a map with such a limited number of good squares this is the way to go. Will try it next time.

You might want to review the article on Ring City Placement. I usually go RCP 3, but RCP 4 is also very effective. It only applies to PTW, but whichever distance you choose, it is advantageous to place your cities in equidistant "rings" around your capital to reduce corruption.

I noticed something very strange in this game: when I build Marketplaces, they don't seem to have ANY effect on happiness!! Is this a bug in PTW? I didn't notice this in GOTM69. For example: I had a number of size 6 cities, which were 3-0-3. I have two luxuries hooked up, so after completing the Marketplace I would expect them to turn 3-3-0. (One content citizen for the first luxury, two for the second.) But they stayed at 3-0-3!! Because of this I'm forced to keep my luxury slider at 20%, while normally I have it down to 0% by this time! (Especially with all those temples+Oracle!) This is really annoying. Does anybody experience the same?

Marketplaces only affect happiness when you have 3 or more luxuries. Without marketplaces, you get 1 happy face per luxury. With a marketplace, the first 2 luxuries still provide only 1 happy face each, the third and fourth luxuries provide 2 happy faces each, the fifth and sixth luxuries provide 3 happy faces each, and the seventh and eighth luxuries provide 4 happy faces each.

 

[civ_steve]

Indeed, it sounds like you have a good game going, Lanzelot! Trading early and often with an 'aggressive' civ is another way to keep them on good relations. Ignoring them is a recipe to get attacked!

... The early plan I formed, was as follows: when Herodot (or Plinius or one of those guys) published his first epic work on history, I noticed that none of my seven rivals were religous. ...

Many players will check F10, then select the Space Race button, to get the list of AI civs right away! This is legitimate to do since the game provides the information freely; cheesy but quite useful for the strategy you just described. Also useful to select the first Tech to research, choosing one that few civs have with the desire to have better odds for trading.

 

[Megalou]

Looks like you've got a good game so far Lanzelot !



You might want to review the article on Ring City Placement. I usually go RCP 3, but RCP 4 is also very effective. It only applies to PTW, but whichever distance you choose, it is advantageous to place your cities in equidistant "rings" around your capital to reduce corruption.

I find RCP5 to be OK for research games, where you need several strong cities with little corruption that can grow past size 12. But for fast military games RCP4 or even RCP3 are often preferable: if you don't even make aquaducts because you want to concentrate on military, there will be many unused tiles at RCP5 and extra work for the workers to connect the towns. But of course cows and other bonuses might tempt us to stretch out the circle a bit.

lanzelot, your game sounds sound very nice although I wonder what kinds of preparation you have if the Germans do attack. I considered pop-rushing a few temples myself but I found that most towns produced two shields at size 1 and then the perfect temple rushing conditions of religious civs, namely {population 2, shields 10}, did not present themselves.

 

[Più Freddo]

I find RCP5 to be OK for research games, where you need several strong cities with little corruption that can grow past size 12. But for fast military games RCP4 or even RCP3 are often preferable

If it fits on the map and you think you'll get a second core, RCP3 is the best choice for PTW. Then plan the RCP3 so that as many as possible of the cities (in ring one, RCP3, and ring two, RCP7) fit in a "disc city placement 5" around the Forbidden Palace, which you build in one of the ring cities in the best direction for expansion.

After you jump Palace to a RCP5 core, usually to the most part from an AI, all these cities experience very limited corruption, and you have two distance 5 cores where the cities can grow to size 12, at least after some pruning.

A RCP5 gives the central city too many tiles, 9 too many to be exact, which could be used by a fully grown metropolis only. In PTW you'd need to build a Hospital. The DCP5 around the FP is better, since more cities can utilize the central tiles and no Hospital is needed.

For an example from the current game, see my upcoming spoiler in the final spoiler thread. It's a forbidden subject here.

 

[Megalou]

Più Freddo,
What you present here is of course very hot stuff, the tip top solution. What I have been thinking about for a while is how many great tiles there should be in the outskirts of our first core to make us settle it immediately. (For example: two cows are not accessible at RCP3 or 4 but at RCP5, so do we settle one of our first towns there anyway?) I see now a bit more clearly that if the two rings (eg. at RCP3 and 7) are well planned in advanced the bonuses can be utilized early, in what will first be a part of the first core, but then a part of the second core.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Finding the Right Spot
The worker goes to the moo of course, and from there he sees the hill in the southeast. As a potential 1f,2s tile, this is enough to enable a 6-turn sword/settler combo factory. So to get that hill in my capital's radius, I settle Madrid 1E, and find I have wheat as well. After much rejoicing, I scrap the spreadsheet for my combo factory, and make a new one for a 4-turner.
Madrid builds one axe, who explores west and then north, and then goes straight into granary (first research is Pots of course). I get Pots in 3250bc and start work on Writing; as this is a research game, I want to get into Republic as soon as possible.

My Mate Otto
My exploring axe passes west of Germany without finding them, but a German spear shows up to introduce himself in 3150bc. Otto is annoyed, as he always is on first contact. I give Otto Alphabet for War Code and his treasury. The German spear skirts my borders for a couple of turns then heads back into the fog north of Madrid, probably because Otto saw some barbs in the north: I buy a German slave for Pots and gpt in 2950bc, and that is the extent of our interaction for some while.

Spreading Out
The granary is finished in 3000bc, and is followed by a settler 5 turns later, and then every 4 turns thereafter. I consider my rings very carefully, and opt for RCP4&6. There doesn't seem much to choose between RCP3 and RCP4, so I choose the one which gives me some room to grow these towns up later. Barcelona goes up amongst the mountains northwest of the start, to take advantage of the flood plain there. Seville is placed on the northeast coast, to use the other wheat, and Toledo takes a riverside spot west of Madrid. This will be my FP location.
In 1950bc, a historian shows up to announce that Spain is the world's largest nation.

The Truth About the Landform
In 2110bc, Otto gets Writing, which is rather frustrating, as I was counting on it to be my trading tech. I don't even have anything with which to buy it, so I continue my research and get it in 1870bc. Philosophy follows in 1575bc and is traded for Wheel (I see Otto has horses but I don't), while Otto works on Mapping. He gets it in 1400bc, but I have nothing to buy it with. In 1250bc I get Laws, and trade it for Bronze and Otto's world map. It is only at this point that I realise we are on a continent, not a pangaea. It is just me and him, and I should have prioritised getting hold of Mapping.

The Race to Republic
I also notice that Otto hasn't yet discovered Ironwork, which is unusual. As I want to know whether I will be fighting him with archers or swords, I take a research detour, reaching Ironwork in 1100bc, and trading it for Burial. Otto also has Masonry, and is researching at 4 turns per tech, which is quite impressive for the AI, even if he is only doing first-tier stuff. I see also that I have iron, and Otto has not yet hooked his nearest source up. Given the barb activity, he probably won't manage that any time soon. So finally I set research on Republic, which will be a long time coming.

QSC Stats
14 towns with 32 citizens and 146 tiles.
85 food in the bin, 265 shields in the box, 108g in the treasury.
1 granary, 4 barracks.
3 settlers, 12 workers, 2 slaves, 10 axes (reg), 4 archers (3 vet, 1 elite).
All first tier techs except Masonry, Ironwork, Writing, Laws, Philosophy, 141 beakers of Republic.
1 contact, 1 embassy.



Out of Despotism, Off the Rock
My Republic research finishes in 650bc, and I revolt in the interturn. I also finally get Mapping from Otto, and my first galley heads out in 630bc. There are plenty of barb galleys shuffling around by now, but I have pretty good combat luck against them. I begin a circumnavigation, looking for any obvious sea lanes leading away from Beta, without any success. We do get news of Alpha when they start completing wonders; Paris gets the Pyramids in 690bc, and when Korea gets the Oracle in 590bc, the long-haul build in Berlin is wasted. Very frustrating for me and Otto both!

War With Germany
I have a decent force of swords ready to attack Germany, and my schedule is mainly dictated by how long it takes them to get up there. I issue the dow in 510bc, and the next turn I attack his westernmost towns. The primary target is Hamburg, which controls his still-unhooked iron source. I succeed in two of three assaults, keeping the towns. By 390bc, I have autorazed his southernmost town, which is closest to my core, and captured another two. Otto doesn't offer much resistance, although he does have a small stack of archers which had gone north to take down the barb camp there. When these archers make it back to Germany, I am forced to abandon one of my captured towns to prevent Otto retaking it.

Finding Alpha
I finally discover the other continent in 350bc, meeting China and France. Joan is down Republic, so I can buy contact with Rome, Korea and Greece, and get her world map. Julius turns out to be down Currency, which I already self-researched, guessing it would a good trader, so I can buy Literature and contact with England. Now I know everybody. More trading brings in Construction, everyone's world maps, and almost all their cash. Polytheism is not yet known, so I start researching it. I check the graphs and find that I have a clear lead in score, and I am militarily strong to them all too. What a bunch of wasters.

Going Medieval
I finish researching Polytheism in 250bc, and with the reduced cost, a couple of the AI get it the same turn. By the end of the interturn, myself, Korea, France and China are all in the medieval. As I want Otto's free tech, I give him peace for 2 towns, leaving him with just Berlin, Bremen and a bad attitude. My rep remains clean, however, so buying his free tech won't be too tough, especially with Literature in hand and him having no contact with Alpha.

 

[PaperBeetle]

A number of players will probably experience early conquest defeats to Germany. I think it would be very informative for the general Civ population if players who successfully contain Germany were to detail any techniques they used to avoid getting steamrolled by an early attack. In a similar situation I might gift Bismark 1 gpt shortly after meeting him; makes him much happier with me and less likely to start thinking about an attack.

My basic strategy in containing Otto was to continue doing my own thing and hope he didn't decide to kill me. I think that's really all that can be done; I don't believe his decision to attack or not takes any account of attitude or rep, so I don't use gpt gifts to try and keep the peace (although I did give him gpt when buying a slave, so maybe I'm wrong about that). Of course there are various factors which affect the AI's decision to attack (like barb activity, strength and deployment of units belonging to both parties, etc), but I don't think we can have anywhere near enough information to be able to say what actions will make a significant impact on the decision.
I got the red ambulance in the Chinese deity game, after being the victim of a seemingly-unavoidable early German dow, and I was screaming blue murder about it in the spoiler thread, but this time I just got lucky.

 

[Lanzelot]

Lot's of great advice and interesting ideas, thanks! (Especially the "F10 trick"...)

Of course I had read about RCP already, but neither in GOTM69 nor GOTM70 I seemed to be able to set it up: there always seemed to be better locations to put my cities (e.g.: settling on a river saves you the Aquaeduct, so I thought "who cares for RCP...").

Let's take a look at my core:

In this particular case my first town was Barcelona and I settled it between the two wheats. (That can't have been too stupid, because Chamnix did the same... ) I had also been thinking about moving it to the square marked green (so it would be on the coast), but then I figured that might be too far away from the capital. If I understood the way of counting correctly, the distance to Madrid is 3. This means I should put my next cities on the squares marked red, but none of those appealed to me! (Three of them were blocked by a mountain and the ones directly N,W and S of Madrid looked too close to be a good settling spot.)

Instead I settled my second town (Seville) at distance 5, because I immediately wanted to utilize that huge herd of cows. That can't have been too stupid, either, has it? It enabled me to get a second settler factory and rush north to grab a lot of land before the Germans got there. I do have two more towns at distance 5, however: Salamanca and Toledo. All the other distance 5 locations didn't look worthwhile to me.

Perhaps I don't value RCP that much, because I have never experienced the benefits of it so far? Here is my current production/waste of my core cities(Republic, no Courthouses), and if someone, who managed to set up a strict RCP, can suppy his numbers, we can make good comparison:

..............Size Shields/Waste Commerce/Corrupted (Total Commerce)
Madrid........12....16/1..............39/2......................(53)
Barcelona.....11....17/1..............27/2......................(37)
Seville.......12....21/2..............27/3......................(36)
Toledo........8.....17/2..............29/3......................(39)
(The first number is always the total including the corruption. Total Commerce includes the effect of Libs & Marketplaces.)

Another point that I haven't quite grasped yet: from your descriptions in a couple of spoilers it appears that you are always making a Palace-jump in every game?! I thought, a Palace-jump is only necessary, if you had a lousy starting position and want to move your core to a better location. But this should happen only very seldomly, shouldn't it? So is the reason for the Palace-jump perhaps the following? In the early stages you want to have an RCP3 to get rolling quickly, and then in the later stages, when you need large productive metropolis, you want to have an RCP5. So you just prepare an RCP5 somewhere else, and when the time comes to put it into production, you move your Palace into its center?
(And consequently in C3C the Palace-jumps should no longer be necessary as much as they are in PTW, because RCP plays no role anymore?)

This leads me to the next question: the Forbidden Palace. In GOTM69 & 70 I placed it at the edge of my empire, where there were a few potentially good cities of my own and a few good cities of a rival AI. (See Ciudad de la Luna in the screenshot from my previous post.) After I have taken those cities, I had a pretty good second core. But admittedly this takes a very long time to set up, so is it perhaps more effective to build the FP close to the capital? I've seen a lot of people recommending it here, but to me it always seemed a bit of a waste to build it somewhere where there's no serious corruption anyway?! Is there anything about this topic in the War Academy or an old discussion thread?

lanzelot, your game sounds sound very nice although I wonder what kinds of preparation you have if the Germans do attack. I considered pop-rushing a few temples myself but I found that most towns produced two shields at size 1 and then the perfect temple rushing conditions of religious civs, namely {population 2, shields 10}, did not present themselves.

I certainly had a pretty small army for most of the time, but I always kept a decent force in the border towns. I still remember GOTM69, where the Germans burned down one of my early undefended towns...
When I disbanded all my Warriors, a few of my core towns had already all city improvements finished and were now concentrating on military units in order to replace the disbanded units. Yes, during that "transition" period I might have been a bit vulnerable, but I just took the risk and hoped the Germans would continue to be the nice neighbors they have been so far. And in the worst case I could have switched all towns to producing Swords and re-built a decent force of 20 units within 6 or 7 turns, which should be sufficient to defend myself. Also you have to consider: the Germans have 11 towns, 4 of which look reasonably productive, while I have 23 towns of which 7 have a decent production. So unless Germany had already a big stack close to the border ready to immediately attack my core, I would always have had enough time and resources to parry an attack.

This brings up another interesting topic: what do you do, when a new military tech becomes available and your forces are out-dated? As I said, in the current game I simply disbanded all my Warriors and re-built the Swords from scratch. In GOTM69 I kept upgrading my units, which cost me a fortune... At the moment I feel that the disbanding strategy is better. Let's list a few pros and cons:

When disbanding

• you can pump a number of shields into your outer corrupted cities to finish an urgently needed Granary, Courthouse, etc
• you will have an extra income for some time (In this example I had around 25 Warriors, so after disbanding them I had an extra 50 gpt. I had a number of productive core cities, which had nothing else to do (all Libs and Markets finished) and it took them around 15 turns to rebuild the force of 25 Swords. So during those 15 rounds I had an extra income of approx. 50*15/2 = 375 gold.)
• you save the money for the upgrade. (In this case it's 25*20 = 500 gold.) (Here Leonardo will come into the calculations. If you have it, it may turn the scale in favor of the upgrading strategy?!)
• you will be vulnerable for some time, so this should probably not be done during wartime...

When upgrading

• you will have much more units, because the money goes into upgrading and the shields go into new additional units

In my case all the additional gold went into research, and I think this makes quite a difference, especially if you consider that the same happens again when upgrading from Swords to MedInf or from Spears to Pikes. I don't have any contact except for the Germans, so I need to research as fast as possible, otherwise I'm too far behind, when I finally find the other Civs! But I guess in a game, where a hard-fought war is currently going on, the upgrade option is better, so the war can be finished quickly and research can then be taken up again afterwards. Also when all your core cities urgently need to build improvements (Libs, Marketplaces or Aquaeducts) you probably can't apply the "disband&rebuild strategy".

Regarding the temple rushing: in the not-so-corrupt towns that had 2 shields per turn, I used a different build order: first build a Warrior (5 turns) and then start on the temple. So after 10 turns it had the Warrior + 10 shields in the bin + 1 population, and then I could pop-rush. This extra Warrior was quite useful, as my warrior-building capital was not able to keep up with two settler factories anyway, so I needed an additional Warrior from someplace else once in a while. In my productive towns (3 or more shields per turn) I didn't pop-rush the temples, of course.

Cheers, Lanzelot

 

[Chamnix]

For RCP purposes, distance 3.5 is considered equal distance as 3.0, so you have a lot more choices than just your red circles that would qualify as "RCP 3". For example, the hills west of where you put Toledo or S-S of Cologne are both good city spots at RCP 3 (even though they are 3.5 from Madrid).

Regarding FP placement/palace jumping, you are correct that in PTW you want the Forbidden Palace relatively far from the palace so you have 2 separate cores. One way of doing this is to hand-build your Forbidden Palace far away, but as you noted, that takes a while. It is often more efficient to build your Forbidden Palace in your core so it doesn't take too long, then use the free palace jump to get your capital to the center of your second core.

 

[Più Freddo]

hand-build your Forbidden Palace far away, but as you noted, that takes a while. It is often more efficient to build your Forbidden Palace in your core so it doesn't take too long, then use the free palace jump to get your capital to the center of your second core.

Or rush a Palace using a Leader.

There's one more bug involved here in addition to the one that leads us to use RCP and the one that produces a new core around the FP. It is that only distances to the Palace count when defining corruption. If no city is closer than say 5 to the Palace, then cities at this distance from or closer to the FP have the same corruption as these RCP5 cities.

Advantages of hand-building the FP in the first core include:

• No need for a Leader, still get the larger OCN
• Tweak position of original core
• Either rush Palace or abandon Capital
• Disc City Placement around FP lowers restrictions on original core

Advantages of rushing the FP include:

• Save the shields from the FP hand-build
• Disc City Placement around FP lowers restrictions on aquired core
• Keep the original core unchanged

 

[Più Freddo]

I settled my second town (Seville) at distance 5, because I immediately wanted to utilize that huge herd of cows. That can't have been too stupid, either, has it?

You play as the instruction book would entice a person to play. It works much better in Conquests, where the corruption bugs are largely solved. But in PTW, you should play as the game acually is and not as it was intended to be.

Keeping corruption at bay really helps. Use RCP. If RCP appears to give a funny kind of core, then:

• Leave some holes in it
• Hand-build the FP
• Jump the Palace to a perfect RCP5 core such as the AI always builds
• Then feel free to place additional cities more freely within the RCP5 perimeter around the FP

And do use CivAssist II to help you find the different RCP positions.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Mm. I know that the PtW rank rules are idiotic, overcomplex and give us an unfair advantage over the AI, who have not studied the works of Alexman and Qitai, but I must confess that I much prefer them to C3C's system. In C3C, the placement of every (core) city is a decision of middling importance, but in PtW, instead of many slightly important decisions, we have just a couple of very important ones: What is the best RCP for this start? Should the new core use the palace or the FP? Where should the new core be? Must I use a leader or must I disband my capital?
And I like big decisions better than little ones. (even though I am better at the little ones!)

 

[civ_steve]

This brings up another interesting topic: what do you do, when a new military tech becomes available and your forces are out-dated?

I'll make a comment about this. This is not a decision to make after researching the Tech - you really should plan what you want to do before coming up to this point! It is a very powerful strategy to learn a new Tech, gain access to a new type of unit, have a large treasury (or trade for it during the in-between turn sequence), do a mass-upgrade (especially during the in-between turn sequence!!) and overwhelm your target(s) with an updated military. But if this isn't all coordinated and planned, the advantage is much reduced. You can also gain a similar advantage by controlling when you have access to a required strategic resource (such as Iron).

Lots of things go into that decision, and no one choice is always correct. You have to have lots of cash (or access to get it) and lots of units to upgrade; otherwise, it's not that big a move and shouldn't be driving your strategy.