GR12 - AWM vs 30 civs, Pangea

[Greebley]

I forgot the I got it. I have been playing some LONG turns. Here is the first few.

Preturn:
Towns needed adjusting again. I hired a lot more scientists. ThERat will probably have to do the same at the start of his turn too. Towns with food resources should build aquaducts. They can hire 4 engineers and finish aquaducts quickly.

Notice towns that have no engineers even though there were towns 34 turns from Aquaducts. I changed the 3 scientists to engineers and that number dropped to 5 turns for the Aquaducts to complete. In 34 turns the game will be long over. At 5 turns the aquaduct costs us very little science and can generate it back quickly when it grows.

The 8 settlers are fortified in random cities. I go and track them all down to put in a stack near the capitol. Generally fortifying units like settlers in random cities is a bad idea as the next player has no idea where to look. Put them in a pile near the capitol with the top one awake or use the space bar to end their turn so they come up in the rotation for the next turn.

I don't like the less efficient tax collectors so I turn them all to scientists. IMO you only want tax collectors when you are not researching.

A cute picture of the Romans:

Actually the other 3 civs in the game are actually at peace with the Romans.

There are a lot of unmoved units. I think I will do some killing for the preturn. So:
Capture Neapolis, the Roman Capitol.
Capture Iznik, a Celtic Town. Use some Vet Cavs on the weaker defenders to try to get more Elite.
Move the Elite Cav off the island of Evora and into boats for leader fishing.
Disband Squeeze to plant a town.
Capture Kafa, the next Celtic town.
Capture Mugla, another Celtic town.
Capture Pompeii, a Roman town that straightens up our front.

I still have unmoved armies that are healthy, but no workers to build the roads needed to get to the next town so it is time to end the turn.

IBT: I made an error that cost us two cities and some workers on the edge of Indian territory. I missed an access path to our territory. That is a disadvantage to moving about the units on the preturn. So up 5 towns and down 2 - a reasonable trade-off. Still I should have caught it.

1860 AD: I capture back the town Dacca from India. I capture back the stack of workers.
Capture Byzantium from the Romans. It is worth nearly 696 gold.
Capture Jurusalem from the Romans for 755 gold.
Capture Brundisium from the Romans for 596 gold.
Capture Syracuse from the Romans for 1704 gold and the Romans have been Destroyed
Capture Yaroslavl' from the Celts.
Capture Yekaterinburg from the Celts.
Capture Bolu from the Celts.
Capture Riza from the Celts.
Capture Kharasbarok from the Celts.
Capture Kazan' from the Celts.
Capture Moscow from the Celts
Capture St Petersburg from the Celts.
I get 2 leader this turn + we build an Army We now have 50! armies

IBT: No Attacks

1862 AD: Build some towns in the empty space. I abandon some of the very crowded towns from the earlier game.
Celts: Capture Rostov, Novosibirsk, Odense, Bryansk, Khabarovsk, Orenburg, Novgorod.
India: Capture Hyderabad, Lahore, New Bombay (renamed Mumbai), Indus, Bombay, Jaipur,

Here is the Line I have established for the Indian and French Civs.

IBT: A hidden Cavalry kills 6 workers.

To be continued.

 

[vmxa]

"The 8 settlers are fortified in random cities. I go and track them all down to put in a stack near the capitol. Generally fortifying units like settlers in random cities is a bad idea as the next player has no idea where to look. Put them in a pile near the capitol with the top one awake or use the space bar to end their turn so they come up in the rotation for the next turn."

What is hard about using F3 and clicking on a settler? As long as they are all native settlers. If some were foriegn settler then, I agree move them to the cap.

"I don't like the less efficient tax collectors so I turn them all to scientists. IMO you only want tax collectors when you are not researching."

What is the value of scientist making overrun beakers? Would it not be better to have the gold to reduce the deficit and allow conservation of cash to rush things?

Aquas I have no preference one way or another at this stage. Frankly I would not spend the energy fooling with them. I would not even be making them, I am dubious they will payoff, but even if they do, so what? Why go to the work? Each turn has so many workers to move, so many troops to deal with, why strain to get an extra specialist?

 

[Greebley]

What is hard about using F3 and clicking on a settler? As long as they are all native settlers. If some were foriegn settler then, I agree move them to the cap.

What is the value of scientist making overrun beakers? Would it not be better to have the gold to reduce the deficit and allow conservation of cash to rush things?

It just takes time to find them. I may also not realize we have any settlers if I don't explicitly check. I also think that fortifying leaders, Elite offensive units, workers are not so good either. BTW it is trivial to gather them all near the capitol if you use the h (home) key. A single pile with one awake means that I will be able to easily find them all. Not a big deal but I thought I would mention it.

I don't have (much) overflow - I reduce science on the last turn. Adjusting science ahead of time to be exact doesn't work anyway because your science rate is always changing. If you want exact, then just doing it on one turn (the lasst) seems better than always readjusting. I don't bother with exact though - just adjust science. That gets you pretty close.

Note that if I change 20 tax men to scientists for 4 turns, then that is +80 science. Since I am adjusting to 1/10 our economy, the overflow will on average be less than 80 so I am ahead over using taxmen even though I didn't adjust.

It also makes it very simple - always set to scientists.

 

[ThERat]

In this case I agree with greebley, running scientists is always better unless no research as they give 3 beakers instead of 2

Also, I would park all unused workers and settler next to the capital for convenience for the next player.

 

[vmxa]

I just hit F3 at the start to see if we have any settlers. Moving them to the cap is fine. I also park unused workers at std spot, often the cap. Not always as they tend to be pollution crew and I may leave them at the most common site for pollution.

I still am completely lost on the 3 beakers that you don't need are better than the 2 gold you do need. At then end of 4 turns the research will be done and dozens of scientist could have each made 2 gold each turn, instead they are making beakers that are not needed. So I am missing something.

Remember we are running a deficit. So once I get the beakers to the amount need, those taxmen are saving me real gold right now.

The workers are a moot point as we will not have any doing nothing. When I get the game I will send masses of workers to the cap to park or some site, until I finish most of the task and see where I can use workers to close to new towns or get units to someplace.

I do that because otherwise the game wants to keep coming back to workers with movement left and it is a pain to find where I was. If I send them to some tile right away, I often end up with less than what is needed for the task, but when I get the next available worker, I can't seem to locate the crew that needs another as the map is so big.

 

[ThERat]

vmxa, on the last turn or so before gaining a tech, you can reduce science to maybe 10% and still gain the tech and during that turn you make far more money that your taxman could achieve with 2 beakers since the scientists made 3 beakers all the while. Play on simpler games than this and you will clearly see the difference.
Remember we have markets and banks that multiply that income on the last few turns.

 

[vmxa]

The only way that is true is if you are making more beakers than is required. When I play I am not able to turn down the slider to gain anything, unless the tech drops in price. That is not going to happen for us.

So if I am running more or less the exact amount of beakers needed for all 4 turns, nothing can be done on the last turn. So all you are doing is pretending to gain money at the end.

It is like my friend and his check book. He kept money in the account that was not recorded. That did not really alter the true balance. Same as my ex and her alarm clock. She sets it ahead 10 or so minutes and pretends it helps her not be late.

So if you make more scientist than you need each turn and then reduce the slider on the last turn, all you did was fail to get the gold in the previous turns. You did not have a true count of your finances along the way.

It was said that the cost changes, but for us it does not. It was 11555 and it will be the whole time as no one is going to learn the tech to give us a discount. So if you accumulate more than 11555 beakers, you either have an overrun and they are lost or you may be able to reduce the slider and gain some back or you can flip beakerheads on the last turn to recover some gold.

Here is how it was on the turn I ended on. I went around, after 100% slider, found as many places as I needed to get to 4 turns with a small overrun.

Now it was suggested that taxmen are a waste so lets flip them all to scientist. Ok, we go from something like -100 gpt to -200gpt and gain 150bpt that we cannot use.

The first turn we lost the 100 gold from the roughly 50 taxmen I think we may have had at that point. This happens on each of the three turns. We may have gained some more towns and some additional specialist during this time. The price for the tech is unchanged. We will have some specialist flipped when towns get their culture expansion and they should be put back IMO.

On the last turn you have 450 beaker more than you would have as well as what ever new specialist you got in those turns. Call it 10 more and just say we have 600 beakers above the needed with the originally planned overrun.

Now what, well mayeb we can lower the slider and gain something back. I am not sure as I have not tried to figure out the percentages. It cannot be a lot at this level, but I do not know. I know we lost 300 gold as well as the gold from the additional specialist. Maybe we break even, maybe we come out ahead, I don't know.

As to bank and markets, well we have been running 100% research and yo get nothing for them or markets at that rate. I am not sure we even have any banks in low corruption cities. I would be upset to find we were building them wouldn't you?

When we were not running 100% research we were running 100% on research and lux. I doubt we had that many turns with tax over 10% since the late AA.

 

[Greebley]

1864 AD:
Celts: Capture Hareid, Oslo, Aarhus, Birsk(replaced by Viking Vantage), Tver, Krasnoyarsk, Chita, Samara, Yakutsk, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Trondheim, Bergen, Richborough, Reykjavik, Stavanger, Alesia, Camulodunum, Burdigala, Lapurdum, Nemausus, Tolosa, Zonguldak, Glanum. Lost 2 Armies - A green and yellow Cav armies (yellow had about 10 hp or more).
Vikings: Copenhagen - I don't see them having a city anymore - nope they don't. Just a settler somewhere.
We finally destroy the Inca arty: by sinking a boat.

IBT: A few defenders are attacked. Mostly Conscript dudes.

1866 AD: Capture Entremont, Verulamium, Lugdunum, Oxford, Liverpool, Agedincum, Lindum, Eboracum, Gergovia, Cataractonium, Curovernum, Gergovia.

The celts have a single city left.

IBT: Alesia and Camulodunum, Aahrus flip. We win by domination (we got temple expansions this and last turn) + the new cities.

Great game all.

Here is the save (hopefully) right before I hit end turn for the last turn:

The Save

 

[Greebley]

I often can turn down science at the end - or even reduce the tech by a turn due to growth of my economy or additional MM. Also if I have "excess: scientists, engineers seem much better to me or letting a town grow for more scientists later when techs are more expensive. Anything but taxmen

The point is that science and taxes are completely interchangable due to the % science slider. Thus the extra science made by the scientists gets converted to gold in the end.

=======================================

I am thinking of starting another Civ3 AW game in September. If anyone here is interested, I will reserve a spot for them. You don't have to be "sure" now, just if you think you might be interested. I am already assuming NP and ThERat will be interested.

 

[Andronicus]

lurker's comment: Congrats on a great game guys, it made a very entertaining read. Your "discussions" were very enlightening

This thread has been on my must read list every day since the beginning

 

[Salarakas]

I'll second that! It looked very grim in the beginning when you didn't have much good land around you and so many enemies that advancing seemed impossible. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly you guys manage to steamroll over everybody once you get rails and artillery

 

[ThERat]

that was fast, I thought I will play another round

to the team, the initial part until we got cavs was pretty tight in my mind. We should step up a difficutly for the next game (on LK world map).


btw, do you have the file for LK world map, Greebley?

 

[Northern Pike]

Yes, a brilliant performance by all involved, with a very high level of discussion. We never faced a true military crisis, but there was certainly a time when it seemed that we might be fatally stalled.

I look forward to the next game in September.

 

[markh]

Great game all. I enjoyed it very much and I am looking forward to the next one September.

 

[vmxa]

I often can turn down science at the end - or even reduce the tech by a turn due to growth of my economy or additional MM. Also if I have "excess: scientists, engineers seem much better to me or letting a town grow for more scientists later when techs are more expensive. Anything but taxmen

The point is that science and taxes are completely interchangable due to the % science slider. Thus the extra science made by the scientists gets converted to gold in the end.

As I said, you can only do turn down the slider if you pump in more beakers than are required along the way. At the point where you are the sole researcher of a tech, you will not get a discount.

If may gain enough beakers via growth to have an overrun, but this is not going to be common in the late stage of a game.

The only benefit is if you are able to generate enough beakers that are turned to gold in cities with markets and make a gain. In the game as it was, that is iffy, unless you has very large overruns.

Additional MM when you have some 400 cities is not going to be very pleasant and is not required.

There is value in using engineers, but again i am not in favor of it at the point of the game we have been talking about. It is just extra labor for the turn player for some extra frosting on the cake. The cake was piled very high with frosting already, so I am not going to do it.

I mean what happened to all those aquas that was so important? They yielded nothing, that was my point. They were unlikely to payoff and were of no consequences, therefore, why do it. At the time the gold would have been more useful.

That was my point on the factories and going for Hoover, we had no real expectations of getting enough factories online to make Hoovers payoff. Last I knew we managed 6 and maybe 8 by the end.

The later when techs are more expensive, is not going to come. We were never going to see modern techs and we already did the most expensive techs. IOW we were never going to need more scientist, but we may have had some use for more cash.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

This has been awesome, I learned so much. And the end with 40+ cav armies running about was just too good to pass on.
I agree with the aqueducts and factories, on the timeframe given. Should we have been on a longer timeframe I would have to beg to differ, but I didn't anticipate winning so fast

EDIT: 348 hours

Thanks and good game guys.

 

[Greebley]

btw, do you have the file for LK world map, Greebley?

I am not completely sure. I know I have played it, but don't remember if I grabbed the files I need for it.

Glad the lurkers gained from the game as well.

Agree on the aquaducts - but then science was equally useless. We got no useful techs. The problem though is knowing how long the game will last. Personally, when you reach the latter part of the game nothing really matters. If it wasn't the last part of the game then aquaducts would have paid off. If we had started aquaducts in most towns when we got RP with engineers then most towns would have had a profit by the end for being larger (and we did build quite a few aquaducts that were gaining us 6 or 7 scientists by the end).

vmxa, Are you claiming that going for gold isn't as good as science? This might be true to a small extent because we had more Unis than Banks, but certainly not by a large margin. Using scientist is 50% better than a taxman. Running science would be 33% better if you have all Unis but no banks. However we did have some banks and some towns had markets without libraries. It would be 25% better at best and could be nearly even. If you do build banks then going for gold becomes superior to running science and so it is definitely better to run high scientists and low science. I know we have had games where our science came entirely from scientists with science at 0% to gain cash for upgrades.

 

[gmaharriet]

Great game, guys!!!

I'm finding the discussion on scientists vs taxmen very interesting. I usually use enough scientists to drop research by a turn (or two) and the rest tax. It's a whole lot of MMing every 3 turns or so. I'm still not sure what to think about that.

 

[Ansar]

lurker's comment: Congratulations all. You guys are starting a new SG?

 

[vmxa]

" If we had started aquaducts in most towns when we got RP with engineers then most towns would have had a profit by the end for being larger (and we did build quite a few aquaducts that were gaining us 6 or 7 scientists by the end)."

Maybe, but in this game, I was saying it is not worth worrying about either way. I am saying why make more MM for ourselves for a marginal gain? Not so much that you could not get a gain, just why give yourself more work.

"vmxa, Are you claiming that going for gold isn't as good as science? This might be true to a small extent because we had more Unis than Banks, but certainly not by a large margin. Using scientist is 50% better than a taxman. Running science would be 33% better if you have all Unis but no banks. However we did have some banks and some towns had markets without libraries. It would be 25% better at best and could be nearly even. If you do build banks then going for gold becomes superior to running science and so it is definitely better to run high scientists and low science. I know we have had games where our science came entirely from scientists with science at 0% to gain cash for upgrades."

Using beakeheads is 50%, IF you can use the beakers. It is 0% better if you don't need them. In this game we had no business making banks and I did not know we did. We captured some and I sold those as they were in 100% corrupt places anyway.

When you run with 0% taxes you cannot gain form those structures. Yes I know you can have scenarios where you would be able to do it just as you say. Those are times where you use something a lot less than 100% research or 100% research and lux.

In this particular point in the game we had 100% research and were going to get the tech in 4 turns with a tiny overrun. Any additional scientist would only be adding to either the overrun or the safety margin.

By safetly margin I mean the amount of beakers lost temporarily due to the gov reassigning specialist after growth or border expansion.

To be exact, I already showed the math. We had approximently 50 taxmen. If they switched to science, we gain 150 beakers per turn and lose 100 gold.

In the 4 turns we have 450 extra beakers, but no use for them. Ignoring any growth or new towns, what happens is those beakers? Either they go up in smoke or maybe you can reduce the slider.

I cannot say for use what the impact of 450 beakers is on 11555 tech, but not great. If you do not swap them, the slider cannot be reduce as the count is very close to exact. If you did swap them, maybe a 10% drop is possible.

You may or may not gain the 50% in some cities with markets, not sure how much will be distributed to each city.

What I think we are debating here is that you are talking about a general strategy for most situations. I am talking about a specific situation for a specific time. I do not think see how you can gain anything from swaping those taxmen at that point in time. I am only talking about that point in time.

As I said before, if you can come up with even more scientist and then have a greater overrun, then that changes the equation. Once you can generate enough excess beakers to make enough gold on the last turn, it could be profitable.

That said, I would not expect us to have more than a handful of banks in cities with low corruption, if that.

I strongly agree with you that how so ever we elected to go, the outcome would not be altered. That is the main cry from me to not add to the MM load with looking for engineers or speciaist.

I also have agreed that enigneers can be very useful in tighter games or some sort of scoring run. Even earlier in this game, just not worth my time at that juncture.

One of the biggest annoyances was the temple expansions. Even using the F5 was still a drag. I must have had 30 of them and probably scrapped 100 temples.

Anyway thanks for the game, I did enjoy it. I especially like the back and forth.