Help a regent player

Pacioli

Prince
Joined
Oct 29, 2009
Messages
418
This is my first serious try at Regent. I chose the Standard map size but everything else was set to Random. When I started I did not have any VC in mind, I just played. I tried to incorporate some of the strategies I've learned from CFC. I recently ended a long war with the Maya. I had to quit as my army was getting depleted. I'm open to comments/suggestions/questions.
 
Not sure how much help ill be! but ill take a look at this when home from work mate.
 
I don't know if I'll have a chance to look at this one, but I'll see if I can find the time. Pacioli, if you haven't checked out the article linked in vmxa's signature, you should do so. It's a good article.

I would also suggest that, even with everything set to random, it's helpful to have a VC in mind early on. Knowing how you want to win will help you decide how to play, what to build, etc.
 
I did peek at this last night, but you have the game in the bag. You have nearly half the land. The only issues are no research and few good attacking units.

The capitol is only making about 13 shields, so you can mine a few tiles and rail the one plain. I would look to see if any tiles with better shields can be taken for the capitol.
 
I can't look at the saves in game, but I can open up CivAssist.

Already in the oldest save the game is in the bag, with you having 101 cities and the Maya closest with 25. The game is then already at 1310 AD, by the way, I don't know whether you uploaded a different save from the one you intended?

I'll just make two points, I think. The first one is about your military: What I'm noticing in the oldest save is that you're researching Metallurgy, but your military is still mainly made up of Enkidu Warriors. They are really obsolete for this time. They're mainly regulars as well. Although, if you're going for a peaceful win, and you're only needing them to keep your own cities from rioting, then it's not too bad. But if you want to attack enemies, then this is the wrong army.
Your government is Monarchy here. Monarchy is a war government; it misses the commerce bonus of a government like Republic, but it also has no war weariness.
What I would say is that in this save your army and government are contradicting each other: all those low level defenders suggest a peaceful route, but your government suggests a military route.

I would suggest that, unless you're really certain you want to go for a peaceful win in a game, you keep your military updated. Also build them from barracks. The first dozen or so units may be regulars, but after that it should be veterans. That one hitpoint extra really makes a difference.
And even when you're playing peacefully, your units should be mainly attackers. An enemy AI loves to send some defenders into your territory to pillage your resources, and only attacking units offer the proper defense against this. And also when an AI sends attackers to your cities, it's better to deal with them in your own turn with your attackers than to wait for their blows to hit you. Especially if you would be in a government with war weariness, because getting attacked causes war weariness.

A second point I would make is about your map exploration: I can't see what you've been doing exactly 3000 BC of course, but I see no traces of exploration with boats on the world map. Besides what is your territory, the world is dark. Your starting point was coastal, and although Sumeria doesn't start with Alphabet, it wouldn't have been that hard to get a curragh out pretty early. My guess is that you're underestimating the importance of early contacts, probably because of unfamiliarity with the trade mechanics in the game.
The sooner you have contacts, the easier it is to trade for techs. You can even snap up expensive techs with a cheap techs, simply because of who you know. Example: you meet a civ that has Alphabet for sale, and you've got Ceremonial Burial. As Alphabet costs more, a straight swap will probably be off. But if you meet another civ that has Alphabet, it'll become cheaper, and if that new civ you've met also lacks Ceremonial Burial, then you can probably get more than just Alphabet for it.
Check your trade options often, and learn to haggle - try to get more from a civ than what they're offering.
To not explore the map and not knowing about other civs will hurt your tech pace. Maybe next time, as a training session, choose a seafaring civ and really focus on early contacts and trade. To have a program like CivAssist running with the game then becomes a must, because you don't want to call up every civ yourself every turn to see what they've got, that's too much work. Let the CivAssist alert window do that.

That's just two points, I'm sure other respondants could bring a lot more to the table.
 
Thanks to those of you who responded!

@ Aabraxan:
if you haven't checked out the article linked in vmxa's signature, you should do so.

I have read both of the threads linked to yours and vmxa's signature. Thank you both for putting in the time necessary to write those threads.

it's helpful to have a VC in mind early on

I'll make sure to think about a VC before I'm halfway thru the game next time, i.e. 4000 BC.

@ vmxa:
The only issues are no research and few good attacking units. The capitol is only making about 13 shields, so you can mine a few tiles and rail the one plain. I would look to see if any tiles with better shields can be taken for the capitol..

I had lost a few of my recently captured Mayan cities to culture flips. To prevent future flips, I lowered research down to almost zero so that I could rush improvements i.e. libraries and marketplaces. I lost 8 cannons and 10 calvary in one flip alone. Not much but they were the best part of my military. To be honest, I had not even given my capitol's production value a second thought but will do so now.

@ Optional:
I'll just make two points, I think. The first one is about your military
Yes my military is weak. I can not seem to balance rapid expansion and military growth. In this game, I thought if I can't make a military unit in 20 or less turns then I'll make a worker, settler, or just set the production order to wealth. That explains why most of my military is Enkidu Warriors. They were cheap. Lack of a VC in mind early on probably lead to this faulty thought process.

A second point I would make is about your map exploration
Here comes two confessions. 1. I do explore the world but avoid early contacts. In many of my previous games, the only thing I got out early contacts was other civs settling next to my borders which tends to upset me. 2. I admit I feel the need to establish my core cities before getting too cozy with other civs. I'll work on changing this.

Thanks again everyone!

P.S. I have not written this much since my college days in the 80's.
 
It sounds like you've done your homework, but I'm going to suggest one more article: Cracker's Opening Plays. It's in the War Academy & it's an excellent article. I still haven't had the chance to look at your save, and won't have tonight, but that's an excellent article on how to manage early moves. As a general rule, early gains are worth more than late gains in this game.

I'd suggest that you go ahead and learn to make early contacts. The AI already knows where all the resources are, and they're going to head for those resources in deciding where to settle, whether you've met them or not. Also, they're going to trade among themselves, whether you trade with them or not. Learning to trade with the AI will help you keep pace at higher levels. Not only that, but if you can make contacts on other landmasses on continents or archipelago maps, you can put yourself in the position of tech broker, which can be very handy.

I'm sure we've all lost military to culture flips. I know that I've lost cav armies to them. There are several ways to manage culture flips. My personal preference is to burn down the offending empire.

Don't set your core cities to wealth. It's one thing to set your specialist farms to that in the late game, but I frequently go whole games without setting any cities to wealth. Until I look at the save, I don't really know what else to tell you about balancing growth and military. Takes some practice, that's all. Good luck.
 
Thanks Aabraxan. Cracker's Opening Plays was very educational (read it a few weeks ago).

Your comment about the AI knowing where all the resources are justifies some the AI's actions. I've wondered why the AI sometimes settles 20 tiles away from it's nearest city. Is the AI's knowledge of resource locations limited by age, i.e. ancient times, middle age, etc? Or do they immediately know where all the resources are in 4000 BC?
 
As you have now seen, flip can happen. Most will not leave lots of units in a town at risk of a flip. If it under siege, it may have been better to just raze it. If it is not going not going to be under attack, then leave 1 or 2 junk units.

I would not suggest lowering research to raise money to rush structures in captured towns. Just flip all pop to specialist and starve it down, till it is pacified. I prefer to have a bunch of settlers to use.

It is called combat settling. Bring in the settler and raze the town and found a new one. No resistance and much lower chance of a flip.
 
vmxa, how would you prevent a flip in a captured city that contains a wonder? Use the starvation strategy? Do you ever raze a city that contains a wonder?
 
Thanks Aabraxan. Cracker's Opening Plays was very educational (read it a few weeks ago).

Your comment about the AI knowing where all the resources are justifies some the AI's actions. I've wondered why the AI sometimes settles 20 tiles away from it's nearest city. Is the AI's knowledge of resource locations limited by age, i.e. ancient times, middle age, etc? Or do they immediately know where all the resources are in 4000 BC?
They immediately know all resources in 4000 BC. So if the AI settles jungle 20 tiles from its nearest city, watch for rubber or coal to appear nearby. Whenever the AI does something like that, I just assume that there's something valuable there.

As for captured cities with Wonders and flips, first assess whether or not you need the wonder. If I capture Shake's on the other continent & there are no other Wonders in the town, burn it. I don't need a size 14 specialist farm & captured Wonders generate no culture. On the other hand, if it contains (for example) Leo's or Sun's, starve it down. As vmxa suggested, leave a couple of "trash" units in to quell resistance, but nothing that's really going to hurt if you lose it to a flip (like cav armies).
 
Thanks again Aabraxan re resources and flips.

I also looked at my earliest save and you're right, it was 1310 AD. I must have accidental saved over my 510 BC save.
 
Most of the time I cannot expect to hold any captured towns. These are games where the AI has either a huge bonus or I am playing AW. In those games, I will be much lower in culture. If the town is one of the last for the civ, then I can expect to eliminate them in a turn or two, so I can hold it.

If I decide I want the town at all cost, then I will clear (capture or replace) the towns near it, so it has less culture pressure and they cannot attack the town in one move. At that point I will move my units next to the town, save maybe 1. If it flips, I just capture it again.

Eventually it will drop to a small size and have no towns in sight of the natives. This does not mean it is flip proof, but it does increase the odds.

The only wonder I would want that bad is Sun's. I do not care about Shakes in a captured town, I do not care much about Leo. I will not have much money to upgrade,nor many units that will need to be upgraded. Bombardment units are the only ones I would have lots of and want upgraded. The bad news is that those are the most expensive to upgrade.

One big danger for me in a flip is that they will be in a position to run over a lot of empty towns, from the flipped town.
 
Talking about the flip risk of captured towns, it is good to know that there is no flip risk in the first interturn. So bring in as many units as you can reasonably spare to quell the resistance then, because resisters increase the flip chance.
On a level like Regent the danger of flipping can easily be kept to a minimum. The flip chance increases with the amount of culture the rival civ has compared to yours. One early temple already does a lot to prevent flips later in the game. Flip chances go up as the difficulty level increases, because the AI builds more culture, but from Regent you need to go up quite a few levels before it becomes a serious problem.

Interesting enough, the towns that stand the biggest flip chance in your saves are not captured towns, but towns you built very close to rival territory. The highest flip chance is recorded by New Kisurra 2 (1.4 - 3.6%).

I wouldn't have built a town there; too much culture overlap, and you're far away from your own core and close to the Mayan capital. This increases the flip chance greatly. New Der 2, also in this picture (taken from CivAssist) has the third highest flip chance. You might still get away with this on a level like Regent, but even then I wouldn't leave my elites in a city like that.

You're building libraries in those towns, that's another thing I wouldn't do. They're corrupt to the bone, so they will hardly generate beakers. Libraries add 50% to the beakers that go to science, which in these cases is 50% of hardly anything at all. Improvements cost maintenance, but give little benefit in corrupt towns. My favourite builds in corrupt towns are artillery, workers/settlers or wealth.
 
One other thing about flipping: Regular units don't quell resistance, so if you do fill a captured city with junk units, make sure they are veteran junk. Yet another reason to build veterans...
 
Rarely raze and replace. Almost always capture and keep. The key lies in starving cities out and exterminating the enemy. It's no accident that the highest scoring games played capture and keep.
 
Rarely raze and replace. Almost always capture and keep. The key lies in starving cities out and exterminating the enemy. It's no accident that the highest scoring games played capture and keep.

Yes but no one plays for score. At least not new players, so no point it telling that. In any event it started with the player actually having flips.
 
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