Help a regent player

[Pacioli]

I was wary of posting my saves on the forum but I'm glad I did. This is a great learning experience. Any and all comments/advice are greatly appreciated!

Thanks for your comments Optional.

My thought process for settling New Kisurra 2 & New Der 2:

• Split the Mayan territory into two sections and create a bottleneck.

• Leave an unimproved open space between the two settlements, New Kisurra 2 & New Der 2, so that I could funnel the Mayan military from the west into a trap as they attempted to move to the east to protect the cities being attacked there. I was focused on conquering the Mayan cities in the east. (P.S. The trap idea didn't work).

• When in war, I generally try to place new settlements as far into the other civs territory as I can get away with to secure as much territory as possible.

My thought process for building libraries in this game:

• Build the libraries more for culture than research. My poor attempt to prevent culture flip.

• Build libraries vs. temples as the Sumerians are scientific and hence libraries can be built faster than temples.

Please feel free to comment on the above as I can only learn if I know what you’re thinking. Thanks!

 

[Spoonwood]

VMXA,

I believe that many new players like to look at their score and use it as some sort of benchmark for them. Not in the same way people who play histographic do, but still. I know TheOverseer likes to use it as some sort of benchmark, and he doesn't usually use histographic. Additionally, if you want to get to the domination limit faster, or play a bash 'em and build 'em 100k game, it's cheaper to capture and keep AI cities than to raze and replace them. It also prevents the AIs from building all that many more cities, since there exists more territory occupied.

Build the libraries more for culture than research. My poor attempt to prevent culture flip.

If a city goes down to size 1, once it grows to size 2, you'll have one of your citizens for its nationality and only one of the enemy's. So, flip probability drops significantly when you starve a town down to size 1, or build workers/settler from it until it goes down to size 1. Also, once a tribe no longer exists, a city cannot flip back to them, and the risk of a captured town say from the Maya flipping to the Iroquois generally comes out as low. Also, any remaing resistor *will* get quelled by your unit (1 resistor per unit in the city at the end of the turn). So, generally speaking, focus on fighting only one opponent (military alliances can help) and exterminate them ASAP.

Flips have proven a sort of hang-up for players around here, including myself. It really seems more psychological than that much of an actualy problem though. Just don't foritfy a bunch of units in a captured city. As perhaps another strategy, you can surround a captured city with 8 units (I used armies for this in a recent game) so that the enemy has to defeat one of those units before they can enter the city. Or pillage out their resources so they only have infantry units and no mounted or tank units. The AIs don't build CxC usually, so you'll always have a turn to pick off an enemy infantry unit or disband the city before it can attack it. A city flipping also does not increase war weariness.

 

[vmxa]

Spoonwood I understand it can be advantageous to capture towns. I also expect that experienced players would not have any issues about flips, if they were to play at Regent. They would capture any town that was not ill placed.

The question was what to do about flips. This suggest that they are not higher in culture, or do not met some of the criteria required to not flip. Things already mentioned, such as closeness to the capitol of yours and the captured nations.

Overlapping borders and no culture in the capture town. I would agree that most new players are looking at their scores, but they are not trying to maximize it, only to improve it.

To me flipping is about the risk and reward. If it is a game that you would expect to not get a flip or only get one rarely then capture and hold. Using all the tactics to reduce the flip that make sense in that town at that time for that game.

If it is a huge risk, do not do it. Raze and replace. We are not talking about early game, so it is very cheap to pop out a settler some place. Again, I km not concerned about a tiny impact on my score or speed. In fact I would expect the not flipping will at least offset the speed impact.

Town that fall between those two have to be evaluated for the cost and danger, if any. The other issue was about wonder captures. I responded that in the main, I do not care about wonders enough to take a risk, except for Sun's.

Even that one may not be worth it to me, when the owner is past the limit to win by culture and I am less than half of it. IOW it will surely flip back many times, if I try to hold. I may take that risk and just play the price of recapturing after it flips.

My main issue is to always reduce my risk of giving the AI any slack, not speed. I forget what I posted to answer the question put to me on holding wonders towns, but if it is important to hold it.

Try these things:

capture or raze nearby towns asap.
add workers to become more than 50% of nationality
starve down native pop
pop out workers or settlers to reduce pop
get it to size one
remove or reduce over lapping tiles (over lapping their culture)
garrison, but often you cannot practically put in enough units. In that case put in an obsolete unit or two and standby to recapture.

less attractive is to rush in culture. It depends on the expense at the time. Maybe you can use a few spare units to do it, so it is painless, often it is not. By the time a good size city comes out of resistance you can afford to rush a temple or lib (cheapest for your nation).

I should mention that starving is best done with all pop as jokers, but you get nothing for them. I may use scientist instead or a mixture, but jokers are better for flip reduction. I have tested where changing one pop from a joker to a scientist was enough to flip the town.

 

[Aabraxan]

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.

Wait! Didn't I already say, "Starve them down and exterminate the enemy?"

@ Pacioli -- Yeah, putting your saves up on the internet can be a little unnerving, but I've always found the CFC crowd to be very good about helping new players without ridiculing them.

There's one thing about the starvation method that you're hearing that hasn't been pointed out yet. Any workers that you build from the foreign population come out with the foreign nationality. That means they're slaves, work at half speed, and cost no upkeep. Once the city starts growing again, workers that you build will come out with your nationality. I'm not sure about settlers.

One of the other reasons that I raze, particularly in the early game is for the slaves. Yeah, I could starve that size 8 down and get 7 slaves out of it, but that takes a while, particularly if I can't get the resistance quelled. I'll only get 4 slaves if I raze (and I may get zero), but if I get them, I get them immediately.

As far as the points you made above, well, the ideas didn't work so well. They weren't bad ideas, though. You tried to create a kill zone and at least considered the shield cost of your libraries as culture buildings. Those will take some work, but you're on the right track.

FWIW, I don't play for score. I haven't looked at my scores in years. For me, either I win or I lose.

 

[CKS]

Regular units do too quell resistance. Conscripts also quell resistance. However, only land units with an attack value quell resistance, so artillery, naval, and air units don't.

 

[Aabraxan]

Yeah, I knew about navy, artillery & air, but I didn't know that promotion level (vets/regs/conscripts) made any difference in quelling resistance.

 

[Optional]

My thought process for settling New Kisurra 2 & New Der 2:

• Split the Mayan territory into two sections and create a bottleneck.

• Leave an unimproved open space between the two settlements, New Kisurra 2 & New Der 2, so that I could funnel the Mayan military from the west into a trap as they attempted to move to the east to protect the cities being attacked there. I was focused on conquering the Mayan cities in the east. (P.S. The trap idea didn't work).

• When in war, I generally try to place new settlements as far into the other civs territory as I can get away with to secure as much territory as possible.

Yes, the idea of isolating the Mayan east is fine. I would still be hesitant to place towns CxC against a rival when my rival gets the tile in the middle; besides the flip risk, they can attack you in one turn, while you need two turns to attack them, so you're giving your opponant an advantage.

My thought process for building libraries in this game:

• Build the libraries more for culture than research. My poor attempt to prevent culture flip.

• Build libraries vs. temples as the Sumerians are scientific and hence libraries can be built faster than temples.

The problem with trying to prevent a flip against towns like Emar and Calakmul is that they've got older culture. while you're just starting. Those towns have got hundreds of culture points already; you won't easily overtake them on that point.
I find the strategy to build culture to prevent flips or to push the border more suited to the early game. What happens to me often is that I'm sending a settler to an important resource, only to see an AI settling next to it one turn before me. What I usually do then is to still settle there, but to get a temple up immediately, so that I get the horses or whatever it is that's inbetween us as soon as my temple is built. If I'm the first to build culture then I'm putting cultural pressure on them. But if I settle near a town that already has culture, then I know that I will be the one under pressure, and it's very difficult to reverse the rolls.
I agree that a scientific civ should build a library first.

In your 1680 AD save you're still hampered by the lack of a decent military. It looks like both horses and iron wasn't too far away from your starting spot, so you should have gone horsemen > knights > cavalry for your main force. Instead you have mainly Enkidu's and longbows, with zero artillery. And lots of riflemen, but they're defenders. It will be difficult to fight an offensive war with this type of military.
You said you found it difficult to find the shields for the more expensive units. Maybe next time try if you can do some upgrading with gold. Then I'm thinking about warrior > swordsman > medieval infantry, and also about chariot > horseman > knight > cavalry. It needs to be planned in advance, by setting aside some gold. Trading well or the odd spot of minimum research is probably needed.

 

[Spoonwood]

Wait! Didn't I already say, "Starve them down and exterminate the enemy?"

Yes, you did. And you said it well. I merely meant to reiterate.

I'm not sure about settlers.

Settlers from captured towns have the nationality of the captured citizens. So, if you capture a city from the Maya, train a settler from it, and then plant a city with it, it'll have one Mayan population before it gets a non-member of non-Mayan population upon growth. Unless, you play as the Maya, then it's the Iroquois, of course .

 

[Pacioli]

I've played the game thru to 1768 AD. I lost New Kisurra 2 (no big surprise there) and Tikal to flip before I started implementing the starvation strategy. I abandoned New Der 2 as the consensus seemed to be that I should not have settled there in the first place.

The Aztecs declared war on me and attacked Seattle even though we had an active trade agreement. Strange that they would attack Seattle which is 15 tiles from their nearest city and 22 tiles from their homeland. My best guess is that oil is nearby Seattle.

Lack of preplanning is really starting to show. I'm a democracy now and have no quick way to end this game. I working on building my military but it is slow going. A domination win would involve warring on two land masses. A culture win is out of the question. A spaceship win would take quite a bit of time and work. I think it might be time to let this game go and learn from the experience.

Thanks again to all of you for the advice.

 

[Aabraxan]

. . . . Settlers from captured towns have the nationality of the captured citizens. So, if you capture a city from the Maya, train a settler from it, and then plant a city with it, it'll have one Mayan population before it gets a non-member of non-Mayan population upon growth. Unless, you play as the Maya, then it's the Iroquois, of course .

Well, that clarifies that. Thanks. I guess I can see building a settler out of a captured town, but only if those people's native civ is on the brink of extinction. I think I'll stick to razing & building workers.

I've played the game thru to 1768 AD. I lost New Kisurra 2 (no big surprise there) and Tikal to flip before I started implementing the starvation strategy. I abandoned New Der 2 as the consensus seemed to be that I should not have settled there in the first place.

The Aztecs declared war on me and attacked Seattle even though we had an active trade agreement. Strange that they would attack Seattle which is 15 tiles from their nearest city and 22 tiles from their homeland. My best guess is that oil is nearby Seattle.

Lack of preplanning is really starting to show. I'm a democracy now and have no quick way to end this game. I working on building my military but it is slow going. A domination win would involve warring on two land masses. A culture win is out of the question. A spaceship win would take quite a bit of time and work. I think it might be time to let this game go and learn from the experience.

Thanks again to all of you for the advice.

Yeah, well, you can't win them all.

Take what you've learned and try again. You're on the right track in many ways, and I'm sure you'll be smacking Monarch around in no time.

I would also suggest that you reconsider demo. There's probably a time and place for it, but Republic is a very versatile government that's available much, much earlier. You might also consider Monarchy. It doesn't have WW (or the commerce bonus), so it can be easier to manage than Republic. I do tons of warring in Republic and it's manageable, but some new players do have trouble dealing with Republic's WW.

 

[del62]

If I decide to take a city the first thing I will do is try to get as many slave workers out as possible, you have to make sure city doesnt grow.

 

[Spoonwood]

I guess I can see building a settler out of a captured town, but only if those people's native civ is on the brink of extinction. I think I'll stick to razing & building workers.

So you don't play for a fast domination game on a pangea, and play more like a plodder like VMXA?

 

[Aabraxan]

Oh, I do play for fast domination, but I don't see how leaving units behind at captured cities would speed that up.

 

[Pacioli]

I would also suggest that you reconsider demo. There's probably a time and place for it, but Republic is a very versatile government that's available much, much earlier. You might also consider Monarchy.

I have to admit that I almost always become a Democracy. A middle age government (Democracy) must be better than an ancient age government (Monarchy or Republic), right? Wrong again. Live and learn.

I have played Communism once or twice, but have never played under Feudalism or Fascism.

 

[bob rulz]

The only time I've ever played under Feudalism is one time when I was under constant siege and needed more unit support than Despotism would give me. And I was religious. It lasted a whole 10-15 turns until I was finally able to trade for Monarchy. I almost always play Monarchy as I'm generally a war player. Republic is okay. Democracies are unmanageable unless you plan on never going to war.

Also, computers are very weird about resources. In the most recent game I played, the Hittites had not hooked up iron, but there was iron very close to their territory. However, although they continually settled around the iron, they never settled next to the iron, and I, also lacking iron, was able to slip a settler in there and take it from them. They lacked iron until they were able to trade for it. Just another one of those strange AI anomalies I guess.

I also usually keep cities unless the offending civ has at least twice my culture, or if it has a wonder (most wonders provide little for you unless you're planning on a culture victory), or if it's an exceptionally large city with a lot of culture (20 - 25+...I burned down a size 38 city in my most recent game. I'm pretty sure it was the biggest city I've ever seen.) OR if it's just really poorly-placed (which happens sometimes...we all know how terrible the AI is at city placement).

 

[CommandoBob]

Well, that clarifies that. Thanks. I guess I can see building a settler out of a captured town, but only if those people's native civ is on the brink of extinction. I think I'll stick to razing & building workers.

Ah, but you missed something.

These settlers are like slaves. That is, they are not your nationality, so you pay no upkeep. So you can build them, but you don't have to use them right away. And even then, the new city will only be size 1, so not much flip risk (not gone, just very small) from that new city.

Plus, by the time you built such a city, the enemy capital would have changed several times, right?

 

[Aabraxan]

Hmmm. You'd be right about that, CB. I did miss something. That something will have to be put in the hopper next time I'm considering this issue.

 

[M60A3TTS]

To confirm what CKS said, regular units do quell resistance.

 

[TheOverseer714]

To confirm what CKS said, regular units do quell resistance.

I always thought they didn't, so thanks for that info. After nearly 9 years, I am still learning new stuff.

 

[vmxa]

You probably did not have many regulars to use and find that out.