Help me finish off my game, or, how's about this for a fun scenario

[PaperBeetle]

We've got 66 armour, they've got about 20 tanks. Technically, that's enough to retake one of the captured towns, after which they could use rails to pick off a couple of undefended but unimportant towns behind the border region. But this is the AI we're talking about, they're not going to do that. Are they?

 

[creamcheese]

Wow, look how you all jump on the smallest gun to try and turn a winning game into a massive calamity because you need to express the fact that you play better as loudly as you can

[snip comments to others]

creamcheese:



I have no idea why you think I don't use workers. That's the most ******ed comment I've ever seen. You mean why don't I have 2 per city? Er... maybe because one worker equals one unit? How exactly is one supposed to invade one's rivals for free if half our allocated units are workers and the other half are keeping the city from rebelling? You mean you pay for units? Doesn't that destroy the whole point of making your nice new road in a corrupt city? Maybe that's why you need so many workers, to pay for your armies that your workers are clogging up the free spaces of?

Why don't you build 10 archers instead of 10 workers and go take a couple of towns, get 4 free workers, two already roaded towns and the capacity to build a bigger free army to take out 2 more towns?

And as for factories winning towns, LOL, that's so funny. The amount of free units you have is a set limit, the amount of cash you have left after keeping decent tech pace is a set limit, if one has reached this limit without factories, what exactly, may I ask, is the point of factories? To replace the ones that die quicker? That's funny because sometimes it's nice for some troops to die back for a few turns, gives you a bit of free profit...

And as some other 'argue you right round the houses and back to where you started' guy stated, once you've built your factory you still have to build Mass Transit, that's all cost which means less military units, and that's all time taken when you could be building military units - how about 'you could have won the game already if you just stopped building pointless buildings and made some military units to go get the job done'?

I bet there's a few who would have said that exact thing had I shown a screen full of building works...


Anyway guys, as I keep saying, this is a bit of fun, this is about what to do from here on in. Feel free to sermonise/lecture/bait/whatever about the usual same old same old topics, but I shan't be referencing anymore posts that don't deal with the specific funness of the where to go with the current scenario. Not that my contributions are worth anything of course...

I'm not calling you game a calamity, no one did, we were trying to give you tips on how to win... I'm not sure why you are so confrontational all of a sudden. I told you in the other thread to expect peanut gallery comments...

Since you don't seem to want gameplay tips any more, just skip the next section of response and skip to my military analysis (title bolded) for winning your current game/ having fun.

You are correct, I should have said something like "why you don't use more workers than you do", that was the intent of the comment anyway. I make due with a smaller military than you do is how I manage so many workers, I also build closer together, and I road every tile and build science farms.

I don't build ten archers because I'd rather use the gold I get from my roads to research iron working and upgrade some warriors to swords. Usually anyway; sometimes I have done archer rushes in the past, they can be quite enjoyable on small maps.

The point of factories is yes, to replace units, buildings, etc faster. I'd also like to note that if you built a factory and/or power plant and them build wealth, it will pay for its' self in gold quite quickly. You could also build universities, banks, stock exchanges, etc. so that you have more gold for more units. You already have a quite well developed core in this game, it is just lacking factories. Even if you just built one and a power plant in your capital, you could build armies twice as fast.



Since you don't seem to want to here general gameplay tips anymore here is what I would do in you game to win:
Military restructuring: Current military mix of main units is:
15 workers
10 armies
101 tanks
89 cav
85 infantry
1 modern armour (more soon)

We have plenty of units except artillery and workers, but they are all fortified in our backfield.

I would wait until we come out of anarchy (you seem to be comfortable with monarchy so I'd stick to that if it were you, I'd go republic if I were playing). then disband a large part of the cavalry force and most of the navy (we can win without one navy, it is Pangaea) to pay for 40-50 artillery and rush some factories/mass transits, I'd start research towards radar artillery (miniaturization first, internet will get us free research labs, which give us 2? culture in all cities and research). I'd build some settlers to fill in gaps, and workers so I can build some combat rails up to my opponents.

Once our artillery is ready I'd take units out of all non-border cities, using the lux slider to keep 'em happy, attack Sumeria and ally the english (they have a lot of cities without border expansion or with only one, we can use artillery on rails to get close on the first turn, and then hit redlined troops with massed tanks). Once we drive them back to the Oil Springs choke (we have bombarded their mass stacks of tanks that they have most likely built and killed with our own tanks/MA).

We probably have war weariness if republic, so I make peace and hit the Iros with the same idea, possibly using bombers or combat settlers to take cities in one turn and prevent reinforcements. (actually we should have used an airfield and some bombers or some artillery to bomb the rails from sumeria's core through the oil springs choke point... then they would have beaten up on the english). Once iros are gone, fill in their land and move back to the oil springs choke.

The english may be dead by now, or quite mutilated by the sumerians. This is good, they have gassed each other (hopefully) and we can use our newly experienced army to attack as fast as we like, bombing out rails to prevent reinforcements and redlining defenders to preserve our troop strength. We have lots of MA by now (upgraded tanks), probably, so we can advance very quickly, ~5-10 cities per turn or more if we have radar arty or lots of bombers. Then we wait a few turns for the internet to expand borders, and use settlers to fill gaps and we should get domination.

Alternate military strategy:
If we wanted to be really evil, go for tactical nukes and ICBMs as fast as possible. build factories and power plants to improve our production, disband navy and cavs for unit support. Then we build pretty much solely nukes for ~20-30 turns until we have enough for 1-2 hits on every large/productive enemy city. Then nuke everybody (be careful to try and burn down the UN city if possible, so you don't lose that way, and use spies to find and nuke their nukes). Then waltz into their cities, using nukes if you encounter any resistance.

 

[Elephantium]

Wow, look how you all jump on the smallest gun to try and turn a winning game into a massive calamity because you need to express the fact that you play better as loudly as you can

Did you want advice or not? It's bad form to ask for advice and then yell at the people who provide it.

Especially when it's good advice.

 

[Buttercup]

Did you want advice or not? It's bad form to ask for advice and then yell at the people who provide it.

Especially when it's good advice.

I know & I can assure you I am happy with all advice - relating to how best to proceed. As stated in the opening post, how the current position was attained is irrelevant to this thread. Ergo if someone suggests I chop some trees then that is good advice, if someone says I'm an idiot because I haven't already cut the trees and then does not respect my reasoning and uses inflammatory language then that is not good advice.

it is for this reason that your post is bad advice as it ignores the points and merely sensationalises a small array of the least relevant sentences which are then taken out of context and are also not placed in the company of those quotes which generated them. You really think I yell at people who give good advice? Come on, pick a few quotes where I'm delighted with the contributions, this isn't a tabloid newspaper dude.

15 workers

We have plenty of units except artillery and workers

Are you deliberately not counting my 50 or so foreign workers? I'm confused as to why you prefer to leave these fine units out of the stat pile.

In my current Huge Regent (pangea rather than continent so about half the land mass) I have a grand total of 7 home nation workers and all the rest foreign. I have a 7 tech lead over my closest rival, the biggest army, the strongest economy and the most cities and land mass(edit: and for this game I've gone Regent all the way, just for the purposes of experimentation, LOL). I fail to see why it's such an issue for you, especially when the entire map is already almost entirely railroaded, irrigated and mined and, aside from pollution, there's not really a lot for them to do in the grand scheme of things.

As for your proposed methods off advancement, I have to say there's some excellent ideas there. The nukes one is hilarious and one I often consider, but, again, like the tree chopping, my real world sense of immersion in role play interferes with my ability to treat the squares as just squares in a game LOL.

One slight issue with the plan to ally with the English, I've tried this several times, about every 100 years, and they've refused me every time, no matter what I offer. How would you go about getting them 'back on side'?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

One slight issue with the plan to ally with the English, I've tried this several times, about every 100 years, and they've refused me every time, no matter what I offer. How would you go about getting them 'back on side'?

That is because your reputation is broken. It is still possible to get MAs, but they will be costly -- very costly. If you tried and before and failed, it is perfectly possible that you just did not have enough to offer.

 

[PaperBeetle]

One slight issue with the plan to ally with the English, I've tried this several times, about every 100 years, and they've refused me every time, no matter what I offer. How would you go about getting them 'back on side'?

Your per turn is shot, so it's hard to get alliances. But you can use hard goods at a high price; Liz will give alliance against Watha for Synthetics, but she won't throw any cash in on her side.

xpost

 

[Raliuven]

. . . does not respect my reasoning and uses inflammatory language then that is not good advice.

This is a joke, right? Here are some examples of inflammatory language used to marginalize those people - total strangers - that have tried to help you for no other reason then their love the game.

Get a load of this tripe from vmxa:

The primary reason I haven't won it, bright spark, if you'd bothered to read, is because the AI kept attacking me, do you need me to write that in capitals?

As this is just a blatant lie. Anyone is free to look at the game and know this to be a lie. I believe you are posting deliberately over-the-top nonsense. Feel free to spam my thread mountain out of a molehill bating material, this shall be my last contribution in your direction.

I have no idea why you think I don't use workers. That's the most ******ed comment I've ever seen.

So I will explain the situation to you so as you understand where this is coming from. You show us the house and explain how you want to put a nice roof on it. We're all kicking the foundation with a lot of because it doesn't look so good.

We look at this and we assume that you need more basic advice because the game looks like something my 11 year old would hand me as a rescue game.

So we try to explain what we would do next and, surprise, we tell you that you need to look at xyz to fix these problems and the game will go better.

You reply that you just want to continue playing as you are because you are enjoying yourself and now you want to win. Well perhaps those two goals are not compatible.

Play your game however you like. But if you are as good as the talk you talk, then walk the walk. This is a regent game for the love all that is holy.

And because new players read these forums and might get the wrong idea, I take issue with this:

This is pure opinion. Again, feel free to spam the thread with opinions written as fact, but it's only going sour otherwise great posts. The most obvious reason to go into anarchy is because you're fighting a war you're winning but are about to go to maximum War Weariness. If you know you can finish the other civ off with the troops you have but need more time then it's OBVIOUS that anarchy would be an awesome OPTION to have. As one small example among many.

Sorry but your argument about anarchy vs WW is just silly. Use the luxury slider, specialist and clowns to control problems. If your answer is that you prefer anarchy because you are lazy and don't want to bother with that, then that's acceptable. It is a choice you've made for better or worse. It is your game so you can't play it wrong.

To suggest that anarchy is a better option to WW is difficult (dare I say impossible) to defend. Anarchy will result in total loss of all production and research. EVERYTHING stops, except your people still want to eat for doing nothing. Even an economy crippled with WW is still producing. As for having enough units, well then swap to wealth and put some gpt into the bank to offset the luxury slider.

Of course the conundrum for you will be to explain how you can have enough units to win and still not have won yet. Either you have enough units to overrun the enemy or you need more. Either way, there is no justification for anarchy.

So the challenge is - explain precisely the benefiit you gain from being in anarchy as opposed to staying as a xyz government and why that government was incapable of self-correcting - and so much so that you believe a period of 6 turns is worth wasting to avoid it.

And if you think the unit support is some magical limit you cannot exceed:

The amount of free units you have is a set limit, the amount of cash you have left after keeping decent tech pace is a set limit, if one has reached this limit without factories, what exactly, may I ask, is the point of factories?

Who cares about the number of free units? All I care about is the number of units I can support via: A robust economy, money farms, gp & gpt trade deals I have with the AI. Please. I can have 100 native workers and not even be sweating my unit maintenance under Republic.

One other thing and I'm not sure I've ever seen the answer to this - if you are in anarchy because of a government switch and a city falls into rioting (which is often prone to happening during anarchy), is it more vulnerable to flips? I would assume so.

Anyway, the only time that this would make sense if you have warred so poorly against the AI that your WW is devastating. Frankly I've never seen that level of WW. If it truly is a problem, switch to Monarchy and stay there.

 

[creamcheese]

Are you deliberately not counting my 50 or so foreign workers? I'm confused as to why you prefer to leave these fine units out of the stat pile.

In my current Huge Regent (pangea rather than continent so about half the land mass) I have a grand total of 7 home nation workers and all the rest foreign. I have a 7 tech lead over my closest rival, the biggest army, the strongest economy and the most cities and land mass(edit: and for this game I've gone Regent all the way, just for the purposes of experimentation, LOL). I fail to see why it's such an issue for you, especially when the entire map is already almost entirely railroaded, irrigated and mined and, aside from pollution, there's not really a lot for them to do in the grand scheme of things.

As for your proposed methods off advancement, I have to say there's some excellent ideas there. The nukes one is hilarious and one I often consider, but, again, like the tree chopping, my real world sense of immersion in role play interferes with my ability to treat the squares as just squares in a game LOL.

One slight issue with the plan to ally with the English, I've tried this several times, about every 100 years, and they've refused me every time, no matter what I offer. How would you go about getting them 'back on side'?

Yes I only do nukes when I am really pissed by random number rolls or something, LOL.

Sorry about the worker miscount, I just looked at the military advisor screen, it doesn't show slaves. I should have checked Civassist as well, that shows slaves. Even then I'd build ~20-30 more.

Even if you offer gold per turn? I'll check the save and see if I can get an alliance. Oh, you have to be at war with the sumerians and the price will drop a lot.

Workers I'd be using for completing the irrigation of all the science farms I put down with settlers. Not filling the whole map this late in the game, but enough to get me to radar artillery, or enough for a space win.

Also, if you are winning by such a margin, you should move up a difficulty level. Most of my comments are aimed at strategies that achieve high score and early wins, it isn't really an issue on regent if you want to just win the game, you could probably do it with 0 workers if you really gave it a go, might take a while though!

EDIT; I forgot your rep was broken, that is why it costs so much. We may have to save up for it or try the MPP method. (get an MPP with england if you can, then when you declare and sumeria counterattacks, england has to declare on them). Beware of MPPs though, they cacn lock you into wars you don't want.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Anyway, the only time that this would make sense if you have warred so poorly against the AI that your WW is devastating. Frankly I've never seen that level of WW. If it truly is a problem, switch to Monarchy and stay there.

Woah there! I was cheering all the way through your post, until this point. Switch to Monarchy you say? That's what we're doing in anarchy, and I'll say it again, even at the risk of getting told off: I don't want to be in anarchy. I don't believe anarchy is a sensible solution to war weariness, or that switching out of a representative government is a sensible solution to war weariness (REL trait excepted). If war weariness is so bad that your empire's production is actually less than it would be under anarchy, then make peace for 20 turns, by which I mean peace that is not tied to diplomatic booby traps like ROPs, alliances and especially MPPs.

Now back to the specifics of this game: I think we need to know who caused this infamous war weariness? This is significant, because war weariness from Civ A does not go into the same pot as war weariness from Civ B. And there's only four other civs left in the game. We've been at war with England in the last 20 turns, and they took a town in 1860ad. But the 20 turns of peace will expire before our anarchy - if we refuse peace at that moment of renegotiation, will the weariness have expired? I don't know. I might try it. We've been at war with the Inca in the last 20 turns, but I can't believe they hurt us because they're on an island. We have not been at war with Sumeria in the last 20 turns. I can't say at this point whether we were at war with the Quois recently, but it doesn't matter because they will be dead before the anarchy expires (assuming Gil remembers to knock out Watha's eastern junk towns ). The two recent big campaigns were against Korea and Greece, but they are both dead, so no weariness from them.
What I'm trying to say is: Republic should be perfectly safe, shouldn't it?

 

[vmxa]

Buttercup I am sorry that I was of no service to you. I think my years here have shown I mostly try to offer help and rarely jump on people and certainly have no interest in beating my chest. I long ago learned that there are always better players at everything, if not today then tomorrow.

I do not understand that attack mode though. I mean to say I lied is pretty sad. I am often incorrect, but I do not lie. I said I had 3 tiles get pollution. That could be wrong and may have been as Beetle got two (not sure it was the same turn as mine, but no matter).

Things fly by quickly on my PC and I could have counted a tile that already had pollution. It does not matter as the point was and is that without Mass Trans, you are going to get a lot of pollution from some 20 metros. If it is not exactl 20, I guess I lied again.

My point (for furture readers, if any) on the trees is that you had to take extra time to rail them and they could have been cut long ago. If you are not concerned about that, you may be concerned that many places were starving and cutting the tree on a grass tile gets an extra food and allows irrigation for yet more food.

I do not say things to make you look lessor than I. I say them, because I think they are correct. They in fact may not be correct, but I believe them to be at the time.

Anyway I will repsect your wish and not post further, but as you called me a liar I felt entitled to respond.

 

[Elephantium]

I know & I can assure you I am happy with all advice - relating to how best to proceed. As stated in the opening post, how the current position was attained is irrelevant to this thread. Ergo if someone suggests I chop some trees then that is good advice, if someone says I'm an idiot because I haven't already cut the trees and then does not respect my reasoning and uses inflammatory language then that is not good advice.

it is for this reason that your post is bad advice as it ignores the points and merely sensationalises a small array of the least relevant sentences which are then taken out of context and are also not placed in the company of those quotes which generated them. You really think I yell at people who give good advice? Come on, pick a few quotes where I'm delighted with the contributions, this isn't a tabloid newspaper dude.

*blank look* I wasn't offering advice; I was admonishing you for lashing out at the people trying to help you.

And after the way you've responded to people offering advice, many better players than I, I don't think I WANT to give you any advice!

 

[PaperBeetle]

They've got about 20 tanks. Technically, that's enough to retake one of the captured towns, after which they could use rails to pick off a couple of undefended but unimportant towns behind the border region. But this is the AI we're talking about, they're not going to do that. Are they?

No, of course they aren't. They split their tanks into three divisions. Just under half attack Tyendenaga, coming close to getting through all the infantries in there (underneath which there's still a couple of cavs and some damaged armour). A smaller number of tanks decide to hit my towns at the eastern end of the border; a couple of infantry lost, but nothing serious. And a large division tries to head across Zulu territory, apparently aiming for an undefended town some way back from the front. They acheive nothing except offering themselves as sacrifice. :suicide:
2 Quois bombers hit our armies parked outside Kente, and Quois destroyers trigger our Sumerian MPP. This is helpful, as Watha has a couple of towns over in Japan which I now don't have to bother with destroying (they should autoraze, so they are no gain for Gil).

Sumeria earns a great leader killing a Quois tank, and starts moving his tank/mech stack through my territory, to get to the battlefront; about 70 units. They will need detaining, as I don't want them actually picking up Quois towns, and if I have them under supervision, it will be easier to deal with them when the war against Sumeria starts.


1902ad:
Workers keep chopping. Battleship sinks a frigate and promotes to vet. Artillery all gather at Inchon to redline the Quois infantries that seem attracted to this area like moths to flame. Kill 3 redlined infs with elite cavs.
Use elite tanks to mop up the stray tanks left over from the Quois counterattack.
Get two leaders from elite tanks, wiping out the pack of Quois tanks that was just out for a drive; form two armies and upgrade the elite*s. Put the vet and elite* companion cavalry into an army, but wait for mechs to fill the other two slots, because I don't like to put unstarred elites, upgradeable units, or mixed-movement-point units into armies. It can do some pillaging work in the meantime.
And back to taking Quois towns...
Take Kente with the units I parked there last turn. Sell barracks, capture art, and start slave. Take Kiohero, start slave, sell barracks, bank and factory.
Now a key town, Ganogeh. 5 vet armours retreat from the defenders, and 5 wind up dead. Ouch. Get a kill with a tank army, then 4 wins with armour to take the town. Sell barracks and bank and start slave.
From Ganogeh, I can strike out east to Tonawanda, and west to newly founded New Tonawanda, near the still-smoldering rubble of Oil Springs. Then southeast to Niagara, Gandestaigon and Chondote, in each case selling buildings I don't want and starting production on a slave. Annoyingly, Chondote remains isolated by Quois culture, but this time I don't need to burn it down. I dig it out by throwing all my 4-movers at Akwesasne, and from there moving against Goigouen and Kawuka; I had originally thought to use normal troops to attack Akwesasne from Chondote, not the other way around. Anyway, that's all I have the troops for this turn.

Use my cavs to mostly surround the Sumerian stacks of death, forcing them to go backwards in order to go forward, and hopefully bunching them in the process. Use cavs to disconnect all rail routes leading past my six border cities, and pack those cities with infantry.
I'm ready for the next Quois attempt at a counterattack.

 

[Raliuven]

Woah there! I was cheering all the way through your post, until this point. Switch to Monarchy you say? That's what we're doing in anarchy, and I'll say it again, even at the risk of getting told off: I don't want to be in anarchy. I don't believe anarchy is a sensible solution to war weariness, or that switching out of a representative government is a sensible solution to war weariness (REL trait excepted). If war weariness is so bad that your empire's production is actually less than it would be under anarchy, then make peace for 20 turns, by which I mean peace that is not tied to diplomatic booby traps like ROPs, alliances and especially MPPs.

Sorry. I did not intend to imply that revolting to switch to Monarchy because WW is kicking your butt is a good thing to do (religious may be the exception, as you pointed out). I was talking in this particulary instance, since he is already in anarchy anyway, he could just go into Monarchy and then the issue of WW disappears. If the conversation had started at 'should I slip in to anarchy so I can (fill in the blank)' I think the resouding answer would be 'no'. But that's already done.

The thought I may not have fully formed was that if his style of warfare tends to cause this level of WW, then republic may not be a good government. My main point was that suffering through 5-8 turn anarchy periods to deal with WW is a poor idea.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Okay, sorry, I misconstrued that bit as general advice about handling severe war weariness. Agreed: from where we are here, I was planning to go to Monarchy. But now thinking I might as well use Republic, or even try out one of the wacko Industrial governments... I wish I hadn't sold all the factories in captured towns now, could have used them in Communism.
CivAssist2 calculates that Republic would be easily the best (as of my current position, 1906ad). Next best would be Democracy, about 300gpt worse off, though of course I'd have faster workers.

 

[CKS]

I'm having a go at 100k, which will require eliminating the Sumerians, but I think will be possible before 2050. Communism looked like a really bad choice to me - nearly 50% corruption everywhere doesn't compete with a low-corruption core and science/tax/CE farms. Irrigated size six towns get 7 shields (for buildings) with 3 CEs. I picked Republic.

 

[Buttercup]

I really like the idea of entrapping the sumerian massive stacks. I've never tried this tactic before oddly enough. You're right, that would be really neat if you could finish off the Iroquois and have all the Sumerian front line on a plate waiting to be reduced.

Edit: the cultural victory was one I had discounted, it'll certainly be a close call and a fascinating race against time, probably more so that the Space Race.

 

[Spoonwood]

The primary reason I haven't won it, bright spark, if you'd bothered to read, is because the AI kept attacking me, do you need me to write that in capitals?

That the AI has attacked you several times unexpectedly I do not doubt. However, that this has *prevented* you from winning by this point, almost surely isn't true. If the comments here indicate anything in general about your play style (especially the comments about workers), they indicate that you do not have a very flexible playing style. If you don't want to change your playing style, then by all means don't. However, if you ask for advice, and you take such advice seriously, then you'll need to change your playing style (often significantly) to at least observe how such advice works in practice.

 

[Buttercup]

Spoonwood:

I would get banned from the site if I replied to your post exactly how I wished to.

 

[Spoonwood]

Buttercup: If I'm so wrong about your play-style, then show me wrong by restating this game or playing another similar game where you play according to VMXA's suggestions. Especially the part about workers. If you're so sure that having fewer workers actually works out better for winning the game, then playing a game with more workers as an experiment, would pose no problem whatsoever. It could actually serve to confirm your viewpoint. It's extremely common advice on here that people would do better by training more workers. VMXA's comment:

Idle workers is counterproductive. Insufficient workers is like an anchor in the water during a boat race.

might actually come as one of the best things ever said on this site. And don't get me wrong, I've NOTICED an instance or two of where VMXA has been wrong on this site, and even pointed them out. I haven't always agreed with his opinions either (we have very different play-styles in general, so that accounts for a fair amount of difference). That said, in the 3 or so years I've come here, I've not known him to lie, that is to *deliberately* or *with intent* tell a falsehood.

If you don't want to train around 1.25-2.25 workers per non-captured city, by all means don't. However, you almost surely will find things more difficult in general in civ III than if you did. And perhaps a game like Civilization: Revolution might come as more up your ally. That's just a suggestion though.

 

[PaperBeetle]

"Idle workers is counterproductive. Insufficient workers is like an anchor in the water during a boat race." might actually come as one of the best things ever said on this site.

I think one of the most insightful comments I ever read here was to the effect that the choices which really damage your game are not those which you get wrong, but those which you never noticed you had to choose.

On a narrower strategic point, I suggest you guys both retreat from this battle of quote and counterquote. It's going nowhere, mainly because the premise that there is a "primary reason" that game is not won is overly simplistic. Civ3 is more complex and more subtle than that. That's why it is an interesting game.