Help me learn how to play!

[tmarcl]

Finally, some replies Yay!

1st, what is your plan? That is the biggest part of becoming a decent player, having a plan and effectively implementing it.

Plan?? Um. Er. Um. I have no plan. That was one of the things I'd been hoping for advice on. Given my start and civilization, what should my plan be? I was thinking maybe space race, but I hadn't thought that far ahead.

Other comments: You should always try to have some surplus gold saved in BTS. By the time you are building forges, this should be 100+. As the game goes on, you need more and more. The reason for this is random events (unles you have them turned off). A flood could happen and wipe out a forge, but if you have 40 or 50 gold, you can rebuild it immediately rather than having to invest all the hammers. A relatively small amount of surplus gold will yield great advantages over the alternatives.

That's a good idea. I usually try to keep my science slider to as close to 100% as possible in order to keep up (or preferably, ahead) of the AI.

Also, don't upgrade warriors unless it's an emergency. It's not worth the expense. Keep teching, or put the money into espionage.

Alright. I am upgrading Dora, though. She's the one variant in this game. At all costs, she must make it to SAM Infantry (or whatever the last upgrade is for melee)

Hey Marc.

Looks like the production of units wasn't quite quick enough for the rush on Justin. Just had a look through the saves to see what could've been done differently.

I played from Turn 40, but did several things differently - for instance, the second city was the one next to the copper, and the third was stone. So production was the first priority, wonders the second priority - you can't really afford to spend as much as you did on wonders early on when you're looking to rush, IMO.

There was a much higher emphasis on getting two cities that could produce as quickly as possible. In this case it was Paris and the copper city. This had the nice side effect of teching just as quickly as you were able to by having the stone city as the cottage city, and running a couple of Rep-scientists to boot. Other efforts were focused on production, and you can see that I've been able to produce more units more quickly.

There was also a much higher emphasis on getting the maximum number of resources overall, especially hammers. Mining hills and the copper was made a high priority, rather than simply focusing on the economy.

Attached are the Turns 80 and 100 saves. Turn 80 I'm just starting to produce axemen, Turn 100 I have a reasonable stack. I might play further on and play the attack through when I have a moment.

V8, I will look at them. I think the problem was, like xanadux said, I really didn't have a plan. At first, the decision was to build some wonders, and then, after I met Justinian, the plan was to go to war. Like you've shown, if I had decided earlier that I was going to war with a civ, then I would have known to focus on military sooner.

I guess a few questions:
Have you converted to buddhism yet? Doing so would increase favor with justinian and your hapy cap, and if you have Mono, your production speed of all buildings.
Second, why haven't you rushed him yet to get the lucrative shrine(assuming he built it)?
Do you know where Joao is?
How are you getting beakers and why aren't you stockpiling GP for the lib race? It sounds like you've had two; keeping at least one would have been beneficial for the beaker-heavy Philo.
Some thoughts.

1) No. Joe Two hasn't converted to anything yet, and I want to be friends with him. If, by some chance, he switches over to something else, I will switch to his religion.

2) Because I only recently decided to attack, and didn't build fast enough.

3) Somewhere to the left of me. Sorry I don't think he's far because he used a workboat to get to me.

4) I have two scientists in at least two (and I almost think three, I'll have to check) cities. I also want to get the Great Library.

he doesnt need to save GP for the liberalsm race. I've only ever had to use a GS to get liberalism once on emperor so I dont think he would have to save a GP when he's on prince

Noble, actually. Jumping up from Settler.

What they're saying about building wonders impeding an early rush is true. What you could try next time is to build warriors or something else until you get the stone hooked up. If you dont want to build the GW that's fine, but it does get you GSpy points and many other benefits . I only quickly read the thread, but I think getting your resources maximized for your capital was priority, and then the road up to stone city and hooking that up.

Something you may want to work on is how you prioritize your citizens in your cities. I would suggest going into your city views and playing aroudn with the placement of the citizens and watch how it effects things from research to produciton. sometimes if you're hurting to try and beat the AI to liberalism, or just anything, you can tweak your cities so that you can win the race (of course this could involve purposefully starving them so you get a GP faster or so you can work low food tiles).

I think you're right on all these. Like xanadux says, I need to make a plan. What that plan is, I still don't know. I am kinda liking the idea of stomping Justinian and stealing his shrine. Because, well, he stole our wine.

as for converting to buddhism, i wouldnt recommend it unless you aren't about to declare war on him. you could use that turn to start the war that much sooner .

also why are you going for fuedalism? I'm not sure if it's just me, but i almost never get this tech through non trade unless i'm desperate. I would say dont go for this tech cause you dont really need vassalage or anything from it right away. If you havent gotten literature yet, i would say that's your next goal. get the Great Library

You know. I have no clue. I do it on Settler. It's so normal for me to grab it when it's available (and fairly easy, too), that I think I just did it without thinking.

as for settling the 2nd GS as an academy, i personally dont like that move because i'm more for the "fortress" of settling all your GP in one town. and when you calculate how much it would give you, remmebr that the library affects the beakers you get from the GS as well so you would have been getting 35+.25(35) which is 43.75. and GS also give you 1 hammer as well, which eventually add up to a lot.

Ah. I was thinking that having two academies would be a bigger boost. I will do the math and see.

EDIT: Is Hanging gardens really the best thing your stone city could be building? just curious

You know what. I have no idea why I switched to that. It was early. Very early in the morning, and I think it was just a dummy thing.

Okay. So, here we are, then. I will look at the save game tonight (I haven't loaded it since my last report) and see if I can start making a Real Plan. A few things so far are looking obvious.

1) I want the Great Library
2) I want Justin's Shrine City.
3) I want to be Joe Two's special friend.
4) Dora must survive until the end!!!

Granted, these are only short to mid range goals, and I need to decide on a victory condition. Obviously, if I want goal 2, I will need to build more military. Is it too late for that now? Do you think I'd be able to muster a big enough force without reloading like v8 did and take on Justin soon enough before he spreads out to fill the entire continent?

 

[Gone Dark]

Okay. So, here we are, then. I will look at the save game tonight (I haven't loaded it since my last report) and see if I can start making a Real Plan. A few things so far are looking obvious.

Granted, these are only short to mid range goals, and I need to decide on a victory condition. Obviously, if I want goal 2, I will need to build more military. Is it too late for that now? Do you think I'd be able to muster a big enough force without reloading like v8 did and take on Justin soon enough before he spreads out to fill the entire continent?

Hi. I'm just taking my first stumbling steps on prince, but I thought I chip in a bit as well, but take my advice with a grain of salt Also I don't have Beyond the Sword yet and I can't look at the save, so I'm just commenting what you've written in the thread so far.

First of all I'd settle 1 SW of the corn in the south if that spot isn't taken yet. Iron, corn, sheep and an oasis in the BFC. It can support two specialists and the hill. A city that later becomes a nice commerce city after Democracy.

I think feudalism is pretty redundant at the moment. You already have a good defensive unit in the crossbow, and won't need longbows right now.

You have the tech plan all worked out already:

1) I want the Great Library

Research Literature first, start GL in the capital.

2) I want Justin's Shrine City.

Then go for Code of laws for courthouses, it's also on your way to Civil Service and macemen. Justinian is protective, so you might need an edge. And remember you don't have to finish him off completely at once. You want his core cities, and most of all the capital. And don't forget to build a road to your infill point for reinforcements.

Then I would go for currency, or trade for it, to beef up your economy a bit.

The overall long term plan is important, but with a few successfull wars, you'll end up with enough land to execute whatever plan you come up with much more effectively.

 

[xanadux]

'Going for a space race victory', I would not consider a plan. That's a goal. A plan is what you use to achieve a goal. Your other list of 4 things you call a plan are still just goals, and with no justification as to why they should be goals.

You need to identify productive goals and then formulate a plan to achieve them. A common early mid-game goal might be to control one's own continent while developing the economy. The planning stage deals with ideas of how to attain this. You should think of when your war will occur ... what techs you want to get, and what kind of military you want to field for the war. You will want to consider how far to expand peacefully before (or during) preparing for war.

You might decide the war will be fought with primarily swordsmen/axemen and spies to eliminate defenses.

You might have ivory available and decide that you will beeline construction and use war elephants with catapults.

You might have a fair amount of room to expand, a fairly robust economy, and delay the war to macemen and crossbows either with spies or catapults to remove defenses.

Not all plans regard war. Another type of plan is considering the development of your cities by raising their happy caps. This is very important and should always be a consideration of early to mid game strategy. Various possibilities are using calendar resources, having mining resources and prioritizing forges, pyramids for representation, and monarchy for hereditary rule.

I hope this helps in your thought process of running your game.

 

[MrFelony]

ignore what i said about it being dumb to build a 2nd academy. in some circumstances is it, but when you can have 2 great cottage cities like that. My biggest problems occur when I dont formulate a plan either. I always have a general plan because I know different strategies, but by not taking a moment to think, you can often get yourself into deep trouble lol.

 

[cabert]

I too have a plan, when I start a game : WIN!

edit : sorry, I didn't really follow the thread up to here, and cannot open the save right now, so no advice from me.
Just a few thoughts:
Now is the time to choose between war and peace. If war it is, build units (or barracks if not yet done ). What can you build? remember catapults don't actually kill enemies in BtS.
If peace it is, leave the catapults in the queue and start the hanging gardens in a city that can really finish them, like Paris. You need libraries everywhere if you plan on using representation for your own good. And you need to assign specialists in all cities that can feed them.
What is best, a representation scientist or a plains mine? depends on the war or peace issue.
A scientist won't build a swordsman.
A miner won't win the liberalism race.