help me with empire

[LordJacky]

Okay, right now I am playing a Large map, set to smallest continents, with barbarians sendentary, temperture and climate at normal and age at 4 billion. Okay im playing against 5 other civs on cheiftain, the chinese, the french, the english, the russians, and the germans, with me as america. I have claimed 3 landmasses, but currently my capitol and most productive cities are on a small island. I have a 2 city colony about 1 or 2 squares above my little continent and a far away 3 city oil gahtering island that is close to the continent iin which the english, russians, and germans sit. The chinese own the largest land mass, an entire continent right under me, with the french holding the second largest land mass also under me. I have currently the smallest landmass, but thnaks to my efforts im in the modern age while the others just started industrial age. I have 3 resources of oil, 1 horse, 1 iron, 2 saltpeter, and 5 spices. Still dont know if i have alluminum or not. But anyways I am trading with the english, french, russians, and chinese and currently maintain a gracious relationship with the chinese. I have all the wonders. I am have currently mobilized my economy to war so i could produce and invasion force for germany. do u got any adivce on what i could do to win from my small island continet?

Um okay I've uploaded a file.

 

[Aabraxan]

Welcome to CFC, LordJacky!

You've done a fine job of providing detail in your post, but the best way to get help for your specific game is to go ahead and post a save. Usually someone around here will download your save and take a peek.

 

[civverguy]

I haven played the save yet, but judging from the Civ Assist 2, you should:
Not build wealth(build other stuff)
Build some ships
Build more units(I see that you don't have many units) like cavalry and infantry. If you want to invade, you should have a lot more units.
Switch wealth and the Shakespeare's theater to units.
After you do that, use your units to try to take over Germany since you're in mobilization.

 

[vmxa]

I did not look this over much as the first things I saw were too important to ignore.

First once you found that you were on a small island, you must react. This means tighten town placement. You MUST get as many towns down as you can on that small space. NO 21 tile crap. If you need to even make a CxC to get the most from the land.

So CxxC and any other placement to get max usage. You need the support.

Second, you must think about getting out immediately to take land. So get ships out to find the layout and get to Map asap.

Third get some troops to attack with, if no open land presents itself. Attackers, not defenders.

Where you are now, is not good. Not enough units to do anything and no fleet to invade with. You have no rubber and no coal. These are top requirements as you need to be able to get the extra food and to defend the attackers, with the fewest units.

One advantage of getting in some early action is you want to get a leader to make an army. If you had, you could have made the MA and the Pentagon by now.

Last you cannot wait till 1575AD to start moving, the game should be nearly done by that time. You best move now may be to get the UN up and get even closer to the AI to get them to vote you a win.

 

[civverguy]

Why? This is on Cheiftain so the tech pace is very slow.

 

[vmxa]

Because the game should be over around this time and it will now take a very long time to do anything from such a small base.

The tech pace is not a concern, getting up enough ships and units to invade from zero is a concern. Does not have to be fatal, but you are learning some very bad habits.

 

[LordJacky]

I actually plan to trade with china to get rubber and coal once they get to those techs, I plan to pay gold by the turn. Just wondering, why do I need to build more cities close together? Their production won't sky rocket(in my theory), Right now I have a couple of cities that produce great, and also I have 2 exploring ships, but none of them have found new uncolonized land yet.

 

[vmxa]

If you have 6 towns down and each makes 10 gold, you have 60 gold to play around with as research or production or savings.

If instead you had built 11 towns, you would have 110 gold. You would also have am increase in the unit support. These could be workers and or troops.

You need less culture structures as you have the tiles within your border from the natural borders, hence you pay less for those structures.

These can be turned into an early learning of a tech and better yet an invasion force to get more land. You MUST get more land to become the top dog.

Now do interpret what I have said to mean you could not win from your current position. Only that your current position would be superior had you not tried to have 21 or more tiles per city.

That 21 tiles stuff is best left alone. You have no need of it at any level and as you move up you really cannot afford it. It is true that you can pretty much do as you please at the lowest level, but why do that?

You will not have more than 12 citizen until you build a hospital or the metro wonder. None of that will occur till you are well on in the game. So you wasted all those tiles that are not being worked and you are forced to travel over them and work them for nothing.

In tougher settings, you will have a harder time defending those towns that are so far apart or you will need more MP's.
I am not sure what you mean by sky rocketing, but rest assured you would be much strong now if you had 6 to 8 more cities.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

So, there are a few things:

1) While most players prefer a tighter spacing, in the very least to start the game, that's not what you have. What you have is a wide spacing, and it looks like you have hospitals everywhere, all your cities are at size 12. And they are producing wealth!! You need to get them to size 13 (or larger) pronto. You have hospitals, and the use of hospitals are debateable - but having a hospital and being size 12 is not useful, at all!!

2) All of your cities are on wealth. This will make it very difficult to build an assault force of, I dunno, 2 transports and 16 cavs or whatever it is you have to go take the coal and rubber you need. Rubber is important, but coal is what you really need, for rails, which will allow your cities to grow.

I'd build 2 or 3 transports and enough units to fill them. 1 or 2 rifles, the rest cavalry. (you can't build tanks without rubber). Declare war on the nearest landmass with coal (I think france), land, withstand the onslaught of warriors and longbows, then take the city nearest the coal. if there is no city particularly near coal, you will want to make a settler for that city. Then take over the nearest city with a port.

That should get you coal at home. Get those ridiculously fast workers working on railing.

Conquer the rest of france. Turn it into an island that makes workers - why workers? Well, you will find that the cities don't have much infrastructure and if they make workers there, you can use your transports to bring them back to your land and add them to your cities, making them bigger.

 

[vmxa]

I don't know about rubber, but you cannot make tanks with out oil. You can't make infantry without rubber and infantry would be a big help during an invasion.

Cavs can rifles, but infantry are hell on cavs. If you have the tech already, ToW make great units for an oil less civ.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think you need rubber and oil for tanks. Just oil for destroyers, if I remember correctly.

 

[LordJacky]

I have 3 sources of oil And do you really think I should declare war on France? They probably have the support of China, which is the most powerful, largest, and my best trade partner, because they probably met each other first, and I don't really want to start a world war without any allies.

 

[vmxa]

Ok, now I am looking closely at this game. First I see it is vanilla. I will admit I have given up on vanilla the day PTW came out. I gave up on PTW when C3C came out. I have played a few posted games of others along the same lines as this one as a training aid to those players.

So I will try to remember it is not C3C. None the less, first thing I see is the research is for AW, why??? This tech should never be researched, unless all others are done. It only slows you down on getting to the modern age.

If you need marines, do them last thing. You may be able to trade or steal the tech. Surely wait until you have gotten some of the good early modern age techs.

Second, Shakes is normally not worth your time, you need to get moving.

Now lets get smart here. New York is making a factory in 6 turns, put lazy clowns to work.

Upon those two mountains and someone on the oil. It is 4 gold and 2 shields. Now we have upped the beakers and gold and cut the factory to 4 turns.

4 unhappy pop with 8 happy faces is fine.

You are paying 37 gold for support, since this is vanilla, I think you have no support for Dem or Rep. Will look to see if it makes sense to add a few workers into some cities to get a metro. It depends on the food and the chances of getting coal soon.

Whoops I see you did not build hospitals, I thought I had read that they had been. Not saying you should, just I was under the false impression they had been built.

I hope you did not research Communism another optional tech that can be skipped or at least wait.

Don't know what you took for ToE, but under most circumstances it is wise to take Electronics and AT. These are very expensive and you need them yo get to the modern age. Now you will have to learn the hard way.

So I change techs to AT, gave some thought to Espionage, but it is only Chief, so don't really need a spy that bad right now.

On the trade front, I did not look closely, but I am not fond of trading salt. That means cavs and other possible units that you may have to fight.

Chicago, put clown on salt and start a transport.

Philly, put clowns to work, wake some workers to mine the grass. Start DD, needs some escorts.

Seattle start xport.

Atlanta start cav put clown to work on the coast.

Boston, ok will let shakes go as it is only 2 turns away. Put clowns to work and it is now next turn.

DC, put clowns to work and shave a turn off factory. Probably want to mine some of the grass here as well. Oh to have coal.

SF, put clowns to work. I see you are in War mode, so no Hospitals can be build and some other structures. SF has only 1 shield so is not able to do much. (sure miss civil engineers).

Not sure why all workers are asleep and yet have no movement left, maybe due to some auto move. Anyway I wake all of them.

Miami all clowns working now and start a bomber. This is only because it is a small island with no attackers.

St Lou, wow no units on this island at all, that is brave or foolish. Start a cav.

Detroit is the same.

Buffalo as well, but it making a bank. I am not sure if I should let it go or not. Need a rax here to make vet defenders. Need some arties as well.

First target will have to be France, England would be prefered, but no coal. France has coal and rubber and they are close. Bad news is that musketeers are likely to be plentiful and they are as tough as rifles.

Anyway that is what I would do, mass up some troops and bring the war to France. I would not have gone to demo as it is a crap gov for war time. Would have gone to monarchy, given the fact that you are on an island. I then know it will be fight, fight and more fighting.

 

[vmxa]

I think you need rubber and oil for tanks. Just oil for destroyers, if I remember correctly.

That is correct.

 

[Delphi456]

After loading the game I hit F7 and almost pooped myself. Worse case of Wonder Addiction I've ever seen. You may want to check out the article in the War Academy about this.

 

[vmxa]

BTW I am not real sure about the mobilization, but you are not able to get out of it as it stands. this means the wonder shield have to be spent a unit or go up in smoke.

Not sure how you managed to get into MOB without being at war, but suspect you will have to get in one and get peace to get out of MOB.

Exactly why you would want to be in it and yet not build any troops I have no idea. It would seem to be the worst of all worlds, nto getting an extra shield and not being able to build what you want.

 

[LordJacky]

Oh in vanilla you can start Mobilization, but you can't stop it until you declare war, if you start mobilization while you're in a war, you can only get out by declaring peace. I got into mobilization because I wanted to build more soldiers to declare war on Germany, but then the world changed in the next turn and I wasn't sure anymore. Oh and what's wrong with building so much wonders? I didn't take your advice on reading that article because it was too long so if you could summarize it would be better.

 

[JDAllison]

Oh in vanilla you can start Mobilization, but you can't stop it until you declare war, [...]

Actually, it's if you set your economy to mobilization, only a peace treaty will cancel that. So, if you are at peace when you set it, you have to declare war and then get a peace treaty.

[...] if you start mobilization while you're in a war, you can only get out by declaring peace.

That's right.

I got into mobilization because I wanted to build more soldiers to declare war on Germany, but then the world changed in the next turn and I wasn't sure anymore.

You lost the initiative. Lessons learned: 1) never go to mobilization before declaring war, and 2) If you're wise about how you spend shields, building more units should be relatively easy.

Oh and what's wrong with building so much wonders? I didn't take your advice on reading that article because it was too long so if you could summarize it would be better.

I don't think anyone should do that. I think you should probably read it for yourself, because I think you will get more out of it.

 

[Golden Fleece]

I didn't take your advice on reading that article because it was too long so if you could summarize it would be better.

Read it, it's sound advice and well worth your time. It improved my game quite a bit. I'm testing these waters right now and am having a blast because of it.

 

[vmxa]

Best yet, do not go into MOB at all. It is a tool for rare circumstances. You can get away with all wonders, I have built all on Regent in vanilla, but you have to also take land while doing that.