[BTS] Hesha's Random Questions

[sampsa]

I think only Mids and GLH are wonders you can base your strategy around. Others are not that important. GLib (and liberalism) overrated.

 

[rah]

I used to be an Oracle addict. On the higher levels that can lead to a lot of disappointment. The fail gold doesn't make up for the lost expansion opportunity. I usually play only IMM these days. The only way I build it now is if it's an afterthought. "Oracle isn't built yet and I have marble" Then I might try but don't have to worry that I didn't crank out some settlers first.

 

[lymond]

Yep, Oracle is a very rare for me...probably less than 5% of my games I might back into like rah mentioned above. Like "oh wow, no one has built oracle....choppity chop chop". Maybe once in a blue moon I might actually pursue aggressively. On Deity, it almost always is going to fall very early, and even on levels lower than Deity it can go relatively fast. When it goes late, it often is a result of a set of AIs you rolled.

I'd say there are not really any set conditions for it, nor any validity based on particular civs/leaders. Probably one thought is actually having decent starting techs that match your start, like mining/agriculture, so that you can go BW and then myst>PH to writing and chop it out somewhere.

If you meet AIs like Izzy, Justy, Gandhi, Pacal and Gilgamesh, you can expect really have to rush it to have a chance.

 

[Major Tom]

I think only Mids and GLH are wonders you can base your strategy around. Others are not that important. GLib (and liberalism) overrated.

Your last sentence is interesting and probably worth an own thread. Do you mean early warmongering usually yields better (faster) return than the GLib-Music(GA)-LibMT line?
I usually ponder on this subject (IMM level, no marble and nonIND) so comments appreciated. May even put up a poll.

 

[sampsa]

Do you mean early warmongering usually yields better (faster) return than the GLib-Music(GA)-LibMT line?

Yeah, I think either war or gearing up for war (some non-liberalism route, like just hard teching nat, building Taj, getting music+MT+gunpowder) can often be better than forcing yourself to win lib "because it's standard". The thing is you burn many for relatively useless techs. These might be better used as trade missions or golden ages. Yes, you can use these techs as trade chips but I think the trading (and stealing) game is so rigged for player's benefit that climbing out of the tech hole is easier and less dangerous than it appears at first glance.

I usually ponder on this subject (IMM level, no marble and nonIND) so comments appreciated.

I'd pretty much never go for aesth-line without marble. CoL (for philo bulb, CS, caste) is nearly always a good choice even if you are not the first one to it.

 

[Hesha]

I'm only playing on EMP, but after my fourth victory just now I think I will give IMM a go. I have to say... aggressive strategies seem to be a lot more reliable. I don't even build wonders anymore, I feel it's more hammer efficient to let some other schmuck build them and then take them away from them.
I also find that ivory is just about the most important resource in my games. Whoever has access to WE can dominate the classical period. Tough, if someone attacks you first, but at least on EMP that is relatively rare.

What I need to learn at the moment, is how to get to Construction more quickly, that's why I was asking about the Oracle. Because what usually happens is that I slow down from overexpansion by around the time of Writing / Maths that it takes me something like 30 turns to get Construction and that is a long time to be sitting on your attack stack. I usually try and build up a nice bronze-stack, prefereable with UUs, if available, and try to take out one or two AIs with flatland capitals, then regroup and wait for either Caps or Macemen for round 2. In my last game it was really tricky, because only one AI had a flatland cap. I also find that I really need to scout more. Once OB hits, I really need to just swarm the AI lands with scouts, because attacking into the fog is just... suicidal. And I'm really working on loading less.

 

[krikav]

w/o marble it makes little sense to go aesthics, I agree completely.
But GLib is usually mostly just a nice bonus, whats the real prize at litterature is the two marble national wonders that you can utilize for failgolding.
They can be really profitable if you have a bunch of whipable cities. (Whip missionaries/spies/swords, which ever you need soon anyway and put overflow into the wonder).

 

[krikav]

@Hesha If you have overexpanded though, you have already achieved the goal of securing a sizable chunk of land quite early on.
Construction is often times the alternative path to achieve an adequate enough empire.
When rushing construction, it's usually from 3-4 maybe 5 cities?

Attacking prior to construction usually happends for me with axes (or some UU) if I have a weakling nearby and go BW early and find copper readily available.
Usually from 1-2 cities.
Only other alternative I can think of is a HA rush, but thats usually a very risky proposition... But can happen if you have say, gold and horses and see that early on.
Don't want to find a opponent with metal with HAs though, costs so much. :'(

The third and final (?) pre-construction attack is when you trade for IW in a normal manner, and find some neighbour w/o metal.
Jumping them with a collection of swords in such a situation is also a nice opportunistic venture that can be really rewarding.

 

[sampsa]

Let me add that on non-deity difficulty HA-attacks are excellent, if you have a close neighbor. Usually found 3 cities. Some maps you can even conquer with HAs, even on immortal...

 

[Hesha]

Sounds great! I smell war already in my next game (IMM) I have an island to myself, so obviously I built GLH, but I've met two AIs so far. Rags and Shake. So... war is in the air. The don't spend Esp on me, though, so there must be others.

Two more questions:
Do pastures remove forest? I just found some jungle pigs and don't have IW yet. By the way, everybody seems to believe in not teching IW and trading it instead... but what if you're behind in tech at that stage of the game?

Second question: Do you failgold without IND or the appropriate resource? Seems to be a null-sum game in most instances. I guess if there is absolutely nothing else to build?

Bonus question: Is there a selection for a random map type? I'd like if I didn't have to set Pangaea or Fractal, etc.

 

[sampsa]

Do pastures remove forest?

No. Actually, none of the pastureable resources can hold a forest. Yes, pigs can be jungled though, need IW to chop it off first, then you can improve it.

By the way, everybody seems to believe in not teching IW and trading it instead... but what if you're behind in tech at that stage of the game?

Then you should try to get a trading chip and trade it around. Aesth? CoL? Philo bulb? Teching a tech everyone has won't help you climb out of the hole.

Second question: Do you failgold without IND or the appropriate resource?

Sometimes, but not often. It's like a worse version of building wealth, since you don't know when you'll get the cash.

Is there a selection for a random map type? I'd like if I didn't have to set Pangaea or Fractal, etc

Shuffle. There is also RandomMapscript, which comes with BUG I think. Anyway, fractal FTW.

 

[krikav]

I did a spectacular HA-rush that turned out really great in this game.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-spoiler-game-submitted.645569/#post-15446497

Impis work too.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-spoiler-game-submitted.646606/#post-15481521
@Fippy did it better though...
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/botm-177-shaka-prince-first-spoiler-1ad.646605/#post-15469042

 

[Hesha]

Sometimes, but not often. It's like a worse version of building wealth, since you don't know when you'll get the cash.

I guess Organized Religion would the one other reason, as its 25% modifier would apply to wonders, but not to Wealth. By the way... how exactly does missionary failgolding work and are there any modifiers for missionary production? I think HE and MA only effect "military" units, right? Anything else I can't think of atm? Or is this mostly about whipping / chopping, because those don't work with Wealth.

Speaking of this... could someone explain to my how exactly that works? What happens when you chop a forest for a city producing wealth? Or have overflow from whipping going into wealth?

Shuffle. There is also RandomMapscript, which comes with BUG I think. Anyway, fractal FTW.

Playing shuffle now - love it. But I do like Fractal, too. It's just... I prefer not to know what I am on, because then I can't automatically assume that GLH is the appropriate strategy - which on Fractal it always seems to be, at least in the last couple of starts I rolled.

 

[sampsa]

By the way... how exactly does missionary failgolding work and are there any modifiers for missionary production? I think HE and MA only effect "military" units, right? Anything else I can't think of atm?

No modifiers other than normal ones (forge). Whip, take off the queue. In three last cities produce them (I think doesn't matter if you can finish the build on this turn?). Since you can produce only three missionaries empirewide, built in all but three cities go poof. Pretty sure this works also in non-BUFFY version, but not sure.

Speaking of this... could someone explain to my how exactly that works? What happens when you chop a forest for a city producing wealth? Or have overflow from whipping going into wealth?

Overflow and chopped remain as overflow. Thus you can store these this way, but I'm not sure if they start to decay in 10T.

Playing shuffle now - love it. But I do like Fractal, too. It's just... I prefer not to know what I am on, because then I can't automatically assume that GLH is the appropriate strategy - which on Fractal it always seems to be, at least in the last couple of starts I rolled.

My qualm with shuffle is archipelago, which is just a horrible map script. AIs handle islands so poorly that the game is way too easy. I don't think GLH is automatically an appropriate strategy on fractal, I'd say I build it 20% of the time or less. Without islands it's not strong at all, more of a trap IMO.

 

[krikav]

Regarding missionary failgold, is this related to what I said about national wonders?
If so, missionaries (or spies/swords/galleys/catapults) etc are just handy stuff to 2pop whip which gives a sizable overflow.
Just a convinient way of turning food into hammers through multipliers to gold.
Takes 29 food to grow from pop2 to pop4 if you have a granary.
You get a spy, and you get 25-30 hammers overflow. They are routed through marble modifyer and become 50-60 hammers in a wonder which equals 50-60 gold at completion.
So... 29 food turned into a spy and 60g. ^_^

 

[sampsa]

Regarding missionary failgold, is this related to what I said about national wonders?

No. It's a tactic that at least WastinTime used, based on the mechanic that the number of missionaries is limited like I tried to explain in my last post. It offers a bad 1->1 ratio, so it's not as useful as putting OF to national wonders, but that is not always available.

 

[Hesha]

Say... the only building that is built in virtually every city is the granary (except, I assume, an ice city that only exists to work a tile of silver and will never grow pop). Can you tell me under what conditions you
a) build another building before the granary
b) build a lib
c) build a LH

I have, for instance, had cases where I felt building the LH first and then the granary made more sense, but now I am thinking it was probably a bad call.

 

[sampsa]

Need to be pretty special circumstances. Sometimes a city is founded to claim lots of forests and a wonder is chopped. LH before granary I think only if you are ORG. Sometimes library before granary, if that city is working two scientists at size 3 i.e. not really growing.

 

[krikav]

LH before granary is quite common in cities that are only coast, those 1 tiles islands and similar.
Whip a warrior and get 15 hammers overflow into a LH, then you can 1pop whip the LH soon enough.
Then it's much easier to grow to pop4 (which is almost impossible with just 1F2C coast and a seafood).
I'm not 100% sure about the math, but this is just the way I usually do it.

A library before a granary is uncommon, but it makes sense if you plan to run 2 specialists there and stagnate as @sampsa says.
Or if you are desperate to get the culture right away, say competition of a important tile, robbing the AI of a wet corn (and gaining it yourself) can be crucial if two cities are to have a culture race for a long time.

 

[Hesha]

Speaking of specialists, I've noticed I almost completely ignore them when I don't have mids (and I almost never have mids, because in the last 10 games I never had stone anywhere near me and was never IND). Is that a mistake?