homeyg and Deity

[davy_hall]

If I'm reading this correctly, you had a plains hill start plus 3 clams. You moved off the plains hill for a grassland start so you could get access to more hills...but only mined 2 of the 4 hills?

You could have settled in place - had an extra hammer in your city square and still had access to a plains and a grassland hill (apparently all you needed even by 700 AD). By now, that extra hammer in your city tile would have generated another 145 hammers just on its own, not to mention the faster workers and settlers that might have allowed you to settle more quickly and in better locations. With the cultural pressure you're facing, you don't really even have 3 cities as the other two are hardly working any tiles.

With your capital, you really want to think about what's going to put you in the strongest position in the near term, not end game. No need to move to get 4 hills in your BFC if you'll only have food/ cap room to work 2 of them by 700 AD. The more important focus for your capital is how it sets up cities #2, 3, & 4.

 

[homeyg]

If I'm reading this correctly, you had a plains hill start plus 3 clams. You moved off the plains hill for a grassland start so you could get access to more hills...but only mined 2 of the 4 hills?

I moved off of the plains hill so I could have access to 2 instead of one because I knew I would be using those two plains hills, and I did.

 

[davy_hall]

My point is that moving off the plains hill cost you critical turns at the beginning without improving the end result. You worked a 1 hammer tile (grassland with city) to build your first worker/workboats when you could instead have been working a 2 hammer tile if you'd settled on the plains hill. Every turn from the start of the game until that first plains hill was mined cost you 1 hammer. Depending on what order you did things (worker or workboat first), that's probably 30-50 hammers lost if not more? Those lost initial hammers meant that your first workboats and workers came out late, which in turn set everything else back a few more turns.

And you ended up with the exact same amount of hammers being worked 145 turns later but 1 less food:
1 plains hill + 1 grassland hill + city tile generating 2 hammers = 9 hammers +3 food.
2 plains hills plus city tile generating 1 hammer = 9 hammers + 2 food.

 

[Artichoker]

I moved off of the plains hill so I could have access to 2 instead of one because I knew I would be using those two plains hills, and I did.

The lesson of the day is that a Plains Hill with a city on it is better than one with a mine on it, because of the extra +1 Hammer that costs you nothing in terms of worker improvement and food output.

 

[MyOtherName]

* deleted *

 

[homeyg]

I am such a noob!

 

[BurN]

Played till 1916. I did as I said I would, start building an army and attack Zara. Not a war to win the game but a war to not lose...

But first .. I needed to research robotics. Anyways, after that I switched to vassalage/US/Nationhood/FR/Eman. Vass for xp, US to rushbuy, Nat to draft mechanized infantry. I swithed to 0% research to keep buying units. Though while planning my attack route, I noticed I can't reach Zara.. Bull is blocking me off, FUGGING ******* Anyways I buy a bunch of transports, problem solved.

Bunch of turns later I have an army of 70-80 units consisting of artillery+mech inf, ready to attack. I dow Zara and sign open border with Bull a couple of turns later, his diplo went up due mutual war. I keep making units and place them near Bulls border to form my 2nd sod. Long story short, I raze some main cities with my main sod and raze some smaller cities with my secondary sod. In the meanwhile I'm making a third sod ready to strike the northern cities.

1916 AD, I ran out of artillery in my sod's. And I'm pondering what the next best move would be. (Suggestions welcome) Zara still got quite some cities and only needs 4 more casings for launch.
There's 2 options:
- I start making spies, merge my 2 sods that are already in Zara's land and continue the war with revolts.
- I sue for a 10 turn peace treaty but I risk Zara completes his casings and lose the game. But that way I can rush buy artillery and heal my units.

To make things worse, that damn Bull is going for cultural win. He's my internet target and he stopped teching. And the icing on the cake is, he's not too far from victory either. He got 2 legendary cities already, his 3rd city is at 38.7k I think (needs 50k). So I have to take that one out soon as well. The good thing is, I only gotta take one city. The bad thing is, I can only attack it from Zara's land. So I have to ... Attack bull and when I'm in his land, sue for peace with Zara. (Mound city is one of his culture cities, check screeny below for pos)

Screenies:

Spoiler :

Powergraph, suck it Zara. I think it's pretty noticeable at what point I started to make an army.





Where, I stopped playing. I only got 2 artillery units left in those 2 sods. Pointless to try attack without it. Zara got Mech inf+modern armor. However I could pillage while building/buying spies or arti.





Map overview. You can see the empty space in the middle of Zara's land. I moved from Tifflis (s/w zulu city and ignored everything till I got to his older & bigger cities.) Total dmg so far is 6 cities, including his capital razed.

Final thoughts .. I think it might've been smarter to keep the cities. -_- But I expected the war to be harder. And leaving units behind for defense, isn't the best option if your goal is to hurt/cripple your opponent as much as possible.


Edit: Is there ANY way to stop Zara's space race? The Apollo progr isn't a wonder so I have no idea if I can somehow raze it? Maybe I can sabotage but that would waste turns that could be spent in military. If not I have no other option then do a blitz attack against Bull's closest culture city and try to wipe out Zara before he launches. (If I could pull that off, I would just keep warring and wipe out bull, followed by mao, followed by shaka = conquest)



To Homeyg, on your offline game. I think you should've built more wonders, you let the ind trait go to waste imho. And settled in place for plains hill. It would've helped you big time getting those early workboats out, making a worker and building some early wonders.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Isabella industrious? Isn't she spiritual/expansive?

 

[BurN]

Talking about his de gaulle game. (ind/char)

Edit: While I'm posting anyways, the reason why I have 4k gold in the last screeny is because I'm switching between police state and US. US Rushbuy till low gold->Police state for reduced ww and increased prod whiling piling up gold->US Rushbuy till gold low->etc...

 

[CharonJr]

Personally my first thought for every game above Monarch is "How can I expand as fast/much as possible?"

Basically this means:

- get lots of food fast
- how fast and at what cost can I get to BW for Slavery/Chopping
- try to start on a plains hill or any other tile that adds food/hammers/gold - +1 food/hammer at the beginning is a huge bonus
- depending on the tiles/techs it might be better to grow while building warriors instead of a worker at the start
- where to settle blocking cities (running the economy into the ground is nothing to be afraid of if this gets you the land to become more powerful later - the AIs will outtech you anyway)
- since my focus is on land, not on techs/wonders I have to select the techs I REALLY need or can trade for needed techs

I really think that food is the key here, the food -> production conversion from slavery is great and if you have enough cities the unhappiness will not hurt as much and you can whip more often thus having a higher overall production.

Learn to maximize your whipping (am still working on that myself), try to whip as many people as possible by lowering the hammer production or timing the whipping.

3 cities whipping for 2 people each = 3x2x30 = 180 production which is a nice boost every 10 turns if you are close to your happiness/health-caps.

CharonJr

 

[Minmaster]

burn, you can always screw him over after he launches his spaceship by conquering his capital. i would stop the war with zara and raze mound city. you can always come back to take zara's capital if he launches his spaceship. seeing how zara's capital is a coastal city, you can just pile up your units in the sea for an amphibious attack after your spy revolts it. it's always better for you to have zara start all over on his spaceship instead of trying to prevent him from building his last few pieces. that coastal capital is just begging to be conquered. as long as you can make it there 1 turn before his spaceship lands, its all good right?

 

[BurN]

edit: pointless post.

 

[oyzar]

Only way to stop the spaceship is to kill the civ entierly...

 

[BurN]

Edit: Did a quick check to be sure. You are correct oyzar. This is a tricky situation. I can't afford to have Zara keep on building in his current cities but I can't afford Bull to run away with culture either. I might have to take on both to save time. There's 7-8 cultureless tiles between Beshalik and Adulis, which would be a good point to start war with both of them.

I think I'll sue for peace with Zara, get as many artillery as possible in the non culture zone by the time the 10 turns are over and attack Zara again. I got 49 mech inf left at this point, which is enough if backed up with enough art. Bull's 3rd culture city isn't getting culture "that" fast, I can build a second sod and place them in the non culture zone as well. From there on it's going to be a 1v2.

My main problem is Zara got so many island cities. It's not hard to kill the defenders but it's hard to actually get the transports there without dieing. Zara got a strong naval force.

 

[Minmaster]

Only way to stop the spaceship is to kill the civ entierly...

what do you mean? taking zara's capital will destroy his spaceship in flight if launched and he will have to start over from scratch.

let zara waste his resources on the remaining casings and let him launch. while he's busy on that just raze mound city. just before his spaceship reaches destination, conquer his capital with an amphibious attack. or am i missing something?

 

[silverbullet]

One way to stop a spaceship if you have enough espionage points, is to sabotage the finished spaceship parts, but it probably costs a lot and your slider has been on gold so far

 

[BurN]

what do you mean? taking zara's capital will destroy his spaceship in flight if launched and he will have to start over from scratch.

let zara waste his resources on the remaining casings and let him launch. while he's busy on that just raze mound city. just before his spaceship reaches destination, conquer his capital with an amphibious attack. or am i missing something?

I only did a quick test, to see if it destroyed the parts while not being launched yet. I'll go test your suggestion tomorrow just to be sure, it seems rather weird though but not impossible. IF what you say is correct, it would make my game A LOT easier.

 

[Minmaster]

sigh... i meant you take his captal once it's launched. of course it won't destroy it before launch. that's why i said you should let him launch it first then take his capital anytime before it reaches destination. frankly i'm very surprised that you guys don't know this.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Played till 1916...

Well done. Don't underestimate Bull's culture speed tho, 38k to 50k won't take long if he turns the 100% culture slider.

AFAIK Zara's spaceship will be destroyed if you capture his capital post-launch. At least that's what I hear for BtS spacerace changes, haven't really seen it happen yet.

I don't have much time for CIV this week, maybe next I'll see where my game is going and also make the post on the inner workings of a superscience city.

 

[homeyg]

That would be very appreciated, US!

As for me, I've been trying games, a few a day, and I've just been getting destroyed by barbarians. I must be in some kind of slump right now..