How's my game?

[MStumm]

Hi! Last time I played civ was before the expansions came out so its been a while and I am a bit rusty. I decided to give this game another try. Got Beyond the Sword and updated to the latest patch.

I just want to get you opinion on my first game in a while. I picked random leader on standard sized continents map. Turned out I was Saladin and share my continent with Frederic, Justian and Catherine. I killed Frederic with an axe rush, and slowly expanding for now. I do have my eye on Justian because he is closest and has a Jewish shrine, so I started to trickle of swordsmen towards his border, and researching construction to get catapults and elephants.

I'd like to get you opinions about the state of my empire. Hows the city placement, hows my military infrastructure and etc. Any suggestions about future research, build order are appreciated.

From the score it looks like I am ahead. I have half the continent for myself but Justian and Cathy are a bit cramped, also I can see that Justian is just now getting agriculture, so I should be ahead in tech too. I've attached the save at the bottom.

Here are some screenshots:
First the general view of the world, centered on my kingdom:


My starting position:


Lands that I took from Frederic:


And my expansion northwards:

 

[assass1n]

NIce number of cities but I cant imagine in my whole life how Justin is getting Agri in 360 BC

 

[CHEESE!]

So far you're doing quite well. How many cities, and some city views for people who are lazy like me?

 

[MStumm]

@assass1n - this is warlord difficulty. Not sure why AI is so slow.

@cheese - I have 8 cities, if you count the barb city I captured just this turn, beat Justian to it too.

 

[Supr49er]

Thanks for the posts. This is a great way to learn how to improve your game.

Welcome to the Forums MStumm.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Ohhhhhhh the stuff I could do with a map like that. I might shadow game this later.

 

[CHEESE!]

Najran- Thats a lot of gold! That will be 59338532 bucks baby! You want fries with that?

 

[vicawoo]

You need more workers, and to improve your land more thoroughly.

 

[MStumm]

Thanks for your comments!

If there is interest I'll play this game more and post what happens next year.

@vicawoo - How many more workers do you think is needed? Any suggestions on which improvements to build?

Is there a guide that explains stuff like this? I found the War Academy here, but it'll be a while before I read and understand all the articles there. Any suggestion on which articles are a must read?

I really appreciate all your comments! Thank you very much.

Also for people who want to shadow you might be interested in the initial save:

 

[Joshua368]

@vicawoo - How many more workers do you think is needed? Any suggestions on which improvements to build?

Ideally you should have enough for that no city ever has to work an unimproved tile, ever. (including forests)

 

[Skallagrimson]

Picked it up from where the OP left off (after he smacked da Gerrrrrmans):

Spoiler :

1. Teched HR after Const to open up Phants
2. Teched archery due to Protective trait
3. Got rid of some annoying rally points
4. Built more workers
5. Plotted out locations for expansion cities. 50% slider + unirrigated FPs = REX more
6. Switched unit builds to diversify, de-emphasize swordsman, more cats
7. Spread Confucianism around more, to prep the land mass for conf. shrine
8. Fog-busted and explored the unexplored regions, mitigate the barb threat
9. Built 'mids (quite useful for Spiritual!!!)
10. Traded out CoL for sailing, meditation, calendar (after teching alphabet)
11. Got stone, ivory, and marble, so I figured a bit of wonder-whoring wouldn't hurt
12. HG and 'mids popped a GE, used it to pop GL; other wonders were by opportunity wherever
13. Due to stone, built castles for trade routes even in places where they weren't needed (tons of units still on the map)
14. I didn't notice right away that Medina had "avoid growth" turned on. Probably wasted a lot of turns in that city, thinking it would grow and forgetting to check back.
15. Finally DoWed Justinian 1535 (kinda got building-sidetracked for a while)
16. Some goodies to be had: Spiral Minaret, Bach's Cathedral, Temple of Solomon ($$$)
17. 1724 Justinian bye-bye. At the last city raze, Catherine DoW'd on me by way of stupidly accepting Justinian as a vassal. She was under-teched and under-powered, and not long for the world.
18. Full worldwide tech-lead by 1724 too. Trimmed back the slider some to allow upgrades of old CR3 axes to Grenadiers (might need them against Russian defenses).
(It's pretty much over at this point--could either stomp on the backward kingdoms at the other continent after Cathy, or go to space, either way is a guaranteed vic)

It was the funnest game I've had in a while: the map was SO nice, could just relax and play rather than pore over tile yields, etc. Things are a bit sloppy, I know, but a win is a win oy.

 

[slobberinbear]

Ideally you should have enough for that no city ever has to work an unimproved tile, ever. (including forests)

In practice, this works out to 1-2 workers per city. Dave McW, grizzled pithy poster on these forums, says it's 1.5.

While there will be times mid- and late game that you have excess workers, those workers will already have paid for themselves many times over. Plus, you'll need 'em when you learn an improvement-enabling tech (e.g. Calendar for resources, Replaceable Parts for lumbermills) or settle/conquer a new city, when you can send your worker posse to knock out the improvements.

 

[MStumm]

Hello everyone. I played another round and I am going to post my results. Also I can't believe that someone actually shadowed this game. My attempt was a bit more bloodthirsty though.

Like was suggested I switched to building more workers, and I also finished two wonders right away. The pyramids and the hanging gardens. I also traded Math for most of the early techs I skipped and CoL for monarchy.

Shortly after that I decided that my army was big enought to attack Justian for his shrine. This screenshot also shows something strange by the AI. The capital is completely neglected, no improvements and no forest chopped, and its only size 2, never saw something like that before. The reason Justian was researching agriculture so late is because he did not have a single farmable resource until he founded a city by the rice.


In my first war I took most of the core cities. Then I offered peace so my units can heal and reinforcements to arrive.


Then I went to war again to finish Byz completely.


Thats when I stopped for now. I have a large force on Russian border and I plan to take her out. She is researching feudalism so hopefully I'll cripple her before she gets many longbows. Here is the shot of my new conquered territory and the Russian territory I plan to take.



I've attached the save too. Is there any other screen shots you'd like to see? Any suggestions for future actions?

 

[Belisar]

First, as stated by others, you need more workers.

Second, when I look at you cities (260BC), I see no cottages and no specialists.
If you take away the gold, your economy probably wouldn't exist.

Your capital could be an ideal commerce center if you had cottaged the floodplains and the riverside grassland.
Also, hills need to be mined, green hills first as they need less food to feed and plain hills second.

Your city placement needs improvement.
Take for example Medina which misses both the river and the food ressource in the south by 1 tile.
You didn't settle the floodplain area SE of your capital, which should have been a priority.

Generally speaking, to maxmize the efficiency of your empire, specialice your cities (and plan their future use when you settle them already).
As a rule of thumb, settle commerce cities that get cottages on floodplains/grassland (preferably riverside) and commerce ressources like gold.
Settle production cities that get enough food (preferably from ressource tiles) to work a lot of mines (and later workshops, watermills, lumbermills).
Excess food can be used to run specialists, preferably concentrated in a few cities (great people farm(s)).

 

[Skallagrimson]

Yeah, in my shadow the main reason I went to peace-mongering for a bit was because the economy was just trash. There was a lot of rehab to do in tile improvements, getting specialists going, setting up some commerce cities, etc. Then the beakers per turn were still pretty low and cottages needed time to mature, so I even went to building non-spec buildings (a big nono in the higher levels but on Warlord, bah, who cares?)

MStumm: Cathy is weak, WEAK I tell you! It won't even matter if she DoWs on you, there's really nothing she can bring to the fight. Her empire is mostly tundra and when I fought her, it showed. I was embarrassed for her. The main thing is to watch your expansion rate and let the timing make the call, not any worry about her capability to hurt you.

 

[Gumbolt]

I really do think you need to be playing above warlords level. I think you would be better suited to prince/monarch level.

The Ai expands more in prince/monarch and also build armies more. they also start with archers.

if you lose this game from here you should be furious with yourself.

8 cities by 1ad is fine. Pyramids is a good build. If you get pyramids you can afford to have the tax slider almost at 0% and using scientists. My aim is always to get 100 science beakers a turn by 1ad. This is generally enough to beat the Ai on Monarch and maybe Emperor.

That being said I am obsessed with GP farms and getting lots of great scientists.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah, in my shadow the main reason I went to peace-mongering for a bit was because the economy was just trash. There was a lot of rehab to do in tile improvements, getting specialists going, setting up some commerce cities, etc. Then the beakers per turn were still pretty low and cottages needed time to mature, so I even went to building non-spec buildings (a big nono in the higher levels but on Warlord, bah, who cares?)

MStumm: Cathy is weak, WEAK I tell you! It won't even matter if she DoWs on you, there's really nothing she can bring to the fight. Her empire is mostly tundra and when I fought her, it showed. I was embarrassed for her. The main thing is to watch your expansion rate and let the timing make the call, not any worry about her capability to hurt you.

He is churning 232 science beakers a turn at 880ad. I would hardly call that trash. With Pyramids that is fine. It will be interesting to see how far he can get down tech ladder without finishing liberalism.

I have seen monarch games with people churning less than 100 beakers a turn at this point. he hasnt even got universities etc yet.

At this point i would wipe out the few Ai left on this continent. tech astonomy. Buy 10-11 galleons and invade with cannons/knights.

This could be an early domination game.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I'm more of an Engineer hound. In games when I can't get Engineers (especially if I miss both 'mids and HG and there's a lot of GA pollution) I sometimes miss the race to found Mining, inc.

Plus there's the dichotomy in the GSS, because the ideal commerce spot often has insufficient trees to chop GL, so without an engineer and no marble you can kiss GL bye bye.

Once I have at least 2 GEs then I become more of a GS hound (which isn't hard since you can flip 2 of those versus 1 Eng *AFTER* forges are in).

I wish there was a UB out there that could allow more Eng flips in the early game. That would be my fave, I think.

 

[Skallagrimson]

He is churning 232 science beakers a turn at 880ad. I would hardly call that trash. With Pyramids that is fine. It will be interesting to see how far he can get down tech ladder without finishing liberalism.

I have seen monarch games with people churning less than 100 beakers a turn at this point. he hasnt even got universities etc yet.

At this point i would wipe out the few Ai left on this continent. tech astonomy. Buy 10-11 galleons and invade with cannons/knights.

This could be an early domination game.

He's actually the tech leader but you and I both know that with no cottages and no scientists he would NOT be getting 232 BPT on higher levels. It would have taken more tile improvements at at least more food if not more cottages.

In spite of all that he was the tech lead (Warlords level, after all), so the game was forgiving, but it's still a bad habit to leave all the land unimproved if you have ambitions of climbing the ladder.

My shadow went to domination because ...just because. The AI were pathetic. They wouldn't have been pathetic on Emperor though, so I tend to bring a caution that isn't warranted on Warlords, lol.

 

[MStumm]

Thank a lot everyone!

I picked warlord difficulty, because its been a while since I played last time, and because I am new to the expansion. I'll be moving up the difficulty in my next game. I'll also make sure to build more cottages too. Now that i've captured Justian and Catherin's land, my finances are hurting, but I did cottage every green tile insight, so things should be getting better. I am getting 500+ beakers per turn and its about year 13 hundred something.

So my current plan is to sail across the ocean (since I have astronomy now, and way ahead of all the other rivals) to the other guys, and vassallize them.