[C3C] Is there a winning strategy here?

Xerxes of the Persians, 1630 AD, Monarch:

What this old warhorse sees:

First of all, what’s your victory condition? If it’s conquest or domination, your immortals should have cleared your continent for you ages ago. The rest of this analysis will operate on the assumption that you want a military victory. If you’re going for score or culture, it's a different ballgame and my analysis my be useless to you. With that in mind, my first order of business would be to kick everyone off of the continent. The AI is pretty awful at naval invasions, and I don’t see anyone who can attack amphibiously yet. Being the sole occupant of your continent provides a lot of security until the AI builds up enough units to mount a decent invasion. At this level, that means that a few stacks of cavs placed around your (cleared) continent will be able to protect it. At Monarch, stacks of ~4 cavs, placed where they could reach any invaders, is plenty. And a cav can travel 9 roaded tiles. That's a lot of ground.

I see Florence, a core town, at size 6 and building wealth? Build an aqueduct for the unit support. Wealth gets you +1 gpt. Getting to size 7 gets you from 1 unit support to 3, plus adds all the other goodies that those citizens bring to the table (shields, beakers, etc.). That’s better for your empire. You have a forest you can chop to speed up that build.

Also, why so many units in your towns. In a republic, you get no MP value out of them. Either use them or lose them. Build a ‘shell defense’ along your borders, but no need to keep units in your inner empire.

Your workers (of which you have too few, 11 natives and maybe 5 slaves?), are in groups of 1 and 2. Get them stacked in larger gangs and build a rail line from your core to the edge of the foreign territory on you continent. Raze any cities you conquer for the slaves. Then go back and start railing the whole empire. If you can buy any workers from the AI, do so.

Again, I'm operating from the point of wanting a military victory. With that in mind, I’ll look at your towns. You only have 37 of them.

So, let’s go town by town:

Perseopolis: Your capital is only size 7. Your land isn’t fantastic, but you should have been able to get to size 10 or 12 by now. In Despo, you should have ‘mined green and watered brown’ tiles. That’s a good rule of thumb for getting the most out of tiles without triggering the Despo Penalty. Food bonus tiles (which may have already triggered the Despo Penalty) are an exception. Look at them case-by-case. Temple, Colosseum, cathedral and Sistine. Those are fine if you want a culture victory, but a complete waste of shields, or even a drain on your economy if you want to win by war.

Why build a cannon here? It does not benefit from the rax.

London: Obviously captured from the English, but building a library. It’s generating 34 gpt, but 29 of it goes to corruption. That means that only 5 of those gpt can go through that library for the multiplier effect. And it’s going to cost you 1gpt in maintenance. Set that bad boy to starvation mode and build workers. They’ll come out as foreign slaves. Slower than natives, but no gpt in upkeep.

Lisbon: Also a capture, but 19 of 22 gpt is going to corruption. IMHO, that’s too high to warrant a courthouse. Looks like a cannon and settler farm to me.

Opporto: 9 of 25 going to corruption. I’d probably build a courthouse here, but I’d ditch the temple. With 16 gpt going through the multipliers, it can be a worthwhile producer.

York: Temples, temples everywhere. 10 of 12 gpt gong to corruption. Also, lots of English citizens. I’m not sure if workers would come out natives or slaves, but I’d find out…. By building workers here until I got it down to 1 English citizen. Then maybe let it grow.

Aspen: Culture buildings everywhere. Also, you need to get those hills mined.

Guimares: Look at corruption before making build choices. Courthouses can only do so much and some towns are beyond hope. Make them farms.

Balata: same story, different place.

At that point, I gave up on checking every town. I scrolled through the next few and found the same issues: lots of culture buildings, barracks in towns that aren’t building units. If it has a barracks, it should build units. Specifically, attack and defense units. Bombard units do not get any benefit from barracks. So build attackers and defenders in rax towns, bombards in non-rax towns. (Except in the very early game, when you may not really have enough towns to sort them like that.)

Spot checking the rest:

Florence: Why are you building wealth here? I’m guessing that you feel low on gold. As I mentioned earlier, swap to an aqueduct, get that unit support up. That will get you more than the 1gpt that Wealth does. By reducing your unit support by 2 units (from supporting 1 unit to supporting 3), that gains you 4 gpt. Then add in beakers, food, etc, and it becomes a worthwhile investment. Florence is netting 7 shields per turn. That’s a 12 turn cav. Get it to net 8 and it will get you 10-turn cavs without even cash rushing..

For a military victory, this is winnable. Not necessarily easy, but certainly winnable. Your problems all date back to the ancient age. You don’t have anywhere near enough workers, which means that your tiles aren’t improved like they should be. That’s costing you money, and it’s been doing so for a long time. That’s why you’re behind in research. You've wasted a ton of shields and gold on culture buildings when immortals and settlers would have served you better.

Just for giggles, I went through and tuned the empire for recovery the way I would play it. I’m not saying it’s the best way, but it would be my way.

So let’s look at where you are in your save: 146 gold, 8 gpt. Medicine is 4 turns out, with the science slider at 50%. Lux slider is at 10%. 77 units, which is 18 over your limit of 59, costing you 36 gpt.

1 settler, 11 workers, 5 slaves, 7 spears, 4 pikes, 3 longbows, 3 muskets, 2 rifles, 12 cavs, 9 cannons, 1 frigate, 5 galleons, and 17 immortals.

Tuning the empire:
Rename Persepolis to Aabraxa and save this game as “Aabraxan of the Persians.” That way you don’t confuse my save with yours. Generally speaking, I’m going to sell all of your culture buildings and remake this empire with war in mind. I will also fire all of your clowns and sell off obsolete or otherwise useless military units. At Monarch, you can pretty much run a purely offensive campaign. Once you jump to Emperor, you’ll have to have a few more defensive units, particularly for overseas invasions. At DG, my (limited) experience was that you danged well better be ready to fight defensive wars.

Once I'm done with the changes, my save has:

441 gold, +117 gpt; Medicine in 4, slider at Science 40%, Lux 10%; 69 units, a limit of 59, so 20 gpt in support

1 settler, 11 workers (+ 5 slaves), 1 archer, 2 pikes, 3 longbows, 3 muskets, 4 rifles, 12 cavs, 9 cannons, 1 frigate, 5 galleons and 17 immortals

I swapped builds around so that you’ll be getting more settlers, workers and offensive units. I left a handful of defensive unit builds the way they were. Rifles are a pretty decent defensive unit, and will be good for protecting an invading force. Besides, they upgrade to infantry.

Mind you, I didn't advance any turns. This is the 1630 save. I also didn't do any trading. I hope this is of some help.

 

A courthouse alone may not be warrented clearly, but courthouse und police station will reduce corruption to maybe 60% and that together with policemen will mean that corruption can be reduced to less than 50%. Lisbon is at the edge of where corruption can be reduced below maximum corruption. It does of course depend on how many towns are closer to the capital. 31 is the threshold for 50% rank corruption with courthouse und police station. Lisbon seems to be exactly at that threshold.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/everything-about-corruption-c3c-edition.76619/

 

Oh, I get that. But the opportunity cost to get Lisbon down to <50% is awfully high in light of his position in the tech race and the fact that it's already 1630 AD. IOW, that's a lot of shields invested and scientists that you have to give up to get the courthouse, the police station and the policemen, at this stage of the game. Then again, if he's going for spaceship or cultural, it may be worth it. IMHO, not worth it for a military win.

 

A police station requires learning an option tech at a pivotal point in the game. Then a revolt and then resources to build. Can you afford all that? Maybe trying to build all the towns into "useful" towns is one of the reason players are not doing well at low levels (less than emp).

 

No revolt is needed. Police stations are most useful when not in communism. The tech is already available as the last screenshot (look at Gendale) indicates.

For a republic police stations tend to pay for themselves. Whether they do that reasonable soon depends on details. In this instance both choices have merit. This is not what matters.

 

True, if you only want the police stations, you would still need to acquire the tech. I thought they went commie.

 

One other note -- I believe that I read the original poster also researched ironclads? That's an optional tech, probably not worth researching if it slows down your path to replaceable parts. If you get it in a trade, maybe.

 

Wow. I just saw that there was a page 2 of messages. Big analysis by Aabraxan. I will have to digest that a bit. Yes my goal is domination victory, play out the military path. It would be possible to end wars and try to go to space race but looking to end it quicker with military.
Most likely have built way too much cultural buildings, as stated. I like to see the cultural stuff and to push out borders. It might we a habit from Warlord level to break.

Since the earlier messages I had gone back to the map to continue it. Dropped back a couple of saves to 1580 (IIRC), before war with Arabia starts. He declares on me in a couple of turns. I turned back 2 weak invasions and captured cities on my continent and the one larger island. Then peace. Also finished off Port. I concentrated on developing more rail and mines (added several workers) and advancing to Replaceable Parts. Disbanding ancient units while adding cavalry and cannon. Also diplomatic effort to make friends with Korea to get an MPP and pull him into war with Arabia. I started the war a bit after 1760 by landing forces on Arab's nearest peninsula with 3 full galleons. He attacked these immediately on same turn before I could even attack. Which triggered the MPP and Korea declared. We proceeded to carve up Arab lands. I pressed ahead from my side to get to capitol and Baghdad before K did. About then the MPP with K expired which was fine with me. He took peace treaty a turn or 2 later. I took peace treaty a couple of turns later. Arabs still had 2 cities ( 1 on an island) but K was denied access to rubber that Arabs had. With peace, trying to develop and modernize. It is currently 1910 and I have tanks and bombers. K has no tanks but 55 rifleman and 17 guerrillas. Also 22 inf from when he did have access to rubber. I am at 60 and 61 for area and population. I can wipe out England for 2 tundra cities and Arabs on 1 island but won't be enough. So I guess I need to war and take some territory from K to finish.

Comment from vorion. Ironclads is a waste of time? I can try skipping next time. I really don't like battles between frigates and galleons as the outcome is so unpredictable.

 

The ironclads themselves are not that bad. Later they upgrade to destroyer. So once you have combustion engine and oil the tech for Ironclads is completely useless.

Most human players have developed the habit to leave optional techs for AI to research. This slows down AI instead of slowing down the human player.

 

in this quoted decade or more of playing Civ lll , ı might have researched lronclads only once or twice , once very early and later when some Al had too much ships and always getting the upper hand against my Sail stuff . ı don't ever remember that they made any impact . Keep your sails in port and wait for the destroyers is a good advice or something in such a case though ı will waste so many shields for Battleships , awesomely slow but ...

(yeah , wonders are good ...)

 

Magellan is the kind of wonder that may well be worth the optional tech, at least if you expect hard naval warfare in which the one additional moving point will be decisive.

 

Optional tech improvements. Would the optional ones generally be the ones that don't lead to other improvements? Such as ironclads, sanitayion, free artistry ?

Also, one more item. The only wonder that I missed but wish I had was Leo's Workshop. So I have to pay full price for an upgrade. 120 for cannon to Arty even more for galleon to transport.Too Much!

 

Look in the tech tree. If it has the little 'circle and slash' on the upper right corner, it's an optional tech. You don't have to have those to advance to the next age.

 

This is one of the reasons why i rather disband than upgrade. Rather then having to pay for upgrades i get shields where i need them, which saves money. But of course you do need to have units for disbanding in the first place.

There are different kinds of culture buildings. Libraries and to lesser degree universities pay off. Temples donnot.

 

I continued the map from where I left off in #28. Declare war on Korea in 1918. at this point - still in Republic - I have 140 units with allowed of 111. strengths are 21 Arty, 16 Tank, 18 Inf, 21 Cav. Also 10 Bomber and 8 fighter. Front line cities with air units plus one airport have flaks and fighters set to air defense. A big battle for first 3 or 4 turns. Arty and bombers weaken many units and city defenders, then tanks or cav finish off. Losses for K are 3 o 4 to 1. Probably not surprising to you experts. After this I start crunching thru the cities taken by K from Arabia. A bit of a problem with culture flips. I'm now getting cautious about leaving too many units in captured cities.
The Lux rate has to go to 20% to keep riots down. By the time I take first of K's home cities it is the edge of a Domination victory. Victory comes in 1940. Score of 1832 not that impressive. I think it said Xerxes the strong.

If I went back to the early game and cleaned up on city placement and development, and optimize tech tree etc., this could be improved. The speed at least. But I think I will move on to another map. Planning to try an Agricultural civ, probably the Iroquois.

Thanks for all the advice and analysis.
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