Is this game salvageable?

[dankok8]

Been away from the game but got back into it. Playing with Gilga on Emperor. 1160 AD, 6 cities, behind in tech but not hopelessly.

I played through this one quickly and made some mistakes. Seeing that I had no copper (it's my third or fourth time overall playing with Gilga and I never once had copper near me to use the Vultures...), I decided to beeline Construction for an elepult strike as I had Ivory. Land was crap and besides the capital. only one other city surrounded by flood plains has lots of food to grow. My economy was in shambles even with four cities and the AI were teching like madmen while annoyingly avoiding Alphabet except for Ceasar who had it but wouldn't trade... UGH I had to make some detours in research and only got to declare with elepults around 1 AD. Captured three cities from Toku who then vassaled to Julius. I killed lots of their units and managed to get Toku's capital plus one other good city and made peace by giving Julius the third city I captured which was marginal and isolated inside enemy culture. If I went for Iron, I could have done a lot better since Uruk was settled on it and I should have suspected that given that it was an unforested hill and my initial settler was told to settle next to it. Oh well... I got a few techs like CS and Paper and traded them around.

My thoughts are beeline Mil Trad, build an overwhelming force of Cuirassiers and try to smoke the French. Maybe I could trade Education (I'm only a bit over 10 turns from it) to get someone else to join the war. Any thoughts or advice?

 

[Fish Man]

Even without looking at your save, I can see a lot of problems in your play, probably stemming from a sub-par early game. 1160 AD without education and with only 6 cities is pretty bad, especially when half of said cities were taken.

More than asking what you can do right now, you probably need advice on the early game - to be precise, the first 100 turns. This includes build orders, using slavery, optimizing worker turns, REXxing/good city placements, early wars (or staying out of'em), tech orders/bulb strats, and much more. Could you post a t0 save, for us to walk you through, play through, or even to give general advice?

 

[dankok8]

^ Thank you for the reply. I was screwing around with this game a bit but the setup is quite tough. No copper as Gilga and surrounded by two warmongers. Good land for maybe four or five cities. I built four and captured three and then stupid Toku who never likes anyone vassalizes to another AI with like 7 cities left.

I'll keep you updated. Maybe I'll post a new game soon and even though I'm a seasoned player I do have lots to learn no doubt.

 

[dankok8]

Kept playing and managed to sort of catch up. Won Liberalism, took Nationalism and beelined Military Tradition for Cuirassiers to swarm Napoleon. He has an exclave of two cities isolated from his main cities. Then the rotten luck again after I take his first city. Ceasar and Toku both hate Napoleon (don't even trade with him, shows no open borders) but they both support the bloody AP resolution to end the war. I defy and suffer enormous amount of unhappiness. So much that I have to run 40% culture slider to avoid starvation. Ceasar hates Nap but wouldn't declare on him all game even when I offered two big techs (think Education and Nationalism). I don't get it. And to put the final straw a key chokepoint that was controlled by Toku's culture and prevented the French from reinforcing was taken over by Nap during the war who started to rush units into his second city. It's just too many things going against me. Terrible land, no copper, insane teching AI, AP, culture etc.

One thing interesting in this game is that Toku is pleased with me. He actually opened borders. hehe

But yea rushing the game early when every mistake is snowballed cost me here. If I played the first 100 turns better I would be ahead. Still I like to salvage difficult games. call me crazy!

 

[lymond]

I took quick look, but first Undefeatable was most correct in stating that your problems lie far earlier in the game.

I thought your land more than fine and you actually have at least two more decent cities. You have horses or elephants, which is more than why you need to expand early. But overall your tech pace is quite poor on this level, which could be attributed to many factors. I question your usage and production of great people as well.

Your first city (Eridu?) did not really need to be coastal. I think the desert tile next to (NE?) sheep would have been fine to allow nice overlap with cap and sharing of a corn.

Keep in mind that Civil Service allows irrigation spread, so a farm or two boosts those corns.

With horse nearby, horse archers should have worked fine on Toku, or the eleputs. Keep in mind though that we are talking a BC timeframe here.

Your improvements/cities are not well thought out and just a hodge-podge of stuff. You have what appears to be very late-blooming cottages. That, combined with no great person focus, and what I'd suspect was a long delay in getting foreign trade routes nerfed you considerable. Trade routes should never be neglected for long. Toku can cause problem though as a neighbor.

Learn to manage you slider early, and look to maximize gold and gpt. Look to get Currency one way or another early.

oh...running OR with no religion spread is not optimable.

Yeah, always keep an eye on AP vote timer when declaring war. Votes to end wars tend to be enacted, unless you have an overwhelming majority on the AP religion, so you have to learn to plan around it and capture the AP asap. One option is to take ceasefires the turn before the vote to avoid peace treaty, which a successful vote will produce.

By this point, you should have much better scouting or at least map trading.

 

[dankok8]

^ Thank you for the reply lymond. As I played I had a brain fart and thought Gilga was Spiritual so not only did I switch into OR but I actually wasted a turn as anarchy. I ran OR for faster building production so I could get some key infrastructure up sooner. I never thought about a ceasefire to get around the AP. That's gold!

The choke point Toku settled very early pretty much forced me into a war with him to burst out. I could have had HA's much earlier than elepults but I think with Toku's souped up archers and spearmen and with several hill cities it wouldn't be an easy war with HA's. And yes his presence hurt in terms of trade routes and scouting since I couldn't get through his territory. And him becoming a peaceful vassal of Julius during our war is curious since they were only Cautious with each other and Toku still had seven cities left and plenty of troops that I couldn't take him out. It was very unusual... If it didn't happen I would have taken one or two more of his core cities and be in a much stronger position and maybe capitulate him myself. Instead I lost the initiative and had to kill Ceasar's stack of praets and catapults.

I got five great scientists in the game. I used one to make an academy in the capital, then settled one as a super specialist in the capital, used two for bulbing (one Currency to help the economy and get some trade fodder, one Edu to make sure I won Lib), and the one for a golden age a bit after the save. It was kind of hard not to mess up my GP farming considering I had to run specialists in almost every city.

If I played again I would have put up cottages earlier and tried harder to settle that choke point even if it is far and would cost a lot in maintenance. I definitely could have built some spies as well to get through Toku's land and scout. Wouldn't use OR and probably would have squeezed in a few cities earlier. Even marginal cities at some point held because at least they are means of production and I could have made bigger armies.

 

[lymond]

Oh..I woulda used the OR if I was going to adopt a religion, although you don't always have to adopt A religion.

Not sure what you mean about chokepoint and breaking out. I saw no "breaking out" in your save. Appears you built a bunch of elies and took one city and that's it, although I did not notice the vassaling.

Hmm..in the save I saw, it appeared you did not produce all that many great people. Maybe you are referring to when you played on. I'm referring to the date in question and getting more much earlier. Academy in Cap is fine, especially if you actually make a good cap. Bulbing currency with a GS is not optimal...you waste a lot of free beakers doing that. Super specialist is questionable as well unless you built mids and running rep. Now, if I'm Philo on high levels I might use an early GS bulb for a key warfare tactic - often Maths. Generally though you are looking to use these GSs for a - most often - a fast push to Lib - or less so a ploy to get a quick military boost (think Engineering). You can also use one to run a golden age, to get even more (or get the Great Artist from Music. But to point, after the academy you are most often looking at bulb strategies with GSs to give a fast boost up the tech tree to Lib (bulbing things like Philo, Edu, and even Lib itself).

I'm not sure settling this so-called "choke-point" early is something I'd deem a priority, unless it really offered me something. You seem to be fixated on some kind of "chokepoint"..ha. Toku is the chokepoint. What you want to do is learn to build a strong early empire of 4 to 6 cities and look to break out at some point early or later. You have most of what you need in proximity to you starting position.

(another little point on Toku..gifting him a city is usually an insta--pleased if you want to play nice with him early and open routes and tradin...maybe that would have been a good use of said chokepoint city )

 

[dankok8]

lymond

What I call a choke point is the area NE of my starting position which is several tiles wide and the only place to expand beyond my little peninsula. Toku's culture controlled that chokepoint from pretty early on and we didn't have open borders so I was forced to attack him. I would have rushed him with vultures if I had copper.

Anyways my assault did take his capital, the choke city and one more city which I had to give up to Caesar in a peace treaty. So a net gain of two cities but it should have been four or five.

I'm aware that bulbing Currency is suboptimal but I was losing $ at zero science and behind in tech. Agree that I should have had more GP's.

 

[dankok8]

I took another try at this map and I tried to keep it honest about any pre-knowledge of the map. I ignored that I had Iron under my capital so didn't get IW until after 1000 BC. And by that time Toku already choked me off to the peninsula again (I think his second city already blocked the isthmus). This time the map played out kind of different. No religions got founded on the continent so instead of two rival blocks, there were none. Surely that could have implications down the road.

Anyways I did a far better job at empire management. My second city this time was the Horse/Stone city. Hooked up the Horses early and did a better job fogbusting. The first time around I had to dodge some barbs and they slowed me down. This time I killed one archer that spawned in the north with a chariot and that was it. I got the Pyramids and then the Great Library (used a GE...) in the capital. Settled the first great person early on as a superscientist and running Representation of course. Didn't beeline Priesthood (realized small empire, Ziggs won't help the economy much) but got Sailing far earlier seeing that Toku blocked me for the foreign trade routes. It's now 350 AD. I have 6 cities and my research rate is over 200 beakers per turn. I just got Music and used the GA from that to start a Golden Age. I'm the tech leader. My two floodplain cities are totally cottaged up too since early on.

I'm thinking I can get Liberalism before 1000 AD and hit Toku with Cuirassiers before the poor guy even has Longbowmen haha... Maybe not but still. Since the AI have more land to settle on, I still have to break out but I'm in a far stronger position than the first time around.


What I did different this time:
- better early worker micro
- early cottages
- Mids + GL for a super science capital
- earlier Sailing for foreign trade once I saw I was blocked in

 

[lymond]

Well, I hope you did not tech IW yourself.

Not sure what your fixation is on settling that city coastal (Nibru this time)...all you have done is given the city a bunch of useless sea tiles. 3W1N of Uruk is really nice as the city can share the corn early, as well as other tile sharing, and keeps all the green tiles for later. In fact, I might have settled that first. AH is something I might have held off on for a while or likely traded for, but it depends, and you can get away with a lot on this level.

I'm going to guess that you teched construction and HBR as well, but actually made no use of them, so why bother? You are also building a lot of units..why? Are you going to use them. Granted phants can be upgraded to curs later, but still no need to build so many units. Build wealth if you have nothing better to do.

Kish seem like good bureau cap..might have spent the hammers there building the palace, and ignoring cottages in Uruk, which is not really suited for it. Too bad about the clams. Fish city could have gotten both if Kish was settled different, but Kish better bureau cap where it sits now.

Still, seems much better position than where you were last time..can still improve a lot though with CS much earlier.

With golden age now, focus should be on GPP..you can even use food bucket to starve some cities in starve mode temporarily to boost GPP.

Your goal generally is running slider at 100%. That mean gold. Early on you run binary, but now you want to get some gold and can play with slider a tad since you have more multipliers. You have gold out there for you. Trade Mono to JC for 40, Med to Toke for 40, Aeths/Mono to Nappy for Monarchy and 20g.

Run slider at 10% for 1t, and I believe you can then finish out CS at 100% from there.

Always check your trade potential, especially after Currency. Gold helps you evaluate trades and check each turn lets you know if someone is actually teching someone (that your EPs don't tell you). Might as well get gold for that tech, right? But anyway, some of those dinky techs are so old, so trade them for pocket change.

hmm..what did you do with your GSs? I see one settled in Uruk, although Kish may have been better as new cap/science city. I see no academy, which would have been great in Kish.

Now is the time to switch to Caste and max out specialists for GPs. GEt some GSs and bulb your way to LiB.which you can get earlier. (you can even part bulb Lib if you avoid Machinery and tech Compass)

Zig is at good whip point in Lagash, but problem is you don't want to whip right now..you want to run specialists. So build wealth for now in Lagash until you switch back to slavery at last turn of Golden age..it's not an urgent building anyway.

I value a Lighthouse far more than a Courthouse in Ur.

Nibru, Eridu and Ur are not cottage cities, although Ur can help Kish with any cottage that city can work.

Do not tech Archery and definitely don't trade for it. You only tech Archery if you absolutely need it for defense, or you are going for Horse Archers. Trading for it goes against your trade caps. Try to avoid trading for those very early dinky techs that you can soon tech in 1 turn anyway if you need them. You want to trade for the important techs - the techs AIs always tech like IW, etc. Start to get a feel for AI priority techs.

In other words, always keep the tech path focused. This is so important as you move up levels. Otherwise you are just wasting valuable time research techs or dead end techs you don't really need. For instance, if you teched HBR yourself early on..what's the point. Expensive tech early on that you did not use anyway.

ugh..all those chariots and catapults..at least go out and kill some barb cities or something.

 

[dankok8]

Well, I hope you did not tech IW yourself.

Nope. I got it in a trade pretty late around 800 BC.

Not sure what your fixation is on settling that city coastal (Nibru this time)...all you have done is given the city a bunch of useless sea tiles. 3W1N of Uruk is really nice as the city can share the corn early, as well as other tile sharing, and keeps all the green tiles for later. In fact, I might have settled that first. AH is something I might have held off on for a while or likely traded for, but it depends, and you can get away with a lot on this level.

Agree about the city placement. It shouldn't have been on the coast. As for putting off AH I have to say that's one thing I disagree. I had sheep in the BFC and finding and settling Horses was a priority given that there was no copper. Barb archers appeared pretty early too.

I'm going to guess that you teched construction and HBR as well, but actually made no use of them, so why bother? You are also building a lot of units..why? Are you going to use them. Granted phants can be upgraded to curs later, but still no need to build so many units. Build wealth if you have nothing better to do.

Early in the game around 1000 BC Toku was annoyed with me and had double my power. I was honestly worried that he would declare on me before I declare on him if I'm too weak.

Kish seem like good bureau cap..might have spent the hammers there building the palace, and ignoring cottages in Uruk, which is not really suited for it. Too bad about the clams. Fish city could have gotten both if Kish was settled different, but Kish better bureau cap where it sits now.

Still, seems much better position than where you were last time..can still improve a lot though with CS much earlier.

I still don't micro enough. I could have shaved a few turns off research.

With golden age now, focus should be on GPP..you can even use food bucket to starve some cities in starve mode temporarily to boost GPP.

Yea. I got and am getting a lot more GP this time.

Your goal generally is running slider at 100%. That mean gold. Early on you run binary, but now you want to get some gold and can play with slider a tad since you have more multipliers. You have gold out there for you. Trade Mono to JC for 40, Med to Toke for 40, Aeths/Mono to Nappy for Monarchy and 20g.

Run slider at 10% for 1t, and I believe you can then finish out CS at 100% from there.

I know that binary research is more optimal early but it's too much micro for my liking. I realize it's suboptimal.

Always check your trade potential, especially after Currency. Gold helps you evaluate trades and check each turn lets you know if someone is actually teching someone (that your EPs don't tell you). Might as well get gold for that tech, right? But anyway, some of those dinky techs are so old, so trade them for pocket change.

I did that couple of times. Sold Toku and Sully Priesthood and I think Sailing in the AD's.

hmm..what did you do with your GSs? I see one settled in Uruk, although Kish may have been better as new cap/science city. I see no academy, which would have been great in Kish.

Now is the time to switch to Caste and max out specialists for GPs. GEt some GSs and bulb your way to LiB.which you can get earlier. (you can even part bulb Lib if you avoid Machinery and tech Compass)

I tried an academy but a settled GS provided a bigger beaker return considering I have Mids + running Representation. Was I wrong?

Zig is at good whip point in Lagash, but problem is you don't want to whip right now..you want to run specialists. So build wealth for now in Lagash until you switch back to slavery at last turn of Golden age..it's not an urgent building anyway.

That was my plan exactly to switch back before the golden age expires.

I value a Lighthouse far more than a Courthouse in Ur.

Agreed. I switched it right away.

Nibru, Eridu and Ur are not cottage cities, although Ur can help Kish with any cottage that city can work.

I overdid research at the expense of production. At least I have slavery but later in the game I'll have to have some specialized production cities. Except forges and Moai most production multipliers don't come until the industrial age.

Do not tech Archery and definitely don't trade for it. You only tech Archery if you absolutely need it for defense, or you are going for Horse Archers. Trading for it goes against your trade caps. Try to avoid trading for those very early dinky techs that you can soon tech in 1 turn anyway if you need them. You want to trade for the important techs - the techs AIs always tech like IW, etc. Start to get a feel for AI priority techs.

In other words, always keep the tech path focused. This is so important as you move up levels. Otherwise you are just wasting valuable time research techs or dead end techs you don't really need. For instance, if you teched HBR yourself early on..what's the point. Expensive tech early on that you did not use anyway.

You are right about not trading. I rarely think about the WFYABTA limit but it's a real problem unless the AI is friendly. Did I really trade for Archery?

ugh..all those chariots and catapults..at least go out and kill some barb cities or something.

I'll use them on Toku eventually. Catapults are never waste.


Thanks again for your input! Really appreciate it.

 

[Fippy]

I would attack Toku here asap (but taking his 40g for some cheap Reli tech first )
You already have a bunch of units (much to Lymond's dislike ), and it's really time that you remove his blocking.
You can easily make peace with AIs again usually, and Toku is 100% useless in this game besides claiming some of his land that should be yours.

 

[Archon_Wing]

There's 3 cities in your own land that you can settle! Stop Itza (don't build that crap) right away and build settlers.

Fish and Incense to the North, Wine +sheep+ floodplains to the east (3N + 1 E, and honestly that should have been settled long ago), and sheep south towards the coast.

Also those forests should have been gone thousands of years ago. Also, not much exploration. Might as well take a workboat and go around.

 

[dankok8]

So I kept on playing. Right into the turn set Suleiman founded Islam and it spread to everyone but not quickly enough to become a total continental lovefest. Everyone to it. .

Literally 3 or 4 turns in, Caesar declared on Toku and given my small stack that had a few catapults, I joined the fray and took one Japanese city. Signed a peace treaty and got Caesar to make peace too with an obsolete tech so he doesn't cap Toku and screw me over. Julius was getting very strong and has definite potential to be a runaway AI. I won Liberalism in 960 AD took Nationalism (built Taj for a golden age of course) and then quickly ran through Mil Trad and by 1200 AD I had a stack of Cuirassiers ready. Didn't even bother to wait for siege and just blitzed Toku who didn't even have Feudalism yet and was defending with classical era units so it was a beatdown. Took four more cities including his capital and core cities. At that point I decided to accept Capitulation instead of finishing him off. He was one turn away from longbows and he still had plenty of units coming from the other side (lots of pikes, he got Engineering...) that the war would drag on for 20 more turns minimum. Toku's remaining cities also had very few resources and not even much food to grow. And he was Pleased with all other AI's so I was really worried about him becoming a peace vassal to Ceasar with every passing turn. Speaking of Ceasar, Toku's land would serve as a nice buffer between me and the Romans and I didn't have to worry about hidden diplo modifiers because everyone likes him. And thanks to the Creative trait and whipped Theatres and Libraries, the Japanese cities were productive really quickly.

Later around 1400 AD I used a much bigger army of Cuirassiers to attack Napoleon who was previously crippled but not vassaled by Rome (again I bribed them out of that war). I captured three cities against his medieval army and then Caesar and Suleiman both joined to carve out some land. With only two small cities left, Caesar the dumbass vassaled Napoleon but those French cities are still contributing nicely thanks to whipped culture. It's now 1700 AD and I'm still using Slavery. I emphasized Communism and built the Kremlin and switched to State Property as much for the production bonus as for reducing city maintenance. With the Kremlin it makes sense to whip even late in the game. I am really impressed by how good the Kremlin is. I've always used it more to rushbuy than whip. For some funny reason too since I was the first one to research Democracy AI are avoiding it and only one switched to Emancipation so I'm using slavery with impunity... I'm a pretty solid tech leader and can win Space worst case. Ceasar's army is huge and he's somewhere 2.5 times above my power graph but maybe I could go for a military win too. Either way he's Pleased with me and really hates Asoka on the other continent so he might attack him.

 

[dankok8]

I finished this game and the vassal mechanic reared its ugly head and totally ruined my game. Anyways Ceasar did declare on Asoka and without doing as much as to lift a finger (didn't take any cities or kill any significant number of units), Asoka capitulated within turns. Now that normally wouldn't be so bad because Asoka was irrelevant as a world power but he was gunning for a cultural victory and now he had the protection of the most powerful civ on Earth. Ok fine... With about 3x my power and two vassals (again backwards Asoka and two-city Napoleon), Caesar declared war on me. I immediately got both Suleiman and Peter to join me against Caesar. A world war to settle this game seems about right. Caesar blew through Toku whose territory wasn't really a buffer because he got overrun in about two turns. Anyways I destroyed two stacks and killed well >100 of Roman units mostly infantry and cannon. I used some artillery and cruise missiles to soften his stacks before killing them with my own infantry. He was still crushing me in power and I wasn't sure I could win but he wasn't winning either. Then Peter who is on another continent with Asoka and without any land battles with Rome taking place capitulates to Caesar. This is now the second AI who just throws in the towel despite not really losing the war at all. Suleiman just makes peace with Caesar and wouldn't redeclare because he's "afraid of their military might". The game ended with Asoka winning a cultural victory. bullfeathers vassal mechanics. It killed my game before but never this blatantly.