Late Game problems

[civ4lyfe]

sorry, feel like a goof postin all these saves, but heres another one save game as me as the celts.

Standard map 8 players
Continents 60%
all VC's besides space race

I have a very nice start position where I basically blocked it off from others expanding my section. Built mostly only workers and settlers, and have plenty of cities. Only have built granaries and one or two barracks just in case, but has been a pretty peaceful game so far. I switched to monarchy, and am working my tiles as well as I can but mass amount of jungles and marshes which take forever to clear. I am at -1gpt and 70% tech research, but I'm pretty behind as far as tech.

I messed up early with my tech. and jumped around by accident instead of going from left to right, so I was never able to trade away any techs. So now everyone is medievel ages, and demanding stuff from me left and right because I'm weak militarily, as I've really only been building workers and settlers.

Really haven't had any problems with revolts yet, as the pop in all my cities has stayed relatively low.

 

[Puppeteer]

Did you move your starting settler? (Edit: Yes, you did. I can tell from the histograph. Did you move to get the fish? It wasn't worth it!) Most of the time I don't, but in this case I would have settled one tile NE to be both on the river and on the coast. Cities touching fresh water can grow past size 6 without aqueducts. Your capitol is also on a bonus grassland; perhaps it was under a forest or jungle and you couldn't tell ahead of time, but usually I want to use the bonus grassland and settle on a lesser tile. If you can get your capitol and other low-corruption cities on a river or next to a fresh water lake you gain the ability to grow faster in the early game. Oh, and you're an agricultural civ. Being on fresh water gets you an extra food per turn in the city square! That's HUGE early game!

I'm getting better at jungle/marsh starts, but I am not an expert at them. I develop the workable tiles and use them ASAP then make craploads of workers and attack the jungle in teams of 3 workers per tile.

What are those German warriors (not in screenshots) doing? Was there a barb camp in/near your SE coast recently? If not I can't figure out what they're up to. They don't really seem stacked for an attack, but I'd be shadowing them with an attack unit in case they get frisky. Oh, Lapurdum is undefended; they may be moving towards it for a sneak attack. Oh, Tolosa is undefended, too. I think Germany is about to attack you, but I would have thought they'd at least send archers.

Granaries. They cost shields to build and money to maintain. Understand how they can multiply growth and when they're just wasting money and possibly the shields spent building them. Entremont has a granary but is at size 6 and can't grow past size 6, so while it's building the Hanging Gardens it's just wasting money. I don't know offhand if it's worth keeping it around until you build an aqueduct. (Edit: oh, you already have an aqueduct there...I usually have Map Making long before Construction, but then I usually go Republic for which Map Making is a small detour.) Let me show you what granaries are really good for: Camulodunum gets +1 food for being on a river with an agricultural civ. And it has a mined grassland cow in its workable area (+4 food) that is currently being worked by Lugdunum.

Presto chango! Worker every 2 turns! (or settler every 4 turns if some of those BGs are mined to get enough to make 30s in 4 turns from size 5 to size 7)

On the other hand, this is a low-corruption city on a river. I might look around and see if I can make another city a food specialist and let this one grow, but 5 extra food per turn is the holy grail of settler and worker factories, especially if you can get it in despotism. (Edit: I kept thinking this was Despotism, but it is Monarchy. He researched the top and bottom of the tree before going up the middle; I'm not used to being out of Despotism before Map Making.)

When placing cities I usually assign them a purpose: Food, shields or commerce. The capitol is usually multipurpose as it is uncorrupted. Early shield cities get barracks and start making veteran military units, and my regular warriors used very early for escorting settlers or garissoning towns become military police for happiness and eventually disbanded when (if) I go Republic.

I think I'll play a few turns and see what I can do and let others offer other critiques.

 

[Puppeteer]

Wow, here's a biggie for you: You need to periodically review your city worker assignments (the tiles the citizens work). As your cities grow, as your workers (the roaming ones) improve tiles, and as happiness changes (new luxuries connected, etc), you need to keep checking to be sure the city workers are being productive. Moving from Despotism to another government warrants a thorough review of all cities.

Alesia, the biggest example, was making 3s per turn towards a Gallic Swordsman and has a scientist but is plenty happy, but this city is at max size 6 and has two mined hills available, one of which is a gold hill. Simply clicking the city center to auto-reassign workers jumped output to 10s per turn! 4-turn Gallic Swords instead of 14-turn Gallic Swords! Commerce was also vastly increased.

 

[Puppeteer]

I'm trying to play a turn but keep changing all the cities around. You're granary-happy and temple-happy. These are not toys, they cost lots of shields and require upkeep. Have a reason and payback for building them.

You're building a granary in a city with no food. OK, you're agricultural and can irrigate the desert for 2f, but you're going to have that granary completed ages before you irrigate over to that city.

You're building a temple in a distant city that borders no one and will only gain one land tile from the border pop. And it has no food to grow much.

(Hey, his small, non-freshwater towns are getting 3fpt on the city square...I thought it had to be on a river or lake to get the 3fpt?)

What I do with these towns that can't manage to grow past size 2 or 3 is to push workers or settlers out of them until they are built up enough to be productive, or sometimes I let it spend a long time building a courthouse. But a granary is a waste in these towns, and temples are a crutch I used to use, but they are counterproductive. On the other hand, this is a religious civ so they're cheap, but they still cost 1c per turn each, and I don't see what some of these towns would gain from a border expansion in the near future.

 

[Puppeteer]

Okay, here is my save after making my initial changes to your save. I haven't moved any units or taken a turn yet. I sold a couple of pointless granaries, found 3 or 4 cities worthy of barracks and military production, tasked a worker/settler factory and moved one of your wonder builds to a different city. It looks like it will take longer, but I'm going to have those tiles improved real quickly, so it will probably finish sooner.

I tasked the less-productive distant coastal cities to building curraghs (and soon galleys) to go find the rest of the civs. This will make tech research cheaper, and perhaps allow trades if they are as backward as we are. (Two of your three known opponents are in the middle ages already, and you don't have Map Making yet.)

For in-progress granary and temple builds in the jungle and low-food towns I diverted to a horseman or archer to clear the shield box and start on workers or settlers until these cities have some tiles to work. I'm not fond of building reg horsemen, but I have a feeling I may need to swat those German warriors real soon, and the horse can get to them quickly. Reg archers I don't mind as much for fill-in builds because they're good barb hunters and can defensively bombard.

I actually changed one build from barracks to temple: the choke-point town. Barracks are worthless there except as a full-heal station during war. But for now I want to pop the borders there for better visibility, to slow down any approaching armies (they don't benefit from roads in your borders) and to discourage the AI settling too close to the chokepoint city. I'll probably sell the temple after the first or second expansion, though.

You have a settler already, and I'm popping a settler out of the factory next turn, and I think both of them are going near the capitol. One on the S desert coast to use some of that grassland nobody is using now, and one NE of the worker factory for the same reason. There is enough land there for a couple more cities that will be productive faster than the jungle cities.

 

[tR1cKy]

Cities are too spaced apart. Wealth in Camulodunum makes no sense. Gardens and Artemis make no sense ever. You should use those three cities to produce settlers and workers to expand and work tiles, then military to take over the world (if that's how you want to win). The gallic UU is awesome.

 

[Puppeteer]

I almost mentioned tR1cKy's epic game. I think that's where I learned a lot about avoiding culture flips while taking territory from culture monsters, the value of artillery, how to fight from behind, and a bunch of other stuff. From his sig: Rome Deity + UGLY start

I played 22 turns, staying in Monarchy and attempting to build the wonders you started. Got HG, but ToA was taken by Iroquois. I guessed you might try to snag a different wonder, so I changed the ToA build to Great Lib, but GLib is a waste of shields in this game. I'm still two techs behind the tech leaders, but I think I'll catch up soon. I'll upload the save (with some spoilers on where other unknown civs are) and a verbose turn log.

Here are some mostly non-spoiler stats and screenshots:

370 AD: 16 cities, 205 land, 52 pop, 46 units (1 settler, 29 worker, 13 war, 2 GS, 1 curragh), 15 techs known, 3 of 7 enemy civs known

590 AD (22 turns later): 20 cities, 246 land, 84 pop, 76 units (1 settler, 42 worker, 12 war, 1 archer, 11 spears, 2 horsemen, 2 galley, 3 GS, 2 curragh), 21 techs known, 6 of 7 enemy civs known

 

[Raliuven]

(Hey, his small, non-freshwater towns are getting 3fpt on the city square...I thought it had to be on a river or lake to get the 3fpt?)

IIRC, that's only in despotism. If he is in Monarchy already then he receives the 3fpt in every city regardless.

 

[Aabraxan]

One other point: I see lots of jungle and marshes in the screenshots. You can't settle on marshes without clearing them first. That's not true for jungles, and the fastest way to clear a jungle tile is to plant a city on it.

 

[Puppeteer]

Another 11 turns, and I learned 4 more techs. I'm down Chivalry to Germany and Iroquois, which is surprising how soon after Mono they managed to get Theology and Chivalry. We're up Literature on them and multiple techs on everyone else in the known world.

All while keeping the two best-producing cities stuck on wonder builds of dubious value and staying in Monarchy. If not for the wonders the conquest of the continent would already be well underway.

This empire is now ready to roll over the continent while simultaneously researching Chivalry and then on to cavalry and galleons. After that, game over, man!

And I'm sure others could have managed better than I did.

In the core screenshot, two Entremont tiles are irrigated. This is temporary while getting irrigation down to the desert tiles which become 2-food tiles for agricultural civs when irrigated. Due to all the flat grassland with food bonuses and no hills or mountains, I'll be planting forests soon to boost production in the core. (If I continue playing.)

 

[vmxa]

Remember they could have know those techs all along. You just did not know that as you have to know the prereq techs to see the next one. IOW you will not know I have Theo, if you do not know Mono.

 

[civ4lyfe]

Did you move your starting settler? (Edit: Yes, you did. I can tell from the histograph. Did you move to get the fish? It wasn't worth it!) Most of the time I don't, but in this case I would have settled one tile NE to be both on the river and on the coast. Cities touching fresh water can grow past size 6 without aqueducts. Your capitol is also on a bonus grassland; perhaps it was under a forest or jungle and you couldn't tell ahead of time, but usually I want to use the bonus grassland and settle on a lesser tile.

Reply: Yea, i Didn't really realize I was doing myself a disservice by going for the fish. Also didn't see the bonus grassland, so mucch jungle on this map.... I usually play arid climate for this reason.


I'm getting better at jungle/marsh starts, but I am not an expert at them. I develop the workable tiles and use them ASAP then make craploads of workers and attack the jungle in teams of 3 workers per tile.

Reply: This is what I did shortly after this save

What are those German warriors (not in screenshots) doing? Was there a barb camp in/near your SE coast recently?

Reply: I belive they were just scouting, along with some of Hiawathas warriors as well. If it's the same save im thinking of, I believe I blocked them there, but were later destroyed when Germany declared war on me later in game.

Granaries. They cost shields to build and money to maintain. Understand how they can multiply growth and when they're just wasting money and possibly the shields spent building them.

Reply: Always assumed granary= growth. I will now only build them early.


Presto chango! Worker every 2 turns! (or settler every 4 turns if some of those BGs are mined to get enough to make 30s in 4 turns from size 5 to size 7)

Reply: yea one thing ive never really looked

On the other hand, this is a low-corruption city on a river. I might look around and see if I can make another city a food specialist and let this one grow, but 5 extra food per turn is the holy grail of settler and worker factories, especially if you can get it in despotism.

When placing cities I usually assign them a purpose: Food, shields or commerce. The capitol is usually multipurpose as it is uncorrupted. Early shield cities get barracks and start making veteran military units, and my regular warriors used very early for escorting settlers or garissoning towns become military police for happiness and eventually disbanded when (if) I go Republic.

Will use this next time I start a new game.

Wow, here's a biggie for you: You need to periodically review your city worker assignments (the tiles the citizens work). As your cities grow, as your workers (the roaming ones) improve tiles, and as happiness changes (new luxuries connected, etc),

Reply: This is one thing, I'm never very good at, Im usually just checking up on cities to quell the resistance, but this game I really haven't had much in this game.



An update on this campaign as I have played through alot since my last post:
I recently went to war with Germany, twice. The first time, I just wanted to take their luxury resources and suceeded in doing so. They had about 6 cities left after this, and about 20-25 turns later I warred with them again, made them give me 1 city in a peace treaty and they were down to 1 island 1 square city, which I took about 5 turns later.

Me and Hiawatha have been peaceful, trading techs and luxuries, but Beth has recently declared war on me. She is the front runner in techs at this point in the game, but her best unit is still only the cav and she hit industrial age about 5-7 turns before me.

She won't be a problem though as I have a massive military leftover from my wars with Germany and I see myself having the two main islands under my control before the modern era.

All in all this has been a very helpful thread, and I will be using this tips in all my games.

 

[civ4lyfe]

One other point: I see lots of jungle and marshes in the screenshots. You can't settle on marshes without clearing them first. That's not true for jungles, and the fastest way to clear a jungle tile is to plant a city on it.

Yea, I was using the three worker per tile technique, and cleared them up pretty quickly.

 

[civ4lyfe]

here's teh same campaign at 1750.

Been trying to listen to what you said, but it's much easier at a lower level. I now span over 2 continents having defeated the german dogs.

At first I went to war with Elizabeth and it seemed I'd have to upper hand in no time. Then Rome joined in on the war. A turn later England negotiates peace, so I figure it's my time to build my army.

I stop my war ships from going to Rome, and retreat back to my capitol area. Then peace with Rome. A turn later Hiawatha, who i thought was a good friend of mine, embargoes me along with Beth. At this point rome is out of the picture.

I figure it is only time before Beth and Hia both DOW me, so I decide to take the initiative and go for a coastal assault with 3 galleons and 1 caravel full of rifle and cav mixed. Well by accident, I dropped 2 diff stacks, 1 with rifle, 1 with cav, so my cav gets massacred.

Right now, a few territories have went back and forth between me and england, me and iri, vice versa, but basically a stalemate.

Any tips on how to get out of this one, or possibly destroy them both?

I think I shoulda waited to go to war in hindsight, but thats too late.

 

[Puppeteer]

Reply: Always assumed granary= growth. I will now only build them early.

Not exactly. Granary is sort of a food multiplier. If you don't have the food (unirrigated plains or desert, tundra) or can't use the food (at max population and don't want or need to make workers/settlers) then don't waste shields building a granary and gold to support it.

But if you have some food and want to make better use of it by growing faster or building settlers and workers faster, then a granary is very powerful, whether it's early in the game or late. I made good use of your 370 AD granaries in Entremont, Camu and Lugdunum. The first two for growing to size 12 faster, and the last for speed-building workers and settlers. I was reaching the point where I was going to add a granary to one of the 3rd-ring banana towns and start producing settlers from there and let Lugdunum grow to be a productive shield city, so granaries aren't just early game, they are for when you want to leverage your extra food in a particular town.

Right now, a few territories have went back and forth between me and england, me and iri, vice versa, but basically a stalemate.

How are you losing "territories"? Culture flips? Capture? You should be wiping the floor with these two civs even with your empire in the unoptimized state it's in. Even the scaredy-cat military adviser says you're strong compared to both Iroquois and England.

Is the save you posted the end of your turn, or are you going to make some more moves? In most cases it is better to attack a unit on flat land than to let him attack you. Especially when you can use your 6-attack cavs against 3-defense knights and cavs instead of letting them hit your cities, even if said cities are guarded by fortified riflemen (6 defense +25% for fortified, +50% for city size 7-12). I'd wipe out everyone I see except the pikeman on the mountain. You have lots of cavs fortified in cities, and you have a freakin' fully healed cav army fortified in a non-front-lines city.

I could say plenty about buildings, wonders, railroads, workers, happiness and city management, but like I say even as-is you should be rolling right over Iroquois.

(Added screenshots of his save: The battle front, the sleepy army and the starting lands for comparison. He is in Communism now.)

 

[Puppeteer]

In the first screenshot of my last post, I can tell that you aren't attacking these guys standing around your territory. The redlined cav is evidence of that. He's 4 tiles into your territory and has apparently already attacked your city. He should not have lived long enough to get 4 tiles deep into your territory. You have your own cavs just hanging around town and sipping tea when they should be out slaughtering the enemy.

One reason to attack enemy units on flat land is that you usually have better combat odds with your strong attack values against their weak defense values. Another is initiative. You choose where the battle is rather than let the enemy decide whether to pillage your tile or go after a target of his choosing which may occasionally surprise you. A 3-move enemy cav in your territory is trouble; if he's on flat land and you have cavs sleeping in cities it's a no-brainer to kill that enemy cav where he stands.

In the mentioned screenshot there are 7 enemies in sight. 6 are in your borders where you get movement advantages from roads and railroads and they don't. 5 of those enemies are standing on flat land (10% defense bonus) and have defense values of 3 or 1. KILL THEM NOW. 1 unit is on a hill (50% defense bonus), but he's a bowman with a defense value of 1. KILL HIM NOW. The last unit is the English pike (3 defense) just outside your territory on a mountain (100% defense bonus) . He can only move 1 tile per turn and is not an offensive threat. You can safely wait for him to step onto flat land before attacking him. He is probably going to move toward your wines and attempt to pillage them; simply wait until he steps off the mountains.

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A quick few words on production. You take food, shields and commerce from the land & sea and that's what you use to win the game. You choose how to use them. Every build is a decision between what better serves your path to victory. Ask not what you can do for your cities, but what your cities can do for you. Each city's answer is unique based its workable tiles and corruption.

When I see one of your cities on wealth I think it means "I didn't know what to build next". I do use wealth, but only when there's nothing better to build. In Communism with Sun Tzu I can't imagine a situation where wealth is a good build (aside from synchronizing a settler/worker pump). But the bigger issue at hand is that you seem to lack direction on what your cities can do for you. If that's the case, why did you make that city in the first place?

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Setting aside empire management, here's how I would proceed from your 1760 AD save: You already have a good military railroad leading from your "core" (Communism doesn't have a core, but you know what I mean) to the front. I would extend this a bit to touch all producing cities and work on extending it into the conquered territory as I go. I would use this railroad to conquer the continent from top to bottom. Everything else is a distraction. I would probably abandon the city you took in English lands as it is just distracting you now. If I lost a small island city I wouldn't fret it. In fact I'm considering gifting the tiny island cities away just to keep from a battle there distracting me from taking the continent.

I would normally be in Republic, and these would be worthless cities to me, so I'd probably raze them and resettle new towns destined to become farms in a long game, or just to claim space for domination in this game. In Communism with Sun Tzu the conquered cities could be useful after the conquered citizens quit crying about how you're at war with their native country. But you have enough production in your existing cities I think I'd still raze and resettle just to avoid the hassle of the riots, flipping and recapturing. Plus razing the cities would produce slaves to build the railroad and fix the stupid AI improvements. So I think pumping out settlers and razing as you go will make for a faster war with fewer headaches.

You have too many military in cities not near the front lines. With the railroad your cavs can be anywhere in your lands instantly to deal with naval invasions. I would have a rifleman in each costal city, and as marines become available I might double that. But you have a full turn to react if someone dumps troops on your soil. Just be sure there are always a few cavs on the railroad that can respond. That's all the defense you need. The cavs should be out attacking enemies on flat land and enemy cities.

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You said earlier you should have waited to attack. No, you should have attacked centuries earlier!

 

[Puppeteer]

I played 3 turns from your 1760 AD save without changing any city or slider settings. I gifted Richmond to Greece because it's too hard to hold, and we can reconquer it later. It also saved an Elite cav by teleporting him to the capitol.

I redistributed defensive units to guard the coast mostly, and the rest plus the cavs went to the front. I killed everything that entered our territory before it could attack anything and went 15-2 in battles.

During that time your empire gained a net 9 cavs. In turn 3 I am probably 1 turn away from sending the first offensive force into Iroquois lands, although I bet some would send what I have ready now. Even though Iroquois has infantry I think they will soon be toast.

I am attaching my turnlog. I am curious what you are doing differently.

Attached screenshots:
- Richmond is pointless to try to hold
- How 1760 AD should look at turns end (no invaders!)
- The invasion force is massing/healing at Monguntiacum and about to start taking cities. My alert window says there are enemy units in my territory, but they were killed of course

 

[vmxa]

Just know that in some SG's they will not allow gifting towns to get troops home. You would have to move them out of the town and then gift it.

 

[Puppeteer]

Just know that in some SG's they will not allow gifting towns to get troops home. You would have to move them out of the town and then gift it.

Fair enough. The main reason for gifting here was that it wasn't worth the effort to defend the city by transport boats when we'll reach it by rail during the continental conquest. Teleporting the elite cav home was just an added benefit.

As it turned out England only managed to kill one of the stranded riflemen before I picked up the troops by boat, so I could've had the elite cav back safely a turn or two later, anyway.

Also, the city is likely to flip back, anyway. Maybe not with Greece. We'll see. Maybe it would have been better to abandon the city.

I've started playing again. The battle is going both better and worse than I thought. I didn't expect to fight so many infantry, but I think Hiawatha is gassed, and England is sputtering but at this point can probably maintain production of harassment cavs while I finish off Hiawatha.

I'm curious to see how civ4lyfe is doing. I think he has a lot of war tactics to learn in addition to empire management strategy. This should not have been a "stalemate".

 

[Puppeteer]

I managed about 6 more turns (9 turns from his 1760 save). I've taken 4 cities including Salamanca, but it will flip very soon, so I'll let them recapture it and then take it back again after healing a turn or two.

I'm putting the new cities on wealth and not changing his city, slider or research settings because I want to see if he was in the dominant position I thought him to be. I want to see if his empire with proper tactics could take over the continent, and optimizing his cities and using the compound-interest effect of putting big captured communist cities to work would skew the meaning of the results.

I got a little sloppy and was not as effective in combat, winning 36 battles and losing 20. The RNG against fortified infantry in cities tilted in my favor more than I thought it would, but I left some units vulnerable along the way then got desperate and stupid when I was trying to secure Salamanca made very difficult by Iroquois' culture filling in the 1-tile gap between Salamanca and my next city.

Still I'm in position to survive the battle of Salamanca and continue to outproduce and outfight both Iroquois and England simultaneously. Iroquois are clearly gassed, but even England is sending less my way than I expected, and I'm not touching her cities yet.

Turnlog attached.
Screenshots:
- Conquered lands. Thought Salamanca before Tonawanda would be a good idea. Maybe not so much. On the other hand, took his capitol and wonders away.
- Military
- Why is everybody so angry?