Learning the Mod (Strategy Thread)

[LzPrst]

Since I have not seen any strategy threads for this mod, I thought it might be a good idea to start one as the sheer scale of this mod can leave a player feeling quite flabbergasted.

I play with most of the options enabled and will base my posts on those. I will post a specific list later. I play on a Large map on Emperor level with Aggressive AI. I have not yet tried Ruthless AI, but considering the hassle the locals are giving me on Aggressive Emperor level, I am almost afraid to try Ruthless. I am also playing from prehistoric times which is really fun, and extra buildings which is another awesome addition to the game. One comment on the latter though is that it is easy to lose track of all the buildings and I found myself almost getting bored with learning new functions for an ever increasing list of new improvements. I suspect this will become less of a hassle when I am more familiar with the game, or I may just turn off the extra buildings option, but for now I find it really cool, though somewhat insurmountable in its volume.


If anyone has suggestions for topics to be discussed I would happily experiment around with a few games to test things out and write my review. Keep in mind I am not a number-cruncher, I play partly on the information present and partly on gut instinct. Keep in mind that the gut instinct derives from playing civ games since 1994. Some analysis of the numbers will of course be done to evaluate the actual effects of decisions and such. I will start a game soon and write an AAR (or DAR) where I discuss strategy and decisionmaking.

Game rules for this DAR

Spoiler :

Raging Barbarians
Aggressive AI
No tech trading
Multiple production
Multiple research
Fixed cultural borders
Usable mountains
Surround and Destroy
Advanced Diplomacy
Barbarian Generals
Assimilation
Great commanders
Personalized map
Advanced Economy
Realistic Culture spread
Larger Cities
Realistic corporations
Religion decay
United Nations
Advanced Espionage
Expanded Castles
Arctic and City Parks
Meteorology
Civic buildings
Early buildings
Historical Wonders
Guilds
Modern Corporations
Advanced Nukes


All victory conditions enabled.
Difficulty: Emperor
Map size: Large
Map type: Perfectworld2
Break up pangeas
Start in old world
Gamespeed: Normal
Random civ: Korea
Leader: Sejong - Philosophical & Scientific

 

[LzPrst]

Some early realizations by me (and more to come later).

1. It's the economy stupid.
In the early stages of the game expanding is highly expensive, without a developed economy your tech will tank, your development will halt, you will start falling behind and worst of all, you will not be able to field a proper army. Getting wheelcarts and other trade and cash buildings should be a priority in your 2nd or 3rd city. REX'ing will in my (limited) experience mess you up.

2. War
Both difficulty level and Aggressive AI will make life nasty, brutish and short unless you seek for peace by preparing for war (somebody call the cliché police). Two things I have learned are that units are far more proliferous in this mod than normal, which is a GREAT thing. The reason is that the battle results now actually feel sensible. Losing that battle at 95% victory odds is no longer a huge disaster as the unit lost can be fairly easily replaced and it was only one out of many. Usually in civ4 unmodded you wont have the number of units that will allow you to not feel infuriated by a streak of bad luck. Now a few losses will be a minor setback rather than a major disaster.

This leads me to the matter of defence. The high production rate of units makes defense easier as you can easily add 1 axeman per turn in your capital before that invading army reaches its outskirts. You should at least have 2-4 units as garrison in most cities before you have a developed road network, anything else is inviting disaster. As units are cheap to build, this is not difficult.

The greater army will also be a greater drain on your economy, making fighting wars an expensive affair, as it should be. Of course, running a strong economy gets rather easy as you move into the late classical, but I will talk more about that later.


3. Governing the masses
-Revolutions
-Slavery
-Religion

coming later


4. Happiness
coming later

5. Specializing your cities
coming later

 

[LzPrst]

Initial thoughts.
Sun Tzu says: Know yourself and you will be victorious half of the time.
In other words, considering the strengths and weaknesses of my civ is important for my success. Philosophical suggests a Specialist Economy (SE), while the Scientific trait suggests I focus on scientists, tech buildings and commerce if I want to exploit if fully. The multitude of options in the game allows us to do this in many ways I suspect. In other words, I should focus on getting Great People (GP) and building a tech-focused economy. This will of course not count for all my cities. As mentioned before, if you desire peace (which those traits suggest) prepare for war. Also, the barbarians will be many and need to be dealt with, as such one of my early cities will have military production as an early priority.

Forested start on a nice river. Comp suggests I settle 1 step southwest from start on a hill, not sure why, but I agree. I suspect the ingame tips knows something about resource placement that I do not. Turns out I was right, within my city's 2 tile reach (BFC) there are some fish to the west. Other snacks may become apparent later, which brings me to the matter of teching. I decide to go for hunting first as I want to see food resources, in this case cows, deer and pigs. My first build will be an Elder Council aiming to get as much as possible from my Scientific trait from the get-go. My warrior pops a hut next to him and a scout joins my empire. I suppose my intelligence is highly admirable

 

[LzPrst]

A few hundreds of years later...

That went fast enough. Exploration and teching all by my lonesome as it seems I have no neighbours to my east where a pretty little continent stretches outwards with deep green forests ending in a soggy bog along the coast. A village gave me a map showing me the existence of a small frozen peninsula to the southeast with interesting resources on it. To my west a narrow landbridge stretches, but seeing the local bear patrols my cowardly Warrior decides to stay put on the chokepoint.

Production after the Elder Council goes as follows: 1 warrior and 1 Javelinthrower as they fit well with my timing to let Seoul grow to size 2 before the worker is begun and I will soon need those units to bust fog and bust barbarian skulls. Keep in mind that it is possible to remove forests before the invention of Bronze Working, but no resources will be gained from it. Regardless, I intend to farm the area directly around Seoul as farms now have a chance of discovering food resources. Cottages are not useful until the invention of City Planning, so I am going to ignore them for now and likely later as well since I am going for the Specialist Economy, food not commerce is priority for now.

As for tech, first priority was Hunting to see if there was any animals around, then followed by Animal Husbandry as it provides a few buildings that give a food boost (Aspiery and Butchery). Unfortunately none of those desired animals show up so next on the list is Naturography, maybe there is an apple tree somewhere? The scientific Koreans would like to find a Tree of Knowledge perhaps?

A few turns later some faraway civ throws together some Kemetic religion. Whatever, I'll get my religion that will win my people a disproportionate amount of Nobel prizes soon enough. I also decide to invent weavery hoping that maybe there is a hidden sheep near Seoul so I can build a butchery, if not, I will just have to be happy with the Apiary currently being put up.

 

[LzPrst]

this AAR will be (temporarily) cancelled due to a sudden influx of cangaroos.