Libraries or Military

[Globex]

I have developed my second core, established a base on the AI continent, used the leader to rush Smith's Trading Company, expanded my foothold on the AI continent through several wars with France, England, Russia, and Germany, getting two great leaders in the process, and rushed Leo's Workshop and JS Bach's Cathedral (I forgot it only effects continental cities and built it on the AI continent. Oh well, I would rather have it on the wrong continent then risk letting the AI, who were building it at the time, get it.) I got steam power, laid rails on every tile of my island and am starting to ship my workers across to the other continent. I have reduced Russia to one city and forced them into a military alliance against Germany so that I could get war happiness when they break the alliance. I am building cannons so that I can upgrade them to artillery when I get replaceable parts and I have slaughtered a wave of knights that Germany sent to attack me.

I have attached a save of my game.

Any comments? Tips? Advice? I am not facing many problems right now except that research is a bit slow since I entered the industrial age and I am starting to lose a lot of gold per turn.

 

[civverguy]

Your save doesn't work. From your post, I don't think you needed Bach's. How many luxuries do you have?

 

[Globex]

Your save doesn't work. From your post, I don't think you needed Bach's. How many luxuries do you have?

1. Probably doesn't work because its Vanilla unpatched.
2.I probably didn't need Bach's but I didn't want the AI to have it.
3. I have two luxuries on my continent and I captured dyes from Russia

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Any comments? Tips? Advice? I am not facing many problems right now except that research is a bit slow since I entered the industrial age and I am starting to lose a lot of gold per turn.

You have far too many workers standing around on your homecontinent. Use them to reduce food production in your core cities to ideally 24food@size12 (IOW build mines now), and then join them to those core cities. That way the workers will not cost you you, they will make you money.

Sell off any unneeded impovements. You don't really need granaries in all those core cities. It is better to switch a few tiles temporarily to higher foodproduction to let a city grow and/or join workers build in corrupt towns.

Sell off at least half of your barracks. Not every city needs one, only those that build proper combat units (artillery type units are not proper combat units).

If you build temples and cathedrals you need to have a coverage for your core cities of those improvements before you can benefit by them. So you will have to decide whether all your core cities will get a temple etc or not. Fitting out one half with and the other half without won't get you anything much. (Since you play regent, it may not be such a bad idea to actually go with the temple for all your size12 core cities. That is because in a scenario where you have 5 luxes and a market (9 happy faces) and 2 citizens which are born content, you would get 11 happy/content faces. A temple would supply the 12th making it possible to get by without lux-tax. But apart from that I am not a big friend of temples etc.)

Set some of your farms on the other continent to wealth instead of building workers, maybe even all of those. You are really stocked quite well in the workforce department (not to mention that you are vanilla industious).

It is generally not necessary to improve tiles that are not currently or in the (near) future being worked by a laborer in a city, let alone not even within reach of any city radius at all. It is also not necessary to improve tiles where a laborer on them would not pay; these tiles are all those tiles in your hopelessly corrupt "farmland" that do not produce a food surplus (hills, mountains, deserts ...).

Keep back *some* units on your homecontinet, lest you be surprised by the AI dropping off a knight, an archer and a warrior or some such.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

1. Probably doesn't work because its Vanilla unpatched.
2.I probably didn't need Bach's but I didn't want the AI to have it.
3. I have two luxuries on my continent and I captured dyes from Russia

JSBach's would have worked miracles on your homecontinent.

 

[Globex]

You have far too many workers standing around on your homecontinent. Use them to reduce food production in your core cities to ideally 24food@size12 (IOW build mines now), and then join them to those core cities. That way the workers will not cost you you, they will make you money.

I have joined some of my surplus workers into farms and rushed setters or turned them into specialists. As for building mines, I think I will hold off doing that because I need my core cities to pump setters. (I use them a lot as part of my war strategy and to fill in the territory I take from the AI.

Sell off any unneeded impovements. You don't really need granaries in all those core cities. It is better to switch a few tiles temporarily to higher foodproduction to let a city grow and/or join workers build in corrupt towns.

Sell off at least half of your barracks. Not every city needs one, only those that build proper combat units (artillery type units are not proper combat units).

As for the granaries, I need those to pump settlers. As for the barracks, how many cities should have them and how many cities should they not be built in? I like to have all of my cities building proper combat units or have all of them building artillery. Should I keep doing this and sell the barracks during the artillery rush to save money or should I have a certain ratio of cities building combat units to city building artillery?

If you build temples and cathedrals you need to have a coverage for your core cities of those improvements before you can benefit by them. So you will have to decide whether all your core cities will get a temple etc or not. Fitting out one half with and the other half without won't get you anything much. (Since you play regent, it may not be such a bad idea to actually go with the temple for all your size12 core cities. That is because in a scenario where you have 5 luxes and a market (9 happy faces) and 2 citizens which are born content, you would get 11 happy/content faces. A temple would supply the 12th making it possible to get by without lux-tax. But apart from that I am not a big friend of temples etc.)

I guess I should sell my cathedrals then. I was going to keep them for culture but since I am going for conquest victory, I guess I don't really need that much culture.

Set some of your farms on the other continent to wealth instead of building workers, maybe even all of those. You are really stocked quite well in the workforce department (not to mention that you are vanilla industious).

I usually have my farms build worker->settler->wealth but since I don't need more workers, I probably should change that to settler-> wealth and join my surplus workers to cities in order to rush settlers and create specialists.

It is generally not necessary to improve tiles that are not currently or in the (near) future being worked by a laborer in a city, let alone not even within reach of any city radius at all. It is also not necessary to improve tiles where a laborer on them would not pay; these tiles are all those tiles in your hopelessly corrupt "farmland" that do not produce a food surplus (hills, mountains, deserts ...).

In the beginning I do check to see if a tile is going to be worked before I have a worker build improvements, but as I get more cities and more workers, I find it less time consuming to build improvements on a tile than to check to see if that tile needs improvements. I am getting out of the habit of building mines on "farmland" mountains and hills (the mines you see are built by AI or when my workers had worked all other tiles in my territory and had nothing to do ) but I guess I should break the habit of irrigating deserts and foresting tundra in the farmland. Should I continue to rail every hill and mountain or should I build rails to create specific passes in the mountain ranges?

Keep back *some* units on your homecontinet, lest you be surprised by the AI dropping off a knight, an archer and a warrior or some such.

Will do. In this game, I already had an AI galley drop off a spearman next to Beijing. I had to trash my rep and break a military alliance to prevent being attacked.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

As for the granaries, I need those to pump settlers. As for the barracks, how many cities should have them and how many cities should they not be built in? I like to have all of my cities building proper combat units or have all of them building artillery. Should I keep doing this and sell the barracks during the artillery rush to save money or should I have a certain ratio of cities building combat units to city building artillery?

Always try to specialize cities as good as you can. Be it at the beginning of the game where you pick certain food rich cities as settler/worker pumps (and maybe give some even a granary) while other cities (esp. those which are good on shields) get barracks and build military. Or later in the game, where settlers and workers come from corrupt regions, while the core cities get improvements and/or builds military: with barracks Knights, Cavs etc, and without artillery (and maybe ships).

The ratios largely depend on what you need or want.

In the beginning I do check to see if a tile is going to be worked before I have a worker build improvements, but as I get more cities and more workers, I find it less time consuming to build improvements on a tile than to check to see if that tile needs improvements. I am getting out of the habit of building mines on "farmland" mountains and hills (the mines you see are built by AI or when my workers had worked all other tiles in my territory and had nothing to do ) but I guess I should break the habit of irrigating deserts and foresting tundra in the farmland. Should I continue to rail every hill and mountain or should I build rails to create specific passes in the mountain ranges?

Only where it is militarily warranted, or where you need a connection to the rest of your tradenetwork. (And somewhat related, leave some depletable resources (iron, coal, oil etc) unroaded, because what is not hooked up cannot deplete)