Control
Most games can be divided in 3 phases: initial expansion, empire management and finally the way to victory. Many people have put names and arbitrary dates around these... I will leave it up to you to decide. The sooner phase 1 is over, the better - that is for certain. Depending on what you are looking for phase 3 (what victory condition), phase 2 can be pretty long (ex. Space Victory means a lot of techs) or pretty short (catapult-based Domination). Phase 1 is the most important in relation to game impact. If you do well here, you'll have a good advantage for the rest of the game even if you slack off after the first 50 turns hehe.
If you have a so-so opening, then mastering the second phase can give you a better chance in winning the game, especially techwise with good GPP planning. Finally, given more or less techs to the AI, it's pretty easy to come out ahead given our ability to actually think.
I find I don't particularly excel at either of the first 2 phases, often lacking imagination in the second one. I still have a hard time finding the right balance between hammers/food and research early on while I don't generally plan out well enough my GPP. This game is another proof of it after all: too many cottages means less food means less hammers means slower cities means slower development of said cities which end up slowing research... a high tech rate is not always the most desirable thing if it slows you down elsewhere.
In this screenshot, the beaker rate is up to 300/turn by 100AD. However it comes at several prices. Expansion was already discussed but now looking at the capital we can see it's fairly small at size 9 and with only +6 food surplus.
When you are short on worker, it's "okay" to work food neutral tiles that bring in some commerce/hammers, rather than whipping away improved tiles at the first instance you start working an unimproved one. Here, a cottage city gets 2-whipped to get some overflow going into more expensive buildings as it has no production whatsoever.
So much for getting horses, HC's 3rd borders pop before my second... at 1 cpt, I'm never getting horses from that underdevelopped city. I don't have any workers in the area to start farming the grassland .... bad bad bad.
Kumbi Saleh, 4 turns after the whip. As you can see, it will be ready to be whipped next turn again. Just queue something cheap that you need up front the turn before you whip. If that forest was instead a farm, the city would aready have grown, meaning 4 turns cycle for whipping... that's 15H/t instead of 12.5H/t (60/5 + 2~3/5 from the forest).
This one started a worker. I could have whipped but:
-the religion was not yet spread so minus 15H
-the extra citizen really didn't consume food and added a tiny bit of commerce overall.
-whipping would remove a farm and slow growth from an already weak city
Kumbi Saleh once again, getting production from its overflow. Adding whips adds anger but adding infrastructure often removes anger (ex. Forge, Market)... so it kinda evens out in the end. Whip! Whip!
Short on workers as I said... it often happens that after the first 2~3 cities you should spam settlers and not alternate between settler/worker. Sure it's more of a puzzle to get your workers all over the place but grabbing 1 or 2 extra cities can make a game a lot easier. Get your workers out after the cities are down, maybe even get more than you would otherwise so that your land is improved quickly and in time for your cities. Here, I'm behind 4 or 5 still as several cities are getting whipped down while some auxiliary ones are just stagnating... which isn't so bad but it still is... it could have meant horses this game. Also note the unhooked Silk... what was I thinking.
A while ago I learned the formula that determines the number of beakers you get when bulbing. It's not too important and I even forget the exact numbers. The thing to remember though, is that the more population points you have, the more beakers you'll get.
When you get to bulbing a big tech, like Education, if you want to single bulb only, try to time it so that your population is at its biggest but before you lose beakers from the bulb to maximize the effect of the GP you use. If I wait a few turns here, I'll get a few more beakers out of the scientist. It says 1665 for the record.
AI-to-AI relations, close to what we would normally expect.
For some reason I declined this while playing... I really don't know why, it's actually pretty stupid now come to think of it.
Resource trades. I am trading away both of my Wines while getting Wine in return from the copper hehe. The earlier unhooked silk is worth at least 7gpt as we can see here.
A small micro suggestion.
This is an interesting situation. I can whip the city to get some OF going into a Forge and gain 1F from the unimproved tile no longer being worked or suck it up 1 turn and get more commerce which is what I did. A few more workers might have solved this...
Similar situation. You lose 1F from the unimproved flood plain this turn (+11 surplus), but gain 1F from the fish next turn so it evens out (+13 surplus). However, if you whip next turn, you gain 1C overall (+12 +12 surplus).
WvO, who built the AP, has been kindly spreading the religion to me. I've slowly started converting my cities to Hinduism so that I can
-build the AP buildings
-revolt to Hinduism when the time is right... ! WvO is cautious to me after all. But he's looking more to be in religious/wonder mode than warring anyway.
SB decided to go after DeGaulle in a dogpile... pretty funny stuff there.
I am never getting those horses back, sigh.
I forgot to start Universities right after Education was done. Yikes!! Given the low pop of the capital, it will be forever before Oxford is up!!
Another SB stack... at first I thought it was a pincer attack but he was heading south in fact... can't hope for too much from the AI.
Hmmm... HC and Willem can get Liberalism, so much for getting a good tech out of it.
I can finish Liberalism already, but I'm waiting for this University to complete. No AI, even at Deity, is going to complete Liberalism in 2 turns on Normal speed. Unless something went completely wrong.
Poor DG is being pounded on from both sides. He makes a good scape goat for me.
Typical Liberalism->Nationalism. I figured I could try my hand at the Taj with Marble (but I don't really have any production anywhere that can handle it). Had I 2x bulbed Education and researched Nationalism instead, Military Tradition, for example, would have been available. Constitution not too far off either... too bad.
I stopped this round at the next turn because I finished PP the following turn after bulbing it once. And because loading an auto-save into Liberalism doesn't give you the tech so the overview is wrong. I'm doing pretty well, beaker rate is nearing 500 per turn and with Universities coming in, it's only going up... I just need to find some way to do something about a victory or another...
In terms of trades, iIrc I grabbed Gunpowder from DG a few turns later, which I wanted anyway and because it gave him a few techs to buy peace from SB/Monty should he want to.
And it's precisely this turn that I noticed this...
Most games can be divided in 3 phases: initial expansion, empire management and finally the way to victory. Many people have put names and arbitrary dates around these... I will leave it up to you to decide. The sooner phase 1 is over, the better - that is for certain. Depending on what you are looking for phase 3 (what victory condition), phase 2 can be pretty long (ex. Space Victory means a lot of techs) or pretty short (catapult-based Domination). Phase 1 is the most important in relation to game impact. If you do well here, you'll have a good advantage for the rest of the game even if you slack off after the first 50 turns hehe.
If you have a so-so opening, then mastering the second phase can give you a better chance in winning the game, especially techwise with good GPP planning. Finally, given more or less techs to the AI, it's pretty easy to come out ahead given our ability to actually think.
I find I don't particularly excel at either of the first 2 phases, often lacking imagination in the second one. I still have a hard time finding the right balance between hammers/food and research early on while I don't generally plan out well enough my GPP. This game is another proof of it after all: too many cottages means less food means less hammers means slower cities means slower development of said cities which end up slowing research... a high tech rate is not always the most desirable thing if it slows you down elsewhere.
In this screenshot, the beaker rate is up to 300/turn by 100AD. However it comes at several prices. Expansion was already discussed but now looking at the capital we can see it's fairly small at size 9 and with only +6 food surplus.
Spoiler :
When you are short on worker, it's "okay" to work food neutral tiles that bring in some commerce/hammers, rather than whipping away improved tiles at the first instance you start working an unimproved one. Here, a cottage city gets 2-whipped to get some overflow going into more expensive buildings as it has no production whatsoever.
Spoiler :
So much for getting horses, HC's 3rd borders pop before my second... at 1 cpt, I'm never getting horses from that underdevelopped city. I don't have any workers in the area to start farming the grassland .... bad bad bad.
Spoiler :
Kumbi Saleh, 4 turns after the whip. As you can see, it will be ready to be whipped next turn again. Just queue something cheap that you need up front the turn before you whip. If that forest was instead a farm, the city would aready have grown, meaning 4 turns cycle for whipping... that's 15H/t instead of 12.5H/t (60/5 + 2~3/5 from the forest).
Spoiler :
This one started a worker. I could have whipped but:
-the religion was not yet spread so minus 15H
-the extra citizen really didn't consume food and added a tiny bit of commerce overall.
-whipping would remove a farm and slow growth from an already weak city
Spoiler :
Kumbi Saleh once again, getting production from its overflow. Adding whips adds anger but adding infrastructure often removes anger (ex. Forge, Market)... so it kinda evens out in the end. Whip! Whip!
Spoiler :
Short on workers as I said... it often happens that after the first 2~3 cities you should spam settlers and not alternate between settler/worker. Sure it's more of a puzzle to get your workers all over the place but grabbing 1 or 2 extra cities can make a game a lot easier. Get your workers out after the cities are down, maybe even get more than you would otherwise so that your land is improved quickly and in time for your cities. Here, I'm behind 4 or 5 still as several cities are getting whipped down while some auxiliary ones are just stagnating... which isn't so bad but it still is... it could have meant horses this game. Also note the unhooked Silk... what was I thinking.
Spoiler :
A while ago I learned the formula that determines the number of beakers you get when bulbing. It's not too important and I even forget the exact numbers. The thing to remember though, is that the more population points you have, the more beakers you'll get.
When you get to bulbing a big tech, like Education, if you want to single bulb only, try to time it so that your population is at its biggest but before you lose beakers from the bulb to maximize the effect of the GP you use. If I wait a few turns here, I'll get a few more beakers out of the scientist. It says 1665 for the record.
Spoiler :
AI-to-AI relations, close to what we would normally expect.
Spoiler :
For some reason I declined this while playing... I really don't know why, it's actually pretty stupid now come to think of it.
Spoiler :
Resource trades. I am trading away both of my Wines while getting Wine in return from the copper hehe. The earlier unhooked silk is worth at least 7gpt as we can see here.
Spoiler :
A small micro suggestion.
Spoiler :
Not that I bulbed here, but you can see the number of beakers went up to 1686... once again pennies but it can mean getting to Liberalism 1 turn earlier instead of coming empty handed. I did not bulb PP right now... I probably should have for the added commerce though.
Spoiler :
This is an interesting situation. I can whip the city to get some OF going into a Forge and gain 1F from the unimproved tile no longer being worked or suck it up 1 turn and get more commerce which is what I did. A few more workers might have solved this...
Spoiler :
Similar situation. You lose 1F from the unimproved flood plain this turn (+11 surplus), but gain 1F from the fish next turn so it evens out (+13 surplus). However, if you whip next turn, you gain 1C overall (+12 +12 surplus).
Spoiler :
WvO, who built the AP, has been kindly spreading the religion to me. I've slowly started converting my cities to Hinduism so that I can
-build the AP buildings
-revolt to Hinduism when the time is right... ! WvO is cautious to me after all. But he's looking more to be in religious/wonder mode than warring anyway.
Spoiler :
SB decided to go after DeGaulle in a dogpile... pretty funny stuff there.
Spoiler :
I am never getting those horses back, sigh.
Spoiler :
I forgot to start Universities right after Education was done. Yikes!! Given the low pop of the capital, it will be forever before Oxford is up!!
Spoiler :
Another SB stack... at first I thought it was a pincer attack but he was heading south in fact... can't hope for too much from the AI.
Spoiler :
Hmmm... HC and Willem can get Liberalism, so much for getting a good tech out of it.
Spoiler :
I can finish Liberalism already, but I'm waiting for this University to complete. No AI, even at Deity, is going to complete Liberalism in 2 turns on Normal speed. Unless something went completely wrong.
Spoiler :
Poor DG is being pounded on from both sides. He makes a good scape goat for me.
Spoiler :
Typical Liberalism->Nationalism. I figured I could try my hand at the Taj with Marble (but I don't really have any production anywhere that can handle it). Had I 2x bulbed Education and researched Nationalism instead, Military Tradition, for example, would have been available. Constitution not too far off either... too bad.
Spoiler :
I stopped this round at the next turn because I finished PP the following turn after bulbing it once. And because loading an auto-save into Liberalism doesn't give you the tech so the overview is wrong. I'm doing pretty well, beaker rate is nearing 500 per turn and with Universities coming in, it's only going up... I just need to find some way to do something about a victory or another...
In terms of trades, iIrc I grabbed Gunpowder from DG a few turns later, which I wanted anyway and because it gave him a few techs to buy peace from SB/Monty should he want to.
Spoiler :
And it's precisely this turn that I noticed this...
Spoiler :
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