Me v Mate. Representation too powerful?

[squoink]

Our experience is that being the aggressor is difficult this early on.
Bear in mind that the guy who gets the pyramids may not do so immediately. He could have a few cities out and then bag them ( as can the other guy obviously). On this kind of map the guy with the pyramids can also cottage spam to a similar extent. On this type of map it's easy also to dedicate a city to building wonders - this is where a lot of the gp points come from. The pyramids guy doesn't need to run caste system - he just gets more out of his great people than the other guy.

 

[xenex]

Well not running CS would be a waste of mids then, since you would have for the bigger part of the game only 2 scientist from the library maybe 4 if you get great library too, but then again the other guy could also get great library.

I agree that the mids guy might not go for them immediatly, which is almost always gonna be the case, but the thing is it doesn't matter at what point he builds it, because while he is building it he has one city which cant build military, and the non mids guy has at least one more city that can build military, which you both should be building anyways, but the non mids guy will have a advantage in numbers over the mids guy.

Yes both people can cottage at the same rate, but at least while building the pyramids, the city which is building the mids will be mostly focused on hammers, unless the person wants it to take ages, at which point the other person that wasn't planning on building mids in the first place could instead decided to focus all out hammers on the mids and get it before the other.

I dont know about you, but if I do go for mids, which I admit I don't go for as often as i probably could. (mostly because of the cost) its almost always the capitol which builds it, at least thats how The Great Lighthouse goes, which is one of the wonders I almost always go for.
In probably 8 out of 10 games that I build GLH I build it in the capitol.

What im trying to say with this is that if your building a wonder in your capitol early on your rate of building settlers is slower,because the capitol is almost always the bigger city and is the one that can build them the fastest (food+hammers).Unless you are lucky and you either get a high food city nearby or a high forest city nearby.

I would imagine that the non mids person would have at least 1 more city then the mids person because he was able get his settlers out faster, probably even 2 cities more.


The mids/rep does give you big advantage over the person that doesn't have it, but because you didn't go for it, you should have advantages in other areas, mostly numbers.

 

[squoink]

I seem to find though that the non pyramid guy can't build military indefinately due to cost and so struggles to overcome the opponent by sheer numbers.

 

[peppe1]

I seem to find though that the non pyramid guy can't build military indefinately due to cost and so struggles to overcome the opponent by sheer numbers.

Raze his cities for gold. If you can't get enough units to take his cities outright you can wreak havoc in his area with a few units and get gold for destroying improvements. Try to capture his workers and destroy his strategic resources (copper, horse, iron) first then his tile improvements/roads.


With your map settings your early tech path should favor animal husbandry early. A horse resource would have to be pretty far away for it not to be superior. Get 2 chariots to his area fast and scout. If you scout pyramids and you can cut off all his strategic resources you should be able to press with chariots then horse archers for a long while.

Without committing to a rush I would probably do a normal worker techs opening. Before going bronze working get animal husbandry (you may be doing this anyway if you start with cows/sheep/pig in your cross).
If horse is a reasonable distance away send the first settler there. If no horse get bronze working asap to reveal copper otherwise plan to get it by the time you hook up horses.
I'd make 2 chariots in the capital (build most of the first then whip so the carryover will almost finish the second) and then continue your normal expansion.
If you didn't get horse get 2-3 axemen out quickly to scout/apply pressure.
If you are not going pyramids yourself you should be able to get to 1-2 more cities before you have to decide on war or not.

When you arrive at his area:
If he doesn't have pyramids going maybe you harass and go pyramids yourself. If you see he is lacking units or strategic resources you could get horseback riding for horse archers and whip an army together. If you are not confident taking cites with them you can lock down his strategic resources and get catapults and/or elephants to capture cities. Remember to blow up all his tile improvements, that alone will give you an advantage you can press.

If you have trouble keeping your horse archers alive send a couple spears (if he has horses) or axes and plant them on a forest/hill in his territory for your horse archers to retreat back to. If you take out his copper, iron, and horse he will have a tough time pushing you off that spot with warriors/archers and you should be able to harass and retreat as needed with the horse archers.

Either way you will have the advantage because you will know what he is doing and he will be chasing your units around.

 

[peppe1]

Test run:
1v1, epic, large Pangaea, no huts, no events.

Random civs.
Capital: Corn, Clams, 2 bare hills, and one flood plain.

Turn 30:
Initial scout went around shore line and found enemy turn 30. Scout took forestry promotions (and tries to end every turn on forest).
Enemy is about 40 tiles away. Normally i would scout a good sized radius around my start, but you mentioned sometimes you don't find the enemy quickly, so i was concerned and sent first scout around shore (generally safe to hug shore). Fought 3 barb animals along the way, each time i was on at least forest/jungle. Noble gives you 2 or 3? free barb wins, so not much risk.

Capital has a work-boat on fish and worker 3 turns away. After worker build warriors to happy cap (usually ~3-4 warriors). Micro if you can to finish last warrior on the turn city grows. Keep last warrior in capital (for happiness) and scout second city site with rest.
Tech: Started with fishing and hunting (Pericles), got agriculture (for corn in cross), animal husbandry, and mining is 5 turns away.
Will farm the corn, and mine the hills, and get bronze working after mining.
Warriors will scout around capital to find horse and/or bronze for first settler.
Scout will scout around enemy capital and keep an eye on him.

Turn 59:
A warrior finds horse 8 tiles SE of capital. Fortify on hill nearby.
Final warrior finished and fortify in capital.
First settler started this turn.
No copper for me so far. (Found copper a couple turns later about 10 tiles east of capital).
Enemy has copper maybe 7 tiles east of his capital.
Scout has revealed much of the enemy land and has forestry 2 promotion. Will probably circle back to his capital to check on his expansion status.
Other warriors are scouting/healing as needed.
Capital is working 2 grassland mines, corn, clams, and unimproved flood plain, worker is 1 turn away from chopping forest hill into first settler. Will mine the hill after and then start road to horse.
3 turns away from wheel (pottery next).

Turn 115:
Founded horse city 2225bc what is that turn 70-80 or so in epic?
Kept tabs on enemy with scout.
Recently settled my own copper. Enemy also settled third city on copper.
Switched to slavery when i hooked up horses and whipped built and whipped in second city 3 chariots pretty quickly.
They are about 8 turns away from enemy. So far only seen warriors in their territory.
7 Turns away from horseback riding.
Got library and 2 scientists working in my capital, 6 turns away from first great scientist in capital (Pericles helps here)

Probably could settle more if I am not going to attack to win, but i already started on horseback riding and found elephants near my copper

Kinda committed to going horse archers early then elephants if they don't end the game. You probably should delay horseback riding until you know you can get his strategic resources away from him with chariots.

Now if he had gone pyramids no way he has 2 cities and more defense.


My cities





His cities



Turn 123:
Ninja his copper (AI city settled on it, but not connected to empire yet) with 3 chariots vs 1 warrior. A player probably doesn't settle on copper, so it would be easy to disconnect.
Got horseback riding and three decent cities to pump them out.
Start on iron working just in case he has that in his territory or you can just blow up every mine.


So overall pretty good position. Like i mentioned in the turn summary I would probably tech a little different to stay flexible, but overall you are in a strong position. I didn't micro great, so you could do some run throughs against the AI and get better timing. I had 3 cities before i hooked up horse and didn't expand after that (kept making chariots). You could easily expand 1-2 more times or go pyramids yourself while the enemy is distracted by your chariots.

 

[squoink]

Cheers for the interest and effort. I'll get my mate to read this thread and then we'll discuss. It doesn't seem clear cut does it that early mids gives a massive advantage?

 

[Iranon]

I'd say that even considering the price of the Pyramids, the only things that are as strong require even more commitment and can go horribly wrong - trying to force a decision with early war or frantic horizontal expansion at the verge of economic collapse.

Whether less opportunities to shoot yourself in the foot is a massive advantage would depend on one's playskill...

 

[peppe1]

Cheers for the interest and effort. I'll get my mate to read this thread and then we'll discuss. It doesn't seem clear cut does it that early mids gives a massive advantage?

As other have mentioned the mids is a large cost and the none mids player needs to take those hammers and apply them in any way that gives him an advantage.

Well the simple counter to mids is to out expand and swarm with units. Using normal speed Pyramids costs 500 hammers. That is 2 settlers + 10 chariots. 1v1 vs. a friend for fun I would probably wouldn't rush with the chariots cause you probably don't want the game to end before 1AD.

The easiest things you can do is send a few units to the enemy and just hem him in. You don't have to declare war and go blow up tile improvement just look for units to pick-off and delay him settling. So if he wants to settle another city he will have to build an escort.

To me it is almost unfair to the guy getting the mids cause if you scout him only having 2 cities when you are on 3 looking to get the fourth you know he is dumping a lot of production into something.

All you have to do is mass some decent units and go deny copper/horse and you can park a stack of guys between each of his cities and bleed him dry while your economy clicks along.

A non military counter to your scenario would be more interesting to come up with...

I think it would be easy to counter if you each could select a different leader, or maybe play as Elizabeth? I'll assume you want to stick with the same leader, so lets say you pick Elizabeth. Then the mids person is exploiting philosophical and the other can exploit financial early (Colossus and Great Light House). The mids player can also exploit financial cottages, but if he does that then he is not preparing for a mid game war and the pyramids/rep advantage will have been minimized by you having more cities and towns earlier in the game.

If you are both builder types and not planning to war at all or until mid game musket + trebs/cannons or cannons + rifles then the mids guy is likely going to get there first through rep specialists. He won't have cottages if he is building for war using those units, so you just need to delay until your cottages mature. Economically you cottage hard and prepare a good defensive position. Financial + Colossus makes sea tiles instant villages, spam the coast and you have a bunch of strong commerce cities to keep up early game.

Against mids/rep enemy with non financial leaders i would get great light house (really helps if you can find those little islands offshore to settle). With financial I'd go colossus first and great light house second.

I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but you can also take great wall and use spies to steal tech from the other guy to stay even or get ahead if you b-line a different path than the other guy.

No matter what I'd take the time to get spies into his territory to scout.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not even sure going for the Pyramids is even a good idea under these circumstances. Unlimited land to expand, it seems tempting to REX keeping your net income around zero at 100% gold and eventually overwhelm the opponent once many maturing cottages kick in.

Unfortunately, doing so well requires careful management of one's cities, and if you're not playing via pitboss or something it's going to be draining and not very fun at all.

Hmph. The blazing timer looks mighty slow to me, I don't care if I have 30 cities+.

With noble and lots and lots and lots of good land available, I don't see the big draw of the mids; while rep specs are good, there are some things they are not super favorable in direct competition:

1. Any high-yield special tile. This includes calendar resources, all food specials, strategic resources, etc. All of these things beat a rep spec.
2. Grassland mines. Two grassland mines have the same raw yield as a rep specialist. If you can make up the GPP (hard to imagine if you're getting extra cities), you're golden.
3. Earlygame production. Production in general, specialists are very weak for them. If you force them to make units, they're not running specs; they're likely whipping.

I think you're struggling with several factors:

1. Expansion/tile improvement priorities (food first, get reasonable amount of commerce)
2. City specialization
3. Tech priority to break out sooner (this is different for mids vs not)
4. Actual wars. You have to fight humans very differently from the AI.

Rep from mids will create a small window to rush him early. Then, for a while his tech will be markedly superior. But as cottages grow and you get deeper down the tree, any beaker benefit from rep will be diminished behind production advantages available to the larger empire. If you out-expand him, in the long run (and possibly certain timeframes in the short run) he'll fall behind.

Check out the winners of PVP matches or even MTDG; you won't see mids winning every time.

 

[babar]

Rep from mids will create a small window to rush him early. Then, for a while his tech will be markedly superior.

I think this is the whole key here. It almost seems like there is a gentleman's agreement not to rush early, which would make early mids suicidal. But then, once pyramids are built and the rep boost kicks in, the pyramid builder will use his window of tech advantage to rush the other guy.

I've never played MP, but I imagine in a duel game it would be best to be attacking/pilllaging the other guy almost constantly, since the situation essentially means a state of perpetual war from the outset.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think this is the whole key here. It almost seems like there is a gentleman's agreement not to rush early, which would make early mids suicidal. But then, once pyramids are built and the rep boost kicks in, the pyramid builder will use his window of tech advantage to rush the other guy.

I've never played MP, but I imagine in a duel game it would be best to be attacking/pilllaging the other guy almost constantly, since the situation essentially means a state of perpetual war from the outset.

When I played OCC FFA with Ruff_Hi and Lord_Parkin, I was massively out-teched at first by Parkin after ruff_hi got rng SCREWED losing 5 archers to 1 hill immortal. It didn't matter though, because Parkin got a little too aggressive and I repelled him, proceeding to pillage all of his tiles. He could whip as many archers as he wanted after that, it wasn't going to save him .

Any duel situation will come down to pillaging, capturing the cities is an afterthought (or you can capture + raze via forking). Pillaging forces field battles, negating much of the defensive bonuses the rushee has. If this happens pre-siege and the attacker successfully pillages the defender's flatlands, game over. Even with siege involved this chocking anti-improvement approach is probably the most threatening thing for a long, long time.

What is the mids guy getting that blocks a HA/axe/spear pillage combo, for example? He'd need maces; nothing else would attack that with winning odds earlier. Military is pretty effective against more advanced troops when used well except for a VERY specific break point: cuirassers/rifles/cannon/cavalry. Can mids get there first consistently, w/o stone etc? I have my doubts, especially if harassed.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Just as a side note, really good players can be researching education in the late BCs/early ADs without pyramids. How much faster is your friend possibly going?

 

[MarcoPollo]

Every setting style is going to have its advantages and disadvantages. If you play with one AI between the two of you, the person who gets the religious advantage will most likely win. If you play with continents, the person who gets to develop privateers first will most likely win. If you play on a tiny map, the person who hooks up metal will most likely win.

You could also use an advanced start on a tiny map to allow for metal hook-up to be more close in competition.

My suggestion is to ban the finishing of the pyramids. You may want to use it for failure gold, but it is banned to finish. Or it is banned us use Rep once it is built. Or whatever ... .

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Every setting style is going to have its advantages and disadvantages. If you play with one AI between the two of you, the person who gets the religious advantage will most likely win. If you play with continents, the person who gets to develop privateers first will most likely win. If you play on a tiny map, the person who hooks up metal will most likely win.

You could also use an advanced start on a tiny map to allow for metal hook-up to be more close in competition.

My suggestion is to ban the finishing of the pyramids. You may want to use it for failure gold, but it is banned to finish. Or it is banned us use Rep once it is built. Or whatever ... .

Is Pyramids really that overpowered in a Noble game?

By the way, banning Rep basically negates the purpose of Pyramids - HR is an early civic, PS is not all that useful, and US sucks until late-mid game.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Just as a side note, really good players can be researching education in the late BCs/early ADs without pyramids. How much faster is your friend possibly going?

Guess they bulbed whenever possible?

In terms of GP usage, I generally build academy with first GS and settle the rest in mega-science city. Is it actually better to simply bulb all of them? The temptation of settling all is too great.

 

[MarcoPollo]

Guess they bulbed whenever possible?

In terms of GP usage, I generally build academy with first GS and settle the rest in mega-science city. Is it actually better to simply bulb all of them? The temptation of settling all is too great.

I think that the earlier in the game you get a GS, the better for settling he is. But as the game gets to be about relative position rather than absolute position, gaining 10 turns from a bulb is like adding 10 turns on to your ability to get to certain benchmarks.

For instance, settling a scientist early may shave off a turn or two from each of the techs you research early and may be only 1/2 or a 1/4 of a turn for ones you research late. Early on this can add up to a savings of 20 or 30 turns in tech research by the end of the game. And early on, a bulb may only net you 10 turns and its over. Late game a bulb may still net you 10 turns, but settling only will net you 10 turns over the entire rest of the game. Thus the short term benefits outweigh the invested benefits.

This is especially true if you are wanting to get to Liberalism, or whatever. Bulb-ing allows you to sprint ahead of your competitors and trade for other things.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Just as a side note, really good players can be researching education in the late BCs/early ADs without pyramids. How much faster is your friend possibly going?

Oh come on. You've gotta show us this.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Oh come on. You've gotta show us this.

I don't have the patience for the kind of precision micro it takes, so instead I'll simply post proof.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=292211&highlight=BOTM&page=3

 

[Sueff]

If you mean unconqueredSun, he definitely got the Pyramids and tech trading is on.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you mean unconqueredSun, he definitely got the Pyramids and tech trading is on.

That was an example game. Read on in the thread, he did NOT get mids in BOTM 10, where he had tanks/bombers by 1400 AD.

And yes, tech trades were on. It was also deity, where techs cost more and maintenance is WAY higher than noble.

Why not just look at threads started by him or other deity players, eventually you'll find an example of them *still* dominating in tech from say isolation, which should be comparable.

Edit:

We can also take a look at the cost of pyramids to run rep early. Without stone, pyramids cost 500. It will take 167 rep specialist turns (running a rep spec for 1 turn) to recoup that ASSUMING 1 = 1 (wealth/gold/whatever), which is a bad assumption. On top of that, pyramids slows expansion, so the player building it is 250-500 behind someone not building and settling w/o it. It's going to take a while to start running a material amount of rep specs after building the pyramids. If someone chooses IND, then they're paying a trait to get the mids (although IND is a solid trait overall, there are other good ones)...and without stone it's still expensive.

However, the guy not building mids doesn't have to just sit on non-boosted wealth/research all day. He can opt to grow riverside cottages for bureaucracy, run his own specs for GPP, etc. What's your tech rate with rep? How does it compare to a pop 12 capitol with 40 base commerce, 75% science multipliers, and bureaucracy in the 1AD to 1000AD range? Such a capitol, if at 100% science, would produce around 105 beakers/turn by itself, and it isn't that much of a reach to attain that by the early ADs. Remember that a palace is 8 by itself, so you'd only need to get 32 from some combination of trade routes and cottages.

While the slider in these settings won't generally be 100%, it would take quite a few rep specs to match that or even half of that; suggesting that BOTH empires need to be getting some help from elsewhere. The non pyramids empire? It has more elsewhere.