Mistfit's Introduction to cIV HoF

[dutchfire]

While you're here, could you take a look in Staff at a few things for us?

I'm not much of a warmonger, but once you get CoL (Caste System), assigning merchant specialist to them help with costs.

Or Artists, for border popping. (Stonehenge is good for that too).

I just tried Quick - Small - Domination, and I ended in the 5th century AD IIRC. Not a really good try, but I can't compare it right now, since the site is down. To get a #1 here, I think Incan Quechas are necessary.

 

[Mistfit]

so you finished in 500-600AD?

who did you use?

 

[dutchfire]

5th century is 401 - 500. I finished in 410 AD with Julius Caesar.

 

[Mistfit]

wow.. how much quicker does a quick game let you finish as opposed to the normal setting I am using?

 

[dutchfire]

wow.. how much quicker does a quick game let you finish as opposed to the normal setting I am using?

Quick game is supposed to make a military game like this harder
I'll try it on Normal speed too, to give you some more comparison.

 

[dutchfire]

150 AD on Normal.

Starting position
I want at least 1 good food resource (corn, rice, pigs). Flood Plains are a pro too. I also want at least 3 hills for production. Picking a good start is a huge help.

Research
Agriculture - (Animal Husbandry if you have pigs/cow) - Bronze Working - Iron Working - Mysticism - Meditation - Priesthood - Writing - Code of Laws - - Civil Service - Mathematics - Currency - shut off research

Buildings
All military towns (that's all good towns ) will get a barracks. Some of the early cities will have to get an obelisk to culture pop. Granaries are nice in some cities, but not needed. No other buildings are really needed. Don't bother with courthouses, by the time your economy starts struggling, you don't need to research anyway.
The only wonder I built was Stonehenge. It's cheap, and great for culture.

Civics
I changed to Caste System and Bureaucracy after Civil Service. Bureaucracy means faster production in your capital. Caste System allows you to run artists in all cities. Obelisk (Stonehenge) + Artist (Caste System) means a 2 turn border pop, meaning you'll need less cities.


In both tries, I made war slightly too long, since I had plenty of unclaimed tiles left when I won the game. I started settler production slightly too late.


Oh, and damn you for getting me hooked again, 2 submissions in 2 days after a 4 month hiatus.

 

[Mistfit]

Oh hell.. you really know how to spoil a guys evening..

I was all excited about an 820 win I just submitted

Well then can you give a rundown on your general strat?

What I did in mine..

Built 3 cities of my own..
Conquered my nearest neighbor
stalled while I built courthouses
Built up a more Preats and knocked off the 2 next closest neighbors built theaters..

 

[dutchfire]

820 AD would take a shared #1 spot at the moment (before my submissio), so it isn't too bad.

I think your problem is focussing on going to war early.

I founded my 2nd city on turn 45 (2200 BC). I declared war in 1480 BC (turn 63)! I just had 2 Praetorians back then, but that's usually enough to take a small second city. Turn 77 my first opponent was dead. During all this time, I didn't build a single courthouse, I just build Praetorians, Praetorians, Praetorians and Praetorians. I had built enough workers in advance, and captured some more during the war. In this game, I kept almost all cities. Since I'm Julius (Organized) on Noble, upkeep is rather low, and I couldn't care less if my economy is hurting, all I need is territory. By the way, having a capital with 2 gold mines helps .

I think the main difference with your strategy is that you stalled to build courthouses. That must have cost you a lot of time, which the other civs used to build protection. I often faced 1/2 archers only.

About theaters, I prefer 1 Artist (4cpt) + 1 Obelisk (1cpt), with Caste System civic and Stonehenge. They allow a border pop 2 turns after a city is founded.

 

[Mistfit]

hmm.. I will have to try this.. differently somehow then.

With the Civics combo you talked about can you turn a cities first population into an artist?

 

[dutchfire]

With the Civics combo you talked about can you turn a cities first population into an artist?

Yes, you can It won't grow, but you're supposed to win in the next couple of turns anyway.

 

[Mistfit]

also if you do not mind me asking at what tech are you at when you start to war.. I was tending to start warring as soon as I had iron hooked. did you tech further before warring?

Also did you leave barbs on or off? I could not decide which was better.. some promotions for my guys or the AI making more units to combat barbs?

 

[dutchfire]

also if you do not mind me asking at what tech are you at when you start to war.. I was tending to start warring as soon as I had iron hooked. did you tech further before warring?

I declared as soon as I had 2 Praetorians on someone's border. So that's almost right after I got Iron hooked up.

Also did you leave barbs on or off? I could not decide which was better.. some promotions for my guys or the AI making more units to combat barbs?

I played with Raging Barbs because it gives bonus points for QScore. They hindered me a bit, and I suppose no barbs is better. You won't have to worry about fogbusting in that case. They do settle 1 or 2 cities, which I could take, but that didn't really help a lot.

 

[Mistfit]

ok.. did you keep all of their cities or did you settle a bunch of them at the end?

 

[dutchfire]

ok.. did you keep all of their cities or did you settle a bunch of them at the end?

Both, I kept a lot of their cities, but still had to settle more in the end. The more you capture, the less you have to settle though.

 

[Mistfit]

Well.. I have been making progress towards beating you.. my last test game ended in 250AD which is a nice little improvement.. Had I not been playing quickly I certainly could have shaved a few turns off of this one.

I think it is time to get serious now that I have the basics down.

I need to fix the vista thing on my computer, run a bunch of maps, and play slow and careful to see the best date I can come up with.

again thanks for the help dutchfire

I think what I will do is find a map I can live with and play it while making a write up of it. In the past this has forced me to pay attention to details and play much more carefully. It is also typically a fun read and helpful to others.

If I fail maybe you guys can give me areas where I can improve...

So.. I should be posting back within a week or so to give an update.

 

[Mistfit]

I am trying to wrap my head around whipping.. I play vanilla and Rome.. so I gue I am trying to figure the sweet spot for whipping Praetorians.. any help?

Lets assume with a granary and without one.. at what size and what production do I maximize the effectiveness of whipping?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

There's an article about whipping here

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193659

 

[dutchfire]

Well.. I have been making progress towards beating you.. my last test game ended in 250AD which is a nice little improvement.. Had I not been playing quickly I certainly could have shaved a few turns off of this one.

I think it is time to get serious now that I have the basics down.

I need to fix the vista thing on my computer, run a bunch of maps, and play slow and careful to see the best date I can come up with.

again thanks for the help dutchfire

I think what I will do is find a map I can live with and play it while making a write up of it. In the past this has forced me to pay attention to details and play much more carefully. It is also typically a fun read and helpful to others.

If I fail maybe you guys can give me areas where I can improve...

So.. I should be posting back within a week or so to give an update.

You're getting close I might have to try it again soon too

By the way, I'm not only helping you, you're making sure I stay focused too. That's the great thing about the Hall of Fame.

Regarding whipping, DaveMcW once posted these guidelines.

It is always inefficient to kill a citizen working a mined grassland hill.

At size 6, it becomes inefficient to kill off a mined plains hill.
At size 6, it becomes inefficient to kill off a plains forest.

At size 10, it becomes inefficient to kill off a mined desert hill.

At size 20, it becomes inefficient to kill off an engineer.

I didn't use whipping in my game at all, but I think that I should, to improve my date a bit.

 

[dutchfire]

200 BC
I missed it the turn earlier on 3 tiles, which I could have had if I had been more careful in micromanagement.

No barbs this time.
I also whipped a lot this time around. Ideally, you should change to slavery when your first settler is walking to it's destination.
Another thing I did different this time is starting to build some extra cities earlier, because these extra cities can build extra settlers.
I think Code of Laws is the last tech you need, I didn't get to Civil Service this time around.

 

[Mistfit]

grr.. You know that is not the way it is supposed to work.. you are supposed to let me beat you before you go ahead and put up another benchmark..

grr...

Back to the drawing board.. again...