Move Up or Play a Variant?

[downhill]

I’m just finishing up my fifth game and am trying to determine where I should go next. My objectives: (1) to be significantly challenged; (2) to learn; and (3) to continue to have fun.

Brief history:

Game 1: Chieftan – Histographic win as Germany on large continents. I won by histograph because I had no victory objective and didn’t work toward anything in particular, but just built up a balanced civ and conquered my own continent, plus a portion of the other. At this point I was just trying to figure out the mechanics and features of the game.

Game 2: Chieftan – Domination win as Japan on large continents. Actually, I won by victory points very, very fast, but played on until I hit the dom limits. I only won by VP because I didn’t know enough to turn that victory condition off.

Fiddling around: Found this site and read a few articles, so I got curious and played the early turns on a handful of random maps just to work at understanding settler factories and small-scale MM. Didn’t play these out to the finish as the objective was just to try out a few aspects of the game about which I’d read.

Game 3: Regent – Conquest win as Mayans on large continents. This was pretty easy as I had the Mayans and a four-turn factory at my starting location. Talk about luck. One hairy spot when I started a war on the other continent for which I wasn’t really ready, but came through okay and learned about flexible defense against counterattacks.

Game 4: Monarch – Diplo win as Mayans on standard continents. Another easy one. A ridiculously early SGL led to (the much desired) Pyramids and a (less than desired) early despotic GA. But with the Mayans and Pyramids, the rapid expansion was more like a rapid explosion. The hardest part of this game was having the patience to avoid conquering everyone while I waited to get Fission researched and the UN built. With a whopping tech lead, it was somewhat disappointing how easy it was to buy everyone in against the obvious UN opponent.

Game 5: Monarch – Very close to achieving Spaceship win on 100% random setup, which turned out to be English/continents/standard/3MM age/wet/warm/roaming barbs. Unless a giant flood of unexpected (and as-yet-unresearched-by-the-AI) nukes arrives, I’ll win this the next time I have a chance to sit down to play. Outcome has never really been in doubt, but the challenge is that the only resource I had within the borders of my original landgrab was rubber. I had to conquer iron, trade for horsies, conquer salt, conquer coal, conquer oil (until the PRNG granted me a generous gift at its first disappearance-reappearance). Aluminum and uranium appeared in cities I had already conquered when I got the needed techs.

Thanks to all for great advice and articles here at CFC. You’re the reason this has been pretty easy so far.

Now, the question is: What should I do next? I’m thinking of either: (a) a 100K cultural attempt at random everything on Emperor or (b) a “win however I can” AW or 5CC game at random everything on Monarch. Any advice on what will be the best challenge/learning experience? I’ve been frustrated at how slow the tech pace is at Monarch. Beyond the early ancient ages, zero-research and trading would only be possible if I wanted to play an incredibly slow game.

 

[Aceman101]

It depends what you want to do. Are you up to the challenge of a culture win or do you prefer military might?

It's looks like you have been going very good in your games .

 

[Pyrrhos]

Pangea? Archipelago?

Go to the editor and generate a map with a set starting location for player 1 & then try the same game with different types of civs?

Try out OCS vs C-x-x-x-C vs C-x-x-C?

Try war-mongerer (AW) vs builder (avoid war until you're way ahead techwise) at higher levels?

Go AW with Sumeria or builder with Rome?

Decisions, decisions...


Btw, as Aceman says, you're progressing very quickly!

 

[ThinkTank]

I'd say go for emperor. Looks like you're in a similar phase as I am. I played a lot of chieftan games until I discovered this site. That really improved my game and I quickly moved through warlord, regent and monarch.
I'm now at emperor and it is a challenge, but fun. Won 2 lost 1, but the wins did not come easy. Major issues I had to take care of:

1. Cannot out-expand the AI anymore. So after expansion, I was not the major power anymore.
2. Cannnot out-research the AI anymore in AA/MA.

Very helpful is Ision's article "Monarch to Emperor: the Great Leap" in the War academy.

Have fun!

 

[Bardak]

I say AW on Emperor level. This is also my next challenge.

 

[Kool Keith]

Emperor. I found a 5CC to be a little too much at monarch level. Best to keep developing your understanding of the game first.

 

[downhill]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Good question someone asked is what I'm looking for/enjoy.

I'm really indifferent between war or building challenges as I'm still learning and they're just different facets of the same game.

Playing emperor appeals because:

(1) I won't be able to outexpand AI so easily. That's one of the reasons I didn't play Mayans in my latest game.

(2) Tech pace will be faster and self-research won't be the only (or necessarily best) option.

(3) Early build order will be more critical with need to address happiness quickly, need to cope with more early AI units, and inability to capture wonders so easily.

Playing 5CC appeals mainly for need to address efficiency of build order and focus on economic strength.

Playing AW appeals mainly because it sounds like a helluva lot of fun.

I think I'd like to try a cultural victory just because I haven't done it yet.

Have read Ision's article and think I'll try all-random 100k culture on Emperor, but restart if I am too lucky and get Babs as my civ.

Any key tips/strategies I should have in mind?

 

[Aceman101]

If your going for a 100k culture win...

Feudalism is good for culture wins.

You need fast-producing cities that can build wonders before the AI can.

I think maybe produce lot's of excess gold and use it to but techs of the AI. Thus, science slader @ 0-30%. And if you are going to do that also don't make your lux slider too high. But I don't know if it is a good Idea.

Don't buil too much military. You can always take an enemy city if it has built a wonder. But this is not good for 20k single city culture wins.

That's all I can think of now. Perhaps the good players can fill you in on it more .

 

[Turner]

I suggest you give Rise and Rule a go. It's a pretty good modpack that has a lot of challenges. Changes quite a bit, too. Don't forget the 1.03 upgrade, too.

It is, however, a large download.

 

[downhill]

I suggest you give Rise and Rule a go. It's a pretty good modpack that has a lot of challenges. Changes quite a bit, too. Don't forget the 1.03 upgrade, too.

It is, however, a large download.

Thanks Turner. Download size is not an issue.

I think I've read elsewhere that you have played a lot of Rise and Rule. Briefly peeked at the thread in the mod forum. Other than a ton of unit/wonder/tech choices, what are the main differences? In other words, does the mod affect strategy and basic gameplay? Or does it just provide more options for the jaded player?

I'm not jaded yet and feel like I've still got a lot to learn in the basic game. I'm just trying to find the right challenge level and the level/variant that will force me to learn/adapt the most.

Thanks...

 

[Turner]

There's lots of rules changes. Requires a different kind of thinking, and a different kind of playing. More of everything, it seems like. More units, techs, improvements, wonders... So much so that when I play an epic game after playing RnR, the epic game feels like 'Civ3 Light'.

It's also pretty accureate to say that if you're a Monarch playing on Epic, then Regent would be a better match for RnR. There's a lot of new things, and it can be overwhelming, but all in all I think it's a great mod.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Before playing RaR (not sure why Turner calls it RnR ), I would suggest reading some threads in the Succession Games forum (subforum of Stories & Tales). I know when I played my first game with it I had very little clue what I was doing, and I wasn't aware of all the changes. It really helps you understand some of the basic principles and strategies for playing RaR.

 

[gmaharriet]

If your going for a 100k culture win...

Feudalism is good for culture wins.

You need fast-producing cities that can build wonders before the AI can.

Actually, wonders don't play a big part in 100k culture wins unless you get a great leader to build them. The whole point of using Feudalism as a government is the ability to pop-rush.

In Feudalism, a town (pop 1-6) has better unit support than a city or metro. You kill off your citizens to build temples, libs, etc, which keeps your populations small, which in turn supports good-sized armies to take more territory. You build as many small towns as you can possibly cram into the space, and each one in turn builds more temples, libs, etc.

The culture generated by each of these improvements doubles 1000 years after they were built, so you may have 175-200 towns, each with a temple, lib, cathedral, university and colosseum. Even the best culture wonder doesn't compare in producing culture points to the mass of individual small improvements.

Warning: If you don't like micro-managing your citizens on each and every turn throughout the game, you won't enjoy having to watch each town for when you can kill off more pop to build something and THEN to deal with the unhappiness this causes to the remaining pop. I did it once in a Succession Game and had a lot of fun with some great team mates, but once is enough.

 

[Aceman101]

^ Yeah I know. But I like building wonders in a 100k culture win. And I wouldn't use feudalism because of the pop rush to build improvements. I like my civilization superior .

 

[gmaharriet]

^ Yeah I know. But I like building wonders in a 100k culture win. And I wouldn't use feudalism because of the pop rush to build improvements. I like my civilization superior .

Superior, schmuperior!

The point of using pop-rush in Feudalism is that food is never corrupted. You may only be producing 1 gold and 1 shield in a distant town, but a food bonus will provide both specialists AND more culture improvements. It's kinda parallel to 3rd-world countries producing lots of babies who will grow up to become cheap labor, subservient to their masters, literally working themselves to death.