My current game: Americans part 1

[ChiefSparkY]

Inspired by Jarvisc's recent thread, I thought I'd give you a little waffle about my current game, for anyone who likes reading such stuff. When I play Civ, I play in a style that is most fun to me - there are certainly ways to play "better" but I like the way I play - just a little disclaimer!

I'm playing as the Americans on King. It's currently 1210AD and I'm doing pretty well. I'm on a long thin island and within my first few turns, I bumped into a Roman unit coming from the north, who soon fortified outside one of my cities (I soon built a Diplomat and bribed him - I wasn't ready for war, not yet).[screenshot 1] Well, I always love the early land grab so my plan was to push out from Washington and gain some ground with cities to the north, before the Romans took that area. Then I would simultaenously settle south of Washington while picking off Roman cities. It turned out that the Romans were squeezed into the north part of the island and only had one city, Rome, so I pushed the tax rate up to maximum and started up my military machine. I figured that sacrificing few turns of science production would be worthwhile to claim this whole island for myself and longer term security. I moved some Militia and Phalanx units up around Rome and lay siege, blocking off their access to vital shields while I started producing Catapults and buying them near the end of their production, to save a few turns - I also built a road network all the way to Rome, in case the war took longer than expected. It didn't - as I was getting ready to attack, I moved a Diplomat into Rome and found they only had one Phalanx defending it. I sent my Catapults in and it was only a few turns before Rome fell [screenshot 2].

The island was mine and I turned my focus to science and lovely gold. I built a few Settlers and set about transforming my island to ensure every square that was being worked had a road on it. I also built a Trireme to explore the local waters and starting construction of a few caravans, just in case. The only thing my boat found was an island to the south-east of America [screenshot 3]. It was a small little island but as America was well settled with cities, I was yearning for some more land to build on so eventually moved a couple of military units onto the island - plus it was a little too close to America for comfort, I didn't want it used as a military base by a competitor. It turns out, I wasn't the only people interested in this tiny patch of land - the Mongols and the Greeks had some units there already, but no cities. For the next few hundred years, I pestered the island to prevent cities being built, while I got ready to settle it - which I've now done with two cities but I will be soon adding a third.

While I was pondering this little island, I was sending Sails with my Caravans out to the west. I discovered Egypt and, close by, Germany [screenshot 4]. I moved my Caravans into some of these large Egyptian cities and a large income was my reward. It looks like the Egyptians are far more powerful than the Germans. I expect a large war between Egypt and America in the future - so far, they have just landed a few units near my cities, which were blown away by my cannons. I haven't sent any military units to Egypt but when I do, I won't stop until I take it! But that's for the future.

I've also explored to the east a little and discovered Greece. I know very little about them and I will be sending many more units out there very soon. It looks like a very large land and I see little evidence of strong Greek cities!

So the Republic of America is going to become a naval nation. We have a couple of Ironclads to rule the seas and we are beginning production of Battleships. Most of the American cities are prone to attack from landing units - none are very far inland, so having naval units on guard, circling our island is a good way to ruin any surprise attacks. And Greece is in my sights - Egypt looks a little too strong and far away so I will use her for income with my Caravans - but Greece looks large and weak and I'm on my way…

 

[ChiefSparkY]

So, after my last post I took a break - when I started again, I almost immediately ran into serious trouble. If I sounded confident previously, that's because I was - America was number 1 in population and I was sure we were also number 1 in knowledge. But, as I said, my cities were prone to attack because they were nearly all right beside the coast. Within a few turns, I was under serious attack and any ambitions of taking on Greece to the east faded rapidly.

The Egyptians landed in the south, at Atlanta, a small little city with little defense [screenshot 1]. I hate sharing a continent and there was no way I was going to let them keep Atlanta. As I scrambled to get my small military to Atlanta to attempt to retake it, I was attacked again in the north - the Germans took St Louis and the Egyptians took Chicago [screenshot 2]. This was the tipping point that many Civ players recognize, the point of no return. This was around a quarter of my cities taken now but more importantly, I was in no position to wage wars against two other strong Civs to take my cities back, never mind defend the cities I still had.

My civ had to take drastic action or it was finished - using my own railroads, it wouldn't be long before the enemy was marching through my other cities. So, as a last ditched attempt to get some military units into the field, I started rapidly selling off city improvements. Over the course of a few turns, almost every single improvement I had was sold, to pay for fast completion of units. Science ground to a halt - it was now a matter of survival, I no longer had any spaceship ambitions.

Slowly, we regained some ground, retaking what was ours although Rome was captured [screenshots 3 and 4] and retaken several times, as was St Louis and Chicago. This had the side effect that although I was now falling far behind in science, each time I took back my cities from the Egyptians or the Germans, I was gaining knowledge from them. Not enough to keep up but enough to gain Battleships, Bombers and Artillery. With my Civ stabilized, I turned my weak little Civ into a manufacturing powerhouse - Factories, Power Plants and Mfg Plants were built and we pushed out enough units to defend our coastline and then to start to challenging other Civs again. Apart from the odd skirmish, the Egyptians and Germans pulled back and didn't make any further serious attempts to take my cities.

I sent a couple of Battleships over to Egypt in the west to smash up their defenses and make them a little afraid. At the same time, I sent a Transport accompanied by a couple of Battleships, to the east and started capturing the weak Greek cities that I had planned to take hundreds of years earlier. [screenshot 5].

By this point, most of the Civs were starting to produce spaceship components - I hadn't even acquired enough knowledge for such an undertaking although I was rapidly catching up. I even started to challenge Egypt and took a city - given more time, we would certainly of marched through the Egyptian cities. The Germans were far more formidable and their spaceship had now been launched - they were going to win.

I considered playing on for a while, to see how the world would turn out. I'm pretty sure the Americans would taken the Greek and Egyptian cities pretty quickly - the Mongols were to the north of the Greeks and would have taken some time to finish off. I was never quite sure where the Babylonians were in the world, although they badgered my coastline now and then. It was the Germans who were number 1 in knowledge and appeared to be the strongest militarily. I imagine the world would have come down to a showdown to our two nations. We'll never know! I lost interest as I knew it would take a long time to discover this outcome - maybe 20 years ago I'd have had the time to do this but nowadays, my Civ time is too limited (just a few games a year).

Looking back, we were always going to have trouble once other Civs started taking to the seas. America's land was thin and long and prone to attack from the water and I wasn't ready when the enemy came. I had hoped to move my capital and build a load more Caravans to increase trade but once the land was invaded by two other Civs, survival was the only thing that counted. I really enjoyed this game - in the last few games I've played, the other Civs didn't make this same sort of persistent attempt at taking my cities so it was a nice change. Looking forward to my next game!

 

[CivZ]

Oddly enough, it's quite entertaining to read about other people's games, especially when screenshots are provided.

But, just wondering, why don't you defend your cities? Is the gain from shifting production elsewhere that high?
I always try to have at least a couple of units in each city.

 

[ChiefSparkY]

Oddly enough, it's quite entertaining to read about other people's games, especially when screenshots are provided.

It's incredibly nerdy to type up a game summary but then, in gaming terms, we're probably eccentric nerds to be still playing such an old game anyway.

But, just wondering, why don't you defend your cities? Is the gain from shifting production elsewhere that high?
I always try to have at least a couple of units in each city.

I play a very expansionist game - I love sending Settlers out into the world and growing my network of cities. Unless another Civ is in close proximity (as the Romans were in this game), I rarely wage war early in the game as I put everything into expansion, economy and science. This normally means I'm far ahead in science by the middle of the game and only then I do I decide to turn to war - I build a massive army and choose the order in which I will start demolishing other Civs.

This means that in the early game, I don't have a lot of units and the ones I do have are placed in cities on the outskirts of my Civ so that I can tackle most invaders before they get too far. The shape of the land in this game meant that this strategy was always going to fail as all my cities were vulnerable to attack at the same time.

I don't pretend this is a good way to play the game in terms of the best mathematical approach (it's obviously not) - but it's the most fun to me!

 

[kirkham7]

I think it depends on what civilizations are nearby and how you want to go about playing the game. You can focus on production of city improvements, military conquest, or some sort of combination. Its all up to how you want to play. Personally, I like to colonize as much as possible and let the other civilizations fight it out.

 

[Theov]

Why'd you wait so long with irrigating? (pic 2).
What I like to do lately is let the other tribe (rome in this case) have and develop some cities. 3 mostly, to prevent them from getting to powerful.

I understand safety is important, but some strategically placed units prevent them from growing too far.

Nice job of using Caravans as your expedition group. I like that.

Ahhhhhhh man. I hate it when they take one of my original cities.
When you have rails, always keep some attacking units around (how many did you have?) so you can knock off anyone that lands on your island. They didn't land INTO the city, did they?

When I get attacked and I recover from it, it's an all out war towards their capital.
Nice game. Well done - to bad they took those cities. It again means you should never let the AI get too far.
Better to weaken them, than to grow yourself.

 

[jarvisc]

Hey c.sparky, I thought I'd join in and say thanks for your post!! I really enjoyed reading about your game. I like how you surrounded Rome so thoroughly and fortified units on their "production" squares, that's a strategy that never occurred to me. I also adore how two enemy civs attacked you at once while you had few defenses. The panic from that moment sounds precious. Then, it's great how you had to sell improvements to rally an emergency defense force.

Personally, I think a game that is close or where the enemy civs beat you can be more exciting than if you win. Thanks for sharing your game!

 

[ChiefSparkY]

Why'd you wait so long with irrigating? (pic 2).

We were still a Despotism at this point. I sometimes skip Monarchy and hang on for Republic.

Ahhhhhhh man. I hate it when they take one of my original cities.
When you have rails, always keep some attacking units around (how many did you have?) so you can knock off anyone that lands on your island. They didn't land INTO the city, did they?

I forget now but I remember them landing strong attacking units on a mountain right beside one of the cities that were captured - I wasted the only few units I had in the area, trying to destroy those units!

 

[ChiefSparkY]

Hey c.sparky, I thought I'd join in and say thanks for your post!! I really enjoyed reading about your game. I like how you surrounded Rome so thoroughly and fortified units on their "production" squares, that's a strategy that never occurred to me.

Those units stunted Rome's growth as soon as I found it. I wasn't quite ready to attack them so that was to prevent them taking up anymore of "my" continent - it stopped Rome growing and it stopped them heading east.

I also adore how two enemy civs attacked you at once while you had few defenses. The panic from that moment sounds precious.

I knew at that point that I probably couldn't win and I wasn't sure whether to play on or not - "victory" from that point was survival and defending my continent so I kind of succeeded

 

[Dancika]

Why don't you use railroad for all land around the city?

 

[Dancika]

Just because if you do it, the cities will grow easier, faster, because of the much more food. And of course, if u have enough money, you can steal the enemy's settlers, and use them to irrigate, and to make roads for free

 

[ChiefSparkY]

When I get Railroads, my initial goal with them is to link up all my cities for defence (as I like to have a small but advanced military). In this particular game, it was a struggle to even get that done

 

[wujinlong]

why not destroy or capture The enemies countries in near your countries ?

 

[Dancika]

Wujinlong has right, if the enemies are in near your cities, you're not able to use the lands, where they stand. kill them all