My Huge Sid Milk Run

[Chamnix]

IBT – The Mongol bombardment intensifies. The Zulu have another longbow already! How are they doing that so quickly? The Russians capture a Mongol city while I watch.

1020 AD – Another 5 Aztec cities come down leaving them with 7 on the mainland, another 3 Ottoman cities are captured, and 1 Russian town autorazed. As far as I can tell, the Ottomans are now down to 1 city. I hope they’ll talk peace soon because I would like to get Industrialization from them before finishing them off.

This time the Zulu longbow obligingly lets my lone mounted warrior produce a leader so the mounted warrior becomes a cavalry.

We are up to a few hours per turn now. I find myself thinking, “Oh, please, let this be the last worker I have to move this turn . I promise I’ll never play just one more turn ever again when I should be going to work…”

I decide to disband all my bombardment units although it will take a couple turns to get them home since they are not on roads anymore. I haven’t been using them, and I desperately need settlers faster. I’ve got 40 towns working on settlers, but I want them NOW. If I have to build more artillery for the eventual Russian war, then I will, but I may just be attacking Russia with tank armies instead. For now, I chop settlers as quickly as I can. I will have 12 more complete next turn.

I’m planning on saving Russia for later – they won’t get any more advanced weaponry beyond what they have now, and I’d rather conquer faster to get to the domination limit. I think I will raze all Russian towns north of the place the continent narrows, and block them off there with armies so they can’t be attacking me from behind while I march through the Mongols and Americans.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

A longbow is 40 shields - for a sid AI, that's 16, so they are making 8 shields per turn? That's a cow and two hills - is that possible?

 

[Chamnix]

No - the city is size one and doesn't have a single tile except the city center .

 

[Spoonwood]

Does the AI cash-rush?

 

[Chamnix]

They probably do, but where would the money be coming from? They certainly aren't making much per turn, so they would have had to save for a while without rushing anything and then rush the longbows they had every other turn .

 

[Marsden]

Does the AI get full value for a disbanded unit? IOW would they get 10 shields back from a disbanded longbow that cost them 16? Also, if the AI is running a deficeit it could be having improvements sold. They probably get the full value of the improvement in gold even though they only pay 40%.

 

[Chamnix]

IBT – Babylon and Russia sign peace.

1030 AD – I give the Babylonians furs and saltpeter to go back to war with the Russians. I don’t think the Babylonians are doing any harm, but I don’t want them sending their spare luxury to Russia.

I have no units in Mongol territory, and there are no Mongolian cities I can attack this turn, so we sign a very temporary peace. We sign peace, and I pick up 2 workers, 235 gold, and a world map for 19 gpt, and then I redeclare war.

Four more Aztec cities are downed, and I don’t think I will have any trouble taking the remaining 3 continental cities next turn.

The majority of my 750+ workers are on settler-chopping duty, so I will have another 20 settlers next turn.

 

[Spoonwood]

With your cash you might try...

place a warrior or some cheap unit over your saltpeter and your iron sources and sufficient workers to re-road those tiles in one turn. Pillage the saltpeter and iron sources. Change all military builds to mounted warriors. Then reconnect before the next turn (and before you railroad elsewhere). When each city pops up saying it has built a mounted warrior, zoom to the city and immediately upgrade to a cavalry on the interturn. Poof... 2 or so turn cavalry, since the upgraded unit can move on the next turn. Of course Communist Iroquois don't work as best for this, but that's another game.

 

[Elear]

We are up to a few hours per turn now. I find myself thinking, “Oh, please, let this be the last worker I have to move this turn . I promise I’ll never play just one more turn ever again when I should be going to work…”

I feel for you, even 400-500 workers is a nightmare.

 

[Blanchflower]

nods.

I once played a demigod conquest game to near the end before realizing I had respawn on. That sucked.

I too faced the same experience!!

 

[Donny Brook]

With your cash you might try...

place a warrior or some cheap unit over your saltpeter and your iron sources and sufficient workers to re-road those tiles in one turn. Pillage the saltpeter and iron sources. Change all military builds to mounted warriors. Then reconnect before the next turn (and before you railroad elsewhere). When each city pops up saying it has built a mounted warrior, zoom to the city and immediately upgrade to a cavalry on the interturn. Poof... 2 or so turn cavalry, since the upgraded unit can move on the next turn. Of course Communist Iroquois don't work as best for this, but that's another game.

If you know RP, can you disconnect rubber and iron to produce warriors instead of infantry/guerillas? I know, for instance, that disconnecting iron alone will allow you to produce warriors instead of riflemen, even once Nationalism is known.

 

[Spoonwood]

I'd think so on the infantry, I don't know about the guerillas.

 

[Calis]

@Chamnix: I hope you are not pausing due to lack of interest in the game, but time due to lack time!?

 

[Chamnix]

I actually have played most of the next turn, but I figure one update per turn is plenty. The slow pace is mainly due to lack of time, but I have to admit I have not exactly gone out of my way to make time for it recently .

 

[Spoonwood]

Score – 7265. That’s less than half of all 3 80K games, but it is a decent lead over SirPleb’s 64K game, so my goal of 70K is hopefully still within reach.

To give people more detail here... I've looked at those a little with CRP Viewer. Each of those 3 80k games have over 60% of the territory already used by 1000 AD. Moonsinger's # 1 game had 65.78% of the territory (she built libraries and univeristies in her core in the late 900s either through cash-rush or massive disbandment rush or a comb of the two... and she still had some clean-up wars to go) with a score of 19,286. Kuningas's game had 65.81% of the territory and a score of 16,370. Moonsinger's # 3 game had 62.84% of the territory with a score of 17,790. From what I can tell, all three of those make for a really fast creep towards the domination limit probably for most levels on a Huge map where you need to war signficantly for territory. SirPleb's Sid game had a score of 6531 with 29.92% of the territory at this point. Chamnix's Deity game had 49.62% of the territory, Killercane's Deity game had 47.59% of the territory, Tone's Deity game had 39.66% of the territory. Donny Brook's Emperor game, which just set a record, had 31.98% of the territory at 1000 AD. Interestingly enough, the top three games come as Maya games and the other ones I've mentioned all come as Iroquois games (though you can find Maya games in lower scoring positions on some of these tables also). Maybe the top ones move faster, because of something to do with planting forests near corrupt towns and chopping for artillery there, and planting and chopping for units in the core with industrious workers? Still, even with that and other advantages of industrious workers... I have a hard time seeing how those games got near the domination limit that fast... especially since they also did so while maintaing quite a high degree of happiness.

Edit: Each of the top three games played capture and keep. I think they lose some cities on flips at some points, but that's probably nowhere as big a deal as too many of us (myself included!) seem to believe. I know Moonsinger used a Republic... a captured city flipped I doubt will raise war weariness, since you can lose cities on cultural flips while at peace. Throw in industrious workers that plant and chop in cities with resisters for workers/settlers and things start to make a little more sense. I don't believe any of the referenced Iroquois games played capture and keep. They played raze and replace. The top three games just didn't garrison all too many (if any) units in captured cities after the first turn it got captured (I don't believe a city can flip on the interturn after you capture it). *Some re-flips happened*, but with increased settlers from the get-go from captured cities, and captured cities kept from the beginning, a faster creep towards the domination limit beginst to make sense... I think.

Edit: Maybe that doesn't work... Killercane's game seems to use keep and capture also... but maybe the faster workers end up mattering that much.

 

[notthat]

My insights:
Keeping the cities is definitely the way to go. I'm learning the ins and outs of it in my current game ATM. If you can eliminate your opponent that's obviously a great way to prevent flips. Once railroads kick in, You are really only wasting 2-3 cavalry turns on recapturing the flipped city. I didn't take into account that cities can't flip in the turn after capture (is that so? I don't believe I've had one flip on me immediately after), which would be great, since you can camp your army there and remove a lot (all?) of the resistors. Chopping settlers out of resisting towns also seems like a neat trick to be considered. I haven't used it so far. I probably will from now on.

That being said, eliminating your opponent requires either luck with the map layout, or a lot of planning forward, sending a force out to the other side of the world before hand to take out those 3 size 2 cities he has somewhere. Alternatively you could demand them in peace negotiations, but then you are still facing 20 turns of peace unless you don't mind about the rep or can trick the AI into declaring war on you.

I would say the biggest wowzomgamagad thing about the top games (Though I mostly went through Moonsinger's 88k game) is the speed in which she managed doing her conquest part. For getting that score edge, you really want to get to maxed land asap. That's something I haven't quite learned how to do yet. Rails is obviously key, so you want a fast tech pace. The sooner railroads kick in the better for the human player. Additionaly you want to avoid fighting against the AI SODs as much as possible. Go around them, raze / conquer the cities, and try for elimination as fast as possible. Use armies to accomplish this. Make blockades, and don't let them reach your cities. If they can't be stopped, sometimes they can be fooled by leaving a city empty drawing them to it. Especially if their stack is only defensive units.

When fighting a strong enemy have everyone declare on him. That will deny him of luxuries forcing him to waste citizens as entertainers at his core. Just remember you won't be able to make peace for 20 turns.

As for republic / monarchy, I STILL don't see how republic comes out better. War weariness is a . .. .. .. .. ., and you will get 100% war weariness with any opponent you're fighting.

Micromanaging well is key here. You wanna use all the tricks you've picked up over the ages. Make your cities produce 'magical' number of shields for the units you want to build. If you can't reach magical numbers, see if you can cut a turn by rushing a certain unit mid way each time you accumulated a certain number of shields.
I've learnt to use policemen. They are very good in your area that is just totally corrupt (90%), but isn't quite really really corrupt. You can get some 5-7 spt in cities who would otherwise only have 1. 1 shield > 2 gold from taxman.
In your really corrupt towns you want to make sure every citizen is working irrigated / rr tile, and you hire taxman / scientists. This is annoying, but we do what we must ^^

 

[Spoonwood]

Alternatively you could demand them in peace negotiations, but then you are still facing 20 turns of peace unless you don't mind about the rep or can trick the AI into declaring war on you.

You sure you get a rep hit here? The deal doesn't last 20 turns... only until war gets redeclared.

Rails is obviously key, so you want a fast tech pace.

Moonsinger's notes that I got from Elear say something like that she didn't have rails until the last war or so.

As for republic / monarchy, I STILL don't see how republic comes out better. War weariness is a . .. .. .. .. ., and you will get 100% war weariness with any opponent you're fighting.

I know in my Deity game I've faced large stacks with a Republic and haven't had too significant of war weariness. Granted, it's not Sid, but I think the key lies in not losing cities, fighting mostly offensively and winning battles, and maybe even disbanding units in favor of armies with units in them (since hardly anyone loses an army). So, the first war might have weariness, but after that, if you can unit/cash rush a bunch of armies, one can do alright. I know Moonsinger's game used a Republic.

 

[Elear]

Part of avoiding war weariness in Republic is waging wars in right way. Never declare on your opponent, have them declare on you. Aim for as many luxuries as quick as possible. Install Markets in all your cores. Use the luxury slider liberally. Don't let your units get captured/attacked unnecessarily. Destroy the enemy stacks at your border before you go on the offense.

 

[Spoonwood]

Do you mean making sure they can't capture a border city Elear? One might manage to bombard all the units in those stacks down and let them retreat while going on the offense.

 

[Elear]

Do you mean making sure they can't capture a border city Elear? One might manage to bombard all the units in those stacks down and let them retreat while going on the offense.

That's part of what I was implying. If you get the stacks idly wandering around near where you are stronger and can control them (your borders), you can then use the AI programming to waltz through their cities. The stacks will be confused whether to go defend their cities or attack yours and end up doing nothing of value.

I think everyone knows this to an extent, but if it's done right, it can really help ensure you can keep in Republic.