Need help making the jump

[Maben]

Lol yeah sorry for semi-jacking the thread, I just don't want to start a new thread and I figure it couldn't hurt to put more advice in the same thread lol.

What do you usually do with your capital city? I tend to find it's my leader in like everything so it's so hard to make my other cities good. It builds lots of wonders, so I want production, as a result I have lots of GP points so I want the national wonder, I have specialists and cottages there so I want to use science stuff as well. How far do you usually specialize your capital and what do you usually make it?

Edit: Btw I usually shoot for a cultural victory, trying to scoop up The Great Library, The Sistine Chapel, and to a lesser extent The Parthenon.

 

[namliaM]

I forget to mention that beeing a little agressive goes a long way, in this game aim to take out one of the two closer AI pre-ad.

Maben: Wonder-aholic allert.
First thing NO wonders are to be build unless you have a specific goal in mind. Try building a few more units and taking out the closest AI.
The best way I know for a cultural vic = Cottages + Lots of religions + Early Liberalism + Music (for cathedrals)
Kill science and put up the culture bar as high as possible and wait.

One thing you DO NOT WANT in a cultural game is the great lib, you get way to many GSs, you want as many Artists in a culture game you can get. A GS or two can help with getting some science going and the 4 culture for the acadamy are nice-ish but dont really compare to 12 (or 16, I forget) culture per turn of a settled Artist (+ 3 gpt) .

 

[davhey04]

Thanks for the responses all.

Huh - so no defense in the cities at all early? The idea had never occurred to me. Good point on the monuments too, I had forgotten about the culture boost I already had.

I'll lay low to see what other comments might come in from Verge, then I'll see if I can apply what I have learned on another 25-50 turns.

THANKS!

 

[Verge]

Dave,

Just started a shadow game. To reiterate what others have said, don't worry about defense at all, especially at warlords level. You don't need it at the start. I'm currently at 2760 BC and only now have I built a warrior (and it wasn't for defense either, as I mention below).

Here was my build list for Athens:
1) Work Boat
2) Work Boat
(Both took awhile to build)
3) Warrior (Because Athens was at happy cap, and I needed a unit to get the +1 happiness)
4) Almost done with worker. I put off researching Agriculture until I started the worker, timing it so I discover the tech and complete the worker roughly at the same time).

I wasn't lucky at all with huts, next build will be a settler since Athens will be at happy cap. My game is off, watching Entourage while I'm playing.

Will be teching writing after Agri.

 

[davhey04]

Can you explain what you mean by the happy cap? Just want to make sure I understand it correctly.

Thanks for all the time and help.

 

[JujuLautre]

the happy cap of a city is the number of happy faces of this city.

 

[Verge]

the happy cap of a city is the number of happy faces of this city.

Yeah, exactly. The happy cap for Athens at the moment is 5, so that means I let my population grow to 5. Letting it go past that means having unhappy citizens, and they are deadweight.

 

[davhey04]

Thanks - I wasn't sure if that was the pop cap ... i guess that's the term I had been using in my head for that. OK - I'm onboard

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Read some of the ALC threads
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5320091

It will help out massively and are an entertaining read

 

[Verge]

Dave,

How much warmongering do you want to see featured in my shadow game? A lot of players will extol the importance of heavy conquering at the highest difficulty levels, but for Warlord and intermediate difficulties, I consider a largely peaceful route to victory an entirely viable option and a good way to master city and empire-building strategies.

I'm at the point in my game where I'm thinking about possible future war plans, possibly smacking Zara or Pacal. (Asoka is the pushover of the three. If I want to conquer him later on, I'll just throw a brick or two at him and that should take care of it). Since you consider yourself a defensive player, you might find it more informative if I just eschew combat entirely and build my empire with a peaceful victory in mind. Otherwise, I can take a bat to a few of the AI throughout the game to demonstrate the benefits of moderate warring.

 

[davhey04]

Verge,

Well it's weird to think about telling someone how to play their game But if you wanted to mimic my play style - at least so far - I generally don't attack unless attacked. There are so many other games where combat is the whole point, so I like to explore the other options Civ offers.

I am aware on higher difficulties this may not be an option.

 

[namliaM]

I did just open your "25 turn save", wow is your position of the second city bad (IMHO)


I think it should go 1 north or 1 NE (yes missing the cows which would go in another city to the west) but 1 North from its current position, you are missing out on 2 FPs and the Insence tile which cannot be worked now unless you create a city cith considerable overlap with Sparta. Not that it is a bad think to overlap but still....

 

[Rub'Rum]

I'm on my own struggle towards the Noble difficulty myself. I said that in another thread, but I think my main flaw is building too many buildings. Just build the buildings that a city really needs... And even in a peaceful victory I find I need to pump up a lot of units to not become a target, so yeah, keep checking your "Power" graph and make sure you're not in the bottom tier at the very least. But yeah... Choosing what to produce with your cities more carefully is an important step. I'm not sure I'm very good at it either. It seems there's always something more interesting to build than military units...

 

[davhey04]

So - another 25 turns in the bank. I have tried to take some of the feedback you all have given. Only you can tell me if I have learned anything at all. As always I appreciate the time and comments you all make.

****
BRAIN LOG
****

Switched production in Sparta from Monument to Worker
Switched research to Bronze Working. WHY? So I can chop forests.

Started workers building cottages.

When work boat 1 is done in Athens, I queue up a second

Hard decisions start coming - always wanting to stay with namliaM's request of WHY - trying to think out WHY am I doing things.

BW is done. Do I enable Slavery? YES. WHY? There's more upkeep but if a city gets too big I can sacrifice to finish something and avoid the unhappyness

Athens finishes work boat 2. Decide to build Settler. WHY? Not as sure on this one, but other options seemed bad. Monument - don't need the culture. Defense? Already look good on the power graph.

Sparta finishes worker. Decide (after much agony) to build Granary. WHY? Even less sure here, but since Sparta is only a 1 and has lots of hills, it might have trouble growing.

New research: IW. WHY? To get jungle removal.

New worker from Sparta starts building a road between my two cities. WHY? So they can trade.

Road is complete. Workers now putting mines in the hills around Sparta, cottages around Athens. Third worker is chopping forests.

Zara Yaqob just tied me in score (turn 45). I'm still #1 in power but Akosa and Pacal are gaining.

Turn 50: A crossroads perhaps. IW is done, I queue up writing. WHY? It leads to Calendar (for Sparta's spices) and Alphabet (for tech trading). Zara passes me in power, but I take the lead back in score.
Settler3 is ready, looking at a spot southeast of Sparta near the coast with some Cows, but also wondering about a jungle spot directly south with 2 gems and 1 spice. Since Athens is now undefended with the warrior escorting the settler, I queue up an archer.

There you go - thanks all!

 

[namliaM]

Addopting slavery is never even an option ... allways do it... There is NO extra cost and its way better...

You switched immediatly from Monument to worker, while the city was just about to grow to 2? And you allready have 2 workers for your 2 cities, why the third worker? I would have started the Granary there at that point and grow to size 2 or even 4 to WHIP (BW!) the worker or even a settler. As a result you have to many improved tiles, not beeing worked. Obviously this will rectify itself in the future... But try to aim for "JIT" (Just in time) improving.

IW => Why? Yes to remove jungle, but when are you going to inlist workers to chop jungle? When you start settling jungle cities which is atleast 1 more (IMHO) away. The one you are about to settle and maybe even the one you can settle along the river to the west. But I think you should grab the Cow/Rice city then the Gems, Gems bring good commerce
Have the Cow/Rice city generate you atleast 1 GS, for an academy somewhere (capitol maybe or the Gems city).
There is a perfect production city just west of the Gems city, which you should grab ASAP too. Right ON the gems in that hilly/jungly bit, grabbing Banana and Rice for food to work them hills.

You researched BW for the whip and the chop, have you done either? I think you chopped 1 forrest and no whip yet so, why did you research it at that point? The settler you build would/could have made a good whip target
AH, which was selected at the end of last save would IMHO have been better, so you can get at those cows.

Now that you have BW and IW, you know there is neither Bronze or Iron in your near future, unless you get lucky with a mine... The nearest Iron is 10+ tiles away, making AH even more important to see where the horses are.
What is more, having more optional prereqs speeds up research of your target tech. You will want AH sooner rather than later, so I dont see a reason to do writing right now... rather do AH first and get the discount on Writing for having AH.
So Pottery => Writing is slower than Pottery => AH => Writing, which again is slower than Pottery => AH => Priesthood => Writing.
Offcourse the total beaker count to get to writing is more, so you delay writing a little, but if you intend to grab AH right after writing.... Do AH => Writing.


Now that you have not whipped the Settler, you can whip the Granary for 2 pop. The 25 hammers allready invested in the Granary will go to the Archer which will finish on the next turn.
The spot the settler is on right now looks good to me , food rulez in the early game and with rice and cows it has food and grass to be cottaged.

Why are you mining the hills around sparta? Currently you dont have the food to work them. Either you need to chop that banana (this is why you researched IW I presume) , farm it and get some food going... or forget about the mines and work the cottages.

You need to balance a little your EPs I think, the third demographics of Zara is just out of reach becuase he is only 1 EPT, if you giggle it a little and put him on 2 EPT leaving 1 each for the others....
While on the subject of Demographics, I hope you do know that the Power graph also shows technologies as power right? The three big bumps you see in your graph are Archery (I think), BW and IW.

One final thing, why are you not researching at 100%? You still have 120 gold left in the bank from the huts. In the early going 1 turn can make the difference of 10 turns in the end game. Get to researching allready

P.s. Sorry for the long-ish post

 

[davhey04]

namliaM,

Thanks for all the comments. I want to take a little time to read them all, but this one confused me:

"Have the Cow/Rice city generate you atleast 1 GS"

How can you force a city to produce a great person? I thought their appearance was mostly luck, though there are buildings/techs that make it more likely.

Thanks!!

 

[Rub'Rum]

If you build the wonders that encourage the birth of a great scientist for instance, that'll make it more likely that a GS will appear. Also, if you use the extra food to run scientist specialists, this also increases the odds of a GS appearing (this is true for the other types of specialists and their respective types of great people I believe). In any case, you can usually hover your mouse over the yellow bar in the lower right corner of the city screen and see how many turns are estimated until your next great person will appear, and what are the odds it's going to be a great scientists (or another kind).

 

[Verge]

This weekend has been absolutely packed for me, and will likely remain so for the next few days. As such, I haven't had the time to follow your game or play my shadow game, but I'll do so when things start clearing up later this week.

 

[namliaM]

How can you force a city to produce a great person? I thought their appearance was mostly luck, though there are buildings/techs that make it more likely.

No luck required.

What you need to do is get a library into that city and "force" 2 scientists to work. They each generate 3 Scientist points a turn for a total of 6, you need a 100 points to generate the Great Scientist, so keep the 2 scientists for 100/6 turns => One great scientist.

Seeing as you are Philosophical devide that again by 2 as you generate double the points.

 

[davhey04]

***TURN LOG***

Changes at the start based on comments:

- Research upped to 100%. This puts me a -1 GPT, but I have 120.
- Bumped my Zara EPs so I can catch him up to the others
- 'Whipped' a Granary at Athens. First time I've ever done this. Athens is scheduled to grow in 2 turns.
- Taking namliaM's advice, I build Corinth right where the settler is standing. I have Corinth work on a new settler

51: Once the Granary is done, I see the hammers 'banked' just as namliaM said they would - so I get an archer in one turn. Good thing to, the power graph is starting to bunch up. My scouts are starting to run out of territory to explore. Started construction of an Athens-Corinth road

52: With Athens' archer done, not sure what to build next. I am having a real hard time will build decisions. I ponder the workboat to reach the (now reachable) 3rd fish, but Athens is only a 2. I decide on another archer which I can send to Sparta - which is looking more like a 'frontline' city.

56: Writing is done - which is good since my cities are running out of things to build. Sparta starts a library and I pick AH for the next research.

59: AH is done. Time to get at all those cows. Plus an added bonus - Horses right next to Athens! Horse Riding is selected as the next research.

60: Zara gives me a call, wants Open Borders. In the past I have always said no to this, but I think it might be making everyone hate me. He seems to be my big rival for the score lead at the moment, but I say Yes anyway. On the same turn, my scouts find Iron near Zara but he hasn't settled near it yet.

61: Athens finishes the Archer destined for Sparta and is now unhappy. With my second ever use of the whip, I get the Library done fast.

62: Scouts find barbarians south of Zara, maybe they will give him trouble. Heh heh. I decide that since Athens makes military units so fast, I'll build a barracks there and use Ath to supply defense to my other cities. I also do something else I have never done - I turn one of Athens citizens into a Scientist. I'm just experimenting at this point.

66: One of the barbs takes out one of my scouts. His partner basically finishes the exploration of the continent. Zara's scouts enter my territory. I note that the already good city location southeast of Sparta now has horses in the radius too. Corinth needs to finish that settler, which I probably should have built somewhere else.

67: Horseriding is done. With the continent explored, 3 turns on Sailing seems like a good investment.

70: Akosa calls, wants open borders and I agree. Corinth's settler is done and on the way to the site, with some workers following. Sailing finishes and I pick Mathematics to get to Calendar.

72: Thebes is founded, and Athens dispatches the newly minted (and defense trained) archer to protect it. Athens starts a galley. I put my espionage back to even. With Thebes my GPT drops to -6, so I moved research back to 90%

75: Athens is unhappy again, and I notice the scientist I created is gone. Hmm - I need to understand why that happened. As I save the game, I have opened up a bigger lead on score and still have a slight edge on Power.

**HAPPY/UNHAPPY**

I note at this point that I still do not completely understand the 'Happy Cap' and how I can see where that Cap is before reaching it. After looking at the Civlopedia entry, I am a little more enlightened. Tell me if I am right here: A city generates one unhappy face for each 'size'. So a City of 6 has 6 unhappy faces. All I have to do is look at the potential happy face generators in a city to see when that city will become unhappy. Let me try with Sparta, circa turn 52:

Athens: Size 2
Unhappy faces: 2 from crowding (the size 2), 1 from the whip of 2 turns ago.
Happy faces: 1 from a building (the palace), 4 from 'enjoying life'. Not sure where the 'enjoying life' comes from.

It would seem though that under present circumstances when Athens reaches size 5 it will become unhappy. Am I right on that? (This is assuming it reaches 5 before the whip effect wears off - just trying to understand the concept)

**GENERAL**

I am trying new things, like whipping and specialists, but I still feel like I am getting at least as much wrong as I am right. Deciding what to build is very hard, but at least I know I am putting more thought into these decisions than I used to.

Thanks as always for all the great feedback.