Needing more Strategic Resources

[vmxa]

"Illuminous"
"I'm not good at managing city's, I don't completely understand specialists."

It is easy enough. Just go to city view and look at the tiles and see what is the best one to work at that point. Specialist have a function and you just have to get familiar with them and decide, if any of them can help now in that town.

Taxmen you understand, I am sure. 100% corrupt town, you make 13 gold and get 1. Got enough food to feed the pop, without all of them working? Flip some to tax and get 2 gold each NET.

Scientist, same just get 3 beakers net.

The others you do not even need to worry about. Jokers you understand. You can use a cop at times to gain a shield in large town. Engineers are great in the right place.
You use them to get shields to hurry up stuff in mediocore towns. Just note that they do not work on all things (troops). Swell for getting that aqua up sooner.

"Colosseums keep the citizens happy and increase culture, why ditch them?. That improves my score, no?"

Yes they do, so what? They are expensive in shields and you pay main on them. You should learn to do without them. I sometimes relent and slip one in a metro, but that is later in the game.

What do I care about culture? Understand that I have no interest in culture. What does it do? Well it is a way to win, but I am not going to win via culture. Once you get up to the highest levels, you will not match the AI in culture. Not even close.

Border expansion does have its place and you probably will benefit from it at times. How much culture is enough to pop a border? 10 is all you need for that. A lib will do just fine for that. A temple or a lib. Most of my towns will have neither anyway.

140 shields that is 2 knights.

Score, not even going to look at it. I just hit escape as fast as I can at the end of the game. You want a high score, play conquest and milk the map. That means fill it with lots of towns and do not kill everyone off, till you get all the land.

"I don't need Smith's Trading Company and banks, correct?."

That is a loaded question. You do not need any wonders, just some help more than others. If you have banks, then it good. If you do not have banks and hence no stock exchanges, it is not important. I will have few, if any and only a few harbors.

I can pay for my markets, they pay thier own way. Again making banks means not making troops and troops is how I take their land. Squeeze in some during lulls, no harm. As long as the cities are worth it and you are not using 100 of the slider for research and lux.

If I have a free bank everywhere and run 70% research and 30% kux, what do I get from my banks?

"Walls cost nothing to maintain, why sell them?."

They cost nothing, but are not functional in a city or a metro. May as well take the gold. The real question is did you need that wall in the first place?

"Am I at least doing a little better?. How does the city placing look to you?"

I like it.

 

[Illuminous]

I didn't read all the info provided yet but it looks very useful. Here's the newest save, I assigned more citizens to tax collectors increasing my income - especially in the tundra areas.

I ditched Smith's Trading Company and opted for Magellan's Voyage for the extra movement.

I have 23 men being trasported to America - knights, immortals, ancient calvalry and crusaders. I demanded their world map and they agreed to it, but I'll wage war prior to the landing.

Trading techs with other civs and using up there gold in the beginning, really helped me win the tech race. It slowed there progress, it wasn't the library's - also, I got philosophy first for an extra tech.

 

[vmxa]

Sounds like you got things going.

 

[Illuminous]

America waged war on me before I had a chance. I took six of their city's, including their capitol (Washington). I got four army's out of it, allowing me to build the Pentagon, Heroic Epic and Military Academy. I now own two silk and The Temple of Artemis, including territory where oil spawns. There's coal near Chicago and it's owned by America, they took it from the Incan's. I razed one of their city's and used a settler to build one in a better spot.

The only reason the war ended was due to war weariness, I was lossing production in my city's due to starvation. In one city the riot caused a temple to be destroyed.

America stole on of my remote city's in the far south in Incan territory - it had iron. I only had two crusaders guarding it.

In the peace talks I recieved their one gold piece, world and territory map, and printing press.

How soon after can I start war again without WW doing me harm, twenty turns?.

 

[undertoad]

Good stuff!

You've got the Americans on the run. One thing I noticed in your American campaign is something that often happens to me: all your great Knights (including an army) are tied up occupying cities - keeping people happy and just defending; so the campaign is a bit stalled.

Having enough cheap defending units on hand to free up the good attackers to go and attack the next city is a problem I always run into, however much I bring along loads of defenders. Did some famous general say something about a campaign only going as fast as the pace of the slowest unit, or did I just make that up?
Bring more defenders along, and you'll proceed faster, but then run into the same problem eventually. You can never have enough cheap defenders in a campaign. And beyond the first defender in a city (maybe first 2 if the enemy is counter-attacking a lot), really any unit will do - a conscript Warrior at 1hp will keep the peace/defeat resistance just as well as an Elite Infantry.

One meta-solution is if you know you've knocked out the enemy's mobility (e.g. disconnected their only Horses) and eliminated most of their fast units. Just leave their cities lightly or undefended and carry on to the next lot. Let them resist, starve, flip, whatever, just sort them out later. Doesn't work if there are other civs close by looking for cheap wins.

It becomes more of a problem after Gunpowder - because you're not allowed to build the cheapo Pikemen any more. (As a Persian, you still have the cheap Immortals available as a build). Why build expensive Musketmen when all you need is an obsolete unit?

Here's a suggestion: swap Ivory for Furs from the Greeks, which will make your Marketplaces really start pumping out the happy-vibes. They've got hardly any gold, so they'll probably be glad of the boost from your Ivory (might even give you money/Music Theory if you chuck some of your gold into the deal). This could free up some old Pikemen/Warriors from home which are currently acting as MP (military police, i.e. keeping the city from disorder).

The other key is RAILS. War suddenly works a million times better when you've got a railway to the front (OK, for you on islands, it'll be to your home loading point and from the American unloading point forwards). This is because the lack of defensive units at the front is always at least partly caused by their slow pace: whatever they are (Spears, Pikemen, Immortals, Muskets), they move half as fast as Horsemen/Knights/Cavs. With a strategic railway line, a defender produced at home becomes useful at the front on the very next turn (in a home-continent campaign), or at worst within 4-5 turns (when a short sea voyage is involved).

My first step on getting Steam Power (given coal) is to build a single line from my core to the front (or to sea loading/unloading points if the war is overseas - see the stuff I wrote in my sig), ignoring railing productive tiles at first in favour of just getting the line completed. So I'd suggest conquering Tepet-whateverthehellit'scalled ASAP and getting that Coal connected up. It's got a Harbor - but Harbors have a nasty habit of disappearing the moment you conquer the city.

I noticed you're in Feudalism - otherwise I'd say use your cash to rush a ship in New Merv or Chicago. Ferry some units and Workers across (the latter to clear&road/clear the Coal square). But you can't cash-rush in Feudalism - and that makes building a new Harbour in Tepet-thingy if the original one disappears a very long job.

I prefer Monarchy as a warmongering government for this reason - also, it doesn't hit you with an evil 3gold/unit maintenance cost once you hit the support limit. (On this last, you're at 149 units out of 251 allowed so you're fine for the moment; but watch out, in Feudalism the number of "free units" supported per settlement decreases as the settlement grows (town = <size 7 = 5 units supported; city = size 7 to 12 = 2 units supported). Building a lot of units, and having a lot of towns grow beyond 6 at the same time, could give your economy a nasty surprise; it's not close, but keep an eye on your number of units in the Military Advisor screen).
Also, in answer to one of your questions, in Monarchy you get no war weariness at all! Because I'm a Monarch warmonger, I don't run into war weariness, but there's an article on it here.

Switch to Monarchy? CivAssist (again) gives you a fantastic tool on the Economy tab: change your government in the drop-down, and it tells you the effects. In Monarchy you'd be paying a mere 7/turn in unit support, as opposed to 0 now - so you'd be making -33 a turn rather than -26. But maybe a revolution is the last thing you need right now.
You've been pretty unlucky with the Coal placement. A very long shot would be to send some Workers over on a long journey to Arabia or Aztec-land and build a road on one of their Coal squares, so that they can trade it with you. They're not bothering to road it as they have no use for it.

"Illuminous"
What do I care about culture? Understand that I have no interest in culture.

That's a spot-on summary of where vmxa's advice is coming from - and how I play as well. Culture only has any interest for me in extending borders to stop the AI settling in "my" territory, and in preventing culture-flips in captured cities.

 

[vmxa]

I have never played in Feudalism, but I am not sure why. I would say there were good reasons. Two of them show in your game.

1) rushing does not use cash, pop can be painful. Need to use 3 pop to rush the item, but it is a size 3 town, what now?

Better example is took a town and want a wall, but town is size 1. Barrack is the same story.

2) WW

So if I have to deal with WW, why not be in Republic and get the two best features? Extra commerce and not having to have MP's.

You have known you were on a smallish island and it lacked some key resources. You could only gain more land via war. Giving that why not go to Monarchy? You get it sooner and it has no WW.

Yes it will slow down research, until you are much larger.

 

[vmxa]

On the stalling issue. It is common to have to have armies heal after a capture. This gives you the time to get some units in there to let the armies move on. The other course is to just raze all the towns.

Once you knock down a few towns, you slip in your settlers to start back filling. To supply the units to support the capture bit, you need to have a few towns making units non stop. Ships to get them to the front. Rails to speed up the ground travel.

These are all just logistics that you need to get familiar with, so you do not have to slow down as much. Cheap units in the rear, if in Monarchy or any MP gov. Better units in Republic as there are only there to deal with landings or end arounds.

The true front should have the forces to handle frontal counter attacks.

 

[Illuminous]

I'm currently researching Nationalism -then Communision, so I'll be switching to a Commie goverment. Should I start a revolution and switch to Monarchy regardless?. I try to use the least amount of gov's as to not slow progress.

I wanted to know if my people would riot if I restarted the war with America too soon.

I sent some settlers to repopulate the conquered city's with persians.

I use to use Monarchy all the time, I though I'd use another for a change. In a wierd way it's kinda nice seeing WW.

I going to attack the Hitties next, their land with be easy to take.

 

[vmxa]

I would not research Nationalism, unless I was being pressed on defense. It is an optional tech and I do not need it in most games. Don't really need Espionage, it is just nice. I can get to RP in one more tech and they are so far superior and it brings so many things.

I only make one switch per game, unless Religious. It will either be Monarchy or Republic. I am not going to research Commie either as I never use it and it is optional. So you are proposing to research at least two techs you do not have to research.

I would rather get to some much more useful tech sooner.

If you are in Feud, you need 20 turns of peace to rid yourself of WW from the war with America. Going back to war sooner will mean WW start form a point above zero. The closer to 20 turns the less the issue.

Nat does two things that you may want:
1) rifles
2) drafting

If I can get by without both, I will. I cannot tell you the last time I drafted. Not to say it has no value, just an uncommon tactic for me.

 

[Illuminous]

Yeah, rifles will be my main defence, I always liked Nationalism. Monarchy has poor unit support, but like you said - you can hurry production by paying the citizens gold. With Commie I have a higher success rate with espionage missions, and have less chance of being caught planting spys (unless the govement is Demo).

Communism
A.k.a.: Commie
Late game gov for large civs (3 city cores) that have corruption problems in far away potentially big cities.
Good for extended wars because there's no WW and good unit support. Also, you can whip foreign people in newly conquered cities to prevent revolts. Able to build the Secret Police HQ.

Worker Efficiency: 100%
Hurry Method: Forced Labor
Corruption: Communal
War Weariness: None
Draft Rate: 2
Military Police Limit: 4
Unit Support Town/City/Metro: 6/6/6
Notes: Higher chance of espionage mission success

Feudalism
Good for civs with small towns (under pop 6). You might actually want small towns because of the unit support - you can do that by whipping your citizens to hurry up production.
Also for countries that are behind at the start of a game and want to expand through war.

Worker Efficiency: 100%
Hurry Method: Forced Labor
Corruption: Problematic
War Weariness: Low
Draft Rate: 2
Military Police Limit: 3
Unit Support Town/City/Metro: 5/2/1
Notes: Units over the cap cost 3 gpt

Monarchy
The lack of war weariness (WW) can be more valuable than the commerce bonus in Republic and Democracy, if you plan to be at war for a long time.
The presence of military police can compensate a lack of luxuries and makes a good combination for small kingdoms at war and have an army a Republic can't support.

Worker Efficiency: 100%
Hurry Method: Pay citizens
Corruption: Problematic
War Weariness: none
Draft Rate: 2
Military Police Limit: 3
Unit Support Town/City/Metro: 2/4/8

 

[Illuminous]

I forgot to add that during the war, with research at 100%, a scientific leader was spawned allowing me to rush the Pentagon.

Prior to that, I was researching Leonardo's Workshop, and was beat by one friggin turn!. I had to switch to Smith's Trading Company instead.

 

[vmxa]

"Illuminous"
"Yeah, rifles will be my main defence, I always liked Nationalism. Monarchy has poor unit support, but like you said - you can hurry production by paying the citizens gold. With Commie I have a higher success rate with espionage missions, and have less chance of being caught planting spys (unless the govement is Demo)."

Let's see you would rather have rifles over infantry? You would rather burn a number of turns on a tech you do not need. Check

Monarchy has great unit support, you just have to have a large empire. That is my goal anyway. Same as Republic, large empire, plenty of unit support.

So again you want to research another optional tech, take the hit on a gov switch to have better spies. Spies you do not even need. Check

"Communism
A.k.a.: Commie
Late game gov for large civs (3 city cores) that have corruption problems in far away potentially big cities.
Good for extended wars because there's no WW and good unit support. Also, you can whip foreign people in newly conquered cities to prevent revolts. Able to build the Secret Police HQ."

Why do I need to take the time to make three cores, I only need one. By the time I am so big that commie could be considered, I have already got the game in the bag.

Like I have mentioned I do not care about corrupion, it is my friend. It does not hurt me, I just use those places as farms. Don't want to build SPHQ, it is a lot of shields, do not want to build Police Station or pay for their maint.

If I am large enough to use Commie, how many lux do I have? A lot I would think. A market is plenty and most places will not even get that. They do not need it. The are half specialist, so are quite well behaved.

What Commie does for me is to take a bunch of crap places and turn them into semi crap places and I have to build structures there, no thanks. What good are a bunch of 12-15 net shield cities, when I am making cavs/tanks/planes? I want a few places making lots of shields.

"Feudalism"
Not going to be a good choice as you have proven.

"Monarchy"
War or forget it.

That is my take on it.

 

[Illuminous]

Those are some good points!.

 

[Aabraxan]

I forgot to add that during the war, with research at 100%, a scientific leader was spawned allowing me to rush the Pentagon. . . . .

Ummmmmmmm . . . You could have used an MGL to rush the Pentagon or another small wonder. The only way to rush a Great Wonder is with an SGL. So you could have grabbed any available Great Wonder.

As for Nationalism, I frequently just skip it and head for RP. Rifles are OK, but they can't compare to Infantry. Besides, RP gets you knowledge of rubber and artillery.

 

[Illuminous]

Ummmmmmmm . . . You could have used an MGL to rush the Pentagon or another small wonder. The only way to rush a Great Wonder is with an SGL. So you could have grabbed any available Great Wonder.

I realise that, but I wanted the Pentagon pronto. I would have took something like nineteen turns otherwise.

As for Nationalism, I frequently just skip it and head for RP. Rifles are OK, but they can't compare to Infantry. Besides, RP gets you knowledge of rubber and artillery.

Well what do I do if I lose rubber or don't have it?.

 

[vmxa]

Then you learn Nat or trade for it or rubber.

Edit: I rushed this response. You really already would have a better unit with RP, the Guerilla. It is 6 defense and 6 attack, It has bombardment like archers. You could also steal Nat.

 

[Illuminous]

The last save that I uploaded to CFF I loaded up, and on the next turn the city of Washington and New York culture flipped and I lost control of them . I had to reload the save and abandon both of the city's. It's a real problem and it's constanly happening, what's the best way to deal with this?. Razing Washington meant that I lost The Temple of Artemis.

I switched over to Monarchy for the fun of it and I was losing money, because I had too many units. I needed to drop my science research to eighty percent to make a profit. I think I'll go commie instead, unless you convince me it's the better Goverment.

Another reason for researching Nationalism is the ability to make mutual protection pacts.


Found in the CivIII Info Center.
#

* City-Flipping Exposed:

Here are the factors that influence the probability of a city "flipping" and what the relative weight of each factor was. The base values used to determine the chance of city flipping are as follows:
1. The number of foreign nationals in the city in question (resisters are counted twice), and
2. The number of the 21-tile city-radius squares of the city in question that fall inside your cultural borders.

These numbers are then further modified by a variety of factors, applied multiplicatively. Here those are, in order of importance:
1. The ratio of distances to the respective capitals of both cities. Basically, if you're closer to your capital than the other city is to its capital, you've got a better chance of getting a flip.
2. The ratio of total culture points of both civs. Obviously, the better your culture is versus the opponent civ, the better your chance of getting a flip are.
3. Apparently each city has a "memory" and remembers the total amount of culture generated by any civ who has ever occupied it. This is the 3rd most important factor, because if the "attacking" civ has more historical culture in the city than the "defender", the chance of that city flipping to the attacker are doubled. This is one reason that conquered cities often flip back to their previous owners.
4. Civil Disorder in a city doubles the chance of that city flipping.
5. We Love the King (or whatever) Day in a city halves the chance of that city flipping.
6. Lastly, the number of land-based combat units (e.g., any unit with at least 1 point of offensive and defensive capability) in the city in question are subtracted. This factor is relatively low on the totem pole and this shows you why cities can flip even with huge militias garrisoned in them.

# Your total culture points will never decrease when a city is captured, however your culture per turn will decrease. When a city is captured, the conquering civ will gain no culture from any of the buildings in that city. If that city is reclaimed by its original founders, however, culture will once again be generated, but all age bonuses are lost.

* For example, I am Greek and my city of Athens houses the venerable Hanging Gardens, which have stood for 500 years. I might receive 50cp per turn from the Hanging Gardens due to their age. I might also receive 15 total cp per turn for all my other culture-producing buildings. If the Americans capture my city, they will receive 0 cp per turn from Athens, since all the buildings in Athens were built by the Greeks. If I later reclaim Athens, I will once again receive culture from it, but I might now only receive 20cp per turn for my Hanging Gardens because I no longer get the "age bonus" for having a 500-year old wonder. My other city buildings might also now only contribute 6 cp per turn.

# When a city from one civilization join's an opposing civilization's culture, the civilization that lost the city loses cultural points.
# You can't obtain any cultural benefits from existing structures in conquered cities. However, if you re-capture one of your former cities, the improvements and Wonders in that city will continue to generate culture. All existing culture points in a city are lost when it's captured.
# If culture becomes a major part of your strategy, you can continue to build a city with structures that increase cultural points until all of the borders join, forming a true civilization bound by a single culture.

 

[undertoad]

The Nationalism vs. straight to Replaceable Parts question is interesting: I've never passed over Nationalism and gone straight to RP as vmxa does.

For me MPPs are not interesting - they hand over foreign-policy control to the game, in that if civ B attacks my ally A, I'm automatically dragged into a war with B. And I might be getting a great gpt deal, a Lux resource important for happiness, or Coal/Rubber from B; so I can lose one of these things, and possibly lose my trade rep, without warning. I have no control over who B might be - it could be anyone! (AI civs often declare war on each other at this stage even when they have no territorial contact).

I also never use drafting, so that leaves Riflemen and the progression to Espionage as the only reasons to go for Nationalism. What value are Riflemen and Espionage?

1. The biggest advantage of Riflemen (apart from just being better defenders than Muskets) is that they're the only good defender that requires no resource. Coming between Muskets (saltpetre) and Infantry (rubber), this is a good reason to withhold Nationalism from other civs. Fighting an enemy without Nationalism, I can make his defences thin and irreplaceable by cutting his supply of Saltpetre - once he's got Nationalism, this is no longer possible. But a good reason to go for it myself?
Since techs become marginally cheaper to research (there's a formula somewhere) if one or more civs know them, I could be better off not researching Nationalism unless I'm going to use it effectively - that way the AI has to spend more effort researching it. I'm theorycrafting here, I've never actually not researched a tech for this reason. (Would be fun if there was an "inhibit research into e.g. Nationalism" feature, like the Church persecuting Galileo (Astronomy), to make it harder for AI civs to get a tech. Mind you, when France persecuted the Huguenot Protestants they just emigrated to Holland, got on with their lives there and made Holland rich - so inhibiting tech could be counter-productive!).

2. With a fast research pace (generally the case at this stage of my game), Riflemen's window of usefulness is pretty small before Replaceable Parts comes along. So they'd better be useful. Here my strategic Rails are relevant: even with a fast tech pace, by the time I discover RP, I've already had many Riflemen do good work putting their extra defensive power (over Muskets) to use at the front. Without the rails, I might well not have got any value out of Nationalism - just Riflemen sitting around on the road to the war.

3. Of course, if you end up with no Rubber, then Nationalism is really important. And you don't know beforehand whether you have Rubber. That said, you can guess - though the map can just be a bastard, as it's being in your game w/r to Coal. By "guessing", I really mean "have grabbed so much territory already that Rubber somewhere is a virtual certainty".

4. Espionage: I only use this to plant a spy and get a report on the enemy army in the Military screen. The other options (propaganda, for example), are just too expensive. I like it, but it's a luxury: and requires yet another Small Wonder (there are already too many available at this stage of the game: Pentagon, Military Acad, Iron Works, Heroic Epic) to work. Except that when I manage to cut off mobility (disconnect Horses), it's good to know that all fast mounted units have been knocked out, so that I can relax my defensive line a bit.

I might try vmxa's "straight to RP" route next game.

Cities flipping

A flip is not an irrecoverable disaster [EDIT: when you've recently captured it! When it's been yours for a while and is improved/gives access to a crucial resource, it's a different matter]. If I remember right (I just noticed that I have city-flips switched off in my current game - after taking so many precautions to prevent them for thousands of years!) a flipped city gets 1 standard defender, of the best quality available to the civ. With a large military force in the area (esp. if an Army is involved), turning round and retaking the city can be like swatting a fly.

What really hurts in a flip is losing the units in the city. This is why cheap defenders are so useful. Other bad effects are:

a) Losing freedom of movement because 9 tiles go over to the enemy's culture
b) A cascade effect where one flip cuts off the flow of your Luxuries to other captured cities: they go into disorder, and then flip themselves.

You can't absolutely prevent cities from flipping. I believe there is a number of units you can station in the city that will absolutely prevent a flip (CivAssist gives you this number), but it's incredibly high. I don't go for the "units in city" method: below the recommended number (which is very high), that's just risking more units. As soon as resistance is defeated, I make sure the city just has enough units in it to keep order (maximum 3 under Monarchy). The only things I can do to make flipping less likely are:

a) Make sure it doesn't go into disorder; and
b) Push out my cultural boundaries so that the city's 21-tile "fat cross" is mostly mine. I do this, as Commercial Greeks, by making a Library the first build - though this is risky, as even when completed it'll take 3 turns to "push" the culture outwards.

Leaving the city completely ungarrisoned (or garrisoned with just one unit) is one option: if it flips, it flips, and I've lost nothing; if the enemy takes it, it's likely with a fast unit (Knight/Cav) that doesn't defend well. CivAssist give you a "flip risk" indication on the Cities list which helps in making this kind of decision.

The only way to really make flipping not a problem is to have built up so much Culture beforehand that you're culturally much stronger than the enemy. But that's a whole different game from the one I play.

On a side-note, it's interesting how Civ becomes a narrower game at the higher levels. The initially fascinating thing about it is the sheer number of options available to you. Build a Temple, Marketplace, Library, Aqueduct, Barracks, Granary? Or any of a huge choice of units? Research this, that, or the other tech? But then, getting advice on these boards, and depending on the desired victory-type, the game turns into a more streamlined process, with less viable options. For example, my game might as well not have Temples, Colosseums, Coastal Fortresses, Feudalism (government), Free Artistry, Democracy and Communism in it.

 

[Illuminous]

I asked for right of passage in the peace talks, so I need to wait twenty turns before I can attack again. By that time WW would be gone, like VMXA said. I could cancel the agreement, but then I'd be negated, yes?. The other civ's won't allow ROP again for an extended period of time - twenty turns?. ROP keeps the civ's happy with me (unless I abuse it).

The ROP will allow me time to produce more defensive units and settlers. The military police on my main island are obsolete and I need more of them so other civs don't take advantage of that.

I agree about mutual protection pacts, their risky. If you know a certain civ is about to attack it could prevent the situation from happening. You need to be careful though.

 

[Illuminous]

A question about the Forgotten Palace, how far away should it be from the capitol, does it matter?. I only have it two city's away, because the city had fast production.