New to Civ Moving to Regent

[bamdorf]

Hi, guys. You may remember me tagging on another thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=488959

Anyway, after flopping with Elizabeth I switched to Caesar, still at Warlord, and rolled. So I am moving up to Regent (hold the applause) and looking for answers to questions and more pithy advice.

I chose standard size, random oppenents, random civ and got Monty. Here is the start, which I include because I have some questions here.

View attachment Montezuma of the Aztecs, 4000 BC.SAV

OK. I have Monty so I am going pretty much warmonger for quite a while. I suppose I will have to catch up on science later. I am going to try very hard NOT to build any wonders...my build order will consist of 2-3 jags followed by workers, archers, barracks, and walls (they are cheap and have no maintenance, so especially on the periphery sounds good, where stacks of barbs may appear).

But where to plant my cap. I really don't like planting in a flood plain, and I don't see a lot of shield production if starting in place. But the hill nw would give me some good ground and hills to the north. Problem is, do I still have to build an aqueduct? It looks like the river has a corner in my direction to the new location...(but I found out that doesn't work, after I chose to move onto the hill.) Oh well, thoughts? Would you move in any case? Or not? Here is a pic. Is it not a big deal?

Spoiler :

OK, so the first AI I met was the Iroquois to the North. I attacked them with vet archers. Next was Bablyon to the west, whom I attacked with vet swordsmen, some vet horse, and some vet archers and after a long time eventually taking 10 cities (five on first war, three on second war, and two on the last war). He had planted a couple of cities behind me using galleys which required the final push in the opposite direction. I got a LOT of workers and some techs from all this. At the very end (since it was a minor distraction) I was able to build marketplaces in several of my cities especially the larger ones while I took his last two cities. And I built one Wonder...HG. It just seemed so right. (Colossus is from Babs, thanks.) So I guessed it was time to go republic and get some science going. Here I am in anarchy going to rep. The Maya are annoyed with me...

View attachment Montezuma of the Aztecs, 530 AD.SAV

and a pic as well

Spoiler :

Ok, questions.

1. Three overall choices here, I think. Plan A - stay monarchy and immediately attack the Maya. Plan B: Go Republic, and when the dust settles go after the Maya.
Plan C: Go Rep, build up the infrastructure, especially to science, get advanced weapons and then go after the Maya. I mean, Cavalry and cannons and rifles. Plan D, I am so big I can do anything so who cares? (The no plan plan.)

4. Is Leonardo's workshop worth building? Or just hard build everything. Nice to keep some promos. I had fun with it in the last game but I was so overpowering the AI I could mess around a lot (which was the point, I wanted to see how modern weapons and other stuff worked, so I delayed winning the game until 1830.)

5. It seems that if an interior lake is more than a certain size it is not freshwater. Disappointing.

6. Are temples worth building, or, if I need a culture expansion of a cities' territory should I just build a library instead? Or stay away from all that fancy stuff?

7. I noticed that when I went back to war to finish the Babylonians that Babylon would suddenly have severe unrest. Does this affect the Capitol only or are all cities subjugated subject to this (in this game all the captured Bab cities were 1 or 2 pop so I couldn't tell.)

8. I am using Civ Assist II now. It doesn't seem to give "pop up" alerts...maybe because I am on Steam? But it's a nice addon, just have to learn to use it.

9. I have a tough time anticipating and avoiding city unrest. I thought I was getting ready for the government change anarchy but 4-5 cities still went nuts. I am confused, as usual. Grrr.

Thanks for any comments, harsh or otherwise.

 

[Puppeteer]

Congrats on moving up to Regent. I also applaud random civ starts as you're not relying on the same traits and same unique unit every game and can learn more.

First of all, while Monty is a natural fit for conquest or domination, remember you're not tied to his triats. If you want to make Monty launch a spaceship or win a diplomatic victory for your own amusement, go for it. Also, the terrain and your rivals are factors in game direction. In your England game you were prepping for ocean dominance, but it was a small map where you never needed to end a turn on an ocean square, and Caravels were adequate to invade the other continent. Might have been able to do it with Galleys and the GLH and skipped several techs.

But it has been demonstrated time and time again that well-planned aggression is the fastest way to a win in this game.

I also find high-food, low-shield starts difficult to plan for the early game, and I'm not comfortable with them. But when I play them they usually work out well. In that case I would settle in place. Being in the flood plains is going to make you lose a pop point or two every now and then to disease, but your growth rate will overcompensate for it in the long run. And yes, being on the river eliminates the need to build an aqueduct which can be very powerful especially for the capitlal or one of the first rank of cities.

Once you're out of despotism and have the land improved the high-food supports your working the four hills and one mountain. In the nearer term I see three grasslands (after forest chops) and a desert oasis (which is equivalent to a bonus grassland) from looking at the 4000BC view screenshot.

I would start working the wheat flood plains and probably irrigate it immediately and build settler after settler because there won't be enough production for anything else before reaching size 3. Military would have to come from the next cities. (Actually I would get a spreadsheet and/or calculator and figure out what combination of improvement and micromanagement would get me the settler ASAP as I hit size 3 or one turn after.)

Pop rushing can be used to great effect in this situation. I'm not very good at it, but I've used it to decent effect before.

One thing that might be overlooked is that this is a very strong start for gold. You have the river, plus the extra food grows you quickly and gets you more gold-producing citizens quickly, and in a zero-corruption town.

There are a few buildings that are worth building during a war, and marketplace is one of them. If I have 4-6 of my core cities pumping out units during a war and I learn Currency, depending on how the war is going I'll rotate in a market build so one or two cities are building a market while the others are still creating military. Markets multiply luxuries after the third luxury and beyond, so it's a super-happy building if you're conquering new lands and resources, and it's the first available tax multiplier building and is often useful to have in the capital and first-ring cities, depending on terrain, population and needs. (If for some reason your core 5 cities are all pop 6 and you aren't getting more than 2 lux anytime soon, maybe you don't need to build markets during a war after all.)

HG is a tempting wonder. As is Bach's. Sometimes you can spy on your rivals' cities and see who's going to build it first. If it's on your continent, you can wait for them to finish it and take it from them. (This works for continent-effect or civ-effect wonders, but unless there is fortuitous placement you can rush an FP there the commerce/research wonders aren't particularly advantageous to capture.) But in some situations you have enough military, have nothing to build in your most productive city, and HG or Bach's is available.... That happens on Regent more than Emperor, though.

Q/A:

1: I haven't looked at the save, so I'll speak generally. Aztecs are religious and one benefit is 2-turn anarchy, otherwise I generally wouldn't bother switching after I'm out of Despotism. Monarchy has the advantages of no war weariness and being able to use military police to make up to 3 unhappy citizens in a city content. Republic gets more income, but unit support can be expensive for big armies and there is no military policing. Often transitioning to Republic can be a shock because you have a lot of military tied up in MP duty. But adjustments can be made, obsolete military can be disbanded, non-border cities can be without defense (with caveats about marine attackers such as Viking Berserkers and extra-fast units like cavalry and conquistadors and having fast-response troops nearby for naval invasions) and Republic is quite usable. You generally need to keep wars shorter in Republic, but war weariness is per-civ, so you can end one war and start war with another civ and the war weariness isn't a problem. (Also, it goes away after 20 turns of peace with the wearier civ.)

(where are 2 and 3?)

4: With *any* expenditure of resources you ask yourself if the resources would better be spent elsewhere. You don't need Leo's to upgrade, it just makes it half-price. Also, Leo's works just as well if it is captured as it does when built. I wouldn't capture a city halfway around the world in the middle of someone else's empire to get it, but you can get a feel for which AIs are languishing and which are flourishing, who has the tech and who might build it first. If it looks like it's going to be built in your path of conquest, there you go. Military units don't win every battle, so I often upgrade through attrition. If it's not cost-effective to upgrade, I'll also disband obsolete or undesired units to help build things in wasteful cities if I want a temple or courthouse there. If unit support is not costing me, then obsolete units are fine for MP duty, blocking or resource protection. It's really situation-dependent, but it's been a long, long time since I thought spending 600 of my core shields on Leo's was more worthwhile than, say, 8.5 veteran knights.

5: Yes, I think the freshwater tile limit is 12 or 13 tiles, but usually the 2nd-easiest indicator is the presences of sea tiles. (The first is right-clicking on the tile and checking if it's 1 or 2 food, assuming no fish.) I had a game once where I started on what turned out to be a huge inland sea, then found another coast and found it was also an inland sea. I posted about it around here somewhere. Ah, here it is. That's back when I thought plain starts were good because irrigating was faster than mining.

6: Culture expansion. Back to "is it worth it?" Will you be capturing/placing a city beyond that will capture the territory you want? Are you really gaining an advantage by popping borders? Often if it's a strategic resource or a culture fight the answer is "yes, it's worth it". Libraries give three culture per turn but usually cost 80s compared to temples' 2 cpt and base cost of 60s. Libraries give +50% research, but if you're wanting culture just to pop a border we're probably talking about a city that is too corrupt to worry about research income. But Aztecs are religious an temples are half-price at 30s, so a temple is the obvious choice here. And in despotism a new corrupt city can grow in 10 turns while getting 10s in the box, then whip the new pop point for 20s to complete the temple. In a game where you're scientific a library would be cheaper at 40s than a 60s temple.

8: Be sure "Show Alerts" has been clicked on the CivAssist II window and that you have checked boxes in the Alerts tab for which alerts you'd like to get. Tip: use the tilde ~ key to switch to/from CAII.

9: Anarchy is often a beating because you have no military police capability and no luxury tax. Being a religious civ you only have 2 turns of anarchy, but it is still problematic. After declaring anarchy I usually go through each city and click on the city center to make the governor reassign citizens, then tweak as I want. Often a city will either need to starve or be in disorder, but since you know you only have 2 turns you may be able to starve a city 2 turns without shrinking. For longer anarchy, you can check the F1 screen to see how many turns of anarchy are left and alternate starve/riot cities to minimize starvation and avoid the rioters destroying buildings.

 

[bamdorf]

Many thanks for the comments --- making some more sense. Amazing how many little details need to be absorbed; it's no wonder the experts are often abrasive (it's ok as long as some info is provided).

My numbering was wrong because I had plans a b and c numbered then decided to put em in one entry...

I find your tone very supportive and your comments give me lots more stuff to think about. Which is why the thing is fun, I guess.

Course I have one big question.

After playing BTS for a long time (noble and prince) and having just upgraded V to gold edition (for 12.95 my goodness) why am I starting to play 3?? Part of it is that I never had conquests or ptw, and maybe part is that when I just decided to fool around with it I got embarrassed. Who knows. What a deal for 1.24 USD.

[edit --- added comment after checking]

I checked and for my version of C3C Aztecs are Milt and Agr, not Mil and Rel....I thought, he's right, aren't Aztecs always religious...but they changed it. So I went through a few turns of anarchy.

[end edit]

 

[Puppeteer]

I checked and for my version of C3C Aztecs are Milt and Agr, not Mil and Rel....I thought, he's right, aren't Aztecs always religious...but they changed it. So I went through a few turns of anarchy.

Oops. What's bad is that I fired up the game and double-checked, but apparently my brain overrode my eyes.

But one thing that's not clear is that in despotism with agricultural you get 3 food in the city square if the city is on fresh water. (After despotism I think every city gets 3f in the center square.) Also that makes the surrounding desert quite useful as agricultural gets 2f from irrigated deserts. Settling in place would have probably been the most powerful move.

 

[bamdorf]

I am tending to agree with you as getting that aqueduct built proved inconvenient, and putting up with an occassional plague isn't so bad. Gets rid of the bad blood, right. Or is that revolution.

 

[bamdorf]

So I have carried my Regent game to 1460. Yes, I know some of you would have finished 1000 years ago but whatever. I took over my continent. As I was finishing up the Maya, the Americans were destroyed by the Incas. So there are three AIs and me. Once done with the Maya I cleaned house. All my lesser units were disbanded or in a few cases upgraded. Catapults, spearmen, archers, swordsmen, etc., all gone. Trebs became cannons. Cavalry was my main remaining unit, with some muskets and med inf. Thus I was able to raise my science to 60% (for a bit) while keeping lux at 20%. (Seems to work but perhaps I could tinker with that). I went for astronomy and navigation and build caravels and then privateers. I grabbed Newton, Copernicus, and Magellan (first two in the same city).

The caravels soon discovered the Incas, the Scandinavians, and the Ottomans. The rough balance in terms of cities is Aztec 44, Inca 29, Scandinavians 10 and Ottomans 7. (Which I got by trading maps...not necessarily the best idea tho, as see below). I have pulled slightly ahead of the Incas in science. Interestingly, my military adviser warns me that I am weaker than the Incas. I did sweep out a lot of trash.

So I need to come up with a plan. Domination, spaceship, culture, whatever. While I mull that over, I have one frustration to complain about.

Since I know the AI will try to plant a settler on any finger of land available, I needed a plan to keep my continent "clean". I decided against putting cities in terrible places just to use up all the turf. Instead, I starting building privateers...so I could deal with any settler boats without diplomatic problems. I had just gotten a couple out on the east side of my island when I picked up an Incan galley (they must have just gotten navigation to be able to cross deep water) and I chased. Now privateers plus Magellan's have a move of 7 to 3 for a galley, so I did catch him. Galleys are 1 defense, and privateers are 2 attack. I felt ok about it but...the rowers beat my fighting sail. Unfortunately he was too close to land so I couldn't bombard one turn and attack the next. And horrors, the next thing he does is plop the settler on an unoccupied hill/mountain range on the my coast. And builds a city. To add insult, my second privateer coming close behind...failed to find the retreating galley. Grrrrrrrr. That captain was sacked.

So this sort of nothing city, which is more of an eyesore than anything, is very annoying. Still if I just take a deep breath and pick a path, likely any path, I can win this thing.

Oh, just for grins I counted out my workers. 25 Aztec workers and 42 captured workers. (Oh yeah, most of them are auto.) The captured workers are free slave labor, but only work at 50%, I gather. Still, I think I probably have enough; most are busily building railroads atm.

If anyone wants to look at the save I can post it.

 

[thetrooper]

Oh yeah, most of them are auto.

Never put workers on auto.

 

[bamdorf]

Never put workers on auto.

I didn't have any on auto until I had cleared the continent. But once I got my rail lines started, I think having the bulk of them on auto, with a weather eye to see if anything stupid is happening, works reasonably well, and reduces the overhead hugely. If I decide I have a specific project in mind I take some off, etc. Heck, I am not playing on Diety. So "project" workers and specifically "combat" engineers of course never on auto.

Oh, and "pollution removal" teams will be established and be always on call

In my previous game my auto engineers performed well. So I guess I am waiting for something horrible to happen that proves this tactic untenable. Maybe I should call it "semiautomatic".

Oh course others may differ.

 

[thetrooper]

OK.

The worst case would be if you have a volcano erupting in your territory. Pollution on the tile with the volcano would probably send all automated workers there. Volcanoes are not 'roadable' either...

 

[Lanzelot]

The caravels soon discovered the Incas, the Scandinavians, and the Ottomans. The rough balance in terms of cities is Aztec 44, Inca 29, Scandinavians 10 and Ottomans 7.

This is obviously a "problem"... My advice on how to "fix" it: move up to Emperor...!

Seriously: Regent is obviously no challenge for you anymore. You can win this "on auto-pilot" and by fooling around. (And you'll pick up a lot of "bad habits" in the process.) By moving to Emperor, you'll be forced to concentrate, and the game will teach you, what works and what doesn't. You may lose a game or two, but you'll learn the necessary skills it takes to play a "well-played and well-planned" game on the highest levels.

One tip from my side: the city spacing is a bit too wide for my taste. In a position like your Aztec game, I would have located the first ring around the capital just a wee bit tighter, and then you would have more room for adding a very productive second ring (with lots of commerce from coast/sea tiles).

 

[bamdorf]

Interesting suggestion about tightening up cities. It is true that outer cities are hard to get going. Courthouses and civil engineers only help a little.

I am going to play this thing out, however. I think a huge thing in Civ (or any decent game) is developing a judgement about what works and what doesn't. So while being aware of the problem of bad habits, I can try stuff. For instance.

I probably can coast on this one, but the situation is already a familiar one: though using random setup, I have gotten a two continents, and about the time I clear my own island I am finding out there is a dominant AI on the other land mass. I can turtle and win but what can I do actively. 1) attack the weak AIs 2) Attack the bigger guy. But what kind of attack? I am a bit ahead in tech but until Mass Prod I won't be able to steamroll (I mean I won't...maybe others will!). So I say let's try a terror raid. Build 25 or more cavalry, load em into galleys and hit him hard and fast. And then of course he will counterattack with huge stacks of units. Med inf and such. But he does not have rails and will not be able to counter very quickly. In point of fact I tried this and overran four cities very quickly. Then his stacks of doom showed up.

So --- do I try to hold the cities, or some of them. Or should I just raze them and keep going trying to avoid his big stacks. Or hold on for as long as possible and then disembark, hoping to have hurt him significantly. In the pic he has taken one city back... but see below.

Spoiler :

save file

View attachment Montezuma of the Aztecs, 1650 AD.SAV

I evacuated the northern city in the face of huge numbers, and concentrated on saving the two closest to the coast. As two of his stacks approached Miami I hit him with artillery and then attacked with all healthy cavalry, who could kill and then retreat back into the Miami. This dented his army a bit. After this I suggested peace. And HE AGREED. Now I think I can reinforce with inf and art and hold the beachhead. But Philadelphia looks hopeless. I can gift it back to the Inca to buy time (when the 20 turns is just about up), or sell it back to him (doesn't look very useful) or give it to the Scandinavians, who would then provide some flank protection...if they don't defect to the Incans. They are polite and I bet have a bad history with the Incans. Too bad I can't burn cities later.

I think if I had just kept all my Cav together and kept moving forward while razing everything I would have done better. Maybe I couldn't have stayed clear. I dunno, would be interesting. So stuff to think about even if the tanks will roll soon enough. Meanwhile I am still learning the rules, like: when privateer kills another boat, whoohoo it captures it and that boat becomes a slave privateer (no upkeep). A tiny thing but fun to find out by surprise. I suppose I could RTFM but I have heard it is full of mistakes.

Thanks for the comments, one level up in next game.

Aside...my workers did clear the pollution from a volcano...and survived...

 

[thetrooper]

wrt overseas invasion: my plan is to take a coastal city/bring a settler to a coastal hill. Aim for disembarking on a hill/mountain next to city centre. I would recommend at least 12 of your strongest defenders, 24 fast units (knight/cav/tank) and at least one artillery for every defending unit. Bring along a few obsolete units too (I'll explain later).

1) You will raze the foreign city. Keep bombing the city down to redlined troops and possibly kill citizens. Take down defenders with your fast units. It is important that they can retreate back to the stack. Raze the city and use your settler to build a new city. Fortify all units.

2) Keep the foreign city. If they have weak defenders don't bomb - use your fast units to conquer the city. Move all troops in to hold it. If they have strong defenders use artillery.

Wait for his SOD coming. Now you'll really need artillery! Use all of them each turn. Finish off as may as you can by fast units and retreat back into the city. After 4 or 5 turns you'll encounter less troops. Maybe it's time to take the next city? As you gain control over the citizens rioting - disband those obsolete units I mentioned and rush (in this order) barracks, walls, harbour, temple. You can do one of them each turn!

Bonus advice: if you start using knights; a redlined knight can be upgraded to a fully recovered cav in one turn. If you just fortify it will take two turns in a city with barracks (and he's still a knight).

Good luck and move up to emperor (even though you might get beaten)!

 

[Puppeteer]

I try to manipulate the other continent to avoid a runaway AI. If trade routes exist and are secure, you can trade or donate strategic resources to the weaker civs to help contain the big one. Keep in mind you can trade away your last instance of a resource, denying it to yourself. I may gift or trade very favorably a tech with a better military unit to better resist the bigger AI.

On levels above Regent where the AI has a discount, even small civs can be good research partners if their core is intact and has decent commerce. Keeping a civ like that happy, or trade them resources for tech which they love to do, can keep them on your side and work against the monster AI while not being powerful enough to threaten you. (Although they will try to stab you in the back sooner or later.) The peril is keeping the trade routes open; if another civ DoW's them and as a result blocks your trade route, you take the rep hit for not delivering the resource.

If there are two powerful civs I'll try to get them to war with each other to eliminate the SoD's with each other instead of when I land or to become a monster by taking over weaker civs.

Usually the powerful one on the other continent will come demanding something sooner or later, and that's often a good time to tell them what they can go do with themselves, you get war happiness and have a great chance to pit the other continent against each other.

As far as invading a continent with a strong AI with tons of units stockpiled, often they are ancient units, and standard procedure is to keep stacking units on a hill or mountain, keep reinforcements coming and slowly eliminate them through attrition. You will lose lots of units, so this is hard to pull off in Republic or Democracy with war weariness. You might have a beachhead city on a hill with a barracks for fast healing, or you might try to find a neutral mountain so you can heal, or you might just grind away and lose a lot of units until they are exhausted. Then you can advance at will.

 

[bamdorf]

@puppet: I remember in Civ 1 (I think) that I could drop a defensive unit on a mountain next to one of their cities and with the def tripling they might throw away most of their army trying to kill it. Hence the rule: Never build a city next to a mountain on the coast...ICK.

In this regent game I just traded a couple of surplus lux to a weak civ for a tech (printing press). Nice, helped a weak civ and got something for it. Not that it matters in this game.

I beat the Incan stacks with artillery then cavalry. Massed artillery is pretty strong I confess it is getting a little silly. I don't even have tanks yet.

 

[bamdorf]

@thetrooper:

fast units and artillery. I am getting the idea. Popping a barracks makes tons of sense, survival is the key, development is...who cares.

One question: I am fuzzy on culture flipping. If a city has a bunch of units in it, it will never flip? In my game I abandoned Philadelphia, to save the units, as I was very temporarily understaffed and wanted to assure keeping the beachhead. The peace treaty had some time to run, so I just left it an open city. Couple turns later it flipped. Oops. I mangled that badly. I misjudged how long it would take my replacements to arrive, there was no need to decamp.
Well, I already have it back. That's the kind of stuff I need to discover if I can before the next game.

Another thing: I thought the AI had to respect a peace treaty, but when my coastal cities got a culture pop (after barracks I popped a temple, maybe not best) and I asked politely for Incas to leave my territory, They popped a DoW. Well, that cost them their army, as this happened 10-12 turns later and I was solidly reinforced.

 

[Lanzelot]

As far as invading a continent with a strong AI with tons of units stockpiled, often they are ancient units, and standard procedure is to keep stacking units on a hill or mountain, keep reinforcements coming and slowly eliminate them through attrition. You will lose lots of units, so this is hard to pull off in Republic or Democracy with war weariness. You might have a beachhead city on a hill with a barracks for fast healing, or you might try to find a neutral mountain so you can heal, or you might just grind away and lose a lot of units until they are exhausted. Then you can advance at will.

A different plan, which can work well in certain circumstances, is the following:

• Prerequisite: there must be a "third party" which is at peace with your victim, but does not have a RoP with them. This third party should be one of the weaker nations in the world. Best results are achieved, if you can pick an AI, which in addition is located far away on a different continent from the one where the fighting is going to take place.
• Prerequisite: the victim should not have any 1-tile islands over-seas or a settler on a boat...
• Sign a RoP with that third party.
• You will use only fast-movers (e.g. Cavs). No artillery, no defenders. So it works best, when the target has only outdated defenders, e.g. because they lack saltpeter. If they do have good defenders and you want to use artillery, you will need an Army to cover the slow moving artillery. A Musket-Army should be pretty save: remember that the AI never attacks an Army unless it is very weak compared to their attackers or it is located inside a city. (Never keep your Army inside a city!)
• So anyway, the attack plan now goes as follows: Attack the target and take the first city.
• Dig in and wait for their SoD to arrive at the gates. (Slow movers can already move to the next target city, protected by the Army.)
• When the SoD has arrived, move all your Cavs to the next target city as well and then gift the empty city to the third party.
• You can still move through that territory, thanks to the RoP with the third party, while your victim's SoD is stuck inside the third party's territory and needs at least an additional turn to get out again...
• During that time you take the next city, which will already be only lightly defended, because all the victim's units are stuck elsewhere...
• Rinse and repeat until you have captured the last city, at which point the victim's huge military will simply go "poof" and disappear.
• Now you can declare war on the third party and re-take all the cities you have gifted to them. All these cities will still be undefended, because for the third party they have been totally corrupt and he didn't yet have time to build a single defender there, so your Cavs can just roll through them...

Using that tactic, a small force of let's say 20 Cavs, 10 Cannons and one Musket-Army can defeat a huge empire with hundreds of units in just a couple of turns. I think the first time this technique was applied, was in one of SirPleb's legendary Sid games. (But probably not the one which featured the "Funnel of Doom" technique...)