new world

[shansta7000]

im sort of new to the civ world, im playing my 4rh game right now. anyway, im playing on the map tetra i think its called. its the one where their are 2 continents and everyone starts on the same one. anyway do you think it is a good idea to starts cities in the new world or not. i don't realy see a big advantage to it and their are alot of barbarian invasions on any cities i build. so yea, build in the new world or not?

 

[Michelangelo]

First of all, Welcome to CFC

Though I haven't played on it myself, my take on it is to know when to settle on the other continent. If you settle to soon, you cannot defend it properly and by getting your cities later due to the travel, you suffer economically and scientifically. You get behind and other AI conquer you with superior units. If you wait too long on the other hand, the others are there allready and make conquering room over there much more difficult.

But in the end you need to settle over there as more cities is generally better as you get more resources, income, production. It's all about timing.

Maybe you can put a ship over there to monitor the AI settling behaviour, you can judge when you can wait no longer to plant 2 or 3 cities over there.

HTH.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

There's no need to build cities to New World, just conquer them.

 

[Winston Hughes]

so yea, build in the new world or not?

It really depends on your circumstances. If you've got enemy civs breathing down your neck back home, then the effort of colonising the new world probably won't be worth it (at least until you're secure on the home front).

If, on the other hand, you're short of expansion options (eg. if you're stuck in a corner with only a single powerful, but friendly, neighbour), or if you need the health/happy/strategic resources that are available in the new world (or could use the new world ones to trade for the ones you need), then colonisation is an attractive option.

In either case, explore the new world asap, pick up those juicy undefended huts, and try to spot out the best city sites. Explorers with the Guerilla II and/or Woodsman II promotions, backed up with naval vessels (to search the coasts and move the explorers quickly to the huts), are the best units for this.

You have, I think, three main options for new world expansion:

(1) Just take the very best city sites, try to stick to the coast (or build a 'port' city to make the trade connection to that resource-laden inland one), and get your fogbusters and defensive units up and running asap.

(2) Choose an area in which to concentrate (consider resources, city placement, strategic value) and build several cities there. This should give you a smaller border to defend against barbs, makes infrastructure much quicker and easier to build, and makes the maintenence-busting power of the Forbidden Palace more effective.

(3) Try to conquer the whole damned thing. A tough proposition and a heavy investment. Probably only a worthwhile option if you're going for a domination victory and you already have a massive population back home, and so only need more land to win it.

Edit: I forgot to add... If you're pulling in the cash at home, then you can run Universal Suffrage to quickly complete the first vital building or two in your new world cities. Slavery is obviously another option once you've grown the cities a bit. You might even find it best to use a combination of both for ultra-fast building. A Great Artist culture-bomb is another useful tactic, as it can cut down on barb incursions, link up the borders of two or more cities, snag a couple of extra resources, and it increases your land area for score/domination purposes.

 

[shansta7000]

hmmm... alright, i will take over the new world. right now i am having problems with recources because the AI took all of the minngin sites so i can't build any sowrdsman or anything like that

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Remember, that on terra map human has a big, big advantage - player already knows that there's other continent to "liberate" . So your game should be aiming to getting there fast (Astro). I generally found that its much easier to take barb cities than to build your own (unless you really want to place them yourself).

 

[shansta7000]

hmmm. alright. in my game right now i got problems on my homeland so i don't realy have time to go for the new world. but next game that should be one of my main goals?

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Yep, on terra map its definetly what you want to do unless you go for turtling/cultural victory. Exterminate a neightbour or two, build up and go for the new world/barbs (indians ).

Terra is really big fun - i've had my best and memorable game on it (ice age being my all time favorite).

 

[Winston Hughes]

Remember, that on terra map human has a big, big advantage - player already knows that there's other continent to "liberate" . So your game should be aiming to getting there fast (Astro).

While it's true that its a big advantage to know in advance that there's another continent available, and it certainly pays to get there early, you do have to be careful not to screw up the rest of the game in pursuit of early colonisation.

As others have pointed out elsewhere, terra maps *can* be played as pangeas, completely ignoring the new world in favour of development and/or war in the old world. As a result, there will inevitably be a significant opportunity cost to intercontinental expansion, and careful preparation for and timing of your colonial expeditions is vital.

Before you set off, you'll need a strong economy (to support the troops and high-maintenence new world cities), a good tech position (or else you'll get left even further behind; colonisation will almost certainly slow your tech rate in the short-medium term), and a decent enough army left behind to defend the homeland.

As always, prior intelligence and planning is vital; an early Optics for caravels to explore the new world is important, but Astronomy can be left until you're ready to launch the colonisation fleet (city sites identified; economy developed; settlers, workers and troops built in advance; galleons rush built immediately once you get the tech).

I try to take a couple of close together barb cities (assume they'll be defended by longbows) and fill in the gaps with my own settlers. If you plan and time it right you can have a fully functioning empire in the new world before the first AI colonists arrive, without compromising either your home defence or your tech position. If you can pull that off, then the game is all but won.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Terra is really big fun - i've had my best and memorable game on it

Same here. Have you tried the Smartmap script? On the 'new world' setting (iirc) you can get a continents or islands map with all the civs starting on the eastern continents. With a lot of ocean (you get loads of different settings to choose from) and raging barbs, colonisation is a lot more tricky (since it takes longer to find the barb continents, and once you get there they're packed with longbows, axes and horse archers).

 

[Julian Delphiki]

As always, prior intelligence and planning is vital; an early Optics for caravels to explore the new world is important, but Astronomy can be left until you're ready to launch the colonisation fleet (city sites identified; economy developed; settlers, workers and troops built in advance; galleons rush built immediately once you get the tech).

This is very good advice; build everything ready and you dont have to pursue to astronomy untill you are set to go. I usually rely on force -- barbs fall down really easily since it's almost sure that you have tech advantage over them. But, also be aware -- civ actually models real history quite nicely here. Meaning that if you enter the continent with rifles vs. maces, it wont take long untill your enemies also have rifles.

 

[Winston Hughes]

if you enter the continent with rifles vs. maces, it wont take long untill your enemies also have rifles.

Indeed. I made that mistake on my first terra game. My scouts saw only archers in the barb cities, but by the time my armies arrived they had been upgraded to longbows (yes, barb cities can upgrade their troops), costing me several precious units (and any unit in the new world is extremely precious early on; it takes a long time to build or transport reinforcements).

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Same here. Have you tried the Smartmap script? On the 'new world' setting (iirc) you can get a continents or islands map with all the civs starting on the eastern continents. With a lot of ocean (you get loads of different settings to choose from) and raging barbs, colonisation is a lot more tricky (since it takes longer to find the barb continents, and once you get there they're packed with longbows, axes and horse archers).

I've toyed around with smartmap quite a lot -- it's possible to create some very interesting maps/games with. I need to give it a shot with those settings, esp. with raging barbs.. i must be a barb hugger, but they're just awesome. Size 15~-> badly defended barb cities are something thats hard to resist

 

[Winston Hughes]

i must be a barb hugger

hehe, barb hugger... that gives me an idea for a crazy variant game: pangea, raging barbs, time victory only; objective = help barbs to conquer the whole world except my capital, then conquer them before time runs out.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

There's nice thread around here somewhere within domination/barbs game on deity. They set themselves as the only civ (need to turn conquest off) and fought with barbs all the way till domination .. it's not as easy as it sounds -- deity Barbs have some real fury!

 

[tycoonist]

try looking at this succesion game for tips, it has finished but was very exciting and had some good colonisation strategy: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184835