Nobles' Club L: Augustus Caesar of Rome

[CivilizedTiger]

@duckstab

Spoiler :

Please note that Zara is a backstabber, one who declares war at pleased. In my game, he declared against me a few turns after I went to war against Pacal. The point here is that there is a chance that Zara attacks you at some point, so I'd advise one of two things:

- make Zara friendly towards you, then attack HC; I don't care much for this choice, but it's a good one I reckon

OR

- while HC and Willem are busy with each other, attack Zara, get his land, and use the advantage you can thus gain to attack either a war torn HC or a war torn Willem (war torn HC might be a better target thanks to his geographical position on this map)

In the end, you do what you think is best, and you could simply ignore the risk of Zara attacking, if you so choose. None of the remaining AIs on your continent are known to train a lot of troops, so you might find the risk acceptable. But if you don't, I think you have better choices than attacking HC right away.

 

[pzschrek]

Thanks for the advice. Current situation around 1500ish

Spoiler :

As you can see, I've started colonizing islands. Don't want to kill my econ too much, but I'd like to get the trade rte bonuses too. I'm thinking 1-2 more to the west for right now and leave it at that.

By pzschrek at 2010-05-27

Tech situation resolved itself...since I play to a later game (I love the late game!), I like to build more infrastructure in the middle ages, which really starts to pay off about, oh, now. I'm in a comfortable place I think...and running the slider at 100%. Having about 7 scientists in Mutal and 7 merchants in Ravena hasn't hurt either. A GM voyage plus getting 1450 and engineering for a tech from Zara enabled me to upgrade my ancient army and still have leftovers. Probably use a bunch of it to upgrade to riflemen here. I will likely gun for infantry and arty, then hit HC. I don't have enough of an army right now to take advantage of getting rifles first, because I know I will bog down halfway into his empire when he gets them, and I hate that.

I am currently in a phony war with Tokugawa...always a good way to make everyone else happy.

Saving a couple GP for the corporations that will soon come my way...as soon as I get infantry it's going to be war time on my continent!

Question:

I like to build wealth to keep in the green as much as possible...is science a better bet? Money is just more tangible because there is a +/- number staring you in the face, so I go that way, but I'm not sure if it's most efficient.

By pzschrek at 2010-05-27

 

[drlake]

@duckstab

Spoiler :

To add to what CT said, Willem and HC will also both sometimes plan for war and declare at Pleased. HC did it my game, for example. Willem is more likely to do that than either of the others.

Also, since (as CT noted) none of the three tend to build large armies, you can manipulate the diplomacy situation slightly to take advantaged of being at Pleased. One thing you could do is beg a gift from Zara (to get 10 turns of peace) and then immediately hit HC. If you are properly prepared for war, you should be able to grab 3-4 cities from him in 10 turns, and at that point if Zara declares on you then you either vassal HC (if he's willing) or make peace and shift focus to Zara.

 

[duckstab]

@CivilizedTiger

@duckstab

Spoiler :

Please note that Zara is a backstabber, one who declares war at pleased. In my game, he declared against me a few turns after I went to war against Pacal. The point here is that there is a chance that Zara attacks you at some point, so I'd advise one of two things:

- make Zara friendly towards you, then attack HC; I don't care much for this choice, but it's a good one I reckon

OR

- while HC and Willem are busy with each other, attack Zara, get his land, and use the advantage you can thus gain to attack either a war torn HC or a war torn Willem (war torn HC might be a better target thanks to his geographical position on this map)

In the end, you do what you think is best, and you could simply ignore the risk of Zara attacking, if you so choose. None of the remaining AIs on your continent are known to train a lot of troops, so you might find the risk acceptable. But if you don't, I think you have better choices than attacking HC right away.

Spoiler :

That's good to know. I'm not too worried about being DoWed because my power rating is by far the highest, and will be even more so after I finish my current buildup.

I should probably double-check the glance screen, however, and see how Zara feels about HC. I'm pretty sure they don't care much for each other, and HC is way behind on tech, so the odds of him being able to bribe Zara into an attack on me would seem pretty low.

When Zara attacked you, was he pretty easy to deal with? I remember in one game I was playing Willem and had Zara next door. We didn't share religions and I refused most of his demands. Finally the inevitable DoW happened and he attacked me with (drumroll)

Spoiler :

three macemen. No siege, no supporting units of any kind. I killed them off easily and then made peace.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@duckstab

Spoiler :

It was easy to take care of him, but it diverted some of the military presence I needed against Pacal. But yeah, the nice thing on this continent is that no one builds military as a war monger. So I didn't have much trouble dealing with him. He was more of a nuisance thanks to splitting my troops and to extra war weariness. Also, in my game, he had macemen and longbowmen when he attacked, I had knights and trebuchets, and sometime after, I already had cavalry and cannons. (to which he eventually fell ) (although I took a detour vassaling Willem before attacking Zara )

The main reason you should check him isn't that he can pose a real danger, but that he can surprise you at a time when most your armies are busy taking HC off the map. In my game, I was lucky enough that my main military city in that time was the border city with Zara.

 

[Y Draig]

Taking up from where I left off...

Spoiler :

Changed my build orders as per my earlier post and after finishing researching currency started on code of laws to get some court houses up. Moved some units to the North East and found that some barbs had done me a favour and planted a city exactly where I was planning to so sat a praet on a nearby hill to wait for it to hit pop2 and attack. This also helped reduce my settler output from Mutal.

Fairly soon the barb city obliged and fell under Roman Rule, and a few turns later with the help of the whip Rome completed the GLH.

I currently have a couple of old warriors heaing north to have a look at how my rival empires are shaping up. Construction completes next turn and I intend for Rome and Ravenna to start producing cats whilst Antium carries on producing praets. Mutal will continue to produce settlers and workers to populate the islands off shore to take advantage of the GLH.

Here is an overview of the empire so far. I think I'm doing okay with a good solid border strung along the north and a few good core cities.

The tech situation could be better but I'm no expert on tech trading and have no idea what to trade or not, any advice on this would be most welcome.

And lastly the demographics.

Once I have a better view of the north I'll decide who launch my armies at.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@Y Draig

Spoiler :

This is about courthouses, and please note that not all people agree with what I'll say. Also note that I'm only a monarch player, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Courthouses are ... acceptable at lowering maintenance costs. That's about it: they're acceptable, not good, definitely not great. Later in the game, when you've conquered most of your continent, they start to be good, and if you conquer another continent, they stop being good and become great, but at the point in the game that you're at, they should not be your priority.

Usually, the way to deal with economic failure after war and expansion is not via building courthouses, but via getting a lot of commerce to offset the maintenance costs. In this particular game, Rome can be a great cottage capital city, so the best way to make sure that you have enough commerce isn't to decrease the costs of maintaining cities, but to increase the amount of commerce you earn.

Also, think of it this way: a courthouse reduces the maintenance of a city by 50%. For a city that costs 5 gold per turn in maintenance, building a courthouse saves you 2.5 gold per turn. Over the entirety of a normal speed game and assuming you've had that city for all the game, a courthouse saves you 1250 gold in such a city. Just to offer some perspective, in late Renaissance, with a large enough empire, you get that much gold with 100% wealth in one turn.
On the other hand, if you work wealth in stead of building a courthouse, you get 1 gold per turn from the city tile itself, and if you work another tile such as a green hill, you get another 3 gold per turn on top of that.

Now... courthouses are good at some point, but keep in mind that the sooner you get a great empire with all the techs you need, the better. If you don't build courthouses early, in the long run, you lose SOME gold. But by building wealth, you can research certain things faster. For instance, you can research CS a bit faster and switch to bureaucracy, Rome being a great bureau capital if you cottage it.

This isn't to say that courthouses are bad. Courthouses can be great buildings, just don't overestimate their importance in reducing maintenance. Build them in a city which has at least 10 gold per turn maintenance cost.

I for one didn't even build them in such cities, I've built them in cities which cost me 15-20 or more gold per turn maintenance.
Just don't forget to build at least 6 at some point, so that you can build the Foreign Palace in a city far from your capital.

And again, please note that these ideas are not shared by everyone. But I do think that many would agree that building a courthouse in a city which costs 5 gpt in maintenance should not be a top priority.

 

[Y Draig]

@Civilized Tiger.

Spoiler :

Thanks for the advice on that. To be honest I've never really thought of it that way, I generally just look at the overall gpt, bpt. I'll take another look around at the cities I've built and see what I can get away with. The biggest problem I face right now is that I've just realised that, as a player who has never ran a specialist economy, I've not built a single cottage so far!! All the commerce generated is coming from gold and gems!! My tendencies towards war may have to be delayed until I'm sure I have the economy in place to support it!!

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@Y Draig

Spoiler :

On this particular map, Rome is a great bureaucracy capital if you cottage it. It can offer a huge deal of commerce. In my game, for a very long time, it offered 1/3 of the entire research of my empire... or more. (with 100% science slider)

That's not to say that it's bad if you don't cottage it, I think there are people who could win this without ever building a single cottage. (but unfortunately, I have no clue how to advise you in this... not yet )

 

[drlake]

@Y Draig

Spoiler :

What CT said...

Until the late game, Courthouses really don't pay for themselves very quickly. Given your current empire, your max maintenance cost is what, 6-7gpt? Assume the city maintenance is 10gpt, so you'll cut it by 5 with a Courthouse. A Courthouse costs 120 production to build on normal speed (less with an Organized leader or in Organized Religion), but assume neither is true for the moment.

Assume a city production of 10 hammers per turn. You will spend 12 turns producing the Courthouse, at which point it will start to save you 5gpt. Contrast that will putting those same hammers into building wealth. In those 12 turns, you'll produce 120 wealth, which means the net savings will take 24 additional turns (5gpt savings) before you break even on building the courthouse and start making a profit. So, for our mythical city, a courthouse takes 36 turns to pay for itself. If the benefit of the courthouse is smaller (because city maintenance costs are lower) then it takes even longer.For example, if you are only saving 3gpt due to the Courthouse, it'll take 40 turns to pay for its construction once it is built.

If you play at a speed slower than normal, it takes even longer for a courthouse to pay for itself.

That doesn't mean they aren't worth building. They allow you to build the FP, they generate EPs, and allow you to run a Spy specialist, all of which are worthwhile depending on how you are approaching the game. That said, I don't build them simply to save money until the city is quite far from my Palace/FP/Versailles.

 

[Y Draig]

Following the advice about courthouses from CivilizedTiger and drlake (thank you both) the game continues....

Spoiler :

All cities yet to build a courthouse had them removed from the build queue, courthouses already in production were either built as originally planned or moved way down the order. Workers began extensive cottaging around Rome, Neapolis and Yue Chi with the aim of specialising these cities towards commerce. Cumae is well on the way to completing the Temple of Artemis, which with the GLH will provide a further boost to the economy.

Away from home, to the North, religious divides appear with Willem & Huayna adopting Confucianism whilst Zara adopts Taoism. All trades are cut with Zara at Huayna's insistence and in response Zara refuses to talk to me. Following on from this my armies move towards the border with Zara, with the GLH and the Temple of Artemis built the Aqcuisition of Zara's coastal cities are an economically better prospect than the still Jungle swathed centre of the continent. I think I'll let Hiayna develop them a little more before I try to relieve him from them!!

 

[drlake]

Monarch/Epic to 1756AD:

Spoiler :

My imperial expansion is proceeding well. I recently finished my conquest of Willem's empire. Rather than deal with cultural pressure or unhappiness in the cities of his I wanted to keep (including the Hindu shrine city, yum!), I decided to remove him completely. The war took longer than I wanted because I had no navy to speak of, and rather than deal with his air attacks on defenseless age-of-sail vessels, I decided to wait until I could use Destroyers and Transports for my invasion.

Here is the current empire:

HC and Pacal are my vassals, and I'm currently having little problem fending off their culture except in a couple of the cities I took from Willem. That said, I have no problems garrisoning them enough to prevent revolts.

Here's the city summary:

Cumae and Cuzco are my main ground troop production centers, though I have quite a few cities with barracks to surge production with. Rome and Mutal are my main naval bases, and I'll have three cities with Airports soon. I've also got a Great General lying around but I'm going to use him on the first Tank to get 10exp to get a level 6 troop out so I can build West Point, probably in Cumae (where I have the Heroic Epic).

Tech Race:

I've got everyone beat, and Zara is my next target. He doesn't have squat for a standing army, though his recent acquisition of Rifling will slow me down slightly. He just finished that this turn, and I need 2-3 more turns to redeploy my army after taking down Willem.

Foreign Relations:

A rare period of complete peace.

Technology:

After I get Industrialization, I'll do Biology, Radio, and Artillery, probably in that order. I don't need to upgrade my Cannons to take out Zara, and am still using some Trebs to take down cultural defenses. CR2/3 Tanks are going to run roughshod over Zara, supported by fighters, destroyers, and spies.

Victory Conditions:

Demographics:

No AI is threatening a cultural win, I've got a solid tech and power lead, and control the AP, so I'm sitting pretty. The plan is to clear Zara off the continent before accepting his capitulation. If need be, I'll wipe him out like I did with Willem (who wouldn't cap until he was down to 1 city, ffs!). After that, the plan will be to work my way over to the other main continent, conquering cities one civ at a time until I cap them, and then gifting the cities back so I don't have to deal with the unhappiness.

 

[pzschrek]

Diplo victory 1850

Spoiler :

Huyana fell to my infantry when he had just rifles/grenadiers. Took longer than I thought it would, he had a decent sized army, almost parity with mine, but the tech told in the end. Was gearing up to continue the offensive into Yara's land when he peace-vassaled me. Too easy! I decided to stop and culture up to consolidate, but the babylonians asked me to go declare war on Japan. Seeing as I had just made a little stack of destroyers, I decide to take him up on it. A few maneuvers later and they were vassalized. I took this little stack of 4 transports with infantry supported by destroyers and vassilized Justinian by force as well as Sitting Bull, just as I finished my UN and hit end turn a bunch of times until I could vote myself the victor. If I had kept some of the land I took (intead of giving most back after capitulation), I probably could have gotten domination some turns earlier.

The other island was terribly behind it turned out...terribly. It was an easy matter for 16 infantry to take over the entire continent, the toughest unit I found over there was a cataphract. It's fun how having the best navy on a coastal-islandy map makes things so simple, and almost boring once I knew I was going to win.

I think I might try a harder difficulty next time. Is prince much different than noble? I like to play a game that taxes me at my current skill level, but where I still have an 80% chance or so at winning, and it's been a long time since I lost at noble.

By pzschrek at 2010-05-27

By pzschrek at 2010-05-27

By pzschrek at 2010-05-27

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@pzschrek
Prince isn't much different than noble. It's a good difficulty for transitioning to monarch, for getting your confidence up, but it's basically a noble in which you have a few mistakes less which will be forgiven to you.

It is somewhat more difficult than noble, though, so yeah, if you feel confident in noble already, go for prince next.
Monarch will be the first difficulty which feels somewhat more difficult, but it's still nothing much, the human is still able to get a great position early on. The main difference is that you stop having the feeling that the AI is a pushover. (You get that feeling back in the renaissance if you've kept a tech advantage, though )
From emperor on, I think it becomes a case of catching up to the AI and then overpowering it.

 

[fenskinator]

Alright, here's my new game!

Spoiler :

Pacal is no longer among the living, I took him out early since he was buddy buddy with Huayna and I know that if I let them get too close, I'll have to deal with both at once. I've got screenies at http://profile.imageshack.us/user/fenskinator?n=y, with just the pics at where I'm stopped. I'm really not sure what all of my cities are going to specialize in this time around and so I end up just kinda throwing improvements up. Mostly I ever stick with cottages and farms and resource improvements and that's about it. The only other points I'm stuck on really are:

1) when do I know I should be building new cities
2) if everyone on the continent is the same religion should I pick a fight with the other continent?
3) are workshops, watermills, windmills going to give my cities any kind of advantage? I actually don't think there's any kind of primer, but I'm going to double check the war academy

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[Olfart]

@Civilized Tiger

Personally, I've not found it that easy to move from Noble to Prince. I no longer get my clock cleaned on a regular basis, but I don't win very many either. I won at Noble on this game (see my earlier post) more convincingly than I've ever won a game and gained a bit more confidence to keep going at Prince. Maybe I'm just a slow learner. What I've learned, however, is that playing consistently on Prince has REALLY improved my game at Noble.

 

[CarlH]

@drlake

I would suggest gifting your vassals all of your technology, or at least enough so that you can direct them to resarch something you dont laready have, which you can then trade with them. Given that none of the other civs have any techs that you dont, I dont think you will have to worry about them trading away your tech advantage. This will greatly speed your progress down the tech tree.

The slight danger is that they may go for space, if you let it get out of hand, but you can avoid this by ordering them not to research one of the required techs.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

@fenskinator

Spoiler :

Rome should be your main commerce city, although you can also very successfully make it in a GP farm or a Production city, the location is just that great, but I for one would recommend cottaging all non-hill non-resource tiles there. (starting with riverside grassland)

Cumae can either be a GP farm or a Production city, although I'd recommend a production city more. Build farms on all the floodplains and mines on all the hills. The three tiles that are neither hills nor floodplains should get workshops, but don't do it yet. Workshops suck in the early game.

Neapolis - good production city. Demolish that cottage, or the cottages if you have more, in this city, you won't use them. When you get machinery, try to build some watermills near the river, except on any floodplains you might have, which should be farms. Take note that there's something special in watermills - you can't have them on both banks of a river, so you have to decide on which bank you want the watermill and on which bank you want the farm or workshop. Anyway, this city will only be a middle production city in the early game.

Ravenna - good production city. It might also be good with cottages, so your choice. I'm trying to use less cottages in my games, so my answers could be biased this way. Cottages are great, so have them in some cities. Anyway, if I were you, I'd use that as a production city with lots of watermills (better in the later game), but I'm not you, so if this idea bites you in the face... you know... it doesn't bite me in the face.

Mutal - good GP farm or good coastal production city. Try not to have cottages here.

Antium - good GP farm or good production city. Depending on what role you choose, go with either watermills or farms.

As you'll notice, at least in my opinion, you don't have many cities for cottages, but you do have Rome, which should get cottages.

As for the world wide web improvements
- workshops are terrible early game, but they become better with Caste System (should you choose this civic), Guilds (just getting the tech is enough), Chemistry (just getting the tech is enough) and State Property (civic, should you choose it); the point is, with just those two techs and with Caste, workshops are better than mines. (except for the mines offer resources part)
- watermills and windmills are better with electricity and I think with Environmentalism (late civic, should you choose to use it) You might want to turn some mines in windmills in Rome when you get to electricity (never the mines which offer resources)

@Olfart
Unfortunately, my answers will be from own experience, and my own experience was this: whenever I lost in prince, it was due to military failure, and I'd have lost the exact same game for the exact same reason in noble difficulty as well. The only lesson I had to learn in prince is "train more military". With that lesson, I could easily win both noble and prince. Without it, I'd lose both noble and prince.

 

[drlake]

@drlake

I would suggest gifting your vassals all of your technology, or at least enough so that you can direct them to resarch something you dont laready have, which you can then trade with them. Given that none of the other civs have any techs that you dont, I dont think you will have to worry about them trading away your tech advantage. This will greatly speed your progress down the tech tree.

The slight danger is that they may go for space, if you let it get out of hand, but you can avoid this by ordering them not to research one of the required techs.

You nailed the reason why I haven't been doing that - to keep them from trading techs away. I suppose that isn't a major threat given where the game is, though.

Spoiler :

Since posting the update, I've cleared Zara off the continent and started to take his island cities. Tanks against Longbows, baby! I'll still gift most of the techs to my minions, to help them build up useful navies to protect the home continent.

 

[Olfart]

@CivilizedTiger

Must be different play styles. My problem on Prince is keeping up with technology and not crashing the economy. I almost never have a problem with the size of my military. However, I almost never go for anything other than domination or conquest wins. Perhaps I should rethink that. On the current game:

Spoiler :

I find it interesting that almost everyone is going after Pacal first. I went after HC first. Once I got rid of him, Pacal was a cakewalk. Admittedly, this was one of those games where everything just fell into place. I'll probably never have another one like it.