Hi, I'm about to start a new game and wanted to do a strategy bit before I launch the game. Any ideas/comments are welcome. OK, much ado about nothing, let's get started. I decided to go noble first time, due to the huge number of civs, but might try prince after the first game. On prince, I might make this an ALC... but now, get on with it!
EDIT: I'm going to do Prince straight away. Double the pride, twice the fall. Noble sucks
EDIT #2: Also made this an ALC right away - I got a feeling that this baby will rock. Will generate map soon... be prepared.
EDIT #3 Darn. I screwed this one up. This is NOT an ALC, but an open game, for you to comment on. I will play it in bits, post images, and you may comment. I will try to follow your suggestions where applicable.
Okey dokey here it is:
Prince difficulty
Huge Terra map
Low sea level
Random climate
18 civs (17 AI)
Raging barbs (to control some of the war mongerers early on -
later there will be no barbs as the world is teeming with civilization!)
Marathon game speed
Pericles of the Greek (Philosophical & Creative!)
Fishing and hunting (darn - no mining!)
EDIT: Screw Pericles. He was a wussie in real life. Going to use Roosevelt for Organized/Industrious. Much better long term traits. We get our culture from wonders/specialists and also GP points.
Victory
Trying to go for diplomatic/time/space victory here - domination is all but impossible with all those civs...
Culture would also be in vain, as there are bound to be some other creative civs here
Population and territory - hmm... perhaps, perhaps. But that would lead us to war would it not?
Let's keep that one in mind though... No one knows if we are going to be the most militant civ yet...
EDIT: Jerrymander noted that domination COULD be possible. Hmm... I am not so confident in myself and Roosevelt at this point however. We'll see. For now, let's rule that out, as it unneccesseraly widens our options. I am confident that we could get a space victory - diplomacy is going to be somewhat difficult after some analasys. There are so many civs we would need to please... And time victory is just lame. Let's go with the space race for now.
- So, it seems that we are going to be one of the peacemongers. How boring. But fear not, I'm sure
we will see our part of warmongering as well. There are bound to be some weak civs that will
either join us or perish!
- One important note: Due to raging barbs and number of civs, wars are going to happen often.
Try not to get involved in one (or two!). Use religion to keep relations going where you can,
but be prepared at all times.
- Need CRE to spread borders early on - It's all about grabbing that land on this one.
And there is a lot of it - although 17 other civs competing for it as all start in the old world.
- Philosophical to get some GP early on - need Temples to do this obviously
EDIT: Since we changed to Roosevelt above, this is no longer valid. Now we get culture from wonders and buildings and later with GA:s and culture bombs. GP points are also coming from wonders and specialists.
- Note that we are at the mercy of a random climate here - if we go for tropical, it means a lot of grassland,
which will imply a specialist economy (need Iron Working very early)
- If we get an ice age, then grabbing that fertile land is extra important and steers us toward rapid expansion
(someone might even say RABID expansion, heh)
- if we get a world of stone (rocky), then obviously that specialist economy is going to fail,
unless we are the lucky ones to get the best land... That means this will be a wonder race,
to build all those shiny wonders with all that stone and marble!
Also, this most likely means WAR, as resources are bound to be limited. Same goes of course for Icy worlds.
- Almost the same strategy applies to a desert world, although plains can be farmed, to give us that extra food
to grow...
But at the cost of cottages, so no real reason for specialist here either. Again depends on how lucky WE are!
- If we are lucky enough to get temperate, then hell, let the GP's spawn and on with the specialization!
- With SE (Specialist economy)
- Try to build a coastal city first (for added commerce & seafood - we could really need that here)
- Try to get Stonehenge build too, for GP points and the extra culture (we need every point of culture here, really)
- And then off to the pyramids - could do the Oracle gambit... or not!
- Try to get Polytheism AND monotheism first
(Both are a bit of a gambit - we got no mysticism or mining for masonry. But I'm confident.)
EDIT: Jerrymander suggested about going the Writing/Alphabet route and trading for those other techs later. I see this as a good alternative, but it will depend on wether we are in range of many andvanced civs. As religion is VERY important in this game, I am not keen to forgo it at this stage however. Not without a fight at least.
EDIT#2: Also, religion has a major impact in those relationships with other civs. As much as ±4 - ±6! What good does it do if we have techs to trade, but all other civs hate us as heathens or are otherwise unfriendly? This is especially true on higher difficulty settings, I believe. Correct me if I am wrong.
- Now, what is going to be of uttermost importance is who will find and settle the new world first. Since it will
proparly be teeming with barb states, capturing one as your first colony should be a no brainer.
We need to keep this in mind when founding cities in the old world (want 2 or more coastal cities early on).
And also beeline our research towards optics and later Astronomy.
- Scout scout, scout and after that scout some more. We wan't everything in sight asap.
If cities don't have anything else to build, then build a horde of scouts and send them on their way. The
autoexplore feature will give us a hand here, as it is impossible to do all that by hand. Also, try to save some scouts
to upgrade to explorers and send them to the new world in your first caravels (build 2 first to circumvent the globe in
opposite directions).
Tech tree early on:
1. Mysticism (Stonehenge!)
2. The Wheel (point being, if we got stone/other resource then hook that up RIGHT NOW - we need it for pottery anyway)
3. Mining
4. Masonry (we need that to get Monotheism - plus for stone if we got one -- double the pride, half the fall)
5. Food tech IF necessary (no coast with fishies, floodplains / other 3 food plots in range) or straight for polytheism
6. Polytheism (Does not matter if someone got it first - we get monotheism next anyway)
7. Monotheism (Let there be one god!)
- Change to organized religion asap!
8. Bronze working (Start chopping that Stonehenge, change to slavery asap)
9. Pottery (Start the Cottage Spam!)
10. Hunting (for archery) (EDIT: move before the Wheel)
11. Archery (those nuts Raging barbs!)
12. More food tech
12. Priesthood (The Oracle!!! If applicable - see below #10)
13. Iron working (could be earlier due to tropical climate)
EDIT: Since we are playing the Americans, we don't have the hunting that the Greeks would have had. That's why I'm going to put Hunting before The Wheel. We do need those scouts - warriors suck at scouting. Especially with Prince/Raging barbs we are going to lose warriors fast this way from hostile huts.
Now, as I said earlier, it is somewhat unlikely that we get those two religions first, or even one.
We could get lucky and pop a tech on the research path from a hut, though... That is one more reason to scout
aggressively for them and for resources.
But fear not! Religion is bound to spread in your lands as other civs start spreading it. Try to get a later
religion after the initial research. Or, if chance comes by, conquer a holy city. We really want a shrine or two,
after all!
Preliminary build queue for Washington:
1. Warrior (Barbs - ouch!)
2. Worker if have stone, work boat if have fish/crabs/clam
- Worker can build roads after Wheel, or build a mine if applicable terrain is found before masonry
- IF we get a nice food tech from Huts that we have recources for, then do that first (Pasture, Farm, Camp)
3. Worker if build work boat above, else a scout
4. Settler if have stone nearby, else a scout
- Hook up any stone we might have (how unlikely
)
5. Warrior if build settler or scout above
6. Start on stonehenge
- hook up any copper we have in range
5. Phalanx / Spearman / Archer if have these already
6. Settler or worker (if build settler above)
7. Settler none the less
8. Monastery, if have not organized religion; else Temple
9. Missionary for New York
10. BIG IF - Pyramids with stone, else Oracle for free tech (go for Metal casting, Forge, Great engineer)
- This is where the strategy is at crossroads; if we got stone no need for oracle gambit - else... well...
11. Alas, a forge if got Metal casting, else Some happy puppy / doctor building (Temple/Granary obviously at this stage)
- REMEMBER THAT DARN ENGINEER to give us those precious little GP points
12. Doctor building if not got that Super Healthy Special Herb (SHSH) from random event by now
13. Pyramids - rush with engineer if got one else, just the snail way
- Change to represantiation asap, if we got he pyramids first, otherwise - damn it!
14. Barracks and more units, if this is the best production city, else other cities can do this.
15. Time to specialize
- is this the holy city? If so then try to get that Prophet to construct the shrine,
and build hordes of missionaries;
- is this the GP farm? If so, hook up all those food resources and put specialists to whatever GP you want.
- is this the production city? If so, then build wonders and production buildings, along with happy puppy/doctor
buildings;
- Is this a commerce city? If so, decide if it's a science city or a money making machine. Build accordingly.
In general, we try to specialize all cities and try to keep in mind that 2/3 rule: 2 prod cities per 3 other cities.
Also, we wan't to build up our military slowly, but steadily - this is going to get ugly at some stage, trust me.
Build new unit types as they come available, and upragrade old ones - it is worth the money!
Ergo, try to keep one of your production cities building those units; it's no good to become locked in a war, where
they are all building wonders. Those will be taken by the enemy!
ADDED:
As for civics, let's not forget about those!
Government: If we get the pyramids, change to Representation (Constitution). Later, in mid/late game change to Universal suffrage (Democracy). Could do the whole game with Represantation, though. Police state (Fascism) if at war for a long time.
Legal: Bureucracy (Civil Service) is good in the mid game. Can use that +50% prod/commerce bonus in the capital. Late game: Free Speech (Liberalism). Use Vassalage (Feudalism) / Nationhood (Nationalism) when at war temporarily.
Labor: We can do with slavery (Bronze working) for a while, but ultimately want to go for Emancipation (Democracy). Skip serfdom/caste system. Those suck.
Economic: Try to build the Angkor Wat if you have a holy city, then go for Mercantilism (Banking). Later Free Market (Economy) and Environmentalism (Medicine) in the very late game if need health, otherwise skip it. Skip State property as we have no use for it as organized as Roosevelt is.
Religion: We take Organized Religion (Monotheism) and stick to it for the entire game. We don't want to lose our state religion to Free religion, no. And Theocracy generally sucks. Get those extra xp from vassalage. Pacifism (Philosophy) can be replaced by wonders and specialists. No need for extra GP here. And as the game advances to mid/late stage, it will take a ton of GP to do anything useful anyway.
Now we need to start thinking about winning again - must review our strategy and the options available, and also
check if some conditions are more likely than others.
ADDED:
It has just occured to me that since we are going to the space race, it is obvious that nukes will come into play at some point. We don't want to use them, but we will build the SDI and shelters just in case. We'll also keep some nukes ourselves, just in case someone plans on wiping the floor with us... I'm sure Ghandi will be the first to fire those nukes on everybody, just watch and see
Now, I tried to make this strategy as flexible as can be, but I'd love to have suggestions as well. Feel free to comment!
EDIT: I'm going to do Prince straight away. Double the pride, twice the fall. Noble sucks
EDIT #2: Also made this an ALC right away - I got a feeling that this baby will rock. Will generate map soon... be prepared.
EDIT #3 Darn. I screwed this one up. This is NOT an ALC, but an open game, for you to comment on. I will play it in bits, post images, and you may comment. I will try to follow your suggestions where applicable.
Okey dokey here it is:
Prince difficulty
Huge Terra map
Low sea level
Random climate
18 civs (17 AI)
Raging barbs (to control some of the war mongerers early on -
later there will be no barbs as the world is teeming with civilization!)
Marathon game speed
Pericles of the Greek (Philosophical & Creative!)
Fishing and hunting (darn - no mining!)
EDIT: Screw Pericles. He was a wussie in real life. Going to use Roosevelt for Organized/Industrious. Much better long term traits. We get our culture from wonders/specialists and also GP points.
Victory
Trying to go for diplomatic/time/space victory here - domination is all but impossible with all those civs...
Culture would also be in vain, as there are bound to be some other creative civs here
Population and territory - hmm... perhaps, perhaps. But that would lead us to war would it not?
Let's keep that one in mind though... No one knows if we are going to be the most militant civ yet...
EDIT: Jerrymander noted that domination COULD be possible. Hmm... I am not so confident in myself and Roosevelt at this point however. We'll see. For now, let's rule that out, as it unneccesseraly widens our options. I am confident that we could get a space victory - diplomacy is going to be somewhat difficult after some analasys. There are so many civs we would need to please... And time victory is just lame. Let's go with the space race for now.
- So, it seems that we are going to be one of the peacemongers. How boring
. But fear not, I'm surewe will see our part of warmongering as well. There are bound to be some weak civs that will
either join us or perish!
- One important note: Due to raging barbs and number of civs, wars are going to happen often.
Try not to get involved in one (or two!). Use religion to keep relations going where you can,
but be prepared at all times.
- Need CRE to spread borders early on - It's all about grabbing that land on this one.
And there is a lot of it - although 17 other civs competing for it as all start in the old world.
- Philosophical to get some GP early on - need Temples to do this obviously
EDIT: Since we changed to Roosevelt above, this is no longer valid. Now we get culture from wonders and buildings and later with GA:s and culture bombs. GP points are also coming from wonders and specialists.
- Note that we are at the mercy of a random climate here - if we go for tropical, it means a lot of grassland,
which will imply a specialist economy (need Iron Working very early)
- If we get an ice age, then grabbing that fertile land is extra important and steers us toward rapid expansion
(someone might even say RABID expansion, heh)
- if we get a world of stone (rocky), then obviously that specialist economy is going to fail,
unless we are the lucky ones to get the best land... That means this will be a wonder race,
to build all those shiny wonders with all that stone and marble!
Also, this most likely means WAR, as resources are bound to be limited. Same goes of course for Icy worlds.
- Almost the same strategy applies to a desert world, although plains can be farmed, to give us that extra food
to grow...
But at the cost of cottages, so no real reason for specialist here either. Again depends on how lucky WE are!
- If we are lucky enough to get temperate, then hell, let the GP's spawn and on with the specialization!
- With SE (Specialist economy)
- Try to build a coastal city first (for added commerce & seafood - we could really need that here)
- Try to get Stonehenge build too, for GP points and the extra culture (we need every point of culture here, really)
- And then off to the pyramids - could do the Oracle gambit... or not!
- Try to get Polytheism AND monotheism first
(Both are a bit of a gambit - we got no mysticism or mining for masonry. But I'm confident.)
EDIT: Jerrymander suggested about going the Writing/Alphabet route and trading for those other techs later. I see this as a good alternative, but it will depend on wether we are in range of many andvanced civs. As religion is VERY important in this game, I am not keen to forgo it at this stage however. Not without a fight at least.
EDIT#2: Also, religion has a major impact in those relationships with other civs. As much as ±4 - ±6! What good does it do if we have techs to trade, but all other civs hate us as heathens or are otherwise unfriendly? This is especially true on higher difficulty settings, I believe. Correct me if I am wrong.
- Now, what is going to be of uttermost importance is who will find and settle the new world first. Since it will
proparly be teeming with barb states, capturing one as your first colony should be a no brainer.
We need to keep this in mind when founding cities in the old world (want 2 or more coastal cities early on).
And also beeline our research towards optics and later Astronomy.
- Scout scout, scout and after that scout some more. We wan't everything in sight asap.
If cities don't have anything else to build, then build a horde of scouts and send them on their way. The
autoexplore feature will give us a hand here, as it is impossible to do all that by hand. Also, try to save some scouts
to upgrade to explorers and send them to the new world in your first caravels (build 2 first to circumvent the globe in
opposite directions).
Tech tree early on:
1. Mysticism (Stonehenge!)
2. The Wheel (point being, if we got stone/other resource then hook that up RIGHT NOW - we need it for pottery anyway)
3. Mining
4. Masonry (we need that to get Monotheism - plus for stone if we got one -- double the pride, half the fall)
5. Food tech IF necessary (no coast with fishies, floodplains / other 3 food plots in range) or straight for polytheism
6. Polytheism (Does not matter if someone got it first - we get monotheism next anyway)
7. Monotheism (Let there be one god!)
- Change to organized religion asap!
8. Bronze working (Start chopping that Stonehenge, change to slavery asap)
9. Pottery (Start the Cottage Spam!)
10. Hunting (for archery) (EDIT: move before the Wheel)
11. Archery (those nuts Raging barbs!)
12. More food tech
12. Priesthood (The Oracle!!! If applicable - see below #10)
13. Iron working (could be earlier due to tropical climate)
EDIT: Since we are playing the Americans, we don't have the hunting that the Greeks would have had. That's why I'm going to put Hunting before The Wheel. We do need those scouts - warriors suck at scouting. Especially with Prince/Raging barbs we are going to lose warriors fast this way from hostile huts.
Now, as I said earlier, it is somewhat unlikely that we get those two religions first, or even one.
We could get lucky and pop a tech on the research path from a hut, though... That is one more reason to scout
aggressively for them and for resources.
But fear not! Religion is bound to spread in your lands as other civs start spreading it. Try to get a later
religion after the initial research. Or, if chance comes by, conquer a holy city. We really want a shrine or two,
after all!
Preliminary build queue for Washington:
1. Warrior (Barbs - ouch!)
2. Worker if have stone, work boat if have fish/crabs/clam
- Worker can build roads after Wheel, or build a mine if applicable terrain is found before masonry
- IF we get a nice food tech from Huts that we have recources for, then do that first (Pasture, Farm, Camp)
3. Worker if build work boat above, else a scout
4. Settler if have stone nearby, else a scout
- Hook up any stone we might have (how unlikely
)5. Warrior if build settler or scout above
6. Start on stonehenge
- hook up any copper we have in range
5. Phalanx / Spearman / Archer if have these already
6. Settler or worker (if build settler above)
7. Settler none the less
8. Monastery, if have not organized religion; else Temple
9. Missionary for New York
10. BIG IF - Pyramids with stone, else Oracle for free tech (go for Metal casting, Forge, Great engineer)
- This is where the strategy is at crossroads; if we got stone no need for oracle gambit - else... well...
11. Alas, a forge if got Metal casting, else Some happy puppy / doctor building (Temple/Granary obviously at this stage)
- REMEMBER THAT DARN ENGINEER to give us those precious little GP points
12. Doctor building if not got that Super Healthy Special Herb (SHSH) from random event by now
13. Pyramids - rush with engineer if got one else, just the snail way
- Change to represantiation asap, if we got he pyramids first, otherwise - damn it!
14. Barracks and more units, if this is the best production city, else other cities can do this.
15. Time to specialize
- is this the holy city? If so then try to get that Prophet to construct the shrine,
and build hordes of missionaries;
- is this the GP farm? If so, hook up all those food resources and put specialists to whatever GP you want.
- is this the production city? If so, then build wonders and production buildings, along with happy puppy/doctor
buildings;
- Is this a commerce city? If so, decide if it's a science city or a money making machine. Build accordingly.
In general, we try to specialize all cities and try to keep in mind that 2/3 rule: 2 prod cities per 3 other cities.
Also, we wan't to build up our military slowly, but steadily - this is going to get ugly at some stage, trust me.
Build new unit types as they come available, and upragrade old ones - it is worth the money!
Ergo, try to keep one of your production cities building those units; it's no good to become locked in a war, where
they are all building wonders. Those will be taken by the enemy!
ADDED:
As for civics, let's not forget about those!
Government: If we get the pyramids, change to Representation (Constitution). Later, in mid/late game change to Universal suffrage (Democracy). Could do the whole game with Represantation, though. Police state (Fascism) if at war for a long time.
Legal: Bureucracy (Civil Service) is good in the mid game. Can use that +50% prod/commerce bonus in the capital. Late game: Free Speech (Liberalism). Use Vassalage (Feudalism) / Nationhood (Nationalism) when at war temporarily.
Labor: We can do with slavery (Bronze working) for a while, but ultimately want to go for Emancipation (Democracy). Skip serfdom/caste system. Those suck.
Economic: Try to build the Angkor Wat if you have a holy city, then go for Mercantilism (Banking). Later Free Market (Economy) and Environmentalism (Medicine) in the very late game if need health, otherwise skip it. Skip State property as we have no use for it as organized as Roosevelt is.
Religion: We take Organized Religion (Monotheism) and stick to it for the entire game. We don't want to lose our state religion to Free religion, no. And Theocracy generally sucks. Get those extra xp from vassalage. Pacifism (Philosophy) can be replaced by wonders and specialists. No need for extra GP here. And as the game advances to mid/late stage, it will take a ton of GP to do anything useful anyway.
Now we need to start thinking about winning again - must review our strategy and the options available, and also
check if some conditions are more likely than others.
ADDED:
It has just occured to me that since we are going to the space race, it is obvious that nukes will come into play at some point. We don't want to use them, but we will build the SDI and shelters just in case. We'll also keep some nukes ourselves, just in case someone plans on wiping the floor with us... I'm sure Ghandi will be the first to fire those nukes on everybody, just watch and see
Now, I tried to make this strategy as flexible as can be, but I'd love to have suggestions as well. Feel free to comment!
I paid up, and it should start working soon. (should be 7,2 mB/s! 
