[C3C] Opening/early game questions surrounded by mostly infertile Lands

[vmxa]

Wow, I was able create the map in the editor. I tried in game, but discovered 3 civs were missing in the selection. The are missing, if I use the orig exe as well. They are in the editor as playable. I am going to have a look at it using my GoG C3C install. Just not today, lol.

 

[vmxa]

Ok, I got it in GoG. Two settings I did not know:
wonder victory
culturally linked
I will I have to play some to see more of the map and know how close to the original it came out. May have to reinstall my Steam version to get the missing civs.
A real pain. Now I know why the Iroq have not been in game lately.

 

[Buttercup]

I always thought Culturally Linked was the default? Oh well, maybe not. Anyway, yes, with that on there's this age old bug where it means you always get all the South American tribes when you have that on regardless of what other civ you choose, lol.

 

[vmxa]

I meant I did not know what was selected in the game save for those two settings. Trying to recreate the map exactly. That requires getting all settings the same as the original start. It is
a setting that can be turned off/on. True it did cause issues.

 

[LordofDread]

One of my hard disks gave up in March, so I decided to set my PC up fresh from start. Lost some of the newer saves from this game though. Latest save I found in my backup is from 130 AD (attached).

Pre 130 AD:
Despite my 100% efforts (I still remember it like it was yesterday) I did not get Republic as first. Someone beat me to it, and whats even worse, one of the Scientific Civ's got Feudalism as their free tech, and traded Republic for it with another AI. Feudalism can be as early in the tech tree as Republic, especially when tech rate is fast - even on emperor. So I spent some turns in Republic, but my long streched Empire, along with the work force did not allow for very fast research. After getting Feudalism I revolted immediately from Republic to it. A lot more workers were needed, a lot more Military towards east and west - also some south. Republic did not satisfy this need, especially with only a few 7+ cities around. Also founded some feudal cities (named W1, W2, W3,...). Those cities only produce workers and catapults/Trebuchets, and would lateron get disbanded once I revolt back to Republic. I stand by my opinion that Feudalism was very beneficial in this setting, at least for some time.

After 130AD: (later saves all lost.....)
Founded some more Feudal Cities (until W11 oder W12 iirc). Huge workforce clearing Jungle.
I remember getting a Leader from the Japanese lateron in the west. They were not at war yet in 130 AD, but as I was ready with Pikes and Med's I urged them to leave my territory (which they obviously did not). Initiated GA with War Chariot. Only took one City from the Japanese. They did not have anthing of value for me. Fortified the captured city, in case they would get greedy again. Afterwards I headed east, conquering the Carthaginians (with lots of Trebuchets from my Feudal cities, some timely pop rushing), and some cities from the Americans too (who somehow felt threatened). Apart from Gems, Carthage had a second Lux which I did not see in the early turns. Then revolted back to Republic. Finally disbanded some of the Feudal cities, especially those built after 130 AD.

Learnings:
- Could have done somewhat better, especially with early spacing, as some correctly pointed out.
- Clearing that much jungle sufficiently early clearly requires much effort. Much more than a Republic can handle imho, especially if you have to protect two borders far away from each other. And prepare for a war at the same time, getting GA and 2 Lux .
- Huge Pangea Maps can make for pretty fast tech rate, even on Emperor.
- In retroperspective, at the time of my earlier save, I should have gone for 0% Science, trade for Construction as it was available, then max (or even min) on Feudalism. Could've traded for Republic lateron as needed.

 

[Spoonwood]

Korea would be insulted for 47 gpt for gold, but would never take 48 gpt for your gold. So, Korea has 47 gpt that they might pay for purchasing some technology. The Maya I think have 5 gpt ... nope it's 10 gpt. The Inca have 19 gpt available. 47 + 19 + 10 = 76 gpt, for 38 more workers that could get supported if you were in a position to sell tech for gpt. I put an embassy in Cuzco and it doesn't even have a marketplace making only 7 gpt at size 7 with a colosseum in progress The AIs also get more gpt later, if you can manage to acquire it.

I don't know why you are using the city governor.

You have emphasize production off. It's possible to get extra shields upon growth with it on. I think the production order goes commerce, food, then shields, so emphasize production can yield buildings and units getting produced quicker once you can predict which tile will get used on growth.

Also, Lanzelot pointed out there's some way to tell total commerce a while back. Your GNP is currently 230 million. There's no army support cost in Feudalism. After putting entertainers back on tiles, GNP is 396 in Republic. There's 102 army support cost. It's +140 gold at 0% science after the revolution in Republic. It's +126 gold before the revolution in Feudalism. There was some growth from the revolution and maybe me putting all possible citizens on tiles, but I don't think it's quite 14 gold, maybe 6 or 8.

Pop rushing makes things more complicated to evaluate than commerce comparisons. But, overall the growth lost I think outweighs the gains from earlier units. Were this a non-huge map, those cities putting out more settlers for progressing to domination or combat engineers later keeps corrupt value cities high. With the optimal city number coming up ahead likely, putting out settlers has utility still for shifting city spots still and combat settlers. I guess fewer workers than more might feel simpler, but a more quickly built rail network and fully railed core (if not also corrupt cities railroard for specialist farms) has more potential in terms of simplifying wars and maximizing production earlier.

If you wanted to play for score, W3 and W7 are prime locations for producing citizens. W10 relocatted on the other side of the river jammed into the coast also has nice sea squares and good grassland and those whales and fishes. W1 relocated away from the hills maybe is pretty good of a spot with no culture. W5 is more of a city deserving of disbandment.

If you were doing late game research having police stations and courthouses for corrupt areas, any location anywhere like W3 and W7 is again good quality because of more citizens for specialists on top of quicker growth, and W10 is, because of more commerce potential.

 

[LordofDread]

Probably should have mentioned that I don't intend to replay the turns I lost to nirvana on the hard drive. However the GA lead at least to tech parity IIRC, and I usually check afterwards what other Civ's are willing to offer.

I don't know why you are using the city governor.

Mostly lazyness. Micromanaging every city manually after a better tile is improved by my workers is sometimes too much work for me. Comes with a loss of production and commerce. So it depends on the game. If I feel hard pressed and every shield&commerce counts I do it manually. Capital and settler factories I always manage manually.

Strangely enough at my 230 BC save, no city was using governor, and every city emphazised food except the capital, which didn't emphasize anything. So I must have felt hard pressed, and pressed for growth in general. Probably the Capital went for the forest on growth to 6 even without emphasize production on. That does not have to be the case, as I've seen in a more recent game start.

You have emphasize production off. It's possible to get extra shields upon growth with it on. I think the production order goes commerce, food, then shields, so emphasize production can yield buildings and units getting produced quicker once you can predict which tile will get used on growth.

That's because of using city governor. If you have emphasize production on, the governor sometimes goes for 2 food and as max shields as possible, even if the city could have growth of 3 food per turn. That means sometimes losing shields on city growth.
However I realized only recently how important emphasize production really is for example in a 6 turn settler factory. At size 5: Turn 1: 10 shields, 2 Food => warrior, Turn 2&3 4 food and 9 shields towards a spearman, and then the 2 missing shields upon growth from emphasize production.

It probably wasn't in this game where I finally got this after so many years.

Also, Lanzelot pointed out there's some way to tell total commerce a while back. Your GNP is currently 230 million. There's no army support cost in Feudalism. After putting entertainers back on tiles, GNP is 396 in Republic. There's 102 army support cost. It's +140 gold at 0% science after the revolution in Republic. It's +126 gold before the revolution in Feudalism. There was some growth from the revolution and maybe me putting all possible citizens on tiles, but I don't think it's quite 14 gold, maybe 6 or 8.

I also remember checking net gain by keeping science breakers per turn more or less equal before and after revolt. It did not matter much at the time. Also Alexandria just grew to size 7 this turn, and this probably shifted again the numbers slightly in Republic's favour since the revolt to Feudalism 2 turns ago. So at this current unit support, I could've managed the Republic, just by clearing jungle/marshes slowly. With more Aquaeducts I would probably have followed a similar war strategy, although with somewhat less speed and less Trebuchets I guess. Clearing jungle early was a primary goal though, with respect to the longer term progress over the Middle Ages. So Feudalism felt nice here, and playing Feudalism requires also some training anyways (at least for me).

W10 relocatted on the other side of the river jammed into the coast also has nice sea squares and good grassland and those whales and fishes.

W10 was the absolute horror. First I had to irrigate the current spot of W10, in order to bring water to the southern plains. Later I had to place a city on the current irrigated spot, don't remember if I saw some foreign settler or galley heading toward it. Then at the current save at 130 AD, my 2 workers finally cleared the spot I wanted to place W10 for good (getting both fish bonuses after border expansion). So W10 got finally disbanded and rebuilt one tile northwest.
EDIT: Coming to think of it I was simply lacking the workers to clear the marshes there at some BC time, so I thought lets place a city there and produce the workers locally to clear the final spot and marshes around it...

 

[Spoonwood]

If you have emphasize production on, the governor sometimes goes for 2 food and as max shields as possible, even if the city could have growth of 3 food per turn. That means sometimes losing shields on city growth.
However I realized only recently how important emphasize production really is for example in a 6 turn settler factory. At size 5: Turn 1: 10 shields, 2 Food => warrior, Turn 2&3 4 food and 9 shields towards a spearman, and then the 2 missing shields upon growth from emphasize production.

Playing early game starts with no food bonus recently, it seems pretty reliable to me that if you have a mined bonus grassland or sugar not in use, then the selected tile upon growth will be that mined bonus grassland. If you have a 1 food tile, with the city having 2 bonus food on growth, it won't select the 1 food and high production tile. I remember swapping to fishes off of a bonus grassland used on turns 1 through 4, for that little extra commerce.
Also, it's value becomes more difficult for me with trying to get a granary in a city a turn earlier.

I'd replace your example by an archer, but that's because attacking units can provide more value than defensive units.
Another example is producing a settler with turns 2-4 of growth producing 7 shields, and then maybe swapping a bonus grassland from some other city site in use to get 9 shields upon growth. Also, worker combinations. That said having that sort of land seems slightly above average or needing a fair large city size. If you ever try weaker food starts, nailing down such production combos during at least some early turns has even more value I think, though I'm struggling to understand why exactly. If you have one city with 2 surplus food per turn and then a second city a turn earlier via emphasize production, you have 2 cities growing in 5 turns instead of 1 city in 5 turns. If you have 3 turn growth in one city, and a second has turn growth, you have one city growing in 3 turns, and then one city growing in 3 turns and a second in 5 turns. It will take if you had waited in both cases, but in the 2 surplus only case, producing settlers takes 10 turns, while producing settlers with 4 (or 3+3+4 surplus food) surplus food takes 6 turns. Maybe it's something to do with later city founding dates or tile development via workers having more of an effect with weaker growth.

Clearing jungle early was a primary goal though, with respect to the longer term progress over the Middle Ages. So Feudalism felt nice here, and playing Feudalism requires also some training anyways (at least for me).

There is something of an art to playing with Feudalism. If you ever try playing for a 100k game, then whipping has high value, since building culture quickly can lower possible finish date. Or you can get cultural in corrput areas, since food doesn't corrupt, and some of the buildings help to offset the unhappiness from whipping. Feudalism training involves figuring out short-rushing combos. Also, if playing for 100k, getting gunpowder and trying to avoid Nationalism. I've usually imagined whipped citizens as killed. But, maybe they just end up leaving towns and have the strength to survive outside of civilization. Nah, a bunch of them end up dying in say constructing a temple or library or whatever. The master whips the workers building the buildings or training the soldiers and they work themselves to death or end up making some decision which causes the collapse of part of the temple under construction to collapse. The master's whip is a cause of the people's death via whipping, but not the physical cause of death in all cases, since sometimes buildings collapse or there's some bad decision or murder which happens when training soldiers I guess.

 

[LordofDread]

For those who still want it, here is the 4000 BC save, although I moved the worker and then saved. Dont know if this helps.

Avoiding wars seems to be in your best interest. You have more land than you can utilize well before then industrial age. Corruption will limit your productivity. The ratio of risk and reward does not favour war before cavalry changes the picture.

While I do agree with most other points you mentioned, almost all the land was utilized by mid middle ages. Getting Japanese into declaring war gave GA and even some not really needed WH. Allowed for mass unit production to conquer all of Carthage, attacking with enough knights, meds, trebs simultaneously from both south and east. And while warring, the work force cleared almost all of the jungle, at almost 0 upkeep.

-you missed the obvious best 2nd town location, which is 233 of your capital, for a 4t-SF in your 2nd town. your capital could then, more or less, produce everything else. there even were the forests around for it, you could have set up that SF rather quickly.

ooops ... gosh I have to pay more attention and not always pick the starting bonus food for my capital. Never occured to me to clear the forest early on that Deer.

At the moment, the most striking advantages are approx. +25% population & production and almost +100% income, even though I have one town less:

Assuming you would have done much better as I did with my noob 6 turn factory, it still strikes me how pronounced the advantage of the 4 turn SF has become until 875 BC .
I see 875 BC is turn 85, so did you actually go for CoL and still got Philosophy first in this setting? Or was it Philo -> CoL -> Max Rep?

And you actually sucessfully archer rushed the Japanese southwest 0_0. Doesn't leaving towns undefended increase chances of DOW? OK you have a minimal force to protect yourself from possible first units from Inca. But I always leave at least a warrior - better a spear in everyone of my towns in fear of unwanted DOW. Maybe I simply got this wrong?

 

[justanick]

Pre 130 AD:

Despite my 100% efforts (I still remember it like it was yesterday) I did not get Republic as first. Someone beat me to it, and whats even worse, one of the Scientific Civ's got Feudalism as their free tech, and traded Republic for it with another AI. Feudalism can be as early in the tech tree as Republic, especially when tech rate is fast - even on emperor. So I spent some turns in Republic, but my long streched Empire, along with the work force did not allow for very fast research. After getting Feudalism I revolted immediately from Republic to it. A lot more workers were needed, a lot more Military towards east and west - also some south. Republic did not satisfy this need, especially with only a few 7+ cities around. Also founded some feudal cities (named W1, W2, W3,...). Those cities only produce workers and catapults/Trebuchets, and would lateron get disbanded once I revolt back to Republic. I stand by my opinion that Feudalism was very beneficial in this setting, at least for some time.

And still most likely it was the wrong decision nonetheless. There may have been turns in which it was better on paper, but even as a religious tribe switching and switching back does costs you 4 turns of anarchy. It is not worth the cost.

As a republic you could have founded many temporary towns of low size. Use them to build wealth or workers, mostly they just contribute to free unit support. As an industrial tribe even just 1.5 workers per town(you happen to have exactly that amount in the save at 51 workers per ~34 settlements) suffice if the density of your settlements is high enough. A larger amount of settlements per tile allows you to manage the hard times of the early repulic until growth beyond size 6 enables you to scale back the temporary towns in favour of future prosperity.

Jungle is no sufficient reason to not be a republic and the military situation does not seem severe enough for such measures either.

- Huge Pangea Maps can make for pretty fast tech rate, even on Emperor.

There are more AIs to trade among themselves.

 

[justanick]

While I do agree with most other points you mentioned, almost all the land was utilized by mid middle ages. Getting Japanese into declaring war gave GA and even some not really needed WH. Allowed for mass unit production to conquer all of Carthage, attacking with enough knights, meds, trebs simultaneously from both south and east. And while warring, the work force cleared almost all of the jungle, at almost 0 upkeep.

Still you could not utilize the land well due to lack of police stations only becoming available in the industrial age. That was was my main point.

Waiting till cavalry allows for more efficient warfare. Just because your approach has worked out somewhat well does not mean it cannot be done better. You had plenty of land you could capture without war, therefore you were in an excellent position in either case. But a properly timed GA can make sense, i will grant you that. Waiting for cavalry could have meant to delay the GA into the early industrial age when tech costs double. A late mediaval GA is also an option, but due to the lower limit of 4 turns per tech it may not have been the best choice.

 

[Lanzelot]

so did you actually go for CoL and still got Philosophy first in this setting? Or was it Philo -> CoL -> Max Rep?

I went CoL -> Philo -> Rep(free)
On emperor with a halfway decent start, this should be no problem. I sacrificed some food/growth for beakers via scientists occasionally, if it allowed me to squeeze out an extra turn for this or that tech. (And I think I was able to trade half of Alphabet from a neighbor, though I may be confusing this with another game I played recently...?!)

 

[LordofDread]

Despite my original intention, I did play along. Wanted to see if I could recreate the steps from lost saves. For those that are interested, I wrote up the progress in the following spoiler. It's just story, nothing more.

Spoiler Story :

130 AD: Stayed in Feudalism. Was behind in tech. Research plan: Monotheism -> Theology -> Education then head up road for Military Tradition asap.

After 130 AD:
Made preparations to initiate GA with war against Japan. Other Civ's already building Leonardo and Chivalry's wonder, while I still add breakers to Monotheism.
First intention was to wait for GA until plains cities get to size 6. But then I saw Forbidden Palace on Dyes/Jungle site still got 18 turns to completion. So I urged Japan to leave territory. Unfortunately, they did not declare war over it. Fought with meds, catapults, and some War Chariots. Captured 1 city, then made peace, since I originally wanted to conquer some carthaginian cities afterwards.

But after peace agreement, Japan wouldn't leave territory and also stacked troops near my border. This time they did declare war over it, so I was fighting a mostly defensive war for quite a few turns. By this time, with help from GA, I discovered Education first and was able to buy Engineering, Chivalry, Printing Press, Invention and Gunpowder together with a nice ~80 gpt and many lux. I was in the middle of GA, so core cities switched to prebuilt Universities. Japan was bleed out and I captured another city, as well stealing one of their silks from their capital with an agressive Settler. Also finally got my Leader. Made a lasting peace then. Could've taken one coastal city from them as tribute, but wasn't worth it. Come to think of it, I could've accepted the city and then gifted it back to them.

Towards the end of GA, I started to make preparations to revolt back to Republic. The huge workforce already cleared 90%+ of the jungle and even started to mine some of the mountains. Still mining mountains wasn't a top priority, so I joined roughly 1/4 of the workforce to slow growth cities. Disbanded ~50% of the feudal cities, others were kept. 3 turns after GA ended, I revolted back to Republic. Military tradition went down from 8 to 6 turns at similar net income. Unit upkeep was high due to 20+ trebuchets and still many workers, but very much affordable.

Lateron Incan's decided they want my captured city from the Japanese. They came with mostly warriors and only few mediveal archers/infantry. I thought what the hell?? I decided to bring up former enemy Japan and Rome against them.

A turn later, I sold Physics to Portugal for 300 gpt. However, Incan's at war also were among tech leading AI's, there was a risk they discovered new tech and sold it to Portugal for MA against me. So I did an insurance trade with Portugal including MA:

Insurance Trade Portugal	They give us	We give them
Trade 1	300 gpt	Physics
Trade 2	MA vs Inca + 1083 Gold	MA vs Inca + 22 gpt + 62 gpt

so I would spend roughly 30 gpt (=10%) for decreasing the risk on Trade 1.

Later turns were straight forward. Entered industrial age first, researched Steam Power -> Electricity -> Replacable Parts. Sold Steam Power vs Nationalism to AI's and lots of gpt.

At 940 AD I got tech lead on Electricity and Replacable Parts and a nice 799 gpt from other civs.

Former Jungle does contribute much now. Max corruption on most northern jungle city is 38% but still netting 15 shields after waste (grassland already RR). Others more around 23%, Courthouse included. Now I could finish/rush some civilian buildings, then mobilize and go for domination.

All in all I was in Feudalism for about 40 turns. Repulic would have been superior to Feudalism after only ~15 rounds, and was probably more or less equal before. So revolting to Feudalism before 110 AD very likely wasnt worth it. 23 rounds later, at 430 AD, Republic was already a net 30 gpt superior to Feudalism. 9 gpt if I hadn't built the FP. Forbidden Palace seems even more important to a Republic than to a Feudal Gov, since Free Unit Support doesn't depend on corruption level, while commerce for paid unit support does.

Many thanks at justanick for insisting on Republic, and at Lancelot's calculation, otherwise I wouldn't have checked. Also didn't know you can change gov and adjust the science slider in CA II itself to make what-if analysis. Had enough Lux from trades, so I didn't have to adjust the Lux slider for Republic. Also some Cathedrals were already in place.

Spoiler CA II Screenshot :