PCVI: Peter

[obsolete]

Wow... On immortal, have you tried Deity yet Obsolete?

I`ve dabbled on it once or twice.

I could re-do this one over on deity, but since I already know all the spoilers, that would be cheating my young man.

 

[mjg5591]

Played til 5BC - Emperor/Epic Could use some direction/advice going forward.

Spoiler :

Settled 1E Build order worker-war-settler-war-worker-war-war-settler-

Tech order this round AG-AH-BW-TW-Pottery-IW-Writing-Masonry-aest-Traded aest for alpha and math- cur-CoL-Med-Bulbed Philo. made few other trades aswell.

3800BC Meet ragnar and HC. HC is real close to east.

3450BC Meet Zara.

2825BC Meet WVO.

2675BC Settle St. Pete. Gold-Wheat-deer city.

1675BC Settle Novgorod.Stone city up north.

1175BC Settle Rostov. West of capital.

485BC Mids in capital.

350BC Capture Barb city up NW on coast.

215BC Capture Barb city north of HC 2 gems. Convert to Hindu. Ragnar asked diplo bonus.

5BC Bulb Philo. Get religion. Also trade for Monothosem.

Stopped here.

Few questions.

Plan on switching to OR. Should I go Caste also? Running rep from mids.

HC has 4 cities. Founded 2 religions and shrined hindu. Hindu is spread through conitent. Should I attack? He has LB's already though. I don't have cats yet or maces.

Tech path? War get construction. Peacefully lit for TGL? i have no marble yet. Some down south in tundra I could settle though. CS? for buro.

My goal was just to get as much land as I could. Ragnar and Zara been at war for long time now. WVO is only budda on continent. rest are Hindu.


Thanks for any help. I'll post a save.

Mike

Screenshots.

Save

 

[kossin]

@mjg5591

Spoiler :

Haven't looked at the save but you don't seem to have marble so I'd scrap TGL plans. Trade for Construction with WvO if you can and get as much gold as you can to get through CS. You don't need MC right now, but it'll be good somewhere after the war. Also grab Sailing - might help trade routes I don't know.
Your empire is a bit stretched so it could be hard on your economy though. Does HC have at least 1 shrine up? If no, you could wait a bit.

 

[mjg5591]

@mjg5591

Spoiler :

Haven't looked at the save but you don't seem to have marble so I'd scrap TGL plans. Trade for Construction with WvO if you can and get as much gold as you can to get through CS. You don't need MC right now, but it'll be good somewhere after the war. Also grab Sailing - might help trade routes I don't know.
Your empire is a bit stretched so it could be hard on your economy though. Does HC have at least 1 shrine up? If no, you could wait a bit.

@kossin

Spoiler :

He has shrined Hindu. Spread pretty good also. Our power is even but he has LB's already.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

I tried this game but the way its edited when I tried to set to speed I usually play on--marathon the game was still limited to 500 turns.

Another cpl of things I noticed--starting diff was set to monarch not prince. And way I understand it if the save was built in monarch diff even if you drop down to a lower level, while the AI's will now play at that level they will still have their starting monarch units--namely archers. Not a huge deal although it could give anyone trying a warrior rush a nast surprize.

Also proabably might want to mention things like events/goody huts being turned off. Again not really a huge dealio and I understand why ppl dont like them. Although it does kind of take the steam out starting with a scout and also changes some strategy since normally if I play I civ starting with hunting I usually make a 2nd scout first just to try and grab extra huts. But with no goody huts a second scout wouldnt be as useful as going with warrior or worker so knowing that from the start could affect some peoples opening decidions.

Like I said the Monarch archers thing not that big a deal just give warning that dropping level to prince or lower may still make it slightly more challening than usual.

And goodyhuts off no big thing at all since playing as custom scenario you can just turn em back on. Just that some people might not realize to go and do that if they didnt know they were turned off to begin with.

The 500 turn deal is gamebreaker for me unfortunately since I do like my looong games hehe.

Kaytie

 

[CBPE]

I've played Monarch/Normal till 1AD.

I've won on this level several times but I'm not sure I'm able to manage it so easily.
If anyone is so kind to give me some advices (on this game and, overall, on my mistakes) I'll be very grateful.

Spoiler :

Settled in place, first techs:
Agriculture - BW - AH - Mysticism - Wheel

Seeing HC so close, I was tempted by an early rush, but he had Quechas, founded Buddishm (high cultural defense in his capital) and two sources of copper.
Also, copper and/or horses were in uncomfortable position for me, so I decided to go for a peaceful REX.

I settled S.Petersburg SE of Moscow (good city with gold, cow and wheat), then Novgorod in the far NW to claim horses, then Rostov (gems and stone) and then Yaroslav, a poor city but to fill the space.

Meanwhile, I've researched:

Archery - Pottery - Writing (builded a library in Moscow and then spent the GS generated to create an Academy there) - Fishing - Aestetics (traded for Alphabet and Maths) - IW

Then a Barbarian city appeared exactly were I planned to settle my sixth city (a very rich spot!) but I've found 3 sources of Iron in my bounders, so few Swordsmen have easily taken it:

About diplomacy, WvO and Ragnar are friends (same religion) and HC's enemies. ZY is neutral. Also, Ragnar is boxed by WvO and HC, so I presume that soon He'll declare on HC:

I want to be ready: if this will happen and Ragnar and/or WvO will ask me to join, I will do: I'll stay friendly with them and I can use the situation to my advantage, simply pillaging HC's land (which is, anyway, my closest neighbour) weakening him, or maybe capturing 1 city.

So this is my empire (6 cities) at 1AD:

I have room for other 2 coastal quite decent cities:

And some spots on ice to claim anyway some useful resources (silver, marble, whale):

MOSCOW:

I've the high power:

And the most land on the continent:

But the big downside, here, is my poor economy!

I'm already behind in tech vs anyone, except (REALLY strange) ZY:

Currency, CoL or even Calendar could be useful now, but everyone would take a life (running my slider at 10% with a -3 gpt, currency will take 23 turns ).

I have a GS available, but bulbing it would give me Compass:

So, where should I go from here?

Thanks

 

[CivIVMonger]

Hi

I tried this game but the way its edited when I tried to set to speed I usually play on--marathon the game was still limited to 500 turns.

Another cpl of things I noticed--starting diff was set to monarch not prince. And way I understand it if the save was built in monarch diff even if you drop down to a lower level, while the AI's will now play at that level they will still have their starting monarch units--namely archers. Not a huge deal although it could give anyone trying a warrior rush a nast surprize.

Also proabably might want to mention things like events/goody huts being turned off. Again not really a huge dealio and I understand why ppl dont like them. Although it does kind of take the steam out starting with a scout and also changes some strategy since normally if I play I civ starting with hunting I usually make a 2nd scout first just to try and grab extra huts. But with no goody huts a second scout wouldnt be as useful as going with warrior or worker so knowing that from the start could affect some peoples opening decidions.

Like I said the Monarch archers thing not that big a deal just give warning that dropping level to prince or lower may still make it slightly more challening than usual.

And goodyhuts off no big thing at all since playing as custom scenario you can just turn em back on. Just that some people might not realize to go and do that if they didnt know they were turned off to begin with.

The 500 turn deal is gamebreaker for me unfortunately since I do like my looong games hehe.

Kaytie

Thank you. I will add those to the list of things I need to fix in this series. Expect those things to not exist on the next installment.

 

[Ghpstage]

@ CBPE

Spoiler :

You seem to be expanding too fast without getting key economic techs, namely Monarchy and Currency, both are more effetive than CoL at this time!
Monarchy is critical, Hereditary Rule will allow you to grow and work more cottages and mines, and run more specialists.

You do however have Alphabet so you can build Research, why were you building so many spies anyway?

You also have a friend in Zara.

There is quite a lot of jungle, and many of your cottages have only just been built, combined with getting Monarchy for growth under HR soon (if you use my edited version of your save ) and planning more cities warrants another 4 or so Workers.
Of the workers you do have, 4 are sitting outside your northern borders
And as a group, your workers seem to have roaded all over the place, wasting a lot of turns they could had spent chopping forests/jungle or building cottages. This mismanagement of your workers is a much bigger problem than numbers in this case.

Yarsoslavl is an ungodly eyesore .
What on earth possesed you to plant it there?

Not convinced you need a barracks in every city either, especially at this early point and no economy capable of handling a war.


I made some changes on the same turn,

• Swapped most of your cities to building Research, you don't really want more Settlers in this state do you?
• Begged Zara for Meditation and Priesthood
• Started researching Monarchy
• Moved some of your Workers around
• Swapped your newest size 1 city to building a Granary, its more efficient than Library first, especially with farms and the EXP trait(whip!)
• I deleted a couple of units I saw as unnecessary

And now your up to 71 while losing 7 which can get you Monarchy in 5 turns.
I also queued up Currency, Literature and CoL in that order

Once you get Monarchy revolt to Hereditary Rule and be sure to let your big cities grow much, much bigger (means changing Moscow and Novgorods tiles). Build more cottages for your greater pop to work.

On the way to Currency I would leave at least most of those cities build Research, after you get Currency then changing to Wealth to raise your slider will prove more effective. you can also sell your excess resources for extra GPT, namely the excess Wine and Gems you should have at this time

As for the future, Moscow, with its 2 corns, 1 being riverside is a very nice potential GP farm.

And your G.Scientist, you could either save him to bulb Philosophy, or settle him in your capital, personally I would go for the settling.

A save of the changes I made if your interested

 

[lymond]

Of all things! I usually play epic speed but tried marathon for kicks and to hopefully have a longer spell of using Peter's UU. I just noticed that the turn counter is now displayed saying only like 80 turns left and I'm barely in the "relative" medieval times. I noticed the post above. Wow - marathon requires a lot of time.

Question: Is there a way to fix my save to reset the turn counter mid-game or do I just have to abandon?

As to the game so far - circa 500 AD Prince/Marathon (although it appears I have to abandon it)

Spoiler :

Interestingly, everyone on the continent went Hindu with the exception of Hyana, who attacked me. I laid the hurt Hyana and wiped him out for his transgressions. Everyone is still Hindu and it's and absolute lovefest and the continent. Everyone is in green or yellow as for as relations. I just used a GS to tech Optics so I should be able to circum the globe first depending on who else is out there. Hopefully, I planned to look for potential victims of my Cossack/Cannon onslaught. Oh Well

 

[CBPE]

@Ghpstage: Thank you! very good advises here!

Spoiler :

Monarchy is critical, Hereditary Rule will allow you to grow and work more cottages and mines, and run more specialists.

Actually, I don't love HR so much. I don't like to keep units in my cities, just a couple. Sincerely, for me, keeping 6-7-8 units in every city is a waste, I prefer keeping mini-various stack (i.e. 1 spearman/1 axeman/1 chariot) in strategical point of the map, either to protect my bounders, as in the middle of my empire to quickly reach any threatened city and also to stay tuned if there is an option to gain something warring towards anyone.
Anyway, in this case probably you're right, and I have also 2 wine resources.

You do however have Alphabet so you can build Research, why were you building so many spies anyway?

Either for counterespionage (placing 1 spy in every city) and to try steal some tech from HC (or maybe WvO), but maybe is not a so good idea at this point.

And as a group, your workers seem to have roaded all over the place, wasting a lot of turns they could had spent chopping forests/jungle or building cottages. This mismanagement of your workers is a much bigger problem than numbers in this case.

Very true. Recently, I've tried some games on Emperor and I was obsessed by barbs that pillaged my improvements. I've found that roads are great to let fast units such chariots to quickly come to protect them. But here we're on Monarch and in this kind of map Barbs are not so dangerous.

Yarsoslavl is an ungodly eyesore .
What on earth possesed you to plant it there?

I've said, it fills the space between the north and the south of the empire.
I was worried about HC could settle a city there, and in case of close borders, my empire would be cut in the middle.

Not convinced you need a barracks in every city either, especially at this early point and no economy capable of handling a war.

Again. Playing lastly on Emperor, I needed them to keep high my power ratio and prevent from backstabbing. Also I like very much Nationhood (I almost always pick nationalism when I win the liberalism race). But in this case you're right, they are not so essential.

I made some changes on the same turn,
....
[*]Swapped your newest size 1 city to building a Granary, its more efficient than Library first, especially with farms and the EXP trait(whip!)

My idea was to contrast ASAP the culture press from WvO (it's a border city and he his creative) and quickly work the second gems, either for cash, then to trade it for silk with Zara.

A save of the changes I made if your interested

I'll try this night! (I'm from Italy)

Thank you very much!

 

[Ghpstage]

@CBPE

Spoiler :

Actually, I don't love HR so much. I don't like to keep units in my cities, just a couple. Sincerely, for me, keeping 6-7-8 units in every city is a waste, I prefer keeping mini-various stack (i.e. 1 spearman/1 axeman/1 chariot) in strategical point of the map, either to protect my bounders, as in the middle of my empire to quickly reach any threatened city and also to stay tuned if there is an option to gain something warring towards anyone.
Anyway, in this case probably you're right, and I have also 2 wine resources.

Growth is extremely important early in the game, stagnating your cities at size 6 or 7 is a sure way to fall behind!
Growth allows you to work more cottages which will easily pay for any extra units you may need as police.
I tend to aim for a size 10 city by 1AD.

Also, in this case HR is the favourite civic of both HC and Ragnar, so it'll help your diplo too.

Either for counterespionage (placing 1 spy in every city) and to try steal some tech from HC (or maybe WvO), but maybe is not a so good idea at this point.

I wouldn't expect much espionage trouble coming from AIs for quite some time yet, at least nothing close to significant. Plus, your output is not even close to what you need to be able to steal any techs.

Very true. Recently, I've tried some games on Emperor and I was obsessed by barbs that pillaged my improvements. I've found that roads are great to let fast units such chariots to quickly come to protect them. But here we're on Monarch and in this kind of map Barbs are not so dangerous.

My issue with the roads is more where you have doubled, or trebled up on them. In places some places you could remove 3 or 4 road tiles and not change your mobility whatsoever. Just south of Yarsoslavl has 4 such redundant roads, thats a fair number of wasted worker turns just there.

I've said, it fills the space between the north and the south of the empire.
I was worried about HC could settle a city there, and in case of close borders, my empire would be cut in the middle.

1 West would have given it a further 3 grassland tiles to work making it 'usable'

Again. Playing lastly on Emperor, I needed them to keep high my power ratio and prevent from backstabbing. Also I like very much Nationhood (I almost always pick nationalism when I win the liberalism race). But in this case you're right, they are not so essential.

For all intents and purposes the idea that keeping your power level high will prevent war declarations is a myth!
When the AI decides if it will DoW, it only checks power once, and the check is simply for if you have enough power to prevent it attacking. Unfortunately to prevent an AI attacking you often need power exceeding twice their own (depending on leader)
If you do not meet that power level, then your power means nothing to them!

Nationhood is very good, but theres no need to set up barracks this early, they are pretty expensive at this point and do nothing if the city doesn't build units.

Besides... I'm reasonably confident that St Petersburg could supply your empire with most of the units it needs to defend itself alone.

My idea was to contrast ASAP the culture press from WvO (it's a border city and he his creative) and quickly work the second gems, either for cash, then to trade it for silk with Zara.

Still, with the cheaper EXP granaries and farms near the city, the granary will prove a large production booster.
Getting the granary first will probably get the Library out at the same time it would anyway, perhaps even faster (I can't be bothered with the math here ) and will serve to get a Monument, Temple and Monastery (once a religion spreads) for your cultural needs much faster.

 

[mjg5591]

To the end. Only problem I had was turn counter was at 500 even though I was playing epic. Got the win just in time had 10 turns to go before the 5oo mark.

Also this is my first domination win on emperor.

Spoiler :

Ok from 5 BC to lib I just started mounting an army. Planning on attacking HC. Ragnar capitulated Zara. They declared on me before I could declare on HC. I played defense with this war. AP got me out of it.

I was first to lib and delayed til I could take steel. I took steel from liob in 1100AD. No other civ had education at this point.

I then just massed cannons and muskets. Drafting them soon as I learned Nationalism also. I then beelined rifles. I declared on HC and almost had him wiped before I reached rifles. After I wiped him off WVO declares on me. We both had rifles at this point. But the cannons just ran over him. Took 2 waves of war to kill him. He bribed Rags and Zara in also. But they never sent anything at me.

With 2 cities left WVO caps to Zara. He broke free from Rags at some point. I then killed off WVO and then capitulated Zara.

This is when I finally noticed the turn problem. I was going to capitulate Rags with his 6 cities, but I needed alot more for Domination. So I built up mass Galleons and frigates. And off to take on Toku and his vassal Qin.

Toku had 20 cities and Qin 6. I was fighiting with Infrantry and arty. He was defending with rifles and no cannons. Only question would be if I could get him to capitulate before turns were over. I took 12 of his cities before he capitualted. Qin did the same thing.

This resulted into my first domination win on emperor.

The best thing that drove the economy was the 3 shrine city I took off HC. I captured 2 shrines and made the 3rd. This was obviously my WS city and pretty much fueled the wars. Also put Mining Inc in this city. Mad gold.

I got really low score for this game. Was this because the game thinks I won with only 10 turns left? I won in 1900AD I think. If was real epic turn set would my score have been higher?


Screenshots.

Thanks Civ4monger for hosting game.

 

[huerfanista]

1870AD Conquest, monarch/normal:

Spoiler :

Settled 1NW on the plains hill for a 2 city square, decided to try a WE/SSE. Chopped henge, settled near stone to the NE, chopped GW, grabbed gold SE, then grabbed the silver/copper/marble/seafood with 2 coastal cities while building the mids. The religious situation was a mess, with almost everyone having a different religion, so I stayed agnostic. HC declared on me fairly early, but I whipped some axes and held him off. My plan was to stay peaceful until rifles/cannon, and it worked pretty well. I expanded north a bit after IW to grab bananas and a coastal barb city. I never built a single cottage, settled every specialist except for 2 artists and a spy for a couple of late-game GAs. I took nat from lib, drafted rifles in the Taj GA, capped HC while being dogpiled by everyone (not much of a challenge - I never saw an AI rifle - except for my vassals - the entire game ). WvO was next - I left him with 1 city. Ragnar and his vassal Zara folded quickly. I could have invaded Toku/Qin earlier, but I waited for an oil navy. Toku had muskets and Qin had grens, while I was fielding paras/bombers/infantry, so it was a joke. I finished the UN on the same turn that I won conquest, and was researching computers.

Moscow:

Top cities:

Score:

 

[CBPE]

My laptop crashed (

I won't play civilization for bit, so I cannot continue this game....

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

Prince/Normal 4000 BC

OK, my first Prince game

I thought about moving 1NW to settle on the forested plains hill but I'm thinking the starting location is better because:
- Can get better use of levees in the future
- No desert in the BFC.

So, I'll settle in place unless the scout (when I move him 1NW) reveals something too good to be passed up. Unlikely.

The capital will specialise in commerce.

Having not played prince before but usually winning on Noble I'm going to take it easy and try for a space victory. I probably won't try rushing anyone unless there's a neighbour so close it would be foolish to pass on the opportunity.

Now I just have to wait 4 hours before work finishes... (I suppose that'll give me time to find out the differences between Noble and Prince.)

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

Prince/Normal 1000 BC

Spoiler :

So I did settle in place and got that scout out looking for city site #2.

Tech path: Agriculture, Bronze Working, The Wheel, Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Writing.

Crikey, that was quick, bumped into Huayna pretty early, 3900 BC. Guess if he's so close I should really rush him

Here is a dot map of my future city layout... note my optimistic dot map on the Incan capital

1600 BC The Incan capital falls to my slightly undergeared warriors...

1000 BC and victory, Huayna is dead and gone. Man, his second city was harder than the capital. I kept my troops outside his border until I was ready, but still two archers on a hill, I must have lost 8 or more warriors (some geared with City Raider I). But I got him in the end and I'm teching at 70% and turning a profit, let the good times role.

Not too bad, everyone else is neutral or happy with me. That's probably a good start too.

Second on the power chart. I'll fix that now I've got another production city. I need to mitigate any hostile activity by those damned AI while I build my space ship.

 

[mjg5591]

@ L-Plate

Spoiler :

Nice going taking out HC with the quickness. I would get to expanding, Cuzco has 2 gold which shoud fund expansion nicely.

Might want to find other civ's borders. So you can see how much room you have or don't have to expand. Your on the south of the map seeing the tundra.

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

Thanks mjg5591. Expansion has been my focus for the last 1000 years...

Prince/Normal 1 AD

Spoiler :

For the last 1000 years I focused on grabbing land and increasing my military strength. The latter is OK, but I need to beat Ragnar who's got a convincing lead, and is unfortunately a direct neighbour

I managed to capture a barbarian city that is nicely positioned north, towards William... and it actually turned out, it was originally a Dutch city, score

I'm trying to get more blocker cities in and if I can get all I've dot mapped I'll have a huge majority of the land mass. Two of the more aggressive AI are at war and have been for the past 500 years so hopefully that delays their expansive progress.

My intention is to continue on the space ship path, and have a large enough army to deter any DOW by the AI. Maybe, just maybe, if I am technologly advanced enough, I might look at taking one or two AI out, we'll see how that goes.

Since the Incan had discovered Hinduism I have switched to that for the happy points to encourage growth. Once Buddism spreads to my lands I'll jump to that to appease my neighbours.

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

Prince/Normal Space - Victory 1978

Spoiler :

Not a lot to say really, I took out Ragnar in 1755 to make sure he didn't bug me in the future. We were best of friends, but he was second on the power chart and thus a local threat.

As soon as possible I switched to Budhism and appeased all my neighbours. I'm sure this helped prevent one or two wars.

Willem did ask to be my Vassle but I declined hoping to instead wipe him out in the near future. Unfortuantely by the time I'd removed Ragnar he'd vasseled with Zara. Interestingly a little later he opted out of the relationship, but they did form a defensive pact. By this time it was getting too late for a war and I needed to focus on tech.

This was my first game on Prince and the only 'real' difference I noticed from Noble was the teching, lagging behind Willem for many centuries.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Prince/Normal Space - Victory 1978

Spoiler :

Not a lot to say really, I took out Ragnar in 1755 to make sure he didn't bug me in the future. We were best of friends, but he was second on the power chart and thus a local threat.

As soon as possible I switched to Budhism and appeased all my neighbours. I'm sure this helped prevent one or two wars.

Willem did ask to be my Vassle but I declined hoping to instead wipe him out in the near future. Unfortuantely by the time I'd removed Ragnar he'd vasseled with Zara. Interestingly a little later he opted out of the relationship, but they did form a defensive pact. By this time it was getting too late for a war and I needed to focus on tech.

This was my first game on Prince and the only 'real' difference I noticed from Noble was the teching, lagging behind Willem for many centuries.

Nice job! You could have gone for a different victory type with the amount of land you had and with Ragnar being dead though.