Playing BTS on Cheiftan

[sosasoser]

Okay, that makes sense. I could have sworn though that I've hired merchants in a city before and not had it improve my money situation. I'll double-check though. Another thing is, in the first 100 turns, even as a financial leader, I wind up losing nearly all my money and have to crank research down. Is what you describe in your last post what I need to do to remedy that, Sosasoser?

And what happens to cities that have more than 1 religion in them? Thanks.

Hiring merchants will not always increase your money situation, especially if you don't work a high commerce tile so you can hire the merchant.

It's very normal to be losing money early in the game. There is nothing wrong with it and it won't hurt you long term. That early, libraries plus science specialists will probably give you more beakers than a few notches on the slider. As you initially expand your empire, most new cities will actually be losing you money at first. You have to develop them to earn money. A few things to look at:

1) Are you expanding too much, too fast?
2) Are you working high commerce tiles?
3) Can you build a market or courthouse in the city to increase your cash Or a bit later grocers or banks?
4) Any way to increase your trade routes?

Usually in my early expansion (Noble level) my science slider will probably wind up dipping down to about 40%. However, it doesn't matter as long as I am out-researching the AI. The slider will likely not ever get back up to 100% in my games unless I found and spread a lucrative corporation. The slider itself doesn't matter. All that matters is the number of beakers you are generating per turn compared to the competition. Founding a religion, spreading it and building the shrine is another way that I might get my slider back up to 100%, but that is very rare for me to even bother with anymore; I'd rather let the competition spend the hammers on missionaries while spending mine on troops that will let me take over their shrine cities and reap the rewards of their hard work. However, if you can get an early religion, it's a viable strategy.

If a city has more than one religion, my understanding is that there can be some unhappiness depending on your civic. You shouldn't really notice any problems at your level. I haven't paid too much attention to it as generally I know that at some point I'll be switching to Free Religion. Also, the more religions in a city the more temples you can build and increase your happy cap and the more monasteries you can build and increase your beakers until you tech scientific method.

 

[CHEESE!]

I don't think there are any civics which give s for more religions. FR gives more s though.

 

[sosasoser]

I don't think there are any civics which give s for more religions. FR gives more s though.

Yeah, I think your right. I play Rise of Mankind with Revolutions enabled quite a bit. Sometimes I get confused with what's in vanilla and what's in the mod if I'm not focusing on it. Should probably stop doing that...

 

[riddleofsteel]

Okay, I played 2 LONG games today. Each time I did exceptionally well, for me. Money, military, tech, I had it all. In the first game I made the mistake of signing a defense pact with Churchill, so when Shaka declared on Churchill, I got dragged into it. Unfortunately, I was closer to Shaka than Churchill. Zulu troops came STREAMING over my borders. I couldn't stop them all. They were way behind me in tech, culverins versus machine guns. I still couldn't hold them back.

In the second game, Julius Caesar declared on me really early. I am guessing it was because I was hoarding all the iron. Anyway, he used mutual allies territory to sneak past my troops and 'fronts' with war elephants and really good infantry. Long story short, it was pretty much a havoc-filled repeat of the last game.

Cliffs: I am getting better at the game, but I am getting stomped in war by tricky, yet out-teched enemies. Any more tips for combat and keeping enemies out?

 

[DaveMcW]

Check F9 Demographics often.
Stay near the top in soldiers.

 

[Shafi]

Have one city (it should be a production heavy city) dedicated to building military units. You should build a mix of units and keep increasing your military strength and keep checking demographics to make sure you are near the top of the power ratings.
Make sure you put a barrack into the city + also that you build the heroic epic in this city at some point.

 

[Delenn]

The triumverate. Darius. Napoleon. Caesar.

Cities tend to auto manage if terraformed properly. Thing 1 you need for a city is food (1-2 resources). Thing 2 you need is other neat stuff to use - gold, special resources, whatever. Thing 3 you need is cottage spam. Thing 4 is mines.

Build in cities: granary, or monument to spread culture pre religion. Library. Barracks if you need troops soon, and you know a push is coming (you'll love them later with religion.) The great wall (yes, it's a building, giggle.) Courthouses - organized.... forges,culture spammers, ect. Harbours. and so on..

 

[riddleofsteel]

I just played an interesting but depressing game. I found that like usual, I was way ahead of everyone else in tech until industrial or modern. Then I found myself at the bottom of the score list. While Louis ended up winning a time victory, I had the most advanced army in the game, far ahead of my neighbors. But I was boxed in, and couldn't expand at all. I had a total of 5 cities for the whole game. Ragnar, who was the biggest pain in the butt the whole time, had far more troops than me. I have no idea how he did it, but even with my vastly superior technology he could thwart me. Anyway, I didn't feel very satisfied by this play through. Any observations on this? Thanks.

 

[michmbk]

I just played an interesting but depressing game. I found that like usual, I was way ahead of everyone else in tech until industrial or modern. Then I found myself at the bottom of the score list. While Louis ended up winning a time victory, I had the most advanced army in the game, far ahead of my neighbors. But I was boxed in, and couldn't expand at all. I had a total of 5 cities for the whole game. Ragnar, who was the biggest pain in the butt the whole time, had far more troops than me. I have no idea how he did it, but even with my vastly superior technology he could thwart me. Anyway, I didn't feel very satisfied by this play through. Any observations on this? Thanks.

Hard to say without seeing the game's progression, but 5 cities is WAY too few. 6 is a bare minimum to even consider winning via culture or perhaps space, but it sounds like you need to focus on improving early expansion. Even on immortal, if I have less than 6 cities by 1 AD, I feel like I've failed. With twice as many cities, you'll ultimately tech more, and produce more, and be able to keep up with the AI better. In a lot of games, in the late game, I've got 20+ cities, unless I'm focusing on a cultural or perhaps diplomatic win.

What win condition were you shooting for? You'll need to think about that along the way, because with that small an empire, diplomatic victory is likely the only potential win condition, and in my opinion, something I wouldn't recommend trying for until you've learned some of the core strategies and moved up a few levels.

You might consider posting a game, and your thoughts along the way - you'll get constructive feedback along the way, and perhaps a shadow or two to help you learn and get better.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Yeah, I should eventually post a game. I wasn't going for any particular win scenario. I wanted to expand more but china and england boxed me in tight.

 

[johnny5000]

Yeah, I should eventually post a game. I wasn't going for any particular win scenario. I wanted to expand more but china and england boxed me in tight.

You said you were way ahead in tech, but Ragnar had troop numbers to counter you.
Sounds like you needed to build more troops to take advantage of your technology lead.

Usually that's a symptom of trying to build every building in every city, and neglecting to train units. Make sure you build enough to defend your cities, and then put a good amount in a huge stack and take the hurt to your enemy

 

[riddleofsteel]

Well, I felt like I had a sufficient army until I went up against Ragnar. I had the modern weapons but they seemed to not stop him one bit.

Also, I just played a game as china with only conquest and domination as the victory conditions. This time, I managed to spread out some more and had 7 or 8 cities. I had a similar army to my previous game, only this time I only got to Renaissance. Every other civ around me was begging me for tech, or offering me insulting trades for tech. I kept refusing. Around the time I reached renaissance, I started catching spies in a couple of cities. Then I started catching them every other turn, then every turn. It seemed people like Sitting Bull, Mansa Musa and my other neighbors were practically funneling spies into my cities.

Eventually they proved too many to hold off, and I started getting poisoned, getting things blown up such as improvements, buildings etc. My pride in my accomplishments crumbled and I quit, even with two cities having great spies living in them and one city having scotland yard.

So my next question is, while I may have improved in expansion (as Mao), what can I do to stop spies more effectively? I was denying everyone's requests, does that make them come after you with spies? Thanks again.

 

[CHEESE!]

Build 1 spy in every city you care about-it's what I do.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Couple more questions:

1)What makes the AI on Chieftan such shameless technology beggars? They've got me surrounded on all sides and they want my researched tech.

2)What makes them offer such insulting trades, when they offer anything at all?

3)I just played again and got horribly boxed in again. I almost always seem to start on a peninsula with all my neighbors being able to seal me in. Ridiculous. Is there a really good map generator to use?

4)Last question, is there a good guide/standard to quick expansion? This getting isolated business is bad, I need to get bigger more quickly without over extending myself or getting un-guarded cities captured barbarians. Any tips? Thanks.

 

[Lansky]

Hypothetically speaking here Riddleofsteel you start a game and research a few things. We'll assume you are landlocked and ocean resources are not in play.

What does the list of the first 5 or so things your capital produces look like?

Basically I'm guessing you are not producing settlers and workers quickly enough as the AI at such a low level should not box you out. You should box them out.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Typically I start my first city and then build a worker or something like a monument or granary. When I get a chance to make a settler that I can escort so it doesn't get killed, I found a new city. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum or until I am sealed in. Are you saying I should just keep making settlers from small, un-groomed cities and send them out all over the place as fast as I can? Or is there another way? Thanks.

 

[Shafi]

i used to have this problem, even now i am not too good at early expansion, somehow cant seem to do it as fast as some of the better players.
How i get around it is, if i find anyone too close to home, then they die, the moment i find a close neighbour i start preparing for an early war.
At chieftain you should not have too many difficulties with an early war, you need to quickly research AH and build lots of chariots or research BW and build a stack of axemen.
if you want it really easy you can play as egypt or persia who have a chariot as a UU.

 

[Lansky]

Generally your best bet at an early land grab, which is entirely fundable at chieftan almost indefinitely, would be something along the lines of:

Assuming landlocked-
1. Worker while teching whatever is needed to work the nearby resources.
2. Warriors or other Escorts until your capital hits the happy cap.
3. Pump out settlers.

The capital should be your worker/settler pump while your outside cities get started on monuments and workers as well. On chieftan 1 warrior or archer per city is enough to quell any barb problems the majority of the time.

DO NOT build a monument in your capital "just cause". Until you start to whip a granary is also largely pointless in the very early game. You will not be growing past population levels of 5-7 depending on resources/leader, which given the amount of food in a standard capital will not take very long.

Just keep pumping out workers and settlers. After you research any needed (if you don't have marble/stone skip masonry - no grains will skip agriculture for now) techs to work resources move onto Bronzeworking, Pottery, and Writing. Bronzeworking to whip in buildings and Pottery/Writing to recover the economy and keep on putting out cities. Don't even bother with wonders at this point. Until you can expand properly at the lower levels wonders will only slow you down. Workers, Settlers, and escorts for them are all you need. As far as buildings in the cities you can get by with a monument (chopped/whipped asap), a granary, and a library. These 3 buldings will last you until universities a lot of the time.

As far as protection from the AI if you actually put 1-2 defenders in every city expanding in such a fasion you will likely have 1.5-2 times the military size of the early game AI which will greatly deter (but not stop) a DoW against you. A small force of 3-4 archers roaming your borders will stop any pre-construction aggressive act.

 

[sosasoser]

There is more than one way to handle early expansion. If you want to do it with the sword, do a search for sisustil's early rush guide and follow his advice.

If an early war is not favorable, then you need to maximize your settler output as fast as you can. Try this, assuming that you don't have any seafood resources to work in the capital's BFC, build a worker first while researching the techs that worker will need to improve resources in your BFC. Now, build warriors and get as much food production as you can in the capital. When your capital hits pop 4, start building in trios...warrior*/worker/settler. The warrior defends the settler and the new city, the worker connects it to the capital and then improves it. the settler does its thing. Keep doing that until the available land is gone or you go broke. Do that and you should be able to easily out expand the AI on lower levels unless you just really have a horrible starting position. Letting the capital grow a bit before pumping out settlers is faster than trying to pump them out in a 1 or 2 population city.

BTW, when the build is warrior, switch production to hammers if you aren't running slavery so you don't grow to fast. If you are running slavery, use the whip to speed up your production and get rid of excess population.


*If you get archery during this expansion, build archers not warriors.

 

[Bostock]

Cities with more than one religion:

If you have not adopted a State Religion: The city gets +1 culture/turn per religion present, and the ability to build religious buildings for each religion present.

If you have a State Religion and you are using a religious civic other than Free Religion: if one of the religions present is the State Religion, then the city gets +1 happiness, +1 culture/turn, and your religious-civic benefit. In any case it gets the ability to build religious buildings for each religion present.

If you are using Free Religion: the city gets +1 culture/turn and +1 happiness per religion present, and the ability to build religious buildings for each religion present.

While not strictly a benefit of the religions themselves, you can build missionaries for each religion present if you have a monastery there for the given religion or you are using Organized Religion.