please anaylze my short game

jake2007

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 8, 2007
Messages
99
settings = noble - no tech trade - no barb

i played as alexander

i settle and start producing a worker. i research mining first. then bronze working. by that time my worker was done. i saw some copper northwest. so i develped a settler and built a city right on it.

i then started making some barracks' preparing for my attack.
i am building phalax the whole time from now on.
i ordered my worker to build a road to my enemies city. then i put him on automated.

i then had an army of 16 phalax ready by 40ad.

by 260ad i conquered one of their cities.

then by 350 ad i conquered another one of their cities. but as you can see i am in last place.

i will post the save if anyone wants it i cant now because 5 files is the max upload.

any tips and what mistakes did i make?
 

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Niiiiiiiice! I take it from the first thread you did that you decided to go in detail. Well NOW I can give useful advice :)


Okay, here is what I can derive from the screenshots. I play vanilla, though, so I won't comment on anything pertaining to beyond the sword.

Screenshot 1: You've got a pretty good capital with forests that you can use for chopping and you also have a river. However, producing a settler right after a worker is not what I think you should do. Firstly, build a warrior or scout (I would recommend another scout to allow another unit to explore). This will allow the city to grow to size 2 and also enable another unit for exploring. A size 2 city will make a settler faster than a size 1 city because a city with 2 population can work an extra tile. That can be helpful in lowering settler production time from (for example) 10 turns to 6 turns.

Also, you built a camp which was good but what about the food source you have? (is it wheat or corn? I can't tell). If you had agriculture, you should do that first (if you don't have agricultire, then I would suggest researching it as soon as possible -- remember I play vanilla so I don't know what alexander's starting techs are now, if they changed). Any extra food at the beginning can be crucial to let the capital grow.

Also, why is your worker leaving the scene? You should keep him in the capital to improve the tiles there. If you are going to make a settler, it can be useful to chop a forest with a worker which will give an extra 20 production, which can be very helpful. You can also use the first worker to chop a forest to hurry the production of a second worker which will be better because 2 workers are much better than 1.

Screenshot 2: Ahhh! A city right on the copper is not good at all! Granted, it allows you to produce axemen and phalanx right off the bat, but it's right to the border of the map! Its workable tiles are severely limited because of this. It's also better not to settle on a resource because you can use a worker to build a mine over the copper which will give it more production than if you settled on it (any production helps). My advice: Don't settle your cities on the border of the map! It loses almost half of the tiles you could use. There is another reason why the city site on the copper is not good; its tiles will overlap with the capital's, and that's the last thing you want. You want to maximize the ties used and minimize overlapping tiles for the fat cross radius. If you're unsure what this means, it means the workable tiles your city can work. When a city reaches its first border pop at 10 culture, it will show the 21 workable tiles your city can work (any tiles beyond the fat cross radius are unworkable by that city). The city on the copper and your capital overlap at the tiles 2S, 1SW, 1SW-S and 1SW-W of the copper location. My advice would be to put your second city a little bit north and DEFINITELY west. Make sure the copper is still in your fat cross, though. If you must overlap, try to minimize the overlapped tiles to 1 or 2.

Also, don't forget about specializing cities. If you settled that city in the mind that it would be your production city, that's good. City specialization is what's needed in this game; simply putting cities in what you think is the best location will not help. For instance, if you want a city to make a lot of food so it can hire specialists and generate great people, then look for a city site with lots of food resources and perhaps a river so you can make lots of farms.

Screenshot 3: The good: You have connected your two cities with roads so they generate more commerce. The bad? You only have two cities! I would recommend getting 3 cities at the very least before going to full military strike, or 2 good ones but that copper city isn't classified as a good city so you should make another city in a good site, that is close enough to the enemy so you can efficiently attack from that city.

One thing I noticed: Only one worker? If you're rushing, you should have two at the very least (one can build the road to the enemy, the other can add mines, farms, and cottages to your cities so they can churn out military units faster). And you put your worker on automated after you build the road to enemy, and that is definitely not good. Automated workers are NO GOOD! They build too many farms which will only serve in helping your city grow in population too fast and run into quick unhappiness. You only need enough farms to allow your city to grow to a sensible size that you can support with happiness. After building a road to the enemy, try going back to the city and build a mine over the hill, or a farm to allow the city to grow (but if a city is already at its happiness cap, don't make it grow more because they city will just run into more unhappiness). The mines will help you get more production to make military units faster.

Screebshot 4: Still only two cities?

And also I was quite amazed at the amount of phalanxes you created. 16 definitely are overkill for rushing and only serve to hurt your economy by causing you to spend more for military upkeep. I personally manage rushes with as little as 6 units, which are usually axemen to me. By dong so, I can make a rush sooner when the enemy has just a few archers in his capital and therefore, I can end wars sooner and build other stuff other than military units, such as libraries. I don't know much about phalanxes and maybe you were right in making them but don't forget axemen which have a +50% bonus verses melee units and can be very useful in attacking your enemy spearmen.

And your promotions...why are they all city raider? Do not just promote your units right off the bat once they are created. WAIT to see the units your enemy has. If your enemy uses exclusively archers, which the AI tends to do, a promotion that allows +25% against archers is much better than a promotion allowing a +20% city raider. Archers are usually the city defenders, so an extra 5% will help. And if the archer happens to leave the city to perhaps escort a settler, a city raider promotion is thus useless, but the archer promotion (I think it's called Pinch) will help since it always does an extra 25 percent verses archer units. Of coures, you do need some city raiders, but try to have more variety in your promotions, such as a medic unit to heal, and also don't build exclusively one unit; some units can counter other units, so a little variety (e.g. 5 phalanx, 5 axemen) will help. And most important: wait to see what your enemy has before promoting.

16 phalanxes by 70 AD seems a little slow in my opinion. I saw your capital, and maybe production is slow because it has an unhappiness face on it. The more unhappiness, the worse because then your citizens won't work tiles that could otherwise be giving production. You don't have a religion so you can't build temples, so you will have to wait until you get one or get happiness by luxury resources. And DONT leave your workers on automated.

I dont' have time to comment on screenshot 5, but just try not to be stuck with 2 cities and only 1 worker. In a typical game I end up having approximately 4-5 workers by the ADs.
 
As a good rule of thumb one worker per city
 
typically would should i have my workers doing?

im guessing one to build a road to the enemy.

and the others to either spam cottages or build mines.

probably build mines for production, right?
 
I think you overdrawed it a bit now. Generally, you shouldn't work any unimproved tiles, but bilding cottages on every tile in your culture boarder isn't necessary. Also don't automate anything, it may seem exhausting in the beginning, but you can become much better if you build things you need and not the ones the AI thinks you may need.
 
is this a good idea?

Welcome to the forum!

"Cottage spam" means you BUILD and WORK cottages early, so they grow into those awesome towns quick.

Most of your cottages are not being worked, so they won't improve into hamlets, then villages, then towns. If you don't have enough food to work all those early cottages, you need to improve a city with some farms. More farms eventually raise your population level, so you can work more cottages. The land tiles will give you a hint which type of city will be better for that spot.

The improvements work together. If a city is a unit production city, it will have farms and mines, and no cottages. If a city is a commerce city it will have farms and cottages.

Commerce :commerce: city is to improve technology :science: faster, and to can pay :gold: for larger empires. Production city is for building your units and other things that take :hammers:.

You need some of both types no matter what. You can build more production cities if you plan on going to war a lot. Build more commerce cities if you plan on destroying them in technology and building a space ship. You can win either way. Regardless of how you decide to win, ALL cities need a good source of food :food:.
 
okay i get it. i just realized today that citys dont work all of the squares in the cultural boundaries :lol:

well actually i already new that i just forgot temporarily.
 
Yeah, when I am playing the game, I sometimes forget that not all the improvements are being worked at all times, too. (The city governor sometimes decides that my cottage city is really a production center and tries to use the production squares instead of growing the hamlets like I want it to, and I can't figure out why the towns aren't growing.)
 
Do you actually look at your cities and see what is happening in them. I get the feeling you haven't seen a city screen before. Double click on the city name.

And please go read your manual.
 
yeah i need to read it.

i just played a game where i used the city screen and micro-manged my workers every turn (is that how it's supposed to be played?).
 
Yes, I never automate workers even for trade routes anymore. I had a nice National Park city that wouldn't grow forests anymore because automated workers put down railroads in empty tiles which lowers the probability of forests spreading to them.

Examining cities regularly is also important.

And there's tons of strategy ariticles in the forum under this one, I'd suggest reading those as well.
 
you're cities are all really unhealthy and angry. usually you dont want to build roads until you have the tiles that you are using improved, but it seems you havent connected any of them. I'm not sure if you just have very unhealthy cities, or just none of your health resources connected. also do you not have any of your iron connected :confused:. eventually you have to connect your resources and cities ;)
 
how many workers do i need if i have two cities and im rushing?

2 workers to start with, then capture all workers you see can do.
4 workers then capture even more is better.
The problem isn't necessarily in the number though.
If you don't use your workers, they won't improve the land.
There are mnay pictures with athens having only a farm improved while being over size 1.
At size 2, you want 2 improved tiles.
At size 3, you want 3 improved tiles.
Roads don't count as improvement here ;).


Another point, not a generally admitted mistake, more a debatable decision : you started building a settler right after your worker.
This means that
a) your capital didn't grow at all before that
b) your settler moved out in the open unescorted
 
I think you need to learn what each improvement does, what different types of land give in terms of :hammers: , :commerce: and :food:, and consequently what improvement would be best suited to that tile as well as what you would like that particular city to become (prodction city, commerce city, GP farm, etc etc). You need more defined tasks that will tie into your end goal. So for rushing your neighbour, for example, you will need to select a decent site with some hills to mine, some grassland with a river for food and a few resources like iron or copper, even cows are pretty good, to found a production/military city. this city will have barracks and a few happiness and health buildings and nothing else. you will only not build a unit in this city if there is something like Heroic Epic or West Point to build. In the early game one city is usually enough to support you military needs, and realistically you should be churning out units in 1-2 turns on epic speed and below.

Bare in mind tho, that to support a large army you will need to have a decent economy. i suggest reading the various strategies and guides in the war academy. they helped me understand and improved my decision making when it came to deciding on which type of economy to take and how to adapt them situationally.

Dude, remember, the game is for supposed to be fun! if you find all this micromanaging stuff boring, drop down a few levels so that you dont have to and the decisions the AI makes for your cities wont mess up your strategy too much! i find the best level of fun for me is on prince. if i want a challenge i will play monarch. I'm not as good as some people here, but that doesnt matter because its all about how i enjoy the game.

happy gaming!
 
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