Pondering Where The Germans Will Go

[ratrangerm]

I've spent several games on Noble as Frederick and the Germans, trying various strategies to see if I can find the best one that works to help me get a win before I hit the final 100 turns. So far, not much luck.

So here's my latest stab at it. I usually go with pangea, but opted for continents this time around. A summary of what has gone down so far.

* I used the worker, worker w/chop and settler w/two-chop strategy to get my second city (Hamburg) up and running. After the first chop, I had my first worker mine the gold so I could boost my science, then after the chop and mine-chop for the settler, I had my worker farm the rice to start promoting some growth.

* Berlin looks like it could be a good science city once I get cottages up and running. I may save the forest so I can chop when I aim for the Great Library, a wonder I tend to put as top priority in most of my games now.

* Hamburg will likely be my production city. It has Copper and the Cultural trait means a border pop will soon bring in Stone. I can farm those plains tiles to give Hamburg some food so it can work both the Copper and Stone... it won't grow much to start, but that's OK since it will be a production city.

* I'm all alone with Cyrus on this continent. After I get Iron Working, I'm going for Alphabet and hope to trade some knowledge with Cyrus before taking him down. After all, he's pinned into one corner of the continent, thus making him a fairly easy target.

* Still trying to figure out where my next cities will go. Right now, I'm building Warriors, but my worker will soon have mined the Copper and thus both cities should end up switching to Spearmen before the Warriors are completed.

But that brings me to this: I need to figure on the best locations for my next two cities. I'm going to build units (Warriors to start, but becoming Spearmen once Copper is mined) to defend the two cities, then each city will build another unit to accompany a Settler from each and I will use the whip when necessary.

I have two screenshots, one with my current situation and a second with two sites that would pull in resouces. The site marked "3" would get another Copper resource, but may not be the best location for another Production city given it doesn't have enough hills, although it would get Cattle with the border pop. The fourth city is further away, but it's also got the only Horse resource I know of, and if that's the only Horse on the continent, I certainly don't want Cyrus getting it (after all, he needs Horses for Immortals).

Also, because Frederick is Philosophical, I really want to try the GP Farm strategy (which I haven't used yet) to take advantage of that trait, but am still figuring out where that city could go. Could be to the south in that river territory, and the hills would help with building construction so I could get specialists, but I'm not certain exactly where it should go.

Any advice on my quandries is greatly appreciated. My saved game is attached as well.

 

[Cam_H]

Food for thought;

OK - there's overlap, but I would want to capture every Gold tile that was there that could possibly be worked.

# can be supported by Farmed Grassland running straight off the rivers. This is not optimal placement, but still gets your Copper and picks up that Gold that's not well placed.

@ captures Gold and Cows on a river!

& captures Rice and Gold on coast with river in fat-X.

% is your farm.

4 is fine.

There's clearly room for 'filler' cities.

 

[Welnic]

Cyrus isn't going to trade with you since he will have a monopoly on any techs he has that you don't. Mansa Musa is the only one who will trade a tech that only he knows. You are just going to have to try to beat them out of him.

 

[tycoonist]

6 is a filler mainly although could become quite good production
5 is a good GP Farm if you farm it over
4 is placed mainly for horses but also gets clams and cows
3 is good alround city.
you might want a city on the coast 2 west from the uncaptured gold but that is upto you. Also try to block Cryus' expansion along that thin strip of land.

 

[ratrangerm]

Thanks for the input, guys. After going over your suggestions, here's what I'm going to do.

* Cam's plan for cities looks like it will be the best, so I'll head to 4 and # first. 4 will be a commerce city and # will be another production city. I'll have to make sure Berlin is working the gold square already in its BFC so that it can be used for production and slowing down growth, particularly when I build Great Library there.

* Welnic, good point on tech trading. So instead I'll backtrack to get Fishing and Sailing, get a Galley out from city 4 ASAP and hope to find another small island nearby that I can to use the leapfrog to the other continent(s) where everybody else is residing.

* Scout will head to Persia to check on what is there, just in case he does have access to a military resource. If he does have horses, I'll need at least a couple of Spearmen to counter his Immortals. If he has copper, I'll have to be smart with promotions for my Axemen.

Going to play to about 1000 BC and will update my status.

 

[ratrangerm]

It's 1000 BC and the latest developments are:

* Munich founded... unfortunately, it took one more square from Berlin than I wanted it to, a grassland forest square along the river. It could still be used to channel irrigation into Munich for some plains squares, but I would have preferred it stay in Berlin. I tried to go back a few turns and work the square in Berlin to keep it in my radius, but it didn't prevent it from being taken by Munich. I'd rather not go back to my original save and start from scratch because then I'd have slower production for my spearmen and settler, and no growth on top of that (and I didn't want to lose the gold in Berlin's radius).

* Settler for the fourth city will come along a little slower... I didn't want to use the whip to hurry my second spearman in Hamburg because I wanted to work the copper square when I started my settler. I'll use the whip to finish the settler's last few turns and then get a head start on my barracks.

* IW discovered, plenty of iron to be had, included one near Cyrus, and he's already sending a settler/archer pair to found a city near it. Don't know if he has IW, but I'm researching Alphabet now. I need to know what tech Cyrus has so I can prepare for my early rush properly. The good news is he has no horses close to his territory and I should get to that horse resource by me first.

* Backtracked to get Fishing and Sailing, then backtracked for Mysticism and Polytheism, so when I get Alphabet, I can jump right to Literature. Don't need Meditation, Archery or Monotheism at this time.

* I don't see my plans for building cities changing. There's one city site that Cam recommended in which an Iron resource would be available with a cultural border pop, the one in the Cattle/Gold city, so that makes that site even more appealing.

* Persepolis isn't in a bad location, but I think it needs to be razed along with the rest of Persia's cities. Maintenance will run me too high to keep those cities, so it'll just be better to raze everything. I just hope Cyrus doesn't build a Wonder in Persepolis.

* Only other island spotted nearby is just south of Persepolis and it's likely a small one that wouldn't make for a good city.

I'm going to proceed with plans for the early rush and research path, but in the meantime, if future city sites should be adjusted, I'm more than open to such feedback. Screenshot and saved game are attached.

 

[ratrangerm]

All right, a final update for the night and I'll wait for feedback this time around.

Got pretty good news when I started up again... a show of the most advanced civs put me in second. So I only have one other civ somewhere to really be concerned about... but then again, it could mean somebody like Monty is on that other continent.

Five cities are up and running. Got three axemen together for my raiding party and a fourth one on the way. My military production cities are emphasizing production over growth. Hamburg doesn't have much forest left to chop, but I can always break out the whip if I need to. Munich is still size 1 but has lots of forest so there's less need to whip.

Cologne built a galley after a forest chop. I explored the coast up north... there's a spot up there that might be a decent city site in the future.

Cyrus plopped Arbela down where my GP farm city was to be. I know what my first target will be.

I know my plan is to let Arbela grow to size two (it should do that pretty quickly) and then send the Axemen in to rush the city and take it down, then keep it for myself. I figure six should be enough to get past the defenses there.

What I'm looking for feedback on is this: Cyrus has been building barracks and promoting his archers. He's also got Iron Working and is mining the Iron in his territory. That's easily solved by pillaging but what to do with his later cities is a tougher decision.

I'm researching Code of Laws right now to get Courthouses, but now am wondering if I should switch to Mathematics instead and pursue Construction for Catapults. Courthouses would help reduce maintenance (and if I want to keep his cities, I need Courthouses for sure), but given Cyrus has beefed up his defenses, Cats would be pretty useful.

Of course, I could always grab Arbela and Susa and keep both (keeping Susa to prevent him from taking back the Iron with a new city), sue for peace and get Cats to go with my Axemen, then finish off Cyrus from there.

But if I do that, I risk Cyrus sending a galley with an archer and settler past my cities and around to the corners of the continent. That would make it a bit tougher to take him out for good as I'd have to pursue him from two different directions.

So what do you all think I should do when I raid Persia? Take it down in one fell swoop and produce Axemen like crazy to replenish my troops, or take Arbela and Susa first, make peace, rebuild and then hope Cyrus doesn't sneak off elsewhere?

Once again, map and saved game attached.

 

[ownedbyakorat]

Don't worry about him sneaking marginal cities behind your lines - being separated from support (workers and other units that could be contributed by other cities to help the new one along) it will be a long time before those fringe cities become a threat. Just keep one extra axe on hand (spear if he's got horse) in the backfield to discourage pillaging. That's a lot better for you than altering your entire strategy to prevent the sneak city move. Fringe cities aren't going to produce a lot of units.

When I go to war I usually aim for production centers first if I can, that makes the rest of the war a lot easier when the enemy is struggling to reinforce.

When you do go to war with him, go for the kill. There's no one else on the continent to distract him, so any temporary peace will cause the AI to immediately prepare for the next war. That can only work to your disadvantage. Even if you need to pause to rebuild the attack force, stay at war, it forces a defensive posture and allows you to pillage enemy mines to reduce his production, and enemy roads to reduce his homefield mobility advantage.

 

[ratrangerm]

It's 350 AD now and I was making my rounds through Persia, tearing up his lands and bringing down his cities. I suffered greater losses than expected (Arbela was much harder to bring down than I thought it would be... lucky rolls for Cyrus... although I expected Pasargadae to be tougher because it had city walls on a hill and I still didn't have Cats) but got him down to Persepolis and had pillaged much of his lands. I was going to hound him some more until I had a few Cats to help bring down Persepolis' defenses and cause collateral damage, but then I had to stop.

Why? Let me explain.

As I explored the coastline, I met up with Catherine, who is on a continent just to the south. I've got Open Borders and a couple of resource trades with me, but then she approaches me for a tech trade, asking for Mathematics for Archery. I insisted on getting Meditation as well, but she wouldn't do it, so I bid her good day, knowing she was going to be stubborn with tech trades. Then she ends up researching Math herself. I wasn't ready to trade Alphabet because she has contact with Cyrus (Buddhism, which Catherine founded, spread to his lands) and I didn't want to risk her swapping tech with Cyrus.

Additionally, there's no other coast squares, save for what's around that small island south of Persepolis, so I have no other lands to leapfrog to so I can find the other civs. Hence, with Catherine stubborn in tech trading, I had nobody else to go to for tech trades...

...except for Cyrus, who came to me with a peace treaty and offered me Meditation as well. I decided then the only way I'd make peace with Cyrus is if he gave me every tech he had that I could possibly get from him.

So I also demanded Archery, Monotheism and Horseback Riding. He refused, so I pulled HR off the table (don't really need it) and he then accepted. So now I'm waiting for the 10 turns to expire and then I'll go finish him off, by which time I should have Cats on the way. Until I get some down there, I'll just concentrate on pillaging, particularly targeting his Ivory. The good news is, since he has just one city, his research efforts will be crippled and he still doesn't have Alphabet or Math yet, so he's got a long way to go to get to Construction.

Some good news about Catherine is she doesn't have horses... she has copper and iron, but no horses means no Cossacks for her. I'm thinking I'll leave her alone unless she tries founding on my continent, which then means I'll kick her right off.

I'm working to build cottages in various cities and prepping them for what I want them to do. Had to stop Berlin from growing, but it's got Great Library and an extra scientist, so it will be a good science city and can stay at size 6until I can help increase its happiness threshold. The sugar I have will help once I get Calendar.

I've been able to keep science at 60 percent and my timings on city captures and razing were good so I never had to lower science at any point. I am building a settler for another city, just need to figure out where.

So now comes the next phase... I know I'm going to finish off Cyrus once the peace treaty expires. I'll start by pillaging to weaken him and lure his units out, then once a few Cats arrive, I'll finish the job.

What I'm looking for advice on is where to found my next city.

I'm thinking the location of the former Susa (I razed it because maintenance costs would have been a problem) is my best site, particularly since Catherine is right across from me and could easily send a galley with archer and settler to go there.

Then again, up north is a Gold/Fish site which could be a nice Commerce city. I might wait on that, though, since it's less likely Catherine would try to found there.

Plus, there's a location in the Tundra up north that doesn't look promising, but a culture pop would give me Iron, Wheat and Silver, so it could work as another production city. I think that site may be a low priority one, though.

Also, what of the former Parsagadae? I know I'm going to keep Persepolis, but filling the gap would be good... do I go back to where Parsagade was, or found it in a different location in that area? Only resource there is Cow.

Saved game and screenshots follow.

 

[ratrangerm]

The year is 1148 AD and here's how things have gone to this point.

* Cyrus sent out a galley with another archer and settler to found a city past my barricade of axemen... and immediately when he founded it, my peace treaty with him expired. Naturally, his new city was instantly destroyed... it did earn me a negative with Catherine, but so be it.

I* waited until I had a couple of catapults available before taking Persepolis... funny thing was, while I was using one to bombard his capital, Cyrus comes along, begging for peace and throwing a lot of money in my face. I refused it... I couldn't afford to let Cyrus off the hook again.

* Founded new cities where Susa and Pasargadae once existed and kept Persepolis intact.

* Berlin has produced three Great Scientists thus far. I used the first one to build an Academy in Berlin, lightbulbed Philosophy with the second and founded Taoism in the process, and then noticed I could lightbulb Compass with the third. I did just that... there's no other land masses in sight that I can access with Galleys, so I need to get to Optics so I can build Caravels.

* I received the news that another civilization was destroyed, the Egyptians. That tells me I've got a warmongerer somewhere out there... thus getting Optics becomes a bigger priority. Also, there's one civilization out there with a bigger army than me... not that much bigger, but still, somebody is serious about military.

* Catherine, as expected, founded two cities on my continent. Hence my next two targets have been decided for me and I'll likely keep both cities.

* Building another settler to go claim the Iron/Wheat/Silver site before Catherine can get there. I think my Gold/Fish site is safe for now. It will take some time before Catherine can get there, and if she does get there first, I can always take it from her.

* Going for the Colossus in Arbela, my GP farm. An Engineer is already in place, and I had a Merchant before that (a Scientist was automatically assigned first, because a Library was the first improvement I built).

And the roll call of cities:

* Berlin: Science city as planned, with gold a secondary pursuit. Why not... since Science cities need plenty of cottages, may as well take advantage of the gold that commerce can also generate.
* Hamburg: Military production city as planned. I'm letting it grow to size five so I can work both the Copper and Stone... that will help with pumping out the more expensive units faster and my economy should be able to handle it.
* Cologne: Commerce city. I'm monitoring this one as I don't want it to get too big just yet. I'll need to get a worker produced after that harbor is completed so I can get a couple more cottages added there. That will include the plains squares... the clams will give me enough food.
* Munich: Military production city as planned. I'm keeping it at size four with stagnant growth... I can thus work the gold in its borders and can get enough production so I don't have to whip all the time.
* Frankfurt: Commerce city with a cottage spam underway. I decided to start building Chichen Itza there, mainly to keep it away from everybody else. Given that I'm doing well tech-wise and also have Stone, I think I can get it. If not, I'll take the money for the hammers used. Frankfurt doesn't absolutely need anything else built there yet and it's not growing too quickly.
* Essen: I'm still not exactly certain what I will do here... it looks like I'll probably make it a commerce/production hybrid, using it to produce naval units as needed and get commerce buildings to go with them. I'm thinking Essen is the best candidate for a drydocks.
* Arbela: My GP Farm as Cam suggested. Has a library, a market and a forge, so I can get three types of GP there. When I do get Drama, I'll plan on building a theatre, and a temple is possible for down the road.
* Dortmund: Another commerce city. Preparing to cottage spam it.
* Stuttgart: Yet another commerce city that will also get cottage spammed.
* Persepolis: For now, I'm having it concentrate on gold, but I think that will be another good science city as I get my economy strengthened. I'll probably build a library after the harbor is finished, then start putting Scientists to work.

Big question to ask is this: How soon do I go after Catherine and her cities on my continent? Points to ponder:

* Catherine has Calendar but won't trade it... but I've got several techs she doesn't have (Civil Service, Philosophy, Construction, Metal Casting, Compass). It's also likely she'll be beelining for Monarchy so she can get her favorite civic, Hereditary Rule.
* Catherine has no horses, but she has plenty of Iron. And one of her cities on my continent, Smolensk, was parked near an Iron resource in my borders... I still have one in my borders and will claim another with my future city, but it's clear she wants a border war over that one Iron.
* I have an army of Axemen and Catapults, but it might help to get a couple more, or perhaps add some Macemen. I wouldn't be able to do that until Hamburg and Munich finish their buildings, though.
* Taking both cities quickly would set back my economy, which is just starting to build up. My planend city with the Iron, Wheat and Silver shouldn't hurt, but adding two more cities on top of that might.

So what would be the best strategy... go after Catherine now to keep her from getting too much of a foothold, or see if I can pry a tech or two from her before kicking her off my continent? And would switching my state religion to Buddhism help at all?

I'd certainly welcome opinions here... it's a pretty tough decision to make. The usual are attached.

 

[ratrangerm]

I've reached 1550 AD. Got both cities Catherine founded on my continent and then made peace once my cultural borders expanded. She's got a galley trapped on the corner of my continent and I've got war elephants on that one corner, keeping her from sending her settler onto it until my cultural borders expand and take it over.

Lost track of a couple of cities as I was progerssing but overall my cities are in pretty good shape. I'm off to claim Gold/Fish and plans are to build two more filler cities to claim seafood resources on the west coast, and probably a third to claim another seafood resource on the east coast.

Found the other continent first... the warmonger who has taken over Egypt is Genghis Khan, and he has a friend in Napoleon. Mansa Musa is also there, stuck with two warmongers who are buddies. Ouch.

I'm heading for Liberalism after seeing that I would be safe to get there first. Some people are certain to tell me I should have had it by now, but that's OK... I'll still get there first. I'll keep an eye on Nappy just in case he gets to Economics first... he seems to be going the military tech route right now, but if he gets Econ before I get Liberalism, I'll make Nationalism my free tech and go for Taj Mahal.

I've got a decision to make, though, and here's where advice would certainly be handy (not that I'm begging or anything ).

I'm thinking I need to make friends with either Genghis or Nappy. Nappy is getting ahead in terms of military tech, so he'd probably be able to handle Genghis. I'd have to spread Taoism to his lands and hope he converts while I do the same. A bonus is then he wouldn't make nice with Catherine, who could try to do the same thing.

On the other hand, Genghis is behind in tech, but very likely has more units than Nappy. That being said, Genghis took over the Hindu holy city (and the Jewish holy city as well) and it will be tougher to get him to convert to Taoism. If Hinduism spreads to my lands and I convert, I could always try spreading Taoism to Nappy in hopes that he converts, then I can easily leverage Genghis into warring with Nappy.

Mansa Musa probably isn't a good option to make a friend... he's not far from me in tech and isn't likely to have a military that will be able to match Genghis or Nappy.

So who would you pick to be a friend... Genghis or Nappy?

And what victory condition is most likely in my grasp? I don't think Domination is possible, as it will take me a while to get to Astronomy and put out an army of Galleons, and it would mean having to share that continent with two warmongers, unless I get one to be my friend and can then take the other one down... but if I do that, I'd better pick Nappy as he would have the military to counter my forces.

Cultural victory is possible, but it would require identifying the best cities for that purpose.

Or there's the good old fashioned space race victory.

So what would people suggest?

 

[weimingshi]

The game will be alot easier if you can accelerate build at start. seeing that you got so much forest around. why don't you chop build 4 worker before your first settler. Trust me choping with 4 workers from get go, makes a huge difference.

 

[ratrangerm]

Well, to be brief, I finished the game tonight... ended up with a space race victory in 1977. Not what I was aiming for, as I really wanted to finish the game before 1950, but I found myself sort of painted into a corner.

What really became the problem was that Napoleon and Genghis Khan had been on the other continent and became best friends... and even to the very end, when Genghis wasn't adopting Representation and Napoleon went with Free Religion, Nappy remained Friendly with Genghis while Genghis became Cautious... but that being said, Nappy was Friendly with me and I really didn't think it would be a good idea to encourage Genghis to declare war on Nappy... after all, Nappy would have had to find out _somehow_ that it was me who bribed Genghis.

Being on the same continent with two warmongering guys may not be everyone's favorite situation, but at least then you have the option of wiping them out quickly. But when they're left alone on a different continent, and then they become best buds, you've got a problem... if you attack one, the other will come for you, and fighting a war on two fronts isn't good, even if you outclass them both tech wise.

I will say, though, that I learned a lot more about Civ IV from this game. Representation, for example, is a _really_ nice civic when you run plenty of specialists, as science runs along at a good clip. I'm definitely going to do more GP Farms in the future as they are _very_ useful. And I now have a better idea about how far I can push my expansion without sending my economy into the tank.

So it was a good thing. I think next time, I'm going to try my challenge that I never finished up because of the holidays and other things... playing as the Greeks, the civ I played in my first game of the original Civ. Should be interesting to see how it goes.