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Actually, this is fantastic. I had one question, but cannot remember it. I'm going to use these suggestions in my next game & see how they go. (I just won my high score yesterday on a SR, but don't know when I'll be able to start the next game.)

 

If a city has a Factory and some kind of power-plant (a free HydroPlant from Hoovers, for preference!), then Mfg.Plants are almost certainly unneeded.

A fully-railed-and-mined Pop12 core city on Grassland (1/3 BGrass, IIRC) will harvest (2 + 8*2 + 4*3=) 30 shields per turn straight off the bat, assuming no waste (by the early-/mid-Modern, you should already have had plenty of time and shields to build Courts and PoliceStns).

A Factory + Industrial-era power-plant together would increase that (+ 50% + 50%) to 60 SPT. And you'll need NukePower to get to Robotics anyway, so — at least 8T before you'll be able to build any Mfg.Plants — your best shield-city(s) could easily build a NukePlant (240 shields) in 3-4T, which would increase even a 30-SPT town (+ 50% + 150%) to 90 SPT. (NB although you'll keep a free Hoover-HydroPlant, only the NukePlant shield-boost will be counted.)

You could therefore easily build the 160-shield Ship-parts in 3T, just from your 30-SPT Industrial-era Grassland cities; the 320-shield parts would only take 4T from a Grassland town with a NukePlant. And any core-town with access to railed+mined Hills, Resources, etc., and/or which has a Hospital allowing it to grow beyond Pop12, will likely have a higher base-SPT, which (with a NukePlant — or the IronWorks) could easily push total shield-output up as far as 100+ SPT: now you could build the 640-shield Ship-parts in 6-7T (using e.g. an ICBM as a prebuild, if you're doing it in your Capital).

I mean, how much mooooaarrrr productivity do you want...? Don't forget, the game is going to end as soon as your last Ship-part is built...

Bear in mind that the lower the difficulty-level, the more research you will have to do on your own, especially after the end of the Middle Ages...

 

I've noticed that. Even still, at Warlord I was able to trade for some techs later in the game. Not much, but I was (for example) able to trade for Espionage, then plant spies everywhere, which was pretty cool.

Oh, and I remembered by question. The last couple times I played a SCI civ (last one was Sumerians, before that Babylonians), when I got to the Industrial Age it gave me Nationalism as my free tech, even though I didn't want it for that. I clicked into F6 in the interturn and clicked something else (probably Steam Power, which is my usual one), but it gave me Nationalism anyway. Is that normal, or am I doing something wrong?

 

Of course it isn't needed. It is just fun. Besides, what else am I going to do with all my excess money? I can't take it with me, either.

 

I dunno about completely useless... Sure, anyone who has Muskets (and Cavs, lots of Cavs!) doesn't need Riflemen, but Policemen can be quite useful in the more marginal semi-core towns (with ~60–89% total corruption), of which (on a Continental map at least) you should have quite a few by this point in the game.

Plus the AI looooves Nat, so you can almost always use it as trade-bait for any Civs who don't have it — e.g. after gifting up any less advanced Scientific Civs into the Industrial, any who get Steam (or Med) as their freebie, will almost certainly be willing to trade for it. And having Nat may then also 'distract' those Civs into researching Communism and/or Fascism (and then Industrialisation and/or Espionage), while you run down the RepParts/SciMethod-beelines instead, and (pre)build ToE and Hoovers.

Why would you have excess money? Why isn't all your commerce going into SCI% and LUX% (while the AI-Civs' GPT is paying your building and military maintenance)?

But if you do have a huuuuge p-...ile o' gold, you could also gift some of it (back) to any surviving (and/or belligerent) AI-Civs at 10 gold per turn, to keep 'em sweet, while you prepare for blastoff...

 

Interesting! How would you upgrade Nationalism or make it more fair for the AI... I ask it for modding purposes.

 

You could remove some of its attributes (and/or add more attributes to Steam and Med), so that it's less heavily weighted in the pseudorandom selection of 'next tech to research'.

I guess you could also make it cheaper, though I'm not sure if this would also make it easier to steal (albeit at risk of starting a war...)?

In my Mod-in-Progress, I actually made it untradeable (along with IronWorking, Gunpowder and Fission), to make it more fair to me — since the AI will never sell Nat to me, but seems quite happy to sell it to everyone else. (Well, now they can't do that! Hah!).

Spoiler More details of Nat in my M-i-P :

It still allows Policeman and Trade Embargoes, but I removed MPPs completely, since the AI doesn't understand them, or value them properly (I've seen pipsqueak Civs suggest that I should be paying them 100+ GPT for the 'privilege' of protecting them — when it would be substantially cheaper for me to just absorb them into my empire...!). I moved MAs from Writing to Nat, to replace MPPs, but I might reconsider that...

Just for fun, I also added a 'Marine Rifle' unit, for the SEA-Civs only. It replaces the Rifleman (same graphics), costs 70s (like my modded Rifles), but has A.D.M|(B.R.F)=5.5.1|(5.0.1), +1 HP (as do all post-Gunpowder/pre-Modern units), Amphibious, upgrades from LBM/ Berzerker (now a 4(2).1.1 Amphibious MedInf costing 50s), starts GA (mainly to benefit England, since MoWs aren't great), upgrades to Marine.

But I also substantially fiddled with the other techs in the early/mid-Industrial tree, to help the AI and hinder the human during this phase of the game:

Spoiler Wot els I dun... :

The most important changes, were probably to modify the prereqs for the other 3 techs on the Nationalism branch:

• Espionage now only needs Nat
• Communism now also needs Industrialization
• Fascism* now also needs Corporation

So the AI will now have to go at least partway along the Industrial/ Scientific branches, before it can 'waste' its beakers on the Gov-techs.

*The Fascism-gov now also has low WW, so the AI won't switch to it or stay in it so long during wartime; but just in case, it also has the commerce bonus [albeit higher corruption], has higher unit-support [2.5.10] than Republic [1.3.4] and Communism [3.6.9], and has the SPHQ instead of Communism; NB only Monarchies can use the FP.

Steam allows building Ironclads again (as in Vanilla), and the 'Ironclads' tech has been renamed to 'Railways' — so if you want those rails, you'll have to research an optional tech (though you'll now only need Iron)

Electricity allows Coal Plants, to make it a more attractive research option for the AI, but since CoalPlants require Factories, it can't waste shields on them until it has Industrialization as well.

Sanitation and Medicine have switched places, so San now comes before SciMeth. It still allows Hospitals — but also only after a Factory has been built — making it slightly more likely to be chosen as a first project than Med was. So if the AI gets Electricity and San, it can now see SciMeth, and compete for the ToE.

Medicine needs SciMeth, but is now a purely optional 'Wonder-tech' (allowing Battlefield Medicine, and Vaccination Program [ex.Longevity], the latter now also being a Small Wonder, but requiring 10 Hospitals rather than 5).

Steel is also no longer an empty tech: it allows Battleships (must be built from scratch, now need Coal not Oil, obsoleted by Carriers — which need AdvFlight)

Electronics now needs RepParts, so you'll need a substantial tech-lead if you want to be able to use ToE to grab AtomTheory and Electronics and then build Hoovers straight afterwards...

 

Replaceable parts is a most useful tech and it would still be useful if the double speed for workers would be removed and moved to nationalism instead. So "if" you want to build railroads fast you will need nationalism.

 

That's a very good idea...

 

In my mod I have a spy (HN) and sniper (Stealth attack) which are very worth to research under espionage. That makes nationalism wore worth it.
I dont want to take the 'untradable' path as I dont use it in my mod... Perhaps make it mandatory to advance, because now Nat is optional.
I added the olympic games wonder to nationalism, but it double colosseums effect... Maybe it should put a colloseum in every city and make it a small wonder? Hmm.

 

Unless you're using a haxor'd Editor, then it'll have to be one or the other, unfortunately, because (at least with the Firaxis Editor) the 'Free ____ in every town' flag is only available for GWs (as I discovered when I tried to make TheInternet into a SW which gave a free Lib in every town).

 

This thread is 15 years young!

 

Does anyone know if an army of mobile SAMs retains the anti-air capabilities of the individual unit?

 

I don't know for sure, but would guess not, since an (unmodded, unloaded) Army does not have an AA-value. OTOH, nor does it have the Enslave or Amphibious ability, yet an Army composed of Javelineers or Berserkers (or Marines) will have that unit-specific ability.

I think I'd still rather have a strong (attack-unit) Army defended from Bombers by a stack of individual AA-units, though.

 

I learned today that, although an elite unit has to win against the AI to generate a leader, it doesn't matter what an army attacks to become victorious. I made peace immediately after generating an MGL, so I was walking my army over toward a weak AI, intending to declare on them so I could build the Heroic Epic, when I ran into some barbs. Not surprisingly, the barb horseman was no match for my army of legionaries, but I was kind of surprised when I got the "Why don't you build the HE?" message. I guess usually the barbs are gone before I get an MGL, and usually I have other targets more readily available, but it seems like I should have figured this out long ago.

 

What it attacks doesn't matter - but keep in mind you don't get leaders from attacking Barbs (but you DO get slaves if you unit can enslave! Which makes slave mining very lucrative.)

 

I discovered yesterday that, if I plant an Airfield on another landmass, and set that Airfield as the Rally-Point for a city building Bombers on my landmass, the new Bombers appear on that Airfield, ready to bomb, on the same turn they are built -- no need to lose any turns Re-basing them!

(It was too much to hope that my Tanks/ Armour/ MechInf would be automatically Airlifted in the same way, though -- that still has to be done by hand, using an Airport, or an Airfield planted outside each Tank-building town set as the Rally-point for that particular town...).