Prince. What a difference!

[r_rolo1]

Can you post the save? That is wierd (only explaining that come to my head: too much whip/draft ( or emancipation fro "We demand Emancipation!") and consequent starving, but is a long shot)

 

[Arnesson]

Can you post the save? That is wierd (only explaining that come to my head: too much whip/draft ( or emancipation fro "We demand Emancipation!") and consequent starving, but is a long shot)

Regrettably no, I did not keep it. Once a game is over, I tend not to bother retaining the saves (especially when I lose!).

 

[Arnesson]

Plunder aka military economy

Giving myself the best possible advantage, I selected Great Plains (and got a spot in cattle country). 11 Civs, No Barbarians, Epic, Huge Map, Playing Kublai Khan (for the culture bonus). One of my two Scouts picked up AH from a village, while I was researching BW. I had horses next to my capital and my second city perched beside a copper mine, so started pumping out Axemen while researching HBR. A sound mix of Keshics and Axemen to go after Louis, my closest neighbour. Took 3 cities, including Paris, before I ran out of troops. Sued for peace, and consolidated. Then went after Peter on the other flank, Took two more cities (both smaller ones) and then consolidated again. Meanwhile my Science slider has slid down to 40. I had beelined Writing and Alphabet after HBR and Pottery, and traded to pick up Archery, the four early religious techs, Agriculture, Masonry and Sailing. Moved my research on to Mathematics, Construction, CoL and Bureaucracy to get Macemen, then towards Guilds for the Knight upgrade. Built three cities of my own, to fill in the gaps between my original two and the ones I had liberated. Took Washington from Roosevelt, then another couple each from Peter and Louis. Made certain that Peace treaties included a tech or gold in tribute. By that time however, Bismark had Cavalry and Musketmen. He declared war. And that's the end of that story.

Yes I built Libraries, Temples, etc. to max Science output. But it wasn't enough. I believe that the slider has to be higher than 40 for ME to win.

 

[r_rolo1]

You can live with 40% in Prince if:
- You take and raze most of the enemy's city and pillage the improvements
- You ligthbulb techs with GP ( that is very useful )

My personal opinion is that you shouldn't had kept so much cities before CoL (4 max, maybe 6 with the Zulu) and that maybe it would be better to push the Education route after having CS, not twisting to the Guilds route.
You mentioned that you were playing the Mongols. See this SG. The guys have been playing a completely insane speed game and thats where the Mongolian UU excels: pillaging and taking ligthly defended cities. If played proplerly, your enemies wont be able to do anything but archers and warriors...

 

[Arnesson]

You can live with 40% in Prince if:
- You take and raze most of the enemy's city and pillage the improvements
- You ligthbulb techs with GP ( that is very useful )

My personal opinion is that you shouldn't had kept so much cities before CoL (4 max, maybe 6 with the Zulu) and that maybe it would be better to push the Education route after having CS, not twisting to the Guilds route.
You mentioned that you were playing the Mongols. See this SG. The guys have been playing a completely insane speed game and thats where the Mongolian UU excels: pillaging and taking ligthly defended cities. If played proplerly, your enemies wont be able to do anything but archers and warriors...

You are probably right. I tend to hang on to cities rather than raze them, which may be my problem. Similarly, I tend to retain their facilities, as they will become useful once the rioting stops. As fir the link, I expect that is a Warlords thing, an extension that I do not employ as yet.

 

[cabert]

We won't discuss GAme 5. The 4 biggest Civ's declared war within a few turns of each other and blew me away in no time.

Game 6: Continents, Epic, 11 Civ's, No Barbarians (life is complicated enuf!)
All 6 Cib's on my continent went Buddhist and there were NO conflicts between us at all (and that included Louis and Julius). Conversely, on the other continent, the 5 Civ's were at each others' throats from 800 BC onwards. Hattie, Tokagawa and Saladin were eventually eliminated by Roosevelt and Elizabeth, with a bit of help from Cyrus at the end (transports)

What really did me in though was my capital city. The population started to erode around 1900, dropping from 16 to 1! I can see no reason for it. Happiness and health were both high. It was my Science city, with almost 200 beakers, and so it really hurt.

The other thing that was different was that I went counter to standard tactics and built lots (7) of cities early. That temporarily dropped Research down to 70%, but it rose steadily back to 100 before long, and I was well ahead in tech and points until about 2/3 of the way through the game. At that point, Cyrus skyrocketed, and quickly surpassed me. Still, I did get to Future TEch 2, which is a new milestone for me at Prince Level.

Can you post the save? That is wierd (only explaining that come to my head: too much whip/draft ( or emancipation fro "We demand Emancipation!") and consequent starving, but is a long shot)

Regrettably no, I did not keep it. Once a game is over, I tend not to bother retaining the saves (especially when I lose!).

no save, no screenie = no way to tell.
From the information you gave us, what happened is you assigned 16 scientists and starved your own city.

 

[Ecofarm]

How about a small pangea? Much less complicated diplomatically, no naval invasions needed, and conquest is just around the corner (literally). I also recommend normal speed.

When trying to learn something, I try to remember the 'K.I.S.S.' policy.

The AS using the military advantage of slower speeds against you = funny.

 

[Arnesson]

no save, no screenie = no way to tell.
From the information you gave us, what happened is you assigned 16 scientists and starved your own city.

You are, of course, correct that without a save, it is impossible to determine what took place. I did not assign any GP's and the city screen did not show any in place beyond the couple of "freebies" that tech advances provided and which cannot be manipulated. Certainly, if anything remotely like that takes place again, I will attach the game file to my post. In the meantime, this has taught me that I need to micro-manage my cities more than has been my practice at lower levels. (Oh, and I did have Emancipation selected)

 

[cabert]

You are, of course, correct that without a save, it is impossible to determine what took place. I did not assign any GP's and the city screen did not show any in place beyond the couple of "freebies" that tech advances provided and which cannot be manipulated. Certainly, if anything remotely like that takes place again, I will attach the game file to my post. In the meantime, this has taught me that I need to micro-manage my cities more than has been my practice at lower levels. (Oh, and I did have Emancipation selected)

it can't be a happiness problem. You wouldn't lose all pop points.
Obviously no workers gave you food.
Either you worked only mines/workshops and specialists or you were surrounded by nuclear wastes or by enemy units.

 

[garrett oneeye]

I may be able to help on the strange loss of pop in your capitol:

If your capitol was on the coast, then you may have had a lot of your food come from ocean squares, which can be blockaded by an enemy navy. I have seen this happen to a city before, although it never went all the way down to a pop of 1.

A naval blockade works in the following way: any tiles within one square of an enemy ship (incl. the square the enemy ship occupies) cannot be worked by your citizens; I believe this may also include land squares, but I could be wrong about that. This can cause a massive loss of food for a high population city.

 

[Arnesson]

I may be able to help on the strange loss of pop in your capitol:

If your capitol was on the coast, then you may have had a lot of your food come from ocean squares, which can be blockaded by an enemy navy. I have seen this happen to a city before, although it never went all the way down to a pop of 1.

A naval blockade works in the following way: any tiles within one square of an enemy ship (incl. the square the enemy ship occupies) cannot be worked by your citizens; I believe this may also include land squares, but I could be wrong about that. This can cause a massive loss of food for a high population city.

Thanks Garrett, I'll keep that in mind.

 

[Arnesson]

it can't be a happiness problem. You wouldn't lose all pop points.
Obviously no workers gave you food.
Either you worked only mines/workshops and specialists or you were surrounded by nuclear wastes or by enemy units.

Cabert, I agree that starvation is the obvious reason why population dropped. But there were no enemy units in the area, and trhere were lots of cottages and a few farms surrounding the city. There was a bit of global warming, but no fallout as nuclear weapons had not been employed and no nuclear power plants were built (I never even made it to Fission in that game). So it is still a mystery to me as to why it happened.

 

[cabert]

Cabert, I agree that starvation is the obvious reason why population dropped. But there were no enemy units in the area, and trhere were lots of cottages and a few farms surrounding the city. There was a bit of global warming, but no fallout as nuclear weapons had not been employed and no nuclear power plants were built (I never even made it to Fission in that game). So it is still a mystery to me as to why it happened.

maybe you put emphasize on science and great persons?

maybe there was really a lot of glabal warming (making all your tiles desert)? This happens if you play a lot above 2050AD.

 

[Arnesson]

maybe you put emphasize on science and great persons?

maybe there was really a lot of glabal warming (making all your tiles desert)? This happens if you play a lot above 2050AD.

All valid points, but not applicable I fear. There were three tiles affected by global warming, but none around the capital. I am just starting to experiment with managing GP's, using the instructions in another thread that were provided for a Science-based victory. And I do not play beyond the time limit.

It happened again in a subsequent game, not my capital but rather a city I took from Peter. In 1959 there was a population of 9, with 3 GP's (Eng, Sci and Merchant). Shortly after 2000, the population was down to 1, the Engineer (forced). The city was on the fringes of a Great Plains large map, surrounded by 7 windmills, 1 farm and a few mines. It was relativelly close to at least two other cities under my control, connected by roads (later rails). There was no global warming at all, and there were no enemy troops in the neighborhood to bloackade the city. I am looking for a good, freeware zip program so that I can attach the saves and submit them for you. Unfortunately both files exceed the max size (500).

 

[cabert]

All valid points, but not applicable I fear. There were three tiles affected by global warming, but none around the capital. I am just starting to experiment with managing GP's, using the instructions in another thread that were provided for a Science-based victory. And I do not play beyond the time limit.

It happened again in a subsequent game, not my capital but rather a city I took from Peter. In 1959 there was a population of 9, with 3 GP's (Eng, Sci and Merchant). Shortly after 2000, the population was down to 1, the Engineer (forced). The city was on the fringes of a Great Plains large map, surrounded by 7 windmills, 1 farm and a few mines. It was relativelly close to at least two other cities under my control, connected by roads (later rails). There was no global warming at all, and there were no enemy troops in the neighborhood to bloackade the city. I am looking for a good, freeware zip program so that I can attach the saves and submit them for you. Unfortunately both files exceed the max size (500).

Don't you open the city screens once in a while?
+ you can see a starving city on the map , why don't you open the city screen then ?
Forced specialists + wrong emphasizing + wrong food management is certainly what happened.

 

[Arnesson]

Don't you open the city screens once in a while?
+ you can see a starving city on the map , why don't you open the city screen then ?
Forced specialists + wrong emphasizing + wrong food management is certainly what happened.

I am learning to do that more and more Cabert. In the past, my focus has tended to be on key cities (borders, specialists, production). That city (second game) had been set to Research, as there was no point in developing it further. Because of it's location, I pretty much assumed that it would never be under threat and needed no intervention from me. In the initial game, my capital was working on Statue of Liberty (a 75 turn project when it began). Again, I let it continue on without checking back, since there was no reason (I thought) to do so. I guess that having played at lower levels gave me a sense of confidence that needs a rethink

 

[cabert]

Well, I can't imagine letting a city starve for dozens of turns without noticing.
Happened to me too, to lose 1 or 2 pop because I was lazy to check the city screens, but you really need to look at the map at least every turn, maybe at the domestic advisor every other turn.

 

[mudphud]

Are you running the latest patch because I remember that under some situations on older patches the governor would starve a city like crazy. It seemed to be triggered if enemy troops were blocking a food resource causing a little starvation the governor would pull workers off all the food tiles.

 

[Bluetooth]

.... Plus, in the past three games, there has been no Bronze anywhere nearby, so I have had to wait for Iron Working to be able to produce Axemen. Same for Horses. For some reason, they seem to always be a fair distance away from my capital when playing at Prince level.

You should try ”balanced resources” and you’ll probably find both horses, copper and iron nearby your starting position.

 

[Arnesson]

You should try ”balanced resources” and you’ll probably find both horses, copper and iron nearby your starting position.

"Balanced Resources"? I don't recall seeing that option anywhere on the startup menu.

So far I have played 14 games at Noble level. I won one (on points and on the second try), but lost the rest, placing well down in the pack. In all but one game there was no Bronze anywhere near my Capital, so I had to get to Iron Working before I could produce any worthwhile troops. In about 4 of those games, no Horses were nearby either. My strategy is now to go for the Oracle so that I can select Iron Working as my free Advance. Otherwise it just takes too long to get there, and I have to sacrifice most of the other early advances to acquire it. It's a . .. .. .. .. . when you have a Worker sitting doing nothing around because the tech isn't there for them to work on any tiles.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears that the AI's receive a bonus Warrior at the start, to guard their capital while their "normal" Scout/Warrior goes searching for Goodie Huts and resources. It also seems that they receive a bonus Archer when they build a city. I cannot believe that they can have 2 or 3 per each while I am desperately trying to balance building, research and recruitment. I am doing well to manage one Warrior/City in the early game!

Another thing that happens frequently to me is that the AI's start to really take off in the latter 500 years of the game. I usually manage to stay with them until around 1500 AD, then suddenly they are picking up Advances at twice the rate I can manage, no matter how much I micro-manage my cities and play with the sliders.