Rat 40 - Introduction to CCM

[Northern Pike]

We have 7 merchants now and are making more. What are they for, exploring or are we building up for an invasion? I guess I am just not a fan of boats and paying maint on them. 4 or 5 for exploring I can see, more I am not so sure.

They're strictly for exploring. So far we've mostly been doing it safely, but we've reached the point where we're going to have to send them into ocean tiles to achieve anything. That's going to be costly, so I didn't want to be cheap in building ships. It's silly to have one ship sink as it discovers something, and then not have another ship within ten turns to follow up the discovery.

Rat's basic idea was that we need to make contact with the other continents because the trading opportunities are drying up on ours, and my round would certainly confirm that.

 

[Greebley]

Ok, I got it.

I was also thinking granaries less useful because once you reach maximum size, you can't reduce the size at all as you can't build settlers or workers. I also think the size is more limited by unhappiness and having to hire scientists so the extra size past 10 or 12 wouldn't matter too much. That does assume that size limitations are similar to regular civ, so I am unsure if this is an argument for it or not.

Roster
Northern Pike
Greebley - up
vmxa
ThERat

 

[vmxa]

I am not sure either what the point is where it makes sense and where it does not make sense to build granaries. To me it probably is a toss up. I look at it as a two stage deal.

First bunch of towns for us are harder to squeeze them in as we need troops to fight. The next bunch you are not getting much in the way of troops, so you could make granaries, but I am not sure it is important.

You have happiness issues and no workers to make irrigation and clear tiles and a long way from rails. The scientist are better in CCM so getting farms is better, but not as easy for the lack of workers.

For sure you can slap granaries up as the build queue has openings, because you pay no maint for them. It is the first bunch that putting them is often at the expense of something else, till you get the troop counts where you need them.

The problem for me is not enough CCM games to know when/where it makes sense.

As far as trades, I would expect we will have few opportunities with the other continents. Our best hope is isolated islands where their are two civs, with some decent land.

All I expect to get form the contacts is reduction in the cost of techs we have to research on our own. That could be all wrong though as there are more branches. It depends on how long it takes to find someone.

DG civs can research pretty quickly. I think we did get Civinator to up the cost for larger maps.

 

[ThERat]

Let me share a few of my experiences playing CCM.

Granaries and happiness:
Granaries are more important in CCM as cities can grow much bigger than in standard C3C. Aqueducts are only needed for cities >10. Now, what about happiness then. It is true that initially growth is limited due to happiness, but there are far more measures in CCM to overcome this. This is modelled after Civ4. We have world religions and for each religion there are temples available and then just like in Civ4, once you have a few, you can build sth like cathedral equivalents for them. The Great Pagoda also serves to double happiness gained from wats (Bhuddist temple). So, if you conquer other civs and gain access to more religions (and there are cross religious wonders too), happiness problems can be overcome.
Do note that many buildings now have -1 happiness multipliers instead of pollution. This whole concept was done to eliminate pollution and emulate the happiness model of Civ4.

Trade:
Once we spot the other continent, we could trade luxes easily. (remember the capital serves as an airport, so trade is safe). Sea trade is disabled to speed up the game, but as long as we have nations overseas, we can trade.
To add to this, tech trade can get you huge amounts of cash as buildings do not require maintenance. Hence, the AI sits on plenty of money.

 

[ThERat]

So, I do recommend to build granaries in our bigger cities. Now, we got cash and can start to rush buildings soon.

As for the merchant ships, I agree that 7 should be enough unless we lose some to suicide runs.

@Northern Pike

A forest chop outside Da Nang doesn't give the town any shields.

The reason why the forest chop didn't help with the supply center is simple, it is considered a wonder and can't be rushed.

There's no way one yogi can help us more when we return to war than seven WE or a quick Royal Garrison build

That's not the point in my opinion. Gaining monks is the real gain. Looking at the situation at Wonsan for example, if we had a monk, it could culture bomb the city and access to the Korean core would be much easier.
Monks are a real strategic element of CCM that cannot be emphasized enough. If you start to attack enemy cities and have no armies to support the campaign, culture bombs are a great way to prevent the enemy from counter attacking and of course, it helps for faster moves into the AI territory.
Thus, gaining yogis and other prophets (and lawyers later on) is essential so you can start to pop monks and take them along for your campaigns. Do note that you can get as many monks as you want. They do not work the way MGL's work. So, if you start a new war with a few monks in hand, it will that campaign that much easier.


That said, I think it is great to have so many elephants around to strike Korea real hard

 

[ThERat]

And btw, since we are about to take out Korea. There is this one game crashing bug that so far has not been resolved (if there is someone, who knows what causes this, let Civinator know).

If you take out the last city of an AI and they do not vanish from the game (means they got a settler somewhere), the game will crash.

So, you got to save the game before doing that and in case, the above scenario applies, you need to hunt down that settler before taking out the civ. This has occured to me a few times, but is really not a big issue, though annoying.

 

[Northern Pike]

Some high-quality discussion here.

The reason why the forest chop didn't help with the supply center is simple, it is considered a wonder and can't be rushed.

Ah, that makes sense.

That's not the point in my opinion. Gaining monks is the real gain.

Sure, I know that monks are the point of yogis, and a monk would have been great to have at Wonsan. I just meant that we were very unlikely to get through the whole sequence--hand-building the GP, getting a yogi from the GP, and getting a monk from the yogi--in time to help against Korea, even if peace had lasted the full twenty turns. But thanks for the explanation, which makes the thread more useful.

 

[ThERat]

I agree that yogis wouldn't have made a difference for this current campaign. Now, with Osaka producing them slowly, we can pick some weak units that roam around to farm monks.

We will eventually have to turn south and it is good to know that India is bagging some wonders for us, and IIRC, Canada got a world religion, nice to know

 

[barbslinger]

Gaining monks is the real gain. Looking at the situation at Wonsan for example, if we had a monk, it could culture bomb the city and access to the Korean core would be much easier.
Monks are a real strategic element of CCM that cannot be emphasized enough.

I can't agree more about the Monks. I have collected about 10 of them in my game and that culture bomb makes warring a lot easier.

 

[vmxa]

barbslinger I think TheRat is still looking for one more player.

 

[barbslinger]

barbslinger I think TheRat is still looking for one more player.

Well I have only played about 4 games since my hiatus but I am really enjoying the one I am playing on Regent. I am crushing them in tech right now and double the second best enemy in cities. I would welcome the invite.

 

[ThERat]

I would welcome the invite.

Welcome then, we are playing on demigod though. Shouldn't be an issue though.

New Roster:
Northern Pike
Greebley - up
vmxa - on deck
barbslinger
ThERat

 

[vmxa]

Great, 5 is a good number with GR29 having most of the team as well. A skip or swap is a not going to make a big impact like it would with 4.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: I don't think we have enough units to prevent a flip. With 5 foreigners, 6 squares under enemy control, and 2 resisters, their capitol being 4x times closer and them having 2x our culture, I would guess at 2*4*(2+5+6) (*2 for less culture?) troops needed or something like that to bring the flip chance to 0.

IBT: Bombardment

275 AD: Move units out of Wonsan.

IBT: Gain a Slave when a Slaver is attacked.

300 AD: Attack Seol. Lose an Elephant and kill a Spear.

IBT: Bombardment

325 AD: Attack Seoul and kill 3 Spear without loss.
Capture Nampo killing 2 Spear without loss.

IBT: Two boats sink.

350 AD: Start the move for the next Korean city.
I am building Ancient Cav instead of Elephants because they upgrade to Knights and I think the extra attack point wins over the extra hit point.

One of the boats spots coast!

IBT: Two more boats sink

375 AD: Attack PyongYang. Lose first a Chariot and then a 6 hp elephant attacking a 3 then 2 hp spear leaving it with 3 hp at the end (elephant did nothing). Finally a 5 hp elephant kills it and
PyongYang is captured.

IBT: Bombardment. New town founded.

400 AD: Attack Cheju. Catapult retreats.

IBT: Wonsan Deposes us.

425 AD: Capture Cheju. Take back Wonsan. Capture Pusan.

450 AD: Moving on last city

475 AD: Our Yogi makes Ohm noises at the enemy and gives birth to this Monk.

500 AD: We are now next to Ulsan with sufficient units to attack next turn.

Notes:
Didn't have time to MM.
We could buy chivalry for silks and aprox 800 gold if we wished. Its also 5 turns research.
Hopefully Korea will be gone next turn.

 

[vmxa]

I will start on it tomorrow after I see if any feedback on the trade. Normally I would self research, but money is not as hard to come by in CCM. That makes feeding it to the other guy less painful.

The lux is always a sticky one for me as I hate to give those, but 5 turns saved is not a bad thing. Did anyone look at what is next to research?

 

[barbslinger]

I am getting the error below loading Rat40-250AD. I was getting this same error a few days ago when I 1st loaded the mod under the 2nd path below. It works on my saves on the 1st path??

C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Civilization III Complete\Conquests\Scenarios\CCM
and
C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Civilization III\Complete\Scenarios\CCM

 

[ThERat]

Great Progress Greebley
By the way, where is that last Korean city, I can't see any? And be aware, that if Korea is not gone by taking out the city, we need to reload and first hunt down the last remaining settler.

Sicne I have no access to the game, did we spot any new Civ with the boats as you mentioned, we spotted some coast. I would send suicide boats there if we can.

I would go for the trade. We need to get into the next Age to have more options for research. This way, we could also get 2-fers and so on.


@barbslinger
Are you using the latest version CCM 1.4? The link is somewhere in this thread. Otherwise check the spelling in your files.

 

[Northern Pike]

Good work.

The AI really likes that spot where the Koreans have put Ulsan. Perhaps there's coal there.

We need to decide whom we're going to attack next, and at least start building roads in that direction (stack of three workers, one tile a turn) during Vmxa's round. I'd pick the Indians, since they're the most advanced and the Spanish are in a dead-end direction.

When we get Chivalry, we'll be able to see who has which of the four starting Age of Discovery techs and make the choice that will help us most in trade; we'll have options again. So we shouldn't use up our gold on Chivalry, and I'd just self-research it.

Barbslinger, I've never seen that error; I suppose Rat is likeliest to have experienced it.

Preturn: I don't think we have enough units to prevent a flip. With 5 foreigners, 6 squares under enemy control, and 2 resisters, their capitol being 4x times closer and them having 2x our culture, I would guess at 2*4*(2+5+6) (*2 for less culture?) troops needed or something like that to bring the flip chance to 0.

It's a question of whether all those multipliers apply before or after the total T = {foreigners plus resisters plus squares under enemy control minus garrison units} is calculated. I've always assumed that the multipliers are applied after that calculation, so that the player is safe regardless of multipliers provided T = 0, but I've never been certain.

 

[Northern Pike]

Great Progress Greebley
By the way, where is that last Korean city, I can't see any? And be aware, that if Korea is not gone by taking out the city, we need to reload and first hunt down the last remaining settler.

Sicne I have no access to the game, did we spot any new Civ with the boats as you mentioned, we spotted some coast. I would send suicide boats there if we can.

The last Korean town is in the jungle south of Bangkok where the Japanese also had a junk town.

By pushing northeast we reached a new island or continent safely, not needing suicide jumps (all of those failed, which is why I built so many merchant ships). Our ship there is still on a coast of mountains and rocks, and hasn't discovered any civs.

 

[vmxa]

The entry is in my pedicon text. I know that there are some unique pathing for Complete as many mods have run into issues installing. Parts do not end up in the same folder in Complete.

I would just copy things into the Complete folders are they come up. 1.4 is only a biq change so easy to install.