Restarting this map (again) looking for some tips

[General_Ski]

So what is peace going to buy him.. 1-2 more cities, which will be a money drain till they will get up to speed?
I do realize this is played on noble. But once he establishes bad habits he will have a hard time playing on higher levels.
Thus a restart is strongly recommended. A) he will have to make decisions again about where to setup the cities. B)He will get to practice various staring building strategies to see which works for him in this situation.
C)They don't need knights to take him down, all they need is crossbowmen at this point, and those will come much earlier... Granted he is likely to buy peace first, but they are likely to use that money to upgrade their archers into xbowmen. Now that's a lose/lose scenario as far as he is concerned.
D)Given what I have seen so far he could use the few tactical tips and practice trying them out. Now that takes even odds situation. Here the situation is clearly tilting torward ai. As one of the AI will clearly dominate others, creating a vassalage alliance, whereupon he will have a hard time prevailing agaisnt multiple ai stacks.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

But once he establishes bad habits he will have a hard time playing on higher levels.
Thus a restart is strongly recommended.

That is the worst bad habit.

At higher levels (especially Emperor), every game is about coming from behind ... because that's where you start from!

 

[kopfschuss]

Can you post this save and the starting save?

There ya go. The AD save is actually a few turns earlier than the picture I posted.

I'm also a little confused about the BFC (I did some forum searching but obviously didn't look hard enough). If the farm is inside my borders but not in the cross I'll get reduced resources from it?

 

[General_Ski]

Of course starting with Monarch, it's coming from behind. But to do so you have to squeeze every advantage you have got. That means city positioning, research building tree. If you squander that, it almost impossible to come from behind.

In this given situation, he is not setup to have more cities, nor conquer them. Nor can he really stand off a determined enemy, unless he pays them off. I mean the only reason he will not be destroyed outright, because he is playing on noble... But he will need 8 cities, come 1700s. Because by the time his version of WWI and WWII rolls around, that's how many you need to press such a war to a winning conclusion.
If he can manage 8 cities, with 3 well developpeed enough to pop top of the line troops every 5 turns, may be he can win a domination win... Or at least subdue his own continent...

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I'm also a little confused about the BFC (I did some forum searching but obviously didn't look hard enough). If the farm is inside my borders but not in the cross I'll get reduced resources from it?

Hmm ... I'm not the best teacher, so I'm sorry if this comes out awkward:

A city can work a maximum of only 21 tiles: the city center, the 8 tiles in the "inner ring", and the additional 12 tiles immediately adjacent to those 8 inner tiles.

These 21 tiles make up the "Big Fat Cross" (or BFC). In this screenshot, they are the tiles in red:

A tile outside the BFC but within your cultural borders is still under your control but can't be worked unless a city has it inside its BFC.

Let's focus on a resource first. If a resource is within your cultural borders (not necessarily inside a city's BFC, though), you can improve it and connect it to one of your cities via Road and/or River to gain access to it. In the case of Iron, mining it allows you to build Swordsmen and other Iron-dependent units. For Pig, Pasturing it grants your trade network connected cities +1 . For Stone, Quarrying it grants your cities [connected to the trade network] access to Stone -- which is great for accelerating some city buildings and Wonders (such as the Great Wall and Pyramids).

A tile's yield works a little differently, though. In order to get a tile's , or , one of your cities must work that tile. Otherwise, the tile doesn't really do anything.

Let's take, for example, the Grassland Hill Pigs inside your Cultural Borders but just outside Karakorum's BFC:

It's within your Cultural Borders and has a Pasture and Road [to your cities], so it's connected to your trade network. Therefore, it is granting all of your cities connected to your trade network +1 .

The tile yields 5 and 1 if worked. However, it is not in any city's BFC, so it cannot be worked and therefore cannot grant that yield to any city.

Likewise with the Iron and Stone ... they are within your cultural borders and connected to your trade network, but they are not granting any city their tile yield.

The same thing goes for the Riverside Plains Hill Mine just north of Karakorum's BFC. The tile is mined and so has a yield of 4 , 1 . But, since it's not in any city's BFC it cannot be worked. Furthermore, the tile has no resource, so the Mine is granting you no benefit at all at this time (and so was a waste of time to Mine).

It's also worth noting a city can only work as many tiles as it has population points. (BTW, the city center is always worked.) So, if Karakorum is Population 6 right now (just an arbitrary number), it could work 1 Floodplains Farm, 1 Plains Cow Pasture, 1 Plains Hill Mine, 2 Grassland Hill Mines & 1 Plains Copper Mine [for production] OR 3 Floodplains Farms, 1 Plains Cow & 2 Grassland Forests [for food/growth] OR 3 Floodplains & 3 specialists [for economy] OR any other combination of 6 tiles you can manage.

In the city view, the tiles being worked by the city are the ones circled in white. Only those worked tiles in white grant the city any tile yield.


-- I know that was long, but I hope it made sense (It's late here, so there's no telling how coherent that is. )

 

[kopfschuss]

Ahhh OK. I understand now. I was under the assumption that if it was in your borders everything was AOK.

So sometimes then it's better to gain the same resource if it's a little further away, than to have a close city and overlapping BFCs?

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

All right. It's still winnable, mainly because it's noble.

Immediately made peace with roosevelt, he was willing to give me sailing. lol.
A few turns later made peace with Peter.

Caught up techwise, missed liberalism though, went to the other continent around 1200ish. Working my way to rifles. Squeezed another city out, captured the barb city, and could probably squeeze another 2 cities maybe, but i'm not going to. The capital is the only good city so I'm going to go the obsolete route and go for an SSE route. I've been lucky with the great people, popped 3 GEs. Used one to rush the great library (can you believe it hadn't been built yet?), built the national epic, switched to pacifism, and i'm churning out more GPs. I'm currently building heroic epic. Hoping that I can build rifles in 1 turn once i get them, and then i'll start conquering the continent. Roosevelt has really fallen behind techwise and should be easy pickins. If i take him out i'll be the biggest civ in the continent, then i'll move on to hatty and take her judaism shrine.

But who knows if i'll actually finish the game, it's a huge map, and i hate the delay between turns.

Also i've been running at 100% science for centuries. Begging can sure go far sometimes. Amazingly everyone is pleased or friendly. yay for 1 religion. I'm gonna have to make sure to bribe peter to shake things up soon though.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

So sometimes then it's better to gain the same resource if it's a little further away, than to have a close city and overlapping BFCs?

Yes.

No.

Don't worry too much about overlapping BFCs. You don't want to build all of your cities right on top of each other, but overlapping a few tiles here and there isn't that bad (and can sometimes even be good!).

The important thing is to give your cities decent food and to ensure your land is being worked -- especially the resources.

Check out the ALCs for exhaustive discussion on city placement.

Immediately made peace with roosevelt, he was willing to give me sailing. lol.
A few turns later made peace with Peter.

Same here (I made certain to take the Worker outside Boston first, though ).

I traded Fish for Hapshepsut's Gems to bring Karakorum out of unhappiness and also begged her for the rest of Construction, lol!

I sold the Clam to Peter for 5 GPT and tech traded to relative parity within 30 or so turns (though I did have to keep a constant vigil on the tech trades to keep up with everybody at first).

After Washington came out of Anarchy, I chop/whipped a few Culture buildings then immediately switched to Caste System and put Karakorum on Scientist duty.

Before that, though, Karakorum's first order of business was to pump out 3 quick Settlers! I captured the Barb city and settled the SW fish (on top of Iron), between the NE Pigs and Fish and then SW of the Lakeside Pigs. All 4 of those cities grew to size 3 and immediately assigned 2 Scientists each.

All existing cities pumped out units (slowly but surely) to keep the Power rating up and discourage any surprises (despite being Pleased/Friendly with most everybody).

I quit shortly before 1000 AD ... I, too, don't care for the length of Huge game turns, but I might consider polishing this one off tomorrow if the spirit moves me. However, I'm not sure I can win it via Domination ... I think that would definitely be a challenge. "Space Domination" seems more likely.

EDIT: With Karakorum's production, we could probably restart from the 715 AD save and turtle the war to take a few more cities. I was more concerned with slowing down, but it might be worth it to press the war just a little longer ... IDK ... I might try that tomorrow evening.

 

[Jerrymander]

I'll take this and see how my warmongering hands do. I like Genghis Khan. Who needs the Pyramids when you can steal them? :3

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

if you go for early astronomy

Spoiler :

There's at least 1 island directly west, and another one directly east of your lands. You could probably fit at least 3 cities there. Probably more if you don't mind a ton of ocean.

 

[pigswill]

I whizzed through from the start, stopped at 1500bc.

Spoiler :

I didn't like the starting position. There are three seafood resources available to the south but it would need a city right on the coast to get them all within the city radius/Big Fat Cross. This would be a very good location for a GP Farm (city that runs lots of specialists, it requires a few high food tiles so that you only need a few of the city's population to work tiles and the rest can be specialists without the city starving). It is not so good for capital and starting city.
So I headed north a couple of tiles, got some floodplains, cows, pigs and some hills, a nice mixture of tiles so you can switch which tiles you work to concentrate on growth or commerce or production or an optimum mix of them all.
Scout did fairly well, popped three huts for cash and popped a couple of useful techs (fishing and pottery). Initial research path was AH, mining, BW. Found two lots of copper, in the northern desert (a city could get pigs, horses and copper in BFC but it would have a lot of useless desert tiles) and on the south coast which I'd already marked as the site for my GP Farm. I decided that as I was going to put a city there I'd build it straight away. It didn't have a lot of production but gave immediate access to copper.
Meanwhile scouting the neighborhood had located Roosevelt but no-one else. Time for an axe rush. One of the main principles of an early rush is to keep it early. Once I'd got my second city builtthe capital built a barracks then axes non-stop.
It has to be said that Roosevelt conspired in his own destruction by building Stonehenge. He had two cities, Washington defended by 2 archers and New York with a single warrior. So once I'd got to five axes I declared about 1700bc. I lost two axes taking Washington, I decided to keep it because of Stonehenge. New York however was particularly naff and got razed. That's pretty much where I finished this set.
Meanwhile my south coast city had been building a library then ran a couple of scientists to get an early GS, probably for an academy in the capital.
I've got the stone hooked up and the capital is now building the Great Wall. Its a useful wonder on this map because there's a lot of unclaimed territory which will allow barbs to spawn in relative abundance.
Currently researching aesthetics, maybe go for literature next and then chop out the Great Library in Washington (though there would be a problem with GP pollution (its getting great prophet points from Stonehenge)).

 

[Jerrymander]

This map was very good for warmongering.

Spoiler :

I settled 1 SE, on the triple-seafood, cow area. I'm a sucker for seafood resources.

Notable events:
2300 BC - Bronze Working, Copper on my capital city square. At this point, I wish I had not held off so long, but it didn't matter. Axemen ahoy.
2075 - Stonehenge built by someone else. Hatty? Axes sharpened.
1350 - War declared on Roosevelt, I have 6 axemen. Washington had ONE archer, Ne York had ONE warrior. I conquered him by 1225.
1100 - Wardec on Hatshepsut. Memphis destroyed 1075. Thebes is size 7 and has one measly warrior protecting it. I have 5 axes.

That's where I am now. I'm not much for 'hey I popped this from a hut' because it doesn't really matter to me. I got two warriors, some gold, some experience.
Here's a pic of my kingdom (turned so you can see all 4 cities) -

IN RETROSPECT, I should have razed NY like pigswill. But I'll need another raw city for axe/cat/keshik production. I want to own the continent.

I have 10 axemen. Roosevelt had iron, I had to take him out early.

EDIT: to 70 AD

Spoiler :

Pretty interesting. Hatty whipped a warrior in Thebes but my 5 axes took it. Thebes is constantly assaulted by Barbarian warriors and archers, it's kind of annoying. Thebes is a very good commerce city, as it has 3 Gems plots and lots of river tiles. Wall Street, anyone?

975 BC - Thebes captured, Hatty destroyed. She didn't build Stonehenge.
925 - Great Wall built, faraway land.
675 - Temple of Artemis built, faraway land. Also, discovered Horseback Riding. Keshiks, anyone?
395 - Wardec on Peter. He gets dangerous lategame.
365 - Novgorood razed. Here I ran into trouble, as I had 9 axes but Peter had built two chariots. I lost 4 of my axes taking his chariots out. He lost horses with Moscow.
320 - Yekanterinburg razed, Great Lighthouse built faraway
305 - Got a Great General, Moscow razed. Horses lost for Peter, as well as the war. Here's where I battled the chariots, hence the long delay until the next razed Russian city. Peter is up at the northern tip of the continent and I am in the southern end, so I razed all of his cities. Too much of a drain.
230 - Oracle built faraway
215 - Rostov razed
110 - Convert to Judaism, Thebes = holy city. Only religion on our continent so far.
35 - St. Petersburg razed
10 AD - Yakustk razed (crappy city he founded near former Moscow)
25 - Pyramids built by me. I wondered why no one had build them yet, and I chop rushed them in Karakorum.
40 - Adopt Representation, +3 happy in 6 cities
70 - Yasktorklsfjad"l razed, Peter destroyed. Only Gandhi and Elizabeth remain. Both have copper.

Image of Peter's former empire:

I only have 3 axemen left, I'm so saddened. But at least Peter is out of the picture.

I'm teching along at a good clip, soon I should have Code of Laws, Construction, and Mathematics. Then the war to end all war will start.

Edit 2 - to 950 AD

Spoiler :

I bungled a few things, but most importantly not the invasion of Ghandi's land.

160 AD - Ghandi founds Confucianism
220 - I found Turfan (3rd city) on the iron directly to the west of Karakorum, also get Mathematics
310 - Someone builds the Colossus
340 - Construction.
445 - I raze a barbarian city. I'm also building Keshiks like mad. I make a total of 18.
565 - Wardec on Ghandi, siege of Bombay begins.
595 - Code of Laws discovered
625 - Bombay captured, Confucian holy city, another good commerce site - with floodplains.
700 - Taoism founded on another continent. The other AIs seem to be teching fast - for Noble at least.
745 - Delhi captured, another siege. I lost two Keshiks, I think. After this, I don't need my catapults, as Ghandi's other cities had virtually no culture and few defenders.
775 - Palaitpura captured, Parthenon and Masuelom built faraway.
790 - Feudalism, switch to Vassalge.
805 - Vajaviagra captured, another good commerce site. Not great, but good.
850 - Agra razed, Ghandi destroyed.
930 - Great Library built faraway.

It's 940 AD, I'm two turns away from Civil Service. I've killed four opponents, razed 10 cities, killed 55 archers, 37 warriors, and 14 axemen. I'm feeling pretty good. I have 10 cities, and am producing 98 beakers/turn with 20% science. -3 gpt. :/

Uploaded a save at my current position for your enjoyment.
The only wonder I own are the Pyramids. Heck, that's the only wonder I want, let alone need. Barbarians are becoming a serious pain, though. About 50 of them congregate on Thebes every 8 turns or so, and I moved my capital there. Thebes is in the smack center of the island. Saved me 35gpt by moving it, woot. I was up to 1260 AD before my computer crashed, haha. Defeated Elizabeth with relative ease, should start researching Compass so I can make contact with enemy civs and barter for techs. I know I'm behind, but I have a whole continent to myself. If I can't get a domination win, I'll be going for space race.