Returning to Civ after a long hiatus, tips?

[vmxa]

Yep.

A power plant increases shield output by 50%, irrespective of there being a factory present; of course, under most circumstances a factory is present since it is a requirement for building a power plant.

Does not work that way for me. 24 shields with 2 corrupt and no factory and no hydro.
Next turn Hoovers comes in and it is still 24/2.

Edit: I see you updated.

 

[Mike Hussey]

I've started up another game on Emperor. I really want to win about 10 domination victories before I move up another level (if indeed I will have improved enough by then). Anywho:

Pangaea (once again) with the Mayans as I consider them extremely strong especially in places with rivers and food bonuses of any sort. I got lucky this time a picked up a few cows and 1 wheat, (although 1 wheat and 1 cow in the radius of the capital only). Basically turned the capital into a 4 turn settler factor, expanded mainly along the rivers but to be honest there wasn't much good land for specialising cities. This time I tried the Philosophy slingshot and worked wonderfully, and was at tech parity without breaking a sweat, even before getting Philosophy itself. This I found was so strange because previously when I researched down the Monarchy line, I was always behind in tech.

So I expanded around my capital in a ring, placing the cities mainly along the rivers but when I got Philo, I actually received a SGL. So the conundrum now is, what do I use it for? (I've got The Pyramids, The Oracle, Mausoleum or Statue of Zeus as the choices). Considering the fact that I can probably snag the Statue in less than 14 turns, do I just go for the Pyramids then or wait for a better (later age)? wonder such as Sun Tzu's or Leo's or Adam Smith's?

Also, as mentioned earlier, I've had difficulty specialising my cities. There isn't much grassland in my area and I've always struggled with plains cities (yes I do know that fully worked plains are equivalent to normal grassland), they don't seem to be that good at unit building or worker/settler building. Please advise. At the moment I'm just getting lazy and building warriors/workers/settlers and all of them, except for the temple city.

Finally I've never really had much experience with wars in Republic. Any tips there? I'll probably have a bit of difficulty deciding how many troops to build and use since they're expensive costing 2gpt. The principle is to keep it short and focused right?

I've included a dotmap of where my next potential cities would be (if the AI doesn't snag them before I do) and another thing is that I should be preparing for war and yet I haven't hooked up iron yet.







Also included are the current and 4KBC saves.

 

[Bucephalus]

I would take the Pyramids - they are huge with the agricultural trait. The increased growth means more citizens=more tiles worked=more commerce, and faster production of workers /settlers/anything else you might want to build. It also means those troublesome plains cities will grow faster into something useful.

 

[Spoonwood]

I'd also take the Pyramids. Don't worry about the despotic GA. For the plains cities, if you don't like how fast they grow, then put out a worker from them. That way your rate of growth for that city remains higher, and you have more workers to develop your empire overall. You can add workers back into cities later, and it appears better to have too many workers than too few. Or at least, so goes my experience. Short, focused wars, yes. Try to get attacked as little as possible. Try very hard NOT to lose a city. Minimize losses through artillery. Generally speaking use mounted units instead of swords or maces, so that they can run away from a battle if needed. Get pre-size 7 towns growing as much as possible. Getting towns to size 7 ASAP once you become a Republic helps a lot. I'd probably have barely begun war preparations myself.

Sorry if I sound a little overbearing or commanding here. I wanted to keep things short and to the point.

 

[Optional]

For war weariness this is always a good refresher: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/war_weariness.php.
Remember that the length of the war is completely irrelevant. Just make sure the one delivering the punches is you. Artillery becomes now even more useful, as it helps keeping losses - and therefore war weariness - low. Try to keep the amount of interturns you spend in enemy territory to a minimum. And everything that Spoonwood said.
Phony wars become more interesting for keeping your folks happy. Maybe I should explain the expression phony war: it's when a far away civ declares on you, giving you war happiness, and you hang on to this war for the happiness reason, while maybe seeing an invading spear from your opponant every 400 years. You've got be more careful on Pangaea, though, and be aware of the possibility of alliances againgst you.

Your terrain looks fine to me, apart from no river for capitol. Personally, I prefer plains over grassland. Grassland is so unflexible in Despotism, as it always gives +2 food, whichever way you manage it. I like terrain with a bigger variety in food values, as it gives more management opportunities. I would find this terrain easier for city specialization.
In the east of your picture you've got some floodpains; I personally would have set up a worker factory there.

SGL > Pyramids = no-brainer.
Given the fact your previous games didn't seem to be too rough besides getting quite a bit behind in tech, I expect this will be a very easy game for you; Maya + Republic slingshot + early SGL for Pyramids is not a miserable scenario for a game of civ!

 

[Mike Hussey]

Yes I will take the Pyramids then. I'll probably build them in a border city which needs culture so I can get free expansions thereafter.

With the plains cities with no extra food bonuses available (not floodplains cities) you guys are all saying how fast they grow! But I'm worried about how they grow at normal rate so they're not particularly good for settler or worker pumps and on the other hand they produce only 1 shield per tile so they're not particularly good for units either.

This will probably be the first game I seriously invest in artillery this early. Hopefully I can keep the Ancient Cavalry and spread them to 1 in each border city protected by 1 spearman and use these as defensive forces, whilst my main attacking stacks are 1 spearmen, X amount of swordsmen and catapults. How does that sound?

 

[Optional]

With the plains cities with no extra food bonuses available (not floodplains cities) you guys are all saying how fast they grow! But I'm worried about how they grow at normal rate so they're not particularly good for settler or worker pumps and on the other hand they produce only 1 shield per tile so they're not particularly good for units either.

I see only Lagartero has just plains. All the others have either floodplains in their radius - Tikal, Lazapa, Kaminaljuyu, Copan - or grass - Quirigua, and Yaxchilan has a fish available once it has culture.
Good idea about giving the Pyramids to a town that can do something useful with the culture expansion.

 

[The Professor]

Yes I will take the Pyramids then. I'll probably build them in a border city which needs culture so I can get free expansions thereafter.

Just remember to keep that city well-guarded.

 

[Mike Hussey]

Alrighty guys.

I've played up to 360AD.

Events which have transpired:
- Conquered the Carthaginians and reduced them to OCC
- Conquered the English and reduced them to OCC
- Built the Pyramids
- Transitioned into Republic after a despotic Golden Age
- Researching the bottom half of the Medieval tech tree and essentially beelining to toward Military Tradition (although, my unit costs are skyrocketing and I'm wondering where the Republic advantage is)

I'm currently making +43 gold at 0% research and about 20-30% luxury slider. I just wanted to ask though, how do you guys manage your Republican empires so that unit costs don't absolutely cripple your economy and research ability?

Also I used my MGL to create an army instead of rushing Leo's Workshop, and yet I have over 50 trebuchets to upgrade (with less than 200 gold in the treasury) when I reach metallurgy so I think that was a big blunder.

I must say though, war with artillery in any age is very effective. With a good war plan and a long term goal you can take out whole civilizations and lose 1 or 2 units in the process. Excellent.

 

[Optional]

I'm currently making +43 gold at 0% research and about 20-30% luxury slider.

That's bad. I'm almost sure it's lacking diplomacy in your case. You were at tech parity in the early game you said. With Republic and a GA you must have been able to pull ahead and sell your techs for big bucks.
Trading options can best be checked every turn. You'll always find some civs with gpt to spare, and getting a few hundred gold in each turn would make all the difference. I understand it's a bit of pain to manage without a helper program, though. Is having Vista your problem? You could check the CivAssist thread for technical help.
Having the lux slider at 20-30% isn't out of order, but are you checking for luxuries to import? Even if it's only gpt you can offer, you'll still find that it's economically worth it.

 

[Aabraxan]

. . . . Researching the bottom half of the Medieval tech tree and essentially beelining to toward Military Tradition (although, my unit costs are skyrocketing and I'm wondering where the Republic advantage is) . . . . I just wanted to ask though, how do you guys manage your Republican empires so that unit costs don't absolutely cripple your economy and research ability?

The short answer: patiently, and with lots of tinkering.

The long answer goes something like this: It is entirely possible to win games by conquest or domination in a Republic, but you have to be able to manage your unit costs and WW.

Unit Support -- You can help with unit costs by getting towns up to size 7 or above. Unit support in Rep is 1/3/4, so every time a town goes from size 6 to size 7, it triples the number of units it can support. Markets are also a big help. Once you get to 3 luxes, markets begin increasing the effectiveness of luxes. That may allow you to drop the lux slider a little. Finally, many players use what I think of as a "crust defense" in Republic. IOW, only border towns that the enemy can reach get defenders. If the enemy breaks through that crust, it can be painful, but units sitting in towns far from the front lines do nothing but eat up unit support and gold in a republic. I'll often place just a couple of defenders in the border towns, then back them up with a "zone defense" of fast movers that are capable of covering several towns at once. Once rails come in and the strategic railnet is laid, obviously, a stack can cover many more towns. Also, roads, roads, roads. Having lots of roads makes sense in any government, but putting roads on everything in sight is particularly important in a republic because of the commerce bonus. Once you put roads on everything, all of those 0 commerce tiles have 2 commerce!

WW -- I see that you've already discovered the joys of rock-throwing. Cats, trebs, etc. go a long way to managing losses and, consequently, WW. Roads will help generate commerce that can be spent using the lux slider. Having plenty of luxes and markets will also help. Keep wars short and to the point. When I'm warring in Republic, I usually have a goal in mind, like a luxury or strategic resource, or even to push someone past a chokepoint (or off my continent). Once I've done that, I get ready to make peace. Now, sometimes the war goes so well that I'll press on, but once I've met that goal, if I need to make peace, I make peace. Also, WW is calculated separately for each civ, so if WW gets high against Civ A, you can make peace with them and go beat up Civ B for a while. So you can use oscillating wars to expand the empire. Go beat up Civ A & grab some land. Then go beat up Civ B & grab some more land. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

 

[Mike Hussey]

That's bad. I'm almost sure it's lacking diplomacy in your case. You were at tech parity in the early game you said. With Republic and a GA you must have been able to pull ahead and sell your techs for big bucks.
Trading options can best be checked every turn. You'll always find some civs with gpt to spare, and getting a few hundred gold in each turn would make all the difference. I understand it's a bit of pain to manage without a helper program, though. Is having Vista your problem? You could check the CivAssist thread for technical help.
Having the lux slider at 20-30% isn't out of order, but are you checking for luxuries to import? Even if it's only gpt you can offer, you'll still find that it's economically worth it.

Yes I was at tech parity and even a lead for a while. After that however I started preparing for war and those unit costs really ate into my treasury. Another problem was that other civs
wouldn't be prepared to give me gpt for turns even though my reputation was intact and they were happy to give me luxuries. However at that point I was preparing for war anyway to take resources, cities and luxuries so I didn't think to trade for luxuries I would be acquiring so soon. In hindsight I probably should have assessed the situation more and traded only for luxuries that my potential targets didn't have, although my trade routes with the far away civs weren't that up to scratch.

And yes I finally got CivAssist2 to work! Apparently installing the OLD .NET framework version works? Go figure.

The short answer: patiently, and with lots of tinkering.

The long answer goes something like this: It is entirely possible to win games by conquest or domination in a Republic, but you have to be able to manage your unit costs and WW.

Unit Support -- You can help with unit costs by getting towns up to size 7 or above. Unit support in Rep is 1/3/4, so every time a town goes from size 6 to size 7, it triples the number of units it can support. Markets are also a big help. Once you get to 3 luxes, markets begin increasing the effectiveness of luxes. That may allow you to drop the lux slider a little. Finally, many players use what I think of as a "crust defense" in Republic. IOW, only border towns that the enemy can reach get defenders. If the enemy breaks through that crust, it can be painful, but units sitting in towns far from the front lines do nothing but eat up unit support and gold in a republic. I'll often place just a couple of defenders in the border towns, then back them up with a "zone defense" of fast movers that are capable of covering several towns at once. Once rails come in and the strategic railnet is laid, obviously, a stack can cover many more towns. Also, roads, roads, roads. Having lots of roads makes sense in any government, but putting roads on everything in sight is particularly important in a republic because of the commerce bonus. Once you put roads on everything, all of those 0 commerce tiles have 2 commerce!
WW -- I see that you've already discovered the joys of rock-throwing. Cats, trebs, etc. go a long way to managing losses and, consequently, WW. Roads will help generate commerce that can be spent using the lux slider. Having plenty of luxes and markets will also help. Keep wars short and to the point.

When I'm warring in Republic, I usually have a goal in mind, like a luxury or strategic resource, or even to push someone past a chokepoint (or off my continent). Once I've done that, I get ready to make peace. Now, sometimes the war goes so well that I'll press on, but once I've met that goal, if I need to make peace, I make peace. Also, WW is calculated separately for each civ, so if WW gets high against Civ A, you can make peace with them and go beat up Civ B for a while. So you can use oscillating wars to expand the empire. Go beat up Civ A & grab some land. Then go beat up Civ B & grab some more land. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

In that game (which I've now played up to the middle ages, I've basically had all my cities in the core at size 12 and with the granaries I've had even the border cities close to 6 size. Luxuries I didn't have many (although I did have markets in all big cities) which was why I was massing up an army to take them from the enemy which ironically was eating through my treasury.

Crust defence I know how to use in Republic although it probably needs a little refining. In Monarchy I usually leave my regular warriors left over from REX for MP for the rest of the game in my core cities, but with Republic I disband them in border cities straight after the switch. However I tend to only put defences in cities which are bordering hostile nations and not nations with which I'm at peace. Otherwise I have no other units in cities besides the ones I'm massing a SOD in.

To be honest I felt I overdid the artillery. about 1000AD I have over 100 trebuchets already and they're slow to move around. I like your idea of oscillating wars but the problem I find with it is cultural flips, especially in useful (Leo's, Sun Tzu's etc) wonder containing cities which are liable to flip even if I starve them down to 1 population and build temples in. If I start a war and begin the conquest I feel as though I have to finish it because If I don't kill off the virus it's only a matter of when the cities start flipping not if. Plus starting in the middle ages, a 20 turn peace treaty seems like an age.

Below is the save, I'm in deep trouble to be honest.
I'm at war with multiple civilizations, still haven't taken the choke point to cut off the eastern side of the map and also want to make peace with Korea, but afraid that the major (wonder) cities I've captured from them will flip before I can even begin implementing anti-flip measures. And also the problems outlined above.

At this stage I'm think of going back to Monarchy were I can war whenever I want with humongous numbers of troops, pile up gold and still with prudent trading keep up in research with key military technologies.

 

[Bucephalus]

A picture says a thousand words.....

Take a look at these screenshots, Mike, and your problems are very apparent.

1) As you can see, your unit support is 346gpt; I can honestly say I've never seen it that high before. The consequence of that is you are running a zero science slider, making 1 net gold. That doesn't tell the whole picture either because your cities are in disorder despite 20% on the lux slider; raising it further will bankrupt you, yet every city is building more trebs or med infantry.
Trust me, at Emperor 120+ trebs is way too many, especially as I cannot see a single one in an active role - they all appear to be parked in cities.

The disorder is coming from ww with Korea; they will give Education and gold for peace (see screenshot 2). I suggest you take it.

3) This is the state of your economy before peace.

4) This is your economy after peace, while still in Republic; a slight improvement but not enough to get you back researching.

5) This is what it looks like if you switch to Monarchy; still not great, is it?

6) This last one completes the story; as you can see, such is your unit support issues that you are actually better off as a Despotism!

The art of warring in Republic is a fine balancing act; keep your military lean and up to date, and oscillate your wars. As Aabra said, have a definite objective in mind and focus on achieving it. Take your target cities, which at Emperor will mostly be defended by no more than a couple of defenders; all you need is maybe 10 trebs and a handful of your best attackers. Sit them under your Army for protection - the AI will not attack an Army in the open. As soon as you have achieved your objectives, take an advantageous peace deal and pick on someone else before ww sets in. Bear in mind, if you return to war with that civ before 20 turns are up, the ww will return.

I'm not sure what VC you have in mind, but I'm assuming Dom/Conquest? If that's the case you had no business being in Republic in the first place. If cities are flipping, raze them; you don't really need those Wonders, do you?

As an aside, the reason they are flipping is that - as far as I can see - you haven't built a single culture building anywhere; you have the biggest empire by far, yet are being out-researched by much smaller civs - some libraries/unis in your core cities would help alleviate both of these problems.

But really, the one outstanding mistake you have made is to build so many trebs - as you can see, the unit support is even an issue in Despotism; I think you've taken the advice about building arty just a bit much to heart - a couple of small stacks (one on each front for oscillating wars) is all you really need in a game like this, just enough to be able to redline all defenders. Anything more is overkill.

 

[Spoonwood]

I disagree with Bucephalus on a few points. But, I DEFINITELY agree that you don't need 116 trebuchets at any level. 10 seems low to me. I'd suggest like 40 maybe. Towns getting to size 7 will help unit support. I see a size 7 town training a settler. I don't know why you have so many units fortified instead of moving to fight. You said

I like your idea of oscillating wars but the problem I find with it is cultural flips, especially in useful (Leo's, Sun Tzu's etc) wonder containing cities which are liable to flip even if I starve them down to 1 population and build temples in. If I start a war and begin the conquest I feel as though I have to finish it because If I don't kill off the virus it's only a matter of when the cities start flipping not if.

Then kill off the virus. Why start fighting someone else? If your army starts conquering one tribe, it heads in that direction. So, keep it moving in that direction by finishing off that tribe. I really do NOT advise razing and replacing. Do NOT worry about flips. The cost of settlers when playing raze and replace significantly slows down s conquest. Just one tribe at a time, until you've exterminated them. If you fight wars that way, there doesn't exist all that much time for a city to flip, and if it does, your army probably doesn't lie all that far away from that city.

I disagree with Bucephalus about fighting as a Republic. The extra commerce can pay off in terms of not needing to build libraries for research and/or buying armies later. You don't have to build libraries, and I don't feel sure they will pay off. But that said, concentrated wars where you finish off an opponent make sense. If you don't finish off an opponent when fighting a war, then you probably need culture. I wouldn't worry about trailing the other tribes in tech, given that you can get to military tradition at a decent pace. Wars where you exterminate the enemy will help here also, since they'll kill off any present war weariness and any future war weariness.

I also see you have horses but not a single knight. Knights move faster than maces, and they upgrade to cavalry. Faster moving units help with a faster conquest. You also want to hook up/conquer luxuries as soon as you can. Up near Rusicade I see Dyes which you can't use yet. No more than a third of that many trebbies in the future.

 

[Aabraxan]

I can't look at the save right now, but it looks like Buce has it covered. Unless there's something pretty drastic going on, I would not suggest another revolt to you. Monarchy (or even despo) might look appealing, but the additional turns of anarchy are turns that could be better used. It sounds like making peace, and some creative diplomacy may be in order. Hopefully, I'll be able to take a look at the save later, but I'm thinking maybe disband some of those trebs and use the shields to help build some libraries? It does sound like you've overdone the trebs. I know I advocated them, and they're a great tool, but you've got to manage your unit costs. As Buce points out, warring in Republic is a balancing act.

Edit: Cross-posted with Spoonwood

 

[Bucephalus]

I disagree with Bucephalus on a few points.

Really? How dare you...

I disagree with Bucephalus about fighting as a Republic. The extra commerce can pay off in terms of not needing to build libraries for research and/or buying armies later. You don't have to build libraries, and I don't feel sure they will pay off.

I'm not sure that I meant to not fight wars in Republic - I do it habitually; however, you need to plan to do so - have the knack, so to speak - and build your military accordingly. Mike (and I mean this constructively, and not meaning to be unkind) has carried on as if he were warring as a Monarchy - hence the ridiculously high unit support and 50% "give peace a chance" in his cities.

Neither did I advocate necessarily building libraries; I merely pointed out that his lack of culture was causing the flips.

But that said, concentrated wars where you finish off an opponent make sense.

Not if WW reaches the point where your economy is completely stagnant it doesn't, and Mike was a long way from finishing off Korea.

No more than a third of that many trebbies in the future.

Nah, not at Emperor; I would never have more than 10 per stack against medieval defences at that level, though I'd probably have more than one stack.

 

[GamezRule]

woohoo, this is all good info for me (

 

[GamezRule]

a lurker just looking for tips (stupid computer made me double post

 

[Snarkhunter]

Nah, not at Emperor; I would never have more than 10 per stack against medieval defences at that level, though I'd probably have more than one stack.

12 or 13 per stack. Assume you are facing vets & allow for 3 units per target. That's 9 HP you want to remove & you definitely won't get a hit every time. In some circumstances, 1 hit in 2 is optimistic. Assume 2 thrusts at the foe. About 30 trebs is right, then. If you were in a geographic position that required more thrusts, you'd want even more, but I try to avoid being in that position myself. Plus it helps to keep a few treb in reserve, either defending a border town or handy in case of a sea invasion. Only a few, though. But since I'm conservative, myself I'd probably build Spoonwood's 40

kk

 

[Spoonwood]

Originally Posted by Spoons

No more than a third of that many trebbies in the future.

Nah, not at Emperor; I would never have more than 10 per stack against medieval defences at that level, though I'd probably have more than one stack.

You did NOT disagree with me actually. I said NO MORE than a third of that (120). That's NO MORE than 40 trebbies.