*Spoiler1* Gotm25-Mongols - Full World Map+Dawn of Medieval

[Offa]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Initial build sequence was wanderer, wanderer, settler, granary, and then it ran as a four turn settler pump, using irrigated floodplain wheat.

As ever a superior start.
I notice you often seem to build a settler before the granary. Is this something I should be doing as a rule, or is it only in some circumstances?

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Offa
I notice you often seem to build a settler before the granary. Is this something I should be doing as a rule, or is it only in some circumstances?

I figure that the early game is somewhere around 95% about food

So for me the settler first vs. granary first question comes down to "which way can I gain more food?"

To answer this question I start by treating a granary as something which doubles a city's food surplus. That isn't correct in all regards but it is a reasonable view for this question. If a city already gains 5 food/turn, a granary in effect will make it gain an additional 5 food/turn.

My general rule of thumb is to build a settler first if there's a location to settle which can gain nearly as much food per turn as a granary would gain. (Phew! Read on, hopefully the previous sentence will become more legible after reading the rest )

In this particular game's start, the initial city can gain 5 food/turn by using the floodplain wheat once it is irrigated. So a granary would gain another 5 food/turn. Is there a place where another city can gain that much? Yup, there is - a city which uses all three grassland wines, once they are irrigated, will also gain 5 food/turn.

I can more quickly produce the settler to go and get that additional 5 food/turn in a new city than I can produce a granary in the first city. So producing a settler first is the way to go. (It gets a bit more complicated in this case because that second city won't be up to 5 food/turn for a while. But I calculated the growth rate vs. the worker turns required and concluded it still made sense to do it first. In more typical situations with just cattle and wheat this isn't much of a factor.)

After producing that first settler the balance changes. There's no place to send a second settler for a town which will gain more than 2 food/turn. So a granary next, to gain 5 food/turn, seems best.

Notice that in the simple case where a city has no food bonus tiles, the above logic suggests that a granary never makes sense. Some time ago I realized this. And starting from that realization was actually what brought me to the more general rule above. The logic as I saw it for a simple 2 food/turn city was:
I can build a settler for 30 shields and he can go settle somewhere and produce another 2 food/turn surplus. Or I can build a granary for 60 shields and produce an additional 2 food/turn surplus here. Which makes more sense? Pretty easy decision, even before considering that two separate towns will usually end up with more production, more income, and more flexibility. So the only time I should produce a granary in a 2 food/turn city is when there are no locations left to settle another town which will itself gain 2 food/turn. And by the time that is true I probably don't want a granary anyway. Bottom line: never build a granary in a 2 food/turn town.

Since then I've generalized my rule to "Don't build a granary until it gains more food/turn than a settler can."

And even then there are exceptions, particularly:
1) If the town is very low on shields, a granary still might not be wise. It might be better to get a settler out to a location where there are some shields.
2) If a settler can come close, e.g. can gain 4 food/turn vs. a granary gaining 5 food/turn then settler first might still be best, because the settler can be produced much quicker.

I hope that made sense, I haven't tried to explain this before

 

[karmina]

Civ1.29f Open

Originally posted by SirPleb
...it is a reasonable view for this question. If a city already gains 5 food/turn, a granary in effect will make it gain an additional 5 food/turn.

Well, the +100% are only true for 1,2,5 and 10 food surplus, considering a size 5-6 settler factory.
Because at least in Civ1.29f your stored food will always drop to zero when the town grows. So, if you get +7 food (wheat floodplains + 2 wines), a granary will essentially only give you a bonus of 3. (nonetheless a granary normally gives you the option to get far more shields at the same growth rate)

This observation and the awful lack of shields around the starting spot led me to the keen assumption that a very early 6-turn Warrior+Settler factory without a granary might be better than your usual 4-turn stuff: 7f+5s for the first two turns (->warrior), then 6f+7s+2s (->size 6), and finally 3*(7f+7s). I settled NE, so the setup for the last three turns were Wheat, 2*i-Wines, m-Wine on hill and on plain, and the mined BG.
My decision was also based on the assumption that on a standard sized map, 13 rivals would out-settle me like hell, only allowing me to found a handful of cities. I was proved terribly wrong. Who could have known that our three neighbors wouldn't expand at all?!

At the end of the AA (about 1025 BC) there were still huge unclaimed territories south of Mongolia. We'd founded no more than 7 new towns, but at least our military looked nice - about 20 Anda, 5 Gospodar and 5 Mangudai. This enabled us to quickly eliminate Khazar, capturing the Pyramids. One turn earlier the Magog silk city containing the Colossus had fallen. No great leader though up to now.

Peace with Magog was established in exchange for Construction and Monarchy. All other AA techs except for Republic had been traded peacefully already.

@SirPleb: Apart from your outstanding settling performance (17 at 1000 BC!) I truly admire your luck - although my first build was a Wanderer and even Yesugei initially explored, we never discovered a single goody hut. Also I'd like to know how the **** you managed to discover Monarchy earlier than 13 Demigods while still being able to raise a decent Anda force.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

SirPleb: very nice breakdown on the initial granary vs. settler issue. I never looked at it like that, and will now have to redefine my priorities in many games!

 

[karmina]

Another question goes out to all you QSC gurus: Do you pop-rush your granaries or the occasional settler before? I figured it would take aeons to get a non-rushed granary in Karakorum.

 

[samildanach]

Originally posted by Karmina
Also I'd like to know how the **** you managed to discover Monarchy earlier than 13 Demigods while still being able to raise a decent Anda force.

He popped mysticism from the goody hut which gave him a jump start on reaching Monarchy. He also had alot of cities on a standard sized map which makes for fast research.

 

[SewerStarFish]

Originally posted by bradleyfeanor
SirPleb: very nice breakdown on the initial granary vs. settler issue. I never looked at it like that, and will now have to redefine my priorities in many games!

I agree - even though I lost early I never really looked at it that way ( always assumming the long run doubling was better ). Thanks SirPleb -- GOTM pays off again.

 

[Justus II]

Thanks SirPleb, for stating it so eloquently. I did try and run a comparison of settler first vs. granary, but when I looked at how many worker turns it would take, decided it was easier to focus on one town. Now, if I'd have only known that our neighbors were overflowing with migrant workers for sale, I might have done things differently!

Originally posted by karmina
Another question goes out to all you QSC gurus: Do you pop-rush your granaries or the occasional settler before? I figured it would take aeons to get a non-rushed granary in Karakorum.

Rarely, as losing a population (20 food, compounded) is hard to overcome. It depends on the situation, of course, if it is a lot of flood plains but no shields, sometimes it might be worth it. Also, if I have a fast-growing but corrupt city on my outskirts, I will pop an occasional settler. I usually limit my pop-rushing to some early culture, usually right before an anarchy period.
(My theory: The only thing that grows in anarchy is food, and time. Therefore, by rushing before anarchy, you can use those 5-7 turns to replace the pop, let the culture building get 100-200 years older, and 1/3 of the unhappiness is used up when they can't produce anyway!)

 

[Tone]

SirPleb and JustusII: thanks for sharing your wisdom on settlers and pop-rushing. Perhaps I could seek some advice about size of military. I noticed that at 1000BC, SirPleb had 17 towns and 18 military units. Does that mean that it is worth the risk of leaving some towns unprotected and concentrating your military against the target civ when at war? I do wonder if I have the early ratio of settler/military builds all wrong in the early game and would appreciate some advice/guideline that I could follow.

 

[Justus II]

I am probably not a good example, as I generally leave towns undefended more often than I should. (See the Arabs walking into a town from me in this game) During despotism, I probably average one defender per two towns, actually placing them in core cities to help with MP, and some along the borders to react to barbs. As long as my road network keeps up, I should be able to get at least one defender to any town within a turn, usually two units. Rivers can block that (as on this map!). Unless I am planning an early offensive, most of my military are warriors out exploring, looking for barbs and huts, etc. Even when it is time for war, I try to send most of my military out in 1-2 good stacks, and leave minimal defenses. If I stay under monarchy (as in this game, but normally rare for me), I do work toward getting at least 1 per town, 2 for cities, as MPs.

 

[Offa]

Thanks Sirpleb for your prompt and excellent reply to my query.

I spent some time thinking about the best starting moves here, but my whole attention was on establishing a settler factory as quickly as possible and I never even considered producing a settler before the granary. I will in the future. I actually started with scout, scout, worker, and granary. I built the worker, as it seemed very hard to finish all the necessary improvements in time for the factory to work, and building another scout/warrior seemed unnecessary. Building an early settler also helps in the same way by avoiding finishing the granary before all terrain improvements are in place.

In addition, building an early settler might have alleviated the misfortune that befell me, of getting flood plain disease in 2950bc. It is possible to have already squeezed a settler out by then. That put all of my careful planning in the bin. I eventually set up the 4-turn factory in 2390bc, at least 4-5 turns late. This doesn’t sound that much but I think it is a significant setback.

I made lots of other mistakes later on of course, which are probably the real reason I didn't start very well. For instance even at the time I was pretty sure a RCP of 3 squares would be best, given the large number of Civs on a standard map, but I so wanted the iron to the south that I put my 1st settler in a fairly weak spot between it and the horses, committing me to spacing at 4. I didn’t get deluged with foreign workers like some people, but I took almost all of those available (7 by 1000bc) which militated a bit more against my decision to build an early worker.

In the start, one decision that needs to be made is whether to emphasize food or shields, or take a middle course. For example early on is it better to work the hill-wine or the irrigated grass-wine? Is it better to work the irrigated grass-wine or the mined bonus grass? Does it make a significant difference? I decided to entirely emphasize food production without wasting food on growth, as the 2 bonus shields you get on growth (working the forest) will obviously be won quicker if you grow quicker. In essence really I would like to know what is the relative value of a shield compared with food.

Thanks JustusII for your excellent ideas about pop rushing. I have pretty much never rushed anything since the despot pop-rush was nobbled by a patch ages ago, but keep thinking I might be missing out, as it used to be very powerful.

 

[Tone]

Thanks for your reply, Justus II. I accept your point about losing a town to the Arabs but I am coming round to the idea that I have been playing far to cautiously whereas you take the odd risk and reap the benefits more often than not. As someone once said, "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!"

 

[AlanH]

Open.

I'm determined to finish a GOTM having failed to finish 22 and 23 and not even started 24 .

I qualified for this thread when I traded for Construction in 1050 BC, and I already have one Medieval tech at the QSC 1000 BC cutoff. I've decided to submit my QSC (just in case it ever gets scored ), then post this, then read all the amazing feats of SirPleb et al, to avoid being totally discouraged.

Here is my QSC timeline to 1000 BC, which contains minimal spoiler info for the first two turns of the Middle Ages.

I just want to say all Cracker's maps are superb, this is no exception, and this is a fun game so far, even before I reach the magical new units.

As we've just finished a rather successful GOTM23 replay as a succession game, the similarities in this game are interesting. Domination objective, raging barbs. Expansionist, probably pangeia since the first spoiler requires full map visibility, and the start position is rather central. And our knight-like UUs arrive at the start of the Medieval Age. The differences are also significant. Demi-god, not Monarch, and cheap barracks instead of cheap temples, so aggression is going to be pure force, no messing with flips. It will probably be necessary to capture territory using settlers more than temples, at least initially. I'm hoping I am carrying forward some great lessons I learnt from my team mates during SG23.

I settled one tile NW of the start to build a settler factory using the wheat and wines, and built two wanderers, a warrior, another wanderer and a granary before moving into 4-turn settler production mode.

My settlers designed a tight ring of six cities 3 to 3.5 tiles away from Karakorum, and then started a ring at 7-7.5 distance. So far this has not caused any compromises in city placement, and I have needed no temples to expand borders yet. I have 11 cities so far, with a total population of 34, and only one of these will require an Aqueduct.

The starter scout and three wanderers did a good job of meeting the neighbors and mapping the world, and we were able to trade profitably to make big holes in the AI treasuries at each of the two key tech points - Calligraphy and Mapmaking.

Tech trading went very well. In spite of the fact that I didn't research a single tech to completion, I am ahead of most civs. With 20:20 hindsight I should have switched research off and accumulated gold. The sequence was:

4000 BC. Turn 0: We have Terracotta and Martial Arts.

4000 BC. Turn 0: Start research on Wheel at maximum.
3750 BC. Turn 5: Trade for Wheel and Burial.

3750 BC. Turn 5: Start research on Bajutsu at minimum.
3500 BC. Turn 10: Trade for Alphabet, Bronze Culture and Masonry.
2710 BC. Turn 26: Pop Taoist Mysticism from a hut, trade for Bajutsu.

2710 BC. Turn 26: Start research on Shamanism at minimum.
2550 BC. Turn 31: Trade for Iron Culture.
2150 BC. Turn 41: Trade for Calligraphy.
1650 BC. Turn 55: Trade for Mathematics.
1575 BC. Turn 58: Trade for Confucianism.
1550 BC. Turn 59: Trade for Mapmaking, Shamanism, Civil Service.

1550 BC. Turn 59: Start research on Monarchy at maximum.
1150 BC. Turn 75: Trade for Literature.
1125 BC. Turn 76: Trade for Currency.
1075 BC. Turn 78: Trade for Construction to reach the Middle Ages.
1025 BC. Turn 79: Trade for Monarchy and a MA tech.

As soon as I had the world map in 1550 BC I started a couple of wars to keep the more remote civs busy and slow them down a bit. I allied with Keltoi against Germany and with Egypt and Ottomans against Tokugawa. Later the Arabs declared war over their petty demand for 37 gold, and I allied with Russia, Rajaputana and the Keltoi against them. Then I joined in a war against Gogury, allied with Korea. This is the first one where we have actually come face to face with the enemy (once, with no losses). So far I've lost one wanderer and one warrior to barb activity, but the worst of that is yet to come as the end-of-era uprising is close at hand.

I am about to hook up my iron, and if the raging barbs don't steal all my gold I shall have 25 warriors ready to upgrade to swords as my gold mines work overtime. I have four barracks now, with 5 more under construction. I am now focusing on Bowmen and Gospodars to get together a balanced mix of UUs when the time comes.

Back to the fray. See you again in Spoiler #2.

Here's a screenshot of my cute little civilization.

 

[Drazek]

Originally posted by Tone
... it is worth the risk of leaving some towns unprotected and concentrating your military against the target civ when at war?

IMO, defensive units are mostly wasted shields. I prefer to defend my towns with fast offensive units, moving where the enemy is going to attack. I also avoid RoPs as AI tends to sneak attack undefended cities (especially capital, but even a lone warrior from the beginning seems to work as a deterrent). At start I build some reg warriors for MP duties, but I usually try to switch to Republic ASAP. With Swordsmen/MI/Tank stacks I sometimes use equal speed defensive units, but when attacking, I try to move as fast as possible. If you really have to defend your cities, then you are not doing well and probably losing anyway.

Defensive units have some uses, such as in choke points or in IA/Modern Age, when invading another island for example. Then I may build lots of Infantry/MechInf and drop them on a mountain with workers to build a fortress and just wait until AI has wasted its offensive units.

 

[Tone]

Originally posted by Drazek


At start I build some reg warriors for MP duties, but I usually try to switch to Republic ASAP.

Thanks for your reply, Drazek. Did you stay in Republic for this game? I was aiming to be at war for most of the MA so thought that Monarchy would be better in the long term.

If you really have to defend your cities, then you are not doing well and probably losing anyway.

[/B]

I'm not losing but the question is could I be doing better. The answer is definitely yes!

I'll need to look into your methods of keeping a smaller but more mobile set of defenders and not relying on MP for happiness. I guess I'm just paranoid about attcking in the East and then finding that I'm the victim of a sneak attack in the West!

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by karmina
Well, the +100% are only true for 1,2,5 and 10 food surplus, considering a size 5-6 settler factory.
Because at least in Civ1.29f your stored food will always drop to zero when the town grows. So, if you get +7 food (wheat floodplains + 2 wines), a granary will essentially only give you a bonus of 3. (nonetheless a granary normally gives you the option to get far more shields at the same growth rate)

This is true of course, food gains of other than 1,2,5 don't work out exactly to doubling the town's food. But I feel that for the purpose of deciding on granary vs. settler they work out close enough.

For example, a surplus of 4 food/turn can be used in a town with a granary to grow every 3 turns, leaving a 2 food surplus per growth cycle. By sharing the food bonus tile(s) with another town this can be micro-managed. For example, if this +4 surplus is due to an irrigated grassland wheat, then one turn out of every three I would want the town to use a mined bonus grassland instead of the wheat, to gain 2 extra shields in that turn. Another town would use the irrigated wheat for that turn. Used this way the granary makes +4 food/turn effectively become +22 every 3 turns. That's a bit less than doubling which would be +24 every 3 turns, but close enough for comparing settler first vs. granary first.

Similarly a surplus of 3 food/turn can be micromanaged to come out fairly well. In one game (GOTM18) I shared a single one food bonus tile between two towns which each had a granary, resulting in fully doubling the single bonus food. Each town used it twice per four turns, resulting in both towns growing every four turns.

My feeling is that food surpluses over 5 food/turn in a town usually suggest that the town should have a granary and use just +5, and the rest of the surplus should be used to increase growth in another town. In this game there was +9 food/turn possible for the first town, a good setup for two fast growth towns.

Originally posted by karmina
This observation and the awful lack of shields around the starting spot led me to the keen assumption that a very early 6-turn Warrior+Settler factory without a granary might be better than ...

I agree that a very low shield location can completely change the decision. If it takes a very long time to build a granary then it is probably better to build settlers instead and send them somewhere where there are shields.

But I didn't think this start position was shield-poor at all. A capital NE of the start position had the wine hills (1 shield with no work), two mined BGs (two shields each after mining), a few grasslands (1 shield each after mining), and even one plains for another shield after irrigating. It also had a forest for two bonus shields per growth. And every citizen after the first one could work a tile which produced shields, assuming that the first citizen worked the irrigated wheat. Seemed like a productive location to me

Originally posted by karmina
My decision was also based on the assumption that on a standard sized map, 13 rivals would out-settle me like hell, only allowing me to found a handful of cities. I was proved terribly wrong. Who could have known that our three neighbors wouldn't expand at all?!

To me, early exploration suggested room for at least 10 to 20 towns depending on how fast the neighbors expanded. In a situation like that I figure it is worth going for the maximum. If growth is blocked early, it is still a big enough area that extra workers will be handy and the settler factory can switch to produce them. (Who ever has enough workers aside from OCC games? ) Or the settler factory could keep pumping settlers to stockpile for later use. I'm going for domination and that means I'll want lots of settlers later. My settler factory probably won't do anything for the entire game except pump settlers

Originally posted by karmina
Another question goes out to all you QSC gurus: Do you pop-rush your granaries or the occasional settler before? I figured it would take aeons to get a non-rushed granary in Karakorum.

I agree with Justus II. It is hard to overcome the population loss. The kinds of rushes he suggests are the ones I also use most. I occasionally rush something urgent but avoid it when I can.

Originally posted by Tone
Does that mean that it is worth the risk of leaving some towns unprotected and concentrating your military against the target civ when at war?

I agree with the points Justus II and Drazek have made about this. I do things pretty much the same way. I think I use even a bit less military than Justus II does, particularly less MPs.

I think there are three possible reasons to defend towns in the early game:

1) Barbarians. I tend to not worry much about them, I just consider them an unavoidable nuisance. Because I don't worry about them a lot I get hurt by them sometimes, occasionally losing a citizen, some gold, a worker, or a settler. Overall I figure I'm ahead of things with the amount I gain by not protecting these assets vs. what I lose. If they seem bad early in the game I'll build more military to hunt and destroy camps. If I don't see many barbs I don't build up for them.
In this particular game, I saw so many rival units wandering around that I figured I was almost completely safe from barbs - if any appeared an AI would pounce on them quickly.
One more thing about barbarians: their camps will not appear within one tile of your cultural borders and they will not appear in any tile which is visible to one of your military units. (Workers and scouts don't count as military units.) In most games I find that I can be proactive early in the game - by positioning a few warriors at strategic points (hills and mountains preferred) just outside my holdings, I can eliminate much of the barbarian threat. To me this zone of visibility approach is a better use of those warriors - less warriors are needed than to defend my towns and they are accomplishing more.

2) While at war with another Civ. For this defense I prefer an offense. If I am aggressively pressing the war into enemy territory, most of the enemy's forces will be used to try to stop me. A minimal defense at home is usually all that's required to deal with the occasional enemy unit which arrives there.

3) To deter new wars. To me this is the tricky defense issue, the one which is really hard to find a balance on. I'm usually pushing the limits I think. In Medal game 5-6 I pushed too far and lost my capital early in the game.
I don't know exactly what motivates the AIs in this area. The following are my guesses and thoughts. They aren't anything more than that. But acting on these generally works for me. Warning - pushing this stuff hard can occasionally lead to undesired results Not often if you're careful though.

3a) Early in the game, while there is still good and accessible land to settle, the AIs are unlikely to attack. During this phase of the game the only thing which is worrisome is the next point. They're unlikely to attack for any other reason.

3b) When an AI has a unit positioned so that it can take an undefended town immediately (same turn) that strongly tempts the AI to attack, opportunistically.
Any military presence at all appears to eliminate this temptation. A single conscript warrior in the town changes the picture. It is just the "free" hit without any fight at all which seems to add a special temptation for the AI.
So, after the first 10 to 40 turns of a game (depending on how things look) I like to get at least one or two units hanging around close to the home area. They might explore just outside the borders but they stay close. Whenever a rival moves units toward my area, I move these home units so that they can occupy any towns which may become "threatened" before the rival can get there. I don't actually worry about defending the towns. A deity opponent in the early game can decimate me if it decides to attack. All I try to do is deter them by not offering easy bait. If there's no town they can just move into without a fight, they're less likely to declare war out of the blue.

3c) Undefended workers and settlers do not seem to add to temptation for the AI.

3d) Later in the game if possible I protect only border towns. If I can avoid rivals moving through my territory (by blocking or due to the nature of the position, e.g. being on a peninsula) then I leave no military units at all in any cities other than my borders.

3e) A military alliance is a good deterent. If an AI is allied with me against another Civ it is very unlikely that they will go to war with me. They don't even seem to be tempted when they have units passing directly past unprotected cities but I still prefer to avoid tempting them that way if I can.

3f) A ROP offers no significant protection. An AI which has a ROP with me will casually violate it if it sees a reason.

3g) Before declaring war on their own initiative (vs. being bought into an alliance against me by another Civ) an AI is likely to try extorting something. I try to always have a bit of money on hand which they can extort to ensure they have this opportunity.

3h) Later in the game I find the AIs' reasons for attacking hard to understand at times. Sometimes it seems to just happen randomly. Even then, I generally don't maintain much of a defense force. A mobile and strong offensive force can often be repositioned quickly enough to deal with the new threat. Another way to deal with a new threat is to ally one of the enemy's neighbors against them.

3i) If an AI moves a SOD (stack of doom, i.e. stack with lots of units) toward my territory, that AI has pretty much decided to attack someone. If there's no one on the other side of my territory in the direction the SOD is travelling, that someone is me for sure. And it might be me anyway.
Once the AI has decided on an attack of this type there is very little which can change its mind. It is time to prepare a defense. The only thing I've found which can change its mind in this situation is getting it to ally with me against someone else.

If you keep all of the above in mind at once then it is possible to play the opening game with a very small military.

Originally posted by Offa
In the start, one decision that needs to be made is whether to emphasize food or shields, or take a middle course. For example early on is it better to work the hill-wine or the irrigated grass-wine? Is it better to work the irrigated grass-wine or the mined bonus grass? Does it make a significant difference? I decided to entirely emphasize food production without wasting food on growth, as the 2 bonus shields you get on growth (working the forest) will obviously be won quicker if you grow quicker. In essence really I would like to know what is the relative value of a shield compared with food.

This sure is a tough question. I think the only answer is "it depends"

But having said that, I almost always go the same way as you did this time, i.e. I emphasize food first. I only make exceptions when I have a particular reason to emphasize quick shields. If I don't know which to emphasize then I always choose the food by default. My thinking is that by emphasizing food first I'll end up getting more shields (and gold), partly due to bonuses at growth, partly due to getting more citizens and then assigning them to high production tiles while continuing to grow rapidly, and partly due to the ever present option to convert the extra citizens into workers or settlers when it seems appropriate.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Wow, SirPleb, what a bundle of fascinating strategic info. You are the man! It will be interesting to see if the AI becomes a little more difficult to deceive in conquests.

 

[karmina]

Originally posted by SirPleb
To me, early exploration suggested room for at least 10 to 20 towns depending on how fast the neighbors expanded.

Civ1.29f Open
Well I'm probably just lacking the necessary QSC experience to see that. After all this is my first game where I bothered about things like settler factories at all ).

On a related note, I just stumbled over the RCP thread in the strategies forum - boy I wish I'd read that before starting on gotm25. Already in the late AA corruption is driving me nuts, and it won't get any better since I'm planning to stay at monarchy for the rest of the game. However, here are some general questions about RCP:
1. Is it correct for all software versions that any city at distance N (=1,2,3...) from the palace will not increase corruption in any city at distance (N + 0.5) or less?
2. Is it confirmed for all software versions that for cities "C" near the FP only those cities "Cn" contribute to corruption where ( d(C,FP) > d(Cn,Palace) )?
3. How is corruption dealt with in cities at similar distance from palace and FP? Minimum? Interpolation? Is there some cut-off distance? And what happens to an RCP if I place the FP in one of the ring cities?! It's a shame that there is no statement by the Civ3 programmers regarding the actual formulae involved in calculating corruption...or is there already?

If (2) is correct, a palace jump away to the edge of the world would be a serious bug exploit that should be explicitly forbidden by cracker.

On a not so related note, I normally agree with SirPleb et al. on the small military business. (In fact in Civ2 I hardly used to build any forces up to Mobile Warfare - until I broke with my habit to reload at least thrice each turn )
But in this game the MP issue proves more and more critical, since up to now I didn't get the slightest chance to make my people happy with buildings or wonders. Commerce is also quite limited due to monarchy and especially the above mentioned corruption, and anyway desperately needed for upgrades.

 

[Drazek]

Originally posted by Tone
Did you stay in Republic for this game? I was aiming to be at war for most of the MA so thought that Monarchy would be better in the long term.

I'll need to look into your methods of keeping a smaller but more mobile set of defenders and not relying on MP for happiness. I guess I'm just paranoid about attcking in the East and then finding that I'm the victim of a sneak attack in the West!

No, I stayed in Monarchy until the end.

Regarding MP: I planned to finish this before IA so I build cities quite close
each other so that there would only be 5-12 free tiles per city. I would have needed lots of MPs, but instead I bought marketplaces for "big" core cities, and aggressively fought and traded for luxuries to keep my people happy.

I also setup military alliances. I allied with civs which had good economy against poor civs. This should quarantee that poor civs can't persuade other civs against you, they have no money or resources to buy alliances. Also, your rich ally probably buys others against the poor ones so they'll be busy with other matters than you. I bought two alliances quite early, and the effect was that everyone was soon warring on my side (heh, not really everyone was on my side, of course, but they definitely were working for my cause).

 

[Tone]

SirPleb and Drazek: thanks again for taking the time to share your wisdom. All I now need to do is to try and follow this first rate guidance. Maybe by the time GOTM 26 is out I might get a better score.