Strategy discussion

[blizzrd]

Because it completely borks the economy.

China's in bad economic shape between 1000 and 1500 AD anyway because of the drag of having 8 cities, and all the whipping you have to do to build all those temples and cathedrals. (Having a bank, grocer, and market in all 8 barely pushes me above 70% science, even with the Great Lighthouse, Temple of Artemis, and both shrines.)

Chop forests for the temples, don't use the whip for them.

Now, my cities are always in tip-top shape, and I always have more than my share of wonders, but by the time I have whipped out 50 or 60 troops my science is already starting to dip below 10% from the unit costs and the unhappiness.

Please tell me I'm missing something.

I just did China under 1.184. I never went below 70% science, finishing Olympic Park in 1600AD for the start of my 5th Golden Age. The Mausolleum of Mausollos is an absolute powerhouse. I got almost all the World Wonders with the exception of the Pyramids, Statue of Zeus, Colossus and Colosseum.

I started to build the great army in around 1300AD and easily finished it in the early 1500s. I got both conquerer events (extra troops) and Aztecs, Inca and Portugal as voluntary vassals. Mongolia never even threatenned to declare war. Japan (and their vassal Khmer) did once around the 1200AD mark but they only landed a few Axemen and Catapults in Korea which were easily removed.

I used the Stonehenge approach to get CS and the scientists required to bulb Mathematics. The key step was having contacts with all civs on Turn 90 once Rome has spawned to trade techs and start quickly then build the Oracle for Calendar. I got Calendar (Taoism) in 640BC in this way.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

In general, since food is so plentiful in RFC, except on resource tiles, putting cottages on grassland, windmills on hills and farms on plains seem to work quite well for economy. Blizzrd your China pic almost exemplifies this approach.

 

[blizzrd]

Indeed. I only leave mines on grassland hills when the city nearby is really production poor (Korea, southeastern China). Or when you pop a mined resource in the early-mid game such as the Silver that popped on the plains hilll N of Luoyang in my game.

 

[Hangly Man]

Grrrrr.

Wait, did you chop down all your forest? Isn't that bad for health? (Or doesn't it matter with so many resources?)

Do cottages really make that much of a difference?

And how many workers did you have? Two per city as per the wiki or more?

If you could post a mini-walkthrough I would be forever in your debt. It looks like my game could stand improving generally.

Will try building Changchun (lol "great wall".) I was afraid anything north of Karakhorum would flip to the Mongols.

 

[blizzrd]

Wait, did you chop down all your forest? Isn't that bad for health? (Or doesn't it matter with so many resources?)

I think I left one under the deer. While it removes the health benefits from the forest it doesn't matter (as you suggested) because you can get access to all the health resources with a little bit of trading to other civs and expansion to pick up the Sugar and Banana in southern China.

Do cottages really make that much of a difference?

The biggest key step to holding the economy at a high level was building the Spinal Minaret. But yes, cottages do play a large part of the process also.

And how many workers did you have? Two per city as per the wiki or more?

I built one initially in Beijing straight up. I captured two from the barbarians in Asia Minor (next to Hattusas) and walked them back to China under escort of a warrior with 3 forest defense promotions. Each city that I founded (up to 7) built an additional worker. So all up I had 10 workers in the end. I think I lost a couple during a plague and I probably replaced these at the time.

If you could post a mini-walkthrough I would be forever in your debt. It looks like my game could stand improving generally.

I was actually thinking of doing so for the new wiki that Rhye is creating. But I'm finishing another game just now and it will have to wait a little for now.

Will try building Changchun (lol "great wall".) I was afraid anything north of Karakhorum would flip to the Mongols.

You should visit the RFC Atlas to familiarise yourself with the various spawn/flip areas for each civ then. The link can be found within the Links thread, stickied within this forum. It hasn't been updated for a while (1.181 I think) but Rhye has hardly changed the flip areas AFAIK during the recent patches.

 

[Hangly Man]

Sure, I've done that before as the Dutch and Japanese (against Germany and China). You spread your culture, make them riot (no gold for that turn), unhappy, unhealthy, and destroy their improvements, and that's sure to collapse an already unstable Germany. With usually stable civs like Mongolia, France and Spain, it's not worth the espionage.

Supposing you had a great spy? Do you think 3000 EPs would be enough to take down an otherwise stable civ?

It would be an extremely cheap and efficient way to take out a rival.

I think I'm going to try this.

 

[Hangly Man]

The biggest key step to holding the economy at a high level was building the Spinal Minaret. But yes, cottages do play a large part of the process also.

Ok. I paid much more attention to my economy this time and kept constant contact with the West. (I have a bad habit of turtling.)
I also whipped a lot less. It never dawned on me just how much whipping kills your economy.

Didn't do quite as well as you. Tech fluctuated between 30~50% but with solid infrastructure I managed to keep up.

Got 2/3 again, and much closer to the UHV. I think at 1100 or so I said "I will whip no more forever" and changed to CS. Probably a lot sooner than I should have; I didn't get my infrastructure built all the way up and I only had 4 cities producing units at decent rates. Then about 1500 I got the plague, killing my economy and killing a lot of my cheap units.

So here's my last question regarding China. How soon do you start producing units and what do you make? Assuming I have around 10 to start with, that means at least 5 cities building 20 (!!!) units each! Is 200 years enough?

 

[usi]

I haven't tried, but the Christ Redentor trick (but note that the effect of the CR has been changed by whatever BTS patch) should work great in RFC as long as your empire is stable enough to bear a turn of nonsense civics.

 

[blizzrd]

So here's my last question regarding China. How soon do you start producing units and what do you make? Assuming I have around 10 to start with, that means at least 5 cities building 20 (!!!) units each! Is 200 years enough?

You make pikemen (or spearmen if you never researched Engineering). I had 8 cities building units, not 5. Even the slower cities can still build units, even if it takes then 5 turns to produce a pikeman.

I took about 250 years between 1300 and the mid-1500s to build the great army. By best 3 cities (Luoyang, Beijing, Sanshan) could produce a pikeman in one turn. Sanshan had the Moai Statues which turned an otherwise poor production city into a bit of a powerhouse. I had Sanshan working both fish tiles in the area as well as every other available water tile.

 

[Hangly Man]

You make pikemen (or spearmen if you never researched Engineering). I had 8 cities building units, not 5. Even the slower cities can still build units, even if it takes then 5 turns to produce a pikeman.

I took about 250 years between 1300 and the mid-1500s to build the great army. By best 2 cities (Luoyang, Beijing, Sanshan) could produce a pikeman in one turn. Sanshan had the Moai Statues which turned an otherwise poor production city into a bit of a powerhouse. I had Sanshan working both fish tiles in the area as well as every other available water tile.

*sigh*

In 1300 I'm usually still building infrastructure to get my economy strong. Next time I'll make a lot more workers and cottage faster.


Good news though, I finally got my 3/3 with Mongolia! I teched straight for drama, built nothing but settlers, and set my culture slider all the way to the right. Ended up with 16% by my 30th turn. (I actually ended up building more settlers than I could use. Filled up the whole continent east of Russia.)

The bonuses the Mongolians get to production, stability, and upkeep are just insane! I thought with that many cities I would be at zero and running a deficit for sure. But by 1650 I had courthouses in all of them and my science was above 60%! By 1700 my science rate was 80%, I had spread all three of my religions to all of my cities, had built 5 pagodas, 5 academies and 5 stupas, and I was #1 in score. I actually got rifling before both Japan and Russia did.

Didn't raze my cities until the mid-1800s. I was surrounded by powerful empires who could have wiped me out. The Ottomans are so greedy they would take any city I offered them. I gifted them 4 big cities in Persia and India (all but Patna) and they started to collapse immediately. After they went down I razed 5 of their former cities and got my 3/3.


Also want to confirm that the Mongol special power doesn't quite work as advertised. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't.
The Khmer declared on me and took my southernmost city next to the copper (guiyang?) and had their army stationed in it. I made an end-run around them and razed Hanoi (size 10) which was 3 squares away from both guiyang and Rangoon (sizes 1 and 5, respectively.) No flip. When I razed their capitol though Pnom Penh (2 squares away) flipped to me.

 

[rastajones]

Hi Rod, have you updated your guide for Egyptian already? Iam on RCF 1.984 Vanila version and having a few problems and synchronization.

Good guide btw, cant wait to learn RCF through it.

CHeers,

EDIT:
Ive been redoing it and the 24th move worker only gets ready on the 25th here... This 1 turn delay is making me loose Sin's founding spot because of Yerushalaym's influence. Gonna try Persians and wait for Rod's!

 

[Rod]

Hello,

I havent updated the Egypt Guide since Vanilla times (that was before Warlords )

So Egypt has changed dramatically since these early days.

I had opened up another post recently as I tried to reattempt in BTS, but failed this time. But we had great discussion there that provided many good ideas.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

Supposing you had a great spy? Do you think 3000 EPs would be enough to take down an otherwise stable civ?

It would be an extremely cheap and efficient way to take out a rival.

I think I'm going to try this.

It will work if you constantly poisson their water, and forment unhappiness.

 

[FloridaSunShine]

Been using old strategy from Wiki to play America (V1.184). Found to get any were I had to start with Representation, Pacifism, Mercantilism, Bureacracy as sugested AND Emancipation, Occupation. These gave me 1 turn more of Anarchy before taking the religon, but made a big difference in game play. Started many times, mostly on monarch but vic & emp also, only had Engand decare war and not always. Never France or Spain even when cities flipped. Not a high score but a UHV victory.

 

[Duke of Awesome]

i would like an american strategy. i havent (and will not) read the 26 pages of this thread. so if any one could post some strategizment for the USA i would be happy. so very happy.

 

[ZachScape]

Here you go Mr. Awesome.
Rhye's of Wiki has helped me a lot and taught me about various aspects of the game and mods for it. Hopefully it does the same for you.

 

[Duke of Awesome]

thanks Zach. this will definately help

 

[ZachScape]

You're welcome, but AnotherPacifist is the one you should thank. He wrote the guide.

 

[Kornaki]

I downloaded the game last night for warlords, and am wondering: if I build a city in someone else's territory and they spawn, asking for the city, is there any way I can actually fight the war against them to keep my territory? It seems like I just bleed troops to the enemy side until they take the city anyway

 

[Tigranes]

I never played RFC on Warlords, but in BTS I founded Rostov as Russia, without knowing that it's Turk's area. My UHV requires to lose no city, so when Turks arrived I was forced to declare a war. Not only they got additional troops from that event, the troops I was sending to defend Rostov deserted. However I never seen any of my Mercenaries to desert and Turks where not very eager to capture Rostov anyway with my UP. They keep getting damage every turn and instead of taking defenseless Rostov, they just waited outside the borders to heal. I held the Holy Christian city (Constantinopolis) and Turks where Christian, so after some turns we agreed to make a peace and they were cautious about me. AI generally very bad on offense in RFC, in regular BTS Emperor and Immortal wars were a real challenge (with sneak attacks). It RFC you often see AI goes to war just because the Python tells him so. Like, when India's culture expand borders Persia declares war with archers only (all the troops died fighting barbs). They hire 2 mercenary swordsmen, kill them under Lahore and accept peace.