Strategy discussion

[blizzrd]

I failed on Khimer several times. The first two conditions are easy enough, however, spreading Buddhism was beyond me. I will get open borders with all of Europe, but those guys would run Theocracy 2/3 of the time and it takes forever for the galleons to get from SE Asia to Europe. Then stability over the long period of not growing causes pagan and other cities to flip. Does anyone have any suggestions about that problem?

For the Theocracy issue, it isn't an issue. Enter their territory and gift the missionary to them. They will spread religion to their largest available city. This is a neat little trick, but works. You can save a turn of missionary movement sometimes also, as you just have to get to the border and then can start building another missonary.

For the stability, I recommend slowly settling Australia. There seems to be little penalty due to no other civs home area being affected by your growth with this strategy.

 

[RedRalph]

Hey lads, just to let you know how I got on:

Tried Khmer again, things werent looking so good approaching 1450, I had the culture (mainly thanks to your civics tips) no problem, but I was having real trouble with getting to the average, as Pagan was stuck on pop.4 and it didnt look like I could get it to a decent size on time... then luck smiled on me. Pagan declared independence, taking it out of the equation, putting me easily within the averege size ten limit! I'm currently on 12% Buddhism at 1700, so I dont know how good it looks for that goal, every East Asian city has Buddhism and every East Asian Civ is Buddhist, India has just respawned and accepted my missionaries so that might help. Russia has Budd in almost all cities but is running theocracy (I'll use that gifting trick), and I have a few caravels on their way to the Americas. dont know if I'll make it but at least I can get the first tow goals now. Cheers!

 

[blizzrd]

Hey lads, just to let you know how I got on:

Tried Khmer again, things werent looking so good approaching 1450, I had the culture (mainly thanks to your civics tips) no problem, but I was having real trouble with getting to the average, as Pagan was stuck on pop.4 and it didnt look like I could get it to a decent size on time... then luck smiled on me. Pagan declared independence, taking it out of the equation, putting me easily within the averege size ten limit! I'm currently on 12% Buddhism at 1700, so I dont know how good it looks for that goal, every East Asian city has Buddhism and every East Asian Civ is Buddhist, India has just respawned and accepted my missionaries so that might help. Russia has Budd in almost all cities but is running theocracy (I'll use that gifting trick), and I have a few caravels on their way to the Americas. dont know if I'll make it but at least I can get the first tow goals now. Cheers!

You'll probably want to adopt Free Religion rather than stay Buddhist forever. It really helps to get some of the non-Buddhist nations to open borders with you. Arabia and Turkey almost never will (even if they are really Pleased), but most of the Euros will once you are not Buddhist.

 

[RedRalph]

You'll probably want to adopt Free Religion rather than stay Buddhist forever. It really helps to get some of the non-Buddhist nations to open borders with you. Arabia and Turkey almost never will (even if they are really Pleased), but most of the Euros will once you are not Buddhist.

Arabia has collapsed, Portugal, Holland and Russia already have open borders with me, but Germany wont open so maybe thats a good idea.

OT: Is it just me or are Turkey belligerent bastards no matter who you are, what religion you are etc... I find no matter who I play the turks are really aggressive towards me and everyone else

 

[blizzrd]

It's not just you. Certain civs (or rather I think it is certain leaders) have traits which have different factors for diplomacy. There was an article I read detailing all of them on this site somewhere, but I don't have a link unfortunately.

Gandhi is always easy to please, Isabella is usually pretty hard, and Tokugawa, Saladin and Suleiman (sp?) are basically impossible. Not totally though, I once got Tokugawa to Open borders with me as Khmer because he luckily became Buddhist and we both went to war with China.

Another tactic to improve your relations with a particular civ is to adopt the same civics as them. But this can damage your stability in a big way, so use only if desperate.

 

[3Miro]

For the Theocracy issue, it isn't an issue. Enter their territory and gift the missionary to them. They will spread religion to their largest available city. This is a neat little trick, but works. You can save a turn of missionary movement sometimes also, as you just have to get to the border and then can start building another missonary.

For the stability, I recommend slowly settling Australia. There seems to be little penalty due to no other civs home area being affected by your growth with this strategy.

I did not know the trick of gifting missionaries to Theocratic civs. When a civ is running Theocracy, can they spread my religion into their cities? I thought that under Theocracy there is no way to spread religion other then the state religion, regardless of who is trying to spread it. Or is it that if I gift a missionary they will switch sway from Theocracy?

I will try that and it would have been useful to know when playing the Arabs. However, with the Arabs you can just conquer the Theocratic civs.

 

[blizzrd]

When a civ is running Theocracy, can they spread my religion into their cities?

Yes. You can't, but they can.

Or is it that if I gift a missionary they will switch sway from Theocracy?

They don't seem to change in any tangible way, other than to gain a second religion.

 

[The Q-Meister]

Hahaha.... well, sad to say but having had another go I just dont think China's in attainable for me at Monarch. I cant even get 8 cities with all religions in them by 1000, never mind all with temples and Cathederals. anyone who can do it, my hat is off to you. I'll give Spain another go

China is a great civ but it took me several times to complete the UHV. The hardest part is as you say getting all the religions in time and the prerequisite buildings. To borrow a phrase from the wiki - chop and whip, that's it. I don't like to use the whip that often as I generally like big cities but in China, to get it right, you have to be very aggressive with pop rushing buildings, settlers and using workers to chop forests.

Actually, I don't know if it's changed recently but in earlier mods one of my biggest problems was actually founding both Confucionism and Taoism before other civs do. I remember when reading the wiki I had an issue with it as the author posts an image where he is just starting to research calendar on turn 94...well I've had several games now where Taoism was already started before turn 94 or a couple turns thereafter!! So that got me annoyed for a bit but IMO it is a bit of luck there.

On a side note, for those that read Abegweit's wiki, did his line about "with all the abundance in China, how could you lose, it would be embarassing.." For some reason those words remained burned into my psyche and I knew that no matter what I had to complete this China UHV!!

Remember to switch to organized religion for the missionaries, and yes you do need a little bit of luck that the religions will spread to other cities on their own somewhat but missionaries are def needed.

 

[The Q-Meister]

What are some of the opinions here on using your GP to launch a Golden Age when you are Unstable? It's usually something I do but I was wondering whether it wouldn't be more effective to use those GP to work inside your cities as they will boost your economy/prod./culture and in the long run it will have a better effect on improving stability? Because when you do the GA when unstable sure it gives you a boost for 8 turns or so but I compare it to getting a streroid shot; its impact is temporary and I fear that once the GA is over you will actually get an increased stability penalty for having your economy shrink back to "normal" levels.

What are some of your thoughts about this?

 

[Úmarth]

wrong thread

 

[blizzrd]

I don't see why Umarth, it is a strategy question.

In my opinion, using a Golden Age to sort out stability issues is just a band-aid approach. Once the GA is over, you will be in much the same situation as you were before - unless you've been able to build a swag of courthouses and jails and wonders with the extra production capacity. But 8 turns usually doesn't equate to a whole lot of extra infrastructure, a bit but not that much.

As a long-tern fix for stability, I don't think that settling GPs in your cities has much effect at all though. Even though it is a temporary fix, I think there is still more benefit overall to triggering a GA than settling your GPs in cities.

One thing to consider, is which factor(s) are dragging down your stability. If it is economy, then GPs will help either by launching a GA or by improving your economy by settling. But if your expansion or foreign ratings are on the slippery slide, neither launching a GA or settling GPs is going to do much to change the situation.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Blizzrd, you know that great people eat money while they're around. So saving a GP for 20-30 turns while waiting for another great person means at least that much gold lost. I almost always settle my GP mid-late in the game in the city that produces the most gold (usually can get at least 15 gold, meaning 10% more research), and this is usually a holy city or my capital. If I need hammers (e.g. building a wonder), I settle in that city. Can't remember how many times that helped me beat the AI.

 

[Úmarth]

I don't see why Umarth, it is a strategy question.

Oh, no, I meant I posted in the wrong thread. I edited it to that.

 

[Sean Meade]

I have produced a little different Strategy Guide, a guide to playing Egypt historically (and maybe learning a little bit, too ). I PMed Rhye and he said to go ahead and put it up, so I did:

RFC Egyptian Historical Guide

I sure would appreciate any constructive comments or positive feedback. Thanks!

 

[3Miro]

On the question of settling GP vs Golden Age. One has to consider the circumstances. If I play with China and have 20 turns left to UHV, then I will not settle but start GA. Settled specialists have good impact only in the long run. If there are less then 100 turns till UHV, go for GA or lightbulb.

Exception may be a priest and/or engineer for the hammers.

 

[chococid]

Or hurrying a necessary wonder as engineer.

 

[blizzrd]

Or if you have built the Mausolleum of Mausollos, the extended GA may be more attractive than settling the GPs.

 

[3Miro]

I just won a Khmer UHV and have couple of comments. I had no problem with the city size and culture conditions (I never had trouble with those). The trick of gifting missionaries to Theological Civs worked great. I also did something tat I did not find mentioned anywhere.

I placed about 9 - 10 caravels on somewhat equal distance between Pagan and Europe. So a missionary would get into Caravel A at Pagan. Then Caravel A would move towards Europe as far as it can go. Right at the spot where Caravel A runs out of movement points, Caravel B waits. The missionary moves from Caravel A to Caravel B. Caravel B (now carrying the missionary) would move to Caravel C and so on. The net result was that the very same turn I loaded the missionary at Pagan, I unloaded and gifted the missionary to a European nation. Effectively I was able to convert a city every other turn.

Here is the savegame, one can get the missionary to London the same turn. That way I was able to win UHV in 1703.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I placed about 9 - 10 caravels on somewhat equal distance between Pagan and Europe. So a missionary would get into Caravel A at Pagan. Then Caravel A would move towards Europe as far as it can go. Right at the spot where Caravel A runs out of movement points, Caravel B waits. The missionary moves from Caravel A to Caravel B. Caravel B (now carrying the missionary) would move to Caravel C and so on. The net result was that the very same turn I loaded the missionary at Pagan, I unloaded and gifted the missionary to a European nation. Effectively I was able to convert a city every other turn.

Good trick--I've used it before with 2 boats, but this takes it to a new level.
It works well as long as you don't have any pirates (Viking or Spanish) wanting to take your caravels out and if you're not at war with England or Spain (who demanded my cities).

 

[3Miro]

Aztecs declared war at me (out of nowhere) and that brought us and the British close together. I did not have contact with the Vikings until rather late and then they were getting their butts kicked by the Brits. I do not think the Vikings had Chemistry until the end. Isabella demanded Techs and I gave those to her, so she was friendly. My Caravels were attacked only once, buy some Barbarian Pirates of the Caribbean, but I had not used up my free barbarian battles until then.

Without that strategy, I would have to wait until Flight to airlift units to Europe and that is late in the game.