Strategy discussion

[Rikard78]

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).

Yep, nice . I didn't manage to build 9-10 caravels when I played with khmer but i did have about 6 galleons which was even nicer. Getting 3 missionaries every other turn speeds things up even faster!

 

[sangeli]

I have a problem that I don't know how to fix. I was playing with Germany on Monarch with the version that comes with the game (not sure if it is the same as the one out now). It was the 1940's and I had taken over all of Europe and much of the middle east. I had occupation as my civic, but out of nowhere I collapsed into civil war. I checked and my expansion rating was one star, but I don't understand why the happened because I conquored so many cities and I should get +2 for every city I conquor.

 

[Norton II]

I have a problem that I don't know how to fix. I was playing with Germany on Monarch with the version that comes with the game (not sure if it is the same as the one out now).

It's not.

It was the 1940's and I had taken over all of Europe and much of the middle east. I had occupation as my civic, but out of nowhere I collapsed into civil war. I checked and my expansion rating was one star, but I don't understand why the happened because I conquored so many cities and I should get +2 for every city I conquor.

Two reasons: First, controlling a large number of cities dramatically lowers your stability, even if you're running Occupation (which I think only gives a temporary stability bonus upon conquest anyway). Second, the Middle East is outside Germany's historical area, so that gives you some more instability. Also, if you razed any cities, that would hurt your expansion rating.

You should also check out the stability guide here.

EDIT: Just looked at the guide, and it says that the stability bonus for capturing a city while in Occupation is permanent. The problem is that instability from number of cities eventually outpaces stability from conquests.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I retract my statement in the general strategy section of the wiki: Nationhood and Police state are the best civics (in combination with mercantilism and occupation) for getting a mega empire: 5 star civics!! (see my pictures in the screenshot thread).

Started out with killing Germany from go, then built up my empire. Nouvelle France did not damage my stability. Once I've built Cristo Redentor, the fun starts...

1. Switched to Police state, Nationhood, Occupation and Mercantilism (these are all complementary).
2. Declared war on everybody that does not have an open border/defensive pact with you (+1 stability for each nation you're at war with!!) I even declared war on newly spawned Babylon even though I was never going to attack them.
3. Collapsed Spain, Portugal and England. With each captured city your stability goes up! (Actually you want to leave them alive to maintain the +1 stability with each warring nation; England was at one time left with Mekkah and Belize as their only cities)
4. Conquered the South American colonies one by one. As soon as you capture them, install a new governor (occupation gives you +1 stability for keeping the city), but liberate it to your vassal (Inca in this case). I conquered all of South America for them in this way.
5. Built jails first, then courthouses. (The former have additional +1 stability)
6. Made sure cities are happy (I built Mt. Rushmore and turned up culture to 30% for happiness).
7. Switch back to viceroyalty after the revolutions are crushed.

The mistakes I made were:
1. Not razing the small cities in Vikingland
2. Can't get more than 4 vassals due to the new patch, and Netherlands was a waste of a vassal. Khmer (who collapsed on me when they were a vassal) would have been much better, because I could have conquered China and liberated those cities one by one to them
3. Not crushing Mali/Turkey soon enough (now they have tanks)

 

[blizzrd]

Was this a Domination Victory then?
Could you have turned it into a Conquest Victory?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Was this a Domination Victory then?
Could you have turned it into a Conquest Victory?

Yes, but I won it unintentionally. (I actually gave back a Christianized city to Islamic Egypt to make peace.) Conquest is impossible since the cost of razing all those other cities is too high. I couldn't have conquered all of South America if Inca wasn't there to receive them.

 

[Dabur]

I have a problem that I don't know how to fix. I was playing with Germany on Monarch with the version that comes with the game (not sure if it is the same as the one out now). It was the 1940's and I had taken over all of Europe and much of the middle east. I had occupation as my civic, but out of nowhere I collapsed into civil war. I checked and my expansion rating was one star, but I don't understand why the happened because I conquored so many cities and I should get +2 for every city I conquor.

Hi ,

do you still have a save ?

have a super day

 

[sgrig]

Could somebody please tell what precisely does "control" mean in UHV conditions? For example when playing as Germany, what does controlling Russia mean? From the strategy guide it says European Russia, so does it mean I have to control every single land square in Russia west of the Urals?

I was just playing as Germans, and thought I'm "controlling" Russia, because I had conquered (and by 1940, assimilated) most of European Russia except a couple of cities in the far north. By this time what was left of Russia was my vassal. I had accomplished the other two conditions, and both England and Scandinavia were definitely under my control. However when 1941 came, I didn't get the win... Which is annoying, because for the last 20-30 turns I was just milking the game...

 

[Norton II]

Could somebody please tell what precisely does "control" mean in UHV conditions? For example when playing as Germany, what does controlling Russia mean? From the strategy guide it says European Russia, so does it mean I have to control every single land square in Russia west of the Urals?

I was just playing as Germans, and thought I'm "controlling" Russia, because I had conquered (and by 1940, assimilated) most of European Russia except a couple of cities in the far north. By this time what was left of Russia was my vassal. I had accomplished the other two conditions, and both England and Scandinavia were definitely under my control. However when 1941 came, I didn't get the win... Which is annoying, because for the last 20-30 turns I was just milking the game...

You definitely don't need to control all of European Russia to fulfill the UHV conditions; from what I understand, three cities should be enough as long as you control more Russian territory than anyone else (besides the independents). From your description, the only thing I can think of is that you should have collapsed the Russians instead of vassalizing them, but maybe there's another problem. Do you have a save?

 

[blizzrd]

"Control" means that you must control (have within your cultural borders) more area in the given region than the civilization of that region. There is no set number of cities. If the civilization is not active, one city should be enough to satisfy the condition.

The Roman condition in the civilopedia is an exception and the necessary requirements are shown in the atlas. The atlas should also be referred to for the exact tiles required for the various UHV conditions.

http://wikirhye.wikidot.com/rfc-atlas

 

[sgrig]

You definitely don't need to control all of European Russia to fulfill the UHV conditions; from what I understand, three cities should be enough as long as you control more Russian territory than anyone else (besides the independents). From your description, the only thing I can think of is that you should have collapsed the Russians instead of vassalizing them, but maybe there's another problem. Do you have a save?

In that case, I should've fulfilled the UHV, which is strange. I attach the 1941 save. If necessary, I also have 1939 and 1940 saves.

 

[blizzrd]

Have you checked the UHV area in the atlas like I suggested? Within the required area, you control 6 cities and Russia controls 6 cities.

You should probably not have vassalized Russia with them holding so many small cities in the UHV area.

 

[Norton II]

Have you checked the UHV area in the atlas like I suggested? Within the required area, you control 6 cities and Russia controls 6 cities.

You should probably not have vassalized Russia with them holding so many small cities in the UHV area.

So it's the relative number of cities rather than the area that determines whether you control a given region (he definitely controls most of the territory). Didn't know that until now.

 

[blizzrd]

So it's the relative number of cities rather than the area that determines whether you control a given region (he definitely controls most of the territory). Didn't know that until now.

Well, I didn't think that it was until this case actually. Based on the UHV notes associated with the atlas (see my earlier post) there should be no set number of cities and more area was what was the key element.

"Control" means that you must control (have within your cultural borders) more area in the given region than the civilization of that region. There is no set number of cities. If the civilization is not active, one city should be enough to satisfy the condition.

However in this example, which is a fail of the UHV condition, Russia clearly has less tiles than Germany but the same number of cities as Germany.

So I would conclude that you must have more cities than the native civ of the area you must control, rather than just have more area (i.e. tiles) under your cultural control.

 

[sgrig]

Have you checked the UHV area in the atlas like I suggested? Within the required area, you control 6 cities and Russia controls 6 cities.

You should probably not have vassalized Russia with them holding so many small cities in the UHV area.

Yeah, they even have 7 small cities on the very edges of the UHV. Some of these were actually built after I conquered Russia, so that's actually pretty clever of the AI. Moreover, I even gave them one city when I "liberated" it from the Dutch. Oh well, now I know. Thanks for your help!

Now I will quickly have to conjure up a space victory, which will also be pretty easy. I probably could go for domination as well, but I fear stability will kill me.

 

[sgrig]

I had a look at the Python files which determine victory conditions, and blizzrd, you completely correct that you need to have more cities in the UHV area than the opposing civ. Here is the code from victory.py.

def checkOwnedCiv(self, iActiveCiv, iOwnedCiv):
                dummy1, plotList1 = utils.squareSearch( tNormalAreasTL[iOwnedCiv], tNormalAreasBR[iOwnedCiv], utils.ownedCityPlots, iActiveCiv )
                dummy2, plotList2 = utils.squareSearch( tNormalAreasTL[iOwnedCiv], tNormalAreasBR[iOwnedCiv], utils.ownedCityPlots, iOwnedCiv )
                if ((len(plotList1) >= 2 and len(plotList1) > len(plotList2)) or (len(plotList1) >= 1 and not gc.getPlayer(iOwnedCiv).isAlive())):
                        return True
                else:
                        return False

If the opposing Civ is still alive, you need to have at least 2 cities in the UHV area, and have strictly more cities than the other civ. If the other civ is dead, you just need 1 city in the UHV.

When I first looked at the code, I thought it just counts the number of squares controlled, but actually one of the parameters of the squareSearch function tells it to look only at the squares with contain cities.

 

[blizzrd]

The notes on the RFC atlas should be amended, because currently they are incorrect.

Does anyone know how to get this fixed?

 

[monolith94]

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

I just beat China's UHV from the 3,000 b.c. start (vanilla rhye's) and had a great time doing it. One thing that I did was found my capital one square southeast of beijing's wheat.

 

[sk8er AG]

Any tips on how to secure 3 dyes for carthage(not a great civ player, see below)

 

[kairob]

Invading Egypt with your starting force works quite well if they have a week start, which gives you 1. Another 2 are on the coast near babylonia.