Strategy for tundra starts and other questions

[Unresolved]

So usually when I roll a tundra/jungle start, I have to re-reroll the map because I'm awful at getting off to a good/decent start. But in my latest Immortal game where I was going to aim for a SV with the Mayans, my capitol was not on tundra, but all my other cities were. My population in all my cities were horrendous which lead me to prematurely give up on the game. My capital was fixable if I had created more early farms but there were so many luxuries that I had to collect that my workers couldn't get around to it. I don't normally have population problems and my capitol is usually around 30 pop by the end of the game, but I don't know what to do in these types of situations. If I wanted to, I could have settled north-west of my capital instead of south-west, but being dead-center in the middle of a Pangaea map is the last thing I wanted.

I was pretty happy with my tech rate in the beginning of the game since I don't normally hit the Renaissance Era so early, but once I finished education, I realized that my population was too low to use specialists. I was going to use Oxford to get Astronomy since I placed 3 of my cities next to mountains.

War was never a threat to me since all my city locations are pretty defensible with mountains and terrible attacking terrain. The best part of my game(in my opinion) was my almost-level 5 pikeman who decimated the attempted Iroquois invasion. My save file is attached if you have any tips for my game, especially for how to start on tundra heavy regions.

Some other questions I have are:
1) How would you guys try to capture the Iroquois city my units were around? I was going to invade soon, but I think I would have taken very heavy casualties due to the awful terrain that killed Hiawatha's assault force.

2) Unrelated, but how do you keep up with a civ(on Immortal) going for a SV when you're going for a CV? In a different game, Korea was a good era or era-and-a-half ahead of me in research and probably would have gotten a SV around turn 300(they had just gotten Radar on turn 242ish).

Thanks for any help!

 

[Hpuk]

None of your cities are really on tundra, or at least none of them would have to work the bad tundra tiles in any situation (none hill or resource tundra tiles).
Some things that baffle me though:

Maya with only 4 cities?
-You are not going to make very good use of their UB with so few cities, and there's still at least 3 or 4 spots you could have settled even after the AI came so close to your lands.
-You haven't improved the vast majority of your tiles, a severe lack of workers, especially since you went tradition and don't have the extra fast workers from liberty.
-All of your cities are one tile away from the river, instead of next to one, losing out on Water Mill, Garden and Hydro Plant.

As for the Iroquois city, it would need a more advanced army than he has, some units with cover, or ranged naval units.

For the last question, a war or nukes is the only real solution if you can't speed your victory up faster.
This would be hard of course if you really are very far away in the tech tree.

 

[Unresolved]

They're not on tundra, but many of the tiles they have access to/will have access to are tundra tiles. There's a small strip of plains in the middle, but that's all my 3rd and 4th cities have going for them.

And I'm not really keen on playing wide empires, I prefer playing 3-4 cities with a few puppets. The only territory that I like in my area of the map is in-between Siam, Isabella, Theodora and Monty, but that's not really where I want to be defending against countless wars.

I put my cities off the rivers because I wanted mountains for observatories and/or they put me closer to enemy cities. And I also had another worker, but carelessly lost him to a CS warrior that I didn't see coming. I think I had 4 workers even after that mishap though.

As for Hiawatha, my units are one era ahead of his, at least my archers are, but the continuous hills with only a few tiles to attack from are what worried me.

 

[Tarvok]

Are you playing vanilla or G&K? If it's G&K, don't forget that Tundra and Desert starts are opportunities to dominate the religious scene. All those faith points can be used to augment pretty much any strategy. Not enough production from tundra tiles but you still want to dominate in war? Holy Warriors. Going for a cultural victory? Plenty of culture options, but I find World Church to be the most fun... and a diplomatic boon, with regard to those civs that don't have a native religion (and if I want to piss someone off, this gives me one more method of doing so). Messenger of the Gods and Interfaith Dialogue can boost your science.

I honestly don't know how effective this is (playing at King level presently), but I find tundra starts interesting, and a clear indication I need to focus on playing the faith game.

 

[Unresolved]

Are you playing vanilla or G&K? If it's G&K, don't forget that Tundra and Desert starts are opportunities to dominate the religious scene. All those faith points can be used to augment pretty much any strategy. Not enough production from tundra tiles but you still want to dominate in war? Holy Warriors. Going for a cultural victory? Plenty of culture options, but I find World Church to be the most fun... and a diplomatic boon, with regard to those civs that don't have a native religion (and if I want to piss someone off, this gives me one more method of doing so). Messenger of the Gods and Interfaith Dialogue can boost your science.

I honestly don't know how effective this is (playing at King level presently), but I find tundra starts interesting, and a clear indication I need to focus on playing the faith game.

I'm playing in G&K and I did try to emphasize religion by building early pyramids(I think that's the UB) and by rushing to the Hagia Sophia. But I was still the 5th religion to be founded >.> and one of the middle religions to enhance.

 

[Hpuk]

They're not on tundra, but many of the tiles they have access to/will have access to are tundra tiles. There's a small strip of plains in the middle, but that's all my 3rd and 4th cities have going for them.

But all the tundra tiles are either hills or resource tiles, which are just as good as grasslands or plains tiles. You'd have to grow your cities to at least 25 pop before there's any danger of you having to work an empty tundra tile.

I really can't see an Observatory ever competing with the river buildings, but I guess some people might disagree here.

Anyway, any food problems you might have are caused by the lack of good improved tiles for your cities.

 

[Unresolved]

But all the tundra tiles are either hills or resource tiles, which are just as good as grasslands or plains tiles. You'd have to grow your cities to at least 25 pop before there's any danger of you having to work an empty tundra tile.

I really can't see an Observatory ever competing with the river buildings, but I guess some people might disagree here.

Anyway, any food problems you might have are caused by the lack of good improved tiles for your cities.

Usually by turn 126, people want a capitol with 12+ people. I can't see myself achieving that in this game, even with more farms. And when should I be prioritizing farms over luxuries? I would either need to forgo luxuries which will slow down my expansion, or build more workers at the cost of my science buildings/Hagia Sophia(which admittedly didn't do much for my religion since I was slow in founding).

The lack of rivers definitely hurt, but my 2nd city would have had to been founded right on Siam's doorstep(closer than it already is) and probably would have been an instant DoW. My 4th city I made knowing it wouldn't be very good for growth. It was mainly for the 3 luxuries, some extra science buildings, and blocking anyone else from settling south of me.

 

[Hpuk]

Another thing is how you have both Fertility Rites and tradition finisher, granting you plenty of food%, but not having the base food to really take advantage of that.
Water mills would have really helped, and the +1 food from camps pantheon would have given you more food than fertility rites (though I didn't check if some AI had that one already).

Hagia Sophia does seem like a really weird thing to build when playing Mayans.
You already have a UB that gives extra faith, and you get one free Prophet from your UA either way.
And The Oracle has not yet been built, if going for a wonder I would have absolutely tried for that rather than Hagia Sophia.

Yeah, I would have sacrificed the production for workers instead of other stuff (not really sacrificed since they would have paid it back in improved production and food).
Or just bought or captured one.

 

[Unresolved]

I'm not sure if I was slow to get a religion or the rest of the map was super fast, but if I didn't get the HS, enhancing my religion probably would have been a waste of time. I didn't build the Oracle(which I almost always do) since I went directly from NC to HS. When I founded my pantheon, I didn't have the foresight to see where I was going to found my 3rd and 4th cities yet. So all my first and second cities had were copper and some wine.

The prophet I got from The Long Count is being used to spread religion since another religion had taken over all of my cities already. I probably should have just given up on the whole religion thing in this game. It wasn't going very well.

 

[Biologist]

I'm playing in G&K and I did try to emphasize religion by building early pyramids(I think that's the UB) and by rushing to the Hagia Sophia. But I was still the 5th religion to be founded >.> and one of the middle religions to enhance.

There is a sort of hierarchy that determines which civs are most likely to get a pantheon/religion first. In order, they are:

Celts > Ethiopia > Mayans > Everyone else, with a lot of variation and minor advantages occuring for the miscellaneous civs (e.g., Spain can be first to get a religion by using the One with Nature pantheon and generating massive faith from 1 tile).

On difficulty levels above Prince, the AI receives Pottery as a free tech at the start of the game. This means that any AI that wants a religion can instantly start building a shrine, while the human has to research Pottery and then build. Because I do not always want to play as the Celts or Ethiopia, and I enjoy putting the religion footrace on a more-or-less level playing field, I use the "No AI Free Pottery" mod available from the Steam Workshop. Yes, it makes the game "easier", but I'm still not consistently first or even second to get a pantheon/religion.

 

[Matthew.]

I can't see myself achieving that in this game, even with more farms. And when should I be prioritizing farms over luxuries?

City growth is based on surplus, and citizens can only work one tile each. Cities grow very slowly with only 2 food tiles (hence the plains thread floating around). All those river tiles near your capital had potential for 4 food each after Civil Service. Not to mention the unworked bananas north of capital and lack of watermill. The capital would have been 12+ easy.

As for when to prioritize: whenever happiness allows. At that point in your save you had over 500 gold and you mentioned building HS. You had enough resources to get more workers; you chose not to use them.

 

[Unresolved]

How many workers is enough? I read somewhere to have 1 worker per city and that's what I normally strive to have. Maybe it was in the 4-city Tradition Opener thread.

 

[Matthew.]

1 per is often enough, but it depends on a few factors, such as how soon you get them, how many improvements need to be worked, what type of tiles need to be worked, etc.

What is especially important for Tradition play is to keep up with the crazy population growth. For example, the Aztecs could use a few extra workers since they have to deal with the combination of enhanced growth through hanging gardens and chopping down jungles which take twice as long as regular tiles to work.

I only took a quick glance at the save file but if I recall correctly I only saw one? farm tile in capital. There is zero reason not to have every one of those river tiles improved with farms by T126.

 

[Unresolved]

What's your build order like to get the extra workers? My capitol is usually scout, scout, pyramids UB(for Mayans only), worker, archer, settler(if I have 4 pop), library. After that, it's usually another archer because I settle my cities kind of aggressively towards other civs and then hopefully I can build a NC by then. On the otherhand, I can't get enough money to rushbuy more than 1 worker since I also rushbuy 1-2 settlers and 1-2 libraries to get NC up around turn 80.

 

[Matthew.]

I always try to get two workers before starting on settlers. Two workers ensures that I can work nearly all the tiles around my capital while settlers are building, and then I send each off to my two settled cities and build a third in my capital. Usually something like this: Scout ~> worker ~> worker ~> settler ~> settler ~> worker. I always start with three cities and will only go fourth if there are enough luxuries around to hard purchase the settler and library, else I find forcing a fourth to do more harm than good (delays NC, early happiness issues, etc)

You are bound to get significantly different answers on build orders though, but regardless of order T126 is way too late to have that many unimproved tiles in the capital.

 

[Unresolved]

I go for 3 cities more often than 4 cities since I usually can't find a suitable site for a 4th city on Immortal games. Maybe I'll try the double worker idea instead of a settler. I used to steal workers from CS's, but it felt too...cheesy...for my tastes. In my posted game, my 4th city was founded the same turn that my NC was finished so it didn't hamper the building. Since there hasn't been any clear-cut answer to my tundra question, what do you normally build on those tiles? Mines and trading posts since farms can't be constructed?

 

[Matthew.]

Honestly, if I started in an area with tons of tundra, I'd play a wider game. If Maya, I'd try to get either +1 faith on tundra or +1 food on camps pantheon (depending on # of deer) and then religious happiness traits to support a wider empire. If not Maya, I'd likely have placed most of my focus on a CB rush against Hiawatha once I saw him in the game. I'd have gone Liberty instead.

 

[Moriarte]

How many workers is enough? I read somewhere to have 1 worker per city and that's what I normally strive to have. Maybe it was in the 4-city Tradition Opener thread.

1.5 workers for each city is optimal. 2 --> even more optimal .

The build order is situational. If you have 2x salt or whatever in your Cap., go Scout - Worker - shrine - warrior (buy another worker with loan + steal one from CS). Sell resources, buy settlers, settle them on top of resources, buy more workers and warriors/archers with that cash. That will allow your empire to snowball pretty rapidly.

Scout - Monument - shrine - warrior/archer is also good. You can still get 2x workers before turn 30.

If there are no luxes near your cap, emphasize settlers and settle them on top of luxes. Workers can wait. (not too long though)

 

[Hpuk]

Mines on hills, lumber camps on forests, pasture/mine/plantation/quarry/etc on resources that require it.
Plain tundra tiles are worthless and there is no reason to build anything on them or even work them (maybe tundra river tiles with trading posts / farms, but I wouldn't place a city in such a location in most cases).

The actual tundra tiles that you'd work on tundra starts are:
Hills, same production as any plains, desert or grassland hill.
Sheep, same food and production as sheep anywhere else.
Deer, -1 production compared to forested deer, or -1 food for chopped grassland deer.
Stone, -1 food
Luxuries and Strategics, which are typically -1 food or production compared to their yields on other terrain.

Your game/start is really not a tundra one, it's mostly plains and grassland for the capital, and the tundra tiles you have are just normal hills.

 

[Unresolved]

Okay, thanks for all the help. I will definitely go for more workers early on. And my start was not tundra, but it's as close to tundra as I've ever gotten. I try to play a new civ every time I win, but I've never gone seriously with Russia due to their start bias.