The Hall of Players

[Pangaea]

2. I ask myself, how you can have unimproved tiles, I can't remember one situation, where that problem occured in one of my games. The cities you conquer, have probably completely improved tiles, so you only need to improve your own cities. There are only two possibilities imho, either your cities are too large, or you need to improve your worker management (EDIT: or you need more Workers) .

Having played Deity Mara in the legendary Gauntlet, there is a big difference to AI speed on Imm Mara. Teching is much slower, and same with empire development. Most of the jungle in AI controlled land is still there, and I even took over lots of forests despite well-after 1AD conquests. Much of my own land was in jungle too. Just the way it is on tropical B&S; the jungle belt is pretty thick. Don't think there is a big problem with my worker management, but even with well over 100 workers, they can't get rid of jungle (in new-ish cities) and get up improvents all over the empire when most cities grow every 1-3 turns.

4. Spreading Sushi to the islands is important, that was something I payed too little attention to in GM-137. I managed it in my next game, and it got a lot better. It may not be possible, that you'll be able to spread Corps to all of your cities.

What's most important now imo is, that you find a way towards reaching Mining, because that's the most important goal you currently have. The specialists are the way imo, because those give you research, so running Caste instead of Slavery is the right choice. Going back to Slavery in a GA, is also correct. No 4-GP-GA imo shows a weakness though, did you use too many GPs on bulbing? 4-GP-GA actually should be np, with the extra-GPs from Communism and Physics, and if you start a GA, you also get increased GP-production. Your cities will grow fast because of Sushi, you will be able to hire a lot more Specialists then you can atm. Starting a GA would solve all of your current problems, and you'd reach Mining earlier, I think it'd be right.

I just checked my last save from GM-137, as it has almost the same settings, next GP would have costed 6000 , so there are definitely more GPs possible.

I need to prioritise spreading sushi to the islands too then - I had kind of hoped I could get away with using them mainly for resources.

I do have the required GPs for the 3GP GA, but given I need to wait for the GE city, plus slavery when Mining gets founded, not sure I'll get out enough GPs in time to change back to caste in a GA when Mining is well spread. If I were to launch a GA now, I'd get the GE in 15 turn instead of 22, but that also means just 9 turns of spreading Mining before the GA ends (assuming Railroad in time). Can't change civics without a GA. So this is why I'm currently not in a GA, and want to launch it when Mining is ready, hopefully spread enough in the 24 turns, then get enough GPs for a 4GP GA in time for space parts (shouldn't be a problem).

Haven't bulbed a lot btw. Didn't get a GS in time for Edu, but iirc, I bulbed GSs into PP, Lib and SciMeth.Since I have two GS now, and should get a third from Physics, I'm thinking about using one of them towards Physics or Electricity.

Hope I have time to postpone Physics and still get the GS from it (Pericles is teching SciMeth now), because the priority should be to first get Railroad and Mining, and after that AL and factories+power.

One way is to disconnect some seafood/rice or trade some away.
Question : how much does your gpt change when you take away one? Readers might find that an interesting number.

Also, be sure you know when another resource actually gives you another food. So, let's say 4 resources give you 1 food. Make sure that the last one connected gives you food, and you're not paying for 3 more resources that don't result in any benefit.

Did that make sense?

Yes, that makes perfect sense, and I'm doing this already. Right now I have 97 Sushi resources, which gives 25 . I need 4 more to gain another . Naturally I want to hook up food in new island cities, though, so it doesn't always work as well as right now, but I do keep it in mind.

Can update as I play further during the evening (as mentioned turns are slow now), but from memory, I lose 15-20 per turn when hooking up a new resource.

 

[WastinTime]

Yea, so you could drop ~20 resources (still have 20 food which may still be more than you need during the sushi->Mining timeframe.)

Saves ~400 gpt.

 

[Seraiel]

Save the GS from Physics for the next GA, if you already think, that you won't get enough for a 4-GP-GA. Bulbing is stronger the smaller the map, so the larger the map, the weaker it is. I somehow have the memory, that I found bulbs to be very weak, especially the larger the map, and later in a game. Just try to imagine, a GA lasts 24T and boosts the main resource of research you got, your cities. You generate thousands of , a bulb is maybe as much, as your empire generates in 1-3T. Bulbs are strong early, and they scale with map size. In late-game and especially on Large or even Huge maps, GAs are the much better option, as they last longer, and they boost your main source of research, your cities. It's really very hard to explain this for me correctly.

 

[Pangaea]

Yea, so you could drop ~20 resources (still have 20 food which may still be more than you need during the sushi->Mining timeframe.)

Saves ~400 gpt.

Thank you!

This definitely looks like a good move. Cancelled and gave away 20 resources (20 instead of 25 ). This saves me almost 500 gpt, or 23.6 per resource.

Building up money to Railroad will be a bit faster now

I got too hung up on settling cities and grabbing resources.

 

[Pangaea]

Good grief, this game/period of the game has turned into a mind-numbing borefest. No wonder few people play these maps, it's viciously boring.

If I manage to get through this without putting my head through a wall I should get #1, but it can easily beaten, for instance by not having to wait ~20 turns on a GE.

Stuff like that is to a large degree down to luck, but it plays a massive role.

 

[Pangaea]

Of course, not having to spend maybe 50% of the playtime removing spy specialists would help -- A LOT! I swear this game was made by the NSA.

 

[Seraiel]

1st game since 1 week. When I saw the start, I thought "Plains-Hill, Double Gold, 4 FPs, that's ok" . Then I found Bronzeworking in a hut and look:



I praise God for this. My last three days were horrible, I'm very happy now.

Question btw.: Would you settle a 2nd city, or would you execute the Axe-rush with the capital only?

 

[Pangaea]

That looks fantastic! Horse nearby too, though it looks like Brennus is closing in on it. Not played any Epic games so don't know the best answer to your question. Another city to pump axes would be useful, but it will probably delay the attack too. Just cows for food too.


Wonder about something in my game as well. For a very long time I've pondered about kicking Pericles off the mainland. However, land ownership worries me a bit. Currently have 56.5% and can get the limit to 64% when creating the last colony (not decided where yet). Pericles has 71 tiles on the mainland, which would take me to 59%. Is that too little breathing room?

He has settled many islands so there are many galleons roaming about, which makes me worry for easy island captures - most are undefended after all. I've therefore lately been leaning towards not waging more war. He has some nice wonders, though: Notre Dame, Sankore and Spiral Minaret, plus AP.

All these islands have been a right pain to manage. So many boats that I don't know what to do with them. Kind of tempting to just delete the lot tbh, and screw getting corps to more islands.

I'm his worst enemy too, so won't trade resources to me either. Might have something to do with 13 for waging war on his puny friends

 

[Seraiel]

Imo, that's too little breathing room. In the last game I played, I was forced to stop conquering somewhere at 30-40%, and still ended near to 60%, because of Sushi and new world cities, I even had to gift away one. You won't have that problem as strong, because your cities are island-cities, but still, Sushi pushes borders greatly. I try to stop at least 10% earlier than the domination-limit, when going for it.

 

[Pangaea]

Best to let Pericles and his wonders be then. Don't want to get into another situation where I have to gift away cities every turn.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Seraiel :

Spoiler :

Your capital, at size 4, working pigs, copper & 2x gold will have 0 food surplus.
How long would it take to train a reasonable force of axemen ?

I think the low-food aspect is a fine incentive to build city 2 first. You don't wanna stagnate for too long. Sharing a low food tile with city 2 would be most welcome.

It's a pity, however, that there's no obvious location for city 2.
It's notable that Brennus' city is 2S2W of the southern gold. This means that, if you wanna work the tile at some point, you need to settle it for yourself :
That makes settling 1W of the southern cows a questionable move. Settling there would kill the gold tile. That's too bad, since 1W of the southern cows would otherwise be the favoured location.

As it is, I can see :
- 1N1E of the horses, sharing 1 gold from the capital and getting gold + cows with a border pop (annoying to need a border pop with city two to grab the cows - capital will get gold with its next border pop) ;
- 1N1W of the bananas, provided you can farm the bananas (can't see), sharing the copper tile. This one's instantly connected but doesn't get you any new power tile to work with. It's a city that can work some cottaged floodplains.


None of these location are super very great, though.
Sharing the gold leaves your capital with 3 food surplus at size 4, compared with 2 food surplus if you share the copper.
The horse city seems to me like it is the more reasonable choice : it starts securing land to the south, south-east, where the land may be the most contested.

Conceivably, you could also settle 1S of the north-western cows and share a gold/copper tile. The location doesn't seem great either but it does get you an additional 6 yield tile to work with.
It's somewhat counter-intuitive to settle towards the coast (not the prefered direction for expansion), but the fact that you actually get an extra power tile that way may justify it.


It's possible that rushing off 1 city is better, regardless of the above.
Overall : tough decision

 

[Seraiel]

@ BiC:

You don't need to post in Spoilers in this forum, there is noone, that can play my game . I really appreciate, that you try to give advice though. Maybe a good sign of S&T and HoF forums growing closer together.

1N1E of the Horses would also have been my prefered spot for a 2nd city, mostly because it'd deny the Horses to Brennus, and a 3rd Gold would have been great aswell. The game developed different though. Brennus went totally crazy, and settled 6 cities 'til 2200 BC . He settled the complete area south of the capital first, so I gave up on settling a 2nd city, let the city to grow size 4, improved the Pigs, the Gold and the Copper, then built a 2nd Worker, chopped every Forest (really all, even those outside the BFC) , and attacked with 7 Axes at 2300 BC (that's much later, than I would have expected) .
Stole 2 Workers when they tried to improve the Horses and conquered the city, denying the Horses to Brennus. Had the chance to get the Oracle-techs by trade, so I used the last Forests on it, and oracled Currency. Conquered the city west of the Horses with minor reinforcements.
Since then I feel like I'm stuck. I got up Granaries in all cities. This ofc. delayed further Axemen, and with my army of 7 Axes, I had no chance to conquer any additional city, because Brennus spammed and whipped Archers, and Axes aren't really that strong units, even with CR3. Promoted one Axe to WM2 (best idea ever) and stole 7 additional Worker . I even got 3 civs to friendly without having their religion, by bribing them against Brennus.

Here are some screens from the current state of the game:

 

[Pangaea]

Well played Seraiel. Looked rough without an obvious 2nd city spot with 'proper' food. Those WM2 Axes sure sound good. Guess you never cease fire and just keep stealing workers when you can?




Finally(!!!) ready to found Mining soon, and I got thinking, would it be okay to stay in caste and spread Mining slower? Losing all those merchants (and heaps of other specialists) will suck

On the other hand, I do get AL next turn, so probably best to do things the 'traditional' way, and Kremlin whip factories and power too.

 

[Seraiel]

I needed to cease-fire three times, because I tried several times already to take the city in the east with all of my army, so when I had no defenders left in the other two.

Regarding your game: Spreading Mining as fast as possible is more important than all Caste-Merchants you could have. It's hard to explain this, but the extra your cities get from Mining, will be more, than what your Caste-Merchants give.

 

[Seraiel]

Wanted to ask for advice, maybe someone will answer:











Main question is "what to lib" . I first thought about starting a GA and taking Economics from Liberalism, because of Sushi and the Great Merchant. I'm not sure if this is the best decision though, as I could switch Religion in a GA, trade Economics from Roosevelt and Lib PP for sure, maybe also Chemistry, so it's a huge gain of against 1 GP.

The other question is, what would you do about Roosevelt. He owns the MoM, and I really wouldn't like to miss that one in this round. Assuming I'll start at least 2 GAs after the one I have to start in a few turns, MoM gives a full free GA. Maybe even 1.5, if I succed with planning a 4-GP-GA, but Roosevelt is the strongest AI on the map. He researches faster than I do, though 330 / turn is really not low at 50 BC, and he built the hugest army of all AIs, power-ratio is 0.5, while I'm 0.8 with the others. It'd be far easier, to take out Lizzy and Asoka, who're also not that technically advanced, would you go through the trouble of conquering Roosevelt for 1.5 free GAs?

Btw.: I'm gonna have 13 cities at 1 AD ^^ . If comparing to my other non-Marathon-Spaceraces, that's a new record for me.

 

[Pangaea]

Difficult questions. A free GM is a pretty strong argument for libbing Economics, even if a bit on the low side -wise. Can you get a GM during the GA? As I learnt earlier, it's a big kick in the teeth if you don't have the GM ready when you can found Sushi.

Libbing PP feels a bit underwhelming to me, as it's usually not a big economic boost. Maybe a good chance Roosevelt will go for Lib after Economics, but if you can get Gunpowder in time and Lib Chemistry, that's a fair few turns saved towards Steel and cannons, which would be a huge game changer if you fancy taking on a more powerful military in Roosevelt.

It's probably hoping for too much, but if Roose picks something else than Lib next, is it possible to Lib Steel? Only Roose has Edu after all. Though that can quickly change with techers like Asoka, Mansa, Hatty and Liz in the game.

Sounds like it would be easier to take on other AIs, but it sure would be nice to have MoM in a space game.

 

[Seraiel]

Generating a GM should be possible. I play Frederick, who's PHI.

Not sure about Cannons. For cracking Roosevelt, they'd be great, but this game is not on Marathon, so the faster Cuirrs and Cavs would be really nice.

 

[Pollina]

Btw.: I'm gonna have 13 cities at 1 AD ^^ . If comparing to my other non-Marathon-Spaceraces, that's a new record for me.

Seraiel, I believe your reluctance to use the “Aggressive AI” setting is hurting you. On Deity/epic, it is just so very, very powerful, when exploited right.

Quick Cease Fire after stealing workers keeps the AI from spamming defenders, and encourages them instead to build more workers . By crippling one or two AI like that, you can take them out very easily with a small “skeleton army” early on, while grabbing key techs and wonders. The snowball effect from a start like that is immense.

Take a look at WT’s 1160 AD small/epic culture game or my 610 AD normal/epic UN game. (link) We both got to 8 or 9 cities by 1275 BC killing off De Gaulle with only ~10 chariots (and axes) total. Now imagine our city count at 1 AD, if we had not stopped warring at that point. 20+? 30+? I don’t know, but probably a lot more than 13.

It is not my intention to discourage you. I am sure you will get a great date with your current game, but I think you could do MUCH better with a more aggressive approach in the early game.

 

[Seraiel]

8-9 cities at 1275 BC is impressive, I am nowhere near that. I looked at the save from your game, the difference in troops is not big, but it's the speed at which you reached them. Stealing more Workers earlier, allowed you to settle 5 cities while conquering an opponent. It's hard for me to imagine, how this is possible, because you even had Forests left, so I ask myself how you got 4 Settlers? Very early Granaries + whip? Slow-built?

I just wonder, where it would lead to, if we combined your early game approach with my late-game-skills... If I get a 15xx AD finish-date with 3 cities at 1200 BC, what would I get with AIs that don't research as fast, but with me having 3 times of those cities?

 

[Pollina]

I built the first 2-3 chariots in my capital and took Lyon with them fairly early. With two cities, my production was naturally much better than with only one. I don't think I chopped more than 2 or 3 forests in each city, or whipped more than once or twice, as that was still pre-Maths/granaries. I got Pottery fairly late.

I've attached a few mor saves from my early game.

I'm not convinced that AI tech speed is much slower with Agg AI. It usually is limited by your own tech speed and how much you trade with them. At least until the mid-game, I would expect the AI to tech faster than without Agg AI, since you should be teching faster with a larger empire and be able to feed them techs more easily. It might take them a turn or two longer to tech late game techs for you.