Gliese 581
Your average civ junkie
Just a sidenote on Axe-rushing: Gilgamesh.
The power of Joao: Early REXing
- Thread starter futurehermit
- Start date
TeraHammer
Prince
How do you make shiny dotmaps like this? 
LAnkou
Breizh A Tao
well, i'm playing a game with Joao and the rexing is fabulous:More than more cities, it means that you get functionnal cities sooner, leading to more beaker sooner, then you get a tech advantage, etc...
Of course, code of law is a key tech with that rexing.
The Ub is very good, having great effects even when other civs run mercantilism, especially with cities with lot of water.
The UU may be very good too: I settle an entire continent with caravel/carack before any other civ get to astronomy, only the last two cities where settled when i had astronomy
The key thing was how i boxed the english before eliminating them, so i was alone on my continent. then i went to the sea route to get carracks, visit the world, settle the empty continent and then i became the powerhouse. I'm currently eliminating montezuma, because he's just himself, a jerk...the game is won but i want it to appear on my hall of fame.
Of course, code of law is a key tech with that rexing.
The Ub is very good, having great effects even when other civs run mercantilism, especially with cities with lot of water.
The UU may be very good too: I settle an entire continent with caravel/carack before any other civ get to astronomy, only the last two cities where settled when i had astronomy
The key thing was how i boxed the english before eliminating them, so i was alone on my continent. then i went to the sea route to get carracks, visit the world, settle the empty continent and then i became the powerhouse. I'm currently eliminating montezuma, because he's just himself, a jerk...the game is won but i want it to appear on my hall of fame.
Diamondeye
So Happy I Could Die
I'm glad another one has understood the power of Joao II, although imho, it is a bit obvious that this should be the approach (unless ofc you have neighboors like Monty or Shaka). Wouldn't have started a threat like this myself, but glad that you bring this to the attention of the Fanatics Might not be using Joao anymore as I nearly always play random... And i think he has been played in the LHC...
Anyway, when you feel like REXing, go take Joao II for a spin
Might not be using Joao anymore as I nearly always play random... And i think he has been played in the LHC...Anyway, when you feel like REXing, go take Joao II for a spin
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
Very interesting game there with Joao and I agree thisis the best on how to leveragehis abilities. Also he has fast graneries whichcan be built fast and thus allow whipping libraries in all new cities.
HOWEVER!
Cultural expansion is an issue unless you can get Stonehenge early, which would defeat the purpose of this strategy. Religion is one, but figure those cities would have to whip/build a monument.
I think Cathy is far better at rapid expansion. She does not have the production bonus of workers, nor cheap graneries. However, she get's that free culture bonus which means she can press the AI borders plus the discount on Libraries(very easy to whip). If you go after Drama too, those cheap theaters are killer culture at the borders, and the earlier the better.
HOWEVER!
Cultural expansion is an issue unless you can get Stonehenge early, which would defeat the purpose of this strategy. Religion is one, but figure those cities would have to whip/build a monument.
I think Cathy is far better at rapid expansion. She does not have the production bonus of workers, nor cheap graneries. However, she get's that free culture bonus which means she can press the AI borders plus the discount on Libraries(very easy to whip). If you go after Drama too, those cheap theaters are killer culture at the borders, and the earlier the better.
I hate to be the one to state the obvious (although I am good at that) but on this map I can see why you'd think the UB and UU are poor, especially as you only have 3 on your cities on the coast
Joao and his UU and UB are obviously well suited to a map with lots of coastal cities, archipelago would be ideal. The strategy I would attempt with him would be based on using trade routes and the Colossus to boost commerce. A beeline to Optics lets the UU colonise unoccupied offshore lands. It also gets the circumnavigation bonus.
The UB is useful to replace Colossus as a major source of commerce if you can get to Economics first (maybe take it from Liberalism, needs Banking, if you want to do things differently
). The problem I normally have with making an economy based on Colossus is the loss of commerce when Astronomy obsoletes the wonder's effect. All my coastal cities seem to be in the wrong place. The feitoria is a way to mitigate that loss. If you can delay Astronomy then it's possible to have both Colossus and the UB in some cities for a massive commerce boost from trade routes and coast tiles. Holding off on Astronomy would normally be a bad idea on a coastal map but that's where the UU comes to the rescue as it acts like 2/3 of a galleon anyway and is good enough for colonising and early naval operations.Once you do get Astronomy and Chemistry then as Joao is Imperialistic using privateers is an excellent way to boost income and get lots of exp for GGs to make better privateers
He can really tie up the other civs in an economic war of attrition.Concentrating on the lower half of the tech tree is advisable for Joao on an map with lots of sea. After Chemistry, Military Science and Steel make sense and give very potent troops (grenadiers and cannons) for conquest and the drydocks and military academies pump out ships galore even on hammer poor cities.
The late game is all about exploiting Sid's Sushi and trade and getting commerce from the UB.
------
I know this has nothing much to do with what futurehermit or anyone else has written here, but I was struck by the obviously wrong statement quoted at the top. Everything about Joao fits neatly together in the right circumstance and they are not what futurehermit has here. Joao is a good naval leader and may indeed be one of the best at using privateers since he's Imperialistic. If you like those sort of games, and I do, he's one of the best leaders available.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
Although I have played Joao yet, his UU is built for intercontinental settlement which by definition means coastal cities. The more coastal cities, the more abuse of the UB.
The serious drawback of Joao is generally lower production as you want to leverage the UU/UB as much as possible but that generally results in lower production output which I think is FH's complaint (I recall he does not like Coastal capitals much).
There are really 4 major "Sea Faring" AI's in the game; Willem, Hannibal, Rgnar, and Joao. Hannibal and Ragnar are similar to Joao in that the UB is dependant on coastal cities, however both UUs work very well on land compared with joaos which is useless on land. Willem's UU/UB are very powerful, and the UB works on landlocked cities as a normal levee providing you settle on a river. But the killer is that Joaoa is the only Sea-Faring AI that is not financial and that is a tremendous drawback for him. The financial trait can let the big three's new cities pay for themselves while Joaoa is going to have a deficit.
The serious drawback of Joao is generally lower production as you want to leverage the UU/UB as much as possible but that generally results in lower production output which I think is FH's complaint (I recall he does not like Coastal capitals much).
There are really 4 major "Sea Faring" AI's in the game; Willem, Hannibal, Rgnar, and Joao. Hannibal and Ragnar are similar to Joao in that the UB is dependant on coastal cities, however both UUs work very well on land compared with joaos which is useless on land. Willem's UU/UB are very powerful, and the UB works on landlocked cities as a normal levee providing you settle on a river. But the killer is that Joaoa is the only Sea-Faring AI that is not financial and that is a tremendous drawback for him. The financial trait can let the big three's new cities pay for themselves while Joaoa is going to have a deficit.
Gilgamesh is also great for intercontinental claiming, especially on Archi maps. His Ziggurat allows you to create lots of cities on faraway islands (even multiple islands far away) without tanking your economy. Since you've no need to get Monuments (or Stongehenge), you can get expanding vertically right away, and then whip out Granaries and Ziggurats.
It was a bit strange when the RNGs gave me the combo of Archi map with Gilgamesh, but it turned out okay.
It was a bit strange when the RNGs gave me the combo of Archi map with Gilgamesh, but it turned out okay.
r_rolo1
King of myself
It is interesting to see the ppl reactions to leaders/civs that require a unconventional aproach.....
In fact most of the reactions to certain leaders ( João ( p.s Please stop butchering his name... C'mon, only 4 letters.... J-o-a-o 
) being the more noticeable , but most of the BtS new ones received that kind of halfhearted reactions ) that go out of the "normal" way of playing Civ were somehow shunned until someone pointed how to use them effectivelly : I remember of some reactions to the Quechua back in vanilla days: " WTH , a warrior UU? What am I going to do it such a weak unit that obsoletes fast ( 3 cheap tech and metal ) ?"... until someone noticed that the guys eat archers for lunch......
João has two sets of strengths: Rexing and sea power... Hermit showed one ( yes , I do agree that his empire is a little overstreched, but it is nothing that can't be resolved ) ,using settler/worker and unit pumps to put the maximum number of cities in place and then working around it ( btw I remember a thread in here where it was discussed how fast could you put 6 cities in map... IIRC with a Imp leader you could get something like 6 cities in 30ishs turns
of course that would put your slider in the 0% and most likely before you could hire any specialists, but pop is power as well ... but it is a reminder of how fast you can go in that direction if you want ). This techique is somewhat dangerous if you have one of the wackos nearby, but if you can put 10 cites in place when the AI only has 5-6 , the game is in the bag with some good planning.... and you can even try ICS ( that is well and alive in Civ IV... just check this SG )
Other option is the overseas expansion.... João coastal cities can be transformed in cash cows if you can get the water wonders and the UU fast ( a easy thing... just go by the southern tech route ) and his UB is cumulative with the collosus ( at least if you skip astro for a bit... this game is always about tradeoffs )....
The big problem is that you need to decide between this two options fast and you can go pretty wrong if you choose to go in the bad direction... But I think that the big issue is that João doesn't shine with any of the more conventional strats: both conventional SE and CE require other aproaches and as João doesn't have any of the banner traits of both ( that people like to call "economical traits" )... that makes that João SE and CE will look pretty bad in the picture until the investement start to pay off.... it that regard it reminds me Tokugawa: no "eco" traits, late UB and medieval UU... hard to leverage until the gunpowder times..... and not suprisingly ppl also like to say that Toku sucks ( at least until samurai and Gunpowder times ): it doesn't fit the more "normal" strats and you have to use them in more " out of the box" ways to make them shine.
Madscientist posted a interesting issue: the fact that is hard to pull the 2nd ring in this strat cities ( unlike Cathy ). IMHO it is not a big issue: remember that you want to maximixe # of cities , and to say the truth, you'll not be able to work more than 8 tiles for a long time if you don't aim for HR or Rep and don't have a good supply of resources: that makes the 2nd ring a little less shiny ( of course that will require a different dotmapping, but it is doable )
P.S I'm glad that a good player like hermit agrees with me that this is a viable strat... I've been saying this for a long time ( even before BtS release..... )
In fact most of the reactions to certain leaders ( João ( p.s Please stop butchering his name... C'mon, only 4 letters....
J-o-a-o ) being the more noticeable , but most of the BtS new ones received that kind of halfhearted reactions ) that go out of the "normal" way of playing Civ were somehow shunned until someone pointed how to use them effectivelly : I remember of some reactions to the Quechua back in vanilla days: " WTH , a warrior UU? What am I going to do it such a weak unit that obsoletes fast ( 3 cheap tech and metal ) ?"... until someone noticed that the guys eat archers for lunch......João has two sets of strengths: Rexing and sea power... Hermit showed one ( yes , I do agree that his empire is a little overstreched, but it is nothing that can't be resolved ) ,using settler/worker and unit pumps to put the maximum number of cities in place and then working around it ( btw I remember a thread in here where it was discussed how fast could you put 6 cities in map... IIRC with a Imp leader you could get something like 6 cities in 30ishs turns
of course that would put your slider in the 0% and most likely before you could hire any specialists, but pop is power as well ... but it is a reminder of how fast you can go in that direction if you want ). This techique is somewhat dangerous if you have one of the wackos nearby, but if you can put 10 cites in place when the AI only has 5-6 , the game is in the bag with some good planning.... and you can even try ICS ( that is well and alive in Civ IV... just check this SG )Other option is the overseas expansion.... João coastal cities can be transformed in cash cows if you can get the water wonders and the UU fast ( a easy thing... just go by the southern tech route ) and his UB is cumulative with the collosus ( at least if you skip astro for a bit... this game is always about tradeoffs )....
The big problem is that you need to decide between this two options fast and you can go pretty wrong if you choose to go in the bad direction... But I think that the big issue is that João doesn't shine with any of the more conventional strats: both conventional SE and CE require other aproaches and as João doesn't have any of the banner traits of both ( that people like to call "economical traits" )... that makes that João SE and CE will look pretty bad in the picture until the investement start to pay off.... it that regard it reminds me Tokugawa: no "eco" traits, late UB and medieval UU... hard to leverage until the gunpowder times..... and not suprisingly ppl also like to say that Toku sucks ( at least until samurai and Gunpowder times
): it doesn't fit the more "normal" strats and you have to use them in more " out of the box" ways to make them shine.Madscientist posted a interesting issue: the fact that is hard to pull the 2nd ring in this strat cities ( unlike Cathy ). IMHO it is not a big issue: remember that you want to maximixe # of cities , and to say the truth, you'll not be able to work more than 8 tiles for a long time if you don't aim for HR or Rep and don't have a good supply of
resources: that makes the 2nd ring a little less shiny ( of course that will require a different dotmapping, but it is doable )P.S I'm glad that a good player like hermit agrees with me that this is a viable strat... I've been saying this for a long time ( even before BtS release..... )
Jet
No, no, please. Please.
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Diamondeye
So Happy I Could Die
futurehermit
Deity
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I don't like archipelago/seafaring maps so that represents some of my bias against Joao. Sure, if you're playing the Earth map then using the carracks to more quickly settle the new world would be great. But generally I play hemispheres where there are reasonably few offshore sites to settle and those sites won't contribute to whether or not I win the game. Archipelago, sure he is a good leader there and I admit that is my bias. I just think the AI underperforms already on those maps.
The UB though I just don't think is that good. +1 commerce on already pretty crappy water tiles at a point in the game where my economy has already stabilized? Sure, it's better than a kick in the pants, but it doesn't do much for me tbh.
Re: Border-popping. In this game I just chopped out monuments. Sure it costs you a forest and sure you have to wait for the border pop and sure Cathy is a great REXer (one of my favs to play); however, I didn't find it to be a HUGE inconvenience this game.
RE: Military situation. I have proceeded with this strat because I was confident that I could keep the peace through diplomacy. If I had Shaka/Monty/Other psychos nearby I of course would have gone about the game in a different way.
The UB though I just don't think is that good. +1 commerce on already pretty crappy water tiles at a point in the game where my economy has already stabilized? Sure, it's better than a kick in the pants, but it doesn't do much for me tbh.
Re: Border-popping. In this game I just chopped out monuments. Sure it costs you a forest and sure you have to wait for the border pop and sure Cathy is a great REXer (one of my favs to play); however, I didn't find it to be a HUGE inconvenience this game.
RE: Military situation. I have proceeded with this strat because I was confident that I could keep the peace through diplomacy. If I had Shaka/Monty/Other psychos nearby I of course would have gone about the game in a different way.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
Rolo good point sabout the BFC versus the first 8
However!!!!
While you can only work certain tiles because of the happy cap, you have ALOT more option on which tiles to actually work once you pop the BFC.
Joao (Sorry, I can't figure out the squiggly line) has become one of the more intriguing leaders for me to play. Perhaps it's about time I try him out insteadof just ignoring him!
However!!!!
While you can only work certain tiles because of the happy cap, you have ALOT more option on which tiles to actually work once you pop the BFC.
Joao (Sorry, I can't figure out the squiggly line) has become one of the more intriguing leaders for me to play. Perhaps it's about time I try him out insteadof just ignoring him!
The foreordained hermit's approach is certainly novel and actually quite extreme and interesting. There's no need to do that to leverage Joao's traits. If you have the happy to do it (happy resources, shot at Oracle-Monarchy), it's quite alright to do chopping or hammering out multiple Settlers extra-early and then focusing on vertical expansion.
Essentially, you're doing the normal scheme of things except that you're doing it a couple turns earlier. If you get enough Goodie huts, it's a good way to leverage the gold. REX 4-6 sites super-fast, then Workers super-fast, then whip Monuments/Granaries and Farm everywhere to get the pop up.
Once you get up the pop up you can work a few on cottages or Gold or Spices or whatever to fund the city expansion and then essentially run on SE for a while.
Chopping out the Settlers and an early priority on hammers makes a palpable difference on the speed of Worker and Settler turnout, and the early prospect for war isn't so bad with a healthy population to whip units from and good GG points coming in.
It's more boring this way, of course.
Essentially, you're doing the normal scheme of things except that you're doing it a couple turns earlier. If you get enough Goodie huts, it's a good way to leverage the gold. REX 4-6 sites super-fast, then Workers super-fast, then whip Monuments/Granaries and Farm everywhere to get the pop up.
Once you get up the pop up you can work a few on cottages or Gold or Spices or whatever to fund the city expansion and then essentially run on SE for a while.
Chopping out the Settlers and an early priority on hammers makes a palpable difference on the speed of Worker and Settler turnout, and the early prospect for war isn't so bad with a healthy population to whip units from and good GG points coming in.
It's more boring this way, of course.
Jet
No, no, please. Please.
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Diamondeye
So Happy I Could Die
The scientist specialists produces 
out of the box, not 
as tiles do. The sliders treat only .
So a hamlet producing 3 would at 0% slider be producing 3 
, before modifiers, whereas a scientist would produce 3 before modifiers.
I assume no Representation, no
or 
, and riverside/financial/whatever makes a hamlet produce 3 , in this example.
out of the box, not as tiles do. The sliders treat only .So a hamlet producing 3
would at 0% slider be producing 3 , before modifiers, whereas a scientist would produce 3 before modifiers.I assume no Representation, no
or , and riverside/financial/whatever makes a hamlet produce 3 , in this example.
Jet
No, no, please. Please.
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kazaap said, "The game could be more forthcoming with the fact you can tech reasonably well even at 0% beakers."
My question to kazaap was, "Like how could the game be more forthcoming with that"? By forthcoming I meant something like "characterized by openness, candidness, and forthrightness". I want to know what kind of documentation / hints / user interface / or whatever kazaap thinks the game could have, pertaining to this.
Diamondeye, I have no idea how what you're saying is an answer to my question.
fugazi
King
Spoiler :
Sure I conquered a few cities here but that's only because that damn Cyrus was .. well .. he built cities where my cities should have been!
The whole idea is that with a big empire like that, you put the newer ones in service of the big ones. More production means being able to build more cheap units such as archers which means you can garrison your cities with grow potential and keep them happy without any problems. In return, the big ones can build the more expensive units so that you can beat the crap out of your opponents. A lot of populace means you get more bang for your bucks when you build things like a market and a forge
Bah, I just love big empires! Who doesn't. I wish I had written a report on this game though, it's great so far.
Attachments
gettingfat
Emperor
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For curiosity, I don't know how the AIs will allow you to do that. After 3.13/Bhuric patch they expand very fast, may not be 11 cities by AD, but at least 7-9 cities. Unless you have cleaned up your neighbour by early rushing. You will face the "border too close" issue and those aggressive AIs will start knocking on your door. To avoid that you need to keep up the power. I've tried to REX like that before but just keeping a decent army is very draining, not to mention in your case you're playing non-organized leader without courthouses. There will be a good chance AIs like Ragnar will be one era of tech ahead of you and blitz you with concentrated elite force when you can't afford even 3 defenders per city. I just think there is a decent risk in this strategy.
