Time to shake things up. . .

[enelrad]

I have been debating whether or not to start another game. The tedium is keeping me from going fo it. I think the problem is that I keep starting in the same way each time. Here are my usual stats:

Regent, Babs, standard/lge map, sed. or roaming barbs.

Game starts and I:

get wheel and Iron working then beeline to monarchy,then lit then currency,then construction--whatever is left to do.

build two warriors and put them on E, start either temple or settler and begin the race for land.

PS I have tried Republic and find it uselss. Monarchy to Democracy seems to give the peons a chance to rise in the world before getting any say.

 

[enelrad]

My question is:

What (aside from a higher level that I am not ready for) will get me a shake up and put some interest in the game?

 

[Troyens]

How about making some scenarios??

OOPS! We can't do that anymore! (Real smart Firaxis).

Bet Sid is whipping up some expensive Scenario Expansion Disks at $20.95, though!


Why do you find Republic useless? Is it not better than Monarchy in a non-war situation?


With me, there is not only late game tedium, there are other factors that make me hesitant to play:

The frustration of some really stupid (or cheating) AI move.

The annoyance of Culture Flipping cities and borders.

Waves of diarrhea-like AI settlers flooding my territory and refusing to leave.

But if a game starts going good I'll continue to the Industrial Age when turns take too long, and then I'll check the score. If I'm ahead I'll declare victory. If not, I'll only continue of close - I just can't stand the lack of realism when bombers cannot sink warships in the modern period.

And if all else fails. . . I'LL GO BACK TO CIV II!! I have plenty of unplayed scenarios.

 

[enelrad]

I decided to try the Japanese on Regent with roaming barbs.

At 1140 AD I have the *most* moneywith 248gold.

Neither the English nor I have any Iron - they got some horses. I beat them back with my powerful Archers. (Seriously, I have won three wars with England with archers. Now it turns out the Russians fear my archers.)

This is certainly different but it's not looking good. But, I'm in third place.

Ain't life interesting.


PS the reason I don't like Republic is because it is too expensive and causes disruption everywhere. You get it before you have anything to keep people happy. By the time Democracy comes along ( not going to happen in this game), you can afford a little for luxuries because your science is up and running.

 

[Captain Pugwash]

How about this...

Try something completely different just to see what happens...like building no wonders at all ..or wandering from the intial starting position instead of just building there...or building barracks first and all military units nothing else...or dont build any techs just trade for them....

Anything to break out of the rut of a fixed strategy. Of course, all of these things wont necessarily work on their own but you can find out why then be in a better position to strike the right balance later.

Regard each new game as an experiment. Hell, its far too early to have devised just one strategy.

Just a suggestion

 

[rdomarat]

Why not try making a randomly generated map in the editor, and then set one starting position at a severe disadvantage (maybe no Iron or Horses, or on a really small island). I find that a bad starting position on a difficulty level your comfortable with is a lot of fun.

You might also want to try a completely different land mass when generating your maps. If you typically play Pangea w/60% water, play on Archipagelo (I'm sure I spelt that wrong) w/80% water, 3 billions years old and really wet. A hostile map will force you to completely change your strategy.

 

[Ironikinit]

You really really need iron, darlene (I'm going with darlene cos it's easier to spell).

Iron gives you your samurai, which are what makes playing Japan worthwhile.

How to get a republic up and running:

You need at least 2 luxuries in your territory.
Keep your cities small by popping out some settlers and workers occasionally.
Don't be afraid of some unrest, just stay on top of it. Depending on your taste for micromanagement, you can prevent it altogether.
Temples in all your cities.
Build roads to your neighbor so you can trade. Having at least one harbor is important too.

Got all that? Good, have a revolt to republic and start researching construction and then currency. Since you're Japan, cathedrals are a lot better than colloseums, but you'll need a couple colloseums in your core cities. Hope this helps.

 

[enelrad]

I agree about the iron but it just isn't there - the English don't have it either. this is the most barren land I have EVER seen. You gotta know it's going badly when the AI doesn't get it.

The other archipelagoes are all full - and it's hard to transport an invasion force in gallies.

Interestingly, I chose a 3Mil. year old world in the hopes that it would be more plentiful. As Rosanne Rosanna Danna would say, "It's always something."

I plan to play this one out. No one sems to be terribly advanced.

I will think of it as a teachable moment.

 

[Ironikinit]

Hm, esp. invasion forces of archers. It would still be worth it if you can get it, IMO. You do have horses?

 

[Patchmaster]

I'd suggest doing essentially what you did -- start playing different civs. Alter your strategy to best take advantage of the civ's strength.

I can't say that it was the most exciting game I've ever played, but I just finished a game using the culture rush strategy. I built cities just as fast as I possibly could and bartered with the other civs for all my tech. Went from despotism to monarchy as soon as possible and stayed there the rest of the game. Ended up with a culture victory in the early 1600's, about four turns after I started building railroads. As far as score and rating at the end of the game it was far and away the best I've ever done. I don't know that I'll be playing this strategy again soon, but it was interesting this time.

 

[Troyens]

Originally posted by enelrad
My question is:

What (aside from a higher level that I am not ready for) will get me a shake up and put some interest in the game?

Answer: download the LWC mod from the other forum on this site. If not for it, I probably would be playing Civ II right now. Check it out; it is most interesting and a lot better than Sid's mess.

 

[muppet]

The timing of the change to Republic is very important.

For lesser populated civs, Republic is worse than Monarchy. It is because you do not have enough citizens to pay for infrastructure, research, luxury tax, AND an army. Plus the lack of military police.

In GENERAL, my experience is that Republic will perform better than Monarchy if I have a fairly high number of well populated cities. The citizens collect 1 extra gold per gold producing terrain than Monarchy, which permits enough to pay for all the above, and a research rate higher than Monarchy.

If I have had no reason to beeline for Monarchy, I will have headed towards Republic. In which case I will time my switch to Republic so that my core cities populations are at least 6 and that aquaducts are not far away.

To extend on Ironikinit's statement about luxuries. If you have access to more than 2 luxuries, you'll find that Republic will easily outperform Monarchy. The more luxuries, or the greater the pop per city, the greater the gap in performance between Republic and Monarchy.

 

[enelrad]

Republic comes too early in the game to be useful. I am still popping out settlers and starting cities when it is available.

With monarchy, I get some benefit over despotism - can pay for rushes etc. without people in revolt as fast as you can shake a stick - actually I would like to shake some very large sticks at those idiots.

Monarchy lets me get set up and developed for Democracy when it comes along. At that point, my civ is ready for it and I can afford the money to put into luxuries -- I almost never get luxury resources since I gave up chieftan.

Once in a while, a Civ will give me republic in a trade and I don't turn it down but it just doesn't work for me.


I haven't been back to my game in a while - been playing spyro with my granddaughter and enjoying it more at this point. Must get back there and see what the americans have in the way of weapons.

BTW is it common to be so resource poor on a 3 million map?

 

[Vampir226]

You could also consider changing up the number of players you are competing with. It's a totally different game to play with a lot of civs to interact and trade with and like one or two civs that you must compete with by building your empire up ASAP before actually meeting them.

 

[Fanny Brice]

Try the Aztecs with a plan to come out of the blocks fighting. The Jaguar Warriors are surprisingly useful. Weak attack, but retreat ability allows your to overcome the attrition factor. (Enemy will lose units while yours retreat to heal. Both civs build at about some rate, but yours are healing instead of dying... becoming elite in the process.) Movement factor of 2 is a great bonus for scouting and grabbing goodie huts.

You should be able to quickly wipe out a nearby civ or two and become an early superpower.

Usually I play with the goal to expand quickly as early as possible, stop the growth of nearby civs, and build up for the inevitable wars. But sometimes, I play with the intention of being a bully. Take that you weakling civs! Give me your money and tech or I will destroy you.

As mentioned, # of civs shakes things up as well. Lots of civs makes diplomacy critical. Fewer usually is a battle of superpowers.