What could I have done better in this game?

[gramm87]

Hello all,
In my last game (deity pangea, Egypt Ramesses II) I got off a good start and managed a 720 AD Cuirassier rush. By 1260 AD (turn 186) I had conquered 2 civs and got 19 cities.
After this I developed my empire. I could get to tank on turn 250 (1700 AD) but by the time my attack was ready (turn 266, 35 tanks + 22 artillery), my neighbor (HRE) already had mechanized infantry... At this point I'm not sure if I'm being too slow, or if I should go for nukes, or maybe I took too many time to build my stack.

What I did after Cuirasier was:
- Printing Press
- Economy -> Corporations for Free Market and +1 trade route
- Chemistry -> SciMeth -> Communism for SP
- Biology
- Steam Power (levee) -> Assembly Lines (Factory)
then finish the teching to tanks

I built libraries everywhere, then 6 University + 6 Banks in the best cities, so I could build Oxford + Wall Street in my capitol.
Once I got Assembly Lines I built factories everywhere, but I waited until I was almost done with teching to build coal plants, because they really kill the population... Maybe a bad idea, I don't know.
I wanted to trigger GA but the game screw me up and gave me 3 GA in a row, then I gave up on this idea (I needed 3 GP for GA, as I already had 2 before).

Even with all this, it still takes time to reach tanks and build them, and now I'm not so happy with what I have to face (army 2x as big as mine according to demographics) and also unsure how to continue.

I'm joining my saves if someone wants to have a look at them, putting screenshot is always difficult when the empire gets bigger.

 

[Pedro78]

A few things, in no particular order, about the first save:

• Capitulating the second AI on T183 after T149 attack is really slow -- 34 turns for 2AIs, especially when the first one was already at war with two guys. Cuirs are fast, take advantage!
• Do not take weak vassals such as Isabella. Better wipe them out, even if the rest of their land is crap. She won't be any help for the rest of the game but she'll drag down your diplo relations and will lower the world average power, making other AIs much harder to capitulate. Only reason I'd take a vassal like that is if it has a lot of techs that I want to trade for/steal.
• You can trade MT for RP with Bismark -- go for it as you don't have any wars planned anytime soon.
• With such a capital, Oxford is definitely a good idea. Bank first in capital is also a good idea, as it'll take a few turns to get your economy back in shape.
• Free Speech / US is horrible, you want Bureaucracy and Rep in this case. OR is also useless as most of your cities don't have Buddhism (good to be in Buddhism though as the only thing that could lose you the game here is a backstab from charly). Better switch into Paci because it has no upkeep (make sure to delete most of the cuirs if you're done with warring for a very long time)
• Next steps should be Oxford, Communism, Biology/AL with a couple of golden ages and then tanks. From your position a T230 attack with tanks is easily feasible. Maybe earlier if you get some good trades. You should also focus on building workshops/farms/windmills in most cities -- should switch to Caste as soon as Oxford is in for +1h on workshops & GP generation.

 

[Pedro78]

T266:

• Big cities need health infra (harbor/grocer/aqueduct) when building factories
• You're still working way too many towns, for the final war you need max hammers in every city i.e. workshops almost everywhere
• Wall Street is a no-no unless going for corps (which is also a no-no on most random maps)
• You want to build the coal plants ASAP, Factories don't bring much without them.
• You have available trades for health/happiness that you need badly but aren't trading for these resources
• When an AI has Mech. Inf. you can't attack it with just tanks/artillery. You need at least some air support, but teching to more modern stuff is also useful in most cases, because the main problem comes from your stack being wiped out.
• In this case you need at least 100 units to DoW, considering the tech disadvantage and all, you're nowhere near ready to attack.

But overall more focused play after the Renaissance Era should have avoided most of the modern war-bound problems.

 

[Lain]

When is the best time to switch Slavery -> Caste? Wouldn't you want to whip Factories/Coal Plants first, Pedro? Assuming no golden age is available for some reason. I often don't have a good feeling for what's better

 

[unas876]

I mean I'm not the best player ever but I checked out the first save and I saw unimproved (RIVER!) tiles in your capital, with forests on them

In a situation like this I usually beeline Communism and neglect all the other stuff like Corporation, PP etc until I need them as prerequisites. And then, its best to trade for that stuff. I see some WFYABTA though, that's not a good sign, especially with Charly who is a decent tech trading partner. Suggests you might have traded a bit too much in the early game. You don't need to trade for small stuff like Archery, Priesthood etc, even if the AI offers them as part of another deal you're making.

Banks + Wall Street for an Oxford capital? So what is it that you wanna do, generate a load of commerce or generate a load of beakers there?

 

[Pedro78]

I'd never whip factories unless I have either Kremlin or Sushi (or both). SP+Caste workshops are immensely superior to whips. Cities with low base hammers don't need a factory anyway.

If you remain sceptical abt that, whipping Factory+Coal plant costs 9 pop + some hammers (assuming forge+SP). Even if you 6whip the factory from size 12 and then 3whip the Coal plant 6-3, it costs 153 food for 270 base hammers, which is a 1.76 food to hammer ratio. Which means 2F4H workshops are far superior to 4F farms. And after whipping you have to regrow and build workshops over these farms -- costs a huge amount of worker turns.

 

[gramm87]

First of all thanks a lot for taking the time to look at my saves! As you might have guessed I don't have much experience post-renaissance, but I usually get away with sloppy tank rush on Immortal.
Some explanations on my train of thoughts when I played / comments:

• I might be way too careful with my units... I suppose I should accept to lose more units and just go for quicker wars.
• Good point on Isabella, took her because I was too lazy to finish her.
• Some forests around the capitol because I needed the health until cuir rush, plus really there wasn't much to do with the forests anyway.
• Good idea to ignore some techs so that my total tech count stays lower
• Maybe my logic is flawed, but I don't see the problem with putting Oxford + Wall Street together in the best commerce city... Unless wall street also multiplies hammer-produced wealth? I didn't have a shrine city to put wall street in.

Some questions...

• Is Rep+Bureau really better than Free Speech/US in big empires ? I thought that with a bigger number of cities the advantages of quick boosted towns would really be better than just capitol bonuses, but I also didn't experiment much here.
• What improvements are really worth it post-renaissance? In particular I don't know what tiles are good for windmills/watermills (usually I just mine the hills except desert hill).
• Why is wall street so bad?

 

[Pedro78]

Some answers

• When going for domination, you want hammers, and you want those before AL because you need workshops to build factories. You don't have all that many towns and most are gonna end up workshopped anyway. So Free Speech is really bad compared to Bureau. US is just plain useless when Rep gives you +3gpt per specialist, which you will be using lots of considering you'll trigger some golden ages.
• Post-renaissance you want workshops, farms, watermills and windmills. With some planning, you can make sure that every city is at +0 food when working all of its tiles in order to maximise hammers. Usually mines only go in the IW / HE cities -- otherwise windmills are superior, especially in a golden age. Some mines can also be used to fine-tune a city's production, but they require a railroad to become really powerful and that eats up a lot of worker turns. Desert hill windmills are not bad tiles to work after electricity (superior to a rep-specialist when you have a factory)
• Wall street is 1200 hammers and has no resource multiplier. You can substract 200 or 400 hammers from that number as you're usualy going to build one or a couple of banks, but by the time it's built you'll be running your slider at 100% for the rest of the game, so it does generally never pay off.

Some forests around the capitol because I needed the health until cuir rush, plus really there wasn't much to do with the forests anyway.

Failgold? Chop cuirs? There's always a lot to do with forests. +1 really isn't much, especially if you compare it to 150 gold from IND+marble/stone chops.

 

[Anysense]

Just a few thoughts on t186 save.
1. I hope you did not research Economics and Corporations yourself. Those are very high priority techs for AI.
2. WFYABTA makes life difficult. Usually not trading unnecessary techs like Archery, Monoteism/PH, Theology, Divine Right is enough to get some good trades later.
3. Need to spread Buddhism to make use of religious civics. Charly is already doing it, so you probably don't need to worry about it much. Still it's better to spread the religion to at least NE city ASAP.
4. You don't have to use the same civics for ever. Being spiritual you can switch to OR+slavery to whip stuff and back to caste+paci for GP. While in slavery cities dedicated to GP generation may grow one size or two. Currently OR is useless => adopt pacifism to cut maintenance.
5. Bureaucracy is stronger here; it also happens to be Hammurabi's favourite civic, and you want him friendly for tech trading.
6. Saved forests aren't bad at all. Chop into the Statue of Liberty, perhaps? With 19 cities and representation it would give 19*6=114 per turn, about 150 with bonuses.