TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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"too much" expansion is usually a misnomer for "improperly timed with technology and/or worker production".
What do you think is the weakest part of your game.
- Thread starter Gumbolt
- Start date
I actually wonder if city placement gaps of 3 rather than 4 on emperor is a better starting strategy to reduce cost. Not sure how much you save early on with a slight overlap. Then again this has to be weighed against what you might lose later on in a game. Hmmmmm. Although saving 2-3 gold a turn at start can be invaluable as its the difference between 20% science slider or 0%.
I also wondered about cost of building too many workers or warriors at the start. All these things add up but how far should you really take micro management on a game?
That being said once you have cottages/ courthouses/ markets/ extra trade routes and sailing your economy soon recovers.
I sometimes dont think its about over expanding at the start. Its trying to do everything at the start. 3 cities at size 3-5 adds much more value than 5 cities stuck at size 1-2.
I for one have certainly changed tact from the way I used to play at monarch.
I also wondered about cost of building too many workers or warriors at the start. All these things add up but how far should you really take micro management on a game?
That being said once you have cottages/ courthouses/ markets/ extra trade routes and sailing your economy soon recovers.
I sometimes dont think its about over expanding at the start. Its trying to do everything at the start. 3 cities at size 3-5 adds much more value than 5 cities stuck at size 1-2.
I for one have certainly changed tact from the way I used to play at monarch.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Spacing sounds all well and good until the resources are somewhere else :/.
FidelZandro
Optimistic turtle
This sounds so very familiar, especially the Emperor-ish part. In no way i'm a real emperor player, but sometimes it just works out. Reading the forums has helped me to use some moves/choices (REX or not, Oracle or not, tech-paths etc.) to get a higher standard in every game.
Very much true. That's probably why i'm a Emperor-ish player. I'm not fully in control, but i am used to the rythm.
Apart from that, my weaknesses are:
- city specialization; every time in 1900 i wonder "why are those forests still standing in that commerce-city's BFC?" and "why does this production city with 10 beakers have an observatory?"
- diplomacy;
--- beelining for some wonderfullly expensive tech and then forgetting to trade it with the AI
--- forgetting to trade resources alltogether
--- giving away techs to keep them pleased and then being DoW-ed 11 turns later by ALL of them
- war-time tunnelvision; "do you really think i'm bothered whether you stupid little filler city builds a forge or a library???"
- indecisiveness; to go to war, to beeline for spaceship, where to build some national wonders etc.
- and now i've come to think of it, most of the aspects mentioned by all of the above
great thread btw
Bleys
Deity
Because you need an Observatory to build a Laboratory, which is a key building in your Production cities for the Space Race.
schwanger
Chieftain
Where to begin, where to begin...
Probably my biggest problem is that I'm not very good at adjusting my strategy to fit the map. I always run a FEUSS economy. I always expand peacefully until late renaissance. At this point, I usually invade someone and find myself at war until shortly after tanks. It's at about this point (shortly after tanks, that is) that I realize it's probably time for me to pick a victory condition. My victory condition usually ends up being either the UN or space race, because I took too long before I killed anyone.
My other big one would probably be poor army composition. I never bring enough siege, and I never bring enough city garrison, and I never bring enough stack defense. In other words, my armies are typically comprised of one sentry chariot, one medic chariot, a half dozen catapults or trebuchets, a pike or elephant, a couple of knights, and 15 damn city raider macemen. I know the importance of siege, but I always build the stupid maces thinking, "I won't have access to city raider again until tanks. I'd better stock up on maces so I can promote them to rifles." And then I research rifles, drop the slider to 0 for a turn or 2 if needed, promote a bunch of city raider 3 rifles, and find that all I have to guard all these cities I'm going to capture are a bunch of damn axemen I have left over from fog-busting in the BC's. So now every time I capture a city I have to sit and wait for some longbows to show up before I can go on to capture another city. One of these days I'll learn that city raider promotions are far less important once siege comes into play.
Probably my biggest problem is that I'm not very good at adjusting my strategy to fit the map. I always run a FEUSS economy. I always expand peacefully until late renaissance. At this point, I usually invade someone and find myself at war until shortly after tanks. It's at about this point (shortly after tanks, that is) that I realize it's probably time for me to pick a victory condition. My victory condition usually ends up being either the UN or space race, because I took too long before I killed anyone.
My other big one would probably be poor army composition. I never bring enough siege, and I never bring enough city garrison, and I never bring enough stack defense. In other words, my armies are typically comprised of one sentry chariot, one medic chariot, a half dozen catapults or trebuchets, a pike or elephant, a couple of knights, and 15 damn city raider macemen. I know the importance of siege, but I always build the stupid maces thinking, "I won't have access to city raider again until tanks. I'd better stock up on maces so I can promote them to rifles." And then I research rifles, drop the slider to 0 for a turn or 2 if needed, promote a bunch of city raider 3 rifles, and find that all I have to guard all these cities I'm going to capture are a bunch of damn axemen I have left over from fog-busting in the BC's. So now every time I capture a city I have to sit and wait for some longbows to show up before I can go on to capture another city. One of these days I'll learn that city raider promotions are far less important once siege comes into play.
And for those who don't know, what is a FEUSS economy?
azzaman333
meh
Free Emancipation Universal Sufferage Serfdom Speech economy.
Skallagrimson
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2006
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New discovery after analyzing my game play a few times this past weekend. I have a huge problem with changing major goals in midstream. It goes like:
"Okay, lots of empty land, I'll REX."
"No, wait, they're boxing me in already, need to go for early war."
"No, hold on, I've got marble and stone, let's wonder-whore a bit."
"SWEET! Captured a shrine! Let's forget everything else and religion-spam and switch to a half-@ssed RE for a while!"
I end up everywhere and nowhere, strategically, epic fail.
"Okay, lots of empty land, I'll REX."
"No, wait, they're boxing me in already, need to go for early war."
"No, hold on, I've got marble and stone, let's wonder-whore a bit."
"SWEET! Captured a shrine! Let's forget everything else and religion-spam and switch to a half-@ssed RE for a while!"
I end up everywhere and nowhere, strategically, epic fail.
Its that or great this strategy is working well. 2-3 Ai DOW you and you are building units for 10-15 turns while some ego minded Ai leader will only take peace till you hand over a city. Errrrr as if!!! By this time your economy is overly ruined and the far Ai amassing troops and teching fast is ready to attack you.
Skallagrimson
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2006
- Messages
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Surprise DOW to me is a sign that I've set myself up for failure in a particular game. If, for example, I was REXing, and didn't keep military production up enough to defend the REXed cities, an AI stack of doom will obliterate my ill thought out strategy and it's pull the plug time. Or if I wonder-spammed and allowed a city too weak in production to be the unit pump (hogging the higher prod cities for wonder builds). Same thing. Survival might be within reach from there, but not "victory".
budweiser
King of the Beers
I had two or three awesome starts this weekend and I ended up losing them because I failed at war.
I had Pericles with marble, about 6 to 8 cities, parthenon, HE and 1 turn elephants, etc. I even had CoL and currency to back it up. I attacked Hattie and did a lousy job of taking and holding her cities. I ended up abandoning because it was getting to be 800 to 1000 AD and it felt like it was taking too long.
Then I had Abe with a similar decent early rex, 6 to 8 cities. I did 1 medeval war on Sitting Bull and took 2 of his cities. 10 turns later I DoW again and we are at parity. I end up losing the 2 cities I took last time and even failing to take the city I marched on.
It gets frustrating wasting such good setups.
I had Pericles with marble, about 6 to 8 cities, parthenon, HE and 1 turn elephants, etc. I even had CoL and currency to back it up. I attacked Hattie and did a lousy job of taking and holding her cities. I ended up abandoning because it was getting to be 800 to 1000 AD and it felt like it was taking too long.
Then I had Abe with a similar decent early rex, 6 to 8 cities. I did 1 medeval war on Sitting Bull and took 2 of his cities. 10 turns later I DoW again and we are at parity. I end up losing the 2 cities I took last time and even failing to take the city I marched on.
It gets frustrating wasting such good setups.
Rule of thumb on wars.
1. Always take a decent sized stack that will do the job.
2. Always have a plan how you are gonna roll over the defenders. Spies/cats/trebs etc.
3. Make sure the Ai doesnt have a larger stack that will take your stack out.
4. Why did you dow if your military is too weak to take the AI on anyway?
Fun fun fun
6K Man
Bureaucrat
Diplomacy and Espionage. I can usually make a couple of fast friends in my games, but if you are facing 10+ AIs, that is neither hard, nor good enough. I have never bothered or learned how to get an aggressive AI to war for me, for example. And I probably don't give gifts and accede to demands enough.
As for espionage, I primarily use it to see what my opponents are researching and their military strength. Everything else is done haphazardly.
I do specialize my cities a lot better than I used to, thanks to tips I got here. I think the key is accepting that there are seldom "perfect" sites for a commerce city, military pump city, GP farm, etc. Find the best site you can, and get the infrastructure (cottages, library, farms, forge, as the case may be) up as fast as you can. No point in finding the perfect GP farm in 1050 AD.
As for espionage, I primarily use it to see what my opponents are researching and their military strength. Everything else is done haphazardly.
I do specialize my cities a lot better than I used to, thanks to tips I got here. I think the key is accepting that there are seldom "perfect" sites for a commerce city, military pump city, GP farm, etc. Find the best site you can, and get the infrastructure (cottages, library, farms, forge, as the case may be) up as fast as you can. No point in finding the perfect GP farm in 1050 AD.
Non spiritual leaders and my lack of swapping civics. Spiritual is by far my favorite trait in a leader and without it I too often find myself thinking "I can't waste that turn now I need to get X done first". Then it is 1000BC, I have not swapped to slavery, and am thinking to myself "why the hell is my army so small" or something of that ilk. Also the standard poor National Wonder planning.
What has really helped me with these bone headed moves is simply keeping a running log in word of what significant stuff happened that turn. The first time (only a week or so ago) I decided to post my proceedings on a game on this forum I realized that in taking notes on the game to post later I was questioning my builds and strategies much much more. I attribute this entirely to jumping up from a shaky Noble to a comfortable Emperor. I found myself asking things such as, "well you want to beeline rifling so where is your globe theater going dummy, you've had Drama for 15 turns". It slows the game down A LOT at first, but forces me to think. I see it akin to reading my game aloud, letting me realize that something is just not right much faster.
What has really helped me with these bone headed moves is simply keeping a running log in word of what significant stuff happened that turn. The first time (only a week or so ago) I decided to post my proceedings on a game on this forum I realized that in taking notes on the game to post later I was questioning my builds and strategies much much more. I attribute this entirely to jumping up from a shaky Noble to a comfortable Emperor. I found myself asking things such as, "well you want to beeline rifling so where is your globe theater going dummy, you've had Drama for 15 turns". It slows the game down A LOT at first, but forces me to think. I see it akin to reading my game aloud, letting me realize that something is just not right much faster.
budweiser
King of the Beers
What I have been doing lately is building a force of about 6 axemen and using them to take any barb cities. They might get 2 or 3. Meanwhile I have been teching to Const and switching builds to cats. Then I am 'ready'.
I will have a stack of six axes, maybe a spear and a couple swords and 3 or 4 cats. Those two games I metnioned even had elephants. This force is good enough to roll over 1 or 2 border cities, but I never risk a pitched battle to finnish off ai SODs.
To back this first stack up, I will have one good prodution city, plus my capitol and they will spam units. The developing 3 or 4 cites contribute troops more slowly as they can. And this is all done without whipping.
Thats how I approach the 'sword rush' wars. I think I have 2 probles; not enough men and poor tactical decisions on exactly which tile to move on and fight from.
champ82
Immortal Ruler
Well I suppose my real weaknesses I might not even know about.
Sometimes I haven't read the fine print, or deducted enough from the fine print of the civilopedia. I didn't know that National Park eats away at 50% of Ironworks. I didn't know that the assembly plant is built at 1/2 speed with coal. I didn’t know that Conquistadors and Immortals DO receive defense bonuses. What else do I not know?
I find diplomacy commitments can be tricky. Some posters here exploit them well, not so much this guy. I try to stay quasi faithful to 1 or 2 AIs but even then I don't go all out usually. "Adopt Theocracy." "No." "Can we have Assembly Line?" "No." "Stop selling your spare fur to X for 20 gold a turn." "No. (Don't you see I'm making a dent in his science and espionage by this trade? You should be thanking me.)"
I sometimes find it hard to predict who's worth appeasing and who's not. The religious ones can be nice, they're pretty straight forward. Be their brothers in faith and it's all good. Brenus, Justinian. Izzy. Then there's the chill folks who trade techs and are unlikely to declare war, Pacal, Mansa, Roosevelt, Wilhelm. I handle them well too. The blatantly aggressive ones are to be taken out if they're next to you. The rest (examples - Joao, Peter, Qin, Mao, Zara) I don't know what to do with. Still, I must do OK at it as I've won UN head and AP head a few times and pulled off a few diplomatic hustles.
I don't specialize cities enough. In my defense though, there is often not an obvious best candidate for a GP farm. I do my capital as science, a GP farm, my 2nd or 3rd most productive becomes my HE, financial capital is a shrine city (usually I have one.) Espionage cities...never had one. How can one specialize all their cities on a standard map? Every coastal city tempts me to build naval units. But building a custom house is also tempting. All these filler cities need to build banks when I want Wall Street and Unis when I want Oxford and I want them to help out with the military too and I want them to help out with espionage as well with the espionage buildings.
I don't plan for national wonders sometimes.
- Oh s_____ it's 1400 and I never went to war, wasn't focused enough when combating barbs. I still can't build HE. Guess I'll have spill some blood now. But to prepare for that now it would be easier with HE. Gosh darn it all. (In my defense, the continent was huge – I boxed in the AIs and was busy expanding peacefully.)
- All right corporation, time for Wall Street. Oh joy, 4 more banks to build before that happens.
Some people do very impressive things with espionage. I just use counter espionage, mess up buildings for cultural threats, mess up a space part if I have to. I have used them a few times for revolt invasions but not often. I'm usually reluctantly catching up in EP. I hate putting up the slider before passive buildings like Jail, Security Bureau etc. help it along. For this reason I’m a fan of the internet. Put science way down and catch up on EP and money (to be used to update the military to exclusively the most modern units.)
Sometimes I haven't read the fine print, or deducted enough from the fine print of the civilopedia. I didn't know that National Park eats away at 50% of Ironworks. I didn't know that the assembly plant is built at 1/2 speed with coal. I didn’t know that Conquistadors and Immortals DO receive defense bonuses. What else do I not know?
I find diplomacy commitments can be tricky. Some posters here exploit them well, not so much this guy. I try to stay quasi faithful to 1 or 2 AIs but even then I don't go all out usually. "Adopt Theocracy." "No." "Can we have Assembly Line?" "No." "Stop selling your spare fur to X for 20 gold a turn." "No. (Don't you see I'm making a dent in his science and espionage by this trade? You should be thanking me.)"
I sometimes find it hard to predict who's worth appeasing and who's not. The religious ones can be nice, they're pretty straight forward. Be their brothers in faith and it's all good. Brenus, Justinian. Izzy. Then there's the chill folks who trade techs and are unlikely to declare war, Pacal, Mansa, Roosevelt, Wilhelm. I handle them well too. The blatantly aggressive ones are to be taken out if they're next to you. The rest (examples - Joao, Peter, Qin, Mao, Zara) I don't know what to do with. Still, I must do OK at it as I've won UN head and AP head a few times and pulled off a few diplomatic hustles.
I don't specialize cities enough. In my defense though, there is often not an obvious best candidate for a GP farm. I do my capital as science, a GP farm, my 2nd or 3rd most productive becomes my HE, financial capital is a shrine city (usually I have one.) Espionage cities...never had one. How can one specialize all their cities on a standard map? Every coastal city tempts me to build naval units. But building a custom house is also tempting. All these filler cities need to build banks when I want Wall Street and Unis when I want Oxford and I want them to help out with the military too and I want them to help out with espionage as well with the espionage buildings.
I don't plan for national wonders sometimes.
- Oh s_____ it's 1400 and I never went to war, wasn't focused enough when combating barbs. I still can't build HE. Guess I'll have spill some blood now. But to prepare for that now it would be easier with HE. Gosh darn it all. (In my defense, the continent was huge – I boxed in the AIs and was busy expanding peacefully.)
- All right corporation, time for Wall Street. Oh joy, 4 more banks to build before that happens.
Some people do very impressive things with espionage. I just use counter espionage, mess up buildings for cultural threats, mess up a space part if I have to. I have used them a few times for revolt invasions but not often. I'm usually reluctantly catching up in EP. I hate putting up the slider before passive buildings like Jail, Security Bureau etc. help it along. For this reason I’m a fan of the internet. Put science way down and catch up on EP and money (to be used to update the military to exclusively the most modern units.)
Skallagrimson
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2006
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Definitely one of the harder ones is getting enough banks for Wall Street. Sometimes I just plain don't have enough commerce cities where banks would be on-spec, so I have to "cheat" and put them in the build queue of unit pumps or the IW city. Just to open up WS.
Then my save games get critiqued to death for "building unnecessary buildings", blah blah blah...
Then my save games get critiqued to death for "building unnecessary buildings", blah blah blah...
I definitely have the "where do I build the necessary banks" issue, in every game that lasts that long.
My way to solve this issue is to run a few turns at 100% gold and universal suffrage (goes well with a golden age), and rush all the money improvers I need.
Often I don't go back to an other civic, but it's still an option if you start the banks before going into US and pile a bit of gold before switching.
Skallagrimson
Deity
- Joined
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I just did the math. I would need 12 cities to leverage all the national wonders without making any cities build off-spec. 6 of them generic commerce building both science and gold multipliers, which to some purists is itself off-spec. To rigidly follow pure spec, that makes it an 18 city requirement.
Maybe on a huge map there might be a ghost of a prayer to specialize.
Maybe on a huge map there might be a ghost of a prayer to specialize.
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