What happened and how did I get beaten so badly.

[ryokoryu]

Ok I have always had a love hate relationship with the civ games as I never understood the mechanics and I recently decided rather than trying to learn it all on my own to look up a few guides. I looked through several and decided to look at the espionage economy, and practice it on chief. At only the second difficulty I figure I got a good shot at learning how this works and then moving up the ranking. OK after a few games where I get shoehorned into bad positioning by civs that were just too close for comfort I get into a game where I end up with 6 perfectly positioned cities and soon I am locked into those perfect places by the byzantine, egypt, and the source of my confusion, Gilgamesh. I had gone with +birthrate + wonder speed civ leader so I got the great wall out fast and had 2 great spies and Scotland yard up by the time I hit alphabet which I was also the most advanced civ at this point according to the game. By the time I hit my issue I had 7 great spies and more than a 2000 point esp advantage over Gilgy here who I decided to invest in keeping an eye on as he had demanded tribute twice in the sup of first 500 of my 546 gold which I refused(I was ahead of him in tech by a good margine) and then again for 2000 later on.
At the point e declared war on me I was culture pushing his borders on his 3 closest cities 5 of his 8 cities were on tundra with low populations and his other 3 I kept the improvements broken and kept an eye on all his cities and his money situation of which he had no money and 0 per turn. His cities were guarded by axemen and archers and the first lot of attacks by him consisted of axemen and catapaults and he had no iron until he took the first city from me. He had no spies yet (I had been whatching what he produced and up until he declared war on me he didn't have the alphabet. when I first started building spies I had set two in each city, I know this is a bit long but it is important to include as much detail as I can if I am to learn what happened.
Ok he declares war with 3 troops in each city and his closest city is building a settler, I have a musket man in each of mine and I have 4381 gold and 10 spies in his territory and 2 in each of my cities, towns everywhere and on a positive income at 90 research 10 esp. I am universal suffrage so I am thinking "he's broke and way behind in tech, I will rush some musket men take a couple of his better paced cities and make peace. Now 3 military units pop out of each of his cities and he still has the 3 he was guarding in there on the first turn he made war. 3 turns later all my 10 spies are caught in his territory and he arrives at my first city which not has 2 musketmen. 3 catapults and 9 axeman and I take everything but 2 axeman out so I figure I will take the city back and it will be fine. I beef up the 3 next cities of which he actually split his forces between 2 of by the time he hit them I had 4 musketmen in each. I fended off, but every turn he put out 3 more units from each city he had. The second lot of military he sent was swordsman and catapults. he then hits me with several spies yes his who he did not have alphabet until at least when he declared war on me. I caught most of them but he managed to flip my suffrage to despotism somehow. he just kept coming and slowly wore me down with endles attacks of larger and larger stacks every turn. each time he took a city as soon as the resistasnce was over he would get 3 units per turn out of that one too. I honestly don't get it, he had low populations in each city no money low teck and rush made so many troops so fast that I stood no chance, it reminded me of orks in warhammer 40k. I just don't know how it happened.

 

[Erlend78]

It's hard to answer what happened without more details. Saves would be good.

My first thinking though, is that you shouldn't start out with something as far out as an espionage economy. Learn to handle the basics first; cottages, trade routes, specialists, tec path etc. Try a hybrid economy where you try to settle 4-5 citys first, and work on city specialisation; one science city (Library and two scientists), one Commerce (cottages/TR), one hybrid (some cottages and some hammers) and one production. Try to expand from there, with war if little land, or more settlers if you have nice free spots. I use espionage mainly for taking down city defences and observation (what they tec etc). But there is certainly great players here who uses the espionage consept much more effectively.

The key is to adjust to the map, your leader and your neighbours, and here you can always learn more

 

[lymond]

yeah, espionage economy is absolutely NOT the way to learn this game, and its value/effectiveness decreases exponentially on lower difficulty levels.

post games/get advice...best thing I can tell you...other than paragraphs are your friend

WAAH!

 

[Neinet]

Attach a save of the game to a post when looking for advice. This will help people give more specific feedback.

It's probably best to not go for an espionage economy before really knowing what you are doing, as in almost all cases it is worse than a mixed economy which focuses on cottages and trade routes.

On a lower difficulty, the espionage economy is essentially useless. You said that you were the most advanced civilization by the time you discovered alphabet, which means your spies can't help your economy function by stealing technology. As this is mostly the point of going for espionage rather than research, you probably ended up reaching a standstill here.

You put 2 spies in all of Sumeria's cities. If he had 8 cities, this means that you built at least 16 spies. In other words, you spent at least 640 production on spies. This production could be better spent on practically anything. If you spent it on units for example, your army could be 7 catapults and 7 swordsmen bigger, most likely more than enough launch an attack.

You somehow earned over 4000 gold which you weren't using. If you also had universal suffrage, that's the equivalent of 20 musketmen. Rushing units is really inefficient, but you could have done a lot more than you did.

You also only got 6 "perfectly positioned" cities. Does this mean you founded all cities which had food, or does that mean that you could only just barely squeeze 6 cities into your land? If it's the latter, then you almost definitely didn't expand fast enough, and if it's the former, you may not have built enough cities with your land.

To summarize, you are making a lot of extremely inefficient decisions in allocating resources, such as building way too many spies. This is causing you to have trouble keeping up with other players, even those who do not have as many resources as you, because they are using their resources in a more efficient manner.


What I'm telling you is completely general feedback without going into any specifics, so I would recommend getting more specific feedback from posting a game from the beginning, taking it a few turns at a time, and learning from specific feedback from people. Do this in order to learn what is worth doing, and what is a waste of resources.

 

[ryokoryu]

My start was very efficient with food and fast expansion and after the great wall I put out settler axeman worker (I also started with the first worker as my first build) I chopped out the wall by 2700 bc roughly I also started with 3 civs right next door and on the replay I had 6 cities by the time they each had 2 or 3. the only reason I didn't expand more is the first city or 3 the other civs founded locked me in to the southern region with no good or even passable terrain left to use (cities that would be more of a cost then a benefit) such as lots of mountains or desert but each of my cities was close to my capital but had at least 2 food sources each as far as saves go I only save the game when I take a break and I know what he ad in terms of his army and his resources. I had 2 spies in each of my cities and 10 in his territory keeping tabs on everything he was doing and making sure that the few tiles he had to work with in terms of improvements were regularly sabotaged. I had vision in his cities just from EPs I knew what he had and what he produced and how fast. He was pumping out an army only he didn't send the 3 standing guard units of each city he produced 3 military units per turn only after he declaired war and with no gold and low pop how does this work. That is what I don't get he didn't have a huge standing army he was producing 3 units per turn out of each of his ciries including the ones with no workable hammers around them at all. That was 5 of his cities with only the center tile having a hammer. this is what is confusing me. how did this work.

 

[elitetroops]

He most certainly did not produce units at such a pace, unless you are playing with some weird mod that you forget to mention. He could whip one unit/turn in cities and then he probably had some stack somewhere that you didn't see earlier.

But seriously, forget about espionage economy. The whole point with espionage economy is to let you keep up in tech when you otherwise couldn't. This is not needed until you are playing at least immortal level. Usually not even then. Espionage economy can never really put you ahead in tech, because you cannot steal techs they don't have.

The question is, if you have gunpowder and he has archers and axes, why is he still alive? You could have taken all his cities a long time ago if you hadn't wasted so much resources on spies and espionage. But don't use muskets for warfare, they are useless as they can't get CR promotion. Maces come earlier, are cheaper, much better at taking cities and stronger than muskets vs melee units, which is what you mostly expect to be fighting. But on chieftain you shouldn't be waiting for maces. Axes or Horse Archers, or even chariots, can handle the first few neighbors easily.

 

[Ringo Kid]

Speed kills. Build horse archers, lots of horse archers. Because they get to the cities you want to attack quicker than the enemy can build defensive units. And generally you can build them faster than you lose them so your army is in his face, and keeps getting stronger and stronger from promotions.

 

[Erlend78]

Attach some saves. Start save, and at least one save from the war you describe

 

[ryokoryu]

Like I said I don't save unless I am stopping for a while and I tend to settle in to civ games for several hours at a time.

 

[Neinet]

I would recommend starting a new game and saving a lot if you're looking for advice on how to improve, or how to avoid being beaten. Without a hard record of your playing, it's almost impossible to give useful specific advice. You don't always have to play like this, but when you look for specific advice, it's essential for people to know precisely what you are doing.

 

[ryokoryu]

the main thing I want to know is how another civ can pop out 3 units per city per turn with no economy. no money and no population to whip.

 

[barbertje]

the main thing I want to know is how another civ can pop out 3 units per city per turn with no economy. no money and no population to whip.

They can't pop out more than 1 unit per city per turn. It would be interesting to load a autosave from a few turns back and use the worldbuilder to see what they really had. No doubt Gilgamesh already had a large stack running around somewhere.

 

[ryokoryu]

no I saw his entire territory and had vision in his cities with esp points and spies I kept a close eye on it as I was basically doing everything I could to keep him from becoming a threat I know what units he had and where they were and what resources he had. when he declared war he had 3 units in each city axemen and archers all. he declared war and the next turn three units came out of each city including a lot of catapults but he also had his 3 units in each city still. each turn stacks of three kept pouring out if his cities and it took him several waves of attacking to start winning. I have read that random events can screw you but is it really able to do this?

 

[throbbin]

he was probably drafting units with nationhood

can get 1-5 units per turn depending on map size

military civs can be kinda op sometimes

 

[ryokoryu]

he would not have had that tech yet, nor did he have the pop to do that.

 

[rah]

Until we see a save.......
We have to assume you weren't seeing everything since what you describe is not possible.

 

[Flipantropo]

From what I read my guess is, you neglected your military, he wouldnt ask for those sums of money unless his army was much more powerful than yours. I personally dont use spies much so I dont really know how good they are in a war, besides scouting. They strike me more like peacetime harass/utility units, tough I heard they can be used to take cities without siege by inciting revolts, but it seems you didnt have the army to use them offensively. So my conclusion would be, you got in a war you were not ready for, because your army was weak and you werent careful enough with your relations with other leaders (you obviously underestimated Gilgamesh´s military and production, tech advantage alone is not enough), and lost the war because you had too many spies and too few military units.

 

[elonin]

Hello,

I posted in another thread but the person who came over to help said he doesn't use specialist cities much. Since it has been brought up here I'll ask again. How do you figure out what to specialize in? Do you just keep notes of what you are specializing in for each city? Also, from play throughs I've watched on youtube there seems to be a formula similar to the one used in civ 3, but when I've tried to figure it out seems I get it wrong.

 

[rah]

Renaming the city will probably help. When you look on the map and see city GP FARM, it's easier to keep things straight. Choosing isn't that hard.
Rivers = commerce. Cap is usually you're commerce/research city unless the land sucked.
Hammers = military.
Food = GP Farm.