Where did I go wrong? C3C Deity

In my first serious attempt at C3C Deity (Sumeria, small, 70% archipelago, America, Mongols, Zulu as rivals) going for domination, I thought I did a nice job in the expansion phase, claiming a couple of larger islands and a taking the vast majority of a large continent. I even had the luck of hitting Currency first, getting a SGL that I used on Sun-Tzu's Art of War so that I could build veteran units.

I managed science pretty well, hitting techs the AI's were not likely to get. Free tech (Feudalism) helped a bunch, as I was able to trade for Monotheism, etc. Hit Theology first and traded for lots of techs, hit banking first and parlayed it into a bunch as well. Was using many, many scientists as specialists to speed up research, and built library after library in my golden age (triggered by building a wonder, I believe). Finally got astronomy and was able to trade extra iron source to Mongols for Physics.

Then I picked Printing Press (10 turns on 90% science), got it first, but the AI had blown by me in tech. Got a couple of good techs, but that was it ... I was about 3 techs behind. I still was creating a big army for an invasion of the Zulu after they started a war against me, but then they showed up with Cavalry on an island, I recognized they had hooked up saltpeter (and would have scads of musketman). Then realized that America already had Nationalism (even though it had no saltpeter), and I figured I was cooked.

Anyway, here are a couple of .sav files. I'd appreciate some criticism from some of the Sid/Deity players on where I went wrong in this game.

 

You talk a lot about what you get from techs you hit first, but you should also consider the tougher way of techs trading: buying one at a higher price from an AI that has a monopoly/bipoly on it, so that it has a high value, and trading it for a bunch of other techs that everyone has, which will be less expensive. The more the AI's the easier it will be to get that kind of deal; Once I was up against 31 AI's and my buying a single monopoly tech (chemistry) got me Astronomy, banking, Economics, Navigation; and then with economics and navigation I got physics and Metallurgy.

31 is a lot of civs, so it was easy trading along, but you get the point: trading techs around is an efficient way of keeping up pace with techs. As Sumeria, you should consider buying yourself IA at all cost and drive the AI's bankrupt from buying your freebie tech - so you can speed up your own research and hopefully keep the pace up afterwards.

Early in the game, you can also take advantage of contacts in that matter: a tech's price is lowered by every civ that the buyer knows, not the seller.

 

Well, this is mid-game. And I didn't have enough cash or GPT to buy any of the techs. All 3 other civs had all the techs I was behind...yet I still couldn't afford them. Since this was Deity level, the AI trade bonuses meant that they would trade the techs as soon as they had them...I could never buy a monopoly tech and then trade it to the two others ...they always already had them.

 

The AI trade bonuses is exactly what killed you, I think. This has happened to me on emperor before, and it took me a while to figure out why. Up until Astronomy, the AI players did not know each other. And then, once they started making those contacts, you lost your importance as the tech broker and they traded around(and without) you.

At least, that's what seems to have happened from your post.

What to do about? Eh, got me.

 

Never tried with 31 civs, that must be a real pain. One thing for sure at Deity and Sid, you must trade any tech you get asap, especially after all civs are in contact. If you try to hold it, it will soon be worthless. I would often even gift it, if they have nothing.

It won't be worth anything in my pocket. At sid I find after the GL goes out, that it is not worth researching at all and just steal. Yes I know if you want to be peaceful, it is possible to do research, but not my style.

At deity on std maps, you can still try for a tech that is normally not one the AI goes for. If you get a mononoly or a near one, you can get back up to par with smart trades.

Were you able to get them into wars with each to slow down the pace? Sorry I was down all day and did not get a chance to look at the saves. Video card is getting flaking and I had a 6 hr music lib copy going.

 

In a Deity game at the end of the Middle Ages and you are only three techs behind? Way to go, you haven't gone wrong yet. You just hit the wall of Late Middle/Early Industrial technology costs.

To overcome that you need to get the commerce flowing. Coastal cities that have reasonable corruption numbers and libraries need harbors for growth and cash flow to buy new books for the beaker heads.

Now that war plans are on hold you can redistribute your military for MP duty so you can lower your entertainment budget.

It's probably a little late for this (and you know it already) but revolting to Republic will help build cash faster.

Simply put you need to manage for commerce so you can pay for technology.

And you can acquire technology by research, trade or theft. Theft is by far the cheapest as long as you can face the risks of war. Next is trade but that risks feeding money into the AI research budget. Most expensive choice is research but if your commerce is good and you have the infrastructure that is often the best choice.

 

A few problems that I saw.

- specialists in the core cities!

- the FP location. I guess you didn't know about the change to FP in Conquest.

- wrong choice of government. Feudalism?!

- some questionable city locations. No coastal access, too much overlap.

- made the wrong choice when it came to wonders. Didn't need the GL. Didn't need Sun Tzu's. Given the lack of lux, Sistine would have made the most sense for a peaceful builder game. If the Lighthouse could allow you to trade for those 3 extra lux on the world market, then that was actually the most valuable wonder in the game. Also, you should have gotten the SoZ sooner, should have built the FP sooner.

- wrong expansion priority. The only valuable over-seas holding is the iron city. All other over-seas cities are too corrupt to contribute during peace, and too costly to defend during war.

- number of units is exactly 1 under unit support limit. Assuming that you did this on purpose... it is an extremely bad habit. Wining the war is way more important than a few gold. If you win the war, then the unit support problem will take care of itself, the science problem will take care of itself.

- city size, at 740 AD, all cities are still size 4 to 8. This is a more complicated problem than at first glance, because it appears you made the conscious decision to go with tight spacing. Well, on a pangea map, what you did here would have been the winning move. With monopoly on Ivory and a free Sun Tzu, you could have won the game with Knights. Unfortunately, we’re stuck on an island. Logistics do not allow for early conquest wins, therefore, size-12 cities are probably the best choice on this map.

 

I chose a non-core city that had shield possibilities. There is no real advantage to distance corruption reduction in C3C, but you do want the FP in a city that wouldn't be productive otherwise - I built with a MGL.

Where would you have put the FP?

To whip units/libraries/etc. I'd be in Republic if the Military costs weren't prohibitive - wouldn't get any research done.

What's the benefit of coastal access with a non-seafaring civ? Harbors? As for overlap, I was essentially going with a modified ICS city planning structure to maximize the number of uncorrupted city center squares.

Lighthouse is a good concept. Should have thought of that one. As for Sun Tzu's, I had a SGL, and I like the free building aspect of Sun Tzu. SoZ was late, but wonder building is generally too much of a waste. It was cheap at the time, and the free units were worth it.

I didn't build the GL. That got switched to KT, as you see in the 740 AD .sav.

If domination is a priority, don't I want to get that land? AI aggressiveness was low, so they generally won't attack the outlying cities w/o luxes or resources.

Not on purpose, was ramping up military at the time.

The time for knights in this game was brutally short - I was surprised at how fast the game went from Chivalry - Nationalism. The AI research in the middle ages shocked me.

My cities were too small, although that is a function of the (few) tiles they had to work. In addition, having only the Ivory lux available to me really hurt. I wasn't able to do much with the extra iron resource as well. Wish I would have picked on America sooner (no saltpeter) before they had riflemen. I could have pointy-sticked my research through the middle ages.

 

This all sounds as if you're trying several things at once.
Lots of small cities + Feudalism = good unit support, good for a base research (with a SCI Civ only), good for cheap units.
But then, you should have gone to war with MDI + Trebs + Pikes, plus a few Knights for Armies.
With such a city layout, though, you cannot keep up with the later tech costs, and you cannot come by with the shields for Cavs.

Well, you're trying to research. How many 2pt tiles do you have eslewhere?

The FP: The C3C FP very well works for distance corruption. It's the rank corruption where it has no effect. So of course, the FP doesn't help when the surrounding cities have rank 20+.
That's why it is best build in a good spot somewhere in the 2nd to 3rd 'ring'.

Having only one luxury isn't that problematic in Republic - if your cities have lots of commerce, and aren't too corrupt. If a city makes 10 uncorrupted commerce, every 10% lux will give you one happy face.

 

I would have built it in that none-coastal-cow-bg-first-ring city SE of the capital (forgot its name).

In C3C, the FP does 2 things:
- it increases OCN by 25%. Because of this, you want the FP built as soon as possible, and that usually means building it close to the capital.
- it acts as a 2nd palace in terms of distance-based corruption. This means that it does benefit the cities around it, provided that the cities around it don't have so much rank-based corruption that over shadows the FP benefit.

On smaller maps, I’d built it in a first ring city. On larger maps, I usually go to 1.5 to 2nd ring. Also, build them in the direction that benefits most cities.

It’s an interesting idea, taking advantage of Sun T’zu by whipping units in corrupt cities. A better fit if you want to attack with MDI, LB and treb, because those knights are going to take 30 turns to whip.

On an island map though, you might want to try Republic with a light army of mobile troops. Build very few defensive. Use a stack to shadow enemy boat movement on defense, and use a concentrated stack to attack one city at a time on offense.

The advantage of coastal access is money and food. Costal tiles are some of the best commerce tiles in the game, though without coastal access and the harbor, they produce only 1 food, so you can’t work them. Lack of coastal access may cost only a few gold per city, but if many of your cities do not take advantage of the coast, they do add up.

ICS is fine in a lot of situations, but it is not the best when the game lasts into the Industrial Ages, like island maps tend to.

Value of wonders change according to map settings and game situation. Those benefit-per-city wonders are more powerful on larger and pangea maps, and the benefit-one-city-only wonder are more powerful on smaller and island maps. The benefit that Sun T’zu provided you in this game is about as weak as Sun T’zu gets.

You didn’t get the GL, but you were still building it in 170BC, when you were only 2 techs from Education. In the world of could-have/should-haves, you could have switched it to the SoZ years ago, and owned the ancient era battle field.

Because those islands don’t help you in the process towards domination at all. They are all to corrupt for that. Acquiring them has associated costs: those early boats and settlers, those military units that are stationed there. Those are resources that are better spent elsewhere.

Those island cities are easier to attack than to defend, that goes for both you and the AI. Those cities are also too corrupt to help in any war effort, that also goes for both you and the AI. They’re there for taking, whether you chose to attack in the Industrial Age, in the Middle Age, or settling them from the beginning. The difference is, the earlier you get them, the more resources you have to spend defending them. I’d chose to take them last, and focus in the mean time on things that actually help me or hurt the enemy.

If they remain at peace, tech pace will be fast. War between AIs is necessary to slow them down.

I think happiness is the biggest problem, those specialists are so evil. They help you achieve higher science rate in the short term, but really hurt you in the long term. You did well in the early middle ages, but now the “long term” has come back to bit you.

There are things that you could do right now to make things better, like making better use of MPs, and switching some of the entertainers into scientists.

You could research Metallurgy in 4 turns by running deficits, though I would recommend founding those embassies first, because if you get the AIs to attack each other, some luxuries will free up, and it’s definitely time to pick on America

 

10 turns, or a chop.Whip sequence is Pike/Duct/Knight.
Costs 3 pop, but can be done in a size 4 town.
Better don't ask for happiness, of course...

 

I was thinking of 30 turns to grow back to size 4 then double whip. Well, it’s a slightly more sustainable form of whipping than the 10 turns and triple whip variety.

 

Doc, can you give me the MM on that whip sequence? I don't whip much - this Deity game pretty much forced me into it - and I'd like to understand it better.

I do think Sun Tzu's is the right choice here for the SGL.

Do you think this game can be rescued as of 740 AD? America still is building its first rifle in Washington, those outlying cities are probably not going to have a rifle for 10-15 turns? Can I redirect troops meant for Zululand to America in time to reduce it/claim all good techs, then stomp Zulus/Mongols?

The real bummer is that I hit Philo first, but didn't have the Republic slingshot available b/c no CoL. I was extremely pleased/surprised to hit the MA as soon as I did and to actually get in front by 2 techs, including a middle age tech.

I feel like my logistics/army building skills failed me, and it took me too long to figure out which way I wanted to go. that 27 gpt deal I made with America was bad in retrospect - I should have been kicking Abe's ass instead of taking his money. In my experience playing against these civs, the Mongols and Zulus will always lag. Given that they are on the same continent, I could have had them kicking each other's ass while I wailed on America.

Damn hindsight.

 

I think I figured it out - it's a partial rush in stages, right. Get ten shields, whip a pikeman (getting you to 30 shields), change to aqueduct, whip it (getting you to the next level), then change to knight and whip it. Three whips in sequence. Really pissed off population. But a veteran knight. Looks like I could have a fairly decent knight military (12 or so knights) in the next few turns.

 

It is the right choice, if it was the only choice and it probably was. You were unlikely to get a tech with a wonder in time to rush it and you can't get any use out of the Science age.

As was mentioned, contiental wonders are crap in archipelago maps, unless you land on a very large island. Unit yielding wonders are better, such as SoZ or KT.

The problem with the Glib on demi is it wil not last long enough to make it worthwhile, unless you can really slow down the tech pace. That will be hard to as no one has much in the way of contacts that early.

To use GL I would beeline for it and have a prebuild. Now it comes online soon after I get Lit. I stop researching pile up cash and get the most out of it can. IOW I have the GL before anyone is close to getting into the middle ages.

Good luck on that come back.