Where do I go from here?

[Sultan Bhargash]

Monarch level, Spain.

Early good expansion (thanks to Sirp for advice on that) quickly secured for me the most land and my score has ranked above the other nations since early Medeival times.

There were a few short wars but I feel I have reached the size I want my nation to be- in other words, I don't plan on being aggressed and I don't suppose I am going to be attacked.

I am behind in tech and can't seem to catch up. I am always buying tech. Got scooped on the Theory of Evolution and Hoover Dam.

Can I win the game without war? I'm hated diplomatically, I'm behind on tech for a space race, culture growth is slower than either of those victory options.

I'm bored with this one, but would like to finish through as I haven't had a lot of monarch wins. I play every day long enough to get the next tech.

Here's the file if you want a peep:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/The_Monarch_Francesco.SAV

 

[farting bob]

difficult one............ depending on size of other civs, you might have to try to either get domintion or conquest if there arent many civs left.
or you might have to go for diplomacy. i mean, a win is a win isnt it?

 

[Shillen]

Well I looked at your save because I was curious why you were behind in tech. Usually by that point in the game I don't have trouble with tech. Anyway, I only noticed three things that could be the problem. First your palace and forbidden palace are right next to each other, and the forbidden palace is on the coast. You really only have one ring of productive cities and the forbidden palace is hardly helping in the position it's in. It's ok to build the forbidden palace right next to your palace, but you should have built it on the other side, closer to the rest of your cities.

Another thing is tile improvements. The majority of your tiles are completely unimproved, not even roads for commerce. Now you have plenty of workers so I'm kind of befuddled as to why it's so unimproved. I did notice all your workers were stacked in groups of 2-10 all working the same tile. This is very inefficient use. Like with 8 workers you can clear a jungle tile in one turn, then move to the next tile (2 turns). So you can clear 4 jungle tiles in 8 turns. While if you split all the workers up and had them each clear their own jungle tile then you'd clear 8 tiles in 8 turns, twice as many.

Also you have a lot of units. 146 units with 31 cities, which is 4.5 units per city. This is costing you quite a bit of income and making it hard to move your science slider up very high. Lots of your units are outdated like spearmen and swordsmen. You might think about disbanding them.

Now I've never played with accelerated production on before so maybe it's harder to keep up in techs with it on I don't know.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

Thanks for the serious critique Shillen.

Yes, I unfortunately decided to build the Forbidden palace in a city that had just been beaten to the Colussus by a turn or two. I've just moved the palace further along to the west than it was (in Madrid). I'll try to move it again at some point to exploit further west or north.

Will get roads and railroads everywhere in time.

Will disband obsolete central area units.

Should I consider communism?

 

[Shillen]

I wouldn't go with communism. You don't have any really far-flung cities and you need the commerce bonus democracy gives. Basically spread your workers out and get roads everywhere, especially on tiles that are being worked. Optimally I'd move the Palace NE to Valladolid or Valencia, but it probably isn't worth it without a great leader.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

Thanks again Shillen. I'll let you know how this one turns out.

 

[amirsan]

I would have a library in every one of your cities (and even universities) and very slowly your tech rate will go up (and even your culture), after that your capitol money will go up and you will have a powerfull Democracy. This may take a while but in the long run you will maybe be able to go for spacerace, other than that you will have to go aggresive.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

I've killed off or upgraded the old units.

I have universities everywhere its feasible for now, they are always on a priority.

I'm basically set with hospitals and stock markets now in the core, soon I will have tank technology and I just might be emboldened to try them out...

 

[greynite1]

My first question to you is this

How Behind on Tech Are you??

What kind of Military Units do you have??

How is your infrastructure?? can you weather and invasion
with the help of terrain.



My observations:

if they scooped Hoover Damn and Theory of Evolution from you then you are VERY!! behind and the only way I can see to gain an effective win would be through domination. Your best bet is to run for Replaceable Parts so you have a flexible unit you can attack and Defend with. How close are the other Civs to Getting Tanks if they get them then your in trouble. on Your continent make sure YOU not any of the other AI civs control Oil and Rubber these are KEY for building Tanks and Battleships Then you need to build up a navy quickly to keep other civs from across the Ocean getting to you. This is perhaps more important. If you control the Sea you can very much cotnrol a War. Don't!! Skip Flight. Having Bombers and Fighters is very very much in your favor the AI usually won't go for those right away cause it is not a required advance to finish the industrial age. Bombing runs are VERY effective in blunting incoming attack forces. Be mindful this is just for Defense but can be just as effective on Offense.

I love going the culture route myself but have had more then one occasion when an AI would declare war on me because they thought they could take me or I wouldn't pay tribute. So you have to be very aware of your defensive capability. You should never have anything less then 2 Defensive and 1 Offensive unit in your cities unless there is no direct danger to your cities being attacked. Culture is important also in giving you extra points during negotiations. So make sure you have every single culture building improvement in all your cities check the civilopedia to see which improvements would be best. Usually its Temple, Cathedral, Library, Courthouse, Police Station, University. Of course this order depends on your style and your immediate needs you probably are gonna want more Libraries, Universities and Research Labs to speed up your Research efforts. Good luck

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

Thanks Grey Night. At the moment I'm only 1 tech behind/sideways from the AI comptetition. I'm gunning for tanks, and the good news is my biggest, nearest land neighbor (Celts) don't have rubber and are buying their iron from me. So the potential to roll over them when the time comes is there.

As far as defense, I'm massed around my borders, but I've decided to go with one defender for the interior cities. In the time before tanks, I'm pumping out infantry and artillery and shoring up the borders.

I have hope that following everyone's suggestions here I may yet get ahead on tech. Failing that, I'll use tanks against the riflemen and cavalry of the Celts to double my size and see what happens. Although for some reason I just don't feel like going to war; have had very few in this game and am sort of proud of it after the last 40 games of warmongering on Regent level...

 

[Sirp]

Sultan: I looked at your save, and I concur that your biggest problem by a *long* way is lack of worker development. You still have tiles around the capital that are being worked on and yet are unimproved!

That's just something that should not happen that late in the game. It's hurting your production badly. I'm not sure why your land is so underdeveloped though, since you've got plenty of workers.

I can't make many more sophisticated comments, since you're playing with Accelerated Production, a game option which I shun and lament the introduction of.

-Sirp.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

Well, sorry for the accelerated production. I never play without it anymore as I consider the old build speeds to be snore-iffic!

What happened with the workers? Well I kept expanding, and building roads to the farflung cities. To those of you not familiar with accelerated production, that is perhaps why it looks puzzling. I'm not an industrious civ so it takes time to build roads and meanwhile the development of cities/units goes at double speed.

My worker tasking is usually Ancient age- 1)connect all cities and resources and luxuries with a road network, Medieval- 2)complete the grid of roads and mines around the capital and major building cities, irrigate out to dry cities, Industrial- 3)build railroads everywhere, Modern- 4)finish the board off, clear jungle, fight pollution.

As Shillen noted, I have a tendency to clump workers together in gangs rather than spread them out. I have a bad habit of wanting to see the task I set finished the turn I set it...

 

[Gothmog]

Clumping workers can be a good move, but do it in the proper ratios (e.g. if it takes 8 worker turns to clear a jungle use 8,4, or 2 workers - never 3 or god forbid 7). In fact completing a task in one turn is often optimal, then you can use that improvement before moving onto the next one. If you are at a point where you are not immediately using the improved land then spreading out workers is more efficient as Shillen states.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

I am building up tanks now. The Celts don't have rubber and so when I am strong enough (and can get backup from Russia in case of alliance trouble) I may decide to go in and double my size. I just hate the implications...

The Persians are so far ahead of me that they've finished the SETI project while I am still researching Flight (and they keep trying to sabotage my production and spy on me).

Then again, I could just retire and "win" by histograph...

 

[Sirp]

I think the game is already fast enough paced as it is without AP. It's pretty hard to fit in a good ancient age war before the game moves into the middle ages. I'd imagine it'd be almost impossible under AP - you'd build a horseman and he'd be elite about 3 turns after he was built. That's just my 2c, but *shrug* play under whatever is fun for you

And, building roads to far flung colonies is good, but internal development is much more important. Perhaps you need even more workers than you have.

-Sirp.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

Well I have a couple of tundra cities popping out workers as fast as they can, and could add more though I think its okay as it is...

As for double production, it can make the time fly by, but it doesn't hamper ancient warfare in the right conditions- in fact, it means you have some units to bring to the war, cause you aren't waiting 8 turns for each archer to pop out...

 

[china444]

I looked at your save. Madrid is shield rich yet it has less improved land around it then it could. I think you should cut out War w/ the celts and build TONS of roads so you can get out of your BIG money troubles and raise your science. For the victories, you look sort of screwed. Military victory will be hard, Germany has a HUGE army ! But I think you can win a Histographic victory. Not the most glamourous victory, but a win is a win!

Nice game BTW.
( im glad you layed off OT and started to pick up civ. Good to see you Sultan!)

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

Thanks Uncle Pennybags- as my first non-reloading Monarch success, I'm proud of this one...

But as for histographic, how do I get that without having my opponents spaceship or UN me to death? Just retire before that happens?

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

AAARGGHHH!!! The game just ended with a humiliating defeat for me. Persia built the UN and everyone but me voted for Jerxes to be world leader.

Could this game have been saved? And at what point was it too late?

Should I keep playing in that universe after the finish of the scoring, just to see what goes on in modern times at monarch level? Or have I done enough damage?

For anyone curious enough to look at where I was at just before Kofi Annan and Co. took me out...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Justabouthadit_910_AD.SAV

 

[greynite1]

I'm just reiterating what many of these other fine players have to say. Land Optimization is absolutely CRUCIAL!! It needs to be Done EARLY and often. It can be very hard when your empire is still growing and you are expanding and you need every available Pop Point for Settlers but trust me you want that extra worker. If Culture is your goal and Especially Wonders you must Work your ass off to Optimize and Road All the Squares around your Capital First because your early worker teams might not have the time to come back later when they are connecting and optimizing 8+ cities.

you might even want to designate two produced (Not captured) workers to your captial to improve every single tiles that will be worked.

Yes had a chance to try Accelerated production and YUCK!! Don't like it no time to plan things properly and my timing for getting wonders and improvements is shot to hell. I agree get rid of that setting perhaps good only for Multiplayer. I can see that this setting is horrible for anybody taking a builders strategy.