Working my way up

Something wrong with the uplaoding recently, the admin needs to fix that.


now to strategy...

The internet is a good late boost for science, something like 25% civwise, thats the best boost any single wonder can give you. sorry I coudn't built it, if I did I would trip domination as the research labs would quickly expand the borders.

The JS bach is giving you an equivalent of additional luxury which is good if you have below 4. If you have more then 5 it's much less important but maybe you needed it to crank science one notch. The problem is music theory is off the main path, better trade it if you really want bach.

Tank stacks can crash anything below infantry without arty support so it's no coincidence the arabs were crushed to oblivion, and you could use their own roads and rails against them. (shifting reinforcements in one turn and using the same tank to attack a city each turn).

Thats the way to win spacehip in regent so it's time for monarch or emperor.

Manufactring plant isn't so necessary for components unless you didn't have metros and even without them there are ways to prebuild the components.

A metro will have 20 worked tiles of which half produce shields and most of them produce 2 shields with rails. Couple of mines produce 8 shields alone so you will have on average 20 base shields, then add factory and power plant/hoover and you get 40 shield which construct the most expensive components in 15 turns without prebuild. You could turn the surplus citizens to engineers and get 12 more shields on average so it's 52 and 12 turns per super-components, I might use one plant per empire if I can get a 120 shield city to produce one armor per turn or to produce the components in a tight race.

Regarding ToE slingshot espionage is a waste on this level-you have tanks and they don't so no techs to steal and no reason to steal plans. It's high priority for AI research so you can trade it for something like the corporation. Espionage is also twice as cheap as electronics or mass production.
Usually you can research it in 4-6 turns.

It's also preferred to get replacable parts before ToE is built
Better to use the slingshot in the following ways:

1) Atomic theory+electronics and then build hoovers- for peaceful victories.
2) On the motorized transport/flight line, something like steel+combustion- for warmongering.

And be careful about flight if you base your research on super science city with the colossus, colossus would be destroyed, if you do use super science city with colossus research flight last unless you need it for war ASAP.

 

Regarding governments

As I see in the forums this is the quick summary of governments and their uses:

Despo- People here run away from it ASAP unless they want a pop rushing fast warmongering.

Monarchy- The preferred government for middle game warmongers with quick/half quick conquest as desired victory and always war as strategy. Also people fall back to it if republic war weariness spins out of control and they can't finish the war quickly or go communist.

Republic- The preferred government for builders and careful warmongers, great for spaceship indeed. Most people on the forum use only republic.

Feudalism- for special 100k culture strategy, otherwise useless.

Communism- for late warmongers with huge sprawling multi-continents empires, usually switched to from monarchy. Or republicans who want to switch mode of play to start reckless world wars.

Demo- As I read most find it useless, worse then republic in most aspects, benefits are small.

Fascism- Also rarely used, used only for warmongers in late game who didn't manage to expand enough to warrant communism.

If you aren't religious civ a second change is rarely a good idea unless you really must.
Used it only once when needed continue warring early so used monarchy, when finished all "wild" wars for good, changed to republic to regain the tech edge and stayed there.

 

Most of the veterans have kinda fallen into a specific method of playing, a system that combines the most commonly used strategies. With this, people learn about these strategies more and the cycle builds on itself... I personally know some specific strategies that I enjoy/know more, here's hoping I don't get roasted when I show my preferences

 

CFC is encountering issues with the upload right now. Whoops I see that has been mentioned.

 

The biggest problem with Demo is the cost to research it. It's an expensive tech all by itself, and it needs you to research two not-really-worth-it techs as well. Then you have to switch to it, and unless you're Religious, that *will* hurt. The benefits don't really outweight what you get from Republic, so it's not usually worth switching from that, and it typically plays very differently from Monarchy, so you have to plan ahead more.

Well, most of the vets have gotten into those strats because they've proven to work in better than other ones more often. Something else to think about is that a great many of the vets also play at higher levels - and by that I mean Deity-Sid. Things that you can do on Chieftain (almost anything) won't work at all on Deity, and things you do on Deity to survive would butcher a Warlord AI - if that strategy even works properly on Warlord. On higher levels, for example, Great Library can be a great tool (especially if you're isolated) because it can slingshot you into the Medieval Age (or later!) if you're far behind. On Warlord and Regent, GL simply isn't worth as much since any competent science research will outpace the AI.

 

Having high war weariness and losing the war is not always connected.

Yesterday I invaded another continent on monarch level, had almost an era of tech advantage but the opponent used huge (and outdated) army.
I took a city, fortified 5 mechs in with some tanks and tank armies. The enemy brought 150+ units- rifles,cavs,MDI,longbows,AC,archers and chasquis (everything goes, even saw a warrior) to attack the city. The tanks and arty inside destroyed "some" of the attackers but not enough, then they swarmed SWARMED, I ate dinner while they attacked, the city was saved on the last hp of the last mech but war weariness reached the maximum instantly, I had to subsist for 12 turns with 70% lux rate until the tide turned, then captured another city and sued for peace.

During the max war weariness it was terrible, Constantinopole had all 20 citizens unhappy depite having 3 more entertainers,4 luxes, market,temple, cathedral+sistine, 4 happy faces from previous 10% lux rate and thats for all cities except the fringe farms.
If I had communism I would switch, I just didn't want to give replacable parts for it just yet and hoped I would find an escape.

The best regards to the RNG gods, they deserve worship

 

A swarm? On Monarchy? What were the map settings?

 

Standard continents-80%, 5 AI.

The map was unbalanced severly, one mini-pangea with me and four AI.

One mini-continent with only the Incas, they weren't advanced as they had no trades and no way of disposing of excess units. The mini-continent was so isolated that a seafarng+Lighthouse ship would require two stops in the ocean.

The relative sizes were 4:1

They also didn't got horses but I foolishly handed them horses to gain their neutrality in my other wars, when I refused they declared, then they landed AC stack near my capital and in retribution I invaded with mini-SOD which wasn't enough to prevent the SWARM!

One of my mistakes was bringing 3 transports of arty, the situation could be better if I took my excess cavs instead.

I didn't lose much units to the swarm as an MDI attack on mech in city+civil defense is insane but war weariness increase for every enemy attack. They were in monarchy so they didn't care.

 

If you can get away with it you can use the TOE on two modern age techs, provided the AI does not look like getting it first

 

That's going to require a big tech lead. I always go the Atomic Theory/Electronics route to get Hoover Dam going - awesome wonder! I guess I'm a classicist - I go for Replaceable parts, then enable ToE and only then get started on the top tier techs while ToE is building. (I don't consider the Espionage top tier - more like ignored tier for me)