Would like some input into this Monarchy game (Zulu)

[Manitobajay]

Hey guys, new to posting on this site... been lurking through the strategies to help out my game.

I am running this game on my MAC.. i am not sure the compatibility issues.

I am in 1560 a.d. I am the great Zulu people.. I am surrounded by the Koreans, Portugal, and the Bzyanties ( didnt spell it right). Koreans do not have an iron supply, i am currently supplying them. As well as some luxuries, I have trade agreements with all three of these powers. I have a fair size of territory, but i am wayyyy behind in techs. My reputation is really good with most nations. I am back about 5 techs in the industrial era. My government is republic.

I will upload the .sav file

I am looking for some insight as in where to proceed from here. My victory conditions are Domination and Diplomatic.. and if i dont get my ass in gear soon i feel i will not get to fussion in time to build the UN.

thnx

 

[Raliuven]

I'll take a look at the save in a little while but my immediate thought is that being down five techs doesn't sound like much. You should be able to make up that in no time with some good trading. The AI usually researchs a lot of useless techs in the IA which should make it easy to catch up.

 

[vmxa]

It is usually better for all to do a manual save. The autosave is so much larger. Yours is close to 4MB.

I would seldom advise trading Iron to a civ near me as now he can put up rails and build some units that he cold not otherwise have done. You make some money, but it may cost you more later.

I also do not recommend trading 2 lux to anyone, unless it is critical. The AI will benefit too much from that. The AI will use jokers, rather than the slider to be happy. Now they do not have to do either. Learn to get by with less lux or take their lux from them.

1565AD or there about. You really should not be down techs at this point and should have more land.

 

[vmxa]

You made all these deals with Kon and he is annoyed with you. Is now making rails to better defend and thwart your attacks or counter attack you.

51 cities and 17 worker (plus 28 slaves). Going to make getting rails done slow going. 40 workers and 40 slaves would be a fair number. Giving you still have others all around, I would want to get those rails done quickly.

You have a lot of tiles with jungle and swamps, plus many with no improvement, not even a road. That should not happen at this point and this level. It is a function of a lack of workers, likely from the start.

Prior to getting rails you should have grouped up most of your workers to get task down in a single turn. IOW if a road is to get a rail, have as many workers/slaves as it takes to do it in a single turn. Working in ones and twos to cut jungle is not the best practice.

In fact cutting jungles in border towns, while better tiles are not improved is not a move I would endorse.

Understand that now that land is all spoken for, you can expect attacks. If not on you, them on others and units will be traipsing through your land. This mean you have to be prepare to defend and protect workers.

I dislike seeing all those tiles with trees at this stage. They would have been useful, if chopped for the 10 shields last age. Now they are not worth much and will slow down getting rails up and improve tiles.

Placement is worth noting, especially core towns. Hlobane 2 is placed next to a volcano and has all crap tiles. Had it been over one tile, it would have been more useful and safer. It is next to the capitol, so it should be a core town as it should have reduced corruption.

You are in Republic and yet have 114 units and only get 69 for free. I would either have fewer or use the ones I have to take some land. IOW having more troops than you should and not use is counterproductive.

First thing I would consider is to attack Ghandi. Nice addition to the empire and will be down quickly.

Bapedi has no troops and is a border town.

You have 4 settlers and did not fill in the open space by Bombay. Stick a town on the desert between it and New Delhi.

Given the fact that you have civs all around you, I would have for sure went from Steam to Elec to RP. Infantry are so much better than muskets, if you have rubber.

You should trade Industry to India as it will be worth nothing soon. Don't take any per turn gold.

RoP deals I am not fond of them, but there are times you could make a case for it. I submit that being surrounded is not that time. The AI will not have any compunction about do an RoP rape. Maybe 10 cavs are in your land and you cannot say boo.

I see 4 or 5 jokers all in places that do not need a joker. Put them to work or at least as beakerheads.

Only now doing the FP?

Zim: another cost of not having enough workers. You have a joker. If it was on the lake you would gain 2gpt and 4bpt. Better yet, if you had a mine in the irrigated grass, you could get more shields for that wonder or unit.

Why was that tile irrigated in the first place? You normally mine a grass tile, especially as you had plenty of food. I would have sold off the hand build granary (with or without a free one as you are at size 12).

Delhi: why make a temple here, make a wall or wealth or a worker.

I would look hard at places that are making a court. 40 or more turns is not my idea of the way to go. Why do I want to try to buff up a place that is so far from the core? Just turn it into a farm. Switch to a worker and then wealth. You have enough cannons. Once the borders pop, sell the temple.

Zim2: Why is it making a lib? It i size 1 and that pop is a beakerhead. The lib is a total waste.

Delphi: Well had you gotten to RP you could use a CE to speed the temple. Lacking that I would switch to worker and sell the harbor. Next turn make a beaker out of the last pop.

Mpondo: Making an Aqua and town has no growth at size 6? Lack of worker bites again. You can put the taxman on the trees to shave two turns of aqua. Then move that pop to a grass after it finishes.

Maybe use those settlers to fill in a few spaces. There are lots of dead tiles that will never be able to be used now with the placement you have. Many other tiles are idle, likely for the whole game as you would need a hospital and grow pass size 12.

I would go to all towns and look to sell off some structures and pop out a worker. Get more towns to city size for more support. Look to join in a war to gain land or start one as soon as you can get rails to the corners. Stop the grass cutters and get them doing more import things like rails or mones or irrigation.

Focus the cavs and cannons. Get defenders to the borders, especially the ones that will be at risk.

 

[Raliuven]

vmxa already did an in depth analysis, so I’m just going to give some broad thoughts. First you nation is rather spread out. While not impossible to defend with rails, I’d rather keep my nation more compact – that way you can concentrate your forces in one direction, thus making conquest easier. Rails are necessary for your current defenses so all corrupt cities should be producing workers, particularly since you have the pyramids.

I see that India is still alive with only 1 city? Why risk the flips? Did they give you something in a peace treaty that you really needed? Industrialization will get you Medicine, WM & 5gp from Gandhi. As industrialization is already known to everyone and a factory isn’t going to help Gandhi survive, might as well trade it so you don’t need to research it later.

Korea has a nice bank of gold. So they must be the tech leaders. vmxa mentioned this, but stop trading good stuff like iron and luxuries to the leader on the map.

You have every tech from the Middle Ages. I hope that this is because you trade the AI for this knowledge? There is no need to research: Printing Press, Democracy, Free Artistry, Navigation, Music Theory. I usually don’t research Chivalry either, but that’s a situational choice. I rarely bother to trade for these techs unless there is nothing better they can offer and I can turn around and sell it for something to make up the loss (other than Chivalry; Navigation and Music Theory might be okay too if the wonder is still available and I've got the capacity/need to build them).

Aside from your unimproved core (roads but no improvements and tiles being used without any improvement at all), I would stay away from clowns in general, though because there are so many unimproved tiles, you may have decided it was the lesser of two evils. Rule of thumb- if your core cities are working unimproved tiles (or partially improved tiles) you need more workers. A citizen working an unimproved grassland tile might as well not even exist. They give you nothing and require luxuries to keep happy. Also watch your MM. At monarchy you have a wide margin of error but you should still be checking every round in the beginning and regularly in the late game. If I am playing behind the AI then I MM every round.

You are pulling in positive gpt but your science is at 70%? Either push research to the max your treasury can allow or rely on the pointy stick. By jumping science to 90% and lux to 10% you still have +142gpt (mostly from your trades with Korea) and electricity due in 9t. I see you are building banks and universities. If you are going to dedicate yourself to research build universities, not banks. If you are not going to research yourself, build banks and forget universities (and libraries for that matter). One or the other. The only time I build both is if I can pull in techs every 4 turns without science set to 100% and usually only if I have the wonder Smiths. As a side note, no one is building ToE yet, so if you rush in that direction, even if you miss pulling SM first, you will probably get to AT. The AI will get lost researching communism, espionage and Fascism and Sanitation. If you can get SM or AT, you can probably get caught up in techs and keep the lead.

It looks like Portugal is preparing to attack. I would consider this a gift. Reduce lux to 0% and up science to 100%. Use your cannons to reduce their invading stacks which will be the bulk of their immediate strength and then clean up your exposed southern border. Personally I would start at Luanda and then roll to the south east so my units end up in at Faro. Once this is done you have only one warfront to worry about. Possible issue is if Portugal and Korea ally against you but you are giving a lot of good stuff to Korea, so that might discourage them. It might get touchy. I don’t now how much warring the AI has been doing, but if they’ve been fighting each other around the map then their SOD should not be too bad. And with 32 cannons you can reduce a lot of units, including the current SOD of LB, muskets & rifles by New Isandhlwana.

Your military advisor says you are weak vs. all your neighbors, so it may be tight for a while if they both attack. As Korea is ahead of Portugal and you are a good trade partner (for now), it might work okay.

**Edit**
Forgot to mention:

Korea=>Annoyed
Byzantines=>Polite
India=>Furious
Portugal=>Polite
Iroquois=>Polite
France=>Polite
Inca=>Cautious
England=>Annoyed

Diplomatic victory is still possible. India will need to go, of course. Rival will be Inca or Korea - probably Inca? Still got some work to do there to secure the vote, but looks doable. If Portugal attacks, they'll need to go too.

 

[Manitobajay]

Hey guys, thanks for your replies. I dont think i have the skillset yet to bring back this game to where it needs to be. I have beaten the game on regent with it being fairly easy. I thought i would bring it up one level. But not playing for awhile i am a bit rusty.

That being said,

-worker stacks are a weak spot (is there a thread where it tells you how many workers for one turn improvement?

-i have to be better at trading ! (bad trades+no trades early on hurt me )

-i should space out from my core cities to a CxxC spacing i believe, i just get caught up in grabbing more land space with a CxxxC spacing. and then not filling in.

-is it safe to assume i should stick with a path of either building banks/and sliding the research bar to 0% and buy my techs/trade? or libs/unv and 100% research?

i found an old save where i am the tech leader, 490 b.c and i am going to start to replay from there. Kinda see where i could have made trades better. I also got to republic first so i am going to switch to republic instead of monarchy.

i will post it.

You guys were dead on though, bad worker moves, some poor builds in border towns, and no more ROP's and trading 2 lux's and i am not going to supply korea all this time !! lol

 

[CommandoBob]

-worker stacks are a weak spot (is there a thread where it tells you how many workers for one turn improvement?

This is a comparison between worker turns in C3C (what you are playing) and a mod named CCM. Ignore, at least for now, the CCM side. The full post is here.

Worker Turns

These are turns for non-INDustrious civ workers; slaves take twice as long to do the same task.

EDIT:
This above image has been corrected because parts of it were wrong. Spoonwood discusses the error in later posts.

 

[vmxa]

Nice job Cbob. I can never remember the numbers.

 

[Raliuven]

The approach you take is a function of your victory condition (VC). The higher the difficulty of the game, the more focused your VC must be. In addition, if you are moving up to a new difficulty it is more important to focus on one VC. Once you have a handle on Monarchy you'll probably find you can waffle for a long time before 'deciding' how you are going to humiliate the AI.

The reason I bring this up is because Domination and Diplomatic are not 100% complimentary. I'm not saying you can't aim for both, but it is more difficult if you try. For simplicity, I would say pick one and aim for that.

It also depends on why you are playing - if you are trying to score high or with an impressive early finish you will take a different path than if you just want to cruise the game.

For example:

-i have to be better at trading ! (bad trades+no trades early on hurt me )

If you are going for domination it may be a good idea to restrict trading - you don't want the AI to advance fast so that your horsemen and swords are facing pikes and muskets by the time you are ready to attack.

If you are going for an early/quick diplo then you want to trade not only to increase your commerce (and research ability) but to make sure the AI keeps pace so they can give some assistance with a new tech every so often to trade.

-i should space out from my core cities to a CxxC spacing i believe, i just get caught up in grabbing more land space with a CxxxC spacing. and then not filling in.

Here I might get into a little trouble - I'd listen to vmxa for the best results. I tend to space my core a little wide if I am going for space or diplo - I also space wider at the easier difficulties. Tighter spacing for conquests/domination is common.

-is it safe to assume i should stick with a path of either building banks/and sliding the research bar to 0% and buy my techs/trade? or libs/unv and 100% research?

Although there are some min/max gambits in higher level games, I think this is fairly sound advice. Markets are always good for the luxury multiplier regardless of which path you take. Part of the decision will be based on your VC.

If you VC is domination, then you may want a slow tech pace and you'll bank the money to rush/upgrade units. You will 'tech' by pointy-stick - or the Great Library build/capture. And aim for an early finish. On the other hand, you may want to out tech your opponents so you have more powerful units, in which case libraries/universities could help. This likely won't be an early finish, however.

If your VC is space/diplomatic then you'll want to go libraries/universities for fast finish and you'll be researching the entire game.

Of course you could go for the Great Library - in this case you want to maximize income and plan your library/university builds for just prior to its expiration (assuming you plan to continue researching).

The key here is making sure you are getting your worth out of the building. If you are at 100% science for long periods, then the bank is costing you 1gpt (per bank) and you are receiving nothing for it. Likewise, if you are at 0% science for long periods then the libraries and universities are doing nothing but costing maintenance. The danger is that you build both and you sit at 50-70% research. You may get the use out of each building but you are 1) paying maintenance on all of them and 2) at higher levels, 50-70% research may/will not get you to techs first and won't give you enough money to make up for the loss of a monopoly tech.

As I noted, the exception is if I am already researching at 4 turns per tech and still have access capacity on the slider - then I build banks. I'll build more of them if I have Smiths because then there is no gpt cost. However, you then need to decide if the shields used to make the banks would not be better used as units. The answer to that may/will be different for domination than with diplo.

I also got to republic first so i am going to switch to republic instead of monarchy.

Without resurrecting the old monarchy vs republic debate, I think you'll find this to be a good choice. Also, in the game you previously posted I believe you were a republic? So did you go through anarchy twice? Once to go to Monarchy and then to Republic? If so, I would suggest you not do this. This is part of knowing your VC. Decide which government you will need and make one swap.

no more ROP's and trading 2 lux's and i am not going to supply Korea all this time !! lol

I fully agree - no more ROPs, at least until the turn before the UN vote.

Regarding luxury trades - these are okay if you are doing them from a position of strength or mutual (by which I mean you are getting the better deal) trades. I think you will find that, after you are comfortable with Monarchy, you will be gifting luxuries to the AI to help them keep up with tech research. But for now, make sure you are getting a good deal and not feeding the beast!

 

[Spoonwood]

Nice job Cbob. I can never remember the numbers.

You don't have to (I actually just figured this out the other day myself, though I have a feeling someone said something similar long ago). AFAIK, you can figure most of that out via the civilopedia for most things.

If you check the civilopedia under "Worker Actions" you'll see that for each worker action you have a number of "base turns" to complete. You need at least that many base turns of work to complete a job. You also have to factor in the movement cost for any terrain type, and worker speed (which usually will equal 100%). With that in mind you really only need to remember the following for workers before Replaceable Parts, and you can theoretically deduce the rest:

Slaves have a factor of 1 at 100% worker speed (I'd think they'd have a factor of .5 in Anarchy, 1.5 in Democracy, and 2 in Fascism).

Regular workers have a factor of 2 at 100% worker speed (1 anarchy, 3 in Democracy, 4 in Fascism).

Industrious workers have a factor of 3 at 100% worker speed (1.5, 4.5, and 6 respectively).

So, if you look at say mining it has a base turn number of 12. Thus, if you use only regular workers you need (12/2)=6 regular workers to complete the job, or if you use industrious workers you need (12/3)=4 industrious workers to complete the mine. Irrigation takes 8 base turns to complete. That means 8 slaves can do the job, or 4 regular workers. You could, also use 4 regular workers and 1 slave (if the slave irrigates before at least one of the regular workers) and waste a slaves turn. If you used only industrious workers for the job, you could use 3 industrious workers, but this wastes 1/3 of the industrious worker's turn. 2 industrious workers and 2 slaves gets the job done more precisely. These examples all assumes these jobs get done on cleared flatland.

So, how do you figure out the jobs for other types of terrain? What if, for example, you want to mine a mountain? Well flatland has a movement cost of 1. Accordingly, for non-flatland terrain you just multiply the number of base turns for a worker job by the movement cost for that terrain. The number you get tells you many "units of work" you need to complete a job. So, since the number of base turns for mining equals 12, you need (3*12)=36 units of work, so to speak, to complete a mine on a mountain. Thus, 18 regular workers or 12 industrious workers can complete the mine in a single turn. If you could irrigate a hill, you'd need 16 units of work to do the job, so 5 industrious workers and 1 slave could do it in a single turn. The movement costs in the civilopedia all come as correct.

Now, the civilopedia says that clearing forests has a base cost of 4 turns. Forests have a movement cost of 2. So, you need 8 units of work to completely clear a forest.

Jungles and marsh both get covered under clearing wetlands... or whatever it says exactly. Both require 16 base turns. Since marshes have a movement cost of 2, this means you need 32 units of work to completely clear a marsh square. Since jungles have a movement cost of 3, this means you need 48 units of work to completely clear a jungle square.

 

[Spoonwood]

This is a comparison between worker turns in C3C (what you are playing) and a mod named CCM. Ignore, at least for now, the CCM side. The full post is here.

Worker Turns

These are turns for non-INDustrious civ workers; slaves take twice as long to do the same task.

The information on irrigation is not correct. See my post above, and please play test this.

 

[CommandoBob]

I read your explanation; let me see if I understand it.

In a formula it would look like this:

( Base Number of Turns / Worker Factor ) X Movement Cost of the Terrain = Number of Turns to Modify Terrain

Base Number of Turns for an action comes from the Civopedia and looks like this for C3C:

• Airfield = 1
• Barricade = 16
• Build Colony = 1
• Clear Damage = 24
• Clear Forest = 4
• Clear Wetlands = 16
• Fortress = 16
• Irrigation = 8
• Mine = 12
• Outpost = 1
• Plant Forest = 18
• Radar Tower = 1
• Railroad = 12
• Road = 6

Worker Factor: Slaves = 1; Native, non-IND Workers = 2, Native IND Workers = 3


Movement Cost of Terrain, again from the Civilopedia

• Coast = 1
• Desert = 1
• Flood Plain = 1
• Forest = 2
• Fresh Water = 1
• Grassland = 1
• Grassland with Shield = 1
• Hills = 2
• Jungle = 3
• Marsh = 2
• Mountain = 3
• Ocean = 1
• Plains = 1
• River = 0
• Sea = 1
• Tundra = 1
• Volcano = 3

Thus, to chop a forest with Roman worker (COM and MIL):

( Base Number of Turns (4) / Worker Factor (2) ) X Movement Cost of the Terrain (2) = Number of Turns to Chop Forest

(4 / 2) x 2 = Number of Turns to Chop Forest
2 x 2 = Number of Turns to Chop Forest
4 = Number of Turns to Chop Forest

And all of this for one worker doing this action.

It is a bit cumbersome but it does explain the numbers. It has always frustrated me that some many tasks could be divided evenly by 3 (roading, mining, etc) but irrigating and draining marshes did not fit into that. Now I know why.

So, after Replaceable Parts, where does the equation change?

 

[Spoonwood]

CommandoBob et alia,

That looks correct, and I think you've understood things here. I will add one caveat in that this all presumes 100% worker speed. Edit: Replaceable Parts doesn't quite mean that you have twice the worker speed for all workers... it's NOT quite as the civilopedia says "workers work twice as fast".

Taking a look at a 1000 AD save of Denniz, a slave in Republic (100% worker speed, so a factor of 2 for a slave, and 4 for a native worker), takes 3 turns to road, 6 turns for a railroad/mine, 8 for a fortress, 4 to irrigate a flatland tile, and 9 to plant a forest. A native non-industrious worker takes 2 turns to road, 3 for a rail/mine, 4 for a fortress, 2 to irrigate and 5 to plant a forest.

In Democracy (I've used Denniz's save to quickly research Democracy and revolt) with RP, a slave takes 2 turns to build a road, 4 turns to rail/mine, 6 turns to make a fortress, 3 to irrigate and 6 to plant a forest. A slave post Replaceable Parts in Democracy has a factor of (1*(2*1.5))=3, and the above numbers match that factor. A native "regular" workers in Democracy with RP takes 1 turn for a road, 2 for a rail/mine, 3 for a fortress, 2 to irrigate, and 3 to plant a forest. Such a worker has a factor of (2*(2*1.5))=6, so those numbers match.

In Anarchy with Replaceable Parts, the number of turns need for these jobs matches those of pre Replaceable Parts numbers. Which makes sense, since (.5*2)=1.

In Fascism with RP, it takes a slave 2 turns for a road, 3 for a rail/mine, 4 for a fortress, 2 to irrigate, and 5 to plant a forest. Such a slave has a factor of (1*(2*2))=4. So, these numbers make sense. A regular worker takes 1 turn to road, 2 turns to rail/mine, 2 turns to build a fortress, 1 to irrigate, and 3 to plant a forest. Such a worker has a factor of (2*(2*2))=8. So, these numbers make sense.

There does exist a catch though! I remember someone once saying something like this actually. If you check EMan's 2050 save, you can see that a slave under an industrious tribe post Replaceable Parts takes 2 turns to build a road, 6 for a fortress, 4 for a mine/railroad, 3 to irrigate, and 6 for a forest. I got the same numbers when I checked Moonsinger's 88k game. So, a slave under an industrious tribe post RP looks to have a factor of 3 (at 100% worker speed). An industrious worker has a factor of 6 at 100% worker speed post RP.

 

[darski]

What am I missing?... my workers can irrigate in 4 worker turns on plains and grassland. (3 for industrious) what am I doing that changes the numbers?

 

[Spoonwood]

What am I missing?... my workers can irrigate in 4 worker turns on plains and grassland. (3 for industrious) what am I doing that changes the numbers?

You're not doing anything which changes the numbers. Bob's numbers for irrigation are not correct.

 

[CommandoBob]

You're not doing anything which changes the numbers. Bob's numbers for irrigation are not correct.

The numbers are now corrected. This will cause some confusion since I updated the image with the correct information, but I will edit that post to explian what has happened.

 

[CommandoBob]

This subject would be a good strategy article. It doesn't help play the game any better, but it does explain how the game arrives at the number of turns to do a task. For a long time I thought they were just hard coded into the game, like the maximum number of cites.

In the BIQ
I looked at the Conquest biq file and the CCM biq file, too, in order to check my numbers before I made the changes to the spreadsheet image. Below is the main data for Desert terrain in CCM.

Desert Terrain in CCM BIQ File

Spoiler :

Notice that in biq there are two places called Movement Cost, highlighted in the above image. The one in blue has to do with workers and terrain modifications; the one in pink relates to normal unit movement.

Why they are seperated, yet named the same thing, only Firaxis ever knew (maybe). I'm still trying to puzzle out why it is referred to as 'Movement Cost'. That just brings to mind how many tiles they can move into. 'Worker Effectiveness', 'Worker Gung-Ho' or 'Worker Oorah' would make sense and be a better label.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

I never cared for charts to memorize or refer to during a game, a bit too calculated for me. I go with the simple rule of number of workers to build road on flatland in one turn then multiply it 2, 3 or 4 times depending on what you are doing. In PTW ancient age, if my memory servers me right, irrigation is the same as roading flatland, while mining flatland, roading hills and forest are 2X, roading mountains is 3X. I always do all my tasks in one turn if at all possible. I believe this is off by a 1/2 a worker turn in some circumstances, I don't worry about, keeping a eye out for a simple adjustment to my method for that 1/2 worker adjustment, anybody got one?

 

[Spoonwood]

I never cared for charts to memorize or refer to during a game, a bit too calculated for me. I go with the simple rule of number of workers to build road on flatland in one turn then multiply it 2, 3 or 4 times depending on what you are doing. In PTW ancient age, if my memory servers me right, irrigation is the same as roading flatland, while mining flatland, roading hills and forest are 2X, roading mountains is 3X. I always do all my tasks in one turn if at all possible. I believe this is off by a 1/2 a worker turn in some circumstances, I don't worry about, keeping a eye out for a simple adjustment to my method for that 1/2 worker adjustment, anybody got one?

If you road flatland in a single turn, you lose worker turns in movement onto the flatland square.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Yes and if you use one worker it is going to take you however many turns to completion before you can get to the next tile!