Emperor games C3C: how to improve your skills

[nbarclay]

Sumeria's Enkidu Warriors put up a good fight, but the combination of ancient cavalry and swordsmen (with occasional help from horsemen) proved too much for them. Cities fell, the Pyramids and Hanging Gardens changed hands, two ancient cavalry armies rose in battle, and one of them was defeated by Gilgamesh's greatest warriors. Eventually, it took a total expulsion of Sumeria from the continent for Gilgamesh to make peace on terms acceptable to the outraged Dutch (the most important of which was the surrender of the secrets of Feudalism). Unfortunately, by that point, war weariness for the Dutch had become so terrible as to require pushing the luxury slider up to 50%, which cut into native research.

Dutch armies then went on to rout Portugal very easily (and indeed were doing so even as a smaller force dealt with the Sumerians in the icy west). Once the Portuguese were expelled from the continent, they agreed to give back Middleburg, the silk city they had taken early in the war.

When the war ended in 440 AD, the Dutch found themselves about four turns away from completing their research in Navigation. Contact had been made with the entire world, and the second-place Byzantines were behind by two techs: Education and Astronomy. But with the handicap of war weariness removed, the Dutch would once again become the world's undisputed technological innovators.

Interestingly, by the end of the war, even in spite of the considerable military built to fight it, unit support costs were actually lower than they would have been prior to C3C. The Dutch had 69 units (including 18 workers), but had sufficient cities to support 49 of them for free.

The Dutch also had a third leader from the war. In the screenshot below, Lagash is one turn away from completing a library. Once that is finished, it will become the new Dutch capital.

With the Sumerians defeated and exiled, Amsterdam is the most culturally advanced city in the world, Groningen is second, and The Hague is fifth. Dutch culture is the equal of its nearest three rivals combined in spite of a little over four centuries of warfare.

[nbarclay]

I've played about halfway through the industrial era, but since this is about as far as others have posted, I'll leave off here for now.

[Jeem]

This one shows how a game can go to crap in a single turn...


Move settler NW, start researching Burial with science at 90%.

3350 BC - Start researching Writing. Goody hut opens up barbarians (what a surprise!)

2900 BC - Rotterdam founded. 2850 - Rotterdam ransacked by barbarians. 2630 - Rotterdam ransacked by barbarians after goody hut opens up yet more of them.

2550 BC - First building (temple) built. 2nd Settler started.

2310 BC - Meet Sumerians.

2190 BC - The Hague founded.

2110 BC - Writing researched, 17 turns to Philosophy.

2030 BC - Meet the Portugese. Swap my Writing for their Mysticism, Bronze Working, Warrior Code and 40 gold! Swap my Writing for Iron Working and 3 gold with the Sumerians.

1910 BC - Utrecht founded.

1650 BC - Gronigen founded.

1625 BC - Philosophy researched, get Literature for free.

1475 BC - Wheel researched.

1325 BC- Horseback riding researched.

1275 BC - Declare war on Sumerians.

1225 BC - Lagash captured.

1125 BC - Eindhoven founded.

1050 BC - Bad Tibera destroyed. Make peace with Sumerians for two of their cities.

950 BC - Arnhem founded.

825 BC - Maastricht founded.

800 BC - Haarlem founded.

775 BC - SUMER BUILDS ZEUS AND MAUSOLEUM SAME TURN AT UR! This has GOT to be a bug.

630 BC - Game goes to crap when my troops fail miserably at Ur. One of the Enkido Warriors becomes a great leader, and Zeus is spitting out Ancient Cavalry like nobodies business.

570 BC - Umma captured by the Sumerians. I sue for peace (costs me Literature). Ancient Cavalry are completely broken and already I'm frustrated by the bizarre bad luck in combat (3 Swordmen and 4 Archers should definitely have killed more than one Enkido Warrior at Ur).

[Jeem]

btw - how do I take/post a screenshot?

[David Murray]

Press the key with 'PrtSc' on it, then open up Microsoft Paint, click edit, then click paste.

It's funny how this game turned differently for all of us. I am now approaching the industrial age (incredibly late by Emperor standards, it's almost 1600AD!), having taking my continent, settled a couple of other lands and made contact with all the other civs. Rome is the biggest competitor and I've just declared war to take saltpetre from them. This might have been a mistake because I've been playing hardcore builder throughout the middle ages, managing to build several of the wonders including: Sistine, Copernicus, Adam Smith, Newton.

It's looking like I'll get a chance to build lots of the new and improved marines and finish the Romans off much later on. Hoping to finish the game soon.

[Dominae]

Mountain Sage, did you put Amsterdam on a Cattle tile?!

[vmxa1]

Jeem that is very strange. Two wonder in the same city on the same turn?

I would suggest you set the screen shot to jpeg at 800 res. Use the browse button to locate the file to post.

[Jeem]

Sorry, my bad.

Ur built Zeus and Sumer build the Mausoleum same turn. Ur also built the Oracle a few turns before Zeus (1125, 725). The screen centered on Ur because I can't actually see Sumer in my game. The fact that I was less than 10 turns from both wonders just adds to the annoyance factor.

Regardless, my game went to crap when my 7 units couldn't even kill 2 Enkido warriors when I rushed Ur.

I also still can't get a printout. The Print Screen key does nothing, and I also can't Alt-tab to the desktop when playing. Any ideas?

[David Murray]

It's 1848AD and I'm fully industrialized.

I have noticed that switching from Republic to Democracy HUGELY improved my gold supply. Those folks who say there is no need to switch from Republic later on in the game seem to know something I don't ....

Owing to the small number of prime cities, my gold supply has always been relatively small and research is painfully slow. However, I am gearing up to build lots of marines and take at least one other civ ... should finish this game soon.

[nbarclay]

David, could you post a save from sometime in the late middle ages or early industrial age (or whatever you have available)? I would be interested to take a look and see if there might be a reason why your research is so slow beyond just the relatively small number of cities.

Edit: I strongly suspect that the size of your military is the culprit. Democracy has half the unit support cost of Republic (albeit with no free units), so with a large army, support costs would be far more crippling under Republic than under Democracy.

[David Murray]

You're right, it was the military that was crippling me. But what was strange is that even without all the units disbanded, switching to democracy increased me from 40gpt approx. to well over 100. Owing to huge upgrade costs I've basically had to just disband old units and cavalry and rebuild from riflemen up.

Here's my latest save, I hope it provides some clues ... the AI has not really been competive in tech, my civ has done most of the work. Sorry, I thought I had an earlier save but I can only find recent ones.

[David Murray]

Since that post, I've discovered an excellent way to get gold - wealth!

After having produced a defensive force of 80+ infantry and at least 28 artillery, I switched to wealth production in my core, non-sea cities. This has given me literally hundreds more pieces of gold to work with and has allowed me to up the science meter.

I am four turns away from marines ... Rome recently declared war for not giving them a tech, and I have landed some infantry on one of their islands to wreak havoc. When the marines come, I will have a perfect excuse to start hitting Rome.

I always used to play Pangaea, but now I am tempted by archipelago/continents for builder or seafaring civs. It must be said that the game is a whole lot easier when the civs are separated. However, switching up to Deity or Sid would only make the game annoying as those extra 'bonuses' in production the AI gets would ensure they get all the wonders, trades and fun. So on this style Emperor or perhaps Demigod is very doable.

Edit: I like the government changes, so far. Republic is no longer always the best kind of government to stay in for non-religious. I was too scared to try out fascism as I am unaware of how badly it hits your population. Democracy with police stations, Universal Suffrage and plenty luxuries is probably still the best government you can be in at the latter stage of the game.

[nbarclay]

I have three main thoughts after a brief look:

1) Your capital is way off center, with only two cities west of it and everything else east. That makes corruption more of a problem than it ought to be, and probably helps account for the advantage you got from Democracy (since Democracy has lower corruption than Republic). Moving the capital would be a significant help (although the capital might do better where it is until the Forbidden Palace is completed). By the way, I would be very interested to hear how much better or worse off you are after the FP is completed. I don't have a good grip on the practical effects of the FP bug.

2) Isn't fifty-two workers overkill? With the higher upkeep costs under Republic in C3C, I've become a bit more sensitive about not building significantly more workers than I truly need. If a lot of the workers are recent builds with an eye toward using them to build railroads and then adding them to cities once they get hospitals, that could make sense. But having that many workers sitting around twiddling their thumbs except when pollution shows up is expensive.

3) Coastal cities really shouldn't be working on banks and stock exchanges when they don't have aqueducts yet, and that goes double for agricultural civs since aqueducts cost half as much for them. Coastal cities are a major source of wealth, and having them be size 12 instead of size 6 makes a significant difference. I'm also curious as to why Groningen didn't build an aqueduct to grow past size six, since leaving it small was a waste of potential wealth and production. (Also note that back when you were in Republic, size 7 would have meant a couple extra free units, which would have translated into a difference of four gold per turn for unit upkeep.)

I hope these thoughts are useful in future games.

Nathan

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Jeem

I also still can't get a printout. The Print Screen key does nothing, and I also can't Alt-tab to the desktop when playing. Any ideas?

I use Irfanview. It is a free product and runs on XP and Win98SE.
Capture the screen and then resize to 800 and save as Jpeg.
If I want to crop, I use Hypersnap.

[David Murray]

Yes, thank you for your comments!

1) The capital

I had considered this, but also note that most of the productive cities (in fact, all of the big ones) are close enough to benefit from the reduced corruption. As for the FP, it has opened up production in the two smaller islands. I have two big cities there already gearing up to build factories, and the size 6 ones will now be able to be bolstered (although it might actually be too late in the game for them to be of use).

The FP has done its job as far as I'm concerned ... but I haven't looked closely at *overall* levels of corruption.

2) Workers, you are entirely right and I overlooked this completely. I need only 20 or so to keep pollution under control. The rest can go, and I will keep the foreign workers to turn them into radar towers.

3) Coastal cities and Groningen, you are right, although I have started building aqueducts in many of them and in Groningen. I did entirely overlook this fact. I do however prefer to build cathedrals and marketplaces in size 6 cities first, if possible, so that they stay in a blissful WLTK state if possible.

Much of my 'problems' were down to management errors and oversights as you pointed out - however, the AI has never been competitive enough to make me anything other than slightly complacent. I'm at war now, so it will soon be time to start concentrating on expanding foreign overseas holdings.

[Jeem]

Originally posted by vmxa1


I use Irfanview. It is a free product and runs on XP and Win98SE.
Capture the screen and then resize to 800 and save as Jpeg.
If I want to crop, I use Hypersnap.

Cheers vmxa, I'll try that out.

[Jaguar]

Nice start.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Dominae
Mountain Sage, did you put Amsterdam on a Cattle tile?!

Yes, was it wrong ? I am but an egg...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
Yes, was it wrong ?

This is one of the times that I can without hesitation say: yes! Never build your capital on a bonus Food resource!

A bonus Food tile is well worth the cost of sub-optimal capital or city placement in the early-game. Like I've said somewhere else, the early-game is more or less defined by the search and exploitation of bonus Food tiles.


Dominae

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae


This is one of the times that I can without hesitation say: yes! Never build your capital on a bonus Food resource!

A bonus Food tile is well worth the cost of sub-optimal capital or city placement in the early-game. Like I've said somewhere else, the early-game is more or less defined by the search and exploitation of bonus Food tiles.

Dominae didn't exactly spell out why it is unquestionably a bad idea -- the city center tile of a city will always produce only 2 food (forget about Agricultural cities for a moment), whether built on a "wheated" floodplains or a barren desert. By building a city atop a food resource, instead of next to a food resource, you deprived the city of the possibility of utilizing all the "goodies" offered by the resource. That cow tile became a 2f, 1s, ?gold city center instead of a 4f, 1s, ?gold irrigated cow-grassland (5f once out of despotism).

Neither food nor shields pass through the city center, but gold does -- building on a gold hill is often attractive because the city automatically enjoys the "gold" bonus without having to delegate a city laborer to working a 1f tile (the city center gets 2f regardless). Building on a food bonus effectviely wastes the available bonus - the AI does this all too often.

Catt

[Dominae]

You can get 2spt on the city centre tile at size 1 by settling on: 1) a Furs Forest that is overlaid on a Plains, or 2) an Iron Hills, assuming you've know the secrets of Iron Working.

I've never seen the game put a Bonus Grassland under a Furs Forest, but I assume that would have the same effect as #1 above.


Dominae

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
You can get 2spt on the city centre tile at size 1 by settling on: 1) a Furs Forest that is overlaid on a Plains, or 2) an Iron Hills, assuming you've know the secrets of Iron Working.

D'oh! Yes, there are examples of shields passing through the city center tile which I forgot. The more common "lose a shield" city center decision is whether to build on a bonus grassland. If you do, you'll get the same one shield in the city center tile that you'd get from a plain grasslands (although I believe DaveMcW showed that the "bonus shield" reappears when the city grows past size 6 -- i.e., a City (7+ pop) center on bonus grass gets one more shield than a City center on plain grass).

Catt

[Theseus]

Also, gold means you are building on a hill... a good thing.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
Also, gold means you are building on a hill... a good thing.

A good thing if you're attacked, anyhow. But in SP, are your cities (especially core cities) attacked often enough for that to be a significant consideration? (In MP, defense is of course a lot more important!)

The down side to building on hills is that once you get out of Despotism, hills are some of the best productivity tiles around. Only bonus grasslands (with one less shield but one more food) can match them without a boost from a resource. So all else being equal, I would usually rather save a hill to work later in the game than build a city on it.

But I do like building cities on gold hills in the early game so I can get the effects of the gold immediately instead of waiting for the city to grow big enough that it can afford to work tiles that hurt growth. In that case, I regard the short-term benefits of building on a gold hill as easily outweighing the slight long-term difference in productivity.

(Note that if I'm playing an agricultural civ and building on a gold hill means not building on a river, under Despotism, the city can grow just as well built on the river and working the gold hill as it can built on the gold hill, or can grow better if it's built on the river and works higher-growth tiles. Thus, agricultural civs are the only ones with which I tend to prioritize rivers over gold hills in the early game.)

Nathan

[Mountain Sage]

Nathan, Dominae and Catt: it's good to have you around. Criticism taken and well deserved. Thanks.

Dominae: a 'Fur Forest'? Gee, I knew you have lots of trees in Canada, but of this kind... So, in fall, you collect the golden and brown furs when they fall from the trees? Could you send me some seeds, please?

[Mountain Sage]

400AD: the Holy Powergraph. We are a bit behind but hope to catch up soon. Byzantium already looks strong…

[Mountain Sage]

1025AD: another few years have passed by. A short war with Rome gave us control of this little island. In fact, we went to war in expectation that a future resource would be there. The cities themeselves are so corrupt that they are worthless.
Techs: Banking in 9 turns, 2617 gold (-3/turn). The pre-build for Smith TC is on its way.
Byzantium has Astronomy but all other civs are at –1.
Army: 16 Galleys, 14 MI, 8 Knights, 10 Ancient Cav. And some other assorted units for a grand total of 106. The problem with a spread-out empire is that you need more units to cover your flanks, which sit usually doing nothing forever, until an invasion shows that there are too few on that particular spot…

[Mountain Sage]

1505AD: another day, another age. Sumeria is out (just for more useless land…).
Techs: Electricity in 5 turns. Byzance has Ironclads and Nationalism. All other civs are now hoplessly behind.We are heading for ToE with a pre-built already in place and then Hoover Dam.
Gold 7’873 (+1/turn), which is way too much. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no point in rushing buildings (except Temples) in totally corrupted cities.
Military: 17 Cavs, 17 Galleons, 16 MI, 57 Swiss Mercs, 15 Ancient Cav and some others for a total of 137 units.

[Mountain Sage]

As you can see, it’s ‘factory time’. Capital in Ur and FP in The Hague. At least I have a ‘sound’ core.

[Mountain Sage]

The Holy Powergraph: Byzance is a real KAI, but Rome looks strong but is at a steady –3 techs and 0 gold (guess why? ).