1.17f strategy

DrSpike · February 13, 2002, 15:49

A little premature perhaps

However, I find myself wondering how strategies will change. I guess dominators will miss early rushing, I'm guessing civs like the Egyptians/Aztecs with cheap early UUs are going to be popular. No rushing will alter spacing decisions for dominators as well, no more pseudo ICS with packed cities with access to one 2-food square. It depends how severe the change is, but I don't think 2 move attackers will be any less popular.

Strategy for early landers isn't going to change too much, the early game will just be a little slower. No matter what your persuasion despotism will suck, so the Monarchy/Rep debates can start again in earnest. Probs still best to beeline for the representative govts.

Blaupanzer · February 13, 2002, 16:03

The civs with later UUs are the beneficiaries of that change, as they now don't have a "skipped" generation. Early UUs already do upgrade to the next gen, but knight substitutes interrupt the progress from horseman to knight (read UU) to cav. Now the horsemen can upgrade to Samurai, War Elephant, etc.

DrSpike · February 13, 2002, 16:13

Good point, but whether the change favours say the Egyptians over say the japanese depends on how soon you want to conquer..........

Also my post was a little unclear. The bit about 2 move attackers refers to the lower propensity for them to disengage in 1.17f

Aeson · February 13, 2002, 16:14

Where was the announcement of what is in the patch released? Or is this just speculation about what will be in the patch?

If UU's are allowed to be upgraded to, that would make the Japanese, Chinese, Russians, and Indians much more viable civs.

Worthingtons · February 13, 2002, 16:27

And Romans, means Warriors (which we all produce to start with) can be upgraded to Legions

Ironikinit · February 13, 2002, 16:34

Aeson, the readme is in a sticky thread in general over at CivFanatics.

Aeson · February 13, 2002, 16:34

Ah I found it. A lot of good changes. I hope the "Fixed bug with the cleanup pollution order." means that more than 2 workers will auto-stack per pollution tile.

A few impressions:

Flood plains are next to worthless now.
The pace of the end game quickened.
Despotism almost worthless as it should be.
Horse units are no longer immortal, real combined arms finally.

Oerdin · February 13, 2002, 16:55

One thing is for sure; the pre-v1.17f strategies will have to be totally reworked post-v1.17f.

DrSpike · February 13, 2002, 17:22

Hence this thread!

Aeson · February 13, 2002, 17:27

I don't think it will make that much difference in any overall strategies, just make them harder to implement. Pop rushing never was a strategy, just a means of production useful in implementing warlike ones. For warmongers, the military buildup will just take longer, and maybe require more bombardment support even for mobile unit rushes. Military tactics will still be much the same though, and warfare will still be the most effective way to catch up to the AI on higher difficulty levels. The same basic principles of building up your military quickly, and using conquest to gain tech equality will remain the same.

Builders shouldn't be affected much at all. Usually the only things a pure builder pop-rushes would be a temple and/or library anyways.

DrSpike · February 13, 2002, 17:40

Well my original post was about the things that _will_ definitely change, such as choice of civ and early govt.

Aeson · February 13, 2002, 17:50

Quote:

One thing is for sure; the pre-v1.17f strategies will have to be totally reworked post-v1.17f.

I was commenting on Oerdin's post, sorry if that was unclear. I agree that staying in Despotism for very long is a bad idea now. The relative power between many of the Civs and attributes has changed too. Namely, Religious and Militaristic Civs get a boost, as do those with new upgrade paths to their UU's. The Japanese would seem to have been helped the most, as they take advantage of all 3 of those.

DrSpike · February 13, 2002, 18:00

When I started the thread I thought more points would get made. But you're right, the points made early on in the thread are probably the only big changes.

Not quite a strat change, but I think deity will be harder. I haven't played a deity game for a couple of weeks; I have instead been following the tourney games. Might be worth another look at deity post patch.

solo · February 13, 2002, 18:13

I can't see anything but improvements to the game with this newest patch. A few major exploits that distorted the game have been removed and many player complaints have been addressed by several of the changes. Best are several fixes relieving players of some tedium characteristic of previous versions.

Worthingtons · February 14, 2002, 04:56

hmm, for some of us pop-rushing was a way of life

Anyway, my new stratagy will be to get a city to pump out warriors for fun (a good city can do this at Least once every 2 turns if not once every turn) and make SURE i get the Great Library, so I can afford to upgrade my zillion warriors to Legionaries

Allemand · February 14, 2002, 20:34

But a Legionary can't be promoted, can it?

Thrawn05 · February 14, 2002, 21:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Now the horsemen can upgrade to Samurai, War Elephant, etc.

Even though the Samurai replaces the knight for japan, I can't help but think it might be better to upgrade from a swordsmen to samuri then to say... tank?

Grim Legacy · February 15, 2002, 06:34

I think there will indeed be a welcome change of strategies. No more Despot pop rushing and uncertain fast unit retreat will have a huge impact on the early game.

I guess those Jaguar Warriors are suddenly a lot less attractive!

I'm hoping for a renaissance of Builder strategies.

Arathorn · February 15, 2002, 10:58

I think a fair bit of reassessment is going to be required after the patch. I know I personally need to play with it for a while before I can determine how much it changes my strategy.

Some things are only vaguely described by the patch notes. Only experimentation will tell us about ....

- a die roll for fast unit retreat

OK, how likely is it? 90%? 30%? Depends on terrain? What? Without knowing this, it's hard to give an impact on strategy.

- pop-rush eliminated for despotic

How, exactly? Does it just mean an extra MP in each city I poprush? The explanations given just don't make much sense to me.
Can I still poprush ad infinitum and then disband the city?

- enough military prevents culture flips

What is "enough"? Is it one per pop unit? Two per pop unit? One for every two pop? What? This was actually true before, it's just that "enough" was probably in the 200 range, since military was such a small factor.

- elimination of size six strategy

How, exactly? Does it still work if I have 20 extra food? Do I have no food after a worker build? Is it half the size 6 food box? Is pop growth checking before builds now?

- fixed AI bug with giving value to worthless tech

What is "worthless tech"? Free Artistry after Shakespeare's has been built? Sure. Is Physics "worthless", though? How will this affect the "pope" strategy of tech brokering?

Are there other changes hidden in some of the words? Quite possibly (and probably unintentionally. I'd hate to make a real quick list of all the changes in a set of code).

I expect to see a review of a lot of strategies once the patch has been played with for a few days to get a better evaluation.

My $.02,
Arathorn

Drefsab · February 15, 2002, 15:25

All I can say is, I love upgrading warriors that have reached elite status by killing barbarians to elite immortals for 40 gold. This little strat got me a leader 50 turns into the game...

DrSpike · February 15, 2002, 15:27

Nice. A distinctly 1.17f strat. Keep 'em coming.

Aeson · February 15, 2002, 15:55

When you upgrade your elites they become veterans right?

Quote:

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis
I just wanted to clarify a few issues.

First, pop rushing has not been eliminated. A few change, however, have been made. You can not sacrifice over half the population of you city anymore. Also, city unhappiness can "go negative," which means if your city has 1 citizen and 4 have been sacrificed recently, you will need 4 happiness points (from temples, luxuries, military units, whatever...) to keep that 1 citizen from being unhappy. In previous versions, just having a spearman in the city was enough to keep that 1 citizen content, even if you had sacrificed an infinite number of citizens.

Second, the AI will no longer trade techs during your turn.

I haven't applied the patch yet, as I wanted to finish my current game first, so forgive me if these are mute points.

Has anyone tried pop rushing using a city with 1 entertainer and adding workers right before applying the rush? It would seem that a size 2 to 1 rush is still possible (50%), and that your size 1 city could just make its only citizen an entertainer to deal with happiness problems. This would allow for pop rushing to be self sustaining even with the patch. Razing cities for captured workers would become even more of a priority. Also in some instances (+5 food, +5 shield cities) a two turn worker factory could still be set up, to pair with an 'entertainer' military camp. This would result in 4 turn military camps (2 turns x 2 cities), which is on par with the average rate a pop rushing city could sustain prepatch.

The tech trading part should make it much easier to catch up to the AI. Soren later went on to say that the AI no longer trades anything during the players turn (maps, resources, or tech), but just trades more aggressively on its own turn.

DrSpike · February 15, 2002, 16:06

Yeah I thought a unit lost one rank when upgrading as well.

pchang · February 15, 2002, 16:19

how fast can you grow with no workers? can you grow? Also, if you can turn unhappy people into specialists, why not just turn the 1 guy into a tax collector or scientist?

player1 · February 15, 2002, 16:45

Quote:

Originally posted by pchang
how fast can you grow with no workers? can you grow? Also, if you can turn unhappy people into specialists, why not just turn the 1 guy into a tax collector or scientist?

Only with floodplains, or grassland in monarchy.

Low chace for growth in despotism.

Aeson · February 15, 2002, 17:15

You can grow every turn with just 1 entertainer. All it takes is adding workers. Since there is close to an unending supply of captured workers on higher difficulty levels, this would make pop rushing still extremely useful. I normally end up with anywhere from 100-500 captured workers in a game depending on map size, that allows for a lot of 'entertainer' rushing if it is possible.

pchang · February 15, 2002, 17:37

With unhappiness boosted for pop rushing, special unit rushing cities become even more important. You build nothing and just pop rush units from them. When pop rushing unhappiness becomes untenable, you pop rush a settler to disband the city. Found a city on the same spot the next turn and start over.

Worthingtons · February 15, 2002, 18:59

My god I Love this patch!!

Started out with the Romans, Poor Starting Posistion , fell considerably behind, but kept plenty money coming in at the expense of Tech, Promoted a zillion warriors to Legions and the fun started there. about 15 turns into my war with france (who were nearly twice as powerful as me!!) and I've got 3 good cities, THREE Leaders, with the leaders I got the GL with which i caught up on all tech, Built an Army of Elite and Vets Legionares (That is going to hurt them btw

) and just built the Herioc Epic with the last one....

So my game is set up for some good wars alright!!

Ironwood · February 16, 2002, 18:49

You know, I've seen a lot of posts talking about the new advantage for religeous civilizations, but I've also read both the readme for the patch and the announcement over at CivFanatics. What is this new advantage for religeous civs everyone's talking about?

Worthingtons · February 16, 2002, 19:15

Iron, Religious Civ's only have one Turn of Anarchy, and since Switching Govt's earlier is so important now, it makes them better.