Strategy observations for a Newbie, FROM a Newbie

[Velociryx]

This is outstanding! Now, if I can just put my hands on a downloadable copy of the ctp2 tech tree, I can start putting together a list of techs and civs, along with some groovy "Feat" ideas that might bolster certain civs and provide further variance....

-=Vel=-

[Pedrunn]

You can make two or more advances being given if you want. it is no big deal.

[Velociryx]

That is outstanding news indeed! Another question....is is possible to do Feats of Wonder that are Civ specific? Some examples I'm thinking of are:

Vikings: All ancient era ships gain +1 movement

English: All renaissance era ships gain +5 attack/defense

Russian: Gain food, production, and commerce from snow/tundra tiles

Stuff like that?

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Economics 102 – How to make your economy do the things you want it to do, more effectively

Basic stuff here, that is probably entirely self evident to those who have been playing the game for some time, but for newbies like me, this is tough stuff to figure out when you’re neck deep in a war, with a gazillion other things going on.

Best way to go about describing how to tweak your economy for maximum performance would be to do so with various “Cases” in mind, so here goes:

Case1 – The goal is to maximize population growth. This is a classic early game goal, and speaks of an economy in its formative stages. Nothing else really matters, besides growth, because the economy is too small to offer much in the way of scientific output or PW.

Solution: Utilize farmer specialists if needs be to help spike growth in small (size one) cities. Discontinue specialist use after city (cities) grow to size two, unless there is a compelling (15% or more) advantage for continuing to use them. Minimize population rations to make your food go further, and offset the happiness hit by increasing wages. Keep the workday as long as possible while maintaining order. This preserves raw productivity, allowing for early game troop building and such while the economy (and the population) are growing. It (rightly) downplays the importance of science until you have a bit more economy to work with.

Case 2 – The goal is to maximize productive outputs at cities. This is a classic case in two specific situations: a) you are at peace, have built your economy to a point of stability (ie – you have completed a massive round of investment in PW), and are currently focused on heavy infrastructural improvement, or b) you are at war, and currently cranking out troops at a furious pace to either survive, or pound your enemies.

Solution: Population growth is unimportant to either of these considerations, and so rations should be set to maximum when you find yourself in this “Case” in-game. Hand-in-hand with that should be a PW reduction to 0% (so the full measure of your economic might can be brought to bear on whatever current problem you face), and a maxed out workday (again, to get more raw production). Research should be set as high as feasible, but if it cannot be maxed out, it’s no biggie. The overriding goal in subsets a & b of this case involves raw productivity. Science is important (as it might give you an “angle” over your enemies in the form of a new weapon or a highly valuable build), but it cannot be stressed enough that science and cash can and should be readily sacrificed for raw production in this case.

Case 3 – The goal is to maximize cash. You simply do not see this case in the early game. Early game economies don’t generate enough cash to make this a worthwhile position, and proponents of an early-game cash focus really miss the boat, IMO, because there are so many more crucial economic elements that could be focused on and expanded. This then, is an entire late-game economic case, and specific to Civs that have a commanding tech lead. Exception – Some mods may require this position to prepare for a troop upgrade cycle, but in any case, this is a short term position only.

Solution, Science rate drops to 30% or less, wages drop through the floor, with workday and rations being jacked up as high as needed in order to make up for the happiness hit (rations first, keeping workday as high as possible to preserve raw productive punch—since you’re prolly building something (or several somethings) which will be the focus of massive rush buying, which is the reason for the cash focus to begin with!). It should be noted that this is likely to be a short term economic position only. Cashflow can augment raw productivity, but in the long term, it cannot replace it (an efficient producer will win out over a cash cow every time, because the cash cow is tied to a fixed schedule of premiums and discounts re: rushing, where the raw producer has greater flexibility in at least SOME level (and possibly a significant level) of cash flow and the ability to dramatically impact his economy with the workday slider).

Case 4 – The goal is to maximize research. Classic mid-game stance, generally after a massive round of investing in PW and city infrastructure. It all but requires peace to work (this, on account of the fact that the best “research governments” also carry warring penalties with them. This case appears in two specific instances….a middling empire that is coming into its own (post PW binge and internal development), or a well-established empire seeking to widen its technological lead.

Solution – Workday minimized, Crime minimized, Rations floating, Science maxed (obviously). Every city you control should have all anti-crime builds and every available science enhancer, or you’re not getting as much as you could be out of this position.

Case 5 (my personal favorite) - The goal is to maximize the overall size, weight and bearing of the economy. This is a classic middle-game stance, generally done before/while internal fortification is occuring (infrastructural improving, etc). It *requires* peace to be successful.

Solution - Maximize public works tax and workday, while keeping food outputs as high as possible. Sacrifice scientific output, and cash flow (raise empire wages to keep happiness up). This implies that you already have all the technologies to build the basic terrain tile improvements you need (net, mine, farm, road). You want food as high as you can get it to maximize pop growth during this period....this is MUCH more important than research as more people = border bump = more tiles to improve.

-=Vel=-

[Pedrunn]

That is outstanding news indeed! Another question....is is possible to do Feats of Wonder that are Civ specific? Some examples I'm thinking of are:

Vikings: All ancient era ships gain +1 movement

English: All renaissance era ships gain +5 attack/defense

Russian: Gain food, production, and commerce from snow/tundra tiles

Stuff like that?

Let me guess you want to make Golden Ages.
Yes it is possible. I can make a feat be triggered when a specific civilization research a specific advance.
But i dont want to crete those feats changing the text files. So i can trigger them but you will have to create them. Therefore learn a bit about CTP2 modding.

[Velociryx]

Well....perhaps not GA's per se....and perhaps it'd be the case that not every civ would have one, but there are some Civs that are just known for certain things, and I was thinking that given the vast number of civs in the game, it might be kinna neat for variety's sake if instead of giving out a flat 3-techs to each civ, give out two to some, along with a special ability of some kind....some abilities might last the whole game, and not be very powerful (ie - let the russians get +1 food, +1 production, and +1 commerce from tundra tiles....but they get this through the course of the entire game, so the net effect is enormous), while others might be extremely powerful, but very short lived....All Viking ancient era ships get +1 movement and the ability to explore the deep sea.....stuff like that. (he says with a gleam in his eye)

-=Vel=-

[Pedrunn]

But i dont want to create those feats changing the text files. So i can trigger them but you will have to create them. Therefore learn one thing or two about CTP2 modding.

I could create really cool effects through slic but that is too much of work. No need to be feats

[Hermann the Lombard]

Vel,

I started a new game of Cradle 1.32 with your economics essays in mind, and I have some brief preliminary thoughts. I think that your principles will apply in Cradle, but it won't be possible to go as far with any of your cases, because the penalties for reducing the sliders are stronger than the benefits for raising the sliders. Thus a more moderate approach is required. In other words you can lean heavily toward production or science or growth or cash, but your cities will riot if you lean too far.

Also, I reduce rushbuying in Cradle to conserve gold for unit upgrades. You mention short-term cash generation when an upgrade cycle approaches, but there are so many unit upgrades that it feels like I'm always preparing for the next one (like the recent Iron Working upgrade in Succession Game V).

-- HtL

[Velociryx]

An excellent point, Hermann! I have not yet played Cradle, but that's next on the list, after the successful completion of my Impossible game using SAP2.

I have a theory about Cradle tho...given that the penalties for slider adjustments are harsher, it MAY be possible to countermand this via entertainers (making Drama relatively more important in Cradle) and/or happiness builds in general (of which there are a bountiful supply). Since I've not yet played that mod tho, I do not know how effective those two things will be at countering the top level slider positions....we shall see tho....

-=Vel=-

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I have a theory about Cradle tho...given that the penalties for slider adjustments are harsher, it MAY be possible to countermand this via entertainers...

Indeed we shall see. I've played a (fairish) lot of Cradle, and I do use entertainers frequently. Newly-conquered cities often require two or three. The question--as always--is the tradeoff. Let's say you have a size 8 city. This permits you to harvest 100% of the inner ring. One entertainer gives up 1/8 of the inner ring. Did you gain that much with your slider move? Without bean counting, my gut feeling is that one entertainer per city is worth it, more than one entertainer seems like time for a slider move.

Now with cities larger than 8, where each additional worker gives 1/12 of the second ring (I think), you're giving up the same absolute amount (1/12 of 12 vs 1/8 of 8 tiles), but a lower percentage of your total.

Ah, well, you'll enjoy Cradle when you get here. Thanks for the thoughtful analysis and the entertaining war stories.

[Velociryx]

Armies and their uses (Ancient to pre-Industrial)

It would be impossible to discuss the notion of armies in their various configurations without discussing the units that make up the armies, so I’ll be spending quite some time talking about the pros and cons of various setups, but let us start simply and lay out a few facts, observations, and conventions. This is, BY NO MEANS the only, or even the best way of going about structuring your army, but you’ll find it a logical, workable methodology that you can add your own flair to as you see fit.

Armies
An army can hold from 1-12 units. Some units have special abilities that make them better suited to going together than other units. Armies of various sizes and configurations can be designed with specific tasks in mind, and make no mistake about it, an army is simply a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. It is a player-designed tool to accomplish one or more set objectives.

Subgroups
Here’s the relatively simple methodology I use when breaking down armies. You use whatever works for you, but in my head, here’s how I see it.

The basic building block of the army is the Patrol Group. Patrol Groups consist of two units whose abilities compliment each other (ie – a regular troop like a warrior, backed up by an archer, or perhaps a Samurai and a Knight (flanking). Whatever units you use, the MOST important thing to remember is that if their abilities work together, it’s a good pairing, if not, it’s not a good pairing.

Examples
2 Warriors = No good. If this team is attacked, the second warrior will just stand around with his thumb up his a$$ while his partner gets hacked to pieces.

1 Warrior + 1 Archer = Successful group! The Archer stands behind the warrior during a fight, and both attack every round.

Putting two Patrol Groups together gives you a Skirmish Group, and it is at this level that you can begin to expect some experimentation with functionality. At the head of a skirmish group, for example, you might find a slaver, and why not? This is the PERFECT sized group for running down barbarian units and defending borders and such!

A Skirmish Group consisting of 2 Samurai and 2 Mounted Archers, with a Slaver tossed in for good measure probably more valuable than a 12 unit attack group, and will almost certainly pay for itself many times over, during the course of a game.

Examples
2 Warriors + 2 Hoplites = Poor Skirmish Group. Their abilities do not work together at all. This is a brute-force combination, nothing more.

2 Warriors + 2 Knights = Average skirmish group. The knights can sit next to the warriors and both will fight (knights have flanking), but the warriors are too slow, and so you’re not getting as much mileage as you could out of your units!

2 Samurai + 2 Knights = Good skirmish group. Like the Warrior combination above, you get the flanking/non-flanking action going on, and Samurai move twice as fast as warriors, so you begin to exploit some of the Knight’s advantages.

2 Knights + 2 Mounted Archers = Excellent skirmish group. Both troops are quite fast and the knights can dish out and take a tremendous amount of punishment. Backed up by Mounted Archers for ranged attack damage, and you will be hard pressed to do better than this combination during the game’s Feudal period.

Generally, beginning with the discovery of Geometry, Skirmish groups come in two flavors, each with distinctive roles. For simplicity, we’ll simply call these Fast and Slow Skirmish groups.

Fast Skirmish groups are best represented by the classic 2 knight + 2 mounted archer combination. In this, you have a unit that can very quickly race from one side of your kingdom to the other, answering distress calls, putting out fires, chasing barbarians, and filling the gaps your overall defensive scheme. As such, these units will be your most memorable and remembered units.

Slow Skirmish groups are best represented by 2 Hoplite (later replaced by 2 Pike Men) and 2 Catapults. The beauty of this force is that Pike Men are notoriously hard to kill! Put a couple of Pikes together with a couple of catapults, and you have a unit that can give your rivals NIGHTMARES! This is a unit that’s capable of taking lightly held cities on its own and/or providing limited combat support in certain conditions (bombard).

Fast Skirmish groups are generally kept in the center of your empire and moved where needed, while slow skirmish groups are generally kept at the borders and designed with specific geography and specific opponents in mind (ie – in one place, 2 Pikes and 2 Catapults might make sense, someplace else though, 2 Pikes and 2 Knights might be a better mix)

Combine three Skirmish groups together, and you have 12 units. A complete army, and here, it's entirely possible to start seeing an amazing array of combinations of fast and slow Skirmish groups, put together in different ways for specific purposes based on prevailing game conditions (and sometimes, just cos that's all the troops you have and are so frantic for a full strength army that it doesn't matter!)

Thus, it is easy enough to see that if you begin with the notion of a synergistic Patrol Group, and if you follow that design philosophy through to its natural conclusion, what you will very likely end up with is a 12 unit army that’s more than just a collection of guys….it’s a collection of guys who work together in a way such that they really are greater than the sum of their parts, and that’s good stuff!

One final note here though, don’t be bashful about mixing and matching force sizes! There’s nothing wrong with putting three, or six, or ten units together and running with them! The above examples are not meant to straight jacket you into a certain way of thinking. If you have a need for a seven-unit skirmish group, then by all means, make one! What I have (hopefully) done here is design a simple, straightforward army design system that will enable the combat possibilities to make more sense to you. Once you get the knack for, take it and run!

Objectives of the Army
This is not an exhaustive list, but some of the more common objectives you might assign to your forces are as follows
1) Scouting – Getting the lay of the land, shroud-busting, exploring ruins, and generally finding out where stuff is.

2) Skirmishing – Fighting small units of barbarians, or rival civ scouting forces and skirmish parties

3) Invasion – Fighting (presumably larger) enemy forces with an eye toward capturing and holding, or destroying their cities

4) Lookout – Ideal task for the individual unit, the main goal here is simply shroud busting.

5) Control – Controlling terrain is an outstanding offensive or defensive use of your forces. The size army you need is directly proportional to the importance of the ground you seek to control. As such, the ground around your big attack forces ALSO need to be controlled by big attack forces. Likewise, choke points are too valuable to risk controlling with anything but a largish force (exception – if you have newly discovered a choke point, and there’s no one else that knows about it, it’s okay to lightly garrison as you continue to explore, but the moment it becomes a KNOWN choke point, it becomes vastly more important!).

6) Garrison – A minimum of 1 unit in each city, with 2 being preferable. Use 4 units in exposed areas and 12 if you have a city on a choke point or in an area where enemy forces are milling about.

7) Suicide Scout – Wanna find out what’s in yonder city before committing your armies to a full scale attack? Bring along a warrior and let him go first!

8) Combat Support – You start to see this in the middle ages, but it really comes into its own with the arrival of the Cannon. In the Cannon, you have a unit that can move reasonably fast and deliver dreadfully effective blows against enemy forces. Catapults have this ability too, but are generally too slow to be useful. Still, this is an extremely important aspect of warfare, and deserves its own section. Will be discussed in greater detail later!

Force Designs
Given the above objectives, here are some force compositions that work, and some notes on using them.

Scouting force
1 Warrior. Cheap is better in terms of scouting. You want minimal investment for maximum return. If you get Samurai and have not yet finished exploring, begin using Samurai for exploration because of their better movement rate. Soon as you start seeing rival civ troops and/or barbarians, it’s time to start thinking about pairing up your scouts with archers (in the case of warriors) or mounted archers (in the case of samurai) and creating your first patrol groups.

Skirmishing Force
Good Configurations
2 Warrior/Hoplite + 2 Archer
2 Samurai + 2 Mounted Archer
2 Pike Men + 2 Catapult
2 Knight + 2 Mounted Archer
2 Knight + 2 Cannon
1 Knight + 1 Pike + 2 Cannon/catapult
2 Infantry + 2 Cannon *
2 Infantry + 2 Cavalry
1 Infantry + 1 Cavalry + 2 Cannon
2 Machine Gunner + 2 Artillery

Early game city hunting. A force of 4-6 units is all you need to demolish enemy armies until you start seeing cities that are size 7 or larger. Once you start seeing bigger cities (7+), you’ll need to bring more guys on the attack. (add in a slaver to this force if you want to grow your own cities very quickly via slaves). Can take out most barbarian stacks, even if they have a couple of superior units. Later on, shift your slavers over to stacks containing 2 samurai and 2 mounted archers. In this way, you get more use out of the slaver, and can save your slow poke units for general support or control missions.

Invasion
Actively sending troops into a rival civ’s territory to take his cities is a risky business, and speed is more important that raw firepower, thus, when you move, be prepared to move in quickly, and with overwhelming force.

Invasion Configurations
4-6 Warriors + 4-6 Archers
4-6 Hoplite + 4-6 Archers
4-6 Pike Men + 4-6 Archers
4-6 Pike Men + 4-6 Catapults
4-6 Samurai + 4-6 Mounted Archer
4-6 Knight + 4-6 Mounted Archer
4 Infantry + 2 Cavalry + 6 Cannon
6 Machine Gunners + 6 Artillery

Important point regarding Invasion forces! Oftentimes, the enemy will scatter in the face of superior numbers or firepower! DO NOT get so trapped in your thinking that you do not do likewise! When faced with lots of little target, don’t let your 12-unit army plod along taking one objective per turn. Ungroup them! Break them off into Skirmish Groups (or even Patrol Groups), spread out and accomplish your objectives! When you’re done, you can regroup and move on!

Lookout
1 Unit, preferably a warrior in forest, hills or mountains so he gets a defense bonus in the event of an attack.

Control
Depends on how important a patch of turf is to you. If it’s unimportant, but you want to make a token effort at controlling, then a single unit is fine. If it’s important, but known only to you, again, a single unit is fine, but the more people that know about it, the more important it becomes, and thus, the more manpower you will need to devote to it. For force design, take a look at some of the possibilities mentioned for Skirmishing and Invasion, but keep in mind that control is very localized. In other words, if you have forces in a specific area to maintain control over it, they do not need to be speedy troops, since they’re already where they need to be. Go for durability over speed in most cases (the good ol’ Pike Men + Catapult combo comes to mind).

Garrison
Rule of thumb – old troops and/or troops that missed the upgrade cycle get used for garrison and lookout duties, while your newest troops get used on the front lines and in your attack armies. Once you have replacements for your old garrison forces, you can disband them to help make whatever you’re currently building in the city the old garrison resides in build faster. Support costs are your single biggest consideration for most garrison troops, on the thinking that most of your internal core cities will never come under serious attack, then the biggest issue is the long term care and feeding of the forces guarding the city. Of course, you want to make the garrison as durable and versatile as possible, but this does not have to mean top of the line! In fact, you will find that the classic ancient pairing of hoplite + archer (2-12 units total, depending on level of exposure the city has) serves you very well until the advent of gunpowder, with Pike + Catapult/Cannon filling in after that.

Do not forget that garrisoning expenses are the SINGLE BIGGEST military expense you will likely face! To keep those expenses minimized, keep the individual upkeep costs of the soldiers you use for garrison duties to a minimum (1 being preferable, for as long as you can get away with it!) Again, in all probability, garrisons in your interior areas will not come under fire from a determined opponent. This means that you can get away with having a greater NUMBER of older troops. This has the double advantage of giving you the ability to control more slaves in a given city, and/or provide Martial Law happiness while you’re under Tyranny/Monarchy. Only cities in exposed areas should have top of the line garrison troops. The rest of your towns can get by quite nicely on your “outdated” troops—remember that 4 hoplites and 4 Archers cost the same from an upkeep perspective as one knight, and in a contest (4 hoplites + 4 archers vs. 1 knight), who do you think would win?

Suicide Scout
Single unit, anything will do, but of course, this is a walking corpse we’re talking about here. Best not to spend much on him, so warriors are the first choice. Essentially, this is your window into yonder city. Send a lone warrior, let him attack, and find out what’s inside the city, and how healthy they are. Useful information for such a small price…..absolutely essentially in ensuring that you make smart decisions when it comes to planning city assaults and attacks on enemy strong points.

Combat Support
This really starts to come into its own with the dawning of the age of Cannon, and only gets stronger and more important when Artillery hits the table. The essential truth is this: Bombardment attacks kill! Bombardment is, therefore, a crucial thing for you to understand and work with.

So….for me, Combat Support is actually a “off-size” unit that falls somewhere between a Skirmish Group and an Army proper (my Combat Support fire teams have 6-8 units in them). The hallmark of a Combat Support fire team is that they are composed primarily of Cannon, Artillery, or some other bombarding unit, and have a couple of “guards” who accompany them.

In this way, you get a unit that has nearly the bombard stopping power of a full sized army without having to pay the full cost for an army. It’s the classic Destroyer paradigm, in military form. (examples: in Renaissance times, my cannon fire support team will have 5 Cannon and 2 Infantry – once Artillery is available, I’m beginning to retire my cavalry anyway, so an Artillery battery will likely have 5 Artillery + 2 Cavalry). Since my main attack groups at this point invariably have 6 Cannons/Artillery in them, this means that my support group has nearly the same bombard power as my army, but costs significantly less.

Operating in tandem, a full strength Renaissance army moving with an Artillery battery can be all but unstoppable.

More notes later….this was just some notes I was making to myself as my impossible level game continues.

-=Vel=-

[Immortal Wombat]

I use mounted archers as my suicide scouts, because they have more movement points, so are less likely to get attacked on the way through to the city.


Great analysis btw Vel!

[Turambar]

Great stuff Vel! Keep it coming!

[Tamerlin]

Great analysis Vel, you write as if you were a CtP2 veteran, a real "Grognard" of the game...

I don't use such elaborate tactics (though I'am balancing my armies in order to use their various capacities efficiently) as I don't really need it. I'am not playing at the higher difficulty levels and I rather focus on science and economy to win the game.

But I have to learn if I want to set the difficulty level higher...

Thank you "Sensei" Vel.

[Maquiladora]

Some good thoughts there, it would be really interesting to play you Vel in a multiplayer game Alot of the descriptions you make are "best of" scenarios, theres usually no time to build alot of expensive special forces units in multiplayer, although i have seen a 12 stack of Knights in Renaissance before. But theyre terrifying inside a good stack in single player games.

I also wonder if your notes about garrison strength/size changes for Cradle, especially in those border towns.

Looks like youve got the default game sewn up.

[centrifuge]

I know it sound simplistic, but one of the best stacks I've used has been nothing but cavalry. Cavalry can flank and has ranged ablity, a lethal combo for a unit. Before Cavalry, my optimal stack tends to be 6 Knights, 2 or 3 mounted archers, and 3 or 4 catapults. ...but (as Maquiladora said) this has only been in SP, so I have no idea if it could hold up in MP.

[Velociryx]

Glad you guys are enjoying them! I wrote that one for my girlfriend, actually, who got hooked on the game, but had some questions wrt to army construction, and, I figured....having written it, I might as well post it here. New players seem to be wandering in all the time and it might prove valuable....

Maq...I'd prolly SUCK at MP, in all honesty. The thing that does it for me in these kinds of games is the notion of Empire Building. MP games, even MP TBS games are generally the quick "go for the jugular" kind, and it's all about being the first person to get that tactical edge that tips the scale and spells defeat. I enjoy playing that scene now and again, but my real love is with growing the empire....a thing you sadly don't get much of in the MP arena, but just for kicks, sure...I'll volunteer to get my arse handed to me a few times....

Just finished out the Celtic game, btw...will be compiling my notes and such on it...wow...what a game, and what a learning experience!!

And, here's another essay on strategy, just cos....

***

Economics 103 – Public Works

I just finished my first Impossible-level game. Ended with a victory for my sturdy Celts, but upon review of the game, I realized that there were a number of things I could have…should have done differently. Chief among them was the fact that I had no really solid understanding of how expensive technologies are in CtP2….vastly more expensive than they are in Civ, which I am more familiar with.

The end result was that I had far, far more production capacity than I needed, and not nearly enough commercial activity. This resulted in a glut of PW points and nothing to build, while my research was lagging far behind where it could have been.

From this though, I learned a number of important lessons. Rules of thumb that I hope to apply to my next game with even better results (hey, a victory is a victory, so I’m not knocking it, but there’s always room for improvement, and in this case, quite a lot of room!)

As with all my essays, I’m certainly not advocating that my way is the only way, or even the best way….I just know that it works for me.

Stuff I Learn’t

Early Game Expansion
As can rightly be expected, this is THE most important phase of the game. The echoes of decisions made here can be felt throughout the remainder of the game. Good moves here are magnified over the passage of time, and will translate into huge overall gains later on. Bad moves will culminate in disasters of epic proportions, the roots of which can be traced all the way back to decisions made about early settlement patterns.

Location is EVERYTHING! Especially in terms of your first city ( EDIT for clarification: If you have average land or better, build your first city wherever the settler is, but when that second settler is ready, make sure you found the city on a perfect spot....the more "average" your first city's terrain is, the more important it is to make the second city really rock!)

When looking at potential settlement sites, here’s exactly what you’re looking for:

1) Rivers! Commerce is the most important asset in the game, and at game-start, Trade seems like an impossibly distant objective. Rivers are your best source of early game commerce, and as such, control of rivers in the early game is of paramount importance! Even if the terrain is less than perfect, rivers are too important to pass on.

2) Growth potential. The eight tiles immediately surrounding your city MUST be slanted toward growth. That means plains, grassland, or beach tiles. My preference is to have three that fall into this category as a minimum, with more than this being welcomed! If you find some early game city sites that look attractive, but are not on high growth sites, then save them for later! Tyranny has a 9-city cap, and the happiness remedies are few and punishing to a fledgling Empire. There must be a compelling reason for going over the nine city cap by a large, or even a medium margin, and so the placement of each of your cities is of vital importance. You want the most bang for your buck!

2a) Even while growth is the A-numero-uno consideration when placing cities, some consideration needs to be made with regards to production. If you have lots of people, but no capability to DO anything, they don’t do you any good! Thus, when placing your cities in those high-growth areas, consider what the borders will look like after that first bump, and that first bump will happen pretty quickly because you took the time to make sure your city was placed on good, fertile land! Growth is important because you want….you NEED to get your core cities to size seven ASAP! You need this for two reasons…first, because it means a border bump….more tiles worked, more overall potential, and second, because it means that you’re getting 100% use from those eight tiles that surround your city. Growth is so important, in fact, that I advocate the use of farmer specialists, especially to get your cities from size one to size two with all possible speed. After the city grows to size two, you’ve generally got too much stuff to build to continue keeping on with the specialist approach (after all, some concession needs to be given to building—horizontal growth—over city—vertical--growth). Remember though, that there are many tile and terrain types that produce at least some of all three of the factors of production (food, commerce, production), and so, by looking for fertile lands to settle, you’re not denying yourself early game production capability. Look at it this way, a city nestled up in the mountains with no ready supply of food is surrounded by vast amounts of production potential, but has no ready way to tap it. A city surrounded by plains with hills, mountains and forests a bit further out will grow like a weed and grow into ever-increasing production…very quickly, it will outpace the mountain city.

3) Forests! Forests are tremendously good early game tiles because of their balance. Good for a variety of uses. Ideally, if you spy a forested area, you’ll plant your city on the forest edge, just outside the forest. This should, in most cases, give you 3 forest tiles and 5 other tiles (hopefully very fertile ones). A city so positioned is poised to become an early game production powerhouse! Especially good here, is that in the games I’ve played so far, forests tend to come in wide swaths, and so at least a couple of your cities could be built along the timberline, and more often than not, such forested areas come complete with a river for commerce!

4) Defense – Generally, this is a thing I think about, but place on a lower priority than the other concerns. A fast-growing, productive powerhouse of an ancient-era city is its own best defense. True, it carries no terrain modifiers with it, but what it lacks there, it more than makes up for in terms of raw productive power (and besides that, with a few techs under your belt, if you feel threatened, it’s easy enough to build in advantages to your city—walls, towers, etc). Of course, if you spy a hill sitting in a sea of green fields, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, either!

The goal is to get to nine cities with all possible speed, and to have a tenth settler-in-waiting to take advantage of any opportunity that may arise. Settlers carry no upkeep costs, so you may as well have one waiting! In fact, go so far as to prepare a Skirmish Group, and add the settler in as the fifth unit. If you’re running a tight ship and don’t want that many spare units just milling around, then take (one of your) slaver group, and add the settler to it. A little risky, but not much. Exactly HOW you get to nine cities is your bag, and largely dependant on game settings. If you’re surrounded by rivals, then rely on the fact that the bulk of your growth will come via acquisition of someone else’s stuff, rather than building it on your own, and that’s cool, but it means a radically different set of build priorities.

5) A mix of terrains. You do NOT want to be saddled with all tiles that produce NOTHING BUT food. You need food, that's true, but you don't need JUST food. Food by itself does nothing for you.

Early game Empire Settings
Everybody has their preference and these may not be to your liking, but given the above, I think you’ll agree that they work well with the overall plan I’ve got going.

Rations minimized. Make every ounce of food count toward growth. Pay maxed. Gotta offset that food hit. Production as high as the population can stand. Fast build times are key in the early game. 1-2 turns difference here can mean the difference between winning and losing 6000 years later! PW set to 10% to start with (again, my main interest is building warriors, archers, and settlers….it’ll be a thousand years before I’m ready to actually start improving the land).

First city generally is set up with a farmer specialist until it grows from size one to two, and then runs with no specialists. Build order is warrior, warrior, settler, warrior, warrior, settler, granary, settler, see what techs I’ve acquired (note that if I start with ballistics, then half my warriors in the above will be archers).


Early game tech acquisition

Once again, everybody’s got their pet beeline, so this may or may not be for you, but it’s the one I’ve gotten cozy with.

Top priority – Ballistics (if I don’t have it at start). Warrior/Archer combo makes you an early game menace!

2nd – Ship Building – Lay of the land is of vital importance, knowing where your rivals are is too important to adequately express in mere words. Ship building can get that for you, along with the “Net” terrain improvement, which helps you in your number one priority….GROWTH!

3rd – Slave Labor – Also helps growth. Provides you a means to build stuff more quickly. Once you get slave labor, it’s time to bulk up PW a bit (20-30%) so you can begin adding mines into the mix. Slavers can be a strain on an ancient-era economy….tough to crank them out quickly, but sooooo worth it!

4th – Beeline for Trade for two reasons: Roads and Trading posts. Roads should be your first priority where terraforming is concerned, from the moment you get the tech! Roads are life. Roads are speed. Roads are more important than commerce if there’s a choice to be made, one or the other.

5th – Beeline for Monarchy. This will more than double the city cap for you, enabling you to grow and flex those newfound muscles.

I’ve never started a game without religion, but if I did at some point, I’d focus on building troops to relieve the Ramyana builder of his prize, figuring that unless I started with the tech, I’d have next to no chance getting the wonder.

Wonders – For me, the founding city MUST build two settlers before even considering work on a wonder. This is because it’ll take that to ensure the empire’s critical mass. 1 becomes 2, two become 4, and at that point, I can pull a city off for a special project, relying on the fact that 4 will become 7, and then three cities can work on settlers while four others begin to specialize (this gives me nine cities and a settler held in reserve). Good pacing.

Once Trade is discovered, the goal is to make nice with whomever I am near at all costs! Peace means that I can kill my city production by maxing my PW tax, and thus grow at an astonishing pace!

PW Priorities – Post Trade (assumes peace)
1) PW tax set as high as my current situation will bear (50-70% or more!). Disband some unneeded troops if it will help!

2) Top priority is roads. Peace could be broken at any moment, and I MUST be prepared to meet that threat, and fight a delaying action till I can re-organize my economy.

3) Second priority, farms! Gotta keep the growth happening. At this point, I’m aiming for another border bump from my core cities.

4) Third Priority is city specialization. I used to be in favor of making cities with balanced production and commerce. No longer. In my book, there are production cities and there are commercial cities. All cities have a measure of both of course, thanks to the versatile mix of tiles contained inside a city’s borders, but a city should only pursue two of the three with a vengeance. Food is, of course, the top priority, and I’d make, as a rule of thumb, half the tiles inside the city radius farms. The other half, set aside for either production or commercial use. When it comes time to assign specialists and assess the cost-benefit tradeoff, you’ll be VERY glad you structured your cities this way, cos it makes it quite clear which way you should go. A very logical, organized approach.

5) Commercial cities should be more numerous than production cities. If you have nine cities, make three of them production powerhouses, and six of them commercial centers. Subject to terrain considerations, of course. The point is that with a nine-city spread, you’ll have three—likely scattered—production powerhouses, and six support cities. You’ll also, thanks to your focus on growth and commerce, have a better tech level than your rivals who attempt to make good “general purpose” cities. This is because of the fact that specialization is cheaper than non-specialization. Specialization means that you don’t need factories, mills, and such in commercial cities, and you don’t need universities and academies in production cities. You save money on upkeep costs, which translates into rush-build money, which in turn, translates into solid gains. Of course, all of this is highly dependent on prevailing game conditions. If you’re fighting tooth and nail to survive, you may need more production cities, and keep in mind that you can always re-terraform as game conditions change.

Keep in mind that a highly specialized approach to city-building (as opposed to a more generalized approach) means that it’s vitally important to always keep your production cities building. Since you have relatively few, they should be kept quite busy, either building relevant improvements and/or keeping the army up to date! This, as opposed to a generalized approach, which can see all cities running for extended periods with absolutely nothing to build. Commercially-based cities will have less production, and so will generally be kept busy for longer periods of time building their relevant builds. Rushing should be applied to, and reserved for science or production enhancing builds.

-=Vel=-

[Turambar]

just finished my first Impossible-level game. Ended with a victory for my sturdy Celts

Will you be trying Cradle next? Because I don't think anyone here has ever beat that on impossible yet (I could be wrong though...).

Great guide though!

[Velociryx]

Yeppers! Cradle is tonight's fun! I've been working hard on CB all day today, and as my reward....gaming!

Glad you liked my little ramble on PW....the hope is that it'll help new players get a pretty solid feel for the way the game is put together....I know I'm still feeling my way in many respects. I won my impossible level game, sure, but there were TONS of mistakes made along the way!

Looking forward to trying Cradle tonight!

-=Vel=-

[Turambar]

Will the rest of the Celtic AAR be posted soon?

Will you being doing another for Cradle?

[Velociryx]

Well....it'll take me a while to get all the pics prepped and ready (there are about thirty, IIRC), and I'll need a bit to organize my notes on it, but I should be getting another segment with pics out soon! (I'm shooting for Wednesday, but don't hold my feet to the fire! LOL) And as for Cradle....yeah, I'm thinking that an Impossible level AAR for Cradle might just be the thing!@ Gonna have to practice in it a bit like I did with SAP2, but sure....I'm game....

-=Vel=-

[centrifuge]

It's been nice to read all of your observations...
I think it'll be great to see the same type of thing put together for some of the different mods.

Oh, and by the way... If you're starting a cradle game, why not do your "practicing" by playing the SP tournament In fact, you may even be able to submit...considering the latest bunch of posts.

[Maquiladora]

PW set to 10% to start with (again, my main interest is building warriors, archers, and settlers….it’ll be a thousand years before I’m ready to actually start improving the land).

I think setting anything above 0% PW before you have at least 6/7 cities is a waste of production. If you set PW when you have 6 cities you could save the same amount of PW in 5 turns as you could with 2 cities in 50 turns (at a guess ) (at such early times theres not much to build anyway).

While the person with 10% PW at the start is saving PW and building a farm every 20th turn, im building my granaries/shrines early on and giving myself more options later.

[Velociryx]

Ran a couple of tests just to see if something worked or no....this was NOT done using any sort of tight control, so the scientific method was not really observed, but from what I have seen, only very rarely will running PW at 10% increase your build times (my guess is that it has something to do with rounding). From looking at completion times, and what happens when you complete a given build, it appears to me at least that excess production is NOT carried over from one build to the next (could be wrong here, I didn't look *that* closely, but at first glance, that's the way it seems), and so long as the PW amount would be less than the productive wastage, you should actually come out better by assigning nominal PW--cos you would, in some form, re-coup production that would just be lost in overruns).

That's something that deserves a closer looking at from a more scientific mind. I'll readily admit that I'm not the guy for that job.....I always slept thru science class....

-=Vel=-

[Maquiladora]

Thats interesting. I admit i ran no tests whatsoever to see how this actually works, but just through experience, when i raise that PW tax to 10/20% on the building of my first city, it breaks my heart to see the warrior now 2 turns slower than before. Im thinking "i could be 2 turns into my next one now".

Certainly if it turns out true that you can gain the wasted production in PW i might rethink my early game approach. Although at times those early farms only end up getting pillaged by some crafty barb pottering around after turn 19, so i want to get my warriors out quick and burst open those ruins before the barbs start coming out instead of juicy advances.

The barbs aim specifically for tile imps, thats the danger, if you cant hold it yet, dont build it.

[Velociryx]

Total agreement there! If you can't defend it, don't bother. In general, my plan is to keep it at 10% (which usually amounts to something paltry like 3-5 per turn, not enough to significantly alter my production, and easily made up for with selective rushing), let that sum-total build slowly--and slowly increase as more cities are founded--such that when I hit trade, I've got a tidy little sum at the ready to lay down some of the more critical roadways right then and there (with PW tax increasing dramatically, so I can get those roads in place!). In my book, roading is THE best thing you can do in terms of defense (in Cradle, I'd have to put roading second...building fortifications in Cradle is the big Kahuna....most important tech in the game, IMO). Once that road network is in place, a couple well-put-together groups of defenders can really put a hurting on the barbs (in Cradle, my plan is to operate my internal defense force in two teams, leaving a core group of defenders (prolly 4--two spear/two slingers) in the fort I build, and rotate out my damaged troopers to the fort for quick healing. Should see me able to firmly lay down the law to the barbs!)

Good discussion here! I'd be very curious to see what one of the more scientific minded folks can tell us about exactly what happens to that excess production....that's an interesting angle....

-=Vel=-

[Turambar]

I started a new Cradle game last night (Medium) and started using some of your tips regarding roads and fam placement etc. Result is I'm actually doing well in a Cradle game!! I've nearly wiped out my closest (and only as far as I'm aware) neighbour thanks to my huge road network .

[Velociryx]

WhoooHoooo! I'm glad the tips have helped then! And, I've just this moment finished a "Cradle Specific" strat thread. It's bare bones right now, but in all fairness, I'm still on my first game, and only in 3000BC at that! It'll get fleshed out as I play further, but I posted my initial observations down....some really intriguing differences! I love it!

-=Vel=-

[Yolky]

bump

great tips. should be kept to the top. I had to look and dig for this.

Davor

[FrustratedPoet]

Thanks for the bump Yolky. I've recently bought CTP2 and was totally baffled by it. Hopefully Vel's tips will help a little.