Ducki does PTW at Monarch - a bit more War

ducki · November 10, 2002, 04:31

For those that followed "Ducki went Regent" you already know I love feedback. For those that didn't, please feel free to chime in with hints, tips, suggestions, etc. Also, this thread will be screenshot-heavy and savefile-heavy.

Ok, to kick things off, I'll show a screenshot of my starting point and follow that with a 4000BC savefile for anyone that wants to play along.

Monarch, Standard size, Pangea(medium), Sedentary barbs, 5billion yrs, Random civ - turned out to be China.

This is my first (hopefully) full length Monarch game, as well as my first (hopefully) full length PtW game.

In case anyone wants to play for comparison without spoilers, I'll hold off on asking my questions until after the starting point screenshot and 4000BC savefile.

ducki · November 10, 2002, 04:37

Here's the SAV. Remember, this is for the PtW Expansion.

Curious - Autosaves are about a Meg each, but manually saving knocked it down to 63K - normal? I hope it works.

ducki · November 10, 2002, 04:59

Alrighty, now to current times.

I got the Great Library but Korea(I think) stole the Gardens out from under me. I'm 14 turns away from Sistine, but nearly everyone else is working on it too. I don't have a FP yet, I've been too busy trying to keep my citizens happy and my army reinforced. My early expansion got rather cramped rather early, so I've already beaten on Montezuma once and this is my second war with Tokie - he was wandering around near my capital, so I told him to leave, at which point he declared war. I immediately bribed Monty with a couple of techs, but the fool is sending spearmen and jags against Pikes and Med. Inf. Oh well, keeps him weak for me.

As you can see from this screenshot, I finally generated a Great Leader. I gotta tell ya, having 80% of my horsemen be Elite sure feels neat, but it still took longer than expected to generate a Leader.

I've been taking out Tokie's Medieval Infantry with horsemen

by denying him the opportunity of actually attacking with them and trying to attack them from hilltops and mountains. And it worked. My 2/1/2 Elite Horses have killed half a dozen of his 4/2/1 Med. Inf. only losing about 3 hitpoints total. I did lose a Horse to a Pikeman while attacking Osaka, but the Leader is worth losing an Elite.

Anyway, I can get peace any time I want it, but I've got 7 or 8 more turns I have to fight to fulfill my agreement with Montezuma, so here's my most pressing questions.

What do I do with this leader? Should I spend the money to spy on the AI cities to find out if I need to use the leader on that? Should I just hope for the best and use him for an Army? FP? Seems wrong for the FP right now, but I could be convinced.

Where would you place your FP if you were on this map? I was thinking about Nanking until I noticed all that jungle - seems like it wouldn't actually help production that much.
Second thought was Canton - I'm gonna have to do some pruning on America(light blue) soon, I think, so that would be good for expanding, assuming I don't lose that city.

Monarch+PtW is a lot tougher than Regent+Civ3 - these guys severely out-expanded me in the REX phase - America and Japan both planted cities one turn ahead of and one square away from a settler on separate occasions. Bastards!

Anyway, I know my tile-development is lacking in places and my road network needs some (a lot of) work.

So, lemme have it. What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? I've never really gone to war this early, this often, or this intentionally. Normally I play "builder" and have a heinous culture lead at this point, but I figured as long as I was playing a military civ, I might as well use my military.

Screenshot here, SAV in the next post.

ducki · November 10, 2002, 05:04

Here's the sav, and I guess I should enumerate the opposition.

Pinkish-purple - Me, China
Red-East - Japan
Green-South - Aztec
Lt.Blue-WestSouthwest - America
DkBlue-FarSouth - Korea (I think)
Yellow-SouthWest - Mongol
Purple-FarWest -

Dang, I forgot one. /sigh

Well, here's the SAV.

badman · November 10, 2002, 05:50

Since you're militaristic and not having enough cities IMHO, you'll need to conquer some civs. So I think you should build an army, then the heroic epic and hope for some more leaders.
But don't build a horsemen army. If you don't have anything better than horsemen, build a FP instead. Unfortunately, all your cities are close to your capitol.
You could build one in Tlacopan and conquer the Aztecs or you could build it in Nara and conquer the Japanese.
You also should think about taking some of the American cities because they are close to your capital, have lots of grasslands, and America seems to be too strong.
(I can only tell from the screenshot, I don't have PtW).

Aeson · November 10, 2002, 09:58

Quote:

Curious - Autosaves are about a Meg each, but manually saving knocked it down to 63K - normal? I hope it works.

Auto saves aren't compressed, manual saves are. So it's normal.

ducki · November 10, 2002, 14:03

I hadn't originally planned on fighting a war with Horsemen against Feudalism level opponents. All those elite horsemen were leftovers from the first Japanese War and the Aztec War - I was just planning to upgrade them to knights and then go to war, but Japan forced my hand.

I agree that America is a prime target. I think I've effectively hampered Japan and if I make peace before the Aztecs do, I think those two will likely slow each other down enough for me to go against America.

I'm having some Happiness problems which is why the Sistine is such a dilemma. I want to do an Army and go for the Epic, but that's not likely to garner me any happy citizens in the near future.

So, is the money worth it to spend on spying on the other AIs to see if I can just build out Sistine normally and lose out on some of my Horseman-to-Knight upgrades temporarily, or should I just hope I beat the AIs to Sistine and create a Knight Army as soon as I get Knights and wreak havoc in America?

I could use the leader on the FP in Canton, near America, but Canton's production is already pretty high, so I could just build that normally and have my FP fairly well located for when I move my palace, probably to the American-Mongol border on the other side of America - eventually.

I'm torn. I want an Army for the Epic, but I also need happy citizens. I've got 3 luxuries but very few marketplaces yet. The only wonder I've gotten is the Great Library and I only have 1 or two Cathedrals already built.

I'm researching Engineering, I've got Theology, Education, Feudalism and....uhhh.. Monotheism(?) - hopefully I can trade Engineering for whatever the AI is researching. Chivalry would be prime on my list.

Thanks for the input so far.

badams52 · November 10, 2002, 14:45

Without PtW, I can only give comments based on your screenshots, so...

If I were in your shoes, I would be building many, many more offensive units and preparing my overwhelming forces for taking the rest of Japan and Aztec territory soon. I might build build med. infantry to overwhelm Japan before they can get their samurai! Stacked med. infintry and pikemen though slower would overrun the Japanese easlily. I wouldn't wait to build RIDERS, but would certainly get Chivalry next. Once Japan has samurai, you are in trouble.

They attacked you which will help against WW so take their cities while you have the advantage. Horsemen just don't cut it when you're trying to attack pikemen. The wars take too long and you need far superior numbers.

The FP placement will depend upon your plans for expansion. Just looking at the map, I would consider the Aztec capital a good spot. Canton is too close to your capitol unless you are planning to move your capitol later. If you continue warring, you could wait till your second (or third) great leader to build the FP.

For your leader, I would consider 2 options. If you are really worried about not getting Sistine's then you could switch Beijing to building Sun Tzu's (a very good wonder for warring) and quick build Sistine's. The other would be to build an army, but you really don't have good units for an army at present. Consider Chivalry as a good next step in the research department so you could start building Riders! A force of Riders would really destroy your rivals much quicker. Also, when you are warring with China, Leaders are a good source of wonder producers, so now is the time to war, war, war and build wonders with your leaders.

You could prune America a bit ig you like. I usually fight one enemy at a time and take all their cities unless WW prevents me from continuing or I don't feel like taking out their last island cities. Taking all their cities prevents cultural reversion. Even if this causeses me to be behind in tech, I will catch up once the newly aquired territories reach their potential.

badams52 · November 10, 2002, 14:54

You have the money, I would see if I can outbuild them. It doesn't take too much money to check their cities building Sistine. You wouldn't need to bother if the city is small, as you would certainly out produce it.

I noticed your researching engineering which I think was a mistake. You forgot about your UU! IIRC, horsemen won't upgrade to riders! Attack with riders, get GA, build unsurmountable lead!

It sounds like your on level with the others on your tech, so warring shouldn't be much of a problem.

ducki · November 10, 2002, 15:40

Quote:

Originally posted by badams52
You have the money, I would see if I can outbuild them. It doesn't take too much money to check their cities building Sistine. You wouldn't need to bother if the city is small, as you would certainly out produce it.

I'll also have to pay for embassies for many of them...

Quote:

I noticed your researching engineering which I think was a mistake. You forgot about your UU! IIRC, horsemen won't upgrade to riders! Attack with riders, get GA, build unsurmountable lead!

1 - I'd hoped to trade Engineering for Chivalry
2 - no upgrade? seriously? crap, that's the main reason I went horsemen instead of Swords->MedInf
3 - How do riders compare to Samurai? I reckon I should check that.

Quote:

It sounds like your on level with the others on your tech, so warring shouldn't be much of a problem.

Yeah, the GLibrary just got nixed by Education a couple of turns ago.

If I can't upgrade my horses, that's gonna put a serious crimp on my previous plans. Hell's bells.

vmxa1 · November 10, 2002, 16:48

First I do not recall about the upgrade, which is sad as I have played China a bunch of times and I am right now.
I see the capitol is not growing and that is bad and can be fixed. You need more workers by now. One city had 4 tiles that needed improvements. That is costing you.
I am not to fond of not having libs in cities by this stage either. Some are building cathedrals that are not having any unhappy pop, I would go for libs or colosseums. Colosseums are not as good, but get up sooner.
One was building a courthouse with very little corruption and no lib/colo.
I guess this is debateable, but I prefer to go down the Eng/Iven/Gun path to Theolgy anyway. At monarch, you can get by with out Sistines.
As it turns out I decided to try China with PTW to see if they old civs behaved they same as before PTW.
I have 9 cities in 90BC and 1 settler out and another coming. You really should not be in last place by 4xx AD.

Tharsonius · November 10, 2002, 17:12

I'm playing a game with china right now
horseman can be upgraded to riders for 80 gold each

you will have a lot of fun now, this riders rock!
you overrun your enemy in a few rounds with no problem, if you build enouth

and dont forget to use some of them to run arround and pillage like mad behind the lines

badams52 · November 10, 2002, 17:33

Quote:

Originally posted by ducki

1 - I'd hoped to trade Engineering for Chivalry
2 - no upgrade? seriously? crap, that's the main reason I went horsemen instead of Swords->MedInf
3 - How do riders compare to Samurai? I reckon I should check that.

A yes, a trade. You might get one if the AI is researching it. The Mongols and the Japanese probably will, but I don't know if the others will. I probably would have just gone for Chivalry and hoped to trade for Engineering.

Riders 4.3.3
Samurai 4.4.2

Just checked it, horsemen won't upgrade to Riders, but they will upgrade to Cavalry later. I don't think any UU can be upgraded into. You can upgrade the UU, but you can't upgrade a unit to become a UU.

I would agree with vmxa1 on his assesment of your building, though sometimes I do have libraries at this point for culture reasons and/or research reasons if I'm caught up and the AI is too slow. But I would definitely agree with him that you need more workers. My feeling is that cities using tiles without improvements are a waste of population.

During wartimes, often almost all of my cities (at least the ones with barracks) are producing units. If I have enough units, some cities will produce improvements and then I'll switch them later.

I think soon you will have the game well in hand, unless PtW AIs are better at keeping pace.

badams52 · November 10, 2002, 17:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Tharsonius
I'm playing a game with china right now
horseman can be upgraded to riders for 80 gold each

you will have a lot of fun now, this riders rock!
you overrun your enemy in a few rounds with no problem, if you build enouth

and dont forget to use some of them to run arround and pillage like mad behind the lines

hmm, must have changed it in PtW. Pre PtW, I couldn't upgrade horsemen, and I just checked it.

Tharsonius · November 10, 2002, 17:51

you use v1.17f or better?

if you do, then it must new in PTW, I never played china pre PTW

badams52 · November 10, 2002, 17:53

Whoops, didn't have an Iron source...yep 80 gold per. Quite the price I say

ducki · November 10, 2002, 18:56

I agree I need more workers.
I'm not used to waging this much war, so I'm having a hard time balancing my normal "builder" tendencies - get all possible improvements in all cities - with supporting a military large enough to actually wage a war, not just defend my builders.

I know you can upgrade Warriors->Gallic Swords and I'm pretty sure I upgraded Warriors->Immortals before, but I never played pre-1.29f so maybe that's the patch that fixed that?

I admit I'm really struggling, but this being my first earnest Monarch game, I'm not feeling too bad about the bipolarness of my civ (improvements vs. military vs. workers - hmm.. tripolar?) - if I actually felt this was unsalvageable for me I'd just start anew rather than posting it.

Actually, I wouldn't even be at war now if Japan hadn't been wandering around my lands with Swordsmen and Archers, nearing my capitol and my Japanese slaves - I actually think they were sent to rescue those slaves/P.O.W.s in particular.
In fact, I held off on giving them the ultimatum a bit to see if that's where they were headed, but it got too close to the capitol for comfort.

I should probably find that thread on Corruption, since I don't fully understand it. I will often build a courthouse if I see more than a few of my shields going to waste, but then again, I'm normally in builder-mode, not waging war.

In fact, this is only about my 4th or 5th leader - ever.

Keep it coming guys, I think I'm going to investigate this larger cities building Sistine and see if I can outpace them. If so, I'll likely build an Army, though maybe I'll try to time stealing Sun Tzu's to match me finishing Sistine. Haha, I can hear Abe cussing already, teehee!

ducki · November 10, 2002, 19:05

Just checked, America is 4 turns ahead of me on Sistine. I can either steal it or ignore it and make an Army.

Decisions decisions.

vmxa1 · November 10, 2002, 21:18

Ducki you are surely not in a hopeless postion. The one thing I hate to do is put shields into a wonder that I am not going to get, so if it is a no go stop the build.
I thought you could upgrade, but I have jumped into so many games that I was not willing to state it as a fact.

yxhuvud · November 10, 2002, 21:38

warring will take care of your worker problem

badams52 · November 10, 2002, 22:27

If you can't build the wonder yourself, take it later! I'd build the army and see what other thing my capitol could make with all those shields piled up. Maybe Sun Tzu.

nbarclay · November 10, 2002, 22:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Tharsonius
and dont forget to use some of them to run arround and pillage like mad behind the lines

The problem with pillaging (especially on standard and smaller maps) is that anything you pillage, you have to rebuild once you actually conquer the territory. Also, every rider out pillaging is one that's not part of the main attack force. My own approach when I'm playing China and have riders is relatively straightforward.

1) Attack.
2) Attack.
3) Attack.

Seriously, I'll gobble up an entire civ (except for island posessions, if any) and then set my sights on the next one until one of three things happens:

1) Musketmen start showing up. (The same goes for samurai, but if Japan is nearby, I make a point of trying to get Chivalry first and take them out before they get to that point.)
2) I run out of reachable opponents.
3) I'm close to Military Traditon, in which case I'd rather hold onto my riders for upgrade to cavalry than risk having them killed fighting.

A few other notes:

- I upgraded chariots to sipahi playing the Ottomans in PtW, so upgrading horsemen to riders shouldn't be a problem if you have the right resources.

- My usual wartime building policy if I can afford it is that my more advanced cities focus on barracks and units while the slower-developing ones catch up on city improvements.

- Letting worker production lag behind is ultimately self-defeating; workers cost a pop unit and ten shields, but think how many shelds each mine they build will eventually give you, and the pop cost is no big deal for cities having happiness problems.

- Are you making good use of the luxury slider? Using the luxury slider to squeeze out extra production when you need it can be really useful (and even profitable if you're a Republic with plenty of roads).

- If America is truly poised to win the race for Sistine (rather than having someone else ahead of them), why not let them build it for you?

Nathan

ducki · November 10, 2002, 23:19

Ok, I didn't want to blow all my money checking on whether I could beat everyone to Sun Tzu's - plus, I'm militaristic. Building Barracks is one of my very minor issues. I can crank those out about as fast as my best military units, so that's no biggie.

Sistine generates 6 culture per turn and doubles the effect of my already expensive Cathedrals while STs merely saves me a very short barracks build and 2 CPT.

I burned the Leader on Sistine and feel pretty good about it.

I traded Iron to India for Chivalry, some Gold, and 5 gpt. I was the last to get it, so Japan already has some Samurai, but I sent a MedInf in to disconnect their Iron. He'll fortify there and slow down reconnection - I'll reinforce him with an extra pikeman or two.

I upgraded all my Horsemen - yes, all those elites - because everyone else can build Pikes and Knights.

I've got luxury set at 10%, I have 4(i think) luxuries so I'm doing ok. Not great, but ok.

While Aztec and I were beating on Japan, Japan declared war on America (wtf? ) and America declared war on Mongolia.

So, new priorities.
1) Finish out my Alliance against Japan - 4 more turns - by taking at least one more city, maybe two.
2) Workers, Workers, Workers.
3) Cathedrals & Marketplaces
4) More military in order to prune back America before Muskets
5) Elites and Leaders - I'd like an Army, Leo's, and Bach's
6) Forbidden Palace either near my border with America or in the heart of former Japan.

I love the smell of warfare on my keyboard.

Tharsonius · November 10, 2002, 23:41

Quote:

Originally posted by nbarclay

The problem with pillaging (especially on standard and smaller maps) is that anything you pillage, you have to rebuild once you actually conquer the territory. Also, every rider out pillaging is one that's not part of the main attack force. My own approach when I'm playing China and have riders is relatively straightforward.

Nathan

with china being industrious and all my slave workers rebuilding isnt such a problem
with "pillage like mad" I dont mean to pillage everything, only where it rearly hurts, 2-4 riders can do this job

in my current game (with china) Japan collapsed after my riders destroyed his iron and most of his luxury supplys
and cutting off the roads to his capital city helps to avoid cultur flips of conquered towns

nbarclay · November 10, 2002, 23:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Tharsonius

with china being industrious and all my slave workers rebuilding isnt such a problem
with "pillage like mad" I dont mean to pillage everything, only where it rearly hurts, 2-4 riders can do this job

in my current game (with china) Japan collapsed after my riders destroyed his iron and most of his luxury supplys
and cutting off the roads to his capital city helps to avoid cultur flips of conquered towns

I guess it depends on the nations' relative power and technology. In a situation like Ducki's where Japan already has the tech for samurai, pillaging to interfere with their actually building the units can be quite useful. But if I can, I like to get the jump in tech so I don't have to pillage in order to have superior units.

Nathan

Theseus · November 11, 2002, 00:28

Do Sistine in another city, and use your pre-build for the HE.

You're doing great btw... I also like the evolution of your posts, here and in other forums.

Also... let's set the record straight: pretty much all of the early units can be upgraded now, with Sword-type units terminating in Guerillas, and Horse-type units terminating in Cavs or the equivalent.

ducki · November 11, 2002, 00:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
Do Sistine in another city, and use your pre-build for the HE.

You're doing great btw... I also like the evolution of your posts, here and in other forums.

Also... let's set the record straight: pretty much all of the early units can be upgraded now, with Sword-type units terminating in Guerillas, and Horse-type units terminating in Cavs or the equivalent.

Thanks Theseus, but too late. I only got the one leader and I'm kinda glad I burned him on the Chapel.

The Second Japanese War went well, though Aztec took more of Japan than I'd like. Funnily enough, Tokie only had the one Samurai and once I'd pillaged his only Iron, he wasn't making any more. I took his northernmost town and his capitol and sued for Peace and a tiny town on a two-square island off his east coast.

I'm falling desperately behind in tech, now - 3 techs plus 2 turns on Invention, but with my "Palace"-build in my highest production town, I should be able to get either DaVinci's or Bach's, assuming I can buy Music Theory for a half-reasonable price. AIs also have Banking and Astronomy and Korea is already building Copernicus' Observatory.

/sigh
So far behind.

I'm rebuilding my Rider Horde and working on infrastructure and city improvements. I've nearly doubled my number of workers/slaves and have done a lot of tile improving around my core cities and a little around my captured towns.

As soon as I have by borders all joined up in ex-Japan and have a Horde of about 20 Riders, I think it's time to hit America, though that might break my trade deals with India, who is on the other side of Abe.
Dang, I forgot about those until just now.

Maybe it's Monte's turn to fall, though I really wish someone would take a bite out of Abe. I've got 18 turns until my India deals expire I think. I guess that gives me time to build my Horde.

Here's a screen of the status (almost) currently. I don't have long left in my GA which is why so many cities are working on buildings instead of Riders.
SAV file will follow in the next post.

P.S. I'm no longer in last place. I think I'm 5th or so.

ducki · November 11, 2002, 00:57

and the SAV for anyone interested.

ducki · November 11, 2002, 01:00

Something interesting to point out...
In this game, the AI researched both Chivalry and Music Theory - techs that I thought it was generally believed they set at a lower priority.

Now, Chivalry can be explained by the fact that both Japan and Mongolia probably badly wanted it.

But Music Theory?
Seems the AI has a newfound love for Bach.

nbarclay · November 11, 2002, 01:46

Quote:

Originally posted by ducki
Something interesting to point out...
In this game, the AI researched both Chivalry and Music Theory - techs that I thought it was generally believed they set at a lower priority.

Now, Chivalry can be explained by the fact that both Japan and Mongolia probably badly wanted it.

But Music Theory?
Seems the AI has a newfound love for Bach.

My impression has always been that the AIs tend to go for Music Theory fairly quickly after they get Education, although I've never run an analysis on it. Of course I usually have higher priorities for a while, which could skew my viewpoint.

Nathan