What do you do that is bad strategy?

[peterfharris]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
You know, this thread could inspire some great AU games. Give us situations where the above are tested, and so many will participate to learn how to be better civers.

This is the best thread I have read in a LONG time.

I thought it might be a rather useful thread where I, and others, could pick up some ideas there being two aspects to playing well: 1. do good things 2. avoid doing bad things. I was also wondering if many others sacrifice strategy for enjoyment as I do, apparently many do.

Threads on good play too often get highjacked by (sometimes unbelievable) boasts. The title of this thread should discourage such pointless vanity.

[Dominae]

I micromanage all cities until at least the Industrial age (after Factories, at least). I feel my performance suffers if I neglect this area of play. You may think I do not have fun by doing this, but I actually have less fun if I know I could be doing something better.


Dominae

[Mountain Sage]

My worst sin?

Trying to contact the AI to make it understand that I am playing a PP game and invading my empire (which has no military units whatsoever, of course) would ruin my game

[vulture]

Biggest sins:

City placement. I've been experimenting for a while now with the temporary camp for churning out units (and to use up all the tiles in the empire early on), but somehow I only ever put down one or two of these before ending up with something like a 3-tile spacing in the rest of my empire, and then turning the temporary camps into permanent cities, which cramps the core too much.

City growth: I'm sure I over-emphasise production. I usually only irrigate enough to get a city up to 2 excess food per turn, and then mine everything else. One thing the OCC showed was the strength of having food tiles, which can boost food up to +3 or +4, and then switch to a production tile once you have grown a fair bit.

Tech whoring in the industrial age. I prefer to sell techs to backwards AI quite cheaply, rather than get nothing for the tech when the other AI sell. Although this lets me run at 100% science most of the time, it does let backwards AI catch up quite quickly, and sometimes has got them back into the game to become one of the major researchers.

More cynically: building anything other than barracks and units...

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Dominae
I micromanage all cities until at least the Industrial age (after Factories, at least). I feel my performance suffers if I neglect this area of play. You may think I do not have fun by doing this, but I actually have less fun if I know I could be doing something better.

Dominae

Well, actually, once you get a city up to size 12 and set up the tiles the way you want them, there isn't much to do until hospitals. If you're on the ball, you can punch out 1-turn workers every time the city fills its foodbox at size 12, but other than that there isn't much to do.

It's the mid-to-late ancient era (for the core cities) and the late ancient/early medieval (for the cities further out/2nd core) that will require the most MM work.

Or am I just talking out of my ass, Dominae?

-Arrian

[Fosse]

My military and worker forces are always disgustingly small.

Too little emphasis on suicide galleys and making contact (partly I don't think of it, partly I don't like doing it).

NEVER contact AI every turn.

Bad at prebuilds... partly because I don't plan, partly because I don't like them very much. Either way, I loose lots of wonders I wanted.

Too unlikely to go to an early war for easy territory. I like having neighbors on my contitent actually. I try to be good friends with the closest one that isn't right where my FP should be.

Never build FP soon enough.

Countless more. I play on emporer and don't do too badly... but I'm nowhere near the top players.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
Well, actually, once you get a city up to size 12 and set up the tiles the way you want them, there isn't much to do until hospitals. If you're on the ball, you can punch out 1-turn workers every time the city fills its foodbox at size 12, but other than that there isn't much to do.

It's the mid-to-late ancient era (for the core cities) and the late ancient/early medieval (for the cities further out/2nd core) that will require the most MM work.

In theory this should happen every game, but in practice it does not. There are many things that can require more micromanagement:

1. Active avoidance of Waste. With close city-spacing, it is often possible to switch tiles around to avoid Waste.

2. Optimization of production. Sometimes if you just rearrange a few tiles, you can get those Cavalry out a turn sooner. Obviously this is closely related the first point above. Notice that many players do this with Wonders (to put every single possible Shield into the project), but there is no reason not to do it with other improvements too (and units).

3. If you do 1 and 2 above, some cities may have to starve for a while, so you have to micromanage some more to make sure they always stay at the highest possible pop.

4. Short-rushing.

5. Redemption of cities with high Corruption. You can throw a lot of Gold into these, or you can just irrigate and use Specialists. The latter way requires a bunch more micromanagement.


There are plenty of other things you can do which I'm not thinking of right now. But the point is that very rarely do your cities reach a "steady-state" where you can just leave them alone and they'll perform optimally. Although such a state is sort of reached toward the end of the Medieval age in your core cities, the arrival of Railroads and Factories (and Hospitals!) throws all this out of whack.

It's impossible to tell what exactly the benefits are to putting so much effort into your economy, but personally if I know that I can do some things better, I feel bad if I do not. I guess that when I'm playing against serious competition (tough Emperor games, Deity games or MP/PBEM games), I'm hoping all this stuff can make a difference.


Dominae

[cumi]

Originally posted by Dominae
I almost always irrigate tiles with resources on them (if possible). I just hate the look of a Mine on Wines, Wheat and Cattle.

Hm? What's the issue with that? Don't tell me, that I don't get the food bonus if I irrigate on that!

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
2) Getting sidetracked building improvements/wonders when I need more troops.

you're not the only one, nearly all of GS suffers from this, it seems

Other then this,
1. building too few workers when rexing, even if I know I need them
2. not specialising my cities into settler pumps, although it's a habit I'm starting to break. Settler pumps are simply too powerful, even if they require constant micromanaging. But nothing can beat a 4-turn settler pump, or a 2 (or 3)-turn settler pump in GA. 1-turn worker pumps are nice too.
3. building the lighthouse, but forgetting to build galleys until Astronomy has come
4. putting all my workers to automated, because at certain nights (after too many beers), I can't be bothered anymore. Next day, I have to click part of them to get me some 'free' workers
5. playing huge maps only, or the second size if I want a 'quick' game. Playing tiny maps from time to time surely improves your tactics (e.g. archer rushing, which is a b!tch to perform on huge)
6. being absolutely culture loving, and refusing to raze obviously culture pressed AI-cities.
7. never razing cities at all, not even if they were bad placed. I'd rather starve one, and build another one closeby to fill space.
8. Not using combined arms enough. Sometimes I only build cats and slowmovers, sometimes I only build fast movers. But this game has no need for true combined arms
9. Never have enough defense. invasion forces always suffer from this, I rather build twice the number of tanks, then adding some infs to the mix.
10. even if Leo's is most of the times on my 'must get' list, I always upgrade too few units. The only exceptions are the planned mass upgrades, like chariots-horse upgrades, warrior-swords upgrades, or horse-knights upgrades. I pillage iron sources to perform it. But it's rare that spears get upgraded, I'd rather build some pikes from scratch.
11. always going for the GL, where I have the possibility to build the pyramids instead. I always forget that with the pyramids, you don't need the GLib at all.
12. and some more, already mentioned. I think the drinking too many beers when playing certainly is responsible for most of my faults, certainly as it means you forget plans each time you open a new one.

DeepO

[MrWhereItsAt]

I'd say 7. is NOT bad strategy. One of my problems is AI attitude after I have established myself. I raze one or two cities and I never get a GPT deal sorted again. Not razing takes some discipline, but their attitude towrads you is nowhere NEAR as bad.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by DeepO


3. building the lighthouse, but forgetting to build galleys until Astronomy has come
11. always going for the GL, where I have the possibility to build the pyramids instead. I always forget that with the pyramids, you don't need the GLib at all.

DeepO

3. I did even worse at the beginning: after the GL, I kept my galleys hugging the coast...

11. I'm a bit slow today (it's Friday)

[DeepO]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
I'd say 7. is NOT bad strategy. One of my problems is AI attitude after I have established myself. I raze one or two cities and I never get a GPT deal sorted again. Not razing takes some discipline, but their attitude towrads you is nowhere NEAR as bad.

Hmmm... interesting thought. But if you raze cities from let's say the Chinese, can't you get gpt deals with the English anyway?

Also, if you want to avoid this problem, you could settler-disband a city, instead of flat out razing. It takes a little longer to perform, but AFAIK doesn't have any negative effects to your honorablility standing with the AI.

Then again, I nearly never settler-disband anything either, only the few times I needed a palace jump in a peaceful game. And when experimenting with Ralphing, or other techniques with temporary cities.

BTW,
13. If you build temporary cities, you're supposed to disband them later, instead of becoming attached to them and keeping them around.

Mountain Sage: Many times I was able to build the Pyramids on Emperor (never succeeded on Deity, but it's one level I don't particularly like to play), but instead chose to delay the city so that I could get to literature instead, and could build the GLib. While the GLib is not bad, the Pyramids are the best wonder in the ancient game, as it will make you boom so hard that your research will get to 4-turn techs before you discover education, if you have the space to expand too. Sure, you will need to do a bit more trading to get everything right, but the Pyramids in the hands of an experienced player are THE wonder of the game, even unbalancing as no AI comes close in rexing.

So why don't I build them then, given the chance? I don't know... habitude, I guess. Even with super focus, pumping a size of my second city to get to the GLib is painful, and I'm always very much focused on that plan as I know there is only a slim shot at the pyramids anyway. After a while, you just give up in getting the Pyramids, and even if you have the chance, go for the GLib instead.

The funny thing is, that if I get a super early leader, I don't hesitate twice, and build the pyramids, but most of the times I have either a GLib build going, or are planning on starting one anyway.

DeepO

[Catt]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
I'd say 7. is NOT bad strategy. One of my problems is AI attitude after I have established myself. I raze one or two cities and I never get a GPT deal sorted again. Not razing takes some discipline, but their attitude towrads you is nowhere NEAR as bad.

Something else must be causing your "no gpt deals woes." Razing cities does indeed result in a deterioration of AI attitudes around the world, but it should not affect your reputation. Reputation is a measure of your trustworthiness -- do you have a history of keeping your word and honoring 20-turn deals? Attitude is a measure of your 'nastiness' or hegemony -- do you do "bad" things or are you a dominant power (lots more go into this -- check out Bamspeedy's excellent and exhaustive research results at CFC). Even with the entire world furious at you, if you have honored all 20-turn deals, the furious attitudes should not prevent a gpt deal. So raze away if that's what you prefer; but keep your word if you hope to trade gpt or resources per-turn in exchange for hard assets (like tech).

Catt

[Hot_Enamel]

1. Not enough workers
2. Not checking for deals every turn.
3. Too much warmongering

I just cant help myself and start wars...I win at emporer, but always through domination or conquest.

Last game I played (just finished last night), was the Americans, and I made an extra effort to build & rex.

But as soon as I got a demand from some piss-ant civ neighbour....I get a rush a blood and the wars begin.

I won that game...Conquest yet again.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Catt


Something else must be causing your "no gpt deals woes." Razing cities does indeed result in a deterioration of AI attitudes around the world, but it should not affect your reputation. Reputation is a measure of your trustworthiness -- do you have a history of keeping your word and honoring 20-turn deals? Attitude is a measure of your 'nastiness' or hegemony -- do you do "bad" things or are you a dominant power (lots more go into this -- check out Bamspeedy's excellent and exhaustive research results at CFC). Even with the entire world furious at you, if you have honored all 20-turn deals, the furious attitudes should not prevent a gpt deal. So raze away if that's what you prefer; but keep your word if you hope to trade gpt or resources per-turn in exchange for hard assets (like tech).

Catt

Hmm... Intriguing... I always equated the AI civ's attitude to your reputation. I never realised they weren't the same thing. In answer to your questions through the case of my current 24 civ archipelago map, I may have broken a 20-turn peace treaty, but I was reasonably careful not to break any ROPs and not break a peace where I had a gpt or lux deal with them that had turns to go. I noticed some interesting things in this game though. I never broke anything beyond a peace treay (no turns left in the agreement) with England, on my home country. When I had vanquished them enough, I kept their last city around as a sucker for outmoded tech. They were of course furious with me, I having destroyed several of their cities.

When they made contact with other civs, those civs became furious at me as well. The Zulus attacked ME without provocation (never in their territory, never attacked them), and afterwards they not only were furious but only accepted HUGE gpt deals for techs, where about a half the total cost in upfront payment would staisfy them.

Minor threadjack further here - not having known about the difference between attitude and reputation (beyond the AIs attitude towards you due to similar culture or Government type, which I see as minor things, and yes I have read BamSpeedy's article), I suppose having a civ angry at me has no bearing whatsoever on another civ's attitude towards me where those two civs have no contact. I draw this conclusion from the fact that a broken peace treaty (and nothing more severe than that) seems to cause civs to be angry at me where they have met the one I have attacked, whereas alienated civs are perfectly happy with me.

One last interesting note - the Babs have never been involved in any conflict with me, and as I said I have not broken anythin more than a peace treaty with no turns waiting on it with ANY civ. However, I found one turn they valued their Dyes at about 40gpt from me, then the next turn they devalued them to 35gpt! I had no significant pop change at that time (if anything it went up!) and no change in status with any civ. It seemed to me that, over time, whatever was seen as a transgression of mine to the Babs was having less of an effect on their trust in me. Sound correct?

[Master Zen]

Hmmm... bad strategies, this is actually a pretty interesting thread

Ok, all my really bad strategies are on monarch, I try and play emperor and deity as flawlessly as possible (obviously make mistakes just not on purpose)

Anyway, here's my BAD STRATEGIES on monarch:

1) Always OCP (esthetics)
2) Always irrigate all grasslands (looks much nicer)
3) Never hack forests (love those patches of green)

Oh, and I do have one bad strategy on Emperor:

1) I NEVER GIVE A DAMN ABOUT REPUTATION. If it comes to blows, I'll gladly start it. I always win anyway

[MrWhereItsAt]

How is that bad strategy then? I gather these bad strategies are not just alternative ways to win (warmonger vs peacenik), but more what, if you managed to improve, would help you win more easily, more comprehensively or more quickly.

I would say keeping a good rep would be harder, and you can't ask for a more comprehensive win than one made from a warmonger's stance.

[Catt]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt


Hmm... Intriguing... I always equated the AI civ's attitude to your reputation. I never realised they weren't the same thing.

It's a common misconception, and too often the terms are used interchangeably when the concepts aren't interchangeable.

In answer to your questions through the case of my current 24 civ archipelago map, I may have broken a 20-turn peace treaty, but I was reasonably careful not to break any ROPs and not break a peace where I had a gpt or lux deal with them that had turns to go. I noticed some interesting things in this game though. I never broke anything beyond a peace treay (no turns left in the agreement) with England, on my home country. When I had vanquished them enough, I kept their last city around as a sucker for outmoded tech. They were of course furious with me, I having destroyed several of their cities.

I tend to watch my reputation very closely but still manage to foul it occasionally. Little things like barbarian galleys (or galleys from war enemies) blocking a coastal trade route with a third civ, a trading partner losing its last harbor during a war with another civ, etc. can jump up and surprise you pretty easily. If you've got a lot of trades and deals going on (as I can imagine on an archipelago with 24 civs) I can imagine its pretty easy to take a misstep without even knowing it.

When they made contact with other civs, those civs became furious at me as well.

I believe that both atitude and reputation work in a similar fashion as regards the outside world. In other words, if you do a bunch of things that would negatively affect AI attitudes or your reputation, third-party civs would only be affected if they gained contact with the "victim civ" (England in your case). Had you destroyed England, I believe all the thrid-party attitudes would not have been affected by your razing of English cities but may have still been negative due to other factors (like empire size, leadership position, etc.).

The Zulus attacked ME without provocation (never in their territory, never attacked them), and afterwards they not only were furious but only accepted HUGE gpt deals for techs, where about a half the total cost in upfront payment would staisfy them.

If they accept any gpt deal from you in exchange for tech, it means your reputation is intact -- with a blackened reputation, you can't even add "free" gpt or resources to an otherwise acceptable straight-up deal. An example: if Zulu would accept 500 gold for Feudalism, but your reputation is ruined, they won't accept 500 gold and silks for Feudalism.

Minor threadjack further here - not having known about the difference between attitude and reputation (beyond the AIs attitude towards you due to similar culture or Government type, which I see as minor things, and yes I have read BamSpeedy's article), I suppose having a civ angry at me has no bearing whatsoever on another civ's attitude towards me where those two civs have no contact. I draw this conclusion from the fact that a broken peace treaty (and nothing more severe than that) seems to cause civs to be angry at me where they have met the one I have attacked, whereas alienated civs are perfectly happy with me.

As above, I do think that the information that causes rep damage and attitude adjustments needs to be available to other civs before the changes take effect - no contact means no information. Also, even though you only razed English cities, razing cities affects all AI attitudes (those with contact, that is ), it just affects the "razee" much more strongly. If you raze 10 English cities, I'd guess the English are permanently furious, but the other AI civs will also reduce their opinion of you, too.

One last interesting note - the Babs have never been involved in any conflict with me, and as I said I have not broken anythin more than a peace treaty with no turns waiting on it with ANY civ. However, I found one turn they valued their Dyes at about 40gpt from me, then the next turn they devalued them to 35gpt! I had no significant pop change at that time (if anything it went up!) and no change in status with any civ. It seemed to me that, over time, whatever was seen as a transgression of mine to the Babs was having less of an effect on their trust in me. Sound correct?

Don't know on this one. There are a lot of variables to resource pricing and I can't hazard a guess.

Catt

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
How is that bad strategy then? I gather these bad strategies are not just alternative ways to win (warmonger vs peacenik), but more what, if you managed to improve, would help you win more easily, more comprehensively or more quickly.

I would say keeping a good rep would be harder, and you can't ask for a more comprehensive win than one made from a warmonger's stance.

Well in that case, sometimes I rush through games without thinking for example in that I should improve this tile or the other, I play many times by instinct (I NEVER do queues) so it may seem a little reckless but I still get good results so my instinct can't be that bad

What sometimes happens when I do this is that a city which is about to grow and I forget to give it an entertainier or move the lux slider even though it will go into disorder the next turn. I don't pay attention to that so I get more disorders than if I checked every city every turn. Booooring.

[Quasar1011]

I seem to build less units per city than in Civ 2, which leads me vulnerable to: a) attack, and 2) civil disorder.

Sometimes when razing a city, I don't protect the workers I just gained well enough. Next turn, the enemy rescues them.

[peterfharris]

The worst thing I do is not going to war when I really should because I couldn't be bothered with all that moving about of units. Also, doing almost nothing when I am at war also because I all that moving about of units tedious.

[Tattila the Hun]

Last-ditch, desperous attacks with inf against inf, just in case I win, to get that one city, just before I'm forced to negotiate peace because WW or other reasons. I end up losing hordes of troops, and usually don't get the city... And attacking the last 1-hp inf with 1-hp tank... Just to get Elite... With 4-hp vet's standing by... (Works more often...)

Also, waging wars for centuries... Literally. In Republic. OW!

Hey, BTW, is this right? I'm at war with the brits, on heir soil, and end my turn. Then the brits form an MPP with babs, my neighbours and buddies. And because I am on the britland, babs declare war... Stupid.... Needs chance!

[BigFree]

1. I sometimes miss a Barbarian whose snuck up on a worker...

2. I don't use Barbarian hunting to increase my units status enough, I'll keep attacking with elite units instead of trading them out, too lazy to switch 'em I guess..

3. I'll use the goto comand much to often, with the units missing/not using roads that were built after the goto command was issued.

4. I'll change my mind about improving a certain tile after having just finnished improving it.....

[Daz]

Good thread

1. I start wars WAY to late...
2. I dont trade as much as I should,
3. I REX like a 'roach which often leave me open to attack...
4. I build everything available...

[Louis XXIV]

Originally posted by cumi

Originally posted by Dominae
I almost always irrigate tiles with resources on them (if possible). I just hate the look of a Mine on Wines, Wheat and Cattle.

Hm? What's the issue with that? Don't tell me, that I don't get the food bonus if I irrigate on that!

During despotism, any food over 2 gets a -1 penalty. Meaning that if you irrigate regular grass, you will still get just 2 food. However, this doesn't apply to wheat or cattle (You get -1, which is 3, 4 if you irrigate it)

[Mountain Sage]

Another one,

I spend too much time on this forum and don't play enough. That's why this comment is so short...

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by BigFree
1. I sometimes miss a Barbarian whose snuck up on a worker...

Hate that. I'm pretty good about protecting my workers, but every once in awhile a Horse mounted barb swoops in and snatches one. Which reminds me of another bad strat:

- I get distracted by other goals, and sometimes forget to regularly sweep shaded areas for barb huts to get quick, easy gold and prevent an uprising. I hate uprisings. Not hard to defend against, but barbs pillage too much to let them roam free.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Arrian

Another thing: spending tons of cash on horribly corrupt cities to change them into merely mostly corrupt cities. I have a thing with battling corruption. It's a righteous struggle.

I have the same tendency when I can afford it. Then again, when we're that rich, does it really matter enough to be considered bad strategy?

[Master Zen]

Sometimes I'm such an order freak that I avoid better city cites just so my city placement looks neater

(only on emperor and below, never on deity)

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt

And micromanaging every turn? I don't do that and I didn't think ANYONE could stand it, especially on a huge map. Let alone having to try and finish the game with all that delay! I do micromanage by maxing production and reducing surplus food to zero at pop 12 before Hospitals, including terrain improvement changes, making citizens Entertainers if it means WLTKD in corrupt cities and maxing production durign a GA, but no more than that! Do you top players really micromanage everything every turn?

My level of micromanagement is very high.

1) I only automate workers if I've already in effect won and I'm unusually impatient to get the game officially over with.

2) I try to keep an eye on when cities grow and make sure the tile combination worked is what I want.

3) From time to time and place to place, I'll do tweaking to optimize when particular cities grow or finish producing something beyond just checking when new workers are added.

4) In the early game, I move the luxury slider around a lot as needs change due to fluctuations in population. The problem there is that I'm not always careful enough, so I have occasional riots when I move the slider down and forget to move it back up when I need to. And losing a turn on a four-turn or six-turn settler pump is not trivial!

Nathan