11-11-2004 21:53									#1
	Monarch to Emperor Got spare money?

I will try to post the 4000 BC save as an attachment here. I'm not good at it.

I did a couple of restarts to get something that looked decent.
Americans
Emperor
Normal Continents
Large with Opponents maxed
Random environments
fairly active barbs
Normal AI aggressiveness

My plan was to build a second scout early and pop goody huts in order to get something to trade. Research would go Alphabet-Writing-COL-Philosophy and then take Republic.

I wouldn't worry about Wonders unless they dropped in my lap.

My goal would be largely building, if possible. Maybe this is a mistake on Emperor?

Great start with two cows. Exploration shows cows all over the place. Build goes Scout-Worker-Warrior-Granary. I pop a free settler and Ceremonial Burial.

Early contacts with Egyptians, Scandanavian, Mongols. Everybody has tech on me. I get Alpha and halfway through Writing, trade it for some good stuff like bronze working.

I am fortunate that there is Ivory to the NW of me and Furs to the S. I put my free settle on Furs and my first built settler next to Ivory. They are about a square further out than I want but I figure it is important to have the happy faces from the Luxuries.

Settler pump gets cranking and I go Warrior-Worker-Warrior in all new towns. I reason that I need to keep plenty of unit builds going to keep AI civs from getting greedy.

Around 1200 BC I have 9 towns and I have been building archers because I discovered that the closest Iron is SE of the Fur town and has been taken by Scandinavians. I send 5 archers down there and scorch the town in 1200. Egypt declares on me but shows no immediate unit movement. I drop a settler next to the iron and two workers on the iron. Soon I will have SM.

I fight off a flurry of Scandinavian archers and an attempted aggressive settlement. Egypt shows up on the doorstep of a new city of mine with two archers vs. my one warrior defender. Help was one step away. The town falls but does not self destruct.

I take the town back and work on running roads to it.
Swordsmen start to show up. Scandanavia makes peace but the Egyptians won't talk. I am 4 turns away from getting Philosophy, which I hope won't have been taken! I am really cranking on tech, etc. thanks to the two luxuries I got at the start.

My next goal is to grab some land from the Egyptians with my SM. I don't think that they have any horses and thus no chariots and no GA!! After that, get peace, go into Republic, keep cranking settlers and building libraries and markets.

	11-11-2004 21:56									#2
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OK, now the DA question... How to I attach a 2Meg save file with a limit of 500kb?

I used to be good at this stuff but I get stupider every day.

	11-11-2004 22:18									#3
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Does a zip version work?

Attachment: conquests autosave 4000 bc.zip
This has been downloaded 3 time(s).

	11-11-2004 22:42									#4
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You won't have a 2mb save, if you use a normal save. IOW just do a save and that file will be quite small. Autosaves are very large.

Now my question is what is the goal here? Did you intend to just put up a story (which is fine) or did you want to ask a question?

BTW I would take those Vikes out, if I could. I do not want to be looking a their UU and me with no real offensive units to counter it. It will be some time before you get a unit that strong as the Americans.

Not to mention that they can slam any coastal cities and you will be hard pressed to stop it until the industrial age.

It sounds like you have good start. I would only question the idea of going for CoL. This is doable, but puts the free tech in danger, unless you are very sure of your footing.

	11-11-2004 22:54									#5
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Just my opinions, not criticism.

quote: Originally posted by Golden Bear My plan was to build a second scout early and pop goody huts in order to get something to trade. Research would go Alphabet-Writing-COL-Philosophy and then take Republic. I wouldn't worry about Wonders unless they dropped in my lap. My goal would be largely building, if possible. Maybe this is a mistake on Emperor?

Largely buildering is still possible on emperor with a good start, early free settler, or the cheap little agricultural trait.

You got 2 out of the three, so it can work.

I'm not sure about taking CoL before Philosophy though. Probably a bit of a gamble unless you have a river or an archy map. Better to get Philosophy and something else (I like getting Lit and the Library, but then I am a total warmonger) IMO.

quote: Great start with two cows. Exploration shows cows all over the place. Build goes Scout-Worker-Warrior-Granary. I pop a free settler and Ceremonial Burial. Early contacts with Egyptians, Scandanavian, Mongols. Everybody has tech on me. I get Alpha and halfway through Writing, trade it for some good stuff like bronze working.

Alright, am I reading it right that you waited till you were halfway done with writing to trade Alpha? Not sure the value of waiting there. Each turn lets the AI trade between themselves, research towards whatever, possibly devaluing your tech.

Don't be afraid to mix in tech+gold to get tech either. Barbs and superior management will get you extra cash.

quote: I am fortunate that there is Ivory to the NW of me and Furs to the S. I put my free settle on Furs and my first built settler next to Ivory. They are about a square further out than I want but I figure it is important to have the happy faces from the Luxuries.

hmm. I would NOT extend city spacing to grab lux in the core. Not even by a square. The slider can do for the early game, or even colonies.

quote: Settler pump gets cranking and I go Warrior-Worker-Warrior in all new towns. I reason that I need to keep plenty of unit builds going to keep AI civs from getting greedy.

Personally like my second military unit to be archer/spear instead of warrior (unless I know I have Iron, obviously). Then like I said, I am pure warmongering.

Another thing, this sounds like the settlers are unguarded. Maybe I'm paranoid from too many PBEMs.

quote: Around 1200 BC I have 9 towns and I have been building archers because I discovered that the closest Iron is SE of the Fur town and has been taken by Scandinavians. I send 5 archers down there and scorch the town in 1200. Egypt declares on me but shows no immediate unit movement. I drop a settler next to the iron and two workers on the iron. Soon I will have SM.

Depending on the situation, it may have been beneficial to have those archers proceed. Don't know your losses, but if I had 4 remaining, they'd be going forward. Usually you can take a second town that you don't care about losing and fight the AI counter there or even sue for peace quicker and get more.

quote: I fight off a flurry of Scandinavian archers and an attempted aggressive settlement. Egypt shows up on the doorstep of a new city of mine with two archers vs. my one warrior defender. Help was one step away. The town falls but does not self destruct. I take the town back and work on running roads to it. Swordsmen start to show up. Scandanavia makes peace but the Egyptians won't talk. I am 4 turns away from getting Philosophy, which I hope won't have been taken! I am really cranking on tech, etc. thanks to the two luxuries I got at the start. My next goal is to grab some land from the Egyptians with my SM. I don't think that they have any horses and thus no chariots and no GA!! After that, get peace, go into Republic, keep cranking settlers and building libraries and markets.

All in all sounds pretty good.

	11-11-2004 23:39									#6
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Which version of the game is the autosave from?

	11-11-2004 23:39									#7
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Sorry VXMA, it is not intended to be a story. I was hoping to draw some comments and insight. I have been pushing Monarch around pretty easily and want to have some success at Emperor. But I seem to fall into doldrums on Emperor.

I thought that maybe if I related my thinking and progress, some of you more experienced types could tell me the point where I lost it.

I can stop the thread if desired.

Unorthodox, I stopped the Scandinavian war because of the Egyptians. The Egyptians are in a position to threaten me along the entire long axis of my territory and I did not have enough going for me at that point to fight two wars.

My plan now is to wrap up the Egyptian war quickly and shuffle back to beating on the Scandinavians when the 20 turns is up.

	11-11-2004 23:50									#8
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Thats cool, but you need to put up some intermediate saves or at least a screenie for anyone to follow.

So you should be able to save and stay under 500kb for a long time, just don't use autosaves.

When you say doldrums, what exactly is going on? A few saves along the way can make it easier to see if anything is breaking down.

The picture you gave so far does not show me if you are introuble or in great shape. I am not good at visulizing, I need to actually see things (no imagination).

Industrial trait with that start should be able to do quite well.

	12-11-2004 02:00									#9
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It is C3C v1.2. I went back from 1.22 for a game a friend was sharing and forgot to update. Sorry.

Here is the core of my territory at 900 AD. Egypt off to the left and Scandinavia down to the south.

Attachment: amer 900.jpg
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	12-11-2004 02:07									#10
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And a zoomed out view:

Attachment: amer 900 2.jpg
This has been downloaded 168 time(s).

	12-11-2004 02:20									#11
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You scared me with that 900AD and making spears, but I see it is actually 900BC (wipes sweat off of brow).

	12-11-2004 02:30									#12
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What are you up to, do you intend to go warmonger and take down some civs? If so, then cranking out troops is fine, if not, then lets make only vets and get more work done on the empire.

They cost to maintain, so that is why I am going to have only what I need.

If no war plans, I would not load up on spears and swords. I would prefer horse units. They can move better and upgrade to better units.

You do not have to face any barb uprisings, so you do not need lots of spears. Only frontline cities, if any. I may prefer archers for the zero bombardment. Depends on what I see coming soon.

Spears have uses, but they cannot attack, so I do not make many of them in Emp/Demi games. I may need them at deity and sid to stop barbs, they are much stronger at those levels and may defeat archers and even horses.

	12-11-2004 02:34									#13
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I don't know what techs you have and what improvements are in the capitol, but I would like to see it much larger.

I would use some chops to rush any structures that are not build and make the city more productive. By 900bc I want a bunch of mines and as close to max size as I can get.

	12-11-2004 02:47									#14
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General comments:

Too many tiles have roads but no other improvement. More mines. Chop more forest. I almost never road forest. Chop, road, mine. I may re-forest later once I have engineering if the city is very food-rich (only on non-bonus grassland).

If you are building units to fight against the AI (as opposd to just doing some exploring and barb hunting), invest in barracks. They're worth it.

-Arrian

	12-11-2004 03:08									#15
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From the screenshots it looks like you're doing just fine; you have more land than all the AIs you have contact with, and presumably have more productive cities too (generally the case in human vs. AI). What exactly is it that you're worrying about? Are you behind in tech? Do you tend to lose your early lead?

It looks to me like you could just go into military production mode (apart from those wonderful Cattle cities) right now and just overrun the opposition. Maybe the screenshots are not telling the whole story...

	12-11-2004 03:16									#16
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Too wide a spacing for my tastes, or needs some military camps in between a few of those. Definately more improvements than just roads.

NY should not be stagnate yet unless it's due to unhappiness, and if it is, that should be a settler/worker coming out.

Atlanta and NY need granaries if they don't have one, and make at least one a worker/settler pump.

	12-11-2004 03:22									#17
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A couple of suggestions (more later):

1. You seem to have one "pump" city producing Settlers, but none dedicated to Workers. In fact all your cities are building military units. As I mentioned above, given your already advantageous position, you could probably work this into a win. But if you really want to "win big" (or catchup in a more difficult game), you'll want more Workers (as Arrian mentions). Three Cattle plus some Flood Plains around your capital area is a gift: use it to make more Workers and more Settlers. This will translate into a more dominating position later on. You already have enough units to defend yourself if one of the AIs decides to sneak attack you.

2. Horsemen seem like the right call here. You have 3+ neighbors to subjugate on your continent, and none of them are particularly dominant (for the moment). This means you can engage in oscillating war to prune each of them, or just plain and simple serial conquest to eliminate them one at a time. If one civ were stronger than the others I would recommend Swordsmen, since that's the civ you want to hit first, and Swordsmen are more effective when used in such a focused campaign. Given your situation, the Horsemen's mobility will serve you well.

Do not research Horseback Riding immediately, however. Instead, build a bunch of Chariots with The Wheel, then upgrade them (for 20 Gold each) at the opportune moment. This will let you have far more units than otherwise possible given your overall Shield output.

	12-11-2004 20:52									#18
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Thanks folks for the feedback. Over night I played some more (of course) and have progressed to the ADs.

I should have read your advice first.

After wrapping up the Egypt war, I moved my SM south to Scandinavia. BTW, I have all these cities cranking SM without barracks because the war came when I seized the iron and then Egypt jumped in. I saw no recourse but to go to full military.

Anyway, I attacked the Scandanavians again. As I started to make progress, the Mongols declared on me. So again, I had to let the Scandanavians go with an early peace and turtle up on the Mongols. After I got peace, I went into Republic. The risky COL before Philosophy worked this time.

I went into builder/explorer mode for a while and this is where I think that I lost my steam. I crept up score wise will I built infrastructure. I got knights before anybody else and started building a few when...

Persia declared on me and, a turn later, Scandinavia conveniently did too. I got Babylon to treaty against Persia, which probably was a mistake. It led to Persia eliminating Babylon and gaining Leonardo's.

I ran Scandinavia off the continent and then did not see any point to continuing the war, especially since Mongols had declared on the fading Babylonians and had their Keshik (?) warriors all over my territory. I tried to goad them into war while they were next to my knight loaded cities, but they backed down. I built a captured worker barrier across the neck of land that leads to the Persians and now have the Mongol forces split into two pieces.

Is it too late to go war crazy? The Persians are the ones I want but I am certain that the Mongols will attack if I declare. I could go for the Egyptians first and then the Mongols and then the Persians. Or just damage the Mongols, eliminate the Egyptians and then finish off Persians and Mongols.

I made a bad mistake about forgetting to prebuild for Sistine and ended up missing it, and Leo's and everything.

I will post a save game and a screenie in a little bit.

	12-11-2004 21:00									#19
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660 AD.

Attachment: amer 660ad.jpg
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	12-11-2004 21:01									#20
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Here is the 660AD save...

Attachment: ip 3.sav
This has been downloaded 2 time(s).

	12-11-2004 22:06									#21
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It won't load, I forget, but I suspect 1.20 is not compat with 1.22.

You must get a view of the world. How can you make plans with no knowledge of the lay of the land? Get embassies and trade maps if you have the tech.

If you want to get into a war with someone, I want to either get all the threats on my side or be prepared to take them all on.

IOW if I am not worried about them all joining against me, then I do not need to make allies.

Anyway I would prefer to take the civ that is next to me, even if they are not the most strategic one. Let me add their land and expand out.

Memphis and LA are on 60+ turn builds of libs? Do they have a barracks? Those are frontline towns and will be likely targets of attacks. Even if they are not, they are where you will send units to heal. Do they have a temple to hold or increase cultural borders?

I would either find something to build that can be done much sooner or put them on wealth. Workers is a possiblity. I hope you are no longer making troops in any city without a barracks.

Troops at this point in the game are just not of much value to me as regulars. That may be ok, if they are going to go against inferior units to get promoted. Actually I want those same promotions to be elites, not to vets.

I would surely have at least one army by now and be hurting the AI with it. It is hard to get an MGL with so many regular troops.

	12-11-2004 23:59									#22
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Vxma, thank you for your ongoing commentary.

I'll swap the frontline cities into barracks. They all build temples as their first project at this point in the game and I garrison them with troops built elsewhere.

Yes, I have barracks in all my major troop building cities.

I also am tempted to finish off the Egyptians, but you can see the multiple large stacks of Mongols waiting for an opening. Maybe I can get them into a MA against the Egyptians.

I thought the documentation said that earlier saves will load in to 1.22, but my experience is the contrary. Sorry about that. I'll change after this game.

	18-11-2004 04:29									#23
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I am reading this thread. I think the Monarch --> Emperor jump is quite a jump compared to Regent ---> Monarch.

At any rate, the Mongol stack there would tick me off, I would have to take care of that problem. The Mongols are just salivating ready to pounce on you. You do realize that? heheh. In Memphis, LA, and Oslo I would get Barracks and (probably) city walls asap. Walls are cheap and can make or break, especially if you got rushed by 15 Keshiks.

then get a two large stacks of death going, with Knights, Pikemen, Trebs in a 5:2:2 ratio and go to it...

I have found that C3C doesn't reward peaceful play. Too bad. At higher levels, the peaceful builder finds himself without needed strategic resources and sheer size required for space race wins. On the other hand, if you militarily conquer your entire home continent, you'll be much better off in the long run--free to pursue the ending of your choosing.

	18-11-2004 20:55									#24
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Hi Mace- what I ended up doing was doing a blitz war on the Egyptians first. This put me in a good position around the flanks of the Mongols. I managed to keep the Mongols intimidated by the power stat I guess and tied up with treaties.

Then I attacked the Mongol stacks while they were conveniently close. The Persians were next but I had problems sustaining the war at that point and once I had Leonardos didn't see the point. I then went overseas and did some luxury wars. I finished up with a domination victory around 1840.

After that, I went back to Monarch for a breather and played the French. Domination victory in 1685.

I agree. I think that the Monarch-Emperor jump is tougher than the Regent-Monarch. A lot more is dependant upon having good starting terrain, at least for me.

Thanks again to all the people who chimed in with thoughts.

The only question I have is about a suggestion to stay away from spearmen. As we know, there comes a point where warrior disappears as an option and that is where I start building spearmen. Should I do archers instead? They cost the same and cannot defend. I guess that the upkeep is lower, but spearmen can be upgraded continuously if necessary.

	18-11-2004 22:17									#25
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I am not sure the context for the spearmen question. I know that I prefer to not make them early in the game, because they cannot attack anything.

Also you see them being build with no barracks in the early ancient age and that means they are not worth upgrade IMO.

A spear to a pike and it is a regular? Ok, you can get a few promoted with luck, note that may not work. Then you end up with a 3 HP rifle/inf. Well until you get to the point that you can move them to a safe place they are not reliable.

That means none till you have barracks to create them. What I see a lot is that spearmen is going with a settler to a new location. It is later faced with a few barbs pillaging and cannot do anything about with any margin of safety.

An archer does not suffer so badly. It has a higher attack rating. It can give zero bombardment. So it can go out and kill that barb, especially if it is a vet.

It is not an issue for the upgrade as it will be a long time before it can become a longbow. At that point it will almost never be an offensive unit. Later it can be a guerilla and even a tow. These are very decent defenders or rather threats as defenders and still have that zero bomb ability. Plus I am not going to make all that many of them.

No units after warrior/archer should be routinely made without a barracks.

In any game with barbs played at emperor or beyond has to be concerned that warriors and spear cannot attack and win with any certainty. Yes neither can swords/archers and horses, but they will do much better. Spears are nice if they are attacked by barbs, but that is not going to happen very often, unless they come with numbers and then it could lose.

	18-11-2004 23:55									#26
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Good point about spearmen. I have gradually been weaning myself away from building any spearmen, esp. in the early game for the reasons you stated. Regular Warriors do well enough to make sure you don't get sacked, and are quick to build, so it's not much waste when you disband them later. (They're not worth upgrading to Mid Inf, imo.)

I have A LOT of old habits that I am trying to break...like putting a defender in each city...even interior cities. Now I leave them empty on AI games, as that unit's upkeep would be better spent on a Sword/Knight/Cav/Tank/etc. than it would be on a spear/pike/etc.

I have noticed that little micromanging things like that can make a big difference on Emperor and higher...

	19-11-2004 01:49									#27
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Thanks for the clarification about the spearmen/archer thing. I had been trying it anyway in order to try to understand its strengths. It was certainly nice to be able to turn my "defending" troops into an early archer rush and overwhelm a impinging neighbor.

	29-11-2004 21:43									#28
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More questions:
What is the build advice for a start without settler/worker pump potential. I'm having a problem getting my early civ booming without cows or wheat.

Middle game build order: I used to go Temple-Library-Marketplace-Courthouse for fringe but productive cities. However, I have been playing with Temple-Courthouse-Marketplace-Library. Any thoughts about which order is best? Or should I just mix them up?

And... my shortest CIV game ever:
I moved my settler one step over in order to look for better land. It happened to be next to a volcano which went off and killed the settler! 2 turns - I think that will be tough to beat.

	29-11-2004 21:48									#29
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Build a granary (regardless of the food situation, I'd say). Seek bonus food nearby, and try to turn that site into a pump. Meanwhile, build a barracks and pump out some vet archers... and use them to whack barbs and/or harrass the AI. If you lack food, you may have to resort to more aggressive tactics.

I often go Courthouse - Temple - Market - Library. Especially if I'm not a religious civ. The sooner you have the courthouse up & running, the more you will save (in terms of shields/commerce) over time. Obviously, if there is a compelling reason for which you NEED that temple ASAP, by all means build it first.

-Arrian

edit: I should add that an aqueduct would get slotted in when necessarily & available. Thus, depending on the exact situation, a city might go CH, Temp, Aqueduct, Market, Library.

As vmxa1 says, it's best to tailor your build order to the specific situation.

Last edited by Arrian on 29-11-2004 at 23:32

	29-11-2004 22:08									#30
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Sorry, but I had to laugh at the settler being killed.

Hard and fast rules are not flexible enough. When you get to the point that you have the tech to build Courts and Markets, you have your core up already.

What the order is that you do things is not as important as when and why. My core does not need a court right away and is building more useful things (settlers/workers/troops).

Cities farther out cannot built courts quickly and I need to determine what they can do and when to do it.

If you are playing Monarch level, you can probably hold off on that temple and you do not generate enough income to benefit from a market.

If you are above monarch, you probably need to get a temple going no matter how long it takes. It depends on the size of the city and its grow potential. If it is not going to be above size 6, then you can find something else to build.

You want to evaluate the city to see if can justify any structure. Do I have enough income and luxs to get value out of a market? Will I by the time it is finished?

If you are getting tiles improved as needed and look at each build to see if it makes sense at this time, you should be fine. Just slapping up structures in some predetermined order, is going to be less helpful.