Need advice on current game...

[JavierLQ]

Hi all,

Just recently began to play the game again after months, and to say the least I am quiet rusty (not that I was much good to begin with).

Anyway, started a warlords game, noble difficulty, random everything. At this point, I am slighty frustrated. I am leader in techs, I have some good cities (i think), yet I am near the bottom in score.

I was wondering if some of you could take a look at this game and give me some advice on what I am doing wrong and what I need to do to increase my score.

I specially would like advice on what to do at my capital and specially cuzco, as both of them seem like perfect places for great people (specially cuzco) yet I am not sure if I am doing it correctly.

Thanks for the help!

EDIT: Oops thought I had uploaded the game...its good now, should be fine. Thanks

[Raven_Lore]

Score depends on a number of different items. Land, Wonders, Technology and Population
Land gives by far the highest

I don't have Warlords so your file i can't open(Grammer)
But If you want a high score you need to balance out all those factors. And remember score doesn't mean anything. You can be the lowest of score but still the best. Score doesn't say everything. The highest score could have lots of land but a lack of technology. Wonders really help your score though it gives it a nice boost.

[Bede]

Looked at the save - if all you want to do is boost your standing in the score table, build some trebuchets and some maces and go claim the German land. I was going to suggest joining the war now in progress against Cyrus 'til I looked at your military.

Or you could just ride your current position to a Space, or work on your relationships with the neighbors and take a diplomatic victory.

[Jet]

Like they said, you're low in score mainly because you're small in land. If you look at the Demographics screen in F9 you'll see how you're low in land and some other things. If you trade for somone's world map you could get a visual sense of everyone else's size.

You are doing everything that can be done to get more great people. I would however build a Lighthouse in Cuzco before finishing Sankore, so that it doesn't have to starve.

If you want to get fancy, you could also turn off the scientists in Cuzco for a couple turns in order to allow Carthage to generate your next great person. Since Cuzco can generate great people much faster, I'm not sure if Carthage would ever catch up, otherwise.

In Carthage I suggest replacing two forests with workshops and two with cottages, and then build stuff that will boost its research: Lighthouse (more food helps indirectly), Observatory, and University. Meanwhile have another city build a few units, and station them in Carthage for more happiness. When you have six Universities, build Oxford.

The workshops would be better if you learned Chemistry. You could take it as the free tech from Liberalism. Chemistry would also let you build Grenadiers, which would be great if you want to attack someone.

For a completely peaceful game I'd squeeze in a sixth city, maybe south of the Pigs, so that you can eventually build Oxford, Wall Street, and Ironworks.

No matter what, I'd specialize Hippo on production by putting farms on all possible flatland tiles (except the Gems) so that it can work as many mines as possible. You can also click the Emphasize Food and Emphasize Production buttons in Hippo's city screen. Eventually, build Ironworks there. If you go to war and get a Level 4 unit, build Heroic Epic there.

The only things I'd call wrong are
- not building Lighthouses in your coastal cities
- not settling Hippo in a spot where it could work least one food resource. That's a general rule for all cities. For example if Hippo had been settled one tile northwest it could have had worked those Bananas.
- allowing Hippo to go for a long time without generating any culture. You can send a Confucian missionary there, or build a Library or Theater. Maybe all three!
- building a Market in Hippo when it's only bringing in three gold
- Hadrumetum not getting a farm or two so that it can grow more

[Blake]

You are badly behind on basic infrastructure like lighthouses. Basically - you need slavery. Switch to slavery (probably along with a switch to Free Religion) and whip in some more infrastructure - you definitely need lighthouses, Universities are food to whip in (I'd whip one in Carthage after finishing the forge). Not running Caste System means you can work more coast and use the food to whip in more infrastructure. In cities which can grow fast (ie working a heap of food) whip in expensive stuff - like universities, forges etc, this minimizes the happy hit. It's almost never a good idea to whip something costing 1 pop.
In stock 2.08 you can increase the emphasis put on food (to maximize the yield of whipping and everything) by clicking on maximize food+production+commerce. In stock 2.08 I always suggest using this "maximize everything" it's a better set of defaults.

As long as your research % is high you don't need gold multiplier buildings. Focus on science and units.

What I would do is tech to either Cavalry or Cannons and go on a warpath, Germany is your friend atm but after you switch to Free Religion you'll be able to backstab him with less guilt.

For future reference, you expanded too slowly. Allowing yourself to get enclosed by an AI is bad because it limits your attacking options to that AI alone. You should have expanded more aggressively to the north and claimed that stretch of coast.

Also you're building wasteful wonders, with only like 5 cities neither the spiral nor skankore will really help especially if you go Free Religion (which you should), I would stop building both, you'll get a refund later.

[Atlas]

Turn 0-Okay, i will play like 35 turns and see what i can do for you in this game, hopefully it will be instructive. This city has good production, but no barracks? 95% of cities need a barracks; this one also needs a lighthouse- so after liberalism grab we will switch to slavery and whip a lighthouse letting the overflow go to barracks.



Hippo- is a really nice city, but does not yet need a market, first it needs a library.

Cuzco is a nice city, but look it lacks a lighthous, barracks, and harbor which would also stop the starving by fixing the -2 health you have here.



Basically though you need to learn to use the city governors, they save a lot of headache and most of the time can be configured to do what you want with less clicks and continue to adapt as your population grows.

Now I got Freddrick and ask him to give his world map for free and he does.

Turn 1 just chug along to finish liberalism.

Turn 2 Take Chemistry and now switch to Free Religion and Slavery. Now we will tech towards Steel, then right toward Rifling (through replaceable parts) then to Nationalism for the draft.



Turn 4-After 2 turns of anarchy let the whipping begin!

Turn 8-We are super weak and that means that the jackals will circle, well lets fix that.



Turn 20 something



Turn 8-35- Massive whipping and drafting of units. Some happiness problems, but it is now time to take Fred's land and up your score. On this turn I demand gold from Cyrus and then trade pigs for incense with Saladin. Take a look at the power graph.



So that was a 35 turn turn-around. The quickest way to up your score is to up the number of population and tiles that you control.

You now have large amounts of unhappiness, but that is the price you have to pay to build an army from scratch in 30 turns. If you slowly build up units overtime you won't have to do the drastic whipping and drafting that I just did. I have attached the save so you can take a closer look at what i did. Had you gradually built up an army you could have whipped universities/observatories instead of troops.

[JavierLQ]

Thanks to all the advice everyone.

I think a big problem is not knowing the game too good, which makes me not be able to prioritize on which buildings I need etc.
I had lucked out with cuzco, as the Inca started there I saw it and was able to close him in, leaving him with one city which later I took, and my surprised contained so many food resources, I figured I would try setting up a GP farm. That is the reason why I had switched out of slavery, and ran scientists in order to get as much a techlead as I could.

That was also the reason for building that wonder there, figuring anything that would help the research beakers would be good.

Again, thanks for the help, and I will see what I can do about this game. For my next game however, I think I will take it a bit slower, thinking about my decisions a bit more and trying to expand more, as well as keeping my basic infrastructure better.

Thanks again

[Raven_Lore]

That' one cheap city....
6 fish resources 2 mine hills, one commerced grassland and mined stone.....
With a lighthouse and putting all the scienctist to work on water...waiting for a while that could be a nice gp farm

[Atlas]

I figured I would try setting up a GP farm. That is the reason why I had switched out of slavery, and ran scientists in order to get as much a techlead as I could.

This is really strong in the beginning, but as the game progresses the benefit of popping tech with great people is reduced. For Cuzco what you need to do is whip a market, whip a theater, whip temples and anything that lets you assign specialists. Doing this allows you run slavery for the rest of your empire, while still using Great people to pop techs. The down side is that you won't get to really choose which great person, but any would be good.

[Raven_Lore]

When choosing GP a Great Merchant or Scientist would be a nice addition to your city. Scientist (DUH) Merchants add one food and 6 commerce. 2 of these babies and your mines can work without being hindered