Adv 18: Antoninus Limps into Space

[Antoninus]

I find that a good time to build a settler is when I am about to run out of improved tiles to work (why work unimproved tiles), or if I am working 1-2 unimproved tiles, start a settler and then whip it to completion, with the hammer overflow into worker to accompany it.

That's a great way to look at it. I've never thought about it that way. I usually think about training a settler only because I see a good city spot on the map. Another related thing I have to train myself to do is to check the city screens more often, in order to catch those unimproved tile workers. Thanks for the tip, Atlas.

[Atlas]

What I cannot do, and what I see some of the better players doing, is doing more than one of those things. Fast expansion plus early war, or grabbing wonders and somehow raising an army. Sulla's CS-Slingshot editorial on his page has him expanding faster than I can on Monarch, but he's on Emperor, plus he makes the slingshot via the Oracle.

On high levels the easiest way to do both is set initial research toward a military tech (on Warlords Animal Husbandry is very viable), so AH or Bronze and then found towards that resource-> slave a number of units for aggression and then while a city (your cap) is recovering build a wonder. Alternatively on Emperor I think it is still viable to rush a second city (If it is a really nice city) then use that to pump workers, military, settlers to expand, while your cap. does builds a wonder.

I think the trick is that in the beginning it is not about taking all the land, but enough land (on Immortal and Deity you need to be taking enough land and crippling a neighbor simultaneously) and remember that you don't need any of those Wonders-> 10 axes is a better investment, but you have to use them.

This whole post may be too general to help, sorry.

[Atlas]

Another related thing I have to train myself to do is to check the city screens more often, in order to catch those unimproved tile workers.

Check the City Screens every turn that sounds like Micro, I hate :mad: micro.

I think the best thing to do as far as knowing that you working umimproved tiles is to play with the the tile yields on, so when you start a game press ctrl + y.

That will show you all of the tile yields and will show you the tiles that you currently working by making those yields bigger-> then you always know which cities are being mismanaged.

When I start a game I press ctrl + R, ctrl + T, ctrl + y. I can not tell the difference between corn and sugar

[sunrise089]

When I start a game I press ctrl + R, ctrl + T, ctrl + y. I can not tell the difference between corn and sugar

I'm with you 100% on turning on the grid and resources. But tile yields just looks way too cluttered for me. Can't you just notice the little "tile being worked" icons? If they're on bare plains, grassland, or forest then you know you're working uninproved tiles, right?

This whole post may be too general to help, sorry.

<- from the above post


No, every little bit helps, and I'll make a point to go worker-warrior-settler-wonder in my capital the next monarch game I play, and then try to use the second city for everything else. My problem is I've gotten good enough to not make any of the obvious major mistakes, but now I have like 10 little things I need to improve on before I think I could win on Emperor with normal settings.

You may recall Atlas, that you (correctly) pointed out the error in my play when I admitted to never lightbulbing techs. I don't think I'm missing out on anything that obious, but I still need to do better triangle diplomacy, value religions more, learn to not take one tech-path, learn to mix civics up as the situation demands, and the list goes on. Learning curves between difficulties in this game can suck

[Atlas]

But tile yields just looks way too cluttered for me. Can't you just notice the little "tile being worked" icons? If they're on bare plains, grassland, or forest then you know you're working uninproved tiles, right?

True, but I need BIG signs. Plus I like looking at the commerce tiles (cottages, plantations, etc.) and the food tiles (farms, plantations) to help me determine specialist assignments in cities (how many specialists and the cost-benefit of which kind and what tile that specialist could be working)

[Atlas]

No, every little bit helps

Try and take a look at some of the Deity/Immortal SG games that are out there- they are really instructive.

[sunrise089]

(how many specialists and the cost-benefit of which kind and what tile that specialist could be working)

Theres another big one - I have no specialist management abilities whatsoever. I've gotten pretty good at using workers to set up cities' tiles for production or commerce pretty well, but simply let the governor run the work assignments.

[Atlas]

Bezhukov said that tile improvement and working the proper tiles in a given situation is like foot work in football, it is not glamorous, but it is the core of a well played game of civ (Atlas says that specialists are really just a special tile and the Bezhukov rule applies to them too)

simply let the governor run the work assignments.

Ewww, gross . No just kidding. Well sort of... the standard governor (with nothing emphasized is just terrible. I use the governors for some cities and in the late game I use them for all cities, but in the early game I normally manage every city- even in blazing timer MP games. Some of the emphasize settings work better than others (food works the best), emphasize all (what I use for no specialists) has a tendency not to work gold/silver tiles since there is not any food on that tile and that setting over emphasizes food; emphasize hammers is ok, but rarely used/useful since it stops growth and sometimes whipping/drafting is quicker. Emphasize science is ok, but like all the other governor settings it only looks at the current situation- if you have a science city with a few hills and that city is set to emphasize science once there are no more high commerce tiles to work the city will start running science specialists- that is okay if you have nothing to build, but if you are building Oxford it is better to be working those hills to finish the build.

[sunrise089]

Hmm...I never viewed the governor as that bad. It seemed like in the early game, it would always work the tiles I had improved, and then in the later game would work the highest yielding tiles that allowed the city to grow at the decent pace. If I wanted it to emphasize production, couldn't I just build more farms and workshops/mines rather than microing all the settings?

[Dantski]

Hmmm I've never used the City governor, I always manage cities myself every 30 or so turns that I remember to.

Probably why I can't handle fast multiplayer timers