can you explain what the 1.61 whipping bug is?
also, since you lost a turn moving the settler onto the hill, why not just revolt then?
also, since you lost a turn moving the settler onto the hill, why not just revolt then?
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Adventure Nineteen - T-hawk
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sunrise089 Wrote:Thanks for the response to my questions T-Hawk. I just think we have a different mid-late game plan. I always prioritize Democracy, always switch out of Slavery, and always try to build the Statue (ok, maybe not on an island map). I rarely prioritize Biology at all - I don't really see the point until the very end game where I want lots of production, and even then normally State Property Watermills, Windmills, and Workshops plus food specials normally allow me to work all the tiles I want. Biology isn't really for growing cities so much; it's for feeding Slavery and making up for the health problems of the industrial era. And I hardly ever go to State Property, for the same reasons as Democracy: the tech is off the spaceship path and won't make up its beaker cost before it could be picked up in trade. Quote:I'm definitely going to need to vary my tech choice up in some for-fun games - I keep reading about Steel and Biology beelines, and need to give them a shot. What does a Steel beeline do? I often beeline Chemistry when I'm conquering (grenadiers shred longbows and the AIs always seem slow to muskets.) But Steel? Cannons are only marginally more effective than catapults, and the Iron Works requires coal to get up to full power (and the Heroic Epic is a better way of building military anyway.) meatbalz Wrote:can you explain what the 1.61 whipping bug is? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread...t=whip#CR4 Short version: It can come into play whenever you want to whip an item for which you have a production bonus (buildings with Organized Religion, anything with a Forge, etc). Wait until the remaining hammers needed for the item are more than 30 but less than 30 plus your production bonus. Then when you whip, you'll lose only one population, but get 60 hammers. The game should give you 30 plus your production bonus for each population whipped. But instead it gives you however many increments of 30 hammers you need to finish your current item (so usually 60.) This bug was fixed in Warlords and by unofficial mods for 1.61. Quote:also, since you lost a turn moving the settler onto the hill, why not just revolt then? Because I totally didn't think of it.  Yes, that would've been the best option. :P
T-hawk Wrote:What does a Steel beeline do? I often beeline Chemistry when I'm conquering (grenadiers shred longbows and the AIs always seem slow to muskets.) But Steel? Cannons are only marginally more effective than catapults, and the Iron Works requires coal to get up to full power (and the Heroic Epic is a better way of building military anyway.) Ah, I get to feel like I can enlighten a much more experienced player! I never prioritized Steel in any of my games - it was expensive, and I always felt the military angle was MUCH better served by hurrying to Assembly Line for the huge production doublers and Infantry, and then Artillery, and using them as a combo. Ozbenno, over at Civfanatics, who is on my RB29c SG team told me about the Steel beeline. Apparently he has had great success prioritizing Steel in almost all of his games. He even tries to always grab it with Liberalism. According to him opening up Grenadiers is nice, but he's mainly after the Cannons. He feels Cannons are overpowered, and finds he can easily roll over the AI in many cases with early Cannons. I admit I was surprised and am still a bit cautious - I like my top of the tree path - but if his way is successful than that speaks for itself. For what it's worth, I still like my path of taking Nationalism with Liberalism, then researching Military Tradition, and conquering with Cavs+Cats. Then I head to Assembly Line and Artillary, and can war again with Infantry+Artillery. I rarely build Grenadiers at all, and only normally build Rifles for defense (both of those assume I'm not randomly attacked at the time, obviously I may quickly trade for Grenadiers if an AI declares on me), and feel I can still wage war OK. I wouldn't argue my path is optimal though - it's probably slow for both space and domination, but it's just what I've become accustomed to.
Cannons are only slightly better than cats? That's just crazy talk!
Steel is a great tech - if you take it from liberalism then that's game over. They are so much better than grenadiers at taking cities, especially if you're in theology or vassalage as then they get city raider 2 promotions. Cannons can take down anything in the era, I've even used them to take down cities with infantry and SAMs in them. If you're able to win by going for military tradition before chemistry, then you need to go up a difficulty level. On a level that challenges you, AIs should have rifling by then or soon afterwards, leaving you with a bunch of useless horses. sunrise089 Wrote:I never prioritized Steel in any of my games - it was expensive, and I always felt the military angle was MUCH better served by hurrying to Assembly Line for the huge production doublers and Infantry, and then Artillery, and using them as a combo. He's not the only one who thinks Cannons are overpowered. Well, I don't think they are overpowered. But if you produce enough of them, they are unstoppable until the age of Infantry. Rifles do well against cannons, but the collateral damage they inflict is usually enough to soft the others to further cannons. I use the grenadier support only for mop-up and for a bunch of garrisons. sunrise089 Wrote:I admit I was surprised and am still a bit cautious - I like my top of the tree path - but if his way is successful than that speaks for itself. It's another good option, but if you see a rifle, you are doomed. Of course, they are cheaper (cannons X catas), but they have a smaller window of life, IMO. sooooo Wrote:If you're able to win by going for military tradition before chemistry, then you need to go up a difficulty level. On a level that challenges you, AIs should have rifling by then or soon afterwards, leaving you with a bunch of useless horses. I'm trying, I'm trying, but Emperor is hard!  Seriously, i don't mind winning Space, and I think the human has a huge advantage in how we run our late-game, so Monarch isn't normally a problem so long as I survive until then. On Emperor, it's a lot tougher because I can get severely hemmed in and unable to knock out a nearby AI unless I play my A-game. As for Rifles vs Cavs, I know you're right in theory, but Nationalism with Liberalism, and trading for Gunpowder gets you Cavs pretty early, and with enough Cats taking only collateral damage promotions, you can knock rifles down if need be. Maybe not as easy as grenadiers+cannons (and that's why I'm going to try that), but like I said I also like the civics and wonders from the Nationalism through Democracy path. I think one potential difference between my game and Soooo or T-Hawk, even before the time of Steel or Democracy, is that I go for Liberalism really early. I typically only research the following techs after the Writing, Metal Casting, IW column on the Tech tree before choosing the four Liberalism beeline techs: Alphabet, Literature, Math, CoL, CS, and maybe half of the time Monarchy and Construction. Thats it. I normally back trade with Education and/or Paper for the stuff I missed. Normally even on Monarch then, I get Liberalism 95% of the time, and have tended to get it in my Emperor games, even if I end up loosing the game. With that sort of (too early???) Liberalism beeline, it's hard to grab Steel. sooooo Wrote:If you're able to win by going for military tradition before chemistry, then you need to go up a difficulty level. I think I do need to go up a difficulty level, then. I usually only go conquering when I have a clear tech advantage (like grenadier vs longbow); I rarely conquer with units on even footing. So I usually use bombardment units only for stripping city defense (which catapults do do just as well as cannons), and actually attack with superior regular units at low casualty rates.sunrise089 Wrote:I think one potential difference between my game and Soooo or T-Hawk, even before the time of Steel or Democracy, is that I go for Liberalism really early. True. I only take Liberalism early if I'm playing for culture, or if I'm going to get Chemistry or Mil Trad to end the game. Otherwise I always sandbag the slingshot until the AIs come close to it, in order to wait and snag the most expensive tech possible. This game was a bit of an exception because I did want Free Speech for the commerce earlier than usual. More often, Bureaucracy is still providing more commerce than Free Speech, so that can wait.
Early 17th century launch, not bad
 . It has been a while since I've had the opportunity to read one of your reports, hopefully I won't be able to say that again (uh, unless it means this is your last report).T-Hawk Wrote:Biology could be an interesting pick. The bonus is passive and starts working as soon as any tile is farmed. Problem is, it doesn't really help the economy. You can work a double-strength grassland farm to support a specialist -- but you could instead just work two grassland cottages, which will easily outpace the specialist's production once matured. I still think the uber tech (especially with Mao) is Biology and a specialist based economy, although I have to admit with all those floodplains near the starting city that a cottage economy is pretty darn powerful. The thing with a specialist economy is the early lightbulbing lets your rip through the tech tree and build a tech advatnage, which you HAVE to take advantage of to acquire more land. Its a nice synergy because a specialist economy leads to more food which leads to more mines being worked or more whipping, so you can build up your army before the AIs can catch up. Even at Immortal this strategy works more often than it doesn't, although you will be trading lightbulbed techs to remain at tech parity rather than building a tech lead. If you do fail to take advantage of your window of opportunity you will eventually lose to a CE opponent. However, with a large land advantage you never need to convert your core cities to a CE. You can take over matured cottages from your opponents and stay in Slavery for pretty much the entire game, whipping an drafting and conquering. Its formulatic but very effective. Darrell darrelljs Wrote:Biology and a specialist based economy ... The thing with a specialist economy is the early lightbulbing lets your rip through the tech tree and build a tech advatnage, which you HAVE to take advantage of to acquire more land. I agree it would be powerful, and I would have gone for this if not for one thing: the availability of Riflemen. Why jump through all those hoops when you can have an overwhelming military tech advantage from day one? I most definitely will try that when I get a chance. Shouldn't take long.  Also, in my experience, a specialist economy requires Representation to be at all competitive with a cottage economy, meaning the Pyramids are required. This map had no Stone nearby, and the capital site had mediocre hammer potential with only one non-desert hill, so the Pyramids would be an extremely large and risky investment. Certainly doable if you started early enough, but it would come at a serious cost in the land-grab. T-hawk Wrote:Also, in my experience, a specialist economy requires Representation to be at all competitive with a cottage economy, meaning the Pyramids are required. This map had no Stone nearby, and the capital site had mediocre hammer potential with only one non-desert hill, so the Pyramids would be an extremely large and risky investment. Certainly doable if you started early enough, but it would come at a serious cost in the land-grab. The key to a specialist economy isn't beakers from the specialists, it is beakers from lightbulbing. Represenation no doubt is a nice boost, but is not essential in the early game. In fact, unless I have easy access to stone (and even then not always) I probably won't bother with the Pyramids. Those prescious early game hammers are best used for military! There have been numerous "debates" at civfanatics on the relative merits of a SE vs. a CE, here's one example of the former by acidsatyr. I find though that until you play several games without building any cottages you don't really get a feel for how powerful lightbulbing is in the early game, and how much more production you can get by emphasizing food. I've toyed around with a couple of scenario ideas to test this out. The best I could come up with is a neutral trait builder like vanilla Hatshepsut (definitey no Financial and no Philosophical) and you are either assigned or given the choice on which type of economy to run. I don't think the map or opponents would really matter that much either way, so no tailoring should be necessary there. The first real problem is picking a difficulty level. At Immortal I think SE has an advantage as it starts fasters, while at Monarch I think CE has an advantage because it peakers higher, so I lean towards Emperor. The other problem is what are the rules for the CE player vs. the SE player? Do you ban all cottages for SE? Do you ban all specialists for CE? Neither of those rules are practical and except for a very few cases most people will tend to run a hybrid economy in a normal game. I guess you could say the SE has to have >70% of beakers from lightbulbing + specialists, and the CE has to have >70% of beakers from cottages (e.g.) but now you have a big headache in verifying compliance. My tendency would be to just let the player follow their own judgement, but now you don't have a necessarily valid comparison. The final knock against any such event is I'm not convinced it is in the spirit of RB as a community. Darrell |
