There's some great discussion taking place in this thread and in some of the player threads. I'm following this game more closely than the typical RB MP games between COVID and the fact that it's a rare non-modded game of Civ4.
It's a really, really good question to be asking. (Speaker used to flippantly respond with "I wouldn't be beind in the Demographics" but I'll give a real answer.) As Fintourist and scooter said, it's largely a matter of trying to focus on what you can improve and emphasize any particular advantage that your setup might have. If the game is still early enough that you have some kind of a shot, you can drill down into the Civ4 fundamentals of pushing population growth, tightening up worker micro to avoid wasted turns, planning out your path forward in terms of research and Great Person generation and civic swaps/Golden Ages, etc. Maybe that means running a farmer's gambit and hoping you don't get called on it, maybe it means pushing for a risky contested spot that could blow up in your face. If you're in a hopeless position with no shot to win, it likely means making yourself pointy enough that other players will be hesitant to attack, and then fighting like crazy if someone comes calling. Even someone behind in tech and military can often make it very, very painful for an attacker if played correctly and that can be its own "win" from a hopeless position. What I don't endorse is launching a suicide attack to torpedo someone else's game. I don't think that teaches much or makes you a better player in the long run but not everyone else feels the same way.
As others were saying in this thread, a lot of this advice seems to boil down to "get good", in the same way that Starcraft players would answer every question about how to improve with "macro better". Well OK, yeah, of course you'll win more if you can macro better at Starcraft, but that's literally what the game is all about! You might as well tell a runner that they can improve by "running faster" or whatever.
Not helpful. Since this is a greens game and I'm having a slow work day at the moment, let's look at some concrete examples of what some of these players could be doing to speed up the growth curve and "git good". I'm going to focus more on players who have been posting more just because there's more information to work with. (I don't know where the German players have their spoiler threads so I can't really comment on what they're doing.)
For starters, El Grillo is a fascinating case study in this game. He successfully eliminated his neighbor with a war chariot rush, founded his own religion, and then managed to Oracle Currency tech with a slick 1-turn wonder build. He's also Hannibal of Egypt (!!!) with about a bazillion riverside tiles to improve. Unquestionably he's one of the favorites to win this game, but he's not exactly running away with things right now:
What's going on here? Why is he so middling when it comes to foodhammers despite all of these advantages? Grillo answered the question himself in his most recent post comparing himself to Plemo:
That's it in a nutshell right there: not prioritizing the high food tiles and using them to launch the Civilization snowball. Grillo has the analysis partially correct here, hopefully noting that he would do better to skip libraries and a second Great Person in favor of pushing more settlers, but he misses the larger point. He didn't trade off growth for economy by skipping out on the high food tiles, he missed out on *BOTH* growth and economy in the process! Let's take a quick look at the recent Egyptian cities:
The cities in question are Las Trampas (on the copper) and Blacksand Beach. This is incredibly juicy terrain for a Financial leader, floodplains absolutely everywhere and worth oodles of commerce once cottaged. These cities will be amazing in the long run. However, they are very slow cities to get started, especially when cottaging the floodplains tiles. Las Trampas is OK because it can borrow the 6 food pigs tile from the capital (although note that this weakens the capital rather than bringing a new food resource on board) but Blacksand Beach has no food resources available at all. Fortunately Grillo recognized this and correctly farmed one floodplains to get a 4 food tile in place. Nonetheless, these cities simply won't develop as fast as locations with their own 5 food or 6 food resource sitting in the first ring. That rice spot that I identified in a previous post still hasn't been claimed (and doesn't even seem to be under consideration), which would develop quickly, require minimal worker labor, and bring another ivory resource for a much-needed source of additional happiness. Grillo is being held back quite a bit by happiness constraints - he has zero luxuries connected so his Charismatic trait and self-founded religion is only causing him to break even with the rest of the field instead of being ahead - and he's not settling for the easily accessible luxury four tiles away from his capital!
Then look at the planned upcoming city spots for Grillo in the same pictures above. Red star brings a helpful gold resource but wastes it by settling on the tile (a bizarre decision with tons of food in this region) and has no food resources nearby. Slow, slow, slow city - needs several floodplains farms and a lot of worker labor to get going. This would be a lowish priority for me. Green, blue, and yellow starts are all identical: lots of floodplains, no food bonuses. These will be great cities someday but will take ages to get there. Far better to grab a spot like the bottom-most "X" with a 6 food corn tile in the first ring that also happens to be on a plains hill. That spot is strategically unimportant because it's in the backlines but it's the kind of spot that should be prioritized if it's anywhere near the frontlines. I would be focused right now on pushing northeast and northwest to lock down the border region, areas that also have a healthy number of food resources, and leaving the uncontested / slow-developing southern floodplains for later on.
Now Grillo has done a lot of things well in this game that deserve credit, aside from the headline player conquest and Oracle build. He correctly moved Port Reyes to the much faster northern tile location where it had double food bonuses available. He has war chariots out defogging the map and meeting other players; this is one of those little things that so often distinguishes the better players from the ones who sit in place and never explore the map. At least one or two players will be dumb enough to give him Open Borders and unlock those sweet 2 commerce trade routes for his cities. He's definitely playing one of the best games out of this group. My point is just that he's still leaving a lot on the table here: he could be accelerating this start much faster than what we're seeing. And by pushing growth aggressively you also improve your economy as well because population = power in Civilization. 30% research at 100 total commerce beats 80% research at 25 total commerce. There's no real tradeoff here when done correctly, it's just a snowball rolling downhill going faster all the while.![[Image: biggrin.gif]](http://www.sullla.com/Smilies/biggrin.gif)
Jowy Wrote:Sulla what do you think a player should do if they recognize they've fallen behind in most demos?
It's a really, really good question to be asking. (Speaker used to flippantly respond with "I wouldn't be beind in the Demographics" but I'll give a real answer.) As Fintourist and scooter said, it's largely a matter of trying to focus on what you can improve and emphasize any particular advantage that your setup might have. If the game is still early enough that you have some kind of a shot, you can drill down into the Civ4 fundamentals of pushing population growth, tightening up worker micro to avoid wasted turns, planning out your path forward in terms of research and Great Person generation and civic swaps/Golden Ages, etc. Maybe that means running a farmer's gambit and hoping you don't get called on it, maybe it means pushing for a risky contested spot that could blow up in your face. If you're in a hopeless position with no shot to win, it likely means making yourself pointy enough that other players will be hesitant to attack, and then fighting like crazy if someone comes calling. Even someone behind in tech and military can often make it very, very painful for an attacker if played correctly and that can be its own "win" from a hopeless position. What I don't endorse is launching a suicide attack to torpedo someone else's game. I don't think that teaches much or makes you a better player in the long run but not everyone else feels the same way.
As others were saying in this thread, a lot of this advice seems to boil down to "get good", in the same way that Starcraft players would answer every question about how to improve with "macro better". Well OK, yeah, of course you'll win more if you can macro better at Starcraft, but that's literally what the game is all about! You might as well tell a runner that they can improve by "running faster" or whatever.
Not helpful. Since this is a greens game and I'm having a slow work day at the moment, let's look at some concrete examples of what some of these players could be doing to speed up the growth curve and "git good". I'm going to focus more on players who have been posting more just because there's more information to work with. (I don't know where the German players have their spoiler threads so I can't really comment on what they're doing.)For starters, El Grillo is a fascinating case study in this game. He successfully eliminated his neighbor with a war chariot rush, founded his own religion, and then managed to Oracle Currency tech with a slick 1-turn wonder build. He's also Hannibal of Egypt (!!!) with about a bazillion riverside tiles to improve. Unquestionably he's one of the favorites to win this game, but he's not exactly running away with things right now:
What's going on here? Why is he so middling when it comes to foodhammers despite all of these advantages? Grillo answered the question himself in his most recent post comparing himself to Plemo:
El Grillo Wrote:No wonder his lead in CY has been so pronounced! Even accounting for food resources that don't need to be connected to the trade network right away, it's quite impressive. Plemo has also turned research on, burning through ~120 gold saved up. My guess would be Mathematics, perhaps? I am well aware of all the 5+ yield tiles near me that I haven't settled for yet, but looking back I think the economy would've actually ground to a halt if I hadn't settled for the floodplains cottages first. Perhaps I can delay the Library and second Great Person out of Springer Mtn and just produce a few more Settlers out of there first.
That's it in a nutshell right there: not prioritizing the high food tiles and using them to launch the Civilization snowball. Grillo has the analysis partially correct here, hopefully noting that he would do better to skip libraries and a second Great Person in favor of pushing more settlers, but he misses the larger point. He didn't trade off growth for economy by skipping out on the high food tiles, he missed out on *BOTH* growth and economy in the process! Let's take a quick look at the recent Egyptian cities:
The cities in question are Las Trampas (on the copper) and Blacksand Beach. This is incredibly juicy terrain for a Financial leader, floodplains absolutely everywhere and worth oodles of commerce once cottaged. These cities will be amazing in the long run. However, they are very slow cities to get started, especially when cottaging the floodplains tiles. Las Trampas is OK because it can borrow the 6 food pigs tile from the capital (although note that this weakens the capital rather than bringing a new food resource on board) but Blacksand Beach has no food resources available at all. Fortunately Grillo recognized this and correctly farmed one floodplains to get a 4 food tile in place. Nonetheless, these cities simply won't develop as fast as locations with their own 5 food or 6 food resource sitting in the first ring. That rice spot that I identified in a previous post still hasn't been claimed (and doesn't even seem to be under consideration), which would develop quickly, require minimal worker labor, and bring another ivory resource for a much-needed source of additional happiness. Grillo is being held back quite a bit by happiness constraints - he has zero luxuries connected so his Charismatic trait and self-founded religion is only causing him to break even with the rest of the field instead of being ahead - and he's not settling for the easily accessible luxury four tiles away from his capital!
Then look at the planned upcoming city spots for Grillo in the same pictures above. Red star brings a helpful gold resource but wastes it by settling on the tile (a bizarre decision with tons of food in this region) and has no food resources nearby. Slow, slow, slow city - needs several floodplains farms and a lot of worker labor to get going. This would be a lowish priority for me. Green, blue, and yellow starts are all identical: lots of floodplains, no food bonuses. These will be great cities someday but will take ages to get there. Far better to grab a spot like the bottom-most "X" with a 6 food corn tile in the first ring that also happens to be on a plains hill. That spot is strategically unimportant because it's in the backlines but it's the kind of spot that should be prioritized if it's anywhere near the frontlines. I would be focused right now on pushing northeast and northwest to lock down the border region, areas that also have a healthy number of food resources, and leaving the uncontested / slow-developing southern floodplains for later on.
Now Grillo has done a lot of things well in this game that deserve credit, aside from the headline player conquest and Oracle build. He correctly moved Port Reyes to the much faster northern tile location where it had double food bonuses available. He has war chariots out defogging the map and meeting other players; this is one of those little things that so often distinguishes the better players from the ones who sit in place and never explore the map. At least one or two players will be dumb enough to give him Open Borders and unlock those sweet 2 commerce trade routes for his cities. He's definitely playing one of the best games out of this group. My point is just that he's still leaving a lot on the table here: he could be accelerating this start much faster than what we're seeing. And by pushing growth aggressively you also improve your economy as well because population = power in Civilization. 30% research at 100 total commerce beats 80% research at 25 total commerce. There's no real tradeoff here when done correctly, it's just a snowball rolling downhill going faster all the while.
