[SPOILERS] Will the Sun(rise) Ever Set on Washington, Mongolia?

[Whosit]

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[Whosit]

So here's where I think I should make an assessment of my skills as they currently stand.

What I can do: I think that I have all the basic mechanics down. I know how the game works, what the units do, what resources are important, how to make a plan and execute it, etc. Clearly, I'm not great at any of this stuff, but I understand the goals of increasing city count, making enough workers, not overbuilding military, the importance of an economy. I just have difficulty putting it into practice.

What my problems probably are: I've played in a few MP games here on RB, though not a ton. Looking back, I think what tends to happen is I have a small empire (stagnant expansion), and I fall behind in development and technology by the middle ages. I have trouble maintaining a good rate of expansion, I have difficulty building and developing an economy to carry me into the middle game, much less the late game, and I am not exceptionally good at military tactics.

I think for this game I really need to work on getting those settlers and workers out, building a smart and strong economy, and keeping up in tech so I can defend my borders, and hopefully launch a successful war when I get Knights.

PASSWORD

[Whosit]

As it looks like we're going to be using the RtR mod, I'll start planning with that in mind. Might as well start thinking about the traits and Civ to pick.

I think that Expansive should be one of the traits I choose. Bonus to worker production, and double production on several useful buildings is strong, even if it doesn't have the fast Granaries anymore. I figure if I need to work on getting Settlers and Workers out, this is the trait to take (faster workers means improvements get done faster). But what to pair it with? I probably want an economic trait. FIN is an option. It's not as strong as in BtS but can still be leveraged, especially if there are not many rivers or lots of coast. ORG is also good, and probably requires even less effort to use than FIN, though it's definitely a mid- to late-game trait. I'm a fan of CRE, though I do miss the fast libraries. However, I think that maybe I should learn to place cities without the benefit of fast culture (was working on a new SP game the other day, and I think out of the first 4 cities I settled, only one got a culture building right off the bat).

Also unsure of what Civ to look for. Basing off techs, something with Agriculture and Mining might be nice, because if I luck out and get a couple grain resources, I can go straight into Bronze Working. Alternatively, I can always pick with UU and UB in mind. I'll have to give it a little more thought. I'm also not sure if we'll be seeing our starts before choosing, but I'm also fine with blind starts.

[Whosit]

Actually, I'm just going to paste the trait list from the most recent changelog:

Financial: +1 commerce on all non-river tiles that have 2+ commerce. +100% production of Bank.

Expansive: +2 health per city. +35% production of Worker, Work Boat. +100% production of Market, Aqueduct, Grocer, Harbor.

Creative: +2 culture per city. +100% production of Theatre, Colloseum, Observatory.

Charismatic: +2 happiness. +1 happiness from Broadcast Tower. -25% XP needed for promotions.

Protective: Free CG1 promo for archery and gunpowder units. +100 production of Granary, Walls.

Imperialistic: +100% Great General emergence. +60% production of Settler. +100% production of Custom House

Aggressive: Free C1 promo for melee and gunpowder units. -25% city maintenance [Not shown in trait description. Bonus not shown in interface. Bonus is multiplicative with other maintenance modifiers. Final displayed city maintenance value is correct and includes this bonus.] +100% production of Barracks, Stable, Drydock.

Philosophical: +150% Great Person production, +100% production of University

Organized, Industrious, Spiritual: No change from BtS

So let's see.... I'm a fan of the new Charismatic, but I don't know if that will mesh will with my goal here. Expansive for horizontal expansion, but Charismatic favors vertical. Sure, I'll want to grow all my cities eventually, but ideally through expansion I've acquired enough luxuries to handle that.

I dislike Philosophical. Spiritual is an option, but that would encourage me to grab a religion which I don't think I should be gunning for at the start. Likewise, Industrious with cheap Forges is attractive, but easy to get drawn to Wonders or an Oracle play (not sure if the usual Oracle for MC is still worthwhile as MC is cheaper now).

Protective has the Granaries, but honestly I'm less inclined towards it because Krill forgot to give the free Drill promotions back.

And to interrupt the trait musing, I've suddenly thought that the Zulu could be fun to play, especially since their UU hasn't been nerfed yet. Arabia could be good with the Madrassa being cheaper than a basic library, but I'd want to pair them with Spiritual, and Camel Archers probably won't be so special as in an RB MP game, I'm almost certainly going to have both Horses and Iron within easy reach.

Decisions, decisions.

[Whosit]

I think it's Dhal who has the reputation as a StarCraft player, but I played quite a bit too and got pretty OK at it. I think that's because I could play 50 games of SC2 in far less time than it took me to play a single game of MP CIV. Anyway, I'm going to try to make some analogies of points that I think are true in both games, partly to try and frame things for my own use, and also to try to display my current level of strategic/tactical planning.

1. A unit built that you don't need is wasted resources. When I was playing SC2, the meta was for fast expansions and getting the economy going early. This might be followed up with a small strike or technological development, but as a Protoss players, many strategies followed an almost unitless opening. I think it's a similar idea in CIV from what I've been seeing. Units cost time and supply, so if you don't need them don't build them. "Need" can be defined later.

2. It's usually better for your units to be at your enemy's doorstep. In SC2, this served many purposes. If you were attacking your opponent, they will probably respond by defending instead of attacking back. Putting units on the map gives vision and control. Generally speaking, a unit's value increases if it has a function outside of your base (this connects to point 1). Again, I think in CIV the principle is largely the same, to a point. While each city needs some units, if only to avoid the "We Fear For Our Protection" penalty, I know I need to do a better job of spotting for hostile units, and I also think that keeping a few units hovering around opponent borders can serve to put them on the defensive. Also it's good scouting information.

3. Economy is king. I don't think this needs further elaboration.

4. Find your "edge." In SC2, this could be done in one of a few ways. Have a better econ than your enemy; have a larger army; have a more advanced army. Whatever it was, identify where your advantage is and exploit it. In CIV... I'm not sure if this holds true in the same way. I think the real edge in any situation is economy, at least in the long term. This might not be the case in a duel (most SC2 games are essentially duels). I'm not even sure if opportunistic strikes in CIV really work well. It seems rare that a situation arises where "oh, they have an undefended city and I have an army in striking range. Let's just do this!"

5. Scouting. In SC2, knowing what your opponent is doing is important. Pros can eliminate threats with relatively scant information. Top players her in CIV can derive many advantages from information, though I think a lot of that is harder to parse (C&D especially). Of course, getting vision of cities to see infra builds and having a generally good idea of where your enemy is keeping their units is important.

Not sure if there are more connections I could make. Maybe I could, but I'm pretty tired and ready to pass out. Just felt like doing some word vomit.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I haven't played StarCraft since the old Brood War days but the one thing I'd point out in Civ that's different from how SC did it back then (and maybe does it now?) is that in Civ you have to pay supply costs for units outside your territory once you're over the free Away Unit supply number. So information does come at a cost once you start building out a good sentry net.

[Whosit]

That's true, good point. Yeah, in SC2 there's no additional supply cost for a unit beyond the supply cap. So here in CIV I'll have to factor in both base unit costs and supply costs if I'm going to have a lot of sentries.

[Gavagai]

Are we going to see starts?

[Mardoc]

A lot of your points seem good to me. The most difficult to judge is this one

A unit built that you don't need is wasted resources. ... "Need" can be defined later

I've seen people fail in all sorts of directions on this one. Heck, I've personally failed in all sorts of directions on this one.

Overbuilding costs you expansion and tech. Building too few units may put you in a war you could have avoided. If you are fighting - coming up a unit or two short is the most maddening feeling in the world. Especially with the civ4 model of combat where the last few fights are where you do all the permanent damage, and coming up short leaves your opponent with better promoted units. I've even seen people win a war and lose overall because it wasn't as much profit as peaceful expansion could have been - PB19 is a great example of this. But then you usually have to win a war somewhere, somehow, if you want to win the game.

The general principle is good - but man, the devil's in the details!

[Whosit]

I hear ya'. I suppose that's why I left it as "define later." I suppose for this game I want to avoid the ancient era warfare I tend to find myself in and just wait for Knights like the smart people do, but yeah, I'll still need enough troops to deter attacks before then, but not so many as to tax my economy. That's what I'm here to try and learn, at least.