Adv. 10 - Antoninus' First Report (and Miserable Failure)

[Antoninus]

Rome. Must have the most military at end of the game. Hmm. Does that mean a Conquest victory?
Not necessarily ...

I usually play on Noble, so Prince difficulty here was definitely a challenge for me. Moreover, I'm not nearly as good at warmongering as I am at building. For example, I've won only one game at Prince level and that was a cultural victory.

So will Ceasar overcome all of these odds? ? ...

In the beginning, Rome was glorious. But history has a tendency to repeat itself (just as I tend to repeat myself with the same mistakes in gameplay, see below.) The Glory that is Rome cannot last forever ...

I founded my capital in place. During the early game I went all the way down to 30% science, but kept up with the military production. In terms of resources, I think I got lucky. I researched Bronz Working as one of my first techs, which revealed copper, but it was too far away, so I went imediately to Iron Working, not only for the Preatoreans, but I needed the "other metal" badly. Found it both in the north and the south, so I quickly hooked it up with either my second or third city.

No horses anywhere in site, though. Darn.

The Rockie Mountains in the middle of the world made the game challeging. You had to arrange a force to head north and a separate one heading south. I guess it was defensive, too, since it blocked any of the heathens from approaching directly out of the west.

My targets went Isabella, Victoria then Bismark.

My Preatoreans were great early on, but in the war against Izzy my macemen did most of the damage. Izzy was easy, usually coming down to Preatoreans v. her archers. Defeated the Spanish in 1260 A.D.

But here is the rub: My warmongering games always suffer from the same tragic flaw. I was hoping to learn from the other expert reports on how to fix this problem, but I start running behind in tech, and that's the kiss of death. When your opponent has more advance weaponry than you do, you might as well retire, or switch to passivism.

THE BATTLE OF BURGUNDIAN

The battle over this English City lasted centuries. This turned out to be a pivotal city, and the real pivot point for my game, now that I think about it. Burgundian was located off the northwest corner of my civilization. I captured Burgundian from the English, but then lost it back to them. Ended up having to declare peace, rather than take it back, turtle back into my cities and start training a more extensive army. Finally took it
back, but not until the 19th century when I finally had musketmen. My muskets were no match for Victoria's knights.

Uh oooooh. Cavalry. Bismark has Cavalry! And rifles? Bismark has riflemen. See what I mean about falling behind in the tech race. I have numbers, no doubt about that, but Bismark has better, stronger units. I can't find that balance between building units and keeping my science at the cutting edge compared to the rest of the world.

THE GERMAN INVASION

You think you're doing so well when you discover gunpowder. You can train these nice little Musketmen, but Calvary can be discovered shortly thereafter by another civ that takes a different path up the top half of the tech tree. Then you're in trouble (strength 9 muskets v. strenght 15 cavs = No contest.)

Had to abandon my conquest plans, at least for the moment. At this point I was seven or eight techs behind the leader, Bizmark. I didn't even have the highest number of military units (wasn't there something about that goal in the initial write up of this game?) Something had to be done. But what?

This shift in strategy also meant a shift in my civics. If I wanted to improve my economy and eventually catch Bizmark in technology, I needed to shift away from Vasalage and the other warmonger civics.

In 1936, I placed a new city too close to Bismark's borders, so he attacked. Here I am, trying to play nice, building up my economy, and he steals two of my workers! Even worse, he burned my new city to the ground! That's what you get for trying to play nice.

What are those shiny, silver spiffy cannon-like things that Bismark has brought with him? (Since my scientists hadn't discovered artillery yet, I wasn't familiar with .. Uhhh OOOhh. Where did my two northern cities go? They were here a minute ago ... Oh well (I tell myself), I didn't really like Kushans and Neapolis, anyway. Hey, my city maintanence just went down!
Yep, ya definately have to look on the bright side when you find yourself in a
predicament like this.

Its that "trailing in technology" problem coming back to bite me in the Assembly Line, again. (I really have to learn how to play this game properly. Some day, ... when I have more time.)

Bismark's Cavalry is now destroying all my pretty worker improvements, all over what used to be my northern territory. Oh well. It was so darn cold up there, anyway, and my worker's aren't even wearing any shirts.

At my current rate, my scientists won't discover steam power for another 15 years (turns). My scientists tell me about this new technology (that other civilizations have discovered) known as Assembly Line, where we can apparently train a few infantry, but we have to invent steam power first (why, I haven't a clue). But no way to catch up in the tech race at this rate. And no one will trade with me because of my warmongering past.

I'm stuck in last place, so not only will I fail in my conquest quest, but there is no way I can catch up and outlast the AI to win a time victory. And since I didn't gear up for it, and I'm nowhere near the technology that I need, I cannot build a shiny new spaceship, either. I envisioned building it and putting the last few citizens I had left from my final city, into the ship and launching just as Bizmark's units were scaling the walls. You know, like the Americans escaping Saigon. But it wasn't to be.

It wasn't so much his cavalry, but the artillery. He softened my city defenses with them, but then several of my units even lost battles, head to head, against an artillery unit. Pathetic.

Ooops. Just lost Cumea, my westernmost city, and my one good fortification keeping the infidels from invading my territory outta the west.

Antium falls. That was my biggest production city. Then the people of my capital start speaking German. Spreken Zee Dutche? ("We do now.") I swore I saw Nero playing his fiddle at the city center while Rome burned around him.

I didn't want to retire, so I played it out to the bitter end.

In the end, the German calvary pillaged the countryside, word of their coming spread quickly through the Roman lands, sending workers fleeing in terror. The Roman Riflemen were brave, but utlimately outnumbered.

My last Rifle fell to Bizmark in 1958. "The End of History." Dan Quayle's got nothin' on me.

I not only failed to have the largest army at the end. I had NO ARMY. None. (But, I think I came in third out of four since I elimated Spain, and she therefore also had no army at the end. Not much consolation there.)

What did we learn? What was Ceasar's tragic flaw? Finding that balance between warmongering and keeping your economy running ahead of the rest of the world. Where is that sweet spot? Maybe I'll find it after the next Big Bang, when another civilization will attempt to stand the test of time.

I can't wait.

[Sullla]

Wow, rough game! Without screenshots or save games it's tough to know what went wrong, but maybe I can make a suggestion or two about the tech race. Usually when players are learning the ropes and have trouble economically, the best things to try doing are 1) build more cottages! (the end-all economic solution to poor finances) 2) build more marketplaces 3) build more courthouses. Currency and Code of Laws are both important techs to emphasize, as they usually arrive right when your civ is going into a medieval economic crunch from expansion.

Anyway, so those are some basic observations that have helped others in the past. You might also want to look at some of the reports from our last game, Adventure Nine, where the goal was to recover from an economic hole. Seeing how others played that game might prove useful.

Good luck, and thanks for reporting. Get that bully Bismarck in your next game, you hear me?

[Atlas]

Its that "trailing in technology" problem coming back to bite me in the Assembly Line, again. (I really have to learn how to play this game properly. Some day, ... when I have more time.)

I lauged out loud at that.

To second Sullla 1:screenshots are good for offering advice (or you could up load a few saves from throughout the game and I (not much help there will take a look)) 2: Cottages "mmmmmmm" (Homer's voice) 3: Courthouse are good, I like to them 4: You may find something useful in Adv. 9 reports 5: You gotta hate Bismark (J/K he is alot better than some I could name Monty/Mansa looking in your direction....).

Anyhow good game, seems like you had fun which is the key

ps. Sorry for all the parenthesisessss, I know it is hard to read with them, but you should try thinking with them

[Antoninus]

Thanks to you both, Sullla and Atlas. I think you're right. I tend to build cottages only if there is nothing else to build on that square. And while I've read how players prioritize Code of Laws and Currency, after I research them I often find myself miles down the road realizing that I "forgot" to build the courthouses and marketplaces that come with them. It always seems more important at any given moment to build more units, or to prioritize something else.

Thanks, again, for the input. The more I learn about the game the more I'm anxious to start the next one.

[Atlas]

I think you're right. I tend to build cottages only if there is nothing else to build on that square. .

Play your next SP game with this variant rule-Cottage every grassland tile (except resource tiles) and see how your teching changes.

And while I've read how players prioritize Code of Laws and Currency, after I research them I often find myself miles down the road realizing that I "forgot" to build the courthouses and marketplaces that come with them. It always seems more important at any given moment to build more units, or to prioritize something else.

Here is the trick-you don't need courthouses or marketplaces in every city. You need courthouses in those cities farthest from you capital, close in cities can wait. You need marketplaces in cities that have religous shrines or lots of cottages. If you got a city with nothing but farms and mines don't put a marketplace, bank, grocer, library, university there, Just put a barracks, courthouse, granary and whatever other buildings you need there for happiness.

[Iustus]

Play your next SP game with this variant rule-Cottage every grassland tile

I second this recommendation. Just to see how it works. You can easily go too far on the cottages side, depending on the difficulty, but it is much less of a problem than building too few.

On noble difficulty or lower, you can maximize cottages and still win pretty handily.

One rule of thumb that works pretty well when learning is the '2 food' counting rule. When you make your city (or even when planning a city), look at the fat cross. You want to count tiles that are more or less than 2 food. I start at the top left and count across, counting all 20 tiles. A 2 food tile counts as nothing, less than 2 food is negative, more than 2 food is positive.

You want to count what the improved tile will be, but do not count improvements when you do not know what you will build there. A good starting point is to count all hills at the default (assuming you will put a mine there), all flat grassland and flood plains at the default (assuming cottages), and all resources as their improved value.

I do the math as I go, so if the first row was grassland hill (1 food: -1), grassland flat (2 food: 0), clams (5 food: 3), I would count -1, still -1, then +2, and just keep going, keeping a running tally. (Note, water tiles assume you have a lighthouse, so they are 2 food, or 0 net). If you do it this way, you will almost always get a negative number at the end, which will tell you how many farms/windmills you need to build in order to make your city work at full size. Of course this total does not matter if your game is going to be over before your cities get that big.

The thing that this does though is it gets your mindset on counting the food on tiles, which is important when planning a city. The other thing to keep in your mind is that farms are 'mostly' worthless on their own. You only want to have as many farms as you have to have in order to keep things irrigated and keep all your real productive tiles working. You definitely want to make sure you have farms to get irrigation to all your farmed resources (like corn, wheat, rice, etc). (Note, for the advanced player, there is some good in using farms to feed specialists, but I would not worry about trying that until you master a cottage economy).

Other than that, you should try to put cottages up as much as you can.

When you get more sophisticated, then you will start cottaging less, and deciding early on a city if you are going to make it a production or commerce city. If it is production, you will have more mines and farms, if it is commerce, then more cottages and windmills. Lumbermills I have found to be tricky to decide when to use. At the higher difficulties, the health bonuses of forrests are a bigger deal, but in general I prefer a mine on a hill to a lumbermill. Which means lumbermills for me generally go on the non-hilled forrests in production centers, instead of cottages, when I do not need farms to support the mines on the hills.

Anyway, way too much detail, try putting up a lot more cottages, spam them everywhere and see how it does. Pick one or two production cities where you do not put cottages, but put them everywhere else. You will see a huge difference in your economy. (Of course, do not neglect the other things, those marketplaces, grocers and banks, not to mention libraries, universities and observatories make a big difference when you have a lot of cottages.)

There are many other ways to help an economy and research (like specialists), but cottages are the simplist and in general the most effective.

-Iustus

[Antoninus]

Thanks, Iustus. Not "too much detail" at all. On the contrary, the details have snapped this into focus for me. Its one thing to read how players specialize their cities ("I decided Medea would be my production city"), but it's another thing entirely to understand exactly how they go about setting it up with that goal in mind. I'm experimenting with this in a brand new game right now. Thanks, again.

[Atlas]

Feel free to post a saved game, or screen shots in this thread to discuss some stuff, if you want.