Thoughts on a different strategy

[tobyr]

I've played a lot of small (random) map, with the continents and large land mass options. You hardly need boats at all with these settings.

Since you are very likely to meet several tribes early, it pays to try to setup a tiny army early and try to knock three or four of them out (if you're playing with the NO RESTART) option, regardless of what that does to your reputation.

This is particularly important so that you can expand somewhat (the problem you experienced).

There will be fewer goody huts, and your opponents will find a lot of them before you do.

You might enjoy playing small world witht he flat earth option; check it out....

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[DaveV]

Steve - early expansion is even more important on a small map than on a large one. Research horseback riding as your very first tech, then go out looking for huts and sealing off your territory. You need to lay claim to a large chunk of land for your cities.

To answer a few of your questions: "subvert city" appears when you try to bribe a city from a civ with whom you're not at war. For double the cost, you can bribe the city with no damage to your reputation. Your disorder problem is due to the infamous "riot factor" - once you have more than 8 cities in Monarchy at Emperor level, some of your cities will have only one "default" happy citizen. Once you reach 16 cities, all cities will have only one happy first citizen. If you go beyond 16, some cities will have no happy citizens. As far as I can tell, the place where these unhappy citizens appear is random.

[Steve Clark]

Thanks Dave, I had thought that number was 12.

Toby, you hit on something I forgot mention, I only could open up 6 huts total. Starting in southern Africa makes it hard to get into Asia early, esp. since 2 civs started there first and got all of the huts. It took a little while before getting a horse to the Americas on a boat but it didn't matter, the Zulus already had the hemispere covered.

[DaveV]

Steve - the magic number would be 12 for King level, or for a larger map. The number should be 9, not 8, for Emperor level. That's what happens when I don't check my notes...

[Steve Clark]

In my Civ game for the month, I am playing on a small map (world_small) for the first time (emperor, 7civs, RT). I am struck as to how different my strategy has to be. Here are some experiences, thoughts and questions…

I started in the jungles of Africa and built my first city on a river square along the coast next to a gold mountain (can you say Super Science City?).

For some reason, I was not able to expand like I normally would. At 200BC, I only had 3 cities on the Africa continent. I then proceeded to bribe the 3 German cities in Europe. I think one of the reasons is that early on, I was constantly besieged by the German, Zulus (from the Americas), Celts (from Asia) and quite a few Barbs. I had to spend more time on defense fending them off (building barracks, military units and a few walls), instead of growing and expanding. I did bribe one Celtic outpost city in Europe. In doing so, it gave me an option I had never seen before - Subvert City x2 Gold. What's the idea behind this, as oppose to outright revolt?

The Barbs at first were all over the place but since then, they had swarming the Zulus keeping them occupied. This is one of the key advantages of playing at RT or RH.

My tech advances have been slow - always between 11-15 turns. I may be #1 in science, but not by much. That's one big difference for me. In fact, for the first time EVER, I did not get Philosophy first. Consequently, I'm at 1100AD and I had only built 2 Wonders (Colossus and Sun Tzu) with caravans. I really had to think about which ones to build, unlike before where I could usually build at will. I got Leo coming up soon, but the main problem is that I had to interrupt building caravans in my handful of cities to build military units. Since the Celts have been bugging me (alternating between war, peace and cease fire), I need to clobber them. I got 12 vet knights closing in on their territory (I learned this from Graag). So that's another difference, in my perfectionist conqueror style, I usually have a set of cities building caravans and another set building military units, but in this game I can only do one or the other. Not sure if I'll get the Happy wonders, so that'll be interesting to see.

Another question. I had a settler finished building roads connecting all of the cities and then I built a city at the southern tip of Africa (my 9th city under Monarchy). This settler had been supported from a city in Europe and when the new city was built, that supporting city went into disorder. It was size 4, food box half full, 3 shields, two martial law units. Even though it looked like the 2nd citizen went red (thus causing the 4th to go red in the happy screen), why did it do this? I have one still further north which did not change. What caused this disorder when I built that new city?

Another change is that I'm using the Tim's HiRes units for the first time. I really like these units.

All in all, this is somewhat of a self-handicap game for me. A small map forced me to deal with enemies early on and prevented expansion in isolation. It also brings to light the close link between a wonder and a strategy.

Sten: Thanks for the suggestion from awhile back of playing small maps (for non-OCC games), this is turning out to be my favorite regular game experience so far.

[Steve Clark]

In attacking the Celts with vet Knights, I got a size 3, 5 and 7 cities. That size 7 city had a Pyramid which I definitely don't want, so I just let the nearby Barbs take it off my hands. Then I unexpectedly came in contact with a size 8 city. That is my frustration with the Top 5 Cities list. It only ranks them by number of wonders and since it had no wonders, I didn't know about it. I attacked it with 5 vet Knights against fortified Phalanx and Archers. No luck at all. I'll just wait for more advanced military units and try later.

[Scouse Gits]

If you pay the double price to subvert a city - so avoiding any incident - the civ involved does "remember" the event. Afterwards, their attitude towards you, becomes more hostile. Little references appear like "untrustworthy" when you speak to them on future occasions. Sure, your actual reputation is unchanged, but "events" seem to have left a stain!
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SG (2)

[Steve Clark]

Yeah, I love it when they call me, 'O treachorous one'. That's what I play for in MGE

[Neon Deon]

Steve,
Did i read that right?? You let the barbarians have the pyramids??? Why?

[Steve Clark]

Absolutely. Playing at the higher levels and not having the happy wonders yet, the last thing I want to do is to have my cities grow beyond martial law and the few temples. I have all of my cities building caravans plus some military units and dips. Nothing else matters at this stage. Since playing emperor/deity, never have and never will build the Pyramids.

[The Mad Viking]

I agree completely about not BUILDING the pyramid wonder. But giving it away???

I would gladly take it, and use the extra citizens as tax collectors and einsteins. You're growth will max out, (0 food surplus) but by then you can have 4 or more specialists giving you extra beakers and/or gold. When you do get a happiness wonder, you can immediately put some to work on the land. If you lose a unit to an attacker - you lose a specialist, not a direct producer.

[Smash]

Actually if he hasn't taken care of the unhappy issue yet thats not a terrible plan.He could seal it off from ai civs and after the happy issue is resolved bribe it cheap complete with a unit or 2.Interesting scheme

[geofelt]

Woa! I play deity, and I love the pyramids. First, you deny an ai civ the benefit of growing. If a city grows too fast, I just build a settler and use it to build another city or whatever. With a granary, you will always have a half full food box. This insulates you from losing settlers or population if when the ai walks all over a vulnerable city. If your city grows faster to it's currently supportable maximum size, then you are able to select more shield production to control growth. Lastly, it lets you grow faster, and faster growth means more power sooner.

[Lung]

I agree with Geofelt, absolutely. If you don't want your cities to grow any larger, then convert your shield-free squares to specialists. You don't have to worry about growing, as you can control the speed of growth, and boost your science and gold at the same time. You should have enough cities with the Pyramids to build Michaelangelo's Chapel and overcome the happiness problem anyway.