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Post by nhlpraetorian on Jan 19, 2006 15:43:10 GMT -5
Post edit...just got a good lesson on the benefits of theology civic...very nice early rush in teamer cost me game...so i wont uphold a scrap religion theory...totally. while chopping other things i lost my late researched iron to well promoted axes...so by the time they showed up...i only had a few axes...which without the promotion were useless in the attack. the ensuing choke/pillage finished me easily.
thanks for the lesson xma.
in any case...i will be working on flexibility and adaptability in strategy. no point limiting options available.
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Post by Sidhe on Jan 19, 2006 19:03:47 GMT -5
Yep you can win with no religion, just get Stonehenge and get a later one, then out tech the religious, you do need religion eventually but if you can't get earlier on you can rape the crap out of those who do by using those early resources. OK if no religion later on same deal, hook up the resources, and get the techs and go punish there arse. I've won with no wonders and no religion and not resources early on, you just need to get lucky and use your traits and out tech the religious. Theres is no no win situation, OK ATM with the patch you lose with crap land but you can at least survive and kill. Patch sucks stop abusing it cause he who laughs last laughs loudest I wont build with the patch, skilless games are beneath me, rather go have fun and lose.
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Post by nhlpraetorian on Jan 20, 2006 3:35:23 GMT -5
agreed...sometimes i am a builder...other times i dagger...other times i do both...i am finding flexability in stratergy here is paramount...
man...i love the variability of this game...every line you take can be countered...even if your taking a good line.
getting to know them all will be fun.
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Post by mrsaturn on May 18, 2006 1:49:52 GMT -5
How do points work for population exactly? The original poster wrote- "1) First element is Population. Depending on the size of the game map and the number of players, each citizen you have is worth between 4 and 10 points, typically 5." So a city of population 10 has 10 citizens? Would 5 cities with population 2 be equal? I suppose I can test this easily, but I'm at work and just thought of this question Is it possible to save up a ton of settlers, then spam build just before the last turn and leap forward in population? Or is it better to spam workers and blow up your towns for farms at around T-minus 25?
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Post by notagoodname on May 18, 2006 9:29:57 GMT -5
Population is by far the most important point scorer at the end. In the last 20 turns set all your cities to food and start your workers on building farms everywhere there is room. In the last 10 turns convert cottages to farms in any cities that are close to growing before the end but not quite there.
Population is somewhat exponential in points going from ie. 19-20pop is worth around 20 points going from 1-2 is about 2points.
I have won ctons where is was losing by 300 points doing nothing more than growing all my cities by 5 pop at last 20 turns.
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Post by Elledge on May 18, 2006 10:17:35 GMT -5
Points scored for population are proportional to the actual number of citizens shown on the city, not the "size;" hover your mouse over the population in the city status window to check the citizen count. That number does indeed increase much faster the larger you get, so going from 10-->11 is a bigger difference than 2-->3.
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Post by mrsaturn on May 18, 2006 11:13:18 GMT -5
Well, most CTON players know to boost population in the last few turns... the question is when to start converting your science (cottages) into food, or even earlier when to stop building and switch from production to growth (since non-wonder buildings dont count for points). Of course it varies- if you know you'll be sledgehammered in the last few turns you don't want to shut down your catapult/defense building machine.
I guess a good overall strategy is to keep your cities growing at least 3 food per turn for the entire game. If you have to settle a city without a food resource, build a few farms to get growth to 3. And don't spread your cities out too much- overlap is fine since in most cases your city won't reach past size 12.
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Post by tommynt on May 18, 2006 12:09:06 GMT -5
definatly not - u gotta slave in start and in midgame - slaving is so powerful for production and is espacially powerful at smaller sizes at about like 4 - where u grow every turn or every 2nd at least - also guys dont get unhappy that fast at smaller sizes - let cities only grow higher if u worked land for em and if u dont need production that much - sure u gotta let some ciites (cap for example gorw higher to be ablke to use cottages
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Post by Atomation on Jun 6, 2006 18:07:35 GMT -5
Overlap is more than fine - its recommended. If you overlap 3 cities on 1 special food resource you can have each city grow to its maximum happiness, then switch up to let another city grow to that point, and so on for the third. The end result is 3 cities grew to their max size much faster and can reap the rewards of largers cities all the sooner. Of course, they are many other reasons to pack it in, but food resource sharing is one of the more handy ones.
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Post by Atomation on Jun 6, 2006 18:11:54 GMT -5
Oh...and on a side note.. I've won many many ctons where I didn't start with iron or copper, but I had an early horse to chariot rush bomb someone. You'd be surprised how many chariots can be up and going before someone really gets around to hooking up their metal....and rarely do people build spearmen before axe, so often you can pillage the metal before they figure out what is going on! Then a flood of 20 chariots come in and pillage everything . I've had still other games where I just produced all archers, and defended early horsearcher/chariot/axemen rushes with that. Archers en masses are very effective, and if you are really scared catas are certainly not far off (and if you are smart you are probably going for math quickly anyway, so even easier to get catas). That isn't to say it isn't excessively annoying to have all your crap pillaged because you lack metal and or horses, but you can survive nonetheless.
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Post by Elledge on Jun 6, 2006 19:06:05 GMT -5
Overlap is more than fine - its recommended. If you overlap 3 cities on 1 special food resource you can have each city grow to its maximum happiness, then switch up to let another city grow to that point, and so on for the third. The end result is 3 cities grew to their max size much faster and can reap the rewards of largers cities all the sooner. Of course, they are many other reasons to pack it in, but food resource sharing is one of the more handy ones. It just depends on how much land you have, and how large you expect to grow before the game ends. If you are overlapping a few plains and desert squares in a 120 turn cton, then it's no big deal. If you're overlapping grassland river tiles in a FFA islands game, you are going to have problems later compared to someone who is working all their land with less cities.
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Post by tommynt on Jun 7, 2006 3:53:20 GMT -5
i d definatly not overlap food resources - each city just needs it s own 1 or 2 food res - and i tend to micro a lot but switching food tiles every turn ... I did that in civ3 but i win in civ4 without doing that
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Post by Ellestar on Jun 7, 2006 7:59:54 GMT -5
Nah i like overlapping food resources (at least, in Anc games when cities are small). It's also useful when you do have one more in range but your city needs a border expand before it will be able to use it. So you get a very fast growth (city is very small so it grows really fast) from a first, already improved resource and then switch your new city to work his own food resource. Also, you may make a fast Obelisk/Granary if you have overlapping production resources and new cities' growth is more important than making units a little faster in main cities.
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Post by churchill1 on Jun 7, 2006 12:54:35 GMT -5
what's this? may be i am missing something here but i would never ever overlap food resources. each new city can find his own.
ellestar - ur point about a new city working an existing food res kinda makes sense but in the long run it will hurt. more than likely your existing city will need that food resource and when it has lost it it has lost if for good probably.
also i dont understand tommy's point: "and i tend to micro a lot but switching food tiles every turn".
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Post by Atomation on Jun 7, 2006 13:09:32 GMT -5
If you overlap the food resource to several cities early in the game, then you can immediately use the food resource, whereas a new city utilizing an entirely new resource may need to both claim the resource inside its borders and have a worker upgrade that resource before it can be used. In short, you are losing turns either from the additional resources in workers or from the turns you've lost from unimproved specials. Just think of it this way: if you pack it in, you can use the resources for a worker towards another settler or towards growth. The ultimate goal here is to utilize as much land as quickly as possible with the smallest amount of resources expended *over the course of the entire game*. If you look only towards the long term ideal of "if I have these cities in these places it will be maximizing my output at such and such a time" then you are missing the big picture. Even if you have quite alot of land to work with, early on packing it in will enhance your early growth dramatically, thus increasing longterm output! There are other more significant reasons to push your borders out, though, such as in a cton if you wish to ensure that you can claim more land and you can do it right away and safely (building a city right outside enemy grounds right on their copper or iron is extremely effective - you deny them metal and you instantly can build axemen/pikes in that city, so you've just safely claimed all the land between that colony and your capital).
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Post by churchill1 on Jun 7, 2006 13:16:39 GMT -5
yes but may be u dont understand. every city needs at least one food res, to be really good. either that or plenty flood plains. so why would u want to take that food res away? u dont think each city can work the food res at the same time do u? what will happen is the peeps in the original city will start dying off and what was once a real nice city will become crappy.
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Post by Atomation on Jun 7, 2006 13:27:33 GMT -5
Ideally each would want 2 food resources - 1 for the longterm and 1 for the shortterm. But the goal is to use all squares as quickly as possible. Why does each city need its own food resource? I don't understand this. A city that has only normal crappy grassland that uses another city's food resource as a springboard can be a size 6 in somewhere near 20 turns. Most of the time new cities without help take 20 turns just to build a worker so it can eventually grow! In the mean time your city that you springboarded to a size 6 could have all those crappy grasslands with cottages and you instantly have a city giving you tons of research/gold, or irrigated grasslands with mined hills which produces a fine production city without any food specials. Note that for this strategy to work, you'd need 3 workers or a ton of forests so that you can be sure to make it worth actually being a size 6 (a size 6 with no improvements on land isn't nearly as good and sometimes useless).
Still better, if you don't deforest (I'd recommend leaving most forests till math anyway, since chopping pretty much sucks now), a size 6 springboarded city harnessing 4 grassland/forest and 2 plains/forest (=0 food surplus, assumed max happy level) is giving you 9 hammers, after a mere 20 turns. That's a very productive city for a very short timeframe, and no workers needed!!!
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