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Post by willburn on Dec 12, 2006 23:51:18 GMT -5
Look, I'm not trying to irritate you. I'm just trying to have an interesting discussion about Future games. My apologies of my style of debate irritates you. It has been said before that I'm an annoying debating partner, because I present my points with such fevor. I never want to do that though, it just happens... I don't know who you are, and I don't know how good you are. I'm quite new to this ladder and this forum, and I hardly know anybody here. If you say you're one of the best at future games, I see no reason not to believe you But no matter how good you are, I am still allowed to give my point of view, and to attack real or imagined flaws in your strategy, am I not? And yeah, I'm simply not convinced by an example where you build more cities than fit on a map, and no defence at all (for 9 turns, but in 9 turns my units can have reached you easily, with 2 more each). That does not proof your theory is bad, just that your example is Anyway, say that you play a 1v1 on a tiny tbg map. That's 20x20 with 5 rows of polar zone and 3 rows of desert. You'll be about 5 moves away from eachother, and with about 120 tiles for each player, you'll be able to fit 6-12 cities in your territory. How will you play your strategy then? Will you go for pentagon or hoover dam? Will you go for ironworks early, or ignore it. Will you only build settlers for the first 4 turns and hope to outmanouvre your enemy's units with your 5 starting ones? Or say it's a 5v5 teamer on an normal sized inland_sea. Now you can let your philosophical teammate worry about the wonders. And if you're not on front you can expand without too much worry at the beginning. Here I can see your strategy working well. But it's still only something for the first 3-4 turns. After that your territory is full And to get back to the original topic at hand: Do you really need slavery for that, then? For those few turns? Aren't you better off with serfdom front the start, and a turn less of anarchy? That was a much better post. I wasnt try to throw my ego around i was trying to say: I have won all my games with this strategy, there must be something too it. (Its a totaly legit argument to say look it WORKS in the real world) Just as experimenters have theories the only way to see what theory is best is to test it out in practice and get the results. Now back to your discussion: Ofcourse you dont spam 27 cities in 10 turns, you build explorers to defend and have say 20 cities. What that test proves is that its possible. (And the power of slaving settlers) If you want I can try and get into a fast timed future teamer and take a screenshot every turn and then show exactly how I play during a real match. You allways adapt your tactic to what your opponent does. If im front I usually go for a early kill with my added cities for added units. I dont only spam settlers in such scenarios. If we where to play a tiny 1v1 (ive not done many of those) I would still do slavers and have 12 cities by the time you had 3 and ironforge. And dessert or ice i dont care about id build there anyways. 5 pop = attleast 2 free modern armors for me. (f.ex) Id also make sure to choke you with units while I expand since I would require as big devotion to settlers on such a small map, but id still have the unit advantage simply because id have more citiesn than you slaving units. Ironforge would only hurt you, it would allow me to have even a higher unit supperiority in your territory - now tell me what good is ironforge if all your city sqaures are blocked by modern armors and pillaged, or even worse your citie lies in ruins. Also about serfdom: here are my two most convincing arguments: It doesnt build roads any faster, it doenst chop any faster. (both are done in 1 turn without serfdom on future / modern)
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Post by Tony on Dec 13, 2006 9:43:21 GMT -5
How do you work your land? Generally speaking?
Also just thinking about traits seems imp could be useful
I really need to have the game open to make observations, ill do this tonight and see if i come up with anything.
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Post by willburn on Dec 13, 2006 14:50:22 GMT -5
Tony how I work my land really depends on what I expect to happen. If i expect to have to slave armors and explorers just to keep alive or to get a fast supperiority I prioritize any food resource I can find. Also I allways allways find coal quick and settle right on top of it for railroad instead of roads from my workers.
On the other hand if im backline and my front guy is looking ok I usually do a normal improvment taking all the special resources first then going for a health mix of food + workshops.
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Post by Tony on Dec 13, 2006 18:23:53 GMT -5
what does city must be at 30 degrees latitude mean, anyone know?
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Post by diadem on Dec 13, 2006 19:02:28 GMT -5
what does city must be at 30 degrees latitude mean, anyone know? That's for the Space Elevator. It means you can only built it at AT MOST 30 degrees latitute. Basicly in a band of about 1/3 the map height around the equator. Space Elevators have to be built at the equator. If you don't build them at the equator the rotation of the earth will cause them to collapse. 30 degrees is actually quite a big margin, in the real world I except the margin for error to be quite a bit smaller. Maybe one thousandth of a degree
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Post by diadem on Dec 13, 2006 19:13:38 GMT -5
That was a much better post. I wasnt try to throw my ego around i was trying to say: I have won all my games with this strategy, there must be something too it. (Its a totaly legit argument to say look it WORKS in the real world) Just as experimenters have theories the only way to see what theory is best is to test it out in practice and get the results. Well I'm a student in Theoretical Physics. I look down on things only working in practice. What good are real life results if you can't get the theory working? Seriously: Your arguments are convincing. I thought, by the way, that without serfdom cuts took 2 turns? I guess I was mistaken. But I'm still slighly curious. No matter how you look at it, every turn spent building a settler is a turn spent not building units. That's true in any era. Aiming at growth hurts you immidiate strength, while increasing your future strength. Is it not possible for someone to stage an attack while you're still building settlers? Maybe future is too fast for that. You start with 3 mech-infs and 2 explorers. I need at least a few extra units to attack you succesfully. Then I need to get those units to the front. That still takes a few turns, even small maps. Perhaps long enough for you to build defence after expanding. So what do you recommend for, say, a 4v4 team game on inland_sea? Everybody follows this strategy, or only the front guys, while the back guys go for wonders? Or perhaps one back guy expands all over the place while the front guys build military and the other back guy wonders? And another question I still wonder about. What happens if you fail to win very fast, and the game gets longer. With so many cities they will be rather small, with a large total production, but little production per city. This will make building the spaceship hard. And as to nukes.. You still face the problem of being nuked because you can't finish SDI in 1 or 2 turns. Nukes might not be so dangerous in small quantities, but if you fail to build SDI and your opponent starts sending 2-3 at you every turn - making whatever city is trying to finish SDI the first target .... then you'll be in some serious trouble it seems.
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Post by willburn on Dec 14, 2006 16:32:12 GMT -5
Id never had a game go to nukes so I wouldnt know. Your right that could be deadly.
Anyways recommandations for say a 4v4 depends on so many factors i cant give a general advice to be honest. I guess in general I would say backlines exand more than frontlines but even backlines expanding truly depends on your situation.
Maybe the cities are smaller etc. I suggest you try some number crunching and see how many units would be produced. Id be interested in the results. Here is also some interesting notes about the ages on quick: Age Barracks Settler Worker Libary Forge Theatre Ancient 33 67 40 Classic 33 67 40 60 Medival 33 67 40 60 80 33 Renesa 29 60 36 54 72 29 Industrial 26 53 32 48 64 26 Modern 23 46 28 42 x 23 Future 19 40 24 36 x 19
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Post by churchill1 on Dec 14, 2006 19:24:05 GMT -5
Id never had a game go to nukes so I wouldnt know. Your right that could be deadly. Anyways recommandations for say a 4v4 depends on so many factors i cant give a general advice to be honest. I guess in general I would say backlines exand more than frontlines but even backlines expanding truly depends on your situation. Maybe the cities are smaller etc. I suggest you try some number crunching and see how many units would be produced. Id be interested in the results. Here is also some interesting notes about the ages on quick: Age Barracks Settler Worker Libary Forge Theatre Ancient 33 67 40 Classic 33 67 40 60 Medival 33 67 40 60 80 33 Renesa 29 60 36 54 72 29 Industrial 26 53 32 48 64 26 Modern 23 46 28 42 x 23 Future 19 40 24 36 x 19 Oooh that is interesting. TY for compiling this data. Does the variation in hammers apply to other units and buildings too?
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Post by willburn on Dec 14, 2006 20:35:12 GMT -5
yeah but i didnt take the time to compile data for everything. So i figuered the most important are worker and settler. Also ive tried for the first time the future strategy on 1v1 (all my future games apart from this has been teamers 3v3 or 4v4 ) ..won twice vs islandia (undefeated 1v1 in ccc so no bad 1v1 player !) First game was on small map. That was a total pushover. Second match was on a duel map. That was harder but I still had control. I think islandia is gonna be threatening me pretty soon But so far my strategy still stands the test of time.
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Post by diadem on Dec 15, 2006 2:21:45 GMT -5
Well in teamgames I think the best possible strategy is for a few teammates to follow this strategy, but not all. At least one (The one who is Gandhi, of course) should aim for GPs and try to get the wonders. On 1vs1. If you start by chopping a settler in you capital, and slave with your other cities, you should be able to get a pretty large snowball without sacrificing your capital's growth too much. You won't get pentagon, but you will get an early engineer for hoover dam or iron works. But tests are needed to see what works best, I guess
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Post by Ellestar on Dec 15, 2006 5:43:32 GMT -5
After first 10 turns, you really only need to make sure you build enough workshops; other than that, the workers really should be automated. If workers do not behave as you expected, use quantity to compensate quality. There are a lot more activities in the future games so managing workers should not be one of your tasks. ROFLMAO. Good luck with automated workers in future. I use ctrl+o to bring up the options menu. Then I can quickly switch off quick combat animations, so that when my opponent attacks with his first unit I have plenty of time to move my stack in from my other front city. ;D Thanks again to DD for that tip. Sounds like cheating. At least, i'll report it to admin if it will be used in tornament.
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Post by churchill1 on Dec 18, 2006 12:59:51 GMT -5
I use ctrl+o to bring up the options menu. Then I can quickly switch off quick combat animations, so that when my opponent attacks with his first unit I have plenty of time to move my stack in from my other front city. ;D Thanks again to DD for that tip. Sounds like cheating. At least, i'll report it to admin if it will be used in tornament. Ellestar, can't you detect irony, do you have no sense of humour?!? This was a JOKE! I don't actually use it (neither does DD BTW).
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Post by willburn on Dec 18, 2006 15:30:54 GMT -5
Ok had my first loss. Small island 3v3 with a random noob on my team but still hats of to lkt.
(I cant expand like mad on a small island so im kinda starved off)
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Post by willburn on Dec 18, 2006 15:46:52 GMT -5
Its actually a relif because now I dont have to focus every game on winning so hard and beeing nervous about my first loss. Ahh finally I can go back to enjoying future and modern
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Post by willburn on Feb 17, 2007 2:32:40 GMT -5
3 out of 3 CCC future events ive entered won. (Im not saying this to brag but to say that the slavery strategy probably is quite strong on future teamers if its not too small a map or continents.)
Anyways i feel happy after that win now so here is a new tip for future. How to build with all 3 settlers first turn if your lucky with placement:
"Branching" Move one settler away from the other settlers, make sure to move onto plains. Build road where the two other settlers are.
So say you went left with city it would be C=City |=road
C|
now branch out from that core road like this: ..../ C| ....\
Then you can build the two other settlers on each side of the "branch"
......C ..../ C| ....\ ......C
Voila thats how you get 3 cities first turn settled. Again you need to be lucky and not have forrest / hills cover those areas your branching in.
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Post by tommynt on Feb 17, 2007 6:21:44 GMT -5
Not doubting that willburn plays a decent future I have (after some learning game) allways donw very well by a kinda "normal" buildup.
i dont think that spaming 15 ciites on a map like inland sea is defendable vs a opponent who got skillz, I try to settle every tile on my land aswell but then I usually got 1 city (often cap which build a unit per turn to makes this expanding possible. I think way more important then your overall gameplan is your micro. Try to get stuff in 1 turn - u got 30 shields go for worker - u chopped 2 woods and got 80 or 90 - go for some unit ... espacially cap should allways get 1 unit per turn. Also I see way too many people building useless roads and railsroads - 1 road between your ciites is more then enough! this isnt civ3 where roads help your eco!! sure if your workers later got spare time railroad all your productin tiles but working all your special resources espacilly food is way more important
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Post by willburn on Feb 17, 2007 9:52:47 GMT -5
Actually I agree with you tommynt. Especially about the "try and do 1 turn stuff" thats exactly my mindset too. And good micro is what wins the game anytime, thats why im sharing the strategies because its the execution of them thats more important, and how well you use each worker and plan what you build in your cities. These skills are used in any era not just future. But I disagree with not beeing able to defend, the trick is realising when your opponent can reach you and with the added cities you have getting adequate defence to protect your border. Or take the war to your opponent. Now dont get me wrong i dont do this perfectly every time myself, like the first game of this tourney i forgot to lock down the ocean early and got 3 dropped and died. Luckily knupp stepped up his game and won us that one, and after that I got back into old things (had not played civ4 for a long while before yesterdays future ccc matches) (Latly ive seen a lot of inland sea, whats important in this map is a very fast early lockdown of the sea to not let anyone 3 team drop you. ) Oh and thanks for thinking im "decent", I guess winning 3 times in a row does make you that (ofcourse I didnt do it alone, thanks to all I played together with during those matches!)
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Post by ironclad on Feb 20, 2007 22:49:31 GMT -5
Not doubting that willburn plays a decent future I have (after some learning game) allways donw very well by a kinda "normal" buildup. i dont think that spaming 15 ciites on a map like inland sea is defendable vs a opponent who got skillz, I try to settle every tile on my land aswell but then I usually got 1 city (often cap which build a unit per turn to makes this expanding possible. I think way more important then your overall gameplan is your micro. Try to get stuff in 1 turn - u got 30 shields go for worker - u chopped 2 woods and got 80 or 90 - go for some unit ... espacially cap should allways get 1 unit per turn. Also I see way too many people building useless roads and railsroads - 1 road between your ciites is more then enough! this isnt civ3 where roads help your eco!! sure if your workers later got spare time railroad all your productin tiles but working all your special resources espacilly food is way more important not when they play it on inland sea , or in ccc there is always a sea between the two continents.
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