i like india, and i love the no anarchy bonus. the last 2 times i've combined it with the pyramid it has resulted in stupid freezes when leaders speak from the grave. it is soooo frustrating.
i like india, and i love the no anarchy bonus. the last 2 times i've combined it with the pyramid it has resulted in stupid freezes when leaders speak from the grave. it is soooo frustrating.
tried to squeeze in a late game last night that ended in a rage quit. saw uncle bucks america in the lobby so i went for arabs. started on a peninsula with rome between us. he got to it 1st with a WA, then brought the army to me. i meanwhile rushed a galley for 7 cities after getting 2 warriors out. he harrassed me which was never really a threat, but i had to waste gold on warriors i didn't need otherwise. at one point i could have snuffed out his wounded WA but it would have meant leaving tripoli empty. i just couldn't risk that he didn't have another unit on the galley. so far so good though, and i brought up a vet WA and non-vet HA to rome with a hill next to it. my WA gets there 1st and wins a 12-12 against his AA. the horses arrive but i decide to take out 3 warriors to vet up. 2 were overrun and the 3rd was on a forest 2 spaces from rome. i get the attack and victory on the 3rd but he must have sold it at the same time. instead of vet on the forest i'm still non-vet, with my moves exhausted, and next to rome on grass. somehow he has a vet AA now and wins 4.5-3 (did he build a barracks?) i then attack 12-4 with my WA and lose. it was as close to breaking a controller as i've ever come. i could have played on but best case scenario at this point would have been deep into the night playing uphill against the broken american bonus.
Just had a game that made me feel giddy like a school girl...
My Indians vs Chinese.
Funny start, looked like an island, but wasn't. I move to the east side, settle in 37 and get out a couple warriors. Two huts for 70 gold plus a naming tile. I had my research set to science, with nothing selected in case it had actually been an island.
Find the Chinese on the mainland just north of me across the land bridge. He initiates contact and wants peace. Fine.
At this point I'm at 80g, have 20 beakers banked and decide to go for broke. I set my research to HBR, sell both warriors, and end the turn.
100g settler moves to a dye spot, all gold. I rush a galley in Delhi and set to get a HA out. Explore with the galley and militia and find Beijing very close. HA is out three turns later, put them on the galley, collect the militia and am in Chinese waters in two turns.
Beijing got the free wall, but only has a W inside. Battle odds off the galley are 3v3. He already has his 100g city, I figure its now or never and pull the trigger. I won the battle and took his CAP. Then he quit.
Against a non-power CIV, I don't know if I would have risked the HA. Against China, I felt it was likely my only shot to win this one...
My mistake: I meant industrial. I still had in mind, though, the 14 tech milestone when making my point about getting out most settlers. It seems to me that around 5 techs, or whenever one gets CoL, major expansion ensues. Or if it's going to ensue, that would be the time. If it doesn't, that's b/c of close combat and fighting. Hence money is going into units and you're prob not teching fast in most cases. Once you do decide that it's safe enough to tech, you would naturally expand at that point. So in either case, expansion typically precedes teching up to 14 techs.Originally Posted by elthrasher
I'm guessing, of course, that we sometimes slow expansion for a couple turns to grab a bonus such as +1 science, irrig., or whatever the player needs or can access. But in most cases the ideal is to pick up one or two and then return to expansion---unless of course there's an opportunity to win without further expansion or teching---in which case the overarching point of 14 techs is moot insofar as the game ends prior to that point. If it doesn't, then expansion revs up again after obtaining one or two or even a few boni, and before you know it you're at your magic number for the kind of tech you need to close the deal and you switch back to teching after expansion---which implies that you pass by 14 techs after major expansion is complete.
That's why I wondered just how powerful it is---it seemed to be more powerful last year and the year before, but perhaps weaker now in games where there is a leap, between 7 or 8 techs to, for example, 105 tech. In the old days you might have that amount of tech at 12-15 cities, stop expansion for a bit, pick up more tech boni, and then return to expansion more often after 14 tech since the game wasn't over so suddenly with a powerful advanced unit. Seems to me now that we more often hit the right number, and then just keep teching until we get what we want in the middle game and go on what is usually a ruthless rampage of destruction. In a few games this won't happen of course.
Zef, For what my 2 cents is worth...
I agree with your assessment of the 1/2 cost settler bonus in that bombers may have obsoleted it. Bombers definately trump 1/2 cost settlers anyday of the week.
However in a game where Oxford is banned, or not relevant, i find their bonus can be very influential. In Industrial era; cities have faster growth to recover, settlers only cost 10H, new cities have 4pop, the Indians still have the no anarchy and the access to resource bonus is at +3. (obviously, you already know this stuff)
In a close game, that makes it this far, any and every city could rush a settler in COL for 1 turn and all of a sudden, you can really start pulling away. Indians can go from 10 pop to 20 pop in just a couple turns. Especially if you can manage to bank 10 hammers in every city by the time you get 14 techs.
Usually by this point the other guy has stopped expanding enmasse. So doubling your empire in 5 turns, this late in the game is like it's own IND and CORP bonus. 10-4pop cities = 40 new tiles. Assuming all set to tech with no dye that's 80 per turn in addition to what you had already.
In addition with access to all resources, I don't think you need that many cities early and you can focus on getting the mid-game bonuses, which are cheaper techs. With a decent start and good resources in the beginning, I would argue that with the Indians should expand early to 30-40 beakers while pressing in fundy, get the nice to bonuses, which will push you into the Industrialization era quickly and then double your empire in 5 turns. Effectively arriving at the same place you would have been, but with more FTR bonuses, which can be very helpful. Plus by delaying some of your expansion, you are saving gold and hammers because the settlers are 50% cheaper in 9 more techs...
I can't disagree with you... Since the rules are different in our tournies, that gives them back some of their strength. Solid point for sure.
Almost cracked the top 10 again. I won about 16 in a row. And most of the wins gave me good points, since they were against top 10 and 50 players like Unabeja (sp?), MawPawk, Mad Dog, Jack, and REM. The game against Jack froze, and he was polite enough to admit he lost an early HA, plus I was about to flip his second city quite early with an SoC GA. But I owe him one since it was still too early of a freeze to know for sure what would happen. Anyway, I got to just within a few points of the most fair player of the game, DrunkenBoxing, who never cheats or complains, but lost my last one of the evening to a player who found Madrid pre 3500 and got me good with a Galleon and HA. All good things come to an end!!
even though bombers preclude expansion most times, in games that you are determined to survive to flight, you can offset city losses by making new ones. the bomber isn't focused on expansion and many times i sent a ship off to an ignored pole and made 4-5 cities to help with the gold and tech requirements to survive.
Why stop expanding? Mainly because you have more important things to do. Even in games that go very late, we never settle the whole map now. Expanding takes hammers and gold and at a certain point you have critical mass and want to put those hammers and gold into stamping out your opponent.
But it's different with India. Come industrial, 10 hammers is just nothing. The ROI you get for a 10 hammer settler is amazing.
So when I play India in a regular match with normal rules, I'm going for Oxford just like always (unless I can win before then of course). But when I hit industrial, I peel a few settlers off cities that have some hammers banked. It doesn't cost much. Then I put them on a boat and send them to Australia...I mean some uninhabited land mass. There they will start a new life, thrive and multiply. It costs next to nothing but I rocket from something like the minimum desired 70 trade per turn to well over 200 in no time flat (~10 turns). And it costs next to nothing.
The bonus is huge.
To put it another way, the hallmark of why America is so broken is 20 gold settlers. 20 gold = 10 turns working a single resource. India gets 10 hammer settlers. 10 hammers = 5 turns working a single resource (or 2 if you find oak or rubber!). The bonus comes later, so India isn't nearly as powerful as America, but industrial (4 pop) Indian settlers are actually cheaper than medieval (3 pop) American ones! Ponder that before you poo-poo this bonus. Like anything else, you just need to utilize it.
Haha! Well argued. I had to go into critique mode just a bit to see what the other side of the equation looked like...
Just snuck back into the top 10... it's precarious as I'm just a few points ahead of #11, and maybe 20 behind Akhab, but it was fun trying to get back in again.
After getting back into the top H2H echelon, I was reminded of how the truly good players can still kick my butt hardcore.
In a game against BigStank, I had a lousy Japan start against his India. But my start wasn't the interesting thing: Rabid hadn't played for months when we set up our game, and yet he still managed to get Indust by 700 BC. Granted, it was with a GS and I didn't get a chance to hassle him... but it's still much better than what I'm usually doing at 700 BC, which is getting to CoL or something.
And though I've played many games against MawPawk, I think just a couple days ago is the first where I really saw how good he is. I've won several games against him over the months, and he's won more overall, but usually the games are lopsided pretty quickly. In this one, I was winning at the start: had his England trapped up North with my India. Had a WA on a tree of his to watch his movement, as he went to the islands. I even got nav from Spain. I was just about at the point where I had the right city count to get to math (didn't think legions would cut it against England), when his own legions take one of my empty cities. I even had an archer in there previously, but took him out for some dumb reason. And his GL gave him a march HA which attacked, retreated, attacked, retreated, until finally taking another one of my cities. I was probably a little overconfident with my start, and left myself too open. Also when being atacked, I had to sell units which made me weaker in other areas, which exposed me to further attacks. And I dumbly forgot about India's fundy!! That was the worst. But whatever my mistakes, it was fun to see mawpawk come from behind with great determination---it'll remind me to stay focused next time around!
Next time you're in this situation, don't expand and get catapults. Just use archers and/or warriors to absolutely smother him. Occupy every tile he has so he's only got the city center to work with. If he wants to keep playing and doesn't just quit, then you can get cats at your leisure.
To use a nice analogy, when you have your foot on your opponent's throat, don't walk away to get a shotgun. Your foot is already on his throat!
You're completely right. I usually know better, but I've made that mistake a number of times. If your immediate aim is to tech up quickly, when the opponent is pretty close by, you give them a certain number of turns to put together an attack before you hit what you're looking for. It becomes a race, in effect. When instead, as you argued, it shouldn't even be a race: you just have to squeeze all life from them before they get a chance to recuperate.
ah zef your 2 kind but yes that was a nice comeback game luckily i had 3 trees on my cap, im also glad yor galleon and horse army stopped 2 kill my warrior army instead of finding my defenceless island cities. thrashers idea to smother would have worked ok but switching 2 fundy would have been betterim sure you wont forget thats the best boni the indians have 4 the short game(imo) and geting a GL was the wining master stroke for my comeback ,cool game nontheless.
just had a fun one with zef... my aztec vs his arab. proved to myself that i can beat very good players with the right circumstances (spanish walkin/7 cities in first 15 turns)
i made some terrible moves but got some mainland area and hot islands hard finding 2 double dye+whale spots.. i took over berlin with HA. he kills it next turn with WA... and i gtg so game ended 150AD, he attacks with 2 KA.... i get bombers same turn and he quit out. i was doing about 180 science a turn. he was at 6 techs for awhile then jumpe and stayed at 11 for rest of game. i knew attack was coming but a GS that turn helped me end it...
Just had the most FUBAR game ever...
My Greeks vs Arabs H2H.
Move settler end up finding 2 goodie huts and a naming tile. 60g start plus a nice spot for Athens. Workers to food and rush 2 W. End up getting 4 barbs, last of which gives me a galley and shows me AW. London is south of me, so I know it's the Great Wall. I get it the turn after my 100g settler and the same turn I rush a library.
Sent the settler north, from where I walked eyeing a 4 tree spot with cattle and 3 sea tiles. Would have easily had irrigation in three turns without Masonry, which hadn't been teched. Plus with the GW that early I was looking at a really good start.
Next turn, the Arabs appear by my settler and... He declares war? WTF?! How is this possible?
I try to run my settler back, but he catches it on a lost button race. He brings a WA at Athens, which has Pikes. I have a horse from a barb so I rush 2 more and army up. Try to move onto a hill next to Athens to attack him, but apparently, there is an invisible WA already on it and I lose a 6-6 battle and my HA.
I ask him how he can attack if I have the GW and he says he doesn't see the wall in Athens. I look at the city and I don't see it either. In the city screen it says it is built, but you can't see it at all. Obviously it doesn't work. He has more WAs coming out of my settler city and it's over soon.
Don't know what to think about that game, the GW, the attacking, WTF?!
Maw in fundy is freakin scary.I have been on receiving end of it.ah zef your 2 kind but yes that was a nice comeback game luckily i had 3 trees on my cap, im also glad yor galleon and horse army stopped 2 kill my warrior army instead of finding my defenceless island cities. thrashers idea to smother would have worked ok but switching 2 fundy would have been better
I just played MR no shame zodiac elp.He hits the magic button then real quick he hits b, then barb glitches or city collapes.How sad.
I don't know why I keep playing him, I just laugh at him, coz the $hit is funny to me, that the clown will not stop glitching, again how sad.
Im sitting in the lobby for 30mins and wan't a game, and guess whos back captain lame "ELP".I watched him city collapse washington, I then told him I just saw what you had done.He tried it again this time barb glitching and when he hit the magic button he got locked up and froze himselfI just played MR no shame zodiac elp.He hits the magic button then real quick he hits b, then barb glitches or city collapes.How sad.
I don't know why I keep playing him, I just laugh at him, coz the $hit is funny to me, that the clown will not stop glitching, again how sad.:.Thats why I love too laugh at this "MORON".He cracks me up.
Sometimes the GW just doesn't work. Could be a resynch issue or something but it can just legitimately fail without the other player attempting to glitch it. A while back I tried to test this with headless but we couldn't figure out a pattern.
It lured me into a false sense of security that game for sure. Knowing that it can be glitched is disconcerting too.
What about the invisible army? Re-sync error too?!
REDAF
see pm for solution
Unless MichiganHunter has something juicier, in which case I hope he'll share with the rest of the class.
Thanks For the PM Michigan Hunter...
No new tricks Thrasher. Basically I should have Democracy glitched him and felt ok with it as I had the GW.
Nothing on the invisibilty upgrade...
It sounds like you didn't activate the great wall.
As soon as I get AW and it gives me the GW I go into the city screen on my capital hold down the right trigger to show me the buildings, and scroll down to the GW. This puts up the wall around your city and "activates" it. If you don't do this then the other players can declare war on you until you do.
they can declare war on you plenty of other times too, but if you don't answer their threats you remain at peace.
In my experience as long as you activate the wall before a declaration of war then no war is declared until after engineering.
thats the way it should be, but every now and then someone knows how to circumvent the rules. in those cases, once they declare their hostilities, you just have to not acknowledge them and you will remain at peace.
Asmod...
You're joking right?!
Since when do you have to "activate" wonders?! I've played 1000s of civ rev games (100 MP) and never had to activate a wonder. Is this an MP thing? Do I need to tie the wall into a KVA transformer to charge it up?!
This may have something to do with synching the game correctly, but I'm certain that it isn't necessary every time. I've had the GW work "normally" (such as it is) lots of times without doing this.
Yeah, you don't have to "activate" it. It's a glitch. Either it works or it doesn't. Kind of like a walk in on Spain at 3600BC. Either you get Nav or you don't, but by showing the wall in your buildings screen, doesn't make any difference at all in my experience.
i always do it anyways, partly because it looks cool, and partly because i want any respectable players to know i have it in case they missed the bulletin.
I WAS ARABS IN REDAFS GAME!!!
i mean once i got my HA to him to messaged me wondering how i declared war on him with great wall... i never seen any message about it. couldnt see it in his city...
we were at peace then i declared war when i caught his settler...
im sure it was some freaky glitch but what was i suppose to do? take his word?
So funny Mike! I recognized your name, but wasn't 100% it was you..
Glad I didn't berate my opponent for being a cheat!!
Was your WA on the hill next to Athens invisible to you?
I have a picture of my city screen that says the GW is built, even though it's not shown in the city! I swear on something I care deeply about!!
No, I'm not joking. And it is only when you get the GW from AW.
And yes, it does work Dan, Thrasher, etc.
I have yet to have anyone GW glitch me once I activated it.
This is wrong.
i scroll thru it instantly every time i get it and i had an aztec player the other day who multiple times initiated diplomacy with me and declared war after i opened talks. it is not the 1st time i've seen this. if i had pressed the button after i got his threat we would have been at war. instead it was still blissful peace.
Repeated below....
Yeah, nice job Mike. You played very well... absolutely.just had a fun one with zef... my aztec vs his arab. proved to myself that i can beat very good players with the right circumstances (spanish walkin/7 cities in first 15 turns)
i made some terrible moves but got some mainland area and hot islands hard finding 2 double dye+whale spots.. i took over berlin with HA. he kills it next turn with WA... and i gtg so game ended 150AD, he attacks with 2 KA.... i get bombers same turn and he quit out. i was doing about 180 science a turn. he was at 6 techs for awhile then jumpe and stayed at 11 for rest of game. i knew attack was coming but a GS that turn helped me end it...
I think I played well too, but lately I've had some pretty bad starts. In one recent game I lost to an Arab who settled right next to me with gold (it was Ruthless), in two others I had island starts where White Spyder takes over the whole continent and its caps pretty quickly. In that game I wrestled away three of his cities depsite my island start, but it wasn't enough. Last night I had another island start where I got my 100 gold at 200 BC, while watching a noob settle his GPs. I lost that one too!
In yours my start wasn't quite as bas as the above games, but it was pretty average compared to yours. If I remember correctly you got 2 artifacts pretty quickly: 7C and the SoC. I got the Arc later. I didn't get many early huts or villages, although I did manage one nice move with my WA---as I saw your HA head toward it I sent over a galley and a WA just in time to steal it from you. Then I got a nice culture flip, from which I sent out my early knights due to getting Monarchy from London.
So I did okay with a slow start: I got two caps, killed one of your HAs, and started attacking with knights and taking a city---but it was just too slow as you got bombers pretty quickly---by 350 AD I recall. So you basically knew what to do with your extra gold! Very well done on your part.
no my warrior army was seen whole time... and mabey u didnt see it cause i had march? thats why i was able to keep up with ur settler till i won like the third button race... but i moved from 2 tiles away from athens, to the hill, then attacked... i was resyncing about every other turn of the game... that might explain how i missed GW popup but i never seen anything about it. when u mentioned it i went to ur city and looked. mabey it was too late for my xbox connection just as it was for me.
i think the only way to settle this is a rematch
P.S. thanks for not calling me a cheat or anything
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