Tips and stuff like that on this thread

[wieder]

Most of this is probably old news to the experienced players, but this is the place to post some advice about how to play the game. It can be ruleset related or something else.

One example of a basic tip is that it's usually useless to irrigate grassland if you don't have pyramids and your form of government is despotism. Because of the despotism penalty you will lose the advantage of the irrigation. Instead of irrigating grassland, it's usually a better idea to irrigate buffalo or wheat or maybe plains. Unless of course you need to use the grass tile to get the water elsewhere.

The game is more interesting for everyone if everyone knows how to play :SS

[wieder]

From the game chat

In the early game, if you are unsure about allying, lots of players use NAP (non aggression pact) deals to agree about short term peace. That has worked well for me and lots of other players. A NAP is simply an agreement between two players about not attacking each other. On this kind of game it usually includes, by default, an agreement of not settling on the other player's home island. Not responding to a question about NAP is usually interpreted as a slightly hostile action. If a NAP is not something someone wants to do, it's better to say that than remain silent All this is of course something that has been used traditionally used by some players and it's not a rule or anything like that. The NAP deals usually work quite well because people are worried about the reputation they have. It's very hard to make future deals if the reputation is trashed in the early game If you are doing a deal with some new player (new to you), it's quite common to ask his her neighbors about his or her reputation of if there were issues or stuff like that when dealing with that player.

Does someone have a different view on NAP deals and stuff related with those?

[HanduMan]

it's usually useless to irrigate grassland if you don't have pyramids and your form of government is despotism.

Or to mine hills when you have some forest tiles around. Hills are 1/1/0 and upgrade to 1/3/0 when mined but with the penalty they give 1/2/0 which is the same as forest without any work done on them. :p

[maho]

but piramids are quite cheap....

[mmm2]

From the game chat

In the early game, if you are unsure about allying, lots of players use NAP (non aggression pact) deals to agree about short term peace. That has worked well for me and lots of other players. A NAP is simply an agreement between two players about not attacking each other. On this kind of game it usually includes, by default, an agreement of not settling on the other player's home island. Not responding to a question about NAP is usually interpreted as a slightly hostile action. If a NAP is not something someone wants to do, it's better to say that than remain silent All this is of course something that has been used traditionally used by some players and it's not a rule or anything like that. The NAP deals usually work quite well because people are worried about the reputation they have. It's very hard to make future deals if the reputation is trashed in the early game If you are doing a deal with some new player (new to you), it's quite common to ask his her neighbors about his or her reputation of if there were issues or stuff like that when dealing with that player.

Does someone have a different view on NAP deals and stuff related with those?

NAP = indefinite ceasefire? I haven't heard this exact term "NAP" used before, but why not just call it a ceasefire? Generally, ceasefires are very fragile agreements that typically can be broken at any point, but usually in situations were neither side would benefit from unwinnable "vietnam war" so they agree to neutrality. However, if you did want to attack, then probably you would not want to notify of this, or no? Usually it is only courtesy to give advanced notice of ending shared vision/alliance.

spoiler alert: if you haven't had the time to run localhost test games like i have, you may want to follow this oversimplified guide, but otherwise it may be fun to follow your own steps....

spolier guide:
set tax to maximum until you have libraries in all cities (preferably universities too). in this ruleset science is very fast, and you should be able to get all the early techs with 80% or 70% tax ( I prefer republic because it gives slight advantage, and lets you max 80% instead of 70% for monarchy).
1: build pyramids
2: build hanging gardens (this will allow you to grow city 1 additional size without requiring martial law, temple, or entertainer)
3: build temples in all cities + temple of artmitis to double effect of temples
4: marketplaces ( in some cities you may even build marketplaces before temples if very fast production and low food)
5: court houses in most cities (maybe optionally in cities too close to palace)
6:banks (in some cities building banks before court houses if cities are really near palace)
7:caravans (rush build marco polo)
8.aquaducts, harbors in certain cities with fish/whales
9:stock exchange, and build michaelangelo's at same time)
10:build libraries, and start saving gold (you will want to wait until some player builds isaac newton, or build it yourself before max science)
10b: build universities to get key techs like refrigeration, railroad, etc. Think about setting back to max tax if you see Isaac Newton's isn't built.
11:build granary+supermarket (you may want to build granaries in some cities beforehand but probably not all until supermarkets)..
12: sewer systems
13: factories, powerplant
14: build tons units, wait for plastics to build mnfct plants... build other misc improvements like port facil, airports, barracks 3, etc...

some other notes:
** choose government according to your circumstance. If you are in peaceful area, republic + democracy are best choices, but for early action monarchy+communism are best choices.
** granary micromanagement: be sure to micromanage your surpluses, and shift resources between cities, so to avoid having situations arise such as being 39/40 in granary (for this case, be sure to set surplus to +1 food, and everything else to high production). Early in game shifting resources between cities is easy, but later in game, it can be very time consuming. However, you will lose tempo every turn if you do not micromanage, especially in early phase of game.
** once you have refrigeration it is great to have as many cities as possible having exactly 30 food surplus each turn, so city grows every turn. Try to use every single tile on island as quickly as possible to max out production and economy potential of island..
** rush building wonder: try to get your palace to produce 35+ production points very early in game, so you can produce marco polo's as fast as possible. It seems to work best to build it only from palace, but you may want to get help from a few other cities if they've finished building their improvements really fast, but in my tests, about 80-90% of marco polo's was built from production by palace, and slightly less from michaelanagelo's..
** if you are needing theology, be sure to save up production points to build js bachs.. js bachs will be needed to replace temple of artmetis when it expires from learning theology.
** if you are in battlefield setting, be sure to make your cities unbribable (the two ways are to build mausolos small wonder or switch to democracy).
**possibly best tip: try to get as many as possible top players on your team such as edrim, wieder, kryon, stratthinker. That way you will have greater chance to win, and be able to compare your progress to theirs by sharing vision, and ask for tips, etc.
**if you need fast defense, it's best to plan in advance and build barracks from city with +30 production, then you can produce 3 veteran warriors from that city each turn, and quickly fill your cities with defenders. next build leonardo's workshop, and get gunpowder (then all warriors will be upgraded to musketeers - a great deal because you only paid 10 shields instead of 40 shields for each unit). another great strategy is too accumulate veteran horses, and then upgrade them to cavalries, athough this is possibly bad because of the unit upkeep in gold/production shields) - generally it's best to keep unit upkeep as low as possible early in game...
** be confident in yourself even if you are underdog, and don't accept bitch-deals like being vassal.

Following these steps, it's typical to get all the essential improvements up to factories, power plants, and mnfct plants by around T110 to T125 (depending how much stuff you want to build in your cities.. after power plants, pace of building rapidly increases)....

thanks much to wieder and other players who gave me some of these tips.

[wieder]

Wow! Thanks mmm2! That's a very very *very* good list of tips. Any player doing stuff like that should do quite well!

Of course people need to remember that someone may still attack you even while you are more advanced or doing well. It's usually a very good idea to have reasonably good defenses during the game. It's too late for building troops when you are attacked.

With an islands game it's easy to think you are safe because you don't really have borders but a sea between your enemies...

[Corbeau]

...however, the sea is a high-speed transit lane even more dangerous than land or rivers. A trireme has 9 movement points and a Legion can attack directly from the ship. I'll make a wild guess that at least 10% of players - at least half the experienced ones - are planning invasions as soon as they gather the necessary force. So:

- if you are playing defensively, connect your cities with roads and prepare units for counterattacks
- if you are playing offensively, well, attack is the best defence, and a first-striker is drastically rewarded in this ruleset

[wieder]

Mmm2, there is one risk with that strategy. If you don't research some key techs fast enough, you may fall back too much and give too much advantage for some players. People really should do techs as soon as they can use them. By as soon as they can be used I mean stuff like researching techs for banks once you have built some markets and stuff like that.

If too many people wait for the techs become cheaper, they really don't become that cheap when need them and that makes the game really easy (you will be assimilated:D) for more advanced players.

[meton]

I will join this game in place of Luca.

You shall feel my wrath and diplomatic warmth.

Best Regards; meton