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Finsih LT Game Playing Guide
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34 changes: 34 additions & 0 deletions docs/Playing/LT-Guide/final-notes.rst
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.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later
.. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: James Robertson <[email protected]>
.. Custom Interpretive Text Roles for longturn.net/Freeciv21
.. role:: unit
.. role:: improvement
.. role:: wonder
.. role:: advance

Final Notes + Victory Declaration
*********************************

Depending on how things have gone for you to this point, you might be ready to declare victory. This is one of
the really great features of an :term:`LTT`/:term:`LTX` game; you do not actually have to kill off your
enemies completely with total domination. You and your alliance can severely wound or cripple your enemy
without actually destroying them to a point where your production capabilities greatly outweigh theirs and the
game essentially is over at that point.

Victory declaration occurs on our Longturn Discord Server (https://discord.gg/98krqGm). Each game has a
dedicated ``Ongoing Games`` channel. Opposing teams have 5 days (:math:`5\times24\text{h}`) to oppose. Notice
that this is technically more than 5 typical turns (:math:`5\times23\text{h}`) and shorter than our newer
turn change cycle of 25h.

We used to use an old Forum site (https://forum.longturn.net/), but have moved away from it in favor of
Discord.

As a final conclusion – remember, :strong:`this is a game` and the Longturn Community values good
sportsmanship as much as we do anything else. Have a good time, play to win, lose with grace, and make some
friends.

See you next game!

Regards
The Longturn Game Admins - Wieder_Fi, Louis94, Panch93, TriClad, Kryon, Corbeau, and Jwrober
3 changes: 3 additions & 0 deletions docs/Playing/LT-Guide/index.rst
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intro.rst
first-turn.rst
twenty-turns.rst
mid-game.rst
late-game.rst
final-notes.rst
:maxdepth: 2
78 changes: 78 additions & 0 deletions docs/Playing/LT-Guide/late-game.rst
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.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later
.. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: James Robertson <[email protected]>
.. Custom Interpretive Text Roles for longturn.net/Freeciv21
.. role:: unit
.. role:: improvement
.. role:: wonder
.. role:: advance

The Late-Game Strategy
***********************


The late game is generally considered any turn where most (if not all) of the players have progressed to the
7th level of the technology tree (e.g. :advance:`Metallurgy`, :advance:`Steam Engine`, :advance:`Explosives`.
and :advance:`Leadership`). This is where things can get really interesting.

Diplomacy
=========

At this juncture of the game, if you have not determined who your friends are and who your enemies are, then
you are in trouble. While there is no requirement to formally declare an in-game alliance, you should have
already started discussions with other players about combined or shared plans. Most players that survive this
long are good players and will also have developed alliance plans.

.. note::
Every Longturn game has different alliance victory rules and conditions, so make sure you are aligned with
those rules before getting carried away.

City and Terrain Management
===========================

If your form of government is not Diplomacy or Federation and you do not have the mass majority of your cities
celebrating, then you are behind. By the time you have learned all of the Level 6 technologies you should have
many cities already celebrating. The Gold and Luxury output will greatly boost your gold per turn
(:term:`GPT`) and bulbs per turn (:term:`BPT`) capacities. You can rush-buy buildings at this stage if you
planned things right. Gold ends up being your production “super power” at this stage of the game.

Keep those :unit:`Workers` going. Get a :improvement:`Sewer System` in your cities so they can grow bigger
than size 16. Once you learn :advance:`Explosives`, you can either use gold to upgrade the :unit:`Workers` to
:unit:`Engineers` or allow :wonder:`Leonardo’s Workshop` to do it for you. Every tile should be grassland by
now (or at least the majority of them). Use :unit:`Engineers` to cut down Mountains and Hills (ones without a
special on them). Use the :unit:`Engineers` to get rid of Desert tiles (ones without a special on them). This
is the time of the game where the majority of your cities should be at +20 food and growing every turn.

This is also a time in the game where pollution can cause Global Warming. In :term:`LTT` and :term:`LTX`
games, Global Warming is very powerful and can wreak havoc on your growth plans. Keep tiles clear of pollution
as best you can.

.. tip::
:unit:`Transports` can clean pollution from shallow and deep ocean tiles. Best to put them with a defender
as they are sitting ducks to your enemies.

.. note::
Do not be surprised if you see other players ignoring their pollution. This is a known strategy to force
Global Warming on everyone. You can certainly attempt to get them to clean up, but do not be surprised if
they ignore you.

.. tip::
With :unit:`Engineers`, you can turn a city center tile from any type of terrain into Hills. The
terraforming exercise is very expensive in worker points and will take many turns, even with a large number
of :unit:`Engineers` working on the same task. However, the defense bonus will make your cities harder to
capture and also will not be impacted by Global Warming’s effects as badly. It is advised to do this for
your capital at least.

Research
========

What to research at this point in the game can vary widely depending on what your strategy is with your
alliance. Different players in an alliance can research different paths to specialize. For example, one player
can go for all the sea-going technologies (:advance:`Steam Engine`, :advance:`Railroad`,
:advance:`Engineering`, :advance:`Steel`, :advance:`Combustion`, etc) and develop a very strong Navy. Another
player can concentrate on air-based technologies (:advance:`Flight`, :advance:`Radio`,
:advance:`Advanced Flight`, :advance:`Robotics`, :advance:`Combined Arms`, etc) to build out an Air Force and
a third player can concentrate on a traditional land-based mechanized Army (:advance:`Leadership`,
:advance:`Tactics`, :advance:`Amphibious Warfare`, :advance:`Labor Union`, :advance:`Robotics`, etc.). When it
comes time to defeat your enemies you can work together to bring to force what is needed at the right time.
There is no set prescription this late in the game, you will have to use your best judgment.
164 changes: 164 additions & 0 deletions docs/Playing/LT-Guide/mid-game.rst
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.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later
.. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: James Robertson <[email protected]>
.. Custom Interpretive Text Roles for longturn.net/Freeciv21
.. role:: unit
.. role:: improvement
.. role:: wonder
.. role:: advance

Turn 20+: Mid-Game Strategy
***************************

The Path to Democracy
=====================

While you are filling in the map with as many cities as you can, you are going to be developing your empire
by terraforming tiles and adding infrastructure with :unit:`Workers` and at some point it will be necessary to
add happiness buildings as well. Once you research :advance:`Monarchy` or :advance:`Republic` and take the two
turns of Anarchy to change governments you will really see a change in output of all of your cities due to the
elimination of the Despotism penalty.

.. note::
As a reminder, you can also get rid of the Despotism penalty with the :wonder:`Pyramids` Small Wonder if
that fits your strategy better. However, at some point you **must** get to Democracy.

You should to research the following technologies (not necessarily in this order):

* :advance:`Currency` --- Gives :improvement:`Marketplace` improvement, which increases the luxury and tax
output in a city by 50%.

* :advance:`Writing` --- Gives :improvement:`Library` improvement, which increases the science output in a
city by 50%, or by 100% once the :wonder:`Great Library` Great Wonder has been built by any player.

* :advance:`Seafaring` --- Gives :improvement:`Harbor` improvement, which gives one extra food resource on all
Ocean or Deep Ocean tiles (but not Lakes).

* :advance:`Construction` --- Gives regular :improvement:`Aqueduct` for those cities not near fresh water to
get them bigger than size 8.

* :advance:`Monotheism` --- Gives the :improvement:`Cathedral` improvement, which makes 3 unhappy citizens
content in a city.

* :advance:`Bridge Building` --- Allows your :unit:`Workers` to put roads everywhere, especially rivers. This
is an important task for all of your :unit:`Workers`. You get an extra trade point for a road on a river
tile.

* :advance:`Feudalism` --- For the :unit:`Pikemen` unit. Your first really good defender. With a
:improvement:`Barracks` and the :wonder:`Sun Tzu’s War Academy` Small Wonder you can produce vv
:unit:`Pikemen`. :unit:`Phalanx` can be upgraded to :unit:`Pikemen` as well.

* :advance:`University` --- Gives the :improvement:`University` improvement, which increases the science
output in a city by an additional 50% (in addition to what the :improvement:`Library` is doing), or by
100% once :wonder:`Isaac Newton's College` Great Wonder has been built by any player.

* :advance:`Banking` --- Gives the :improvement:`Bank` improvement, which increases the luxury and tax output
in a city by an additional 30%. With both a :improvement:`Bank` and a :improvement:`Marketplace` in a city,
the total bonus is 80%.

* :advance:`Invention` --- Gives the two workshop wonders. If someone else gets :wonder:`Verrocchio’s Workshop`
you should still build the :wonder:`Leonardo’s Workshop`.

* :advance:`Economics` --- Gives the :improvement:`Mercantile Exchange` improvement and also allows for the
Federation form of government. :improvement:`Mercantile Exchange` increases the luxury and tax output in a
city by an additional 30%. With a :improvement:`Mercantile Exchange`, a :improvement:`Bank` and a
:improvement:`Marketplace` in a city, the total bonus is 110%!

* :advance:`Democracy` --- Allows for the Democracy form of government.

* :advance:`Gunpowder` --- For the :unit:`Musketeer` unit. Your second-level, really good defender.
:unit:`Warriors` and :unit:`Archers` can be upgraded to :unit:`Musketeers`.

* :advance:`Sanitation` --- Gives the :improvement:`Sewer System` improvement. This allows your cities to get
bigger than size 16.


Getting your Cities to Celebrate
================================

While you are researching the list given above, you need to work to get all the happiness and luxury buildings
constructed in your cities as it makes sense.

.. note::
Cities size 3 or smaller cannot celebrate. Also at this small size you get very little effect from all the
happiness and lux buildings anyway, so it makes sense that small cities will not celebrate.


You need to eventually get the following buildings inside your largest cities:

* :improvement:`Temple` → :improvement:`Cathedral`
* :improvement:`City Walls`
* :improvement:`Courthouse`
* :improvement:`Library` → :improvement:`University`
* :improvement:`Marketplace` → :improvement:`Bank` → :improvement:`Mercantile Exchange`

You must have :improvement:`Temples` in all of your cities at a minimum before you switch to Republic or
Democracy or you will have disorder on your hands all over. Ideally you would have :improvement:`Temple`,
:improvement:`City Walls`, :improvement:`Courthouse`, and :improvement:`Marketplace`, along with all the Small
Wonders that enhance them before you switch to Republic or Democracy.

With all this in place, you will want to now get your largest cities (ideally all of them, but it is not
always possible to do that) to celebrate. To accomplish this is a multi-part process:

* Ensure you have :improvement:`Temple`, :improvement:`City Walls`, :improvement:`Courthouse`,
:improvement:`Marketplace`, and a :improvement:`Bank` inside the city.

* Even better if you can get :improvement:`Mercantile Exchange` in there as well.

* :improvement:`Amphitheater` and/or :improvement:`Cathedral` help with the happiness aspect as well and are
needed for cities larger than size 16.

* Change the global Lux value to 30%.

* Manipulate the citizens in your cities and convert them to Entertainers (yes this will stall growth). As you
add Entertainers the content citizens will turn happy and if you have enough Lux and Happiness available the
city will go to “happy” in the city dialog (right panel). You need half of the citizens to be happy for the
citizens to celebrate.

* The citizens will go from happy to celebrating at :term:`TC`. You will see the effects in your gold and
science output when this happens.

.. tip::
You might have to go to 40% global Lux to get the cities to celebrate initially. Once they are celebrating
you can adjust the global Lux value down and still keep them celebrating. You can use the
:ref:`Cities view <game-manual-cities-view>` to monitor the situation. Be sure to have the “state” column
enabled to see the status.


Mid-Game Military
=================

This is the point in the game where some fighting often happens. You are going to be bumping up against your
neighbors, they might have more land than you at this point. Just like with the notes about military
aggression for the early game, any involvement in military conflict is taking away from growth. As with all
things “Longturn”, there are tradeoffs.

A few thoughts about aggression at this stage of the game:

* You cannot declare war on a player you are at peace with if you are in Republic, Democracy, or Federation.
You have to go into Anarchy and then declare war, which will kill 2 turns of any progress.

.. note::
In Monarchy, Despotism, and Tribal you can declare war at will.

* If you are going to go into a hot war with a neighbor, make sure they are smaller than you. If they are
bigger you have no chance as they can out produce you. Get some help with an ally if it is really necessary
to invade. Also, if your neighbor is further along in the technology tree than you are, they could easily
have more advanced defending and attacking units than you do. You really have no chance in this scenario as
you cannot out produce them and it will take more units than you can produce in a reasonable amount of time
to kill more advanced defenders. Wisdom over Valor!

* As a general rule of thumb, at this point in the game you still do not have a ton of production capacity
and it still takes awhile to construct units (or gold to buy them, which could be scarce). If you are going
to go to war, it is advisable that every city is involved. Every city should be producing units (attackers
and defenders). If you do not go all “in”, you risk your opponent doing the same in retaliation and taking
you out of the game as a result.

* Be sure to have your own defenses set up very well. There is an old saying --- a good defense is the best
offense. This is a team sports phrase, but it works very well in Longturn games.

* Also recall from earlier, cities without :improvement:`City Walls` will lose a citizen for every unit killed
inside the city, plus one more when you enter the city. Use a :unit:`Diplomat` to investigate cities before
you go in and attack. If you think you are going to get some beautiful, large city as a result, you may be
surprised to see ruins instead. At this stage of the game, only ships do not kill citizens for the coastal
cities.

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