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Can anyone say "oh god he stabbed my eye out"?

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  • Can anyone say "oh god he stabbed my eye out"?

    OKay, so I'm relatively new to the forums... I spent some time on the SMAX forums as well as the Civ 3 Forums awhile back, but that was years ago, and as of now this is my first Civ 4 post.

    So I've learned some stuff, after buying Beyond the Sword. Mainly that being this: I suck at Civ.

    See, I follow the Builder path. Turtle up, research like crazy. My wars tend to favor overwhelming force in a blitzkrieg style, taking two to five enemy cities within a few turns of one another, then turtling back up and calling up reinforcements. Thus, my wars (used to) tend towards short, bloody, and monstrously effective, if I actually set the war machine into full gear. In previous games (SMAC and SMAX, specifically), this concept worked exceptionally well on the strategic level and fairly well on the tactical level.

    They no longer do. Primarily because, apparently, the AI was playing nice with me all this time!

    I've run through four games of Civ 4 with Beyond the Sword installed... and all four games ended the same way. I had a nice, (relatively) technologically advanced empire with two or three upraded defenders in my border cities. All four games saw me completely overrun by upwards of a dozen (sometimes two or even three times that...) slightly-lower-tech-yet-still-good-enough-to-tear-me-a-new-one-apparently units. And all four times, it was someone who I'd been at Friendly with (I'm talking a total of +8 or more from various factors like Open Borders or the like) who invaded me, and universally it comes via a massive fleet descending from the edge of the fog of war onto one city and steamrollering me to death.

    I try to take the city back, and sometimes I even succeed, but at that point I've used up almost all my defenses, and fall quickly prey to a second invasion, either from the original offender or some other vulture come to pick me clean.

    I've since learned that apparently, I was being handled with kid gloves before Beyond the Sword came out, and it's caused me no end of frustration. My previous tactics no longer work, even when altered. And it's hard to make a case that I was invaded for being "weak" when I've got three dozen Knights and a smattering of Gunpowder level units sitting halfway across my empire, preparing an invasion against someone else!

    Beyond that, my fleet (which, admittedly, can't stand up to a half-dozen transports coming out of nowhere, but could at least thin them out a little!) is WAY too easily dodged. I'm not sure what to do about this, as four combat vessels stacked up are significantly more effective on defense than four combat vessels in four seperate squares. I say this because if four vessels are stacked in one square, you have to attack that square four times to get through it, while if they're spread out, you attack one square, blast it, and slide in through the gap.

    I'm quite sure I'm doing something wrong here, but I really have no idea what. I'm expanding throughout the early game to take advantage of resources wherever they're found on my continent, and I ususally manage to control half or more of the "useful" land before I'm pressed against the entire length of another civ's cultural borders.

    I'm looking through strategy threads right and left, but the basic problem I'm having is that all of them assume I've been reading everything from the beginning, since the game came out... there are references to strategies by name only with no explanation of what they are, for example, so it's slow going. So, in essence, I'm lost, and frustrated to no end. I have a hard time enjoying the game when I'm getting my rear kicked by money shortages (Which I still don't understand how THAT'S happening, as I've made commerce and trade routes a high priority to counteract that very problem), thusly slowing my tech progression to a crawl at the worst possible times, and then suddenly I'm invaded by a computer opponent who is somehow significantly less hobbled by these problems than I am.

    So, while I'm far from a "newbie", none of my old ideas are working anymore. I'm heading to try a few more ideas out now, but it's a bit tiring to put six or more hours into a marathon game of Civ only to get blasted back to the dark ages as soon as ocean travel becomes practical for my opponents.

    Any advice?
    Noctre, Dak'Tar, the master of the endless shadow that envelops you... That is what they call me. Fear, little mortals, and feed me, for you, my little ones... are mine.

  • #2
    well I'm not by any means an expert but I think I can help with your sea struggles. use tactic number 493 ( just kidding)

    you must allways be ahead of everyone with your naval units. and that stack tactic your using, only works when you have impassible terrain on both sides of your stack, otherwise It just runs around. making them attack can slow them down.

    If you run a costal empire leave a gap every 3-5 ships with the center having a destroyer for subs (cant have tactical nukes bombing your cities can you) put one battle ship at every port and use the "partol the coast" button. back to thoes ship walls, It will take you a wile but try to have at least 2 ships in each stack. 3 would be better but if you havent the time put a stack of 3 on the outside. MUST HAVE MOSTLY BATTLESHIPS. only 2 destroyers per line. I'd have to say that in your subs put 3 missiles, not nukes, (check if they damage the stack) aitcraft carriers are optional do what you ant with them.

    I cant blame you for using the blitzkreg tactic I use it too. (fun isn't it)

    hope this helps you keep away other-continental powers.

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    • #3
      Impressive. I have to say that this sort of thing hasn't happened to me in BtS yet, but it sounds like it will. I've been keeping very careful care of of my naval situation just in case.

      But then again I have something of a mechanism for protecting against this. I get itchy feet if I haven't attacked, or geared up to attack anyone for a while. Perhaps you have to be on their door before they are on yours - With A Vengeance (TM). Start your attack sooner than when they can send masses of Galleons or Transports to you.
      Consul.

      Back to the ROOTS of addiction. My first missed poll!

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      • #4
        Naval supremacy is REALLY hard with large amounts of water. You need to aggressively pursue increased sight distance promotions for one of your unit types, and you need to patrol a lot during your turns.

        Generally you have to be very careful in BtS to keep ahead of the AI, or a bit more careful as to the strategies you use militarily - more combined arms etc. You can't just catapult your way to victory like you used to be able to ...
        <Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.
        I like your SNOOPY POSTER! - While you Wait quote.

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        • #5
          Re: Can anyone say "oh god he stabbed my eye out"?

          Originally posted by Starfarer
          but it's a bit tiring to put six or more hours into a marathon game of Civ only to get blasted back to the dark ages as soon as ocean travel becomes practical for my opponents.

          Any advice?
          You may want to try Epic speed. I've seen others commenting that Marathon is not well balanced (Solver in particular).
          The AI's seem alot more cutthroat and opportunistic in BTS.
          I had Wang (Friendly +6) declare war on me for no good reason. Fortunately, I was building an army and could fight him off. As soon as we made peace he was back to Friendly. We were sharing the same continent, had the same religion, hadn't contacted anyone else, and we both had room grow before our borders touched. We also were the two most advanced civs in the world. I didn't have any resources he needed. My only thought is that he saw an opportunity and took it.

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