Sacking

[Metaliturtle]

Here's a little idea of a strategy I'm trying right away when I get Civ 4.


Looking at the walkthrough, I noticed that lots o' cities= very expensive, and settlers/workers = very expensive.

This means several things:

1. ICS is a no-no because you need your city to earn its keep ASAP.
2. A city itself represents a big chunk of production.
3. Losing a city is much more devastating.
4. Losing a second city (out of 2) could cripple an opponent immensely.

The Strategy then works like such:

1. Explore like mad / create military units to the extreme. Do not worry about religious techs, just focus on stuff that leads to you sending out stronger warriors. Somewhere in the middle of the units get a worker.

2. Figure out which civs are closest to you (if you're alone on a continent, this strategy won't work.) Get worker improving your first city's surrounding tiles like mad.

3. Attack and raze the opponent's 2nd city. ((Note: This will probably pi$$ them off to no end )) It will also cripple them, because while they just wasted all that time and resources focusing on two cities. You have a strong city-state and a massive army, plus now all kinds of money from sacking the city.



Obviously I don't have the game and must wait to find out if this will work, but my next objective would be to build a city in the direction of the sacked city and keep sacking that civ's cities as they get built. Hopefully this will cripple them enough to roll over when you bring a force strong enough to keep their capital.

I am so stinkin' pumped about this game!!

[asleepathewheel]

this works. I would keep cities until you're forced below a certain % research though.

Actually one of my favorite strategies is to build worker-barracks unit x whatever and then go to town on the neighbors. research minnig-bronze-iron and target the neighbors with the resource but not the requisite tech.

[conmcb25]

Interesting.

Lets ee if this works (if I actually get the game today )

[DeepO]

Well, a version of this works, and at higher levels it is one of the strategies that keep you even. It won't work at the extreme you mention unless you're playing small maps. The problem is that you can't keep up in production that easily with only one city. You need to fight of several AIs, and the barbs!

I agree with sleepy, do something similar, but keep a few of the cities (which means you can keep the best spots from what you conquer). Workers are just part of the lute. Large ex-capitals actually work in Civ4: even if they are located half way around the globe, an ex-capital always ends up in your 10-most-productive-cities list.

For your first games, try to have a combination especially if you've got an ancient UU: build up your military and use it, while you also very moderately build your own settlers for the best spots. Keep an eye on maintenance, and make that decide whether you raze or keep a city.

DeepO

[realpolitic]

Taking a city seems more valuable then burning it down. Settlers are more expensive then in c3, Just use foriegn cities to produce settlers and workers, because a smaller city will hav eless unhappiness.

[DeepO]

If you're going to try to keep all cities, you won't expand very rapidly at first. At least not through war

and using settler or worker builds in capitals to pervent them from growing too large is indeed one tactic. However, remember that you probably just conquered a few cities, partly subsidizing the war with pillaging and razing. You do not want to settle cities unless your empire has grown a bit more.

DeepO

[Konquest02]

Keeping too mcuh cities probably hinders your military efforts, because of the maintenance added from the new cities you get... So razing the smaller ones and keeping the bigger ones will become a viable option.

[sophist]

Originally posted by realpolitic
Taking a city seems more valuable then burning it down.

Besides the reasons you might not want a city, what if you know you can take a city, but you're not sure you can keep it?

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Konquest02
Keeping too mcuh cities probably hinders your military efforts, because of the maintenance added from the new cities you get... So razing the smaller ones and keeping the bigger ones will become a viable option.

Yup. Although the situation changes depending on when you exactly wage war, and what your goals are. If you want to go for conquest or domination, you really want to raze the smaller ones, but if you want just a decent amount of territory to get into the UN you will keep them.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by sophist


Besides the reasons you might not want a city, what if you know you can take a city, but you're not sure you can keep it?

This is not a sudden thing: it's not that with a certain number of cities you are completely without maintenance, take one city and you go broke. Just look at your situation: if you can handle an extra city, take it. If you can't, burn it. And everyone's playstyle will dictate a certain maintenance level he's comfortable playing with. There is not one path to follow, there are many.

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

If you're creative or have stonehenge, or a religion, then you can afford to burn cities because hopefully your other cities will hold the land with their culture. Then backfill when you are stronger.

I think an interesting question because of this is: do I build cities near each other that are easily defensed, ala civ3 or do I build with small gaps in workable tile coverage, knowing that the capital will expand out fairly quickly.

Against the AI, I'll probably spread the early cities a bit more than Iwould have hin the past. grab that land with as few cities as possible.

[sophist]

Originally posted by DeepO

This is not a sudden thing: it's not that with a certain number of cities you are completely without maintenance, take one city and you go broke. Just look at your situation: if you can handle an extra city, take it. If you can't, burn it. And everyone's playstyle will dictate a certain maintenance level he's comfortable playing with. There is not one path to follow, there are many.

No, I meant that you didn't have the force to keep it. Maybe you're attacking a city of a civ that's overseas that's been in builder mode for a while. You can take the city, but you have to resupply over water, and the other civ can crank out a bigger army than you in a dozen or so turns. If you hang on to the city, you'll inevitably lose it, but if you focus on just destroying the city and spoiling the environs, you'll hurt the other civ without over-extending yourself, as they would face the same difficulties in bringing the fight to your continent.

[DeepO]

At least that lone city has its production intact, it needs less reinforcements. And on the whole, you do not wage war aiming for a city when you're not sure you can keep it... this is true in all games

DeepO

[sophist]

That's what I'm saying... the aim isn't to gain anything. The aim is to hurt your opponent.

[Metaliturtle]

Originally posted by sophist
That's what I'm saying... the aim isn't to gain anything. The aim is to hurt your opponent.

Exactly! An early game war still could be extremely effective in giving you a long-term advantage just like in Civ3. Otherwise any kind of "crusade" where your sole goal is to keep your spiritual "inferiors" at exactly that level, would be great for the sacking strategy in the middle and late game.