Vel's Strategy Thread

[MVP]

First post, not only on this thread, but on all of Apolyton. So I'll start by saying, "Hello" and that I've really enjoyed this thread so far.

Originally posted by dschur
I think I managed to quickly trade for all the missing techs just by shopping Code of Law around. AI seems to put a BIG premium on the depth of the tech in the tree.

Agreed about the depth on the tech tree. My trading experience thus far has shown:
1) a huge impact based on current opinion (pleased, cautious, etc.)
2) that a pretty good rule of thumb is the point cost on the reference chart -- in other words, trading a 1600 cost tech for 4-400 cost techs is viable

MVP

[Jcg316]

Barbarians in the mist. You can always rush warriors and stand on enough hills to not have any fog. Not practical but works.

Little barbarians need fog to grow in, raging or otherwise.

You can take a unit and see the path your unit would move in to get to where they are coming from, and then since it should be the same path for them coming from that direction, fortify an archer on a hill somewhere along the line.

[Arrian]

I wonder what Raging Barbs would do on a Terra map...

Welcome, MVP.

-Arrian

[V3nom]

Originally posted by khumak
One thing I noticed that requires a drastic change in strategy for me is whether or not I decide to use "raging barbarians". I tried an OCC game recently with them turned on and watched as wave after wave of barbarian axemen descended on my city while I was stuck with archers for defense because my iron and copper was 1 square outside of my cultural borders.

Trying to improve any of my terrain was fruitless because archers just flat out can't stand up to axemen except inside a castle so my entire city was surrounded by forrest and I just had 8 archers turtled up inside my city to fend of the barbs.

Conclusion? Raging Barbarians is just nuts...

raging barbs on OCC is nuts anyway. Personally I enjoy the challenge though. WHat you have to realise is that each space that doesnt have some CIV getting a LOS to it has a set chance of spawning a barb each turn, which means if you're on a continent with alot of civs all expanding in towards the middle you're relatively safe. If you're on a reasonable sized island by your own there are going to be alot of darkened squares and you're going to have to build up your military just to hold them off.

Also try sending archers out and fortifying them on hills around your city, this will 1)increase your line of site and 2)stop many of the barbarians before they get to your city and thus allow your worker out to build improvements.

[ducki]

Originally posted by Jcg316


There is something in the games docs or civilopedia that said that going after later techs without many earlier ones is costly or something like that. I don't know if there is an actual mechanic involved or anything that actually has an effect but I suppose it is possible. Otherwise that can work well. they also seem to ignore writing, alphabet early if you look at how long it takes them to be able to trade techs with you while you go after metal casting/iron working parts of the tech tree.

The way I read that part of the manual was that later techs are, simply put, more expensive than earlier ones. This is obvious as early as the Mining, Copper, Iron trio. Since you are not as developed as the average Civ would be upon researching a later tech, this effect can be compounded. But I don't think there's any mechanic specifically to penalize you for going deep, other than normal gameplay mechanics.

The person that goes deep in the Writing area will miss Copper and Iron, which could be deadly next to the wrong opponent, and beelining for, say, Music, the last couple of techs on a deep beeline will take far more turns than if you picked up a few of the cheaper ones while further developing your growing empire to produce more beakers per turn.

No mysterious mechanic, just simple math and complex gameplay from simple rules.

At least, that's how I read it. And it bears out in my experience.

[dschur]

Originally posted by ducki
The person that goes deep in the Writing area will miss Copper and Iron, which could be deadly next to the wrong opponent, and beelining for, say, Music, the last couple of techs on a deep beeline will take far more turns than if you picked up a few of the cheaper ones while further developing your growing empire to produce more beakers per turn.

I agree. That is why with a Chop acceleration strategy I do get Bronzeworking First for copper. I guess my point was that if you want to use the Oracle to maximum advantage you want to be able to pick a very deep tech. I think Code of Laws was something like 42 turns away from Writing. Ten I left that tree to work on earlier ones until the Oracle completed.

[Dog of Justice]

I now believe, since choprushing and early religion are pretty much mutually exclusive, Creative is significantly better than I originally thought. (I was trying to depend on religion to expand my cultural borders early.)

Does anyone else think Catherine/Russia is the best choprushing leader? Possibly the best trait combo (Creative/Financial) for a choprusher, and starts with Mining...

[Aeson]

Ghandi is probably the best for choprushing in general. Moving onto the Forests (but not Hill Forests) to chop without wasting a move is nice. IND to get the most out of the chops if towards Wonders. Mining to start with. Mysticism too so you aren't excluded from early religions either. But health is more of a concern without EXP.

Bismark is good too.

[gentle]

@dog of justice
--
Does anyone else think Catherine/Russia is the best choprushing leader? Possibly the best trait combo (Creative/Financial) for a choprusher, and starts with Mining...
--
I have played Catherine a lot and she is my #2.
Her main benefit are her starting techs (both! i mean,and of course creative).
I rate Financial as a "nice trait to have" but nothing to hype.
Several attempts of exploiting Financial failed cause it requires too much time effort so set something up that would have significant impact on the game (at least early stage).

Louis XIV has become my #1. He lacks in quality of his starting techs (agriculture is vey nice, but Wheel ...well...whatever, expensive one for free but *shrug*.Not having mining is the main point here anyway)
but I prefer Industrious to Financial atm.

@aeson
Ghandi is probably the best for choprushing in general.
---
I agree, though this is balanced imho. Spiritual and Mysticism are really useless (Mysticism for chop-strat, Spiritual overall ^^)

edit:
Hi MVP ^^

edit2:
Just stumbled about a thread of Proteus_MST
"How to sail around the world without ever leaving the waters of your home continent" where he found out, that getting the +1move bonus does not require to actually sail around the world but to have a map (via trading for example) that shows a path around the world is sufficient.
nice info i guess, only wanted to share ^^

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by gentle
"How to sail around the world without ever leaving the waters of your home continent" where he found out, that getting the +1move bonus does not require to actually sail around the world but to have a map (via trading for example) that shows a path around the world is sufficient.
nice info i guess, only wanted to share ^^

That will have to be fixed at some point.

[Aeson]

It is balanced. Not that every civ is equally good at choprushing or any other specific strategy, but there are equally valid strategies that play to each Leader's strengths. Definitely not because SPI is useless. The ability to switch Civics (and/or Religions) every 5 turns allows so much flexibility. It's a micromanager's trait, and very powerful when used properly.

Give your units XP when you build them, with Police State production bonus. But don't get stuck in those economically inefficient Civics for any longer than is necessary. Need some units ASAP? Nationhood for some Drafting. When your military needs are taken care of, right back to the economics.

Even just within the economic side of things it's often beneficial to switch things up to best fit the situation. If you're going with heavy Specialists and light Towns, Representation is important. But with Representation you can't cash rush. But with SPI, you can. Save up the gold while you're in Representation, switch for 5 turns, rush the projects, then right back to Representation. Just got Railroads, but are running Emancipation? Up the Lux slider temporarily (or switch to a "happier" civic in conjunction) for the time it takes to lay down the rails with Serfdom speed. Then switch right back. Building a critical Wonder/Project in the capitol? Switch to Bureaucracy for the duration. Have a lot of building projects? Organized Religion till it dies down.

These are things that would be absolute suicide with any other trait. SPI is not just saving a handful of turns of Anarchy, unless you limit yourself.

[gentle]

Originally posted by Aeson
Definitely not because SPI is useless. The ability to switch Civics (and/or Religions) every 5 turns allows so much flexibility. It's a micromanager's trait, and very powerful when used properly.

hmm..k, that where pretty convincing examples.
i didnt switch civics a lot up til now so didnt miss it.
i thought spiritual would be good if it also eliminated the delay but without i thought it was too weak.
but your examples indeed show some decent ways of using civics on the micro level. seems to be better than i thought

[Velociryx]

First, let me add my welcome to MVP, V3nom, and everybody else who's new and decided to post here! Glad to see more faces!

More notes: As I continue to explore various elements of the tech tree and ways to attack it, I've just about come to the conclusion that the settler first idea is:

a) a strong start if you have mysticism and are beelining for an early religion, or any other type of start that involves NOT paying direct attention to the seminal techs (those that revolve around working and improving the land).

b) Don't mind the added risk involved

Having said that tho, I can see that the heightened risk is probably the deal breaker for most folks tho, and I don't blame them. It's a strong start, but certainly not overpowering, and as experimentation continues, I've found no less than half a dozen other starts that can be equally viable (many of which have already been brough up here).

All the starts (settler first included) are situational in their natures, so perhaps the best approach--and something I'm gonna start working up over the weekend--will be to take each civ in turn, analyze it's starting position on the tech tree, its traits, and possible opening terrain configurations (broadly, of course), and try to derive as many strong starting strats for each as I can....I think this will do a lot to help new players who might be feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all, to get started.

A couple of comments. First, you are not necessarily risking your worker if you build it first, at least not in SP. The lions and other beasts will not enter your borders, so the only worry you have is if you exit your borders, which I don't think you would do much at that early stage.

Not always true, IMO. If you tie your worker to operating just inside your cultural borders, then you must commit to at least one of the following:

* Improving tiles that will not be worked for tens, and perhaps scores of turns (no real turn advantage there, at least not until the tile is put to productive use)

* Chopping trees inside cultural borders, to the detriment of your long term production capabilities and the health of the city in question

* Possibility of downtime if your worker has nothing productive to DO inside your cultural borders.

In addition, by playing it safe with the worker, you miss out on some chances to make some solid gains for your fledgling empire, such as:

* Chopping outside your borders, in places you don't mean to settle (free shields, no health detriment)

* Road building to a future city site (can shave turns off of the time to found).

Both of those options create real turn advantage for you, but with the tradeoff that you are putting the worker at some risk.

To V3nom re: Raging Barbs & Settler first

I agree...in fact, I would say that Raging Barbs, when coupled with almost any setting would make the risk factor too high to even consider settler first. For that matter, I think the relative safety of settler first increases in proportion with map size (and if you're playing an islands map, I'd count it as very much safer). Tiny map = suicide. Tiny map WITH Raging Barbs...you'd have to be nuts to try it. However, I think that the barb setting has significantly more to do with the relative risk than the difficulty level.

I think that a resource-rich start location is tragically wasted without a worker first.

See...I would disagree with this to a point. And the reason I'd disagree is...it's not a question of NOT working the resource rich tiles, it's a question of working them when it makes the most sense to work them. Eventually (within the first 50-odd turns), they're gonna get worked as the city grows, it's just a question of what means more to you in the immediacy.

For me, I find it much more important to have two cities up and corralling resources into my cultural borders, both so as to deny would-be rivals access, and to (potentially...map driven, of course), lay claim to something that'll give me an immediate advantage (stone, marble, horses) that may not be found inside the cultural borders of my starting city, no matter how lush. But once that has been accomplished, I mean to take full advantage of the land around me, absolutely!

Re: Depth in the tech tree....my experiences there mirror what everyone else is reporting. VERY useful to pick a branch and stick with it! Very strong.

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

I succeeded in pulling off Aeson's Civil Service beeline (w/Oracle), using China (Qin). No chopping involved, btw, because I had a bundle of floodplains (so I felt I needed the forest for health). How appropriate that I founded Confucism.

I did not manage to pull off the ultimate civic grab by also building the pyramids (didn't have stone, and it got built fairly early by the AI anyway). So representation had to wait.

I still don't know that I'm specializing my cities properly, but I think I may be improving.

-Arrian

edit: Prince level, standard map, continents. 1 neighbor (Catherine, who for the first time ever liked me - I converted her. Too bad I decided to take a big 'ole bite outta her anyway. )

[dschur]

Originally posted by Dog of Justice
I now believe, since choprushing and early religion are pretty much mutually exclusive, Creative is significantly better than I originally thought. (I was trying to depend on religion to expand my cultural borders early.)

Does anyone else think Catherine/Russia is the best choprushing leader? Possibly the best trait combo (Creative/Financial) for a choprusher, and starts with Mining...

Catherine is phenominal for choprushing and expanding. Creative is a fantastic expansion talent, and in specific areas (rivers, valleys) Financial gives your empire some serious commerce. That first cottage takes the square from 1 to 3 coins. I think there's even nice synergy here, since chopping forests along rivers makes sense for long term cottage planning (even if you don't build them immediately). I also like the era that Cossacks show up, this is usually the time I have solidified my empire and established the production and tech advantage I like to have before crushing my annoying neighbors. Ather nice leader choices seem to get their special too early or too late for my liking.

The amazing thing about Civ4 is the flexibility of options you have. The choice of leader will combine with the luck of your starting terrain to determine the best strategy choices for that game. I don't think anyone can come up with a cookie cutter "Choose Leader X, and Strategy Y" approach that works every time. This is my favorite thing so far, the variety of the debate.

While I was an avid Civ/Civ2 player, I didn't really get into Civ3, so I apologize if I restate an obvious point. Has anyone noticed how "Chess like" the game has become. 6 Pages of discussion on the critical nature of your first 1-3 moves sounds a lot like chess to me. :-)