Vel's Strategy Thread, Volume II

[Arrian]

I think I've found the warmonger civ I like: Japan.

Organized is tough to get a feel for, but I've now used it twice and both times I just felt like my empire was so much healthier (not as in health... err, you know). The half cost CH's are nice, but so are the 1/2 cost lighthouses. But I think mostly it's the cumulative savings on civics/upkeep.

Sure, I happened to get kinda lucky with my start (solid start spot, with nearly all early strategic resources w/in easy reach - marble, copper, iron, horses, ivory...) and some huts (2 techs). Still, it was a Prince game that felt like Noble... maybe Warlord. I didn't actually fire a shot until I had Samurai (I missed a window of opportunity to hit with Horse Archers/Axes/Swords against Archers... I kept waiting to be totally ready, and then saw longbows). Samurai are solid, especially when they've got City Raider III Now I have the Pyramids, Ho-Ho-Ho. In addition to all the stuff I built myself.

This, after struggling in several Prince games. I think ORG is more powerful than many expect.

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by khearn
I've been playing at noble and prince levels, and haven't had trouble making the CS slingshot work with BW fit in along the way. I suspect at some higher level there might not be time for it, but I'll leave that question to those who have ventured to those rarified heights.

The question is - when will the AI build the Oracle? The earlier it builds it, the less 'balancing' techs can be acquired. A good clue, as I think DeepO has mentioned, is to see how early Buddhism & Hinduism are founded. If they are not both founded in the first dozen turns then the AI will probably not be having an early shot at the Oracle, which is a signal to the player that more time is available for nice, but sometimes off-topic things like BW and and AH. Any scouting info on who has the religions, and whether they have marble and/or are industrious can help too.

I've been testing the CS slingshot on standard map, normal speed Monarch, and a key challenge is that round about the time it finishes, the barbs are encroaching (c1100 BC), and for a 2-warrior civ this can be a bit nervy. Even exploring with warriors can be short-lived on Monarch as the badlands barbs have archers before 2000BC - and it's this which can leave the capital short. However, except when dodgy play or an innapropriate start were involved, I could manage to defend, especially as when the super city is done it only takes a few turns to research archery and crank out a the long-awaited archers.

CS Slingshot is a bit of a tank-slapper (to use a motor racing metaphor) as you change direction wildly from commerce to specialists to production. You have to make sacrifices somewhere compared to a more balanced start, so some of settler, archers, chopping, animals and cottages will be missing - which ones you can do without is all part of the fun. It's like a crossword puzzle - you know what you're aiming at, but the clues are different every time.

Adapting it to traits is great fun. Financial civs on floodplains can do it with cottages instead of a library & scientists. Philo civs can run just one scientist to get the academy. I haven't tried it with aggressive, but perhaps they can better defend themselves against pillagers.

Hmmm, we need a thread dedicated to this subject.

[Arrian]

The reason I always grab Animal Husbandry is - other than nice things like cows and pigs and such, it allows me to see if I can grab horses. If I can get 'em with my second city (which will usually be a barracks/troop town), I can get chariots (Wheel, yeah, I know) out. Chariots do a good job at taking out barbs until Axemen show up, and they're cheap.

BW is similar - allowing axes, but axes are slow. Chariots, I feel, are much better for defense against barbs, because a couple of them can cover a lot of ground.

And of course if you research Animal and have no horsies, or BW and have no copper, you'll be wishing you researched archery...

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Arrian
The reason I always grab Animal Husbandry is - other than nice things like cows and pigs and such, it allows me to see if I can grab horses.

The value of AH has risen with the patch. I think the CS beeliner has a choice between AH and Pottery, but not both.

I had a floodplains start (Mansu, Monarch, Normal, Standard) with pigs and low production, and opted for Pottery - the commercial route, as I started with the Wheel and didn't have enough hammers to build a Library and Oracle in time. It hurt to not use the pigs, as I didn't even have enough food for a Settler.

Build order was Worker, 3-4 Warriors, Oracle, Settler, 2 n00b Skirmishers, Barracks, then Vet Skirmishers. Tech order Pottery, Myst, Med, Priests, Writing, CoL, CS.

At ~1000AD I'm still in the game with six cities, at war with Peter & Toku, but allied with Isabella and Osaka.

I might try that map with a food-approach - doing Agri, AH and BW and then chop & pop-rush lib & Oracle. It'd be interesting to compare - in the context of the discussions on this thread of commerce vs food & hammers. (not that there were many hammers in this example)

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Blake
I'm thinking that Kublai is the better warmonger, but prehaps I don't properly appreciate expansive.

Ah... cheap granaries, harbors, and extra health... I consider expansive better for production than industrial.

You don't need a lot of cottages as your harbors will give you commerce. And the extra growth gives more hammers too. Add both together, and you are getting both the means to build an army, and the commercial bonus needed to support it (and the cities you're going to conquer)

DeepO

[Arrian]

Provided you can keep 'em happy... need either lots of happiness providers, temples, or Drama for use of the slider...

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


The value of AH has risen with the patch. I think the CS beeliner has a choice between AH and Pottery, but not both.

I had a floodplains start (Mansu, Monarch, Normal, Standard) with pigs and low production, and opted for Pottery - the commercial route, as I started with the Wheel and didn't have enough hammers to build a Library and Oracle in time. It hurt to not use the pigs, as I didn't even have enough food for a Settler.

Build order was Worker, 3-4 Warriors, Oracle, Settler, 2 n00b Skirmishers, Barracks, then Vet Skirmishers. Tech order Pottery, Myst, Med, Priests, Writing, CoL, CS.

At ~1000AD I'm still in the game with six cities, at war with Peter & Toku, but allied with Isabella and Osaka.

I might try that map with a food-approach - doing Agri, AH and BW and then chop & pop-rush lib & Oracle. It'd be interesting to compare - in the context of the discussions on this thread of commerce vs food & hammers. (not that there were many hammers in this example)

Lack of production does seem to lend itself to some chop&pop, doesn't it?

I was lucky enough to have a very productive and food rich capital in my last game (Cows, 2 floodplains, clams, 3 hills and a bundle of forest). I did in fact ignore pottery for some time. I did, however, go for masonry, as my 2nd city had marble. The Oracle took like 9 turns to build. I started it late, but no biggie. I had to deliberately slow it down, actually, to get CoL in time.

-Arrian

p.s. The clincher, for me, that allowed me to detour for not only Masonry but also the Wheel & BW, was getting Mysticism from a hut. Lucky, but I feel I capitalized on it well. Shockingly, for me, I ended up founding 4 (!!) religions in that game: Confucism, Taoism, Christianity (prophet) and Islam (prophet aided). The last two were definitely overkill.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Hmmm, we need a thread dedicated to this subject.

We had one, the tech beelining thread

I absolutely agree, btw. CS is far from a one-path strategy, it has multiple possibilities.

Oh, and looking at tech progress for Oracle builds: what religions will really tell you, is whether the AI start with mysticism or not, and if it chooses to go for an early religion. By the time you build the Oracle, suspect at least half of all AIs capabable of building it too. If they really focus on it, they could still outbuild you.

however, the AI doesn't take too many risks. So, first builds will be workers (if not having one), warriors, and settlers. It will only start on the Oracle when it's in a 'safe' position, after some expansion.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
Provided you can keep 'em happy... need either lots of happiness providers, temples, or Drama for use of the slider...

All good happy providers, and none of them my favourite: Hereditary rule! I'm the king, and you better know it

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
I had to deliberately slow it down, actually, to get CoL in time.

With a lib + 2 scientists? Those guys just surge ahead to any tech you need...

DeepO

[Arrian]

Ah, yeah, there is that. Relying on that requires that your army to stay home, though, doesn't it?

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by DeepO

With a lib + 2 scientists? Those guys just surge ahead to any tech you need...

DeepO

Yeah, even with the 2 scientists. I had done quite a bit of tech detouring, and I'd hooked up marble by the time I started the Oracle.

But I only had to slow it down by 2 or 3 turns. I shuffled some tiles to help (I used a coastal tile instead of a plains forest).

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
Ah, yeah, there is that. Relying on that requires that your army to stay home, though, doesn't it?

-Arrian

But that works perfect in the wave approach.

In your initial phase, you build up 1 commerce city (capital), and loads of barracks cities. You build units like crazy, meanwhile going for harbors if possible.

Thus, your cities are being kept happy, while most of your commerce comes from either your capital (CS-enabled), or harbors. You lack enough happy resources, and maybe religions as well.

The moment you want to invade, you move to e.g. 20% slider (that's 2 happy, which is a lot this early in the game). Your commerce is hurting of course, but that's only temporary: you conquer a couple of resources or some religions immediately. Once the war is over, you put the slider back to 0% culture, and your biggest cities get some extra defenders if needed.

The most important thing is to use the EXP trait, without it creating problems of its own. It's tempting to go very extreme on food with this one, but at a certain point you've got to retool this, or you'll be having problems exactly because you've got too much food (and not enough health). It's fairly normal for EXP games to hit the health limits harder than none-EXP games...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian


Yeah, even with the 2 scientists. I had done quite a bit of tech detouring, and I'd hooked up marble by the time I started the Oracle.

But I only had to slow it down by 2 or 3 turns. I shuffled some tiles to help (I used a coastal tile instead of a plains forest).

-Arrian

Delaying could also work very nicely with the memory of the build queue: just stop working on the Oracle one turn from completion, and start a barracks or so. The moment you need to, switch back to Oracle and complete it in 1 turn.

MMing, true, but easier to 'calculate' than switching to e.g. coast. Not necesarily the best approach in all situations, though.

DeepO

[Arrian]

Good point. I didn't have a whole heckuva lot to build at that point other than the Oracle & settlers (I had two other cities getting their barracks up and pumping chariots & axes). I suppose a Confucian monastery would have been the proper choice.

But by this point, due to the detours, I was beginning to get vaguely concerned about being beaten to CoL (my continent had no religion yet and I really wanted Confucism... little did I know I would also get Taoism, Christianity and Islam). So the tradeoff of 1f/2h for 1f/2c worked for me.

I'm still screwing up, of course. I forgot to actually SWITCH to Confucism for a while... quite a while, actually, b/c I found myself running Organized Religion and, after a few turns, realized I had no religion and thus was paying for the civic w/o getting a boost to production! Idjit! I was focused on the civics changes (Bureacracy, Slavery - I chose not to go to Caste right away) and forgot to convert!

-Arrian, still learning