Slower speeds, different tactics?

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by couerdelion

Something tells me that I don't fully understand the combat algorithm here.

As far as the AI bonus against barbs, I think it's independent of difficulty or game speed. I think the barb strength is only about 35% for the AI, while it's either 100% or close to it for the human player at monarch or above. There's a thread somewhere here on it.

Originally posted by couerdelion

Combat is certainly a bigger feature in the lower speeds so I guess that necessitates a play to adjust their style accordingly. Not only are the units relatively cheaper but they also move faster (relative to the game speed).

Any temporary tech/resource advantage will therefore last longer for either player or AI so the window of opportunity to exploit it is greater

Bigger feature is good, yes? I like to exploit tech and resource advantages, and greater windows of opportunity.

Originally posted by chiqss

According to my last 2 domination victories on a huge map on marathons ( emperor ) You are right , I would even say that the game length ( and maybe difficulty ) makes you go for an early domination victory . If you are wealthy enough , the more turns the more money you have to upgrade units. If you can research chemistry before the others ( which can be made quite easily ) then you can upgrade your III raider maceman to devastating III raider grenadier that allow you to take any city you want as they are usually defended by Longbowmen at this time. this advantage can last for 50-80 turns before the AI gets rifle

As said before this allows you to make a full use of your amies and reach a domination victory using the same tactic with infantry

That's what I do to, in regards to the granadier and infantry path. I bypass cavalry, since as tech leader, I usually make it to infantry before the AI gets to cavalry or about the same time anyway. I'm a slow moving but deadly army of highly promoted veterans. I just love the promotions, some of my grenadiers are upgraded ancient era city raider II or III axemen or swordsmen, but when the grenadiers have that, wow! Also the cannons are so powerful, I usually give them city raider instead of collateral damage upgrade, since they survive most of the time against muskets and longbows.

I never took a huge map on marathon to completion, so I was just guessing that it wouldn't be possible to win at domination at normal speed at emperor. But a huge highlands map is probably twice as big in land area as a continents or pangea map, so I think marathon would be the only way to go. What huge map were you playing, terra?

[Dactyl]

I don't know what others' experiences have been but I've had to adjust my speed of development on marathon. (I'm playing monarch level.) It has been my habit to build a worker, then two quick settlers, and chopping to get them out fast. That doesn't seem to be optimal on marathon. It works much better to establish two cities and let them get going for a little while before building a third and a fourth.

[LDiCesare]

I too believe that on Marathn it's easier to churn out units and make use of them, resulting imo in an easier game. I avoid the too many barbs problems because I usually play small maps, though. It's definitely easier to wage war and try to get a domination victory on marathon than on epic or normal speed from my point of view (at least on monarch).

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Dactyl
I don't know what others' experiences have been but I've had to adjust my speed of development on marathon. (I'm playing monarch level.) It has been my habit to build a worker, then two quick settlers, and chopping to get them out fast. That doesn't seem to be optimal on marathon. It works much better to establish two cities and let them get going for a little while before building a third and a fourth.

That's often the way my games go too. It depends on the situation I think. If there is an opportunity to grab some nice city sites with resources to fuel the core, then I'll go for them, usually building 3-4 cities. If you're going for a religion like Buddhism or Hinduism, it seems like that makes the former choice more likely. Either way, I don't like to build two settlers in my capital because I like it to get it large early and have worked cottages to fuel my research. I usually daisy chain my settlers and workers. Also, I like to keep some forest in each city for chopping in libraries, or the occasional wonder.

In fixing the REX problem, they made it so that you really don't need more than two cities to start and more than four hurts your economy, with the exception being that there may be more resources to help you grow and less space for the AI to grow. Three well placed cities seems to work for me. Three well developed cities makes a nice core to capture several more from the AI.

[Spiderjeru]

Military is a much more viable option in my opinion if you've got marathon speed going. For all practical purposes the 2/3rds production speed and 'extra' movement turns lets a given unit last that much longer. That said, the AI is not stupid about this. A stack of 5 swordsmen, 3 catapults - my standard early-game city killing force - may or may not be able to take an AI city because he's been busily filling it with units. Diplomacy makes a huge difference; I'm playing an Earth Scenario as the Romans now, and had Frederick as friendly. He foolishly made the decision to populate his cities with maybe 3 to 5 units each around the time I had finished my two city killing stacks, simply because he thought that everyone like him.

On the opposite end of the spectrum I finished a game as Mansa last night where I dropped a really ugly late-game tank and infantry suprise attack on Caesar. Saladin, who didn't like me to begin with, managed to modernize and massively inflate his armed forces while I was taking a bite out of Caesar's territory; by the time I declared peace with Caesar and went after him, I was facing nearly even odds with no more tech advantage short of nukes remaining. My units were more elite, his were ... hell, lucky I guess. I landed 6 modern armors, 8 mech infs, some SAMs and gunships and couldn't break his city despite bombing runs and fighter strafing.

The AI makes awful decisions on offense and any time he's nearly broken, but on Marathon a turtled AI who sees the writing on the wall is a force to be reckoned with.

One other thing - has anyone noticed that if you auto-attack a city with Gunships in it, the AI will often send tanks to fight defending gunships? It was driving me nuts...

[chiqss]

Originally posted by Shaka II

What huge map were you playing, terra?

Yes , I love terra maps for the challenge of conquering the "new world". To do it on a huge map , you need to be military strong and very wealthy ( huge maintenance cost ) . But if you manage to capture those beautiful barbarian cities , it is a real step toward victory