Using "hopeless" leaders

[Vynd]

Well first off, I wasn't directing my comments at any specific person. Just at the notion that Napoleon sucks as a leader.

When I said high quality I probably should have said high experience, because yes I meant using aggressive/barracks/civics to get experienced troops.

I agree that all things being equal it's better to get the high-tech units than settle for low-tech units, even if they're elite low-tech units. But my argument is that all things are not equal, because Napoleon is not good at research and will have a hard time keeping up with other leaders that are. If you're going to be behind in tech no matter what, then I think building lots of highly-experienced but low-tech units is a good strategy to pursue.

I don't see the case for Napoleon being weak in health. Unless I'm missing something Napoleon's health is just as good as every leader in the game that isn't expansive.

As for money, yes it's an issue. But if you're not trying to win the tech race and insisting on keeping your tech slider at 90%, you can get by. There are plenty of wonders that can help. Likewise city improvements, improvements that your production-heavy cities will be able to build quickly. And of course you can always take someone else's money...

[Crankiest]

I really wanted to play Napoleon.
I haven't had much luck except for once.

I played a small map and I conquered my way to victory.

If you take over a neighbour early and have 7 cities when the other civs are still at 3 or 4 cities, it is a fairly easy victory.

Use that advantage well because it's hard to expand much further. In fact I nearly expanded back to a losing situation. I got involved in a second war and captured more cities. Before I knew it I was down to 20 percent tech as my finances went to pot.
I finished that second war by razing instead of capturing cities and using the proceeds of pillaging to keep tech high.

I dug myself out and it was an easy very educational win - and I hated it. Not my style. The only good thing was that I was really starting to roll in the Wonders which IS my style. I want them all!!!!

I hate conquest. I really fell sick about razing cities. But I realize that I have a problem and that is the first step. I want to thank god for helping me find this support group forum. Soon I will raze cities without any compassion whatsoever.... when I am playing Civ IV.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard

Well, that seems historically accurate.

If we're going down that road then EXP not IND should be the second trait. France's superior pop helped production no end.

And he should also give a -10 from trading with our worst enemy (continental system)!

[Hermann the Lombard]

Absolutely right, S.P. Speaking of which, wasn't Swiss neutrality tinted tricolor in that period?

[Swiss Pauli]

The Swiss were neutral but the territory belonged to Boney!

[Spiderjeru]

Just looking through this it seems that Nappy's Ind/Agg doesn't suit many people. That's surprising to me, as I feel he's just about the perfect low city count Turtle Builder. With a good GP strategy, you can afford to burn most of your GP's for the techs - with the exception of Engineers that you'll use for the builds.

When I play Napoleon, I typically go for broke early on with a two city CS sling. City Two is gonna be the Prophet city, Capital is gonna be the science city. There's explanations of this strategy all over the board if you haven't seen how it varies from a normal CS sling.

While the sling is going down, securing sources of the early Wonder-reduction resources and putting up nice, widely spaced fat crosses is key.

When you catch up your military - you'll be doing that a lot as Napoleon - the free combat 1 is really a nice addition. The difference between hitting 10% strength with a barracks upgrade and hitting Cover or Bash instead is huge.

In my opinion, playing a succesful game as Napoleon involves a balance of Wonder Building and GPP while using the free combat promos to increase the strength of your leapfrogging military.

As for the Musketeer...well, there's no shortage of crap UU's in Civ IV. The circumstances that would have to arise for me to bother building even a single musketeer would be complex to the point of ridiculous.

[couerdelion]

I would differ on the approach a little and suggest that early conquest has to be a part of the strategy, particularly if you have the misfortune to be denied the key military resources. Cheap barracks and free combat promotion will make Axemen quite formidable city busters at this stage. The plan you are essentially using is to capture production early and use this as the fuel for building those wonders.

In fact you may find that Napoleon doesn’t really settle much land. Instead of 100 food/hammers building a settler we can have 3 axemen. I would have thought that 8 of Napoleons Axemen could easily be used to take 3 or 4 more cities.

By the time you have these cities operating (normally) you’ll hopefully have your costs under control and some of these can be turned to wonder production while other are used to “convert” your neighbour’s cities to French.

This strategy is working very well in my current game although the slingshot itself might have been a little close. Luck also stuck Egypt on one side with the capital right up against the sea. I was able to lay siege to it with just one warrior for long periods so could effectively choose to allow Hattie out. I did this and she built two nice cities for me while I also captured two barbarian cities. The empire now has 4 cities built by myself and five captured and my wonder count now includes Oracle, Great Library, Kong Miao, Colossus with Great Lighthouse and Hanging Gardens currently in production. The only other one that looks enticing at this period is Angkor Wat and although I can probably freely select the city for this wonder I imagine it will go up in Orleans with most of the others.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

I would differ on the approach a little and suggest that early conquest has to be a part of the strategy, particularly if you have the misfortune to be denied the key military resources. Cheap barracks and free combat promotion will make Axemen quite formidable city busters at this stage. The plan you are essentially using is to capture production early and use this as the fuel for building those wonders.

I agree with this and think this is probably the best strategy for most aggresive leaders. I would research to bronze and then build 2-3 cities. He is obviously set up for an early oracle grab but I would not slingshot to CS as that slows the axemen rush. I would chop in the Oracle early and take COL to secure a religion or metal casting for early forges.

Once you get to 5 cities the maintenance will start to be a problem. Researching the currency to banking path might alleviate this and sets you up nicely for gunpowder. Another conquest spree is probably in order here if your economy can handle it. I would take as many cities as possible and then settle down and crank out the infrastructure while spreading confuciansim like crazy for troop and city support.

Napolean would be much more powerful if he had expansive instead on industrious. Does anyone have aggresive and expansive as a trait combo?

[Shaka II]

Industrious may not be a strong trait, but coupled with organized, it makes a pretty strong combo. Roosevelt should be fairly strong, but to make full use of organized, you have to be expansive, i.e., a warmonger. There is no better trait for being expansive, though Aggressive comes close.

Industrious allows cheap forges to pump out military units, and organized allows 1/2 price civic costs and cheap courthouses to reduce the staggering costs in a huge empire. Getting the Pyramids and Great Library or the Oracle and Great Library are such huge boosts to early development, with the follow through momentum of cheap forges and low cost of expansion.

Next game I'm playing Roosevelt. The UU is not useful for me, since my games end before I get that far. If they go well that is.

[Vaugula]

Originally posted by PaganPaulwhisky
Does anyone have aggresive and expansive as a trait combo?

Genghis Khan has this combo.

[couerdelion]

I think I’ve got Napoleon pretty much sewn up on Emperor level. The above strategy works well enough with the opening move to be for the Oracle sling either to CS or Metal Casting.

After that it’s time to pick up another 2-3 cities while managing any diplomatic situation by religious means.

Btw Someone managed to build Angkor Wat before I could even get Philosophy. All in all it’s looking a little too easy now which is probably my cue to turn the difficulty level up a notch or two.

Any hints for how to survive at Deity?

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by couerdelion
I think I’ve got Napoleon pretty much sewn up on Emperor level. The above strategy works well enough with the opening move to be for the Oracle sling either to CS or Metal Casting.

After that it’s time to pick up another 2-3 cities while managing any diplomatic situation by religious means.

Btw Someone managed to build Angkor Wat before I could even get Philosophy. All in all it’s looking a little too easy now which is probably my cue to turn the difficulty level up a notch or two.

Any hints for how to survive at Deity?

That seems pretty early to have the game sewn up!

Survival at Deity...erm...cheating might work.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by couerdelion
I think I’ve got Napoleon pretty much sewn up on Emperor level. The above strategy works well enough with the opening move to be for the Oracle sling either to CS or Metal Casting.

After that it’s time to pick up another 2-3 cities while managing any diplomatic situation by religious means.

Btw Someone managed to build Angkor Wat before I could even get Philosophy. All in all it’s looking a little too easy now which is probably my cue to turn the difficulty level up a notch or two.

Any hints for how to survive at Deity?

I'm not sure about going for Oracle to CS on emperor. I think PaganPaul's idea is safer, to get CoL. Getting Metal Working sounds like a good idea.

Also, what map size and map type are you playing. That can make quite a bit of difference in play style. E.g., the AI isn't as good at water maps.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Shaka II


I'm not sure about going for Oracle to CS on emperor. I think PaganPaul's idea is safer, to get CoL. Getting Metal Working sounds like a good idea.

Also, what map size and map type are you playing. That can make quite a bit of difference in play style. E.g., the AI isn't as good at water maps.

I play your standard continents maps because they just "feel" more realistic and I think they probably give a little more variety. Maps size is one down from the largest. Is that Large?

That seems pretty early to have the game sewn up

I've played so many games now at Emperor that the current situation is too familiar. In fact, coupled with my traditionally strong economy and advanced tech I also have a very solid production base and a decent enough army.

I can fairly well predict a Liberalism sling to Chemistry although the only question is whether I wait that long for war with Peter. Either way, I'll take a large enough chunk out of him and still leave time to launch a large enough Armada to take on Lizzie before she gets any Riflemen.

[Generaldoktor]

Came to this late, but played a successful game that month with Napoleon on a continents map, temperate, huge, on Noble. It was custom, so I threw in every warmonger I could think of, "Aggressive AI" and "raging" barbs, to practice war. Got what I paid for.

Want to remind anyone who get's notice of this post that there is now a whole separate thread on Napoleon and musketeers, still going.

Ideas put out here by the pro-Bono's ( ) worked for me, remembering I'm playing only on Noble, no Diplomatic or Space Victory.

Slingshot to Oracle, chopped Pyramids too; took metal-casting, didn't go farther on the sling as I needed war technologies. Toku did early building blitz right up to my borders, not all that unfriendly for a change, took a chance anyway on early war with him as his building spree gave him horses, marble, stone, all near my borders and stuff I wanted, bad!

Toku was weak due to major city expansion, which I latched onto early. Whoever said money was a problem was right. Did build a lot of cottages though to compensate and beelined to CoL. Had a bit of a tech drought at midgame, where I was running tech at 10-40%, really micromanaging it to get that. War continued, put out Toku, Alex, Huyna (after "raging barbarians" cut him down to nothing,) fought inconclusive war with Mao to save Bismarck, who turns out to be a weak, indecisive ally; and Genghis, after 100-year transcontinental war, again to save Bismarck's b-tt, though won't miss Genghi in late game, probably good strategy to kill him.

Peter now ahead in tech, though much smaller. Had to beeline to rifleman to keep abreast with him and active enemy Genghis. So not much use for musketeers, except as scouts in war with Mao. Agree though with everything postive said on thread Uses for Musketeers-Napoleon's Commandos . Musketeers can be drafted, if you have Nationhood; and built barracks. Musketeers can be promoted smart, to compete with knights/macemen, as Solver and Vynd suggest on this thread also; can ignore city walls, can be alternative to knights/cavalry if missing horses (I got Toku's in above mentioned game, so didn't need my Muskies much.)

Modern military coming out now, (tanks, planes, etc.) even though still 19th century, mainly due to Peter's tech rush. Think I have to take him out, never fought a "modern" war in Civ4 though, trying to avoid a WWII style bloodbath and Peter may be trying for nukes. Other than tech, I lead in everything, big country on my continent, colonies on the other big continent, have financial city and several production cities, though didn't understand GPP well until recently, so no city for that, which I could use right now. GPP not terrible anyway. Have Bismarck as a close ally, everybody else cowed, (except maybe for Peter.) May end up with domination victory though, if I take out Peter.

Hail Napoleon!