Why not modern era warring?

[greenday_234]

sorry gentlemen, computer problems. Moderator please delete excess copies of the same post. My apologies once again.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by greenday_234
Ahhh modern wars, where I really shine. ... This has worked wonderfully so far for me on noble difficulty.

Sounds like you definitely need to step up the difficulty.

[wehrmacht]

I agree with johnmcd...If you can have an army that large, and roll the enemy that quickly and easily, you need a higher difficulty level!

[greenday_234]

I totally agree with that and I do plan on increasing the difficulty. And certainly my post wasn't meant as a strategy for others more so it was just more an explaination of what I love about modern era wars. Some things to note though on the explaination of my mass amounts of cash at hand.

1. I have a massive empire as I am an early warmonger

2. I run State Property which MASSIVELY reduces maintance costs, combine that with courthouses and maintance on cities is almost insignifigant

3. I usually don't fund future tech above 60 percent and I run it on average at about 30%. My culture is usually o.k. by my standards and so I usually don't set that above 20%

4. I've greatly increased the # of turns in the epic game for personal preferances because I like having plenty of time as my war planning can consume anywhere from 50-100 turns to get everything in place. So thats why I have so much time in the modern era to do this

5. I also build cottages early on to a tremendous degree, (maybe even to a fault) So always have an economic powerhouse by the late game.

6. Also permanent alliances are huge. As a matter of fact you guys are right in the sense that I would be dead broke with such a large military but my permanent ally finances it. Right now my ally is Germany who finances to me about 650 gold per turn. I pick my allies based on GNP rating, the total sum of their city sizes, mean city size, median city size. and a few other items of interest and then put that on a point value scale. I total up all points for possible allied candidates and take the one with the highest score. Which has worked brilliantly cause you always end up in an alliance of value.

So while I do agree that I must bump up the difficulty as things are becoming too "systematic" for me, I just felt it necessary to give deeper detail of where all that money comes from. Also not included in here where the obvious Banks grocers etc. etc.

[Shaka II]

Badtz Maru.

Originally posted by PaganPaulwhisky
I think the disparaging comments about modern warfare applied to emperor level or above. On these levels if you dont dominate early, the massive production bonuses and tech advantages will probably overwhelm all but the best of players. The AI will probably have better units and more of them which will make things extremely difficult even with sound military strategy.

Yes, this is mainly the reason I prefer not to let it "drag out into the modern era", playing emperor. It depends on what type of victory condition you're playing for, but this remark is aimed at domination or conquest play.

When the AI gets biology, there is explosive growth in population, military and science via specialists. If one or two of the AI's break away with this exponential growth, it's too late to fight them. You have to wait for parity in the modern era. The next opportunity is with mech infantry, artillery, gunships, fighters, SAMs, marines. If you fail, then it goes to the next step which is modern armor, jets, stealth bombers.

I've played a number of games into the modern era, and it is fun. I really get into it. But after having done it a number of times, I find it's more fun to end the games before the modern era, with at most infantry, but more often grenadiers and cannons. Marathon speed allows you to do this, since the unit costs are a bit less, and you have more turns to move them, which are the main limitations on the faster speeds.

If you're playing normal speed, at emperor, then it's more difficult to end the game early. Also, on a large or huge map, it's harder to end the game early. Lately, I've been winning by domination by 1300AD or shortly after on a standard/pangea/marathon/emperor. That gets you 80,000+ points, which is one of the reasons for ending early. It makes a contest out of it. But the main reason is that it's more fun. Marathon speed lets your units march right across the world, attaining numerous promotions in the process, without becoming obsolete, and then upgrading eventually to city raider III grenadiers and city raider III cannons. But the slower ancient, medieval, and rennaissance units, without rails or flight, offer a chess-like experience, which is what I like the most about civ.

If you're mainly a builder, then the modern era is essential, but not so for the conquest type player. Marathon speed allows even huge maps to be won on domination or conquest, though probably at a later date than on a standard map. In the end, it's about what provides the most fun experience. I never get tired of exploring those early maps, settling down to build my civ, and working my way up the technology tree. But the ancient and medieval periods are the most fun for me, followed by the renaissance and industrial eras, but I prefer to end it before the modern era.

To give you an idea of what I mean by dragging on into the modern era; game on normal speed/pangea/standard size/emperor/Romans, I made it into the modern era with one significant civ left, except he had a science lead on me and a huge army, twice the size of mine (Capac). Though I had enough land area to qualify for domination, I didn't have enough population. So, I spent 100 years from 1860 to 1960 building my army, while researching to composites. When I reached parity to his army strength (limited probably by support cost), I declared war and took five or six cities in about 15 turns to gain me the domination win. It was a fun game, but the earlier wars were more fun.

So the trick is not to let the AI get too powerful at any point past the medieval era, to use diplomacy and tech bribes to get the AI leaders to fight, but if one becomes too successful at it, then it's necessary to go after him, with more tech bribes, until you're strong enough to take him on. Rinse and repeat.

[Termilyn]

I'll join the modern warfare fan club. I play on prince and occassionally Noble (if I have suffered too many defeats and just want to beat something).

Even though I post most of my games on CivFanatics HoF, where speed of victory is a big factor, I'm content to play the whole game and not just to Calvary( or Preatorians). The thing I found most different from earlier armies is you have to group your units to compliment each other. Early on you can get away with a less diverse group. The best way to lose a tank is run it out without SAMs and/or MEch Infantry for cover from gunships. Also the more stacks you can break into the better, The AI using artillery to decimate a killer stack really bites.

[Shaka II]

It's true that combined arms are more important in the modern era, but part of that is due to the mobility afforded by rails and air, and to some extent water. If you leave your tanks exposed, a gunship mayl come from 6 tiles away and destroy it. Because of that, you lose some of the close interaction that you feel in a good chess game, e.g., you see an opponents move, you counter it. In the modern era, pieces come from many tiles away at times, whole artillery stacks can come by rail 10 tiles away and annihilate your stack. So, you have to keep stacks smaller than about 5 and mixed arms like you say.

But even in the ancient era, you'll want to add some axemen to take care of melee units, spearmen to take care of horse archers, horse archers to take care of catapults, and swordsmen and catapults to attack the city. Combined arms. It's there for all eras, it's just at a more tangible level in the premodern eras.

[Spiderjeru]

Never underestimate the power of spies in modern warfare. The AI has not once used them defensively in a game I've played, and with enough of them out and spread all over your opponent's territory, you've got a complete picture of his deployment of forces. That's a huge advantage, and it frees up fighters you might normally have used to scout. Just a thought...

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by Spiderjeru
Never underestimate the power of spies in modern warfare. [..] That's a huge advantage, and it frees up fighters you might normally have used to scout. Just a thought...

..Except for the huge amount of resources it takes to build the NW that allows spies, & then dedicating that city to producing them (& nothing else), & allowing spies to sabotage but do little else, you may be right..

IMO spies should be able to steal beakers towards tech, maps, & should be available to build in any city within your civ (maybe not with the bonuses that the NW city gives). They should also have promotions enabling them to carry out the above, & should be introduced /much/ earlier - as they were in RL

Fomenting riots (a good thing) & sabotage (a bad thing) are something else I'd have to consider..

[uberfish]

Building spies and using them to sabotage the enemy oil is very effective against a modern civ at tech parity or even one that's slightly ahead. Easily worth the expense, as without oil they can't put up much of a fight against tanks and bombers.

I really miss the civ 2 diplomat, guess it was overpowered though!

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Spiderjeru
Never underestimate the power of spies in modern warfare. The AI has not once used them defensively in a game I've played, and with enough of them out and spread all over your opponent's territory, you've got a complete picture of his deployment of forces. That's a huge advantage, and it frees up fighters you might normally have used to scout. Just a thought...

Problem with using them for scouting is you're only allowed a limited number at a time - I think it's 3, though this may go up on bigger maps, not sure.

[Spiderjeru]

Originally posted by snafuc4

..Except for the huge amount of resources it takes to build the NW that allows spies, & then dedicating that city to producing them (& nothing else), & allowing spies to sabotage but do little else, you may be right..

Honestly, by the point in the game where spies are active I usually buy rush the wonder. If I can't afford to do that, my Ironworks city can usually put out either SY or Red Cross, and SY comes first.

You're right about spy abilities needing a boost though. Stealing techs is sort of what spies should be all about...ah well.