Moving up to prince, getting rushed by AI

[Arrian]

You need Machinery + CS for Sams, IIRC. As such, they take a while to get to (unless you have a GE handy).

I too ended up fighting with swords as Japan... but then I was able to upgrade a couple of city raider III swords to Samurai and do bad things. Granted, that was on Prince. Monarch is another kettle of fish (IMO, a big jump in difficulty).

-Arrian

[Randolph]

The upgrades where what made it way to tempting to attack with the sams, even though I knew it wasn't such a great idea. At one point I had two combat 3/city rader3 sams, but of course one of them died in a 99.X% win chance fight.

Your right about the Machinery thing. It was only a few weeks ago I played that game, I'm supprised I forgot that. I rarely find myself shooting for normal maces; not that they're bad, it's just not a point in the game I spend fighting much.

[One_more_turn]

If you do not have Archers or Axemen by 500BC, you will get jumped.

Instead of waiting for Sams, you might consider starting your own Axemen rush and knock out at least one AI by 0AD.

Also, if you want the CS Slingshot, don't build more than 2 cities. You want to take cities AI has built for you.

[Arrian]

It all depends. I've built 3 and pulled off the slingshot, but that's with a particularly powerful (from the food/production standpoint anyway) starting spot. You don't have to warmonger, especially if you happen to start a long way from the nearest AI, which happens sometimes. Then it's best to expand peacefully for the most part (barb cities are an exception, it's great to pick up cities that way) and hit the AI later. I had an immensely powerful empire playing as Asoka (ORG, mmm) where I got a fluky starting position far from everyone else (though there were actually 4 or 5 AIs on the continent) and was able to settle 2x the land that any one AI civ did. I had a Panama-canal type chokepoint city that protected me from any land invasion. And my land was really nice. It was a builder's dream.

-Arrian

[PaganPaulwhisky]

I agree about the pre-samurai wars. On prince and above I rarely go for a CS sling, and prefer to grab pyramids or start early axemen wars. I usually expand to 2 or 3 useful cities and then crank axemen/catapults and expand by taking nearby cities. You might fall behind in science at first, but its pretty easy to recover once you take enough territory. I almost always attack before the AI.

Unlike most players, I am not a big fan of the CS sling, and I suggest you try alternative strategies. Maybe I just don't have the patience, but I really hate being the weak guy for the first 5000 yrs of the game and CS slings don't gel with my style of play. On monarch, I often do not even bother to build the oracle if I can get pyramids. Beauracracy is nice, but vassalage can be pretty powerful too if you have a lot of units.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by padillah


Except - the AI has done it to me. Several times. So steal away.

Tom P.

Too true. I had to send a worker into the frozen ice-lands to quarry some Marble. Down there it takes about 5 million turns but he stuck at it and was several turns from finishing when up pops a French galley. Napoleon's Axeman and Archer disembark and capture my worker who immediately gets onto the galley and sails away. The turncoat.

It was the second time in that game that Boney had DoWed me although this time he meant business. I have never given him the chance to do that to me since.

[johnmcd]

The example you give Cour though is quite well into the game really, I'm talking about the stealing of a worker before anyones got a third city down, the 'march-your-first-warrior-to-steal-the-first-AI-worker-you-find' tactic.