Monty!!!

[mkorin]

I don't mind when he is a neighbor and attacks, what gets me is when he has to travel through 3 or 4 other AIs to get to me. His disposition towards them is just as nasty as towards me, but somehow he always gets safe passage and passes up the weak AI to attack my stronger borders.

I have to admit, one time I got so pissed I used the world builder and had the hand of God destroy all his cities, short term satisfacation.

Mike

[Willem]

Originally posted by Solver
I'd rather have him than Tokugawa - who certainly won't trade, and also has a trait combination that makes him a pain to conquer.

But because of his tight fisted attitude, he tends to fall behind all the others in tech. You just have to wait until you have a good lead, with the superior troops that goes along with it, to counter his bonuses. Plus he doesn't form friendships with the other civs that much, so he's usually on his own in a war. I've never really had any problems with him myself. When the time is right he's fairly easy to take out IMO.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Dis
Which makes me think Ghandi sucks. I'm never playing the Indians again.

You just have to play him right. I had him once and thanks to his Philosophical trait, I was popping out GPs left and right and was way ahead in techs and wonder construction. Unfortunatley I made the mistake of being a Wonder whore, and neglected my military. So someone came along, I forget who now, and ruined my lovely empire.

[Willem]

Originally posted by JulianD


Thats also one thing Monty does not bother with - friends, who needs them when you can ATTACK somebody .

Which makes him a good target. No one likes him so they're not going to get offended if you declare on him.

[Kepler63]

I need Monty. My tendency is to go off and contemplate my cultural navel, but as long as I have either Monty or Izzy as neighbors, I know I have to get Heroic as soon as possible as start churning out iron weapons. It also focuses my mind to get siege weapons, since otherwise wars are prolonged and ruinous.

Monty is expectional in that he attacks for no reason at all -- he's not even a sociopath, because his attacks aren't self-interested. But at least he's like the Kzin from Ringworld -- he never builds up enough of logistical support to be lethal -- he always attacks too early, and he's never patient about seeking the correct terrain.

BTW, I never see computer civ forts. Do they never build them? I never used them prior to Civ 4, but now, combined with pillage, I find them indispensable when fighting against strong opponents.

[Qwertqwert]

Generally I don't have a problem with Monty much. If you keep a decent sized military he won't attack you. Alexander is my enemy. Whenever you're in a bad situation, you can count on Alexander to go to war.

And I've never seen the AI use forts. I personally never build forts eigher.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Willem


You just have to play him right. I had him once and thanks to his Philosophical trait, I was popping out GPs left and right and was way ahead in techs and wonder construction. Unfortunatley I made the mistake of being a Wonder whore, and neglected my military. So someone came along, I forget who now, and ruined my lovely empire.

Look upon my works ye mighty and despair?

[Kepler63]

Originally posted by Qwertqwert
I personally never build forts either.

How do you limit pillage of your towns? An enemy's mounted units get across my border and start reducing my towns before I can get out there and destroy him.

Of course, I'm generally desperately short on military units, as I said above, so I have to watch the number of deployments outside of my cities. This has been my main strategic problem ever since Civ 1, so I doubt I'm going to reform this late in life.

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Qwertqwert
Generally I don't have a problem with Monty much. If you keep a decent sized military he won't attack you. Alexander is my enemy. Whenever you're in a bad situation, you can count on Alexander to go to war.

And I've never seen the AI use forts. I personally never build forts eigher.

Alex actually is much, MUCH worse than Monty since he tend to choose a target more carefully than Monty and bring more troops when attacking. Alex also actually has a reason why he attacks in trying to expand his borders, thus makes smarter and more diciplined attacks while Monty seem to send in troops in random numbers and in totaly random directions for no particular purpose.

The one thing Monty and Alex has in common is that both tend to attack very, very early. On higher levels (Monarch+) Alex is somewhat unbalanced in that he tend to use hes A.I starting advantage to kill the human very early.

[Arrian]

I don't use forts either.

You cannot build a fort on top of another improvement, so forts can only be built either outside the "fat cross" of a city's workable tiles or it can use up an otherwise useable tile, which is no good. If you happen to have a lvl-3 border expansion that isn't pushed back by another civ's culture, fine, sure, a fort can help you out.

Mostly I just accept that the first row of improvements inside the border is inherently vulnerable.

-Arrian

[Kepler63]

Originally posted by Arrian You cannot build a fort on top of another improvement, so forts can only be built either outside the "fat cross" of a city's workable tiles or it can use up an otherwise useable tile, which is no good. If you happen to have a lvl-3 border expansion that isn't pushed back by another civ's culture, fine, sure, a fort can help you out.

I generally put a fort on a hill even within my fat cross for a border city, especially if there is other fortuitous terrain next door (river crossing, or a hill-forest defensive line bordering flat, defenseless plains. The civs are smart enough to bypass a hill fort bristling with hill defense units, but if I put some siege weapons up there, when one of Izzy's irritating 8-unit stacks rolls by I can pretty well blow her to hell.

It also makes the military game seem more realistic than just a drive for the cities. Hitler went for the oil fields, not Moscow.

Then again, he lost.

[Thedrin]

He also went for Moscow.

[Kepler63]

Originally posted by Thedrin
He also went for Moscow.

I know. Should have finished it off, too. Hindsight...

[Willem]

Originally posted by Qwertqwert
If you keep a decent sized military he won't attack you. Alexander is my enemy.

Yeah right! I started a game a little while ago and I had barely set up my second city when Monty and his small band of Archers came knocking on the door of my capital. I didn't even get a chance to build any military. Since I only had a single Warrior defending at the time, I just restarted a new game.

[Julian Delphiki]

Originally posted by Saurus


Alex actually is much, MUCH worse than Monty since he tend to choose a target more carefully than Monty and bring more troops when attacking.

Thats basically correct, but also depends a lot on your difficulty level. I think everyone hates Monty since he attacks as soon as he can, without any real benefits on sight and does so constantly on every level etc.

From my civ4 starter / noble games i remember how pathetic Alex and his backstabs seemed - his war was almost always a stupid, phoney one and its was just easy to blow him off. I think this changes around Monarch where he starts to get his act together and is actually a serious contender. But, he is also possible to befriend (much easier than Monty). You need to be Alexanders friend since he only has enemies and YOU. And, remember .. if the enemies run out, he only has YOU.