Metaliturtle's Strategy Thread

[Arrian]

Theben likes his NA's. I love my Persians. Immortals effing rule. Of course, they require horses, and there is such a thing as Immortal Kryponite (the Holkan).

The cool thing about Darius is that he's a great "builder" leader with a great early rush unit. If you can get some immorts out fast and whack a neighbor, great. You can afford to do that and not crash your economy. If you find yourself in a no-rush situation (neighbors are too far, neighbors have nasty, filthy Holkans, neighbors are protective and built their cities on hills...), you can merrily build away. Good UU, Good UB, Good traits.

I play Prince, hemispheres, standard settings across the board. Sometimes I turn on raging barbs. Sometimes agg AI.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

If you're planning a peaceful victory, what would cause you to wipe out your nearest rival?

I don't really see much distinction, in the end, between angling for a peaceful victory and a "warmonger" victory, with the exception of Cultural Win.

The goal, whether you want to win by Diplo, SS, Domination or Conquest, should be to gain power & wealth. Whacking a neighbor or two is a good way of doing that, as it will gain you cities & resources. The question is when to expand by, um, other than peaceful means. Sometimes it's best to hit early. In other games, I've started my first war with Rifles & Cannon.

edit: a limited amount of warmongering is helpful to the builder b/c it can provide you with additional security. A war can provide you with the level 4 unit required for the HE (you can indeed get that via barbs, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way - I even had a raging barbs game once were I just couldn't get to 10XP before the continent was settled & the barbs were gone) and it can provide you with a GG, which is not something that only a warmonger wants. A good HE city with a settled GG will be pumping out 5xp units. This leaves your other cities free to build libraries and temples and markets and whatnot.

-Arrian

[wodan11]

If you're planning a peaceful victory, what would cause you to wipe out your nearest rival?

The fact that they might win before I can seems a good incentive to me.

In a warmonger victory, when would you consider letting a nearby rival live?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

[Metaliturtle]

Depending on the resource distribution and who the neighbor is, that might be a mistake. Settlers are expensive as hell. Plus, depending on the distance, that early rush could do bad things to your economy (I guess you could raze, but... I can rarely bring myself to do that).

If you can prevent the neighbor from acquiring metals, you should probably allow them to expand for a while, and prepare to hit them just as they are getting close to finishing their expansion phase. This way, they will build you a bunch of cities - cities that will hopefully be lightly defended by an archer or two. Obviously, if you're up against a protective civ, or a civ that has an annoying resourceless unit, or a civ that will easily acquire copper/iron, killing them quickly may be better. It also depends on what your civ has... if you've got a powerful early rush unit, well, hell. Maybe you should use it. If you have a civ that takes a while to build up, maybe you should let that happen, try to nab a tech edge (early construction, or beeline for machinery), and then crush your still-expanding neighbor.

-Arrian

Wow, thanks for the contributions Arrian! I haven't focused on a construction/machinery rush with teching up, mostly I try to beeline to Rifling after I'm done backfilling the tech chart.

[Metaliturtle]

I ummm play on Warlord level... for now anyway, my last game was super easy I may try prince for my next game.

[fani]

I really like the Persians too (Darius)...
Just tried a game with NA on monarch but it didnot turn out so well...and i gave it up...
Early rush on the Egyptians(Rameses)
I Take the capital and lose 2 warriors(from huts) and 2 dogs....not so bad till now...
but then i try to get his 2nd and last city..that is on a hill, has no culture or wall bonus, is defended by 1 unpromoted archer....And i lose 3 dogs(one with Cover promo) to that SOB archer...
Moral of the story?...Dogs suck agains archers....better play monty, or even better Darius....

[joncnunn]

I would wipe out the nearest rival when planning a peaceful victory if there wasn't enough good quality land for me with that rival in place. In this case, I would normally plan a rush to wipe him out early and then develop.

For war victories : After I get Feudalism I normally let all opponents live if they'll capitulate to me.

This is intended to serve as a place to discuss strategy along the lines of Vel's Strategy Guide There is the link for those who want to be floored by some early strategy insights.

I want to start the discussion with warmonger starts vs. peaceful starts but feel free to send us down a rabbit trail.

Additionally some questions to add to this.

If you're planning a peaceful victory, what would cause you to wipe out your nearest rival? In a warmonger victory, when would you consider letting a nearby rival live?

[Theben]

Moral of the story?...Dogs suck agains archers....better play monty, or even better Darius....

Yep, you normally need 3-1 odds but early on that's attainable, sounds like you just had bad luck. It happens.

[fani]

I guess i was just unlucky, it happens frequently but it never gets less annoying...As far as starting strategies are concerned, i found out that my suckiest games were the ones where i peacefully expanded by building settlers...they are just too expensive to waste your hammers on...this left me 90% of the time either behind my opponents or with no advantage over them...the 10% happens when you have GREAT starting lands...ie 5 flood plains for each city, cities on hills to get the +1 hammer,2-3 gold mines and stuff like that...Real success almost exclusively comes out of ancient wars and an ancient UU is critical to the success of these wars...My best games ever were at Monarch difficulty with either the Romans(Julius) or the Persians(Darius)...where i declare first war at around 1600 BC and by the the time someone has longbows i should have roughly twice as much land as the average AI...To conclude i believe that a peaceful start is not a good option and if you just have to go that way then it is certain tha you will not achieve as much in improving your civ as you would if you kicked neighbor ass.

And the question of the day, is anyone still doing slingshots for COL and stuff like that?(dont know if Beerocracy is still a possible option)...only strategies like this could justify(in my mind at least) a peaceful start.

[wodan11]

I'm firmly convinced it's not so much the hammer cost of settlers/workers as the FOOD cost. Not growing your cities is a serious negative.

[rah]

At monarch level, if you prioritize oracle you can almost always get COL.
You can research through bronze and ah first even before going for priesthood and writing. If you're industrious or have marble or have lots of production you just have to be careful to finish researching writing prior to finishing the oracle.
Beerocracy (love that spelling) is pushing your luck and not as likely.

[sorinache]

Just throwing in my 2 cents as I see no contributors defended the "peaceful building" starts. I play Emperor on large maps (of various types : archipelago, hemispheres, balanced). I'm for the moment playing financial Civs - won with Darius, Elizabeth and Willem the 2nd, didn't manage to win with Huyana though (despite a couple of good starts I was unable to capitalize upon ...). My style of play is still heavily influenced by habits I acquired playing Civ I and II. I don't like to spend on military units (because they cost to maintain and when not at war do not help me one bit) and I love to expand. Of course this style of play doesn't work nearly as well in Civ IV as the settlers are indeed horribly expensive (wodan is right, the main drag is the non-growing city, especially since there is no more "we love the president" rabbit proliferation).I still tend to build good relationships with neighboring AIs. On Emperor, their starting bonus (2 or 3 promoted archers, I don't know for sure) make early wars prohibitively expensive. Besides, if you don't raze them, you can trade techs with them. I lost a game that I thought was going to be an easy win : playing Huyana on a large landmass all for myself with no neighbors before Astronomy. When they came I had like 14 well developed cities. But since I had to research everything myself, I was hopelessly behind in technology : I got quickly dispatched by superior numbers AND superior technology.

Conclusion : on emperor at least, developing peacefully (when I have the choice, I never start a war before rifling or, even better, assembly line) and maintaining good relations with your neighbors (as opposed to razing them ...) can be a winning strategy, whereas razing everybody (or not needing to, by luck) is not necessarily making things easier

[Metaliturtle]

In another thread someone (I think rah or Arrian) mentioned that there are precious few techs they will trade to an AI. sorinache, are there any techs you don't trade that help you gain a tech advantage when you're not in an isolated start?

[Arrian]

And the question of the day, is anyone still doing slingshots for COL and stuff like that?(dont know if Beerocracy is still a possible option)...only strategies like this could justify(in my mind at least) a peaceful start.

On Prince level with a good start I can pull off the Civil Service (Bureacracy) slingshot most of the time. Most as in more than half. It's certainly risky, though. Using it to get Code of Laws should mean you get it 9+ times out of 10.

I tend to shoot for the Oracle CS slingshot *AND* an immortal rush. And I pull it off fairly often. Note: I'm picky about start spots. I avoid coastal starts like the plague (they're not bad, per se, just poor for early rushing, I find), for instance, and I pretty much require a river.

Playing a financial leader is pretty key, IMO, though obviously with a good enough start and some luck you can do it with anyone (I did the CS slingshot as Shaka recently, but I lucked out. I think I built the Oracle around 750BC, which is late. Typically, on Prince, you need to get it around 1000bc). I prefer Darius and Huyana Capac.

-Arrian

[snoopy369]

Even now that they give you a forest of forests if you're on a coastal spot??