Opening strategies

[Krill]

Until recently, I had no idea about any of the opening strategies, and was at a loss how to keep up with the AI in tech so that it did not disappear of the horizon, or Archer rushes, etc (Luckily I did figure out about REXing, though).
The teaser threads for AU 501 and AU 502 have helped to teach me some different openings, IE building a worker in high food areas first/or second, the advantage of granaries, and, thanks to Duckis' emperor thread, 4 turn settler pumps.

I want to know how to expand militarily in the ancient era, on emperor levels upwards. I have no problems winning by diplomacy or domination with tanks, but in the ancient era I do not do to well. (Except in REXing, which I'm pretty good at).

So could all you wise and cunning generals out there help me by telling me your ways of opening a game successfully?

[nbarclay]

One of the biggest production advantages human players have is the ability to use the luxury slider to grow our cities relatively large. (AIs aren't programmed to use it, and thus miss out on its advantages.) If you do a good job improving all the tiles you'll be working, more size means more production, which can be used for either military or civilian purposes. In Republic, the luxury slider can more than pay for itself if it's used properly thanks to the commerce bonus, while in Despotism or Monarchy, it is more of a break-even proposition (with extra tiles that generate more than one commerce each providing an advantage but corruption providing a drain). Note that with the luxury slider, you can defer building happiness improvements in order to focus more on your military.

The other big advantage humans have that I can think of off the top of my head is the ability to make good use of preplanned upgrades. The two most popular in the ancient era are building warriors for upgrade to swordsmen and building chariots for upgrade to horsemen. Upgrading is a lot more expensive in C3C than it was in previous versions, but it can still provide a nice boost.

One of the most powerful combinations for an essentially pure warmonger strategy (especially in the early medieval era) is to build the Great Library and stop researching. The Great Library lets you keep up in research while you build up huge amounts of cash for upgrades. (The timing is probably a bit better for horseman-to-knight upgrades than for anything else.) Prsonally, I prefer to build up a tech lead if I can rather than relying on the Great Library for my technology, but if you want to try a game with relatively early warmongering, the Great Library approach could easily be worth a try.

Without the Great Library, upgrades come at the expense of research. But under some circumstances, researching a tech (especially a government tech if you can get its prerequisites relatively early) on a 50-turn pace can provide a good way to get gold for upgrades. The tough part is that unless you have a nice tech lead when you start your 50-turn tech, you're likely to be behind when you finish. (By the way, 50-turn research on Republic is how I did some warrior-to-swordsman upgrades in AU 501.)

I hope at least some of this is useful, and I suspect that other people will have other ideas.

Nathan

[Jon Shafer]

Sometimes when I want to have some fun with Archers I'll do a Granary at some point (just to have one growth city), and then all the cities I do after that will start on Barracks (best if you're a Militaristic Civ). After that, pump out Archers and a few Spears, while your capital does new cities to cover support costs and Workers in order to improve those tiles to get more SPT for those units. By the time you have ~15 Archers and a few Spears you can pretty much cripple a nearby AI.

Alternative early wars are what Nathan basically outlined, where you rely more on upgrading, going for Republic or Monarchy at 50-turns (ideally after getting Philosophy for the free tech) and building up gold for (usually) Swordsmen. Mix in some early Archers and you can usually serve an AI on a platter.

[ducki]

And just in case you haven't seen it, check out "Winning Early - What do YOU do?" linked in the "Must Read Threads" at the top of this forum.

And another place to look is Aeson's brilliant use of the Jaguar Warrior in the "Testing the Jaguar Warrior" Thread in the AU forum. Truly brilliant. Guerilla tactics, crippling multiple AIs and STILL preserving his GA.

I'm not a very good warmonger and have never figured out how to perform an Archer rush, so other than those two suggestions, I don't have any first-hand advice.

Good luck!

[Dominae]

One of my favorite tricks on Emperor (and below, I guess) is the ultra-early Archer rush: figure out where you nearest neighbor is, build a force of no more than 5 Archers, pick a good time to nab a Settler in transit or a stack of Workers, and strike (for best results, hit multiple targets the very same turn you declare war). This puts said neighbor back enough that you gain the intitiative. There will, of course, be a counter-attack, but if you advance on the AI's cities it will get confused and try to defend/attack at the same time. Usually if you do enough damage you can sue for peace at a nice profit.

The advantage to this strategy is that you can efficiently guarantee yourself a lot of land to expand into, not to mention some slaves and techs. You can often do more with 3 Archers in the early-game than you can 40 turns later with Horsemen or Swordsmen. On Emperor and below a 4-turn Settler-pump out-expands almost any AI, so this strat is only for less Food-intensive starts.

I remember using an ultra-early Archer-rush in the Gallic Glory AU (I forget it's number at the moment).

Aeson's Jag game is a fine example of exactly the same strat but with a unit much better-suited to it. Not to take away Aeson's thunder, but players have been doing Jag terror-rushes since the game first came out (Vel's wrote a pretty good thread on the topic at some point); Aeson "just" showed it's possible with the more expensive version.


Dominae

[ducki]

Gallic Glory is AU 206.
Edit: That Gallic link goes to the announcement, spoiler-free page. This link goes to the spoiler thread and Dominae's tale begins in the second post.

And Vel's thread is also linked from the Must Reads and is called Triple Threat - The Joys of Being a Bloodthirsty Barbarian.

I've been spending a lot of time on Must Read and AU History 101 lately.

Plus, I like practicing my link-fu.

[Krill]

First of all, thank you for replying so quickly.

Ducki,
I have spent at least 10 hours in the Must Read and AU 101 in the past fortnight. I really liked Aesons SVC thread. That was bl**dy amazing. I just downloaded AU 206, and imported the latest AU mod rules into it (AU 1.03+Flavours). I'm playing it tonight. (I know I have home work, but somethings are more important). I will post a save of the first 40 turns, so you lot can analyze it, and tell me just how cr*p I am, and show just how good you are. (I really hate all non-industrious civs).

Dominae,
I'll try the archer rush as you desribe it tonight/tomorrow, in another game. I think I might have used a similar tactic (but nothing as good/lucky as you did in AU 206).

nBarclay,
I hate building wonders in the ancient era, but i'll give that tactic a go. The luxary slider is a pain to use in the early game, because you have to control it every single turn, and I really hate MM.

(edited spelling mistakes)

[ducki]

The luxary slider is a pain to use in the early game, because you have to control it every single turn, and I really hate MM.

One shortcut is to keep an eye on the "turns until growth" number listed under each city name on the map - there's one number next to your build order(turns to complete) and there's another number - that one matches the number in the food box for "turns until growth". Make note when any of them get to 1 and then next turn be sure to adjust your slider.

Another option - which I do not normally advocate but that might fit with your hatred of MM - is to set the city governor to manage happiness. You lose out on a lot of growth/productivity because he turns what would be an unhappy (new) citizen into an entertainer on the turn that you grow but before you get the shields/food for it, but it should prevent rioting.

Again, I don't (normally) recommend using the governor because that basically brings you down to the AI's level, but might fit your playstyle(not wanting to MM/use the slider).

[Krill]

Another option - which I do not normally advocate but that might fit with your hatred of MM - is to set the city governor to manage happiness...Again, I don't (normally) recommend using the governor because that basically brings you down to the AI's level, but might fit your playstyle(not wanting to MM/use the slider).

I think I had better learn to use the slider, then.

[Arrian]

There is a point at which, in order to get better, you have to start accepting some micromanagement. I'm not really a fan either (except in MP demogames, when you've got so much time on your hands between turns), but it really is very powerful.

The luxury slider is your friend.

Military expansion:

Depends on many factors, such as your civ (traits, UU) and the resources you have, and the relative proximity of your neighbors.

Archers can be quite effective for early targetted strikes, as Dominae said (settler bopping, mmm, good stuff). They aren't really very good for general warfare, though. Think of them as skirmishers: when I go to war with archers, I rarely send them up against cities. I will use them to kill the AIs archers, nail settler teams, steal workers, etc. Then make peace for tech/gold/whatever you can get. For actual conquest, I will use better units (swords, horse).

Upgrading is useful, though not as good as it was in PTW, due to the change in cost. Upgrading 10 warriors to swordsmen will now take 600 gold, which is by no means a trivial sum.

Anyway, I think most people grasp the power of swordsmen, so I'll leave them be. 3/2/1 says it all. But don't forget those horsemen! First off, a chariot upgrade strategy is the middle ground between a warrior upgrade and building units straight-up. Instead of 10shields + 60 gold per, you're dealing with 20 shields + 30 gold per. And mobility is a beautiful thing.

And then there are catapults. Quite effective in Conquests. Especially if you're going with a swordsman force, these can really cut down on casualties.

Another general key to warfare in CivIII is timing. Gaining a big edge technologically can be worth delaying the fighting for. I have several times delayed attacking the AI to concentrate on building up my own empire first (this only applies when I have some room and a decent number of luxuries), and then struck with medieval infantry, pikes and trebuchets.

-Arrian

p.s. Depending on your goals in this early warfare, consider honing your "lazy war" skills. MGLs are not nearly as powerful as they once were, but armies do rock. A 3x sword army will make mincemeat of AI cities defended by spearmen. If you're fighting under despotism, remember there is no particular reason to make peace, unless you find yourself actually under threat or you decide you want to extort a particular tech *now* as oppposed to later.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by ducki

One shortcut is to keep an eye on the "turns until growth" number . . . Make note when any of them get to 1 and then next turn be sure to adjust your slider.

Obviously I'm overlooking something...doesn't the city grow into unrest before I get to adjust the slider? I have learned that once one city blows to zoom to that one and then scroll through the list looking for other trouble spots (this usually happens when losing a luxury or gaining WW than due to growth).

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard
Obviously I'm overlooking something...doesn't the city grow into unrest before I get to adjust the slider? I have learned that once one city blows to zoom to that one and then scroll through the list looking for other trouble spots (this usually happens when losing a luxury or gaining WW than due to growth).

The game checks for unhappiness/unrest, then the city grows. So there's no need to preemptively make your populace happy the turn before growth.

An easy way of making sure none of your cities will revolt is to do a quick F1 check at the end of your turns. Barring WW and the loss of Luxuries, if the Domestic Advisor says you're all right, you're all right.


Dominae

[Krill]

As I promised:

[Krill]

second save. I traded techs around and got ~400 gold, which finaces 100% research. The AI recently Map making, maths, and LITERATURE. So much for that theory. Rome declared war a couple of turns prior to china declaring war on me. I had five archers stored on their border, so I took canton, autorazed Shangai, and received Chengdu, with access to that bit of land.

This is not a typical start, but I'll post one shortly, if anybody wants to compare it to my normal play style.

[ducki]

Originally posted by Dominae
do a quick F1 check at the end of your turns

This goes hand in hand with the Preferences setting "Wait at end of turn." That's a very important setting. Using the lux slider to manage happiness is almost impossible without it. Maybe that's the problem?

Edited to fix grammar/typos caused by trying to post with a 15-month old in my lap.