Sid games C3C: how to improve our skills

[Mr Justice]

okies

some images im gunna link them as before (ill attach the small images).

firstly


victory screen. im nearly half way.

heres the current minimap


and the foundation of my personal method of sid whipping. and ive the scars to prove it.


heres the score graph

heres the power graph
Demographics_1305.JPG

heres the Demographics


heres the science

and finally My empire as is atm (not including my city to east)

heres the map

and finally my blocking manover on the russian settler boat. have to make sure they dont get lost in my treachous Seas

[Mr Justice]

it would have been much easier had i calvs vmxa1, but im currently planning for my next Inf and Tank and atillary military. dunno how many turns i'll wait till taking on russia, at least 40 id think. depending on how they grow. u think they are a KAI yet?

keeping units just costs me 2 gpt per unit. the only units i have now are ships (galleons), workers, 4 armies and a couple of SMs in my island cities.

[vmxa1]

They are on their way. How are you getting by with no spending on Luxs? Are you using entertainers?

IIRC you have three lux.

Anyway I would build up troops and take down some of my neighbors and leave Russia alone. If you get enough troops and armies, they will tend to stay out of your hair.

If you don't get more land, you could be missing key resources, especially if you need a space launch and uranium. More land means more support for troops. More troops means less chance of attacks.

Otherwise you have to worry that russia will eat the other first. Then later you have to contented with bombers and still later nukes. I would build nukes to have MAD.

It tends to keep them in check.

[Drachen]

The Berserks are a great unit but in my game I didn’t get to an off Island invasion until Infantry and by then the Berserks weren’t really needed. So for my Sid play style I’d just prefer a fast mover like Riders or Sipahi if I had a choice.

I think I differ with Vmxa1 a bit on this one. If Russia isn’t particularly close to Flight I think I’d take them on. They have a large rich landmass, they’re within invasion range, and they look to be much more of a threat to your game than any of the other AIs. I’d do most of the following in the order that seemed expedient: get ToE and Hoover if possible, find a way into communism, plant a spy, get Russia to declare war, make a worldwide coalition against them, defend my home turf, pillage them with armies and explorers, drop a settler and negotiate a peace treaty, build up my beachhead, get Russia to re-declare war, wear them down with my beachhead defenses, and then bury them. After that you can choose how you wish to win. The risky part is if Russia is too far ahead and gets Flight they might cause you some real trouble. I’ve never invaded an AI with flight so I don’t know if they use bombers effectively or not. I can give you a save game to test it if you wish. Anyway, you seem to have a real shot at winning whichever way you go so keep us posted.

[vmxa1]

Well that tactic is the other side of the coin. That is you can win by going at them or containing them. Either is viable, if you know how to conduct them.

My only contention is that the containment path is the least risky.
The one thing I would not do is to stand pat on my current holdings. That will invite a KAI to run away.

There is a threshold that once reached, the potential KAI cannot be stopped.

[Mr Justice]

i had up to 7 lux,
but only 5 atm becuase Russia declared war on me. i was getting 2 lux from em.

russia is close enuf to flight, last time i stole from em i noticed They were reaserching combustion. they are sending the usual 4/8 units in ship groups of 3 frig/1 galleon. my measly military can easily cope with that.

i think im gunna send an force to russias foul shores. land 10-20 inf on a hill and let russia pound it senceless. if i create a city then the russians will flood my terrortory with units, triggering big WW. russia is all RR so what ever i land on their turf can expect the entire russian military to attack. although ive build universal sufferage so WW shouldnt be as big as it was.

still raking in the cash, ~820 per turn, but this will go down as i need to increase lux rate to compensate for WW. can steal communisism from hittites. after that im depending on stealing from russia.

will stick it out for a while before involving other AI in the war. dont want russia taking any more land. im currently ramping up production capabilities by building factories in my main cities.

[Drachen]

Originally posted by vmxa1
My only contention is that the containment path is the least risky.

The Russians are pretty far ahead so containment might be less risky. If you were going to follow that path how would you plan to win the game and what steps would you take to get there?

[Drachen]

Originally posted by Mr Justice
i think im gunna send an force to russias foul shores. land 10-20 inf on a hill and let russia pound it senceless. if i create a city then the russians will flood my terrortory with units, triggering big WW. russia is all RR so what ever i land on their turf can expect the entire russian military to attack.

Having twenty defenders wiped out will take you a long way towards advanced WW and the Ruskies will make up their losses in short order. WW will also be a significant factor if you decide to attack smaller nations in going for a domination win. WW really limits your options at Sid and that's one of the reasons to get to communism. Some others are that it's by far the most productive government for a far flung empire and your spies are veterans which increases the chances for successful espionage missions which you can carry out even when you’re at war with the target.

As far as the entire Russian military attacking you quickly because of RR...well they wont be able to if you've pillaged them to bare earth with 4 armies and 20 explorers. A tactic you can carry out with slowly progressing WW and one that has the added benefit of slowing them down in tech, production, food, and happiness.

It sounds like the Russians have a tech lead over everybody else and you need to figure out how you’re going to prevent them from getting a Spaceship win. So, if any of the other AIs are able to research something they could trade the Russians for then you need to prevent this trade via an alliance or an embargo.

Bonne chance!

[Mr Justice]

dose loosing units Affect WW?

my understanding was that WW is a cumulatitive penalty on happiness (im presuming calculated based on length of time at war)

with WW being increassed for each of your units on their turf and each unit of theirs on your turf.

does it also include results of the war? as in if ur losing units then WW is worse? or if u kill enemy units dose it improve WW?

i dont think i can afford a gov change.
9 turns is nearly 2 techs. cant afford that slippage (although if i cant steal from russia it might be worth it.)

need to build IA before i can steal from russia while at war.

im not concerned about losing units to the AI. i want to keep him producing units , so that he cant build other stuff.
might get other island Civs declare on russia. with all those wars it might go into overdrive to produce units. but will still only invade with 4/8 units each time (big hopefully). dunno.
one positive thing is that i can land an invasion force 1 tile from moscow on a hill or mountain.

[Krill]

There is a good thread about it by Oystein on CFC here

[vmxa1]

Ending a turn with units in enemy lands and losing units all add to WW.

This is why I do not use Republic above Demi.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Drachen

The Russians are pretty far ahead so containment might be less risky. If you were going to follow that path how would you plan to win the game and what steps would you take to get there?

Take down another civ to increase my power and lower the Russians research rate a tiny bit.


Get on par with tech via steals and maybe researching a tech that is skipped.

Get my army up to a level that it will deter the Russians from attacking me.

Get one powerful city that can build the last ship part in 4 turns.

Be prepared to prevent them from making the last part, if they should be in a position to finish it before me.

This could be a spy mission or a nuke barrage.

[Drachen]

Originally posted by Mr Justice

i dont think i can afford a gov change.
9 turns is nearly 2 techs. cant afford that slippage (although if i cant steal from russia it might be worth it.)

There’s a lot of good info on WW in the thread Krill posted. (Thanks Krill – I couldn’t find a good WW link when I was looking earlier)

My government changes have been less than 9 turns in recent games. You can do a sample test with your game by going back to an earlier save and seeing how long it takes to switch. You can designate a scientist to research something like ironclads which the other AIs aren’t likely to research and which you can use to tech trade. That research will continue throughout the anarchy period. You can also be preparing for future tech theft by building up your treasury during anarchy by receiving GPT from other civs. Sell resources and old techs for whatever the market will bear. It seems to me that whatever you lose due to anarchy you will make up in increases in income, productivity, war flexibility, and successful thefts after entering communism. You are however much closer to the action and may have insights that would counter the points I just made.

I’ll be interested to see what Vmxa has to say about his containment strategy but I still think you need to be going after Russia to save your game…unless you feel it would be easier to get a domination win by rolling over the weaker AIs before Russia can launch their ship. I will note that it may be difficult to prevent a Russian launch by sabotage alone. I destroyed a KAIs UN build something like 6 times in an earlier Sid game but it ate up all my cash and so my tech theft came to a standstill and IIRC he got it in the end after a sabotage attempt failed.

Edit: cross post with Vmxa.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Mr Justice

im not concerned about losing units to the AI. i want to keep him producing units , so that he cant build other stuff.
might get other island Civs declare on russia. with all those wars it might go into overdrive to produce units. but will still only invade with 4/8 units each time (big hopefully). dunno.
one positive thing is that i can land an invasion force 1 tile from moscow on a hill or mountain.

It will be very hard to get others to go to war against Russia once they get to be a KAI. You will have to be able to offer a key tech or several techs.

This could actually back fire on you. It will boost Russias morale, it could get Russia to wipe out a civ and gain their land.

Forget about hurting them by making them produce units. By now they have all the units they can support and will only build replacements. These will pop out in one turn and be no strain for them, remember they pay half price.

Killing their units often just lets them get rid of old one in favor of better ones.

They are quite capable of landing a lot more than 4 to 8 units. I have had them land as many as 16 with just galleys.

That is soon to not be you biggest concern, carrier based bombers can ruin you day in C3C. I do not want to be at war with a KAI after flight until and unless I intend to eliminate them.

They know where your flak units are and can hit vulnerable targets instead, if available.

[Drachen]

Originally posted by vmxa1


Get on par with tech via steals and maybe researching a tech that is skipped.

There's the rub. What if Russia is researching faster than Mr. Justice can successfully steal? Mr. Justice hasn't been able to stay even using tech theft up to this point so what has changed enough that he can start to pull even by stealing now? If you go after Russia, successfully, then you get stronger while they get weaker. Going after Russia plays to the strengths of the human player and seems the safer move to me.