Building Armys

[Creator]

What is the best way to quickly build a large military? The way I do it makes me end up building more structures than military units there fore I have a large number of citys like in the game im playing now which there are 15 citys and a military force of 45 units, which 35 of these are stationed in citys to help keep citys happy, is this normal or am I doing somthing wrong.

I am egypt and am racing throught the tec tree but there are 2 civs very near me the most powerful out of them are the maya and then the americans.

The maya's have built alot of citys close to my civ and im fighting them for ground but im worried about them attacking soon as they outnumber me 2 to 1, and maybe more. Plus there are the samerians who are more ahead in tec than I am but luckly I havent seen them yet but worried incase of attack what should I do???

[pedrojedi]

I wish I could help ya, I'm myself a builder. Problem is, I must stop caring about my units being or not veteran, and how necessary is it to build barracks to make a good effective military. A lot of other things I obligate myself to do, like having all cities with all possible improvements, when I know there can, or should have, a "city specialization", with different tasks for different cities, and therefore necessary city improvements for these cities.

Some habits are hard to leave behind.

[bigfatjonny]

Post a save game so we can look at it.

Im sure we can help you to build your military, and hopefully use it aswell!

[Creator]

Well thats a relief im not alone.



Hear is my save its 780AD.

[Solomwi]

I can't look at the save until I get home, but the best way I've found to break builder habits is set up a game where you don't care about winning, or anything else except hurting other civs. Force yourself to play dark. Raze cities for no good reason. Raze a wonder or two! I recommend the Vikings for this game, since the Berserk may be the greatest terror unit in a non-pangea game. You'll quickly pick up on the necessity of building barracks for veteran units and other small nuances of warmongering, like how to minimize homeland defense, but still keep it effective, so you can devote as much force as possible to tearing other people's stuff up.

The largest benefit of this approach is the habit-breaking. Close behind is the realization of how effective early war can be. Third, it's a lot of fun.

[vmxa1]

Well to start you can't raise an army without a strong empire.

I see many cities with walls? As a rule of thumb, don't build walls.
I may have dropped one in a frontline city that was under seige, but it is rare. You have walls on cities that are bordered by your own cities and hence not going to be attacked.

You are researching Invention at 100%, why? Why? You have the GL, and at least one civ already is building Leos. This means you do not have the capacity to out research the other AI and should let the GL earn its keep. Reseatch to 0%.

You are building Sun Tzu while one citizen is a taxmen? 36 more turns. I doubt that will cut it. Just moving the taxman to a tile cut it to 31 turns. With the cash from the 0 research, drop an embassy in the civ that is building Suns. Then you will know if you have a shot or not.

You need this city to size 12 by now. Any wonder city must be size 12. If you have the number of workers you need, you would be much better off.

Helios has way too much irrigation.

Too many spears and not enough attackers. You can't win wars with spears.


Did I mention 6 workers, is not even funny. I would have 6 workers in Thebes to mine all the tiles and add them into the city.

You have some 15 cities and only 6 workers and none being build.
I did not count them, but you have as many as 4 taxmen in one city. No way to build an empire. I pretty much never use taxmen until I have more citizens than tiles. You want citizens working tiles to generate shields and food. You should have had lots of cash piled up via the GL by now.

[vmxa1]

The city placement is way too loose. This will make it hard to road and improve tiles. It will make it hard to defend your empire.

You should have at least two early cities cranking out workers and settlers. One could toss out troops from time to time. Better yet get a third city soon to make nothing but troops.

[Creator]

Well im devistated by what tips u have told me lol. I guess I have a very different way of building empires than u guys. The citys that are scattered are in stratigic locations + near needed tiles for food and money.

I know what u mean about making a military from the start i did this once or twice but ended up neglecting tecnology as a result falling behind but the wars were spectacular.

The game im in now would be alot different if I had been able to ge6t my hands on iron and horses but none around just bad luck I guess.

The great libary isnt that good that u can put tec to 0% research or is it thought it only gave 2 free tecs it dont research them does it?????????????

[vmxa1]

If you used say CxxC and cranked out lots of workers to improve all worked tiles as they are need, you would soon have a much large income flow. This mean more research. I did not note the level the game was played on, but in general if you are below Monarch you will have to do all the research yourself to have a good pace.

Above it, at Mon or Emp it can go either way. At Demi and above you will use the AI to make most tech break throughs. I just now won at Sid and only was first to research one or two techs after Lit (one was Ironclad, no one else did it). I use 0% the whole game after Lit.

The GL will yield free techs as long as at least two civs have learned the tech (that you are in contact with) and you have not learned Education. So if you avoid Ed until it is given via the GL you should make it a long way down to at least Chem.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Creator
Well im devistated by what tips u have told me lol. I guess I have a very different way of building empires than u guys. The citys that are scattered are in stratigic locations + near needed tiles for food and money.

I know what u mean about making a military from the start i did this once or twice but ended up neglecting tecnology as a result falling behind but the wars were spectacular.

You should be doing both at the same time. I like to use a semi builder or nearly builder strat for the most part. To me this means
getting the routine structures up fairly quickly in the core.


This has to be tempered for the level and the map. If you are going to play at say Demi and have a civ or two close by and they are aggressive types, you have to be able to adjust. If you are by yourself or the civs are not tough guys, you can do things a bit more relaxed.

Change the level up or down and you again have to made adjustments.

You just cannot have large chunks of land bwtween cities at any level and not slow down your game a ton. Those resources are mine, that is how I see it. When I get them is the only question.

I cannot image that I have to blow out my plan to grab a city in the first 50 turns or so.

Do you have the 4000BC save? Post it if you do. The money issue is best dealt with by having all tiles roaded and nearly all mined. Take advantage of river tiles first to get the extra commerce. Notice I did not mention traits as that is a variable. You don't always have a given trait.

[Creator]

So the GL is usefull but only if u have it.

Ive continued the game 2 turns and in the second I got Monotheism from my researchers.

I did notice that since the GL was built the tecs seemed to start coming in fast alot had lets say 28 turns to end of research and gained it at 14 but said learned off mayans and americans.

I presumed it was because of the 100% the research was set at. Now I understand why the civs who got the GL first started pulling away from evryone else.

Havent got the first save sorry.

the other thing with me is like you can see on the map the mayans have built a city at the top of the map well away from the rest of there settlements. I tryed to stop this but they used a boat to get there when little things happen like this i feeel like starting a new game and usually do. or if one of my citys gets captured I want to start again.

The point is u gona laugh now I have never finished a game the furthest ive got up to in tec is knights stupid eh lol and theres me looking forward to making aircraft carriers and battle ships.

[vmxa1]

Creator you are basically wasting your GL. The two things that are causing that are 1) no contact with all the other civs 2) doing research at 100%.

If you felt that you must research, at least go with a tech that is likelyy to not be researched by the AI right away. This could be done by waiting for Mono and then jumping on Chiv. It is optinal and may not be researched right off.

I would just do no research. You do not have enough infrastructure to get it done in any meaningful way.

Once the GL epires you will be in trouble for research. cities are not built up and you have almost no libs in place.

I would not worry about the city the Mayans build it will be your in due time.

I would be concerned about not having a single lux hooked up by 830AD.

I would switch to no research, use the first round of cash to see how the othersd are doing with the SunTzu. I would want to abandon that now if it is not going to happen. Drop an embassy on the civ that is building it to see how many turns are left. If it is ubder 30, give it up now. If close to your rate, improve the city now and beat them to it.

[vmxa1]

Creator if you want to finish a game you can either start a new game and post the start or stay with this one. If you want to do either let me know and I will play the game along with you to see if we can get the upper hand.

[Creator]

What would u recommend I do starting a new game how would I go about starting it. think I might because battles eairly on are great and keep me in the game. Not one battle yet guess I would get praised by the united nations lol

[vmxa1]

Just make a game as you normally do it. Post the start of the game here or email it to me vmxa(at)sbcglobal(dot)net.

You play the first 40 turns and so will I. I will make a log of my turns and we can compare what was done.

Then you can incorporate any concepts that make sense to you.

At that point we can either pick up from where you are, using your save or you can start over with any chances you think are valuable.

Eventually you get the save to the first 40 turns and we then do another round. rinse and repeat until you are seeing things are improving or hopeless.

This can be done either privately or here, your choice. I think once you see the power of workers and camps/pumps you will be off and running, kicking the AI's butt.