"I YIELD!" (Archer rush questions)

[maxcavsm]

Okay, upper the difficulty after my first successful game from Regent to Emporer, figuring that I've got the basics down and can get down with the worst AI.

I randomized everything, and it looks like I'm on a Continental game, and I'm Chinese. Seeing that I was militaristic, and that I had just completed the Sumerians under the Builder/Space Race win, I decided to do an archer rush and start cleaning clocks.

I beat the hell out of the Romans, taking Rome and leaving them mostly out of the fight. I've got the Incans on the run, just taking a 10 man city from them, killing I think between 2-3 settlers and dealing with their Army and it's pathetic attempts to stop my swordsman army.

For the first time since I started playing, the Incas actually initiated contact and asked for a truce, actually OFFERING a great deal (where as I usually have to initiate contact when I've had enough of beating on them). I was about to take it, and I realized, "Wait a minute. I've got these clowns on the run. They've got almost a third of the continent under they're control. I should keep going."

So my questions:
1) When you are "pruning" other civilizations of their outlying towns, at what point do you stop? How much is too much when you have the advantage? I don't want them to be a threat later on, but I also don't want to completely annihilate them, as I get the feeling like I can use them to my advantage later.
2)Do you take over towns or destroy them during an attack like this? I've read that you take a hit on the global diplomatic scale if you raze a town, but it's a drain on my army to garrison troops there. I usually rush a barracks at the town closest to my towns for healing purposes if I plan on keeping it, but some of those internal and distant towns....just want to set some towns alight.
3) I've just finished researching Monarchy, but I'm still in the process of beating down on the Incans. I hate to switch over governments during a fight, but I also hate to lose out on all of that wasted productivity in my home cities. Should I keep Despotism, or seeing as I've got the Incans on their ass, change up and risk it? And for a warlike nation, which of the governments is the most beneficial? I imagine one with no war-weariness, as I plan on winning this game by taking over the map.

Think that's it for now. Thanks!

[vmxa1]

Re: "I YIELD!" (Archer rush questions)

"Originally posted by maxcavsm

1) When you are "pruning" other civilizations of their outlying towns, at what point do you stop? How much is too much when you have the advantage? I don't want them to be a threat later on, but I also don't want to completely annihilate them, as I get the feeling like I can use them to my advantage later."

First are in a form of government that has war weariness? If not go as long as it make a profit.

If not then, I would want to stop before 20 turns of war. Wait for 20 turns to start back, if I can. Exceptions exist, such as I am closr to elimination of them or I want a particular city.

If you are taking outlying towns you are not hurting them all that much. You need to take down core cities or at least key resources.

I have no problem finishing them off, in fact that is required for conquest games.

"2)Do you take over towns or destroy them during an attack like this? I've read that you take a hit on the global diplomatic scale if you raze a town, but it's a drain on my army to garrison troops there. I usually rush a barracks at the town closest to my towns for healing purposes if I plan on keeping it, but some of those internal and distant towns....just want to set some towns alight."

Well you can bting along a settler and abandon the town on the next turn. No razing issues.

At emperor at the point that you are taking down civs, you probaly have good enough culture to hold them if you can use them.

Barracks are not worth rushing in games that you are busting heads. Why spend the money or pay for maint? The troops will heal soon anyway. Armies, it could be worth it.

Mainly I would do it if I expect to be fighting there a bit, not if it is not going to be counter attacked.

"3) I've just finished researching Monarchy, but I'm still in the process of beating down on the Incans. I hate to switch over governments during a fight, but I also hate to lose out on all of that wasted productivity in my home cities. Should I keep Despotism, or seeing as I've got the Incans on their ass, change up and risk it? And for a warlike nation, which of the governments is the most beneficial? I imagine one with no war-weariness, as I plan on winning this game by taking over the map."

Well there you have it. Monarchy is swell for staying at war. Good support and no WW. Switch when it suites you. Considerations are a tech close to a break through?

A wonder nearly done?

If not, then the sooner the better as the more cities you have the more anarchy you get.

[ElConejo]

Re: Re: "I YIELD!" (Archer rush questions)

Originally posted by vmxa1
If not, then the sooner the better as the more cities you have the more anarchy you get.

Really? Is that so?

Good to know!

[Elda king]

I never raze any city, usually I got them, turn all the no-resistant people into specialists, wait some dye from hungry and when they aren't sad go back to work; while I wait, I produce a Temple to help keeping it. About changing the government, there's another thing: do you have many cities (size 7 or more)? If you don't, do not change, or your unit suport will fall to about half it is now.

[joncnunn]

It depends upon what your goal in fighting them is.

If what your interested in is techs + GPT, there's a point at which taking more of their towns reduces the GPT you can possibly get form them.

And if the goal was having them found cities for you, it is counter productive to attack a small outpost whose borders have never expanded.

[Harovan]

Archer rushes can be very efficient up to emperor, and I have them done quite a bit. My favorite approach were short, pruning wars, the shorter the better. My goal was to conquer one city (mostly the capital), maybe one more if I can conquer (not raze) it and perhaps to get a city in the following peace negotiations. Under despotism, the AI liked to poprush and it would part with unhappy 1-pop-cities rather easily at least up to PTW (ot sure about Conquests, never played it much). I strived however to leave my opponent with at least 2 cities, reason described below.

After this short campaign (8-10 turns) I make peace. The reason is to squeeze as much as I can out of the civ, techs, gold, workers and maybe a city. During peace time, the AI would stop poprushing and builds some new settlers and workers (which it wouldn't do during war). Meanwhile I attack and prune another one of my neighbors, while the invading army recovers in one of the conquered cities, quells resistors, waits for reinforcements to arrive and workers build or complete a road there.

After 20 turns of peace I would attack again, my neighbor would have built 2-3 new cities (thats the reason to leave him with at least 2, otherwise he would grow too slowly), which makes him fat enough for the next short ten-turn campaign. You can rinse-repeat this 2, at most 3 times, each time reinforcing your armies with some of the newest units, namely swordsmen and horsemen, maybe some catapults.

When the medieval age arrives, you should have as many land as 2-3 average AI civs (depending on the number of pruned neighbors) and hence, under Civ3 circumstances enough potential for a safe win of the game. At this point, you can either make vassals out of the remainders of your opponents, who are still at the size 2-4 cities only, or make them punching bags for leader generation, or if you like, just finish them off.

[maxcavsm]

Peace for 20 turns. 20 turns is the magic number. Now, why sometimes is there no way to see how many turns you have remaining in your peace treaty? Sometimes, you can go into details under the diplomacy screen to show you how many turns you have remaining.

Other times, peace treaties are delivered under the terms "In effect until war is declared again". Which is rather vague and ambiguous; I THINK that's usually when the 20 turns are up and they want to renegotiate or end the treaty, but it doesn't always seem like they do that (or is 20 turns a long time for me that I don't notice?).

Just curious, but is the end of a peace treaty always announced? Is the length always 20 turns? If the 20 turns is broken and the AI decides to attack (which seems to happen a lot if they have units stranded/deep in my territory), what are the diplomatic issues behind it?

[vmxa1]

Peace stays until you delcare explicitly or implicitly or renegoiate it.

[Harovan]

Every treaty lasts 20 turns for the first term. Some treaties are renegotiated, some not.

a) An unconditional peace is not renegotiated after 20 turns, but stays in power until war is declared.

b) A peace under conditions (giving money, cities, techs etc.) will be automatically renegotiated by the particular AI after 20 turns, however this time no conditions are accepted. So either you agree, or you decline, which is equivalent to a new declaration of war.

However in both cases, if you attack again before 20 turns are over, you are seen as treaty breaker and take a diplomatical hit.

[realpolitic]

"The purpose of war is not to die for your country, it's to have those other SOBs die for theirs." - Patton.

If you've only taken 1/3 of their cities, and they've poprushed to protect the others, they're already mortally wounded. If your war ends near their cipitol however, culture flips may occur, until you've increased yours.