Higher level Strategy

[The Andy-Man]

Ok, i have just won the space race on Prince as the english on the european map, at the same time as virtually wiping out the 2 most powerfull, advanced and largest civs (after me natch )

But it took me many tries and stuff to get the hang of a prince level game, and it took until i did it on a pre set map to acomplish.

So what do i need to know for the king and emperour level?

I have grasped the idea of grouping about 50 artillary/howitzer at the same time as building a railroad in peace time to mt enemies, but i have the problem of not always getting leanardo's workshop first or having my arse wooped before i can get the artillary built up!

[Scouse Gits]

Re: Higher level Strategy

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
So what do i need to know for the king and emperour level?

The quick answer is keep playing and experimenting with different strategies.

It helps if you:

Expand and explore quickly.
Use Caravans to build wonders - but choose your wonders carefully!
Start trading early - keep trading throughout the game.
Avoid building city improvements unless they are really necessary.
Reach an advanced form of government quickly. After Monarchy and Trade try targeting Democracy as the research goal and build the Statue of Liberty allowing the choice of all governments.

-------------

SG(2)

[Like2frolick]

A) Build city walls.
Set up defenses, and a rapid reaction force.

Expand/advance ASAP.

Crush anyone who's nearby. Take ruthless advantage of technical abilities.

Trade.

Use WLTxDs.
Once you have Monarchy, swap techs with everyone for anything except high level weapons tech..

[Scouse Gits]

Like2Frolick - that's twice I've seen your "Build city walls!" advice - not that it's bad advice, but hardly universal. I would normally prioritise Barracks before City Walls and hopefully the front line will remain sufficiently fluid that the number of Walls needed while retrenching between assaults is fairly limited. As a 'rabid aggressive rodent' (I do like that tag!) it is more important to have vet units for stomping than massive defenses (e.g. The Maginot Line!)

[The Andy-Man]

the only reason the maginot line failed was because the dumb french slapnuts didn't move it into germany as the germans advanced on belgium, if they had the germans would have had to retreat to defend the main country etc etc.

as for the city walls thing, i only attack the enemy city that has non and buy the one that has

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
the only reason the maginot line failed was because the ... french ... didn't move it into germany as the germans advanced on belgium, if they had the germans would have had to retreat to defend the main country etc etc.

How exactly does one move several hundred miles of redoubts, pillboxes, tunnels and other fixed fortifications?
Perhaps you are the ... ... ?

[The Andy-Man]

obviously you cant move the trenmches and stuff. I just ment if they had moved the troops forward with their guns and stuff into germany, the german army would not have continued the attack through belgium and would have had to go back and fight the french in germany. In this time, the other allied troops in the area (namly the british) could have followed the germans on the way back instead of retreating to dunkirk. therefore the german army would have been trapped between to forces inside its own teritory.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

The AI will be more efficient (faster production) at the higher levels, so you'll need to hone your use of city workers to maximize procuction or trade, as called for by the situation. Rush-building helps maximize your production when you are in a pinch. Paying attention to research speed and using caravans to build wonders in a single turn are also needed.

While sacking AI cities, if you must rush build an improvement to hold position, often a barracks is better than walls - it's cheaper, and can be used by all units coming thru. The AI will usually build fortresses within its kingdom, use them to hold your recent acquisitions.

Depending on the map, sometimes a beachhead city is a good idea to start an invasion of a large AI foe. Settle on good defensive terrain on the coast - ideally 2 squares from your first target, then sail in boatloads of bad guys. Once your welcome wagon is sufficiently large, go greet the neighbors.

good luck!

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
obviously you cant move the trenmches and stuff. I just ment if they had moved the troops forward with their guns and stuff into germany, the german army would not have continued the attack through belgium and would have had to go back and fight the french in germany. In this time, the other allied troops in the area (namly the british) could have followed the germans on the way back instead of retreating to dunkirk. therefore the german army would have been trapped between to forces inside its own teritory.

the strom troopers would have made piece meal of them once they left their defences,, thats why they couldnt advance into germany... if it was that easy, the French would have stopped the germans once they enteed france ,but the combined might of England and French forces couldnt do it ...

The problem with the maginot line was tha tit wasnt completed along the whole front, (government cutbacks) so the same goes for Civ, you will need City walls across the whole front to prevernt losing citys ....

[happy 2 B here]

While I'm no expert (this is just my second post here), I have been playing for about a year now and can offer a few general ideas you may find helpful. First, you need to define what your goals in the game are (ie building a perfectionist civ, wiping everyone else out, gettng to AC etc.), and then how you wish to pursue those goals. If you just wish to annialate everyone at an early date, you could simply tip a number of huts over and overwhelm the other early civs. Conversely, you could go the route of building Sun Tsu's and either crusaders or knights and a copious amount of diplomats to bring down city walls as well. This strategy tends to get a little on the tedious side, so a third option is to develop your science to the point that you can build all of the fun stuff like howies, armor, and stealth bombers, and then procede to rampage and bribe your way to success. Interestingly, this can be accomplished though the development of just a single SCC if you have Shake's Theater you can actually field a fairly large strike force and get a good bankroll each turn from that city to bribe other cities with after you conquer the capital. Many's the time that after launching a spaceship that I find myself on the verge of acutally conquering the known world after all the other civs declare war on me. To get a flavor for how to set up a SCC, I would direct you to Paul's classic thread on OCC in the great library, and to anything by Samson. Finally, don't be afraid to give techs away to the AI. The AI cannot make use of these techs in a meaningful way like you can. Its all about buying time in the beginning. The only techs I would withold would be combustion (read the thread on OCC) advanced flight (or stealth) or mobile warfare. I hope this isn't too long winded and is helpful.

[Like2frolick]

Hey! Built City walls is almost always good advice. Even if you can't HOLD the city, a pair of Vet defensive units behind it will rip a hole in the other guy's forces..and let you get some licks in.

At least, until Air units, and Howies come along. After which, City walls become obsolete.....

But in general, building city-walls will keep you safe for the vast majority of time. Unless the other guy throws a HUGE number of units at you(i.e. A Fanatic rush) or uses Siege as a strategy(That's where you move a "defensive" unit and an "offensive" unit together, like a Phalanx and catapault. The Phalanx is tough enough to defend, generally, and the Catapault is tough enough to reach through and kill a unit)

And even then, generally it takes a looooong time.

ANd of course, there's bribery..

But since the AI rarely bribes on lower levels(I.E. Prince) then city walls are an effective detterent.

[Edward]

The Andy-Man,

If you miss out on Leonardo's Workshop, you may need to avoid extraneous techs & wonders and improve your research rate. If you get your butt kicked, you may need to learn defense and how not to get pulled into an offensive war too early. You'll find Marc Fisher's essay Fire! (http://apolyton.net/civ2/tipshints/fire.zip) very enlightening for Civ2 war tactics.

One of the biggest changes you'll see as you go up in level is happiness becoming more of a concern. On lower levels you'll have the tech for Michaelangelo's Cathedral before happiness becomes an issue. On higher levels you'll find yourself racing the AI for the previously neglected Hanging Gardens. In fact the AI's increased advantages mean you'll have more competition for all wonders. You may have to start picking and choosing which ones you'll build. As happy 2 B here notes, your goal will determine your choice of wonders (and many other things). Are you an early warmonger (Hanging Gardens, Sun Tzu's War Academy) or a scientist who comes out kicking later (Colossus, Copernicus's Observatory)? Good advice can be radically different for different goals.

Assuming you're an expansionist, on the lower levels you could be very generous and give all your tiny far-flung villages banks, city walls, whatever they wanted. On higher levels you'll have to tighten up your game (as Scouse Gits suggests) and avoid building city improvements unless they're necessary. This is a big lesson for players going up in level to learn. Often you don't see the extra city improvements pushing up your tax rate or stiffling your settler production. You just sense a general stagnation and a feeling of not being able to expand as quickly as you used to. Cut the fat!

If you're new to this board, research the concept of a Super Science City (SSC) happy 2 B here alludes to. The AI is going to become more of a contender science-wise. You can keep ahead by putting complimentary wonders and city improvements in a single city and letting their effects multiply one another.

Another thing that Scouse Gits mentions (man, you packed a lot of wisdom into your little post) is setting up trade routes. I used to only build caravans to help build wonders quickly. Especially in the later game when there aren't as many other priorities, you'll be surprised at how effective just cranking out caravans from the majority of your cities can be. Remember that every route you set up brings in some additional arrows every turn. And one of the biggest things I learned on this board - when you get your one-time money coin bonus for delivering a caravan you get an equal amount of science beakers. This can make your research soar.

A final idea, if you haven't made good use of Marco Polo's Embassy before, give it a try. A warmonger can exact tons of gold in tribute and also find all his enemies' cities. A scientist can see who has the techs he needs and what foreign cities would make the best trade partners.

Best of luck.

[Rasputin]

yes i must use Marcos .. i have never ever built it ... damn my silly mistake

[The Andy-Man]

damn thats alot of (good) advice!!!!

I learnt some of it the hard way to, like sending int a defensive unit forward aswell as catapults/cannon/howitzer.

I mean, on cheftain, you can conquer a 30 city empire with 2 legions, it wasn't untill warlord and prince the AI ever retaliated against one move units - so i just built a fortress next to his city plus a muskateer (or whatever) and then about 20 cannon

Its just that on higher levels, i normally (if i do a random map) start on an island with someone else, and i know that you have to whip 'em quick, but thats hard with 6 cities defended only by a phalanx and 4 sttlers!!!!


The advice about building as few city improvments as possible is interesting, it reminds me a little of the book 1984 - war is peace. So you think its better to have a city waste all its production sheild on stacking 20 tanks in it as aposed to having a nice lil' cathederal to make the people happy? Wait, i always use fundamentalism any way - with 35 cities i can get the science rate down to 6 turns, make 300 profit from tax and a nice luxury rate

thx for all this help anyway, i will be alot the wiser...i think.

[The Andy-Man]

and back to the maginot line, if we are gonna talk about it in civ terms, the waste of units would have atleast slowed down the german push whilst reinforcments were sent. But this was difficult at the time, but personaly, had i been the leader of the french or english i would have got the russians and americans involved quicker. And maybe the spanish, but they were just coming out of a civil war (i think), but if they hadn't forced germany to sign the treaty of versaille in 1918, non of it would have happend.