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  • AC Strategy

    I'm getting ready to start another game and for the first time, will be going for AC. In the at least two strategy guides I've read, they talk about going total warfare, eliminating all but one enemy city and then go for launch. That doesn't sound any different than all of the total warfare games that I've done. We've been discussing a non-agressive approach in another thread and would like to ask the question here: Is it easy or hard to go for AC without eliminating most of your opponents? What are the advantages/disadvantages of keeping some strong civs alive for trading and to what extent would this help or hurt in launching first?

  • #2
    I think the game is much more fun when you allow other civs to stay strong. One of the things I learned from OCC was that AC launch was possible with a smaller civ and the science city can be a real boost.

    With efficient use of a science city and trade caravans you can easily stay in first place in technology, but rival civs will always try to steal space flight once you get it, so make sure you are ready to quickly build a space ship when you get there. Store up food caravans to build Apollo (12 will build it without any production in the city) and enough caravans in outlying cities to build space ship parts quickly or you may be unable to keep up with the pace of the AI.

    An aggressive defense network can thwart the AIs ability to wage war. Build some fortresses on Mountains between you and your nearest rival and put a couple of vet defensive units and a cannon type piece in it and you can hold off most AI attacks. The AI has enormous difficulty moving ships effectively so plan your trade routes to take advantage of where they do not go. (this requires some scouting and trial and error.) Coastal fortresses work better for me than a navy, especially when I don't have very many cities.

    If you have a choice of who to trade with, pick a perfectionist civ that doesn't have very many cities, they are more likely to have more trade arrows.

    In summary, going to AC without eliminating most of your opponents is not any more difficult than moving a ton of military pieces all over the board, it is just a different kind of difficulty.
    Be the bid!

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    • #3
      OK, I just started the game last night (emperor, normal, 7 civs) and instead of posting a new topic, would like to ask about the start. The game put me in a good spot and at 5 turns, am getting ready to found my first city on grass/shield with a whale and pheasant. I also tipped 4 huts without reloading and now have 1 NONE horsemen and 3 NONE chariots. However, because of this good location, I don't have any starting techs. This concerns me because I feel I am behind already. Would I be able to catch up? Should I agressively find and eliminate other civs with those NONE units or concentrate on find the other hut patterns?

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      • #4
        catching up shouldn't be that much of a problem...
        general exploring could do both of those options, or possibly find new spots for cities
        hell, build great library if you are that worried...as you've got a great start spot you won't be short of resources for it

        By the end, I wouldn't bother keeping other civs alive, except for a few token cities...your empire size (ie the world) would make up for it, especially as 30 000is the maximum gold (which is relatively easy to obtain if you try). Basically, kill em
        May you live in Interesting Times...

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        • #5
          Good God man look at yourself! five turns in and your peaceful strategy is already out the window! If your going to play peacefully on your way to AC then this nonsense about the chariots is going to have to end here.
          First off you are not behind. AI builds where it starts, and while the debate rages on about the merits and demerits of this, I think it is folly itself. You've got yourself a nice starting point and a stack of units to go and find the huts with, fantastic. You'll get loads of techs out of all the huts you'll be grabbing and the gold will let you rush build the value of the shields you've missed out on if need be. Also, all grassland becomes shielded grassland if you put a town on it... so don't waste one by putting a town on it unless it is the only way to get in the whale and pheasant.
          It is more fun to race other contenders to AC than to cripple them early- mid game and play out the last two hundred turns wondering what the point is, keep them in contention. Also, research all around space flight before you get it. The moment you have it EVERY civ in the game will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you won't trade/give it to them. this means you can get to the techs neccessary for the modules and whatnot first. Finally, but importantly make sure you have a number of towns churning out eighty shields a turn as this is what a SS structural costs and one of those a turn is invaluable.

          Good luck!
          www.neo-geo.com

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          • #6
            Steve:
            Dont worry, you will be fine. If you are concerned about falling behind, just dont tip any more huts until you develop Monarchy. An extra tech from a hut will slow you down.

            ------------------
            Old posters never die, they just f.a.d.e..a..w..a..y . . .

            Old posters never die.
            They j.u.s.t..f..a..d..e...a...w...a...y....

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            • #7
              I think you are off to a great start. Keep hut tipping, but you may want to leave a few un opened if you get too many techs without getting Monarchy. (I do what Adam recommends and wait until I have Monarchy to trade and tip.)

              On emporer I think you can build 6 cities in Despo and 12 cities in Monarchy without major unhappiness problems - don't expand faster than your govt allows.

              With the pheasant and the whale, use the whale first, the trade arrows are vital at this early stage. Eventually you may want to irrigate the pheasant to a buffalo so you can get trade arrows from the square. If you build the Colossus, you will get 3food,2shields,0trade from a pheasant, and 2f,3s,2t from a road & irrigated buffalo under Monarchy.

              If you have explored a bit and found an AI civ, you can block them from being able to progress toward your civ without going to war with them if you want. Because of your two movement points vs AI settlers one, you can control passes to available grassland. (the AI only builds cities on grassland squares and won't build next to one of your units)

              Try to tip huts with your first movement point, if it is in grass or plains, you can attack the barb that shows up.

              Don't be too afraid to trade techs with the AI, you can make friends to your advantage, especially about maps and the monarchy path.

              Since you are playing peaceful, make sure your territory is easily defended, open ground is tough to guard in later govts without none units because of the unhappiness trouble. One good solution for this is dip guards, they don't require support, they can bribe, they move 2, and don't cause unhappiness in Rep and Demo.

              Obviously I would rather be civing than working...
              [This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited December 02, 1999).]
              Be the bid!

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              • #8
                Sten always knows whats best, but I always seem to disagree. I think you should build as many towns as possible at the start, even if the population is elvised for the first couple of thousand years city squares are better than or as good as any other tiles out there. So you lose one population off a town (it works one less tile) but you get another tile that will be at least as good instead, and if you can afford the luxury bill, you'll get two tiles. I say grow like a maniac. You may have useless cities for a while but when you get Mike's or the Hanging Gardens your Civ will tear away from the pack. Please let the other Civs race you to AC, it is just so dull otherwise.

                Of course there is always, especially in Civ, there is more than one to skin a cat.
                [This message has been edited by johnmcd (edited December 03, 1999).]
                www.neo-geo.com

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                • #9
                  Thanks for the advices. Did about 30 turns last night, got 6 cities, building roads and got 5 units exploring. I think I'm going to go with the strategy of finding most of the other civs, trade with them (a new concept for me since my inclination is to destroy them) and exchange knowledge. I got a good start on good city sites, so I think I'll race them toward AC. Will see.

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                  • #10
                    I'd wager that by 18000AD you'll be so annoyed by AI attacks that you'll be at war with (or have already destroyed) at least two civs. By 1900 you'll be on total conquest. That's my guess anyway.


                    [This message has been edited by Campo (edited December 03, 1999).]

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                    • #11
                      Well, I am now a convert of the trade strategy. Once I got the units exploring away from my area, I got lucky in finding about 24 huts and getting 10 techs from them including Monarchy, Polytheism, Trade and Invention. I got to Monarchy in 2000bc and started to find the other civs at 1500bc. Made peace with all of them and end up getting 6 techs in exchange. That all got me caught up and easily the leader in science.

                      In the meantime, I've built 12 cities now all at size 4-6. I used 6 of them to constantly build caravans for wonders and trading from my super science city along an extensive road network. I built the Great Library, Copernicus, Michelangelo, Bach, KRC and Leonardo primarily all with caravans.

                      My science city established 3 routes with other capitals (each adding about 8 beakers per trade) and with Colossus/Copernicus/Library/University, it is now producing 76 beakers, and Isaac is coming shortly.

                      The Great Library was actually beneficial to me (whodathunk). Since I concentrated on the Theology and Invention vectors, I ended up getting 4 techs through the Great Library (Banking, Iron, Seafaring and Bridge).

                      I am now sitting at 900ad with my civ #1 and the Mongols are too far away to cause me trouble. The strategy of maximizing production to produce caravans for generating beakers is perfect. I will now preach the advantages of caravans, easily the most valuable unit in the game.

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                      • #12
                        johnmcd - "Sten always knows whats best, but I always seem to disagree." LoL (I only disagree with about half of my posts!)

                        Steve - all of your cities are size 4-6... hopefully your science city is bigger! & are you still in Monarchy or have you switched to Rep or Demo?


                        [This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited December 06, 1999).]
                        Be the bid!

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                        • #13
                          Sten: Haven't researched Democracy yet, so still at Monarchy. I am concentrating on building up the science city and should be at 8 very soon. You do know best so what are you thinking?

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                          • #14
                            Two things come to my infinite Winnie-the-Pooh mind.

                            The first is to consider switching to Republic. There are some support and happiness problems with doing so, but by keeping all of your NONE units for blockades outside of your city, (units away from cities cause unhappiness unless they are NONE) you should be able to disband some extra units (great for getting a head start on building something) and reduce the size of your army. In Rep, you don't get the benefit of Martial law so three units in each city is too many. (Since you have MC and JSB you should be able to be happy without a ton of luxury tax.) One of the big benefits of Rep is the ability to grow your cities by using WLTCD. If you have a temple and marketplace, you can turn up luxuries to 40 or 50% and after the first turn of celebrating your city grows by 1 population point every addition turn it is celebrating. In a few turns all of your cities will be maximum size. For your science city, you may want to build an aquaduct so it can get to size 12 before you reduce luxuries back down to 0 or 10%.

                            Second wee thought - (Rankin' Roger &) The Specials: Where are they in your city square? If you tilt the following grid so that the twelve is the top of the clock face, you can see the pattern of a four special city - where # = outside the city range, C = city center, S = specials, and X = other squares in the city perimeter.

                            9-S-X-X-12
                            X-X-X-X-S
                            X-X-C-X-X
                            S-X-X-X-X
                            6-X-X-S-3

                            You mentioned two specials, whale and pheasant, if you have them on an "S" in the above grid and grassland at the other "S"s you may have some hidden special, which are great to develop in your science city. Mine them to turn them into forests and you may discover silk or pheasants. (pheasants I always irrigate to plains for the buffalo instead.) Now that you have Bridge Building make sure that you road all river squares in your science city. With Colossus and Republic, those extra trade arrows are great.

                            I wrote this up in four interupted segments so if it is totally incomprehensible, I apologize in advance!
                            Be the bid!

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                            • #15
                              All this is vedry interesting, as my usual strategy is to aim for AC. However, I am still learning all the little fine points. I wasn't fully aware that happiness was partially controlled the number of cities you have under any particular form of government.

                              Yeah, read the Manual!

                              Except that sopme things, even some important things, don't seem to be in the manual in the section where you'd expect them to be, and little nuisances like that.

                              Only in my last game, for intance, did I manage to avoid building too many units for the available supply (partly by sending some units to other cities, partly by building up the population by doing buildings as well as units.)

                              And at the present point, early 1900s, I have supermarkets in practically every town, and most of the land turned into farmland, so I have little fear of runnning out of food.

                              But all these adjustments to make your science better, to increase production, to make Happiness more than something to suddenly worry about when half your cities are going up in smoke?

                              Well, I'm getting there, thanks to this forum

                              JimW

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