AU 101: Crowding & War

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Arrian

By the way, I lied (unintentionally of course): I also did not use chariots, longbowmen, marines or paratroopers.

-Arrian

This is off topic, but I really don't like the use of "lie" to describe such misstatements because it reduces the impact of the word. To me (and to at least one of my dictionaries), a false statement has to be deliberate to qualify as a lie. "I misspoke" would be a better way of putting it.

Nathan

[Theseus]

/ joking

I'm actually mad here... Arrian didn't use CHARIOTS??!!

/ end joking

[Harovan]

I used chariots, but I didn't take cities with them.

I used in wars and took cities with:
Archers (most cities on my home continent)
Spearmen (few cities, finished off the 1hp defender)
Swordsmen (1 city)
Horsemen (1 city)
Samurai (half of Egypt)
Cavalries (other half of Egypt, part of Greece)
Infantries/Artilleries (part of Greece)
Tanks (1 city so far, will be more soon)

I used in wars, but did not take cities with:
Warriors (2 cities autorazed)
Chariots
Longbowmen (only one upgraded leader archer)
Musketmen (one upgraded spearman, defensive only)

I did not use in wars:
Pikemen
Riflemen

For the final war (which I try to free time for since days) I have additionally ready:
8 Paratroopers
8 Marines
20 Mech Infantries

I won't wait for Modern Armor though (sigh, I could have met this decision long ago).

[Aeson]

I think keeping the AI's cities was a big part of why my tech rate was as fast as it was. I only targetted cities I knew I wouldn't have to raze. After Mysticism, my research was always at 70% or higher, often at 100%. Beelined for Literacy, then the Republic, freely trading those techs to the Iroquois for the 'military' advances they seemed to target. After switching to a Republic, I had enough libraries and commerce (the city with 3 gold really helped, built on 1) to research every tech from then on in 4 turns.

Between the palace jump and Leader, every city was highly productive. Keeping the Iroquois small, so as not to have to expend much time building units really helped in building infrastructure as well.

I just wish I had thought to take a city with Spearmen (with proper catapult support of course). I think that was the only unit I didn't use.

[Arrian]

Nathan,

Err, ok. Of course I misspoke. "I lied" was said in jest. I should perhaps have included a smilie.

Theseus,

Glad you like STCOMOM. Blatant rip-off from the original Men in Black there ("that rates about a 9.0 on my wierd****ometer")

Aeson,

I kept captured AI towns too, razing only a couple of them. I think another major difference was your early contact with the overseas civs... or rather my late contact with them. Once I caught up in tech I did great because of all that gold we had (my FP city was built on one of the gold hills). But I was just too damn slow in getting a galley out there. Hell, it was blind luck that my very first suicide run worked (three straight turns ended in ocean on the way to Egypt). Can you believe that? I shudder to think what would have become of my civ it required several tries.

-Arrian

[W4r_Machine]

Originally posted by Aeson
I think keeping the AI's cities was a big part of why my tech rate was as fast as it was. I only targetted cities I knew I wouldn't have to raze. After Mysticism, my research was always at 70% or higher, often at 100%. Beelined for Literacy, then the Republic, freely trading those techs to the Iroquois for the 'military' advances they seemed to target. After switching to a Republic, I had enough libraries and commerce (the city with 3 gold really helped, built on 1) to research every tech from then on in 4 turns.

Aeson, what do you do to keep you science that high while supporting a large millitary? MY millitary was big but that was because I set my research to zero hoping that I'll get all my tech through war, which I did.

Also, perhaps I did a little to much razing and producing my own setler that set my growth back. When I met the english in 2800 she only had York and London so I had no choice but to raze York(I did it 3 times). I didn't think 3 vet warriors can take London, and 3 vet archers to take Salmanaca so I just kept hunting those 1 sized cities and ocationally taking cities with 2 pop.

[nbarclay]

I finally got a single leader on my home continent attacking England's last city. I waited a while and built Magellan's with it, figuring it would come in handy for overseas invasions. But when I finally met up with the other civs, I wasn't where I really wanted to be tech-wise. Egypt, France, and Greece all entered the industrial era just a little ahead of me, ending up with Nationalism. My invasion fleet canceled its plans to hit Egypt and headed south to Rome instead.

The conquest of Rome's three cities occurred the turn after my landing. Five of my seven galleons then took on troops and headed on to Persia, while two returned to the mainland to pick up additional forces. Persia was bigger than Rome and held out longer, but the superior quality of my forces proved decisive. (I persuaded the Greeks to ally with me against Persia, so they helped a little in keeping Persia busy.) The objectives of those wars were (1) to gain luxuries and (2) to give me eventual staging areas on both other continents.

It wasn't very far into the industrial age before I pulled ahead in tech, and then started pulling away. Egypt demanded one of my techs and declared war when I wouldn't give them something for nothing. For the first time, I found the draft a really useful tool; I lost two of my three Roman cities but managed to hold onto Rome itself. And Egypt suffered very heavy losses; even conscript infantry are pretty powerful defenders when the best attackers are infantry and cavalry and a lot of the attackers are riflemen. And they don't stay conscripts for long. Better, the Egyptians are now living under a communist regime, so at least for the moment, they won't be competing seriously in research. I'd dragged Greece and France into the Egyptian war with me, and Greece is still fighting Egypt. (I made peace when the initial alliance expired. Egypt had already pillaged two of my three gem tiles and I didn't want to take a chance on losing access to the third, and war weariness was becoming a nuisance.)

So now it's 1445 and I'm just a few turns away from having Motorized Transportation. Before long, I'll have tanks, and rush-building airports on the other continents will let me get them where I need them not long after (along with the numerous infantry I built on the home continent once cities ran out of better things to do). I'll probably take out Greece's core with tanks (possibly in concert with mech inf, depending on exactly when I attack) and then wait for Modern Armor to deal with Egypt and France.

Nathan

[Harovan]

Finished 1772 AD with 4799 score points. I accidentally triggered domination, because that crappy island city expanded (which I already had forgotten about...). Fun game overall, but the late game was somehow similar to MT III, I had half an era tech lead and fought with unfair units. I had given up my plan to wait for MA at half way. Could have finished a lot earlier, if I did not wait.

To my list of units adds Mech Infantry. My Paratroopers failed to take their objective, because probably 8 bombers on 2 carriers I gave them as support were not enough. The last Infantry in the city (elite with 2 hp left) killed four of them without losing a single hp.

I'm gonna have a break of civing now. I hardly find time to play anyway . Job and family. Oh well. I think I'll play again in end of August or so.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Holy sh|t, is domination left on?? I'm about 60 tiles under the domination limit in my game... Theseus? I thought it was off?

EDIT: Make that 6, not 60. Damn, that was close. But later I won via domination though.

PS: And this was meant to be an edit, not reply with quoting myself. Damn, guess I need a vacation

[nbarclay]

I'm up to 1545 and recently captured Greece's core (including Sun Tsu's, Leonardo's, and Universal Suffrage) with tanks. I'm two techs into the modern era (Computers and Rocketry) but can't keep up a four-turn tech pace without running a significant deficit, so I'm going to research Amphibious Warfare to give my finances a breather. (Plus, marines will give me an opportunity for an end run around the mountains guarding Egypt against attacks launched from Rome.) Egypt is still communist and still, after all these years, in a war with what little is left of Greece (one city on the French coast and one city on a tiny island). France is number two in tech, but it's also number one on my target list for when I get Modern Armor, and I seriously doubt that they'll get tanks before they get killed.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Game over, 1645 AD. The invasion of France was a classic two-turn Modern Armor blitz, leaving France with only two island cities (one of which I later gained in a peace treaty). The only thing unusual about the war was how thoroughly France's military was upgraded to Infantry, which made the assault more expensive than I had counted on. Then again, with well over a hundred battalions of Modern Armor, I could afford "more expensive".

I then shuttled five transport-loads of troops from the French continent to Rome, sent four transports back for a second load, and had the fifth transport in the area pick up some Marines that had been airlifted from the homeland to Rome so they could capture Greece's last island. I'd already captured their city on the former French coast, and if they weren't willing to make peace, my alternative was to finish the job of carving them into pieces. In the meantime, additional newly built marines, modern armor, and the occasional bomber were airlifted to Rome.

The conquest of Egypt was complicated by two stall-points where modern armor could not get through to the Egyptian core in a single turn. One was the mountains north of Rome, and the other was the isthmus connecting Roman territory with the majority of Egypt's cities. But my marines knew exactly how to deal with such problems. After heavy airstrikes by my bombers, they captured the city north of Rome, allowing Modern Armor (supported by lighter units) to get through to two more otherwise unreachable cities. Then another transport-load of marines, supported by naval gunfire, invaded a city south of Thebes. Two transport-loads of Modern Armor followed up by capturing Thebes and the Egyptian city that held cultural control of the isthmus, clearing the way for units from Rome to strike into what little was left of the Egyptian core. By the time the initial invasion was over, Egypt had only five cities left on its home continent, all protected by mountains.

At that point, domination kicked in. My score of 4642 wasn't a record-breaker, but it wasn't too bad considering how small the home continent was. And the conquest of Thebes had finished giving me control of all the world's great wonders.

After the win, I decided to finish playing out the conquest of the Egyptian home continent. (After all, if all went well, it wouild be over by the end of the turn.) Modern armor and older elite forces captured the three northern surviving Egyptian cities. Marines supported by naval gunfire captured the southernmost, which would have taken a bit longer to reach by land, and a mixed force of elite units landed in that city and captured the Egyptian city a little to the north. That left Egypt with two small towns and France with one, all on the island south of the Japanese homeland.

Marines can definitely be fun for attacking areas where the terrain gets in the way of a classic blitz. I'm still not convinced that Amphibious Warfare is normally worth the delay in climbing the tech tree. But in certain types of specialized situations, especially if dropping back and researching Amphibious Warfare provides a much-needed opportunity to replenish gold reserves stripped bare by deficit spending on modern techs, it can be worthwhile. (In such situations, the effective cost in turns can drop from four to two or three, which is a lot easier for marines to pay back by speeding up attacks. The same could go for using Amphibous Warfare research as an opportunity to build up gold for upgrades from Tanks to Modern Armor if modern research can be done in four turns at roughly break-even.)

Nathan

[Dimension]

Why so scared of the Iroquois? I've never had a problem with them, and they were serious pushovers on this map -- I didn't finish them off till about 700AD, and they never even built their UU.

Since the start was right by a luxury, I built a barracks first while I put a road on the dyes, then just made five warriors and sent them off wandering. By the time I built my 2nd warrior, England already had their own warrior wandering around Kyoto, so I went up and found London, pillaged both their mines and razed their 2nd city right after it was built, then I waited a couple turns for them to get Warrior Code before I signed a treaty and got all their stuff. I just wandered all around Iroquois territory, and they weren't doing much at all. I razed a little city they put just west of Kyoto with some archers, and then traded for their map and tech, and they just had one source of horses right next to their capital, which they didn't even bother putting a road on. I kept going in and pillaging the resources around their capital, but they just built mines and irrigation, and never bothered putting a road on the horses.

About the 3rd or 4th Galley I sent out actually made it to the Romans, then I traded for all communications and a few more techs. I actually built the Great Library with manual labor, which gave me 10 techs. I finally finished off the English and Iroquois. I got 24 captured workers from them pretty early, so I only had to build one Worker the whole game. The only pre-Industrial leader I got built the Sistine Chapel.

Around the 1300's, things got bad. The AI's all got Nationalism before I did, and I had switched to Democracy and was beelining for Replacable Parts. I had hoped to build up and finish my rail network before I worried about anybody, but Greece started sending landing parties of Cavalry. My luxuries started disappearing as there was a new military alliance against me every turn. They took Hastings, Nottingham, Nagoya, and Nagasaki. I got back Hastings, and they took it again. I would swear Greece landed Cavalry from Caravels and took a city the same turn every time... Does the AI not have to wait a turn to attack? Then they would draft Musketmen the same turn. I wasn't saving and I didn't have autosave on, so maybe I just wasn't paying attention. I managed to get replacable parts and fire up the Golden Age with my single Samurai, though. I upgraded some defenders to Musketmen, and with my minimal rail system managed to keep them from wiping me out while I built six Cavalry. Tokyo was well connected with rails, had a barracks, and had just finished the Iron Works, so my miniscule army got replacments on time. In 1480, I had all my cities back, my rail network complete, and had managed to get France and Egypt in a military alliance against Greece by giving out Medicine and Electricity. At the end of the turn Greece wanted a treaty. I didn't want to sign it, but it seemed like a good idea for a Democracy, and it doubled the number of cities I had celebrating. I was still the only one with Replacable Parts, which was nice.

It was the first game I've played where I could say my Golden Age was perfectly timed. It ended in 1550 after giving me a tech edge throughout the Industrial Age and helping develop almost all my cities all the way up to Factories. I really shot ahead of the AI during my Golden Age and even got Sufferage and Hoover Dam. I used to like playing the Aztecs for Religious/Scientific, because I liked exploring and stealing workers with Jaguar Warriors... But now I think I like the Japanese much better. Being the only civ to start with The Wheel was a great thing, since I could extort other early techs and get to Horseback Riding fast. I could care less about Samurai having an extra point of defense, but if you can hold off attacking with them a little, they can give you a very optimal Golden Age without having to try and trigger it with a wonder.

When I finished with Egypt, I razed all the Greek cities. The war I had incited against Greece really hurt, because by the time I got to them they were only occupying the two tiny islands south of my starting continent. I was going to wait till I got Modern Armors to finish off everybody else... but I didn't remember I needed Rocketry to get Aluminum. I was just thinking all the Aluminum was in enemy territory, so I slowed my research way down and went for Fission. Damn Firaxis for not putting that little aluminum can icon on the F6 screen under Rocketry

I made the game last a lot longer than I had to, but that was because I was doing all my own research. I stopped trading techs with the AI in the middle of the Industrial age (although a couple times I sold them techs 2 or 3 behind what I was researching). I got Motorized Transport and dropped a bunch of tanks on Egypt. Everybody on this forum seems to have all kinds of horror stories about culture-flipping, but I took Memphis and kept it, right in the middle of Egypt's empire, who was a close 2nd to me culturally. It kept its Barracks when I took it, which was nice. I paid for a Temple, then used leaders to rush a Cathedral and Harbor, so I could setup Spice, Silk, and Gem colonies on Egypt's continent. Once the rest of the continent was empty, I just left it empty and used the barbarians for target practice to get a tank each turn to Elite then airdrop it to the war front. I ended up getting 14 leaders total, but all but the first one were made with tanks and came after the good wonders were already taken. Oddly enough, all of them were named Fujiwara, Hirohito, or Tojo... is that the only names available for the Japanese?

I spent the last half of the game going around with four carriers and 16 bombers, bombing almost every turn. It is a little frustrating that bombers fail more than half the time. I started keeping track, and almost every turn I would get 10 failed bombing runs out of 16. When I could only get two carriers to a front, my bombing was totally ineffective. It's a little sad that a carrier full of bombers does almost nothing, even against a city belonging to a civ that hasn't even discovered flight.

Things seemed to go really slow even after I got tanks. I guess that's just the way Civ is, but the only way I've ever even won before was by culture or spaceship. I had tanks in the 1600's, but didn't get everybody taken care of till much later. I landed a bunch of tanks on the next continent and took Susa for a place to heal and airdrop. Memphis, Susa and Paris were the only cities I kept (Paris had Magellan). In 1888, the only AI cities left were a size 8 and a size 1 Persian city, which I was in position to easily take next turn. Then, in 1890, "Terrible news, Lord! The people of Susa have deposed our governor and pleged allegiance to the trecherous Persians!" Pretty funny, when I had 73,240 culture and Persia's borders were nowhere near the city. The only defender in the city was one Infantry. The Persians did have a lot of culture. I had almost exactly 3X as much, but they were still not "In awe." Anyway, in 1890 I razed the first two cities, then in 1892 I razed the flipped city, but oddly, the game didn't end... Persia had managed to produce a settler, found a 2nd city on the continent with the flipped one, and produce two riflemen fortified in the city in one turn! I could only kill one rifleman that turn and drop 8 elite tanks back on the continent. Then, the next turn, in 1894 Persia produced a 3rd rifleman to guard the city, produced a settler and founded ANOTHER city, put a rifleman in that city, and produced a stack of 3 more riflemen and 3 bowmen and marched it into my territory! How does a civ with just ONE newly-founded city produce 8 units (including a settler) in one turn? Now that's some cheating! Believe me, I checked, and I had access to the whole continent. Those units were all produced in one turn. I'll attach the 1892 savegame if anybody wants to see. Anyway, I managed to raze the 4th city in 1894 and won... and it just happened to be the same turn I finally got Rocketry and all the aluminum showed up

I suppose that although I technically followed the rules, I really didn't follow the intent... I only took one city with most units. I mostly took my continent with Horsemen, only a few cities with Cavalry, and wiped everybody out with Tanks. But hey, this is the first game I've played on Emperor. The only other full games I played were a Warlord game with Greece, a couple Reagent games with Egypt and a couple Monarch games with the Aztecs.

[Mad Cleric]

Well, I may be new, but here is my opinion...

Well, I have found that there is too distinction in the way you play as a war-monger: people who use fast units, and those with single move units.

Speed, (in my opinion) is the dominate factor in winning this game, I have not played a game yet were I don't use a fast offensive of at least two-six moves per turn.
Yea, I can understand using archer rushes, you can make them from start with military civs, but, if you are going to use them right, I have always made a road from my capital to enemy civ, though my capital was suffering from not helping its tiles, my military campaing was brightrning because I caught all the civs while they were still using warriors and I was on their door-step with archers. I instantly just started making a road to the enemy civs, nothing else really matters unless your a builder, just a nice road, and nothing will stop you.

Also, what makes the road so deadly I found is that archers moving at 3 turns per turn can ussauly get to an enemy civ on a small map that is pangea within 1-10 turns, where-as using a roadless offensive, it would take 10-20 turns, see the difference?

Oh yea, also, when you are attacking an enemy civ, the roads will automatical near connect the two cities in the case you capture it, this being an automatic plus if you want to keep it.

There is an extreme downside of this though, if you ffail to destroy the target on the other side of the road, the AI mght send a devasating counter attack, and use the very same roads to their advantage, this has happened to me many times.

Well, that is my thought, for what it is worth...

-Ronald

[Mad Cleric]

Also, if you are going to use my road thought effectivly, it migth be better to just pick an industrious civ, any oher will simply take two long, I have experimented with a worker being the second thing I build after scout, i think it would work well, because using the chinese, two workers could lay a road in one turn, and considering how much time it takes to get enough archers, you could be real far out

[Cort Haus]

AU101 on PTW

So, I finally play AU101, and I'll post a full report of my game soon, (if anyone's still interested) but I just want to mention what happens on PTW:

Airstrips, outposts and radars are there, but not the units or buildings of PTW. I wonder if the startgame can be 'upgraded'?

Another difference is that the AI cities are, it seems, better defended in PTW than Civ 3.0, and it fights a bit better (more stacks, less dribbles - and archer/spear combos).

I don't usually play either bloodlust or continents (or emperor), and had a lot of fun. It was great to be overstocked with resources for a change compared with my usual, peacenik-trading games, and I don't recall having a 400 unit army before. These free wonders you can get when warring are brilliant - I got five leaders and it could have been 10 if I hadn't been holding on to them, waiting for the wonder techs.

I didn't get all the wonders (I let my good friend Egypt keep two ) but took cities with archers. horses, swords, Samurai, cav and tanks and triggered domination in 1772 (hey Ralph!) finishing off Persia with tanks/bombers/arty.

No gold star for a warrior rush (still possible on PTW?) - I didn't understand the spec and used a Ralph-style archer-rush opening - but I did use catapults & cannons, and only broke one treaty.

Long live the AU!