AU 206: Gallic Glory - Stories and Strategy Tips

[badams52]

Originally posted by Fosse
I am strongly considering an army, the pyramids, and waiting for a palace. I decide to go with the pyramids for a few reasons: the AI has been building them for centuries, this will surly hurt them a bit. I'm wrapping up my war with China, and have a HUGE tract of land to drop settlers into. I'm sure having free granaries from turn 1 for about a dozen cities would be nice. So I do it.

Yes, you might waste some AI shields in one city by rushing the pyramids, but if you feel one AI on your continent will get it first, I like the option to let them build the pyramids and take it later.

[badams52]

Re: Ralph counts his Armies

Originally posted by Dominae
Lesson 5: Armies are a quite viable choice for an Great Leader. If you're doing a lot of fighting and have the Heroic Epic, there is not much point in waiting to have access to a good Wonder to do something with a Great Leader. Armies are better than any "normal" city improvement, too.

While armies are nice, I rarely use them for the offensive and usually use them for the defensive value as the AI has an avoidance policy towards them. They're great for a denial of resource. Better in PTW where they pillage.

I'm (and especially in AU206) too busy using elites to try and get great leaders to use armies in an offensive fashion. Of course once I have a great leader in the field and he's in transit, then I might use my armies.

[badams52]

Originally posted by Dominae
Heh, I hope you're getting the Seinfeld reference (it cracks me up!).

Maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking De Niro here...

[badams52]

Re: Ralph does the Archer rush

Originally posted by Dominae
22 hours gone and I've finished yet another AU course. All in all a fun game, at least in comparison to NIC, which sucks the life right out of you (I'll never forgive you badams!).

I'll wear that like a badge of honor. But it did teach us that if you're not going for UP, domination is easier than you think.

[badams52]

Originally posted by Arrian
That is the most valuable lesson I learned when I jumped up to Emperor back before PtW came out. I was having trouble in the early game, so I started taking chances, and then discovered that those "risky" things weren't as risky as I had thought. Settler bopping is a relatively easy way to do serious harm to a neighbor. Even just running around his territory breaking things with an exploring warrior can cripple them, and gain you concessions.

Early victorious war is always very helpful. Win early = win late. I remember when I was afraid of war and I was often lacking startegic resources and paying for many luxuries. Then I found out how easy a large force overruns most AI opponents and I've never had luxury, strategic resource problems again.

Kind of makes me want to take what I've learned in Civ III and go back and apply it to Civ II. Though if I remember correctly, taking cities in Civ II is much more difficult as the AI stacks his units in his cities and that blasted ZOC.

But what I've really learned in Civ III is that the couter to the REX strategy (which worked great in Civ I and II) is the early war strategy.

[Catt]

Nice AAR's all - I am sorry I missed this one.

badams52 - have you fallen off the wagon yet? And was your (temporary) exile self-imposed or spouse-imposed? On a more serious note, I also think the "keep an OCC civ around for technology advantage" is a worthwhile strategy. Unless I have any real fear of flips, or unless an OCC's presence bears additional indirect costs to me, I like to frequently leave them alive for (1) the tech pricing issues you identify, and (2) the role-playing pleasure of allowing them to forever dwell on their mistakes in challenging the strength of my civ. A few OCCs also offer the flexibility of "managing" the majority needed for a UN win -- 6 civs left and I need 4 votes? but if one of the OCCs (who hates me the most) were to retire, then I only need 3 votes . . .

nbarclay - I too like the format of replay screens which show the whole map -- but I'd also like to see regular old screenshots as well -- getting the occasional glimpse at city spacing, troop dispositions, income slider positions, treasury, research goal, etc. helps me get a feel for a specific instant.

Dominae - very good lessons -- I like that format as well (but where is lesson 4?). And though I play a style somewhere in between (and far from) "optimal for the win" and "UP," I too am not a huge fan of playing for UP (*ducks*), though I do like to see Arrian's and others' reports on what they achieve and how they achieve it. But my "UP-like" tendencies of building and some of the micro-management that it requires come from a similar dislike of achieving strategic parity/lead and then rolling over opponents towards a domination win (as NIC games teach is generally quite easy to do).

Catt

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Catt
(but where is lesson 4?).

Oh, it's there, in my third big post. I suggest you go back and check it out...


Dominae

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae

Lesson 4: This lesson added at Catt's request

[badams52]

Originally posted by Catt
badams52 - have you fallen off the wagon yet? And was your (temporary) exile self-imposed or spouse-imposed? On a more serious note, I also think the "keep an OCC civ around for technology advantage" is a worthwhile strategy. Unless I have any real fear of flips, or unless an OCC's presence bears additional indirect costs to me, I like to frequently leave them alive for (1) the tech pricing issues you identify, and (2) the role-playing pleasure of allowing them to forever dwell on their mistakes in challenging the strength of my civ. A few OCCs also offer the flexibility of "managing" the majority needed for a UN win -- 6 civs left and I need 4 votes? but if one of the OCCs (who hates me the most) were to retire, then I only need 3 votes . . .

I'm surprised someone cares, but since you asked, it's self-imposed, wife-influenced. She would still let me play, but I can get too involved and then instead of going out at 6:30 like planned, 7 rolls around and I'm still playing, 8 rolls around and I'm still playing, which wouldn't make any wife very happy and I've grown tired of anger management.

And you know how hard it can be when dinner is on the table and you're saying, "but honey, just give me 5 more minutes and I'll have wiped Mao off the face of the earth." (and when is it really 5 more minutes).

Then there's all the time that I spend away from the game where I'm thinking, "okay, once the RoP runs out with India, I'm sacking his cities with my cavalry upgrade," but that's another matter.

Glad to see someone else keeps those OCC civs around.

[BigDork]

Hi everybody....

Well after a little hiatus I'm back. It was an inadverntant leave but I went out drinking Wednesday night and it took a few days to recover. And I'm not sure but I think I may have set back German/American relations some. But honestly, I just can't remember all that happened. But I didn't get arrested so it's all good.

Anyway I finally hopped back on my computer and really want to finish off 206. Here's basically where I stand. It's just after 1800 AD. I just finished off a stupid war with Russia where they declared war on me when I failed to get a spy into their capitol. One thing that irks me, if they don't have espionage how can they know what a spy is? Actually lets go back a bit.

I kicked everyone off my continent and went into builder mode. I switched into democracy and have been researching and building for about 200 years now. Most of the surrounding islands aren't controlled by me. The French have a heavy presence. India has their sole city on one. America has one small town that should be culture flipping to me at any time, I hope.

Tech wise I'm kicking total butt. America and France are just researching combustion right now. I am about to get MA. I have researched about 1/3 of the techs in the modern age. Finally Espionage was researched and I grabbed that up. I managed to get spies into the French, American and Indian capitols. But I couldn't get one into Russia. I dunno what's up with that. So they declared war on me. Well, I'm a nice guy and didn't want to crush them mercilessly. It also helped that they had an MPP with France and I just didn't feel like going after France. So I just let them be. Well eventually they managed to get a caravel over into my territory. Well my battleships were no where to be seen and so they landed a pikeman, medievil infantry and longbowman(or something) next to my city. I thought it was really amusing because of all the MI's I had defending almost all my cities. I took a screenshot and had a good laugh. Well I forgot to move one of those MI's into the friggin city. What a dolt. I have no clue what I was thinking. So they take my FP city. Well this just totally screws up my production in the north. I'm pissed, mostly at myself. So I send in a couple of tanks and take my city back. I almost reloaded but that would have been cheap. After that I sued for peace. Managed to get 2gpt from Russia(which is good considering they have almost no money).

Except for my little tiff with Russia I've been at peace since I removed the Romans from the face of the Earth. I've wanted to start a war to get the Americans and French to fight each other but can't decide who I should attack. France is more powerful but are giving me a snot load of money each turn. I'd also love to take the surrounding islands back from the French. America is giving me gems and fur and also a lot of money. They are weaker and if me and the French team up it'll really hurt the Americans. But I finally decided that it's really not necessary. I'm really far ahead of them tech wise. I am over 1100 points above America. I don't have the navy built up for a overseas invasion. And all the money and luxuries they are giving me is nice. But damn it I want to fight. I think Arrian is having a bad influence on me.

As I mentioned France and America are giving me a lot of money. I'm making over 400gpt from them. I'm basically just trading my luxuries to them. I have to give America a tech to get fur and gems but they usually throw in about 25gpt too so it's worth it. Besides, it's only one tech every 20 turns and I'm so far ahead of them. And since I'm giving America a tech I sell it to France too and make even more gold. I'm trading Russia saltpeter and iron. They are really no threat to me(as long as I have someone to defend my cities) and actually only selling it to to them for about a total of 5gpt but it's an extra 5gpt and what else would I be doing with it?

That's about it. Not much is gonna happen in the near future I don't think. I'm almost done building rr across my whole continent. I only have a few mountains left. Most of my cities have built just about every city improvement. Losing my FP hurt but did give me a chance to reposition it a little bit. But it's taking 20 turns to build and that's 20 turns of lost productivity. And I forgot, I was only a few turns away from the internet when my city got taken. I'll never do that again.

Sorry there's no screen. I'm at work and my trial of Photoshop 7.0 ran out and I'll have to re-download it. Maybe Monday. I'll let you all know how it ends. Probably with a space ship.

BigD

[badams52]

BigD:

Sounds in a way similar to my game, and your play sounds similar to mine. Wanting, but not wanting to go to war. If you really wanted to go to war and get America and France into a tiff Russia provided you with the best opportunity by declaring war on you and having an MPP with France. It's much easier to fight a war in Democracy when someone else declares war on you (but being religious makes that point kind of moot). Then when France declares war, you get America into the act and take the French island cities you hate so much. You wouldn't need much of a force with your tanks v. infantry at most, and probably much less in the island cities.

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well the world I was trying to create went down in flames. The whole peaceful builder thing was going just fine. I managed to rebuild my FP in a better position to make my whole continent a little more productive. I was pretty much done building and was actually switching to wealth in a lot of my core cities. I had the strongest army and since I wasn't going for domination wasn't going for a massive 300 MA army. Well then stuff changed.

I had a massive amout of cash. I'm talking over 10000 gold. And while I should have been rushing some stuff in unproductive cities I didn't. I know it's bad but I love to hoard the stuff. Anyway I decided to see if France or America had a spy in my capitol. Well, I tried America first. Oops. My spy is caught and America declares war on me.

I thought about attacking America on the island we were sharing but decided not to. I had an MPP with France and decided that I'd wait for the Americans to attack. And attack they did. They were courageous but their medievil infantry was no match for my MA. And then it was war.

I took the American city the next turn. It was spearmen vs. MA. After that I was just gonna hang out until Abe would talk peace. Well then it got ugly. Somehow, I forget but France and India went to war. So now I'm at war with America and India. Then Russia gets in on it. Well at this point I've had it with the Russians. I'm still bitter over the last war where I stupidly lost my FP so it was all over for Catherine. I sent in a couple of tanks(way more than enough) and finished her off. And in the process got a leader. Well at this point it wasn't much use to me. I ended up using it to rush the UN.

Well I was about to end the war but decided that I was fed up with having to pay America for fur and gems. And seeing as how there were two costal cities with those luxuries next to them I decided that a little over seas invasion was a good thing. So I sent over a transport loaded with 5 MA, 2 MI, and a worker. It was over quickly. If America had had tanks it may have taken a little longer but they didn't even have cavalry to counter attack. It was just a few infantry. Well I took the two cities and another on an island and went for peace.

And that's about it. I've put off building the space ship but have now started. I went ahead and researched all the way up to stealth and also researched all the techs to build the AEGIS cruiser and manufactoring plant(I forget, robotics?). So now I'm just finishing up. Both France and America have just gotten to the modern era but don't have any of the techs yet. I think I just may try to get to future tech just for S&G's. I'll probably build all the SS components except for one and then just see how far I can go. But if I get bored I'll just end it.

I'm about 1300 points ahead of my nearest opponent and still have about 150 years left. I'd have to say I won this. I can either launch of to Alpha Centari, start producing enough MA to rule the world, and I'm probably close to a culture victory too. But stuff happens and I'm gonna play it out until the end. You never know, I could end up getting nuked.

BigD

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Okay, I'm done. Kinda lame end but oh well. I just kept building and researching and waiting for the end. I built all the SS components except one and then researched all the way up until I got future tech 1. I just had to. I've never researched them all before and honestly I don't see any reason why I ever will again. I finished with over 20000 gold. My score was about 2000 points higher than everyone else. And the other civs had just researched their first tech in the modern era. Yeah, I kicked some major booty.

Well I think that with all I've learned from just this game alone that it may be time for me to move up from regent. My first try at AU206 was definatly not a success but I put what I've read here on 'poly and some personal experience and had my most successful game to date. Yep, time to move up. Thanks to you all for everything. I couldn't have gotten here without all of your help.

BigD

[Dominae]

Originally posted by BigDork
Yeah, I kicked some major booty.

The goal of any Civ player. Nice one, BigD!




Dominae

[Konquest02]

Hi!

I was forced to sit this turn around because of exams, but be assured that I didn't miss a piece of each one's AAR. I must say that I enjoyed them all.

@nbarclay: I like the format of your AAR, but really like to see the action once in a while. I think a mix of both types would work best...

@Dom: I'll remember "You want a piece of me !?!" when I'll play AU 207 and thinking about the map creator (exactly as in AU 204 ) Nice AAR too!

@BigD: I had a lot of fun reading your AAR as you seem to be relatively the same kind of player as me. In recognized me in some of your moves. I recently moved definitely to Monarch and I experienced almost the same decisions you are now facing... Have fun!

@Arrian: Great job with getting Sistine!

@Olaf: I really like your use of GS in the modern times... something everyone should try once!

This was my 300th post, so it may not be totally on topic, but I didn't want it to be a "sent" in a PBEM game!

Keepin' on Civin'

--Kon--