Resource Denial

[CiverDan]

As I said, I have found resource denial to be much more powerful in MP games, since it it much more difficult to simply overwhelm the human player with units. A game in point. I was involved in a 2 player 2 AI MP game, tiny, regent. I was eyptians, he was Persians. I had horses, but no iron. While he had Iron but no horses. He was about to take (potentially) the last iron sight available to me. So I felt I had no choice but to attack his uncovered settler. In the resulting war, which in the first phase was war chariots versus immortals. I lost 2 cities (we each had 7 or 8), although not being able to attack jungle hurt me a bit. So I bought a WM from an AI which had, as it turned out, traded his map with my human opponent. How I knew his iron source location, which was a colony on a mountain. I put 2 spear on a galley, and offloaded them close to the resouce but where he couldnt see them initially, as the area was very mountainous. My luck, he wasnt guarding it. so I sat my spear on the colony before he could guard it and presto, he can't build immortals, and with no horse he is stuck with archers. The game was stopped soon after this point, though i found another iron source, which I was about to settle and hook up.

As a result of this game I have these thoughts.

1. Never trade your map to anyone even the AI. The longer your reseouce locations stay hidden the better.
But get AI maps (without giving up ours).

2. Guard our resources, no matter how remote they may seem. The only exception is if it is deep within our territory.

3. Explore as much as possible early w/warriors and horse if available early enough.

[punkbass2000]

I agree. I believe we should beeline for iron working and try to settle all iron quickly. Build spearmen from the start between settlers. Scientific is going to be a real advantage in MP games, we must use it to its maximum. I wonder whether any team will try to rush us if they have no iron and we have two spears in every city.

[Jon Shafer]

Controlling too many resources will make us targets.

One thing we need to prioritize is making sure we only get into wars that we plan. With our large horseman force we will be dominant in battle, but only once we're ready.

[punkbass2000]

Targets who can defend themselves against enemies without resources, that is.

[CiverDan]

I was thinking more along the lines of steps we should take prior to initiating a war. I agree that the general hoarding of resources will make people want gang up on us. But we dont want to be in a position that we lack necessary resources...

[Jon Shafer]

Certainly we should try to get ourselves into a position where we are secure resource-wise (two of each is ideal), but we really want to distance ourselves from potential conflict until we find ourselves in a dominant world position. We shouldn't get into a potentially dangerous spot simply for the sake of taking resources, IMO. Holding three of the five sources of iron on a continent with 5 civs is a good excuse to start an alliance war...

[Admiral PJ]

I think we should try to grab as many resources as we can..
I don't think this will make us a millitary target particularly as if we trade some resources then the people buying would be better off than trying to take our resources with force.
We can stop them making alliances by giving them resources cheaply , and preventing them from making war on us or allying with others.
If we deny resources they can't build an army or railroads etc .

I disagree that humans will ally against resource horders.. I think we will not make many alliances, and be quite isolationist civ teams.
Can allied teams share information through forums though?

we MUST guard resources well, and guard all roadlinks, and keep them within our borders (or enemies can make cities near our roads and block trade/millitary roads - though these can be taken over eventually)

Luxuries are important too, in SP you can get a civ with only 4 Incense etc, and sell it to everyone but your team.. monopolies are great

If we restrict luxuries, its a good bonus.. they loose Happiness, therefore riot more, can't have large cities, can't have long wars under republic, can't get we love the king anti corruption.. And also are more easily cultureally converted.

We must get resource Techs early on, so we can spot strategic resource locations and ideally build a city right on top of the Resources(can't be pillaged by road or taken by culture borders)

I suggest we aim for monopolies on only 1 or 2 resources, maybe just Horses, but we should try for 2 of each of the rest.

My first post in the Lux invicta Forum!

AdmiralPJ - Peter

[jordie]

A monopoly of horses would easily make us the world power. But a monopoly of any resource or luxury would be great.

[WarriorPoet]

I always play to grab as many nearby resources as I can. Most of the time, especially early-on, I go to war to denie other players their resources. This cripples them for later wars, and keeps them domicile if need be. Better to act from a position of control rather than as equals.

[BlackOut]

I say that we try to monopolize at least 1 resource, more if possible. Lets not forget how powerful being able to trade excess resources are to keep enemies and allies at bay, earn extra money, and reliance on us for those resources.

[WarriorPoet]

Yes, BlackOut, this option would be a great add-on to the policy I propose. This would make our strategy even more flexible and viable!

[Zero]

It may not work the same but I am currently playing a game where I monopolize horses in industrial era. I peronsally made my way into tank just recently, but AIs are still heavily relying on horses and guess who gets them? I get to choose. And guess who never even raises their voice against me? Those who get horses from me.

[Zero]

I suggest gobbling up as much jungle/forest territory as much as we can, so that we can

1) put our super workers onto use and convert them into fruitful farming land out of seemingly useless territory that may not be priority 1 to other teams and most importantly

2) Limit possibility of opponents having rubber in their territory = HUGE advantage

[BlackOut]

If we have tons of captured workers i could see that working great, but lest focus on growing our own internal area before tyring to hack away at the amazon jungle..

[WarriorPoet]

Both Rubber(terrain type and quantity), and Horses (quantity) will be tough to manopolize, but if you could do it with out sacrificing some other significant element of your strategy, then this would be a great idea!