Winning Early: What do YOU do?

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
Aztecs: 7/10. Serious pain in the ass if they pick a fight early, but the AI ain't Vel. If run by Vel, this would be a 12/10.

If the AI would be either Vel or Aeson, I'd still be trying chieftain, wondering how the heck I'm supposed to build my second city somewhere

I agree mostly with your list, but as someone who is more of a builder (well, relative to you anyway), I would give Zulu a 4/10 (They never build up any culture, and are easily culture flipped), and the French a 4/10 (She may be dressed in pink, but that pink is in many cases a camouflaged factory or marketplace)

Last builder tweaks: the Greek can be a pain in the ass, if you attack them. If you're on the defending side of things, it's usually okay. Plus, most of the times, they will start a fight with the Romans anyway. But, I find them one of the civs that will always be at the front of the research, which as a builder can be a problem too. Early on, I would give them a 5/10.
The Persians, however, are the greatest problem when you encounter these in the ancient ages. Aggresive, supreme UU, fast in tech, somehow always in the neighborhood of iron, they simply reek. Each builder game I played close to the Persians I lost a few cities to them, before I was able to regroup. If you are close to them, hit them early, hit them bad, or at least make sure you have plenty of defenders in all your cities. I'd give them a 9/10 in the early years. And that's just because in certain games they deserve the full 10, on average they are bad, but it can be worse.

DeepO

[Sheik]

I recently played a game on regent, tiny map, 2 AI civs. I won by conquest fairly close to the year 0 just by building military units and hammering the AI. I built some barracks and then used my GL's to build armies.

[Theseus]

Thanks for the contributions on STCOMOM AI civs, but I think the discussion so far has been a little weighted toward the thinking of an experienced to very experienced player.

Would anyone like to point out which ones the newer player should specfically watch out for?

[DeepO]

On the easiest levels? I would say the Greek, Romans and Persians. Greek because of its early defense, Romans and Persians because they will come after you. And probably the Iroquis as well, however I never had much problems with them when I started. The Romans were my Nemesis in more then one case.

Aztec: yes, very early on. After that they're just a nuisance for new players. And Germans perhaps, but this depends on the situation. As you can see, I think new players have most trouble with the aggresive civs. At least that's how I experienced it at the time.

DeepO

[Lord Merciless]

For a newbie, I would recommend the following:

1. Don't ever pick a fight with Romans in Ancient Age. There is really nothing you can do stop their Legionaries marching over your cities, and more often than not, AI Romans will end up with multiple Iron sources. Only if you play Persians, you can use your Immortals to fight back.

2. Don't attack Greeks in the Ancient Age. Hoplites will take a major toll on any attacking force except the Immortals.

3. Egyptians, Americans, and Iroquois can expand very fast. They tend to fill every piece of land with their underdeveloped and worthless cities. However, if you allow those cities to grow, they will become quite dangerous. So the trick here is to attack these civs early.

4. The AI doesn't play the Chinese correctly. This happens because the traits for the Chinese changed just shortly before the game was released. Even the manual still says that Chinese should Scientific and Industrious. That means that AI Chinese are actually more peaceful than their traits seem to indicate.

5. Germans are the most aggressive AI civ in my experience. They usually expand very fast, and are always annoyed in initial contacts. Don't fight them if they have Panzers and you don't have MAs.

6. Russians are filthy backstabbers. If this Civ perceives you as weak, it will sneak attack, even as early as 3000BC.

[Theseus]

There ya go... great assesments. Couldn't agree more about Cathy, that skank.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
6. Russians are filthy backstabbers. If this Civ perceives you as weak, it will sneak attack, even as early as 3000BC.

True... but so will the Germans, English, Zulu and a few others when you are too weak. I think it has been said here before, but let me repeat it: Always build up a military force, even if you are not going to attack someone, or if you think nobody is going to attack you!

DeepO

[Arrian]

Hmmm, good point Theseus, about this being for newbies...

Generally, getting into a fight with any civ that has an ancient UU is problematic.

The hyper-agressive civs are Germany, Rome and Zululand. Germany has sneak-attacked me in 3000bc with a lone warrior several times (they always seem to win, too). Rome has the dreaded legionaries, which are REALLY hard to kill. Zululand's impis are death to horsemen, so use swords against them if you can. The Aztecs have those pesky Jags, but aren't as big a threat as Rome or even Zululand. Any militarist (except China) should be watched carefully, and several non-militarists are dangerous as well (Russia, Babylon and America spring to mind).

I would suggest that a newbie should open the editor and have a look at the aggressiveness rating (or maybe we could just post the list here... Alexman's thread on the AI build orders has the agg rating in it). That will tell you a lot.

One thing to learn early on is whether or not you should cave in to a demand. If the civ in question can hurt you, then answer is yes. Hurting you doesn't necessarily mean taking your cities. They can hamper your growth, force you into building units when you want to be doing other things, or pulling in allies against you.

If you do find yourself in a war, particularly one against a civ with an ancient UU or just a nice starting area, I strongly suggest you pull in allies. If you don't, the enemy will! Allies will split the enemies' forces, giving you time to fight back and maybe grab some of their cities. Plus, the allies will switch over to war production, which will hamper their growth and development. Of course, you always run the risk of creating a monster. But it's best to take that risk, rather than allowing the AI to team up against you. Getting two strong AI's to fight it out may allow you to rise to the top. For real fun, get the Greeks and Romans to go at it.

A couple of basic things:

If you start next to Rome, Germany, there is a very good chance they will attack you. Prepare for that... or better yet, take them out first.

If you start next to Zululand or Greece (defensive powers), make it a priority to build road connections to them so you can trade luxuries. Those trades, or even a one-time gift, will do wonders for your relations (this works with all civs, actually). Cave to demands from these guys.

The Aztecs are to be avoided until you have units that can fairly reliably take out Jags. Swords & Horsies. After you have those, they aren't as big a threat. If you get a very early demand, cave. Later... maybe not.

If you do sign alliances, I suggest you keep them. DO NOT sign a peace treaty with the enemy before cancelling the alliance(s) first. Understand that signing alliances means 20 turns of war. Thus, it is best to sign all the alliances you mean to sign on the same turn. Then you can get out of them in one shot, and make peace.

-Arrian

[Gen.Dragolen]

So that's why they were all so pissed off...

Arrian,

Cancel the allienaces first...

That is one detail I missed. I was in a spot last night where I was at War with Rome and managed to snag a few cities and made a mess of their luxuries with bombardment. I had bribed 3 out of the 4 remaining civ's to declare war on Rome, and the Romans called up the Aztecs. (They had refused my offers previously)

It took Rome until about 25 turns into the campaign to get the Aztecs on side, but when they hit, I was just starting to suffer from War Weariness, despite some spiffy improvements and Univeral Sufferage. I easily concluded a Peace Treaty with Rome who had donated 3 cities to the Empire, but by the time I was able to bloody the Aztec's noses enough to get them to the table, I was having riots in almost all of the cities, many of which destroyed Temples and Marketplaces... (ungrateful wretches: I didn't pick the fight)

After I got the populace back to it's normal contented state, everyone was at Furious state with me. Ducking out of the fight without canceling the treaty was the cause. It will be a while before I can get some decent trades again. At one point the Romans were coughing up 200 gpt for an older improvment and I think they were getting the money from selling to everyone else. I tried to cut the middleman out, but usually they had nothing to trade. Not a floren between the lot. Tsk, tsk.


But I digress. Preserving one's reputation is critical if you are trying to out build the combined might of the rest of the world. How else can you get someone to open a second front for you ?

D.

[Catt]

Alliances are very powerful in the ancient age. Your civ is often still a despotic government, possibly monarchy or republic, so war weariness is rarely a problem. Because of the slow unit movements (limited road network, no RRs, fewer 2-move units) the length of the alliance (20 turns) flies by very rapidly. Allying with the enemy's neighbors radically alters the nature of the fight since you quite possibly open up multiple fronts, and in any event bring more allied troops to the dance. And as Arrian points out, you also serve to direct your "ally" and future opponent into a wartime economy -- he spends a fair amout of his productive power producing units instead of power-enhancing improvements. To top it off, you build a better relationship with your new allies. There is rarely a downside to alliances, and in the vast majority of cases you can hold out against a superior foe for 20 turns, end the alliance honorably, and then make peace. As if more impetus to ally were needed - be forewarned - if you don't seek alliances, your enemy will -- better to bring that neighbor on your second front into the war right away on the side of the "good guys."

Remember, alliances require embassies. Spend your gold to establish embassies as soon as reasonably feasible.

Catt

[Lord Merciless]

A military alliance not only takes the pressure of your civ, but also weakens the other civ and greatly reduces the possibility of your enemy getting much needed resources. In my last Roman games, which I described in details at http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=58375, I used military alliances extensively. In earlier part of the game, I had allied with Greeks against the Americans, then against Aztecs and the Egyptians. The Greeks had destroyed many Aztec and Egyptian units, but also spent much energy building up their military and thus slowing down their own development. The alliance with the Greeks also removed the threat of a possible 2 front war for me.

I was very careful in pursuing the campagn until the alliance expired. The good reputation actually allowed me later to make more alliances vs the Persians, Germans, Indians, Russians, and French. A ROP with France in the late Industrial Age gave me prime access route to attack the Russians. Even by the end of the game, after I destroyed the French in a single turn, I was still able to get ROPs with both Japan and China.

Other tricks to get AI Civs to align with you is to showering them occasionally with luxuries and techs. In Ancient Age, even a gift of 10 gp can improve their attitude by a lot.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Acme of Skill

Lord Merciless,

We seem to have agreement on the importance of alliances for ourselves. Now we need to figure out what it would take to break the enemies' alliances.

Even Sun Tzu said it was best to attack their plans, then their alliances, then the generals and last of all the troops. I think tonight if I have the time, I'm going to reload just to see if I could bribe those pesky Aztecs to join against the Romans instead of with them. Even more fun would be to see if you can do it while you are still at war with someone, to strip them of their allie(s).

It seems to me that it may be a little difficult depending on circumstances... what would be nice would be to use a spy as an agent provocatuer and have the blame go else where, a la SMAC.

You could have them tearing each other to shreds almost as soon as you can build your emabassies. Mind you, I shudder to think of what the AI could do with that kind of power... given their trading bonuses.

That would make it almost as good as a really vicious, cut-throat game of Diplomacy.


D.

[Lord Merciless]

If you want to start a war, but also want to avoid reputation hit, you can tell an annoyed AI Civ to get off your territory. Very often, they would declare war on you.

Or you can trying to plant spies after getting the Espionage tech, an annoyed AI will very often declare war if your spy is caught. If not, a successfully planted spy can give you many useful intelligence informations.

As to breaking up enemy alliances, the first thing you need to do is to show military prowess. Concentrate on the most dangerous enemy initially and remain on the defensive against the other. After a few turns and some success on your side, you can quite easily bribe the other one in joining you.


Gen. Dragolen, if you check out the link I gave in my previous post. It shows a fine example on how you can manage to have AIs tearing at each other's throat. And look especially at what happens in the Powergraph.

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
If you want to start a war, but also want to avoid reputation hit, you can tell an annoyed AI Civ to get off your territory. Very often, they would declare war on you.

mostly, they'll only declare war, if they think they have a better army than you do. if you're stronger, the AI will remove it's units... just to move them back in the next turn

Or you can trying to plant spies after getting the Espionage tech, an annoyed AI will very often declare war if your spy is caught. If not, a successfully planted spy can give you many useful intelligence informations.

nope... if your spy gets caught it's an international incident and people get to hate YOU.

As to breaking up enemy alliances, the first thing you need to do is to show military prowess. Concentrate on the most dangerous enemy initially and remain on the defensive against the other. After a few turns and some success on your side, you can quite easily bribe the other one in joining you.

yep, and the if noticed correctly, the AI mainly calculates the offensive value, not the defensive one. so take out all the swordsmen, archers and whoresmen () and the get the ally. i've experimented - it really does seem to get the AI 'cheaper' to ally up against the other AI

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by sabrewolf

mostly, they'll only declare war, if they think they have a better army than you do. if you're stronger, the AI will remove it's units... just to move them back in the next turn

Well, that's not the impression I get. In one instance, I had 2 dozen Horsemen and close to 40 Legionaries, while the Aztecs had like a dozen Archers and some Spearmen. I told them to get lost and they declared war. In another instance, I had 215 MAs, 30 Tanks, and 180 Infantries, while the French had barely 140 Infantries. I told the French to fvck off and they declared war on me. I doubt that AI can evaluate your strength correctly.