I think i may have a new strategy???

[Lucarse]

Then again maybe not but check this out i call it my 'Soak Up' Strategy. Only to be used in when in very serious do do.

A bit of background :
Just finished messy drawn out war with egypt (started with cav ended with tanks!!) managed to take all of egypt by seletive razing and keeping cities, so i'm strung out across the pan asia continent, culture getting bashed, have 20 or so tanks left .
Focusing on the battle front forgetting the little people and my lovely civ goes into anarchy (i know careless of me).

At this point my old mate cesar decides to have a go at me BIG TIME! (i had an alliance but obvioulsy it was over by this point) i lose 90% of my tanks in the first assault, i think 'surely i blunted his attack he can't have that much left', one quick check with my spy and sure enough he has 36 tanks left! next turn they all came in at once!! (i had lost faith in the AI for not attaking properly ie en mass this restored my faith quickly).

I lose two border towns very quickly, now he encroches on one of my large producer cities, i'm in serious trouble no offensive units left,i cannot rush any units as i am in anarchy... because i have a large city base i have economised on defence 2 units in border towns everywhere else 1.

Do i lay down and die...no!! i have 30+ workers and knowing the AI goes out of its way to capture workers i set about surrounding my city with workers!!. This soaks up the AI's turns and gives me 2-3 turns breathing space!! i rush in some defensive units (i borrowed fom other cities)

Pretty soon my anarchy is up i rush about 20+ units and in a few turns I get my workers back plus 2 roman cities !!, not a bad turn around considering the massive attack i was under!.
I subsequently get modern armour(synth fibers) and take rome in about 9 turns, it cost me a bit but it was worth it!

What does everyone think?? has this been tried before? am i telling the more experianced of you to suck eggs??

[vondrack]

I haven't heard about exactly such a use... but it is well known that the AI will go after your workers, so it is being used from time to time.

Anyway, this is something I would probably consider if desperate enough. Even though someone might have come with a better solution, it worked for you, which makes it valid tactics.

EDIT: didn't read the original post carefully enough... snipped portion of my response that were dumb

[Lucarse]

as a side issue anybody seen the AI behave like this?.
It was very intelligent waiting until i was almost defenseless, anarchy etc... then attacking with LARGE numbers of tanks?

or was it a terrible co-incidence ??

[Kampus majore]

Well, usually the AI DOES consider if you are weak or not. And at that point you were vulnerable! I have seen this happen as well....

Could be useful strategy, but you must be sure you will recover later on to take them back again! And also you probably need railroad in order to get the workers there in time.

[jshelr]

This is an exploit, IMHO. We know the AI should not be focused on workers at a point well after RR has already been constructed. Taking advantage of this error to get your posterior out of a sling is OK, if you want, but you would be more satisfied, perhaps, with duking it out "fairly."

[Lucarse]

This is an exploit, IMHO. We know the AI should not be focused on workers at a point well after RR has already been constructed. Taking advantage of this error to get your posterior out of a sling is OK, if you want, but you would be more satisfied, perhaps, with duking it out "fairly."

I do take your point and agree!! as for duking it out fair and square,..there was no duking it out to be done!! by the time i got my sh*t together they would have been knocking on my palace door!!!
I think of it as my version of the anit tank trap!!.

[thorpey]

Re: I think i may have a new strategy???

Originally posted by Lucarse

.....
Do i lay down and die...no!! i have 30+ workers and knowing the AI goes out of its way to capture workers i set about surrounding my city with workers!!. This soaks up the AI's turns and gives me 2-3 turns breathing space!! i rush in some defensive units (i borrowed fom other cities)
.....

You can also use this strategy to stop someone from landing on your shores.
You spot a transport near your coast and line the shore
with workers etc until you have the chance to get a ship
over to sink the transport.

[Moonsinger]

Re: I think i may have a new strategy???

Originally posted by Lucarse
Pretty soon my anarchy is up i rush about 20+ units and in a few turns I get my workers back plus 2 roman cities !!

You are lucky! The AIs have always disbanded my workers or hung their heads on the stake immediately
after they capture them. I rarely see my workers alive for more than one turn; they usually give me no chance to rescue them.

[Lucarse]

Really? i almost always get them back?.
They do shove them off back into their own territory as fast as they can whip them!.

I ususally find them a few cities in...unless they are their own ? either way i get them back :-)

I love the way civs provoke me in such a way the only way to satisfy their transgression is to wipe evey speck of their civ into the sea.

[vmxa1]

I have not seen them keep your workers alive in quite a long time. In fact the AI no lnger goes after workers in the way it use to. It would, in the past veer off to grab a worker, you could suck it into coming for them and then smash it. That does not seem to happen any more. It will ignore a lone worker in favor of an attack on troops/cities. Anyway I tend to keep workers from the front line, unless they are covered by a unit.

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Lucarse
Really? i almost always get them back?.
They do shove them off back into their own territory as fast as they can whip them!.

I ususally find them a few cities in...unless they are their own ? either way i get them back :-)

It probably have something to do with getting them back safely into their own territory. Since most of the time, they capture my workers two tiles within my border (I'm very careful with my workers but once in awhile, they manage to send their cavalries over to capture my workers while I'm not looking), they know that they have no chance of moving those worker back into their own territory and those cavalries are as good as dead, but they do it anyway. Since the AIs know that I will kill all of their invading cavalries and rescue my workers in the next turn, so they decide to kill all of my workers first.

[JohnM2433]

Re: Re: I think i may have a new strategy???

Originally posted by thorpey
You can also use this strategy to stop someone from landing on your shores.
You spot a transport near your coast and line the shore
with workers etc until you have the chance to get a ship
over to sink the transport.

It really should be possible for any unit with an attack value to do an anphibious asault against a unit with no defense value (or an undefended city). Why should those defenseless workers prevent troops from making land?

[Barchan]

Re: Re: Re: I think i may have a new strategy???

Originally posted by JohnM2433

It really should be possible for any unit with an attack value to do an anphibious asault against a unit with no defense value (or an undefended city). Why should those defenseless workers prevent troops from making land?

Good Lord, man, those workers have shovels! *I* certainly wouldn't want to mess with them.

Seriously, though, this strategy is easily defeated by building a Marine or two. It may be a cheap exploit to justify the need for Marines in the game in the first place, but it's easily defeated nevertheless.

[thorpey]

Re: Re: Re: Re: I think i may have a new strategy???

Originally posted by Barchan


Good Lord, man, those workers have shovels! *I* certainly wouldn't want to mess with them.

Seriously, though, this strategy is easily defeated by building a Marine or two. It may be a cheap exploit to justify the need for Marines in the game in the first place, but it's easily defeated nevertheless.

Have you seen the AI make amphibious assaults? I haven't.

Anyway, it's a strategy/exploit that I haven't used, but always good to have up your sleeve if you are really caught short with
your pants down.

[des-esseintes]

Jesus, you actually get gameplay satisfaction from fooling the incompetent AI with such cheap tricks? It's akin to cheating in solitaire.

Wait until MP comes out, and then play it. Myself, i stopped playing vanilla Civ3 after my 3rd game or so, when I realized what a jackass the AI was. And giving it percentile boosts in production and research doesn't make it any tougher IMO..