anyone have new strats for PTW?

[Mr. T]

what have you guys come up with as far as new strats?

[Falconius]

The Celt "Gallic Swordsman Rush" is a thing of beauty! This "Charge of the Redheads" strategy beats anything in its heyday, except any defense of 3 units (ie Legionaries, Hoplites). The unit is costly but effective.

[Ghengis-Sean]

Yeah, The Gallic Swordsman rocks!!! the best way to run with this bad boy is to get bronzeworking as quick as you can and then start working on iron working ASAP.
Now most likely it'll take 40 turns, so turn your science as far dwon as possible while keeping that 40 and start saving money, but make to adjust to get iron working as soon as possible. the idea here is to maximize your cash and science.

build a couple of barracks and start cranking out warriors, when you get Iron Working, turn your science as far down, to get that money. Now hopefully you've stockpiled 8-12 warriors trhoughout your empire. At first you'll probably only be able to conert 2-3, maybe 4, but that's because unless you're near the greeks you should be able to pummel all comers! Start on the nearest enemy civ, beat him 'till he hollers, get all the money out of him that you can, upgrade somemore swordsmen and do it again.

Repeat for as long as possible. The Gallic swordsman is like a Junior Knight. Use them like knights and you'll be fine. Best of all, because the Celts are militaristic, and because you've been cranking those warriors out with barracks (right?) they should all be veteran, so you should generate alot of elite units pretty quick and then Great Leaders, and then the 500BC Gallic Swordsman Army, what a great game!

[Zero]

Gallic is great, but I still don't like it due to cost increase.
Siphai is the same deal, but due to industrial era cost increase is less apparent

I'd still say Aztecs and Japan will be the best warmongering civ. Personally I like Japan because I can finally totally replace Musketmen, but Aztec in theory is better.

Falconius, Don't forget the Carthiginians, and the Zulus. If I were the Celts I'd fear Zulu impis over the three def 3 nations.

[Ghengis-Sean]

This may be a slight aside, but one thing I've noticed the computer does more of now is sneak attack. what's wierd is they'll do it in the strangest places. For example; In my current game I'm playing Carthage on a huge world, on the largest continent (think pangea) on the map. The Celts are on one side, I'm on the other. The celts walk all the way across the planet to sneak attack me. Then the Ottomans and the Egyptians both tried the same thing. What makes this tactic extra odd is that none of my neighbors have ever tried to sneak attack me, only civs from far far away. Kind of wierd. Anyone else seen this?

[WarpStorm]

My new 'strategy' that works well in simultaneous move playe is to mix some offensive units into your defensive mix on cities you suspect will be attacked. Then once they start the attack, you immediately counter-attack with your ofensive units.

[Ghengis-Sean]

Yeah, Carthage and Rome are good for that tactic early on. Personally I like to build city walls. I find that the computer almost never does. Put your cities on hills and put walls around the ones you think might get attacked. Walls are pretty cheap, and in PTW there is no upkeep for them, so why the heck not? Follow this tactic and your units are essentially double strength. Let the bad guys come and let them pound on the gates, and when they're all worn out jump on their heads.

The Numidian Mercenary and the Legionairy are great for this, both have great defense and good attack so you can use them for attack or defense. I like the Legionairy best of all, but the Babylonian UU is good too, it's a nice and cheap and pretty verstile to boot, also it doesn't require any resources to build.

Probably the best unit to persue this tactic with is the Samurai, good movement, good attack, good defense (as good as musketeer).

[ducki]

Originally posted by Ghengis-Sean
Follow this tactic and your units are essentially double strength. Let the bad guys come and let them pound on the gates, and when they're all worn out jump on their heads.

Don't forget, though, that now the AI will avoid a fight it "knows" it can't win in favor of an easier target or just to pillage.

This strat is a great deterrent, though. Plenty of times I've had a city under heavy seige and the minute I finally get reinforcements that stack the odds far enough in my favor, the AI turns tail and heads for easier pickings.

[WarpStorm]

Like Ghengis said those dual use units really come into their own in simultaneous play. In SP, you have to wonder why an attack unit has extra defense or vice versa, but in simultaneous or turnless they shine.

[art_vandelai]

Someone pulled a nice little unexpected trick on me that broke a tense stalemate and basically decided the game. After my Japanese had successfully defended against an incursion of Romans, my attacks into his territory with Horsemen ultimately failed in gaining anything. He came at me with a stack of about 6 mixed units (spearmen & archers), combined with a settler. His route in basically was over mountains & hills, giving a good defense bonus. But instead of wasting his archers and heading towards my town, that was well-protected, he decided to build a city right in between my capital (which was bordering his civ - Rome) and one of my main cities, totally cutting it off from the capital as well as giving the stack some extra defense. Since most of my defensive units were near the front line, that city fell quite quickly, followed by the capital and any hope I had of preventing Rome from linking Iron and building Legions.

Another word to the wise - if you have any mountains in your territory, especially near the borders, keep them fortified at all times. Otherwise your opponents can set up spearmen fortified there to start a stack, and you'll waste a heck of a lot of resources trying to get rid of them.

Terrain plays a huge factor - watch carefully the placement of mountains, jungles, hills and rivers. Don't let an invader set up across a river from your town - chances are they'll be able to stay there long enough to bring in some offensive units. Aggressive defense doesn't work nearly as well against good human opponents as it does vs. the AI.

[ducki]

OMG, that bit about dropping a city is bloody brilliant!
Even better if he dropped it on a hill or next to a river.

Must remember that, even when fighting the AI.


Especially if I have Sun Tzu's.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

I have done this many times against the AI and it is an excellent strategy.

[poutine]

more of an exploit than a strategy, but while i was playing the other night in a simultaneous moves game with short turns, i was fighting a war with one civ attacking a city, at the same time another civ kept trying to initiate diplomacy(several times in a row), as a result i had to keep dealing with the diplomacy while my troops which should have been attacking got slaughterd by the defenders.

i'm pretty sure it was unintentional by the fellow trying to trade, but i lost a bunch of archers as a result. so tag teaming, with one civ fighting and the other running diplomatic interference may pay off for thos inclinded to do this.