Picking the right Civ!

[Theseus]

Except for its cultural neighbors, Rome, Persia, and Greece, all of whom also have strong early traits.

[Txurce]

Theseus, in both these games, I faced Greece and Rome, but not Persia. Rome was easy because it takes them longer to build up their UU, given that it requires iron working. I would go at these two civs right away. The Greeks, on the other hand, have a chariot-crusher right from the start. I leave the Greeks for cavalry, since their lack of a powerful ancient offensive unit makes them no problem to hold off, should they get ambitious.

My real point, though, was surprise at my two best early expansions with the Egyptians. I would have thought that the Iroquois would be even better, but I really think that cheap, fast-moving ancient UUs offer the best opportunity to quickly pull away from the AI.

[Theseus]

I totally agree. Good move taking out Rome right away.

Early warmongering rocks, but I am currently having my best (i.e., most dominant) game ever with Japan. The Samurai is on the edge of unbalanced, especially now with multi-attack Armies.

Rel / Mil versus Rel / Ind... both excellent.

[player1]

Originally posted by Txurce
Theseus, in both these games, I faced Greece and Rome, but not Persia. Rome was easy because it takes them longer to build up their UU, given that it requires iron working. I would go at these two civs right away. The Greeks, on the other hand, have a chariot-crusher right from the start. I leave the Greeks for cavalry, since their lack of a powerful ancient offensive unit makes them no problem to hold off, should they get ambitious.

My real point, though, was surprise at my two best early expansions with the Egyptians. I would have thought that the Iroquois would be even better, but I really think that cheap, fast-moving ancient UUs offer the best opportunity to quickly pull away from the AI.

You could take out Greeks if going to Swordsmen mode, and using Chariots for "Pillage to death" strategy.

[notyoueither]

What do you early conquest dudes do if you start no closer than 18 tiles away from the nearest AI capital on a standard map?

[Primus40]

LordAzreal... wow, you've done some thinking on this. Let me put my $.02 in on this and talk about my personal favorite:

Industrious/Scientific (Persians) - The worker rate benefit allows rapid land improvement to increase pop, build roads and get those settlers out to expand. If placement is good and you can build your capitol (or an early city) on the coast and next to fresh water, build the colossus asap and - BAM - you have a high production city that can just keep growing. Next wonder: Pyramids and you can keep those populations rising. More workers/more improvement/more production/more population, more settlers/more cities, more units/more strength... snowball effect. The cheaper science improvements allow you to tech-up and keep pace or pull away from the others. More techs, more stuff... again, snowball effect contributing to the previously mentioned benefits. My Immortals are generally effective against calvary, legionaires, impi... and later I send them off and they can whittle down tanks, mech infantry and modern armor to a point that my similar units wipe them up with ease.

I have great sucess rates at whatever type of victory strategy I want to try for using this civ. But to each his own.

[player1]

Originally posted by Primus40
My Immortals are generally effective against calvary, legionaires, impi...

No, they are NOT effecive against cavalry (horsemen, knights).



But if enemy has no horses:

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Jethro83]

Originally posted by Primus40
LordAzreal... wow, you've done some thinking on this. Let me put my $.02 in on this and talk about my personal favorite:

Industrious/Scientific (Persians) - The worker rate benefit allows rapid land improvement to increase pop, build roads and get those settlers out to expand. If placement is good and you can build your capitol (or an early city) on the coast and next to fresh water, build the colossus asap and - BAM - you have a high production city that can just keep growing. Next wonder: Pyramids and you can keep those populations rising. More workers/more improvement/more production/more population, more settlers/more cities, more units/more strength... snowball effect. The cheaper science improvements allow you to tech-up and keep pace or pull away from the others. More techs, more stuff... again, snowball effect contributing to the previously mentioned benefits.

Couldn't have said anything about Scientific/Industrious better myself. Saves me the trouble of saying that in this next instalment...

Commercial/Scientific (Greece) is another decent scientist's combo. Once a far-flung empire is built, with its infrastructure, the commerce from the many roads of the empire is maximized with the reduction of corruption. Cheaper libraries/unis/labs means that a the science bonus from them comes up quicker, thus accelerating the rate at which technologies are discovered.

Expansionist/Scientific (Russia) is yet another decent scientist's combo. The better goody-huts means getting ahead in technology (and since you use scouts that isn't too hard). Once your empire is established, the cheaper science improvements means a quicker way to boost scientific research. This, when done right you can gain the scientific lead right from the start, and maintain it through the ages.

Religious/Industrious (Egypt) I haven't figured much out, but I find that this combo shines the most when you have discovered Democracy. You can maintain your war effort under monarchy/communism and quickly switch to democracy once you've finished your conquests for the moment and want to consolidate your gains, and build infrastructure in your newly acquired lands. And since a democratic industrious civ is immensely fast at doing this, the delay from your world-domination plot won't last as long. Once you've finished with your consolidation and infrastructure, you can immediately switch to a warmongering government and knock out the next enemy.

Militaristic/Industrious (China) Again, this is a consolidation combo. More powerful, higher levelled military can bring enemy territories under your control. Once you've secured the newly acquired region, you can send your workers to build up infrastructure. This can include irrigation, that will ultimately lead to your own nationals breeding into these towns quicker and thus increasing chances of cultural assimilation. Though there's no switching to Democracy to consolidate (unless you're prepared to go through a long period of anarchy), being Industrious still bestows a bonus to the establishment of infrastructure in the occupied territories, and at home.

Still more to come.

[nato]

LordAzreal, I really like the way you consider the civ traits in combination rather than seperately. This makes so much sense since they of course always come in combos, not seperately.

I've thought a lot about civ traits, but I always thought of each one seperately ... good work!

One question I have ... you state several times that expansionist will lead to a larger empire. Do you really find this to be the case? I admit I don't play expansionist civs much, but I never really saw that they were getting more or faster cities than other civs. I just thought they explore and get early techs faster. How many settlers from huts can they really get?

Anyway, cool analysis.

[Txurce]

Player1, swordsmen would be more effective against hoplites, but it would still be a struggle, and one that ties up my infrastructure, as swordsmen take longer to build than WCs. If I don't absolutely have to fight Greece, I'd rather save them for later, and pick on someone else. If I have to - and I have a couple of times - then I do sometimes build a few swordsmen to lead the charge on the bigger cities. But again, I really hate to slow my production rate by building a more expensive unit. "Faster, cheaper" works better for me.

NYE, I'll check later to see how close the nearest capital was to mine in my last game. In the meantime, why do you ask if they're within 18 tiles of each other? From a distance perspective, Egypt obviously can bridge it more quickly with industriously-built roads. But I rarely focus on an enemy capital in my first war, as it's usually too early in the game to have anything to recommend it.

[Arrian]

Theseus,

Enjoying Japan? Good fun, aren't they? I would argue that the Samurai isn't overpowered, though. It's just a knight with +1 defense. Compare that to the MW or Immortal in ancient times, or the Rider in medieval times (imagine a 3-rider army... it could blast right through the standard AI defense of a city - 2 defense/1 attacker all by itself). I think it's fine. Thing is, though, if you did well in the ancient era, you will be on the verge of dominant right around the time you discover chivalry and can upgrade a large number of horsemen to samurai. It's the timing more than anything else.

---------------------

I hate the Greeks. Hoplites? We don't want no steeenking hoplites! My preferred strat is a 2 or 3 to 1 horsemen/swordsmen combo rush for continental domination. This will work on Greece, but you will take higher casualties. I would leave them for Samurai, or even Cavalry.

Rome is easier because all you need to do is cut off their iron. Same with Persia.

Religious/Industrious, by the way, is quite possibly the ultimate builder combo (obviously, the Babs are also a possibility here). The Industriousness of your people allows for a good REX, which is doubly crucial if you're not going to fight for land. Religious is just a great trait, ensuring you start off with better culture than the AI (even religious AI civs are delinquent early on), which will probably gain you a few cities via flipping. You start the game with Masonry, a valueable wonder tech which you can trade (or not). The turns saved by no anarchy, plus the cheap cathedrals are also key. Your terrain will be developed at double speed, and later on your rail net will be done in a blink of your eye. Once you have replaceable parts it gets downright silly.

I've had some really good games as Egypt. My only complaint is that their lack of militarism means less great leader generation, so when I went warmonger, I sacrificed Industrious for Militaristic.

-Arrian

[Primus40]

quote:Originally posted by Primus40
My Immortals are generally effective against calvary, legionaires, impi...

Originally posted by player1
No, they are NOT effective against cavalry (horsemen, knights).

You are right, I stand corrected... my gawd, what was I thinking about?
But I still stand by my Immortals!

(and on the right ground they can be moderately effective against horsemen - in my games at least)

[Txurce]

Arrian, I agree with your analysis of the samurai, and have one more personal caveat to add: how long does the age of chivalry last? In most of my games, I catch up to the AI at around this time, having demanded their tech to avoid further ruin from whichever ancient-era UU I am wielding. And then I usually notice that - if I can switch to republic economically and crank up the science - military tradition isn't very far away. As a result, I usually wait for cavalry, given that it has a bigger edge at first against defenders than knights do against pikemen. Even if I didn't wait, though, I wouldn't have enough time to make much use of chivalry-era units.

Egypt is a terrific builder civ. In my 1410 domination game I stayed pretty much in monarchy, and built only a couple of libraries; it was war, war, war until the end - no one reached infantry, including me. But I picked up the same game at 70BC and played space race, with the results that you describe. Even though Egypt lacks Babylon's science advantage, their fast building seems to make up for it, and I am now on my way to a launch in the early 1700s, which should nip my own record, held by the Babs.

You're right about the lack of GLs, of course - I had none in either of these games, and had to build the FP. On the other hand, it didn't matter.

[Arrian]

Txurce,

With regard to the age of chivalry, it all depends on the layout of the map. If I start on a continent with three other civs, I can usually crush them in ancient times... maybe with the last one getting feudalism and even putting out a couple of pikes, but generally I'm building by the early middle ages. I avoid chivalry and continue to build horsemen here and there, so that I can have a large force to upgrade whenever I need it. With three AI civs destroyed, tech slows down. Then again, if all four remaining AI's have contact with each other, I probably won't have much of a window of opportunity to use my Samurai. If one or two of the AI's are stuck on islands and can't make contact until astronomy or navigation, you're all set. Seek and destroy!

You are correct about Cav vs. Musket being a better deal than Sam vs. Pike. However, I always worry about the AI getting to nationalism, which results in Cav vs. Rifle. If I can destroy another AI civ with Samurai without hurting my building, I will do it.

I've had a rough streak lately where I've been getting 5 or even 6 civ continents with the Romans and Greeks on them. Blah. It slows me down, and the large # of civs in contact with each other speeds the tech such that I manage to conquer two, maybe three, before feudalism. I'll still win, eventually, but it's just not nearly as fun. I'm going for total domination of the AI, so getting bogged down is unacceptable.

I want a China/India/France romp. Those are quick 'n easy.

-Arrian

[Txurce]

Arrian, you raise a good point regarding civ variables, especially as they affect the tech rate. Interestingly, both my domination games were on six-civ continents - I probably wouldn't have bothered, if I thought I'd need to mount a major overseas invasion! How does a large number of civs on your continent slow you down?

In my first game, I saved Greece and Rome for cavalry (Rome was far away); in my second, Rome was crippled right after France. In the latter game, I kept both these civs alive until late in the game, as it seemed more efficient to move on, once they were rendered irrelevant. (Another advantage of this is that the more civs, the more likely the AI is to fight among themselves.) In effect, I used a "tall poppy" strategy, where I would attack the most threatening civ as soon as I was ready, reduce it to second-rate status, then switch targets. As I began my final push toward domination, it was easy to wipe these out quickly with cavalry, as most were back to using spearmen.

(I also build settlers at the close of a domination game, to fill up those bare spots on the map. I think the land masses are designed so that - if starting on a very large continent - you don't need to invade a second continent to win. In both my games, I eked out the required land area by filling in the dots with settlers, and taking just enough of the scattered islands.)