Vel's Strategy Thread - Part Three

[Bblue]

Learning at the Library

Just stumbled across an oddity on how the Great Library works; not sure if it is a bug, the way it was intended, or just an eccentricity of the beast.

Basic set up was standard map, standard settings with the exception of high % of water, emperor level. I (Americans) start out on a 'stringy' continent with the Romans and Japanesse. Like all higher difficulty settings the AI beats me to the early wonders, with the Japs completeing the Great Library ~15 turns before I wipe them out (and claiming the GL for myself). Not a lot of good right off the bat with me only knowing one other Civ. So I go searching for the other 5 civs that should be in the game and I find that my 'stringy' continent is VERY isolated a full 2 turns over open sea the the nearest nieghbor so I don't make it to them in a galley (nor they to me) anytime soon. So Rome and I are falling way behind in the tech race (can tell by the wonders the other 5 are finishing before Rome or myself are even close the the tech requirements). Eventually... Lady luck and a bunch of sucidial galley captains later I manage to cross the great seas and don't fall off the edge of the world :P I make contact with 1 of the other 5 civs and pay kingly sums to get contacts with the others.. we do a little luxury trading and I happily await the next turn for some free techs all the way to and including Education (which most of you already know can be aquired through the library even as it renders it obsolite) Anyway.. next turn I'm hansomly rewarded for my seagoing ventures 4-5 techs, goodies like Invention and Education, which upon aquiring I get the notice the the GL is now obsolite, a few more units move on the map and then my soothsayers tell me that I have now learned Astronomy!!! (NOT what I was researching at the time) I had aquired it from the GL! even though the Gl was obsolite AND Astronomy has Education as a prerequisite!

So it appears as if the GL continues the work for the FULL TURN in which it becomes outdated. While I only gained 1 tech beyond Education I am left to wonder just how far up the tech ladder I could have gone had that galley not have made it and a few hundred more years would have pasted.. can see it now...Your Soothsayers inform you that you have learned Flight from the GL. :P

While not a Stadagy in itself, definately something to keep in mind for some of those 'strange' games

Personally I'm pretty sure the GL wasn't intended to work this way, but I didn't mind getting the 'extra' tech since the AI civ would have also gotten it if it were in my position, and besides there is anything you can really do about it anyway :P

[zeace]

Use for moblization (and the draft)

I agree that most players will not find much use for mobilization or drafting citizens, but that's because if we're getting crushed by another civ we restart the game. These are very powerful last-ditch efforts for saving your civ againts an oppressor.

I'm sure that the AI uses these techniques every time it's about to get destroyed.

When MP is finally available, I think we'll see a lot more people using these abilities. It will actually make the last few turns of a bad game interesting. Imagine knowing that you need to hold this city so that your ally has a few turns to bring his enormous army to your continent. You turn on mobilization and start building infantry. You sell improvements to rush build them. And then to complement these troops you draft 3 more recruits. Do this every turn and you may be able to hold a key choke-point city for a few turns.

Ze Ace

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Well i wrote a whole thing, but then it got erased when I hit the wrong button, so I don't won't to rewrite it again so heres the shorter version.

Science

(1) Trade techs with the AI. The AI will trade with itself, and to keep up you must trade with them. Get into contact with other civs early. Besides, no one civ will invents all of the techs.

(2) Pop huts. A few extra techs will definatly help, esp if you are expansionist. Try to get ceremonial burial this way.

(3) Beeline for Republic and switch into it as soon as possible. There is better science and production output


Cities

(1) 8- 14 cities after REX-ing depending on map
(2) Build Temple (Culture 2, Upkeep 1) and Library (Cultre 3, Upkeep 1) in all cities with goal of getting culture of each city to at least 100 so you can get some land before AI cities lap against yours.
(3) Keep cities from going into civil disorder. Stunt growth at that limit. Build a worker for each city and then build roads so you get more commerce. Civs with luxeries can build larger cities, so thats a plus. Get growth to zero, transfer workers to commerce squares and improve those with mines and/or roads. Don't jsut build roads everywhere.

Why borders are broken

(1) I have a city with culture 1000+. The AI sends a settler to a square just outside my borders. He founds a city, and my borders are pushed back because the city has to have 1 square culture in each direction. While doing that, he takes my only supply of horses. Thats total crap. Borders should not move.
(2) I build a colony on some iron while I'm waiting for a settler to come along. Instead, the AI sends a settler next to my iron and he takes it. That should either not happen if you are at peace or be an act of war.

Culture

A city with 5 culture will take it 20 turns to expand its borders to size 100 from size 10. When you get The Republic, switch goverments, and go into the republic. Then, change all of your cities from zero growth to maximum. Since there is less corruption in Republic, you can afford more. Build all of the other culture improvements first, then do granery and marketplaces. Set luxeries at 20% and then have a pop boom.

While REX-ing

One more thing on Culture vs. Science. While you are REX-ing, build cheap warriors/spearmen until you have to start paying for them. Use them to wage Stone/Bronze age war. This will mean that by the time you switch to Republic you will have a big army and you will have hopefully gimped a neighbor or two.

Forbidden Palace Question

In the civil-o-pedia, it says that Forbidden palace can be build with 8 cities in a standard map. Is there any other requirements like a tech? How bout for Huge and large and small maps? How many cities. Thanks

[Dodgy Geezer]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
1) I have a city with culture 1000+. The AI sends a settler to a square just outside my borders. He founds a city, and my borders are pushed back because the city has to have 1 square culture in each direction. While doing that, he takes my only supply of horses. Thats total crap. Borders should not move.

This can be used to your advantage. When attacking the homeland of another civ in the mid to end game, take a few settlers along for the ride. Build cities on the edge of your territory to extend your reach into theirs. Sometimes that extra square can make the difference between getting your tanks into their cities vs being caught in the open.

Once you have captured or razed all that you want, either leave the cities there or disband them.

[vmxa1]

I am sure we understand that it can be used to our advatange. That is not the issue. The point is that any units coming across a culture border should be an act of war and allow me to attack with out the penalty. I hate it that they can have a unit (often a miltary one and a settler) in my zone and I can tell them to leave and they agree, but do not. I finally have to attack and I am considered the aggressor. I do not want to deal with those cities that are created in my zone in any fashion, capture or disband. I want to whack the settler and not be force to war. It is to me as if we caught someone spying and the put them on trial and were considered the aggressor, that makes no sense. The invasion occurred when they came into your zone. You should be able to attack and no war is decalred by that act, they must decide to declare on you if they do not like losing the unit. I will allow a worker to pass as that is akin to a truly lost person having strayed across the border that was not mark clearly. Since they do no damage, it is a freebie. I also loathe the concept that I am beating the crap out of a civ and they agree to peace and I start to move troops out of their zone and the next turn they call to ***** about troops being there? Since I have no way of getting out in one turn, what is the point? Wait to see if I am leaving, then complain, if I do not move. Don't waste time when it is not possible to have vacated. I usually declare war for that contact and make them pay some more, why would you want to annoy someone who just kick your butt, with a demand that they leave at that point?

[Velociryx]

This, more than anything else, will be one of the best reasons to have "barbarian" units available to all. Keep a few on the prowl at the periphery of your borders, and you can play "Whack-a-settler" all day long when they violate your borders....no war, no fuss, no muss....

-=Vel=-

[DFHNY]

how to win on monarch level?

vel and grim:
How does one win on Monarch level? It appears that the AI starts to cheat massively in order to keep you on your toes.

a. I find the AI now wants to go to war ASAP... this slows me from building anything but swordsmen early on...then very often another civ will ask for a key tech and then declare war, often from very far away

b. send out swordsmen only to have them lose to warriors, how and why? AI samurai chop through my rifelmen...that should not happen, right? Who would bring a knife to a gun fight? What dice is the AI rolling?

c. The fun in the game seems to be gone above Regent level because many of my friends just "reload" constantly...arguing that at Monarch and Emperor one must play "perfectly". What they mean is that unless they win every sinlge conflict they reload. Metagame aside, that is just a pain in the ass. What are we doing wrong?

d. the starting position seems to be critical, so after 15 or so false starts I usually just start playing, palace is always touching the sea which sucks for corruption, but who gets a better start? not me.

thanks in advance

[Skeletal Dragon]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
[(1) I have a city with culture 1000+. The AI sends a settler to a square just outside my borders. He founds a city, and my borders are pushed back because the city has to have 1 square culture in each direction. While doing that, he takes my only supply of horses. Thats total crap. Borders should not move.

Culture borders are determined by the -net- culture of your civ. The more culture you have, the more you push their borders back. So that probably means that they have around the same amount of culture as you.

And it is entirely possible to push a border back so that it touches the city itself. I've done that several times on occasion

[Dodgy Geezer]

Re: how to win on monarch level?

Originally posted by DFHNY
How does one win on Monarch level?

I haven't had any real problems at Monarch, providing I get a good start position, and have won without pop rushing or any of the other exploits. Maybe this is because I always play on a Pangea map, with either a sci or religious CIV (although I am playing China at the moment and am leading the pack). Here is a few tips that I have found to be useful:

- Micromanage settlers at first. Get your cities going to max, then build roads to all cities, and to the AI to allow trade.

- To avoid getting whacked in the early game churn out a lot of warriors or spearmen - the AI seems to attack any side which has a shortage of military, regardless of the type. Spearmen have the advantage of being upgradeable to Infantry, so they are a good investment.

- Avoid having too much money saved up. Bigger, more powerful folk will try to bully you for it.

- Always agree to any demands for tribute - you don't want a war to somebody elses timetable. Just make sure you build up on the borders

- Trade as much as possible. This reduces the chances of others starting wars with you.

- Get to Republic ASAP, and churn out workers to improve the land and create your roads.

- Wherever possible, get others to fight your wars. If someone starts a war with you, get the Civ on the other side of them to attack them. Even better is to get another Civ to attack your target civ before you do, so drawing off its troops.

- Raze cities and build your own. Keeping cities close to an opponents capital is a real pain. Much better to start fresh.

- Buy sci whenever you get the chance.

- When trading anything (either buying or selling), try to buy or trade with weaker civs, or civs not on your borders. No point in helping the top dog by giving them extra cash.

It gets harder at Emperor level (obviously) - I generally stop producing wonders and science at Emperor, at least until the modern age and buy/conquor what I need. Buying sci can work out much cheaper than researching it.

[zorbop]

note on draining the ai money.
if the ai can't pay tribute that they owe you, then war is declared.
think about this

also, before you declare war offer x money per turn for all there money. they will have no money and you won't have to pay them because you are at war

[Arrian]

Winning on Monarch

Monarch is the first level where the AI cheats, but I think it's a big jump up from Regent. First off, starting location is even more key than it was on the lower levels, and I'm not embarrassed to admit I restart TONS of times looking for an acceptable start spot (which, to me, includes fresh water and some bonus resouces like cows or wheat or deer). Second, definitely expand as rapidly as possible until you've got a solid core of cities and at least two luxuries. Third, the AI is definitely more aggressive, so I don't build spearmen for some time. Sounds counter-intuative, right? Wrong, the AI calculates "power" based upon unit count. So 2 warriors are more valuable early on in the game than 1 spearman. Plus, you can send those two warriors exploring in different directions. Fourth, if the AI demands some money from you early on... pay it. Fifth, build the Great Library. I beeline for Literature, and buy a couple of techs like the wheel and ironworking from the AI. In order to build the GL while not crippling your expansion, the best thing is to get a solid #2 city up and running, so that one can take over settler production while your capitol starts on the Pyramids or Oracle. Then, once you get Literature, switch to the Library. The Library will catch you up in tech. Now you want to build a few barracks (I do this in high-shield, low trade cities, at least until the high-trade ones have libraries) and start pumping out horsemen. Horsemen eventually become knights and then cavalry, so the more the merrier.

Anyway, you will probably end up fighting eventually, but hopefully not until you have a bunch of knights handy. Go for Theology and Feudalism and build the Sistine & Sun Tzu. If you can trigger a golden age at this time, it may be a good idea for you to do so. Once you have knights, shoot for Astronomy (Cop's) and if you haven't fought yet, you may want to pick a fight, depending on the situation. Aim to gain luxuries.

I recognize that one can vary what I've outlined and succeed, or ignore it totally and slash&burn instead, but this is my "builder" version of Monarch strategy. This is not to say it always works. When it does, it tends to work spectacularly. Then again, sometimes it blows up in your face (see "Great Library in 2" plus "The French city of Paris has completed the Great Library" ). It's kinda like putting your eggs in one basket.

-Arrian

[cully]

Vel/Arrian/Skanky can you help?

This is my first post on the thread but i have been an avid reader from the start, very helpful and almost certainly the best thread on the site.

Anyway, in a recent game i was the persians and went to war with the aztecs, the war dragged on for some time mainly due to stubborn aztec resistance (they started it by the way). Some time during the war my polite and very healthy trading partners the Babs & Romans became furious with me and i was wondering do you ever experience this kind of attitude change for what seems no apparant reason? Or better still do you know why their attitude would suddenly become furious even though we had very good relations and traded often? This type of thing has happened in previous games.

I would appreciate your vast knowledge on this one.

[Velociryx]

Monarch (DFHNY) – I’d have to agree with Arrian on this one….it does indeed represent a pretty big jump up from Regent level play.

Even with that, however, the same basic strats you use on Regent can be applied to Monarch….it’s just that at the higher level of play, there is less room for error.

Essentially, there are only three viable beelines in the ancient era. Two of them revolve around warmongering, and one revolves around building (The Great Library beeline, as described by Arri).

If you’re playing a Scientific Civ, and are looking to pick a fight early, then your beeline should be to Iron working (this works especially well for Persia, who has Industrious workers AND a rockin’ ancient era special, but will work for ANY scientific civ). Once a source of Iron is secured, the rest of the early game is about picking fights with your nearest neighbors to deny them their source(s) of iron. Do that, and it’s a lock.

The final beeline would be to horseback riding (especially effective if you’re Japan, on account of their starting tech). Grab it, and do pretty much the same thing as you’d do with iron working, ‘cept this time, you want to deny the AI’s their source of horses (and iron too, if you can swing it without destroying them utterly).

The main thing on the higher levels is this: You NEED to trade!!! If the AI’s have techs that you don’t, and they won’t give them up, then beat the snot out of them and force them to the negotiation table. Even if you wanna play the peaceful builder game (GL beeline) you still need to trade, but your focus will likely be more toward trading for lux items to keep the increasingly unruly populace in line). Oh! And as to that….once you deny the AI’s their ability to defend themselves (iron/horse resources), start looking toward the acquisition of lux items! Once you take their lux cities, you can trade your surpluses back to your former enemies to keep them cash strapped. A cash strapped AI is one you can compete head to head with and then some (negates their cheat bonuses).

Cully (on the AI-PMS-Mood Swings)
The AI (especially on the higher levels of play) will hate you for being too weak and for being too strong.

Too weak (note that “weakness” in this case means that you have fewer military units than your rivals, irregardless of quality), and they’ll be out for blood, ganging up on you if they can. Too strong (if you’re way ahead in tech, or doing “too well” in a war you’re in the midst of) and they’ll feel threatened (in most cases, rightly thinking that they’re next on the hit list), and attack you while you’re still busy (and even if they don’t attack, you can watch your relations with them plummet).

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

PS On Ancient Era Beelines:

The only exception to these three beelines being utterly dominant in the game would be if you're playing an 'pelago map with tons of islands and high water. In that case, unless you've got company on your starting island, the ONLY relevant beeline is map making....

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Cully,

Are you winning vs. the Aztecs? Have you gotten a LOT stronger because of the war? The AI will start to get "annoyed" and then even "furious" if you get too strong w/o giving it things.

For instance, I have a SICK world map game going in which I allied with the Romans to take down the Iroquois. With Rome's help (and they really did help- it was great to have legionaries protecting my flanks from counterattacking Mounted Warriors), I almost utterly destroyed the Iroquois. This resulted in my Power nearly doubling. As soon as the war was over, the Romans went from "gracious" to "cautious" and I noticed several of the other civs had gone from "polite" or "cautious" to "annoyed." My solution was to trade stuff with them - as much as I could, even if I got terrible prices for my goods, and gift them my world map (since my empire is huge, my map is apparently quite valuable). This helped quite a bit with most of the AI's, although Rome remained cautious... which got Caesar killed I now own all of Asia (incl. the Middle East), Europe and the northern 1/2 of Africa. Keeping the AI's happy is getting tough, b/c I'm way up in tech too. So I sold them medicine, sometimes for peanuts, and even gifted the really poor civs small sums (50 gold). That helped a bunch. I will generally check on them every few turns too see if more tinkering is necessary.

Vel - I think you just summed up the various ancient era strategies perfectly. You either hole up and shoot for literature like me, and pray you don't get hit, or you shoot for one of the warrior techs (Iron or Horses) and start crippling your neighbors. Personally, if I'm gonna pick a fight, I'd prefer horses, since they have a MUCH longer time in the sun... swordsmen don't upgrade.

-Arrian