using military "wall" to stop AI CIV expansion

[JFB]

Yeah, purple, I like the term "herding" ... has to come from a fellow Texan! I'm a long, long way from home ...

I have successfully herded settlers in the early game to less desirable city spots. The AI will build on the first half-decent piece of land it lands on, so I herd them away from the goodies and rush a settler in.

[Dodgy Geezer]

I am a big fan of both herding and Mil-walls. I hate having to tell the AI to get orf my land every go, especially as sometime the answer is WAR!!!. As a relatively peaceful player I find that both strategies are essential for keeping and maintaining a big empire.

Herding is great in the early game - if you are an expansionist you can even use three scouts to hold up a AI settler. But even without them it relatively easy to put warrior lookouts on strategic mountains and then move/fill the gaps as necessary.

I have noticed that the AI eventually gives up if you herd them enough.

Since I turn off enemy moves to speed things up, I find that Mil-Walls are great for stopping mass incursions. In the attached picture I set up a total of three Mil-walls to prevent my Persian neighbours (who were coming second in the world after me) from gaining access to the rest of the map. This lasted about five hundred years until I finally slipped up and had sixty cavalry on my hands. Still, after a bit of judicious herding I managed to get them cornered on some flat land and bang, suddenly they didn't have an offensive capability any more, and I had a new leader to play with!

[lorddread]

the wall

I used to use the wall in all the other civ games (civ II, ctp) but here the game can still mess with you. What it can do is this: When it encounters your wall, it can make a settler form a city right next to it. This way your soldiers are in its territory. This forces you to move you wall. It can keep doing this all the way to your cities.

[planetfall]

Play it back. In those push back scenarios where you don't have a row of cities as a fixed border behind your wall, put in a wall segment of throwaway cities. Point is to slow down AI while working on more important issues.

Pick a spot where you want to push back and
plant cites 4 tiles apart. Put in a warrior, temple and library. They will find it hard to move. Useful to slow down expansion on a land mass where AI is expanding too fast and where
you want to delay and distract AI. Does not matter if city reverts, this is a slow down strategy and not a gain space strategy. It helps reduce area of influence of cities that are too big.

I have learned from watching the AI the proper method is:
1. naval transport at source city
2. settler and warrior at source city
3. Turn 1-- load gallery{transport}
4. Turn 2--
a. move gallery
b. unload settler & warrior
5. Turn 3--
plant nuisance city.

Only way I have found to defeat this strategy is:
anticipate, anticipate
double check wall is solid, tiles in area of influcence but NOT in city boundaries are holes and will be tested by AI
protect coast by transports or privateers
forcing AI transport to detour so can't finish in one turn


NB: another effective AI strategy to exploit wall holes

I have learned from watching the AI the proper method is:
1. naval transport at source city
2. 2 settlers and 2 warriors at source city
3. Turn 1-- load gallion{transport}
4. Turn 2--
a. move gallion
b. unload settlers & warriors
5. Turn 3--
plant nuisance city.
if move was less than full for gallion,
for last move, move into nuisance city
so not visible on water
6. turn 4--
move down coast 4 squares
unload 2nd settler and 2nd warrior
7. Turn 5--
plants 2nd nuisance city


AI is definitely willing to lose one transport for 2 new cities. Either detroy
with privateers or beat to punch.

Sometimes opening apparent holes in the wall by moving wall pieces into the city line and then restoring when AI moves pieces to get through opening buys time. The AI thinks it can get behind the wall and keeps sending too many settler pairs trying to find a hole. A solid line leads it to turn aggressive sooner. A wall with an apparent gap at one end, oh, plugged by the time you got there, and an apparent opening at the other end gets the AI moving settler pairs back and forth along the line. Fun to watch and does seem to delay expansion in other areas where you may not be as ready for them.

[Arrian]

Personally, I spend my early game resources on settlers so that I grab the city sites I really need, and accept a certain amount of AI ICS. In the mid game, my resources are spent building improvments and wonders. In the late game, I DO build a wall - a wall that moves and kills, composed of dozens upon dozens of Modern Armor. But that's another story...

-Arrian