Scouting

[GusSmed]

Originally posted by ducki
Gus, the scenario you describe is simply part of every non-expansionist civ.

Look, I didn't say "Aztecs suck." And anyone who builds Jaguar Warriors just to upgrade them to Swordsmen is crazy. They're a powerful unit if used correctly.

I just said that Aeson's description of a scouting opening doesn't work well for the Aztecs. He advocates leaving your starting city completely undefended while you pump out scouts and a granary. This just doesn't work for the Aztecs.

The correct thing to do with the Aztecs is to behave as if you're making an Archer rush. Your goal is 4 cities with Barracks with at least 2 decent tiles each doing nothing but pumping out warriors, only you need 10 Jaguar Warriors to attack a city instead of 5 Archers.

You continue to attack, occasionally extorting tech and changing targets, until upkeep become prohibitive. You then switch over to Horsemen, who cost 3 times as much as a JW but are only twice as effective, but cost the same to maintain.

You can expect a relatively unproductive Golden Age, but you're going to be so much stronger than anyone else that you'll quickly have control of your starting landmass.

- Gus

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Catt


You can also go to the spaceship screen (F8, F9, F10? - can't remember which, but it is one of those) right from the start and get a full list of all civs in the game by clicking on the "View Space Race" button. At least, you could do so in Civ 3 -- havne't tried it yet in PTW. Can save you several trips to F11 early.

Catt

Never knew that, thanks! It is a hassle getting that info from F11, and takes longer.

[Aeson]

I just said that Aeson's description of a scouting opening doesn't work well for the Aztecs. He advocates leaving your starting city completely undefended while you pump out scouts and a granary.

When to build the first defender is map dependant, as is the number of Scouts and whether or not to build Granaries first. Difficulty matters too.

The Scouts you have should always allow you to know when to switch from building Scouts. If you find an AI 10 tiles from your capitol, it's time to get a defender produced. The exception to this would be Deity, where there just isn't much point to building early defenders. If a neighbor AI is going to attack around that time, you aren't going to be able to hold off their troops anyways. It happens occasionally. The only real way to stop it is seeing their stack coming and getting in the way before they can get to your territory and declare war. Scouts work just as good at this.

As for the Aztecs, they become more and more 'expansionist' the lower the difficulty level and larger the landmass.

[BRC]

Bump for AU

Here it is Jawa

[jshelr]

I had a hut in my initial city radius on the first turn of a recent game. I was hoping for a settler pop, which requires that you not have an active settler. It is ambiguous whether popping the hut by founding a city can ever produce a settler. Anyone know?

I moved one square away to make sure, but that might not be necessary.

[Aeson]

I'm certain that you can't get a 4000BC Settler from a hut. That is because the player goes first, and none of the other AI have any cities. Either your Settler is still active when the hut is popped, or you have 1 city to the 0 of the rest of the civs. The requirement that you have less than or equal to the average number of cities per civ would disqualify a Settler.

As for opening a hut with the founding of a city, I have a suspicion that the Settler is still 'active' at the time the hut is processed. If you watch the result from the hut, the city population is at 0 when the hut is opened.

[jshelr]

Thanks for the info.

The game was all humans and I was not going first. However, the "settler is still active" part of the answer will apply to lots more situations than just the odd start I encountered.

[Zero]

Originally posted by GusSmed


Look, I didn't say "Aztecs suck." And anyone who builds Jaguar Warriors just to upgrade them to Swordsmen is crazy. They're a powerful unit if used correctly.
- Gus

Uhh, build a regular Jag, let it roam around come back and upgrade to an elite swordsmen? yeah thats just crazy talk!

[ducki]

Just getting back to this thread after being away a while...

Originally posted by GusSmed
Look, I didn't say "Aztecs suck." And anyone who builds Jaguar Warriors just to upgrade them to Swordsmen is crazy. They're a powerful unit if used correctly.

I didn't think you did, and I was merely pointing out that your complaints about the pseudo-expansionisticality ( ) of Azteca combined with Aeson's "Lot's of Scouts Early" bit is true of any non-Exp civ, Jags or not.

I just said that Aeson's description of a scouting opening doesn't work well for the Aztecs. He advocates leaving your starting city completely undefended while you pump out scouts and a granary. This just doesn't work for the Aztecs.

Here's where I couldn't disagree more - instead of scouts - which have no defense value anyways - the Azteca are producing a steady, early stream of Jags, which do have defensive value. Since they are so cheap, your capitol should be churning these guys out faster than you can get them to unexplored territory.
When the current build gets down to about 2 turns to go, send out the last one you produced.


Ooops, I started to do a big reply on all this, but remembered we're here for Scouting - I have a bad habit of threadjacking that I'm trying to suppress.

P.S. Calc II - I'm pretty sure Elites upgrade to Vets - is there a mod that changes that?

[VenomLord]

yeah, he's been saying that for ages ELITES UPGRADE TO VETS!! I believe they addded that in to make it harder to generate gl's which seems fair enough 2 me

[ducki]

If you think about it, if Elites upgraded to Elites, even non-Mil civs would have stacks and stacks by the Modern age.

Back on topic, I've tried the "Lots of Scouts First then Granary" thing with Exp. civs and it really does work on Normal and larger maps with Continents or Pangea most of the time. It's a great strat that I never tried before Aeson pointed it out. Now, I can't imagine playing an Expansionist without at least 5 ultra-early scouts. At least.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

what an interesting thread!

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Aeson, Ducki, Theseus, et al, (don't feel neglected 'cause I didn't list your name), I'm just going to be self-centered and ask for some specific advice for my style of gaming.

I play regent level, on a huge 4 billion yr old world with continents and roaming barbarians. I play with the max number of civs (16... I haven't customized anything).

Aside from the broad stroke you've painted here - very helpful indeed - could you give me any more specific advice?

Also, I'd like to know if any of you have some advice to offer expanionist players who are nearby other expansionist players (mostly those Europeans).

[Theseus]

God, Yahweh (and yes, that's FUNNY), I'm just catchin' up... demogames and all. I ain't gonna go back through 3 months of threads.

I say that Arrian and others have been commenting on a number of your threads, and trust me, you can't go wrong with what you've gotten so far.

I have not, however (I think), seen SAVs and screenshots... they would be very helpful. ducki, for instance, was very diligent about posting AARs and screenshots, and that went a long way to helping us be helpful.

Actually, let me please request screenshots as opposed to SAVs, due to your preference for huge maps.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I do all my posting here at work, so it's hard for me to remember to bring in screenshots... but I'll get better at it.

And, yes, the advice y'all have been offering more has been top-notch... that's why I want MORE of it!

But seriously, how do the Russians and English and Zulus and Arabs and Americans and Iroquois get along with each other? Does anyone know any tricks for expansionist civs to "out-scout" other expansionists?