Vel's Strategy Thread - Part Three

[vmxa1]

I just checked and some things were enabled for the governor, so I turned everything off.

[Adam Wallock]

David-

Yes, but what difficulty are you playing at? Clearly if you have a lead in tech and gold and a superior infrastructure Mobilization is less useful. But consider a scenario in which you have been behind for some time but feel that a limited scale war would really help you jockey for position. I recognize that you acknowledged a possibility of usefulness in your post, but I would go so far as to say that Mobilization can be VERY useful under the right circumstances.

Just my two cents.

[Arrian]

Ok, this is off-topic, but I wanted to see what you all think.

I just don't have the patience for a domination victory (let alone conquest!). In my last several games, I have been extremely powerful, and have fought modern wars, but after a while I just get bored and build the planetary party lounge. The fact is, if I wanted to conquer the world, or the 66% required for domination, I could - EASILY. But it does, eventually, get tedious.

Last night I was going to try for domination (but sure enough I had built all the SS parts but the lounge). I had the vast majority of the large continent under my control (42 cities, maybe more, I forget), and then proceeded to cross the ocean and wipe out Germany (11 cities on a small-medium island continent). This accomplished, I could easily have continued on to Russia (no tanks), which was near to Germany on another island with probably 14 cities. That would leave only China and France. China was still in the industrial age, and had received its last 7 techs as gifts from me. France had mech inf and had built the manhattan project - hmm... beware of dog (they were on another island, 12-15 cities, roughly, and did have uranium). So, I figure wiping out china and russia would have been easy and would have given me more than 66% of the land. The powergraph was silly - I was more powerful than everyone else combined.

But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It would have just been tedious. So I built the lounge and blasted off.

Anyone else feel this way? By the way, I don't think corruption has anything to do with my sense of boredom with conquest.

-Arrian

[JohnE]

Response to Vel

It's been a long time since I played Magic, but I definitely engaged in the metagame as you describe it. I often built decks with colors in opposition to one another, to draw from their strengths. I built one called Fight With Honor, for example, built around Serra Angels, Sengir Vampires, White Knights, and Black Knights. My all time favorite was Hell or High Water, because my opponent wouldn't get a creature come Hell or high water. If I couldn't counter it with blue, I would eviscerate it with red. When I got sick of the complicated decks, I resorted to We Bring Death or Die With Your Boots On. We Bring Death was a black and red deck with nothing but direct damage. Die With Your Boots On was a 110-card monster that was fast as greased lightning and spewed nothing but creature after creature.

Anyway, I guess I should say something on topic.

Perhaps I have been unable to shake habits from Civilization II, but I rarely tolerate other civilizations on my continent. I don't play pangaea games, so I often find myself on a continent big enough to support the civilization I want to build, but without much room for another civilization. Thus, oscillating war ( which should probably be called serial warfare ) doesn't work well for me: I frequently set out to destroy everything that's not me that I can reach.

The next time I find myself in a situation conducive to that strategy, I plan to give it a try. The first game I won would have been good for it, but had too much fun fighting war after war against the English with my Cossacks. I razed 42 English cities in that game! ( They kept rebuilding in places I wouldn't because corruption would have killed my productivity. )

I do have a question to run by the assortment of great minds here, though. Do you find that the soft city limit ( maximum optimal cities ) causes good land to go unused? So far, in every game I have played, some good land has either gone unused or been used with very poor productivity which would have been better used if the limit were higher. Am I seeing this because of my tendency to eliminate every civilization in reach? Do you think raising the number would improve the game overall?

[pchang]

Tedium

Arrian,

Domination is tedious. Conquering the cities is not enough. You have to have the land in your cultural boundaries. That means you have to conquer, then rush build libraries/temples, then wait for the boundaries to expand.

Conquest is less tedious, if you do it early (iron age rush), otherwise conquest is also quite tedious. The later you wait, the more tedious it becomes (especially when every little island has at least 1 AI city on it).

[pchang]

Vassals

JohnE
That is what Vassals are for. If you allowed those patches of unused land to be inhabited by small civs that are under your thumb, then that land will be very productive as the AI will not have any corruption. Ah, but how does that benefit you you might ask? Well, for one, you have denied those small civs luxuries and resources and they will be behind you in tech. Every 20 turns or so, you will sell them techs/luxuries/resources for all of their per turn income. This allows you to:
1) Set science at 100% and still have positive income, or
2) Rush build improvements all over the place to up your culture, or
3) Rush build units all over the place to conquer a civ that is not under your thumb

[David Weldon]

Adam:
For the record, I play standard size maps, (EDIT:anything but islands), and any difficulty level. I have won at Deity the few times I've played, but I don't find it enjoyable. The tactics which are required there and at Emperor leave almost no room for creativity or "fun". Basically, it's just a quick military rush to catch up in tech, then another one later to catch up a second time and get your civ large enough to lead in tech from then on. My biggest problem with those levels, though, is something I am discussing in another thread (Oh lord it's hard to be humble...), and that's the fact that I _hate_ starting in such a huge hole that it's impossible to get out of it peacefully. I am angry for most of the Ancient and about half the Medieval Ages because I simply have no chance of competing in any way but invasion. It feels like saying "OK, you're going to win unless you're a total bonehead, thank goodness your're stupid!". It's a personal thing, but that kind of struggle isn't enjoyable to me, so I play most of my games at Monarch.

As for being behind, that's when I put science to 0% anyway. It's much cheaper to buy other techs than to research them, and it's even more effective to buy military and capture the techs at the same time as you're expanding your civ. Why fight a losing battle in the tech wars? Once I'm in a position of dominance, only then will I spend anything on science and I'll start building and preserving a tech lead, selling non-military or non-steampower techs as soon as a second civ has learned them.

I do tend to play commercial and/or Industrious civs, so I always have perfect infrastructure and a much larger trade base than other civs. This probably makes rushbuying more viable for me than if I were playing an under-developed ****er civ... (EDIT: holy cow, w.a.n.k.e.r. got censored. I'm in shock.)

Aeson:
If you're hell bent on fighting until all opponents are wiped out, I see your point. But I tend to fight limited engagements that are only aimed at one of three things:

-Intimidation so that I can grab all their techs for peace.
-Accquisition or denial of resources (strategic or luxury).
-Crippling the opponent by razing his best/oldest cities.

In most cases I leave the enemy alive, so even though I raze and rebuild just like you do, it's still important to rush in temples and other culture so that my new outposts don't eventually defect. The sooner they get culture producers, the more culture they'll have and the more they'll resist defection. Quick culture is also important to claim territory if I'm looking for resources.

Possible Conclusion:
I guess the general difference between me and those that adore mobilization may be that I don't ever go to full-scale war. I always have specific short-term goals and keep the wars to 10-15 turns at the most. I have lots of wars, but no protracted invasions. I love to strike, raze, rebuild, and sue for peace just as the enemy's transports are looming off my coast in a soft area of my empire...(ha ha, sail somewhere else, sucker! Glad you wasted all that time, though!)

[Adam Wallock]

David-

I agree with your ideas. I would certainly not say that I adore Mobilization but I have found it useful on occaison. My suggestion above was to use it in exactly the military circumsatnces which you have described: limited-scale targetted warfare. Mainly because making peace is the only way to shut it off. I would NEVER use mobilization if I was expecting a protacted conflict. I NEED my infrastructure.

[David Weldon]

Since this is a strategy thread and we're talking about massive war and other things, here's an idea I have been playing around with. I admit that I haven't tested it because I don't use these tactics, but I think it might have merit...

If you intend to win by Conquest, the large # of cities you end up owning cause extremely severe corruption. You can't really leave unused swaths of land open because the AI will settle in that area and you'll have to keep going back to mop up. But what if you raze/disband all of your cities except for those that form the very border of your territory? Of course leave your core cities alone, but all the otherwise useless cities that are just occupying space can be eliminated, and the culture ring that you end up with will allow you to detect any AI attempts to settle the open area in the middle of your territory. You can use RR or simply some border garrisons to prevent the AI from ever succeeding.

This should dramatically reduce your city count, thus allowing your remaining cities to be unaffected by "too many city" corruption. At the very least they would be less affected by it.

If you're trying for Domination, you can simply fortify the settler that disbands the city in the same spot, and then once you have conquered enough, you can found all of those cities and rush temples if necessary to get the territory coverage you need.

[Aeson]

I guess I'm the only one who "adores" Mobilization. Thats ok, as I know it comes from the way I play. On a recent game I used mobilization for actually building infrastructure. I had conquered a huge continent, and resettled very quickly. All the new cities I had were completely corrupt, and all the old cities completely developed. I was in monarchy (I just like being king!) and pumping out mech infantry and modern armor to airlift to the new continent to be turned into infrastructure. There were small Civ's still on some other Islands, none of them a threat in any way. So I mobilized and declared war on one of them. I kept producing units and completed all of the current builds on the main continent. Then I continued building units until I could finally make peace again, saving them to rush more infrastructure. Its a bit of a guess, but I think I increased my efficiency by 50% by doing so. It wouldn't work too well in democracy, so maybe thats why I'm the only one. Very rarely do I run a democratic state. Just judging by the ideas the governer's have, and they way automated workers work, I don't want my people making any decisions

[Velociryx]

One possible alternate use of mobilization:

Peace-time infrastructure for Democracies in corruption ridden cities.

Crank out scads of expensive units, disband them in far-flung cities (easy after you have airports) and mix with ample supplies of cash. Your core cities bounce back from the loss quickly, unhappiness is easily dealt with on account of all the happiness builds, and you mix raw shields with dough to make your dough go that much further.

-=Vel=-
(late nite two cents....)

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by David Weldon
Fifth, I can rush harbors into new overseas cities

Just a quick note: Under mobilization you can still build 'military' buildings, such as barracks, harbors and airports.

[Grim Legacy]

DW: I don't agree that the only way to get out of the 'huge hole' at Emperor and Deity levels is conquest.

There is no doubt that the human player starts with a big disadvantage -just take a look at the replay and you'll see *each* AI civ has 4-5 cities by the time you've built 2 (build orders in your capital being: warrior warrior settler).

Yet, as time goes on, the player is able to gear up with careful city management.

-now comes the inevitable part-

In my last game at Deity level - large, continents, 8 -, I played the French and I had the fortune of being in the possession of a sizeable land. In the end I had managed to build 17 cities. Of these cities, three were weak (tundra and sea-ridden). A further 2-3 cities were mediocre with dry-ish land. These cities were typically the ones founded pretty late. The remaining cities were good or excellent.

So, I was able to catch up in tech with the AI around 1400 AD. I certainly did not experience any late-game tedium: I was racing the tech tree against my now-massive rival the Persians (I estimate well over 40 cities). Guess what? I won. In 1700 I successfully launched my spaceship, winning the game.

I had not taken a single enemy city. I had gotten only 1 elite unit (a warrior, thanks to barbez), no leader. I had only had 3 short 'conflicts', in which I removed a total of 5 small towns that were compromising my lands. The biggest army I had was 14 horsemen, who eventually transformed into 8 cavalry, which were disbanded later.

Sooo... it *is* possible to use 'other' tactics.

[JohnE]

Re: Vassals

Originally posted by pchang
JohnE
That is what Vassals are for. If you allowed those patches of unused land to be inhabited by small civs that are under your thumb, then that land will be very productive as the AI will not have any corruption.

You're right, and I understand the strategy, but have been unable to apply it. So far, in every game I have played, the only neighbors that were good vassal targets were so close that I couldn't vassalize them. They had to be eliminated because they were too threatening. When they're five spaces from my capital, their fate is sealed.

However, I have also found that I don't develop technology as fast as the good players on this message board. I wonder what I am not doing right.

[pchang]

5 tiles is awefully close. Do you play on small or tiny maps? I usually play on standard sized maps and enemy capitals are typically at least 15 tiles away.