Vel's Strategy Thread - Part Three

[Fistleaf]

MPP can be exploited easily

In this Emperor game, China had an MPP with India. China sent hordes of Riders to my Japanese borders. I demanded that they get off my land, China declared war and captured one city. I spoke to Gandhi and bought 8 techs for 200 gold/turn. I then immediately attacked my former city. India is forced by MPP to declare war on me and therefore I got 8 techs without paying a single cent. Not that this helps me at all: my Japanese empire was crushed soon after.

[SerapisIV]

Here's a question for you guys, how long do you stay in Despotism?

If you have monarchy, however are still expanding, is it worthwhile to stay in despotism a bit such that you can rush build early temples/granaries or is it better to just get the hell out of despotism all together?

Also, when do people usually finally get into monarchy, I'm still only working on my second game, still on regent, so I was wondering in what game turn is an average date to be in monarchy by, particularly wondering if this date is difficulty dependent. Thanks.

Great compilation Vel. You already start putting together a new .doc file, or are you keeping it within the boards for a bit? Maybe this time you could even get a guide published before next holidays (just in time for the eventual paid expansion pack too)

[karlmarx9001]

Well, I no longer switch out of depotism until I get either communism or democracy, depending on what I do. It's far too easy to acquire tons of one-shield cities in gigantic wars, and they're practically full production cities for military units under depotism/communism. Under democracy, however, they're completely useless; monarchy and republic are just lousy versions of democracy.

I've noticed a comparable empire under communism produces about half the research or so that a democracy does, but that's pointless to do if you could invade and kill a nearby empire instead. Emperor and diety are so combat-centric they make Civ II look like a pacifist dream.

[eMarkM]

A couple of quick notes from my late Saturday night (uh, early Sunday morning) Emperor game w/ the new patch.

This is my first Emp game where I didn't get crushed in the Stone Ages. I've had many false starts, but now I'm just starting industrial age. Holding my own using "purist" techniques.

I'm Aztecs w/ Germans and French to north and Iroquois to south on my continent. I really didn't take advantage of my Jags as Vel's strat guide for them indicates to do in very early game. I tried, but was ineffective.

The key in this game was denial of resources to Germans and French--they couldn't get iron. My plan from the beginning was to "vassalize" them before saltpeter was discovered. It's worked perfectly. No Jag rushing, and a minimum of pop rushing. Very close to a "purist" approach. Neither could withstand Swordsman assaults sans iron. No way for them to counter except w/ horsies. Probably got 7-8 techs between the two of them when they begged for mercy. Build FP between former German/French empire w/ leader gained from battles. They now have 4 cities between them and are completely marginilzed.

Same can't be said of Iroquois. They have whole southern part of continent to themsleves and only I could get to them. I left them alone to get techs from my vassals. They've flourished. After Germans & French reduced to nothing I'm turning my attention to them. We split the continent now about 50/50, it'll be a great challenge to dominate them from here.

My palace is very inconviently located (more on trying to relocate palace post-patch) on a coast near Iroquois border and if I could expand into Iroquois territory, I could add some highly productive cities while taking them down a notch. Got to Military Trad before them and rushed them w/ Cavalry and gained a couple of cities. I've been able to build Bach and Leo, took over Pyramids from Germany, G Lib from French (post-Education). This is where I stand now.

Meanwhile, Russians are dominating their continent and lead the game by far. So I'm in thrid. But I have 1200 gold, completely updated to modern units (only one w/ riflemen) and right in the tech lead. It's going to be a three civ race to the end, the others will be gone by modern age, I'm thinking. This game is certainly winnable on Emp w/o resorting to pure rushing or ICS-type cities.

Some notes on patch:

Go ahead, try to relocate your palace after you have a good number of cities. My god! 200 turns in my best producing city.

Much faster w/ other civ unit's moves turned off completely. Very nice to not have to sit through endless patroling AI units.

40 turns for tech does have an impact at start, but no issue once you have some momentum.

I can't tell any big differences in corruption levels.

No other problems w/ patch so far.

More later.

e

[Corporal Clegg]

No doubt about the palace changes....

I was building my palace on a second continent in my current game when I applied the patch. I had a total of 20 cities, and the number of turns remaining to complete my castle went from 34 turns pre patch to >200 post patch.

Guess Firaxis wasn't too enamoured with the "palace bounce" strategies that were being posted here.

Actually, I think it is a good change. Will force people to choose carefully (and early) for optimal placement of palace / FP. If you conquer too much or in a direction different than you originally planned, corruption will make it difficult.

I plan on calculating the cost of the palace vs. city size in the next game I start, and will post here as I find out.

I too didn't notice many changes in corruption. Corruption in my empire only went down by a few gold and production with the patch.

One other thing I think was always there but I never noticed before. Maybe everybody else alread knows this, but have you noticed how the effect of luxuries decrease with distance from your capital? Check it out....you'll see that after you get about 10 tiles (in my games) from the palace, luxuries all produce 1 happy face instead of producing happy faces on an increasing scale.

Clegg

Originally posted by eMarkM
Some notes on patch:

Go ahead, try to relocate your palace after you have a good number of cities. My god! 200 turns in my best producing city.

\e

[karlmarx9001]

I agree that winning on Emperor is possible from non-silly play; that is, no MPP exploits, no pop-rushing to duplicate the early game of Civilization I, etc.

However, I don't think it can be done on Diety; I can barely manage to take down the AIs with pop-rushing. Anyone care to comment?

[Adam Wallock]

Quote: "Check it out....you'll see that after you get about 10 tiles (in my games) from the palace, luxuries all produce 1 happy face instead of producing happy faces on an increasing scale. "

Clegg, I think that the luxury multiplier only happens in cities with marketplaces. Perhaps this could explain what you are noticing?

[Corporal Clegg]

Doh! You're right. Sorry, it was getting late. Thanks for the reminder.

Clegg

Originally posted by Adam Wallock
Quote: "Check it out....you'll see that after you get about 10 tiles (in my games) from the palace, luxuries all produce 1 happy face instead of producing happy faces on an increasing scale. "

Clegg, I think that the luxury multiplier only happens in cities with marketplaces. Perhaps this could explain what you are noticing?

[HalfLotus]

Just wanted to give a . This will make for great bedtime reading. Your guides have kept me from finishing my current Tom Clancy novel.

Great work vel.

[Velociryx]

'evening all! Sorry I've not been posting as regularly as I was last week on the Strat thread....been testing out some new ideas, and writing that story over in the fiction section.....been an interesting past couple of days too!

First tho, before I get started on all that....another "thank you!" to everyone who's given the Strat. Thread high marks! That's always good to see, and it tells me that we've got some good, serious innovation goin' on here!

Serapis, re: Despotism - I generally shoot for Repulbic, skipping out on Monarchy altogether, and in my initial games, I set a limit for remaining in Despotism at "make the switch no later than 1000AD....however, in practice, it's generally a good deal sooner than that.

My rule of thumb is that after I've built temples/libraries everywhere I want 'em, and after I've fought one war in Ancient Times with some unfortunate neighbor, it's time to make the switch. At that point, my expansion (land grab) is done, and the cities I acquried via conquest are more-or-less up to speed. At that point, I can see bigger and better efficiency gains by making the switch. This too though, is dependent on which faction I'm playing. For example, when playing Babylon, I'm inclined to stay Despotic longer, build my temples and libraries naturally, and rush coloseum/cathedrals, making the switch shortly after entering into the middle ages. Also, I've noticed that when I'm playing a Militaristic Civ, I'll tend to stay with Despotism till the early part of the Middle Ages.

OH! And before I forget!!! If you have not downloaded Marla's Cylindrical(?) World Map, I urge you to do so! With Gramphos' tool, you can actually play the world map with correct starting positions, and in the Lady's honor, I'm playing my first game on that map as the French....what a BLAST! Mind you....purists will have a bit of a tough time playing in Europe, because it's very compressed, and you'll either be forced to build cities closer together than you'd normally want to or miss out on some completely AWESOME city sites!

Anyway, I'm not even out of the BC dates in the game (saved at 150BC to come post for a bit!), but what a grand adventure so far!

Got VERY lucky with my early game, and had three elite warriors, took them and an archer up against berlin in 2710BC and got Napoleon out of the battle!!! So....he scampered his a$$ back to Paris where I used him to complete the Pyramids in 2390 BC!!!! That's a record for me....I've never finished a wonder that early in the game, and of course, with free granaries everywhere, my game pretty much exploded. Took Veii from Rome, limiting them to 2 cities on the Italian Peninsula (making both them and the Germans "client-states" to France), expanded down into Spain, got map making ahead of the pack and used my initial galleys to drop three settlers and some throwaway troops in North Africa, later fought another war with Rome, who declared on me despite having no army to speak of, so I took the Italian peninsula, leaving them with one scandanavian city and a couple of others out in the wilds of eastern russia.

Got Ironworking and bullied horseback riding from my german puppets, researched math on my own and built a solid mixed force of sword, horse, and catapult, took control of the english channel with five galleys (largest fleet in the area), and proceeded with a general invasion of england. Took the main british isle, leaving them confined to Ireland (where they founded the city of Hastings). During THOSE battles, I got a second GL, who I used to make an army.....

Needless to say, it's been a BLAST of a game....easily the most fun I've had at any Civ3 game so far....there's just something magical about playing Civ3 on...Earth, you know? And she did a *superb* job of making the map! HIGHLY recommended!

Anyway, one of the biggest things this game taught me was the power of an EXCEEDINGLY EARLY war! You get a fistful of Elite Bone-Club weilding warriors and give them just the tiniest amount of backup (say, a single archer), and you can not only take a city or two, but if you get lucky with the GL, you can set yourself up for the whole rest of the game!

This plays very well with games where you get an exceedingly poor starting position, too.....just focus on the fundamentals, pay close attention to the morale levels of your exploring warriors, and carefully guide them to elite status. Once there....time to go hunting. A GL that early in the game, poor start or no, will almost certainly catapult you into the top spot!

-=Vel=-
(more later....gotta go get some dinner!)

[Velociryx]

Big time....very important and cool strategy:

After the land grab phase of the game....after you've beaten the proverbial stuffing out of one of your nearby neighbors, and once you've grown your Empire to its "critical mass" size (that is to say, once you reach the point where the addition of yet another city to the mix will cause more problems via corruption than it's worth, here's a fantastic way to keep your military on it's toes and your allies & trading partners tickled to death with you.

Early on, select 2-3 (depending on map size) civs to be client-states of yours.

That is to say, states you intend to "prune" in the early game and weaken, keep them behind in tech so that you can sell them older strategic resources long after the rest of the world has moved past the need for them (horses, ummm....whatever the early gun powder stuff is called (slips my mind at the moment & I know I'll feel stupid for it later! lol)....that kind of thing.

Now, first and foremost, this early game pruning of certain civs will leave them feeling a bit hostile with you, but liberal gifts of excess luxury items and the occasional older tech will turn the tide, and soon enough, they'll be polite again.

When that happens, engineer a war. Doesn't matter how....trade embargo, march an army into some rival civs turf....whatever....your choice.

Anyway, start a war, and call up your little buddies (and maybe some of your not so little buddies) and get them to join the fun. Best if you stick with calling up civs smaller than you tho....that way you're firmly in the drivers' seat when it comes to actually carrying the war/launching attacks.

And....start attacking.

Problem: As you take more and more cities, you gotta leave part of your army behind as garrisons...UGH...what a bother that is, cos it degrades your ability to take the next city, BUT....

After you take your target city, rush a barracks in first thing (if you don't have Sun Tzu's), let all your troops heal up for the next fight, and then leave....totally empty out the city....and as the last guy leaves, call up your buddy civ (whoever has other cities close to the one you just took) and sell them the city. They'll give you a good price for it ('specially since it has a spiffy barracks in it....which won't disappear like cultural stuff when the city changes hands, AND they get a freebie garrison troop of the best kind they can currently make with the techs they've got).

So....you solve the problem of adding corruption to your empire via a city you really didn't want anyway....you preserve the full strength of your army for attacking the next city on your hit list, and you strengthen one of your considerably weaker allies.

I hadn't wanted to talk about anything dealing with the MetaGame just yet, cos I'm still testing those waters myself, and this is *clearly* a case of playing to the Metagame....that is to say, controlling the underlying currents of it. This particular example though, was just too good to pass on, as it solves so many problems associated with attacking in one breath....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

PostScript to the previous post: And of course, when you're all done with warring....leave your guys IN the last city conquered, sell it to you buddy, and your troops get an all-expense trip paid back to your capitol! er....unless you don't want them to GO back to the capitol of course, then....just make sure they're all standing outside the city when you sell it off.....

-=Vel=-

[Padmewan]

One problem with gifting captured cities to your puppet state buddies is that the AI often has a tough time preventing cultural reversion. I usually starve the city and/or rush a temple (which sometimes isn't enough) to prevent reversion, but the AI doesn't have this approach. Unless you wipe out the enemy completely, or reduce the city to like 1-2 pop, this can be pretty risky.

[sophist]

After the patch, the AIs are a lot less willing to buy your cities. I'm in a huge game with two major continents (was s'posed to be Pangaea... grumble grumble grumble) and two smallish islands. I captured Bordeaux from the French. It was far away from my capital (in fact, far away from anyone's capital). I decided I didn't want to be bothered with it, and thought it would be interesting to sell it to one of the civs on the other continent so they would have a useless city on my continent that would just get them into trouble. Man, I couldn't give this thing away. Well, I actually could, but nobody would offer even 1g for it. I remember putting some token payment on the other side of the table and the advisor game me the ol' "They would never pay that..." So I ended up giving it to the Germans (on the other continent). Same deal with New Rheims, so I gave that one to another civ on the other continent. Odd bit of business, that. Do you suppose the presence of resisters would have made a difference?

Random question... if I have a city of another nationality (say French) and I transfer it peacefully to another civ (say Germans), do the citizens change to being German? I wonder if you could exploit that in an MP game; transfer a city back and forth and get your own people in it.

[Velociryx]

You guys have definitely raised some valid points! In order to address them though, we must go back to the beginning.

Again, this discussion cannot help but bleed into talking about the Metagame, but that’s cool….we’ll just….continue to flit around the edges of it, make stuff up as we go, and….all find out together, how’s that?

So…in order to pull this off, we need to alter our way of thinking about the early game. Current best practices say to focus exclusively on settler production till you’ve taken up all the land in your immediate vicinity, build lots of warriors for exploration, etc., etc. Stuff you’ve read on this very thread. BUT….

What if that’s really NOT the best way?

Here’s a brand new expansion paradigm I came up with late last evening that solves all of the concerns and potential problems mentioned above.

If you stop to analyze your very best games, you’ll see they have lots of things in common.

You beat a neighboring civ to an ideal city site thanks to your program of road-building. You beat a rival warrior to a goody hut by 1-2 moves and snagged a crucial tech. You got lucky in fighting the barbarians and snagged 2-elite warriors, who later went on to….

You get the idea.

Essentially, your best, strongest games are those that are synergistic in their nature. Where all the individual elements of your game work cooperatively to create a kind of magic that just would not be possible, considering each element on its own.

Having a plan is crucial, but executing that plan in seamless fashion….that can make up for the very worst of starts.

Your troops scout the surroundings and protect the workers while your workers build roads out to city sites (intelligently, too…minimizing river crossings, etc.), your settlers USE the roads and the protection provided by the troops to get where they’re going safely. That’s the start, sure, but there’s more.

Honing the earliest of your troops into the best fighting machine you can (picking fights with barbarians and getting their morale to elite ASAP!), finding your nearest neighbors and scouting out their holdings as closely as you can to get a feel for the size and disposition of their Empire relative to yours, and then….striking, fast and hard….gone before your opponent can react.

Parts of this new expansion paradigm departs from the “traditional” way of doing things, and it does so in pretty extreme ways. Bear with me. I promise you it is not only a viable alternative, but also a surpassingly powerful one.

The particulars
Tech-Wise: The traditional method says that Iron Working/The Wheel are among the most important early game techs. This new method agrees with that, but points out that Warrior Code can be a viable alternative in the very early game (barracks/archers). (Point: Militaristic Civ lovers, take note!)

Settlement objectives:
The traditional method says that you should expand relentlessly until all available land has been occupied. This alternative method stipulates that expansion should continue only until you have found the first of your opponents (at which time, you begin massing for an early invasion).

Early wars:
Traditionally, our current best practices hold that you should “fight one war with a neighboring civ” and grow at his expense. This new methodology says you should fight ALL your neighbors in turn, keeping your armies in a constant state of motion and readiness.

How it plays out/How it plays differently
First, you must go into this methodology with the mindset that you are (or soon will be) firmly in control of the continent you’re on. Almost certainly you will NOT be in control of all the land/cities on the continent, but you WILL soon be firmly in control of the various civs you share the continent with (even if they don’t realize it yet!).

Initial expansion runs in the same vein as the “traditional” methodology….essentially food driven. If possible, take a moment to build a barracks (pop-rush if needs be for speed). You’ll need it later.

Minimize your reliance on exploration with warriors! For speed, your first city, of course, should crank out warriors, but as soon as you’re able to build archers, do that instead. Double the attack value at a smallish hit to overall speed.

Ahhh…but that’s the key difference here. Speed isn’t as vital with this approach. You don’t HAVE to break your neck in a race vs. the AI to expand. You can afford to spend the extra time to crank out those archers.

Fight “Oscillating” wars
While you’re looking for your nearest neighbors (between settler builds), you’re preparing for the day you find them by building barracks and troops (emphasis on archers). When you DO find him, even if he’s had a SUPERB expansion, he’s got at best 4 cities (the higher the level of play, the more he’ll have). More than likely, he’ll have 2-3 cities.

Mass your troops and attack the largest of these (post patch, if you hit a size one city, it’ll oftentimes raze it…something you don’t want!), or, hit the closest of these to make it easier to take the city into your Empire (depends on how you want your borders and the particulars of your game). Naturally, he’ll be less than pleased with you, but consider: At this point in the game, the loss of a single city can be devastating. Bearing in mind that the AI likes guarding all but his newest cities with 2 units (sometimes three, but mostly two), you can ballpark the kind of attack force you’ll need—4 Archers should be sufficient to take a single city, five if you’re not feeling confident. The point is…the civ you hit early will be BEGGING to end the war. Hit him for all his tech/money/contacts, and move on.

Replace your losses while your scouts continue searching, and then get right back to building towns of your own, hitting each neighboring rival civ as you find them and “pruning” them into weakness…not growing at the expense of a single civ near you, but giving them all an equal measure of your wrath (and, assuming you find yourself with 3-4 civs nearby, by the time you get back around to the first civ you hit, the 20 turns of peace are up anyway…no hit to reputation!) – Note: If you’re looking to improve your reputation with a civ, think very carefully about hitting them more than once!

What you’ll wind up with, is by the end of the traditional “land grab” phase, you’ll be remarkably more powerful than any of the civs near you. You can vassalize some, turn others into client states, and, undoubtedly, because of favorable terrain, there will be one civ that’s a little bit bigger than the others. Not big enough to really be much of a threat to YOU (especially after your pruning), but certainly big enough to threaten your little client states.

At this point, you can play king maker. You’ve probably got all the cities you want/need in your Empire anyway (at least on this continent), so it’s time to selectively build up certain neighboring civs at the expense of others. Do this via warfare (described above), or, simply demanding a target city from a civ. You’re so much bigger at this point, they’ll likely cave in rather than face your armies again.

I have never seen an AI civ lose a city to another AI civ via cultural reversion, but it might happen. Don’t know for sure. Still, in the experiments I’ve run with giving/selling recently captured cities to my smaller “client” allies, I’ve never had it happen.

Easy way to get the lay of the land:
Call up every civ, and ask for their territory map, offering your world map. More often than not, they’ll agree. Repeat with everyone you have contact with, and you wind up with a pretty clear early game picture of what your surroundings look like. Saves you LOTS of scouting/planning time.

The Importance of RoP:
Nothing binds you closer to your client states like an RoP agreement. Keep in mind, this is an agreement not made lightly! It should be made only with the client states near you that you plan to “develop” into viable junior partners when dealing with your overseas/powerful neighboring rivals!

After the “pruning wars,” you may find some civs reluctant to trust you. That’s understandable! You hobbled them in the early game! Still, as the game progresses, you’ll undoubtedly find yourself squaring off with a rival civ of decent power….or maybe, one of your little buddy civs gets in hot water with another fairly big dog on the block. If that happens, ride to the rescue! Offer yourself and the services of your army to the little nation….nothing will improve relations faster than this!

And, once you are back on good terms with the little guys, extend an RoP offer to them, binding your two nations closer. Once you have that, you can begin stationing strong garrisons of troops in strategic areas of their nation, vastly increasing your options re: projecting your power (and, the AI is actually a USEFUL partner in war, making it quite likely that if you are called upon to use your army, you can count on help from your little buddies!)

Don’t overuse demands
Once you reach this stage of diplomacy with your client states, don’t abuse your position. True, you can bully new techs and money out of them, but they’re more useful to you as reliable allies and customers. Treat ‘em as favored pets….

Thoughts? Comments?

-=Vel=-