The Virtues of being Industrious....

[Harovan]

Hi and welcome back to the Strategy forum, Velociryx. I hope your staying lasts a while .

As the upcoming 3rd game of the CFC tournament will be with the Egyptians, this thread came right at hand for me for a few test games. I had played industrious civs before, and in the near past had a look at the Americans at huge, thin settled maps. The industrious trait was a big help in REX, as it made my settlers really fast reach the city sites (and produce new settlers). Now, with the Egyptians in a few test games, I tested the ability of the industrious trait to support early warmongering. It worked a charm.

In one game, I was blessed with a free settler out of the first hut, just in the right spot for the 2nd city. That made, that I had not 2 but 4 cities about 2800BC. Although the map was large, I decided to stop growth and go for some early prey. Two scouting warriors had already detected a darkblue borderline in my close neighborhood. Yea, it was Bismarck. Made contact, gave him Masonry for Warrior code, and started to crank out archers. Meanwhile my only worker started a road towards Germany. I didn't want to lose time and pop points for more workers, so he could make it only half, but that helped a lot.

The first wave of 4 archers took Berlin and captured a settler/warrior shuttle. Woohoo, 2 free workers! With them, I started a road "back". just a few turns after they met with my worker. Connection established! I already had 1 luxury, Berlin gave me one more, and the quick road helped to distribute the new resource to all my 4 initial cities. This gave me the opportunity to poprush a temple in all 4 cities. The upcoming game is about a quick cultural victory, so an early temple in all cities really matters.

The 2nd wave of archers (2 more and the remaining from the Berlin raid) razed Leipzig. Since Bismarck wasn't dead and I had no clue where his cities are, I made peace. This gave me Bronze Working and 98 gold. Not bad for around 2000BC. Soon I saw a blue border again. I don't know wether he respawned or had a settler. He succeeded to build 2 cities, a new Leipzig (capital) and Hamburg. I had built a couple of more archers, and switched my production back to settlers. My 9 archers finished Germany in 1625 BC. Test game ended.

Summary: Industrious helps indeed a lot for early warmongering. Not only because the quick roads help your troups move, but the issue of early luxury distribution helps for poprushing temples or units and gives the possibility to build larger cities without revolts, especially on higher difficulty levels.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Velociryx
That reminds me of something else....if you're desperate to avoid auto-razing, chase the AI-civ's capitol around. (take the capitol, see where it relocates, take that city, repeat)...Since it generates culture (on the basis of the palace), you won't raze it when you take it over).

-=Vel=-

That is what I have always done. aves production in your home cities by skiiping the settler.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Velociryx
That reminds me of something else....if you're desperate to avoid auto-razing, chase the AI-civ's capitol around. (take the capitol, see where it relocates, take that city, repeat)...Since it generates culture (on the basis of the palace), you won't raze it when you take it over).

Unfortunately, this works not very well, as the city needs to have expanded the 1st time to avoid autorazing. So your troups have to give each new capital 10 turns. This is really annoying, if you're in hurry and want to attack the next enemy ("oscillating wars"), but have to leave troups there to wait till the city expands.

[DrFell]

Expansionist, industrious, and religious... such difficult choices. Expansionist is good right until a fair way into the middle ages remember, because of the 'scout resource denial' technique.

[Theseus]

Vel - You are entirely welcome. Again, I think everybody missed having you around, and the last 48 hours shows why!!

My god, what a first post. And the follow-up... doesn;t anyone work?

I've been meaning to post a write-up about this massive Egyptian game I've been playing (actually I've started, but prolly won;t finish it till the weekend).

In addition to all of the discussion above, I want to chime in with Yet One More Thing about Industrious...

IT SAVED MY LIFE!!!

Again, the epic Egyptian game. Way behind, I found myself best by Tanks and Bombers, when I was still just on Infantry.

I had stacks and stacks of French footsloggers that I had allowed all the way to the heart of my empire, just so I could fend off the Greeks and the Germans at the frontier.

FRANCE ATTACKS!!! The downside of the earliest part of my game strategy, building early, core cities on appropriate hills, was that they were right next to hill / mountain ranges... if I let the French camp out next to one of my cities and on a hill I'd be dead for sure.

Super-Workers to the rescue!! Fortresses, everywhere, pop pop pop.

Further, when I started getting bombed by Bombers, and Battleshipped by Battleships, my speedy Workers repaired roads, re-irrigated and re-mined, and generally lead attacking troops on like Catholic High School Girls in Trouble... champs, one and all.
_______________________________________

Other thoughts, responses, sequentially:

* I've been starting games differently... I'm focused on high production city sites. 3, 5, 10 tile separation... I don;t care. Let the AI take some city in "my" territory... it's irrelevant. However, to do this, Industrious Workers are KEY.

* I generally don;t bother with worker protection at first, not until the first knife-fight... Even then, only SOME get defended; no, I'm not throwing them to the wolves. Leave a couple exposed, on grasslands / plains, but not quiiiite within reach of the AI bastards. Send a couple of attackers along with the work party, and let boot camp commence.

* I've tried China, specifically for the Mil/Ind traits. For some reason, it just didn;t jazz me.

* Also, I no longer see the value in Militaristic (there's a little cherry bomb waiting to explode). I have been getting into such massive "lovefests" that promotions are a non-issue, and knowing about the elite+leader thing, I've been generating an embarassment of GLs. In the Egypt game, I maxed out on Armies allowed, built every GW & SW I could, and started using GLs to build factories in low production cities.

* Catt, from an emotional perspective, you left off clearing jungle!!!

* Jeez, Vel, you take the cake. I thought I was being the proponent of earliest war...

* LOL: "Yea, it was Bismarck. Made contact, gave him Masonry for Warrior code, and started to crank out archers." Next time some new player asks for tips, I'm gonna quote Sir Ralph.

[Theseus]

Separate post for two topics:

1. Arrian, repeat after me, "EARLY WAR IS BETTER THAN BUTTERFINGERS." Say it to yourself 3 times before falling asleep. Vel sounds like a damn Hun... I like to think I use a little more finesse (haha, no comparison, I am in awe). Even with Warriors and Archers, it's not that difficult to go after the black hats verrrry early... my trick is to draw out their offensive forces (which might be just Warriors), and slay them at will in killzones. Sure, I'll take some losses, but usually just my regulars, who are fodder anyway. Then, with admittedly primitive vet / elite forces, taking out anything up to 2-defense is nada problemo. Hoplites and Legions? I'm still not good at resource denial, so for the moment I leave them be until I have appropriate relative strength... but boy do they light a candle under my ass.

2. WCs and the early GA: I say, go for it. Cheap mofo Horsemen... you can afford to waste'em. Like Vel says, with an appropriate (Ind) road network, you are FAR more mobile than any other civ, and 2/1 goes a long way with retreat, even against 3-defenders. Sacrifice regulars; remember, the retreat odds increase with promotion. So you're not applying the GA to a 20 city early Industrial civ? That sucks, true, but push home the advantage... since you're a despot and prolly on 0-10% research, you can afford as much military as you want... I think of WCs as an early Egyptian HORDE. If you get unlucky with jungle / mountains, you are INDUSTRIOUS, so deal with it. [ Editor's note: This from the guy who played Egyptian Warmonger and got into serious trouble!]

[Jethro83]

I agree with the sentiment of this thread. Industrious is THE trait that makes great empires. It is best combined with Religious, Militaristic, or Commercial.

When combined with Relgious, you can obviously switch governments nearly as quickly as you switch from peace to war. At the end of a war, you can switch to democracy, and let your new roads and irrigation come up instantly (as well as Railroads and mines if you've discovered Replaceable Parts). Religious/Industrious is the perfect consolidation combo.

When combined with Militaristic, you can also consolidate, but not as great a consolidation as the previously mentioned combo. As long as you keep your workers protected, you can build roads and fortresses that may be critical to the war effort much quicker. And with Radars and Airfields coming in the XP, this bonus will be somewhat stronger.

When combined with commercial, the extra gold from the extra roads isn't choked up as much as it would non-commercial, therefore translating to more wealth. It may not be noticeable right away, but it is there.

Just my humble opinion about the Industrious trait.

[Solver]

Hey Vel, so much thanks for being back! Your posts are, as always, brilliant.

Persia got to be my favorite civ - Scientfic is great for research & culture, which I love, Industrious is there, with all the benefits you mention, and they have a great UU - despite not being a warmonger, that early civ conquest comes so much easier with Persia, generally, I'll be pretty agressive right till the world discovers Gunpowder.

However, I got my two best scores with the Babylonians, due to their crazy culture. I just absorb everything near my borders, have double the culture of anyone early one, later everyone is in awe of my culture, I save myself at least a dozen turns due to Religious bonus and also get that tech coming in... woo hoo.

But I still love Persia more .

[Arrian]

Theseus,

"This is me breathing. I am at home with the me, I am rooted in the me that is on this adventure." - John Cusack, Grosse Pointe Blank But I do like butterfingers...

I might agree with you that militaristic is weak on large or huge maps, because of the sheer number of battles to be fought. On standard, though, I have a helluva time generating GLs as Egypt.

Tried China last night. Tried early (well, earlier) war out. Went at it with Chariots to start, discovered Horsebackriding earlier than I normally do, and went from there. Militarily - total victory. 7 cities captured, roughly the same number autorazed. 1 GL, right at the end. Two civs destroyed.

I don't like it, at least not on a 3-civ continent. I like waiting for the other civs to build up, so I have more things to kill. More battles = more elites = more leaders. Plus more cities to keep.

VEL - the 1 leader per elite has been confirmed by Firaxis. Once you upgrade said elite, it resets because it goes back to vet.

As Sir Ralph pointed out, chasing the capitol only works if you chase slowly. Gotta wait for the border expansion, or size 2 (which immediately becomes size 1 again because the AI whips out an archer).

-Arrian

[Txurce]

Most strategies arise from simple principles, and the most useful principle I've found in Civ3 is "the sooner the better." Everything I do in my games stems from that. Hence, my favorite civ is Egypt, because its traits allow you to save time building roads and switching governments, and its UU is fast and early and cheap - three different ways of saying "sooner." (The same goes for their GA, which is when it's most useful , if not most effective.) Unsurprisingly, Vel's three runners-up are the Aztecs, Iroquois and Babs: again, three religious civs with UUs ready quicker than most. (Any UU is brutal compared to pre-iron units. Even a bowman is relatively devastating, because it's early, cheap, and doesn't die easily despite being slow.) This is why I return to these civs again and again. I don't need the payoffs that late-blooming civs provide, because the attributes of the aforementioned civs usually give me control of a game before I ever reach that point.

Vel, my ancient-era warring style mirrors yours, particularly in its use of roads, just-enough troop concentrations, and oscillating thrusts. What I still don't grasp is the benefit to waging war with warriors. These presumably occur early enough that you aren't expanding as quickly so as to build these units. The gain is crippling your nearest neighbor, and gaining a couple of cities. Do you figure that these cities equal what you would have built had you not pumped out those extra warriors? My assumption is that this neighbor is toast as soon as I have enough UUs built, but perhaps you've now shortened the time before you strike the next guy. Reviewing this, I can see the potential for a slight net gain in the speed of my overall expansion... but I also see the potential for bad luck in warrior deals to undo the strategy. This is in contrast to a just-enough concentration of UUs, which I find to be unbeatable, regardless of the UU in question.

[grapedog]

With Democracy giving workers another 50% boost, it would either make completely insane speed workers, or make Industrious loose some of it's potency towards the end of the second age would it not? What government are you normally running during peacetime/wartime with the Egyptians?

[Theseus]

Txurce,

Build many, many early Warriors.

1) A buffer against sure losses. Try to keep'em alive, especially elites, by sacrificing regulars and drawing enemy forces onto open ground.

2) They upgrade to Swordsmen. Yum yum yum, said the bad man.

3) Perhaps most important: I've been letting early cities grow larger than before... popping (not poprushing) settlers, barracks, and then more advanced units is a snap for 4-6 pop cities on good sites. So, in the interim, why not build a lot of Warriors, for exploration, for goodie huts, and for, um, oh yeah... WAR!

[Theseus]

grapedog,

Good point. The lifesaving (they wear little red swimsuits) Workers for me were Egyptian Democrats. Fast little buggers, and good looking too.

[Txurce]

Theseus, that's what I just did - build warriors on my interim builds, rather than going straight for barracks. But I can now say that I build a swordsman maybe once every three or four games. I am a strict UUer... and haven't played the Aztecs in a while. I usually regroup when my UU ceases to be effective, and this often takes me to cavalry (knights less a minority of the time).

I also rarely pop-rush anything other than temples, and that's only when needed (temples in captured cities are a different story). I didn't have any rationale other than that I don't need to hurry all that much, and I'll appreciate the higher production soon enough.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by grapedog
With Democracy giving workers another 50% boost, it would either make completely insane speed workers, or make Industrious loose some of it's potency towards the end of the second age would it not? What government are you normally running during peacetime/wartime with the Egyptians?

With Egyptians I do go for Democracy and even Monarchy. With non-religius civs the industrial trait allows me stick with the Republic and still have fast workers. So with non-religious civs I go straight to Republic and usually stick with it all the way till the end.