The Ultimate Guide on Game Strategies on Huge Maps - your input-

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Ouch! Why would you ever burn a wonder? Even if it's obsolete?

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Well, I'm beginning to see things that way. But it's damn frustrating, that's for sure. Especially if you'd prefer to use the 4-step path in wartime:

1. Conquer an AI (utterly)
2. Put your palace in their capital
3. Improve all their cities while corruption is low
4. Repeat

[Arrian]

That's a good way of doing things. Though I typically do not move my Palace multiple times (AU207, though, was an exception - I moved it twice).

As for burning wonders... well, I wasn't planning on wiping Korea out, Seoul would have been almost impossible to keep due to culture, and furthermore I wanted a coastal city in that area so I could rush a harbor and immediately gain the benifit of the luxury I had just captured (not to mention that it's a lot harder for an AI sneak attack to cut off your luxuries if you have multiple harbor towns), and Seoul was 1 tile inland. So I burned it.

In my current Roman game, I captured the Pyramids on the main continent (oddly enough, in Seoul) and decided, against my better judgement, to try and hold 'em. Korea is not wiped out (though badly, badly damaged) because I ran out of Cavalry to kill their Riflemen with. I starved/built workers until it was size 1, rushed a temple for the border expansion... we'll see. I do have the culture advantage, but their new capitol is of course right next to Seoul. I bet it flips.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Ah, I see... on Regent level I rarely have the flipping problem any more, except when dealing with the cursed Spanish. Why are those Spaniards so damn tough? And so sneaky and agressive too?

OT, sorry...

[Arrian]

Yeah, the higher the level, the more flipping is a concern. Normally, I'm not too worried about it playing on Monarch. Especially if I'm playing a religious civ. Rome isn't religious, though, and the AI does do reasonably well at culture with scientific civs. So Seoul was a concern.

On Emperor, it starts to get really nasty. I have a Chinese game going on Emp now, and the Mongols have me out-cultured, easily. The MONGOLS!

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

That is sort of horrible.

I guess I could see a lot more razing and re-settling on those upper levels...

[Ubergeek]

In my current game, I was forced to play a very aggressive style because I had EVERY bad-neighbor civ on my continent. This went against my normal style -- usually I'm a pacifist, you see. We were all packed in so tightly that I was forced to archer-rush not only one but TWO enemy civs, and I have never had to resort to an archer rush in a Huge game. One thing I can honestly say is that, on huge maps, big continent-devouring wars are a pain in the dong and not at all fun. I've wound up with about 400 slave Workers, 300 Tanks, 250 Bombers, 300 Artillery...and I've got to move all that crap around every turn. Sure, the flood of GLs is great, but it's like pulling teeth to get through a turn. Builder-style is much more enjoyable on big maps.

[TheArsenal]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by Mountain Sage
1. What is your preferred military strategy (early and later game) on pangea/continents and archipelago?

Not an expert, but I only play on Huge/large maps. Depending on how the map is generated, on an archipelago map it can take 12 turns or higher in some cases to move your forces onto enemy territory by sea. This has forced me to build large numbers of units and have enough gold on hand to do an instant upgrade, say horseman to knights, or calvary, the moment I get the technology, and load them onto the ships. This may be stating the obvious, but with the lag time your units are forced to spend at sea, and the way the AI swap techs - and even at the normal rate of AI research - much can change unfavorably by the time you get to foreign shores in both tech, and enemy unit numbers. Before I used this tactic, taking the extra time to build units, instead of upgrade, made me pay a steeper price than I should have.

[Mountain Sage]

Arrian,

Excellent explanation.
I will definitely write an essay about UP asap. We have the same goals in mind but wildly different (opposed?) strategies. I think I will take AU207 as a reference, since we basically played on the same set world.

If you have time and are willing, give me more info about your achievements (Wonders, luxuries, military units, gold, happiness etc.) during the Ages, as I did with my screenshots. I would really appreciate it.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by TheArsenal


Not an expert, but I only play on Huge/large maps. Depending on how the map is generated, on an archipelago map it can take 12 turns or higher in some cases to move your forces onto enemy territory by sea. This has forced me to build large numbers of units and have enough gold on hand to do an instant upgrade, say horseman to knights, or calvary, the moment I get the technology, and load them onto the ships. This may be stating the obvious, but with the lag time your units are forced to spend at sea, and the way the AI swap techs - and even at the normal rate of AI research - much can change unfavorably by the time you get to foreign shores in both tech, and enemy unit numbers. Before I used this tactic, taking the extra time to build units, instead of upgrade, made me pay a steeper price than I should have.

I fully agree with you. It happened to me several times that by the time my Horsemen landed, they were confronted by Knights, even when I first set sail my opposed civ was way off discovering Chivalry.
But this just adds spices to the game. I find the timing and logistics problems playing on archipelago fascinating. At the beginning, I lost several wars because I either forgot to take into account that my ships must travel back AND forth again with reinforcements, or my ratio of ships/troops was wrong (try to move 40-50 Horsemen with Galleys )

[Arrian]

MS,

I have several saved games from AU207. I will try to remember to load them up tonight and get you the info.

For now, though, I'll leave you this, pulled from my AAR from AU207:

Wonder building... well, if anything it might have been easier, though I'm not sure why.

I built: Great Library, Hanging Gardens, Sistine, Sun Tzu, Leos, Copernicus, Newton, ToE

I rushed: Bachs, Smiths, Universal Suffrage, Hoover

I captured: Pyramids (Mongol), Oracle (Babs)

Other civs built: Colossus (French), Great Lighthouse (Korean), Magellan (French), Shakespeare (Korean)

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I must state the obvious:

It is to your benefit, if you find yourself an apt enough player to take down AI neighbors through warfare, to start on the biggest, most crowed continent.

This gives the builder and warmonger lots to do - trade and conquer. Starting on a (relatively) isolated continent allows you to build in peace, but unless you've got some rocking attributes, you can very easily fall behind the tech race and definitely fall behind your own UP standards.

Launching overseas assaults is a true challenge on a huge map, and in my opinion, barely fun. Sure, it's gratifying to accomplish so much, but you do need to coordinate a massive force to take down even a moderate foe, which leads to a lot of tedious turns.

It's obviously better to conquer your entire continent before anyone meets anyone else, but it is more conducive to world-wide conquest to have "colonies" (not in the literal Civ sense of the word; I refer to actual cities) on each continent that can be used as bases of later conquest.

On the archipelageo, well, you're up the creek with galleys for a paddle. But on continents/pangea, I will often quit just to get a better UP experience if I start on a smaller of the continents.

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth

Launching overseas assaults is a true challenge on a huge map, and in my opinion, barely fun. Sure, it's gratifying to accomplish so much, but you do need to coordinate a massive force to take down even a moderate foe, which leads to a lot of tedious turns.

Interesting. I couldn't disagree more. And taking overseas possessions is a key part of my clearing my own continent

But it probably comes down to play style and set up. Because I play with no more than 10-11 civs, and build a solid infrastructure before going to (a planned) war, there are inevitably large, sprawling powerful AI civs when they dust settles from the big fish eating the little. And many times, they share the same continent with me.

So my strategy, when map generation allows, is to take a large island(s)/small continent(s) from the weakest opponent that owns one. Preferably one that occupies it alone. I get my extra cities without the costly expense of going toe to toe with a neighbor with a large production capacity. If an overseas war goes unexpectedly poorly, or I face hostile trouble at home, I cut it off and sail back. If a war with a bordering neighbor goes poorly, or another jumps in the fray, it is far more costly.

Once I have a productive overseas territory (now even more so after I read a *great* thread here on palace moving) I use it to pump out units, and whatever sea units I that I need not left over from the invasion. Once ready, I launch a massive two front sea and land invasion against opposite sides of my neighbor's nation - with the sea portion coming a few turns after the land begins to give the AI time to move towards my cross border land incursion. I also find the AI garrisons its seaboard cities that are not near its rivals, to a far lesser degree. I squeeze them down to a manageable size, sue for peace to take whatever I need from them, then destroy them once the 20 turns expire.

This, is of course, my optimum strategy. It is rarely this simple or clean.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Ah. I play with 16 civs, so there's generally a better opportunity closer to home, and not overseas. Although certainly some of my more memorable games have included taking numerous small chunks of overseas continents, to procure luxuries and resources, and then buffers to protect them...

...for the most part though, it's "build the biggest landmass" for me... I always feel happy when I accomplish an overseas victory, but it's such a hassle that I'd rather slog it out on land.

Speaking of which, actual battles at sea hardly ever figure into one my games. Perhaps on a higher difficulty level?

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth

Launching overseas assaults is a true challenge on a huge map, and in my opinion, barely fun. Sure, it's gratifying to accomplish so much, but you do need to coordinate a massive force to take down even a moderate foe, which leads to a lot of tedious turns.

IM(H)O, this is exactly the reason why I love to play on huge maps and archipelagos.
Let's face it: playing the PP is fun and a real challenge, but you best achieve it if you are alone on a big island/small continent. Of course, I choose the appropriate map-setting accordingly.
But I do not always play the PP. Lately, I started to spend more and more time playing on archipelagos, max. water. In this case, conquest is 'genetically encoded' in Joan's brains.
The true challenge for me is now to overcome the logistics problems: I lost several wars when I tried to move 40-50 Horsemen on Galleys and forgot that empty Galleys must go back AND forth. I also lost some battles when the reinforcements came and in the meantime the attacked AI upgraded all its Horsement to Knights.
I don't want to sound disparaging, but if and when I start a war, I expect something more challenging that just click on a stack of military units to move them.