Multiplayer Strategy Guide

[Nimrod]

Beautyful Solver I will let you know as soon as I have the revised version of the MPSG

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Solver
Thanks Gav and Troll. Now if you told me what else do I add there... there MUST be something I didn't include.

I would like to see a section for maybe short stories on success / failures of a game. I used to accuse the Greatest Players of cheating, when in fact that they were lightyears ahead of shortcuts, not cheats, but intricasies (hmm..spelling is off i believe)

We could limit the size to maybe 200 words or so. Just a thought is all

A point to ponder, Gavrushka, I am fortunate once in a while, like the Dog whom has the sun shine on his butt once in awhile I slipped upon a civilization, its "front cities" and then made it like I was ammassing troops, but what I did was do a lateral attack and rear attack, and caught rear and middle cities with a minimal unit amount, because the cities were supplying either Capitalization to fund a war during communism or fasicm or they were supplying units to defend against the D-Day style attack.

Its a "roll-of-da dice" anyway you look at it, but maybe some more Brilliant strategists have a better theory?

Yours In Civin

Troll

[Gavrushka]

Yeh in a game that concluded yesterday against Catete - i suffered an attack - he realised I had the whole major war front covered, so he slipped round the side and BANG I lost two cities - loisng the cities was not the issue, it rarely is- When U are ahead on science- for your opponent to pick up Tank warfare from you could turn the game on its head.... luckily he just got Physics... The more I think about it - a few well placed stealth units and maybe electrification for listening posts could be a good defence.. BTW the next turn I won the game - through better units.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Gavrushka
Yeh in a game that concluded yesterday against Catete - i suffered an attack - he realised I had the whole major war front covered, so he slipped round the side and BANG I lost two cities - loisng the cities was not the issue, it rarely is- When U are ahead on science- for your opponent to pick up Tank warfare from you could turn the game on its head.... luckily he just got Physics... The more I think about it - a few well placed stealth units and maybe electrification for listening posts could be a good defence.. BTW the next turn I won the game - through better units.

Congrats!

I would think Radar Stations/Listening Posts are great!

The "Stealth" units around the map are also great!

I have had sucess using that only when I could amass troops through excellent production, but I allways try to figure 3X9 stacks for each city I attack, that way 1-2 [9} stacks to attack and 1 [9] stack to defend while i regroup, plus any cities I didnt need two stacks I would use on other nearby cities. Takes a bit of luck, ,lots of planning and catching the poor bloke off gaurd!

It dont happen too often though!

Troll

[Gavrushka]

I don't think 3 nine stacks is enough in isolation is enough I realise you are saying per city - - reason being you are on enemy land - they will soon raise 3 nine stacks (then some) and chase you back out... The game I was talking about before I sent 100 Cavalry - Not to take a city - BUT purely as a diversion whilst I rolled in massive waves of tanks and marines...

I think this is a common misconception - people think in terms of taking a city - Thats a battle- but this game is about total conquest - Skirmish by all means, mainly to distract the enemy - BUT when you attack you must attack with 100s of units and crush the opposition into oblivion -

Another good attack is the single unit attack - never designed to take a city - but if you have nine Cavalry up against a nine stacked size 7 city - forget sending them all at once, send them one by one.... Trust me is does far more damage - they end up with a size 2 city - and lose almost all their prod.

[psientist]

Optimal City Tiling

I've been putting some thought into the most optimal way to place cities on a map, to let the least amount of land go to waste while also having the least overlaps between cities. With the odd geometry of the city footprint, it's not easy, but I came up with two - one optimized for maximum space usage, and one with minimum overlaps for more space-limited maps. Of course, obstacles (ocean tiles particularly) may prevent you from using these patterns exactly.

Pattern 1 wastes only 2tiles per city with no overlaps; Pattern 2 wastes none, but has 2 overlaps per city.

Pattern 1:


Pattern 2:


I'm interested what other players think of this, and if they have any alternative methods.

-Psientist

[J Bytheway]

Those are exactly the methods I usually try to use on any large continent, but it's surprising how often you get stopped by ocean, etc. Those little lakes and also glacier tiles always seem to be exactly where you want the city.

[Gavrushka]

Wow I am impressed.... BUT there is one slight issue- Overlap is not a problem in MP, perhaps in PBEM - in fact we often overlap cities for security and also it does not take account of the fact that the city location is dictated by terrain, trade goods and the like- in almost every game my cities are two squares apart and share half their tiles - in a mountain range for example u need to cram as many cities around the perimeter as possible - HOWEVER in PBEM where cities grow very large indeed, I think that this is very useful.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Gavrushka
Wow I am impressed.... BUT there is one slight issue- Overlap is not a problem in MP, perhaps in PBEM - in fact we often overlap cities for security and also it does not take account of the fact that the city location is dictated by terrain, trade goods and the like- in almost every game my cities are two squares apart and share half their tiles - in a mountain range for example u need to cram as many cities around the perimeter as possible - HOWEVER in PBEM where cities grow very large indeed, I think that this is very useful.

(taking notes..ok..now..how do I use this agianst him.the Mighty Great Gavrushka??)

[El Sordo]

hi everybody, what do you think about using muskets?
i never build them, but in multiplayer players have plenty of them. i use pikemen and cannons to defence and also to attack

reasons not to build:
1, they cost to much prod (560), compare with cannon (540) and pikeman (270), support is similar (17/16/8)
2, stack with 2 pikemen and cannon is better than 2 muskets - (comparable production), or any similar combination.

of course u can have stack 5muskets backed with 4 cannons, but i think that only 1 plus point for musket in defence or attack are not enough good reason to build it.
muskets are universal unit (4/4/4) but at the moment you can use only 1 option (or 2 when they are in back row).

[Paulno1]

Man im sitting here (spinning a little), trying to read all the posts but its just too hard. The stupidity is just to much

Greatest mistake people make later in the game is thinking deactivating the air defense of planes is smart. Anyone ever tried moving 9 interceptors in fround of 3 stacks of interceptors ? ive only managed it against 3 stacks of 6 space fighters. You know what happens ? All the SPACE FIGHTERS die and only 5 of my interceptors. The attackers active air defense is about 5 times better than the defenders. Hence 9 interceptors can take out 9 space figheters with the loss of 2 interceptors or so and they can STILL fight. Its a very stupid theory but it WORKS .

Aur units fight like girls on the sea but are very strong on land. Dont know why but its so. Sea units kick ass attacking land units in coastal cities kinda logical i guess.

Cavlry are great vs unguarded cities but useless other wise.

Fighters kick tanks but as well. Tanks are invincible until the invention of fighters,


Here some more of my tricks
Not that any apolyton regurlar has made it that far with me

[Keygen]

Cavalry is very usefull on large grassland & plains areas. Those tiles offer no cover on the enemy units providing no defencive bonus at all to them. Cavalry can move pretty fast there, therefore can be used for effective counter attacks. They are not that valuable though when used on other types of terrain. Their advantage also lasts for only one era, renaissance...

Tanks can move in long distances if there is an extensive railroad network available on both friendly and enemy land. In grassland/plains with railroad they can move up to 30 tiles away. They are not facing active air defence problems and can conquer cities. As long as their presence is well hidden they can be proven a great surprise on the enemy, especially on capturing enemy cities in great distanses (with a railroad in between ).

Now regaring the usefulness of air/spacecrafts I will agree with you. They are perhaps the best offensive units.
However there is a simple trick to practically nullify the advantage of of active air defence. You send a single unit as a decoy to draw all active air defence and then send the rest aircrafts. This way if there are lot of active air defence units on the defenders side you lose no more than one aircraft. Of cource that has a meaning against targets with land units that have active air defence.

[jessee]

i used the cleric trick and made the AI's capital revolt

[Frozzy]

If your no where near the coast... POLLUTE THE WORLD TO HELL!!!!!!!

[blackice]

In most Pbem games that means certain death. Most players will attack you to stop your madness.

Just a tip