Beating the Toughest AI

[Grond]

Actually I've never paused but I do crank it down to very slow on occasion. I'm pretty much on the defensive until Gunpowder or Enlightenment on Tougher and Toughest. My favorite Civs seem to peak around that time. I haven't tried much rushing with any of the rushing Civs.

[solo]

Grond,

I watched the replay you posted and your win in Toughest without pausing is most impressive. I play normal speed but pause when needed, mostly because I do not like the feeling of being rushed that I get when playing without pauses. Too old and too used to TBS games I guess!

Unless a very early rush is attempted, I would agree that early defense is almost a must. Let the AI come to you and fight on your terms and not theirs, using defensive structures and terrain to gain an edge. Make use of the built in defender's advantage. Kick butt later!

A very early rush may be more suitable to a 4 player game,and if launched as soon as possible, the odds of reducing the AI capital are excellent if the target has been booming. Assimilation chances are also quite good.

[Out4Blood]

Pausing?! Who the fcuk pauses?!
This is RTS not TBS...

[Skanky Burns]

Actually it is meant to be a combination of the two. Didn't you read the box?

[solo]

Out4Blood,

Why not have a little more patience for those of us used to TBS and its strategic depth while we begin making the transition to the RTS genre?

This is a strategy forum, and I also like to pause and think about my posts before inserting them, trying to ensure they are relevant, thoughtful, mature and considerate of others and their playing preferences.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by Out4Blood

My build order is different. I want to maximize the production in the beginning. IMO, as British, the critical aspect is max food, then max out wood, then max out food again.

Took me about a dozen games to figure this out...sometimes I'm not all that smart...

So I start the game with VQ, then use the 2 cutters to drop 2 new farms and send all new villagers to wood. If I have crappy wood spot, I'll build a second right there. After the first 2 farms are built, I'll wait til 120 wood and research science as my first tech.

Substantively the same, except I have been researching Civics right off the bat...probably need to get out of that Bantu habit (freaking amazing with them).

Some micro tricks for defeating AI armies...

An even more "unfair" method:

I usually build about 3-4 Archers early, and get this done by fishing obsessively and getting Taxation fast. Just garrison said Archers...if the enemy shows up, grab a couple citizens and put them in the City. Play "catch the Archer" until the Slingers are unprotected attacking the Archers while the Hoplites close into an unfavorable position, then pop out the Citizens and slam the Slingers with the Citizens. Citizens just WRECK Slingers, this saves me quite a number of resources in Ancient.

After that, my plan is the usual build mad siege model, garrisoning it in the two Siege Factories on my key border cities until Gunpowder, then upgrading. Food, Wealth and Knowledge drive the advances, and AI armies get murdered if you've got 4-8 Bombards/Cannon waiting for them behind the City...

[Aginor]

Originally posted by solo
Grond,

The British are good, but I think you have to be patient for their advantages to pay off.

After getting REPEATEDLY smoked with the British on land maps and finally taking a couple games:
1) The Brits are NOT GOOD in the first two Ages. When they start to pay off is in late Classical as Taxation gets you into a position to catch up in Knowledge.
2) In order to take advantage of the Commerce bonus, you have to invest a LOT more resources early in utilizing your bonus than the boom civs that get production bonuses. Which of course means a very, very, very risky boom.
3) That said it all starts paying dividends around Enlightenment, and you can get to Industrial VERY fast with the Brits. Really all you need is the Colossus and you dominate the late game - 100 of all resources every 30 seconds translates to a LOT of extra units in the last 20 minutes...and as we all know, once you start losing a war to a monster army, you usually stay losing.

Once I get the hang of how to play a civ, I move on to the next. I found water maps to be much easier on Toughest than land maps.

No rush = kick AI's butt.


[QUOTE]
1) The AI will not build any wonders until after I start on my first one. After that they build as many as possible. It just may be a coincidence noticed in my limited number of games, so I’m wondering whether anyone else has noticed this?

No...typically AI will wait until Gunpowder to build Wonders and then go hog wild regardless of whether I throw up an early Colossus/Terra Cotta.

2) Likewise, this game and any previous one I’ve played in which I did not research or use nuclear weapons has led to a similar result. As with wonders, if I don’t build them, neither do the AI. Again, what’s the experience of other players on this?

Mmmm....if I fall behind I get nuked like mad, and I've had my share of games where the AI researched them first (I rarely research them...too busy trying to get to Info Age and MLRS, NOT a strat to follow against the living). It may be that your chief adversary can't REACH you with them...I've had that happen a number of times, and figured that's why he put it off.

[Drachen]

I thought it might be interesting to post a save of a typical Egyptian wonder win on toughest. I've found that on a Great Lakes map you can pretty much predict the attack lanes the A.I. will use if you build your cities in the shape of an inverted T. I like to start by researching science as I find that this increases the yield from my Scout without cutting my build up since I have to wait for the city to build citizens anyway. It's a drag…but I hand manage my Scout up to about medieval so that I can scope out the battlefield. I like to get my temple up before founding my second city as this usually improves its placement. It's also helpful if you have your workers stop and build a dock on the way to the Second City site. Strategic considerations outweighed resource gathering concerns for my Second City. If you look at the replay will see that my second City had no resources but is merely a stopover point for the placement of my battle city. You want to get battle city up by about six minutes and be working on your fortifications immediately afterwards. Early attacks can be handled by barracks troops alone but by about eight or nine minutes I like to get my siege weapons up. Playing as the Egyptians eases the way to get the important wonders and for me this includes Colossus, Terra Cotta, Versailles, and the Statue of Liberty. If you get these wonders then you can be pretty confident that you will dominate the end game and at this point it's easy to go for either a military or a wonder win.

Note; I was unable to attach the replay after editing post so I've reposted it after Solos message.

Cheers

[solo]

Aginor,

That sounds about right for wonders, that the AI wait until Gunpowder instead of waiting for me. I'll have to check out this likely explanation in following games.

You are right about nuclear weapons. I was nuked in my subsequent game which I noted in the post describing it. I was hit by about 5 nukes before getting up the Missile Shield. The AI always seem to target cities, but collateral damage can be considerable.

In my openings, I usually research science immediately to improve ruins bonuses and to reduce other research costs, and make the first 2 or three villagers into woodcutters. In the early game I find I'm wanting more wood the most. Then one more citizen is made and sent out to the second city site while researching civics. I always seem to have enough food using this opening, so I wait on building two more farms in my capital until the second city is started. You can't always depend on fishing for early gold, so I think it's imperative to get that second city built quickly, followed by a market and that first trade route. I think capping food and wood ASAP is NOT the best policy in the opening and that it's better to work earlier on building up sources of wealth. I try to collect just enough food and wood to keep things humming. In any event, I think I will run a few tests to see which opening strategy is most efficient.

The Brits ARE tough to play well, since the human player is the most vulnerable before being able to build a good enough "counter siege" to repel supplied AI attacks.

You should give the Chinese a try, as they really do compete much earlier in Toughest. With them, farms first are actually best because there's no delay in replacing wood needed for the second city and its surrounding buildings. I think the Chinese are very strong with just instant citizens and their 20% science bonus. Adding in large cities from the get-go and their free medical upgrades just makes things even better.

Drachen,

After an easy time of it as the Chinese I moved right on to the Egyptians and concur with your obersvations made while playing them yourself. I look forward to viewing your replay and comparing what we did with this civ.

In my game, I was given the Austrailian Outback map, and had the Greeks, Nubians and Turks as my AI opponents. This map is good for fishing, but since the land is sorrounded by ocean, there was hardly any room left for cities. It was like playing on a smaller map, and at first I was worried that lack of space would lead to many AI attacks, since all of the available terrrain was claimed very quickly. There was only enough room for three normal sized cities each.

I got a tower, attrition and a few archers in place in enough time for the first AI unsupplied attacks, but the first suppied attack with a catapult came much earlier than usual. While it was going on, I had to build my own siege factory and start a catapult of my own. By the time the city's hit points had been cut in half, I was able to research Medieval to convert to a large city, which bought enough time to build another catapult and use it to help take out the AI's.

Later on, I was not threatened as much as I had expected. Cramped living quarters had also facilitated conflict among the AI, buying time for me to lay low and catch up. Turtling like this was successful and has worked very well in my last three games. Eventually I get a lead in science and am able to get to those end game techs first. However, in this game it was very close, since I trailed the Nubians until nearr the very end. They had become almost twice as strong earlier after defeating the Turks.

Below is a replay starting from about the 8 minute mark.

(This is the new one, and the .rec file should go by the same name. I checked and egypt.rec loads and runs for me.)

[Drachen]

Solo; I've been enjoying your posts and hope to be able to check out your Egypt replay although I've not been able to get it to open as yet. I unzipped it, dropped it in the right folder, and have the (.rec) extension but it doesn't open. Other downloaded zips do open so I'm not sure what's up with this as of yet. At any rate, this is a great thread and so my thanks to all of you whose advice I used to work my way up to toughest.

In passing...what a great game! This is the first RTS game since AOE that's been able to pull me away from CivIII for any length of time and I have so much left to explore. Yahoo

Here's the missing replay from my previous post.

[solo]

Drachen,

Thanks! I found and was able to load the replay from your first post and enjoyed watching it. Nice going! You kept even or ahead of the Germans throughout, and go about your research in an eerily familiar way and order, by always leading with science and commerce! That was quite a battle in the middle of the map! We do the same thing with the outermost city, using it almost exclusively for military buildings.

I will check out my zipped replay and repost it as soon as I find out what's wrong.

I've just completed my test comparing two opening strategies. Here are the results:

I ran a test in order to compare two opening strategies for the British in a game at Toughest, playing each opening until the 5 minute mark and then comparing what had been accomplished.

Test #1

During this one I started by using two farmers to build two new farms while switching two woodcutters to existing farms. The city began by producing 4 woodcutters to fill the first camp, while the scout was sent off to explore. The first set of ruins produced 25 wealth. By the time the first woodcutter camp was full another was started, adding more woodcutters to reach a production rate of 80. Meanwhile, by the time 120 wood was collected, Science I was researched. This was followed by Civics I as another citizen was produced and sent on his way towards the site for the second city, arriving in time to begin construction. Then as soon as Commerce I could be researched, it was, in order to add a market and more production. Right after the market, a caravan and merchant were built, the merchant being set up on the resource right next to that city yielding 10 wealth and 10 science. After that the second city was developed by adding farms, more woodcutters, and a temple. Then after Military I, work started on a tower and barracks. Meanwhile the scout found 4 more ruins, with various results, yielding 50 more of whatever commodity was lowest.

By the 5 minute mark, Science II was almost finished being researched. 8 farmers were working 8 farms, 8 woodcutters were working 13 slots, and a caravan and merchant were combining to earn 36 wealth, with 120 wealth currently on hand. A temple, market, barracks and tower had been completed near the second city.

Test #2

During this one Science I was researched immediately and the capital produced 2 woodcutters to fill up the first camp. By the time the scout found the first set of ruins, Science I was complete, so it yielded 50 food, since Civics I was being researched. After that, the scout continued to explore, following the same path made during the first game. However, due to it wider LOS, a second set of ruins was discovered sooner that was missed in the first test, adding 50 more food. Meanwhile, a third villager was produced and on its way to the second city site, arriving as Civics I was completed and just in time to start construction. While this was being done another farm was built at the capital and another woodcutter’s camp was built there too.

Soon the second city was also producing 10 more food and wood, so Commerce I was researched immediately and the villager used to build the city continued with a market. As this was being done more woodcutters were added to the second camp and the fifth farm was built for the capital. When completed, the market produced a caravan and merchant as in the first test, while devlopment continued on the second city. A temple was added, and by that time Military was researched, so work could continue on a tower and barracks, which were also finished. When there was enough wood or food to spare, more farms were added and another woodcutter camp was set up near the second city. Another marketplace was built next to the capital, too.

Meanwhile enough early wealth had been acquired to afford research of Science II earlier than in the first test. This was also made possible because more food than other commodities had come from early ruins than during the first test, too. Afterwards, the scout was able to get 75 of each resource from the last two ruins that were found and ended up finding a total of 7 ruins as compared to the 5 which were found in the first test, because of his expanded LOS.

By the 5 minute mark, Classical had also been researched, allowing me to complete Taxation research, too. 7 farmers were working 7 farms, and 10 woodcutters were working 13 slots. There was 100 metal on hand, but no mines yet. There was a total of 174 wealth and its production was up to 64, nearly double that attained in the first test. There was also 105 knowledge, and it was accumulating at a rate of 12 due to the special resource.

Conclusion

The results for the second test were much better than those for the first, and I think the main reason for this was because the second city was built much sooner in the second test than in the first. Once it was established, it was contributing its 10 food and wood much earlier than in the the first test, and doing so without spending another 60 food or so needed in the first test for an extra woodcutter and farmer. A quicker second city also got trade and wealth going much earlier, too, allowing earlier research of Science II. With more emphasis in the second test on producing wood and wealth, most early ruins produced food which more than compensated for the lack of emphasis on farming during the opening minutes. Also, I believe that the initial workers are slightly more efficient if left as placed in the opening, rather than re-tasking them immediately as was done in the first test.

[Grond]

As British I don't upgrade to commerce 3 early unless I have enough water to fish in. Building a 3rd set of farms early is too expensive and will usually get you killed. Fishing also helps tremendously with getting out those crucial unique archers early. I tend to skimp on infantry as British, preferring to save my metal for Knights, Cannons, Castles, Generals, Spies and upgrades.

[Grond]

As regards to the test you really want to get food from ruins at the beginning of the game so its best to keep the max villagers qued up and then unque some if you need to some food for research.

[Aginor]

Played as the Brits again twice last night & got spanked in Gunpowder both times, played as the Bantu and lost badly in Enlightenment (simultaneous pincer, it sucked), concluded I was just playing badly.

Played as the Bantu tonight, won, and in the process discovered something REALLY EVIL.

Seems we're playing a 4-corner start on Great Lakes. I build cities in a V, only get around 18% of the map, but I don't care because I've got a HOUSE defended in the center by a big lake. Only two ways to get to me, kids, as I've got a host of early warning Fishermen on the lake if the AI goes for the jugular that way (not that I've ever seen the AI build a boat on that map, but whatever). Bad news is that I'm poor all game due to weak Taxation and my Caravans apparently having big bullseyes painted on them...I'd really be hating life if I were British. My 5 Fishermen keep me from abject poverty tho.

Fifth city is BADLY underdefended as it's got one Citizen and a host of buildings and is NOT the Terra Cotta rally point (just built it for a buffer in front of my big Mine on the right side really). Basically I've got a Stable and a Siege Factory when, during Enlightenment, the Egyptians send about 25 units with 4 Cannon. I have NOTHING here but about a half dozen Cannon and a Wagon, as whatever irrelevant crew is on the left side (don't remember who) rushed me at the get go and has been feeling frisky all game, and I had to clean out my troops from the never-attacked right to save that city, which is a LOT more important since it has a University and a Mine, towards the end of Gunpowder.

So his artillery hammers my city, Temple and Architecture or no, down to empty in no time flat and HERE COMES THE JUDGE...not good. I've whacked a few units with my Cannon, and I've been sending Hoplites over from the one Barracks in range while researching Fusileers, but it just doesn't look good. Never have moved the Cannon since they spawned.

Anyway, the Siege Factory is about an inch northeast of that nice lake, and all the buildings are in line leaving a pretty tight attacking lane, which prevents the cavalry from swarming the Cannon, at least. The frontmost Cannon gets down to about 1/2 life, and out of sheer desperation, and not expecting it to work, I garrison the Cannon, expecting to see the Cannon's little yellow meter take too long to fill up and watch the Cannon die.

Instead, to my shock, it disappears right into home base, and I've still got 5 fresh Cannon...and the Fusileers upgrade...and Versailles goes up...and the rout is on! Use the instant garrison trick once more, pop the other Cannon back out...and after a good beating what is left of the Infantry line, Cannon and Wagons breaks and runs.

Smoked 20 of the 25 units with 6 Cannon and 2 lousy Fusileers (other 2 Hoplites I built got whacked as Hoplites before upgrade came through). Unreal. Wish I'd known I could do the Ancient Bowmen trick with Cannon before!

Think about this...if you position the Factory right, you can pull the enemy into position with the Cannon, garrison them, and flag them out the back side...shape your buildings right with a good long V shape and you can make one UGLY killing field where the other guy can't even GET to your Cannon without his own...hide some Fusileers in a Barracks he's got to go around on the corner to reach the Cannon and pop them right into his back/flank...you can have tons of fun with this.

Anyway, this beating bought me enough time to reach Industrial and throw up the Statue, securing the win (though incompetent generalship on my part slowed it down...throwing my troops into a two-front war to capture the Angkor Wat, which was RIGHT on my border, without scouting it first was NOT smart). Once again, I can't say enough about Versailles. French wagons are nice, cutting down on the frequency with which you have to send fresh units, and the research bonus is KILLER if you're trying to field an army while researching. You should have more Food and Metal than you know what to do with in mid-Enlightenment anyway.

Oh, and by the way solo, would you believe the Egyptians started the Pyramids while I was still in Ancient?!? Very strange, especially in light of the recent discussion. Even stranger, no one other than me built Wonders until Enlightenment, and I was halfway done with Versailles when suddenly everything I hadn't built started going up (I had Terra Cotta and Versailles only, my usual Bantu Wonder suite, built Statue and Supercollider, had to skip Taj this time as the fighting was VERY fierce in Modern this game.)

Still haven't gotten nuked lately...I'm finding the Comp just won't nuke you if you're leading (I usually lag in 3rd/4th until the Statue hits and then vault into the lead with the Unit upgrades and never relinquish it). Must figure (correctly) that the human will just get mad and nuke the AI even harder.

Interesting test on the Brits...I'll just have to break down and mess with them in a disciplined fashion to figure out the start. Next up on my list is the Incans, though I'll check the Chinese out, as the more you describe them the more it sounds like they may be the solution to some issues I've had. I'm interested to see if a civ can improve upon the Bantu boom, which is VERY powerful even though you can't really point to any one of their advantages and say "that's just wrong"...the whole set of moderately powered advantages is just disturbingly synergistic though. I played a lot of Yang in SMAC, and I find the style of play for the Bantu fairly similar.

[solo]

Aginor,

That's a good idea for using cannon, but while I was fooling with mine last game, I strayed a bit far trying to get the Greeks to charge into the the range of my fort, and I lost one to an enemy spy. I just hate it when they bribe my cannon! In spite of this, they have become my weapon of choice in the first half of the game, so I don't even bother with anything other than siege and one or two hoplites to keep things honest. By the way, a general works great with cannon, too, and can usually force march badly wounded ones into garrison quickly enough to save them.

I wonder what the difference has been in our last few games, as I have had a relatively easy time of it by adding many archers for defense until siege are available. Now I make sure each city has an archer and each tower has two before adding another city, and go for attrition sooner than I used to in games when I was hurt early. Doing this puts me a little bit more behind and gives me less space, but after watching replays of these turtling games, I've noticed that there was much more conflict among the AI, leaving me much more free time to boom during the middle of the game.

Of the civs played so far, I place the Bantus in second place after the Chinese when playing Toughest. The Egyptians had some good stuff to help them, but were not as effective as I thought they would be. It took all game to catch up and finally pull ahead, although part of this may be due to the limited amount of land on the Australian map. Still, their bonuses place them third on my list in games where I do not rush.

My test on starts showed a big disparity in results after only 5 minutes, which makes me think that the gathering rates of the human player may be secretly adjusted based on things like tech acquisition, number of cities, etc. We all know that in Toughest, that the AI gathering rates have been increased by 50%, and if the game tinkers with human rates, too, this would not be noticeable without comparative tests.