The End Game

[Campo]

Playing at King level, I can generally build up a big tech lead, get almost all the wonders I want, and have a dominating army. I don't do this especially fast though; my games tend to last into the mid or late 1900's.

The problem I have is towards the end, when I am either trying to build the spaceship or conquer the world. By this point all the other civs are allied against me, of course, which is no big deal. However they use spies to steal my advanced techs and within a few turns nearly catch up to my hard-earned technology. I start out with tanks and bombers to their dragoons, but within a few turns they've stolen the techs and are coming back at me with their own tanks and bombers.

If they're concentrated on one or maybe two land masses, I can take them out fast enough. But if they're spread out farther, I can't conquer them all before they steal the techs and build their own advanced weapons.

And forget about the spaceship. Once I get far enough ahead and they start coming at me full force, I get too occupied with military matters to build the ship.

I do put spies in my border cities to try to prevent tech theft, but it rarely works. (Although I had a game this weekend in which my one spy in a captured enemy city thwarted THREE consecutive enemy spy attempts. That's never happened before.)

So here's my question: How do I cope with the AI spying and rush-building comparable military units when they're spread out too far to conquer in a few turns?

[toofergo]

Here's what works for me (playing MGE with patches applied, King level, Democracy).

1. The purpose of a dominating army is to dominate. If you have trouble projecting military power over distance, well, you're not alone. So have most of the famous generals of history. But any technological advantage is going to be transient. Exploit it while you've got it.

2. Build the U.N. This permits you to force peace, which, oddly enough, I find makes it easier to force war on _my_ terms. It may be a quirk of my installation, but if an AI civ is listed as Receptive when at Peace, and my emissary asks that civ to withdraw its troops, it'll declare war 100% of the time. So, I can force a war, take a city or two, kill any lurking dips, and negotiate a new peace all within my own turn and under Democracy.

3. Consolidate your gains. Force spies and dips to travel cross country by pillaging roads or occupying forts. Rush build an Airport in your beach head city, even before building City Walls. Not only will this let you trickle in units, it makes air defense a heck of a lot easier.

4. Rethink your unit mix. For air defense, don't forget the lowly fighter plane. When scrambling, a vet fighter has an effective combat rating of 18, more than enough to handle an AI bomber. As a scout, it will let you see up to 6 hexes away. As an attacker, it can only defeat a "hard" target under ideal conditions, but works well against Dips, Artillery, and any leftover horse troops.
Against the AI, I build few tanks and even fewer bombers. I'm typically too busy building Mech.Inf., Howitzers, Engineers and Spies. When I use Armor, I use to conquer/occupy a city and then for aggressive defense. While the best use of bombers is for a superstack, I abstain from that strategy/trick. But in general, if the AI has flight bombers are too vulnerable and if it doesn't, I don't need them.

5. Don't forget your own spies. If the AI is in democracy itself, it will need to revolt in order to sneak attack. Once out of democracy, don't be afraid to bargain hunt. If you can buy a city with three alpine units inside, that's three less defenders you have to build.

My overall end game strategy is to use my "core" cities to build spaceship parts and generate income, which I then spend on the front. The usual result is that at King level, I reduce the AI to a handful of cities just before launch.

[crowatbitemedotcom]

'When scrambling, a vet fighter has an effective combat rating of 18, more than enough to handle an AI bomber.'

Hmmm, I thought the AI was having an easy time against my stealth bombers. I suppose this info is in the manual?

[tobyr]

If you have the ToT version of civ2, try for a research win instead (that is, win just by doing the proper research). I think (but I'm not sure yet) that the AI does not react strongly to your attempt to research advanced technology; the AI tribes don't (in my limited experience) come at me the same way they do when I build a ship.

In addition, while researching advanced tech 5 or hanging from yggdrasil 8, you can put a lot of resources into beefing up defense of your cities (since you are not building a space ship). You just have to make sure your research is going fast enough; and you might have some resources left over to slow down your strongest opponents by attacking them a bit.

In the original game, you will win about three turns after you receive advanced tech 5 (see the events file).

In the fantasy game, you have to get all the way to hannging..8, and then the odds of winnig each turn are a paltry 1 in 35. If you are researching advances every two turns, it will take about 20 turns to get from hanging..1 to hanging..8 (you can't always research the next advance), and then you wait...

Midgard has a research win that looks completely impactical (futuretech 20 and then 5% odds per turn of winning).

The sci fi game has a research win with transcendence -- get it and you win, I believe.

- toby

[toofergo]

>Hmmm, I thought the AI was having an easy >time against my stealth bombers. I suppose >this info is in the manual?

Alas, no. I determined this through experiments. Set the hits on both the fighter and bomber to 20h. Then, try various attack/defense combinations using cheat mode. You'll find when a fighter scrambles, it applies its defense factor times four.

A vet bomber actually has a slight advantage over a non-vet stealth fighter, 18 to 16.

[Mad_Conquest]

My favorite way to fight a war is.....

1) Have a strong defensive situation

2) Switch to fundamentalism if possible

3) Wait till you have a ton of cash.

4) Have all your cities build spies/diplos

5) Release the terror

An army of 20-30 spies gives a whole new meaning to the term "horde" hehehe

(p.s. I said favorite, not always what I do though.)

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The Mad Mad Ruler of the World

[Steve Clark]

My 1 1/2 cents. You must decided early on if your are going for AC or conquer.

If AC, don't worry about the others, just make sure you get up the tech tree ASAP and have 100+ caravans ready to build the components very quickly. You got decide this early on because it takes awhile to build all those caravans and get them situated outside the proper cities.

If conquer, you must hit them hard when you have better military units than they do (e.g., you have Renaissance units, they still have Ancient; Industrial vs. Ren., etc.). First take out your neighbors, and then decide to go to total warfare. As talked about in the MGE thread, I use Democracy to race up to Rocketry and then STOP the science, switch to Fund and rush build a very effective modern army of cruise missiles/alpines/battleships and hit them hard and quickly before they hit you and get too strong. You just can't be nice about this, you must be very decisive and ruthless.

BTW, the best thing I've read about warfare in Civ is from my fellow military historian, Marc Fisher called, "Fire! Making War in Civilization II" that can be found at http://apolyton.net/civ2 under Hints&Tips.

Not sure if anything I said helps since it's generalized.

[Campo]

Thanks for the helpful advice.

I think you touched on my main problem -- not deciding my strategy early enough. I usually start off intending to build a spaceship, but as I get closer the AI civs become so aggressive that I end up going on the offensive. There's an inefficiency in changing strategies mid-stream.

I've only ever played one game to AC. I've tried to several times, but the AI civs get so aggressive -- and are sufficiently dangerous once they steal mobile warfare and advanced flight -- that I end up on the aggressive.

AC would be easy if I could prevent the AI from reaching quick parity with me through tech thefts. I find that near impossible though with a couple dozen cities -- they get spies through somewhere.

I'll try an earlier conquest strategy. I might as well since that's how it always ends up.

[DaveV]

My opinion: don't wait for the super high-tech units. Dragoons and musketeers vs. elephants and phalanxes is at least as big an edge as armor and bombers vs. dragoons. My experience is that the AIs have far fewer diplomats, and use them less agressively, in lower-tech time periods. The other big advantage of attacking in this time period is that you can still use Leo's Workshop and Sun Tzu's War Academy. Expand fast and ruthlessly. Take over enemy cities and use them to produce more units. Rush-build units at the front lines.

[Sten Sture]

Campo - here is another idea for an end game strategy where your original plan was AC. I have recently improved my regular SP (vs MP) games by stopping my expansion a little earlier. I used to get overextended by conquering while I was preparing to build the space ship, but now I try to get to a defendable position by building fortresses, terraforming hills, or at least forests, on boarders; wiping out enemy cities with the conquer, sell-off, disband, vacate approach (changing the city center to forest helps.) Just generally making a defensive war of denial. I try to make myself wait to counterattack until after I land on AC. (that way, if I get mad at them for bugging me, I know I will get even eventually)

[Scouse Gits]

The AI tends to mirror your research. If you are Republic/Demo, you will usually find at least two or three other civs will be nearly matching your pace of research - and trading techs with themselves. At this point you may have to wage war to slow them down. This where SoL is so crucial. You benefit from having any form of government - without three turns of anarchy.

If you have to go Fundy, don't worry about the low science rate for a while. You can easily compensate by stealing and by having some good freight management. Let other civs do the research for a couple hundred years, whilst you undertake a little conquering. Very often, if you slow down your research - other civs will follow. It tends to concentrate their minds on other things - especially when you have a swarm of crusaders/ironclads approaching their cities.

One important point if you are in war. Don't become bogged down in a war of attrition. Have set objectives and realistic targets for your forces. Great conquerors know what they want! If you missed a vital wonder then make that city your objecive. If a civ has an advance you require - don't just steal it - but acquire it from conquest.

Support your task forces with spies and engineers. Have a reasonable mix of attackers and defenders. Never take a city if you think it will be reclaimed on the next turn - as you are just wasting troops and giving away a tech.

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Scouse Git (2)


[This message has been edited by Scouse Gits (edited January 27, 2000).]

[SandMonkey]

Campo -

I, too, play on King level, so I know what boat you're in. Like someone said (I can't find it after I read it!) make sure to fill out your area. If there is a civ sharing an island with you, make an attempt to take them out early. I have been fortunate in my last few games to get fairly large islands with no other civ's on my island. But, I also play ICS style, so when I fill out an island, i FILL OUT an island! It also makes it easy to mass produce units and just swarm over the enemy (and go figure, I'm going for AC!). But one thing that I try and aim for is taking out, or hurting, the most advanced AI after railroad. Find out what cities they have wonders/high production/high science in and take out those. Try and make them realistic goals (like SG(2) said). Normally there will only be one or two AI's keeping up with me, and the rest are just stuck back fighting with elephants and knights. Those two strong ones are the guys (or gals) to go after. By setting them back a few turns could mean the game for you.

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SandMonkey

"Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a qtip"
-Homer Simpson

"Ecky eck ecky!"
"It's just a flesh wound!"
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[This message has been edited by SandMonkey (edited January 27, 2000).]

The computer players shouldn't be giving you any trouble even if they have all the techs (assuming of course, that you have them too). All you need is a couple fortified veteran alpine troups (or mechanized infantry if you have them) in all your cities. If you build SAM missile batteries, coastal fortresses, and city walls, the computer players won't have a chance. They are too dumb to come up with a strategy that would actually hurt.
If there are some players on the same continent just build a city at a choke point on a mountain, hill, or forest and rush buy city walls. Only develop the side of the city that is on your part of the continent to avoid having everything pillaged. The computer will then send (literally) hundreds of units to try and conquer that city and lose them all. A fortified mechanized infantry unit behind city walls on a mountain is practically indistructable. Also build fighters in that city and fly out every turn to scout out what's coming. Usually you'll kill tons of spies. In my last game, I killed 89 spies with fighters. He just kept sending them and I kept killing them. If you are on an island, things are usually more peaceful. Build a fighter in every coastal city and fly out a couple squares every turn to catch any transports (the computer rarely if ever escorts his transports with AEGIS cruisers like he should and you can sink them easily).
If you want to conquer the computer players there is a simple strategy and it's actually more fun the more advanced they are--the cities are bigger, and most importantly, they are connected by railroad--so this works best in deity (in fact, if I am far ahead, I like to give railroad to everyone so that the rails will be ready for me later on). Forget bombers. They are too expensive, and too slow (and too easily destroyed if if the enemy has fighters). What you really need is howitzers and armors. I usually build about 50% howitzers and 50% armors, 4 or 5 engineers and a couple fighters/stealth fighters (only if enemy has bombers). Build up a sizeable army (about 15 howitzers and 15 armors), then switch to fundamentalism. Ideally you'll have built a railway to the 'enemy' during cease fire or peace time. If not or if you are on an island, just use transports (escort them). Land right next to a city (preferably in a railroad square) with all your units. Use two engineers to build a fort in one turn so that the computer can't destroy your units all at once. Then just pound the city with your howitzers. Ten howitzers will easily destroy all the units in even the most heavily defended city in one turn. In fact, a single howitzer will usually take out 2 mechanized infantry/turn. What I usually do for the first city is destroy all the units but then I don't capture the city. At the end of the turn, the computer will pour all his mobile units into the city (armors, marines, cavalry, paratroopers, etc.) to defend it. Next turn my howitzers kill all of those and then I've already half won the war. The rest is simple. Take the city and destroy the partisans (assuming he has them, and he usually will). Use the armors to attack partisans that are on plains, never if they are on mountains or in the forest. The howitzers are there for that. And of course, never attack city walls with armors unless you want to die (an exception is if the computer doesn't have conscription yet). Once you capture the city, use your armors to fortify in the forts around the city (the AI always builds tons of forts) so that the computer can't attack the city. The city walls almost always dissapear when you capture a city and if you simply leave your units inside, the computer will massacre all your units. If you leave the armors in the forts however, he won't be able to get through. Move all your fighters into the captured city so that you can destroy any bombers that dare attack. Rush-buy barracks so you can fix your hurt units quickly. Then repeat the procedure for the next city. In one turn, take only as many cities as you can fully clear of partisans and fortify. If you spread yourself too thin, he'll be able to break through and you'll suffer big losses. In my experience, after you've taken about 3 or 4 cities, he hardly puts up a fight anymore. And if you play carefully, you'll hardly lose any units at all. I captured over 25 huge, heavily defended cities in my last game and lost only 3 armors and 2 howitzers (it's fun to look at the casualty reports when you're done). You'll lose more units if he has bombers but at that stage your cities should be cranking out armors and howitzers in 1-2 turns so it doesn't really matter. With this strategy you can completely humble the toughest opponent in less than 15 turns (you should of course start with the strongest). And if you go for the kill, you'll usually get a big score without the hassle of having to micromanage dozens of cities. Just let the computers build the cities and then conquer them.

[Campo]

Thanks everyone. There's been excellent advice here and I'm in the process of copying it into an "End Game" file that I'll take home and save.

Diety, you said that if I have Mech Inf I don't have to worry about AI attacks. The exception to that, I've found, is when the AI has howitzers. As delightful as they are to have on my side, they invoke a comparable fear in my city defenders.

When I grab that first city on an enemy continent, I feel pretty vulnerable to attack from even a few AI howitzers. Even my Mech Inf troops tremble when they see them approach. And with railroads all over, they can come from across the continent.
Will your "tanks in forts" strategy withstand them?

The situation I hate is to take one or two enemy cities, lose most of my units in counterattacks, and then be scrambling every turn to rush-buy and resupply to try to hang on to that city. I guess maybe I am overextending; I should hold off the attack until I can arrive with more units.

I guess that's the problem during an AC game though -- I'm concentrating on improvements, science, and spaceship, so I don't have many spare military units for non-defensive purposes.

Hey, great suggestions everyone. I'm sure this will help.

[Sten Sture]

Campo - one additional note on getting counterattacked by the AI; try to do some AI railroad pillaging in a couple of key locations, it only takes one movement point to pillage so a tank or mech can mess up an square and get back to the city/fort. And/or
occupy/build a high defense fort (hill or Mtn) outside the first city. This will draw some firepower away from that first city, while you are walling/reinforcing your position. Also, if you can afford to sacrifice a few units (a la Iran in the 80s; ) try positioning a few older muskets or something outside the city where the AI use his howies where you want. His howies will take out your units but you will catch them out in the open on your next attack. This may help save your good defenders for crucial city garrison duty.
[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited January 28, 2000).]

[Campo]

Good point about the pillaging. I'm well aware of that feature, but I never remember to use it during the game. I get caught up in the direct fighting and forget about the side issues. (I think it's like those American Civil War soldiers who used to load their muskets repeatedly without ever firing them.) Anyway, good suggestion and I'll try real hard to remember next time.

[Campo]

Another question -- I've read about the strategy people use to keep out enemy spies by putting caravans or freight around their cities. Don't enemy troops just kill the caravan/freight? Presumably the spies are going after your coastal and border cities, so why doesn't an AI unit just wipe out a caravan?

Pillaging slows down the counterattack but it also slows down your attack on the next turn. And the AI usually builds so much railraod that it's hard to pillage it all.
I must admit that the computer rarely has howitzers when I attack. But the one or two games I remember when he did he they wern't so bad. The key is defending around the city rather than in the city (unless there are city walls). The armors (or mechanized infantry or alpine troops--I like armors because of their dual defensive/offensive role) have to block the railroad access to the city. Put them in a fort, in a forest, on a mountain--any square that puts up your defensive bonus. If you leave those armors in the city they'll just get clobbered (I leave only one defensive unit and all the howitzers in the city).
The AI only counterattacks viciously the first couple of times. In fact the first turn is the most brutal. That's why its a good idea to land a spy on his railroad a couple turns before the attack and scout out the location of all his cities and forts (if you havn't done that already). Then pick the coastal city that is the most easily defendable from land attacks. The ideal situation for example, is a city on a peninsula that has a single railroad leading to it and some hills in front with a fort. You can defend that easily. His counterattack will be crushed and then you can move on. Always use the terrain to your advantage. If there is a group of 4 cities with mountains behind them, take all four in one turn and then fortify the mountains, not the cities.
I've already said this but the biggest mistake is spreading yourself too thin. You have to attack with LOTS of units. The more you have, the less you lose. 10 armors and 10 howitzers is not too much to take and defend the first city. Clear out his forts with your howies and move in a with 3 or 4 armors. There's nothing much he can do against that.

[Sivro]

Yeah, I agree. I don't like to pillage. I prefer to keep the railroads intact. I'm more concerned with making my attacks easier rather than making AI's counterattacks more difficult for him. Placing defensive units in fortresses along the railroad is the way to go. The most difficult city to conquer is that first one on the coastline of another continent. After you have that one city, the rest is a piece of cake. When transporting units from your continent to another where you have already conquered a coastal city, always move your transport into your coastal city. The units on the transport will now get to move out of the city with full movement points available. Nothing is sweeter than moving a transport full of howies into a city and then bringing them out onto a railroad with the ability to attack twice. Ya gotta love it!

[tobyr]

In the ToT fantasy game, you often get to make an army of dragons to wipe out the AI civs. It takes a lot of research, but these 12/15/5 3/3 babies can fly, do not have to end their turn in a city, and can do awesome amounts of damage.

It's VERY exciting when the AI tribes get dragons before you do, and very interesting when you do not get them at all (if you have a limited number of cities, you may never get a chance to hunt down and kill a dragon, and then you can't build them unless you steal the needed technology).

In a fantasy archipelago game, Krakens (12/12/4 2/4, similar to battleships) and dragons together are terrific.

- toby

[Campo]

Well I played a game this weekend using a lot of the advice in this thread, and it worked out great. I set out to diminish the AI civs as soon as I got gunpowder and added a few military units (rather than waiting for modern weapons). The only problem I ran into was the Indian capital, which by the time I reached it was defended by 5 vet musketeers behind city walls, located on a river. I send 10 cannons, 2 dragoons, and 4 riflemen against it -- and lost. I was really surprised. I had surrounded it so they couldn't reinforce, but the units already in place were adequate.

I subsequently bypassed that city and took a few other Indian and Chinese cities until I developed Espionage. Then my spy knocked out the city walls and my cannons did their job.

After that I bribed the couple remaining Indian and Chinese cities (having taken Bejing easily), and finally mopped up the Vikings with artillery just about the time I got Flight.

BTW, I sent my spies after city walls five times, and succeeded the first try on four of them. Got the last one on the second try.

The biggest drawback was moving my army without railroads. Three-movement roads weren't too bad, but I had roadless regions to cover that took a long time to get 20 cannon through.

[Xin Yu]

Against AI the following tactic works like a wonder:

Suppose you want to attack the AI civ from the EAST, you first use a task force to get one of his cities at the WEST end of his empire. Then block the road using pillage or bomber/mobile infantry combo. The next turn all his units will be moving towards West so your attack from the East will meet less resistance. The units he moves out of the cities will be disbanded once you occupy the cities.

If the AI has cities on more than one continent you may not be able to draw its units from other continents.

[poppawoppa]

One thing I have noticed, and you may all be aware of it... I had two alpine troops on mountains near a city I was preparing to attack. AI brought out a marine to a mountain next to my Alpines. I know enough not to attack the 5 defense Marine (tripled on mountain) with my 5 attack Alpine...and figured the AI also would avoid attacking. So, standoff. What happened the next turn, however, was the MARINE bribed both (yes, in the same turn) of my Alpine troops, and those new ZULU troops in turn attacked and killed another Alpine I had in backup, and a Cavalry which happened to be stopped on a back square as it was passing through the area. So, without an AI Diplomat or Spy anywhere near, I lost 2 troops to bribery and 2 more due to the bribed troops. I know now to keep 2 units together for defense agains bribing. The next time, one of the Alpines was attacked and went into the yellow, but the backup was full strength, green, so it bought time to bring up another full strength Alpine and move the weakened one back to a recovery area.

Watch out for the AI bribing you without having to have a diplomat or spy. It is just one of the AI cheats used to try and make the game more even. This was on Diety by the way.

[Xin Yu]

Tobyr: the formula for TOT fantasy game is:

a) bribe a barb Kraken
b) put sorcerors on the Kraken to navigate the map while coastal-bambard enemy cities and occupy them easily
c) you can see more barb Krakens from revealed maps so you bribe more Krakens and you have a better chance to kill the Dragon

[Steve Clark]

Campo: Very, very good work. Excellent strategy on mobilizing a force of Musks. I love to have Leo upgrade a whole army on route to the enemy.

Xin: Kraken??? Dragon???

[Xin Yu]

Steve Clark: Kraken is a carrier unit in Test of Time: fantasy world. Dragon is a strong unit with natural flying ability (like helicoptor but HT does not diminish). There are other units, like the Dwarf (can dig channels to connect surface with the underworld, engineer unit). Bribing/defeating such units early in the game is very beneficial.

[BlackJack]

Campo, I really like using freight and spies to keep ai spies out and to lessen sneak attack effects. You're right though, when the war starts, they die.

When I use it though, we're at peace. And I want his dips to have to go around them onto hills or forest or something to use up movement points. Then when they're stopeed in my territory, I expel them. Without them having stolen or sabotaged.

Freight is particularly nice in a fortress on shared territory; it keeps the resources for you without the constant "get your butt out of territory" every turn - spy might be expelled. And when he finally attacks and uses up movement, you counterattack, roll through a bunch of his cities and there it is.

Of course, if you're a fundy or commie, or just itching to kick some ai butt, you can just let his dip steal and have at it.

[tobyr]

Xin Yu, thank you, I had failed to appreciate the full value of a sorceror on the kraken's back, because it is a long time since I had a chance to bribe one.

I've played whole games without ever seeing a barbarian kraken. I wonder if they are more likely to occur if the map is NOT small (I have been playing: small map, large continent).

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[Xin Yu]

Tobyr: I don't know if it is the small map. I suspect it has something to do with the tech. Check out the scenario league web page for hints on barbarian units. I wonder if some techs makes the barbs only pump out shield ships rather than krakens, or vise versa.