Post some playing techniques.

[geofelt]

As I play, I utilize some techniques or habits as a matter of routine. There are certainly some goodies out there that I would like to hear about. For example:
1) When changing governments, I wait until the end of the turn, and change luxuries to 60%(the maximum under anarchy) to keep as many cities producing as possible. If I really cared, I would fix the rioting ones, but usually, I just turn off the notice-if-revolting warning.
2) Before tipping a hut with a 2 movement unit, I will wait for the unit to have 2 moves first so I can attack a barbarian if I get one.
3) I usually build a road in a square before irrigating instead of the other way around. Should this be reversed?

[Bereta_Eder]

quote: Originally posted by geofelt on 02-08-2001 07:45 PM As I play, I utilize some techniques or habits as a matter of routine. There are certainly some goodies out there that I would like to hear about. For example: 1) When changing governments, I wait until the end of the turn, and change luxuries to 60%(the maximum under anarchy) to keep as many cities producing as possible. If I really cared, I would fix the rioting ones, but usually, I just turn off the notice-if-revolting warning. 2) Before tipping a hut with a 2 movement unit, I will wait for the unit to have 2 moves first so I can attack a barbarian if I get one. 3) I usually build a road in a square before irrigating instead of the other way around. Should this be reversed?

2 and 3 are identical with what I do geofelt!

About 1,when I change governments, I use to control city unhapiness AFTER it happens . And that with taking citizens off production and turning them
into entertainers. Although I usually manage to coordinate the rep and demo to be discovered when everything is in place (USUALLY not all the time

Another thing is as soon as I have seafaring I return my trireme or build a new one with an explorer and I go hut hunting all over the planet. Always try to be able to return my explorer right back to the trireme if red effect happens.

Another thing that I discovered recently (thank you Deity level )is the one city overflow. By that I mean that The first or second city I build gets 3 units, temple and goes directly to wonder building. I've never lost a wonder yet this way! (ONE wonder - the one I want to build).

The other city takes care of expansion.

[Scouse Gits]

Some rules I find useful - like all rules they are broken if circumstances dictate:

1) Always conduct diplomatic contact at the start of the turn. If things go nasty you have time for a pre-emptive strike or to adjust defences for a wartime situation.

2) Move engineers at the start of the turn. That extra bit of road/rail they can provide may make all the difference.

3) Move spies to investigate before committing any troops. If a barracks is in town re-think battle calculations. If thinking of bribery, is there a courthouse which possibly could be sabotaged. (A case for having more than one spy at work).

4) Always have a couple more troops than you think you will need. Battles can go very badly at times.

5) When taking the first city on a new continent have enough force to occupy the town and to guard the approaches from enemy diplos. Nothing is worse than sailing around the globe only to have the place bribed back next turn!

6) Invasion forces should not all be attacking troops. A boat full of knights is great until you want to build a fort or bribe something. I like a caravan or two if travelling any distance. Trade and conquer with a mixture of units.

7) Wait all boats until the end of the turn. How many times has the ship sailed off waving to the caravan that just turned up in port?!

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SG(2)

[MBloomIII]

quote: Originally posted by Scouse Gits on 02-08-2001 08:40 PM 7) Wait all boats until the end of the turn. How many times has the ship sailed off waving to the caravan that just turned up in port?! --------- SG(2)

Now doubt on that one. And not realizing it until the next turn when the poor little thing is quietly blinking on the shore with the boat way out at sea. Oh, that ticks me off.

[East Street Trader]

Yeah. And all the worse when there are some horsemen stowaways sleeping in the hold where the silk ought to be.

And, of course, without these lazy galoots martial law breaks down and the poor old mayor has to do a runner. Again!

[Stuff2]

I have a few tricks.
1. Being nice to a foreign civ at first (like give them techs and more tribute than they ask for) makes them very friendly and you soon can ask them for money and techs especially if you ally with them. In the long term you will benefit more from it then the stupid Ai-player.
2. Don't be nice to the Zulus or the Russians. Whatever they demand, don't bother give it, they will make war with you anyway. In early game warfare doesn't mean much anyway. And sooner or later they may pay you money for ending the war (even though there almost hasn't been any real fighting whatsoever)
3. Build border cities. These cities should be well defended, strongest defending units and city wall is a must. They should be placed near rival civs, so whenever you are at war with them they will spend loads of units trying to capture this city, without success. They will use all their power trying to get your city while you can leave the defence almost entirely to that single city and mostly concentrating on the rest of your empire.
4. When capturing a city try to build city walls and corthouse ASAP. This will make the chance for them to take the city back much smaller.
5. In late game: Capture or bribe cities whenever a forign civ have got a tech that you are researching.

[DaveV]

1. A large squad of engineers can greatly aid an attacking force. If your opponent hasn't been kind enough to connect all of his cities with railroads, do it yourself. Vet cannons on railroads can beat AI musketeers easily (they can even beat non-vets behind walls). Strategically-placed fortresses can also help when you're on the attack.

2. The converse of number 1: don't give an attacker a free pass into your heartland. Pillage roads in heavy terrain and set up a force for counterattack. Protect key cities by foresting adjacent shoreline squares, to prevent the "unload and attack" trick.

3. If you're building a city for defensive purposes, build it on defensive terrain. Rivered forests, swamp, or jungle squares, hills, and especially mountains provide tremendous defensive bonuses.

4. Station units in heavy terrain to intercept land invaders. Two catapults in the middle of 2-move terrain can hold off a lot of bad guys.

5. Shore bombardment ignores city walls, so a few strong ships can often crack a key city.

[Theben]

geofelt-
1) Since I'll lose that turn's gold & science anyway (but don't have to pay for it) I always switch to 60% luxuries, then go thru the city screen to make an entertainer or 2 in each city that's in the red.
2) I'll do that too, but if I can I'll bring along some extra units- usually diplos- to insure survival against "raging hordes". I also use the explorer-ship combo a lot.
3) I as well. I don't put as high a priority on growth as I should. As long as the city's growing at more than 1 food/turn I don't care. Often I don't irrigate squares for a while. unless it's my SSC or plains.


I always try to be informed as to what the enemy is up to. I build dips if many civs are within easy reach, otherwise I'll go for MPE. If a civ is building Great Library (I never do anymore) I'll rushbuild the Embassy so that I can give/trade tech w/o handing it all away in the beginning to a single civ. Also note the attitude of the civ upon contact: if hostile then nothing much can be done, and it's best to either ignore them or irk them immediately into war. After a few turns they usually ask for peace, even if no combat has occurred, and you'll get a better attitude from them. Icy usually means that you can give them what they want from their 1st demand and you'll get peace & a neutral stance. Anything better gets you peace, although uncooperative and neutral may require acceding to their 1st demand. Them I give away a lot of tech (I always hold on to certain tech though, wonders and high-tech weapons) and trade maps. Again, the point is information: the info from the embassies and from their maps. This helps to decide my future goals.

DaveV-
If those tiles are also adjacent to my city I wouldn't forest them. In fact I make a point of not having any defensive terrain next to my city if I can help it. I prefer to have a "no-man's land" of grassland and plains surrounding the 8 tiles around the city. I'd hate to have to kill defensive units just outside the walls while the heavy hitters move onto the same square for protection. I keep my forests/hills at a distance of 2. City walls on coastal cities help against the "unload/attack" problem. However, if I think I'll lose/have lost a city my solution is to rushbuild 2-3 dips/spies. #1 Diplomat establishes embassy. #2 dip steals tech, #3 dip buys back city. At that point I have more info on my enemy and 2 of his techs and usually the majority of his invasion force. They almost always settle for peace then.

[Gastrifitis]

I like using managed buying. It has been observed that buying a Diplomat all at once is more expensive than buying a Warrior, switching to and buying a Horseman, then switching to and buying the Diplomat. This is partially because things are more expensive when your shield tray is empty. But, unless the survival of your civilization depends on having that Diplomat yesterday, this still may not be the best way to get him. The biggest problem is that whatever shields the city is producing are wasted, and when you're buying things, shields are money.

Let's say that you have a city which is producing 5 shields. If you buy a Warrior, then go to and buy a Horseman, then a Diplomat, your total cost is 100, and you waste 5 shields. Try this: wait one turn, buy the Warrior, then go to and buy the Horseman, then switch to Diplomat and let the city finish making it. It only takes 2 more turns, no shields are wasted, and the total cost is only 36. Now you have money left over to accelerate the Settler your other city is making. Just accelerate, don't buy. I'm sure you'll have more things to use money on in a few turns.

Of course, cities aren't always producing nice, even numbers of shields like 5 or 10. Let's say your city is producing 3 shields. If you're waiting for that Diplomat to finish, it will now take 4 turns, and 2 shields are wasted on the last turn. So, on the third turn, put one of your city workers on a nearby forest, and you save a turn. This requires remembering to do it. If you have more than two or three cities, you'll probably need to write a note to yourself. Sometimes my computer ends up looking like a pit trader's area at the NYSE.

[Adam Smith]

As soon as you build that first warrior in a border city, make sure to explore out a couple squares, at least to the city radius. You have a few turns to do this before needing the unit for martial law, and teh extra exploration gives you more warning when barbarians arrive.

In my recent game I tried the following war strategy which was quite efficient: I had 1-2 transport full of howies & mech inf's, one spy and one engineer. First I unloaded my engineer, built a city to a square next to enemy's railroad network, moved my transport in the city and all my unit's had full movement points left! Then I looked inside the cities with my spy and decided what cities I wanted most

[debeest]

Yes, building a port city for the ship I came in on has long been one of my favorite pranks.

This is a terrific thread. The Great library needs a section devoted to these random little tactics.

[Stuff2]

After the discovery of democracy i build the statue of liberty, switch to fundie government so i can get enough money to quick get a decent infrastructure before I change to democracy.

[SlowThinker]

quote: Originally posted by debeest on 02-14-2001 12:51 AM This is a terrific thread. The Great library needs a section devoted to these random little tactics.

I agree. Even better if divided into small parts by category (I have a such section at the end of dip/spy thread).

BTW, debeest, could you clean your posts in the dip/spy thread, if ideas are included already (?) (you needn't hurry)



[This message has been edited by SlowThinker (edited March 04, 2001).]

[Everyman]

1. If you see a river system, build cities at each terminus, provided the river is not located in heavy swamp or jungle terrain, to ensure you can build the maximum number of cities in that river system. A network of river cities, especially in the early game, are valuable for their instant trade, defense, and transport.

2. If you receive a message that barbarians have captured an enemy city or if you uncover any barbarian city, send a diplomat or two towards that city to bribe it -- barbarian cities are a great bargain.

3. If a barbarian unit stacked with a barbarian chief is within striking distance of one of your cities or units, don't automatically attack it, but calculate the chances that your defenders will defeat the barbarian attacker, leaving the barbarian chief open for capture (bribing the attacking unit is also good if you have a diplomat nearby).

[debeest]

ST -- good use of "already"!

I'll get right on the cleanup.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Here's one I like, that I call the "sideshow" strategy. If I'm having trouble with a belligerent civ (like the Russians in my current game), I'll send a dip or spy out to buy one of their cities that happens to be far, far away from my empire. That city, once in my hands, will build nothing but city defenses and the strongest possible defensive units. The idea is that when the aggressive civ finally blows its top, it will go for this city first, squandering all sorts of resource trying to capture a city I don't even care about. Even if it eventually recaptures the city, I'll be halfway to AC by the time I "gratefully and humbly accept" the cease-fire.

A variation on this theme is one I use in border wars late in the game, where I send a spy on the enemies rail lines to bribe a city in the corner of the enemy empire farthest from my own. It immediately divides the AI's attention (and forces) and slows the border war to mere skirmishes while the new focus of AI aggression becomes, again, retaking a city I didn't want in the first place.

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder

[Superphonic]

I always send troops to pillage all the opposing civ's infrustructure. This ruins their economy and food production and slows their technology advancment. This means they are stuck with low tech and easily defeated units.

Also, always build a strong navy, preferably battleships. The A1 rarely builds these. They can destroy all units and surviv hits by Submarines.

[La Fayette]

quote: Originally posted by debeest on 02-14-2001 12:51 AM This is a terrific thread. The Great library needs a section devoted to these random little tactics.

I was quite sure that ST would agree.
Let him discuss the method with the SGs (aren't they the greedy owners of that huge magnum full of Apolyton's science and wisdom?).

[La Fayette]

This thread is terrific:
it sums up most of what I know I should have done when I forget to do it in time (so often!... ).

If I want to avoid the partisans that appear after capturing a city (and bother to micromanage) I fill all the surrounding squares with my troops.. or at least those mountains/hills. Spies are good for that as well as airborne units in the rough terrain where I leave them waiting as I capture the city and then move them to my new city.

[Admiral]

A tactic I like to use in the late game (when the AI has extensive rail networks) is to send a few partisans behind their lines and start them pillaging railroads. this causes the AI to expend movement points attacking the partisans and not retaking the cities I captured the previous turn.