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Old November 13, 2001, 15:47   #1
Out4Blood
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Join Date: Nov 2001
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Revised strategy for Emperor/Deity level
Having tried the peace and prosperity route (with limited success), I have gone the other route and tried the domination strategy. This is much more successful. You will never keep up in science or expansion of the AI at the harder levels (Emperor and Deity). The only path I could see was to exploit superior tactical and strategic thinking through use of early military. By capturing the AI cities, I am able to keep up with and exceed the AI in the number of cities. This tends to even out the production bonus.

1. My goal was to take over the first 1 or 2 civs I encountered and exploit the AIs superior production bonus in my favor.

2. To do this, I chose a[list=a][*]Militaristic civ – cheaper barracks means veteran units in early days. Increased chance of getting heroes means advantages in building key wonders[*]Expansionist civ – early scouts means I find resources and barbarian huts first. Bonus for booty in huts means I get a leg up on early expansion.[*]Civ with a good early age unique unit (either superior attack or superior speed) – superior early unit means I have a military advantage over neighbors and can take them over fairly quickly, even if they are slightly more advanced[/list=a]Based on this, I chose the Zulus, who are militaristic and expansionist. The unique unit is the Impi, which has 1/1/2. The 2 in movement gives the ability to get to battle twice as fast and the ability to retreat if losing.

3. Basic start was to make a barracks first and then produce 2 Impi to attack nearest enemy. My scout went out from the start to hunt for barbarians and the nearest civ. I would keep attacking the enemy and making more advanced troops (e.g., archers, horsemen) as I gathered more techs and cities.

4. Rush building using up population solves both production woes AND disorder. Since I do not have temples in my towns, I need troops to quell disorder past 1 pop. (In this particular game I was fortunate to get an early luxury resource.)

5. Science was kept to 10% (get a new tech every 32 turns, but maximize gold). Get techs through 1 of 3 ways:[list=a][*]Find in barbarian hut[*]Buy from AI[*]Receive from AI as part of peace treaty[/list=a]
6. Process works like this: attack enemy towns with enough force to capture quickly, sue for peace. Generally I need to capture 2 towns, or 1 major town of a small civ to make them willing to sue for peace. At this point I can generally extract gold, towns, and all available techs from them. If I wipe them out very early, the computer will respawn that AI, with ADDITIONAL techs, and a new settler. I can continue to dominate that one civ until there are no respawning places left.

7. Production in towns is devoted to building new warriors to continue expansion. Culture buildings come after I have dominated the first civ and have explored enough of the area to find next victim.

8. Once I have taken over the nearest civ, I should have as many or more towns than any of the other civs (the AI keeps expanding even while I am conquering them). Now I can switch to production of culture, or I can continue conquest of my continent.

9. I prefer to completely capture an entire continent to prevent long wars with the AI. It is much harder for them to sneak attack and maintain the war across the ocean.

10. Avoid making combat units that are not fully upgradable. Impi get upgraded all the way to mech infantry. (Romans kinda suck for this since warriors do not get upgraded to Legions and Legions are obsolete. Horsemen can get to Cavalry, but Cavalry gets obsoleted by Tanks. Elite cav are still effective though for winning battles and making GLs.

11. All this combat produces 4-5 great leaders. Use the first GL to make an army. Win a battle with it. Build the Heroic epic - this gives you a better chance of more GLs [note: like air superiority, this is probably broken, as I have not noticed much increase in GL production. @#$%ing Firaxis]. Use ALL of the remaining GLs to hurry key wonders. I leave it to the player to decide which wonders are key. My list is Pyramids, Sistine Chapel, Adam Smith's, Cure for Cancer.

12. Late-game I switch to Democracy and aggressively go after Luxuries. I also try to deny the AI Strategic resources if possible. Cutting off their horses, iron, oil or uranium is a HUGE bonus - depending on the time frame.

Note: As the empire grows, corruption becomes a major problem. Past a certain distance from your capitols (palace and FP), NOTHING prevents total corruption (i.e., 1 shield, 1 coin). WLTKD, courthouse, and Democracy still cannot get those 1 shield, 1 coin cities out of the corruption pit. Only use for 1 shield, 1 coin cities is to be used as:[list=a][*]Culture producers - temples and libraries are a good start, but you have to hurry production at a huge cost in gold or population to get these[*]Access to resources - expanded culture boundary gives you access to additional strategic and luxury resources which you do not have to trade fromo the AI[*]Map control - with culture boundaries expanding, even at zero production, the AI cannot build there[*]Supply bases and staging - use the towns to heal up troops and the rail network to quickly launch major military operations[*]Draft military units - you can quickly call up a rather large military force if your 1 shield, 1 coin cities are of sufficient size - this can be used to great effectiveness in launching attacks or defending from AI attacks[/list=a]
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Old November 14, 2001, 13:21   #2
Out4Blood
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Update - since I am now doing this strategy on Deity level.

It's fairly easy to wipe out 1-2 AI civs, but you REALLY fall behind in tech development. The other civs are angry at you and will generally be stingy with trades. If you do not make early contact with all civs, you can quickly fall out of the "inner circle" of tech trading. The only way to get back into it is to go to war with the tech leader and demand tech as tribute for peace treaties. Then sell to the other civs.

Another note: the best form(s) of government for this is definitely despotism/communism. Being able to work population to death is huge. Because of my early wars I was received leaders and was able to hurry both the Pyramids and Sun Tzu. Having free granaries and barracks in all towns is really helpful when using the whip to build troops. I can crank out a vet swordsman in 2-3 turns from just about every town, even the totally corrupt ones. Despite the AI tech lead, they are still using old units - they must lack resources somewhere.
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Old November 14, 2001, 14:14   #3
SerapisIV
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I've noticed that the AI keeps a lot of old units around as well, but only because their income's suck. In the late game I usually keep the AI economies weak by maxing out my demands in tech and resource trading, taking crappy deals if it means that their they get +0 gold (or other miniscule amount) for a while. If the AI can't make money, they can't upgrade. I'd rather Firaxis kept the AI honest with it's money then the Civ2 method of thousands of gold per turn for the AI even when they're on their last size 1 city.

Check your diplomacy... if when making a deal the advisor goes from "They'll probably agree..." to "They'll never agree..." despite being unrealistically cheap, it's means you've killed their budget. Great way to diplomatically oppress the AI.
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Old November 16, 2001, 11:54   #4
Out4Blood
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Has anyone noticed how much faster the game progresses on Deity. I routinely reach modern age in the 600-700 ADs because the AI is researching techs so fast. I have yet to have a game reach the 1800s. I'm usually forced to build a spaceship.
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