Vel's Strategy Thread - Part Two

[Velociryx]

Just back from lunch and have my Civ-Analysis for the Aztecs currently being reviewed for posting in a bit! Slowly but surely, it’s coming together (2 of 16…still a LOOOONG way to go!).

Anyway, some excellent comments!

GaH: Thanks man, and I think you’re right! The classic Despotic Rush is not really strategy at all, and anything that strays too close to that is bound to raise some hackles. Still, the fact that it is so effective can be studied, and I think that many of the concepts and strengths it brings to the table can be adopted without “selling out” or completely crossing over to that “other side.” (“The Dark Side” as eMarkM quite aptly put it!)

Clegg: Interesting observation about workers counting toward your total “military strength.” I noticed something along those lines myself in my last test game, but wasn’t gonna mention it till I had some more time to test that…but, since you’ve had a similar experience, I think it’s a good bet we’re on the right track with that thinking, and in that case, guesstimating at how many workers a rival civ has, you could probably safely launch an attack when you have “an average military” compared to them, based on the thinking that their total military strength also takes workers into account. Very odd thing, that, but hey…I can work with it!

Mark: Nahhh, I knew ya meant well by your post, but no worries! Even though the strats discussed from time to time here might stray off “in that direction,” the whole point of this thread is to find ways to win/improve your game without giving in to the Despotic-Rush demons. I think, as our conversations here continue to unfold, it will come to light that there are a number of ways we can apply many of the essential strengths of that method of playing, but do so in a much more “Purist” way. That is to say, if we can find a way to harness some portion of the power of that approach without going whole hog, we should see ourselves with a stronger game overall, a better chance at some of the more interesting win conditions on Deity level that don’t revolve around simply beating everybody else to a pulp, and the overall approach will be both intense and immersive (not to mention nailbiting!). At least, that’s what my hope is!

RPM: I have noted that my starting position is usually a little less optimal than it is on Regent, but I can’t say I’ve had many truly wretched starts. It does seem that you get less river tiles/bonus food in your area, but that could be just bad luck on my part!

-=Vel=-

[sophist]

Something I've not explicitly read in the talk about militaristic civs is their utility in conjunction with mobile units. Consider: a mobile unit will retreat (if possible) when down to 1 HP. So if you have an elite horseman, it will retreat after 4 hits where a regular horseman retreats after 2 hits. Effectively, the elite is twice as useful as the regular, before even counting the hero business. Just like someone pointed out being industrious is like having twice as many settlers, being militaristic (can) be like having 50% to 100% more army just by virtue of easy promotion. Well, numbers are fudged, but you get the picture.

Or maybe you already got the picture and this is something obvious that everyone already noticed.

[Arrian]

Yeah, that's something that's clearly very important. This is why I nearly ALWAYS build barracks before I build anything I intend to use in a war, so they're vets. I have tried using some "regular" horse units, and man, they suck. 2hits, and run away. Defenders tend to get that free "1st shot" at attackers, so regular attack units suck, unless you have them in overwhelming numbers. But if you're gonna build that many, why not build barracks?

As to the advantage that Militaristic civs get from promotions, I think it's kinda hard to quantify (does the editor, which I've never even looked at, provide any hard numbers on that?). For me, though, the real advantage to more promotions is all about leaders. As I said, I generally avoid "regular" units like the plague, so the only promotion I'm concerned with is vet -> elite. Once I have an elite, his task tends to change to that of a mop-up unit. He fights battles he should definitely win, thus upping his chance of survival and producing a leader. This is one of the reasons why, in a recent (regent) game, I had 11 cavalry still sitting around next to my 50-odd modern armor. They were my elites. If I had fought again (didn't), they would have been used.

Anyway, to make a long post have a point, I think the bonus Militaristic civs get toward leaders (isn't it something like 1/12 chance of popping a leader vs. 1/16 for "normal" civs) is actually twofold. They will have more elites, thus more chances at leaders as well. Hmmm.... ponders the Germans...

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Sophist: Good observations both! It's quite true that an elite unit (especially an elite mobile) is at least twice as powerful as a "regular." I say at least twice as powerful, because, as you say, when you use him in combat (assuming he wins, of course), you also have a chance at leader-spawning. It's also interesting to note that the way the combat engine is designed, rank (regular, vet, elite) is AT LEAST as important as the firepower of a unit (ie - an elite stone aged spear-chucker has a resonably good chance (a damned good chance if fortified in a city) of trouncing an attacking a "regular" Middle Ages Longbowman. Also excellent points re: building cultural improvements ASAP. I would say though, that there's a bit of an opportunity cost involved that needs considering. For example: If, in the time it takes you to build your temple after your first settler (you have two cities, I have three), it's true that you get an edge in early game culture, but...I now have more cities in play. If we keep expanding at that same pace (each new city you found makes one settler and then a temple), and I keep relentlessly expanding first, I'll have about a third again as many cities as you when the landgrab phase is over.

At that point, if I rush in temples everywhere, I can instantly catch you culturally, on the basis of having more cities (each one having less total culture, but chugging it out steadily from that point on).

Arri - Not so pure, eh? Not to worry....me neither! But....the reason I said 5-spaces apart for an absolute Purist because at four tiles, if you go to the city screen, there will be some overlapping tiles that are shared by both (21(?) total workable tiles, and 3 of them will be shared by cities if they're only 4 tiles apart.

That's never caused me to lose any sleep tho....most of the time, I set my cities up with an eye toward what resources I can snag after my first border expansion. Once in a while, if I'm being chased by the $%&$%%^#$ barbarians, I'll settle in anywhere I can to avoid losing my two pop-point guy....in those cases, I'm not picky...I'm just glad he's still alive and kicking!

[inca911]

I am a firm believer in Ancient Era wars because of the immense power of the Great Leaders that you
obtain and your ability (as a victor) to extort the technological advances you may have delayed due to focus on military
matters. As soon as you have a slight advanctage in military options over a neighbor civ (preferably not a
militaristic one or one with a great defensive unit), warfare in the early age(s) is a fairly predictable exercise
in troop deployment and safety in combined arms and superior numbers. Rushbuilding a few of the
advanced attackers means you pit your archers against the AI fortified warriors before they can react. By
picking towns that lie on unfavorable defensive terrain for your attacks, you will win these early wars.
Generating a Great Leader(s) easily compensates you for the loss of production that you sacrifice to build
your army. Rushbuilding a Barracks in the nearest town to the front allows you to rotate healthy troops in
for injured ones and protects your Elite units. Additionally, when you are ready to negociate a peace
treaty, you will catch up in technological advancements as part of the peace treaty terms when you
demand them from the AI. Cultural reversion is less likely since nobody has much culture to work with
and suppressing the revolt of small population towns is a snap. The AI is indeed much improved in terms
of warfare, but it still does not properly protect it's units and towns. It also simply doesn't appear to have
the capacity to consider population sacrifice for rushbuilding. That is why Rush Building under Despotism
works so well for the human player. Once better defensive units exists, warfare is much more dicey.
Your Science and Production must really be diverted and the tech loss can be steep. There also seem to
be some breakpoints in the overall offensive and defensive units that indicate a good time for war. When
everyone has fortified infantry in large, walled, high-population cities, then warfare becomes a lot more
tricky than when it's warriors v. archers. Artillery opens up a new floodgate of offensive options,
especially when your opps don't have Infantry! In my next game, I play on playing a militaristic civ with
early warfare to use Great Leaders for Wonders. Even as the Chinese, I gained many Great Leaders (I think
4) and got my Forbidden Palace, Newton's, Copernicus', and the Sistine Chapel as a result. The early
Forbidden Palace is an incredible boon to any geographically dipolar civ. In my opinion, Great Leaders are the most
powerful tool in Civ3. Almost too powerful.... Want the Pyramids? Just wage an early war or two.
Protect your elite units and attack weakened defenders. Your Leaders will emerge and that tightly
contested Pyramid race will be over before it even starts. Late game on Monarch/Regent it appears that
the human player nearly corners the Wonder market by starting palaces and switching to Wonders as the
techs become available. I have yet to spy on an enemy civ's city that was using a Palace for shield
storage, and I've paused play, saved, and checked 30+ cities at a time to get a feel for the AI's priorities
and I don't think it can consider the option. Anyway, in many circumstances, early wars give easy
Wonders, new cities, technological equality, and weaker opponents all with little long-term risk. So
sharpen up your Clovis points and go take some cities!

[sophist]

Yes, my initial sluggishness will slow me down vis-a-vis the AIs, but I tend to use an early war to level the playing field a bit. And remember, I was talking in the context of a cultural victory with the single city at 20,000 culture points. It can depend a lot on the map as well.

Originally posted by Velociryx
Also excellent points re: building cultural improvements ASAP. I would say though, that there's a bit of an opportunity cost involved that needs considering. For example: If, in the time it takes you to build your temple after your first settler (you have two cities, I have three), it's true that you get an edge in early game culture, but...I now have more cities in play. If we keep expanding at that same pace (each new city you found makes one settler and then a temple), and I keep relentlessly expanding first, I'll have about a third again as many cities as you when the landgrab phase is over.

At that point, if I rush in temples everywhere, I can instantly catch you culturally, on the basis of having more cities (each one having less total culture, but chugging it out steadily from that point on).

[Velociryx]

Barracks:

Once again, brother Arri brings up an interesting topic for discussion! (gonna have to put you on the payroll bud!)

As I see it, there are two basic approaches to building an army in Civ.

The first, and what I'd probably call the more traditional of the two, is to pick a city with good shield output, build a barracks there, and start makin' troops. Under this methodology, you get a good army built up over the course of time, and they're all veteran units.

The second basic approach is...dispersion(?). I generally DO build a barracks somewhere and crank out a core of veterans, but I firmly believe in supporting them with troops cranked out anyplace I can make them (if I've got some towns that would otherwise be idling waiting for the next improvement to come along, I'll augment my veteran force with scads of regular troops).

When fighting, I'll sacrifice my regulars (or if they're mobile regulars, let them put dents and dings in the defense force I'm tangling with, and then let my sturdy vets come in and finish the job when I feel the force inside whatever town I'm attacking has been weakened to the point that my vets will likely win.

The surviving regular troops don't have to make too many hit and run raids before some will start winning, and be promoted themselves to vets, while the vets quickly rack up enough kills to become elites and maybe spawn me some leaders!

In my last Monarch game, my initial army consisted of two veteran Mounted Warriors, 9 Regular Mounted Warriors, and 9 Swordsmen.

It's true that my regulars would mix it up for a round or two and then haul, but of those nine, none died, and two wound up getting promotions. All four of my vets later went on to become elites, and only one of those got killed (out of position, couldn't cover him with a swordsman, he got aced by a savage Jaguar)

I think that unless you're a militaristic civ tho, those barracks are too expensive to build in more than a couple of cities in the early game, meaning that if you want to get a good sized army quickly, the only viable way to do it is either:

1) Build Barracks in 1-2 cities, but build troops from everywhere and guard your vets jealously

or

2) Build Barracks in 1-2 high food production cities and rush constantly to crank out high numbers of vets (such that you'd wind up with a comparably sized force as you would have in the first option, but with the advantage that they'd all be Vets coming out of the gate.

Other possibilities here??

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

sophist: Quite right! I forgot about the single city culture win, and in that case, you're dead on!

Inca: Good analysis of the benefits of early warfare and the benefits to be gained from it!

Wow...thread's hoppin' today....cool!

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Vel -

Payroll... ooh, you can get paid for spending hours talking about Civ?? Where do I sign up?

A slight misunderstanding I've just figured out. When you say 5 tiles apart, you mean four tiles of space between cities (thus the new city is built on the 5th tile away). By that criteria, yep, I put 'em 5 apart (assuming 4 up and 1 over = 5) just about every time.

About barracks. On Regent, like I said, the only regular troops I built were very, very early on to defend cities. After that, just like you described, a few high-shield cities built barracks and they would churn out the best available units (provided something more important didn't come along... marketplace.. bank... ANYTHING non-military, really). However, on Monarchy, I did build some regulars, because the barracks are pretty damn expensive (ponders Germans some more), and I HATE regulars. My regular mounted warriors ended up doing 0 damage to defending spearmen roughly 1/2 of the time. That seriously slowed me down. I didn't lose the units, but I had to pull them back to heal, and meanwhile, they didn't accomplish their task, which was to weaken (if only by 1 hp) the defender, so that the vets could take them out. Arrg. No more regulars for me.

By the way, why all those swordsmen? I would have built MW's nearly exclusively, with a couple of swordsmen for escort duty. Then again, you appear to be better at this than I am (for now, my ego mutters), so I may well be wrong.

-Arrian

[eMarkM]

Barracks

I generally make them in the best producing cities to crank out military units in case of war. I'll create units in non-barracks if I have to, but I try for at least 1/2 vet, 1/2 regular force.

I try to space them evenly through the empire if I can, since you need barracks for updating units. I'll send out that upgraded pikeman to a city w/ a spearman and send the spearman back to the barracks for upgrade. Send that updated pikemen to the next city and send back that spearmen, etc. Defensive units get upgraded first. I don't want to spend a lot of turns shuffling back and forth, so I keep this in mind when I build barracks. Try to space them so no single-move unit has to take more than 3 turns getting somewhere to get an upgrade. You really expedite upgrades with well spaced barracks.

I'll also generally build barracks in border towns with Civ I'm planning to take down and send wounded units to it for quick healing.

This brings me to the subject of drafting. When is it best? Of course, drafting is a must when you're under siege. I also tend to draft units when I go on the offensive and I mean to take out a good 5-6 cities or the whole civ. I leave drafted units in garrison and send the stronger egulars out to war.

When I capture a city I like to stock it full of cheap draftees just in case they revolt back and I lose them. You don't want to leave elites in captured cities and waste a potential leader in a rebellion.

So I mostly use draftees for defensive purposes. Another use for draftees is putting them in diversionary forces, units you expect to get killed while the real force takes the real objective.

e

[Dyrlac]

Vel,

I was playing on a huge, 16 civ, 80% H2O, Continents (which is all I play anymore), as the French, on warlord. In that situation, paired city/training camps isn't even fair.

Anyway, I pop rushed the barracks in the training camps as soon as I could as the Francois aren't so speedy in generating vets.

The way Civ3 is set up, my absolute purist instincts have waned(note to 5-tile scoffers: if you separate your cities by 5 tiles, you get nice interlocks at the corners of the isometric 4X's, an aesthetic improvement, but wastes 3 squares rather than 2 squares with 4-tile spacing). When I first got the game, I couldn't bear to pop rush anything, couldn't have my poor subjects constantly under the lash, it felt dirty. LOL. Now I'll pop rush any reasonably minimal carnage improvement I can get.

In ordinary non-icky games, I'll go with option 1, and build from everywhere., but only if I have horsies. If I meet close hostiles early enough, I do option 2 (rush build from barracks-cities) and swarm with archers. But never do this against the Greeks, you have to have mobility to fight the Greeks or you will end with a dead army. The Aztec's Jags are less of a threat as they can be killed by 2.1.2 horsies or 2.1.1 arrows.

Oh, and the AI certainly pop rushes when it feels the heat, even on the baby levels, as I've seen pop points go down at the same time a new effing hoplite appears.

Dyr

[Velociryx]

This is almost as good as bein' in a chat room with you guys!

As to the thing 'bout getting paid to talk about Civ all day...ahhh, the joys of working a helpdesk on a slow day!

Battles:
The main reason I don't mind using regulars is this - even if a check of your military advisor reveals approximate pairity ("we have an average military compared to them"), you have two important elements in your favor. First, the element of surprise (you can dictate precisely when you declare war, making sure that your troops are already in position when the declaration is made, giving the AI no time (or at most, a single turn) to prepare/respond).

{Side note - I am sure there are a great many ways to accomplish this, but what I do is move my army toward the target city, and if the Civ-Leader calls me up and asks me to move my troops, I just ignore him and keep on coming. He gets ticked, but so what? LOL...My intention is to kick is tailfeathers anyway! And, when my troops are in position, my declaration of war is made by my army proper, launching an attack on his city.

Second advantage you've got is concentration. Even if you have roughly the same size military, the fact is, you've got the bulk of yours all in one place and his are...well...you have no way of knowing, but they're definitely scattered far and wide.

So...when it comes time to launch the attack, I'll usually lead in with two swordsmen. If they die, no biggie...they're my grunts and garrisons, and I've prolly got more en route anyway.

The swordsmen weaken or kill the spear-chuckers, and if there are any survivors from the first wave...in come the regular MW's. They kill anybody who's left, or weaken them down, and then one gets a couple lucky shots (and usually a promotion to veteran), and marches into the city.

As to the derth of swordsmen, here's my reasoning:
First - I bring my garrisons with me. I know that the AI loves to counter attack, and I don't want my vulnerable MW's to ever fight on the D if I can avoid it. My rule of thumb is 2 swordsmen per city on my hit list for garrison duties, and 3 more for good measure.

The "extra" swordsmen are along for the ride for a couple of reasons. First, they can occupy high ground and watch all ways for approaching enemy troops, allowing me good intel about where and how the enemy is approaching (and what he's got). Generally, one of them parks his butt on a nearby mountain or hill and just watches.

Second, targets of opportunity/covering. Sometimes, my MW's make little raids of opportunity on that lone archer the AI has sneaking up on my position. I'd rather hit him before he can hit me, BUT....doing so would leave my MW vulnerable to counter attack...so, I have a swordsman handy to step onto the tile with him to protect him while he's in the field.

Sometimes, I use my spares to pillage roads to muck up the AI's ability to get to the recently conquered city, especially if I"m about to do a 180 and head in a different direction to the next target town.

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

eMarkM -

Conscripts, huh? I've never used 'em. Not once. Maybe I'm an elitist. Heh, at least I think I'm funny, right?

However, I agree with the idea that if you've got some, better to use them to garrison a city which may revolt. Typically, I yank elite units out of such cities asap, but the replacements are usually vets, as I don't have anything else. I also tend not to put more than 2 or 3 units in a newly captured city, as "quelling the resistors" doesn't take all that long, and the best way to keep the city afterward is to rushbuild temple/library/cathedral/university ASAP (along with starving the hell out of it while it's in resistance). That way I don't lose very many units if the city reverts. I tend to station good attack units next to the city for a bit, so that if it does revert, I can nail it right away.

The only time the AI has beaten me at war thus far was an early rush. That was pretty amazing (I was the greeks and I couldn't stop it). Once I'm rolling, I can fend them off. The reason I'm having trouble at Monarch isn't that I'm being defeated in battle, but because I'm behind in tech and wonders.... which I HATE.

-Arrian

[eMarkM]

Wow...thread's hoppin' today....cool!

My head is spinning, like a post a minute. And all quality stuff, too! Ok, except for this one.

Well, time for me to drop off the "chat". Hey, work day is almost over . Let's see, what did I get done today....hmmmm. Time to stop talking about Civ and go home and test some of these strategies.

Later, we'll have to have a thread on how Civ is ruining all of our lives. I've already gotten the "all you do is play video games" lecture from my wife . If she only knew what I did at work all day! My boss for that matter.

e

[Velociryx]

Mark: *outstanding* point! re: barracks and their position in the Empire. I hadn't thought of that....I generally solve that problem by running for Sun Tzu's but you're quite right....if you can't get that one, then serious consideration needs to be given to exactly WHERE those barracks are!

Drafting: I'm not sure on this one yet.....I've never done it myself, but I can definitely see the power of doing so! Will have to play a game and intentionally play with it!

Dyrlac: The French are still one of my favs....GREAT faction, even if their UU is kinna...::searching for a polite word:: yeah....'bout like that.

And I'd be inclined to agree 'bout the pairing thing...sheesh...I utterly decimated the poor, defenseless AI that way....::shiver::

Also, total agreement re: those CURSED GREEKS! Damn them and their Hoplites! GRRR....I'd rather fight the Persians twice before facing those damnable Greeks! At least with the Persians I can pick them to death with mounted troops, but with the Greeks, I have to SWARM them with unbelievable casualties cos they seem to build Hoplites EVERYWHERE (not that I blame them!)

Like you....I started off being gunshy about whipping my poor population but....I think I might be addicted to it or something now...lol

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Vel -

Interesting tactical approach, and different than mine. Here's my reasoning:

I would rather come with a bunch of mobile troops. They speed your attack, have better survivability, and are better at pillaging. Now, usually I grind up the AI's mobile force early (obviously, if the AI has a bunch of horse units, I either 1) don't hit him or 2) adjust my tactics to kill those units). It's first part of their army that can arrive on the scene, because of it's speed. Also, the AI doesn't use its mobile units well, particularly on defense. If I do lose a MW or two, so be it. I would rather have 18 MW's than 9 MW/9 SM. The advantages of mobility cannot be overstated, in my opinion. Of course, I do end up (grudgingly) building a few grunts to accompany my mobile force, and they end up garrisoning cities. Often, a beat up MW will garrison a city while it heals, and the rest of the force continues onward. The AI counterattack is a one time thing. Weather the storm, and you've won - just KEEP the momentum. This is why I love MW's and other mobile troops. You knock the enemy back on his heels and KEEP HIM THERE.

Say I want to attack an AI city (this is early, keep in mind, I do NOT fight this way later on) and I have 6 MW's. They all go to the best defensive square next to the target city. If the AI attacks the stack (again, ancient era), it usually only hits once, with an archer or something. One MW retreats. Next turn, 5 MW's attack and take the city. Clearly, your strategy will work better against certain civs (in particular 2-move UU civs) than mine, and I have used forces like you describe before against the Zulu.

EDIT: I just realized that I was getting a little too civ-specific. Clearly, when I play the Babs (or any non-iroquois civ), swordsmen are a much larger component of my army. However, even then, if I have horses, I will build more horsemen than swordsmen.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Continuation of the Civ-Analysis Article

Aztec (Religious/Militarist)
Starting Tech: Ceremonial Burial/Warrior Code
Special Unit: Jaguar Warrior (1/1/2): Warrior with an extra movement point that you can build from turn one. Same stats as Chariots…cheaper (50% cheaper!), and you don’t have to research any techs to train them!

The Goods:
The Aztecs represent the first of a handful of “Triple Threat” Civs in the group we’ll be discussing, and let me start by saying that all of the “Triple Threat” Civs should be considered extremely dangerous customers! In the case of the Aztec, they fall into this category because the extra movement point of their special unit gives them the rapid exploration capabilities of Expansionistic Civs (more chances to get to goody huts than the norm, and a potential tech lead (or at the very least, higher morale Jaguars) because of it! This, combined with the fact that their special unit has the weakest overall stats in the entire game, makes them very heavily focused on the early game. And what an early game menace they are!!!

Like all religious civs, you’re definitely a cultural contender, and cheap temples means you can easily control the population and make heavier use of early game pop-rushing techniques than many of your rivals. Use that to your advantage! Also, quelling discontent in conquered cities is generally easy for you, again, thanks to those cheap temples. Likewise, your militaristic trait plays VERY well with your aggressive early game style, as your Jaguars (the ONLY 2 movement unit available at game start) will have a very high survival rate, netting you an elite core in no time, which will see you generating a good many leaders (effectively giving you the ability to instantly relocate your palace or build the FP, and if you get multiple leaders, you can have your pick of Ancient Era Wonders!) If you’re not an aggressive player, odds are good that you will not use this Civ to its fullest early game potential, and by extension, you’ll have a tougher time moving into the later ages when much of what makes your Civ unique is gone, and many of your early game strengths have faded.

Strategies From One End of the Spectrum to the Other

General: No matter how you slice it, you’re going to have to be aggressive in the early game as the Aztecs if you want to excel. Even if you have the heart of a pure, die-hard builder, get over it long enough to take out or severely weaken your nearest neighbors, and then build to your heart’s content!

Fortunately, early-game swarming is what these guys do better than anyone! Played properly, it is entirely possible that you can wind up with the whole continent to yourself, having simply overrun every bit of opposition on your continent, and doing so with a minimum set of cities.

Here’s how it works: Expand in standard fashion, using whatever basic expansion scheme you prefer.

Use your speedy Jaguars to scout the area (again, putting you in the position of making much more informed city placement decisions in the same vein as the Expansionistic Civs), and when you find a rival Civ, immediately set all your cities to cranking out Jaguars. When you get a fistful of them (eight or ten….certainly no more than twelve needed), swarm the poor, unsuspecting fool. You’ll have him begging for mercy in no time, and if you’re in a generous mood (and your rival has been sufficiently “pruned,” by all means, let him live. If not…finish him off and lay claim to all the land he would have taken from you…then move on with your (now mostly elite) force and keep scouting.

Repeat till you’re either alone on the continent or in the dominant position, and you can ride those early game successes to victory!


Pure Builder
Again, and with the Aztecs I can’t emphasize this enough…do not try to build peacefully if you have not yet “tamed” your rival civs on your continent! You OWN the early game! Get out there and kick some serious butt! And, when you’re finished, win the captured populace over by way of your speedily constructed temples (which will also bump up that culture, inoculating your Empire against the Cultural effects of surviving neighbors and boosting your score in that category!).

Tech-wise: Your Civ does not lend itself to the rapid discovery of either horses or iron, but then, you don’t need either! With luck, and on anything less than a huge map, you won’t have any continental rivals after the ancient era in any case, so don’t bother to research iron working or the wheel….simply trade for it whenever it’s convenient to do so, and focus on the “second tier” of ancient era techs (those that your starting techs are pre-requisites for). Alternately, if you have a juicy, culturally rich Wonder in mind, beeline for whatever techs lie along that path. All the early game combats you’ll see, you’ve got an outstanding shot at getting a couple of leaders, and if so, any project you put you desire is yours! Your main goal is to get out of the ancient era with all speed, utterly dominating your starting landmass in the process, then, settle in to build to your heart’s content!



Momentum
Your early game won’t be terribly different from the Builder’s game in the sense that the Aztecs NEED to be aggressive early if they want to remain viable into the mid and late game. However, you’ll part ways with your Builderesque cousins once your continent is tamed. They’ll be content to settle in and do the cultural thing….BAH! You want to reach out and touch people, so your tech choices will be largely dependent on the type of map you’re playing. If you’re on an “uber continent” (the favorite of many Aztec players), and if you didn’t get it before, you want to bulk up on weapons techs now, with an eye toward replacing your Jaguar force (which is, after a couple of quick conquests, verging on obsolescence). After that, keep an eye out for any tech that might have a wonder attached to it, and if there’s water around, grab the Great Lighthouse with a spare Great Leader, get Map Making, and hit the high seas! If you’re fast enough (and if the “other continent” is close enough, you just might be able to terrorize one last Civ with your trusty Jaguars, and if not, then at least you’ll have early contact and can use that to potentially widen your tech lead and keep an eye out for a potentially weak member of the heard. Even if you can’t take them with Jaguars, attention to keeping your army up to date, and the fact that you’re probably the largest Civ as you leave the ancient era should see you in a position to dictate terms to your rivals across the sea.

Tech-Wise: Iron Working if you don’t have it already, Map Making, and of course, the requisite tech for any wonder you have your eye on. Monarchy is probably better for you than republic unless your neighbors across the sea are too entrenched, in which case, you’d be better served research wise by Republic….at least until you spot a weak herd-member to cull…and of course, being a Religious Civ, you can instantly switch to a war footing (including a different government form) and get to it!

Drawbacks: The Ancient Game is yours to command, but once you move out of the game’s first era, you’ll be “just like everyone else,” meaning that your late game performance is very much tied to how dominant you were in the ancient world. Sit on your hands, and don’t let your Jaguars do what they’re best at, and you’ll struggle. Also, such a fantastic Ancient Era unit just BEGS to be used immediately, but doing so will give you a (largely useless) Golden Age. Eat it and move on. Nothing to be done about it if you want to get the most mileage out of your awesome unit!

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

On barracks placement, it matters pre-railroad. After that, goto will do ya just fine. I've only gotten Sun Tzu's once (via conquest), and it is really nice and all, but I'm ok w/o it.

Inca - Solid reasoning behind ancient warfare. Especially on the upper levels when keeping up or leading in tech peacefully is much more difficult.

I think I may play as either the Germans or Japanese tonight... as warfare appears to be more important on Monarch than on Regent, but I've gotta still have either religious or scientific. Persia also comes to mind.

The problem w/the Iroquois is that you had better get A LOT out of that ancient warfare, because you're gonna blow your golden age early.

-Arrian

[Gadmund]

Hey,

Vel and Arrian, thanks for all of the great advice! Things are really going well. Of course I do have some questions...

A. In my most recent game (also using your advice), I have over taken lots of cities culturally and expanded the heck out of the area. My prob is that the cities that I'm using to building all of my settlers and workers are really getting huge but the expansion coming to an end! How do I control the over pop in my big cities?

B. The taxes issue... I'm must me missing something. I'm in f1, and I can see the slider bars for my science budget and entertainment, but I don't see anything about the taxes? I'm looking into the manuel for this as well but I don't see how I can control my taxes.

I really appreciate any and all help with these issues.

P.S. an FYI, my most recent game that I'm in has me (finally) out expanding the AIs and on the verge of completly absorbing the English culturally! I found them out early and blocked them to the north. Things are getting better with my techs as well. Just having loads of fun.

Thanks,
Gadmund

[gnomos]

Well, I've got to say that up until now I've been a "purist", probably more because I never heard of ICS, and the esthetics of spreading cities appeals to me (I hate going into the city map, and seeing squares being used by adjacent cities). But I have to say, your early government is "despotism". Who ever heard of a benevolent despot, who spared the whip and carefully planned city layouts and paid a lot of attention to culture and social engineering???

I think after I finish the game I'm playing I'll try Vel's city pairing idea. I think I'll lay out cities like this:

0....0....0....0....0
...X....X....X....X...
0....0....0....0....0

where the X cities are my training camps. I'll expand on diagonals, dropping cities every other tile or so, to build a lot of cities fast. Later when I change govs I'll absorb them back into my larger cities to clean up the map (plus you can't irrigate your city square any more I don't think, in civ2 when you got farmland the city square became farmland). I'll selectively rush buildings in the 0 cities, and rush barracks and units in the X cities, and see how that goes.

On another note, I was vaguely aware that workers counted towards your military units, but it hadn't occured to me that they would be considered a deterrant to being attacked. Should I even suggest that you build nothing BUT workers? Keep churning them out, never build a military unit at all, and all the AI civs will phear you! Well, keep a few real troopsp around for barbarians, who like to kill workers. But the AI civs don't behave this way, I've seen their exploring warriors walk right past cities of mine that had no troops in them at all. The first time I saw this I thought "eep!" but after many turns of this I've gotten comfortable with it, I think it's because at this point my empire is so huge (174 cities, over 500 units, I eliminated the babs yest, took 29 cities in 2 turns) that nobody is willing to mess with me. Heh, I'm not one to quit a game once I'm dominant, I like to milk it to the very end.

They definitely need a fix to corruption, the way it is now makes no sense at all. I'm a democracy, and courthouses have little or no effect that I can see. Most of my cities generate 1 shield and 1 commerce, I'm lumberjacking to build improvements so I can make the populace happy for more points. Civ si about empire building, and that's what I like to do. It's silly that it takes 100 turns to build a marketplace in a size 12 city in a democracy. There needs to be a cap on corruption, I'd say 50% for dem, 60% for republic, 70% for monarcy, 90% for despotism. Not sure about communism, haven't used that one. I've been thinking about giving it a try to see what it's effects are on my empire, but I don't want to wade through 5 turns of anarchy to find out. Courthouses and police stations should affect both corruption and shield wastage (we do sue people for incompetence or negligence that results in monetary damage after all). Courthouses and police stations should vary their effectiveness based on different govs. I'd say police are enhanced in despotism, monarcy or communism, where they are less fettered by the populace. Courthouses become more effective in republics and democracies, and perhaps don't work at all under despotism. So basically, the game should calculate the amount of loss in a city due to corruption/wasteage, then reduce that based on courthouse/police stations before coming up with a final number. Perhaps culture should have some effect too, although there is good culture and bad culture......

[Velociryx]

Arrian: I think your approach is a pretty sound one, but I think the reason you're getting beaten using it is two-fold.

IMO, If you're going to hit a Civ with all (or nearly all) mounted troops (sucky defense), you gotta literally swarm across the border....the longer the battle grinds on, the worse for you, cos that's more chances for the AI to make attrition attacks....I mean, take two or three cities in the same turn and end the fight right then and there.

Do that (at least double, and prolly close to triple the army size you mentioned in one of your other posts), and you'll have them begging for mercy before they even get a chance to respond. Once you make peace, even if most of your horse troops are torn up from combat, it won't matter and they can heal up in the newly captured towns or anyplace else.

Alternately, if you don't wanna make it too dicey, combine the three strike forces into two, take bigger groups and hit two towns in the same turn, with your victorious armies converging on the third target from different directions. As I understand it though, you were attempting a "one at a time" conquest with an all mobile force. That can get you in trouble because when the declaration is made, the AI knows where to send reinforcements. By hitting multiple targets at once, if he doesn't surrender on the spot, he'll be much more disorganized in his pursuit of your units, and you'll suffer fewer attrition attacks.

-=Vel=-

[pchang]

When playing Persians, I end up with early golden ages. The first thing I research is iron working. I then try to place cities to monopolize all the iron I can get and start building immortals. Anybody on the same continent as me gets quickly reduced to vassal status (or extinct). The only thing that stops me is the ocean. It is very difficult to build an invasion fleet with galleys. I use my first leader to build an army and then start working on that heroic epic.

When building my early army I first rush build barracks in all my cities. When I start my first invasion force I usually only have 3 or 4 cities. The difference between 3HP and 4HP when attacking fortified spearmen (and esp. hoplites) is huge (even w/ immortals). I don't build barracks beyond that.

I don't care if garrison troops are regulars but any attack troops must be vets. Since it takes a while to build up invasion forces, it doesn't matter too much if it takes them an extra few turns (on roads built by captured workers) to mass at the front.

Because Persians are scientific, I start rushing libraries as soon as I get the tech. This usually puts me in a budget deficit because I am maintaining barracks, temple, library (sometimes harbor) in my core cities and at least temple and library every else. This is where the vassals become crucial. Thanks to a little extortion, their protection payments keep my bank account above zero (if I can't get per turn payments, I get one time payments and watch my total continue to shrink).

[Aeson]

Gadmund -

Taxes are the % leftover after Research and Luxury rates have been set. If you have 10% Research and 0% Luxury, that means the tax rate will be 90%.

[[ID]KuZGuN]

There you go this is my saved game. I think those people who had 10000 scores might have cheated. I started playing militaristic from the start but somewhere around 1000 AD I had to stop and concentrate on my culture and tech to be competitive.
Although an early expansion helps, it's not impossible, but real hard to finish on this map before 1AD. You need to be real lucky and good for that or you might be cheating.

[Velociryx]

....is toast. At least with the Aztecs.

I have a whole new respect for those fearless little Jaguar Warriors...sheesh...talk about a bunch of wailing Banshees! My "army" was laughable at first glance! 19 Jaguars and 5 Swordsmen, but those little guys outta be called Tigers instead of Jags....I mean they just utterly ROCK! I can see a strong case for building a few, or at least keeping some around for the whole game! They're dirt cheap, can attack and win against horsies in the ancient era, seldom die laying in a siege of a city (cos they always retreat), and again, because of the price, you can just swamp your opponent with them. Doesn't matter that each one only nicks or dings the defenders....since the battle isn't "resolved" you don't have to worry about the bad guys getting morale boosts, and if you send enough (sometimes, "enough" is a dozen or more against one city), you WILL take them down!

Additionally, they make great pillage and disruption troops....they're idea for penetrating deep into enemy territory to harass workers, rip up roads and other time consuming terraforming, and make a grand nuisance of themselves in general. And the AI just loves chasing after them!

Battles with the Aztecs are....not quite like what you see with any other faction. You can literally explode into enemy territory in every direction....ding them from a zillion ways at once and laugh as your rival tries desperately to gain some sense of control inside his own borders.

And, if a force moves to threaten you....here come the Jags....scampering back to intercept and delay while your muscle-troops push toward your true objectives....and, as I said....you get enough of those little guys together and you can totally overrun a city.

I only played to 520 BC, but by then I'd seen enough. America started with prolly twice my force, and by the end of our little war, they'd gotten completely embarrassed by the Jags...losing most of the relief force they attempted to send down to the two cities I overran via constant harrassment attacks from what is my new favorite UU in the whole game! Forget the MW (a great unit, mind you, but still!)....Forget the plodding immortals. Give me a fistful of Jags any day of the week! Those guys are amazing, and the Aztecs have to rank up there as one of my all-time favorite factions after seeing them in action.

So...after getting to technological pairity by causing trouble for America, we turned our dauntless warriors toward the "sick man" of the continent, the sleepy Iroquois, who had iron but no horses. I say HAD Iron, cos we made pinpoint strikes and stripped them of the two cities they had near sources of iron. The poor Persians are completely without, and the Americans have but one source remaining....soon as our treaty with them is up, we shall relieve them of it, and then be in an utterly dominant position on the continent....all thanks to the little 10-shield cost guys with the colorful headdress.

And, I should add that it appears the ideas we've been discussing here of late work equally well on Emperor. In fact, in this game, I only built five cities all told, so I could have spaced them out in a more "Purist" fashion if I had chosen to do so (which means, Arri my friend, that you won't have to resort to city-packing after all!) Just gotta live with some rush-built troops to get a decent standing army and you should be all set (however, I still think I prefer having a numeric superiority in cities prior to committing to an attack, even if I peacefully disband and reabsorb some of them later)....I dunno....just my overly cautious nature where that is concerned I guess.

Also came up with a couple of new concepts during this game....or at least, new to me.

First....I kept my research at 50% and taxes at 50%. Each time I finished researching, I'd pick whatever was cheapest to research next. I know, I know....if it's cheaper, it means that lots of other civs have it and I should just trade for it, but....

In the early game, I have found that I don't have the financial base to pay for EVERYTHING, and I'd rather get SOME use from my research, so....I let my rivals pay the steep cost of first discovery with their heinous research bonus, and I go for the easy stuff, paying for what I can, as I can. (and then of course, after an ancient era war, you get to technological pairity anyways).

Another thing I did was NEVER even attempted to buy or trade techs with the AI (Edit for clarification: The Persians, who were on the far side of the Americans from me, were my "tech trading partners." But I never did make any trade deals with the Americans/Iroquois, and only traded techs from the Persians that neither the American/Iroquois had.) Since I knew I was gonna go to war in the early game anyway, I just saved my money. This gave me the resources to dash ahead with my cultural improvements after I had gotten my army ramped up and on the prowl, and of course, once I won my first victory over a rival Civ, the money problems....well....were no longer problems to say the least.

With only five native cities (and 5 captures), and two VERY brief periods of war, I've been able to pretty much keep pace with research (the Americans only had three techs to give me, and the Iroquois were actually a tech behind me when I stopped!).

It could be argued that at least some of this success was purely based on the Civ I chose to play, and I wouldn't dispute that for a second! But....I think the concepts can be adapted to any faction, playing to their own native strengths.

Anyway....first test of these ideas on Emperor was a resounding, complete success!

-=Vel=-
PS: Oh...did I say that the Aztecs ROCK!?

[vmxa1]

The reason I try not to make any more swordsmen than I must is that they can not be upgrade. I agree with Vel that they make good early garrisons or escorts. In some cases I have been forced to make extras as an attack looked imminet and that was my best unit at the time. One point that was mention in passing is that barracks near the war are a big boost as they can heal in one turn. This is the only thing that saved the city many time. The defenders are down to yellow or red at teh end of the fight and next day are ready fore another round.

[Velociryx]

More testing, and now I'm sure of it. On the higher levels, when the AI is out-teching you, there IS another alternative to making the rounds and whoring your often slim tech lead around.

You can simply follow the pack for a time, researching the absolute cheapest techs available, selectively trade here and there to fill in the gaps, and, for game-critical techs, slam your science to max (after trading yourself up to the absolute bleeding edge during those times), and squeeze out a temporary tech lead.

This has two effects that I have observed:

First, it slows the pace of the tech-race down a little, which, IMO, is a good thing. Most of the Monarch/Emperor games I've played, we left the ancient era while still back in BC because of all the tech-whoring.

The second effect (more details below), seems to be a much more "active" game diplomatically (which almost seems counter-intuitive, I know!)

This latest game (and the test before it I ran), puts things back on a more "normalized" time frame....don't know if it's because the AI is LESS willing to trade if the human player is not involved or no, but rather than seeing all the Civs more or less at tech-pairity, you get more differentiation....the more research-minded civs begin to take a definite lead over the more warlike ones, which TOTALLY shifts the balance of power in the game.

What I was able to to was create a "trading block" of research-oriented Civs, and collectively, we're engineering the slow and steady destruction of the war-mongers among us. I suspect that sooner or later, one of them will make an outrageous demand for tech to try to regain continental pairity, at which point one of the trading block will either cave in, or we'll see a middle-ages continent-wide war.

As it stands, the primaries on this game (Emperor/Large/12/Greeks) are me, Egypt, and (somewhat surprisingly), the Aztecs, and the poor boys of the continent are the Americans and Romans.

I'm not sure all the implications of this just yet, but it certainly feels like a much more diplomatically active game. That's one of the gripes I've been having with all the constant tech trading in my games lately. Because everybody was pretty much at the same tech level constantly, all the factions got....I dunno...sorta paralyzed. Nobody had a real, solid advantage (even a short term one), so most of the games were peace-fests. Not necessarily a bad thing, but when you want to stir the pot in a situation like that, sometimes it's not so easily done.

As it is currently, there are clear tech leaders and tech laggards, and it has fundamentally altered the flavor of the game.

Not sure what it all means yet, but I'll be fiddling with it more tomorrow....for the moment, I'm off to bed.

-=Vel=-

[Libertarian]

Vegas Aggie

I'm not sure whether Vel saw the results of the test he asked for, but I just wanted to let you know that my results (I'm counting my dozen or more games as "tests") agree with yours.

For whoever is interested in the straight dope on workers, Vegas is right.

[cousLee]

great thread!

I like to maximize workers, and something to keep in mind. There are odd turn numbers. Playing the Egyptians and lumberjacking: 3 regulars and foriegn will harvest and replant. If you use 4 regulars, you are losing potential. 7 foriegns will also do the trick (if you have a lot of them). Only thing you have to make sure of, is you use 2 regulars for the chopping, and 1 reg + 1 foriegn for the planting. This will free up an extra worker for every two lumberjack crews. It allows for either less workers to support, or more crews. I like to have one crew per town to supplement with the 10 shields. If you set it up right, and start with a forest, you can LJ and still work to forest in the city window. Since the game does tend to cycle through the workers in order, mm is minimal. Once I was done with all normal work up to railroads (in the current game). I used goto to put every worker I had in on on of two tiles. then used the wait option to get the cycle to the begining of the worker sequence. Then it was only a matter of goto, chop/goto, chop to set up the clearing part of the team, then send one of each to plant. On subsequent turns, they when in proper order when cycling (reg,reg,reg,for). I like to build. I have almost every imp in every city, and am kicking culture butt, and lead in the tech. If I need to clean up pollution, I simply divert a harvest crew to do the job and spacebar any not needed. I have come across that the worker order has gotten screwed up diverting them, so I have to watch and make sure the one foriegn don't try and chop tress, but it simply a matter of using the "w" key. And it don't matter if the foregin does the plant before the 3rd regular. it can be adjusted based on how many free workers you have available. 2 regs and 3 foreign work just as well, or most any combo. Just keep in mind it's 4 turns to cut, 3 turns to plant. (currently under demo).

If this is something obvious that everyone knows, then sorry for the clutter.

Trapping the AI navies:
I control a section of water between my continent and a large island. At one end, there is a 1 coast tile choke point, at the other, the area can be choked off with 3 ships. I left one end open, and cruised around outside the trap with a privateer. the AI can see that unit, even from all the way around the globe, and hunts them with a vengence. I know they can, as I have watched them B-line for the privateer using other ships as spotters. I captain the privateer into the trap, and wait for the AI horde to come a running, which they do. I then pull the bait into a city with trap access, (to protect it) and seal off the AI ship that have entered into the trap. They of course want out, so I can open one end of the trap and they all move towards the opening, and close it again just before they can exit. Pull the privateer out of the base at the other end, and they B-line for the bait again. rinse, repeat. I was able to effectively trap the majority of the AI ships using this. When they got to the one end that was being closed, and when I pulled out the bait ship, I could open the other end, and suck some more ships into this trap. When all was said and done, I had about 20-25 AI ships from every civ in there. With the use of MPPs, I would have been able to kick-start a world war and watch the AIs massacre each other. The "doors" of the trap were compromised of stacked ironclads, and the AI would pick of the weaker ships of the other civs (I am sure of it). I didn't start that war, tho it was set up for it. The persians and the brits were MPPed, and myself and the other 4 civs are MPPed. Could have been nasty indeed. But even without warring, it took the competition (mostly) off the main seas, and allowed for oceanic superiority. Some might call that a cheezy tactic, but I look at it this way, if the AI can see my privateer from 20-30 tiles away and come running after it at every oppertuniy, I can use this to make him pay upkeep for a bunch of obsoleting units for a 1000 years. The Americans also had access to this trap area, and contributed a large number of ships to the pile. Should a war actually do break out, My many artty on stand by will have a blast (har har) shooting these fish in a barrel. But since this has gone on during a 2,000 peace fest, I used privateers to eliminate most of them. Battles would generally go, one turn I lose 2, they lose, next turn they lose two, I lose one. Since privateers are cheap and my bait cities will either produce privateers or wealth, it was not a debilitating cost on my end. and over the long term, one for one with privateers VS man-o-wars, frigates, and other masted ships was not too bad (imho). It took away from the monotony of working my lumberjack crews. And to boot, I had all the AI gracious. I would pull up the diplomacy and make the rounds about every 5-6 turns, ask them what they would offer for my world map, and accept whatever they gave. Usually, they gave token crap (5 gold, WM, TM, ect) but it kept them thrilled while I picked apart their navies. When the barrel got empty, all I would have to do is open the door, and here they would come en-masse. Probably cause they were chomping at the bit to get in on the action from the other side of the trap door. The most that came through at one time was around 8 vessels, and since one blocked the door from being shut, I had to wait an extra turn to re-close it, and 5 or 6 more came through on the end-turn cycle. It was actually fun to watch all these peacefull ships trying to dodge eachother moving around looking for the occasional appearance of the disappearing privateer. If the privateer got left in the trap after a battle, I would stack it with one ironclad. Most of the time, the AI only took bombard shots at them, but would occasionaly attack trying to sink the clad to get to the pirate. they almost never attacked if I stacked 2 ironclads. Since I didn't mind losing an ironclad or two (as I had many) to have a chance at getting an elite one, i usually didn't oreo the bait ship I think I lost a total of 4 clads, got 2 elietes, and sank who knows how many masts. All during gracious peace. If this was smac, I would have landmarked it the "bermuda triangle". I also ended up with 2 eliete privateers. Call it what you will, but it sure was fun.

[uh Clem]

PS: Oh...did I say that the Aztecs ROCK!?

The Aztecs are the only Civ that's given me bad dreams. Literally. There's something about watching those little guys running at you by the dozens...hundreds...thousands...

*shudders*