The Ultimate Guide on Game Strategies on Huge Maps - your input-

[athorpel]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth

a. It seems MORE likely that you will not achieve a monolopy of a given luxury on a huge map until you control the entire continent. Playing as the Japanese currently, I have crushed the French, Chinese, Spanish and Koreans, and taken half of Mongolia and Germany, but with India intact and Germany and Mongolia still alive, I don't have a monopoly on luxuries. I'm close, but I've still got to rule the whole damn continent (two, actually, if you count the two haves on one side of a classic ithsmus). This seems to be the typical case. But you don't always need a monopoly to trade successfully.

b. Planting spys can often backfire. Make sure you give a 4 turn breather window before attempting to plant another spy. Too many failed attempts and you're at war.

I am only talking about getting a monopoly on one luxury, maybe two on randomly generated maps. I also think I need to describe in some more detail the situation I see a lot of. It isn't a definative monopoly but it is a defacto monopoly. My civ will control 7 or 8 of one type of luxury and one or two other civs have 1 instance of the same luxury type. They only have 1, they can't trade it, they need it for themselves. There may be a civ with more than 1 instance of the luxury but will only have 1 or 2 extra. They can only trade it to one or two other civs. I am the only civ that can afford to trade that luxury to everybody else.

If you can't get the monopoly, here's what I do. The thing to keep in mind is to exploit any openings where trade contracts are concerned. I said previously to trade with everybody on a consistent basis so as to spot trends. This is one example of what I was talking about. If you want to be the one to provide a luxury to a certain civ but another civ is already providing it. The computer doesn't alway automatically renew it's trade contracts. Keep watch on what your target civ is needing in regards to luxuries. The luxury it was previously getting from some other civ, the contract could run out at any time, you don't know when it started. There is a very good chance you can slip in a trade contract of your own and preempt the other civ trying to sell the same luxury as you.

Planting spys can hurt relations but trade brings their attitude back up pretty quick. I have only had failures for five turns in a row before, eventually the spy will plant successfully. Five turns of failure is only for the civs I am intending to piss off. I have never gone to war over planted spys. It hasn't affected relations that much in my experience. Now if I am doing other things to make them mad then they may start a war, but if that is the case I want them to declare war. I think basically we agree, for civs I want to keep good relations with I wait a turn or two after a failed spy plant, but for those that I intend to piss off I just keep planting regardless of the outcome.

Main point, there is always more detail to be revealed in any tactic.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Well, yes, using spies to provoke war is one of the most effective ways to do so. And I agree with your point about the monolopies. These are even more effective if they're of a STRATEGIC resource, although once again I'd posit that they're more rare than on smaller maps.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Mountain Sage, this thread seems to be "wandering" somewhat (and I'm as much to blame for that as anyone). Maybe we should come up with some other threads we could link to this, or answer some pre-defined questions (for example, what is the single best UU for a huge map?)

[Mountain Sage]

YS

Sorry being a bit late.

I agree with you, this thread is wandering a bit. I started putting things together, including from other threads and AU207, so i can live with it

I would like some answers to the following 2 questions:

1. What is your preferred military strategy (early and later game) on pangea/continents and archipelago?

2. What is the single best UU for a huge map on pangea/continents and archipelago?

Go for it, please.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth


The reason France, Carthage and England are missing from my analysis isn't that I dislike them necessarily... I am playing one civ at a time, to win on a huge map as each one. I just haven't gotten around to England, Carthage and France yet. I'm saving what I feel may be the best for last!

Once again, bear in mind that I have not played as over half of the civs in C3 and PTW (that is, to completion). As I play complete games with these civs, I will post my opinion, and I welcome any counterpoints.

YS,

How far are you? I won't let you off the hook!!!

[dexters]

I spend a lot of time on diplomacy. I try to trade something at least every other turn with almost every civ. It is a chore but it lets you notice trends in AI behavior and attitude. I initiate the formation of alliances with groups of civs that for obvious reasons should be allied. Geography dictates a lot of my choices. I also choose the alliance members based on what resources they control and on the natural affinities of the civs involved, I think I am referring to ethnic affinity. If one or more civs are becoming a problem I have the mostly surefire way of controlling the situation, wars by proxy. They are my tool of choice for keeping the AI occupied while I prepare my own offensive.

athorpel, clarification here would be welcome. short of declaring war yourself to drag other players into a war then quiety slipping out when enough turns have passed, I'm not entirely sure how you can start a war by proxy. Perhaps you can teach me how?

In anycase, very interesting discussion on huge map play. Theseus pretty much nailed the feel of the game in the head when he noted that with 16 civs around, the intrigue level and the more subtle geopolitiking in Civilization really shows.

In my recent huge map game (it was my first) I played on warlord difficulty with 16 civs and had a blast. India, which was right accross from me on a u shaped pangea continent and mutually separated by Babylon, was a threat early on. Both our empires basically switched back and forth between #1 and #2 in the demographics stats, and on the hisgraph score, India managed to take an early lead and was actually pulling away by the early middle ages.

I was basically able to negate its lead, and eventually reverse it, by savvy backing of the Japanese, the #3 which India had declared war on and was beating. I then managed to get England, Persia and Babylon, all bordering India to join me in a massive coalition against India. With India occupied, I launched my invasion accross the straights and took the cities I know are close enough to be productive. It was great fun.

IMO, America's Industrious + expansionist kicks ass on pangea maps, if you start on a pangea and not an island somewhere. I was able to scout up and out from my starting location early, found all the goodies and REX my way to block the Aztecs. I'm also find the trait to be reasonably useful on standard maps. In my current game, my early exploration basically cut Germany off from expansion and is now basically a tiny resource poor empire on the corner of continent that I plan to turn into a vassal state.

On monopolies of luxuries. In my huge map game, both the furs and spices appeared exclusively on two islands (well, more like tiny continents if you're playing a standard map, but I consider them islands on huge). Two poor civs, Rome and Russia are practically stuck there.

I too am trying to monopolize as many luxuries as possible. And I've successfully wiped out the Romans and have taken the half of the Russian Island that had spices. +2 for my resource monopoly. But I do it more as a reflex to my propensity to use trade as an instrument of war.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Alright MS, I'm gonna take a stab at these questions. I've now played 50% of the civs to victory on Regent level, all huge map, continents, max # civs.

Other, more skilled, players should feel free to contribute as well.

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by Mountain Sage
1. What is your preferred military strategy (early and later game) on pangea/continents and archipelago?

The answer is, in my opinion: be! agressive! b-e agressive! But that does NOT mean early archer rush. An early archer rush all too often results in the opposing civ popping up in land you could have gotten to by REXing instead of building all those archers, while your ultimate goal - a civ's removal from the game - is NOT accomplished. Futhermore, it can often result in other civs moving in on fertile land that you should be settling, chronic discontent and fiscal woes, etc.

In fact, I skip entirely the 1-move units, even the UUs. Bowmen, Legionaries, even Immortals and Berserkirs, are NOT part of my game. They move too slow at the time to do me a lot of good.

I have discovered the beauty of horsemen recently, and of course, when your horseman is a mounted warrior, there's no need not to start your wars at this time. But for the most part, it's REX REX REX, hit chivalry, trigger my GA with any of the splendid units availible at the time and move on from there.

During the medival era, I conquer my continent, hands down. Maybe there's one or two biggies left by the time the industrial era rolls around. If that's the case, I live with them (unless I need something they have), because I know they're not going to touch me.

I love the 3-movers (Riders esp.) and 4-defenders (Samurai and Cossacks), and will base several wars off of use of these units alone. Later on I can defend my cities, but for most of the medival era it's build an armed force, use it to crush and neighbor, and WITHOUT STOPPING move on. Even if your forces are weary from one war, the sooner you move the better I find. No matter how great your UU, medival wars get to be a hassle once you're consistently up against size 12 cities defended by 1 or more musketmen.

On pangea/continents, that seems to be the best approach: get fast-moving units, build a bunch of 'em, use them until they're all elites and keep using them until you have no neighbors left.

Then it's a matter of whether you have the PATIENCE to put together an overseas invasion force. NOT ALWAYS WORTH THE EFFORT in my opinion, fun-wise, but sometimes QUITE rewarding.

Archipelgeo?

Frankly, I don't have a clue. I guess here Immortals and Legionaries would have some merit. You don't want invasion forces getting wiped out! And with only caravels to ship them about in at first, you can't launch an effective invasion force...

...an archipelgeo world is a challenge for a better player than I.

2. What is the single best UU for a huge map on pangea/continents and archipelago?

There's so many good ones, it's hard to choose. I would have to say that, timing-wise, it's hard to beat the Samurai or the Rider. The fast-moving, hard-hitting defenders are great. If you've got a good lead, the cossack can be a GREAT unit, although I generally have to fight at least one knight war before putting this awesome UU to use. The Sipahi is clearly a gargantuan unit, but frankly I have yet to put it to it's fullest use. The Ansar Warrior too I have yet to use, but it's got great stats.

The unit that time and time again brings me to victory is the rider. It's hard to beat a 3-move unit at the time when it's introduced. But you gotta love that Samurai too.

I would say that the 1-move units are tricky to use and not that valuable overall.

And of course, it should be noted that the Jaguar Warrior in essence makes the Aztecs the only 3-trait civ (religious, militaristic, and expansionist!). I've used the Jags to great effect on huge maps in the past.

Alright, that's it from me for now.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
YS,

How far are you? I won't let you off the hook!!!

I have now played as France, and they're my #1 for score so far (4455... don't laugh, all you masters of civ).

The commercial trait is awesome, but recently I've found ways of making do without it. It's undoubtedly very handy, but if you don't need leaders to build wonders or armies, you can use them to move your palace around, making up for coruption, making militaristic civs perhaps more valuble than commercial ones... it's luck of the draw, that's for sure, because often leader generation will not be too fruitful, but basically, good FP and Palace placement can make up for a lot of corruption.

So, basically, I'm undecided, but commercial does have a lot of estimation for me, and France has resulted in my best game to date... though this might soon be upset by Japan.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

MS:

Just in case you were interested, I've got the following civs left to win as (huge map, continents, 16 civs):

Persia, Arabs, Germany, India, Aztecs, England, Egypt, Zulu, Korea, America, Celts, Carthage (in that order)

My top 5, score-wise, are:

France, China, Mongols, Vikings, Iroquois

(though I think Japan is going to come out #1)

[Mountain Sage]

YS,

Thanks a lot for your input, it will go, as others, in the 'final guide'.

I find fascinating the drive (or need) to have bigger and bigger empires, thus going thru the 'Wheel of Wars" regularly, and I just Arrian's explanation of WHY he goes to war: to build his empire peacefully afterwards

I am still looking for somebody to give me a rational explanation of what you can achieve thru war that peace/trading/diplomacy cannot give you, if your goal is to BUILD a civ (by this I mean to build all the useful city improvements and related Wonders).

I'm feeling a bit of a philospher today, so I'll probably start a new therad about UP soon. We'll see.

Back to basics: I need more imput for warmongers on pangea.

Since I'm becoming a 'specialist' about archipelagos, I could handle that part by myself, but since I'm not sure my strategies and tactis are 'mainstream', you're all welcome to give me your input on that field also, specially about the early game (up to Navigation).

YS: 4455 on Regent looks a pretty good score for me. Any benchmarks?

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Benchmarks? Um... 4455 is my all-time "high score" for Civ so far, but in 5 (agonizingly long) turns, I'll have a new, higher score, for Japan (cultural win... I was going for domination but I just won't have the time!)

There's a few benchmarks for me here too... owning every wonder of the world (yep, built or conquered them ALL, except the ones what ain't been discovered yet), and having crushed 8 or PERHAPS 9 civs (depends on the 5 turns before I achieve cultural victory, and if the Vikings can hold out). Also, 4 armies in play... 4 GLs generated over ~10 turns... won a game WITHOUT Democracy (I'm still Monarchy, making discoveries every 6 turns or so)

So, uh, those are personal benchmarks, but I'd hardly say they qualify as benchmarks for Apolyton...

RE: Warmongering in order to build... I'm with Arrian on that. I wish I had disabled cultural victory on this game. I never dreamt my warmongering would be so successful. I like all my cities to be "maxed" in terms of improvements, corruption, happiness and production. But in my drive to acquire, I've left America (an island) with nothing but temples (and the great lighthouse tossed in... that's why I took it, the island that is )

The REAL LIFE warmongers currently in the oval office have a term for it... "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace". A terrible concept for the real world, but a damn fun way to play Civ, IMO.

[Arrian]

I find fascinating the drive (or need) to have bigger and bigger empires, thus going thru the 'Wheel of Wars" regularly, and I just Arrian's explanation of WHY he goes to war: to build his empire peacefully afterwards

I am still looking for somebody to give me a rational explanation of what you can achieve thru war that peace/trading/diplomacy cannot give you, if your goal is to BUILD a civ (by this I mean to build all the useful city improvements and related Wonders).

"To create, you must destroy. Smash a glass and cry, Too Much Joy..."[/Too Much Joy, a fun band]

Anyway, it goes like this. Going to war, particularly early in the game, provides me with the following:

1) More territory/cities.
2) More resources/luxuries
3) Potential for Great Leaders
4) Tech/gold via peace treaties
5) A better chance of winning the tech & wonder races later in the game, since I'm hurting the AI now.

1 & 2 are obvious. You cannot acquire #1 via trade. You can acquire #2 via trade, but it will cost you, and help the AI (note, there is a central theme here: the AI is the ENEMY).

#3 is heavily dependant on luck. However, the more fighting you do, the more likely you are to get leaders. Leaders have enormous power, particularly early in the game. More on this in a bit.

#4 is pretty straightforward. You can trade for tech, or sell tech for gold, but again, that costs you and helps the AI. The AI is the enemy. What you give them, give them reluctantly.

#5 is hard to explain/quantify to someone who has never used his military to break the AI. I often destroy several of the most powerful AIs on the map in the ancient & medieval ages. That really hurts the AI's ability to research & trade techs, allowing me to blast off to a huge tech lead. Plus, I've removed threats to my empire's security. A dead AI civ cannot attack you.

Back to the leaders for a moment. Let's just take my current game as an example. Rome, Monarch, standard map, continents. I started on a continent with the Russians as my only neighbor. It's pretty big for a 2-civ continent, and I got off to a pretty good start (I think I got a settler from a hut) so I played it out. Very early on, I whacked a Russian settler team with my one and only elite archer. Guess what? Leader. I held on to him for a long time. I built up my forces and then took Moscow. I used my leader to rush the FP.

The game was effectively over right then and there. I now had well-placed Palace & FP, and pretty much controlled my continent (it took me some time to actually destroy Russia, because I was fishing for more leaders, to no avail).

So what did that early warfare get me? It doubled my territory, gave me a perfectly positioned FP, gained me some tech, and gave me monopolies on the luxuries on my continent (useful as hell when trading). As a result, I'm winning handily.

Now let's look at a Huge Map game for comparison. AU207, for instance. I fought 1 ancient war (Babylon - swordsmen), 5 medieval wars (Germany, Mongols, America, Japan, Vikings), and one industrial war (Arabs). I got 10 leaders, I quintupled my territory at least, and I got my Palace & FP perfectly positioned to cover the majority of a vast continent. In short, I became the world's Superpower. I did trade with the AI, sure. I sold them stuff, sucking their income into my coffers. When one got uppity, I smacked them down & took their luxuries (Arabs) almost without effort (militarily speaking... getting my troops there was actually a bit of a pain).

Did I forget to attach a save of AU207? If I did, I'll try and remember tonight. I think you will find my empire very well developed, with all the appropriate wonders & city improvements. My warmongering led DIRECTLY to my ability to build such a powerful, wealthy & wonderous empire.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I would like to make one point regarding leaders. I have been trying to follow most of Arrian's advice in hopes of achieving greater strategy, but I've ALWAYS been dissappointed when it comes to leaders.

But it pays to be persistent. After fighting 4 wars (and destroying 4 AI civs) as Japan, I had horde upon horde of elite samurai and horsemen. Yet not one of these damn elites generated a leader until war #5 (which I used to rush my Palace). War #6 generated only 1 more leader, which I used to build an army.

But after building the HE - and this is late in the game, mind you, when my army consists of hordes of elite cavalry (in fact, there's only 1 or 2 veterans around) - I generated 5 leaders in 1 war. 4 of them within 10 turns of each other.

Now, these leaders got "wasted" in my opinion - all turned into armies, which I can build courtesy of the MA wonder. But nonetheless, they are THERE.

It's all a matter of luck, but it pays to persevere. If I wasn't going to win soon, I'd put those leaders to good use rushing wonders or maybe moving my palace around (invaluable!)

But having warred from the ancient era forward (and early in the ancient era at that!), I would say that waging wars TO GENERATE LEADERS is a toss of the dice and I sometimes wonder if perhaps Arrian modified his Civ in his sleep without realizing it to make leaders more prevelant .

In a previous game, as France, I generated a good deal of leaders from the early game forward, which is ironic, since I "lost" my first war and lacked the militaristic trait. So it's all the air, as far as I can tell. But it's worth the gamble.

[Arrian]

I attached a save of an earlier Roman game I played here: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...4#post1931694.

Uberagressive warmongering led directly to my ability to build what I consider to be the overall best empire I've ever had. Had I stayed peaceful, there is no way I could have achieved as much. I'll admit two wonder blemishes: Korea got the Great Library (which I, terrible barbarian that I am, burned to the ground) and Egypt got Copernicus.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Yahweh,

I've had games where the leaders just never came. Elite win after elite win after elite win, and no leaders. It's all a roll of the pixelated dice. But when it comes right down to it, you only really NEED 1 leader (for the FP or Palace move). The rest is gravy. Of course, I like gravy...

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Ouch! Why would you ever burn a wonder? Even if it's obsolete?

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Well, I'm beginning to see things that way. But it's damn frustrating, that's for sure. Especially if you'd prefer to use the 4-step path in wartime:

1. Conquer an AI (utterly)
2. Put your palace in their capital
3. Improve all their cities while corruption is low
4. Repeat

[Arrian]

That's a good way of doing things. Though I typically do not move my Palace multiple times (AU207, though, was an exception - I moved it twice).

As for burning wonders... well, I wasn't planning on wiping Korea out, Seoul would have been almost impossible to keep due to culture, and furthermore I wanted a coastal city in that area so I could rush a harbor and immediately gain the benifit of the luxury I had just captured (not to mention that it's a lot harder for an AI sneak attack to cut off your luxuries if you have multiple harbor towns), and Seoul was 1 tile inland. So I burned it.

In my current Roman game, I captured the Pyramids on the main continent (oddly enough, in Seoul) and decided, against my better judgement, to try and hold 'em. Korea is not wiped out (though badly, badly damaged) because I ran out of Cavalry to kill their Riflemen with. I starved/built workers until it was size 1, rushed a temple for the border expansion... we'll see. I do have the culture advantage, but their new capitol is of course right next to Seoul. I bet it flips.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Ah, I see... on Regent level I rarely have the flipping problem any more, except when dealing with the cursed Spanish. Why are those Spaniards so damn tough? And so sneaky and agressive too?

OT, sorry...

[Arrian]

Yeah, the higher the level, the more flipping is a concern. Normally, I'm not too worried about it playing on Monarch. Especially if I'm playing a religious civ. Rome isn't religious, though, and the AI does do reasonably well at culture with scientific civs. So Seoul was a concern.

On Emperor, it starts to get really nasty. I have a Chinese game going on Emp now, and the Mongols have me out-cultured, easily. The MONGOLS!

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

That is sort of horrible.

I guess I could see a lot more razing and re-settling on those upper levels...

[Ubergeek]

In my current game, I was forced to play a very aggressive style because I had EVERY bad-neighbor civ on my continent. This went against my normal style -- usually I'm a pacifist, you see. We were all packed in so tightly that I was forced to archer-rush not only one but TWO enemy civs, and I have never had to resort to an archer rush in a Huge game. One thing I can honestly say is that, on huge maps, big continent-devouring wars are a pain in the dong and not at all fun. I've wound up with about 400 slave Workers, 300 Tanks, 250 Bombers, 300 Artillery...and I've got to move all that crap around every turn. Sure, the flood of GLs is great, but it's like pulling teeth to get through a turn. Builder-style is much more enjoyable on big maps.

[TheArsenal]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by Mountain Sage
1. What is your preferred military strategy (early and later game) on pangea/continents and archipelago?

Not an expert, but I only play on Huge/large maps. Depending on how the map is generated, on an archipelago map it can take 12 turns or higher in some cases to move your forces onto enemy territory by sea. This has forced me to build large numbers of units and have enough gold on hand to do an instant upgrade, say horseman to knights, or calvary, the moment I get the technology, and load them onto the ships. This may be stating the obvious, but with the lag time your units are forced to spend at sea, and the way the AI swap techs - and even at the normal rate of AI research - much can change unfavorably by the time you get to foreign shores in both tech, and enemy unit numbers. Before I used this tactic, taking the extra time to build units, instead of upgrade, made me pay a steeper price than I should have.

[Mountain Sage]

Arrian,

Excellent explanation.
I will definitely write an essay about UP asap. We have the same goals in mind but wildly different (opposed?) strategies. I think I will take AU207 as a reference, since we basically played on the same set world.

If you have time and are willing, give me more info about your achievements (Wonders, luxuries, military units, gold, happiness etc.) during the Ages, as I did with my screenshots. I would really appreciate it.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by TheArsenal


Not an expert, but I only play on Huge/large maps. Depending on how the map is generated, on an archipelago map it can take 12 turns or higher in some cases to move your forces onto enemy territory by sea. This has forced me to build large numbers of units and have enough gold on hand to do an instant upgrade, say horseman to knights, or calvary, the moment I get the technology, and load them onto the ships. This may be stating the obvious, but with the lag time your units are forced to spend at sea, and the way the AI swap techs - and even at the normal rate of AI research - much can change unfavorably by the time you get to foreign shores in both tech, and enemy unit numbers. Before I used this tactic, taking the extra time to build units, instead of upgrade, made me pay a steeper price than I should have.

I fully agree with you. It happened to me several times that by the time my Horsemen landed, they were confronted by Knights, even when I first set sail my opposed civ was way off discovering Chivalry.
But this just adds spices to the game. I find the timing and logistics problems playing on archipelago fascinating. At the beginning, I lost several wars because I either forgot to take into account that my ships must travel back AND forth again with reinforcements, or my ratio of ships/troops was wrong (try to move 40-50 Horsemen with Galleys )

[Arrian]

MS,

I have several saved games from AU207. I will try to remember to load them up tonight and get you the info.

For now, though, I'll leave you this, pulled from my AAR from AU207:

Wonder building... well, if anything it might have been easier, though I'm not sure why.

I built: Great Library, Hanging Gardens, Sistine, Sun Tzu, Leos, Copernicus, Newton, ToE

I rushed: Bachs, Smiths, Universal Suffrage, Hoover

I captured: Pyramids (Mongol), Oracle (Babs)

Other civs built: Colossus (French), Great Lighthouse (Korean), Magellan (French), Shakespeare (Korean)

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I must state the obvious:

It is to your benefit, if you find yourself an apt enough player to take down AI neighbors through warfare, to start on the biggest, most crowed continent.

This gives the builder and warmonger lots to do - trade and conquer. Starting on a (relatively) isolated continent allows you to build in peace, but unless you've got some rocking attributes, you can very easily fall behind the tech race and definitely fall behind your own UP standards.

Launching overseas assaults is a true challenge on a huge map, and in my opinion, barely fun. Sure, it's gratifying to accomplish so much, but you do need to coordinate a massive force to take down even a moderate foe, which leads to a lot of tedious turns.

It's obviously better to conquer your entire continent before anyone meets anyone else, but it is more conducive to world-wide conquest to have "colonies" (not in the literal Civ sense of the word; I refer to actual cities) on each continent that can be used as bases of later conquest.

On the archipelageo, well, you're up the creek with galleys for a paddle. But on continents/pangea, I will often quit just to get a better UP experience if I start on a smaller of the continents.

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth

Launching overseas assaults is a true challenge on a huge map, and in my opinion, barely fun. Sure, it's gratifying to accomplish so much, but you do need to coordinate a massive force to take down even a moderate foe, which leads to a lot of tedious turns.

Interesting. I couldn't disagree more. And taking overseas possessions is a key part of my clearing my own continent

But it probably comes down to play style and set up. Because I play with no more than 10-11 civs, and build a solid infrastructure before going to (a planned) war, there are inevitably large, sprawling powerful AI civs when they dust settles from the big fish eating the little. And many times, they share the same continent with me.

So my strategy, when map generation allows, is to take a large island(s)/small continent(s) from the weakest opponent that owns one. Preferably one that occupies it alone. I get my extra cities without the costly expense of going toe to toe with a neighbor with a large production capacity. If an overseas war goes unexpectedly poorly, or I face hostile trouble at home, I cut it off and sail back. If a war with a bordering neighbor goes poorly, or another jumps in the fray, it is far more costly.

Once I have a productive overseas territory (now even more so after I read a *great* thread here on palace moving) I use it to pump out units, and whatever sea units I that I need not left over from the invasion. Once ready, I launch a massive two front sea and land invasion against opposite sides of my neighbor's nation - with the sea portion coming a few turns after the land begins to give the AI time to move towards my cross border land incursion. I also find the AI garrisons its seaboard cities that are not near its rivals, to a far lesser degree. I squeeze them down to a manageable size, sue for peace to take whatever I need from them, then destroy them once the 20 turns expire.

This, is of course, my optimum strategy. It is rarely this simple or clean.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Ah. I play with 16 civs, so there's generally a better opportunity closer to home, and not overseas. Although certainly some of my more memorable games have included taking numerous small chunks of overseas continents, to procure luxuries and resources, and then buffers to protect them...

...for the most part though, it's "build the biggest landmass" for me... I always feel happy when I accomplish an overseas victory, but it's such a hassle that I'd rather slog it out on land.

Speaking of which, actual battles at sea hardly ever figure into one my games. Perhaps on a higher difficulty level?

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth

Launching overseas assaults is a true challenge on a huge map, and in my opinion, barely fun. Sure, it's gratifying to accomplish so much, but you do need to coordinate a massive force to take down even a moderate foe, which leads to a lot of tedious turns.

IM(H)O, this is exactly the reason why I love to play on huge maps and archipelagos.
Let's face it: playing the PP is fun and a real challenge, but you best achieve it if you are alone on a big island/small continent. Of course, I choose the appropriate map-setting accordingly.
But I do not always play the PP. Lately, I started to spend more and more time playing on archipelagos, max. water. In this case, conquest is 'genetically encoded' in Joan's brains.
The true challenge for me is now to overcome the logistics problems: I lost several wars when I tried to move 40-50 Horsemen on Galleys and forgot that empty Galleys must go back AND forth. I also lost some battles when the reinforcements came and in the meantime the attacked AI upgraded all its Horsement to Knights.
I don't want to sound disparaging, but if and when I start a war, I expect something more challenging that just click on a stack of military units to move them.