AC Strategy

[Steve Clark]

I'm getting ready to start another game and for the first time, will be going for AC. In the at least two strategy guides I've read, they talk about going total warfare, eliminating all but one enemy city and then go for launch. That doesn't sound any different than all of the total warfare games that I've done. We've been discussing a non-agressive approach in another thread and would like to ask the question here: Is it easy or hard to go for AC without eliminating most of your opponents? What are the advantages/disadvantages of keeping some strong civs alive for trading and to what extent would this help or hurt in launching first?

[Sten Sture]

I think the game is much more fun when you allow other civs to stay strong. One of the things I learned from OCC was that AC launch was possible with a smaller civ and the science city can be a real boost.

With efficient use of a science city and trade caravans you can easily stay in first place in technology, but rival civs will always try to steal space flight once you get it, so make sure you are ready to quickly build a space ship when you get there. Store up food caravans to build Apollo (12 will build it without any production in the city) and enough caravans in outlying cities to build space ship parts quickly or you may be unable to keep up with the pace of the AI.

An aggressive defense network can thwart the AIs ability to wage war. Build some fortresses on Mountains between you and your nearest rival and put a couple of vet defensive units and a cannon type piece in it and you can hold off most AI attacks. The AI has enormous difficulty moving ships effectively so plan your trade routes to take advantage of where they do not go. (this requires some scouting and trial and error.) Coastal fortresses work better for me than a navy, especially when I don't have very many cities.

If you have a choice of who to trade with, pick a perfectionist civ that doesn't have very many cities, they are more likely to have more trade arrows.

In summary, going to AC without eliminating most of your opponents is not any more difficult than moving a ton of military pieces all over the board, it is just a different kind of difficulty.

[Steve Clark]

OK, I just started the game last night (emperor, normal, 7 civs) and instead of posting a new topic, would like to ask about the start. The game put me in a good spot and at 5 turns, am getting ready to found my first city on grass/shield with a whale and pheasant. I also tipped 4 huts without reloading and now have 1 NONE horsemen and 3 NONE chariots. However, because of this good location, I don't have any starting techs. This concerns me because I feel I am behind already. Would I be able to catch up? Should I agressively find and eliminate other civs with those NONE units or concentrate on find the other hut patterns?

[Havelock Vetinari]

catching up shouldn't be that much of a problem...
general exploring could do both of those options, or possibly find new spots for cities
hell, build great library if you are that worried...as you've got a great start spot you won't be short of resources for it

By the end, I wouldn't bother keeping other civs alive, except for a few token cities...your empire size (ie the world) would make up for it, especially as 30 000is the maximum gold (which is relatively easy to obtain if you try). Basically, kill em

[johnmcd]

Good God man look at yourself! five turns in and your peaceful strategy is already out the window! If your going to play peacefully on your way to AC then this nonsense about the chariots is going to have to end here.
First off you are not behind. AI builds where it starts, and while the debate rages on about the merits and demerits of this, I think it is folly itself. You've got yourself a nice starting point and a stack of units to go and find the huts with, fantastic. You'll get loads of techs out of all the huts you'll be grabbing and the gold will let you rush build the value of the shields you've missed out on if need be. Also, all grassland becomes shielded grassland if you put a town on it... so don't waste one by putting a town on it unless it is the only way to get in the whale and pheasant.
It is more fun to race other contenders to AC than to cripple them early- mid game and play out the last two hundred turns wondering what the point is, keep them in contention. Also, research all around space flight before you get it. The moment you have it EVERY civ in the game will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you won't trade/give it to them. this means you can get to the techs neccessary for the modules and whatnot first. Finally, but importantly make sure you have a number of towns churning out eighty shields a turn as this is what a SS structural costs and one of those a turn is invaluable.

Good luck!

[Adam Smith]

Steve:
Dont worry, you will be fine. If you are concerned about falling behind, just dont tip any more huts until you develop Monarchy. An extra tech from a hut will slow you down.

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Old posters never die, they just f.a.d.e..a..w..a..y . . .

[Sten Sture]

I think you are off to a great start. Keep hut tipping, but you may want to leave a few un opened if you get too many techs without getting Monarchy. (I do what Adam recommends and wait until I have Monarchy to trade and tip.)

On emporer I think you can build 6 cities in Despo and 12 cities in Monarchy without major unhappiness problems - don't expand faster than your govt allows.

With the pheasant and the whale, use the whale first, the trade arrows are vital at this early stage. Eventually you may want to irrigate the pheasant to a buffalo so you can get trade arrows from the square. If you build the Colossus, you will get 3food,2shields,0trade from a pheasant, and 2f,3s,2t from a road & irrigated buffalo under Monarchy.

If you have explored a bit and found an AI civ, you can block them from being able to progress toward your civ without going to war with them if you want. Because of your two movement points vs AI settlers one, you can control passes to available grassland. (the AI only builds cities on grassland squares and won't build next to one of your units)

Try to tip huts with your first movement point, if it is in grass or plains, you can attack the barb that shows up.

Don't be too afraid to trade techs with the AI, you can make friends to your advantage, especially about maps and the monarchy path.

Since you are playing peaceful, make sure your territory is easily defended, open ground is tough to guard in later govts without none units because of the unhappiness trouble. One good solution for this is dip guards, they don't require support, they can bribe, they move 2, and don't cause unhappiness in Rep and Demo.

Obviously I would rather be civing than working...
[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited December 02, 1999).]

[johnmcd]

Sten always knows whats best, but I always seem to disagree. I think you should build as many towns as possible at the start, even if the population is elvised for the first couple of thousand years city squares are better than or as good as any other tiles out there. So you lose one population off a town (it works one less tile) but you get another tile that will be at least as good instead, and if you can afford the luxury bill, you'll get two tiles. I say grow like a maniac. You may have useless cities for a while but when you get Mike's or the Hanging Gardens your Civ will tear away from the pack. Please let the other Civs race you to AC, it is just so dull otherwise.

Of course there is always, especially in Civ, there is more than one to skin a cat.
[This message has been edited by johnmcd (edited December 03, 1999).]

[Steve Clark]

Thanks for the advices. Did about 30 turns last night, got 6 cities, building roads and got 5 units exploring. I think I'm going to go with the strategy of finding most of the other civs, trade with them (a new concept for me since my inclination is to destroy them) and exchange knowledge. I got a good start on good city sites, so I think I'll race them toward AC. Will see.

[Campo]

I'd wager that by 18000AD you'll be so annoyed by AI attacks that you'll be at war with (or have already destroyed) at least two civs. By 1900 you'll be on total conquest. That's my guess anyway.


[This message has been edited by Campo (edited December 03, 1999).]

[Steve Clark]

Well, I am now a convert of the trade strategy. Once I got the units exploring away from my area, I got lucky in finding about 24 huts and getting 10 techs from them including Monarchy, Polytheism, Trade and Invention. I got to Monarchy in 2000bc and started to find the other civs at 1500bc. Made peace with all of them and end up getting 6 techs in exchange. That all got me caught up and easily the leader in science.

In the meantime, I've built 12 cities now all at size 4-6. I used 6 of them to constantly build caravans for wonders and trading from my super science city along an extensive road network. I built the Great Library, Copernicus, Michelangelo, Bach, KRC and Leonardo primarily all with caravans.

My science city established 3 routes with other capitals (each adding about 8 beakers per trade) and with Colossus/Copernicus/Library/University, it is now producing 76 beakers, and Isaac is coming shortly.

The Great Library was actually beneficial to me (whodathunk). Since I concentrated on the Theology and Invention vectors, I ended up getting 4 techs through the Great Library (Banking, Iron, Seafaring and Bridge).

I am now sitting at 900ad with my civ #1 and the Mongols are too far away to cause me trouble. The strategy of maximizing production to produce caravans for generating beakers is perfect. I will now preach the advantages of caravans, easily the most valuable unit in the game.

[Sten Sture]

johnmcd - "Sten always knows whats best, but I always seem to disagree." LoL (I only disagree with about half of my posts!)

Steve - all of your cities are size 4-6... hopefully your science city is bigger! & are you still in Monarchy or have you switched to Rep or Demo?


[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited December 06, 1999).]

[Steve Clark]

Sten: Haven't researched Democracy yet, so still at Monarchy. I am concentrating on building up the science city and should be at 8 very soon. You do know best so what are you thinking?

[Sten Sture]

Two things come to my infinite Winnie-the-Pooh mind.

The first is to consider switching to Republic. There are some support and happiness problems with doing so, but by keeping all of your NONE units for blockades outside of your city, (units away from cities cause unhappiness unless they are NONE) you should be able to disband some extra units (great for getting a head start on building something) and reduce the size of your army. In Rep, you don't get the benefit of Martial law so three units in each city is too many. (Since you have MC and JSB you should be able to be happy without a ton of luxury tax.) One of the big benefits of Rep is the ability to grow your cities by using WLTCD. If you have a temple and marketplace, you can turn up luxuries to 40 or 50% and after the first turn of celebrating your city grows by 1 population point every addition turn it is celebrating. In a few turns all of your cities will be maximum size. For your science city, you may want to build an aquaduct so it can get to size 12 before you reduce luxuries back down to 0 or 10%.

Second wee thought - (Rankin' Roger &) The Specials: Where are they in your city square? If you tilt the following grid so that the twelve is the top of the clock face, you can see the pattern of a four special city - where # = outside the city range, C = city center, S = specials, and X = other squares in the city perimeter.

9-S-X-X-12
X-X-X-X-S
X-X-C-X-X
S-X-X-X-X
6-X-X-S-3

You mentioned two specials, whale and pheasant, if you have them on an "S" in the above grid and grassland at the other "S"s you may have some hidden special, which are great to develop in your science city. Mine them to turn them into forests and you may discover silk or pheasants. (pheasants I always irrigate to plains for the buffalo instead.) Now that you have Bridge Building make sure that you road all river squares in your science city. With Colossus and Republic, those extra trade arrows are great.

I wrote this up in four interupted segments so if it is totally incomprehensible, I apologize in advance!

[Jim W]

All this is vedry interesting, as my usual strategy is to aim for AC. However, I am still learning all the little fine points. I wasn't fully aware that happiness was partially controlled the number of cities you have under any particular form of government.

Yeah, read the Manual!

Except that sopme things, even some important things, don't seem to be in the manual in the section where you'd expect them to be, and little nuisances like that.

Only in my last game, for intance, did I manage to avoid building too many units for the available supply (partly by sending some units to other cities, partly by building up the population by doing buildings as well as units.)

And at the present point, early 1900s, I have supermarkets in practically every town, and most of the land turned into farmland, so I have little fear of runnning out of food.

But all these adjustments to make your science better, to increase production, to make Happiness more than something to suddenly worry about when half your cities are going up in smoke?

Well, I'm getting there, thanks to this forum

JimW

[Scouse Gits]

Thanks SS - the 'hidden specials' are new to me

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[Steve Clark]

That was new to me too. So I tried that as a test in cheat mode, one of the corners of the X is a forest, thus can't mine. The other corner was a plains, mined it into a forest but no special. Sten, again I appreciate your insights, it really helps

By the way, my science city is not the one with the whale and pheasant, too many forests and not enough water (that is my production city though). My science city is on an ocean inlet with a silk. No other specials are to be found.

I need to start thinking about building a defensive wall around my territory. I'm holding off discovering Gunpowder for fear of upgrading my pikemen to musks but I need Engineers though. Given that, what would be the best units to build and man the forts at this point in the game?

[DaveV]

Why are you "afraid" of your pikemen turning into musketeers? Muskies are much the superior unit. A non-vet musketeer is equivalent to a vet pike against horses, but twice as good against 1-square movement units. Not to mention that the musketeer is the equivalent of a catapult on offense. And the musketeer can turn into a veteran...

I know SS said this, but I'll repeat: the only type of terrain where a hidden special can appear is grassland.

[Sten Sture]

BTW - johnmcd, Steve has Leo's so he doesn't have to build anything to get the upgraded units; just has to research the tech. If I don't have Leo's I will do as you recommend and wait to build a better unit until I need it, if at all.

[Steve Clark]

DaveV/Sten: Thanks for the reminder, I had forgetten that Sten said mining grasslands for specials. If I have plains or forest and transform them to a grassland with an engineer, and then mine them, could a special still appear?

johnmcd/Sten: Folks have talked about the downside to Leo as the loss of veteran status. In this game, most of the units are not at veterans so it's no loss. However, I'm wondering (conceptually) if the cost of Leo outweighs the benefits in a peaceful game. For the 400 or 600 shields in cost, I can instead selectively choose to upgrade only a handful of units are a far cheaper cost. That is assuming one can stay out of a war.

It sounds like I should go ahead and get Gunpowder (gotta get to Explosives) and use Musks as defense. I know someone did the analysis, but I forgot the results. Is a musk with its 3 defense better than a pikemen with its x2 against mounted units, assuming both behind a wall or fort?

[valmont]

Specials appear on the map according to a pattern that is determined when the map is created. Specials appear on all terrain types except grassland, but the underlying pattern is part of the map file. Because of the way terrain is distributed, grassland squares often lie in positions where a special would appear if it were a different type of terrain. If a forest or plain square is capable of yielding a special, it will be seen on the square from the outset. If this seems confusing, spend about an hour playing with the Map Editor. Don't try to make a usable map, just get to know the pattern of the specials. Experiment with changing the value in the "Set Resource Seed" box. When you learn to recognize the pattern, you can determine which grassland squares will yield specials if they are transformed to other terrain types.

[geofelt]

The key is a fort or walls. Fortified behind walls, a musketeer will match anything up to cannon or cavalry. In a fort, they can stop anything less. For the most part, the upgrade to riflemen is all you need. Because of this, I love the GW.

[johnmcd]

Sten, I don't know if I am disapointed or pleased! but it is always good to agree.

Steve, just in case Valmont's reply wasn't clear enough, if a special is there it will come up first time so there is no point occilating a tile between grassland and plain waiting for a special. I am inclined to agree with your fear about Leo's being a waste of shields in a peaceful game. It does let you build up your infrastructure uninterupted by the need to upgrade your defences which is a good thing, but I find it most useful for upgrading my settler army to engineers overnight. Actually, I find the most annoying aspect of Leo's is that it destroys my museums. I like to collect one of every unit in one of my cities for my people to marvel at, and it can be a real job to find a warrior to espionage away by the time automobile has come along to obsolete Leo... I defy Sten to find that a good 'tactic' (it is fun though, the things I've done to lure warriors out of their towns and into certain subversion...its a good job those spies are so leggy)

[Wezil]

LMAO!! I too have been known to "collect" units john, but I don't think I've ever gone to the extremes you mention to get a rare specimen!!

[Sten Sture]

ROTF A museum of Civ units.. I had never thought of that!

Base specials: All specials are either fish or whales... Now how does this go.

Ocean__Forest___Hill__Plain____Mountain_Jungle_Swa mp_Desert
Fish___Pheasant_Wine__Buffalo_Iron_____Gems___Peat __Oasis
Whale__Silk_____Coal__Wheat____Gold_____Fruit__Spi ce_Oil

I'm trying to do that one from memory and I can't remember very well. I assume I messed up a couple and don't have the poster handy...
[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited December 07, 1999).]

[Steve Clark]

Sten: That was right on. Let's add the following...
Glacier: Ivory, Oil
Tundra: Musk Ox, Furs
Grassland: Grassland (that's what it says)

There seems to be some confusion as to the appearance of a special. Does mining a grassland possibly result in a special that was not there? The pattern is 3 up, 1 over but in clusters depending on seeding (thinking off the top of my head). So my original question still stands, if mining a grassland could result in a special, does the square have to be a grassland to begin with?

The set of units for the museum is very cool. Imagine having a warrior wandering in the tundra at the edge of the map and then coming back to a modern civ. Like finding a cavemen frozen in a glacier In all you folks collective experiences, what has been the greatest mismatch in a war against another civ? I once took out a warrior and an original settler that was stuck since the beginning of a game on an island with fighters (but that was an isolated event, not a war). If one would think about something like this realistically, it's a scary thought. Something out of science fiction.

OK, end of rambling. Need to get back to the game...

[Sten Sture]

Steve - Yes, the square has to be a grassland to begin with in order to "find" a special by mining it to a forest. If it were any other type of terrain the special would already be showing if the pattern put one there. valmont's recommendation to mess around with the map editor for a few minutes is the best way to look for the pattern and discover what changing the terrain on a special does.

Now go kick some technology butt and get to AC!

[johnmcd]

I would think you probably don't need to upgrade your units at the moment, unless you are at war or the computer regularly threatens you. I think upgrading units regulary is an incredible waste of resources. If you have walls phalanxs will do the job for some time to come. Another heretical idea/ strategy of mine is that musketeers are in fact pants. I tend to go from phalanx to alpine troops or riflemen to mech inf. I don't see the point in any of the others if your pursuing an AC route. I expect Sten will have other ideas though . You would do better to spend those shields on universities and banks. Mind you a crusader per frontier can make an extremely powerful aggressive defense for this time in the game.
[This message has been edited by johnmcd (edited December 07, 1999).]

[Sten Sture]

(find a way to disagree with johnmcd... )

I am ambivalent about upgrading to muskets, the only negative to me is losing a 20 shield option for rushbuilding. Same thing applies to losing the warrior option with feudalism, but overall the musket doesn't hurt that much; true you want to get them to alpines, but stopping at musketeers first doesn't bother me. If you have walls your defenses (with some counterattacking 2 movement units) should be solid up to metalurgy. Not having engineers is a problem, I would worry about that more.

[johnmcd]

I think the greatest length I went to to get a unit for a museum (a warrior) was to build a city two tiles form Kyoto (the last Japanese city) and make it my capital, once I had discovered Kyoto was the home of a warrior and a phalanx. The warrior took my undefended capital, but he went home went home with my brunette.

It was also in this game I had the greatest difference in tech. I launced my spaceship in the late 19thC, the same turn as the Mongols invented writing! I do like negative percentages…
Read Lycidius's posts on the mismatch of armies here, really, do its the funniest post I've seen.
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/000865.html
sadly he seems to have stopped posting
[This message has been edited by johnmcd (edited December 08, 1999).]