Strategy Notes From Vel - The Early Game....

[BelGarion]

This is an awesome thread!!! I've gotten a LOT of good ideas from here.

Right now I'm playing the Aztecs and I have the Iroquois to the north of me. At the beginning of the game I let some of his settlers in my ring of cities. I figured I'd just absorb them and it would speed up my development to let him do all the work. I did pick up a few of these cities but instead I got a few English cities that were on two islands outside the continent!! My boundaries weren't even touching them. My capitol was closer to them than the English capitol, though, and I had more culture.

Jump ahead to the modern era and two Iroquois cities still haven't defected yet! I totally surround them but they are linked to his capitol by harbors. I decided to relocate my palace to another city that was about 4 squares closer to them. In two turns they both defected and in four more turns another of his cities on my border defected!!!!!!!

Where the palace is located makes a big difference. My question to the group is does the forbidden palace have the same affect on defections??

[Velociryx]

Hey guys, and g'morning! Lots to comment on, and then, lots of cool news to talk about re: my latest game, so I'll just take it from the top and go from there!

Sorry Soren....my first save was in something like 1160AD....ahhh, but how far back to the Autosaves go? If they go back far enough, I might be able to pull it from there! And after checking on it, our borders were definitely touching....the American city in question (New Orleans) was only about 8 tiles from Paris, 12 or so from Washington, and 14-15 from Athens. Soon as my borders brushed up against it...poof! They rolled over! (And hey hey! Thank you for the compliment re: Culture Kudzu/Capitol Relocation.... )

Will hit the Autosave feature this evening when I get home and see if I can pull up some screenies.

And as to the game in progress....

I didn't finish it, but I have what I'd call a commanding lead at this point. Here's how things have shaken out thus far:

Once I began pulling slightly ahead in the tech lead, I also began keeping techs I considered crucial (Sanitation, the one that gives you the Theory of Evolution, etc.) to myself. Since my entire military consisted of 17 Warriors and a pair of scrappy Spearmen, if another Civ outright demanded a tech, I'd give it up, and then whore it around to everyone else immediately to see how much they'd give me for it....got some truly GREAT deals out of folks, too! Lots of luxuries, tons of spare cash for rush building infrastructure...good stuff!

For centuries, I sat back, was a good little researcher...gettin' tech, building infrastructure, improving the land....life in France was good. True, we weren't the biggest or most powerful nation on Earth, but we were using bleeding edge technology, mastering the secrets of stuff like building hospitals and rail lines some hundred-odd years before the next nearest competitor.

The land was heinously productive. Cities grew and sprawled out to Metropolis-size....and we were awesome.

Till the Germans attacked.



Aack! I was petrified when two Swordsmen and three Cavalry offloaded on my mainland, and a similar force put ashore at fair New Orleans! We had no army! (I never did get around to building that Musketeer I was working on....a new Wonder came up an' I got kinna distracted....)

I had been building factories everywhere, and the IronWorks in Paris (which is very handy, btw, if you happen to get both coal and iron in the radius of the same city!), and so reluctantly switched away from that in about a third of my cities and began rushing modern Infantry to completion.

Tours (the city closest to the attackers) got the benefits of the largest garrison force we had ever created....three...count them....THREE stone age Warriors!

And we prayed....rushing in an Infantry division in Tours.

On the German turn, they attacked and sacked New Orleans on the Greek sub-continent, and then tried their luck in Tours.

We lost one Warrior, and the fearsome Germans lost all but one Swordsman on the attack (which our Infantry made *very* short work of on our turn!)

So...the war went very much in our favor in the earliest days....losing a city that we'd gained "for free" and destroying the German invasion force of our mainland.

Not a bad day's work, but...since the other nations were now industrializing, I saw that it was time to pause in our relentless drive toward a sterling infrastructure, and see to our defense.

Germany had signed agreements with the Americans, and so we were unable to persuade our long-standing allies into the fight against them with us. So...we turned to the rest of the world, granting technological and luxury item boons to whomever would join us in the fight against Germany.

As it turned out, *everyone* (aside from the Americans) joined us against Germany and suddenly they had their hands QUITE full. In fact, we never saw another invasion force from them. ::shrug:: so much for our first war.

Still, with a full-on World War raging all around us, and with us still technically at war with the Germans, I figured now was a really good time to bulk up on the defenses.

And that we did.

Our nineteen outdated garrisons were scrapped and replaced with 20 Divisions of Modern Infantry. Each city got one, and our two-tile, fortified border with the Americans got a total of three divisions for their fort.

I really wanted tanks, but my mighty nation lacked oil. We had about everything else and I was sorely tempted to go wrest a city from England or even tangle with America (both of those nations had a single oil field), but no...the answer lay in Germany, who had three massive oil fields.

So...I called up the Chancellor, made peace with him (and actually got 100g, in addition to the treaty!), then promptly hit him up for an oil deal.

We came to an agreement, and I was suddenly in business!

By this time, having modernized our military, all of my cities had gotten back to the business of infrastructure, and were rapidly completing everything it made sense to build (I am running sans police stations, and have yet to feel the effects of war weariness, even tho I've been at war--at least nominally--with one nation or another for nearly a hundred years!), and so as cities would complete their infrastructure, we set them to building tanks.

Lots of tanks.

The borders of France are thus:

With the Americans, we share a tiny landbridge to the West. A one tile, fortified choke point on their side of the border, expanding to two tiles on my side. All three tiles are fortified, but we've never had any trouble from them.

To the East, we've a wide (12-14 tile) open (largely grassland) border with the Russians.

And to the south east (the "finger" territories) we've a five tile border with the Russians.

The "finger border" got five forts, and tanks to staff them, and against our longish Russian border, we dropped "the rest" of our tanks....twenty-odd and growing.

Suddenly, our power bar began spiking nicely.

But France was not (and saw no real need to be) a naval power. Still, a small, servicable navy was desirable, and so orders were made for a total of four battleships, and two transports to help us throw our weight around if we needed to.

OH! And I gotta tell you....after the Germans sparked off the first World War, nobody would ever quit!! At one point, I found myself at war with everyone but my continental neighbors for various reasons. ::sigh::

In any case, with all the fighting going on, everybody declaring war on everyone else, there sure weren't a lot of cities changing hands.

New Orleans did tho....

The Greeks took it from Germany, the Americans took it from the Greeks, and then I re-absorbed it culturally, all in the span of about sixty years. It made my head spin, but in the end, Germany's war with me was a total push, since I wound up in posession of New Orleans....lol

Anyway, the Greeks got uppity with me and declared war as a part of a trade embargo thing with India vs. me. I forget now even why they did so....there was simply too much war to keep track of who was fighting who and for what reason. Talk about entangling alliances! Sheesh.

So....the Greeks came back in and ransacked New Orleans, and I'd had about enough of all that.

By this time, we were cranking out bombers and mechanized infantry, had sleek-looking modern cities, while everyone else was still stumbling around in the middle of the industrial tech tree.

Sweet.

In response to Greek agression, I loaded up a transport with six tanks and two mechanized infantry and made for a smallish island that the Greeks had colonized with two towns. It was something of a middle point between the port I was using as my naval base and the lower portion of the Greek sub-continent, and
taking it would expose Athens to a quick strike from my tank divisions. Double sweet. They take New Orleans, I ransack Athens....I can live with that.

At about this time too, I discerned my ultimate course of action.

The plan evolved into this:

1) Take the small Greek Isle and use it as an airbase and way-point for further operations.

2) Gain a right of passage with the Rus. Since I have the border sealed, it will only work to my advantage.

3) position forces near all Russian "finger towns," then declare war, ending the fight in a single turn with the capture (hopefully) of all their towns in the "finger zone."

4) Continue to blast the Greeks. The goal here is not to anhilate them, but to resettle them in former Russian cities.

5) When I have the Greeks down to their last city on their starting continent, make peace and offer them two Russian cities as part of that peace. The very next turn, re-declare war, and take the last Greek city. Capitol relocates to one of the Russian cities, and I secure the Greek continent as my playground.

Thus far, I've left the Rus alone. I wanna wait until I get closer to completing the first leg of my campaign vs. the Greeks before DoW-ing the Rus, but thus far, it's worked flawlessly.

The little island was overrun in a single turn, and now sports a pair of Mechanized Infantry divisions as defense.

The transport made another run home to pick up 4 more tanks and 4 more Mech-Inf, which landed on the Greek mainland and ransaked Athens.

That's when I had to quit for the night, but the next step will be to head to the lil' Greek island to pick up the attack force there (now that the damaged elements have healed back up!), and add them to the Greek sub-continent.

We lost one unit laying seige to the Greek capitol, and if that average holds, we'll be just fine....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

More commenting all around....

The other post was starting to get a little longish...lol

Vmxa1: Describe your game, bud....what are you doing?? Perhaps we can offer up some ideas.

Enigma: Sounds like our playstyles are developing pretty similarly. If there's a target of opportunity in the early game, I'm certainly not above takin' him/her out of my misery....::evil grin:: And I *totally* agree with you re: the more universally hybrid stance. I got lucky in the game described above....but it could have easily gone the other way. Thus, I *need* to train myself to think more in terms of building a viable military....something I am not in the habit of doing past the ancient era (and then only if there's someone I can bust early).

D4Everman: The corruption on the Greek continent will be ferocious! In truth, I don't want it for the productivity tho....I mostly want it for culture absorption and score....However, I may consider relocating my capitol in light of these new acquisitions.....still, even if I leave everything just as it is, I intend to mostly support the new territories from Paris and surrounding cities, and build "units of convenience" in Greece proper.

Remconius: 26 pages!? That's all I've written so far?! LOL....I gotta get cracking! The SMAX guide was nearly 300 pages! Ahhh, and as to a website....I *do* have one, but it's not related to our favorite games....it's http://www.angelfire.com/sc2/hartpence if you're curious....

As to collecting all this information....eventually, the best of the essays here, sharpened by discussion and debate, will be gathered up and put into book form, much like the SMAX guide....which I think will rock! ::fingers crossed::

Stiel: That's an excellent plan, and you make a really great point! Sometimes, instead of chasing down individual resources and destroying the road to them, it's easier just to isolate the capitol....*awesome* idea! Especially if it is in easy striking distance! (and in the case of the Rus, it certainly is!).

Belgarion: Thanks guy! Oh...I know that many of these strats and ideas are still in their formative stages, and that over time, they'll undergo a number of changes and revisions, but....it's a solid start I think! (and congrats on using Culture Kudzu to grow your empire! I considered doing that vs. the Rus in my own game....with the silly levels of production I have at this point, it wouldn't take long to bounce the capitol back and forth, but....I dunno...I kinna like moving my little tanks around....and this will prolly be the only warring I do the whole game, sooooo.....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Vulture Culture
(...or...getting the most out of Despotism)

I guess as the title indicates, I *really* like the whole cultural aspect of the game....but in truth, this idea can be used to help speed your way to military dominance too.

Essentially all you need is the following:

Some towns, preferably with good food production

The tech to build Grainaries

And it'd be useful if you were either a Scientific or Religous Civ, tho not an outright requirement.

The plan is simply this:
Instead of building Temples first, build Grainaries to speed total population growth (sacrificing population in order to speed in the granaries).

With the faster "bounce time" you'll see once the Granaries are in place, you'll be able to essentially double the speed at which you can rush your temples and libraries.

OTOH, if you just secured a source of iron and wanna bulk up on Swordsmen....

Benefits: Bar none, the fastest way to grow your empire and build all those early advances.

Religious Civs, with their *extremely* limited exposure to Anarchy will see *enormous* benefits to occasionally running periods of Despotism in order to rush in specific infrastructural elements.

Also the fastest way imaginable to build a sold ancient era army.



-=Vel=-
(decided to name it Vulture Culture, both cos it's the name of an old Alan Parsons Project song, and because I thought the image fit...lol)

[Velociryx]

Btw...I'm curious to know where everybody else is on the topic of makin' war:

If I'm going to war, I much prefer to do so in the ancient era, or the modern.

I find that things are changing so fast, and becoming obsolete so quickly during the middle ages and industrial period that I *despise* producing military units during those times (though I have to admit, the graphics are really cool.....

Opinions??



-=Vel=-

[vmxa1]

Thanks for the interest and help. In general I have started my original worker off in a search for huts/villages and exposing the map. I start right off with a unit (warrior or whatever I have) and send them out. I then either make another unit or a settler, third will be a unit if 2nd was a settler. I try to keep making units and toss in a wall, temple, barracks in the capitol. The next city makes a unit and I try to keep the pop low and expanding. I like to put facilities in cities, and this may be a mistake. On a tiny map, it does not take long to start being attacked and the AI shows up with numbers. I rarely have more than two units on defence. It does not seem to matter that I have vets or even elite troops. My archer or spearmen often lose to their warrior(s) (last one was forted in a city with walls?). The first game was on a standard map and I was able to get lots of cities going and take over thiers on my land mass (except one). This game end at 2050 and I was second (close), but the global warming was destorying things, grasslands going to crap, etc. I was no where near doing any spaceship. I suspect that I should have switched one or more cities to making troops to attack. I know that 4x games require you to get the most cities/stars/planets whatever to get the lead. It is best to be the tech leader as well. I say again, it seems to me that easy should be just that. No way to lose unless you are brain dead. This is far from that. Since they have so many levels of difficulty, it should be possible to have easy for all to win. I have tried many types of civs to find out if IND, Sci, Religous or what combo are best. Four days of 15-16 hours each and is it frustrasting. I wonder how well this will fly with new people to Civ?

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Btw...I'm curious to know where everybody else is on the topic of makin' war:

If I'm going to war, I much prefer to do so in the ancient era, or the modern.

I find that things are changing so fast, and becoming obsolete so quickly during the middle ages and industrial period that I *despise* producing military units during those times (though I have to admit, the graphics are really cool.....

I'm right there with you. Eventually I'm gonna create a scenario and build all the industrial and middle age units so that I can play it finally get a chance to see all their animations, being that my play style is similar, fight early or fight late. In between there's too much flux and hassle to keep things upgraded and coordinated.

Oh yeah and I find that the middle ages and especially industrial eras are slanted towards defensive units, making war tough to wage until tanks arrive.

[Velociryx]

Hey man! Good information, and I have some ideas that might help.

First, there's talk from Firaxis that the corruption levels on tiny maps is off. That being the case, I'd play at least normal sized maps.

That worker you've got out exploring....I'd keep him closer to home and use him to build roads around your starting city. Also, if your first city is founded on or near a flood plain with a wheat stalk, or if you've got livestock in your production radius, go ahead and irrigate that tile, cos you'll still get +1 food, even under Despotism (IIRC....but nothing else will net you any benefit, cept for roads, which give you coins...cash and research!)

You want at least two good food producing cities in the early game to run your expansion from, and with those, don't build anything but settlers (breaking it up with Warriors if you need to give the city a little more time to grow!).

As soon as you get two good food cities up and running, start thinking in terms of settling a city near some luxury resources, and two additional cities near forests so you can get decent mineral production in the early game.

Your worker will be mostly building roads to interconnect all your towns, and when he connects to the luxuries, you get a happiness kick! (Very important....like a free temple-on-steroids!)

Once you get this basic setup, use the "Luxury City" to make alternating workers/city improvements, use your two food towns to make settlers till you're out of room to expand, one of your forest cities can start on a wonder, and the other one can begin building an army for you (again, mixing military units with infrastructure builds).

With that basic setup, you can keep pace with the AI in the Ancient era, probably snag yourself a wonder (maybe two...the AI generally delays building colossus, great lighthouse, etc...the ones that require a coastal town to build....take advantage of that!)

Capitol/Forbidden Palace placement on a standard sized map:

Under the following grid layout, you'll find your empire to be VERY productive!!!

Key:
F = Forbidden Palace
P = Palace
_ = Nothing (space marker)
0 = City

0____0____0____0____0
0____0____0____0____0
0____F____0____P____0
0____0____0____0____0
0____0____0____0____0

Note that with that general layout (adjusted for terrain) *everything* winds up being pretty close to your capitol/forbidden palace.

As you continue expansion (imagine adding another column of 0's to the right side of the above), simply scoot your palace over a bit to adjust). Piece of cake. Minimal corruption.

-=Vel=-
PS: If you're curious, there are four space markers between each 0....and I tend to keep with that as much as possible...spacing my cities four tiles apart....

[Velociryx]

Serapis! Glad to see your name here! And please lemme know when you get the scenario made! I'd love to play it!!!

-=Vel=-

[D4everman]

Vel, you asked about making war in the ancient or modern era....I'd say if you really want to fight and win and not lose a lot of units and improvements, go for ancient.

I tried a little experiment last night. I was really tired and I was getting ready to quit the game for an evening so I saved it.....I'm going for a space victory so my Greek Democracy is a powerful but peaceful nation. But I wanted to see what the romans, my neighbors, would do if i declared war. Heck, I'd already saved it. I had a lot of tanks, bombers and mech infantry in my border cities...and 2 armies to boot. all there in case the romans got uppity. I attacked them and found out the AI in Civ3 isn't stupid like the AI in Civ2.

For one, the AI won't throw units at you in a hopeless manner. Some of my mech infantry were fortified on a string of mountains at the border. The romans bypassed them and attacked other units that weren't "dug in". The AI uses air power to cripple your cities. The romans didn't bomb my units at the gates of their cities...they bombed the improvements of my cities and then used my rail system to ship their tanks to gates! Yeah, they took some potshots at my units in their territory to weaken them, but thats what they did...weaken them, so that those units would get killed trying to take a city....or be next to helpless next turn when they got reinforcements into the fray.

In the ancient era no one has air power. So the AI has to move troops into your territory to destroy improvements. and your cities aren't likely to be huge so losing some improvements won't be too bad...(unless your really struggling with resources) but in the modern Era the AI's destruction of irrigation and mines can cause havoc in a large city. People start starving fast. Production takes a nose dive. Workers get captured before they can repair the damage.

The only way I can see a modern war being any good (in my favor at least) is if it doesn't take place on my Continent. Theres only so many units the AI can shuttle with transports (and also for the player) The AI can't cause as much damage unless the human player just didn't bother to prepare for a coastal invasion. In my next game though I'm going to try to make sure that my borders are more secure. The romans got in too easily after my blitz attack. I think i could have beaten them if I wanted to fight it out ( toldja I saved the game before I started the war...it was just an experiment) but then I would have lost the game. The war would divert too much of my attention and resources away from the spaceflight and the french who are really close in this race would overtake me.

[vmxa1]

Vel, do you automate the workers or not? I have seen a few things they do that seem less than optimal, but I am not sure I want the extra work.
What maps do you select? I have tried many, but mainly, Pangaea. low water, normal climate, age 5B, barbs roaming or village (sissy). I have not manged to get enough land to try the grid you suggest, but maybe with a large map I can. If you try to get by with out a defender in the city for long the AI will grap it, won't it? Maybe that is not an issue for awhile on a larger map. I think some of the things that work such as FP and lux are not easy to do in a smaller map. The AI is always coming in with settlers and troops. If you are on a bigger map you may have enough time to get there. What settings do you use and what is the switch points? I normally try to keep my science up as high as I can. The lux sliders does not seem to make a big impact, especially after the first bump (10% ). I have moved to 20% and no one got happier. I think lux items would be better for this? Perhaps not building some of the improvemnets would be a boost to keep pollution down? The guide is not definitive about what they really do, mainly just a generic helps with statemnet, instead of +x or -y to one thing or another. It makes choosing what to do a guessing game. The other item that seems whack is the leaders, I have yet to get one. I had many elite troops win many fights, but none made leader. I guess it is due to being on Cheiftain.

[Drago Sinio]

Vel: I had a large Naval battle against the Germans in my current game. My Navy was 2 carriers, 1 battleship, and a buncha destroyers and ironclads. I had the ironclads sitting at strategic points so I could see the German navy coming, and I used the Destroyers, to well, destroy the enemy fleet. For some reason the Germans kept building frigates, which my destroyers sunk like rowboats. I think maybe they lacked oil or rubber to build the destroyers themselves.

Anyway once I had sunk most of the German Navy, I moved the carriers into range of Berlin, protected by the Battleship, and bombed it down to size 5. Those bombers are vicious, they just totally wreck the place, destroying improvements and reducing population at almost every strike. Especially when you attack with 8 bombers at once. Anyway I wanted to reduce the population since according to the manual cities larger than size 6 get a defense bonus. Then I sent in two transports, the first with a wave of cavalry, the second with infantry. (This was before I had tanks). They were more than enough to take Berlin after the pounding the Naval Aviators had given it.

Anyway my point is that a carrier or two full of bombers is a very potent weapon. I really like the way the CIV3 Military units complement each other. The bombers alone can do damage, as can the ground troops and Destroyers . But combined, they are just DEVASTATING.

Also they work with the War weariness concept, a short deadly attack works much better than a long drawn out siege.

Here is something humourous: I was moving a privateer back to one of my bases to disband it, and it was stacked with a battleship. A french frigate comes by, I was at peace with the french. The french frigate decides to attack the privateer, but it got a surprise. The battleship defended against the frigate, sinking it. The privateer sat there unharmed. LOL . Didnt cause a war or anything.
So you could if you wanted to , leave some privateers stacked with a battleship outside a busy port, and raid their merchant shipping without causing a war. Problem is the AI always seems to stack a Frigate or Ironclad with their weaker ships.

[Velociryx]

Hey guys! Just back from lunch! D4...I definitely see what you mean about the perils of modern warfare, and I would tend to agree....keeping those battles to the other guy's turf (and especially on another continent) is the way to go. Before I start even thinking in terms of offense, I make sure (in the modern era) that I've got the obvious counter-invasion routes covered, defensively (as per my post re: the France game, with all my borders securely guarded. At this point in the game, with so much money coming in, it's easy to build a horde of units, set the bulk of them on defensive terrain, and then bulk up a few high quality attack forces to probe forward....er...at least that's my plan....

Vmxa1 - I have been doing all my test games so far on average worlds all around (the default map settings), Regent level, though after the conclusion of this game, I think I'm going to step it up to the level just below Diety to see how that feels.

As to the Luxury setting on the Advisor screen....I've never used it, and per my France post, I'm running a Democracy and have been in an almost constant state of war for 100+ years....have yet to suffer any consequences because of it.

This is partly attributable to the fact that I ADORE the notion of culture, and whether a city can afford it or not, they wind up getting ALL of the culture boosting builds (temple, library, univerity, cathedral, etc.).....so I tend to have insanely happy people. On a standard sized map, I tend to send my settlers out solo for speed. True, there's a risk, but I also have a number of warriors out scouting, and I can (unless it's barbarian cav) generally run like hell and meet up with one of my warrior-scouts if I see a barbarian. Also, keep in mind that I'm using my worker to pre-build roads out to new city sites, so if there's a barbarian comin', I can just scamper back to the city that spawned the settler and wait till he gets taken out by friendly forces.

Luxury items: Absolutely awesome! And of course, the more variety and different kinds you can get, the better off you'll be! ASAP you want to connect one of a given luxury type to your developing road network (and make sure that it's a lux. item that's inside your borders else it won't do you any good), and once connected, its "happiness effects" are applied to every city connected via road back to your capitol! The importance of this in the very early game simply cannot be understated, cos you don't want to have to stop to build temples in your "settlement bases" (the ones that grow quickly and are most at risk to disorder). Solutions to keeping the peace there include staffing more troops, and tying in luxury items to your road network. Between these two solutions, you can forestall building temples at your biggest food producing bases till you run out of room to expand.

In marginal food producing cities (say, a city that has "normal" grassland (no bonus stuff) and/or a forest tile with game in it, you'll wanna build graneries asap....in this way, you'll be able to use them to crank out a steady supply of settlers from there as well (and the graneries will be constructed pretty quickly too, thanks to the shield boon from forests).

This brings up an interesting point about geography and your startingn position.

If you have the misfortune to start on the tip of a peninsula, you're going to find yourself facing a steep uphill climb simply because you'll have no choice but to found cities well away from your capitol, and this will make an early game capitol relocation a necessity to get the empire productive....THAT can be painful!

Likewise, if you found your capitol and find later that you're near a vast stretch of desert and have to "skip over it" to found a number of cities, you're screwed, productivity-wise in the early game, until you can centralize the location of your palace in relation to the cities that make up your empire. The implications of this are staggering, as it will force you to remain under despotism far longer than you'd perhaps care to (in order to keep the productivity at fringe cities up by killing citizens to rush infrastructure and units), and force you into the position of making your "first wonder" to relocate your palace. This is a simply monumental task in the early game, but one which you MUST accomplish before you leave the ancient era if you wish to set yourself up for a good mid-game. As with the Civs of our Earth's history....location might not be everything, but it's a damn lot!

Closing notes:
Build as much stuff under Despotism as you can, and before you switch out, make sure that all your cities have graneries!!! You can rush them with pop first, and then "bounce" more quickly when building everything else! You'll also note that your culture takes a nice surge ahead in this way....

-=Vel=-
PS: Never automate anything, unless it's to set the path back home of some of your scouting warriors, and not even then if you'll pass near rival borders. Okay, okay....so automate units shifting from one city to another inside your borders, but beyond that.....

[Zurai001]

About war in the ancient and modern eras... Personally, unless I'm Persia or have an early horse resource, I find war in the ancient era pointless. Spearmen fortified in a city have a defense that's hard to beat without a huge number of units, and a huge number of units is difficult to get in the ancient era.

Now, Midieval era... that's a different story. Knights roll all over the opposition, and later on Cavalry are even better. Then in the Industrial era, you get infantry and later on Tanks... I rarely wage war in the modern era, simply because by that point I'm all warred-out.

[pchang]

I don't mind building knights, catapults and pikemen. This is because catapults upgrade up the line all the way to radar artillery, pikemen upgrade all the way up to mech infantry, and knights upgrade to at least cavalry (do they upgrade to tanks? I think so, but I'm not sure cause I'm usually way ahead before I get to tanks so I quit and start another game).

[Velociryx]

LOL! Drago...that's an awesome observation about Privateers! Perehaps they're not so broken after all then! Very cool! I didn't even see your post til just now man....I opened the reply thread and in the time it took me to write out my last response, you slipped a post in on me...and an excellent one at that! I know....I have a bad habit when building stuff to skip everything but the biggest and best, but I definitely see your point re: the Destroyers....will have to add a few to my slowly growing fleet!

And, I *totally* agree about the complimentary nature of units. I was a little skeptical of the abstracted use of bombers, but after making four runs at Athens while my troops were lining up for their shot (and pelting them from the battleship), I'm a believer! Athens was a wreck!

Ahhhh...damn....almost time to go home and play!

Hmmm...interesting observations about both the ancient and midieval eras....I may have to go back and give warfar in the middle ages a try then....

As to the ancient era...I've generally found it pretty easy going. Seems like my swordsmen just abuse those poor spearmen, and even my Babylonian Bowmen win more often than you'd expect for a 2 attack unit....but, maybe I've just been lucky....

-=Vel=-
PS: It's official....I decided to post a story in the Civ3 Fiction section, based on the game described here. First segment is up....

[Lohrax]

Vel - great posts! Been reading with rapt interest - keep 'em comin'!

Background - I've played every Civ there is. Used to beat Civ2 regularly on Deity - and none of that 'temporal reversion device' crap. I've played four games so far - record is 1-3. I got WORKED on Regeant/Huge/16/Raging playing the Romans. Died early trapped between the Persians and Zulus. Believe me, if you are in that position - good luck! With the Germans (same setup) I scrapped my way into the industrial era by purely political means until I ended up entangled in a rather nasty web of alliances and got royally thumped by a neighbor who back-stabbed me. With the Americans (same setup) I made it into the medieval era before encountering a rampaging Japanese horde that walked all over my resource-poor arctic tundra. I just finished Warlord/Huge/16/Raging playing the French and conquered the world about 25 turns into the Industrial era - I thought it was way too easy and the following post provides insights as to why. Next game will be Regeant/Standard/8 with the French, as that appears to be the de facto standard and I'd like to see if my supposed French bonuses extend into higher difficulty levels.

Ancient vs. Modern Warfighting
I'd have to pick ancient under Despotism (The Despotic Whip - never leave home without it!). Once you have two or three food-producing cities they crank out mobile military-worker-mobile military-worker-mobile military-worker... The workers are sent to the border cities where they augment culture-improvement production or local (slogging foot soldiers) military production. While the culture improvements in the border cities are being built, you can effectively use the population points produced by your core cities to allow a 75% military production rate (border cities alternate improvement/military/improvement/military). Once the border cities are fleshed out, you can switch to a truly disgusting 100% military production rate. If you've got a good or great unique unit you simply overpower your opponents.

Vive la France! The views are based on the above situation, so take them with a grain of salt (size of grain to be determined by the next few games). The French civ 'bonuses' are so balanced they are scary. Rather than getting an advantage in one particular era, they are spread out, but with ever-increasing effectiveness.

In the ancient era: no units, no culture (commercial really comes into it's own in the more advanced governments) except industrious workers - but wait! Industrious workers kick butt! Finishing roads faster, lumberjacking faster, improving faster, etc. And under a despostism you can force labor anything you want. As long as you have some good food-producing cities (gives a whole new meaning to the term 'baby boomers' - population units under despotism are extremely effective weapons in the War of Production) all other production capabilities are nicely augmented. With early libraries, you offset their gold investment with science benefits then that keep you in the race and, when the gold increases start rolling in, will give your research efforts a swift kick in the pants. With industrious workers roadbuilding way, way into the frontiers, settlers found border cities faster.

In the Medieval era: the Musketeer is born! An offensive/defensive unit capable of both assaulting enemy cities and defending your own. Not the most advantageous of units, it is probably the weakest unique unit compared to the other 'standard' units of its age. But now that we are into more advanced governments, the commercial advantage starts to come into its own. Can't sacrifice citizens to the alter of progress? Fine, sacrifice gold! The commerical bonus increases gold and REDUCES CORRUPTION! Of all the gripes I read about on this site, most are about corruption. Well, I don't see that as a problem with the French. Add in the FP and your corruption becomes effectively nil. This reduced corruption may even spawn a second glorious wave of expansion (if the land is empty) or heinous conquest - further cementing your position.

In the Industrial and Modern era the industrious workers, reduced corruption, and increased gold provide continued significant bonuses that only increase with time/city size/government type.

I look forward to playing the French on ever-increasing difficulty levels to see if my hypothesis holds up.

-Lohrax

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Serapis! Glad to see your name here! And please lemme know when you get the scenario made! I'd love to play it!!!

Hey there, no it's not a game scenario, just a bunch of set up fights, to check out all the animations at one time, not any challenge or anything, just an eye-candy display. Besides, the way my girlfriends nags me about using her computer and not paying attention to her, it'll be Xmas before I even finish my first Civ3 game which I'm only halfway into (after a week and half too ).

[vmxa1]

After getting into the second age, I had to automate the workers, it was hard to figure what they mite do next. My biggest complaint on that is they love make a mine, even on food item that has been irrigated. I also do not like/understand the trading bit. It seems way too one sided. I have the Romans down to two cities they are pop 1's. He ask for a trade of territory maps and I say add 1 or 2 gold and he gets upset? I have the whole island and he has never seen it, I do not even want his map and his is upset and says it is not a fair trade? This I have seen over and over they want more than it is worth and get upset if you do not deal. Os there a way to rush Wonders in Monarchy (with out leaders).

[Hastus]

One thing I havent seen much written about is the Heroic Epic Wonder. I played the Zulus on a standard map on regent difficulty and planned to wage war at the very start.
After some scouting and expansion I found out I shared a continent with two other civilizations, Germany and France.
When I had a five cities up and running I started to pump out Zulu Impi's and moved towards Germany becouse they where the one closest to me. Since The Zulu's are Militaristic I quickly gained 3 elite Impi's. I really find The Zulu's special units very good, they are a fast unit which most times will withdraw from a battle if it is going bad and they can later on be upgraded all the way to mech infantery. Anyway, from one of those elite units emerged a great leader so I used him to build a army with 3 zulu impis in since I had just taken a german town maybe 4 tiles from their capital and I wanted that one too. After my first victory with the army I was able to build Heroic Epic and did so in my Capital. My army later got slaughterd in Berlin by german forces... But I would like to forget that... Anyway moving on.
After I had built the Heroic Epic I was at peace but started a offensive against France 20 turns or so after I had built it.
I then had maybe 4 elites and from those 4 elites I gained no less than 4 Great Leaders! It all happened in a 40 turns.
After that last war with France I rushed 3 wonders, I saved one of the Great Leaders to rush the United Nations later on since I was not very liked by any civilization I did not want to lose the game becouse someone else built it. Anyway, its my first game that I have gotten 5 great leaders.
I guess it can have been alot of luck but I think the Heroic Epic had alot to do with it. So I never regreted building the Heroic Epic I can say.

[martin3393]

Hey Vel,

Where could I find your strategy guide to SMAX?

I'd enjoy looking at it!

Thanks.

Michael

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by vmxa1
After getting into the second age, I had to automate the workers, it was hard to figure what they mite do next. My biggest complaint on that is they love make a mine, even on food item that has been irrigated. I also do not like/understand the trading bit. It seems way too one sided. I have the Romans down to two cities they are pop 1's. He ask for a trade of territory maps and I say add 1 or 2 gold and he gets upset? I have the whole island and he has never seen it, I do not even want his map and his is upset and says it is not a fair trade? This I have seen over and over they want more than it is worth and get upset if you do not deal. Os there a way to rush Wonders in Monarchy (with out leaders).

1. If you use the shift-I command (recheck this in the manual, I don't use it so I might be wrong), it will automate the workers with the option that they do not replace existing improvements.

2. One reason why Rome might be upset is because he can't afford even the 1 or 2 gold. If you contact a civ with a short budget, even if it's a great tech worth 1,000s of gold per turn, if they're only pulling in 25 gold/turn and you ask for 26, you're advisor will change his tune from "They'll probably agree..."/happy face to "They'll never agree..."/angry face. Later on in the game, if you have a tech advantage going, you can sell the AI in bankruptcy to keep them poor. I'm doing that in my current game.

I'm focusing on military power for a near-future invasion, so I let America research everything, I buy techs off of them and then sell them to the other 6 civs, usually doubling my spent money. Only problem I've done it so much, that the AI can't afford any of the new techs, sometimes not even 3gold/turn. However, keeping the AI poor also has the added benefit of keeping a lot of his existing army obsolete because he can't afford to upgrade to newer units. That's how I've kept my hated Egyptian neighbors (ba$tards beat me out on Sistine and A.Smith) from upgrading a lot of their chariots.

3. There is no other way to rush-buy wonders except for great leaders, no matter what government you use. Although you should be able to speed it up using wood-cutting, check out SoulAssassin's IFE (Infinite Forest Exploitation) thread.

[vmxa1]

How does culture work? I captured the roman capitol and they had a one pop town that expanded its culture and push my borders back, even though it was bordered by a 9 and 12 pop cities with all improvemnets and roads, in fact one other city close by has the FP? this occurs after losing your starting city? It is strange, anyway I am set to conquer it with force. Using the schematic shown by Vel and really pushing the settlers out has got me off to a good start for the first age. I am not sure if I should try to put together a landing force, but right ow I can not see any other land mass, except one Ilse that I did colonize. I think the light house if I am first to get it up will let me travel farther. I plan on cranking ot road all the way around the perimeter to stop and landings of settlers. I believe they need a right of passage to go onto tiles with roads?

[SerapisIV]

Capturing a city resets the culture collected in in that city. Each city's culture borders are individually calculated, so even if your cities nearby have high culture, you new city won't have any until you build the culture improvements.

Other civs don't need right of passage to go onto your tiles with roads, a right of passage gives the units the movement benefit that roads give. However if they don't have a right of passage, you (or the AI) can complain diplomatically.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by SerapisIV


1. If you use the shift-I command (recheck this in the manual, I don't use it so I might be wrong), it will automate the workers with the option that they do not replace existing improvements.

It's shift+A to automate units so that they don't replace existing improvement.

[SerapisIV]

Whoops, next time I won't quote exact commands then, I'll just point to the manual.

Any chance of a the patch including an all-inclusive shortcut FAQ Soren? There's a lot of hidden shift-right click-ctrl type stuff thats hidden in the game and would make like a little easier for us.

grumbles under his breath that it should've been included in the LE box on the index card claiming to be a "tech poster." Damn publishers.

[byped]

Hey, just posting my thoughts on war in the different eras.

Ancient- One word: PERSIANS. The persians have become without a doubt my favorite race simply for the ability of immortals to dominate the ancient world. Nothing can really stop them defense wise untill musketeers come into the picture. Because of this it makes it much easier to set up and protect your borders around an optimal chunk of land early on. Which is really important facing the new expansion-prone AI. Not just that, but in general war is easier because nobody has established mutual defense pacts or the like, making beginning and ending wars just about painless. Being under despotism/monarchy doesn't hurt either.

Mideval- As people have pointed out, war gets messy at this point as the defensive units become much more potent than the offensive ones. Even calvalry aren't effective enough against their defensive counterpart: the musketman, to make a large-scale offensive campaign viable. If I absolutely have to make war in this period, cannons become really important to offset the offensive/defensive imbalance.

Industrial- The early industrial period doesn't differ much from the early industrial, short of rifleman entering the picture, making the offensive/defensive problem even worse. But at the later part we see two additions that change this fast. Tanks and Bombers. With tanks, nobody can stop you defensively untill into the modern era, and bombers provide a much more effective solution for bombardment than artilllery IMHO. In my first few games I've spend the mideval-early industrial period positioning myself ready to make a dramatic strike to get land or a resource I've been wanting once I get these offensive units. It's usually never worth the risk attacking someone I share a border with, so I try to find targets that are ideally on another continent, or at least buffered by a friendly civ.

Modern- At this point I'm usually too preocupied with getting towards a cultural or space-ship endgame to make war worthwhile. And by this time things have usually settled down. One thing I'd be worried about was how often the AI used nukes, or even ICBMs, anyone have experience with this?

[madmario]

Temples are available well before libraries, so this helps immensely with the early came and cultire lockdown. Also, temples are already cheap, so this is a cheap culture grap. 12 price cathedrals is super snazzy, especially with the Sistine Chapel (OMG).

The UU isn't so bad. I like to delay the golden age as long as I can, but still, it is a two move unit (super useful) and is pretty cheap and is available very very early. Plus, it looks snappy. It also upgrades all the way to cavalry.

Immprtals are nice, but they only have a move of 1, and do not upgrade IIRC. attack 4 is hard to argue with, but they can be victimized by 2 move units.

Originally posted by Enigma
But doesn't Scientific seem better to you? I think that the religion bonus reduced anarchy bonus may be slightly better than the extra techs you get when you reach a new eral, but I would much rather build libraries universities and research labs. Besides science affects all 3 of these improvements, religion affects only temples and cathedrals. Science buildings seem to give me more culture than religious ones (temple 2, Library 3)...

But hey I agree with you about industrial, I am just about to undergo the industrial revolution and I can't wait to start building a rail network to connect my empire.

And as far as the Egyptian UU not being so hot... have you taken a peek at immortals

[madmario]

You can plan for it. Of course some civs are better for this than others. The planing is in the horse units (since they are the best in the early-mid game). This is one way the Iroquois can keep pace with the French. The French have a pretty crappy UU. The Iroquois have the best one in the game. France has a great combo of civ bonuses, the Iroquois have an ok mix (better on some maps to be certain).

One way to look at Middle ages warfare is to have it revolve around knights and cavalry. If you have a horse-type early UU then this is especially good since you will probably have the troops around from your early war and golden age (Iroquois, Egyptians). Have one army if possible to do some grunt work. A move of 2+ is incredibly useful. Play it safe, attack in numbers, and heal up your units. Usually there will be two defenders, sometimes three, sometimes with 5+ artilery pieces (wich will take a bite out of your units so make sure they are veteran).

Either make a monster knight force or sprint for cavalry.

Early land can be very important later on.

I like a pre industrial war -- my second win after the ancient era fun. I generally don't do much after cav go out of style (that is when riflemen start cropping up) until tanks.

Of course, utilizing the heroic epic for all its worth is a really excellent extra benefit, One game with the iroqouis I got 5 great leaders in all. I didn't realize how cool this was until my next game as the french.

-mario

Originally posted by Velociryx
Btw...I'm curious to know where everybody else is on the topic of makin' war:

If I'm going to war, I much prefer to do so in the ancient era, or the modern.

[madmario]

I Atomate with "build road/rr to there" mostly. I also use "cut all forests" and "cut all jungle" and "only clean up pollution," ut for the cutting ones I set them on a wooded area that I want them to cut (this tends to keep them in the area I want them to work). Later in the game I will use "automate, but do not work over existing improvements." You can find the shortcuts for these in the back of the manual - I find them usful...

-mario

Originally posted by vmxa1
After getting into the second age, I had to automate the workers, it was hard to figure what they mite do next.