Vel's Strategy Thread - Part Three

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Brother Vel my good man how goes it.

Been fine and have just recently aquired CIV3, as such I think I'm destined to yet another gaming addiction.

As I am coming with a fresh new look to a new game I thought I might add my two cents.

Coming from SMAC and CIV2 experiences I thought CIV3 would be a piece of cake. CIV3 appeared at first glance to be a CIV2 game with eye candy so I thought foolishly apply all CIV2 stategems and teh game should be a proverbial piece of cake, right? Wrong. CIV3 is a unique experience unto itself.

The first paradigm in old CIV2 was to find a way out of despotism ASAP to Monarchy. Now I find myself actually looking for means to postpone the switch to a more advanced government until such time as I have Rex'd and built rudimentary infrastructure. No longer is a beeline to Monarchy a smart tech tree move. Usually my first governmental change happen whilst I'm climbing throught the middle ages. If I play a religious faction err.. civ, then I might be tempted to switch earlier and more often else the 5-8 turn anarchy penalty makes my switches as infrequent as I can manage.

Second new paradigm is the whole strategic resource thing. I love it. Denial of resources becomes such an incredibly effective tactic. I need not go into the details but it simply changes the whole game. Kudos to firaxis on this one. I only wish that for realism sake they had considered the need to have more than one iron resource to create 30+ swordsman. Having just one requisite resource(s) in your box allows an infinite amount of unit and/or rail builds. This seems a bit unrealistic. Perhaps the chance of resource depletion should be affected by number of units/rails built.

Anyway I see you've been busy as usual. Good luck and good civving.


As always

Your humble student

Og

[Velociryx]

Brother Og! Merry Christmas to you, and I'm glad to see that you're back here at 'poly! Your absence here and over at the Portal has been missed!

How's the family? Well I trust?

Ahhhh....Civ3.....yes....it has definitely kept me busy. Two principle projects in the works....the on-going strat thread, eventually leading to a Civ3 Strat Guide (despite Prima/Infogrames' shenanigans thus far!), and the Mod-proposal being discussed over in the General Section. Head that way when you get a bit, and see what you think of our ideas! (I've actually got a fledgling Civ3 Section started up at the Portal too, where the Master thread for the mod resides, as well as some of the currently raging debates on various design points).

I agree with both your points on minimizing the total number of government switches if playing a non-religious faction (lol....not to worry, I slip like that all the time! heh!), and with the no-monarchy beeline....Actually, in my games of civ3 thus far, I've never run for monarchy....skipped over it for Republic, and later on, Dem. I can see that it has its uses, but with the extreme power of pop-rushing that early infrastructure, the usefulness seems limited to me.

And, we're also of the same mind about resources. IMO, it's one of the BEST new features in the game!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Ozy: Hopefully, when the dust settles, we'll have nearly a dozen new techs, and every tech on the tree will do SOMETHING! That is one of the biggest gripes I have with the Ancient Era....these techs....these advances rest at the bedrock of our entire history....there's NO reason that I can think of to have stepping stone techs in the ancient era. Sure...some techs will do more than others, but....I dunno....with the total number of techs being a bit on the light-side, I figure we gotta make every single one count!

-=Vel=-

[Kinjiru]

Og my man, good see a few posts from you over here. We need some more old timers over here to keep Vel's head from swelling too much!

Anyways, a new post on the last thread (Vel's Strats Part Duex) got me thinking about the power of Mobilization. It hasn't been talked about too much here, and I admit, I haven't experimented too much with it myself. My first couple attempts were abject failures.

However, it seems like it might be a method to stay in a Democracy and still carry on a Limited War. I don't think it would work out too well if using an OW (Oscillating War) strat, since you would not want to stay in a wartime mobilization for too long (and you can only revert when a peace is declared), but by the time you get to Democracy, you should probably be through with that part of the game anyway (unless you are trying to use OW on a second or third continent).

Then again, it just might work out great when combining the two. It all depends on the long-term effects of using a wartime mobilization and if the effects are cumulative. If not, then you could move your pre-existing troops into place, declare war, mobilize, crank out a set of troops to meet your immediate objectives, take a few cities while cranking out a second set for use in the next war, force a peace, demobilize, spend 5 turns moving your second set of troops into position (or close to it) while rebuilding your economy a bit and then start teh next war.

The key we need to figure out is how much downtime you need between wars to let the negative effects of mobilization dissipate. And a second question is are there any hidden costs to mobilizing?

Anyone have some insights to share on this topic?

**************************
Edited to correct some appalling grammatical errors...

[Cookie Monster]

Hi all,

Has anyone checked out the "War Academy" section of Civ3 on www.civfanatics.com? Here are a couple of zip files of some of the strat guides to be found there. Both are fairly good reads but I couldn't help but compare these guys' styles to Vel's.

Velociryxs' strat guide has a level of detail that's quite impressive. Also to be found is Vel's insight to the core game mechanics. Very interesting stuff indeed! But these other guys are ok. Check 'em out and enjoy!

[Quurgoth]

Wartime mobilization is much more complex that I thought before I clicked the button.

It is tough to hold cities taken during wartime mobilization. The inability to build culture-producing buildings means a very high likelihood of reversion to the parent culture in SHORT order. I had a size 11 city with SIX units in it revert to the Egyptians once... never again.

Solution: bomb the @$!$~#! out of any city you plan to take and hold during wartime. Make sure to maintain at least one unit per population point within the city.

WARNING: forcing peace on an opponent is tough. If they won't hear your envoy, you'll remain at wartime mobilization. My war period went on for quite awhile, at least 12 turns, during which time I took a decent number of cities, dealt with a reversion, and advanced toward the capital. 12 turns is a loooooong time for cities with high production, although I did use this to my benefit by setting a number of cites on Wealth.

[Cookie Monster]

Couldn't fit both zips onto one message so here's the other one.

[pchang]

Mobilization while in democracy seems to increase the rate of war weariness. I use it only when I am in a democracry, being attacked, and have not built up a sufficient military to defend myself. Basically, if you have to use mobilization, you have messed up somewhere.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Kinjy,

How the heck are ya? Man it almost seems as if we have a reunion going on.

I had a few bad experiences so far with mobilization. My first was that I blindly checked the mobilizationbox and wondered why the heck I couldn't build anymore cathedrals and/or universities (teach me not to read the manual) Then I futilely tried to move back to normalcy only to find I couldn't b/c I was still at war. Then the darn AI wouldn't come to the bargaining table. As a consequence the war I was prosecuting was a intercontinental one and I lost almost every city I had worked so hard to capture to reversion b/c I couldn't rush in culture facilities. Talk about frustrating.

Ahh well so goes the learning process. Been great fun so far. Good to see some familiar faces other than the omnipresent Vel (No offense Vel)


Good Civving,

Og

[Arrian]

I think mobilization can be useful only in specific situations. Like pchang says, generally it is a last resort, and means you're in serious trouble. One situation where it could be useful is this:

You are economically strong and scientifically advanced, but have a small army. You intend to fight a major war, or see one on the horizon. There is a small, weak civ nearby that could be wiped out quickly (say less than 5 turns total). Mobilize while still at peace, and build up a massive army. Hit the weak neighbor, wiping them out (thus re-entering peace) and de-mobilize. Now you have a strong army and a few new cities. You can now fight conventionally.

-Arrian

[Skanky Burns]

I've found mobilization useful in certain circumstances. In one game i was playing as the peaceful builder, and all my cities had every improvement. However, the Greeks decided that dominating the world was a good idea. Due to a lack of saltpeter, i couldnt go on the offensive, and was playing a defensive war for some time. Bombarding the invading infantry with artillery, and attacking with the infantry i was building. Not mobilized yet.

Then i discovered tanks. Finally. As i had no offensive units, I mobilized, and was pumping them out like there was no tomorrow. Easily blitzed through the Persians, and didn't have trouble holding their cities as they were small due to conscription. Also as i had been a builder most of the game, my cultural total was higher than any other civ's.

After defeating most of Persia, i made peace with them (and got 2 far-away cities i couldn't be bothered capturing). Then i began invading the monolith that was Greece, 3 times the size of my empire. I soon discovered that i wasnt mobilized anymore, and had to go back to it. About half-way through the invasion of Greece, i made peace with some other civ, and then started building cultural improvements in my newest cities.

I find mobilization useful when you have strong culture, very built-up cities but a smaller than needed military.

[David Weldon]

I don't find mobilization useful even in the situations that Skanky and others have described. I expect that those are about the only situations in which it _could_ be useful, but I much prefer to use mercenaries. I also tend to have perfectionist cities with a very small military, but as soon as I need to fight (or as soon as I have an military tech edge, regardless of whether a fight is really _necessary_) I spend a turn or two without any science research, and then buy all the units I could ever hope to use. The gold/shield rate in the late game is so out of whack that I have been able to buy 10 tanks or so in the first turn they're available (if you have some prod. started to avoid the double cost penalty for brand new units). This was on a standard map with only about 25 total cities.

I prefer giving up some science to mobilizing for a number of reasons. First, I normally have the tech lead anyway, and if I just got the enabling military tech I wanted then I can easily afford to slow down a little. Second, I don't suffer any unhappiness or extra war-weariness effects. Third, I'm able to continue rushing city improvements in the cities that aren't completely perfect yet. Fourth, I'm able to rush culture into newly captured border towns. Fifth, I can rush harbors into new overseas cities. Sixth, I can rush new military into frontier cities or overseas cities that may not have railway connections. Seventh, I find that my core towns can produce tanks or bombers or infantry in two turns anyway, and mobilizing doesn't reduce that to one turn, so what's the point?

I've never been so bad off that I had to use it, and I've always found gold to be better than additional production for producing military units. Of course in a real pinch you could do both, but I don't like to give up the non-military production if I don't need to.

[vmxa1]

Ok all of you who are using the patch, why does a city go to civil disorder and then you look and see no unhappy citizens? Nex turn things go to normal? I figure it is war, but I have no indications.
Another point that irks me is the AI civs showing furious with me and then asking for trades. Why would they expect to do business with someone and show a furious attitude? Would it not make sense to be at least polite first? I am talking about times when they are far below you in status. I always refuse to deal with them if they are furious, what do I care what they want.

[Aeson]

Are you using governers to manage your population's mood? If so, its still possible for a city to go into disorder under some conditions. The governer will instantly switch the offending workers to specialists before you can see the unhappy people who were causing the disorder.

[Aeson]

I like using mobilization! When I go to war, it's all the way Every city is either building military to destroy the enemy, or settlers to claim territory in their wake. I like razing cities, so no need to rush cultural improvements. My last game I was able to go from almost no military, to a huge force that wiped out the rest of the world in less than 20 turns (well over 100 AI cities). Would have taken me half again as long to do without mobilization.

[vmxa1]

I just checked and some things were enabled for the governor, so I turned everything off.

[Adam Wallock]

David-

Yes, but what difficulty are you playing at? Clearly if you have a lead in tech and gold and a superior infrastructure Mobilization is less useful. But consider a scenario in which you have been behind for some time but feel that a limited scale war would really help you jockey for position. I recognize that you acknowledged a possibility of usefulness in your post, but I would go so far as to say that Mobilization can be VERY useful under the right circumstances.

Just my two cents.

[Arrian]

Ok, this is off-topic, but I wanted to see what you all think.

I just don't have the patience for a domination victory (let alone conquest!). In my last several games, I have been extremely powerful, and have fought modern wars, but after a while I just get bored and build the planetary party lounge. The fact is, if I wanted to conquer the world, or the 66% required for domination, I could - EASILY. But it does, eventually, get tedious.

Last night I was going to try for domination (but sure enough I had built all the SS parts but the lounge). I had the vast majority of the large continent under my control (42 cities, maybe more, I forget), and then proceeded to cross the ocean and wipe out Germany (11 cities on a small-medium island continent). This accomplished, I could easily have continued on to Russia (no tanks), which was near to Germany on another island with probably 14 cities. That would leave only China and France. China was still in the industrial age, and had received its last 7 techs as gifts from me. France had mech inf and had built the manhattan project - hmm... beware of dog (they were on another island, 12-15 cities, roughly, and did have uranium). So, I figure wiping out china and russia would have been easy and would have given me more than 66% of the land. The powergraph was silly - I was more powerful than everyone else combined.

But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It would have just been tedious. So I built the lounge and blasted off.

Anyone else feel this way? By the way, I don't think corruption has anything to do with my sense of boredom with conquest.

-Arrian

[JohnE]

It's been a long time since I played Magic, but I definitely engaged in the metagame as you describe it. I often built decks with colors in opposition to one another, to draw from their strengths. I built one called Fight With Honor, for example, built around Serra Angels, Sengir Vampires, White Knights, and Black Knights. My all time favorite was Hell or High Water, because my opponent wouldn't get a creature come Hell or high water. If I couldn't counter it with blue, I would eviscerate it with red. When I got sick of the complicated decks, I resorted to We Bring Death or Die With Your Boots On. We Bring Death was a black and red deck with nothing but direct damage. Die With Your Boots On was a 110-card monster that was fast as greased lightning and spewed nothing but creature after creature.

Anyway, I guess I should say something on topic.

Perhaps I have been unable to shake habits from Civilization II, but I rarely tolerate other civilizations on my continent. I don't play pangaea games, so I often find myself on a continent big enough to support the civilization I want to build, but without much room for another civilization. Thus, oscillating war ( which should probably be called serial warfare ) doesn't work well for me: I frequently set out to destroy everything that's not me that I can reach.

The next time I find myself in a situation conducive to that strategy, I plan to give it a try. The first game I won would have been good for it, but had too much fun fighting war after war against the English with my Cossacks. I razed 42 English cities in that game! ( They kept rebuilding in places I wouldn't because corruption would have killed my productivity. )

I do have a question to run by the assortment of great minds here, though. Do you find that the soft city limit ( maximum optimal cities ) causes good land to go unused? So far, in every game I have played, some good land has either gone unused or been used with very poor productivity which would have been better used if the limit were higher. Am I seeing this because of my tendency to eliminate every civilization in reach? Do you think raising the number would improve the game overall?

[pchang]

Arrian,

Domination is tedious. Conquering the cities is not enough. You have to have the land in your cultural boundaries. That means you have to conquer, then rush build libraries/temples, then wait for the boundaries to expand.

Conquest is less tedious, if you do it early (iron age rush), otherwise conquest is also quite tedious. The later you wait, the more tedious it becomes (especially when every little island has at least 1 AI city on it).

[pchang]

JohnE
That is what Vassals are for. If you allowed those patches of unused land to be inhabited by small civs that are under your thumb, then that land will be very productive as the AI will not have any corruption. Ah, but how does that benefit you you might ask? Well, for one, you have denied those small civs luxuries and resources and they will be behind you in tech. Every 20 turns or so, you will sell them techs/luxuries/resources for all of their per turn income. This allows you to:
1) Set science at 100% and still have positive income, or
2) Rush build improvements all over the place to up your culture, or
3) Rush build units all over the place to conquer a civ that is not under your thumb

[David Weldon]

Adam:
For the record, I play standard size maps, (EDIT:anything but islands), and any difficulty level. I have won at Deity the few times I've played, but I don't find it enjoyable. The tactics which are required there and at Emperor leave almost no room for creativity or "fun". Basically, it's just a quick military rush to catch up in tech, then another one later to catch up a second time and get your civ large enough to lead in tech from then on. My biggest problem with those levels, though, is something I am discussing in another thread (Oh lord it's hard to be humble...), and that's the fact that I _hate_ starting in such a huge hole that it's impossible to get out of it peacefully. I am angry for most of the Ancient and about half the Medieval Ages because I simply have no chance of competing in any way but invasion. It feels like saying "OK, you're going to win unless you're a total bonehead, thank goodness your're stupid!". It's a personal thing, but that kind of struggle isn't enjoyable to me, so I play most of my games at Monarch.

As for being behind, that's when I put science to 0% anyway. It's much cheaper to buy other techs than to research them, and it's even more effective to buy military and capture the techs at the same time as you're expanding your civ. Why fight a losing battle in the tech wars? Once I'm in a position of dominance, only then will I spend anything on science and I'll start building and preserving a tech lead, selling non-military or non-steampower techs as soon as a second civ has learned them.

I do tend to play commercial and/or Industrious civs, so I always have perfect infrastructure and a much larger trade base than other civs. This probably makes rushbuying more viable for me than if I were playing an under-developed ****er civ... (EDIT: holy cow, w.a.n.k.e.r. got censored. I'm in shock.)

Aeson:
If you're hell bent on fighting until all opponents are wiped out, I see your point. But I tend to fight limited engagements that are only aimed at one of three things:

-Intimidation so that I can grab all their techs for peace.
-Accquisition or denial of resources (strategic or luxury).
-Crippling the opponent by razing his best/oldest cities.

In most cases I leave the enemy alive, so even though I raze and rebuild just like you do, it's still important to rush in temples and other culture so that my new outposts don't eventually defect. The sooner they get culture producers, the more culture they'll have and the more they'll resist defection. Quick culture is also important to claim territory if I'm looking for resources.

Possible Conclusion:
I guess the general difference between me and those that adore mobilization may be that I don't ever go to full-scale war. I always have specific short-term goals and keep the wars to 10-15 turns at the most. I have lots of wars, but no protracted invasions. I love to strike, raze, rebuild, and sue for peace just as the enemy's transports are looming off my coast in a soft area of my empire...(ha ha, sail somewhere else, sucker! Glad you wasted all that time, though!)

[Adam Wallock]

David-

I agree with your ideas. I would certainly not say that I adore Mobilization but I have found it useful on occaison. My suggestion above was to use it in exactly the military circumsatnces which you have described: limited-scale targetted warfare. Mainly because making peace is the only way to shut it off. I would NEVER use mobilization if I was expecting a protacted conflict. I NEED my infrastructure.

[David Weldon]

Since this is a strategy thread and we're talking about massive war and other things, here's an idea I have been playing around with. I admit that I haven't tested it because I don't use these tactics, but I think it might have merit...

If you intend to win by Conquest, the large # of cities you end up owning cause extremely severe corruption. You can't really leave unused swaths of land open because the AI will settle in that area and you'll have to keep going back to mop up. But what if you raze/disband all of your cities except for those that form the very border of your territory? Of course leave your core cities alone, but all the otherwise useless cities that are just occupying space can be eliminated, and the culture ring that you end up with will allow you to detect any AI attempts to settle the open area in the middle of your territory. You can use RR or simply some border garrisons to prevent the AI from ever succeeding.

This should dramatically reduce your city count, thus allowing your remaining cities to be unaffected by "too many city" corruption. At the very least they would be less affected by it.

If you're trying for Domination, you can simply fortify the settler that disbands the city in the same spot, and then once you have conquered enough, you can found all of those cities and rush temples if necessary to get the territory coverage you need.

[Aeson]

I guess I'm the only one who "adores" Mobilization. Thats ok, as I know it comes from the way I play. On a recent game I used mobilization for actually building infrastructure. I had conquered a huge continent, and resettled very quickly. All the new cities I had were completely corrupt, and all the old cities completely developed. I was in monarchy (I just like being king!) and pumping out mech infantry and modern armor to airlift to the new continent to be turned into infrastructure. There were small Civ's still on some other Islands, none of them a threat in any way. So I mobilized and declared war on one of them. I kept producing units and completed all of the current builds on the main continent. Then I continued building units until I could finally make peace again, saving them to rush more infrastructure. Its a bit of a guess, but I think I increased my efficiency by 50% by doing so. It wouldn't work too well in democracy, so maybe thats why I'm the only one. Very rarely do I run a democratic state. Just judging by the ideas the governer's have, and they way automated workers work, I don't want my people making any decisions

[Velociryx]

One possible alternate use of mobilization:

Peace-time infrastructure for Democracies in corruption ridden cities.

Crank out scads of expensive units, disband them in far-flung cities (easy after you have airports) and mix with ample supplies of cash. Your core cities bounce back from the loss quickly, unhappiness is easily dealt with on account of all the happiness builds, and you mix raw shields with dough to make your dough go that much further.

-=Vel=-
(late nite two cents....)

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by David Weldon
Fifth, I can rush harbors into new overseas cities

Just a quick note: Under mobilization you can still build 'military' buildings, such as barracks, harbors and airports.

[Grim Legacy]

DW: I don't agree that the only way to get out of the 'huge hole' at Emperor and Deity levels is conquest.

There is no doubt that the human player starts with a big disadvantage -just take a look at the replay and you'll see *each* AI civ has 4-5 cities by the time you've built 2 (build orders in your capital being: warrior warrior settler).

Yet, as time goes on, the player is able to gear up with careful city management.

-now comes the inevitable part-

In my last game at Deity level - large, continents, 8 -, I played the French and I had the fortune of being in the possession of a sizeable land. In the end I had managed to build 17 cities. Of these cities, three were weak (tundra and sea-ridden). A further 2-3 cities were mediocre with dry-ish land. These cities were typically the ones founded pretty late. The remaining cities were good or excellent.

So, I was able to catch up in tech with the AI around 1400 AD. I certainly did not experience any late-game tedium: I was racing the tech tree against my now-massive rival the Persians (I estimate well over 40 cities). Guess what? I won. In 1700 I successfully launched my spaceship, winning the game.

I had not taken a single enemy city. I had gotten only 1 elite unit (a warrior, thanks to barbez), no leader. I had only had 3 short 'conflicts', in which I removed a total of 5 small towns that were compromising my lands. The biggest army I had was 14 horsemen, who eventually transformed into 8 cavalry, which were disbanded later.

Sooo... it *is* possible to use 'other' tactics.

[JohnE]

Originally posted by pchang
JohnE
That is what Vassals are for. If you allowed those patches of unused land to be inhabited by small civs that are under your thumb, then that land will be very productive as the AI will not have any corruption.

You're right, and I understand the strategy, but have been unable to apply it. So far, in every game I have played, the only neighbors that were good vassal targets were so close that I couldn't vassalize them. They had to be eliminated because they were too threatening. When they're five spaces from my capital, their fate is sealed.

However, I have also found that I don't develop technology as fast as the good players on this message board. I wonder what I am not doing right.

[pchang]

5 tiles is awefully close. Do you play on small or tiny maps? I usually play on standard sized maps and enemy capitals are typically at least 15 tiles away.