What strategies do you use?

[Oerdin]

So what strategies do you use when playing CTP2? It seems like some people are peaceful builders while others are raging war mongers and still others fall some where in between. I personally try to defeat, or at least hobble, any civ which starts near me as soon as possible. I find this gives me apple room to expand and tends to head off a much more destructive conflict latter on in the game.
After I've killed my nearest rivil(s) then I just go into peaceful builder mode and try to rush to the 20 city cap. During this time I also make a bee-line straight for the facism government and as soon as I get Facism I leave off my days as a peaceful builder and try to attack my closest rival. That often will leave me with an uncontestable first place finish.
Of course it doesn't always go this way. One of the beautiful things about MP is that each game is completely fluid and a small switching of alliances can mean that the former top dog is now fighting for his life. Any way I'd love to hear what sort of general strategies the rest of you employ.

[ískallin]

I bloodbath every city near me, strike without notice or take the city build one unit give it to another civilasation take it back and sack it

i'm a totall timeserver
the viking way of handelin thing's

[Wittlich]

I normally start out as a peaceful builder....until someone messes with me (be them either human or AI), then I turn into warmachine - until I have my "breathing room" back again.

[Dale]

I like to gain control of my continent (or a decent land area if the continent is huge) very early, so I'll hobble/destroy any civ near me. Once I have control of my continent I build a navy to explore the world and find the other civs. Then I "island hop" destroying everything in my path. If I come across a strong civ, I'll just damage it. That slows them up.

[Martin Gühmann]

At first I try to build up my empire, get as many cities as possible, at the same time I try to build every building in my cities, usually I leave one defender in my cities. I know stupid Civ2 behaviour, but because I don't play MP and the AI still needs a little bit more agressivity that is no problem. I know the problem is located in one of the text files, otherwise I wouldn't have seen an AI that sent a settler from near the south pole a settler to the north pole over a huge ocean. Unfortunatly I increased so much that settling goal that the whole map is covered soon with a lot of AI cities. Another thing that I do is maxing out the sliders, now it doesn't help me so much in GoodMod as I "thought" the AI to do the same at least for the early game. That is also the reason for the ability of the AI in GoodMod to keep up in science and be ahead of course in addition to the additional cities. So I see that there is only one possibility to get one wonder in the early game and I have to hurry if I really want it. Taking out the AI at the start no way in my last game if my scientists have no idea what is this wonder for the the AIs are in competition. So far the AI is strong in science in GoodMod but I have still the problem of less aggresivity, until I have found the problem you have to wait for GoodMod 0.99. So I can manage it to become superior in the late game and conquer the world

-Martin

[Oerdin]

Martin,
I think you'd have a hard time doing that in a MP game. Everyone would see your graph and know you have lots of buildings and a really small army. Their armies would be drawn to you like a fly to... well you know.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Martin,
I think you'd have a hard time doing that in a MP game. Everyone would see your graph and know you have lots of buildings and a really small army. Their armies would be drawn to you like a fly to... well you know.

I know that this is a single player strategy. I would never do this in MP.

-Martin

[Cookie Monster]

My style is of the hybrid type in any of these civ type games. CTP2 is no exception.

I start out peaceful and concentrate on building up my infrastructure. If someone gives me a problem then I switch gears and do battle with them until either they're dead or I'm satisfied with the revenge.

The only other time I war is when there is no other option left open to me when I'm trying to obtain something.

[Locutus]

Mine is similar to Oerdin's. I'm generally a very peacefull player and aim to win through diplomacy but at times I can be quite warmongerish. In the early game I recon as much as possible, pick up as many goody huts as I can and finding out about the geography of the continent, so I can determine where I want the initial boundaries of my empire to be. If an AI is nearby and he isn't too strong, I'll try to defeat it ASAP and take over all it's cities (settlers are expensive so I'd rather wait for a city to grow to size 2 than to attack right away and having to re-settle the area myself).

At the same time I set out the boundaries for my empire: I found cities at strategic locations and as much as possible try to cut off AI access to areas I haven't settled yet but plan to settle in the future. I do this by things like settling only at the 'head' of peninsulas while leaving the rest of the peninsula empty (and hoping noone will send in troops from the sea), putting troops at choke points, patrolling borders of nearby AIs and expelling settlers, etc.

Once I have my territory set out I fill it with cities until I run into the city limit (I usually plan for 20-25 or so cities but, especially in Cradle, it takes a while to get to a government which supports this) and spend the rest of my time developing cities, building road networks (VERY important since I often have a tiny army so I need to be able to move around quickly), advancing scientifically and making allies. I usually end up destroying one, sometimes two major opponent(s) later on in the game and ally with everyone else.

[TheArsenal]

Take this with the knowledge I've logged nowhere near the hours some of you have.

Everything depends, of course, on the map I'm handed and the temperament of my neighbors. But generally I take no more than the first two turns to put down a city and start cranking out Warriors to explore and search goody huts for gold and more units (and, unfortunately, the occasional ambush). Through peaceful means if possible, I try to secure an entire continent/island, or at least up to defensible choke points in the terrain. I will fight a little, but not a lot at this point. How I handle civs with a notable presence on my land depends on their/my relative strength, but at some point my troops are rolling in, especially as it is very important to me to have cities placed on every shore of the land mass (further down the road, naval warfare is a large part of my game - if you can't reach my shores, you can't touch me before you can fly). If a civ is too strong to be displaced easily, I will constantly monitor them with wandering Nobles/Diplomats, Spies, Listening Posts, whatever, looking for troop movement and calculating a time to strike. I will try to build the "war wonders" Great Wall or Forbidden City as soon as I can.

Once I have whatever chunk of land I can get in the early game without too much bloodletting, and with an eye on eventual conquest, I build up the cities and terrain (railroads are vital to me), keep the peace, and gear myself to becoming a fascist. After fascism, its war and two faced diplomacy designed to keep certain civs off my back until I'm strong enough to turn on them.

Ah ... the addiction. Just talking about it makes me jones to play.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Martin,
I think you'd have a hard time doing that in a MP game. Everyone would see your graph and know you have lots of buildings and a really small army. Their armies would be drawn to you like a fly to... well you know.

I guess my strategy would have failled in my last test game if I didn't switched to the Barbarian. I saw an AI with 24 cities in comparision to the other AIs only 10 to 14 cities and all the land was filled with cities. The weaker defended cities changed hands especially the young ones.

-Martin

[stankarp]

I always follow an aggressive, expansionist policy. Early in the game, the AI are relatively isolated from each other on large maps and so I target them as quickly as possible one at a time to knock them out before its gets cluttered. It gets hard later when you are trying to knock one out and three others are wandering around with stacks of 10-12 occassionally have a brain explosion and attacking you as well. I took out 3 in my current game before it got messy, but managed another a bit later one because he was isolated.

I figured its much easier to capture a large enemy city than to build one from scratch yourself. Its 310 BC, my capital Carthage is only level 10 after 4 plagues and having maximum labourers for 1000 years, but we are eyeing of Harrappa, population 31. Might build my new capital there.

I found a good tactic to take out those walled cities that have 12 defenders, catapults, etc. If they have 1 square of road leading to them, move two stacks down either side of the road untill you are 2 squares from the city. Advance one stack and attack on the road, but click retreat the instant you loose your 2nd or 3rd man. If you are good enough, the defenders dont get the free hit. The stack can then move 1 square back . Then attack with the second stack down the road. Usually the fresh stack will not loose any men, particuarly if you have the right mix. You get the city for a loss of 2-3 units.

I have gunpowder at the moment and my favourit stack is 5 arquebusiers, 5 trebuchets and 2 knights. 2 of these stacks usually win easily. My frontier cities are churning our lots of arquebusiers at the moment because thats what I am mainly loosing.

[child of Thor]

Peacefull diplomatic(with a club behind my back ) in multiplayer - the sort of civ you would want next to yours,I keep my word, generous with gifts and helping those less fortunate than myself. I like to get a reasonably strong military, enough to be defensive. Really go for science(trade/find in goodyhuts/steal). I'll play other players against one another if i can, try to topple anyone getting to powerfull or with very aggressive playing style. I would say i have very mixed results in multiplayer - sometimes i'm lucky and can manouvre my way into a clear tech lead. Sometimes i get hammerd by a much more aggresive player and all my allies bail out on me
In single player i guess its more of an empire-building session really, I like to develope my cities - make something my citizens would be proud of.I'm not too worried about the other civs feelings, but try to get good diplomatic relations with the ones i like and start tradeing.
Of course it depends on which civ i play as well. If i'm good old Genghis then you know my hordes are on their way and every other city taken is raised to the ground.
I don't play very scientifically - i like to role play my civ i guess i.e. i am not always the most efficient player, but i like to enjoy my game! I do use sliders alot and work my population to the bone, although they are rewarded with lots of food and money and a good infastucture.

[stankarp]

The points I made above are for Cradle 1 on an ultra gigantic map, hence the arquebusiers and trebuchets. Havn't played original ctp2 for a while. Love cradle. Playing ultra gigantic map, 15 civs, 50% land (continents). Its 250 BC and the world is like middle earth. no one travels alone. The AI escorts everything, including strealth units with big stacks. Everyone fights everyone and they all fight me. Its pretty tough.