Playing as the Americans

[Jethro83]

I decided to try something different from playing as Egypt, Japan, China and Germany, and start up a game as the Americans.

I've tried rapid expansion (and getting granaries right away helps get you much territory before its all swallowed up, with Industrious providing faster irrigation that again leads to more settlers).

Unfortunately, I get to the point where my military resources are hopelessly stretched (since I have to make up for much granary building and expansion at the expense of culture and infrastructure, my production in the middle ages ends up tied up building temples, courthouses and marketplaces at the very LEAST, thus reducing the room to build up a decent military). And when you've got the Aztecs (heck, even the Iroquois) as your neighbours, that stacks on quite a bit of extra pressure.

Furthermore, with their UU being towards the end of the game, wonders are perhaps the best way to an American golden age, but I'm always losing the wonder races (I'm lucky if I ever get just one).

I've tried both early warmongering and peaceful expansion/building, but neither have actually worked thus far. I was wondering if anyone here has any pointers, or basic strategies playing as the Americans.

[spy14]

I usually play as Americans, but dont do anything differant from any other game really. One thing I dont do is build granarys, I find them to be a waste of time and can get on fine without them, dont know if maybe that'll help

[Flight]

i started a game as them the other day and found the same as you, you can expand very quickly but then drop off.

I got a couple of the first wonders so had an early golden age, but i was on a crappy penninsula so i got bored and started a new game

Only time i've played them, just limit yourself in expansion to blocking off other civs you find and filling in the gaps later when you've got a decent size military to cover yourself. At least that's what i'd do

[alva]

Originally posted by spy14
I usually play as Americans, but dont do anything differant from any other game really. One thing I dont do is build granarys, I find them to be a waste of time and can get on fine without them, dont know if maybe that'll help

I tend to agree here, building one is more then enough (in a city with some tile bonusses, just for building settlers).

@ LA : you can't do everything at the same time , make choices , but never neglect you military ( I must admit, I do so to).
You have too look at this way, if the AI settles in your territory, you can allways 'reclaim' it

[LionQ]

Originally posted by LordAzreal
much granary building

I never build granaries, it's wasting your time, because you can build The Pyramids. I always build The Pyramids, because I think the Granary is a very important building, but I don't want to pay Maintenance.

[Jethro83]

On Regent and above, I've only ever been able to beat the AI to the Pyramids twice. Once as the Egyptians (one of my favourite civs) and the other time more recently as the Chinese (yet another favourite civ). Both of those civs have UUs, and one has the Militaristic trait, which means that expansion isn't so much of a priority as you can take land off someone else very much easier than with someone like the Americans, Russians and English. Since the Americans are not militaristic and don't have a fast and deadly early game UU, the situation is different.

As I said above, my infrastructure turned out to be really poor when playing as America, since they're made for the early expansion. Poor infrastructure = less mines. Less mines = less shields, and less shields means less chance of winning wonder races.

I guess I need to make a bigger investment in workers. If I were playing correctly as the Americans, then I shouldn't be having such infrastructure problems since they are industrious. But the ability to churn out workers again goes back to how quickly you can fill up a settlement's food stores, and the possibility of halving the amount of time it takes with granaries.

[Allemand]

I build the Pyramids with my first or second city on Monarch level, whichever one is not a good settler city. I immediately build a temple, then start the Pyramids. The city can get units/workers from other cities. Granaries take too long to build, but if you can't get the Pyramids then a few granaries in key cities will be helpful in the long run. You don't need temples right away unless you're at one of the top two levels. I usually build scout/unit/worker/unit/settler/temple, but this sequence has to be tailored for some cities. The second unit goes with the settler in most cases. I build a few horsemen when they become available, but generally will only build one military unit per city.

After building a half-dozen cities or so, I start specializing a little, building barracks in some cities to produce veteran units, identifying cities that will be building Middle Ages wonders (they should put priority on infrastructure), and of course some cities will be producing nothing but Settlers for awhile.

On larger maps I send out six or eight scouts, so I'll be in Republic by about 1500 BC or sooner. I avoid war if possible, but if it comes I get some allies to help out. The Americans usually have plenty of money to do this. After I get Chivalry I go to war, like it or not. It makes the AI furious.


Edit: One worker per city is usually enough, but for the Pyramid city I usually send over a couple of extra workers to help get it ready.

[LionQ]

Originally posted by Allemand
Edit: One worker per city is usually enough, but for the Pyramid city I usually send over a couple of extra workers to help get it ready.

Agreed.

[punkbass2000]

In terms of military strength, I think that a bunch of warriors are your very good friends.

Though that might be a Dirty Trick.

[LionQ]

In terms of military strength, Í think that a bunch of Horsemen are your very good friends.

[FrustratedPoet]

That's true CivCity, but Warriors are cheaper and if you have a lot of military units (even if they're weak) the AI will be scared of you. It seems to have trouble telling the difference between 'lots of soldiers' and 'strong soldiers'.

Like punkbass said, it's a Dirty Trick(tm)!

[punkbass2000]

Yes, you will likely have twice as many warriors as you would horsemen.

[jshelr]

This thread lets me tell a story that demonstrates why America shouldn't build any culture buildings or wonders in the early game.

I just started a series of all random games to find out how many I could win in a row on Monarch taking whatever start the map generator gives me and making the best of it. America was the first civ I drew.

We started right in the middle of a pangea map, surrounded by other civs as it turned out. America can do well by sending out several scouts to pop some tech huts and later by selling maps. However, they don't have any other early advantages I could see.

So, I built 8 cities closely packed and worked in barracks as soon as I could, racing to quickly build an attacking force. Then America took a moderate-sized bite out of four neighboring civs in turn, often bribing for an alliance, and stopping when one of our horsies spotted a pikeman.

We were a Monarchy -- and stayed that way the whole game. I hardly researched anything myself except scientific method, prefering to agree to accept other civs tech as payment for ending wars. After the pikeman was spotted, then America stopped building horsemen and started building some infrastructure. I waited until I could buy Military tradition and upgraded a herd of knights, which then led the way toward a domination win.

The method described is very simple to execute. But, it seems to work a high % of the time. So, why make it more complicated with a lot of early culture and wonders?

Riding the crest of one win in a row, I wonder if I've got the guts to try AU107 as game number two??

[LionQ]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
That's true CivCity, but Warriors are cheaper

Yes, that's true: Horsemen are three times more expensive then Warriors.

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet and if you have a lot of military units (even if they're weak) the AI will be scared of you. It seems to have trouble telling the difference between 'lots of soldiers' and 'strong soldiers'.

Indeed. Take this example: I'm having 30 ModernArmors, for instance. And one of the opponent Civs has 90 Spearmen. What will my MilitaryAdvisor say? Well, this: "Compared to these guys, our military is weak!". That's truly nonsense, because the AI does have three times more Units then I do, but the mine are much stronger.

[Jethro83]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
In terms of military strength, I think that a bunch of warriors are your very good friends.

Originally posted by CivilopediaCity
In terms of military strength, Í think that a bunch of Horsemen are your very good friends.

I usually pick chariots for such purpose. Sure they are more expensive than warriors, but they're cheaper than horsemen and can later be upgraded to horsemen (or knights). I've recently found it easier playing as America by beelining towards the Wheel, and building up chariots whenever I'm not building settlers or workers. I then delay the research/tribute of Horseback Riding until I'm certain I have enough chariots. Once this happens, I own the enemy easily.

In fact, I've found this approach to work with any civ (the Zulu make a good civ for this since they have a spearman unit that can keep up with horsemen).

I sometimes use warriors instead, so as to upgrade them to swordsmen in the same fashion, but such an upgrade is more expensive (40 gold to upgrade warriors to swordsmen vs. 20 gold to upgrade chariots to horsemen), and I also find horsemen to be more useful unless against the Greeks, or against a civ with pikemen.

[JohnM2433]

I think they fixed the problem with the military advisor in a patch, or so I heard. I think your military advisor uses the same routine as the AI to determine military strength.

Maybe you are using an old patch, CivilopediaCity?

[TacticalGrace]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
Yes, you will likely have twice as many warriors as you would horsemen.

and hence maintenance costs will be double...

[punkbass2000]

Yeah, but the AI would have seen you as twice as powerful.

[TacticalGrace]

Yeah, but the maintenance costs will be double.

[Jethro83]

The main problem with using warriors to build up huge numbers is that they only upgrade to swordsmen, who are then dead-end units in the tree (until PTW of course). Also, they tend to be too slow, particularly on larger maps (even on standard maps, I find them too slow).

The main problem with using horsemen to build up huge numbers is that they are too expensive to be able to crank out quickly until the late part of the ancient era (sometimes not even until the start of the middle ages).

Hence, I say again that the chariot is the perfect choice for building up an army based on numbers, as they later upgrade to horsemen, knights and cavalry. And they aren't so prohibitively expensive to boot.

And as for the argument of maintenance costs, that isn't really a problem when you're under despotism (and later monarchy) if you've founded plenty of cities, which is of course what the Americans are supposed to be very good at.

And about the AI judging your strength, it hardly matters anyway since they'll always at some point demand tribute, even if they lack the power to back their words. And even if they do perceive you as more powerful (having warriors left, right and centre), what happens when they do decide to go to war? And they send spearmen.

I've had situations where I outnumbered the AI with warriors and they declared war anyway. Most of my warriors got slaughtered while attacking archers that had entered my territory before I could finish researching Iron Working, hook up the iron and start upgrading them.

I'd much rather have chariots to counterattack the invaders than warriors while waiting for the crucial upgrade necessary to turn the tide, as they can retreat when losing.

[LionQ]

Originally posted by LordAzreal
...swordsmen, who are then dead-end units in the tree (until PTW of course)...

I didn't know that. Are they going to be replaced by the Pikeman or MusketMan?

Originally posted by JohnM2433
Maybe you are using an old patch, CivilopediaCity?

1.29

[vmxa1]

A new unit. I forget the name something like medival infantry.

[LionQ]

Oh, yes. Indeed that's called the Mediaeval Infantry. So that's going to replace the Swordsman? Well, that's OK with me, because it's a good replacement (Swordsman=3.2.1 and Mediaeval Infantry=4.2.2, if I've remembered correctly). And the most important: the Swordsman isn't a dead-end unit anymore! So you can't build them anymore in the ModernTimes! And that's very good and realistic!

[laissez-faire]

No, I believe the Swordsman will upgrade to the Medieval Swordsman, not be replaced by it.

[Konquest02]

Since 1.29, the advisor counts relative strength of the armies before making a judgment. It may not be perfect, it is still better than in the original version.

As said previously, sowrdman will upgrade to Medieval Infantry which will then upgrade to Guerilla (i'm not sure of the last upgrade).

--Kon--

[LionQ]

I hope you're sure, because I'm thinking that would be excellent.

[JNL]

Just finished a game as Americans (I always play a random civ, for the fun), with French & Iroquois (!) as neighbours (I've just read they are considered a tough civ to play with : that's true !).

After a long, long war for "lebensraum" against the French, that lasted until the end of middle-ages, I had to face repeated massive attacks from the Iroquois. A large frontier, no montains of hills to establish a good "Maginot line", and no oil (!) in my homeland for all the games except the last 20 turns, even though I had a huge territory (more than 100 cities). I still can't believe it. Did I say that s***ed :-) ?

What saved me :

* Withdraw : I moved back 10/12 tiles to mountains and big cities ; I didn't try to defend the frontline cities, which were destroyed and rebuilt several times. Anyway, I didn't really have time for it...

* Republic : perfectly balanced for both war and peace times ; I didn't experienced gov overthrowing, but to be honest I must admit I checked some key cities at the end of each turn to detect massive revolts

* Luxury rate. Got up to 40 %, finished at 30 % (I had all the Wonders that have impact on happiness, and it clearly wasn't enough, even with temple/colosseum/cathedral/police station)

* Draft ; I know, many people prefer mobilization, but I really didn't have time to build units. Drafting was the only way to get fast those 200 or so defensive units I needed to stop the Iroquois. I decided to draft only on cities crippled with corruption (1 shield) : those cities can only produce population (which, IMHO, should be consider as a resource), and that's just fine. I didn't mobilize, since I usually wasn't implied in World Wars (ie, since I couldn't easily switch back to normalcy, I didn't want to take the risk of getting stuck in mobilization).
I never build granaries or the Pyramids, for my pop increase fast enough as far as I'm concerned - the opposite of what I was doing while playing Civ I & II.

* Artillery : I've come to the idea that catapult/cannon/artillery/radar artillery are the best units of the game, not only for attack against big, well-defended cities, but even more for mobile defense, to crush the offensive enemy units

- Mobile Defence : artillery was useful for that, and so were the veteran infantry units I produced ; yeah, I did attack cavalries with riflemen, tanks with Infantries, all the time, after massive artillery fires. That was simply bloodsheds.

* Trade ; and science, that gave me interesting techs to propose in exchange for oil ; I couldn't have survive the Iroquois modern armours without it

* and, in the end, the possibility to make peace with the Iroquois each time I destroyed their offensive units (as a "blitzkrieger" I consider that the first goal of war is to destroy the enemy army, and only after this has been done, to take cities/land)

Tough experience, especially when the WW started all around. But I did learn a lot (and finally won). Can't wait until I start another game (so, what will it be this time ? Trapped in a desert oasis for my starting location ? No coal ? I'm ready for the next challenge :-) !)

[LionQ]

Originally posted by laissez-faire
No, I believe the Swordsman will upgrade to the Medieval Swordsman, not be replaced by it.

You're right! With replacing I ment upgrading, but that's not the good word for that.

[Inverse Icarus]

i usually found a few "settler cities" early on, with some wheat or floodplains, pop a granary in there, and build settlers nonstop,

[LionQ]

A good strategy, but there lots of them.