Great Leader Farms?

[Blue Moose]

I've been thinking recently, that for a warmonger, it might be a good idea to constantly stay at war with a few small (1-3 city) countries. I am currently trying this out, but it is in the early stages. My idea is that you can guard the borders around them with elite units, and when you notice one of their units move about, go and attack at. As the game drags on, you'll have a huge tech lead, so victory will be almost assured. You'd get a lot of opportunities to get GLs this way. Has anyone tried this? I've not noticed anything online. (Naturally you'd have to be a monarchy or communism for this to be that realistic, since war weariness would probably end up being too crippling.

-Moose

[vmxa1]

I would think that you need a more robust advisary to generate enough battles. My last game had a close by Hammy with a big hand from Iroqi so they sent troops into my land every turn. Some times more 2 dozen. This allowed me to whack away and generate more leaders and more elites. War weariness was not a big issue in Dems as I did not start the wars and made all my extra pop as comedians. I disbanded all captured workers and straved natives in captured cities down to 1 pop and did not build pop boosting buildings. I would set pop so that it stayed down to 10 or less in captured towns. Worked great. Just use the GL's as soon as you get them or at least before any elites battle.

[Blue Moose]

I think if you are at war and have troops in their territory, then they'll be producing defensive and offensive units. That's how it seems anyhow...and if I have a city without any garrison nearby, the Persians seem to want to send a guy to try to take it...which is ideal, since I think attacking a city is risky (since you don't want to take it). I just got my first great leader in my current game by doing this, and I am hopeful that more are to come. I am trying to leave the remainder cities in as good a condition as possible, since that will allow them good production, but if they are small the science research will still stink. Also, I tend to keep all the captured workers that I get...I just realized I had 30+ of them (most of my workers are captured), and since I am industrious, they work fairly fast, and the no maintainance is very nice).

I'm the Egyptians in my current game, and I have the persians down to one city (size 8 or so, fairly well developed). It's a monarch game and I seem to be able to attack them about every other turn. I have the Iroquois in a similar position, but they just have two crappy cities, and when I am finished with the Germans, I plan on leaving a city or two of theirs around for training. When I get Elites, I am immediately sending them to any of these "farms" that don't have enough (I think you need about two or so a city, so one can rest). I don't want to let them get anywhere close to tech parity either, so that really means keeping them small. When I get Elite Cav units, I expect things to go even easier (I lost one Elite knight recently).

With my first Leader I made an army, and I plan on getting the Heroic Epic very soon. Oddly, I am in a Golden Age since building Sun Tzu's academy (a great, great wonder for this kind of play, since you can have most of your cities building infrastructure, and several cities just producing military units...then when you have some of those other cities catch up with buildings, switch around what cities produce what...it's pretty nifty, I think).

Btw, this is a Huge map, 16 civs, Monarch difficulty. On Deity this strategy might be even more effective, since the AI needs only 60% of the shields on any improvement/unit/whatever to finish it. This means that it will be making those crappy defensive and offensive units faster.

I'll update this more later. Currently I have knights and the tech lead (thanks to my golden age, I think). Missed the Sistine Chapel by about 6 turns, but will easily get Bach's. Captured the Pyramids from the Persians too...so it is real nice. I plan on trying out a Communist civ, since I was doing some calculation based on corruption, and I think overall it might be the best gov (for a large number of cities, which it seems designed for).



-Moose

[Blue Moose]

PS. I just had the thought that you really should build plenty of artillery with this strat, so any of those wandering enemies get shot down to 1hp before your elite attacks. Heh, not very sporting, I suppose, but it should work fine.

-Moose

[Theseus]

Moose,

I once started a thread about the care and feeding of neigboring civs. I wish I knew then what I know now...

The PRIMARY reason to keep an AI civ in a punching bag state should be for GL creation.

Good thinking on your part; I'd also suggest using "GL teams" that combine your attacker GL generator with one or more defense and bombardment units. Put the team on a mountain... if using fastmover attackers, this is almost guaranteed to work.

[Blue Moose]

Thank you for your positive review, Theseus. I know you're pretty good with strategy and knowledgeable about the game...heh, I've lurked on here for a couple weeks.

The GL farms really seem to be working well.

Perhaps a bit of an exploit, but it seems the Persians really want to take back their former capitol. It is right next to their last city, and I leave my two elite Knights out of sight (a few squares beack from their territory). Persepolis sits there unguarded, and the Persians will send archers after it on a regular basis. I've gotten two GLs from this. Otherwise I'd have to bombard their city and things would be slightly more difficult.

The Iroquois on the other hand, have only given me one elite. They seem to have only given me one GL, but it will either be giving me Magellen's or Newton's. I'm not sure which....I don't think the AI will be able to get any more wonders from me (Copernicus's was close, but a GL saved the day and I have it in a really nice spot (5 spice in the city radius).

I think this just shows you that you only need to keep a city or so alive for a GL farm. That way they will never be a threat, and their tech stays way, way behind, so their units are easy to kill (to say nothing of the fact they won't have the resources for advanced units). Nice stuff. I can't wait until the Germans and the Zulu are in a similar position. if you get four or five 1-3 city Civs making GLs for you...you might be talking about a GL every few turns...at least every 10 on average, I'd think. Pretty insane....

Hmm...if you really wanted to take advantage of some other AI problems, you could probably leave a room for them to build a city or two, and then get the Settlers with their escort as they came out (but remember to make sure the AI can't see your elites). You'd get a lot of free workers that way. This would be really, really sleazy though, and I prefer to be just slightly sleazy.

This makes me think that being a builder simply won't work well in multiplayer......the GL farms are really powerful, giving you wonders and the like, and being aggressive gives you a great economy. Though perhaps I am a hybrid, since I do have a lot of cities build all the improvements (and I picked the Egyptians). Aggression just seems to work really well...and it's a lot of fun too. Sort of strange since I'm more or less a pacifist.

I think Communism really might be the best Gov too...though I haven't gotten there yet. By the time I do though, I'll probably have 50 or more cities, and by the time I take over my continent I'll have over a hundred. Looking at the corruption info...it doesn't look that bad. Since I have 5 luxuries, and Bach's and I will have the Sistine Chapel...I will likely have WLTKD in all my cities...or all the ones of note. With a Police Station an a Courthouse, this means that with 150 cities, I'll have 22% corruption in all them....but that only takes away from pre-market and pre-bank trade. With WLTKD in effect, I'll have just 15% waste. And that's not too bad considering I have so many cities. Most of my cities are like that or worse now....so I think I'll be very well off. (Note: If I was a commercial Civ, I'd have 19.5% corruption and 13.3% waste...which would be handy...oh wel...heh, maybe I should have been the silly french).

-Moose

[vmxa1]

Just wanted you to know that civs do not like you keeping their workers. I use them a bit and then disband them, if I want better relationships. Early the workers need protection and later I need fewer.

I still suspect that one small city will not be able to generate enough units to make enough battles for you to get massive leaders. You need lots of fights, I had 8 or more units per turn most of the time.

[Blue Moose]

Well, I just got my fourth GL in the current game, and it doesn't look like matters will be changing anytime soon. Keeping the tech level low will make it so that they can still produce plenty of units, since those units don't need many shields. I am getting about one Elite battle every turn, more or less, which gives about a 50% chance of getting a GL every 10 turns (with the Heroic Epic). So it is working rather nicely. I don't want to have to worry about any masses of troops coming from these conquered civs, so I can keep a very, very small garrison of elites to guard my cities. Once you get 3 or 4 civs like this, I'd expect things to go very fast, and they'd all remain quite technically inferior to you.

-Moose

[Theseus]

Moose, regarding the types and number of enemy units you want to execute this strategy with, I think strategic resources is more important than tech and een number of towns.

Just picture it: You've got, say, a Pike, a Knight, and a Cat on a mountian, surrounded by grassland or plains.

You've trimmed the punching bag to 2-3 towns (both of which are GL farms), and made sure that they have no resources.

Out to attack comes:

A reg Longbowman. And another. And another. Every couple of turns, another.

You laugh hysterically every time.

[vmxa1]

Ok, if all you want is one every 10+ turns. I was getting them at times every turn and up to 4 in a turn. I am not sure it is worth the trouble to keep a small civ around just to get what you would expect to get during any war. Just knock them out and move on to the next episode.

[Blue Moose]

Originally posted by Theseus
Moose, regarding the types and number of enemy units you want to execute this strategy with, I think strategic resources is more important than tech and een number of towns.

Just picture it: You've got, say, a Pike, a Knight, and a Cat on a mountian, surrounded by grassland or plains.

You've trimmed the punching bag to 2-3 towns (both of which are GL farms), and made sure that they have no resources.

Out to attack comes:

A reg Longbowman. And another. And another. Every couple of turns, another.

You laugh hysterically every time.

LOL, that's exactly how it is with the persians now...I see your point. I'm also making sure I have their harbor blocked, just so that they don't get any goods from trade.

Hmm, maybe in my next game I'll try leaving them with 3 or more cities...but I am wary about letting them keep too much...I am on a huge map, so that is 16 civs, so I'll have plenty of low city count enemies to keep around...the germans are almost there....and I was going to have the Zulus there, but the Greeks attacked me (via a ROP agreement with the Zulus...which was annoying). Anyhow, Keeping the workers of enemy civs works fine for punching bag civs, since I plan on staying at war with them all the time. And I now only have 6 workers of my own, and 30+ enemy workers...which is pretty nice.

Yeah...the more I think about it, the more I think you should leave them at least 2 cities, if not 3. I just don't want them every getting caught up with tech though. Which means low money, no resources, and low research. Hence few cities. If they get to the Rifleman level, then things could get a little bothersome.

I guess I should have let the Persians keep one other city...Oh well, there was really only one other city I could let them have (the capital had the Pyramids and the other city of any note had 5 or so spice...that's the city with Newton's and Copernicus's).

-Moose

[Arrian]

Yeah, a few of us have toyed with near-constant warfare, using Monarchy (I remain utterly unimpressed by communism) and, after gaining the territory & resources we want, focusing entirely on GL generation.

The key to this is knocking the AI down to archers (or longbowmen). Deprive them of their resources, leave them with a few cities, and pick off those archers/longbowmen at will with superior units.

My problem is that I get bored with this after a little while, and I just wipe 'em out.

-Arrian

[bbaws]

As it's a scientific civ you are bullying it might be worth your while to have peace when you move from one age to another. Give them all the techs they need to get into the new age then pick on them for the bonus tech they get for being scientific.
As far as war weariness goes I don't find it a problem even on democracy, provided you aren't losing units. If you are careful of your military war weariness against a civ that you have bad blood with becomes almost trivial compared to the benefits of luxuries and marketplaces.

[vmxa1]

I do not have war weariness, as I let them start the war. If I start one, it will be over very soon. I will grab a few cities and grant them peace.

[Blue Moose]

Originally posted by bbaws
As it's a scientific civ you are bullying it might be worth your while to have peace when you move from one age to another. Give them all the techs they need to get into the new age then pick on them for the bonus tech they get for being scientific.
As far as war weariness goes I don't find it a problem even on democracy, provided you aren't losing units. If you are careful of your military war weariness against a civ that you have bad blood with becomes almost trivial compared to the benefits of luxuries and marketplaces.

Well, the problem with this is that they could then trade those techs to the other civs, for a military alliance, money, and possibly resources. I prefer to keep my farm states as backwards as possible.

Also, I tend to have a war going on with a couple farm states permanently, as well as an aggressive expansion campaign. I think war weariness would be too much of a concern here, even if I am religious, and I like the WLTKD celebrations, since it increases my production capability, hence I want as little war weariness as possible. True, I do lose out on some commerce and science, but my empire gets so big, and I get many wonders, that it doesn't matter so much. I quickly get the tech lead. I was able to get down to 4 turn researching before the end of the second age. I think that's good, especially with bad placement of my FP (I was think communism would be a good choice, but the more I look at it, the more it seems too silly...I did some checks with a large empire I had in another game, and the corruption seemed a bit too high, though I plan on looking at it more).