Small Is Beautiful Strat

[jshelr]

Small Is Beautiful Strat

Things are kind of dull around here. So, I thought you would be interested in what I did on my summer vacation. While staring at the Atlantic and the storm clouds scudding across it, I mixed explaining to my wife why this was fun with developing a simplifying Civ III start idea. I wouldn't call it new, but it does speak to the mindset of someone who plays the game a lot.

In short, I tested the idea that on higher difficulty levels a block of 9 cities -- the capital and a city three squares away at all 8 major directions forming a rectangle -- is all you need to win most every time. This ideal pattern never survives contact with a real map, but you get the principal.

This strat was tested on a standard map, pangea or large continents -- plenty of land. If the AI is close, even fewer cities can be built.

You are looking for three squares per city that are productive. Actually, two good ones will do. So, don't avoid that jungle. Just plan to have a couple of squares outside the jungle in the 9 square city and put the city itself on a jungle square.

There is usually a lot of buildable land left free all around my civ, which is typically Egypt. Barracks get built as they can be fit in the schedule without slowing down the arrival of the settlers materially. Nothing but barracks, settlers, workers, & units are usually built in the early game. Workers are built in quantity sufficient to keep just AHEAD of the cities.

On occasions when there is neither iron nor horses in the nine city rectangle, the eighth or ninth city may have to wander off the block a bit. Surprisingly, getting neither is rather unusual.

This scheme forms nine-tile cities. A nine-tile city with good tiles fully developed is more than enough to build units rapidly, at least up to knights, and even at that point it's usually ok. With a small civ, they don't have far to go to get to the battlefield.

The key to the strat is AI behavior. They will focus on settlers/spearmen as long as they can expand. They will be buzzing around to your rear using galleys and crossing your land to get to open spaces. Takes them forever and their cities must be completely corrupt. In short, they come to you in a radically overextended manner.

A very high percentage of the time, you will be able to build a veteran army of horses or swords and deliver it to a virtually unprotected battlefield. I like the early Egyptian UU for cheapness and speed best, but it works for all civs and is a gruesome with Persia or Iroquois, given the right resources. This actually also usually works with a vet archer rush.

(In the later game, I build the FP in an efficient city near the capital while building settlers/workers in the capital. I then abandon the capital. The "hole" created allows all the remaining core cities to get truly large and this also permits a palace jump to a river city that has been taken from an AI civ. That city's pop has been built out of the capital's settlers/workers. So, FP is available efficiently without a leader.)

In summary, give the AI plenty of room to expand and they will fail to focus enough on their military. Don't worry about the land grab yourself. Instead, focus on fully developing a smallish space into an ancient era unit factory. Don't get distracted by lux or unneeded strategic resources. It's all going to be yours soon.

The critical unit in this strat that really makes things rock and is much more important than the UU is the INDUSTRIOUS WORKER. From generating those shields to building roads to the neighboring civs to deliver your attackers, the industrious workers grind out an early lead for your civ with a very high batting average. Keeping the civ compact and simultaneously having workers who are twice as fast produces great results.

I usually research the bottom line toward Monarchy at one science. There is no big hurry to get the wheel or iron working while you are building settlers, barracks, and some spears/archers. Buy tech cheap to make nice with your neighbors. The bottom line direction lets you trade later for tons of tech, particularly writing. Writing will enable embassies and they make you safe from double-teaming by the AI. Writing is often the timeline trigger for your first war.

So, next time you see the neighbors expanding all over the map taking ground you would like to have and frustrating your gameplan, just thank them for the free settlers services and focus on tooling up the homeland unit factory. Simplify your start. A small ancient era civ is a beautiful thing. The AI will give you the cities you need for later fun and games soon enough.

[Theseus]

I couldn't agree more.

There's an inherent assumption that a lot of players make, I think, that there should be a REX phase, in which you do your utmost to "fill the map" (much like the AI civs, I might add), and that AFTER that you focus on building out your towns and preparing for things military.

An additional bias might also be that the towns that YOU build are going to be the "heart" of your empire.

To hell with that... build a solid core of towns on GOOD sites. It doesn't even have to be 9 at first (although that's the elegant configuration), just a solid group around your capitol, with good growth and production.

Mix REX and warfare. Let some of your towns (esp. if on rivers) become early powerhouses. Pre-build some GWs. Get some galleys out.

As jshelr says, thank the nice AI civs for contributing settlers to your eventual growth.

[jshelr]

Theseus is quite right to stress that even getting 9 cities should not be a hangup. Fewer is quite all right. I've made due with four on the crazy Deity level. The message is that you want to be building vet swords and vet horses while they are building settlers. Subsequent events will work out quite nicely.

[mrmitchell]

Nice strat, but I'd build two rings of cities around your capital instead of one and then steamroll thru my opponents in the industrial/modern times. (Think! 9 units being built is no match for 25, if I counted right!) And then in industrial/modern, you can get past factories and then build armies not ever seen before in that game.

[Theseus]

I think we're just saying you can build or capture cities beyond the original core later... you don;t need to build them in a "start-the-game-with maximal-REX" phase.

Why wait for the late game steamrolling for all the fun?

For that matter, I was messing around with IUEW last night ("Insanely Ultra Early War" tm) last night, and, having built two towns, when the American Scout conveniently ended a turn next to my second exploring Warrior, I whacked him! I was able to build out to 4 towns, built a slew of Warriors, got IW, upgraded and went to town... while focusing on the remainder of the REX available.

And believe me, there will be much steamrolling to come!

[Robber Baron]

jshler: you've actually described our democracy game to a T. We started in a lousy position, at the tip of a subcontinent, on cluster of grassland tiles hemmed in by a vast jungle, above which spread a gigantic continent populated with numerous rival AI civs, many of them better situated, all of them too far away to strike at quickly. Nothing much to be done, in other words, but hunker down and build up a core of four cities on our subcontinent, improving grassland etc., while AI civs REXed like crazy above us. Many of us assumed we assumed we were doomed to marginality. Yet we managed to plant our city core, build up a vet archer/spear army while most of the AI civs were still in REX mode, and start ocillating wars against seemingly better off American, French, and (most recently) Persian civs. Now we're carving out a central slice of the continent, and emerging as a continental power.

(We are even playing as Egyptians, Praise the Almighty Banana!)

[jshelr]

Yes, it's that feeling of "doom" if you are not well situated that this strat is designed to dispel. On defense, you should feel like a martial arts master if you build out your compact core well. You are invincible against much bigger AI civs. You've got vet troops, a well developed road network, barracks everywhere to heal, if needed. It's tough for the AI to attack this setup and, frankly, the AI will generally think you are too pathetic to bother with. Big AI mistake. On offense, there is no reason to be big at the start. What you need is a winning streak. As you get bigger, and your core keeps churning out vet troops, the AI gets smaller and loses key chunks of its empire. After playing this strat a few times, you start to get cocky, thinking that you can win from any position. That's when you should try another Deity game and get your butt kicked. Keeps you in fighting shape.

[jabberwockysr]

Having a small civ in the late game lends itself well to going with communism for your war of expansion (or defense), as corruption in communism is directly due to number of cities.

Other than with a small civ or low difficulty though, communism is almost as bad as anarchy!

[Chemical Ollie]

I saw this thread and found the strategy worth a try. However, it took six attempts before I even got a map where the terrain made such city placement structure possible. And that was on standard pangea.

Then I discovered that my small land mass made me fall far behind the AI in tech, even on monarch level. Once I had my 30+ horsie force, the AI cities were already defended by pikemen, leading to tremendous losses. And I could hardly afford the upkeep for these troops even with the science set to 10%. All this with at least 6 cities located on rivers and others with cattle inside the borders.

Finally, it felt so frustrating to see all that healthy land unsettled right outside my borders.

This is not a strategy for me.

[Uppercut]

I might give that strat a try.....


My fav strat is to just do the Hitler. Get lots of gold, give some to other civs, gain friends, then stab in back wiht a large force. i find that the civs never defend their outer cities lots if you are good friends with them. i also like skipping the outside and landing a shitload of paratroopers outside the capital city. they go apeshit when they loose it.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre
I saw this thread and found the strategy worth a try. However, it took six attempts before I even got a map where the terrain made such city placement structure possible. And that was on standard pangea.

Then I discovered that my small land mass made me fall far behind the AI in tech, even on monarch level. Once I had my 30+ horsie force, the AI cities were already defended by pikemen, leading to tremendous losses. And I could hardly afford the upkeep for these troops even with the science set to 10%. All this with at least 6 cities located on rivers and others with cattle inside the borders.

Finally, it felt so frustrating to see all that healthy land unsettled right outside my borders.

This is not a strategy for me.

Olaf, did you make any attacks PRIOR to having the 30 horse horde?

I guess my version of this strategy is about taking advantage of relative but not overwhelming strength... 10 Horsemen, when the defenders are Spearmen in towns and on grassland or plains, are enough to get things going and seriously damage the enemy. And, once that's done, or while it's being done, I continue to build new towns on good land.

This is just one more extension of the group of early warmonger strats, including oscillation, the Archer Rush, the Sword Rush, etc.

Balance in all things... except for IUEW (tm).

[Txurce]

Jshelr, this strategy seems to split the difference between REXing (you couldn't expand peacefully to too many more than nine cities) and the four-city rush. I would go further and say that you could stick with the nine-city limit for quite a way in a game before needing to expand. There is no question that you can defend yourself quite nicely against a much bigger foe with such a city concentration. (And not much question that the AI will indeed leave you alone!)

Could you elaborate about the benefits of establishing embassies early? I usually don't want to spend the money, and wait until I want a specific alliance before even considering one.

Egypt is a great civ for this strategy (a great civ, period) and your focus on the worker as their best unit is a key observation. Failing to build workers in sufficient number early on is probably my biggest weakness as a player, but I have forcefully attacked that failing in my current deity game - with the Egyptians. (I'll post on it soon , as I am playing builder... and it's working.)

[vmxa1]

The two things that may make it worth while is 1- the price goes up over time 2- if you have a need to trade

[Theseus]

Also, you get to see the location of their capitol.

I'm not sure, but it may have a positive impact on relations.

[eklektikos]

Embassies definitely have a positive effect on relations. I've often seen attitudes go from annoyed to polite in the same turn due to the establishing of an embassy.

[bulldog]

I definitely agree with the original posting that small is beautiful. Most of my games, I don't try to conquer the world. I enjoy the diplomacy (which is why this aspect of the game is my absolute no. 1 desire for XP2) and creating a powerful prosperous civilization. Yes I want to be big, but not necessarily so big that I have to manage 50+ cities. Also, its great trying to play the puppet master to ensure that weak civs survive and large civs get brought into line. I'm enjoy warfare, but only when it is to achieve a specific strategic aim (and being the biggest isn't necessarily sufficient justification).

[jshelr]

Thanks for responses guys. Sorry to be absent. Company sent me on the road for a few days. Damn inconvenient.

Anyway, in answer:

"Could you elaborate about the benefits of establishing embassies early? I usually don't want to spend the money, and wait until I want a specific alliance before even considering one."

Txurce, I agree. What I mean is that you have to have writing as a means to establish the embassy or you might get double teamed. So, writing is a very useful war tech. Although the earlier responses are relevant, I'm also generally too cheap to buy one until I have to or am curious about who is fighting whom.

Oalf

"I saw this thread and found the strategy worth a try. However, it took six attempts before I even got a map where the terrain made such city placement structure possible. And that was on standard pangea."

I think you're going to be a hard sell. But, giving it a try, the terrain should not be an issue. Almost all terrain will net you at least two squares that are good and three that can be made good in each 9 square city. Nothing else counts much in the early going. So, unless your map is all desert, you should be able to make a block of cities immediately around your capital that are low corruption and, after your workers get done, good enough for ancient era unit building. You have to use your imagination when stuck on a peninsula or with your back to the sea, etc. Don't get hung up on the ideal symmetry story. The message is to pack them close and get the productive tiles improved quickly.

I'm shocked, shocked that you can't get up an running before pikemen unless you're playing on Deity. In fact, what I like about Small Is Beautiful, is that you get your military ready early enough not to run into a strong AI defense. Are you building culture or getting distracted by other goals? Are you improving the key squares of land sufficiently to make the cities productive?

Thesues has got my attitude spot on. "This is just one more extension of the group of early warmonger strats, including oscillation, the Archer Rush, the Sword Rush, etc." Perhaps, "refusal to REX" beyond the 9 city level, even if there is land available, because I prefer the package of results from an early war, would make the motivation clear.

I'm interested in Bulldog's and Turxce's responses indicating that Small is ok even without war. You would have to refocus on some building, which I generally don't, but maybe you could win without combat. Small Is Beautiful is definitely helped by the impact of corruption on bigger civs.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by jshelr


I'm shocked, shocked that you can't get up an running before pikemen unless you're playing on Deity. In fact, what I like about Small Is Beautiful, is that you get your military ready early enough not to run into a strong AI defense. Are you building culture or getting distracted by other goals? Are you improving the key squares of land sufficiently to make the cities productive?

I have tried this strategy twice since you posted it (plus a few trials on maps where I was stuck between crappy terrain and the sea). First time, I got a pretty good start and could begin to conquer the world in quite early. I had more workers than I could use and finally added them to cities to save money and only used slave labour. However, I screwed up my diplomacy and about 8 civs turned against me. Game over.

Second time, the AI civs had more land mass than me and could research faster. They also had better contact with each other and could trade tech. I did not build more improvements than a temple and barracks in each city. I was also delayed by barbarians.

The SiB strat certainly works for some players, but it does not fit my playing style very well.

[jshelr]

Olaf -- down with Temples!!

Depending on your civ, building those Temples may have been the enitire problem. A Temple could take up the time necessary to build several swords or horses, even for a religious civ and particularly for the others. The SiB strat is does not require any early culture building to make your city borders shift out. So, take the number of Temples you built, multiply by the number of military units per Temple that you could have built, and imagine that resulting stack headed for a neighboring civ. It makes all the difference.

[Theseus]

In 1337's first challenge, on deity, I controlled a peninsula chokepoint that gave me room for a whopping 8 towns using 3-4 spacing.

Luckily though, I had 2 luxuries.

Settlers, Workers, Barracks, and Warriors (and saving up a LOT of gold) were all that were necessary...

[FattyLumpkin]

Hi All. Consider me a total new guy...cause I am

Using this strat how many AI cutures are you starting with, on what size map, and do you randomize the enemy AI?

Thanks!

[Sheik]

I like this idea and am doing something similar in the game I am playing now. I am also probably going to get Sun Tzu's. Good thread!

[ikilledmybroker]

OK, I follow the rasoning. I set up 9 cities, go out and kick @ss..... are you saying NOT to build many more cities (Except relocating the palace) ? Just sit there with 9 cities? or expand later?

[Theseus]

Nice handle... I feel the same.

Naw, the whole idea is to kick royal butt early, as efficiently as possible... but then, expand like a Russian athlete on steroids, both capturing and settling. Depending on map size, I typically like to end up with an empire around 125-150% of OCN.

[jshelr]

Iamabroker responds to Ikilledmybroker

"OK, I follow the rasoning. I set up 9 cities, go out and kick @ss..... are you saying NOT to build many more cities (Except relocating the palace) ? Just sit there with 9 cities? or expand later?"

Expand later. Kick ass first.

Earlier

"Using this strat how many AI cutures are you starting with, on what size map, and do you randomize the enemy AI?"

This typically requires large continents or pangea and works in my experience on small or standard maps. However, while I'm much too lazy to operate on the huge or large maps, if you add the suggested number of civs to those maps I would emphatically suggest that you still stop building your initial cities at 9. The land-per-civ seems to stay about the same. (Is true??? Someone problably actually knows this.) Even fewer cities is always much better than getting overextended early. You want lots of vet swordmen and horsemen, not fringe cities or marginally helpful culture buildings.

[Objectivist]

Going small is definatly a viable strategy early on. My favorite strategy, in the early game, is to found a few productive cities and then proceed to make barracks and pump warriors. Since I usually play a scientific civ, Iron working is the first tech I reasearch, and I have the slider bar set to 10% funding for science, and 90% for revenue. By the time Iron Working is reasearched I have enough warriors to upgrade to a substansial swordsman force. If I dont have a source of Iron by this time I have Iron working early enough to know where a source of Iron can be secured through founding a city. Either way, you can secure an early empire through this method.

[Zero]

I am currently playing a REX strategy, but my traditional strategy has always been to build are ultra powerful core from beginning and treat captured or expanded cities as shells. In fact I treat them as totally different civs. I always try to give each core cities 21 space, and have best terrain as possible, but try not to move original capitol if not neccesary. usually my core is built in a web fashion style. this was before civ III, so FP is not taken into consideration, and captio is in the middle

Capitol = C
City = X
later cities = Y
soft shells = Z

i create an top outer layer
X X
X C


Then after some improvement (usually, granary and temple) later bottom layer is added

X X Y
X C Y
Y Y Y

this way core is always square and end results in capitol in middle

if needed soft shell (wat i call mediocre core/shell hybrid cities) is added.

Z Z Z Z Z
Z X X Y Z
Z X C Y Z
Z Y Y Y Z
Z Z Z Z Z

i always spiral my building order, starting with city left of capitol...
softshells usually dont have 21 tiles since making square this big would be quite hard... even if i could, sometimes i choose not to make it look like core too much.

everything else i treat it as a colony w/ building ability.

[Zero]

Attacking My own strategy > How to defeat core building players
This is bit off topic but hopefully, you'll find this helpful when playing PTW. Ai really cant handle core build players but humans are different story. Me and my friends love building core empires, so we had alot of experience trying to kill each others empire in Civ II MP edition.

core players rely on two things. Production capability of core, tug-of-war and road networks. I personally like to rush build units at colony using treasury generated form the core or pump units from core and transport them using good road networks. Usually it will take alot of effort to make a pillage attempt to deny mobility, but you can cut resources away from core which can be very effective if the core itself does not possess the resource on its tile. This will disrupt production
when attacking core, capitol is usually the most strongest city and even if it isnt its a good idea to topple it for loss of capitol creates huge corruption problem for ur enemy. since shells of the empire is small cities, players are usually unwilling to fight hard for every each of them and rely on cities fallin in hands back and forth to protect core. even though most enemy units are positioned at outerskirt of empire, the large size allows you to penetrate in fast and reach the core if you launch fast and good surprise attack. It is best to spearhead in the corner like as it is highlighted since that reduces amount of reinforcement coming from other core cities.

Z Z Z Z Z
Z X X Y Z
Z X C Y Z
Z Y Y Y Z
Z Z Z Z Z

Starve the city so if they capture again(which is likely cause your fighting on home grounds), it is significantly reduced and will be less productive. Starving also controlls riots and you should rely on rush building every turn to resupply invaluable units as well as old fashioned reinforcement.

Mobility becomes a huge key to military victory agst human players

[jshelr]

Calc II

You are in the same spirit as SIB. Only the core really counts. As you know, in actual practice, you often don't have room or time to add the next layer of cities -- which you don't need anyway. Building more settlers and defenders means fewer horses and swords. Not a good tradeoff for the warmonger.