Blocking - fun with captured workers

[Golden Bear]

Am I the only one that winds up making long walls of units across my territories in order to block neighbors from assuming a de facto ROP? In early days, it is usually spear/settler combinations that are trying to get to juicy sites that I have not had time for yet. Although, depending on the location, I will let them go ahead and then culture flip them - not often though. Later in games, I frequently have to make blocking lines in order to keep neighbors from fighting their wars in my country and then parking units next to my cities. Of course, this can have the benefit of giving you an easy entry to a war when you demand that they leave and they refuse!

In any case, some uses for captured slaves (other than the obvious one of terraforming):
i) blocking terrain - even if attacked, I only lose a fairly incapable laborer, and the attacker has used their attack for the turn. Mostly I do this in peacetime in order to give me reaction time for a sneak attack.
ii) labor swapping - I find a city that can produce a worker in 1-2 turns and swap in the captured workers for upgraded "real" workers.
iii) settler swapping - as ii) above but with settlers.
iv) crash booming population for late starting cities later in the game.

I usually wind up with a stack of these less useful workers by late in the game despite my efforts to find uses for them. These are the few that I have thought of.

Carlos

[vmxa1]

I have done it, but not often. I tend to let them send troops, just not settlers. I am not fond of having idle workers and will welcome a war. If they attack a forward city, it is small with little in it so I do not lose much if they manage to over run it and I get a chance to whack them with little WW. I will have extra units in those cities, so they often bypass them for easier cities and give me time to react.

[Dominae]

Golden Bear, blocking is an extremely powerful tool the human player can use against the AI. If you play the game enough you get a feel for the AI pathing algorithms. This lets you figure out where the AI is planning to send their troops and how they're supposed to get there. With this knowledge you can set up moving chokepoints that the AI has difficulty bypassing (usually not at all).

With three military units (or Workers and Settlers, if you can spare them), you can prevent an enemy Settler/Defender stack from going in one particular direction. For instance, if the northern opponent wants to build a city southwards toward your territory, you can place units directly south, southeast and southwest to block their path. The next turn, when they move either East or West to go around you, mirror their movement with your own units. I once spent a millenia shuffling around this way until I finally claimed the land for my own and the enemy Settlers went home.

I don't know if this is considered an exploit, but it sure is fun.


Dominae

[Bella Hella]

in my current game, i'm trying something different - making some of my captured workers join my cities. i do this only after they've done all possible terraforming and i have no further use for them (they'd just be sitting in a fort somewhere waiting to clean up pollution, and my workers can do that faster). i think it's cool to have a bunch of different ethnicities in the same city, and it adds a sense of realism to the game. i guess there are better things to do with them, but it's fun for me.

[ducki]

I like to use slaves during time of war - at least ealier in the game, your "stupid" enemy failed to build roads where you wanted them.

So, instead of putting my workers in the line of fire, I'll use slave labor on the front lines to speed up reinforcements or retreats - and if they die, I'm no worse off than I was when I started.


Also, Dominae, I was able to hold off a settler-spearman pair for 20 turns with only 2 military units while building my own pair and getting to the only source of spices on our continent. Back and forth, back and forth. It got tedious, but it was worth it to watch that poor guy wander aimlessly off once I founded my city.

[Harovan]

Are you talking about something like that?

[Der PH]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Are you talking about something like that?

Nice rivers.
Which mod are they from?

[FrustratedPoet]

They're from Snoopy's mod I think.

Search for it in the Civ3-Files forum - it's great!

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Der PH
Nice rivers.
Which mod are they from?

Sn00py's second (around April). He's releasing his third these days.

[FrustratedPoet]

get the new one here:

http://www24.brinkster.com/snoopsciv/

[Golden Bear]

Sir Ralph - Yes, that is a familiar situation!

I have played the "block the settler" dance. However, sometimes there are multiple settler/spearman teams from one or more civs that are walking across my country.

Obviously I try to find the shortest route to block but sometimes I wind up covering an entire border with units.

I do use them as city pop boosters. However, I just like the simple geometry of "swapping" a foreign worker into a loyal worker.

As a variation of worker blocking, they are also good for standing on those single coastal squares that your civ has not grown over yet. That also discourages land poachers.

BTW, I am currently abusing the Babylonians in a protracted Monarch war and they keep giving up workers in handy three packs when they lose a city! Very considerate of them.

Carlos

[Harovan]

My long block chain above was made not to block wandering settlers (which were already gone at this time), but to hinder Russia to finish off the English. This job I wanted to do myself, just later. The Russians had a RoP agreement, which I needed myself for my galleys, so they could move quickly thru my land.

Btw, my captured and bought slaves did not only block the Russians, but at the same time improve my terrain.

[Golden Bear]

That's a good point. In one game, I surrounded small coastal enclaves of one civ in order to keep them from annihilation by another. It was not altruism, I just figured that I would annex the cities eventually myself.

Carlos

[Solomyr]

personally i love the settler dance. it's all most too bad the AI doesn't get pissed off and tell you where to send your three units and i have used blocking to prevent another civ's troops from using my land. i had to do it on both of my borders, and used ~25 infantry...but it helped end the low level wars i had been fighting with the the Babs.

[Zero]

Originally posted by Dominae
Golden Bear, blocking is an extremely powerful tool the human player can use against the AI. If you play the game enough you get a feel for the AI pathing algorithms. This lets you figure out where the AI is planning to send their troops and how they're supposed to get there. With this knowledge you can set up moving chokepoints that the AI has difficulty bypassing (usually not at all).

With three military units (or Workers and Settlers, if you can spare them), you can prevent an enemy Settler/Defender stack from going in one particular direction. For instance, if the northern opponent wants to build a city southwards toward your territory, you can place units directly south, southeast and southwest to block their path. The next turn, when they move either East or West to go around you, mirror their movement with your own units. I once spent a millenia shuffling around this way until I finally claimed the land for my own and the enemy Settlers went home.

I don't know if this is considered an exploit, but it sure is fun.


Dominae

AI doesnt have any pathing logarithm other than, go around powerful enemey stack or peaceful units and attack weak units.

Why use line of workers? Most unit have movemen of one, and they will have to occupy space to get to you... I think warriors or other cheap unit would be better for early warning system. how about explorers? I guess workers have the advantage in that they truly dont die and you can capture them back, but most of the time AI disbands workers who has no chance of making it to their empire... I dunno, maybe I just don like the idea of my workers getting captured.

[Zero]

line defense style that you mention, golden bear, was far more useful in civ I and II... Stacked units died together when they were not in cities or fortress and it was almost impractical to form defense positon of stacked unti cause the whole group were endangered by attack. Thus, making a line of unit was not only good for denying enemy method of bypassing defense but also to spread units and not overlap them so casualty can be kept at minimum. Civ III now gives advantage to stacked units in that they die one at a time now. This combined with enemies not being able to use your homeland road brings more interesting way to create an invisible line that an enemy cannot cross. The traditional line can be still used and can be effective, but it is far better to stack a pocket of units, leave a open terrain between the pockets and intercept AI units coming in with mobile units. (This strategy really makes riders and panzers much more valuable cause you can widen tht gap more and still return to rally point.) In this strategy you must learn to read the terrain ahead and see if you can widen your gap thus, saving military budget by asking whether enemy can enter terrain w/o losing first strike, then position your unit accordingly. Sometimes, it is best to leave mountains between your pocket, most times it is best to occupy it with ur units so that enemy cant enter and gain def bonus. IMO this tactic will be more cost effective in the long run then maintaining a single line or double stacked traditional lined unit and I hope this helped you in adding more arsenal of strategy in ur playing style.

This tactic won't work on humans who will stack large amount of defensive unit and just occupy the hole, but then again, neither will one line defense work on human who will just focus attack on one square.

[Chemical Ollie]

I normally have better use for my workers than idling in a blocking line. Better to use a few horsemen to follow and block foreign settlers.