Unique and Devious Strategy

ScipioAfricanus · January 5, 2003, 17:40

Excerpt from Scipio's CivIII: The Art of War -

When your civilization is running under a communist government, make the most of "people" power. To do so, one must create about four or so fast units and find one of those vast roaming hordes of AI workers. Then, with your fast units in position near the worker horde, rush in and grab all of the workers quickly. Have Artillery handy to help the cavalry run a rearguard action while the wokers are whisked off to a city of size 6. Once you load them all up into this city, have each and every one of them join it, and then conscript them all. Voila! A huge army of conscript riflemen is at your disposal. Now it may seem wasteful to do such a thing, turning valuable workers into mediocre military units, but when waging combat in communism is is best to make use of your incredible conscripting power without taxing your loyal citizens.

Whenever anticipating a war with another power that is potentailly your equal or superior on the battlefield, prepare traps and ambushes for them. Keep fast units in small groups to harass them, and try to stem the advancing tide of enemy units into a valley walled in with mountains. Once trapped withing such an enclosure, they must either retreat or face the brutal task of ousting your defensive units from thier mountain stronghlolds. Never underestimate the value of placing several well-defended fortresses on key mountains near your perimiter. They often serve to disrupt or even destroy the enemies' chances of making it deep within your empire. Defense is the best offense, especially when you must wage total war and cannot spare resources to do so. As a final note on this method of warfare, use lightning assaults with good offensive units to smash into the rear or the sides of the enemy empire. Check thier ability to regain lost strength by eliminating easy targets such as colonies, peripheral towns, and most of all make sure that you eliminate thier network of roads. Even in peace time, set about keeping unclaimed land free of enemy roads or other things that would allow them an easy way into your empire.

peterfharris · January 5, 2003, 18:17

Why turn communist?

ducki · January 5, 2003, 18:41

I believe to take advantage of

Quote:

your incredible conscripting power

which, IIRC, is much greater in Communism than Democracy or Republic.

Personally, unless I'm Religious, the odds of me using a "wartime" government are pretty slim, due to extended anarchy.

If this is an endgame-mop-up-the-AI-civs-strat, you've already won and this is for fun.

If you're actually using Communism for your "normal" government, then this would probably help, but you've probably got other problems besides military. (Unless you're playing AU203.)

ScipioAfricanus · January 5, 2003, 20:55

I was indeed advocating the use of communism: and here's why -

-It is in the game for a reason.
-My playing style cannot allow for the vastly superior democracy.
-It really scares the piss out of some poor democracy to see a human wave of riflemen crushing everything in thier path! Its not even that hard to work up 20 or so of the buggers in one or two turns.
-Where technology loses, my industry wins out - I produce quite alot of artillery and naval units to support my cavalry and riflemen on land.

At the time you get Communism, the world is ripe for conquest, especially if you've managed to stay a couple steps ahead of everyone else in technology. Cavalry is the first decent fast attack unit in the game if you aren't Chinese, and its 3 moves per turn allow for some very flexible tactics when emplying them in the capture of large strings of frontier towns. For the larger bastions of the enemy resistance, the main body of the rifleman hordes surrouds or passes by them until the artillery/naval units can be brought into play. While the navy bombards the coastline and keeps them from shipping forces by sea, my artillery and rifleman reduce the cities until they can be taken by concerted attack. These newly acquired cities (usually around 12-14 population) then furnish rifleman replacements for my army.

Is this cost effective? No.
Is it unstoppable? No.
Is it even an efficient way of fighting? No.

Why do I fight this way then? Because my empire is often seperated into isolated provinces, I need a way to win which uses a unit every city can build, and a government that can support a war effort across such a vast territory. The selection of Communism reduces my choices momentarily to this strategy.

If the other civs manage to resist the surgical strikes which my cavalry and naval forces make, and even manage to stem the tide of my steamroller conscript army, they are usually a long time in recovering. Meanwhile I may indeed switch to democracy, or stay communist. that does not matter. After that I focus on tech, and try to outrun them before they recover.

alva · January 6, 2003, 01:59

Quote:

if you've managed to stay a couple steps ahead of everyone else in technology.

What level are we talking here?
To get level at this time , sure is possible, but to be ahead a couple (2-4?) tech anything higher then monarch is pretty hard to achieve..

joncnunn · January 6, 2003, 17:17

I've gotten a half an era lead on Emperor once (running a Democracy)

In my current game, I had an 8 tech lead as a Democracy on Emperor level at its peak. (I then had to go to war to aquire some Alliumum which decreased my tech lead to 6 techs.)

Communism is a way to rapidally lose a tech lead.

alva · January 6, 2003, 19:12

Quote:

I've gotten a half an era lead on Emperor once (running a Democracy)

Once being the keyword here, I have been able to do so too, but it's hardly the rule, rather the exception, isn't it.
If it isn't, you really have to go and play deity.

realpolitic · January 7, 2003, 19:23

It's amazing how much more diffucult diety is than Emporer.

alva · January 7, 2003, 20:13

You can say that again...

Yes, I know you want to post same line again now, refrain yourself, don't !!

georges bonbon · January 8, 2003, 08:22

Thanks for a way of conscripting useless workers.

Never thought about it.

Never read about it.

Major Guz · January 8, 2003, 11:29

IIRC, you cannot conscript foreign nationals.

So if you capture, say, 4 workers then take them to your size 6 city, conscript 4 citizens (max conscript rate for communism), then you will have a city that consists of 4 foreign nationals (the captured workers living in the city now), which of course will be unhappy because you are at war with their homeland and 2 of your own nationals. (And of course the 4 conscripted units).

I would recommend against this tactic because this city is more likely to flip over than before (more foreign nationals than your own) and its foreign inhabitants will be unhappy if you are at war with their homeland.

But if you are really pressed for defensive units I would definitely give this tactic a go!

Major Guz · January 8, 2003, 11:35

Oops I forgot about the unhappines that is caused by conscription.
IIRC, for every citizen that is conscripted into the army another one will be unhappy for 10 turns.
This means the situation in that particular city will even be worse (4 unhappy foreigners and 2 unhappy own citizens).
How do you manage to keep them under control.
Or do you starve the town and then repopulate?

joncnunn · January 8, 2003, 13:10

Tiny map, starting with 4 civs on Emperor level

Long before then, the Aztecs had wiped out the Irq on their landmass.

I shared my landmass with the Japenese given how many river tiles were in my portion of the landmass. (2 seperate rivers -nd 5 cities along a river!) In addition, 8 of my 10 cities were coastal and so my income exploded as Hospitals were built.

The Japanese & Aztecs were fighting each other, in a highly inefficent war and weren't reseraching while I was at peace discovering a tech every 4 turns.

Quote:

Originally posted by alva

Once being the keyword here, I have been able to do so too, but it's hardly the rule, rather the exception, isn't it.
If it isn't, you really have to go and play deity.

Alex · January 8, 2003, 13:11

Quote:

Originally posted by ScipioAfricanus

Why do I fight this way then? Because my empire is often seperated into isolated provinces, I need a way to win which uses a unit every city can build, and a government that can support a war effort across such a vast territory. The selection of Communism reduces my choices momentarily to this strategy.

That is precisely the reason why I sometimes have to resort to communism.

joncnunn · January 8, 2003, 14:22

The # of cities you have under Communism is the key comparing it to Monarchy.

With 1 city in your empire, it doesn't really matter.

At 2 cties, overall corruption / waste is lower under Communism.

About a certain threshold though, it crosses back over, an overall corruption is higher under Communism than Monarchy.

Evenually, every single city can be hopelessly corrupt under Communism while under Monarchy, only the cities far away from both the Palace & Forbiden Palace are hopelessly corrupt.

Under Communism, every single city is assigned a ratio between the number of cites you have and the OCN. (A FP if present under communism only adds 25%)

connection to the trade network, Court Houses, Police Stations, and WLTPD (for waste only) all efffect the effective city number. Any effective number equal to or greater than OCN is the maximum 95% corrupt.

Nor Me · January 8, 2003, 19:06

Quote:

Originally posted by joncnunn
With 1 city in your empire, it doesn't really matter.

At 2 cties, overall corruption / waste is lower under Communism.

Not at all true. There is a distance component in Monarchy that in communism is replaced by a fixed amount. So with 1 city, you are always better off in Monarchy. With 2 cities overall corruption/waste is only lower if they are far apart and there is no FP.
Broadly speaking, the main reason for the difference between Monarchy and Communism in the intermediate range is the shape of your empire.

alva · January 8, 2003, 19:25

Went to communism once, unlikely I will ever do it again.

ScipioAfricanus · January 8, 2003, 23:02

Ok - for clarification -

I was playing as germans against french. I captured 14 workers in one square and moved them all to a city pretty far from my capitol, size 6, very little in the way of improvements.

I had a justified war with the french. (they started it)

I conscripted about 6 right off the bat (despite the fact that they were foriegn nationals, i dont know how)

I had the best culture in the world by far.

lead tech by 2-4 techs.

I didnt get a whole lot of dissent, but there was some
I believe this to be a facet of communisms' "one level of corruption" for the whole nation or... wait, i dont think that applies to morale, huh?

Well, thats the game i got the tactic from. If anyone can explain to me how this worked, id be intrigued, as you have all put forth very good arguments for how it could not happen.

and yet it did.

Fried-Psitalon · January 9, 2003, 11:26

Would this "bumrush" tactic also result in increased war weariness in Democracy/Republic-governed enemies? For having very large foreign armies invading, even if they are all rubbish units? Could be a potential bonus.

joncnunn · January 9, 2003, 12:52

You can't build a FP with only 2 cities.

Distance compoenant maxes out at 33% corruption / waste.

Quote:

Originally posted by Nor Me

Not at all true. There is a distance component in Monarchy that in communism is replaced by a fixed amount. So with 1 city, you are always better off in Monarchy. With 2 cities overall corruption/waste is only lower if they are far apart and there is no FP.
Broadly speaking, the main reason for the difference between Monarchy and Communism in the intermediate range is the shape of your empire.

joncnunn · January 9, 2003, 12:57

WW for Democracies / Republic:

If somebody else declares war on you first, initally you have negative war werriousness. (Overall happiness goes up!)

Every time either side loses a unit outside your cultural boundary, there's a chance that war werriousness will increase.

There's no war werrious effect from having enemy trrops wonder around inside your cultural boundary. In addition, there's no war werrious effect from killing them inside your cultural boundary.

Quote:

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
Would this "bumrush" tactic also result in increased war weariness in Democracy/Republic-governed enemies? For having very large foreign armies invading, even if they are all rubbish units? Could be a potential bonus.

Nor Me · January 9, 2003, 13:17

sort of dp: I wrote this clicked submit reply and was disconnected. I looked an half an hour later and this post wasn't here?

Nor Me · January 9, 2003, 13:55

Quote:

Originally posted by joncnunn
You can't build a FP with only 2 cities.

True. You would have to lose cities. I only mentioned it as a technicality. In practice, if you have 2 cities and a choice between Monarchy and Communism then either you've lost cities or they are close together.

Quote:

Originally posted by joncnunn
Distance compoenant maxes out at 33% corruption / waste.

That's news to me but how does it help? You need a resonably sized (I'm talking diameter here) empire to have the same distance corruption component in any city in Monarchy as you would in every city in Communism.
So if your empire is small both in terms of diameter and number of cities then Monarchy is better.

joncnunn · January 9, 2003, 14:20

Corruption/waste under Communism has NO distance based corruption to it.

joncnunn · January 9, 2003, 14:32

Under Non-Communism:

Each city is also assigned a rank order from the Palace and if you have the FP, it as well.

The lowest rank is taken between the two. Road connection, Court House, Police Station, and WLTPD (waste only) reduce the effective CN. It's then used in conjuction with the OCN and a corruption modifer to determine most of the corruption / waste. (Note that Monarchy / Republic each have less corruption than Despotism, and Democracy still less.) There's no limit on how high this can go, with enough cities, you can have hopelessly corrupt cities on the fridges.

In addition, there's some distance based corruption with this factor maxed out at 33%.

At the end of the process, if corruption or waste was greater than 95%, then it's reduced to 95% corruption on waste.

Communism is different:
There's no distance based corruption.

And instead of assigning a rank from the capital, each city gets assigned a number based on a constant times all cities in your empire divided by the optimum city number. (with a OCN number effective 25% higher if you have a FP. This tends to result in even poor P-FP pairs having less corruption under Monarchy than Communism.)

---

This is the major reason why tightly packed cities tactics doesn't scale well on maps where there is plenty of room to expand.

Nor Me · January 9, 2003, 14:33

Quote:

Originally posted by joncnunn
Corruption/waste under Communism has NO distance based corruption to it.

It doesn't but it does have a fixed component which behaves like distance corruption in that it is independant of the number of cities and is reduced by courthouses etc. It is this component that makes Communism worse for 1 city.

Tattila the Hun · January 10, 2003, 07:45

Quote:

Originally posted by ScipioAfricanus
Ok - for clarification -

I was playing as germans against french. I captured 14 workers in one square and moved them all to a city pretty far from my capitol, size 6, very little in the way of improvements.

I had a justified war with the french. (they started it)

I conscripted about 6 right off the bat (despite the fact that they were foriegn nationals, i dont know how)

I had the best culture in the world by far.

lead tech by 2-4 techs.

I didnt get a whole lot of dissent, but there was some
I believe this to be a facet of communisms' "one level of corruption" for the whole nation or... wait, i dont think that applies to morale, huh?

Well, thats the game i got the tactic from. If anyone can explain to me how this worked, id be intrigued, as you have all put forth very good arguments for how it could not happen.

and yet it did.

Maybe some of them workers were originally yours, captured earlier, still your natinality?

Catt · January 10, 2003, 16:58

Quote:

Originally posted by joncnunn
There's no war werrious effect from having enemy trrops wonder around inside your cultural boundary. In addition, there's no war werrious effect from killing them inside your cultural boundary.

What makes you believe this? This not only contradicts the manual, it defies common game experience and numerous posted test results.

Having your troops in enemy territory or having enemy troops in your territory increases war weariness. Engaging in combat, whether in your territory or not (and whether killing enemy units or not) increases war weariness. While it is unclear exactly how war weariness accumulates and how it affects your empire, it should be indisputable that enemy troops invading your empire and being slaughtered by your forces, even where you take no casualties, adds to war weariness.

Catt

ScipioAfricanus · January 10, 2003, 19:53

No, im sure that those workers were all french. and i thought maybe it could happen if i had a wonder which could instantly convert, but i dont remember.

does the eiffel tower do this? or at least reduce the time of assimilation?

alva · January 10, 2003, 21:47

Quote:

does the eiffel tower do this?

earlier incarnation

And I agree with Catts post...

Long time no see btw , Catt