Winning as Rome on a Huge World

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 19, 2003, 14:26

Winning as the Romans on a Huge Earth-like World

For many reasons, the Romans are the most interesting civilization to play: after all, there's no empire you hear as more about than the Roman Empire.

And their traits - militaristic and commercial - are GREAT for the mid-to-late game... they give you the ability to conquer a huge empire, and then maintain it.

The real problem, though, is the early game, when you're more often than not surrounded by Hoplites and Numidian Mercenaries, and then a sleiugh of other formidable units or civilizations - industrious Eygpt, Persia, Ottomans, France, militaristic Germany, Zululand, Celts, etc.

Most Civ players agree that the ancient era is the most important in terms of developing your future game. But surrounded by powerful units and without any traits that allow you to easily build temples and libraries, how are the Romans to prosper?

That is my question to all of you. I have been trying for some time to rule the world as the Romans without "cheating" - playing on 4 billion years, roaming Barbarians, continents, and max # of opponents.

I am determined to do so soon, or I will flip out. Please help me, someone.

vmxa1 · February 19, 2003, 15:33

You did not say what level, but it does not matter. It can be done all the way to Deity.
You need to expand fast and I prefer to smash the nearest civ. This gives me their land. If you can jump on a civ before contact with others, no one will no of your treachery. Make lots of warriors and when you get the tech and resources, upgrade to UU and go calling.
Take down the all on the land mass.
Legionares in an Army are going to take down cities.
I would say to look at the threads for AU. I seem to recall that Thesus used romans on several with detail logs of events
If you are having problems, post some saves for review.

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 19, 2003, 16:05

I will try to post a save... in the meantime, I am trying to do as you suggest. But I play on Regent level, huge world, and I find the neighbors are always too far away for me to take. Sometimes I'll take a Greek city here, an Egyptian city there, but the window of opportunity is not very wide, especially if I'm unsure where exactly my opponents are.

I did notice, in my last Romans game, the Legionaries are a great unit. I misused them, as I was very tired and unfocused when I was playing. But I can see their utility. Still, even Legionaries against the Greeks and Carthaginians, you better hope their empires are small and hope to overwhelm them with numbers.

Unless I'm missing something?

People, please tell me what your build order is when using Romans on this setting, or a similar setting. Warriors first, then what?

joncnunn · February 19, 2003, 16:20

I think playing Rome is easier with Cultural Related starts set to OFF, just based on the UUs.

But with it on, at least the other civs are pretty much in the same boat trying to expand early against you.

As Rome, if you have a Greek neighbor, you can basically forget about initally expanding aginst them with Legions. I'm recommend picking another anicent era target entirely in that case, and wait for Knights.

If your neighbor is the Carths, your choices are an Archer rush prior to them getting Bronze Working or else waiting for Knights.

If your neighbor is the Celts, then your choices are beating them to hooking up Iron or else waiting for Knights.

Against the Irq, it's esstineal that you get several Legionaries prior to them having a bunch of Mounted Warriors.

Against Egyptains, Aztecs, and Zulu: Use standard slow moving offensive tactics against fast units.

Arrian · February 19, 2003, 16:26

Rome on a huge map, with cultural linking on. Eek. 2 civs with 3-defense units, and the other with cheapy 2-1-2's. You, meanwhile, with a swordsman with a +1 defense.

Frankly, unless your nearest neighbor is Egypt, you may want to consider going "builder" until at least knights... perhaps even Cavalry. Egypt can be taken down with Horsemen backed by Legionaries relatively easily, but Carthage and Greece can do baaaaad things to ancient era attackers not named the Iroquios or Persians. That said, I've taken Carthage down as Rome with horsies and legions, but I am convinced I got a really good run of luck in that campaign.

The key to going "builder" for a while is aggressive expansion and picking a good spot for your FP. If you can get a good "core and a half" up and running, you can use the commercial power of Rome to either gain a tech lead or save up cash for unit upgrades.

[disclaimer] I've never played out a game on a huge map (only attempt: Marla's Map as China) [/disclaimer]

-Arrian

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 19, 2003, 16:31

I did take one Carthaginian city with 2 archers and 1 spearman. But all of them? There's 7 already, in my current game, and with those little b**tards, there's more on the way. The Greeks, thankfully, are small, but my immediate neighbors are the (groan) Mongols... (in one Roman game, where I had 5 different luxury resources under my belt, the Mongols wiped me out when I wouldn't give in to their extortion)

How do I consistently win? Must I target only the weak? That seems to leave only the Babylonians, and maybe some weak European powers, if they haven't expanded.

How can I defeat, or at least cripple, the Greeks and Carthaginians?

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 19, 2003, 16:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
Frankly, unless your nearest neighbor is Egypt, you may want to consider going "builder" until at least knights...

Ok, so, that being said, and you haven't played huge, but still, any good ideas how to get into builder mode and not be out-built? I know how to do this with industrious, religious, scientific and expansionist civs.

I (currently) build one warrior, and then a settler, or if have very productive land, 3-4 warriors and then a settler. Would you advise building an archer instead? I suppose that would make early conquest easier (though not garunteed) but exploration more difficult.

What do you do with your Roman worker? Roads or improvements?

joncnunn · February 19, 2003, 16:51

Archer rush won't work at all against the Greeks on high levels. Greeks can build Hoplites form turn 1 and on the higher levels, probably start with at least one.

joncnunn · February 19, 2003, 16:57

On what to do with Roman workers:

Roads first unless you have a lot of plains, in which case roads + irrigate the plains.

Mines should generally wait until you have a basic road network.

Basically, irrigating grassland tiles is a waste of time under despotism (unless it contains a food bonus or else is needed to form a path to irrigation.)

Mining takes longer than both irrigating and roading, and in the case of hills / mountains, you don't get full advantage under Despotism.

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 19, 2003, 17:41

So you would irrigate? Doesn't that cause an unhappiness problem? What do you do with your surplus population? You can't seem to kill 'em quickly enough to make it profitable without religious or scientific.

Do you draft them as military units? Doesn't that create unhappiness problems with the remaining population?

Arrian · February 19, 2003, 17:41

On a huge map, there should be lots of room to expand into. Therefore, researching or trading for pottery early and building a granary in Rome could be a good idea. That will speed your expansion.

The only way to overcome non-industriousness is to build more workers than you otherwise would. Your commercialism helps balance out the upkeep cost of doing that (though the population & shield cost you just have to accept). Otherwise, accept slower development.

Re: starting near the Mongols... HIT THEM. The only civs that I fear in the ancient age are ones with powerful UU's, particularly powerful defensive or mobile UUs (that would be Greece, Carthage, Rome w/iron, Celts w/iron, Iroquois w/horses). The Mongols are garbage. You can take them down with a standard horseman-based attack.

Bascially, Greece & Carthage - barring extreme weakness on their parts due to starting terrain - are off-limits until Knights. Again, I've done it with horsies & legionaries, but that just isn't a good percentage play. I got lucky. I recall another game in which I tried a legionary rush on Greece and lost horribly.

Quote:

How can I defeat, or at least cripple, the Greeks and Carthaginians?

I often practice warrior harrassment of neighbors. This is a very early game tactic. Basically, my exploring warrior that meets them runs around breaking stuff and trying to steal workers or nailing a settler team. You're not going to take them down with that one warrior, but you'd be surprised by how much damage you can do. Then, when you make peace, you may be able to extort a tech or two, or at least buy a tech on the cheap.

Another thing to do is try to get them embroiled in long-distance ancient warfare. Say you get attacked by the Mongols. Ok, call up Carthage and get an alliance (requires embassies, I know). Neither AI is likely to do serious damage to the other, but they will focus on military units, instead of improvements, and plus you will blow Carthage's GA in despotism. Maybe if you're lucky they will use that GA to build the Pyramids for you.

-Arrian

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 19, 2003, 17:50

Arrian, all good points. I have not tried the warrior harrasment strategy, in general. I will give it a shot soon. A warrior can do damage to roads, workers, etc., and I hadn't considered the option of getting free techs from it... valuable indeed.

As for those Mongols... man... with the free city they tend to get, and their scouts, they normally get a grotesque amount of cities and are well ahead of me in science no matter whom I play as. I do try to crush them as soon as I can, and pray that they don't get in too far. But they can take me out by building endless swordsmen while I'm attending to something else...

I do utilize alliances... this saved me against the Mongols once and a joint Egyptian-French attack another time. But I still couldn't expand fast enough.

Any other hints? Terrain that I should or shouldn't improve? More more more!

vmxa1 · February 19, 2003, 17:54

On Regent you can out rex them and out research them, if you make good use of your workers and tiles.
I presume you have enough land nearby to actually build a good size empire. If you are stuck in a corner or something that is another story.
On a huge map, I will not try for an early rush, unless I just happened to be right on top of someone (not likely).
I would build up, trade and expand.
Maybe a war would come my way and it would likely be after I had UU in place, so they are not going to win and I will probably grab some new land. A 3/3/1 legion is not going to have trouble with acient units, with maybe the exception of Immortals.
I would crank out horsemen and find me a foe. Later they will be Knights and spanking someone.
By the time I get knights going I will be pulling away in all respects and my tech will make it a cake walk.
Calvs will be use to expand some more.
The important thing is to not be low man on the troops totem pole, even if oyu do not want to make war.
You do this by making strong cities.

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 19, 2003, 18:09

Forgive me, I am a fool, but what is "rex"ing again? I hear it all the time around here and can never remember. And when you say "research them," what do you mean?

Anyone got thoughts on when, how, and if to use legionaires? How many to have before attacking whom, etc? They are potent, though certainly not so much as immortals.

Arrian · February 19, 2003, 18:11

Yahweh Sabaoth,

Regarding being behind technologically, it doesn't really matter much so long as you have Ironworking and Horseback Riding.

One thing to do is task 2 workers or so to build a road in the enemy's general direction. That way you can speed your forces to the front. Another thing to do is play defense until you have a large number of troops built up, and then switch over to all-out attack.

By the way, when I play as Rome, I do my best to NOT use my legionaries until I'm at least out of Despotism, and hopefully have built my Forbidden. I hate blowing my GA early.

Are you familiar with the chariot -> horseman upgrade tactic? If not, give it a try: hold off on discovering HBR while building chariots. Mass a bunch of them, discover or trade for HBR, and upgrade them.

I like Legionaries/Horsemen together, with more horsemen than Legionaries (I do the same with standard swordsmen too). Legionaries are no better than normal swordsmen on attack. Their strength lies in their defensive capabilities. Therefore, the best use for them is to escort your horsies (the AI will rarely attack a legionary unless it's out in the open and the AI can muster multiple units... or something with a 4 attack), finish damaged defenders, and for dangerous pillaging operations deep into enemy territory. In a recent game, I cut my enemy's iron (Vikings) that was about 6 tiles deep in their territory by sending in 3 veteran legionaries. Only one survived long enough to cut the iron (1hp elite) and he died immediately on the next turn. But they never had iron again.

Re: early development... have you checked out the "Must Read" threads? There is one... "Winning Early... what do YOU do?" that addresses that, I think.

-Arrian

p.s. "REX" stands for "Rapid Early Expansion." He's saying that on Regent difficulty, a human player can out-expand and out-research the AI (assuming a decent starting position).

Theseus · February 19, 2003, 23:54

Yahweh,

Previous posts on this thread have beeen excellent, in their own ways, and come from 'poly members that I totally respect.

But I disagree with all (Arrian, bear with me).

3a and 3d is a crux point... in my mind, these stats are meaningful up to Rifles and Cavs.

That is a long time.

Thus, we come to strength through number of units... fine. Floods of Legions are unstoppable.

Have a nice day.

DaveMcW · February 20, 2003, 00:05

I agree with Theseus, floods of Legions are unstoppable. If you end up with too much cash from your golden age, disconnect your iron, prebuild some warriors, then reconnect and upgrade.

After you get a Great Leader and rush the FP you can switch to builder and go for cavalry or tanks or spaceship.

vmxa1 · February 20, 2003, 01:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
Yahweh,

Previous posts on this thread have beeen excellent, in their own ways, and come from 'poly members that I totally respect.

But I disagree with all (Arrian, bear with me).

3a and 3d is a crux point... in my mind, these stats are meaningful up to Rifles and Cavs.

That is a long time.

Thus, we come to strength through number of units... fine. Floods of Legions are unstoppable.

Have a nice day.

Then what is the disagreement? I said they will not have trouble with acient units.

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 20, 2003, 11:23

Well, all the advice so far is excellent in my opinion. I intended to come to work today (yes, I post from work, that's why I'm "warlord" and not "deity whose phone will get disconnected if he doesn't pay his bill soon") with several saves, all showing different things that can go wrong when playing as Rome, but I didn't have time, so forgive me and I will describe the games instead (and bring in the saves tomorrow).

BTW, I >always< have problems upgrading ANY unit as ANY civilization before I build Leo's Workshop. Does this happen to anyone else? I tried this morning... I had 3 warriors and about 500 gold, and tried to upgrade all:
"There is not a single warrior which can be upgraded!" I had iron working and iron, connected via road to my capital city.

ROME PROBLEM ONE:
Ok, life's grand. I've found a neighbor early in the game with my archer and have taken a capital city, say, Carthage, Thebes, you name it. I pursue the next city and destroy it, but still the enemy lingers on. I make peace so as to protect my workers in the field from marauding units, and then declare war and attack again. But after a while, even after crushing the civ in question, I find that unhappiness is a SEVERE problem throughout my entire empire.

ROME PROBLEM TWO:
Same as above, but worse: it's just me and the Greeks. I'm not surrounded by that many Civs, and hence, I'm neck-to-neck with the Persians (or someone) overseas.

ROME PROBLEM THREE:
My REX has made me a power to be reckoned with, but by overcompensating for lack of industry or culture by building as many cities as possible, my defenses are stretched thin. I am attacked by some jerk-off with a few swordsmen, and they take a border city. I fight back with my legionaries, trigger my GA too early, and take the city, but then are too far from the enemy to use my legionaries to full advantage.

ROME PROBLEM FOUR:
The Greeks and Carthaginians exist, PERIOD. If it's not one, it's the other.

If those Carthaginians weren't industrious, hey, no sweat. But that is a topic for a different thread.

Anyhow, I'll bring in those saves tomorrow, God willing. Keep this advice coming! It's all good!

DaveMcW · February 20, 2003, 11:39

You need a barracks to upgrade...

The best way to deal with unhappiness is to capture or buy luxuries.

vulture · February 20, 2003, 11:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth

BTW, I >always< have problems upgrading ANY unit as ANY civilization before I build Leo's Workshop. Does this happen to anyone else? I tried this morning... I had 3 warriors and about 500 gold, and tried to upgrade all:
"There is not a single warrior which can be upgraded!" I had iron working and iron, connected via road to my capital city.

The unit also has to be in a city with a barracks before it can be upgraded.

Quote:

ROME PROBLEM ONE:
Ok, life's grand. I've found a neighbor early in the game with my archer and have taken a capital city, say, Carthage, Thebes, you name it. I pursue the next city and destroy it, but still the enemy lingers on. I make peace so as to protect my workers in the field from marauding units, and then declare war and attack again. But after a while, even after crushing the civ in question, I find that unhappiness is a SEVERE problem throughout my entire empire.

War weariness doesn't disppear when you make peace, it merely doesn't get expressed. It slowly declines while you are at peace (I have a memory of reading somewhere that it takes 20 turns to disappear completely, but I don't know if that is true). If you declare war again before the peace treaty is up, you get a lot of the weariness back, plus an extra bit for being the one to declare war. Doing well in a war doesn't help you, as the presence of your units in enemy territory and engaging in battles all increase war weariness, and it never goes down while you are fighting. Fighting wars against different opponents in sequence is a little better. Better still is not to make peace too early, so you don't need to go to war within 20 turns.

Quote:

ROME PROBLEM THREE:
My REX has made me a power to be reckoned with, but by overcompensating for lack of industry or culture by building as many cities as possible, my defenses are stretched thin. I am attacked by some jerk-off with a few swordsmen, and they take a border city. I fight back with my legionaries, trigger my GA too early, and take the city, but then are too far from the enemy to use my legionaries to full advantage.

Over-rexxing can get you in to trouble by inviting attack due to weakly defended cities. But in your case, although you lost a town, you got it back, so you're no worse off that before (minus a few gold stolen from you, plus possible loss of improvements) but you're still better off than if you'd not built the city in the first place. The only real problem you have is wasting the GA in despotism.

As a general rule, try not to expand beyond you ability to defend yourself, because you almost certainly will get attacked. Due to the way corruption works, expanding a little more slowly (once you've got your first 4 or 5 cities down quickly) will good military support will leave you behind in score, but in real power terms you'll still be up there with the best of them.

Quote:

ROME PROBLEM FOUR:
The Greeks and Carthaginians exist, PERIOD. If it's not one, it's the other.

If those Carthaginians weren't industrious, hey, no sweat. But that is a topic for a different thread.

Anyhow, I'll bring in those saves tomorrow, God willing. Keep this advice coming! It's all good!

Play with cultural linking off

But with good defensive civs, there is a lot to be said for picking your fights very carefully. Make sure not to attack towns on hills or behind rivers. Aviod ones with city walls. Pillage lots, attack settler teams, try and kidnap workers, raze small, badly defended towns. You won't get any obvious benefit from this, but the damage it does to the other civs, without ever really havingn to fight them head on, is quite powerful, as you notice when you have 10 good cities and they still have 5 useless ones, no money and no techs. Kill them later when you have the chance to build up an overwhelming military to get past their good defenses.

Arrian · February 20, 2003, 11:52

First off, upgrading:

You need a barracks and the appropriate resource connected. Thus, if you have a bunch of warriors you want to upgrade to Legionaries, you need to stick them in a city (or cities) that have barracks (you should be building those all over the place anyway - regular units are a waste) and you need to connect iron. Then you can upgrade. 800 gold will get you 20 legionaries. I still suggest some horsemen to soften the enemy before you throw your legions into the fray, though.

ROME PROBLEM #1:

It sounds like the civ you are hitting early on is "repopping" You can wipe a civ out, but if there is enough empty land around, it will pop back into existance with free units, gold and tech. Take advantage of it if you can: making peace right when this happens can get YOU free gold, tech and a worker.

Second, unhappiness could be based on 2 different things: 1) "stop the aggression vs. our mother country" and 2) "give peace a chance!" Clicking on your unhappy people in the city screen will tell you, actually. Solutions to "stop the aggression" : 1) starve captured cities to size 1 or build workers until they are size 1 and then allow it to grow normally - all new citizens will be Roman. 2) make peace, wait a while (20 turns should reset it) and then wipe them out quickly. Don't let them linger: make sure you get them. On a huge map, it may be best to wait so you and the other civs can settle the land so there will not be a repop. Solutions to "give peace a chance!" : this can only be an issue under Republic or Democracy. If you plan to do lots of fighting, go for Monarchy. No war weariness to worry about - just keep on fighting! Grind your enemies down under the red tide. Otherwise, you must fight short, decisive wars, punctuated by longish periods of peace (20 turns again, should reset WW. Gaining luxuries in war and building happiness related wonders of the world will also help, of course).

Problem #2 is tough: not much you can do but hunker down and fight later. Harrass the Greeks early (nail a settler team if you can) to stunt their growth, and then take them out with Knights. Aim to build a FP manually dead center in the continent, so that later on you can rush your palace on another continent if you wish. Go for a Cavalry invasion of the outside world. Select your target based upon how many luxuries they have relative to how strong they are (a weak civ with 2 or more luxuries should give you a mental image of a bullseye).

Problem #3: Do not allow your military to become too weak while expanding. It's tough to balance expansion with defense, but you need to do it in order to avoid the situation in question. I would urge you to have a mobile defense force of horsemen so that you can fight off random sneak attacks without your legionaries.

Problem #4: well, playing with Cultural linking on deals you those cards. It's a PitA, but hey, the real Romans had some issues with those guys too.

-Arrian

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 20, 2003, 11:56

Quote:

Originally posted by DaveMcW
You need a barracks to upgrade...

See? The things you learn! That's why after I build Sun Tzu's I can upgrade (that's generally when I do it). Well, guess I'll invest in a barracks from now on.

Anyone have any ideas re: build order for cities?

Recently, I've been doing archer, settler, archer, settler, etc., until it's time to build, and then I do temple, spearman, library, spearman, with a worker thrown in here or there... any contradictions? agreements?

Arrian · February 20, 2003, 11:56

Hah! Crosspost with Vulture!

Theseus,

A flood of legionaries may be unstoppable (if you have enough numbers), but that doesn't make it optimal. Legionaries are slow, and we are talking about a huge map here. Therefore, a combination of legionaries and horsemen strikes me as better (I still think that's true on standard maps, though).

-Arrian

Arrian · February 20, 2003, 12:15

BUILD VETERAN UNITS!!! This means barracks. Sure, your first few exploration/garrison units will be regulars... and frankly, it's the attack troops that most need to be veterans.

3-4 warriors or 1-2 warriors & an archer from Rome for exploration and/or messing with neighbors. Then either a granary or a settler, depending on your starting terrain (definitely a granary if you do not have food bonuses... hell, even with them it's useful. ESPECIALLY with a lake or river so you can get over size 6. Especially on a huge map).

What happens next depends on lots of things. If you're alone with the Greeks, then you will most likely play a relatively peaceful early game. Temples, Courthouses, Libraries, Marketplaces, Aqueducts. Some barracks, some troops, to ward off the evil, opportunistic, Alexander (calls himself "the Great" or somesuch thing...).

If you have lots of neighbors and want to take a shot at serious early warfare... well, screw temples & libraries. Cities, Barracks, Units, KILL. Period. Priorities include death, destruction, trying to capture cities intact (over size 1 or having any culture in them), and the generation of great leaders. You're militaristic, so your units should get promoted to elite at a good clip. Protect those units... use them in battles you're relatively sure they will win... a Great Leaders early in the game are immensely powerful. If you get one, your first priority should be a well-placed Forbidden Palace (or a Palace move, if manually building the FP near your original start location makes more sense. See the FP+Palace Placement thread). Conquer as much as you can, but if things bog down, make peace and start stockpiling horsemen to upgrade to kights for the final kill.

If you are going the war route, get the key military techs (Bronze, Iron, Wheel, HBR - although you may wish to delay this some for chariot -> horseman upgrading) and then beeline for Monarchy. You can trade things like Polytheism to the AI civs usually, since they typically research up the writing - code of laws - philosophy route. This will keep you close in tech, while you stockpile gold for upgrading. Researching toward Monarchy at 10% science (or even simply making 1 citizen into a scientist) will make you quite a bit of gold, and you cannot research slower than 1 tech/40 turns. If 100% research gets you a tech in 30 turns, and 10% research gets it in 40 with a surplus of 20 gold per turn... I know which I'd choose!

-Arrian

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 20, 2003, 12:26

Whoa! I had no idea about the clicking on the unhappy folks. Good lord, that will answer a lot of my questions...

As for cultural linking, yes, well, the Romans DID have those problems, and I'm playing as the Romans not for personal gain, but to recreate the historical conditions, WITHOUT the flood of Germans into my borders of course,

so I'll leave it on.

Well, I'm going to attempt to summarize what has been said so far:

* Don't try to take out the Carthaginians or Greeks utterly. Instead, harrass them, attack workers, settler teams, and maybe border cities, to keep them weak and extract techs and gold from them.

* Don't use legionaries on their own. Use them in conjunction with horsemen. Or bypass them altogether.

* Don't overexpand. Overexpanded empires will leave you weak, and Rome's role is the conquer, not settle (as much as other civs, that is).

* Build at least one barracks and upgrade your units rather than building new ones.

Which leads to the following questions:

* What are your harrasment tactics? What units do you use? How far afield do you venture?

* What is the best army arrangement for attacking civs prior to Chivalry? When do you start building this army?

* How many cities do you build?

* When do you build your barracks(es)? Do you put your ancient cities on wealth rather than build new units?

Keep it coming, boys and girls!

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 20, 2003, 12:31

Hmmm, interesting warmongering thoughts Arrian.

Would you say that, following this cruel and barbarous route, it's worth your time to venture out of the way to research Literature and build the great library? Or should every city be hell-bent on the war machine?

(despite my mocking language, I do see the value in the latter viewpoint. I often wonder if my top-producing city is better off producing an endless stream of military units, or building a wonder such as GL or HG)

Arrian · February 20, 2003, 12:49

Yahweh,

Regarding building the GL... well, frankly, the absolute best thing would be to capture the GL. But other than that... once you have the key military techs and have gotten to Monarchy (and switched over), you should be beating on other civs. Hopefully, you will be able to knock them down to a few cities and extort their tech for peace. This may give you literature. A handy great leader can give you the GL. But remember: the Forbidden Palace is the most important wonder in the game. With an early, relatively well-placed FP, you don't NEED the GL. Not that it isn't nice to have...

Prior to extorting tech from your victims, you don't have tech to build anything but temples, barracks, maybe walls, maybe granaries, and units. Thus, there are no distractions. I actually use this to prevent myself from switching my productive cities over to things like libraries when I really need them to be pumping out reinforcements.

Only when you figure you have your opponents beaten and are pretty sure you can finish them with units you have available do you switch production to peaceful things.

As for the questions in your prior post... numbers are hard for me to gauge since I play almost exclusively on Standard size maps, on Monarch level. Basically, I expand until I feel like any new cities I build will be 1-shield cities (due to corruption) for a looong time. Then I stop all expansion, build barracks all over the place and start pumping out units. Those units are typically warriors and chariots. On my normal settings, I'm trying for roughly 20 horsemen and 10 or so swordsmen. That requires 800 gold (400 for the horsemen, 400 for the swordsmen). But it allows me to use my meager shield output to field a huge (in comparison to the map size) army.

On a huge map, distance is more of a concern... so roadbuilding toward the civs you want to fight is much more important.

Harrassment tactics... it's just opportunism. If I see a worker I can grab, I may do it. If an AI settler team (warrior/settler) wanders next to me, and is on flat ground where I have a decent chance of winning, I may hit it. Provided I win, my warrior rests up and then goes and breaks any terrain improvements he can before getting killed. The workers beeline for home. Doesn't always work. Works better, of course, with an archer, but those are more expensive. It's a gamble, make no mistake. Well, the settler team thing is, grabbing a worker that is just inside their borders isn't really. You get a slave, they lose a worker (usually their only one, and they're bad about replacing them) and you may kill a unit or two and break stuff before dying. Hell, you may even survive. Peace should be favorable to you.

Quote:

Do you put your ancient cities on wealth rather than build new units?

I almost NEVER use wealth. Wealth is a waste. Build units, build improvements, build damn near anything. But not wealth. Especially pre-economics (I think it's econ that improves the rate at which shields are converted to gold from 1/8 to 1/4).

-Arrian

Arrian · February 20, 2003, 12:55

Oh - one other thing I generally do is try to build the Colossus. On a Standard map, one usually doesn't have to go far to hit the coast, meaning you will usually have a decent spot to build it. It's a small investment (200 shields, IIRC) and boosts my commerce during my military buildup stage, when my main objective is to prebuild a large army and upgrade it - which requires cash. On a Huge map, this probably doesn't work, since you may be nowhere near the coast. Plus, the boost you get from it will be proportionally much less than the impact on a Standard map.

-Arrian

Yahweh Sabaoth · February 20, 2003, 13:06

Hmmm, I'll have to give this a shot. I would worry about money being an issue when it's time to upgrade, but then again, the Romans never seem short on that... except after fighting vicous, unhappiness-inducing wars.

So, tell me Arrian, you don't REALLY start fighting wars until Chivalry comes around, do you? You really use horsemen heavily?

If so, give me an idea of how many you would use, along with what and how many of other units, when assaulting the following cities:

1. A just-built Greek/Carth. city with one hoplite/NM

2. A size 3 French/Ottoman/you name it city with one visible spearman, and who knows what else.

3. Same as above, but size 6.

4. Thebes, Babylon

5. Berlin, Entremont

6. Carthage, Athens

Of course, I know not all cities are the same in every game. But I've noticed similarities, especially among capital cities.

Thoughts?