I am currently playing the Chinese under Quin on noble difficulty level and I just did something very interesting. I rushed to steel and only steel. I don't even have sailing, calender, or compass yet. The effects to the warmongers was interesting...

They started to bend over backwards to appease me since I grabbed gunpowder and chemistry way before they did and quickly established military dominance. Montezuma even declared war on me and within four turns I took over one of his cities. He was quick to sue for peace since I could have steam rolled through his country--I'll destroy him soon enough.

Also for once ironclads and cannons have a use! I had ironclads (eventually after getting steampower) moving along the coastline even before the AI got caravals, and I noticed just how powerful these slow moving ships are. The cannons, well, I had use of them for a huge amount of the game and eventually destroyed montezuma with cannons alone, and then hit Alexander, who kept sueing for peace.

My highly developed cities by now where able to play 'catch-up' and grab ALL of the missing techs I never bothered to research, and in record time, so as my grandiers, cannons, and iron clads moved through the world like mechanical monsters to the AI, I was beating them in the tech race on all levels.

I used a combination of cottage spam and beeling to steel to do this, and I never before realized how powerful the latter can be. I have use out of these usually 'useless' units now, and for almost a quarter of the game. I might make a better write-up on this if this technique seems to work for other games, and I just didn't get lucky in this.

Also the screenshot was taken right before I actually got to my goal, and that was steel. Montezuma is terrified of my grenadier's advancing through his territory, and he's sueing for peace. I accepted it, and ten turns later I used my newly developed cannons and grenadier's to finish him off, and soon after I had iron clads roaming his coast, and my other enemy's coast, destroying their thremes. In no time I'll have destroyers and then infantry, and I ain't even bothering with most of the techs I left behind. (The financfial trait allows this.)

It is a good strategy, but the only problem is that you are probably neglecting other important things while beelining for steel. That said it is a very good strategy if you are going for conquest.

One question: What difficulty?

One question: What difficulty?

I said noble in my pose. Tomorrow I'm going to try this with different difficulty settings and check if it's a viable way to win through conquest. I am currently researching industrialism and I have most of that huge continent to myself. The part of the world I didn't bother touching YET is just about to come out of the rennesance. I am only a tech away from hiting the modern period.

Ah yes, sorry bout that. I'd be interested to see how it does on harder difficulties.

I've never tried beelining to steel, but I have tried a midgame shift to beeline to artillery. One can get so used to simply using suicide cats that one can forget that siege units are actually real combat units!

It's a decent strategy. You may want to try getting Alphabet first, though. With Alphabet, you can trade for some of the techs that you miss from beelining.

Uhm, pretty much all strategies work on noble level so, except if you're doing something counterproductive.

If people were to share strategies, it would be better if the games were played at monarch or higher difficulty, to give some validity to it.

Beeling to steel seems very bad, since you could get steel equally fast by spreading your research and development, since beeling this far would hurt your economy a lot.

Uhm, pretty much all strategies work on noble level so, except if you're doing something counterproductive.

If people were to share strategies, it would be better if the games were played at monarch or higher difficulty, to give some validity to it.

Beeling to steel seems very bad, since you could get steel equally fast by spreading your research and development, since beeling this far would hurt your economy a lot.

Actually if you have at least two commerce only cities near your capitol, you don't even need banking or economics--I do always get currency though.

I'm also doing something else to gain all my lost, and basically ancient techs as my nation is playing around in the industrial age. My force of grenadiers and cannons seem to scare the hell out of the AI, so I like to make a single massive attack to the AI, hold out until they seem exhausted, and then I ask for a peace treaty BUT I demand they give me all the techs I missed--or at least a lot of them--in reply. I've never gotten turned down.

And yes, I have tried this on monarch. It's very powerful if used right. The rest of the game you just have to lie, cheat, steal, conquer, and bribe, and you'll easily out-tech the entire world by almost TWO eras. I had Napolean giving me tribrutes on the monarch game. :P

Even though this technique can be powerful, I do warn it will result in a very long game. A very eventful game though.

Long games > all! :)

No offense, but since this was done on nobel difficulty, the results are almost meaningless.

obsolete, no offense, but you are being insulting.

In general, I find that when someone starts a statement with "No offense" they mean that they want you to be insulted but take no blame for it. I take the offense and then get even.

I rather enjoy case studies. But in this case [sic] I think the results can be very misleading. And that is one thing we have enough of going around.

No offense, but since this was done on nobel difficulty, the results are almost meaningless.
As luhh said, noble difficulty is your game filter. If a strategy works well on noble then it (and your basic game strategy) is ready to be tested on a higher level. The statement that it did well on noble shows a possible hope. No one is gonna try a strat on diety that sucked on noble, right?

In how many games have you actually tried this?
Skipping sailing and calender alone gives a huge hit to your economy , if you outtech the AI that badly it wouldnt really matter if u teched to steel or for military tradition for that matter .
If your a era ahead of the AI's i think its time to start playing monarch/emperor.

yesterday i tried your strategy, also on noble. it kind of worked, i destroyed monty and napoleon and weakened alexander using my cannons and grtenadiers against their longbowmen and horsearchers before any of the AI gt near industrial, i ended up winning domination victory.
it is a good strategy (on noble, don`t know what it`s like on a higher level)what turned out to be a problem though was that my culture was pretty weak due to missing several technologies (education/literature/etc.) for a long time so the weaker ones of my border cities started flipping to Hatty.

I just tried this on noble also and it does work well in destroying mre of your neighbors rather quickly. But the blow to my economy and my culture made it very difficult. It's an alrght technique, and on a pangea map will always result in a win. Now to try on higher difficulty levels...

Also do note that Ganhi swallowed two of my cities up with his culture before I got to steel, but I just replied by swallowing him up with my grenadiers. I then left one of his cities intact and forced a peace treaty on him but only for a few of the techs I missed. He gave them to me.

I then declared war on him ten turns later, finished him off, and then headed to Peter and did the same thing. I found myself totally caught up in all the techs eventually and was racing into the modern era, but the 'catch-up' I played with all my cities in culture and commerce slowed me to a crawl during the last bit of the game. I won by domination with a bunch of only half developed cities. An alright technique since it scares the AI and easily ruins them, but unless your circumstances are right thise technique isn't that flexible.

Steel is a pretty late tech, so this entire strategy depends on playing well and surviving until you get there. Often times what techs you research are dependent upon what the other AIs don't have so that you can swap for a bunch of stuff with it. You can either be a part of the AI group research or be a victim of it.

I'm not a fan of fanatical beelines. There are almost always techs just off the beeline that are worth picking up to improve your civ. So while having a general research goal of steel is a good idea, I think a fanatical beeline towards it while skipping any techs you don't "need" is not a good idea. I do think going for cannons early is an interesting strategy that I would like to try out in my next warmonger game. People tend to rush towards cavalry or rifles, but I imagine cannons can be quite effective if you get them early enough. The path takes you right through grenadiers, too, so you can build a force of about 2/3 cannons and 1/3 grenadiers and wreak havoc. The purpose of the grenadiers is defensive only, since cannons don't get defensive bonuses.

obsolete, no offense, but you are being insulting.

In general, I find that when someone starts a statement with "No offense" they mean that they want you to be insulted but take no blame for it. I take the offense and then get even.
I was thinking the same thing.

I see: "No offense, but you're playing on noble."

I hear: "No offense, but you're an idiot."

Isn't the second one a bit :smoke: ?

I was thinking the same thing.

I see: "No offense, but you're playing on noble."

I hear: "No offense, but you're an idiot."

Isn't the second one a bit :smoke: ?

I think the point is that while there's nothing wrong with playing on Noble if people enjoy it, doing so is simply not an ample test of a strategy.

Bee-line for SAM Infantry, it's way better yo.

Allow me to suggest that the optimal strategy for Deity may, in fact, be suboptimal for Noble.

Thanks for the post Fanaza. I'll try out your technique on Prince first then on Monarch. Maybe I'll get lucky & pop a few tech huts. A few great engineers wouldn't hurt either.

I tried this on prince so far & I failed miserably. It worked at first when Cyrus would give me 2 techs at a time when I demanded them, and a cheap one here & there when he would sue for peace, but I lost so much time fighting him that all the other civs got way ahead of me, except for the gunpowder, steel & chemestry I wouldn't trade them those. By the time I went up to my next opponent Mansa Musa who was very technologically advanced, I took 2 or 3 of his weakest cities, then he sued for peace & offered me a measely 20g. I turned him down & continued fighting, and he eventually was able to get chemisty & the fight became pretty even then. It was already almost the 1900's & I was way behind anyone else & had nothing to trade except my trump cards, so I there was no way I was going to win. I razed most of the cities that I took over so that I could keep my tech at 100% the whole game, but that didn't turn out well when Mansa kept resettling with more troops. Once he got riflemen I gave up. I usually do pretty well at prince, but I think I put myself at a disadvantage beelining for steel. I couldn't trade with anyone because everyone liked Mansa & they would just trade back with him my upper techs, which he easily got on his own anyway. I may try this once more with a financial civ, I used Napoleon. Or maybe I just need to learn what makes the civs panic so that they'll offer me more techs.