Hi all,

I normally play multiplayer, with the occasional single player game, but unfortunately the power supply in my pc fried the other night. Fortunately it's under warranty...unfortunately it will be two weeks untill I get it back. In the meantime I'm confined to my mac laptop, and rather than spend 50 bucks so as not to miss a week or two of "civ time" I thought I'd take the oppurtunity to address my favorite single and multi player scenario.

So anyway...feel free to post any questions reguarding strats on the earth map. I've played and won with all 18 civs on at least prince in single player as well as in multiplayer games. So if you have any questions reguarding strategy..please feel free to post...get as intricate as you like, I've pretty much tried it all.

Joe

OK here is my question about the 18 CIV Earth map:

How do you get a full 18 players to play long enough to do a full game? I have played many of the countries (though just on Noble so far - but with what I am learning from the ALS series Noble is steadily becoming trivial).

Even on fast speed I can't imagine a game taking less than 20 hours or so. It sure would be sweet to get 18 players to devote the full amount of time to play a game (including players playing out lost positions), but I just don't see that happening.

The beginning of the games I really enjoy. But geez once you get to a certain amount of power going around and taking everyone's cities takes SUCH a long time :)

ok, as for getting 18 players to play...this one is a toughie...the first thing you have to do is come up with 18 compitent players that are willing to go through the 30 minute troubleshooting process of starting the game...

....thats difficult to find....

the most successful I've been hosting an earth game is 16 players...and it actually made it to 1950 or so before the game was called.

the first trick I would offer is make sure to password protect the game. people joining and leaving throughout the game are what cause most OOS errors and outright lockups.

the second trick I would offer is don't just give the password out to anyone. I personally am liberal about giving out my passwords, but I keep a "blacklist" for players that are either overly abrasive and abusive to other players, people who have terrible internet connections/latency rates, and people who tend to quit at the first sign of trouble ( oracle was built by someone else, someone else got their religeon, my mom says I have to eat dinner, etc )

the third is to make sure the players know your rules as a host. I have a few to avoid some known bugs on the gamespy server...

a) don't retire, use exit to main menu/desktop ( retire bug )
b) if your civ is about to be taken next turn so that you're completely erradicated, please leave before that turn, not after your last city is razed captured, etc ( semi-retire bug )
c) a person must IM me, and only me for the password ( buddy list bug, and avoids dumbasses from getting in my game, unless I'm equally a dumbass and let them )
d) don't ever spam my passwords in the lobby...that's an automatic blacklist offense...grin

as for the time invested...it's not uncommon to have a game go 12+ hours...in fact played one on blazing speed about a week ago that lasted 20+

I also adjust my settings to avoid certain exploits and do a little "map balancing"...ie...no tech trading, barbs ON, taking time and space race off...

the main point is get people you know...try to schedule games, and eliminate as many things as you can to make sure the game doesn't crash...

learn the gamespy server and it's "features" so that you can host a better game

Joe

oh and as a quick side note...5 of the civs will be gone before 500BC...takes about 40 minutes to an hour to get this far...

just the nature of game, early fast military expansion for certain civs...

Joe

Nation- America
Difficulty- Lower end
Goals- Hold back Aztecs, found chrisianity in New York, spread across american continent

Problem- Aztecs going straight to the great plains and settling forcing me into war and hindering my westward expansion

Problem- Aztecs going straight to the great plains and settling forcing me into war and hindering my westward expansion


Solution = Kill Aztecs asap .. they start with no metal .. bronze to nw of capital.
chop out 3 settlers, settle ne (get bronze), w, sw 2 cities on rivers (great place for cottage spam) - I actually use the same strat I use when playing Rome here - I will tech up bronze, wheel fast - get the spam goin while I research my way to CoL + hopefully CS slingshot. Monty will settle a few cities near plains - dont fret .. you have a nasty axe/sword rush to take the pain away. First priority of war - Take his bronze! Easier to put him away without him havin axes. Kill monty before 1AD and you have plenty of time to colonize the continent.

Kill the Aztecs asap, I like that. I'm thinking I want to limit him to only cities in Mexico. The southern US border must be controlled but, I don't know if I wanna totally wipe out his whole country entirely.

BTW, while I'm on the border topic, does anyone come later on and settle canada? Maybe the British? Kinda new to this sceneario and Civ4 for that matter. Truth be told, maybe I should start off with a regular game before jumping right into a global scale.

BTW, while I'm on the border topic, does anyone come later on and settle canada? Maybe the British? Kinda new to this sceneario and Civ4 for that matter. Truth be told, maybe I should start off with a regular game before jumping right into a global scale.


Britain might, as the map is small and a british city in northern scotland would have a LoS just far enough to see Nova Scotia, and send a ship there. Spain will probably come a little later. Also, I have several times seen Japan settle in Argentina, but that is Huayna Capacs problem.

You have two intersting goals with America...controling the north american continent, and founding Christianity...these are somewhat counteractive goals, but here goes...

The first question would be...is Aztec, AI or human...if it's AI, Monte is going to be much slower getting to iron working than a human is...he will also expand faster and generally neglect wonders/religeon. My advice is beeline iron working...3 settlers is too much...get one settler, settle new york northeast of washington...get a worker, to mine your iron and road your two cities as well as working a road down to mexico, mobility is worth "wasting" the worker. Barracks up Washington and New York and begin pumping axes. The key to this is a simple fact in civ Axemen>Jaguar>Swordsman.

You want to fight Aztec archers and jags, not Aztec axemen ( aggressive bonus ). At this point you can keep aztec bottled in in his capitol and never let him get metals...use your diplomacy screen with him to make sure he doesn't sneak a settler out and have a second city to "trade".

Now whether to kill him off completely or not is determined by if tech trading is on or off...if it is off, destroy him completely...he is of no use to you...if it is on, you will use the teching strategy of beelining the "important techs" for america...which are iron working, construction, code of laws, currency and naval techs to astronomy. You will extort Monte, which isn't easy, for as many techs as you can if TT is on.

Not allowing Aztec to get metal is the key to controling america. With TT on your greatest challenge will be managing an empire that is bigger than others, yet managing a civ which is further behind all the european and asian civs tech wise. Cottage spamming is your friend...and getting caravels/galleons out early are the key to catching up on missed techs...

Personal opinion, you're better off "importing" a religeon. America, like China and Japan, is won by controling production power...you will put up more production than any other civ on the map. 10 galleons full of riflemen and cannon will mop up a city defended by 10 infantry...grin.

If you want anything more specific, by all means ask...

Joe

Joe ima add you ass buddy in Civ4 ok, and i think Barbs on is bad because off how unbalanced it is. Russians, Americans get too many while Persia, England, Rome get none.

Thanks for the advice Joe, seems like you know what you're talking about. Actually thats a good idea about playing as America and the Aztecs, at least for my first game. That should get me what I need here. I know it sounds like cheating, but only till I learn more of the late game tactics. I also have this thing with putting cities right where they presently really are on the world map so this should work out.

actually I find barbs on, even raging barbs on, creates more fairness rather than taking it away...its true that rome/england/france/spain don't have to worry about the barbs, however they DO have to worry about rome/england/france and spain. It also reduces the automatic ability of china/the americas/egypt, to gain great land masses early...ie. the old worker/settler/settler/settler build order.

some disagree, and this is a very arguable point rather than set in stone, but I feel the barbs make the game more balanced not less so...

remember part of the fun of earth 18 is that it is NOT a balanced map...it's a great handicapper when you have friends at different skill levels.

for some reason, I seem to be playing mali/spain/arabia a lot lately while my friends play japan/rome/england...grin

Joe

How many English cities is good on their islands? 1st time I played I put like 6, my brother usually only has 3. Whats a good way to go?

2 on the main island and 1 on Ireland.

BTW, how do you play the Earth map in multiplayer???

As for England...

England is one of the two "power" civs on the map, reguardless of settings ( the other is Rome ).

The question of how many cities to put in Great Britain has popped up on a couple threads in here, and I posted a reply that involves an early 4 cities on "the big island" and 1 on ireland later in the game.

I'm going to defend my reasoning for 4 VERY early cities as England here in a little more detail.

The first point I have to make about this game is that civ18 is not like a randomly generated game of civ. England has 1 wheat, 2 cow, 1 horse, 1 stone, 1 coal, 1 iron, 1 dye, 1 deer, 1 fur, and 1 sheep. This is the largest per tile concentration of resources in the game, and I've not even included "water resources". Even more than China, France, etc.

The second point is that even though Europe as a whole is tightly packed, England has 1 thing that all the others can't take advantage of in the same way...the channel. There is no natural enemy of england that can take advantage early game.

The third point, Rome will rule mainland Europe. If the Rome player has any level of skill at all, he will take all of mainland Europe. If he has any sense, he will attempt to take England as well. Your main job as England is to defeat Rome. Rome's capitol is a production powerhouse. Madrid is a production powerhouse. Paris is strong in production as well. Even with the channel if you allow Rome to outproduce you early, you will lose as England, assuming comparible skill levels.

Now, for practical experience, of the HUNDREDS of multiplayer earth18 games I've played, never once have I seen a successful england player only put two cities on the big island and be a power in the game, for the reasons I've listed above.

A passive England will not win the game. You can pull it off on a noble level game against all AI's, but honestly there's not much challenge to that.

You need to take advantage of Elizabeth's traits ( Philo/Financial ) in these ways.

First, Philo, you will have early libraries in all 4 cities in England...you will normally have two scientists working in all 4. This will lead to early acadamies in each of the first 4...as well as more popping out as you take Paris/Rome, etc...you also might get lucky and get a free "philosophy, or education" tech on your liberalism slingshot.

Second Financial, you will not have many tiles capable of supporting cottages, but you WILL have a lot of water tiles that pound out the coins/beakers, as well as the horse tiles, etc.

Okay now how to defend England and prepare the offensive on the mainland.

London should settle in place...worker first...settler second...the settler should settle 3 due west of london ( I have an alternate strat on this, but this is the most straightforward game. The other involves a pyramid rush that completes in 1960bc, but that's for a later time ). London's next build is ANOTHER settler, and the new city's first build is also a settler. Settler #2 ( city 3 ) is settled one south of the forrested hill with iron. Settler #3 ( city 4 ) is settled one west of the fur in the north. Each of the 3 new cities builds a warrior ( to help with happiness ), you will have sailing at this point and all 4 cities will produce galleys. Naval supperiority will be a focus all game long. You will be hitting iron working about this time. Two of your 4 cities, normally london and your "iron" city" will produce barracks, while the other two will produce your first two axemen...then the builds alternate, so all four cities have barracks and you have a constant stream of axes coming. You will get writing soon after, again, two will produce libraries as two are churning axes. You will NEVER build an archer, and will almost never build swordsmen all game long.

Now for the offensive...Rome will have Europe on it's knees. Your strike is at Paris. You need to claim the iron east of paris so it cannot be utilized...England will be technologically superior to Rome, but it will not have Praes...at this point, catapults are the priority. You need to take Paris and hold it at all cost...then you split the roman empire by heading right at rome. You will now have 5 strong cities pumping out units/improvements. Rome with have Rome, Madrid, and either greece, berlin, or possibly thebes at this point. This is where you win or lose the game...by only having 2 cities in england you would not be able to produce enough to crack the prae/axemen defenses rome is putting up...by having 4 you are able to continuously improve your cities on the islands by building city improving structures in england yet still having 2-3 cities pumpint out units.

I tried to be fairly specific without writing too long of a book here, if you have any other questions, let me know...

Joe

Please tell me how to play this as a multiplayer game, my group of friends would love it!

same way you would play any multiplayer....just choose "new scenario" rather than "new game"

Joe

Hey, joe, long time no see...

Anyway since you play so many earth games you probably don't remember me, but i like to play rome. I'm an experienced rome player, but there is always one thing that brings me down. That is - overexpanding. Where do you think rome should stop attking? Playing the map, i've taken over all but mali, china, india, japan, and the americans, but then my economy is in shambles. And yes, i know i can't take the cities and then raze them, cause then the other civs will just settle. What do you suggest? I'll compare with what i usually do (not going to disclose that at the min)

wow, rome...the civ they don't let me play anymore...grin...

ok, you obviously know the basics of the rome game, so won't dig into that too much, except where it is important to describe the "transitionary" phase.

first I'll say that rome is the 1...ONE...ONLY...civ in the scenario that can pick exactly what territory it wants, and no one civ can stop them. it's the "uber-civ" if you will.

you have to pick your objectives with rome, and realize ( at least with good players ) that the whole world will be against you. here are the ones I normally pick.

1) england is the only potential superpower near you...so england must fall sooner rather than later

2) there is no better "single city" location than thebes...none more poorly defended either due to egypts lack of metals

3) france, spain and germany have incredible health and production resources, but the "happiness" resources we all crave are in east asia.

4) all of northern asia, most of africa, the middle east, and most of western asia have near worthless land.

so taking this all into heart I take the following strat with rome...

1) prae rush paris...if done right your first prae appears about 2600BC
2) continue the prae rush on madrid as paris begins work on a galley, as well as my second roman city ( I put in on sicily ) begins the "african galley"
3) drop on thebes and london almost simultaneously
4) prepare for a large war in germany...take out germany...and put on the brakes
5) realize that happiness will rely more on civics than resources ( representation or hereditary rule )
6) fight the temptation of just because you can take over a lot of the world this early, don't
7) make russia and persia your friends...they make great buffers to the asian powers , ie china and japan
8) western europe and mediteranian africa is all you'll posess early, but you will need great production/science for later in the game
9) as technologies and improvements present themselves take over more and more of africa, and use it as the additional land mass/production/economy/science needed for the late game
10) win the game by being the first to tanks/modern armor/nukes/air force, and not overextend myself during the early and middle ages.
11) navy is key...best way to stop a naval drop is not to let a navy get near you
12) air force is an even bigger key...nothing like 20 stealth bombers "softening" up a stack.

Let me know what you do, and where the "fizzle" happens and maybe I can narrow this down a bit

Joe

hmm... Interesting, you're one of the few people who doesnt use rome to attk the second most powerful superpower rome has to contend with - germany - early.

What i end up doing in all my games -

1)Standard beeline to iron working, while building a work boat then worker, worker finishes iron mine before iron becomes available, and starts working other mines.
2)When iron is researched, switch to praets and get as many as possible. Research sailing
3)search sailing, while still getting praets..., when you have enough, take out france, and bring remaining army down to spain, with a few supplementary troops if need be.
4)When galley is completed, build some more praets, and head galley to the english channel. Bring the remainder of your army from france/spain conquest to western france to be picked up by the galley. Use galley to take over england with praets
6)use fresh troops from rome and perhaps some supplementary troops from madrid and paris to take out germany DURING the england invasion
7) if all goes well, you should still be in good shape for getting egypt. send some galleys w/ praets over to egypt, and take both or all three of the cities(AI usually has 2 or 3 by this time, a player is probably more unpredictable and may have some extra cities somewhere, or invaded arabia)
8) during all these conqests, take ONLY capitals and secondary cities.

**Greece usually falls somewhere in 6-7, i have 2 big armies by this time, one goes to africa, other establishes a foothold in greece and turkey, eventually border pushing in turkey via culture, but that's later in the build stage

End result -

City list:
Rome
Paris
Madrid
Berlin
(germany's second city, forgot name)
London
York
Thebes
(egypt's second city)
Athens
Sparta

Notice i never built a settler! IMHO, that's a building phase action, not something for rome's early war.

After this, i usually end up building... then winning game by a large margin by some method or another because of europe's supercities (you gotta love a place where 99% of the squares are recources) and expanding further south into western africa... Depending on how large my empire is, i usually end up running state property asap.

The above is an "ideal" game... sometimes i'll run into a really good player or a really bad one.

The "fizzle" happens when i get to this point. I have so many excellent untis on the field, i sometimes consdier taking over russia and arabia. I do this, and i find my economy in shambles. Or, i'll be more inclusive, try to build and build some more, but then i end up building too much and i'm not quite sure when to bring out the war banner again. after mace? knights? rifling? calvary? i don't want to wait too long, because i'll be scared of russia's cossaks, but i dont want to get too early and lose my lead. I'm currently waiting until after all my courthouses are up, but by that time it takes a lot more effort to take over an empire... Anyway, thoughts?

I used to play rome very similar to that...here's the catch...your "fizzle" isn't happening at that point...you're only seeing the effect of the "fizzle" at that point.

The reason for not taking germany before catapults is simple...why fight a praet vs axe war when you can fight a praet vs archer war?

as for running into a "good player" or "bad player" in multiplayer...hop in one of my earth maps...oh for heavens sake best buy get me my pc back...rome is generally played by an AI these days...because my "rome busting" strats are pretty common place now...grin

Joe

I used to play rome very similar to that...here's the catch...your "fizzle" isn't happening at that point...you're only seeing the effect of the "fizzle" at that point.


So... where am i messing up? how early?


The reason for not taking germany before catapults is simple...why fight a praet vs axe war when you can fight a praet vs archer war?


My reson for killing germany is the same reason you wait. They have copper. You wait until you have the advantage over thier axes, i attack before they can establish a good enough empire to mobilize or even connect the copper. The steps above look like i attk it later on than i actually do. It works 100% with the AI, and on most humans who aren't experts. If I saw a good player as germany i may do your method. Egypt, with no metals, is prime for the taking and easy to conquer for a much longer period of time than germany.


as for running into a "good player" or "bad player" in multiplayer...hop in one of my earth maps...oh for heavens sake best buy get me my pc back...rome is generally played by an AI these days...because my "rome busting" strats are pretty common place now...grin

O really? I've been on vacation for 3 weeks... pray tell and i'll see if you know something i don't :) :)

In the original post you mention that you've won with all 18 Civs. I'm curious as to what your strategies with the Incas are. The poor design of South America makes them the hardest Civ to play in my opinion (with Mali coming in at #2). However I suppose this was done to prevent them being the easiest to play by virtue of having a whole continent to themselves.

The Incas might be easier to play in a multiplayer setting where all players have fairly equal skill, since the players can contain each others' growth while the Incas develop unmolested. However I've only done this map single player and been finding victory escapes my grasp.

My grand strategy revolves around either trying to colonize Argentina ASAP or moving up to eliminate the Aztecs instead and expand into North America. In both cases the problems of having to ship my Quechuas by boat slows down development significantly. If I go after Montezuma, then by the time I've taken him out Roosevelt has had too much of a free hand in North America. When I'm pushing into Argentina, the Barbarian spawns severely hamper my growth there. I'm not sure how to combine these two strategies- the shipping aspect means I have only a weak stream of troops to send in any one direction and trying to split them doesn't seem wise. By the time I've dealt with the New World successfully, I'm too far behind the Old World to get a win.

I've yet to have a game where I can get Optics before a Japanese Caravel pops up outside Cuzco. It doesn't help that the Incas are the most isolated Civ on the map, reducing science research because you can't get the 'known civ' bonuses. I'll usually prioritize making a Workboat so I can get contact with the Aztecs and Americans as fast as humanly possible, but contacting 2 Civs out of 17 doesn't help *that* much. And it's debatable how fast I'm really speeding things up since the poor boat has to sail all the way down to the antarctic before it can head all the way back up the east coast.

Aside from building a city to get the Bronze in Chile, I'm not entirely convinced on what the best use of the land on the west coast strip is. I used to build a city for each Corn tile but lately I switched to giving the southern Corn tile to Cuzco so it could get a little larger. This helps me work the Gems and Mines until I can get a Worker around to the back side of the Andes to clear out the jungle, a process that takes forever.

Oh, I'm not sure if I agree with your opinion on what's the 'single best' spot for a city on the map. It's highly subjective on what you're going for in a city. To me the area between the Tigris-Euphrates is the 'best' since you can make a city that has a bonus tile (mostly floodplains) in nearly every spot of the city's fat cross. Playing as Arabia or Persia I always race to make this one of my early cities as it becomes a hugely powerful commerce site later in the game.

Darn i just started another thread on a similar topic...

What's the naturally best Civ to play on the Earth map? Is it America with it's vast continent? Dont the Europeans have to fight tooth and nail to get anywhere?
Towards the end of the game who usually hangs on?

okay...three questions to answer...I'll try to get them all without writing a book.

First...the shortest...the "best" city spot in the game...flood plains are great, but the tigris/euphrates spot lacks in a few ways...the number one way is obviously production...thebes also gets a wheat tile, stone and marble ON FLOOD PLAINS!, and horse, and a mineable desert hill. Sure, it's all subjective as to what the best city spot, but I maintain that if egypt had copper/iron..which they should at least have copper considering that they basically ushered in the use of copper in tools, that it would be the "uber-civ" and would always be my first choice. I respect that people have different opinions as to the "best" city site, but you're not going to change my mind on this one.

Second, the inca problem...and oh yes, this one is a ***** to harness in. First I settle two west on the coast...it helps so much with the financial trait, not to mention that you're going to need to be a naval power. From there I play a very "odd" inca.

The tactical advantage of having the panama canal, or at least a pseudo panama canal, is huge. My second city is normally to the north of my capitol and my third is on that canal square...my fourth I totally neglect the copper resources to the south and settle in argentina...I then slowly work my way up the south american coast untill I have the whole continent settled. Now here is the "secret" of inca...they're financial so you want to take advantage of the cottage spam. This is true...for the "internal" south american cities. However the WORKSHOP is your best friend. You will have very low production cities and you need to have at least 2-3 workshopped out cities...is it a waste of great cottage land...yes...do you have an option?...not that I have found yet. Your job till the 1500's or so are to be everyone's friend...accept the fact that you won't have anyone to fight for a while...and that if you decide to go aztec first you're fighting an aggressive civ, same with japan who will have the entire pacific settled as well as being a naval power as well. One last trick...if you're playing MP...you can generally get a cheap tech along with an open borders agreement with england and japan...as they're trying to circumnavigate...and monotheism is worth the shot to cut about 10 turns off their circumnavigate rush.

now for question 3...I'm going to put that in another post...

the best civ...

first off this is very subjective...everyone will have a preference and noone will agree with me on all of this...and that's ok...civ4 is not as "simple" as chess. there is a lot more of the subjective, and that's why we all love it.

I rate the civs in "tiers"

Tier 1-rome/england-you have incredible resource area, easily conquered neighbors, and a huge military asset...praetorians/the english channel as natural defense.

Tier 2-egypt/china/japan/persia-you have great resources, but have either a "thorn" in your side with a nearby civ, have problems with expansion, or lack a precious military asset...like egypt not having metals...china having mongolia...japan being able to establish a foothold in asia...and persia having issues with overexpansion too early or losing the power of its UU.

Tier 3-france/spain/germany/india-the european civs are simple...you have to contend with rome and england...not fun, india is heavily jungled and has to deal with persia/china.

Tier 4-russia/america/aztec/greece/mongolia-either land is at a premium, or "good" land is at a premium...you also tend to be next to a civ that's entire early game strategy is about making sure you don't exist.

Tier 5-arabia/mali/inca-your land sucks...noone likes you...they ignore you till you have built them cities or try to eliminate you right off...you're either a masochist or a badass to play this in multiplayer...when you pull off a win with one of these they sing songs about you in the lobby, etc, etc...they generally aren't fun to play, however there are few things in civ more satisfying than seeing mali tanks, arabian stealth bombers, and incan ICBMs

well all that's kind of my ranking of the civs...I know people are going to lambast me for putting france so high...however trust me...you can have quite a success with it if you play it well.

feel free to ask any follow ups or comment appropriately

Joe

hey betafor, I almost closed this without replying to you...my apologies...

as to the fizzling point...for tactical reasons I'll sometimes not even take germany out...the reason is I have to defend one tile to the ne of rome and the "paris" region...other than that I have very little do defend in europe with the exception of naval superiority. However taking out germany, you are obliged to also take out spain, france...whereas taking out spain, france you are not obliged to take out germany...+1 point for flexibility.

dealing with germany 1 on 1 is a lot easier than dealing with germany 1 on 1 with the potential for it becoming 1 on 2 or 1 on 3 or 1 on 4 or 1 on 5 or 1 on 6 very quickly.

germany will get axes before rome gets praes if both are equally skilled players.

its important to look at your GPT loss each city you take...it gets hard to "slow down" with rome because you have 750 gold in your treasury from waxing all the other civs...but that's a short term advantage...play with your slider to see "if you stopped now" what percentage of science would I have to run to break even. An extra 1 or 2 cities is not worth a 20% reduction in science empire wide.

If I missed anything let me know...

Joe

Joe,

Thanks for starting this thread. I've played a few earth maps with you - really appreciate the effort it takes to get one of these going.

Great info and now I'm fired up. I want you to get your computer back!

Marinus

Joe- You have mentioned Mali a couple times and how difficult it is, but could you go in depth? Should you go for rapid expansion towards the barbary coast to halt european expansion? Should you go south into unexplored jungles? Should you attack egypt so as to keep Africa to yourself and to get one step closer to evenually controling the oil fields of Arabia, or invade Europe to try and stop Rome from taking over the continent?

ahh mali...

I so hate playing this civ, yet I find myself playing it a lot lately.

lets look at the +'s first...

ok so mansa is spiritual ( in my opinion the most underated trait in the game )

ok that was fun...now lets look at the -'s...

Egypt gets the war chariot, you get the skirmisher...used correctly the skirmisher is a "decent" UU, but it's almost purely defensive, and in the open field loses to the war chariot.

Egypt gets better land than you.

Egypt techs faster than you.

Egypt has the creative trait...so you'll lose a culture war heads up.

Egypt as human and AI will focus on construction...so they will have cats/war elephants before you.

You most likely won't have religeon early.

If you do get religeon early, you're going to tick off either egypt or spain...the two you don't want to tick off.

All your prime land is jungled.

With tech trading on you have to be a master diplomat to pull off decent trades...with it off, you will be behind in techs.

There is no immediate metal ( barbary coast coming in a minute ).

You have no good "production" city site early.

Spain, Rome, and Egypt want your land...at least the little bit of good land you do get.

You have very few happiness resources

You have very few health resources

Your capitol is almost all flood plains, at least that of which is not desert.

And those are just the BIG disadvantages...

Stay tune for next post with the strat of how to play them...and make all fall before the mighty Mali.

Ok, let me be specific about the settings this game applies to, whereas some strats can be easily adapted based on settings, this one has to be SERIOUSLY adapted if any are changed...if you want help with different settings, give them to me and I'll post my "best shot"

Secondly, as I'm not the biggest Mali fan on this map, I don't know specific tile order in some cases, so if I make a mistake, please point it out as I can't access the world map while Best Buy takes its sweet time fixing my PC. Why did I buy a mac laptop again?

Alright, this is a multi-player game, tech trading off, barbs on normal, quick pace, blazing speed...humans will take rome, england, germany, russia, japan, china, egypt, persia, india, and two american civs.

Now, I'm not going to take the time to describe all of these "sub-strats" in they're entirety. But you need to understand these concepts and check out the appropriate threads if you're unsure of something.

First micromanagement...this is the biggest example of micromanaging a civ....more on this later...

Second...the only way you can win with Mali is through MILITARY might on a multiplayer world map. Blech.

Third...most of your decisions are made pregame. We can debate these, but you must know your plan pregame, because 20 second turns do not allow a lot of time to "plan" with all the micro'ing you have to do.

Fourth...diplomacy skills are HUGE.

Now lets start with teching priorities.

I generally work a line that involves this...

1) agriculture
2) pottery
3) beelining to iron working
4) writing/math/construction
5) code of laws/civil service
6) machinery
7) it gets a little flexible from this point on...done well, you may even have a shot at liberalism...not likely though.

Now for city placement/purpose

Timbuktu I generally settle one SE...I believe that's the correct spot...it yields you the maximum number of flood plains possible...damn those two corner plots that are desert river rather than floodplains. You will micromanage your capitol almost every turn. They will get almost 0 production, but great food...half of the flood plains will be converted to farms, the other half to cottage. You're going to try to pull off one of the most difficult things to master in civ ( I'm good at it, but sure as hell haven't mastered it )...you're going to run a great person farm AND a cottage/science powerhouse out of timbuktu. This will eventually change to a pure cottage economy in the capitol.

Ok city #2...and your settler is going to go a long way for this...grin...I think it's exactly 4 tiles due south of where spain gets his settler...AND you have to pull this off before spains culture overlaps africa...if I recall correctly you'll have a sheep and a wheat in this city, and a bunch of hills plains...you get a wine too if I remember right. this is your production city, with the hills mined early and later windmilled. you will be producing skirmishers like crazy from this city, as well as the occasional naval unit.

City #3...okay this city sucks, and you're going to break a cardinal "rule" when dealing with controling a large land mass. You need to get the iron resource, and to do so you're going to have it overlapping city 2 a fair bit. This will be a production city in name only...it doesn't get much production, but it gets almost no commerce...generally you end up working about 2-3 coast tiles and the iron, if you're lucky this city will pay for itself, but not much more...don't waste time building improvements...other than the lighthouse, and later a theater...you will be building navy and support land units all game from this city.

Cities 4-5...I think it's 3 SE and one S, and 3 SW and one S...there's no overlap, city 4 will have almost all jungled, grassland, river type tiles...city 5 will have elephants and gems if I remember right...these are what fuel your economy...although there will be plenty of sputtering in the tank.

Goals of founding the cities in this order...

1) a good player checks the power graph frequently...you need to get units out, even if it's just skirmishers and spears to deter your neighbors from attacking.

2) a bad player doesn't check the power graph frequently...if they attack, wait for them to say...WOW how did Mail get so many troops, bleed his stack dry and counter attack with your army...grin.

3) you NEED metal...just having a spear or axe in your coastal cities will make european civs pass you over as "not worth the effort" and give you time to build what you need for what you need to do later.

4) you NEED metal...the only defense to egypt is spearmen...they have war chariots and elephants, you will get metal before them, and you will be the one who can be the aggressor if you keep your power graphs even, or even if you are slightly behind.

5) Madrid is the jewel of the Mali empire...of course now that I'm writing this, this will be more and more difficult to pull off, but the first 4000! years of the game are all designed to pull off an amphibious invasion of spain.

6) Civics are key to Mali, fortunately you're spiritual...but hereditary rule, caste system, beurocracy, are important, and you'll also switch around a lot as you open more options.

7) Don't be afraid to use the whip...whereas you won't have great production in africa, you will have decent food. You have to be able to whip, and whip well, and whip often, and whip again.

8) Do NOT keep your military in a SOD ( stack of doom ), you will be attacking right at the height of the catapult. You need to be able to attack in waves/prongs...and you have to be able to move ALL your ministacks in 30 seconds...grin.

9) When you attack Madrid...you will have opened up one of the biggest cans of worms you've ever seen...it will be a "backrank" of either spain/germany/rome/or england...its generally poorly defended, but 4 or 5 turns later you're going to get slammed when he shifts directions on you...for this reason I always call Mali the great spoiler. You will also have to defend against a tier higher than you in techs when it comes to units.

10) Madrid is your staging ground to ENGLAND!...do not fight a land war in europe at this point...you can't hold all borders...but if you've done what I've said so far, you can pull your navy up and have at least a fighting chance for naval superiority in the atlantic and the mediteranian. Once you take england...FOUR great city sites, now the Mali war and economic machine takes foot...of course it 4000 years too late, and the game is nowhere near decided, but all this happens fast and you're suddenly a power in the game...its about at this point that egypt will attack...grin

11) pray you get lucky, pray you get luckier and use every tactical and strategical trick you can.

12) taking madrid normally nets you a holy city...make sure to switch to the religeon that izzy founded so you get the intel info...that religeon will have spread a lot and the info you get will be better than any disadvantage from not having that religeon in your key cities.

I could go on on this one for pages more, but this should be a good starting ground...besides, can't give away all my tricks...grin.

Here's the disheartening part of playing mali, and it's probobally the only civ this applies to with the possible exception of arabia...

YOU HAVE TO OUTPLAY ALL OF YOUR NEIGHBORS...

if you are of equal skill to your neighbors...you're going to lose...there are just too many disadvantages.

but if you CAN outplay all your neighbors...mwa ha ha ha...what a bragging point to have

by the way...the time I won a 12 player multiplayer with mali...there was another very strong player in the game. we formed an alliance early that didn't mean much early...but...

THE MALI/INCA alliance ruled the world...chuckle...what a pair of civs to be the two dominant powers.

As always...feel free to comment, or question me further on this or any other topic.

Joe

You should do some strategy for every civ and make a strategy article

You should do some strategy for every civ and make a strategy article


Yeah, take your time and make it nice and neat, add some pictures and different font sizes, and it will probably get stickied.

I want to play as a colonial empire, and I wanted to know the best civ for this besides England and Rome.

I also would preferebly like to play as Inca or Spain, but im not sure, please help!

wow, I appreciate the compliments guys, but lets examine two things...

1) As soon as the evil computer mongers finish with my pc...my "off" time will be devoted mostly to thrashing all of you in earth games...grin

2) If I were to do a strategy article on rome alone, it would probobally take 30 or so pages...and that just gets us to the military tradition age...and I think I'll have my PC back by then...

What I MAY do,...is use this post ( or put a new one in the appropriate place ) to schedule "earth" games on gamespy...I've found invited players lead to less connectivity issues, and more compitent players. I'd love to actually launch one with 18 some day...

In the meantime, I'd assume Best Buy won't have my PC for more than 1 more week, so if there are any more questions, feel free to ask...


Thanks again,

Joe


Oh and as for the post of a "colonial" civ, I'm not sure what you mean, can you be more specific?

1.Best colonial civ would be japan or inca... for obvious reasons...

2. Joe.. that would be good, but we would have to make it in a diff section than strategy...
BTW, were you on Tursday night? I could have sworn i saw you in the lobby... Took us an hour and a half to start that game... jeez :P

Joe I mean this in the nicest possible way:

I hope your games PC is lost, permanently broken AND stolen AND the insurance company won't pay out, because that was a damn fine piece of writing and I want to see more. Is that a bit selfish of me? :p

I also want to thank you for the thread. I have always loved the Earth maps in Civ games, and I'm loving this dicussion.

As I started reading, I wanted to ask about Mali and Russia as these are my favorite civs. Then you got into a discussion on the Mali, so that was nice. But I haven't played this map on multi-player, and you gave us the caveat that your strat only applies to certain settings. Without asking you to re-write the whole Mali strat, can I just ask whether you even think they are viable in a single-player game? (Assume whatever difficulty level is appropriate to the player.)

I find it interesting that you see the Mali as being so weak. Their lack of resources is undeniable, but what they have in abundance is food. Shouldn't a land-grab in sub-Saharan Africa followed by cottage spam be a viable strategy? Playing as the Mali the question early-on is "North or South?" North means metals and military, but if you go South your Skirmishers find more use as you defend your numerous early cities. A defensive force and an army of workers is all you need to transform the area from a huge swath of jungle to a commerce center, right? (I don't have a lot of experience here. I'm speaking mostly in theory but also based on Earth 1000AD strats.)

But enough about the Mali. What I'd really like your opinion on is two other civs, Russia and Spain. Russia is the civ I "get into" the most on the Earth map, but also what I find to be one of the hardest. On the one hand you've got large expanses of land to the East and Northwest. On the other you have your South/West border to defend. How do you balance expansion and defense/wars? Going for an aggressive war leaves Siberia and Scandinavia open to Mongolia and England, respectively. But grabbing the land to the E/NW can leave you vulnerable to the "barbarians" in the south. :lol:

Finally, I'd like your views on Spain, but more generally those civs that are "boxed in" at the beginning of the game, e.g. Spain and France. (We won't count Rome since they can break out of that box so easily.) Spain is the epitome of this problem, having no early-game advantages. Even with an early religion France's culture is dominant. The Iberian peninsula is so small that you can just barely eke out two cities (if memory serves, you have to move your first settler East to even have two) and neither one of them are that great. How do you break out of the box as Spain (or France?)

Joe, been really enjoying reading your strats. From someone who's not all that great, it has helped quite a bit in terms of thinking outside of the box when it comes to civ. Two Civs I really enjoy playing on this map are Greece and Japan, but I have a lot of difficulty breaking out of they're respective boxes and putting myself in a position of power. I was hoping you could do what you did for the other civs for these two as well.

I have been wondering about tech rushes as well. I've heard them refered to as Slingshots or CS rush or things like that. from what I understand rushing certain techs are key to technological dominance. I know what all the techs do to some degree. but I don't know the specific tech paths or tricks of the trade so to speak. so i was hoping you could comment on them.

Lastly I was hoping you could explain how important founding religions and building wonders is as it seems in your explanations you haven't included either. (in the 18 civ earth map context of course)

I know it's a lot to ask, but I figured I might as well give it a shot and ask and maybe if you were feeling nice you'd answer :D

Quick addendum:

Forget my questions about the Mali. My experience with them was mostly in the 1000AD scenario. I just tried them in 18 civs, and my attempt at a southern land grab quickly came up against a wall: Egypt. They quickly swarm the eastern and southern part of Africa. The major issue for Mali is health, and there are two food resources on the northern coast in addition to Iron, making it the clear choice.

Would still be interested in your Russia strategy, as well as general strategies for "boxed in" civs that me and the previous poster are wondering about (Spain, Greece, France, Japan.) Although it occurred to me that bee-lining for North Africa is probably the best choice for Spain. (Could be tough in a cutthroat MP game though.)

wow, great string of intelligent questions guys...

this is going to take several posts.

Alright...this seems to have turned a lot more into a discussion of game theory than specific civs ( with questions of about 5 civs thrown in...grin )

So, let me take some broad strokes in this first post, and then I'll give some direct answers.

First I need to give an insane amount of credit to the map designer for Earth18. It pains me hear unexperienced or shortsighted players to say the map is "terrible", "unfair", etc.

Now, that being said, the map IS unfair...but that's the way it's supposed to be!!! It's what makes this map fun, and it will actually draw on your sense of history to be successful...what more could a civ player ask for?!

To be successful, you pretty much have to do what the "real civs" did, and where they historically made a mistake, "fix it"

Here's some examples...Don't grow rome to the point it's infrastructure brings it down...Don't make mistakes in the war with france that bogged down england for centuries...Don't let a massive military break down the greek empire...Don't let a "substandard" military keep egypt from being sovriegn, etc etc.

Now to apply this to game mechanics...One would think that starting land/resources is the first most important thing when selecting a civ and selecting how to play it. It's not, it falls a distant number 3 actually.

First lets talk about leader traits and traits combinations.

Now, I will accept that people have thier "favorite traits"...I know I do...I'm actually quite partial to spiritual. However, if you think there are "weak or substandard" traits, you are shortsighted and have not built the skills to use them properly, it's not that the traits are "weak"...if you can accept that, then there's room to grow. I'm not trying to be condescending, there are traits I know how to take full advantage of, and traits I don't know all the quirks of, it just irritates me that traits are dismissed as weak, when a lot of people who are much smarter than I am have tested/tweaked/ and balanced the system.

Now...how to use them. There are TONS of trait orriented strat guides on this site. If you want to find the "good" ones, read them, and listen to the ones that say what I just said...that no traits are weak.

Here are a couple examples...Rome gets the organized trait...this one gets beat all to hell in boards, examples I've seen say that it's nothing compared to financial...doesn't yeild near the commerce, etc...think of it this way...Rome expands early...and it's a HUGE early game advantage...the "prae" is NOT what allows rome to take all of europe so early...the organzied trait is what allows it. England is packed with resources, so cottage spamming isn't a viable option...but wow, all those early acadamies...and using a scientist to pop philosophy, and most of education makes the english a tech leader in most games ( and often the first to get liberalism )...starting to see historical contexts here? The point of this is simple...play the traits you get...don't try to force the traits into YOUR game.

Second, and another thing that most people put low on their priority list. The UU of each civ. Yeah we all love our UU's, in a lot of cases that's WHY we pick our civs, but do we use them correctly?

If you notice the civs that I have ranked lowest on my "tier" list..look how much that corrolates to the ability to take advantage of their unique unit...In europe praes rule more than any unique unit can/does for any time pieriod ( tier 1 civ )...it's difficult/impossible to effectively use skirmishers/quechas on this map ( and I'm NOT saying these units are weak, just that with this layout it's hard to take advantage of it ) and these are low tier civs. The point of this...when your UU comes to bear...use it, use it to death...all UU's dominate assuming tech parity when they exist ( with the possible exception of the camel )...don't throw their advantage awy by being passive...also, if you have a neighbor that's about to hit their UU, strategize accordingly ( be really friendly or take them out first ).

Now for land and starting resources...lets keep this simple...some is great...some sucks...maximize it the best you can either way...get over it if you're in a bad spot, and win using your brain...not game mechanics. If you want to whine, do it in another forum...grin

Now for a little multi-player/single-player issues.

I play both, but prefer multiplayer.

Now there are a couple reasons people don't play multiplayer so much...connectivity, 13 year olds ( yes nuclearkid this is directed at you ), 30 year olds who act 13, game abusers, the ability to find a good game at the time you want to find a good game, the limiting factor of the turn timer, and the biggest problem of all...assuming you get around all those other problems, it REALLY FREAKING HARD TO WIN AN EARTH MAP WITH TEN OTHER GOOD PLAYERS, and really frustrating putting 10 hours in on your day off just to lose in the modern age to another good player.

I like multiplayer for one reason...it tests your skills more than any single player scenario can. It tests tactics more than strategy, diplomacy is not an equation, it's ... diplomacy!

So here are Joe's top 5 ways to increase your skills in multiplayer Earth18.

1) the power graph...check it every turn if you can. Don't be the dumbass who takes on rome or persia early 1v1...pick on the weak, and don't be the weak.

2) diplomatic advisor, bottom of the screen, technologies...even with tech trading off this will show you what techs civs you've met have that you don't...check this as often as possible too

3) demographics...see where you're strong, see where you're weak...use your advantages...expand on them, try to fix your weaknesses.

4) diplomacy - never backstab...people have great memories...I've not once backstabbed on an earth 18 map, that and me being a decent player makes me a pretty sought after ally...the players that have backstabbed me...they get to do it exactly once...I don't like to make the same mistake twice...which means when a "neutral" player is picking who to ally with, the non backstabber generally gets the advantages of this. Me commenting that someone has backstabbed me in the past generally results in 5-8 players per game that won't ally with him ever as well. Kinda makes the game impossible and a lot less fun for the backstabber.

5) play the player, not the civ...you're playing humans, realize it and adjust accordingly.

now...on to some specific questions...

ok lets divide the world into "chunks"...this post will be about "europe" ...I'll also try to do western asia, eastern asia, north america, and africa.

Europe will consist of England, France, Germany, Spain and Rome.
Western asia will consist of Greece, Russia, Persia, and India
Eastern asia will consist of Mongolia, China, and Japan
North America will have America and Aztec
Africa will have Arabia, Egypt, and Mali

yeah I know that Inca got left out, but for all intensive purposes they live in a vacuum.

I also know that some civs were put in "odd" categories...like greece russia and arabia, but I put them together where you see the most conflicts.

Now on to Europe.

Europe has the densest set of resources on the map...It is VERY food heavy and there are several terrific production sites. Theres no jungle, no desert, even the water tiles are pretty packed with fish, clams, etc.

There are two superpowers incredibly close ( england and rome )

There is only ONE tile with copper on it!...WOW

Now lets look at the civ dynamics...

Everything revolves around Rome, everything in a secondary way relates to england. To put this in a bit more light, I tried running a few "controled" experiments.

I took 7 regular, GOOD earth players. The other 6 had one goal and one goal only...to kill rome. The 6 played, england, egypt, france, spain, germany, and greece. Three of Five times Rome survived to praetorians and held...One of those...Rome took out all 6 civs. Talk about a great set of starting conditions.

This being said...its in everyone in Europe's best interest not to allow Rome to get Praetorians, or worst case to at least have axemen BEFORE Rome has Prae's.

So...to keep it simple...don't sit back and try to tech to axemen and hope Rome doesn't go for you at first...get warriors and chariots into Roman land and fight the war on his soil...and bring a friend or two you're going to need them.

As Rome, your first choice is a friendly Germany...their copper resource makes them your biggest early game threat. They will have axemen before you have Prae's...you just have to have enough warriors on the forrested hill to the northwest of rome to hold off the axes till your first axe /prae can get there. Your first target will be Paris 9 times out of 10, and you will be at war with both paris and spain, parking praes on the forrested iron tiles.

As all other civs, settle your capitol in place ( with the exception of spain ). Madrid should be settled one east on the plains hill...this allows for 3 cities in the iberian peninsula. The KEY to making a successful run with spain. Rome and Spain have the two best tactical locations...both can be completely defended by land with only two, one tile choke points. I can tell you this...5 STRONG players in Europe has land an naval battles of an epic proportion...and you look up at 1AD and everyone has their initial territory and that's about it...heh.

War is not a 1v1 thing in europe...or a 2v1 or 2v2 thing...War, done correctly in Europe ( like in history ), is a 2v1v1v1 or 2v2v1 thing. Diplomacy gets so complex at this level, and leads to some of the more fun games I've played in. I've seen every combination of alliances happen here, and there's always something new in the combinations. Alliances tend to take the form of, lets ally for 20 turns...or lets ally till we reach this tech, or lets ally till this one choke point is secured, etc...you don't see any GAME long alliances happen here ( with rare exceptions ).

If Rome does expand ( Paris, Madrid, Thebes, Athens, whatever ) they will generally be the dominant power for the first 5000 years or more...if not it shifts to, ok we held off the praes, now what are we going to do about england. Surprisingly, the longer the war goes...the more powerful Spain becomes...it's actually becoming one of my favorite civs to play. They're the only civ that can pop ships in both the atlantic and mediteranian...have the shortest trip to shift navy back and forth, and have 3 good cities, 2 production powerhouses, and 1 nice commerce one. And to answer one question from earlier...don't waste time with NW africa, it's not worth it.

The dynamic between rome ( brute force ) and England ( finesse ), is truly enjoyable...with all the wildcards thrown in it leads to great games all around if you can pack europe with compitent players...

"The France Problem"

OK, I used to be one of the players that said, don't play france, they just can't win. I'm quickly altering that philosophy. Lets look at them in some detail because far and away they are the most challenging european civ to play.

Everyone wants Paris...it's the natural expansion for every civ in europe...it's the city that's the "hub" of europe...England has a straight drop on it...it's closest to Madrid, it's closest to Rome, it's closest to Berlin...it has no copper...but has everything else...what a tasty treat for all the other civs.

France has one thing that no other civ in Europe has...the Creative trait.

that +2 culture helps a lot.

The key to france is military and military tactics.

Assuming that Spain and Germany realize that rome is the immediate threat...you will have a "little" breathing room early.

The most common mistake I see being made with france is the emphasis on archers. Archers are great city defenders, but you will be turtled all game long. The power in Europe and France specifically is the CHARIOT!...

Insert laughs here.

Bulk chariots with the withdraw upgrade can be huge...and you're using them untill you can get to iron working ( which you'll beeline after animal husbandry )...If you can get to axemen, and have at least 2 built when the praes are knocking on your door, you will quickly shift to being the dominant civ in europe. You have great production so you'll be getting axes every 2-3 turns...and then you have 4 great choices who to go after first...the old "hey rome" lets end this war, give me spain and england and you can have germany" tends to work well...grin

The key to all the civs in europe is don't waste time with buildings...if you do, you're building them for another civ...with the exception of barracks. One worker is enough for all european civs ( don't feel shy about stealing one though if you can as well )

Massive ancient armies, complicated diplomacy, and military tactics are what make Europe fun to play.

I would say that covers most of the basics. Feel free to comment, question as appropriate.

Joe

I still don't see how France is viable. In single-player you have a slim possibility of a 2nd city to the south, but if Spain settles one tile East then France is limited to one city, while all her neighbors have room for more. Also, France isn't the only one who's Creative: Germany is too.

A multi-player game sounds like a lot of fun. I would definitely sign up if you organized one. There are certain aspects of the single-player game that make it much different. Most notably, the AI only puts 2 cities on mainland England, then quickly settles Ireland and western Scandinavia. (Yet in the 1000AD scenario England is indeed given 4 mainland cities.)

I would still like to know any thoughts you might have on Russia in particular, or other civs that have to balance expansion with defense/war, such as Persia or Mongolia. Is it best to launch an early war even though you have huge expanses of open land nearby? Or should you focus on defense while you expand rapidly in the beginning?

I realize that for these civs it's pretty similar to a standard game of civ; but the trade-off on this map seems particularly tough, because there is such an inordinate amount of land available to some civs. On the one hand I feel I should expand toward my enemies and try to cripple them. But on the other, I'm wary of leaving such huge areas unsettled because the AI will gobble them up quickly if I don't. (It is, of course, a much bigger issue in single-player, where the computer is much better at grabbing land without crippling their economy.)

my bad, you're absolutely correct about germany...I guess when it comes to europe I focus on a 3 tile area where rome/spain/france meet, and disreaguard all other early culture issues...also with germany starting with a scout there are many games with france where germany doesn't see turn 4...grin

Someone asked about Japan. You could try and make a monolithic empire in Japan, Korea, China and Siberia, but I think it is probably better to create a little base in Korea, and then colonize the SE Asian and Pacific islands as well as an empty and ignored Australia, and maybe go all the way to Argentina. You probably won't get a military win if you do this, but with China and Mongolia right on your doorstep, it would be very hard to break out of your bubble in that direction (west) anyway. Just expand your colonizes and get a peaceful victory.

ok, on to russia...

whereas in europe the "strat" is pretty much the same with all local civs, russia, with all it's choices makes it a very difficult civ to play well.

the motto I use with russia ( and I really don't care for playing this civ on this map ), is I want to get cossaks fast, and I want them to be a dominant unit for as long as possible. I want to be able to do as much damage as humanly possible, and make great gains with them in the 200-300 years where they're a dominant force.

russia, even though they're financial, will win or lose their game based on their production abilities. If you are not in the top 2 in manufactured goods, you're going to lose the game. The warmongering phase of russia is with cossacks and tanks/air force...again note the historical similarities.

"threatening civs"...the natural enemies for russia, are germany ( with a stable europe ), persia ( with a weak or allied india ), and greece ( surprisingly enough ).

your expansion plans should consist of not pissing these guys off...grin. I tend to drop st petersburg on the coast to wall off scandanavia from germany, and to settle scandanavia quickly ( to slow down england )...I've even pulled off some great drops on an unprepaired england but I wouldn't make that a common tactic.

russia should be managed as a "buffer" civ, and if played right will generally have a large number of "ally requests"...russia is generally seen as too big to go after, but not powerful enough to be a threat. That's what you want people to think as well.

generally I've found that people who take russia expect to be an imperialistic threat from early in the game...now granted they "can be"...but the civ will "fizzle".

expand...take the territory peple don't want...specialize your cities...get some cottage spam, some workshop/watermill cities on the rivers, try to get one really strong food city ( yes this is tough with russia ), and just slowly spread like a cancer...then when cossacks pop...BAM pick either east or west...or both...grin and just ransack like crazy...they're the rome of the industrial era.

don't be afraid of tundra...don't neglect putting up 5-10 tundra cities over the course of the game...5 strong tiles and you get a size 8 city that will produce military units in the late game...just don't grow for the sake of growing...grow as much as possible, as safe as possible while keeping your economy strong.

as for civics, police state and state property are your friends...don't be afraid to beeline for them once you have MT...

again we're following history and fixing the mistakes...become a production powerhouse but don't let your potato(e)s rot in the field.

the key to war with russia is audacity...when you do decide to strike...hit hard...and learn how to manage "reserves"....russia is one of the civs that "stacks" dont work as well as wave after wave of "mini" stacks and lone units. If you don't have this concept down, don't play as russia, there's a reason they say don't fight a land war in asia.

as always if I left something out you wanted to know please ask...

next I'll address religeon/wonders, then come back to some civ specifics.

Joe

ok lets start with religeons...

I'm by no means anti religeon in this game. I just belive there are very few civs that can pull off an early religeon and still be "in the game"...

religeon is a gamble, plain and simple. Its great to have a holy city, temples/monestaries, etc. It's not to great if you can't hold these cities.

Izzy is the number 1 "religeous" AI...she gets one fast and if you're not of her "faith" she hates you...but in earth 18...you have to waste a turn moving your settler...AND you have to deal with praes...so you can't waste one turn and still get an early religeon...even if you did, it slows you down about 6 turns to getting iron.

Ghandi can pop a religeon fairly easy...the biggest decision is choice...I tend to go poly...but meditation is viable as well.

I tend not to "make" holy cities...I tend to take them. I don't like gambling when at all possible during the first 10 turns of a 10 hour game.

now to wonders...ahh I see SOOOO many people make mistakes trying to get these...

with a religeon if you go for the tech but miss the religeon, ibut you get the tech anyway...if you go for a wonder all you get is gold. gold is great, but gold doesn't equal production in most cases.

lets start with with the early wonders...stonehenge, oracle and pyramids

stonehenge is a "minicreative" tech...it's cheap and can be completed quickly...its actually a nice wonder to have...so why not rush it?...

mysticism is a tier one tech half of the civs have it after the first few turns, between those that have it as a starting tech, those that pop it from a hut, or those that research it. at this point in time, would you rather have stonehenge in a city with one warrior guarding it, or the civ with 3 chariots that is in a position to take a capitol?...

this amplifies as the wonders get more expensive...

want pyramids? or 8 upgraded axemen?...pyramids are great...but worthless if you lose them.

The exceptions...oracle is a 3-4 turn build for egypt played right...pyramids can be rushed by england or egypt by 2000bc, but even these are gambles...the only wonder I try for every time in the ancient age is oracle as egypt...the rest I go take...grin

as the game progesses I try for more wonders...pentagon, three gorge dam, UN, etc are great wondes to have.

now I should take some time to discuss great engineers since this is the next logical question. Engineers suck at researching techs, they're great for free wonders...

so I see people all the time pop and engineer and hold it for the next available wonder...200 turns later imhotep is still sitting in someones capitol.

now as a great specialist...they give 3 hammers and 3 beakers base. over 100 turns that's 300 hammers and 300 beakers,...long story short...don't feel it to be a waste of an engineer to install them in a city.

Joe

Ok... I give up... I've been trying for the past couple days now to get a good strategy for inca, but none of them work... colonizinng argentina, attking north america, even tried colonizing australia! It's really fustrating because i've develouped a good strat for every civ EXCEPT inca... main thing is, clearing the SA jungle takes forever...

I thought I'd put a pretty detailed strat for inca up...and just a quickie...but don't forget about serfdom

Joe

What you posted for the Incas isn't too different than what I've already tried a bunch of times. The only thing I see is your emphasis on getting a Panama city very early, so I expect you like to try and settle the SA coast from both north and south instead of coming up from Argentina only.

Ok... I give up... I've been trying for the past couple days now to get a good strategy for inca, but none of them work... colonizinng argentina, attking north america, even tried colonizing australia! It's really fustrating because i've develouped a good strat for every civ EXCEPT inca... main thing is, clearing the SA jungle takes forever...


Argentina has alot less jungle in it, just forests to chop rush. In fact, most of the southern coast of SA ( as in probably south of modern day Sao Paulo) has forests and not jungles on it.

The key focus is whether or not tech trading is on...if it's on, you need to emphasize navy and make lots of friends for trading, if it's off you need to cottage spam and workshop spam effectively...to keep up with techs.

if it's off, you can somewhat keep pace...

one thing that will make it a LOT easier is fogbusting...get quechas all over the map in south america...don't let those barbs spawn..they're tough as hell with inca...

Joe

Joe when you're writing about how powerful Rome is (and they are) are u taking into account that the civs around Rome are AI or human cause if the civs are human people what should Rome do?

Also I agree with your list of best civs to be cause I did play against you when you were France in that 16 hour long game (around there) and you did have all of Europe while i was Japan

I also assume that you're talking about me being the backstabber of our Earth map group, since I think i've betrayed everyone at least once.

I guess i am a crazy canadian :)

Sorry to bring up a 'covered' Civ again, but in regards to England...

Does anyone else feel it's worth it to pop-rush early game, but post-Libraries?

Its arguably less micro-intesive to just slap in two scientists, stop growing at the happiness cap, and work coastal tiles, instead of the wheat.

I've calculated out that the difference between whipping 30 hammers every 10 turns, as opposed to the whip-less approach to be...

At size 5 base happyness limit, the whip approach gains 25 shields, but loses 41 commerce.

At size 6 base happyness limit (Furs), the whip approach gains 28 shields, but loses 50 commerce.

Those numbers are just for the capital, but they would be identical with your second city, and similar with your third... The fourth would be better off with the whip.

Now... At what point in time will that 50 commerce probably be more useful then the 28 shields? I'd wager it'd be a bit after you sack Paris, and are making your way into Germany/Spain...

i like your post on england...and the background research you've done with it. In fact it may just cause me to fine tune my game. A general rule of thumb I use is an algebraic equation I saw on here...remember this is a GENERAL rule, and changes much during the game...

1food=1.5hammers=3 commerce

by your model I like the slave popping...you can always use an extra galley/axeman for england and techs come very fast...the only thing that would make me lean to the the other side is the GPP's from the scientists post library...I think either option is viable post library it would be more determinite on how the military campaign is going...

also I tend not to pop civics so early, slavery is great, but a turn early is a HUGE turn to use that anarchy...not saying I'm right on this one, just personal preference, but I promise I'll be trying your ideas out once the pc comes back

Joe

hey crazy, as to your post...yes the backstabbing referred to you...but don't get me wrong, still love having you in my games, you're one of the better players I play with on a regular basis...and I think you're actually 2 and 0 vs me in the past two games...grin...in fact those two games proved my earlier points about the power of production...

anyway...honestly I pretty much run my rome game the same vs AI's or humans...with a mostly AI europe I sometimes go settler or work boat first with rome, and I actually tend to have an easier time vs good human players than I do vs AI's...a good human plays to win, an AI plays for the best possible result.

the only humans I have to worry about are the ones that know to rush rome en masse...and the occasional german axeman rush...in those cases it's just hold on to the seat of your pants...play your best...hold on to the seat of your pants...if you survive till praes you have a much easier time taking out the 1 or 2 defenders of a city rather than the ai's 5 chariots and 10 archers they's squirreled away in their cap

Joe

oh and I love that you picked a "covered civ"...we only get better by bouncing ideas and techniques off each other...

this isn't a "list" for me, just my ideas on the civs, and whereas I consider myself a very consistant and very good earth map player, I'm by far perfect, so I love rehashing and debating ALL the civs ( well inca and mali aren't too fun, but sometimes ), and seeing what we can all do to improve our games...

the best earth map games are where EVERYONE is good, not just the top 3 or 4...I've had a 10 hour game where there were still 8 players fighting for the top spot...THOSE are the enjoyable games, not just "another" rome stomp...grin

Joe

Hi OCC, glad you could make it

Just for the first time looked back on the earlier posts...

Quick thing i would like to make about england, is that once you are done with building the farm/3 animal pastures, you have a couple turns before you can improve the new cities, because you havea few turns before the settler comes out ( if you research Agriculture->AH first), so by that time hopefully you have bronze working, meaning you can go chop the forest that your 3rd city will be in for a couple extra hammers. What do these extra hammers do? they make BOTH of your cities finish the settler at the same time... and you aren't losing anything, because the forest you are chopping you will settle on that sqare anyway. just a lil tip

Plus i tried out and really like your 2 scientist strat on england... i'm not normally a specialist person...

you do lose something there, and you also don't really gain anything...yes your settler in york finishes one turn faster...but it doesn't get to its destination any faster...if timed right, city 4 settler ends up on the iron hill the same turn both ways...and you've lost 2 roads...or the rock quarry, depending on how you went with research after ag and farming...if you can't do either of those improvements I'd try to mine where the coal pops out later, anything is better than wasting time on a chop that doesn't really do anything one way or the other...

good thinking, but the execution of moving the settlers doesn't pan out...

Joe

K I have another question Joe, about india, since i do tend to be in the middle east most of the time.

Do you think India should do an archer rush against persia before they get horses? What I do in this strategy is get these techs in order hunting/AH (for production)/ archery/then go for Iron working with agriculture in the mix depending how good the war is going.

I ususally build one warrior plus the starting one and then 2 workers when city size is 2, followed by a barracks then archers. The warriors usually patrol the horses so persia doesnt get them.

I've tried this strategy plenty of times and it does work, unfortunatly those people never expect an attack from India cause they think india cant do anything military wise cause of jungle and lack of production. They are more worried about arabia because they get horses and India doesn't.

Just a reminder the india leader is Asoka not Gandhi

I'd have to do some play testing, canadian, I'm not sure if it will work vs a competant persia...it's a pretty big gamble seeing as how if persia gets just one immortal he's going to shred you (+50 or +100% vs archers if I remember right ), even with terrain he's going to slaughter your army in the field...I think you might need to tweak it up, forget the barracks and get a few more warriors early.

Like I said, would have to play it out from both sides and see what I can come up with...damn you best buy I want my pc...

Joe

...How does it not make a difference joe? Yes, your third city appears on time, but your fourth city settler has an extra turn to move. It's a set amount of turns to get the settler, and a set amount of turns to move the settler, add them together and you have the number of turns to build the city... but minus one for a forest chop is still minus one, no matter what terrain is there. I could see an exception for making a road, but i usually have my last settler done before wheel...

OCC, i have a lot of freinds who do this with persia:

Worker/barraks/worker/immortal spam.

You can see why i like rushing with india..

i dont normally play india as you know, but i have learned that waiting for persia to attk is a bad idea, considering persia needs 2 border pops before it can access the horse, and you lose your only advantage. So, i like your strat, expecially using the warriors to make sure he doesnt get horses...

However, I am normally against early rushes becaue early rushes vs a good UU civ all depend on the fact that the person has to be building non units in order to better his eventual conquest(barraks, worker to hook up stuff.

IMHO, it's a gamble. (This is what i've learned playing non earth games about early rushings where one has a later game advatage, but for this we'll use persia and india)
India rush, persia builds units for defence - lose stalemate not worth the time, stagnated because you built useless units instad of settler/buildings/ect, while you may eventually be able to pull this off once you get iron online, by this time everyone else is way ahead of you, even with your new city
India build, persia builds units for defence - win, he can't easily take you over w/o UU
India rush, persia builds worker/barracks - win, you sucessfully rushed him
India build, persia builds worker/barracks - lose, UU kills you.

if all situations are equally likely, then it's a coin toss. The fun becomes when you can anticipate the movements of your opponent.

Don't you wish you were phycic? :P

ahh how an assumtion can totally ruin a strat...

gentlemen...one must not assume that persia will settle in place...I know I don't with them...grin...

now, after mulling that over, here is the trick with england as to why it's a null turn for the settler...

for ease I'm going to assume we've done all the first steps...london is in place, york is 3 west...and we'll run both scenarios

turn 1) london finishes settler...york is one away...settler 1 moves 2 squares northwest

turn 2) york finishes settler...settler 1 moves 1 square north...forested tile...settler two moves to one square south of forested tile...

turn 3) settler one settles...settler two goes through the tile and ends up on the square with the iron...

scenario 2...

turn 1) both cities finish settler...settler 1 moves two northwest...settler two moves to same tile...ok wait...I now see I was wrong...

grin

I thought that you would pick up an extra movement through the city and land on the iron on the same turn...you're absolutely right you do pick up one turn all the way around...good job...

is it worth the total of 4 turns wasted with the worker?...I still don't think so, you still get the extra turn, but an extra turn of what?...that turn translates to an actual loss of gold (city maintenence-commerce worked) and only 3 shields if my memory is correct )

so you gain 3 hammers, 1 beaker, and lose 2 gold ( boy it would help having the game to reference this ), I don't think this is worth 2 roads or a quarry that early...personal preference would be to leave things as is, but I do have to give you credit for speeding up that aspect...

Joe

is it worth the total of 4 turns wasted with the worker?

Joe

yay, i'm right for a change...

You are right, first time i thought of it i thought it wasn't worth it, but it's very useful i've found for getting IW much earlier, because you have to search BW... One thing that you aren't considering is the fact that the iron gets pumped earlier, and i do beleive a mine with iron on the hill would be preferable to a quarry in terms of net gain... just my $0.02. Also, this is GREAT if france is AI and hasn't been taken over yet, because often you need to wait for catapults, so you can afford to get things like the wheel and masonry later.

Assuming to your are persia Joe and you do move the persian cap onto the dessert hill, you would lose a turn moving the city even though you are closer to horses. This is one more turn for india to research the required techs to attack persia. You would also then have to move farther to improve your cows, ivory and deer which are the main production elements of the persian capital

In my experiances as persia and I have many, the culture pop isnt to much to worry about cause it has happens just before i get the road done (the way i play persia any way). Granted the hill provides better defence but the goal of the rush with india is to prevent horses and wait till iron shows up (not take the cap with archers). Then it's an easy victory.

you won't get iron working "much" earlier...in fact most likely won't get it earlier at all...the most you can get is exactly 4 beakers...it would be rare to make it even a turn earlier...and you don't have the roads

Joe

Well it isnt so much about getting iron working as it is to get archery but i c your point

the iron working post was for the england strat...but once I get my pc back we'll play test you india, me persia, and see what happens on a few test runs...I think you have to get more agressive...forgo the barracks, pump more warriors and straight rush archery for it to have a chance...even then I get the tech for chariots at the same time you get the tech for archery...since your warriors have to move to my city and mine are already there ( 2 moves to the horse ) I'll have time to get a worker out to compensate for the travel time and will have my first immortal at the time you have your first archer...I think AH and archery are the same, no way to check right now...and in that case persia just wins...at worst stalemates, but I can get the first immortal on your iron and park...

Joe...

and arabia is no threat...even unopposed from persia they still have egypt and greece to deal with

K let's say the archer rush doesnt work against a compotent persia.

What should india do, cause the way i see it is your screwed until iron working, and persia will most likely attack before you get that.

Reading about this Persia vs. India discussion just reminded me that you never addressed a strat for both Greece and Japan Joe (which I'm still hoping you'll write a whole shpeal about). It seems to me as Greece your first moves involve attacking persia since your UU is good against the Persian one. Of course your worried about Rome attacking as well but lets be honest. Rome has bigger fish to fry. So the strat with Indian archer rush vs. Persia may work by virtue of Greece joining in the fray and creating a second battle front. At least thats how I play my Greece.

Locki

OMG just played a game where i was Persia and guess who i lost a war with...

Arabia!

:crazyeye:

I still can't believe it.

I never seen this done before so let me tell you what happened.

Basically instead of settling at the spot Arabian guy settled right next to me in that excellent spot to the west of Perian starting position, where he gets, farm, Copper, Sheep, Marble or stone all in the radious. I quickly panicked and tried to get him with Warrior Rush, didn't work too well, he had a stronghold in the forrests so his route to Copper was secured and the city was also secured.


So he had Axemen while i had Archers, i coudn't hook up horses.

In the end after a lot of fighting, i lost i did however make a few mistakes but i have to say i was very surprised with this strategy.

he was however taken out later by Russia, this war was a bit too costly for him and dragged on for too long.

What would you think is a good amount of cities on the japanese islands?

ok all, tommorrow I'll do greece and japan since the interest is definately there...and I'll actually do so in such a way that delves deep into a couple game theory issues, rather than just overglorified "if/then" statements.

grin...for now...I SLEEP!

Joe

Joe I just played an very long Earth Game last nite and the most interesting thing was that Persia died in the first 5 turns!

Tarkus was persia and another good player was india. Tarkus moved his cap onto the desert hill (like your strat) and i assume started working the oasis tile because of food and money. I then assume india immediately moved his warrior towards persia, he then attacked and razed a defenceless city.

Now Persia can get the warrior out in time, just have switch tiles, but doing that is like the china vs. mongol situation i think. mongols can hold back the attack but it cost them time, like not getting a worker, building military and lack growing. (same problems mongols have) granted persia has better tiles then the mongols. Now when the culture expands Perisa will be able to work the deer tile (2 food and 2 production)

I would like to know your thoughts on the situation, and I think that Tarkus is a competent player.

Locki on your strat as greece, Rome is a major problem for greece since all rome has to do is park a couple of Prae's on the hill leading in, good idea though

tarkus is an incredible "middle game" player...he neglects his defenses too much early though...almost plays multis the way a person should play a single player...

love the guy to death, but can't count the number of times I've taken all of england and had to fight a total of 4 warriors.

I wouldn't be surprised if he went worker first as always...but also there had to be favorable placement with the indian warrior...

you can't just build the warrior and park it in the city early though...you need to work it towards india so that he's dettered from attacking or at worst you can deflect his course and fight him in the field...

where as the defender has the advantage most times in percentages...

initiative of the attack has the advantage in the war...

fight them on their land not yours...

5 turns is pretty fast though...he should have been cranking warriros and had a warrior vs warrior war early, then the worker.

Joe

also the immortal comes a lot earlier than the keshik...and is a lot more dominant in it's time

joe

okay going to examine two concepts today in civ...and in doing so hash out my greece and japan strats. while doing so I will be discussing two concepts in civ...the first being "relative power" of units as discussing greece, and "using the organized trait" as japan.

I'm going to start with Japan since it's the less "complex" of the two.

I see two strats done with Japan. Both are viable.

The first is early penetration into Asia, aggressive battle with China fighting for position on the mainland and expansion up to Persia relatively early.

The second is peaceful colonozation of the archipilego down to australia and beyond.

The success I've had with Japan is DOING BOTH.

Many people have slammed the organized trait as being sub-par to financial because in the long run you produce much more commerce with financial.

Here's a secret...Organized is not about any financial ability at all, it's about PRODUCTION!!!

An Organized Civ can run 5 cities for the upkeep costs of 3 cities in a non-organized civ.

Lets look at our goals and assets/liabilities with Japan.

The greatest "enemy" the Japanese have to deal with is the largest, the biggest, the most daunting thing on the entire earth map...the pacific ocean. Circumnavigating first helps no civ more than the state of Japan.

Japans second biggest enemy is the turn timer...the only reason I don't like playing Japan is because most of my games are "blazing speed"...lately I've done a few "fast" games, and in that situation you can truly milk the power that is Japan.

Japans UU is a little on the weak side, but it is an upgrade of a "core" unit in the game.

Japan is actually easier to defend than England navaly, and asia is easier to land on that Europe is.

Japan does not have to deal with the Praetorian.

Japan will almost alway get early religeon...from india most likely.

Now onto the game!!!

Worker or settler first are both viable options...rather than deal with technique I'm going to deal with a more freeform type of strategy.

Japan will have 3 cities on "Japan Proper"

First will obviously be the capitol, second will be to the north of Kyoto, the third will be to the south. The first two will work towards the mainland, the third will work down the archipelego.

With enough time each turn micromanagement will make island development as well as the war with china doable.

Make mongolia your friend ( if it survives )

The war with China will be vicious if China is a competant player...I want to see OCC ( one of the best Japan players on the map ) and Antideluvian ( one of the best China players on the map ) square off.

Control the WATER...the invasion of China must be both by land AND by sea.

As Japan you want to outexpand and outproduce your neighbors. Whereas with england you adopt an "outtech" them all strat, Japan needs to focus on the production side ( don't worry, they stay high in tech all game as well ).

the key is having 5 cities outproducing their 3. If you're running at 100% you're not taking advantage of organized.

Drama is a very good tech for Japan...don't forget your culture slider. Remember galleys can travel on the ocean if within cultural limits ( for those of you thinking about dropping a great artist to make the early drop on america, you get a bonus point )

Japan will have the largest geographical empire ( including water tiles ) of anyone in the game, break it down into chunks, I like to use cntrl-S to put sticky notes on the map to remind me what my plan is, if you try to remember it all, you will forget.

From bulk axemen to bulk aircraft, never forget that the power of Japan is it's production ability.

Check your power graph regularily, you should almost always be at the top ( somewhere around persia and rome )...don't stop building military, just because you have a massive amount doesn't matter, asia is a big area to defend.

State property is the uber civic for Japan

Anything I left out, please ask

Joe

Greece will come later

Well since you said im one of the best Japan players (thx) i'll put my 2 cents in.

I agree with Joe that mongols are the best ally, specially of they're human player. I played an earth last night (12 hour game) and i was Japan. Monogls killed china, with my assiatance and we decided to split up Asia.

If you are willing to ally with mongols make sure you settle in the production part of asia, if you dont and you keep to the alliance, you'll be behind in production. This is what I did and I was 4th in production the entire agme untill i got factories popping.

I suggest settling 3 cities south of Bejing, each of these cities will get more then 14 population each and will be able to hold about 3-4 scientists with caste system. Most of your other cities should be able to do this to.

If you manage to conquer china and mongols, you'll have asia to all to yourself. This is golden for a few reasons.

1. Russia is extremely far away and will be worried about europe, take advantage of this and colonize the land behind the ural mountians. this provides an early warning system if someone attacks.

2. India will me more concerned about who ever rules the middle east, if they rule the land, then they will look towards europe. I do anyway.

3.All you have to do for defence is settle the jungle near india, it provides a nice choke point and you get some high end production cities. You cities in russian land should be built in a line so that if russia attacks they have to travel very long distances to get more then one city. This makes acts like the russian strategy, to much land to conquer for only a few cities.

K now for the later stages of the game. (industrial era and later) This is where japan (or anyone who rules asia alone) truly shines i'd say.

First thing you have to do is get factories and coal plants. With your vast amount of high population cities your production should about triple. This will make you able to out produce any one.

Second thing get railroad asap. Asia is a big land, and you need mass transportation to supply your russian front and indian front with troops at a constant pace.

3. If you're feeling confident about your military and transportation speed, i would conquer india. If you take all of india, you will have another choke point to defend your main cities (japan isle and china land). Never stop filling up india with troops after that though, cause everyone will come after you if they're smart.

The next best thing to do is get flight (and radio for bombers). This works even better then railroad. Now you never stop producing air units cause the air force wins the game. Also while doing this, build a huge navy, nothing hurts more then a sneak attack from the states.

The one flaw asia has near the end of the game, is lack of resources, oil, urainium and aluminum. Only urainium is north of mongol captial, only oil till you get plastics is in bejing and only aluminum is in india.

In conclusion the best way to defend japan is by having satilite cities, mass transportation, having a second army behind each of satilite cities and defending your choke points.

By the way Joe, I finished that game only declaring war once. I actually can be peaceful at times :)

The last game I won as Mali, I only declared war once, and it was in 1900AD...well, that is if you count declaring war with 3 civs on the same turn declaring once...grin

Joe

I promise I'll do greece today...I actually did type up a huge thing on greece till my browser crashed...a really nice article on "relative strength of units" too

and I'm sure that sneak attack where I razed Kyoto late game had nothing to do with that comment...grin

well me only declaring war once (it was a nuke war) is simply amazing being the backstabber i am

I still remember that attack, it didnt phase me to much though, still Kyoto was size 23 city

blech, I finally found someone who sells Civ4 for mac...and of course my laptop doesn't have enough ram to run it...withdrawl sucks!

Two questions:

First is for "I play 4 Fun", your strat for Japan includes your primary objective as taking over china, what about all the islands to the south? do you colonize those at the same time? and where do you place your first cities? (I have a lot of problems with city placement as Japan. I always end up having my city on the northern tip being practically useless production wise. captial being a super city and southern one being a decent one) I'm assuming your also taking Korea first, but any other quick expansion cities to mainland?

Second question is to Joe, I'm wondering about more detail about where you place your first 5 cities, especially on the japanese island. ( exact spot for the island is what i really need) Also how crucial is getting to north america first? (being first to contact NA may be good in terms of tech trade, as the ones there will be gagging for it by then, but anything else?) and do you recommend getting the great lighthouse and the colossus? I know you dont tend to build wonders because you'd rather take them but I'm guessing they're are few people who would be out to build them in a MP game so you wouldnt need to "rush them", and considering your strat involves always being very short on gold maybe it would help significantly.

thats more than 2 questions, but oh well hehe

Locki

as for the wonders...it would be great to have lighthouse/collosus...this is one of the times I'd definately go for one wonder...

of the two I'd pick collosus.

the reason I would go for these is not so much the benefit you get from building them, but the fact that it will be either you or england who gets them, so you HAVE to build them if you ever want them, however don't try for both, you most likely won't get them. since you're rushing naval techs and running towards your UU and crossbows anyway, the early collossus pop is a good plan...

as for exact city placement, if you'd be so kind as to post a screenshot of the island, I haven't committed it to memory as well as the european civs.

Canadian your talking about that game i lfet yesterday aren't you and you backstabbed Rome didn't you.

I'm glad this thread started, too. I've always like the real earth maps.
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India: I've tried several strats and generally come to the conclusion that you need to skip a religion. It's simply not worth it. There are too many other things you need ASAP to spend the time researching a religious tech and the payoff for a religion can be quite late in coming.

Same thing for all the early wonders - don't bother. You don't have the resources to speed production and generally have poor production anyway. Slavery works great for whipping buildings and units out of all your food resources but that does nothing for wonders. I've found it a complete waste of time.

So, basic start...

Settle in place.

Tech: BW>Ag>Wheel>IW>Pottery=>beeline to calendar and alphabet

There's precious little to chop but you need BW for slavery. You also need it for IW because iron will be your only metal. Agriculture follows next for food for slave rush and settler/worker production. Iron for military units and pottery for granary to regenerate your cruelly enslaved population. Calendar because you are overrun with calendar resources and if you don't grab them you will fall behind in tech. Once you have that, alphabet for tech trading. At some point in the calendar/alphabet run I usually stop and grab Animal Husbandry to hook up the cattle.

Build: Barracks to Pop2, worker, let the barracks finish, settler, build military

Possibly throw in a couple token warriors along the way, depending on how the barbs are acting but usually I'll pop rush defenders if needed. In a multiplayer you might need a defender early on but I'd still probably count on pop-rushing if needed.

General: Send your warrior west to meet up with as many civs as possible. You'll want to tech trade and it helps research to have contacts with civs that already know a particular tech.

Send your worker to hook up the rice and the plains wheat tile. About the time you finish improving rice and wheat you can pre-build a road to where your next city will build at the mouth of the Ganges (assuming my geography is correct - I may have the wrong river name - anyway, the hill on the coast to the SE). Concidentally, that road goes by the hill where iron will appear, so you can even avoid guilt about using your omniscence if you are prone to such things. As soon as the Iron pops hook it up.

That should also be about the same time as the barracks finishes. Delhi should be Pop 3 or 4 by that time and has 2 good food sources to work, so the settlers should go quickly even without chopping. Workers hook up resources as needed and pre-road to your settlement sites if you run out.

Establish your second city. Build: granary, military units (pop rush).

By this time you should be massing an invasion force of axes and swords to go after Cyrus. Since you're going after archers fortified in a capital with culture defense, the swords are basically disposable. If they survive, great, but don't count on it. You'll need 6 units to take Persepolis and you'll need more to quickly follow on for the run to Pasgarde.

The AI always settle in place, which is (imho) not optimal for Cyrus but wtill worth keeping, especially since it has decent production. It usually settles the second city on the plains hill next to the lake to the west. That's your follow on target. It because a MONSTER production site once you get all the food and mines hooked up, and has spare tiles for decent cottaging. If it's not settled, settle it. If someone else settled it, make peace with Cyrus and take it from the second person.

Obviously, use your worker to hook up everything tech allows, focusing on food for pop rushing and pre-road towards Cyrus and/or future settlement sites. Build a few cottages along the way but your early economy will really kick in once you get calendar.

Future settlement sites: To the west between Delhi and Persepolis I drop a city next on the "corner" next to the river. It's low on resources so it's a good site for early cottaging.

To the east I put one on the gulf nextled between the bananas and spices. It's a monster site, but useless until you have workers to clear the jungle and get those plantations running.

To the south on the eastern coast just north of the mountains. that will take you to snag the cattle at the tip of the continent and gets good food resources.

That should put you half to a third of the way from the top of the score and you should just climb from there.

General stuff: Take the city in the Tigris/euphrates area. Someone always settles it and there is no better cottaging to be had.

Religions spread quickly once borders open. Adopt the dominant religion and you will be able to war with relatively little home protection for a while.

Similary, people like you so trade, trade, trade on techs. Keep the monopoly on alphabet as long as you can and you can usually exhaust the possibilities with the low-score civs. Use it for a "lightning round" of trades with the upper score civs you will be way ahead of most.

Remember to expand East, too. China will quickly block you in. Keep some troops garrisoned on that end just in case. Unfortunately, they are really too far away to pick as an early war target but their territory is strong and you may find yourself in a position where they are competing with you for score.

I find Egypt frequently winds up with a religion or two and not much military action. By the time you've made it that far (you've warmongered all the way into the middle east) it's not hard to shore up your stacks of doom and take a lightly defended religious city from Egypt. With the early religion spread holy cities represent huge incomes.

Persia:

I haven't played Persia often and have screwed it up more often than not, but I do agree that moving the initial settler north onto the hill is worth it. It puts horses in your starting fat cross and just as importantly it takes out the sea squares from a landlocked city which can never build anything to improve them. It will cap out on size, but it can grow large enough to be a strong production city in the early game.

I think the AI run to the west to the site I described above is a good plan and after that you will need to head to the Tigris/Euphrates area because you'll have lousy area for cottaging everyplace else.

I haven't tried it, but I think you _might_ be able to make an Immortal rush for Thebes if you time it right.

I don't think it would be worth it to g