walletta
King
The other day, I think it was Lanzelot, someone mentioned finishing a game by 50AD. What? I think my best is about 1600 or thereabouts. How the heck do you do it? I know Lanzelot is a professional warmonger so I assume these are domination wins. I thought I would describe how I go about knocking off the enemy and invite critique to see if I can win faster.
In my current game (Babylon, small Pangea, emperor level) there are only three Civs left. Me to the South, roughly, India in the middle and England to the North. India has most turf but I have the lead in tech. pop and culture. My army is described as 'average' by the MA in relation to both England and India, which means it is superior as the MA counts all kinds of irrelevant crap - like boats for instance and garrisons in far off crap towns. England and I are at war with India. I have bombers (lots!) and India has none, nor any air defence. I also have tons of artillery and four or five armies (2 cavalry, 1 of pikes, 1 of MW and I yet to be assigned some units).
So, basically, the game is over but I have the tedious task of polishing off India and, if necessary later, England. It is about 1750. Culture win is in 1912 and coming down slowly.
My basic method:
I bomb and shell the approaches to the closest enemy towns, usually no more than two at a time, leaving only a single road from my direction. I bomb and shell the town itself and capture it. I march in. If there is nothing of value then I raze and plant my own settler (a frequent problem with this is that, after razing, the next enemy town's culture stops me settling in the locus of the razed one - is there a way of telling beforehand whether that will happen?). Then I build a road and rail in the direction of the next target and repeat the process. Basically, that's it. Sort of linear. The bombers also take out all reachable resources and luxuries when there is nothing better to do. I mainly use artillery for harming roaming enemy units and cavalry to polish them off, obviously preferring elite cavalry when available to get more GMLs.
I rarely capture two towns on the same line of advance successively on the same turn. Maybe I should be leaving an exit road intact as well as the entry road but I like to deprive the enemy of the ability to reinforce town 1.
It s slow but steady. Correction, steady but slow. I rarely lose any units and generally wait while the artillery catches up and maybe moves onto enemy terrain (if necessary) to get close enough for a shot.
Improvements please.
In my current game (Babylon, small Pangea, emperor level) there are only three Civs left. Me to the South, roughly, India in the middle and England to the North. India has most turf but I have the lead in tech. pop and culture. My army is described as 'average' by the MA in relation to both England and India, which means it is superior as the MA counts all kinds of irrelevant crap - like boats for instance and garrisons in far off crap towns. England and I are at war with India. I have bombers (lots!) and India has none, nor any air defence. I also have tons of artillery and four or five armies (2 cavalry, 1 of pikes, 1 of MW and I yet to be assigned some units).
So, basically, the game is over but I have the tedious task of polishing off India and, if necessary later, England. It is about 1750. Culture win is in 1912 and coming down slowly.
My basic method:
I bomb and shell the approaches to the closest enemy towns, usually no more than two at a time, leaving only a single road from my direction. I bomb and shell the town itself and capture it. I march in. If there is nothing of value then I raze and plant my own settler (a frequent problem with this is that, after razing, the next enemy town's culture stops me settling in the locus of the razed one - is there a way of telling beforehand whether that will happen?). Then I build a road and rail in the direction of the next target and repeat the process. Basically, that's it. Sort of linear. The bombers also take out all reachable resources and luxuries when there is nothing better to do. I mainly use artillery for harming roaming enemy units and cavalry to polish them off, obviously preferring elite cavalry when available to get more GMLs.
I rarely capture two towns on the same line of advance successively on the same turn. Maybe I should be leaving an exit road intact as well as the entry road but I like to deprive the enemy of the ability to reinforce town 1.
It s slow but steady. Correction, steady but slow. I rarely lose any units and generally wait while the artillery catches up and maybe moves onto enemy terrain (if necessary) to get close enough for a shot.
Improvements please.