Tips on managine choke points etc on continents etc

carlcmc

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 20, 2002
Messages
4
At the begining of the game, staking out as large a territory as possible is desirable to many people. If you manage to start with a scout and find landbridge of one to two squares between certain areas CLAIM it!.

Very early in the game you can fortify your warrior or scout at this location and nothing can pass through. This effectively denies any civ from getting through to find building sites, other civs to communicate with and villages to plunder. You then become the gate keeper of whether to allow the civ communication with the other one or not.

a one land square bridge is a no brainer to block...


LLLLLL
xLLLxx
xxbxxx
xLLLx
LLLLLL

where L is land and x is water and b is the one square. Simply fortify your unit there and when you get a setler put it at that location. ANOTHER BENEFIT to this is that you now have essentially a canal through the continent, saving on distance when the game turns to naval operations.

a look at the more common 2-3 land square bridge

LLLLLL
xLLLLx
xxLLLx
xxbdxx
xLLLxx
LLLLLx
LLLLLL

This is still easily solved by placing a city b and fortifying a unit at d.

you can do this with a size 3 land bridge but you must be quick because to assemble a city and get 2 units fortified before the other civs come through takes some doing.

BEWARE, the AI knows the value of single square land bridges. While playing marla singers world map, the computer fortified a spearman at one of the single square landbridge spots between north and south america.

If the choice is to continue through the choke point and discover another civ while an enemy civ's scout is on your tail to follow through, it is better to just park it there and deny them that chance. You then become the gate keeper and determine when to let them have communication and sell tech to them.
 
That can work on the sea too. In one of my recent games, I had the Lighthouse and Magellan's, so everybody else could only move 3 squares with their ships(this is pre-whatever that tech is that lets caravels pass through ocean, navigation i think). I was at the NW corner of a huge map on my own small continent, and the only way the Egyptians(my enemy) could reach me looks like this...

j = japan(me) sea squares
e = egypt sea squares
o = ocean

jjjjjjjjjj
oojooo
ooooo
ooooo
eeeee

I simply place a few ships at the j which is surrounded by o's, and they cannot invade me unless they send enough galleys to overwhelm my 4 caravels blocking that point. Which is good because they were much bigger than me.

Also choke points can be used as part of an attack. Say the enemy is half in Mexico/SW North America and half in South America. Take Panama, and choose which side to take first.
 
I had a similar situation in which my control extended to within one square of the Antarctic cap. My problem was also with the Egyptians.

In my game, they kept using the "My bad" exploit to be able to get through my territory to get to a colony they had founded. Interstingly, they had another way to go but they WANTED to go my way.

I had a similar choke point at a tip (upper) of my land. there was only a single tile between my land and the Americans and my Influence owned that tile.

Of course, I blocked them off from any access - my ironclads and (later) destroyers against their gallies.

They went to war -- I swear it was all about convenience. They lost.

Love those choke points.
 
I have tried fortifying units on landbridges. And while this does work, the AI has a workaround. It will trot a settler from another civ down to your fortified units, and build a city right next to them. Next thing, you have another leader demanding that you remove your forces from his territory.
 
That's why fortifying a warrior there is a short term solution. When I am in such a situation, I fortify my warrior and then hurry a settler there to build a worthless, forever size 2 city, which will block the AI.
Sooner or later, the AI will declare war to get through : you have to mass defensive units in this town, build wall...etc.

loki
 
Loki:

True enough.

I have also used the same technique against the AI. I have seen it fortify units on chokepoints, and feeling that turnabout is fair play, I built a city next to it's fort, and then demanded it remove it's forces from my territory.
 
When the Ai builds that nine square tile city, I build my city right on its border( I get a 6 tile city), rush in as many defenders as needed and build a temple first thing-as babs it can be as little as 10 turns. all of a sudden, I have a nine tile city and they are down to 6. with a little more effort (library, cathedral)I have another city and they are out of the loop completely.

On the other hand there is nothing as annoying as getting that city and owning the checkpoint and then discovering that there is another giant land mass that gives free access. arrrrrrrrgh!
 
My recent game had a great map. There was a huge inland ocean which helped make two choke points with some good territory and resources in between. It just so happens that I started the game right between these two points. I rushed to build cities and spearmen to block off access, and then expanded from the choke points out. I paid more attention to the land I had blocked off after I could no longer expand from the choke points out. Of course the AI did get galleys eventually and he dropped a couple settlers in my safe haven. They didn’t last long before they flipped. :goodjob:
 
I played a game in which the Russians were to the north of me on the continent. The continent looked roughly like a large lower-case "r". I charged up the continent as quickly as I could build cities and eventually found the russians about to overrun a prime area. I used about 9 warriors shoulder to shoulder to block the continent. Sure, it was very costly, but at that point, noone was using ships, and I wasn't worried about someone doing an Inchon landing on me. It gave me the time to get cities in that area, keep the russians out of that area, and effectively stifle them since they were smushed between me and the French. In addition, it gave me the ability to mass units on the border and have them ready to go at the moment the russians decided that "expansion" was better than the slow strangling death I was giving them...

What a great game this is!!! :)

:love:
 
... is a one square sea bridge between two continents. This happened to me once:

I was at war with the chinese (they were annoyed that one of their cities had just flipped I think...) and I quickly realized that the top of their continent was only one square away from the top of mine. I quickly cleared the seas of their ships and moved 4 transports, and two battleships to that square. I then posted destroyers and subs around them to give early warning of attacking ships and just moved my armies across. It surns out that I never needed the ships, the chinese never figured out how I was getting all those troops to their shores.

I took over the city that was a few squares from the sea, and since we were well into the modern age, I was able to move my forces on the chinese rails (after I razed a few cities they didn't control the upper half of the continent, of course, neither did I...)

This works really well. Move units (by rail) on to the transport in one turn. The next turn move them on to land. The next turn, they are ready for offensive operations.

Maybe moving them by airport would be faster in some cases, but for ease of use... This worked great!
 
Fast units, even explorers and scouts, can wreak havoc by creating or, later, exploiting, artificial chokepoints in and between the rival civs.

In the early game, this means destroying roads in the border gaps between a rival's cities. Maybe even camp on the spot to prevent reconnection, or just revisit and destroy over and over. This effects of persistant harrasment like this can be very significant.

Eventually, culture will fill in the borders, but you can still block movements in other nations with the placement of explorers or scouts, or other units with ROP. You'll find lots of restriction points where the road or rail between cities and nations is only one or two squares wide. If war breaks out, go back to pillaging.

During peace, even, the ai civs are very aggressive about using ROP to move very large numbers of units around quickly within each others territory. They use it to get at each other (or the human). You need not block every square to seriously disrupt the international flow of units.

I found in a diety game that everyone ganged up on the leader aztec ai civ, and the most effective help I could give the otherwise doomed Aztecs was to block the international waves of forces trying to sweep into their nation. Much better, turns out, than giving them thousands of gold earned from science brokering. Preserving the Aztecs, in this case, thwarted a Persian takeover and subsequent run-away Persian victory.
 
While on the subject of guarding chokepoints, lets not forget the mid-game coastal occupation. During the mid-game period there are often a few coastal squares which aren't yet culturally influenced. Another civ can easily plop a city down right on that snow covered square. As soon as I see the first ship off of my coast I begin to occupy these squares. Ussually there are a few warriors left over that I never got around to upgrading or desolving. I place these on every spare coastal square, thus preventing a rival from landing. At that point they would have to land on my culturally influenced squares where I can tell them to leave. They usually don't do this.
 
If you see the galley soon enough you can ask it to leave your space (assuming your influence extends far enough out to sea.) I kept the Aztecs pinned for ages using this method. A pain to constantly go back and look for the galley turn after turn, but as long as there was no ROP, the galley moved back when I demanded they remove their units. i will use the warriors next time. :p
 
i had 3 troops(spearmen and warriors) in earlier part of a game blocking a 2 square land area with a hill. there were 3 cities behind providing troops to the war front. japan tried to wack thru, started a war with me. i produced about 15 and lost about 7 of them in 8 turns but they lost around 42 or 43. gave me a hero and chance to built heroic epic. i oso captured one of their nearby city and forced them to sign peace treaty.
 
i love land and water chokepoints and choking luxeries by building a city on them. if someone gets there first, i built a city beside him and rush temple and other culture improvements to push his influence back and hopefully get his city to flip.
 
I did that once whan i was still new at warlord but the russians had already snuck 2 cities in but i cultured one of them and the other one killed me in the modern times
 
I had a recent game where Persia would try to send a Settler/Spearman combo past a certain chokepoint that looked like:

(L = Land; P = Persia; O = Ocean; S = Settler/Spearman; W = Warrior)

LLLPPPPOOO
LLLLSPPOOO
LLLLLPPOOO
LLLLLLLOOO

and with three warriors, set up like so:

LLLPPPPOOO
LLLWSPPOOO
LLLWWPPOOO
LLLLLLLOOO

I just moved them diagonally along the Persian border, closer to wherever the settler was going. eg, their move:

LLLPPPPOOO
LLLWPPPOOO
LLLWWSPOOO
LLLLLLLOOO

my next move:

LLLPPPPOOO
LLLLPPPOOO
LLLLWSPOOO
LLLLLWWOOO

and they'd move back and forth from those two squares for several hundred years, while I continued to extend my territory and develop. By the time I was ready for war, they had about four cities to my 12 and they didn't yet have Iron Working (nor access to Iron), so it made for an easy war against a civ with an amazing UU.
 
Wow. This is a thread that hasn't been touched in three years and suddenly it's fresh again!
 
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