BTS – A guide for higher difficulties for standard speed and maps (emperor+)

I have a some questions. Thanks for posting the game, it was really interesting!

1) When warring did you build up your force of riflemen into the nearest city and move as one stack. When you start conquering cities what did you do to the injured units, and how many did you leave behind? Would you leave all the hurt units behind healing and move one with the uninjured? Did you fortify until all but a few units are healed before moving on?

2) In terms of reinforcements, as you are building/drafting units do you pool your forces in one place before sending them into the new territory or do you just send them all the to most recently conquered city? Also, I'm unfamiliar with drafting. Do you know any links to good articles on this?

3) When barbs come knocking do you fortify your workers in the city while they uselessly hammer your city? I suppose having extra workers helps put back the improvements. I imagine that gets frustrating.

4) Do you manually control what each citizen is working on in each city every turn? Every turn for some cities? Only in the beginning? I find I get really tied up when doing things manually and end up loosing track of when cities are growing.

5) Speaking to growth how are you controlling the growth of the cities? Whip and manual control of worked tiles?

6) Finally, is your capital the only city you're consistently running specialist? I understand that when going for GE or GM you are spamming those specialists.

Sorry for the loads of questions! Great game!
 
2) In terms of reinforcements, as you are building/drafting units do you pool your forces in one place before sending them into the new territory or do you just send them all the to most recently conquered city? Also, I'm unfamiliar with drafting. Do you know any links to good articles on this?

Sorry about this. I found This Link to Drafting for Fun and Profit.

I should have searched earlier. Looking forward to other responses though.
 
well it's nice to see I was "correct" in skipping alphabet and just going for aesthetics/literature :p. still reading the report. going to try this on immortal tonight ;)
 
blau0010 , your questions are good and the kind of things I want to know form top players too. It's often hard to see from walkthroughs how the military is managed.

I will say that I noticed in the last save that Snaaty had small clumps of units, probably because he was using spies to drop the defences. Just 2 or 3 rifles needed to blast the defenders.
 
Some more quick answers:

@ vicawoo:

I always build that many workers. You shouldn´t underestimate the speed a size 5 farmed and mined capital is throwing out settlers fuelled with some chops (=4-6 turns for each settler) and every unimprooved tile you have to work slows growth

...

@ blau0010 & mice:

In fact, warring like I did is extremely easy and you dont need to worry much about tactics and preparations...

Just the example from my game:

8 CR2 maces upgraded
6 CR1 or CR2 swords and axes upgraded
every city (except the globe city = 7) drafted 2 rifles
the globe city drafted about 15 rifles

Summes up to 43 rifles, backed with 10 spies and 6 trebs

Around that time, the average AI has about 20 mobile units, lbows, maces and knights, so it doesn´t really matter which strat you use... ...when you think you have to face a BIG force, run in at only one point and keep your forces together, else, march on numerours cities at once (like I did)

When you take down city defences with spies, a CR2 rifle has about 90+% chance of winning against a hill city with fortified lbows with city defender1, agains normal cities with non promoted lbows 99+% so you dont really have long healing periods (I usually bring chariot healers along and promote one or two of them with the GG´s I get to superhealers)

Concerning Barbs:

That´s why I use archers right from the beginning... ...look at turnset number 1, there I showed a picture with a "save" zone. Don´t let barbs destroy your improvements, keep them away with fogbusters and figth them far from home (you will pretty soon end up with a bunch of strength2 & cover archers, taking out any apporaching archers on grassland tiles without any problems also on the offence)

Micromanagement:
I dont micromanage at all, except the capital and very early in the game (the first 3-4 cities up to around 1000 BC when happy resources are in VERY short supply... ...it would be better do do it more, best all along the game, but I´m simply too lazy)

Growth:
I dont controll it (again, except the capital and very early... ...lazy again)... ...when a red face shows up somewhere I check the city and whip or assign a happy building next (or check for trading some more)

Specialists:
Running them in one city is enough. It doesn´t have to be the capital but usually the capital has them most food and production and therefore gets the GL and the NE (GL + NE = specialist city)
 
blau0010 , your questions are good and the kind of things I want to know form top players too. It's often hard to see from walkthroughs how the military is managed.

I will say that I noticed in the last save that Snaaty had small clumps of units, probably because he was using spies to drop the defences. Just 2 or 3 rifles needed to blast the defenders.


Thanks Mice!
 
every city (except the globe city = 7) drafted 2 rifles
the globe city drafted about 15 rifles

Since you can only draft three cities at a turn, and you drafted about 29 rifles, you ended up building them in 10 turns? But wait, you drafted about fifteen from globe city, so that would be a draft basically every turn for 15 turns? I guess that is assuming that the globe city was large enough to pull a pop every turn or so. So I guess that means that you probably took about 20 turns to get prepped for the war.

My question then is, how did you know when you had enough units to start the fight? Do you just say about 40 is good? Did you plan out how many cities you planned on attacking and figure out how many you expected to lose? Or was it more, "Ehn, that's about right, let's get this war started up!"

When you take down city defences with spies, a CR2 rifle has about 90+% chance of winning against a hill city with fortified lbows with city defender1, agains normal cities with non promoted lbows 99+% so you dont really have long healing periods (I usually bring chariot healers along and promote one or two of them with the GG´s I get to superhealers)

So basically you take the city, move all the units in, and then fortify until healed. (as a general rule) and you don't have to worry about long heal because you're hardly hurt. How many units do you leave to defend? Just a few? (I forgot to look from the saves)

Concerning Barbs:

That´s why I use archers right from the beginning... ...look at turnset number 1, there I showed a picture with a "save" zone. Don´t let barbs destroy your improvements, keep them away with fogbusters and figth them far from home (you will pretty soon end up with a bunch of strength2 & cover archers, taking out any apporaching archers on grassland tiles without any problems also on the offence)

So you see a barb approach and you move your archer(s) to the nearest improvement and fortify? Or do you actually start with the attacking? Or is this only when they're promoted enough?

Thanks very much for taking the time to respond, Snaaty. I appreciate it!:goodjob:
 
Not to answer for Snaaty, but to answer on my experience on heal times when using superior troops such as riflemen vs. longbows:

In the case of using trebuchets, if you just have enough to drop the defenses in one turn, using them to soften the cities takes too long and risks losing your trebuchets.

Suppose your attacking stack has 15 rifles, and most cities have 6 defenders. Usually 1 or 2 of these defenders will be stronger than the others ... CG longbows compared with a random mix of units. Maybe 6 of your riflemen get injured, and 3 seriously. You move some healthy units in the city, and leave some outside. You don't stop to heal. You should know about how many units you need to keep in the city because your spies have been scouting around to see what might counterattack. You move all the rest, with the medic 3 onto the next city. Now is when the healing comes in. You attack with the healthy rifles, but all the wounded ones stay put with the medic 3 unit for this round. You don't lose any turns healing, but all your injured units gain +25% hitpoints. Eventually you may have enough injured units that you have to wait an extra turn, but the medic 3 unit heals so much, and your forces are so superior that many of them don't take over 25% damage in an attack, that you can heal and move on in the same # of turns as not healing at all.
 
Suppose your attacking stack has 15 rifles, and most cities have 6 defenders. Usually 1 or 2 of these defenders will be stronger than the others ... CG longbows compared with a random mix of units. Maybe 6 of your riflemen get injured, and 3 seriously. You move some healthy units in the city, and leave some outside. You don't stop to heal. You should know about how many units you need to keep in the city because your spies have been scouting around to see what might counterattack. You move all the rest, with the medic 3 onto the next city. Now is when the healing comes in. You attack with the healthy rifles, but all the wounded ones stay put with the medic 3 unit for this round. You don't lose any turns healing, but all your injured units gain +25% hitpoints. Eventually you may have enough injured units that you have to wait an extra turn, but the medic 3 unit heals so much, and your forces are so superior that many of them don't take over 25% damage in an attack, that you can heal and move on in the same # of turns as not healing at all.

Interesting! So, let's keep on with the example because I have a couple of quick questions.

1) You take the first city like you said with 15 rifles and your medic 3. 6 injured with 3 of those severely. It makes great sense to leave behind healthy units to defend. You mentioned that you have some in the city and some outside. So does that mean that you have 2 rifles inside and 2 rifles outside the city? (Sort of a new mobile defence?)

2) Okay, so from the above, you've left 4 healthy guys to defend the new holding. So now your mobile attack force has:

5 healthy rifles
3 hurt rifles
3 hurt bad rifles
4-5 spies
6-8 trebs
1 medic 3 (and a pear tree?)

...and you're marching on the next city. So, your trebs bring down the defence if the spies fail. (Or mostly) You attack that turn with only the 5 healthy units and fortify until healed the others? 5 rifles won't kill off all the defenders if there are even numbers. (Maybe you'll get lucky) Do you hold off on the attack in that scenario until you have enough to attack the stragglers?

Thanks very much for the help!:D
 
Well you probably don't need 4 rifles to keep a city. And if also using spies to drop defenses, you can use a treb hear and there for collateral damage.

If you have scouted, and think you need 4 rifles to keep a city, you should probably have a bigger stack to start with. Also, as more cities get taken, less defenders are usually needed, and you can use them in the attacks.

I didn't mean keep some healthy rifles outside the city for defense. This is just for the turn you capture the city ... some healthy units move in to defend the city and the rifle that took it. The others stay outside to defend the injured units.

One other thing to do ... if enemy culture still exists on the square you attacked from after the battle, if you have any injured units from a prior battle, they should move into the city the turn it is captured. Then they can stay put and heal the next turn while the rest of the units move in. The culture thing makes a difference because you don't get road movement bonus.
 
Snaaty-thanks for the thread and the game. Very instructive. I tried unsuccessfully to duplicate your early game--had problems with barbs. Warriors often bypassed my archers and were onto terrain. Also pairs, etc.
Any advice there?

Did you consider putting Pasargadae 1s on the hill? I would have figured the gold city will use the corn so might as well get some better real estate.

I also saw that you often had a barracks and some other buildings before the gran. I would normally build the gran first if I don't have a pressing need for culture or a unit--very often whipping at size 4 if it's got good food. Any comments on when you put the gran down and when you wait?
 
I didn't mean keep some healthy rifles outside the city for defense. This is just for the turn you capture the city ... some healthy units move in to defend the city and the rifle that took it. The others stay outside to defend the injured units.

Ooooh, I see. That makes more sense. Also, I suppose that keeping up a sustained attack means that the enemy units are going to be busy protecting their cities rather than trying to retake the one they lost.

Thanks for the great input!:D
 
Snaaty, thanks for a great guide. My normal strategy is actually quite similar to yours, but I never quite manage to pull it off. Hopefully this will change.

Well, the fact that I always start on a small peninsula blocked by Shaka and Tokugawa normally forces me to adopt my strategy a bit ;-)

I have a question though. Wouldn't it be an idea to start with a warrior instead of a worker? That way, the city grows, and you get more early scouting.
 
I think why snaaty can grow his city is because he can grow them with improved tiles so they grow faster (more efficiently). snaaty's strategy seems to rely on getting as many cities up as fast as possible, but also on improving them as fast as possible. having a late start on improving your first city might (i'm not entirely sure) lead to a late start on your other cities/improving them. it could also mean your archers also get out later as well. the early scouting would be nice, but i think the 5 archers before the settler would be sufficient for the scouting. now if your worker wont have a whole lot to do when it is first made, then delaying it and growing the city/building a warrior is the better option i think

i believe this is the general consensus on the warrior or worker first debate. it may be different since i last read about starting build orders :/
 
This will improve my emperor games. Thanks.

And Darius is one of my favourite leaders. His organized trait helps a lot during rexing. Persian civ has immortals, one of the most powerful early unit in Civ4. Going Animal husbandry early is a must.

This strat would also work great with Elizabeth. She is philosophical! Her unique unit is a rifleman. Fast universities and powerful stock exchanges all come in the same period of time.
 
I have a question though. Wouldn't it be an idea to start with a warrior instead of a worker? That way, the city grows, and you get more early scouting.
worker first is much better if you'll be able to improve a tile when it is completed.
 
I dont recalle how many troops barraks vs walls provide, but wouldnt whipping/building walls be a good solution to the power problem as well? walls also have the chance to generate a positive (if mediocre) random event and, in the case of an attack, will help you repel it if not slow it down. Also if you have stone they're half price, cant beat that.
 
I finally tried this last night withSuliman the magnificent.

It was grand, we built those cities real fast, science slider at 50%. Got the library, ran scientists, got an academy. Even built the pyramids (stone in BFC) just before we finished teching literature, all looked well.

Then I got a random event,barbarian upheaval. 4 horse archers popped just outside the cultural border of my third city. I quickly send spears there (why did I not have them there before, good question:confused: ) and my city of Antioch waited for reinforcements, hoping the two archers would hold. The first HA dies, the second dies, maybe, maybe they can hold. Next HA wins, the final fight.... last HA kills my last archer. :cry:

Suliman the Magnificant looks in shock, draws his sword, and falls on the mouse button as he cannot live with the shame of losing a key city to mear barabians. :suicide: Somehow, he had displeased the gods.

I was in good science shape at emperor, had 1 GS stashed for philosohpy once I tech COL, with another on the way (unless I got and engineer). I will defeinitely try this again tonight, but I see it as "play as it comes" type strat. What I mean is with the stone I normally would have gone for wonders galore (Stonehenge/GW), but restrained myself to try and get this going. Was worth it and looked to succeed, even had Shaka and Ragnar as neighbors with no issues yet.
 
those random barbarian uprisings are a huge pain in teh but. I started a game trying this on immortal and i was situated on an small strip of land outside the main continent. only one way for the barbarians in. big mistake. huge barb uprising on one of the tiles not in my culutre but still visible. I even had a SG where that happened and we lost before the last person even got to go :lol: when that happens early on i usually just WB them out without peaking at the rest of the map :mischief:
 
Started a Deity game last night. RNG gave me Hatty on my own land-mass, but galley-accessible to others. No rush to claim the best city sites or block off territory (unless you get the opportunity to block off territory on their landmass, but I didn't in this case). Aesthetics/Lit before Alphabet seemed to work well, and I got the GL in my capital around 300 BC. Then I couldn't bear to put the NE there, as I wanted to be working many cottages under Bureau + HR. So I only got 2 GSs prior to Lib, which I won in 900 AD. Much later than Snaaty obviously, but still fast enough. Now I'm facing a strategic choice -- go for Rifles and a war of expansion, or try to win totally peaceful spacerace....

peace,
lilnev
 
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