the ai gangs up on me

You just have to be better then them.

Its easy if your military units are way too strong for them they ask peace.

I focus on just 3 cities till i get tanks

If you get the technological superiority you can just defend with archers and build a templar army.

With this army you can easily destroy any incoming army that will be for 90% swordsmen expecialy if you bbought road.

Then you should plan to finish leonardo's workshop as you discover combustion to get all your archers become musketeers but more than anything you get all your infantry and chivalries promoted to tank armies.

Proceed to conquer your worst enemy capital (or his best cultural city) and his other cities will join you due to superior culture

but the god thing is everyone will ask for peace

The point is focus on tech to get first to tanks and then first to advanced flight then you can get any victory you like.

LordByron said:

If you get the technological superiority you can just defend with archers and build a templar army.

With this army you can easily destroy any incoming army that will be for 90% swordsmen expecialy if you bbought road.

Then you should plan to finish leonardo's workshop as you discover combustion to get all your archers become musketeers but more than anything you get all your infantry and chivalries promoted to tank armies.

Click to expand...

This forum is for CivRev. There are no templars, swordsmen, musketeers nor chivalries in CivRev. You must be talking about Civ 4.

elthrasher said:

This forum is for CivRev. There are no templars, swordsmen, musketeers nor chivalries in CivRev. You must be talking about Civ 4.

Click to expand...

i said i have the italian version sorry

I dunno the english name but with little imagination you could understand the right unit.

There are few in civ rev.

LordByron said:

i said i have the italian version sorry

I dunno the english name but with little imagination you could understand the right unit.

There are few in civ rev.

Click to expand...

Ah. My mistake. Probably templars = knights, swordsmen = legions, musketeers = riflemen.

You can win with three cities like that. If you learn to expand a lot early, it gets easier as once you get sufficiently ahead in cities and tech. A good measure is to have 10 cities by 0 AD. It's not hard to have tanks and so on at 500 AD. The AI will still be defending with archers. Of course when you get to that point the single player game gets so easy you have to get online and play other players to have any challenge.

elthrasher said:

Ah. My mistake. Probably templars = knights, swordsmen = legions, musketeers = riflemen.

You can win with three cities like that. If you learn to expand a lot early, it gets easier as once you get sufficiently ahead in cities and tech. A good measure is to have 10 cities by 0 AD. It's not hard to have tanks and so on at 500 AD. The AI will still be defending with archers. Of course when you get to that point the single player game gets so easy you have to get online and play other players to have any challenge.

Click to expand...

i tend to play at deity with just 3 cities and rush:
Libraries
courthouses
and Magna Carta (if i can)

when i get tanks Leonardo's Workshop

And if i can East India Company that wins the game alone.

Oxford university is good also just to make sure other civ does not build it so you lose some of your tech advantage.


The point is i usually look for 2 science (near dye) cities and 1 production city (no gold).


Obviously i focus on the tree tech on
alphabet, pottery, irrigation (must have first; +1 population in every city), bronze, literacy (science bonus), Democracy (as fast as you can it gives +50% science), navigation (only if there are no spanish to get the free galeon to search for atlantis), monarchy (dye+free great ppl), invention (leonardo's workshop+great people), feudalism (to build a single knight ARMY for defending your 3 cities), university (science bonus) Steam power (cruiser), metallurgy (good to attack enemy attackers if you get a free cannon), gunpowder, combustion. railroad (+2 production), industralization, communism (-33% factory cost) etc etc


The key to victory is getting the bonuses of the tech tree.

Obviously planning where to build cities is vital too.

2 tricks are:
1) in early game try to steal enemy's great ppl expecially engineers and scientists cpu don't have spies to defend at early games and even at late games it never try to steal yours ._. .
2) if you plan an attack but you are still building your army, keep 1 unit at his max movement from the city builder, when you'll have other 2 units to make the army, just move them where u moved the previous unit so the whole army will have free X2 movement that turn.

That's fine if you like playing like that. I mostly play online and a three city strategy will get you absolutely destroyed. If I'm having a good game, I'll have more than three cities by 2000 BC and more than ten by 1000 BC. CivRev is really the game where you can ICS (infinite city sprawl) with no downside whatsoever.

A library costs 40 hammers and doubles the science output of one city. A settler costs 20 hammers and effectively does the same at half the cost, plus gives you extra production. Yes, you lose population, but that loss is negligible if you expand from new cities because low population cities grow much faster than high population cities.

When you get to a certain point against the AI, defense isn't really needed except in your border towns. The AI is programmed to be a bully. If you appear weak, it will build legions and attack. If you appear strong, it will cower in its puny cities and build archers.

That kind of play is cold, hard strategy that ignores many suboptimal (yet fun) elements of the game. The only building you ever really need is a single barracks (maybe). Otherwise it's just settlers and a few armies, probably some boats. That's how I play when I meet a good player online. If I'm playing SP, I may go more like you and build a few gigantic cities. It's fun to have a 31 pop city with every building, even though that isn't really good strategy.

elthrasher said:

That's fine if you like playing like that. I mostly play online and a three city strategy will get you absolutely destroyed. If I'm having a good game, I'll have more than three cities by 2000 BC and more than ten by 1000 BC. CivRev is really the game where you can ICS (infinite city sprawl) with no downside whatsoever.

A library costs 40 hammers and doubles the science output of one city. A settler costs 20 hammers and effectively does the same at half the cost, plus gives you extra production. Yes, you lose population, but that loss is negligible if you expand from new cities because low population cities grow much faster than high population cities.

When you get to a certain point against the AI, defense isn't really needed except in your border towns. The AI is programmed to be a bully. If you appear weak, it will build legions and attack. If you appear strong, it will cower in its puny cities and build archers.

That kind of play is cold, hard strategy that ignores many suboptimal (yet fun) elements of the game. The only building you ever really need is a single barracks (maybe). Otherwise it's just settlers and a few armies, probably some boats. That's how I play when I meet a good player online. If I'm playing SP, I may go more like you and build a few gigantic cities. It's fun to have a 31 pop city with every building, even though that isn't really good strategy.

Click to expand...

it does work online too ._.

2X+great scientist+boost+wonder etc

with 3-4 cities you can focus on better cities
In multy obviously east india company is crucial too, but with japanese it does work ._.

First of all because with micromanagement your cities will be Big and optimized and will produce AND research more than 6 without the proper buildings.

The thing is if you build settlers you lose 1-2 pop so your research goes down 1/4 and your production suffers too.

And as i said gold is a key factor, spending your gold on just 3 cities makes you fast.

I may be a true noob at civ4 but at civ rev i play decently ._.

The downside is that its a risky strategy for first turns where some random rusher will try to conquer your cities.

CIv rev is much more simple than civ4 so you can actually find nearly optimal fixed strategies.

LordByron said:

it does work online too ._.

2X+great scientist+boost+wonder etc

with 3-4 cities you can focus on better cities
In multy obviously east india company is crucial too, but with japanese it does work ._.

Click to expand...

This stuff can work to an extent, but when I have 20 population in 10 cities at 1000 BC, that means I can have 40 science right now or grow for 5 turns and have 60 science. Better yet, I can expand out to 20 cities totaling 50 population by 0 AD and now I have 100 science or 150 in Democracy. At that point, I can very quickly have bombers. Just a few turns by getting Industrialization and then building Oxford University. This is a very strong strategy that can't really be done with 3-4 cities. Bombers at 200 AD is pretty much impossible to stop. You might have 100 science with 3-4 cities by 0 AD with a great Egypt/Colossus start. That can even be good enough to win the game, but 3-4 cities simply can't outproduce 20. The 20 city strategy can overwhelm with units and will generally take the game. The only first-to-research bonuses that matter are Industrialization and Corporation.

I'd like to see how do you manage defence with overextent....
Expecialy rushers.

I adopt that strategy mainly because its safer, but really i can't understand how you can defend online when there are plenty aztec rushers, and offline when obviously you lose all initial tech bonuses overextending and losing lot of population.

Yeah you may use republic but you lose democracy bonuses.

Maybe ut does work dunno i really can't imagine it as a flexible strategy; i should try it.

LordByron said:

I'd like to see how do you manage defence with overextent....
Expecialy rushers.

Click to expand...

That's easy. I am the rusher. Seriously, some good players I know hardly build defensive units at all. Instead they build armies. If you take one of their cities, they take it back. Kind of weird, but it works a lot of the time.

I usually build a few defensive units in cities I think may come under attack and I build armies to kill invaders. If an Aztec horse army (or whatever) comes around, I'd much rather have a good 9 attack army to take it out than have 12 defense archers to try to block it. You have to use strong tactics, but just building defensive armies is inefficient. I can cover several cities with one horse army or with legions/catapults and roads/boats. The alternative is each city fends for itself, which just doesn't work and is extremely expensive.

LordByron said:

I adopt that strategy mainly because its safer, but really i can't understand how you can defend online when there are plenty aztec rushers, and offline when obviously you lose all initial tech bonuses overextending and losing lot of population.

Click to expand...

I don't usually lose many early tech bonuses, but it doesn't matter. If I have a city advantage and armies to defend them, the only tech bonuses that are at all likely to really matter are Industrialization and Corporation, and that's only if the game goes on that long. Most of the time it won't.

LordByron said:

Yeah you may use republic but you lose democracy bonuses.

Click to expand...

I frequently go to Democracy when I reach the industrial era. It depends on the game, but that's a good time to switch because now I can settle a 4 pop city and build a settler. At any rate, Republic and Fundamentalism are better governments in the long run. +50% trade is nice, but it isn't needed in the early game. It's much better to set up a lot of cities, then switch to science and Democracy and start doing over 100 beakers right away.

LordByron said:

Maybe ut does work dunno i really can't imagine it as a flexible strategy; i should try it.

Click to expand...

It's the most flexible. If I have 10 cities early on, I can build a lot of armies to go for a quick kill or I can expand to 20 cities pretty quickly (10 turns at the outside). I can just tech up from where I am. When you have 3 cities, you won't have much production early. Can you build 10 knight armies? How long would that take?

If you're on xbox, you can add me as a friend "El Thrasher" and we can play some time and I'll show you.

._. in civ 4 you need tons of armies to defend a city in civ rev is the opposite..
Quantity over quality, that's the main reason that makes japanese better than egyptians.

They have loyalty.

Many players just attack without building a defence unit and a spy to defend cities they conquer but if you do, a single army with good feats can stop all your army and if they are rushers they easily will use aztec and have autoheal after every battle.
If they do not rush they just can aid their defence with ships on coastal cities.

Moreover if an opponent has access to one of your city he gets gold and technologies.

LordByron said:

._. in civ 4 you need tons of armies to defend a city in civ rev is the opposite..
Quantity over quality, that's the main reason that makes japanese better than egyptians.

They have loyalty.

Many players just attack without building a defence unit and a spy to defend cities they conquer but if you do, a single army with good feats can stop all your army and if they are rushers they easily will use aztec and have autoheal after every battle.
If they do not rush they just can aid their defence with ships on coastal cities.

Moreover if an opponent has access to one of your city he gets gold and technologies.

Click to expand...

Those are logical assumptions, but I guarantee you the city-spammer will win almost every game. That's just how it plays out. Yes, you have to take some care to not underdefend, but the longer the game goes on, the easier it gets because the city-spammer will just pull far ahead in tech. 20 cities can do so much more tech than three.

I think we've probably reached the point where only a demonstration will do any good. If you want it, the offer is on the table. I also recommend you check out Grayson's video archive (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68738) to see what he does, since he generally has the same philosophy that more cities = more winning.

Peace is overrated. I usually get war declared on me all the time. The trick is to not have everyone at once at war with you in the early stages. That is tough. But expand early and often. And only make peace when your oppoents are defeated and you have won

Actually, even having everyone at war with you isn't always a catastrophe. Even on deity, most civs never really attack you; one or two might. If that is the case, keep archer/pikeman/ armies in cities, and send legion armies at one of your antagonists, beet them thoroughly, then turn on the other. The ability to rush units can save a city if it is nearly overwhelmed, so you really shouldn't ever have to turn your offensive armies around.

lordmacroer said:

Is there any way to prevent the AI from ganging up on the human in single player mode? Smaller civilizations will demand stuff from me, and I will not give it so they start a war. They will send in like a legion army or two; it is pretty pathetic. This does not become a problem untill I have like 5 nations all at war with me because i did not give in to their demands.

In short, how do you make allies? and how can you prevent other nations from demanding stuff from you?

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You can't. Diplomacy is severely lacking in this game, to the point that the best you can do is just get them to leave you alone or ignore them entirely even if they declare war. Even standards in some other civ games like threats or bribing them into other wars to occupy them are extremely limited and a waste of time. Trading with the AI is a waste of time unless you are selling your own techs for gold to some end such meeting a milestone or pushing yourself over the threshold for one more rushed unit like a settler or horseman; better to just go take their cities instead and out-tech the surviving ones with your city advantage. In any case, eliminating an opponent is always the best choice in this particular game, killing even one of them early makes the rest of that game at least 100% easier despite 3 more remaining because of the snowball effect.

It isn't a problem though, you can easily defeat even the Deity AIs without ever giving in to a single demand and giving yourself ridiculous hindrances like only playing with one city and never building units, staying idle until 0 AD, only running cities on balanced, win with only warriors, etc. One thing the AI totally sucks at despite even the 40% handicap they get on Deity is they cannot match the tech rate or unit output of a human player that out-expands them, and they never really try to keep up since they have pretty strict parameters for settling. You can simply tech BW and straight up bully the AI from turn 8 onwards by standing on their trees with nigh-impervious-at-that-point archers.

They are really kind of pathetic actually, and it would seriously take all 4 of them (assuming you left all 4 of them alone and intact the whole time) banding together to even make a kind of credible threat to the point of slowing you down. And there's no way they're ever going to be a legitimate contention if you play the Americans, like, at all. I honestly believe that it's patently impossible to lose any Deity game straight up, in a mathematical sense, with any kind of start unless you intentionally screw yourself through dicking around or playing WAY too aggressively in the first 20 turns or so. Even in those cases, you can simply fall into a defensive position and still win, the game just goes much longer until you can start leveraging at least Knights or naval support.

The AIs are that terrible, and that predictable. Their complete lack of concern for more cities in a game that has absolutely zero balancing mechanic to reduce the power of mass sprawl is their Achilles' heel. Deity handicaps be damned if they are being brute forced by a human that smart enough to build 2 or 3 times as many cities as they have, or that goes HBR first and wipes out 1 or 2 them completely before they can even assemble an archer army (and that's a bad example; you can easily sweep entire games before 1000BC with horses if you play well with a decent start as any civ, or closer to 2000BC with an exceptional start and/or playing the Americans/Aztecs/Chinese).