Grand Strategy Thread

General_W

Councilor & Merlot Noble
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Grand Strategy Room


The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

In the first MTDG, team MIA had a Grand Strategy thread that I think was a key part of developing our winning strategy. I didn't see anything like it as I browsed through the other team forums.

Essentially, the object of this thread is to try to pull together all the disparate parts of our game play, and make them work together towards the larger goal… ie, a way to create synergy.

Of course we'll have a thread to talk about the next few turns, and threads on Domestic policy and military policy and foreign relations… but how does all that come together in the larger picture to secure our victory?

Hopefully – that's where the Grand Strategy thread comes in.

Even if our "Grand Strategy" changes many times (and it likely will) – I still believe there is immense value in crafting a vision of where we are going, so that all the short-term tradeoffs we'll face each turn can be weighed against the larger vision of how we'll win.

I think the first step is to talk about how we want to win and what we expect our enemies to do.

Looking forward to a great and thought-provoking discussion with all of you!
:salute:
 
Here's my quick-and-dirty launch of this topic – with my thoughts on victory conditions and what to expect from our enemies. This is just to get the ball rolling – I can't wait to hear what others think and to really get cooking!

Space Race:
Extremely difficult to pull off in multiplayer. Anyone who had enough of a tech lead to get Apollo and to be a reasonable threat to launch would face a certain dogpile by the late industrial period at the latest. Nukes also present a very serious threat to this victory method. If we're strong enough to fight off every single surviving team AND launch a spaceship – it'd probably be easier to just conquer them militarily.
General_W Strategy Grade: D-

20k Single City Culture:
Talk about painting a bull's-eye on your back! Every team would see this coming by the time we hit the early Middle Ages. Absolutely heroic defensive measures would be needed. Our UU (with it's defensive & lethal bombardment) may actually prove useful in this type of scenario – but at a minimum we'd need an awesome start location, an easily defensible capital (or nearby primo 20k city site), and we'd need to capture some key early wonders. Appealing part of this is it's unlikely we'd have any competition for this condition, and it would free us to pursue peaceful relationships with every other team.
General_W Strategy Grade: B-

100K Empire Culture Win:
Impossible in multiplayer. Not only do you need 100,000 culture, no one else can have 50,000 or more. If we went for this, others would see it, and we could be easily stopped by a modest culture build by one of our enemies… or a pillage-and-run strategy that guts our fringe towns.
General_W Strategy Grade: F

So that leaves us with the domination win options – the key here is to pick WHEN to make our bid for the crown. I don't mean for these categories to say when we'll actually achieve victory – but rather when we start our naked grab for power. (Ie – in the 1st MTDG, MIA began our bid with the advent of Cavalry, even though the final death blow was dealt with Bombers)

Domination Win – Late Middle Age (Cavalry)
This will be a tough age for us, imho. All eyes will be on team SABER and their nasty Sipahi units… if SABER lasts that long… however, as Chamnix is on team Saber – I give them very good odds to not only live to see Military Tradition, but to prosper on their way there. Chamnix is an amazing player and I don't think it's an exaggeration to see he contributed more than any other person the huge victory of MIA. Bottom line – this just isn't a good time for us. Our UU is defensive and doesn’t offer any help. Best bet for us it to probably lay low through the fighting that's likely to happen, and just hope we don't end up the receiving end of the Ottomans' likely expansionist aims at the end of the Middle Ages.
General_W Strategy Grade: D

Domination Win – Early Industrial Age (Infantry & Artillery)
I think this is our earliest shot at a domination win – but we'd really have to get here significantly ahead of other civs. Advantage – the world will probably be brusied and bloodied for the world war that will no doubt have been touched off by the Ottomans. If we can avoid serious bloodshed in the Middle Ages, we could be poised to strike a weaned world in the early years of the Industrial Age.
General_W Strategy Grade: B-

Domination Win – Late Industrial Age (Bombers)
Same as above – just depends on world situation.​

Domination Win – Modern Age (Tanks)
Same as above – just depends on world situation.​


What I expect our enemies to do:

Team FREE – Sumeria
Prediction: Fast start with rapid early expansion through settlement. Relatively peaceful later on till final victory push.

Team SABER – Ottomans
Prediction: Solid start, mass expansion through conquest at the end of the middle ages. Continued warfare from there to the end.

Team BABE – Iroquois
Prediction: Fast start with rapid early expansion through settlement and conquest under the hooves of their Mounted Warriors. From there, try to leverage their size advantage with commercial trait to domination.

Team GONG – Celts
Prediction: Fast start with rapid early expansion through settlement and conquest utilizing their terrifying Gallic Swords. From there, continue conquering till all fall before them.

What do you all think?
:salute:
 
My thoughts on win conditions:

Diplomatic is obviously impossible - everyone will abstain.

Space Race and 100K are quite possible, but require basically defeating our opponents before hand - only way they make sense is if we get most of the world, but our opponents are on an island and have a huge navy. Easier and better to just destroy them.

20K - fun, but like General_W said - paints a huge target. Plus, puts you so far behind the opposition that you will probably never recover. Probably easier to do with the Greeks than with Korea in a multiplayer game.

The military/domination conditions are the ones we need to worry about. I agree with the General that we will likely not be able to take over the world until pretty late - at least Military Tradition. Being the tech leaders may help us here (assuming that we are, which we should be), in that we might be able to get to Mil Trad 10 turns before the ottomans (depending on what techs we get for free and how quickly we get to republic.)



I think we can and will be the tech leaders - commercial and scientific is hard to beat in that regard. What we have to weather is an early rush by mounted warriors and/or Gallics. I suspect Sumeria will be left alone - the Enkidu is tough to overcome, from a cost point of view - but I also suspect that Ottoman will be a reasonably early target, if just because they are scary. The big worry with Korea is that we become an early target because we have a late UU and people don't want us to be a tech leader. As i see it, the later the game goes, the better off we are (assuming we survive Sipahi's)

It may make sense for us to try to play teams off on each other - I would love to see Ottoman's get chewed up some early, so they are weaker going into the late middle ages. I would like very much to see sumeria/Iroquois and Celts have early wars triggering early GA's.

Frankly, I suspect that Saber is having a very similar discussion right now. I also think that they will have a target on their back. Saving grace is how expensive Sipahi's are, both to build and to upgrade to.

From a strategy point of view, contacts, research and diplomacy will be our savior, at least until we can start beating the hell out of the opposition. I don't know how easy it is to foment war between opponents in one of these.

Right now, I'm hoping we end up with an arch map with everyone on their own island ;)

I've been thinking some about what people will research:

Babe/Iroquois - will they go for the slingshot, or will they go for MW?
Saber/Ottomans - completely unknown.
Gong/Celts - will they go BW/IW? My guess is that they go up the monarchy tree, since they are the only religious civ.
Free/Sumeria - no idea.

Huh. There are 3 agricultural civs in this game. This is somewhat frightening.
 
Well, General_W.... Off to an 'interesting' start to this thread, to say the least!

Do you see our old compatriot Chamnix as a sort of 'Doomsday Device'?

... Or more of a Dr. Strangelove?

I really can't speak to victory conditions at this point (tho' I note that you didn't grade any conditions simply average :hmm:), but it seems to me that the old adage of keeping enemies close will be applicable here. If we are lucky enough to wind up on Saber's good side early on - and don't blow it! - the Saber / Council pair would be unstoppable tech-wise.

Alternatively, we might want to reign in a viper (Iroquois Babes :)?) to act as a nasty big stick, while we remain rather quiet.

Pure speculation, of course :)
 
I think we can and will be the tech leaders - commercial and scientific is hard to beat in that regard. What we have to weather is an early rush by mounted warriors and/or Gallics. I suspect Sumeria will be left alone - the Enkidu is tough to overcome, from a cost point of view - but I also suspect that Ottoman will be a reasonably early target, if just because they are scary. The big worry with Korea is that we become an early target because we have a late UU and people don't want us to be a tech leader. As i see it, the later the game goes, the better off we are (assuming we survive Sipahi's).


This is interesting, I think.
A lot of it depends on the starting position naturally, but we are an easy target early on. Luckily, there are a couple of other civs who others will be eager to keep on a tight leash.

A starting position near the iroquois, or worse, the celts, would be nasty.
 
I already love this thread. :bounce:

While 100k, space and diplo are out of question imo, it might be appealing to have a bet on 20k - I wonder if we can do this half-hearted without neglecting our development. :hmm:

SoZ, Pyras, libs would be nice to have anyway, but temple and some other wonders would be wide of the mark but might put some slight pressure on the late game that most other teams will be sniggering at for most part of the game. :p This would fit our "sneaker approach" we already took by "chosing" Korea. We are the underdog and should play the game that way. :old:

Apart from that 20k is my favorite VC (my only Gotm awards apart from an accidental cow) and I really like the cultural dominance tied to it. :D

However apart from building early culture this would really challenge our diplomatic skills even more than it will happen anyway. :crazyeye:
 
Interestingly, if we turn the table and look at whom the Celts and Iroqouis are most likely to attack early on to expand.... we would be high on that list, wouldn't we?
Along with the Ottomans, of course.

I am not sure if we can stay in the game long enough if we neglect our armies by building wonders and culture. We might get picked on.

We should aim to be sneaky though:D :D
 
If we have a crowded map those two aggressors will indeed jump on easy victims early. :shifty:

We won't get them to attack each other i guess. :hmm:

Sumerians might be out of the question for them, their UU protects them in the early ages. So imo it's between Ottomans and us to play the early victim role... :rolleyes:

That of course is poison for any early culture building (apart from SoZ) because we will have to pile units to do some policy of deterrence... :(

Too bad the Iros also start with Alpha - That puts them slightly ahead in the Slingshot race, right? We probably will need Pottery first to start a settler factory, we can't rely on trading for it, can we? :hmm:
 
If there are teams that start without alphabet they might be interested in a trade proposal for pottery, but if we should do that, well that's another thing.
Depends how many turns into writing we are when suggesting such a trade.
How long can one wait before we need to switch a pre.build to granary without loss of shields?

sorry, this is not grand strategy though.... :)

I suspect Iroqouis will go monarchy though...and HBRiding.
 
Well research strategy is not as much Grand Strategy as Victory Condition, but if it comes down to going for the Sling Shot or not I consider that quite important. And if the strategy is to survive as the tech broker - even more.

You might be right about the Iroquois' research strategy however.

Anyway, to acquire Pottery we will need to get contact to another civ even in multiplayer game, rigth? :hmm: So that's tough to guess when we will be able to trade for Pottery.

One of the few things I noticed from the first game is that two teams shared the sling shot - one team researched Philo, the other CoL. Maybe finding a partner for that is a key to establish a much needed alliance? :hmm:
 
One of the few things I noticed from the first game is that two teams shared the sling shot - one team researched Philo, the other CoL. Maybe finding a partner for that is a key to establish a much needed alliance? :hmm:

Very interesting....

Both us and the Ottomans would be early prime targets, and both of us would have to fight to survive the early onslaught from the Celts and Iroqs...maybe we could tempt them into some sort of deal?
;)
 
Both us and the Ottomans would be early prime targets, and both of us would have to fight to survive the early onslaught from the Celts and Iroqs...maybe we could tempt them into some sort of deal?
;)

I rather thought about allying one of the strong guys and presenting Ottomans as the weak aim. While our partner chases Ottomans and gains land and glory we try to live long and prosper... :shifty: :D

Allying the Ottomans won't help much if one of us is under pressure from one of those two early aggressors (or even both :eek: )... :hmm:
Only one of them can help holding the other in check. However maybe none of them is likely to do a Republic slingshot game (which would also be a sign for a peaceful approach by that potentially aggressive civ) but both want to go for monarchy... :(

In that case an alliance with peaceful Sumerians could be in order to present Ottomans as the easy target for everone... :evil:

I presume we will go for Republic, right? :hmm:
If that is subject of debate, we should solve this first. :old:
 
you are probably right about the best alliance.
Shows me that I should have played the game the last year..:blush:

Since we are going to be peaceful for a while and start with alpha, the slingshot is a goer, unless we run into early trouble :cry:
 
See – this is precisely my worry about the early warmonger type civs (Celts/Gong, Iroquois/Babe) … EVERYONE is going to want to be their friends, giving them a very powerful position even if they never fire a shot in the AA.
Just being cozy with them doesn't really do us a lot of immediate good, imho – because everyone will want to be cozy with them… and then at the end of the day, we're still the weakest AA target.
The best hope I see for us out of this is to fully exert ourselves into painting the Ottomans (with the "evil MM overlord Chamnix at the helm or as puppet master") as the real serious future threat… and try to get those Celtic and Iroq armies moving towards the Ottomans.

But really – all this talk about the diplomacy is very premature until we see where we're at and who is nearby.

What IS relevant now, is knowing how big of a deal diplomacy is going to be for our survival... esp turning the warmongers away from us towards the Ottomans. I belive we all agree on that. Now - with that in mind – should we plan our early builds to place a big emphasis on exploration and contact of other Civs?

Consider: we're going to start slower than pretty much every other civ in the game (we're the only civ with Agricultural or Industrial to boost our early game) – can we afford such a big neglection of early domestic development in favor of exploring?

That's what we really need to decide.

If we want to hedge for a possible 20K win, then we should probably forgo the rapid jump on exploring in favor of getting our core up and running sooner, and let our enemies come to us (essentially the MIA approach in the 1st MTDG) – if we decide our biggest threat is just surviving the AA – then maybe exploration should come first.

My personal inclination is to build first (but I'm biased from the last MTDG)- and I'm 110% open to hearing arguments the other way.
 
My opinion is that we should not be scared of *any* of the other civilizations. Chamnix may be the ultimate micro manager, but he's only 1 of team. MW and Gallics are scary - but they are several techs away, plus a resource for both those people. MW get killed by archers pretty easily, and Gallics are expensive to produce. Besides - if it's a pangea map, no one is going to be too happy with either of those two getting an early advantage and if it's an arch map, we will be safe for a long time. if it's a continents map, things get interesting.

I think we need to get out exploring early so we can get IW and WC and the Wheel and HB, none of which we are probably going to be researching.
 
If surviving the AA is a big concern then laying low seems to make sense. I think getting a core established is more important than exploring. To survive we need to be strong. Being strong (both militarily and diplomatically) will help keep us out of wars (something we must do until we're ready to attack).

Diplomatically we want to stay on everyone's good side. I'm not so sure it would be wise to try setting up one of our rivals as a victim. If another team suggests it to us we can talk carefully about it but that's as far as I think we should go. The other teams are probably having this kind of discussion as well. If the Ottomans have a souped up cavalry unit and have Chamnix :eek: then I'm pretty sure everyone playing agianst the Ottomans will look towards the end of the middle ages with just plain fear.

It should take neither much time nor prompting from us for the Ottomans' neighbors to want to nip that threat in the bud. We'll of course want to encourage this without actively participating in the bloodshed. Ideally we'd like to see the Ottomans attacked early and hurt but we also want it to be a protracted struggle that drains all involved. Our diplomatic efforts should be aimed at this goal.

As for victory condition I think realistically we have to go for dominaiton. 20k would sidetrack us from what we need to do to stay strong, alive and competitive. We should by all means build libraries and beneficial wonders but we have to temper our cultural building with some defensive capabilities.
 
@A.T. – I agree we shouldn't be "scared"… but we do need to be realistic about the threat the Celts and the Iroq especially pose. They are fast starters with powerful offensive AA units. They will be wasting a large part of their advantage if they play peacefully (or at the least, fail to throw their weight around with threats to secure extra territory via diplomacy at the tip of the sword).

With Rik making us a balanced map – it's fair to expect we'll start near at least 2 civs. That gives us very good odds of starting near at least one of these "early aggressive" civs.

On that note... what do we think of making an early bid for the Statue of Zeus?
With Alphabet as our starting tech, we can pretty quickly pick up Math if we'd like. (Masonry and Alpa are the preqs)

300 shields is pretty hefty for the start of the game, but if we were dedicated about either getting a 2nd town as a Settler factory asap or alternately getting a wonder town asap, then we could very likely beat any other team to the SoZ. This would go a long ways towards guaranteeing our survival through to the Middle Ages… SoZ goes obsolete with the same tech that grants us our UU – so that's pretty convenient timing, really. Biggest bummers are the cost and no upgrade path for our Ancient Cavalry.

Still – if we're not in an easily defensible position, this might be a really appealing option for Korean Council Security.

And I agree with Donsig – Domination is the most realistic win… but if we went with a SoZ strategy as outlined above… that'd be a nice start on our way to 20k as a fallback plan. (SoZ is highest culture AA wonder, outside of the Great Library)
 
I like that idea. If we can make such a city coastal, we can also pick up collosus (a relatively inexpensive good culture which is half our GA) - that plus the GLib gives us a GA in the late AA, early MA, which is probably about when the Gallics/MW will start making themselves a serious threat.

I'm not convinced a 20K win is realistic in a game like this - unless we pop an early SGL that we can use for Pyramids or GLib.
 
Donsig said:
If the Ottomans have a souped up cavalry unit and have Chamnix :eek:then I'm pretty sure everyone playing agianst the Ottomans will look towards the end of the middle ages with just plain fear.

:rotfl:

I'm very tempted to put this in my signature once all the teams have met :mischief:

Seems to me that the discussion so far is centering around keeping our adversaries believing we are too dangerous to softly attack, while at the same time getting ourselves positioned for a 20K run, if we choose.

That's a smart way to move: in two directions at once, both reinforced by the other (i dont' know if that makes sense when I write it, but it made sense when I thought it :))
 
I'm a big one for exploration ... pop them huts and see what we get ... it will also assist in settling in high production areas and secure resources.

We should not be afraid to step out and meet our neighbors, usually the first team you meet will become at the very least a trading partner. This makes it interesting when you have 5 teams playing as the last team to make contact will IMO be a little behind the 8-Ball.
 
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