ericball
Warlord
The win in this game came fairly easily. I probably could have had the win much earlier except I didn't change my cities from science to gold production. I also had only 5 cities; which is half the number I normally have.
It was so easy that I'm trying to figure out what I did right. Obviously an economic victory isn't a stretch for the Americans, but I was also leading in science and culture.
Location and layout helped some. The world had one main landmass with all of the Civs. The Arabs were east of me while the Mongols, Germans and English were to the west beyond a chokepoint where I put my second city - although it only had to fend off a few minor Mongol attacks.
I got an early galley and caravan from villages which I sent off exploring. The galley discovered the Gold City and Ankor Wat which gave me the Great Wall. The Great Wall helped a lot because I could focus on expansion and development rather than defense. The galley also later learned the location of Atlantis.
My third city became a production powerhouse of 99 hammers per turn courtesy of the hills and mountains surrounding it. The expanding Arab borders prevented me from expanding my territory further so my fourth city was a fill-in on the northern coast. My final city came later when I moved a settler onto an island off the northern coast. That city I developed as my gold city.
At the beginning I was behind in technology and I wasted a lot of time trying to be first to Irrigation. (Which I stopped researching once I realized I was no longer first.) But I bought (and sold) a few techs and achieved tech parity with the first place Mongols. I then started getting those firsts - especially the city bonuses.
I didn't optimize my city land use much - other than food focus in the early going to help cities expand quickly and recover from building settlers. The one problem, I find, with custom land usage is it doesn't handle change - like when the city grows or when enemies occupy regions. (Late in the game the Germans sat a cruiser on the whale my gold city was using. I built a Battleship in the city and destroyed it. But before I could move my battleship over the whale, they would send another cruiser to occupy the region. I think I destroyed 3 German cruisers before they gave up.)
So now that I'm back in the tech race, I have to think ahead to the time when another Civ discovers Engineering and the Great Wall stops working. So I started building up defensive armies in my cities. I almost cut it too close 'cause the Germans landed a knight army next to my 4th city before the army was in place. Although my defender died, the Germans only had the one army and I had a second defender - so they didn't take the city. So for the next three turns I rushed the next sacrifical defender in the 4th city and started rush building knights in my 3rd city. The resulting knight army made quick work of the Germans.
I took the tech lead and really started winning when my bonus cruiser discovered Atlantis. Before making the final move, I backfilled the tech tree up to gunpowder. After researching Mass Production and Combustion I built Leonardo's. The resulting tanks made short work of the knight armies the Arabs attacked with. Economic victory came soon afterwards.
So, in conclusion - what worked for me?
1. Explore early - find those villages and relics and identify chokepoints. (The AIs tend to focus on early defence, so you can leave your first city undefended. Not advisable in MP.)
2. The Great Wall lets you delay building defensive units. Plus it's only 50% more than a wall. (So if you're going to build a wall, why not build a great one?)
3. Even if you're not trying for a tech victory being in the tech lead is a good idea so you get those first bonuses and keep your units up to date.
It was so easy that I'm trying to figure out what I did right. Obviously an economic victory isn't a stretch for the Americans, but I was also leading in science and culture.
Location and layout helped some. The world had one main landmass with all of the Civs. The Arabs were east of me while the Mongols, Germans and English were to the west beyond a chokepoint where I put my second city - although it only had to fend off a few minor Mongol attacks.
I got an early galley and caravan from villages which I sent off exploring. The galley discovered the Gold City and Ankor Wat which gave me the Great Wall. The Great Wall helped a lot because I could focus on expansion and development rather than defense. The galley also later learned the location of Atlantis.
My third city became a production powerhouse of 99 hammers per turn courtesy of the hills and mountains surrounding it. The expanding Arab borders prevented me from expanding my territory further so my fourth city was a fill-in on the northern coast. My final city came later when I moved a settler onto an island off the northern coast. That city I developed as my gold city.
At the beginning I was behind in technology and I wasted a lot of time trying to be first to Irrigation. (Which I stopped researching once I realized I was no longer first.) But I bought (and sold) a few techs and achieved tech parity with the first place Mongols. I then started getting those firsts - especially the city bonuses.
I didn't optimize my city land use much - other than food focus in the early going to help cities expand quickly and recover from building settlers. The one problem, I find, with custom land usage is it doesn't handle change - like when the city grows or when enemies occupy regions. (Late in the game the Germans sat a cruiser on the whale my gold city was using. I built a Battleship in the city and destroyed it. But before I could move my battleship over the whale, they would send another cruiser to occupy the region. I think I destroyed 3 German cruisers before they gave up.)
So now that I'm back in the tech race, I have to think ahead to the time when another Civ discovers Engineering and the Great Wall stops working. So I started building up defensive armies in my cities. I almost cut it too close 'cause the Germans landed a knight army next to my 4th city before the army was in place. Although my defender died, the Germans only had the one army and I had a second defender - so they didn't take the city. So for the next three turns I rushed the next sacrifical defender in the 4th city and started rush building knights in my 3rd city. The resulting knight army made quick work of the Germans.
I took the tech lead and really started winning when my bonus cruiser discovered Atlantis. Before making the final move, I backfilled the tech tree up to gunpowder. After researching Mass Production and Combustion I built Leonardo's. The resulting tanks made short work of the knight armies the Arabs attacked with. Economic victory came soon afterwards.
So, in conclusion - what worked for me?
1. Explore early - find those villages and relics and identify chokepoints. (The AIs tend to focus on early defence, so you can leave your first city undefended. Not advisable in MP.)
2. The Great Wall lets you delay building defensive units. Plus it's only 50% more than a wall. (So if you're going to build a wall, why not build a great one?)
3. Even if you're not trying for a tech victory being in the tech lead is a good idea so you get those first bonuses and keep your units up to date.
