Conquering, not building wonders

[Zearo]

This occured in a recent game of mine played on Monarch as the Arabians. I was completely outbuilt by the AI, who beat me to pretty much every wonder, leading me stuck with the great lighthouse.
I needed the Great Library, I was behind on techs due to rushing to monarchy, and dubious military exploits had left me without a willing trading partner. I had iron, but no horses. I set about building a mass of catapults and swords men and switched to zero gpt. After a successfull campaign to gain german territory which had boxed me in I sent my troops noth to Greece where the Great Library was. They had no iron, but I doubt it would've mattered. They were easily conquered leaving me with a huge military force, a whole heap of gold, and the great liabrary, ensuring I didn't need to research techs for most of the next era. With this huge force I began setting about gaining other wonders. Sun Tzu's, Leonardo's and Sistine chapel all became mine through conquest. The AI couldn't keep up, to busy preoccupied with wonders and technology to match my rushed troops, artillery and eventually Ansar warriors.

Essentially the Strategy is:
*Develope a strong economy. Lots of workers
*Make a beeline for Monarchy
*Get Iron working and construction, make sure you have Iron within your borders
(essentially, ignore the middle of your tech tree, stick with the fringes)
*Invade inorder to gain the Great Library, even if only for a turn, then make peace.
*Then use your significant stockpile of gold troops and technology to overwhelm your opposition.

Don't know how viable this is, but it worked extremely well. Opinions?

 

[Theov]

Wow. Nice job. Can you post a save?
or a screen of before and after.
Yes, conquering the great library can be extremely nice when you're ahead in military but behind in science.
Question:
why beeline to monarch and not repo?

 

[Zearo]

As a matter of fact I can. This is a few turns before the actual war. I'm currently at war with egypt (you can gain the city of bhutto for peace), and have just come out of a war with Germany. I got a few techs from the germans for peace, but I'm still way behind. The Scientific civs have already begun Sun Tzu's and have gunpowder. If you play a few turns you can easily take Athens, Delphi and Thermopylae (spelling). Greece is completely gone in a couple of turns. Egypt completes Sun Tzu, and Germany Leonardo's, but after that, you can pretty much use the exact same strategy.

I should note that the positioning of Athens helps alot, but I did manage to take all of Greece anyways, so it wouldn't have mattered.

As for going Republic over Monarchy, I'm quite an unorthodox civ player (as you might be able to grasp from the save). I usualy prefer Monarchy mainly because I find it's better for waging war, as I nearly always am in this game. Republic with it's war weariness and decreased free units can be annoying. But it's more of a habbitual than tactical decision.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Don't know how viable this is, but it worked extremely well. Opinions?

Very viable; in fact, the higher the difficulty, the less likely you are to get most of the wonders due to the AI's advantages. Not to mention the fact that building, say, the Great Libarary (400 Shields) means you're not building 13 Swordsmen or Settlers or Horsemen (30 Shields each). Unless there's a particular benefit that only applies to the *builder* of the Wonder (like with ToG), it's often better to capture a wonder than to build it.

As for going Republic over Monarchy, I'm quite an unorthodox civ player (as you might be able to grasp from the save). I usualy prefer Monarchy mainly because I find it's better for waging war, as I nearly always am in this game. Republic with it's war weariness and decreased free units can be annoying. But it's more of a habbitual than tactical decision.

While Republic is generally considered the "best" government, and it's entirely possible to conduct long-term wars in it, it's also generally advised that frequent-war or All-War games use Monarchy, for the reasons you give. For the strategy you gave, it doesn't really matter (and you could probably do it fairly effectively with Despotism, for that matter).

 

[timerover51]

Is it safe to assume that you were playing on a Pangaea Map?

 

[Zearo]

Nope, I'm pretty sure it was on continents, but with maximum land mass. Not 100% cerrtain though.

 

[King of Anshan]

On Monarch you can usually pown the AI with the philosophy pad of the tech-tree and that path makes excellent trading. But going for iron-working is usually what the Ai does too, and besides you are really screwded when there is no iron in the neighbourhood.

Indeed the most important aspect is economy. More workers=more gold= more troops/science. I ussually tend to have more workers than other units in the beginning. (end AE/beginning ME)

 

[AutomatedTeller]

This is such a very viable strategy. There's a game over in either stories and tales or one of the SG games where a team took on SID and did something very similar (captured the great library) to catch up on techs... and went from the early middle ages to the late industrial in one fell swoop!

 

[del62]

This is such a very viable strategy. There's a game over in either stories and tales or one of the SG games where a team took on SID and did something very similar (captured the great library) to catch up on techs... and went from the early middle ages to the late industrial in one fell swoop!

I think they used the Indians, thus taking advantage of their UU which needs no resources

 

[Ataxerxes]

This is such a very viable strategy. There's a game over in either stories and tales or one of the SG games where a team took on SID and did something very similar (captured the great library) to catch up on techs... and went from the early middle ages to the late industrial in one fell swoop!

Absolutely. Monarch is where this strategy starts to work well. It's actually fairly commonly used. Early expansion, lots of workers and war. I usually prefer Republic myself but either government works well in a normal game. Just get out of Despotism. The advice of war, not wonders, is common advice.
Most players tend to overbuild, I admit to this failing as well.

 

[Raliuven]

On Monarch you can usually pown the AI with the philosophy pad of the tech-tree and that path makes excellent trading. But going for iron-working is usually what the Ai does too, and besides you are really screwded when there is no iron in the neighbourhood.

You'll also have a difficult time if the GLB doesn't build anywhere near your start location.

 

[Ataxerxes]

You'll also have a difficult time if the GLB doesn't build anywhere near your start location.

Yeah, I misread his strategy. I thought he built the GL. If you're lucky enought to have it build close, this works. Far away can be bad. If you really want to abuse the GL, build it in a city and then use the GL slingshot when you get close to Education. I've hears stories of a cascade of techs doing this.

 

[King of Anshan]

You mean, build the GL youself and when your very close to education donate it away, stop research and sart waring until its time to catch up?

Seems likea good strategy despite losing probably a core-city.

 

[Ataxerxes]

You mean, build the GL youself and when your very close to education donate it away, stop research and sart waring until its time to catch up?

Seems likea good strategy despite losing probably a core-city.

Yes, that's what I meant. It is somewhat of a desperation strategy to counter the AI bonuses.

However, for any new players reading this thread - this is only valid on high levels. On low levels GL usually isn't worth it - you can outtech the AI anyway. If anyone is needing this strategy on, say Regent, there's a fundamental problem in their game.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

Essentially the Strategy is:
*Develope a strong economy. Lots of workers
*Make a beeline for Monarchy
*Get Iron working and construction, make sure you have Iron within your borders
(essentially, ignore the middle of your tech tree, stick with the fringes)
*Invade inorder to gain the Great Library, even if only for a turn, then make peace.
*Then use your significant stockpile of gold troops and technology to overwhelm your opposition.

Don't know how viable this is, but it worked extremely well. Opinions?

I think the beginning concept of this strategy is good. It would be a great way of "breaking out" from a start point with limited strategic resources (i.e. either no iron or no horse). Here's my suggestion:

1. research wheel first to see if there are horses
2. if there are horses nearby then proceed with beeline to monarchy
3. if no horse, then research bronze and iron
4. settle close to iron and then beeline to monarchy

IMO your overall strategy is a little too focused in relying on capturing a single wonder, the GL. Depending on the situation, I would probably want Leonardo's Workshop more... I recently had a game where I conquered half a standard pangea map as Tokugawa on Monarch level, got the GL somewhere on the opposite side of the landmass (from my capitol) and received Theology and Education from the GL.
The strategy of beelining to monarchy, waging constant war on the AI and capturing wonders is a very good strategy.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

I just thought of something else. Typically, if you're at Monarchy, the only thing between you and Chivalry is all those techs you missed (while beelining) plus feudalism and monotheism. You can easily demand all the ancient era techs for peace from one or more of your AI victims. By then you would probably have both horses and iron. So now beeline to chivalry. With knights, you'll have the capability of bringing misery to the AI (in monarchy) for all of the medieval era. All of those knights can be upgraded to cavalry with can continue to bring misery during the industrial era.

 

[Snarkhunter]

Yeah, I misread his strategy. I thought he built the GL. If you're lucky enought to have it build close, this works. Far away can be bad. If you really want to abuse the GL, build it in a city and then use the GL slingshot when you get close to Education. I've hears stories of a cascade of techs doing this.

I've gone from early Med to Steam power on Monarch before. Didn't build the GL, but it was close at hand & I made sure I took that city last when I went a-warring. Kinda cool to see all the tech discovery messages (-:

kk