Tech freeze strategy?

[JonathanStrange]

You'll need (in alphabetical order):

• Agriculture, so you can build farms.
• Cartography, so you can adopt City States.
• Code of Laws, so you can construct courthouses.
• Construction, for catapults*.
• Iron Working, for Champions.
• Sanitation, to improve farms.
• Warfare so you can adopt Military State, and for the City Raider promotions.

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* Unless the civ doesn't have access to catapults, in which case you'll want to build Pact of the Nilhorn so that you have a way to reduce city defenses.

I'd say this was pretty solid, but as you note, a little boring. A world without magic is... Civ IV BTS.

 

[Breunor]

I've actually never stopped teching until I've finished most of the tech tree. Some of the techs (precision) don't seem to be worth the cost, but:

High priests of just about every religion are awesome
Archmages are killer tough
For sea maps, astronomy is necessary both for trade and for projecting a navy. You also need blasting powder
Mithril weapons are powerhouses
The genesis rutual is great, can anything boost your econmy like that?
The wonder ' The Nexus' can be a game changer
The ritual 'Blood of the Phoenix' is tremedously powerful, it makes your army overwhelming
Guilds makes your economy/production unbelievable as well as makes workshops great
Druids are really good.
Later techs can open up powerhouse heroes, both religious and national (Eurabatres, Mardero/Sphener)

So, I'm sticiking to my research!

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[JFSebastian]

Rhoanna seems to be well suited to this idea.

Early rapid expansion payed for with Markets and City States. Light bulb Currency, start on Guild of the Nine, switch to Consumption. Ignore Elder Councils and Libraries and focus on raw commerce and Money Changers. Flip the slider to gold once Guild of the Nine finishes and start a second expansion through conquest.

RoK might be a good match. Build the Mines of Gal-dur to provide iron for your Mercs, allowing you to sidestep Iron Working.

Later you can flip back to science if needed to get Magnadine, Knights or additional economic techs. CoE is a good match for the Shadow Riders and can be spread rapidly, keeping up with your conquests.

 

[Tasunke]

Not against the computer. I almost never see them use magic at all. The only spell I see with any frequency is something where giant plant pedals close up around a city. I have no clue what that spell is!

That leaf spell is usually the Priest of Leaves "summon tiger."

as for catapults, its not just about the city defenses. Collateral is EVERYTHING.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Ah so in short it negates the defense bonus that is displayed next to / under the city name? Aha! Finally I understand. Thanks

No, it negates palisades etc., but doesn't negate culture. I don't know where Gekko got the idea that it negates culture. Elves do need Fire mana (or Air, for Maelstroms) to conquer.

Not against the computer. I almost never see them use magic at all.

I've seen Evil AI's Spectres quite often, esp. Sheaim and Infernals. If they have Entropy mana, they'll summon Pit Beasts. I often see Sheaim summoned Skeletons. I've seen Inspiration in AI's cities.

AI's who are not Arcane or Summoner are discouraged from researching magic techs, though.

 

[Worm4life]

So far this strategy has been a pretty huge success. You really don't even need to research the money making techs. Simply get the couple key early techs then beeline to bronze working and crush with axemen. You should be able to beat anyone without archers fine. After that just grab sanitation and construction then get to ironworking and replace axemen with champions. Use champions and catapults to take cities. Magic is nice but it's too much of a diversion to research and build.

You might want to research some money techs AFTER champions, if only for the gambling house and the +10 happiness it's going to be giving you.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I don't know where Gekko got the idea that it negates culture.

I didn't, I just never realized that it only negates walls and palisades and not culture

 

[Onionsoilder]

That and fireballs arent restricted to being used against city defenders. You can use them on defense against stacks of doom, or on offense to wear down lone units between cities so that one of your units close to their next promotion can take the injured out.

I prefer using Malstrom/Shadowwalk combination over Fireballs. Shadowwalk negates city defenses instantly, so you don't have to wait for bombard(from either fireballs or catapults, boht take time) and Malstrom deals more damage to large stacks then fireballs do. Plus Malstrom has a bigger range.

 

[Tasunke]

Do not underestimate the power of Catapults.

The investment down the arcane line is too great to go into first unless you have the proper synergies.

AKA, as the Sheiam, I would be perfectly happy to never go beyond -> Ashen Veil -> Sorcery

only cause I get Rosier and Diseased Corpses, plus some very niiiice mages.

Of course, you know what makes that strategy even better? Catapults ... yes, Catapults can help almost any strategy.

 

[Emptiness]

I was originally critical of this strategy, but JFSebastian's post piqued my interest by suggesting some tactics I hadn't considered.

Per his suggestion, I decided to:

• produce a Great Merchant, to lightbulb Currency, enabling construction of the Guild of the Nine,
• use Mercenaries instead of Champions, elimiating the need to research the (relatively) expensive techs Smelting and Iron Working,
• pursue Runes of Kilmorph, to enable use of Arete and construction of the Mines of Gal-Dur.

I decided not to use Rohanna, however. Instead I used Beeri Bawl. Mounted mercenaries would have been nice, but I felt that Industrious would be more beneficial, since the strategy hinges on rapid construction of two wonders. Further, the Luchuirp worldspell can provide extra hammers as well as leverage production of Great Engineers to help finish those wonders more rapidly.

Spoiler details of my execution of the strategy :

Tech path:

• Agriculture
• Ancient Chants
• Mysticism (switch to God King)
• Mining
• Exploration
• Calendar
• Festivals (merchant specialist in capital, switch to Pacifisim)
• Fishing
• Animal Husbandry
• Education
• Way of the Earthmother (switch to RoK)
• Masonry
• Code of Laws
• Currency (mostly via lightbulb)
• Arete (switch to Arete)
• Cartography
• Bronze Working
• Warfare
• Construction

The blue techs could be skipped for some starting positions. I was coastal, with aquatic resources near several expansion spots, and another good expansion spot with cows as it's only food resource, so I elected to pick them up.

After the Great Merchant popped in my capitol I cast Gifts of Nantoswelta, moved all the hammers to my capitol with disposable warriors, and settled them to start working on a Great Engineer. I could have saved a few turns if I'd started working on the Great Merchant in a different city, because I could have settled the hammers in my capitol sooner. (It's important that the pool is 100% merchant until the Great Merchant pops, because having to research Currency would be an unacceptable delay.) The Great Merchant isn't enough to grant Currency on it's own, but the remaining cost can be researched fairly quickly (about the time it takes to research Animal Husbandry, for example).

After the first Great Engineer was completed I added some priests to the specialist mix, so that eventually a Great Prophet was produced. I used it to complete the Tablets of Bambur for extra income.

Once Construction was completed I switched to 0% and started buying an army. Later I ended up increasing to 10% , because teching at 0% was very slow (Elder Council - Market = 1 / city) and I had a huge army and tons of gold anyway. It really wouldn't have mattered if I'd stayed at 0%, though, since none of the techs I ended up researching mattered much.

I was able to complete the Pack of Nilhorn, so I ended up not using any catapults. Early on I used the stooges to bombard city defenses. Once I had some mercenaries with CR III it became less important to bombard, and eventually I had so much gold income that bombarding was unnecessary (because it was faster to just throw mercenaries at the city until it fell). Bambur granted all my new mercenaries Enchanted Blade. My cities didn't need to build reinforcements, thanks to the ability to buy my army. Instead, my developed cities built Soldiers of Kilmorph (to speed building completion in new cities) or Thanes of Kilmorph (to spread the faith). New city build order was: Monument, Market, Temple of Kilmorph, Courthouse, Elder Council, then producing Soldiers of Kilmorph for the rest of the game.

God King helped me with wonder production. I switched to City States once the important ones were finished and I'd taken a few cities (I had around 7-8 total cities at that point).

The strategy was very successful. Iron Mercenaries are one point weaker than iron Champions, but they are available sooner when using this method. The Clan was my most powerful opponent, having devoured the Bannor. They had plenty of well-upgraded bronze Axemen, lead by Rantine, but it just wasn't enough. Even an archer defending a hill city is no match for a CR III iron Mercenary with an Enchanted Blade. At my peak, I had 193 mercenaries on a standard sized map. The result was a very swift victory, with the highest (adjusted) final score I've ever earned. The difficulty was only set at Monarch, but based on this showing I'm confident it will work at higher difficulties as well.

Spoiler score graph :

Spoiler final score :

Although the game was a little bland I'm forced to admit that the strategy is valid and effective. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of it.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Shadowwalk negates city defenses instantly

I've already said that it doesn't.

 

[travathian]

Malstrom deals more damage to large stacks then fireballs do. Plus Malstrom has a bigger range.

Maelstrom also does friendly fire damage, meaning you have to move your army as a single stack or in stacks quite far apart. A single stack is just asking to be hit by a few catapults, assassins, and horse archers. You also have to avoid having units from other civilizations in the affected area, else suffer a war declaration.

 

[Breunor]

Just by coincidence, my son (a rather good player, a solid immortal player) said he uses this for the Doviello. He said get the ability to get slaves, get the money techs; the Doviello can go from slave up to highe level troops very quickly, so you win by spamming tem. He said it works for him pretty handily on immortal.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Senethro]

Just by coincidence, my son (a rather good player, a solid immortal player) said he uses this for the Doviello. He said get the ability to get slaves, get the money techs; the Doviello can go from slave up to highe level troops very quickly, so you win by spamming tem. He said it works for him pretty handily on immortal.

Best wishes,

Brunor

I'm just going to chip in that this is with Mahala. Furthermore, Slaves become a source of Warriors after Bronze Working has been discovered. Slave --> Warrior --> Drown --> Stygian goes something like 65 gold. Or you can pay 33 gold for a lunatic. So it could be argued that you get a better return from Message from the Deep --> Priesthood --> Fanaticism --> Freeze than from Smelting --> Iron Working --> Freeze.

50 gold is a pretty typical result for stages 2-4 of Cottages. High 80s is not unknown. That can be a lot of Stygs.