Advice For First Warlord Attempt

[CrashHydrogen]

So I finally moved up to Warlord difficulty on C3C, I am proceeding with caution as I play, but I might need some advice.

Best Ancient military strategy using Swordsman?

What should I do to stay ahead of the AI?

 

[vmxa]

Anything you want. Ok, seriously just be sure to have enough workers and use them without too much wasted turns. If you want to crush them, I would say all you have to add to that is to not try to build every structure you can in every town as soon as you have the tech.

Throw in some decent trading tactics and you will be on cruise control. If you did not already know, get out of despotism asap. Go with Republic for a more or less peaceful game or Monarchy if not peaceful.

For more details, see if there is a Warlord SG training game, not sure if there is one. If none, look in the strat articles for my roadmap for warlord players. IIRC I gave some detail info on some of the reason I did this or that.

Good luck.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Military Tactics: Be sure to keep your units in a stack; even at Warlord, the AI likes to pick off units if you leave one all by itself.

Use your horsemen to figure out where the AI's iron is, and pillage it.

Economic Prep: Echo what vmxa said, don't build too many buildings just because you can. Make sure that you improve the tiles in the first ring around your cities, so that you're not working unimproved tiles.

Put a unit in the border towns, but you don't need units guarding the interior. You will pay unit support for those troops, whether they are out on the front line conquering, or just sitting in a city. Keep building settlers in your best food city, even while you're building units in the others, so that you can plant new towns in the AI's land.

 

[CrashHydrogen]

I'm sure not building every improvement right away is very useful, I have noticed building maintenance really adds up quickly.

I will remember to keep units in stack and use horsemen to keep iron away from the AI.

I guess I will go with Monarchy since I plan on a conquest victory, not really much of a plan, but more of an attempt to see how far I can get before 2050 AD.

Also, I am having trouble with quoting, what should I do for that? Should I start a quotation while keeping the thread open in another tab to copy and paste each quote? EDIT: just now noticed the quick reply at the bottom, ignore my quote issue lol I have it figured out

 

[vmxa]

If you are going conquest and monarchy, I would not be a huge fan of horses. Horsemen use to be a big favorite in the early days in C3C. I prefer swords in a conquest mode for several reason.

Of course you have to have iron for them and horses for horsemen and that could force you to use one or the other. If you have both, then I dislike horses for two reasons.

1) upgrades are too expensive
2) poor defense
I could add a bigger one and that is armies. I do not want a horse army, if I have a choice of swords. The AI will attack a horse army, but will leave a sword army alone (all things being equal).

I also do not see any need to pillage iron as that makes the game too easy and it will be easy enough as it sits. I would reserve that for really though games.

 

[CrashHydrogen]

Of course you have to have iron for them and horses for horsemen and that could force you to use one or the other. If you have both, then I dislike horses for two reasons.

1) upgrades are too expensive
2) poor defense
I could add a bigger one and that is armies. I do not want a horse army, if I have a choice of swords. The AI will attack a horse army, but will leave a sword army alone (all thigns being equal).

I was never a fan of horse units even on Chieftain, I wasn't ever satisfied with using them, except for Cavalry, although in the age that Cavalry are in, you don't have much of a choice about using them.

 

[Raliuven]

Shoot for 1.5 workers per city (3 workers for 2 cities) as you expand. Rule of thumb - if the city is not hopelessly corrupt (all red shields instead of blue shields) then every citizens should be working an improved tile (road and irrigation/mine as applies w/few exceptions). If you have citizens in your core cities working unimproved tiles then you need more workers which takes priority over more settlers.

Horses vs swords. Horse can retreat. Swords cannot. I prefer a mix but I tend to go heavier on the swords. Of course if your uniquie unit is a horse (Mounted Warrior) then you will use that.

Research - may go without saying but research left to right, not top to bottom. The AI will fill in the holes as you go. At this level if you always research to the right of the screen, you'll do fine. Eventually you'll want to learn about trade-bait, but at warlord with a descent core you'll be researching every tech because the AI can't keep up.

Government - if you are just moving to Warlord I would suggeset Monarchy. It is easier to manage war weariness and you can us MP to create happiness. Republic is my prefered government but it requires more work/knowledge to make it better.

In addition to building maintenance, watch your unit support, particularly if you go into Republic. These costs can kill you as quick as building support. If you build an army, use it. Go some AIs. But try to keep your army local. Don't go halfway around world to fight a crazy AI that declared war. Kill your immediatley neighbors, expand, digest, repeat. Think Germany in WWII but without the two front war.

 

[vmxa]

I tend to omit the obvious, but a UU that is either a horse or sword unit requires special consideration. Mainly due to triggering of the GA. If your UU is either not one of these or at least not in the AA, then I prefer swords.

The retreat is not worth getting excited about, because a retreated horse is normally a dead horse. Worse a wining horse may be a dead horse far more often than a winning sword.

IOW your horse kills an archer, but it only has a defense of 1. The sword has a defense of 2, so has a better chance of not dying or even being attacked than a horse.

In the end I want the sword as I want to increase my chances of being able to press the war. Horses are weaker at that as they have the lower defense and hence need more healing and die more. Their retreat makes that worse as staying on the attack may well have meant winning that combat.

Especially when attacking archer, so common at that stage. The archer drops to two HP and the horse to 12 and retreats. Had it not retreated, it may well have kill that archer as it has only a 1 defense. Retreated here will surely mean the archer will kill that horse on the IBT.

 

[Raliuven]

Not to be overly argumentative here because I essentially agree with you (and to anyone else reading that vmxa is a much better player than I so I'd listen to him), but horses can also retreat back out of range of that archer and never allow it to attack. For that matter it can attack the archer and then escape back under the cover of a nearby sword (spear, whatever) or onto a mountain that gives it the same defense as that sword that is now stuck standing on a plain within the range of the archer's friend.

Horses can also cover more territory so if your forces are stretched thin you can cover more ground to get to the battle.

What I had not considered was that the retreat may actually have robbed you of a victory that would otherwise have been lost.

 

[vmxa]

Yup lots of scenarios. You in fact do not even have to fight so early in the game. Won tons of games using horses in the early days. Most SG's used horses, but that changed. Maybe it changed, because the games moved to the middle levels like Emperor.

Maybe it changed, because more games were played as AW and horses are worth a crap in the game.

 

[Theov]

At this level you should learn your luxury slider and other empire management. (you hardly needed this at chieftain...)
If people in multiple cities get unhappy, move the slider right (until you find more luxuries) instead of taking away the tiles. Find luxuries and get them.
Try to get better at diplomacy: try to make contact with everyone and check every turn what you can trade for what. It might sound like a lot to do, but it isn't. Most of the time you're trading nothing, but when you can you can hit a jackpot.
Do not make many (if any) wonders. Try to limit yourself to money and tech wonders (Smith Trading, TOE, Hoover Dam, Leonardo... stuff like those give you a push in the back, but don't make you lazy... I'm not even sure if I agree with myself here. Try not to build them and win anyway.)

 

[CrashHydrogen]

At this level you should learn your luxury slider and other empire management. (you hardly needed this at chieftain...)

I usually let the city governor manage the citizens, if the governor is like the AI then I should probably turn it off. Should the governor just be turned off?

 

[Theov]

I usually let the city governor manage the citizens, if the governor is like the AI then I should probably turn it off. Should the governor just be turned off?

Yes.
(Don't you love it when questions answer themselves?)

[edit]
Ok. This deserves maybe a little explanation.
To get your learning curve going, you should first understand how to keep your citizens happy. Letting a governor do it, is allowing clowns in your cities.

The governor (AI) does a perfect job of keeping people happy. Absolutely flawless. The thing is, although it's highly effective, it's not efficient - there are better ways to do it. If you take away a tile (or the governor/AI does it), you're telling one citizen to stop working the tile and to parade around town to entertain people, hence the clown in your city screen.
That makes people happy for some reason. It also terrifies people who have Coulrophobia, but that's another story.
The Clown, though, is not producing anything (the tile is not worked, he was squeaking his own nose in front of kids faces, remember) and also not raking in commerce. And you are not getting food from that tile, slowing down process. This clown is practically costing you money and letting the kid die of famine. Oh and that marketplace? It will take forever.
So, when people are protesting in the streets of your cities, don't hire the clown squad. You better build a temple or something, get some military police (in some governments) or better yet, move the lux slider, or get luxury recourses. The slider is in effect moving money to the people to keep them happy. This money now does not go into your cash or into science.
But this is better because handing money to the people still lets them work the tiles, raking in shields for production, commerce for money/science and food. See, better than hiring clowns.
Clowns = source of all evil.
[/edit]

 

[bigFRANK]

Yes.
Clowns = source of all evil.
[/edit]

Sometimes needed though in far off lands that arent yet up and runnig as they should be (at least until the harbour/airport is built to reconect you to civilisation).

 

[vorlon_mi]

I usually let the city governor manage the citizens, if the governor is like the AI then I should probably turn it off. Should the governor just be turned off?

I just noticed your low number of postings; so, welcome to CFC!

I agree with the advice about the luxury slider. Its biggest advantage -- it affects multiple cities at once. Just moving it up one notch (from 0 -> 10%) will help make sure that your food-rich cities that are growing while building your army will not get unhappy. A skill you will learn later is "micro-management", where you sweep through all your cities and rearrange the citizens to make sure they are all working the tiles the way you want them to. Don't sweat it, for now; you don't *have* to do it at Warlord level, and there are other things you should learn first. Like "mine green, irrigate brown" while you're in Despotism, and having your workers build lots of roads. If you do assign a clown (or let the governor assign one) temporarily, it's so easy to forget to put that citizen back to work. The lux slider takes care of that for you.

 

[CrashHydrogen]

I agree with the advice about the luxury slider.

I agree too, I also enjoy Civ2 and since Civ2 had no governor for citizens I had experience with the luxury slider, although I get overwhelmed by micro-management, I should just do it, I'm gonna have to do that on higher difficulties so I should start now.

Edit: Also, thanks for the welcome!

 

[MysteryX]

I agree too, I also enjoy Civ2 and since Civ2 had no governor for citizens I had experience with the luxury slider, although I get overwhelmed by micro-management, I should just do it, I'm gonna have to do that on higher difficulties so I should start now.

Edit: Also, thanks for the welcome!

The main reason I've played on Monarch level a long time without moving up to the next level is because of the realization of how much micro-management I will have to do to be successful at the tougher difficultly levels. I'm currently at about the limit of the micro-management I am willing to do.

You don't necessarily have to work your way up to master the Sid level (though if that is your goal, go for it). When you find a difficultly level that provides you a challenge at the particular style of play with which you are comfortable, there's no reason not to stick with it.

 

[CommandoBob]

The main reason I've played on Monarch level a long time without moving up to the next level is because of the realization of how much micro-management I will have to do to be successful at the tougher difficultly levels. I'm currently at about the limit of the micro-management I am willing to do.

I use MapStat, part of the free civ utility known as CRpSuite available here at the forum, since it will alert me when cities will riot next turn. So will CivAssist II (here). They both read save game files, so you almost forced to save the game each turn to get a data refresh. I don't trust my PC that well, so having a lot of saves is not a problem. Plus, the manual saves that you create take up less space than the autosaves the game does.

This little gem, popHeads Smileys and CivColors Complete: All Epic, Scenarios and Conquests, will make it easier for you to determine the state of happy, content and unhappy citizens. Several times I had counted content citizens as happy and was unpleasently surprised when they shut down the city on the In-Between-Turn (IBT).

The utilites can reduce some of the MMing chores. They keep track of trade, trade options and some other things so you don't have to check with each AI each turn to see how much gold they have and what tech they just learned.

I've used MapStat in-game for years since it has a smaller memory footprint that CAII and the Win98 box I had was a bit limited (500 MGHz and 256 RAM). CAII gives more trade details when you have multiple deals with one AI than MapStat does, and that can be nice.

Hope these can help!

 

[vmxa]

Bob that PC specs would not be enough for todays video cards. I have been using popheads for many years, they are great. I don't even fire up CAII for the first 100 turns with the popheads.

 

[Quintillus]

In terms of staying ahead of the AI,

1. Workers. Build roads wherever tiles are being worked. Don't irrigate regular grassland in Despotism unless it's connecting to other tiles needing irrigation (the -1 Despotism penalty cancels out the irrigation).
2. If you don't go all-out military, remember your economy. Courthouses are pretty helpful. Libraries and marketplaces are, too. In non-core cities I'd generally go courthouses first. With a strong economy, you'll be ahead of the AI on tech on Warlord, and probably producing more, too, and the rest is usually fairly easy if you have that advantage. The F11 button (Demographics screen) can let you see how you're doing in this regard - GNP and Production (gold/shields) are usually the most important ones here.
3. If you do go all-out military, build barracks wherever you're building non-artillery troops.

Those are three basics. There's a lot of other good points, too. Between them all, you ought to be in good shape. If things aren't going so well, post a save and someone will be able to figure out why.

Also, welcome to CFC!