Advice for multiplayer warlords

[Joe Harker]

I have been playing the orginal verison online now for a few months and i have just brought warlords. I am a better than average player on the orginal although due to experiences on other games i might well be shocking when it comes to warlords Is there any tips and things to look out for?

Thanks

 

[BARBEERIAN]

-Chariots are actually useful now, they rock axemen (when attacking).

-Great Generals really help the war efforts. I ALWAYS use my first one to build a Medic III unit (+25% healing per turn IIRC). He pretty much makes it so even the deadest unit heals in 3/4 turns in enemy territory. Keeps that Stack o' Death rolling much faster.

-Impi's (Zulu spearman UU) are evil. 2 movement (with terrain mastery) makes them the ultimate pillager. If you see a Zulu player near you, beeline for copper/iron or consider yourself dead.

-Expansive lets you build workers 50% faster. This is HUGE in the start game during the initial workers/settlers phase. I usually end up with 4/5 workers by the time a non-expansive Civ has 2/3. A fast start in MP is always a good thing, and noone starts faster than the new expansive Civs.

-If by chance it's going to be a Medieval game, just play Isabella. Spi + Exp are good traits, Conquistadors just decimate everything in their era (Knights with +50% vs. Melee units), and the Citadel (+4/5 XP to siege weapons) letting my Cats/Trebs start with huge bonuses.

 

[Ecofarm]

Ancient Era:
War resource for the win, then cats for the win. If you start without a war resource, good luck getting to construction. It's basically luck; whoever gets copper/horses in fat cross wins (unless you are playing a small map with few people/standard map/builder love fest/lame). The reason big maps are lame is the geographical fact that you cannot attack more than 1 or 2 people. Distance + quick/normal speed is too much to overcome defenses.

Classic Era:
Same as ancient, except make sure you are Rome

Medieval (spelling) Era:
I forget who gets the units here, but I remember that China is a gamble (chop forge, research machinery, lightbulb engineering).

Ren Era:
Spain or France, kill the builders.

Industrial Era:
The only fair era, everyone starts with rifles, and no resource matters. Beeline infantry for defense or artillery for offence. Galleons are cheap and provide for surprise attacks.

Modern Era:
1st person to hook up oil wins.

Future Era:
Settle on oil, buy modern armor, gunships, and mech. 1st to launch their army wins (beware of protective mechs).

 

[cabert]

ecofarm, each time i read you I wonder where's the fun in your MP games

 

[Ecofarm]

I'm pretty critical of MP, but I do enjoy it and play most nights. You'd be surprised how unpredictable (and thus fun) it can be compared to a game vs. a set code. Further, team games add to the multiplayer experience. Lately I've been trying random civs + random era.

I play SP as well, noble to practice MP strats and monarch/emporer to test my code memorization skills:
-- Alex backstabs so kill him, go Isabell religion to be safe vs her / same doesn't work vs monty, AIs dont research alphabet so get it to trade, oracle CoL, lightbulb philosophy paper education liberalism ftw. Oh, and don't forget that Mansa capitulates easy and Ghandi will never attack you, etc etc etc.

 

[cabert]

I'm pretty critical of MP, but I do enjoy it and play most nights. You'd be surprised how unpredictable (and thus fun) it can be compared to a game vs. a set code. Further, team games add to the multiplayer experience. Lately I've been trying random civs + random era.

I play SP as well, noble to practice MP strats and monarch/emporer to test my code memorization skills:
-- Alex backstabs so kill him, go Isabell religion to be safe vs her / same doesn't work vs monty, AIs dont research alphabet so get it to trade, oracle CoL, lightbulb philosophy paper education liberalism ftw. Oh, and don't forget that Mansa capitulates easy and Ghandi will never attack you, etc etc etc.

yep, you gave good SP rules here
Guess I played too much, and need to play something else for a while.

 

[InFlux5]

Knowing every leader's tendencies doesn't account for all the other unpredictables. Plus you can play with random personalities. Different maps and game setups can also be fun.

I'm a little shocked by your pessimism Ecofarm, and that's saying something.

 

[Ecofarm]

I suppose it is due to the dificulty in avoiding the above strat in SP. How can you avoid oracle CoL, light philosophy, caste/pacifism to liberal? I've tried the southern tree recently with Mehmed (spelling?) to get gunpowder as fast as possible and even trying crazy lightbulb coordination (maybe I needed philo trait for it to be decent) I was unable to beat the standard strat time to gunpowder.

 

[OctavianFlu]

I'm no way the best person at MP, but here is what I consciously try to do

1.
One thing that is not mentioned in the above useful tips is keeping an eye on the graphs. I believe its the top right button or F9 (someone correct me if I am wrong). This is very helpful, especially the Power/Production graph. This gives you an idea if your neighbors are aggressive, or defensive. Watching these graphs can give you a good idea if someone is gearing up to attack you or not, and how quickly they can make units.

2.
Be diverse with your stack of doom. If you are going with primarily with axemen, bring a couple of spearmen with you, just to defend against any counter attack via chariot -- stuff like that

3.
Know your land. The one thing I notice in team games is that a lot of people do not go into their cities and change what they work as the game progresses. To me I find this almost critical. For example if I can get a building/troop out the door earlier by choosing a mine rather than a food resource, and stave my population by doing it. I'll Do it.

4.
Great People rock. Knowing what GP can do (i'm still learning this) can get be essential to your tech game. For example. If I am lucky enough to get the Oracle in a Multi-Player game, and I research Metal Casting, then building a forge allows me to put 1 citizen as an engineer. This is big, because when it comes to popping the GP I have a good chance of popping an engineer for Machinery (w/ Iron you get crossbowmen which is AWSOME)

There are again many people better than me, and this might be lousy advice, but this is what I try to keep in mind with my games, and typically I do fairly well, or I am not surprised of my failure

 

[Ecofarm]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=176505

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=203782