Always War Monarch Questions

[handy900]

Originally posted by betazed


This is perfectly legitimate. As long as you cancel out and do not do any deals.

You are right about the pillaging strategy. In fact it should be in the strategy articles. I will write one up and post it there. Then you can also chime in and post your experiences.

You deserve the origination credit for the strategy, but be sure to mention how the addition of Cav allows you to pillage many tiles on the way to the Capital.

Thanks for the response to my diplomacy screen question! I'm going to check on Korea & Japan when I fire up my game in a moment.

Your comments about a war of attrition are definitely on the money. I've managed to attrit about 100 infantry the last few turns with artillery + Infantry & cav. Also pretty much wiped out the Navy of Korea & Japan. I lost my initial beachhead further north as I underestimated the amount of Cannon I needed to supplement my cav & rifles. Also, their navy kept bombarding my city & knocking out, walls & barracks. I bet I rebuilt (bought) the walls like 5 times. Won't have any naval bombarment issues in the second landing as you can see in the save.

The second landing's naval engagement reminded me a little of the "Tatung Bait" (spelling?) from Revenge of the Chinese. I initially parked 5 ironclads in the city to wait on the arrival of the enemy. They came in waves at first. One after another boats just kept coming at my beachhead. I had a great naval kill ratio, maybe 20 to 1! Knock the enemy down to 1HP with artillery & sink them with Ironclads, then retreat the Ironclad back to the city for safety. The save is below if you want to take a look & check out haow many elite Ironclads are now safely in the harbor. Managed to kill loads of Ironclads of all colors as well as 5 Korean Destroyers after bombardment. The ships no longer come in waves, now it's 1's & 2's. Also making Armies pretty regularly now to go off & pillage. Couple more loads of troops from my continent & it will be time to go on offense.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Brennus_of_the_Celts,_1832_AD.SAV

 

[betazed]

The pillaging strategy thread is here. Add anything I missed.

 

[handy900]

You are a great writer! Well done. I added a comment to pillage on the way as well as once you reach the capital.

 

[handy900]

betazed,

When I took Korea's capital last night I renamed it in your honor!

I'll post a screen shot when I get home tonight.

 

[betazed]

betazed,

When I took Korea's capital last night I renamed it in your honor!

Oh! What honor!

Thank you! Thank you!

Can't wait for the screen shot.

 

[handy900]

And so the city name was changed and all but 1 of the residents sacrificed the the ancient celtic war god BETAZED

 

[betazed]

I am truly honored.

Nothing gives one more pleasure than when one's advise is effectively used by an intelligent player.

So when are you starting a AWE game? I will eagerly follow your progress.

 

[handy900]

Wow, 58 hours. You were right, war does take a long time! Now I understand why you quit the AWD huge map game. It would take forever! Thanks for all your help. I'll be spending Saturday @ the zoo with the kids & doing yardwork . May sneak off to the computer Saturday & Sunday evening. I can't decide whether to go for AWE next or my first diety victory. I've learned so much about war in this game I think I could pull off a diety game. I lost my last attempt (2nd try) to a space shot. If I'd have understood how to pillage it may well have been a different story. Pillaging with army + explorers is way powerful. I also now realize my cities were too far apart in the diety loss.

What map type, barb, etc do you recommend for a newbie @ diety? Not AWD, just reg diety. I need an AWE win before I tackle AWD!

I really have come to love the Celts. The gallic warrior is basically an Immortal with a move of 2. The retreat ability of gallic's would help alot on diety I would think. It sure helped in this game against Germany. At 4.2.2 the gallic's almost an ancient age knight (4.3.2 for knights IIRC). Very powerful. And I've always like religious for the cheap culture & 1 turn revolution. Golden age as a despot a negative I guess with gallic warriors.

Thanks again for the help & have a great weekend

 

[betazed]

The key things that you have to remember in Deity are :-

(a) You have to very good at tech trades. The tech cost is so high in Deity that it may not make sense for you to research anything till the modern age, if at all then. During your GA you may want to research a tech or two. However, if you have an ancient age GA it may not make sense then. Hence, always keep your eye open for 2-fers and 3-fers

(b) The initial land grab is very important and very tough. The AI starts with 2 cities against your one. So potentially they can churn out settlers twice as fast (actually faster than that because their shield cost of settlers is also reduced). So you have to mm a settler factory to grab a decent chunk of land


(c) Ancient age war is very tough in Deity. The AI gets quite a few free units. And yu would be so occupied with grabbing land that you will hardly have time to build military. In my experience, I have seen that unless a neigbouring civ lacks iron and horses or is very small or something like that it almost never makes sense to do an ancient age war . I have lost quite a few Deity games owing to that. I start a war, then I do not have enough money to buy alliances but my enemy does and starts a dogpile on me. I am wiped out in the ancient age.

(d) Owing to reason c, it makes more sense to pick a civ with a knight like UU rather than an ancient age UU. Of course, this is not a hard and fast rule.

(e) Lastly, you need to plan a strategy at 4000 BC and follow it consistently. Deity is tough. So you cannot afford to change plans midway. Of course minor course corrections are possible. But unlike chieftain you cannot RoP rape with the idea of winning by domination and then decide to hold the UN elections and win.


My first Deity win on a huge Pangea came in as the Ottomans. A killer civ. Industrious helps majorly. Then they are also Scientific. Every time I entered a new age the free tech allowed me to grab every other first level techs of that age by trade. Lastly, the Sipahi is the best UU IMHO. Unlike Cavalry which is evenly matched with the rifleman, the Sipahi's age lasts from Military Tradition to Replacable Parts, i.e. right upto Infantry (and even after that). It is a beautifully timed GA too. If I play as Ottomans I have a very high probability of winning a Deity game and will rarely lose an Emperor game.

Good luck!

 

[handy900]

I heeded your advide & selected the ottomans. Never played as the ottos before. They sound alot like one of my favorites which is China (industrious with a knight like UU. The scientific (versus militaristic of China) should help alot. Industrious & scientific are nice as they benefit you all game long.

Here's a shot of my settler factory (top) & the little otto empire @ 1950bc. Next dorr are the Arabs & Persians. I'm in the south east corner of a regular continents map. "Middle" settings on climate, etc IIRC . Can't remember what barbs are. I bet it is "no barbs" since that was the setting on my last game. Bummer. I could use the huts. Oh well...

[Q] With respect to RCP, should I move Edrine 1 tile south east (to where the BG mine is?). I think that would put all the cities at a distance of 4 for RCP purposes. I think right now Edrine is a 3 & the other cities are 4's. Comments?

 

[lz14]

IMO, you should put every city next to the coast(Bursa SW and Edrine SE), they'll all have RCP 4 too. Inland cities having coastal tiles is the worst thing to do.

 

[handy900]

Thank for your reply. I'm always open to constructive criticism to become a better player.

This was my thinking - it may not be the best thinking - but here it is.

Edrine - I wanted the foxes ASAP for happiness. I also wanted the Bonus Grasslands (BG) to work and to be on a river for growth to size 12. I "backsolved" for the first location which was Edrine. Your southeast location would have gotten the river coast and also would have eventually been able to use BG's. I could have chopped the forest to get a quick temple to pull the foxes in. I see your point. It's the little things that mean a lot. Things you that you can get away with on lower levels hurt you more on diety. Thanks.

Bursa I went for the river & BG's again on this one. Your location 1 tile SW is superior however in the long run. It's (a) 4 RCP, (b) does not build on a BG, (c) is on the river & (d) is on the coast. Thanks again.

My city selection is making meel feel a little sick.

Iznik Went for a coast city that could use the cow immediately & grow to pull in the BG's. You didn't memtion this one, does that mean you like it, or were you showing me mercy by not pointing out I was 0 for 3 in selection?

Don't tell me where to put the next city, let me work it out for myself. But please do come back & critique my selection.

For better or worse here's my next selection with red dot for future expansion.

EDIT 1675 BC Woohoo horses show up next to Bursa after I buy the wheel from Persia [dance]. After I buy iron working, Iron shows up next to Uskudar. YeeHaa [dance]

 

[lz14]

As I said, inland cities having coastal squares is the worst thing to do. (it's worse than a tudra or desert)
The cities will still be fine, although Edrine's ring of 3 hurt a bit.
What's important now is what's your plan ? peace or war ?
Anyway it seems there's not much room to move, it's going to be a tough game.

 

[handy900]

I don't think I understand RCP. I count Erdine as 3.5 which I though for RCP was considered a 4. Is a 3.5 considered as a 3?

I'm thinking it is since Erdince has a total of 15 shields with only 2 "blue" ones. Iznik only has 13 shileds with 3 reds.

Did I screw this up RCP thinking 3.5 was a 4 when it's really a 3! This is my first RCP attempt, but sheesh!

The plan is war. Buy alliances & destroy others 1 by 1 & hope I don't get beat by space shot. Pillage alot, use artillery in a defensive war of attrition stuff & then go to offense. Here's a screen shot of my empire right before I finsh off the arabs tonight (when Zulu declared war on Arabs, I got in on the action).

This is going to be a tough game as I'm way behind in techs & the prebuild on the great library came up short. Did not get a leader to rush it either. This is starting to remind my of my last diety game where I lost on a space shot to America, I would have eventuallty gotten the domination win, but I needed alot more time. On the bright side, I know better how to wage a war of attrition thanks to the advide betazed gave me in an AWM game I played.

A top priority is taking the GL from Koreas coastal city. That will not be easy.

Here's the save from 380 ad. the save...otto380ad Does not look too good.

 

[lz14]

Yes all rings are rounded down. So 3.5 is 3 etc.
And good luck capturing GL. The Koreans are scientific too, so they are gonna get rifles pretty soon, be aware.

 

[handy900]

Thanks for the RCP lesson. I misread the RCP thread. I thought it was kinda wierd to round 3.5 up, not down.

Would you recommend an all out assault to get the GL, or go for war with the zulu to try & get a leader for the FP & perhaps ultimately control the continent? The extra production would be nice. It's getting hard to see a way out of this mess at current production levels.

This is starting to look alot like my other diety games. My weak link is apparently trading. Maybe that's why I like AW games - no trading! I'm going to study the "What will the AI research next" to see how I can gain something of value to trade & stay in the game.

I need to go back & win more on emporer to improve my play.

 

[lz14]

I don't recommend fight Zulus they are way too big to get anything out of it, just keep milking Arabs.
For Korea, get someone else to fight for you. India or China, and you just need to take one city, hold it for one turn. However, do it when you have Sipahis, you get more techs. Right now even if you get the techs with your infastructure you would still be behind again. So build infastructures a little bit, maybe get a FP out of Arabs, and build a lot of hormen(knight). You have a lot of libraries, you can research some techs in 4 turns now, do it. Hopefully get Sipahi before anyone build ToE. But untill the AI gets Mech Infantry, you still have a chance.
Don't give up, the GL is on your side, it's waiting for you to take!

 

[handy900]

I came to basically the same comclusion last night. I only need to hold the GLib for 1 turn to catch up. I can't quite get techs @ 4 turns yet but invention is only 9 turns IIRC (I'm at work now, game is @ home).

I'm beelining for Military Tradition (MT) - do you agree with that? I'll take chivalry & monotheism if I can get it, but not at the expense of any techs I can get from Arabs on the MT branch of the tech tree. I know arabs have invention & mono, don't think they have gunpowder though as I've seen no muskets. I hope they have the tech but no resources to build muskets.

I started milking the Arabs last night. I warred, sued for peace, got techs. Started another war soon after, will get more techs & sue for peace. Seemed to be the easiset way to catch up. I declared war from the diplomacy screen with no units on his turf. I did break a 20 turn peace deal though as I did not think I could wait until the end. Hope that was not a big mistake.

Almost have marketplaces finished in my core cities. Been rotating around the core building infrastructure in 2 cities while the others put out military. Also managed to upgrade some sprears to pikes to put on the zulu border cities. I paid zulu for an ROP plus put the pikes in the border cities in the hopes this will keep him from attacking me.

I can't seem to get a leader. I need the FP to increase my production.

I'll edit & attach a save to this post when I get home tonight.


EDIT Here is the saveotto 900 AD save

EDIT 10-1-03 I Took 15 galleys @ 2 units per & got the GLib. I'm third in Techs now behind China & Korea. Got a MPP with Zulus which expires in 4 turns. I plan to get peaceful for a while, build some artillery, infantry, and at least 2 infantry armies with 12 explorers per Army for pillaging. I'll wage defensive attrition war with Zulu for land & techs. After I get Zulu down to size I'll go after China with the sane strategy in mind. I need to knock them both down a few notches, get the UN (to prevent a loss) & then finish them both off. With the Otto UU + artillery + pillaging army I think I can beat them both. I've doen it on all other levels, hope it works on this one.

I'm going to think about this tomorrow, but perhaps I should go after China first as they are further ahead of me in techs than the zulu. Zulu & me against China could be a nice way to go. OTOH, China is on the other continent, and using airports to invade would be much easier. hmmmmmmmmmm I don't want to blow it now!

Here's the 1250ad save Otto 1250ad save

betazed Where are you dude?? I could use your expertise!!