Attacko's Ice Archers

[TheMeInTeam]

Actually with that # of cities this situation is winnable for most of the difficulties...probably not on emperor+ but for anything else one could possibly do it...

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Actually with that # of cities this situation is winnable for most of the difficulties...probably not on emperor+ but for anything else one could possibly do it...

Come on, TMIT, it doesn't matter if he has 8 cities. He can't trade for techs, isn't bringing in enough to bring up EP fast enough to steal techs, has a classical era military draining his maintenance, he's pissed off the leaders he's met...

Honestly, man, I know you guys are good and all, but it's silly to say that this is winnable "just like that" (without even mentioning how).

 

[budweiser]

Actually with that # of cities this situation is winnable for most of the difficulties...probably not on emperor+ but for anything else one could possibly do it...

That's what I was thinking.

The game is playing on monarch. Doubtless the long march at the expense of the lesson cost him valuable time. I would like to see another example of archer power where the enemy is closer.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Come on, TMIT, it doesn't matter if he has 8 cities. He can't trade for techs, isn't bringing in enough to bring up EP fast enough to steal techs, has a classical era military draining his maintenance, he's pissed off the leaders he's met...

Honestly, man, I know you guys are good and all, but it's silly to say that this is winnable "just like that" (without even mentioning how).

Well, if he keeps on as is he'd lose. That's why it's "winnable"...nobody said anything about it being easy (though below noble it would be...).

The key is to either bulb or tech for things that can be traded around. At that point in the game using anything to scrape through the pre-reqs to astro then hitting astro w/ 2 scientists (seriously doubt he has had any serious GP farming so they'll be easy to come by) is one route (opens up valuable trade routes also). He could also go education via bulbs ----> many AIs on monarch and below won't have that by 1300 AD frequently.

From there, he back trades for anything he needs and he's only slightly behind. Constitution for rep isn't far behind, nor are the improvements that empower espionage. He has room for more than 8 cities, too, so he can finish settling.

In some of the slower monarch games even lib would still be possible...! Haha!

Chemistry and printing press are also easy, valid bulbs that he probably still has time to use for trades. You can get so much value so quickly.

By the way, I've won on emperor using horse archers exclusively for the first 4 civilizations I conquered.

 

[budweiser]

At Monarch, no AI will win the game on him unitl maybe the middle of the 20th century. And that is if he does nothing to interfere. There are way more than 250 turns left to play and he has wisely chose the strongest late game civ there is.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Well, if he keeps on as is he'd lose. That's why it's "winnable"...nobody said anything about it being easy (though below noble it would be...).

The key is to either bulb or tech for things that can be traded around. At that point in the game using anything to scrape through the pre-reqs to astro then hitting astro w/ 2 scientists (seriously doubt he has had any serious GP farming so they'll be easy to come by) is one route (opens up valuable trade routes also). He could also go education via bulbs ----> many AIs on monarch and below won't have that by 1300 AD frequently.

From there, he back trades for anything he needs and he's only slightly behind. Constitution for rep isn't far behind, nor are the improvements that empower espionage. He has room for more than 8 cities, too, so he can finish settling.

In some of the slower monarch games even lib would still be possible...! Haha!

Chemistry and printing press are also easy, valid bulbs that he probably still has time to use for trades. You can get so much value so quickly.

By the way, I've won on emperor using horse archers exclusively for the first 4 civilizations I conquered.

Problem: he doesn't even have currency and it's 1100AD. 2 scientists aren't going to be popping Great Scientists all that fast. In order to research enough techs to have something tradeable seems like it would take a pretty long time. And it's not like the AI stops teching so he can catch up.

He'd need like 3 Great Scientists to bulb something the AI doesn't have. Oh, and in my Prince games, Liberalism is usually gone by 1250 and all the tech-parity AI have education. Mind you, I know that I'm only a Prince player, but that also means that I see how the AI perform on such a "low" level. And they certainly don't perform poorly enough for this to turn into a win IMO.

It's happened to me before on NOBLE (yeah, i know). Major invasions to maintain control of the whole continent, restructure economy, trying to surge ahead with bulbing techs and a pissed off AI lands on my continent with Grenadiers/Rifles/Galleons/Frigates.... ain't enough horse archers to defeat that kinda stack...

.... or maybe I gave up to quickly

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Problem: he doesn't even have currency and it's 1100AD. 2 scientists aren't going to be popping Great Scientists all that fast. In order to research enough techs to have something tradeable seems like it would take a pretty long time. And it's not like the AI stops teching so he can catch up.

I meant GREAT scientists, hence the bulb implications. W/o prior emphasis his GPP pool is likely quite low...2 GP's should be easy to come by with caste.

Diplo relations will be important until he gets gunpowder at least, but I've come back from similar tech deficits on monarch to have the tech lead by early 1700's, though I had more cities.

Specifically, I was on a continents game with my friend, got bottled up in a slog war vs gilgamesh, and didn't even have paper when lib was won, nor machinery. My friend teched quickly but only had like 6 cities. Between him meeting me and when I got to cuirassers, he had about 15 turns . Resource trades/tech whoring/land development will rocket you ahead with land. He actually tried to come up with enough forces to invade me, but was at parity before he could do it!

Later on my infantry spanked AI rifles, I started collecting vassals, and that was that.

Don't overestimate the AI, especially if you take care of diplo.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I definitely give up too easily, then. I just remember seeing an ungodly stack of rifles/grenadiers/cannons when I was this far behind. Then again this was also when I first joined the forums and sucked a lot more

 

[budweiser]

Its interesting to note that hiring 1 specialist in every city now will produce a GP every 33 turns from now until the end of the game.

 

[troytheface]

thank you for the comments.

many need two or three food resources, need to talk about and plan cottages (lol)
and regenerate the map about 7 times to get it.

Attacko? Archers, and an Ice tile.

 

[Insanity_X]

but i thought that cottages should only be built on hills.

 

[Don Carnage]

I got the whole thing when you guys said it was an inside joke, but Don Carnage seems to think this is all very smart!

EDIT: I've obviously stumbled into an extremely sarcastic thread.... pardon me

The thread is sarcastic, but maybe there is wisdom in Attackos advice. Even Troy doesn't seem to really understand his strategies completely. I have read some of his other threads, and in many cases they border on meta-game strategies - remember Attacko is highly skilled (diety?) veteran player, who has probably 1000+ conquest vics under the belt. As I understand it, he mainly plays online, but from time to time Troy posts his meta-strategies here. Some of them I get to a degree, some I don't get at all. But I'm not an experienced enough player to say if he really is brilliant or just crazy.

I'm sorry, but I play on PRINCE (ie low level) and there's no way anyone's surviving when they don't have currency in 1180 AD and have 1/4 the score of another AI. Especially when you've DoW on that AI to kick him off your continent. Don't worry, he'll be back. And archers/horse archers ain't gonna help you.

You turtle with archers when faced with strong neighbors, sacrificing research for military production. Then you just keep on the attack, until they give you currency or whatever you need for peace. The philosophy is to always keep on the attack, even with lower tech you still have archers which given the right use of GGs make pretty outstanding units. Cats and archers is really all a master Civ player needs I guess. Though I still don't claim to really understand the depth of Attackos ways. But a diety player can pull of stuff at Monarch!

Also, this "archer rush" isn't working for more than 1 or 2 invasions on any Prince level map I've played on (that's standard+). So I'm not sure how he's into the 1000's AD and winning with Horse Archers. Suicide units? How many must you have?! How are you not in the red at 0% science?

Remember this is a player who uses every trick in the book. He will feign vulnerability (especially effective against humans), then suddenly he's linked up traderoutes once he gets currency and feudalism through war/extortion. I can see also stealing Railroad at a crucial point would allow the attack to start going real fast!
Real good training scenario, actually ;-p

 

[troytheface]

someone mentioned "The Lost Articles of Attacko" or something like that which was a collection of quadratic venn diagram analysis, color scales, and sketches relating to Civ4.

reportedly almost incomprehensible, although some game scholars have suggested that it delves into prophetic calculation so accurate that one can deduce who will attack whom, which random events are likely, etc.

 

[Insanity_X]

yeah, i've heard of those. unfortunately on close inspection by expert CIV players, it was determined that they were just a load of bollocks.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Quadratic Venn Diagrams? Please explain.

 

[troytheface]

getting just a glimpse of it, i think the best i could do is explain the sketch of a war elephant with Churchill's face hovering over a spaceship about to take off,

which i think is a metaphor for the theory - "kill them with war elephants before they get that far"

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I thought a quadratic equation was of the form

ax^2 + bx + c = 0

where a, b, c are constants in some ring (usually C, (EDIT: Or R or Q) but any ring will do, unless you require a unique factorisation domain, although I must admit commutative rings simplify things a great deal).

EDIT: x is a variable in the same ring of course.

 

[troytheface]

"spheres and 2d- not circles and 3d thought -this is the superior

the script is laid out, read a programmers writing- a quick analysis and coupling with Jao and
certain terrain features and promotions

the set is not universal the observer doesn't change or dictate the outcome, the observer is acually ignored."

from Attacko's "Understanding How to Beat Deep Blue and Civ4 type AI"

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Hmm, spheres are 3D and circles are 2D so I don't understand???

 

[henrebotha]

You're getting 17 BPT by 1000AD? Good luck with that.

hey Trattacko, can you attatch a save so we can see how your superior strategies and ice archers have paid off for you so that we may better ourselves from your immortal wisdom.

Wow, trolled.