Blocking strategy

[RedFury]

Hi all,

Just wondering what different strategies and thoughts people have about placing blocking cities vs just rexing near your capital. In the last few games I've played on Emperor I've gone quite out of my way to place a blocking city or two, quite often a fair way from my capital. This can lead to sealing a nice bit of land for around 10 cities, but the initial maintenance costs can really hurt if its your 2nd and 3rd cities.

So, I guess my questions are:

1) How far are you willing to go with your 2nd/3rd cities to block out a neighbor and secure land? Will you only block close to your capital or will you travel multiple screens-worth away?

2) Is placing a city covering the best land in an AI's direction generally enough to deter that AI from settling in your direction in the short-term, even if there are gaps in your culture he can get through?

3) Are you willing to accept a crappy early city if it creates a good block? Again, how do you weigh this against its distance and how much land its blocking off? Is a quality site settled in the general direction of an AI better than an ordinary city settled further away which completely blocks him off?

Just wondering what the good players do here, because I've always been an aggressive blocker. I'll settle crappy 2nd and 3rd cities with high maintenance if it blocks off a bunch of land for me. It occurred to be recently that this may not be the best way to go.

 

[Cjreynol]

Well I'm not a high level player (Prince) but this is a strategy I use a lot so here goes:

1) Depending on the map of course, I will sometimes go pretty far to block of the AI. If it means that down the road I can back-fill the land with cities without stressing and worrying about having to pump out settler after settler I'm all for it. Can save you a lot of effort and get you some extra city sites you may not have gotten to boot.

2) In my experience I find that just grabbing the best land only deters them in the VERY short term, like say 5-10 turns until they find the next best spot for a city. And there is one thing I know about the AI in all my games. If there is a gap they can squeeze a settler through to take some land, even if it is a junk city (oh boy how many icey cities have I see at the far north and south of maps?) the AI will do it. They get determined to drive you nuts by ruining your plans of cutting them off.

3) The farther away it is the less I am willing to accept a crappy city. More distance = needs to be a better city site for me. The exception to that rule is if it is some amazing blocking city, like being able to have one city's culture cut off the AI from a large piece of land.

Another thing you didn't really talk about but one that plays a part in decisions like this is resources. I will go far and wide to place a city if it nets me a few good strategic resources that the land around my capital lacks. If I don't have horses, iron, copper around I'll be hunting and not let anything stand in my way to get it

 

[iggymnrr]

Choke points may be worth settling early but not if it will end up bankrupting me. I usually plan an overall settlement that is manageable. Sometimes it is better to let the AI settle and take over afterwards. Curious that you mention emperor. My last last emperor game was a quechua rush. (Settler? What's that?)

 

[mariogreymist]

the answers to these questions all depend on many factors. The first being how much and how good is the land I can protect for my settling with the blocking city? If I can get space for several good cities (ones which will be a net gain in or solid manufacturing centers) I will go a long ways and settle some very unfriendly land to create a choke point. Likewise if the choke point is going to keep my opponent to less than five cities, even with maximum overlap. It also depends on the AI...I am much more likely to choke someone who can be a reasonable neighbor (Won't attack on pleased). I'll only choke aggressive AIs if I have a very good city site in one manner or another. I actually prefer choke cities to be production centers, for obvious reasons. They don't have to be great...just enough to work 2-3 mines.

As for question 2: sometimes taking the single best site can deter an AI, assuming their next best site is not also in your direction. Scout your neighbor's land, and ask yourself where their next best city would be. If it's in your direction, you ought to try to settle it before they do.

 

[squadbroken]

Unless they're very far from my starting position, I'll go quite a ways to block expansion in my direction. Even if I come close to economic collapse while backfilling (which is not uncommon), I find the land advantage makes up for it.

 

[ppciv4]

just block enough land for your 6 cities.
and whip always whip it, the maintenance cost for high pop is killing.

 

[Ian Kognitow]

Obviously, if there's some sort of isthmus or narrow passage between mountains and/or water where one can settle and absolutely cut off expansion, there is clear advantage in doing so if you can get there in an appropriate amount of time. And there are situational factors like being CRE or having readily accessible stone (or being IND) to get Stonehenge that would help indicate whether it's worthwhile. Another thing to consider might just be how many trees are around your capital. If you can very quickly chop out an additional settler that can follow in short order and settle some valuable mid-way point (or conceivably even a Stonehenge chop), it can do much to help support the costs of establishing the strategic location, especially since that location--if its main reason for existence is blocking the AI--may not be the richest land. (The Stonehenge chop not only works for border extension but its GPP points should bring in a good amount of time a Great Prophet, which can either be used to found a religion and subsequently a shrine, which can support your economy. Even without a religion, just settling the Prophet should at least make up any extreme mainenance costs for the distant city).

However, especially if the consideration is just 2nd or 3rd city, I would say that the imperative should remain finding the most resource-rich spots that should allow one to maintain contiguous territory. I would, for instance, try to establish a jungle settlement--long before Iron Working would allow any growth at all--if there were half a dozen latent supplies there of gems/bananas, before going out of my way to seize mediocre land just to cut off the AI.

In that early stage, particularly on higher levels, another problem with *really* trying to extend the range of the 2nd or 3rd settlement is that if the settler (and escorts) has to trudge across 15-25 tiles for where the choke point is, there's a solid chance that you'll start having to face significant barbarian problems before it even gets there. Thumbing one's nose at a boxed-in AI is going to be a pretty shallow victory if right after founding the city, the lone Warrior that escorted you there starts seeing a couple axemen coming over the hills.

 

[mariogreymist]

Close examination should reveal that Stonehenge is actually a pretty bad build order when trying to choke one opponent. The can be better spent on escorts, workers (to chop buildings/units) and a single monument (or library if you have managed writing). I only build stonehenge if I am going to have close, contested borders for several cities, or need to establish a long border (the opposite of a choking situation). The whole idea of choking an opponent is to be able to capture the maximum land with the minimum number of cities, minimizing the need for wonders like Stonehenge (less cities = less free monuments).

 

[Grashopa]

Check out my game in monarch willem. I used pyramids to allow me to tech at a 0% slider. Not sure I had an optimal tech path or even if the REX was a good idea, but I blocked off a ridiculous amount of land and was furiously cottaging just to stay breakeven out until 500 AD Think lucky trades helped me keep up techwise.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8517642#post8517642

Heres my 450 BC and 500ish AD.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8510612&postcount=22
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8517642&postcount=33

I played 20 or so turns more, and my tech rate hit 200 bpt at a 20% slider or something crazy like that. Unfortunately you can't use my saves unless you get the CAR mod.

Problem with pyramids is you end up wanting beakers so you don't grow your cities - so its a constant micro of how many workers and where do they go and which city can grow while this city runs scientists..

EDIT - oh yeah markets are necessary when you overexpand and sit on a 0% slider. I would have benefited from building more. And I don't think tech mattered assuming a good diplomatic situation - I should have built more workers and settlers early to fill out the land. If you have 10 cities growing every 6 turns into riverside cottages with a financial civ thats 30 commerce every 6 turns. 20 cities that would be 60

EDIT2 - Coastal cities and fresh water are necessary - that way you get commerce before the workers get out to your blocking cities. Don't forget trade routes - you may need to get early roads out there.

 

[Ian Kognitow]

Close examination should reveal that Stonehenge is actually a pretty bad build order when trying to choke one opponent. The can be better spent on escorts, workers (to chop buildings/units) and a single monument (or library if you have managed writing). I only build stonehenge if I am going to have close, contested borders for several cities, or need to establish a long border (the opposite of a choking situation). The whole idea of choking an opponent is to be able to capture the maximum land with the minimum number of cities, minimizing the need for wonders like Stonehenge (less cities = less free monuments).

Sure. Perhaps I wasn't clear but I had meant to intimate that the strategic possibility of Stonehenge would be largely dependent on factors like being IND, having Stone, or having plentiful forest to chop (which itself would at least require having prioritized a worker or two). Essentially, if it takes equivalent or less time to build than a single settler--which it often can be with some of those factors--it can be worth it. And obviously, if the border pop is actually necessary to choke off the area in question before the AI has time to cross the frontier, Stonehenge can be the only way to do it if not CRE. Assuming workers were either unbuilt in order to speed settler production or otherwise busy chopping or improving the capital, it can easily take as long or longer just to build a monument than the 15 turns stonehenge would take (on Epic, anyway) to bring on the first border pop.
Stonehenge can also greatly ease problems as far as specific city placement involving resources (for instance, having to give up better proximity to food resources in order to settle closer to stone/marble access).

 

[mariogreymist]

Sure. Perhaps I wasn't clear but I had meant to intimate that the strategic possibility of Stonehenge would be largely dependent on factors like being IND, having Stone, or having plentiful forest to chop (which itself would at least require having prioritized a worker or two). Essentially, if it takes equivalent or less time to build than a single settler--which it often can be with some of those factors--it can be worth it. And obviously, if the border pop is actually necessary to choke off the area in question before the AI has time to cross the frontier, Stonehenge can be the only way to do it if not CRE. Assuming workers were either unbuilt in order to speed settler production or otherwise busy chopping or improving the capital, it can easily take as long or longer just to build a monument than the 15 turns stonehenge would take (on Epic, anyway) to bring on the first border pop.
Stonehenge can also greatly ease problems as far as specific city placement involving resources (for instance, having to give up better proximity to food resources in order to settle closer to stone/marble access).

I would suggest one more thing: build it in the "choke" city when possible. Choke cities will face significant pressure from the opponent's culture, and SH is an excellent culture producer. I almost never build SH, and can't remember more than 1-2 instances where I built it in my capital and didn't regret it. (This may be a result of my playing very few IND leaders and very many IMP leaders)

As for access to resources: you can whip/chop libraries, you know. I generally don't mess around with monuments (I often have writing before mysticism for this reason); and Libraries, while expensive for non-CRE leaders, belong in nearly every city. One of the first Specialist enabling buildings, it'd important to get them up and running even if they didn't provide independent culture. Assuming a city has a couple of forests to chop or mines to work, libraries are the first build after granaries, as a rule for me.