Broad brush early game strategy talk

[KM]

Also regarding some earlier posts here in the thread.

Yes. Talking about strategy without the context of setting is not really useful, but then u can quite easily read between the lines that everyone's talking about ancient start (and if it s ffa, duel, teamer people do actually mention)

So even thought some points mentioned.. even an ape was mentioned for some od reason. And some of the points where valid (not sure how the ape will feel about it)

Some things are implied and without having to shout out "ANCIENT START". Just like its implied that we are talking about civ 5 here and not a game of apes (Dont know what the ape s got to do with it this time either.. maybe donky kong..)

...But its also better to imply when someone is being an ass then to shout it out, it so much more subtle.

 

[KM]

..and on further more, I actually played a teamer with mr T talking over ts and (I was to be honest a bit surprised) he turned out to be a really nice guy, he just hide it behind, how shall I put this, things he writes that offends people.

 

[KiffeLesBiffles]

Also regarding some earlier posts here in the thread.

Yes. Talking about strategy without the context of setting is not really useful, but then u can quite easily read between the lines that everyone's talking about ancient start (and if it s ffa, duel, teamer people do actually mention)

So even thought some points mentioned.. even an ape was mentioned for some od reason. And some of the points where valid (not sure how the ape will feel about it)

Some things are implied and without having to shout out "ANCIENT START". Just like its implied that we are talking about civ 5 here and not a game of apes (Dont know what the ape s got to do with it this time either.. maybe donky kong..)

...But its also better to imply when someone is being an ass then to shout it out, it so much more subtle.

..and on further more, I actually played a teamer with mr T talking over ts and (I was to be honest a bit surprised) he turned out to be a really nice guy, he just hide it behind, how shall I put this, things he writes that offends people.

You are such a diplomat KM!

 

[donhenriko]

..and on further more, I actually played a teamer with mr T talking over ts and (I was to be honest a bit surprised) he turned out to be a really nice guy, he just hide it behind, how shall I put this, things he writes that offends people.

IMO, when you always act like that (rude), it's impossible to be sympathetic.

Don't let me dig up those old quotes where mr T insults us (NQ) with no apparent reason in many different posts.

People like him is one for the problems in the MP community; when calling everyone noobs, insulting them and even refusing to help new players to start a GG, you disencourage new players from joining MP.

It's just not worth all the insults while learning to play proper MP. You rather play SP.

 

[donhenriko]

Also regarding some earlier posts here in the thread.

Yes. Talking about strategy without the context of setting is not really useful, but then u can quite easily read between the lines that everyone's talking about ancient start (and if it s ffa, duel, teamer people do actually mention)

So even thought some points mentioned.. even an ape was mentioned for some od reason. And some of the points where valid (not sure how the ape will feel about it)

Some things are implied and without having to shout out "ANCIENT START". Just like its implied that we are talking about civ 5 here and not a game of apes (Dont know what the ape s got to do with it this time either.. maybe donky kong..)

...But its also better to imply when someone is being an ass then to shout it out, it so much more subtle.

I agree 100 %. I'm no better myself. I humbly appologize to everyone for my profane and utterly disrespectful language.

I guess I lost control as there is nothing that pisses me off like tommynt's insults

 

[KiffeLesBiffles]

To come back to the subject, I aggre with Tommynt the bigger the better. Another key to me is the ability to create cities with 2 way of being : one for happy period (food) another for unhappy periods ( prod and gold ). Doing food while unhappy is pure waste. I know it is basics but hard to manage.

 

[MasterMishi]

moving at end of turn is strong as outlined, but moving first at start of next turn is maybe the bigger issue, it saved fredodos city in the example. factors:

pc speed (strategic view helps, i ve used it for months now only takes a few games to get used to it)

who is the host (fredodo almost always is the host in any game i play, and seems to not play if he isnt the host, DITTO TommyNT, host has speed advantage and then other factors such as ping to host and all civs must be processed in an order by the host's pc so this must have an effect)

click spam (select unit and right click many times before the timer ends/ as it ends and continue clicking the tile you want it to move to/ attack when the next turn begins and be first to adjust to the map moving automatically a little during the transition and keep clicking - you can often tell when this happens a bit too much for the pc to process as it does a resync and goes to loading screen)

 

[salqadri]

I used to be in tommynt's clan MUD 6 years ago (I was known as 'Word' back then). I have to say that he was one of the most helpful person I knew and taught me a lot about the game over TS in team games. He certainly put up with my noobishness until i got better.

 

[tommynt]

now this thread turned into "who is helpful and who isnt"?

My view is: If some1 is willing and got the basics (like sp experience on deity lvl) I try to help - but stoped training individuals for longer periods after I failed horribly at silverfuturist.

But then there are others - dont think namecalling is needed - who neither want to improve nor listen - they rather play "their style" and are happy winning vs people who are even worse - no point in training or helping those.

2nd subject fastmoving: I made a 70+ winning streak vs best players in world without ANY clue of fastmoving and a rather slow pc (like 3 years old).

Obviously fast moving tricks help a lot - so I lost once a game vs fredo when I basicly had won allready (had him down to cap + 1 city) and like 15 units vs 3 - but I started loosing unit after unit and lost even when totaly outbuilding and outplaying economywise.
So yes - you will soemtimes loose due to being slower - but with positioning units clever (like in the example with having units behind city to retake) - there is no reason not to win on regular basis IF you are the better (more clever) civplayer.

Apart that - anc civ5 civing is very easy after last patch - every top player plays pretty much like same - and I dont really see another way to play even better - so it s pretty much a stalemate which can be brokken be fastmoving.

Play later era guys - they offer way more depth

 

[Tabarnak]

Apart that - anc civ5 civing is very easy after last patch - every top player plays pretty much like same - and I dont really see another way to play even better - so it s pretty much a stalemate which can be brokken be fastmoving.

Play later era guys - they offer way more depth

I hope the last expansion will offer more interesting paths. With new units and stuff, i likely think that will happen. At least they shouldn't break some past settings that fit pretty well in mp like last patch.

Who cares is the best really? There is plenty of playstyles and settings! We can't compare duels and FFAs for example. Well...maybe the first 40 turns

 

[KM]

I think Tommynth got a good point when it comes to that everyone knows early game strategies.

Some ancient starts end allready in classical era. A lot end i medival with crossbows and or knights. If its still a a stalemate at this points it ends with lancers and rty. Verty few games goes on past rty.

That means that even a lot of the top players have very little experience plaing past rty and a lot of experience playing up to rty.

When it comes to starting era most players are very fammiliar with ancient. A lot are quite familliar with classical. Very few with later era starts. CiV is a game where experience counts. there are strategies and build orders that are more efficient then others in order to meet a certain goal.

You can see it simply from the games you play. find that even when playing players much lower ranked, even outside top 50 I usually go to medival to break them. the reason is that it is safer and easier. Most players know th sword rush and can put up defence against it. But faar from as many can plan for that and also look out for the long term growth. therefore Iusually find that just putting some preasure early on while going for a medival push is faar more efficient.

Now that is because there are a lot of players now familliar with ancient start and especially the early eras. So what you do is basicly push a bit into the later era wich narrows it down to mabye 20-30 players that are rly experienced. If u r looking at rty rush u can narrow it down a bit more.

but that is playing to later eras. If we count the players who are experienced in later era starts it s probably just a handfull.

I am not sure if I agree that later era offer more depth. but it probably offer as much depth as ancient start but require different strategies for what to do and when, what to build and when compared to getting to that era by playing.

But one thing is sure. More depth or not. Later era starts would be a challange and new ground even for a lot of the so called top players.

 

[tommynt]

But one thing is sure. More depth or not. Later era starts would be a challange and new ground even for a lot of the so called top players.

They entered this ground long ago

I for myself enjoy indu very much - it is very action packed and offers LOADS of room for optimisation.
It might just have this one putback thats its impossible to do a comeback when having lost multiple units/ground

Medi and ren starts are also kinda fun - finding the right balance between military and teching is just very challenging.

Sadly so many people waste hours and hours into civ and are still not able to do a so easy and basic anc expanding strategy with sword upgrading

 

[KM]

They entered this ground long ago

"They".. well that depends on how u define top players. They did enter that ground long ago if you with top players mean you, Universal Soldier, R-done (fredodo? he has played so many games a few of them got to be indu starts, merle... djmax....?

If you by top player mean the top 20 at the ladder, or even just the top 10, so no...

I think most at the top 20 havn t played indu starts and very few later era starts and that goes for at least half of the top 10 as well...

 

[Adreno]

I think I have the economic side of the game decently handled right now (I expand fast, I often lead tech, and I keep up with population & manufacturing).

Feels like most of the games I play now drag onto modern era (ancient start, FFA and CTON). Also my wars seem to gridlock all the time. I always assumed this is because it's easier to defend than it is to attack, but I've heard many players claim that games always end by artillery era, or earlier. In fact on 2 occasions I've suggested "no nukes" rule before the game and the response was that the game will end before nukes. Players refuse to agree on modern era rules before the game and when the game lasts longer than they expect, they start asking "no nukes?" mid-game...

Typicly in a 6-player game (ancient start) I will win the war with my first neighbor, but it lasts forever and leaves me crippled. Usually when I don't win that first war I stay alive anyway with 0 chance of winning the game. I feel like I still haven't had any "legitimate" wins against good players and I think it's because I'm not good at attacking. I don't really know what I'm doing wrong and have no ideas on how to improve on that front.

Things I do acknowledge when attacking:
+ Numpad spam at the beginning of the turn to move first
+ Great general
+ Naval support in oceanic maps (triremes are crap but frigates are superb)
+ Focus big wars to civ's unique unit era
+ In wartime all cities are pumping units
+ Specialize: XP cities should train ranged units, cities without barracks should produce infantry that gets the healing promotion faster. Cities with stables produce cavalry (in one game earlier today I had a city with 7 sheep and 1 cattle in radius. Every worked square was producing 2 food 3 production!)
+ Train units with barbs so that when they fight for real they get the heal promotion after first attack
+ Bulbing key tech
+ Upgrading units with good promotions or under 5XP required for the next (heal) promotion (altho in late game I never have the money to upgrade units en masse)
+ Using obsolete units to block and give flanking bonuses
+ Blocking resources, often by double moving a scout to pillage iron
+ Target least defensible cities first, or sometimes capital if it's possible to capture quickly. I just played a game where I tried to capture Japan's capital with swordsmen after pillaging their iron. I thought it was a sure thing since I had more units, more manufacturing, and was further in tech, but no! Japan traded iron from someone, fought me off, and after gridlocking for a while I decided to try taking one of his minor cities. Instead of going for the heavily defended city that was adjacent to me, I sent a few units through a narrow pathway to a small town really far out. Only 1 catapult and 1 elephant survived the journey, but surprisingly they were enough to take an undefended level 5 city. Taking a minor city shouldn't have affected the game much, but it completely demoralized my opponent. After that he was pretty much feeding units to me until I took the rest of his cities. And then the game dragged on to modern era and I got nuked.

Things I don't do much:
- Shift move (just doesn't work often enough to be reliable, plus NQ banned it. I have no idea how the top players use this so that it works 100% of the time for them.)
- I never play the honor tree (except possibly in duels)

I don't really know what I'm missing?

 

[PrimEval]

Hi Adreno,

Nice thread you've started here. I think we started Civ5 multiplayer around the same time (Feb 2012). I think you rolled me in an early game where I was trying to see if "tall" was viable (early nat college, capital by river and mountain). We've probably been trying to figure out the same things - 6 player FFA, pangea, ancient start.

You clearly have a grasp of key mechanics. And this thread also highlights the main strategies. The key is gaining the experience to judge when a strategy will be viable and when it will not. This usually means constantly evaulating the balance between military and long term tech(universites/public schools). From your post I can guess that your wars are costing you too much.

I agree with tommynt's excellent summary on bigger is better, so I understand why you want to roll your nieghbor. But if you try this, you really need to roll them, this means upgraded swords at their cap before they have iron online. I find if you can't get such an asymetric army then trying to roll your neighbor is usually too costly. There are other beeline situations where you can get a sufficeintly asymetirc army, but again this requires judgement as it means falling behind on long term tech. Check demographics every turn. If you go to war you need to win it fast, if you fail, adopt a defensive posture and start teching again, don't keep pumping units unless you need them. Check demographics every turn.

-CIV on NQ

 

[N0QUITTERSULTAN]

"They".. well that depends on how u define top players. They did enter that ground long ago if you with top players mean you, Universal Soldier, R-done (fredodo? he has played so many games a few of them got to be indu starts, merle... djmax....?

If you by top player mean the top 20 at the ladder, or even just the top 10, so no...

I think most at the top 20 havn t played indu starts and very few later era starts and that goes for at least half of the top 10 as well...

Thats the reason always war is kinda dum in civ..it destroyes the later eras..we at NQ always come to modern!!if i dont get killedalways war=always end wit artillery

We have also starting to exp with something called SPESIAL NQ FFA..the rule are the same but no nukes and no stealth..this is beacuase the later eras are also cool to play..so guys..start play NQ for later era..and i recomend SPEAIL NQ FFA..then the eras gets longer and we can use units we never use...

 

[NQ_carls13]

A lot of good points here Reading through the posts I notice most are against the shift-click move being used for war?

In my opinion it's the more experienced players that can use this move effectively. These players already have an advantage due to there amount of playtime and awareness of the game. I'm worried new players to civ may be discouraged from mp if this move becomes well-used.

So my question is if I can't figure out how to use this move properly with 1000 hours or so of steam play how can we possibly expect new players to comprehend it? As a new player there is already so much to understand in order to compete with top players.

That being said I would always vote NO for the use of this move!

I hope firaxis reads this thread and maybe considers removing this option.

Furthermore does it make sense to form a petition to present to firaxis?

As always game is about having fun and growing our community

 

[Adreno]

In my opinion it's the more experienced players that can use this move effectively.

Here's what I think: when all games are played by the same rules, the gap between newbies and pros becomes smaller. When you have many rules, and many different types of games, the pros will learn all these different game types. The newbie will find himself in uncharted territory more often.

Currently you are splitting games into "normal games" and "no double move with shift" games, it is the pros who will master both modes of combat, and the newbie who will suffer.

As an example, I just played a game without the shift moves. I often had to wait until timer was reaching 0 to do something, delaying the game unneccessarily. At one point the timer was at 5 seconds, I set a lancer to move, then the unit does absolutely nothing, timer goes to 0, and when the new turn started, the unit moved to the position and spent all its movement points. Then the pro player who was capturing my cities just killed the lancer with ease and I could do nothing about it. If shift moves had been allowed I could have just shift moved the lancer to move at the end of turn no problem.

The pro player did benefit from this rule, as he never made any "blunder" moves. One time he shot my trireme with a ShuKoNu at the very end of turn, then I immediately selected the unit and started numpad spamming it to escape before he fires again at the beginning of the turn, but somehow he shot it down before I could move. So basicly, when he's attacking he gets to do 2 actions before I can make 1, despite the shift move being banned. When I'm attacking I never get the same benefit without the shift move. Did he use it? When I accused him of it he pretended to not know what I was talking about. He may have been honest, I don't know. Maybe one of the inventors of this new rule can waive his magic wand and tell me if he played a clean game?

How exactly are you going to enforce this? Are players like me going to file a complaint when this stuff happens? Then what? You ask me, I say "he probably used it, but I'm not sure", then you ask him, he says "no I didn't use it". Then what?

Sorry about the tone, I'm a bit agitated right now. GGs.

 

[PrimEval]

So basicly, when he's attacking he gets to do 2 actions before I can make 1, despite the shift move being banned. When I'm attacking I never get the same benefit without the shift move. Did he use it? When I accused him of it he pretended to not know what I was talking about. He may have been honest, I don't know. Maybe one of the inventors of this new rule can waive his magic wand and tell me if he played a clean game?

This is another key reason why I am opposed to bans that are not enforced by the game. Losing, a city, or the game can be an emotional experience. When you lose do you want to be thinking, did my opponent break the rules? No! I want my opponent to do everything in his power within the game to win. I want to do the same. Play Civ to the fullest!

 

[N0QUITTERSULTAN]

This is another key reason why I am opposed to bans that are not enforced by the game. Losing, a city, or the game can be an emotional experience. When you lose do you want to be thinking, did my opponent break the rules? No! I want my opponent to do everything in his power within the game to win. I want to do the same. Play Civ to the fullest!

We will monitor complaines and to our best to prevent abuse of rule(Kick if nessesery).. And i hope people are mature and respect the rule..shidt is not allowed etc. BUT let me point out something. Moving right before timer ends without the shift is ok.. but with shift is for now not allowed.