Chaos – way out

[Carl v.]

In CIV IV, the amount of information is so enormous that it is easy to get mixed up with a lot of minor issues and forget the grand strategy. Grouping information according to situation is a powerful tool that might prevent you from loosing the grip. Some of the grouping is a part of the game; other structures must be organized by the gamer himself.

There are different ways to see a game like CIV. In this text, I will use the terms strategic and operational level.
Strategy is decisions like what civ to choose, or: “Do I go for religion or not?” These will determine the framework of the whole game as they are made at the start. To make it easy, one can say that decisions that influence the rest of the game are strategic, but that does not mean they are irreversible.
Questions like where to settle, great people-factories, war and peace, tech-tree priority, economics, politics/diplomacy, and the organisation of your army are of strategic importance.

Operational level is where to build wonders, the production profile of a city (both input and output), reconnaissance, internal resources management and most military matters.

But how does such a planning make gaming easier? Let us assume you have settled in the middle of a big, green wood with one or two food-resources. You determine it is possible to make this town grow almost only by making cottages, and you make it your financial center.
In this town the commercial buildings have priority. You know that every time you see the city-screen or move a worker on one of the city's tiles.
Trees are chopped to give room for new cottages and help production. Market, grocer, bank and Wall Street must be built as soon as possible.

In the internal stages, every garrison is responsible for defending a specific town. The garrison can be seen as a single unit that should have capabilities to repel the initial blow of an enemy attack.
But you have a larger theatre; from the surrounding towns fresh units will come to aid, either to bolster against the enemy’s second echelon, or to retake the town before wounded enemy forces have gained strength.
So you should not only consider the military strength for each town. Think an operational theatre made up of areas considered to be a natural defense area (mostly of logistical reasons). Instead of nine cities, you might think of three defense-areas. Remember; on roads your units move at double the speed of the enemy.
Later on, you get fast units. This makes reinforcements quicker, and a squadron of horsemen can act as a garrison in being for a number of cities; If you are afraid of attack on a peninsula from the sea, your horsemen are in a position (in the middle) from where they can counterattack anywhere the enemy makes a landing.

Thinking in terms of tasks is a similar technique. Let us assume you will secure a resource with a city. Build escort/garrison force, settler and worker. The armed unit is finished first, and is deployed immediately to secure the route for the settler moving at double speed. With a worker ready, the town will soon be connected to the rest of your empire, the resource will be at your disposal in a short time, and the town will increase production as the tiles are worked.

Logistics on land is merely a question of roads or not. Sea-transport is more complicated; there must always be a ship available.
If you have settled on islands, see each strait as a part of the road. Unit transport might be urgent if you are attacked, and there is no time to wait for a ship to be built. For this reason, a transport vessel and its escort should be kept in a town by the waterway with no other task than being ready.

The organization of task forces can synchronize the utilizing of land and sea units. If a new island is discovered, and you want to colonize, you might issue an order like: “Sea units A and B to town X, build a settler in town Y and a garrison unit in town Z. Transport both to town X when ready. Get a worker from the fields. Do not depart before all units are in town X”
Organizing this way, means that some units will have to wait for others. But you know they are there when you need them.

I have used these examples from the operational level because the organization materializes on screen.

In short: Have a plan, need a settler. Not: Have a settler, need a plan.

 

[Cort Haus]

But how does such a planning make gaming easier? Let us assume you have settled in the middle of a big, green wood with one or two food-resources. You determine it is possible to make this town grow almost only by making cottages, and you make it your financial center.
In this town the commercial buildings have priority. You know that every time you see the city-screen or move a worker on one of the city's tiles.
Trees are chopped to give room for new cottages and help production. Market, grocer, bank and Wall Street must be built as soon as possible.

Gold multipliers are not useful in a city with no gold income, in an empire running 100% science. Not all playstyles involve heavy empire costs requiring the low science rate where mkts & banks all round are productive. In such cases libs, unis and Oxford are more important.

 

[Cervus]

Gold multipliers are not useful in a city with no gold income, in an empire running 100% science. Not all playstyles involve heavy empire costs requiring the low science rate where mkts & banks all round are productive. In such cases libs, unis and Oxford are more important.

I believe this is not the most important point of the original post.

I do agree that, as with almost everything in this world, one may describe Civ process in terms of strategic and operational (or tactic?) levels. That is, what you decide on the strategic level is then implemented on the operational one, so you literally see your ideas coming into life on the screen.

Perhaps it is the most vital skill for any Civ player to learn to think on the strategic level first and only then proceed to operations. Whatever happens in the game, the player has to keep his/her strategy in mind. The latter may be changed according to the game development.

 

[Cort Haus]

Perhaps it is the most vital skill for any Civ player to learn to think on the strategic level first and only then proceed to operations. Whatever happens in the game, the player has to keep his/her strategy in mind. The latter may be changed according to the game development.

I remember one experienced player, involved in the pre-release test cycle, saying that when deciding what to build in a city the question is not so much "What will most benefit this city?" as in earlier civ games, but "What will most benefit the empire?".

The great thing about the game is that there are many ways to achieve objectives - as the debates that rage about cottages vs specialists illustrate. The various leader traits, a well-balanced tech tree revolutionised by the 'OR-gates', and the dimension of GP points from specialists present an array of options.

 

[ShadowWarrior]

I think that in military terminology, operation means the decision to give battles or NOT give battles. Sometimes, not all battles need to be fought nor should they be fought, particularly in those circumstances in which the odd is stacked overwhelmingly against you. A brilliant general transforms the battlefield in his favor. But a truely wise general does not jump into a battle he can't win in the first place. Instead, he avoids rival strength to attack weakness.

I agree with the original poster on all of his points. Grand strategy often means the national objectives, policies, and goals that its leaders want to accomplish. In a Civ IV context, grand strategy may mean the decision to win through conquest, colonization, or diplomacy.

If grand strategy determines where a nation must go, then strategy is a set of things to be done to get the nation there. Its the means. In Civ IV context then, a grand strategy of diplomatic victory may dictate the neccessity of building UN, founding as many religions as possible, and gaining of cultural influences, all of which can be termed strategy.

If operation means what I have defined above (the decision to take actions or not take actions), then, in a Civ IV context, there are things that must be done, and things that do not neccessarily have to be done in order to win the game through certain pre-determined type of victory. Those skilled in the art of operations are wise to recognize what actions are needed, and, even more importantly, what are NOT needed. For example, a grand strategy of diplomatic victory coupled with a strategy of founding many religions may obviate the need to build a huge army.

Tactics is the lowest level of strategic planning. Tactics should be completely dicated by grand strategy, strategy, and operations. Tactics is what must be done specifically to fullfill the strategy, which in turn is needed to realize the grand strategy. Let me give one example of operation and tactic.

Having decided on a grand strategy of diplomatic victory and a strategy of founding as many religion as possible, one must decide, at the operation level, what religion to pursue, and what NOT to pursue. In some games, it is probably more likely for one to found Christianity, while in the other games, Buddhism might be more easily acquired. A wise player must decide, given the various factors, what religion to pursue, and what NOT to waste time on. If, for exampe, I look at the technology trading screen, and see that most of my rivals have already obtained certain tech that leads to lets say Taoism, then perhaps I should not waste time on trying to get Taoism. I should instead opt for other tech path that takes me to Christianity. Remember one of the most famous and central principle of Sun Tzi's art of war, which is to avoid strength (meaning in this example to avoid tough competition to gain Taoism), and attack weakness (meaning in this example to try to get Christianity which nobody else is attempting to get).

Having decided on the religion to obtain, and the religions NOT to spend time on, tactics then comes in to help maximize the beakers in order to enable players to obtain those desired religions. City specializations is a great tactic, and much have been written about that. Or tech trading diplomacy can also work, and much have been written about that as well.

One thing to remember is that tactics must be dicated by operations, strategy, and grand strategy. Yet, often times, players do the exact opposite. They let their tactics dictate their grand strategy. This is fine in the very low levels of the game (such as chieftans). But once you move up higher level into Monarchs, then this might not be such a good idea. At the more difficult level, when one must learn to be very creatively resourceful, grand strategy must first be determined in order to figure out the specific tactics that will be used. Otherwise, time and efforts will be spent on building improvements that probably do not really matter to the outcome of the game in the long run.

However, do remember another very important thing. Tactics should NOT dictate strategy, BUT more tactics gives more strategic options. The more tactics you have available (you can gain more tactics simply by reading through all the strategy guides posted on this forum), the more you know what you can possibly accomplish and what you can not accomplish. Combined that with an analysis of the terrain, your rivals, and the circumstances of the game in which you find yourself, and you will be able to determine which strategy should be used.

Therefore although tactics must be dicated by strategy, the tactics that you have also determines what strategy you can use. This is internal analysis. External analysis such as terrain and geographicaly factors, resources available to you, such as fishes, grain, wheat, and the rivals you face (are they aggressive rivals? are they philosophical?) interplay with internal factors to determine what you can do and what you can not do. The resulting conclusion for the basis of your grand strategy.

The above is a guideline and a framework for thinking about playing the game. Again, at the easier levels, this framework is not really important to winning the game. But at the toughest level, having a framework such as this will really help you organize your thoughts and strategize on what to do.

Now let me proceed to give an illustration of using an example from the Chinese history to help you guys better understand the relationship between grand strategy, strategy, operations, and tactics.

Toward the last few decades of the Song dynasty, China was essentially carved up between three major dynasties. The Song dynasty ruled most of China proper. To the north is the Jing empire that ruled most of northern China. Northwester China, boardering modern day Mongolia was under the control of the Xi Xia empire. Genkis Ghan, the great Mongolian strategist and conqueror, is still just an infant.

The Jing people are nomadic people who grew up in the great plains of the northern China. Their lifestyle was less civilized than the Chinese. However, their nomadic and harsh lifestyle also gave them an intimidatingly fierceful fighting power that easily paved their way to to building an empire in the northern China. Their army was completely build on their cavalry.

Song dynasty China is different. By the time of the rise of the Jing empire, Song dynasty had for all intend and purpose retreated to the south of the Yangtze River. In this part of the world, terrain is mountaineous. Remember this type of terrain, for its a key as you will see later.

When Jing dynasty emperor decided to end the Song dynasty once and for all in order to unify all of China under his control, he set out a huge expedition to cross the Yangtze river in order to invade his southern Song dynasty rival.

For all of Chinese people living in the Song empire, sky was falling down. It was like the end of the world when they heard of the impending invasion. China's military was too weak compared to the Northern Jin empire. Commonly held view was that there was no way for Song dynasty to fend off a Jing invasion.

But a Chinese general thought differently. He understood something that nobody understood. The Jing people are a nomadic people who are powerful on horse, but weak on water. Moreover, given the mountaineous terrain that is Song dynasty's dominant geography, Jing cavalry could not function at their best at all. Cavalry is most powerful in open terrain such as rolling grassland, but no int steep hills or mountains.

Using these two insights, the Chinese general formed the foundation of his grand strategy. His grand strategy was to "capture the theif by closing the door". This is a Chinese proverb describing a tactic of destroying the enemy by confining him to a situation in which he is at a great disadvantage.

The grand strategy of "capture the theif by closing the door" is comlemented by two important strategies and operational level decisions. Conventional wisdom dicated that once the Jing army cross the Yangtze river, then the game is over. Jing army will destroy Song dynasty easily. However, as long as the Jing army couldn't be allowed to cross the Yangtze river, the Jing army can't do harm. Conventional strategy was exactly to attack the Jing navy mercilessly to prevent them from landing on the shore of Song dynasty.

This Chinese general however setlled on a strategy of fighting the Jing cavalry where they are the weakest. This means that the Jing army must be allowed to cross the river and enter the Song dynasty in the first place. At an operational level, this means to refuse to give battles on the high water of Yangtze river. The Chinese general wanted to encourage the Jing people to think that the Song dynasty was not as competent on naval warefare as they were rumored to be.

Furthermore, once having landed on the Song dynasty, the Chinese general adopted a strategy of fighting the Jing cavalry only in mountaineous regions. When the Jing cavalry are in open terrain, the general refused to fight. Again you see the operational level decision to give and not to give battles, which is dicated by the strategy of fighting the enemy where they are weakest.

Then tactics came in. I have not much to say about tactics, for they aren't that interesting. They are brilliant manuevers and minor innovations that target the weakness of the Jing cavalry. For example, foot infantries and pikemen were deployed against Jing cavalry, for the former has superior fighting strength against the latter. These are tactical decisions that further maximizes the chance of winning.

The result is pre-ordained. Jing cavalry army was powerful, but it was put at such a strong disadvantage that it lost half of its army. The Jing general fled in terror and attempted to cross the Yangtze river to go back to the Jing empire. But remember the Chinese general who wnated to encourage the false impression that Song navy was weak? As soon as the Jing navy attempted to cross the river, the more skilled Song navy begin to intercept. The Jing was no match at all, and its army was reduced significantly again. It was only by sheer luck that the remaining troops could make it back to the Jing empire.

In this story, the grand strategy, strategy, operational decisions, and tactics were so brilliantly consistent that the Jing army was nearly wiped out. For the rest of the living life of the Jing emperor, he wouldn't dare to attempt another invasion of the Song dynasty. Song dynasty found itself gained some breathing room for several years, until the rise of Genkis Ghan.

Once having landed on the

 

[Jorunkun]

Nice thread, and agree that what sets apart experienced players is their ability to understand, control and drive the game's progression, not just bumble along. Having introduced some friends to Civ, I noticed there a progression through certain stages in learning strategy:

Newbies will often let at hand opportunities and threats dictate their course of action; they play reactively. Things like "this city just got a religion, let's build a temple", then "oh, a temple allows for more pop - let's build a farm"; or "someone sent a settler into an area I wanted to build in, let's attack him", then "oh, now he is sending an army, better build more defenders".

With some play experience, they then develop basic tactics, like defending cities with stacks of archers, settling towards the neighboring civs to deny them ressources or using stacks with catapults to take cities. These are often preemptive responses to things that went wrong in previous games.

Reading the forums, many eventually graduate to what I would call formulaic strategies. Things like learning to use wonders efficiently (pyramids grab, slingshots ...), pursuing an early religion to convert their neighbors or beelining to leverage key techs for a rush.

So there is certainly a progression towards more planning, and it is necessary to succeed on Monarch and above.

What I find most interesting however is that to progress to truly mastering the game (playing on the level of grand strategy) requires to un-learn successful plans and strategies from previous stages and reintroduce an opportunistic or even reactive element into the game.

This is especially true for players who get stuck on formulas, like axeman rush or slingshot. They work well in most games - but in some games the axerush eliminates your only trading partner, winning you the battle but losing you the game.

I find the most interesting and challenging games are those that stay open strategically for a long time, both because of potential threats and opportunities. Nothing like switching gears to take advantage of an opponent going to war with a third party, or seeing your UN win turned around by unexpected diplomatic developments.

IMHO, the hallmark of a civ expert is his/her ability to play to an _adaptable_ plan. This includes being able to read the map well and to take cues from the early game to plan for eventualities, as well as deciding for the most likely victory type when the time is ripe, and executing towards that goal in the late game.

 

[Carl v.]

In his post, ShadowWarrier in an excellent way shows how to transform ideas and decisions of an “abstract” strategy into wealth, culture and power on screen.

Cervus’ approach is from an other angle:
“I do agree that, as with almost everything in this world, one may describe Civ process in terms of strategic and operational (or tactic?) levels. That is, what you decide on the strategic level is then implemented on the operational one, so you literally see your ideas coming into life on the screen.”

He has an important statement: “…so you literally see your ideas coming into life on the screen.” This is the core of the game: what you see on the screen. One can group the forces in the eve of the battle, but after that, the gamer has no influence on the outcome. The fate of each battle is decided by a computer by the help of some rigid parameters and a random generator.

In my first post I defined my understanding of “strategic” and “operational”. It seems authors of following posts do not disagree. But Cervus raises a question about the tactical level. Is there a tactical level in CIVIV?

No, I think. All activities onscreen are on the operational level. The strategy remains in the gamer’s head and materializes on the screen (see the post from ShadowWarrior).

We have no possibility to control what is happening on the level below; like trade routes, corruption, outcome of battles, and creation of great people. In my opinion: this is the tactical level.

But we can influence on the environments by negotiating open borders, build courthouses, have a balanced army, build wonders and assign specialists (operational level).