Cities are too strong.

[Arsenic Steel]

The first 50 or so turns are very important to the game and require planning.

There is no amount of planning that will aid a players choosing to have early wars. Cities were buffed to the point that anything less than longswords and catapults(preferably trebs) would be doomed to fail. Without a bonus to production players are not able to entertain the idea of successful early wars, it is a great option for those that don't want to but think about those that want the option of being aggressive and effective early on.

 

[AfterShafter]

There is no amount of planning that will aid a players choosing to have early wars. Cities were buffed to the point that anything less than longswords and catapults(preferably trebs) would be doomed to fail. Without a bonus to production players are not able to entertain the idea of successful early wars, it is a great option for those that don't want to but think about those that want the option of being aggressive and effective early on.

Urm.. No? I'm playing on Immortal now, almost exclusively huge maps on epic speed. I'm finding early wars still quite tenable, and not requiring longswords - though, requiring siege.

If you make a force of swordsmen with a few catapults and see a border city and say "Ok, I'm going to siege that because that's the city I want!" you'll be trounced by superior enemy unit mobility in their territory. But, one of the AI's greatest weaknesses is recovering from initial early losses in a war - once its unit wad is blown, it won't be able to counterattack or actively defend its cities successfully.

That being the case, my first objective starting an early war against an enemy which will have a unit advantage over me isn't to take a city, but to wipe out a big glut of units. Even if you're only running swordsmen and the enemy longswords, this is still quite possible through manipulation of choke points, terrain bonuses, etc etc. Find a spot near or in a poorly roaded section of enemy territory and set up your front line with some archers and cats and bring a worker or two for bait and start getting the enemy to move into position to attack your units. If there is a weaker border city - perhaps not the cit you want the most, but one which will offer you favourable terrain in which to fight - which you can take in a turn or two, grab that and wait for counterattacks.

I like going to war with two cats and two archers or three cats. If you end up stuck in a defensible siege, your objective should be to gain XP and kill the harassing units and just keep the siege going until you're getting 3 range catapults with two attacks and indirect fire - a long siege is a victory for the aggressor because of the existence of upgrades which will make your siege units *so* much more powerful. Your real objective should be to draw the bulk of the enemy's force into a field confrontation when you've got a nice ranged bombardment in a favorable position - because once you've wiped out that glut of units, you can move through the opponent's territory with only scattered token resistance.

I wage sword/cat wars quite frequently, and they can work with inferior numbers and tech - just make sure your first objective is destroying the glut of enemy units. Draw them into your territory, capture a weak 2-turn border city before they can react, set up in their territory in a defensive position and wait for the storm - whatever. Just get rid of those enemy units and then the opposing Civ will be ripe for conquest, since the AI doesn't know how to rebuild after a major loss of units like that. Also, one thing old Civ players have to remember about this game is, there's no building penalty for keeping a war going over the long term. If you've got a position set up where you're not losing much and just slowly racking up experience, you're doing great.

 

[elthrasher]

There is no amount of planning that will aid a players choosing to have early wars. Cities were buffed to the point that anything less than longswords and catapults(preferably trebs) would be doomed to fail. Without a bonus to production players are not able to entertain the idea of successful early wars, it is a great option for those that don't want to but think about those that want the option of being aggressive and effective early on.

Right here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=406662

I took down two civs with four swordsmen, then went after a 3rd with longswords. However, the only reason I upgraded was I had gold and had just received the tech. The 3rd civ was no stronger than the two before and I think regular swordsmen still would have done the job (except for one city that had only one tile I could attack from - needed longswords for that).

And FWIW, warriors could still take a fresh 6 defense city. 6 attack (+ flanking bonuses) vs. 6 defense generally means you're going to inflict 5-7 damage and take 2-3. You might have to blow a heal promotion, but the city would fall. The reason warrior rush is basically over on Immortal and Deity is cities don't stay at 6 defense long enough. On the higher levels they'll be up to like 9 in the blink of an eye and that's too much for warriors.

 

[Tabarnak]

There is no amount of planning that will aid a players choosing to have early wars. Cities were buffed to the point that anything less than longswords and catapults(preferably trebs) would be doomed to fail. Without a bonus to production players are not able to entertain the idea of successful early wars, it is a great option for those that don't want to but think about those that want the option of being aggressive and effective early on.

I usually find more useful to build a little more cities than going very early at war. The extra cities i build provide more for my empire than extra puppets, mainly because i can choose to build and work tiles i want.

But if an early war is short and sweet with almost no units lost, i can always build more cities right after and gain more than not going at war. I have to know exactly what i have to face in ennemy city(ies) with right units.

 

[joyous_gard]

It should... what?

The problem with a scenario like that, to me, says that you're not getting punished for neglecting your early defenses. If your opponent can walk up to you with four warriors, with you having nothing, and your opponent loses -- this seems sketchy. It's punishing early-game aggression to the point where it's almost a non-option and rewards people for not doing anything.

If I'm putting the effort into building a series of warriors, the least the game could do for my sake is force you to build a corresponding defense. It most definitely shouldn't force you to build four warriors of your own, but it should make you do something.

Marching one warrior up there with you having nothing and failing -- I can see that. Marching a couple -- maybe. Marching four up to you and failing with no real action required by you?

Something seems wrong here.

At any rate, this then skews you into requiring resources of finicky availability for any kind of early aggression. Since units are now capped to resources, I kind of do take issue with the "finicky availability" part of things.

I think this is a good point. If you invest in four top tier melee units (warrior is highest available at start of the game) there should be some repercussions for a defender that just ignores that. Walls take less time than building three warriors, so maybe that is the rub.

I haven't tried a 4 warrior rush, is it definitely impossible? I haven't really used a warrior except for scouting. I usually dump the original warrior because I like my Heroic Epic swordmen better. More triangles.

 

[joyous_gard]

Obviously, the designers wanted to make warfare more than "build and rush." They wanted a more strategic flavor to the game. You can't simply build four warriors and conquer the nearest enemy city. The first 50 or so turns are very important to the game and require planning. If you want to go to early war, plan for it. Prioritize the leap to either Civil Service or Iron Working. Civl Service is safer since Pikeman don't require andy special resource to build, and they are nearly as strong as Swordsman.

Cities are not difficult to take once you've prepared for the siege. You can make it even more difficult by city placement. Place your city with obstacles - mountains, lakes, rivers - surrounding it as much as possible, and keep your city spacing tight for mutual defense. In that case, not only do you have to worry about the city's inherent defense, you must also worry about archers or siege units within and around the cities. That becomes huge once you reach artillery and have the three hex range.

I think that cities are perfect just the way they are. I dislike the comparisons to CiIV. I don't want a new CiIV, I want CiV.

lol. We are all entitled to our opinions and I guess I will say mine is the opposite. I don't find it fun or strategic, grinding through AI spam cities to get to 1 or 2 decent cities. It smacks of cheap gameplay. They couldn't get the combat AI right so they amped up the city defenses and had the AI pack cities as closely as possible. It basically says that we can't stop the player, but we can delay his progress by having the AI spam garbage fortresses.

 

[Civsassin]

lol. We are all entitled to our opinions and I guess I will say mine is the opposite. I don't find it fun or strategic, grinding through AI spam cities to get to 1 or 2 decent cities. It smacks of cheap gameplay. They couldn't get the combat AI right so they amped up the city defenses and had the AI pack cities as closely as possible. It basically says that we can't stop the player, but we can delay his progress by having the AI spam garbage fortresses.

I disagree in part. I play on Emperor, and at that level, I've seen the AI play both ways. I've seen them build cities close together and further apart. I suspect that it has to do with both the particular civ and the terrain. On the other hand, I do think the AI is is the game's weak link. I am hopeful that they will continue to address AI in future patches. However, I think that the game is fundamentally sound.

 

[_hero_]

I have no trouble taking cities unless I'm playing on Diety or Immortal. Then it takes careful planning.

 

[clif9710]

I was finding cities too easy to take, playing as Monty and just going the straight iron route. Whoever my neighbor was, he was toast time after time. Then I installed Thal's balance mods. The combat mod includes a 50% increase in city defense. Now things are much more interesting.

 

[Strategist83]

Bah, this discussion is ridiculous anyway since you guys are clearly judging the balance on vs. AI play. Some of you probably haven't even tried the game online. There's a VAST difference between taking a city controlled by a human opponent and one controlled by the so-called 'tactical AI'.

Cities ARE too strong and, more problematically, become strong immediately after being built.

 

[AfterShafter]

Bah, this discussion is ridiculous anyway since you guys are clearly judging the balance on vs. AI play. Some of you probably haven't even tried the game online. There's a VAST difference between taking a city controlled by a human opponent and one controlled by the so-called 'tactical AI'.

Cities ARE too strong and, more problematically, become strong immediately after being built.

Yikes... Sounds like the most popular strategy in online strategy games, the freakishly early rush, won't work in Civ V with those tough to take out cities. Darn, that's s a shame. Might actually not be rewarded for doing something other than building early military units from the get go, and we can't have that...

 

[Strategist83]

It's not even about that, but I'm not going to debate it with you if you are going to sink the level of discussion like that.

 

[AfterShafter]

It's not even about that, but I'm not going to debate it with you if you are going to sink the level of discussion like that.

Well, here's my position... Probably over 1/3 of my time spent playing Civ V is in multiplayer games. You can see me commenting in other threads that I'm actually quite pleased with how stable and consistent the multiplayer is. So, I'm not completely oblivious to the multiplayer scene as you seem concerned about.

The fact is, cities ARE tough to take, and you're right - quite tough in multiplayer with a human intelligence defending those cities. But the thing is, everyone's cities are tough to take. There's no unfair advantage being given here, there's just an environment where early rushing is pretty much untenable, and an actual successful military action is going to take overwhelming numbers or unit balance.

Is that a terrible thing? Everyone who has played a few multiplayer games and come in saying "LOLZORS I'm going to warrior rush him and he'll never see it coming" will soon realize that early rushes just aren't going to work. They might find out that pillage rushes on turtle types are quite effective, but that actually trying to capture cities with warriors or spears is likely to result in a lot of lost production.

Personally, I LIKE this. It's a huge rarity that you find a strategy game that won't be dominated by the build basic units, rush, quit if rush doesn't work types. Those types will be quickly eliminated from Civ V because those types of rushes will never work - and instead, you'll start t see rushing either become a bit later game phenomenon that defensive players will have to adapt to, or you'll just see people start to play longer games.

Whatever level I "sank" to, my sentiment holds. Civ V discourages early rushes - and if you really want to pull off successful basic unit rushes, go play damn near any other strategy game ever made. This game doesn't work like that, and I consider it a welcome breath of fresh air.

 

[JohnnyW]

Whatever level I "sank" to, my sentiment holds.

I believe he was commenting on your overly sarcastic tone. It was pretty dismissive.

 

[AfterShafter]

I believe he was commenting on your overly sarcastic tone. It was pretty dismissive.

I don't think a guy who dubbed the entire previous discussion as "ridiculous" gets huge sympathy points for people being dismissive towards him. He summarily dismissed what everyone before him said with zero effort to find out whether any of us had multiplayer experience or took multiplayer into account when making our claims.

 

[JohnnyW]

I don't think a guy who dubbed the entire previous discussion as "ridiculous" gets huge sympathy points for people being dismissive towards him. He summarily dismissed what everyone before him said with zero effort to find out whether any of us had multiplayer experience or took multiplayer into account when making our claims.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make this a side point of discussion, only to clarify what he meant.

Edit: what *I think* he meant.

 

[AfterShafter]

Sorry, I didn't mean to make this a side point of discussion, only to clarify what he meant.

Edit: what *I think* he meant.

Nah I had a pretty good idea what he meant. I felt my original response was answering in kind to a guy who said "Bah, this discussion is ridiculous anyway since you guys are clearly judging the balance on vs. AI play." He's right, in a sense - I was judging on VS AI play, but only because I saw zero problem in multiplayer.

 

[Frozensky]

Until people are winning science, cultural, or diplomatic wins in competitive multiplayer, I say cities aren't strong enough.

Tell me, are people winning science, cultural, or diplomatic wins in competitive multiplayer?

 

[AfterShafter]

Until people are winning science, cultural, or diplomatic wins in competitive multiplayer, I say cities aren't strong enough.

Tell me, are people winning science, cultural, or diplomatic wins in competitive multiplayer?

Nope. But, zergling/warrior rushes are next to nonexistent, and even the equivalent of axemen rushes are very hard to pull off. Precisely why I like it, and I think Strategist is off his rocker suggesting that cities are too powerful because of how hard it makes city capturing in multiplayer. You have to be either A) committing a lot of resources or B) damned cagey to take a city from someone who is actively defending a city in multiplayer.

 

[Tabarnak]

Until people are winning science, cultural, or diplomatic wins in competitive multiplayer, I say cities aren't strong enough.

Until nukes

Speed is the most important thing in multiplayer. Fast build up of a strong army can make all the difference with good coordination when fighting. Cities can be taken in any post ancient eras. It's also fun to attack someone by sea when all his units are 15 tiles away...