Civ specific strategies

[noto]

Hey everyone. I was disappointed a while ago when I checked the Civ4 War academy to look for strategy articles written for different civs, and found only 2. 1 was for Rome, the other for Inca...go figure. So then I happened to stumble across the Civ3 war academy and there was an article for every single civ. I think that we should fill out that Civ4 academy. BTS has been around long enough now. I would really love to see some great articles written on the specifics of different Civs/leaders, because to me the different choices is a large part of what makes this game so replayable. Sometimes, however, if I just pick "random" and get Saladin, it's difficult for me to start master planning because I'm not so sure what to do with him (just an example), and so I'd really love to see some other peoples' ideas. I would write these articles myself, but being a monarch/emp player I don't know if I'm good enough yet. Then again, I might be, as the articles wouldn't necessarily be detailed to the point of discussing build orders and all that, but just a more general strategic breakdown of the Civ in question. Some leader/civ combos are more obvious and intuitive, like Julius Ceasar. But others are not as obvious and I think some articles written about them would make me more willing to give them a try. For example, Boudica's traits rock for warfare, but how does one get the most value out of the Celt's UB and UU? I recently played a game as Lincoln and realized that the mall has been buffed in BTS, giving +20% gold... but alas I was destroyed by the Romans in the early game and never got to build the mall...lol. Has anyone played the Americans and gone for a late cultural win with Broadway, Hollywood, Rocknroll, malls, etc?? So are there any veteran players out there who would want to work on such a project? I would definitely be willing to do some of the work. We could assign different leaders and play test them and write the articles one at a time. Hopefully the Civ4 war academy would one day be a match for the Civ3 one.

 

[Verge]

So are there any veteran players out there who would want to work on such a project? I would definitely be willing to do some of the work. We could assign different leaders and play test them and write the articles one at a time. Hopefully the Civ4 war academy would one day be a match for the Civ3 one.

Sisiutil is already doing basically what you're looking for in his All Leaders Challenge series. Check it out!

 

[JujuLautre]

One problem of doing that with CiV is that even if you can "plan' things in advance by thinking about your UU, UB, traits..., the map and your opponents will really dictate things. Having a strategy guide about gengis khan using keshiks will be useless whn you're isolated. Same as a Saladin religious strategy will be very hard when you have around you justinian, Isabella and Monty.

On the other hand, lots of people write reports or walkthrough of their game, like Sisiutil's, juste mentioned above. These are the nearest from what you are searching imho.

 

[noto]

Yeah, I've heard of the ALC, in fact, I did look at one or two of those walkthroughs. Umm...that's not exactly what I meant. Sisiutil is doing an excellent job, don't get me wrong. What I was thinking of was a little more modest than that. I was hoping for a series of articles with relatively breif strategy points on each leader. Rather than an entire walkthrough, someone could write a few paraghraphs per leader. For example, you mention that discussing the Mongols and Keshiks strategy won't work if you're isolated. That's okay. It would be nice if there was a strategy article (a short one) discussing how to get the best use of the Keshiks, for example.

 

[madscientist]

I think this is rather difficult as the maps, neighbors, and diplomacy really are what matters most.

Examples from my games,
Ended up with a space win from Ghenghis because he took two early AIs down, absorbing good cities and the remaining AIs were very tough but we had good relations. Best to stand pat and tech to space here.
Another was Gandhi who I end up winning alot of domination, backdoor UN victories. Peace at first, good at getting AIs at each others throats, then mov ein with a vastly superior army. I never start thinking this way but ends up that way.

I think what you can do is have certain early strategies for certain leaders.

Examples

Boudica. Everyone wants to use her military traits right away, but she start with Myst and hunting,plusnone of her traits or UB helps with science, culture, health, or economy. Her strongest avenue is to get an early religion, and work towards getting teh shrine ASAP which would fund her military expansion. After the early religion, she should go for archery for protection and food techs. THEN go after mining/BW/AH. She will also have a slow expanding empire at the beginning and here is where her military trais come in.

Ghengis Kahn. I am in the minority, but think he is the best war monger in the game. Unlike Boudica, he can start military from the get go, tech AH (food and horse), can build a worker ASAP and build roads. The GER benefits mounted units, the Keshiks are very fast useful UUs, agressive gets combat I to melee/gunpowder units, Imperialistic gets GGs faster allowing better promoted melee/gunpowder units which are already buffed. With his UU and lack of economy/science traits, he is equipeed for a slash and burn economy, torching alot of early cities until be builds a stronge economy in a slower fashion. The IMP trait also excourages very fast settling, you can have 4-5 early cities all interconnected and well feed pretty early.

Both Indian: Peacemen, Bah!!! One of the few leader that start with mysticism who should not claim one. Go food, BW, wheel. Most of the time the Indians will have Bronze nearby. Between chopping, slavery (no anarchy) , and fast workers they can build an army faster than you think, and perform a surprizing axe-rush very quickly.

Just some examples, the key I think is an early plan for certain AIs.

 

[JujuLautre]

I was just thinking, but you could also check this article. But I also stand what I said above.

 

[tycoonist]

for some civs there aren't really any big strategies except SE/CE. but there are some very civ specific strats. examples include:

-if you are Rome, beeline IW. pump praets and conquer the rest of your neighbours. go for domination or conquest

-if huyana capac, pump out quechua and try and capture an enemy capital. enemy capitals are often very powerful.

-shaka/HRE are good for early rexing thanks to their buildings.

 

[vicawoo]

Uh, different civs play very differently. Name a civ, and people could say something about them.

By traits, some tricks: pre-BTS, expansive has cheap granaries, faster workers (must chop or whip). charismatic, try to get stonehenge for a civ-wide +1 happiness. imperialistic can try the super fast 2nd settler gambit, spiritual can do organized religion well as well as easy diplomacy and slavery/caste system switches and queue units almost finish switch to theocracy/feudalism finish units switch back and can run artists to pop borders. Creative land grabs and block offs, industrious can do an easy wonder economy and has cheap forges, philosophical can do a faster oracle, metal casting->engineer->pyramids gambit. Aggressive/protective can get cover with just a barracks and draft c1 or drill 1 gunpowder. Financial can do oasis early religion and has good sea tiles.

 

[noto]

No but it's more interesting than that. Yes, see, Rome as a specific set of guidelines for Julius Ceasar. Get to the praets ASAP and pump them ASAP and go take land ASAP. Portugal is another civ that is unique. Rush to carracks and go colonize whatever land is left in the world - that strategy is completely different from other civs with the imperialistic or expansive trait. Darius is another interesting guy. He's financial and organized, so you want to have a vast empire running a CE for a dominant economy, but, for the very early game you take the immortals and go stomp a neighbour or two. After you've won land from your neighbours, then you fill it out and sit back and play as a peaceful builder. Elizabeth is the opposite. You use her philo and financial traits to build, build, build and rush through the techs to rifling, then take the redcoats and build yourself the British empire. Obviously strategy is effected by certain things in the game - how much land do you have, what type of land is it, what resources do you have, etc. But you can still think of some strategy points for each leader.

 

[Verge]

Again, that's largely what Sisiutil is doing in his ALC series (specifically his pre-game threads); there are also a lot of leader/civ-specific strategies floating around the forum.

A strategy article really can just be a matter of coalescing all those disparate ideas into a single guide. Sounds like a good project for you, noto

 

[vicawoo]

should i include beeline and leverage unique units, in general?

 

[Hackapell]

Here's something, But I agree with the OP here, those articles on civ 3 leaders were phenomenal. I would be happy to start/work on that soon.

EDIT: I also believe that TF was planning to work on the war academy soon.