Clash of the Warmongers

[Dirk1302]

About great wall, i agree the way you play it's a marvellous wonder which is leveraged to the limit by inviting these civs to war. I have always thought stone a waste on immortal, no way i'm going to pollute my capitals GPP pool with stonehenge and prophet points for a religion i never found/adopt on this level.GE points are invaluable however apart from the protection from barbs and the GG points . I keep that in mind in the future it's inexpensive (with stone) and gives advantages in 3 directions.

 

[ABigCivFan]

I think this is a small exploit of AIs low IQ in war. On Immortal, AIs will always have lots of units for the human to slaughter whether offensively or defensively. A well prepared human player has the initiative to choose where and when to fight, so if you want to milk the GG pts(with GW), it is easily achieved.

Brennus does not have any economic bonus, but his traits allow quick switch in and out of econ/war mode, and the ability of producing superior troops. So I thought controled wars would be the best way to leverage his abilities to gain quality troops and in the process good # of GGs.

In my game, i set up a fortress and the AIs single-mindedly crashed tens of units into it. That was actually the most efficient way to kill AI units as you had seen one well promoted longbow in a suitable terrain can kill 6+ units in 1 defensive turn.

However if the AIs were smart enough to flank around the Teo fortress and march their large SODs straight for my capital, it would have caused me a lot of headache.

In the following turns, I stopped most wars; GE rushed West Point; built Taj; and used the Golden Age to rush enough universities to build Oxford; rushed enough courthouses for a Forbidden Palace; and all other necessary steps to stay in the tech race. The AIs were still neck-to-neck with me on techs, and they still have huge power curves. Several AIs are 1 tech from Rifles, and Cathy is 1 tech away from Cossacks.

At this stage and beyond however, Charismatic+HE/WP city+Spiritul+5GGs+GW is an truely awesome combo.

 

[ungy]

Great game ABIGCIVFAN!

I got 3 cities up and then Monte declared in 900BC which basically slowed things down. Tech pace was faster in my game--I got beat to lib in 900 (Ragnar). I'm finishing up Mongols in around 1300, trying to get peace with JC. If that happens smoothly I think I can outrace the AI, and relations are good so I can stir up trouble as well. I'm only down a few techs.

I'm impressed with your boldness early on--I disagree tho with the statement that a charismatic civ beats an aggressive AI in a long war. In a long war you get WW way more than the AI, and they way outbuild you. I think you set up an usually good defensive position which took maximum advantage of the AI weaknesses. That is not always available.

Great move on the GW! I'll definately keep that one in mind. I skipped it as I correctly didn't think I'd need it for the barbs, but the engineer chance and the GG points are pretty big and you got maximum mileage out of both.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Great game ABIGCIVFAN!

I'm impressed with your boldness early on--I disagree tho with the statement that a charismatic civ beats an aggressive AI in a long war. In a long war you get WW way more than the AI, and they way outbuild you. I think you set up an usually good defensive position which took maximum advantage of the AI weaknesses. That is not always available.

Thanks Ungy, I am glad you enjoyed this game too.

In my games, mounted and siege units often play very important roles. They get the nice bonus from Charismatic. A Charismatic civ will almost always have more flexibility in strength than an Aggressive civ.

You will soon see the power of newly built Combat3+Pinch Cavs(WP+1 instructor+Theocracy+Barrack+stable) and CR3 trebs(barracks+1 instructor+Theocracy+Vas) hitting enemy cities.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Belated questions and remarks:

725BC: Traded Alphabet for IW+Archery from GK. After my rush, GK will likely stay tech back wards, so no worry for giving him Alphabet.

I don't understand. If anything his backwardness would increase the chance of him needing to trade away alphabet, shouldn't it?

I'm somewhat suprised you kept Beshbalik, a city encased in jungle, and razed Tlaxcala when it was nicely spaced from your capital and had gems. I probably would have kept Tlaxcala just so that I'd know where Montezuma's counter attack would land because of its geographic positioning. I wouldn't have wanted to keep Beshbalik since at the time I wouldn't have hordes of workers to clear the jungle away, even though it was militarily strategic.

I noticed you gave your Tireme a combat promotion. Wasn't it the consensus a few months ago that first strike was the best promotion to give ships, particularly early ones?

Wow @ building research in cities. Perhaps it's just a mental failure to accept the new 1:1 hammer/beaker ratio, but to me letting a hammer go to anything other than units or buildings seems like a waste except in modern times. As a result I build an even bigger army, which further puts me behind. How'd the hammer research affect the turns until CoL?

You researched Literature before CoL, which I've never done. How vital to your success do you feel the Great Library is? I like it, but if I don't have marble, aren't industrious, or plan on attacking a 60% defense capital like Teohicuan, I often go towards Construction first and thus get beaten to it half of the time.

740AD: I bribed JC to attack Cathy with CS. I wanted to keep him busy.

Wow, why keep him busy? Had JC any money, or a tech like Paper, Guilds, or Compass, would you have traded CS to him instead of bribing him with it?

760AD: Have stone, building castle everywhere for +1 trade route, it is like having "Free Market" civic for free!

Good point! Execept obsolete with Economics. If you build castles everywhere, do you avoid Economics for some time? As of your 700ad save, you could have Economics in about 40 turns with a beeline. If that were the case you'd be spending 75 hammers per city for an extra route that would bring between maybe 5 commerce per turn for 40ish turns. But maybe you hold off on Economics until Democracy, Miltary Tradition, Chemistry, and some other techs in the nearby area. In that event, say 40-100 turns later, castles are clearly a better priority than 150 hammer Markets, which would only increase your wealth like 15 coins per turn, empire-wide, at 50% science (in 700ad).

880AD: Still no GS yet, so I opted to research Guilds before Education. Kinghts would help with my war efforts.

Seems like a case of "loss aversion." Meaning you sunk some resources (the switch to Caste System over Slavery) into generating Great Scientists, and are now changing strategies to make use of that investement even if it's sub-optimal. Either it's important to have Education now or its not. If it's not then you should have planned to go towards techs like Guilds beforehand, meaning the Scientists, or the Great People you generate in instead, would be used for purposes other than bulbing. If it is important then you should be researching normally and use or save the Scientists to build academies in [future] cities that will generate lots of commerce.

In a long term picture, researching something half-worthwhile like Guilds to make sure you're burning scientists for Education seems like you're ultimately slowing your tech progress. By the modern period you'll be farther behind than if you had gotten Education earlier and built Universities, or if you had gotten Education later and built Academies. Or so it seems to me. I have a lot to learn from you violating "obvious" rules.

1080AD: Civic change to Slavery+Mec (use free priests in all cities to help with war/impromvement productions)

If you weren't Spiritual would you ever have switched to Serfdom?

1150AD: Alex suffered huge casulty in my land, offered peace(gold payment to me) and went back to build mode. His power curve got trimmed.

You're waiting for them to offer peace, not asking yourself every turn, I assume.

1150AD: Kill/Loss summary. I say the vast majority of those kills took place in my territory from fighting numerous civs. Still any doubter about the true power of the Great Wall?

Yes, when you don't use the GE for early Cho-Ku-Nus or Pyramids, play a game without eight warring AIs, nor have stone within your optimal second city's inner square.

 

[ungy]

I have to say this was quite an enjoyable game. The aggressive AI really kept me on my toes.

In my game I settled 3 cities, had an early defensive war with Monte around my gems city, and a late war where I conquered all but 3 Mongol cities (complicated by an attack by JC who took a long time to agree to peace with me giving only tech).

I then had enough territory to outrace the AI--I had enough real estate to overtake the AI easily with the emancipation cottage spam, and damned if Genghis doesn't attack me late. Odd as relations had recovered and he had only 3 cities. Still he managed about 20 units and took a city right away and brought me major WW. I brought Monte in and just as I was about to finish him off he caps to Monte.

I kept good relations pretty much all around and launched in 1864 --no AI had fusion yet. I think keeping good relations was key--got attacked 3 times but each was an inconvenience only. I had the option to start more AI wars but didn't need to. Despite having a pretty slow start the end game tech pace was fast as I got lots of $ from the AI and a few late tech trades to go with lots of trade routes (I kept all the Mongol cities, even a couple of marginal ones)

 

[Winston Hughes]

However if the AIs were smart enough to flank around the Teo fortress and march their large SODs straight for my capital, it would have caused me a lot of headache.

Firstly, thanks for the highly entertaining and informative write-ups - it's nice to see a full-on warmongering game reported in such detail.

Secondly, with reference to the above quote, I'm wondering whether BtS will teach the AI to bypass such a fortress to get to the juicy and weakly-defended cities beyond. Of all the AI's assorted stupidities, the tendency to throw endless troops at a single city (without regard for their chances of success) is one of the most easily exploitable imo, and a fix might help to redress the current warmonger>builder imbalance a little.

On the other hand, would that render a defensive approach unworkable? As the human player knows to his/her great advantage, a stack can punch well above its weight by attacking at the weakest point. Since the AI seems completely unaware of this, the human has an automatic advantage in both offensive and defensive wars. If the AI was better at choosing where to focus its efforts (and with the new espionage features it could be much better informed about where your weak spots are), might that make it even more important for the human player to attack first?

 

[r_rolo1]

Secondly, with reference to the above quote, I'm wondering whether BtS will teach the AI to bypass such a fortress to get to the juicy and weakly-defended cities beyond. Of all the AI's assorted stupidities, the tendency to throw endless troops at a single city (without regard for their chances of success) is one of the most easily exploitable imo, and a fix might help to redress the current warmonger>builder imbalance a little.

On the other hand, would that render a defensive approach unworkable? As the human player knows to his/her great advantage, a stack can punch well above its weight by attacking at the weakest point. Since the AI seems completely unaware of this, the human has an automatic advantage in both offensive and defensive wars. If the AI was better at choosing where to focus its efforts (and with the new espionage features it could be much better informed about where your weak spots are), might that make it even more important for the human player to attack first?

In civIII the AI always tried to bypass heavy defended spots to try to reach more soft spots. That feature was highly expoitable ( search "kill zones" in the CivIII forums and you'll see...), because you could mount a area to kill stacks of ofending AI while they tried to reach your core ( almost undefended ) cities 1 tile/turn. I believe that in CivIV this could be even worse, because of the Medic and March promotions ( would allow wounded troops to be healed quickly) and the collateral damage. I prefer things stay like they are now than to say to the AI " bypass that fortress and move ( slowly to the core cities" ( unless, of course, the AI starts to evaluate combat conditions properly )

 

[ABigCivFan]

Secondly, with reference to the above quote, I'm wondering whether BtS will teach the AI to bypass such a fortress to get to the juicy and weakly-defended cities beyond. Of all the AI's assorted stupidities, the tendency to throw endless troops at a single city (without regard for their chances of success) is one of the most easily exploitable imo, and a fix might help to redress the current warmonger>builder imbalance a little.

I think the biggest problem is that the AIs dont know how to conduct a proper siege. Attacking Teo is the correct move since it sits on Marble, Had Henge and Parthenon. That was the reason I paid high price for it.

Firaxis needs to teach the AIs to:

1) Bring more siege weapons to a siege
2) Reduce the cultural defense to 0% before attacking
3) Build more Siege weapons in general
4) Give better promotions. i.e. only CR promo to siege

I imagine these requirements not being very difficult to program.

As r_rolo pointed out, marching a large SOD into human's land is often more dangerous since we can use collateral damage to it full potential. But in certain cases, if the AIs could properly evaluate the power curve like we do, marching a large SOD (with lvl2 medics) to our capital could certainly be the better move than suiside at a fortress.

 

[ungy]

1) Bring more siege weapons to a siege
2) Reduce the cultural defense to 0% before attacking
3) Build more Siege weapons in general
4) Give better promotions. i.e. only CR promo to siege

and I would add attack cities with an "all or nothing" approach similarly to a human player, starting with the collat damage units. What really hurts the AI is the one off suicide attacks that do absolutely nothing except give the player XP and dilute the attack.

If the AI were better, then they would just need less of a spot to play competitively.

 

[ungy]

You will soon see the power of newly built Combat3+Pinch Cavs(WP+1 instructor+Theocracy+Barrack+stable) and CR3 trebs(barracks+1 instructor+Theocracy+Vas) hitting enemy cities.

Well I'm still not convinced about the charismatic piece. I think you will mop them up because you kept them at war with each other and looks like you will have a cav force before they upgrade to rifles. If you can do that it doesn't make too much difference on a promo. If you're up against rifles, I still think chem-steel is a better way to go. If you think CR trebs are good, cr cannon are complete devastation.

 

[r_rolo1]

Firaxis needs to teach the AIs to:

1) Bring more siege weapons to a siege
2) Reduce the cultural defense to 0% before attacking
3) Build more Siege weapons in general
4) Give better promotions. i.e. only CR promo to siege

I would add:

5) Take in account the enemy's unit promos in tactical decisions ( I wouldn't attack that fortified and highly promoted longbow even if they payed me ( atleast without some suicide units before that))

 

[ABigCivFan]

Belated questions and remarks:
I don't understand. If anything his backwardness would increase the chance of him needing to trade away alphabet, shouldn't it?

There weren't too many good trading possibilities among the AIs at that time. If I want to trade Alphabe to anyone for IW, it would be the guy who I would invade the same turn. As you saw later I was able to get a lot more for Alphabet from the other AIs.

I'm somewhat suprised you kept Beshbalik, a city encased in jungle, and razed Tlaxcala when it was nicely spaced from your capital and had gems. I probably would have kept Tlaxcala just so that I'd know where Montezuma's counter attack would land because of its geographic positioning. I wouldn't have wanted to keep Beshbalik since at the time I wouldn't have hordes of workers to clear the jungle away, even though it was militarily strategic.

Beshbalik had banana/mined Gem/Corn, it gave immediate boost to Happy/Health. Tlaxcala was not settle at the spot i want, i wanted settle 2E to it. I had a weak econ at the war time, could not settle to keep less optimal cities. I was already preparing to go for Teo, and planed to set it up as my forward based(hill with Dun) against any counter attacks.

I noticed you gave your Tireme a combat promotion. Wasn't it the consensus a few months ago that first strike was the best promotion to give ships, particularly early ones?

My Tri was to explore, pillage, so I gave Combat for extra strength. You saw the combat odds was almost 70% against an Aztec Tri. Any single promotion that will give you a 70% odds against the same unit from an enemy is a damn good promotion. What is the odds for a Drill1 Tri vs. no promotion Tri?

Wow @ building research in cities. Perhaps it's just a mental failure to accept the new 1:1 hammer/beaker ratio, but to me letting a hammer go to anything other than units or buildings seems like a waste except in modern times. As a result I build an even bigger army, which further puts me behind. How'd the hammer research affect the turns until CoL?

I thought I had a sufficient army at the time, GK was a non-factor and I could easily defend Teo, and COL was top priority for courtehouses, so I felt producing beakers were the right thing to do. It is actually powerful in my games becuse I emphasize production settling my early cities, and the high prod could always help with the must-have-now techs.

You researched Literature before CoL, which I've never done. How vital to your success do you feel the Great Library is? I like it, but if I don't have marble, aren't industrious, or plan on attacking a 60% defense capital like Teohicuan, I often go towards Construction first and thus get beaten to it half of the time.

I wrote in my report that I probalby should have researched COL first, and should have timed Literature with the capture of Teo(Marble).

GL to me is must have. The reason being on immortal+ levels, GL is the only important wonder that human has a good chance to beat the AIs to. The human could always rush to Alpha-Literature and chop it.

Wow, why keep him busy? Had JC any money, or a tech like Paper, Guilds, or Compass, would you have traded CS to him instead of bribing him with it?

I trade/bribe with my techs liberally. Here is my mentality on high levels.

* The AIs enjoy 40% discount on everything, so let them do the research for you. And use cross trades for everything I do not have.

* I could wage war much better than AIs, as long as I am not much behind on military techs, i am in good shape.

* Keep the balance among the AIs. If Cathy gets beaten badly by JC, I would give her Mil Trad to allow her fight better.

Good point(Castles)! Execept obsolete with Economics. If you build castles everywhere, do you avoid Economics for some time? As of your 700ad save, you could have Economics in about 40 turns with a beeline. If that were the case you'd be spending 75 hammers per city for an extra route that would bring between maybe 5 commerce per turn for 40ish turns. But maybe you hold off on Economics until Democracy, Miltary Tradition, Chemistry, and some other techs in the nearby area. In that event, say 40-100 turns later, castles are clearly a better priority than 150 hammer Markets, which would only increase your wealth like 15 coins per turn, empire-wide, at 50% science (in 700ad).

I had stone, I only built castles in my large cities. in Border cities, their defensive bonus helps with potential defensive wars. early +1 trade route is always huge in capitals.

Seems like a case of "loss aversion." Meaning you sunk some resources (the switch to Caste System over Slavery) into generating Great Scientists, and are now changing strategies to make use of that investement even if it's sub-optimal. Either it's important to have Education now or its not. If it's not then you should have planned to go towards techs like Guilds beforehand, meaning the Scientists, or the Great People you generate in instead, would be used for purposes other than bulbing. If it is important then you should be researching normally and use or save the Scientists to build academies in [future] cities that will generate lots of commerce.

In a long term picture, researching something half-worthwhile like Guilds to make sure you're burning scientists for Education seems like you're ultimately slowing your tech progress. By the modern period you'll be farther behind than if you had gotten Education earlier and built Universities, or if you had gotten Education later and built Academies. Or so it seems to me. I have a lot to learn from you violating "obvious" rules.

I already partially researched Edu, still need 7 turns for it. But with a GS, would take 1 more turn. So I switched to GUILDS, i was lucky to get that GS to bulb Edu. So the end result was I researched BOTH Edu and GUILDS within 8 turns. I needed GIILDS rather fast to deal with the large # of mounted pillagers near Teo. ( formation knights are the best for that purpose since they can kill another knight and retreat to Teo to heal in the same turn).

If you weren't Spiritual would you ever have switched to Serfdom?

No.

You're waiting for them to offer peace, not asking yourself every turn, I assume.

No, they were ready for peace talks, but I chose the time to settle for peace.

Yes, when you don't use the GE for early Cho-Ku-Nus or Pyramids, play a game without eight warring AIs, nor have stone within your optimal second city's inner square.

If I have GW, I have the initative to choose to fight more battles in my territory, that is the power.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Well I'm still not convinced about the charismatic piece. I think you will mop them up because you kept them at war with each other and looks like you will have a cav force before they upgrade to rifles. If you can do that it doesn't make too much difference on a promo. If you're up against rifles, I still think chem-steel is a better way to go. If you think CR trebs are good, cr cannon are complete devastation.

Yes, I am reasearching Chem-Steel after Mil Trad. I will soon have the capability of producing CR3 Cannons from Multiple barracks with a civic change and spread around instructors.

But my initial cav/treb force should be able to get me Aztec capital(budda shrine) city vary fast.

Also, i might do a lot of waring later with Tanks/Gunships/Artillary which all benefit from Charismatic, Aggressive can only take a defensive role at those stages. Also on water maps, Charismatic navy rules.

 

[Dirk1302]

Congrats on the space race Ungy, 1864 is pretty fast too. I ve seen in recent games that a well timed cav rus can be devastating, indeed it tends to end sometime so researching chem/steel is indicated while rushing with cavs. This combination is unbeatable till the AI gets Infantry/artillery.

 

[Winston Hughes]

In civIII the AI always tried to bypass heavy defended spots to try to reach more soft spots. That feature was highly expoitable

I prefer things stay like they are now than to say to the AI " bypass that fortress and move ( slowly to the core cities" ( unless, of course, the AI starts to evaluate combat conditions properly )

Yeah, I remember abusing that in civ3, and having the AI march like idiots through a barrage of cats would be even worse. But there are many situations (including in ABigCivFan's game) where the AI's armies don't have to pass through (much of) your territory to get to the weak spots. For example, using a neighbouring civ's territory, naval invasions, or stacks of fast units to come in through the back door (all tactics I've used against the AI). As you said in your subsequent post, "I wouldn't attack that fortified and highly promoted longbow even if they payed me".

Firaxis suggest that they've dramatically improved the AI's combat skills, so maybe they will be able to 'evaluate combat conditions properly' and conduct sieges as suggested. My question (a highly speculative one, of course) is whether such changes would put even more onus on the human player to go on the offensive from the word go, and render a defensive strategy unworkable.

For a natural warmonger this would clearly make things more difficult, since soaking up the bulk of the forces of an AI civ (or five ) at a Teo-style fortress would no longer be a safe policy. But for a builder, who'll have less troops and more rivals, wouldn't such improvements be even more of a spur to warmongerdom?

I love a bit of warmongering myself (though I wouldn't claim to be very good at it), and any improvement to the AI's combat brain will be welcome. But I'd also love to be able to start a game without deciding in advance (and choosing a suitable map/difficulty) whether I'm going to be Winston the Meek or Winston the Monty.

At the moment, if I get a very strong start, I can at least turtle up after an early rex (or axerush) and ensure that the most obvious defensive points have enough of a garrison to hold off an initial attack. If the AI was improved as above, I'd not only have to fear attack at my weakest points, but my cities could fall quickly and easily too, making a peaceful approach even more risky than at present. Any idea how this could be avoided?

Edit: Sorry for going kinda OT, btw. There were some discussions here a few months back on how to rebalance the builder/warmonger thing, and at the time I assumed that making the AI fight smarter would help, but ABigCivFan's game got me thinking that maybe I was wrong.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Winston, I think making the AI war smarter is necessary.

As you have seen in my game, the AIs had numeric superiority, but they dont know how to use it. I was actually frustrated seeing these constant suicide attacks from the AIs.

Given all the bonues AIs receive, when you choose to play an immortal+ game, you have chosen the war path. however, the prerequisite to step to this level is assuming that the player already mastered the "builder" aspects of the game.

So the "There is only one path to victory on high levels" argument is invalid. Because on high levels you just can not compete beaker-to-beaker or hammer-to-hammer with the AIs, you have to use smart military campaigns to slow their progress whether offensively or defensively. It becomes a much more complex decision making process to balance between econ, diplo and war.

Improveing AI's waring skills will make ALL levels more fun and more challenging. I do not think anyone likes always playing a one-sided slaughterfest against the poor AIs.

 

[r_rolo1]

Yeah, I remember abusing that in civ3, and having the AI march like idiots through a barrage of cats would be even worse. But there are many situations (including in ABigCivFan's game) where the AI's armies don't have to pass through (much of) your territory to get to the weak spots. For example, using a neighbouring civ's territory, naval invasions, or stacks of fast units to come in through the back door (all tactics I've used against the AI). As you said in your subsequent post, "I wouldn't attack that fortified and highly promoted longbow even if they payed me".

Firaxis suggest that they've dramatically improved the AI's combat skills, so maybe they will be able to 'evaluate combat conditions properly' and conduct sieges as suggested. My question (a highly speculative one, of course) is whether such changes would put even more onus on the human player to go on the offensive from the word go, and render a defensive strategy unworkable.

For a natural warmonger this would clearly make things more difficult, since soaking up the bulk of the forces of an AI civ (or five ) at a Teo-style fortress would no longer be a safe policy. But for a builder, who'll have less troops and more rivals, wouldn't such improvements be even more of a spur to warmongerdom?

In first place, all the tactics you described have a counter ( the easiest is a small counter stack well behind the lines), but I have to agree that Warlords unmodded AI can't think beyond the " must get the frontier city with lots of wonders and with resourses" thing. I really hope that hte BTS AI will be more competent in warfare, because this will be a better game if that happens ( you remember the CivIII, the " psycothic robot that sends tons of units against a undefended and unreachable city and that retreats at the first flesh wound" ?)
On the other hand, if the AI is going to be smarter, those obscene bonus that they have now ( specially the upgrade discounts ( useless fact: over Noble, when they upgrade their GG attached units, they receive gold )and the reduced WW ( loosing tons of units attacking in a faraway land and almost no WW )) have to go away or ,atleast, be strongly reduced. Because of that, I don't believe that those enourmous ammounts of units going to mincemeat on front of a superfortress with a super-duper defender are not going to happen a lot in BTS. AI will send smaller and more apropriate stacks and lay sieges properly ( I hope). This will require another set of tactics, of course ( like a strongly promoted reaction force or some well disposed forts ( they look much more useful in BTS AFAIK )), but when playing defensely you'll still have four advantages: Faster movement and healing, smaller reinforcement lines, defensive bonuses ( when avaliable ) and smaller WW. Not the same thing but...

 

[ABigCivFan]

1150AD: 5th GG born. I used him on a 2nd Mil Academy. The reason to build the MA here is mostly for its Geo location. Nia Haia is not the best prod city other than the HE city, but it is at the southern most spot of my empire bordering Rome, so this is a hedge against Rome. Having the ability of producing units faster in large border cities with large cultural influence is a great way to hold back unexpected invasions.



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1200AD: Taj built in capital. Using the G Age to rush enough(7) universities in order to build Oxford; 7 courthouses to build FP in Beshbalik. After building the FP, all Eastern cities had large reductions in maint.

1200AD: Note, I used a GE I saved for thousands of years to rush WP. I always try to minimize the # turns my HE city spent on building non-military things.



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1220AD: JC Trade



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1240AD: Battle of Zhou. Ragnar's stragger Ivory city. Cavs+Veteran Trebs. Captured Zhou at 1250AD along with 5 workers.



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1260AD: Trade Summary. Netting large sum of GPT from other CIVs.



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1290AD: Stopped war with Ragnar(13GPT to me + 70gold+map), started a new conquest compaign against Aztec. The goal is to capture his capital the Budda Shrine city with 30+ shrine GPT. Destroyed a small Viking SOD inside Azted land. Note my Combat2+Pinch+Formation cavs, these guys are built fresh from HE/WP city, all I need was 13 xp. They are great against any mounted and gunpower units, I built a lot of these guys since there were huge amount of enemy knights/cavs running around. They are like my Cossacks.





1290AD: Power curve, note Monty had just upgraded all longbows to Rifles hence the spike. Note Alex is consistantly on top.



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1300AD: Bribed JC to attack Cathrine again, keep him busy while I concentrate on Aztec.



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1310AD: Monty send 2 small stacks of Rifles and knights to aid the city. Since un-fortified rifles in the open fields are easier to kill, so I planned to deal with these stacks first for extra xp. There are some tough rifles in those stacks, so suicide 1 Barrage cats first.



Battle Summaries: See how strong my pinch cavs are? They took out 4 Rifles+1 knight+1 Treb. 2 cavs retreated but no losses(besides the cat).






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1330AD: Combat3+Pinch Cav against fortified Rifle in city. 68% winning odds.




1330AD: Civic change. Gearing up for war.



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1340AD: Cathy trade, she is weak, Mil Trad would help her a little against JC. Rifle is more important for me as I need good stack and city defenders.



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1360AD: I start to monitor power curves very closely from now. Cathy's spiked with Rifling and Mil Trad. So my old friend JC might need some help.




1360AD: JC Trade, he needs Rifles against Cossacks, and I need that 1 extra trade route. lol felt like a double agent getting 2 guys to screw each other...



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1370AD: A steady stream of lvl5 Cavs rushing to the front. On a large map, conquesting with cavs are 2 times faster than a Gren/Rifle/Treb army since you have have many cities deep within your territory producing Cavs and rush them to the front 2 times faster than Gunpower units. So I can always have numeric superiority in the concentrade attack front. These lvl5, lvl4 cavs came with counter promotions pinch and formation, they have great suvival rates against ANY AI units and get more fast promotions. And you will soon see the true power of Charismatic trait



Soon to come: Battle of Tenochititlan...

 

[ABigCivFan]

1150AD: 5th GG born. I used him on a 2nd Mil Academy. The reason to build the MA here is mostly for its Geo location. Nia Haia is not the best prod city other than the HE city, but it is at the southern most spot of my empire bordering Rome, so this is a hedge against Rome. Having the ability of producing units faster in large border cities with large cultural influence is a great way to hold back unexpected invasions.



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1200AD: Taj built in capital. Using the G Age to rush enough(7) universities in order to build Oxford; 7 courthouses to build FP in Beshbalik. After building the FP, all Eastern cities had large reductions in maint.

1200AD: Note, I used a GE I saved for thousands of years to rush WP. I always try to minimize the # turns my HE city spent on building non-military things.



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1220AD: JC Trade



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1240AD: Battle of Zhou. Ragnar's stragger Ivory city. Cavs+Veteran Trebs. Captured Zhou at 1250AD along with 5 workers.



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1260AD: Trade Summary. Netting large sum of GPT from other CIVs.



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1290AD: Stopped war with Ragnar(13GPT to me + 70gold+map), started a new conquest compaign against Aztec. The goal is to capture his capital the Budda Shrine city with 30+ shrine GPT. Destroyed a small Viking SOD inside Azted land. Note my Combat2+Pinch+Formation cavs, these guys are built fresh from HE/WP city, all I need was 13 xp. They are great against any mounted and gunpower units, I built a lot of these guys since there were huge amount of enemy knights/cavs running around. They are like my Cossacks.





1290AD: Power curve, note Monty had just upgraded all longbows to Rifles hence the spike. Note Alex is consistantly on top.



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1300AD: Bribed JC to attack Cathrine again, keep him busy while I concentrate on Aztec.



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1310AD: Monty send 2 small stacks of Rifles and knights to aid the city. Since un-fortified rifles in the open fields are easier to kill, so I planned to deal with these stacks first for extra xp. There are some tough rifles in those stacks, so suicide 1 Barrage cats first.



Battle Summaries: See how strong my pinch cavs are? They took out 4 Rifles+1 knight+1 Treb. 2 cavs retreated but no losses(besides the cat).






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1330AD: Combat3+Pinch Cav against fortified Rifle in city. 68% winning odds.




1330AD: Civic change. Gearing up for war.



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1340AD: Cathy trade, she is weak, Mil Trad would help her a little against JC. Rifle is more important for me as I need good stack and city defenders.



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1360AD: I start to monitor power curves very closely from now. Cathy's spiked with Rifling and Mil Trad. So my old friend JC might need some help.




1360AD: JC Trade, he needs Rifles against Cossacks, and I need that 1 extra trade route. lol felt like a double agent getting 2 guys to screw each other...



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1370AD: A steady stream of lvl5 Cavs rushing to the front. On a large map, conquesting with cavs are 2 times faster than a Gren/Rifle/Treb army since you have have many cities deep within your territory producing Cavs and rush them to the front 2 times faster than Gunpower units. So I can always have numeric superiority in the concentrade attack front. These lvl5, lvl4 cavs came with counter promotions pinch and formation, they have great suvival rates against ANY AI units and get more fast promotions. And you will soon see the true power of Charismatic trait



Soon to come: Battle of Tenochititlan...