Conquest victory at Prince level in a huge map

I played the Romans as Augustus (Creative, Organized) at Prince level (this is my 2nd or 3rd "serious" game) on a huge/shuffle world (3 major continents).
Played it clean - no load & save, aside from regenerating the map in the beginning until I found a good spot. Was ranked as Hammurabi with above 14,000 points (is that any good)?

I started by having Rome founded as a coastal city near to gems on plains.
This really helped my research. My strategy was to form 5-6 cities quick, as the penalty won't be that great (Organized), and let my cultural
border grow. I ended up having more cities than that since I found useful resources (marble) outside my cultural borders. I was hoping to make blitz war with Praetorians, but unfortunately, I didn't have any iron - my neighbours had it. I had very good research progress and decided to wait for construct mace man before starting a war. The world was at peace until I started wars - never saw that. Absolutely no one was fighting each other.

I paid a *lot* of attention to diplomatic relations at this game, after reading many threads. I recognized two potential allies (Hatty and Gandi, both of which had iron) and initially built up my relationships with them. I did convert to religion *only* after these two had confucisasm (a religion I adopted).
At that time, I was sending missionaries out there to establish good relations and generate gold and intelligence (I had the shrine).

Finally, I built up many mace men. I pre built many axeman in order to upgrade them later to mace man. I bribed nations to start war against each other (disabling my enemy's ally) and bribed allies to join a war against a common enemy. This proved to be *most* useful.

By a certain point, I was the tech lead and pretty much started conquering the continent I was on. Before taking the continent I was on, and eliminating: Mansa Musa, Ragnar, Brennus, Tokugawa, Alexander, Hatty, Gandi. I build some recon ships and many destroyers to prepare for invasion across other continents.

My conclusions from the game:
- Organized is highly useful, especially in the beginning when grabbing land. Saves you lots of $$$ plus cheap courthouses. Overall, saves lots of money and you don't have to wait on cottages to turn to towns in order to get your money's worth.
- Creative is highly useful as expanding your city's cross and land grabbing. Land grabbing also means more forest chops. Now that the patch is out, having cheap libraries makes creative even more powerful.
- Be the first to discover one or two religions and spread them using missionaries. The extra income which comes from shrines is *invaluable* as well as intelligence on foreign cities.
- Do not make *any* deals with other civilizations until you know who is against who and which allies to pick.
- When attacking a city, bring at least two siege weapons and have *one* big stack - do not split your stack. Have at least one medic.
- There is a huge difference between a fully healed unit and a damaged unit. Do not be afraid of sacrificing one or two siege weapons when attacking a city with lots of units. The collateral damage is well worth it.
- Even when eliminating all troops within a city, wait for the next turn if you don't have enough troops to move at this turn to the city. Otherwise you'll just lose your few weak units.
- When invading, if possible, try taking two cities of your opponent in one time before a cease fire.
- I planned and formed 4-6 major science cities. When I generated a great scientist, it was worth having an academy instead of discovering a technology as the extra 50% proved to be a significant addition of research.
- Have military instructors in a city which has the heroic epic. You can stack the advisors. Promotion is *highly* important. I found out that jungle/forst defence is usually useless. With the patch, I believe military instructors also generate GPP. That is good.
- When attacking from within a stack of units, if there is a high probability of success, pick up those units which may get a promotion the next turn.
- Never ever send a lonely unit to the enemy's land. It is bound to die soon. Do so *only* if it is part of reinforcements and nothing is likely to be between this lonely unit and your main stack.
- Early in the game, though I adopted slavery, I hardly used it, as I had lots of cottages and wanted them to turn into towns. Only late in the game I used it after conquering big cities from other civilizations, in order to whip theatres (culture) and other useful buildings, thus getting rid of "foreign" population.
- Micromanagement is well worth it. Saving a turn here and there throughout the game when constructing units and buildings makes a huge difference.
- I had Gandi as a vassal. Little did I know that you can't break the deal. He had useful resources (oil) which I couldn't get (he didn't have the tech). Be very careful when choosing vassals. I like the idea though, it adds a new dimension. Having your enemy seek protection as a vassal from another civilization can be quite interesting.
- Even when highly advanced compared to another civilization, a horde of primitive units can take out a modern units. Sometimes quantity can best quality.
- When invading, it may be worthwhile to transport troops through the sea and land them near the enemy city. This may save time *and* battles which will weaken your troops until they reach the city.
- Air power is devastating, especially if your opponent doesn't have air defenses. That goes for carriers as well. I had 2-3 carriers which pretty much destroyed land improvements well ahead of my invasion force.
- I'm not crazy about wonders. However, the Oracle, the Great Library are very useful, I believe. I also didn't build the Great Wall since I didn't have stone and believed somebody else will build it before I do.

All in all, I think my next game would be with a spiritual leader. I think the ability to change civics every 5 turns without suffering anarchy can be quite powerful - when pumping out troops have the necessary civics to build troops faster and gain experience, while at peace, have economy the rest.

Thoughts and comments are welcomed

 

I'll just post one reply for myself so I'll feel better.

 

I'm not sure how controversial most of your observations are. If you want to get a debate going, you've got to say something nobody will agree with. I found one:

The forest/jungle promotion IS useful, but only if used properly in highly specific situations. For example, the warrior/scout that you start the game with, if he survives a few animal attacks, should be given the forest promotion. This will help him survive that much longer and if he gets the second forest promotion, he can move 2 tiles per turn in the forest. (this is the real value, I think) I'm not sure if any other common instances where you'll need this promotion, however.

Also, you said to bring at least 2 siege weapons when you go to take a city. I think most people would agree you are understating the case. Most of your stack should be siege. A few defenders, a few strong city raider, and the rest siege. Collateral damage is just too good.

 

I'm not sure how controversial most of your observations are. If you want to get a debate going, you've got to say something nobody will agree with. I found one:

The forest/jungle promotion IS useful, but only if used properly in highly specific situations. For example, the warrior/scout that you start the game with, if he survives a few animal attacks, should be given the forest promotion. This will help him survive that much longer and if he gets the second forest promotion, he can move 2 tiles per turn in the forest. (this is the real value, I think) I'm not sure if any other common instances where you'll need this promotion, however.

Also, you said to bring at least 2 siege weapons when you go to take a city. I think most people would agree you are understating the case. Most of your stack should be siege. A few defenders, a few strong city raider, and the rest siege. Collateral damage is just too good.

 

Sounds like you did a good job. As was said prviously most of your obversations make sense so you shouldn't get too many people trying to argue with you. Play a few more games and if you win easily time to move up a difficulty level.

 

Agreed, for that Civ with those traits and that map / opponents combination, sounds like you did a fine job

It also sounds like you have a good grasp of game mechanics, and are able to adjust on the fly, which is far more valuable than using any rote tactics / strategies learned "off by heart" as it were.

Keep playing civs to their strengths and you'll do fine

 

I was hoping to get some positive feedback (at least), which I eventually did.


Forest/jungle promotion is actually good for scouts/warriors since they can cover much more land in shorter amount of time. That is an observation somebody did earlier which I think is true.

Yep, I feel I'm doing much better, especially in combat and war plans.
Hope I will repeat a similiar success in Monarch level.