Deity Introduction Guide for Julius Ceasar

[Moonsinger]

To: Timon of Athens, SpikeSpy, walkerjks

Thanks for stopping by and for your kind words.

Now I have only played this strategy on Immortal Huge map. 10 AI all settings normal +no cheating. You can find this game of mine in the HoF. It seems to work fine so I Imagine that it will hold up on Diety. Use your strategy and raze cities or leave them undefended, barbarians will take them over/build in its place in no time. If you raze/kill enough AI's on your continent the barbarians should get quite a large stronghold in the void your troops leave behind, thus stopping any other AI from claiming that land. Once all the AI's on your continent are dead you can slowly expand outward from your capitol and reclaim land from the barbarians as much as your economy allows. Everyone is always hating on the barbarians but they may turn out to be your greatest ally! They certainly proved usefull in my games so far! Anyway I'll leave you to play with this for a bit, enjoy!

That's a good idea. However, if you are doing to do this, I think there you may want to watch out for: barbarian axemans.

 

[Moonsinger]

I haven't made it through the whole thread, but 'no barbarians' and 'chop the furthest forest first' isn't civ IMO...and lowers the difficulty of Diety tremendously. Being able to build as many workers as you want without fear of barbarians and sending them off to far away lands to deforest the AI lands & borders is an exploit, not a strategy.

Actually, it isn't as easy as you think. IMO, a deity win is a deity win, especially for people who are just trying out the deity level.

 

[Zhahz]

/golfclap

I guess beating a game like civ with exploits and manipulating gameplay is some kind of an artform - as there seems to be quite a few people who play the game this way. It's an artform that I have little appreciation for.

To me, this is not only a very shallow victory due to exploitation, but it's well outside my perceived spirit of the game.

I can't bring myself to respect players who brag about beating a game like Civ on high difficulty levels when they have to exploit to compete and/or they have to use a certain map, or a certain civ, or need a perfect start.

/shrug

 

[atreas]

I guess beating a game like civ with exploits and manipulating gameplay is some kind of an artform - as there seems to be quite a few people who play the game this way. It's an artform that I have little appreciation for.

To me, this is not only a very shallow victory due to exploitation, but it's well outside my perceived spirit of the game.

I can't bring myself to respect players who brag about beating a game like Civ on high difficulty levels when they have to exploit to compete and/or they have to use a certain map, or a certain civ, or need a perfect start

A chess world champion once said:

"There are the players who know all the rules of the game.
Then there are some players who know all the rules, but can also spot the exceptions.
And finally, there are some few who can take the exceptions and transform them in new rules - we usually call them genious".

Although I don't like the Praet strategy for myself, I haven't the slightest hesitation to admire the creation of this strategy - it obviously needs to know all the rules of the game, spot an exception, and manage even to create a new rule based on that exception, and that's a genious' work.

 

[Kalleyao]

/golfclap

I can't bring myself to respect players who brag about beating a game like Civ on high difficulty levels when they have to exploit to compete and/or they have to use a certain map, or a certain civ, or need a perfect start.

/shrug

I can't bring myself to respect players who doesn't respect other players because of the strategy they used.

 

[Heeringas]

In small map this strategy works really fine and fast ( even thought I played little bit my own way)...I ended my game in 450BC, but I didn´t gain too high points ( I don´t remember how many, cause I played at my friends place...) I played in Immortal level, normal speed and normal settings...I build 3 cities 6 workers, 3 barracks and then I started to chop pretorians...I had three opponents and lucyly Mansas capital was right next to mine i sended 4 first there and captured it easily...that was the only city I kept...rest I just razed away...Timbuktu had a lot of forests around so it became my pretorian factory...Rest of the game was just pushing out pretorians and killing others...not the usual way I play, but was interesting to try...Pretorian is amazingly good unit...I didn´t lose any against archers nor even axemens...I only attacked with full energy pretorians...I had always about 4-8 them in one stack...I didn´t need to use anarchy part of the srategy or I didn´t need pyramids...But I guess this must became more difficult in bigger maps...

 

[Moonsinger]

Since I posted this thread, I have learned much. I now can beat deity without chopping the forests (well, I have to clear some forests for farms). I just finished a game on standard map against 6 AIs last night (with patch 1.61, of course). By 10AD, more than 90% of all my forests were still there. It was fun...I couldn't believe my civ was able to research Code of Law within less than 10 turns. Next stop, large and huge map...then I will rewrite this thread.

 

[Veteran13]

I have tried this strategy a few times and I must admit that I have run into fatal obstacles. I have therefore a few comments/questions:

* When I first tried on Tiny or small maps I quickly ran out of forests to chop. I was surrounded by my terribly fast expanding neighbours and was choked in a few thousand years. So Tiny and Small isn't necessarily easier.

* I then tried Standard with the opponents that you suggest, Moonsinger, and now I was more lucky. (I must admit, though, that I was chicken enough to start on Immortal) I could chop forests far away from my homeland and keep an impressive production of praetorians going - enough to conquer the Americans and then the Russians, who had the Pyramids. But I lost quite a few of my elite troops conquering a capital with 2 axemen, a number of archers and 60% defense! So how you can avoid running into axemen I don't understand.

* I then looked forward to having the opportunity to change goverments and stay in anarchy for several rounds. But I couldn't make it to more than 2 rounds of anarchy from changing civics and 1 round for changing religion. That left me with 2 rounds out of 5 in which to lose money, and when I ran out of that because of still more advanced enemy city defenders I started losing more praetorians than I could produce - also because all forests left were around my newly conquered cities, which were therefore the only ones to produce with sufficient speed. How can you stay in anarchy more than 2 rounds when you can only change government civ + tribalism/slavery?

* The distance between my culturally poor cities was so big that there were a lot of potential enemy soldiers running around between them, so I had to keep a defense force in most cities to prevent counterattacks from taking my cities after I started a war on the next opponent.

* Some of my cities were so close to the yet neutral opponents that they started revolting and joining the much stronger cultured civ.

* Finally my last opponent had longbowmen, and worse: macemen! Too hard!

* And for the final blow: One enemy couldn't be conquered - his last city was on a small island. Even though you start on Pangaea, there can still be extra islands. And without income I couldn't research sailing (and much less astronomy - way out!), so there was no way to get there.

* All this took a terribly long time with moving praetorians around - quite boring! I will stick to more varied games on a lower level from now on, but I would like to hear I was unlucky or that there are some tricks that I am not aware of.

 

[Veteran13]

sorry, I posted this twice.

 

[Kalleyao]

I have tried this strategy a few times and I must admit that I have run into fatal obstacles. I have therefore a few comments/questions:

* When I first tried on Tiny or small maps I quickly ran out of forests to chop. I was surrounded by my terribly fast expanding neighbours and was choked in a few thousand years. So Tiny and Small isn't necessarily easier.

* I then tried Standard with the opponents that you suggest, Moonsinger, and now I was more lucky. (I must admit, though, that I was chicken enough to start on Immortal) I could chop forests far away from my homeland and keep an impressive production of praetorians going - enough to conquer the Americans and then the Russians, who had the Pyramids. But I lost quite a few of my elite troops conquering a capital with 2 axemen, a number of archers and 60% defense! So how you can avoid running into axemen I don't understand.

* I then looked forward to having the opportunity to change goverments and stay in anarchy for several rounds. But I couldn't make it to more than 2 rounds of anarchy from changing civics and 1 round for changing religion. That left me with 2 rounds out of 5 in which to lose money, and when I ran out of that because of still more advanced enemy city defenders I started losing more praetorians than I could produce - also because all forests left were around my newly conquered cities, which were therefore the only ones to produce with sufficient speed. How can you stay in anarchy more than 2 rounds when you can only change government civ + tribalism/slavery?

* The distance between my culturally poor cities was so big that there were a lot of potential enemy soldiers running around between them, so I had to keep a defense force in most cities to prevent counterattacks from taking my cities after I started a war on the next opponent.

* Some of my cities were so close to the yet neutral opponents that they started revolting and joining the much stronger cultured civ.

* Finally my last opponent had longbowmen, and worse: macemen! Too hard!

* And for the final blow: One enemy couldn't be conquered - his last city was on a small island. Even though you start on Pangaea, there can still be extra islands. And without income I couldn't research sailing (and much less astronomy - way out!), so there was no way to get there.

* All this took a terribly long time with moving praetorians around - quite boring! I will stick to more varied games on a lower level from now on, but I would like to hear I was unlucky or that there are some tricks that I am not aware of.

Check out the logs HoF section for more info.

 

[Moonsinger]

But I lost quite a few of my elite troops conquering a capital with 2 axemen, a number of archers and 60% defense! So how you can avoid running into axemen I don't understand.

With proper promotion, Praetorians can easily scare axemen to dead (I mean axeman wouldn't dare to attack your stack). From the start, about half of my Praetorians will be promoted strength+shock+raider, the rest will have city raider III promotion then shock or cover. By the time axemen show up, I would have a hand full of Praetorians with shock. Usually after elminating the first two civs, I will have Praetorians with shock and city raiderII+. Oh boy, they can take on any city defended by axeman.

 

[bertram]

So I decided to try (some of this: I'm on the 1.61 patch so the anarchy thing doesnt work.) strategy out last night, after I finished my first Immortal-quechua-rush the other day with a Domination Victory.

But as it says I settled on spot and started to explore with my warrior. A handfull tiles away from Rome was a hut - and guess what the warrior got from it?????????????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- BRONZEWORKING!
Talk about being lucking.. ;-)

But anyways, I can understand Veteran13's concern with meeting axemen. In my game they also started to appear - not stacks o' doom but just one or two in some of Catherine's (bigger) cities. Also she started to make swordsmen! But now I can see from your last reply, Moonsinger, that you promote some Praets with shock - I'll have to remember that.

But since Catherine wasn't runing me over with axemen my 10 Praets have now destroyed her iron and copper deposit-cities, and are moving forward on the path of destruction...

Further questions:
Now, I decided to attack Catherine which at the time was the leading civ. Washington was in front of me, I was last.
Was it the right decision to go for Catherine-the stronger? Or should I have taken Washington first-the weaker first?

I have chopped all the forrests in the nearby by now. I have a lot of flood plains around Rome - would it be a good idea to farm it and use it for pop rushing?
Currently it takes 14 turns to produce a praetorian, which I think is rather slow -isn't it? (And the need for pop-rushing thus even bigger).

 

[luniz]

Well I just finished a domination win on immortal, small pangea with Ceasar. It wasn't all that hard although I had a bit of luck in getting iron in my capital. It was the only city I built until the end, and all I needed. I got lucky and got declared on early right about the time I had my first praet built. From there it was nothing but rax and praets until I could build libraries. For me, the main trick to winning like this is resource denial, and resource taking. Praets, catapults, war elephants, and spearman are enough to take over the whole map. Two each praets and spears were enough to take out any mine, by the time the enemy had maces and longbows, it was too late for them, I was double their size/production.

 

[DaviddesJ]

For me, the main trick to winning like this is resource denial, and resource taking.

I think the main trick to this sort of win is choosing small pangaea....

 

[jafink]

I think the main trick to this sort of win is choosing small pangaea....

I think when he said "the main trick to winning like this..." he meant the main trick to winning on a small pangaea, so then what he said would make sense.

 

[hp-p00nst3r]

i haf trouble hooking myself up with the resources i need because the AI spread really fast, leaving me with nothing.

 

[uat2d]

i am now trying this strategy and so far it's being great! it's 3970BC and my first goody hut gave me bronze working! great job moonsinger!

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Shock and cover? Since you may be facing horse archers, wouldn't you might as well get combat promotions instead?

As to those that doubt this strategy: even if you don't shoot for it straight away, I've seen it in action in multiplayer. Of course, with adaptations.

 

[Airny]

Since I posted this thread, I have learned much. I now can beat deity without chopping the forests (well, I have to clear some forests for farms). I just finished a game on standard map against 6 AIs last night (with patch 1.61, of course). By 10AD, more than 90% of all my forests were still there. It was fun...I couldn't believe my civ was able to research Code of Law within less than 10 turns. Next stop, large and huge map...then I will rewrite this thread.

Did you already rewrite it? Will you?

I'd like to see experiences with warlords. On the one hand you could try to handle barbarians easily with the Great Wall, on the other hand the AI acts smarter and faster.

I am quite surprised some people say it would still work, do you refer to domination or the city raze type?

 

[Anthropoid]

So does this shtickt work on Warlords? Quite clever and creative!