"armies are a crutch"
Can be changed later if deemed appropriate. Renaming a thread is less hassle than moving posts.
Different playstyles and how game mechanics & exploits affect your preferred playstyle and enjoyment
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"armies are a crutch"
Can be changed later if deemed appropriate. Renaming a thread is less hassle than moving posts.
r16
not deity
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playing this game to kill time , efficiently and in a fun way ... Always beeline for Great Library , which will give all the dead end techs , horse -knight will win wars and me loathing the actual Templiers does not mean ı would leave Templars to Al ... Will not do Cavalry , because they were like historically slower than infantry (excepting Sipahi) and nowhere near the assumed offensive power and Leonardo should cover spamming thing easily , though it can be really a drain on the finances . All of these no doubt helped by playing only at Monarch . Uh , you people doing archers and longbows and swords and medieval infantry ?
r16
not deity
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ı once asked about this . More elite units winning fights increase your chances and as every unit in an army must be an elite (unless it was some conscript you would definitely make an elite real quick) your 10 armies increase your chances of getting a general that turn .
Medieval infantry, trebuchets and pikes come at the right time to wage war.
First you want to settle peacefully. Second you want to reach city size. Once this has occured you may start investing nonmarginal amounts of shields into the military and the new units in the early middle age give a good opportunity for it.
Using fewer units for the same amounts of shields and firepower is usually a good idea as it creates savings on unit support and war weariness. As a republic both matter much and you donnot want to be not a republic as this has downssides that are far too great in the long run.
r16
not deity
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my problem would be their final upgrades . Straight Horse for attack , very few defense and nothing to end up in TOW infantry , because ı can have freebee Mech lnfantry by drafting at a pinch , surviving horses will be all elites kept for sentimentality and suppress revolts , and tanks being the new fad . Republic is cool , TOW unit line is a money loss .
I like your thinking, some interesting ideas here mixed in with some normal approaches.
None of them look relevant to this game I had recently though:
(zero access to AIs until at least Navigation, unless you want to risk... innumerable... suicide ships, zero access to Saltpetre, zero opportunity to attack anything anyway, zero rivers, barely any grassland, but lots of corn and a couple of cows), 6 productive Cities, three cities that took the whole game to grow due to being too coastal and two island cities that were founded too late to be any great use. One of the most enjoyable game's I've ever had...)
I won a similar victory as Babylon in a map that had one huge Pangaea with most civs on it, Korea right next to it to attack it but never risk their mainland (like England or Japan, really). I had to build across a series of islands just to get Iron and some Gems and mostly what saved me was my near monopoly on Gems and therefore my ability to buy off the Koreans who were sitting next door. I did invade the similarly stranded Egyptians once I found the means to in industrial times, but it was just wonders and cultural buildings, which shows that temples and libraries are worth the effort if you pile 'em up early.
Chicken Pizza
Warlord
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Oh man, I love the great library and wish it was more useful, but I can't fool myself: it's not, unless you're playing demigod on a pangea and the AI trades like mad so you can't keep up.
Having research on max, or making nice +gold each turn, doesn't seem to make much of a difference in emperor and lower, and you can rarely sell a tech because the AIs have 10 gold.
It's all about checking every turn with every AI if they have discovered a new tech (or have slaves to sell). Should I choose to rush the great library instead of the pyramids, it would be purely of convinience.
But then I may as well play an all-war game and forget the diplomatics completely. The things we do for the games we love.
As the ruler of an empire, surely I can employ people to check these things and report to me. I don't need to have a personal meeting every time.
I believe that the developers realized this too, and solved it with AI leader responses such as "I don't have all day, you know".
What's the message? Relax, enjoy the game and don't take it too seriously? It's a strategy game for pete's sake, your enjoyment comes from taking it seriously.
Chicken Pizza
Warlord
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Does exporting luxuries to an AI really lower the chance to be attacked by them? My experience, or rather guesses, is that even a peace treaty isn't worth anything. You can use it as a mechanism to bully weaker civilizations every 20 turns, nothing more.
I've always seen the AI as completely untrustable, that's the only thing you can trust
When two warriors is closing in on your capital and seem to have no other reason for it: max your +gold, buy something from them, and tell them to leave or declare war.Military alliances are normally broken within 10-15 turns whether you have a peace treaty and/or right of passage built into it or not. Maybe when one of them has a new technology and can't help themselves to make peace and trade it?
I can only speculate, and I'm not gonna put too much effort in researching it scientifically, because I estimate the chance that I'll find out that there's nothing to find, the game is just broken, is close to 100%.
Well, you can trade luxury for luxury, luxuries for gpt and of course any techs you get for -also- gpt. Since I had all those libraries in a densely-populated island (I remember now that it was 7× Wines and only a handful of Gems, but still) I had a decent tech lead. The AI is rather reluctant to break something-per-turn deals in general. The upside of being in a remote location was that all their luxuries which they gave me for mine (and eventually, IIRC, Coal) all gave me a crapton of happy faces.
r16
not deity
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ı give up if the terrain is really unpromising . But there was a similar thing , Japanese really isolated in some far away land and the original player posting a save . Don't remember if ı used Civassist for the seed number . But both the Great Library and the Lighthouse are available (at least on Monarch) if you make a run for them . Philosophy first as always . ı take the bonus not as Republic but one of the required techs to Literacy (as ı don't remember the F6 screen exactly) Then of course suicide galleys . My experience in that Japanese game is one third of your fleet will sink per turn or might survive , but with the Lighthouse you are sea proof , cover one more tile per turn , and my 15 galleys were reduced to three or four but even one will work , when you make it across . My secret weapon being ı save a lot and shamelesly return at every possible excuse . Have 100 if necessary , find the correct direction , make picture with printscreen if it is too messy to remember , return to very distant past , have 10 or 15 , send them out on the correct destination . ı keep them together , with the satisfaction that the crew of the lost are saved by the surviving ships ... Pathetic but however and whatever .
though do not play ahead too far . Because ı play with the option to have the seed numbers , the combats will always go the same way unless ı change the order of units ı use or avoiding situations ı have just learned ı will lose , ı have also discovered the Al will do wonders faster in repeat games .
and one more mystery as always . People trading techs with the Al ! ı do not sell techs to the Al , most of the time , trade only if ı need some in the wonder race , like always end up as the tech leader , one or two eras by the time ı reach the end .
though do not play ahead too far . Because ı play with the option to have the seed numbers , the combats will always go the same way unless ı change the order of units ı use or avoiding situations ı have just learned ı will lose , ı have also discovered the Al will do wonders faster in repeat games .
and one more mystery as always . People trading techs with the Al ! ı do not sell techs to the Al , most of the time , trade only if ı need some in the wonder race , like always end up as the tech leader , one or two eras by the time ı reach the end .
What you describe here, interestingly, reminds me of the game I got bored of and decided to restart using 'play last world' and instead choose the Hittites screened above.
I spawned in the deepest darkest jungles one could hope to spawn in:
And to think, this pic includes land I've already cleared of wetlands and jungle.
And the Iron resource turned out to be on the tiny 3 square island you can just make out to the left of the island, on a mountain, and no horses.
The next small island to the right was full of the Incas... and they had horses and iron, because, of course.
So I took that:
But, of course, none of these islands now presented me with any Saltpetre.
I found that on the next small island to the right, fully occupied by the Zulus, who, of course, turned out to have the Coal that none of my islands had either:
And then, because of course, even though my island had more jungle than I've ever seen before, none of my four islands has Rubber, to which I had to then settle the small random island to the south east:
Which, because of course, the Americans landed on at the exact same turn I did.
And, as you can see, the only interesting VC other than Diplomatic at this point in the game is going to be some form of military victory, and the thought of invading those big fat three mega-continents while trying to protect my stupidly sporadic islands just left me with such a sense of premature exhaustion that I just reloaded as the Hittites.
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You didn't try to go for a Spaceship victory, then? Usually you can attempt a beeline for Evolution and a two-tech jump and you might just do it. Do a double ring of barricades on all islands to hamstring any landing forces, pile up the air defences and artillery, and just go for the techs.
Yeah, that did cross my mind, however, going by the pattern of the game so far, oil would be in the middle of the first big continent, Aluminium in the middle of the next one, etc. Though I am joking here and being a bit flippant. You're right, there is also still the spaceship. It's one of those games I keep in my save files in case I get in the mood to faff with it again. Not a dead loss, just a lot more faff than I was in the mood for at the time.
Chicken Pizza
Warlord
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Of course. I know you're joking, but this happens to me all the time. Beaten by another settler.
Part of it, or all, could be good analysis combined with too much fear (it's more than a game) and too little satisfaction (it's just a game after all).
I'm convinced that I've often sent out a settler party in the right time for it to be beaten, and unconsiously wanted that. People often fail the last bomb- or wall jump in Super Metroid too, or get "nerves" when about to win in sports.
Being such a bad loser, and lazy, chieftain level is probably what I should be playing. But then I don't get to see the units of the industrial age.
Moderator Action: Ok, I finally got around to creating a new thread for this discussion. The title is the most clumsy title I ever invented... sorry for that... I just didn't have a catchy idea for it.
justanick suggested "Armies are a crutch", but that was only the topic that started the discussion, and only a small number of posts actually deal with this topic. After re-reading the discussion, it appeared to me, that most of the contributions were about everyone's preferred gamestyle, and which game mechanics/exploits (which includes Armies) support or obstruct that playstyle and the enjoyment you get out of a game.
But as justanick already said: the title can easily be changed.
justanick suggested "Armies are a crutch", but that was only the topic that started the discussion, and only a small number of posts actually deal with this topic. After re-reading the discussion, it appeared to me, that most of the contributions were about everyone's preferred gamestyle, and which game mechanics/exploits (which includes Armies) support or obstruct that playstyle and the enjoyment you get out of a game.
But as justanick already said: the title can easily be changed.
I didn't quite understand this. Are you saying that if an Army is filled with all elite units, it can generate a leader when winning a fight?
I noticed that the Army-unit itself also has an "experience status", independent of the units that are part of that Army, and this status always seems to be "Regular", no matter what you do. I have never seen an Army rise to "Veteran", and I once conducted a test, where I built barracks in the city that had the Military Academy. But even the Armies that I produced in that city only had "Regular" status. So I'm no sure, whether Armies can really generate MGLs?!
r16
not deity
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there is a set limit of chance for an elite unit to create a military leader . Am not sure if you were a militarist civ the chance would be higher . Building Heroic Epic increases the chance even further . But in the end it involves a lot combat where your elite units must win . Having an army with all elites increases its hit points and ı have seen elites units always take priority in fighting and it will be really rare to your veteran unit to get a promotion if the army you accidentally put your veteran unit has elites already ... So when you use your army and the elites , the victories the army gets is counted in the bid to get a military leader but an army will not create one .
ı have seen that my leader generated armies are always regulars . But armies can also be autoproduced in my favourite scenario . lf there is a barracks in operation they will come out as veterans . lf not they will be regulars and will remain so , forever . Might also apply to armies produced in the Military Academy town in the epic game , despite your observation , considering my Civ likes to mutate on its own or something , generally to my objections .(Accordingly ı make a decision on how "fit" my armies . ı tend to have 4 armies of archers in the scenario as an example and name them to be in order , they operate together and ı will look for them in the stacks and if the first and third and fourth are armies from autoproduction while the second was from a military leader , they will NOT be in military shape ! Has to decide early how ı will adress the issue . As a further pointless note , ı will have almost 20 by the end of 600 turn long scenario , so it is really important !)
ı have seen that my leader generated armies are always regulars . But armies can also be autoproduced in my favourite scenario . lf there is a barracks in operation they will come out as veterans . lf not they will be regulars and will remain so , forever . Might also apply to armies produced in the Military Academy town in the epic game , despite your observation , considering my Civ likes to mutate on its own or something , generally to my objections .(Accordingly ı make a decision on how "fit" my armies . ı tend to have 4 armies of archers in the scenario as an example and name them to be in order , they operate together and ı will look for them in the stacks and if the first and third and fourth are armies from autoproduction while the second was from a military leader , they will NOT be in military shape ! Has to decide early how ı will adress the issue . As a further pointless note , ı will have almost 20 by the end of 600 turn long scenario , so it is really important !)
To be a bit more clear: Any battle an army wins will not create a MGL. If you want to get a MGL you need to use elite units for destroying enemies instead. Only use armies when your elite units have no good chance of winning, but you need to win in the given situation.
This given situation is usually attacking a city or metropolis with huge defensive boni. If however you fight on your own terrain, then you can usualy use elites for generating MGL.
Soon enough you will have more MGLs then you can use for armies due to the needed 4 towns per army.
r16
not deity
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as many here might have heard it , ı have been playing a single mod for many years , almost exclusively . ln recent years it has become a 160x160 map , 60% oceans and continents . My favourite civ does not have regular settlers , but autoproduced ones , from a small wonder that has to expire at some point because otherwise ı will miss the techs to build the Great Library and the Colossus equivalents . ı will have 5 cities of my own , typically . But ı have extra buildings to build , which benefits me in the end by limiting the micromanagement required . Thus limited in city numbers , because ı am not caring for domination early in the game , some sort of relaxation that reinforces the little voice inside that says patience is a virtue and stuff , ı will trundle to the turn limit of 600 . For the last year , ı have been trying to conquer every city on the map and learn every tech possible by the end of the game and yet to do that . So , most of my armies will be autoproduced and while ı will have 10 to 15 military leaders and one or science leaders in the game , ı will use more generals to build small wonders . Using a more conventional civ , ı think ı had 34 armies before ı got a domination victory . (Armies are single unit types with extra hitpoints)
