Early Conquest

[Peaster]

I have some questions about EC strategy, mainly for advanced players. I'd especially like to hear from somebody who can conquer by 1000AD on Deity.

1) When is Mike's worth it? I usually keep my cities small and don't need Mike's. Are there some situations where it is better to build Mike's and let the cities grow? Is this just a matter of taste?

2) The no-city strategy. Can anyone estimate it's chance of success? Does it depend a lot on the map?

3) Is SunTzu worth it? I usually build it on normal maps with decent growth, but omit it on poor maps when it is hard to get invasions started on time.

4) 3arrows Are there certain types of maps or levels of play where it works much better than ICS or vice-versa?

5) Do EC players use any of these? SSC/STC, trade routes, republic, tech after monotheism, wonders besides HG/MPE/ST/LH/Mikes, catapults, legions, knights, city improvements.

Thanks

 

[la fayette]

Interesting questions

1) The question is not "let the cities grow".
The question is "how to deal with happiness problems due to the increasing number of cities whilst conquering". Usually it's OK with HG + luxuries, but Mike can be useful on large maps (when conquest is not that early ).

2) I have never used it yet. I think it is performing on one continent smaller maps, with a big luck factor, of course, since it relies entirely upon tipping huts.

3) I seldom build it, mostly because it costs the first row of shields for incremental rushbuilding. STWA costs 7.5 barracks, and I usually start conquering with less than that (and build more later on when cash flows in from the AI ).
On the contrary STWA is very useful on island maps played without LH or after LH has expired (Sun Tzu doesn't allow to build vet naval units, but it makes them vet after first battle won ).

4) 3arrows is not an overall strategy: the scope is "getting to Monarchy ASAP", that's all. If your question also addresses trade arrows in general, then it brings us back to the lengthy debate shields vs arrows. daveV gets great results with 'mostly shields'. I prefer 'mostly arrows', but I am very happy with a lot of shields too.
Let me stress that IMO shields don't necessarily mean ICS. I never play ICS or anything alike, since most of the power of that strategy is due to the "black-faces bug" IMHO.

5) No, almost none of these on smaller continental maps.
But yes, many of these on big island maps.
(... and solo has shown recently that even more research can bring interesting results).
What I 'never' build: catapults and legions (too slow = only useful on very rough terrain).

 

[Peaster]

Interesting answers

1) Why is the number of cities is important? You don't need Mike's if you have 50 size 2 cities, but you do need Mike's if you have 10 size 6's (no?). You mean that on a larger map, you expect a longer game, and thus larger unhappier cities. And building Mike's will be easier, too. Am I following you correctly?

3) Why do you want vet naval units ? My navy plays almost no role, except for transport.

4) The black-faces bug? you mean the odd effect of HG, which sometimes makes cities happier without militia? Hmmm.. I always thought of that as more of a nuisance than something powerful.

5) Again, just to check that I follow you... big/island means longer game, means bigger cities, means invest more effort in them?

*****************

I also have a few new EC questions, probably more basic, and anybody that has an opinion is welcome to share.

A) Do we have any influence on AI behavior? For example, if the AI is at war, is it more likely to build city walls? If we invade, is it more likely to build defenders and fortify them in cities?

B) Is strategy influenced by map-parameters such as climate ? For example, it seems harder to grow a large civ on arid maps than on normal/wet ones.

 

[nsomniyak]

my comments:

1) I always try to get Mike's. Like HG, it just makes the game more playable, as I have to mess with my (many) cities less. I can put my Elvises to work (and train some as scientists--now there's a scary thought!) and my economy takes a nice jump. One side benefit of this is that as I capture cities late in the game, they are immediately pretty productive as Mike's kicks in for them.

3) If I get Sun Tzu's, I will win (vs. the AI on Deity). It may be an ugly grind, but Veteran units rule--especially Crusaders and Ironclads. Veteran naval units are wonderful--they can sweep the seas of your opponents and let YOU be the only civ with inter-continental commerce. Veteran Ironclads are tremendous for shore bombardment--they will pick off even (non-veteran) Musketeers behind city walls. After the ironclads clean out the defenders I can take the port city with a single land unit--even a one-move unit. Frankly, veteran caravels can kick opponents off the seas and pick off weak-defense onshore units like elephants and catapults. Even veteran TRIREMES can disrupt enemy commerce and blockade an opponents ports until they get Caravels. Like Mike's, SunTsu's gives me an added payoff after capturing an enemy city--I am immediately producing vets RIGHT WHERE I NEED THEM MOST, and the units defending that city are restored to full health quickly. This makes it far easier to HOLD the cities I take, even with minimal forces.

5) I NEVER produce Legions or Catapults (too slow), and nver produce Knights (because I have Crusaders, usually veterans due to Sun Tzu) by then and prefer the offensive pop to better defense--I am in attack mode by then). Note that the attack differential between Crusaders and Knights is wider when you have Sun Tzu's than without it, making Crusaders much more compelling than Knights. I rarely produce city improvements, other than in my science/trade city. I do research tech beyond monotheism--although not for land units. I go after Steam Engine. I will build Leonardo's, mainly to keep it from the AI, as the end game is more difficult if the surviving opponenet has all their obsolete defensive units upgraded to Musketeers (or Riflemen, in a long-running game).

 

[Peaster]

nsomniyak - This may be a dumb question, but does Sun Tzu help you get vet naval units ? or just land units? Since I rarely ever get naval units beyond triremes, I 've never paid much attention.

I like vet crusaders, too. But in a never-ending quest to shave 20 years off my conquest dates, I am wondering if non-vet ones can do the job faster. At the moment, I think non-vets are OK, except against city walls. And in that case, a few rushed barracks are cheaper than SunTzu's. Not sure yet - probably on larger maps Sun Tzu is worth it.

 

[Specialist290]

nsomniyak - This may be a dumb question, but does Sun Tzu help you get vet naval units ? or just land units? Since I rarely ever get naval units beyond triremes, I 've never paid much attention.

I like vet crusaders, too. But in a never-ending quest to shave 20 years off my conquest dates, I am wondering if non-vet ones can do the job faster. At the moment, I think non-vets are OK, except against city walls. And in that case, a few rushed barracks are cheaper than SunTzu's. Not sure yet - probably on larger maps Sun Tzu is worth it.

Yes, SunTzu applies to all units.

One trick is to have both SunTzu's and Leo's. Normally, w/ Leo's, when a unit is upgraded it loses its Vet status. However, when you have SunTzu's, if that unit wins a battle, it regains its Vet status.

 

[Peaster]

Just checked - Sun Tzu does not let you produce veteran naval units. I assume it does promote them after a battle, just like ground units.

 

[ElephantU]

That is correct - SunTzu causes new ground units to be vets, but all victors of combat get vet status, including naval units. That may have been an unintended bug in the original code which they decided not to fix. The Lighthouse is the one that causes new naval units to be vets, and with Magellan's and Steam is the foundation of Super Ironclads. Just make sure you shut down research after Steam, cause Magnetism is not far away. Leo's is mostly helpful if your research is proceeding too fast to replace obsolete units. An Early Conquest can do without it.

Regarding #2, I would imagine it would be pretty risky to go without cities completely - your one or two starting Settlers are your life or death. You depend on huts for units (your original Settler(s) should suppress any chance of an extra Nomad from a hut), gold and tech, but you cannot build anything, nor can you bribe anything without building Dips. If any civ is off the main continent you cannot get to them without founding a city to build ships. Sounds like a Small/Medium map, Large Landmass, Large Landform strategy, but I would be cautious even then. I've tried it a few times myself with mixed results; usually I end up with the large continent wiped clean, then I found some cities and work on the off-continent civs. It works better at Deity level, cause you get two Settlers at the start to do hut-popping in two directions at once. Barbs are suppressed from hut results when you don't have a city, but you have no control of your tech path (and very little use for it anyway until you found a city).

Large map size usually implies a longer game - rarely are all the civs on the same starting continent, so ships will be necessary, and distances between civs will be greater. The offset is that early contact will be less likely, allowing greater risk in early city development via ICS style starts. Travel over water early on is usually a bit faster, but takes longer to get started and allows the movement of fewer units until enough transports are built. Hence the "target the furthest civ first" strategy.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Re: Super Ironclads
I have not actualy tried this strategy, but I have delayed magnatism to keep lighthouse going. One thing I found was that you can actualy get industrealization without getting magnatism. So, while you should excersise caution not to be accidentaly left with only magnatism to reserch (in which case you would only need to shut down reserch compleetly anyway), one can go for industrealization and have railroads and factories. Be advised now that leo's does not upgrade caravals to transports w/o first jumping to gallions.

 

[Peaster]

Has anyone actually used naval units in combat as part of an early conquest strategy? I use triremes to transport troops, and almost never get Navigation (caravels) before the end. Or even the Wheel, for that matter.

Surely, someone has an opinion about the AI behavior question in my second post??

 

[Peaster]

Breaking News ........

1) SlowThinker has just posted a pretty amazing EC date of 1AD in the Apolyton Holiday Tournament (Deity, 7 civs, raging hordes). A key part of his strategy was a Super Trade City, which generated lots of gold for bribes and rushes. As far as I know, this is an important new idea in EC. But he may have also used it in GOTM 41.

2) I am almost done writing a guide to EC strategy, which you can also find at Apolyton. But ST's new idea may make most of it obsolete!

BTW - the Apolyton tournaments are an informal version of the CFC GOTM's, with lots of discussion of strategy in the spoiler thread. Everyone is welcome.

 

[Colonel Fox]

Peaster, could you provide a link for the post from Slowthinker? I can not seem to find it on the apolyton site. It is probably me being blind, that and the site is new to me and I have no idea where I should be looking!

 

[ElephantU]

Regarding ST's game, it seems like he exploited the more "open" rules for that round, permitting bribing and rehoming of caravans, while the rest of you did not. I don't think that makes your EC Strategies obsolete; just requires some footnoting that if certain rules are relaxed, there are ways to speed things up with gold.

 

[Peaster]

SlowThinker explains his strategy in the spoiler thread of the Apolyton "Holiday tournament".

Slow Thoughts

If the link doesn't work, look under Apolyton - Civ2 Forums - General.

Elephant is correct - in that tournament everything was allowed (rehoming, helpers, etc). ST won it convincingly, and says his strategy should still work without rehoming. He used the same plan in gotm41 to finish in 40AD. I really can't evaluate his strategy properly, because it depends heavily on trade routes, which I don't understand very well. And it hasn't been tested a lot. But it is an exciting new idea, that seems better than the usual ones, at least on island maps.

Another curious aspect of his plan is that he didn't start building attacking units until about 8 turns before the end (not counting respawns)!

 

[ElephantU]

So he must have "seeded" the world with cities near existing AI civs and likely respawn sites, then used accumulated gold to RushBuy attack units?

 

[Peaster]

Elephant - Yes, exactly. He built a colony two squares from each AI capitol (with names like "NearMadrid" ). He also stacked diplomats near the other cities, until he was ready to conquer the capitols with 4 rush-built vet crusaders each.

It sounds simple, but I don't completely understand it. In my games, the AI usually attacks and destroys any colonies built so close. Maybe that's because I have been playing MGE and ST plays FW? Also, I don't understand how he gets 500g trade bonuses in the 600BC era. Time to study trade, I guess....

 

[ElephantU]

With MPE you can gift techs to the AI civs to keep them happy with you. Also, not building military units till the last minute will keep your "military threat level" (for want of a better title) low enough that the AI won't feel threatened. To get high bonuses in the BC era ST probably rehomed high-payoff caravans to his Super Trade City (largest city with high-trade specials and Colossus, either Celebrating Monarchy or Republic), then delivered them long distances via ship chain to a large demanding AI city overseas. There is a "cap" on bonuses related to research beaker levels, so it actually pays to get extra unneeded techs in order to drive that cap up as high as possible. And Invention and Navigation should not be researched, in order to postpone the loss of the beginning doubling of trade bonuses.

Any time spent studying trade in Civ2 is never a loss... perhaps we'll interest you in Early Landing or One City Challenge next?

 

[Peaster]

It could happen, but I'd have a lot to learn. Actually, I just started a thread asking about trade bonuses. I spent half the afternoon looking at samson's GL thread and still can't see how his formula could predict as much as 500g. I think ST's STC (St Pete) was about size 7-8 and the target (Madrid) was about size 4. He did use rehoming and a ship chain, as you said, and I think he dealt mostly in hides. Not sure of the distance, but I'd guess about 30 squares. Maybe I should go count the arrows and see if it all adds up.