Earth scenario - lack of strategy (for this scenario :-)!) in these forums

[Tossa75]

Howdy everybody,

I've been playing a lot of Civ IV and reading up on these forums lately. Due to finally getting the hang of city specialization and placement, I jumped from last on "Earth scenario" (one of my favorite maps - I guess due to the fact it's so cool holding real places ) to well, second, on noble.
I was first for a very long period - ancient to modern, then, after bribing everyone into war several times, Qin Shi Huang took Delhi from Asoka, with several other core cities, and caught up.

But I'll tell my strategy first, playing with Julius Ceasar.
I tried playing with him 2 times already, and this time I think I did best .

My first settler was placed on France, blocking off Frederick to Spain and England. (England is a powerhouse! Like 10 resources there... A must have!)
I then beelined to Iron Working and Conssruction, rushing Praetorians and cata's in Rome and Antium (France), attacking Frederick in around 1000BC. I took Berlin and Munich (Eastern Europe somewhere, neatly placed, I think somewhere in Hungary... Players who play Earth scenario more and play with Caesar will know where I mean.)
Then I combined my armies and moved on to Hamburg, east of Berlin, and Scandinavia.
Afterwards, my army was too small (something I need to learn - to keep producing and refueling my army) and behind in tech to beat Frederick up more, so I made peace and got a nice tech out of it.
After the war I had 8 cities I believe, as I settled in Spain by now too. I built up my newies and soon Fred asked me to help crush Alexander (whom had only 200pts then... Why is he always so bad?)
Since I was already preparing to invade him, I agreed and took Athens in a matter of time.

After this I did no more war and just built up tech and units, bribing other civ's to go to war with each other. I might've picked the wrong ones though, as they just seemed to get stronger :S...
After Astronomy I prepared to rush in the new land - experience from an earlier game learned me barb's have crowded it there,a s soon as you take on city, they send 20'ish macemen to recap, so I took a decent army with me.

That's about where I am now. 1930 AD I believe (that's a less positive thing about Earth; normally I deactivate the 'Time' winning condition...) and Qin Shi is up by around 50pts on me. I have just made a couple of Fighters and Gunships.

Well, that's it. It might not be structured too well, but I felt the need to create a topic about the earth scenario.
If anyone has any improvements on my strategy (I can share my specialization of cities if asked) or on what to do now; or their own strategies, please share.

Tossa

 

[kossin]

Welcome to the forums!

Rome is in a very strong location on the map and, on this particular scenario, Praetorians are really really strong so your early approach is a good one.

OTOH, I would invite you to have a look at Neal's King of The World series, where he has started to play every leader on the Earth map.

 

[Shafi]

Welcome to the Forum!

Couple of tips, Earth map with Romans is my favourite AI bashing past time, it's very overpowered but quite fun to do it once in a while. My suggestions for you are,

Tech - BW and then IW straight away then the wheel, you can tech everything else after that.

Build - A work boat first, then two workers and a barrack.

Mine the location, next to rome where you know the iron will appear so that you dont waste any turns hooking it up after IW is researched.

Once IW is done (barracks should be ready by then) Begin chopping all the forests around rome and keep building Preatorians, dont stop till you have conqured Germany, Greece, Egypt & Persia at least.

My attack order usually is,

1) Germany
2) Greece
3) France
4) Spain
5) Egypt
6) Russia
7) Persia
8) India

After this the game is yours. No need for cat's etc. Only Preats are good enough .

EDIT - I seemed to have missed out on France, Spain, England & Russia please note the corrections. AlsoSaladin & Mansa Musa usually tend to ask to be vassals when i get powerful enough.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Never mind the points, you can easily take on an AI with more points than you. Just make sure you tech to a nice unit or combination of units, build lots of them, and attack!

As stated above, once in war, go in total war mode until you've reached your objective. Especially in later game, you can use railroads to get reinforcements to most places pretty quickly, and air units move everywhere in one turn.

If you bribe wars, make sure that it doesn't become a dogpile. Divide and conquer: make sure there is a balance of power and gain the time needed to tech, build, and kill.

 

[FriendoftheDork]

If this is the map like in King of the World then attacking France first is vital, it's the best city location in the whole game (Rome is pretty good too). Just send your initial warrior, place him on a hill before his border pops, and see if it is vacant= instant death. (Yeah it's cheap but so is spamming praetorians). You can probably do the same to Spain as well, just make sure you get a city to hem in the germans. Then go east and take on greece and/or germanians in balkans before you colonize some in north africa (ivory in morocco), grains/sheep in carthage). After this you should be doing very well even globally, and have contact with most of the known world and asia. Britain will be an easy target although rich (advanced) because of trade income, so either keep her around as a trading partner or invade at your leisure, she won't become a real nuissance until rennaissance anyway.

 

[Shafi]

If this is the map like in King of the World then attacking France first is vital, it's the best city location in the whole game Just send your initial warrior, place him on a hill before his border pops, and see if it is vacant= instant death. (Yeah it's cheap but so is spamming praetorians). You can probably do the same to Spain as well, just make sure you get a city to hem in the germans.

Yeah - France has the best allround capital

Using the early warrior, the other day i was just fooling around on Monarch, and was able to take France, Germany & Spain since all were undefended , but i actually prefer to wait for them to grow to at least size 2 or 3 and take them with Preats (if i'm playing as Rome) since then i dont need to build too many settlers

BTW - I think i just realised that in the earth 18 scenario, even on Monarch the AI does not start with Archers, is this correct?

 

[Lone Wolf]

BTW - I think i just realised that in the earth 18 scenario, even on Monarch the AI does not start with Archers, is this correct?

Correct.

 

[Shafi]

Thats weird - i only realised it after taking the french capital with my starting warrior.

 

[FriendoftheDork]

Thats weird - i only realised it after taking the french capital with my starting warrior.

It helped me win on Monarch alot earlier and more easily that if I'd played vanilla. I also prefer keeping a few around for later but France becomes so powerful quickly early on, and have a bunch of resources. Best candidate for an OCC on the map, and the ai often have 20 units in fairly soon.

 

[mfie]

Bassicly on the Earth-map you can rush Europe with any civ there (I just did it with Germany on monarch, just did a chariot rush on France,Spain,Rome and England; but i lost a lot of chariot on Rome due to him having archers)

Rome is even more easy, just rush Europe with prats, build catapults and kill off the rest of the world, you don't need to take the french capital with your starting warrior for that

 

[KeloGBites]

Heh it's my favorite map for trying to see the highest score I can get. So far I'm trying to break 150,000-160,000, after playing Rome once though, it's just too overpowered on this map. The Iron should be moved somewhere else, it's always amazing how badly AI JC does though. Mongolia is pretty much the same, China has some ridiculously good land and it's so incredibly easy to take.

 

[FriendoftheDork]

Heh it's my favorite map for trying to see the highest score I can get. So far I'm trying to break 150,000-160,000, after playing Rome once though, it's just too overpowered on this map. The Iron should be moved somewhere else, it's always amazing how badly AI JC does though. Mongolia is pretty much the same, China has some ridiculously good land and it's so incredibly easy to take.

The romans should have Iron, and they seldom excel unless played by a human.

And how exactly is China easy to invade? Mongolian lands sucks compared to them, which means China should be pumping out units with superior production, food and commerce.

I've done the Mongolian thing though, getting horseback riding from a hut and then sending my horde to china and conquered with losing maybe 2 keshik against their archers and spearmen. If i had let china have a few more turns they would be unconquerable until construction and cats.

 

[KeloGBites]

China is easy to take with Mongols, Warrior Rush them before it hits 40% culture. If they were to start with Archers it'd obviously be much harder but since they don't there is no need to wait till Keshiks to take them out.

On the Romans: Since no matter what the JC AI will do poorly (Iron or no Iron), and the human will definitely win if he has basically instant access to it might want to move the Iron to somewhere else on the Italian Penninsula. Say that Plains hill next to the wine at the south part, that'd require either a border pop or a second city to secure.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: moved to Strategy and Tips

Welcome to CFC

 

[Xiao Xiong]

Japan: Invade into China, grab some key cities to gut them early, meanwhile build boats and sail over to the new world and australia. Whoever gets to the NW first gets a LOT of land. You don't even need to send settlers--just capture barb cities, which it will be full of by the time you get there.

 

[Infantry#14]

all civ are playable, except maybe incans, because their starting location stinks. Still, they can sail to Brazil and settle the S America. I tend to change civilzations to make the Earth map balance. The following are my 18 civs choice:

America: US, Aztec, Native America, Inca
Asia: China, India, Japan, Mongolia, Persia, Arabia
Europe: England, Germany, Rome, Greece, Russia
Africa: Egypt, Mali, Zulu

 

[JoeHollywood]

might I suggest www.civearth.com

 

[kossin]

all civ are playable, except maybe incans, because their starting location stinks. Still, they can sail to Brazil and settle the S America. I tend to change civilzations to make the Earth map balance. The following are my 18 civs choice:

America: US, Aztec, Native America, Inca
Asia: China, India, Japan, Mongolia, Persia, Arabia
Europe: England, Germany, Rome, Greece, Russia
Africa: Egypt, Mali, Zulu

As Incans, I believe the best strategy is to rush Montezuma with Galleys. I remember a few players pulling it off in a thread somewhere.

 

[Abegweit]

While taking out Montezuma certainly works. the Incans do just fine sticking to South America. The starting location is acceptable; you just have to move out instead turtling. Early galleys are essential but you can use them to quietly colonize the superb land in Chile/Argentina and then clean out the jungles. As I recall, that's how Neil played them.

 

[UWHabs]

While taking out Montezuma certainly works. the Incans do just fine sticking to South America. The starting location is acceptable; you just have to move out instead turtling. Early galleys are essential but you can use them to quietly colonize the superb land in Chile/Argentina and then clean out the jungles. As I recall, that's how Neil played them.

Or you hack the map to make it a bit easier. Throw some bananas in the jungle, a few more fish on the coast, a path inland, and now they're looking a bit stronger. I mean, if Paris can have something like 12 resource tiles in its BFC, I don't mind evening it up a bit and throwing a couple more fish to the Inca, and some resources in the Amazon (so that it's not so... barren).