Filling In the Gaps For Fun & Profit

[ZanzibarZim]

Hi:

I'm new to this forum, but I've been playing Civ for 14 years now, so technically not a noob. I read a lot of posts in preparation for writing this article as I wanted to be sure I had something new to add. I haven't seen a lot of new stuff for me, but I have picked up quite a few refinements on many of my own strategies, for which I thank the members who have spent so much time and thought on their own posts.

I generally play Vanilla Civ3 on Emperor level, as I find Deity requires too much time and concentration to win. Since I only play late in the evening after the kids are in bed, time is short and mental energy is on the wane, so I don't have the time or energy to invest hours on a game that's only got a 50/50 chance of being anything other than more work or even (horrors) a loss!

So I almost always win! Eventually.

Blah, blah, blah, so it's all about me. Here comes my contribution:

Like many other players, I've found a general strategy that works well for me at the difficulty level and Civ version I play with. I will describe it by relating a very typical game of mine. Perhaps some of you will find it useful and/or interesting.

I generally find it necessary to kill somebody early in the game with a powerful horde of Swordsmen. I initially expand as rapidly as possible, put 2 defenders, a Temple, and maybe a Wall in each city, have a Worker improving aroung every town, then build some Barracks and start cranking out the Swordsmen as soon as all the available city locations are taken. If there's no Iron, well, you're SOL here, you're gonna have to get it somehow. It may mean passing up a really prime city location to build on a crappy hilltop early in the game, just in case there's Iron on it. The AI will generally send it's settlers right past the Iron to get the prime grassland city site. Let it. You're gonna take that city away anyhow. Build cities right next to theirs if you have to and build a Temple first thing. Really push the boundaries of the borders. Don't start any early fights and make real nice with trading and gifts and such.

In a recent game I found myself squeezed between the powerful French and the moderately successful Babylonians. The Babs had two cities one square away from 3 of mine, or rather I plopped 3 settlers down right next to 2 of their cities. And they had the Pyramids. I had 2 Irons, they didn't have any. I always go for either the Pyramids or the Great Library. I don't have to have either, but I like them and consider them worth the risk and the serious expansion penalty to start building them right after my first Settler/Spearman combo is off to explore and I've got 2 defenders and a Temple in my capital city. In this game, I had the GL, so my tech rate was zero and I had a huge cash hoard. I built a massive army of Warriors, built a road to the Iron, upgraded them all to Swordsmen and charged across the border. In a very short time, I had doubled the size of my Despotcracy and acquired the Pyramids.

I also had acquired 2 Great Leaders. Getting at least one early GL is important. I really, really want 2. The first one is to form a Swordsman army with so I can build the Heroic Epic and later the Military Academy. I've seen a few posts questioning the usefulness of Armies, but I find them extremely useful. The second GL is to rush build the very important Forbidden Palace. If your expanded civilization is to really benefit from a second circle of power, it's best to put that circle of power as far from the capital as possible. In this case, I was only 3 city radiuses away but, oh well. Work with what you have.

So far, pretty standard. But now I'm going to be nice. I'm going to suck up to everbody in the usual fashion and try to keep a Right of Passage with everyone. I want peace so I can catch up developmentally. So I build only defensive units for a while, respond to invasions by killing off the invasion force and otherwise not fighting anyone who isn't a total pushover. Because all is not happiness at the Dark Tower (for some reason my capital is always called the Dark Tower - have fun with that, you psych majors, you know you want to!) I need luxuries for trade and to keep my serfs happy. So I look around. At this point in the game, there are always plenty of wars going on. I'm always happy to sign a RoP and build a road right through my territory to assist the nasty warmongers who are my neighbors. The more they spend on units, the less they spend of development. Heck, I'll even send a workforce into the next country over to build even more roads for these guys.

So what happens when all this AI warmongering bears fruit? That's right, empty territory. The Germans are surrounded and crumbling fast. I send three settler teams hustling through French territory. They arrive just in time to scoop up the German's Gems, Saltpeter, and Wines. The city next to the Gems is on a hilltop, the city with the Saltpeter is on a hilltop sitting ON the Saltpeter. Rush build walls. Rush build Temple, Library, and Barracks. Make the other guy pay the price and scoop up the rewards. The newly-conquered-by-the-AI cities always have gaps between them that can be exploited. Ram a city in there, preferable on a hilltop, rushbuild a few defensive and cultural impovements, and you should be able to hang onto that strategic location/resource for the rest of the game. You might even culture-flip a city or two.

A few turns later, Minsk fell to the English. Minsk had a Fur square right next to it. I sent a Settler over, built a city one square away and rush built a few cultural improvements. The Furs square promptly flipped to my cultural control and I had another Luxury. As an added bonus, an Oil square appeared in that area later. Next, I picked up a Silk resource from the pathetic Indians, and a few other things from the weak Americans. So I entered the Modern age with only one major war and a few minor skirmishes along the way in a very strong position. The rest was history.

Since I had spent most of my time at peace, I was able to build a strong tech lead and get to Armor about 4 techs ahead of everyone else.

I first hit on the fill-in-the-gap strategy when I was playing a game where I was firmly in third place. The Egyptians and Aztecs totally dominated a huge continent and I held all of a smaller continent about 9 squares away. There was no way I was going to break into their turf from that distance, especially considering their technology lead and my total lack of Rubber. Then I noticed that as they were finishing off the sole remaining civ, a gap opened up. With a Hill square next to a Rubber square. I had to take the risk and stuck a city on it, giving me a Rubber resource AND a foothold on their continent. When the Aztecs and Egyptians later went to war, I stayed nuetral and expanded into the gaps between the newly-conquered and burned-down cities. That was also the first game I ever played that went nuclear.

Good night.

ZZim

 

[darski]

I like this idea. will have to give it a try sometime. I do some of what you are saying in a more casual way and usually in peacetime. (If the AI take my spot for a city, I plant right beside them <my bad> and rush a temple.

 

[Sashie VII]

My thoughts:

put 2 defenders, a Temple, and maybe a Wall in each city

You don't need defenders in every city, only the outlying border towns. The core only need mps, regular warriors will do. Definitely no wall, you're going to do the attacking and not the other way around. 6 walls in 6 core cities could have been 6 archers instead.

If there's no Iron, well, you're SOL here, you're gonna have to get it somehow.

Then use horsemen. They retreat if losing, that makes up for the lower attack. And faster too.

I always go for either the Pyramids or the Great Library

At Emperor? I play emperor too and I don't bother with them anymore. Unless I get SGL, but rushing The Great Library is almost a waste when you can just let someone closeby build it and then capture it. Even in Vanilla, I've never hand-built Pyramids at Emperor.

So I build only defensive units for a while, respond to invasions by killing off the invasion force and otherwise not fighting anyone who isn't a total pushover.

Build more offense, AIs respect that more than defenders. You can't efficiently kill invaders with defense units.

I'll even send a workforce into the next country over to build even more roads for these guys.

That's a waste. At that period, your cities need terrain improvement more than anything.

What kind of map do you usually play on? I play Continents mostly, and I don't bother much with culture until I've killed everyone else on my continent.

Build cities right next to theirs if you have to and build a Temple first thing.

Stealing a resource via culture is not bad, but generally I prefer to just build up, raze it, then plop a couple of towns there.

I had the GL, so my tech rate was zero

You can keep up with tech at 0&#37; research even without GL. Use pointy stick research instead.

Don't start any early fights

There are some cases when early fights are good. What if 20 turns into the game your archer sees a town defended by only one warrior? Raze it! After a few turns they'll give up tech for peace since you hurt them badly (razing). IIRC in vanilla towns with no culture do not autoraze, so use that for some cash (wealth) for some turns. When you don't need it anymore, raze it.

Just my thoughts anyway.

 

[darski]

I was just playing a game as Shaka and I had to start an early fight. It turned out that Xerxes and I were sharing a continent. if i had let him get a foothold, I would never have made it past the first Immortals rush. I used my cheap barracks to rush a whole pile of archers and took him out in installments.

Actually, I was just kicking myself that I didn't get all those techs that he had in hand (see, dangerous at any level) and I found that they managed a quick city build... even better!

if I had not attacked early, I would have lost the game early. (yes even at warlord) but I did go and park a city right beside the only rubber that was not located in India but rather on an island that India had settled. so I did try your guerrilla settler techniques.

 

[ZanzibarZim]

Hi guys, thanks for the responses!

Sashie:

Excellent post. I see you practice a more aggressive game style than I generally do.

I actually agree with many of your points. Most cities don't need walls, mainly just border cities, although I may build them when I have powerful neighbors on either side of my civ who's mutual slaughter I am encouraging through the use on convenient roads and Rights of Passage. Even though the Egyptians say they love me, they make me nervous when a huge stack of units is passing through to attack the Germans. In these cases, interior defense is vital to keep them from getting any sudden ideas (they do that, you know). I like the walls because they are an effective force mutiplier and, unlike an additional spearman, they require no upkeep. A city with 2 Spearmen and a wall is as well defended as a city with 3 Spearmen and no wall and it's cheaper. In Despotism, you only get 2 "free" units per city. So in the early game, all interior and coastal cities are defended by 1 Spearman & 1 Warrior (for the happiness).

I don't use a lot of Horsemen. I just don't find them cost-effective. I usually build some, but not many. I find Knights the first really effective mounted unit.

The Pyramids and GL are situational. In my most recent game, I didn't bother with the Pyramid and just missed the GL, which didn't really hurt me any. Trading for techs can be nearly as effective, anyway.

During a defensive period, it's important to station a few offensive units where they can respond to attacks along obvious invasion routes. You don't need enough for an invasion force, just enough to use their superior movement to disrupt an attacking column. An effective counterpunch is the best defense. Remember the cost of keeping all those extra units about during peacetime.

Culture is an important and effective "peaceful aggression" weapon. I've tried to ignore culture, but it has big hidden benefits. You get better deals and more respect if you have strong culture. It also makes the "fill in the gaps" strategy effective. If you build a "gap city" to take advantage of a temporary gap in someone else's cultural coverage and that someone else has a stronger culture, you'll lose that city once the cities around it build themselves up culturally. If your culture is more powerfull, your new city can thrive in the midst of that alien culture, maybe even flipping a neighboring city all by itself. In my current game, I dropped a city right next to Paris to steal Dyes, then flipped Marseilles right next door, scooping up 3 more Dye squares and their only Iron. Later, when I rolled over the (ironless) French with my Elephants, I had a secure base to launch attacks from right in the middle of French territory - a strategy that would not have been nearly as effective without a cultural redoubt in the center of French soil.

I find really early wars with Archers generally wasteful. As long as there are any open squares you can get to with a Settler, there's no need. Very rarely I find it necessary. Two good examples are when a civ grabs an essential Luxury or resource, like Iron, you want really badly, or when they grab key terrain (like an ithmus) that blocks expansion in a particular direction. Again, though, early cultural production can alleviate this. In my current game, the Japanese built a city on a prime spot near my capital. I just built on either side and culture flipped it pretty quick. The French also came along and built on a hilltop site on the other side of my capital, nabbing 3 Grape squares. I was prepared to ignore it, since I already had Grapes, but that one flipped, too.

In my current game, a large map, there are 4 continents. I started on the largest one, surrounded by 3 enemies. Aggressive early expansion gave me a slight advantage in territory. I didn't need an Iron-age war, so I focused on building my cities up. I did pick up the 3 cities as described to cultural aggression. In the Medieval era, I engineered a triple alliance with the English and the Chinese to take out the French and Japanese. My allies grabbed two of the French cities, both of which eventually flipped culturally, securing my rear areas. I then went overseas and picked up Gems, Dyes, and Incense by means of "gap cities". So I entered the Modern era in 3rd place in control of 5 of the 8 available luxuries. I then turned on my erstwhile allies, the Chinese, and finished them off with Cavalry, just before they could start building Riflemen.

I'm now building Factories and will soon invade the pathetic Americans and pathetic Aztecs before they can develop Gunpowder. They occupy the smallest continent and it has mostly Tundra and Desert, so I need to grab it to ensure access to Oil when it appears. I'll need to await Tanks before I can hope to take on the powerful Egyptians and Persians.

ZZim

 

[ZanzibarZim]

Congratulations on your victory over the vile and ruthless Persians!

I too have fought a similar campaign. The Babylonians were nearby, building far more than their fair share of the ancient Wonders and blowing all our doors off culturally. I had to do something, so I went with the archers-and-spearman invasion. It took a really, really long time, some 50 turns or so. Due to their cultural dominance, I had to take out all of their cities to prevent them from reverting (which some did during the course of the campaign). It worked out great in the end, since I got all their Wonders, all their land, and two Great Leaders; one to build an Army with and one to rush-build the Hidden Palace with. I got the second Great Leader at the very end of the war. I fortified my Legion Army outside their last city and waited for my few Elite Legions (told you the war lasted awhile) to heal and make their way across the Jungles to try to get another Great Leader and did so with my last wounded Elite Legion, down to it's last hit point, killing their last Spearman.

This early campaign put me so far ahead of the rest of the competition that the game became a cake walk.

ZZim

 

[MAS]

Believe us, if there is any unit in the game that is not very cost effective it is the defensive unit.

Especially if you are a peace-monger!
When avoiding war all together: The AI is less likely to declare on you if you have a strong military, it counts an offensive unit as 1.5, but defensive units as 1.
When defending against an attack: Your horseman can move 6 tiles over your road network, the enemy units can move 2 at most, probably they use single movement units.
This means that whenever the enemy enters your land at any point, you can concentrate your defense force (consisting of horseman) from a 6 tile radius on eliminating the invaders. And within 2 turns, you can use all units within a 12 tile radius for this.
Consequentially, your defending spear-man/pike-man/muskets will not see any battles, and do nothing but waste upkeep cost and the shields that build them. (because a unit that is used for nothing is a waste)

Also, once you are done eliminating the invasion force, it becomes time to punish the AI for its aggression, and counter-invade. Your defensive units can not be used for this, because all they can do is defend the tile they are standing on. Your defense force (consisting of offensive units), can now double as an invasion force. Your offensive units can both defend and invade!

In addition, being attacked causes war weariness, even if your defender wins. But attacking only causes WW if your unit loses! By attacking you avoid a lot of WW in republic.
WW is also caused by enemy units spending a turn in your land. By attacking and eliminating any invaders on your turn, you prevent them from spending a whole turn on your land.

Horseman have 50&#37; retreat chance, that means you'll lose less units, even less WW! Not to mention they can heal and try again, this will increase your win/loss ratio in your favor.

It doesn't matter if your play-style is aggressive or builder, offensive units are more bang for your bucks either way.



All that said, I don't really understand what is special about your filling in the gabs strategy anyway. I consider it standard practice to try to claim any land I can.

 

[darski]

Believe us, if there is any unit in the game that is not very cost effective it is the defensive unit......

All that said, I don't really understand what is special about your filling in the gabs strategy anyway. I consider it standard practice to try to claim any land I can.

Regarding your first point, I want to agree with you but I still find it hard to believe that some cities are not going to be open to attack. I think it depends on how your land has played out. With many borders and narrow depth, what city can they not get to?

Now I admit that I am overly cautious and I am trying to get over that need for full defense. I think it was in the first Civilization manual that they said you should have defenders in your cities and I haven't gotten past that thinking.

Regarding the strategy that is recommended... I think maybe you are missing the point that you have opportunistic moments in the play of the game that can be used to your advantage. it is putting your order into the chaos and being ready with settler units and such ready to go at a moment's notice.

I put cities everywhere anyway as you said but not in the midst of the mess that other Civ's may create in their wars. This gives an intentionality to your planning; it gets you to expecting and preparing for such chances.

 

[Sashie VII]

I see you practice a more aggressive game style than I generally do.

One of my flaws, really. Look around the Achilles Heels thread in General Discussions and you'll understand why

I don't use a lot of Horsemen. I just don't find them cost-effective. I usually build some, but not many. I find Knights the first really effective mounted unit.

There you have it. Knights are great, but at 70 shields are costly to build a lot from scratch. My favourite trick is to build 30-40 horsemen, and then go zero-research for a while to accumulate cash for mass ugrade. Imagine having 40 knights instantly the very turn your opponents build their second or maybe even first knight.

 

[ZanzibarZim]

One of my flaws, really. Look around the Achilles Heels thread in General Discussions and you'll understand why



There you have it. Knights are great, but at 70 shields are costly to build a lot from scratch. My favourite trick is to build 30-40 horsemen, and then go zero-research for a while to accumulate cash for mass ugrade. Imagine having 40 knights instantly the very turn your opponents build their second or maybe even first knight.

Good point, Sashie. Most of the Horsemen I do build are to keep cities busy when they have nothing else to build. Because I tend to focus on peaceable development at certain stages of the game, I often have fully-developed cities with nothing to do except build units. So I'll stockpile a few Horsemen and maybe beef up my defensive forces a little. Generally my policy is to have 2 units in every city during Despotism and 3 during Monarchy for the happiness. Any more than that & I really don't feel like paying the upkeep. So I'll build a half dozen or so Horsemen to keep my fully-developed cities busy and do a mass upgrade if I have the bucks for it later on. When I switch to Democracy, I'll generally disband the weaker defensive units, usually Warriors.

In Civ 1 and Civ 2, these cities would probably be building Caravan units, which were good for establishing trade routes and rush-building Wonders. Thinking back on Civ 2, there was a unit called a Dragoon that was a 5-attack unit. There was a tactic called the Dragoon Rush that involved building a lot of Horsemen and doing a similar mass upgrade. If you timed it right, you could literally conquer the entire map early in the game that way.

ZZim

 

[ZanzibarZim]

Regarding the strategy that is recommended... I think maybe you are missing the point that you have opportunistic moments in the play of the game that can be used to your advantage. it is putting your order into the chaos and being ready with settler units and such ready to go at a moment's notice.

I put cities everywhere anyway as you said but not in the midst of the mess that other Civ's may create in their wars. This gives an intentionality to your planning; it gets you to expecting and preparing for such chances.

Sure, look around. Find stuff you want, then keep an eye on what's going on in the region, a gap may open up by the time you get there. In my current game, the powerful Egyptians went to war with the weak Iriquois on another continent across deep water. The Iriquois had Gems and Dyes. I built 2 triremes and prepositioned them in the closest coastal city. Then I built 2 settlers and added 2 Pikemen and 2 Elephants to the same city and started researching Astronomy. As soon as I got it, I upgraded the Triremes to Caravels, loaded the settler teams, and sent them off across the ocean. It was 28 turns to the Dyes and 34 turns to the Gems. By the time my ships arrived, the Iriquois were vanquished and the luxury squares were ripe for the plucking. If I had waited for the gaps to open up, they might have dissappeared

ZZim

 

[Sashie VII]

And probably overdue, but;

Welcome to the CFC!

 

[ZanzibarZim]

And probably overdue, but;

Welcome to the CFC!

Thanks, Sashie, it's good to be here.

 

[Ringo Kid]

Like the post! Always a good idea to take advantage of gaps where you find them.

I would suggest you build mainly veteran archers to defend your early cities, that way when an opportunity presents itself you have some attackers "in reserve" when you see a weak target and want to make your own gap.

They upgrade , so will be useful for a long time.

A big stack of say 2 dozen archers supported by some cats and spears ( and their later game upgrades) can do triple duty as defenders, military police and gap-makers as you need them without being too expensive in terms of shields to build them.

 

[Yui108]

This is VERY similar to one of my strategies in a Russian victory point Regent Victory.