From Early to Late Game Success

[RichJH]

Ok all, I've been a long-time lurker on this forum and have really enjoyed the Emporer/Immortal challenges. Reading them has moved my early game on enabling me to understand the merits of early war, use of specialists and to improve specialisation.

Anyway, now I think I've got my early game sorted I'm having a nightmare moving from early to late game success (ie actually winning!). I'm playing on Monarch on Warlords and consistently come unstuck from what I feel is a good position around the time when things move into the gunpowder eras. Usually I am unable to keep from getting spanked by the AI as diplomatic relations deteriorate. I also feel like I'm suffering from a lack of coherent strategy - probably doing a little too much on a whim and not planning my way through the game based upon the map, leader traits and AI positions.

Most recent example is playing Elizabeth and, with a strong economy, parity in tech and 60% of my continent I have had my early ally (Rameses) kick my behind with wave upon wave of cavalry (even though I had just hooked up Infantry).

Any thoughts or pointers on areas to work on would be appreciated.

 

[Sir Janus]

Welcome to civfanatics.

I am probably not a good enough player to help but if you post a saved game better players than me will be able to spot what is wrong.

Fairly obviously, if you are getting spanked then you don't have enough military - keep an eye on the power graph - or don't have the right military; cannons are cheap and can chew up stacks.

 

[Dnomal]

I am also playing monarch/warlords, and i once faced a large cavalry invasion, which the AI seems to love using for some reason.

Anyways my policy was to send my infantry into the cavalry army, which had been reduced(through collateral damage).

When i play continents maps i always make sure to take out everyone else on my own continent, friendly or not, that way i can devote more production to the navy than the army, which is a bit of an issue for my own game plan.

For tight situations i recommend drafting, drafting and more drafting, although (since 2.08), you can't draft again and again from one city.

Some people sa that drafting is the last stand ofa mad man, personally i sue it under tight situtions to save my own ass, in one game drafting alone held 3 cities from a massive rifleman/cav army.

As for early/late game conquests i have little experience in v.early warfare, i rarely use a chariot rush. As i see it the late game is triky because the other civs have been hording units for centuries and have a massive army, on many occasions i've neglected my own military in the late game to find myself overwhelmed because i thought i had enough men to hold off aganst an enemy assult but i didn't.

Finially the speed you are playing at is SO crucial, I play at Marathon myself, at normal or quick speed you need a huge amount of gold to continue upgrading units as they become obsolete, whereas at Marathon or Epic you can have units remainging usefull for a lot longer.

Hope that helped, a save game would be interesting to look at.

 

[RichJH]

One thing I like about this forum is that it is soooo active!!! thanks guys for your quick response. here - I've attached a save from my last game - takes a deep breath I think I was in a reasonable position but my diplotic relations appear to have gone a sour.

comments gratefully received.

By the way, I'm playing on Epic speed

 

[dragomaster]

i'm no pro but after taken a look i chaged the Bureaucracu civic to free speatch. this took you away from red in science slider right away. you have no friends and it's a bit late to get any. have you tride to make friends before?

I see you ar building stock exchange in some citys, London for exampel don't realy need one when it barely have any cottages. same about the maket you are building in Hastings, isen't a foge better there? you shold focus these buildings (maket, stock exchange, etc.) in cottage citys. the only reason to build those buildings in outher citys is becous you eventualy want to build wallstreet and oxford later.

You need to take a look on the health in your citys, some need aquducts and harbors.

over all you ar not doing utterly bad, you have a good sized empire but it's not specialised. try to do that and you will becoum better. and you are a builder, nothing bad about builders I'm a builder myself. the problem about us is that we never get an army of size.

try to think about what the citys is moste apropriate to do. if its alot of hills it shold build foge, factory, work mines and workshops, not build a bank unles you need it for wallstreet later. only build a groser if health is a problem in those kinde of citys.

If its alot of flat grasland. build only cottages. build banks, groser, market stock exchange, library. you know the drill, you ar a builder arn't you?

I hope i healped you.

 

[Cam_H]

Rich,

Belated "Welcome to CivFanatics!"

I feel that your game is pretty strong.

While you're doing 'OK' in the PowerChart and have a couple of small SoDs, you're still pretty light on in the military stakes - especially siege weaponry. I appreciate that you've probably been a bit gassed out thanks to the wars that you've already done, but as I'm sure you appreciate - it's important to prepare for the worst.

I don't have big issues with your city specialisation. I can see a mini-GP farm, and London is a production hub. It's not extreme specialisation, but not of great concern to me.

I played on 80-ish years from your save - finishing off Alex and then through the Egyptian/Viking war, and ended up a little better off in terms of total cities (I captured the ice city to the north {Byblos} although one got razed {Lodose} which was later settled by Mongolia, I got the annoying Egyptian city in the middle of your empire {Hieraconpolis}, and lost then regained a handful of the border cities {Uppsala, Pharsalos, Nidaros}). I see where you're coming from though - Ramesses does seem to have a continual flow of (lucky) Cavalry!

I took a few turns to finish off Alexander, wanting to get your two Cannons down to his capital in the east {Aryan} after taking the city in the west {Ephesus}. I pressed on with Assembly Line as you had done, and swapped a few builds to Cannons. I saw all that jungle in the southern part of your empire and began working on clearing it for another city.

Once Egypt attacked I did lose those border cities and felt compelled to swap civics into Nationhood, drafting and whipping the heck out of the population. It was just a case of sucking in the hits for a while, but I was able to take the 'wind' out of Egypt's 'sails'. The cost however was significant - a lot of pillaging and the population dropped like a stone, making it now somewhat more difficult to start catching up with Kublai Kahn and Brennus. The navy was decimated, and Fishing Boats lost thanks to Ramesses' Destroyers.

On the plus side; apart from a few extra cities added to the empire, the PowerChart has not fallen thanks to all of the Infantry, and I picked up two Great Generals from the campaign {Jayavarman II, Sun Tsu} that each got linked to Infantry. There's a Great Merchant {John Maynard Keynes} residing in Nottingham. A few more Cannon builds would have been advantageous, but I pressed on with Infantry instead.

From here I would probably go into a massive recovery and rebuilding mode, and go after The Internet bee-line for a shot at Space. Population should rebuild itself quickly, and Workers will need to hook up a lot of pillaged tiles.

I've attached a save - it ain't pretty, and it's literally the turn that peace was signed with Ramesses (Birka was likely to be lost the next turn if I didn't negotiate a peace deal), so a review of the civics and builds are certainly in order. While England has added some cities to the empire, there's been quite a lot of essentially unavoidable pain in terms of stalled development as a result of being attacked. I've make some small progress on both Artillery and Electricity.

Like dragomaster - I hope this helps, but I confess that warmongering is not my 'strong suit' and other players may have achieved more with less.

 

[RichJH]

Gents (or ladies) this is great feedback - Cam H your save was VERY interesting cos it appears to run just like my original (I even took the DRAFT when egypt first attacked), perhaps I get a little down too early when the AI fights back and had I held on a little I too could have signed peace with Rameses.

Fascinated by your comments about lack of 'extreme' specialisation, my builderish tendencies (I agree - but its cool to get all those goodies) and low military strength. I guess I need to just back off a little on the building and add a little military (although I fear that such an approach may damage my income but lets see eh?)

Given these things, my remaining frustration is the way the AI seems to switch religions for no apparent reason, destorying any good work in establishing strong relations. I used to share buddism with rameses and enjoy a great relationship. In such cases, how do you retain good relations? Switch to the same religeon (an lose your civic bonuses) or tough it out?

 

[Cam_H]

Gents (or ladies) this is great feedback - Cam H your save was VERY interesting cos it appears to run just like my original

I wasn't quite sure how your original went because of;

... I have had my early ally (Rameses) kick my behind with wave upon wave of cavalry ...

I suppose I had my behind kicked too, but I kicked his just a little bit harder! I got the impression that Ramesses wiped you out - but I might be wrong in thinking that.

I get a little down too early when the AI fights back and had I held on a little I too could have signed peace with Rameses.

I think that this battle is a really tough one. You're on reasonable terms with Egypt - not great, but not looking as though he's about to attack either (although the occasional check for "hands full" is probably a good habit to get into), and no religious conflict what's more. I hit it a few times with Civ3, when your troops are out of position and you've lost a few because of an existing conflict (in this case with Greece) the AI loves to spring a surprise attack on you. Ironically in Civ4 it's usually Greece that pulls this kind of stunt - but I must watch it for Ramesses in the future!

I also wonder to what extent having Hieraconpolis surrounded by your cultural borders might also have been a trigger for this. I not long ago played a game where Arabia's attitude dropped from Pleasant to Annoyed without provokation, yet Saladin (also) had an isolated city whose borders were being pressed back due to my nation's cultural influence. It's just a thought.

Having cities captured is a pain, but often it's more perception than real loss and retaking them and building them back up is often not an insurmountable challenge.

In terms of signing peace - it was only the prospective loss of Birka that edged me towards the decision - Ramesses had four Cannons and six Cavalry units on the doorstep, and I couldn't get sufficient numbers of Infantry to either attack his SoD in the open or get into Birka itself (four Infantry). If it weren't for that, I think I would have used my momentum and hit back a lot harder than I did (with the net result of a gain of two Greek cities and two Egyptian cities) but I suppose survival was a noble enough mini-goal in this instance.

As an aside, with my game I realise that I didn't link either Jayavarman II or Sun Tsu to the best units, and I probably should have taken those City Raider III upgraded Infantry instead (if linking to troops at all!).

Fascinated by your comments about lack of 'extreme' specialisation, my builderish tendencies (I agree - but its cool to get all those goodies) and low military strength. I guess I need to just back off a little on the building and add a little military (although I fear that such an approach may damage my income but lets see eh?)

It's a sure difficult time not to be a builder - Stock Exchanges and cheap Universities are hard to ignore! I guessed that you were looking for a spaceship win, where both of these buildings are very handy. The one building that you by-passed that I'm usually all over is Theatres.

As I said in my earlier post, your cities do show signs of specialisation - I'm not sure if I would have done it quite as you have done, but I don't feel quite the level of concern that dragomaster does on this point - not that dragomaster I believe is wrong and makes several good observations.

Given these things, my remaining frustration is the way the AI seems to switch religions for no apparent reason, destorying any good work in establishing strong relations. I used to share buddism with rameses and enjoy a great relationship. In such cases, how do you retain good relations? Switch to the same religeon (an lose your civic bonuses) or tough it out?

It's a 'ball of string' type question. I also would not have expected him to attack while on Cautious, although with hindsight it's a bit more clear why he did ... you're distracted by another conflict, he has Hieraconpolis and Byblos out of position, he has got 'a new toy' in Cavalry, and you're the only signifcant threat left on your continent. I don't know if you could have bribed him into a 'mutual military struggle' earlier - possibly against Greece, or whether switching civics to Organised Religion and if at all possible switching to his religion of choice would have saved the day, but I'm thinking (again, with hindsight) that those moves would have avoided ths whole ugly state of affairs. I really don't think that you should blame yourself over this one though - his timing sure was bad, and if you did have Space in mind then 80 turns later you probably would have turtled up with a 'harder shell' with more units and more modern units.

Again, I think that you've all-up played a pretty good game. You got stung, but it's arguably 'just one of those things'. The city specialisation and builder tendancies is possibly something to be mindful of, but on the latter; I've seen more fragile armies than yours before ... I've frequently had more fragile armies than yours before!

 

[aelf]

Diplomacy is a nebulous thing that cannot be easily taught. It may seem to be obvious: Switch religions/civics to befriend someone, give in the his/her demands, etc. But those little steps are not all. You need to assess the situation in every game and know who you can trust and why. You also need to modify your general strategy according to diplomatic considerations sometimes. For example, in the last Emperor Challenge, I chose to make Napoleon an ally because I calculated that it could be done, despite him being one of the more aggressive AIs. I knew that Representation (his favourite civic) was something I didn't mind running till the end of the game, and I ran that civic most of the time in mid to late game, although Universal Sufferage would've been slightly better. And I knew that I could stoke enough tensions between him and Saladin to keep the balance of power on the continent as Napoleon and me vs Saladin. I also gave him aid against Saladin to prevent him from losing ground. Using him as an ally and proxy, I could keep Saladin off my back or at least share the threat with Nappy and focus on winning the space race.

In short, there is a sort of 'grand strategy' that diplomacy is part of. Long-term thinking is probably what you need to improve on in order to develop a 'grand strategy' in your games.

 

[cabert]

Ok all, I've been a long-time lurker on this forum and have really enjoyed the Emporer/Immortal challenges. Reading them has moved my early game on enabling me to understand the merits of early war, use of specialists and to improve specialisation.

Anyway, now I think I've got my early game sorted I'm having a nightmare moving from early to late game success (ie actually winning!). I'm playing on Monarch on Warlords and consistently come unstuck from what I feel is a good position around the time when things move into the gunpowder eras. Usually I am unable to keep from getting spanked by the AI as diplomatic relations deteriorate. I also feel like I'm suffering from a lack of coherent strategy - probably doing a little too much on a whim and not planning my way through the game based upon the map, leader traits and AI positions.

Most recent example is playing Elizabeth and, with a strong economy, parity in tech and 60% of my continent I have had my early ally (Rameses) kick my behind with wave upon wave of cavalry (even though I had just hooked up Infantry).

Any thoughts or pointers on areas to work on would be appreciated.

I've bolded what I feel is your weakness.
As Aelf stated, it's something you need to see in the long term planning :
- targeting a victory condition
- assessing your neighbours
- think about who will be helpful in achieving your victory goal and how
- make friends with those, and "enemies" with the rest : mutual struggle is a cool way to make friends.

 

[RichJH]

Nice one again gents! I feel like I'm really getting somewhere here. I can see exactly what Cam H is saying and am able to match that up with the game position. However, the real 'gold' in this thread is that of GRAND STRATEGY as mentioned in the last 2 posts by my 2 current 'gods' of the forum cabert and aelf - no intention in being obsequious here but from my reading of the foums thus far I have gained a great deal of respect for your views and, more significantly, the excellent attitude you both bring to the threads. YES, GRAND STRATEGY is exactly what I'm after here and I've found it a little difficult to pick up to date because the challenge threads tend to focus on far more detailed tactics (city placement, merits of various unit tactics, research and city development). Is there a guide out there that addresses GRAND STRATEGY (targetted victory, assessing neighbours and managing diplomacy)? Perhaps you could add some footnotes to you challenges to better explain the strategy you are pursuing and the way it changes through the game?

Many, many thanks once again

 

[Cam_H]

For goodness sake - don't refer to them as "Gods"! - we'll never hear the end of it!

Rich - you were going for a Space win, weren't you?

 

[aelf]

YES, GRAND STRATEGY is exactly what I'm after here and I've found it a little difficult to pick up to date because the challenge threads tend to focus on far more detailed tactics (city placement, merits of various unit tactics, research and city development). Is there a guide out there that addresses GRAND STRATEGY (targetted victory, assessing neighbours and managing diplomacy)? Perhaps you could add some footnotes to you challenges to better explain the strategy you are pursuing and the way it changes through the game?

Actually, if you read the through the EMC games carefully, you'll find decision points that outline the grand strategy of each game. It's not easy to get a whole picture, since the decision making is ongoing throughout most of the games, but if you put everything together and look at one of the games as a whole at the end, you should be able to see it. I've written the winning strategy of EMC4 in a nutshell above. I'll give you another example, this time from EMC3.

In that game, the aim was to pursue a trade route economy, one that relies on extra trade route income generated by the ToA and the Great Lighthouse. The basic setup was really that of a cottage economy, but the trade routes would give us that extra oomph to match or even surpass the AI's performance until the wonders obsolete. We only had two neighbours on our continent and expansion through conquest was necessary for breathing room. So, I had to declare war on one of our two neighbours. That eliminated one trading partner, so we cosied up with the other neighbour to keep him trading and friendly with us (through shared religion, civics and mutual struggle), until we met people from the other continent. After that, and the discovery of Astronomy for intercontinental trade routes, we were pretty much free to invade our second neighbour, so we did and conquered our whole continent, after which we were effectively able to pursue any victory condition we wanted. It sounds simple, but that's it. See, it's not all that complicated

For goodness sake - don't refer to them as "Gods"! - we'll never hear the end of it!

I'm only a humble dictator

 

[aelf]

That eliminated one trading partner, so we cosied up with the other neighbour to keep him trading and friendly with us (through shared religion, civics and mutual struggle), until we met people from the other continent.

Hmm... I shouldn't have said eliminated. In this situation, you need to keep one neighbour alive until you meet people from the other continent or the other one won't trade techs with you (he will only trade techs if he knows at least one more civ). So in that game I really only finished off my first neighbour after meeting the other continent's civs.

 

[cabert]

For goodness sake - don't refer to them as "Gods"! - we'll never hear the end of it!

I'm already a big mouth, that's enough for me.
And I'm nowhere near Aelf in diplomatic skills, so I'm not taking this too seriously.

Rich - you were going for a Space win, weren't you?

sounds good, given enough land and population

 

[RichJH]

That's kind of my point Cam H - I don't know what victory I was 'going for'; if I did then I would already have a good part of the GRAND STRATEGY thing in mind.

The options I consider viable are either domination or space race but, in my view, you usually have to be at least on par in tech to make domination realistic and so that automatically makes space race an option. The only other victory I have been successful with (assuming that conquest is simply a more 'complete' domination) is cultural - diplomatic victory (and diplomacy in general) remains a problem for me (although I think I may have been close once).