General Strategy for Deity OCC Domination on Deity, Standard Pangaea
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Radox the Green
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Very interesting stuff. I've never noticed you can upgrade in Open Borders enemy territory, so you don't necessarily need a CS. Good to know.
I've found (via a very nasty surprise) that a ZOC to ZOC move only ends their turn if both hexes are ZOCed by the same unit. They can continue if the hexes are ZOCed by different units.
Looking at the assault-on-Athens picture, I can't get over the openness of the flanks - Adrianople here we come. Only a complete moron wouldn't exploit those flanks, surely the AI is going to ...... oh hang on. I've played some pretty poor human players (not at Civ) but no-one that bad. Still, competent human players don't get all those bonuses.
I also haven't found anything beyond loss of production when you go over the supply limit, so since the capital is twiddling its thumbs after a while, who cares?
I've found (via a very nasty surprise) that a ZOC to ZOC move only ends their turn if both hexes are ZOCed by the same unit. They can continue if the hexes are ZOCed by different units.
Looking at the assault-on-Athens picture, I can't get over the openness of the flanks - Adrianople here we come. Only a complete moron wouldn't exploit those flanks, surely the AI is going to ...... oh hang on. I've played some pretty poor human players (not at Civ) but no-one that bad. Still, competent human players don't get all those bonuses.
I also haven't found anything beyond loss of production when you go over the supply limit, so since the capital is twiddling its thumbs after a while, who cares?
Radox the Green
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In OCC you instantly raze all captured cities, including capitals. An extra bonus is that you therefore have the option to leave a large chunk of the empire behind and move on, not worrying about it retaking its capital while your army is on the other side of the world.
maltz
King
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Section 12. The 3rd and 4th Rush - From Cannon to Artillery
The Deity AIs usually get their own Cannon at turn 130-150, and their Rifleman at turn 140-160. That means our Cannon and Rifleman combination will be on "God mode" for about 20-30 turns. And then they will run out of steam just like Super Mario's invincible star expires.
The next important upgrade is to get Dynamite and therefore, Artillery. So we need the following additional techs:
Cheaper techs - can be researched by ourselves:
- Banking
- Printing Press
(and everything before them)
More expensive techs - needs RA, Great Scientist, or Oxford University
- Economics
- Military Science
- Fertilizer
- Dynamite (Artillery)
By now the University's experts should be able to contribute 1 or 2 Great Scientists. And you can start building the Oxford University. So there is really no way that you cannot get Dynamite rather quickly - turn 140-160 is a very reasonable time frame (I got mine on Turn 153). So you will get a partial invincibility afterward. More on Artillery in the next section.
Back to my game. I declared war on Persia immediately after razing the Greek capital.
And I had the biggest army in the world! Around this time, I started to receive denouncement from AIs, starting from close neighbors and finally everyone. It is nothing to worry about as long as you keep the AIs busy - just bribe the warmongers to attack their neighbors. (Warmongers are god-send!)
The first Persian city was demolished after 2 Cannon balls and 1 hit from the Rifleman. God mode!
The second Persian city (which was formally razed to the ground but revived on the same spot) was once more demolished, after 2 Cannon balls and 1 hit from the Rifleman. Yes, God mode!
The Persian capital required a little more effort: 2 Cannon balls and a few hits from the Rifleman. The third capital gone just like that. I used to think Darius as quite a military-oriented AI, but now I know it has very poor military. He is just a desert for warmongers like Genghis Khan.
The east side of the Pangaea has been taken care of, so I can work on the west side, starting with Japan, then India, and finally Arabia to complete a counter-clockwise sweep. Japan is still far, far away. There is a Persian city on the way. So what do I do?...
That's right, I signed a peace treaty and bought Open Border! There is no point to waste turns on a defeated enemy. By getting the Open Border deal, I can even use his roads, allowing me a much faster access to Japanese territory. Darius's Open Border was quite expensive, but I already had 2 Ivory sitting idle at home. So I only had to pay 50 gold extra for the Open Border.
I stopped signing RAs at this point (the Greek RA was the lsat, and even that was completely wasted), because I know I am going to get Artillery before 30 turns later, and I should be able to complete the game soon after that.
But I can't let anyone idle now. People have all denonced me, so they will target war me if they are interested in declaring a war. So I again cheaply bribed Alexander to attack Darius I. I am sure people have comaplins about the system - for a tiny change of 110 gold you can keep the most aggressive AIs as your personal hunting dog. Some people call this an exploit... - acutally no. I wonder why people don't call this an exploit. I use it because I know it is powerful.
With the Open Border deal, I finally moved my God-mode unit to the other side of the mountain, and lay siege on the first Japanese city. My God mode has half-expired, as I saw a Cannon in the city. Japan probably have lost most of its units as I bribed Oda to declare war on three neighbors at once. But I still saw quite a few resistance.
The advance continues and here goes another Japanese city!
I really like to see a Happiness survey - it just shows that no matter how much we beat the cr*p out of AIs, they are still smiling. Sadistic AIs.
The God mode has expired. Not only does Japan get Rifleman, even the City State does. The equipment level of the City State represents the world average. So I know India and Arabia must have had it, too, since the other AIs have lost their most valuable cities and are definitely below world average.
But Japan has lost most of its units, and the AI pattern is predictable. So I still took the city easily, just a little slower.
And here goes the Japanese capital, the 4th capital razed! Two more to go!
And I got my Dynamite popped on the previous turn (Turn 153). Good timing - now I just need to buy an Open Border from Japan... but Oda does not agree to sell it to me no matter how much I offer. So I had to pay 500 gold to make a nearby City State friendly to me, and move all of my Cannons there to upgrade. Wasted quite a lot of turns...
The Deity AIs usually get their own Cannon at turn 130-150, and their Rifleman at turn 140-160. That means our Cannon and Rifleman combination will be on "God mode" for about 20-30 turns. And then they will run out of steam just like Super Mario's invincible star expires.
The next important upgrade is to get Dynamite and therefore, Artillery. So we need the following additional techs:
Cheaper techs - can be researched by ourselves:
- Banking
- Printing Press
(and everything before them)
More expensive techs - needs RA, Great Scientist, or Oxford University
- Economics
- Military Science
- Fertilizer
- Dynamite (Artillery)
By now the University's experts should be able to contribute 1 or 2 Great Scientists. And you can start building the Oxford University. So there is really no way that you cannot get Dynamite rather quickly - turn 140-160 is a very reasonable time frame (I got mine on Turn 153). So you will get a partial invincibility afterward. More on Artillery in the next section.
Back to my game. I declared war on Persia immediately after razing the Greek capital.
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
And I had the biggest army in the world! Around this time, I started to receive denouncement from AIs, starting from close neighbors and finally everyone. It is nothing to worry about as long as you keep the AIs busy - just bribe the warmongers to attack their neighbors. (Warmongers are god-send!)
Spoiler :
The first Persian city was demolished after 2 Cannon balls and 1 hit from the Rifleman. God mode!
Spoiler :
The second Persian city (which was formally razed to the ground but revived on the same spot) was once more demolished, after 2 Cannon balls and 1 hit from the Rifleman. Yes, God mode!
Spoiler :
The Persian capital required a little more effort: 2 Cannon balls and a few hits from the Rifleman. The third capital gone just like that. I used to think Darius as quite a military-oriented AI, but now I know it has very poor military. He is just a desert for warmongers like Genghis Khan.
Spoiler :
The east side of the Pangaea has been taken care of, so I can work on the west side, starting with Japan, then India, and finally Arabia to complete a counter-clockwise sweep. Japan is still far, far away. There is a Persian city on the way. So what do I do?...
Spoiler :
That's right, I signed a peace treaty and bought Open Border! There is no point to waste turns on a defeated enemy. By getting the Open Border deal, I can even use his roads, allowing me a much faster access to Japanese territory. Darius's Open Border was quite expensive, but I already had 2 Ivory sitting idle at home. So I only had to pay 50 gold extra for the Open Border.
I stopped signing RAs at this point (the Greek RA was the lsat, and even that was completely wasted), because I know I am going to get Artillery before 30 turns later, and I should be able to complete the game soon after that.
Spoiler :
But I can't let anyone idle now. People have all denonced me, so they will target war me if they are interested in declaring a war. So I again cheaply bribed Alexander to attack Darius I. I am sure people have comaplins about the system - for a tiny change of 110 gold you can keep the most aggressive AIs as your personal hunting dog. Some people call this an exploit... - acutally no. I wonder why people don't call this an exploit.
I use it because I know it is powerful.Spoiler :
With the Open Border deal, I finally moved my God-mode unit to the other side of the mountain, and lay siege on the first Japanese city. My God mode has half-expired, as I saw a Cannon in the city. Japan probably have lost most of its units as I bribed Oda to declare war on three neighbors at once. But I still saw quite a few resistance.
Spoiler :
The advance continues and here goes another Japanese city!
Spoiler :
I really like to see a Happiness survey - it just shows that no matter how much we beat the cr*p out of AIs, they are still smiling. Sadistic AIs.
Spoiler :
The God mode has expired. Not only does Japan get Rifleman, even the City State does. The equipment level of the City State represents the world average. So I know India and Arabia must have had it, too, since the other AIs have lost their most valuable cities and are definitely below world average.
But Japan has lost most of its units, and the AI pattern is predictable. So I still took the city easily, just a little slower.
Spoiler :
And here goes the Japanese capital, the 4th capital razed! Two more to go!
And I got my Dynamite popped on the previous turn (Turn 153). Good timing - now I just need to buy an Open Border from Japan... but Oda does not agree to sell it to me no matter how much I offer. So I had to pay 500 gold to make a nearby City State friendly to me, and move all of my Cannons there to upgrade. Wasted quite a lot of turns...
maltz
King
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Section 13. The end game - Artillery and hopefully not beyond
Now we have Artillery, and we are again invincible for a short while! AIs usually get their own artllery between Turn 160 and 180, depending on how uninterrupted they are in their development, and how many RAs they managed to sign (which is related to how uninterrupted they are).
So you have anywhere between 10 to 30 turns to become the only Artillery user. Since your tanks are still Rifleman, you have to play a little more conservatively, especially when you start seeing Artilleries garrison in the city.
Artillery is awesome because you get indirect firing and 3 tiles of range. By now, your more experience Artilleries should have the Range + 1 promotion (promotion path: terrain x 3, range + 1, double attack). So you can really easily find enough spots for your artillery to rain hell on the city and its defenders.
And you can use your Great General (Khan) to scout thanks their 5 movement points! Just don't let them cross rivers or they won't come back.
I declared war on India without my Artillery (still upgrading in the back), but with my superior healing ability, I managed to use 4 Rifleman (one new recruit from the capital) to clean out all of Ghandi's intercepting defenders anyway, and brought down Mumbai (defense = 50) without any Artillery shell dropped on the city. That just shows how tough the Mongolian melees are.
Ghandi was really weak in terms of military, and he had very few cities, which are spaced wide apart. So it is really easy to bring down his capital. One last capital to be razed!
As I was saving money to sign RAs in early game, I didn't bother buying an Open Border from Harun, and now I have to guess where the Arabia capital Mecca is. But since Medina is the #2 city of Arabia, I know Mecca must be about 3 tiles away from Medina. So if I keep advancing north, I shouldn't miss it by far.
In order to weaken Arabia a bit, I bribed two of Arabia's City State allies, Copenhagen and Oslo, with 1000 gold each before declaring war on him to provide some distraction and to remove some resistance. Copenhagen is located on our advance path, so bribing it to our side is a must. Poor Harun, he had been feeding Copenhagen for thousands of years, only to see Copenhagen's bullets flying towards them on the final mement.
After buying over Copenhagen, I saw its own Artillery! Even the city states have it now, and that is only Turn 170.
I was quite scared to see Harun to become both the military leader and the tech leader. That means he not only has Artillery for sure, but he might have Infantry (requires Replacable Parts) as well. So my Rifleman need to be really tough to survive. And they are as tough as they can be as Riflemans.
First Arabia city down. I don't see much of Arabia soldiers as the most fierce fighting happens around Copenhagen.
Before I move on, I noticed something novel - a City State had conquered another City State and completed its mission at the same time! Kudos to Geneva and thumbs down for Kuala Lumpur. I built an Artillery at home just in case the AIs decide to declare war on me to block my domination victory. I don't think the AI is this good, though. They allow completely defenseless human player to win cultural victory, so why would they dare to challenge the demon who wipes out everyone's capital in a breeze?
And when I scrolled down a bit, I noticed that Alexander has again occupied the burned lands to the south, even taking the space of Persian's former capital! Kudos for Alexander and thumbs down for Darius I. I think if we randomly throw AIs into games and let it run on its own, Alexander will probably win 9 times out of 10 whenever he is involved. This AI is just so effective. But it is so easily manipulated by human players, too.
Took Medina with ease with some helps from the City State friends.
One Great Scientist burnt along with the city! And emerging from the cloud is an Arabian Infantry. We are officially out-teched! That's scary.
But I quickly found Mecca and bid farewell to it. Since the Infantry won't attack me unless he knows he can kill me, I played ultraconservatively and let Artillery do all the work. 6 Artilleries and 7 fires per turn- nothing remains standing after 2 turns, really.
You can see that I started trailing in tech at around Turn 170. And due to our miserable research rate in the capital, it will be really difficult for us to get Infantry before Turn 180 as there are so many navy techs standing in the way.
The game really becomes difficult to win if we cannot finish it during the Artillery Era. And when the AIs are having airplanes hoovering above our head and we don't have any anti-aircraft gun (or they are half a world away), our days are numbered!
The score is really low. I don't think there is any bonus for OCC in the current version (.1.221).
After taking the Arabian capital, people were blinded by the 3 tiles of gold on the mountain! That's an insane starting location... but even with that, all Arabia had left was a dying Infantry hopelessly looking at the human player, who quickly learns about their every move. Keep thinking, AI.
That's the end of the strategy/brief walkthrough. I hope you had some fun with it, and I look forward to discuss your ideas and thoughts.
Currently, I am contemplating about the possibility of a 1 vs. 7 (7 AI teaming together as one) game on Standard Standard Deity (not OCC, of course). I have tried a 2 vs. 4 game, and found lots of "exploitable" AI behavioral patterns. I suspect it really can be done...
Now we have Artillery, and we are again invincible for a short while! AIs usually get their own artllery between Turn 160 and 180, depending on how uninterrupted they are in their development, and how many RAs they managed to sign (which is related to how uninterrupted they are).
So you have anywhere between 10 to 30 turns to become the only Artillery user. Since your tanks are still Rifleman, you have to play a little more conservatively, especially when you start seeing Artilleries garrison in the city.
Artillery is awesome because you get indirect firing and 3 tiles of range. By now, your more experience Artilleries should have the Range + 1 promotion (promotion path: terrain x 3, range + 1, double attack). So you can really easily find enough spots for your artillery to rain hell on the city and its defenders.
And you can use your Great General (Khan) to scout thanks their 5 movement points! Just don't let them cross rivers or they won't come back.
Spoiler :
I declared war on India without my Artillery (still upgrading in the back), but with my superior healing ability, I managed to use 4 Rifleman (one new recruit from the capital) to clean out all of Ghandi's intercepting defenders anyway, and brought down Mumbai (defense = 50) without any Artillery shell dropped on the city. That just shows how tough the Mongolian melees are.
Spoiler :
Ghandi was really weak in terms of military, and he had very few cities, which are spaced wide apart. So it is really easy to bring down his capital. One last capital to be razed!
Spoiler :
As I was saving money to sign RAs in early game, I didn't bother buying an Open Border from Harun, and now I have to guess where the Arabia capital Mecca is. But since Medina is the #2 city of Arabia, I know Mecca must be about 3 tiles away from Medina. So if I keep advancing north, I shouldn't miss it by far.
In order to weaken Arabia a bit, I bribed two of Arabia's City State allies, Copenhagen and Oslo, with 1000 gold each before declaring war on him to provide some distraction and to remove some resistance. Copenhagen is located on our advance path, so bribing it to our side is a must. Poor Harun, he had been feeding Copenhagen for thousands of years, only to see Copenhagen's bullets flying towards them on the final mement.
After buying over Copenhagen, I saw its own Artillery! Even the city states have it now, and that is only Turn 170.
Spoiler :
I was quite scared to see Harun to become both the military leader and the tech leader. That means he not only has Artillery for sure, but he might have Infantry (requires Replacable Parts) as well. So my Rifleman need to be really tough to survive. And they are as tough as they can be as Riflemans.
Spoiler :
First Arabia city down. I don't see much of Arabia soldiers as the most fierce fighting happens around Copenhagen.
Spoiler :
Before I move on, I noticed something novel - a City State had conquered another City State and completed its mission at the same time! Kudos to Geneva and thumbs down for Kuala Lumpur. I built an Artillery at home just in case the AIs decide to declare war on me to block my domination victory. I don't think the AI is this good, though. They allow completely defenseless human player to win cultural victory, so why would they dare to challenge the demon who wipes out everyone's capital in a breeze?
Spoiler :
And when I scrolled down a bit, I noticed that Alexander has again occupied the burned lands to the south, even taking the space of Persian's former capital! Kudos for Alexander and thumbs down for Darius I. I think if we randomly throw AIs into games and let it run on its own, Alexander will probably win 9 times out of 10 whenever he is involved. This AI is just so effective. But it is so easily manipulated by human players, too.
Spoiler :
Took Medina with ease with some helps from the City State friends.
One Great Scientist burnt along with the city! And emerging from the cloud is an Arabian Infantry. We are officially out-teched! That's scary.Spoiler :
But I quickly found Mecca and bid farewell to it. Since the Infantry won't attack me unless he knows he can kill me, I played ultraconservatively and let Artillery do all the work. 6 Artilleries and 7 fires per turn- nothing remains standing after 2 turns, really.
Spoiler :
You can see that I started trailing in tech at around Turn 170. And due to our miserable research rate in the capital, it will be really difficult for us to get Infantry before Turn 180 as there are so many navy techs standing in the way.
Spoiler :
The game really becomes difficult to win if we cannot finish it during the Artillery Era. And when the AIs are having airplanes hoovering above our head and we don't have any anti-aircraft gun (or they are half a world away), our days are numbered!
Spoiler :
The score is really low. I don't think there is any bonus for OCC in the current version (.1.221).
Spoiler :
After taking the Arabian capital, people were blinded by the 3 tiles of gold on the mountain! That's an insane starting location... but even with that, all Arabia had left was a dying Infantry hopelessly looking at the human player, who quickly learns about their every move. Keep thinking, AI.
That's the end of the strategy/brief walkthrough. I hope you had some fun with it, and I look forward to discuss your ideas and thoughts.
Currently, I am contemplating about the possibility of a 1 vs. 7 (7 AI teaming together as one) game on Standard Standard Deity (not OCC, of course). I have tried a 2 vs. 4 game, and found lots of "exploitable" AI behavioral patterns. I suspect it really can be done...
maltz
King
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Yeah. The AI is really bad. As soon as the intercepting units are gone, they are as docile as drunk cousins.
Radox the Green
Chieftain
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- Mar 31, 2011
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Just to say that I really appreciate this, even if no-one else is replying! I'll be trying Deity, Small Pangaea as the Aztecs sometime soon.
Clearly I have spent far too much time worrying about what I would do if I were in the AI's shoes, and not enough time observing what it actually does. I've noticed it being ridiculously passive in militaristic archipelago games (lots of land units sitting at sea, hardly any naval units guarding them) but not been so observant on land.
Apart from the infantry/artillery balance your account seems pretty similar to what I've done, except that I've used fewer RA (which on sub-Deity you can get away with).
Clearly I have spent far too much time worrying about what I would do if I were in the AI's shoes, and not enough time observing what it actually does. I've noticed it being ridiculously passive in militaristic archipelago games (lots of land units sitting at sea, hardly any naval units guarding them) but not been so observant on land.
Apart from the infantry/artillery balance your account seems pretty similar to what I've done, except that I've used fewer RA (which on sub-Deity you can get away with).
Thanks for the walkthrough. I played my first emperor game modeling after yours. I had horses, but no iron, so I was using kesheks instead of artillery. I got a couple units of iron from a city state, but didn't have the money or policies then to get more. The wars went great until I got to the last civ - France was a runaway ai, and had a huge industrial production. When we hit the late renesance, their cities got too strong for my kesheks to do serious damage. I was just a little too late to conquer with what i had, but too early to upgrade my units. When i saw France build their first fighters, i threw in the towel and retired. I'll try again though!
maltz
King
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Indeed, a strong military Civ cornered by weakling Civs at the other end of the world could be a problem. Ideally, you could bribe Napoleon to war multiple target at once to slow down his expansion and Research Agreement signing. But if he only has one target to deal with, he is pretty much guaranteed to supersize. I remember Napoleon is quite willing to be bribed to war City States. This will further increase his enemies and prevent more RAs from actualization.
RedRover57
Emperor
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Thanks for the interesting write-up. I have been thinking about trying an OCC deity conquest game with Aztecs and this seems ideal (Japan would also work well). But I suppose that it would be good to give the medic promotion to at least one of the melee units in that case (since you wouldn't have the khan).
Could you post what SP's you were able to take in your game? I know you stated that the Honor branch was priority but were you able to grab anything else? Since you really don't care much about growth in your capitol wouldn't Liberty - Citizenship - Meritocracy provide a fast start? Citizenship for the worker (in case you can't steal one easily) and more importantly the increased worker speed, and Meritocracy to maybe place a Manufactory for an early boost to troop production speed (or possibly for a GS to fill in the gap if you couldn't sign enough RA's at the start). Honor would be nice (particularly the increased experience rate), but the initial policy is a waste and the GG isn't much better (since you will get one soon enough when you start your rush) - really the right side seems the best in Honor and you could afford to delay that a bit. Your SP's will still come fast in an OCC. Tradition also seems kind of useless since you really don't care much about developing your capitol in this strategy.
Could you post what SP's you were able to take in your game? I know you stated that the Honor branch was priority but were you able to grab anything else? Since you really don't care much about growth in your capitol wouldn't Liberty - Citizenship - Meritocracy provide a fast start? Citizenship for the worker (in case you can't steal one easily) and more importantly the increased worker speed, and Meritocracy to maybe place a Manufactory for an early boost to troop production speed (or possibly for a GS to fill in the gap if you couldn't sign enough RA's at the start). Honor would be nice (particularly the increased experience rate), but the initial policy is a waste and the GG isn't much better (since you will get one soon enough when you start your rush) - really the right side seems the best in Honor and you could afford to delay that a bit. Your SP's will still come fast in an OCC. Tradition also seems kind of useless since you really don't care much about developing your capitol in this strategy.
maltz
King
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My social policies in the above game was:
1. One point in Tradition.
2. Three points in Honor (1.5 X Exp)
3. One point in Commerce.
4. Then one or two points back in Honor before the game ends.
I suppose one can use 3 points in Liberty to get Steel sooner to start the military campaign. But since RAs are due around Turn 70-80 anyway, one can still start the first rush pretty early.
The game becomes a lot easier for Mongolia when the melee tanks get +3 HP per turn and a lot easier again when they get Blitz, and again with Siege. So going down Honor for 1.5 EXP really helps. But if you use Aztec, then you get healed by attacking units. So getting March early is no longer a primary concern.
I am sure there are many ways to do an OCC domination game. So feel free to try them out! Since the post I have read a strategy about completing an OCC Domination with Mongolia's unique unit. The game has a narrow time window and prefers a smaller, relatively flat map, though.
1. One point in Tradition.
2. Three points in Honor (1.5 X Exp)
3. One point in Commerce.
4. Then one or two points back in Honor before the game ends.
I suppose one can use 3 points in Liberty to get Steel sooner to start the military campaign. But since RAs are due around Turn 70-80 anyway, one can still start the first rush pretty early.
The game becomes a lot easier for Mongolia when the melee tanks get +3 HP per turn and a lot easier again when they get Blitz, and again with Siege. So going down Honor for 1.5 EXP really helps. But if you use Aztec, then you get healed by attacking units. So getting March early is no longer a primary concern.
I am sure there are many ways to do an OCC domination game. So feel free to try them out! Since the post I have read a strategy about completing an OCC Domination with Mongolia's unique unit. The game has a narrow time window and prefers a smaller, relatively flat map, though.
maltz
King
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Going Honor also gives the first Great General (Khan) during the first rush. That also helps.
You have an interesting point about whether to spend one point in Tradition first before going down Honor. At the time it seemed to be a good idea to me, as I did't want to waste precious early cash for tile purchase, and I can afford to delay Honor policies by a little bit. (It turned out that I got the first Great General before the first rush, and the 1.5X EXP promotion before the second rush.)
But I suppose one can completely omits it if the resources happen to be very close. (It is actually my case!)
You have an interesting point about whether to spend one point in Tradition first before going down Honor. At the time it seemed to be a good idea to me, as I did't want to waste precious early cash for tile purchase, and I can afford to delay Honor policies by a little bit. (It turned out that I got the first Great General before the first rush, and the 1.5X EXP promotion before the second rush.)
But I suppose one can completely omits it if the resources happen to be very close. (It is actually my case!)
RedRover57
Emperor
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I'm having a difficult time with this strategy. I've been trying Aztec and constantly running into these issues:
1. Poor starting location, e.g., only 2 luxuries (one or more being Calendar), with maybe another luxury in the 3rd ring out. Or, too close to a coast with no good coastal tiles like fish or water luxuries. Your start with 3 ivory and 1 marble accessible early (plus 2 river wheat!) is unusually good - I would probably need to re-roll 100 times to maybe find a start like that. Also, I have had cases where I was so isolated to start (e.g., long mountain range separating my civ from the AI civs, plus lots of rough terrain) that it took a long time to find all of the other civs and CS.
2. No iron and the only AI civs with iron being the ones that I would conquer early. Since you can only raze cities in an OCC, that iron would be worthless. Without cash from selling luxuries (see problem #1), it can be tough to scrape up the money early to ally a CS (or 2) for enough iron to create a sufficiently large attack force, particularly since the majority of your cash needs to go toward RA's.
3. Even on Deity the AI civs sometimes don't have enough cash for RA's and buying your luxuries. Selling luxuries for gpt doesn't cut it since you need the immediate luxury cash to buy RA's.
So it seems to me that the planets all need to align for this strategy - so far they have not for me in a number of attempts. I have bailed on many attempts due to the length of time it took to get to readiness for my first push.
1. Poor starting location, e.g., only 2 luxuries (one or more being Calendar), with maybe another luxury in the 3rd ring out. Or, too close to a coast with no good coastal tiles like fish or water luxuries. Your start with 3 ivory and 1 marble accessible early (plus 2 river wheat!) is unusually good - I would probably need to re-roll 100 times to maybe find a start like that. Also, I have had cases where I was so isolated to start (e.g., long mountain range separating my civ from the AI civs, plus lots of rough terrain) that it took a long time to find all of the other civs and CS.
2. No iron and the only AI civs with iron being the ones that I would conquer early. Since you can only raze cities in an OCC, that iron would be worthless. Without cash from selling luxuries (see problem #1), it can be tough to scrape up the money early to ally a CS (or 2) for enough iron to create a sufficiently large attack force, particularly since the majority of your cash needs to go toward RA's.
3. Even on Deity the AI civs sometimes don't have enough cash for RA's and buying your luxuries. Selling luxuries for gpt doesn't cut it since you need the immediate luxury cash to buy RA's.
So it seems to me that the planets all need to align for this strategy - so far they have not for me in a number of attempts. I have bailed on many attempts due to the length of time it took to get to readiness for my first push.
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Indeed I can't deny the luck factor in any game. I tried about 3-4 times to get this map. Maybe this map happened to be a very good one? I have seen many much better, though.
Don't Aztec have a tendency to spawn near forest or jungle? If that's the case, you are more likely to get multiple Calendar resources. This isn't so bad, as Calendar resources tend to come in greater quantities. I am not sure why you mostly only get 2 lux resources in your starting locations... that is rare to me.
However, in my 10-20 Civ5 games so far, I have never seen Deity AIs "not rich enough" to buy all of my resources. The richest regulars are: Washington, Genghis Khan, Alexander, Oda... all expansionist types. I think the game offers them free cash per turn or something, since they get ridiculously rich extremely fast. And indeed you can't expect to sign RAs to everyone. Ramesses II, Ghandi, and WU Zetian is the usual poor leaders that can't sign RAs in early game. (You see the trend here? These are the leaders who are not expansionists.) But you don't need that many RAs anyway.
By the way, you are welcome to try out my initial save.
Don't Aztec have a tendency to spawn near forest or jungle? If that's the case, you are more likely to get multiple Calendar resources. This isn't so bad, as Calendar resources tend to come in greater quantities. I am not sure why you mostly only get 2 lux resources in your starting locations... that is rare to me.
However, in my 10-20 Civ5 games so far, I have never seen Deity AIs "not rich enough" to buy all of my resources. The richest regulars are: Washington, Genghis Khan, Alexander, Oda... all expansionist types. I think the game offers them free cash per turn or something, since they get ridiculously rich extremely fast. And indeed you can't expect to sign RAs to everyone. Ramesses II, Ghandi, and WU Zetian is the usual poor leaders that can't sign RAs in early game. (You see the trend here? These are the leaders who are not expansionists.) But you don't need that many RAs anyway.
By the way, you are welcome to try out my initial save.
