I need some help/advice (+vikings)(+Xerxes)

[Rykn0w]

Here I am again asking for some help =p

Last week I´ve beated my 1st regent game with maya, I didn´t really win but I am so ahead in tecnology, territory and map that the games is practically over, so I´ve started a new game, with the Vikings...

...and I was doing somewhat well, and now I think I am in trouble, Im playing in an archipelago map, I´ve dominated my island (was shared with Sumeria), now I´m trying to take the Persians territory, and man, Xerxes is a tough opponent

Immortals cut my Berzerks army like butter, ok, it´s a pain to see a regular Immortal kill my Elite Bezerk, but see that four times in ONE turn is driving me crazy -___-, and he have tons of Immortals, and transport everything to another island is hard

So guys, what should I do? Keep making Berzerks? Wait for a new offensive unit?

BTW, I´ve already got my golden age

PS:sorry for my poor english, I hope you can understand what I´m trying to say

Edit:forgot to mention one thing, if I start the war EVERY one of my citys will revolt >_>, how I can make him start the war?

 

[sk8boardbob2]

An immortals 4 attack is more than the 2 defense of the Beserk. Put a few defensive units, probably pikes or muskets, in the stack to ward off immos.

 

[DS_Legionary]

Far as his Immortals are concerned you've got two options. Like bob above posted you can send a pike or musket with your stacks and let them do the defending. Or you can wait for the immortals to come into your territory then pick them off with your beserks. Once the flow of Immortals slow then you can advance with relatively little resistance. It's a matter of bleeding him dry. Not to mention if you get him to declare war his war unhappiness (assuming that he is Rep) will cause anarchy.

Far as getting him to declare war on you the only way I could think is to get an RoP and let him in your territory. Then when he's in, you cancel the RoP. In two or three turns you've can tell him to get out or declare war. Only thing is, I think you take a rep hit for canceling the RoP before 20 turns. If you have alot of gold and a smaller military then there's a chance he'll demand something in which case you can tell him to shove it. 9 out of 10 Xerxes declares war.

 

[vmxa]

I will try to get a look at this tonight, but basically Zerks are nothing more than spears/swords or MDI on defense. Most any units could kill them.

You want to try to be tactical so that you attack with them, not defend. So either protect them or set up situations where they cannot be reach in one turn.

 

[vmxa]

This is a very typical situation. Once you know you are on an island, you need to pack those towns in. You must fit in as many as you can on the limited space.

Here you have massive numbers of dead tiles. At regent, in fact at any level do not build the Sistine Chapel. You do not need to build cathedrals, so what is the point of the Chapel?

You have 270 units and pay nearly 400gpt, you cannot afford it and do not need them. I have done conquest on Sid with not much more than 300 units.

You have 48 galleys, wow. Were you not able to get any leaders to form an army?

25 workers is too few for so many towns and so much land.

Republic was probably not a good plan, once you knew you were on an island as you have no means to get a war in and done in a hurry.

I would strongly suggest you not play on huge maps, they distort the game and make it easier fro the human. First learn to manage on a contient or pangea standard size.

You have a lot of clowns, best to use none or only a few and only for a short time. Use the slider. Sell off temples once they expand borders, better yet pack in the towns and not build them all over the place.

It is too late to do a real good job on this, but you have enough input fro others.

 

[Aabraxan]

Before I get off into the details, what VC are you going for? You have all of them enabled, but looking at your improvements and military, it looks like you've had some issues with indecision. Your unit counts make it look like you want a military victory, but I see lots of temples, too.

One big problem I see is that you don't like the lux slider. You're using lots of clowns in core cities when they could be building something instead. You're using them when they're entirely unnecessary. By that I mean, I see cities that aren't even close to rioting using clowns. Better to bump the lux slider to 10 or 20% and put those people back to work. That way, they're producing more than just happy juice; they're also producing food, shields, gold and beakers.

Trondheim: 0% corrupt, size 9, plenty of food,6 happy people, 2 unhappy, and a clown. By now, your capital should be size 12 and working everything it can.

Ur: 10% corrupt, has a clown.

Sumer: 23% corrupt, has a clown.

Bodo is 34% corrupt and you're running 0% lux, working 2 clowns.

Alesund 22% corrupt, same problem.

Reykjavik: 11% corrupt, 2 clowns, 6 happies and 3 unhappies.

Erech is 31% corrupt and building wealth.

Hareld: 10% corrupt, building wealth, has a taxman, 4 happy and 1 unhappy.

I could go on, but there's no need. In low corruption towns, a market & luxes will keep people happy just fine. You've only got 4 luxes, so that's not great, but you can trade for others. If you must use a specialist to tame a town, try using a tax collector or scientist first. They will also help prevent riots, but then you also get either gold or beakers in the deal.

Unit support is killing you. You've got literally dozens of units standing around, doing nothing but eating your gold. Stavanger has 21 sleeping galleys. Take those native workers and join them to cities that can make it to size 7. That will improve unit support.

If you really want to finish that Sistine Chapel in Trondheim, join native workers. Get it up to size 12 before hitting enter.

Dariush Kabir is 100% Persian. Build workers and starve it down.

Getting back to your original question about Immortals and Berzerks: Immortals are strong attackers, but not great defenders. The same is true of Zerks. Both attack pretty well. Both die just as easily as spears. The end result is that you'd rather be attacking them than defending against them. As has been pointed out, you may need to put a few defenders into your stack to absorb the counter-attack. Other than that, go on the offensive. I've never used the Berzerk much, but here's my hunch: (1) kick Xerxes off the continent; then (2) pile Zerks into boats and ravage coastal towns.

You've got 7 turns left of PT with Xerxes. Spend the time until then trimming the empire and preparing for war. I think part of the problem with DOWing Xerxes is that you haven't starved down the cities that you captured from him. Look at Sardis: size 9 and way more Persians than Scandanavians. Build workers (they'll be slaves) and starve it down to size 1. Then let it regrow.

In spite of all of that, you are economically dominating the game. You have 993 gold, and that's about 960 more than the next Civ. If you're going for a culture victory, all those temples will come in handy. If you're just itching to conquer the world, scrap them and save yourself the upkeep. Just for fun, I stripped the empire of lots of culture buildings, bumped the lux slider to 20%, put most of the clowns back to work, set formerly Persian cities on a starvation dies and did some disbanding. I wasn't particularly severe in the disbanding, but here are the results:

Here's where you started:

993 gold in the bank
184 sci
294 corruption
162 maint
368 units
+28 gpt

Here's where I finally quit:
1848 gold in the bank
194 sci
259 corruption
101 maint
232 units
+101 gpt

This was a very powerful start, with a cow, rivers and a lux nearby. For goodness sakes, look at all the cows near Umma. There are 5 in the city radius! I'm pretty sure this game can be won, but if you are going for a military victory, you'll need to run a leaner empire.

 

[Rykn0w]

Thanks for the help people

An immortals 4 attack is more than the 2 defense of the Beserk. Put a few defensive units, probably pikes or muskets, in the stack to ward off immos.

I never fortify my berzerkers, I´ve tought defense points only count when fortfied...damn -_-

Now I know >_>

This is a very typical situation. Once you know you are on an island, you need to pack those towns in. You must fit in as many as you can on the limited space.

Here you have massive numbers of dead tiles. At regent, in fact at any level do not build the Sistine Chapel. You do not need to build cathedrals, so what is the point of the Chapel?

I was going to use as base for something else(if a better wonder shows up), I really don´t know what I can do in this town, maybe wealth?

You have 270 units and pay nearly 400gpt, you cannot afford it and do not need them. I have done conquest on Sid with not much more than 300 units.

You have 48 galleys, wow. Were you not able to get any leaders to form an army?

not even one =c

25 workers is too few for so many towns and so much land.

In the 1st island all the tiles were worked, the 2nd island is somewhat recent, so...

Republic was probably not a good plan, once you knew you were on an island as you have no means to get a war in and done in a hurry.

I will look for the benefits of other govs, I aways use Rep

I would strongly suggest you not play on huge maps, they distort the game and make it easier fro the human. First learn to manage on a contient or pangea standard size.

TY, I will try that

You have a lot of clowns, best to use none or only a few and only for a short time. Use the slider. Sell off temples once they expand borders, better yet pack in the towns and not build them all over the place.

It is too late to do a real good job on this, but you have enough input fro others.

Thanks for the tips and advices, I think I will try to start a new game with all that in mind, and try my best to avoid clowns

Before I get off into the details, what VC are you going for? You have all of them enabled, but looking at your improvements and military, it looks like you've had some issues with indecision. Your unit counts make it look like you want a military victory, but I see lots of temples, too.

to be sincere, I never realy know, I know its better to think about that before I start a game but I never do ~__~

You've got 7 turns left of PT with Xerxes. Spend the time until then trimming the empire and preparing for war. I think part of the problem with DOWing Xerxes is that you haven't starved down the cities that you captured from him. Look at Sardis: size 9 and way more Persians than Scandanavians. Build workers (they'll be slaves) and starve it down to size 1. Then let it regrow.

This "starve" thing is new to me ._., I can´t believe I´ve didn´t know this earlier, thanks

Whoa, this was extremely helpful, thanks agan people :3
now I know the defenses points count when beign attacked and not when I fortify the unit, that I have to starve new conquered town to prevent rebellions, and the slider is better than clowns :0

 

[Aabraxan]

. . . . I was going to use as base for something else(if a better wonder shows up), I really don´t know what I can do in this town, maybe wealth?

Looks like vxma was referring to Trondheim, your capital. I know that wealth is tempting right now, because your unit support is so high, but I would advise against building wealth in your capital. If a better wonder shows up before Sistine is built, you can use Sistine as a prebuild for it. I'd hate to waste all those shields that you've already put in.

The AI is really, really bad at naval invasions, and you have the only unit that can currently attack from a boat, the berzerk. The next amphibious unit won't arrive until Marines, and they're still a ways off. That means that nobody can take one of your home continent cities without landing on dry ground first. Swap some bezerk builds for horses on your home continent and use fast attackers to defend it. Your home continent is well-roaded, so a 2-move unit can defend anything within 6 tiles in one turn. Maybe trade for Chivalry and upgrade horses to knights. That will let you disband some of those units you've got stationed along your coastline and free up some support.

. . . . to be sincere, I never realy know, I know its better to think about that before I start a game but I never do ~__~

Having a VC in mind early in the game will help you focus. Your towns had a little bit of everything: raxes, temples, markets, libraries, etc. Not every town needs one of everything. Some towns need a rax, library, market and courthouse. Some need nothing. Depends on where a town is and what its corruption is like.

Temples are for: (1) happy faces; (2) culture; and (3) border expansion. You're not religious, so you're paying full price to build those temples. You don't really need the happy faces, and the ones that you do need can be gotten by using the lux slider. If you want to go for a culture win, obviously, you'll need them. If, for example, you know in 4000 BC that all you want is a good, old-fashioned slugfest, you might not build a single temple.

This "starve" thing is new to me ._., I can´t believe I´ve didn´t know this earlier, thanks

If I understand flip chances correctly (there's no guarantee that I do), more foreign citizens = higher flip chance. You can reduce that number and get more slaves by putting captured cities on the starvation diet.

 

[vmxa]

It may well be that you have to go ahead and finish Sistine. It is not a problem, if you have nothing else going on, just that normally I would have need of something else.

If you ran leaner, you would likely be making units in this city. Now you have so many that is not required.

Attacking via invasion on a large land mass, required good defenses. So I want to have a large percentage of my best defending units. If that is pikes or muskets. The attackers can come over in the second wave, if I am limited in my shipping.

Once you come over, if you do not have an army you may get attacked right away. It depends on the relative strength of units and empires. I will found my town on a hill and rush a barracks or a wall.

Rush the other on the next turn. Cut roads to the town, if I can to prevent fast attackers from hitting me too fast. I would like to force them to stagger in so I can recover with fewest losses.

Let them spend as much of their force as they will and then go on attack. If you get a leader form an army. Fill it will defensive, if the attackers are still coming in large numbers.

If not, then fill it with attackers. If you have lots of ships, then bring 2 slaves. These are to be disbanded, one for the rax and one for the wall to make the rushing cheaper.

A third could be used for a harbor, if that is needed quickly, else wait to rush. A temple mayl be needed to get a border expansion. Some times it is needed just to get the harbor open water.

Republic is a swell government for most games. It is not so good for war, unless you can get lots of luxs. This is not going to happen any time soon if you are on an island.

An invasion requires a lot of time, so WW will kill you in Rep, so as I said, I would have gone for Monarchy, once I see it was an island. Well actually, you setup for archi map, so you knew it would be an island.

 

[SpiffyKeen7744]

There are a few things I would have done differently up to this point in your game, but you are doing quite well vs. the AI civs. First, I would like to say that you are doing very well in terms of a large, powerful empire. Even though you are paying too much in unit support, there is nothing to worry about, because your HUGE army can conquer more land to support itself. So, over all, I think you are in a good position.

I think there are 3 major things you can do right now in this game to help your civilization a lot:

*First, your 6/2 Berserk units have the ability to attack from a boat. So, I would load up 4-8 Berserks into 2-4 Galleys and attack Persian towns and cities that are on the coastline. The Immortals cannot counterattack.

*The second thing has already been pointed out. You need to have Pikes and Muskets to protect your front lines, but there is no need for as many defense as offense units. Have a ratio more like 1 defense unit for ever 10 offense units, or something like that. Your border cities need defensive units, and your stacks of Berserks that advance into Persian territory also need defensive units to protect.

*The third thing has to do with unit support. Now that you have been making gains in Persian territory, you need to start placing more cities in the newly conquered land to increase unit support [F3]. A city which is fully corrupt will only produce one non-red shield and one non-red trade no matter how much the terrain provides. Any of your cities that are fully corrupt should be producing workers or settlers, and you should have tons of cities very close together in territory that is fully corrupt. Right now, you only have a few fully corrupt cities (cities farthest south). However, most of the land you will conquer from Persia should be used to have lots of cities (closely packed) to increase unit support. More unit support from cities will mean more gold and more science. This is especially true when you are in Republic. Also, only irrigate around corrupt cities.

 

[jenna010986]

Before I get off into the details, what VC are you going for? You have all of them enabled, but looking at your improvements and military, it looks like you've had some issues with indecision. Your unit counts make it look like you want a military victory, but I see lots of temples, too.

One big problem I see is that you don't like the lux slider. You're using lots of clowns in core cities when they could be building something instead. You're using them when they're entirely unnecessary. By that I mean, I see cities that aren't even close to rioting using clowns. Better to bump the lux slider to 10 or 20% and put those people back to work. That way, they're producing more than just happy juice; they're also producing food, shields, gold and beakers.

Trondheim: 0% corrupt, size 9, plenty of food,6 happy people, 2 unhappy, and a clown. By now, your capital should be size 12 and working everything it can.

Ur: 10% corrupt, has a clown.

Sumer: 23% corrupt, has a clown.

Bodo is 34% corrupt and you're running 0% lux, working 2 clowns.

Alesund 22% corrupt, same problem.

Reykjavik: 11% corrupt, 2 clowns, 6 happies and 3 unhappies.

Erech is 31% corrupt and building wealth.

Hareld: 10% corrupt, building wealth, has a taxman, 4 happy and 1 unhappy.

I could go on, but there's no need. In low corruption towns, a market & luxes will keep people happy just fine. You've only got 4 luxes, so that's not great, but you can trade for others. If you must use a specialist to tame a town, try using a tax collector or scientist first. They will also help prevent riots, but then you also get either gold or beakers in the deal.

Unit support is killing you. You've got literally dozens of units standing around, doing nothing but eating your gold. Stavanger has 21 sleeping galleys. Take those native workers and join them to cities that can make it to size 7. That will improve unit support.

If you really want to finish that Sistine Chapel in Trondheim, join native workers. Get it up to size 12 before hitting enter.

Dariush Kabir is 100% Persian. Build workers and starve it down.

Getting back to your original question about Immortals and Berzerks: Immortals are strong attackers, but not great defenders. The same is true of Zerks. Both attack pretty well. Both die just as easily as spears. The end result is that you'd rather be attacking them than defending against them. As has been pointed out, you may need to put a few defenders into your stack to absorb the counter-attack. Other than that, go on the offensive. I've never used the Berzerk much, but here's my hunch: (1) kick Xerxes off the continent; then (2) pile Zerks into boats and ravage coastal towns.

You've got 7 turns left of PT with Xerxes. Spend the time until then trimming the empire and preparing for war. I think part of the problem with DOWing Xerxes is that you haven't starved down the cities that you captured from him. Look at Sardis: size 9 and way more Persians than Scandanavians. Build workers (they'll be slaves) and starve it down to size 1. Then let it regrow.

In spite of all of that, you are economically dominating the game. You have 993 gold, and that's about 960 more than the next Civ. If you're going for a culture victory, all those temples will come in handy. If you're just itching to conquer the world, scrap them and save yourself the upkeep. Just for fun, I stripped the empire of lots of culture buildings, bumped the lux slider to 20%, put most of the clowns back to work, set formerly Persian cities on a starvation dies and did some disbanding. I wasn't particularly severe in the disbanding, but here are the results:

Here's where you started:

993 gold in the bank
184 sci
294 corruption
162 maint
368 units
+28 gpt

Here's where I finally quit:
1848 gold in the bank
194 sci
259 corruption
101 maint
232 units
+101 gpt

This was a very powerful start, with a cow, rivers and a lux nearby. For goodness sakes, look at all the cows near Umma. There are 5 in the city radius! I'm pretty sure this game can be won, but if you are going for a military victory, you'll need to run a leaner empire.

well, they're very helpful, thanks for sharing, hopefully I can create my own strategy to share it to you guys!

 

[vmxa]

SpiffyKeen7744, what you say is correct, but not the part about the empire. What you see in players at this stage is they may manage to get a large empire at this level, especially on a huge archi maps, but that not the point.

The point is that with better strategy, you could be much stronger. The money that went up in smoke from either not using the land well or making more units than needed, could have made more useful structures in better cities. Would have meant more research to have more of a tech advantage.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I would disband spears or other outdated units to rush things, not slaves. The AI charges >100 gold for slaves, and that is a bargain. Unit support for a native worker is 1 gpt, a slave costs no unit support. Buy them, steal them, raze for them, slaves are money in the bank. I might be a bit biased, but I value my slaves.

 

[Aabraxan]

well, they're very helpful, thanks for sharing, hopefully I can create my own strategy to share it to you guys!

Welcome to CFC, jenna010986!

 

[SpiffyKeen7744]

SpiffyKeen7744, what you say is correct, but not the part about the empire. What you see in players at this stage is they may manage to get a large empire at this level, especially on a huge archi maps, but that not the point.

The point is that with better strategy, you could be much stronger. The money that went up in smoke from either not using the land well or making more units than needed, could have made more useful structures in better cities. Would have meant more research to have more of a tech advantage.

All I meant to say, is that Rykn0w is doing well vs. the AI civs. There is no reason to think that if a few small things are changed that Rykn0w will be unable to conquer the world, or win some other victory condition. Obviously, the game could have been played much more efficiently. On a higher level, Emperor or Deity, the Vikings would have been far behind or already conquered.

I did not want to make suggestions that would only be possible if Rykn0w started a new game. The three things I listed are changes Rykn0w can make in this game at the current turn. For a later game, as you say, Rykn0w should aim to be more efficient right from the beginning.