Indians all the way

[paceybaby]

I have played most of the civs pretty well and was giving the AI a good run for his money on Monarch
Played with the indians and absolutely battered everyone and stepped it up to Emperor and again battering everyone. Are the Indians considered the best?

I like to get chopping those trees down early on to power my production then getting stonehenge out in 2 turns to give me a great prophet for my holy temple.

The indians have such a huge advantage in this sense as they can build wonders quickly and the the workers can chop those trees so quickly.

oh yeah, one more thing- can u nuke cities using just the mouse?? the computer i use to play on has a broken keyboard and i've been playing without

 

[blueinf]

I would say that the indians do not seem very popular on these boards, they are all too busy making immortals and all other horses UU.

Thanks for sharing your strat, I will give a try to the mad chopping rush strat with workers on dope !

 

[zafyro]

There´re other industrial civilizations around, and indian workers only move faster, not work faster [or so i think]. It´s just a matte of your experience, try a harder dificulty or drop industrial to check other strategies [i´m actually avoiding industrial for this same reason]

 

[slothman]

The move 3 instead of 2.
That means you can go onto a forest or hill and still make a road.
Or go offroad and back on again to get away from enemies.
If you are a peacemonger like me that is really good.
I tried it and that with the ind trait seemed almost overpowered itself, not counting the other trait.
I was going to get the Oracle or something in 7 turns.
For a wonder that seems just a little too short.

 

[zafyro]

1 turn diference in forest chopping is not that much diference with other industrious civilizations. I do prepare forest [building roads] for when the chopping time comes.

 

[paceybaby]

there's no doubt about this strategy! if u start with trees around you and assuming your not on an island all on your own, by the time I meet other civs I am almost always ahead of them on points and stay there too.(monarchy and emperor)
play with gandhi and go straight for polythesium for hinduism.
then bronze working
then chop those trees down to fund either: warrior + setter, or straight for stonehenge (2turns)-> great prophet->holy temple (here u must make sure u dont get greedy and go for pyramids in the same city as this will make your great person probability rise to 50:50 great prophet:engineer and u dont want an engineer now, u need the prophet)
by doing this and by chopping trees around all your new cities, the production goes through the roof and no longer are you waiting 20 turns for a settler while your growth is stunted.
disadvantage of growing so quickly is that you can have a v small population in many cities leading to your science dropping dramatically and when i was advising a mate of mine, he did exactly that and his units went on strike which is not what u want as they get disbanded!
the advantage of this system is that u can nick all the resources(especially copper, stone, marble and iron) then not only can u build wonders even faster now, but your army is likely to be much better than your neighbours- but u gotta keep your cities protected as barbarians and jealous rival civs will undoubtedly come for you

 

[blueinf]

there's no doubt about this strategy! if u start with trees around you and assuming your not on an island all on your own, by the time I meet other civs I am almost always ahead of them on points and stay there too.(monarchy and emperor)
play with gandhi and go straight for polythesium for hinduism.
then bronze working
then chop those trees down to fund either: warrior + setter, or straight for stonehenge (2turns)-> great prophet->holy temple (here u must make sure u dont get greedy and go for pyramids in the same city as this will make your great person probability rise to 50:50 great prophet:engineer and u dont want an engineer now, u need the prophet)
by doing this and by chopping trees around all your new cities, the production goes through the roof and no longer are you waiting 20 turns for a settler while your growth is stunted.
disadvantage of growing so quickly is that you can have a v small population in many cities leading to your science dropping dramatically and when i was advising a mate of mine, he did exactly that and his units went on strike which is not what u want as they get disbanded!
the advantage of this system is that u can nick all the resources(especially copper, stone, marble and iron) then not only can u build wonders even faster now, but your army is likely to be much better than your neighbours- but u gotta keep your cities protected as barbarians and jealous rival civs will undoubtedly come for you

which difficulty are you playing on ? In Emperor or more even starting with mysticism sometimes you don't get the religion making you waste a couple of turns.

 

[paceybaby]

which difficulty are you playing on ? In Emperor or more even starting with mysticism sometimes you don't get the religion making you waste a couple of turns.

emporer- I always seem to get hinduism- if i miss it, i definately get judism

obviously its a risk and u are relying on several things basically with this strategy
1 trees
2 being around others to trade techs as u will probably be a little behind by the time u start getting alphabet/monarchy
3 u can get archery before the barbarians start really coming for you

bonuses are if u find there stone and marble- once u have those you're away

if it doesn't work then move on- but the basic strategy of chopping every tree u can asap especially to get wonders will keep you near the top

 

[Gufnork]

I can't remember failing to get hinduism even on higher difficulties.

While Fast Workers are nice, I prefer Financial civs with good UU's. Incans and the british are my personal favorites, one is Agg/Fin with Quechas that allows you to conquer atleast one neighbour really early and the other is Exp/Fin or Phi/Fin (both great combos) with Red Coats, who dominates the Gunpowder age.

I've also modded the game so that you get less hammers from chopping. Right now it's pretty much the right way to play, with my mod it's sometimes one of the best ways to play, which is how it should be.

 

[blueinf]

@ Gufnork, heh I guess I was unlucky the past games, British is also one of my fav because of exp/fin, I have not been successful with Phi.

I agree on the chopping issue. Chopping should be even less effective when you chop outside of fatcross/borders. Right now, it is very easy to aggress enemy early on then capture most of his workers to fuel your military production with non-stop chopping outside of the fat cross of your cities.

 

[Astax]

I find Idians ok. But I prefer Agressive. They do have their palce and the increased chop helps but not always. At beging of the game since you arent always sure how much forest you want to keep, I start chopping Forested hills first. Regradless of your green nature, elaving these near your capital can be suicidal. In that case the 3 move doesnt help.

 

[Lucas87]

I find the Indians really solid for cultural victory. The ability to nab religions early (thanks to Mysticism) and still get early chopping (thanks to Mining) is huge. Plus Industrious helps you keep up in the wonder race and I find the fast workers are really quite nice. They don't help you work faster directly, but you are able to start (and therefore finish) many improvements a turn earlier than you otherwise would have been able to. Ordinarily I think spiritual is kind of weak, but the fast temples are awesome for culture games. I usually only have 6-7 decent cities when I go for culture, but you need 9 temples to build three cathedrals for each religion. So I build some pretty terrible cities just to have 9 total and build like 6 temples in them, so I can build all the cathedrals in my culture cities. I think Ghandi is underappreciated on these boards, although I'm sure I'd get killed against humans and I haven't tried this against AI higher than Monarch.

 

[BaneBlade]

I always play Agressive AI(consider it more realistic/humanlike), prince or Monarch, i always do extreme treechop, regardless of the Civ i play. Worked very well sofar, did 6 MPGames, coming out 1. and 2. place, and, i forgot, i'm a warmonger. Now i tried(for the first time me playing Civ, and i played Civ1!) to take a peacefully approach, mainly because, jeah, Gandhi seems to be a nice person (Btw, this was with RealismMod, give it a try)
Worked very well first, grabbed central of my continent, made nearly all others my religion, grabbed all early wonders, big lead pointwise, military only for defensive. As soon as the whole continent was settled, my two best friends, Bismarck and Catherine declare war on me, i repell them without real damage, only because stupid AI stacked 4-6 Longbows/Crossbows in every city as a precaution against my non-existent counterattack. Human players would have handed me my own head on a silvertablet! So i realize i have to take out atleast one of them, switch to all militarybuildup(Mace,Knight,Cats), as soon as i have a decent army, Saladin attacks with bunches of Camelarchers, kills my first city, kills second city and destroys all nondefending units.
I consider game lost, admit defeat,quit. Partly my problem depended on the slowertechpace with RealismMod, giving u time to build BIG armys of UU/technically advanced troops, some other game i took out four non-bronze-ressource civs with axemen before even getting ironworking. Any advice on from experienced more peacefull players for me? Ill try it again, so help would be appreciated!
Bane

 

[Astax]

baneBlade, peace is not my thign eitehr. Anytiem I settle in for a peacful 200 eyars, I end up being overrun by AI :/ I really think Golden Age was designed for warmongeres so they can have a very brief peace period before returnign to war! From now on Ill hold on to GPs for the brief after war period to trigger Golden Age. Also my new strat will be while buildign a enw building, Ill build a military unit to match. So no more library/temple/marketplace/aquaduct train :/ Cause I ahve to assuem the AI is building up his units and in that time he'll have 5 extra untis in each city which equals no good for me :/