Late game wars?

[Hvuchew]

I'm playing with India on Deity now (Tiny map, marathon, 5 AI's, small continents). I won already some games on this level.

• I'm by far not the rush type so i always end up having a late game war and to me the key there are naval units. Battleships / Carriers are just the thing you need - the AI's somehow underestimate the naval force.
• Other thing is to lure them to a stronghold city (AI's ALWAYS (in my history) go for the most isolated city standing in front and just forget the others). With Kremlin, Tradition & Freedom city combat bonus upgrades and a few Battleships parked near by - you will weaken the AI's forces for good, will train your units and will save your inner cities.
• Having good City States as your Allies will defocus AI's and if they are on the border to your "lonely city" - you get AI's under crossed fire.

For all the above you don't need to be ahead of science at all - you just need to be smarter.

As a general game tactics leading to the late war i focus strongly on Wonders building. With some of them you can lock the game for you imho. Hanging Gardens to me is a must (compared to GL it wins) because it gives you the "kick" in population growth.
I'm a big fan of culture and i like the Oracle a lot. Honour taken early game makes barbarians a farming target for culture (and in the early stages what you win from it - matters). So i have 2 archers next to their camps and i leave them to spawn. I even plan to play next game with Aztec for their culture farming). With proper culture growth you can prepare for late game fight as well as with the science (you can not research only to have the units - something needs to produce them and keep you happy / profitable while you fight)

 

[Banman]

I'm playing with India on Deity now (Tiny map, marathon, 5 AI's, small continents). I won already some games on this level.

• I'm by far not the rush type so i always end up having a late game war and to me the key there are naval units. Battleships / Carriers are just the thing you need - the AI's somehow underestimate the naval force.
• Other thing is to lure them to a stronghold city (AI's ALWAYS (in my history) go for the most isolated city standing in front and just forget the others). With Kremlin, Tradition & Freedom city combat bonus upgrades and a few Battleships parked near by - you will weaken the AI's forces for good, will train your units and will save your inner cities.
• Having good City States as your Allies will defocus AI's and if they are on the border to your "lonely city" - you get AI's under crossed fire.

For all the above you don't need to be ahead of science at all - you just need to be smarter.

As a general game tactics leading to the late war i focus strongly on Wonders building. With some of them you can lock the game for you imho. Hanging Gardens to me is a must (compared to GL it wins) because it gives you the "kick" in population growth.
I'm a big fan of culture and i like the Oracle a lot. Honour taken early game makes barbarians a farming target for culture (and in the early stages what you win from it - matters). So i have 2 archers next to their camps and i leave them to spawn. I even plan to play next game with Aztec for their culture farming). With proper culture growth you can prepare for late game fight as well as with the science (you can not research only to have the units - something needs to produce them and keep you happy / profitable while you fight)

On a water-dominated map, I can see how that would work really well ... the AI really doesn't know what to do against a human opponent on the water. You're absolutely right about the AI undervaluing naval power --> I don't have the post handy but someone on the forums figured out how the demographic military strength is calculated for each unit, and naval units across the board have almost nil value in that calculation. IIRC it's something ridiculous, like a ship of the line having fewer military strength points than a chariot archer, or some such.

I also agree on the value of HG --> one to one and over time, it's definitely more valuable than GL. Though the GL can give you a key tech early, which can mean the difference between short-term survival and death ...

Will have to try out the barb culture farming sometime ...

 

[Hvuchew]

I just finished a Deity game against Germany, England, Japan and Greece on "small continents". I was slightly behind in tech - so now domination in units stage.

I parked 2 Carriers (3 bombers each), 4 Battleships, 2 Subs & 1 GG in front of 34 pop German City (Athens - poor Alexander). With this i managed to take over the city for 2 turns. Once it was mine - Germany throw like 20 units on it - to take it back. And they all went down. Now this means he does not have any more units to defend the rest of the empire - and he is sitting duck for water based invasion.

The thigh is that the bastard got the Space Ship right after his army went "bye bye!" - 5 turns before me I had to load 80 turns back and win it the easy way - trough rush of culture in Rationalism = 2 free tech = Space Ship victory.

But still - if there was no science victory - i was going to eat him alive. He was the second biggest military power - i was the last.

Ofc Baman - you are right. On big land mass continent - this does not work. But even with a small lake Battleships will bring a difference to your defense. Or if you need just to step on his shore and then mach deeper in the land - "naval for the win".

If AI acts like hat i just assume that on land the bait should be a front positioned city - with massive ranged units behind it. A citadel or two can do the corridor for the AI to get in and get wasted. If he desn't come to your city - take the front one of his civ and wait for him to run for taking it back. I will try this tactics with the Aztecs. For them + this tactics i will build the full Honor tree - i don't see the victory otherwise.

As a WW for late game war i think that Statue of Liberty is a big must - since with Freedom it will boost your production to the sky with specialists. And will do so with keeping the great persons spawning rate high in the same time. This is great for spaming units and still having a normal economy and progres. I missed it in the last game and I was "missing" it a lot.

 

[Banman]

I parked 2 Carriers (3 bombers each), 4 Battleships, 2 Subs & 1 GG in front of 34 pop German City (Athens - poor Alexander). With this i managed to take over the city for 2 turns. Once it was mine - Germany throw like 20 units on it - to take it back. And they all went down. Now this means he does not have any more units to defend the rest of the empire - and he is sitting duck for water based invasion.

nice maneuver! I must confess I haven't really done much with battleships, usually the point at which I'm mixing things up intensely is before they are available and all of my frigates etc. upgrade to destroyers, which get the naval job done pretty well. I also often skip over carriers since they won't carry stealth bombers (I have to say, a few stealth bombers upgraded to logistics will lay waste to pretty much anything w/in 20 tiles or so) ... will have to play around w/them some more as you suggest ... what do you think the practical power differential is between battleships and destroyers?

 

[Hvuchew]

... what do you think the practical power differential is between battleships and destroyers?

Destroyers are faster (more moves) but weaker (30% less combat strength) and with lower range (-30%) and more frigate. Their big advantage to me is that they see enemy subs and the Battleships / Carriers don't. A sub can vaporize your whole naval strategy if you don't see it fast enough. If you don't have Oil - you don't have choose - Destroyers for you instead of Battleships.

To me the more interesting question is Subs vs Destroyers.

Subs can't bomb land (uh ..... right?) but are invisible except to other subs and Destroyers. Destroyer on the other hand can protect the fleet from Subs (just by spotting them) and in the same time bombard the land units / cities. The cost is the same - both don't need Oil. Since i go for cities and kill a lot of land units from the sea - i would go for Destroyer instead of a Sub.

 

[Thresian]

Destroyers (a) have more movement points than any other naval unit, (b) can see subs and (c) can intercept aircraft. Battleships are stronger and have greater range, but the AI is so bad at naval warfare that those advantages are usually redundant. For bombarding cities and land units, aircraft are superior.

 

[Bamboocha]

Here's my save game, guys. I'm doing pretty decent if I say so myself.

I'm starting to build myself a small army, which was originally intended to attack Persia, but now that annoying Oda has declared war on me. Luckily he's at war with at least 2 other civs and all the way up north, so I don't have anything to worry about, but I deployed my army on the northern border of my empire just to be sure.

 

[Hvuchew]

Well … just finished the game with Aztecs. And it was ALL about wars and mostly late game war.

Aztec
Deity
Small
Marathon
Lakes
Domination & Diplomatic
5 AI’s (Greece, America, Rome, Egypt and Songhai)
15 City States

It took me 1 670 turns …. But I got some very interesting info about AI’s behavior (I play from 30 – 40 days only and I missed completely Civ 4 – so I have a lot to catch up) – specifically in the area of this posting.

How it went:

I was in the north center part of the map with Rome, America & Egypt around me and 2 city states on the right side. Through the whole game I was constantly at war with Rome or / and America with some periods of one with Egypt too. The most important things coming from that was:
• City with walls, two archers (one inside and one behind) + Oligarchy can hold up against 3 -4 swordsmen without any problem. The AI is just not smart enough to position them in a way that can really make it a serious problem. And playing with Aztec I got TONS of Culture from the killed units – really useful for the first 10 – 20 policies.
• AI will try to take one city only – focus all the power there
• AI will probably start an attack or a war every time it makes a step forward with the science and have new type of units.
• Once pushed back – the AI stops the waves of units and starts to send idiotic demands for peace. Until someone else dos not attack him – then he gives all his money to you in order to sign peace treaty (America gave me 2 cities……)
• While busy hitting each other on the heads with “pointed sticks” the idiots don’t build any Wonders …. at all.
• One gold per turn (during the first like 200 turns) can make AI like you enough to not attack you and go for someone else instead (they just need to fight)

So the game went like that for like 1 000 turns – I managed to build 4 cities close to each other and got my hands on almost all Wonders until Statue of Liberty (except Lighthouse, Stonehenge, Pyramids & Gr.Wall ).
Then for 50 turns Songhai got all the others conquered (by passing trough my territory). While we were fighting this guy managed to get like 50% advance with technology and had around 35 technologies vs 20 for me (I was last….). He was walking trough my territory with tanks while I just made an upgrade of the Archers with Crossbowman….

Here came some other important things for me:
• One luxury given for free can often buy you peace with AI which was going to attack you in 2 -3 turns for sure (some even went for DoF right after…) I was lucky to get my hands on 4 pearls – so they saved my life like 5 – 6 times.
• With Songhai I had the luck of providing the pearls for already 200 turns maybe – so the liked me a lot (DoF constantly). This one pearl was enough to not erase me from the map like he did with America and Rome (10 turs and both were gone)

At this stage we were only 2 players left – with 6 city states. I was just ages behind with tech. The score was 6 000 vs 1800 – he had around 25 cities. I had 7 (5 mine and 2 which America gave me to sign peace when Songhai was in front of their Capital). Songhai started building WW and for 20 turns he got 3 – 4 of the late game ones. What I did:
• Used 4 GS to boost the tech speed and DE to build immediately the WW (Freedom is the best) Got he artillery and relaxed a bit.
• Kept giving him luxuries to keep him happy.
• Fortified myself.

Here comes the tricky part – he did nothing to me……. I have the feeling that when he got the UN the AI focuses on diplomatic victory only and just votes – even if it’s clear he can’t win (to small number of city states still alive – not enough votes in the game).
So he actually left me alone to develop for like 300 – 400 turns. During this time he got army index of 1 200 000 vs my 200 000 maybe a million gold, all technologies, nukes and all possible policies. During this time he kept all city stated as his allies – to support the vote (he had 6 states and needed 10 votes….stupid). I had no petrol and no uranium in y territory…. nice eh?!

And now - the “Late game war”.

How did I prepare.

• I builded roads (Stalin long time ago did – and he won. Not because of this but still….. ) to all his border cities
• Got as much cash as I can (reached 70 k)
• Produced all the bombers I could (normal ones – no stealth yet)
• Piled some GA
• Got all policies of Honor & Freedom (army / specialists & city defense boost)
• Produced 2 Carries in one big lake (or very small seal – like 7 – 9 tiles big blocked by the ice) in order to place the bombers away from the city because the nukes were going to destroy them easy.
• Got Battleships in all cities which had at least one tile of sea water next to them (one had sea but with ice – and the ship was “blocked” IN the city – so I had to units in it)
• Produced all R.Artilery and A.Infanty I could.
• Produced all Guided Missiles I could (20+)

How did it started:

• Somehow AI was so focused on voting that he did not declared war after for 30 turns I used 3 GA’s to steal few tiles from him. By that I managed to move the border right next to 2 of his cities and to gar jut one source of uranium. He was just threatening.
• Used 2 GA’s and got 2 oil tiles from City States next to me.
• Got two N.Missiles
• Placed them in small unimportant city (one that was given to me by America)
• Since he was keeping all city states as his allies I had no option but to buy them for me on the turn of the DDay so he could not get them back once we are at war.
• On DDay turn I got the 3 city states that I was in contact with and with the oil and aluminum from them I bought all bombers I could (but not in the capital – lost the opportunity for full upgrade. Bought them in the remote and small cities)
• Declared war

How did it went:

• On the same turn I used the old bombers and the two nukes (not so much for the city but to clear the army around it – they saw me preparing and got a lot o armor there) to get two cities – only sending one m.infantry to get them at the end – no other units close. One city was Bucharest so I liberated it (key point).
• Bought two new nukes
• “Next turn”
• AI nuked my ass out – Capital + second big city reduced from 40 / 30 population to 20 / 15. All units inside were gone. Immediately my “income” became negative (-200 / turn)
• AI took back the two cities with big army positioned around them (5 – 7 armors each)
• My turn
• The new bombers ( I had like 15), r.artilery and the two nukes got back the same cities and killed all army around them. Bucharest stayed City State and I make him my ally immediately.
• With the G.Missiles I managed to get one more city – but this one I liberated for Egypt.
• “Next turn”
• Songhai nuked me again – 3 big cities were reduced to population of 5 – 9. I was smart enough to get all units away from those ones in the previous turn. Carriers were great idea – 2 tiles from the Capital – they got damaged but not killed and saved the 6 bombers I neaded at this end of the map.
• He did not touch Bucharest and Egypt.
• Focused a lot of units towards only 2 cities – the one I took from him and one mine. Units are still one tile away.
• I upgraded 10 bombers to S.Bombes
• My turn
• I bombed his units going for the two cities and by this I won 80% of the war. The only challenge was to survive economically. He was just too weak to send more big number of armors to me and somehow he finished with the nukes (I don’t know why…..). For he coming turns he was just bombarding with bombers my central and already nuked cities.
• In the next 5 – 7 turns with the bombers help (good upgrades already) I liberated one city of America, Rome and one city state. He somehow lost influence on other city state and I got it very fast for me. Forced down two other cities which I annexed for myself. In between I had some fun by bombing his Death Robots for experience with my S.Bombers (he was fighting with a city state – they are a great barrier)
• At the end he asked for peace – still having like 18 - 20 cities, tons of money but very weak army.
And guess what – next UN vote I had the 10 votes…..and I won. If there were no option for Diplomatic Victory – he was going down in not more than 50 turns (I ended on 2 k gold and was still making (-100) / turn – so I needed time to recover the cash and clean my territory. But the game was won)

Like in the naval fights from my previous game – here it was clear that the AI does not have an answer to the air armada and that once you have one city and push back the big wave of retaliating units coming to take it back – the AI is just gone.
Key here was the liberating – you just don’t need the cites because you can’t really defend them. The other AI’s will be weak enough to not bother you at all – but in the same time will reduce the strength of the main enemy without having to fight hi.
The only problem I see in this was the cash – 10 turns more I and was lost due to no resources to buy the units replacement for the lost ones and to keep the city states happy with me.

I hope this “novel” will be useful to some of you (otherwise I just lost an hour of my life f nothing). Keep in mind that I’m not so experienced in Civ games so some things here might end up being re-discovering of the weal for you .

 

[Banman]

Bamboocha, that is a strong start! Congrats on snagging Glib and Oracle ... Where are you thinking of heading from here? I agree that Japan is probably not much of a threat, he's pretty far away. Your main threat looks to really be from the developing alliance between Persia + Arabia + Rome. If they turn on you, you could catch it from both sides ... and you're pretty exposed to the Persians. Attacking them is a good idea, but doesn't look favorable right now for a few reasons: a) they've probably got a tech and military edge on you b) their terrain is easy for them to defend and hard for you to attack -- once they have a road to Tarsus troops will pile in their quickly and c) they are friendly with Arabia, who will probably look to come across those mountains soon anyways and d) you don't have very much knowledge of Persian territory beyond the border.

A couple quick thoughts before I get into the thick of your strategic position --> you can hurry the NatEpic slightly right now by switching to a production focus right now, you're close enough to the next population level that it will still be one turn to city growth and you'll shave a turn off the NatEpic. On other front, it looks like you'll get 4 turns of free research from your next RA --> in hindsight (which is always 20/20, of course ) you could have researched optics and construction before theology, which would have put your median research time at this point around 13 turns (so at least 6 turns of free research for the next RA) instead of (13-5)/2=4. Not a huge difference, but it would have maximized your GP to beaker conversion and giving StPetersburg the extra time to grow would probably have at least partially made up for any delay in your Hagia Sophia's start with additional production.

My thoughts geostrategically: If you're looking to keep tech and econ parity for later wars and an eventual win, I think you're in a really good position right now foreign policy-wise. The fact that Japan has DoWed you gives you a key opening to play Persia+Arabia to your advantage, because Rome is also at war with Japan (which makes Rome sympathetic to you), Arabia has a DoF with Rome and Persia has a DoF with Arabia. If I was in your shoes, I would DoF with Rome, then DoF with Arabia. I wouldn't DoF with Persia though, even if they want to --> if you do this will act to pull Persia closer to Arabia and Rome then they are now, which will only make it less likely that Persia will become isolated later. In the save I was just able to DoF with Rome and Arabia, which had the desired impact on Persia's sentiments towards you. What are the benefits of this maneuvering?

1) you gain a boost in your relations with Arabia and Persia, which decreases the likelihood that either or both will jump you at a time of their choosing and they will both be more tolerant of you settling in their directions, which you desperately need to do to block them off, particularly Arabia.
2) Entering yourself into the alliance structure amongst Rome, Arabia and Persia will serve to further isolate Japan and India, who are both the early weaklings in your region. In addition, India enjoys a pretty rich chunk of terrain within reasonable striking distance of your northern border.
3) Gaining higher position in the Rome/Arabia/Persia arc than Persia sets you up to take advantage of any future opportunity to isolate Persia from Arabia, which you will really need to do in order to take Persia down without Arabia knocking on your door.

Therefore, my suggestions (if I was in your shoes) would be:
1) DoF with Rome, Arabia and buy open borders from Persia (but do not DoF)
2) send your scout to explore Persian territory
3) sell horses to Arabia for spices (to boost happiness in preparation for your army moving off to sock it to India)
4) upgrade your garrison warriors to swords and sword rush India --> I would take Pataliputra, then Delhi, and if things are still going favorable and there hasn't been a nice peace offer yet on to Mumbai, then leave the Indians with the coastal city. This will get you at least one cotton, and you can use the conquest money to buy new warrior garrisons to get your garrison happiness and culture back ASAP. Leaving the Indians on the coast will give some buffer between your Indian territories and the Persians, especially considering the coastal position would be very hard to defend.
5) get a catapult or two paired with a spear and sword or a couple swords at Delhi in case the Japanese do end up coming down one of those mountain passes while you gather your forces and wait for an opportunity on Persia
6) as soon as you can, put a city down west of Moscow to lock up all the city spots between you and Arabia -- this will also get you another incense for trading. You could build one in Moscow pretty quick after the NatEpic finishes.
7) build or buy a southern army operating out of Moscow/StPetersburg in addition to the force in your (putative) Indian territories --> I would focus Moscow's production on this for a bit after the National Epic and settler is done. If Arabia is able to plant a city close to your borders, it will be hard to avoid simultaneous war with Arabia and Persia.
8) watch for whether Persia and Arabia renew their DoF -- if they do you'll have to bide your time longer before attacking Persia --> watch how Rome feels about Persia and see whether you can draw Rome into a war against Persia. Regardless, it is best to attack Persia when it does not have an active DoF with Arabia or Rome under this scenario. If there is even a one-turn gap in DoF renewal, I'd try to jump on it because you will have an opportunity to isolate Persia from Arabia. Definitely, wait until both your northern and southern armies are in position --> so you can attack down the coast to ecbatana with your northern army while attacking tarsus and/or whatever city is to the east with your southern army.
Something else to keep in mind with your timing for attacking Persia --> their alliance with Brussels (and to a lesser extent Bucharest). It would be ideal if you could wean at least Brussels away from them (and in fact that might be the kind of thing that would help you isolate them from Arabia, since Persia will get a 'we are competing for the favor of the same city-states' but Arabia will care most about who attacks whom if he is friends with both you and Persia, so if you can get Persia to draw first blood chances are Arabia will definitely be at least neutral if not on your side). Of course, at this stage it will be hard to get the cash to do that, so you might just have to tolerate city-state combat on the fringes.

I know most folks shy away from playing this kind of diplomatic two-step, since it can be unpredictable and can blow up in your face if you're not alert to changing dynamics. But I've found that if you keep on top of it, you can effectively maneuver neighboring powers into supporting your aggression or at least staying out of a conflict by manipulating their regard for you and your desired opponent. Assuming this scenario works, (which it might well not ), you'd have the best parts of India, the western territories of Persia, two experienced armies, and your hagia sophia.

Either way you go, good luck! If I have some time I think I'll try playing my scenario out with the save file just to see if I can get it to work out in real play ...

 

[Banman]

Hmmmm ... played out my suggested scenario some and sadly it didn't quite work out as I had envisioned (big surprise ) ... Played up to t150, still can't see an opening against Persia. Did take Pataliputra from India, which has turned out to be a really productive puppet city but didn't move on to Delhi because of a good peace deal and attrition amongst the swords.
Wasn't able to preempt Arabia coming over the mountains (got the settler done too late) but did grab the fourth incense and, ultimately, Old Faithful with Rostov.
Missed PT by just two turns! Someone built it when we had one turn left on Education, and the engineer was ready to rush it ... rushed ND instead. Probably would have made the difference to build National College before National Epic, though GS production is apace RA yields are low.
Did successfully isolate Persia from Arabia and Rome to the extent that Persia was asking us to help them in war against Arabia! Had to decline though because 1) Persia is blowing up fast and doesn't need any help and 2) was already into Arabia and Rome for RAs etc. and couldn't sour the markets that way. Persia took the Arabian city east of the mountains. At t150, they're friendly with a DoF, lux sales and RA but they are a bear and only getting bigger. They have Himeji Castle (combat bonus in their territory), Chichen Itza (extended golden ages) and the same daunting terrain. They've developed into one of the top powers and are a bit ahead in tech. Right now am hoping to catch up to Persia in tech and prepare a cossack/cannon rush to cut them down to size, but that's a ways off. Should be able to keep friendly for the forseeable future.

Save at t150 attached. In hindsight, I think there might have been a better chance of hobbling Persia with a sword rush around t100, but it took time before they were isolated from Arabia ... maybe Arabia wouldn't have come in?

What do you guys think? What's your take Bamboocha?

 

[Scarpa]

I hope this “novel” will be useful to some of you (otherwise I just lost an hour of my life f nothing). Keep in mind that I’m not so experienced in Civ games so some things here might end up being re-discovering of the weal for you .

I found this post fascinating and informative. I have a save game I've been avoiding due to a too-slow domination attempt resulting in a runaway Inca civ with nukes. I think I'll take some of your strategies and setup a fun late game war. I'm already rolling plenty of rocket artillery, bombers and tanks. Should probably ramp up some guided missles, stealth bombers and settle into a long, bloody, modern war.