Mid- to late-game

[Terrapin]

Early game strategies are pretty thoroughly mapped out. Almost every strategy in the strats forum deals with how to get a fast start using one civ or another. But what about later in the game?

Domination is obvious enough. Tech up to Chivalry (or Combustion) and then switch most or all cities to gold production and rush out attackers. With a decent start, I can win by knights by 1200-1500 AD (My best is 550 AD) However, I find that other victory conditions take a really long time. My questions are these:

At what point in the game do you identify which type of victory you are going for?

How do you manage your empire in order to speed up any of the three non-military victory types?

 

[GGrayson]

most strategies tend to focus heavily on the early game, because that is the most predictable part of the game, or the easiest to plan for. Most of the good strategies that are written try to set you up with a solid foundation from which you can best decide how to proceed.

That being said, you can't talk about the mid-to-late game without saying that you must establish a good start, or something workable. This can be done by expansion, rushing, or a combination of the two. Not many civs are great at turtling in a few cities, and even with those civs (pretty much Greeks and Egyptians w/ Collosus), you still would do better to expand, if not early, later on in the game.

Not all civs have bonuses that are great in the industrial or modern. The French, Aztecs, Russians, and Egyptians are all great examples of civs that don't have bonuses that will win you the game late.

Basically, you want to expand out to as many cities as you can defend, usually at least 8, preferable 12 or more. The main expansion phase should be over by around 0AD, give or take a few turns, but you should still look to expand if it doesn't slow you down.

If I'm going for domination, then I'll choose what type of domination victory. If I have low production, then it's probably a bunch of vet legions. If I can get them out fast enough, knights are great. Against the AI, knights will probably work till around 1000AD. Elite players can get knights in the BC years, and win a lot of games online like that, but you don't need to know how to do that, and sometimes it's risky to sell out on costly knights early in the game.

If you are close in tech with the other civs, but you are doing a little better in tech, then you may want to wait for tanks, or get Advanced Flights (thus Bombers) from Oxford University. Tech up to Industrialization, then University, and dont' get any techs that cost more beakers than Industrialization, and then produce the Oxford University, and you will get Advanced Flight faster than you can get tanks.

For the other types of wins, it takes a lot of expansion. The more cities you have, the faster Economic and Tech victories will be. Civs like the Greeks and Chinese can get tech wins fast, due to half priced libraries. Just expand like crazy, get to 14 techs, and then get 20 hammer libraries in all your cities, switch to democracy, and just like that, you have about triple the tech you had before.

Economic victories are the fastest non-domination wins, especially with 50% gold civs like the Aztecs, Spanish, and Zulu. But, 50% gold bonus also means 50% inflation. You'll be paying a lot more to rush buildings and units. So, stop teching before you get that bonus, build up a little gold, bank some hammers, and rush a few markets, and then get the bonus. Economic wins really only need industrialization, corp, gunpoweder or whatever you need to defend, and Communism. Rush a factory early in one of your cities before banking gold, and then start banking hammers for the World Bank. Communism will help finish off the wonder if you haven't by the time you get 20,000 gold.

Culture wins are the slowest of all victories (execept for maybe with the Romans). You need a lot of production. Having a high culture count can help, but the fastest way is to build a lot of wonders. Usually when I'm winning a culture win, it's with about 10-12 wonders, and the rest settled GPs, with maybe one or two flips.

 

[marciv]

I'm presently playing on Deity but have not won yet. I seem to be doing ok in the early game and can be leading on Dom/Tech etc but often find that someone on the opposite side of the map is starting to leave me behind by the Industrial/Modern era. This has occurred several times and I am often too busy fighting off my neighbours to spend time and resources on sending an Army via Battleship (or Cruiser) to the other side of the map. By the time my assailants offer peace and leave me alone, it is too late to send a force to the capital of the leading tribe ie to prevent a Cultural/Tech victory. I am getting better and regularly come second or third place in the final rankings. I'm not too bothered as if winning became too easy then I would get bored. I should perhaps be more agressive in the early game and rush more; perhaps I should give in to their demands to prevent an unwelcome fight . I am presently playing the Mongols as I like the fact that they recruit Barbs which is good for early expansion. Don't laugh but I can't even win with the Aztecs on Deity at the moment. I won't really be happy until I have tasted victory with all tribes. I won't play MP until I have had more success with SP. Whatever the case, I will keep playing.

 

[blackdaggr]

Culture wins are the slowest of all victories (execept for maybe with the Romans). You need a lot of production. Having a high culture count can help, but the fastest way is to build a lot of wonders. Usually when I'm winning a culture win, it's with about 10-12 wonders, and the rest settled GPs, with maybe one or two flips.

Actually, I find culture wins to be one of the fastest routes, even with non-culture oriented civs. Of course, I usually whack one of the other civs and absorb their great people and wonders.

But a question related to this topic - those scenarios where all civs start with multiple cities and techs (for instance, Global Warming). They prevent you from getting an early jump. Any recommendations on strategy for those scenarios?

 

[GGrayson]

Actually, I find culture wins to be one of the fastest routes, even with non-culture oriented civs. Of course, I usually whack one of the other civs and absorb their great people and wonders.

It takes more resources to acheive a culture win than others. Yes, you can conquer a few cities w/ wonders or steal some GPs, but a culture win than is pre 500AD takes a really great start, some luck in having the AI building the right wonders, and getting to Industrialization really fast, which probably means you could get an economic victory faster, and even a tech victory. On multiplayer, it's really really hard to get a culture win, because you can't just rely on your opponnets not to beat you in tech. On single player, the AI techs really slow, and probalby won't be in the modern till well past 1000AD, so you don't really have to worry about them so much. The multipliers for gold and tech come much quicker than the multipliers for production and culture.

I've probably had 10+ tech and economic wins pre-500AD, and have only managed two with culture wins.

But a question related to this topic - those scenarios where all civs start with multiple cities and techs (for instance, Global Warming). They prevent you from getting an early jump. Any recommendations on strategy for those scenarios?

You can still usually take the closest civ, especially if you have a strong early game civ, like the Arabs or Aztecs. After that, try to get as much control of the map as possible, and proceed as normal, trying to expand as much as possible, chocking off the map as much as possible, and maintain a tech lead and a superior number of cities.

If you want a win a domination win, you'll probably not do as well just horserushing or using few knight armies. You'll either have to swarm them with several legion armies or knight armies, or just tech up to tanks.

 

[Terrapin]

One thing I have been experimenting with for speeded up culture victory is a variation on Backdaggr's strategy of conquering cities with WoW and GP. I think I shall dub it the Grab and Flip. Like GG said, you need a really big empire for any culture win. Finding the Ark of the Covenant is helpful too. So my strategy assumes that you are already expanded and are putting some cultural pressure on your neighbors.

Make your post expansion goals Monarchy, Feudalism and Navigation. Prepare to rush 2-3 Vet Knight Armies and some spies. Now look for a civ which expanded toward you so that its newer cities are between the bulk of your cities and their capital. Now take your Knights and spies on your ship and take their capital. That will give you most of that civ's WoWs and GPs. Rush a Temple there ASAP. Now their lesser cities are being squeezed culturally from both sides. The idea is to quickly flip 3-5 cities by holding them in a cultural vice. I have yet to make this strategy work in a culture win. Preparing a Knight rush while building up culture is a lot of balls to juggle.

What gave me this idea was a Domination game where I was taking capitals only for efficiency's sake. I noticed no less than five secondary cities flipped even though my only culture was from Temples and I was far from being a culture monger. I realized that the AI civs had almost no culture in their secondary cities. Taking the capitals left their cities exposed and even the modest amount of culture I was generating was enough to make all of the remaining cities flip.

 

[ericball]

IIRC You get the palace culture bonus when you take an an enemy capital. (And I think you also get the defensive bonus.) However, it is possible to culture flip a capital which has been taken.

And why stop at temples? I often rush temples & cathedrals in enemy cities. (Yes, a waste of gold, but I hate losing cities to culture flips.)

 

[Terrapin]

A fair point, eb, but by the time you rush out knights and spies and have built temples and maybe cathedrals in your own cities, rushing both a templ and a cathedral is just too much to get done. But, hey, if you are rich, go for it!

 

[elthrasher]

IIRC You get the palace culture bonus when you take an an enemy capital. (And I think you also get the defensive bonus.) However, it is possible to culture flip a capital which has been taken.

No, palace culture only comes from your original capital. If you lose your cap, you will get no palace culture, even if you have other capitals. The formula for palace culture is simple. You get 1 culture per turn per total population of your empire with a maximum of 5. Palace culture is really only significant in the early game.

All capitals do get the +50% defensive bonus for the palace (not cumulative with walls or hill bonus). Aside from counting as a building for purposes of the Taj Majal and Eiffel Tower wonders, that's all an enemy palace does for you.

In SP culture victories can be fairly easy if you do sort of a late tank rush or something because the AI settles so many GP and will build useless wonders if not at war. In MP you basically have to have an opponent who is behind yet not quitting the game while you win a slower victory than you'd otherwise have with econ, dominion or probably even tech. In more than 500 MP games, I've gotten maybe 4 culture wins and all of them were games where I was really just screwing around and could've won faster with a different victory condition.

When Grayson says culture victory is slow, he means it's really tough to get it before like 500 AD, which is true. At that point in the game, there aren't enough wonders/GP to take from the AI and you've basically got to make a bunch of wonders by yourself. You also have to build the UN, which is a challenge when you've already had to spend so many hammers on wonders that early. It's much easier to come up with 20,000 gold and hammer out the World Bank before 500 AD.