Multiplayer: Stopping greeks
- Thread starter Ermak-
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Yeah.. but CC only works with one civilization too.
monti has often jungel and a advantage SoPos wise
bismark has more units and pikes which are like improved hoplits
france should get faster the important strat resources
russia will build more units (and faster!)
egypt can get horsemen with fast movement archers (plus some wonders normally)
japans normal spearmen plus every other unit act like a UU
persia has improved spearmen
and so on. every nation got something which counts, and the greece bonus for CS is kinda expensive in early game. without their UUs they would be kinda handycapped.
bismark has more units and pikes which are like improved hoplits
france should get faster the important strat resources
russia will build more units (and faster!)
egypt can get horsemen with fast movement archers (plus some wonders normally)
japans normal spearmen plus every other unit act like a UU
persia has improved spearmen
and so on. every nation got something which counts, and the greece bonus for CS is kinda expensive in early game. without their UUs they would be kinda handycapped.
flyingbunnys
Warlord
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What if you are the Ottomans or Americans I think a pikeman rush is the only option
Glad I don't have to worry about this since I play as the Iriquise and they have a strong UU in the begining.
Being the aggressor can help too. Put a 2nd city close to him near a sheep,hill production tile and try to get a choke point where he need to run through 2 non open tiles in a row to reach city core, and build spearmen.
Attack him ASAP around 2000 b.c. with 4-5 spearmen and pillage everything. If you can outnumber him really fast, especially against hoplites, he will get hard times to recover, and the nice thing is hoplites cost more than normal spearmen. And maybe you will have an opportunity to get his capital litterally.
If its too hard to do you can hold him enough until you get horsemen or swordmen for a better defence, combined with a GG or oligarchy.
Attack him ASAP around 2000 b.c. with 4-5 spearmen and pillage everything. If you can outnumber him really fast, especially against hoplites, he will get hard times to recover, and the nice thing is hoplites cost more than normal spearmen. And maybe you will have an opportunity to get his capital litterally.
If its too hard to do you can hold him enough until you get horsemen or swordmen for a better defence, combined with a GG or oligarchy.
Good idea. But disable starting bias can make this strategy a bit difficult to set up. You need to get lucky with forests. But they act like a non open terrain which is good.
The thing is that Alex can do this too! The Honor tree will give him extra flanking bonuses, double XP and a GG.
And if the game isn't already over and he can wait that long, he can get Patronage and use his UA with City States, as the currently bugged system may give him a Khan who can keep up with the CCs.
So maybe it all balances back again. If you're not civ specific, perhaps you have to go for sheer numbers, fighting fire with fire plus Oligarchy, sending out scouts and then settlers right on top of horses.
bryanw1995
Emperor
what a stupid idea, to take away a nations strengthwould be like not allowing france to settle fast some fresh cities or to stop aztecs rushing the jungle with jaguars
I forgot about the jungle + 50% for aztecs. I played a game the other day where I foolishly built Stonehenge. irroquois had 10 cities, the largest army and was on top in most of the stats before I built enough horsemen to rush him. completely trashed my original "build big cities with nice-guy sp's" plan btw. fortunately, there was a big jungle between most of hiawatha's reinforcements and his 3 outliers (which he foolishly built right next to my cities). I just planted a couple of jaguar-swordsmen in the jungle and watched him die!
bryanw1995
Emperor
Civil Service slingshot.
1. Writing
2. Buy library
3. Run 2 scientists
4. Trapping
5. Philosophy
6. Bulb Civil Service
7. Spam pikemen
QUOTE]
This is good stuff. But maybe a little too late for an early rush. And don't buy library. Never. Not in multi at least.
I usually go for animal husbandry, mining then bronze working, IN ANY CASE/GAME. This is the best. Happiness can wait. Rush 1 or 2 cities and spam/buy spearman. You can easily have 4-5 of them by 2000 b.c. Scout his cap to see if he has horses in. If he does, follow this strategy.
At this rate, 2 companions can knock your door at that time(2000 bc.). But they are toast with such many spearmen.And honor tree need 2 policies right of the bat to see a GG or the 15% bonus, wich is hard to get so soon, unless you pop-up 2 culture ruins.
A better way to leverage a great scientist from a library is to bulb steel around turn 60 and upgrade to longswordmen. With a good preparation you can throw 6-8 of them if you have ressources plus a GG around turn 70 and in 95% of cases nobody can resist this powerful blow, probably the most powerful strategy in the b.c. turns.
yeah, because he can't pillage your iron with his 5 move CC, right?
if he tries to pillage iron improvment(s) he probably have to penetrate more deeply in your territory and expose himself to a suicide.
Like i said, spamming spearmen is good in any situation and discourage this kind of strategy from the ennemy.
Cover your capital with cities, and build parallel roads from outside to be able to catch these pesky CCs. I didnt see thread about how to use road efficiently in mp but i think its one of the most important keys to master to play against horses.
Outnumber the opponent...make yourself a ''carpet of doom''. They will have difficulties to break the wall to catch improvements.
Like i said, spamming spearmen is good in any situation and discourage this kind of strategy from the ennemy.
Cover your capital with cities, and build parallel roads from outside to be able to catch these pesky CCs. I didnt see thread about how to use road efficiently in mp but i think its one of the most important keys to master to play against horses.
Outnumber the opponent...make yourself a ''carpet of doom''. They will have difficulties to break the wall to catch improvements.
on an open map defensive strategies do not win the game
they only prolong your death and hasten your allies' deaths
if it's a FFA you still need to invest ridiculously high in defending vs greece which will still lead to you losing the game against someone who didn't have to make that investment
they only prolong your death and hasten your allies' deaths
if it's a FFA you still need to invest ridiculously high in defending vs greece which will still lead to you losing the game against someone who didn't have to make that investment
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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It definitely fits the sirlin.net definition of a gaming "scrub", but if everyone agrees on pretend rules then they become real rules :/.
I find it dubious that such a rush is unstoppable, or even more consistently awkward/annoying to counter than say civ IV skirmisher chokes. In practice, it will take considerable resources to take down spears on hills/forest with CC AND capture cities, and ZoC won't let them just blow by you. MP is simultaneous moves, too, so they are at considerable risk that one of your spear columns just times it and kills them. Beyond that, things like roads can allow you to run them down, and if GREECE is trying to kill someone, any other players in the game (if there are any) would be foolish not to consider sticking a knife in their back.
All of this and we haven't even touched on chokes/harassment that will seriously delay their horses unless they settle straight on them, or that if they go too gung-ho on early settlement for horses that they're decidedly vulnerable to losing a city to a couple warriors outright.
You're talking about banning something WAY too early in the development of MP gameplay and tactics. From a competitive standpoint, that is utterly foolish, but if pretend rules are your schtick, float your boat.
This isn't civ IV. Remind us why you'd need iron for pikes in civ V.
You are right Biz. I suggested that you can be the aggressor. If you have an opportunity to enter his territory and make some damages...well go for it. I admit an open terrain is the worst scenario against Greece. In a 1v1 you have no choice but to fight him.
But in FFA you can work well enough to dodge a fight against Greece or you can bribe another opponent to fight with you. Tiny maps gives more earlier oppportunities to fight.
When somebody picks Greece, i always ask myself : Do i know him? What is the expansion rate in term of soldiers through turns? Does he have horses close to me or not? And many more questions like that.
France and China work well against Greece for early stages. Darius is not bad too.
But in FFA you can work well enough to dodge a fight against Greece or you can bribe another opponent to fight with you. Tiny maps gives more earlier oppportunities to fight.
When somebody picks Greece, i always ask myself : Do i know him? What is the expansion rate in term of soldiers through turns? Does he have horses close to me or not? And many more questions like that.
France and China work well against Greece for early stages. Darius is not bad too.
While I agree with you that a CC rush isn't "unstoppable" and that it can take a long time for MP tactics to develop enough to really determine what is and isn't overpowered, I do think the CC is a problem. When the best option for stopping something is "rush them before they can launch the attack" or "try to get an ally to backstab them while they're attacking you" then don't you think there's a problem there? It's not like CC are a late-game unit that takes a long time to come online, either- the only units which come earlier are warriors, archers, chariot archers, and spearmen.
Or think about it this way- is it balanced to rush someone with regular horsemen? If yes, how is it also balanced to rush someone with extra-powerful, extra-fast horsemen?
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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The best option is always to have someone else do your work for you. While these are probably among the more effective shut-downs of CC, they are certainly not the ONLY option. It takes longer to reach them than spears and they cost more.
To compare, think about civ IV praetorians. At 8 str, they had more power w/o promos than their basic counter, the axe, AND could be stacked up such that wounded ones wouldn't tend to die easily. At 14 str, CC essentially fight evenly with spears before modifiers, so they HAVE to use their mobility or they are not cost effective at all.
Don't forget, you can produce almost 5 spears for the same price as greece can make 3 CC, and you can start on them sooner...with plenty of time to scout a nearby greece and switch tech, if they're actually nearby. Unless you screw up big time, the CC are probably going to fail to kill much and have a good chance at getting themselves killed, esp in simultaneous turns. You take any early tree except liberty and you can come up with something to help your defenses.
Hoplites are annoying but would also really struggle to actually take cities + spears.
So actually, you have a number of possible responses to CC without any major concessions or special beelines. A Greek player is not going to enjoy taking on 1.6x the #spears as he has CC!
If he *does* go somewhere else, you get to be the one that stabs him
.Praetorians were also just 1 move, so you could easily adjust to defend against whatever they were attacking. The mobility of a CC is half it's power! You're saying "they have to use their mobility to be cost effective" as if that's some sort of major handicap, when any player who's good at all will abuse their 5 moves like crazy. And of course, catapults are the ultimate answer to a stack of praetorians, whereas there's no such hard counter to a large force of CC.
3 CC can easily kill 5 spears. The only advantage of the spears is that they dont' require resources, so the defending player can keep building them forever to replace his losses. However it's really, really hard to actually kill a CC with defending spearmen. The CC can just attack and retreat forever, building up experience and promotions (quickly popping a GG), and pretty soon they'll be a lot stronger than a spearmen, even on rough terrain. Alternatively, they can dodge past the spears and blitz a city (3 CC will kill a city in one turn). The only way to kill CC with spears, really, is to take advantage of lag to kill them before they can move away. The defense strategy shouldn't have to rely on lag.
I always thought the best use for a hoplite would be to counter a CC rush, lol.
What are these possible responses? Rush the Greek player with warriors/archers, spam endless spears and hope he makes a mistake, or hope for someone else to backstab him?So actually, you have a number of possible responses to CC without any major concessions or special beelines. A Greek player is not going to enjoy taking on 1.6x the #spears as he has CC!
If he *does* go somewhere else, you get to be the one that stabs him
Even the backstab doesn't work all that well, because CC can run home to defend extremely fast.
thats just theory in reality you will loose 1 CC after your single attack because of simultaneous turns. no chance to move in and get out. 5 spears will eat your CC at breakfast. MP is not like fighting a stupid KI. and as i said build walls of units, at best behind 1 tile away from a river
for cities, build them at hills, build a wall and you will stay much longer.
how do you want to rush someone with horsemen? oligarche spears will eat them, they will outnumber you this means flaking bonus to spears, maybe even archer behind them. even the land will be rough from tile to tile and such early stages. mountains and water will offer natural chokes. its not like a big chess plate whith flat terrain, the world in civ 5 is a bit more structured. ofc you have to fight a more defensive war if you face CC, but thats all greece has to offer in early game.
they must use the hoplits to settle a bit more aggressivly to take some horses and build up an empire, and maybe get lucky hit on a unprepared nub. but if greeces enemy has no spears he would also loose to normal horsemen the same way.
sylvanllewelyn
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Shouldn't this be moved to the multiplayer forum?
Anyway, I'm not sure what's the problem. From my own experience, good city placement and a combination of archer in city and my own horseman always blunts the Greek rush. Everytime I see Greece, I *know* they will spam CC so I am always prepared. Thank goodness I have not met anyone that combines CC with hoplites yet, because then I would be royally stuffed.
Also, in team games, everyone just uses horseman in the early game because teams always focus their attack on one player. The other players must rush to their teammate as fast as possible.
Anyway, I'm not sure what's the problem. From my own experience, good city placement and a combination of archer in city and my own horseman always blunts the Greek rush. Everytime I see Greece, I *know* they will spam CC so I am always prepared. Thank goodness I have not met anyone that combines CC with hoplites yet, because then I would be royally stuffed.
Also, in team games, everyone just uses horseman in the early game because teams always focus their attack on one player. The other players must rush to their teammate as fast as possible.
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