Multiplayer Strategies.

[Guerra]

Yes, playing singleplayer is good fun, but multiplayer is where the real cunning, hate, revenge, and fear come into play.


Usually, I like to build my infrastructure, make a few friends of my neighbours, open borders, talk to them, let them know I'm a nice guy and the like.

Wealth and research are the 2 most important things, don't worry about invading people yet. Just grab resource rich territory without pissing off your neighbours.

Copper is nice, but iron is better. Its nice to have a few of both, however. Horses are useful, but since I'm not an expansive player, I rarely use horsemen.

Now, never ever ever neglect your navy. If you're playing archipelagos, this should be obvious. If you're playing Terra, it should also be obvious, or islands, or continents or whatever. If you are playing Pangaia, a strong navy is THE best weapon you can have, because NO one will expect it.

You can move troops MUCH faster by sea and you can suprise the hell out of your enemies by landing troop ships at their coasts.

Now, I'm giving away lots of my secrets, that help me win big time, but thats ok, I expect you guys to add to my work. Think of it as an Art of War, in the making.

So, science (libaries, observatories, universities and MONASTARIES!)
Money. Markets, Grocers, Banks, Stock markets, whatever you can get. Harbors are great and underrated. Make sure you open borders with people you trust! The trade revenue can mean the difference between 70% science at a deficeit and 80% science and a surplus.

Also, make sure you have atleast 4 armies of mixed type in each of your border cities and costal cities! Always treat your coastal cities as vulnerable!

Now onto my award winning WAR strategy, its rather simple.

I pick an aggressive civ, usually with financial. Like the Incas. Since they have mysticism, I found a religion as soon as possible.

You can build your economy as much as you like, but for this tactic you must have a state religion in all your cities, switch religion civic to theocracy, and make sure vassalage as a civic too. This gives you nice experienced troops, make sure you have barracks in each of your cities too.

So your troops will get the free combat I upgrade. Then upgrade them to combat II, then give them the amphibious upgrade.

Build a few caravels ASAP, get astronomy, gunpowder and chemistry as soon as possible.

Then build a good force of frigates and galleons. Usually I like 5 frigates and 5 galleons per major coastal city I want to take. then pump out grenadiers or riflemen. Scout with your caravel, find the best coastal city you can find, like one of those players that builds 15 wonders, and has like 24 population. Make sure you have atleast a 3:1 ratio of grenadiers and riflemen to whatever he has. Even if its warriors.

Load your troops onto a ship, make sure your 5 galleons with 15 grenadiers/riflemen and 5 frigates are on the same tile

place them 3 squares away from the cultural border of your enemy, so the enemy can't see your ships, and make sure you can get them RIGHT up to the enemy city by the next turn.

Next turn, bring your 10 ships, 5 frigates, 5 galleons with 15 grenadiers/riflemen to the coast of the city, get your 5 frigates to bombard, then get all your troops to just unleash into the city.

if you caught him off guard, you've just taken the best city in the game.

If not, you're probably screwed and hes gonna turn his peaceful Gandhi-esque nation into a war machine, pumping out tons and tons of units.

So anyways, I usually get 3 strike forces of these. Pick 3 of the best coastal cities my enemy has, then on one turn, use all of them to attack your enemy, and usually I grab 3 major cities with ease. However, I recommend you raze them, not keep them. Because if you keep them, you will lose them.

Just raze them.

Anyways, thats my award winning naval strategy. Remember, Combat I -> Combat II -> Amphibious!

DO NOT attempt this without amphibious troops and DO NOT land your troops on their coast and then attack the city the next turn. They will have a full turn to upgrade their troops, bring in reinforcements and so on. Bad bad bad idea. Attack the city DIRECTLY, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Then raze it to the ground.

Most players will scream and cry after their coastal capital with 15 wonders has been destroyed.

While you laugh.


Anyways, I hope this has been informative, and I hope I wasn't too redundant. And excuse any grammatical errors, I didn't edit it. Its a great strategy and it always works for me.

and to defend against this strategy: build galleys, caravels, frigates, ironclads and whatever else naval units you can get to defend your coast! Do not let people do this to you!

Anyways, if anyone else wants to add MP strategies, please go ahead. If you want to add on or improve my strategy, please do so.

Lets go and bonk some heads! - Military Advisor, Civilization II.

 

[Guerra]

Does no one like my naval blitzkrieg ?

 

[lutzj]

lol that's the strategy i use all the time. I adopted it from another game (rome:total war) and it sure as h*ll works in civ

 

[Guerra]

Usually, people are so stupid that they let people see the damn ships loaded with troops, so they have a few turns to prepare, then they LAND the troops near a city, then bombard, and just let the enemy build up and upgrade their troops.

When you use a navy to drop your troops off, its gotta be a SHOCK.

I like to get my galleons right at the top of the arctic, out of sight, then zoom right down into the middle of an empire, suprising the player.

I've had people quit from the shock of losing 3 major cities in 1 turn, and the war has only been going on for 1 turn.

 

[swinenston]

Is a good strategy, I've used it too. Always nice if you can bombard on this same turn too (if you have ships that can bombard).

It is possible to counteract this though, which I always try to do because I'm aware of it. If you are clever enough and have a reasonable standing army you just need notice this happening to mobilise and protect. That requires placing ships as guards some distance out around your land, like a sentinel net. I ALWAYS do this asap in the game. Advanced warning is everything in Civ. There are several other ways of course to monitor this, not least checking the Power graph of your opponents. You can often see a significant spike when someone is gearing up for war.

 

[Guerra]

Swinenston is obviously an intelligent, perceptive and cautious player.

To protect against this strategy, get a bunch of caravels in sentry position, to watch for incomming naval invasions, then have a resevoir of frigates or better ships to intercept and sink the enemy fleet.

(However, you can just fake an invasion with smarter players, get a naval force, bring it near one city, then have a stronger force attack a completely different target, which should make your enemy **** their pants, especially if they wasted all their money upgrading the troops in the city they think will be besieged! Muahaha!)

 

[lutzj]

its hard not to get detected. you have to be careful or they will get wise and have a counterattack force ready.
on the other side alaways take precaution to avoid getting smacked, especially if your coastal city(s) are guarding softer cities inland

oh, and by the way i am usually able to keep at 100 or 90 research and have a handsome surplus, its all about choosing the right civics

 

[frankcor]

Guerra, your naval blitzkrieg sounds like a winner. I haven't gotten organized that early in a game to pull it off, but by the time modern warfare has begun, I like to build carrier/transport battlegroups.

My battlegroups look something like this:
1 - carrier fully loaded with 3 fighters
1 - transport, fully loaded with 4 marines
1 - destroyer for added anti-air defense and spotting enemy subs
2 or more battleships, one with Combat promotions, the other with barrage

I like to give the carrier and transport marching promotion for an additional movement point (to match the battleships). And I give the destroyer a medic promotion for obvious reasons.

One or two of these self-contained battlegroups make short work of capturing almost any coastal city when playing against the AI. I haven't tried multi-player yet.

 

[Guerra]

Now,

The AI always builds up their coastal cities, so this strategy is more difficult against the AI, because the AI never has a false sense of security.

Humans do. Especially in Terra or Pangaia, when everyone is connected on the same land mass, people don't think about naval strikes as much. People build up huge defences on borders, but rarely ever build up a coastal city that is far away from the enemy.

Some players think that starting on the edge of a Pangaia map is excellent, because you don't need to worry about covering your back. So they build these beautiful 24 population cities with tons and tons of wonders, then they go out and start marching inland, taking out neighbours etc.

When I'm on the OTHER side of the map, but can get to their most important cities the fastest. The OCEAN is NOT a wall to protect you from enemy attacks, it is a HIGHWAY for troops! So when I storm 3 Chinese or Indian cities, with huge populations and 10 wonders a piece, the guy never expects it. Especially since I'm not even his neighbour.

I like to balance the powers, I don't like bullies

 

[dbergan]

If you need it, you can couple this up with a land-invasion decoy force. Run into their territory with a small group by a worthless city, and they'll instinctively pull lots of their defense from the coastal cities (the ones we want to take) over to defend that side. Then, wham... hit em with your boat loads.

Question: How do you usually get your guys to amphibious rank? Aggressive (combat 1), barracks (combat 2), ??

 

[frankcor]

Question: How do you usually get your guys to amphibious rank? Aggressive (combat 1), barracks (combat 2), ??

One word: -- U.S. Navy Seals

 

[MamboJoel]

Yep, the best thing to do is hit F9 every 5 turns, look at the progressions of every civ and allways be on top of the graph. You allways need military in Civ4. Since there is much more time between construction of buildings it doesn't cost much to build units.

 

[Guerra]

Get a state religion and pick theocracy and vassalage.

Combat I
Combat II
Amphibious!
= Victory!

 

[fuji]

It's a good strategy, but in difficult games it's hard having both strong navy and land force. If I try this i ussually get attacked by another guy on my land and have to call of the attack. Overal a very good strategy though, I myself hate it when suddenly this army stands on my rich, economic island.