Primitive Conquest Challenge

P

Peaster

Emperor
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Sep 26, 2004
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What are the most primitive possible conquest units ?

I think it's possible with horsemen, but I haven't done it. I conquered with chariots (+dips, etc) in GOTM 81 at Emperor level. I'm trying now at Diety/7civs, with just horsemen. I've conquered the Babs and started on 3 other civs. But Egypt is finishing the Great Wall in a distant size 7 city. They already have the Great Library. I don't have any Great Idea about how to conquer the Wall with horses, so I may have to give up and try again, and build the GW myself next time.

Anyway, I think it should be very challenging, but possible, to conquer at D/7 with "just horses" - assuming they can get help from diplomats, explorers, triremes, units from huts, etc. Probably some of these aren't 100% necessary. Has anyone already tried something like this ?
 
I was very young and I had attack Tenochtitlan of the azteces with Phalanx! I don´t had a chance. And when your enemy will have spearmen then your horses don´t will have a chance too.
 
Yes, the phalanxes probably weren't very successful attackers. :p

But horsemen are better, and I am almost certain they can conquer the world. I've tried this about 4 times now, but usually quit pretty early, after bad luck with barbarians, sneak attacks, or whatever. I succeeded once in a King/7 game, BUT

1) I discovered after the game that I had the simplified combat flag on. That probably changes the combat odds. Not really sure if it makes conquest easier or harder though.
2) I used approx 2 units (an archer and a chariot IIRC) that I got from huts. They died fairly quickly, but it wasn't a "pure" horseman conquest.

I didn't face any spearmen (pikemen) since no AI got as far as feudalism. Also, I built the Great Wall to make sure no AI did. I was a bit lucky that no AI even built city walls, and I only remember one AI capitol on a river.

Anyway, I'm trying at D/7 again, with normal combat, without using any attack units from huts/bribes/etc, just horses (and dips/etc).

I am not completely sure that conquering with warriors is impossible. But it would require LOTS of units or some clever new idea. :confused:
 
Just discover the tech that makes the Great Wall obsolete (Gunpowder, I think).
 
Conquering with warriors means not discovering Feudalism. That could present somewhat of a problem unless you turn off science once you get writing/dips, and even than you might get unlucky and get Feudalism from a hut.

Even harder will be trying to attack with just a one for an attack factor. I don't see how you can pull that off. The AI just loves to put 2 or 3+ units in its cities and really seems to like archers when they become available. And even without walls, a two defensive unit fortified in a city is not going to be defeated by a warrior. I suspect that even large numbers of warriors (like 10+) will not be able to defeat a two defense factor unit. It seems like it would be worse than throwing cruise missles at a vet Ageis Cruiser.

Ok, so maybe it can be done. A brief test shows that 7 warriors can defeat a fortified Phalanx in a city on plains or grassland. they just plain wear it down and kill it. Sorta like ants fighting an elephant. But if you run into a city on a river, good luck
 
Valka D'ur: Metallurgy cancels GW. I don't usually get that far into the tech tree because I'm trying to crush the AI very quickly, before they can get Feudalism etc. But building GW myself takes some time too.

Ace said:
Conquering with warriors means not discovering Feudalism. That could present somewhat of a problem unless you turn off science once you get writing/dips, and even than you might get unlucky and get Feudalism from a hut.
Click to expand...

Yep. Feudalism would pretty much kill the game. But isn't it possible to continue making warriors even after Feudalism makes them obsolete? I know warriors would disappear from all production lists, but IIRC there is some way to keep making them. Anyway, it isn't TOO hard to avoid Feudalism, and theoretically you can even research espionage without having that tech.

Even harder will be trying to attack with just a one for an attack factor. I don't see how you can pull that off. The AI just loves to put 2 or 3+ units in its cities and really seems to like archers when they become available. And even without walls, a two defensive unit fortified in a city is not going to be defeated by a warrior. I suspect that even large numbers of warriors (like 10+) will not be able to defeat a two defense factor unit. It seems like it would be worse than throwing cruise missles at a vet Ageis Cruiser.

Ok, so maybe it can be done. A brief test shows that 7 warriors can defeat a fortified Phalanx in a city on plains or grassland. they just plain wear it down and kill it. Sorta like ants fighting an elephant. But if you run into a city on a river, good luck
Click to expand...

I agree about all this, and it doesn't seem totally impossible. With super-ICS-growth and lots of trade vans, it may be possible to bribe all the AI cities except the capitols, and create huge swarms of vet warriors to take those out. Also, dips or spies could be used for regular sabotage/poisoning in the capitols, to prevent new walls, wonders, or units. [Starvation might also be useful]. After that, there would be no reason to rush things.

On the other hand, conquering with horses still seems VERY challenging to me (at D/7 anyway). So, I'm still guessing it's [practically] impossible with just warriors. I'm not ready to try it!
 
Nope. Once that pikeman raises his pike, no more warriors. However, when you capture a city from a civ that has advances you do not have, you can continue building whatever unit that city was building as long as you do not change it. For example, if you don't have warrior code and you capture a city that is building archers, you can continue to build archers there, even through you don't have the advance. But if you change the build order, you cannot go back.
 
Ace: I remember reading about an exploit of Leo's Workshop, where you keep making warriors (even after gunpowder I thought), which upgrade to musketeers, which you disband, with a profit in shields. But I've never tried it, and probably my memory of that thread is wrong.

I finally succeeded at D/7 with just horses. :)

A brief GOTM-style log of the German victory:
4000BC: Normal ICS start. The terrain was OK, but not as grassy as I'd like.
1200BC: Built MPE, to get crucial techs, like pottery.
1000BC: 12 German cities. I'll build HG in 975BC vs riots.
600BC: I notice the Russians are researching Feudalism, so I drop everything to attack them ASAP!
575BC: Egypt builds Pyramids, which I wanted. They are in Thebes (appropriate) which is the capitol, and it already has walls.
100BC: China builds the GW in Canton. I allowed this, since Canton was NOT in the capitol, and was far enough away that I could expect to bribe it later.
25BC: Russians discover Feudalism. German horses immediately attack, and take Moscow, with 3 losses. Now I can bribe the other Russian cities, but must hurry, before they share techs.
1AD: At a cost of 3 diplomat lives, Germans take down the walls of Thebes.
20AD: Germans bribe St. Petersburg, but must accept Feudalism. As usual, this increases IRB costs. Also, the Germans MUST guard all her cities against tech theft for the rest of the game, and the Chinese tried hard.
60AD: Russians conquered.
100AD: Thebes conquered. Germans take the Pyramids.
220AD: Carthage (the capitol) conquered.
260AD: A spurt of van deliveries to the Mongols brings the German treasury up to 2500g. We biribe Canton for 900g (double price, to avoid incident, and perserve spotless rep). Germans take the GW.
280AD: Egypt and Carthaginians conquered. Germany has 65 cities now. Most of them do not contribute much... maybe a boat each, and taxes.
360AD Kyoto conquered. This was a tough nut, a capitol on a river without easy coastal access. A random dip-sabotage had taken out barracks earlier, so I was pretty sure it contained a vet Archer and some other vet defender. So, I amassed about 10 vet horses + 1 explorer before attacking, and I lost most of those in the attack. This was the last big hurdle.
Approx 400AD: Built Mike's, took Beijing, conquered Japan. I wanted a spotless rep, but couldn't get the Chinese or Sioux to declare war, so I switched from Vanilla to MPGE. It worked immediately with China, but not with the Sioux.
480AD: I sneak attack the Sioux and conquer them in one turn, but lose the spotless rep.

At the end: 83 cities, 42 horsemen (31 lost), 50 triremes, 35 techs (science was frozen after 340AD, when I had to choose between Chivalry and Navigation). I stayed with Monarchy the whole way this time, and used a STC + shipchain to fund growth.

This was a lot of fun, and I recommend it. Try it with chariots first.
 
My hat's off to you, Peaster. You have shown yourself time and time again to be a master practitioner of early warfare in Civ II, and have accomplished quite an impressive feat. I think that, as was discussed earlier on this thread, it could be possible with warriors, but it may be VERY protracted and require some very careful footwork. I think the entire strategy would have to change to (as you mentioned) a Caravan/Diploblitz strategy. You'd have to wipe out any barracks before you attacked to prevent their defenders from healing, as their's a very real chance you'd have to sacrifice 20+ warriors to capture one city. This could be aided by swarming in with enough to starve out their city, but it would still be costly and difficult. I have confidence in your abilities, but I'd guess you'll fail many times before you succeed. I'm not up for the challenge, but I'd guess you'd have to be much more economy-oriented in order to pull off such a large-scale bribe so early in the game. I'm not much of an early-warfare guy. Early war for me is only if I have other AI on my starting continent - I tend to wipe them all out (despite the fact that I know I should probably keep them around to get a railed trade route - another way I should improve my game). Great job and good luck trying with warriors!
 
Thanks, Banach. I remember you from some other thread. I've forgotten the thread, but I remember your screen name - same as a very famous mathematician!

I hadn't considered the healing power of barracks. So, it's probably best to sabotage those ASAP, at least in the capitols. And of course that also stops production of vet units there. In my game, even 10 vet horsemen had a tough time against Kyoto, defended by 2 vets fortified on a river.

We haven't found a proof that conquering with warriors is impossible. But I don't have any clear idea how to try it. It still seems a bit insane. There are lots of issues ... slower movement, defense against archers/ elephants/ catapults (maybe the human could be allowed phalanxes for that), getting early AI tribute, avoiding Feudalism (so, no Sun Tzu !) and building/supporting perhaps 150 vet warriors.

In my relatively short horseman games, I've avoided the trade penalties of Nav/Inv. But that prevents nice techs such as espionage and explosives, and the better govts too. With warriors, you probably have to plan on a much longer game, and must somehow "keep the AI down" until you have the techs and warrior-hordes to finish them off. Related to this - I'm wondering what map size is best (small, for quick AI contact ? ... or large, for better trade bonuses and ICS growth?).
 
Peaster said:
Ace: I remember reading about an exploit of Leo's Workshop, where you keep making warriors (even after gunpowder I thought), which upgrade to musketeers, which you disband, with a profit in shields. But I've never tried it, and probably my memory of that thread is wrong.
Click to expand...

That trick is to build scads of warriors, than with Leo's, the warriors will upgrade all the way to riflemen for a tremendous return on investment. But, warriors still disappear from the build list when they become obsolete.

Not going down the WC-feudalism path until the last moment is also used by players than want to keep the warrior arround as long as possible to facilitate partial rush building, since the warrior is the only unit in the game to cost 10 shields.
 
In terms of "Keeping the AI down" I remember mention somewhere of how in the early stages the AI tends to mimic your science setting to some degree, so by keeping your own it may enable you to reduce their research and help reduce the likelihood of more advanced defenders / city walls. So maybe rush to trade and then stop tech advances except for vans, and churn warriors like mad at this stage.
 
That's right! I had forgotten about that discussion. Unfortunately, I don't remember what the name of the thread was. The thought was that the AI tended to mimic the human player.

Maybe ElephantU or DoM remember the thread?
 
Sharkbait - That idea could be very useful! Depends on whether or not the human player wants to try for a quick stranglehold on the AI, or to aim for a fairly big long game, probably with spies and engineers (which was my first idea).

I couldn't resist starting a "practice game" to see if the whole idea of winning with warriors is just crazy. I'm playing at warlord level, and I reloaded a few bad hut results around 3600BC, to simulate a fairly lucky start [but not an unrealistic one]. I decided to allow myself phalanxes, horses, etc for purposes such as defense, ZOC and tribute, but only warriors can attack.

It's 2080 BC, almost 100 turns. Probably still too early to predict the result. My general plan has been

* to grow very big - I've built Pyr + HG, and have about 70 smallish cities now (still in monarchy).
* to be fairly stingy about giving away techs - but I had to give away mapmaking to get some AI maps. I also gave several techs to my key civ, and a few to the Aztecs.
* to build a big economy, based mainly on one long ship chain - that's working well. I guess I make about 300g per turn net profit, and have about 2000g to spend now. Of course, this plan involves getting lots of techs, to raise the science cap. I have 26 techs, and may have to choose Inv/Nav soon if I plan to go on towards Espionage. This plan wouldn't combine well with Sharkbait's idea.
* to isolate/sabotage the AI capitols ASAP - I have found 5 of the 6, mostly via MPE/map trades. I've surrounded Little Big Horn and Moscow, with some progress expected soon near Kyoto. I think the Sioux already lost one unit from lack of support in LBH, which has very few decent tiles left. Moscow doesn't have such problems yet, but I doubt the Russians can move any new defensive units in, past my blockade, so things should get worse for them pretty soon.

The downside:
* I only have about 5 barracks, so far, and not enough vet warriors [I have about 20] to attack anywhere. I haven't even thought about attacking yet. The typical AI capitol has two phalanxes inside. I plan to build LOTS more barracks + vets eventually, but first I want to "shut down" all 6 AIs, ... their production and science.
* I have not done anything yet to inhibit the Vikings, Aztecs or Americans.

* The Aztecs [my trading partner] just discovered Feudalism.
What does THAT mean? Not sure exactly .... Eventually, I can probably conquer one Aztec city [and get WC], but a second capture would give me Feudalism, and end my warrior production. Maybe I have to save them for last. But am I doomed if some other AI also gets that tech? If I ever learn espionage + poisoning [or starvation?], maybe I can raze these cities instead of capturing them? But will the AI's have gunpowder/etc by then?

If anybody wants stats or a save, let me know. You can playtest your own ideas from one of my saves, if you want.
 
This is gonna be tough. You will have to raze all the cities of each civ that gets feudalism. And if the AIs make contact with each other, that could be all of them. Your biggest problem, through, will be the tech tree. The computer tends to force a human player into advancing on all the lines of the tech tree. Evenutally, you will reach a point when the only advance available for you to reseach will be feudalism. And if that happens before you get espionage, you won't be able to posion off AI cities. It might be possible to have enough warriors stockpiled by then to finish off the AI civs with just warriors, so even if you do get feudalism, as long as you do not build Leo's, your warriors will still remain. In fact, that might be one approach to the problem. Calculate how many warriors you will need to finish the job, build all of them, and than just ignore feudalism and let er rip!
 
Ace: I think I'll only have to raze the capitol of a civ with Feudalism. After that, I can probably hold that civ down thru sabotage, and bribe the other cities on the last turn.

I haven't checked whether I can get to Espionage without Feudalism. I'd be a little surprised if that's impossible. But I just bribed Minsk, and had to accept Warrior Code. That was a careless mistake, making it much harder to avoid Feudalism. Now I can't pop any more huts, and the 2/3 rule is tougher too.

Without spies, there's still starvation. I share a continent with the Sioux, and have managed to surround LBH with 3 English (that's me) cities and 5 or 6 foritifed units. I think this seige will eventually reduce LBH to size 1. In principle, I could do that to all the other capitols, but it's easier said than done.

It would be kind of silly if Feudalism was the only thing preventing a warrior conquest. In that case, it might be reasonable to edit rules.txt to prevent warriors from going obsolete.

Does anyone know any tricks for luring AI units out of a city? For example, placing an empty English city nearby ?
 
Peaster said:
Ace: I remember reading about an exploit of Leo's Workshop, where you keep making warriors (even after gunpowder I thought), which upgrade to musketeers, which you disband, with a profit in shields. But I've never tried it, and probably my memory of that thread is wrong.
Click to expand...
Ace said:
That trick is to build scads of warriors, than with Leo's, the warriors will upgrade all the way to riflemen for a tremendous return on investment. But, warriors still disappear from the build list when they become obsolete.
Click to expand...

Peaster, your memory is correct. What ACE says is only one of the ways Leo can be exploited. The other, explained below, is probably what you remember.

If you discover gunpowder but not feudalism, then cities already producing warriors will be allowed to keep doing so. Warriors will disappear from the production list so no new city can produce them.
If you also have Leo, the warriors will upgrade to musketeers (and rifleman if you have conscription as well).

I once used this trick in a GOTM. I switched a couple of cities to warrior production right before gunpowder and kept them producing warriors which would then move over to a wonder city nearby, wait for promotion to rifleman and then disband themselves speeding up the wonder production. I was in Republic or Democracy, so the trick was not worth much (due to 1 shield per turn for upkeep), but it was fun.
 
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