Prince walk through (I hope)

[MrG]

Did you get some great generals by the way? I love putting all of them as specialists in a production city. With lots of cash, you can produce City Raider 3 macemen which you instantly turn into rifles.

I got one, during my first war with Alex I think, it may have been Bismark, anyway, he's in Lakhama where most of my CR2 maces were built.

Since my last post, not long ago granted, I've paid Mansu a visit and he has capitulated. Bismark, the fool, declared war on me as well, presumably because half my army was over discussing land registry with Mansu.

I drafted about 15 rifles, a further 20 or so were upgraded courtesy of the trade mission. A few cities were spied to city revolt, but equally effective was attacks by catapults (didn't bother bombarding, its a waste of time usually) followed by the rifles.

He's paid for that as well and has consequently been forced to capituate as well.

Picture one shows great timing - I've just research rifling, the rest and the saves show the progress of the war. Basically Mansu lost two cities then folded, Bismark lost one.

However Alex, and by extension Gilgamesh, is now a problem because he has grenadiers and cannon. I may need to beeline to infantry (Industrialisation)

Here is the update. Thoughts please

 

[MrG]

Right, I'm back again, had a few teething problems with my new boiler a
nd because its -1C here I've been staying with my internet access free mother in law.

It would appear interest is waning slightly in this thread now, so I'll finish this game in the next sitting and post the results.

Cheers

 

[MrG]

Ok , I've finally finished, so this is the last post you'll get from me on this thread..

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion/strategy especially those more intelligent than me who spotted my initial plan was, lets be frank, rubbish.

In the end it was a scrappy domination win, but frankly who cares, they all count.

How did I manage it, well after vassalising Mansu and Bismark, I decided to go after Justinian (and his Vassal Ragnar) because I had rifles and they didn't. Also five of Justinian's cities were within two moves of my stacks.

I basically drafted like crazy, upgraded as many cr2 maces to rifles as possible and steamrolled through until Justinian was left with just Uppsala, then accepted his vassalisation.

Ragnar jumped ship from Justinian earlier in the war and I made peace seperately.

While this was going on I was beelining for industrialisation (for infantry), which the AI always goes for late, because Gilgamesh and Alex were out teching me.

Simultaneously I was building happiness buildings ball park, theatres, forges, markets etc in my cities to beat the effects of the drafting to follow.

There then followed a period of calm, while I waited for war weariness to drop, built up my forces again, including 12 or so cannons (thats the important bit).

At this point to win a domination victory I was 12 per cent away from population and about 8 per cent aways from land area to win domination, so I figured I needed to take all of Alex and at least three of Gilgamesh's cities.

I switched to police stte and nationalism, waited until I hit industrialisation, used a great merchant to spawn a trade mission to upgrade 15 odd rifles to infantry, drafted infantry like crazy,built up my spy force (for city revolts) and invaded alex, starting a war with ragnar (now Gilganesh's vassal) and Gilgamesh at the same time.

Managed to defeat a massive stack of cavalry, and cannon gilgamesh sent after me, without losing a unit - 12 cannon bombarded the stack before the infantry went in. Which turned out to be his only offensive force, as his empire was spread across two islands.

And that was that, apart from some mopping up. I took two and destroyed one greek city, took two of Gilgamesh's cities including his capital (despite losing about 15 spies trying to sponsor a revolt there) and despite happiness problems managed to win my domination.

I sensed from the point the main Gilgamesh stack was wrecked, that was game over, but it took a lot longer to take enough territory to claim the win, in the end, my tanks came on line (in about 1900) to seal things.

So what lessons have I learned.

1) Keep your options open, eespecially at the start, if I'd stuck to my original plan, I'd have been hosed. Luckily I switched, stabilised then revisited my original strategy.
2) Drafting early rifles will enable you to hose two if not more enemy civilizations
3) taking cities is easier than building them
4) Specialising your cities helps in the long run
5) If you build a barracks in all your cities (after a monument) and a reasonable military, your power should be high enough to discourage people from attacking you - I wasn't attacked all game, by anyone.
6) Granaries are good after your first city growth spurt but monuments and barracks should go down first, as should military units.
7) Gilgamesh is a pain in the arse
8) Bombarding units even up any combat for you so build lots of them.(I already knew this to be honest)

Here are some screen shots and the final save so you can see for yourself the final position, the cities are a mess, but I was in "I've won" mode at the end so made some quirky decisions on build orders because it wasn't that relevant what was built. Its also closer tech wise than you'd expect because I gifted loads of techs to mansu, justinian and bismark, so they could keep ragnar busy while I went after Gilgamesh.

As I've said before, thansk to the people who posted, thanks also to the people who lurked - more than 2000 people read this thread, and I'm really sorry about the long gap between the turn to 1700 and the final post, my boiler really did screw my routine up completely for a fortnight, so apologies for any one who thought "when is this guy going to post again"

My next challenge is to try another culture win on prince, then I'll move up to monarch.

Cheers

 

[subculture]

Many thanks for this post. Banging away at Noble level currently so most peeps here quite a bit more experienced including yourself. However thread has provided new insights. In fact this thread caused me to register just so I could say thanks.

I like the format of this "walkthru" or "teaching" exercise. Look forward to your Prince/Culture attempt which I hope you will post in a similar format. I'll prolly follow along with that one - have not attempted prince yet.

One item I definetly think could improve my strategy is a more effective use of civics. I tend to avoid too many changes here, but you seem to. Can you remember how many times you changed? I am likely over concerned regarding the turn loss.

I am curious about your use of spy force for city revolt. I have seldom found this to work well. Could you explain the rationale for the strategy and exactly how/when best to use.

May the new boiler keep you toasty thru the winter...

 

[LDiCesare]

Two comments on that last post:

while I waited for war weariness to drop

Do you know war weariness is per opponent?
If you have huge WW with Justinian, make peace and then attack Gilgamesh, you start with zero WW.

15 spies

Uhhh. How many infantry/cannon/rifles could you have built instead?

 

[Supr49er]

Welcome to the Forums subculture.

 

[Bluestew0]

As one of the lurkers, thanks for taking the time to make the post. I also appreciated the many other posters who took time to post other options/opinions about what was going on.

 

[MrG]

Two comments on that last post:


Do you know war weariness is per opponent?
If you have huge WW with Justinian, make peace and then attack Gilgamesh, you start with zero WW.

Uhhh. How many infantry/cannon/rifles could you have built instead?

No I didn't know about WW, but you live and learn.

With regards the spies,

Spies are 40 hammers
Infantry are 140 hammers
cannon are 100 hammers

So 15 spies would be 600 hammers or 6 cannon or 4.5 (say five) infantry.

But the spies were built in 5 low production cities which were turning round a spy every 4 turns or so compared with 10 turns for a cannon or 14 turns for an infantry. They were also drafting infantry because they were my "weakest cities"

Remember the big production cities WERE churning out infantry and cannon so no great loss really, and as I said I did make some shoddy decisions when the game was effectively won.

Regarding the spy use generally, Its quicker (once you are at war) to drop five spies into a city, focus your espionage on the relevant civilizatin and then city revolt until you are successful, than roll up with cannons, bombard down to 0% culture then attack.

The benefit of the spy attack is you cannon/cats/trebs go straight in and if you have enough completely wreck your opponents helath prior to you city assault teams go in.

Dramatically reduces the length of time you need to conquer an opponent, but takes a bit of planning.

with regards civic changes there was;

One for slavery, one for monarchy, one for pacifism and representation (during a golden age I think so no anarchy) then probably five more multiple changes plus a religious change, but one of those and a religion change was done in a second golden age.

So in total nine, with two during golden ages, its probably too much and I should have stuck with police state and nationalism once I'd got them, but again i blame rushing to get through. I think excessive changes is a bad thing early on, but if you have a major advantage later on a cuple of turns lost won't kill you.

We are toasty now as well thanks, and welcome to the forums subculture and bluestew0...

 

[subculture]

Appreciate the welcome MrG and Supr49r!

Thanks for the spy clarification however it has not worked for me. I must do some more reading to determine why. I had a city culture crushed to one tile then thought, right, drop in spy for city revolt. Nada, at least 10 succesful "revolt" missions and still could not flip it. Clearly I am missing something!

I think we agree on the civic changes .. only if there is a good reason given overall situational strategy.

Also thanks to LDiCesare, I had no idea about the WW being per opponent. This will precipitate a huge revision in my general game strategy.

 

[Joshua368]

Support city revolt doesn't help it flip any. What it does do is take the city out of science/gold/production/maitenance for a turn, and as a military strategy, remove all of its cultural defense for that turn so seige don't have to bombard. This can be very helpful in the medieval era vs. castles where full bombardment can take several turns!

 

[Roxlimn]

Infantry comes from Assembly Line, not Industrialization, in BTS. Industrialization gives us Marines and Tanks - great units in themselves.

Barracks don't always prevent people from attacking you. Some guys will attack you regardless of the power differential. Monte is notorious for that.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Infantry comes from Assembly Line, not Industrialization, in BTS. Industrialization gives us Marines and Tanks - great units in themselves.

Barracks don't always prevent people from attacking you. Some guys will attack you regardless of the power differential. Monte is notorious for that.

Agreed. If you play Agg ais settings this is even more a factor. I've had ais attack me when my power was well over double their's.... In a recent game, just me and Alex on a huge map continent. I was at one end, him right up the other end. He spammed masses of axes and spears, and waltzed right across our medium continent to attack me. When the war started, I was 0.6 of his power, which is a sensible time to attack. However, I rushed City walls in the 2 cities he was after, and very easily withstood his attacks.

Very soon after, I got Cats (he didn't), and went on the offensive. Even when my power rating was 1.1 of his, he STILL wanted a city for peace

Kinda ruins your game, when you have to spend from 1000BC to 250AD building nothing but walls and troops to survive....then when you beat the fool, you'll be isolated anyway and have probably fallen MILES behind nations elsewhere...oh well, better than playing the "non agg ais", which imo gives you a massive advantage knowing exactly how each ai will react from the start...(e.g. Oh I have Gandhi and Mansa, I can go peacenick will a skeleton force and trade to my heart's content....or I have Monte and Shaka, better start getting ready for war)....instead, it's "I have neighbours--therefore I can't trust them, not for a long while"

 

[MrG]

Agreed. If you play Agg ais settings this is even more a factor. I've had ais attack me when my power was well over double their's.... In a recent game, just me and Alex on a huge map continent. I was at one end, him right up the other end. He spammed masses of axes and spears, and waltzed right across our medium continent to attack me. When the war started, I was 0.6 of his power, which is a sensible time to attack. However, I rushed City walls in the 2 cities he was after, and very easily withstood his attacks.

Very soon after, I got Cats (he didn't), and went on the offensive. Even when my power rating was 1.1 of his, he STILL wanted a city for peace

Kinda ruins your game, when you have to spend from 1000BC to 250AD building nothing but walls and troops to survive....then when you beat the fool, you'll be isolated anyway and have probably fallen MILES behind nations elsewhere...oh well, better than playing the "non agg ais", which imo gives you a massive advantage knowing exactly how each ai will react from the start...(e.g. Oh I have Gandhi and Mansa, I can go peacenick will a skeleton force and trade to my heart's content....or I have Monte and Shaka, better start getting ready for war)....instead, it's "I have neighbours--therefore I can't trust them, not for a long while"

Sorry, that's my mistake, I meant assembly line, with regards power, again I take your point, but I've never been attacked when I've had a barracks in every city, but then I usually back that up with a heavy garrison if I'm up againt the aggressive AIs, so that may have helped, agree about walls though.

thanks alos for clarifying the spies, I should ave said they take away cultural defence, rather than help flipping.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Sorry, that's my mistake, I meant assembly line, with regards power, again I take your point, but I've never been attacked when I've had a barracks in every city, but then I usually back that up with a heavy garrison if I'm up againt the aggressive AIs, so that may have helped, agree about walls though.

thanks alos for clarifying the spies, I should ave said they take away cultural defence, rather than help flipping.

OOPS!, Sorry I managed to miss my whole point out of the previous post (doh!), which is playing Agg ais AND Rand Personalities. This is what I mean by "not knowing your opponents"..Just because his name is Gandhi, he may turn out to be a slavering lunatic ....Agg ais setting on its own, doesn't change the personalities around, just make them all a bit more aggresive..

Damn, must be getting and forgetful ....