PTW Stategy Ideas

[RufRydyr]

I've been thinking a lot about the change in strategies from 1.29 to PTW.
ICS will be out. Having undefended cities and a ROP with someone will be a no-no. Selling a tech for GPT will be less likely. All the things we (well I do anyway) to take advantage of the poor AI will be unworkable.

I'm curious what some of you are thinking strategy-wise.

I'll want to do trade and have allies, but what's to stop people from breaking treaties left and right? A terrible reputation won't hurt as much. Nuking and razing won't cause everyone to declare war on you.

I'll want to build scouts and grab goody huts, but will people kill my scouts knowing I'm not in a position to go to war with them yet?

I'll definitely want to keep my best cities well defended.

Anyway, tell me what you think world...

:rant:

 

[Cartouche Bee]

ICS is not out from my point of view. There are lots of ways to play ICS and not all the way the regular articles outline.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Yes, I think ICS will still exist in PTW. Many strategies will still exist, they just need to be changed or altered slightly to the fact that you are playing a human and not the AI. Using a 'settler' flood to get domination without warfare is not going to work. Scouts I can see as being killed at first site. You can almost forget about trading. Nobody will accept a gpt payment, or ROP. If you have an opponent that is several techs behind, would you give him techs to catch up?

I think players will do all their own research and bee-line for all the military techs. Great Library will be extremely powerful when playing against several players.

 

[cracker]

The strategy will be: Identify the humans and learn how to manipulate the AI's into helping you kill the only real threats.

ICS will even be a more critical skill because most MP games will be won on or before the advent of Cavalry.

Practice your early conquest and early domination games in SP and forget about nukes and tanks (which you should forget about anyway).

I agree that PTW will be the final death stroke for trading. It is already severely disabled after the latest patch but now the cost barriers and outright stupid AI mental positions will be joined by valid strategy reasons to keep your rivals seperated from any tech advantage.

Industrious and Expansionist civs will be the real threats and start position + the first 3 goody huts will dominate the game.

If you have not read and studied the articles on

Improving your opening play sequences

Then your best bet will be to purchased a good pre-needs funeral plan or find another game to play.

 

[Quillan]

I am hoping that somewhere (ideally it would be built into the mulitplayer game) would be a place for reputation. It could log stats such as how often a player breaks treaty type A, B, C. Failing that possibly a new area on this site where players can register and build up (or destroy) their rep.

This would allow players to 'trust' others... It wouldn't be tough to set up, and the main concern would be players lying about the actions of others... consider it like an eBay type feedback where you can respond to compaints maybe...

Just a thought, but it would also build community i think.

 

[BillChin]

ICS is definitely a good way to start. Gives a nice early production boost and an easier to defend perimeter. An aggressor might bag one or two cities, but then the other garrisons can swarm to stop the losses.

Trading may be limited to one player. In a six or eight player game, many games may have the gentleman's agreement to ally with the first person you meet, or some kind of similar peaceful start rules. This lets everyone have some fun before the wars begin.

Wars of aggression may be less useful than in single player. Unlike the AI, no human player is likely to give techs, gold or cities for a peace treaty. Human players can set up their empires so most cities burn to the ground if captured (one pop, no culture, by producing workers). This makes the cities worthless to capture. If someone is losing badly, they will do everything in their power to sabotage the person who attacked them. Their game is already lost.

Depending on the players, the Great Library may be superpowerful, or may actually be less useful in multiplayer. Once someone builds it, the other players can decide to stop researching or slow research to a 40 turn per tech crawl. This means that all of the other players have the same gold bonus as the player with the Great Library. The AIs never conspire like this, but you can bet some humans will if the same player is getting this wonder every game out.
- Bill

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Originally posted by BillChin

Wars of aggression may be less useful than in single player.

Bill, one of your early articles about building a city close to the capitol supports the ICS theory.


I think aquiring Great Leader's will play a big part in PTW. I don't know how you will end a war with a human player though cause I'm pretty sure the terms of surrender will be usually unsatisfactory. [capitulate or die]

 

[RufRydyr]

My understanding of ICS is going for hundreds of cities. That's what I meant by that being out.

I'm a very big believer in 'close building' cities. Take two steps and build. Every second counts in the beginning of the game. So what's it called when you pack cities together, but just go for a defendable number of them?

I wonder if 'clicks' are going to form where a 'fresh meat' player finds that it's everyone against him/her. Muahahahaha.

 

[RufRydyr]

Originally posted by Quillan
I am hoping that somewhere (ideally it would be built into the mulitplayer game) would be a place for reputation. It could log stats such as how often a player breaks treaty type A, B, C. Failing that possibly a new area on this site where players can register and build up (or destroy) their rep.

This would allow players to 'trust' others... It wouldn't be tough to set up, and the main concern would be players lying about the actions of others... consider it like an eBay type feedback where you can respond to compaints maybe...

Just a thought, but it would also build community i think.

Great idea. It would be nice to be able to catagorize players by difficulty level so that people can play against others with similar skills.
I really like your 'ebay' idea.
It could show also number of wins/losses etc. Number of games played.

 

[EdwardTking]

I think that a lot will depend upon the size of world.

Small world games will be about churning out archers, swordsmen and horsemen as fast as possible and
attacking on the bais that victory will go to who can
attack first with the most.

Large games will be interesting.

I can also anticipate that many games will be
with the civilisation characteristics and unique
uniques switched off because two people
will want to choose the same tribe.

 

[DB_Terror]

Just keep in mind, folks, that this is just what YOU will want to do. If I can see one player getting too powerful, I'd definitely give techs to other players to help me attack that powerful player, and sign ROP treaties. I'd focus on defending my strategic resources - taking them out is one of the easiest way to defeat the AI.
I think we will also see alliances where two or more players agree to research different techs and then swap them.
GPT treaties will function in the same way as with the AI - it binds your trading partner to stick to an agreement.