Questions from an Imperialist

[Spoonwood]

It doesn't come as a prerequisite to, however, if you make it that far into the medieval tech tree, it's generally accepted that you will have researched feudalism somewhere along the way, fo sho.

I didn't misinterpret the spirit of what Bucephalus said, if that's what you mean here. What I expect he meant works as fine... "he probably has Feudalism if he has Navigation". But, there simply exists no implication that if one has Navigation, then one has Feudalism. That's, in the strictest logical sense, invalid. This might seem like nitpicking, but remember plenty of people who don't know the game all that well, or have forgotten it over time, sometimes read these forums. And how can distinguishing between probability and logic in a game which relies on both hurt?

 

[Bucephalus]

You are perfectly correct Spoons; as a man who makes a living with words, I should have been more careful in their use. My bad.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Woot, two pages of posts.

Let's see, this makes three games I've managed to royally sabotage myself. I'm having a serious run of bad luck.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Need to diagnose what went wrong, and not do it again.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Indeed, well, I think I know what went wrong.

So, moving closer back to the original subject of the thread, if you have strategies for ruling humanity I'd love to hear them. When playing Civilization with a goal of controlling the most land possible, I run into the problem of attrition wars.

Now, don't get me wrong, I can fight attrition warfare and do very well, but it does result in the following issue; beating a dead horse . That is to say, it results in throwing good military units at a problem not likely to resolve itself within the near future. Does anyone have tips on how to end attrition warfare before it begins a cycle of producing units just to replace ones lost maintaining a border/holding a specific location? Taking into account that during attrition warfare, if I'm in the later stages of the game, I like to bomb into the ground the enemy's improvements and cities to weaken their units, and to do damage to any +defensive improvements they have within the city, can anyone suggest ways of either ending an attrition warfare cycle quickly, or reinforcing the line and making up for lost time?

 

[Aabraxan]

Artillery. Lots and lots of artillery (including all of the rock-throwers that upgrade to artillery proper). And fast attackers. When the enemy shows up on the doorstep, throw rocks at them to soften them up, then kill the wounded with fast attackers, which then retreat back into the city.

Edited to add: And, of course, armies.

 

[Spoonwood]

Bump what Aabraxan said and BUY armies. Fish for that first MGL as hard as you can also. Once you have an elite bombard their units down to 1/n status, then try and attack the weakest defensive unit with a healthy elite. Or at least, if you still use that elite elsewhere to attack every once in a while, keep its focus on going for that MGL by attacking weak units to help increase the probability that it wins. Also, don't try to defend every town... only border towns that may get attacked, and only build wonders and buildings which specifically help for the victory condition you have in mind. If that's conquest or domination, that's pretty much just markets and barracks (a few granaries to help expansion also perhaps)... no wonders at all (unless you get an SGL), and probably not even libraries. This way you get your units out faster and the AI has less to fight you with. Only research military technologies you need, that way you have more cash for cash-rushing, or what usually works better disconnect-reconnect.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Thanks

By the way, I have been playing as England a decent amount lately (I'm a fan of the flavor units they have) and despite how much money I put towards scientific research, whenever I contact other civilizations they always have several techs ahead of me

I can't remember ever encountering this before, any ideas?

 

[Spoonwood]

Post a save. How much do you trade techs?

 

[Bucephalus]

It could be that you are doing nothing wrong. For example, it may be that the AI have known one another for a long time before you met them, and have been happily trading techs ever since; or it could be a factor of the level at which you are playing (which is...?) - on higher levels it's quite normal to fall behind initially. How to catch up is a whole new topic.

Like Spoonwood said, post a save.

 

[Lord of Elves]

I trade techs quite commonly, but the AI civs aren't too interested in what I have to give them most of the time.

I'll be posting a save of one of my games in my next post.

 

[Aabraxan]

Is the AI uninterested, or does it simply have inadequate funds to buy? Even up to and including Monarch, the AI often can't afford what the human has to sell. Also, how are you researching? There's an article around here on what techs the AI likes to research, which might help. It might be in the War Academy, but I'm not sure. It's by DaveMcW, and it's a good article. Generally, research left to right, rather than top to bottom. The AI values wonder techs, government techs, and techs that give new defensive units particularly highly. If you can get a monopoly on something like Monarchy (government & wonder) or Nationalism (new defensive unit), or Feudalism (wonder, government, defensive unit), trading can be quite lucrative.

 

[Lord of Elves]

This is what the very early game looks like for me

 

[Spoonwood]

I got a text error about the civilopedia which said something about constitutional monarchy. PTW or a version of Vanilla instead of Conquests?

 

[Bucephalus]

I got a text error about the civilopedia which said something about constitutional monarchy. PTW or a version of Vanilla instead of Conquests?

He's playing a mod, Spoons - see post #8

 

[Lord of Elves]

Yarr, Bucephalus be correct. In specific, I am playing Flavors of Civiliation by iron0037. It is, as the name implies, a flavor mod that replaces units in the ancient, high and low medieval, and industrial periods with nation/culture-specific flavor units. It makes several small changes to the game itself, wherein roads and railroads take longer to construct, and cities cannot be built on desert and tundra squares.