REXing your way to a domination victory?

[cabert]

dirk : if you go for drama after litterature, I suppose you go for music?
it's effectively going to help in the poor situation, since drama allows to push the culture slider = happiness + theatres = more

futurehermit : about building wealth, it's not really going to help in mst situations. Most of the time you have too many things to build (barracks, libraries, granaries, courthouses, units!, ...) to leave a good production city out of it. Then it's just a somewhat desperate move to prevent strike.
If you have a production powerhouse capital with bureaucracy, it can help though . A mine is then > merchant!
+ you can pop a resource in your mines
I seem to pop a resource in almost every game (even in SGs, where it's kind of cool)!

 

[futurehermit]

Hey guys, I played around with this a bit more last night. I tried the 2 scientists + building wealth idea. It works pretty great!!! The only thing is, yes, you would want to do this after you've got enough units out for your first war (12-15 i guess). Then you do this to avoid striking. Basically, the goal is to push your empire to the absolute breaking point, getting it as large as possible 8+ cities early before you settle down to build some infrastructure (granaries, courthouses, etc.). First build is library, second is barracks, then units, then when you have enough units, build wealth while running specialists.

The best approach is still adapting to the map however as i am finding out. Preset strategies are always suboptimal if you get a map/neighbours that aren't suited to it.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Cabert, no. Drama is just a sidestep, i usually go construction (most of the time the Ai won't trade this tech at the time i lightbulb philosophy) , civil service after Drama while lightbulbing philosophy, this tech is usually traded for currency ,monarchy,col + feudalism later on. After currency i take the cash for the drama tech (and for literature). Sometimes i can even get something like compass or calender for Drama and literature together if i hadn't gotten these techs from trading Philosophy already.

I recently learned that the "won't trade with you for fear of you becoming to advanced" has to do with the amount of techs a particular AI has already traded with you. I always believed that it had to with the relative research position you were in compared to the other AI's.

This means i'm going to rethink my research and trade strategy. Trading alphabet for techs like archery, meditation, priesthood doesn't seem so good an idea if it block's the way to much more lucrative trades later on.

@Futurehermit, i agree that expanding as much as possible early is a good idea. Even for space races it's important to have as many (good) cities as possible.You don't have to be ahead in research early on in the game and the philosophy lightbulb guarantees not falling too much behind. Only thing to be avoided is a strike. Cashing Drama really helps here.

 

[cabert]

Hey guys, I played around with this a bit more last night. I tried the 2 scientists + building wealth idea. It works pretty great!!! The only thing is, yes, you would want to do this after you've got enough units out for your first war (12-15 i guess). Then you do this to avoid striking. Basically, the goal is to push your empire to the absolute breaking point, getting it as large as possible 8+ cities early before you settle down to build some infrastructure (granaries, courthouses, etc.). First build is library, second is barracks, then units, then when you have enough units, build wealth while running specialists.

looks like a game I played . I must say that I inserted a large anarchy period too, to avoid strike (= I switched to caste system + Org Rel then to confucianism to save a few turns of upkee, not exactly the perpetual anarchy but near enough to be "abusive" )
Pushing the limit is somewhat scary, isn't it?

 

[futurehermit]

it's scary, but it's fun!! i was too tired to play for very long or very effectively last night, but once i get a chance to sit down and play another serious game i'll report back on how it goes.

i really think hatty rocks for this strategy. basically, if there are no (aggressive) ais nearby then she can rex using creative to get best city placement and cheap libraries up and running asap without needing more military than barb-busters. if there are (aggressive) ais nearby and there is copper OR horses then she can expand via warfare following the same build procedure, but after a first wave of units is pumped out (whipping here for sure even at 3 limit). so, basically, she can expand to the limit either way and i like that. this strategy falters when you really need to be aggressive to expand but don't have copper or a horse-based uu. then you basically have to delay for iron or preferably construction and it's back to a different style of play, at least temporarily.

i'd really like to get it to work with a philosophical leader, gandhi preferably. the thing is though: no creative = need for monuments (delayed border popping, access to outer-ring forests). alternatively chop stonehenge, but that ensures great prophet first and then no lightbulbing alphabet i'd guess you'd end up settling the prophet which would give some $$$ to help out, but i think the alphabet lightbulb is really most effective.

plus, you have to have a leader that doesn't start with fishing so alex is out. frederick could work except for the border-popping issue. the nice thing about him is you can start bronze-anhusb to reveal military resource asap for first settler.

i want to get this to work with catherine as well. creative is good as i've mentioned. imperialistic is a weaker trait imo, but if she can start peacefully and settler spam (cheaper with imperialistic) that would be nice and then use all of the GGs to create military academies in as many production cities as possible. then beeline to military tradition and spam cossacks out of all those (and other) cities

 

[Moxxa]

Awesome strat man! I did this in my current game as Catherine and I have the best start I have had yet on Emperor. Imperialistic is NOT a weak trait when you do a settler spam followed by war for your GGs. Being creative helps your economy from dying because you can build those libraries and run scientists early enough until you get CoL and Currency.

Lightbulbing Alphabet is a good idea because you can concentrate on beelining Construction with the help of lots of scientists. It just goes to show how many strategies there are in this game yet to be discovered.

 

[futurehermit]

Awesome strat man! I did this in my current game as Catherine and I have the best start I have had yet on Emperor. Imperialistic is NOT a weak trait when you do a settler spam followed by war for your GGs. Being creative helps your economy from dying because you can build those libraries and run scientists early enough until you get CoL and Currency.

Lightbulbing Alphabet is a good idea because you can concentrate on beelining Construction with the help of lots of scientists. It just goes to show how many strategies there are in this game yet to be discovered.

I agree, although I won't claim this as an original strat. So much of my play is absorbed from the fine folks on these forums

Something I read a long time ago continues to haunt my play. Basically, it was someone who said they usually have around 15 cities by 1AD saying(paraphrase): "I get my beakers from scientists and plop down a couple cottages to cover maintenance".

I can't believe after trying so hard myself that this person was playing normal speed, continents, emperor+ (unless maybe playing as incans, but even still...) but it still drives me forward.

I'm playing a game with Hatty right now. Started with ragnar, toku, vicky, and wang. Diplomacy ended up ragnar + toku vs vicky and wang. I sided with vicky and wang since toku and ragnar won't trade. I managed to only spam 3 cities before the land was filled in But then I geared up and crippled ragnar taking 1 more city (he was a bit away from my empire) and razed a few. I couldn't sue for tech because I didn't bulb alpha cuz vicky already had it and math But I had currency so I sued for a bit of cash. Then I turned on Toku and took 1 more city and razed a couple, not crippling, but hurting (he had spears and high cultural defence). Ragnar is now a non-factor so I am concentrating on Toku who has the most cities of anyone. I am currently researching liberalism at about 400AD and massing catapults to sack Toku's capital which is near enough to my empire. I figure once I take enough of Toku's cities to cripple him that I will have the most cities by a wide margin since Vicky and Wang have been peaceful and have run out of land. I also managed to culture-flip one of Vicky's cities From there it should be relatively easy to mop-up my continent since I will have a large size differential. I wasn't able to fully maximize my strat, however, since I wasn't able to expand fast enough to require me to build wealth to avoid a strike However, it is still working quite well. I ran 2 scientists/city prior to CoL and then bumped as many up past 2 as I could once CoL came onboard. Unfortunately since Vicky founded confucianism and it spread to me and I converted AND I didn't have monotheism yet pacifism wasn't helping my primary specialist city (capital) because I hadn't managed to spread confucianism there yet. I really prefer to adopt taoism and use the missionary in my capital or other strong specialist city but in this case I needed to keep vicky happy and sharing a religion was moderating against having close borders.

I'm hoping I can trade for machinery or else self-research it prior to liberalism since that will let me take printing press with liberalism. Then self-research gunpowder and use next 2 GSs on chemistry.

I still want to work on Catherine and will probably work with her next. I want to work out a settler-spammage-then-cossacks-beeline. I think that would be a really strong domination approach using great generals to build military academies in decent production cities.

 

[futurehermit]

Ok, so I was doing some more thinking this morning. Assuming that you don't have an ai sitting right on your doorstep begging to be rushed, what about beelining to construction then currency and col while trading for iron and launching your first assault with primarily swords and catapults? I usually "settle down" and max specialists once I hit caste system and pacificism, meaning troop production slows down. While I can dribble out reinforcements, I don't start cranking units again until after I lightbulb chemistry, hopefully before 1000AD.

What I find in my games is that if I axerush/warchariotrush my attacking halts once the AI gets feudalism This wouldn't be the case with catapults and veteran swordsmen. So, essentially, that would allow for continued attacking with the initial stack and dribbled reinforcements (which would increase beyond a dribble once captured cities come online).

This might allow non-creative civs like gandhi to employ this strategy since we could start out a bit slower allowing for monuments to pop borders but then bust out stronger post-construction.

Of course this would not apply should an ai be so close that it begs a rush, but assuming the ability to spam enough settlers before the land runs out I think this could be more effective in the long run than what I first tried (everything else stays the same however).

Thoughts?

Edit: Basically, what I am saying is that if we beeline for construction first there will be a window between construction and col where we could crank out swords and catapults (with 1-2 axes and spears for stack defense). Maximize production while working 2 scientists per city using slavery as long as there is sufficient happiness to allow stagnation while working 2 scientists until unhappy wears off allowing a subsequent whip. Then once col and lightbulbed phil come online and we switch civics to caste system and pacificism (hopefully having run organized religion long enough to spread religion to all cities) we can rely a lot on that original stack while reinforcing it to continue our war effort while we are maximizing specialists to beeline liberalism and lightbulbed chemistry (try and take printing press with liberalism to allow faster lightbulbing of chemistry).

I'm also thinking that we would want to shut down GS production as soon as we have enough to lightbulb chemistry. Instead transition to GM production in order to lightbulb constitution and replaceable parts (for rifling). This might mean that we would be better off taking nationalism with liberalism and then using an extra GS to lightbulb most of printing press (which is ok, just slightly later chemistry). With lightbulbed constitution and printing press that would mean access to democracy soon which would allow us to transition to a CE for the late game, which I currently believe is the best approach. Use serfdom during the grenadier war period to switch to cottages and then once democracy comes online and most cottages are built (first researched tech post-chemistry) switch to emancipation (this will also help unhappiness should any civ beat you to democracy). Of course then transition to other CE civics as well as able.

Thoughts?

 

[cabert]

Ok, so I was doing some more thinking this morning. Assuming that you don't have an ai sitting right on your doorstep begging to be rushed, what about beelining to construction then currency and col while trading for iron and launching your first assault with primarily swords and catapults? I usually "settle down" and max specialists once I hit caste system and pacificism, meaning troop production slows down. While I can dribble out reinforcements, I don't start cranking units again until after I lightbulb chemistry, hopefully before 1000AD.

What I find in my games is that if I axerush/warchariotrush my attacking halts once the AI gets feudalism This wouldn't be the case with catapults and veteran swordsmen. So, essentially, that would allow for continued attacking with the initial stack and dribbled reinforcements (which would increase beyond a dribble once captured cities come online).

This might allow non-creative civs like gandhi to employ this strategy since we could start out a bit slower allowing for monuments to pop borders but then bust out stronger post-construction.

Of course this would not apply should an ai be so close that it begs a rush, but assuming the ability to spam enough settlers before the land runs out I think this could be more effective in the long run than what I first tried (everything else stays the same however).

Thoughts?

It's strange you don't mention macemen.
Don't you use them? They are very good LB killers.

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, as you'll see from my edit above, my problem is that I attack with axes or warchariots early and then kind of have problems massing units during medieval, instead attacking post-grenadiers. I think this is a massive problem with my game.

Thus, I think that if I start with swords instead then I could upgrade the promoted ones to maces with traded-for cashola. I know that I could upgrade axes as well, but I just think that swords would be better since properly promoted they can do well enough against longbows should I not have enough cashola to upgrade them.

I think the main problem with my game right now is that I'm not able to integrate a mace-catapult war period.

I think instead of getting liberalism between 500-900AD I'd be better off delaying liberalism til 1000AD and integrating a mace-catapult period as well. I will definitely have to work on that.

 

[cabert]

in fact you don't need to mass macemen
you need to mass catapults!

With a handful of macemen to cover your catapults, you can easily take a few cities.

In this period, it's mostly about conquering whole civs = loads of catapults.
Break free of the fast teching priority, and you'll see how easy it is to get some breathing room in the medieval time.

Now in warlords, you can decide to attack anytime:

1 - pure rush (axe or chariots)
2 - catapult aided rush (axe/sword + cats, chariots or HA optional)
3 - catapult aided macemen (mace + cats, HA optional, leftovers from previous war can do either the mop up or the suicidal first attack)
4 - trebuchets aided macemen (trebs + mace, knights optional)
- trebuchets aided muskets (yes it works = drafting)
5 - trebuchets/frigates aided grenadiers
6 - canons (canons + coverage)
- riflemen (draftees + canons/catapults/trebuchets)
...

The one with numbers are those I usually use. The others are less common for me, but I've tried all those, with success.

 

[Ruler]

My favorite is definitely lots of catapults and horse archeries with retreat promotion and couple spear or maceman for protection. That works like a charm early.

 

[lilnev]

I agree with Cabert, you're probably not getting enough mileage out of your catapults. They're so cheap and so good!. More than once I've launched major wars with literally nothing but a stack of catapults (lack of metal). Even when I do have metal, I consider the catapults to be the workhorse of my army. Swords/maces are nice for those fights where the defender is just a bit too strong for a catapult to have favorable odds, and for really big battles (after the first several catapults, they stop dealing collateral damage). But the catapults are my principal unit (I probably build more catapults than all other units put together).

peace,
lilnev

 

[futurehermit]

oh don't worry i mass lots of catapults. i just do it at the point when grenadiers come online because i beeline so hardcore for liberalism. what i'm saying i think i need to do is put off liberalism for another couple centuries and mass them much earlier, starting with a construction beeline. it's not like the ai gets liberalism before 1000AD really anyways...