handy900
Deity
Want to win an Always War Sid level game? No problem, just follow a few secrets (okay - they are not really secrets, more like tips) set forth below and victory will be yours. This is not the only way to win, but it is a sure way to win. A warning though, if the thought of firing off 100+ artillery each turn late in the game is not your cup of tea, this is not the game for you. Youll be bombing all game long, and its a long game.
To win, you must maximize pillaging, which makes Theodora and her Dromons the logical choice to exploit the AI weakness. As an example of the power of Dromons, you can read Mark 1031s OCC AWS 20K win thread here. If Dromons are not your thing, review ArathornsAWS Iroquois win here.
Since I played as Theodora, this thread will mainly focus on a conquest AWS victory as the Beautiful Byzantines. You can read the entire thread of Theodoras Excellent AWS Adventure here, or just skip to the strategy section below. If you think this sounds fun, avoid reading my game thread, load my 4000bc save at the end of chapter one and rock on, its definitely a winnable start. You can easily beat me by centuries if the thought of publicly humiliating me turns your crank.
WarningTheodoras AWS adventure is full of lousy and corny jokes 
and is not suitable for those who have not entered fifth grade, or those who do not find fifth grade humor funny. Don't say I didn't warn you. 
First lets talk about some basics of Always War. The AI will not attack an army except for two situations. The first is a weak defensive (archer) army or a wounded army. For example, swords will attack an archer army and MI will attack a wounded musket army. The second situation is an army in a city on the AIs homelands when the AI has no other target available. The AI will send swords against a musket army if the army is in a city and the AI has no other targets to attack. This is very important and must be avoided at the Sid level where a musket army can face a stack of 200 MI and swords. Even an army cannot withstand an assault like that.
While some may consider it cheating to use an archipelago map, winning an AWD game, much less AWS game on continents or pangaea is very hard. While at least one continent AWS win has been achieved, it is not easy and requires good play, RNG luck and a good map with access to iron and luxuries. Choosing an island map over continents gives the human a big edge.
Because the AI is loath to attack boats that are stacked, the Dromons can pillage and pillage and pillage some more and obliterate AI improvements. The AI will never set foot on your soil if they are sunk before they reach your homeland. This allows you to just build warriors for MP, and gather the necessary strength to attack the AI. You cannot allow the AI to reach your shores. While you can fortify units (like workers or warriors) all around the coastline until Marines (or Zerks) arrive, this is expensive and unnecessary. You can easily taunt the AI with open unguarded coastline and minimally protected cities. This creates a nice a kill zone on water for the overpowered Dromons.
Here are a few keys to lead you to victory by conquest or domination.
· Dont play Pangaea!: Select a wet, warm, old island map with max water and hope you are alone and that you are surrounded by sea. If there is no coastal passage to your lands, you should be safe until Astronomy, because the AI fears the sea tiles until then. For extra protection, do not play against the Vikings. For even more protection, do not play against other seafaring Civs. Once the Lighthouse is built, keep a close eye on that civ as they can sail sea tiles.
· Being lonely is a good thing: Select a map where you are alone on an island with food, fresh water and luxuries. The most important resource you need is saltpeter. You can win without iron.
· Declare war early & often: Send out dinky little boats as soon as possible to meet the neighbors & get them in war mode. You also want to know if there is a coastal passage between you and the neighbors that you need to guard until Astronomy.
· Trade then declare: Trade with AI before you declare on them on the same turn. Try to trade up for map-making so you can build dromons. You should have some cash since you are at 10% or lone scientist research.
· Barbs are good: Farming barbs for cash is a nice way to supplement the old cash flow. I played sedentary and wished I had set them to roaming.
· Sea tiles are your helper : If there is a coastal passage to the Byzantine island, you are in deep water. Take control of these passages, you must rule the seas. The downside of no coastal passage is that luxuries and resources across the seas are not available until astronomy, so your cities will need temples.
· Build happy buildings: I did not build any other happy buildings besides temples in my AWS game, but with hindsight they are probably a good idea since it took a very long time to gain access to my third luxury.
·Currency Banking is good: I made the mistake of researching chem. before currency banking. The banks would have helped me turn research up to get cannon & cavalry faster. CurrencyBanking was the better play.
· Low research is good: Make no plans to move the research slider above 10% for most of the early game. One exception may be a speed research run burning lots of gold to get astronomy after the great library expires. One lone scientist with the slider at 0% is a good play most of the time. By the time you can build banks & universities and afford to turn up research, you should already have the game well under control.
· Build the Glib early: I rushed a temple and built the Glib in my third city, which was probably a little too early. I completed the Glib before any AI even learned Literature. But its better to be safe than sorry, because if you miss the Glib, you are doomed.
· Capture the Glib? Forget about it!: If you miss the Glib, you must capture the Glib. This will require a lot of luck and skill to pull off, but is theoretically possible. In order to capture the Glib, you must bait the AI away from the Glib city before you attack. Of course youll need an army to cover your Glib attack force, and that will be almost impossible to come by since you wont have the Glib to get you the techs (pikes or gunpowder) you need to survive long enough to get an army. If you miss the Glib you are in deep trouble, so start it early and use the "improve tiles and join workers" trick.
· Build a gigantic navy and pillage: The Byzantine shipbuilders must build fire-spewing dromons by the dozens and pillage the AI coastal tiles to slow the tech pace. Dromons miss a lot when pillaging, so build a bunch. These flamethrowers must sink all AI ship traffic until the AI has a full complement of land units, at which point the AI will have no cash to support a decent navy. In the game I played, they just gave up on sending out boats except for a lone Roman galley near the end. Keep a few dromons close to home as a safety net.
· Build a ton of spears: Do not build horses. Knights are too expensive and you will need a lot of attackers. Build loads of cheap spears that you can later upgrade to muskets. You can build trebs and longbows after your initial assault, which should be on an ironless AI continent.
· Build cheap warriors for MP: you will be stuck with few luxuries until astronomy, regular warriors are cheap MP.
· The best early offense is a good defense: For the initial assault, plan to insert at least 30 muskets on your landing along with a settler and 2 workers or warriors. You will disband the worker/warrior to rush walls and a rax. Pillage the tiles around the tile you will land on to slow the AI counterattack. Settle on a hill for the defensive bonus. Disband a worker and cash rush walls after you settle. Then disband the second worker and cash rush a barracks. Consider turning off battle animation because the Sid AI IBT attack can last for several minutes if animated.
Someone forgot to bring along an extra unit to disband & rush the rax. 32 muskets for a civ with no iron may have been overkill, IIRC about 20 wound up living to fight another day after the large SODs has come and gone.
· The first AI victim must be ironless: The first AI you invade must be chosen with care to ensure you dont get all your muskets killed, and that you get a quick leader. The Sids will send huge stacks against you, so the safest initial attack is on an AI continent that has no iron access and as has not learned invention so you will not face swords, MI or LB. I waited for muskets, and then landed on an AI continent where the muskets would only face archers and horsemen. This created a bunch of elites that then produced leaders on defense. Remember, these muskets were in a city on a hill with walls. The site of 20+ elite muskets created in a single turn along with a defensive leader was sweet. So, to increase your odds of success, your first target should be ironless and only be able to attack with horse or archer units. Move artillery and attack units under the army and attack the AI while your elite muskets continue to create leaders on defense in your initial walled city.
· Raze all AI cities, then settle: Do not build a city on an AI continent until after you have razed all the AI cities and eliminated the AI. The only exception is the initial landing where you drop a bunch of muskets and settle a lone city. As an experiment I reloaded a save after the game was over and landed on the rich French continent where giant stacks of MI, Acav and swords patrolled the lands. The French killed 40 muskets on a single turn that were in a city on a hill before the rushed walls became operational. It's a pain to hold cities.
· Hide under a musket army: You must respect the AI stacks and use appropriate tactics like hiding your attacking trebs and LB under a high defense army if you want to win.
· Astronomy is key: Get astronomy so you can transport musket armies loaded with only 2 muskets to the most powerful AI continents and pillage the tiles the dromons could not reach. If you try to insert a one-musket army and transport it by dromon, the one musket army insertion can be deadly, and success depends on pillaging and a favorable AI island shape. To succeed, you need to insert a one-musket army, avoid attack on the IBT, and add a second musket the next turn. Look for a mountain or jungle where you have pillaged the AI roads so knights cannot reach you on the IBT. Drop the one-musket army and the second musket in a safe area where no AI IBT attack can occur. If no safe landing area exists, wait patiently wait for the arrival of Caravels since the AI wont attack a fully healed 2-musket army with MI or knights no matter where you land it. Im not sure if cavalry will attack to a 2-musket army, and its best not to find out the hard way. Pillage the AI early and often to slow the tech pace and disconnect horses and saltpeter.
· Load armies with only two units: For the rest of the game (or until you get galleons) only place 2 units in armies so caravels can transport them from island to island. Armies with 2 LB or 2 knights are deadly even versus rifles when combined with enough rock throwers.
· Build lots of cities for unit support: Razed AI lands, as well as any crappy little islands should be populated by corrupt cities, which are placed on wealth (a few can build 30-turn settlers once you have good cash flow). You will need lots of cities or you will go broke from paying unit support. Since you control the seas, corrupt cities need no garrison. Dont waste money on MP in corrupt cities. Use the unit support for your attack forces instead of MP in corrupt cities, the dromons can protect garrison free island towns. Dedicate one core city with extra food to building settlers for most of the game to populate these little islands. If you do not have saltpeter, you will need to find some on an island and transport spears there for an upgrade.
· Baiting the AI: [Pictures of the bait sequence are below.] When you go on offense, you will want to bait the AI to pull their huge stacks out of the cities, then you can quickly and effectively raze cities with artillery and the cheap LB you have been producing. Never build any MI or swords because they are too expensive and dont upgrade until RP. The game should end in the middle ages unless perhaps you play a large or huge map. Its okay to build some knights after you have a large LB stack since knights will eventually upgrade to cavalry. You should have loads of cash for upgrades because you are running a lone scientist for research and have dozens of corrupt island cities set to wealth. Techs are not really necessary after you get guns and astronomy. This is a long grinding game with an amazingly slow tech pace.
Create some space, stay there, and the AI will come running from their cities toward your lone uncovered unit. This picture was taken after the IBT. The wounded babe-knight was positioned so that the Sumerian Knights could not reach her on the IBT. She will move under the army on this turn for protection. Proper spacing is a must. Note Lagash is being starved down to size six by the dromons that occupy all it's workable sea tiles.
Raze the now lightly guarded cities and create more space. With the Sumerians watching from the mountain, and Lagash starved to pop 6, the city fell easily. Be sure you have a open escape route before you bait the AI, otherwise they will block your march.
Pull the AI further away from the remaining cities, then escape by boat. The Sumerians were content to guard the pillaged grass and plains while we razed their cities. Those are not single pikes you see, but rather stacks of Pike, MI and LB. The exploring babe will move onto a boat before the AI reaches her.
· Be extremely careful if you decide to capture and hold an AI city before you eliminate that AI: I advise against it because the AI gets a ton of free unit support. Even after you raze 66% of an AI Civ you will be amazed at the size of their remaining stacks. I recommend you raze all cities. If you covet a wonder like the Lighthouse, capture that city last to avoid flips and having to fight to hold the city. One exception may be capturing a city from an ironless AI, but still be careful. An ironless AI used horses and archers to kill 8 of 32 muskets in my initial assault city on a hill behind walls.
· Starve your enemy: Use dromons to bomb and to starve coastal cities to size 6 that you are attacking. This tactic also takes away AI commerce tiles when you park a dromon on the coast.
· Stack your boats: The AI will attack a lone dinky or dromon. Apparently they fear the sight of two currah's stacked.
Go figure.
· MM decently: You need to do at least a decent job of micro managing. I didnt check each city each turn. I checked cities often in the early stages of the game, and hardly ever later. Map Stat makes watching for riots a lot easier. Anyone who MMs every turn could load my save and finish several centuries earlier than me, so dont let the MM scare you. I did do the obvious stuff like improving river tiles first; using chops wisely to avoid wasted shields; MM cities to get an efficient shield count like 10 shields per turn; building 20 shield cost units in 7spt cities to minimize wasted shields; stuff like that.
· Leader Farming: vmxa Suggests what I believe is an excellent tactic which I did not use in my game. Allow the AI to load their galleys and sail safely to a landmass of your choosing. Once they drop off units throw rocks and then kill them in the hopes of generating leaders. If too many boats for you to handle arrive simultaneously, just sink them before they can offload their units. Remember, Dromons have lethal bombard against other ships.
One last thing, build a lot of artillery. A few LB with lots of artillery are effective, but you must hide them under an army for protection.
That should be enough to get you going. Good luck! Its actually pretty easy.
To win, you must maximize pillaging, which makes Theodora and her Dromons the logical choice to exploit the AI weakness. As an example of the power of Dromons, you can read Mark 1031s OCC AWS 20K win thread here. If Dromons are not your thing, review ArathornsAWS Iroquois win here.
Since I played as Theodora, this thread will mainly focus on a conquest AWS victory as the Beautiful Byzantines. You can read the entire thread of Theodoras Excellent AWS Adventure here, or just skip to the strategy section below. If you think this sounds fun, avoid reading my game thread, load my 4000bc save at the end of chapter one and rock on, its definitely a winnable start. You can easily beat me by centuries if the thought of publicly humiliating me turns your crank.
WarningTheodoras AWS adventure is full of lousy and corny jokes and is not suitable for those who have not entered fifth grade, or those who do not find fifth grade humor funny. Don't say I didn't warn you. First lets talk about some basics of Always War. The AI will not attack an army except for two situations. The first is a weak defensive (archer) army or a wounded army. For example, swords will attack an archer army and MI will attack a wounded musket army. The second situation is an army in a city on the AIs homelands when the AI has no other target available. The AI will send swords against a musket army if the army is in a city and the AI has no other targets to attack. This is very important and must be avoided at the Sid level where a musket army can face a stack of 200 MI and swords. Even an army cannot withstand an assault like that.
While some may consider it cheating to use an archipelago map, winning an AWD game, much less AWS game on continents or pangaea is very hard. While at least one continent AWS win has been achieved, it is not easy and requires good play, RNG luck and a good map with access to iron and luxuries. Choosing an island map over continents gives the human a big edge.
Because the AI is loath to attack boats that are stacked, the Dromons can pillage and pillage and pillage some more and obliterate AI improvements. The AI will never set foot on your soil if they are sunk before they reach your homeland. This allows you to just build warriors for MP, and gather the necessary strength to attack the AI. You cannot allow the AI to reach your shores. While you can fortify units (like workers or warriors) all around the coastline until Marines (or Zerks) arrive, this is expensive and unnecessary. You can easily taunt the AI with open unguarded coastline and minimally protected cities. This creates a nice a kill zone on water for the overpowered Dromons.
Here are a few keys to lead you to victory by conquest or domination.
· Dont play Pangaea!: Select a wet, warm, old island map with max water and hope you are alone and that you are surrounded by sea. If there is no coastal passage to your lands, you should be safe until Astronomy, because the AI fears the sea tiles until then. For extra protection, do not play against the Vikings. For even more protection, do not play against other seafaring Civs. Once the Lighthouse is built, keep a close eye on that civ as they can sail sea tiles.
· Being lonely is a good thing: Select a map where you are alone on an island with food, fresh water and luxuries. The most important resource you need is saltpeter. You can win without iron.
· Declare war early & often: Send out dinky little boats as soon as possible to meet the neighbors & get them in war mode. You also want to know if there is a coastal passage between you and the neighbors that you need to guard until Astronomy.
· Trade then declare: Trade with AI before you declare on them on the same turn. Try to trade up for map-making so you can build dromons. You should have some cash since you are at 10% or lone scientist research.
· Barbs are good: Farming barbs for cash is a nice way to supplement the old cash flow. I played sedentary and wished I had set them to roaming.
· Sea tiles are your helper : If there is a coastal passage to the Byzantine island, you are in deep water. Take control of these passages, you must rule the seas. The downside of no coastal passage is that luxuries and resources across the seas are not available until astronomy, so your cities will need temples.
· Build happy buildings: I did not build any other happy buildings besides temples in my AWS game, but with hindsight they are probably a good idea since it took a very long time to gain access to my third luxury.
·
· Low research is good: Make no plans to move the research slider above 10% for most of the early game. One exception may be a speed research run burning lots of gold to get astronomy after the great library expires. One lone scientist with the slider at 0% is a good play most of the time. By the time you can build banks & universities and afford to turn up research, you should already have the game well under control.
· Build the Glib early: I rushed a temple and built the Glib in my third city, which was probably a little too early. I completed the Glib before any AI even learned Literature. But its better to be safe than sorry, because if you miss the Glib, you are doomed.
· Capture the Glib? Forget about it!: If you miss the Glib, you must capture the Glib. This will require a lot of luck and skill to pull off, but is theoretically possible. In order to capture the Glib, you must bait the AI away from the Glib city before you attack. Of course youll need an army to cover your Glib attack force, and that will be almost impossible to come by since you wont have the Glib to get you the techs (pikes or gunpowder) you need to survive long enough to get an army. If you miss the Glib you are in deep trouble, so start it early and use the "improve tiles and join workers" trick.
· Build a gigantic navy and pillage: The Byzantine shipbuilders must build fire-spewing dromons by the dozens and pillage the AI coastal tiles to slow the tech pace. Dromons miss a lot when pillaging, so build a bunch. These flamethrowers must sink all AI ship traffic until the AI has a full complement of land units, at which point the AI will have no cash to support a decent navy. In the game I played, they just gave up on sending out boats except for a lone Roman galley near the end. Keep a few dromons close to home as a safety net.
· Build a ton of spears: Do not build horses. Knights are too expensive and you will need a lot of attackers. Build loads of cheap spears that you can later upgrade to muskets. You can build trebs and longbows after your initial assault, which should be on an ironless AI continent.
· Build cheap warriors for MP: you will be stuck with few luxuries until astronomy, regular warriors are cheap MP.
· The best early offense is a good defense: For the initial assault, plan to insert at least 30 muskets on your landing along with a settler and 2 workers or warriors. You will disband the worker/warrior to rush walls and a rax. Pillage the tiles around the tile you will land on to slow the AI counterattack. Settle on a hill for the defensive bonus. Disband a worker and cash rush walls after you settle. Then disband the second worker and cash rush a barracks. Consider turning off battle animation because the Sid AI IBT attack can last for several minutes if animated.
Someone forgot to bring along an extra unit to disband & rush the rax. 32 muskets for a civ with no iron may have been overkill, IIRC about 20 wound up living to fight another day after the large SODs has come and gone.
· The first AI victim must be ironless: The first AI you invade must be chosen with care to ensure you dont get all your muskets killed, and that you get a quick leader. The Sids will send huge stacks against you, so the safest initial attack is on an AI continent that has no iron access and as has not learned invention so you will not face swords, MI or LB. I waited for muskets, and then landed on an AI continent where the muskets would only face archers and horsemen. This created a bunch of elites that then produced leaders on defense. Remember, these muskets were in a city on a hill with walls. The site of 20+ elite muskets created in a single turn along with a defensive leader was sweet. So, to increase your odds of success, your first target should be ironless and only be able to attack with horse or archer units. Move artillery and attack units under the army and attack the AI while your elite muskets continue to create leaders on defense in your initial walled city.
· Raze all AI cities, then settle: Do not build a city on an AI continent until after you have razed all the AI cities and eliminated the AI. The only exception is the initial landing where you drop a bunch of muskets and settle a lone city. As an experiment I reloaded a save after the game was over and landed on the rich French continent where giant stacks of MI, Acav and swords patrolled the lands. The French killed 40 muskets on a single turn that were in a city on a hill before the rushed walls became operational. It's a pain to hold cities.
· Hide under a musket army: You must respect the AI stacks and use appropriate tactics like hiding your attacking trebs and LB under a high defense army if you want to win.
· Astronomy is key: Get astronomy so you can transport musket armies loaded with only 2 muskets to the most powerful AI continents and pillage the tiles the dromons could not reach. If you try to insert a one-musket army and transport it by dromon, the one musket army insertion can be deadly, and success depends on pillaging and a favorable AI island shape. To succeed, you need to insert a one-musket army, avoid attack on the IBT, and add a second musket the next turn. Look for a mountain or jungle where you have pillaged the AI roads so knights cannot reach you on the IBT. Drop the one-musket army and the second musket in a safe area where no AI IBT attack can occur. If no safe landing area exists, wait patiently wait for the arrival of Caravels since the AI wont attack a fully healed 2-musket army with MI or knights no matter where you land it. Im not sure if cavalry will attack to a 2-musket army, and its best not to find out the hard way. Pillage the AI early and often to slow the tech pace and disconnect horses and saltpeter.
· Load armies with only two units: For the rest of the game (or until you get galleons) only place 2 units in armies so caravels can transport them from island to island. Armies with 2 LB or 2 knights are deadly even versus rifles when combined with enough rock throwers.
· Build lots of cities for unit support: Razed AI lands, as well as any crappy little islands should be populated by corrupt cities, which are placed on wealth (a few can build 30-turn settlers once you have good cash flow). You will need lots of cities or you will go broke from paying unit support. Since you control the seas, corrupt cities need no garrison. Dont waste money on MP in corrupt cities. Use the unit support for your attack forces instead of MP in corrupt cities, the dromons can protect garrison free island towns. Dedicate one core city with extra food to building settlers for most of the game to populate these little islands. If you do not have saltpeter, you will need to find some on an island and transport spears there for an upgrade.
· Baiting the AI: [Pictures of the bait sequence are below.] When you go on offense, you will want to bait the AI to pull their huge stacks out of the cities, then you can quickly and effectively raze cities with artillery and the cheap LB you have been producing. Never build any MI or swords because they are too expensive and dont upgrade until RP. The game should end in the middle ages unless perhaps you play a large or huge map. Its okay to build some knights after you have a large LB stack since knights will eventually upgrade to cavalry. You should have loads of cash for upgrades because you are running a lone scientist for research and have dozens of corrupt island cities set to wealth. Techs are not really necessary after you get guns and astronomy. This is a long grinding game with an amazingly slow tech pace.
Create some space, stay there, and the AI will come running from their cities toward your lone uncovered unit. This picture was taken after the IBT. The wounded babe-knight was positioned so that the Sumerian Knights could not reach her on the IBT. She will move under the army on this turn for protection. Proper spacing is a must. Note Lagash is being starved down to size six by the dromons that occupy all it's workable sea tiles.
Raze the now lightly guarded cities and create more space. With the Sumerians watching from the mountain, and Lagash starved to pop 6, the city fell easily. Be sure you have a open escape route before you bait the AI, otherwise they will block your march.
Pull the AI further away from the remaining cities, then escape by boat. The Sumerians were content to guard the pillaged grass and plains while we razed their cities. Those are not single pikes you see, but rather stacks of Pike, MI and LB. The exploring babe will move onto a boat before the AI reaches her.
· Be extremely careful if you decide to capture and hold an AI city before you eliminate that AI: I advise against it because the AI gets a ton of free unit support. Even after you raze 66% of an AI Civ you will be amazed at the size of their remaining stacks. I recommend you raze all cities. If you covet a wonder like the Lighthouse, capture that city last to avoid flips and having to fight to hold the city. One exception may be capturing a city from an ironless AI, but still be careful. An ironless AI used horses and archers to kill 8 of 32 muskets in my initial assault city on a hill behind walls.
· Starve your enemy: Use dromons to bomb and to starve coastal cities to size 6 that you are attacking. This tactic also takes away AI commerce tiles when you park a dromon on the coast.
· Stack your boats: The AI will attack a lone dinky or dromon. Apparently they fear the sight of two currah's stacked.
Go figure.· MM decently: You need to do at least a decent job of micro managing. I didnt check each city each turn. I checked cities often in the early stages of the game, and hardly ever later. Map Stat makes watching for riots a lot easier. Anyone who MMs every turn could load my save and finish several centuries earlier than me, so dont let the MM scare you. I did do the obvious stuff like improving river tiles first; using chops wisely to avoid wasted shields; MM cities to get an efficient shield count like 10 shields per turn; building 20 shield cost units in 7spt cities to minimize wasted shields; stuff like that.
· Leader Farming: vmxa Suggests what I believe is an excellent tactic which I did not use in my game. Allow the AI to load their galleys and sail safely to a landmass of your choosing. Once they drop off units throw rocks and then kill them in the hopes of generating leaders. If too many boats for you to handle arrive simultaneously, just sink them before they can offload their units. Remember, Dromons have lethal bombard against other ships.
One last thing, build a lot of artillery. A few LB with lots of artillery are effective, but you must hide them under an army for protection.
That should be enough to get you going. Good luck! Its actually pretty easy.
. All that bombarbment strikes me as tedious so I may not get very far though. Dromons seem to fail almost all the time. Always war isn't really my bag either, as I like trading/alliances etc.
:shakehead :suicide:
The island map knocks it down a couple of levels. 
