Stiel´s Capitol Isolating War-strategy

[Gengis Khan]

Stiel's Capitol Isolation Strategy is IMHO almost useless as written, do to a very important yet unintentional misundertanding.

However, (again IMHO)the biggest advantage to isolating the capitol from the rest of the empire is that cities not connected to the capitol are more corrupt then cities connected. Isolate their capitol & corruption in the rest of the empire will spike(which strangely the strategy didn't mention).

 

[axehaxe]

I tried the capitol isolation strategy and it doesn't work. Maybe in Steil's game, a resource had been directly underneath the enemy's capitol and when he isolated it, the resource got cut off from the entire empire. Almost in every game I play, resources end up underneath cities.

 

[Ringo Kid]

I think disconnecting the capitol from the trade network only prevents international trade. But thats still a valid tactic if if your enemy is getting a lot of lux's or resources from around the world. Doubly so because it also disrupts all your competition, all the other nations with which he was trading, not just the one you are at war with. And if you happen to have extras of the lux or resource that your enemy also supplies to the rest of the world, you could further add to your war chest by stealing his customers. I like it, its really nasty.

It would be an improvement to the strat, I think, if you also pillaged the road network leading to the sources of the lux/resource at the same time. Or took the town that supplied the lux/resource, even better. Then when you sign peace, you might even have a monopoly on the resource or luxury. In any event you would be in a stronger position lux/resource-wise than when you started the war.
I think its a strong strategy.

 

[Ringo Kid]

Question: When you break a trade, the human player, because you lose a luxury in combat, your reputation suffers. Does that also happen to the AI ?

 

[Wejer]

Excellent strategy!
In conjuction withExplorers as pillagers, it will be quite deadly.

 

[JoDasGreat]

This is Stiel´s strategy for war:

* be prepared before you go to war. Defend your homeland, just in case.

* Isolate your enemy´s capitol by bombarding, bombing and/or pillaging ALL (rail)roads around the enemy´s capitol IN ONE TURN.

**This way you enemy will be deprived of strategic resources. They can´t build the most modern units anymore. If you land your infantry on a mountain while at war, the AI will commit suicide. See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9204
After that your enemy can only build ancient troops, which will make the war FAR more easier!
**Also your enemy will be deprived of luxury-resources and will probably fall into disorder, especially when you get other civs also to declare war or make a trade-embargo against you enemy. This disorder will prevent your enemy to build new (weaker) troops, so you can almost run him over completely.

* Next turn, you conquer most of his cities, BUT NOT THE CAPITOL, keeping the smaller ones, razing the bigger ones. (where you have your settlers build new cities to fill up the open gaps. those cities will profit of the infrastructure that´s already there)

* Then, you ask for peace, demanding all his money (lump sum) and possible techs and the remaining cities, so he will only have the capitol left.

* You DO NOT conquer is capitol, unless you conquered ALL of his other cities. This way the capitol won´t move and the civ is completely crippled.

* You can also choose to let them live with a few cities. You can use them as slaves by demanding money from them every now and then (this makes up for the corruption and waste you have to live with in you newly conquered cities).


If somehow you need a couple of turns more to do this or get reinforcements to keep the conquered cities occupied, DO NOT FORGET to KEEP the capitol completely isolated. Not one road should connect to their Capitol.

any comments?

Many Capitals have harbors..... they still have trade!!!

 

[vmxa]

That would allow the capitol to have the resources, but not towns without a harbor as they would not be on the grid any longer (there is no grid now). Even with no harbor, the capitol could build units that either need no resources or capitol is sitting on the needed resource.

 

[shl7070]

I looked on that subject.
I don't see how this strategy could work except to raise corruption in other cities. The cities doesn't need to be connected to capital to get resources. In my recent game I gobbled up a small continent with 8 cities and some resources. No city had harbour. The 8 cities shared the resources found on the continent (but not with the rest of my empire). I don't see how isolating my capital could change the goings in them and I believe this work for the AI. In addition in c3c the palace is also a harbor so there is no way to destroy a harbor in coastal capital.

 

[CKS]

The cities need to be connected to the capital to get resources that are traded for, not local ones.

 

[JoDasGreat]

To Make a point.. I was playing my own mod as the scotts and I was in the ancient era. I conquered every city exept for London and 2 1-plot island cities which I imediately traded for peace w/ english. One time that it works (london had no harbor)