Strategy discussion

[fearuin]

This happens with America too, if Britain declares war when you get New York a lot of units will spawn on Washington... like 4 Pikeman, 2 Kights, 6 Musketman...

Pikeman and Knights??? Aren't they a little outdated?

 

[Edungeon]

Yes... but they appear. =p

I use all of them to defend my cities in the West, because they don't have a chance agaist Redcoats.

 

[McA123]

5. Then i make the special wonder, finish...but not end game?

You need to achieve all 3 goals.

 

[fearuin]

Yes... but they appear. =p

I use all of them to defend my cities in the West, because they don't have a chance agaist Redcoats.

I usually turn to Hereditary Rule and Slavery on the first turn, and then draft some fusileers, but this was on earlier versions, were the Americans not even had contact (usually) with English, and most times Independence War was against... Spanish.

 

[wenamon]

anyone won with germany? just wondering how you went about it. I am confused right from the start as I dont knwo if I should build berlin where i sit or if i should move it coastal or inland? what about 2nd and 3rd cities"? should I risk an immediate raid on france?

any help would be appreciated.

 

[fearuin]

I have never played with Germany to the end, but as long as your questions are related to the beginning of the game, I can give you some advice:
-Cities:
1st: Berlin
2nd: coastal in Denmark, creating a channel (very useful to garrison your ships from England and pirates)
3rd: Budapest (to your SE) or somewhere near it (to get iron and horses)
The next cities will depend a lot on how Russia, Vikings and Greece deploy their cities.
-Offensives: attack France very soon it's a waste, since you haven't any way to defeat their longbowman unless you make an insane quantity of catapults and axeman. Better to wait until you have Engineering, and then send an army composed of bowmen, trebuchets, axemen and pikemen. You can also build a castle in Berlin just to be safer. Another possibility is an early attack of Russia, since they will attack you as soon as they have some knights handy. However, you must choose between them, or you may get trapped in a two fron war. Finally, take good look on Rome and Greece stability. If they collapse, you may expand to their land.

That's all I can help you, hope it's useful.

 

[Edungeon]

I play like this: settle Berlin in place, a roman city in south will flip. Then i ussualy settle very east, in a place that has a lot of food resources. The other settler depends on the game.

 

[Wilhelm II]

Germany

I play on Warlords, Monarch difficulty, so some things might be different from Vanilla.

First Steps

Cities to found:
-Frankfurt: a must have, this city will be the heart of your empire, surpassing almost every other city in productivity and commerce
-Memel (for the horses) and a semi-productive naval base
-Budapest (iron and quite productive)
-Berlin can be skipped but is quite useful in the beginning (as a settler/worker breeder), you'll later want to max out Frankfurt, Budapest, Memel at the expense of Berlin

Adopt hereditory rule, organized religion, serfdom and vassalage (mainly to have the same civics as your neighbours to facilitate tech trading). Adopt Christianity for the same purpose.

Your first tech(s): Guilds and nothing else. Knights will enable you to crush Russia, and you can trade a lot of useful rechs for guilds like Engineering, and the necessary techs to research Optics. Head to Optics for circumnavigation. Banking is also a vital tech, but you might want to research Gunpowder or Optics first.

Expansion Route
It is vital that Frankfurt is able to use all the good spots of its "Fat X" ASAP. The culture war against Aix is easy: just chop a monument, forge and library in Frankfurt. Mediolanum is more of a problem. Raze or take it, if you can. If there's no culturally strong Mediolanum just look which of your neighbours is the weakest, Greece, Rome (or barbarians/natives/independents in their place) or France. Then use your troops to do as much damage to this nation as you can. With a little luck you can bring Greece or Rome to collapse, you cannot do more harm to France than razing Aix usually. If Rome or Greece declares war, the extra free starting troops are a large help. Until you discover Guilds build up Frankfurt as your new capital, with forge, barracks, staple, monument, library, an amphitheatre, etc. Bring the resources online and start pumping out knights in Frankfurt ASAP. (A knight every 2-3 turns. ). In the other cities build artillery or knights in the more productive ones. Once you have 4-5 knights, it's time to take down Russia. Petersburg falls easily like most other cities without walls. You should have a Great General by now, attach it to a knight. Don't forget to sent some medic infantry unit to speed up the healing of your knights. Swiftness is the best way to beat General Winter, therefore knights are the ideal choice to take down Russia as they can move in and attack the city in one turn, minimizing the Winter effect before the attack. Don't loose your veteran knights, sacrifice some trebuchets to soften up the defenders instead. By the time Russia falls the Great Plague strikes and your caravel should have reached the Magellan Strait. Send your veterans out into the most remote parts of Russia, so that their lifes are spared. Given Germany's excellent health bonus (and resources) the Plague will likely only kill your city garrisons but not really damage your cities. Once the Plague ceases it's time to take out Rome, Greece and France, if you are not at war with Turkey right now. Don't allow Turkey to expand into your Russian territory or take Byzantion. With a little luck Plague will weaken Turkey before they can interfere with your take-over of Europe. With your veteran knights and artillery it's doable to take down France, Rome and Greece. Build the ships (galleys or galleons) for the English campaign and take down Spain in the meantime. England is pretty easy after that if you've managed to keep your veterans alive (especially the Great General ones). Only the Vikings left. Another Plague usually strikes around this time, save your vets if you can and then take down the Vikings. Now it's around 1600-1700 AD and you're free to do whatever you want: be happy with your powerful European empire or expand. I'd vote to expand. Take down Mali (they're just an annoyance because they always want to research the goody techs like Liberalism, Physics, Fascism before you) and raze any indepenendent cities in Carthage or Egypt. Take down China, Japan, Mongolia and India. Spread all seven religions in Frankfurt and build all monastries before Scientific Method. Against an advanced Middle East your knights/cavelry should be outdated by now, so send the guys to America to have some fun in this case. Otherwise if the Middle East isn't advanced, take them down one by one. By now we're in the 19th/20th century, Europe, Africa and Asia's in your hands, maybe South America and/or parts of North America, too. Now go for Elimination, Domination, Diplomatic, Space Race or UHV whatever you want, there's noone left to stop you.

City Management
Raze useless cities exspecially before you've build up a large empire. The larger your empire the harsher the stability hit for razing a city. Too many cities just drag down your research rate, so try to go with the minimal number possible. But remember that 2 cities each in Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, Scandinavia are required to get the UHV.
Once you've captured a city (you do not need to burn down) build a forge, banks, market and grocer there in that order. Then you can build a granery and the science boosters. Finally the happiness and military buildings. Spam cottages and keep a large worker force that quickly develops newly conquered lands and constructs railways, once this technology comes up.

Tech Path - Civics
After you've researched Optics, send a caravel around the globe in order to be the first one to circumnavigate. The +1 movement cames in handy later. Get Banking, if you have not already, and probably gunpowder ASAP. Adopt Mercantilism ASAP. Research Astronomy and then head to Liberalism. Head to democracy,the free bonus tech should help with that. Adopt occupation ASAP. Get economics first, too, and of course also Physics and Fascism for the free Great People.
Democracy is quite useful for your economy and since your wars won't last long, war weariness isn't that much of a problem. Your civics should be universal suffrage, emancipation, free speech, free religion, mercantilism and occupation by now. I usually switch to Environmentalism finally, because I do not want the greatest empire the world has ever seen to be a victim of it's own greed. Winning the world and then destroying it all by yourself is just too idiotic, isn't it.
After that head to assembly line, once you have the seven different monastries, head to medicine to keep safe from the plague. Now head to plastics. Being able to supply most of your empire with a single power plant (the Great Dam) is just too sweet isn't it. Hydro plants for the rest and your productivity is second to none. Btw the fact that assembly plants are 50% cheaper with coal is very nice too. Head to computers, build laboratories everywhere and savely drive your third UHV goal home: complete the tech tree.

 

[wenamon]

thanks for the comprehensive review there wilhelm. will try tonight!

 

[fearuin]

Take down China, Japan, Mongolia and India. (...) Otherwise if the Middle East isn't advanced, take them down one by one. By now we're in the 19th/20th century, Europe, Africa and Asia's in your hands, maybe South America and/or parts of North America, too.

Sounds pretty easy . And how many time do you expect to take entire Asia? In the Japan Imperial Challenge we took from 720 AD to 1700 or so. And you expect to do it in... 500 years? A little optimistic, don't you think?

 

[coko]

Well, depends on your fleet size, I find with Asia since most of it is by the coast, a fleet following and carrying my advance units can really help jump gate through enemy locations. Also remember that you really only need to take/raize enough to force the enemy into collapse, then they should likely leave you alone to continue your march, and you can come back later to clean up.

 

[Wilhelm II]

@coko: Yeah, that's the main trick.

But since I've already typed all of the stuff below, I'll just post it anyway for those intersted.

How hard it is to take down Asia depends on the situation, of course.

Once you have conquered Japan's main island, Japan collapses, no matter how much land and units they have on the continent or elewhere. Since they did not have a foe to battle on their main island they have no vets there, so it's doable with Cavalry and cannons, even if you have to sacrifice some cannons, but Frankfurt, Budapest, Lulea, Rome, Kiew, Moscow should be able to pump out a cannon every 1-4 turns, so it's possible.

I've never seen a strong India, so it's usually pretty easy to take them down.

Mongolia is usually surprisingly advanced in military techs, so it's best to use them as allies in a war against China until you have Infantry.

WARNING CHEESY STRATEGY AHEAD:
You should be the first to discover Industrialism, and until you do, you can amass a huge force of longbowmen (50+ or even 100+ if you need to). Once you discover Industrialism, go for Rifling, and you can upgrade all your longbowmen to Infantry for free thanks to your UP. By that time your opponents have Riflemen at best. Remember the advanced European civs (and Mali) are already dead, so no discount for widespread techs or AI trading advanced technologies. And I've never seen a very advanced China (ie a China knowing techs of the Industrial era long before me).

If you could not take China until that moment, with Infantry and cannons you should be able to take them down now. Several Chinese cities are coastal or pretty near to the coast like Beijing, so unload a nice stack of Infantry and cannons near each of them via sea. China should fall quickly then.

Mongolia is more of an issue, but hey with all your productivity and technological edge, just take them down with Infantry, panzers or both. I usually have a city in Siberia close to the Mongols, so I attack them from both sides and their cavalry and riflemen have no chance of stopping all the advanced units you can throw at them by that time.

 

[Edungeon]

What to do:

Destroy your Iron Mines, and build just Warriors, then upgrade them to Rifleman or Infantary

 

[Wilhelm II]

You don't have to be that cheesy, though.
I'd hate to loose (or reduce) my Ironworks bonus in Frankfurt.
Anyway longbowmen are build in 1-2 turns, grenadiers/riflemen in 1-3, Infantry/panzers in 1-4. So building warriors will just help to build up a tremendous shield overflow in all of your cities.
Even without any UP exploits, once you control Europe and have build up your infrastructure, your productivity alone makes sure you can build up a superior army to every other nation.

 

[fearuin]

Well, depends on your fleet size, I find with Asia since most of it is by the coast, a fleet following and carrying my advance units can really help jump gate through enemy locations. Also remember that you really only need to take/raize enough to force the enemy into collapse, then they should likely leave you alone to continue your march, and you can come back later to clean up.

I have never gave Asia that view, but's completely correct. In fact, some marine-upgraded infantries can make the job quite well.

 

[Whitefire]

I have never gave Asia that view, but's completely correct. In fact, some marine-upgraded infantries can make the job quite well.

Don't you read the tips? Never fight a land war in Asia. Or when Whitefire's playing Japan.

 

[fearuin]

Don't you read the tips? Never fight a land war in Asia.

That's what I said to you, remember? But now I see that my alternative to conquer America it's quite more difficult. However, you don't need to conquer Asia, just to make everybody indie.

 

[coko]

Yeah, and plus considering that AI's general distaste for a large navy you can save yourself a lot of counter attacks on your units after you've taken locations, by jumping them back into the boats and moving on.

 

[The Q-Meister]

This is brilliant! Great job Gunner! Very well written!

I figured that the best use of my 1000th post dance would be to start this thread off

Here is a mostly completed guide for Russia based on the experiences of my last two games on Emperor level as that country. I figure though that it should only work better for the other levels since they are easier. I've also chosen to not give them a strength rating (as was the custom for RoX guides) since I don't feel that I've played enough games yet to accurately assess that value.
Now without further adieu I present:


The Russians
By Gunner

So you want to rule the vast land of Russia – to follow in the footsteps of, and possibly even surpass, the likes of Ivan, Peter, Catherine, and Stalin? It will not be an easy task to guide Russia to greatness, and certainly not one for the weak. The rewards for your diligence and leadership will, however, be considerable. Russia has huge amounts of potential, and it should easy be able to ascend to supremacy if lead correctly.

The first thing you must learn is that the strength of your country lays in its land, the earth it will be built upon and achieve greatness on. It contains abundant resources which will allow your nation to grow, prosper, and eventually turn into an unstoppable war machine. For this reason it is key that you take an aggressive expansion policy early on to insure that the Germans and others do not claim the land that is right fully yours. Send at least two, preferably three, of your starting settlers west to take that land before it is taken by another. You can worry about expanding to the east later, but since you will not have any real competitor for that land it will not need to be with nearly as much urgency.

The only luxury resources available to you will be furs and then later on gems (there are some gems on the coast northwest of Moscow, its a good idea to build a city there just to get them.) To compensate for the relative lack of happiness that your cities will probably be experiencing because of this its a good idea to stay with Hereditary Rule for a while and use large numbers of cheap troops to garrison your big cities and keep them happy. Also don't forget that the market provides +1 happiness with furs and the forge provides +1 happiness with gems.

Another thing to keep in mind in the early game is that you will probably be receiving a visit from a group of barbarian horse archers from the east at some point, so be sure to keep a few troops in that area (preferably spearmen) to defend. You will also throughout the entire game need to be ready to deal with attacks made against you by the AI, especially since the AI in RFC is more aggressive. Obviously the Germans will be a threat due to their inherent aggressivness and their close proximity to your borders. Be vigilant against the threats which are not quite as obvious also, such as the Mongols and the Arabians. In one of my games I had the Arabians attack me with hordes of camel archers, taking 3 cities from me and nearly taking Moscow. Things would have been much easier if I had positioned a few troops on my southern border.

While Russia is blessed with great levels of production and growth, it main weakness lays in its poor capacity for commerce and trade. If you do not adopt the proper measures to counter this then you will find yourself falling behind in the technological race and with empty coffers, regardless of what type of strategy you pursue to victory. To that end, it is essential that you develop your county’s infrastructure with an emphasis on commerce and research. Do this by building cottages frequently and early, as they will be your tool to reach commercial parity with others. You must also focus on building libraries in all of your cities both for the technological benefits as well as the culture they provide. Finally, and most importantly, be very aggressive and active in the game of tech trading.

Tech trading is an important element for any civ in Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization, but for Russia it is absolutely essential. No matter what you do, your country will not be able to compete technologically in the early game if you primarily rely on your own research and engage in only the occasional tech trade. Once you fall out of the technological race it is very difficult to catch up, so it is essential that you make an effort to not fall behind early on. Make it a habit to check your foreign advisor’s technologies screen every turn or two to spot a potential trade. Sell techs for gold to civs that are far behind you, and try to buy, trade, and research techs that some of the top techers do not have. It will be difficult to keep up, but remember that if you have been properly developing your infrastructure (with many cottages and libraries) then things should gradually become easier.

Once your economy is in decent shape then you are presented with 2 main options. The first is to continue peacefully developing your nation. You can also start sending settlers out east to colonize the vast stretches of open land there. Try to build enough courthouses for the Forbidden Palace quickly since you will start paying extravagent maitinence fees once you start expanding. Given time you should come to dominate due to your sheer size.

The other option is to go on the warpath. Russia’s excellent production abilities make it very suited for building and maintaining a large army. You should be able to out produce any opponent you face and win in a war of attrition if necessary. Try and choose a weak country as your first victim, who this will be depends on each game’s situation. The wealth and resources provided by the conquest of another county’s heartland should add to your strength allowing you to take on a tougher opponent next time.

One final thing I would like to mention is Russia’s excellent unique unit, the Cossack. It is substantially more powerful than the default cavalry unit, with 3 extra strength points and a +50% bonus versus other mounted units. If you had already been following a military strategy it should give your efforts a great boost and maybe allow you to take a crack at that other superpower that you had been weary of facing before. If not, then the arrival of the Cossack would mark a great time for you to start some aggressive expansion. It would simply be a shame to waste such a great unit by not conquering someone with it. Additionally, if your game has not turned out as well as you had hoped and you find yourself lagging behind, then the Cossack is the opportunity you need to catch up.

Now go forth and bring Mother Russia to its rightful place of greatness. Its great capacity for production and expansion along with your skillful leadership should allow you to overcome early technological and commercial challenges and carry on to victory.

 

[Gunner]

Thanks The Q-Meister. It was quite while ago that that was written, so it doesn't address many of the new features in the mod. But I think its definitely still useful for how to generally go about playing the game as Russia.