Strategy Thread (How We're Going to Win)

[azzaman333]

Use this thread to discuss our long term plans.

 

[AlphaShard]

I think domination is a viable goal.

 

[azzaman333]

A few general ideas I have;

Get Amazons to open up Astronomy while we get Liberalism on the way to Rifling, draft/whip an army to take out a rival each.
Heavy use of nukes to trigger global warming and take real advantage of Dikes (coast won't turn to desert) Also, if going nuke heavy, SDI is a must.
Culture is out of the question, but we'll have to be very wary of the Indian civ (can't remember who off the top of my head)

 

[BLubmuz]

I think that the military VCs are the way to go.
But i don't see that great use of nukes. They are expensive, Manhattan is expensive and the techs to arrive there too.
Infantry and artillery, possibly with Marines later can do a good job.

Also, remember that our UU is great in late renaissance to sneak attack someone.

In any case we need Communism, provided we can sign a PA with Amazon.
And provided PAs are turned on (can anyone please confirm?). Otherwise, see Highlander motto.

 

[azzaman333]

Nukes are insanely powerful. They're worth it should we reach that point in the game, no questions.

Use the East Indiaman to transport a mass of drafted rifles to kill a neighbour. Winning peacefully will be almost impossible without beating up other teams.

 

[Trystero]

I vote for Azzaman's approach. I was thinking myself that beelining Liberalism makes the most of our tech advantage. It also fits in with the research plan I have been arguing for: we research Math > Currency > CoL > CS (or Philosophy if we miss Confucianism), while AMAZON techs IW > Compass > Optics. We grab Astronomy or Nationalism from Liberalism and then research toward Rifles. The only thing I haven't accounted for is a detour to Aesthetics > Literature for the Great Library or NE.

 

[grant2004]

I like the nuke strategy, that's a very clever idea. As long as we're still fighting at that part of the game it should be worth it. I love the idea of harming our opponents disproportionately with global warming, it's a sneaky way to cause small amounts of damage to our allies in preparation for when we turn against them later on.

Before the modern era, rifles do seem like a good approach, taking down a team's home island will be a big win. Depending on how the map looks it may be worth it to fight pre-astronomy to take out an enemies mainland/star possessions. If, as I expect, the mainland is resource rich doing so would cause some serious harm. If we're going for CS quickly, maybe the Amazons could pick up machinery so we can fight with macemen pre-Astronomy.

 

[AlphaShard]

I like the nuke strategy, that's a very clever idea. As long as we're still fighting at that part of the game it should be worth it. I love the idea of harming our opponents disproportionately with global warming, it's a sneaky way to cause small amounts of damage to our allies in preparation for when we turn against them later on.

Before the modern era, rifles do seem like a good approach, taking down a team's home island will be a big win. Depending on how the map looks it may be worth it to fight pre-astronomy to take out an enemies mainland/star possessions. If, as I expect, the mainland is resource rich doing so would cause some serious harm. If we're going for CS quickly, maybe the Amazons could pick up machinery so we can fight with macemen pre-Astronomy.

Really? Because I guarente that the TMIT is telling the Amazons to do the same he LOVES nukes and if we give them all our techs he will do so.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

Why wait for nukes and the modern era to go for domination win? Beeline for Cavalry and run them over!

 

[azzaman333]

Why wait for nukes and the modern era to go for domination win? Beeline for Cavalry and run them over!

I'm not advocating waiting for nukes, just that if we haven't won because of heavy drafting at Rifling, we'd strongly want to consider nuking an opponent or two to make our dikes more valuable.

 

[Irgy]

I see the strategy as something like playing Survivor. We need to make alliances, and if we're in the biggest alliance we win. Once the other teams are gone, the alliance by necessity breaks up, and we need to make sure we're part of the biggest smaller alliance.

Exactly what units we plan to use depends entirely on what era we're in when we want to declare war. If we make it to the modern era, then certainly we want to use nukes, but I don't really see the use of thinking about that just yet.

PS I don't agree at all that nukes make dikes better. Aside from anything else, nukes destroy dikes. If we're nuking everyone else and not getting nuked back, we don't need dikes, we've won already. And if we're getting nuked into the ground like everybody else we probably won't have our dikes any more anyway. In any case if enough nukes have been fired to trigger a significant level of global warming then someone has likely won the game already.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

My games on the comp hardly ever get to the Modern era, but I haven't played an unmodded game in a long time. The last time I fired a nuke was with the Total Realism mod playing on the Earth Map in Civ 4 Warlords. It was allot of fun, but I had to slow myself down just to make sure I hadn't won before I got to use a nuke.

I see your points Irgy and Azzaman333, but I think that if we end up using nukes then we were going slow...unless things are seriously insanely fast when playing against humans who have a hunger for trading techs.

 

[Irgy]

This scenario is almost guaranteed to get to the modern era, because every team has a home island of four cities which are completely impenetrable until Astronomy. Plus, unlike against the AI where you can just grow huge and outplay all of them and be a runaway winner, in multiplayer a runaway winner is just going to get dogpiled. So rather than one team getting quickly ahead, it needs to go the opposite way with one team getting eliminated at a time, and that takes longer. And finally, I've always been of the view that if you always win before the modern era, you're not playing on the right difficulty setting. Here, we're all competing against very strong teams.

 

[azzaman333]

My games on the comp hardly ever get to the Modern era, but I haven't played an unmodded game in a long time. The last time I fired a nuke was with the Total Realism mod playing on the Earth Map in Civ 4 Warlords. It was allot of fun, but I had to slow myself down just to make sure I hadn't won before I got to use a nuke.

I see your points Irgy and Azzaman333, but I think that if we end up using nukes then we were going slow...unless things are seriously insanely fast when playing against humans who have a hunger for trading techs.

On a map like this, the only likely victory condition that'll be possible before nukes is cultural.

 

[Irgy]

I'd be pretty damn impressed by a culture win that was faster than human teams can tech to nukes.

Although I admit that was something like what happened in my self-play game. One civ had teched nukes, but another kept sabotaging the Manhattan Project for a long time.

 

[Trystero]

Nukes also require uranium. On this map that could be a bit of a problem.

 

[azzaman333]

I'd be pretty damn impressed by a culture win that was faster than human teams can tech to nukes.

Although I admit that was something like what happened in my self-play game. One civ had teched nukes, but another kept sabotaging the Manhattan Project for a long time.

It's not likely, but it's the only one that I'd say is possible.

 

[AlphaShard]

What if there is no uranium?

 

[azzaman333]

We'll know when we tech Physics.

 

[1889]

I see the strategy as something like playing Survivor. We need to make alliances, and if we're in the biggest alliance we win. Once the other teams are gone, the alliance by necessity breaks up, and we need to make sure we're part of the biggest smaller alliance.

Exactly what units we plan to use depends entirely on what era we're in when we want to declare war...

This post contains much wisdom. I'm glad to see that our team is handling diplomacy so well. Therein lays victory.