The Art of Harassment - tutorial by a pro

[Kissamies]

Ah yes, but being the best is not the goal for every one of us. Some like to play more casually. Pro gamer talk always remind me of this guy (Read his part 0, if part 1 annoys you). Pro gamers can't afford to lose, of course. I rather not be a pro gamer.

 

[CitizenCain]

Because you find it more fun to abuse the unadapting AI than it is to compete?

Being good at SP Civ, in all honesty, doesn't mean crap if you can't beat other players that can adapt and use counter-strategies. This is why single-player games appeal to non-competitive players.

One attitude that people should learn to stow right now is that people that play to win ruin their fun. No, you ruin your own fun by refusing to play the game at a competitive level. "Cheap tactics" is the battle cry of a newb.

So, feel free to playt casually against the AI for fun, but always remember to never claim to have any proficiency if it can't be applied to a human opponent.

Yeah, the problem with the strategy we're talking about in this thread is when you have some fool trying to pull this in a larger MP game, where all he will really achieve is to ensure that neither himself, nor the 2 unlucky sods who get stuck next to him have a good chance of winning. It almost makes the game a Russian roulette experience... and that's no fun.

 

[Vizzini]

The AI is relatively poorly equipped to deal with this one. That's the key.

The AI in CivIV will make mincemeat of this strategy. Unlike a human the AI has no hesitation what-so-ever in coming straight for your city, and your units in their turf will be ignored unless they happen to be in the line of march.

And here's some proof that my strategy works. Here's an email of an EXPERIENCED player who experienced my strategy READ TIL THE END

You quote someone in a lan game who wants to play peaceful builder? Who doesn't realize they're almost guaranteed to be attacked in the first 50 turns??

And you quote that person as... "experienced"???

How odd.

I suggest you play with Raging Barbarians turned on more often. You'll quickly discover just how laughable your strategy is... because my workers and settlers never go anywhere without a substantial escort, and that would be the case whether you had units there to threaten them or not

 

[Marquis Mark]

No, it's not the goal for everyone (that would be unattainable anyhow!), I suppose my beef is that competitive players get a bad rap from casual players for playing to win.

Competitive players will always play to win, while casual players will always play to have fun. The key to coexistence is usually to avoid playing games with the other camp if possible.

My advice to casual gamers, if you choose to join MP, realize that competitive players will be be present and they will play to beat you. It doesn't make them "mean" or "cheap," it's a different playstyle.

 

[phungus420]

I find it interesting that many people dog this strategy so much. It does work agianst a human opponent (and does not work against the AI). However, like Vizzini has said, if you get a player that plays raging barbarians, it wol't work. Those of us who play raging barbarians, already start, and play the game as though there is a warrior in our territory anyway.

I have noticed that starting w/ this defensive posture has been a godsend so far in MP. I've only played 3 games so far, but I have noticed that most player are just so taken aback from the harrasment, they don't know what to do. I've never taken this strategy to the level this guy was talking about. But So far, in every game, I've sent a couple of warriors into an opponents territory w/ the intention of pillaging improvements, and ended up putting a lot more hurt on them then I thought was possible. This is due to the psycological reaction of the opponent, and not the overall effectiveness of the strategy itself. Try it against the AI, you'll see it doesn't work.

 

[Bobolini]

Has anyone checked to see if this works in Civ4? I thought this was a Civ4 strategy section? Shouldn't this be dumped over in Civ3 Strategy? I mean I find it useless since the referral is Civ3 and I rarely play small maps. I was hoping to learn Civ4 strategy not someone promoting their arrogance.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

You know what your guys' problem is? You're all looking for negative aspects and taking things too literally.

For instance "wha wha your capital is undefended, what if someone sends a warrior?" Your warriors are headed towards them, Most people will turn around when they see a 2nd warrior headed towards their capital. If they don't - well turn that warrior around and put it in yours.

Oh and for my capital being vulnerable.. 2 archers will keep it 100% safe till the ADs no problem.

Seriously, instead of looking for bad sides to this strategy, try looking for good ones and improving it.

You seem to contradict yourself alot, 1st off if you are spending so many resources on warriors, when do you find the time? while other people may be nice, i will call it like i see it. you sir are liar. in 20 turns you will not have enough warriors to do anything to anyone period. you most certainly will not have 2 archers on your capitol. to say you will, does not mean you do.(i know how long it takes to research)


This stratagey is the most pitiful exuse for a stratagy i have ever seen, it may work for rts, it might even work for a civ noob. but i assure you it will not work on anyone who has played civ for years.

The whole idea that you can have this massive amounts of warrior to pen in one that alone multiple foes is funny as hell. funny, because its such a load of tripe. if you are gonna bring strat, at least be able to have the facts to back it up.


I will stand here and tell you, that if that worked on anyone it was either a noob, or someone who was afk.

This is not about negitve at all, its about being realistic and honest, now i ask you, how in 20 turns are you going to have enough to do anything to stop one civ? be real also, let us know what cheats you use, beacuse you have no idea how to play civ, if you think in 20 turns you can blockade another civ.

Not only do i laugh in your face, but i will kick your dog too. go back to warcraft 3 where people might believe you know what you are doing. because based on this thread, i know for a fact you are lair.


And that sir is how to be honest. but realy what did we expect form a blizzard baby?

 

[Kissamies]

Very good advice, Mark. I only play FPS on MP, but the issue is the same in those games. I consider myself a "style" player (that is, win or lose, I try to make it as spectacular as possible) and sometimes the more play to win oriented players exploiting the same overpowered weapon or strategy on someone who doesn't have the skills to counter over and over again annoys me, but I never whine about it unless I'm in a bad mood. Got to respect the fact that different people have different mentalities.

 

[JavalTigar]

Being good at SP Civ, in all honesty, doesn't mean crap if you can't beat other players that can adapt and use counter-strategies.

Tell that to the GOTM champions! If you beat the top 5, I will be impressed.

"Cheap tactics" is the battle cry of a newb.

I would not consider myself a newb, I have played Civ from DOS versions on up. And for the record I never said his tactics were cheap. It is indead a viable strategy. But has been posted here it only works once, on the right kind of player. I prefer tactics with a more broad base.

One attitude that people should learn to stow right now is that people that play to win ruin their fun. No, you ruin your own fun by refusing to play the game at a competitive level.

Competitive players will always play to win, while casual players will always play to have fun.

Notice your two quotes contradict themselves. let me know which you really believe, then we can talk.

As for ijv, his smug additude for stomping on some guys trying to enjoy themselves, his delight in their anger for having a gaming experience crapped on, THAT is what I hate about MP games.

These rules lawyers who have take the nuiance of the game and stripped it to the core. This is no different that the friend/brother/sister etc who crushed you at every game of chess/risk/monopoly etc and laughed in your face each time. You don't have fond memories of that game or experience and you resent the person for what they were: A POOR WINNER!

Olympic Gold Medalist don't flip the bird at the Bronze holder. That's what this is plain and simple. If you can't see that then, Oh well........

 

[Meglomania]

The age old RTS early rush / resource hasslement. For both it's good and bad points it definitely has a place in Civ 4, both single and multiplayer. I don't see the reason to go after multiple civs, best to stick to one, to make the most impact with minimal damage to your own advancement, with the ultimate goal being to weaken their early progress enough to allow a full scale invasion. I can't see much use for a player going for a cultural / tech win, as the hammers would be better invested elsewhere at that crucial part of the game. For the conquest player I can see it being quite effective, a warrior sitting on that nice resource on a hill that you were planning to develop and are teching for is going to have a massive impact on your later game. Obviously it's a very situational strategy, I see it's use as part of early exploration, weighing the pro's of resource denial to losing that exploring unit and an early war.

Counters, too many to mention, the most obvious being to have a unit sitting on your key resouce tiles or holding the key defensive spots that deny movement of the enemy onto defensive tiles. For multiplayer, if I was subjected to this and wasn't going for a military win, I'd send one unit to his territory to do some in return and fire him a quick message saying that we are both bound to lose if we allow this to escalate when there's free land to settle.

 

[Mujadaddy]

So your strat is to "scare" the opponent into inaction/mistakes?

Not only is that not from WC3, OR from RTS-gaming, it's from The Art of War. Scrub

 

[Marquis Mark]

Tell that to the GOTM champions! If you beat the top 5, I will be impressed.



I would not consider myself a newb, I have played Civ from DOS versions on up. And for the record I never said his tactics were cheap. It is indead a viable strategy. But has been posted here it only works once, on the right kind of player. I prefer tactics with a more broad base.




Notice your two quotes contradict themselves. let me know which you really believe, then we can talk.

As for ijv, his smug additude for stomping on some guys trying to enjoy themselves, his delight in their anger for having a gaming experience crapped on, THAT is what I hate about MP games.

These rules lawyers who have take the nuiance of the game and stripped it to the core. This is no different that the friend/brother/sister etc who crushed you at every game of chess/risk/monopoly etc and laughed in your face each time. You don't have fond memories of that game or experience and you resent the person for what they were: A POOR WINNER!

Olympic Gold Medalist don't flip the bird at the Bronze holder. That's what this is plain and simple. If you can't see that then, Oh well........

I don't know what GOTM is, nor do I know anything about competitive Civ 4. I'm a low-skilled new player interested in developing the skill to compete as I play more.

I wasn't pointing fingers at anyone, I'm making blanket statements. I agree this tactic is counterable and there are better strategies to use in MP from what I've experienced. But calling it cheap would be the sign of someone who can't compete, or refuses to accept and learn from their losses. In my mind, that's a newb regardless of experience.

As for contradicting my quotes, that's not the case at all. Casual players will always butt heads with competitive players, instead of placing blame on people for playing hard, casual players should either step up their game or avoid the situation entirely. People can't expect a set of behaviors from an anonymous person on the internet; it's foolish.

I don't like poor winners either, poor sportsmanship doesn't impress me either way. But as I said earlier, I can't expect people to act any given way to conform to my ideals of what is desireable and not. I can only state my opinions on such matters and do my best to back those opinions.

If you can't adapt and play with a competitive mindset, it's rediculous to get mad at those who do. That's all I'm discussing, whatever you feel about the OP is a different matter.

 

[Big J Money]

I think the arrogance is a little off-putting, but this is a neat magic trick to be aware of if you aren't. A strong player will never use it, because it isn't actually a consistently winning tactic. It's the same reason Grand Master chess players never go for the easy win. Thanks for making me aware of it, though. Now I know how to spot it. Since I'm not a particularly strong Civ player, I might even try it on my friends just to trounce them and teach them an important lesson at the same time.

=$= Big J Money =$=

 

[Phyr_Negator]

Strange for Pro to call him Pro)

 

[LostKing]

Yeah, I don't get this one. Playing civ for a long time, if anyone is silly enough to declare war early on- its my new goal in life to take their capital. Especially because in the early game a single archer can defend a well cultured city.

 

[Khaim]

Hey, maybe I don't understand how this game works- but when your counterattack takes his city, don't his warriors in your territory disappear?

 

[Rustypipe]

This stragey will not work on any setting near deity. The barbarians and comps are rabid and spawn out units and settlers like mad. Your 2-3 fortified units would fall quickly either to stray barbarians or the 23 archers a diety comp seems to start with . All though on MP I belive on some it would work, on others maybe not. All depends on the player and weather or not they are smart enough to look at the big picture or see through it.

Also there is a downside to this. If a player was to manage to get 1 or 2 warriors getting all the kills on your fortified warriors thouse 2 warriors would probably be rank 2-3 by the time he was done with everything then truck on through to the capital, but on the larger side of things its CIV 4 and in CIV4 there is no "god mode" or "cookie cutter" stragey to win, the best stragey is adaptability and knowning the game and its options inside out to put you in a better situation.

 

[ivj]

First of all I feel really sorry for people who play single player.

Second of all this is not meant to be all-game strategy. And it's by no means a strategy to be used consistently. And it doesn't even have to be in the beginning of the game. A good player is one who's versatile and knows when this strategy would be of good use, and when not.

Here's an example: you start in a great spot with lots of land and nobody near by. Why the hell would you use this strategy? Another example: You start with 3 guys around you and they got good land and you got sh1t. In that case, you probably shouldn't hope for a cultural victory.

 

[Rustypipe]

Personaly the only victory I consider a win is global domination and sometimes the space race if its dead locked . This goes for multiplayer 2, just makes it more intresting, but thats just me

 

[LabMonster]

I dont see why you just dont

A) Choke/pillage with 1 or 2 porcupine stacks (4-6 mixed units)
or...
B) A Dagger attack (if you have copper resources) with spearmen, axemen or horse archers if you got them.

Your strategy may work best if you used archers with hill bonuses. It's not like you have to attack early, instead you should use your warrior gambit on only one player. If you declare war on many players, a) You're as good as dead b) You're not going to win, fighting three 'phoney' wars is going to be impossible because your warriors would be wiped off fairly quick with an archery tech.

One-Eyed-King im impressed by your writing skills how long did that take you to write, maybe 10 minutes? You're very funny I wish I was as cool as you.