Thoughts on my Multiplayer Strategy.

[GreekIrish]

So lately I have been playing a lot of multiplayer, and by a lot, I mean a lot. 300 hours worth and I have been trying to perfect my strategy to the point that it always works. Well, it doesn't, but there is no foolproof strategy. However, I'd like to share the strategy that has gotten me quite a few victories in multiplayer. Mostly science and one culture oddly enough.


Civilization of Choice: Iroquois.

I will touch upon why I picked these guys throughout the my description, but in a nutshell, they have one of the best unique abilities in the game when used properly, and with certain wonders.

Overall Playstyle: Tall. What I do is go for religion during the early game. Try to found a religion and get two beliefs before they're gone. 15% + growth when not at war and 1 gold for every 4 followers of this religion in cities. My pantheon will be situtational to my resources. I try to get culture or faith based on what's around me. I rush tradition as fast as possible to get the extra growth in my capital. I'll found either three or four cities, but never more than four.

Essential Wonders: Here's where things work out well for me.

Angkor Wat
Great Wall
The Kremlin
Himeji Castle

The reason why this work out so well is because I play defensively. With the Great Wall, not many people will attack you. With Angkor Wat, this means that I will have a lot of land, even more than people with more cities than me. With the 1 gold for every 4 followers, and the Iroquois unique ability of using forest as road, eliminating road costs, I will be making a lot of gold during the game. This means I can buy up all the tiles around and my cities as fast as possible. Paired with a culture Pantheon and maybe even the Terracotta Army, I can get a lot of culture as fast as possible and my cities will grow quickly beyond the workable tiles. This means that from the medieval era to the industrial era, people won't attack me because all they have is land units and no bombers or nukes. Very rarely am I ever attack during this time. This means I can focus on buildings in my cities, and not so much about my army. Even if someone does try to attack me, the Unique Building, the Longhouse, gives extra production from Forrest tiles. This means that I can churn out Mohawk Warriors extremely fast, and repel any attackers with ease. Paired with the Himeji Castle, and possible the 20% combat bonus from religion, fighting off opposing forces is a breeze.

It may seem like needing four wonders is a lot to ask for, but with a high population from policies and religion, I can use the unique building, extra production from forrest, and have an insane amount of production. I can usually make all these wonders in time, with the exception of the great wall, and even then, I'll still be fine.

All in all, if I can lead in population and production, I'll usually be a top contender once the game is coming to a close. The issues I have had are with nukes. If people get a hold of them, they will use them, and if I don't something to counter with, this wont be looking good for me. People are unpredictable, but I play passively, so I rarely make enemies.

This strategy is almost null and void if the host disables start bias, but in that case, I'll just try something different.

Moderator Action: Moved to MP.

 

[Tabarnak]

That's not good at all. Don't stay defensive. The first guy with artillery units will make you cry more than you think.

Himeji and GW aren't bad but you need somewhere to conquer cities and/or expand more than 4 cities. Best is between 7 and 10 cities by turn 120.

Concentrate on +faith pantheons to raise a religion fast enough. With Iroquois you can spam his UUs and really hurt somebody before turn 60.

On the long run you can be outclassed by a much larger civ if you stay too low.

 

[GreekIrish]

That's not good at all. Don't stay defensive. The first guy with artillery units will make you cry more than you think.

Himeji and GW aren't bad but you need somewhere to conquer cities and/or expand more than 4 cities. Best is between 7 and 10 cities by turn 120.

Concentrate on +faith pantheons to raise a religion fast enough. With Iroquois you can spam his UUs and really hurt somebody before turn 60.

On the long run you can be outclassed by a much larger civ if you stay too low.

I just don't understand why you think it's so bad and why it's worked so well for me so far. On team matches or duels, yes, it doesn't work for me, but I do extremely well in FFA. I rush plastics rush around the time that people are getting Dynamite, so if they show up with Artillery, I'll have Great War Infantry or Infantry, and with my production insanely high, I can churn out 2 units every 3 turns. The Great Wall becoming obsolete only happens when the builder gets dynamite. The only time I have issues is when nukes come into play, but with such a high population putting me ahead in science, and such high production, I'll have nukes as well. Before that, fights almost always go the same way. Someone shows up with a ton of units ready to take my cities, I fend them off, we make peace and that's that. I rarely get my cities taken.

 

[Dreadnought]

If you go tall, the only way you'll survive is if the warmongers avoid you all game.

 

[Islandia]

All in all, if I can lead in population and production, I'll usually be a top contender once the game is coming to a close.

No matter what strategy you use, or how you get there if you have that you will likely win. That's a big IF though and playing defensively and relying on both key wonders and key religious picks to get your strategy going will not be great in competitive multiplayer. If you are playing random people in the lobby, pretty much anything including not having a strategy at all will usually work

 

[Tabarnak]

Of course i talk about players who can reach artillery in less than 120 turns...

 

[Silverfuturist]

It would be more helpful if you gave turns and what you have accomplished in those turns, so we could see your progress.

Do your 3 cities come close to this in a peaceful game?
The science was 1668 per turn, but I went to production focus to finish the space parts so it fell to 1289.

The player to my north went 3 cities... which gave me the extra space to cram 11 cities in on our landmass:

 

[Tabarnak]

I see...you actually are sir_spam_alot! I was searching for eml_joe and i couldn't find you. Well i think we already played together and you rolled Austria and i was playing Netherlands. My land was pretty sub-par and clustered and i had only place for 4 cities.

In that game, i made the 4 cities and fought an Egypt civ who discovered el dorado and put a 2nd city close of me as soon as turn 9. I made an army of CBs and captured Memphis(who was sitting near the +8 faith nat. wonder). He stroke back with a lot of them too(i stopped CBs production to concentrate on buildings for a while during that time).

I lost Memphis(i burned it), retreated and stayed defensive. He eventually rebuilt that city much later in the game and also built the famous GW. I couldn't go on offense and concentrated on growing my 4 cities with production, gold and other stuff. Well i outeched him. I attacked with superior units and got through his wall. And this is why staying too much defensive can be tricky. While other players go on offensive early(to prevent the opposite) or simply buils sufficient defense and build science when comfortable the other super defensive guy need to stay small and build wonders/buildings giving no ///.

The best is to try to balance everything. If you play ''a la'' Huns style and might end up against a final and very well developped civ while you are still into the medieval era. If you play too much defensively you will be in trouble for industrial/modern era and will face units that can now counter pretty well your defensive capacities.

 

[GreekIrish]

edit: nvmd

 

[Silverfuturist]

I see...you actually are sir_spam_alot! I was searching for eml_joe and i couldn't find you. Well i think we already played together and you rolled Austria and i was playing Netherlands. My land was pretty sub-par and clustered and i had only place for 4 cities.

In that game, i made the 4 cities and fought an Egypt civ who discovered el dorado and put a 2nd city close of me as soon as turn 9. I made an army of CBs and captured Memphis(who was sitting near the +8 faith nat. wonder). He stroke back with a lot of them too(i stopped CBs production to concentrate on buildings for a while during that time).

I lost Memphis(i burned it), retreated and stayed defensive. He eventually rebuilt that city much later in the game and also built the famous GW. I couldn't go on offense and concentrated on growing my 4 cities with production, gold and other stuff. Well i outeched him. I attacked with superior units and got through his wall. And this is why staying too much defensive can be tricky. While other players go on offensive early(to prevent the opposite) or simply buils sufficient defense and build science when comfortable the other super defensive guy need to stay small and build wonders/buildings giving no ///.

The best is to try to balance everything. If you play ''a la'' Huns style and might end up against a final and very well developped civ while you are still into the medieval era. If you play too much defensively you will be in trouble for industrial/modern era and will face units that can now counter pretty well your defensive capacities.

I posted about 6 months ago that I would use that handle when spamming cities, I had this fanatasy that what I posted was so compelling everybody on civfanatics would memorize every word I wrote.

Yes, for Austria, I didn't have to spam too many cities because I could buy them and still get the spam-effect. It was kind of a "super-spam" because each new city came with buildings, population, units and a worker. I had a nice start nestled between CS and mountains, so I could save my gold up for marriages and not upgrades.