maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
This strategy should work on maps where many Civs are on the same continent. Basically, you attack as soon as you are one step ahead of your victim neighbor, in terms of military units. RUSH your victim, bring it down completely, and wait for the next tech lead to finish off the next victim.
You really want to knock your victim down completely, or your workable area would be restricted by the original civ's culture, and your new population unhappy.
Easier said than done! I hope this article helps a bit. I will explain the details in two sections - what and how. It should work on all difficulties and all Civs except perhaps in Deity.
1) What are the military tech leads?
a. Axeman (bronze working)
The most powerful and versatile ancient unit, only requiring bronze. On the field, there is no effective counter to axeman, except another axeman. On castle sieges axeman aren't very effective, but numbers always win. Bronze working is always your top priority. Chop all forests you see to produce a constant stream of axeman to bring down your neighbor. A neighbor down in ancient time = half of the game won. Swordsman, which are favored by the AIs, lose to axeman miserably.
Horse archer is an alternative, if you see horse, but not copper. It takes much longer to start producing them, and they lose to spearman, which AIs always have one in a city. Just one, though.
b. Mace man + catapult (optional)
If you miss out the early expansion, you can't let go this one. Your strength 8 mace man rules against strength 3 archers. At this point the enemy might already have some solid city defense, so catapualt might help. That is only if you have the time to produce catapaults. Essentially, you are racing against your victim for longbow man. It is worthwhile to throw a whole bunch of maceman out to face archers, than to wait some turns for catapaults just to see archers become longbow man all of a sudden. The AIs have a HUGE discount on upgrading units, like 90% off its cost.
c. Grendier + catapult
Strength 12 Grendiers and catapult against strength 6 longbow man and some equally-miserable elephant / horse archers. This one is a no brainer, and if your tech lead is large enough, you can probably take over the entire medieval continent with your gunpowders.
d. Infantry + cannon/artillary
Strength 20 infantry + Cannon (12) or Artillary (18) is deadly against grendiers of you opponent. Surely you wouln't miss it.
And I am sure you are on your way to pop out tanks.
That's it. Oh wait... how about the BEST military units? Aren't they tech leads as well? To be honest, I always win the game before I see them, so I don't know how they work. If you took all four above oppurtunities, you should be so powerful at this point, and don't need anymore advise.
2) How do you establish military tech leads?
Let's get practical. You want to rush straight for military techs at your earliest convienece. This menas that you don't want to waste time on economics, politics, religions and all other crap. Military first. After you expand, you will have more income to help you complete the other techs.
Here is a short list of techs required for your advanced military units. If you skipped some expansion stage, you might need to make up some progress in other branches.
Axeman: Bronze Working
Maceman: Civil Service and Machinary
Catapult: Construction
Grendier: Gunpower -> Chemistry
Infantry: Assembly Line and Rifling
Cannon: Steel
Artillary: Rocketry
You want to enable the production of your advanced units as soon as possible --
but wait, you actually don't produce them, that takes too long. By the time you finish producing them, your tech lead may be GONE!
You upgrade them from your experienced units IMMEDIATELY when the option becomes available. (the only exception is the catapault, but fortunately you don't need them if your maceman faces plain archers.) This means you need some money in the bank. You can sell your lower-end techs to weak Civs, or you can forgo your research for a few turns to get some cash in the bank. Plan ahead.
Finally, some of my personal experiences:
1) One tech lead per neighbor is a good pace. You won't over expand to overshoot your upkeep. Alternatively, you can burn down the cities, but that opens up the oppurunity for a nearby AI opponent to rush settlers in, a even more dangerous foe in the future.
2) Before a war, always check your other neighbors. Are they annoyed with you? If yes, kill them first. If they are pleased with you, they are potential allies. You can bribe them to go to war with you. The price of asking them to join your war is cheaper than the price to ask them to start the war first. You might also want to calm down multiple neighbors by converting to a religion that is very friendly to them. You should also have some basic idea of how a AI leader behaves. Some are not trustworthy at all, but some are really good allies when they think you are their brother/sister! Planning ahead really helps.
3) During the intermission (peace period), you should focus on the techs that brings you the most cash, such as banking. Tech trade is difficult in higher difficulties, so you have to generate revenues by yourself.
4) If you can't establish a tech lead in the first place, this is all in vain. You start a tech lead by settle your cities on rich lands. On higher difficulties, they will be taken by your neighbors. You have to resort to... yes, an axeman rush. Then, you will have to do a lot of tech trading. You trade a 1000 beaker tech for a 800 tech, sure that sucks. But you get this 800 tech FREE relative to other Civs.
5) On higher difficulties, you probably want to rush for some rather-unique techs first and trade them to compensate your tech LAG. Drama / Music is good. You can trade them to every single Civ for the earlier techs you missed (such as Iron working). The AIs always get Laws first through their religious route, so if you go for Laws first, you can't trade it. And you will lag more behind.
6) Don't trade away your military Civs! The AIs love to trade with each other. You really want to monopolize them forever.
You really want to knock your victim down completely, or your workable area would be restricted by the original civ's culture, and your new population unhappy.
Easier said than done! I hope this article helps a bit. I will explain the details in two sections - what and how. It should work on all difficulties and all Civs except perhaps in Deity.
1) What are the military tech leads?
a. Axeman (bronze working)
The most powerful and versatile ancient unit, only requiring bronze. On the field, there is no effective counter to axeman, except another axeman. On castle sieges axeman aren't very effective, but numbers always win. Bronze working is always your top priority. Chop all forests you see to produce a constant stream of axeman to bring down your neighbor. A neighbor down in ancient time = half of the game won. Swordsman, which are favored by the AIs, lose to axeman miserably.
Horse archer is an alternative, if you see horse, but not copper. It takes much longer to start producing them, and they lose to spearman, which AIs always have one in a city. Just one, though.
b. Mace man + catapult (optional)
If you miss out the early expansion, you can't let go this one. Your strength 8 mace man rules against strength 3 archers. At this point the enemy might already have some solid city defense, so catapualt might help. That is only if you have the time to produce catapaults. Essentially, you are racing against your victim for longbow man. It is worthwhile to throw a whole bunch of maceman out to face archers, than to wait some turns for catapaults just to see archers become longbow man all of a sudden. The AIs have a HUGE discount on upgrading units, like 90% off its cost.
c. Grendier + catapult
Strength 12 Grendiers and catapult against strength 6 longbow man and some equally-miserable elephant / horse archers. This one is a no brainer, and if your tech lead is large enough, you can probably take over the entire medieval continent with your gunpowders.
d. Infantry + cannon/artillary
Strength 20 infantry + Cannon (12) or Artillary (18) is deadly against grendiers of you opponent. Surely you wouln't miss it.
And I am sure you are on your way to pop out tanks.That's it. Oh wait... how about the BEST military units? Aren't they tech leads as well? To be honest, I always win the game before I see them, so I don't know how they work. If you took all four above oppurtunities, you should be so powerful at this point, and don't need anymore advise.
2) How do you establish military tech leads?
Let's get practical. You want to rush straight for military techs at your earliest convienece. This menas that you don't want to waste time on economics, politics, religions and all other crap. Military first. After you expand, you will have more income to help you complete the other techs.
Here is a short list of techs required for your advanced military units. If you skipped some expansion stage, you might need to make up some progress in other branches.
Axeman: Bronze Working
Maceman: Civil Service and Machinary
Catapult: Construction
Grendier: Gunpower -> Chemistry
Infantry: Assembly Line and Rifling
Cannon: Steel
Artillary: Rocketry
You want to enable the production of your advanced units as soon as possible --
but wait, you actually don't produce them, that takes too long. By the time you finish producing them, your tech lead may be GONE!
You upgrade them from your experienced units IMMEDIATELY when the option becomes available. (the only exception is the catapault, but fortunately you don't need them if your maceman faces plain archers.) This means you need some money in the bank. You can sell your lower-end techs to weak Civs, or you can forgo your research for a few turns to get some cash in the bank. Plan ahead.
Finally, some of my personal experiences:
1) One tech lead per neighbor is a good pace. You won't over expand to overshoot your upkeep. Alternatively, you can burn down the cities, but that opens up the oppurunity for a nearby AI opponent to rush settlers in, a even more dangerous foe in the future.
2) Before a war, always check your other neighbors. Are they annoyed with you? If yes, kill them first. If they are pleased with you, they are potential allies. You can bribe them to go to war with you. The price of asking them to join your war is cheaper than the price to ask them to start the war first. You might also want to calm down multiple neighbors by converting to a religion that is very friendly to them. You should also have some basic idea of how a AI leader behaves. Some are not trustworthy at all, but some are really good allies when they think you are their brother/sister! Planning ahead really helps.
3) During the intermission (peace period), you should focus on the techs that brings you the most cash, such as banking. Tech trade is difficult in higher difficulties, so you have to generate revenues by yourself.
4) If you can't establish a tech lead in the first place, this is all in vain. You start a tech lead by settle your cities on rich lands. On higher difficulties, they will be taken by your neighbors. You have to resort to... yes, an axeman rush.
Then, you will have to do a lot of tech trading. You trade a 1000 beaker tech for a 800 tech, sure that sucks. But you get this 800 tech FREE relative to other Civs. 5) On higher difficulties, you probably want to rush for some rather-unique techs first and trade them to compensate your tech LAG. Drama / Music is good. You can trade them to every single Civ for the earlier techs you missed (such as Iron working). The AIs always get Laws first through their religious route, so if you go for Laws first, you can't trade it. And you will lag more behind.
6) Don't trade away your military Civs! The AIs love to trade with each other. You really want to monopolize them forever.
