Very interesting....Experiment

[Xiasar]

Egypt - only Regent Level, Large Map
I'm a natural builder, I love to have e restricted group of big, productive and ready-for-any-evenience cities around the capital and a big, very big territory to garantee every resource and the biggest number of luxuries...so I started up this regent level game (I always get beat up in Monarch and it's frustrating, I hate being technologically backwards ...): I took a good half, the best half of my continent that I shared with Atzecs and I tried to be as quick as possible in expansion (I managed to take the most part of a free continent in the north, no Civ strarted there so I could colonize freely without thinking to much about cultural flips) and in science. Not one war started, many Greater Wonders (Hoover Dam, Piramids, Theory of Evolution, Leonardo's Workshop were a few..) and a culturally strong country, the strongest in the world. In Industrial Age Persians and Indians decided that France was occuping a useful territory so they attacked (I think Persia started) convincing every other civ, besides me, to so (Rome, Zululand and Aztecs). So they managed to eliminate France from their territory leaving only a spectre of what once was on the northern continent that I had allready colonized for the most part.
Now Persia and India started to grow rapidly, Persia's territory became bigger than mine and India almost reached me in tech advances. This is the situation at the begging of the Modern Era. Save Game, and now the experiment starts:

1924: Revolution => Communism => Attack Atzecs to take what's mine by right, the hole continent (we had 7-10 cities each on it, maybe I had around 10, he had about 6-7). I wanted to see what effect it had to start my first war and to try a domination or diplomatic victory since the turn before I had just started building the United Nations (and in Thebes, at maximum production rate, with Democracy it would have taken 10 turns to finish it). On the first turn I took two cities, one on the northern continent, another separated from his others on my continent. It took a while (4-5 turns) to take their capital city (it borderder with one of my big productive cities), after serious bombardment I finally managed to enter with tanks (their best attacking unit was Cavalry, defensive was Infantry though) and filled it uo with remaning Cavalries and Infantries).
I wanted to continue war and thanks to communism I managed to do a good job in sterminating nasty Atzects but everything seemed to go really really slow...UN took 17-18 turn to complete and when it was over I had India ahead in techs (they had Mech. Inf. and where going for the Space Race while I was having serious troble reaching Sinthetic Fibers to give my Army a boost with MA), Persia declared war on me as soon as I got bored with Atzecs and even though I managed to conquer a few of their cities in the northern continent and near mine I had every civ annoyed or furious with me.

Rewind

1924: I simply kept going the right way and what happened? Easy... Atzecs (somebody MUST explain this to me) simply declared war on me even though my big productive cities where adding Tanks to my great Army. What's better? I had to punish them and the punishment gave me exactly the same cities I had conquered with communism and even more! Morale was high, Science research never dropped even though productivity calmly slowed down and the UN was ready in the planned 10 turns. India, still behind me or almost in tech advances, started a war and involved everyone besides me in it agaist evil and trecherous Persia, in the mean time I convinced my neighbours to sign a peace treaty and having allready refused the first UN council was preparing the territory either for a domination victory (I was one turn away from discovering Sinthetic Fibers) or for a Spaceship Victory. Tactical nukes in nuclear subs where approaching their capital cities and I had just made happy poor, little France with a load of Horses when the UN council screen appeared. I was illuminated and happy to find out that everyone besides Ghandi and Montezuma voted for the lovable Cleopatra.



So what's the point? Peace and Love for humanity all, you'll always win and they'll always declare war first (even if it's the worst thing to do!!), if you keep up on the right way you'll get far better results.

 

[Bamspeedy]

What you proved here is that communism sucks. It doesn't have the commerce bonus of democracy or republic (and that's why you fell behind in techs), corruption is bad since your high-production cities take a big hit while your in communism (that's why the UN took so long to build).

If you are in Democracy (or Republic), war weariness isn't too bad at all if the other guy declares war. Your people just don't like it when YOU declare war.

 

[Xiasar]

......Your voice knows only trouth Bamspeedy.......even though I think that Democracy would suck even more if I declared war on the Atzects, the point is DON'T DECLARE WAR

 

[Vinz Clortho]

I have to agree with the original poster here and say that declaring war for me has always spelled doom. D-O-O-M, that spells doom.

I've tried attacking the Baylonians to the south of me a number of times in a number of different tactics. First off, I'm on Warlord level, accelerated production, playing as Americans.

Sending in tons of musketmen, swordsmen and longbowmen only got me in trouble when the babs counterattack (with WAY too many longbowmen to count) neatly destroyed most of my musketmen and swordsmen. I simply didn't have enough time to get my offensive units inland far enough to do real damage.

So I quit and reloaded, and declared war again. This time I sent about a quarter of my forces into their territory westward and kept a large contingent in the rear, with a powerful attackforce (including an Army) attempting a pincer movement from the north and south. My hopes were that the first attack directed to the west would draw out their offensive units and my reserves in the rear would march in in turn two and slaughter the idiots while they had overextended themselvs... and simoultaneously conducting guerilla warfare to the northern and southern cities. Well it had panned out pretty much as I had hoped, but then the sucky happened. My army got to a medium sized city and was nearly destroyed by one veteran spearman. I nearly knocked the monitor off the table... Imagine! My southern forces took another minor city but lost Babylon (the babs former capitol) when it culture flipped on me in the midst of combat. Too bad too, because I had over fifteen units stationed there fortifying from the offensive movement from the prior two turns. Ridiculous! How can a city culture flip when I have more soldiers than they have citizens!! Sometimes this game really puzzles me.

Anyway, the point is that offensive conflicts are hard to maintain for more than five turns. Defensive conflicts are to your advantage because of many of the factors the original poster mentioned.

When in doubt: bunker down and let the fools come to you.

 

[cromagnon]

But DO counterattack! If too many wars happen on your territory, war weariness will set in. After surviving their initial onslaught, counter, and take 1-2 cities from them. Then sue for peace.

It's really too bad that Communism sucks. No (or very little) corruption would make it a lot more appetizing.

 

[GerrardCapashen]

But very little corruption is the most important advantage of Democracy. Giving that to Communism would unbalance the gameplay and would not be an accurate reflection of the way a Communist government functions. Communism's benefits are free unit support and better espionage, not minimal corruption. I agree that Communism needs to be tweaked a little better, but this would be too much.

 

[The President]

They do seem to declare war on you. I was playing a game as France in modern era. Germany attacked me. I quickly got MPP with every other civ and we slaughtered Germany in half a dozen turns. Because I wasn't prepared for the attack, England ate up more Kraut cities than I did. After Bismark croaked I canceled the MPP with England but kept it with every other country, set up my forces and waited. Sure enough, England attacked after only a couple of turns, the whole world turned against them, and they got slaughtered. This time, I was prepared and made sure France got a its rightful share of English territory.

It's pretty easy to provoke the AI into attacking you, and they do it even when it's walking into sucide.

 

[Darkness]

Bamspeedy's right: communism sucks!

It's usually better to use just stay in democracy when you're going to war. If you're doing it right, that is. Go for a quick, fast war which you can finish before WW sets in. If it's going to be a long war, go for monarchy, that's what most of the heavy warmongers use!

War does not suck! War can be the greatest thing that ever happened to your civilization, you've just gotta do it right....

 

[MajorFallout]

Originally posted by The President
It's pretty easy to provoke the AI into attacking you, and they do it even when it's walking into sucide.

Question:
How do you provoke another AI Civ into war - other than to take a colony or something obvious like that?

I often find it very difficult to provoke them... unless they're demanding something off me, and then I tell them where they can stick their demand. THEN, they often go to war with.

 

[DaDrunkenFish]

Democracy is bad, because the extra gold is wasted on your miltary units

 

[DaveMcW]

Originally posted by DaDrunkenFish
Democracy is bad, because the extra gold is wasted on your miltary units

I doubt you have ever tried it. The Democracy trade/corruption bonuses are so big that you can support any size army you want and still have a bigger income than Monarchy/Communism.

I assume you build marketplaces and banks of course...

 

[satchel]

Originally posted by DaDrunkenFish
Democracy is bad, because the extra gold is wasted on your miltary units

Not if you have the proper infrastructire to accomodate democracy! I build banks in every core city (stock exchanges in PTW as well), and roads/railroads in every productive square. There is plenty of cash to go around - I can crank on science at near maximum rate, and still build a formidable military (building new units in every core city). I can build a sufficient tech lead to continually bankrupt the AI by trading techs and luxuries to them, which also boosts the cash flow. This is all on Monarch.

If you have cash flow problems in Democracy, Drunken, you haven't built the proper infrastructure to handle it.

 

[test_specimen]

Originally posted by MajorFallout


Question:
How do you provoke another AI Civ into war - other than to take a colony or something obvious like that?

I often find it very difficult to provoke them... unless they're demanding something off me, and then I tell them where they can stick their demand. THEN, they often go to war with.

if they have units on your territory tell them to move away. in most cases (it seemed to me), they will declare war. also if you trade luxuries with a civ and cut trade routes they are likely to get angry.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

The only time I go into communisim is if I need to do some espionage or the occational whip

Even then, I only do it when I play a religious Civ.

I was so happy when I found out that Communism is not the end all be all government like Civ1. Though it seems that Democracy has taken its place.

 

[Frithiof]

Just a quick question. In the Intelligence section, the Favorite Government and Shunned Government for each of the civs is shown. Does this have a big effect in the game, or even any effect at all? I know the basic differences between Democracy, Communism, etc., but wasn't sure if the civ's favored government played into the equation at all.

 

[DaveMcW]

The AIs do use their favorite government a bit more. They all choose democracy if the world is at peace, but they will jump to their favorite government when war weariness begins to get bad.

For example, France and Rome tend to do better during modern wars because they will choose their favorite government instead of the extreme jump to communism.

 

[Beanzy]

While I know that everyone claims that declaring war is bad, I've had surprisingly good results with it. I play on Warlord as the Americans. I usually am a full Era ahead of my opponents (I research very heavily plus, early on, my scouts find so any Barb. villages that I practically learn every Advance in that first Era in 20 turns!). Therefore, using my highly advanced armies, I trample a few civilizations so quickly that I have little to no war weariness (even in Democracy). Later on, with Police Stations and Universal Suffrage, I can carry out extended wars to eliminate my other opponenets fairly efficiently. So, from what I've seen, as long as you can do it quickly, war is fine.