War or Peace?

[SeriousCaller]

I'm playing as Babylon in my second game at Regent level. I have defeated the Persians, Zulus, Iroquois and Germans, and have a good sized chunk of land, over twice any of the other civs. I have all lux apart from incense and have monopoly on coal, which I am witholding from the other civs. Left in play are the Aztecs, English and Russians. I am leading tech, and selling on to the Aztecs and English, who I have MPP with. My industrial revolution is almost complete, with rails evrywhere and factories in my core.

My question is how best to play this out? I started by switching to communism and declaring on the russians, but this has started to stall, as I am fighting with cav vs infantry. I went back 20 or so years, switched instead to democracy and streamlined for peace.

I've tried to upload both saves, but they are both around 4x the filesize limit. Any way around this?

Should I:

1. Conquer the Russians, then take on the English then the Aztecs, or
2. Settle down for the peaceful route. I'm thinking space race, as I think the aztecs are ahead of me in culture. Or
3. Anyone got any better ideas?

 

[vmxa]

The bottom of the page has a bunch of options, one is upload files. It can do up to 10mb.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Use the easy upload system on the quick reply form. Here is a picture:

Spoiler :

Conquering them would be more fun, going to space will take longer.

 

[SeriousCaller]

Hmm, it was giving me a 500k limit before. Oh, I see, I was using attachment options instead of uploading. This OK?

At war with Russia, communism
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/134589/Hammurabi_RUSSIAN_WAR_1776_AD.SAV

At peace, democracy:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/134589/Hammurabi_DEMOCRACY_1776_AD.SAV

 

[Nylan]

I'm playing as Babylon in my second game at Regent level. I have defeated the Persians, Zulus, Iroquois and Germans, and have a good sized chunk of land, over twice any of the other civs. I have all lux apart from incense and have monopoly on coal, which I am witholding from the other civs. Left in play are the Aztecs, English and Russians. I am leading tech, and selling on to the Aztecs and English, who I have MPP with. My industrial revolution is almost complete, with rails evrywhere and factories in my core.

My question is how best to play this out? I started by switching to communism and declaring on the russians, but this has started to stall, as I am fighting with cav vs infantry. I went back 20 or so years, switched instead to democracy and streamlined for peace.

I've tried to upload both saves, but they are both around 4x the filesize limit. Any way around this?

Should I:

1. Conquer the Russians, then take on the English then the Aztecs, or
2. Settle down for the peaceful route. I'm thinking space race, as I think the aztecs are ahead of me in culture. Or
3. Anyone got any better ideas?

That entirely depends on what you enjoy in Civving. So far it seems your pattern has been conquest, to go for a more peaceable route seems to break that pattern.

If you're thinking about peace because you're finding war with the Russians too hard, you're going down the wrong route and you won't improve as a player. If you have other motivations (like just trying to mix things up), then by all means.

 

[SeriousCaller]

bit of both really. This is only my second game at anything more than a trivial difficulty level, and my first at playing continual conquest, so I'm still learning.

I've played a few more turns on the democracy save, and I'm up to the end of industrial. I think it's winnable with the space race, as I'm getting techs every 4 turns or so, still ahead of the aztecs or english, with the russians falling a couple of techs behind. I'm getting around 200gpt from the other civs, and getting interest from my wall street, so I'm pretty rich. With the only coal being in my territory, the others must be falling behind in productivity, particularly as I've got the Hoover dam.

On the other hand, in the other save, I'll get tanks in 10 years or so, so I could hold back on a major offensive until then. I think I was stalling as I hadn't built up enough units before invading, and not using enough artillery. If I go this route, who should I attack after the russians? english or aztecs?

 

[CommandoBob]

How many artillery units do you have?

You can beat Infantry with Cavalry if you use your artillery to redline the Infantry before you attack.

Cannon has a range of 1 tile and bombards with 8; Artillery has a range of 2 tiles and bombards with 12 (I think).

With enough bombarding units you can reduce the AI's Infantry down to almost nothing and then your Cavalry can usually kill it with great certainity. In turn, you lose fewer units and delay the onset of War Weariness (depending on your government type).

Continual conquest is really tough if you like to build improvements. It is hard to break the habit of building the next thing that is available. However, except in the core, where you do need markets and such, everything should be focused on the war effort. Corrupt cities can build artillery units (since barracks don't help them any), workers and settlers, in addition to serving as science farms.

Not a real in-depth answer, but these are two lessons I've had to learn.

Good luck!

 

[SeriousCaller]

thanks for the advice. I only had a handful of artillery (might have even been only cannon) when I invaded - what ratio (to cav) should I be using? and I suppose if I'm stacking cav with artillery, I should mix in some infantry of my own.

I'm not improving cities that I take, I usually only build a library to reduce the chance of flip and to fill the culture holes, with maybe a granary or barracks (for healing and upgrading). All my production comes from my core cities. With my continent fully railroaded, and a railroad across what used to be german territory, and transports stationed in the two straits (me to ex-germany, then to russian territory) I should be able to bring newly built units to the front line in 3 or 4 turns.

 

[Snarkhunter]

thanks for the advice. I only had a handful of artillery (might have even been only cannon) when I invaded - what ratio (to cav) should I be using? and I suppose if I'm stacking cav with artillery, I should mix in some infantry of my own.

My personal rule of thumb is 3 bombard units per HP I need to inflict up until modern arty, then 3 per 2 HP. I can sometimes do better, but this seems to work the most often, although catapults may require 4 or even 5 units at times. Given the usual AI 2 regular defenders per town, I'm not completely happy without 12 bombard units, although 8 is acceptable. That's on a per column basis; if I see a need to attack in 2 separate directions, I need 2 separate columns of bombards. This is a minimum number. I normally prefer to strike multiple targets, or go after multiple regions simultaneously. so for the average war, I'd aim for a good 30-40 bombard units, at least. The number skews up the later in the age I war, as the defenders tend to get stronger then & more numerous. When I get infantry available, I break the rule of building almost exclusively offensive units in order to build some good escorts for the arty; in a pinch, they attack as well as cav in any case. I generally don't bother with riflemen or muskets.

If the game lasts until modern artillery, the numbers tend to skew down, as it is more capable. 6-8 units often suffices then (unless the AI is able to build capable units of its own). And bombers/cruise missiles & the like change things a bit on their own.

This is all predicated on a standard map. when the civs get large, I need more units proportionally to avoid too-long campaigns.

Hope that helps, but it's just my predilections. . . .

kk