posted 11-20-98 03:12 PM ET        

Share your military tactics, secrets, whatever to help the "less experienced" folks like me out!

posted 11-20-98 11:19 PM ET            

The biggest problem I can see for most players is dealing with the AI. The first and greatest thing to do is to understand just how the AI works. The AI likes you based upon past actions, yes, but it's alot more complicated than that. If the AI is near you in value, it will not be as affected by differences in size. If the AI is significantly larger or smaller in power, it will be heavily affected by differences in size (hate you if you're small, love you if you're big). The more overwhelming large you are, the nicer the little guy is going to be.

HOWEVER, this is overriden if you are also the LARGEST and MOST POWERFUL player, in which case EVERY AI player will hate you (unless you're strong enough that the smaller ones like even though you are the hegemon. If you have lots of nukes and no-one else does, it's likely everyone will like you regardless).

So being big can make you both hated and loved, depending on just HOW big. Big is bad, overwhelming is good.

The second major thing is the constant decisions between development and warfare. This is probably where most beginners trip up on truly developing a strong and mighty empire. I find that development is ALMOST ALWAYS more benificial than warfare. The pro-development governments are democracy and republic, the pro-warfare governments are fundamentalism, monarchy, and communism (with despotism being pretty poor at both since development is SO underdone that warfare is substantially hurt in consequence). In the early stages, it may be best to get monarchy real quick establish it for the imediate development benifits (while maintaining a large military for expansion and defense reasons), but moving over to republic when things are calmed down and you aren't on military campaigns to take advantage of the pro-development nature of this system.

Personally, I find that republic is the perfect government up until the late stages of the game, when Women's Sufferage/Police Stations, large cities, strong industry, and lots of entertainers make democracy feasible in both warfare and development, where it was rather weak in warfare before. In all other periods of the game, republic is probably by far the most superior government type. It allows one unit out of every city without people becomming upset. If you have alot of cities, you can carry on campaigns from your monarchy days nearly unhindered by government change. In addition, if you do have more than one unit out of the city, it only angers one person rather than two, which is easy to balance with happy people. To top it off, you get ALL of the pro-development trade benifits that democracy has except for the no corruption (although corruption IS reduced, which helps alot). As long as you build courthouses everywhere, Republics are normally both militarily and development stronger than democracies. This is because you are good at developing what you have, but you can protect expansion much more effectively than the democracies can. In addition, if a republicg goes to war, you have a 50% chance of maintaining war without that pesky Senate getting in your way (once again, the late game democracy is better, since if you have the U.N., the same effect is given).

I find that development is almost always superior as a focus. You develop and grow strength much faster through economic and scientific development and peaceful settler expansion than you do with warfare.

For development, I start off with every new city building, in order:
1. A defensive military unit (fortify it)
2. A settler
This settler moves on and builds a new city. You keep doing this until this city building settlers is no longer on the edge of your empire, at that point:
3. Build a settler, this one to be used for irrigating, building roads, mines, farms, and railroads. (along with cleaning pollution and building fortresses)
4. Build more defensive units if you feel the need.
5. Build caravans for wonders or courthouses, marketplaces, libraries, aqueducts, and continue to develop the city, keeping in mind to maximize monetary income to make up for all the income you spend upkeeping all the improvements you're building.

This strategy tends to lead to an empire with a definite "core area" where most of the settlers that aren't building new cities work. As the number of non-edge cities increase, the number of settlers increases and the rate at which you transform the terrain increases. When you discover farms and railroads, go back to the "core" and go out from the center again with terrain transformation. I normally will have up to 40 or 50 settlers or engineers running about making terrain improvements from the core out at all times (until the very late game when the entire map has been taken and they're isn't much for over 30 or 40 engineers to be doing other than sleeping in a city and waiting to take care of some pollution problem). This process allows for the fastest rate of both empire expansion and internal infrastructure development and terrain transformation I know of.

Given this method, your rate of development is so high (and would be so hindered if you had to waste resources on extra military units for warfare) that warfare should be avoided at all costs. When warfare does occur, try to take out all enemy cities on your islands or in your regions as possible, so as to eliminate direct threats to your highly developed areas. This also makes all cities equally more easy to protect. Taking lone cities on an enemy controlled island is normally not a good idea (unless you can take all of them in the course of one war very quickly) since it makes them hard to protect (given distance from your other forces and isolation across water. Not to mention high proximity to multiple opposing cities). The same goes for trying to prevent spying. Place diplomats or spies in every city (they cost no maintenance) and fortify them there to prevent the stealing of your technology. This is especially critical in border cities and lone cities on mostly opponent controlled islands/continents.

posted 11-22-98 04:35 PM ET            

But you had a point there, fighting should not be that important. Or at least it shouldn't take a big chunk of your production. Normally the computer outnumbers my army 10/1 or something, but still I crush them quite easily. You just have to plan properly before an attack. Attack when you can instantly kill lots of units and after that conquer an important city. The city has to be important if you have republic/democracy and you might be forced to peace by the senate. Try to keep your tech high and use only the best units.

Tech rat should be the hightest you can keep in order to make a bit profit each to. Normally 10% luxury is enough for a republic, 20% for democracy. Nuclear power plants seem to blow up allmost every time you have a unrest in democracy, so watch out. Michelangelo's chappel and J.S. Bach's Cathedral are the most important wonders in republic/democracy, because you save loads of cash.

Try to win a war in the beginning. Not immediadly, but when the cities are about the size of 3-4, so you can conquer them. After that you can peacefully develop your nation and stay out of wars. Hopefully.

If you want to score good points, play in the smallest possible mad (custom size) and kill everyone else. A short game gives easily 200% leadership ratio.

Diplomats are essential. Especially before armors they are the only means to capture a city with city walls. Either bribe the city or just destroy the walls. Spies are also very good at surveillance.

posted 11-22-98 05:07 PM ET            

In "King of the Sea" I go as fast as I can toward Monarchy (which I usually avoid, since it is mostly a dead end). Once there, I go as fast as I can for the naval techs, and build all of the naval wonders that I can. Once I had Frigates (I believe that is what the unit was) I would go on a campaign of conquest for all coastal cities. This worked fabulously well, since ships ignore city walls, and those ships generally have a greater offense than the defenders defense. You can also extend the definition of "coastal" cities by building your own cities which connect inland lakes to the sea, creating a canal which your ships can sail up.

posted 11-23-98 12:05 AM ET            

Depending upon your inital location, choice of strategy is all important. If you get poor terrain, a developmental program (known as "perfectionist") will infallibily lead to disaster. Instead you must play a militaristic (known as aggressive) game. Playing as a aggressor, you need different units and wonders than playing as a perfectionist (for instance, an aggressor's pathetic science rate can be helped by building the Great Library).

Of course, there are many details common to both sides. Important wonders are Michaelangelo's chapel (critical), Leonardo's workshop, Adam Smiths trading centre, J.S Bach's Cathedral, The Hoover Dam, and the Seti Project. The others may be useful, such as Magellan's voyage, or may just slow you down (the almost laughable Copernicus's observatory).

Of course, the most important aspect is how you use your military. Civ is a city based game, so killing enemy units, while fun, is not effective by itself - you just free up support to build more units. The simple measure of military success is capturing cities, particularly early in the game.

MOBILITY:
Cities are best captured BEFORE they get city walls (obviously) so having a mobile army and a plan is essential. Never try to wage war on two or more fronts, unless you're really big. The long range units, especially elephants, are the most important ones, allowing you to attack a city without having to stop next to it, or allowing two attacks against a city. Think hard when using these units, as positioning is everything. If you can attack their elephants before they can attack yours, you will win. And vice versa.

SUBVERSION:
The best method is to simply buy the city. This can be nothing less than disasterous for an enemy who has invested heavily in defending that one outpost - you get free units, all the improvements, and most likely access to their road network as well. The diplomat is your most crucial unit in early warfare.

SIEGECRAFT:
If you really *need* to attack a heavily defended city early in the game, it'll be tough. Basically, you need to get enough units to the city to overwhelm it in one turn. This is 'defeat-in-detail' or critical mass - you kill all the defenders at once, while suffering as few losses as possible. You'll need some defensive units, preferably veteran (consider building a barracks somewhere to produce these units), Phalanx will do nicely. Position a single, elite unit next to the city and fortify it. If possible, get a settler or two in and build a fortress next to the city (use hills or forest for preference - your unit has a better chance of surviving). If your opponent has only defenders present, they'll struggle to kill your defender, and once you have a fortress, you have a much better chance of taking the city.

Now, move in elite attacking units, catapults for preference (6 + 50% = 9), as well as another defender or two to keep the fortress safe. You'll probably need a diplomat to investigate the city beforehand, just to be sure of what your facing (instinct helps, expect around two or three defenders, plus an attacking unit as well - you may be pleasantly surprised). It's important that all units attack during the same turn, I recommend AT LEAST 2 catapults + four elephants, more if not using veterans.

If you can't build a fortress, you have a problem against a well defended city. A good navy helps here, allowing you coastal access to other areas of your opponent's empire. At the very worst, you can position two or three defenders outside the walls, fortify, move in your attacking units next turn, wait, then attack. If your opponent doesn't attack your defenders, or they stand up to the assault, you have a good chance of taking the city.

If not, then wait till you get robotics and build howizters . These are the ultimate siege tool, and can take an empire apart in a matter of a few turns if used enmass and with proper support.

posted 11-30-98 10:59 AM ET            

Monarchy helps with production increasing, more trade etc (covered by others here), but ironworking is very important.

The Legions are the most effective early attack units, great defence, better offence, and relatively cheap to build.

When i play the world, i normally (after expanding) use my core cities (which have barracks) to pump out legions, and capture/destroy all enemy cities. You can normally get everyone off your continent before they get past phalanx's as defencive units. Then and only then do i change to republic/democracy and fill the entire continent with cities.

Done properly, you can capture everything on your continent and still have time to fill every square with railroads and farmland, and convert all terrain to the plains/grassland pattern. Then once i am fully developed, i attack overseas with artillery, nukes, armour, spies, and stealth bombers.

Just one more thing before i go, once you get engineers, convert the terrain to grassland, and keep the ones with dots in the center (which show up in cities as producing resource shields) and convert the others to plains. This way, all cities have maximum resources and food production. The "resource" grasslands are in a set pattern, with experience you can tell where they will be.

I hope this is helpful to anyone out there.

posted 12-01-98 01:57 PM ET            

It seems the only govt any should use is Despot at the start, followed by Republic and that is it. Maybe get Democracy in the advanced stages. What do any of you think?

Also, Arnelos had some good ideas at expansion. I find it difficult to plug away with settlers so quickly at the first of the game. The AI tends to use that strategy as well. Does my final score outcome depend on how "big" my empire is by the end of the game? Would I be better off "delaying" my space craft and expand my empire, then launch? What do some of you think about that?