09-06-2004 21:17									#361
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I have to yield on that aspect. I have not tried an AI on Deity or Sid that have RR in place. It would scare me to death.

They will have about 1000 troops maybe 1500. They will have bombers. They do not use art on offense, but they will use bombers. They will pounding you with ships.

This is an under taking that would require an enormous force and corresponding shipping.

You have lots of time to catch the missing tech and should be able to muster a steal attempt every 4 turns, maybe less. Some techs can be skipped.

All I know for sure is they can will toss half of its standing force at you right away. With just roads, they can get there fairly fast, with rails it will be immediately.

My understanding of Mr Justice's forces are that he does not have them.

BTW you can often do as well as 5 turns to switch, 6 is quite common.

	09-06-2004 22:04									#362
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3 questions on these tech steal attempts:
- what's the avarage success rate for each time you try?
- what's the chance of getting caught?
- what's the chance of war when caught?

always supposing we using the "safest" theft.

	09-06-2004 22:10									#363
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I have to yield on that aspect. I have not tried an AI on Deity or Sid that have RR in place. It would scare me to death.

Hey Vmxa;

You make a number of good points as usual. I agree that taking on Russia would be very difficult and that’s why I suggested so many different steps in previous posts to get it done. The different steps work in concert to achieve the end result. I wouldn’t want to take on a KAI with RR either but the point is that they wouldn’t have a road network if you had been pillaging them on and off for 40 turns while building your military, planting your spy, switching governments, and building a beachhead. If they don’t have roads then reinforcements come in piecemeal and your troops can use the beachhead barracks to heal up between waves. I admit that I’ve never invaded an AI with bombers and it does seem risky but probably less risky than letting Russia get even stronger than it is now. The fact is that the game is still up for grabs and could go either way. The game will be at risk whichever way Mr. Justice chooses to go.

	09-06-2004 22:15									#364
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quote: Originally posted by sabrewolf 3 questions on these tech steal attempts: - what's the avarage success rate for each time you try? - what's the chance of getting caught? - what's the chance of war when caught?

Here is some info I found when researching it but I can't remember who gets the credit and I didn't verify the info.

Rate of success
Base (Diplomat) 50% (safe and carefully), 30 (immediately).
Spy 66% (safe and carefully), 40% (immediately)
Veteran (Commie) spy 75% (safe), 66% (carefully), 60% (immediately). Still needs verification. Check if war has implication over vet spies only.

Chance of escape in case of mission failure
Base (diplomat/spy) 33%-50% (safely), 20-40% (carefully), 15-20% (immediately)
Veteran (commie) spy 75% (safely). Others need verification because state of war might change results.

War seems to INCREASE chance of escape to 60% (spy), 66%-75% (vet spy).
Some other factors might be involved as Oystein tests showed some inconsistencies with Aggie's.

	09-06-2004 23:04									#365
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thanks dragon (or is it kite? )

so what vmxa1 said earlier, that you can attempt to steal every 4 turns is in fact a very big risk!
lets say, you've not yet got an IA and not yet in communism (to get that far, you must have been quite successful with stealing in the past ), you'll only get a tech in average every 8 turns and your diplomat will escape in average every 2nd time. that means every 16 turns, your facing likely war declaration and thereby often destruction. or am i missing something?

mountain sage: i hope you don't consider this as threadjacking... it's not completely on-topic, but may be of interest for sid-dreamers like me

	09-06-2004 23:18									#366
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quote: Originally posted by sabrewolf thanks dragon (or is it kite? ) so what vmxa1 said earlier, that you can attempt to steal every 4 turns is in fact a very big risk! lets say, you've not yet got an IA and not yet in communism (to get that far, you must have been quite successful with stealing in the past ), you'll only get a tech in average every 8 turns and your diplomat will escape in average every 2nd time. that means every 16 turns, your facing likely war declaration and thereby often destruction. or am i missing something? mountain sage: i hope you don't consider this as threadjacking... it's not completely on-topic, but may be of interest for sid-dreamers like me

You’re welcome and it’s Dragons in German…easier to use a foreign language password for English language sites.

I’m not so sure I’d worry about destruction since the AI is so poor at invasion but I’d sure rather have veteran spies if I were trying to survive by tech theft.

	10-06-2004 02:45									#367
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quote: Originally posted by sabrewolf 3 questions on these tech steal attempts: - what's the avarage success rate for each time you try? - what's the chance of getting caught? - what's the chance of war when caught? always supposing we using the "safest" theft.

I have usede it in maybe three games at sid, so I am not sure it has great meaning. Anyway I use the cheapest method for a long time.

Once I get to a point I do not want a war, I will move up from immediately to the second one or the third one.

It seems that in the last stage they are quick to declare if they cathc me, in the times before that I may have enough troops to make them think about it as they often just say they are not pleased.

I would say the rate is very high in the begining. Maybe 70% and then about 1 in 10 for war.

So in 10 trieds, 7 work, 3 fail and one is a war. That move down a bit in the end even though I am using the safest method.

Just a guess from memory, but maybe 5 or 6 works and half lead to war.

But as I said, I have no idea if this is going to stay that way for me or if it is unusal.

	10-06-2004 02:51									#368
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quote: Originally posted by sabrewolf thanks dragon (or is it kite? ) so what vmxa1 said earlier, that you can attempt to steal every 4 turns is in fact a very big risk!

I may not have been clear on that, but I only meant you would be in a position to try it every 4 turns. You hopefully would not need to steal constantly every 4 or so turns. what I meant is you can raise the cash needed for an attempt. Some timeit fails, but you escape, some times it works and others it fails and you are caught. They may or may not declare war.

They will not always be getting a new tech every 4 turns and you will not always want or need the one they researched.

	10-06-2004 09:12									#369
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I may not have been clear on that, but I only meant you would be in a position to try it every 4 turns. You hopefully would not need to steal constantly every 4 or so turns. what I meant is you can raise the cash needed for an attempt. Some timeit fails, but you escape, some times it works and others it fails and you are caught. They may or may not declare war. They will not always be getting a new tech every 4 turns and you will not always want or need the one they researched.

Very true my friend. But if it were your game wouldn’t you go after Russia? You are such a warrior and this is such a warrior’s gambit.

	10-06-2004 11:34									#370
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Well I would have to take a very hard look at the game to make that call. I only took a glance. Not having played it out to that point I don't have a feel for what the true status may be.

But given the impression I had that he had gotten rid of most of his troops, it would be a hard road.

If I had play to the same point, I would have enough of a force to attempt it.

To me it comes down to having mobile armies as they are the main means of not taking massive losses. Back them up with bombardment units and strong defenders and you can get by with very few losses.
I find that is critical as you cannot ship replacements over in large enough numbers in timely enough fashion to be losing scores each round.

Get up a few armies of defenders (be they muskets or rifles or what the current times provides) and back them with cannon/cat/arty and you can often kill 20 or 30 without a lose.

I know I have had a few rounds with up 80 killed without a loss. That involved a river and was against ancient units.

Until you get to airports, you have to use ships and they are too slow for massive replacements.

Then I use my horse types in armies to kill off lots of weaken attackers. Taking no risk, if I can avoid it. I like to be methodical when the game is on the line.

	10-06-2004 20:57									#371
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Well Mr. Justice...you've read all the arguments. Let us know how it goes.

	10-06-2004 22:31									#372
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Mr. Justice, I forgot, why are you blocking the settler? I could not see any landing place for it to use inside your island.

Not to be argumentive, but for clarification and maybe I can learn something, but why did you not go for industiral before replacement parts.

I know you wanted the bump in workers speed, but by now you can have enough workers to not make a big difference.

I would want those factories asap.

I would come back around to plant a few more cities to get more support for a standing army.

Since you are in third place in land, you need more soon. I see some cities are starving, this could be addressed with rails, if you have the coal and iron.

I try to have a plan for where the most important rails are so they can be laid first. I will be moving workers over to be ready to roll as soon as I get the tech.

My keys are cities that are producing important things (units/wonders), cities that are not growing, connecting all cities, with an eye to having the borders prioritized.

Connecting cites moves to first if attacks are coming.

I want to be able to get troops to any cites first and then any perimeter. The perimeters lets me use arties on ships at times.

	11-06-2004 12:44									#373
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I want to be able to get troops to any cites first and then any perimeter. The perimeters lets me use arties on ships at times.

And then you create a 'rapid deployment force' and disband all old garrison troops. This should add significant amounts of gold to your treasury if you kept all border cities garrisoned.

	11-06-2004 17:49									#374
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vmxa1, i went for Replaceable parts first cause (defore industrialzation) i bypassed nationalization , i needed a new defensive unit and wanted to bypass rifelmen and go straight for infantry. i knew russia had the techs.
i was not overly concerned with getting factories everywhere. at the time i needed to be able to defend myself against russia (SMs where my best defender prior to infantry) mind u i didnt need to build up a big force, just enuf that i could stop a small attacking force.

anyway my game has moved on. its ~1470. had a quick war with russia. but they discovered flight in the middle of it and i quickly made pease with them. i blocked a couple of their invasion forces using my galleons (well i forced them to land one at a time, thus face 4 units a time rather than 8, i only had 4 infantry and 3 artill (well 2 armies as well but they with knights and SMs ) however that was around 10 turns ago.

mongols also declared on me. ive sent almost my entire military (10 infantry, 10 artil). but mongol AI is unbelievibly stupid. im attacking their city with 4 spices in city radius. im whittling down the defenders (i dont have enuf units to take em all out, but 3 armies so wont be long) but the AI has stacks and stacks of units nearby but they aint moving! im just gunna take that city and then make peace. mongols best unit is keshick and musketmen.

my empire spreads out over 3 big islands and then 2 small cities on other islands. i can move units between any of those in 1 turn. combined with RR everywhere means defensively im covered (appart from bombers!!!!!)

currently im waiting for russia to finish reaserching Electricty casue ive a palace prebuild (with 6 turns left) ready for hoovers. russia got TOE before i even got the tech. but id already disregarded TOE. it gives me nothing that 10 turns of saving cant get me. unless im mistaken russia has really slowed down reaserch. ive already stolen refining and saved up enuf to steal again while waiting for electricty. if this is true then im on the pigs back

steals from russia costing 4000gold now, have to do safe cause i cant afford war. i got the nationaiazation brach from hittites (both traded and stole).

am considering building all my librarys and unis now and doing some of my own reaserch. the reliance on stealing has its drawbacks, ive no options in this regard. building them now would only take a few turns post factories (and hoovers hopefully)

im still at 100% tax, pulling in almost 1000 gpt. building lots of infrastructure atm (police stations, factories hospitals (where i allow greater than size 12 cities, i dont have to many free tiles on my home island) and stock exchanges)

my military is now back down below my support level.
once i get those spices frm the mongols i'll be happy.

thankfully the game is flying along now. wars are just so timeconusming at this level (mongolia is a joke atm, i'll try post an image tonight to show u just how stupid this AI is. i cant lose to that level of stupidity ) but that war is flying along. they dont attack me and i just deplete their city of units and they arent replacing them!
one or 2 turns at this rate then that city is mine (well i'll razre and resettle, my culture is still lower than any other AIs)

	11-06-2004 18:07									#375
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quote: Mr. Justice, I forgot, why are you blocking the settler? I could not see any landing place for it to use inside your island.

there is a tiny space just below my FP city (new amsterdam i could resist renaming it to that)

as for tech stealing i have found that on average i need to save for 5 turns to get enuf to steal at the safest level.

in the begining i was getting approx 200 gpt and steals were 1000.
now im getting nearly 1000 (975 or somethin) and steals cost 4040 at safe.
safely is great, only rarely is it not successfull and even rarer that they declare over it.

my average success is around 4 in 5 (ballpark) with the other 1 out of 5 rougly splitt 2/3 no war 1/3 war.
but thats from my memory. ive had about 3/4 tech stealing wars. but i have reloaded a couple of times as well, when i just couldnt afford war early on.

id say it averages that i attempt to steal every 6 turns or so. (when i include other spending)
imo is definbately a very viable strat for SID, also removes reliance on GL tactic, which shud give more freedom to choose other Civs other than those with alphabet.

	11-06-2004 20:48									#376
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The AI will not attack armies in the field if they are at full or nearly full health.

Once you take or build a city they will come and not care about armies. This is where you have to sweat.

I figured you may have wanted the infantry, but I would have prefered to have the factories first. You could use any unit for defense with th elimited numbers of units you would have to defend against. Just make more of them.

A 50% boost in shields is not to be ignored.

	12-06-2004 02:01									#377
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I've taken my Viking game and played it out for awhile with the intention of taking out France in the modern age so as to test the effects of bombers etc at Sid. Trouble is she's got tactical nukes and I'm not familiar with how the AI uses them. My beachhead is one square from Paris so I’m guessing she won’t use them there but I could use some advice as to using feints etc to draw nuke attacks and deplete her arsenal. Any advice would be appreciated.

It looks to be an interesting battle. I’m the only one with modern amour and am just starting to build a fleet of stealth bombers to take out her rails and infrastructure as my opening move but she has about 900 mechanized infantry and an extensive air force as well. My beachhead will be a metropolis with civil defense built on grassland at battles opening. I’m betting she won’t attack as I have about twenty armies and a boatload of other units defending.

Wish me luck

	12-06-2004 03:27									#378
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I have only limited exposure to nukes at any level. The last time I faced them was at Sid, but they were not used.

I had them and nuke subs as deterent and in case they were to start building the last part.

They cannot move the one type (ICBM?), so use a spy to see where they are located. If they are all in one or two cities, try to take them down.

The other form (tactical?) can be moved.

	12-06-2004 03:35									#379
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The air part, I would say get as many AA units as you can and a SAM. Have fighters as well. Send AA units with your stack. Locate cities that house lots of planes and attack it.

When you are dealing with large numbers of troops the air power is not so big of a concern, except for any city you are using.

I mean having 30 bombers hit your stack is not as important when your stack is 300 or more. It is when you are dealing with tens or scores, that bombers are more painful.

They are also painful on beachead cities that are just starting as they can bust you barracks and temple.

	12-06-2004 07:02									#380
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I have only limited exposure to nukes at any level. The last time I faced them was at Sid, but they were not used. I had them and nuke subs as deterent and in case they were to start building the last part. They cannot move the one type (ICBM?), so use a spy to see where they are located. If they are all in one or two cities, try to take them down. The other form (tactical?) can be moved.

Yeah…I’ve no experience with nukes to speak of since I’m usually so far ahead at lower levels that it’s a non-issue. My plan was to win this game via diplomacy, which I did, and after restarting it in 1806 without saying yes to the UN vote I’m facing an opponent that’s much stronger than I usually face. A perfect test for advanced invasions actually. France is in Democracy and so I think I’ll make her declare. I just signed a MMP with number three and as soon as war breaks out I’ll bring the pipsqueaks on board as a distraction and possible resource denial. My initial turn will probably be a pain as I’ve enough units in my beachhead that you can’t get to the wake all command. Civ IV really has to address the troop interface problem. Well…I’ve got 10 stealth bombers, a dozen more due very quickly, and 80 artillery to cut the roads into my beachhead and I think it’s time to rock and roll.

	12-06-2004 09:14									#381
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Hi! I was flipping though some of the pages of this thread and the Emperor level one and I'm still having trouble understanding what these two threads are all about. If someone could fill me in, that would be great. Thanks in advance!

	12-06-2004 09:34									#382
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Drachen I think they at least need to move the zoom to city and wake to the top. It can be a pain in these types of games.

	12-06-2004 09:40									#383
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quote: Originally posted by homeyg Hi! I was flipping though some of the pages of this thread and the Emperor level one and I'm still having trouble understanding what these two threads are all about. If someone could fill me in, that would be great. Thanks in advance!

Hello, mainly it is a place for people to exchange ideas and experiences at Sid. A few of us had taken the plunge and were struggling. We all finally managed to find a few ways to win. but still bat around different tactics.

Some of the emperor threads are sort of the same thing, but for that level. One or two were intend to be road maps to one players style at that level.

So in short, people often put up their game and ask for input. Some will start their own thread.

At least that is my perspective.

	12-06-2004 22:50									#384
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Here is a brief overview of the modern age invasion of France at Sid level. Preparations began in 1806 and the war started in 1918. A brief early war ended when I founded my beachhead town, Hammer, 1 square from Paris and made Joan pay me for peace. I ferried units into Hammer and disbanded older armies and units to rush barracks, walls, library, harbor, aqueduct, civil defense, airport, and hospital. After the airport was built I was able quickly reinforce Hammer from all over my empire and drop workers to first improve tiles and then join the city creating a metropolis for the added defensive bonus. I was unable to get Joan to declare on me and so I declared on her and quickly developed a worldwide coalition excepting the tiny unaligned Arab nation who demanded 4 techs, 4 luxuries, 4000 gold and 900 GPT for the support their pikes would provide. I declined.

I opened up by destroying all access roads which would allow units outside of Paris to counter attack on the first turn. Joan rushed in massive ground reinforcements which were mostly mechanized infantry (MI), dropped from 845 to 807 MI, lost two tanks, launched no nukes, and did not attack my well defended airspace with her 17 bombers. I lost no units and this is how it looked when 1920 dawned…

Attachment: round1end.jpg
This has been downloaded 62 time(s).

Last edited by Drachen on 12-06-2004 at 23:01

	12-06-2004 22:53									#385
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Joan had 9 points of attack and all of them had massive numbers of mostly modern units. Some of the stacks were too large to allow me to scroll through the entire screen and so no accurate account of her force is easy to discern. She apparently drafted a number of citizens and switched to Fascism. From 1918 to 1922 her TOW count jumped from 33 to 280 so I assume that’s the units that were created and that may be due to resource denial as I was bombing her strategic resources with my stealth bombers. I decided not to attack her on my turn hoping to take advantage of the defensive bonuses when she attacked and hoping that she would attack with more units if they were healthy. None of the stacks were small enough for me to redline and eliminate anyway. In her attack Joan dropped from 807 to 632 MI, 59 to 12 tanks, 17 to 14 bombers, used 3 cruise missiles, and used no nukes. I did not lose any units in the attack with the bulk of my defense being provided by 15 armies being, 2 MA, 5MI, 4 Tank, 3 Infantry, and 1 Cavalry. Most of these were redlined and a few of my many MI units were involved after that.

By 1936 Joan’s MI count was in the 500’s with significant losses in other areas as well. These losses were mostly due to my redlining and eliminating smaller stacks milling around Hammer since Joan quit attacking after the debacle of 1920. My overall troop numbers were increasing. In the end I was reduced to surrounding Paris with armies to prevent reinforcement and attempting to wear her down with MA and armies. This was time consuming and costly but seemed to be my only option since 100 bombardments per turn were failing to present a Parisian defender at less than full health after the barrage. The game ended abruptly as Paris reached 20,000 culture. This seemed like a good time to end the experiment since I had already won the game in 1806 and the questions I had about modern invasions at Sid were pretty well answered. My conclusion is that the only thing scary about a modern age war at Sid is the C3C troop interface. At war’s start I had a few hundred units in Hammer to try to assure victory and as a result I could not scroll down to the “wake all” button. This made the experience excruciatingly slow and cumbersome and I often attacked with MI rather than MA because I couldn’t scroll down far enough to wake an MA. (Please fix this in Civ IV!) Invasions of advanced AIs at Sid are slow going but doable and I’m pretty sure that at some point I would have depleted Joan’s ability to resist and France would have collapsed very quickly after that. In future games I’ll follow whichever path to victory seems easiest and not worry about an adverse outcome from an invasion.

Last edited by Drachen on 13-06-2004 at 03:00

	12-06-2004 23:17									#386
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I forget the number, but it is around 121 or 141. After that you can't scroll down.

I am surprsied that France had so small an army and failed to attack in force. Some times the top civ has many hndreds fewer units than the #2 or #3.

I remember China had about 800-900, while #3 (US) had more than 1200.

What are the numbers in your stacks? Did they contain armies?
Did they not bombard at all? How was the make up of AA units? How many in each stack? Was it just the number of fighters in Hammer that held them in check?

	12-06-2004 23:53									#387
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I forget the number, but it is around 121 or 141. After that you can't scroll down. I am surprsied that France had so small an army and failed to attack in force. Some times the top civ has many hndreds fewer units than the #2 or #3. I remember China had about 800-900, while #3 (US) had more than 1200. What are the numbers in your stacks? Did they contain armies? Did they not bombard at all? How was the make up of AA units? How many in each stack? Was it just the number of fighters in Hammer that held them in check?

You’re right Vmxa1. France had a lot more units than I mentioned but I thought musketeers, rifles, and the like weren’t worth reporting. It may not be clear from the picture but those 8 stacks are all French. My entire defense of Hammer is fortified inside the city. This included a handful of SAMs and perhaps 10 regular jets set to control the sky to deter air strikes. The stack of ships just outside the city has 7 carriers with defending jets as well. The bulk of my tactical nukes were in subs in that stack also and I was worried that a French nuclear strike could take them out but since little info was available on AI nuke use I gambled that Joan wouldn’t nuke so close to Paris. As far as bombardment goes, I had the game settings set to not show unit moves or animate battles so the only thing I can point to is the low level of French bomber losses means there wasn’t much of an air attack. I couldn’t see any French arty employed but the game passes by pretty quick with those settings so I’m just not sure if she used an arty barrage but I tend to doubt it. As far as the AI not attacking with much I kind of think losing a couple of hundred units in an attack is not insignificant. It seems to me that the AI has some method of deciding when it has had enough and stops attacking. I even tried exposing a stack of about a hundred MI with no army cover but Joan wouldn’t take the bait. It’s a drag really as that means you need to go on the offensive with its concomitant increases in losses.

	13-06-2004 00:02									#388
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Sorry I got confused and was thinking the pink were yours, dah.

If they had used nukes and then sent all they could on the first turn, they could have made you suffer. But that is not how they work. Especilly from where they sat, they were going to win in a few turns.

I can't remember the AI using arties on offense, only defense.

	13-06-2004 00:14									#389
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Sorry I got confused and was thinking the pink were yours, dah. If they had used nukes and then sent all they could on the first turn, they could have made you suffer. But that is not how they work. Especilly from where they sat, they were going to win in a few turns. I can't remember the AI using arties on offense, only defense.

I don't know if the approaching cultural win caused them sit back a bit or not but I tend to doubt it. The response pattern was very similar to that of the Aztecs earlier in the game. As far as the nukes and all out attack go lets face it...if the AI ever learns how to fight then Civ is gonna get a lot tougher.

	14-06-2004 17:23									#390
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Wow Drachen!
You took time to build your defences.
How come that Hammer did not flip as you could add only 1 building each turn? How quick did you ferry in your troops?
I know by experience that often troops alone are not enough to prevent a flip.