09-02-2005 00:36									#1
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Hey all.

I'm a little PO'ed right now.

I had started a new game on Warlord as the Celts, with a huge map. I go exploring and pretty soon I run into the Iriquois. The problem is, he's right in the middle of the continent and I'm at the bottom.

So, once I get established with about 30 cities I get about 30 archers together and I send them out to 4 cities in groups of about 4 to 6 a peice. Then I try to take all the cities all at once. I lost, badly.

The problem was that it took 3 archers to kill one spearman, and each city had 2. So, I managed to take 2 or three cities after I produce another 20 archers, and make larger groups with them, about 8 archers a group.

I make peace, and take 2 more cities as part of the deal.

Now I realize I have another problem, I have no horses or Iron on my third of the continent. So, I decide I have to deal with this problem then and there.

So, I get together 30 archers, upgrade them to longbowan for 1900 gold, and storm the nearest large city. Then I realize I have another problem, they now have archers, and each of their archers can take out one of my longbowman in one try.

So, I take another two cities, loosing about half of my longbowan to their archers, and I make peace, taking two more cities as part of the agreement.

Finnaly, I get musketman. So I upgrade all of my spearman to musketman with the aide of Leo's and Sun Tzu's and get ready for another battle.

I get together about 30 more longbowan because they were the best attack unit available to me. Even rifleman would have only had an attack of 4. So, I declare war, and I find out something shocking.

Their calvary can take out my Musketman in two tries! They had about 10-15 of the damn things, and I lost 3 cities in the first two turns, as I only had one musketman in each of my border towns. I had thought with a defense of 6, and the defense bonus of having all my border towns above 8 I would be OK, I was completely wrong.

So, taking revenge I decided to take out two of their larger cities. I was shocked that it took 3 longbowman to take on one spearman!

What the hell is wrong with this picture? Two calvary can take out a musketman, but you need three Longbowan to take one spearman???

And why did the Iriquois start out in the middle of the continent to begin with? And why was I left without any resources or luxuries, while the Iriquios had plenty???

I know I probably should have restarted the game when I learned of my situation, but still, this just should not happen.

Dan O.

Last edited by Melboz99 on 09-02-2005 at 00:45

	09-02-2005 00:47									#2
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quote: Originally posted by Melboz99 I know I probably should have restarted the game when I learned of my situation, but still, this just should not happen. Dan O.

the really frustrating thing is that you can't know until the very end of the game what your resource situation really is. You can start the game on a huge continent all to yourself and not be able to tell until hours of playing if it has any resources whatsoever. I really hate how it always seems to work out that no matter how large my empire, as soon as I discover a tech that lets me see the locations of a new resource I always discover that I don't have a single tile in all my empire with that resource while tiny little AI island civs have half a dozen of them crowded around their core cities.

	09-02-2005 00:59									#3
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quote: Originally posted by Melboz99 So, once I get established with about 30 cities I get about 30 archers together and I send them out to 4 cities in groups of about 4 to 6 a peice. Then I try to take all the cities all at once. I lost, badly.

First mistake was dividing your forces too thinnly. I usually opt for a single large stack.

quote: Now I realize I have another problem, I have no horses or Iron on my third of the continent. So, I decide I have to deal with this problem then and there.

Had you contacted any other civs with whom you could trade for iron or horses?

quote: So, I get together 30 archers, upgrade them to longbowan for 1900 gold, and storm the nearest large city. Then I realize I have another problem, they now have archers, and each of their archers can take out one of my longbowman in one try.

Why didn't you stack any spearmen in with the longbows? Also, if you have a slow moving stack, you should have a dozen or so catapults or trebuchets to knock the defenders hps down to the red.

And if you have 1900 gold, you almost certainly should have been able to bribe another civ to join you in the war. Divide the AI's forces in half and they are much easier to deal with.

quote: I get together about 30 more longbowan because they were the best attack unit available to me. Even rifleman would have only had an attack of 4.

You should have had cannons at this time. They have a bombard strength of 8. Pretty good against mustkets.

quote: So, I declare war, and I find out something shocking. Their calvary can take out my Musketman in two tries! They had about 10-15 of the damn things, and I lost 3 cities in the first two turns, as I only had one musketman in each of my border towns. I had thought with a defense of 6, and the defense bonus of having all my border towns above 8 I would be OK, I was completely wrong.

Muskets have a defense of 4. Fortified in a city gives them a strength of 7 plus the terrain bonus. Really not all that shocking that two attack=6 cavalry can beat them. Only having a single defender in border towns is a huge mistake because as you noticed, the AI always attackes en masse.

quote: So, taking revenge I decided to take out two of their larger cities. I was shocked that it took 3 longbowman to take on one spearman!

Sounds like bad luck with the rng. Happens to everyone. You should have brought along some cannons to soften up the defenders.

quote: And why did the Iriquois start out in the middle of the continent to begin with? And why was I left without any resources or luxuries, while the Iriquios had plenty???

Again, bad luck but also some bad planning. It appears like you waited until you had 30 cities before you decided to go get some iron. That's waiting too long and letting the AI build up its defenses.

	09-02-2005 01:19									#4
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I agree with many of the points Gunkulator raised.

While part of the 'problem' may be that the luck of battle is stacked against you in the long run, the player is able to anticipate this and act accordingly. 6-8 single move & outdated (since you had a resource problem) units to take a "large" city is optimistic at best. Aside from bombard units, a few defenders should have been brought in, if only to guard the worn out forces in the newly acquired territories from counterattacks.

Also why were your border towns defended with a single musketman? Did you never see the opponent's cavalry moving about nervously as the CC opponents tend to do?

	09-02-2005 01:37									#5
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well first off welcome to civ and the rng. After hearing your story I think you should try to find some mods they are vastly supiror to the real game. I prefer the rise and rule mod if you have conquests.

	09-02-2005 01:48									#6
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archer 2, spearman 2. 'nuff said.

	09-02-2005 01:58									#7
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Melboz99 many of the issues have been addressed already. I would add that having 1900 around means you were not using your time to its best.

IOW you should have made more units instead of gold, bought resources and or alliances.

The Iroq have Mounted Warriors for a UU. This is a powerful ancient unit and I would have wanted to take them out soonest.

Since you have no iron or horses, you should crank out lots of cats and archers. A few spears for defending the stack and rolled.

Then the issue would be, do you want to capture or raze cities. That is a function of how large the empire is that you have to conquer. It will be hard to have enough units to hold hand fulls of cities and you may want to raze some.

The other thing is you do not want to wait until you have 30 cities to take action. do it as soon as you see you are missing Iron or Horses. At Warlord that is pretty early.

Now making peace just because you got a few cities is not a good plan. Your goal had to be to take Iron or Horse tiles and trim them very hard.

This is because if you had 6 cities and one resource from the war, you would still have problems. If they started making MW's you would be in some pain. I would have to beat them down so hard they would no longer be a factor.

Keep those cities making troops the whole time to hold captured cities or your new ones.

	09-02-2005 02:19									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident archer 2, spearman 2. 'nuff said.

Defensive bonus:
10% for soft terraign.

25% for fortified

Bring 2+ archers per Spearmen just be on the safe side, all attacks on the same turn to prevent healing of defensive units.

On Calvary attacking Riflemen, yes the bonsus still apply, but Calvary can retreat, which brings the odds back in favor of the Calvary at least surviving.

	09-02-2005 02:31									#9
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Thanks guys,

Gun,

At first I thought I could just take out their 2 spearman with 4-6 archers, I now agree that wasn't the best plan.

When I went with the longbowman the second time around I did bring two musketman. It was just hard attacking and keeping in one single stack. About 4 or 5 were accidentally left without a defender.

And finnally, I never realized how high the attack was on their calvary, or how low the defense was on my musketman.


You have to realize, that I was well ahead of them in technology, and I was a little overconfident in my technology.

In retrospect I should have waited till I got Rifleman. It was only another 6 turns away. I think I would have stood a better chance with them.



Vxma,

The reason I quit after taking two cites was because I was having bad war weariness, to the point of starvation, and The Iron was on the complete oppsosite side of their empire. I still don't know where their horses were.


My big question is why are there no good attacking infantry in the middle ages? I mean, you get Longbowman with an attack of 4, and then it's not until replaceable parts that you get to upgrade them to Guirillas. That is just too long imo.

Next time I should bring along some cannons, definately. I'm just always worried about them getting seperated from the stack, and getting picked off.

Dan O.

	09-02-2005 02:35									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident archer 2, spearman 2. 'nuff said.

Dissedent, that wasn't my problem

I had a group of 12+ Longbowman, + 2 Musketman for defense. In one turn I took on 3 Spearman in a size 7 city.

When the dust settled, I had 4 spearman left, 3 of which were badly wounded.

Dan O.

	09-02-2005 02:36									#11
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After you have the tech for a given resource, press CTRL+SHIFT+m. It will clear the map of clutter, and show you the resources. With CTRL+SHIFT+n you can modify the things that are shown in the alternative mode. For example you can add Roads (to see what's connected, and what isn't), and borders (to see who owns the resource). It helps a lot, since the resources can sometimes be hidden below cities.

As to attacking, consider how many units you need to take that city you want. Then, bring twice as many. Works every time. Almost.

	09-02-2005 05:52									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Melboz99 Vxma, The reason I quit after taking two cites was because I was having bad war weariness, to the point of starvation, and The Iron was on the complete oppsosite side of their empire. I still don't know where their horses were. My big question is why are there no good attacking infantry in the middle ages? I mean, you get Longbowman with an attack of 4, and then it's not until replaceable parts that you get to upgrade them to Guirillas. That is just too long imo. Next time I should bring along some cannons, definately. I'm just always worried about them getting seperated from the stack, and getting picked off. Dan O.

If you had WW on Warlord, you need to alter your tactics. Do you have any lux hooked up, if so how many? Do you have markets in the main cities? Do you have any temples in those cities? What about the slider, where is it set at for lux?

There are several great attackers in that age right at the start. MI and Knights, unfortunetly you need iron and horses for them.

LB are quite effective in the open field against non retreating units as a 4 attack is higher than most defenders at that time.

I forget if you mentioned the civ you are playing, but some such as the Vikes have a UU that does not require any resources and at attack 6 will smash those units.

But any time you have no access to two move attackers, build cats and punsih evil doers that irk you. Those 6 archers with 4 spears and 12 cats would take down any town they have.

You would have some elites and may get a leader and then turn out the lights.

WW is handles by having either a short war (less 20 turns). Lux and happy structures as I mentioned. Being in a WW free govenment.

The last would have been my pick after seeing I had no Iron or Horses in sight. I would switch to Monarchy and give no quarter until I had everything I needed.

	09-02-2005 06:38									#13
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quote: WW is handles by having either a short war (less 20 turns). Lux and happy structures as I mentioned. Being in a WW free govenment.

One clarification here. Since WW is event-based, rather than time-based, a low-engagement war also works. Theoretically, you could stay at war for the entire game with no WW effects, if you never lost any units and picked off all the AI attackers before they could attack you.

	09-02-2005 09:01									#14
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True, but not important for most players. They have enough to grasp already.

	09-02-2005 17:25									#15
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 True, but not important for most players. They have enough to grasp already.

actually that sounds like a very useful distinction and it certainly not at all obvious just from playing the game. i had been wondering why my first war produced ww so much faster than my second war did. now it makes perfect sense.

	09-02-2005 18:52									#16
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This is a good article on the mechanics of WW. In your case Melboz99, losing those cities cost you big time in the WW department. As vmxa1 noted, sometimes it is just better to raze.

You also made a comment about units being left behind and getting picked off. This is where your defensive units come in. If you plan on taking a city, you need enough defenders to hold it against the inevitable AI counterattack AND enough defenders to stay with your attacking stack outside of the city. That's why razing is sometimes the easier thing to do.

	09-02-2005 20:42									#17
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Well, I tried again with the RAR mod.

I just don't understand it...

I made war with the Irioquis again (don't know how I managed to get them as a neighbor with RANDOM). This time I brought along about 30 archers, 6 cats, and 4 European Spearman (defense of 3, attack of 1).

So, I take the first city without loosing a single unit, great. Then I start the 7 turn march towards their major cities. During that march they sent about 10 braves to my cities.

I should have expected that, but somehow I didn't. I had in most towns 1 European spearman and 1 regular spearman. I thought I would be relatively safe, seeing as how I was using ICS, and could move units from other cities as needed.

What I didn't plan on was the amount of moves a brave gets. It was something like 2 or 3. I had never seen these braves untill they were at my borders.

So, I change the production in nearly half my cities to European Spearman, generating about 4 more.

The first city they came to had only one, because I was caught a little offguard. One brave (attack of 2) took out the European speaman in the first try. The next brave took out my spearman, and conquered the city.



Now, listen to this. I finnally get ready to wreak havoc on his main cities. I bomard the city with my 6 cats and it looks like everyone is down to 1 or 2 HP. So, I go in with my archers. The I wipe out most units quite easily, there were a total of 4 in there, I got the first two with no problems. Then I hit this damn defender, similar to my European Speaman. He only has two HP.

My first archer takes him down to 1HP and dies. The second archer doesn't touch him. The third archer doesn't touch him either, and then the defender became elite, gaining two HP. Finnally, I take out my elite Archer and kill him, barely.

So, it took 4 archers, one of them being elite, to take out a defender with 3 defense, and two HP. Does this make any freaking sense?

Then came more of the onslaught of the braves. The braves had absolutely no problem killing my European Spearman. In fact, my regular spearman held out on average 1-3 attacks more!

Oh, and by the way, that ciy was only a size of 3 or 4, same as mine.

Dan O.

	09-02-2005 21:10									#18
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I have no experience with this mod. I have no input, except to say that I would suggest you not use a mod. Well at least until you have a good understanding of the standard version of the game.

As to getting Iroq again, that is a function of the bugged grouping. You tend to get the same civs, if you play the same civ.

	09-02-2005 22:39									#19
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I have no experience with this mod. I have no input, except to say that I would suggest you not use a mod. Well at least until you have a good understanding of the standard version of the game. As to getting Iroq again, that is a function of the bugged grouping. You tend to get the same civs, if you play the same civ.

does making just one of the random civs non random help eliminate this bugged grouping effect?

	09-02-2005 22:45									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo does making just one of the random civs non random help eliminate this bugged grouping effect?

D'oh, this "bug" is an option, you know. It's called "Culturally Linked Start Locations". Turning it off will help.

	09-02-2005 22:51									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Modo44 D'oh, this "bug" is an option, you know. It's called "Culturally Linked Start Locations". Turning it off will help.

"culturally linked start locations" automatically places the iroquois next door to the Celts?

That seems a bit....odd.

	09-02-2005 23:02									#22
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Not automatically, but you often see the same civs near you. I have seen a lot of posts about it. This was one of the things that was to be address in the next mythical patch.

	09-02-2005 23:43									#23
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CLSL automatically picks civs in the Amerindian culture group if they're "random".

	09-02-2005 23:46									#24
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Playing the Celts w/o Iron? That is a travesty. I'd have restarted, Longbows suck, and the Celts don't have a lot to offer past their UU.

	10-02-2005 00:44									#25
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Hello?
Agricultural AND Religious?

I think the Celts are way too powerful when Iron is only a few tiles from their starting location.

quote: Originally posted by Mad Bomber Playing the Celts w/o Iron? That is a travesty. I'd have restarted, Longbows suck, and the Celts don't have a lot to offer past their UU.

	10-02-2005 06:16									#26
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The Celts always seem to be a pretty powerful AI in my games. Once or twice, they even became KAI's on me. Now, I try not to let that happen...nip them in the bud.

Melboz99 I think you could alter your warfighting strategy; basically, unless you're on the sadist difficulty levels, it only takes 2 good-sized stacks to take out just about any AI civ. In that above first example (not using the RAR mod) where you were the celts with no iron, I would have made two stacks, each with about 15 trebuchets, 7 or so spearmen/pikes, and about 30-40 longbowmen/archers. With that stack times two, you could destroy just about any AI.

	10-02-2005 07:25									#27
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quote: My big question is why are there no good attacking infantry in the middle ages? I mean, you get Longbowman with an attack of 4, and then it's not until replaceable parts that you get to upgrade them to Guirillas. That is just too long imo.

Game design decision to have "fast" units be the predominate attack units. After you become quite familiar with the game, use the editor to change as was more historically accurate if you want. I did.

quote: Next time I should bring along some cannons, definately. I'm just always worried about them getting seperated from the stack, and getting picked off

If you let them get separated, then you should have mathematically determined that they could not be reached. Otherwise, just don't move those defensive units from the artillery, no if-and-or-buts.

	12-02-2005 21:58									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Melboz99 What I didn't plan on was the amount of moves a brave gets. It was something like 2 or 3. I had never seen these braves untill they were at my borders.

If this sort of thing is a problem, I suggest reading the Civilopedia a bit.

And if you want a better attacker in the Middle Ages, try building Knight's Templar.

	15-02-2005 09:16									#29
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Speaking of modding the game to get an infantry attacker between Longbowmen and Guerillas, yes--
I like the idea of adding a "Line Infantry"-type unit, which is something like 5/5/1 or something similar. Represents the later musket infantry of 1700-1830. Before rifled shot.

	15-02-2005 20:56									#30
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5/5/1 would be way to high an attack factor for Lined Inf.

3/5/1 would be more like it.

The Calvary of that era is also reflected in the AU Mod Light Calvary. (5/3/3)