01-10-2002 18:10									#1
	My attack plans... Support Apolyton

Ok, I have a fairly interesting game going on right now on the Regent level. If you look at this screenshot, Russia is brown. I am the small orange nation just above them. Currently in the game it is 1280AD. Don't remember the date but several turns ago prior to the current date above, Russia was moving troops within my territory. I had warned them several times to withdraw their troops, many of times they did not. This went on for a while and after one time I warned them, they declared war. We were both similar sized nations and alot of our levels were nearly equal. This war lasted for a short period, maybe like 15 turns or more. We were going back and forth and there was not necessarily anyone winning it. I did feel they had a slight advantage over me though. I felt in the long run I could not keep up with them in economy and resources. Which in turn made me believe my nation could not fight a long term war, I just could not afford it. So I ran to the diplomacy screen and negociated a cease fire, it worked.

Now several years had went by and it is 1280AD. Russia has made a small demand for something they wanted. I gave them what they asked for, but I did not like it. I did not like their threat towards my nation Furthermore my nation is becoming resource hungry. Russia has valueble natural resources that I need. I am payng too much for iron, horses and some luxuries to be imported when Russia has many of these on their land. Time has come to start planning for a full scale offensive.

Preparations have begun... I have ordered three of my cities near the border to start production on barracks, walls, and military units. In the city York, just north of Odessa I have build up a strong army of knights and pikemen. I could get muskets if Greece will give me a good deal on saltpeter overseas. Needless to say Greece has been hardheaded with giving me a good deal on that saltpeter. I will keep trying though because I will need those muskets! York is where my main offensive is going to launch from. First target is the city south of York which is Odessa. I have been exercising espionage investigations every few turns into Odessa. They have a strong defense garrison there. It won't go down without a fight and this is not going to be easy.

As you can see from the screenshot, those are my attack plans. My army will assemble and launch from York. It will press on from there, hopefully capturing at least 2 of Russia's major cities. Once reinforcements arrive, I should be able to continue on, conquering Russia completely. As far as I know, Russia don't have any allies yet.

At last here I go and darn I hope this works as planned...

	01-10-2002 19:08									#2
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It looks fairly strategically sound, but I'd say bring some settlers along so you can raze and rebuild their most cultured cities (Moscow for sure, unless it has a key wonder you want).

If things don't go your way quickly, beware the AI seeking alliances against you. If you bog down at all, I would recommend paying off Russia's NE neighbor (China?) to ally with you. They are fairly small and weak, thus their gains are likely to be small. If you bring in France or Germany, you run the risk of creating a monster.

Good luck.

-Arrian

	01-10-2002 20:15									#3
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watch out for troops coming up from st. petersburg and attacking hastings. the AI has a special way of sending troops in from unexpected locations. make sure all your cities near russia are extremely well protected. also i'm not sure if building walls will make any difference in a city above size 6. you might want to check that out. i'd get an MPP with light pink (china?) and pink (france?) beforehand so russia will be attacked from all directions. also if you have bombarding units, use them. i like to harrass the AI into declaring war on me first, by having troops wander in their territory and offering them horrible deals. OH YEAH, and do you have any trade deals with russia? let them expire before going to war. you probably know all this, though. good luck!!!

	01-10-2002 23:18									#4
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Now this has been crazy...where do I start..hmmm...Ok, did not work as I planned. Well I managed to get the saltpeter from Rome overseas, but at a high price! Yeah they practically robbed me but I needed it. So first off I moved my armies into position and declared war. Investigated the target city just before the declaration and it appeared I should be able to take it. Well not only did half of my knights end up 90% damaged, the other half were attacked from the east and were destroyed. Did not take the city. So I started sending up reinforcements and retreated the damaged knights back to York.

The war carried on a little longer and omg did it get ugly! Off the western coast I spotted 2-3 russian ships heading north. I did not think russia had any naval ships, wrong they did! Then I realized where they were headed, it was to my city at far northwest corner. I never had hardly any defense there and another nearby city in the northeast was similar and lightly defended. I did not have time to send up troops and by the time I got there it was too late. The city was taken over. Then another ship appeared off coast of my northeast city, troops arrived too late and that one was taken over too.

What a mess this was. I never took a single russian city and lost two of my own that were level 6 or higher! A few turns later things started to go downhill on me and I was about to lose hastings. So I talked my way into a cease fire. In my mind it was a temporary cease fire for sure.

	01-10-2002 23:29									#5
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Wait not finished yet...

After turns, I was rebuilding many destroyed improvements and so was russia. Several turns went by then out of nowhere my city north of York, Yakutsk turned over to russia because of culture! I was really mad now! So I managed to buildup a line of musketmen on the boarder, it got fairly large and formed a wall across nearly the entire boarder. Maybe 8-10 muskets.

So a few turns after here comes a russian troop, slips by the ONLY open I have on this boarder. It was heading towards that city Yakutsk which turned on me. This was a musketman too and I did NOT want the reinforcing that city with this. So I block off all of the possible routes so that troop could not make it there. So it did not make it. I contacted russia nearl 3 times about moving troops into my boards and here they were doing it again. So I contacted France and signed a mutal protection pact.

Then I contacted russia (who had a mutal protection pact with france as well) just after this. I once again told them to get the freaking troops out of my territory. They said no and declared war. So I said...I am going to sit back and let them attack me first. They did and all hell broke lose. France declared war on russia.

I then immediately started moving all of my muskets into russia territory, swamping them. I pillaged every last improvement I could. This started to chop down the population in several of their cities. It slowed down their production tremedously. I then signed a trade embargo with Rome against russia, no more saltpeter for russia! In the middle of all of this I managed to take back all of my original cities. On the southern front, I watched and laughed as mighty france just trampled city after city. I was pillaging and france was conquering. Russia was falling...slowly but surely. Then I finally had them at my mercy...talk about felt good.

This game has a long way to go though, but russia is now down to 3 maybe 4 cities. France took many of them over and russia's biggest city is only like a size 6 now. So far, I am victorious, but mainly france was the conqueror here. I could not have done it alone. Anyway, my pillaging continues on...

	01-10-2002 23:35									#6
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Just looking at the overall map in the corner, you will be hard pressed to win this game.

	02-10-2002 01:09									#7
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LOL...yeah thats pretty obvious there with my tiny nation in the center. I know I am not going to win this one, not even close. I have been dead last on the score card the whole time since it started. I had hoped that all of russia would have belonged to me by now, but its all part of france instead. At least russia has been given their punishment and is nearly no more. I need more land and may have to fight again for it. I need the resources in russia!

	02-10-2002 02:01									#8
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You should probably have waited for Cavalry. Did Russia have musketmen? If so, it's no wonder your knights got slaughered. Cavalry would do a lot better. Additionally, you may have done better if you had waited a turn or two before attacking, after you declared war. Russia would probably attempt to attack you, moving their units onto your territory. You could then hit them with everything you had, hopefully killing most of their offensive force. That would really hamper their ability to counterattack once you starting taking cities.

I didn't want to say it but, yeah, you were in a pretty bad situation anyway. England is a tough civ to do well as... they are pretty weak.

-Arrian

	02-10-2002 02:41									#9
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oh, dude, here's what you should do next time - pillage every single road leading to their capital. you may have heard about this strategy. you take some fast units (cheap horsies are good) and just ruthlessly destroy every single road leading in or out of their capital. i like to first do the roads directly next to the capital, then the next squares out to be thorough. first of all, this means that NO resources will get anywhere in their empire, even through trade. so no more modern units. they're stuck with what they have. second, NO luxuries anywhere in their empire. this means MASSIVE unhappiness and rioting. on top of war weariness, the AI is screwed. they're forced to turn everybody into an entertainer, which means food squares won't be worked. which means starvation. which means less people. which means less production. and so on. this is one of the most evil and satisfying ways to get revenge on a bastard neighbor. you HAVE to also make sure to bring bombarding units if they have a harbor or airport, in addition to taking out the roads. you must make sure your army is pretty good before attempting this, too.

it's a good idea to use out-of-date cavalry for pillaging (what else are you going to use them for?), and i also recommend tanks, which can attack twice in a single turn (double your pillaging pleasure).

just don't take their capital or they'll relocate it.

try this sometime - you won't be disappointed.

	02-10-2002 03:09									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Bella Hella ... First of all, this means that NO resources will get anywhere in their empire, even through trade. so no more modern units. they're stuck with what they have. second, NO luxuries anywhere in their empire. ...

It is often stated that cutting off the capital means no resources, but it only cuts off TRADED resources.

Native resources can be used domestically if connected to the particular city by road/harbor/air.

	02-10-2002 03:17									#11
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Bella Hella - be careful with the "Capitol Isolation" tactic - it can be very powerful in certain circumstances, but less powerful in others. It actually does not prevent the distribution of resources within an empire -- it only prevents trading for resources from another civ. If a foe has a rubber resource somewhere in his territory, pillaging roads to the capitol will deny the capitol use of the rubber, but will not deny any other enemy city the use of the rubber so long as some sort of connection exists to the rubber (road, harbors, airports, etc.) On the other hand, if the foe is importing its rubber, the isolation will deny the benefits of imported rubber to all cities.

The Capitol Isolation tactic can work wonders when an enemy of large cities depends on imported luxuries to keep its citizens happy.

Catt

EDIT: Jaybe beat me to it!

	02-10-2002 03:30									#12
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... but Catt expounded so much better!

	02-10-2002 03:59									#13
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Oh guys I forgot to mention a MAJOR and I mean MAJOR thing that happened to me. Those cities that I said were taking during the start of the war by russia from naval invasions...guess what? Well they were my ONLY and I mean ONLY way I was getting all my luxury resources from over seas. You see, it all comes down to those cities were the only ones I had which were connected to germany's nearby coastal city. I was using germany's harbor in their city for my overseas trading. When those cities were captured by russia it cutoff my ability to trade with every last nation but china and russia. This is what I get for not building at least one harbor in my nation...oops...LOL major mistake there. I did not figure out what had happened to several turns later. Then I realised why every one of my cities were rioting and this was at 80% entertainment!! One of the worst things that had ever happened to me. My nation had really relied on luxuries, then next thing ZERO, none at all coming in.

	02-10-2002 04:10									#14
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quote: Originally posted by PrinceBimz You see, it all comes down to those cities were the only ones I had which were connected to germany's nearby coastal city. I was using germany's harbor in their city for my overseas trading. When those cities were captured by russia it cutoff my ability to trade with every last nation but china and russia. This is what I get for not building at least one harbor in my nation...oops...LOL major mistake there. I did not figure out what had happened to several turns later. Then I realised why every one of my cities were rioting and this was at 80% entertainment!! One of the worst things that had ever happened to me. My nation had really relied on luxuries, then next thing ZERO, none at all coming in.

Well, at least you got to see firsthand the effects a successfully-employed Capitol Isolation tactic can have on a civ that depends on foreign luxuries for citizen contentedness.

Catt

	02-10-2002 04:15									#15
	Tired of ads?

Looking at your map, I would suggest you be more agressive in the early game; pump settlers, get your core cities out, and do a archer/ horseman push. You should not let yourself be that small, you will be begging for luxuries and resources the entire game.

	02-10-2002 04:26									#16
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I think I could win this situtation on chieftain and maybe warlord, but that's about it.

I would have had a harbor in Yakutsk anyway.

	02-10-2002 07:15									#17
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Usually I can get much larger, two to three times the size nation I have in this game. It was just bad from the start and Russia messed everything up. They kept me away from alot of valuable land. A war against them very early on may have made a difference. Well back to the game...

	02-10-2002 08:18									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Early wars can determine the difference between win and loss. In my current game, if I hadnt taken out my neighbors with a archer rush my only resources for the entire game would have been horses, alminum, and oil.

If I were you and wanted to continue this game, I'd give up on military victories. Max out production near your best cities, grab as many wonders as possible, set science to max without deficit, and go for spaceship or Culture. If your reputation is good you could try for the UN.

Another tip: don't irrigate grassland. Mine it. Irrigate plains and desert.

	02-10-2002 18:54									#19
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by Tuberski Just looking at the overall map in the corner, you will be hard pressed to win this game.

....it's really not the winning that counts. This looks an exciting game especially because PrinceBimz is in a hopeless situation.

It's got everything: unexpected battles, flanking manuvers, trade embargo's, an identified "enemy number one" in the form of Russia. and the constant threat that his Civilisation is a very small fish surrounded by large hungry shark-like neighbours.

..cool

....and you never know, he may still win!

	02-10-2002 21:03									#20
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

oops, thanks for the corrections, guys.

i'm a big proponent of capitol isolation because in my last game, i wreaked absolute havoc on persia by doing this. their smaller cities were down to size 1 after being as high as 12, and their big cities went from 24 to 10 before i took them. i'd never done much pillaging before this, and it was amazingly satisfying to see the mighty fall so far. i hate persia.

how's the game going, princebimz? hopefully you've built another harbor and are doing ok.

	02-10-2002 22:39									#21
	Got spare money?

Well it is now 1786AD and here is a current screenshot...



I have really caught up in technology very fast. I managed to build a new city where Russia used to be but most of that land is owned by France right now. I will say France has been a very good ally of mine though. As big as they are its good to know they are on my side with this mutual protection pack. Because of this it keeps the other nations from disrespecting me and going to war against me. If they do they will have my friend France to deal with.

As you can see from the map, China is also history. France had wiped them off the map and I mean quickly. Rome is also fairly good friends of mine, I get alot of my resources from them overseas and the relations with them are much better now. What a resource giant they are.

Babylon and Persia had both formed an alliance against me. So in turn I builted up my naval forces for patrolling around my coasts. Protecting that gulf east of Yakutsk is vital. I don't want any Persian or Babylon vessels in there at all! I managed to send a galleon with troops out to land on Persia's continent in the northeast. They made the landing and done light damage to coastal improvements but the troops were quickly beaten off.

I spent my resources on building some Man-O-Wars and Ironclads. I am planning on sending a fleet of them out to the seas in the Northeast to perform bombardment on the Persian coasts. Hopefully I can destroy enough improvements and chop down the pop levels in coastal cities. Eventually I would like to bring France into fighting Perisa with me. I am getting lots of money now so I may be able to pay them to form an alliance with me against Persia. So this is my current plans for now. Its just a good distance across the ocean to Persia's northeast continent. So it will take me fleets several turns to arrive. Also the construction time on building those vessels can take a little while. So it can be another 10 turns or more before I can even send out the ships.

	03-10-2002 09:51									#22
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Guys this has been one heck of a game! It is now 1940 and so much has happened. I am nearly caught up completely in techs but still behind by a few. I managed to get a total of 3 more cities. I have been at war and peace off and on with many countries since I last posted.

Man did the sea become a war zone! Rome and France were really going at it and they had some large sea battles break out. Their navies were both large, I am talking around 30-40 ships! This is what I seen, I could only imagine the ones I did not know about. That channel just west of me is a watery grave, many ships have been sank there. In fact I just had my first Aircraft Carrier, loaded with 2 fighters and 2 bombers torpedoed under in that channel by a greek submarine. I managed to sink that sub with my destroyer but it was too late. I was only at war with Greece until just now when I saved, both Egypt and Rome declared war on me. I now have 3 large powers to deal with, I sure hope france and germany helps me out here, I think they will. Egypt was the first to get battleships and let me tell you they built many of them. I feared them for a long time and still do.

I will say, my tiny nation may not appear to be much, but it is solid. I am talking strong now, but it was a struggle and I nearly got stomped several times. I survived so far...LOL. But I have factories up in many citys also harbors, airports you name it. I can hold my own against much larger nations. I will hope nothing ever happens between me and France, I am scared to death of them...LOL They have been the coolest so far and has helped me this whole game.

I made a fairly successful invasion on the greek coast across the channel to the west of me. I landed 6 infantry and started pillaging improvements. Then I eventually lost all my infantry, they was bombarding them with ships off coast and finishing them with land units. After this I used bombers to fly across that channel and bomb their improvements. This was extremely effective. Just using the bombers alone I was able to chop down pop levels in their cities left and right.

Enough for now but I can type all night about this game...LOL

	03-10-2002 10:10									#23
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looks from ur mao u should get germany and france involved...It's not a good thing that you are weak compared to france and france borders your territory.... slowly overtime, if you dont keep them appeased, they will start thinking about invading you. Get Germany involved for sake of clearing that out of France's mind and keeping their power in check.

and next time you guys both war, send an expedition crew with offensive power capable of taking approximately 2 cities. Then load the stack overwhelmingly with defensive units. Travel with french army and try to conquer the city first whenever you can. If you cant conquer cities urself this is the only viable method I could think of. You should have done this with russians as well. Try to stay at the outskirt of border on the best terrain available and move in for the kill when city is significantly reduced. If you have battle field medicine, you can stay inside enemy teritory. Best would be to camp mountain right next to city, if it exists.
I've also experienced that France for me generally is a really good ally. I guess the commercial factor helps in that I'm always selling something to france and that their cities are quite developed due to industrial trait, Thus many trade interaction occur w/ france in my game.

Last edited by Zero on 03-10-2002 at 10:15

	03-10-2002 14:02									#24
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PrinceBimz...Please post up a mini-map...

..sounds like the game is getting better and better

	04-10-2002 01:43									#25
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Here is a screenshot of that channel in 1979...



Yes those are Egypt Battleships and thats not all of them they had. Also if you look good you will see they had stacks in some spaces. The Navy's had become extremely large and powerful in this game. I started production on submarines and aircraft. Fortunate for me I never went to war with them at this time. As you can see from those ships, it could have became extremely ugly on me.

Just so much going on in that channel, it reminds me of the English channel during WW2. It is also strange how all of this started around the 1920's too. Wars continued off and on until like the mid 60's then things slowed down. I was at peace with everyone when the the mid 80's came around. It all remained peaceful all the way to the late 90's. It is now 2008 and I am at war with Egypt from a threat they made to me. I am at peace with all other nations and this war with egypt just started.

My aircraft are bombing ships in the channel and my submarines are finishing off the heavily damaged vessels. I had some battleships but they ended up sunk from sea battles. So I had to get some vessels out asap, so I started production on subs, destroyers and aircraft. They are cheaper than battleships which of course makes them quicker to build. Some naval vessels are better then nothing so I had to scrape up whatever I could get together.

This war with Egypt is about to REALLY get heated so stay tunned...

	04-10-2002 01:54									#26
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Oh guys...guess what? I just found out this ENTIRE game up until now was being played with v1.07f !!! I kid you not, it was the original first released version of CIV3. I formated my hard drive a while back and installed CIV3. I was interupted just after I installed it and had to leave home for a few mintues. During this I forgot to install the patch and never realised it. I quickly figured out I was playing v1.07f today when my fighters on airsuperiority were not intercepting any bombers. I suddenly realized...oh heck...don't tell me I forgot to patch up...LOL. I feel this is a super interesting game going on here, I think it would have been even more so if I would have patched up from the very beginning to 1.29f. I am all patched up now though, so its continuing on...

I also wanted to mention just prior to that screenshot above of the channel, I was at war with both Rome and Greece. They was sending bombers across that channel bombing the living daylights out of me and man was it hurting. Not to mention when war broke out with Rome I was no longer getting ANY resources or luxuries! I could not get oil, rubber, or anything! I managed to get a cease fire, and treaty. Then it calmed down and i was albe to resume my trading. Good thing because as soon as I started trading again, I built a large airforce, another aircraft carrier, several subs and a few destroyers. I also built up a massive division of tanks, infantry and artillery.

I will post another screen up here next with a fully explored world map, that I stole from egypt with a spy

	04-10-2002 11:11									#27
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Like I said, Germany seems like a viable target, just from a minmap point of view and ur information of that u get ur mian resource from romans. I'd say to back off romans for while if ur lifeline is dependent on them. try to bring them to ur mpp side. and have france as well fight germany fo you. ty to split the empire amongst you (you might not get exact 1/3 but) then repeat this with other nations until you gain reputable power. If you wanna kill offf everyone in the game, it looks like you and france will have long way to friendship. If playing friendly is your way, Rome and France's friendship should never be discarded, while you pick off less friendly nations and gain power enough to be respected.

	04-10-2002 11:12									#28
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I never get much naval unit action... nor did i hear of anyone having so much life in the sea in the game... must be related to how much resource player is engaging in navy that determines how much they use as well to counteract.

	04-10-2002 12:29									#29
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quote: I never get much naval unit action... nor did i hear of anyone having so much life in the sea in the game

My thoughts exactly. Interesting. It is probably due to that narrow channel that basically separates (almost) all the continents. It is a meeting point for all of the nations involved.

	04-10-2002 20:56									#30
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Calc, I did have thoughts of ganging up on Germany. Thankfully the war with Egypt is now over but I am not sure for how long. The world is currently at peace I just don't think it will stay that way. Especially considering everyone is furious with me.

I will say I did not start building alot of ships but the AI certainly did. They had many ships out there before I really had hardly any. I may have just had like 2 or 3 ships for a very long time in the game. In time I noticed massive naval buildup from the AI. Then I had no choice but to start production on a navy that can protect my seas and shoreline. I think the sea had been a heavy issue here due to the map setup. It was all completely random settings, I put everything on random so I am not sure what the settings are. But if you look at the map it does not really appear to be water heavy, maybe just average. Its just setup with a few oceans.

I guess with egypt, greece and rome being superpowers and fairly large ocean areas seperating them from me, france, and germany makes need for navy. Oh and by the way you should see france's navy, they are nearly the size of egypt's. Rome has a decent size navy too. But germany I can say never really built much of a navy this game though. Don't know why.

At last I am really outnumbered and outpowered in the sea right now. Good thing I have time to build up more navy before war breaks out again. Until next post wish me luck because I need it