my H2H running record...

[Pedal2Metal]

Right, the secret strat. Well, I haven't seen it yet. I know China can have tanks in the BCs, but that's only if nobody is pressing them and if the map is agreeable. It strikes that there isn't a ton of room for error here since America with a strong start and have a knight offensive well before 0. China isn't going to have riflemen armies everywhere at that point and even if they do, two knight armies can beat a rifleman army. What's the plan to counter 10 fundamentalist knight armies if you don't have tanks in time? Single units could delay things a little, but you can't rush 10 more riflemen every turn, especially given that they cost 80 gold in industrial and 100 gold in modern. That knight army only costs 75!

I can only speculate not knowing what the strat is. I'm assuming it is just an optimal plan to achieve a critical mass of beakers and then run up the tech tree as quickly as possible. I do find it hard to believe that can be achieved while still having strong enough defenses to deflect an early knight rush, but I'm willing to be convinced.

I would like to experience/hear about this strat at some point. I don't have a lot of interest in playing China myself, but am mostly interested in how to beat it, what it's weaknesses are, etc. Still, it's going to take a lot to convince me that China is the most baroken.

China isn't broken IMO, it's just strong & flexible. I think anyone w/2 horse armies can press anyone so America doesn't have a monopoly on horsearmies & pressing their opponents. In Ancient, that's about all you've got so whoever has better battle tactics & gold usually wins the Ancient horse battle, regardless of civ.

First off, few good players build many static defenses early. Most good players will use either natural defenses (mountains, ocean, chokes, etc...) or dynamic defense (horsearmies mainly) so they can expand their empire quickly, safely, & efficiently to build their power base (cities). Any cities they lose, they just counter-attack & take back or forget about it. I've yet to see a game against you, Grayson, Morte, etc... where anyone had armies everywhere until well into the game where the gold is flowing & your empire is established. So the idea of building riflemen armies everywhere sounds like a specious argument to me. You won't need to do that, just be prepared to build them where you need them & when you need them which is usually pretty easy to predict for a knight rush over land. Over water, China should have the advantage due to tech lead.

That being said, I'm not saying you can be an idiot, leave the Americans alone in Ancient, build archer armies everywhere, & you're going to win. No, you still have to do all the things we've discussed when playing America. It's just that w/China, if you do those things, & just have an average H2H game (1 cap + 100 gold, nothing else), you can reliably beat America in H2H. As far as map luck, you don't need much of that at all actually, just 1 cap + 100 gold.

As we all know, it's highly preferred to strike America before they can strike you due to their unit advantage. China should be able to do this for any given target tech/unit reliably in H2H with the proper strategy/approach. How to do this & whether it's good enough to win depends upon the player skills but so far my son has beaten Uber Spitnale (America) among other top-10 H2H American players w/Chinese. Can he also do it w/America & Germany? Yes but he loves China & more civs to counter America in H2H is always better IMO.

As you have surmised, speed is key. If you sit around, you're just giving time to America, always a bad idea. However, the margin of error for China is definitely more forgiving than other civs & the flexibility is high. That's what makes it nice. You can have a plan A & plan B while w/most other civs, it's just "hail mary" as Plan A, B, & C!

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[elthrasher]

Well, hopefully a really good China game is something I'll experience someday. I see people doing decent things with them, like bringing up a couple knight armies with more on the way before 0. That's fairly strong and will confound the average player out there. I've never seen a China player get to tanks in the BCs. If it ever happens in a game I'm in, it'll be because I'm playing the Arabs on the island with no shallow water to the mainland or am crippled in some other major way. I did have an Egyptian opponent get bombers around 0 once, but I had a horrible start in that game getting very little gold and losing my horses right away. I never reached 100 gold but still had a couple catapult armies on the way when Oxford went off. Naturally the cats weren't much use.

My point is that in almost all my games against good players, we slow the heck out of each other. I've had games against headless and TyShine where one or both of us is still in medieval after 1000 AD because we can't really afford to expand much due to the vulnerability of new cities and the need to replace spent units and can't afford to tech because we need the gold so badly. I recall a game against headless in which we were both way behind the Japanese AI in tech for a while. Ha.

So having enough riflemen in time to stop a bunch of knight armies? I believe it can happen. I'm extremely curious to see how it is easy and reliable as you say. The fact remains that it takes a lot of riflemen to stop 10 knight armies. At any rate, I still think the much more likely outcome of such a matchup would be one party or the other gets somewhere with horsemen and the game is basically decided at that stage.

But one final thing. If America is broken and China isn't but China can beat America, how is China not broken? Seems like there should be some transitive axiom or something in effect there. Or to put it another way, if China is capable of such feats, what hope does a middling civ like Japan have? If Japan has no hope to win, how is China not broken?

[Jaguar-Man]

It is very easy to control where the galley spawns: just put 1 worker on the water tile where you want it and no other workers on any water, then rush it. It will spawn on your worked water tile. Then you can switch back the workers to whatever you want them to be on.

I thought that was the case, but I wasn't sure enough and if the galley spawned the wrong side it was useless for picking up 7 cities. I knew Moscow was south (making it 4 moves longer to get) and on the right side and I shouldn't have any trouble getting it so I waited. The English knicking my horse army slowed that galley production down as i had to get defence up. London wasn't to many turns away and Moscow had a hill next to it.

[danthechan]

i had a bunch of short games last night. in the first i was french against egypt w/colossus. i was getting lots of gold and had just discovered 2 more barbs off my galley when the gypo horse army showed up. he got everything. aw for fund., 7 cities, kt, etc. he took down greeks and america. i got my builder but i was buried before i ever got a chance to use it.
later i got india overrun by ravendarklust's blitz horse army. we rematched and i put aztec on aztec. i was looking strong as i got hbr from a friendly before settling. i settle next turn by a barb and rushed a warrior to take it. i rushed a horse and sent it down to another barb that was shown. i ran across an arab warrior and as i climbed a hill to get the barb an aztec horse sideswiped me. she took the barb and i quickly formed an army from cash my warrior was earning. arabs were about 10 spaces west so i took a chance and went for them. i got them in 1 turn and managed to research bw in 2 turns before she took my cap, getting religion from me. she moved 2 squares east and i took back the empty cap. i immediatly got out next turn and she wisely didn't jump right back in. after some a-dar i realized she left and i quickly assembled an archer army. i took a barb, getting blitz, and ran across a german warrior. i went in search of berlin but found madrid instead (pretty sweet). as i went for a barb 2 squares away i see it get wiped out. i swooped in for the kill and she then quit. with navigation and a huge territory it was all academic.

[Pedal2Metal]

Well, hopefully a really good China game is something I'll experience someday. I see people doing decent things with them, like bringing up a couple knight armies with more on the way before 0. That's fairly strong and will confound the average player out there. I've never seen a China player get to tanks in the BCs. If it ever happens in a game I'm in, it'll be because I'm playing the Arabs on the island with no shallow water to the mainland or am crippled in some other major way. I did have an Egyptian opponent get bombers around 0 once, but I had a horrible start in that game getting very little gold and losing my horses right away. I never reached 100 gold but still had a couple catapult armies on the way when Oxford went off. Naturally the cats weren't much use.

My point is that in almost all my games against good players, we slow the heck out of each other. I've had games against headless and TyShine where one or both of us is still in medieval after 1000 AD because we can't really afford to expand much due to the vulnerability of new cities and the need to replace spent units and can't afford to tech because we need the gold so badly. I recall a game against headless in which we were both way behind the Japanese AI in tech for a while. Ha.

So having enough riflemen in time to stop a bunch of knight armies? I believe it can happen. I'm extremely curious to see how it is easy and reliable as you say. The fact remains that it takes a lot of riflemen to stop 10 knight armies. At any rate, I still think the much more likely outcome of such a matchup would be one party or the other gets somewhere with horsemen and the game is basically decided at that stage.

But one final thing. If America is broken and China isn't but China can beat America, how is China not broken? Seems like there should be some transitive axiom or something in effect there. Or to put it another way, if China is capable of such feats, what hope does a middling civ like Japan have? If Japan has no hope to win, how is China not broken?

FFA is slower than H2H by definition. However, as you saw in the last tourney w/my son, he held his own just fine w/Aztecs against British (headless) & Greeks (madjinn) & would probably have given you a better challenge if you hadn't started on an island. I can say with confidence his China game is better, much better. I think bumbumalot can back me up on this. My son has come a long way in his China game from the days of getting stomped when he first started.

True. Good players slow each other down but in H2H, it's not as much as FFA due to less proximity & only 1 human opponent. As you say, many games between good players goes down in Ancient w/horses. I agree. Headless & my son played 20 turns, game over. Same for lots of games w/Morte & Grayson. So that's generally true. For the cases, where it's not & you've got the room to expand/defend, I'm comfortable betting on China & my son, even against top-10 American players in H2H, including yourself. Will he win all of them? Probably not but will the other guy know he had a genuine game? Definitely!

You've assumed that building riflemen is the approach. It isn't. That was mainly an anecdotal example, although 1 vet riflemen army + 1 vet cruiser fleet can stop a lot of knights & it's highly mobile as well. It's easy to get both of these techs long before America shows up w/knights (except w/a tremendous start). It's a potential leg on the stool, but it isn't enough to support the entire stool. Can riflemen be sufficient, potentially, but you've got to be playing a full game, not just focusing (or obsessing in this case on only 1 aspect (riflemen) of an overall strategy.

My son has gotten tanks in BCs on the 2 times he felt it was doable. As you know choosing your endpoint intelligently depends upon experience, map, etc.... He won't go for tanks if he doesn't think it's feasible. However, if it is, BC tanks seems repeatable in his hands. This does require 1 GS however. Early AD tanks (maybe 250-400 AD) does not require a GS.

As far as China not being broken, that's a mathematical statement. America's 1/2 price units bonus is broken as we've discussed many times & verified independently. China doesn't have any mathematical issues with it's bonuses. So your statement is more about the overall power of the civ relative to others which may in fact be true. My statement is more a mathematical issue. If America's bonus was truly 1/2 instead of 1/3 in Medieval, then it wouldn't be quite as difficult to deal w/America although it would still be ranked w/China as a powerful civ. The fact that the bonus is mathematically broken just exacerbates an already powerful civ.

We still need more mileage but after 30+ games, some good players played, it appears pretty solid. Maybe at 100+ games we'll be in the same statistical territory as we got to w/America & can better evaluate.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[Zefelius]

My point is that in almost all my games against good players, we slow the heck out of each other. I've had games against headless and TyShine where one or both of us is still in medieval after 1000 AD because we can't really afford to expand much due to the vulnerability of new cities and the need to replace spent units and can't afford to tech because we need the gold so badly. I recall a game against headless in which we were both way behind the Japanese AI in tech for a while. Ha.

I wonder if it's possible for the AI to win. Wouldn't that be something? Perhaps you would both get a loss if it were a ranked game. That would be quite funny...

[Zefelius]

Speaking of the Chinese, in one of the above comments, I myself don't seem to do much better with them than, say, the Arabs. I hadn't used them in a couple months, I think, so thought I would try them out for a change yesterday, and of course went up against Asmod's Chinese and lost pretty quickly. He's very good with them, and I was rusty moving my settler to a worse position, so maybe that one doesn't count for a typical game. The next one I won, but then I lost again to RavenDarklust's Aztecs in a horsefight in which she took down 4 of my armies. I just sucked really badly with them. I guess it takes practice, as with any civ. What I'm trying to figure out now is how soon to make settlers as opposed to trying to just simply overpower the opponet with early strength. I think if I used the Americans I would do even worse, but maybe after 5 games or so get the hang of it.

[asmodeios]

Speaking of the Chinese, in one of the above comments, I myself don't seem to do much better with them than, say, the Arabs. I hadn't used them in a couple months, I think, so thought I would try them out for a change yesterday, and of course went up against Asmod's Chinese and lost pretty quickly. He's very good with them, and I was rusty moving my settler to a worse position, so maybe that one doesn't count for a typical game. The next one I won, but then I lost again to RavenDarklust's Aztecs in a horsefight in which she took down 4 of my armies. I just sucked really badly with them. I guess it takes practice, as with any civ. What I'm trying to figure out now is how soon to make settlers as opposed to trying to just simply overpower the opponet with early strength. I think if Iused the Americans I would do even worse, but maybe after 5 games or so get the hang of it.

For me it depends on the start I have to when I start making settlers.

If I find a hut before it gets to two flags in the first couple of turns I'll usually have my 100 gold and my 2nd settler by 2800 bc.

Plant those two to settle then tech HBR and use my gold to horse rush from 3 cities.

That game we played was probably a little atypical Zef because i had gotten AW, the Aoc with 5 cities as well as KT but the game was over before KT got off the boat.

I don't blame you for quiting when you did since you said you were cramped up.

I knew you had a horse army a tile or so from Rome thats why I had my 2nd horse army to take it from you :-)

[Pedal2Metal]

Well, I will say that if my son played America against himself as China, we both think his America would be more likely to win although he'd have himself a game. I had forgotten just how ridiculuously strong the Americans are.

He just played America again (for old times sake) & it was ridiculuous. 1 cap by 3500 BC, 1 horsearmy by 3400 BC, 2nd horsearmy by 3200 BC, 2 caps by 3000 BC, guy quits by 2900 BC. I don't blame him.

A second game as America wasn't so strong but still pretty ridiculuous (3000 BC, tons of barbs, etc...).
Both games together took <5 minutes.

Played Chief Rocka next, America vs. America. 100 gold, HBR, & 1 horse by 3400 BC. First horsearmy by 3200 BC. Unfortunately, Chief had him choked off. Still got 250 gold w/no caps. Chief got 7cities, SoC, AoC, Zulu cap + second city. Built 18 cities, got Literacy first, Had 4 vet knight armies by 0, Religion on the way, going to attack on 2 fronts. Chief quit.

So yeah, America is still the king of the roost but I do think China can give them a run in a good player's hands. Germany can too with a decent start but that's tougher than China. I'm strictly speaking H2H as FFA is measurably more chaotic.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[Zefelius]

After reading and thinking about the teachings of the Buddha for a few hours, in preparation for tomorrow's philosophy class, I decided to end my night with a little Civ Rev. I won, and I admit I got a little lucky against LA Angels, as I found the 7C quickly and was thus able to beat back his early horse army (which I'll admit he put together much more quickly than I expected just a bit after 3000). He had the early advantage in battles as he caught me by surprise, but with all my cash I won the battle that counted, put 3 armies together once I had Paris, and then invaded London. My own feeling about invading long bows and pikemen that early is that you know you're going to lose two armies but you hope that you have even odds on the last one and that the computer will see fit to give you at least one battle out of three. I guess that's just my own weird logic, but it worked tonight and I won the game.

Anyway, he sent me a message saying it was the luckiest game ever. In the spirit of the Buddha ( ), I said he was good with England. He rebuttled with "I'm good with any civ." Okay... so I gave him one last comment saying that was "good to hear." After reading several passages tonight suggesting that we should be less egotistical and release ourselves from greed and desire, it was kind of funny to be reminded of just how silly we humans can be!

[elthrasher]

FFA is slower than H2H by definition. However, as you saw in the last tourney w/my son, he held his own just fine w/Aztecs against British (headless) & Greeks (madjinn) & would probably have given you a better challenge if you hadn't started on an island. I can say with confidence his China game is better, much better. I think bumbumalot can back me up on this. My son has come a long way in his China game from the days of getting stomped when he first started.

Where's the FFA vs H2H comparison coming from? Most of my tough competition games have been H2H player matches. I'm talking about two players who just run at one another all game. This is going to slow progression up the tech tree to a crawl.

You've assumed that building riflemen is the approach. It isn't. That was mainly an anecdotal example, although 1 vet riflemen army + 1 vet cruiser fleet can stop a lot of knights & it's highly mobile as well. It's easy to get both of these techs long before America shows up w/knights (except w/a tremendous start). It's a potential leg on the stool, but it isn't enough to support the entire stool. Can riflemen be sufficient, potentially, but you've got to be playing a full game, not just focusing (or obsessing in this case on only 1 aspect (riflemen) of an overall strategy.

Well, I didn't really assume your son's strat was all about early riflemen. You brought it up.

My son has gotten tanks in BCs on the 2 times he felt it was doable. As you know choosing your endpoint intelligently depends upon experience, map, etc.... He won't go for tanks if he doesn't think it's feasible. However, if it is, BC tanks seems repeatable in his hands. This does require 1 GS however. Early AD tanks (maybe 250-400 AD) does not require a GS.

Yes, I know this is doable with China. That's nothing new. I still say it's not doable if your opponent is doing his job, but even in a tough spot China can get tanks before 1000 reliably, which is why I think they're broken.

As far as China not being broken, that's a mathematical statement. America's 1/2 price units bonus is broken as we've discussed many times & verified independently. China doesn't have any mathematical issues with it's bonuses. So your statement is more about the overall power of the civ relative to others which may in fact be true. My statement is more a mathematical issue. If America's bonus was truly 1/2 instead of 1/3 in Medieval, then it wouldn't be quite as difficult to deal w/America although it would still be ranked w/China as a powerful civ. The fact that the bonus is mathematically broken just exacerbates an already powerful civ.

I'm using the gamer definition of "broken" (why I often spell it baroken), which means too strong, rather than a conventional definition, meaning in need of repair. China is needlessly strong in CivRev, as is America.

[elthrasher]

I wonder if it's possible for the AI to win. Wouldn't that be something? Perhaps you would both get a loss if it were a ranked game. That would be quite funny...

You mean possible for the AI to win a non-dom victory? Um, yes in theory but a big no in practice. The AI doesn't even try to win until like after 2000 most of the time. It's really been a long time since I've had a game run that long. When I'm talking about slow progression up the tech tree due to constant pressure, I'm talking about not having knights yet at 1000 AD. The games still aren't running to 2000.

[elthrasher]

Had a horrible game last night. I was the French and my opponent was the Zulu. I got a late horse army out, got no caps with it and didn't even hit any barbs (although I did okay with warriors against barbs). I wound up trading it for an impi army. What a great deal!

The Zulu took the Mongol cap and a not-entirely useless barb city. He tried rushing Spain, but got there too late and I had declared war after making sure they had Bronze some time ago. He also got the Seven Cities and Knights Templar cannon. Somehow he used that cannon to take both Aztec cities really late. Crazy! My only GP were artists which only let me flip the Mongol and Aztec 2nd cities. This guy didn't expand, only rushed libraries, but he went up the tech tree very fast and got the EITC. I tried getting some cities out, but having wasted too much time on the horserush that went nowhere, it was a very slow slow process. Eventually quit when I was down like 24-11 techs. Gah.

The horserush wasn't a great idea in retrospect, but my real issue was that I built a couple extra warriors at the start to deal with fast impis, but he was on the other side of the map. I really have to stop myself from doing this. If he gets me in 3600 BC, who cares? That's hardly a game. It's better to take the risky approach and get the horse army out fast or get my pop up or make some settlers or something. I don't know why I make this mistake from time to time, but it's always very costly unless my opponent is really bad.

[Pedal2Metal]

Where's the FFA vs H2H comparison coming from? Most of my tough competition games have been H2H player matches. I'm talking about two players who just run at one another all game. This is going to slow progression up the tech tree to a crawl.
.

Using your own logic, FFA, by definition, is slower as you have 4 guys running at each other instead of 2.

Take any situation you set up in H2H, the same situation in FFA will always be slower due to this natural reason. 4 players vs. 2 means:
more competition for: barbs, land, techs, cities, etc....
This will translate into a slower comparative progression, especially at the start of the game. Eventually the FFA will likely reduce to an H2H & then it's back to your argument + a naturally slower start which naturally equals a slower game by comparison.

Maybe my son's comments about FFA attracting noobs is accurate & what you're referring to. Maybe H2H has a higher average level of competition so in practice the result may be different even though in the normalized theoretical comparison, FFA should always be slower.

As a reference point, my son & I rarely have any H2H game go to 1000 AD. In his FFA games, it's also rare, but does happen more often. So in my experience, FFA is a slower pace, especially at the start (first 20 turns).

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[elthrasher]

Using your own logic, FFA, by definition, is slower as you have 4 guys running at each other instead of 2.

Sure, I agree with that, but I wasn't sure how it relates to the discussion of a China strat.

But FFA does attract more noobs. Makes sense. If you choose "quick match" you always get a FFA. When I was just starting out, I'd got to the ranked match menu and pick "quick match" because I just wanted to play some games and didn't know what kind of game it would put me in. I suspect others do the same. You have to play H2H or Teams on purpose.

[Pedal2Metal]

Sure, I agree with that, but I wasn't sure how it relates to the discussion of a China strat.
.

Sure, let me elaborate.

H2H, you have more access to: AI cities, barbs, land. As a result, you can expand very quickly w/Chinese, even against Americans & get some very serious tech going. I won't go into details but suffice to say most people just quit at this point because it appears so hopeless already. Chinese don't need any "extraordinary" luck to do this, just 1 cap + 100 gold which is reliably achievable in H2H w/horsearmy. In FFA, it doesn't appear the 100 gold is as reliable so you have to be more adaptive depending upon the map, etc....
Also you don't need bazillions of cities, so this makes H2H even more reliable as you can virtually always find the amount of land/coastline you need, unless you get a 5-tile island start. Even a large island (build 5 cities or so) is just fine for Chinese.

But FFA does attract more noobs. Makes sense. If you choose "quick match" you always get a FFA. When I was just starting out, I'd got to the ranked match menu and pick "quick match" because I just wanted to play some games and didn't know what kind of game it would put me in. I suspect others do the same. You have to play H2H or Teams on purpose.

Good point. I never do "quick match" so I didn't realize that. Now I know why "noobs" end up in FFA a lot.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[elthrasher]

Sure, let me elaborate.

H2H, you have more access to: AI cities, barbs, land. As a result, you can expand very quickly w/Chinese, even against Americans & get some very serious tech going. I won't go into details but suffice to say most people just quit at this point because it appears so hopeless already. Chinese don't need any "extraordinary" luck to do this, just 1 cap + 100 gold which is reliably achievable in H2H w/horsearmy. In FFA, it doesn't appear the 100 gold is as reliable so you have to be more adaptive depending upon the map, etc....
Also you don't need bazillions of cities, so this makes H2H even more reliable as you can virtually always find the amount of land/coastline you need, unless you get a 5-tile island start. Even a large island (build 5 cities or so) is just fine for Chinese.

Okay, I see what you're saying. I still think that while China can get a tech advantage overall, a very strong American player could show up with a bunch of fundamentalist knights in time to give the Chinese some real trouble. When it comes down to unit vs. unit, the Chinese have a severe disadvantage due to having to pay four times the gold for each unit (assuming American in medieval and Chinese in industrial). If the knight rush is stopped, then very likely China wins the day.

So it would be about timeframe. In the past you've reported having 10 knight armies in 500 BC, I think. Can China repel all those knights at that point? Maybe, but I don't think it would be easy. Since China has fewer, better cities, the loss of one or several is far more costly. Yeah, if he can get a couple tank armies around then, then he probably wins (though knights sometimes kill tanks), but that's not going to be reliable or repeatable.

[Pedal2Metal]

So it would be about timeframe..

Absolutely. Uber Spitnale fell by 250 ADish. Most every game is over by 250 AD. So timeframe is essential.

In the past you've reported having 10 knight armies in 500 BC, I think. Can China repel all those knights at that point? Maybe, but I don't think it would be easy. Since China has fewer, better cities, the loss of one or several is far more costly. Yeah, if he can get a couple tank armies around then, then he probably wins (though knights sometimes kill tanks), but that's not going to be reliable or repeatable.

Yes, a super-strong start by America (3 caps, 7cities) is going to be tough to stop, virtually impossible. In that specific case, I doubt it's possible to stop it. However, that's a highly improbable start, even for America, especially if you consider that China will have horsearmies as well & can hurt America in Ancient when it really hurts where China can actually be more efficient & flexible due to +1 pop. As we've discussed, you can't throw out the usual tactics of countering America & Ancient is the best time to strike them so all the usual arguments apply. The thing that China provides which isn't as unreliable as you might think is that along w/competitive horsearmies, they can expand early & get the tech up. So when combined with Ancient era push (which all you really need to do is force America to build archer armies which should burn at least 80 gold which is 4 settlers, a significant dent in their Medieval expansion), this provides a very powerful 1-2 punch to end the game by early ADs (0-250 AD). This is usually sufficient to stop the American Juggernaut. Is it foolproof? No, obviously. But it's a heck of lot better than any other civ can muster reliably.

thanks & best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[danthechan]

i got in a h2h last night against asmodeios's china. i knew he'd be china so i decided to test zulu against them. pretty much everything went right for me, but it was the kind of luck zulu makes for itself. i got out in 3 directions and found barbs in all. my eastern one caught a huge break when it came upon empty 3 pop athens. the pikeman was 2 squares out. i formed 3 armies and found egypt and the oracle with a ninja army. i found china due north with another ninja army. for some stupid reason i thought i took egypt, but they still had a warrior left. i attacked bejjing 6-7.5 thinking i had the oracle. doh. luckily i still got thebes. i found moscow a little too late and they survived my assault. the oracle hurt me there as i could have wounded the archer and taken it out with a 2nd army. athens only had 2 grass so i set to colossus to bank hammers for a granery. before long i had 250 gold and to my suprise saw i could rush colossus. i kept banking 2 hammers while growing to 4 pop, then grew to 5 with a gh. i kept him pinned in a tight area and defending with armies so his early tech was slow. this was the deciding factor and i rushed collosus and a library. even with this at 15 techs we were about even. i took 1 of his cities with my remaining 2 warrior armies and then set to growing and developing my cities. alot of you guys would go straight for the kill then but i've done that before only to have top players deflect my assault and blow right by me. he kept up in tech for a while but i got a trading post and library in thebes, and 4 settlers out on my free galleon. i never saw him at sea (i would have tried to sink him immediatly if i did), which made me comfortable in waiting on atlantis for a few turns. i finished the 1 turn techs, feud. and religion, and then got rr, gunpowder, and metal for free. he quit after i gs'd comb. and landed my warriors and a cat army with a cruiser fleet in 1050. not super fast but good for me. the tech race finished 28-18.
i'm sure he'll beat me down next time we play but for now i'll bask in beating a top player/civ combo.

[elthrasher]

I got the Mongols against Zulu today. I made some bad moves with my warriors and also noticed the Zulu had HBR as their first tech. I stuck to the plan but only got one barb. Had another one stolen by the Aztecs (but at least they sent me the caravan). I was moving in on the Aztec 2nd city when a Zulu horse army showed up. I attacked and lost 6-6. Sigh.

The guy offered a rematch, Mongols vs. Mongols. Right on! I got two barbs and got my horses out and found the Zulu. Knowing what might happen, I attacked Zimbabwe with my horses after getting a 3rd barb. The Zulu attacked one of my barbs from a hill 2-2 and won. I got the cap, but lost my barb, heh. Kind of embarassing.

I went exploring a little more, but the other Mongols found my horse army and killed it. But fortunately I was making a lot of gold by then and had archers to keep him out of my existing cities. We were both progressing very slowly, so I worked gold for a long time and got a 2nd horse army and a free settler in my cap. I rushed a galley there and soon found the Seven Cities.

Heading the other direction, I found another barb and the Arab AI. Meanwhile my opponent took the Zulu/barb city, tried for the Romans, but couldn't get Rome. I took the Arab 2nd city (3 pop, since I sold them techs to get them to medieval) and got Religion and made a 3rd army. I baited my enemy's horse army with a single horse and finally got my city back, killing his army. I also got Tripoli after several turns of killing archers. Got Math, too, so I was to have Navigation quickly.

I eventually pressed further with my two horse armies in fundamentalism and my opponent quit.

After that I got the French against Zulu. I was off to a good start with HBR finished and 100 gold in 3000 BC and knew where Delhi was. The Zulu took Tripoli. I checked diplomacy and he'd gone to anarchy. Sure enough, he lagged out next turn. Got to wait a turn!

[danthechan]

and he probably will think you froze it on him.

[elthrasher]

and he probably will think you froze it on him.

Perhaps, but having been on the bad end of a few of these, it's clear your system has locked up and needs to be reset. I've never wondered if it might've been caused by another player because it's clearly something wrong on the local end. Not like getting a disconnect or the gears stop turning or the gears only turn.

[danthechan]

i'm just saying a person who still makes that mistake might be still in that mindset where you think every freeze is player caused. it has been a long time since i've been intentionally frozen i think. i always thought that freezers didn't love the game, and therefore wouldn't stay around as long as us.

[Zefelius]

I got the Mongols against Zulu today. I made some bad moves with my warriors and also noticed the Zulu had HBR as their first tech. I stuck to the plan but only got one barb. Had another one stolen by the Aztecs (but at least they sent me the caravan). I was moving in on the Aztec 2nd city when a Zulu horse army showed up. I attacked and lost 6-6. Sigh.

The guy offered a rematch, Mongols vs. Mongols. Right on!

That's rare and very refreshing...

[Vernerverner]

I like Ehogg2, because he was an American player only for a while, and now he plays with other civs, usually the Greeks now. After beating him a few times in row, when he had an almost 90% record, at first he was saying it was bad luck, then he started saying I was better than him, and he wanted to get better. When he started using other civs, our games actually became a lot better and more enjoyable.

If you want to gain rank w/ Americans and Chinese, that's fine. But, I'll warn you that rank is very addicting, and gaining the rank will more than likely lead you to want to protect the rank, thus making you feel like you have to choose a power civ so you have a lower chance of dropping points.

Once you get highly ranked, games are more costly if you lose, and you don't get that much for a win. As it stands, you might get to the top ranks with the Americans and Chinese, but, if you lose a few games, I bet it will be very hard for you to pick other civs once you lose your spot on the leaderboard. It takes winning more than 80% of your games to maintain a 1500 rating, and more if you want to move up on the leaderboard.

The best time to use other civs is when you are lower ranked. If you want to just get up to the top 10 or 20 once, and then start choosing other civs, that can work, just know that it's going to be very hard for you to stay in those top ranks, unless you are really good with other civs. One freeze or disconnect can bump you down a whole lot of points.

I remember the first time I got the Arabs to the top ranks, I got to #4, and then had 1 loss and two freezes, and I lost 80 points for those 3 games. It took me 2 weeks to get those points back.

You can do what you want. It's a game. I think you handled Ehogg2's message great. It's not always easy to get a msg saying you won just because of civ choice, because that's usually a backhand insult. But, when I win with a power civ, I pretty much expect to get those msgs. I usually apologize, offer a rematch, or just inform them that i have the French and Arabs in the top ranks, and I'm not reliant on those to play well. I usually tell people that if they play me again, and they don't want me to be a particular civ, just let me know. If they are still an ass, then I just ignore them.

Anyway, glad you are liking xbox!

Hi Grayson,

Thank you very much for these well-meant advice and comments.
I understand and agree with most Ior actually every thing) you write, and I would like to comment on it.
However, this is a bit outside the intention of this thread so I will write another one.

[Vernerverner]

I'm not trying to pick on anyone here, especially not Verner who seems like a nice, reasonable person and has every right to play whatever civ he wants to play. I'm just trying to...well, okay I am actually trying to cause an existential crisis, but just a small one!

Hi elthrasher,
Thank you for calling me a nice reasonable person.
First, I want to say I understand what you are talking about, and I want to comment on it.
However, as I wrote to Grayson this is a bit outside the intention of this thread so I will write another one.

[danthechan]

it may be hard to believe but last night i finally faced the full power of the american h2h battlestar. i have been lucky to avoid the top american players to that point. the opponent was dukeblue and i was spain. i settled 2nd turn with whale/2 forest/and marble. i got a decent start and took out paris with horses. he was spamming tons of coastal cities and i harrassed his militia defenders with my ninja horse army straight off the galleon. he eventually killed the army and i set about expanding. i got the ark with temples already built in madrid and paris (i was already banking production there when i found it). i was up 14-10 in techs when he started laying down knight armies like playing cards. i lost a great city but he needed to pass madrid to march into my mainland holdings. i held with a vet pike army, archer army, and 2 cat armies. he took my next city but a road allowed me to come behind him and stop his assault. at this point i made the only error i can see all game. i got a builder and rushed eitc. i got atlantis and after teching metal. used a gs on comb. then he built oxford. i used another gs to tech flight and i though i'd be ok. what ensued was an hour long chess match of him spamming bomber wings and tank armies for what it cost me to form fighter wings. i repelled attack after attack, losing some cities but pulling ahead in tech. i was in position but i couldn't see any path to victory. any gold i collected went to producing units. arty, tanks, bombers, battleships, could all be countered by him in spades. my vet mod inf. got upgraded in madrid but he killed them before i could use it and heal them. madrid finally fell at 1450 and i gave up my fight ( i had a ga but it wouldn't let me flip madrid back, just some worthless city across the globe).
if i had done oxford i could have used bombers to keep him from hurting me for much longer. maybe hammering oxford, gs-ing to corp, and gb-ing the internet might have been a plan. it was a very frustrating game as i thought i got many breaks and made many good moves but still never had much chance to win. i'm betting i ground my teeth on that one after going to sleep.

[elthrasher]

That still seems pretty good to me. How many knight armies did he bring to Madrid?

Yeah, Oxford is really the one to watch out for. Probably the most potentially game-changing wonder in the game. If you are in late industrial/early medieval and appear to be winning and haven't built it yet (doesn't matter what tech you get really), then you aren't quite winning yet.

[Pedal2Metal]

It sounds like you did very well. It's just tough to beat America, especially if you don't stunt them early.

"if i had done oxford i could have used bombers to keep him from hurting me for much longer. maybe hammering oxford, gs-ing to corp, and gb-ing the internet might have been a plan."

I agree, that would have probably been your best bet. Anyhow, you'll be ready for next time.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[danthechan]

i think he brought 6 armies. i'm sure he could have brought more but didn't think he needed them. he almost didn't. with my 2 cathederals i foolishly thought another gb would come along, meanwhile i'd be to tanks lickety split. i won't forget in the future, american can not be allowed to get early advanced flight.

[elthrasher]

Played a few of these yesterday. First I got the Zulu against Aztecs. I got Tripoli early and went to Fundamentalism. The Aztecs got France (enjoying that Pottery?). I overran a Jaguar warrior with an impi army and the guy quit. He hadn't gotten BW or HBR yet, so maybe reasonable, but I think he could've held his cities with just warriors if he played it right. Oh well.

After that I got the Aztecs against Americans. Horse army out fast and I know the location of Moscow, Madrid and Bejing. I take Bejing and it gets flipped immediately. How nice. Basically I've lost at this point, but I'm a glutton for punishment. I slowly expand. My one victory this game really is earning Literacy the turn my opponent builds Stonehenge. I'm not sure why he built Stonehenge, but he did appear to be focusing too much on culture.

Anyway, I played Oxford Bombers as my strategem. My opponent took Moscow (probably with my horses!) and expanded decently. Not OMG city-spam decently like he could've, but at least as well as my poor Aztecs could do, so I was behind in tech. I gave the bombers a shot, but he just GS'd Flight in response and blew them up. Oh well, gave it my best.

The guy messages me: You got thrassshhhhed! Ha. I send back: thrashers have to get thrashed to know how to do it. He responded with something a bit more friendly. For those who don't know, a thrasher is a bird, related to the mockingbird, a magazine about skateboarding and a hockey team from Atlanta.

Next game I played PedalJr. Dude, I don't know why my mic never works when I play you. It works just fine a lot of the time. We must have a bad connection. I even bought a new one, but it appears to be a connection problem, not a hardware problem. I can talk easily and clearly with some. With others, it's just static. Anyway, I was playing chess on my phone (don't challenge me, I suck) while waiting in the lobby and didn't immediately notice who my opponent was and was still on random. I just saw the tag before it went to the loading screen. Oh boy, I get to play a bad civ against a top player probably playing China.

Yeah. I got Egypt with the The Hanging Gardens. I think I could've almost made a game out of it except my first three barbs gave me Bronze Working, Pottery and then Alphabet. 0 gold from three barbs! That is just exactly what I need against a player of Pedal's calibur. We both tried to horserush England and both lost. I could've played for Moscow on an island to the north. Probably would've been a better call. But the lure of that free Monarchy is too strong.

Pedal showed up with a bunch of catapults later and took me apart. I had three GP (got Confucius, but it took too long to get my GP home) at that point and no use for them. Next time warn me if you're going to play a good civ and I'll pick something halfway decent!

[Pedal2Metal]

Next time warn me if you're going to play a good civ and I'll pick something halfway decent!

Yeah, that game was kind of ridiculuous. If you'd gotten the Oracle or Colossus, I'm sure it would have been better. We'll text next time. I actually wanted you to play America as that's the test case we are working on & having a good player play America is the best way. If you see us again, just pick America & we'll see what happens. I'll let my son know too.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[elthrasher]

Yeah, that game was kind of ridiculuous. If you'd gotten the Oracle or Colossus, I'm sure it would have been better. We'll text next time. I actually wanted you to play America as that's the test case we are working on & having a good player play America is the best way. If you see us again, just pick America & we'll see what happens. I'll let my son know too.

The Colossus would've been good if I had two desert tiles to string together, but I would've had to wander my settlers pretty far to find that. I have been working on a Colossus horserush strat where you work gold in deserts to get two warriors out at the normal rate, then research HBR and switch back to gold (getting food the entire time of course) to get the horses out. End result: 3 pop by 3000 BC, HBR researched, 2 warriors and 20 gold toward a horse. Not too bad.

I think I still would've lost that game as the Americans, given the map I had, although I guess getting Pottery from a barb isn't as bad for them. Might lead to a very early medieval period. Anyway, I'll pick them next time, though my American game isn't exactly tops since I don't play them that often (as evidenced by losing to headless' Greeks last night).

I played two pretty good ones today. First I got the French against Spanish. I got a horse army out fairly quickly, although it didn't do a ton of good. My only neighbor was the Greeks, who I never rushed as I spied a hoplite early on. I still got some gold and some cities out. The Spanish took Rome and got CoL.

My opponent used a very strong strategy. He went to Republic and stayed at 4 techs for ages and put cities everywhere and rushed libraries. I got all the early techs and expanded as much as I could, but there was no way to compete with all of that. I couldn't get enough cities out. I got a GH (used after a pile of cities), a GB and stole a GS from the Greeks. I (perhaps foolishly) used the GS for Navigation and got the EITC with my builder. It might've been better to just tech nav as quickly as I could and save the GS for Ind/Corp because ultimately I lost those and Railroad as well when the Spanish guy started teching. He totally eclipsed me and ran up the tech tree grabbing all the good later bonuses once he started teching. Really tough strat for the French to beat.

But I got another GB, so obviously Oxford was the way to go. I teched University (first), then Industrialization. Got a GE at that point, which was nice, so I had a fairly quick bomber wing (single bombers might've been better, but I didn't know how he was defending - probably next time I'll try to build 4 bombers, try a single one first and then go to a wing if that doesn't work) and had a cruiser fleet loaded with odds and ends.

I took two cities and he quit. I think some players would've hung around and tried to get flight. He certainly had the beakers to try, although I suspect he was on gold at that point. Some players have strong strategies but are kind of inflexible. Maybe he was one.

Next I got the Indians against another decent player who had the Japanese. I realized too late I was on an island and wasted four turns teching HBR. Took a while to get to 100 gold with two 30g barbs and a great land. My island was okay though, with a whale, fish and four dye (one by my cap) and a couple other decent things. My opponent naturally got ahead of me in tech. Not too hard to do as I struggled to get cities out, my chief problem being I had to keep growing Delhi to push out early settlers.

But then he came with a vet horse army and I just had one archer in each of my four cities. I also had four techs, which was kind of good and kind of bad, I guess. I rushed some archers, but he got one of my cities anyway by double-moving away from the better-defended ones. Ugh. I teched Iron Working and sent in some legions, but he'd picked up the Seven Cities and taken at least one Mongol city plus who knows what else, so it was kind of hopeless. I eventually killed an archer army and his horses, but next turn he had another army up. I expect I could've gotten my city eventually, but he had the rest of the map, so I quit. Not much to be done there, alas.

[TyShine]

The Colossus would've been good if I had two desert tiles to string together, but I would've had to wander my settlers pretty far to find that. I have been working on a Colossus horserush strat where you work gold in deserts to get two warriors out at the normal rate, then research HBR and switch back to gold (getting food the entire time of course) to get the horses out. End result: 3 pop by 3000 BC, HBR researched, 2 warriors and 20 gold toward a horse. Not too bad.

I pretty much always horserush with Egypt. I think it is better to horserush with Colossus too.

[elthrasher]

I pretty much always horserush with Egypt. I think it is better to horserush with Colossus too.

In H2H I'd probably horserush with just about any civ except maybe Germany and England, perhaps not Spain. In a FFA, it depends. I'll do it if I have the Oracle or if I do well with gold in the first few moves. Maybe up against an obvious city-spammer.

[danthechan]

i'm doing that alot more in h2h too, with mixed results. i took out american a.i. last night with my oracle drive horse army. i got blitz and a gg in the process. i then took a neighboring spanish city with nav. thrown in. then he quit and we froze. i got the win after about a 10 minute wait.

[Pedal2Metal]

My opponent used a very strong strategy. He went to Republic and stayed at 4 techs for ages and put cities everywhere and rushed libraries. I got all the early techs and expanded as much as I could, but there was no way to compete with all of that. I couldn't get enough cities out. I got a GH (used after a pile of cities), a GB and stole a GS from the Greeks. I (perhaps foolishly) used the GS for Navigation and got the EITC with my builder. It might've been better to just tech nav as quickly as I could and save the GS for Ind/Corp because ultimately I lost those and Railroad as well when the Spanish guy started teching. He totally eclipsed me and ran up the tech tree grabbing all the good later bonuses once he started teching. Really tough strat for the French to beat.

But I got another GB, so obviously Oxford was the way to go. I teched University (first), then Industrialization. Got a GE at that point, which was nice, so I had a fairly quick bomber wing (single bombers might've been better, but I didn't know how he was defending - probably next time I'll try to build 4 bombers, try a single one first and then go to a wing if that doesn't work) and had a cruiser fleet loaded with odds and ends.

I took two cities and he quit. I think some players would've hung around and tried to get flight. He certainly had the beakers to try, although I suspect he was on gold at that point. Some players have strong strategies but are kind of inflexible. Maybe he was one.
.

Sounds like you outplayed him to me.

I don't think staying at 4 techs forever w/Spanish is always the strongest approach unless you have no choice. If someone is going to do this, then you might as well just go Alph->Writing->CoL so you are only losing 1 pop per settler & can build all your settlers fairly quickly as the cities are keeping more pop & thus producing gold more quickly. I think building all your settlers at 4 techs is good but once you've got around 6 cities built & another 4-6 settlers on their way, it's time to start moving up the tech tree towards Democracy. If you're <=3 turns to 5 techs (should be a no-brainer), just wait it out & get all 3-pop in all your new cities. The Spanish can build settlers in Democracy just fine due to the same reason 2-pop cities are ok: the whale. Spanish can win w/6-15 cities. 6 will be challenging, 15 should be essentially a lock, 10 is just fine. Any more than 15 is simply overkill & not required. Also winning currency is quite helpful for Spanish usually which is usually easy to get first if you just let the other guy go for Irrigation (highly likely) & watch the tech tree closely. When they get Writing, just get Currency or if you like playing it more risky, when they get CoL, go get Currency. By this time, you should have plenty of settlers & can now start teching up to Democracy. Not getting Oxford is a huge mistake & if he built all these settlers, he could have easily been in Democracy at 13 techs, saved a ton of gold & rolled all over you later on if he planned properly & had built a few markets around & then went for Oxford after popping the 14th tech (banking) w/at least 103 tech/turn. Rushing libraries early in Ancient when your pop isn't 4+ is not a great idea IMO. However, if you've got 4+, it can be effective.

W/regards to Oxford usage, I like to use my wing for "softening" & then just follow-up w/land units or single units. I hate losing bombers as it's like losing a cat army so I prefer to strike w/vet wing first & then follow w/vet single unit, although a vet single is 27 attack which is like vet Jap knights so pretty darn good. I'll keep cranking out singles as needed to begin attacking 3 cities simultaneously. In almost all cases, it's highly unlikely the city has more than 2 defensive armies. If it does, I just shift to another city using 6 movement of bombers AFTER I see the flag go up (they just rushed more units) since it's even more unlikely they have 2 defensive armies in 2 cities. Now I go through the entire empire like that & in the meantime, I'm moving boats & land units (horsemen) for taking the empty cities. So just like in jet fighter sims, it's more efficient to do a "sweep" through an area & then turn around for the "return sweep" than constantly running in circles. By doing this & using the "wait till they rush it tactic", you can attack & destroy the defenses in multiple cities over 24 squares of movement in 4 turns & prepare the way for taking all those cities all the while burning your opponent's gold reserves & keeping him from teching due to paranoia about any city across his empire. Early bombers are really tough to counter when setup properly in my experience. You can usually take at least 3 cities in 6 turns. This usually means they have to already have Combustion in order to get flight in 6 turns or less. Even in that case, you'll likely still get 3 free cities & now you can defend your territory w/bombers easily.

Ok, I got carried away but I just love bombers!
For such an easy tactic, I've never had them used on me. I just find that strange. Once I figured this one out, geez, I use it anytime I can. It's just that strong. Given I posted the "recipe" on the forums months ago last year, even more strange.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[TyShine]

Got my first freeze that said loading. Too bad I was 11-0 as Egypt. I had just taken Spain for nav and already picked up religion. I was sailing a galleon with a fundie horse army towards his cap, while having a spy camped outside England for a free gp.

I hate trying to get a decent record going because something like this always happens. I saw Morte had the same record as the Americans, and I wanted to see how long I could go as Egypt, but IDK what will happen after this one.

[Aheadatime]

Sounds like you outplayed him to me.

I don't think staying at 4 techs forever w/Spanish is always the strongest approach unless you have no choice. If someone is going to do this, then you might as well just go Alph->Writing->CoL so you are only losing 1 pop per settler & can build all your settlers fairly quickly as the cities are keeping more pop & thus producing gold more quickly. I think building all your settlers at 4 techs is good but once you've got around 6 cities built & another 4-6 settlers on their way, it's time to start moving up the tech tree towards Democracy. If you're <=3 turns to 5 techs (should be a no-brainer), just wait it out & get all 3-pop in all your new cities. The Spanish can build settlers in Democracy just fine due to the same reason 2-pop cities are ok: the whale. Spanish can win w/6-15 cities. 6 will be challenging, 15 should be essentially a lock, 10 is just fine. Any more than 15 is simply overkill & not required. Also winning currency is quite helpful for Spanish usually which is usually easy to get first if you just let the other guy go for Irrigation (highly likely) & watch the tech tree closely. When they get Writing, just get Currency or if you like playing it more risky, when they get CoL, go get Currency. By this time, you should have plenty of settlers & can now start teching up to Democracy. Not getting Oxford is a huge mistake & if he built all these settlers, he could have easily been in Democracy at 13 techs, saved a ton of gold & rolled all over you later on if he planned properly & had built a few markets around & then went for Oxford after popping the 14th tech (banking) w/at least 103 tech/turn. Rushing libraries early in Ancient when your pop isn't 4+ is not a great idea IMO. However, if you've got 4+, it can be effective.

W/regards to Oxford usage, I like to use my wing for "softening" & then just follow-up w/land units or single units. I hate losing bombers as it's like losing a cat army so I prefer to strike w/vet wing first & then follow w/vet single unit, although a vet single is 27 attack which is like vet Jap knights so pretty darn good. I'll keep cranking out singles as needed to begin attacking 3 cities simultaneously. In almost all cases, it's highly unlikely the city has more than 2 defensive armies. If it does, I just shift to another city using 6 movement of bombers AFTER I see the flag go up (they just rushed more units) since it's even more unlikely they have 2 defensive armies in 2 cities. Now I go through the entire empire like that & in the meantime, I'm moving boats & land units (horsemen) for taking the empty cities. So just like in jet fighter sims, it's more efficient to do a "sweep" through an area & then turn around for the "return sweep" than constantly running in circles. By doing this & using the "wait till they rush it tactic", you can attack & destroy the defenses in multiple cities over 24 squares of movement in 4 turns & prepare the way for taking all those cities all the while burning your opponent's gold reserves & keeping him from teching due to paranoia about any city across his empire. Early bombers are really tough to counter when setup properly in my experience. You can usually take at least 3 cities in 6 turns. This usually means they have to already have Combustion in order to get flight in 6 turns or less. Even in that case, you'll likely still get 3 free cities & now you can defend your territory w/bombers easily.

Ok, I got carried away but I just love bombers!
For such an easy tactic, I've never had them used on me. I just find that strange. Once I figured this one out, geez, I use it anytime I can. It's just that strong. Given I posted the "recipe" on the forums months ago last year, even more strange.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

That bomber usage you were discussing sounds great. How exactly do you guys "aim" oxford university towards unlocking bombers? Do you tech all of adv flight's prereqs, meanwhile saving hammers in a city and as soon as the last prereq is researched, rush/GB oxford? You guys all make it sound so simple and well-known, like "yeah the other day i was playing this game and went for oxford bombers". Im out of the loop lol.

[Jaguar-Man]

You need to get industrialisation and then no further up the tech tree past railroad. Then build Oxford University and it will give you Advanced flight