SwAeromotion
Posts: 6312
Joined: 9/10/2005
Status: online
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Got a domination victory in King difficulty. Quite the jump in difficulty from Warlord to King. I'm not sure I had enough time left to go for one of the other victory types. economic maybe/maybe not, technological doubtful, and cultural was out of the question.
Recap:
I picked the Japanese this game.
They have several bonuses, starting with knowledge of ceremonial burial. In the Ancient Era they have a +1 food from sea regions. This automatically makes them a very good civ for technology because by founding near the ocean you get plenty of food (for city growth) on top of the excellent trade that oceans give you.
Medieval times give you +1 on Samurai Knight attack (one of their unique units). This makes their samurai knights more powerful (5A/2D vs 4A/2D) than a regular knight
Industrial Age gives you the ability to switch governments without the normal one turn no growth/trade/production penalty. This made the government switching strategy I employed work so well.
Modern Age brought with it new defensive units starting with Loyalty upgrade (I believe that is 50% defensive bonus in home territory)
Other than the Samurai Knight, they Japanese have 3 other unique units, one of which I didn't see any attack/defense bonus (Ashigaru Pikeman), but maybe they were cheaper?!? and the other two I didn't get to employ by the end of the game (Zero Fighter and Val Bombers).
So I found my city against the coast. This game always gives you access to two good food squares, two production squares (usually forests), and two good culture squares. I send out some warriors to explore around. Always I am picking a similar technological path early... going for Code Of Laws (knowledge of Republic) fairly quickly. After the warriors are out I make an archer army to defend. I am trying to pick off barbarian villages, find landmarks to name, looking for goodie huts, and ESPECIALLY I am looking for the ancient artifacts. Why? I want to get to 100 gold quickly so I gain the settler bonus at your first economic milestone. This is like gaining a free city and I want it early, early, early.
One of the barbarian villages gives me a galley after I defeat it, which is awesome because I can scour the globe exploring for other civs and search out those ancient artifacts. Its a doubly nice bonus as I don't have to waste production in my city building a galley on my own (30 hammers is a lot early in the game). I find the Chinese to the southwest of me and the Indians to the northwest. I see a tactical advantage with the Indians in case I should go to far with them later... the land connecting their area to mine is just a 1 square tall strip for 3-4 lengths. This mean whoever controls a spot in that area controls flow of troops. Particularly good is a forest square. They offer a defensive bonus. I hope to settle a city in this strip later to further cement this narrow land strip, but I never got the chance.
Anyways, back to the game... I take my settler and move him directly west against the coast about 4 squares west of my capital. There are 2 forest squares there, so it is a balanced locale and I can vamp up my trade (which now is all technology). I build archer army to defend it, connect a road between the cities and after a little while I gain Code Of Laws and switch to a Republic.
Now I can expand in earnest. But on to that in a sec.. my galley finds the other two civs further away. The Russians are on the far side (west) of the Indians and aren't directly connected to me in any way. The Egyptians are west of the Chinese and not directly connected (the Chinese in the way) to allow troop movement over land. Needless to say the Egyptains harass me about gimme this tech blah blah and I appease them once but ont he 2nd time I say no and they declare war. No big deal as they can't get to me over land with the Chinese in the way, so I don't sweat all out war with them.
So my capital has built a library to expand science output and now its settler time as I want to establish my territory quickly before the Indians or Chinese can take the spots in the area in the middle of the three of us. Think of a triangle where the Indians are directly above the Chinese and I am east of them both south a bit of the Indians and north of the Chinese.
My third city was a tactical choice as it was in the middle of this triangle.. I founded the city on a hill square to gain the 50% attack/defensive bonus that goes with it so my defenders are particularly strong. Connect to both the other cities with a road.
Still gaining techs... mostly picking the shortest amount of turn ones, but I am trying to look for Democracy as with it you get Pikeman unit (Ashigaru Pikemen for my civ). That is a powerful defender with 3 defense (or 9 with a pikeman army). That tactical city on the hill made a pikeman army's defensive strength 13.5 (9 * 1.5), so it would take a huge amount of troops to take it from me.
As I am establishing my pikemen I found city #4 to the southeast of city #3 and about 7 or so squares directly south of my capital. Connect with roads, build up defensive protection, etc. Now the Indians are getting pissy and I am at war with them as well. They CAN reach me over land, but in this part of the game the defensive units reign, so I don't get too upset about it. Build a library in city #2 as I found city #5 directly north of my capital against the northern and eastern most spot on the continent against the sea. Lots of sea squares so I get a library there pretty fast.
This looked to be a war game with not much chance for peace so building up a Mega-City wasn't an option as I needed to mass troops. With not much space left for cities I don't need Republic anymore.. I switch to Democracy to speed up science further.
I gain Feudalism and with it my Samurai Knight. Now I have a poweful offensive unit and I am ready to go after the Indians. They have been sending warriors and legions at me and just fortifying them outside my city borders so I can't work that tile. I build up a few barracks to make sure my Samurai Knights will have the veteran bonus. When I upgraded to pikemen I moved my archer armies to the 2 cities nearest the Indians... my tactical city #3 and my city #2 which was closet and just above that land bridge one tile tall. So now I build up 3 samurai knights and make a knight army.. with its 15 attack and 6 defense it is formidable. I send it to city #3 and brush back some Indian units hanging around and I want to get to that forest square in the land bridge so I can fortify my archer armies there (4 of them in all).
Slowly I trudge west and get to the westernmost point on this one tile bridge with an Indian city to the north of it with population 9. I know it will be defended well, so that one knight army isn't enough.. I was initially planning on just massing troops here as I gained Knight armies. I had founded my 6th city to the southeastern most point of the continent and now had basically established my borders. The Chinese threatened me once or twice, but I appeased them and gave them what they wanted because I didn't want to fight a 2 front war... and the one with them would be nasty as their was lots of space for troop movement.
I get a few more knight armies and I trudge them (along with my archer armies) to the furthest point where I can exploit the land bridge. I don't want the Indians sending troops at my cities and I defend here. At the end of one of the Indians' turns I see a large mass of legion and archers just north of my entrenched position. They are on a hill, so they get a nice bonus... I did NOT want them to attack me with thos legions, so I send some knights armies to take out the archers. I lose one kinght army, but I defeat the 2 archer armies and 2 legion armies. Now I am looking to take that city as the hill square is adjacent to the city itself. Just as I mass 3 knight armies and 2 archer armies on the hill square they beg for peace. Being under Democracy I am forced to make peace (I hit no when they asked for it, but the Congress overruled me  ).
Well crap, now what?!? A-ha! I must switch governments. I recently got access to fundamentalism and I want to exploit the +1 attack for units so I can crush the Indians. I do lose the library bonus by going to fundamentalism, so my science slows. I don't plan on staying with this govt long, so its not a big deal. I switch to it and now my knight armies are 18 attack and being on the hill get 50% bonus so 27 attack on their city of Lahore overwhelms it and I take it. They beg for peace, but being as they were the ones who started messing with me and leading down this path I am not willing.. I move on to the west and soon take another city. Their capital looms nearby... knowing that will be a tough one to crack I take them up on peace at this point.
After going back to Democracy I gain Gunpowder and the powerful 3A/5D Riflemen. I want to modernize my defense in my cities to these units. I take a tactical risk by moving my pikemen armies out of a city once the first riflemen unit (not army yet) is established. I almost get a city taken by the egyptians while doing this. I left a city defended with 2 single riflemen units when they drop off a couple horsemen armies by it. They got to Steam Power before me and have a Cruiser outside the city and the horsemen gain attack strength by way of the cruiser naval bombardment when they attack. They take out one riflemen but I hold strong on the 2nd and hold them off. I hurriedly bring my pikemen back into the city and another onslaught takes them out. I just hold out long enough until I can get a riflemen army fortified there. I keep another pikemen army there for safe measure.
I have 8 cities now. Six of my own, two from the Indians. I upgrade my defenses in all my cities to riflemen armies, build up barracks and libraries to get my tech cooking along. The Egyptains are harassing the sea around my cities, so I build up 2 cruiser fleets (sea equivalent of an army). I go picking their single unit cruisers off and establishing sea superiority. Now with the Egyptians held at bay I can take out the last Indian city, their capital. Since they are small they have lagged technologically. Flip to Fundamentalism, take out their capital with the knight armies being assisted by my leftover pikemen armies and archer armies defending, and go back to Democracy.
Indians are gone and lo and behold the Russian capital is just to the west of where my mass of troops is. But I wait a bit as I am close to achieving tank units. Once I get that I build up 2 tank armies and crush Moscow. I don't bother with the other Russian cities because they are on islands and I already have their capital.
I researched communism and I look to experiment with it and its awesome 50% production bonus. I wasn't doing anything culturally, so the temple/cathedral penatly under communism didn't affect me hardly at all.
Now I can build quickly, so I build up libraries and barracks with market here and there so when I switch back to $$$ in a city from science it can reap a bonus. I build courthouses in cities that are against the sea so I can have acces to more sea squares in my city menu. Tech continues to climb.
A domination victory looks the way to go. I want it quickly, so I go after the capitals. The Chinese capital is against my border and I have moved my defensive obsoletes to the border and fortify as I build up a troop mass. I have modern infantry now, so an "obsolete" riflemen army is an excellent defensive marching unit in the field (albeit slow).
I get Moscow and the Indian capital defended a bit and move several tank armies onto a cruiser fleet... they are on a mission to the egyptian capital. It is a gamble I am willing to take. I don't want to sludge through all of China and most of Egypt's land just to reach the Egyptian capital.. so I go a sea route directly to it.
Beijing (China's capital) falls to me and on the same turn my cruiser fleet with tank armies reaches egypts capital (Thebes?). I don't want to attack directly from the ship as I would incur a 50% amphibious penalty, so I move them onto a forest square and it ends my turn. I see Egypt move several units into their capital (one of which was a tank!!) and the next turn looks to be critical. I either win it now or I'll be forced to sludge over land picking off the rest of the Chinese and part of Egypt before getting there. I attack them and I had a small advantage of around 58 to 45 over their riflemen armies. I take 3 of them out and then next turn I take the city. I still have to defend through the egpytians turn before the win is official. They send a couple of tanks at me, but they weren't armies and being just single units I withstand their attack and get the domination victory. 
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"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." - Jimi Hendrix
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Printable Version
Civilization: Revolution - 
Makes me want this for sure, if it's available for the PS3.
