Playing the Metagame: Overarching Civ Strategies

[FriedrichPsitalon]

In the Civilization 3 MP arena, there are a variety of overall strategies that can be successful, and a variety of counterstrategies that have emerged to combat them. Rather than focus on any particular unit or any particular civilization, the purpose of this article is to examine these overall “styles” of play, and determine what their strengths and weaknesses are – how to play these styles well, and how to counter them. Ultimately, you can probably distill most strategies down to perhaps 4 different types which we will call “Dagger,” “Choke,” “Hammer” and “Castle.”

“Hit Fast and Early” or Life as a Dagger Player

The “Dagger” style of play is perhaps best exemplified by the Aztec players of the pre-Conquests era: small, fast moving attacks that attempted to catch a player off guard by attacking in the early exploration/expansion era of the game. Often, players of the Dagger style will build only 1 or 2 new cities (if any at all!) before devoting themselves totally to military production. Relying on their units to find their opponents (preferably without being spotted in their search) these players then disappear – only to reappear shortly thereafter with a small (but potentially lethal) force. This style of play was very strong in Play the World (in fact it was possible for an “unstoppable kill” using the Aztecs to occur) but was sharply reduced in effectiveness in Conquests – most dagger players now show up slightly later, near the beginning of the midgame “Build and secure” era, and with larger forces. The days of “turn 15 kills” are (for the most part) over.

The Path of Daggers: In order to play a “Dagger” style of play, it is vital that you either have scouts and a fast attack unit (a la the Iroquois in PTW or the Hitties now) or a unit that can function in both roles (the Aztec Jaguar Warrior or the Incan Chasqui Scout.) Generally, before you can build your first settler, you build a few of your exploration units and send them out in likely directions. As soon as a city border is sighted, a Dagger player pulls back, not allowing the potential victim to know they have been sighted. In team games, some Dagger players are able to skip this step if their partner knows where an opponent is, and relays that information. Generally, a force of 10 units is enough in a 1-city elimination game to finish the job. (Obviously, if you know your opponent is escorting with warriors or a unique unit, you may need to change this number slightly.) Usually a Dagger player (unless they have exceptionally good starting land) will build a second or third city in order to speed up unit production. Dagger play is all about balance – the longer you wait to attack, the stronger your opponent will be, but people who expand early are naturally stretched thin and vulnerable to attack – attack with too little, too soon and your surprise can be wasted. Attack too late, and you will find your opponent with connected roads and sentries to spot you, and your attack force is doomed to fail. A typical Dagger player’s build order might be: Unit, Unit, Unit, Settler, Barracks, Settler and then units (other cities immediately go to barracks and then units.) Obviously this works better for the Aztecs, since barracks are cheaper for them. Some Dagger players also skip barracks and accept “regular” units in exchange for a quicker attack. Truly brave Dagger players will skip the second settler (in rare cases even the first!) and risk it all in an early rush- throwing their development seriously behind in exchange for a stronger possibility of a kill. (This may work well in team games where one weakened player is not a serious setback vs the reward of a 4v3 or 3v2, but is NOT recommended in 1v1, where you effectively throw away the game if your attack fails.)

Parrying the Dagger Thrust: If you suspect you’re facing a Dagger player (and if you see the Aztecs or the Inca, it’s a decent guess) you can reduce the odds of getting dropped early with a few precautions. First, it can be vitally important to know your immediate surroundings, and more importantly, what you need to watch. Even if you start in the center of the map, scouting around with a warrior (or a scout!) can tell you a great deal. If there’s a bottleneck to the east of you, you really only need to worry about that one or two tiles of bottleneck, since Dagger players can’t come in by sea. If you’re in the more vulnerable position of having lots of land in every direction, notice where the hills and mountains are; one of the best ways to stop a Dagger player is to know when the attack is coming. If you can see where the attack is coming from, you can better prepare for stopping it by building walls in the approached town, rushing units, shuffling units, etc. Even better, if you can locate the Dagger player’s nation, you may be able to seriously disrupt their plans by throwing a few units of your own onto any defensive terrain within their borders. The key, once again, is balance: Expand too slowly for fear of getting attacked, and the Dagger player has already “won” – you have been slowed down while the Dagger player did what he wanted to do. Expand too quickly and you will find yourself victim of the attack, cities lost, and elimination following. The good news: if you can turn back the first thrust (or possibly two) of a Dagger-style player, you’re probably out of the woods. A Dagger player must, by necessity, sacrifice growth –and more importantly, infrastructure – to attack early. If you have not done the same, the third and subsequent attacks will be easy to throw back, simply because you will be out-producing your rival dramatically by this point, and will have ample sentinels in place to prepare for when the raiders show up.

You may want to use a “dagger” approach if: 1. You have great tiles in your capital but lousy ones beyond that – Tundra, jungle, mountains, etc. 2. You know your opponent has lots and lots of good land and yours is average. 3. Your opponent is playing a “late bloomer” civ such as the Celts or Carthage. (Yes, attacking Numidians is unpleasant, but Carthage is seldom easier to beat as the game progresses!) 4. You are using an “ultra-early” civ such as the Aztecs, the Zulu, the Inca, or Egypt who are all capable of fast early scouting and aggressive attacks.

[FriedrichPsitalon]

“Keep Your Hands About Their Throat” or How To Choke the Life From Opponents
The Choke style of play was once the exclusive domain of the Zulu (though Greece or Carthage could dabble), but with the arrival of Conquests, at least one (perhaps two) other civs have entered into the Choke field. The Choker’s style of play is, on the surface, not tremendously different than the Dagger player, but rather than sending small groups with the intent of eliminating an opponent, a Choker sends a constant stream of one or two units at a time, intending to disrupt and distract an opponent while the Choker expands, grows powerful, and then smashes the opponent at his/her leisure.

Keeping a Firm Grip: Many beginning and intermediate choke players miss one of the most important points behind the strategy – it is not only the damage you do on the map, but the psychological damage as well! There is nothing more aggravating than watching your precious roads, mines, and irrigation get ripped up by one obnoxious unit and the single press of a button. Obviously, it is distracting and alarming to see units that aren’t yours sauntering around in your territory as though they own the place. Many players, under constant harassment from the choke, will lose patience, and make reckless and unwise attacks, wasting precious resources. This wastefulness makes a bad situation worse; as more and more “choke” units trickle in, the victim becomes more frustrated, performs even more poorly, and eventually is nearly powerless when the Choker finally brings a city-capturing force to bear, or simply directs all his marauding units to attack a city. Thus the key to choking well is not just tearing up improvements, but knowing when to simply lurk about. A good Choker understands the importance of the terrain: mountains, hills, jungles, rivers; using all of these to your advantage is important to a successful Choke. Any time you force your opponent to attack you on this terrain, you are more likely to win – and thus force your opponent to waste precious resources. Keeping the harassment up also prevents easy expansion and building – when you have to guard your workers and improved tiles, and escort your settlers within your own boundaries, the cost of such garrisons can really add up. Choking players also understand when to pull units out – allowing them to rest and return at full strength. Paradoxically, chokers have to AVOID losing units whenever possible – it is always quicker to reinforce your own nation (the victim) than run units all the way to your opponent (the Choker.) Choking players also know not to keep units in one place for long unless the terrain is very good (mountains or hills with rivers) in order to keep offensive units that would drive them off running around – hopefully, without the benefit of roads. When the Choker’s “kill force” is about to show up, a Choker can do one of two things: run his choking units deep into the opponent’s empire and threaten a rear city, forcing units to adjust away from the real attack, or simply surround the target city, making reinforcement impossible until it is too late.

How to take Deep Breaths : Just as a Choker player understands that the psychology of a choke is important, so must the defending player understand what they are dealing with. The defender needs to realize that much of the “damage” being done is really not that serious. Simple fact: A few Impis in your territory, sitting on mountains, ARE NOT HURTING YOU. Yes, the other player can see what you are doing. Unless you’re planning a large attack, they won’t see anything they couldn’t guess. Yes, the other player can tear up some of your improvements – this doesn’t mean that you can’t produce anything, however. Yes, the other player can harass your workers – so build away from the pillaging units, forcing the Choker to stretch thin, and allowing you to potentially kill Choker units, thereby freeing yourself one section of your empire at a time. Yes, the other player can harass your settlers – but for the most part you should be escorting your settlers anyhow. Beating the choke is about playing the waiting game – don’t attack the the Choker’s units when the terrain favors them. If you know that they will pillage a road and irrigation, have a few archers or swords waiting in a nearby town when they do. Catapults are also great for driving off chokers – choking units can’t heal without leaving, and can’t retreat with one health. Both situations are a win for the defender. Make your roads redundant, so that when the choker thinks they’ve cut an important resource, you can go right on producing it. Keep your cool and be patient – the Choker is expending resources betting he/she can get you to waste more of your own trying to rid the Chokers. As long as you can keep expanding and keep building, you are winning. Eventually, if you keep snapping up the Choker units when they move to pillage, building where you can, and keeping cool, the Choker will start fighting a more and more uphill battle – to the point where eventually you will have your territory completely clear, and be able to establish a sentry net (not really useful early in Choke Defense) to aid in intercepting chokers as they show up. Choking players often have lighter defenses at their own empires (after all, they can see all of your empire, so what do they need to worry about invasion for?) so when the time comes for paybacks, Chokers often go down pretty easily as compared to Sledgehammer or Castle players.

You may want to use a Choke approach if: 1.You are a relatively short distance from your opponent – Chokes are about being able to keep constant pressure, and that means reinforcement. The farther away your opponent is, the more troops you have to keep “in the pipe” in order to keep constant pressure, and the harder it is to react to changing circumstances at the far end of your Choke. 2. You can produce a unit which is either fast (capable of retreating), hard to kill (3 defense in the ancient, for example,) or cheap for their effectiveness (Hoplites and Enkidus – both low cost for their utility.) For this reason, the best choking civilizations are probably the Zulu, the Sumerians, the Greeks, and the Hittites (if they get horses) while the Aztecs, the Inca, and Carthage could be “okay” chokers if they were forced to be. 3. If your opponent has a few great city locations and the rest are terrible (you can focus your attention on the good ones.) 4. Your opponent is an Industrial civ or some other civ which relies very heavily on workers – the Maya, for example, are extremely vulnerable to chokes, since they are industrial (therefore benefiting a great deal from workers) and cannot build a cheap “2 attack” unit (their archer is the Javelin Thrower at 30 shields.) A particularly skilled Zulu or Sumerian player could drive a less experienced Mayan player to his knees!

[FriedrichPsitalon]

“I Wanna Be… Your Sledgehammer”

The sledgehammer style of play is one of the two popular “builder” approaches to civ – it centers on the idea of massive expansion and infrastructure building early on (often sacrificing exploration to do so, with little knowledge of the map outside their borders) in order to unleash a tremendous attack in the closing minutes of the game. Sledgehammer play is frequent with players who are experienced in single-player, as this type of “build big and then hit hard” strategy works well against the AI. This sometimes has the negative effect of causing a sledgehammer player to be poorly prepared for attacks in the early game (since the AI typically leaves you alone ultra-early), but makes them more and more likely to do serious damage to you in the late game. You may not see much of a Sledgehammer player’s units throughout the course of a game, but when you DO see them, it will typically be in very large numbers – often more than an opponent is prepared to deal with.

“Driving Railroad Spikes” or, How to Make the Sledgehammer Work For You

No matter what civ you’re using, and no matter what unit you intend to mass produce and slam into your opponent, any good sledgehammer player will not fail to properly utilize a LOT of two things: workers and sentinels.

More than any of the other three strategies, sledgehammer players are vulnerable to early rushes and disrupting pillagers/attackers. A proper sentinel net is vital to spotting these attacks coming in, so that you can martial what forces you DO have prepared (often, the early stages of a sledgehammer means you have a VERY small military, since you have been producing mostly workers and settlers) to handle the incoming assault. A proper sentinel net also means you can worry less about the safety of your workers, and a perfect sentinel net (one that gives you at least two “visible” squares on every possible angle of approach – sometimes tough to do if there is no water near you) means you can run settlers without escort, one risky but potentially extremely beneficial trick to getting a lead in early expansion/building.

Workers are also *vital* to a proper sledgehammer strategy. Simply using your land’s natural resources to build troops will result in a very poor sledgehammer, because your opponent will probably build equally fast. You need workers – preferably lots of them, generated from a single town with a granary – to improve your land enough that you have a significant production advantage. This strategy aims solely for production – growth is only important if it is likely to add more production. (Meaning, floodplain towns are only desirable if you plan to use it as a worker/settler pump – otherwise, avoid towns with floodplain and little else.) Roads are also not to be neglected - increasing the speed with which you can move units increases your defenses and allows you more freedom in your development, again leading to a bigger sledge when the time comes. Towns should be placed in a fairly tightly-packed manner; not right on top of each other, but fairly dense – using all the tiles you have and not wasting any trying to get maximum score is important. (Your workers have to travel those distances to improve the right tiles, after all, and you may need your cities closer to support your own defense, particularly during the early “worker production” phase.)

Lastly, you need a “hammering unit.” Ideally, any sledgehammer strategy is focused on a resource of some kind. Archers, while capable of performing this task, don’t do it particularly well – they usually need spear and catapult back up, reducing the amount of “punch” you can muster for the same amount of shields, and making surprise very unlikely. (The same thing goes for the Javelin Thrower but even more so with his increased cost, which sometimes sees the Maya struggling for a strategy despite excellent traits and building potential.) Horsemen – or any 2 speed unit – are probably the best “sledgehammer” units over swords (and their various UUs) simply because they are harder to intercept and whittle down on their way in, and most “sledgehammers” take everything with them in one assault – exciting, but a gamble to be sure. A force of 40 sword-type units may pack more punch than 40 horse-based units, but if detected, the sword-based units are sitting ducks, while the horses may still escape harassment until they attack. Obviously, the best approach is to escape detection – and so sending a small percentage of your force ahead to deal with sentinels without revealing the size of your sledge is a good idea. (If an opponent loses a sentinel to 6 units, he knows there are probably more coming, but it is difficult to prepare for the unknown.)

“Be the Wall” or How to Shrug Off A Sledgehammer

The simplest and most obvious solution: build a bigger army. Unfortunately, any time you have an “arms race” between two people that otherwise ignore each other until the big finale, the guy with the better land often wins, if skill levels are equal. This assumes then, that you are not the one with the better land, but still would really prefer not to lose the game. Your strategies to give you the best chance are detailed above – the Dagger and the Choke. The most important part of a Sledgehammer strategy is that they need to be left alone to build up before they launch their assault – if you constantly harass a sledge player early on, when they finally launch their “Killer assault” it will be much smaller than it would have been, had the Sledge player been unmolested. If these are failing you, though, there are more steps you can take: 1) You MUST have a VERY good sentinel net. In order to survive a hammer blow, it CANNOT come as a surprise – excellent players who would otherwise not die often miss out on this important fact. A good sentinel net gives you at least 3 turns of warning from the time you spot the units to the time the hostile units strike their target. 2) Having an excellent road network is also very important. Please note this doesn’t simply mean “have roads to your towns.” A good road network has 2 routes to every town – one usually leading deeper into your territory, and one leading to another “border town.” An excellent road network also has roads out to the edge of your borders – so that you can strike units as they come in to your territory and then retreat to the safety of your towns. (Players with size 2 cultural borders, roads-to-borders and horses, in particular, can potentially strike as many as three times before a sledgehammer force gets to hit a town.) It is important however NOT to extend your roads beyond your own territory, or you will inadvertently speed up the approach of the sledgehammer. 3) A large “counterattack” force. Most (though not all, Gallic Swords and Roman Legionnaires notably excepted) sledgehammer forces are far better at dishing out punishment than taking it. Throwing a force of your own horses, swords, or archers at an attacker before they can hit your city is always a good idea. Your surviving units can retreat and regain health – your opponent cannot, without stopping his attack and retreating, which only buys you more time to bring more units to bear on the conflict. (Important rule of thumb: A defender’s reinforcement time is almost always faster than the attacker’s!)

You should use a sledgehammer strategy if: 1. You have lots of good –but not great- land that can be easily improved (shielded grassland, plains with a river nearby, etc.) 2. You have one or more strategic resources. 3. You have a unique unit that is particularly good at dealing out damage. (Persia, the Celts, the Iroquois, are all good examples. Egypt, which is sometimes used as a sledgehammer, is actually much better for a late-Dagger strategy; even though war chariots are cheap and fast, they are still archers on the attack (and without archer defensive bombardment!) so a chariot is dangerously vulnerable to counterattacks and well-fortified towns with defensive bombardment garrisons. Rome can do acceptably at this because their UU, while slow, is particularly hard to whittle down for an attack unit – as long as you don’t mind Rome’s traits. 4. Your opponent has somehow signaled that he is weaker than you in land or, in the case of team games, has been softened up by your partner(s) using Dagger or Choke strategies. (One highly effective strategy in 3v3 is to have one dagger, one choke, and one sledge- the dagger goes for an early elimination, and even failing it, will make that opponent nervous and slow. The Choker slows another opponent, and then the sledgehammer cleans up two in the late game, leaving the end game with an ugly 3v1 situation.)

[FriedrichPsitalon]

“Hiding Behind Rooks And Pawns,” or Using a Castle Strategy for Success

The Castle strategy is a relatively simple one, yet difficult to defeat. The basic premise is quite simple, and seemingly easy to do: expand. Expand some more. Build lots of defenses, expand some more. Keep building and expanding until every possible inch of free space is taken, then “expand” inward, by filling in extra space with even more towns. This strategy simply seeks to win via points over time – or in epic games, it seeks to win by peaceable means – space, diplomatic, etc. Basically, it seeks to win by making a war against a Castle Strategy seem like a hopeless and pointless waste of time and resources. The obvious civs for this strategy are Carthage, Greece, Sumeria, and to a lesser extent, the Zulu, but with proper preparation and the right circumstances, any civ can launch a “Castle Strategy” that can be tough to beat.

“Helm’s Deep Looks Good to Me” or Building Your Way To Victory

In its early stages, the Castle strategy is not entirely dissimilar to the Sledgehammer strategy, but with a few changes: workers are not quite so important, and catapults – a unit nearly always omitted from Sledgehammer tactics – and its requisite research are considerably more important. There are two versions of the castle strategy; the “Heavily Escorted Settler” method, and the “Scout and Plant” method. The “HES” method is relatively straightforward and somewhat less risky, but also noticeably slower; every settler goes out with a large escort (often somewhere between 3-5 spears, rarely 2 and never 1) to protect a city from a moderate-sized attack from the moment the city is planted. The problem here is that you usually have to wait for those 3-5 spears to be generated before you can send out each settler, which substantially slows your rate of expansion. Once you are placing cities in front of one another (a city that was a border town is now an interior town) you can start pulling units from inner cities for settler escort, but this strategy is slow during a critical time – early expansion – and hopes to make up for it with irresistible expansion later on. The “SaP” method is somewhat more risky, but if done correctly, far more effective. This method involves keeping a full sentinel net/screen of units considerably ahead of your intended settling areas, watching for incoming units. At the same time your settlers (hopefully, but not always with the assistance of roads) are moving up with low/no escort. If a hostile incursion is spotted, a mobile reserve should be ready to deal with that threat (or the light garrisons of unexposed towns should be pulled into that area.) This method relies rather heavily on a player’s expertise in sentinel nets (and moving sentinels up without allowing gaps that enemy units might sneak through,) which is arguably the most advanced concept required by any of these four strategies.

Whichever method you choose, the units you produce should be roughly the same. All “border towns” should have a mix of units – 50% spears (or current defense unit), 25% archers (or current bombard/offense unit – longbow/guerilla/ToW), 25% catapults (or current artillery unit) – with the exact number per city left up to the player, based on the strength of the opposition and (obviously) your own production/support abilities. This mix is critical to important defense. Spears, obviously, are the mainstay of any significant defense. Catapults provide a free shot (or two) before combat begins, and a defensive shot as combat takes place – with 4 attack, catapults can trouble swords, and make quite a mess of weaker, 1-defense units. Often neglected and equally as important, however, are archer-type units. While not as good as catapults, these units DO provide defensive fire on their own, and more importantly: they allow you to “clean up” a failed enemy attack before it can either retreat and regroup with reinforcements, or stumble further into your empire and cause havoc that you are unable to prevent due to your lack of offensive units! Many Castle players have been embarrassed by their inability to prevent 4 or 5 badly wounded swords or horses from romping through their roads and resources. A proper combination of units, however, will ensure this does not happen.

The most important aspect of the Castle method is to never stop producing units – and this can also get a Castle player into trouble if they fail to continue placing towns. Unit maintenance – or more precisely, having enough of it – is vital to a proper Castle strategy. The larger your empire, the more units you need to protect all possible directions of attack, but if you are attempting to win by points, you cannot stop expanding. Many Castle players fail at this point, unable to continue building units to protect their expanding empire at a fast enough rate. The key, as mentioned before, is proper sentinels to alert you to where your troops will need to respond to a threat. Lastly – and perhaps most importantly for Castle players to survive the endgame – it is vital that you build a “response force.” Think of them as your own personal SWAT team, if you will. When you have a large empire, it can be difficult to cover all routes of attack AND in enough numbers, and your sentinel net may or may not buy you enough time. The purpose of your response force is two-fold; slowing down an incoming assault force (in the case of horse forces, or forces coming in via siege roads) and damaging that force before it even gets a chance to take a shot at you. The first allows you more time to bring units into play and create reinforcements, and the second gives you a better chance at striking a winning counterattack blow – or if the situation is bad enough – surviving period. They can also serve as a barrier if someone tries to slip past your outer ring of cities to get at a potentially easier target.

[FriedrichPsitalon]

“Bringing Down The Walls,” or How To Breach a Castle Player’s Defenses

Castle play is often a rather dull and routine style – and those combating a castle player can use this to their advantage. If a Castle-style player SEES nothing wrong, they will often believe that their plans are working – simply because a game where nothing happens to them is exactly what a Castle player wants! Therefore the two methods most likely to work on a Castle player are a moderately early Dagger, or a very late Sledgehammer. Most Castle players worth their salt will have some sentinels out watching for your approach – taking these out right before your attack only serves as a warning that you are coming. Instead, harass sentinels all game long. Once you kill one, leave the killing unit in that position; the Castle player valued that tile and will have to either accept an inferior substitute, or expend energy getting it back. (And, at the same time, if they do decide to go on the offensive, your captured sentinel points are probably a good place to watch from!) If you continuously harass sentinel units, the Castle player may even tire of the effort involved and give up on keeping sentinels out – a major early victory for the opponent, since Castle play depends on those sentinels. If possible, try to get as much information about your opponent’s territory as you can, and then the fun begins. Which cities are further away from the “main city mass” than others? How long would it take to reinforce one city or the next? Your target (assuming this is elimination) is any city that sticks out and is vulnerable – especially cities sited on flat land with no rivers or walls around. If possible, it can be very advantageous to get a few units BEHIND that city into opposing territory before you attack, to cut the town off from aid – something the Zulu with their quick spears excel at. In non-elimination games, your target is a major production center – when elimination is off, the most important thing is to remove your opponent’s ability to make war by taking (and often burning) his cities.

When the time comes that you are ready to attack, the Castle player’s sentinel net either has to be down, or you will have to evade the opposing sentinel net. Many players feel that a naval attack is the best way to evade a sentinel net, but this often wastes a great deal of resources in building boats which could be put to better use. Most players will have roads to coastal towns anyhow, and smart ones will have sentinels watching the coast, making your surprise attack a complete failure, unless you know well in advance exactly which town you intend to hit, and how much warning your opponent will have. (Admittedly, beginning and intermediate players often leave themselves open to sea attacks as a game progresses out of fatigue – not checking that sentinel - and lack of vigilance – not realizing the threat - so naval attacks succeed more often than perhaps they have a right to….) Also, building the Great Lighthouse is a tragic error of large proportions – what better way to flash a bright neon warning sign to your opponent that you intend to attack by sea than to let him know you’re making your boats faster and harder to spot? Simply posting a few boat-sentinels can take care of the added ability of galleys to move through the sea, preventing them from moving around undetected, and 1 extra movement is hardly worth the Lighthouse’s cost.

If you choose the conventional land approach, and have failed to remove the sentinel net before you are ready to conduct your attack, all is not lost. You should know where the opposing sentinels are, and this will allow you to inspect your opponent’s defenses. Remember the distance that any unit can see when sited on a mountain or hill – is there a gap you can sneak through? (It may help to turn the grid on and count tiles.) Many times, players will leave a very small gap, trusting to luck that their opponent will not realize it is there. Utilize this! If no gaps exist, split off a small section of your attack force (no more than ¼) and send it in early. Your opponent will see this force right before you obliterate the sentinel – which is fine. The opponent will know you are coming, but whether or not he/she believes you have more units behind that group, they can only be certain of what they see. Now comes the tricky part – send that group to attack a different location; preferably one far away from your intended target, timed 1-2 turns before your real attack hits your real target. Your opponent will see your decoy, sentinel-killing force, and probably move his defenses (and hopefully also his SWAT team – many Castle Players can’t resist shattering a small force before it can even attack) to meet your decoy force – leaving them wide open for your main assault force’s arrival immediately thereafter in a now-exposed and weakened area of their empire! The key, in any case, is to deny a Castle player useful information – Castle players thrive on knowing exactly what is coming and what they need to react with. Deny them!

You should play a Castle strategy if…. 1. You have a very small “exposed front” but lots and lots of land behind it – usually the result of a bottleneck of land. This allows you to concentrate massive numbers of forces in a very small area, leaving you vulnerable only to naval attack – which you can easily devote a great deal of resources into stopping. The only risk here is that you had better be sure you have more land than your opponent(s)! 2. You have decent land, spotted frequently with hills and rivers, which are good defensive city locations. 3. You have a civilization with a particularly strong defensive UU – Carthage, Greece, Netherlands, and France are all good examples. The Zulu less so – they have a fast response time with the Impi’s, but this can be offset simply by making sure you have enough sentinel net warning time. Some civilizations like the Iroquois, Egypt, and the Celts can “fake” this tactic relying heavily on their offensive UU in the “SWAT team” role, but unless the land is somewhat favorable for the tactic, these civs should probably devote their time to aggression.

When The Dust Clears….

Whichever strategy you choose, remember: it is equally important to play your strategy well, and to disrupt your opponent’s. Even a Castle player should consider some disrupting raids against a Sledgehammer player; any time you allow your opponent to play his strategy while you play yours, you are inherently giving up some control of the game, and that is the first step to defeat. The smart player will also be aware of “morphing” strategies – players who throw an early Dagger, but have exceedingly good land can still catch up in production enough to launch a sizable Sledgehammer later, or a “Choke” player who plays the choke weakly, suggesting poor land back home, but really intends on a Castle strategy, and was only raiding your lands to slow down your own points/army building to lower risks to the Choke-Castler.

A final word: Whatever strategy you prefer, it is wise, once in awhile, to try and use the others – no one understands how to disrupt a strategy better than someone who uses it!

[Onan]

Wow, very nice Fried, I am impressed, and I've only read the abstracts.

So, Dagger, Choke, Sledgehammer, Castle. Hmmn. Is that all, you think?

How would you classify...say...a strategy such as that consistently used to great effect by Stinkynuts? Maybe there is a number five: Pirate.

[Swissy]

Apply the above to team games and you open the area of combo strategies. The Choke/Hammer comes to mind as one of the more effective team strats. Another is the Shield where one team members is well covered by another and is allowed to play Castle with almost no perimeter to cover. I've even seen the Aztec/Inca Double Dagger end team games in a half hour.

[FriedrichPsitalon]

You should read more than the abstract. Stinky's usual methodology is a naval Sledgehammer, if I may be so bold as to classify it. I was actually considering pointing to examples of each major style in the article, but I removed those references with the intent of making the article more accessible for those not on the ladder.

For posterity, the names I would have included:

Noteworthy Dagger players: Steamroller, Lord Phan
Noteworthy Choke players: Dr.Shot (I used to do this, but I've gotten bored with the Zulu and Sumeria-choke seems cheesy), Zaxxon
Noteworthy Sledgehammer players: Friedrich, Wtiberon
Noteworthy Castle Players: SPM

[Mo D]

I prefer a combo strategy, usually. Start with a dagger or choke, then shift to a hammer or castle, then maybe back to another dagger. Makes it tough to play someone when you aren't sure what strategy they're using from game-to-game, let alone within the same game.

Very nice analysis, Fried.


Mo

[Onan]

Ah, right, the naval sledge. Of course.

I just didn't think they floated so well.

[Ra]

Fried:

OUTSTANDING.

Funny thought came to me after reading your strategy analysis; that is: the Movie; "Patton", with George C. Scott.

It's the scene where he has acheived his first victory against FieldMarshall Rommel. His army had stopped the German army/panzer attack and says "You Bastard, I read your book!!!"

You analysis has given me great insight; as to what I have experienced and more importantly, what to expect.

Well Done Sir

Ra (nee AlaricRa)

[Dr Shot]

yes , as did the Admirial(names forgotton) in charge of Naval activities for Japan in WWII,refferring to the us COmmanders book about sea warefare,this has happened many times in history.

I believe noone in this game actually puts out their 'good' ideas...

[Dr Shot]

yes , as did the Admirial(names forgotton) in charge of Naval activities for Japan in WWII,refferring to the us COmmanders book about sea warefare,this has happened many times in history.

I believe noone in this game actually puts out their 'good' ideas...

[Onan]

I guess that was a double...

[FriedrichPsitalon]

Well, I can't speak for any of the others, Shot, but I know *I* hold nothing back when I write my articles.

The only way to get better, after all, is to be forced to improvise even further when you are playing your best.