Sneak Preview: Sid Meier's Civilization® IV

Multiplayer Strategies: Dagger and Choke
From the Civilization IV Official Strategy Guide,
published by BradyGames,
for 2K Games' PC game Sid Meier's Civilization IV

There are many paths to follow for world domination in Civilization IV, and they're all covered in the Civilization IV Official Strategy Guide! From quick-strike Dagger tactics to implacable Castle growth, all types of players will find something inside to add to their bag of tricks. The book also covers the updates and additions from the last version of the game, and strategy for the new Team Play mode.

MULTIPLAYER STRATEGIES:
FOUR ROADS TO ROME

One grim fact of life exists about the multiplayer arena in any game: you cannot dawdle. The sooner you have your strategy in place and are working towards your goals for winning the game, the greater your chances for success. What follows are four effective methods for winning in a multiplayer environment, but they are by no means the only strategies. Everyone develops their own techniques over time, and from these four basic concepts, many gambits and sub-strategies have emerged. Mastering these four basic methods for victory, gives players a huge step toward success.

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD: "DAGGER" TACTICS

"Dagger" tactics are familiar to anyone who has played a multiplayer strategy game, and the feelings about the tactic vary. "Cheese rush," "Zerging," and "Jag Rush" are common names for this tactic. Whatever the game and whatever the name, the methodology is unchanged: build something quickly and hit your opponents before they thought it possible.

Dagger Dave discovers that Steve Superbuilder has settled nearby. Dagger Dave notices that in his capital radius he has two resources: A cow, and a horse. A plan forms in his mind!

BASIC EXPLANATION

This strategy relies on an early, quick punch to bring a foe to its knees; it's not elegant (though done well, it can be downright pretty to watch) nor is it terribly subtle, but its effectiveness, particularly in smaller games or "two people, one landmass" situations is undeniable. Sacrifice your own growth early for troops to take away someone else's growth for your own use, or wipe them out altogether; this is the motto of the Dagger player.

WHAT TO RESEARCH

You need a strong, early military advantage. If you have a Horse in sight, your best move is to research Animal Husbandry, Archery, then Horseback Riding. Timed properly, your worker(s) can be cultivating the Horses/Sheep/Cows while you research Archery, and as soon as Horseback Riding is done, your barracked units are in production. If you don't have a Horse but still want to go for an early rush, research Mining and Bronze Working. However, if you don't have Bronze, consider abandoning this approach; Iron Working is an expensive technology for so early, Swordsmen aren't cheap, and by the time you finish it, the window for an early "rush" attack is probably closing.

WHAT TO BUILD

When you locate a target, start eyeing your research times. Ideally, players want a Barracks in the city their units are coming out of, and you definitely need a Worker to harvest any resource of choice.

If you can get both of these built before your technology matures, consider building a Settler; a second city creating units will only make your early dagger thrust that much more potent. If creating a Settler or two will take too long after your research completes, however, it may be better to just accept one or two cities producing units for your attack.

HOW TO EXECUTE THE STRATEGY

After producing anywhere between three and five of your attack unit (Horse Archers are best, then Axemen; anything else is dubious) send them on a direct line for your opponent's capital. This may mean walking near or right past any newer cities he or she may have; the capital, particularly in the early game, is the prize. Buddhism or Hinduism may have been founded there, and the capital is almost certainly the largest, and certainly the most productive, city. It may even be that your target will abandon the defenses of outer cities to defend the capital, leaving you free to snap up those open cities if the capital looks too tough.

Strongly consider razing, not keeping, the capital city, unless you are certain you can keep it. The city is probably far from you and close to your foe, making reinforcements very difficult to bring in a timely manner. If you can, go for another city (or two). Often, an opponent who loses a major city this early will simply give up, and you can carve up your spoils.

LONG-TERM DAGGER STRATEGIES

The longer it takes, the less effective this method becomes, but if you can keep pouring it on and keep someone on the defensive, throwing more units against a foe can be effective. Watch for the rise of other civilizations, though, and take care to avoid driving your finances into the ground. There's nothing worse than ruining your chances for the rest of the game while smashing one opponent. If you can't be relatively certain of annihilating an opponent, judge for yourself when your attacks are getting limited returns and withdraw. Leave only enough units to harass your opponent's rebuilding efforts; you need to worry about your own empire, too!

STRENGTHS OF DAGGER PLAY

This strategy relies heavily on surprise and shock. Most players in the early game are exploring, expanding, and strengthening their empire for later struggles; they assume everyone else is doing the same. The players haven't put out sentinel nets yet and probably assume there's no need.

Their defenses are light, and infrastructure is their main focus. This makes enemies ripe targets for a Dagger attack. Taking out one or two of your nearest neighbor's productive cities means more room for you to expand, more units that will never be built, and possibly an eliminated opponent!

WEAKNESSES OF DAGGER PLAY

Unfortunately, this strategy is often a "do or die" method. If your dagger thrust should fail (because your target was ready, you had bad luck, or it turns out that things just didn't come together) you have a problem. You're likely to be behind in total population, so your production, growth, and research are all lagging and require extra effort to catch up. Oftentimes, just when you are finishing catching up, your opponent(s) will come looking for revenge. In larger games, dagger players often have trouble making trade agreements because no one trusts someone who attacks unpredictably so early. Depending on the distance to your opponent, captured cities may have high maintenance, and you must work carefully to be able to afford your conquering armies and your remote additional townships. Finally, take great care in having the right units for the job; Horse Archers are fairly dependable against Archers, but unpromoted Axemen are much less so. That is unless, of course, your opponent is defending with Spearmen or Warriors.

DAGGER PLAY IS BEST USED WHEN

• You know your opponent's early-game habits tend to be relaxed.
• You can see Horses and possibly one other "Animal Husbandry" resource near your capital.
• Your land is particularly good without Worker action (high commerce for supporting armies, many resources, rivers, etc).
• Your opponent is close enough that you won't spend 20 turns suffering extra unit maintenance just getting to your foe.

PILLAGE BEFORE YOU BURN: "CHOKE" TACTICS

The raider, or "choke," style of play was among the most popular methods of foiling opponents in Civilization III. The strategy focused not on attacking the cities of an opponent (harder targets as they were with their walls) but on attacking the land itself, cutting out the strength of opposing empires from under it. By ripping up Farms, Mines, and Roads, you deprive your foes of something even more vital than units and cities: you deprive them of their future.

Cruel Chris may not have Horses or Catapults to punch through those blasted, Archer-filled cities of Defensive Dan, but he knows Dan doesn't have much production, which is why he is guarding his towns so heavily. Chris has a supply of Bronze, though, and if he can't take the cities, he can sure take everything else!

BASIC EXPLANATION

Tile improvements are everything, particularly resource tiles. Taking away a health resource from an entire empire can seriously harm its growth; doing this repeatedly can be devastating. Deprive opponents of a metal or stone, and they may not build their Wonder or the units needed for their own plans. Eventually, if an opponent has been strangled long enough, your mature empire will face one with stunted growth, slowed research, and no real units beyond Archer-type troops, and it won't matter how many bows are packed behind those walls.

WHAT TO RESEARCH

Unlike the dagger, the choke style of play requires steady, constant pressure; the pressure isn't as intense as a dagger attack, but it must be unrelenting. To this end, it's important to keep your production and cities growing. Get Bronze Working early in order to start choking opponents, but remember to tend to your own needs; research Agriculture, Pottery, and get to Currency as soon as possible. Many units that tend to stay outside your borders get expensive, and you need a solid cash flow if you're to keep research going in the face of that. If your opponent has more than one sea resource, strongly consider picking up Sailing to go after those hard-to-defend resources as well.

WHAT TO BUILD

While Barracks are useful here, they're not quite as important, because your units often get to face enemies in the open field, at a unit-to-unit mismatch. In these cases, experience isn't quite as important. What is important is that your growth not be slowed too much when hampering your opponent; keep one or two cities focused on expansion and infrastructure. Don't forget that part of denying your opponent resources is to check for, and remove, naval resources as well. This can be an expensive production effort. Because you are also putting many troops into the field, you may not have all you need at home; your Road network must be adequate for fast responses if a problem shows up at your border.

HOW TO EXECUTE A CHOKE

Choke strategies rely not on speed, the hallmark of Civilization III "Impi Chokes," but on Porcupine Stacks. If you have advance knowledge of your opponent's resources (e.g. they have Horses but not Bronze/Iron) skew your stack in that direction. A stack that is 75% Spearmen and 25% Axemen will do much better against a Horse-heavy opponent than the opposite, and a stack that is nearly all Spearmen will do quite poorly if your opponent cannot field Horses but has Axemen aplenty!

If your opponent does not lack any resource, keep an even mix of units. As soon as possible, include one or two Catapults per raider stack; a single Horse Archer or two will be useful to chase down Workers, as well. Prior to actually launching the stack, and certainly afterward, consider including a few Workers. Have them build a Road to your opponent's empire. This speeds replacement of lost units and helps maintain pressure. If you are doing a proper job of ravaging your opponent's empire, there is little chance that your neutral-territory Road will be used against you.

Once you have a stack of five to six units (depending on how far along the game is), send the Porcupine Stack out to visit your neighbor. Your opponent may first fear that you are attacking cities; that plays to your advantage. Head for a city as much as possible, but veer off to stand on resource tiles when they are available. Your opponents are then faced with a miserable decision: attack your stack of units, knowing that they must throw their Horse Archer against a Spearman, or Swordsman against an Axeman? Alternatively, do they simply hole up in the city to avoid losses and accept the damage to the empire? Most players will, however unhappily, meet you in the open field.

In most cases, since your objective is not to kill units or capture cities, it is better to let enemies attack you; this lets your units enjoy whatever terrain bonuses they have. That is not always the case, though; if you are about to be attacked by a group of units (five or more) that is a genuine danger to your raider stack, unleash your Catapults.

Their collateral damage seriously harms the opposing stack even if (or perhaps when) they lose, allowing you to overwhelm and destroy that stack before it can retreat for healing. You may lose units in the process, but remember that your production is probably much better than your opponent's.

Keep two or three Porcupine Stacks in your opponent's land. Their roaming attacks keep the hapless opponent from repairing damaged tiles with Workers. The stacks extend this damage by ripping up additional tile improvements after the improvements on major resource tiles are destroyed. Enemies will not be a threat to you after this, and they will be disposed of in due time. You can decide at leisure when your empire is ready to make the final cut.

GAME TESTER TIP
Pillaging of the enemy lands provides gold that can be a nice boost to your income whilst sharply decreasing your enemy's capabilities.

LONG-TERM CHOKE STRATEGIES

One of the most important, and perhaps the hardest part, of the choke strategy is to maintain constant vigilance. Watch for new cities that are sneaking out towards resources; a city planted on a resource beside a river or coast is a resource you can't choke off. Keep moving your Porcupine Stacks around; don't leave them in one place and make the mistake of thinking you can threaten by your presence. The longer a stack remains immobile, the greater the chance your opponent has adjusted to deal with its presence. Keep moving them around; rotate out injured units by moving them into neutral territory, then rotate them back in after they are healed. Eventually, you gain enough of a production and technological advantage that you can hammer straight through the starved, primitive, opposing cities. Even if that fails, you can ironically win a peaceful victory by having a higher score or space race success.

STRENGTHS OF CHOKE PLAY

Of the four main strategies, the choke is the most frustrating to defend. This is a good thing, because the choke is also the hardest to do well. There is nothing more aggravating than seeing the time you spent with your Workers disappear under the press of a button. Watching cities that were prosperous go into the red can drive people to rash action, and rash action against a Porcupine Stack (rather than carefully calculated action) is what leads to defeat. In a "two players, one continent" situation, choke-style play can also lead to easy days defending your home ground; if you know where all opposing units are—bottled up in cities and bouncing off your stacks—your own defenses can be much lighter. Additionally, the gold generated by pillaging allows you additional flexibility. This isn't a long-term source of income, but it is supplementary, and especially sweet.

WEAKNESSES OF CHOKE PLAY

Choke play is, physically speaking, the most tiring of the four strategies, and also the most time-consuming (it makes the timer your greatest enemy). This problem stems from the fact that you are, in essence, managing two entirely different empires: yours and your opponent's. You are managing the construction of your own, and the destruction of the opponent's, one tile at a time. It takes a massive amount of attention to improve your land, choose ideal targets in his area, move around injured units, watch for Workers/Settlers, and to protect your precious stacks. The whole thing can be downright tiring, both to your mind and your hand. The result may be a gradual weakening of the choke, which gets harder to keep in place as the game progresses. Suddenly you may have vengeful opponents who have driven you clear from their lands, and your own home defenses are somewhat lacking.

CHOKE PLAY IS BEST USED WHEN

• Your opponents' lands are largely better than yours, and you must keep them from using it.
• You have no Horse Archers, or no real ability to strike at cities, but have superior production and/or Copper (especially if your opponent lacks it).
• You know your opponent is someone who is easily frustrated and you are patient.
• You have a teammate with very good land who only needs the time and space to become a superpower.

For more hints, secrets, and strategy, check out BradyGames' Civilization IV Official Strategy Guide!

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education. Reprinted with permission from BradyGames.