How do you stop a raging warmonger?

Okay, here's the situation. Your in a war with an opponent who has built up a mighty war machine rolling AI civs all over the globe. His armed forces are so powerful they can destroy your cities one by one by anhiliation, only the re-supply of diplos is slowing him down. You are even in techs and your army is strong enough to force him to destroy cities rather than capture them. But your army is not strong enough to counter attack. He has the happy wonders and Sun Tsu, you have the Statue, Magellan and Leo's. He's in democracy, your in fundy but with a good science rate - he's virtually stopped doing science because he's a war monger. You both have muskets, cannons, steam boats and cav. You are not industrialised, but that is around the corner. Cities wise, you have 15, he has 25. Its 1804.

How do you slow him down / stop him and seize the initiative? Should you concentrate on defending cities or push forces out to try and defeat him in the field?

Aren't you glad this is just a game

[CornMaster]

I see only 4 choices. Take his capital, throwing him into a civil war. If this is an AI opponent now you've got 2 to face, but one will usually make peace.
If you don't want to go through this, because it's to hard, or not you style, or impossible then I would use you Iron Clads or best ship to patrol the coast along your cities and destroy oncoming units from the sea.
Thirdly place offensive units in your cities and attack his units before they can attack your city.
And lastly, if you have a LARGE amount of gold you can buy his empire from him.

Hope this helps you.

P.S. I'm in a game like this but it's 30 cities to my 7 and we are not even on tech or units. My navy consists of 2 triemes in 1947!!! But I'm hanging in there. But I know the Japanese will destroy the whole world unless I can cause civil war. They already cause a civil with the second largest civ and now has no competition. I'm like last or second last of 6. The game is on Diety too. Diffuculty level might influence your choice.

Good luck.

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
"If the great Emperors of Rome, Egypt and Greece were alive today, do you think they would prefer Coke or Pepsi?"
[This message has been edited by CornMaster (edited July 23, 2000).]

quote: Originally posted by CornMaster on 07-23-2000 11:56 PM My navy consists of 2 triemes in 1947!!!

(Jesus, and I thought I had problems)

Its a human opponent. Can you trigger civil war with human opponents? I've never seen that.

[CornMaster]

I'm pretty sure you can cause a Civil War against any opponent but I've only been able to do it against AI. Never tried MP. And only when I was at peace and then went to war. If I was already at war, no matter what the size of the empire I couldn't break it up.

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
"If the great Emperors of Rome, Egypt and Greece were alive today, do you think they would prefer Coke or Pepsi?"

[Smash]

Walls

Barracks

Tactics

Boats

Many,many diplomats.Bribe every unit you can.Democracy?Scout and sabotage.Use them for stacking.

Use engineers to change city squares to forests.

Strategic fortresses.Kill anything that comes along.

The best defense is offensive.Get out and make Mak....er...them take losses on the way in.You need to get the fighting out of your backyard.

or surrender.

[Makeo]

Civil war doesn't occur with humans.
City walls are a waste of money.
Can't bribe someone who is in Democracy.
I wish we had explosives.

[finbar]

Hey, Horse. You could refuse to let the warmonger use diplos to smuggle troops past your fortresses. Just a thought.

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finbar
Mono Rules!
#33984591

[Oldman]

Why don't you just Nuke his arse!!!!!! And if not, Why NOT?!?!?!?

Sorry, not very constructive am i!??! Maybe you could just beg for peace? Have you read The Art of War by Sun Tzu? it's got a few good pointers on how to wage war!!! Also if you quote Sun Tzu, maybe your opposition will just run scared?? just a thought...

[Hueij]

AH, maybe you should have build your front-line cities on mountains

[cavebear]

Two radical defenses:

1. Use his senate against him. Offer peace. His senate may trip him up and force acceptance (why not, it always does me). Raise your relations to him to worshipfulness. Send caravans to a coastal city of his and dump them straight in whether there is needed trade or not. Keep offerring peace. If not accepted at first, make a mass attack on a position then offer it again. The senate is frightened easily.

2. Launch a suicide attack away from your common borders. Put enough on the first transport to make a credible showing, and have a few others with only one unit each right behind and visible to him. He can't tell how many are in each past the first unit. He may either get too aggressive on your front, or he may hesitate to protect his backside.
[This message has been edited by cavebear (edited July 24, 2000).]

quote: Originally posted by Makeo on 07-24-2000 07:05 AM City walls are a waste of money.

Or, how to disarm your opponent with bad advice

[finbar]

City walls are a waste of money against an attacking force loaded up with diplos. Walls provide a false sense of security. And against vet spies? Walls are a joke.

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finbar
Mono Rules!
#33984591

[Makeo]

perhaps i should edit my stance on city walls. They are not a waste of money. They force an enemy to spend resources on building enough diplos to destroy them. But a prepared attacker will have enough diplos to destroy the walls.
So i guess walls are worth it.

[SandMonkey]

Can diplos be caught by other ones stationed in a city? Granted, a whole hoard of diplos will still get past a diplo or two in a city, but it could help waste a few, right? But yeah that's just another waste of resources, as you would be better off using the diplomats for some sort of espionage against enemy cities/units.

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SandMonkey

"Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a qtip"
-Homer Simpson

"Ecky ecky ecky!"
"It's just a flesh wound!"
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Check out my 1602 A.D. site

I disagree Diplos cost money, money which could be spent on units. They also need to be maintained, deployed, take up space on ships and are very vulnerable to attack. In other words forcing your opponent to build them has a high nuisance value.

Who are you trying to kid finbar? Strangely, in every game I've played with you I've had the pleasure to admire the pretty walls around your cities. Even stranger in this game makeo's cities are walled. Should follow your own advice if you believe in it makeo

[joew]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but if you take an AI capital does it cause a "civil war" that splits the AI into two. I have a very old version of CIVII (although I just updated it with a patch), and I don't recall ever seeing an AI split into two. With the patch, will I see this in single player mode.

[SandMonkey]

joe -

I think to split an AI civ, they have to be the most powerful civ, and there have to be six or less total players (including yourself) in the game (if there are 7, there is no other civ for the split to take!).

And makeo, I don't know if walls are such a bad thing in this case. It could slow the opoonent down and buy yourslef time to build more units. If you have no city walls, you're going to get your butt kicked no matter what.

(5 mins later) Ahh okay, NOW I see why you don't want him to have city walls....

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SandMonkey

"Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a qtip"
-Homer Simpson

"Ecky ecky ecky!"
"It's just a flesh wound!"
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Check out my 1602 A.D. site

[finbar]

quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse on 07-25-2000 12:04 AM Diplos ... also need to be maintained ...

Huh? They don't cost shield support.

quote: Who are you trying to kid finbar? Strangely, in every game I've played with you I've had the pleasure to admire the pretty walls around your cities.

Of course I build them. A lot of players don't attack with diplos. My point was that, against an army of diplos, they're useless.



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finbar
Mono Rules!
#33984591

[Makeo]

I modified my view.

[SmartFart]

You shouldn't let him have all happy wonders plus Sun-tzu.
Judging by the field report,you're about to lose this game.
Your actions should be taken before GW expired,or you let him have GW too,did you?!?

[SCG]

A diplomat in a city can stop an enemy diplomat on occasion. Not very often though (about 20%), and the offending diplomat simply ends his turn on the tile from which he attempted to infiltrate the city. In one SP game I had them successfully defend on 3 different occasions. The best defense against diplomats is to catch them before they are in range (easier said than done in MP).

If your cities are falling one by one, then maybe sacrificing heartland garrisons might slow the advance on the frontier cities enough to make a viable counter attack. As for city walls, I would consider them essential even if it costs you most of your improvements in the city. Without them there initially, the enemy will simply have more diplomats to spend on the next city. The other thing imperative to perimeter defence is a good internal road and railroad system, where you can get reserves to the front quicker (Assuming you have railroad). I like to have a road on a couple tiles adjacent to the city tile and none 2 tiles away, preferably having 2-movement terrain on the city perimeter so that you can attack from 1 space away from the city and still keep the enemy outside the city, while all your own units are inside the city. (Of course later that is useless against 3-movement spies)

Well, thats my my 2 cents (well, 1 cent, you probably are already doing some of that )

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April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

*goes off and starts gifting gold and techs*

Well he got another city last night, but the costs to his forces seem to be going up. I'm going down slowly but its no walkover.

As for wonders, I have HG, Leo's, GW (expired now but all my cities are walled), the statue, magellan's and Great Library (I captured it, useless now).

End of last turn he had about 23 cities and 120 units. I had 14 cities and about 80 units.

For those that are interested in such things, my cities have an Apolypse Now! theme

My capital is "Almighty" and I have:

Apocalypse Now
Kurtz
Willard
CIA
That's Classified
Nung River
CharlieDon'tSurf
Terminate
Extreme Prejudice
ItsaF*ckingPuppy
etc. etc.

Even if I don't win this very unusual game I'm havin fun bloodying his nose

[Smash]

You are digging in and fighting hard.I like that.

[Matthew]

First of all, if at all possible you must take at least one of those happy wonders from him. It won't just hurt him, but will also help you.

If you can take a happy wonder from him, perhaps a city of his will go into disorder on occasion. Quite possibly immediately after you take the happy wonder. Be prepared. As the last act of your turn, Diprape the city that just went into disorder. Diprape it hard. Destroying a marketplace or temple just might do the trick. two or more of these, and he is likely yours. His turn will begin with the joyous message that his Democratic government has fallen. Hope you have a few dips and some cash standing by for the occasion. Especially if he has a low bank account himself.

You definitely need to concentrate on destroying his forces before he gets to your city. You have Magellans, a highly underrated wonder. Even a smaller navy should be able to reign supreme with good tactics. On the ground, place roads wisely. Get rid of roads that pose a security risk. Patroll on roads around your empire to find any forces coming by land, and destroy them.

And if you have a choice of happy wonders to take, take JSB, hands down. For a Democracy waging war it is much more valuable than MC.

[Matthew]

As far as walls go, build as needed. If I have naval supremacy I tend not to build them on coastal cities or any others that can not be easily accessed by land. A pikeman and a catapult on a fortressed hill guarding the approach to your city is a better investment than city walls, which can be dipped. And 2 Caravels with two pikemen and four attacking units better than 3 walls. It's hard to think about attacking when you are on the defensive.

[SuperSneak]

quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse on 07-25-2000 07:29 PM For those that are interested in such things, my cities have an Apolypse Now! theme

Don't tell me you forgot "I Love the Smell"?

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Bring it!

"Do not act as if you would live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good." Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)

[cavebear]

AH, thinking about it further, you should be near an advantage. Your opponent is a democracy, and it is difficult (if not impossible) to have all your units out campaigning. As someone who usually plays from Demo, I am all too painfully aware of that difficulty.

So, his available units can't equal your own (though I'm sure they are concentrated on a front). Added to that, the defense has an advantage; it costs less to buy defensive units than attacking ones, and you get the fortification and terrain multipliers *even* if your city walls are destroyed.

You have the fundie units, cheap to build, and with 4 defense. Placed on hills and mountains (and fortified) along the attack paths, these should make his movements awkward, and the cost of killing each one them is higher than most individual offensive units attack strength.

You might also keep your capital nearer the front, to increase the costs of unit-bribing (if that is happening). Does proximity to the capital improve diplo defense (I mean the performance of your own dips against his). Keep moving your palace back as you retreat inch-by-inch.

I'm sure you know how to take advantage of your internal lines of movement, so I will only remind you about that.

If you have no navy, you sure need coastal fortresses! (but not sure if you have the tech for it yet) Still, a fortified fanatic will use up most of one attacking ironclad, and you can replace yours easier.

I think you said you have Leo's. Keep your tech advance going, even using your 2 triremes to trade with the enemy! I'm sure you are researching the best defensive units, and that modernization jump every 4 or 5 turns will balance things out in a hurry.

In short, it seems to me that the advantage is yours if you can hold on a couple of tech cycles. Given the general equality of unit types, and the lack of a minimum 2-1 advantage by your attacker, I think you are going to win that game!

My 2 cents...



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Proud participant in GameLeague...

Proud Warrior of the O.W.L. Alliance...

[CornMaster]

I'm the guy with the 2 triemes (aka sucks) .

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
"If the great Emperors of Rome, Egypt and Greece were alive today, do you think they would prefer Coke or Pepsi?"
Administrator of the CornEmpire Forum
[This message has been edited by CornMaster (edited July 26, 2000).]

Yeah CB I have some advantages on the defensive but makeo has both the chapel and Bach's so he's not that constrained on moving units. I have HG.

I don't have the fundy units because I'm in fundy through the statue.

I'm losing slowly but I'm very relaxed and have a helluva good time fighting hard for every inch. Makeo has come close to catastrophe a couple of times (he'll never know how close) so it may be only a matter of time before I get him good. On the other hand, maybe not

[inca911]

Well, here's my assessment of your situation along with tips and recommendations:

1. Establish a good defensive position. Forts on mountains with stacked units (no bribery then) along transportation lines are best. Realize and accept that you might have to sacrifice one city (sell all improvements before you abandon it!) and fall back to a defensively better city to accomplish this goal. Pillage your own roads to make his unit movement more difficult. This way some offensive units in your city can lash out at his cavalry units before he can attack. If you can establish or if you have 2 movement terrain on the assault edge of the city, then even his dips can't jump in (build forests on all 1 movement terrain if you can before you fall back to your defensive city). You may even want to quickly build a new city and rush buy the walls because of the terrain benefits offered by the location--even if it is only a few squares away from your abandoned city. You must prevent his staging of units next to the city and disrupt his lines of supply and transportation!

2. Use the production benefits of Fundy to establish military parity. You should curtail your own science rate and build up your treasury to prevent bribery. You will also be able to incrementally rush buy units with the increased gold. If you feel you might lose 1 or 2 cities before you can catch up, then you certainly don't want to give him free tech advances especially when he has cut back his own science rate! You want to go Industrial when you have the cash to rush build factories. By setting your science high, and losing cities, you are doing his science work for him. You want scientific parity in this game and a good gold surplus. If he gets a tech, use a fast moving (via Magellans) transport and a few diplos to get it from him. Your gold input from cutting your science will allow you to rushbuy enough diplos to steal any tech he gets.

3. Ensure you can use Leo's upgrade ability when you have a good amount of units to benefit. It won't help much at sea offensively, since Ironclads and Destroyers are only different in movement points. But Leo's will upgrade your Musketeers to Riflemen at Conscription and will upgrade your Galleon to Transport at Industrialization (and your Ironclads to Destroyers at Electricity, but who cares about that). Your units will lose their Vet status (if they are Vets), but build your Army up before you discover Conscription to help a bit defensively.

4. Use the increased movement of Magellan's and the upgrade of all Galleons to Transport at Industrialization to quickly transport a strike force back into his civ (if possible). This could mean dips to steal any tech advance he gets, or it could mean a force of Riflemen with engineers to build forts on his lines of transportation, making reinforcement of the front lines difficult or even impossible. Don't let him use his roads freely! Roads give him too much trade, and too much mobilization potential. If you can slightly isolate the front lines, your increased production capabilty and your large treasury should allow you to counterattack.

5. Use Democracy against him. Ask every turn for a peace treaty and hope the Senate forces him into one. It is hard to declare war in Democracy so if you can get a peace, it will likely give you time to catch up. Also, if you can fund enough diplos you can attempt to make a city go into disorder two turns in a row via industrial sabotage. Often you destroy a Market/Temple and the city goes into disorder. He will then adjust to make it happy, but hopefully he is too conservative. You then bring the second main diplo assault and blow all the other happy improvements (Colloseum, Bank, Courthouse, etc.) to get the second turn of disorder. If you can pull it off, he's in Anarchy for multiple turns and if your treasury is large enough, you can buy back what you've lost so far!

7. If this isn't a duel, give the AIs whatever they want to go to war against him. They will likely leave you alone for a while and they may be able to bleed him just enough to make a difference!

Good luck and keep us informed!
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by inca911 (edited July 28, 2000).]</font>
[This message has been edited by inca911 (edited July 28, 2000).]