How to defeat this guy?

Hendrik the Great · December 21, 2000, 20:21

Well, I am playing a multiplayer game on the large world map that comes with the game. I am in controll of both north and south america and at war with the vikings who stretch from the UK to, however thining out a lot, to China. Also he holds west-central africa. On science we are even, he is democracy I communist and a bit smaller than he is in population.
He just buys everything with his spies and I can't do anything about it. I don't have a lot of money to spare so I need to use ordinary military methods.
How can I defeat him militarily? I also lack some of the good wonders like Hoover, Michelangelos and the science wonders.

What I envisioned was to knock out his coastal cities along the atlantic first and then his capital but I need to avoid being bought away and I cannot ever deploy so many units as to stack all of them. On land tanks will have to do the job, no airplanes yet or howitzers.

One thing I have to be, very fast to prevent him from deploying an adequate defense which until now he still lacks in many cities.

Any advice is welcome...tomorrow evening we continue with the game.

Thanks in advance!

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Like2frolick · December 22, 2000, 02:15

Switch to Democracy. If you have ANY Happiness wonders, you should have the advantage. Play defensive, if he sends ten tanks to be crushed on your walls....counter attack.

Dip-rape him. Especially use Spies to blow up Happiness buildings and send his cities into revolt. Control the Ocean. Contain him on his continents, and systematically wipe em out.

Martin Schmidt · December 22, 2000, 05:39

Like2frolick is right . To prevent your citizens
from going mad build some bunkers around . Units
stationed there are not counting for unhappiness.

Hendrik the Great · December 22, 2000, 06:47

I don't have any happiness wonders whatsoever. That's why I'm communist. Neither do I have the SoL. I tried Democracy a while ago only to end up in civil war. Besides the time I would need to switch in mid game might be all he needs to bolster his defense.

The other idea however sounds very apealing. Since I'm communist I have all those nice vet spies... I think I will follow up on that and cause some pre-invasion havoc.
And the ocean is the key, right. I am already building new ships in 6 cities all along the atlantic. I don't think he can out-produce me in this, too. So far his fleet consists out of a single ancient frigate and a few transports.

Perhaps I try to take out the capital first, he won't split but it will take away some of his wonders and much science from him...

The danger is that I might be drawn into a three front war on pacific, atlantic and in Africa.

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Mika · December 22, 2000, 07:02

Another idea...

switch to fundamentalism. All you have to do is to steal his technology to keep up with him and bribinb cities will be too expensive for him soon. (well, not all but at least larger cities)

And you get an additional military bonus and loads of money that allow you to build up more military units faster. If he really has almost no fleet you should be able to invade his home country very fast. I recommend some battleships and a few transporters full with tanks AND some spies to put down his city walls first. It will work... and later you could use some subs with missiles (you said you control the sea) to attack every ship that comes out of its harbour. On the other hand you should build some carriers with loads of bombers. Then all his cities near the coast are dead. Remember that he can't build as many units as you can when you switch to fundamentalism.

well, the whole posting presupposes that you already got fundamentalism... if not, he will have it and you have vet spies.

Have fun and kill him

Mika

Scouse Gits · December 22, 2000, 08:51

I too would prefer fundy to commie, but the secret is undoubtedly a dip-rape and selective attack - as you have discovered Demo without the happy wonders is near impossible - in particular aggressive Demo without Shake and Bach is bloody impossible! Target those cities with all you have and either take them - might not be possible (at least to take and hold them) or as a slightly second best destroy them utterly - spy-rape the water supply down to a size 1 or 2 city then hit it hard with armour - his Democracy will fold.Good civin' and give himn hell!!

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DaveV · December 22, 2000, 09:26

Another effective tactic against a democracy is to cover all of the shield-generating squares in a city radius with your units. This will leave the city with only the shields from the city square itself (usually only 1 shield), and will probably eliminate some of his units due to non-support. If you do this to several cities at once, you may be able to eliminate a good portion of his military, and he is unlikely to be able to mount an effective counterattack against your shield squatters. The besieged cities will probably end up thinly defended, also. This is obviously not as effective against cities with whales in their radius, or with offshore platforms.

Bohlen · December 22, 2000, 11:38

Use and recycle those vet spies and sabotage everything he has. The more arrows and shields you can take away, the better the chance of knocking him off. And as DaveV said, cover and pillage his land. He'll freak out!

Hendrik the Great · December 22, 2000, 17:15

This is not going well, it just takes far too long...

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jcarkey · December 22, 2000, 17:33

Try taking out the pacific. This strategy is assuming your opponent has a good railroad system. Take a transport or two with an engineer, some armor and lots of spies. Harass an enemy city down to size one or two. MAKE SURE TO DESTROY CITY WALLS! Then build a small city close to the railroad line and the coast. Use that city as a base of operations. Start sending the armor out and take the enemy cities. When you need back-ups have your Pacific side cities and start rushbuilding armor constantly sending them to that one starting city. The loss of lots of small cities will slow down your opponents research and it will upgrade yors. After you conquer a good portion of land, max out science. You should be getting close to his mainland area making him go on to a slight defensive posture. You should be gaining a research edge with all of your capturing and new tax rate. If he decides to make a cease-fire bargain him for all he will give you. If he notices how quickly and decisively you are capturing he should be rather willing to make a cease-fire. If he doesn't, just do more of the same. If he happens to change from Democracy, keep your tax rate maxed and start bribing his cities.

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December 22, 2000, 17:43

Who has SOL?

Build vet spies in commie and then switch to fundy.

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Hendrik the Great · December 22, 2000, 18:06

The enemy has SoL! That's the Problem! And I am building Spies. It's just so timeconsuming and he has so much money if he had the ships he could buy all of my within a few turns.

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Hendrik the Great · December 22, 2000, 19:36

It does not work! I conquer England and he just buys it all back! Damned! I need Nukes or at least about 30.000 in my treasury to buy me a super large army.

Perhaps I need even more spies and soldiers...

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Hendrik the Great · December 23, 2000, 01:08

Thanks a lot for your advice!

Hmm...those are really good points. I promise you, I won't let a stone keep standing on his territory!

Fundi is no option yet as no one has it discovered so far. But I will manage without.

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Carolus Rex · December 23, 2000, 05:56

Ok, he buys everything back. But at least you're fighting in his backyard, pounding at his cities.

How about building a fortress in the UK somewhere and stack units in there? Then take a couple of cities and only defend them with one unit and sell off an improvement in each of them. Also, you get some gold when conquering his cities if they're big when you take them. He bribes them back and you repeat the cycle with the units in the fortress. This will wear his cities down.

Sacrificing an engineer to establish a beach head city may be a good idea. Then move in loaded transports, this way you don't lose any movement points. Have two other engineers build the fortress instantly and move all units in there.

True, this requires a lot of preparation and takes time. All IMHO, though.

Good luck!

Carolus

Hendrik the Great · December 23, 2000, 07:37

I haven't thought about the fortress yet, good idea!
I have conquered even more of England the second time, only London is Viking but he will buy them back again, I have seen the spies on their way.

Basicly my strayegy is developing into what you just described. I take is cities, sell the best improment in it and take all workers away from their fields and make them all tax collectors for addional money. This way they always starve for at least one or two turns.

And the Pacific Ocean enterprse is in preparation, I just have to keep him busy in Europe so he doesn't notice what I am doing. And Africa should be a nice surprise for him, too. Nothing can stop that transport ship now...

The only real problem is that time is noy playing in my favour, the longer I prepare the more money he has to buy me. And he only needs one transport to get through to me...

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jcarkey · December 23, 2000, 11:27

Well, at least you are getting money from the conquer get conquered. If you get all of England then you have a good launching base. That will make things easier.

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Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented the spell check- Dan Quayle

If someone doesn't agree with you, you haven't explained yourself well enough-Luther Ely Smith

December 23, 2000, 12:39

Keep pounding at him in the manner you are now. Make a beeline for fundy. Then build a huge horde of fanatics and fortify them near all of his cities to sheild-starve him.

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Willi · December 23, 2000, 21:04

Hi, I'm the guy, Hendrik wants to destroy...
I'm very pleased to see, that he got sleepless nights by this impossible mission...
Hendrik got some good advices to switch to democraty, but he didn't follow...
He isn't able to take my fourty cities, since I have money and spys but also railroads between the cities and the powerful weapons, that robotic make possible...
Each year I offered peace to Hendrik, each time with more bad circumstances for him, but he was silly enough, to say everytime no. Next time I'll offer peace, if he give me his city with the most wonders. It would a good choice for him, then to make peace and follow the advice to change to democraty and try to reach Alpha Centauri...
Hendrik didn't tell you the whole setting of our online game. We are three humans. Hendrik and me have each about 20,000,000 inhabitants, but the third one, Ingo, also located in Europe, Asia and Africa, has 50,000,000 inhabitants. He is running his nation as a democraty in a very civilized manner and therefore he hasn't the military power like Hendrik and me. Official is Ingo allied with Hendrik and with me. But I presume the both have a secret agreement, that Ingo doesn't attack Hendrik, when he is in war with me. But Hendrik should know, that he cannot trust such a agreement. If any of his troops will appear in Europe, Asia or Africa - he gots advices how to do so and he intend to do so - I would force Ingo to attack Hendrik - and I think, Ingo would fear my nearly, railroad-connected powerful weapons more, than the weak american power...

Sorry for my bad English!

SandMonkey · December 23, 2000, 21:28

wow Hendrik that just SUCKS...

Hendrik the Great · December 24, 2000, 07:40

What he wrote is basicly all correct. I was just waiting for him to find out about this anyway...

Actually I only have 15 Million People, unfortunately.
But there is no secret agreement between Ingo and me even though Willi thinks so. We promised each other nothing and made no deals whatsoever.

I don't want to destroy Willi, I am just don't trust him anymore after he bought 2 of my cities I had conquered from the AI without me provocating him.

I prosume since this is our first online game we, at least I, need to switch from my usual strategy against the AI to a more peaceful approach.

Oh well, let's just forget about the whole thing...

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jcarkey · December 24, 2000, 15:35

Hendrik, you have no chance with a strategy that we suggested now.

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Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented the spell check- Dan Quayle

If someone doesn't agree with you, you haven't explained yourself well enough-Luther Ely Smith

Matthew · December 24, 2000, 16:19

Don't worry about capturing cities. Focus on destroying them. Although he has 40 cities, surely most of his trade and science is coming from 10 or 15 of them. Use those vet spies to poison a city down to size 1, dip the walls if he has them, then attack and destroy the city.

I can tell you how to wrest financial and technological superiority away from him, but I won't do so where he can see. Check your private message box.
[This message has been edited by Matthew (edited December 24, 2000).]

Smash · December 24, 2000, 16:53

Pillage.
Spys.

next time play no city bribes

Maelhavok · December 25, 2000, 06:16

Hello Civ2 fan,

I don't play MP so if this info isn't applicable,disregard. So, he has railroads-great. Take armada, with landing\invasion force include freight or spies to bypass zoc and turbocharged engineer for instant fort. Send spy to find city info.
#1 goal- establish ONE beachhead city the one easiest to defend against spys and on rail line. Dedicate force to guard city include 1 spy for anti-bribe and rush build courthouse first turn,city walls 2nd. Have engineers build forts on rail to aid spy defense and pillage other access to city.
#2 goal- Take away cities (as above) focus on taking away and defending ONE at a time. If you can't defend it against a spy dont take it. If he stockpiles inside a city DON'T TAKE, stop him from escaping and take another city.
If you cannot utilize this or another winning strategy and you don't trust enemy, offer anything to that really big civ for alliance against enemy, you have nothing to lose. Do not give enemy your territory! you can offer Democrat every other city you take or take city and give to democrat!
Merry Christmas,

Maelhavok
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Maelhavok (edited December 25, 2000).]</font>
[This message has been edited by Maelhavok (edited December 25, 2000).]

Hendrik the Great · December 25, 2000, 07:25

Thank you all very much for your briliant suggestions!

However, no further aid is required. We have settled the issue now and even though the strategies mentioned might no longer work it gave me a great insight into the overall picture.

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TCO · December 26, 2000, 00:03

Hendrick,

You should have not spent any effort on military invasion beyond very token feignts and instead should have used dip spies to blow up his temples and marketplaces.

The key to civ is trade-offs. You can't do everything. So if you have a good strategy push it hard and don't dilute your effort by doing other things.

jcarkey · December 26, 2000, 22:52

So, what was the turn out?

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Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented the spell check- Dan Quayle

If someone doesn't agree with you, you haven't explained yourself well enough-Luther Ely Smith

Hendrik the Great · December 28, 2000, 01:12

Well, the two of us were in a stalemate. Niether of us was able to do anything more than harrass the other one. It turned into a ever repeating cylce of me conquering some of his cities and he buying them back, me taking them or others again and he buying them back and so on...

The third human played won because he could concentrate on the more important issues.

But I tested the strategy of burned earth against a very strong AI Democrazy in a SP game. It was about 3 times as large is I in territory and cites and about the same in Tech. It works really good! One needs to have a long breath but by now I have destroyed 3 cities, conquered 1 and destroyed about 50 - 60% of its terrain improvements.
Just a matter of time until the AI succumbs to my steady stream of fanatics, spies and tanks. Losses are huge but as long as I have a few units ravaging and keeping the opponent busy it works, especially after the roads and railroads have been largly destroyed where ever I cannot use them in my advantage.

So all your advice was not in vain at all!

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