WW in the medieval age?

[Der PH]

Yesterday I stopped my current game (warlord level) at the beginning of the industrial age, because I absolutely dominated the world and it got boring.
I wanted a little more challenge, so I started at regent level.
And well, I got my challenge!

I played 12 civs on a large map. 9 of the civs were located on one huge continent and my roman empire was just in the center.
The game was quite good, until in the medieval age the babylonians, by far the mightiest civ in the game, declared war on me for no obvious reason. We had not even a common border, so they had to come through egyptian territory. They took one of my cities without bigger problems, but I was able to build a new defence line with my newly developed musketmen and stopped the invasion.
So far, so good!
The problem was, that in the following turns the babylonians allied with nearly every other civ in the world, all of which declared war on me. Only the Persians allied with me (and wanted all my money and a few other things for the deal).
So in the end it was me and the persians against the rest of the world!

Well, I survived due to my brave musketmen and managed to make peace with my opponents in the next 20 or 30 turns, but everyone of them took some tribute and my empire lay in ruins.
I felt like germany at the end of the 30-year-war.

O.K., I always wanted a game with a challenging AI, but at regent level it was a bit strange to have such an opposition. And till Civ 3 I played every TBS-game on the higher difficulty levels.

Anybody else experienced similar early world wars and what can I do to avoid the whole world fighting against me?

[Zanzin]

I wish I was getting more wars....but the AI just doesn't seem interested. Roughly in the middle ages now....I guess "love" is the theme of my current game. No one wants to fight anyone!

[Der PH]

What difficulty level are you playing?

[Zanzin]

warlord......guess I should probably up it a bit?

Still, when I played on regent, no one really seemed to be fighting all that much (except for me)

[Sytass]

Well, my current game is on a huge map, 8 civs, regent level. In 1750, the first war broke out (Aztecs - Germans, over some Aztec settlements on the German continent).

[Der PH]

Originally posted by Sytass
Well, my current game is on a huge map, 8 civs, regent level. In 1750, the first war broke out

I'm absolutely not sure, if I'll survive till 1750!

But hey, at least I cannot complain about a boring game!
Better this way than playing CTP2 at impossible level and winning every time!

[Sytass]

Actually, that was not a complaint. Being not the strongest civ around, I enjoy walking the line between furthering my goals and staying out of trouble. I am more of a diplomatic player than a militaristic player, and it shows when I play Alpha Centauri, Space Empires, or Master of Orion 2.

I am glad that diplomacy has been strongly revamped for Civ3, but I miss the opportunity to trade units. Wouldn't the following scenario be neat: You want to wage war against a distant foe to keep them in check. You don't want to particularly dirty your hands, so you pick a weak neighbour of theirs and supply them with weapons they couldn't normally build, like artillery, or maybe tanks, and have them fight the war for you.

[Grim Legacy]

I always get nervous whenever the opponents have more cities than I do. Only if I'm left without decent units will I forego a litlle 'corrective action'.

Letting the opponents grow = recipe for losing.

In all my games so far, there have been lots of interesting inter-AI wars. Very amusing. My own wars are of a more concentrated, surgical nature, and typically lie outside any fleeting alliances. =]

[Der PH]

Originally posted by Sytass
Actually, that was not a complaint.

I didn't refer to your post, but to my previous game.

Originally posted by Sytass
Wouldn't the following scenario be neat: You want to wage war against a distant foe to keep them in check. You don't want to particularly dirty your hands, so you pick a weak neighbour of theirs and supply them with weapons they couldn't normally build, like artillery, or maybe tanks, and have them fight the war for you.

Be careful!
That's exactly what the USA did with Afghanistan!

[Der PH]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
My own wars are of a more concentrated, surgical nature

My wars are of a more totally desperate nature!

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Der PH


My wars are of a more totally desperate nature!

LOL!

Really? Remember that offense is the best defense... when they come to attack you it is usually too late!

[Sytass]

Originally posted by Der PH
Be careful!
That's exactly what the USA did with Afghanistan!

I didn't say it's nice, I just thought it would be neat. I always liked that in other games (like Civ 2, or Space Empires 4)...

[Der PH]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
Really? Remember that offense is the best defense... when they come to attack you it is usually too late!

That's the way I used to play Civ games in the past. Worked always good until yesterday.

I simply didn't have the industrial power to start offensives against six nations at the same time. Taking defensive positions was the only (and in the end more or less successful) thing I was able to.

After making peace with most of my opponents I started building knights. I will remember everyone who participated in the war against me (not too difficult: everyone except the persians ) and one day I will strike back! (I hope! )

[MarshalN]

I noticed that as long as you keep the AI happy, they don't war you. You need to pay them a few bucks once in a while to do that.... give them 10 gold (just give it to them) when they get annoyed at you, and you'll be back to cautious (or you might need a little more later on, depends).

I always try to keep my neighbours happy if I don't want a war. If I want a war, then try to keep people who're farther away from you happy -- maybe you can get them to help you

[Der PH]

Originally posted by MarshalN
I noticed that as long as you keep the AI happy, they don't war you.

Until the turn before the babylonians declared war, they were polite to me.

I know for sure, because I contacted them, when their troops entered my territory (and made a right of passage agreement with them ).

[Kc7mxo]

The best thing to do in any war situation is to get them ON YOUR SIDE FIRST.

It rarely takes more than 500 bucks in the middle ages to bribe another empire into allying with you. Remember they only last 20 turns, but they often stay at war for long periods even after the alliance ends.

Whenever I go to war I immiaditly grab all the allies i can, excluding those I don't feel are either any threat to me, and no threat to my enemy. The only thing you have to watch out for are large mutual defense pact setups.

[TrainWreck20]

I am still learning the game, so I don't have the answers, but I prefer the new AI as opposed to the old Civ AIs. Much more challenging.

I am trying to form alliances 'pro-actively', which appears to be helping. Don't really have enough time under the belt to tell, really. The learning curve is quite steep here. I am playing at Regeant level and being quite entertained (much to my surprise). If the world is warlike, though, you may be forced into a warlike posture to maintain your empire.

Think about it....if a group of civs get together to beat up a small one, they all gain. The trick is to be a member of the group, not the small guy!

[tomcat ha]

i also had an world war against the aztecs.
I won.
with help of 4 other nations.
The egyptian emipre was first slaugterd (they had mostly old war chariots)
Then they came with hordes of cavalary units.
i just bombarded the aztec cities.

[Der PH]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
It rarely takes more than 500 bucks in the middle ages to bribe another empire into allying with you.

I think, exactly this has been the problem!
One turn before the war started, the Babylonians had more than 2000 gold in their piggy bank and I had only about 250 (which were gratefully taken by the Persians).
So it was the Babylonians, who bribed all the others to join their party.

Of course I tried to convince the others, too, but they all refused to oppose the Babylonians (which I can understand very good, The Bab's were the most powerful civ in the game).
The fact, that it was the Persians, who joined me, was rather surprising, because in the ancient age I had a big war against them and took 3 of their cities.

Well, altogether I like this game and I'm going to continue, although I don't think, I have any chance of winning it.
A challenging AI was exactly what I wanted from Civ3 and I'm very happy (and a little bit surprised) that I got one.

[Fromage]

Alliances are pretty nice in these situations. I was playing with emperor level, 12 civs and two large continents. I played with babylonians had a really great culture, but hardly any armies. Perhaps one spearman in every third city. It worked really well untill 1500.

I was just started building my first riflemans when I saw 10 chines riders coming near my empty border city. I had to think something, so:
- I bought one rifleman to defend the border city.
- Made mutual protection pact with three civs that were near me.

I worked pretty well. Other civs actually paid me 30-40gold /turn for the mutual protection pact When those riders attacked my worker, civs A, B and C declared war to China. I thought that would be enough to keep Chine out of my territory.

Next turn I noticed that those A, B and C civs had pacts with civs D, E and F. So now there was 7 civs against China. A bit after that one of my rich allies made military alliances with all the other civs.

China vs. rest of the world (11 civs) was pretty fast. 15 years later there was no China anymore. I had only build 10 riflemans in that time

If some large civ is going to attack, pacts with 2-3 civs can take him down.

[SanPellegrino]

It depends very much on your military strenght. When you are weak the AI is going to push you around. When you are stronger they will often pay tribute for treaties. Quality of units is not important, you can have a lot of warriors and they fear you