International incident woes - help requested

[jamespetts]

I am in a bit of a pickle. I am playing an SP game (PTW) as the Ottomans: large world, continents, three opposing civs, Warlord.

To begin with, I shared my continent with the Persians, but, after a relatively long campaign, managed to wipe them out. The other civilisations are the Vikings and the Russians.

Now, the Vikings occupy a really small island and are no threat (but they are useful in that they sell me furs). They recently lost a limited war to the Russians, along with two of their cities on a small island between their territory and mine.

The Russians, on the other hand, are trouble. They always had a continent to themselves, and they've also expanded to a small-ish island (five or so cities). I have (or had, see below) three cities on their continent, two from building them there before they finished building, and one from conquest long ago whey they delcared war on me for not giving them horses, and I gave them horses - in the form of knights in large numbers.

There is a huge uninhabited continent (full of empty goody huts) which I have been exploring and which nobody else seems to have found. I have founded three cities there, and I have a galleon on its way with another colonising party. The Russians have found the smaller island to its West and founded one city there, but they haven't got any further.

The Russians have a tech lead over me - they have three technologies that I don't have, and I only have one that they don't (navigation). They have maintained this consitently for some time. Which leads to the current problem. My plan was to colonise this new continent and by so doing, out-pace the Russians in terms of economic output, and then overtake them in tech so that I could get a space race or military victory.

I have set the government to democracy and I have been building libraries and universities everywhere, but they were still two techs ahead of me, so I decided to try to steal one of their technologies. I had tried before ("carefully"), and had failed to steal anything, although my agent was not captured.

This time, however, not only did I not steal anything, but my agent was captured, and they declared war. Already, they have taken one of the cities that I built on their continent (not the one that I captured), and destroyed another city on an island that they occupy mainly. I have managed to take one of the cities that they took from the Vikings (near my harbour-transported and fortress guarded supply of saltpeter), but now my citizens are so upset by the war that almost all of my cities are in disorder. Not only that, but Russia refuses to talk peace at any price.

I am sure that I have a good chance of doing well in a campaign if I could build enough galleons, frigates, the Ottoman version of cavalry, riflemen and canons, but I can't build anything anytime soon as things are, and soon the mobs will be taring down my cities.

I fear that, if I switch to monarchy, I shall be in anarchy so long that I shall have been half-conquored by the time that I manage to produce a decent army. Does anyone have any tips as to what best to do? I shall await a reply with great interest :-)

[Catt]

I'd think you have at least a couple of broad choices - (1) bite the bullet, switch to Monarchy when you can hold the tide no more, and play the rest of the game (or a good chunk of it) dismembering the Russian empire; or (2) make a quick peace and focus on either your space / diplo victory or on later military conquest when you're more properly prepared. If you opt for the quick peace, you'll need to mass whatever available forces you have and take a Russian city or two - sometimes with an overseas opponent, unless you actually do some harm to them, they see no reason to make peace - so even if you have little hope of capturing and holding a far flung Russian city, inflict a little pain and bring Catherine to te table.

Catt

[jamespetts]

Thank you for the advice. My main problem is that I'm not going to be able to produce anything at all for a goodly number of turns whatever happens, and I don't have much of an army...

[Catt]

Originally posted by jamespetts
Thank you for the advice. My main problem is that I'm not going to be able to produce anything at all for a goodly number of turns whatever happens, and I don't have much of an army...

Scrape together what you have and take a city -- so long as five turns have passed since the war began, you should get an audience. It really doesn't have to be an advanced and powerful force that you hope will take and hold conquests -- think of it as a suicide squad. If you can dump 8 attackers next to a city, you can probably take the city and negotiate peace pretty easily. Pre-railroads, concentrated landing forces against the AI produce results (even when very small in comparison to the overall size of the AI's army). On the other hand, you probably have little to fear of any sea-landings from the AI. (I'm assuming that you have at least a token force left over from your conquest of Persia and/or as a small home defense force).

If your empire has already descended into anarchy, then you're asking for help or a solution quite a few turns later than would have been more productive . The same options still present themselves though -- either (1) go ahead and convert to Monarchy - take your lumps while in anarchy but then give some lumps back for a long time afterwards, or (2) put the few assets you have available together in a coordinated assault on something Russian and force a peace negotiation. Even landing a little force next to a city may induce negotiations.

If suffering from lots of disorder but not yet full blown anarchy, set your science slider to 0% and your entertainment spending at a high enough level to dampen some of the disorder -- it's better to lose several turns of science research (0%) but bring an end to the war than it is to be forced into anarchy for an indeterminate time without the certainty hat you will have an option to remain a democracy or republic after the anarchy ends.

Catt

[Datajack Franit]

Screenshots would help

[pedrojedi]

Well, when you use a spy or ambassador for such schemes, only when you're in communism you can have some relyability on them. A scarce one, may I say.

I always set a good army even before such attempts. But sometimes these and other screw-ups happen, and there it is: a bad war in a bad time.

Even though there's the anarchy, if you think you'll face a long war, it is still a good move to change government. A quick peace seems more advantageous, though, if you want to just reorganize your empire and unit production.

And there's another good option: Catt's moving the entertainment slide to as high as possible, with 0% science production. You'll have your war, and war weariness shouldn't bother. I think this one is the best option, since you'll have your war, will not have problems (at least not much) with riots, will manage to pace up unit production and will take fewer turns to resolve all the problem, either taking one good russian city and then negotiating or making a good job putting the russian empire back to stone age, and relieving yourself indefinitively of the russian problem.

Either way, you'll get back to science race, and specially with the latter one, you'll get the tech lead in almost no time, compensating the "no culture time" that you institutted earlier.

[eewolf]

you can damage russia beyond recovery by pillaging their core city areas. get some units in there, slow-moving defensive units on mountains and hills and fast movers for likely suicide missions(explorers are great for hit and run pillaging). you will lose units but they will lose much more. cut their resources and luxuries. then destroy their roads and mines to kill their production. cut their roads to the capital completely and their entire trade network will collapse. and if you are still angry, pillage their irrigated tiles to starve some cities. they will give you excellent terms on the peace treaty and you will pull ahead in tech quickly.

eewolf

[pedrojedi]

Gooooood... That must feel soooo gooood!

Forgot this one. Never used it, but it's killin' for sure.

[Theseus]

eewolf is a bad @ss... good thinking.

My advice: stick it out, be hard core.

Give up on a total science program, just stuc with military tech; get Nationalism and go to wartime production. Beat the cr@p outta Cathy, enough to get a good peace settlement.

Find some additional luxuries... they will save the day.

But that's just me.

[CerberusIV]

At Warlord you should be getting ahead of the AI in science in the late medieval even without trashing their empire in a war.

Question 1 - are the Russians stealing techs from you?

Question 2 - you have built marketplaces and banks before libraries and universities, right?

[eewolf]

Originally posted by Theseus
eewolf is a bad @ss

eewolf can be a realist (bad@ss in this case). sounds like jamespetts is in a jam and pillaging is something the ai does not do well nor does it defend against it well. and it is devastating.

good advice all through the thread. doesn't matter what level you are on, you can get in a jam when you are learning (and sometimes when you think you know everything). i think there is a tendency to be timid, i know i used to be. get past that. go with theseus and be hardcore. there is a good chance you will win. and if not, there is always surfing.

and the next civ game...

eewolf

note: i am currently playing a regent level game on a real world map (egypt) and i have made additional rules for me to follow which include 1) no slaves, 2) no bombarding cities, 3) no pillaging irrigation, 4) no city razing. so i am not always a bad@ss.

[Ephesos]

Let me suggest this. Try to combine eewolf and Theseus's strategies, and hit Russia with pillaging while you crank up the luxuries, but not high enough to stop your tech gains. Get the Vikings in on this if you must (it always helps to give your enemies more targets - less chance they'll hit you ). If you can get some military techs, do so. If you need to, do some deficit spending while you crank up the science and luxuries (sell some of the universities/libraries that aren't doing much).

Try to stick it out. War can really energize your civ (or at least knock others back beneath you).

When you DO get back to peaceful terms, ignore Russia's demands (if you wind up back in Democracy however, keep the freakin' peace).