OK, I am pretty far into the game, I have bombers and fighters and tanks, as well as modern navel ships. My problem is, the war I am in has been going on for well over 100 years and shows no signs of letting up! It has taken me this long to capture 1 CITY! Montezuma (the leader I am at war with) has like, 15 citys, the way I see it, it will take over 1000 years to destroy him! I have to be doing something wrong. Here is how I do it: First, I build up a couple of good stacks of tanks and infantry and artillery, have offshore aircraft carrier supprt, and move in. I am instantly confronted with a huges stack of enemy units that bog me down and I go nowhere. I keep hoping that if I can capture 2 or 3 more of his citys it will speed things up a bit, but as of now I am prretty tired of this constant war! I used to be in first place, now I about to slip into third. My cities are full of angry mobs and sick people too. help!

A war against a nation that will be able to defend itself succesfully or even attack you succesfully is not a war that you should willingly start. The other nations not involved in the war are the only ones that are going to profit.

Maybe there are ways to fight more succesfully in your present war, but that can not be examined without further information on your tactics. It seems as if you are able to make use of combined arms, so that is good. It seems that the counterattack is hurting you, so maybe you don't make enough use of units with the medic promotion. Also it is of course better to build up troops before the war starts if you are able to do so (if you declared the war). I hope that you make use of the collateral damage of bombers and their ability to remove the defensive bonusses from cities, but I guess you already do that since you use aircraft carriers.
If the war weariness is bugging you than I advice to use jails + Mount Rushmore + police state civic.

I can't think of more advice without more details on your battle plans.

What kind of units is Montezuma defending with?

If you share a long border with Monty, you might try a "sneak attack".

That is, send a few units as a diversion to pillage & burn the countryside near the city he "thinks" you plan to attack. When his forces are drawn out, quickly send the bulk of your army (by airlift, if possible) to his now poorly defended cities on the other front.

Obviously this takes lots of pre-planning and very careful timing, but when it works, it's brilliant. :devil:

Also, if you have bombers (and hopefully stealth bombers) be sure to use the "air strike" command to do massive collateral damage to his armies, this will soften them up quicker. Don't worry about SAMs, most of your planes will make it through.

Also also, don't be afraid to declare peace for a few turns if you need to regroup. After all, Rome wasn't pillaged in one day. :lol:

1) = information is ammunition
Locate he rescources (IRON, COAL, ALUMINUM)

2) = Disrupt hes economy
Destory and deny him access to these vital rescources, bomb them, Fority over them, prevent hes workers rebuilding

3) = Diplomacy
Get the other nations to help, declare war on him, break trade and isolate him from hes allies.

4) = Eliminate hes mobile forces
Yes the AI will counterattack with stronge forces once you have captured a city. Ensure one of your stacks is a Healer (healing units faster)

Concentrate your forces, (Stripp your homeland of as many units as possible)
Attack one stack at a time and eliminate them, Allow them to pillage, improvemts can be built again, but large armies take a long time to assemble,

Once the AI forces are smashed resume your offensive.

5) Dont overstretch unless you have guttered the enemy armies and deny him access to vital rescources.

When I get bogged down I sue for peace, rebuild units as fast as I can, and then declare war again as soon as the peace treaty has expired.

If Monty is being a real pain and won't give up, then send a few good defensive units deep into his territory to pillage his most important resources.

Alway ALWAYS have teo stacks of well balanced armies.

Each army should be deployed in a manner which they can support each other.

Heres a well formed stratergy which I haved used with great success.

Army A - Moves into city to prepare to attack
Army B - Moves into city to prepare to attack

Army A - Attackes city and now needs to rest
Army B - moves deeper in the enemy territory and screens your weakened ArmyA, The AI will seek to counterattack,

Army A - Heals
Army B - Engages enemy forces

Army A - Fully healed moves to next city (Has most artillary)
Army B - Heals

Army A - Moves to next city
Army B - Fully healed moves to join Army A

EDIT: Slow and relentless pressure on the enemy.
Remember connect capture cities asap with workers to your trade network, Defend them with strong defensive unit and one mobile units to take out enemy stragglers.

Choose you targets carefully, Especially If you like me make a straight line to the enemies capitol and deal a deverstating blow to him, ensure you have sufficent forces and secure your line of supply (Reduced movement through enemy territory gives the AI a large advantage)

FriendlyFire has some good suggestions.

I'd say diplomacy helps a LOT, if you can find some friends. If you can get allies that share a border with Montezuma, even better. You will find that they can can absorb a lot of the attacking units while you are able to take out his cities.

The resource one is huge too. If you can restrict people who trade with him (see who has iron/copper/etc to offer and set up embargos), then all you need to do is bomb his improvements, and you won't have to worry about new units attacking you.

Collateral Damage is big too. If you can get your bombers and artillery with this upgrade, do it. Your tanks will be fighting a much weaker enemy, and you can get through those cities a lot quicker. Having medic units help the recovery time as well. I think I saw another thread that says you can make explorers using a city that gives you two upgrades, and you can have medics that can move two spaces with your tanks.

Monty's a bit of a tough nut because he builds so many units. Alex is usually the same way. What you hope for is that he's such a nutjob that he isolates himself diplomatically and gets left behind in tech due to lack of resources and trade routes. Then he just implodes and you can mop up his obsolete forces with a reasonable number of modern ones. But in games where he doesn't implode, he can be a scary runaway civ.

It would help a lot to see a save game - you can attach one to a post here and people will take a look at it.

Wow, someone’s at war with Monty, what a surprise! :)

There have been a bunch of good suggestions so far. I've found myself in this position before. One thing I've found to be effective is to gather your army and set into a kind of standby mode. Then wait for him to send his huge stacks at you. Then after you've defeated them immediately send your armies in for the kill. Hopefully you'll catch him in a rebuild mode where he's trying to recoup his loses. This has worked practically every time for me.

This works best when you have a really good idea of where he is going to attack and load up the city or cities he'll be attacking with defensive units. It also helps if you have your religion spread nicely in his empire. Then you can pick a nice ripe target. Also, this might have been mentioned before but don't always go for the border cities. Bypass those and head for a less protected city.

If you can keep up a steady pillage on his oil you should be in good shape. Getting an ally next to him to help out in the war also couldn't hurt.

best way to beat monty is kill every civ between you and him, and crush him before 1100AD.

if you're really desperate to end this war immediately, without having to pillage and attack cities, try switching you're civics to what Monty is using, and your religion to what he has if he has one.

if you're really desperate to end this war immediately, without having to pillage and attack cities, try switching you're civics to what Monty is using, and your religion to what he has if he has one.

You only need to pick his favourite civic to become friends with him (and his religion), not every civic that he has. His favourite civic can be found in the civilopedia.

1) = information is ammunition
Locate he rescources (IRON, COAL, ALUMINUM)

2) = Disrupt hes economy
Destory and deny him access to these vital rescources, bomb them, Fority over them, prevent hes workers rebuilding

3) = Diplomacy
Get the other nations to help, declare war on him, break trade and isolate him from hes allies.

4) = Eliminate hes mobile forces
Yes the AI will counterattack with stronge forces once you have captured a city. Ensure one of your stacks is a Healer (healing units faster)

Concentrate your forces, (Stripp your homeland of as many units as possible)
Attack one stack at a time and eliminate them, Allow them to pillage, improvemts can be built again, but large armies take a long time to assemble,

Once the AI forces are smashed resume your offensive.

5) Dont overstretch unless you have guttered the enemy armies and deny him access to vital rescources.


These are very good points which I try to use in all my wars as much as possible. Although I find I am being attacked more often that being on the offensive. :cry:

One thing I picked out of the OP... aircraft carriers. IMO a total waste of time. Take the 2000 hammers or whatever you spent on all that and build another 40 Tanks.

Also, as others have said, use Bombers. If you rule the seas, send your ships in early to bombard coastal cities in advance. They've got nothing else to do, and it frees your bombers up to go after units. Regardless, by the time your army shows up, either way the city should have 0% defensive bonus.

Use artillery in barrage mode to weaken all defending units. Yes, the artillery will probably die. However, 4-5 artillery used that way will allow ALL your Tanks to survive and cakewalk into the city.

Wodan

Also, you might consider skipping the aircraft Techs altogether next time. The only reason I suggested Bombers was because you had the Tech already. However, you might be better served getting ahead on the ground unit Techs instead of diverting to get air power (which is of minimal help and only costs you 1 turn with all your artillery knocking down the city's defenses).

Wodan

Skipping aircraft techs? I dunno. Wiping out a tough enemy with tanks when he has gunships romping all over the place? Bombers causing massive collateral damage to your stacks?

Don't skip aircraft techs unless your enemy is lacking them, also. And preferably also your potential enemies.

If the enemies military is just as powerful as yours and so is his production power then it's not worth fighting a war with him unless you can sign in an ally, effectively making your combined militaries much more powerful than his. Sure, it's true, that you can outthink the AI and probably have a higher kill/death ratio, but with an equal military the war will just take far too long, like you state your problem is in the first post.

I would use collateral damage forces as much as possible, and if that doesnt help then you just dont have the power captain!

JOA

As others have said, collateral damage is very good for killing insane stacks-of-doom. But artillery are kind of weak on the attack, so you'll lose a lot of them.

Solution: Tanks. Specialize your tanks. Give some tanks Barrage promotions, and use them to soften up the stacks. Other tanks get City Raider promotions, and still others get Combat + Pinch (+25% against Gunpowder) promotions. Build up a mixed force of tanks to counter every threat.

These are very good points which I try to use in all my wars as much as possible. Although I find I am being attacked more often that being on the offensive. :cry:

DEFENSIVE STRATERGIES

1 - Dont get caught off guard. Alway always monitor enemy movements at your borders, (have several units position in sentry over danger areas)

2 - Once they are in your territory the enemy movement becomes very slow as they are unable to use your roads. Immediately send all forces you can spare to the danger area.

3 - Deny the enemy penetration, Dont allow them to get deep into your territory as they will wreck havoc with your improvments and cut of lines of communication.

4 - Use terrain to its best advantage. position your armies on the best def area be it in a city or on a forested hill. Ai will bypass heavily defended cities so you need to engage them should this happen.

5 - Avoid casualties, As you have advantage in healing, movement and defence.
Stand on defence and only attack when condition is most favourable

When it comes to pillaging, I tend to leave any cottages that have grown at least once, especially if I know I will be taking a city relatively quickly. Going after strategic resources, however, is essential...I also take out anything to do with food production, especially if I know my offensive will be long-term. Between knocking out strategic resources and depleting city populations, military production becomes seriously stunted.

Of course, if Monty has 15 cities it's going to be very difficult to quickly cripple him effectively...unless you have planes...one more reason to research those techs.