i have not seen armies this big, period. the khmers have conquered half of the world. they own the shrine of the largest religion, apostolic palace, spiral minaret (and probably sankore, i can't remember right now). they are swimming in money and control 5 vassals

i am holy romans and have 4 vassals. i don't have nearly as much money or as many units, but i have chosen a better research path, and right now it's my infantry agains their rifles. i have parked my main stack next to a khmer city, prepared to declare war. try your luck ;) it was loads of fun for me.

i razed two cities and took one city (oxford), killing over one hundred units. i sued for peace when a stack of almost 100 units moved next to oxford :blush: see how you do

some spoilers if you want


perhaps more dangerous than the armies are the spies. they are certainly more annoying
you have superior production and some very good cities to start with. use them before they are ruined by spies

well i decided to end the game after i finally managed to take down the khmer capital and its wonder city with all the good stuff. the kill tally was something like over 300 cavalry, and hundreds of riflemen, cannons, sam infantry, and so on.

the AI still puts off researching assembly line for some reason, and i only won because i had infantry for a fairly long time. i've also learned a lot about the power of espionage in bts.

I have come to learn espionage is HUGE too....I have to re-learn the way I played!:lol:

I tried this savegame.

First time, I went with your strategy, I attacked the city you were poised to invade and captured the two city plus Oxford. At Oxford, I made my stand against Khmer. I destroyed about a hundred units in the first wave. Second wave came and finished me off. After that, I begin to fight a losing war where I slowly lose city after city.

So I started again. This time, I wait till I've researched flight so I can airlift infantry units to where I need it. I also gave my egyptian vassal enough tech to protect herself. Last time, they got wiped out in 5 turns due to low tech units. And I moved West Point to Lisbon to be my main military base. With all the military instructors and west point, I was able to crank out level 5 infantry units. That's a lot of defensive bonuses!

And instead of attacking toward oxford, I went after the core of Khmer cities to the north, his captiol. He had a huge stack 30+ units in his capitol city, but I have a bigger stack and annihilated his northern army. I took the capitol. Meanwhile, his southern army went after my isolated southern city and a border vassal city. With airlift, I reinforced the other cities. I think the AI is scared to attack my level 5 infantry. I keep seeing the AI move his massive army toward a city just before I fortify it. Then it moves away, then back a few turns later.

I think taking the capitol confused the AI. His forces remained split and only went after my main army piecemeal. I was able to destroy them as they come. Now about 30 turns later, I'm on the rampage taking Khmer city after city. In all this time, I"ve lost only maybe 30-40 units. I was making about 4-5 units a turn and airlifting to the frontline. I've destroyed hundreds of Khmer forces thus far.

I'll keep playing to see if the AI can make a comeback. I did make the mistake of spamming corporation in every city. I didn't know about inflation, and that pretty much kicked my research to near halt. The good news is, Khmer research is slowed down due to this prolong war. And Khmer still has a huge army which managed to retake a city after my main army left it.

And my spies isn't as effective. I've poisoned a lot of Khmer cities, but they all still have high population. Whereas my poisoned cities are all 1-2 population.

I'm definatly needing to rework my strategy.

Just as I was winning on Noble.... :p

First time, I went with your strategy, I attacked the city you were poised to invade and captured the two city plus Oxford. At Oxford, I made my stand against Khmer. I destroyed about a hundred units in the first wave. Second wave came and finished me off. After that, I begin to fight a losing war where I slowly lose city after city.

i guess i did the right thing by suing for peace when the monster stack showed up:p i had to give oxford back, but i didn't really want it anyway. i just wanted to cause damage.

while fighting, and suffering non-stop spy poisoning (mostly khmer no doubt), i caught a japanese spy. i declared on japan right away. after making temporary peace with the khmers, i quickly vassalized japan. as soon as the peace treaty with khmers expired i attacked them again. on that try they managed to capture one of my cities near ottoman territory. i lost about 20 city defenders, but some of them were obsolete rifles and longbows i threw in to soak up cannon fire (about 40 cannons :) ) the khmers lost about 1.5 times the number in attackers.

then they started attacking samsun (sp?). i had my main stack and the best units there. that's the place where i really wore down the khmer forces. i managed to use a few spies to ferment unhappiness in their core cities, and the flow of enemy forces weakened. i was then able to move my main forces north, go through german territory and capture khmer core cities. the celts sent some impressive armies too. they even managed to take back a khmer city for one turn.

So I started again. This time, I wait till I've researched flight so I can airlift infantry units to where I need it. I also gave my egyptian vassal enough tech to protect herself. Last time, they got wiped out in 5 turns due to low tech units. And I moved West Point to Lisbon to be my main military base. With all the military instructors and west point, I was able to crank out level 5 infantry units. That's a lot of defensive bonuses!

you probably noticed all the instructors in lisbon before i did! they were all put there by the portugese AI. i started seeing 13 experience units being built and wondered where they came from :crazyeye:

vienna is a great production city though, it was just poisoned to death :drool:

i allowed the egyptians to die in the first war. mansa musa joined me voluntarily before the second war. he surprisingly held on pretty well with machineguns. he killed a lot of celtic forces and lost only one city, retaking it a couple of times too.

And instead of attacking toward oxford, I went after the core of Khmer cities to the north, his captiol. He had a huge stack 30+ units in his capitol city, but I have a bigger stack and annihilated his northern army. I took the capitol. Meanwhile, his southern army went after my isolated southern city and a border vassal city. With airlift, I reinforced the other cities. I think the AI is scared to attack my level 5 infantry. I keep seeing the AI move his massive army toward a city just before I fortify it. Then it moves away, then back a few turns later.

I think taking the capitol confused the AI. His forces remained split and only went after my main army piecemeal. I was able to destroy them as they come. Now about 30 turns later, I'm on the rampage taking Khmer city after city. In all this time, I"ve lost only maybe 30-40 units. I was making about 4-5 units a turn and airlifting to the frontline. I've destroyed hundreds of Khmer forces thus far.

i didn't wait for airports. my memory is that you can only airlift one unit per turn from a city. the protective trait of the holy romans got its full use. going straight for their core cities is good. i waited until i had killed most of the khmer troops before attacking north. i really really like killing ;)

check your stats page at the end of the game to see exactly how many you killed.:scan:

I'll keep playing to see if the AI can make a comeback. I did make the mistake of spamming corporation in every city. I didn't know about inflation, and that pretty much kicked my research to near halt. The good news is, Khmer research is slowed down due to this prolong war. And Khmer still has a huge army which managed to retake a city after my main army left it.

And my spies isn't as effective. I've poisoned a lot of Khmer cities, but they all still have high population. Whereas my poisoned cities are all 1-2 population.

spam corporations in your vassals' cities, then you will be able to afford putting mining inc in all your cities too. i did not spread creative constructions. akkad was making almost 600 gold a turn when i stopped playing.

i think fermenting unhappiness is more powerful than poisoning. their pop did not drop like a stone either, but i saw a noticeable drop in production and the cities had lost a few pop when i captured them.

once you have captured the khmer core cities you have pretty much won. the most important one is that super city right below their capital. what a city! i hope you had fun :goodjob:

Yeah, it was fun. I solved my inflation solution by spamming courthouses and putting a couple cities on wealth. Turns out, research was slow due to marathon mode. :) Didn't know it was on marathon. Airlifting level 5 infantry into my vassals helped me tremedulously. I couldn't have fortified egypt without airports. I think holding egypt helped stage off celt assaults. As you have found out, celts have an impressive army too.

Anyways, I checked the stats screen briefly. I killed something like 200 rifleman 100+ airships. AI went crazy with airships. I lost over 100+ infantry so far.

Khmer finally made a small comeback. His southern army full of artillery and cavalry finnaly made its way up north. Caught me with my pants down. My main force was on its way deep in enemy territory going after a khmer city when the southern army showed up. Artillery softened my stack enough that the cavalry finished my main army off, including that 100 experience unit!

But by then, I have began fortifing the borders with marines. Khmer made one huge mistake, it tried to rush one of the cities with cavalry alone with no artillery. He lost nearly all of his cavalry. When his artilllery showed up later, he had nothing to really kill my units and I eventually defeated khmer's final forces.

Meanwhile, I've started my tank buildup. My plan is to attack the celts and vassalize them. I took enough khmer cities for the celts to break away from khmer. Currently, I'm leaving khmer alone while my tanks is rampaging through celt cities.

Also of note, the useless germans actually took a khmer city to the north. :) Khmer is that weak now!