Having won two consecutive games on Prince without a single war, i decided to try out this thing called "war" :mischief:. And I am really bad at it. I am attaching a save just before I declared on Napolean. My army is at the border near Orleans and backup coming.

Attempt 1) Was able to capture Orleans easily. But "show enemy moves" was off. And Napolean managed to sneak and capture Rotterdam :( Reload!

Attempt 2) Kept couple of Axes behind in Rotterdam. Capturing Orleans wasnt so easy. But Napolean sent like 4-5 Cats, and 2-3 troops to Hague. I lost few battles at 60-80%, and probably would have lost the city, so gave up

Questions

1) Did I wait too long? I mean Maceman are available now and my army is mostly axes. i think I followed a weird teching path, so getting Cats took time

2) Should I have waited more, I am close to getting guilds

3) Do I need bigger army. How many troops will you leave behind in Hague and Rotterdam and what kind?

4) Nobody is willing to declare against Napolean, how can I get someone to do so

5) Any other games tips (non-war too) are welcome.

Well, first thing is that there is a pretty obvious offensive army right to the south of Rottersdam.

Another thing is that you don't have any spies lurking in his territory.

What I will change: Spies to check out his counter-attack stacks.

1 of all counter units per city or pre-built (Build until 1 turn left to rush when attacked, so if you prebuild Mace-men, Long-Bow and Catapult, you get 3 units by the time they slog over and can have some mobile units to also assist in defense.)

Offensive defence: Horse Archers! They don't have pikes, so Flanking their stack will reduce seige hp in that stick.

Finally, Have more than 1-2 units per city. Have at least 2 Longbows and 1 Offensive Defensive unit. (HAs or Catapults), I'd wait 5 more turns just because I am paranoid and prebuild defensive stacks. ESP when you think about it, of all the scouting horse-archers they MIGHT have.

OOC: I don't really play Prince, and can slug along with Warlord without winning because of lack of commitment, but Successful Wars need decisive action, clear-cut goals (Take this city and raze it/smash though their core) scouting (Spies) and contingencies (Mobile Defence Armeis of Spearmen, Axemen, Horsearchers ready to go (BTW this was just after I got alphabet.))

1. Possibly. He now has walls. This is overcomeable with trebuchets. 3 cats is not enough. Replace any axes you lose with Macemen. Plus as some win battles they get promoted. Upgrade these to macemen.

2. Now you should wait until you can properly defend your two closest cities. Build a couple of city garrisoned Longbows for each city. Crossbows will be great for reducing enemy melee units that may enter your space. I didn't see any horses in your territory and those elephants aren't yours yet so build some spear/pikemen.

3. Yes - You need more cats/trebs , anti horse(pikemen), and city defenders.

4. Nappy is small take him all by yourself. An ally might take one of his cities for himself or, and this is worse( I just hate watching this), pillage all the tiles around your new cities.

5. One of your cities is taking 30 turns to build a cat. Its producing an overabundance of food. Take two of those ocean citizens and have them work those hills and that cat gets built in 5 turns. The city will grow slower but it will crank out some units. Take a look at your cities and optimise them for the war. When the war is over you can reoptimise them.

Oh yeah, that stack that is going to attack the Hague is clearly visible in Rheims. You know its comming so do something about it.

Just loaded your game for a quick peak, a few things:

for war: more catapults and trebs. you have able to build trebs now, so get a lot of them.
for your game: you have 4 workers for 8 cities and it's 5k years after the game start... build more workers, you have around 12 a least for now. and you have a city not even connected to by road to your capital and working purely on unimproved land. And this back to the worker problem.

this game is in danger, Victoria is running away with superior techs unless you can destroy her with your current military advantages (you have maceman/treb techs, but you have no such units, none!).

If you want to continue the game, stop research and upgrade your swordman to maceman and built more trebs, a lot more, 5 is nothing in 1000AD. Good luck.