Circumstances have forced me to try the choke strategy, something I have never tried before. Monarch game, Fractal map, 12 players, I am Carthage. I upped the player number just to try it having always played at 7 before. Of course I encountered people almost immediately, turns 4, 8, 10 and 20 I encountered Charlemagne, Sitting Bull, Saladin and Toku. Yup I was boxed in immediately by 4, count them 4, protective Civs. AH showed me that I had no horses anywhere in sight but I did have copper. Set up for an axe rush at the best geographical target, Charlie. Started a war to grab a worker when I had 4 axes and went in to ravage a little while forces were being built up a little more. Wasn't really going to work as I found he had 4 CG1/D2 or CG2/D1 archers in his capitol which was on a hill with 5 hex-sides being river. So I went for the choke, having read about it but never tried it. Burnt all his improvements and camped on all his good hexes killing any archers that came out of cover. Capitol was reduced from a 6 to a 2 population and I snagged three workers in the deal. He kept sending them out for some reason. I built a couple more cities while doing that but he still has 6 triple promo archers in his capitol so no real shot at taking it until catapults. My question is how should I go from here? Declare peace if he will give me enough, keep the choke hold until he starves down enough that he can't support his troops, pump out enough axes to just overwhelm him or choke until catapults and whack him then? Never having tried a choke I'm curious how people use it.

IMO you should not go for peace. If he has friends and you redeclare war you will suffer on the diplomatic scene for that(another -1 for "you declared war on our friend").

Also I doubt that the AI will not be able to support its troops, AI get huge discounts on maintenance and other things that just go up with higher difficulty.

I would beeline construction if it will not disrupt your current research since another capitol city site is probably oozing with resources and will be an excellent addition to your empire.

Very good idea to worker steal based on your description of your situation.

I am currently researching construction and Sitting Bull's capitol is very near to both my and Charlies capitol so bulking up and rolling on SB could work. SB is a tough nut to crack but I don't have much choice. Even if I get all Charlies turf I only have enough room for about 6 cities. I'll give it a shot, thanks. The workers saved me a ton of build points and Charlie has just been ham-strung, I can see why people like this strategy.

In addition- if I am correctly guessing I am betting that the cornered AI(charly) is probably going nuts on the number of archers in his city while he awaits your attack. You may want to promote your catapults for this assault with barrage, so that you do more collateral damage to all the archers he is stocking up on per catapult. You will probably lose these catapults in the raid whether they take city raider or not vs protective city garrison promoted archers on a hill, best to have the biggest bang for buck with barrage here!

Yes the AI does not correctly handle early war declarations. I am not sure who said this information(Dave? TMIT, others?) the AI is coded to expect peace for the first 80 turns IIRC. An early worker steal and choke makes them act even more stupid(stupider!).

The AI is not coded to expect peace early. It needs to be able to build at least 2 kinds of offensive units to consider war plans, which requires strategic resources it usually won't have early. A deity AI with a BFC resource can DoW between 2000-1500 BC easily.

Some AIs protect their border workers with archers. More of them should do this.

Also, executing a choke vs an AI with high attack courage is not as easy as people make it sound. It takes a while to get an archer there (on high levels the AI will have a 2nd city before you can put an archer in its territory), and if you use a warrior it spams about 6 archers then attacks/kills it.

For catapults, hold promos until you attack. Promote maybe 1 or so to barrage and attack with it. Then look at the odds of unpromoted cats. If it looks like CR I puts you > 50% odds, you might as well start taking CR so your troops survive. Catapults vs archers is actually pretty favorable overall so large #'s aren't a huge problem.

A correction, I was not researching Construction. Construction was three techs away, I am playing two games at once and got them confused, sorry. In any case the choke/beeline catapults worked to perfection. He did go insane on the number of archers in his city, 12 by the time I attacked. I attacked when I had 6 cats, lost the first two (barrage) but the other 4 survived (promoted to CR1 just before attacking as TMI suggested, thanks). I had 8 axemen, some up to CR3 as I got experience from picking off archers he sent out. Lost only 1 Axe (that one a 91.5% attack odds, thank you very much) in the two turns it took to weed through the pile.

At that point I healed up and had to turn to Sitting Bull. He had spammed cities all over the place, slipping through any crack in the culture wall to weave 4 cities all over my turf and on the other side of me. I also want to take him out before he gets longbows. Am in mid war with SB, have taken two cities easily and "should" be able to clean out his infiltrating cities before I make peace. Thanks to all for the help.

Well if I was able to help at all your welcome. TMIT had to come correct something, and I am new to the forums (but not the game) so I have trouble forming my advice specifically. Yes in my other post do not promote all catas to barrage, just the first couple. Exactly, sorry if my advice sounded like ALL should promote barrage.

The choke strategy, although as tmit says, will cause the courageous AIs to spam archers and kill your choker(warrior) it still buys you time and will likely cause the choked AI to settle away from you. This can be vital for close quarters and limited land.