Impossible Not to Lose

[plumsmugler]

Can we agree that if you're on a small continent with three aggressive civs that it is impossible to win?

I was playing on king mode and was on a very small continent with China, Songhai, and Greece. I knew that a DOW was coming by turn 50 so I decided to build my outermost city in an easily defensible spot. It was on a hill, surrounded by three mountains, and of the three tiles which I could be attacked from two of them were over a river. I built walls and I had an archer garrisoned in the city. I had a few other units scattered across my empire which admittedly was not that much.

What happened, and was indeed no surprise at all, was a DOW from all three civs by turn 75. They went after my defended out the ass city first like I wanted them to, but when you are at war with three civs at the same time on a small continent that means this one city was surrounded by literally 15 units from both Greece and Songhai! Needless to say the city fell relatively quickly and I quit before I had to deal with their ridiculous hordes coming after the rest of my cities and capital.

Is there something I'm missing? What on Earth are you supposed to do on a small continent with three monsters!?

[The QC]

I'm not the best Civ player out there, so probably there will be a few people who will come with better advice.

What I can say:
- Get Archers quickly and build a few at the start - they allow you to better outmaneuver the AI in a way that the Warrior cannot.
- I've found that in situations where I'm fighting from the start a powerful warmongering AI, using my first Great General to build a Fortress is extremely useful.

[Foffaren]

Did you try and get them to fight eachother? It might cost a few quid but you play with the cards you are dealt.
Askia is usually quite willing to go to war, sometimes Alex aswell. Try asking them what a dow would cost. If they fight enough they will start to hate eachoter and you wont have to pay to be left alone any longer.

[Civologist]

King level shouldn't be that hard. Their are strategies for getting Knights or longswords by turn 90. Building cities towards AI's will provoke an attack. Swords man rush and attacking a neighbor will take one of them out early. If your army strength is low the ai will smell blood in the water. At turn 75 you should have more than just a few archers/spearmen.

Don't mean to sound condescending but small continents on king level is very winnable. What civ were you playing?

[plumsmugler]

Was playing as Suleiman.

So what's a good amount of units I should have by turn 50?

[Jimbo30]

I'd say King small continents was impossible to lose tbh.

However it wasn't THAT long ago when I was playing King and losing/giving up after a bad run of turns. Just stick with it, it won't be long before you were wishing for the challenge again.

[TravisATWA]

No. No we cannot.

[joncnunn]

Building an archer behind walls: Yes; that part is good.
But you need more than one unit.

Sounds like you had other forces in the area that were scattered.
Those should have been concentrated in tiles that would help defend the city.
Even just 2 archers in the area instead of just 1 makes a big difference.

But if your saying there were only three non mountain tiles next to the city in which you just founded, the city site actually sounds more like a death trap than a defensive position.
I'd need to see the map.

[smallfish]

I just played Standard King again, and its remarkable how much of a breeze it is to wonder spam compared to even Emperor (Standard).

[smallfish]

There really should be only five levels in Civilization V (and future Civs).


1) Sandbox
2) King
3) Emperor
4) Immortal
5) Deity

[smallfish]

for real advice: do not be afraid to waste your 1000g goldstack in the early/mid-game. That was the biggest drawback in my many early games, and it led to... pretty tough situations I would have easily resolved if I had spent that stack instead.

Abuse the AI. When you are about to DOW, take away all his or her money before you declare.

Never be afraid to sock a runaway AI at a hostile neighbor or three.

Learn how to micro your cities. The best starts are the ones with not just luxes, rivers and hills, but cattle, wheat and sheep too.

[Bandersnatching]

You should try to keep your military ranking above average, and try to not settle near any AI cities. Sell spare stuff, open borders, try to get positive diplomacy modifiers, and if you can, get them to go to war with each other. Sometimes that is surprisingly easy and cheap; paying a few strategic resources, gold and maybe luxuries costs less than losing a city or two when they decide to DoW you. Make strategic use of denouncements to try to limit the number of enemies you have, but unless you want a civ to go to war with you, don't tell them to not settle near your cities. I'm pretty certain that there is (nearly) no war you cannot avoid if you play your cards right.
You can win, even if surrounded by warmongers. It just takes some diplomatic micromanaging. Good luck!

[Nosehair44]

Originally Posted by Bandersnatching

You should try to keep your military ranking above average, and try to not settle near any AI cities. Sell spare stuff, open borders, try to get positive diplomacy modifiers, and if you can, get them to go to war with each other. Sometimes that is surprisingly easy and cheap; paying a few strategic resources, gold and maybe luxuries costs less than losing a city or two when they decide to DoW you. Make strategic use of denouncements to try to limit the number of enemies you have, but unless you want a civ to go to war with you, don't tell them to not settle near your cities. I'm pretty certain that there is (nearly) no war you cannot avoid if you play your cards right.
You can win, even if surrounded by warmongers. It just takes some diplomatic micromanaging. Good luck!

THIS ^^^^
..is some of the best advice for a newbie i've heard yet.
This is also EXACTLY how i win doing the "1 city challenge"
If you're trying to sit back and have a culture victory and warmongers are bullying you... trading and spending to get the runaways to DoW them will usually cause the dickish civ to send a Peace treaty within a few turn AND send their units another direction.

[sumodaz]

Originally Posted by Bandersnatching

You should try to keep your military ranking above average, and try to not settle near any AI cities. Sell spare stuff, open borders, try to get positive diplomacy modifiers, and if you can, get them to go to war with each other. Sometimes that is surprisingly easy and cheap; paying a few strategic resources, gold and maybe luxuries costs less than losing a city or two when they decide to DoW you. Make strategic use of denouncements to try to limit the number of enemies you have, but unless you want a civ to go to war with you, don't tell them to not settle near your cities. I'm pretty certain that there is (nearly) no war you cannot avoid if you play your cards right.
You can win, even if surrounded by warmongers. It just takes some diplomatic micromanaging. Good luck!

Good advice.. my tip: AI is put off declaring war on someone with a stack of cash, sell spare luxuries and sell open borders to build a bit of cash.

[The Pilgrim]

Originally Posted by smallfish

There really should be only five levels in Civilization V (and future Civs).


1) Sandbox
2) King
3) Emperor
4) Immortal
5) Deity

I like sidor1982's version better. According to him there are only three levels. Easy (emperor), normal (immortal) and hard (deity).
Evil side note from myself: settler, chieftain and warlord should be locked for anyone who hasn't beaten immortal at least 5 times on non-cheesy settings.

Originally Posted by plumsmugler

Is there something I'm missing? What on Earth are you supposed to do on a small continent with three monsters!?

To rush for iron and kill them first. Crowded territory = early war. As simple as that. And offense is the best defense. Even on harder levels you can use swordsmen for defending and counterattacking. On king it is quite easy. You discover Iron Working with Great Library, send your settler to grab 6 iron tile, build several warriors and upgrade them. All possible before turn 50.

[PhilBowles]

Don't underestimate diplomacy. You had bad luck spawning with three highly aggressive civs - in my experience, Askia is the most reliable of those three if you can get him on your side, in terms of keeping him as an ally (he doesn't however seem as likely to go to war on your behalf as Wu Zetian). Identify who (other than you) another civ is likely to dislike - this is easy if it's someone they've denounced or been denounced by, but you can try raising tensions with their closest neighbour (since they will already be suffering a penalty with that civ for coveting territory) by denouncing that rival yourself - then the other civ may thank you. A declaration of friendship helps to some degree; in most cases you won't be attacked while the DoF is ongoing.

Also identify your own biggest threats, which will usually be your closest neighbours, but other factors make a difference. Songhai, for instance, gets its UU later than many civs, and Greece not only gets its UUs very early, but also has two of them.

I don't generally recommend paying other civs to go to war on your behalf, since it doesn't give them much incentive to do any actual fighting and they'll often just take your money and declare peace at the first opportunity. You'll have better success long-term by manipulating them to hate another civ - that way if they go to war they'll do it for their own reasons and will tend to stick around until they've achieved their objective. Again, if you've made a friend this is helpful, since any civ that attacks you will then be disliked more by your friend.

[GlobularFoody]

All you really need to do is build 2-3 archers and the AI can't do anything about it. I play on King almost exclusively and every single game I have to stave off the early warrior "zerg" of nearby AI civs. Just focus your archers and city attacks on one unit at a time and there's nothing they can do, the AI is horrible at attacking. I usually research archery after doing research to utilize 1-2 resources that are near my capital.