The Toltec Version of the Maginot Line

Well the title is self-explanatory, so here is an image of what it looks like.



The Maginot Line, roughly and briefly, was a series of bunkers, fortresses and underground tunnels, built along the French border to defend against a post WWI German invasion. Although daunting it proved to be unsuccessful.

The Nations: Toltec/Aztec & Sumeria last surviving nations on the continent.

At this stage of the game, 1804, Sumeria proved to be more than resilient. It had the lions share of wonders was ahead in tech and previously I had barely managed to wrest some territory from them then quickly sued for peace to avoid losing it. At one point I was running around with musket-men and they had already upgraded to or were building infantry. I was behind and outnumbered. I decided to build this line and stock pile troops until I was strong enough to eliminate Sumeria. At about the time I had completed the fortresses, upgraded my units to infantry, and used mobilization to enlarge my army, Sumeria attacked. The line held and I was eventually able to eliminate them from the continent, though it took a looong time to do so.

The idea had multiple purposes.It isn't heavily manned and it served mainly as a deterrent. The AI sees it as a road block and wont attempt to breach the line even though it probably could (it actually did at one point be I closed it up quickly). I wanted to create a choke point and have the enemy concentrated in one area so they would be easy to eliminate. It keeps the enemy out of defend-able terrain like the hills and more importantly the mountains.

Afterthought: I first got the idea to build a line of fortresses super early in the game. I didn't use fortresses I just entrenched my best defenders and whatever units I could along the row of mountains. The borders were nearly identical. The AI smashed through it and the defensive line was largely unsuccessful. but, the AI being the AI decided to split up two SoD's and I was able to slowly pick of the divided groups.

I agree with the idea of a deterrent, and funneling the AI towards a choke point. You can position artillery and bombers to chew up any stacks that the Sumerians would send through the eastern gap in the mountains.

You can't really tell from the screen shot, but artillery is there with the two armies & not quite sure but I don't think I had discovered flight just yet.

The AI is really strange sometimes they attack with a sense of cohesion then other times its just random. They just kept sending troops to the east to penetrate the open space, but I never was quite sure what they were going for & I never found out cause they never made it

ı have done same style defences but the AI being down you can achieve the same with just units fortified on location as the initial post mentions . In my experience , it almost goes for a clear route without possibility of combat . It becomes even tastier if you leave a city with any troops inside .

I like doing that sometimes in campaigns where some border with another civ is likely to remain static for awhile and I am tired of them sending units through my territory especially. If I have the troops and money to spare, it can be a fun diversion building and manning a huge defensive line in the mountains.

r16 said:

ı have done same style defences but the AI being down you can achieve the same with just units fortified on location as the initial post mentions . In my experience , it almost goes for a clear route without possibility of combat . It becomes even tastier if you leave a city with any troops inside .

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Where you mention leaving a city without any troops defending it, I assume you imply that the AI civs will be too tempted to attack that target almost to exclusion. I have noticed that when I have a huge civ and every single coastal city has 3 to 5 units defending it, but one coastal city with only 1 or 2 units, it is almost a guarantee that any enemy amphibious assault will take place at that most weakly defended city.

Which makes me wonder. If the AI can constantly see where all the units are in your entire civ, why even bother with the whole espionage thing, like stealing troop plans and so on? I know the AI has seemingly known my weakest defended city before anyone even had espionage tech, so the AI must be cheating.

But that's a great idea to take advantage of this, to bait the enemy into attacking where you want them to!

46thCharlemagne said:

Which makes me wonder. If the AI can constantly see where all the units are in your entire civ, why even bother with the whole espionage thing, like stealing troop plans and so on? I know the AI has seemingly known my weakest defended city before anyone even had espionage tech, so the AI must be cheating.

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That's a given, the AI cheats. I mean ,its the game engine, it knows the map, where the continents are, where all the resources, even the ones not yet discovered, are. You can use it to your advantage. If the AI is building a persistent about building a city in a certain area, rest assured future resources will be there.

Strong Reaction said:

That's a given, the AI cheats. I mean ,its the game engine, it knows the map, where the continents are, where all the resources, even the ones not yet discovered, are. You can use it to your advantage. If the AI is building a persistent about building a city in a certain area, rest assured future resources will be there.

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Yeah, the AI is stupid so it should be allowed to cheat in some ways, I guess I just don't like it when some of those cheats result in AI behavior that breaks my suspension of disbelief, a.k.a. sense of fantasy/realism.

I didn't know about the future resource thing, interesting.

46thCharlemagne said:

AI civs will be too tempted to attack that target almost to exclusion.
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But that's a great idea to take advantage of this, to bait the enemy into attacking where you want them to!

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a variation on that is the time when you have a right of passage deal with a civ that you know you will be fighting in later turns . It goes to war with a different civ , its armies start moving in that direction , the whole lot of them . Create walls of units to make them concentrate in one direction , create boxes that those units will have to turn back , but they are still fixated the enemy civ they intend to invade , create new holes in your wall so that they will return to be stopped once again . This is a challenge ı love a lot . In the end you can surround a 100 strong stack by a max of 8 units of yours . They are just sitting there as long as you are not fighting them and asking them to leave . When short of money AI will start disbanding them , too . In case of war , bring all the artillery you have , for you have tons of artillery in any decent game . It really helps if you surround them on a grassland tile with no defensive advantages to them .

actually if you don't a ROP deal , it's even better .