War Strategy at the beginning of the Industrial Age

Allright, here's the dealio:

I'm playing as the French on a standard size world (80% water, archipelgo) on Warlord difficulty. I've got control of most of the southern hemisphere from previous wars against the Americans, Russians, and Babylonians.

I'm now going after China. I've got a nice, 12 size city on their continent. I made the mistake of going to war with them earlier than I had expected and was rushed to get troops to the front with them. (Troops who were just recently fighting a gritty war with the Babyl's).

With many cavalry, cannons, and a few musketman, I assaulted and took Beijing, which was rather close to my city on their continent. Unfortunately, they signed an alliance with the Romans who were on their continent also and as soon as I had taken Beijing, a Roman Expediotionary force of calvary arrived. I held them off, but here's the situation: I'm having a difficult time holding on to Beijing with calvary and musketman. (I had decided to go for artillery and skip rifleman, thinking I could trade for nationalism. BIG MISTAKE) Half of my force is trying to attack another Chinese city and the other is desperately fighting a losing battle in Beijing while each turn I hope it doesn't flip back.

What do I do? Should I retreat, sign some treaties, and lick my wounds waiting for better units? (Artillery, Rifleman, Etc.) Or continue to try and take cities and push forward? If I do sign treaties, I'm almost sure to lose Beijing to culture flipping and that would not be fun to take back. Oh how I long for riflemen!

Sorry for being long-winded. I just wanted to get the situation across. Also, how do I take screenshots to post here?

Retreat ALL your forces to Beijing and begin starving the city. When the resistance ends you can speed the process up by rushing settlers/workers. Rush some city walls and a temple to make Beijing harder to invade.

It sounds like you don't have enough units for a real invasion, I suggest waiting for infantry/artillery or shipping in lots more cavalry.

For some reason, the AI won't give you nationalism very easily, even if you've got replaceble parts.
Go for replaceble parts. Make peace, if they want. Industrial age wars without artillery suck. They'll probably don't even want to talk to them.
Did you connect the occupied cities to your capital?
As Dave mentioned, starve the cities down to size one to minimize the risk of a flip.

If you could give some more information (turns to tech, science rate, maps, military sizes and so on) we could be of more assistance...

You're lucky you're playing on warlord, otherwise you're f*'d.
BTW, your signature is too long.

thats very true...

I never fight in begining of industrial if I do i keep it short. I spend my resources building factories and hospitals in all my cities and railroading all my terrain.

If Beijing is really big and you don't have enough units to quell the resistors, sell everything in it, retreat from it and offer it to Rome (should they agree for peace), or to a strong civ on the continent.

Later on, if Beijing flips back, it will flip against the civ you offered the city to, and chances are that China will be at war with this civ.
China might even try to directly conquer back the city form the civ that accepted your offer.

It happened to me: i was playing on Deity with the Persian, all civs in. Babylon was the strongest nation in the world. Zulu was the second best. I was at war with Russia, and managed to get Rostov, a 12 citizen city, on Babylon's border.
They brought Babylon at war against me, and the Babylonian army approached Rostov.

I quickly offered Rostov to the Zulus. That was around 1500 BC.
Babylon took the city anyway, as it held 2 incense resousrces.
We are now in 1500 AD. War is still going on as Babylon and Zulu made all the other civs join the battle, creating 2 poles in the world (Axis & Allies).

I got Persia out of the war shortly after, around 500 BC, and watched the others fight, and 4 civs getting smashed. Babylon and Russia are down to a couple of cities now, especially that i joined the Zulu group to finish of the remaining Russian cities, around 1450 AD.

Bottom of the line, if you are able to sell it to Rome in your case, chances are that China and Rome will be at war.

Originally posted by andrewgprv
I never fight in begining of industrial if I do i keep it short. I spend my resources building factories and hospitals in all my cities and railroading all my terrain.

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I agree, it is just no fun to fight with cavalry against infantry (even with attilary to support). Building infrastructure, resaerch to get tanks and crush them as soon as you have a sufficient large force of tanks or (even better) panzer.

To take a screenshot press the print screen button. That is to the right of F12 and above the insert key.

Originally posted by Ronald


I agree, it is just no fun to fight with cavalry against infantry (even with attilary to support). Building infrastructure, resaerch to get tanks and crush them as soon as you have a sufficient large force of tanks or (even better) panzer.

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Actually, it can be quite effetive if you conduct a short war as soon as you get infantry: make 45 infantry and 45 artillery, then split them into 3 groups of 15/15 and send them against the 3 cities you war most from your neighbor. You can usually make this war short enough that its ok in a democracy, and you can grab some nice resources, Wonders, or luxuries.

Originally posted by GerrardCapashen


Actually, it can be quite effetive if you conduct a short war as soon as you get infantry: make 45 infantry and 45 artillery, then split them into 3 groups of 15/15 and send them against the 3 cities you war most from your neighbor. You can usually make this war short enough that its ok in a democracy, and you can grab some nice resources, Wonders, or luxuries.

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You are right when you talk about taking one or two important cities close to your empire. Then the strategy you outlined above will work.
I was talking about a massive war to destroy an enemy.

And if the situation is really dire, abandon beijing use their people (workers) as a diversion as you haul tail back to your cities. Use Arty for attrition. Pillage on your way out so even if they get it back the area will be next to useless