Have you ever had such a long war? And is it normal?

My latest game on Deity resulted in a Domination Victory with Poland on turn 340. One thing that astonished me in this game was my war with the Zulus. They became a runaway and controlled half the Pangaea with 26 cities. I attacked them at turn 251, right after I hit two cities full of great war bombers.

The entire war took me until turn 315. I lost count of how many times Honololu changes hands or how many Great War Infantries, Cavalries or Paratroopers I killed. As soon as I got to nukes I nuked twice some of his biggest clumps near his cities, that kind of did the trick (that and the bombers finally getting Logistics and Air Repair). I don't think I ever had such a long period fighting one civ in a game before. My ground army was reasonably big too, I had 10 artilleries, 3-4 tanks, 6 Anti Air Guns and a couple infantry and gatling guns. His unit spam was enormous. I had something similar to this happen to me before (against Mongolia) but that was like 20 turns and the game didnt go further for me to finish the war. Has this happened to anyone else here,is it a normal occurrence against runaways or was I doing something wrong?

By the way, thanks to consentient and all the others who gave me tips for dominiation victories. I'm getting quite good at early warmongering now

I have some questions.

1. Did you have the tech lead at the time you attacked him?

2. What were your cities building from turn 200 onwards?

3. How many cities did you have to wade through to get to Ulundi?

4. What turn did you hit Nuclear Fission?

5. What social policies did you have?

My immediate feeling is that your army was nowhere near big enough. Since bombers are a bit frail, I'd have just spammed them and tanks and sold all science buildings and (if there were no decent policies left) culture buildings, and put everything into Total War. 3-4 tanks is tiny really. I'd probably have at least 10x that number if I had to play past T250.

consentient said:

I have some questions.

1. Did you have the tech lead at the time you attacked him?

2. What were your cities building from turn 200 onwards?

3. How many cities did you have to wade through to get to Ulundi?

4. What turn did you hit Nuclear Fission?

5. What social policies did you have?

My immediate feeling is that your army was nowhere near big enough. Since bombers are a bit frail, I'd have just spammed them and tanks and sold all science buildings and (if there were no decent policies left) culture buildings, and put everything into Total War. 3-4 tanks is tiny really. I'd probably have at least 10x that number if I had to play past T250.

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1. Well according to demographics I was the tech leader with something like 73-74%, he started getting great war bombers while I already had Bombers, so I think yes I had the tech lead.

2. I was basically pumping bombers non stop until I had 3-4 cities full of them, and then I switched to tank production. Had to go and get Kremlin somewhere in the middle though.

3. Something like 8 or 9 cities.

4. I am not sure but must be something like 280.

5. Full liberty, two policies off Patronage, up to Free Thought in Rationalism, Full Commerce, 8 in Order.

Hmmm...I'm not sure what was slowing you down. Do you have a save?

Another gut instinct is that You maybe put more policies than is optimal into Rationalism for a DomV.

I'd love to look at a save and give you more feedback.

consentient said:

Hmmm...I'm not sure what was slowing you down.

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My guess would be it was Shaka inc. Lead manufacturers of the worlds finest Carpets of doom

consentient said:

Hmmm...I'm not sure what was slowing you down. Do you have a save?

Another gut instinct is that You maybe put more policies than is optimal into Rationalism for a DomV.

I'd love to look at a save and give you more feedback.

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Careful... I think consentient read the words "protracted war with shaka" and began to salivate. Particularly after you told him about the tech lead...

consentient said:

Hmmm...I'm not sure what was slowing you down. Do you have a save?

Another gut instinct is that You maybe put more policies than is optimal into Rationalism for a DomV.

I'd love to look at a save and give you more feedback.

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Well I obsessively save when I'm playing because I do stupid stuff like missclicks all the time, so I yeah I can get you a save at when the war started.

Here's the save right before I declared war. At this point the ground army looks sort of small though now that I look at it. Maybe that was the issue. (additional forces were added as the turns went by and I ran out of oil for bombers)

I am just in the middle of a long war with the Zulu, started in classical and we are now in the industrial era. We are on opposite sides of a pangea map with some nice mountains in the middle where I am holding out. I left poor Brazil on the middle after I liberated his city when it was conquered by the Zulu.

I am preparing an attack with the help of the 6 Foreign Legion units that I will receive soon, together with some artillery support should be enough to take his capital. It has become increasingly annoying after conquering Askia and requesting peace with less compensation each time, first time it was 3 cities, second 1 city and money, and the third time was money and resources... The fourth time he will pray for his life...

rf900 said:

...conquering Askia and requesting peace with less compensation each time, first time it was 3 cities, second 1 city and money, and the third time was money and resources... The fourth time he will pray for his life...

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I still do this too. I guess it is for RP -- because it never helps. But it is part of the reason I do not feel bad about making white peace when I am losing...

The only negotiations I am ever successful with is sometimes swapping lower pop (but “better”) cities for larger ones. If the AI is offering up cities, can you instead take luxes and money? If so, are there good rule of thumb? For example, if the AI is offering at least one city, can I instead get all his money? Half his money? If the AI is offering multiple cities (but not all his cities), can I cherry pick one city and several luxes? Mix/matching has been so frustrating for me, that I pretty much just take or leave what is offered.

Sorry, didn't explain myself too well. Zulu was negotiation peace but on their terms, requesting me things when I was not even under menace. But as for your question I don't know the rule but I always try to change to what it suits me best, usually changing a city for money or resources, most of the times they agree.

I guess that if you ask for "less" than what they are offering they will always accept.

When an AI is ready to give you a city, you can often take all their gold and GPT instead (unless they have plenty of cities and they just want to give you a crappy one) as they value cities a lot.

I can't load your save because you have map packs enabled. So, sorry I can't offer any further advice. And yes, I was salivating

I was in a long war with The Zulu too when I was attempting domination victory. When I finally got to shaka, I found out that he had Copenhagen and another civilization's capital. It took longer than I believed because I believed it was over when it got to ulundi and then Delhi after that but it wasn't. I had to look at the domination screen to find out where the other capitals were.

I was fighting Germany as Ethiopia yesterday and there were three wars (Germany declared the first two, I declared the last one) and the first two of the wars lasted over 70 a piece. Most annoying thing ever.

It can get really annoying when they churn units. As long as you have enough + stack up promotions on ranged stuff you eventually win but bonuses + tons of cities = loads of units into the meat grinder.

beetle said:

I still do this too. I guess it is for RP -- because it never helps. But it is part of the reason I do not feel bad about making white peace when I am losing...

The only negotiations I am ever successful with is sometimes swapping lower pop (but “better”) cities for larger ones. If the AI is offering up cities, can you instead take luxes and money? If so, are there good rule of thumb? For example, if the AI is offering at least one city, can I instead get all his money? Half his money? If the AI is offering multiple cities (but not all his cities), can I cherry pick one city and several luxes? Mix/matching has been so frustrating for me, that I pretty much just take or leave what is offered.

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Yes you can take what you want. I usually ask him for everything except cities, then go down one gpt at a time until he accepts. If he offers multiple cities, then pick and choose. I usually do not take cities in a peace deal, too much happiness hit, although a nice trick is to take a city, start razing to avoid upping the counter and sell it to another civ, if it is next to them then they will pay a lot of money that you can then use to get them to declare war on the original civ. Peace dealing is an art in itself specially on domination, as it can help you enormously on several fronts.

I'm at war with 3 AI, one of whose capital I took more than a century ago. The other two are just walking units up to my cities and being slaughtered by my ranged units. Surprised that no one is willing to treaty. I know I've got a big warmonger penalty for taking capitals, etc. (No reneging on the borders promises though.) Are there clear cut rules for when these guys will treaty like there was in IV? Coming back to BNW after a year or so off, but I don't remember this problem previously.

EDIT: Alex surrendered on turn 271. Liz on 272. Each gave up a city. Now on turn 274 and still no deal with Enrico. Posting about this in more detail on my thread about Egypt.