Surviving multiple Carpets of Doom

Am just venturing into emporer ranks of play after daudling at prince level for way too long. Watched a host of Marbozir videos, took lots of advise and been practicing. Won the next several prince-level game handily, then did 5 games at king level using various leaders and only lost one by a narrow margin. Never felt overwhelmed or really threatened until now.

Moved to emporer level game as Spain and lost it by 8 turns when Alexander finished the spaceship before me. Didn't have access to him due to map shape and his capital location. Would have required a run across half the world to reach. Lost, but felt like I did a decent job throughout, so back into the fray.

Second game at emporer, playing as Shoshone. Everything was going well until the other civs starting dog-piling me. First Denmark, then Alexander, both fought off successfully. So, thinking its war going forward I start upping my defenses even more. Moved a few units away from Alexanders border to prevent a premature war declaration and wham, he declares war again. Right behind him comes Pachacuti appears and follows suit. Now I see two huge CoDs (carpets of doom) heading towards me. I'm pretty sure I can fight off one, but the other is probablematical with my current units. Will be able to build a few while war is waging but not sure it will be enough.

I think my chances are few right now but thought I drop by and ask if anyone has any ideas I could use?

Thx

Yah! I hate it when this happens. If you don't turn the AI's on each other, they seem to dogpile the human. Can you pay off one or both CoD civs? Get them at each other?

If no, then I would suggest you do what you can to beat off the initial wave and go for the nearest enemy city. You don't have to cap it, just knock it down to close to zero. This usually triggers a peace deal. If they offer you a city, give or sell it to another AI to sow discord between them and create a buffer. This should buy you time to run your army over to the second CoD you're facing (hopefully before you lose too much ground). Rinse. Repeat.

This may or may not apply in your specific situation, but I hope it helps.

The key to surviving carpets of doom is having ranged units and keep those up to date. Go for complete kills.

If you want a short tutorial (100 turns) on this play the Korean scenario as Korea on Deity. If you avoid losing you'll have learned all you need to know to this. (Korea is in a locked war against Japan and in addition at some point in the game the civ to your north will DOW you) If you lose, you still get an achievement, so its a win-win situation.

I started Deity about 3 weeks ago after finding out that any other level isn't challenging. If your Terrain isn't right the other guys are calling it correctly in saying you're not using your Ranged Units and Cities properly. All AI can get aggressive and warmongering Civs, if they have an army and are not at war just go to war usually by Proxy.

First of all place your cities in a formation pattern for Firing multiple rounds if you can, if terrain is good, use Spear/Pike in the Mountains and place the Ranged with no blocking terrain to fire clear. If you have to, path the enemy approach, chop the forest, place in Forts and or us GGs to create killzones with their Citadel which eats off a chunk of your opponents strength points when adjacent. You have to set up kill boxes way ahead of time. I know planning this around Lux resources or decent city locations is a pain in butt, but I would avoid sea hexes altogether at first and focus on Pangea/Land warfare and reload if you have too much bumpy terrain. You will never learn accurately to do warfare without having a nice clear lump of land to run Horsemen/Ranged...then wedge axe/spear/pike on hills and strong points. City on Hills...Cities in close enough box formations like 4 hexes to rapid fire along with ranged and this will defeat 100% of early assaults. After you get your basic techs, go straight to Construction to get the Composite Bow...CBs(6-7) of them will kill 1 wave but assaulting a city requires patience and you must clear out the enemy units. Try defending from 3-4 massive waves on Deity ... when they have Riflemen and you're using CBs and terrain alone. Did 1 reload last night when I got back stabbed by my so called friend. NEVER let your troops get too low unless you've got super units to destroy every other civ and turn off Science/Culture/Space Race...Domination Baby, all the way, war is fun...

frankT said:

Am just venturing into emporer ranks of play after daudling at prince level for way too long. Watched a host of Marbozir videos, took lots of advise and been practicing. Won the next several prince-level game handily, then did 5 games at king level using various leaders and only lost one by a narrow margin. Never felt overwhelmed or really threatened until now.

Moved to emporer level game as Spain and lost it by 8 turns when Alexander finished the spaceship before me. Didn't have access to him due to map shape and his capital location. Would have required a run across half the world to reach. Lost, but felt like I did a decent job throughout, so back into the fray.

Second game at emporer, playing as Shoshone. Everything was going well until the other civs starting dog-piling me. First Denmark, then Alexander, both fought off successfully. So, thinking its war going forward I start upping my defenses even more. Moved a few units away from Alexanders border to prevent a premature war declaration and wham, he declares war again. Right behind him comes Pachacuti appears and follows suit. Now I see two huge CoDs (carpets of doom) heading towards me. I'm pretty sure I can fight off one, but the other is probablematical with my current units. Will be able to build a few while war is waging but not sure it will be enough.

I think my chances are few right now but thought I drop by and ask if anyone has any ideas I could use?

Thx

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I think you have to reload from early, focus more on units, avoid the very first DoW which you survived okay, but which started the dog pile. Latter DoWs you will probably be okay with.

frankT said:

Moved to emporer level game as Spain and lost it by 8 turns when Alexander finished the spaceship before me. Didn't have access to him due to map shape and his capital location. Would have required a run across half the world to reach. Lost, but felt like I did a decent job throughout, so back into the fray

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You didn't ask, but I think you could learn a lot by reloading your Spain game ~50 turns from the end. I bet you can figure out how to shave 9 turns. Maybe just a bribe to have him DoW one of his neighbors would do the trick? Does not help with your current CoD problem, but might really be a good opportunity for improving your play.

I don't like bribing AIs as a strategy, it feels unethical and gamey (no-one ever finds out that you caused a calamitous war, the AI is willing to fight a much stronger opponent instead of you, take huge losses, gain nothing apart from diplomatic censure, for a bribe that amounts to a single turn of income for them, and does so over and over). It's a pity though, it appears to be a necessary strategy to win on the hardest difficulty.

My 3 Immortal games so far, i can survive the carpet of doom, but i am unable to get the AI to talk peace so i have my trade caravans and tiles pillaged for 200 turns and end up loosing the science race as a result.

In the first game i was in the northwest corner of the pangea, with Atilla to the South and Ashburipanal to the East. Eventually destroyed Atilla after a 200 turn war, but Harun-al-Rashid beats me to rocket launch by 20 turns.

In the next, i was doWed on turn 30 by Rome and quit when he started coming at me with Muskets, never expanded past once city or managed to get him to talk peace.

In the third game, I spawn between Atilla and Gengis Khan. Get double dowed in Renaissance era, war's been great fun for 100 turns now. After beating off Mongolia's third attack I grew tired of the situation and managed to bribe his neighbour, and the strongest Civ, Rome, to attack Gengis, for 2 GPT. Rome quickly reduced them to a single 5 pop city in some Tundra between me and the edge of the map, now Khan wants to be my buddy. Unforunately the Roman empire is now a huge runaway, with nearly twice the score of the next highest civ, so it looks like i'm gonna be loosing this game as well. At least i have the satisfaction of ending Atilla, after taking a few of his cities, his neighbours have all started to dogpile the guy, he's gonna be wiped out very soon.

b7fanatix said:

I don't like bribing AIs as a strategy, it feels unethical and gamey (no-one ever finds out that you caused a calamitous war, the AI is willing to fight a much stronger opponent instead of you, take huge losses, gain nothing apart from diplomatic censure, for a bribe that amounts to a single turn of income for them, and does so over and over). It's a pity though, it appears to be a necessary strategy to win on the hardest difficulty.

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Yes.
It's one of the many things that bug me about this game, and it's one of many examples of a counter-intuitive and cheap feeling tactic being the superior tactic.

If you are constantly having to survive multiple DOWs then I'd say your diplomacy needs a polish. On Emperor you can get away with building no units, but you must not anger anyone. DOWing multiple times, capturing cities, capturing CS will get you pariahed. Proposing your religion will make you hated by 4 other civs. Forward settling a civ will get you hated by them as will rush buying tiles.

Do any of the above and you must build units and plenty of them so you are not last in military. Don't want to build units then you need to consider every WC proposal, I suggest World's Fair first as most civs like that. Early war is a no no as with every civ you have met can get you minor warmonger hate from a single DOW. Another tactic is to sell things cheaper than the AI is willing to pay for stuff, although this doesn't stack for multiple trades so do a one off free lux. Voting for a another civ to be host will get them to like you more, sometimes they may even vote for you next time! Lastly be first in tech asap, having the ability to build XCOMs when the AI has muskets will make even the most bloodthirsty AI think twice about DOWing you. Also tech leader tends get more DOFs for RAs, especially if you have a high gpt(so they can ask you for it).

My advice: forget about peaceful play and make your own carpets of doom. Go for the jugular. Puppet what you want and raze the rest to dust.

consentient said:

My advice: forget about peaceful play and make your own carpets of doom. Go for the jugular. Puppet what you want and raze the rest to dust.

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You don't need a carpet to do this. Using a few more advanced units will easily do the job without running into the high unit maintenance costs an actual carpet would run into. In fact your goal when fighting a war is to never, ever, lose a single military unit.

Thanks for all the advice. Went back and attempted to apply some of your suggestions with modest luck, but alas, eventually they wore me down and took me out. Knew it would be a tough game when I saw myself surrounded by Denmark (East), Babylon (SE), Greece (SW), Aztecs (W) and Rome (NW).

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by that game, I started a new game as Attila (to get some of the frustration out of my system) and was able to achieve an almost simlutainious scientific and diplomatic victory, after taking 6 or 10 capitals.

So now I feel much better.

Thanks for all your help. I'm continously amazed by the great ideas you share to help others climb the difficulty ladder to diety.

joncnunn said:

You don't need a carpet to do this. Using a few more advanced units will easily do the job without running into the high unit maintenance costs an actual carpet would run into. In fact your goal when fighting a war is to never, ever, lose a single military unit.

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Oh, I know, I was just playing with words, really. As you say, a small, thick pile rug > a thin carpet the size of Nebraska.

One thing I'd add to this thread is that there is another sign that someone is building up an army, and at least one AI does this in almost every game - i.e. going OCC and beelining for Terracotta Army. Typical perps of this strategy are Monty, Pocatello, and Darius, but really anyone can do it. They can get Terracotta Army VERY quick and you might see a T45 DoW that catches you off-guard. It's not as big as later carpets, but still, unless you have a few CBs, you'll have a tricky time dealing with 3-4x Archers, 3-4x Spears/Immortals, 2x Catapults and assorted Warriors/Jaguars, etc.

If I have a neighbour who looks like he's doing this, and I don't have the money to pay him to DoW another, I'll stop building whatever it is I need to - e.g. Water Mill, and pump out another 2 CBs.

In general, the T45-T90 DoWs are one of the reasons I think that Tradition is FAR more map-situationally successful than Liberty, and FAR more map-situationally successful than the Deity players that harp on and on about how Tradition is OVERALL better, will admit. Sure, if you're going to remain relatively unmolested and you WANT to be, as you will be pursuing a peaceful VC, then Tradition can shine. Otherwise, I'd take Liberty any day of the week. With Liberty you can have 6-8 CBs and 4-5 cities by the time most carpets come your way.

Civs with cavalry uus make me freaking mad. I kill like 20-30 of them and still he/she keeps sending them at me, and eventually I start losing units and its downhill from there.

InDubioProReo said:

Civs with cavalry uus make me freaking mad. I kill like 20-30 of them and still he/she keeps sending them at me, and eventually I start losing units and its downhill from there.

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If you spawn a GG, you may want to consider a citadel or two as a kill zone. Don't actually place a unit there but instead use to to inflect damage on his units ending their turns there.

Artillery in safe tiles. (3 hex range!) City's own bombardment.
Pikes are effective as a screen against Knight based UUs but not Calvary based ones. (Even when they upgrade, they upgrade to a unit that has no business defending and instead is a hit and run unit)
A Gatling Gun screen for Artillery should be very effective against Calvary though.

Another thing people have to point out here is starting position. Which is ultimately one of the biggest factors, plus who you're up against. What you may want to do is alter your opponents, which will not save you in Deity. For instance Spain/Japan/or Napoleon always DOW me if they're adjacent and I do not have a matching military(even if longtime friends). Though other Civs like Carthage/Austria/Sweden, they will sit by a little bit in the face of an inferior military so long as you get no bad reputation by declaring war. Now if you build in their zone of interest, you can pretty much hang it up. This is where you need at least 4 cities in a safe and relatively rich region with lots of growth. I had this situation on Deity, I got attacked very early by England but I pushed off Elizabeth with tons of CBs and a few good Pike. What happened was I approached London and began to nearly sack the Capitol but I lacked siege equipment to finish the job and did not want to lose my vital units. I could have stayed and rebuilt pillaged her resources but I chose to play it with some honour. Meanwhile Austria went on a rampage and had 12+ cities across the map wiping out every other Civ in her way. She eventually DOWed me too but she didn't have the stomach for war and with well placed Gatlings, I managed to push her off me. That was just by a thread, and it's true that GGs are best used building Citadel Killboxes. Though if you should steal another Civs territory with a GG you will really really make them peed... Nothing makes them more angry with me than that it seems. So, count on that being a permanent enemy.

I got up to Artillery in that game, I planned on perhaps going after Austria, but I only had a few Rifles(I was broke from war), and she had about 20 or so... I decided since I had sicked her on Elizabeth so long to avoid having to fight her that Elizabeth would be weak but I made a fatal error. NEVER DO THIS! I attacked along a narrow corridor of beach front property and remember that early Naval Vessels chew through land units with their cannons. Especially since on Deity the AI tends to make nearly 10 of them out of thin air. I would have been able to at least take England out with my Artillery(she had Medieval weapons mostly) but this game is tricky with terrain and understanding how to use it is something else.

In another game VS Brazil, I literally went up against Gatlings/Rifles/and Pedro's Navy with nothing more than bribing a citystate that was on a chokepoint through a tiny corridor to my territory. He lost 20 units going through that CityState. So often if you're surrounded by them, it may be worth having the economy to buy off the CS and do whatever it is possible to keep them friends. They often won't contribute if they're not going to marched through, so take this into consideration. They are pretty useless in real war otherwise... Eventually Brazil had enough Carpets of Doom to even get through that Mountain CityState. They seem to take more punishment than anything I own.

Mounted Units are obsolete in rough terrain. They are not worth using as Spear/Pike and good Melee move about as well. In the older Civs Mounted Units could KO a Siege Weapon in 1 hit often...That is not the case anymore which changes everything. I would always build my Capitol on a Hill/Wall/Fortified/consider a Castle if you are planning on absorbing hits. Plus put your Ranged Behind your Capitol and offer it up as a treat to the AI Melee. Often you will get unlucky with this strategy but often the AI is dumb and will assault a Capitol it should not. The only issue here is when the tech of the units are off I notice. i.e. Classical vs Medieval Melee...5-6 melee can bust through a Capitol that's already been softened up pretty easy...

At first I thought this thread was going to be about a new Arabian UU - flying carpets.

And Jasmine from Aladdin is the new Arabian leader. And the music theme you have to listen to all game is "a whole new wooooooooooooooorld...."

Reminds me of the good ole days of Civ3, listening to Kenny G all night at 3am while I am in the Modern Era, tanks steamrolling over everybody.

honor finisher - recyle the carpets of doom into whatever you want (preferably shiny army of yourself ) .. The bigger the carpet the more gold you can recyle out of it ...

would it be possible to survive CBR MK II Australia's great pacific carpet and the rest of their carpets there

as of part 61 without about 15 nuclear missiles