I actually lost a war

Hi,

LOL, for nearly the first time ever, and on Warlord no less.

Playing as Morocco, on Continents, I found out I was isolated. Settled my landmass with about 8 cities, and then found a small landmass with a couple of city states where I settled 3 more cities. Big landmass to east (really near) had most of the other Civs. Landmass to the East (quite far away) had 2 more Civs (more backward ones).

Anyway, closest target was Japan. I built up an army (Trebs, Muskets, Crossbows) and Navy (couple of Frigates and a few Caravels (left over from exploration). Closest city target was Kyoto, the capital. I swooped in, but found my Musket/Treb path to their setup positions blocked by hidden boats. Took one out with my Frigates, but didn't get my troops ashore in the first turn of war. Then a couple got killed with Galleasses and the City and Crossbow attacks. Got my troops to shore the 2nd turn, and continued to take out ships with my Frigates. But a Treb got one shot by the City, and others were taking heavy damage from reinforcements coming to Kyoto.

Long story short, I killed quite a few of Japan's troops, but he killed most of mine. I had to retreat with my tail between my legs.

Reasons for this:

1. Attacking a Capital from the sea. Never a good idea for the first attack.

2. Inadequate Navy. 5 Frigates would have been better.

3. Not looking at the strength of a city. It was 40.

Anyway, off to build up my army and Navy and going to conquer the civs on the other landmass to the West first. Their capitals are in the 20-30 range

I don't think I've ever lost a war before in G&K and BNW. It was the isolated start that screwed me over, having to build armies from scratch, instead of having them build up gradually from all the fighting on the home landmass.

Cheers.

Civ 5 is actually the first civ game that I have lost a game in, or even a war. I last lost a war (and the game) just a couple of days a go when the romans did a legion rush, quite early (I hate when the Romans got iron) and took my capital.

And before someone accuses me for lying that I have never lost ... Yes I have probably lost both games and wars, but it was actually quite rare. It is less rare in Civ 5.

If you're always winning, you may also consider upping the difficulty.

Honestly... I don't know that it ever occurred to me to attack any city, let alone a capital, using an amphibious assault, with enemy siege defenses and significant enemy fleet units, within bombardment range of the city to boot.

Heck, DOWing and simply landing your troops outside the 2-tile radius of the city will allow you to get a beachhead, which you can use to whittle down the enemy's relieving units without having to suffer the city's siege and bombardment fire while doing so. At the same time you can clear away the enemy's fleet. When done, then you can assault the city and only have to worry about a couple of enemy siege units and bombardment.

Mercade said:

If you're always winning, you may also consider upping the difficulty.

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I have been playing Prince through the whole of G&K and started out Prince in BNW, but found that it didn't support my expansionist game style. Having fun with Warlord.

Cheers.

I picked a fight with the Neatherlads, inmy current game. I had bombers, I had not, but his capitol was strength 167. After a bomber died in the first bombing-run try I sued for peace. I'm thinking if anything short of nukes could make a dent in that thing.

Wodan said:

Honestly... I don't know that it ever occurred to me to attack any city, let alone a capital, using an amphibious assault, with enemy siege defenses and significant enemy fleet units, within bombardment range of the city to boot.

Heck, DOWing and simply landing your troops outside the 2-tile radius of the city will allow you to get a beachhead, which you can use to whittle down the enemy's relieving units without having to suffer the city's siege and bombardment fire while doing so. At the same time you can clear away the enemy's fleet. When done, then you can assault the city and only have to worry about a couple of enemy siege units and bombardment.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it was pretty stupid of me. Thing was, I thought he was a sitting duck, but there were 3 or 4 water tiles I couldn't see. Well, 3 of those had ships . My usual tactic for ground assault is stay 3 tiles from the city and take out the opposing forces.

Ah well, I'm still #1 on score, and 1 or 2 on science, so things are still looking good this game.

Cheers.

manu-fan said:

Yeah, it was pretty stupid of me. Thing was, I thought he was a sitting duck, but there were 3 or 4 water tiles I couldn't see. Well, 3 of those had ships . My usual tactic for ground assault is stay 3 tiles from the city and take out the opposing forces.

Ah well, I'm still #1 on score, and 1 or 2 on science, so things are still looking good this game.

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Live and learn!

I lost a war too, on King. I had recieved Tokyo from Japan in a peace deal a long time ago, and it was on one of the two points of my U shaped empire. To one side of it America, to the other Japan. America had Minutemen, Trebs and Crossbows, Japan came at me with Samurai and Cannons. I had kinda neglected military tech so I ended up losing Tokyo to America (I tried to sue for peace with Japan and give them Tokyo but they were having none of it) so yeah, it happens.

manu-fan said:

Hi,

LOL, for nearly the first time ever, and on Warlord no

Cheers.

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Oh well, as long as Ronaldo signs who cares?

One lesson to learn from the OP is the value of having good intelligence about the enemy forces and their dispositions - BEFORE you attack.

If you are not sure, send in a suicide scout first, some low-value unit you can afford to lose.

I was on prince learning the new mechanics and lost to Dido on turn 65..she showed up out of nowhere with about 3 archers, 3 warriors and a spearman. They took my capital

I just lost my capital on immortal, with the AI having a stupidly large army, whilst my army was virtually nonexistant and I was still running a negative GPT. It was reasonably early in the game so I thought I was safe from an AI onslaught. I don't think it would have been possible to survive that onslaught without buying walls, which are just such a waste of hammers in the early game when you want to be focusing on growth.

I wish I can even lose a war.

My oppressively large military score always make the AI forget about making war with me. The fact that i have enough soldiers to fight everyone with doesn't help one bit at all.

Last time I was seriously challenged in a battle was in gods n kings vs Hiawatha on king diff.

Im quite bored. AIs can't give me a good fight. If they declare war, they send forces to maybe take a city but beyond that, nope, not happening.

And Hiawatha only offered a challenge because he send over 200+ units to battle with me. At least half of that was probably navy. Cuz I recall lots lots lots of modern era warships being sunk on both sides.

I just had the naval battle be fought outside the range of his stealth bombers otherwise my experienced battleships would've been targeted and sunk.

I pretty much restart every map until I face a possibility of lots of wars gonna be fought. With massive armies that is. I hate this tiny 5-20 unit invasion force that won't succeed. Thats just a skirmish.

I was just minding my own business when Attila the Hun discovered me. Within 5 turns he was declaring war on me and he had 3x as many units as I. Regardless to say many a cities were sacked and plundered on that day.

DemonMaster said:

Civ 5 is actually the first civ game that I have lost a game in, or even a war. I last lost a war (and the game) just a couple of days a go when the romans did a legion rush, quite early (I hate when the Romans got iron) and took my capital.

And before someone accuses me for lying that I have never lost ... Yes I have probably lost both games and wars, but it was actually quite rare. It is less rare in Civ 5.

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Happen to me also recently. He was my friend, and while I was fighting swarming Shaka, he decided to drop on me and take my Capital.

So I had to load few turns back, and buy the gd castle and crossbows.

njmfff said:

Happen to me also recently. He was my friend, and while I was fighting swarming Shaka, he decided to drop on me and take my Capital.

So I had to load few turns back, and buy the gd castle and crossbows.

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Shaka is a pain. I decided to try out Venice today and got Shaka as my neighbour. To have a not so long story, a little bit shorter, I quit that campaign. Next campaign, something more normal and without extreme as.....s as neighbours.

Hmm, I always got crazy muppets as neighbours and here I read that "no wars", "every one just sitting there". Bah, not in may games.

manu-fan said:

Hi,

Reasons for this:

1. Attacking a Capital from the sea. Never a good idea for the first attack.

2. Inadequate Navy. 5 Frigates would have been better.

3. Not looking at the strength of a city. It was 40.

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It's good that you have learnt from your defeat!

With regards to the above, definitely number 2, I find it can be easy to neglect a Navy as you don't necessarily need it on all maps!

When you are building up the Frigates (which you should start out with by upgrading from your best promoted Galleasses first) go straight for the range promotion, and then grab Logistics for extra attacks. Range means you can bombard the city from the sea without getting hit back (you might have to clear out some land units first), and when this carries over to Battleships, it makes for trivial taking down cities with 4 range and 2 attacks per turn.

Japan is a quite hard opponent in the early days, until you get the good promotions.
They will send a ton of melee to suicide against your units, and it works.

I remember losing some games on Emperor. The one below was in G&K though.

Once I wasn't too lucky as the Maya and I beelined the-GP-tech without caring at all for the military. I remember there was Russia south east from me, Byzantium north-east and a civ I don't remember... west? Yes, definitely to my west.

I quickly got 4 cities up and running and +2 science per trade route/city connection belief. First the civ-I-can't-remember declares war. Okay, no problem, archers + rushbought walls, it'll be okay.

I don't care about getting more military (the guy can't kill me anyway) and get another wonder. It's starting to look good, the waves of the enemies stop approaching, but then...

Russia attacks. It really looks bad, but I get a Hwacha from my CS ally. It's bad, but I am holding thanks to me finishing off melee first. As I think the situation is slowly improving (because I was FINALLY building units), Byzantium backstabs me despite of a DoF. I look at it's army, and I know that with Russia and someone-else against me, there's no hope.


In BNW it wouldn't happen, because Russia and the-other-civ would've probably just ignored me not caring one bit I'm teching, getting scientific lead as well as wonders left and right.