a strategic advice needed

[echolovesyou]

I am the Greek in Green, at large map emporer level. it is 1600's now and there are 8 nations left. the two biggest nations are byzantine (in dark red north of me) and Hittis (dark green on the other continent). i am far behind at population, land and military strength comparing them. i am also several technologies behind too. I don't have coal for railroad. but there is one right above me in Byzantine city (circled, where a worker is working there).

I tried to attack the city and gain the coal, however, byzantine is so strong so that i can not possibly defend the city. also their mass number of cavaries will go deep into my territery to attack weak cities, make me hard to defend.

how should i proceed from this position? which victory condition can i still possibly win?

[Jon Shafer]

Hmmmm... that's pretty ugly.

Your best bet is definitely to get that coal somehow.

Is the other red nearby you the Romans (or Babylonians)? If I were you, I'd do my best to sign an alliance with them to keep the Byzantines busy for a while, and then try to snatch a few cities and make peace.

[Blackbird_SR-71]

i say trade like crazy with the other civs to get the techs and catch up. then build a force of at least 10 attack units(Calavry) and take the coal city. if you provide us a save of the game then we can help you even more.

[dgfred]

You MUST get coal either by trade or . You may be able to take
the city and hold them off for a couple of turns, destroy a couple of their
units and sue for peace- all you really want is the coal. Try an alliance if
necessary as Trip suggested. Stay tuned here as you will probably get some
great advice from others .

[echolovesyou]

thanks for all your helps. the other red nation is the Romans, but they are too weak to help me out, since most of their cities had been captured by byzantines, and if they got involved, they will disappear from the continent within five turns.(even though they have two other cities in an island).

it's relatively easy to hold the coal city, as i said, the byzantine will use mass number of cavaries to go deep into my territary and attack my central weak cities. i don't have enough unit to hold all these cities. the border we share make them easy to get into my territery, hard for me to defend.

[Yuri2356]

What are you reasearching at the moment? Since you only have muskenment, I'm assuming that you havn't aquired nationalism yet. So unless you're only a few turns away from replacable parts I'd say you should go for those riflemen, they will certainly help you hold the city and defend your nation.

[echolovesyou]

yes, i am researching replacable part now, 5 more turns to go. sorry for the inconvenience, i am using chinese version of the game.

[Renata]

Try setting up a kill zone. The AI will always go for what it perceives as the weakest spot in your defenses. Therefore, if you fortify your border cities with infantry and artillery, and stick two or three high-defense units on any mountains near your borders, the AI cavs will mostly go right by on the flat ground, trying to get to your weaker internal cities. This is not a bad thing, this is a good thing! The cavs can't cover more than three tiles per turn in your territory; as long as you have defense wherever they actually *can* reach, you'll wind up with most of them stranded in your territory without ever having attacked. They'll be sitting ducks for your artillery, and you can clean up with whatever high-attack units you didn't need for the assault on coal-town. And if the AI's sent infantry behind the cavs, well, infantry are a lot less scary to attack when they're down to one hit point.

Just make sure you have enough artillery -- when you think you have enough, build a bunch more (you'll need a stack to soften up coal-town, I'm guessing -- investigate it first to see what the defense is like. At least it's small.) Infantry you don't need very many of, just enough to hold the border towns. You'll want to have enough cavalry to take coal town and still have enough left over to knock the last hit points off of the deepest-penetrating AI units. As soon as you have possession of the coal, your workers should get to work building rails straight down the middle of your territory, to allow your units to respond anywhere immediately, in the case of a ship dropping off a cav or three, for example. Be cautious, don't attack enemy units unless they've been bombarded first, don't leave your own units exposed in the open, and you should be fine.

At least until the war is over and you have to figure out what to do next, that is.

Good luck!

Renata

[citizen001]

I see many gaps on the world map. fill them all with your settlers.

with the coal problem, try massing cities around the byzantine coal city and rush cultural improvements.

[FreeTheSlaves]

Just build a city right next to that coal and rush culture buildings/walls/barracks + add defenders.

You'll get that tile & then prepare for war...

[Bagatur]

Put a city on tile left of coal and rush cultural improvements. I guees after second expansion, tile will be your. U need 100 culture to expand city borders twice, but it will take long - 15 turns. I see u have enough money to rush library and University - it will cost u 560 gold for both,bcs u are greek(rush worker first and rerush same turn to improvement). This will give u 7 cultire per turn. U'll have your borders expanded after 15 turns twice. religious improvements and colliseum are too expensive for you, and they dont worth, imo, way too expensive. Anyway u will get borders expanded far earlier on 7-8-9th turn if u rush 'em,but I'm lazy to calculate how earlier exactly This is one option.

I would take military way, setting up a kill zone is good, will bring u MGLs very likely. This city there isnt found long ago I guess, and having its size in mind it has no more than two defenders. U will capture it, it wont be destroyed, bcs it generated culture already.

P.S. Somebody already posted it as I typed it

[NestaSEN]

u use chinese verison ;and someone can translate it into english.what a fine thing.

maybe cultural way is better for u.to capture the city may ruin it.and u still need a settler for it.to build a city just beside the coal tile.u will get a coalwithout a war.and u will not lost u tech.fine thing.

[rysingsun]

in my opinion you have the conquest of this continent almost guaranteed as long as you stall on war long enough to build an army that can compete with your nothern rival. therefore play it safe by not going to war yet.

five turns from now you get to start building artillery. ive never lost a game once ive built a couple dozen artillery. and your neighbors the byzantines have poorly connected cities in rough terrain making reinforcement of an invasion potentially very difficult. remember you can bomb out their roads on the first turn of a war. they will then crawl their cavalry over the jungles to be bombed by your artillery before they can attack your units or your cities.

even having said this i dont recommend going to war until you have at least 50 artillery and i wouldnt even do it this soon unless you really are in a rush to get that coal. what im saying is that although its a shame you dont have the coal your position isnt desparate enough to warrent longshot gambles on an early war.

i very much like the suggestion of building a city west of the coal and rushing culture there. i do it all the time and it works great if the city you are infringing on is fairly new. and it looks like it is.

i also like the idea of signing an alliance with the romans. yes they are weaklings who will be conquered quickly but they will absorb a lot of byzantine offensive units in the process. the byzantines will get little value from their conquests since it takes a lot of turns to make them productive and they will likely be pretty corrupt as well.

yes try hard to trade for coal.

so to recap:

1) try to trade for coal.
2) wait for replaceable parts
3) build mainly artillery until you have at least 50 before declaring war. if war is declared on you before this then you just have to cope. my general rule for artillery is that you simply cant have too many.
4) when at war if you are too weak then bomb out the roads leading to your territory.
5) when at war take a defensive posture at first. as byzantine units enter your territory redline them with your artillery. after not too many turns their offensive will peter out. at this point you can go on the offensive even if the military advisor says you are weak compared to them. this is because if their offensive has lost its punch then their huge army is mostly defensive units that will not come out of their cities.

[echolovesyou]

these are all great advices. thank you guys very much. I will try to use the cultural rush idea first, and meanwhile also preparing and making artilaries. (it should take a while to make them).

i will let you know if i got some results.

[Bucephalus]

My eyesight is not as sharp as it once was but isn't that coal in the city to the north of the one indicated? And doesn't it belong to the weak Romans? It would be easier to take and hold that.

[echolovesyou]

the coal in the city right above me belongs to byzantine.

yes, there is another coal in Roman territery one city that city too. (circled)

I listened to everyone's advice and found a city near that coal resource, the cultural rush did not work, even after two expanding, the coal is still in their territery.

however, i also made dosens of artiliries, infantries, and calvaries. meanwhile, i traded 56gpt for coal with byzantine for 20 turns. so i started to connect every city with rail.

after 25 turns, byzantine stopped give me coal, and it started war with hittis (the other strong nation). i went to Hittis and made an mutual pretection pact, (they gave me oil for that). so the war started with byzantine.

the artileries-cavaries picking of-infantry defending strategy greatly reduced my casualty. byzantine sent dozens of marines but i defended well. then i took the city with coal, fortunately, there are two Roman cities above me so it's hard for byzantine to travel across, railroad also makes easy for defensing too.

now i plan to hold my territery for more turns until my contract with Hittis finishes. then i will have peace and coal!

however, i found i don't have oil now.

[Abaddon]

LOL! going from one problem to another! so wheres the nearest oil??