I fought the World... and the world won

Well, not yet, but it could happen pretty soon, as I am getting my Byzantine backside handed to me.

Playing as the Byzantines, stuck next to the rapidly expanding Persians and the Americans. The Zulu are far to the north, and the Sumerians far to the west. My city supply is already embarrassingly low, so I have to check their advance by destroying every city they put up into the still neutral area until I can get a settler out there with some backup.

And at first things go well. Goading the Americans and then the Persians (one at a time) into wars where they come to me, and my archers rout them just outside Constantinople. I demand cities from them in peace talks and get them (I slaughtered the Persians! Demanded Monarchy, Gold, AND the cities of Arbela and Antioch, and GOT it! Go Byzantine Archers!). They're unproductive and it'll take a long time to get them linked up to the rest of my empire but, hey, come on, it's an ego boost! "I demand you give me Seattle!" "Okay, stop hurting me." And besides, as long as I hold on to them, its' that many turns those cities aren't generating culture and research for the other guys. I figure if they won't give me room to build my cities, I'll just have to beat them up, take their cities, and make them mine.

I even get a couple military leaders AND the statue of Zeus built during this mess, so I'm feeling pretty good, and slowly loading those armies up with Ancient Cavalry.

And yet, I try to work on infrastructure, get The Lighthouse built, and then what do I see? Americans, AND Persians, and now the Zulu trying to put cities up in MY next spot. So of course, I declare war. And I get my city built, finally. Even take the new Zulu town next to it for good measure...

Persia gives up on that area quickly and doesn't hassle me, but I might as well be at war with them too, what with their ROP with the Zulu. Because Impi after Impi and Archer after Archer are POURING out of the hinterlands of Persepolis. I've lost count of how many guys in yellow are running around, making my life miserable. Arbela and Antioch have been swarmed over with Zulus. America has retaken Seattle. I've got one army full of Ancient Cav running around holding America at bay, slaughtering them in the field, but it's too busy doing that to be able to take a town.

But the Zulu... jeez. Even with my second ancient cav army killing 2-3 units a turn, I'm losing ground. Barely holding on to the city I took from them, and my 4th town -- the one with ivory in it, is in danger. Their Impi stand up to my stand-alone ancient cav and win, convincingly. Arghhh....

And The Sumerians just can NOT be talked into helping me out, even though we've been friendly and fair trading partners since we met. Jerks.

About the only good news is I alone have naval bombardment capability through the UU Dromon, so I can at least make life in Miami miserable even if I can't get over there to capture it. Well, that and ancient era Theodora is a doll.

Bah.

Time to reload an earlier save and figure out where I went wrong (the more sarcastic among you may feel free to reply with "you chose the Byzantines" at this point. ) But seriously, two early armies loaded with Ancient Cav, and nobody's got feudalism yet? I should be able to find a way to stomp the proverbial mudhole in these people...

This is such a fun game, though I know I don't need to convince anyone here of that.

Good to hear you are having fun

What level are you playing?

Ancient Cavalry are funny things....when the computer has them they can go toe to toe with modern cavalry...when you have them they get killed by Impis.

I always shudder when I start next to the Zulus. Those Impis are deadly and do indeed swarm over everything!

Sounds like you aren't doing too badly though.

Keep killing those impis.. the Zulu golden age will run out eventually then they'll be crippled.

It does not sound like you need to back at all. Get those cities connected and make more troops.

The AI will send all of its spares to fight, but once you have beaten those off, they will have a hard time keeping up the pressure. The troops will come in smaller numbers, unless you are play above emperor.

If it gets real sticky, do not sweat losing a city on the front. You can take it back a bit later.

It is good to hear a bit of a story. I hope you are keeping an eye out for WW or are in Monarchy.

Son of Dido,

Sounds like a real fix, and a good fat lot of wars to be in. I would:

1)Buy the peace of your agressors, it sounds as thought you cannot beat them all at once ( trust me I have been there)

2)Buy peace at any cost

3)Get angry

4)Think total war now. Stop building wonders and buildings.

5)Build fast mobile units in all citys.

6)Identify some resouces or land you want from your closeest , closest , closest enemy.

7)Write down those areas on a piece of paper, trust me , stick to them.

8)Only once you capture these make peace, then and only then do not go above or below that goal.

9)Buy peace with the other nations if they start

10)keep all your tax money for the army and dont stop building your armys until your goal is met !

11) Have fun !!

12) Tell me how it goes !

Actually, I should've seen the answer to my own question in my post. Don't be greedy and impatient; fight 'em one at a time.

Made quick peace with the Americans, since, really, the only reason I was at war with them was playing with my Dromons and their Greek fire naval bombardment. So leaving them alone was easy enough.

Divide and conquer, fight one at a time. Works like a charm. Having Knights Templar AND Statue of Zeus in the unassailable Constantinople doesn't hurt none, either.

Peace with the Americans, eliminate the surprisingly small Persians, halve the Zulu empire (and sink one of their galleys with one of my Dromons, triggering a Golden Age at just about the best time I've ever gotten one), then get them to ally with me against the now bloated and highly advanced Sumerians (who beat me to the Lighthouse, so I didn't get that after all. They shall pay later.) They wore Zululand down, then I finished 'em off, taking every city on the continent and leaving them with one on large island to the east (they had colonized it earlier, but I had overrun that settlement and made the island mostly my own already), which I was just one shipload of troops away from taking anyway. The Zulu are now gone.

Meanwhile, The Americans got really big, but more than half of this was on a large island to the south of our main continent, they only had about 6-7 cities left on what I can now legitimately call "my continent." Peace with Sumeria, time to run the Americans out of town. Those Ancient Cavalry spawned two MORE military leaders in that campaign, which got organized into armies of Crusaders and Knights, and the Americans are off my continent, and their Great Library is obsolete, but mine.

It's just me and the Sumerians now, and I'm working on that.

I've had to put off my plans at switching to Republic, since I've been in a constant state of war for about, oh, 1500 years now . But good ol' fashioned Monarchy at 7-1-2 has me sitting pretty, and I've discovered the other continent (The Incas and Aztecs are much more generous with their technology than the Sumerians ever were), and good relations with them has allowed me to buy and trade to close the technology gap. Except for Metallurgy, because I don't want to kill off the source of ancient cav just quite yet.

I've also gotten the Pentagon way earlier than I thought I could, so those Four Armies each have Four Units, and they are bearing down on the largest Sumerian cities (have captured the capital, Ur, and their Pyramids). And with them, what appears to be the one and only source of saltpetre on the entire continent... heh, heh, heh... (Sumerians beat me to Leonardo's Workshop, so pikemen to muskateers ate up all my disposable income for about ten turns, at 3-4 units per. It's worth it though).

Golden age was at about 200 bc to 270 ad; great timing, really tipped things in my favor. I'm a step behind in the world tech race, but the Inca are nice to me and I can beat it out of anyone else. I'm just about at the point where I have to keep fighting, just because I've got so many units that there's nothing else to do with them, and so many big, efficient cities with nothing left to build but more units. And even in Monarchy, I'm raking in the gold, so I may just stick with it. It's a nice problem to have.

Simple lesson, really. Fight one country at a time, plus a little bit of divide and conquer when you can negotiate it. The tide has turned nicely, and the Byzantine War Machine is almost unstoppable. Metallurgy will terminate the supply of Ancient Cavalry that makes up much of my force at this point, so I'll have to slow down once I get that, but hey, all the more reason to overrun the Sumerians now and have a continent all to myself.

Son_Of_Dido said:

"I demand you give me Seattle!" "Okay, stop hurting me."

Click to expand...

Quoted for hilarity.

Kill them, then negotiate.

But, kill the civs one at a time.

Son of Dido, an update from you is great good to see that you are getting to grips with the multiwar fights, its too easy to get bogged down kiiling all the civs at once.

I normaly kill one civ then advance my race to the next significant attacking unit then activate total war and go again , a continuse cycle. It noormaly goes cav, knights , tanks. After the tanks stage im normaly top dog but not killed all the others then swith to total peace and out science their asses !

Tell us how it goes !

Apparantly its not all about the war ?! Maybe thats another thread , lol

Let the scientific civs, like sumeria, keep at least one city... making them "your civs" to keep down, and use at the turn of each era.
Get all the three starting-techs in one turn.

I am still fighting the world...and will be to the end of the game!

Looks like fun. Could you post a save?

Dark, wow ! you know how to do the war thing in style!! what are you planning to do?

What patch is your civ?

Best o luck

Can't post a save because it is my own modded game and I'n need to post about a 200mb file.

Thunder: I am planning to wipe out those backstabbers. I was a peace with almost everyone and they all turned on me in less then 10 turns. I am marginally ahead in the tech race and my core cities are pumping out light tanks every 1 or 2 turns. My navy is primarilly destroyers and cruisers against primarilly ironclads so I am OK there. I have had a few problems with 50+ stacks of machinegunners and infantry crossing my boarders but thats what air and artillery are for.

Dark sounds like a plan, are u going to go for one by one or all at once ? post some shots when u have the chance

all at once. I have squashed the Persians and Dutch already, Babylon is on its way out as is America, The Byzentines are undergoing heavy bombardment from my airforce. The Iroquois got their army stomped on when about 90 machinegunners, infantry and cavalry decided to take one of my captured American cities. My artillery and tanks forced their retreat and I pursued them until they were no more. On my continent, no one has a sizeable enough army left to defend against me so I have started another front overseas against India. I have a strong foothold on a 3 city island off their coast and I am sending paratroopers onto their continent as a protective bridgehead so I can land my force of light tanks and armoured cars. All navies are being squashed by land based bombers and destroyers and I am currently researching naval aviation to aquire carriers and divebombers. Once I have them, I will make sure I own the seas and any ships will be pursued and sunk with utmost efficiency! All hail ROME!!

I must say, that there is something deeply gratifying about seeing a civilization that was once the bully empire of the largest size on your home continent, now utterly reduced to just three small, isolated cities, each on a different island, that were once merely their throwaway colonial holdings.

Ah, at last a continent to myself. Too bad that the infrastructure of what was once the Sumerian Empire is shoddy and way substandard, and overrun with marsh and jungle. And I have to get all that taken care of PLUS we just hit the industrial age, so now I gotta go lay railroad over the rest of my huge continental empire. Spent all that time moving my workers over each of those tiles, improving them, and now I gotta run around and hit them all over again... almost makes me wish I hadn't conquered the whole continent.

Almost.