Preventing an Inevitable War

In my current game it's 1858. I'm playing as the Maya on a nice big map with about 22 Civs. I've been in the Top 2 or 3 Civs Culture and Tech wise since the start of the game. My major rivals -- Willem van Orange and Suryavaram -- have also been my key allies and trading partners for most of the game. Suryavaram has always been a lot friendlier and more generous with techs, for one reason or another.

Anyway, after years of peaceful building and teching, in the 1700s I sailed a big army to the primitive Zulu island and wiped out Shaka, thereby doubling the size of my empire.

I founded Bhuddism, Confucianism and Taoism which combined bring in 163 gold per turn. Plus, more recently I built Broadway (in Mutal) and Rock 'n' Roll (in Lakahma) and duly flogged them for 10-6 gold each per turn to every Civ that could pay -- which brings in another 150 or so gold per turn. I am just about to complete the Eifel Tower and feel I am well placed for either a cultural or Space Race win.

However, all of a sudden Willem, who has been "Cautious" with me for most of the game has other plans and around 1860-2 he declares war.

Here, I'll need a map to paint the full picture (from an autosave in 1858):



I have a North border with China which is Willem's vassal, so they declare war on me too. Not long ago I gained the Chinese city of Xuzhou through flipping so my relations with Mao took a hit. Incidentally, I have 40% culture in 2 of Willem's cities. East of China and North of Holland lies the Khymer empire, with whom I have a defence pact. To my South West are the Sumerians who are "Pleased" with me but wont be drawn in to the war -- they are probably the only other Civ on the continent who are on par with techs.

The Dutch can bring in the Kublai Khan and Churchill, but they are far behind on techs and quite far away. I can bring in Bismaarck, who is the same.

Problem is, when the Dutch invade, Willem brings a stack with about 30 units in it, ranging from infantry, cavalry and riflemen to crossbowmen and elephants, at least 6 or 7 of them are canons. They land on this square:



By 1860 I can upgrade all my riflemen to infantry and get about 8-12 of them into Lakahma. Trouble is, despite putting up a good fight they get overwhelmed because Willem's stack has so many units. The elephant ends up taking the city!

My question is: HOW CAN THIS WAR BE PREVENTED?

From what I can see, it's a battle that I can't win. Not unless I rewind about 20 years, forget building Rock and Roll and the Eifel Tower and concentrate building military. I don't really want to do that! I could also switch to Nationhood, but I don't particularly want to do that either.

But is there anything I can do to stop Willem declaring the war? He's on "Cautious" one turn and then invades without warning. Is there definitely something that triggers that or is it as simple as him working out that he can take that city?

Please help! I don't want this silly war ruining my game. I don't think I could win that city back, or get enough units to defend my capital in the short time.

What are my options here?

This is, no offence, why people lose games

Neglecting army for wonders might seem like a smart move, and it works aswell from time to time, but when stuff like this happens, you would regret it

Thats why, even for a builder strategy, you should have one city dedicated for mass-producing units. I've learned the hard way myself, that no defensive stack can be big enough. Best way to counter such a stack is to keep some barrage-promoted siege weapons in your own stacks, and bombard his stack with them the turn after they land next to your city. This will increase your odds by a significant amount.

He he, you my friend are experiencing the typical "peaceful builder" problem.

Neglecting your military, somehow hopping that your neighbors will be good enough to leave you alone

Well unfortunately there isn't much you can do right now to change Williams mind, cause AIs usually bring the decision to attack you much before they actually do start the war.

You could try loading a autosave from couple of turns earlier and try to "bribe" William to like you more....but there are no guarantees.

You could also try to bring some troops from your other non-border cities and place them in Lakamba (or whats the city name).

lol Lakemba.

ever been to Sydney?

Shirastro said:

He he, you my friend are experiencing the typical "peaceful builder" problem.

Neglecting your military, somehow hopping that your neighbors will be good enough to leave you alone

Well unfortunately there isn't much you can do right now to change Williams mind, cause AIs usually bring the decision to attack you much before they actually do start the war.

You could try loading a autosave from couple of turns earlier and try to "bribe" William to like you more....but there are no guarantees.

You could also try to bring some troops from your other non-border cities and place them in Lakamba (or whats the city name).

Click to expand...

Well I wasn't that peaceful, I sent about 30 troops over to nail Shaka not so long ago. After years of Bhuddist led, Apostolic Palace enforced peace, I (wrongly) thought it would be ok to leave my home territories with about 20 riflemen/ infantry, plus a few machineguns to defend it.

So ... what do I do here? Is it worth going back 20 turns, and sacrifice the massive culture pop building the Eifel tower would give me, in order to build a big force to nail Willem? He's got a BIG invasion stack but it's mixed -- mainly cavalry and cannons with some infantry and medieval troops in there too. Having just researched Radio couldn't I just stack up on Bombers and nail that stack?

Also, I've tried the old trick of getting bribing other AIs to war with him but he is "too powerful".

If he wasn't RIGHT ON MY DOORSTEP this would be less of a problem, but as it is it is I need to do something drastic or the game is lost.

JerryvonKramer said:

So ... what do I do here? Is it worth going back 20 turns, and sacrifice the massive culture pop building the Eifel tower would give me, in order to build a big force to nail Willem? He's got a BIG invasion stack but it's mixed -- mainly cavalry and cannons with some infantry and medieval troops in there too. Having just researched Radio couldn't I just stack up on Bombers and nail that stack?

Click to expand...

Here's an idea. Grow a pair of balls and stop reloading, then you might learn how to play

I think that if you can agree some sort of treaty with him, then he has to stay at peace with you for 10 turns; I've done this in the past and it's enough to make him change your mind (as it buys you 10 turns to crank out soldiers).

Other than that the only thing I can think of is to rewind 3 or 4 turns if you can, switch to Nationhood and draft and whip from all your cities.

Playing with william a couple games.He quiet an opportunist. He dont declare war on you if his power graph don't go much higher than you.Or you not losing war with the other guys.
He's not into religion too.

My suggestion is to switch to police state and build a some infantry and cannon. If he still attack. Try switching to Nation hood and draft some defender. He will give up peacefully if you manage to destroy his invasion stack. At the same time you could finish-off Chinese if possible.If you can he will probable dont bother you for the rest of the game.

theKurgen said:

Here's an idea. Grow a pair of balls and stop reloading, then you might learn how to play

Click to expand...

Hehe, this is so true actually, but we all reload from time to time

However, facing the facts and standing up for the mistakes you made, while trying to improve next time is what makes you climb to higher difficulties, so what he says is true. Stop reloading and try to be prepared in future games

Point taken. I don't ususually leave myself vulnerable to attack. And it's not like that city is defenceless ... it's just the SHEER SCALE of Willem's invasion that caught me out.

I'd say my defensive stack took out at least 15 cannons, 20 odd cavalry and 8-10 Infantry/ Riflemen before it fell ... as I said it was an Elephant of all things that eventually took over the city. I had 4 guided missles sleeping in the city too which I nailed his stack with. In my mind at least I prepared ...

But he threw everything including the kitchen sink at me.

So, if I am going to reload (if I don't, this game is lost) what shall I build to fend off this madness? Artilly, Bombers and Infantry?

JerryvonKramer said:

So, if I am going to reload (if I don't, this game is lost) what shall I build to fend off this madness? Artilly, Bombers and Infantry?

Click to expand...

Personally i love bombers for this purpose. Collateral damage from the air is a huge advantage when it comes to boosting your own defenses chance of winning against a huge stack, OR, they might retreat, simply because the stack is too damaged to be able to put up a serious fight.

Machine guns = Gold in this era, as they are immune to collateral damage.
This means that they are still going to be at full strength after the zerg of cannons (almost all your infantry would be more than half-dead by now).

Drill IV or City Garrison 3 machine guns should be a really hard nut to crack. (CG3 machine guns has to be upgraded from grenadiers).

Combine Machine Guns with defensive bombardments and you will be able to fend off most stacks (20+ bombers should do the trick).

Fastest way to add a lot of defenders with minimum disruption is to go back several turns and redeploy everything you can from cities he can't reach and then draft for a bunch of turns.

Any AI that is on "cautious" can take a swipe at you if you look to be too weak, so keep that in mind.

If you can use bombers against a stack, you'll wreck them.

oh, and as someone sorta mentioned, if you offer him 1 gold per turn, in BtS, if he takes it you have a 10 turn peace treaty.

If you can bribe someone to attack him before he declares on you, he wont declare (I think)

No war is inevitable so long as you look it in the face and say to it... "You're evitable!".

You can also slog through it. This sometimes is a lot of fun when I play as a builder. Let the Dutch take a city or two, and move your troops back. Regroup and launch a counter attack 15-20 turns down the line. A lot of times after taking a city or two the computer will sit and hold them.

This is actually my normal response to these situations - though it hurts (especially with a good border city, as opposed to those tundra-infested resource shantytowns...), you just have to take a big bite out of the invaders and then switch your economy over to wartime footing, launch the counteroffensive and start cleaning up. Generally, if you can't do this (because the AI's out producing you, or any other reason) well, then, I lose.

So, yeah - defend as best you can from your current position, and start building up for your counterattack!

Oh god.

Right, I went back ten turns. Abandoned the Eifel Tower. Switched to nationhood. Made about 30 Infantry and 10 artillery and 5 machine guns (can't get bombers yet).

Then his stack 'o doom came. And attacked and attacked and attacked ... and attacked ... and attacked ... and ... attacked - he must have had close to 70 units in that stack, it was SICK.

I lost maybe half my infantry but the city held. Then I started my counter with the artillery. And after 2 turns the massive stack was gone.

I quickly countered by attacking his poorly defended city Middelburg. And took it with some losses. I was still drafting every turn and money rushing artilleries and machine guns.

After 1 turn of successfully holding that city, the Chinese hit my city Xuzhou in the north with a ton of Cavalry, Cannons and Grenadeers. It fell. No biggie since it came through flipping not long ago -- not a major concern.

THEN to my absolute astonishment, after I'd killed maybe EIGHTY of his units, Willem started hitting Middelburg with ANOTHER MASSIVE STACK of Cavalry and Artillery.

I had 15 Infantry in that city with City Defense 1 or better - ALL killed. He got the city back.

Going to have to put my hands up here and know when I am beaten. How can I battle with his madness? Willem must have had over 120 units ready for this war. Is this sort of thing normal for the AI to do?? I've never encountered such ridiculous levels of troops before.

By 1869 he'd lost about 90 units and I'd lost about 35-40 infantry. Stupid carnage.

I'll admit, I did not expect it of Willem -- Ghengis Khan or Stalin maybe -- by Willem?!

My only option for this game now is to go back to 1650 and see if the 1 gold per turn trick works. If not, I'm going to have to start again. Don't think I've had a game where I've come so collassaly unstuck in the Industrial ago before. But then, who could have predicted the sheer insanity of Willem? He must have been pumping Cavalry for over a century.

You described yourself the why: He had 2 huge stacks available and allies with huge stacks and you didn't have the force to stop it all.

Anyone who might attack you you need to make certain your have the strength to stop it and take the war to them.

Interesting. Did you try suing for peace after capturing middleburg?