Bad strategy for military victory with the Romans?

[Blue88]

I just narrowly won my first Noble game by time victory

By the 1500s I had a slight tech and significant economy advantage, but I passed on trebuchets, knights and musketmen to save up the cash for a tank blitz. The problem is that I discovered too late that my country of about a dozen cities (30% of the map) had no coal or oil whatsoever. So I had to put up with fighting off much larger stacks of musketmen and trebuchets with my riflemen, catapults and airships. Later, the same scene repeated with my infantry, machine guns and artillery vs. Montezuma's riflemen and trebuchets. Because I lacked coal and oil, the best I could do as far as navy was to build a lot of ships-of-the-line. If I was a bit more skillful at the Noble level, I might have pulled off a space race victory as I did have aluminum.

So my question is: Did I shoot myself in the foot by trying to go straight from macement/catpults to tanks and bombers? How common is this situation? By the time I figured out what I had done wrong, the rest of the world consisted of Montezuma's vassal states and I couldn't trade for coal or oil. Also, I couldn't make a dent in his borders with my inferior numbers in time to win that way without the benefit of armor or advanced flight.

P.S. I *think* I could have gotten nuclear vessels but of course I had no uranium either

 

[Geoffroy]

Going straight from macemen to tanks is a huge gamble.

I find the best tactic to beeline for rifles. If you are the first there, you can wreak havoc everywhere! build galleons to transport them and frigates/shipo ot line to escort and bombard.

Remember that rifles can not get city raider promos, so upgrading your CR maces to rifles is just huge! Plus: with nationhood civic you can draft 3 rifles every turn!

Also, not building trebs is a big mistake IMO. They are just hugely powerful when attacking cities!

If you have a big tech lead you can also go for steel to get cannons online. With a force of cannons and rifles, you can conquer the whole world!

What you are doing (going straight from middle ages to modern era) is not only dangerous, but if you can take over the world sooner, why wait?

 

[tycoonist]

no need to get to tanks: macemen/swords (or in your case, praets) upgraded to rifles will do the job fine against a backward enemy

 

[Blue88]

Good points! Also I never realized that upgrading units is a way to get promotions they otherwise couldn't.

 

[mystyfly]

Welcome to CivFanatics Blue88

I see 3 possibilities:
1) As soon as you discover that you don't have coal/oil (as you get steam power/sci meth) you can scout a friend that has two of the said ressource and try and get one in trade.
2) Found standard ethanol. This corp gives oil to a city it has spread to. This city then can build tanks (while the others can't so pay attention where you spread it)
3) Attack someone who has oil/coal. This is often the best way in my eyes as you want HIS land anyway

 

[lovetramy]

no one beeline for tank from mace lolz
well the military process for me in this game is pretty simple (i play Emperor mostly)
phase 1 : axe rush early or axe sword catas . Roman is very good with those imba preats kill those bastards ... wipe out at least 1 civ or urs science drop to 10% , oh no
phase 2 : recovery with all of those juicy city (should be 10-12) . beeline Liberlism and rifles ofcs .
phase 3 : choose National hood for free tech ofc , trade for Engineering for Trets before build 8-10 of them , upgrade all you mace to rifes (burn a great merchant for money , you can have a free one from Economics , draft like mad for 10 turn (better if you had a Globe city , you should plan everything from the start lolz )
phase 4 : with that 30+ SOD chose a good victim then beeline to Infantry
phase 5: after kill another or two civ and beeline to infantry the game pretty much over . cottage everything and you can beeline to Modern armour if you want , like it matter which such large empire you very likely have Oil

 

[fugazi]

Run nationhood, have biology and access to riflemen and draft them boys! No one can stop you.