Dealing with Hiawatha

[dthompson32]

I've got an immortal game I am trying to win, and I'm looking for advice on dealing with Hiawatha. I'm playing as Greece, and I have a good start in a very defensible part of the map. Only Ethiopia is with me, and I can pretty much knock him out of the game whenever I want. The problem is that on the other side of the mountains is the Iroquois, and while I am building my cities and early tech, he is spamming out cities and taking out his neighbors.

I played one game to turn 220, he had Apollo and Manhatten Project completed, and I was stuck about 5 techs behind him no matter what I did. RAs and popping GSs didn't help, he kept out teching me, even though I had pushed as fast as I could to research labs.

I tried a second time, intent on taking him out earlier with CBs. But by the time I had marched my army into his part of the map, he had spawned a bunch of cities and already taken 5 more cities from the other Civs. He had an army of mohawk warriors twice the size of mine.

Now I'm thinking of moving early for my UUs and going after him with Companions and Hoplites, getting him out of the game early.

This seems to be the way it goes whenever I have him in my game, he is always aggressive with expanding and taking over the other Civs, then builds a huge science generating empire. Oddly, when I try playing AS the Iroquois, I find it hard to survive in the early game.

Any advice on successful ways of dealing with him?

 

[Maxym]

Very early. On immortal it's doable, forget everything just kill him. Take archers, UU might not Be enough. I would steal his worker, settler in an really early war, t10-20. Few archers will be enough to get peace out of him. Then fight the real war. Screen would be nice to be specific. Get him involved in another war too if you can.

 

[sufficiency]

If he is sufficiently close to you, devote all your resources to cripple him. If he is not close to you, you need to grow tall or wide enough to compete with him.

 

[dthompson32]

He was close enough that I took archery and bronze working first, then took him out as my first priority. Both Ethiopia and India tried to backstab me while all my forces were dealing with the Iroquois. Now Ethiopia is also gone, and I own Delhi.

Now I'm in a tech race with Babylon, but I'm equal to him and gradually passing him. I think I have this game won, once I can open Rationalism. Not a super fast game, but not too bad. Turn 160 now and about to research Architecture to get the PT. 7 puppets are generating a lot of cash, currently at 250 gpt and not in a golden age.

Anyway, looks like getting Hiawatha out of the game early is the best approach. Thanks everyone.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

Problem is when you finally get to another continent and find him there as the only remaining civ with a zillion cities.

 

[Ragneur]

He is a beast. When next to him I have to copy his gameplay. If you go Arabia you will be able to build and maintain a large early army a lot easier.

 

[dthompson32]

For the record, I did win this. Taking him out early was the key to victory. I ended up with a domination win using stealth bombers and death robots to finish off Babylon. It actually was pretty tough rooting out Babylon because they were in hilly terrain with a huge army. Took a long time to whittle them down.

Hoplites and archers were used to knock the Iroquois and Ethiopia out of the game.

 

[Homusubi]

Surely you could just not push for domination if Hiawatha is around. The best thing to do would be to play as Babylon instead of Greece. You can try and take Hiawatha out with Bowmen, but if that fails, you can retreat and push for a spaceship.

 

[docbud]

I just finished a game as Babylon, and Hiawatha was right next to me and built five cities in the blink of an eye.

But we remained friends the entire game and never had a single war.

But, I only play on prince level and I had the Great Wall

 

[steveg700]

So I have a Hiawatha situation as well. Started as Songhai on a continents map at King. Went to take out some barbs down south and then noticed the drab brown fringe of his ugly borders.

He's behind some woodsy hilltops sprinkled with mountains. He's already built up his hordes, and they are licking their chops.

Worse. My other neighbors? Denark and the Celts are both off to the east around 12 squares away. They're warring with each other right now. That's good.

Pachacuti is also down south below Boudicca. I'm not worried about him, all things considered. Probably just meat for Hiawatha. Hate to see him claiming some of those terrance farms.

All in all, I'm hanging out with some pretty savage folks. Then again, I'm Songhai.