Fish Man
Emperor
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2010
- Messages
- 1,545
Nowadays it seems all wars are either steamroll, get steamrolled, or pick off Shaka's entire army with 4 archers. I never see long, drawn-out wars between equally-matched foes, especially after the human gets crossbows. It's all kill, units, seige, move on to next city, repeat until you win your 10th sub-t200 deity Pangaea domination. Anybody have stories of epic wars to tell?
Back when I was a CiV noob, I foolishly decided to try emperor on my 2nd game. Got destroyed twice, and searched for some guides. I found the 3-city tradition approach, but unfortunately didn't read beyond "get tradition and set up 3 cities with NC asap." So I fired up a game as Arabs on continents, and found out to my delight I was isolated. At around t150 I pumped out some camel archers and devastated the nearby continent - getting some good cities, I though my SV to be all but assured.
To my horror, after I got a caravel, I discovered that halfway around the world, Alex had literally taken over his entire continent. He was steamrolling and starting to runaway, and I couldn't catch up. So I did the only sensible thing: beeline to artillery/infantry, and mount a last-ditch assault on his technologically on-par but far larger army. To make matters worse, after capping a CS as a beachhead, the entire world DOW'ed me, and while India's pathetic pike assualt was merely a nuisance, I wasn't quite prepared for war with Alex.
I fortified my units until I got infantry, and began a slow slog through his jungle-filled 100 defense cities. Using landships as scouts I moved my artillery into position and took city after city using focused fire. Then Alex got bombers, and my artillery began dying quickly. But luck was on my side, for I had settled a city on uranium and could churn out a nuke. I picked a city to nuke and hit the jackpot: all 10 of his aircraft and 2 a-bombs were destroyed. Alex, being the jerk that he was, decided to ally with mercantile CSs I was friends with, and nearly plunged me into -10 unhappiness. But in a stroke of fortune, a newly-conqured city contained the Fountain of Youth, which solved my happiness problems. Using battleships I distracted and picked away at many of his land forces, though not without casualty.
Finally came the assault on his cap. It was an all-or-nothing attack: he had surrounded his 150-strength Athens with layers of units, so I nuked it to soften it up first. Artillery pounded and infantry marched, but something went terribly wrong: he had tanks and used them to flank my artillery, slowly picking them off. By then the siege was almost done, so I decided to use melee attacks to finish Athens off, and also destroy a mobile SAM. My bombers were at their limit and I actually had to sacrifice some.
I captured Athens. Alex took it back again. I darted in with a heavily-injured landship, then darted out. Alex sacrificed a lot of tanks to gain it back. I was down to 1 infantry, and got it back. I pressed next turn and held my breath - nothing happened. He had retreated, and I had acquired Athens with its 20 or so wonders.
Then, to make him pay for all the suffering he had caused my peoples, I spam-nuked Sparta, pounded it with rocket artillery, and walked right in. After mass-producing GDRs I captured his last city, Halicarnassus. Alex remained defiant and in denial to the very end, but I not 10 turns later I won my first SV on emperor on turn 354. It had been the closest game I've ever experienced, and I don't think I'll face something like that ever again.
Back when I was a CiV noob, I foolishly decided to try emperor on my 2nd game. Got destroyed twice, and searched for some guides. I found the 3-city tradition approach, but unfortunately didn't read beyond "get tradition and set up 3 cities with NC asap." So I fired up a game as Arabs on continents, and found out to my delight I was isolated. At around t150 I pumped out some camel archers and devastated the nearby continent - getting some good cities, I though my SV to be all but assured.
To my horror, after I got a caravel, I discovered that halfway around the world, Alex had literally taken over his entire continent. He was steamrolling and starting to runaway, and I couldn't catch up. So I did the only sensible thing: beeline to artillery/infantry, and mount a last-ditch assault on his technologically on-par but far larger army. To make matters worse, after capping a CS as a beachhead, the entire world DOW'ed me, and while India's pathetic pike assualt was merely a nuisance, I wasn't quite prepared for war with Alex.
I fortified my units until I got infantry, and began a slow slog through his jungle-filled 100 defense cities. Using landships as scouts I moved my artillery into position and took city after city using focused fire. Then Alex got bombers, and my artillery began dying quickly. But luck was on my side, for I had settled a city on uranium and could churn out a nuke. I picked a city to nuke and hit the jackpot: all 10 of his aircraft and 2 a-bombs were destroyed. Alex, being the jerk that he was, decided to ally with mercantile CSs I was friends with, and nearly plunged me into -10 unhappiness. But in a stroke of fortune, a newly-conqured city contained the Fountain of Youth, which solved my happiness problems. Using battleships I distracted and picked away at many of his land forces, though not without casualty.
Finally came the assault on his cap. It was an all-or-nothing attack: he had surrounded his 150-strength Athens with layers of units, so I nuked it to soften it up first. Artillery pounded and infantry marched, but something went terribly wrong: he had tanks and used them to flank my artillery, slowly picking them off. By then the siege was almost done, so I decided to use melee attacks to finish Athens off, and also destroy a mobile SAM. My bombers were at their limit and I actually had to sacrifice some.
I captured Athens. Alex took it back again. I darted in with a heavily-injured landship, then darted out. Alex sacrificed a lot of tanks to gain it back. I was down to 1 infantry, and got it back. I pressed next turn and held my breath - nothing happened. He had retreated, and I had acquired Athens with its 20 or so wonders.
Then, to make him pay for all the suffering he had caused my peoples, I spam-nuked Sparta, pounded it with rocket artillery, and walked right in. After mass-producing GDRs I captured his last city, Halicarnassus. Alex remained defiant and in denial to the very end, but I not 10 turns later I won my first SV on emperor on turn 354. It had been the closest game I've ever experienced, and I don't think I'll face something like that ever again.