Lib Strategy

[StoneColdNuts]

Trying to win my first game of Immortal here. I rolled Willem of the Dutch.

I spawned on the South side of a pretty big continent, with Stalin as my only neighbor. I've kept him peaceful with a city-gift and selling him backwards techs for small amounts of gold.

I expanded out to nine cities before the continent ran out of room. Stalin has about 12, quite a few in the jungle.

I have 3 good production cities, 2 economy cities. My last cities are on the coast and building infrastructure.

Its 800 AD, and I have 7 turns til Liberalism. Stalin is pretty backwards, his best tech is Feudalism (I sold him Alphabet in 600 AD!).

Basically, I am asking how best to go about smashing this guy (quickly, if possible) and leading my big continent to victory. I probably won't have to worry about anything worse than longbows. He's quite a ways from Gunpowder.

Would a bunch of Cuirassers work at taking him out? I've never used them, but it seems like they could be good at taking out a backwards opponent quickly. If I built Taj, switched to Vassalage, and cranked them out with Barracks + Stables, that would give them two promotions. Would I need Siege for this?

I am missing Metal Casting and Machinery, so trying to Lib Replaceable Parts and go for Rifles might lose me Lib to someone on another continent.

has anyone ever been in a situation like this before?

 

[Sian]

Cuirassers is Mounted and thereby move 2 titles per turn ... stuff that does that sync badly with Seige since the main goodie from them is speed

arrange yourself a ton of spies to remove his Cultural defense when you get there and go Blitzkrieg with Cuirassers

 

[goodolarchie]

Stalin will be tough with that many cities, even if he's stuck with longbows. With your 9 cities I would try to bulb steel instead of going for cuirassers. Any any rate..

Counters to look out for with Cuirassers are elephants, pikeman in cities, who counter them 50/50 despite being a medieval unit. Longbowman will receive anywhere from 75-150% bonus defense from walls, culture defense, fortify, bonuses etc. You'll probably face one or the other, so use your promos accordingly. If your diplo is good, you may be better off going cannon/rifle draft war.

If you do go this route, I highly recommend building 4-6 spies and allocating enough espionage to do 3-4 city revolts. I recommend 2 per city if you go this route, just in case one gets caught or fails!

You should also build enough units that you can take 2-3 cities in the first or second turn of war.

 

[oranje willem]

Beeline steel, if you aren't sure you will be first to liberalism just take chemistry, otherwise research chemistry first and then take steel from liberalism. Build trebuchets/musketman while doing this and upgrade your trebuchets to cannons (relative cheap upgrade). The war will take a bit longer than mounted, but you are almost guaranteed to win.

 

[z0wb13]

^ agree. because stalin has more cities, he probably has more production and a ton of troops. so you have to use your tech advantage wisely, or you will just end up in a stalemate

i would tech up to steel, get a stack of about 16 cannons, then declare. but don't invade right away, wait for stalin to move his stack out of the fog. and split up your cannons if you don't know where he will attack. anyway, killing his stack in your own territory will help to reduce a lot of war weariness, which will be important because taking 9 cities one tile at a time is going to be a slog.

i would make a small detachment of cuirassiers for a raiding party. because they have such a big strength bonus against anything stalin can field, they can move around with relative impunity. use fast movements to cut stalin's horses and musketeers will be plenty for stack defense and mop up.

 

[Moroktonos]

I'd like to see a screenshot or two before I come to a decision here... How large / well developed are Stalin's cities? He's at pleased (not friendly) right? What kind of production do your commerce cities have? If Stalin's cities are smallish and poorly developed, and you could really get all of your cities cranking out well-upgraded Curis (hopefully without completely destroying their benefits as commerce cities), you could probably kill/cap him fairly easily if you manage to knock out his best production cities quickly; 9 Cities is a healthy number to be building curis with, provided they're well developed. Have you met the other players yet? How advanced are they?

I'm guessing, however, considering you're financial and just coming out of a lib push, production mightn't really be what your civ is geared for right now (no forges in cities), however. Stalin is at pleased, and in a tech hole relative to you; it's pretty darn unlikely he'll go into war-mode, so you have time to tech. As other people have suggested, cannons will do any job nicely, though if I'm a financial civ sitting on top of a tech lead, I'm a real sucker for Kremlin rush-buying.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Try and grab Steel, if you can't grab Chem, and mass Muskets and Cannons like the others have said. They work extremely well. Just build around 50/50 siege and you will steam roll him.

 

[huerfanista]

I've used pure-cuirassier attacks plenty of times, they're very effective even without spies (you'll just lose a couple more per city). Not as good as cavalry, but their speed advantage makes them very effective. It sounds like he has a lot of crap jungle cities - I wouldn't waste time on them. Head for his capital and production cities first, and pillage his strategic resources. If he's as backward as you say, it should be easy. I'd make sure I had at least 20 cuirassiers in 2 stacks. You want to deliver a crushing blow in the first 5 turns of the war. It's hard to tell without seeing a save, but it sounds to me like waiting for cannon is overkill. He's not protective, after all, and AGG won't help those longbows.

 

[ahcos]

a) if you can reach is best cities within the beginning of the war, go with cuirassiers.

b) if you can't, tech to cannons.

mounted warfare is best when you can hit the enemy fast and decide the war within the first 10 turns of the war. if it's expected to be a bonegrinding, long war, better bring siege. if you could get rifles from lib i'd say go cavalery+spies 100%, but it seems like you're not too sure about how fast the AI is regarding the lib race.

 

[Rittmeyer]

If you cant fight his stack inside a city with no defenses due to a spy causing revolt, you would be very fine with cuirassers. I would try that.

Also, starting the war with cuirassers means you are going to rifling next, being able to reach cavarly before the war is actually over.

If you decide to wait for cannons, make sure he wont get out of his tech misery and reach Cossacks before you hurt him badly.