Need advice with prince game

[Snovvdog]

I've been playing my 6th ever prince game after a few months not playing civ4, and I've come across a point where I do not know what do do.
So far I've won 2 out of 5 of my prince games, this is a fractal marathon standard sized and efault rules game

I wanted to kick Zara's ******* ass but then I looked at the diplomacy graph and he has a defensive pact with 2 other strong guys.
I really can't explain the whole situation in a few words but I'm behind a bit in technology and stuff isn't looking great for me.

Does anyone have an idea how I can turn the game in to a victory still?
See save game if you have any spare time .
Thx in advance.

Saves here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=176319&d=1210022622
I posted it in the wrong thread lol .
Some screens here :
http://www.xfire.com/screenshots/snovvdog/
All the ones from civ4 bts are the ones from this game.

 

[Michelangelo]

I didn't know it was possible to have more than 1 defensive pact, but your screenshot proves it.

But as to your question. You shouldn't be to afraid of the strong guys. You have your continent to yourself so as long as you play close attention you could handle a naval assault as the AI isn't to good at it.

If you focus a while on military, and I mean do everything to create a big army (draft, whip, build, upgrade, tech millitarytechs) you should be able to amount a large enough force. You are now on equal footing so a concentrated effort should bring you the advantage.

Why do you want to conquer Zara in the first place. It wouldn't be enough to win, so you need to attack another one as well, so why not genghis first?

What about a peacefull spaceship / diplomatic victory?

So here you see, one question resulting in more and more questions

Succes ermee

 

[Snovvdog]

Ty for taking a look @ my game.

I have a few more questions but I gotta give you some info first:

My economy is so bad ( or well bad, it's worse than some ai's econ) because I wasted too much time and resources on an early war to swipe Korea off my island.

I wanted to conquer zara as he didn't seem too strong and he has another island which would be easily defendable, he has 2 luxury resources (silver & whale) and several food resources which I both need, my big cities have and unhappyness.


Are you sure I can keep up with genghis's military prod though?
Genghis was in war with me about 30 turns ago and he produced military just as fast as me when I was going flat out ( without whip or draft though, I have enough unhappiness problems already though and wouldn't this just create a problem for later ?). As you can see I'm @ war with sumeria and I made a modest invasion fleet, 5 galleons filled with soldiers, and all I managed is to raze one of his cities and lose all but 3 soldiers. Wouldn't the same happen if I tryed taking on genghis ?

Genghis is the only ai though that is rly behind in tech compared to me, but I think he has more brute force to keep me away, eg much more military, walls in most cities, if not nearly all, etc...

Diplomatic: I highly doubt it, I have no way really of getting friendlier with anyone and others are liked far more.
Space race: You do know that I'm behind in tech mostly, I doubt I can catch up.

I Think that attacking Genghis is indeed the best thing to do, I just don't know if I can take on that Mongol. See the power graph, he's twice as strong as me .

Bedankt

 

[schwartz]

The best advice I can give without viewing the save (I'm on my mac so I don't have BtS) is to try to stir up some wars among the AIs then pile on to one of them yourself.

 

[Michelangelo]

Usually when attacking another civ they will throw everything they have against you in a first wave. When you can absorb that, preferably on a well defended spot (forest hilltop, or even better a city on a hilltop) you'll be able to work from there. But the rule of thumb here is to stop when you cannot defend what you have conquered.

Also you invasion fleet looks a bit thin, only 5 galleys. If you loose one you also loose the units inside. Big gamble. You should provide for some protective ships. Once you have the upperhand at see, you can intercept every invasion of your own continent and so you are save then.
Can't you get Saladin on your side to aid in your war against sumeria?

As you can see a lot of options. But the catch is you cannot do it all. So you have to choose the most likely (or preferable) way to win and do everything towards that goal and discard everything else. You'll be amazed at what you can achieve with a concentrated effort.

 

[Snovvdog]

Well, erm as I retreated with my fleet to my cities but before I even returned Genghi's declared war on me again, I had to sacrifice a few galleons and 2 frigs to sink his galleons and lost a few canons on his stacks. His attacks were futile as in the meantime, I gained a slight tech lead over him having infantry and later on artillery and destroyers.

I sank pretty much his whole obsolete wooden fleet with my destroyers and made a very small strike at once of his cities ( killed 2 defenders...) but it was more an exploration to how good his cities are defended. Luckily not good at all, lots of units but mostly obsolete riflemen, If I hurry enough artillery and infantry ( and I'm researching mass prod for tanks ) I might strike back in 20 turns or so but first I need to get more destroyers to defend/bomb his defenses and mainly transports as I only have one now.

I have but a high priority esp on Genghis and it appears he's very slow with research, busy with steam power atm and when he started it it would take him 18 turns ( Takes me about 15 turns now for far more modern techs, I managed to build Oxford in my capital to boost research a bit ).

I think I can strike back now in 20 or a bit more turns, I have played another prince game while I was waiting for u guys to reply and even a slight tech advantage can make a massive difference ( I did it in a spoiler coz of large picture sizes):

Spoiler :

See the first dip, Ghandi declares war, he accepts peace after I sank all his like 30-40 frigs and galleons with my few destroyers:

After the small dips he grows in power again but I better selected my techs.
Halfway before the second major dip I noticed on the victory board the **** ( yeah I got dirty and started swearing, as he annoyed me A LOT) was very close to a cultural victory. I checked the tech board, nobody but me had fission . Manhattan project was built by me in about 10 turns and I started building ICBM's. At the time of the dip I launched a Nuke on the last city that had to reach legendary and I dropped off 12 troops which were wiped away. War did go on and I finally, after dropping 3 nukes on the same city, could capture it , 4 turns before it reached legendary and caused the Indian to win. War had gone on and I dropped a total of 12 nukes on him including 1 on mana musa and 1 on de Gaule because they were his vassals.
Made peace, and on the last dip the last war, I went to conquer as much cities as I could so I and my vassals could vote me victorious and it happened:

Spoiler :

3 wins out of 6 prince games


Hoping to repeat the same thing on Genghis in the game I posted in this thread, although I don't know if I get nukes, but he's further behind in tech than Ghandi was in the other game.

 

[Michelangelo]

Sound like a close game, but that makes it fun. Nice play to identify a runaway culture civ and acting accordingly , gives some purpose to it.

even a slight tech advantage can make a massive difference

Lot's of small boni makes for a large lead.

Good luck with your original game and let us know the outcome.

 

[Snovvdog]

Well I managed to conquer 2 cities on the Mongol mainland, but damn he had a lot of units, he killed off a lot of defending full health (city defender 3) infantry purely by throwing A LOT of cavalry and riflemen at them.
He'll have combustion in 8 turns and I'm getting flight (10 turns) to get troops over his land faster and for bombers.
For now I made a 10 turn peace to prepare better for war weirness ( in some cities half my pop was protesting, stupid anti war ppl ), for free gold from Genghis ( A payment of 500 to start with and 13/turn for the next 10 turns until war ) and a free city ( he provided me ''old sarai'' in tribute so we'd make peace, he wasn't ready to capitulate though, by far not I reckon.

Tomorrows or later in the night I'll play on, I think my main concern will be the other 3 good ai's ( Zara, Saladin and Justinian) as their tech lead is growing on me and I'm far behind in GDP compared to them ( and about equal production). I dunno how I'll gain on the tech lead but perhaps after Genghis I might have to just declare war on them, hope my stacks will be good enough, and hope I can conquer them before they overrun me with their superior forces. I invaded Genghis twice with 5 full transports now, so 2 stacks of 20, but he already halved the first wave, the 2nd wave is strong still but not strong enough to wander into Genghis's territory.
I just need to get airports up asap and fly in new tanks every turn.

 

[Michelangelo]

It think it was a good first attack from you. He probably sacrificed the better part of his army, so you should have an easier job next round. Just don't forget to bring your siege weapons. You might want to focus the espionage toward him so you can see what units he has and where. But I do not know how that situation is, so maybe you are to far behind in EP for that. Just redeclare after the ten turns are over and ship over whatever units you have. Don't worry if your defenses are thin at home, you can fill them up with the new builds.

Maybe some new screenshots for the new situation

 

[Snovvdog]

It think it was a good first attack from you. He probably sacrificed the better part of his army, so you should have an easier job next round. Just don't forget to bring your siege weapons. You might want to focus the espionage toward him so you can see what units he has and where. But I do not know how that situation is, so maybe you are to far behind in EP for that. Just redeclare after the ten turns are over and ship over whatever units you have. Don't worry if your defenses are thin at home, you can fill them up with the new builds.

Maybe some new screenshots for the new situation

Yeah he did, his power graph shows he's weaker now than me .
Espionage is no problem, I already did and I see the visibility of half his cities. All others are @ esp weight 1 or 2 while Genghis is @ 10, so most of my esp. points will go to him.

I am worried tbh about defences now that he'll have destroyers, I need flight asap so I can bomb oncoming ships before they unload troop on me.

Oddly, even with me taking his cities, Genghis still found the resources to land more obsolete invasion troops, useless I might add since I'm protective I have loads of City defender 3 infantry with drill I. The worst he can do is raid me but he doesn't really get the chance since by now I'm making tanks and a group of 3 tanks can make short work of 6 obsolete units in a turn.

Screenshots : IMG tags, extend spoiler to see all pics immediatly, watch out 1280x1024!

Spoiler :

Not the greatest invasion fleet but it was enough vs frigs, ships of the line and galleons:

Views of mongolia:


Pillaging group that failed to unload before the end of the war:


MY cities, Yes I realize my only truly good city is my capital and that without it, I'd be lost.


My verteran warship, used to be a frig @ strat, upgraded to destroyer later, 50% combat bonus , It sank many many Mongolians, can't wait to upgrade it into a missile cruiser:


Game settings:

Victory screen:

Last 150 turns power graph:

Demograph:

Tech screen:

Edit2:
The save if you're interested:
http://cid-eb79ae60d4154d67.skydriv...nowdogdude AD-1941-January.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Snovvdog]

Hmmm I've conquered more of northern mongolia now, I got the capital and razed their 2nd biggest city that became the cap after.

Reduced the military power of Mongolia to half of me now, he still wasn't ready to capitulate, and the war is only getting harder to me as I needed to run 70% culture to keep my cities producing a bit ( have over a thousand war weirness points...) so I made peace again for 200 gold and 12 per turn... Justinian is annoying me and he keeps voting rubbish with that stupid AP, he's the next target as he has no more defensive pact with Zara and he's weaker than me now, I need to punish him for some decisions while I was doing a war with Genghis. A ****load of wonders and nice commerce cities are nice too. Prepare for war you stupid byzantine guy!

 

[Michelangelo]

Looks like some good progress. Getting the capital and a major city will hurt Gengis.
I took a look at your last save and was pleased to see a lot of good units you have, only on the wrong continent. With your railroads in place you could do with much less.
Time is running out and it looks like you committed yourself to a domination victory, so you have to keep pushing. I noticed that Saladin had WHEOOH in that save. Did he declare on Gilgamesh? Mayby you can join him doing that and have a partner in the war.

If you don't mind, I'm thinking of playing your first save myself and see if I can use my own advice. I usually don't and play too save as well. But first the weather has to change as it is to damn nice to waste.

 

[Diamondeye]

It might be too late, but if a civ that has defpacts starts a war, the pacts are immidiately closed until peace is declared. Bribe Zara to Dow someone else, then kill him off yourself

 

[Snovvdog]

I havent played much and I don't know if I'll have time, I'm still at the time I described before, but the save is old, so here is the proper one :

http://cid-eb79ae60d4154d67.skydriv...s/Snowdogdude AD-1954-July.CivBeyondSwordSave
( sorry cant make any pics atm, my pc is ****** and I can't run the game stably atm, and got no time to fix pc atm ...):

Notice all but one Mongolian city in the north is mine., notice the ruins of beshbalik more north near Justinians borders.
Also if you open the save notice the ridiculous war weirness.

Before playing on, I'll have to fix my pc and do my exams first I think. So 2-3 weeks .

 

[Michelangelo]

Hi,

This game was lying on my shelf to be played and I finally found the time. As I posted before I wanted to try to use my own advice myself, as I don't usually to that and it actually worked. I went all out on the attack. So this is what I did.

- I got the game in 1872 and the player was around par with most of the AI, but that would change I switched the civics to Representation, Nationhood, slavery, Free Market and Theocracy. There was a lot of unhappiness so whipping it away makes those angry citizens usefull.


- When all ships were finally back at Florence I could upgrade them to transports and I allready had some infantry ready to ship over to Kahn. Quite helpfully Kahn declared on me so I had to postpone the invasion a bit to defend against the incomming waves of obsolete units, but they arrive in big numbers. I managed to survive this with minimal losses and I was now able to start my little invasion. The landing point was on the hill at New Sarai. Next turn I was able to take it and hold on to it for reinforments to arrive.

- Of course Kahn came with everything he got but that wasn't enough. At first the war was a bit slow due to the fact that my army wasn't that big and I didn't want to spread to thin. But I gradually made my way to the south, infantry against rifleman wasn't fair, and in 1926 Kahn offered to capitulate after I took the last city in the south. At that point I ran 50% culture to combat the war weariness and didn't want the extra time needed to transfer the troops back up north to finish it.


- So peace again, but not for long. The next target was to be Gilgamesh. I immeadiately shuffled the troops around and within five turns Saladin asked me to join in. A bit ealy but I'll take it. I invaded from the south and only needed two cities to make him capitulate, wow that was easy.

- But this wasn't enough to win yet so Saladin was next. After healing and moving to the front I attacked at two spots simultaneously.



As you can see by now I got tanks to play with. But Saladin did put up a good fight. With the RNG on his hand he won almost every sea battle but luckily the airports just got finished so I could airlift the units over to the front. This was also much quicker. Up till now I had to shuttle survices running continuosly between the three islands, but I didn't need them anymore. Saladin was harrassing my troops with fighters and bombers and this was quite effectively. But as soon as I got my SAM's over there this was no problem anymore. Also I managed to cut him of from oil, so there would be no more destroyers taking out my ships. In the end he attacked with ironclads again .After taking 4 cities I gathered this would be enough for domination having 61% with some cities comming out of revolt. Saladin took capitulation and I hit enter a few times. But every time I would get the last city out of revolt and would hit end turn, another city went into revolt. Happend two times but in the end in the year 1965 I won a domination victory. To finish things of you can see the score chart and can you tell where things started looking upwarts


I had good fun playing this game but I have to say the starting position wasn't that bad. Snowdog had played a decent game to the point where I stepped in.