Tips for war against more advanced civ

[Droppinds]

I am playing as the Shoshone and we are in 1913 now. Its been a succesful game so far. I am going for a domination victory fyi. And don't care for tips related to other victories.

I've hit an impasse. Me and the celts are the two major superpowers left in the game of note and I need to declare war on them asap or I fear they will become too strong. And I need help because I am the strongest military with the most land, but they lead in most other categories. And I reckon they are 2 or 3 techs ahead of me and I fear it will only get more difficult. Here is a rundown of the situation:

-King difficulty on middle east map. i am more or less analagous to Iran geographically speaking and the celts are all over me to the north.
-portugal is my ally to my northwest and west of the celts. They are at war and portugal just wont last so I want to seize this opportunity while thtey are fighting on that front.
-when i declare war they immediately make peace even though portugal is my ally, this is main problem.
-my army is mostly rifleman, gatling guns, and cannons. But the damn celts have an airplane, and I imagine may have other more advanced units. From what i can see most of their units are similar to mine.
-this one airplane is wrecking havoc. I only have 1 or 2 turns before it goes to my army and starts eviscerating me one unit at a time.
-i could manage to take 1 or 2 immediate border cities. But its really not worth it because theyre crap cities they conquered and kept earlier in the game (shoulda been razed imo). By the time i can get to their heartland after this my army is reduced to a defensive force

I really need portugal to stay in the war but idk how to make them stay in the fight. Maybe the answer is as simple as pump out more units to makeup for the tech deficit? HELP

Edit: Celts are 3 techs ahead of me

 

[bayard sartoris]

Wll, I guess you don't win a war againt airplanes if you don't have airplanes.

My suggestion would be rushing forr Flight, and maybe even bulb Radar after that if you can, if you can. I suppose Celts aircraft are Great War Bombers, not Bombers, but if they are Bombers, you sure need Radar.

After that, just the basic aproach: declare war and let the AI burn its units by senselessly sending them to your borders. Put some Fighters in your borders , and the AI will suicide his Bombers atacking you. Among all the thing the AI does horribly, in any difficult level, managing an aircraft is one the things it does worst.

Anyway, you sure need more advanced army. Have you done Oxford yet? Maybe you could use it to get to Radar. Having Bombers against Great War Bombers will win the war for you.

Also, if you are interested, there are some nice tips on the War Academy section of the forum I think you could use to improve you game. Having cannons on 1913 is not optimal, to say the least. If you could check there, you will learn how to improve your science, tips for warmoggering, etc... I did learn a lot from there.

 

[lindsay40k]

Things that would help: a screenshot of your own tech tree, and of your respective territories. Show us how close you are to certain key units, and how feasible it is to take out her strategic resources.

It can be handy to pick a city state nobody likes to use for target practice and playing dodgeball. Declare war, endlessly farm XP off them, never actually conquer them, and you can get a nice army of long range firepower and rapidly auto healing troops.

 

[Kriogen]

You need:
- pillage Oil. No flying without gasoline
- Anti-aircraft gun
- Triplanes/Fighters
- Destroyers

 

[beetle]

GWB against cannons is a big obstacle in my play. Second only to bombers versus my artillery. It is very harsh, and I have never really been able to prosecute my warmongering until AA or my own air comes online. Frequently circumstances are such that fighters are not an option, so it is really tough. While waiting for AA to come online (ugh, takes so long), the best tactic I have been able to figure out is:

1. Pull back your siege units. They cannot help you for the moment and are too fragile (and too valuable).
2. Fortify your riflemen and gats 2+ hexes from cities. Take the cover promotions when you can. Pull them back one at a time when they go into the red.
3. Keep in mind that playing a waiting game is the best you can do for the moment. Meanwhile, the AI is prolly pulling further ahead in tech...

About half the time, the AI will happily use up their bombers trying to kill the riflemen (which are surprisingly sturdy). The gats will probably die, but they are not useful for taking cities anyway. Once the heavy bomber runs stop, you can advance the siege units. The AI will build new bombers, and you are likely to loose a siege unit or two, but this tactic lets you at least make some progress with what you have on hand now.

 

[lindsay40k]

There's always Plan B.

 

[Droppinds]

I'll post some pics in a following post here's a few points:

-No one addressed my Portugal question. Now it doesn't matter as they made peace with Celts then denounced me so they're slated for extermination, but I'd like to know for future reference. (3000 year friendship down the drain).
-I've been toying around with this scenario and reloading because its a fun and challenging situation for me. Now I am 15-20 turns into the war.
-I liberated Lake Simcoe and razed another city next to it (both useless)
-Celts now have 4 GWB from what I see. Only using one on the main front that killed a couple of units (but not the cannons). Also lost one from a bomber in Cork near Goshute.
-Now they have more soldiers than me on paper (almost equal) so this war isn't sustainable. 2 of their borders are edge of the map and I am surrounded by hostile countries + having colonies in the Gulf. Celts are clearly focusing on pumping out an army now, as I have killed a lot off their land units (who are same technologically as mine)
-I plan to take Douglas and make peace, celts want to make peace. I'll probably lose a 2-3 units in the process.
-I was planning to rush artillery to make some parity but by the time that gets around the war will be over. I'll just focus on modernizing my army for the next go around, and air power of course.
-Budapest and Bogota are allied to Celts, and I dont feel like putting in the resources to change that.

 

[beetle]

-portugal is my ally to my northwest and west of the celts. They are at war and portugal just wont last so I want to seize this opportunity while thtey are fighting on that front.
-when i declare war they immediately make peace even though portugal is my ally, this is main problem.

-No one addressed my Portugal question. Now it doesn't matter as they made peace with Celts then denounced me...

LOL. So much for them being an ally! No addressed your Portugal questions because there is no way to keep them at war.

 

[ThorHammerz]

There's always Plan B.

Plan B should be the first, and only plan of action .

Nuclear launch detected....

Spoiler :

I spy with my little eye, a blinking red dot on their captal.....

 

[z284pwr]

After that, just the basic aproach: declare war and let the AI burn its units by senselessly sending them to your borders. Put some Fighters in your borders , and the AI will suicide his Bombers atacking you. Among all the thing the AI does horribly, in any difficult level, managing an aircraft is one the things it does worst.

Agreed. And with the plane cap per city their carpet of bomber doom isn't nearly as frustrating/difficult to deal with. They don't seem to be able to air sweep so a few fighters on intercept will weed down their bombers in a show while then it's back to artillery taking out cities.

 

[Droppinds]

After technical difficulty+procrastination with the pics I've ended up playing some more turns in the game. Got peace with the celts and conquered 3 cities, but prob lost 1/3 of my army and made them more militarized! I started off with the largest army now I'm 5th largest.

Beetle's advice was really good and helped minimize my own damage and inflict more losses. Towards the end of the war I got a couple arty units which made it SO MUCH EASIER.

Main takeaway is to push for research more so I don't lag behind so much. Now I'm putting a lot of production towards research/research buildings. Maybe my army will be smaller but it'll be more modernized.

Poland declared war on me during my war with celts, but with my arty they couldnt get near my cities so I got peace real quick.