Am I wasting my time doing this?

[Greyhawk1]

This is a defensive setup I've made against Carthage to protect my lands from them as even though we've been partners forever they're apt to attack at any time for no reason in this game:

Thing is, I was wondering if it's worth the effort of setting it up (it took ages). The Riflemen are all Infantry now I've captured a source of Rubber. The encircled city is my only source of Iron (its built on it).

 

[Mariusz]

I use such "blocades" sometimes mainly for two reasons:
1) to prevent enemy settlers from founding cities where I want to have cities later
2) if two civs are at war and the shortest way between them is through my territory, it's a good to prevent lots of units from wandering on my land

 

[Mariusz]

But in your case I think that you should put all those units in the city with iron(Punjab?) and New Bombay. There's no reason for other civ to walk into your territory - except attacking you. And in case of attack those units will be better defended in those cities, especially when Punjab gets to size 7.

 

[ltcoljt]

The front line of forts are okay because your iron town is within striking range of enemy cavalry. The inner line of forts was probably a waste of time and the infantry in them would be better deployed in the front line.

what you should do here is removed the fort two tiles northwest of New Bombay to entice enemy cav to move in where you can kill it. You need to have artillery massed there to reduce the enemy and cavalry to destroy the reduced units.

Where you have build forts on level ground plant forest. Remember that if the AI has no hole to go through it will attack one of the forts and you cannot defend against an immediate massed cavalry attack with only one infantry. Once the AI takes the fort it works against you. So leave a hole for the AI to go through.

The other thing is to expect the AI to attempt to land troops behind you lines from the sea.

And link up those forts by rail.

 

[a space oddity]

Rails are in fact your best item in defence, connect your cities as soon as possible. Once you have your railnet ready you'll have a *very* mobile defence, bringing your best units intantly to where they are of use the most .

 

[Greyhawk1]

Hmm, the second line of forts was there in case the first line fell. Carthage did try and land troops between the two lines but I told them to remove the troops or declare war. To my suprise, he removed the troops.

The defensive units are all Mech Infantry now. I think its stopped Carthage from attacking me as they havent bothered trying all this time. They have Tanks (but not Mech Inf) but they have a vast air force. I've put a lot of Jet Fighters in Punjab to try and counter this threat.

There's an inland sea to the right of that screenie where the dumb AI has built 60 odd Ironclads (*sigh*) but on the other side of the sea I've done a very similar though much narrower defensive line with Mech Infs too.

I was hoping for the 20K cultural win but I was foiled again. Delhi has 13,000 odd culture and an 81 per turn rate but its too late for that now, the Space Race is about to start.

Carthage are a very powerful nation according to the Military Advisor but my espionage says different. They have three times as many Infantry than I had but not a lot of fully offensive units.

 

[Sirp]

It's far better just to have lots of strong attacking units combined with rails to quickly move units to the trouble area.

Even if they do take a city you need, just move your attacking units in fast and take it back.

-Sirp.

 

[DaveMcW]

It's not a waste of time if you are having fun!

But the AI is incapable of a successful invasion unless they outnumber their victim 5:1. If you do get sneak attacked, your only worry will be killing all their units in your territory before war weariness sets in.

 

[Strikefang]

I agree with DaveMcW, fun comes first!

I often myself put up a border frontline, I find with that, my wars are more fun and challenging because I have to defend my entire country, and not just the citys, as well it looks a heck of a lot cooler. Thats just my style of war and how I have the most fun, its especially enjoyable with MF marines, can't get enough of those cool rifles.

So no, your not wasting your time.

 

[Bouchehog]

Touché! Having fun is really what it's about, so if you're enjoying yourself then that's great.

This sort of defensive line is great in the early game when you want to prevent people from wandering over your land. It also works well if you want to give them a ROP but don't actually want them on your land! (slightly exploitative!)

As has been said, you should leave a gap in the line if you want to tempt them in and you should re-enforce your defences so that they aren't captured and used against you. Other than that, it looks cool and isn't that what's really important?

 

[Greyhawk1]

Well I won the game in the end, Carthage never did go to war with me. In fact this is the first game I've played over Chieftain level that I've been barely in combat at all. I only got one Elite Cavalry out of the whole game I got my highest ever score too 2,590.

I had a 5 or 10 turn war against the Chinese instigated by me to get a poorly defended source of rubber and a very quick 'war' against the Aztecs forced by an MPP which I hastily cancelled and made peace (I never did see an Aztec unit).

I wonder if thats due to the Indian's very low aggression score? Anyway, its only my 2nd Regent win.