blueparrot1966
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2006
- Messages
- 85
This was inspired by the "two painful .25 games" thread. I posted it there, but thought I might get more conversation out of a new thread.
In a two continent setup, Alexis launched a surprise sea attack on my capitol which was totally unsuccessful. I figured it was time to do the usual late game mop up of pesky warlike AI civs, built an army accordingly.
I planned on taking out 3 or 4 cities to start, an area that included desperately needed gunpowder as well as nice-to-have gems. I showed up with an army of around 60 units, plunked 'em down on a couple of hill tiles next to the first city I had marked out. It consisted of several national units, archmages, knights, war chariots and such, the two dwarven heroes, and the rest rounded out by regulars- a good mix of maces, pikes, crossbows, and catapults. I never figured to knock out a whole advanced civ that way, but I DID at least think this'd be a good start.
Had a stiff counterattack on the first AI turn, including a nasty surprise from a High Priest of Leaves. It had never really sunk in for me that "entangle" hits a whole stack, and the entire army was on two tiles.
But the REAL surprise was on turn two. Alexis coughed up enough units to ANNIHILATE the entire army in one turn. Every last unit. I could believe my eyes. The rate of battles lost was quite high, even though my army included defensive units and was sited on hill tiles. There's no mention of it in the civlopedia that I could find, but I have to figure entangle lowers defense rate too, or something.
Obviously, investing in some sort of magic resistance would've been a good move before I built my army. And I could go back to the drawing board, move them in with 18 ships and 120 units, twice what I tried the first time. But with a civ powerful enough to wipe out 60 units in a turn, I seriously wonder if I can BUILD enough of an army to gain a foothold before the end of the game.
*****update*****
I gave it another try, bombarding the target city with meteors from the archmages, (archmagi?!), and to my surprise, an amphibious assault worked. Got the whole army onto three tiles, the two hills and the city this time. Over the next couple of turns, I wound up retreating into the city, and again watching my army get slaughtered. Not only was the sheer NUMBER of AI units overwhelming, but even in the city, I kept losing a suspiciously high percentage of the battles.
The city is on a desert tile, and it has no walls. (can't build 'em for 10 turns due to pop resistance.) I guess I could cast "spring" to eliminate the desert -25% defense, but my gut feeling is that it hardly seems to matter. They seem to be marching in and slaughtering my guys, never mind the city defense. And I'm not talking about sneaky stuff like assassin units, it's just stuff like moroi, vampires, and the Calabim regulars.
What am I missing? Did I just wait too long to get on with the conquest part of things? Am I supposed to just build an insanely large army all at once, or will the AI STILL have 2-3x the units I have?
In a two continent setup, Alexis launched a surprise sea attack on my capitol which was totally unsuccessful. I figured it was time to do the usual late game mop up of pesky warlike AI civs, built an army accordingly.
I planned on taking out 3 or 4 cities to start, an area that included desperately needed gunpowder as well as nice-to-have gems. I showed up with an army of around 60 units, plunked 'em down on a couple of hill tiles next to the first city I had marked out. It consisted of several national units, archmages, knights, war chariots and such, the two dwarven heroes, and the rest rounded out by regulars- a good mix of maces, pikes, crossbows, and catapults. I never figured to knock out a whole advanced civ that way, but I DID at least think this'd be a good start.
Had a stiff counterattack on the first AI turn, including a nasty surprise from a High Priest of Leaves. It had never really sunk in for me that "entangle" hits a whole stack, and the entire army was on two tiles.
But the REAL surprise was on turn two. Alexis coughed up enough units to ANNIHILATE the entire army in one turn. Every last unit. I could believe my eyes. The rate of battles lost was quite high, even though my army included defensive units and was sited on hill tiles. There's no mention of it in the civlopedia that I could find, but I have to figure entangle lowers defense rate too, or something.
Obviously, investing in some sort of magic resistance would've been a good move before I built my army. And I could go back to the drawing board, move them in with 18 ships and 120 units, twice what I tried the first time. But with a civ powerful enough to wipe out 60 units in a turn, I seriously wonder if I can BUILD enough of an army to gain a foothold before the end of the game.
*****update*****
I gave it another try, bombarding the target city with meteors from the archmages, (archmagi?!), and to my surprise, an amphibious assault worked. Got the whole army onto three tiles, the two hills and the city this time. Over the next couple of turns, I wound up retreating into the city, and again watching my army get slaughtered. Not only was the sheer NUMBER of AI units overwhelming, but even in the city, I kept losing a suspiciously high percentage of the battles.
The city is on a desert tile, and it has no walls. (can't build 'em for 10 turns due to pop resistance.) I guess I could cast "spring" to eliminate the desert -25% defense, but my gut feeling is that it hardly seems to matter. They seem to be marching in and slaughtering my guys, never mind the city defense. And I'm not talking about sneaky stuff like assassin units, it's just stuff like moroi, vampires, and the Calabim regulars.
What am I missing? Did I just wait too long to get on with the conquest part of things? Am I supposed to just build an insanely large army all at once, or will the AI STILL have 2-3x the units I have?
