Attaaaack!!!

[Sir. Martin]

I experinces this problem again and again, and I was hoping that som of you guys might have a good idea to solve this issue.

When you are fighting on a map which contains ex. 3 big islands and you are in control of 1 or mayby ½ of them, and a enemy of same size territory goes into war with you...

You would like to engage a counter-attack but this is very hard.. You can easely and fast counqer perhaps 2 or 3 cities at his island. But when this is done it will be very hard to keep them because you have to fight against large amounts of enemy troops, their culture and last but not least there´s almost no prodution BUT alot of corruption - because of the distance to your capital.

The only really good way to solve this is to hold your attack and the build a HUGE army and fleet to attack? Or what?

Because of this I´am pretty tired playing theese kinds of maps.. How about you?

 

[Shaitan]

It's easy when you have flight. Send over an expeditionary force large enough to take a city and hold it for 2 turns. 1st turn, quell the resistance. 2nd turn, buy an airport. 3rd turn, your army is flown in.

 

[Sir. Martin]

Most common I counquer the world before flight!

 

[Ironikinit]

Before you invade, build the Forbidden Palace right in the middle of your territory. The most central location you can get. Do you have a little piece of junk civ, say the remains of a civ you've already beat up on your land? Go to war with them. Use this war to promote your forces to elite and to get a great leader. Chase his capital around. If needed, let him retake cities.

OK, end that war after you achieved your goals. You have a bunch of elites and a great leader. It's nice if you can build armies, too. Armies are very good for defense, esp. infantry armies.

Anyway, what you want to do is rush a palace on the enemy continent. The beauty of a palace is that a) a city with one cannot flip and b) they can be moved at will with a hero. Good luck building one, but you can move them in one turn with a leader, so you don't have to worry much about where you place it.

It also helps if you have flight. That way you can buy an airport on the enemy territory and it saves a lot of time. You want one city with an airport, one with a barracks, both connected by rails if possible.

If you can't do the palace trick, try going communist. You'll still have bad corruption, maybe you'll get 2 or 3 shields instead of one. IMO, if you're communist your really really want to make sure that all the other civs stay at war or they'll pass you in research. MPP pacts and bribes work well to this end.

Keep in mind that this method works on standard and small maps at monarch difficulty, I haven't tried much else. Also bear in mind that the palace trick smells like an exploit and the rules may be changed in the next patch.

 

[God]

I usually play on pangeae if i plan military conquest or maybe domination.
On the continents i usually play for spaceship victory, because i take over one continent in ancient times, before anybody knows whats happened and then i boost my science research and keep a mid-size army to ward of other civs from threatning me.

 

[Sir. Martin]

Ironikinit: Sounds good about that palace, but hell i difficult.. i usually gets 1 and max. two leaders in games where I fight like a crazy!

God: hehe, I know - I´am good at pangeae to!

 

[Dodgy Geezer]

A strategy I have successfully used in a large Archipelago map was to keep a couple of transports full of infantry and artillery stationed just off the coast of each of the potential enemies, protected by my best naval units. If they get a bit aggressive I land them in mountains and proceed to dismantle their trade routes and any other improvements I can get my hands on. Once most cities are deprived of most resources they can't put up a fight, and you can then land a larger force to capture what you want.

Since the mountains provide 100% bonus, the Infantry are effectively 20 defence, and combined with artillery makes them very formidable indeed.

In my case all I wanted was peace, but the AI kept attacking me with naval bombardments and refusing to talk peace. Once I had my counter attacking strategy up and running they were more than happy to come to the table.

You can also use this strategy on land. Send a mixed force of defensive and attacking units (eg Cavarly and Riflemen) in through a mountain chain. The Cavalry can dart out, pillage improvements and then make it back to the safety of the mountains in a single go (on flat land). This is a great way to cut an empire in half.

Finally, depending on how big your map is, landing and taking even a few cities can also be a good strategy. Land, capture and raze the cities, disband all the workers, do as much damage to the improvements as possible, and then get back on your ships. You wouldn't have to do it too many times to make a major difference to their power.

 

[Sir. Martin]

Well your strategy is kind of limited.. I mean it´s not very often there´s a chain of mountens right trough AIs territery, but if there is it is a great way to do it - I agree!

Having bots with enough troops to take over just two cities from a strong AI demands alot of resources.
-And DAMN I would be pissed if they came with a thireme and sunk my destroyer and transport!