Being able to defend yourself?

[BrknPhoenix]

Whenever Montezuma is in one of my games he picks on me to no end. In my last game he along with France destroyed me. It seems to be a recurring theme. I can play fine on the 3rd difficulty level (sorry, can't remember names) but stepping up to the 4th I get owned.

My problem is that I'm just too weak. I can expand quickly to have territory that competes with my opponents and I can build up my cities magnificently, but it always comes at the cost of my military.

No matter what the AI always out-powers me, with only the most beaten down of civs having a lower power rating than I do.

I'm wondering how to balance building a military with the rest of your civilization? Whenever I get attacked or plan to attack, I find myself having to have every single city build units for decades or more just so I can have enough troops. I never stand a chance.

I try to tech ahead of others, but I always get attacked at which point my game crumbles and I can't recover.

 

[RIcs]

Don't built everything.... that's what I learnt....
Some cities can just built a barrack and all units... a forge... and a Heronic Epic... and more units...

It wouldn't harm if you have other cities doing all other jobs... (so they can save their time for building their own defends)

I didn't built temple either.... if not reaching the happiness cap.

 

[Uncle E]

Aloha,

I had the same problem in the beginning and it is like how RIcs says ... dont try to build everything in every city. I also make it a point to constantly upgrade and add garrison units to guard my cities and key resources like copper/iron/horses etc.

If you have a city that has alot of hills, use that as your base to churn out military units on a constant basis. Adding a forge and other production (hammer) boosting buildings along w/ a barracks and stable & proper civics + Heroic Epic + Great Generals + West point can really keep you up on the power chart w/ upgraded units. I like to keep units in my cities (w/ hereditary rule for happy bonus) and units guarding key resources and units right on my front line borders so i can see whats going on. Idk if that works as a deterrent or hurts me, but I'd rather have units ready in case of Monty or Louis trying to jump me w/ a stack at my borders.

Make sure to also have a mix of units as I used to only have horse archers on border guard due to their mobility and all, but sadly got smashed by elephants and spears in a stack ... now i make mini stacks on key areas for border defence ... mebbe an axeman, spears and horse archer.

 

[cabert]

2 things are available to give you protection
- power (build barracks and units)
- diplomacy (bribe your agressive neighbours vs other civs)

 

[BrknPhoenix]

Hm, yes, I do find myself trying to build everything everywhere often. I'll try to stay away from that Thanks

 

[ChicagoCubs]

I too was caught in the build first, army later mode. Here is what I did to help break that...

1. If you still insist on building every building in every city (hard habit to break), get into the groove of building, defensive unit, building, offensive unit, building, defensive unit, etc.

2. Watch your early expansion. The AI is not that intelligent, so to make up for it, they don't have the huge expansion penalties that a human player has. You don't need to have a huge empire to compete with the AI.

3. Eliminate Monty ASAP. Bribe others to go to war with him. Take over his cities and rename them. Wipe his computer generated people from the face of the pixel world.

4. As others have said, if you have a good production city, use it to crank out units to protect your other cities that are building wonders and what not.

 

[BrknPhoenix]

Started a new game as Ramesses II and followed some of the advice here. Early on I built military every other turn in cities, and I was easily able to get more powerful than my neighbor Alexander and take several of his cities. At this point I'm the third most powerful civ in the world (though there's still several civs of the 12 total i haven't met) but the most powerful on my continent. Second highest score.

It's working much better, thanks

The only thing that confuses me is that somehow... being more militaristic has gotten me more buildings than straight building has.

 

[OceansEleven]

You should watch out. Building too many military units is a bad thing sometimes. Your gold per turn goes down rapidly...

I build archers and what not in the beginning. You should ALWAYS upgrade them to the most recent army people you've got. Say you got 5 horse archers. Make sure you upgrade them to Knights.

Sometimes make tech trades that will get you loads of $$$. Spend that $$$ on upgrading the units. Your units will upgrade (you will look stronger on the chart) and it doesn't cost any gold per turn.

But yeah, Montezuma was a tough one with me. I learned to not piss him off that much. If I'm stronger than him, forget about it. In the recent games... he hasn't been strong at all. I'm beginning to get mad. He was always a challenge. Maybe the patch did something.

 

[BrknPhoenix]

Bit of an update on how it's going.... My economy was indeed suffering and I started paying for unit upgrades instead of new units. Meanwhile I focused on economy for a bit and now things are going splendidly.

Montezuma decided he hated me again (for the third game in a row, nonetheless) and attacked me from another continent. He had invested everything in power so he was more powerful than me... But fortunately I was friends with Bismarck, who was more powerful than him Bismarck KO'd Montezuma after a little payment, and as an added bonus he got knocked around pretty good himself.

I'm at the top of the heap for score now

Thanks for the advice, everybody

 

[Uncle E]

Dont forget to build defenders for your critical resource tiles like copper, iron, horses etc. and having mobile units like horse archers / chariots help keep the roads that connect them to your empire intact as well. nothing worse than having the resource, but only being able to build warriors and archers while axes, swords and worse come a callin!

 

[thelibra]

Hello there,

I ended up with the same problems until yesterday when I figured out a strategy that works well for me.

For colonizing, I first send a warrior to find just the right spot, then I fortify in it as the settler is walking towards the spot. Alternately, if it's a long ways through the FoW, then I send a Warrior escort along with the settler so he doesn't get eaten by the barbs.

Once the city is founded, if there isn't already a warrior in place, I build one or send one. My first building priority is a wall. Second building priority is a barracks. As soon as I've got archery, I then build an archer in each city, and use the extra bonus XP from the barracks to give the Archer a + on city defense.

The combination of the two allows you a serious defender (the archer), and you can then use the warrior that was on the city to either add to your existing defense, or use it to discover new city hotspots, and fortify in them till the settlers arrive.

 

[Titus]

Yes, take the advice already given here - the key is having specialized cities, in this case, groomed for production. Try to found one or more cities around hills, preferably with iron/copper for extra hammers, and forests. Mine everything, don't build any cottages, build farms if you need enough food to work all mined tiles. In these cities, build barracks (and stuff like Heroic epic) and then a neverending stream of units. The only other buildings you might need in these cities are production boost (forges), something cultural (to pop your borders) and maybe defence. Do not bother with commerce-related buildings like markets, grocers, etc. It's a good idea to start scouting/preparing for these production cities from the very beginning of the game. Of course, you also need specialized commercial cities to pay for maintenance and research.

 

[obsolete]

It's not monte I ever worry about. I love it when he's around. It's Alexander that seems to always target me asap with a big stack.

 

[Squad23]

another advice that i didn't read is tot build units according the units of the ai. So if montezuma has many many horse archer, then you have to build many spearman. if montezuma doesn't have horse then you don't need as many. and you can focus for example on axeman.
I played many games with a less powerfull army but didn't lost much because of this strategy.

f you play against a powerfull ai it's best tot be attacked first so you have all the advantages in defense bonusses. Then when the ai is weakened you come with your offensive units and crush them

 

[Uncle E]

Squad23's got good advice as well ... the AI does it well when I overbuild horse archers (my fav for their mobility) it somehow has a ton spears etc. ... makes sense though!

As for monty ... he gives me trouble, but lately its been Genghis (mongols) that tries to pick on me - but im ready early on w/ barbarian battle hardened axemen that eventually get upgraded to macemen. I keep them on my resources and on strategic ground (hills/forests) near & around my cities. IDK if that strategy works for multi-player, but it seems to work for the AI and barbarians.

 

[gdgrimm]

Yes, you need to maintain a large military.

But if you're playing a challenging level, you're not going to be able to maintain military power equal to the likes of Monty or Shaka or Nappy or Stalin. That's because the economic upkeep costs hit you harder than the computer AI (and even those particular computer AI's fall behind in tech due to their upkeep costs).

So leverage diplomacy. Stay friendly enough with them that you can always bribe them to go to war with somebody else. That's usually pretty easy to setup, and will keep their military sizes at a level where the military size you need to look respectable won't crimp your economy too much.