Chandragupta: An Ode to Irritable Repeat Neighbors

[isau]

So I don't know what's up with my luck, but I seem to roll Chandragupta at my doorstep *constantly*. In fact, he and Shaka seem to be my most consistent next door neighbors. :O

Chandra has to be the most dangerous neighbor at least since Montezuma in Civ 4. He will always invade you eventually, at least as far as I have experienced. Check out this game as the Cree where he locked my civ onto a isthmus:

Not going to lie, this particular game is one of the worst luck experiences I've ever had. (Note I am playing with my Quo's Combined Tweaks mod, so some game rules are different, but basically it's mostly the same).

I rerolled this start 4 times. This time I at least managed to survive a while, but Chandy just keeps turning up more units. Lucky for me that melee ship just chilling in the water hasn't swum up and taken out my city, because that would be curtains. So far he's managed to derail my opening trade unit strategy and just cause general heck for 40 turns. I just found iron near my capital so I'm at least hopeful I can get some Swordsmen before his elephants show up. But this is going to be one brutal game.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Solution is to build units, alot of them, early and constantly even if you only have your capital a large army can quickly change the game.

Now I don't know what your Changes does but playing aggressively may pay of in the long run.

10 warriors and slingers may be Worth to invest in as you can upgrade them for low cost and the early units can harass the enemy Maybe even take him out.

 

[Art Morte]

Umm, that looks like a good situation to me: an easily defendable city (with those archers), the enemy will throw all its units at it and once you've destroyed them with arrows you can go conquer.

 

[isau]

Umm, that looks like a good situation to me: an easily defendable city (with those archers), the enemy will throw all its units at it and once you've destroyed them with arrows you can go conquer.

Not really. I am barely holding onto the city, after a couple of tries. Part of it may be how the mod makes it vulnerable (walls have a prereq Encampment, and all capitals start with Walls, so attacking him there isn't really feasible yet).

There are also like 6 Barbarians wrecking infrastructure to the north.

Also the specific geography means those Archers are spending most of their time doing nothing. My first playthrough he successfully took the city from me. I am only doing okay now by reconcentrating.

He also has a LOT of Archers... by my count at least 7 or 8 near his city right now.

Some of it may be that my mod does what it's supposed to do, which is a good thing. But Chandy is still a real pain.

 

[kb27787]

You just need to be researching shipbuilding rather than math.... a couple of quadiremes (better than that encampment you are building) will bust that isthmus choke point for you easily...

 

[isau]

You just need to be researching shipbuilding rather than math.... a couple of quadiremes (better than that encampment you are building) will bust that isthmus choke point for you easily...

I need Math for Petra, which I specifically cheated and modded this game so I could grab after seeing the start position.

 

[isau]

Update, I did finally take India's capital, but it took about 134 turns to do it. I forgot I had the AI+ mod turned on, as part of a test to see if my Combined Tweaks mod would work with it. It did. I won't say this scenario was impossible but it was very, very laborious deciding each next military move. I think the AI+ mod must increase the number of units that warmonger AIs build because on Emperor I've never seen so many Archers. Even when I beat him down to one city remaining (only one taken by conquest--a second flipped due to culture) I simply could not get into position to take the city without losing dozens of units, due to sustained fire from Archers. I don't know what changes AI+ makes to the AI specifically but maybe Firaxis should look into making them in the core game.

I finally gave up on this game around turn 150 because although I wasn't losing, being bottled in like that started to make me feel claustrophobic.

In any case this post was originally about Chandragupta and his habit of always declaring war on neighbors (me). Maybe next game I'll finally roll a start without him at my doorstep.

 

[blackcatatonic]

My first two abortive R&F rolls were with Chandi as a neighbour. One of those games I gave up very early because his city placement made it impossible for me to expand - and then he had the cheek to complain I was too close

 

[Thormodr]

He is always interesting, yeah. Had a memorable encounter with him:

I started a game as the Dutch and used the shuffle map hoping for ample polder opportunities. (Alas it was not meant to be.) I was stuck on a small continent and had to rush naval techs to get out and meet everyone which I managed by the mid classical age.

Anyway, Tomyris, Chandragupta and a few other AIs were on a fairly sizeable continent that takes up most of the land mass in the game. Tomyris decides to take over Kumasi and it triggers an emergency. I decide to join in and sadly no one else does. So, it’s me and Valletta versus the mighty Tomyris. Oh well. So I sail over with my partly damaged caravel and attack Kumasi a few times and eventually take it. Upon taking it, Chandragupta pops up and complains about my “stench.” Kumasi bordered Chandragupta’s empire with one tile! So, even before I could liberate Kumasi and literally right before the mouse click to liberate, I took a -5 relations hit with him. I am literally half way around he World from him but He can still smell my stench. Lol.

Happily, I had +18 in other modifiers with him and we are still friends but I still found that kind of annoying.

 

[isau]

What makes him especially dangerous IMO is his agenda is pretty logical and leads to good strategy, at least compared to a lot of other civs. He'll go after people that he has the capability of conquering thanks to their vicinity, unlike fools like Victoria who whinge at people halfway across the globe, or Montezuma who effectively just gets mad at everyone. The proximity means when he does declare war he's likely to steamroll a continent, and as his territory expands he'll acquire new targets a they become viable.

It also leads to an interesting strategy... gifting cities to other civs so Chandi gets mad at them instead of you.

 

[cairnsy44]

I have not yet had him in one of my games, but I always seem to get Kongo. I have never yet been on good terms with Nzinga....he is always that pimple on one's backside.

 

[Ondolindë]

Same here. Chandy is nowhere to be found in my games. Looking forward to him appearing soon.

I can’t say that about Barbarossa though who has been in every game since R&F came out. It’s getting old.

 

[kaspergm]

I had him next to me besides Teddy in my game as Scotland. Oddly, we were bestest of friends entire game, got alliance to level 3 with him (and Teddy too), never did they DoW me even once.