Choosing Invasion Target

[vorlon_mi]

So, I'm getting back into the game after a break, and moved up from my previous comfort level (warlord) to regent. In particular, I've tried to use a Militaristic civ the last 3 games to build up my war-making skills. I have been more of a builder/space ship player, and wage war when I need a resource or need to slow down a rival.

In this game, I'm the Chinese and chose a map with a lot of land to make better use of the Rider. I found only one other civ on my land mass (English), and eliminated them in 310AD. Spent the next couple hundred years trying to find the rest of the civs!

Here's my latest save. I'm a little behind in techs, but not too bad. Since I want to try to win by military, I will need to do some naval invasions, and would appreciate some advice. I'm considering:

1. Using galleys to invade the French. Might target their small island first, or land just north of Besancon in the mountains.
2. Use galleys to invade one of the other civs on the mainland, but my supply lines would be *really* long
3. Wait until I can cross ocean squares safely, and use caravels to invade one of the civs on the mainland.

 

[vmxa]

I would suggest disbanding archer/spears/galleys/horses and swords. Beeline to Astro to get Uni and try for Copes. Then build up for invasion of France. You are in Repulic and you have no unit support, must not be C3C.

The 74 gpt is killing your research. Given your goal of Military, I would have gone with Monarchy. Your wars wil have to be short ones. Gang your workers so they can complete a task in one turn.

If you unload most of your units, you could probably get wait for Mag and safely travel. Tune your towns. No barracks in 4 shields towns. No lib on 2 beaker towns on a tiny island.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Yes, it is vanilla.

I finished off the English while still in Despotism. Given that I knew of no other opponents at that point, I opted for Republic to boost research. Somewhere out there were AI trading with each other, so I had to catch up. Given that I'm not religious, is it worth the switch to Monarchy at this point? Should I trundle thru the Middle Ages in Republic, then switch to Communism?

My only concern about disbanding so many ancient age troops is that I will be perceived as weak by the AI, and my large island will be invaded. I guess I can finesse that aspect by disbanding old troops as I make new riders and pikes.

Tactically, where is the best point for invading the French?

 

[vorlon_mi]

Regarding town tuning ...
I will sweep thru the towns on my main land mass, and follow your advice.

Here's my thinking on the island towns ...
-- likely to be invasion target by the AI. AI likes to land a shipful or two of troops, and attack a city. Barracks would help that town heal its troops, and would let me upgrade the defending spearman -> pike -> musketman, etc.
-- I like to use one building to get a first-ring culture pop, even for far-flung islands. If I'm religious, that's a temple. If not, it's usually a library. I use partial rush-building to get it up, and often disband it after the culture pop. Does that make sense?

 

[GamezRule]

I'm subbing. I'll check you're save and post some tips later.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

My only concern about disbanding so many ancient age troops is that I will be perceived as weak by the AI, and my large island will be invaded.

As you noted, the AI tends to do rather badly at invasions. Since you're Republic, you get no benefit from having units in the cities themselves, so station them in locations the AI will invade and drive them from the beaches. Riders excel at this, so you shouldn't even need Muskets/Pikes.

 

[vorlon_mi]

As you noted, the AI tends to do rather badly at invasions. Since you're Republic, you get no benefit from having units in the cities themselves, so station them in locations the AI will invade and drive them from the beaches. Riders excel at this, so you shouldn't even need Muskets/Pikes.

So, keep the defenders in my coastal cities -- no sense letting the AI walk into an undefended city. But remove/disband the inner city garrisons, and replace them with a couple of groups of riders, that can swoop in and eliminate the landing party.

 

[vmxa]

Make better units, namely Riders. They have 3 moves and a few in the right spots can deal with invaders for a long time. If it was me, I would not have gone republic knowing I was on an island.

Islands means invasion is the only way to expand and that tends to mean a long war. If you do not want them to invade your tiny island, you have options. Sink boats, block landing sites. Station 2 good units.

You do not need them until at least Astro and probably Nav/Mag.

 

[GamezRule]

I suggest going for Leonardo's workshop if you cannot capture it soon. France should be you're next target. I checked with CAII and you only have 5 riders. On this level, you should just keep spamming them and sending them to you're enemies.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Thanks for the strategy advice. Adjust my research path, change the build orders.

Now, assuming I'm ready to invade the French homeland. There are two sites I'm considering. I've suffered some serious losses in my last few games when invading, so I'm seeking advice here too.

Plan 1 involves landing at the eastern edge of the French landmass, which is a very short galley trip from my extended island, as shown in the screen shot from CivAssist II. Advantages: cuts off French iron, and hill is a good defensible LZ. Riders will have access to several French cities, and supply lines are very short to land some reinforcements.

Plan 2 involves traveling a bit further down the French coast and landing on the mountain gems just north of Besancon. Screen shot from CA II attached. Advantages: lets me secure one city quickly, and is a choke point for the French counterattack. Mtn makes a very good defensible LZ, and I could even bring along a sacrificial worker/slave to make a fortress. Quick access to the gems, which I need to grow my cities larger -- I'm hitting the happiness cap.

Note: French have no horses, so their counterattack will be slower to arrive. But it will be pretty large. I'm sorely tempted to attack before they acquire gunpowder, so I will lose fewer riders in taking their cities... and to do all of this before I get caravels.

 

[GamezRule]

I would pick the first one. Bring a settler along, plant it on the iron, and rush walls, then a barracks. When you rush a rax, rush a worker, then change it to a rax, then finish. You will need gold, I am not certain how much.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Plan 1 involves landing at the eastern edge of the French landmass, which is a very short galley trip from my extended island, as shown in the screen shot from CivAssist II. Advantages: cuts off French iron, and hill is a good defensible LZ. Riders will have access to several French cities, and supply lines are very short to land some reinforcements.

I would do this. You really want to get as many units over as quickly as possible, and the short trip makes it easier. To make things better, you can settle your first city on the Iron, then plant a second to the N-NE (above the French city) to speed things up just a bit more.

Plan 2 involves traveling a bit further down the French coast and landing on the mountain gems just north of Besancon. Screen shot from CA II attached. Advantages: lets me secure one city quickly, and is a choke point for the French counterattack. Mtn makes a very good defensible LZ, and I could even bring along a sacrificial worker/slave to make a fortress. Quick access to the gems, which I need to grow my cities larger -- I'm hitting the happiness cap.

The only way I would do this is if you load up a *lot* of with units (say, 5+ ships per wave) and constantly shuttle units. Also, make sure you can actually use those Gems - I don't know Vanilla, but in C3C you'd need some late-Middle-Age tech to trade over Oceans, which you'd need in this case since being at War with the French will block your access to the Coastal/Sea tiles.

Have you tried increasing the Lux slider to deal with your Happiness problems?

 

[vmxa]

To me the key is what can I bring. If no army, I have to be concerned with being attacked after landing. If you have a few musket (not sure, if you have them yet) you may be able to avoid attacking, until you form a town.

If I have only pikes for defense and can only expect to land <20 units I probably go for the mountain. That may be enough to discourge attacking the landing party. Once you either grab a town or make a town they will come all out.

It will be a numbers game then, how many do you have and how many can reach you per turn and what types. Wall first as you will want the boost on defense, the barrack second as you get its healing that turn.

The times I swap that order, if I am concerned that I will get damage to most or all of the stack. Then the full healing is more useful than the defense boost. The wall is not much use, if half or most the stack is red or yellow.

Do not bring any cats/trebs. Only units, as bombardment units cannot defend. Bring them only if you still have room in the boats after loading all uints. If you can get a few workers over on the second wave use 1 has a disband for priming the shield box. Otherwise I often disband a boat.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Thanks, everyone. I went with option 1), and brought a combat settler along
to plant a city near Orleans. I think 6 galleys worth (12 slots) in the first wave ... 1 settler, 2 pikes, and 9 riders.

As vmxa said, it was a numbers game. I was able to cash-rush both walls and barracks in the new city, and actually, it was not really attacked. Orleans was the city where the French had built the Colossus, so it flipped back to them after I took it. After losing a few units the first time, I used the trick of keeping units stationed just outside the city to re-capture it if it flipped. After it flipped again, I ... <gulp>... razed it. Was going to be just too much trouble to keep.

My riders took Rheims and Besancon, and then went around pillaging improvements around Paris to weaken the French response. I'm going to need to focus my efforts, since war weariness is starting to set in. I tried asking for some techs in return for peace, but Joan is stingy even in the face of having 3 cities captured and seeing 2 more burnt to the ground.

I plan to switch to Monarchy after the war. But I think that anarchy would increase the chances of my captured cities flipping back to the French, so I will wait a bit after declaring peace to change govts.

 

[GamezRule]

Post a save at different points of the war!

 

[vorlon_mi]

Will work on posting saves ... need to add some commentary.

Related topics ... preventing culture flips of newly captured cities. I looked up the flip calculation formula in the FAQ thread and a couple of the terms caught my eye. A key ratio is (total culture of enemy)/(total culture of your civ). Thus, a warmonger who has not built very many old temples or libraries will likely have a much lower total culture than the civ being invaded. How does one overcome that?

I seem to remember that someone had a strategy article on flipping, and preventing flipping. Perhaps in the War Academy?

 

[GamezRule]

Normally, the human strategy is raze and replace, until the end of the war. Then humans may capture.

 

[vmxa]

Will work on posting saves ... need to add some commentary.

Related topics ... preventing culture flips of newly captured cities. I looked up the flip calculation formula in the FAQ thread and a couple of the terms caught my eye. A key ratio is (total culture of enemy)/(total culture of your civ). Thus, a warmonger who has not built very many old temples or libraries will likely have a much lower total culture than the civ being invaded. How does one overcome that?

Mapstat has a great flip tab, tells you how many units are need.

How I deal with flips depends on the level. On Sid I don't deal with it as there is nothing I can do that would be feasible. On Emperor, I just take the next town and the next. Not having their borders close helps a lot.

Keep the citizen happy by putting them on as specialist helps, getting resistance elinimated. If all else fails and it seldom does, retake the town thereby reducing the pop by 1 more. I will do some raze and replace, but that does not address the question well.

Below Monarch there is no dange, as you probably have many wonders and a fair number of libs to at least match them.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Post a save at different points of the war!

OK, here we go. I had posted the save for 1040AD, and then proceeded to implement the suggestions given here. More military units, just riders, and disband some of the unneeded city garrisons. Prepare to invade near their iron source, and use a combat settler to plant a city there.

I invaded in 1190AD. Planted the beachhead city, "Attack", and cash-rushed walls. I moved out and conquered Orleans which was nearby. Shifting the attach to the west, I conquered Rheims easily and began moving toward Besancon and those gems.

Orleans flipped back, and I realized why. It had the Colossus, and lots of local culture. I re-conquered it, but it flipped again a few turns later. I re-conquered it again, and razed it (gulp). Meanwhile, my riders were galloping all over the French countryside, and the home front was building more. By 1265, I had conquered Besancon and Avignon, with a total of 28 riders deployed. By 1290, I conquered Tours (a metropolis) and razed it -- 32 riders in the field. I was in the midst of a Golden Age, initiated by my riders' victories. I lost a couple here and there, when a redlined unit was picked off by an opportunistic French longbow that sneaked out of a city.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Part of the reason I'm playing this particular game is to improve my warmaking. I've been used to slow-moving, ground-pounding, accompanied by bombard units. Every time I saw a size 12 metro, I wanted to wait and bombard the snot out of it.

But a voice inside me said, "You have an overwhelming advantage. Numbers, production, and Joanie is on the ropes. So you lose a few units ... Attack!" And so I did.

Rather than send the riders north to pick off the easier (size 6) Chartres, I gathered my forces on a hill next to Paris, and went for the jugular. Yes, it was a size 12 metro, so yes, it had a defensive bonus. But I had more units, and new-found confidence in my riders. I pre-emptively cranked down my science slider, cranked up the lux slider to ward off war weariness, and attacked. Paris fell in 1310, and size 12 Lyons fell in 1315. 35 riders, deployed and confident.

Cruising through Chartres, I moved towards Marseilles in the far west. I conquered Marseilles in 1335, but Lyons flipped back. I re-conquered it, and started negotiating peace. I held all of the original French land mass, and even got a town (Bayonne) in the peace treaty.

This is vanilla, remember. I debated about whether to go for a city for peace, or one of France's techs. I decided to get a city on the main land mass now, and begin preparations for expanding my toehold later.