Conquistadors - Major problems!

[Greyhawk1]

How can you defend against these when your Civ is roughly the same tech level?

Playing the Celts I have Cavalry (my best unit) whilst the Spanish have Conquistadors and they (with the Germans) declared war on me for some unknown reason.

Now you'd think It should be OK but nooo - the Germans are easy, they've just got Gunpowder but the Spanish are unbeatable. They ride through at least 2 other Civs to reach my territory (with no right of passage agreements) so I cant attack their cities unless I go to war with the two civs between me and the Spanish. I cant seem to get the 'right of passage' option in the dialogue either.

So they just send waves of Conquistadors to attack me. Being 3/2/2 they arent brilliant but they are easily defeating my Musketeers and they have the equivalent of 6 movement since they treat all squares as roads. So all they do is ride past my defenders and raze my cities before I can even do anything.

Since the AI cheats and only attacks the least defended cites even though it shouldnt know how many units are in that city I'm losing a city a turn to them and there is nothing at all I can do to stop them. My borders stretch half way across the map so I have no chance of covering it all.

My military is at full stretch just holding what I already have - abandoning my gains with the Germans and still I'm losing a city a turn.

How utterly stupid that they *still* travel at 6 even in your territory!

 

[wilbill]

Originally posted by Greyhawk1
...but the Spanish are unbeatable. They ride through at least 2 other Civs to reach my territory (with no right of passage agreements) so I cant attack their cities unless I go to war with the two civs between me and the Spanish.

Have you tried moving through those civs' territory? If the Spanish can without getting kicked out, maybe you can too - but I don't think that's the problem - see below.

How utterly stupid that they *still* travel at 6 even in your territory!

Well, that's the benefit they get as a UU. Certainly not overwhelming compared to your Gallic Swordsmen.

I cant seem to get the 'right of passage' option in the dialogue either.

Do you have embassies established with these civs? No embassy, no ROP, no MPP. And (back to your first problem - Spanish riding through other civs without an ROP) - without an embassy, you can't tell if they have an ROP or not.

Being 3/2/2 they arent brilliant but they are easily defeating my Musketeers and they have the equivalent of 6 movement since they treat all squares as roads. So all they do is ride past my defenders and raze my cities before I can even do anything.

They shouldn't defeat Musketeers fortified in cities very easily at all - but it sounds like your Musketeers aren't in the cities. Don't defend territory, defend your cities. If the enemy doesn't take your cities, they don't take your territory.

Since the AI cheats and only attacks the least defended cites even though it shouldnt know how many units are in that city I'm losing a city a turn to them and there is nothing at all I can do to stop them.

Sure there is. Defend your cities - don't leave them weakly defended. Especially not against an opponent whose units are more mobile than yours.
You're playing directly into the only advantage the Conquistadors have - speed. Make them attack your fortified defenders in your cities - then kill off the survivors with your cavalry - and you'll discover they're not very frightening at all.

 

[Psychlone]

Just be sure to garrison your luxuries and resources, and keep some mounted units on your road network to try keeping them from cutting your roads.

 

[Greyhawk1]

Firstly my Gallic Swordsmen are roughly the same offense/defense but only have 2 movement and are reduced to 1 to 1 in enemy territory. The Conquistadors are able to move as if all terrain are roads even in enemy territory - this is an overwhelming advantage as its the fastest unit by far. Also because I now have Medieval Infantry I cant build Gallic Swordsmen anymore (dumb).

My Musketmen are in my cities. They just keep getting mown down.

I didnt know about the embassy business. I'll do that.

As for defending my cities. There's a limit to how much military you can have without bankrupting yourself. I'm already at about double what I can afford.

If I cant get any further its resign time. I'm not having the Spanish as a civ again until they do something about the OTT movement advantage they have.

 

[Shabbaman]

Major Problem giving you a headache? Wait 'till General Failure shows up on your hard disk!

Ahem...

Sorry about that...

I think Killer will be glad that he is proven right about the conquistador. I had noticed that their superb movement can be extremely annoying... But I do have a solution for you: build cannons. Assuming that you have metallurgy (duh, you can build cavalry...), this is a great option. I take it you have read Moonsingers article on artillery in the war academy. Artillery is superb, even against a foe who is ahead in you on tech, since you can pick all units down to 1 HP. I admit that the cannon is a weak version of the artillery unit, but it should do the trick.

The point is, you can build them now and place them in your cities as defence, they hit the attackers before they do damage, so they are down 1 HP. That's a good thing. Later on, you can use them on the offence. Then, the 1 movement of the swordsmen doesn't even really care, since you're not playing blitzkrieg.

Advice for the next time you encounter the spanish: wait till you have nationalism, so that you can build riflemen. If you go to war when they have their UU, you can assume that that will trigger their Golden Age. That's probably the reason why they come in those huge numbers.

Just a reminder: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3combatcalc.html
Fortified musketmen in a unwalled town (below size 6) have a chance of .789 of surviving the conquistador's attack. That's far above your .5, so you're just having bad luck.

 

[Shillen]

I didnt know about the embassy business. I'll do that.

When you get your embassies established try to get one of the two civs that the Spanish are passing through to declare war on them. Surefire means to get yourself out of the line of fire. They'll almost always go for the closer enemy. Of course occasionally this can hurt in the long run. If the Spanish kill the other civ you had declare war then their empire is bigger and they become more powerful.

 

[Pembroke]

How many musketmen do you have defending your cities? Even with unwalled towns on grassland they ought to do quite well...

Here's the result of a simulation where 1-6 veteran conquistadors attacked an unwalled city on grassland defended by 1-4 veteran musketmen. The number is how many times out of 10,000 replays of the battle the attackers took the city in the first turn (promotions accounted for).

Musketmen:   1       2       3       4
Conquistadors:
   1       1893       0       0       0
   2       5420     379       0       0
   3       7182    1787      57       0
   4       8805    3657     492       5
   5       9556    5522    1300     110
   6       9852    7213    2707     474

Even with only 2 defenders per town the Spanish would still need at least 5 conquistadors to get a better than even chance of taking your town. With three musketmen you ought to be about safe excluding the occasional case of extremely bad luck.

If the AI is using massive invasion hordes it will quickly run out of units unless its production capability is vastly better than yours in which case your game went wrong much earlier than the war.

BTW do you have barracks in your cities? With large scale invasions they can make the difference: remember that with barracks your defenders are automatically healed at the start of the next turn whereas the attackers need to get to neutral territory to lick their wounds.

 

[troytheface]

Finally, the much insulted Conquistadors have a say of their own!
It has been called "worse than the "Man of War" or the F15".
Personally, while a understand ur plight, I am elated that this UU
has its day.
Mobilize, Anarchy (sometimes money increases)...two options.
(Unless u don't have nationalism-which u must not cause u can Draft as well. Sell stuff to get money to buy Allies. Some of my better games , I have lost. I wouldn't be worried. Some chess master remarked that u haven't even begun until u have lost a thousand games.....What is worse than losing a long game? Winning all the time.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

hehe, they suck as attackers, but they work wonders as pillagers and road-blocks....

Indeed, not defending cities the enemy can reach with two units and a cannon is risky. Your problem rather seems to be too little cash, not too many units.

road, build Marketplaces, acquire luxuries to lower lux tax.....

 

[morkaphi]

Conquistadors, yes, if stacked with musketeers (or riflemen) as an invading force, their mobility and pillaging ability can kill the enemy's economy in no time... Can be extremely annoying when they hit and run. Definitely one of the UU's that I really hate to face.

 

[Greyhawk1]

I dont bloody believe it! I decided not to resign and stick it out. It was a good decision!

I actually won the game after 25 hours play!

The Embassy did the trick. I made an Embassy with the Vikings and made a Mutual Defence agreement with them thus stopping the Conquistadors from invading me through them.

Jeez louise this one went right down to the wire. The Russkies were far and away ahead in tech right from the off but by trading and researching vital techs as well as snatching Theory of Evolution and the Great Library off them from the jaws of completion heh heh. The Spanish did me a favour in the end by making some Great Leaders I could use to nick some neat wonders.

I also played a master stroke in flanking the Russkies in research and going for the hard to research (at that time) computers then immediately trading it with them for three other techs!

My major problem after the spanish and a little altercation with the Vikings later was that I had no coal anywhere despite owning the second largest landmass. I tried trading with everyone I could but no-one would give me the resource. I ended up winning the game with no Railroads in my empire at all . At one point I also had no Rubber as well. The only Rubber on the entire landmass was just inside a parasite Egyptian colony. So I did the strategy guide tip and built a city right next to their border and rush built a Temple. It worked.

On the very last turn the Russians were just behind me in Space Ship building. They made the mistake of going for miniaturization and the Internet wonder (which the Egyptians built in the end) thus leaving me free to go for Nuclear Power before anyone else and getting Laser first. My ship was complete apart from the 'party lounge'. I already had a city set up building something that needed lots of shields and just switched production when I got the tech - building the lounge in one turn - just beating the russkies to it.

I am physically drained after that game. Thing is, it was only on Warlord difficulty! One day I'll get the hang of this game...

 

[wilbill]

Good job!
Yeah, embassies are a must. No serious diplomacy without them and the AI's are less likely to be angry at you when you have diplomatic relations with them. And the "investigate city" function an embassy allows is really your most useful form of espionage since the other functions that require spys tend not to work very often. Best to start establishing your embassies as soon as you get Writing, while they're cheap.
Winning on Warlord (or any level) is an accomplishment - don't minimize it.

 

[Shabbaman]

Good job on the victory. What level was it btw? I must say that a victory without coal/railroads would be totally unthinkable... It'd keep down production on an extremely low level. Besides that, my late industrial defence strategy relies on the instant (railroad) movement of artillery, so I'd have to alter my strategy...

If I see no chance grabbing rubber when I'm also behind, I'd probably concede. Never happened though.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]