Crushed under my own weight

[JonahRowley]

This is my first Monarch game and also my first Conquests game. I'm playing as Russia, and early on in the game I had a war with the Americans and China. I had the only two sources of iron on the continent, so I won easily. In the end, I'm on a continent by myself, and I haven't even made contact with the other civs yet.

I decided to rush tech, so I switch to democracy, get rid of my military and optimize for science. I'm now more advanced than the others (they made contact with me) and I had more money than I knew what to do with. Then it all fell apart.

I lost a wonder (was made obsolete) that was keeping my people happy and all my cities went into civil unrest. I had to cut into science to keep them happy. I'm still researching at a good pace, but now I'm running out of money. None of the other civs would trade luxuries (I have four on this continent) with me (they didn't even have harbors), and now they have a military alliance against me, and I'm afraid I've doomed myself.

I have no military. And when I say that, I mean I have one unit, the named unit that I kept. They're attacking with longbowmen, not a problem for riflemen or even musketmen, so defending myself won't be that difficult, but how do I win now?

 

[gskyes]

It sounds like an interesing challenge with no military. Keep a force of artillery and offensive units to counter the landings and build a large navy. If you're not planning an invasion, you don't need many land units to defend yourself. You should be ahead in tech, so a space win seems like the best bet. I suggest making peace with one of the AI and signing military alliances against the others. Keep them at war with each other to slow their tech pace.

Can you post a save? That would make it easier for the many expert players here to look at your game and give you more specific advice.

 

[Brain]

It would probably help if you post a screenshot or a game save. Here are a few tips.

- Connect all cities by railroads so that you can defend the whole continent with one stack of units.
- Build some naval units and cannons to defend the coast.
- Try to get some alliances against your ennemies to distract them. If they're too busy fighting at home they won't bother sending too many troups overseas.
- Pick on the weakest civ.

But I can't really say without seeing your game.

 

[Pentium]

You have the tech lead, so sell them techs. It will get you money to research more. If they do the research, trade techs.

 

[tR1cKy]

Switch to commie, and rebuild your army.
Scrapping all your military units wasn't a good idea. Tipical n00b mistake. If you're weak, the AS is more likely to pick on you (easy target).
Then, learn to better manage your economy. Demo with no military usually means a big money income. Probably some of your tiles aren't improved at all. Or you failed to build marketplaces and banks. If you have governors active, ditch them and micromanage your cities. Leaving governors to manage things for you ends up in huge inefficience.

 

[budweiser]

DRAFT more men.

 

[Rambuchan]

Drafting is a damn good idea. Railroad would be your next priority.

But top of your priorities list should be renaming your thread to "Crushed by my own Stupidity". 1 unit!!! Holy ship man - what were you thinking?!! They got boats ya know

 

[budweiser]

I have some more thoughts.

I would avoid communism if you do not know what you are doing. Switching at the wrong time will cripple you. Stay in Democracy and try to get Universal Suffrage. Build courts and police stations for less corruption and WW.

Luckily you are russia, you can build cossacks and because of the blitz, you will realize tremendous force ecomony. Just a few will destroy invaders.

You need the railroads.

I would really like a save. I am so bored with civ lately and this is an interesting challenge. I like russia.

Once you have some forces and you have managed to kill a few enemies, they will back off. Then trade with them a little bit and relations should stabilize.

 

[vmxa]

This should be an easy win at monarch with 4 home grown lux and the tech lead. It would have been much easier had you not gone to Demo.

Cossacks will just be brutal to the AI. If you can manage a leader from killing landing parties, while you build lots of boats and Cossacks, it is a cake walk. If not go with as large as an invasion force as you can manage. Rip up their tiles and smack as many units as you can find. Raze any small and under defender towns as they have.

Once you get a leader make and army and start taking down cities. If they have strong forces, then buy one or two into your side with tech/lux, no cash. If you can handle them with out it, go ahead.

I would not sell techs, if they would get them close to me or be critical tech, until one civ had learned them. I do not want them doing research at all. Most likely they will soon be out of money anyway. I would force them to a war time government and max unit support.

Your landing party needs a bunch of your best defenders and a settler. Try to land on a hill. Cut the roads surrounding the spot. Found the city and rush a barracks, You can use some of the ships to rush it.

The counter attack is likely to yield that leader. They will soon have stacks next to you and you can attack some fishing for leaders. Rush a harbor next or a wall, if the fight is going to last.

Once the counter attack falters, you can then go on the rampage.

 

[budweiser]

You may want to avoid putting cossacks in the army as you will lose attacks. Wait until you have *elite cossacks. It wont take long.

That doent exactly make sense. Dont put any cossacks in the army. Put infantry in the army. If you must put cossacks in the army, at least wait until the are *elite.

 

[JonahRowley]

Thanks for all the advice. I managed to defend from the first attacks, but I think I was over-reacting. The Celts and Scandinavians were allied against me, but what I didn't know was Scandinavia was all but one city on a two tile island. I sweet-talked Babylon and was able to trade for two luxuries (takes care of my happiness problem) and a military alliance against the Celts. After that, all is well.

I'm close to winning now, after destroying most of the Celts (bad idea?), and at war with Babylon. Moscow is a gigantic city and is plugging away at space station parts, and research is still about as high as it could be. I ended up going to Communism because of the stubborn Celts. They refused to sign a peace treaty, and my entire country was in civil unrest from war weariness. I think that's the first time I've seen anarchy bring cities _out_ of civil unrest before

How much gold is too much? Science is at 100% and I was still getting over 100 per turn. What can I use this stuff for if I'm Communist?

 

[vmxa]

You may want to avoid putting cossacks in the army as you will lose attacks. Wait until you have *elite cossacks. It wont take long.

That doent exactly make sense. Dont put any cossacks in the army. Put infantry in the army. If you must put cossacks in the army, at least wait until the are *elite.

I am not sure I followed this, but armies have blitz so there is no problem. Anyway you will not get all three attacks, unless you are beating on warriors or 1 hp units.

Infanry armies are to be avoided, unless you are playing against a monster AI and need to make a beach head. They are only one move units and will gain +1. Cossacks will be 4 move in an army. Anyway you should have plenty of them to spare a few for an army.

 

[narmox]

If one wonder expiring sent your whole empire into unrest, you are perhaps missing a lot of city improvements that keep people happy (such as temples colosseums and cathedrals), and money/science-making improvements (market, bank, library, university). Those will keep your nation healthy and allow you to keep a large army, even under democracy.

 

[Blackbird_SR-71]

if your alone on a continent all you have to do is build a navy and then form a semi-blockade around your continent and sink any transportation. you will not only be not losing cities but will also score you a sweet peace treaty

 

[mastertyguy]

If you can, try to put soem units on the coast line, so they can't unload on your lands

 

[vmxa]

That will not work against the Vikings. Of course Marines will end it as well.