Dealing with a superpower on other continent

[Dwarven Zerker]

I recently took to the seas with my galleys to discover the other continent (and have since discovered Navigation). I found it and discovered that the Chinese are the superpower over there. I'd like to get their neighbors to begin a war against them while I mop up my continent. I'm a builder by nature but am learning effective warmongering skills. I'd like to hear your strategies to drawing in a coalition without having to commit my troops to the effort.

 

[dragon.jade]

Mmm... I guess, you can send ambassies in the others countries, declare war on Chinese and then propose alliances to your friends. Since they're closer then you, they'll get the full blow of chinese firepower. That's the diplomatic way of doing it, it'll cost you much money/luxury/strategic to convince the others to join you and any benefits you might get from trading with China...

Another way is to send a settler to build a city very close to China (but not IN China, mind you!!!! or you'll get yourself into war!), then give that city away to the elected rival civ of China (the farther that city will be from rival civ main territory, the best). The AI being as it is, China might seize the possibility to take or remove that irksome unprotected little village near his territory, thus declaring war to the civ you gave that city. That's the devious way of doing it. It'll cost you time to make that setler, send it overseas to China... Be aware however that this tactics can be proven wrong, China is not obliged to go to war with the rival you gave that city to... And since that just provoked war against China and the rival but not all the rivals, you might have actually hastened the development of China by allowing it to fight only against one opponent...

Hope that helps....

 

[Shillen]

It's quite possible by getting the other civ's on their continent to declare war on them they'll just take over the entire continent and become bigger. Personally I wouldn't worry about it until the late industrial age. Make sure you get tanks first, then go wipe em out. I had a similar situation in a recent game and that's how I handled it. They had taken over their entire continent and I had about 5/6 of my continent. But their infanty was no match for my tanks. They did end up getting tanks of their own but by then I had modern armor.

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

I'd rather try to reduce their advancement before invading them. I'm about 6 turns from entering the Industrial Age and they are right on my heals. The only tech they don't have that I do is Military Tradition. I want to widen that little tech advantage even more and figure that getting China into a "world" war will facilitate increasing my tech advantage. WW from a lengthy war won't be much of a problem for me as I've got 7 luxuries (through trade and plain ownership) and marketplaces. It's always a good thing to be the first to find the other continent. Well worth losing galleys in the crossing.

I'm not ready to advance to their continent for quite a while yet and I probably won't completely extinguish all civs before 2050.

 

[sealman]

The problem I see is that if you get teh other civs involved in a war against China, China may in fact grow a little more powerful.

Personally, I would not worry about them, unless you plan an invasion.

 

[billindenver]

My favorite strategy is to keep the smaller civs advanced technologically. If China has cavalry, make sure to trade the other civs saltpeter and metallurgy. I even give techs to tiny civs just to make life a bit tougher on the big boys. Even if a civ only has 1 city left, it can make China struggle if they've got riflemen defending.

 

[Henry_X]

Take notice of any MPP's that are already signed , maybe this would allow you to trigger the world war. A lot of it depends if you want to go to war with them yourself.

If you do , you have a lot of options. First you get them furious with outrageous demands, that's always a nice opening move. Then you continue with embargo's with the other civ on their continent. Get MPP's with those other civ's too.
To get the war declaration from their side, you can
_ attack of of their MPP partners ( if any )
_ If you can wait a bit , use espionage ( this is my favorite )
_ You can built a city of your own on the continent and when one of his units is in the area , demand them to leave.

Also look in the chinese territory for "captured cities" , look at the names. If you see that the chinese have for instance a roman city, you can be more sure that Rome would be more easily persuaded to start fighten them again ( unless there are already as good as beaten ).

 

[Renata]

Originally posted by billindenver
My favorite strategy is to keep the smaller civs advanced technologically. If China has cavalry, make sure to trade the other civs saltpeter and metallurgy. I even give techs to tiny civs just to make life a bit tougher on the big boys. Even if a civ only has 1 city left, it can make China struggle if they've got riflemen defending.

Gah, I tried that once. Got a smaller civ into MA with me against my main rival and gifted them some advanced military tech, can't remember any more what it was. The very next turn they had made peace and my rival had the tech.

That was the one and only CIV III game to date that I've played past the point of victory, and it was for the sole purpose of taking that civ out.

Renata

 

[Shillen]

Usually if I have a one tech lead at the end of the middle ages I'll be at least 4-5 techs ahead by the end of the industrial ages. Mostly because of ToE but I tend to get better tech/turn ratio too. I think you look like you're in good shape. You could sell them a tech for as much gpt as they can afford. Sure this puts them one tech closer to you, but from my experience their research slows down dramatically. And in the ensuing turns I gain an even bigger tech lead over them. The time this doesn't work is when there's another civ that's also doing well on research. Then they'll just trade techs and they'll still keep up with me.

 

[Shillen]

Gah, I tried that once. Got a smaller civ into MA with me against my main rival and gifted them some advanced military tech, can't remember any more what it was. The very next turn they had made peace and my rival had the tech.

Hehe yeah have to be careful of that. What I'll do is gift the weaker civs all advances up to what my rival has, but no more. This is particularly useful in the early-middle industrial age. Because they'll be attacking with cavalry against riflemen or infantry...hard to win during that time period.

 

[billindenver]

Originally posted by Renata


Gah, I tried that once. Got a smaller civ into MA with me against my main rival and gifted them some advanced military tech, can't remember any more what it was. The very next turn they had made peace and my rival had the tech.

That was the one and only CIV III game to date that I've played past the point of victory, and it was for the sole purpose of taking that civ out.

Renata

Yes, I should have clarified that. I only do that if the enemy is more advanced than they are. If the big enemy already has mech inf though, I'll give it to the other AI to keep them competitive. I wouldn't give them one that the main enemy doesn't have.

On edit: I do this more often in industrial times, when I have one main rival. If I see my main rival fighting some tiny civ that is way behind in tech, I'll throw every tech I can at the tiny civ. Cavalry, infantry, industrialism....anything that will help them.

 

[Nagorak]

Why are you going after the Super Power? Take out the little guys, the smaller the better, to get a foothold. Once you do, China will be screwed. If you control your own continent, and half of theirs, you have a lot more territory under your control. Territory=power, production, etc. Just pump out the sciences and get a tech lead, then by the time the late Industrial age rolls around you'll be ready to go in using airlifts and finish the game. If you don't want to wait that long, just use transports to dump your guys in the territory you established on that continent.

If for some reason you can't get around to taking out another super power until the modern age, a salvo of about 30 ICBMs usually does the trick (although by the time you can make that many, you can usually just win by space race).

Bottomline: By getting China to wipe out its smaller neighbors you only strengthen them in the long run. A very bad move if you plan on winning via Domination or Conquest.

 

[SanPellegrino]

that is a long term problem in civ3, maybe you want to read this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14969

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

Especially to SanPellegrino for all the great advice. I'll give that idea a try at my next opportunity. Unfortunately, I've got to wait until tomorrow night.

Dang this game is worse than crack!!! Have any of you gone to bed way too late (with work looming early the next morning) thinking about how you're going to handle the situation you just left?

 

[billindenver]

Originally posted by Dwarven Zerker
Especially to SanPellegrino for all the great advice. I'll give that idea a try at my next opportunity. Unfortunately, I've got to wait until tomorrow night.

Dang this game is worse than crack!!! Have any of you gone to bed way too late (with work looming early the next morning) thinking about how you're going to handle the situation you just left?

No, never. However, I'm at work now thinking about how I'm gonna play tonight.

 

[Moulton]

Never past 0300, with a 0530 reveilie

 

[Naval Freak]

My strategy is to build alot of offensive units (10-15), then a few settlers. then sail 'em over to the superpower, gain a toehold, build some cities of your own on the toehold and use the offensive units to defend till u build defensive units.