Early pre medieval wars

[Snovvdog]

Hello,

I've come to ask your advice, I've just today started a Fractal, Prince standard size, epic speed game. I ended up with ethopia as civ ( had random turned on).
I had 2 enemy's, toku in the south-west and the woman celtic leader in the north ( forgot her name).

I've had a great start and managed to get a tech advantage and a food advantage ( thx to 2 awesome cities (have others too, but they arn't the lets say, backbone of my enconomy), capital has 5 floodplains iirc and a gold hill, 2 wine and cow, and 2nd city has 3 gold hills and almost all floodplains except that).

So I get this quest popped up to get 8 swordsmen and I finish it by chopping an army. Free upgrade till the rest of the game: Nice .
Then I took a look on the power graph, I was the strongest player, so since I didn't have much else to do I kept making axes and swords, and attacked to the north as the celts had alot of nice cities and resources, while toku had very bad city's. I quickly overrun 2 celtic border cities and was left with a stack of 9 mixed troops ( mostly swordsmen, a few axes and perhaps a chariot), then I reached one of his main cities, vienna or something, and he had 7 units rushed into place so I waited to get more units, I got 15 units in the end and he got 10 after that, but worse, he upgraded them, now I was stumped as I had all my cities spamming & chopping and whipping soldiers, yet he with a worse GDP and ( at start of the war) worse production managed to get his production above mine and in the end my economy crashed to a 0 % research because of military costs, even though I had the best economy at start.

Now sorry for the long story but my question is really, how can I wage early wars without my economy grinding to a halt, this was one of the best GDP's I've ever had so early in the game, yet once I ( in total) had about 20 units in enemy lands, my economy just stopped so I was forced to do peace and rebuild economy.

Atm I'm in 1100 AD in that game, with by far the best Food and GDP and the 2nd best production, the celts being 1 in that place, and my power rating below the celts, now I want some advice about what's the worst you can do to hurt an ai's economy, I'm pretty much a noob to prince lvl this is only my 4th prince game ( lost 1st 2, won 3rd one with diplo victory through the UN, even though I won that game mainly thx to my religion buddy's and very good luck with the map, my military was always like half of what the strongest player had.). So I really need advice how to counter such a strong ai.




Sorry for the long post I'll try to repeat the questions:

How can I keep my economy on track in the early game, or better said, ho can I effectively wage war in the early game?
What will hurt a prince ai most, I took 2 good-ish city's yet the ai managed to out produce me in a few turns after?
How on earth can I keep up to a strong in military prince ai, even in the late game when I have half my cities making soldiers my power is usually pathetic comapred to my main rivals ones.

Any other hints/suggestion?

TY in advance .

 

[DaveMcW]

Catapults.

 

[Snovvdog]

Too early, pre writing.

 

[manu-fan]

In an early war, when you find you're getting bogged down, and need catapults, then stop, declare peace, and get catapults as fast as you can.

Cheers.

 

[Refar]

That early already that big of a empire ? Anyway... Attacking witohut siege weapons brings high casualties. No way around this. So you have to choose manageable objectives, and not stop making troops until you achieved those.

 

[Snovvdog]

Well It's past the point of being an early war & rushing to cata's now anyhow I guess I made some bad decisions, however while looking @ my save now it appears I'm nr 1 in GDP, food and prod. Not in power tho.

I've included pics of the situation:






What's the easiest way now to get disposed of the celts, or do you guys recon it's not worth going for them ( they are a bit backwards in tech, I thought I'd be able to finish em b4 they get elaphants) ?
If not war with them, then what should be my next move in this game?
I'd really like to go for a domination victory for once on prince lvl.

 

[Maben]

Do you have a turn-timer on in a single player game?

 

[Zanttu]

What's the easiest way now to get disposed of the celts, or do you guys recon it's not worth going for them ( they are a bit backwards in tech, I thought I'd be able to finish em b4 they get elaphants) ?
If not war with them, then what should be my next move in this game?
I'd really like to go for a domination victory for once on prince lvl.

Make peace with Boudica, you could even pay a little for it if she wants. But if she refuses to talk, then defend your own cities until she agrees. You said she's backwards in tech, so make a quick beeline for war elephants+catapults. Then spit out those units like there was no tomorrow and rush her back to stone age.

You should never declare war just because you are high in the power rating. Actually I never trust the rating at all. Sometimes I can go to war when I'm lower in the rating than my opponent and kill him easily, sometimes I have to be much higher. It depends on era, your attacking force and opponents defensing force. Scout your enemy and look at what kind of units and resources he/she has. You won't win with 20 chariots against 10 spears, will you? Defending is always much easier than attacking, defender always has the advantage. For example, if you attack with axes against archers on a hill, you should have 3 axes for each archer defending. Before going to war you should have reasonable attack force (few swords, axe and chariot won't do it in the AD's.) Early rush can be committed with low attack force, but that has to happen before 1AD. How big stack you need, that's something you must learn and you will learn it only by playing.

 

[Snovvdog]

Make peace with Boudica, you could even pay a little for it if she wants. But if she refuses to talk, then defend your own cities until she agrees. You said she's backwards in tech, so make a quick beeline for war elephants+catapults. Then spit out those units like there was no tomorrow and rush her back to stone age.

You should never declare war just because you are high in the power rating. Actually I never trust the rating at all. Sometimes I can go to war when I'm lower in the rating than my opponent and kill him easily, sometimes I have to be much higher. It depends on era, your attacking force and opponents defensing force. Scout your enemy and look at what kind of units and resources he/she has. You won't win with 20 chariots against 10 spears, will you? Defending is always much easier than attacking, defender always has the advantage. For example, if you attack with axes against archers on a hill, you should have 3 axes for each archer defending. Before going to war you should have reasonable attack force (few swords, axe and chariot won't do it in the AD's.) Early rush can be committed with low attack force, but that has to happen before 1AD. How big stack you need, that's something you must learn and you will learn it only by playing.

No, I mean with my last post that I've already played on after making peace and that it's too l8 to bee line to cata's as I alrdy got it.
It's 1100 ad now and the war was around errr ( checking power graph for dip, wich will show when I had war) about 300 ad. And I've been in peace since about 600 ad.


I mean I don't know what I should do now, my economy is back on track, I got a tech advantage but my army is alot weaker atm, I could try to get all medieval untis first b4 attacking, but that'd almost guarantee the celts to get elaphants since they got ivory, atm they mostly still have their UU as an army, combined with archers for defence and a few axes.

Do you have a turn-timer on in a single player game?

Nope just a clock, it happened to be around 1 am .

 

[cripp7]

yes you need a large stack of catapultsus. The siege weapons will break them down, just attacking one will do collateral damage to many. The clean up with your swords and axes.
Cripp

 

[Snovvdog]

Ok, I've played on and built 3 wonders, 1 ( Great library) will help keep research higher, statue of zeus will cause massive war weirness for the celts so a great help for the war imo as it'll cripple their economy) and the shedawon padaya or whatever, the wonder that allows for all religious civics, ( I only built it coz i needed to boost culture in a border city, happened to have gold, and needed a great prophet as got 2 shrine cities.), gona spam cata's now along with axes and archers to keep the population happy. Hoppefully afetr about 20 turns i'll be able to invade brennus once again.

 

[futurehermit]

Don't overexpand until you have currency/col and some commerce cities.

Try and have your wars go quickly. Either fast-moving units or bring along enough siege to get the job done.

Don't be afraid to take a ceasefire or three. Fight on your terms. Don't get bogged down, the war weariness will wipe out your econ.

 

[Snovvdog]

I've got code of laws and currency, and even philosophy, I'm medieval now.

 

[Snovvdog]

I conquered the celts and capitulated their last city, but lost the game after all, guess I need more practice on prince lvl.
I lost the game because some civ on the other continent won a diplo victory .
All ppl voted for him because he had 3 vassals ( toku, saladin and the koreans, oh and he had a 4th vassal but that's a colony.)
Was trying to get space race alrdy had apollo and a tech advantage.





Pwnt by a stupid ai .

Included save, can anyone tell me what I did wrong ?

 

[semirami]

You must foresee this. The only friend, you have, is Hammurabi, but he is more friendly with Frederick and will vote for him. Don't count the vasals as your friends. They must vote for the master. In this game I will not waste time to research Robotics and build Space Elevator and Internet. I'll research fission, will build The Manhatan Project and will destroy Saladin in no time. After that Fred cant have enough votes to win the diplo victory and you can launch your space ship easy.

 

[Snovvdog]

I feel terribly stupid though now as I just renembered the biggest mistake:

I've built the UN in the first place !

That left aside:
How would I be able to destroy saldin though, even with nukes I'd be dead, as everyone except hammurabi and brennus was a vassal of frederick, all of them combined must have had a like 8 times bigger army than me and brennus ?
They'd all have nuke acces and if I'd declare war on them I'd be able to expect 5 times the nukes in return, not to mention 4 invasion fleets and a land invasion from toku ?

 

[semirami]

I didnt noticed, that Saladin is also a vasal of Fred. So the only possibility is Hammurabi. You can attack him, or you can make him your friend through the diplomacy. But you must plan this early.

About UN, if you dont build it, Fred will, so it's not that big mistake.

Another point. Why do you need these corporations? While you have many Sid Sushi resources, this corporation can be useful, but you still dont need it in all your cities. You have happiness problem in your core sities, so Sid sushi food bonus, produces angry citizens only, and the slavery civic is forbidden by UN resolution. Another big mistake, you have happiness problems in some cities and you still dont have coluseums and temples there.
About Jewelers INC, I dont know why do you need the culture bonus.

 

[Snovvdog]

Money bonus, coorp is located in a city with 200% commerce bonus, civ jewelers will give me more money than it costs in any case, As it also brings up money as most my cities have at least 50% money bonus and all have a courthouse, while some have 100% money bonus, free market additionally reduces coorp costs by 25%, so it would only bring loads of cash in.

Unhappyness: It was only late in the game, frederick stopped trading some luxury to me, but they were ALL happy a bit earlier ingame thx to 1 extra luxury and representation ( I switched only coz wanted to hurry space elavator, had cristo redentor anyhow so was anarchy free switch anyhows).

Sids sushi: I just wanted all my cities to grow more to grow my production etc. I could afford it imo. I could use more population in all my cities tbh.

Yeah indeed though I should have nuked Hammurabi first and went for space race after.

Ahwell next game I'll try to pay more attention to civilizations that could win a diplo victory, I didn't really pay attention as the only prince game I ever won myself was actually also won through the UN.

Also ty for taking a look @ my game .