Early war mongering on deity - bad idea?

[zerksees]

Is it a good idea to start a war with the AI to give them "something to do" while you are building infrastructure in the early BC game on deity? Please read below and tell me if you think this can work - thanks

I am playing Persia on a standard map deity game PBEM with one other human player and 6 AI. Roaming barbarians and continents on the map. Other human playing Ottoman. Ottomans and I have discovered two AI - Japan and Arab. I have three cities, Arabs have six. Ottomans and I are teaming up to try to tackle the deity challenge.

I declared war on Japan about 1800 BC. So far Japan has lost 4 warrior and I have lost one archer.

Last turn, 1500 BC, Arabs demanded tribute. I have paid my fair share of tribute in previous games, but this time did not since I want them to try to come and get me. It is early so I am expecting archers, spearman and warriors. These I can easily defeat with veteran archer and spearman defending the city. The only reason I have to leave city is if he starts tearing up my improvements, esp. irrigated cattle grassland square. I have one remaining archer, about 5 spearman, 2 warrior, and walls in the cities.

Ottomans are remaining at peace - they can still trade techs with these AI players, and give them to me. With the two of us, we are only about one tech behind right now.

I just got iron working but need to find iron to get the immortals going.

I am hoping I can use better tactics to drain the AI of his units.

 

[Speaker]

It's generally not a good idea to go to war early in Deity since the AI gets so many free units. If you can, however, park a spearman or two on a mountain and somehow induce the AI into attacking you there, you could kill off their units. Unless you go on the offensive, you will probably have to pay for peace, and that will not help you stay caught up in tech.

 

[Shillen]

Only time I'll go to war early in a deity game is if I find an undefended AI town and that AI doesn't know where I am. I'll destroy that city and then sue for peace asap. Otherwise I'm just praying the AI doesn't decide to attack me with all of its free units. Early war on deity usually results in a losing game. You have to be really good to survive an AI attack before 1500 BC and still expand enough to remain competetive.

 

[DaveMcW]

I generally fight my first offensive war on deity around 800 or 600 BC. At that point the AI has stopped building units, but does not have pikemen or massive culture yet.

If you get sneak attacked early or refuse a demand nono:) your best bet is to hold a defensive position until you can sue for peace. Alliances are expensive and your allies won't slow down their expansion to help you out.

 

[tao]

I'm about to finish my first deity game (playing Persia) and early wars were very important. I met two important criteria however:

1. having iron and
2. being out of despotism
   [/list=1] because this allowed for my immortals to trigger a productive Golden Age. Since you don't research above minimum on deity early on, you can save money to upgrade lots of cheaply produced warriors and horsemen to immortals and knights.

 

[Moonsinger]

I always give them what they want. Even if they are far away, I don't want them to declare war on me that early. Even when they can't really hurt me, they could always get my next door neighbor to hurt me badly; therefore, it would be best if I just give them what they demand.

PS: I usually go to war the moment I got knight. Here is a snapshot of my current Deity game. I'm playing the Chinese in pink.

 

[zerksees]

Thanks for your replies!

I have been doing well in a defensive posture, generally taking about six AI units to my one, but I am still getting beat in expansion real bad. Arabs have 13 cities and I have 4. It is around 1150 BC now in the game.

Both Japan and Arabs are willing to give me peace for around 25 gold plus 3 GPT. Based on advice here I think I am going to cut my losses and have some peace. This strategy may have put me in a bad position but I will play it out and see how far I can get.