Help! Every civ is after me.

[Wib]

I couldn't find the War forum. I thought there was one, maybe I'm just blind, so forgive me for posting here if this is the wrong place.

Anyway, every civ on the planet has now declared war on me and I'd be very grateful for advice. I can't meet the other Civ's demands for a peace treaty.
Here's the situation:

I'm playing on Regent. I've been fighting this war for about 40 turns.

There are 5 civs left, plus me as #6.

I'm on a continent with Spain only.

I have NO Navy (DOh! My bad...)

I have calvary, infantry, and artillery as my main force.

My government is communism. Has been for the whole war.

Every civ, except Spain, is sending transports to my continent on every turn and dropping them off in random places on the map. Looking for weak spots I guess.

I have rails, so I rush my artillery, cavalry, and infantry to the landing site and destroy the enemy. I've been very succesful with this. The AI doesn't cooperate with itself. The Civs land troops individually instead of ganging up on me and fighting together.

I'm behind in Techs. Waaaay behind apparently since the Maya are now sending destroyers, transports and bombers after me! I can't even fly a kite yet and they've got bombers!? The other civs do not have bombers.

The civs are the Maya, Americans, Spain, Iroquoi, Germany, and me as the Celts.

I only have about 200 gold and I'm making about 11 gpt. When I ask for a peace treaty from any civ they always want all of my gold and a few gpt. They won't take any less. The problem is that I won't have anything left to give other civs if I give anything away to one civ for peace.

So far I've lost two cities, one captured, one razed, but I recaptured the one and built a new one with a settler to replace the razed city. So I came out even.

They're beginning to be very difficult to stop. The troop landings continue and it's tough to destroy their units before another batch has landed somewhere else. I'm building infantry and cavalry as fast as I can, but dealing with sea landings from advanced civs plus a land war with Spain is becoming difficult.

Should I just drop the science slider down to 0 (it's on 60% now), get as much gold as I can and pay'em all off? Or should I keep building my military and slug this thing out?

I have two Armies also, but they're being used to defend my border cities from Spain.

The good news in all of this is that I'm learning how to fight (I'm fairly new to this). I'm getting pretty good at it too!

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

Oh and where's that War room forum?

 

[Shadow Phoenix]

can u post the save plz?
and i would reccomend killing spain first.
drop science to 0 and just pay a little to each

 

[Wib]

I'll try to post a save tonight after I get home. Never done it before though, but I guess I can figure it out.

I'd love to kill Spain. Nothing would please me more. But I'm afraid to attack due to a loss of forces needed for defense. Are you saying I should just go for it?

Ok, I'll drop the slider and see if I can buy the other civs off.

Thanks!

 

[Wib]

Ok, I attached the saved game. The year isn't 280 AD by the way. I just keep using the same name for the file when I save it.

Thanks!

 

[denyd]

Attack and raze a couple of Spanish cities. Isabella should then sign peace (and probably pay for the priviledge). Since you're already communist, use one of it's strengths and steal techs. You'll need to research espionage if you haven't already and then shut off research, plant spies and steal techs. Try to steal ones that you can trade for peace with the other AI. You might even be able to gain an ally or two if you can get a powerful tech they don't have.

The AI is pretty inept at water based invasions, so your main threat is Spain and you will need to eliminate her regardless of which victory goal you are shooting for. Try to get to flight as bombers and artillery will allow you to attack and win with minimal losses.

 

[rysingsun]

ill give the advice i always give for games like this.

its all about alliances.

but for alliances you need gold right? so ...

turn science to zero for a nice long time. save up lots of gold. dont make a peace treaty if it wouldnt leave you with at least 1000 spare gold because ....

after the peace treaty you want to immediately talk this same power into an alliance with you against one of the other ai .. preferably one on his same continent. this would tie them BOTH up for potentially a very long time. dont make peace with the ai power you formed the alliance against. the last thing you want now is a bad reputation. and two powers duking it out against each other on a common border will use up their "spare troops" (i.e. those outside their cities) pretty quickly.

after this save up gold until you can repeat the process with someone else.

im normally against mutual protection pacts but if you make one with spain it might be worthwhile. you absolutely want to avoid an invasion by them in the near future and mpps are cheap compared to alliances. a mpp with them will end up with spain being at war soon enough with absolutely everyone but you. this will take half the heat off you very quickly. but there is a downside too. it will save your butt but it will also trash your reputation. if an invasion by spain would lose the game for you then id do it. otherwise id try to stick to alliances.

artillery is your friend. it is probably THE reason you are still a contender for this game. if you dont have enough to redline EVERY unit that lands on your continent in a given turn you will benefit from more. those and cavalry to kill the redlined units. the infantry are secondary to this.

have you mobilized for war? if not i would suggest doing so.

dont worry about your navy for now. there is no way on earth you will build enough naval units to challenge this many ai's coming after you at once. it will only use up limited resources.

the only tech you really NEED to win this game is mobile warfare. and even that is debatable. artillery and cavalry can work wonders even against infantry. given your limited research budget id make that the general direction of research for you. but that in the context of not researching until you achieve peace with everyone.

 

[gunnerxtr]

One thing you can do is instead of using your armies on defense, send them to pillage the spanish (or other civs) land normally the AI does not attack armies bc they are so powerful therefore you armies are free to roam aroudn and destroy other civs infrastructure.

 

[Wib]

Good advice from everyone. Thank you!

I do have a question though. How do you "mobilize" for war. I'm making as many war units as I can now. Is there something else I should be doing?

 

[gunkulator]

To mobilize, you have to have Nationalism. On the F1 screen, near the top, right below your current government is the mobilization option. Right now it should say normal. Click on it and switch to war time.

What does it do? It acts kinda like a mini golden age. Every tile that is producing at least one shield will produce another as long as that city is building a military unit. Settler, workers, explorers and artillery don't count as military units. There is no effect on commerce.

Now the bad news. You can't start any non-military production when you are mobilized. No temples, markets, libraries, etc. can be started. You can keep working on any in-production buildings when you switch, you just can't start any new ones. Barracks, walls, harbors and the like may still be started, although you gain no shield bonus. Most wonders can't be built, although Military Academy can.

More bad news: Cultural output is halved.

Even more bad news: You can't switch out of war time production until you do one of the following: a) sign at least one peace treaty or b) destroy an enemy.

In general I don't recommend mobilization, but in your case if you really are just barely holding on, it might be the right thing to do.

 

[Wib]

Excellent! Thank you!