Help with HRE... Stupid Greeks are too powerful

[digitCruncher]

This game has been a lot of Firsts... first kill of a civilization on Noble, first colony, first (partly successful) attack of an island I have no control whatsoever over. First struggle for a city that lasted more than 5 turns (I lost SO MANY 80% chances on that city... its just not funny )

Well, now I have astronomy I have recovered from a pollution problem that ruined my classical/early-medieval era, by trading with Pericles, of the Greeks. After I was loosing nearly 40 GPT, at 60% science, I decided to make a small colony (the Germans) who are doing quite well, and also love me (I never knew about the +10 modifier you get from making a colony. Thats quite awesome. However, can they cancel the vassal state agreement? Is it capitulation or a regular vassal state agreement?). I have attacked my previous friends, as I need much much MUCH more land, and my island is almost completely colonized (the little that ISN'T colonized is almost wasteland, or going to be under huge cultural pressure eventually).

Here is the save game. It was a good start (thus the name), I had a continent to share between me and the Celts. Anyway, I killed them in the early-ancient era, and rapidly expanded, using the HRE UB to the most of its advantage. I colonised most of the northern continent, and a small land-grab war, which took 2 turns, got me 3 Babylonian cities. However, everything that could go wrong did. The pasture was destroyed by tornadoes TWICE, when I was building my mounted attack against the Celts, slowing my attack by 12 turns. Then, after the first city fell without a problem, and the capital fell soon after, I lost 3 80% chances to take the final city, and had to move some city guards to take out the final (Combat III) warrior.

On the second war, everything went without a hitch, but on the third I:

Lost several galleons to triremes
Had a city grab take 5 TURNS, simply because my UU couldn't win 80% battles to save itself (It won 30% battles routenly though )
My spy, which only needed to keep hidden for 1 turn, got caught on the first turn, before it could create anarchy within the country...

As a result, my wars have been not very successful. Then I noticed Pericles, of the Greeks. He has 1000 points more than me (2nd place person), which is more than 3 civilizations. He is researching steam power, has 5 or 6 more techs than me, and vastly out numbers me in strength, techs, and size.

Its at noble difficulty, but I was wondering how you would take out the Greeks. I want a conquest/domination/diplomatic victory if possible, as I haven't won any other victory than time/space race. However, its not everything, as any victory would be nice on noble . I believe score is out of the question, and I don't think I have enough wonders to do culture. Space race, if possible, will be nearly impossible with the Greeks tech lead.

This also has three questions:

* Is it better to ally to the strongest person, knowing that you will only make them stronger, and thus harder to kill when you need to, or is it better to ally to the moderately powerful civs, knowing that they won't ever be as strong as the strongest civ, although they won't be much of a help either...

* If I build the forbidden palace in the southern city on the Babylonian island, will that take out all colonial expenses? Or will I have to make a vassal out of Babylon, and make a new colony out of Babylons ex-cities? (thus getting me that much closer to domination )

* Finally, I noticed that my last save game is still on the attached files thingy... how do I remove it? (the Manage Attachments thing... I want to remove my old save game from the list)

Cheers.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Here are some things I would try.

*Your civics--your're running decentralization when you have mercantilism and free market available. I would switch to free market then make open borders with Mansa and any other civ who is running free market.

*If you do switch to free market then I would gift education and economics to your vassal and ask him to run free market. Gifting him some techs or even just doing the "what do you want for this and then agreeing to whatever he says" will help him stay friendly. I am not sure but I think that plus 10 for granting independence DOES decay over time and they can declare independence if they stop liking you too much.

*Also your vassal does have a couple of resources you dont have. Ask or demand em since thats what vassals are for hehe

*As for pericles--for now I would make peace with nappy ASAP and focus on hammurabi. If you win liberalism race then pick chemistry as free tech then go for military science to get frigates and genadiers or pick military tradition for curiasers and then research chem and mil sci.

*Try to get you tech rate going a lil higher, just geting free market and open borders with other civs running free market should help. I also might switch to beauracracy to for a lil beaker help. I know your running vassalage for the war but maybe going theacracy instead of org rel might be better. Organized religion doesnt really help wartime builds much and going theocracy will let you keep the extra 2 exp (at least in cities running your state rel) and still run beuracracy.

Pericles might be a lil tuff to out tech. If it were me i would do my best to get as many civs on his continent to dogpile him. Unfortunately the TWO best civs for that Shaka and Nappy dont like you very much at this point.

You could try gifting techs to get shaka to like you but that all by itself probably wont be enough. Hammarabi is your only rival for the AP so once you take him out switch to free religion or even shaka's religion if you can. Then giving some gifts might be worth a try but I am still not really sure if it can get him friendly enough to be bribed into going after pericles :/.

whether or not you can gget shaka going on your side you need to do a little planning. Try to figure out how many civs on that continent you CAN get to declare and maybe if its alot Shaka may join the dogpile.

I would try to time it so they all declare one or two turns before you get there. Otherwise if you join in too late Pericles might end up having TONS of new vassals and that wouldnt be helpful to your cause hehe.

But if you DO plan to go the military route to take Pericles down remember two things. 1) you dont have to wipe him out. Crippling him (and hopefully everyione else on his continent dragged into the war) is your main goal. Raising all his best cities and army anting all his improvements will help your cause just as much as capturing them.

2) you will want HUGE stacks to go in. Make TONS (by TONS I mean like 5 seige uintis promoted to accuracy which you NEVER suicide at least 10 but as many as you can get of additional baraage/city raider siege units that you WILL suicide) 10-15 of your best city attack units 4-6 units of stack defenders half promoted to defend against gunpowder, half against mounted and maybe even a couple against siege and at least 1 medic unit.

remember thse are just numbers of what I would want at minimum in a stack to go after a civ the size of pericles if I could get more in the stack I would but I wouldnt want any stack to be less than that and this is with razing more than capturing in mind

when planning oncapturing I just depends if I think his counter attack will be weak I wont leave more than 2 or 3 garrison units if I think it might be strong or an important city I would bring in 5 or more garrison and even keep the attack stack in the city until I am sure the counter attack is done.

If I am in a hurry I will just leave behind some of my attack force other times I trail like 10 or so city garrison troops behind the attack stack they move in while attack stack abosrbs big counter attack/and or heals then when counter attack mostly over and attack stack all healed they go on ahead to next target while city garrsion stack waits then when next target taken I leave as many or few defnders as I am comfy with and rest go on to newly captured target while main stack waits and heals or absorbs counter attack and so on and so on. After awhile I start moving up some of the extras. Like say very first city I take I will leave like 5 or 6 but as more cities ahead get taken and that first city isnt on frontlines anymore I will leave just one or two and send the rest on to help out the frontline cities but against pericles I wouldnt even bother making city defenders I would be raziing and pillaging

Hopefully depending on how soon you go in you will have force made up mostly of grenideirs curiassers, trebs or cannon with maybe a few landsknect with formation to be your stack defenders against mounted.

Once your cripples pericles--his original captitol razed, his best cities razed (especially his best coastal cities --the more of them you raze the less chance of him sending anything to your continents) then get him to give you techs for peace and maybe even vassalize him. Then start picking on the weak which will probably be Mansa his ex vassal at that point. Attack him and get whoever is willing to join you and attack and this time take his cities until you vassalize him and then repeat with the next weakest after that and so on until you get domination If you manage to the diplomacy right you can keep Shaka with you all the way since you will get tons of mutual military struggle points (just keep you power rating up so he doesnt start feeling froggy)

Also when preparing your war build up start planing on the trade hits. Unfortunately Pericles is one of your best trading partners and if you get free market and open borders with mansa then his vassal will be too. So dont plan on teching too much or your cities grwoing once the fighting starts it might be a looong bloody march until you get everyone vassalized if thats the way you want to go.

Another minor thing I didnt check but if Pericles has Statue of Zeus find out whch city has it. if its a coastal city THAT city will be the first city you want to raze. If its not in a coastal city then after you land on his continent you want THAT city razed ASAP. if he doesnt own it then find the closest coastal city top his captitol. Raze that city then march to his captiol and raze that. And remeber whoever does own it and you plan to attack em you want the city that has it destroyed even more than their capitol.

Ideally you will actually have at least two big stacks. One stack lands on coastal city closest to his capitol/or city that has statue of zeus. Raze coastal city and then the captitol/zeus city. Your second stack will stay loaded on galleons and runn down the coast escorted by frigates taking out all his coastal cities one by one (land em on best defense terrain then bombard defenses down with your frigates (so the "navy stack wont need as many seige units) raze the city then heal and then load back up (so dont forget the medics since you want to heal as fast as possible) and sail to next coastal city)while your first stack is causing havoc on his interior.

And if you dont want to spend the time to make two huge stacks at least make a pillage stack to run through his interior while the main stack does the coastal run. Like a squad of a grenider promoted up to pinch and a landsknect promoted up to formation or as clase as you can to it and a curiiasr. this will be your basic pillage squad (which can fit on a galleon so its convenit) keep them grouped together never send the curriaser or any of the suqd off by himself, the grenider and landsknecht will defend while the curriasr pillages. Target resources, and towns but avoid actally fighting as much as you can. dont have em attack units just pillage.

This might get hard if he gets or has rifling before you can start but its still dooable especially if you can get other civs on his continent to join in. It will just mean that the war will be you ONLY focus. LOTS of suicide trebs or hopefully cannon with ALL your cities pumping and shipping replacements for them and your attack units as fast as you can.

I hope this helps a lil bit. Your might want to wait for other better players to give advice they muight be more helpful. I just gave advice on what I would do but I am nowhere near the best player at this game but I think a plan like that CAN work however I am sure the better players will definitely have advice to get it done faster or easier.

Anyways have fun and good luck

Kaytie

 

[digitCruncher]

This is the part where I go into the corner and cry . It seems the more I learn about the Greeks, the more I feel powerless against thier unbeatableness...

OK, just a small update. I spend around 10~12 turns taking the northern babylonian city, raze the next southern one, and capture the capital (to complete a quest to capture the holy city. I got 5 musketmen for it, and then later on, I get pinch on all them . I think my luck is slowly changing...)

After I capitulate Babylon, I gift Babylon back to them, as the cultural borders are far too strong. I then gift tons of techs to my vassals, as when the great war begins, they will need to defend me and themselves...

I grab a great spy I forgot about, and two spies and send them to Greece. I then fortify the spies, and get some espionage points to get enough points to steal Steam Power from Greece. Now, remember, only about 15~20 turns have passed. Even by slaving I could not launch a decent attack in time... so there was no way I could have attacked earlier.

But just before I land, I realise something that ruins Kayties plans. Not only have the Greeks got Riflemen ... they have ****ing INFANTRY on EVERY city. I have no idea how they have got so powerful.

I then check out the Mayans techs... researching electricity, and obviously going for broadway. If I don't get all 3 wonders (Broadway / Rock and Roll / Hollywood), I am screwed for cultural victory, and even with 100% techs, Im still 40 turns away from broadway...

I have an idea on how to get on the Greeks continent: Attack the Native Americans. They are extremly weak, and the 4 cities I could potentially take in less than 10 turns, hopefully fast enough to attack, get a base on, and capitulate the Natives...

If the Natives capitulate to the Greeks, my forward base is as good as dead. The BUG mod says I have 0.4 of the strength of the Greeks. I barely won an amphibious war with equal strengths, and only won it because I could reinforce within 3 turns. For the war against the Greeks, I can only reinforce once every 10 or so turns, even with the speed bonus my ships have... so if the native war fails, then I will have no forward base...

Cultural victory is out. Space race is almost certainly out, saving a few poor tech choices Greece or Maya does... Domination seems the most likely victory condition, and even that is almost nigh impossible.

Here is my plan: If there are any major flaws, tell me plz.

Step #1: Capture the 4 southern Native cities. DO NOT LET THEM CAPITULATE UNTIL ALL 4 are taken. This means that the last two cities need to be taken at exactly the same time.

Step #2: Beeline flight, then build airports on the Natives cities. Airlift as many troops as I can into the ex-Native empire.

Step #3: Declare war on Greece. The capital is too far in to launch an amphibious assault. Hope like MAD my vassals can protect me somewhat... if not then constantly build defences on my western shores.

This war will have two major components. The first part will be mass pillaging of the capital and major cities. The next part will be capturing 2 more cities. As soon as I have 6 cities, let those cities declare independance (+1 , PLUS they will get 2 Infantry / Mech-Infantry). Spies will be needed to try and stop them getting a space-race victory. Now all I can hope is that Maya will not get cultural victory, but with the Greeks with the most CULTURE, I don't think that is a possiblity...

What do you guys do when you are #2, and the #1 vastly out-techs, out-numbers, and out-sizes you (I own 24% of the population, and 25% of the area. Greece owns 29% of the population, and 31% of the world)? This has been my BEST noble game, and I don't want to quit. Just think: I was HRE, which is Uber-expansive, and I had an entire continent for myself... how could the game be ANY better?

PS. Can anyone tell me WHY Greece got so strong? And does anyone think that they could possibly win this game? I mean, a good deity player could do this, I am sure. But I am NOT attacking with Rifles when, no doubt, the defending people will be Marines and Machine gunners.