Helping Hand - HRE Prince

[steviejay]

I've not played Civ4 for some time and I'm somewhat out of shape so was wondering if there's anyone who can give me a little helping hand to improve my game.

If you must know I've played this war out and slowly but surely I get sucked in. I take Yaroslavl' easily and when I move to Rostov the defences are too tight and I retreat back to Yaroslavl' to wait for reinforcements, in that time the Russians upgrade their forces like nothing else and end up overwelming me with knights, trebs and macemen. I was able to take Vladivostok but after that I just can't move any further.

Now I'm pretty sure this is prince but I'm not exactly sure.

Steviejay Save

 

[oldsaxon]

OK, I've played it a bit, so here's some stuff to think about:

- You can get more out of your cities. Many of them have reached the happiness cap, and you're in slavery... get my drift?

- Shouldn't you have switched to Hereditary Rule by now?

- Do you really want this was? Peter's your friend... Hannibal isn't. It might be easier to go to war with Hannibal, and hope you can get Peter to join in.

Now, assuming you do go to war with Peter, this is what worked for me:

- Split your stack. Leave half where it is, and send the other half to Vladisvostok. Don't declare war till they're both in postition. You should get both easily.

- The North stack will be barely scratched. Let it heal up, and then move out towards St. Pete and Rostov. Keep the stack together, move slowly, and heal when you're hurt. It'll probably be attacked lightly.

- The South stack should hole up in Yaroslavl and fortify. Just after they've healed, you'll be attacked by the garrison from Rostov (I fought off two waves of attacks). Once they've arrived at the city, attack out with your catapults - you'll lose some, but cripple Peter's army. When they do attack your fortified men, you'll make short work of them.

- The North stack should now have its pick of either St. Pete's or Rostov. Go for whichever's easier (I took Rostov).

- At this point, you're probably running out of men... but, Peter will talk now. So, make peace: he'll probably give you all his gold for it.

The end situation? You've taken three good cities, and gained some gold. Rebuild your army, and jump back into the fray. I'd advise using both your great generals (well, I got two) as military instuctors in Prague or Aachen. That way, when you re-declare for part 2, you'll have some really experienced troops to fight with.

Hope that helps.

 

[steviejay]

Thanks man, some more info-

Re: Hereditary Rule - I was going to switch to that but I missed it when I changed to something else and i needed to wait for a few turns to do that, it was up about the time of the same.

I decided to go to war with Peter because I didn't want Peter getting too powerful and also, this was kind of a trial game and wanted to see how I did against a larger opponent (read: badly)

I did bottle up in Yaroslavl and in the end they wiped me out with Macement and Trebs, even when I had crossbowmen with that third city defence promotion. True I did just stay there whereas you actually moved out after time.

I did get two generals when I played and build academies with them.

Thanks for the advbice, I'll have a go