How Does This Sound?

[BrantleyL1]

Im my current game, I've been doing this:

I'm no where near the top of the leader board, but not at the bottom.

The strongest opponents are likely well to my south - not bordering on me.

I've got 4 cities and feeling hemmed in. There are 6 of us on the continent. I have a barb city just to the north of me - up on the tundra and one just south of me. Vicky is just to my west. I'm on the East coast and just to my west is a large lake. Not sure how far out the coast is on the west. Just under the barb city is Rosy. I think he has most of the territory just below me.

I can pop out new axemen in 4 to 6 turns. I've built a few cats and will build more.

I'd been thinking about taking out Vicky (soon), but she made the first move and declared war on me. She tried to take out one of my cities, but failed. But not before doing some damage to my countryside. I took out an Iron mine of hers. She has not rebuilt it (Its right on the border). I proposed peace and she accepted.

Because of her distraction, I was not as well protected in a couple of spots and the barbs did some damage, too.

I did NOT lose any cities.

In her nearby city that I can see, she has 2 swordsmen and 2 archers.

Here's my thought for my plan in the next 10-20 turns.
0) Rebuild the stuff vicky and the barb took out.
1) Build a bunch more Axemen and some cats
2) Take out the barb cities and settle the area - for sure on the one to my north. Damn barbs just appear out of nowhere and wreak havoc.
3) Make friends with Rosy.
4) build up a little more and take out Vicky.

I'd say do 0 - 3 at the same time and wait a little on 4.

Lastly - a question. Fogbusting? What is actually meant by this?? I know that you can explore, but once you leave, the barbs will sometimes move back in. They can appear anywhere in the "fog" outside of your cultural boundries. I know I can post a unit just outside my cultural area - hopefully on a hill - and that will prevent barbs from appearing THERE. But is that really worth it?

 

[johncross21]

Bear in mind that if you are playing on a higher level vicky may be nursing a grudge so start by repairing damage to your road network and strenghening your frontier defences where there are gaps

On the barbs I don't know how effective stationing units outside your borders is as a strategy but expanding your borders by putting cultural building in your border towns might work.

 

[cabert]

Lastly - a question. Fogbusting? What is actually meant by this?? I know that you can explore, but once you leave, the barbs will sometimes move back in. They can appear anywhere in the "fog" outside of your cultural boundries. I know I can post a unit just outside my cultural area - hopefully on a hill - and that will prevent barbs from appearing THERE. But is that really worth it?

short answer: yes. Just look at your land after a few barbs!

long answer:
How does it work : you must prevent the fog from appearing by posting enough units outside your borders. For line of sight issues, every tile you culturally own is treated like it has a unit on it, so having some widespread cities is actually working good against barbs.
Also note that the AIs bust fog too, so if an AI city or unit "sees" a tile, no barb will spawn. The problem being that you must guess what they see, since you can't see it your self .
There are 2 main ways of fogbusting :
- total suppression of fog = no barbs at all. If you think you can manage this, you don't need strong units. A warrior, a scout, a settler, a worker fogbust exactly the same area with the same efficiency.
- partial fogbusting = less barbs, coming from further. Using this technique, you'll need to be able to take out the barbs that will spawn. So you either fortify a good defensive unit in good defensive terrain (hills also give further sight), or you use chariots to intercept the black flag guys.

 

[BrantleyL1]

UPDATE: Vicky must be really pi**ed. I was working on some repairs and building up some units to attack. Then she declared war again. She comes trooping through with a bunch of horse archers and knocks out a lot of my improvements AGAIN!! After many years and a skirmish where I wiped out a bunch of her horsemen, I asked for and received peace.

The Barbs were slightly less pesky. I wiped out two of their cities and vicky got one.

It's just before 1700 and I finally have gunpowder. I've got a few musketmen, 8-10 macemen, a "few" lancemen (?). I traded gunpowder to gengis for a couple of techs that I was missing. He is way south of me, but strong. I'll probably regret it in the end.

When I get a "few" more musketmen, I'm going to attack vicky. George is holding on just south of me. I've built an explorer and finally going to see what the lay of the land is to my south. I probably should have done that a while ago, but miss vicky has kept my mind on other things.

So, open question: I assume that I will wipe out vicky. Hopefully, it will not be TOO costly. I'm researching machinery and on my way to riflling. So, who do I take on next? Should I take out George to my south or move through him and take on someone to his south? I am trying to be agressive. I need to become better in that area.

 

[Gryman]

Musketmen are actually fairly weak offensive units. You are probably better to build more Macemen to wage an attack. Use muskets to fortify captured cities. When you get Chemistry or Rifling you can upgrade a couple city raider Macemen to Grenadiers or Rifles. Also don't forget to take plenty of seige units for bombarding and suicide attacks.

The question is how you would have 8-10 Macemen if you are still researching Machinery? Anyways, attack your strongest opponent first in order to slow them from running away.

 

[BrantleyL1]

Here's where I stand now... I misspoke earlier... I was researching printing press. Now on replacable parts. Building up just a few more macemen and planning to attack vicky in about one more turn. I'm 4th of 6 known civs. Kubla is #1 & Bismark is #2. Mansa is #3. I'm playin Mao at #4. George is #5 and Vicky #6.

Vicky is to my west and ocupies all the territory to my west to the coast. At least the part I can see. George is just to my south and stretches about the same width as my territory. Kubla is just south of him. Don't know where bismark or mansa are - except mansa has one TINY city way up on the northwest of the continent.

Two questions: First is "Did I make a mistake here??" I've been geared to go to war with Vicky for a few hundred years. She attacked twice just before I was ready to hit her. I don't want to let that happen again. So, Kubla asked for my aid in declaring war on Bismark. Reflexively, I refused. I don't have relations with Bismark, except maybe open borders. So what would have been the harm in declaring war on Bismark? Now, I have Kubla mad at me. But, I was planning an atttack on Vicky.... So, did I make a mistake?

Part (b) of that question - do the AIs actually expect you to actually DO ANYTHING when you declare war?? So, If I decalred war on Bismark and proceeded with my plans to wipe out Vicky and then turn my attention to Bismark, would Kubla be OK with that?? Or would he expect me to at least run a few units in for a fight? (I'm sure Bismark would be mad!)

2nd question: Should I have declared against vicky earlier?? I noticed that she had a bunch of workers doing improvements a few turns ago. Maybe I could have run in and captured a few workers. Of course, now the improvements are finished. So, when I take the cities & get the culture back, I'll get the improvements. So, should I have attacked earlier??

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I find you don't have to do anything when you are asked to declare war, you get a positive diplo bonus from the one that asked for mutual struggle and the one you go to war against is mad, normal you declared war penalty. They tend to just send pillagers unless you are really weak militarily. Wait until they calm down (and batter a few of the pillagers for the xp) and sue for peace without doing anything offensive. The one you war against may declare war later though so be on your guard.

EDIT: And you get the "you declared war on our friend" penalty so you may have a few AIs gunning for you as well.

 

[johncross21]

Sounds to me like you are falling behind here. Muskets in 1700. No wonder Vicky's caning you. One option for dealing with vicky is when you have rebuilt your defences and power to a reasonable level. Turn your research slider up and have cities churning out research. Get a tech lead on rifles then build as many as possible as quick as possible. While you have the tech lead you can go on the offensive. If you are just level or still worse behind on tech you need to focus on tech until you get grenadiers.