How to defend as Tall Empire vs paratroopers spam swarm?

[Paramecium]

The title is already explaining my problem. I was Egypt on Emperor, late game, neighbour an aggressive Inca, who dow'ed continiously throughout the game, but behind him was Songhai with whom I got a defensive pact and my small army was in general enough to defend his approachs, just had to repair my improvements in my border cities. I strongly focused on culture and infrastructure, I went tradition -> artistry -> rationalism and had to pick Order instead of Freedom as ideology because everyone else went there and my happiness was not higher then Polands, who was not surprisingly the culture leader.

Like I said, I still had quite a small army, around 12 units with a 16 unit level cap or so. But they were quite strong. The problem was, I had a defensive Pact with Polynesia too and Poland like Inca didnt like me that much, Poland began way earlier, even both of them made my religion the world religion.
After Inca Poland declared too, after he nearly has eaten Babylon who was between us. Somehow, both declarations didnt trigger Askia to join that upcoming WW.

Defending was always fine, in needs I could buy an unit, but I was robbed before even with lvl 3 spy in capital. But oh boy, I was very surprised that the AI pulled that trick, Inca had access to a mountain range which gave him paratrooper access to nearly my whole empire and he spammed 6 paratroopers per turn and pillaged me to oblivion... and when I moved my workers out to repair, they always got captured and again, pillaged

How often you encounter that? What are your strategies? To mention, I didnt want to warmonger in that game at all, so to speak, defend yeah, but no conquering, I wanted to achieve CV without conquests.

Let your worker in the cities until there is room to repair? But my happiness dropped in the dozens per turn ...
Sure, I could have concentrated more on military and should give my workers an escort but yeah, that was kind of tough, both leaders, ahead in everything expect in tourism, ganged up against me ... ^^

 

[Stalker0]

I will quote you:

"Sure, I could have concentrated more on military and should give my workers an escort..."

Sounds like the AI did exactly what it needed to do to win, and exploited your key weakness. You focused too hard on tourism and neglected your military, and paid the price.

I have seen the AI use paras more, but I will say never seen them go that heavy, so I give them kudos.


But ok that aside, what are some legitimate ways to counter this? First note, determine their actual paratrooping range into your civ. The key is you want to spread out some cheap units to minimize how far they can move through your territory, especially on your roads and strategic resources. Paratroopers with Survival III are powerful pillagers but ultimately they can't beat concentrated attacks, so once you pin them down killing them isn't so difficult.

If your crusing into a CV endgame, the key is you don't need to get your land perfect. If your capital is safe, and your infrastructure intact you can hold out against getting some lands pillaged. You won't stop them 100%, but your goal is just to mitigate damage. Eventually as they keep sending paras to their death, you will start costing them more than they cost you.

 

[ryanmusante]

If your crusing into a CV endgame, the key is you don't need to get your land perfect. If your capital is safe, and your infrastructure intact you can hold out against getting some lands pillaged. You won't stop them 100%, but your goal is just to mitigate damage. Eventually as they keep sending paras to their death, you will start costing them more than they cost you.

Do you use paratroopers enhancements mod? I haven't made it to late game in a while. Do para move after drop?

 

[Stalker0]

Do you use paratroopers enhancements mod? I haven't made it to late game in a while. Do para move after drop?

I don't use any mods, but the VP paratroopers can move after drop. Funny enough, I'm dealing with the exact same thing in my current game. I've got a major force hitting my eastern border, while they and a different civ are paradropping me in key places.

Its definitely tough, but following the same advice I gave you. I've made my capital impenetrable, and I'm focusing on minimizing damage and buying time. My tourism is high enough that the CV is basically guaranteed as long as I can just hold out. We shall see!

 

[tu_79]

If you are playing tall, you definitely need to keep your army at the supply limit, renewing some old fashioned units by some modern ones from time to time. Even consider to build any warmonger building that increases supply limit. Citadels in good locations can keep you safe for longer while increasing supply limit.

You can do as Stalker0 says, and try to hold with the little you have and focus on your victory, or have 4-6 more units so you hold there forever, while also having an advantage at cultural/scientific victory.