How to win a lost war?

[Mowque]

I made a few mistakes and now i'm at war with the largest force on earth, it is the industrail age with calvary and infantry and cannons.
the reason it happened was that the small civ i was ifghting vasseled inself to China, which is nearby and has a huge army.

They snet a few huge stacks over against my east border, the oopsite side of where the war is taking place! We have near parity in tech but he outnumbers me like 2-1! how can i survive? i have been making massive susicde attacks but i ca't slow him down. should i fight in the open or in city?

Also my major cities are the ones he is attcking and i have few units on them. help please?

 

[asabahi]

Nationhood and draft troops. Hopefully that will help. Although by defination I do not think you can win a lost war.

 

[mice]

There could be a big gap between the first wave of troops and the next one. Stay calm and try to work your way through the attacks one at a time. I mean it seems overwhelming but if you dont give up you might be able to weaken the attack force bit by bit.

Use seige to cause collateral damage on the same turn that you then attack with the troops that you have. Heal in cities and make good use of medics, then go out and hit with seige and troops when you can.

Alot of what is pillaged can be rebuilt, but it's disheartening. Bribe another civ to go to war with the enemy if at all possible,draft,whip.

 

[Lucky Charms]

A lot of times, the AI trows everything it has at you in one big wave. Try to weather the storm.

Use the whip! , it helps massively. Draft as well, soon you can have a large force in a short amount of time. Also, do what the above posts have said.

You should be fine, rebuild what you have lost, and exact revenge on your enemy!

 

[OceansEleven]

Catapults cannons whatever. Have atleast 5 catapults or 3 cannons. Collateral damage, of course. Get like 6 guys, can be upgraded to the first star of whatever. Just coll. damage them all, and attack with the 6 guys or whatever. They'll go down. Hopefully one of the cannons will have made it through, and use it on the next turn.

AI is stupid sometimes. Always sends in 1 big wave. Best way to destroying it, of course, is coll. damage and have a sufficient army within range to kill it all.

Try to get another civ. to declare war on them.

 

[ChicagoCubs]

Also, if you can, get a pillaging unit into the AI land. Inflict as much damage as you can there. The added gold might help you coffers enough to get someone else to declare war on the AI.

 

[Crighton]

Hang on as long as possible and sue for peace, then reraise your forces and go get some justice. Raise the vassals cities, conquer the masters. It should split the two up sooner and if so you might take the vassal yourself or continue on to his death.

 

[Mowque]

in case anyone was wondering i did mange to win and it was mostly with your help of not panicing! i won kind of like the Russians did in WW2, i traded space for time. I bled him white at each of my cities and ruthlessly went after all of his weak units! I mangaed to have two other civs delcare war on him and now i am the master! i gave actaully vasselized China!

My new panzers are running rodshod over everyone else! thank you for convincing me not to give up that game!

 

[Barney's_Soul]

First I want to say that you got owned by that little civ

Second, defending > attacking. Of course you don't get much while defending opposed to attacking, but you have:
A - Roads
B - You are at your base, you don't have to cross territory to get around
C - Cities to defend in
D - A brain(all Ai's expect for Catherine are very broken in war, Cathy actually pressures you all throughout, everyone else has broken war code or something, so Zedong will leave you alone once you crush his first army)


So by knowing your advantage, hit him down then make peace. Then delare war on him 15-20 turns later once you mobilized your army, and pay him back!

 

[Mutineer]

Draft, Draft, Darft... Whipe whipe whipe

 

[PedalPower]

Draft, Draft, Darft... Whipe whipe whipe

Whipe? I'm sort of glad that's not a word.

 

[slowcar]

maybe he meant wipe

i favor attacking to defending. Defend means: attack the attacker
Especially due to collateral damage the attacker is always on the greener side, given some siege weapons to suicide first.

 

[Thomas G.]

I think he meant "whine".

Your comparison with russia is most accurate, because the AI will behave like the Wehrmacht in WWII. When advancing in late summer/fall of 1941, they had too much focus on controlling the terrain, and subjugating encircled sovjet armies. Therefore they did not reach moscow, which just might have tricked the sovjets to sue for peace.

In the same way you can win against AI. Your border towns against a strong AI might have to fall. But this is not too bad (like it was in civ2). They will be unusable to the AI for many turns. And the AI will leave garrison in them. If you leave just one defender, AI will often stop one turn to reduce cultural defense. The AI will also pillage improvements, which also can split up his forces. All this will enable you to mass a counterattack force. And mass it you must, do not defend like France/Britain in 1940 by spreading out your counterattacking units and try to be strong everywhere. German approach by massing panzers and attacking the "schwerpunkt" works better.

Choose your own fight when fighting a "lost" war. You can afford to lose terrain, improvements, even some cities. But you need troops. When the AI makes a mistake (like splitting up his forces, or leaving his stack in the open next to your stronghold, you take advantage and hit him with all you got. Collateral damage first. After a while your siege weapons stop dying. And then each & every attack you make kills an enemy unit. In the end even an old archer can kill a weakened industrial-age unit. Use all your troops, leave internal cities open if you need. After one such successful assault you will suddenly have more troops at hand than your enemy, and your troops will be more promoted, while all promoted enemies remain dead & gone.

I like to road my entire territory, when I've built most tile improvement with workers. Reason is precisely this scenario - when being invaded. Having roads means you can hit an enemy and run away after. Even if you kill the last enemy in a square. If you don'y have roads around your whole territory you should have road in the 3*3 square outside your cities. Lately I have started chopping the area just around my cities clear so enemies won't get defensive bonuses when I really want to/need to destroy them.

By the way, these wars are a lot of fun to fight. Planning out an elaborate set-piece offense against a hapless target doesn't feel as serious somehow.

 

[LordRahl]

How to win a lost war? Easy. It's been done countless times throughout human history. You can't actually win the lost war, but what you can do is, win the next war, and re-write the history. It's the victorious that write the history after all...

 

[EquinoxOmega]

exhaust all diplomatical options(try to get your enemy into trouble or make peace with him, give him some territories, you may recounquer it after a short recouvery periode.

 

[EquinoxOmega]

If nothing works, you can at least try to make your enemy loose the war too, so fight as hard as you can and the "victory" of your enemy will taste for him like a disgraceful loose.