joe6778 said:
I am building barricades all around the coast of my homeland. Is this worthwhile? I figure if I place a musketman in each one, it will be very difficult for anyone to attack me.
Not at all worth it. The AI almost always completely and utterly fails to land worthwhile forces anyway, so just keep a double-handful of Knights or Cavalry on hand to bushwack anything that lands.
Since its very difficult to take enemy cities, should I attack my rivals or just sit back, build up my defenses, and try to win another way? Am I on the right track?
*Hums "On the Right Track" from
Pippin*
I tend to be fairly aggressive most of the time, but I also always play with Conquest VC and few others (Dom, usually, sometimes Diplo). If you're finding it difficult to take cities, and that's all that's keeping you from attacking, restructure your attack forces. Keep a few Defenders (Muskets, for example - say 4), a decent amount of Attackers (Knights, or Cavalry if you've got them - say, 2-3 times the number of Defenders, so 8-12), and a whole pile of Cannon/Artillery (Trebs are usually too weak unless you're dealing with inferior troops or have a positively gargantuan number - in any case, ~20 artillery units should do well).
Now that you have your miniature Stack of Doom, keep them all together and take cities one at a time. If you don't particularly care about *keeping* the cities, I'd say raze them, and send some Settlers and Defenders to found your own cities if you want to. Try to get other civs to go to war with whoever you're at war with, and don't panic. Even if they wipe out your strike force, you've hopefully destroyed at least a couple cities by that point, and two or three cities destroyed is usually a more-than-fair trade for ~40 units, especially when you add in the units you've destroyed in the taking of them.
One last thing regarding Culture Flips - if you really, really don't like them at all, I'm pretty sure there's an option to turn them off when you start a new game.