I play at prince level, warlords 2.08, and this gives me trouble every game: in the mid-1800s, I've pulled out to a small tech lead and have a large army, but then, every game, regular as clockwork, the trumpet sounds. I know it's coming, I heavily prepare, but still, I have issues when 20-40 cavs come pouring over the border, overwhelming my infantries and arts. My cannons and arts don't much colleral damage due to sheer numbers, and my combat 2 infantries can get only 60%-70%. I can outproduce my rival, but I have to spread myself thin against all possible roots of attack. Any general advice. Thanking you in advance.
Infinate Cav Rush
- Thread starter czechdude
- Start date
That really happens every game for you? I've had it happen a couple of times, but not like "clockwork."
Some pointers that might help:
1) Increase the size of your standing army. If the AI sees someone high on the score graph but low on the power graph, they'll seize the opportunity.
2) If you find yourself being swarmed and are behind on troop power, don't be afraid to switch to nationalism for a bit and draft yourself some troops. It's easy to draft yourself into oblivion, so don't go too gung-ho, but it might be vital to your defense effort.
3) If you're really outnumbered, forget about Combat II -- get the city defender promotions and turtle up. A handful of city defender infantry should be able to hold off a sizeable stack of cavs. The AI will pillage, it's true, but they're not *that* smart about it. Meanwhile, you'll earn no War Weariness (unless these are newly captured cities) while he's drowning in it.
4) Tied to number 3 -- if you have to suffer through that much pillaging, you might as well take advantage of the situation. After he breaks the back of his army on your city defenders, go on the offensive. Your offensive stacks should have a basically unimpeded march to his cities at this point
5) If you've got infantry and artillery, how far away from tanks are you? Do you have railroads? Maybe consider adjusting your research path: both of these can be crucial for defense. Railroads allow you to quickly adjust your city defenders based on the path of the invaders. Tanks not only pack the biggest wallop of the era, but they can attack twice per turn and can be given the barrage promotion.
From the details you've given here, though, I think #1 might be the key. You sound like you might be a bit of a builder, so don't neglect your military. =)
Some pointers that might help:
1) Increase the size of your standing army. If the AI sees someone high on the score graph but low on the power graph, they'll seize the opportunity.
2) If you find yourself being swarmed and are behind on troop power, don't be afraid to switch to nationalism for a bit and draft yourself some troops. It's easy to draft yourself into oblivion, so don't go too gung-ho, but it might be vital to your defense effort.
3) If you're really outnumbered, forget about Combat II -- get the city defender promotions and turtle up. A handful of city defender infantry should be able to hold off a sizeable stack of cavs. The AI will pillage, it's true, but they're not *that* smart about it. Meanwhile, you'll earn no War Weariness (unless these are newly captured cities) while he's drowning in it.
4) Tied to number 3 -- if you have to suffer through that much pillaging, you might as well take advantage of the situation. After he breaks the back of his army on your city defenders, go on the offensive. Your offensive stacks should have a basically unimpeded march to his cities at this point
5) If you've got infantry and artillery, how far away from tanks are you? Do you have railroads? Maybe consider adjusting your research path: both of these can be crucial for defense. Railroads allow you to quickly adjust your city defenders based on the path of the invaders. Tanks not only pack the biggest wallop of the era, but they can attack twice per turn and can be given the barrage promotion.
From the details you've given here, though, I think #1 might be the key. You sound like you might be a bit of a builder, so don't neglect your military. =)
In my last example, I was #2 in power at the time, had railroads and my only oil I lost to England culturaly. I am starting to win it back by settling GA though. And yes I am a builder, but only in the later ages when it's such a pain to organize and army. Off course, pre-1800 is 
time.
time.
Lord Parkin
aka emperor
One word: Bombers.In my last example, I was #2 in power at the time, had railroads and my only oil I lost to England culturaly. I am starting to win it back by settling GA though. And yes I am a builder, but only in the later ages when it's such a pain to organize and army. Off course, pre-1800 is
They're the key to any war in the later ages.60-70 percent isn't bad. You will inflict more losses than you will sustain. Try forming your troops into stacks of 4-5 with one infantry having guerilla 1. Use your roads tactically trying to draw the attackers against you when it is to your advantage. This means perhaps letting them sit there and pillage something for a turn but that is better than attacking them and losing just so they can pilliage the next turn anyway. Try and lure them into fights where you are on a hill across a river.
Though the best way to stop pillging is to be offensive. Take a stack of 10 guerilla infantry and plop them on a hill inside his/her lands and fortify them. The enemy will suicide just about everything to kill that stack. Be careful not to camp them directly next to a city or the AI will turtle up and still pillage you.
And GO GET YOUR OIL. you are one tech away from tanks. Sheesh, tanks do wonders when correcting cavalry attitudes. If it means starting a war with England then so be it. Take the city, rush about 4-5 workers over to build a well quickly then tank-o-rama until england is no more. Keep pumping tanks until the enemy finally has them. by that time you should have a huge chunk of land and enough gold coming in from the new cities to run at 70 percent science and still out tech the opponents.
Though the best way to stop pillging is to be offensive. Take a stack of 10 guerilla infantry and plop them on a hill inside his/her lands and fortify them. The enemy will suicide just about everything to kill that stack. Be careful not to camp them directly next to a city or the AI will turtle up and still pillage you.
And GO GET YOUR OIL. you are one tech away from tanks. Sheesh, tanks do wonders when correcting cavalry attitudes. If it means starting a war with England then so be it. Take the city, rush about 4-5 workers over to build a well quickly then tank-o-rama until england is no more. Keep pumping tanks until the enemy finally has them. by that time you should have a huge chunk of land and enough gold coming in from the new cities to run at 70 percent science and still out tech the opponents.
Another point you may want to look into is diplomacy. I can't tell from your description how you generally play out that part of the game but you should never neglect it.
I always ensure two things in my games:
1. Have at least one or two close friends. These are invaluable as trade partners, war allies and so on.
2. Keep other civs at one-anothers throats as much as possible. Bribe them into war, spread religions, ask them to stop trading, whatever it takes.
This can help prevent the sort of situation you've described here: civs will either be your friends or wasting their troops on another target.
Keep an eye on the power graph too. When a civ risks growing too strong you'll typically either want to attack them yourself (humans can beat AIs with substantially more power, simply because the latter are bad at warring), get someone else to attack them, or bribe the civ itself into war with a third party.
Even if they don't attack you it's dangerous to let a civ grow very powerful; they may become entirely unbeatable later on due to their inherent advantages (esp. cheap upgrapes)
I always ensure two things in my games:
1. Have at least one or two close friends. These are invaluable as trade partners, war allies and so on.
2. Keep other civs at one-anothers throats as much as possible. Bribe them into war, spread religions, ask them to stop trading, whatever it takes.
This can help prevent the sort of situation you've described here: civs will either be your friends or wasting their troops on another target.
Keep an eye on the power graph too. When a civ risks growing too strong you'll typically either want to attack them yourself (humans can beat AIs with substantially more power, simply because the latter are bad at warring), get someone else to attack them, or bribe the civ itself into war with a third party.
Even if they don't attack you it's dangerous to let a civ grow very powerful; they may become entirely unbeatable later on due to their inherent advantages (esp. cheap upgrapes)
Sounds to me like you need to attend to your diplomacy more carefully. Personally, I rarely ever get attacked; all of the AI civs are usually either weak/friendly enough not to be worried about, or are tied up in their own conflicts (often because I've bribed one side or the other to attack). Check out aelf's last EMC game for a great example of how diplomacy can be used to keep the more aggressive civs off your back.
Also, spreading your forces out isn't necessarily the best way to protect yourself. A concentrated force sitting on the border can be sent into enemy territory as soon as they attack, thus damaging their economy and drawing their troops away from your cities. It may also act as a deterrent; I'm not sure about this, but I've seen several occasions where I was sure a neighbour was preparing to attack, but seemed to be deterred when I moved a large army of my best forces into their sight range, blocking off their most likely avenue of attack.
edit: Sorry, I started writing before JoeBlade posted. Good advice there.
I was not trying to defend against all comers; I had a good idea Huanya would be the one to attack. However, I had I large border with him and Monty his vassal and on the other side Nappy who liked Huanya and had OB with him. I also had to spare some troops to defend my vassal Roosevelt, for the irrational reason he was a voluntary vassal and I should protect him. Thanks for all the great advice guys!
It depends on your situation.
I think you made your errors earlier.
Did you try to go for a peaceful victory?
Then you still need to attack one of your neighbors earlier to grab some more land then your opponents. And you should take a careful look to your relations. Make them happy! No state religion, trade resources over a long time, make bad (for you) techtrades or switch a civic to get a bonus.
I think you made your errors earlier.
Did you try to go for a peaceful victory?
Then you still need to attack one of your neighbors earlier to grab some more land then your opponents. And you should take a careful look to your relations. Make them happy! No state religion, trade resources over a long time, make bad (for you) techtrades or switch a civic to get a bonus.
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
The simple answer is you haven't built enough troops earlier if this is a problem. You have the tech and production lead and a healthy economy so there isn't really a reason that you need to be behind on the power graph at this point. The cure is probably to prioritize heroic epic earlier and have one or two cities that build nothing but troops even when you aren't preparing for war.
Numbers can swamp a tech advantage - I played the other side of this yesterday when I was the one making an infinite cavalry rush. I had probably around 100 cavalry + cannon + grenadiers vs HC who was well established with SAM infantry and artillery and threatening to run away with game with a 7-8 tech lead. Even with better units, he didn't have enough troops to survive the onslaught.
Numbers can swamp a tech advantage - I played the other side of this yesterday when I was the one making an infinite cavalry rush. I had probably around 100 cavalry + cannon + grenadiers vs HC who was well established with SAM infantry and artillery and threatening to run away with game with a 7-8 tech lead. Even with better units, he didn't have enough troops to survive the onslaught.
pigswill
fly (one day)
Are you dispersing units or building them into stacks? I'm surprised that a stack of eg 10 artillery can't do significant damage to a stack of eg 20cavalry.
Depending on how competitive the game is, you may not be able to be #1 in power without unit support cost problems, etc. But generally speaking, if you can establish a tech and economy lead, you can also establish yourself as #1 in power. But don't stop there - get a 30% lead over your nearest competitor. Then even the crazies (e.g. Monty) will usually leave you alone. If they do come after you, you'll be ready.
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
I agree that you may not be able to achieve #1 in power if you have a tech lead and not a production lead or vice versa - sometimes you need to come from behind. The problem here is someone who has that lead but isn't capitalizing on it enough. If you have a production lead and a tech lead you should be able to build better troops faster than anyone else - period. If you haven't done so its because you have prioritized buildings over troops.
For some reason cavalry seems to be a red flag tech to the AI. They get a massive boost in power by upgrading all their horse archers and knights to cavalry and suddenly start feeling aggressive. But with infantry and artillery they should be easy meat - fortified infantry should be killing cavalry at least 3-1 and a stack of 20 artillery should be able to completely decimate a large cavalry stack. And if you don't have a stack of 20 artillery by that time you haven't been building enough troops.
It isn't too hard to have a good defensive army by the modern era - you should have at least two good troop producing cities that can build a modern unit every 1-2 turns in the heroic epic city and every 3 turns in another city. Pretty much means one unit every turn. So after researching steel for example, 40 turns later you should probably have a stack of 40 cannons and artillery. The rest of your empire can continue building and researching kept secure by your production centers.
Troop maintenance isn't really a problem - if you are reaching a point where you have too many troops for your cities to maintain, you almost certainly have more than you need to just defend and enough to take some more cities from a vulnerable neighbour or demand cash from weaker players. If the combination of troop and city maintenance is a problem then you can just raze cities instead. (Caveat - this may not be true above Emperor - but I've never found below Emperor level that I had too many troops. Too many cities at times, but troops can always pay for themselves).
Anyway the cost of not building the troops is far higher - scrambling to build an army when you are attacked unexpectedly through drafting and whipping in your research cities does a lot of harm to your economy. You will take many more losses by meeting the enemy with insufficient troops and playing on the defensive. And you will take a lot more damage from pillaging etc.
Also, for what it's worth, if all you want to do is prevent them from attacking, you don't have to be #1 on the power charts. You just have to be a contender. Highest score + lowest power = big fat target.
Of course, if you're trying to maximize your score/get the earliest victory possible, if you have a tech and production lead you should probably be on the offensive anyway. I know that's not everyone's play style (it's not even really mine), but CIV definitely favors it.
Of course, if you're trying to maximize your score/get the earliest victory possible, if you have a tech and production lead you should probably be on the offensive anyway. I know that's not everyone's play style (it's not even really mine), but CIV definitely favors it.
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