Invincible Enemies

[primem0ver]

I have discovered an annoyance that has occurred in the one game I have played of late. I started with no traits so that I could select them as time went on. I believe the computer can do the same. One of the countries I am at war with can have 6-8 promotions on a single unit without any real combat experience (brand new). The minimum I have seen on any of his units is 5. The most I can get is 3 (brand new).

That basically means that I cannot defeat his units at a comparable tech level. I sent an army of around 20 units to attack his city of 4 units, one of which had half my hit points. I had promoted my units to maximize a specialty. In other words, they were specially promoted to defeat archers (95% bonus) and melee (90% bonus). Before I attacked I lowered the cities defenses to 0%, doing damage with 7 battering rams. Even so, I lost all my units except the battering rams and he didn't lose a single unit until I attacked with my special unit with twice as much strength (which was the only non-siege unit that survived the battle). That is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. Am I missing something?

I noticed that he has aggressive, protective, and charismatic as his traits. Can we make it so they can't have more than one of these traits? Or make it so that these traits don't have such huge bonuses to military might?

 

[LumenAngel]

With these 3, you will have hard time to attack his city with same tech level....
Unless you flank him and use bombard option more...

 

[JJOne]

Let me get this, you choose only economic traits and expect to beat an opponent who chooses only military traits? It should definitely not be easy.
I see multiple options: Settle more great generals. Take mercenaries as civic. Take a great commander with your army. Get horsemen or elephants. Get an early culture with early heroes, and use the heroes. Be the first to swordsmen.
And promote your units with city raider, because a combination of units with +95% vs archers and +90% vs melee is useless on attacking.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Yeah the main things you can try to do are ...

- Use surround and destroy to surround them.

- Bring a field commander with your stack.

- Try to tech up to catapults so you can weaken their units.

- Use terrain to your advantages. Such as forests and hills. Even better is if you have terrain
damage on and you can let the desert or tundra weaken them.

- Use units with withdraw such as Mounted units so you can attack and not die if you loose.

- Try using on conventional units such as the Arsonist or Rogue units. They might not have promotions against those. Also a ton or dog units can e effective if used right. They are cheap to make, fast and annoying as hell since most units only get one attack.

- If you can get a culture with a unit in your tech range then try to gt it. The unit might be strong enough to give you an advantage.

- Same with hero units. They are very strong. And while you may want to use them for achievement buildings they might just be better to fight for awhile and "retire" later.

- Build the buildings that can give your new units more XP all in one city. Even changing civics to give more XP can be helpful when at war.

- Bring healers. Nothing is worse than fighting an army and then your units are slowly dying because you did not bring a healer unit. Sure they cost some gold per turn but that's way better than loosing your whole stack because you could not heal.

- Target their resources. Spies and quick units can be used to take out their ore resources or mounted resources which means they are back to basic units like archers.

- Try to bribe other nations to fight them for you. Its much harder for a civ to fight you if they are fighting someone else too. But beware on who you ask. It could make them more powerful or worse you enemy more powerful from slaughtering all their weak units.

- If possibly try for a cease fire. Try to tech up to techs that give you a leg up on them. Plus the peace can be used to build up a bigger army and/or more defenses in case they come to you. Just because your "at peace" doesn't mean you cannot prepare for war.

I am sure there are more tips but these are some of the main ones I use against stronger opponents.

 

[ls612]

I have discovered an annoyance that has occurred in the one game I have played of late. I started with no traits so that I could select them as time went on. I believe the computer can do the same. One of the countries I am at war with can have 6-8 promotions on a single unit without any real combat experience (brand new). The minimum I have seen on any of his units is 5. The most I can get is 3 (brand new).

That basically means that I cannot defeat his units at a comparable tech level. I sent an army of around 20 units to attack his city of 4 units, one of which had half my hit points. I had promoted my units to maximize a specialty. In other words, they were specially promoted to defeat archers (95% bonus) and melee (90% bonus). Before I attacked I lowered the cities defenses to 0%, doing damage with 7 battering rams. Even so, I lost all my units except the battering rams and he didn't lose a single unit until I attacked with my special unit with twice as much strength (which was the only non-siege unit that survived the battle). That is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. Am I missing something?

I noticed that he has aggressive, protective, and charismatic as his traits. Can we make it so they can't have more than one of these traits? Or make it so that these traits don't have such huge bonuses to military might?

How many traits do you have? Also, shouldn't he have some negative traits by then? If he doesn't I'll bet that's a bug.

As for the combos, that is part of the strategy of Leveling Leaderheads, figuring out synergies and using them.

Also, is this with the core traits or with my traits?

 

[Thunderbrd]

lol... and to think the system has been accused of having such faulty AI!

I'm wondering what selections you've taken. If you're going for the Scientific strength path, it should just be a matter of weathering him out until you're able to out-tech him, if that works... It's been said that the Scientific strength strategy is currently just as if not more overpowered than the Military strength strategy you're having trouble with that your opponent is utilizing.

Frustrating as it may be, your opponent is using one of the best possible trait selection strategies (one I'm a personal fan of myself) and we rarely get any complaints that anything in C2C is 'too hard' so I apologize if I must receive this feedback as something of a 'victory of the system' as established.

There's downsides to any selection strategy though. While he's nearly impervious militarily, he probably should be for how much he's sacrificed to get this power - in terms of other abilities he may have been able to develop. His ability to maintain a strong research rate and national stability is much weakened by his selections. He's paid a long term price to be the threat to the world that he is today and may well fall behind in research if he can't utilize his gifts to expand into a huge nation. He's going to be nearly impossible to invade, particularly if you aren't out-teching him, but if you can get him to leave you alone, or at least just stage strong defenses against his intrusions, you should be able to leave him in the dust eventually. Let him distract you with too much war and the guy on the other side of you who's developing research at a breakneck speed will quickly become the bigger threat. And watch out for the guy to the south who's conquering you peacefully with culture! lol

Despite all this, AI work on the DL system is still incomplete.

 

[primem0ver]

Yes, I can see the scientific path being a possibility but they are nearly keeping a pace with me so far since I just added science as my fourth capability.

I am not using negative traits. Surround and destroy is also not an option because I left that at its default (off). For some reason I also do not have any heroes as part of my options. There is only one national unit that I can build (and only have one of) that can defeat them... the one I already mentioned.

I guess I will just have to be patient and use the science capability then.

 

[strategyonly]

For some reason I also do not have any heroes as part of my options.

Heroes can only be built IF you have the culture for each civ they are located with. And ALL that depends on your resources that are close to your cities.

 

[ls612]

lol... and to think the system has been accused of having such faulty AI!

Even bad AI can get lucky sometimes. If the AI was specifically programmed to find and exploit synergies that would be great.

 

[Thunderbrd]

If the AI was specifically programmed to find and exploit synergies that would be great.

I've tried to point out that the method employed is very much intended (and apparently successful) to exploit synergies in this manner. And will be improved to do so yet further still.

 

[Raven Destroyer]

I've tried to point out that the method employed is very much intended (and apparently successful) to exploit synergies in this manner. And will be improved to do so yet further still.

though that would imply that a Total Militaristic player (like myself) has the highest chance of actually surviving 30 XP as fresh is nothing new under the sun for me in this mod although i keep a balance between Tech and military under the wisdom if a pan can be used to kill then it is worth researching in it

Though those 30 XP units aren't to OP usually their specialization works to keep off an slightly more Advanced Civ that has the next generation or maybe even the generation after it although fierce combat isn't rare in this mod

 

[Khajiit]

I find that espionage, surround and destroy, and lots of flanking promotions are a great way to take down even the toughest of enemies.

 

[Thunderbrd]

though that would imply that a Total Militaristic player (like myself) has the highest chance of actually surviving 30 XP as fresh is nothing new under the sun for me in this mod although i keep a balance between Tech and military under the wisdom if a pan can be used to kill then it is worth researching in it

Though those 30 XP units aren't to OP usually their specialization works to keep off an slightly more Advanced Civ that has the next generation or maybe even the generation after it although fierce combat isn't rare in this mod

I won't deny its a great strategy to be extremely militarily focused. But there ARE other strategies. The ulitimate Tech strategy is also a good one (focus on commerce, tech and trade benefits and scream ahead of your opponent's units in upgrades). The Philosophical + Industrial route offers another great core (enhanced GP rates + enhanced Wonder rates - get your free promos from wonders). Expansive/Imperialistic or Expansive/Humanitarian (plus organized) are good pairings to build a huge and unphasable empire. A Deceitful leader with great Commerce output can nearly buy the world off and steal all the Research Leader's tech edges.

Admittedly, while the current trait outlook is capable of providing numerous strategies, I do feel at the moment that there are too few really good ones lurking in their combos. As I work on my next traits set proposal I will be focusing a lot on enabling other methods and combinations that are just as capable of getting ahead.