launch the war or wait?

[jkk]

I'm in a game as Romans, had GA long ago, and have just reached the point where I could build railroads. I'm about 3-4 techs ahead of most other nations, sharing a large continent (one of two on a 70% water map) with a nice corner position, so I only have realistic threat from one direction.

Much to my disappointment, my saltpeter ran dry a while back, and when coal became visible, I had none. This mostly nullifies my tech advantage, screwing up my plan to first get a good rail network built, then start crushing my main Hittite neighbors. The nearest coal I could conquer on the continent is about as deep into neighboring territory as the saltpeter, about three cities in. The kind of distance that, by the time I get that far without the advantages of my technology, I'll no longer need either resource.

Saltpeter I might trade for, selling my soul gold-wise. Coal I can't get yet at all, since I'm the only one who can see or exploit it. As I see it, my options now are:

1) Stand pat and stagnate, waiting for a better time. Maybe new coal or iron will pop up in my yard; I have a pretty strong military with the ability to replace losses quickly, and the money to modernize a lot of units.

2) Build riflemen and attack with them, accepting a long slog with poor lateral reinforcement.

3) Try and sell my soul for saltpeter, and hope the deal holds long enough to build enough cavalry to deliver a crippling strike. Do same with coal when those primitives finally realize what bounty they crush beneath their ignorant feet--see how much railroad I can build while the deal lasts.

4) Attack as I am (neighbor is roughly the same size as me in # of cities, but less population and less efficient buildup), with mostly knights, a few musketmen and legionaries, getting it started NOW before they get any stronger.

General thoughts? Choices I haven't thought of?

 

[MPK]

2) Build riflemen and attack with them, accepting a long slog with poor lateral reinforcement.

If you can at the present moment build Riflemen, then your need to gain a source of Saltpeter isn't actually necessary anymore.

 

[jkk]

If you can at the present moment build Riflemen, then your need to gain a source of Saltpeter isn't actually necessary anymore.

I'm at a research point where I could reach Riflemen shortly, but not quite there yet. In any case I'd prefer to go to war with Cavalry, much faster and deadlier, and Saltpeter is needed for those. That's one reason I have to make that decision now. If Riflemen do not become urgently needed for an offensive war, I'd move up elsewhere on the tech tree.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Saltpeter I might trade for, selling my soul gold-wise.

Why not sell some technologies? You said you had kind of a tech lead and I think it would be the better option.

Don't be too afraid of the AI catching up a little; they usually perform very badly in the industrial age anyway due to their insistence on getting relatively useless techs like Nationalism, Communism and so on. You should rather beeline for Replaceable Parts and Scientific Method.


Overall, I think you should trade for Saltpeter, and go to war. With the main goal of securing coal. Preferrably you only trade for Saltpeter after you have built a few Horsemen that you can easily upgrade. (But keep in mind that you'd need some cash for that.)

 

[Quintillus]

I think Lord Emsworth's plan is a good one. You can sell techs to the least advanced civs that have money, and use that money for saltpeter. But before that, build a bunch of Knights. Then, once you have saltpeter, upgrade en masse to Cavalry, and take out the cities you need for coal (first) and saltpeter (2nd) from your neighbor. Ideally you can get cavalry from someone other than said neighbor so you can invade straightaway, but if not, you can invade after 20 turns.

The main reason I'd go that route is the coal. It'll be expensive as all get-out to trade for, and you really need it to keep up long-term industrially. Despite the AI's tendencies, if they get rails and you don't, things will get tougher. You could negate the power advantage with a beeline to Hoover's Dam, but even so... rails are nice.

If all the options for securing saltpeter are rubbish, you could try to invade with Knights, focus on getting saltpeter first, then upgrade to Cavalry and start owning (for this reason, going with Knights seems better than Riflemen at this juncture - assuming your enemy doesn't have Cavalry either and thus that the 6 defence isn't needed). But it may well not be worth the increased losses versus simply trading for saltpeter, and could be a long slog.

Riflemen/infantry led wars are, in my experience, usually unpleasant experiences, for much the same reason that the American Civil War and the First World War were largely unpleasant. With superior numbers you can slowly advance and take territory, but losses are high. The one time I did have a great infantry-front war (and at that time, I didn't use a lot of artillery support), it felt a lot like the Great War. Which wasn't a good thing. And if your luck continues, you won't have rubber, too. You'll be really glad you secured coal and saltpeter if that comes to be.

 

[jkk]

Good thoughts. I've got a fair number of knights and a pile of money, so if I can secure some Saltpeter at whatever cost of techs/gold/etc., many of those can grow up. The Rubber argument also reminds me that the main resource equation in the game is the quantity of land held: the more you control, the more likely you are to have Oil, Rubber, Aluminum and Uranium in their times, and when something runs out, the likelier you are to have a replacement supply.

In my experience, Civ3 wars have two phases: defeating the stockpiled reserve that is thrown at you en masse, followed by the slog (which is a much faster slog with railroads, fast units or both). Need enough Riflemen to avoid losing a frontier city as the stockpiled reserve deploys. I didn't get that many Musketmen built before the Saltpeter well ran dry. I was dismayed, but reminded myself that these are the grand strategic challenges that make the game enjoyable: adjusting when the luck goes against one.

 

[Richie0]

i find that riflemen are essential for defending your border (main) cities, two in each, for when/if the AI gets cavalry. can't risk getting sloppy and leaving it unguarded, that 3 movement is just killer. captured cities, you're ok with one + an attacking unit

riflemen decimate knights and medieval infantry so bad that it isn't even funny. they will chew up cavalry as well, especially if your city is size 7 or more

AI never reaches tanks in my experience, and if they do, you will most likely have mech infantry/tow infantry/have won hours ago

once you hit the industrial age, get rails, factories down + infantry/artillery/marines/tanks, it's just too much raw power

i also use riflemen for escorting artillery stacks

offensively, don't bother. you're wasting a unit attacking, a unit which will defend against anything if you're ahead/equal in tech (cavalry MIGHT take it down on a grassland, that's about it)

if you have no resources, then go with artillery and guerillas

you'll lose a fair few, but if you red-line everything, the odds should remain in your favour

if you find that the AI has infantry defending (unlikely, you're in the tech lead, right?), you might as well just start a new game

too much of a deficit to pull back

 

[MysteryX]

The last game I played found me in a very similar situation as far as strategic resources went. I went the route of trading for saltpeter, building as massive a cavalry / artillery force as I could for 20 turns, and went for the capture. I had to go about three cities deep, and I lost most of my cavalry in the process, but I had barely enough cavalry to finally secure the saltpeter (and iron and coal along the way).

 

[jkk]

In case there's interest, I'll describe how it went. I traded for Saltpeter as best I could, enough to build up a sizable cavalry force (and upgrade all my knights), switching to riflemen when the agreement ran out. When I launched the war, I had the advantage of knowing that my Hittite enemy was well behind me in tech--no defensive units better than musketmen. A neighbour (the Mongols always declare war in my experience) joined in against me, enabling me to grab some of their stuff too; slowed me down but made for more defensible frontiers long term.

The real pain was no coal, and no one to trade with for it, but someone else on another continent eventually figured out what it was good for and I paid what they asked--long enough to build a functional rail net. Got my coal from the Mongols (a surprise, hadn't seen the icon previously) and pushed my Hittite enemies way back past their capital, nearly achieved all objectives when, after a period of peace, Mongols are now back in it. Time to sew up and consolidate everything I stole from the Hittites while I teach the Mongols another lesson. Fortunately they are coming across heavily mountainous terrain with few roads, channeling them into chokepoints which will not be hard to defend since I have infantry and they do not. The Hittites will weep for joy when I let them off the hook, 2/3 of their empire captured, and that'll eliminate that distraction while I break the Mongol cavalry stockpile and start punishing them for this insolence. They should have fun with their cavalry attacking infantry fortified in mountains and hills.

Summary: the advice was very helpful, and much appreciated. One can't always just wait for one's ideal situation. Sometimes you have to gear up and go get it, especially when you know you have a tech advantage and can pony up a little to trade for the resources it will take to build a powerful force. Twenty turns is long enough to upgrade a lot of units, build a lot of transportation infrastructure. For me, the moment I have railroads and they don't, I have a tremendous mobility advantage that if I'm smart, I will have planned to exploit while it lasts.

 

[Richie0]

i've found that saltpeter is a so-so resource if you have iron but no horses. obviously cavalry will demolish anything that isn't a rifleman (and maybe a musketman in a city)

i don't build musketmen, apart from one lone one to guard my capital, ceremonial if you like

sure, you get cannons, but honestly, i find the difference between trebuchets and cannons to be mimimal

the difference between catapults and trebuchets are huge, the differences between artillery and anything before it is massive, but with cannons, not so much

if you end up with horses but no iron or saltpeter, then that's just bloody well awkward