Militaristic Dilemma

[El Duderino]

I am playing a small map, 70% water, with continents. It is on regent level. I'm alone with the Vikings on an island. It is the middle ages, and the Vikings are starting to scare me. They have recently built the Statue of Zeus, the Knight's Templar and, in addition, they have their Berserks. Our civilizations are approximately the same size. I have a slight tech lead, and I am usually 2-3 techs ahead of the Vikings in the tech race. I have not met the other civs on the map yet. However, I have not recieved the pop-up message saying that any of them have completed a wonder, so I would assume I also have a Tech lead on them. So, I cannot avoid the militaristic juggernaut in the Vikings. I have given them a gift of gpt, but, they have broken one such treaty in the past. I have musketmen, as my best defenders, but the Vikings are quickly massing large quantities of Berserks, Ancient Cavalries and Crusaders near my borders. While the Ancient Cavalry do not scare me, due to the higher defense value of my musketmen, the other two types of units do. Until I get riflemen, my defenders will get ripped apart by the sheer quantity of units they have, as well as the quality of the Berserks and the Crusaders. The Vikings are very aggresive. I have approximately 5 musketmen in each of my border cities. Also, I do not have horses, so I cannot build Knights. I am pumping out Musketmen as fast as possible, but I cannot match the Vikings production. What should I do? I would appreciate any ideas. Thank you.

 

[punkbass2000]

Lots and lots of Trebuchets and Longbowman.

 

[Crimso]

If you do get attacked, FIGHT ON YOUR OWN TERMS! And yes, build artillery.

 

[jamee999]

Which Civ are you?

 

[Bucephalus]

The key to dealing with Beserkers is in their poor defence. Wait for them to come to you, then attack them from within your cities with artillery followed by your strongest attacking unit (I guess this is longbowmen, or do you have med. infantry?)
Crusaders only come one every 5 turns, so after the initial rush they shouldn't present too much of a problem. If your border cities are below size 7, be sure to build walls as this gives your musketmen parity. Once they try to make peace you should consider invading them - Vikings don't build much in the way of defensive units.

 

[xiaoafei]

I think the only way to stop other civ's invasion is invading them and getting rid of them before they could become any threat.
When I started a recent game (primitive version) as Chinese and found Japan is my only neighbor on my continent, I let my ellite wariors rush to catch Kyoto and eliminated it. If I had not done this, as in a deity level game, I wouldn't have any chance to stop Japan when it is ready to attack me.
Only in those easy levels of the game can one build his civ peacefully.

 

[Despair888]

The best defense is offense.

 

[bobgote]

yup, you're going to have to make some description of pre-emptive attack, or else their production bonus means they run all over you. i'd say it's certainly worth sending a boat around looking for other civs too, a military alliance could make a good distraction. what have you got in the way of offense?

I think the worst part is that (from memory), berserks don't have a required resource. I'm not sure of the terrain you have on the border, but best idea is to force their attackers onto level ground, then bombard the crap out of them. hopefully you have knights (if not, build them up) so that you can take out their (hopefully) weakened attackers. they only have slow, attackers so that can be your advantage.

also, might be an idea to pillage/bombard their road near your border, to give you an extra turn. may also be worth building fortresses depending on the terrain.

 

[Keirador]

It really depends on how much time you have. If you've got some time before they attack you, you can use some of the above strategies like building walls, artillery units, more defenders, and some offensive units for the all important counter-attack (I would suggest longbowmen, as they have defensive bombardment, which in your case would probably be more valuable than the one extra defense of medi. inf.) However, if the invasion is imminent, and you're convinced you will not survive the onslaught, you may look for peaceful alternatives; appeasement, basically. Do you have a city that is within the Viking's borders? For some reason this really seems to piss the AI off, and sometimes just giving them or even abandoning this intrusive city is enough to placate th AI. Most Civ players, like me, are loathe to give up any cities, but losing one city is better than losing all of them. Maybe by appeasing them with technologies or even the occasional city, you can hold off the Vikings until you've had time to fortify your borders, meet other Civs, and discover Riflemen.

If that fails, and they do invade, remember this little trick. In planning your defense, you should know that the AI has a tendency to retreat injured units back to somewhere they can be healed, and then try to attack later. So, a great way to hold off an impending assault is just to pepper an enemy stack with trebuchet fire. You are assured not to lose any units while weakening theirs. The injured units should turn around and go home, but the few healthy units will remain, allowing you to pick them off, and then have some time to recover before the injured units heal and return. It seems your situation is helped a lot by the lack of horses. The Viking's slow progress through your territory will help you out a lot.

 

[punkbass2000]

Only in those easy levels of the game can one build his civ peacefully.

That's not really true. I can win at deity without ever capturing a city I didn't found.

 

[Longasc]

As the others said: You have no viable defensive counter to the offensive strength of Berserks and Crusaders!

You do not get any unit with 5/6 defence, even Musketmen will have a hard time fortified.

But they have speed 1!

The AI does not always use sneaky sea attacks, and on land, the Berserkers and Crusaders are slow, sitting ducks.

Wait for them to get directly before your city or a defensive position and CHARGE them with Knights! Their defence sucks, and they will not be fortified. The best position to do so is from a hill or mountain they will get terrible mali (negative boni) while attacking, and you can retreat or make a stand on the hill with fast attacking units.

If you find a chokepoint, consider building a fortress, too!

Artillery units like Trebuchets can help you a great deal, too, but I would go for Knights and not overemphasize on Artillery without knowing the exact situation.

 

[punkbass2000]

^He's got no horses.

Also, you may want to beeline to Astronomy if you don't have it try building a few veteran caravel and simply blocking the coast with them. You can end on sea and they can't, and thus they need to attack with their galleys, which will be very cost effective for you and prevent amphibious assaults, which your units can't attack back and their units will get attack bonuses.

 

[crimson238]

find the most cost effective unit you have and mass produce them behind the main lines. You can then counter attack. Wait for them t come to you; rush you and take out as many as you can. I would also recommend keeping a fewunits behind the border cities in the event they break through, thusly you can re capture your cities and slow them down. You may want to consider using any obsolete units you have as fodder, just to slow their advance. Engage in gurilla tactics; try to cut off the roads ect and pilage any resources you come near. go for luxuries; get them into riots and they can't build any more units afterall.

 

[kb2tvl]

At regent, you should be able to out build the Vikings at regent. So, go lean on muskets and heavy on knights. You could, also, research cav. I would suggest to spend 20 turns at war but not invading your neighbor but let him invade you and counter attack with knights.

If a city is within two tiles from your city, raze that city and let your culture expand.

 

[punkbass2000]

Again, he has no horses.

@threadstarter: I think the question is how close to horses are you? Is taking a city that would net you horses feasible?