Monstrous Qin

[Dida]

v3.13, Monarch, 12 civs, gigantic map

On my large size island there were 4 civs: Ragnar & Qin down south, Ramses, Saladin (me) on the northwest corner. Qin knocked out Ragnar early, at around 2500 BC. He must had axeman-rushed Ragnar. He then proceeded to sprawl cities around the whole lower half of the island while waging war against Ramses. By 1500 BC, having taken all but one of Ramses' cities, his forces had reached my border.

Ramses now in a perilous situation with only his capital remaining in his hands pleaded for help and I declared war on Qin. At this point, I had never fought a war and had only 3 cities, Qin had around 10 cities. According to the rankings, Qin had the largest empire and 2nd largest army in the world.

Qin is not generally a warmonger, how did he get to axeman-rush all his neighbors?
I noticed that with raging barbs on, the barbs targeted me the human player almost exclusively. Is that a correct observation?
With only 3 cities, I was barely breaking event with tech slider at 60%, and barely capable of holding off the barb hordes. How was Qin able to run 10 cities and build enough units to not only defend them against the barbs and also to wage war?

 

[Zongo]

Lucky goodie hut pop? Maybe Ragnar was weakened by a barbarian uprising?

 

[dante alighieri]

I usually play at noble level, but i'm guessing that at monarch the AI gets bonuses which allow Qin to run such an empire. But I'd like to know if there is another answer. I had almost the same problem in a former game, post patch on noble. No war, but augustus was able to not only spread cities like crazy but out tech everyone. I don't know how he did it, as I was barely breaking even. At noble level the AI is supposed to be "equal" to the human player.

It could also be that Qin is whipping/ chopping his soldiers into being and extorting another AI for the cash to keep going. Just a guess.

 

[Antilogic]

Qin is not generally a warmonger, how did he get to axeman-rush all his neighbors?
I noticed that with raging barbs on, the barbs targeted me the human player almost exclusively. Is that a correct observation?
With only 3 cities, I was barely breaking event with tech slider at 60%, and barely capable of holding off the barb hordes. How was Qin able to run 10 cities and build enough units to not only defend them against the barbs and also to wage war?

I don't believe so. The AI tend to have more units milling about exploring, so fewer barbarians will spawn near them. If you do the same with fogbusters, than it isn't as big as a problem. I've had games where the AI would lose 2 cities or more to the barbarians, seriously putting a crimp in their development and allowing me to streak ahead (because I knew my extra military units would be valuable).

 

[Infantry#14]

did Qin build a Great Wall? maybe that's why the barbarians are after you.

 

[Stylesjl]

Perhaps the AI has a holy city+shrine? The gold from that can help with the maitenance costs will outteching everyone as well

 

[Dida]

He did own a holy city + shrine, taken from the Vikings, but so did I. He did not build the Great Wall, it was built by another civ on another continent.

Upon further investigation, he owned not just 10, but 14 cities at a time when I had only 3.

After declaring war on Qin, I fought a long, long defensive war. Luckily for me, my two border cities were both built on hills cross from a river, providing excellent defense bonus. With a few veteran archers, I easily turned those spots into meat grinders. My capital in the mean time was sitting further up north pumping out archers and chariots. The extra maintenance was apparently hurting Qin pretty bad as he's 3 or 4 techs behind me. His forces were spread pretty thin, as he's also busy taking over barbarian cities in the south.