My challenge - How to win this game???

[StuntedAzrael]

I really need your advice guys. Things are getting critical here.

Here is a short summary of my game:

Settings: Monarch/Epic/Standard size/Fractal
Civ: Germany/Bismarch (Ind/Exp)

Germany is located on the very east of large pangaea-like continent and is bordered by one country only- Egypt. Since I was given very nice land to work with I decided to REX as much as possible keeping at the same time nice relations with the Egypt (Hattie likes me). Eventually I adopted her religion since she was kind enough to spread it to me.

Things went very well for me in this game (Except 4 great artists in a row. argh!!). Me and Egypt maintained nice tech lead from others.

Now Washington enters the story. He's interested in military buildup and intimidiating others altough suprasingly very nice to me. During the course of few thousand years he vassaled India peacefully and Mongolia after two wars.

Now, this is where the plot thickens and becomes interesting.

Me & Egypt were always in the tech lead then suddenly I realized that I'm overtaking Hattie big time. I was confident that this is the result of my smart cottage spam which I love doing and kept things peacefully and leisury.

But after some time I have noticed two things about Egypt: they almost stopped research and their cultural borders were starting to pressure my borders. Of course, nothing of this didn't mean much to me (i'm sometimes too arrogant, but it comes with the job of ruling an empire), Egypt after all founded lots of religions.

But after Thebes achieved legendary status I realized that Egypt is going for cultural victory and FAST!!! Well, no they won't if you ask me. Since they were all cultural I decided that some backstabbing is in order and in that cause I beelined to tanks (Panzers!!!) to run over them. Their best defenders at that time were grenadiers and longbows. Easy...

I was ready... Troops gathered... Plans laid out...

Then Egypt vassalizes to Washington!!! C'mon, you have got to be kidding me. Not a shot fired between them and Egypt is almost as large as America.

Well, with that turn of events I decided to go for space victory. Washington liked me so much that even agreed to defensive pact. The whole world was one big happy family and Germany has never seen a turn of war (talk about alternate history, eh??).

This is where my game stops. I have just aquired Apollo & I'm converting towns to workshops. However I calculated that Egypt will win in 20 turns or less. This is serious.

Advice guys. How to win this? AI in this game is giving me creeps. I can't believe I'm outsmarted twice and Washington is stupid enought to let Egypt win. Ugh!

As final note I'm playing Warlords with Better AI mod. Whoever made this mod deserves a .

 

[namliaM]

Declare war, raze one or 2 cultural cities... Make peace... Fly away...

 

[Handel]

You can hardly win peacefully on Monarch without at least some warmongering.

 

[Via]

IMO there no way to win before Egypt, without declaring war and capturing/razing 1-2 cities.

 

[LionQ]

Burn, baby, burn! ;p

 

[StuntedAzrael]

I need specifics people.

I know that I must raze atleast 1 city. But how? I need fastest way to do it. You have to remember that declaring war on Egypt means declaring war on 4 civs and that's a lot of firepower. I'm not sure if I can survive that at all let alone lead an offensive war against Egypt.

Another question: Is it possible for me to use diplomacy to make Egypt a free state once again by giving tech or even land?

 

[namliaM]

UGH

I had a look at your save... I hope you dont my commenting in random order and ranting here and there...

---- MAN why are you even building spaceparts?? You dont even have coal plants??

- You are working coastal tiles without a lighthouse??
- You are having specialists that could be working coastal tiles??
Working the coastal tiles is more valuable than the specialists
- You are running at 100% science?? Even after MM-ing and turning every city that is running wealth to production (Coal plants) you run positive at 90%... You should have expanded your empire by adding Egypt right after Hathy finished Versailles.
- You could have sold some resources (i.e. Hit singles) around for some serious GPT
- You cannot even build HE?? Wow... lucky you can build it in just 2-3 turns now... Get a Level 4 unit in the war and build it ASAP. Dont build SS parts here untill you are fortified enough...
- What are you doing at Hamburg?? Having Mills on Hills and Workshops on plains?? Why?
Add one farm to support 2 mines... A railed mine is 2 hammer gain over the windmill. Sacrificing 3 hammers from the workshop for 4 hammer gain on the mills to Mine transfer is a good deal... It isnt the one hammer or even the 2 hammers if you add the bonus' to it... but add them over 6 hills/3plains,thats 6 hammers, over 20 turns = Free airplain.
- Same with watermills, they are nice.. but Farm + Mine = better.


- Your powerrating has been way higher than Hathy for a long while you should have added her land to yours before she build Versailles in particular with the double holy city of Heliopolis with 2 shrines too
- You have a way tech lead on Hathy in particular and the AI in general. You should have ....
- Why do you have CR and Combat 1 units quarding your cities?? Get CG promotions for that... get these units to the soon to be front as well as all able boddied panzers, planes and Gunpowders...

Now back to the issue at hand...
- Set builds to Coal plants where you dont have them and BUY them.
- Set builds to Panzers and add in some Infantry and Machine gunners.


Now setup to take 3 cities on the first turn of the war
- Akhetaten (Raze it)
- Hieraconpolis (Raze it)
- Byblos (Keep it)
This needs about a 1 defender vs 2 attackers ratio... just to be sure

Set up all you planes in Frankfurt, where they can reach everywhere you need them to be.
Strike everywhere... march onto Alexandria and raze that in turn 3 or 4 of the war.
March onward to Elephantine, raze it ... Problem solved~ turn 5 or 6 of the war.... Sit back and launch to space

 

[StuntedAzrael]

Thanks for your extensive tips. Now, to defend myself a bit:

- I value specialists more that coastal tiles. 2 coins are not too much to add and I had Parthenon to support my specialists. In the long run specialists are better imho without financial.

- 100% science was to get Fusion and SS Engine as fast as possible. It's the biggest component. And my improvements are a mess since I was converting towns to to workshops. Hamburg was windmills + towns to maximize commerce output. Hence, I would have converted them to mines and I will.

- For other points I decided to peacefully rush to spaceship without wars. I'm getting tired of warring from my last few games and I felt like break to storm trough the ages. I know it's not optimal play but it was fun. I'm builder at heart.

- I have built coal plants on my bigger production cities.

I'll take your advice on machine guns. As soon as I declare on Egypt, whole continent will come after me and you havent seen how many units Washington has. Its scary!!!! This is goona be a tough one.

 

[dankok8]

Try to vassalize some other civs if there are any or make them declare war once you start so they can take some of the pressure off. Even if it does not work, you still have to attack Egypt and raze one of the 3 cities.

 

[Cabay Jet]

It sounds like he's a commercial powerhouse to me, why not switch to universal suffrage, put the science slide as far down as possible, and try to buy your way to victory?

I can't try it out for myself since I don't have warlords. Seems like a pickle. If it were BtS you'd want to formant unhappiness in her 3 cities to by you some time to get the space ship completed, but since this is warlords and espionage is a bit of a non-factor...

 

[namliaM]

Well you sure got what you wanted...

Tho Panzers vs Infantry should not be that hard + You have about 15 bombers, they can desimate any stack anyone sends at you... if need be use your tech lead to buy back peace with washington.

On coal plants, yes you have build them in production cities... but other cities do benifit from them too... they have allready got factories, you have allready gone that one mile... go the final one too... And you have 1 or 2 cities without coalplants building spaceparts... just adding the coal plant in front will pay for itself in the first part.

 

[futurehermit]

razing cities is the cure for AIs trying to go cultural on you

tech + power lead = expand your empire! hatty is almost always a soft, juicy...target

 

[StuntedAzrael]

Ok fellow civfanatics. The plan is laid out:

I will attack and raze Heliopolis which is third cultural city. I hope that 4-th city will be far behind in culture. I can do it in two turns by sea. I have 2 transports ready. On first turn I'll bombard the city with my airforce and unload both transports full of panzers. Second turn we'll see another bombing raid and attack of panzers. On the third turn my reinforcments will arrive and finish the city if it still stands.

After that, defence, defence and bribe my way to peace as soon as possible.

I'll keep you informed how it went.

 

[Tyrael]

I think you're right on specialists > non lighthoused coastal tiles, even if it's not your GP farm. (You do have one of those, right? Can't check the save) 1 Food 2 Commerce isn't as good as what a specialist can give you IMHO. Then again I'm used to running some sort of specialist-enhancing civic(s) this late in the game so my calculation might be off.