My Persian Empire

[Lordlombax]

OK, so here I've decided to step it up for myself. Last several games I've played on regent, and I beat 1 large game on monarch. So this time I decided to play a huge pangaea map, 14 civs, monarch difficulty, 70% water.

If somebody could point out to me how to take screenshots it would be helpful. I'm sure theres a thread that says this but im a lazy piece of poop... and I didnt make a seperate post asking.

ANYWAYS, I started out on the south end of the map in some good greenlands with the romans on my left and the egyptians on my right. The Egyptians held the closest and most viable source of iron, as well as some gems and furs. So I quickly acquired these and eliminated the Egyptians early. I have managed to progress quickly scientifically and and far ahead of any other civilization; Currently, I'm in the mid industrial age, and everybody else is still in the middle ages.

To my north is the germans. In two different wars with them I have acquired 4 cities; Leipzig being the most important as it held the closest source of coal. After about, say, 15 turns of quick infrastructure development, the source of coal was depleted. So now I'm coal-less.

On top of this, I have the Celts and the Iroquois (Celts being just north of the germans and the Iroqouis allll the way on the other side of the continent) attacking me from all sides with massive amounts of cavalry, making another offensive campaign for coal just north of Berlin impossible. The maya are on their way as well; itll just be a while before they get across the map.

Quite honestly, i can't remember why they declared war... probably because they demanded something and i told them to shove it.

Since I b-lined it to replaceable parts, my infantry are successfully fending off the hordes of cavalry with artillery giving a helping hand. I've had to suspend all scientific research (currently on industrialization), however, to afford upgrades for all of my units; my cities cant build fast enough to keep up with the cavalry.

Now heres where it gets interesting: after the discovery of magnetism, I discovered the English on a tiny jungle island out in the open ocean. They hadnt met any other nation yet, so all they have is ancient age spearmen. Their little jungle Island (big enough for roughly 6 or 7 cities, making it absolutely TINY in this huge map) contains the ONLY source of dyes in the world, and two sources of coal. Looks like my get out of jail free card! I loaded up 3 galleons with 6 infantry and 6 artillery with a destination for coventry, the only city with coal and dye in its radius.

The catch is theyre about 7 or 8 turns away from my galleons and I'm getting hammered. So I guess I dont have any particular questions in mind, but any tips would be helpful. Once I get some screenshots up it'll be a lot easier to understand the situation im in.

A brief description of the landscape: I'm at the southern tip of what is basically an enormous peninsula. The romans are on the left side of the peninsula with about half as much land as me. SO I'm only bordered in the north by the germans and the west by the Romans, but cavalry are pouring in from from both the roman territory and the germans. The only way to me is from the north through the Germans, then the celts and the french, and then a whole bunch of random nations and cities.

This is shaping out to be a really fun game so I thought I'd like to share it with you guys

 

[TheOverseer714]

Why are you defending with only Infantry? You should be redlining and killing their Cavalry with your own before they can attack. Also, here is a trick. Pick a town 5-6 tiles deep within your borders. Remove all its defenders. Watch the enemies beeline towards it, not attacking your border towns. Redline and kill as many as you can. Put the defenders back. Watch the enemy turn back. Repeat this every other turn until their stacks are whittled down to nothing. From there, you will begin seeing the flood turn to a trickle. Then build your stack and go kick their behinds. Have fun

 

[Sashie VII]

If somebody could point out to me how to take screenshots it would be helpful. I'm sure theres a thread that says this but im a lazy piece of poop... and I didnt make a seperate post asking.

There's a button on your keyboard, it's "printscreen" or "prt sc" on mine. When you press that, it will capture whatever's on your monitor. You can then open any program such as Paint and paste it. Save, and you have a screenshot.

You can try Overseer's suggestion. Or for more specific situational advice, you might try uploading your savegame for us to peek at.

 

[Sweetchuck]

There's a button on your keyboard, it's "printscreen" or "prt sc" on mine. When you press that, it will capture whatever's on your monitor. You can then open any program such as Paint and paste it. Save, and you have a screenshot.

You can try Overseer's suggestion. Or for more specific situational advice, you might try uploading your savegame for us to peek at.

I might add - use an image host like photobucket.com and upload that screenshot to it once you've created an account.

You can copy the IMG link and post it here for all of us to drool over.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Be glad you have the sea at your back. I recently had a game much like yours where I shared borders with 6 civs, and I was buried in jungle right in the middle of the pangea.

Two things I would suggest:

1) Do what you can to get the romans and anyone else you can to DoW on your attackers. That will at least blunt the attack and give you the ability to rebuild some military strength.

2) Build cavalry if you can and put them to good use. Attack the AI hostiles when they get too close to your cities, but attack wisely so that your cavs don't get caught out in the open. Depending on the circumstances, I'll even attack damaged cavs with infantry (if the cav is in a stack so the inf remains in the city after victory.

Also, dunno if you are or not but make sure to use the arty on anything that you can hit, preferrably stacks. Even if you use it to bombard incoming AI from your city, it will still auto-bombard on the IBT if the AI attacks the city. Don't just leave the arty fortified or you are technically wasting half of its usefulness.

 

[capnvonbaron]

also... dunno if Coventry is the best idea... sounds like it'd be a flip risk anyways. Although I admittedly don't know your situation as well as you do.

 

[Exwing17]

TheOverseer is spot on. Give the computer a sight of an undefended city, that would take them maybe 2-3 turns to get to from your border (cavalry turns). Let them all make a rush for it, use your artillery to redline, and then pick them off with your cavalry.

Get their neighbours to DOW on them as well, its always worth causing a bigger scrap. Once their waves have started to dwindle. Create 2 stacks of 12 arties+12infantry, and set out to take cities. Slow & methodological is the key, never leave your arty, never chase injured units. The computer won't attack a huge stack like that at Monarch, and so you can pretty much walk through their territory. Once you get to a city, you'll redline everything and then destroy it, you can sell the improve & abandon if you dont want the xtra slaves.

The Germans shouldn't be culture heavy, but its always worth keeping some Inf at home to escort settlers into your newly conquered lands. I always raze cities w/o wonders. The flip risk isn't worth it, especially when it takes so long to move your units.

Your idea for that Island is spot on, looks ideal. You've sent a good lot of troops, I always have the tendancy to think that my 4 cav will easily take out those AA americans! Take out the english, rush harbours, forty that island, and when the war is over send another transport or two more of infantry, because the next war you have, that will be the main battleground!

good night much love x

 

[Sashie VII]

You should also find some reinforcements and send them over to reinforce your invasion force for Coventry just in case.

Spoiler :

has been known to happen.

 

[Lordlombax]

TheOverseer is spot on. Give the computer a sight of an undefended city, that would take them maybe 2-3 turns to get to from your border (cavalry turns). Let them all make a rush for it, use your artillery to redline, and then pick them off with your cavalry.

Get their neighbours to DOW on them as well, its always worth causing a bigger scrap. Once their waves have started to dwindle. Create 2 stacks of 12 arties+12infantry, and set out to take cities. Slow & methodological is the key, never leave your arty, never chase injured units. The computer won't attack a huge stack like that at Monarch, and so you can pretty much walk through their territory. Once you get to a city, you'll redline everything and then destroy it, you can sell the improve & abandon if you dont want the xtra slaves.

The Germans shouldn't be culture heavy, but its always worth keeping some Inf at home to escort settlers into your newly conquered lands. I always raze cities w/o wonders. The flip risk isn't worth it, especially when it takes so long to move your units.

Your idea for that Island is spot on, looks ideal. You've sent a good lot of troops, I always have the tendancy to think that my 4 cav will easily take out those AA americans! Take out the english, rush harbours, forty that island, and when the war is over send another transport or two more of infantry, because the next war you have, that will be the main battleground!

good night much love x

Haha I didnt expect so many responses

Ok first off, to overseers suggestion; I have definitely noticed this tactic before but for some reason it isn't working this time around. I ONLY have defenders in my border cities, the cities right behind them have nothing; yet lots of the enemies are still attacking my infantry (which is another first, usually in my other games cavalry avoid my infantry all together).

And to Exwings suggestion of offense: I definitely agree with thi smethod, its the exact same thing I did in my last monarch game. Thing is I don't have the manpower right now for an offense, I'm still struggling to correctly distribute my units in my border towns.

I've played 2 turns since I made that post and in those 2 turns the freaking Iroquois have gotten the Romans to declare war on me, and the English. This isn't a HUGE problem, just another setback. The English won't be able to do anything (all they have are spearmen and archers, which is why taking coventry shouldnt be too difficult), and I was going to attack them anyways, and the romans are pretty low on the tech tree as well; all they have are a crapload of legionaires.

I was hoping not to bribe other civs with techs into joining my side, but it looks like I've got no choice. The Zulu and the Incas are on the other side of the world with the iroquois so they would be good choices for getting the iroquois off my back. France and Arabia are near the Celts, but they aren't nearly as powerful and I don't want the celts to gain more land. I'll have to deal with Rome myself.

And as for the screen shot; I thought print screen took pictures, i remember using it in other games... but for some reason it isn't working. Maybe it is but its moving the pics to a file I don't know about? I dont know... theres no confirmation or flicker in the page that would hint at it. And I'd need some help with uploading my save file too, but I'll gladly do that if it were explained

 

[capnvonbaron]

Man, you certainly have some serious AI woes

As far as prnt scrn, I can only tell you how I do it..

First, I'll open pc paint before starting a game. When I want a screeny, obviously press prnt scrn. Alt+Tab to the open pc paint window, "edit" -> "paste", and the screeny should show up. You can edit or save from there, and Alt+tab back to your game. That is probably the crudest method of doing it, but it works and doesn't require additional software. I think it only allows for one at a time though, although there might be a way to open the windows clipboard and capture multiples. Haven't fooled with it much since I don't much take screenshots.

 

[vmxa]

If you are still having issues with screen captures, use Irfanview. It is free and I use it all the time. Capture window or full screen. Resize to 1024 or whatever needed and save as jpeg.

 

[Exwing17]

Quick questions...

1) What government are you?

2) Are your border cities CXXC?

3) How long have you been in war / what do they want for peace?

It might be an idea to take an unfavourable peace, and regroup, take out the english and then prepare for another war. Thats probably what I'd do.

Just a word of warning as well, often low tech island civs have done nothing but build units. So watch out when taking the english capital!

 

[Lordlombax]

Quick questions...

1) What government are you?

2) Are your border cities CXXC?

3) How long have you been in war / what do they want for peace?

It might be an idea to take an unfavourable peace, and regroup, take out the english and then prepare for another war. Thats probably what I'd do.

Just a word of warning as well, often low tech island civs have done nothing but build units. So watch out when taking the english capital!

1) Republic

2) I'm pretty sure they aren't that close to eachother, it may vary from city to city. The majority are cxxxc im pretty sure.

3) I've been at war for a little while now... maybe 30 turns as an estimate? Since the iroquois are so far away it took a while for them to get here. And since I'm fighting completely defensively, and they declared war on my, my citizens aren't revolting.

I'm guessing they probably want technology for peace, and I really don't want to give up my tech lead. I already have sacrificed a bit of research to maintain the war, but I think I can afford research again. And yes, England was a monarchy so they *had* nothing but a bunch of spearmen. Unfortunately some a-hole is giving them iron so theyve upgraded to pikemen (theres no iron on their island).

At this point I'm pretty much at a stalemate, trying to figure out what I want to do before I progress any more turns. This is the most thought I've had to put into a game

 

[Exwing17]

This is the most thought I've had to put into a game

Thats why we love Civ man

I always play hoping to get an amazing WWI situation, where the sh*t hits the fan and its global war. Everytime I get something different, and its always just as fun

 

[AutomatedTeller]

At monarch, I almost always keep captured cities unless they are in a bad, bad spot. Sure, they sometimes flip and that's a pain, but you can get them back pretty easy.

 

[Lordlombax]

Yeah I always keep my captured cities as well, mainly because I never thought of bringing in a settler. It does make a lot more sense though; more slaves, and no chance for a flip... But it is a pain.

As for my whole situation, it seems to have worked itself out. I basically started WWI by bribing the incas into attacking the Iroquois, and the inca quickly brought in like 3 other civs. I also captured coventry without problems. Now, i'm picking away at the romans, capturing like 2 to 3 cities a turn

And i think i still have a significant tech lead.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Hahah... gotta love allies with friends WTG, I think you dug yourself out of the hole...