Need advice for late-game war...

[bob800]

I've been playing a game of Civ2 on King level, and everything was going well until I realized I had neglected the Mongols! They have a huge empire now (under Fundy), and we are both about equal in technologies but their millitary force far outnumbers my own...

Is this a lost cause or is it possible to win by conquest in 110 years? If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated! (see saved game file)

--BTW they have started building a spaceship!

 

[Ali Ardavan]

You have certainly come to the right place. Welcome to civ fanatics.

I have not looked at your game but I doubt if it is any worse than that of Lycerius 2000 year stalemate. Many of us turned that one around in a few turns. Look at the GOTM we played on that one last summer; I think it was last July.

Also look at the scenario designed by Prof Garfield which we played last Fall as another GOTM which involved plenty of modern warfare.

There are plenty of threads on warfare as well that you can read.

The best generic advice is to assemble a large enough force that can take Mongol capital. This will destroy their space ship and if they are higher than you on the power hierarchy it will cause a civil war that will split their empire into two.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Or you could just nuke them...

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I've looked at your saved game. It is certainly possible for you to crush the Mongols in 110 turns. However, in order to do so, you will have to either commit to total war or start delivering freight to dramatically increase your income.

Do you know about Incremental Rush Building (IRB)? If you want to rush a military unit, the cheapest way is to switch to the lowest cost unit (above your current shield accumulation), rush that, then switch to the next highest unit, rush that and so on until you get the unit you want.

It would be a good idea to rush some military units in the cities near Washington to fight the Mongols. Use Howitzers, tanks and Mech Infantry (change from the battleship and helicopter at the very least).

Put together a railroad network. You have very few engineers and you are using them for irrigation and farmland. Roads and railroads are usually (IMO) a better use for engineers than irrigation and especially farmland. With a railroad network and some Transport ships, you can move your army very quickly to where it is needed. You can crush an enemy in one region and then quickly move all those troops to fight elsewhere.

You seem to be building a lot of Recycling Centers. You don't need them in cities with 10 shields; you might want Mass Transit if the city has a large population.

You are building Libraries, Universities and Research Centers. Unless you plan to research a lot of future technologies, you don't need them. You should also sell off your existing science structures (perhaps completing the tech tree first -- although it may be best not to so that the Mongols can't steal superconductor of fusion power).

Aside from the above remarks, some miscellaneous worker allocations and a few cities that could use harbors, you seem to be running your civilization reasonably well, with the following exception.

TRADE. You can get lots of income by delivering Freight (and earlier in the game Caravans) to proper cities. They give you an immediate payment in Gold (and an equal amount of science) as well as extra trade arrows in your cities.

Caravan bonuses depend on:
The total number of trade arrows in both cities (the more the better)
Distance between source city and destination city (the farther the better).
If the cities are on the same island (2 different islands doubles payment).
If the cities are from different civs (foreign delivery doubles payment).
If the commodity is demanded (x2 to x4 bonus, depending on commodity).
If the cities have superhighways (+50% for each city with superhighway).
If both cities have airports (+100% if on different islands, I think +50% if they are on the same island).

If you want to go for total war, begin by building some more engineers and putting everyone on railroad duty. Get some transports to ferry units between cities. Then start rushing military units (mostly howitzers and mech inf; with other units when you have a specific need for them), from cities with barracks if possible. Get a decent number of spies as well.

 

[stoferb]

110 turns is plenty of time to chrush anyone. But if they have started to build a spaceship you probably have much less time. Still it shouldn't be impossible to stop them. I actually prefer modern warfare since it's much more effective and quicker than ancient warfare. There are two main routes to go: Nukes or conventional.

When going conventional your'e main attack force should consist of howitzers as howitzers can take anything. I hardly ever use helicopters, and while battleships are incredibly effective against a less advanced enemy it doesn't seem to be the case here. You also need engineers to keep building or rebuilding railroads so that your howitzers can attack and then go back to a city or a nearby fort on the same turn (if they are in range of a counterattack). Or if a city is too heavily defended for one attack you can build a fort right next to it and safely keep on attacking. You also need mech infantry to defend your howitzers at forts and cities. And finally you probably need some kind of clean-up crew. Fighters and tanks are good at taking out random units in the field so that your howitzers can concentrate on taking out tough units in forts and cities. Also a couple of spies devoted to the war is probably a good idea aswell, they provide important intel, they can bribe units and cities (if you have the money), they can sabotage infrastructure and even blow up cities.

You will atleast initially, and probably almost to the end, run into the annoyance of guerilla troops. One way is to simply block every square of the city you are going to take, it doesn't really matter with what except that these units will be vaulnerable to counterattacks so you probably don't want to sacrifice your engineers, bombers are a popular unit to use for this purpose, and the 8 surrounding the city itself can in addition be used as attackers. Another way to deal is to bribe the guerilla with spies or kill them with your "clean-up-crew" which ofcourse has to be a bit bigger if used for that purpose. A third option, if low on units, is to simply stack a couple of defenders in the city and nearby forts and let the guerilla suicide and do their damage, afterall you should have a couple of engineers to build and rebuild railroads towards the front anyway.

I use all three methods, often in combination. For example you can simply capture a city as fast as possible and use spies to bribe a bunch of the guerilla troops that you then fortify in the city and nearby forts and the guerilla will be busy effectively fighting itself. Bribed guerilla troops can from then on be used as guerilla blockers. And maybe you don't have enough bombers/freights/tanks/whatever to block all guerilla spawns but even blocking a few often makes the difference between keeping a city or losing it back to the enemy, saving you valuable time to go after the next target.

 

[Ndrju]

From what I see, it would be best to switch production in ALL cities to military equipment. Some folks may get unhappy, but... a price of war.

There is one "simple" solution as far as the enemy spaceship is concerned - take their capital. But I guess it would require massive, simultaneous strike with lots of forces, if not all active, to accomplish that. I guess it is still possible on king level... or is it?

Usually it is a good idea to keep bombing hostile city and then use a heli to enter it - little or no ground forces sacrificed this way and even if the enemy retakes the city the next turn, the spaceship will be gone.

 

[stoferb]

To continue on Ndrju's thoughts. Switch to fundamentalism yourself so that unit support and war weariness isn't a problem. Set sliders to maximize income. Go after the capital or cities on the way to the capital first. And also in a way it's fortunate that your enemy is in fundamentalism because it means he'll waste shields building wimpy fundamentalists. They cost like 20 shields (12 on deity for the ai, don't remember what the ai handicap is for king) and his cities mostly produce perhaps three times of that in a turn, which means that lots and lots of shields go to waste for him that he could have spent building better military units. You on the other hand only build fundamentalists in small unproductive cities in cases of emergency. The only problem is their sheer number, but he'll suicide many of them in the war. And yes it can be done on deity so it certainly can be done on king.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

They cost like 20 shields (12 on deity for the ai, don't remember what the ai handicap is for king)

If I recall correctly, King is the center; no penalties and no bonuses.

 

[bob800]

Thanks for all the replies! I just continued with the game, and all of your advice seems to be helping tremendously ("IRB" makes a world of difference on its own).

I have one question though—does Democracy receive any sort of bonus for trade revenue? After switching to Fundamentalism it seems like I'm getting less revenue, but that could be due to a dozen other factors...

Also, I did a little "cheating" to see if capturing the Mongol's capital city would indeed destroy their spaceship... it turns out that they can pay 1000 gold to "escape" to the next biggest city, which then becomes the new capital. Spaceship still intact. However, once they run out of gold, the spaceship will indeed be destroyed.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I have one question though—does Democracy receive any sort of bonus for trade revenue? After switching to Fundamentalism it seems like I'm getting less revenue, but that could be due to a dozen other factors...

There is no direct bonus to trade revenue for being in a Democracy. However, the value of trade routes depends on the (uncorrupted) trade arrows in the source and destination cities. Here, Democracy has an advantage because of the bonus trade arrows that are produced (and this might be further enhanced if the city has superhighways). For this reason, it is usually preferable to trade with a foreign civ that is in Republic or Democracy.

You can get the trade arrow bonus in Fundamentalism if your cities are celebrating We Love the High Priest Day. This will require a large luxury rate to start, but you may be able to reduce it somewhat once cities are celebrating.

Also, I did a little "cheating" to see if capturing the Mongol's capital city would indeed destroy their spaceship... it turns out that they can pay 1000 gold to "escape" to the next biggest city, which then becomes the new capital. Spaceship still intact. However, once they run out of gold, the spaceship will indeed be destroyed.

The escaping government is a good thing to be aware of. In some cases, it is nice to capture some cities before the capital, so that you can plunder more gold and reduce the funds available for the enemy capital to move around. At other times, you may want to go after the capital as a way to deliberately reduce the size of the enemy treasury, usually as a means to reduce the cost of bribing units and cities.

 

[Ndrju]

Also, I did a little "cheating" to see if capturing the Mongol's capital city would indeed destroy their spaceship... it turns out that they can pay 1000 gold to "escape" to the next biggest city, which then becomes the new capital. Spaceship still intact. However, once they run out of gold, the spaceship will indeed be destroyed.

Whoa, really? I am greatly surprised, because that's the first such event I have ever heard of! But that's probably, because I did not usually have any problems with other spaceship outpacing my own. I had to capture capital very rarely, once in a while to do away with someone else's spaceship and it always disappeared. I thought that it gets destroyed no matter what...

Also, commenting on my thought from 10th Apr...

A massive carpet-bombing of hostile capital is especially effective if the capital is at, or close to seashore. Just use a carrier.

Now I wonder... is it possible for the human player to evacuate their government as well?

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Now I wonder... is it possible for the human player to evacuate their government as well?

I have heard that it is, but never experienced it myself.

 

[Major Advantage]

Now I wonder... is it possible for the human player to evacuate their government as well?

I had never experienced my capitol being captured by enemies, but if you build a palace in one of your cities it besomes the capitol.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Happened to me once years ago in the Alien Invasion scenario that comes with MGE. I didn't get to choose what city to move to, although I think the city I was offered was relatively well defended. I don't remember much more about it, though.

 

[stoferb]

Now I wonder... is it possible for the human player to evacuate their government as well?

Yes, if you have more than 1000 gold and your capitol is taken the game will take your 1000 gold and give you a new capitol. You don't get to choose where but it's usually a city pretty close to the original.