OCC trouble

[jm chen]

So I've got a happy little Monarch OCC going on as Portugal. Lucked out with a couple SGLs in the early game, so I've stacked up wonder on wonder (Oracle, Colossus, Great Lib, Sistine, Leo's, Shakes) and am just a few turns from finishing Newton's. I'm in Republic and the city's pop 14. Small continental world: me, America, Spanish, Vikes, French.

Way back years and years ago, the Americans started tromping across my land, and I assumed they were coming after me, so I gave them "Fight or get out" and was shocked when they left. Turns out they were just headed past my capital to get to the Spanish cities on the other side. So I let them through. Later, the Vikings took those cities, and the Americans were heading past me to get to the Vikings this time.

After they signed peace with the Vikings, they came tromping back past Lisbon, and oops -- now they've just declared on me.

I have iron in my lands, and during other people's wars, managed to hold a saltpeter colony for a few turns, so I could upgrade my defenders. Also had horses for a while on a trade and cranked a few knights.

My forces are about half and half attackers and defenders. Mix of medieval infantry and musketmen, mostly. Americans aren't doing much better but they did just send a cav at me. And my total army is not more than 10, plus a catapult.

So.... what would you do? Sign with another ally to try to wear down America rather than having them send everything they've got at little ol' me? But then I'm stuck fighting for 20, and I'd rather sue for peace as fast as I possibly can.

And it was going so well...

 

[budweiser]

I would pull in a friend. Then you may not get attaked at all. If you had more men, then you may have had a better chance of fighting them off yourself. I'm not sure I would risk going it alone in this case.

 

[TruePurple]

well they might not take a sue for peace for awhile. They won't even talk to you till a number of turns or till you park a number of troops outside one of their cities.

You might already know this but.. when letting AI troops through your land, you need to make sure all the cities along the path they travel (plus some in if against calvary) are well defended. If they are in close proximity to a perceived weakness in your defense the AI will often declare.

I'd MA the nation nearest to the Americans, or even more depending on how big the nations are compared to each other, location etc. 20 turns of that should bring the Americans to the peace table. Just don't accept till the MA runs out (Set 'autorenew agreements' off) or your rep will be ruined.

 

[SJ Frank]

I think it will depend on two factors.

1) Do you think you can handle it military-wise for 5-7 turns? You have seen a parade of their troops when they trespassed your land the first time, so you could make a pretty good assessment in this matter.

An important factor to consider is: can the American cavs attack your city without having to stop in your territory? In other word, what is the shape of your border? Those cavs are much easily taken care of by counter attacking. If they have to stop in front of your city for a turn, then you can get really good kill ratio by using your MDI/Treb on them. In this situation, I would tough it out by myself. I might even get a favorable peace term.

2) How advanced are the Americans compare to the other AI's? What I found, is that there is a huge difference between fighting the AI "tech leader" and the "tech followers", and the difference is not necessarily fighting more advanced units, it is in the AI's ability to sign allies. By far, the worst thing that can happen is if they start a dog-pile on you before you could make peace, and that's only possible if the Americans have the tech/money to sign other AI's into alliances.

When you're fighting a tech leader, you need to aggressively sign allies before they do. It’s sort of like a diplomatic pre-emptive strike. But when you're fighting a laggard, and you could handle them militarily, then I would recommend that you don’t tie you hands by signing 20-turn alliances.

 

[jm chen]

Thanks for the advice. America is the tech leader, so I may need to do this pre-emptive signing thing. The good news is, when I watched them attack Spain, they clearly had the troops to overcome the town but insisted on attacking with one or two swordsmen at a time, and never did take the one town they attacked. Hopefully they'll come after me the same way.

The bad news is, I'm alone on a continent with them now, so no matter who I sign in, America will probably just attack me anyway. But since I can't spare the troops to send into their land to scare them... turtling up sounds like the only way to go.

 

[majk-iii]

The good news is, when I watched them attack Spain, they clearly had the troops to overcome the town but insisted on attacking with one or two swordsmen at a time, and never did take the one town they attacked. Hopefully they'll come after me the same way.

No, probably not.
The AI never really upgrades anything, so they've obviosly "used up" their obsolete swordsmen when fighting the spanish, and replaced them with cav's and such.

 

[majk-iii]

If they can get to your city in one turn and you have enough pikes/muskets and trebs/cannons... try putting a fortified barricade in front of your equally fortified city (on a hill perhaps?).
They are likely to attack that first and perhaps even ending their turn in firing-range from both of them.
Oh, and since you're on the defensive, build as cheap units as possible... muskets and mdi's over cavs, trebs over mdi's and so on.
Then rush a (mostly defensive) unit every or every two turns.