Poland vs Arabia: Runaway Civ

[dragof2]

I've been getting back into VP. I played a brief game on King with Rome, which was just a completely one sided stomp, then I played a science game with Korea on Emperor. That one was very difficult (especially since I had to restart many times due to either being placed in tundra or right next to a warmonger), but once I got to about Medieval there was nothing anyone could to do me.
So now I'm playing a domination game with Poland on Emperor (the map is terra).
I had a decent start (I think). I got my mining pantheon stolen by arabia, but went with goddess of wisdom instead. Then Arabia stole the statue of zeus, which was annoying. Then I got oracle and great library sniped (although thankfully not by Arabia, they were spamming other wonders).
So I thought, "Hey, it's not so bad. We border Arabia. I'll beeline chivalry and do a Poland Knight rush. It's a good thing too, they are at the top of the score board and have massive science, their own religion, and claim every other wonder."
Before I could even attack them their neighbors of Carthage and the Celts (both moderately powerful in tech/city counts, especially the celts) attacked them first. I was initially going to give them more time to soften them up, but then Arabia took a great general and bombed a citadel steal right next to my second best city. So I figured time was out if I wanted to attack before they fortified that area.
But it's been horrific. Not only do they have a significant tech lead on me (about 8 techs if I'm reading the score right. I have no idea how. Going by landmarks we each only made one great scientist), but they are somehow managing to produce so many troops that they took a city from the celts and are keeping a significant force around it while also outnumbering my knight swarms on their front with me.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. Is this game just screwed? What could I have done differently?
As far as domination goes this feels like about as perfect of a setup as I could ask for, but it doesn't seem to have mattered. Even a peaceful civ with multiple fronts is able to stomp me flat while simultaneously outdoing me in culture, tourism, and science.

 

[andersw]

You are trading units, that will never go well in the long run.
You lack siege, you lack free company/heavy swordsmen.
Cav are good but not so strong taking punches.
This sort of attack would be ok when you have the polish UU cav.

 

[dragof2]

You are trading units, that will never go well in the long run.
You lack siege, you lack free company/heavy swordsmen.
Cav are good but not so strong taking punches.
This sort of attack would be ok when you have the polish UU cav.

Am I just doomed in that case? I beelined Chivalry so that I would have *something* that could stand up to them. If I wait for bringing my tech up to full medieval, the gap in our tech will only grow wider. Not to mention that we are so close that he can wantonly steal land from me with great generals as he accumulates them from fighting other ai. Believe me I don't like going to war with catapults unless they've got a unique unit leading their charge, but it seems likely that in the 25 turns it would take to grab both heavy swordsmen and trebuchets that Arabia would hit tercio, and at that point it's all over.

 

[andersw]

What I usually need is
a. road a lot towards the enemy, every tile north/northwest in your lands toward arabia should be roaded so you can move freely, plan your wars in advance like this!
b. build a wall against the AI with units, as in, move your units in pic1 back home with a few tanking units, 2-4 siege and maybe an archer behind and depeding on terrain and civ 1-5 skirmishers on the sides.
c. sit in still in the boat and let the AI kill himself on you, use the roads you built in a. so you can retreat with injured units.
d. move in to take the city if he is weak (hard to know) otherwise just sit and grind him, farm the exp, culture and science, he is spending on units and will stagnate.
e. Main goal is range 3 siege, stalwarth tank units and not losing any units yourself, DONT TRADE.
f. In pic 2 I see pillaged tile but if you suicide units make sure to pillage enemy roads so he struggle to reinforce, now this is mostly flatland and cities are very close but still helps.

Main problems you have here is that
g. arabia have great wall so everytime you enter his borders your units are at serious risk.
h. camel archer is a strong resource less UU for defense it also have splash which really hurts when you put a line like pic1 in his lands.
i. you need to really beware with rivers as stepping over at the wrong spot means your unit is dead.
j. another risk is carthage? to the west who could get bribed in by arabia but I see you got defence pact with her, well done.
Possible that an easier option would have been to take her out with the cav rush as she tends to spend too much on navy and doesnt have a land uu, but that also depends on terrain around her.

So a good strat here is to farm him at home/outside his borders until gunpowder.
Use skirmishers mainly and wait with cav until you get closer to uu, use longsword/free company> tercio as frontliners.
Cav can be used on the sides but they are not as good for direct engagements as they dont get defensive bonuses.

If you can survive, the polish uu is ridiculously strong.
Another tactic as poland is to turtle up, hope you arent too far behind and explode when you get hussars, however it sucks a bit to be passive that long.

 

[andersw]

Wanted to add that a cav rush probably is doable, but Im not good enough to do it effectively at emperor and you see some of the issues above.
TLDR: cav doesnt get defensive bonuses and dont do enough dmg to cities.

 

[dragof2]

Good to know. I think in this case I am not a fan of Poland, at least pending a greater sense of understanding of how to play them. A domination civ that needs to wait until renaissance to actually push seems like you are just begging for the game to be effectively over by the time the UU comes out. Even the Middle Ages is pushing it. You can easily have a civ with a super lucky start/a Huns/Greeks/Aztecs eat a civ or two in that time. Especially since the nature of the ai's cheating on high difficulties means that some wonders like the Great Library are effectively unreachable, so it is extremely difficult to catch up on tech.

a. That is very good to know. I'm never sure how much the upkeep on roads is worth it, I will keep that in mind for the future.
b. Is it better to simply declare war on an ai you are on bad terms with? I have noticed that the ai never seems to use great generals to steal land when they are at war with you. I felt I had to declare war not just because Arabia was running away with the game, but because they were funneling their great generals to stealing land from me and crippling a major city.
c. Should I have gone honor with Poland? It feels like that strategy works well enough with an honor civ because they make a preposterous amount of yields on kills, but I've been in many wars (including one right now against a Sweden, who is outfighting me despite needing about 7-8 turns to march their troops, loses tremendous quantities of soldiers compared to mine, and yet outnumbers and outtechs me, on top of leading the scoreboard despite sending massive suicide armies that don't take anything for the last 30 turns) where I can kill ai units at a 1:3 ratio or better (often taking no casualties at all), but the ai is able to simultaneously continue spamming out troops, outtech me, and grab wonders at the same time. Granted not every ai does this, but runaway ai seem to be able to simultaneously do everything unless they start losing cities.
d. It does seem like on a long enough timeline a war footing ai without an obnoxious lead will stagnate (although granted there are worries in terms of other ai scooping up the now vulnerable prize).
e. This does seem like the thing I *should* be aiming for in terms of a troop wall, range 3 ranged units.
f. It is good to know about the roads. I suppose if I know I'm likely to be in the for the long hall, it is better to just burn them, rather than keep them for the sake of momentum.

g. Yeah, I was very not happy when I saw that he built that.
h. I had forgotten about the Camel Archers. Given every other factor it probably wouldn't have stopped the invasion. With that said, with how cramped things were they were surprisingly useless. The splash only works on enemies that are simultaneously in range, and since they have a range of 1 they are lucky if they hit more than 1 unit with it. Plus the fact that they run away meant that they couldn't hold ground, so if I wanted to get at something behind them they would kindly move out of the way. In a different context they definitely would have been much scarier though.
i. I am generally pretty aware of avoiding exposure from reckless river crossings. I'll generally do it to take out a nasty ranged unit, but that is pretty much it, and even then only if I've got enough reinforcements that I can fill the hole in the line.
j. Carthage isn't a risk. They are likewise friends with me and at war with Arabia (just like the celts). This is a big part of why I'm so exasperated. Diplomatically this really couldn't have gone any better. I did consider going after her. It would have obliterated my alliance network, but from what I know now that probably would have been the best route. Leave the UU for Arabia and hope I'm not charging into fusiliers and field guns (or even gatling guns).