Some of the following I'll credit to the patch, some to the AI's dumb luck. But it did pull out some pretty nice moves.
I'm playing as Japan at immortal difficulty on a standard sized continents map with standard settings. My continent has 3 other civs on it, and is shaped kind of like a snowman with a fat head. I've started where the eyes are and England is at one side of the throat. Her first city is placed on the other side of the throat, cutting me off from the snowman's body (first smart move: this one I put down to dumb luck rather than her knowing to cut me off). I share the snowman's head with 3 city states, and there's still room for me to settle 4 cities in total. I do so.
Fast forward to the early medieval ages. I've got a catapult, 2 horsemen, 2 swordsmen and an archer. 2 of my cities are near England: one is slightly closer to her with more vulnerable terrain so I put most of my units around that one. I've allied myself to the only maritime city state in the snowman's head, Singapore, which also is close-ish to England, reinforcing my line against her. England has about 7 cities and has been warring on-and-off with the civs in the snowman's body for quite a while, without making much progress (probably because the AI's now more defensive). She's a few techs ahead of me (the AI seems slightly better at teching post-patch), including having her longbows out. She switches strategies, declares war on me and makes a move. (At a strategic level, this is a smart move: she's ahead in tech, she's got a bigger army and she can take my nice lands. It's what I'd have done in her position)
Unfortunately the AI still sucks at offensive tactical combat. She moves her army towards my other frontline city which isn't so heavily defended (good move), but does so in the normal stupid way. The melee units/horsemen arrive a couple of turns ahead of the archers/longbows, and are sniped by my reinforcements and my rush-bought catapult. I lost a horseman but she lost way more. When the archers do arrive, they seemed to just stand around and only occasionally shoot. It was terrible.
When the 3-4 melee units all died, England retreated her back row ranged units (good move: they'd have been slaughtered otherwise). Since longbows have 3 range and there were quite a few hexes of open ground between my city and hers, it created a no man's land in the middle which I couldn't attack into without heavy losses. A few turns of stalemate ensued.
She started asking for peace, but her demands were steep so I said no. So she switched strategy again. She bought the alliance of one of the other city states next to me, and since they had a few pikemen and horsemen, that kept me busy (intentional move or dumb luck? not sure). In the meantime, she marched on Singapore, my allied city state, quickly subduing it using her 3 range longbows and a few horsemen (good strategic move, reasonably good tactical execution too). Losing the pearls from it hurt, but not as much as the fact that the remaining city state next to me had a quest out to kill Singapore! Now that city state was is also allied with her and warring me! (dumb luck or intentional? not sure, but very effective) All this time she was happy to peace, provided that I bequeathed her my firstborn.
So now I'm stuck in my snowman's head, at war with my neighbour who's got me choked in, and 2 city states who have equivalent or better military units than me. Certainly an interesting game.
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To pre-empt people who are going to say 'you could have just horsemen rushed her lol' or the riflemen slingshot would've killed her': yes, I agree. But there are obviously strategies that the AI can't handle and some game mechanics that are broken. I try those things once to see what it's about and try not to use them again. I expect these things to be patched eventually, or at worst modded out, but for the time being there's no fun in exploiting broken mechanics so I play in a 'standard' way.
I'm playing as Japan at immortal difficulty on a standard sized continents map with standard settings. My continent has 3 other civs on it, and is shaped kind of like a snowman with a fat head. I've started where the eyes are and England is at one side of the throat. Her first city is placed on the other side of the throat, cutting me off from the snowman's body (first smart move: this one I put down to dumb luck rather than her knowing to cut me off). I share the snowman's head with 3 city states, and there's still room for me to settle 4 cities in total. I do so.
Fast forward to the early medieval ages. I've got a catapult, 2 horsemen, 2 swordsmen and an archer. 2 of my cities are near England: one is slightly closer to her with more vulnerable terrain so I put most of my units around that one. I've allied myself to the only maritime city state in the snowman's head, Singapore, which also is close-ish to England, reinforcing my line against her. England has about 7 cities and has been warring on-and-off with the civs in the snowman's body for quite a while, without making much progress (probably because the AI's now more defensive). She's a few techs ahead of me (the AI seems slightly better at teching post-patch), including having her longbows out. She switches strategies, declares war on me and makes a move. (At a strategic level, this is a smart move: she's ahead in tech, she's got a bigger army and she can take my nice lands. It's what I'd have done in her position)
Unfortunately the AI still sucks at offensive tactical combat. She moves her army towards my other frontline city which isn't so heavily defended (good move), but does so in the normal stupid way. The melee units/horsemen arrive a couple of turns ahead of the archers/longbows, and are sniped by my reinforcements and my rush-bought catapult. I lost a horseman but she lost way more. When the archers do arrive, they seemed to just stand around and only occasionally shoot. It was terrible.
When the 3-4 melee units all died, England retreated her back row ranged units (good move: they'd have been slaughtered otherwise). Since longbows have 3 range and there were quite a few hexes of open ground between my city and hers, it created a no man's land in the middle which I couldn't attack into without heavy losses. A few turns of stalemate ensued.
She started asking for peace, but her demands were steep so I said no. So she switched strategy again. She bought the alliance of one of the other city states next to me, and since they had a few pikemen and horsemen, that kept me busy (intentional move or dumb luck? not sure). In the meantime, she marched on Singapore, my allied city state, quickly subduing it using her 3 range longbows and a few horsemen (good strategic move, reasonably good tactical execution too). Losing the pearls from it hurt, but not as much as the fact that the remaining city state next to me had a quest out to kill Singapore! Now that city state was is also allied with her and warring me! (dumb luck or intentional? not sure, but very effective) All this time she was happy to peace, provided that I bequeathed her my firstborn.
So now I'm stuck in my snowman's head, at war with my neighbour who's got me choked in, and 2 city states who have equivalent or better military units than me. Certainly an interesting game.
-------------------------------------------------------
To pre-empt people who are going to say 'you could have just horsemen rushed her lol' or the riflemen slingshot would've killed her': yes, I agree. But there are obviously strategies that the AI can't handle and some game mechanics that are broken. I try those things once to see what it's about and try not to use them again. I expect these things to be patched eventually, or at worst modded out, but for the time being there's no fun in exploiting broken mechanics so I play in a 'standard' way.
