Preventing the backstab?

[Atomic]

I was playing today on prince difficulty (which is quite hard for me) and was trying to win a culture victory. So to keep the AI off me, I did everything I could to become friends with them all. This was working, all the AI's were either pleased or friendly with me. So I figured I was safe. However out of the blue, Hyuan Capac (the leader in power by a LOOONG way) decided that it was time for me to die and attacked me with a massive army, wiping me out. This of course was a huge backstabbing because he was friendly with me at the time. Now my power was not extremely high, this is because I was going for culture.

My question is, do AI's tend to backstab more in prince mode? And how can I stop this backstab seeing as I cant keep up in military if im also going for a culture victory

 

[Desert-Fox]

You must build more military units. And use siege weapons if AI still wants to war with you. 3-4 cats in each city would help you + some top offensive units... you must kill their units off before they can do any harm... usually AI loves pillaging.

 

[BlackMage]

AI's don't have a very long memory. If they see an opportunity to make a nice landgrab, they will take it, your relationship nonwithstanding.

The only way to keep them from doing that is to keep your power graphs at least semi-close, AFAIK.

 

[Ballisto]

1) Some AIs are just nuts. These guys will attack you even with inferior troops or when you're on good terms. Tokugawa, Montezuma, Isabella, and Alexander are a few of them. Someone else can probably give you a list.
2) You can keep the crazy warmongers busy by bribing them to attack another AI. You need to be on fairly good terms with them (you were in this case) and have someone they dislike to attack. And of course you need something valuable (gold, a tech or two) to pay them with.

You might want to look at the no military game for ideas. He kept the warmongers away with nothing but diplomacy!

 

[Atomic]

The problem with that was the AI was well above everyone. Like he had at least 2 times the power than the AI second in line. His army was truely massive. looked like about 50-60 units in the first wave. I was going for a culture victory, so keeping up with that would have been impossible (probably even if I was trying to match him in military).

Is one AI totally dominating a common thing in prince mode?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

One way to prevent them is to keep an eye on the power graph and mantain a strong military (which is in fact quite rediculous because the AI is so bad at war tactics that you can easily crush a much "stronger" opponent.)
The amount of units you can have without paying support depends on your population, so you need large empire. Just take out one neighbour in the classical, and another in the medieval era. After this you can still have a large army as a deterrent and concentrate on wonders. Many cottages will allow you to spend money on culture, so a cultural victory is still an option (and even easier; you can conquer cities with other religions, spread them no your empire and build more cathedrals/synagogues/mosques...). Just upgrade from time to time, or have one city with the heroic epic constantly build new units to replace the old ones.
Another way is to have some defensive pacts. These work as deterrent against potential enemies as well, and you can be sure you won't be alone when you are attacked.
A more elegant way to stay out of trouble is to bribe a civ into war from time to time. The attacked civ won't like you, but they will be too busy, and it slows your rivals progress.

 

[ZerrorR]

keep him busy by making your friends to attack him... he wont like you, but he wont have time to attack you... and BTW you can have considerable army force and still win culturally...

 

[shivute]

For the middle ages
Build walls and castles (you would do for the culture anyway) in your border cities. Defend these with a longbowman, a crossbowman and a pikeman - ideally with useful promotions to help defend.
Build groups of 2-3 horsearchers / knights and place them so they cover your coastline.
Depending on the length of your land border, build groups of 4 macemen, 2 pikemen, 2 crossbowmen and 3-4 catapults to cover the border. This stack should be enough to smash enemy stacks - you normally only need to smash 1 or 2 enemy stacks before enough turns have passed and they will negotiate.

Tips - learn about the terrain and use its bonuses to your advantage
watch attacking the last unit in an enemy stack, your unit will be stranded, unless it has 2 mps
if the enemy stack has a top unit, hit with cats even if showing only 0.5% odds of success, you will lose the cat, but that top unit will lose strength.
build barracks in your cities, and when you get theology, or about to get it, start building units in your cities, remembering to switch to building another unit when there is one turn left to completion - you are building up a stockpile of units, switch to theocracy and pump out from every city every turn with 6 xps. I do this when I get vasselage too. This is a superb tactic when not all your cities are building units - you can leave pacificism or the +25% build time civic in place longer. - of course I generally invade some AI after this!
Hit the AI before he hits you (use the above tactic) city raider promos are the best for seige, melee and spearmen. I like combat promos for cavalry and city defence promos for archers. For crossbow men I like the xtra melee bonus.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Is one AI totally dominating a common thing in prince mode?

Haven't encountered this yet. There are major powers and weak ones, but I have never seen one civ dominating them all (except me).
However Huyana with his trait combo always becomes a nuisance (if not a therat) if he doesn't start on a continent with me.
I think you were too passive. Has Huyana conquered some other civ before ?
You could have supplied the defender witht military techs, money, resources and troops to fight Inca without actually go to war.

 

[uncarved block]

Atomic, from my experience level has less to do with it than the AI in question. I only play Noble, and Huayna is on my list as an AI not to have a weak border with-- behind Alex and Monty, but ahead of Mansa and Caesar. (Yes, Caesar. In my experience, if he doesn't attack you early, he's less likely to backstab. Attack from the other side of a neighbor, yes, but not backstab. He also likes to stockpile units, which is only trouble if you totally neglect your power ranking.) As was noted elsewhere in the forums, any civ that has the Aggressive trait is a threat to their neighbors.

 

[pigswill]

If you're going for cultural victory you only need to worry about culture in 3 cities;you typically build 6-9 more to provide temples for cathedrals in the three culture cities; when they're not building temples at least some of them can be producing units (and building barracks early).
Another option to boost your military is to use Prophets for various tech boosts: CoL for confuciansim, Theology for Christianity. You can use another prophet for CS slingshot which is half way to maces.
Putting this together means you should be able to maintain a military. which is the biggest factor in deterring invasion.'If you want peace, prepare for war'.

 

[naterator]

i'm with everyone else, build more uints. keep them in strategic locations. prevent backstabs by either not turning your back, or by pre-emptive backstabbing. with someone else's army, if possible. a fun game is to see haw big a negative modifier you can get for bringing in war allies without having to fight.

 

[actionmedia]

Don't let one civ to become to powerfull. Try to limit his expansion as earlier as possible. Identify the nut (Tokugawa, Monte, Alexander, Huyana) early and make him your pet dog, please him and send him for the others, but watch this closely. If he tend to dominate one civ, send another civ to punish him.
If the pet dog declares war to you, ask for help to the other civs, if he has become too powerful, surely he has some enemies that hate him. Just ask them nicely to declare war to your enemy, may be they will do it for nothing, if not, ask them for their price. If you manage to convince 2 or 3 other civs to declare war, you are safe.

Defensive pact would be an ideea but is somehow risky. Choose carefully your partners.

Build and upgrade military. "Show" your last and most powerfull units to your neighbours. If you have only one maceman or war elephant just walk him around your borders and show him to everyone. This will prevent or delay an invasion.
Guard your border cities with at lest 3 units and keep a mobile stack in the middle of your kingdom if you play for cultural victory, it should not be too big.

If you see a big stack of units aproaching your borders, get ready for war. Start building military units in all your cities and move your defending stack to meet the enemy, because war is iminent. Depending on your culture you will have only 4 or 5 turns before the enemy reach the gates of your first city.

The AI is a bad player and it should be easy to defend.

 

[davelisowski]

Another strategy, though maybe not as effective, is to deny open boarders. HC is infamous for scouting out the units you have in each city then deciding a good time to take over.
Adopting the same state religion can sometimes stop war, or prevent it.

These are secondary solutions. I'll agree with the rest: bigger army, pre-emptive strikes, war through diplomacy, etc.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Another strategy, though maybe not as effective, is to deny open boarders. HC is infamous for scouting out the units you have in each city then deciding a good time to take over.
Adopting the same state religion can sometimes stop war, or prevent it.

Not a good idea. Every AI is more likely to attack when you keep your borders closed. it is better to let them in and show them your strength. The profit from trade routes will make it easier to support a strong army.
Just avoid to trade with your strong neighbours worst enemy if you don't want to fight him.

 

[obsolete]

For the middle ages
Build walls and castles (you would do for the culture anyway) in your border cities. Defend these with a longbowman, a crossbowman and a pikeman - ideally with useful promotions to help defend.
Build groups of 2-3 horsearchers / knights and place them so they cover your coastline.
Depending on the length of your land border, build groups of 4 macemen, 2 pikemen, 2 crossbowmen and 3-4 catapults to cover the border. This stack should be enough to smash enemy stacks - you normally only need to smash 1 or 2 enemy stacks before enough turns have passed and they will negotiate.

The guy said he is gonig for cultural. You can't just tell him to keep building an army and get ready to fight large stacks. The AI has a edge on Prince, and if he's busy trying to keep up with the Joneses he will fail on the cultural victory.

Not that it's impossible on prince at all, but he did say it's tuff for him. I don't see how reading this is going to help him.

 

[T_Raccoon]

The guy said he is gonig for cultural. You can't just tell him to keep building an army and get ready to fight large stacks. The AI has a edge on Prince, and if he's busy trying to keep up with the Joneses he will fail on the cultural victory.

Not that it's impossible on prince at all, but he did say it's tuff for him. I don't see how reading this is going to help him.

okay, ignore this guy.

just because you're going for a cultural victory does not mean you should neglect your military. if someone Hyuan Capac was as strong as you say he was then you should have been building military units a loooooong time ago. no one builds that many units and then just stands idly by not using them. BUILD UNITS even if you're going for the cultural victory. when youre building units it may seem like its a waste of turns since youre not going for a domination victory but its really not, youre just providing for your security. just try it next game, go for a cultural victory but dont neglect your military. have a large military especially since you'll probably be technology backwards youre going to need a military that relies on quantity not quality.

 

[naterator]

Not that it's impossible on prince at all, but he did say it's tuff for him. I don't see how reading this is going to help him

well, it's kinda tough to win a cultural victory if your cities are producing incan culture, yet you are not incan. there's 2 paths discussed here that may help him, diplomatic and military. both are quite valid. i would rather build units than pay techs to stronger civs. i'd rather pay techs than have my civilization destoyed, but sometimes you're not given that option, so i'll vote for more military. if you've got any better ideas, we're listening.