Problem with Myself?

Godwynn

March to the Sea
Joined
May 17, 2003
Messages
20,502
I find myself with this problem in EVERY game. I always play on Regent level, and the Enemy AI always invades me, walks right through 2 others civs territory and attacks me. My problem is, I always try to build everything I can in a city, and then make a military. I always have 2 musketmen in every city, and here comes the Persians with immortals everywhere marching right net to Iznik or Antalya. Am I the only one with this problem, or is everyone else out there a warmonger?
To you warmongers, how many military units should I have, and where should I store them? In 1 city or on my borders?
 
I don't consider myself a warmonger, because I usually aim for spaceship or culture win. :)

You could try improving your relations with other civs, by trading with them often. If you have a trade going on with them, they are less likely to attack you.

But the most important thing is always maintain a strong and modern military. Where to station your troops really depend on your gov't type. If your giv't is not Republic/Democracy, you want to have 3 units in each of your cities (as military police). If your gov't is Rep/Demo, then 1 unit is enough for most cities, and cencentrate your forces in a few potentially dangerous border areas. It's normal for me to have a dozen knights or cavalry in border cities. Always try to keep a large mobile force and connect all your cities with roads/railroads ASAP so you can respond to threats faster.
 
I think many have had this problem at one point or another. If you want to be fairly peaceful, it's not a bad idea to have a decent military. However, this is certainly not a requirement. Most of the time, as long as you trade early and often, the AI will leave you be, even if they could destroy you in one or two turns.
 
If you want to stay peacefull and be a builder then you MUST keep an eye on AI attitudes toward you. Get them in trade deals. Get ROPs with them. Trade as mach as you can and give then an occasional gift to keep them happy.

Me Id just march over there and give them a slappen.
 
I agree with Thunderfall. It's not so much how many units you have, just be sure you have some mobile offensive units on your borders. That way you can destroy any invaders before they can get to you, so you can get by with only one defender in your inner cities. The AI always attacks sooner or later, so you'd best be ready.
 
That and the damn Persians have one obscenely powerful UU. A 4 attack rating that early in the game, along with a 30 shield cost.. I've learned to fear the Persians early in the game to a point that if I learn they have no iron, I take them out IMMEDIATELY. Otherwise, I do what I can to avoid the fury of those Immortals until technology permits a defensive unit capable of withstanding a rush of immortals.

I tend to keep only one unit in cities not on my borders. On my borders, I will keep numerous defenders, alot of times, more than 3. And if those border cities have fewer than 7 citizens, I will also have city walls in place for that extra 50% defense.

If you want to stay peacefull and be a builder then you MUST keep an eye on AI attitudes toward you. Get them in trade deals. Get ROPs with them. Trade as mach as you can and give then an occasional gift to keep them happy.

Unfortunately, with the way I've seen the AI behave before, it won't matter how great your relations are, or what agreements you have, or what their attitudes towards you are. I've seen Xerxes polite towards me and smiling on the diplomacy advisor screen, and he continued to do so as he marched 8 Immortals into the vicinity of one of my cities. Persia also has, by default, a high aggression level.


And I've seen Greece use a ROP agreement I made with him to his advantage when he was able to attack the core cities with Cavalry that was previously was harmlessly traversing through my territory.
 
I'm really more of a builder, but I've learnt the hard way you've got to have a decent army... It's not like in CIV2 where I could win games without building offensive military units AT ALL !
IN my CIV3 games there are always times where some cities have nothing to build... I use them to spit out some military units in order to deter the AI. It's even part of my tech strategy, I think "If I research this, then this, then my cities won't have any improvments to build and I can beef up my military".
Try looking in the tech tree for those improvments-free techs, they give you nice breaks in your building frenzy to catch up on the militaristic side :)
 
Originally posted by Thunderfall
I don't consider myself a warmonger, because I usually aim for spaceship or culture win. :)

You could try improving your relations with other civs, by trading with them often. If you have a trade going on with them, they are less likely to attack you.

Maybe it should be you who should be writing this thread. :lol:

I never take sh*t from any civ whether they are Persian, American, Babylonian, Roman, Greek, Arab...whatever. Fight the battledress (your coward ness) and keep them at bay. It's a cruel world out there and you must serve. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
Originally posted by Godwynn
My problem is, I always try to build everything I can in a city, and then make a military

Then you may have identified a solution for yourself :)

I find that your military advisor is a pretty good indication on your military capabilities compared to your rivals. If he claims that you are weak in comparison to another civ then that civ will know they are strong against you, possible right for an invasion.

Early in the game I tend to build up Spearmen (at least they have a useful longevity in the game in being upgradable many times) always at vetran level and place them along your borders within your towns.

To me it doesn't really matter (unless you are a warmonger) on how strong a force that you think you have it matters how strong a force that your rival civs think that you have.

I have had a game where the other 15 civs are always fighting each other but none of them declared war on me - even the Mongols and the Celts avoided conflict. The reason was my superiority in military numbers and hardware. Nothing to do with relationships (although up to attaining that numbers advantage I did keep them as sweet as I could afford to). They had annoyed to furious ratings against me but it was then conflict on my starting and not theirs. They never even joined together against me - they might have hated me but I kept enough money to bribe one to attack the other with me to ensure that their own relationships with each other was just as bad.

Remember the old saying that keep your friends close and your enemies even closer - until you have the military to not need to do either :)


Morgan
 
You gotta' watch them borders! I fill my border cities with at least 4 units, then, for the squares in-between, I post units so that no enemy get get in unnoticed. It's kinda' like a primitive early warning system...
 
I usually go for a spaceship or culture victory, I dont like going to war until the modern era. As soon as I can I'll get 3 spearmen and 3 catapult in every city i have (regardless of being in the centre or border areas) , while costly i find that the AI rarely attacks without your empire having a weak city to prey on, I also keep a handful of cavalry type units around the centre of my empire incase of war.
 
I consider myself a "building warmonger"
So i slit my cities in 2. For exampel, one city build a temple, and while that city is building its temple the otherone builds millitary units. Then when the temple is finished, the city with the temple will build millitary while the otherone builds the Temple.
 
Originally posted by Godwynn
I find myself with this problem in EVERY game. I always play on Regent level, and the Enemy AI always invades me, walks right through 2 others civs territory and attacks me.


So make military allainces or MPP witht hose 2 civs, that should easily keep him at bay and if you a ROP with those civs, you mount a fast enough offense to help protect the other civs he's attacking.

I have found Persia usually will pick a target early on, probably when they get iron and not stop till he wipes them out. I was lucky enougha few games where Persia was far away from me and didn't attack me, but my new game me, Persia and Greece were right beside each other, so when Persia attacked me I made an alliance with greece. Problem was Greece wasn't militarily strong and was wiped out soon enough. So it's important to help your neighbours.

Otherwise, build enough units to scare them off and try to get the world against aggressive civs like Persia early.
 
:)

I have tested the alliance ( in a scenario I created with the editor) with a more agressive civilization than me, when I was attacked my friend sent automatically soldiers to help me... At the end he was alone to fight against the ennemies but don't tell that to him...;)

:D
 
I believe the AI doesn't care what type of unit you have when it sees if your strong, only the number. In that case, it should be easy to get lots of cheap units.
Also, if your having trouble with immortals, I think that you'd be better off building knights. They can easily take out units in your territory, retreat to heal, and so on. As a bonus, they can be upgraded later to calvary :)
At that point, crush those annoying persians!
 
@Bloodied66

That used to be the case (AI only counting number of units) and it was used for some amusing exploits in the early days. But they patched it quite early on and I believe the Ai now considers the strength of units in some way (so warrior is not the same as modern armour any more :))

Another cure for annoying Persians - remove their iron. :)
 
Maintaining good diplomatic relations is critical. Good advice on this has already been posted. One specific thing you can do to really help yourself out is to maintain gpt deals with as many AI as possible. They're much less likely to break these.
 
I believe that you are right MadScot. The Carth's attacked me and my military advisor at the time suggested that they were stronger than me. However when they attacked I was one turn away from Modern Armour.

With that I converted 76 Panzers to Modern Armoured Tanks and the balance of power was then in my favour.

Isn't it amazing what it means when you are using the right attack units to hack to pieces a 31 stack of infantry - in other words attacking with modern armour and keeping my mechanised infantry for defence, after pounding the stack with bombers from my three carriers.

superslug as I have already mentioned if you are say a Fascist government and with a domination type victory in mind then good relationships are not that important when you have a mighty superior military. I have had both the Celts and the Mongels furious at me for some time but they won't dare attack. When the Mongels last fought with me I only accepted their peace terms by them giving me a city :)

I wonder if they count tactical nukes and ICBM's in their calculation when they are assessing your military capability. When you are using ICBM's they sure create a mess - and get you no votes at the UN ;)


Morgan
 
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