Spanish Horde, or Is Isabella Cheating?

[Razor Gaunt]

OK I don't get it.

I was playing Prince on the Great Plains, pretty rough, but I thought I was holding my own, top of the score card most of the time. Isabella, my neighbor on the other hand, near the bottom of the card.

I am admittedly pretty light on defense, every city has an archer, or better, and I shift around my armies in two or more groups to handle the riff raff, and take a city in a border skirmish.

Spain was not very happy when I cut off one of her cities with a culture bomb and declared war on me. I got Alexander to raze one of her cities and I took the stranded one. I was able to get a peace from her after that. Some years later, she declares war on me again, and this time she has literally about a hundred units. I had stuck my entire main army in the city I knew she was going for, she attacked with about 20 - 30 catapults, uncountable grenadiers, pikemen and musketmen. (My own knights, grenadiers and muskets were no match for this massive human wave.)

Someone tell me how you can build such an army as that, and still stay afloat economically, and stay up with technology?

On the other hand, maybe hundreds of units is the norm, and I am just lucky not to have ever have seen it.

 

[shadow2k]

OK I don't get it.

I was playing Prince on the Great Plains, pretty rough, but I thought I was holding my own, top of the score card most of the time. Isabella, my neighbor on the other hand, near the bottom of the card.

I am admittedly pretty light on defense, every city has an archer, or better, and I shift around my armies in two or more groups to handle the riff raff, and take a city in a border skirmish.

Spain was not very happy when I cut off one of her cities with a culture bomb and declared war on me. I got Alexander to raze one of her cities and I took the stranded one. I was able to get a peace from her after that. Some years later, she declares war on me again, and this time she has literally about a hundred units. I had stuck my entire main army in the city I knew she was going for, she attacked with about 20 - 30 catapults, uncountable grenadiers, pikemen and musketmen. (My own knights, grenadiers and muskets were no match for this massive human wave.)

Someone tell me how you can build such an army as that, and still stay afloat economically, and stay up with technology?

On the other hand, maybe hundreds of units is the norm, and I am just lucky not to have ever have seen it.

If an AI has only been involved in short wars in the early ages, they build up huge amounts of troops. This seems to even be more pronounced if you are playing epic/marathon, as the AI runs out of buildings to build.

The AI also starts getting advantages at Prince. I'm not sure of the exact advantages they get for each level, but their costs for keeping such a large army is not nearly as oppressive as it would be for you to do the same.

100 units does sound out of line though. Maybe post an auto-save so we can see what's going on.

 

[Seven05]

Largest army she ever hit me with was about 50-60 Conquistadors and as many Grenadiers. This was even after I knocked out several galleons of hers full of assorted units. And here I thought I was doing pretty good to hit her with my Rifleman/Cavalry/Grenadier army, I held on but what was supposed to be my second wave ended up being used entirely as reinforcements at Barcelona

That was last night on a standard continents map, epic speed and prince difficulty. She was my designated landing zone for my move onto the second continent, I had hoped the back and forth war between her and the Incas has softened her up since they had both been losing and retaking cities every couple of turns. Aparently not soft enough...

Edit: Missed the "someone tell me..." part

In contrast, I had two fleets of 4 galleons and 1 frigate each for my transports. I also had around 15 other frigates patrolling the seas and bombarding her cities. I had 4 defending units per city (maybe 10-11 cities at this time), riflemen & grenadiers, at a minimum (some coastal cities had extras). My amphibious assault was made up of, in the end 4 round trips worth of units per fleet, 96 units if you don't want to do the math. All the while running 80% research and still earning extra money to set asside for infantry upgrades. It's all about a good balance between production and economy, since I had conquered my entire continent early in the game, much to the displeassure of the Indian & German empires, as a result I had some potent cities. The Indians had also founded Hinduism, when I captured the holy city that opened up some extra cash, before invading the second continent I spent quite some time ferrying missionaries over there to spread the good word, probably about 30-40 cities in total had Hinduism.

I was playing as Tokugawa, I think the organized trait is a little better now after 1.52. And my game is modded, last night I was testing UUs produced based on buildings that could only be built by the appropriate civilization but could be captured. So I had fast workers but I don't think they made a huge impact on my war effort.

 

[zafyro]

isabella is quite fond of crusades, and she could have launched an all out atack. What map size you were playng and what dificulty.
This has happened to me some times but it was the russian and the spanish launching this kind of brutal assault with more than 50 units.

 

[Finite Monkey]

If an AI has only been involved in short wars in the early ages, they build up huge amounts of troops.

This is probably your issue. I have had this happen and I learned a valuable lesson. If I declare war to take just a couple of stray cities and then sue for peace I'm shooting myself in the foot.

The enemy goes into an almost 100% military build up after the initital war to get is revenge. I found that if I just make sure to press my early advantage and either elminate or cripple the enemy by taking a few larger cities then I come out alright as their meger build-up lacks the punch it would have had previously.

This is all anectdotal on my part, but I hope this helps.

 

[Glinka]

I never noticed any civ getting angry when a city flipped due to a cultural bomb. Peter's relationship with me remained the same afterwards, so I suspect it's just the sheer military might of Isabella made her bold enough to attack you. This is especially so if you have open borders, and she's been able to tell what you've got sitting in your cities.

 

[LawLessOne]

This is probably your issues. I have had this happen and I learned a valuable lesson. If I declare war to take just a couple of stray cities and then sue for peace I'm shooting myself in the foot.

That is actually a lesson from all the Civ games. You cant conduct a limited war. If you go to war you have to hurt them, big time. Otherwise they just come back with an overwhelming force. If you can cripple them then you can be friends. Otherwise they will just keep building military until they have to attack.

You can actually build a forces of many hundreds of units but it is such a drain on your economy that you have to use it before it bankrupts you.

 

[walkerjks]

I never noticed any civ getting angry when a city flipped due to a cultural bomb.

In fact, your relations often improve after a city flips to you, since your borders, while still close, aren't quite as invasive. You might go from a -2 "our close borders..." relation to -1, for example.

 

[BCLG100]

I notice isabella while generally being a nation not so high in the points table always seems to have the latest units and quite a few of them, admitadly in the game im in now have tanks and she only has one or two with predominantly cavalry but i am very far ahead compared with everyone else.

 

[Sybot]

Whenever Izzy shows up in one of my games, I always have to go and kill her. She always seems to get a bunch of early religions and then goes on a 'crusade' (as someone aptly put it). A good example is GOTM1 where she got four religions and was in the process of invading the heathen Aztecs when I attacked and defeated her.

 

[Razor Gaunt]

Newb question here, how do I post an auto-save? Do I load my game to someone's server? How do I just show a picture without a URL?

 

[eric_]

Razor, if you click the "Post Reply" icon under the last post, the main posting window will open. One of the buttons across the top has an icon of a paper clip. Click that to attach files like you would to an e-mail.

 

[hollebeek]

Whenever Izzy shows up in one of my games, I always have to go and kill her. She always seems to get a bunch of early religions and then goes on a 'crusade' (as someone aptly put it). A good example is GOTM1 where she got four religions and was in the process of invading the heathen Aztecs when I attacked and defeated her.

There's another good reason for killing Izzy: you become the new owner of
all those cities that founded religions

 

[TLHeart]

I have been at war with Izzy off and on for over 2000 years. She is Buddist, I am Hindu, and Jewish . She came at me with Conqustadors, grenadiers, and cats in stacks of about 20, 4 stacks all moving towards my capital. I attacked with my cannons, and calvary... Kept Catherine to my west my friend the whole game, but have an angry Hatty to the North, who keeps attacking me, or Catherine, and we both ask the other for help every time Hatty Attacks.

while fighing Izzy, I notice on the border with Hatty, that she is amassing quite an army of calvery, and cats, then she asks for tribute, which I refused. The war should start any turn now....She has over 100 units that I can see in and around her cities...Gotta love the spying that religion enables. Hopefully, With Catherine's help, I can finally eliminate Hatty...She always gets Izzy or Julius involved in the war too. Sued Izzy for peace, again, bigger threat to the north, and I need to rebuild my forces, cant fight a two front war at this time.

I do have a power house of a city, build calvary every two turns, with three promotions out the door....Heroic epic, and West point, barracks, and Theocracy.

War at prince level after patch 1.52 is harder for this builder....
my current world...
Ghengis Khan
Catherine
Jelius Ceasar
Izzy
Hatty
Saladan
Elizabeth <---me

May I say, redcoats are an awesome unit for the short time they are active....Infantry comes very soon after.

 

[LordTerror]

I never noticed any civ getting angry when a city flipped due to a cultural bomb.

They don't need to angry to invade you.

 

[Kirghiz]

LOL I have seen this too from Isabella. I felt pretty good sitting behind my city walls with five or so Rifleman in each city. She comes at me with Horse Archers, Axeman, Swordsman, and Catapults, and I am laughing at first as she throws her army at me. She lost units at a five to one ratio and I am sitting here thinking I am going to have some uber promotions to hand out next turn, not to mention that the AI is stupid.

My game was over five turns later, but I took every bit of 150 Spanish soldiers with me.