Strategy dilemma - Backstab?

[snarzberry]

settings are pangaea, deity, standard everything, Persia.

I'm in a game as Darius where I built up a nice defensive army of immortal/pikes and beelined Rifling for upgrades, before launching my invasion. I spawned in a quite difficult map position - landlocked right in the dead center of everything. When I had my army ready to go I invaded Siam with the plan of taking them out and then heading into Germany to do the same.

One problem with these starting positions is that when you head off conquering you're leaving one or more flanks exposed and could fall to a snap DoW from one of the other civs. In that kind of situation I'll often sign DoF's with the neighbours on my, soon to be, exposed flanks. I'm usually careful to ensure that I don't sign a DoF with a civ if I'm going to want to invade them before it expires. However in this case I've slipped up a little and now I have a dilemma.

The wars with Siam and Germany are over and I have overwhelming force assembled around the Iroquois borders and would love to invade and take all their land as well. The problem is I've got a stupid DoF with them which hasn't expired and I can't remember exactly when it was signed. Does anyone know if that information is recorded anywhere?

I have a window of absolute dominance open now with infantry/artillery up and running nice and early, and I want to push that for all it's worth but I'm unsure if I should take the diplo hit with everyone else by DoWing my DoF partner.

If I had to wait only 2 more turns then I'd be okay with that, but if the DoF isn't due to expire for like 8 turns or something then I think maybe it's better to break the agreement. I'm interested to see if people would recommend waiting the amount of turns (something less than ten) for the DoF to expire or break my word and declare war. It's either invade the Iroquois now or wait, there's no other target for me to go after.

 

[Brichals]

in the diplo pull down there is a tab at the top, deal history. There it shows expired and current deals, when they were started. Theres also a global relations type tab so you can see who hates who. I hope that helps.

EDIT: seems DoFs don't show up in deal history , sorry

Although to your second point, with an army that size I don't think you need to care.

 

[filli_noctus]

I don't know if DoF details are recorded anywhere, you could check the deal history but as they're not a trade I doubt they'll appear there.
As to if you should break it or not what you need to consider is if Korea poses a viable military threat and how valuable your trade relationships are with other civs you've met. Declaring on a friend is one of the biggest diplo hits you can get so trading on anything approaching fair terms is likely to become impossible. I see you've left a German and Siamese city so presumably you've accounted for the repercussions of eliminating a civ.
Maybe you could try goading the Iroquois into declaring on you, buy out there allied CS (if you can muster the gold) or straight out declare war on one. You'd still take a hit from having a friend declare on you but it would be less than the other way round.

 

[snarzberry]

Yeah in the diplo history I don't believe it shows DoF's at all (is that right or am I missing something?), so I'm still at a loss for when exactly this thing is going to expire. I know it's not too long as I signed it before my first war with Siam.

Yes it looks like I'm going to be steamrolling for quite a while with this army but Spain and Korea both have large military's so any delay now will result in a more difficult ending. I have 3 RA's signed that I'd prefer were not broken, so I don't want to suddenly get chain denounced and dogpiled.

With the roll I have going it may not matter in the end but I'm still iffy on whether to wait or not.

 

[JeanBaptiste]

I don't think you can find DoFs in the deal history. I've been in the same situation before and it sucks that there is no information available.

 

[snarzberry]

I don't know if DoF details are recorded anywhere, you could check the deal history but as they're not a trade I doubt they'll appear there.
As to if you should break it or not what you need to consider is if Korea poses a viable military threat and how valuable your trade relationships are with other civs you've met. Declaring on a friend is one of the biggest diplo hits you can get so trading on anything approaching fair terms is likely to become impossible. I see you've left a German and Siamese city so presumably you've accounted for the repercussions of eliminating a civ.
Maybe you could try goading the Iroquois into declaring on you, buy out there allied CS (if you can muster the gold) or straight out declare war on one. You'd still take a hit from having a friend declare on you but it would be less than the other way round.

My diplo situation is currently really strong, considering the amount of war I've been doing. I've only accrued one warmonger penalty so far with a DoW on Germany, and yeah of course I've left them alive but out of the game.

Korea is fine for the time being as a threat as they have a high trust value and we have a recent DoF. Even though my start is central I can kind of spiral around in one direction so it's not going to be too bad of a conquering route. Spain is just out of sight to the east and are the biggest civ atm, but once I get around to them I'll be so large as to be unstoppable.

Goading Iroquois into war won't be possible while we have a DoF, as much as I would like to do that . It's close to sure that this game is a win now, but it feels like this decision could add ten turns either way on the finish time.

 

[Poomermon]

Yeah I don't think you can check the amount of time left for DoF. You can check if you have an active DoF though. Maybe you could load a earlier autosave to see if you had one active say 25 turns ago unless you consider it cheating (I don't think it is cheating). Anyway I would probably attack now. You seem to be in a quite defensible position and can likely defend against enemy attacks if you position some of you troops near Korea border.

 

[hazman79]

The above are, as ever, sensible and rational however; looking at your army, gold and science output I'd ask yourself this: "does anyone else have, bombers or mech inf?" if the answer is 'no' I'd favour carving a reckless but satisfying channel through anyone who looks at you funny.

 

[snarzberry]

What I really don't want to happen is for someone to denounce me, then one of my friends denounces me... then 'you're friends found reason to denounce you' yadda yadda... resulting in all my RAs being canceled and me having to fight a multi-front war. So maybe the safer thing to do is wait, but that feels really conservative. I guess I'm just going to with hazman79's choice and will start the bloodshed now. It's not like anyone's going to stand in my way for a while, but if it does in fact result in Korea DoWing me before I'd prefer it then I'll look back on this as a mistake.

 

[NotSure]

I hate not knowing how many turns are left on those things. You have way more deity experience than I do, but I won't a little thing like unqualified opinions hold me back...

If I was counting on RA's to mature I'd wait. It looks like you've bulbed a few techs already, so that might be the case? I can see you have two more turns of GA, which makes this an especially bitter pill to swallow. With my luck, Hiawatha would wait until one turn before the DoF expired and then he'd ask me about my troops, forcing me to declare anyway. So, I guess I'd be tempted to just attack and try to run over the rest of the map. I'm also guessing this will make Egypt, Korea, and Greece (is that Greece to the south?) immediately hostile and likely to war with you for the rest of the game? I haven't really given an opinion at all, have I?

OK, here's my final answer. You've really plowed through the tech tree and have a very strong military. It doesn't seem that you can be beaten at this point, even on deity. Even if all of the other civs declare on you at the same time I don't think it'll amount to anything more than an annoyance at this point. Good luck!

Edit: Wow, 8 posts went up while I was typing... considering the new info, I'd wait it out. But I really wanted to see how your game would play out after you attacked your friend.

 

[JeanBaptiste]

I would probably wait. Korea might denounce if you DoW even if you have a DoF. That opens up the risk of another war in an unprotected area.

What about Egypt in the south? You could pass trough the Iroquois territory quite fast and surprise attack them. When you've finished them you'll have two fronts against the Iroquois.

 

[hazman79]

As for the line of attack, just from looking at the mini map, you appear to have the top left corner and I assume no one else to the left or down and to the left of the Iroquois, so in a rough (and unsubstantiated) assessment of your forces, I'd station a smaller precautionary portion of your army on the Korea / Siam end of your borders and then use the rest from their current position to sweep through the Iroquois closing out what would appear to be half of the map, you might leave a couple of Iroquois cities between your borders and those of Egypt. That should buy you time to recover without having the 'touching borders penalty' with Egypt and also leave you in an unassailable position, overall.

The caveat is that Happiness is going to be a problem whatever you do, if you sit for too long any puppets you have are bound to swallow up the surplus and obviously as you take cities you'll generate loads of unhappiness. What's the position with CS's can you obtain luxuries from them or are you far from stadiums? What social policies are within reach?

 

[apocalypse105]

you only have 3 happiness so no and what are you going to get from the DOW are you going dominatin or not?

 

[snarzberry]

you only have 3 happiness so no and what are you going to get from the DOW are you going dominatin or not?

Well I'm not playing a cultural game, I thought that much would be clear. Yes I am going for a domination victory - that's what all those big guns are for

Ok, so I decided to just attack, who knows how long I had to wait for the DoF to expire ,we'll never know. Spent a few turns taking Hiawatha cities, got a sweet capital with Big Ben, Kremlin, Taj Mahal and Hanging Gardens. Now I'm the clear leader in everything and I will keep taking his crappy cities until he's ready to give me a peace offer. Happiness I've managed by purchasing a theater here, a satraps court there and annexed one city for a courthouse.

Social policies situation is I'm in Rationalism and will take the happiness policy next. I've got a double bulb planned in 8 turns with oxford and my last remaining GS which will give me mechs. After that I'll use Scientific Revolution to go to rocket artillery probably.

Now for the diplo ramifications. 2 turns after I DoW'd Hiawatha Isabella denounces me and goes from Friendly to Guarded. Obviously not a surprise, but I had no DoF with her. Korea, who I do have a current DoF, is still Friendly and giving me top price for trades. So no disaster yet, but when that DoF with Korea expires he's going to go instantly Guarded or Hostile almost certainly. Not sure when that will be (would be nice to know devs).

Greece will be a pushover, He only has 5 cities but it looks like there's an inconvenient mountain range that will cause me to lose some turns backtracking. My scouting was terrible in this game, it's usually something I focus on. I have a lancer scouting past Korea's land now so I'll know more about the other side of the map soon.

The only thing that can hurt now is the chain denouncing that I'm dreading and an invasion from Korea that will be awkward to defend against, but shouldn't be too much of a problem beyond extending the game.

 

[AFS]

Wait wait... you have modern units on 1110 AD!! What the...? Holy s... How the...? How? HOW?!

 

[snarzberry]

Wait wait... you have modern units on 1110 AD!! What the...? Holy s... How the...? How? HOW?!

I used great scientists for mid game bulbing to open up key military techs. I used 3 for gunpowder - metallurgy - rifling and then I used another 3 for military tradition - fertilizer - dynamite iirc. I'll only get one more and he will help me get mechanized infantry, along with oxford university. I don't think I had any science from RAs before dynamite, as I had to save a lot of cash for upgrades. RAs have helped get me to infantry, and will help for the rest of the game as long as I don't have them all cancelled for being such an untrustworthy warmongering douche

 

[hazman79]

'D' to the ouchebag indeed. Infantry vs swords? art vs treb? plow away sir. Just remember to sweep up behind your wall of death with TP spam

Looks like Korea swallowed up Siam while you were busy slaughtering...

 

[Poomermon]

The game looks like it's won already. Who are you going to attack next? I would probably wait for peace with Hiawatha and then quickly crush Greece while moving some of the troops to eastern front ready to defend the Korean DoW. Are you going to take Order social policy next for happiness? If you can get rocket artillery reasonably quickly I would wait for them before DoWing Korea. In the meantime maybe purchase a pair of caravels for scouting purposes.

 

[snarzberry]

The game looks like it's won already. Who are you going to attack next? I would probably wait for peace with Hiawatha and then quickly crush Greece while moving some of the troops to eastern front ready to defend the Korean DoW. Are you going to take Order social policy next for happiness? If you can get rocket artillery reasonably quickly I would wait for them before DoWing Korea. In the meantime maybe purchase a pair of caravels for scouting purposes.

Yeah it's good night nurse from here. I got mechs on turn 185 and took 2 more of hiawtha's cities before he finally caved. Happiness is at zero. What I'm doing now is splitting into 2 groups of about 6 mechs and 5 artillery each and I'll double dow greece and egypt as I have way more forces than I need for each individually. They are rifle, cannon armies mainly. Happiness should be okay if I just do a little bit of annexing.

Good idea about the caravels, my lancer isn't making a lot of headway scouting but that should improve as spain just gave me open borders in a deal.

One more social policy will get me to rocket artys, but I may take the 20 odd happiness from order if I don't think I need them. Time to plow away.

Thanks for everyone's input.

 

[NotSure]

It's always amusing to see how the computer plays the Iroquois, chopping down half the forests and leaving the other half unimproved. Yet they almost always have a strong game.

Anyway, nice game! It would be interesting to know how far you can push it with military superiority. I'm guessing even after the double DoWs and the DoF wears off Korea doesn't do much more than denounce you (and spam a crap ton of units).