The Stupid French!

[Mr Funkypants]

The stupid French! I'm doing the Age of Exploration, on Warlord, as the Dutch. The French are polite towards me, and they declare war and capture my cities. I load an autosave and get the French to become gracious towards me. And what do they do? They declare war!!! Help me please.

 

[Kiech]

Build pikemen. Study gunpowder. Build musketmen. Just because you have a whole continent to settle doesn't mean you can shirk your duty to build basic defence in the homeland.

Sounds like you need to restart the scenario.

 

[Gogf]

Originally posted by Kiech
Build pikemen. Study gunpowder. Build musketmen. Just because you have a whole continent to settle doesn't mean you can shirk your duty to build basic defence in the homeland.

Sounds like you need to restart the scenario.

Hold on... Don't attack him! He does not need to restart it. The Dutch build Swiss Mercenaries, who are as good as musketmen (except of offense), and he therefore probably doesn't need to research gunpowder. Build a lot of swiss mercenaries (which are quite cheap), and also a lot of longbowmen. Just stay alive, and keep your cities until you can negotiate peace.

 

[Mr Funkypants]

I already have gundpowder, and can thus build musketmen. But the French attack so quickly that I don't have a chance to build them! What to do... I don't want to restart it though, I'm doing well outside of the homeland. Oh yeah, and the AI are actually playing it like they're supposed to. (actually, the French are really in Canada, the British really on the east coast, the Spanish around Florida, and the Portuguese in Brazil) I'm in Texas, Louisiana, New York, and Carolina right now with the Dutch.

 

[sorky]

If you can, trade luxury to french, or give them GPT for free... If France doesn't care about that, try to declare war yourself and trade for alliance the same turn.. If the map is good for this strat, you could have some turns to build defence (& attack too ;p)

[edit] Alliance with 1 or 2 neighbours of France in YOUR turn.

 

[nullspace]

Bleh, forget the musketmen, just build pikemen. The muskets cost twice as much, but only have one more on defense. If you are in danger of losing cities, pikes are a much better deal. That's why I avoided researching gunpowder, but since you already have it, I'm not sure what to do. Try to ship some defenders from the frontier back home? Bring any treasures you have to your capital and use the cash to rush-buy defenders? Don't send all your troops to the new world in the first place? Always leave at least one combat unit in a city, otherwise the AI sees it as a freebie and declares war to try and take it.

 

[Kiech]

Best bet: get EVERYONE war with Spain. It is going to be rather tough to gain your european cities back without a nice sum of military there...try to build as much military as you can!

 

[jimmygeo]

Thanks, all of you. I got a lot of helpful advice for another scenario in which I was having the same problem.

jimmygeo

 

[socralynnek]

It's a kind of exploit, but if you already have colonies in the new world then forget about your home cities, let them be destroyed and see your capital move to the new world. Then you have a short way to get the treasures to your capital (and because of less distance corruption in the new world, it migt not be that bad for you!)

 

[Longasc]

I can only say the same as some others before -

your Capital in the New World will allow you to transfer treasures even faster and you will win easier than with a capital in Europe - it is so easy that some even consider palace jumping to be an exploit in this scenario.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

I can only say the same as some others before -

your Capital in the New World will allow you to transfer treasures even faster and you will win easier than with a capital in Europe - it is so easy that some even consider palace jumping to be an exploit in this scenario.

Which is probably why the palace costs about 600 shields in that particular scenario

I agree with those who say that if all else fails, let the stupid French take your European cities, and concentrate on upgrading and defending your American colonies (if I remember correctly, the Netherlands only has three cities in the Back end of Europe anyways). If you already have units in the American cities, switch all production to walls (unless it would waste shields, of course; in that case, switch to the best unit that will build the fastest without wasting shields), and beef up your American Army, then take the French colonies before he can send reinforcements from the motherland. If possible, have your coastal cities build frigates and sink any carracks/caravels that he tries to send accross to reinforce those colonies. Then, in all cities that have an treasure-generating strategic resource in their radius should build the mines/fur trappers/plantations for the appropriate resource and connect all cities to your new capitol with roads for rapid transportation of treasures and subsequent victory point accumulation. Of course, if your new capitol has any of those resources in its radius, that would make the acquisition of VP's that much faster (since all you have to do is return the treasure to the capitol, and they would automatically be generated in your capitol every 5-7 turns, you'd make out like a bandit).

Well, those are just my suggestions.