The Surprise Attack

[Warspite2]

I usually play on king, my last game I started on emperor as America, so far this is how it is coming along...

All was quiet, I was minding my own business, building up towards a tech victory and stashing gold away. Had several lux res, flowing throughout my country. My people were happy, my vertical building was going as planned, all was well. China was small, to my west and friendly and so was my other neighbors to the south. I thought, looks like I could pickup an easy tech win here. Then, I had the bright idea to start settling cities near China. I was hungry for more land, greedy and wanted more. First I put a new city very close to their eastern border. Now, many of times if they have a problem with this they will let you know quick. I never heard anything from China, plus they were small and even though I never had much of a military, I was not afraid of them. Also, they have been friendly the whole time. So, I figured I would sign an open borders with them so I can pass on through and settle in another location near them I was eyeing out. The open borders was signed and I had two settlers on the way to get two more new cities setup for my country. Not long after the first one was founded, I noticed an enormous buildup of Chinese forces. They were starting to crowd near that new city.

I started to become concerned as I had production orders all setup in my other cities, and very minimal military. Small as China was, their military was definitely to be concerned about. Only 1 turn after, China came up and said, "I have the advantage now, I will destroy you", something like that and they declared war on me. Thats exactly what they had, and they had moved it all into position, perfect execution and I was in trouble.

Not one barracks in any city, I started the construction of at least one. Then started getting chariots in production. I lost one city, then another, then they moved in to take my capital which they did. I struck back pretty hard, retook my capital, but now I am facing another wave of attacks.

There you have it, I posted some screenshots below. My northern city on the coast, was getting bombarded by 3 ships and its down to nearly nothing so they will probably take that soon too. I may can hold out, but I doubt I will come back and win this one, I will try. I was surprised, I really did not think they would attack me, I never seen them do that without saying not to settle cities near them and give me at least a warning. I did figure they would not like that but they never said nothing. This has been a fun map so far I will say that much. This game still has a long way to go, its not but a little past 1300AD right now.

 

[Bluebird]

Ouch, good luck on this one.

 

[Warspite2]

Ok, when I say this one went down, it crashed and burned Where to start... I was completely over ran, I lost all my cities but one, one after another they took it no matter what I did, they were unstoppable. I lost my capital, retook it, lost it again then everything else and all my units too.

So here I was, one city left on the far west coast, near the powerful China who just owned me. I basically continued on playing, slowly built up this small city and managed to settle two more new citys on the southwest coast. I was mad and wanted revenge on China. I signed every defensive pack I could just to keep China off my back. Then I started to eye out two city states, Edinburgh and Seoul. Even they were higher tech then me, I am talking modern artillery, infantry you name it. I built up a small force and a frigate and setup for invasion, I needed turf and those two city states were my best choice. I started by firing off some rounds from the frigate at Edinburgh. Just after this, China immediately steps in and says..."Your aggession against Edinburgh does not go unnoticed. You will face serious consequences should you continue assault." Ok so at this point I had to pull back. I did have defensive packs with powerful countries but I still did not trust China, I mean I seen the military they had on their border, it was powerful! Gunships, infantry, artillery, sams, everything! Reason I got myself in this whole mess in the first place was because I had zero respect for China until they earned it.

I was already at war with Seoul so I sent my forces that way. Guess what now? They had a submarine! I thought city states would not build these? Yep they had it and torpedoed my frigate. This one submarine caused so much problems. I had to research to cannons so I can bombard and maybe take the city with swordsmen, all I had was 3 of them. So all of this time I could not bring my units even close to Seoul, it had a 71 defense and no way swordsmen could even damage it. Once I build a cannon and positioned it, I had a great general build a fortification there. I fired at the sub a few turns and it sank a caravel I had but I finally sunk the sub with my cannon.

Now, I moved my swordsmen to surround the city, what a joke. My cannon got destroyed, none of those units could even damage the city so I signed peace. Ended the war. I built up more and declared war again on them, this time China came forward and told me again to end my assault on Seoul. I, being tired of their demands said NO this time! A few turns later they delcared war on my and took everything, all 3 cities in one turn, game over.

I know where I went wrong in this game. I just seen China as a small country, they only had about 4 or 5 cities and I had 7 or 8. I just did not have respect for them and did not think they would get as powerful as they had. Plus I did not think they would attack me without warning me since many times I do get warnings before the AI attacks me. I waited a little too long to field a decent military BEFORE getting attacked. If I would have had some units out there, she would have thought twice about attacking me.

One hellava game tell you that much, had me on the edge of my seat when I was looking at several modern units prowling near my last city. I had nothing left. See the screenshots below to see what all I described above unfolding from left to right. Oh and notice the minimap how it changed from when I first posted this.

 

[EasyGoin]

Your post reminded me, if there's one thing I've learned about China in this game, its that they always have about 3 times the Chu-ko-nu's you think they do, no matter how many you can see.

 

[B-29 Bomber]

That reminds me of when I first started play civ games with Civ 3. I had a hard time keeping my forces and tech at least on par with the other civs and learned my lesson the hard way with England. I was in the Middle Ages and they were in the Industrial Age. I don't remember the details as this was a few months after I got the game for christmas '06. I think it was that they were in my borders without a Rite of Passage and I asked them to leave(they were annoyed with me). They Declared War on me. I think the game was over I believe in 10 turns. I got my ass handed to me on a silver plater. I learned a lot of lessons that game. The first among them: don't mess with your betters or at least have some bite behind it. I still have a clear mental image of that loss. I learned my lessons well... I have yet to lose a war since. I hope you know what you did wrong here and take it to your next game. Your first mistake was underestimating the meek because the meek will close in because it is after all their planet. Your next mistake is enticing them to go back for seconds. If you are fortunate enough to get a peace treaty you use it to build up your forces and tech. In my game I begged for a peace treaty but the English would not listen.