Third game, try for conquest! I'm not very good at it!

[theskald]

Hello again! For my third game I tried a large highlands map with Kublai Khan and set out to learn how to conquer the... Highlands. At first things went well, and I crushed Isabella and made a vassal out of her. I then set my sights on Wang Kon and razed three of his cities, with the fourth being very attractive as one to keep, and surrounded by mountains so it could be cut off from reinforcements, but before I know it he gets lucky and somehow wipes out much of my main stack with a couple of macemen and an elephant! I made peace for a bit and tried again, but the brand new longbows are sch a problem I just got frustrated with the game.

I've attached the last save I have in hopes that someone with the time can help me out and tell me all I've been doing wrong. Bring lot's of red pens!

 

[Refar]

Siege weapons would make your striving to conquer much easier. You built 3 trebs and 6 cats so far ? thats no way to handle a conquest game.

Also going to be Warmonger, Heroic Epic should be high priority - in a city with decent natural production, and perhaps one or two settled GG's to make a highly promoted unit every turn.

Other than this - you are not doing that bad. War sometimes will bring setbacks. You have a good portion of the land. If necessary (i think it is right now, as you dont really have the troops to continue conquering), make peace, rebuild your forces (perhaps tech to the next break-point unit - would be Rifling) then attack again.

 

[theskald]

Thank you for taking the time to look it over. After reading more about the units I'm starting to think I'm using siege weapons incorrectly. I use them solely for bombardment and I've been assuming I'm also getting the collateral damage bonus but... Am I really supposed to send them to an attack and hope for the best?

 

[iamnleth]

Thank you for taking the time to look it over. After reading more about the units I'm starting to think I'm using siege weapons incorrectly. I use them solely for bombardment and I've been assuming I'm also getting the collateral damage bonus but... Am I really supposed to send them to an attack and hope for the best?

Not really, you usually suicide most of your seige weapons built for collateral, unless you have a tech advantage on the AI.

 

[theskald]

So does this mean I should build specialized catapults specifically for dealing collateral damage and others for siege? Seems that would be difficult to pull off on a large map. And is that really all I'm doing wrong? What about city placement, I've learned how to count food and resources But all of that optimization becomes a handicap when some workers start refusing to work because of the war, what can be done?

 

[Refar]

The main portion of the cat's are suicide ones. You bring enought of them, use them to bombard first, then suicide a couple. Promoting them to CR will increase the cance of survival a bit. If a couple survived the first two battles you can give them accuracy promo, to make them bring down defence faster.

Then later you keep the few Accuracy promoted cats (3 or 4 are enought) for bombardment, while sending fresh ones in for suicide.

I know it feels a bit odd. But you will often loose the first couple of attacking units anyway, and loosing a cat not only causes collateral damage, its also cheaper: at 50 vs 80 mace.

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War weariness - those -dudes in your cities will allways stack up in long wars. If you are on advance, you can fight it for limited period of time, by increasing slider. Also building -buildings helps sometimes - tho you often can't afford stop building troops during a war. Later Jauils, MT-Rushmore, Police state help.

But you should alo try to keep the time you are exposed to WW short. Meaning build up sufficient force in peace time - try to make enought troops, attack, take a couple of objectives, make peace / ceasefire if your attack stalled - no point suffer the WW for a extended period of time, while you are waiting for reinforcements. Rebuild troops, attack again.

 

[mystyfly]

probabely try a con vic again and make the map and civ favour you even more - like julius caesar on pangaea. the smaller the map is the easier too, usually.

 

[theskald]

Well thanks to your help I destroyed three civs before AD rolled around (though the third one gave me trouble due to sloppy strategy, and the war cost me crucial land, oh well). Now I'm on a Pangaea map (even though I asked for Big and Small...) with nothing but buddhists on it, we're all good friends! For now...

Thanks for your help, though I still don't understand how I can lose two consecutive offensives with a 99.9% chance of victory... Anyway, I appreciate it!