Timing my attack

[Shamus]

Ok, this is the situation I currently find myself in. I am playing a continents map against six opponents, as the French. On my continent there are the Germans to the Northwest, English to the North, and Russians to the South. I recently began sailing abroad and discovered a continent with the Babylonians and Zulus. Shortly after that I found another continent with just the Indians on it. After trading for Gandhi’s world map I discovered that his continent was very rich in food and has several luxuries that no one else does.

As far as I can tell, no one but me has the ability to sail yet. None of the continents have any contact with each other. I made sure when visiting these new civilizations that I neglected to trade them contact with anyone from the other continents, to ensure that I could maintain exclusive trading rights. While the Babylonians and the Zulus seem to be close to me with regards to technology researched, the Indians are quite a ways behind (I had 6 technologies researched that they were without).

I recently entered the middle-ages, and have researched monotheism and feudalism since then. I also just finished researching the Republic, to reduce corruption in my cities and thus speed up the production of combat units. I was originally loading up my boats with horsemen to begin moving them to an unclaimed region of Gandhi’s continent to begin building my forces. However, upon noticing the improvement in strength of knights, I’m considering waiting for anarchy to end, researching chivalry, and then replacing my horsemen with knights.

As near as I can tell Gandhi doesn’t have anything more than warriors guarding his cities (I haven’t placed an embassy in Bombay yet, so I’m not positive on this). Knights would obviously do more damage than horsemen, but I don’t want to chance him improving his technologies before I get a chance to attack (I know that he hasn’t researched iron working yet).

These are my three questions;

1. Would you recommend that I take the extra time to research chivalry and replace my horsemen with knights?

2. How many men do I need to leave on each conquered city to help ensure I quell any possible uprisings from the locals, and what kind (i.e. warriors)?

3. I was originally planing for a diplomatic victory, but I’m not sure how this invasion will affect the way in which my allies look at me. The thing I’m not sure of is, if I have refused to allow the other continents to have contact with each other, will they even be aware that the Indian civilization ever existed, once I’ve conquered it?

This will be the first time I have ever declared war in Civ3, so any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tao]

I suggest you sell the world map to everybody. If the situation is as you decribe it, you should make a bundle. Since the AI knows the complete map anyhow, you loose nothing.

You should start the conquest as fast as possible, also with horsemen. If you capture a city with iron, hurry barracks and upgrade on the other continent,

 

[Renata]

Originally posted by Shamus
Would you recommend that I take the extra time to research chivalry and replace my horsemen with knights?

Since you said it was close and you were significantly ahead in tech, I would. You'll lose less units than horsemen if you're going up against warriors and archers, and even the worst case (horsemen would've gone up against warriors but delaying means you have to face spearmen) is equivalent. If speed is more of a priority than unit conservation, though, head on out now.

2. How many men do I need to leave on each conquered city to help ensure I quell any possible uprisings from the locals, and what kind (i.e. warriors)?

Do you mean quell resistance? There are no uprisings in civ3. What you get is anywhere from zero to all of the citizens of a captured town turning into resistors - i.e. not working tiles and not assignable as specialists. You need to leave at least one military unit per city to quell resistance (what type doesn't matter). More units will do the job faster.

3. I was originally planing for a diplomatic victory, but I’m not sure how this invasion will affect the way in which my allies look at me. The thing I’m not sure of is, if I have refused to allow the other continents to have contact with each other, will they even be aware that the Indian civilization ever existed, once I’ve conquered it?

If you wipe out the Indians before they make contact with anyone else, it will have no effect on other civs' attitude toward you. As far as wars of agression go in general, just going to war will not hurt the attitude of anyone but the civ you go to war against. Declaring war with units in the target civ's territory, failing to declare war, declaring war with ongoing diplomatic or trade agreements, or razing cities (even size-1 no culture cities that you have no control over razing or not) will all hurt your chances.

Renata

 

[Double Barrel]

I would immediately set out to attack. You can still research Calvary and just reinforce your captures Indian cities as the war progresses. Don't give the Indians a chance to obtain better defenders. Strike while the iron is hot.

 

[Shamus]

Thanks for the ideas. I think I have a plan worked out in my mind now. I currently have seven horsemen and one spearman either ready to leave, or already on their way (judging by what I have seen, that will be more than sufficient to take the first city or two, to get my foot in the door). There is only one source of iron on the island, and luckily, it is by and city and only couple of squares from the shore.

After I drain India of as much of their money as I can (through selling them my world and territorial maps, and a couple of techs that wont help them much in the short run), I plan to place most of my forces right outside the closest city to their lone iron supply. Once I declare war I will move all of my forces onto the city, claiming it. I will then send out riders to cut the supply roads taking iron to India’s cities (though hopefully they will still be blissfully unaware of how to work iron at that point). Once I have researched barracks (which hopefully wont take long) I will start upgrading units and start moving them forward.

At the same time I hope to have order restored in my homeland, and begin popping out more units. I will use these to hit the Indians on the other side of the continent, dividing their forces. Then it’s a slow march to Bombay (while obviously replenishing my forward lines as I go along).

Does this sound like a decent plan? I welcome any thoughts people might have on any blunders I might be walking myself into. Also, tao had mentioned hurrying my barracks, but I’m not sure how to do this. Is this the same as mobilizing my nation for war, or do I do something extra? Sorry, one last thing. What exactly does mobilizing your nation for war do? I’ve looked around but have been unable to find out what effects it has on my nation. Thanks.

 

[Renata]

Sounds good - especially going for the resources first and attacking at multiple points. Seven horsemen and one spear *might* be a little light for an invasion, depending on the level (but I'm guessing it's a low one, since you're just starting out), but if India has no swordsmen it shouldn't be a problem. Just try to bring in the reinforcements as quickly as you can.

As for rushing, you can either right-click on the city and choose to 'hurry production', or you can do the same thing from inside the city screen (there's a little square thingy just above the food box).

Mobilization increases your shield production, but only for military improvements and units. Once you're in it, you can't start builds for non-military stuff, although you can complete builds that are already started. Your production of culture is halved during mobilization. You can enter mobilization at any time (provided you have the requisite tech, which is Nationalism), but can't end it except by making peace with a civ (or wiping them out, which accomplishes the same thing). So if you're not at war when you mobilize, you have to declare war and then make peace to get back out of it.

Renata

 

[cromagnon]

If you have the opportunity to wipe the Indians off the map quickly, I'd say go for it. How many cities do they have? Like Renata said, if they have no contact, no one will know any better. If you get any GL's from the conflict, build your FP (or palace if you already built FP) on the Indian continent with all the goodies.

If you are concerned about your reputation, make sure you declare war while all your units are outside Indian territory. This, of course, is moot if you wipe them out before they get contact with anyone.

How many turns until you research Chivalry? It sounds like this is not a very high difficulty game, so it may be quicker than you think. By the way, keep in mind that for knights you need IRON and horses. Not sure if you have the former.

Establish an embassy in Delhi before you declare war, because a) this will give you an idea of what his BEST defense is, and b) you can't while you're in war.

I'm assuming the Indians don't have much culture, so you'll probably be OK as far as culture flipping goes. More importantly, if you wipe them out, they have no one to flip back to.

Re: Mobilization - it's not available until you research Nationalism, one whole technologic age ahead of where you are now.

 

[zebomba2]

The AI seems to handle the world map in two ways. Though they know it from turn 1, they won t settle "uncharted lands".
Otherwise, why would they ask all the time to trade maps?

 

[steviejay]

Originally posted by tao
Since the AI knows the complete map anyhow, you loose nothing.

I completely disagree with that. on one of my games I kept my world map for quite some time and it was only when I started trading it did Civ's start settling on the "undiscovered" continents

 

[steviejay]

oh...... I'd just like to appologise to everyone for my last comment. I replied without reading zebomba2's post which more or less says what I just wrote. sorry

 

[cromagnon]

In Shamus' situation, the cat's out of the bag - he's already traded maps with everyone.

Which makes me wonder - Those maps show the Indians on them, right? So 1000 years from now, when the rest of the world finally sails by the Indian continent, only to find French cities, what happens?
"Joan of Arc, what happened to all these Indian cities on our maps?"
"Oh, that was a typo."

 

[Shamus]

Well, the deed is done. India is no more. Didn’t go quite as planned though. I had a settler kicking around my land that I had planned for other uses, but upon re-checking the Indian continent, I found a nice fertile river mouth with several stacks of hay. I thought it would be a good idea to start my own city there, hurry the barracks, and get my upgrading done before I began my attack. Gandhi must have known I was coming, because when my ship was a few moves away, he settled the same spot I wanted. I ended up with a few more horsemen than I had planned, and a few swordsmen as well.

One disappointing note; as my last couple of ships made their way to India’s continent, I was passed by a ship owned by the Babylonians. By the time I started my attack, Babylon already had a city on the continent. One good thing I did manage to achieve from this, was taking every last penny Babylon had in exchange for contact with India (when their new city was only a few squares out of sight of an Indian city ). Realizing that the Zulu’s were also starting to sail, I quickly spent the next turn selling contact with everyone, to everyone, for every bit of gold everyone had, as well as a tech, and some luxuries.

I placed my men inside the territory of India, to see if I could prevoke them into declaring war on me. Gandhi told me to leave his land, and I refused. It was then that I discovered that refusing to leave is the same as declaring war (my bad). He didn’t put up much of a fight though. The most resistance I met was two spearmen in the last couple of cities I conquered. The rest of the cities (there were about 8 total) had only one spearmen apiece. After building a temple, I have set to work constructing the forbidden palace. We will see how things go from here.

 

[Shamus]

This isn’t a strat question, but I figured I would just tack it onto this thread, as it pertains to this game I am playing. In the advisor window that shows the faces of the civilization leaders and whether they are at peace, or war, etc. (I have forgotten the exact name of that advisor), one of the civilizations wasn’t present. There were two empty spaces at the bottom, where circles would normally be (one was empty because I chose to go with 7 civs instead of 8). Why were my good friends the Indians never there? I first noticed this after I made contact with them, but before I declared war. If I move the cursor over where these circles would normally be, dark orange circles the same size as the others, appear. If I right-click them, I get the civ info for two of the civs I can already see. Could this be a glitch?

 

[cromagnon]

That would be the foreign advisor, F4.
Sounds like a glitch. I assume double clicking the empty circle would bring up diplomacy with the missing leader?

 

[Rik Meleet]

Only the 7 (I can't remember how many circles there are) civs you meet first are in there. Since you met the Indians last, there was no more room for them. See the parallel to your world; the world wasn't big enough for you and them.

 

[cromagnon]

There were two empty spaces at the bottom, where circles would normally be (one was empty because I chose to go with 7 civs instead of 8). Why were my good friends the Indians never there? I first noticed this after I made contact with them, but before I declared war.

(bold and italic added by me)

When you say they were empty, do you mean "there was no circle there" or "there was an empty circle?"

Also, if you have met more civs than there is room on the foreign advisor screen, you right click on any AI leader and get a pop-up menu to see one of the non-represented civs, replacing the one you right-clicked on.