To Arms, To Arms. Or Not?

[ripcord_tx]

Thanks to all of your help in the "I Fell Behind in Tech" thread, I've successfully beaten a Regent game on a Large map. After getting the Great Library, I built up a mass of gold, and toward the end I had a massive army, ahead in tech, and plenty of gold in the bank.

So I cranked it up a notch, and looking for the Wise Men to offer suggestions on a current game strategy. Now I'm Egyption, Monarch Level (woohoo!), Standard map, 460AD. I'm currently in 2nd place behind the Romans (557 to 504), with whom I share a large, mountainous border. I'm way ahead in culture and about even in power. I restarted once (I was going for the Great Library and the Romans demanded Literature, I said "no" and they beat me up, so I restarted and traded Literature for whatever they'd give me, and the Persians beat me to the Great Library). The Romans are currently gracious with me. The rest of my borders are coastline.

The Zulu, in last place at 383, declared war on me. They're on the other side of the Romans, and I'm watching their impi commit suicide byt throwing themselves on my mountainous border cities. They allied then with next-to-last Germany who are far far away. I'm not really worried about this battle going my way.

But then Zulu allied themselves with 3rd place Persia (492) and declared war on the Romans. Now it's interesting - the Romans have wiped out my attacking Zulu force, and presumably headed south to attack the Zulu, or west to attack the Persians.

My choices at this moment -
1) do nothing, build up infrastructure. Let the world fight it out. I think this will only strengthen the Romans though since the Romans are likely to take over much of the Zulu territory. I might gain a city or 2 from the Romans someday due to a culture flip, but I'm not counting on it.
2) Attack the Romans, forgetting their gracious attitude. Rome is only 5 squares from my border and offers a forest patch for defensive protection. Perhaps enlist another country to help since the Romans no doubt have legionnaires. I don't really have the gold to support a much larger army, and my military advisor says I'm weak compared to them. (Romans and I are Monarchies, and I assume switching to Republic at this time is not advised.)

What would the wise suggest?

 

[Yzman]

Ally with another nation against Rome. you will find that in Monarch and above levels, the more land you have the better, just make sure you can handle the war and totally cripple Rome so they never recover to get revenge. Let the war help you, but don't go over your head.

 

[anarres]

If your army is not that big then build it up first. It doesn't matter if it costs a few gold per turn. Make sure all your cities are building offensive units, and fast ones if you can.

When you go to war, take cities out in one go. Don't go in with a weak force or all the defending units get their strength back. Your cities should be producing reinforcements to back up these units.

It also doesn't matter if they have a slightly bigger army. You are fighting a stupid AI, and you can win when the odds are against you. Just make sure you cripple them as the last post said, they will never bother you again .

 

[billindenver]

Where are you in technology, i.e., what are you researching? I don't think I'd attack the Romans if your best available unit is Swordsmen or horsemen. If you've got knights, that's another story (although you could stack longbows with pikes for the same price).

In either case, make sure you've got enough units to really hit them hard! If their cities are size 6 or above, you are gonna lose 1/2 of your knights when attacking, so if they've got 2-3 units defending, you'd better attack with at LEAST 6 units per turn, 10 would be better! If attacking with horsemen, you're gonna lose more than 80% of those, so that's almost hopeless.

It would definitely be a good time for a war. You've got to slow down Rome, and 500AD is a good time to expand your territory as well. I assume you have already had your Golden Age since you are Egypt. If not, be sure to send at least a few chariots along to pick off weakened units. A Golden Age now would be a nice wartime boost.

 

[Gothmog]

Another option would be to get a ROP with Rome and go after the Zulu yourself. Assuming you haven't built your FP yet this could be another productive core for you and be useful in a two front war with Rome later when legions aren't an issue anymore. Bring along a couple of settlers to fill in razed cities. It sounds like Rome will be buisy with Persia (fear the immortals) so you should have a good chance to get some Zulu land. It is actually good for you to get Persia and Rome at it at this point, they will waste their GA and SU on eachother.

Technology is important, if you have knights (it doesn't sound like you do) then legions are no problem and you could attack Rome (although I would still consider the Zulu). If you don't then fighting legions in cities will be a pain (read: impossible). What about pikes? If the Zulu don't have pikes then your chariots are still valuble (a cheap horseman). Send 15 or so through Roman territory and put the hurt on the Zulu, remember to bring some defenders for the freshly taken cities.

 

[Quillan]

Hello, congrats on moving up to a higher difficulty.

It is hard to give explicit advice without being able to have more information about technology and the state of your cities. It sounds like a lot of people are recommending war against the romans, but there are several things to consider first:

Are they in a golden age? If so, wait.

Are your cities built to their max (libraries, etc)? I find that civ3 works in leaps and bounds rather than crawling... if you can whip up your infrastructure you could take the lead for good when you do go to war, churning out fighting units.

Have you had your GA yet? If not, i personally wouldn't trigger it, unless you want to run the late wonders of the age (which can be helpful, personally, smith's is one of my favorite).

---
Many other thoughts too, such as can you cut them off from iron, horses, etc... who has/doesn't have chivalry/gunpowder/etc. What is the world like? could you see yourself occupying all of roman and zulu lands? If so, prepare for that... Maybe rushing to calvary and wiping rome right through to the zulu would be good?

Remember that both rome and zulu tend to blow it as the game gets longer, and you can outpace them in a republic.

So... although these questions need to be answered, generally i wouldn't go to war unless you could complete a large objective... why take a few cities when you can wait 25-50 turns and take them all? I would build my civ up while they are all at war, wasting production.

But that's just me

Good luck.

 

[anarres]

I missed the date in the original post (c.500AD).

My advice was for an early game, if you are in 500AD without knights then you are up s**t creek. As others say, no point in attacking if you're not going to win.

Next time you play go for early wars. Definately.

 

[Lynx]

Rapid buildup is your key, then one you have over 150 units to use, kill alll your opponnents and keep your ally with rome, that can be a good setup for the massive wars you will inevitably have in the modern age (read my guide!) and you will need a strong ally near you.

 

[ripcord_tx]

Good advice - I've saved the game at that spot and had 2 different strategies. I thought the suggestion to secure ROP and attack the Zulus with the Romans at my side was bold. That would have given me additional territory without much risk. However, the Romans, however gracious, would have none of it, and I was not permitted to cross their territory.

I decided to go to war. I had a few war chariots, so I used 2 to chase down the last Zulu impi in my territory and trigger my golden age, then declared war on the Romans. I had a knight army and 3 spare knights and began a march to Rome. It was surprisingly easy - I only encountered 4 spearmen and an archer and I lost 1 knight..

That's when I found out why it was so easy - the Persians had overrun the Romans from the west and had taken several cities. I accelerated my attack, picked up 1 city to a culture flip and conquered 2 more Roman cities. By this time Persian knights were everywhere and they outnumber me 2:1. The Romans have 2 cities left, I sued for peace and took 1 city and all their gold. The Persians took the last Roman city on the next turn. In less than 10 turns the Romans went from #1 to being eliminated. Now the Persians have the larger territory and a larger army, but at the moment, they're gracious. I'm again at peace with the world and working on infrastructure. If I had known the Romans were losing to the Persians so badly, I probably could have taken a couple of more cities.

 

[billindenver]

Well, keep those Persians gracious for a while now, and get that Forbidden Palace built, if you haven't already. Also, don't forget the good old Heroic Epic. I'd think about getting some good culture going in those former Roman cities too. If you can culture squeeze the Persians, you might be able to flip a few more former Roman cities.

 

[Lynx]

Makre persia your slave, and you can soon enough use them to take over the world, then kill them in a big modern age war ( god! those are fun! )