trouble waging war and researching.

[thebenjomonster]

Hey folks, I just recently started playing on the Noble difficulty level, usually play massive, terra or fractal maps. Every game I played I would get crushed by the AI (usually by cultural or space race victories). The one time I didn't, I was on an isolated island with the Dutch, and spent from 100 A.D- 1900 A.D fighting a war with them, I finally won it, but much to my chagrin, Pacal rolls in with destroyers and SAM infantry to my riflemen and cannon. Needless to say, my capital was crushed and after that it really got ugly.

Bottom line : is there any way to keep up a competitive research rate while fighting an all-out war? ( the fight with the Dutch lasted almost 2,000 years but I was pretty clearly leading the whole time, I was under the impression my research was fine. )

 

[Kesshi]

thebenjomonster,

I'll say this, because it's typically the best answer: Work more Cottages!

Other than that, spend more time in your Financial Advisor's screen (F2) and learn where each expense comes from, and what reduces (or removes) it. That will do wonders for your economy.

 

[Dhaulagiri]

You generally want to try to keep wars as short as possible. War weariness takes its toll on research rates, and when you're building troops non-stop you're not building universities and harbors. But it all depends on your game. Conquered land is future power and research, so short term pain for long term gain.

In your game you might have tried to make friends with at least one civ on the other continent so it wasn't a unified block against you. Adopt free religeon when possible and make some little resource and tech trades to gain some positive relation points. You might be able to even bribe one to fight another depending on who they are.

Sometimes a pure naval war makes sense if you think your land forces will be crushed. Just blockade all his ports. They will shrink in population, no more specialists, and his trade routes cut. It has a significant effect if you can keep it up and doesnt have as much war weariness. Just dedicate a few port cities to ship building and work on the economy in your interior cities.

 

[KROL]

Any war that lasts 1800 years is a bad war. A very bad war.

Even during war, though, either work more cottages or get more scientist specialists. And if you really specialize your cities, your one (or two) cities that are dedicated to just producing military units will not negatively affect your overall science output, even during war.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A good war is where you completely wipe a target out in 25 turns or less (if they have 10 cities or s0) or vassal them in 20 turns or less. Once you declare, you'll go out all out most likely and it will hurt your tech, but if the war goes quickly enough the increase in cities will cause your long term tech rate to improve greatly. If it's only taking a handful of turns to attain those cities, the "payback period" of such a war is extremely short and attractive.

I wouldn't recommend a slogging, drawn-out war unless you're desperate and trying to prevent someone from winning (like, if you don't declare now, his other target vassals, and he wins UN or domination, for example).

 

[dankok8]

War hurts your economy through increased unit maintenance costs (see Financial Advisor) and increased War Weariness. War weariness increases the amount of unhappiness in your cities, reducing overall productivity (including research) if number of unhappy faces exceed the happy ones. That's discounting any pillaging done to you/loss of cities or reductions in the science slider you make to collect money for upgrades.

1800 years for a war is waaaayyy too long... you are probably not fighting this war efficiently. Maybe not enough siege weapons? Could you post a save?!?

 

[Supr49er]

How many cities do you have? You need a minimum of 6 so that you can have some specialized cities: military; science; Great Person Farms etc.

If you are on an isolated island, build a large navy. Destroy any invasion force on the seas.

Welcome to the Forums thebenjomonster.

 

[thebenjomonster]

-I definitely wasn't lacking siege weapons, I usually have a 1 : 2 siege weapon to active unit ratio. (For every 1 siege weapon, I have 2 units).

-I believe I had founded about 7-8 cities myself, but I had captured maybe 9 from the Dutch, three of which had to be razed cause I couldn't afford to keep them.


As I read more on this forum, I'm thinking I was just mismanaging finances and disorganized building specialization in cities. I will post some saves of my next game so you guys can critique it, thanks for the responses all.

 

[thebenjomonster]

I did have pleased reps with 2 civs on the main continent, so it wasn't quite everyone against me.

About the navy thing, one of my favorite parts of the game is naval strategy, so I had some impressive frigate/SotL fleets, enough to dominate my island with a few rover ships. but they got steamrolled by oil-based units, so research was my real problem.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you're using siege to both bombard and attack, a 1:1 siege to unit ratio is more typical.

 

[Jewman]

if war weariness starts destroying your economy in a war you feel you must win regardless of how long it takes... then just build theatres and colloseums and replace some of your research slider with culture slider and you'll see your cities become more efficient and then concentrate all their productions militarily so you win the war as brutally and quickly as possible.
after the war is over revert back to your normal research slider and forget the culture.

spam cottages...or
if that isnt really working for you, try a specialist economy. Build TONS of farms... no cottages, and then build libraries and make lots of scientist in your cities (from all the food) and drop your research slider to 0%, make culture high so that war weariness is no problem and go on to destroy your enemy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I already said this, but prepare enough in the war in advance. I can't stress the importance of making the war go as quickly as possible enough.