Waited Too Late To Attack?

gaash2

Warlord
Joined
Mar 29, 2016
Messages
147
Lately I've been trying to see more games through vs quitting when it isn't obvious that I won. I've found that most of the time I was giving up way too early and ended up winning games where I normally walk away. However, one issue that usually causes me to just give up is when I get DoWed by a few. I took a risk of attacking the religious block here (and waited probably way too late to start my attack) and got DoW'ed by two others. I think this game is still probably (easily) winnable? But I'm wondering how you guys deal with this type of 3 pronged war where your main enemies aren't an imminent risk (far away) and what was a nice commerce lead has evaporated due to delaying an attack and capturing of some nice cities way too long.

Save attached.

PS I play fast and basically don't micromanage at all. Happy to get tips there, but you could probably spend all day criticizing my micromanagement, and it might get boring for you :)

PPS I also don't play with barbs. Sue me :) haven't played with barbs since Civ2, fog busting/micro of scouts/workers etc. is not something I'm interested in doing.

PPPS In this game I've enabled tech brokering and vassals. Normally I play without the two, but started to try to be more "consistent". Haven't noticed a significant difference in difficulty, if anything I've found vassals on a fair amount easier, but you may notice some weird stuff in my play regarding trading etc. since I am used to no tech brokering which does lend itself to different trading dynamics.
 

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Hello gaash, my 5 cents here I looked quickly at your save.

You need to focus on trade there's 20 gpt you can have trading your resources. Same with techs you should get their gold when it's possible (before the war) and exchange more. They all have Astro you don't even though you have plenty of techs for trade.

I'm not sure if you really planned your attack here. You don't really have a military advantage nor enough units. If Sury could be an easy target, Peter won't be. If you decide to go to war you should commit yourself to it. Meaning you also have to change civics to more appropriate: HR for happiness, Slavery for production and Theocracy for units' experience.

To answer your question i believe that an earlier attack (maybe with Cuirs?) was a better option. Anyway there's no secret in how to deal with such a war. China is probably not a problem in the near future. Well, he can attack you and you will have trouble defending yourself if he does. But you do focus on your nearest enemy here. You could try to improve your military production here and see how it goes.

I let more experienced players give you better tip ;)
 
Yup always consider trading away health resources, now it's especially important getting Spices from SB for fish or pig.
Unhealthy would not even hurt, unhappy does.

Emancipation it's not a good Civic, you would rather whip units (or use state property workshops with Caste) than have overgrown places like Frankfurt or Munich where you need Emancipation for happy :)
Hamburg would be another example, very high production potential if whipping Levee and adding some workshops, it's really limiting your cities.

I believe attacking Peter would be very doable, cannons can (quote from Kossin).
If you can sort your empire & civics out.
 
You're both absolutely right.. There wasn't much planning... I saw I was falling behind in tech/GDP so decided to quickly snatch a few cities from Sury. Peter was Pleased if not Friendly so didn't think he would jump in (he was pleased even after declaring on me) and Sury is very weak. Played a few more turns last night and Sury cap'ed in about 3 seconds (took his capital and that was it). I was going to switch civics to slavery and nationhood or universal suffrage soon but then I'm thinking maybe I just wait it out/build units with current setup while growing my cottages and hopefully build up enough power/units for them to make peace soon?

Two other points/questions:

Re: Gasp, I have no horse, so Cuirs was out .. but I had cannons for a while, I was just teching really well so decided to hold off until communism which was a mistake..

Dumb question: I vassaled Sury a few turns after the save, can the AP vote to assign away a city from my vassal? i.e. can I be forced to give my vassal back a city via AP vote?
 
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Re: Gasp, I have no horse, so Cuirs was out ..

Dumb question: I vassaled Sury a few turns after the save, can the AP vote to assign away a city from my vassal? i.e. can I be forced to give my vassal back a city via AP vote?
I never saw that happen, but if vassal happened to be AP resident, well maybe.

Hatch still has horse for trade, if you get her to pleased she asks about two health resources for it.
 
thanks for the tips.. I ended up winning the game surprisingly easily with some very fast capitulations from everyone (last 2 opponents after taking only 1 city?) A 5 turn switch to slavery once I got to tanks was all it took. Getting infantry and upgrading my riflemen seemed to be enough to get Qin to agree to peace before he reached my shores.
 
  • > causes me to just give up is when I get DoWed by a few.
I didn't look at your save, but I will tell you, I always LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it when AI's would DoW on me... 2x general EXP!
 
  • > causes me to just give up is when I get DoWed by a few.
I didn't look at your save, but I will tell you, I always LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it when AI's would DoW on me... 2x general EXP!

haha ... i find the biggest source of losing a game for me is when I get DoWed a bunch. It's especially annoying when it's guys who are pleased and since I don't play with the Mods I don't have the red fist warning. (Have to manually check which I'm too lazy to do) It's even more annoying when I have about equal power to them and pleased. I need to watch videos more to see how people avoid DoWs until like 1300 AD with 1 warrior per city.
 
I need to watch videos more to see how people avoid DoWs until like 1300 AD with 1 warrior per city.
This is a good idea :) You could also read some threads about diplomacy and advices given by other in game reports here. You could see how people get counselled on that matter and easily understand why. I learned a lot by doing so.
 
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