What do you do with IA units in your personal bubble?

[bambam190]

I just started a new game on regient level (first time this high). I am nearing the end of the expansion period and I have delcared war on the Greek mostly because they placed a city between 2 of mine cutting off my network.

I have the Romans on my side (bought them for literature) they also have brought the Egyptians and the Zulu into the war Via MPP. I have no relations with either except the common hate of the Greeks. The only way for the Egyptians to fight the Greek is to cross my borders. They have started to do this with quite a large force (on my North East boarder), we have no declared ROP. My question is do I have an implyed ROP because we are at war with a common enemy or do I ask them to leave? Most of my forces are at the front (to the South) so if this is a sneak attack I am quite vulnerable to this attack. As I only have a few pikemen at each city to defend.

I would perfer not to go to war with them as I don't know the impact that this would have with my Roman friends.

I don't have any screen shots here, but I'll try to add one later if needed.

Any ideas... thoughts... comments... history with this...

 

[Sloaf]

I've encountered the same thing... an ally (either from a direct MA/MPP or an "ally of an ally") basically acts as if he had an RoP and brings troops through your land to fight the enemy. "Implied RoP" is a pretty good term for it, although there is no actual agreement.

I never like outside troops of any kind in my territory, because I've had allies blatantly violate real RoPs so many times. Even if I know they're coming across to fight a common enemy, you don't know when they'll sign peace, and they may find it terribly convenient that their entire force is in your lightly defended territory. Egypt may be perfectly honorable, but their troops would make me at least a little nervous. Asking them to move may be risky, because if you irritate them and they DoW on you then those MPPs will bring Rome and Zulu down on you.

The experienced players may have other/better ideas, but I might suggest at least signing Egypt into an RoP and a MA vs. the Greeks. Those won't necessarily prevent Egypt from attacking you if they really want to, but at least they'll have to think about violating those agreements first.

You also might reserve a portion of your forces to cover your cities the Egyptians will be passing by, so they aren't tempted by an open door. If they make a break for an undefended city away from their path to Greece, that's a good sign something's up.

 

[Theryman]

For what it is worth, the AI has already made up its mind about what it is going to do.

It is either going to go through your land and attack the Greeks, or they are going to attack you. You really cannot do anything to change their mind. I have payed AIs 100 gpt hoping they would not attack me with their troops in my land, but they still do.

What can you do? Well, if they plan on attacking the Greeks, demanding them to gtfo will not cause them to declare, unless they are furious. If they are going to attack you, they will declare. I would put a stack right next to them and demand they leave. If they leave, then make a ROP with them so they can pound on the greeks. If they declare, destroy their stack and try to sign Rome and Zulu against them.

 

[PaperBeetle]

I presume you mean MA rather than MPP, as we are talking about the end of the rex phase, and trading Lit around. MPPs won't come available until the industrial era.
Anyway, if Egypt has been bought in against Greece, and if they have to cross your borders to get there, then that is exactly what they will do, ROP or no. So at this point, we can be fairly sure that they are not planning a sneak attack. But I agree with the two previously mentioned risks; peace between Greece and Egypt leaves those troops looking for new targets, and if Egyptian units start their turn within striking distance of undefended towns, they might think that getting a free town is a better deal than having a relatively low % of killing a Greek unit in a seige.
So in such situations, I would try to keep at least one unit in any town that Egyptian units can hit. Doesn't really matter what unit; I just want to change the AI's calculation from 100% chance of taking your town to <100% chance. Mind you, tresspassing units are an advantage too. If you leaft Greece to the Romans, and brought your military north, would you have enough power to wipe out the Egyptian army?

 

[bambam190]

I presume you mean MA rather than MPP, as we are talking about the end of the rex phase, and trading Lit around. MPPs won't come available until the industrial era.

Excuse the Noobie'ism: your correct

If you leaft Greece to the Romans, and brought your military north, would you have enough power to wipe out the Egyptian army?

I am Persia with about 8 cities. I am set up to produce Immortials in my best 4 towns every 3 turns or so, so the army is growing quick. Egypt has about 6 riders and a few swordsmen in my boarders right now. I have about 2 dozen immortials South slicing up Greeks into Gyros left and right. They could intercept the Egytians in roughly 4 turns, if I pulled them out now. All of my cities have at least 1 spear/Pike in them some have an immortial hanging arround. As of last night, (when this all went down) the Egyptians had passed one of my cities and are about to pass a second, to get to the Greeks the will have to pass 3 more cities including my capital.

Is there any reason I can't sign a ROP while they are in county?

 

[NickyH]

Is there any reason I can't sign a ROP while they are in county?

I can't tell for sure what I would do without seeing the map, but I would probably sign a RoP if I really needed help with the war against the Greeks. (Then they can use your roads to get to the battle quicker.) If the war with the Greeks is going well, I'd rather not sign a RoP, and thus make them move slower through your territory, since I'd like to take have the Greek cities for myself to take.

 

[bambam190]

Does that mean that the AI doesn't use roads unless they have an ROP or is it always slower even if they are on a road in uncharted territory?

 

[Sloaf]

Does that mean that the AI doesn't use roads unless they have an ROP or is it always slower even if they are on a road in uncharted territory?

Roads and Railroads in your territory reduce your own movement costs. If another civ comes into your territory without a RoP (whether your are at war with them or not), that civ does not get the benefit of the road... they are treated as moving across the unimproved terrain. They may happen to move on a road tile, but they aren't getting the benefit of the road. [Especially a pain if they're blocking a railroad line.] If you do sign the RoP, they will move across your roads just like you do, and you can use the roads in their territory. Roads in neutral territory (not in a cultural boundary) may be used by anyone.

 

[bambam190]

Interesting nugget, thanks

 

[Sloaf]

Interesting nugget, thanks

I'm still learning the finer details of the game too, but roads are one thing I *think* I've got down.

 

[Aabraxan]

Roads in neutral territory (not in a cultural boundary) may be used by anyone.

I'm still learning the finer details of the game too, but roads are one thing I *think* I've got down.

You may already know this, but let me just add: That "anyone" includes barbarians. There's nothing quite like thinking that you've got a secure rail line ready to take all that shiny modern armor to the eastern front, only to have one white-clad grunter step out of the fog, fly halfway across the continent and execute a bunch of your hard-earned slaves.

 

[Optional]

What I've seen a lot is that allied troops are moving through my territory to get to a common enemy, but turn around again before they get there. I've seen them go back and forth like that a lot as well, without doing anything. An ally that isn't in close reach of the common enemy is often not much help in a war. Still, having Egypt as an ally means that they're less likely to attack you, so you will stand less chance of facing a war on two fronts.

Maybe a Right of Passage with Egypt will be a good thing. Like Sloaf said, it will make them move through your territory a lot quicker, especially incase of their Chariots - you said Riders, but you meant Chariots, right?

I personally have never had that an ally all of a sudden turned on me simply because their units were in my territory, but that's not to say that I think it couldn't happen.

Bear in mind that, if you were to decide to declare war on Egypt while being in some sort of pact with them, that would be seen as a breach of that pact. That has consequenses for signing future agreements of a similar nature with the AI - I'm expressing myself a bit vaguely on purpose, because I always forget about the details of these reputation issues, but they are there; those reputation issues.

 

[12 Bar Blues]

Don't care about them. They are not dangerous.

What's fun with that is when you have lots of artillery, you can declare war with an opponent who has all his troops in your territory for another foe and kill ALL of it in one turn. This way I crushed all but 3 of 50 iro tanks in a recent game, giving me a 80:3 advantage on tanks I also killed a few marines and infantry. It was just TOO funny. I had about 250 artilleries, so that helps.

 

[The Professor]

Personally, I would probably not sign a ROP with the Egyptians. This way, you can move your defenses faster than they can move their troops. Then, you can leave some cities lightly defended, or not at all, and put extra troops in the cities that Egypt can attack in one turn. Next turn, move the spares to any cities that are newly threatened. And, as someone already mentioned, if you see them moving toward the undefended cities, and not toward Greece, then tell them to "leave or declare", so if they declare, you have the first strike opportunity.

 

[bambam190]

I ignored them and let them go for a while to see what happened, they moved across my borders then got all the way to their projected target, then the Zulus (who were also in the same MA) came across, for the point of science I let them go across. 1/2 way across their trek the French (on another island) invaded them, they countered, and the French brought the Egyptians into a MA against the Zulus , so Now I am in the middle of watching these troops traveling across my country to fight on my behalf (indirectly), fight each other on my land.

to futher this mess, the Babolonians (spelling) to my North signed a MA with the Greeks to (my South) against me.

So to sum it all up, everyone is fighting everyone else, it is all happening on my land and I don't have a clue what to do about it.

On a good note, I have won 3 of the 4 cities that I was after from the Greeks, with minimial loss.

I'm at work when I get home I'll post the game for reference. Its become fun to watch, I'm thinking of just signing peace treaties and ROP with everyone and seeing what happens.

 

[SeriousCaller]

similar thing happened to me. I owned a huge continent outright, and me (persia), germans, and english were settling a smaller island. germany declares on me out of the blue, I don't have that many units available until I can boat them over, so I sign MPP with england. They declare on the germans, they bring in the aztecs, who don't have any towns on the island but just 'happened' to have a fleet just out of sight. I bunker down, the english and aztecs destroy the germans in the field (my fields), I walk in and nab two towns with hardly a fight. The english and the aztecs go home.

 

[CommandoBob]

Keep your cities garrisoned so the AI doesn't get any funny ideas.

Build up your military; add some cities to increase your unit support.

Watch the AIs wear each other down.

Kill them.

Enjoy!

 

[Ringo Kid]

I like to sign rop just so I can send in some explorers or horseman to map the other guys territory. Information is power.

I would not worry about an attack from Egypt at this point. Even if they do attack , your immortals will slaughter them in a few turns anyway.

You can also check your military adviser screen to determine the AI's opinion of your relative military strength. If your adviser tells you that "we have a strong military compared to these guys" when you select Egypt- then its not likely they will attack you because they dont think they can win.

 

[darski]

I was recently playing a game where I had just about everyone allied against China and then the Japanese, who were rather close by the Chinese, would go through my land the long way round because it was RR all the way and faster than their own roads. it was fun to watch them go. I had signed ROP's so that I could get through to China.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Wow, the AI actually doing something intelligent!