What to do in this position?

x23

Chieftain
Joined
May 17, 2005
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22
Attached are 3 saved games from the early Industrial era- as the Russians, the other main powers are the Hittites, Chinese and Romans which are rapidly advancing in technology and area.The cossack is not nearly powerful enough to fight off riflemen, musketmen and cavalry. I do not have access to coal for railroads or rubber.
 
So, and what do you expect us to do?

You obviously have the tech lead (since you know you lack rubber, and the others have riflemen).
Without looking at the save, I can tell you that Artillery doesn't require rubber, that Cossacks very well suffice to kill Rifles, especially in Amries (and Cossacks should generate lots of leaders), you have too few roads, and Republic would have been a better choice :p. And most likely, your cities are placed too far apart.
 
Ok, I did have a look ;).

You are in Republic, that's fine. But, everything else I guessed is true. And, half of your cities are building Wealth...under Mobilization, to make things worse.

Seriously, your cities in general are ok; no blatant nonsense like Colossei. Spacing is somewhat accetable; you wasting quite some tiles, but I've seen worse. If you you wouldn't have about half your cities one tile away from the coast.
Technologically, you can trade for Electricity from China. But, you don't know if you have Rubber - Replacable Parts isn't known yet.

Nationalism is a questionable tech, better reseach to RP.

But in short: Your 'builder' style is not the real problem.

Warfare is...one single Cannon. Uncovered attackers. You will loose at least 2 cities in the interturn - because frontline cities are defended by one Spear, Coassck and MDI respectively (while a completely safe city like Murmansk has 4 units). Of course, since there is no strategic rail net, you cannot bring in reinforcements.
You have cash, und still not upgraded the Muskets.


And the worst: Moscow requires 4 Clowns, since you don't use the Luxury slider...

Now, is there any hope? You will loose a couple more cities, no way around that. But, those aren't important. It would be no problem to retake everything with Artillery, Cossacks and Rifles/Inf. In fact, any experienced player could win this without much work (since you managed to keep your reputation clean, a good move). Doubt you could, though. Sorry.

ToE isn't under construction so far, so even a tech lead should be easy to gain back.

But, you really need to improve your tactics. It's completely pointless to advance with Cossacks without cover (defenders/Cannons). Logistics; i.e. military railnet comes first. Unit construction.

I can only advise you to read some succession games, especailly 'Always War' games, and familiarize with warfare.

This is just a game where one can give no sound advice - except using the luxury slider, and stop building wealth there are no blatant, easy to correct mistakes. The inefficient warfare kills you; and this isn't something you could learn from a couple of advices here - but, you could just sit down and think twice before moving a unit ;).
 
I only looked at the first save and it was disturbing.

1. Too few workers. All tiles should be roaded and mined/irrigated by the end of the middle ages (at the latest).

2. You have very little infrastructure in your cities, if they all had market, library and aqueducts at least you would be making a lot more money and researching a lot faster. Instead your cities are producing wealth (during a golden age, no less) which is a big no-no.

3.Alternatively you could have produced more offensve units and captured the world, cossacks run over anything up to and including musketmen. You just need a decent number of them. Also, you have worhtless densive units sitting around in your towns and doing absolutely nothing, build infrastructure or build offensive units and use them for war.

4. Entertainers are in general a poor way of keeping

On the plus side

1. You are currently winning

2. You seem to be a hands-on player, not letting governors etc. screw things up.

How to win:

1. Disband all defensive units that are not musketmen

2.Do not build wealth.

3. Build 1-2 extra workers per city at lost, you need a lot once you get coal, do this before building anything else. Focus on mining since you have a lot of irrigation already.

4. Cities with little infrastructure must focus on this, use the luxury slider and import luxuries for happines control. Cities with a decent amount of infrastructure build cossacks. Once your cities grow bigger and terrain is improved the cities will become a lot more productive.

5. knights are upgraded to cossacks. Then when you have a decent suply of new units to replace losses declare war, I would attack the dutch first, they have a while to go before they get riflemen, they have coal within easy reach and their territory is not easily defended. Your cossacks will own them as long as you focus them and use them in decent numbers. Buy in an ally if necessary.

6. Since you have started researching nationalism then you might want to finish that first, even though I almost never bother to research it at all Industrialism is almost always a better tech to research and if you want to continue researching, instead this should be your next step. Build factories.
 
Looking at the last save, you should do more trading with the AI, like China will give Coal, Electricity, Communism, Monarchy, Free Artistry, 67 gold, and 35(!) gpt for Sanitation and The Corporation. Then you can buy fascism from the Dutch and pick up a ROP at the same time.

Upgrade the two spears in Hamburg and no cities fall in the interturn since Roman units move north toward Leiden and Samara, which have less defense than Hamburg. Then the undefended Longbows and Cavalry make easy pickings for your cossaks, which can kill three in the same turn.
 
I looked at the 1655 save, and you've got most of the tools you need to win at hand-You're just not using them right.

First off, your reputation is golden-You don't need iron and coal, a little buddy buddy talk with your neighbors will get you a trade deal for the resources. China has coal, and with that you can start on your rail net. Don't worry about railing every space right now, just produce a solid line from your core cities to all of your outlying border cities. Then you can rush units inbetween cities without issue.

Secondly, you've got two very powerful neighbors you're not at war with, and with whom you've got good relations. Sign a RoP and a military alliance with the Chinese against the Hittites and a RoP and a military alliance with the dutch against the the Romans and you'll find very few troops entering your lands. Also, the RoP with the Chinese and the Dutch will help you strike back at your opponents, directly through chinese and Dutch rail lines, right into the core cities of the Romans and the Hitties. Switch those cities producing wealth to cossacks(and the occasional rifleman) and you'll be well armed in just a few turns. At which point, you can overwhelm your opponents, survive the war, and then choose what VC you want to win by,
 
I started playing this game, and you are in a great position. You're actually ahead in tech. I formed a cossack army, and am conquering the Netherlands quite easily. I got another great leader which I made another cossack army. After the Dutch, America is up. I'm going for conquest :cool: .

Oh, by the way I put science at 0%, in about 20 turns America and the Dutch will be done for, and I'll be researching much faster. After them, I'll be facing rifles and maybe even infantry, so I'll research replaceable parts and get arty stacks to help my cossacks.
 
I like Russia. I am going to try this when I get off work. What level is it?
 
I took the earliest save.

All too easy. You can trade for coal with China on turn one.

You can research and/or conquer here. You have Sun Tzu's. You have a great leader, make an army. Netherlands should go first. Do not trade them anything. Make some 20 turn deals with the rest to keep peace. You have tons of gold available for knight upgrades to Cossacks and spear/pike to musket. Cossacks against Netherlands, foot troops to chinese border for protection. All intererior towns make cossacks. All border towns make workers. Connect all cities with rails. Defeat all enemies.

It's a same you are researching nationalism. You dont really want the world to learn rifles, but oh well. You will still prevail. Perhaps mobilization is in order after you get nationalism to speed up the victory.
 
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