Where to go from here? (Deity/Standard/Normal, Gandhi)

[Samuel_996]

Hi there. Big time lurker reporting in with a difficult spot in my current game.

I spawn as Gandhi with a strong first two cities that block off a bunch of other spots, and peacefully expand into them in the BCs, getting lucky with a very late Oracle->CoL that I wasn't really trying for and leveraging PHI/Caste to get to Cuirassiers at a respectable time, while also setting up very strong whip infrastructure in all my cities. I'm on the larger continent, shared with Wang, Saladin, Qin and Shaka. I know, ouch: a bunch of PROs and a nutbag. My immediate neighbours are Wang and Qin. Saladin founds Hinduism and Qin takes Buddhism, converting the rest of the continent and leaving Saladin isolated. I've leveraged this shared hatred by joining dogpiles twice over the course of the game so far. Qin's land is very strong and he was zeroing in on rifling as I started whipping cuirassiers, so I chose to wardec Wang and capitulated him very quickly. The dogpile against Saladin was still on and he was very technologically backward, so I rolled through Wang and into Arabia, where I quickly took three of his cities.

Then: catastrophe! Shaka, who has recently built Shwedagon Paya and thus abandoned Buddhism for FR, capitulates Saladin (in spite of my having done all the city-taking ). Not much I could have done about it: the only tech I had on him was Banking, so I couldn't have bribed him out, and at any rate I was enjoying the boost to diplo. Worse, now that there's no shared religion or war cheering him up, he is cautious towards me and annoyed towards my vassal. Sure enough, a few turns after capping Saladin, he goes straight back into WHEOOHRN. It's not Qin; they're still best buds. It could, I guess, be Cyrus or Suryavarman on the other continent, but in all likelihood, it's me.

I paused only one or two turns after the red fist appeared, because I'm not sure how to proceed. The problems are:

• Saladin's cities are on the other side of the map from both Shaka's cities and my own (our continent is kind of triangular with the three of us at each point). My cuirassiers are over there with the Arabian cities I did manage to grab. I'm loath to abandon these cities and it looks like they'd be able to do the job against Saladin if war resumed, but:
• Shaka's stack is pretty scary. He has cuirassiers like me but isn't too close to Rifling yet. He has cannons (whereas I won't be getting Steel for a long time), but as long as I can hit the stack in the open field, they don't bother me.
• My economy is in the toilet. Unit maintenance is biting and most of my core has been farmed and then repeatedly whipped to the point where I'm looping from size 4 -> 2 -> 4. Research is set to Communism but I'm not really sure how I'll get there.

Like I say, I'm reasonably sure my western army could mop up Shaka's backwards vassal if he DOWs me. As soon as I saw the red fist I started shuffling my new Cuirassiers up to my northern border, but I'm not sure I'll have enough to fend off his stack if he comes for me in the next 10 turns.

So what shall I do, civ fanatics? Abandoning my western gains seems like a huge shame. I surely need to figure out a way to limp to Communism, but I can't really afford to grow my cities as I need to keep pumping cuirs for when Shaka comes south for me. Meanwhile, Qin zooms ever further ahead of everyone else! I can probably win the game without ever warring with Qin as the other continent is pretty backwards too, so realistically Shaka/Saladin is my last major obstacle this game. I've attached a save and some pertinent screenshots. It's my first time doing that, so please tell me if I've done it wrong. Thanks!

Spoiler my core :

Spoiler saladin land :

Spoiler shaka stack :

Spoiler tech :

 

[Fish Man]

One question: why aren't you going for rifling instead of the useless industrial stuff? If goal is dom, after cuirs go straight for rifling and then shut down research afterwards because if you get there 1100AD-ish the game is as good as won, barring extenuating circumstances.

If you don't mind savescumming, go back a few turns and beg 1 gold from Shaka. What you saw was more likely a peacevassal, I think, and begging 1g would've stopped him from being able to do that for about 10 turns. Then roll at your leisure.

 

[Anysense]

Cannons are the biggest problem; you must strike first, otherwise you're dead. I think your best chance is to attack his main stack while it is marching through Qin's territory or to attack Bulawayo, again using Qin's territory. You are really lucky with the disposition!
Either way you need some siege.
I quite agree that Communism won't save the day. I'm leaning towards Steel; it costs less than RP+Rifling and in my opinion cannons > rifles/cavalry.
You also can trade resources for up to 28 gpt and Education for 220 gold with Sladin. That won't solve the problem but it will be enough fund at least 1 turn of research at 100%.

 

[ArchGhost]

So what shall I do, civ fanatics? Abandoning my western gains seems like a huge shame.

Can you just gift them to Wang? They seem like dead weight what with an impending war with Shaka. I tend to view vassals as buffers and Wang would be a better one with an extra city or two. Not that Salad Man is any real threat to you or Wang anymore, but you probably need to move those Cuirs anyway...

The real problem is wiping out Shaka's stack before he can do anything with it, cannons are nasty even in the AI's butterfingers. Try to do it in the open for the flanking...that;s why you might need to move the Cuirs over from Saladin Land and use your fresh recruits to stop piecemeal Shaka troops coming over the border at home. After that he'll be mostly harmless without some more build up time (so beating him to the DoW punch is probably a good idea here)

He's close to Rifling though and very likely to go there as a militant AI and being in war mode yet again, so I think Steel is better than Rifling going forward if you want to just get out of this war ASAP and recover for now; you can take all of Shaka later. Especially so if you have any designs on Qin in the future, as he's just gonna sit out and tech. Shaka is proving to be his troublesome self, being a spanner in the works, and it's going to slow your advancement to either so I think cannons of your own is the safer play. Unless he goes Grenadiers and delays Rifling a bit more, then you could probably power through with Cuirs still.

As for the Communism thing, stealing it from Qin or Wang is a cheaper option than trying to tech it. You'd be surprised what a handful of -50% spies and a turn or two of EP slider can do. Or Wang can head towards Rifles while you go to Steel. Any extra cities will let him get there in a more timely manner.

If you don't mind savescumming, go back a few turns and beg 1 gold from Shaka. What you saw was more likely a peacevassal, I think, and begging 1g would've stopped him from being able to do that for about 10 turns. Then roll at your leisure.

It couldn't have been a peace vassal if Saladin was still at war with his master, as that would force Shaka to declare on Qin, who according to our OP is Shaka' s BFF.

Anyway, in this specific case i don't think beg is gonna work unless he wasn't in WHEOOHRN already...unless he really is targeting the other continent, which is possible since he *is* at Astro, just not likely.

Mind you, I'm still getting having my understanding of AI DoWs blowing up in my face recently but if Shaka is plotting and you are already the target, you ARE the target, peace treaty or no. I had a Ragnar plot for like 30+ turns the other night with 4 other perfectly valid targets, no hint of troop movement in my direction until 2 turns before DoW and he still came for me (the only guy with a big Cuir stack in a no trading game and roughly 1.6 his power, so wtf, definitely not a soft target) looooong after an early beg would have worn off and beyond the point he'd give me an emergency beg.