those pesky Americans

Sharkyy · January 12, 2002, 17:02

It's me again, here with the pseudo-newbie question of the day...

Now here's the situation... I'm the Persians, and have been peacefully building up infrastructure the entire game, with the exception of two expansion wars against the English and then Zulus. It's around 1350 AD, and me and the Americans are neck-and-neck, with them hanging around largely because they beat me to most of the early wonders.

The Aztecs inexplicably declared war on me when i cancelled our iron/gems trading deal, and after I took two of their cities with a grand total of 4 cav units, they were ready to surrender, for 300 gold upfront, 85gpt, and communications with the Germans, who had managed to settle a large island on a Pangaea map...

Anyway, it's the industrial age now, and i can't take out the weak Germans on their dumb little island because *those pesky Americans* have a mutual protection pact with them, and since i've been playing a peacetime game, i don't wanna have to gear up for a defensive war with America and lose my tech lead... meanwhile, i just had to cancel a right of passage agreement with *those pesky Americans* cuz i was nervous about their hordes of cavalry roaming about my territory. I don't share an extensive border with the Americans, but if they chose to attack me, there's no way i could stop them from taking my 5 closest cities to their capital.

Any ideas what the hell i can do?

P.S.---the iroquois are the 3rd most powerful civ, who border both America and me (persia). no matter what I do, they won't sign a MPP with me, and America isn't very agreeable to trading either. Any ideas why this is, or what can fix it?

Dejango · January 12, 2002, 17:19

Hmm I have had some of the same problems as you have, and I did this (my empire was very large though). The top 20 cities or the top area closest to, lets speak of your game, america, I would build up many units to use on offense. Make maybe groups of three or four cavalry, a few infantry, and a few cannons. Then fortify them in almost a wall up by your border. Then make your other parts of your empire build up on economy/science/culture. Declare war on america, and play defensive for awhile...still pumping out units in the north. Wipe out their first wave, which the computer usually does, and then slowly do a creep advance. Advance 1 tile per turn on average, slowly creeping up on their cities. It is a defensive offense

. It has worked for me every time.

Willem · January 12, 2002, 18:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Sharkyy
It's me again, here with the pseudo-newbie question of the day...

Now here's the situation... I'm the Persians, and have been peacefully building up infrastructure the entire game, with the exception of two expansion wars against the English and then Zulus. It's around 1350 AD, and me and the Americans are neck-and-neck, with them hanging around largely because they beat me to most of the early wonders.

The Aztecs inexplicably declared war on me when i cancelled our iron/gems trading deal, and after I took two of their cities with a grand total of 4 cav units, they were ready to surrender, for 300 gold upfront, 85gpt, and communications with the Germans, who had managed to settle a large island on a Pangaea map...

Anyway, it's the industrial age now, and i can't take out the weak Germans on their dumb little island because *those pesky Americans* have a mutual protection pact with them, and since i've been playing a peacetime game, i don't wanna have to gear up for a defensive war with America and lose my tech lead... meanwhile, i just had to cancel a right of passage agreement with *those pesky Americans* cuz i was nervous about their hordes of cavalry roaming about my territory. I don't share an extensive border with the Americans, but if they chose to attack me, there's no way i could stop them from taking my 5 closest cities to their capital.

Any ideas what the hell i can do?

P.S.---the iroquois are the 3rd most powerful civ, who border both America and me (persia). no matter what I do, they won't sign a MPP with me, and America isn't very agreeable to trading either. Any ideas why this is, or what can fix it?

Have you tried sucking up to the Americans? I find that giving a Civ the odd "donation" once in awhile goes a long way to keeping them on my side. Maybe then you could convince them to cancel their pact with the Germans. I haven't made it to the Industrial age yet, but I find that giving them just 25 gold makes a big difference in their attitude towards me, sometimes jumping from "Annoyed" to "Polite". Especially if they don't have very much money in their treasury.

Dejango · January 12, 2002, 19:02

which brings up a good question. Why does the AI always have low gold reserves? Every time I play, I'll have 500 gold and be the richest...and I'm spending right and left.

Willem · January 12, 2002, 19:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Dejango
which brings up a good question. Why does the AI always have low gold reserves? Every time I play, I'll have 500 gold and be the richest...and I'm spending right and left.

Well when you figure that so it has so many cities size 1 or 2, there's not going to be a lot of opportunity for generating wealth. It would take 8 size 1 cities to make as much money as 1 size 8, and he's bound to have at least a few improvements in those 8 cities. I've seen it build a Cathedral when it only has 4 people, with no unrest! So it's no wonder the other Civs are broke all the time.

Dry · January 14, 2002, 13:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Sharkyy
Any ideas what the hell i can do?

When A and B have mpp, what worked for me was following:
- sign a mpp with A
- put one goat-unit (a worker is OK) within my borders next to a B wolf-unit.
- declare war to B, but do not attack him
- B attacks goat
- A declares war to B

Ok, your problem is that Germany is on a island, so I suggest that you:
- wait for a german ship to come along your coast
- send then one of your ships next to him, but stay within your border.
- get the mpp with the US
- declare war to Germany
- pray that the Germans attack your ship

pchang · January 15, 2002, 16:57

Try to get an MPP with the Americans or Iriquois. Then, try landing an unprotected settler on the German island and look for an isolated spot to settle a new city.

Sharkyy · January 15, 2002, 18:39

I'm done with this game now. In case you were wondering how it turned out, i just sucked it up and sold the weak, but rich, Germans my two border cities with the Americans. I was somewhat suprised that I didn't culturally suck them up again, but they were rather far from my capital.

At that point, the Americans attacked my MPP brothers the Iroquois. I was again thrust into war. HOWEVER, in a *brilliant* bit of luck, the Americans had appearantly neglected to have a right of passage agreement with the Germans. Thus I was insulated, and had time to mass a cavalry force to take over Houston (12) and Isilwanda (9), the two closest American cities. I then used a more diversified force to conquer the American cities (two smallish ones) closest to the Iroquois border. The 20 turns expired, I reached a peace agreement with negligable financial incentives with the Americans, and signed an MPP for 20gpt.

Declared war on the Germans, put one of my workers on a mountain near German territory, they attacked it, and I took over their island, while America took over the two cities that were formerly mine. I traded him back his small Iroquois border villages for my two cities (after cancelling MPP with Iroquois), and I came out of the war with one more island, two more mainland cities, and one less opponent.

Unfortunately, I was behind in tech, and the Iroquois beat me to tanks (armor? whichever comes first), and being pissed about the MPP, traded with the Americans, who sneak attacked me, RAZING five of my cities with appearantly little dificulty, and i was pretty doomed. I held onto my island for the length of the game though, so there was a ***small*** moral victory, but if I ever see honest abe near me again, he's goin down.

Carver · January 17, 2002, 15:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Dejango
which brings up a good question. Why does the AI always have low gold reserves? Every time I play, I'll have 500 gold and be the richest...and I'm spending right and left.

The AI rushes units and improvements like mad. In the early game the AI pop-rush is what allows it to expand so quiclky. Under Republic or Dem. they continue to rush with cash. I've found that to keep up, expansion-wise, I have to do some early pop-rushing also. But I only do this in a few select cities as the memory of all that hard labor stays with the city and can make a city unhappy for many, many turns.

I think this is why the AI only has gold in the industrial and modern eras, after expansion is over.

pchang · January 17, 2002, 16:59

I think the AI also runs at a budget deficit to boost science as well when they can.

Ironikinit · January 18, 2002, 18:18

In my last game I tried pop rushing one improvement in each city right before I went into anarchy to switch to republic. It worked okay. If you pop rush a single city too often, it will have unrest problems for the whole game.

GeneralTacticus · January 18, 2002, 23:54

Quote:

Originally posted by Pchang
I think the AI also runs at a budget deficit to boost science as well when they can.

Yep, that's right. I don't know that they actually run a deficit, but in the Ancient Era, they have a tendency to spend everything on science, even when it won't do them any good.