Ok - how'd I screw this up?

[Rebel Israel]

Ok - so I'm trying to adjust to noble (don't rib.) I think as I discussed once before on this forum, I played more Civ and Civ 2 than Civ 3, so sort of my idea of Civ is - build, build, build, sledgehammer -> win. I realize of course this doesn't work past Warlord in Civ IV (or for that matter, maybe Civ 3, since I never really got into that one.) I've been reading this and the Civ fanatics forums trying to get a handle on tactics/strategy, etc, and I think I'm getting better, but still, I'm not very good. I'm playing a current game which should serve as an example, and I'm hoping I can get some ideas from the community...

Its a Noble game on a continents map, and I'm Caesar. Took him cause I hadn't used him before, and trying to get a handle on just how useful Organized is. Also, I heard Praets are nice, so wanted to try a UU. I start out on a small continent with India. I had every intention right from the start of wiping out my nearest neighbor, so I beelined for Iron Working and was fortunate to have it within Rome's fat cross. Took approximately 4 praets, and boom, got Delhi and Bombay and a continent all to myself.

From the messages, I could tell I was a bit behind on tech, so I managed to choprush the Oracle to catch up a bit, and Gandhi nicely founded both Hinduism and Judaism for me, and I managed to found Confucianism (was kinda surprised by that, really I just wanted Courthouses since my empire was quite sprawled for the early game.) So basically between that and Shrine income I was able to keep a high science rate pretty well throughout.

Anyway, finally people from the neighboring continent come calling, and Tokugawa pops a city on a small piece of land my cultural borders hadn't quite spread to. I decide to crush it while its still too early in the game for him to bring any sort of sizable force by sea, since I know it would just end up staging a military invasion. I manage that, but that, combined with me going Hindu/Org Rel to speed the infrastructure process has Toku, Mao and the Incas pretty pissed off at me (Toku and Mao are Taoist and Hayuna is Jewish, which I hadn't spread at all myself.)

So I know I need to military build up but I'm still behind Mao on tech, so I beelined for Liberalism for the free tech and also for denial purposes. Made it, but right as I got gunpowder, the Incans declared war. I was ok with this, it forced me to deal with my obsolete military and also I figured I could take a couple cities and get a foothold on the next continent, then switch to Free Rel, rebuild my diplo, tech, and hold on til I could press a real advantage.

Sounds great in theory. In reality despite a solid tech lead and larger production base, I've managed to take 4 Inca cities, 2 of which were autorazed (combat settlers dropped on my continent) and 1 of which I lost back to him. So after 200 years of fighting I've managed virtually no gain (the city I have is culturally smothered and has exactly 1 land tile on the next continent.) I know there's absolutely no way I shouldn't have 3 or 4 Incan cities by now, I should probably have the whole coastal border and I should be debating between wiping him out and taking an advantageous peace to consolidate; instead I'm debating taking a neutral peace to allow myself time to tech to better units or pressing my moderate tech advantage into an evergrowing stalemate which I feel is just making Mao and Alex lick their lips.

So, longwinded as that was, here's 2 saves, one right after HC declared on me, and one exactly where I am now. If anyone can give me an idea of what I did wrong, I'd be grateful.

[Rebel Israel]

In the interest of completeness, I finished the game, Space win in 2013. I basically got an even peace with HC after that last save, and then stayed out of real war the rest of the game. I won solely because of that early Praet rush on the Indians (aided by getting BW from a hut on turn 3 btw, so I harbor no delusions of my skill.) I've played 5 or 6 games on Noble now, and it really seems the absolute best thing you can do is that early rush. Capitals are such great city sites, and you'll never have an easier chance to take them than the immediate early game. Wiping out the Indians in that game not only gave me another solid city site, but also 2 Holy cities (I eventually shrined and spread Judaism.) That plus my own allowed me to run 100% research the last 100 turns of the game, and still generate enough gold to rushbuy.

Anyway, this is offtopic. My real question is what the hell am I doing wrong in war. I know that as I rise in difficulty (which I'm nowhere near ready for, Noble seems very challenging to me right now) I won't likely even have the slight tech advantage I had in this game, so I have to learn to fight wars on even footing (followed by fighting them when you're outclassed) so if I can't push a moderate advantage, I'm hopeless.

I know one of my problems was hoping Muskets could do a job in the field for me, they're bloody useless. Better off with Maces which at least get a bonus against melee. (Granted, most of what I was facing was Longbows, but he also had a fair number of Pikes which ate my Knights/Cav.) Anyway, if anyone gets a chance to look at the saves, I'd greatly appreciate anyone who can sort of tell me what they would have done differently.

[Yosh]

Haven't looked at the saves, but I did notice that you made no mention of cats/cannons/arty...

Taking a city in CIV is not always an easy exercise; you got lucky with the praets.

Effective warfare is *predicated* on having a good combined-arms force!

If you want to have a prayer of steamrolling an enemy after that early "rush" period (and you were also incredibly lucky that it was Ghandi next to you...), you MUST take siege weapons.

As an example, here is what would be an effective city-killing stack in the pre-gunpowder age:

2-3 Macemen (General city attackers)
2 Crossbowmen (to counter enemy macemen)
2 Longbowmen (to garrison afterwards/counter crossbowmen)
2-4 Catapults (to reduce cultural defenses/deal collateral dmg)...

Feel free to throw in a few knights to counter longbowmen and to pillage - don't underestimate the value of pillaging your enemy's improvements!.

The key to remember is that in CIV, the unit with the highest attack strength number is not necessarily the best! Promotions can make a huge difference also - a city raider maceman vs. unpromoted Longbowmen = win!

[hallumj]

Originally posted by Yosh
Haven't looked at the saves, but I did notice that you made no mention of cats/cannons/arty...

Taking a city in CIV is not always an easy exercise; you got lucky with the praets.

Effective warfare is *predicated* on having a good combined-arms force!

If you want to have a prayer of steamrolling an enemy after that early "rush" period (and you were also incredibly lucky that it was Ghandi next to you...), you MUST take siege weapons.

As an example, here is what would be an effective city-killing stack in the pre-gunpowder age:

2-3 Macemen (General city attackers)
2 Crossbowmen (to counter enemy macemen)
2 Longbowmen (to garrison afterwards/counter crossbowmen)
2-4 Catapults (to reduce cultural defenses/deal collateral dmg)...

Feel free to throw in a few knights to counter longbowmen and to pillage - don't underestimate the value of pillaging your enemy's improvements!.

The key to remember is that in CIV, the unit with the highest attack strength number is not necessarily the best! Promotions can make a huge difference also - a city raider maceman vs. unpromoted Longbowmen = win!

Let me just agree with this post in general. Building combined arms is the sure way to win. Cats are the only way to take a city by bombarding the culture bonus back to the stone age. Without that, you are lost.

Don't forget the cavalry. You need cavalry to raid the opponents territory and raze improvements to get them to sue for peace. I'm currently missing horses in my current game, and the lack of fast movers is killing me. Luckily, those horses are in mongol hands, and they don't have keshik's yet, and if I plan my war right, they won't get that far.

[Rebel Israel]

Yeah, siege is something I'm getting used to. I did bring Cats, I bombarded all 3 cities that fighting took place in to 0% defense bonus. I think part of my problem is that my combined arms force was Knights, Muskets and Cats. Mounted units seem good at running around pillaging, but thats about it. Even then if the enemy has pikes, theres a decent chance you'll eat it on an interturn if your pillaging is anywhere near the city. I'm still having a hard time getting out of the Civ 2 mindset that multi movement units are for attacking and solo movement units are for defending. Muskets also, as I mentioned above, just plain suck. Would have been much better with mace and a few pikes/archery units to deal with counterattacks. And ultimately, probably not enough cats, I had 2-3 per city siege.

I think I also have a tendency to not build enough ships. For the first half of the war, only had Galleys to reach Incan lands, and I only had 2, so I was unloading my attack force 2 at a time. It probably would have been better to build more ships and also to wait, and unload a 10-12 man SoD all at once rather than landing 2 at a time and hoping a musket in the force could protect whatever more offensive unit I had built.

Not sure I'd really do it better if I had it to do over again though. I'm always afraid that if I wait too long to unleash the attack force, I'll lose whatever tech edge I might have and without the tech edge I don't feel like I can win the war. For example, just started a new game with the Americans, on a Panagea (wanted to force myself to fight a bit more.) Start tech by beelining for BW, find Egyptians, 3 axe +barracks > 2 Egyptian archers, Hatty destroyed. Japan is maybe 4 tiles south of Egypt, feel like pressing the advantage (2 cover promoted, 1 city raider promoted axe) before Toku has axe himself and the early rush period is over til Cats. So I go south to Kyoto, with my 3 axe force, start building Chariots in Thebes with the hope of bringing them in for mop up duty. Of course, Toku's Archers have combat 1, and Kyoto has already reached 40% culture def (Thebes was only 20%.) I know my odds aren't great, but I go for it anyway because I felt like if I could give myself 2 Civ breathing room, game is over. Of course Toku's 2 archers wipe me out and now I've lost 3 valuable early units, made myself look more appealing to the other AIs as a target, lost valuable early infrastructure time, made Kyoto even tougher to take by promoting Toku's archers, and made myself a game long enemy of an early neighbor.

Meh, I should just stick to islands and tech. I guess I should have kept those axe as a forward garrison to prevent AI expansion into my lands rather than to press the early rush. Anyway, thanks for the insight. I'll figure this out someday.

[Yosh]

Don't discount musketmen so completely; they're effective counters to crossbowmen or macemen since they aren't melee!

Cats are useful for bombarding, but they really shine through when used as a suicide force -- attack to inflict collateral damage, then mop up with the macemen/whomever.

From your description of your last war, I would say that you didn't bring enough units to ensure victory -- 3 axemen vs 2 archers is not good odds. To ensure that you took that city, I would've recommended 4 axemen or perhaps even more! The combat odds (obtained by holding down ALT and hovering over the target unit while you have a unit of your own selected) can help you out a lot in making decisions on whether to attack or not.

I hope that this helps improve your game! Any questions, feel free to ask!