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Should I have started this war?

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  • Should I have started this war?

    First a mild rant, and then a question.

    Why are some AI civs so "jerkish"? In Civ 2 It was the carthaginians (at least for me). Man, I hated those ****ers. There was not one game I had in civ 2 with them where they weren't backstabbing, saber rattling attack-you-at-the-soonest-opportunity slimebags. I actually had a self imposed rule in Civ 2....if the Carthies are in the game destroy them immediately. (I had that same rule for Yang in SMAC, and of course he was ALWAYS in the game) In Civ 3 it was the persians. Xerxes was an animal. As soon as he got immortals he built a gajillion of them and attacked. I hated him so badly my wife could hear me in the other room gnashing my teeth.

    ...and now we have the Aztecs. You know its a bad sign when in your 2nd contact with someone they say "I studied on killin' you!". Yeesh.

    Current game...me as the Indians on a huge map, continents, noble level. (I'm a casual player so I need the practice. The only other civ on my continent is Monty. I successfully boxed him in the southern part of the continent and kept the peace with religion and trades. But I knew he'd backstab me sooner or later. A continent only a stones throw away is Tokugawa. Like Monty, I don't trust him. Has anyone EVER had a game with Tokugawa where he was pleased or friendly? But with naval technology low I knew I was fairly safe from him. On the other side of the world the Romans, the Mali, the Americans, th greeks and the english share a continent. Rome is 2nd in power next to me and Caesar has started demanding stuff. I blew him off only because he can't really reach me yet, but then i realized....one of these jerks will probably team up with or use Monty as a proxy to fight me....if Monty doesn't just do it himself. And I know he will, sooner or later. He cancelled our open borders deal so he's getting uppity. Now, Monty has about 4 cities that are in decent areas. He's closing the tech gap. All he needs is time to build a large force and its gonna get ugly. I had a decent army. not huge, but obviously enough to keep him from getting froggy. So I decided to attack. Now, Monty's army is small compared to mine, and he doesn't have knights yet, but i can't draw too many of my forces from the north or the east...I KNOW....I can feel it...that if I do that Caesar or Tokugawa will show up. But I made two stacks and took two of his border cities while I set my cities to crank out more knights and pikemen. As soon as I took them though Tokugawa calls me up to demand guilds. I refuse, since he has education but won't trade it (its red....but I wouldn't have given him guilds anyway. Thats like giving Hannibal Lecter a carving knife) Caesar is rattling his saber at me too.

    Did I make a mistake in starting my war with Monty? Its not going to be too hard to beat him if no one else kicks any sand up, but I don't think the others will give me the luxury of one war at a time. And I felt that I had to attack Monty now, or later on he'd be harder to defeat and well, its flippin' Lex Lutho....I mean Montezuma. He's gonna backstab me the second he gets a chance. My goal was to take his 4 good cities, pillage the crappy ones and bit and sue for peace. That way he'd be laughable later in the game and no real threat. But now I'm thinking he might team up with the other guys for some payback if I let him live. I could have not attacked and built up a bigger more modern force for defense, but Monty makes me nervous. Did i make a bad move?
    "I know nobody likes me...why do we have to have Valentines Day to emphasize it?"- Charlie Brown

  • #2
    LOL, I hear you about the Carthagians in Civ2. I still have nightmares about them.

    As for your current situation, in my case, I try to make my wars quick. I do leave my back (and coastal) defenses open alot. But I try to make my wars quick and decisive so I can distribute my troops evenly again. As you said, when they cancel open borders you know what's going to happen. So you may have a little bit of time with Toku. Though sometimes someone like the aztecs may pay toku to attack, and you'll get hit with no warning.

    If you have to, make the aztec war a limited war. Just take 1 or 2 cities. Then attack him 20 or 30 turns later.

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    • #3
      A general rule for civilization is: Push when you have the advantage. You have a tech advantage now, and a better military, but he is catching up. So push the advantage while you still have.

      So yeah, attacking him now is a good idea. Even if it leaves your borders open for a bit. Unless an invasion force was from Tokugawa or Caesar is already underway it will take them some time to build and send it anyway.

      If you're a peaceful builder and being so aggressive doesn't sit well with you, then don't do it. There's room for playing however you like in civ4 as well. But then again, it's Monty you're up against

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      • #4
        I'm usually a peaceful builder. In a perfect game I would stay out of any war until I was sure that my technology and through that my army was too powerful to beat. But I've learned the hard way in Civ4 that Monty will gleefully cut off my head and use my skull for a bowl if I don't take him out first. Heck, i learned that lesson with Ghandi in an earlier game when I first got Civ 4. Ghandi bordered me and didn't make a peep until the romans came in force to mutilate me. I was easily holding my own when Ghandi decided it'd be fun to take a chunk out of my empire. If i couldn't trust ghandi I sure don't trust Montezuma!
        "I know nobody likes me...why do we have to have Valentines Day to emphasize it?"- Charlie Brown

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        • #5
          I don't think I've ever managed to make Gandhi attack me. He's such a tree-hugging hippie. He will even start gifting you techs if you are far behind - oh the insult! (I still accept the tech, though, of course :P)

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          • #6
            the simple rule is, if the AI fears your military, they won't start with you. even a peaceful builder should have a powerful military, just so they leave you alone.

            monty is not nice, but in my experience shaka is the worst. even at noble/prince, he will come at you fast with ridiculous stacks of axemen. it can be pretty gruesome.

            one thing i like to do is select "random personalities" at the start up screen. its a little boring to know what to expect from a leader as soon as you see them.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Diadem
              I don't think I've ever managed to make Gandhi attack me. He's such a tree-hugging hippie. He will even start gifting you techs if you are far behind - oh the insult! (I still accept the tech, though, of course :P)
              I have to date been attacked by every leader. (even if we forget about the wars caused by vassal-problems)

              Although Ghandi and Hatsepshut have so far done so only once.
              Actually Hatsepshut attacked me sometimes last month for the first time ever so I almost played the game for a full year before I saw it happening.
              GOWIEHOWIE! Uh...does that
              even mean anything?

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              • #8
                Killing Monty is probably safer than leaving him alive.

                Comment


                • #9
                  I have had one game with Monty where we were brothers of the faith and had peace until the end. In the dozens and dozens of other games with Monty we was a lyin backstabbin psycho who attacked even when he had no hope of victory.

                  The only good Monty is a dead Monty.
                  "Cunnilingus and Psychiatry have brought us to this..."

                  Tony Soprano

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                  • #10
                    Well, I couildn't finish Monty off. As I prepared to take his final 4 cities (which are in crap locations, BTW) Genghis Khan decided to attack. I gotta hand it to Genghis, he almost had me by taking my northernmost city. But its way too close to the capitol for that to be allowed. I had to pull a lot of troops from other places but i managed to defeat his humongo-stacks of knights, musketmen and catapults. I had to make peace with Monty thoughto avoid him taking advantage of my distraction.

                    A bit later when I had upgraded a lot of my troops and made peace with Genghis I decided to finish Monty off for good. I put together three stacks of cavalry, cannon and riflemen....some had been upgraded to infantry. Heck, I figured I only needed about 10 to fifteen turns to take him out. But no....thats when the Skinny Incan guy dude declares war!

                    I had gone through great lengths to keep the other civs from being too hostile, but Skinny Incan Dude (I can't spell his name) seemed pissed over religion. Unfortunately he chose to land his armies right next to the border of my land and montezumas....where i had amassed my Aztec Destruction Forces. Those incan dudes had no sooner stepped off of the boat when I demolished them. So I wait a few turns, make peace with Skinny Incan Dude, and decide to try again.

                    Nope...Caesar decides to backstabe me. Only he does it stupidly by landing THREE guys. Seriously, AI, THREE guys? Thats more of a nuisance than a threat! Still, I held off my attack on Monty again because I don't want 2 wars at once. I have a decent Army, but I have most of the continent to cover with it. I think my best bet now is to cooncentrate on defense and science. I can leave monty alone if he leaves me alone and crush him if he doesn't. But getting into wars I don't need will probably cost me the game right now. I saved and went to bed, but first I wanted to see what would happen if i did attack Monty. (I didn't save this part). He has musketmen now, not a lot. I can take him out but it won't be as easy since he has a city on a hill in my path to his capitol. He can hold off for awhile by wounding my stacks so they need to heal and reinforce, and frankly, he's not worth the effort right now. I'm losing my tech lead and I need to get it back.

                    ADDENDUM: I forgot to add, that Genghis had a city near Monty's territory that I probably wouldn't have known about if he didn't declare war on me. When his galleon went through one of my southern sea borders I was alerted to its presence. It was only size 1, with 2 defenders. I took it in my war with him, and its growing, but the gap in culture created allowed the Americans to dive in and build a city. Which looks like its gonna get swallowed up by my culture since they built it in a place it can't possibly be of any benefit to them.
                    "I know nobody likes me...why do we have to have Valentines Day to emphasize it?"- Charlie Brown

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      War is noble and glorious. You did the right thing, except that you kept making peace when you should have finished him off. You don't need to make peace with one AI to take care of three units of another AI.
                      THEY!!111 OMG WTF LOL LET DA NOMADS AND TEH S3D3NTARY PEOPLA BOTH MAEK BITER AXP3REINCES
                      AND TEH GRAAT SINS OF THERE [DOCTRINAL] INOVATIONS BQU3ATH3D SMAL
                      AND!!1!11!!! LOL JUST IN CAES A DISPUTANT CALS U 2 DISPUT3 ABOUT THEYRE CLAMES
                      DO NOT THAN DISPUT3 ON THEM 3XCAPT BY WAY OF AN 3XTARNAL DISPUTA!!!!11!! WTF

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Hmmm...not really. I made peace with Monty the first time because i needed my units to fight off the massive Mongolian invasion force. If I hadn't done that Genghis would have taken several cities. I made peace with the Skinny incan dude because it was a pointless war. I wasn't going to invade him and he was only fighting me because he was bribed or just plain nuts. The Incans had no reason to hate me, as we had been having good realtions. (pleased most of the time). I never declared War on Monty again, since everytime i got ready to someone else attacked. Rome's 3 units were no real threat, but at the time i didn't know if had boatloads more on the way. But other than our initial war, I was never at war with Monty again. By the late game it became pointless to fight with him. He didn't particularly have anything i wanted, he was contained in a crap area with a few units.....but not enough to seriously cause me any problems if he decided to go nuts, and I had other more powerful enemies to be on guard for.

                        I don't actually like fighting wars for no reason. Even if i'm attacking first theres a reason like "I need the resource you're hogging" or (as it was with Monty) "I can't let you survive long enough to be a threat to me". When I'm attacked by a civ on another continent I usually just play defense if its in the age of sail. I'm not gonna waste time sending frigates and galleons to his continent just purely for revenge. After all, the AI civ is wasting their resources by sending stacks and ships that aren't ever going home again.

                        Now if an AI attacks me on the same continent (or even one thats closer than an ocean) then I usually make an effort to cripple them badly or destroy them completely so they won't bother me again.
                        "I know nobody likes me...why do we have to have Valentines Day to emphasize it?"- Charlie Brown

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