Specific Situation advice needed

[Worthingtons]

Ok, here is my situation, I'm playing a game as England on a souped up Monarch, and heading towards the end of the Middle ages, I have control of most of britain bar a few cities at the top of Scotland and 1 city in Ireland, sadly though that is it!
The dominant power is now France after wiping out Germany and Poland are now somewhat more powerful than I am, I have a mixed bag of advangtages though in the form of many very good wonders, and some very good cities - I have the Sistine Chappel and Leo's Workshop
Sadly my lindmass is tiny, my Population is only 2nd and I need to turn around fast, starting with the Taming of the French i'm thinking

If i can reduce their power, hopefully start some wars in Europe and take that little city in Ireland i'm thinking that will be a good start.

The plan is this, My cultural borders extend to the top of French coast and I can quite legally land a Cavalry or 20 there. The Square I can land my cav on direct from the boat is magically within 3 squares (grassland) of Paris, the French capital, I believe i'll be the first to reach Miltiary Tradition, i'm the process atm of Building Cav and should be able to assemble a force big enough as soon as I get Military traditon to take thier Capital.

I estimate I will need 20 Cavalry for this mission given France has musketeers and it's thier Capital. I will also need therfore 7 boats to transport them.

The plan is not to Hold Paris but simply to Burn it down, Paris are more powerful than me Miltary wise so I only get 1 shot at this - my troops on the continent will be wiped out after 1 turn no doubt so it needs to be completed in 1 turn, after this point I can pull out any spare remaining tropps back to England on the boats, and make sure my Cities are defended with good supply of Musketmen (sure the french are more powerful than me but they cant invade Britan sucesfully I'm sure). As soon as I have razed paris my plan then would be contact rome or Spain or both and ally them against the French giving them Military Tradition in the deal which they surely coudnt resist if i'm the first to get it.

The plan fringes on
a) 20 cav being enough to take a good IA Capital?
b) the damage caused to france by losing Paris being significant enough to justify the loss of about 20 units of Cavalry costing what, about 80 shields each?

Paris is a very fertile size 12 city with good culture , The Great Wall and Sun Tzu's art of war so i'm hoping b) is correct.

Thoughts?

Thanks
Matt

[Jon Shafer]

How big is the map and how many cities does each side have? How big and well-developed are those cities?

[-SafaN-]

those two wonders are worth it:
AI doesn't build barracks and walls if they are provided with a free structure.

Instead of focussing on the capital u could use other things: use musketmen to deny ressources: especialy salpeter will be key.
If u can deny them from salpeter, and this while they have their golden age u can easily clean them up.

With the embassy u can see how much defence they have, i think 3 cav/ musketeer will be enugh

Otherwise u can also break the trade network: by pillaging the 8 squares around the capital, u can remove the power of the wonders, and then capture paris as the last city and keeping the wonders ...

[Theseus]

Screenshot, please.... sounds like an interesting situation.

[Worthingtons]

This was the situation, sadly I grossly miscalculated Paris' defence and made a fudge up of my invason losing all 15 cavalry

[Theseus]

Ummm... you didn't have Cavs, those are Knights.

Still doable, although I typically want at least 5 Knights per defending Musket in a city (i.e., 7-12 population), and prolly more like 6-7 if attacking a capitol. In other words... a LOT of Knights!!

BTW:

* You have way too many units in your cities.
* You have too many defenders in general... in your shoes, I prolly would have stuck with all Horse units, and then use the Crusaders as local defense.
* The vast majority of the forest should have been chopped.
* Too many tiles are irrigated... you should have no or 1 excess food in 12 pop cities.

Re-build your Knight force, upgrade all to Cavs when you complete Mil Trad, and try again!!

[Worthingtons]

Hi Thesus, I am aware that at the time my units were Knights, perhaps i sounded too present tense but when I said I was building Cav I meant that I was building Knights to upgrade to Cav (leo's workshop remember) and that as I was only 8 turns away would be the first.

Those assumptions were reasnable but I didnt research what i was actually up against, Althought I didnt take Paris i did at least manage to lock all the Euro natons into wars, about 12 civilisations were at war with France at one point , the beauty is that I only had to bribe 4 of them, the others got the others involved.

Still, not looking too good, as for the Irrigation , that was done at a time I was rapidly expanding Bristol and London for getting Wonders, they have half a dozen between them.
I now have scotland too but not enough, France,Rome and Spain are huge.

Shud win on One City Culture though as long as I deny my opponents the UN for demo win - a boring way to win though.

[Worthingtons]

Great News!, I did it!
Was playing on a new game and found myself in exactly the same situation - good but not quite good enough with France a huge power again and Paris thier Key City. This time I attacked with a proper force, 22 newly upgraded Cavalry

Oh, and the wonders I stole from them this time, well just a little bit better - the Sistine Chapel & Pyramids . Now I just gotta make sure it dont Culture Flip, have 18 units there atm

[Donegeal]

The best thing to prevent culture flip is adding your own culture. If you are sound in the thought that France won't take it back by force, you should be building (and rushing) temples/libraries (but make sure you keep those troops there to quell those resistors!).

[Theseus]

What map is that, Worthy?

[Worthingtons]

Marla Singer's Euro map


Tis a good map, made a few tiny modifications, It's sure hard as Either Rome or England due to the Geographical borders, Getting rid of Scotland very early and gunning for Map maping is the way to go