Iroquois - How deal with them?

[planetfall]

I need advice on playing vs Iroquois. In all previous games they have been far away and been a great peaceful trading partner. However I am losing in new game. What can I do?


Game env:
6 civs: germany, iroquois, russia, amer, ?, ?
land mass: continent
level: regent
Playing: germany
Current location-- alone on continent with only Iroquois.
year-- about 2000bc

Problems:
1. Iroquois ahead in score & power
2. Military avg, 6 warriors, 2 workers
3. Iroquois out expanding: 3 cities when I had 1, now 4 to my 3, but sure more Iroquois settlers are coming
4. Iroquois line of cities cut off 3/5th of continent
5. Iroquois has horses, I have none
6. Iroquois cities located by water, my closest water is 30 tiles away and need city line and time to get water to cities
7. Iroquois will have nasty mounted horse [3.1.2] and I will have what, spears.
8. closest horse is 30 tiles away and need to squeeze pass Iroquois city to get there.
9. can't seem to get cities working fast enough with food/shields/settlers
10. Can't use archers/horse with no horse and going against mnted horse.
11. can't be peaceful, as will be lucky to get 1/4 of continent.
12. Unknown if have iron, will know in about 12 turns.


Ideas?

[Incan_Warrior]

yea, you are pretty much dead meat from what it looks like at this point. You have a couple options, both of which involve the key resource, HORSES:

1) Start over, but on the same map. On your re-do, build more settlers and warriors. Don't screw around. Cramp the Iriquois style by building more cities in better locations. Most importantly, beat them to the horses, if you can. An Iriquois without horses is a like a man without his...manhood.

2) If you insist on not restarting (as that is somewhat cheap and bordering on cheating), focus on your own cute little military (of which workers do not consists, FYI). Once you find iron, get there and start pumping out swordsmen (more warriors if you don't have iron). Take your swordsmen and arrange them so that, once you initiate war, they can run through the I's territory and pillage all roads connected to the horses. This will prevent them from coming down on you with their MW's (except for the ones they already have built) until they rebuild roads - which you, being the savvy strategist you are, won't let happen. Raze any of the towns they have with locations you don't like, keep the ones that will help you win the war. Defend your cities with spearmen. And if you haven't done so already, build some barracks!!! Never go to war without veteran units. Like, duh. Good luck, and let us know if you can overcome those sissy feather-wearing Iriquois.

[planetfall]

yeh, I figured it was restart time.

Can't deny horses as they are within 10 tiles of initial Iroquois capital.

With no water can't restrict Iroquois start.

Yes, one barracks, don't think it will help enough.

If you haven't seen it, Theseus started a great thread on early game.

I plan to keep Iroquois, Russia, Amer, and set other 2 civs random for restart. So early in game, no emotional attachment, but would be interesting to have a restart where on same continent with Iroquois. I have not tried early war with them yet.

Thank you for the feedback.
--PF

[vondrack]

Tough situation, I would say. The iron will be decisive. If you get it then there might be a good chance of surviving their initial Mounted Warrior advantage... if not, time to restart or call for Aeson...

In my last game (Monarch), Iroquois grew to be the largest empire throughout the early to mid medieval times. Later, they became the first to leave the game. One obvious reason was that Hiawatha wasn't actually a big peacemaker and most other civs, including me, got pissed off... the other reason, I believe, was that he overstretched his empire... seems like your game might be similar.

I am definitely not an expert, but I would probably try to grab as much land as possible, even if it means just 1/4 of the continent. As soon as you will not be able to expand further, start building up your infrastructure and military. Military should have priority I think... the stronger your army, the lower the chances that Hiawatha will come to blackmail you. If you can get to pikes and knights, you'll be much better off.

Would you be able to post a savegame? Tips could be more specific then...

Good luck!

Edit: some fine ideas, IW. Building barracks in every single "front-line" city would be a must. Barracks help both with the defense (by healing your hurt troops) and offense (by building veteran units).

[Lord Merciless]

Don't try to compete with Iroquois with Settler buildings, you can't win here. But since they expand like crazy, their cities should not be too well protected. Another factor that speaks in your favor is that you 2 are alone on the continent, meaning the tech rate will be slow. It's very likely that Iroquois doesn't have horseback riding yet.

Your strategy now is build a strike force between 6 and 8 archers, and go on offensive right away. Your first target should their horse supply.

[Grumbold]

Sell 'em whiskey and mop up

[planetfall]

I understand. I am tempted to see if I can get horse and iron. If not it is definitely a lost cause. If I decide to play game cause I got iron and horses, I can get a .sav file.

As mentioned in start, have not had a problem with Iroquois at all before because only dealt with them at late ancient+ era. It seems they always get weaker as game progresses, just the opposite of Russians and French.

again thanks for answering. I will see about iron and horses and carefully read Theseus thread about early game before deciding to continue/start new game with same civs

[Lord Merciless]

He can't wait for Iron, that's another 12 turns away. By then the Iroquois will have their dreaded Mounted Warriors and a Golden Age. He would be toast.

[Incan_Warrior]

props to Grumbold for the humor! Hee-Haw! If only that were an option.

[jshelr]

I was married to an Iriquois gal for 25 years and have experience fighting them that can help you.

In this case, IMO, the relative position on the continent is actually in your favor, apart from no horses.

They are going to spend tons of resources building cities. Let them do so. Stop building new cities soon, but get some iron. Build barracks and swords. It will be no surprise to me that your small civ's focus on military will prove more powerful than their large civs overextension. The IA always goes crazy if you let them have space to expand. (BTW, I give you 50-50 odds of winning even if you have to do it with archers.) One trick, get them to spending their MWs fighting you on your road system, where you are just as fast as they are. Good luck.

[Arrian]

The Iroquois, as I've said before, are a 9.0 on my "scares-the-crap-outta-me-o-meter" (STCOMOM), due to the power of the Mounted Warrior. I have noticed, however, that they rarely press their advantage, which may warrant a drop in their STCOMOM rating.

The AI is usually ripe for the picking while they are still in expansion mode. I would get a nice core of cities built up, churn out veteran warriors, and upgrade them to swordsmen (this does require iron, but you're likely to be able to find a source). Then target Hiawatha's horse supplies. Avoid actually declaring war until you have to, then cut the horses (and iron). Now you're in a slugfest, but you may find that his defenses are thin. Again, when the AI is in expansion mode, all they really build are settlers and spearmen.

-Arrian

[Inverse Icarus]

give me the sav. i'll play it out and you can see what you should have done

[Admiral PJ]

The iroquois are a nice civ to play as, their horses are very dangerous, but you can counter them by attacking with archers, and using catapults to weaken them so they can't withdraw before dying.
Germanys a pretty good civ, but you need to try and match the iroquois great religious culture value.

You could always try getting the Russians to help you, they have a good cavalry army normally (those cossacks are cool, though they won't have them for a longwhile).. Just declare war on the Iroquois and then Get russia to Ally with you against them.. increase taxes to pay the russians as soon as you can.
Who knows, the russians have a nice navy I think.. maybe they'll save the day, and damage each of their nations in the process.
Divide and conquer is the best solution inthis game, though you'll have to defend yourself well.. maybe try for some blitzkreig attacks on the iroquois in a couple of places to scare them, and pillage all their production.

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
The iroquois are a nice civ to play as, their horses are very dangerous, but you can counter them by attacking with archers, and using catapults to weaken them so they can't withdraw before dying.

Interesting, there is hope for a bad start. I didn't know catapults would keep them from retreating. Actually I don't think they do but the effect is the same if a weakened unit doesn't have enough life it dies instead of retreats.

Hate to restart too quickly. It is always easy to restart but I tend to learn less. Now at diety that might be a different story, but should not matter at regent.

[Arrian]

I don't believe catapults will stop mounted units from retreating. As a matter of fact, I'm almost positive that's not true. They certainly would help, but I find catapults largely useless... bombard units don't really pull their weight until artillery. Build an attack unit instead.

-Arrian