Iroquois - How deal with them?

[planetfall]

Originally posted by 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

Yeah, my experience also. Offensive units are really needed and can't afford bombardment units for campaigns. They are great at bottlenecks and holding positions but not good on advancing. They work but not as well as another offensive unit. If unlimited gold, sure bring them along, but I am always short on gold, so give me offense.

[Theseus]

I think Adm. PJ meant taking them down to 1 hp, in which case, no retreat.

I don;t use Cats much either... although the concept works, esp. hitting them on open ground, I'd rather have more Swords.

PF, did you re-start? I don;t think you need to... can you eyeball appr. how many cities you think you and the Iroqouis will each have? For remaining new cities, assume Iroquois at 4 tile spacing, and you at 3.

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Theseus
I think Adm. PJ meant taking them down to 1 hp, in which case, no retreat.

I don;t use Cats much either... although the concept works, esp. hitting them on open ground, I'd rather have more Swords.

PF, did you re-start? I don;t think you need to... can you eyeball appr. how many cities you think you and the Iroqouis will each have? For remaining new cities, assume Iroquois at 4 tile spacing, and you at 3.

Not at home, no change during the day.

Again, I can always restart, but intrigued by the challenge of trying a different approach with the Iroquois.

Don't know on cities, there are 3 key locations pending rush to plant:

1. about 12 tiles SW away from Iroquois with food bonus, can't recall if game or what.

2. about 12 tiles E of Iroquois to provide access to small finger of continent

3. about 16 tiles NE of Iroquois with horse resource.



I usually try to save about every 10 turns so if I ever decide to I can go back and replay.
Currently have 3 saves, 4000BC, about 2200BC, and current year about 1800bc.

[Moonsinger]

Re: Iroquois - How deal with them?

Originally posted by 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?

If possible, post a link to your save game. I can't give you any good advice until I can fully evaluate your situation. I'm sure we can locate a nice little battlefield to setup a trap to wipe out their force once and for all. Just because they are stronger, that doesn't mean they are smarter.

[Theseus]

If I understand correctly, #1 is possibly within your reach?

I'm also gonna guess that you could squeeze 1-2 towns into your existing territory... even if you assume that you might disband them later when your main cities need the land.

So, I'm willing to bet that you can get to 6 towns, albeit a little cramped compared to the Iroquois, but that's OK.

Hopefully you've got 1-2 luxuries... this can delay the need for temples.

ALL towns get barracks, and all build Warriors. Balance your research so that you get IW just when you have enough gold to upgrade at least 12 to Swordsmen.

Two stacks of 6 each take out two Iroquois towns on the same turn... you'll be OK after that, just keep on upgrading the remaining Warriors and building new Swordsmen, until Hiawatha screams for mercy not to take his last two cities (which should be crappy, btw). Extort all techs and money. Focus on building your towns. At some point, take him down.

[planetfall]

Help pink slime spreading

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

First- how did you create the custom avatar?

Second, interested in seeing what I did wrong. Big problem now is china has over 1/3 of the world. Even if I succeed in taking out Iroquois, don't think I can get to China before Russia is gone.

Included in zip:

1. 2800bc-- situation before post
2. 1575bc-- situation at time of post
3. 1130bc-- situation when iroquois started war
4. 1380ad-- current situation.


Comments:
1. goofed in only taking one Iroquois city and settling too early for peace
2. really goofed in not getting city with saltpeter. Only 2 saltpeters on continent. Iroquois has one and Amer has other.
3. Currently going to try going for saltpeter rather than waiting for nationalism. Difficulties: strong military, but with swords and horse and spears. Iroq. has some calvary and some musketmen. Iroq is about 4-5 techs ahead, nationalism must be coming up soon. To get military tradition which Iroq have, had to give luxury to china; not good long term play. Really discouraged with this game.

Really looking for ideas on other ways of playing it.

thanks

-PF

[narmox]

build 20 archers an destroy their empire.

My latest game at regent went like this:

it was me (Egypt) on a medium continent. South were the indians. North the Persians. And east the babylonians. I had time to build 3 cities and the whole continent was completely settled by everyone. On average the others had 3-4 cities. Everyone on the continent declared war, cause I had one of 3 cities with iron, and almost no military because I had already built 3 wonders, 1 in each city (wow!).

Persians had their immortals. Babylonians had their bowmen. Indians quickly made peace. And I had my chariots. Very ugly situation. I ended up giving away Memphis, the city with iron, in order to attain peace.

WHAT YOU SAY? Yes, I gave them my only source of iron.

Fast-forward 20 turns later. I have 2 swordsmen (I started them before I made peace) and 20 war chariots. The babylonians didn't stand a chance. I took back my city, then started building swordsmen again, then took their whole empire.

The moral of the story? No situation is completely hopeless, at least at Regent So make your 20 archers and strike HARD, straight to deprive the Iroquois of their horses, then mop up the rest.

[wohmongarinf00l]

planetfall:
i usually play at higher difficulties so this was a nice challenge at a lower level.
it was not lost at all by a good shot at the 1300bc(?) save...that's where i picked up. i didn't keep a detailed chronology of events but basically this is what happened.

the AI does not have advantages at this level so it can't crank out units that fast so long as u have a well prepared military. i took ur warriors and back to a home city with barracks to wait for iron. i mined and roaded the grassland area around the capital and squeezed several cities. ur city placement is not optimal ( u can squeeze a lot of cities in that grassland area).

===>mining(M) and roading(R) on grasslands should become second nature to ur fingers. this process increases both shields and gold.

i also lowered science to get ready to upgrade the warriors.

once iron was discovered every city started producing swordsmen and i transported them to border cities near the iroquois.
when i had around 20 swordsmen i struck three cities, taking them on the first turn. my other cities continued to resupply swordsmen at a nice rate, also producing settlers to settle in the newly auto-razed cities. most of the horses were not connected to salamanca and so they only produced 1 MW which i killed with swordsmen.
they made the pyramids in salamanca which i captured a few turns later. i used a leader to build the hanging gardens.

iroquois disappeared around 10ad....

i met the americans and exchanged polytheism/monarchy for several techs.

i didn't want the americans on the continent so as soon as i collected enough swordsmen near the american border i attacked them. after kicking them off the continent i sued for peace for comms with the russians who gave me comms with china.....

i build up tons of horsemen for later upgrade to knights.


now i am trading all the luxes with everyone for techs. i am discovering new techs at 5-6 turns. i have pyramids, sun tzu, smith's, js bachs's..

it's pretty much won at this point.



things i did differently from u:
1) no unnecessary improvements - changed the grannary to barracks in berlin.
2) mining and roading the area around the capital like crazy.
3) cranked out swordsmen from every city.
4) squeezed in more cities in the little space
5) did not sue for peace even though the iroquois wanted to talk.

edit: i started from the 1575bc

[Theseus]

My kind of playbook.

Questions:

How many towns did you have in Germany's original area?

Did the Irq have anything to offer before the final slaughter? I woulda took it, and then massacred them anyway.

[Jaguar]

1575 save

First I took berlin off granary, and put it on temple, so i don't have to deal with any annoying culture flips.

I got a barracks in hamburg, and built settlers and warriors everywhere. Then when I got iron working I hooked up the iron, and upgraded for three swordsman, which went to niagara falls and killed its two spearmen defense (one had been poprushed, so it wasn't fortified.) Also, because of the poprush, it was size one, so it was autorazed.

Then the Iroquois didn't have horses near their capital, their main production center. So I systematically hunted down the Iroquois cities with packs of three or four upgraded swordsmen to a city. By 730 BC, they were down to three cities, and I had taken their capital. I got one more city in the peace treaty. I left them with the crappy jungle in the north.

[Lord Merciless]

I would not be too concerned about Iroquois. But Chinese are really scary in your game.

[wohmongarinf00l]

theseus:
6 towns in total in the line below niagara falls. they built 2 cities on spots i wanted. i destroyed them because i wanted them gone from the continent quick but i suppose i could have backstabbed them...i backstabbed in the rest of the game anyway.

[planetfall]

Thanks for the input. Guess I need to learn to be even more aggressive. I still have 3 american cities on continent, and Iroquois have 3 cities left. I gambled on getting sole saltpeter before they had nationialism.

Yes the pink horde is very bothersome, don't think I can really count on Russia for much help. Since amer has infantry and my war production is not ready yet, plans are:

0. get production as high as possible
1. attempt to get Hoover
2. get factories in all cities
3. 10 turns before tanks, MPP with Russia
4. take out Amer (maybe Iroquois)
5. try to get 2 front war with china afterwards



BTW-- it seems govt change is much, much longer in 1.29. Instead of taking 4 turns,
it is taking 6-8 turns.

• is this normal?
  
• is there a preference to reduce this to 4 turns?
  
  

Looking forward to reviewing the alternative posted games tonight and your explanations of how to play differently. Now I am sure I let China get too big and too powerful, but curious to see if game is just behind or lost.


--PF

[wohmongarinf00l]

govt switching for non-religious civs takes 4-8 turns...it all depends on the random number generator...
i might try to play with ur 1380ad save and see how fast i can catch up...

i finally finished the game....took the remaining americans with cavalry and the chinese and russians with panzers around 1760ad. the chinese and russians had shared off the zulu between them.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by planetfall
BTW-- it seems govt change is much, much longer in 1.29. Instead of taking 4 turns,
it is taking 6-8 turns.

• is this normal?
  
• is there a preference to reduce this to 4 turns?
  

You can mod the max and min number of turns for government switching in the editor. Of course that won't have any impact until you start a new game.....