respect me

[Flip McWho]

Hey all,

I've got a little problem u could help me with please.

See the problem is i don't have a military (besides defence units of course) worth crap and the AI treats me worse than that. I mean come on all i want is a little peace and quiet to build a good infrastructure and improvements then comes this civ that thinks they are better then me and demand a tech. Maybe i should sallow my pride and give it to them but i can't it feels so wrong. In my latest game i'm playing on the middle earth map and england demanded chivarly and i told them where to go. Next thing england, bringing the iroquois into it, are at war with me (too polite civs) and damaging me to untill my first knights enter the field. Soon i'll have a good 10 or so knights and then they will feel my revenge.

I'd like to know what some of ur build orders are, for example do u have ur capital churn out settlers while ur second city churns out units or something.

Awaiting ur replies,
Flip

(hey look my first thread/post)

[zulu9812]

If you have a weak military, the AI will know about it. They'll demand techs, maps, resources, etc, run riot over your territory and just generally bully you. Sorry Flip, the game is very much warfare-based: you have to have a large military and show (at least once) that you're prepared to use it.

[Flip McWho]

thanks for replying,

so basically i have to keep my military maintained whether i want to or not.

[Velociryx]

If you want to build in peace, the best, surest way to do that is to beat the h*ll out of everyone around you (ie - pretty much everybody you are sharing the continent with).

Two essential ways to go about this, both relying on the same mechanism:

1) Total Domination: Expand per normal, scout extensively...the MOMENT you find someone's borders, start road-building toward them....rend, smash, wreck havoc on their empire till they surrender (call them up after each city you raze/take and see if they will). While you are fighting this first war, continue to expand when and where possible, and more importantly, continue to scout.

Soon as the first Civ cries uncle (you'll prolly find one or several others during this time), spin the army 'round, and repeat the process until you have been involved in a war with everybody adjacent to you, then, cycle back to the first guy (assuming the first guy is now the biggest...if not, then cycle back to the largest of your near neighbors....OR, if there's another non-adjacent civ that's getting pretty bulked up, attack the civ that lies between you and that one.

Keep yourself in a state of war with everybody on the continent until none remain, slowly picking them to death and never allowing any of them time to grow and expand in peace.

End result: You, alone on your continent, and able to build for a few centuries straight.

2) Client states: A more limited form of the above. Prune all your near neighbors, kill any that you need to, in order to get to any that may be non-adjacent, and make yourself the undisputed master of the continent while leaving 2-3 civs alive and surrounding you at different points on the map. Ideally, these civs will have been stripped of most, if not all of their resources during your warring with them.

Keep them alive as trading partners for your excesses. Improve relations if you're worried about that by gifting them the occassional city (they'll generally pay more for your spare resources if they have a decent number of cities to work with, and, if you can get your relations back up with them, they can make decent allies if you're attacked later on. Point is though, they're too small individually, and probably collectively to do much more than annoy you if they attack.

It's generally a good idea here to keep at least one of these civs extremely tech starved. This gives you a market for your iron and horses when you get into the modern age and they're still building knights and such.

If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish all of your warring during the ancient era....depending on map settings, you might find this bleeding into the middle ages, but if you can maintain even a marginal tech lead with your near neighbors, then your knights will make pretty short work of their spear chuckers.

Once you're in a dominant position, disband the bulk of your non-elite units to speed build infrastructure in badly corrupted cities, settle back, and enjoy.

-=Vel=-

[notyoueither]

"If you want peace, prepare for war."

[Flip McWho]

thanks y'all for ur replies.

after i have beaten the english and the iroqoius back now i will not forget to build my military and i might use it well for the fun of that i can.

[Theseus]

1. I am a big fan of Vel's 2nd approach. Local vassals / clients are also useful for further extortion, just in case you fall behind in techs, and for slapping around, if you want to try to get some GLs.

2. In your current situation, once you have some Knights, start your offense defensively... let the AI civs' offensive forces come to you, and destroy them on open ground in your own territroy. Then pay them a little visit...