Defending vs. stronger neighbor early attacks

[Reverend Zombie]

I have been running into this situation in a few of my first MP games on crowded maps. The following comment came from the "problems with the tuatha" thread:

Well Pillin, better luck next time, and don't attack in turn four - you can't be ready to meat my religious mad men at that time, especially not when your men are'nt either religious or well protected

This raises a question that I as a new player have thought about. While it may be good advice not to attack a player who is stronger when you are unprepared, how do you deal with an earlier attack by your stronger neighbor?

Running up against Jotunheim early can be particularly scary.

What advice can vets offer for newer players such as myself to defend against early more powerful neighbors who choose to be agressive, without crippling the crucial starting expansion?

[GavinWheeler]

Well, I'm not a vet, but can't you just message the neighbour to point out that, while the stronger nation will probably win, you can still do enough damage to cripple his initial expansion, and so negotiate a non-aggression pact?

If he does attack, you could try to expand away from him as quickly as possible and set up an alternate 'home' - Caelum, or sailing nations, will have an easier time with this, of course. Or scout out his other neighbours and explain to them that you all have a "mad dog" neighbour who needs a multilateral slapdown.

But there is no way (I can see) that you can avoid this being a major handicap to your early game. Even hiring mercenaries, to blunt his attack at minimal cost to your long term army, is a big chunk of your initial resources spent on the neighbour from hell.

[ywl]

So, do you prefer your stronger neighbors to attack after turn 10, when they've built up a more overwhelming force?

In most situation, it's a game of fighting to the death versus other human. If you don't want to be attacked, the only sure way is trying not to be the easy target. As long as you don't have mage type pretender, it's in general more preferrable for the others to take out the indies first.

Most of the nations have balanced start. Even Jotun is not scary. The small size of their army make them easily enough to be swarmed by heavy infantries.

[ March 24, 2004, 18:35: Message edited by: ywl ]

[GavinWheeler]

I suppose I hope that I am sneaky enough to come up with a strategy to deal with the neighbour over those ten turns!

Given a little preparation, it becomes a battle of wits. If conflict is too early in the game, you have no funky spells researched and no slinky items forged, so it is too much a question of who has the best national troops and gold supply.

[ywl]

Originally posted by GavinWheeler:
I suppose I hope that I am sneaky enough to come up with a strategy to deal with the neighbour over those ten turns!

Given a little preparation, it becomes a battle of wits. If conflict is too early in the game, you have no funky spells researched and no slinky items forged, so it is too much a question of who has the best national troops and gold supply.

It happens... a lot . It's not unusual for an early war to start by turn 10 to 15. Some players are famous for their early rush and aggressive expansion . And yes, that'll be a match of national troops and gold supply. That's why scales are regarded as very important among the players I met.

Altenatively, you could just make sure that you have an early killer strategy to be an deterrent, such as an Blue Dragon with "Breath of Winter". Most nations can have pretender/national troop combo to afford one or two.

It's just a part of the game. An MP game is not a static research-for-the-killer-magic type of competition. You need to consider survival in the beginning, the midgame and the endgame, plus a big dose of diplomacy throw in.

[alexti]

Originally posted by Reverend Zombie:
What advice can vets offer for newer players such as myself to defend against early more powerful neighbors who choose to be agressive, without crippling the crucial starting expansion?

I don't know what vets can offer, but the most straightforward protection is to make sure that your neighbours aren't more powerful. I can see several ways to get yourself into a trouble early on:

- start with non-combat pretender and concentrate on magic. If you plan on doing research rush, take a combat-capable pretender to have some protection, if you need specialized pretender for your strategy, then you have to postpone your intense research and build some regular force first.

- hire mercenaries and expand quickly. Few turns later mercenaries leave, got killed or flee and after spending money on them you have no regular army and newly conquered lands didn't bring enough income yet to compensate for the mercenaries cost. Now your neighbour can enjoy a helping of undefended lands

- suffer too much losses attacking indies. It causes the same problem as scenario with mercenaries.

If, for whatever reason you still got yourself into a trouble, there's still a diplomacy to find a way out. You can pay to your neighbour to stay in peace, so that he will prefer to collect gold/gems from you while fighting someone else. Or you can bribe another nation to ally with you. Another popular method is to say that you're dedicating all your forces to the war with Ermor, nobody likes them. If you are really desperate, you may have neither Ermor near you nor forces to dedicate to the war with Ermor, but still try your luck by claiming the same. Early on, your neighbour may not be aware of who is where yet

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by alexti:
- hire mercenaries and expand quickly.

Mercenaries are probably the most effective way to increase your initial combat potential. There is no way for example, that you could easily get more use out of 220 gold than by paying Hector's Heavy Horse.

[alexti]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

---

Originally posted by alexti:
- hire mercenaries and expand quickly.

Mercenaries are probably the most effective way to increase your initial combat potential. There is no way for example, that you could easily get more use out of 220 gold than by paying Hector's Heavy Horse.

---

The problems start when the mercenaries leave (or, worse, bought out by your neighbour), and while Hector's Heavy Horse for 220 wouldn't be a bad deal, it's not likely to get them that cheap. Having to pay something like 350 is more likely.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by alexti:
The problems start when the mercenaries leave (or, worse, bought out by your neighbour), and while Hector's Heavy Horse for 220 wouldn't be a bad deal, it's not likely to get them that cheap. Having to pay something like 350 is more likely.

If your opponents are willing to pay twice what you are paying to get mercenary companies that are almost wiped out, then let them have them. Otherwise there's not much chance of them winning a bidding war without spending far too much money on it. Hector's Horse are still a good deal at 350 gold pieces, but I can't imagine that someone would spend their entire first turn's income on mercenaries.

[GavinWheeler]

Originally posted by ywl:
Altenatively, you could just make sure that you have an early killer strategy to be an deterrent, such as an Blue Dragon with "Breath of Winter".

I suppose that is the main point. The question sort of predicated that you did have a much stronger neighbour, which is hopefully only going to happen if you've picked a magic heavy strategy that will only pay off later on in the game.

But on a small crowded map, where you might well clash with a neigbour in the first few turns, I guess you simply should not do that. Even if you are playing with a nation of mages, I get the impression that you need to concentrate on troops (national or mercenary) and/or a SuperCombatant pretender, to expand quickly and get a toehold if not a foothold before cranking up the research and gem hunting.

But, not yet having been able to commit to a reasonably regular playing schedule, my experience of MP play is zilch.