Story Time: Civ 3!

Playing as Japan, I had two immediate neighbors, the Chinese to my west, immediately on my borders, and the French on another landmass to my north. The Indians to my southwest had long since been wiped out. Upon the French Landmass I had a single city. This city, Natsuma or something similar, had access to Iron, and was in fact the only source of Iron I had or would have access to until I had the technology to cross the ocean or started knocking the French around and taking their iron. As my unique unit was the awesome Samurai (replaces Knights, has one additional defense and does not require Horses) and I was lagging behind in research, this city was naturally very strategically important to me.

The French weren't having any of that and attacked suddenly with Longbowmen and Swordsmen.

Unfortunately, Natsuma was defended by merely two spearmen due to military budget cuts, as I really needed to either increase research spending or bribe the English and Zulu on the other side of the world for their tech. The good news is that I had several galleys and my most productive cities were just a short boat ride away, so I could respond quickly in the event of such a situation. The french were quick to knock out my one source of Iron so I couldn't immediately produce any Samurai. While Natsuma was set to produce walls, the rest of my productive cities were ordered to produce Spearmen, Longbowmen, and Horse Archers as quickly as possible to reinforce, though I feared it would turn from defense to recovery.

Anyway, on the first turn, two spearmen versus two Swordsmen and a Longbow. Natsuma holds with one half-health spearman remaining. One galley which happened to have a Horseman on it at the time arrives in the city, unloads, and the horseman kills another Longbowman who hadn't quite reached the city. The Horseman is killed before he can move again, but he bought me the time needed to get more troops on ships. Since it would still be a few more turns before I could actually produce anything, I grabbed a couple soldiers on defense and put them on ships.

As the French armies gradually streamed in, only barely being held back by what little forces I could muster, Japanese longbows and spearmen finally began to appear and were immediately deployed to the galleys. Spearmen helped defend the city while Horsemen and Longbows sought to attack the incoming French before they could close in on Natsuma. With the French unable to successfully continue their assault to any remarkable effect, I was able to secure the tile with the Iron on it after a few turns so that my Worker could restore the route to it in relative safety.

After half a dozen turns and a combined total of over 20 losses on both sides, the French offensive was broken, and several Japanese troops were around Natsuma and ready to kill something. The French sued for peace at this time and offered twenty gold per turn (over 20 turns) in addition to the Democracy tech... which I considered a sufficient peace offering, especially when one of the French cities revolted and joined my side a turn later due to Natsuma's overwhelming culture. :3

Of course I wasn't going to trust France after all that, so when I finally started to produce Samurai (and Pikemen), they were shipped right over, so that I'd be ready if the French ever attacked again, or I decided to save myself the trouble and kill them first... whichever came first.

It was pretty awesome.

Later, the French did attack again for some unfathomable reason, and I retaliated by taking all but three of their cities. Dumbasses.