Ive seen it in the last two games I have played. What happens is I assemble my SoD then send it into enemy territory. On both occasions I can see that my enemy has their own SoD walled up in a city. And on both occasions that SoD left the city...so here I am thinking "perfect". I much rather fight the enemy outside of city walls and castles, while also losing much of their fortify bonus. And its just fun to have a huge battle in an open field. But what happened? Both times the enemy SoD showed no interest in me and just moved past me. Instead that SoD would go and attack my cities!

This would pull my SoD out because otherwise I would be destroyed. But then by the time I have fought out my self-created invaders, the enemy has bought himself time to shore up his defense, while my stack needs some rest. In one game I was able to defeat the enemy SoD but at the cost of my SoD being severly weakened and only able to take a couple smaller and lightly-defended cities. In the other game I played I was utterly defeated...when I came to meet the enemy SoD in my own territory, the enemy was able to bribe someone else to attack me. So then my SoD was tied down, while I had two SoDs to account for...and I failed to do so.

Has anyone else seen this?

Best defense is attack, that's all it is here :)

do everything you did just leave a few units to pillage take out:hammers: as much as possible as well as metal and horses this will slow the establishment of defenses and give you better adds when your S.o.D returns

I think the best SoD tactic I've seen was from a pre-patch game where the SoD's were pulsed behind the fog of war. I could take down one, but within about 6 spaces another would advance. Come to think of it post 3.13, I haven't seen any huge SoDs like there were with the initial release. I remember games with 30+ units in stack (so many you couldn't see the last one with the query).
I guess this was nerfed awhile ago.

sounds like a good stratagy to me. you had to defend instead of attack. ai wins

I've seen AI appliying it to one another, resulting in both capturing a enemy border city and making peace with up-sided-down borders..... :lol:

If you think well it makes (some) sense. BtS AI makes SoD of diferent composition from the previous versions.... They are city taking stacks, with lot of CR promos and siege. So why waste it garrisoning a city or fighting in the open, where they would lose most of the advantages?

I'm reading The Guns of August (http://www.amazon.com/Guns-August-Barbara-W-Tuchman/dp/034538623X) right now, so this sounds kinda like WWI. :) France and Germany both tried to bypass each other and head straight into the heartland.

Yeah, I've seen it before. They will try to use it on me too, though they'll rarely take anything aside from newly acquired cities with one or no defenders.

This has been seen before. When Scipio Africanus led his Roman Legions to Africa while Hannibal was busy in Italy, thus drawing The Carthaginian Army back for the defense of Carthage.

A good strategy to disrupt an aggressors attack, especially if the aggressors defense is weak.

Yip I've seen it, It just means I have to Garrison my Boarder cities with more units or wait 5 turns and let them fight on my territory so I suffer from less War Weariness, I usually have 2 SODs so 1st 1 would eliminate their SOD but I'd lose so many units in their Territory that that my WW sky rockets and I have to sue for peace if I want my economy to stay.

My tactic that prevents this involves the oracle. I generally get the oracle about 2 out of three games, and I always use it for a slingshot to feudalism. I war monger early with a mixture of sword/axe/horse archers as the attacking units with a few spears mixed in to thwart the counter attack and catipults for the obvious reasons. When getting my slingshot to feudalism, I spend about 10 turns getting my troops into place while my cities get longbowmen with at least city defense 2 to thwart the counter attack that you are talking about. By the time the enemy stack reaches any of my cities, my border towns typically have three or more longbowmen mixed with one or two axe/spearmen to defend different unit types. Garrisoned longbowmen make quick work of most ealry stacks. My attacking stack just continues into enemy territory as planned and leaves the defense to the defenders. Occasionally I might lose a border city or two, but they are of little use accept as a buffer and easy to retake once I have finished off the heart of the enemy's civilization.

Yup this is not uncommonand needs countering, usually you should know beforehand this is gonna happen as you should have scouted with a spy first, going into war blind is always going to lead to some unpleasent surprises. Either attack before they get a good stack going or like mesix says make sure you have adequate defense, though using oracle for fuedalism seems abit wastefull to me.

Fortifying all your border cities to the point that each one of them can defend against the AI SoD counter attack is to expensive in the early to mid game, and it takes a long time to build so many defenders. Instead, I create a specific reserve force of defenders and garrison them one city behind the front line. I won't commit this force, until I know where the AI is heading. Once I know where the enemy are going to hit, then I send this defence force off to the city that is about to get attacked. The AI nearly always attacks the city it's aiming for, despite the fact that you have just massively reinforced it. The AI may however pick another, weaker target for their second counter attack, so you must have good recon / intel on what the enemy are doing. The enemy AI may also have more than one SoD, which can be stationed on another of their borders, or outside of their borders, so you must maintain good recon / intel on the enemy after your initial attack and their counter attack.

This strategy does leave you very vulnerable to a completely surprise attack, as your border cities are lightly defended, and basically acting as nothing more than a trip wire, so you do have to pay attention to your diplomacy and standing in the world, so as to minimise the AI jumping you unexpectedly.

Creating and concentrating a defence force in one place, rather than spreading them out to garrison all your border cities is actually sound military strategy. The Great Wall in China, Hadrian's Wall in the UK, and numerous other historical fortifications were basically nothing more than trip wires. Napoleon and numerous other "good" military leaders throughout history favoured the idea of a reserve military force that is sent to the point of conflict, rather than spread out in garrison communities picking daisies.

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On a side note, it's worth mentioning that Hanibal rampaged up and down Italy for 16 years before the Romans finally found themselves a "good" military leader in Scipio Africanus. Historians have always wondered what would have happened if Hannibal had still had the elite troops he started out with when he met Scipio at the battle of Zama, rather than the second rate troops he actually commanded. Scipio and Hannibal were both brilliant military commanders of equal ability, and had they both had the same quality of troops, then the battle could have gone either way. I wonder if Rome would have survived if it had gone Hannibal's way? Many of the city states on the Italian peninsula were unhappy with Rome at that time, and the Roman Empire could have been stifled at birth. I doubt there would have been a Carthaginian Empire to replace it, as they were never that ambitious, but the outcome of that one battle could have changed world history.

Regards - Mr P

Something else I noticed as I just finished up another Bts game (monarch) is that the AI is chillingly effective at putting his SoD on a hill next to your city. The AI will do it every time without fail. Its going to make me think twice about twice placement for border cities in my next game.

I've actually found it quite funny, but I bombard the city with artie useally before sending in ground forces.

I have actually also found wars to be very costly in troop numbers just to invade a single city, not to mention holding it from enemy counterattacks(though my forces excell in repelling counterattacks).

One city the Enemy(Ethiopia) completely surrounded one of the cities I captured, I just let 'em take it back after they spent nearly all their SoD's to take it back, lol, but I made them give me it back in exchange for peace(they did)

I've seen this, but I attack and take/raze the badguys city before mine is threatened. My cities are always well defended, plus i keep a garrison of counterattack units like the poster above in the central motherland. once I take out his undefended city, i can usually sue for peace if i am threatened.

if all else fails, i NUKE the s**t out of him.