Why must warefare (especially early warefare) be so painfully hard, even my dad (who plays) finds that it is painfully and costly while on the offense. Even with the cultural defense percentage down to 0 we noticed how the longbowmen while fortified makes it very hard to conquer the city. Is there anyway to make it less painful? We are playing BTS.

Use lots of collateral siege as kamakazi units to weaken the defenders. Your melee units can then mop up the weakend defenders.

I do that (don't know about my dad). Any other expert advice from anyone?

Don't bother fighting people that are on the same technological level as you. Climb up to a higher tier of military tech and fight using that. Racemen vs. archers, riflemen vs. longbows and such.

To my mind, longbowmen and archers have a definite counter. Fortified-in-city archers are very strong against anything with 3 or 4 strength, and fortified longbows are very strong against anything with 6 strength. Which is why you use units with 5 or more strength against archers, and units with 8 or more strength against longbows (knights are preferred). It's easy to get knights when your enemy has longbows or axes when your enemy has archers.

Still, I try to go in to every battle for an enemy city with at least twice as many units on my side as there are on the defending side (anything between equal numbers and double the enemy's numbers often means me pillaging and letting them attack me instead of me attacking).

Summary: knights attack longbows. axes attack archers. You will lose units, but that's okay.

Early wars do not include longbowmen.

By that stage, why don't you take Japan's Samauri Immorals, and promote them to CRIII and multiple Drills. They ignore bowmen's first strikes, and neutralize part of their guarrison bonuses. The defender still has a slight advantage, but as the attacker you can group and focus at a point, while he can't keep all his cities fully guarrisoned at all times.

Mostly agree with Cer, except I prefer maces to knights (CR promotions, mainly). There's a period of time before the enemy has longbows when you can attack with axes/swords/catapults. Once they have longbows, you're better off waiting until you've got maces/trebs. (Praets are the exception of course, because they're not really souped-up swordsmen, they're undercosted maces that only require Ironworking.)

Also, once the enemy is building castles (and sometimes before) it becomes more efficient to drop his defences by inciting revolt with spies rather than bombarding. Every turn you spend bombarding gives him time to build/whip more defenders, at which the AI is much better in BtS than before.

Why must warefare (especially early warefare) be so painfully hard


Because the spoils of successful wars are so great.

1) Mass a lot of units. Not just a handful, but dozens. If you're in the first half of the game, an ideal attack force is one that is on the brink of overburdening your economy. Make sure you have a substantial force of siege.
2) Ensure your military is at technological parity with your enemy.
3) Give City Raider promotions (where possible) to the units that will be attacking the city proper.

When attacking the city itself
4) Remember to remove the Defense bonus with your siege units.
5) Attack with your siege units relentlessly until you either a) run out--which you shouldn't since you built tons of them--or, preferably, b) you've done the most collateral damage possible.
6) Mop up with your foot soldiers.

Couple ideas;
When playing as an Aggressive Leader, I suggest giving your units Cover or Shock when possible; City Raider gives a 10 % bonus against cities; combined with Combat I, its 20%; Cover/Shock give a definite 15% bonus against their respective counters, so that's 25% with Combat I.

Bring Seige, or weak "suicide units" (usually Chariots/HAs), Siege Units can bombard defenses and reduce the defensive bonus enemy units receive. When the defenses are nil, they can suicide against the enemy, causing collateral damage, which softens up enemy stacks for the main battles. Suicide Units serve the same purpose, but don't cause collateral damage.

I find end game war the worse. Mainly because of the hundrends of units you have to use. Bleh.

I agree with the consensus, though. Seige units and weak Kamikazees are the way to go early on.

Warfare in Civilization 4 usually follows the maxim that if brute force isn't working, you're not using enough.

I do that (don't know about my dad). Any other expert advice from anyone?

Well I'm no "expert" but you might want to plan your wars better. Decide what unit you want to go to war with, beeline the techs needed and start mass producing. And optional, have enough money to upgrade your older units.

For example if you want to go to war with maces, be sure you already have enough cats/longbows the moment you can start making macemen. You can go to war faster that way and gives the AI less of a change to be on equal ground unit wise.

Also try to have multiple units with 1 turn from completion ready in your cities (it's not that much micro management). And switch to vassalage and optional theocracy. That way you will be pumping out a lot of upgraded units in only a few turns. Usually I line up as many units as possible in all my cities that have barracks, unless they have really bad production.

Pre-construction warfare? Just pump out _a lot_ of axes, horse archers or early uu if available. Sacrifices have to be made! ;)

Warfare in Civilization 4 usually follows the maxim that if brute force isn't working, you're not using enough.

I had to snicker. But these are words of wisdom. :lol:

Well I'm no "expert" but you might want to plan your wars better. Decide what unit you want to go to war with

Also what you want to go to war for... There are several different possible objectives, and you want to match your strategy and tactics to your goals in each instance.

Today, I was playing Egypt on the second-easiest difficulty (forget the name) and I decided to go and try and take out the AI-controlled Greeks who were doing horribly since they only had 4 cities and were pretty much isolated.

I rampaged through the first three cities but then when it came to taking on the capital, I couldn't kill the longbowmen. I would throw waves of macemen and crossbowmen at them but they just wouldn't die. They had a ridiculous defensive bonus because the city was in the hills. I even took down the cultural defensive bonus with my trebuchets but it didn't matter. I ended up just giving up on taking the city.

Any advice on how to take out longbowmen that are fortified in a city on the hill?

Any advice on how to take out longbowmen that are fortified in a city on the hill?

Soften them up with siege. Don't be shy about sending copious amounts of siege units to their demise in an effort to inflict the maximum amount of collateral damage possible.

Any advice on how to take out longbowmen that are fortified in a city on the hill?

Siege.

A city with a single fortified longbowMAN isn't so much of a problem - you just pour enough hammers at him, and eventually he falls.

The problem attacking longbowMEN with your corps of City Raiders is that as soon as you manage to weaken one, another steps into the breach.

Your disposapults don't do much good against the top defender in the stack, but they really do a number on the supporting cast. So the usual sequence (after dropping the cultural defense) is (1) sacrifice catapults to undercut the auxiliary garrison (2) sacrifice a nut cracker or two to introduce the concept of mortality, (3) rip the garrison apart with city raiders (promoting a few to nut cracker rank).

Taking a back of the envelope stab, you are probably looking at 1 city / raider per defender, plus one or two nutcrackers, plus one catapult per defender (minimum of 5 catapults), assuming you want to take the city in one turn.

If you think warfare is to painful, you could always play a peaceful game. (Or, at least, until your Riflemen/Cavalry can easily destroy your rivals' Longbowmen/Muskets.)

However, I do sympathize with you. Even though my troops are just a chain of 1's and 0's, I always feel a little guilty when I send them to battle with impossible odds, only to weaken the defences for their brethren.

Taking a back of the envelope stab, you are probably looking at 1 city / raider per defender, plus one or two nutcrackers, plus one catapult per defender (minimum of 5 catapults), assuming you want to take the city in one turn.

Two more questions:

1) What is a nutcracker (I'm guessing a unit with a specific promotion from experience)?

2) What units make the best city raiders?

Thanks for the replies! Very helpful!

usually i don't go after cities first. weaken them by just pillaging and just fortifing yourself on forested hills. the enemy ai will seldom send workers out if you have units nearby.

If you think warfare is to painful, you could always play a peaceful game. (Or, at least, until your Riflemen/Cavalry can easily destroy your rivals' Longbowmen/Muskets.)

However, I do sympathize with you. Even though my troops are just a chain of 1's and 0's, I always feel a little guilty when I send them to battle with impossible odds, only to weaken the defences for their brethren.


I rather enjoy being an evil dictator, deciding who lives and who dies. It's so completly opposite of how I am in real life, it's fun :D

Don't bother fighting people that are on the same technological level as you. Climb up to a higher tier of military tech and fight using that. Racemen vs. archers, riflemen vs. longbows and such.

Not always an option. What if the opponent attacks you? Do you say "I decline to wage war because I do not have a tech lead on you? Your crazy neighbor has 3 grassland gem tiles and shoots to iron working to build jaguars(i mentioned he was crazy) and attacks you. The OP said early wars. I do not recall any early wars with riflemen.

Don't bother fighting people that are on the same technological level as you. Climb up to a higher tier of military tech and fight using that. Racemen vs. archers, riflemen vs. longbows and such.

This isn't always possible if you play on a difficulty level that the AI can match you tech-wise.

2) What units make the best city raiders?



Early doors the best non-UU attacker is a Swordsman. They get a city attack bonus by default, and if you can add in a CR promotion then all the better. Just make sure you don't send them out alone, or any passing axemen will take them out.

What is a nutcracker (I'm guessing a unit with a specific promotion from experience)?


Synonym for Can Opener.

Early doors the best non-UU attacker is a Swordsman. They get a city attack bonus by default, and if you can add in a CR promotion then all the better. Just make sure you don't send them out alone, or any passing axemen will take them out.
Also don't attack with swords if there're axes in the city to be taken. Start with Axe attack (hoping axes defend and not archers) then if the enemy axes are weakened enough or dead start the swords against the archers.

If you think warfare is to painful, you could always play a peaceful game.

There is no such thing in BTS.