It seems like I'm not the only person to encounter this problem. I'll be waging war on a civ, and all of a sudden, a stack of twenty to thirty units will show up, and even though my units are much more advanced, (I typically wait until I have gunpowder units, the other guys are typically still dicking around with axemen and swordsmen) the opponent beats me down by sheer numbers.

The best strategy I can come up with is to get a LOT of collateral-damage units into the stack with my army, and basically have them all commit suicide, while bringing the health of the units in that stack down. After that, I have to throw my soldiers at the opposing stack, and hope that some survive (to take the city, or defend mine), and that all the enemy's stack is dead.

I'm a very very casual player, and I don't have a very clear and defined strategy. How do hardcore experts battle the stacks of death?

*shrugs* if you're building artillery and you're still having trouble, the only thing I can say is that you need a bigger stack of death yourself. How many of your hammers, percentage wise, do you spend on troops? Maybe you need to cut back a wonder or two and spam out more men.

I couldn't say how much I'm putting into my army. Like I said, I'm a casual player. I let my cities automate what tiles they work, I don't micromanage anything. I was just hoping that there was a more...graceful strategy than "throw a lot of stuff at it".

but you're still selecting what you build right? How many of the times when something is finished building in your city, do you select to build more troops as opposed to a building or a wonder?

If your stack is full of city raider promoted units sometimes it can help to withdraw from a crappy city and let the enemy take it. Then you can use your city attack bonus to smite his ruin upon the mountainside.

When I'm at peace, I build one or two of the most modern war units to put in my cities, and at war, I'll either be producing units to build up my invasion force, or doing my peace-time thing and building buildings to upgrade my cities.

Edit: That is to say, I build one or two for each of my cities, so that when Mechanized Infantry are running around, I don't need to worry about Archers defending my capital.

You should always have a heroic epic city that is maximised for production and basically does nothing except pump units for the entire game. Only stop to build the HE, forge etc or any buildings absolutely needed to help it grow.

Well, I'm going to make sure I have a city built purely for pumping out military, but that doesn't really help my original problem. Is there a more elegant solution to the AI's "Stack of Death" than just throwing a lot of units at it?

flanking II cavalry units to take out their siege after the siege suicide.

Depending on the AI's units, you could do a number of blitz-promoted Gunships (helicopters). Having 5 attacks a turn and decent strength (24) allows you to hunt down pre-Rifle units at will. That, and finishing off stacks is best done by those relatively weak units. Just be careful if you try to capture workers--a Gunship will destroy the worker instead of capture it. Other than that, yeah some form of collateral-damage weapon is really needed. Using flanking cavalry is very effective--you need 6 or so to survive to kill most/all siege weapons. Basically just build a bigger pile, or make peace when you stack is soon to die. The AI rarely considers what your stack can do to them or what theirs can do to you--if you've done enough damage, they'll make peace. Also, if they want back a city, pay them gold. I've gotten away with anywhere from 100G to 1000G instead of a city.

I usually find that their stacks of death are very old units so I just strong more modern defenders and they usually lose quite a few of them.

Unfortunately this is realistic to a degree. You could have the best army in the world, but overwhelmed by sheer numbers, you will probably lose. Just means you need a lot more quantity, or more quality to take care of their stacks.

If you have rifling and the enemy is sending axemen and you're still losing cities then something is wrong. 3 or 4 riflemen with a CG II promotion should be enough to hold off classical era units without any problem. can you post a save?

Try getting first strike promotions for your defending units. When your armies are relatively more advanced than your oppenents the chances are pretty good not to lose any health points when fighting the enemy. Also first strike promotions will cut down the amount of collateral damage these units take.
You could try a protective leader, they start with a first strike promotion and city garrison promotion.
Also, as others have pointed out, send some horse archers, knights or cavalry promoted with flanking on them.
And last but not least, don't ever try to defend a boarder city with only two defenders, no matter how advanced you are.

I think you just need more units. Also try to anticipate from which direction the enemy is likelly to come i.e. most often it is the border of the civ you are attacking. But yeh...more units. When I invade with rifles I usually have a minimum stack of at least 20 + siege equipment, numbers of 30 or 40 are not that uncommon (you have to garison your new cities), and quite a few defenders in the city that is likelly to get attacked. Also you said you are building units when you go to war. Thats bad, you have to build most of your army before you go to war, because when at war AI will build just units and that war will quickly become far longer then necessary.

As above: more units, more siege...

...and more regular scouting of your enemy, so you have advance warning of the stack!

Another thing that has not really been mentioned yet - although hinted at - is to determine where you have some good defensive ground that is likely to be in the path of the invading SOD. If you are on a forested hill, and have been fortified for quite some time, with units that have good promotions for defense, there is a good chance that the SOD will attempt to attack these units first and really weaken itself. Your units may not survive - but it will make mopping up the remainders of his stack much easier for your other units. You can also pre-weaken with siege like you are doing...

You should always have a heroic epic city that is maximised for production and basically does nothing except pump units for the entire game. Only stop to build the HE, forge etc or any buildings absolutely needed to help it grow.

I :love: HE, like Kurgen says you should have at least one high production city with this wonder (and Military Academy, and some warlord specialists) that only cranks out units the entire game. You don't want to just concentrate on buildings when an AI or two comes knocking at your door.

My strategy is to at least be able to scrap together a mini SOD but with alot of cats, cannons, or arty and catch it in my culture space.

It's also possible that force right there is their main force, almost all their strength concentrated into one pile. You have a couple options. But first make sure like others said you have a city just pumps out units.

Sometimes when they have such a concentrated force, the rest of their cities are poorly defended. That could be a great opportunity to take a bunch of their cities in just a few turns. That's why it's good to have some spies available, to see where they have left themselves weak. Sometimes you don't even need to waste siege weapons taking a bunch of their poorly defended cities.

One time I was at war with Isabella on Monarch and while she managed to take one of my cities, I took three of hers in the same amount of time. Then in the peace deal we made, she chose to give me back the city she took from me :D. Bolstered my force a bit for the 10 turn treaty, declared war again, and finished the job until she capitulated, taking her capital Madrid and all the nice wonders that were in there.

Or you could focus on taking out that stack, which can also cripple them cause they won't have any offense left. But I prefer the option of taking a bunch of their cities that may be poorly defended.

It's just important to know how your opponent's defense and offense is set up. With prior knowledge of this you can be prepared for any attack they throw at you.

If your attacking army included some units with flanking capability and flanking promotions, then you can damage several units with your one. Every time your flanking unit survives, either by eliminating the opponent, or by withdrawing, you cause damage to multiple units in the opponents stack. With several flanking attacks, you can reduce the stack power to negligible, and even eliminate most of them.
In addition, If you have multiple movement units in your attack force, they will have a movement left after attacking so they can move in and protect the newly captured city for one turn until the rest of the attacking force can move in and recuperate.

I typically wait until I have gunpowder units, the other guys are typically still dicking around with axemen and swordsmen
Try the Ethiopian civ. Run Vassality or Theocracy and pump Drill IV Oromo Warriors, virtually immune to siege damage and negating every counter-unit bonus most ancient units could have. Chinese Cho-ko-nu work fine too, with the help of some pikemen.

A Great General bound to one of these units can take whole stacks on his own. Take out an entrenched Drill IV City Garnison III unit is quite a challenge.

The best offense is a good defense. Use scouts on neighbors you don't trust and anticipate when one is going to stab you in the back. If you see a large stack on your borders its obvious even the civ you thought was your best buddy is about to crush you into nothing. Don't just allow them to attack your cities and destroy your defense with siege weapons be sure to have enough siege of your own to soften up his troops with collateral damage. Remember your non Siege troops are FAR more valuable when it comes to war as they are the ones who will break the enemy stack and Siege are going to die in order to keep your men alive with minimal casualties. And if your in the modern age show him the meaning of power by starting the war before he does and if you can afford it turn his men into ash with a Tactical nuclear strike! By the late game you should be able to afford a nuclear war if you have expanded far enough and are close to a domination victory. And if all else fails remember your own massive stack of troops is the ultimate deterrent to most enemies (Montezuma and Charlemagne aside usually they are CRAZY!)

Hope this helps!

1) Absolutely build a 'Military City' with Heroic Epic, West Point, barracks and stables along with forge, factory. Except when making the buildings, just produce units.
Also try to build the pentagon. If you run the Vassalage and Theocracy civics, your units gain +4 XP total. The Police State civic, along with jails and Mt. Rushmore will reduce your WW (War Weariness) to nothing.

2) Hit their stack with Barrage promoted Seige units (and later, airships and bombers). Follow up with Flanking Horse units and Drill/Combat Gunpowder units. Keep a Medic III/Woodsman III Medic in your stack. A Drill promoted machinegun is also great for stack defense.

I've found that having 2 military production cities works best.
In one city I'll have the HE and, much later, the Red Cross to quickly pump out Medic I units (and Medic II's if I have any GG's settled in the city). I also try to make this a coastal city if at all possible to create Medic II Aircraft Carriers. This city is great for pumping out high volume units in the earlier eras and hopefully some will survive to be promoted to elite units. In the later eras, after Red Cross, it's great for pumping out Medic Marines and Paratroopers and the above-mentioned Aircraft Carriers.
The second military city won't come until the industrial age and then I'll build West Point and the Ironworks in the same city (hopefully also a coastal city bordered by rivers for the huge levee bonus). This city is for building my "shock" troops...Battleships and Tanks that start with Barrage II, Drill III Rifles, Flanking II Cavalry, etc...
It takes more planning to make sure that you don't stick another national wonder in your IW + WP city but it's worth it. This way, since you have 2 military cities instead of just 1, you can build up the infrastructure of these cities so they can also be good commerce/research cities. This works very nicely especially if you have <10 cities total and you can't afford to "waste" a city entirely on military and have it's commerce in the red.

word : dont ever built rilfe when you first get them , it tooks ages ( i play Epic and even with Heroic epic it take you 3 turn each at that time ) . You should build a bunch of maces man already when you tech to rif ... then make a great merchant , burn him so you can have like 2.5k gold . Switch too Nationalhood after you have Rilfing then draft like mad for 5 turn . So you have 20 draft + 10+ maceman city raider upgrade . So you have a SOD 30+ in 5 turn . understand ?

My favorite setup is having 2 unit pumps, and a third backup pump. First one has WP and HE, a MA and 3 GG's. With the pentagon and vassalage, that's enough to get 4 promotions out of the gate, and even on marathon speed, I can pump out marines at 2 every 3 turns.

Second city is usually a coastal city, with usually moi statues and red cross, MA and 1 GG. This is enough for free medic 1, and 3 promotions for woodsman3 units to make awesome medics, as well as decent backup units with medic1.

Third city usually has the ironworks and a GG, which is mainly for support against insane odds. In a current game I've got going, I'm one of the last bastions of hope against Stalin and his massive stack of over 200 cossacks and 50 cannons, and about 6 vassals on his side. Even though I have marines, bombers, machine guns, and tanks, I'm not sure how to approach that monstrosity, so I've been biding my time building up military and he's been vassaling pretty much anyone left alive.

I dont know if this helps , but pre gunpowder most mounted units do a prettty good job as emergency defenders . As seige killers as many posters have pointed out , but HA`s and knights have a pretty high base value for their era only really countered by spears/pikes which if they attack with wont meet your mounted units.

So I try to have a medium sized stack of mounted units positioned so they are 4 tiles (6 come engineering) away from hopefully two or three important border cities . They can rush to cities as required . Even if it takes two goes its not that bad cause the AI will always bombard for a few turns anyway.

Im also in the habit of sitting one unit on any high ground right at the end of my cultural borders or even in opposition territory if I have open borders. And I have a really good look around before I press "enter"

Also , dont disregard the promotion that gives 1 extra tile vision.........that ones a beauty if you are at war in opposition territory and all of the above does not apply

If your stack is full of city raider promoted units sometimes it can help to withdraw from a crappy city and let the enemy take it. Then you can use your city attack bonus to smite his ruin upon the mountainside.

A question about this. I was thinking of this a few times but chickened out, afraid because I do not understand the intricacies of what happens to a city when it changes hands. I mean this: When I capture a city, it often only has rudamentary buildings left in it, 3 or 4 crappy buildings, I'm lucky to get a forge, whereas I have strong reason to believe that these cities were much more built up in the hands of their previous owner. But this is my problem,
1. I dont know what buildings are present in a city I am about to capture unless I have a high enough espionage value, which isnt often
2. I dont know what algorithm is used to determine which buildings get kept and which get lost when changing hands (either militarily or via culture)
3. And if my city is well built up (I am not a pure "builder", but more of a builder than anything else), and I let the chaps take it and then recapture it, I dont know if it will then be worthless except for strategic reasons

Any tips on that? Thank you

A question about this. I was thinking of this a few times but chickened out, afraid because I do not understand the intricacies of what happens to a city when it changes hands. I mean this: When I capture a city, it often only has rudamentary buildings left in it, 3 or 4 crappy buildings, I'm lucky to get a forge, whereas I have strong reason to believe that these cities were much more built up in the hands of their previous owner. But this is my problem,
1. I dont know what buildings are present in a city I am about to capture unless I have a high enough espionage value, which isnt often
2. I dont know what algorithm is used to determine which buildings get kept and which get lost when changing hands (either militarily or via culture)
3. And if my city is well built up (I am not a pure "builder", but more of a builder than anything else), and I let the chaps take it and then recapture it, I dont know if it will then be worthless except for strategic reasons

Any tips on that? Thank you

I think you're absolutely right in that only a small number of buildings survive when a city changes hands. Also important is that all National Wonders are simply lost and will need to be rebuilt, meaning there's absolutely no way I would pull back from my HE/WP city, i'd be arming every last school kid and nursing home resident to defend it! However, if it isn't a particularly good city, perhaps one you even captured yourself in the early turns of the war and there's no reason to make a final stand there, why bother? Doubly so if the city is not on a hill and won't provide you any protection once they take down the cultural defenses. Pulling out and giving up the city temporarily can mean the difference between losing a whole stack of units and your backup stack of cannons or cav showing up to save it.

Thanks for that, Kurgen.

well, the best tactic is to remain powerful throughout the game, don't let your neighbours get too strong or they will attack you at some point. If for some reason one of these SOD come to your doors, have your city well defended, 2 units is not enough, you'll need good offensive units like artillery or cavalry, and make sure the defenders all well promoted. For this is good to have 2 or 3 cities that produce strong military units with at least two promotions (city garrison 1 and 2), if you cannot achieve this with buildings or you don't want to change civics, join a couple of great generals as super specialists... axes attacking riflemen with garrison two have no chance at all. But the best way is to keep your neighbours weaker than you, this way you won't have any surprises

Deliberately allowing someone to take your city so that you can take it back is an admission that your defending force is inadequate or poorly planned. It is much better to actually have a sufficient defending force.

Some people advocate the retake-city exploit, but it does damage your city's buildings, and give the opponent a gold boost from the plunder they get taking your city. You should not be *planning* to use it unless desperate, in my view.

forgot... get rid of your aggresive neighbours fast, i normally try to have the continent for myself before the modern era, this way a enemy assault by sea is far more complicately. if the continent is too big, then conquer those that are more dangerous, use spies to see who is massing an army.

CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES

Pre Beyond the Sword, I was happy with an army of 40 Gunpowder units and 15 cannon/artillery, to defend the nation. It was quite easy too. Each unit to me was like a Division, a good 10,000 person unit to represent my bustling empire.

Then Beyond the Sword came out. And the first few games I played, as saw Montezumas Stack of 60 Cavalry, 44 Cannons, 28 City Raider Grenadiers starting a war with my naighbour... I thought... "I need a bigger army."

My standing army in all my games will jump upto my predetermined amount of 120-200 Gunpowders, backed up by 80 Cannon/Artillery, and about 100 Cavalry. Every city gets the airport and filled to the 8 air unit cap when I get to flight. Out of those ground units however, I will make a 'Division Stack' of 12 Gunpowders, 6 with combat I, II, Pinch, and 6 with Drill I, II and Pinch. (for absorbing the Collateral counter attacks) 6 or 7 Cannons will acompany this stack, along with 8 Cavalry, with Combat I,II, Pinch/Anti Cavalry/Anti Seige Promotion.

And I will have about 10 or 14 of these Divison stacks posted in my cities. Each 'Division' is grouped together into its stack of doom, but I really don't like adding 3 or more divisions to the same tile, By my military logic, i need the whole front to be covered by my army so i can get those pesky Commando Promoted Cavalry.

If you have gunpowder, you will (should) soon have airships.

Invaluable for scouting the seas for incoming invasion fleets, and spotting SoD's a while before they reach your borders.

I always let a SoD come to me, they always seem to attack the nearest city, if you have 3 or 4 Cannon, better Artillery, with CD promotions, you can absolutely batter them with airships and Artillery, letting your Cavalry take them down with minimum losses thereafter.

Or at least, that's the idea.........doesn't work every time.......

Deliberately allowing someone to take your city so that you can take it back is an admission that your defending force is inadequate or poorly planned. It is much better to actually have a sufficient defending force.

Some people advocate the retake-city exploit, but it does damage your city's buildings, and give the opponent a gold boost from the plunder they get taking your city. You should not be *planning* to use it unless desperate, in my view.

Sure. I play only at Immortal level now, many wars that happen are not by choice and I spend most of the game with an 'inadequate' army that is trying to get the job done any way it can.

It's been pretty well covered... barrage siege, flanking mounted, airships,drill promotions ... keeping a large enough standing army and using diplomacy to prevent a war.

Maybe you should try a protective civ, or building the Great Wall . That makes defense easier .

Perhaps you can lure the stack where you want it with unprotected workers.

First I'll always garrison cities near non-vassal borders with 3-6 defensive units with defensive promotions. Build walls and castles. That'll hold off the stack-of-death for a couple turns while he pounds the defenses. Second unless I've gone into an allout attack mode,, behind those cities will be an army of attackers with some siege units. That army needs to be positioned to get to any of the border cities as quickly as possible. With any luck at all the city will hold out long enough to get the counterattack army there and the key is to have siege units to knock his best units down some and mounted units to take out his siege units with flanking. You'll lose units but I'll hold the city most (>75%) of the time and the AI typically just keeps throwing units piecemeal into the attack even after the SOD is gone. Soon the AI has no army in the field and cities only have 2-3 defenders, so it's now vulnerable to counterattack.

This works very well when you have a tech advantage but the principle is the same even if you are behind him.

Example: In my current game, the Zulu/English alliance threw a 40+ SOD at me mostly composed of swordsmen and impi but he had a few horse & elephants and lots of cats. My city was garrisoned with 2 pike and 2 crossbow but his attack on the first 3 turns was purely trying to reduce the defenses which were >100% thanks to walls and castle. That gave me time to move the regional army in and gather/produce more defenders into the city. Eventually he lost the entire SOD and more (I stopped counting at 45) in his attacks and to my counterattack sorties with knights. I gained 3 G Generals and promotions galore while losing 10-15 units most of which were suicide cat attakers. Next stop is London to split that alliance.

Dick

I normally go the AI approach and have 2-3 defenders per city and have a good stack waiting. I like to know before i attack where the AI stack is. You can almost be sure an empire with 10-20 cities that you have not been warring with will have a big stack somewhere. The Ai doesnt seem to worry about the fact you have 30-40 units waiting to kill off its attack force.

I need to start a new game and try Emperor once im used to BTS. I found myself attacking the Babylonians with a stack of infantry, cavalry and cannon while they defended with longbowmen and musketeers and melee units.

My view is attack those with the financial trait first as those will tech faster and be harder to break down later. The Dutch seem fantastic at this. I try not to trade techs either as this seems to slow the AI down late game. The aim is to be tech leader right?

I fought a war recently with Wang Kon where I tried something new. He had a SOD (pretty backwards but large, with lots of siege I didn't want to deal with) so I declared war on him, waited for his SOD to come into my territory and obliterated the SOD in one turn w/o having to risk my stack getting hit by his siege. Anybody else resorted to this?

Did this same thing in my most recent game, with the same guy Wang Kon. Came marching into my land and by the time met my city got taken out by a couple knights. That was his force, so then I retaliated and destroyed his civilization, which was up there on the scoreboard :D.

I fought a war recently with Wang Kon where I tried something new. He had a SOD (pretty backwards but large, with lots of siege I didn't want to deal with) so I declared war on him, waited for his SOD to come into my territory and obliterated the SOD in one turn w/o having to risk my stack getting hit by his siege. Anybody else resorted to this?

Fighting his stack in your territory can be also very beneficial if you've built or have Great Wall. Free GG points.

See moving first in a war is not always the best move. If the Ai is foolish enough to dump his sod near your stack the rest is history. (assuming you had a stack)

Still SOD killing is great for a few great leaders too. If late game units leave a city with 15xp points or more in your HE city you'll be producing strong units. (HE, barracks, Stables, few other wonders, various civics maybe and addeed great leaders all assumed)

Once i kill the stack i can rest my entire stack before i make my own attack which hopefully wont meet a second AI stack. If im confident i will split the stack to kill 2-3 cities at a time.