I've been playing at the Prince level for awhile now. I typically do reasonably or very well in the tech race, but my biggest weakness tends to be the military. Specifically, I find myself getting into wars from time to time, and the AI flings so many units at me that I have trouble going on the offense. If I do, I get bogged down, the war takes forever, and I fall behind in the tech race. What do I need to do, just build more units, or is there more to having a strong military than that?

Diplomacy is key. More often than not you can avoid pointless wars by managing relations with your neighbours. Open borders, share religion, favourite civic, trade resources, generous tech trades etc. If your neighbour is a nutcase, either gear up for an early war, or bribe them to attack someone else. If you get dragged into an unwanted war, sue for peace as soon as possible (if terms are reasonable), don't let it linger on if there is no clear goal. Warring should be on your terms, and ideally you want to overwhelm the target very quickly, and achieve your objective (elimination/capitulation) within a few turns.

Don't try to build units solely to enhance your power rating as a deterrent, this might work at Prince, but as you continue to move up the levels it will become ineffective. Only build units if you think they are likely to see action, and always build enough if you are on the offensive. ;)

One thing I learned from a game:

I was playing Hannibal on Emperor. I got my mass modern troops stationed at Tokugawa's border. I DoW the next turn, only to find out it to be destroyed to pieces. Tokugawa's troops immediately bombed my troops when my Mechanized Infantry didn't intercept them. On top of that, the collateral artillery destroyed my whole stack. Now, I can go on and talk for days about the many reasons why I failed. However, I will tell you the one and main reason why I lost that war.

I attacked him first, so he had the advantage. If I had waited after I DoWed on Tokugawa, Tokugawa would have sent all of his units, and I would have the advantage in turn. Once all of his units were destroyed by my units on the defense, then would be the time to strike!

I reloaded and tried this. In few words, the war was over in 20 turns.

The lesson being, don't go on the offensive, go on the defense first. Let the AI strike you so that you have the advantage. When the AI is weakened, only then go on the offensive.

One thing I learned from a game:

I was playing Hannibal on Emperor. I got my mass modern troops stationed at Tokugawa's border. I DoW the next turn, only to find out it to be destroyed to pieces. Tokugawa's troops immediately bombed my troops when my Mechanized Infantry didn't intercept them. On top of that, the collateral artillery destroyed my whole stack. Now, I can go on and talk for days about the many reasons why I failed. However, I will tell you the one and main reason why I lost that war.

I attacked him first, so he had the advantage. If I had waited after I DoWed on Tokugawa, Tokugawa would have sent all of his units, and I would have the advantage in turn. Once all of his units were destroyed by my units on the defense, then would be the time to strike!

I reloaded and tried this. In few words, the war was over in 20 turns.

The lesson being, don't go on the offensive, go on the defense first. Let the AI strike you so that you have the advantage. When the AI is weakened, only then go on the offensive.

Or you can plan your tactics better and succeed in going on the offensive ;) Counter-attacking has its place, but if you have good stack defense and plan your attack routes + support your attack with bombers and air support more generally, there is no reason why you should not be able to win going on the offensive. Of course, bringing sufficient #s of troops is essential, as is at least being at tech parity and, preferably, having a military tech advantage.

Going up against an aggressor on the higher skill levels late in the game does mean some huge stacks of strong (in this case agg/pro) units, which can be difficult, for sure. In this case it may indeed be worthwhile to destroy Toku's main stack and then counter-attack.

I've been playing at the Prince level for awhile now. I typically do reasonably or very well in the tech race, but my biggest weakness tends to be the military. Specifically, I find myself getting into wars from time to time, and the AI flings so many units at me that I have trouble going on the offense. If I do, I get bogged down, the war takes forever, and I fall behind in the tech race. What do I need to do, just build more units, or is there more to having a strong military than that?

If you're doing fine on Prince, then I'm going to assume that you probably know enough to kind of answer your question as you are asking it. If it seems like you don't have enough units, then you probably don't have enough units.

In the majority of your games, do you have at least one city that pretty much does nothing but build units and/or the improvements that will allow it to build more/better units? If not, then give that a shot next game. It's pretty easy to use your best production city to build wonders rather than units. In most of my games, I find the units to be more useful than the wonders.

It may be more a matter of timing and balance; concentrating on leading in the tech race, may mean you're not paying enough attention to military strength and that encourages aggressive AI behavior. Or you may not be paying enough attention to the fact that your nation blocks the expansion of a rival whose been gearing up for war. I try to figure out what a nearby civ's goals are and if they might calculate it's easier to attack me than someone else. Sometimes, when my nation and one or two others are on a large island/small continent we're going to war regardless of diplomacy, so I'm always willing to switch priorities to the military and war.

So perhaps predicting the AI's likely nearby future behavior could help. Maybe better diplomatic relations, or a first strike.

Diplomacy is key. More often than not you can avoid pointless wars by managing relations with your neighbours. Open borders, share religion, favourite civic, trade resources, generous tech trades etc. If your neighbour is a nutcase, either gear up for an early war, or bribe them to attack someone else. If you get dragged into an unwanted war, sue for peace as soon as possible (if terms are reasonable), don't let it linger on if there is no clear goal. Warring should be on your terms, and ideally you want to overwhelm the target very quickly, and achieve your objective (elimination/capitulation) within a few turns.

Yeah, I try. I find that giving into tech demands early on can pay for itself several times over in the long run.

Don't try to build units solely to enhance your power rating as a deterrent, this might work at Prince, but as you continue to move up the levels it will become ineffective. Only build units if you think they are likely to see action, and always build enough if you are on the offensive. ;)

Huh? :confused: Peace through strength has kept me out of bad situations before!

One thing I learned from a game:

I was playing Hannibal on Emperor. I got my mass modern troops stationed at Tokugawa's border. I DoW the next turn, only to find out it to be destroyed to pieces. Tokugawa's troops immediately bombed my troops when my Mechanized Infantry didn't intercept them. On top of that, the collateral artillery destroyed my whole stack. Now, I can go on and talk for days about the many reasons why I failed. However, I will tell you the one and main reason why I lost that war.

I attacked him first, so he had the advantage. If I had waited after I DoWed on Tokugawa, Tokugawa would have sent all of his units, and I would have the advantage in turn. Once all of his units were destroyed by my units on the defense, then would be the time to strike!

I reloaded and tried this. In few words, the war was over in 20 turns.

The lesson being, don't go on the offensive, go on the defense first. Let the AI strike you so that you have the advantage. When the AI is weakened, only then go on the offensive.

Sigh, I try this. The problem is that the AI fights much more aggressively in BtS than in vanilla, and I've never been able to put together a string of solid victories.

If you're doing fine on Prince, then I'm going to assume that you probably know enough to kind of answer your question as you are asking it. If it seems like you don't have enough units, then you probably don't have enough units.

In the majority of your games, do you have at least one city that pretty much does nothing but build units and/or the improvements that will allow it to build more/better units? If not, then give that a shot next game. It's pretty easy to use your best production city to build wonders rather than units. In most of my games, I find the units to be more useful than the wonders.

Yes, I specialize my cities. However, the problem could be that my ratio of science/commerce cities to military/production cities is too high: Typically, I'll run about 8-10 cities on a crowded map such as Lakes, but only one will be a glorified military producer, and only one other will be a production city. The others, besides a GP farm, will mostly be cottage towns.

Perhaps I overcompensated for the opposite problem that I used to have, which was nearly every other town was hammer-heavy, and I sometimes lagged in the tech race. I'm still tinkering with the order of building hammer/cottage/farm cities, and what the ratio should be as I go up. I'm thinking that because of maintenance, I need more cottage cities the more I grow, but I'm still trying to find the proper ratio.

Sigh, I try this. The problem is that the AI fights much more aggressively in BtS than in vanilla, and I've never been able to put together a string of solid victories.


By solid victories do you mean winning every battle?

If it does, you seriously shouldn't expect that you'll win every battle. I guarantee you all the time will you lose a unit.

By solid victories do you mean winning every battle?

If it does, you seriously shouldn't expect that you'll win every battle. I guarantee you all the time will you lose a unit.

Victories over cities, not units. Back in vanilla, it wasn't too terribly hard for me to take two or three cities in a row on Monarch. Now if I take more than one city per war, it's a major accomplishment.

Huh? :confused: Peace through strength has kept me out of bad situations before!


It won't help deter the AI as you move up the levels though when it eventually becomes impossible to maintain power parity, at least not before you've crushed some of them. At Prince you can out-expand, out-tech, out-produce and out-power the AIs simultaneously, but you may as well adapt strategies now that will serve you well as you advance beyond Prince. So I stand by not producing units unless you expect they will see some action (not counting the "fear safety" token garrison), otherwise you are just wasting hammers that would be better spent elsewhere. Of course "if" you know an AI attack is imminent, I'm not suggesting you don't build a defense.

Victories over cities, not units. Back in vanilla, it wasn't too terribly hard for me to take two or three cities in a row on Monarch. Now if I take more than one city per war, it's a major accomplishment.

Its all about siege. People can wipe out civilizations on Deity. Imagine the possibilities on Monarch. May I recommend you going to the War Academy to learn more about war tactics there?

Chop, CHop, CHop. A balanced stack with artillery will win almost any early war. Also keep the reinforcements comng, especially artillery. As time goes on your attacking units will upgrade to being pretty strong but you're still going to lose artillery (one or two per city which is less units than the enemy is goign to lose) so you have to keep a steady supply. And bring healers.

Avoid pointless cities and go for the enemies heart is also important. Time is everything and the sooner you knock out high production cities the sooner the war ends.

None of these tactics hold true when industrial war rolls around with tankd and planes except for the fact that speed is still the main concern.

It won't help deter the AI as you move up the levels though when it eventually becomes impossible to maintain power parity, at least not before you've crushed some of them. At Prince you can out-expand, out-tech, out-produce and out-power the AIs simultaneously, but you may as well adapt strategies now that will serve you well as you advance beyond Prince. So I stand by not producing units unless you expect they will see some action (not counting the "fear safety" token garrison), otherwise you are just wasting hammers that would be better spent elsewhere. Of course "if" you know an AI attack is imminent, I'm not suggesting you don't build a defense.

Ah, gotcha. So it's diplomacy that keeps unwanted wars to a minimum, then?

Its all about siege. People can wipe out civilizations on Deity. Imagine the possibilities on Monarch. May I recommend you going to the War Academy to learn more about war tactics there?

Ooh, where is this War Academy?

Ooh, where is this War Academy?

Ah, sorry. Here it is:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/

I'd also recommend reading the ALCs (as well as many other guides like the RPCs, KOTWs etc.):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=258697

At Prince you can out-expand, out-tech, out-produce and out-power the AIs simultaneously, but you may as well adapt strategies now that will serve you well as you advance beyond Prince. It's funny you say this. I'm playing a game at Prince right now because I wanted to work on my peaceful REXing technique, and I am finding this to be both very true and hard to accomplish at the same time.

Specifically, I am on a continent with Suleiman, Roosevelt, and Mansa Musa. From the very start, I've had to be at Monarch level of efficiency to keep up with the first two on Power and the last has been a gigantic pain in the assa assa with technology. When the first three religions got founded on other continents, I saw an opportunity and grabbed the one from CoL and ended up being the owner of the holy city of the one true religion on our continent, which was key for the peaceful REX. No religious strife.

Now, the other continent is HIDEOUSLY backwards, just as I would expect when I play prince, but on my side of the world, we're looking at rifles and cannons (and in my case Cavalry sometime around 1500, which is pretty damn early for a Prince game.

If freekin' Mansa Musa would stop doing things like researching Steel before I get to it, I would run over there and kick his ass right away. Instead, I'm just biding my time to hit him with a giant stack of modern troops right before he does something like research Physics. My best hope is to take all of his mainland cities and then make him a vassal rather than running around and capturing all of his crappy little island and tundra cities.

As per this thread, what I'm actually doing right now is having my Heroic Epic city and two other decent production but worthless commerce cities build up an army of Knights, Trebs and Macemen. (I would have skipped the knights, but I'm the Mongols, so with the extra XP from the Gers, the mounted units have extra appeal.) I've got a real nice ability to generate a lot of gold when I want to, as my commerce cities, especially my holy city, are very good. The plan will be to upgrade 20 trebs into cannons first, and then send them with the CR1 macemen though Ottoman territory to be prepared to hit the Malinese capital first. By the time those units have reached where they are going, I should have been able to generate enough cash to upgrade some of the existing knights into Cavalry. I'll quickly move them, as well as any Curirassiers I've built over to join the fray and this should make quick work of them.

After that, it's war, war, war all the way to the end. There's a lot of nice land to capture on this continent, and the other continent will be a complete pushover by the time I get there.

every unit available should participate in the attack. every city should be empty, red and smoking afor the offensive. any event "a hurricane hit tobanga" is the clarion call to attack.

Total, swift, and final. this, is the superior.

every unit available should participate in the attack. every city should be empty, red and smoking afor the offensive. any event "a hurricane hit tobanga" is the clarion call to attack.


Truffles?
Attack!!!!!!!!

Multiple medium-sized stacks can be far more effective than one super stack against the comp. Take multiple cities a turn

Its all about siege. People can wipe out civilizations on Deity.
Amen to that. When I first debated playing on Deity I asked the forum prophet and he said if I did (play Deity level) "a great empire would be destroyed." And he was right; except it's often been my own.

How can you guys capture cities pre-catapults? In my Noble game as Hannibal, I sent 11 (!!!) warriors, each with city raider I, against Monty's capital, which had 2 warriors and one archer defending, and still lost! Unfortunately, horses and copper were clear across the continent, so a warrior rush was my only hope of eliminating Monty early in the game.

So do I have to wait for swords or catipults before successfully capturing cities?

How can you guys capture cities pre-catapults? In my Noble game as Hannibal, I sent 11 (!!!) warriors, each with city raider I, against Monty's capital, which had 2 warriors and one archer defending, and still lost! Unfortunately, horses and copper were clear across the continent, so a warrior rush was my only hope of eliminating Monty early in the game.

So do I have to wait for swords or catipults before successfully capturing cities?

Axemen rushes are quite popular and powerful. You want 1.5-2.5 x the number of archers of your opponent in the target city, any defending warriors can be discounted from this mathematical rule of thumb.

How can you guys capture cities pre-catapults? In my Noble game as Hannibal, I sent 11 (!!!) warriors, each with city raider I, against Monty's capital, which had 2 warriors and one archer defending, and still lost! Unfortunately, horses and copper were clear across the continent, so a warrior rush was my only hope of eliminating Monty early in the game.

So do I have to wait for swords or catipults before successfully capturing cities?
Warrior Rushes are a bit of a gamble, and they only ever work in the super-early game. It also helps if you're Aggressive, because then your warriors are all 10% more effective.

That said, on Noble difficulty, you can often take out a close AI by simply sending five or six warriors into its capital. Now you have two capital city sites, which is a real advantage for the rest of the game.

I noticed a few points in your post that show why your Warrior Rush failed. You sent a stack of eleven warriors, and they all had City Raider I. That tells me that you built (at least) a Barracks and eleven warriors before you made your move. As a result, you ran into a fortified archer, and all of your warriors died. Too slow. Next time, skip the barracks, and rush as soon as you have five or six warriors. (Add another warrior or two if the target city is on a hill.)

As soon as you see enemy archers, the warrior rush is doomed. (Unless you're playing the Incas.) At that point, you need metal or horses. Without metal or horses, your next best option is to tech Construction and make catapults. Archers can easily take cities if you bring enough catapults with them....

Warrior Rushes are a bit of a gamble, and they only ever work in the super-early game. It also helps if you're Aggressive, because then your warriors are all 10% more effective.

That said, on Noble difficulty, you can often take out a close AI by simply sending five or six warriors into its capital. Now you have two capital city sites, which is a real advantage for the rest of the game.

I noticed a few points in your post that show why your Warrior Rush failed. You sent a stack of eleven warriors, and they all had City Raider I. That tells me that you built (at least) a Barracks and eleven warriors before you made your move. As a result, you ran into a fortified archer, and all of your warriors died. Too slow. Next time, skip the barracks, and rush as soon as you have five or six warriors. (Add another warrior or two if the target city is on a hill.)

As soon as you see enemy archers, the warrior rush is doomed. (Unless you're playing the Incas.) At that point, you need metal or horses. Without metal or horses, your next best option is to tech Construction and make catapults. Archers can easily take cities if you bring enough catapults with them....

If you do find yourself with a bunch of Warriors facing Archers in cities, would it be a good idea to keep the war going and instead of attacking the cities just use them to pillage and cause mayhem - just to stunt that Civ's growth? I don't recall how bad War Weariness is in the early stages.

How can you guys capture cities pre-catapults? In my Noble game as Hannibal, I sent 11 (!!!) warriors, each with city raider I, against Monty's capital, which had 2 warriors and one archer defending, and still lost! Unfortunately, horses and copper were clear across the continent, so a warrior rush was my only hope of eliminating Monty early in the game.

So do I have to wait for swords or catipults before successfully capturing cities?

Strike earlier, 6 warriors against 2 is better that 11 warriors vs 2 + 1.
Hit warriors with warriors, when you see archers and you don't have horses or copper find iron.

If you do find yourself with a bunch of Warriors facing Archers in cities, would it be a good idea to keep the war going and instead of attacking the cities just use them to pillage and cause mayhem - just to stunt that Civ's growth? I don't recall how bad War Weariness is in the early stages.

WW is not a problem early unless you lose a lot of battles. It's usually not worth pillaging, let them grow and develop so that you have good cities to capture. Make peace and then on Noble all you need to do is build a bigger stack of equal or better units. It's good to have two or three stacks and target border cities that you can take on the first 1 or 2 turns then funnel into the core cities with a unified stack. The AI gets confused on which city to recapture and doesn't defend well. If you see too big a defensive stack, move to another city. The AI will divide it's forces and you can catch them outside the city on flatland or in a city where they haven't fortified. Feint and parry tactics.

sometimes barracks take too long and are too big of a gamble in the early game. Perhaps getting 5 axes on the opponent early is a lot more effective than getting 4 lvl 2 axes 15 turns later. You be the judge but don't lock yourself in the 'I have to have promoted units' mentality

So far my warfare is going a lot better this match, for one simple reason: I've got two cities devoted to cranking out units, not one (even though I have only about eight cities total, since I'm playing on Lakes). This is making all the difference: I just vassaled Louis, and Wang Kon (love that name :D) may be next!

AAAARRRGH! Willem van Orange declared war on me AT FRIENDLY!! Jeez this is not gonna be fun....

AAAARRRGH! Willem van Orange declared war on me AT FRIENDLY!! Jeez this is not gonna be fun....

William the Silent is one of the most plainly annoying leaders in the game, together with Joao. They are both not a big threat in a sence that they are not gonna crush you like Montesuma II or Alexander might, but they keep annoying you all the time. Like mosquitos - no big damage but I just can't stand them anyway. William and Joao are always at the honorable first place on my list. So with the neighbourhood like that, I'd certainly leave Koreans be and go for Netherlands.

And good job vassaling Louis, he can be annoying to no end too :)

After reloading a couple times, :p I figured out the problem: Willem and Louis were annoyed with one another. :mad:

Oh well, this is where Spiritual comes in handy: A quick switch to Nationalism helped me draft enough troops to hold them off. This war is now over. :)