war strategies

i was playing on the Warlord difficulty yesterday (the second difficulty level - i think it is warlord) and tried to wage war around year 1800

i had about 15 cavalry, some infantry, and some swordsman...and i had a hoplite or infantry defending every city...i figured that woudl be enough to do some damage...

i send in my cavalry, and it takes almost all of them to take 1 city...then i had to defend myself for awhile...and by the time i got an upper hand i had almost nothing left...

obviously, being a first time civ-er, i need some war strategy...how do you guys wage war later in the game when people have Riflemen and Infantry defending, and artillery and the like?

Well, first thing I try to do is wipe out all roads in and out of the targetted civ's capitol. Imagine looking at your trade advisors screen, and not having ANYTHING up at the top. That means the only things it can produce are things that don't require any resources. (Only Hoplites, War Elephants, Jag. Warriors, Bowman, Impi, Warrior, Spearmen, Archer, Longbowman, Rifleman, Catapult, Artillery, Galley, Caravel and Galleon)

That slows them down especially if they don't have the tech for riflemen then they build a lot of longbowmen and spearmen.

Another effect is no more luxury resources. They will have more contentious citizens and any trade agreements they have/had with other civs in exchage for resources gets cancelled. So they will lose that income if it is a per turn.

The next thing I do is take choke points. If I'm invading a civ that owns like North and South America, I'll hit Panama so they can't move troops back and forth. This will really irritate them so defend it well. (Usually 4 or 5 good defenders does the trick)

Then I start going after large high production cities that they have. If they don't have the shield production to build units, they will run out. Cities where there are alot of citizens from the civ you just took over, I build a lot of workers, settlers or I'll starve the city. I don't raze cities. That just makes the AI bitter.

Then it is just a mop up after that. Take the capitol last of course.

That in a nutshell is how I make war on the AI.

One thing i always do when i go into war, is to attack from several sides. This meens that the AI has to split up its army, which makes it easier to advance. Also i move artillery forward to bombard the cities, before i attack with other units (remember to have infantry defending your artillery or you will lose it!!).

Before i begin the war i possition my fleet(s) near some strategicly important cities. Once i attack ill use my fleet to soften up the deffence of the cities, which i then attack with marines.

I also do like Daaraa and try to destroy the roads/rails around their capitol, and other places to disrupt their supply of ressources and reinforcements.

I like to take the capital first. It's usually a huge blow to my opponent's culture, and prevents cities from flipping back. If the capital is at a decent invasion point, I'll rush in and blitz it, sending half of my opponent's cities into disorder. That usually preoccupies them for a while, and leaves them eager for peace if I so desire. (I like to force them to surrender cities in the treaty agreement.)

Note that this only works if you have strong culture. You don't want that capital to flip back.

Originally posted by curmudgeon42
i had about 15 cavalry, some infantry, and some swordsman...and i had a hoplite or infantry defending every city...i figured that woudl be enough to do some damage...

i send in my cavalry, and it takes almost all of them to take 1 city...then i had to defend myself for awhile...and by the time i got an upper hand i had almost nothing left...

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It surprises me that you lost that many cavalry taking one city. Unless you were fighting Impi defenders or knights, most of your cavalry should retreat when they get wounded. I once lost a lot of horsemen against a city defended by Impi that had the great wall. Luckily, the first city I attacked was the actual city where the great wall was located. (The Great Wall is located IN a city?!?) The other cities were easy after that.

One more tip: It almost always makes sense to heal your attackers up fully before attacking. If you've messed with the combat calculator much, you know that one more bar usually makes a LOT of difference in the win probability. Generally, one more health bar will double your chances of winning. Just as an example, a veteran cavalry (ignoring the retreat possibility) against a fortified veteran pikeman has about a 2.4 to one chance of winning. If it's wounded only one bar, it chances are cut to 1.17 to one. It it's wounded 2 bars, chances are 0.5 to one.

There are very few situations when I will attack with something not fully healed. I can think of two--if I'm facing something like a bowman that is likely to attack me next turn, it might make sense for ME to attack IT this turn due to higher attack/lower defend ratings. Or, if I've used all my fully healed units to beat down the defenders in a city but haven't been able to kill them all yet, and I have a partially wounded attacker that I think could probably do it, I might attack now rather than healing up and letting them heal up everything in the city.

i had about 15 cavalry, some infantry, and some swordsman......how do you guys wage war later in the game when people have Riflemen and Infantry defending

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Forget about throwing Cavalry against fortified Infantry. Cavalry vs Riflemen, fine. Cavalry vs Infantry, suicide. You need Tanks to take out Infantry. Don't attempt to dislodge Infantry til you have Tanks. Delay war until you get them and do everything you can to get the advance that gives you tanks. Crank out tanks and infantry. Use infantry to defend an attacking stack, use artillery to soften up targets. Always try to attack from a hill or mountain if you can. Pound with artillery before tank attacks. Keep your units off open terrain if at all possible. Investigate the target city if you can and try to send at least twice as many offensive units as they have defenders. Build a barracks in your closest city to the attack if you can to send back wounded, retreating units for quick healing.

You'll probably have lots of un-updatable Cavalry left over once you have tanks, but like I said, they're pointless for attacking cities when defenders have Infantry. However, they're perfect for pillaging raids in the late game. While you're pounding their city with your artillery & tanks (using Infantry for defending your stack, don't use to attack) they'll be sending and drafting every available Infantry to defend. Get your Cavalry pillagers (with a few Infantry to defend) near their rubber supplies and take out every road to rubber. Since they're spending much more time defending the besieged city, they'll usually send they're "leftovers" to handle the Cavalry. Stuff like longbowmen which Cavalry easily handles. This has been my experience. Try to take out roads to capitol if you can, but this is sometimes difficult to do. Taking out the Rubber is usually good enough since they'll revert to the resourceless Riflemen after that. Oil is another to take out if they have tanks themselves. If these are deep in their territory you can sometimes use a transport to get the cavalry behind enemy lines for their commando mission. Protect transport w/ Destroyer/Battleship.

Also use ships to take out roads/resources along coasts. With ships, ignore cities (unless it's the one you're attacking w/ tanks) and concentrate on any resources you can get to. Obviously, do the same with Bombers if you have them.

Plan all this out before you start an attack. Use combined arms as illustrated above. Artillery to soften up, Tanks for offense, Infantry for defense, Cavlary for pillaging, ships to transport & pillaging. Identify every resource they have and map out your plan on how to get them. I usually start my offensive on the city first to draw defenders to it and then strike with my pillagers while they're defending the city. Once rubber/oil/luxury is gone the city should fall much easier and eventually the whole civ can collapse in this manner. You'll suffer casualties in the first few cities you take because Infantry are tough against tanks, but once they expend all their Infantry and can't build more from lack of rubber, they can only build Riflemen. And tanks run roughshod over Riflemen. Good luck.

e

Well I ended up doing what you said, e, altough I hadn't read hte post yet. I made a tech bee-line for tanks. I declared war when I had 5 tanks and about 20 cavalry (saved up from the last failed attempt) and some infantry. By the time the war was in full swing I had 20+ tanks roming around. I am still in the war (probably about 10 turns have passed) and am going to completely destroy the Romans (hurrah). I have taken about 70% of their cities including the capital. The continent is almost mine!

I found that the tanks did well to attack the cities, almost never having a problem. The cavalry were used mostly after the tanks had gotten rid of the major defenders (leaving spearmen or archers or something) or to catch counter-offensive units coming in on the flank. I had a few artillerry, a fair amount of battleships and destroyers bombarding things, and 4 bombers. They did well in softening a city before I moved in.

I also used the strat at the beginning of cutting off the capital by destroying improvements. Thanks everyone for the ideas...apparently it helped.

I am playing in the warlord level right now, and my territory is situated in north to middle africa and parts of the middle east.
the zulus in europe waged war against me and after trying to defend myself for 10 turns i found my position was hopeless unless i gave them a city for peace. i gave them the lowest pop. city. then i got the cities back anyway when they defected to me.
this strategy only works when you have a superior culture or if you surround the city.
And for my revenge against their prior aggressions and frequent demands for tribute, I retook one of my cities back with culture then i demanded that his troops leave or declare war, and he declared war. Then I bargained for military alliances with 6 other civs. they all waged war against him. I only had to retake my other cities then let the other civs weaken him, while i was also improving my cities and resaearching. when waging war, which i don't usually do, I always make sure i have an ally or two. I always managed to win later in the game when i get tanks, mech infs and bombers. for some reason the AI isn't very good with them.



I wish I could have stepped in the same square as my allies or use his/her airbases.
That's what I have thinking about since I tried to retake the cities my enemy took from me, before my allies could take it. We still had cavalry and longbowmen and musketmen then, and i had to go the long route to get in suitable attacking position against the city. too bad my ally got there first. i could've take the city if my units could step in the same square as my ally. This should be realized in the next civ game or a patch for this game. And it should only be possible if your ally is gracious to you. I think there should be a 'trust' level feature too.

Couple other things, if you stand in one of their resource squares you can prevent that square from being used.
Cutting off a city and destroying improvements is good to beat the city, but then the city needs to be rebuilt. This also comes into effect with population, I find its better not to destory the pop down to 6 or so because the improvements they used will still be there when you take the town, (hospitals, aquaducts). And if you are one to destroy all their mines or something, just put a unit there instead and get the same effect.

I've been able to force cities into civil disorder this way which will prevent all production. I used that to stop the wonder that was being build there once, when I would have been beat out by a few turns.

However usually I don't do any of that stuff, I just show up quickly with superior numbers and superior units and take the city in one turn. With the land improvements still in place they then become my own so when I keep the roads intact I'm then able to advance to their next town even quicker since its now considered my land.

If you examine their towns much with spys or an embassy, you see that they will defend their capital the most, OR the point where they expect you to take, which is usually the closest.

Defense is at a disadvantage since they have to defend every town which involves splitting their force into many smaller troops. Use that to your advantage.

I've never had a problem with them "making" new units to defend, except the draft. If they are drafting, you have to beat them quickly, or force the town size down to 6 where they can no longer draft. If you can't beat them all in one turn, then you will have to bomb them to kill off their population, or you will just be facing a new infantry or better next turn.

There are more reasons to stop them from drafting, imagine the likely scenario they have 2 hp infantry, and you are attacking with tanks that can retreat, they won't retreat when the enemy is in red, so if you don't kill that unit outright, you will be in a no retreat battle. (Which BTW is very crappy, I'd rather send 3 tanks to kill a 2 hp infantry then to lose 1 to it) So those 2 hp infantry are extremely dangerous. I can't tell you how many panzers and modern armor I've lost to those drafted infantry.

So in summary, large force to take the defense out in one turn, you give them no time to draft or build. If you invision a long drawn out war, then go the resource denial route. But with governments like democracy or republic long drawn out wars aren't easy to handle on the home front either.

Sieges can take a city but it is very difficult. It takes alot of units and time. To lay siege to a city first build forts around it while occupying it with units. Take all roads and resources first. Then sit down and wait . Sieges can be useful if the enemy is well dug in. Also while your there bring in artillery and bombard constantly:ripper: .

I don't think any of you mentioned it, but I find that especially early in the game, Sun Tzu's War Academy is a must for waging war (the name sort of gives it away). I guess this might be a little obvious, but I find that having a barrracks in all of your newly captured cities really helps speed things up, as you don't have to send your units back to heal up. BTW, have any of you read the book? It's full of valuable insight such as "If the birds fly from the forest, the enemy approaches".

Late in the game, I rarely attack a city until the primary defender has been reduced to one hit point by artillery bombardment. Early in the game, I attack only with move-2 units like horsemen until hte defender has been weakened. Over my last two games (one at Monarch, one at Emperor) I've been able to kill 4 or 5 defending uits in cities for every attacking unit that I've lost.

It's also important to use bombardment to get rid of the Barracks and Walls and reduce the population to 6 before attacking a city. And cutting the roads, as has been mentioned, is crucial. For a coastal city you have to get rid of the Harbor as well.

But attacking with move-1 units without artillery support is just suicidal.

OK..not that I am adding anything..but this is what I do.

I pillage the roads/improvements with artillery or infantry or anything to get their pop down. Smaller cities take less force to take.

I usually would have an army of infantry, cavalry and artillery. Arillery is most useful for destroy roads and so forth. Infantry is just plain necessary for defense(primarily defending your artillery)..and cavs to attack (no doi!).

I usually concentrate on one target at a time. Then..when the pop goes down some..I overwhelm them with cavalry (after using artillery to try and get the defensive hps down.) If possible I attack from a hill or a mountain.

Seems to work. The other thing about sacking the capitol first..if I can raze the capitol..I will. That hurts them huge.

Just to add a few things:
TO investigate a city costs gold. It is highly useful at times, but not routine. Better to have a spy in their capital. besides, you cant use your embassy during war. And if they have roads, (they will) or rails, they can reinforce any point quickly--so cut their supply lines.
Look for their resources--but if they have allies or friends, they can negotiate a trade quickly to replace their own production. However, if you cut their supply lines and blockade their port(s) they can't even trade.
If you intend to wipe them out-- cut off the capital and take it last.
If you want a limited war--say, to get some resource, or cut them off from it, take the capital first and destroy their culture bias. Otherwise you WILL lose any captured cities back to them.
There has been much discussion about ancient units against modern. Archers can and do kill tanks. But I keep cavalry long after I could have upgraded them... they devastate the older units.
Bottom line: soften up the city with bombard units, cut supply lines, roll tanks over the cities, and use cavalry as outriders.

To wage war in Democracy, get a Right of Passage and backstab him. Hard. I wiped out 4 civs that way in 1 turn each, on a large map. The beauty of this is, no culture flips, no war weariness, you can completely ignore his stray units, and no counterattacks (unless he had a mutual protection pact).

Don't tell anybody, though, or Firaxis might consider it an "exploit" and patch it.

Cavalry can't be upgraded, so thats why you keep them. ;P


Also they are quite useless once your enemy has infantry. I don't build up so much of those for that very reason.

The best war effort seems to be tons of spearmen and then upgrade them thru the ages, and one or two attack troops of the best you have.

Towards the end of the game, especially if I am ahead in tech, I will start attacking with mech infantry. Getting the tank and mech infantry are usually withing 10-20 years in my games, so I only build tanks to later upgrade. Unless I play the germans in which case I rush to the panzer first.

Blitzkrieg! Civ 2 also worked well with this. Take your bombers, bomb. Take your tanks, rush all the border squares, spreading out your tanks. Attack border cities, leave onl one unit defense. Then when their border cities are yours, do the same again after repairing. Rushing is the key. Don't take it slow.

My biggest piece of advice would be to never intentionally wage a war where you aren't certain that you can achieve your aims. Wars can be costly in terms of scientific research and lack of improvement production especially in the early game. Bearing that in mind make sure that you are making war for a good reason that will bring you long term benefits. When you are sure that you can achieve your goals build up your military to the size it needs to be then hit 'em quick and hard.

The only time a war has hurt my science is when it lasted so long I was having problems with war weariness, and had to spend for hapiness. Even that was only enough to cut resaearch by one or two turns.
I ihave changed my tactics since.... not having a large standing army cost the possibility of quiting when the game got too slow and winnign a histograph victory.
Now I will have a massive army, and be able to roll through if I decide to war.

no one else posted this, use you cavalry or other obsolete units to capture workers, after capturing them tantalize the AI by placing them close to the front. The AI is a sucker for trying to rescue their comrades, the result is their units become overextended and the defense breaks down alot quicker. Be prepared the workers may change hands several times in this process.
Naval bombardment, and especially artillery really can soften up cities and defender units, I like lots of artillery, I've never seen the AI use it effectively either.