Stacks of Doom: just how big do they need to be?

RockTheCazbah87

RockTheCazbah87

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Right. I have a situation here...

Playing as Huayna, and i'm about to declare on Sitting Bull. He has one or two promoted archers in every city (CG2 mostly, which is quite scary), along with one or two Dogs/Chariots. I've got 6 swords, 2 axes and 2 cats standing by.

1- Is this enough?
2- If it isn't, then what do I need?

Please feel free to offer your two cents here, forumers..
 
By middle ages on marathon ill usually have 8 maces (some with city raider and others with combat 1, melee and a medic), a pikeman, couple of knights and 6 cats or 6 trebs
 
You might want a few more catapults. I generally have 5-6 myself.
Is it enough?You've probably got enough to take 1 maybe 2 cities. You need alot more swords/axes. I think you've missed you're oppurtunity. Wait till maces or knights.
 
RockTheCazbah87 said:
Right. I have a situation here...

Playing as Huayna, and i'm about to declare on Sitting Bull. He has one or two promoted archers in every city (CG2 mostly, which is quite scary), along with one or two Dogs/Chariots. I've got 6 swords, 2 axes and 2 cats standing by.

1- Is this enough?
2- If it isn't, then what do I need?

Please feel free to offer your two cents here, forumers..
Click to expand...

Multiply the garrison's hitpoints and add 1 hitpoint for each defending unit. Your stack needs to equal that number. So, three archers defending would be:

3 (archers) x 3 (hitpoints) = 9 + 3 (total defenders) = 12 hitpoints

I wouldn't worry about a city's defense bonus this early in the game.
 
Those archer are going to have a strength of 6 basically with their innate 50 city defense and CG2 plus 1-2 First Strikes. You can't use swords either because of the dog soldiers. 4 :strength: +100% against melee units. It's going to be almost impossible without overwhelming odds or catapults.
 
I wouldn't attack that sort of defence without a lot more cats (i would likely take 5+ to take one city in the same circumstances), you will likely have to sacrifice a few in order not loose many of your swordsmen to his
dog soldiers.
Also your attacking stack seems focused too much on swords. If he has chariots why are you not taking a spearman or two? IMO a few horse archers would be a nice addition, as he can counter most of your other units with dog soldiers.
 
^

I should've mentioned, I dont have access to horses. I should really have spearman, I guess i've just been too focused on Swordsman and their face value.
 
Right, a bit late, but we have a screenie of the situation:

View attachment 161380

No ivory, no horse. I've neglected building Settlers as i've been focusing on just pumping out units. Not exactly a great situation, but i'm not exactly the greatest player either. I'm a Warlord guy. :)
 
Are you running slavery? If not you probably should be and whip out some extra catapults. Shouldn't take too long.

Why are you farming those floodplains? You should be cottaging them; especially as a financial leader.

I see your running at 100% research and still making a profit. That means you need to expand alot more. Instead of attacking your enemies you should be building alot more settlers. You should settle near that stone and spice east of Cuzco. You are also industrious meaning that stone could've helped alot in building wonders.There seems alot of free space past that. If you look SW what do you see. Horses. Why haven't you settled there. Past that there is plenty of arable land.

Could you post a save by any chance? I'd like to play that map.

PS how did you get the time next to your year and turn number. I really need that as I play too long in the morning.
 
Ok, I've played a bit, took Poverty Point and i've gotta focus on settling now. I've let Gilga expand a LOT. He's got about 15 cities to my 5 or 6. I'm sorta kicking myself right now...

And you get the time up by clicking Options -> Other -> and there should be a clock thing somewhere.

View attachment 161382
 
Early rushes really aren't stacks of doom yet. It all goes by the age however, and ancient sod is likely to be 10 units, a classical 15-20, renaissance 50+, and the modern sod will number in the hundreds, at least in my games. When it comes to the modern SODS i've given up hope using conventional means and alsways carry around enough nukes to turn a continent into a parking lot. I tend not to fire them except for crowd control however.
 
147 macemen, 34 war elephants and 27 catapults will generally take out a longbowman on a hill. Unless he gets lucky.

Seriously, about 20 units and be building another 15 - 20 to back them up. For a start.
 
Given the position, it's not enough, you need to add at least 2 more cats, and I would suggest 2 spears and probably 2 more axe, then you have it.
 
Remember to over build your forces, your initial estimate is pretty low. You don't want someone else attacking you because you are at war.

Also, one thing no one else has mentioned I think... you need to send a few archers with your pack too. No point in taking cities if you need to tie up your attacking forces by defending your recently captured cities.
 
the new and by-now-(in)famous patch will change that,
I guess AI will have more units on city-defence (et least early in the game)
 
I guess I need to review my gameplay. I don't usually stockpile units in near the numbers others here are talking about. Maybe that's why I get so ticked off at some of the sizes of the SoDs that the AI sends my way? I still have habits from III and Warlords that need to be broken.
 
My own note in BTS, is that the AI may have a SoD hidden somewhere, so expect an unusually large one if you haven't fully explored his territory.
If that's the case, move your own SoD carefully, along defensive terrain, and scout ahead of it with cheap, fast units.

I'd say your SoD is pretty weak, unless you drawn him into a battle on bad terrain to whomp on his infantry and chariots. Do that and you'll then have the option to attack his weaker cities that have poorer defensive bonsus.

RockTheCazbah87 said:
Right. I have a situation here...

Playing as Huayna, and i'm about to declare on Sitting Bull. He has one or two promoted archers in every city (CG2 mostly, which is quite scary), along with one or two Dogs/Chariots. I've got 6 swords, 2 axes and 2 cats standing by.

1- Is this enough?
2- If it isn't, then what do I need?

Please feel free to offer your two cents here, forumers..
Click to expand...
 
my general rule of thumb is: when you think you have enough, you dont, so build more.

sometimes this results in ridiculously easy wars where i win with minimal losses (a few cat/trebs/cannons/artillery/whatever and some obsolete units for cannon fodder) and other times (usually when the AI has CGIII) i just lose everything including battles with 70% or more combat odds. just the way the cookie crumbles.

although in BTS the AI generally builds fewer units in BC times, ive noticed. unless its boudica. who built about 10 axemen in what seemed like 2 turns after the game started in my last game.
 
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