Evac or resist?

In a bit of a pickle here. My pleased friend Willem decided enough was enough and declared war against the only city I have on his continent. Since he come with 60+ units and I only have 4, its a no brainer that im gonna loose the city. I did prepare for this scenario though, and have 3 Cogs who can transport 12 units to the city, though while 16 vs 60+ is still a loose I can hopefully inflict enough damage on him so I can get my second army (20-30 units) in position to retake it.
Since he only have 2 bombards he is either going to attack at low odds or give me a couple of turns to hopefully drop of some more units, but might still not be enough to save the city.

Thats the scenario. So... Evacuate or Defend to last man, that is the question?

As a side note, it should be mentioned that in my mod I have extra withdrawal rate (30% or more) for units, so even if I decide to defend, most of the knights and elephants will prolly survive and retreat back to his Capital.

Vinz, what's your civics right now? Switching your gold slider to 100% and rush buying could tip things in your favor. Personally, I'd defend.

WelI decided that the city belonged to me, and since AI only had 2 bombards, it gave me 5 rounds to round up everything I had on the main continent. So now it's a Mexican standoff between two armies each size 70+.
I cant attack because he stands on Forest hill with lots of counter units, and he can't attack because it will lead to too much casualities. A loose loose situation because he pays lots of gold sitting in foreign territory and for me, well, my otherwise friendly ish neighbourghs Shaka and pericles are sensing low power values on our continent, and are starting to make rediculous demands.

What if you left one unit inside of the City, so that the attacking stack would capture the City but would be more likely to send the whole stack into the City to "heal" alongside of the wounded unit that captured the City from you, while you put your stack outside of the City, hopefully on a defensive square, and then you attack the AI on the following turn when the AI has its units inside of your City?

If you have a sizeable amount of siege units, this approach could put your forces at the advantage.

Dhoomstriker said:

What if you left one unit inside of the City, so that the attacking stack would capture the City but would be more likely to send the whole stack into the City to "heal" alongside of the wounded unit that captured the City from you, while you put your stack outside of the City, hopefully on a defensive square, and then you attack the AI on the following turn when the AI has its units inside of your City?

If you have a sizeable amount of siege units, this approach could put your forces at the advantage.

Click to expand...

Letting the AI take the city, and you re-take it ... doesn't that risk losing a lot of the infrastructure you've built in the city? Which buildings are automatically destroyed when a city is taken? (As I write this, I'm trying to remember the differences between Civ3 and Civ4)

@ Vorlon; Correct.

Defensive wars win, and if Vinz can get some reserves to augment, he wins. Down side is trying to figure out what Shaka may do. Hope your spys are up to snuff bro .

I actually use the tactical withdrawal fairly often. When the AI stack outnumbers mine by much more than 2:1 and we have technological parity I will withdraw from a peripheral city and then counterattack to leverage my CR-promoted siege.

This does cause me to lose infrastructure but that can easily be whipped back, and actually if you've been whipping too much letting the AI take a city like that resets the whip unhappiness completely And the kill ratio is monstrous. AI units are sitting ducks in a city with no defenses whatsoever and they often lack CG-promoted units the first turn they take a city.

When the City is 100% Culturally yours, you'll lose far fewer Buildings than when capturing a City that is 0% Culturally yours.

When a City is 0% Culturally yours, you'll lose City Walls, Castle, Barracks, Culture-producing non-Wonder Buildings, and some other Buildings at a 100% chance. You'll have various chances of keeping other Buildings, such as a Granary, at about a 60% (or 66%?) chance.

However, when the City is 100% Culturally yours, you have a chance to keep Barracks and sometimes even Culture-producing Buildings (it seems to be BtS-only for keeping Culture-producing Buildings, where I define Buildings as not being Wonders), and you'll have a significantly higher chance of keeping other Buildings.


But, even if you couldn't keep said Buildings, we're talking about a huge number of Military Units and a potentially large amount of turns where those Military Units are tied up, instead of being put to better use. There's both a significant Hammer cost with that army (if a lot more of it gets lost than would be kept by retaking the City) and a significant opportunity cost of parking your army in place when it could otherwise be capturing many more Cities that may come with free Buildings of their own.


Again, it depends a bit upon the makeup of vincentz' army, but if he has a decent amount of collateral-damage-dealing siege units and/or a considerable amount of units with a Withdrawal ability, he can stand to gain significantly on offense, and he'll do much better against a 0% defensive bonus army than a 100% defensive bonus army (Hills Forest square plus a potentially full Fortification bonus).

Of course, if nearly all of the enemy units don't get a defensive bonus, then there will be less of a need to move the AI's army (such as allowing it to move into the City) before attacking the enemy army.

After getting stuck (and doing some modding instead), I think the "the best defense is a good offense" is going to be plan A. I pulled together a fleet and going to take 18 units from the defending town (there should still be enough to defend the city), sail down to his lesser defended cities and take it, in hopes that he will leave the grip-lock as then "danger-amount" rises on his own land.



Regarding attacking his stack, or leave the city and then retake it, there are some factors in my mod that changes mechanics quite a bit:
1) Defender withdrawal.
Whenever an attack is made on a unit that have withdrawal%, the defender have a chance of withdraw, and since the barracks give 30%, all of his units (and especially mounted) will prolly withdraw, sending in another defender. This eventually means that if I decide to attack I will get many causalities, lowering my power rating and getting the other AIs on my back. This is the case even if I evacuate city and then attack it. Besides in pure clean panic I made almost all the units City Defenders.
2) Healing and supply + Ranged Combat
A unit in foreign land cant heal up to 100%. In fact without healing promotions units can only heal up to 50% (iirc). This means, that I can Rangestrike his units with my 11 bombards each turn. So a drawn out occupation will serve me best (unless Shaka, Pericles or some third civ decides to go for my main land, in which case Im pretty screwed.

With that 30% withdrawal rate mod I'd say that trying to speed bump him is a waste of resources, cut losses and come back for a battle fought on your terms.

What is the diplomatic situation like ?
You might accomplish more with the quill than the sword
Perhaps swapping your city for a deceleration of war against one of your rapacious neighbors.