YOUR art of war

Princeofnigeria · Oct 31, 2012

Hello, Civ5 fanatics forum! It's me, your least favorite and most argeumentative prince, finally here with a thread that WON'T devolve into fights or accusations of racism (probably... Maybe...). What is your fighting style in CiV? What moves or fornations do you like to employ? Are you a strategic or a tactical fighter? Is the strategy Era specific? Me personally, I enjoy a strategy I call "reverse encroachment". It involves having the vast majority of my men on the borders, I'll have mostly infantry (standard frontline troops, doesn't neccassarily have to be infantry) with forts covering 1/3 of them. Behind them, I'll have a couple of ranged units, and a mounted or two. When the enemies show up, they'll attack the line, taking fair losses from my fort men. I'll then drop back my most wounded men (using the ranged to cover them) in a checkered formation, just one hex. That way the enemy is forced to either fight fresh units, or funnel themselves into beign surrounded, If they choose to surround themselves, i'll crush there men and heal up, if they attack the freshmen, I'll drop them back behind the firstline, allowing them a turn to heal. I'll repeat this to whittle them down to stubs, then, they'll either A. Retreat, at which point the cavalry I held in reserve will flank them and try to slow them down enough for my infantry to catch up, or (if they're very strong) they'll reach my city with a bashed and battered army, at which point the real fun begins. I'll let them do some damage and pull my men behind the city... At whichpoint the horsies I always have in the center of my empire flank and sandwich them in a tight pincer with my refreshed and battlehardend frontline troops. At that point, the horses head back to the center, while my main army quickly heals (usually have a few medics to spead this up) and then attacks and sack the now nearly defenseless enemy cities until they ask for peace (usually take 1-2 puppets like this).

fuzzatron717 · Oct 31, 2012

My kind of fighting is tactical I wait till all enemys units are attacking my city then I take my armys surround them and kill even at cost of the city. Take all the melee units and to againest the ranged first and my ranged will after go the enemy melee from a safe spot like on hill or in a forest or across a river and then after the melee kill there ranged they go after the enemy melee and finish them and no particular era.

woodshadows · Oct 31, 2012

i enjoy luring the enemy in deep, right up to my city, where i'll often have a citadel placed, ranged behind the city and melee to the sides. i don't however allow my cities to be taken using these tactics.. why would you want your city to lose half its population and any buildings destroyed? kind of a pyrrhic victory there.. i also don't use forts ever, too risky having the ai be able to get in and use it against me - static defense, rarely a good thing. i tend to keep all my jungle/forest as well, it really weakens the ai's ability to use ranged units effectively and ill have all my units with rough terrain promos to really mess them up.

manu-fan · Oct 31, 2012

Melee in front. Ranged behind. advance and take out the opposing army surrounding a city and then move in and take the city. Watch for terrain. You want clear line of sight 2 hexes from a city for your ranged, with your melee next to the city.

I hardly ever play defense, just offense.

Cheers.

Princeofnigeria · Oct 31, 2012

woodshadows said:
i enjoy luring the enemy in deep, right up to my city, where i'll often have a citadel placed, ranged behind the city and melee to the sides. i don't however allow my cities to be taken using these tactics.. why would you want your city to lose half its population and any buildings destroyed? kind of a pyrrhic victory there.. i also don't use forts ever, too risky having the ai be able to get in and use it against me - static defense, rarely a good thing. i tend to keep all my jungle/forest as well, it really weakens the ai's ability to use ranged units effectively and ill have all my units with rough terrain promos to really mess them up.

Wow. My very next thread was going to be about pyrrhic victories in civ. how funny! And forys are like citadels, they only apply to the person who's homeland the fort is in (i've checked). I've never built forts outside my lands, so I don't know about those...

iconocast · Oct 31, 2012

ive been useing alot of cavalry and lancers flanking with a gattling gun core

Gzz · Oct 31, 2012

Ancient to Industrial : sneak attack BEHIND the enemy formation for capture cities
Modern : BOMBS !

woodshadows · Oct 31, 2012

Princeofnigeria said:
Wow. My very next thread was going to be about pyrrhic victories in civ. how funny! And forys are like citadels, they only apply to the person who's homeland the fort is in (i've checked). I've never built forts outside my lands, so I don't know about those...

oh that's good to hear, i think in vanilla when i'd build citadels the enemy would get the advantages of it if they got inside.. which was really frustrating.. or maybe im confusing things with civ iv forts.. or something. maybe forts are something ill have to learn to start using in the future, i know my gf built them once and they provided something like +1 or +2 line of sight, which was cool to have on the border

Pook · Oct 31, 2012

woodshadows said:
i enjoy luring the enemy in deep, right up to my city, where i'll often have a citadel placed, ranged behind the city and melee to the sides.

What he said. I use very similar tactics. I like to bleed the enemy as dry as he/she will let me. Since the AI has a habit of launching everything they have at you in one massive strike, if I can survive that then the counterattack is relatively easy.

mintcandy · Oct 31, 2012

If we define "Art of War" as "fighting style", MY Art of War emphasizes the protection and maneuver of my ranged and siege units without hampering the economy of my cities.

Ranged and siege units don't expend health when attacking, which means they can attack the enemy indefinitely with no down time. Melee units do expend health when attacking, which limits how many turns they can operate continuously against active enemy opposition.

Thus, I use melee units primarily as roadblocks, both to stymie the effective maneuver of enemy units and to prevent enemy units from attacking my vulnerable civilian, ranged, or siege units. I then use my ranged units to kill off any units hurting my melee units.

I'm a huge fan of anything that slows enemy reaction times to allow me to pour in more reinforcements. Typically, that means using the zone of control of my melee units to slow enemy units down, but it also includes the Great Wall's effects on enemy unit movement in my territory.

I've never built fort improvements in any Civilization game where they were mutually exclusive to other tile improvements, because I never saw the point of sacrificing any productivity of a tile for the sole purpose of improving the defensive capability of the unit holding the tile.

That's what my military is for: protection of my cities and their tiles so that my civilians can be as productive as possible.

Similarly, I've seen screenshots of players spamming melee units and fortifying one on each tile touching the border of a civilization they are not at war with. They might also have ranged and siege units behind the wall of melee units, but in much smaller numbers.

To me, it is extremely silly and wasteful to concentrate so much military production in melee production because it indicates that the player is obsessed about ANY enemy units trespassing in his civilization's territory and that the player doesn't truly understand the zone of control concept.

Spacing out the fortified melee units on the border so that they are 1-2 hexes apart would accomplish the same thing an uninterrupted chain of fortified border melee units which would also reduce the amount of hammers and gold needed to produce and maintain such a border force.

It would be even better to increase the proportion of ranged and siege units in that border force both to kill intruding enemy units without sacrificing the health of your own melee units AND to provide the foundation for a task force to strike back at the enemy.

Better still, if you have the industrial and economic capacity to produce and maintain that many units, why wouldn't you just declare war and be done with it? It would be like having 10000 gold by the Medieval era, and refusing to use it for rush buying or for CS influence. I mean, you could, but why?

woodshadows · Oct 31, 2012

mintcandy said:
If we define "Art of War" as "fighting style", MY Art of War emphasizes the protection and maneuver of my ranged and siege units without hampering the economy of my cities.

Ranged and siege units don't expend health when attacking, which means they can attack the enemy indefinitely with no down time. Melee units do expend health when attacking, which limits how many turns they can operate continuously against active enemy opposition.

Thus, I use melee units primarily as roadblocks, both to stymie the effective maneuver of enemy units and to prevent enemy units from attacking my vulnerable civilian, ranged, or siege units. I then use my ranged units to kill off any units hurting my melee units.

I'm a huge fan of anything that slows enemy reaction times to allow me to pour in more reinforcements. Typically, that means using the zone of control of my melee units to slow enemy units down, but it also includes the Great Wall's effects on enemy unit movement in my territory.

I've never built fort improvements in any Civilization game where they were mutually exclusive to other tile improvements, because I never saw the point of sacrificing any productivity of a tile for the sole purpose of improving the defensive capability of the unit holding the tile.

That's what my military is for: protection of my cities and their tiles so that my civilians can be as productive as possible.

Similarly, I've seen screenshots of players spamming melee units and fortifying one on each tile touching the border of a civilization they are not at war with. They might also have ranged and siege units behind the wall of melee units, but in much smaller numbers.

To me, it is extremely silly and wasteful to concentrate so much military production in melee production because it indicates that the player is obsessed about ANY enemy units trespassing in his civilization's territory and that the player doesn't truly understand the zone of control concept.

Spacing out the fortified melee units on the border so that they are 1-2 hexes apart would accomplish the same thing an uninterrupted chain of fortified border melee units which would also reduce the amount of hammers and gold needed to produce and maintain such a border force.

It would be even better to increase the proportion of ranged and siege units in that border force both to kill intruding enemy units without sacrificing the health of your own melee units AND to provide the foundation for a task force to strike back at the enemy.

Better still, if you have the industrial and economic capacity to produce and maintain that many units, why wouldn't you just declare war and be done with it? It would be like having 10000 gold by the Medieval era, and refusing to use it for rush buying or for CS influence. I mean, you could, but why?

well said, that's almost exactly how i feel as well. melee isn't any good for taking cities except as the final hit (with mounted preferably - for which you only require one for that purpose), so the role of melee is to act as roadblocks, soaking up hits while fortified(healing) in defensive spots. I rarely attack with my non-mounted melee units, they spend the majority of time fortified, using zone of control to obstruct the AI, forcing them to attack me gaining all the terrain/fortifying bonuses. Let them attack me then knock them out with range or mounted. Similarly when attacking cities, I'll flood the area around the city with some footmen onto rough terrain, have them all fortified as my siege goes to work, the fortifying/healing helps decrease loss of life and is a very effective block for any ai units attempting to get to my siege. as to defense, there's just so much advantage on your side, you have access to roads, you have cities which have very powerful attacks and act as a zone of control and you have time to prepare yourself in the best defensive spots (which you'll have likely built your cities to take advantage of anyhow). let the ai rush at you with the mass of their army which you can tear apart, then turn the tide and invade them back while they have lost the majority of their army - classic russian tactics.

ArchyDarky · Oct 31, 2012

Sneak attack them while they are marching their carpet of doom to me. Get early experience for my mounted units and possibly draw a few of their units off their main attack. And either ambush the pursuers of my cavalry with my range/melee or even out the numbers by the time they get to my cities.

Princeofnigeria · Oct 31, 2012

woodshadows said:
well said, that's almost exactly how i feel as well. melee isn't any good for taking cities except as the final hit (with mounted preferably - for which you only require one for that purpose), so the role of melee is to act as roadblocks, soaking up hits while fortified(healing) in defensive spots. I rarely attack with my non-mounted melee units, they spend the majority of time fortified, using zone of control to obstruct the AI, forcing them to attack me gaining all the terrain/fortifying bonuses. Let them attack me then knock them out with range or mounted. Similarly when attacking cities, I'll flood the area around the city with some footmen onto rough terrain, have them all fortified as my siege goes to work, the fortifying/healing helps decrease loss of life and is a very effective block for any ai units attempting to get to my siege. as to defense, there's just so much advantage on your side, you have access to roads, you have cities which have very powerful attacks and act as a zone of control and you have time to prepare yourself in the best defensive spots (which you'll have likely built your cities to take advantage of anyhow). let the ai rush at you with the mass of their army which you can tear apart, then turn the tide and invade them back while they have lost the majority of their army - classic russian tactics.

I think you may have misunderstood my post. A border with me is only about 4-6 tiles in legnth, so only 4-6 frontline units on it total. I have tall, coastal culture nations at first (one reason I like coast: stops invasions from all sides, as it's still very easy to control tge coastlines. Second, the reason I don't have them on every other tile to implement zone of control (which I AM implementing, the whole funneling thing I said explecitly relies on ZOC) is that then they'll attack them and they'll be spent. If I constantly have a strong frontline (dropping back to heal while the units that healed last turn are the new frontline) I effectivly have X2 the amount of units that are doing damage without building new ones. And while I agree on the merits of a nearly total ranged based force, it hasn't really worked for me in practice, as even if I fortify my few armies around an enemy city, they'll go for the weak and frail ranged rather than tge fortifying melee. I find the strategy of many infantry more efficint as their vast numbers allows for easy retreat/ heals, as a new frontlinesman will be there to replace him, ensuring a long lasting and low casualty force (most wars I only lose 1-2 units, if any) also the melee do a lot more damage. I would rather have a musketman do 35 damage and take a collateral 20, rather than do just 20, as the quicker I kill him, the quicker I can Heal and form a counter attack.

woodshadows · Oct 31, 2012

Princeofnigeria said:
I think you may have misunderstood my post. A border with me is only about 4-6 tiles in legnth, so only 4-6 frontline units on it total. I have tall, coastal culture nations at first (one reason I like coast: stops invasions from all sides, as it's still very easy to control tge coastlines. Second, the reason I don't have them on every other tile to implement zone of control (which I AM implementing, the whole funneling thing I said explecitly relies on ZOC) is that then they'll attack them and they'll be spent. If I constantly have a strong frontline (dropping back to heal while the units that healed last turn are the new frontline) I effectivly have X2 the amount of units that are doing damage without building new ones. And while I agree on the merits of a nearly total ranged based force, it hasn't really worked for me in practice, as even if I fortify my few armies around an enemy city, they'll go for the weak and frail ranged rather than tge fortifying melee. I find the strategy of many infantry more efficint as their vast numbers allows for easy retreat/ heals, as a new frontlinesman will be there to replace him, ensuring a long lasting and low casualty force (most wars I only lose 1-2 units, if any) also the melee do a lot more damage. I would rather have a musketman do 35 damage and take a collateral 20, rather than do just 20, as the quicker I kill him, the quicker I can Heal and form a counter attack.

i was replying to mintcandy's post

as to what you said, i like melee too, much as i think ranged is often the stronger option. it took me a while to learn what works best with melee, i do a bit of cycling too, but generally don't need to, if you have an army of many different kinds of units you can usually preserve your fortify/heal bonus on your melee while your ranged/mounted takes out the units attacking your front. the problem with cycling is that you lose the foritify bonus and miss out on a quick heal that turn, having to move etc.

gunslinger6792 · Oct 31, 2012

Ranged units back up by a melee units win the day. i usually go for a 2 to 1 ratio and then dig for defense in some cases if i know the enemy is coming through a area I'll build forts. I also wait till the renaissance era before launching offensive wars which are backed up with frigates providing support fire. Once the modern era comes around I break out the heavy bomber fleet and let the infrantry mop up the rest.

Jerman · Oct 31, 2012

Here's mine http://goo.gl/XqkAQ

Princeofnigeria · Oct 31, 2012

woodshadows said:
i was replying to mintcandy's post

as to what you said, i like melee too, much as i think ranged is often the stronger option. it took me a while to learn what works best with melee, i do a bit of cycling too, but generally don't need to, if you have an army of many different kinds of units you can usually preserve your fortify/heal bonus on your melee while your ranged/mounted takes out the units attacking your front. the problem with cycling is that you lose the foritify bonus and miss out on a quick heal that turn, having to move etc.

I know you where replying to his, but he made a statement about my tactics, thus when when you said you agreed fully, I decided to respond to you, as it would have answered both your statements. Sorry for any confusion.

mintcandy · Nov 1, 2012

Princeofnigeria said:
A border with me is only about 4-6 tiles in legnth, so only 4-6 frontline units on it total. I have tall, coastal culture nations at first (one reason I like coast: stops invasions from all sides, as it's still very easy to control tge coastlines.

"Tall cultural civilization" implies that this civilization doesn't have very many cities.

"Not having many cities" implies that the number of idle melee units fortified on this border outnumbers the amount of cities in the civilization.

:: shrugs ::

Still seems like an inefficient use of hammers and gold maintenance to me.

Princeofnigeria said:
Second, the reason I don't have them on every other tile to implement zone of control (which I AM implementing, the whole funneling thing I said explecitly relies on ZOC) is that then they'll attack them and they'll be spent.

It is still possible to "funnel" with fortified melee units spaced every other tile. Heck, it's possible to "funnel" with fortified melee units spaced every three tiles.

Moving a damaged melee unit back one tile in an uninterrupted chain of fortified melee units restricts the enemy's movement just as much as spacing melee units every two to three tiles.

However, moving a damaged melee unit back one tile has the disadvantage of forcing the player controlling the melee unit to rearrange his ranged or siege units to accommodate the wounded melee unit.

This rearrangement could sacrifice as many as two ranged attacks for the dubious benefit of having two fortified full strength melee units AND one damaged melee unit next to a damaged enemy.

Heck, if the melee units were spaced apart and their civilization was the one initiating war, ranged/siege units could be placed in the spaces between the melee units to increase the amount of firepower brought to bear in the first wave.

If there are enough ranged/siege units, there's a good chance that the ranged/siege units will have wiped out all of the nearby enemy units, making it easy for the spaced out melee units to move forward.

However, I probably wouldn't move my melee units unless I had enough free ranged/siege units to cover the advance of my melee units.

mintcandy · Nov 1, 2012

Jerman said:
Here's mine http://goo.gl/XqkAQ

Well played, good sir, well played.

marioflag · Nov 1, 2012

Artillery with Range promotion and Logistics can win wars for you

YOUR art of war

The illustrious

Holy Warrior

King

Emperor

The illustrious

Prince

Warlord

King

Bloviating

King

King

Warlord

The illustrious

King

Warlord

Would you like a Trade Agreement?

The illustrious

King

King

History Addict

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