Defense?

[kbmusiclover]

What happened to the differentiation between defense and attack? How can I tell which units to use to defend my cities and which to rush out and attack things? Obviously there's a differentiation, but I can't figure it out.

[GenocideBringer]

When you tell your unit to occupy the space of an enemy unit, you are attcking. Otherwise, you are defending.

[Ashmantious]

The unit starts with a base strength that is then affected by modifiers (eg tile bonus, city bonus, one unit vs other [pike vs mounted]) You can get the game to give you a breakdown of the strength of both to estimate odds of sucess. Sulla's walkthrough and other posts do a much better job a desctibing it.

[kbmusiclover]

Originally Posted by GenocideBringer

When you tell your unit to occupy the space of an enemy unit, you are attcking. Otherwise, you are defending.

I understand that, I was talking about which is better to be doing with certain units, and where to find that out. I'm not THAT much of a noob, I've been playing since Civ II, and I have a basic vocabulary.

Originally Posted by Ashmantious

The unit starts with a base strength that is then affected by modifiers (eg tile bonus, city bonus, one unit vs other [pike vs mounted]) You can get the game to give you a breakdown of the strength of both to estimate odds of sucess. Sulla's walkthrough and other posts do a much better job a desctibing it.

Sulla? What's that and where can I find them?

[Khaim]

Archers for defense. Melee units can get promotions for attacking cities; archer units can get promotions for defending cities. Other than that, it's more about unit vs. unit bonuses. For example, axemen get huge bonuses vs melee units, so they destroy spearmen and swordsmen. Spearmen get even larger bonuses vs mounted units; note this also works if the spearman is attacking. Don't let your chariots end their turn next to spearmen if you want them to survive.

[Ashmantious]

http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla/civ4.html

Takes you to a seven part very detailed walk through of the game. It is the best overview of the game and its mechanics that I have seen. Sulla has release a new part each day, today he release part 5. He is taking the reading through an entire game. There is a sticky for it in the GD forum. I would consider it must reading to ramp up your Civ IV knowledge