Section 10. Second Rush - II
Here I wish to discuss a bit about what to build in the capital:
1.
Units - melee early game & ranged mid-game
As many as you can! In this general strategy, I only use the Warrior ... Long Swordsman ... Rifleman line and the Catapult - Trebuchet - Cannon - Artillery line. Simple enough. Just build them and upgrade later.
At the end, I have 4 melee + 6 ranged (plus 1 ranged staying at home), in which 2 melee and 4 ranged (a little more than 50%) were built by the capital. Build them as early as possible and put them to use. The later units have a long way to catch up in terms of EXP and will be much less powerful compared to the early veteran units. This is especially true for melee units - you need that March promotion to make them effective, which is quite far away if you start from scratch (30 EXP from Barrack and Armory). On the other hand, you can build as many ranged unit as you want, as even if they don't have the Range + 1 or Double attack (get those in that order) promotion, they still hit.
You can easily surpass the threshold number of units (battle units, great generals, workers, great people, all included) supported by the capital. The cap is 14 when the capital has a population of 14 or so. Every 2 extra population supports 1 more unit, so the threshold grows rather slowly. Going over the limit makes the capital less productive, but has no other side effect that I know of.
2.
Economic buildings
-
Market -
Natioanl Treasury. I don't think Bank is that important, as by the time you finished it, you are almost certain you will win (or not win) already.
3.
Research buildings
-
University - fill the two researcher slots and start accumulating Great Scientist points! (Forget about Great Engineers for world wonders, you don't need them.) You should be able to pop 3 free techs before the end of game - enabling you to reach the benchmarks earlier. You can build the Monument, Heroic Epic and Garden to make the process faster - in the end you get about 1 more free tech from the bonuses - not really much, but could make a difference.
4.
Military buildings
-
Barracks -
Heroic Epic -
Armory. Military Academy appears way too late and by that time your army could be half a world away!
5.
Production buildings
-
Workshop -
Ironworks. Ironwork rocks! But you might end up with too much hammers and have nowhere to use them in late game.
6.
Happiness buildings
- Depending on how much happiness resources you have. In this game I built the set of Circus - Colosseum - Circus Maximus and ended up with a huge happiness surplus when the AIs no longer buy my resources (which they can get from their new cities).
In general, whatever you build in early and mid game is very important as you need the units out to help the war. Whatever you build in late game has very little influence.
Back to the game. Alexander's invasion on Persia was brought to a complete hault by the united forces of Mongolia and Japan. I consider myself quite lucky to have Oda's troops on the field. They distracted Alexander's Companion Cavalry, many of which had been upgraded to Knights at this point. I was able to start taking peripheral Greek cities.
Here I wish to briefly discuss AI's response patterns while facing a homeland invasion. They are very reproducible, and it is the bread and butter of an OCC conquest game.
(1) Grand scale - remove flank threats
When you want to attack city A, but there is a city B on the side and is closer to you, then it is better to take City B first to protect your flank while taking city A. So you only have to worry about enemies from one direction. In my game, when I want to get to the Greek capital, I removed all nearby Greek cities on the way, so I have nothing to worry. Knights with 5 movements are really deadly. But you don't want to go too far, since time is short!
(2) Interception Stage
If the AI has more units than it considers "adequate for defense", it will send the extra units out, trying to attack and kill a few attackers. This can happen very early. At this stage, it is important to end the melee units' turns on their specialty terrain, even better with some kind of terrain defense bonus (forest, river), since they are likely to be actively attacked. They need to survive that first round of attack. Sometimes, they will get attacked twice. Few can survive 3 attacks, so don't make isolated advance - form the line.
Ranged units should stay in the back of the line, which should be safe because you already removed the flank threats. When the extra units are lured out and made to attack your tank units, the ranged units can finish them off on the next turn very easily.
Sometimes it is impossible to completely protect the ranged units. So one needs to utilize two things. First, terrain. Everything is stopped after crossing the river. So you can move your vulnerable/dying unit one tile away inside a river, or hill/forest for a smaller blocking effect, to shelter them from harm. Second, zone of contact/control. It works this way: as long as an enemy unit has to make 2 contacts with another unit of yours before reaching you, it cannot reach you. So you can actually leave holes on your tanks' line - but that will make your tanks more vulnerable.
(3) To the city
After your tank units are properly healed (so they don't get killed in the next turn), advance them to surround the city, and again, on their specialty terrain. Most cities are surrounded by flat terrain, so it is better to have a 2 Open Terrain + 1 Rough Terrain tank from the beginning. Don't make any attack yet (as they will get damaged and get killed in one turn more easily). Their main purpose is to protect the ranged units against any melee attack within the city until the city defense is watered down enough for themselves to rush it down.
The city's own defense and its garrison usually focuses on the tanking melee units. This makes it easy to have ranged units keep firing on the city. Depending on how many melee units you have surrounding the city, you need to lower the city's health into yellow or red before your melee units deliver the final blows. (Promotion sequence: 3 terrain, march, blitz, city assault, ranged protection)
At this stage, the AI might have one or two units beside the city. But it will NOT make an active attack if it knows it cannot kill you in one turn (that's why you want to keep the tanks as healthy as possible before the time comes). All that attacks are the "intercepting troops", which should be moving around. This is the stationary kind. With that in mind, you can use your range units to kill that waiting unit first before you work on the city, or directly work on the city because...
(4) After the city is razed
After the city is razed, all remaining units will RETREAT without a second thought. You might have a very weak unit left defenseless on the city's tile (as they delivered the final blow). But the AI ignores the oppurtunity because... well the city is lost! Run!
(bonus) The Settler escort
I am very happy to see an AI military unit escorting a settler, which should be running all over the place in an OCC conquest game (as we burn everything on our path, creating a lot of unclaimed land to literally die for). The settler escorts do not attack. They just move with the settlers. So you can easily kill them with your ranged units. If you do not capture the now exposed Settlers right away, it might settle a city successfully, but the AI might send another escort before that happens - and to be killed by you again! That's just great!
One more Greek city down. The capital Athen is visible now!
