A question of tactics

[lerrocco]

@mbbcam did your offensive game improve? What did you take away from the above comments?

I instinctively followed @Megalou comments above, but before modern warfare and aircraft are involved. If a city has a ranged defense and another range attack outside the city then the 3 hits will kill a unit. If I cant avoid this I send in scouts and workers as distraction. If its just one unit defending a city I will surround it completely and withdraw the damaged units every turn, in the hope I have enough left to take the city. I cant remember ever using a melee unit to attack a city, except the Hun's ram (more of a siege weapon anyway) and for the final take down.

In non capital cities I often let the city be recaptured so it loses its population much faster, but I keep it alive until the turn before I will take the capital (or city I want to keep). This is often a way to kill more enemy units quite easily, they rarely attack the city and my troops on the same turn when recapturing.

I have seen different comments on the city's range attack. I just encountered this:

Ranged attack​

Every city has the ability to shoot at attacking armies. The attack has a range of 2, complete visibility (no terrain obstacles impede it), and is always at 40% of the city's full combat strength (60% with Oligarchy), even if the city itself is damaged. Bonus city strength gained from defensive structures is not applied when the city attacks. Being a ranged attack, the targets cannot retaliate.

Can someone confirm this is the case?

 

[mbbcam]

@mbbcam did your offensive game improve? What did you take away from the above comments?

I instinctively followed @Megalou comments above, but before modern warfare and aircraft are involved. If a city has a ranged defense and another range attack outside the city then the 3 hits will kill a unit. If I cant avoid this I send in scouts and workers as distraction. If its just one unit defending a city I will surround it completely and withdraw the damaged units every turn, in the hope I have enough left to take the city. I cant remember ever using a melee unit to attack a city, except the Hun's ram (more of a siege weapon anyway) and for the final take down.

In non capital cities I often let the city be recaptured so it loses its population much faster, but I keep it alive until the turn before I will take the capital (or city I want to keep). This is often a way to kill more enemy units quite easily, they rarely attack the city and my troops on the same turn when recapturing.

I have seen different comments on the city's range attack. I just encountered this:

Ranged attack​

Every city has the ability to shoot at attacking armies. The attack has a range of 2, complete visibility (no terrain obstacles impede it), and is always at 40% of the city's full combat strength (60% with Oligarchy), even if the city itself is damaged. Bonus city strength gained from defensive structures is not applied when the city attacks. Being a ranged attack, the targets cannot retaliate.

Can someone confirm this is the case?

It's nearly three years since I wrote that post, and I had forgotten about it. I have only played sporadically just recently. Indeed, not only had I forgotten my post, I had forgotten all of the others, too. Having played a bit more over the past few days, I begin to think that one of my problems is that I don't build enough meat-shields (melee units). I typically build eight ranged units and only a couple of Pikemen for city capture. I think I could do with a better balance of units.

The thread that @Tiberiu links to above is very interesting, as it shows how you can make extensive use of Citadels and Forts in difficult terrain. This is something I always forget to do.

 

[Megalou]

@lerrocco , it we're indeed talking modern warfare, artillery can sit comfortably 3 tiles away, right? Or did I misunderstand "but before modern warfare and aircraft are involved"?

 

[lerrocco]

I was a reluctant recruit to civ 5, civ 4 was my platform since its release almost 20 years ago, until last summer when I lost my old laptop and couldn't install 4 easily....
In 5 still haven't got past the industrial era, never built artillery, never adopted an ideology.. I thought I would limit myself to easy domination games, but am finding I like civ 5, and I might look to take my games further this year, depends on the learning curve and if I get bored of my easy domination scenarios.
I only play Domination games (at the moment) and my comments above are my limited experience of the games I played so far. I adopted my civ 4 tactics and they work reasonably well up to a point..

 

[rgduck]

Rush composite bows, crossbows, and/or artillery. These techs are all OP relative to their position on the tech tree, and the AI is remarkably bad at dealing with them. Pick one, build your whole game around reaching it early, and you'll steamroll your AI neighbors. This is how top players win domination victories before T200 on Deity.

Speed is key. If your six composite bowmen arrive at your neighbor's capital on T65, you'll dominate. On T75, you may win, but it'll be more of a slog. And by T85, the AI will have longswords and you'll have to retreat. (These numbers are for Deity. I imagine you have more time on lower difficulties, but the principle is the same).

If deploying a squad of CBs by T65 sounds impossible, watch how Acken does it in his China Deity LP. The key is that he's all-in on the plan. He puts off Writing to reach Construction faster. He opens Liberty, but only founds three cities so he can use those early hammers for building archers. And he stocks up gold so that he can upgrade his archers into CBs on the same turn he reaches Construction. The result is that he's able to finish off all seven Deity AI's by T157, using just his early CBs (now upgraded to XBs) and a few melee units.

If you want a less frantic early game, you can aim to start your conquest with XB technology instead of CBs. You won't have time to conquer the whole map with them, but it's an easier strategy to execute. And if you conquer three or four of your neighbors this early, you'll be big enough to cruise to whatever victory condition you like anyway.

Artillery is even better for conquest than CBs and XBs, though of course you have to make it to the middle game. The AI is basically helpless against artillery until it reaches Great War Bombers, so you get a loooong window for conquest. Here's Acken with another DomV on Deity using a deliberately nerfed play style (no worker steals, no bribes, etc.) just to demonstrate how powerful and reliable Artillery conquest is. If you didn't get wiped out early, it's almost always possible to win a DomV with artillery, even on Deity.