In need of Advice from Warmongers

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

Ok, after spending a fair amount of time on noble and learning all the new features and concepts in civ 4, I decided to make the jump to prince, and am experiencing a lot of difficulty when it comes to warfare.

Given I almost always play the terra maps and my old civ strategies all were huge mistakes, and aweful style in civ 4, I had to re-learn essential how to play the game from the ground up in a style similar to how I would have played all the other civ games which came before. Usually I'd play the style of the wonder builder, and it took me a long time to figure out how to balance that style without getting mauled by aggressive AIs. Since then I learned to balance military and wonders on noble and have essentially dominated that difficulty level winning a large amount of games by very very wide point totals, which led me to the prince difficulty which I'm sitting at now.

I'd been reading these forums, and as a generalization from a multitude of threads I've read I gathered playing slightly more aggressively helps at higher difficulty levels due to the handicap vs tha AI with tech and such. As a result, and a couple failed attempts at prince, I'd adapted my strategy again to be more aggressive and try to make up for the handicap by essentially doubling [or more if possible] my empire size.

My initial war is almost always 100% effective. I always manage to take everything I've decided was my objective, usually sending in one full on stack with a smaller support one to handle any raiders trying to sneak behind my advance and into my territory. I try to take advantage of my unique units as much as possible, no matter what civ I'm playing with and usually rush into the age to have the first round of new units to make the war easier on my minimizing casualties [attacking at discover leading to axemen, macemen, cats, riflemen tanks, etc] saving me unnecessary unit builds come mid-age.

This is all good to do, except I'm always enountering problems as soon as I finish an expansion war. I'll manage to make peace with my victim by the time I have about 4-7 units to spare for each city along the new front and maybe one or two in all the others of my empire, and stop my advance. That's when some other empire decides to take advantage of my weakened position [or they assume it's weakened] and try to attack me. It doesn't matter who, but they lose. Then someone else attacks. And they lose, then again and again, and eventually it wear my military down to a point where I've experienced far too many wars in far too short of a time and it takes it's toll on both my tech and my economy, taking away what should have been my advantage.

another problem I'm having is with unit transporting. It seems to take forever [before railroad] to get reinforcements down to threatened cities, especially when I've got one city with the heroic epic or west point, way at the back of my territory because the front has changed so much. My best and most healthy units take forever to get into the fight!

So how am I to handle this?
Am I, not handling my diplomacy well? Or am I pushing too far forward with my fronts and over expanding? Should I be pushing forward until I reach a choke point [which isn't walways possible]. When is the ideal time to pull back and try to consolidate your gains in holding your hard earned cities? How many stacks should I have to conquer the equivalent of an entire enemy civ?

 

[SpikeSpy]

Well it seems to me that you have a couple of options.

1) Since you play terra map you will be tightly packed to all AI's, so the first thing you could do is switch map types. I find the easiest is usually Iceage wide continents.

2) CHoose your targets carefully. I would suggest you attack the strongest nation that borders yours, if you attack a weaker one, just because its also close, then stronger AI's will cease that opportunity. If you take out the #2 AI weaker ones will be less likely to attack, plus you set back all AI progress since they will share all techs etc, so by taking out the leading AI you slow them all down and increase your lead. If you are not sure you can make it, OR if you like to play it safe, then pick an ally and get them to declare war on your target AI as well. This will create a rift between the AIs and will stop them from ganging up on you. Choose your ally carefully! I usually pick a nation relatively far from me but somewhat close to target borders, don't pick a too strong an ally, you dont want them to take the cities that you wanted!

3) Don't stop your advance too quicky. I know it is tempting to cash in on peaceoffers that will gain you a lot, however you will gain a lot more if you keep your assault on a little longer. The second you make peace the AI will load up on units and try to find Aid from others this will cost you more losses and resources in the end than if you push on with more limited resources and stop them from reinforcing. Don't worry about your economy too much when in war, if needed slow research but keep taking cities, you can catch up later (espescially if you take out your main rival)!

4) Try to create 2 strike forces and spearhead the enemy from 2 sides, this way should another AI attack you, you will most likely have a strike force nearby to attack back. The trick to incoming AI is this: Usually just after they declare war on you they will send virtually all their attackers at you in 1 single stack. Don't feel the need to attack that stack or defend your cities, just place a number uf strong defenders in hills+forest along the enemy stacks path (they will go for your nearest city). 90% of the time the enemy will attack your units, even if the odds are HUGELY against them. That will wipe out most of their attackers and give you a few turns to regroup and heal, then you should go immediately on the offensive, destroy or capture their nearest city and get rid of any roads that leas anywhere but where your main army is. Needless to say you should have at least one level 2 Medic in your stack.

5) If its later in the game, dont underestimate the use of DRAFTING. Nationhood civic is normally seldom used but on higher diffuculties in war it can be a deciding factor, you can pump out 5 of the strongest defenders you have per turn in your border cities, you would draft new units in safe cities and send all their original troops to the front. That way you will have a huge stack of defenders at the front, the enemy will strike back but because the # of units you will have they shall kill none or very few.

To sum up NEVER GO ON THE DEFENSIVE! take units that are strong and keep the enemy busy in their own territory, force them to attack you WHERE you want (namely on a hill with a forest)

 

[ChangHao]

you should take a look at who your opponents are.
aggressive ones will backstab you.
peaceful ones usually won't if you are on good terms with them. <- asoka, washington, cyrus, frederick, ghandi, etc

attack someone adjacent to you
attack someone that is weak
attack someone people hate

 

[atreas]

The problem you say can never be totally avoided, but usually it can be minimized. As already said before, there are guys that will always attack on you at a chance - Alex, Monty, Napoleon, Zenkhis, Toku, Izzy (if she has different religion), sometimes Ceasar, etc. There are also guys that will stay quiet even when they are annoyed, like Mansa, Gandhi, or Hatty. If you want to avoid backstabs, take out the lunatics or take care your relations with them (with many of them Cautious means just "ready for war").

Now it depends on the age. As you describe it you seem to refer to early wars, so I would suggest getting always Writing and establishing Open Borders concurrently with starting your other war operations (or, better, before them). Try to avoid establishing a state religion, unless you see your neighbours establishing it first. And, finally, make sure to continue building (chopping) units like if you were planning to invade "on the other side" of your country - the sight of some axes makes them very quiet. You will not avoid wars, but you will have less of them.

Yet, noone has found an absolute way of always avoiding war with (for example) Monty. That's also why I usually take Alex - I prefer not to have to play against Alex at the early age.

 

[Crighton]

attack someone adjacent to you
attack someone that is weak
attack someone people hate

Good advice, I would add:

-Pick someone you can beat.
-Pick someone worth beating.
-Peace is only temporary (and best viewed as a pause while you ramp up the military).
-The war doesn't end until he's either dead or relegated to obscurity on some remote islands.

Make monty and Alex your prime targets, Monty is insane and Alex is a jerk. Both make great war dogs to sick on others but you'll always have to put them down, sooner the better.

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

thanks for the advice.

I started a new game [as catherine], and because of my poor starting position [close to jungle and within sight of athens], I've been warring on and off all game. I eliminated Alex fairly early and chose my neighbour to the south [izzy] to be my new best friend. She really is the best pet, she'll go to war with anything I shake my stick at I'm finding. Cyrus is currently the one suffering at the hands of my combined force. And although queen vic is also at war with me for some reason napolean likes me and has been keeping her busy. I'm stomping my way to victory. Izzy has just recently picked up the conquistador, and I'm well on my way to getting those cossacks. England will burn next.

 

[Codeman]

i've had the same problem. thanks.

 

[Perfect_Blue]

I like to utilize the cease fires. Sack a city or two, cease fire, heal, repeat. Of course, its definately not something one should overuse, but if you're winning pretty well, and then come up to a city where your units take a lot of flak, it can be helpful. Sometimes I just really need to regroup, but don't want to take ten turns letting my enemy build up.