War Over-preparedness?

[automator]

I'm starting to think I over prepare for war. I think it stems from too many Civ3 games where I'd go into battle, then have to stop at winning one, and maybe two, cities before having to give up because I'd run out of available units.

So now I'm in this habit of building two armies consisting of 3-4 battlers (axes/knights/calvary/etc), 2-3 "attack archers" or SAMs, 2-3 "defenders", and 5-10 ballistics. Unfortunately, this size of a force takes a LONG TIME. By the time I've massed my armies and gotten them to the border, most of the units are outdated (I even avoid researching techs that would obsolete the units while I'm massing my army), the political situation might have changed drastically (making my intended enemy too friendly to me or my other friends), etc. This situation is only made worse if I have to transport the forces across the sea (as then I'll usually send even more troops, especially defenders).

It's not as if I have anemic production, either. By the time I start planning big middle-age or later attacks (ancient wars I keep pretty small scale) I have 3-4 industrial powerhouses who can put out any unit in an average of 2-3 turns. Usually I even have one city that'll bust out a unit per turn.

Have you had good luck using a considerably smaller force? Or am I just par for course?

One thing I will say, I can roll through most enemy territory no problem, without reprisal since I've got 'em busy on two fronts. Then as I'm resting my troops I send a couple archers to defend the city.

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

I think it depends on how far you are from the theatre of war. If you'll be fighting far from your production centers, you want to have your force pre-built as much as possible. But if it's on your immediate border, you can afford to bring the units in as they're made (especially with siege units and defenders for captured cities).

 

[thordk]

usually my "armies" consist of 8-10 units. 2-3 city raiders, 2 siege weapons, 1 defender (adapted to the civ i'm facing. i.e. against mongols it's nice to have some spearmen against his keshiks) and the rest filled with what's around and deals damage.

though in my current game i wanted to conquer khan's captial since it has the hinduism unique building in it, gaining +25 gold every turn.
my best units were axes, swords and catapults while his city has been defended by longbowmen, guarded by 60% cultural defense and walls. so my army changed to 6 catapults, 4 axes and 2 swords.
cultural defense has been down in round 1. promoted all cats with barrage and attacked the city. lost 3 of them while doing so. the first attack then was led by a city raider 2 sword. he got killed. next units has been two axes. have been killed too. but the last axes and swords successfully conquered the city.

long story short: you don't need up to date units. just crank out what you've got and throw it against your enemy
it's not a bad idea to let a early city produce nothing more than swords, axes and catapults. they are able to conquer cities a long time.

 

[absurdly]

Play Epic or Marathon.

 

[cleverhandle]

I have this problem as well. As thordk said, I think that you often need to settle for an imperfect force and just use what you've got. 6 Maceman might be nice, but 3 Maces and 3 Swords will probably do just as well. Waiting on perfection just gives your target more time to tech up and produce units. Also, I think that upgrading is important here. It's certainly expensive and you're not going to upgrade your entire army. But dropping science to 0% for a turn or two may get your army out the door 2-3 turns faster, and that can be a big difference.

 

[suspendinlight]

I suffer from this sometimes also. A couple games ago I had a huge build up of tanks, bombers, marines and artillery to attack and hold Gandhi's holy city of Confucianism. Finally I had all my units in place and my full transports were waiting one turn right outside of Gandhi's borders for the landing next turn. Of course right as I hit end turn, Huyana Capac moves a stack of Gunships into my colonies and declares war. I think God was with Gandhi on that day as I detoured my forces to Incan land.

Also, I often find that I sometimes wait so long and then the turn before I am ready to attack, the enemy has upgraded all of their archers to longbows or their muskets to rifles. It may be better to just attack a few turns earlier and do some pre-siege pillaging.

 

[automator]

Thanks for the feedback. Sometimes I do just rush the attack, especially if I start seeing upgraded units in the Civ's further away cities. (e.g. border town has just longbows, but caravels start seeing muskets or rifles in far out towns).

Slightly off point:

defended by longbowmen

Playing with China for the first time. Their Cho-nu-go (or whatever) unique unit is AWESOME against longbows. I've tossed a Chinese UU against fortified longbowmen in cities with 50%+ defense, and still had them come out winning. The collateral damage is great. Double first strike, bonus against melee and collateral damage. I think I've found my favorite UU.

 

[azzkicar]

In war it is more important to be at the right place, right time than to be prepared. If you see a weakness, even if you aren't fully ready, you can do a lot of damage.

In one Prince game as Qin, Mansa asked me to go to war against Catherine. Even though I was nowhere ready for full scale war, I knew that Catherine was at war with both Egyptians and Mansa, and most of her troops are on the opposite side of me. I seized the moment, send the units I do have (I only had about 10 units on offense). I was able to capture ALL her cities with hardly any resistence. She had rifling yet I only saw 2-3 riflemen total. With a defense mostly of longbowmen while I have rifles, I think I lost like 1-2 units. That's it.

Also, remember that pillaging is a great way to make money and hurt your opponents. Even if you can't capture their cities (say you don't have enough catapults), simply pillaging everything in sight will net you decent cash flow. I especially love pillaging cottages / hamlets.

And Chinese UU is deadly. Use them like catapults FTW!

 

[Kenji]

well...my war usually goes with 2 runners (chariots/knights/cal) 2 striker (swordman/maceman etc with city raider), 2 defenders (1 vs melee/gun type, 1 horse type) , 3-5 accuracy catapults (yes, always catapults, even combined calvary stack) and 2-5 city raider sieger (cannon+)

pull over with catapults throw stone (drop most cul-def%) then move in those city raider cannons...a city raider 3 cannon can usually win a rifleman defender 2, once u killed the 1st defender / or died the first city raiding cannon, the others are just trash =)

 

[Helmling]

I've found that in Civ 4, much more so than in Civ 3, I have to be ever-ready for war. The AI smells weakness like never before in the history of the series.

I always have one potential offensive stack somewhere, and it's best to make sure you keep it up to date, or at least have the cash to upgrade it in a pinch.

 

[eg577]

I don't think you need to drag along knights, archers, axemen and pikemen with you in every battle. For city assaults you can stick to just stacks of swordsmen in the ancient age and macemen+catapults later on. The thing is, the AI always has 75% archers so you don't need a mixed force. The odd defending axeman in the ancient age is best dealt with by using more swordsmen. A few axemen or mounted units won't help kill a lone defending axeman because the archers or spearmen stand in your way. In order for a mixed force to mean squat you have to have enough of one unit type to "brute force" their way past all the defenders that unit type is bad against. Since the AI uses so many archers compared to spears and axemen, you may as well stick to just swordsmen.

Most of the time your stack is large enough to make the AI completely refuse to attack them directly. All his units will then either be defending in the cities or running into your territory beelining for easy targets. If your stacks *are* getting attacking however then I would invest in one or two cover units like axemen or spearmen to minimize the losses. You don't want more than that because they are usually useless for attacking cities. The other good use of non-sword units is to deal with the AI's 'attack force', i.e. those annoying stragglers which tend to avoid your units and go straight for poorly defended cities or resources. Since these units are only in groups of 1 or 2 they are easy to kill with the right counter units.

If you are having trouble building up an army in the first place then you need to build less improvements. Creative is a nice warmongering trait because you can go a long time with just a barracks and nothing else. A simple rule of thumb I usually use to force myself to build units:

-If you are building up your army: No remotely decent city builds improvements.
-If your stack isn't slowed by new units being diverted to deal with stragglers: One good city at a time can make an improvement
-If your stack has lots of 'leftovers' (units who didn't attack) when conquering a city: Set 2-3 of your good cities to make improvements.

 

[Nuke_Exchange]

This usually works with me:
Maintain a good defencive force and a small stack of pillagers (Horse units) And a Small attack force. And have atleast 2 factory cities. Spiritual trait
If Invaded; switch to Police state\Thereocracy The Horses will single out pillagers and your defenders should hold, use the offensive force to attack and raze\capture a shrub city. limiting the AI's attack. The Factorys will keep up a stream of experienced up to date units, eventually overpowering the enemy. (If his standing army doesn't outnumber you 3-1)
If Invading: use the horses to pillage; Capture some moderatly defended ciy. and keep up a steady stream of units fitting the situation. Eventually the loss of improvements will wilt his economy, ending the war.
Tested on Noble.

 

[punchandpie]

I usually try to exploit weakness as soon as possible, even if my units are outdated, I just pump out what I got and go in for the kill, or just to plunder his resources and upgrade units when I have the cash/techs to do it. Sometimes you just have to hit the AI harder and faster then they can and keep them off balance.

 

[Wodan]

Kenji's got the right mix. You don't need a huge number of other units, what you need are lots of cats/artillery. The only time a huge number of other units are needed are when you don't have the capability or foresight to have had those cats.

Wodan

 

[rickmc]

1. pillage early
2. pillage often
3. attack early
4. attack often
5. suicide catapaults
6. take a strategic city and culture bomb to kill his production in other cities
7. get war help from a civ on the other side of his territory
8. draw defenders out from the city bonuses
9. pillage
10. attack

i try to knock out at least 3 civs by 1000AD on Noble. more if you play against 6+ civs.

 

[Barney's Soul]

You can't overprepare, because frankly you might get unlucky like me and end up having a 3-1 It's either have an huge army with maitince costs sending you to the poorhouse, or get mauled over by 3 oppanents. What will you pick? I always pick the formor and get lots of cities, bankrupting me.

 

[Thalassicus]

Playing as Catherine, I have a definite long-term strategy in every game. Cossacks are unbelievably powerful against Longbows and Musketmen, completely eliminating the need for seige of any kind against them (18 strength, ignores physical defenses, and +50% vs Mounted). They only can go without significant seige support until Riflemen show up, however, which is a very short window of oppertunity on hard difficulty levels.

As a result, I prepare for that moment throughout the first half of the game. I expand at a good pace and build up infrastructure, fighting a defensive/pillaging war with one of my neighbors to gain experienced Elephants (or Knights) and get the Heroic Epic.

The military city gets the most health/happiness/production buildings and food/hammer improvements possible, to be ready for continuous unit produciton by Feudalism + Theocracy. At that point I switch over to constant Longbows for about a fourth of the game until Cossacks are available.

I get Military Tradition free with Liberalism, and trade Liberalism with one of the tech-advanced AI's for Gunpowder. By this point I usually have longbows in every city and some spares for garrisoning captured cities.

Immediatly, with my empire ready to go, I drop to 0 research and I start cranking out 8-xp Cossacks from my military city, usually one per two turns. I upgrade my existing mounted units to Cossacks (often five or so) and send them to the frontline of the civ I'm at war with, turning the war on it's head and going on a blitzing offensive. Usually, since this civ has been at war with me for much of the game, they'll have nothing but longbows and it's a complete rout. I keep on going right through the second civ, slowing down to bombard the fortifications occasionally as I begin to face muskets. After that I take a breather to solidify my territory, rebuild the AI's crummy improvements, and hole up until Tanks roll around.

Expansion is easily financed at this period in the game by all the cottages that begin maturing into towns, which get a huge boost from Free Speech, Printing Press, and the Financial trait. Captured cities and territory are also very easy to consolidate with the Cultural trait, building up culture (and a defens rating) right away.

I've learned that in Civ IV, you always have to be prepared for your next war ahead of time (even if that war might never come), to utilize the units to their maximum advantage while available. It also helps to be playing on Epic or Marathon, where units build somewhat faster than buildings, and have longer to move around before becoming obsolete.