10 Don'ts of War

[maltz]

Hi there. I am still new to the game (I've only beaten the Monarch level.) Yet I have experiences in similar online strategy games before. Here are my 10 Don'ts of war (what one shouldn't do in a war). Hopefully it applies here, too, especially in multiplayers. I modified the contents a bit to fit the Civ style. Enjoy!


1: Don't go to war, unless you will gain in the long run.

This one is obvious. Nobody is willing to shoot their feet, but they still do, possibly due to passion or other kinds of mental incompetence.

It is easy to tell whether you will gain in the long run. An early land grab gives you more resource to compete against your opponents, but also possibly trigger their hostility in multiplayer situations.


2: Don't drag the war. Cease fire as soon as possible.

Your citizens don't like war. They get unhappy, and your productivity/resarch take a hit. Your cities cannot build useful buildings when they are training units. The shorter the war is, the less price you pay.


3: Don't fight alone. Always make more friends than foes.

In the early stage, 1 vs. 1 warfare is going to last a long time, devastating your country in terms of lost terms in economical/research buildings. Find out who also hates your target country, and invite/bribe them into the war, preferrably even before you declare it. 2:1 makes a huge difference.


4: Don't hesitate. Grab your earliest chance.

What are the good chances? When you get an edge in military. Axeman, catapult, maceman, grendier, infantry... every leap ahead provides oppurtunities. Or when you get a new friend and your opponent hasn't. You wait a few more turns, then your opponent will probably hold an equal ground again. Always on the look.


5: Don't be afraid of the strong. Unite the weak!

Are you not the highest score holder? You must replace it, with yourself! Avoiding the strong will only give the strong more and more edge over the others. There will be a point when everything is too late. The sooner you act, the better chance you have. How? Of course, get some help! Human players are all reasonable. If the weak AI is not willing to start the war, befriend the strong, and ask him to attack the weak, and backstab it. The AI will hate you, but it is too late.


6: Don't be too confident. Constantly weaken your toughest opponent.

Even if you are the most powerful, you still have to be careful. You can always befriend with the weakest civs, trade your goodies with theirs, and together you weaken the most capable opponents. By keeping all other civs roughly at the same strengh, separated, preferrably at war, they don't have enough power to merge each other, and they will stay weak until your complete domination. Much like the English did, and the Americans do.


7: Don't fight blind. Find out their weakness.

Obviously, you want to use your best to hit their worst. Keep doing that you will have a sweet victory. If your enemy is all fortified into their stronghold, you really need to reconsider -- maybe you should try here next time. Maybe you can lure them out with a well-planned weakness of yours, or attack somewhere else so they will go rescue. You might even befriend with this "worthy opponent".


8: Don't separate. Concentrate, and break.

Don't separate your forces into several stacks of equal strength. Instead of having 10 stand-offs with no progress at all, make 10 flashing breakthroughs in a series. For example, your opponent spread out its 50 units into 10 teams of fives. You also have 50 units. But instead, you make a shock team of 14, and 9 teams of fours. (14+9*4=50) Your shock team of 14 prevails against 5, while your 9 teams of four hold against 9 teams of five. Let the snowball roll and you become unstoppable.


9: Don't get lazy. Act fast!

One unit joining 2 battlefields is equivalent two units. if you have a good mobility, you can really break the enemies' defense in a series with a fast and concentrated offense. Diplomatically, you also have to act fast, especially in multiplayer situations. If I already make friend with A, I wouldn't make friend with B. If you approach me first, you become my friend. Proven fast: the winnder always think & act fast.


10: Don't make people think you are an a*hole.

The final rule is very simple. A good war is fought when people think you are a worthy opponent. Perhaps you demostrated supreme commanding skills, or perhaps you showed respect when you are defeated by the more capable. You can always learn from mistakes and become better next time.

As for AI opponents -- obviously you want to please them until you are about to completely cripple them.


That's basically it.

 

[DistortedTruth]

Very nice advice It will prolly help us new people out a lot. Thanks!

 

[biratets]

11. Loose.

No seriously, you've got some good points there. No. 3 can be argued as you don't need much friends assuming you are strong enough to make it on your own. Also when allied, you have to share land/cities with your friends.

 

[Armorydave]

>>>>>>>>>2: Don't drag the war. Cease fire as soon as possible.

Your citizens don't like war. They get unhappy, and your productivity/resarch take a hit. Your cities cannot build useful buildings when they are training units. The shorter the war is, the less price you pay.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


This is not an absolute rule, in fact it is often bad advice. I will almost always drag out a war with a powerful/more advanced opponent that is throwing away units attacking strong defensive positions. You can still produce whatever you want while at war but the AI will do nothing but crank out units. Prolonging a war can allow you to catch up to a more advanced civilization because it will pull their focus away from science and industry. If it is not causing red faces in your cities and your defenses are solid, then it is not impacting you in any material way.

Delaying peace also tends to bring more lucrative peace offers from your opponent. I dislike declaring wars because of the -3 hit to your relations so once I am at war I want to get the absolute maximum out of the encounter. That often involves rejecting multiple peace offers before my objectives have been met.

My main advice to war mongers is to remember the Powell doctrine and bring overwhelming force to any engagement. Nothing is more frustrating than bringing 10 units to sack a city, spending them all and leaving 1 or 2 badly wounded (but now highly promoted) defenders alive when the assualt is over. Other than that, all other rules are flexible depending on the situation.

 

[GeorgeOP]

You don't need friends, no. But when there are 8 civs and you go to war against one civ, that leaves the other 6 civs to keep building and teching at a peaceful rate. I make friends to attack with me just so they go into war production also.

 

[DistortedTruth]

You don't need friends, no. But when there are 8 civs and you go to war against one civ, that leaves the other 6 civs to keep building and teching at a peaceful rate. I make friends to attack with me just so they go into war production also.

Thats a damn good idea

 

[azzkicar]

Definitely even if you don't need friends, you want them to fight each other, not band together and attack you. Those are solid strategies and I will definitely work them into my game.

About prolonging war, I don't think during a peace treaty or ceasefire AI just stops making troops, especially if you manage to weaken their military considerably. Sometimes you simply need a reprieve to allow you most promoted units some time to recover before launching another assault.

And who cares about - to relations if your goal is to wipe the opponent off the map? hehe

 

[DarkSchneider]

Generally good stuff, although I think that numbers 2,3 and 8 are far from being rules.

Counter to number 2: It is a good idea to end the war quickly, but you should pick your end point in advance. Once the computer is willing to talk, he will stay willing regardless of what happens. Once you know your opponent will make peace, use an all out push to take as many cities as you can, since you don't have to worry about defending them.

Counter to number 3: War with friends is not a great idea unlesss you know how to take all of your opponents cities for yourself. I let one friend start without me and the entire continent was wipped out beofer I got there.

Counter to number 8: I think the key is necessary force, at some points this is simply 1-2 units for every one defending unit in each city and enough siege equipment to lower the defenses. Just make sure you also have enough to leave defenders in the cities you take along your rampage.

 

[GenericKen]

11. Have an objective. Better yet, have a serries of sub-objectives. Act decisively to accomplish your goals, and reap the rewards. Wars are expensive; never lose sight of your payoff (razing a resource, taking a city, killing a wonder).

12. Wars are won in their preparation. While it's important to capitalize on advantages while they're still significant, it's more important to actually win the war. There is a point at which it becomes right to attack; watch for it.

 

[DangerousMonkey]

Those tips generaly make sense, but I'd have to say I dissagree about "attacking the strongest opponent" instead of the weakest one idea you seem to put foreward. Of cource, you'll have to attack the big-guys sometime, but you should make an effort to eliminate the weak links and fold them into your empire first, so that you'll be that much stronger when the final showdown comes.

 

[thordk]

5: Don't be afraid of the strong.

that's a rather simple yet good advice. don't be afraid to even attack an opponent who has superior units. cavalry with catapult/cannon backup is able to conquer SAM and riflemen defended cities with ease. just don't wait too long. 20 turns to get tanks will enable the opponent to get some more units, just attack right away.

do you want a final showdown, facing an insanely strong opponent? or do you want to be the strongest empire for the whole game. then attack, attack, attack. no matter how strong the foe is.

 

[fung3]

Those tips generaly make sense, but I'd have to say I dissagree about "attacking the strongest opponent" instead of the weakest one idea you seem to put foreward. Of cource, you'll have to attack the big-guys sometime, but you should make an effort to eliminate the weak links and fold them into your empire first, so that you'll be that much stronger when the final showdown comes.

This is an interesting comment.

I usually do the opposite. I focus on my strongest near neighbour. My view is that in Civ 4 , if left to it, the strong get stronger. Therefore as time goes by the strongest get harder and harder to take out.
In almost every case I take my stongest rival and assimilate his entire empire into mine. The exceptions being if I have a very aggressive neighbour like Alexander. In that case I may take him out real early and then rebuild and focus on the conquering of the tough guy on the block. If successful my empire is near unassailable after that.

 

[King Jason]

Battle tip: If you're going in for a "short war" for whatever reasons, examples being war declared on you and you want to end it as shortly as possible, or if you follow the "sign cease fires fast" rule, then Pillage! Pillage alot, pillage everything, with priority on cottages/towns, the more advanced the improvement, the better. Roads would be lowest on the priorites list since they're pretty damn easy to build. That doesn't mean not pillage them, that just means work fast to get as much as everything else first.

The comments about using war time to get ahead in the world are very valid, the A.I. makes the shift into battle mode, whilst you have the option of continuing normal growth while just defending. Combining this with Pillaging is very effective. The enemy economy takes quite a hit, city population is often lost, loosing strategic resources makes them building weaker units while in "unit-build-mode", and then of course the loss of a town is truly devasting.

Use cavalry or anything with a 2 movemeny speed to pillage, use several (3-4) and sending them in groups isn't a particularly bad Idea, depends on the amount of terrain you have to cover before the war is out. I personally find france to be one of the best pillagers, since their Musketeers can move two spaces, you can send them out on their own, or better yet stack them with cavalry. Horse units and a gunpowder units aren't a bad stack combo at all, especially if you're ahead in the tech tree.


a long-winded post to explain a simple thing, and sure it takes away from direct attack and defense personel, but if you drag wars on and off through out the ages, or are just in for a quick fight, this is good to keep you ahead, not to mention you do get a portion of gold for pillaging improvements.

-King

 

[GIO888]

Get rich and pay the AI to declare war on each other!

Also, get fast, two-move units, declare war and pillage til they beg you to stop - here, have all my gold AND the tech of your dreams AND my 9th largest city.

Works better the stronger they are - just get pillaging immediately, and of course, don't take their cities.

 

[Shadzy19]

2) im not sure how cease fires work but if u sign peace after you meet one of your objectives and do this lets say 5 times you will end up with a few people with -5 you declared war on our best friend , in the sake of war weariness it doesnt help that much neither cause it only vades slowly.

3) Sure this works when you have a tech lead or just have friends with a common enemy otherwise this surely isnt as easy.

5) Good luck , if you want to attack a civ with triple your power graph
This may work on the lower levels but at emperor / immortal atttacking the strongest really looks like a suicide wish. Kill the weak and get stronger , you will always have better tactics then a AI and if you have better production with more cities you have a way better chance. Unless you can find a ally who really hates the civ in question also its gonna be very hard to get a ally cause you end up with we would have nothing to gain or we fear his military.
OTOH if you can sign a weak civ that is close to the civ in question and your army isnt there to protect him you might even end up making him even stronger .

 

[fung3]

emperor / immortal atttacking the strongest really looks like a suicide wish. QUOTE]

Monarch

 

[petey]

13) Don't neglect your border cities away from the front

It's tempting in a war to throw all your units at the guy you're attacking, but remember that while you're in that war, someone else can come and attack you from behind, so you need to keep a defensive force protecting your cities away from the battle. Also, remember that all coastal cities are border cities.

 

[Viper Daimao]

here's a specific tip that I just had happen to me. Bombers are great because you can base them in friendly cities and then use them to harras enemies that are far away from you, but near your friend. However, before you base a bomber in a friendly city, make sure that civ doesnt have open boarders with your enemy civ. I lost two steal bombers because the arabians quickly marched an infantry to the foreign city i was in. talk about not respecting soverign territory.

 

[Civ4Addict]

I don't know about rule number three. It seems for me that the AI always gets in the way and takes the cities I want.

 

[CivFan91]

2: Don't drag the war. Cease fire as soon as possible.

Your citizens don't like war. They get unhappy, and your productivity/resarch take a hit. Your cities cannot build useful buildings when they are training units. The shorter the war is, the less price you pay.

My dragging out of wars gained me 50% of the world, and I only had one city with a face on it after flattening the English, the French, and the Greeks. (I almost felt pity for Greece. He was such a good neighbor...)

Here's a good one:

Combined Arms is more than a technology.

It's a strategy. This rule was much more necessary in Civ III, but always combine stacks of archery, melee, collateral (catapult and above) and defensive, such as Pikemen. Forces like these are not easily stopped.

Outnumber your enemy so clearly that resistance is nothing more than a formality.

Last night I was fighting Greece. They had some powerful defenses. I charged my knights only to find the odds were 12.0 to 19.2. Those are incredible odds. But I had about 6 catapults, reducing the city defenses to 0%. Even then, my charging knights had a hard time winning. It cost me no less than 7 to take the city. But it was worth it; I took their capital, the Pyramids, the great Lighthouse, and their largest city all in one fell swoop. And it was mainly because of attrition. Which leads me to my next point:

If you have reinforcements on the way, don't hesitate to fight at incredible odds.

My previous story should speak for itself here.