Advanced Combat Tactics: Artillery Attack

[RickiusMaximus]

This is the first in a series of articles that will go further into the mechanics of advanced military maneuvers that will give you the edge.

ARTILLERY ATTACK

Theres a simple tactic which will allow you to defeat well defended cities- dont let them get defended!

This is fighting at the most simple level-

Attacker- A standard frontal assault with artillery (backed up by infantry) bombarding the city to submission and then cavalry killing the redlined defenders and taking the city.

Defender- Rushes units to defend the base.

So, provided the defender has good lines of supply they can fill the city with enough defenders that the city is pounded into the ground with artilery so much so that it becomes useless.


This time the attacker will place the main stack BEHIND the city, (make sure you give the city a wide berth otherwise you'll be attacked before you get in position) on the most defenceable square suitable-



The first thing you need to do is bombard the road marked with a B, why?
You want the enemy civ to move units to the city rather than attack your stack.
The enemy civ will use the shortest road to get to the city, if your on it then he will attack you.

When you bombard the road marked with B then units from the bottom city will re-route via the road like so-



Now, because you left a road to the city the enemy civ will attempt to defend the city rather than attack your stack. As they pass by your stack you will get a chance to bombard the hell out of him and kill him with cavalry.

With this method you can wipe out all of the reserve defence units, and a good few of his attacking units too- this will weaken all other cities as they lose defenders.

What next? Unless you brought a huge amount of units you wont kill all the defenders and some will get though to defend the city.

So dont attack it! By the time the enemy defenders have regrouped and repaired in the city under seige you will already be positioned outside another city and once again the defenders will march right by you to defend it-



Just be careful that your units never sit on a road thats the shortest distance between two cities and your stack should be safe from all-out attack.

 

[Own]

Good ideas, but the pics are hard to understand. Could you post ingame screenshots?

 

[Pentium]

There is one problem for your plan: AI city spacing is very wide, and it's not always possible to bombard one city, and then another without moving your stack.

If you want to understand the pics, you will.

 

[RickiusMaximus]

the stack does move, if you check fig.3 you'll see that the stack has moved a few squares south.

Curiously I thought diagrams would be clearer than ingame but I'll see if i can stick some together!

 

[GeneralMatt]

I inderstood them.
This teqhnique is basically to wear down the defenders until they ar very weak?

 

[Dragonlord]

Very interesting technique, especially at higher levels, where the AI has insane numerical superiority at the beginning of a war.

I've usually preferred to wear the AI down by tempting him to attack into my territory, which he will always do if you declare war. Once there, he comes under Artillery attack much as described above - except that wounded units have a hard time retreating once in my territory.

But the above could be a nice supplementary tactic to further reduce his numbers after he stops coming at me...

BTW, I found the diagrams easy to understand, no problem.

 

[Stephan Hoyer]

To be honest, I can't really see the need for this sort of strategy. Even when the AI has loads of extra units at the start of a war, generally they won't place them in cities beyond two or three defenders unless its a capital or wonder city. With decent artillery/calvery stacks (defended by infantry), you should be able to take a city in one turn, anyways.