Ancient Combat Tips

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Polonius
Not that I'd do anything so cheesey [reloading] of course. It's my ...er...friend who does it sometimes..

Just tell your friend not to brag that he can beat the game. While reloading is essential for testing strategies, the unknowable future is essential for real game play.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Polonius
I read my enemy's entrails, tricky stuff like that - hard to explain.

It must be hard to explain. I have had great troubles reading my enemy's entrails until after I win the battle.

 

[brash]

Originally posted by Moulton
The random seed would always be saved on a save/reload. ...events are pre-assigned to a number, and that doesnt change.

The game works on the same random generator as the previous versions.

you can consider it like this.. every dice roll for the game is predetermined at the start of the game. This is fixed and can not be changed...but what the dice are used for can...

Lets say you save the game and do an attack and loose. Reload the game and do the attck agin and it will be the EXACTLY same result. Reload and attack with a unit with a better attack/defence ratio and you may win. Reload and use up that bad dice roll by doing some diplomacy. (when you talk to an opponnent you use up the current dice roll to determine the oppponents greeting to you) then do your attack again...you may win.

Of cause this is cheating...but its a great way to learn how the game opperates.

As an example I captured a city and 10 turns later it was crushed by culture and went back to my opponents. I reloaded the previous turn and rush built a settler in the down. This had the effect of changing my opponents move, causing him to attack somewhere different to previous, which effected the number of dice rolls used up on his turn. So the dice roll for wether my city would revolt was different. It stayed with me for the rest of the game ....

In general for combat...
Bombard if you can first.
Attack with any units that can retreat second
attack with your strongest, (in both attack value and hit points) next

 

[sadu]

My "Friend" tells me that the seed will vary if you attack with a mix of Vet and Elite units (not std units, because they suck). Try the attack first with the elite unit (hoping for a leader)- If he loses, reload and try again with a vet unit.
If you try again with a DIFFERENT elite unit, you will have the same result.

Anyway, this is a lame strategy, but I find myself tempted to use it. Civ2 had an option (called Iron Man) where it wouldn't let you save / load except on exit. This was good, as it kept you honest, and makes the victories more worthwhile. Does Civ3 have a similar option?

 

[tyguyx12]

I have found that while playing units have a set good/bad at attacking or defending. Some units are good attackers but poor defenders and the other way around. Also some are average at both, good at both, or bad at both. This same unit keeps these traits in every battle I've used them in. I often find that if lets say a horseman is particularly good at defense I will fortify him in a city and he will perform better than a spearman.

Remember that invincible spearman that won't lose a single hitpoint no matter what you throw at him? Well that is because he is extremely good at defending and to beat him you will need to use one of your units either far superior in technology or a unit that is extremely good at attacking.

If you pay attention you can keep an eye on specific units and use their attack/defense bonus to your advantage. :soldier:

 

[The Last Conformist]

In the documentation for the 1.21 Patch, it says that if you switch off the "Perserve Random Seed" rule, when setting up a game, will make reloads make combat (potentially) different. Haven't checked if it works, but that's an explicit statement by the game designers.

 

[Allemand]

I experimented a little with the random number results when 1.21f first came out, although not enough to bet on the results. The combat results (and other results, too) will change if you reload, but the change is limited. If you reload 50 times, you will probably only see three possible results out of the full range. That must mean the results are stacked, with only a few paths to follow.

I prefer to preserve the random seed on reloads because it reduces my desire to reload. Reloading is agony if I overdo it.

 

[Gundam]

Your tactics are ..waht can I say ? absolete.Don't bother to buid catapults..they are useless.The way to go in an ancient war is to go 35+ swordmen and u'll see that nothing really can stay in your way.
ps: when u lose 6 swordmen on a a couple of spearmen I guess it's time to do a load game and don't start on me that reload it;s cheesy couse I've seen it happen ( I lost 13 swordmen in one turn and god I hate this hf

 

[Robertr4836]

RE: Saving a game before a battle, restarting and getting the same result.

I saw another thread on this site that mentioned an option when you start a game that will randomize the seed generator. With this option selected you will get a different result from every battle.

I only save a game before a major political decision, not before battles so I never looked into the option but I'm sure if you search the FAQ you will find something on it.

 

[God]

I have 2 main tactics that I use to fight and win wars in the Ancient era:

1) ICS HOF style - Huge map, pangea, expansionist civ: Use ICS for the empire. Scouts are sent off to open huts. Between settlers in cities build chariots and barracks. Do this for a while. Hold off on horseback riding, by researching it but puting little bits of cash into it so it takes maximum amount of time. Completely halt research at times too. Have over 50+ chariots, upgrade them. Get the horsemen armies and take out some civs. Continue now building horsemen, marketplaces, workers, and occasional settler. Upgrade most of the horsemen to knights. You can do this without Leonardo's by saving money with no research b/c you should have tech lead by opening the huts. Take your 100+knights and take out a few more civs. Then start some research, build some improvements, and make more money. Upgrade knights to cavalry and finish off the rest of the civs. This is the basic tactic if you want to get an extremely high score for the Hall of Fame. Be warned, on huge maps with 300+ cities the game lags major. I was doing really well in one of my games and quit because it was too slow. I've beaten up all the civs with just knights and horsemen on monarch so cavalry may not be even needed too much.


2) This is for a normal game. Build warriors, chariots and archers between settlers. Build occasional worker. Get some cities, send a few archers and warriors and destroy a few cities of the enemy. You can't kill him because he'll have too many spearmen. Go around and beat up some other civs too. Later either wait and get more archers and finish off a crippled civ, or upgrade to horsemen and swordsmen and finish off the rest. Remember to build temples now and then, but focus on units. Wonders should only be rushed with GLs. This has worked on me on monarch level also. It works fine mostly on emperor too. Not sure about diety.

 

[Scyphax]

I aim to destroy or stiffle at least 1 Civ early in the game.
I prefer to use horsemen to attack but often use bowmen or swordsmen - I get these to elite by attacking barbarians.
If you attack early enough you will be attacking small cities defended by 1 regular warrior. 2-3 elite attacking units should take these out. After you have taken 1 or 2 cities you will probably be facing spearmen.
At this stage I concentrate on pillaging roads and resources. Inside the enemy civs territory I station spearmen on highground to act as defensive retreats for your attacking units. This should contain them until you get horsemanship (or iron working) if you don't already have it and build about 6 horsemen/swordsmen + 1 spearman.
By pillaging improvements the enemy cities should remain small and are now probably protected by 1 spearman and 1 bowman.
Use 6 horseman/swordsmen (with the spearman in defense) to take a small city. Proceed one city at a time avoiding any large or walled cities. I usually leave at least one city and offer peace in return for techs and gold.

 

[Dantius]

Someone mentioned how the AI manages to always build spearmen repetitively. Most of the time, they aren't building them in that city. They are moving them from the back undefended cities to the front lines to defend the capital or the important city. That's why it's important to attack with strong numbers at three different points, which might seperate your forces, but also seperates their own defenses... and usually, they ludicrously overestimate your attack and rush to defend the city, only to find out the two horsemen you sent there did not one damn thing of damage.

Usually, I attack with the idea of seperating their military forces with two "faulty" attacks with a fearable amount of men at way backwater edges of their civilization... seperating the defense and offense forces in two, away from the center point of attack... than, I move in with the true army, about 20 horsemen, 20 catapaults, 6 swordsmen for weakening them for horsemen to attack easier and maybe even a few warriors to cover my army from what little offense is left to stop me.

With the forces divided, I use the remaining units from my dunce attack to pillage roads around the cities. Pillaging is the most effective during ancient times, due to the reliance on expansion and happy citizens during that time. Also, cutting off the resources and defending them from enemy attackers is effective.

With the centerpoint of your attack within your grasp, preferably being the capital of the civilization which you proclaimed war on, use this as an area to heal your units between fighting the divided empire, and as a station to put more into. Your first priority should be to quell resisters, then move on and find another good couple of nearby cities to rest as well, garrenteeing your not culturally overthrown and lose all of your military units in healing (it's happened to me multiple times - it sucks).

With the empire divided by the center occupied friendly territory in your pocession, the use of diversion forces and the pillaging of roads connecting the two sides of the empire, you'll find it much easier to be a military genious during the ancient era. Now, just wait for that medeival, unique unit infested age and pray. ;-)

 

[PersianImmortal]

go with offensive/defensive unit pairs.. archer spearmen or horseman/spearmen.. better yet horsemen impi which can keep up with the speed..

Start a war for horses alone if u don't have them in your territory.. cuz face it.. Civilization favors the mounted combatant.

Attack cities with resources or luxuries instead of just attacking any closer city.. that hits the enemy hard and also gives u control of future resources.. often u can get the enemy down to it's knees if u can pillage it's iron sources instead of losing multiples of horsemen/swordsmen to regular fortified spearmen in size 4 cities.

 

[OmegaMega]

there is a "preserve random seed" option at the start page. If you turn it off, you will get different results. I was playing once and declared war on china as germany and begancrushing them. My mpp partner declared wawr on them too. I began winning. However, a barb galley ambushed and beat my galleon that was headed for the chinese continent, carrying critical defensive untis, so I realoaded. Unfortunatly, that save as a LONG time back, before the war. I went to war, my ally joined in. However, this time 2 other civs went to war the very next turn. Needless to say, china fell.

 

[test_specimen]

On levels up to monarch it might help to send a warrior exploring and upon finding the second or third city of an enemy A.I. attacking it. Often there is only a single warrior inside and it is not that unlikely that you win, you get a free city and you expanded towards him. Whenever I did that I made peace the next turn without problems. And it is also in those games, that you get an early lead.

About Catapults: I always thought they were useless and never built any. I even traded the ones I conquered for shields. And I don't like pillaging, especially when trying to conquer a city. I will have to rebuild the road and mines/irrigation if I conquer it, so why destroy it in the first place? Cutting off ressources from a capital is another thing.

As for reloading: I usually save games before I attack or change government. I never reload the saves from attack, but sometimes the ones before the revolution. If I just introduced Republic/Democracy and someone attacks me the next turn, that really pisses me off. But one should never reload because the enemy takes a city (you can reconquer it very easily anyway).

 

[Structure]

Don't underestimate the value of bowmen in ancient warfare. Swordsman are my personal favorite, as they are pretty unstoppable when you get a couple dozen rolling forward, but I was suprised how effective bowmen could be.

I have been stuck on maps/locations without horses or iron before, and rather than restart, I attacked with what I had, bowmen and spears. Not even catapults. Bowmen will beat fortified spearmen in small towns. They die rather rapidly, but if you attack with enough mass and sieze the right towns (the ones that give you iron and/or horses) they work.

I have also found massed catapults useful. Esp. if the defender has 3 strengh units (Hoplites, Legions, etc.). A stack of twenty, well defended, and with some attackers--either swords or horse--is a nice army. Slow and boring to play with, but effective.

As with any attack it is just important that you mass your units. Nothing worse than losing a bunch of units only to give the defender elite units.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

i am now in a game (deity, normal pangea, japan)

i have now 4 cities, have a fairly good starting ground, 3 neighbours all very close to me (just able to build 1 ring at distance 4 around capital and rush building a temple in one of the cities to defend my cultural border)

I just traded iron working, and found out that i have no iron and no horses in my empire. normally i start fighting when i have swordsmen and horsemen, now i need to fight to get those.

The only reasonably near iron source is next to the iroquois capital. this capital is seperated from my border by 3 squares of mountains, so building a road will take long.

I am planning to build and send about 6 veteran archers, 1 spearmen and a few swordsmen to take that capital.
i must keep the city in order to maintain my iron. i can do this by placing my units around the city and capturing it back in case it flips, or go quel the resistance, rush a temple in the city, keep it full of units and then get a barracks there to upgrade my warriors.
i think i am not gonna build a road to it, so that i can keep building warriors and send them there to upgrade to swordsmen.

any suggestions?

oh. this all needs to happen fast, prior to 2000BC is definately my goal. I don't want to take the time to build catapults, as i want to take it in 1 turn and get to peace again. If needed, i will raze the city and build my own.

 

[Krayzeenbk]

You don't need to worry about the capital flipping this early (unless the AI has several pretty-serious culture cities around). Get the resistance quelled really fast and get the city starved. In the process, pop a worker or three (if it is large), and get that road built - unless you have a large surplus of money and very low shield production in your core.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Wow. This thread is almost two years old ... and there's ten months between Structure's and WackenOpenAir's posts.

WOA: how did you get those Swordsmen if you've got no Iron?

 

[Krayzeenbk]

I wondered that too...
Trade perhaps?