attacking a weak or a strong enemy?

[andyr74]

A very long time ago I started to play civ I, then civ 2. I played a bit civ 3 and some time ago I played civ 4. The last time I played civ 4 was more than 1 year ago.

Last week I started again with a warlord level game on a large (or huge) map. This was the same as the last time I played. I started slowly just to learn the game again. Maybe a bit to slowly. Unluckily in my own cities, I didn't have horses. So I had to defeat my weakest neighbours to have them. I took 4 of his cities and he became my vasal.

The situation so far: I have 1 vasal, the strongest civ has 2 and there are 3 other civs on this continent.

Now I wanted to attack the weakest civ left. He was a bit behind me in terms of strong units. I took some time to build an army with a lot of units (cavalery, infantery, machinegun, cannons/artillery,...) and I placed them besides the border so I could attack easyly. I played much slower compared to my last game because it was allready 1880AD or something. But it was a nice game to learn tactics and to learn all units and advances again.

I started to attack and after some turn (4 or 5) I allready had 4 of his cities. 2 turns later I took another one but then the stronest civ decleared war togheter with 2 of his vasal. My border citys had no or old defences this time, so there was not much I could do.

To learn more tactics I went back to the turn before I started the attack. this time I upgrades the defences of my border city's first. By the time I wanted to attack my weak neighbour, he had new units. The same as I had.
I saved the game and wanted to trie something else.

I went back again to the turn before my atack. This time I started the attack and at the same time I upgrades my defences of my border citys. I upgrades my units and builded new units for these citys. When I had 4 or 5 of his cities, my border cities had each 4 of 5 units. But at this time the strongest civ declared war again. He attacked with his vasal and with a large number of units. This is my present situation.

Now I could try to hold of this strong civ and in at the same time defend the cities I just took.

What would be a good strategy in this situation?
1) Attack the weak enemy like I did/tried while upgrading my defences. Do the other civs know I'm attacking someone so that if they attack me, I have to share my concentration and resources?
2) In stead of attacking the weak enemy, should I try to attack the strong enemy? Then there is just one civ to worry about and I will be prepared.

So ... some strategy advice wanted

 

[futurehermit]

Do you need to attack the weak opponent in order to win. It doesn't sound like domination is feasible in this game. Why are you attacking that opponent in the first place?

 

[andyr74]

Do you need to attack the weak opponent in order to win. It doesn't sound like domination is feasible in this game. Why are you attacking that opponent in the first place?

I think I'm a bit late for global domination. I could go for another type of victory. But at this stage I'm learning the game again. That's also why I want to attack an enemy to learn different stategies.
I could start a new game and play a bit faster, but then there is no fun. In this game I just want to explore different things.

 

[carl corey]

The problem with waiting long enough that some AIs will have vassals is that it becomes much harder to deal with them as you've just noticed. Either you attack them in which case you have to get a much bigger army than usually used against one enemy, or you attack someone else and risk being backstabbed by the AI who has vassals. The key is to BE the one who has vassals. So try to go to war earlier, and when you do it pick a fight with the strongest AI you have near you. The risk of being backstabbed is lower from the more peaceful (hence weaker) AIs, and once you're done with the most powerful AI it's easy to conquer the weaker ones one by one.

That said, you're past this situation in your game, so let's deal with the current situation. What's the power difference between you and the AI+vassals once you upgrade everything you want to upgrade? If it's in your favor, attack him, but try to concentrate the attack in order to kill as many troops as early as possible. Also try to take cities from the main AI, so that the vassals get a chance to brake free. You could try bribing the other free AI in the war on your side, that way you won't have to worry about anything. If the power difference is in favor of AI+vassals, simply build more troops. Taking on the weak free AI should be a last resort; if the AI+vassals starts a war against the weak AI you're better off joining the war against the strong one!

 

[andyr74]

The problem with waiting long enough that some AIs will have vassals is that it becomes much harder to deal with them as you've just noticed. Either you attack them in which case you have to get a much bigger army than usually used against one enemy, or you attack someone else and risk being backstabbed by the AI who has vassals. The key is to BE the one who has vassals. So try to go to war earlier, and when you do it pick a fight with the strongest AI you have near you. The risk of being backstabbed is lower from the more peaceful (hence weaker) AIs, and once you're done with the most powerful AI it's easy to conquer the weaker ones one by one.

That said, you're past this situation in your game, so let's deal with the current situation. What's the power difference between you and the AI+vassals once you upgrade everything you want to upgrade? If it's in your favor, attack him, but try to concentrate the attack in order to kill as many troops as early as possible. Also try to take cities from the main AI, so that the vassals get a chance to brake free. You could try bribing the other free AI in the war on your side, that way you won't have to worry about anything. If the power difference is in favor of AI+vassals, simply build more troops. Taking on the weak free AI should be a last resort; if the AI+vassals starts a war against the weak AI you're better off joining the war against the strong one!

I know I should have played faster earlier in the game.
I thought of beginning a new game but for the fun I want to tried this game further on.
There is not much power differnece between me and the AI+Vassal. The only problem is he is bigger. Neither is stronger. Maybe I am a very little ahaed.
I think I still have some savegames from just before my attack. So I can go back some more and retry with another strategy.

 

[vanatteveldt]

@andyr74

Make sure that you have siege units (cannons, artillery) and strong attack units (cavalry or infantry with combat of pinch) in your defending cities. If the enemy SOD comes, counterattack in your territory with massive siege and your attack units. This is often a very cost effective way to reduce the power of an AI. Use this either to buy time to keep gobbling up the weaker civ, or as a prelude to an attack on the stronger CIV proper.

 

[carl corey]

The fact that he's bigger is precisely why you should strike as soon as possible. Having more land increases all the other advantages in time.

A few more questions: what's the tech situation between you and the AI+vassals? Are you ahead, especially in military techs? If so, then the strength difference may be misleading, as chances are you won't lose many troops if you can attack some of his on the first turn of war. What about the vassals? You could gift some techs to get your vassal to tech parity before going to war. Also, you could bribe other AIs too (and not the weakest one) if they are close to the AI+vassals.

 

[Bibor]

Andyr,

Every war must have a reason. It has to be beneficial for you. Not every war ends in capturing some/most/all enemy cities. Some wars are mere "raids" on enemy infrastructure.
I sometimes find myself attacking an enemy with a big army for no other reason but to destroy his big army (a feat which leads to shifts in diplomatic relations).
You should be checking the foreign advisor every few turns (if not every turn). The graph (under statistics) that displays the current enemy military power is also very important.

Short version: don't go to war except if the sacrifices are worth the investment.

If you lost 20 units that cost 200 hammers each, that's 4000 hammers wasted. Wasted if you didn't gain anything from the war. However if you have 20 cities and you captured a new health resource, you just gained 20 more citizens that will work for you! If those same citizens yield 5 of some resource per turn by working in the fields or as specialists, you will regain the lost investment in 4000/(5*20)= 40 turns! Anything after 40 turns is a pure gain. Obviously I'm simplifying things, but you get the picture.

 

[futurehermit]

I think I'm a bit late for global domination. I could go for another type of victory. But at this stage I'm learning the game again. That's also why I want to attack an enemy to learn different stategies.
I could start a new game and play a bit faster, but then there is no fun. In this game I just want to explore different things.

I don't see why that is helpful for you. What I was getting at is that you should always have a reason for what you are doing in a game. Practicing not having a reason isn't very helpful imo.

What are you gaining by attacking this weaker civ? That should be what you ask yourself. You admit you are probably too late for domination. So, how are you going to win? Most likely by space. Do you have enough land to win? If not, then that might be a viable reason for attacking the weaker civ. However, if you have enough land then you might be better off hunkering down to tech and build space parts while ensuring good diplo and strong defenses, especially along your borders.

That way if the strong civ declares on you, you have adequate defenses prepared instead of being strung out with a strong army elsewhere and weak defenses back home.

The key to victory here imo is defending yourself against the strong civ + vassals, trying to secure peace, then settling down to gun for a space victory. If you think the strong civ might win first then you should try and use diplo + espionage (if BTS) or--if necessary--war to slow them down. If you can bribe AIs into war with each other this can slow them down while you tech peacefully.

The AI usually hits a tech bottleneck in the mid-to-late game that only a few of the best-teching AIs can survive (others fall hopelessly behind usually, at least on the lower skill levels). If you can tech well then you should be ok, even if you start out behind a bit.

Hope this helps.

 

[Supr49er]

Welcome to the Forums andyr74.

 

[Cashew]

I play BTS only but I'm going to assume there is no practical difference in what my general advice is going to be.

If he's more powerful than you are, do not attack him unless he is at war with someone else. If he's more of a long term threat, you should attack him over the weaker civ, but only if you are sure you can take at least a key city or two from him (maybe more depending on the map size). As long as the person you pick a fight with is weak enough that they will take peace whenever you offer it to them you are in fine condition to wage war on that person. Do not wage war on someone that will not surrender to you unless you are confident you can take the majority of his/her empire from them.

The advantage to leaving the weaker civ alone is that it will only take a fraction of your empire to get enough units to defend sufficiently against any back-stabbing attempts. If, however, a large civ decides to back-stab you, you are going to feel it which is why you need to preempt them.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Generally the AI with more land will be tech-backward (relatively speaking), such as Genghis after he's keshliked a few of his neighbors to death and doesn't pay much attention to buildings. They will often field rifles against your infantry, which isn't a gigantic tech lead, but it may be just enough to let you climb into some new land ownership. Other AIs like Asoka will be small to mid-sized but tech hogs: not a military threat but if you let them live for too long they'll beat you to space or legendary culture.

Often the map doesn't give me a choice: it's that AI blocking my access to the other AIs (and no open borders), so they have to go down first no matter what.

When I do have a choice I tend to first pick on the one with the most land, or the "lone enemy" of a large diplo block of other AIs that hate them (less chance of others stepping in on that AI's side against me, or feeding them techs as a weapon to wear me down).

 

[andyr74]

A small update:
Because a domination victory wasn't likely to happen I went for another type of victory.

But I still wanted to try some military tactics.
So, instead of attacking the weaker enemy I thought of attacking the stronger enemy (and he had 2 vassals). One of these vassal was also good advanced, equaly to his main civ. Because I shared allmost no border with the strong civ but more with this vassal, my plan was to attack this vasal.
It went well in the beginning. The first 3 cities went easyly but then he (the strong civ and his vassal) came with a couterattack with a lot of units. 8 or 9 turns after my attack, i had lost 2 cities and taken 4, attacking a 5th. But I was about to lose 2 more. By this time he also had more advanced units. So this strategy wasn't smart.

But for all my tries , the first thing i did was building up my army. But I always waited a bit to long before the attack so I could have a large army.
For this reason I went back some more. This was some 7 turns before my initial attack try. By this turn I had a good army but not that much. With this army I attacked the weaker neighbour. This was a bit more difficult compared to my initial attack because I had less units. Some 6 or 7 turns later (= +- the same time of my initial attack) I had 5 of his cities and he became my vasal. During this attack I upgraded the units in my border cities and I put some extra in them.
So the situation in this game: I got stronger and I have one small and one "larg" vassal. In the next 5 or 6 turns I regrouped my units, updated my defences and builded new units. And so far the other strong civ hasn't attacked me. By this time he had always attacked me in my other tries.

What I learned so far: dodn't wait to long before an attack. This was one of the biggest mistake in this game. I waited to long so I could build a lot of units but during this time the enemy also became stronger.

 

[Skallagrimson]

My war start conditions (except for early war, which is an ad-hoc "desperation" decision to get vital land) are:

1) All my outer-shell cities (borders, coasts) have at least two of the latest-era CGs, a siege, and a horse-type (or tank later on). These can pool together for a large counterattack force if one along the coast, for example, comes under attack. I supplement this with a half dozen or so cav type and miscellaneous other units in a mobile defense stack.

2) At least two prod cities have the buildings needed to produce units at their optimal output (e.g., they have forges, and cav pumps have stables, etc.)

3) My civics are stabilized and appropriate for the conquest.

4) My attack stack is comprised of the following:

a. 2x the number of CR units (axes, maces, promoted rifles/infantry, or tanks) as the target AI has, of average, of CG units (archers, LBs, rifles, etc.)

b. 3x the number of siege as that number of CGs.

c. A healer (preferably a GG-led superhealer from previous wars)

d. Stack D--spear/pikes/rifles versus cav types, CII and if possible add Formation; xbows or muskets or whatever as counters to other unit types, with at least one usually as a terrain defender, Woodsman I and Guerilla I if I have to just field one such, or 1 each of WII and Guer II if I have more luxury.

e. Optional, nice to have, but not essential, are a few pillage stacks.

5) The target AI doesn't have a significant military tech lead (rifle defenders I can still take with cannons and maces for example, so I'd still go for it, but infantry defenders are more daunting, more likely to make me cancel the war plans). Tech parity is okay, as numbers will make the difference.

If the conditions are met, PLAY BALL. Blow the horns and bonk the heads.

 

[andyr74]

A small update so far:
My very first attack was on the late side but I won and he became my vassal.
Then I waited to long for a second attack on another civ. I allways ended up in trouble.
Then I returned some turns and redid this second attack some (8?) turns sooner compared to my first try of this attack. This have me no big problems this time. He became my vassal.
So I allready learned that waited to long is not allways good.
I regrouped my units, builded new ones, upgraded old ones and placed an army to attack the strongest vassal of the strongest civ. Without much resitance I could take 4 citys. In the maentime the strong civ was battling with my vassal. I help my vassal with some bombers to weaken the attacking units.
So far this war goes very well.