best way to move an army?

[sabutai]

i am just getting into civ4

when i am moving my stack and command it to attack i cant control what units do so first, should i send them in one at a time?

also whenever my army is attacking a city, after 1 guy does his move the camera always pans back to my capital, even if other guys still have movement points, how do i stop this? its annoying having to move the camera back every time one of my units dies

also how are mansa's primitive skirmishers destroying my catapults, swords, elephants etc so easily when defending city, alot of my guys i sent there had city attack bonus and i think i had guys that negate first strike

sorry if these are dumb questions, but i am just finally getting to where i am not confused to the point of wanting to quit at 1000 bc "argh lions ate my settler, time to restart"

 

[JimT]

when i am moving my stack and command it to attack i cant control what units do so first, should i send them in one at a time?

- Yes

also whenever my army is attacking a city, after 1 guy does his move the camera always pans back to my capital, even if other guys still have movement points, how do i stop this? its annoying having to move the camera back every time one of my units dies

- No reason, just to annoy you, it probably won't if you attack one at a time (doesn't for me)

also how are mansa's primitive skirmishers destroying my catapults, swords, elephants etc so easily when defending city, alot of my guys i sent there had city attack bonus and i think i had guys that negate first strike

- Cultural/Physical defences (have you bombarded)
- Natural abilities (Is it on a hill)
- Promotions (How many units have you wasted on them)

Once you have wasted a few units next turn they are healed, promoted and even harder to get rid of - make sure you wipe them out in one turn.

 

[Mischief]

when i am moving my stack and command it to attack i cant control what units do so first, should i send them in one at a time?

When you attack with a stack, that unit within the stack, which has the best chance of winning against the opponent is selected automatically. So generally you can just let the PC make this decision.
Sometimes though there might be a situation in which you want to decide which unit attacks first, for example when you want to weaken an enemy stack with siege weapons (catapults) or when you want to sacrifice a weak unit to give your more expensive, higher promoted units a better chance of winning; in those cases you should send them in one at a time.

also how are mansa's primitive skirmishers destroying my catapults, swords, elephants etc so easily when defending city, alot of my guys i sent there had city attack bonus and i think i had guys that negate first strike

Mansa`s Skirmishers have 1-2 First Strikes, +50% city defense and +25% hills defense, probably some will also have city garrison one and two. So that means if you attack a city with a CG II Skirmisher it will have a strength of approximately 7.8 (Base strength 4 * 195% [+50% + 20% +25%]). If the city is on a hill it will be 4* 220% = 8.8 !! As for the First strikes, as you see Mansa`s Skirmishers have those, too, so having them won`t be much of an advantage to you in this case.

With the units you describe you should definately be able to beat the skirmishers, if you use your units correctly: After you have destroyed the cities cultural defense with your catapults, sacrifice one or two of them by attacking the city, the collateral damage will make it a lot easier for your other units to beat the AIs troops. If most of Mansa`s cities are defended by skirmishers you should consider promoting some of your units with Cover (+25% vs archery units) instead of CR I, which gives you only +20% during city attacks.

Generally, before you attack you should always look at the promotions of the unit you are attacking and how high or low your combat odds are, so you know if you should consider waiting to bring in more units or if the units you have at the battlefield will do the job.

As to your second question, I don`t know the answer to this either, similar camera-problems have been driving me nuts as well

Cheers

Mischief

 

[sabutai]

i was just sending in my catapults to attack, should i be doing something diferent? half the time my rocks were flying over those guys's heads, and then mansa's boys would throw his unholy spears of doom down at them and destroy them

should i be doing something other than just attacking with cats?

sorry, again i'm full of nubsauce

 

[Mischief]

When you want to attack a city and have catapults, you should bombard the cities defenses before actively attacking the city: All your cities and the AIs cities that have been producing any kind of culture or built a wall or castle have an added defensive bonus which I`ve seen up to 90% (!). This basically means that the units defending the city get a large defensive bonus when they are defending, the higher the cities culture, the higher the bonus, it is cumulative with all the other defensive bonuses.

The only way to reduce and destroy this defensive bonus is by having your siege weapons(catapults, cannons, artillery, air units) bombard the cities bonuses. The ability to do so is part of what makes catapults so useful: when you destroy these significant defense bonuses it is A LOT easier to take cities.
That is why you should always try to have at least 3-4 catapults with you (once you have them) when attacking a city, so you can destroy this bonus quickly. Only after you have done that you attack with part of your catapults, so they have a chance of actually surviving or at least injuring the enemy troops.

sorry, again i'm full of nubsauce

No problem, it`s a complex game which takes a while to learn

 

[Jeiman]

i was just sending in my catapults to attack, should i be doing something diferent? half the time my rocks were flying over those guys's heads, and then mansa's boys would throw his unholy spears of doom down at them and destroy them

should i be doing something other than just attacking with cats?

sorry, again i'm full of nubsauce

I have to admit this is how I attempted to bombard with cats the first time I used them. I thought I just needed to attack the city and they'd automatically cause collateral damage and bombard.

Once you have your catapults in attack range you'll see a little archery target looking icon become active for them [bombard]. Click this icon and there ya go. You'll get a little message saying you've reduced the city's defenses to x%. At 0% defenses it's time to send the cats to attack the city's stack for collateral damage.

 

[Carnage04]

Is it best to use one huge stack or divide it up and come from three directions with three smaller stacks (Or two..or four...or five...or eight. ) All it takes the defense to significantly weaken your stack is to start tossing catapaults. This way he has to target three stacks with his collatorals..