cats and trebs

[bryanwallace]

just a tip to anyone who doesnt know it(though im sure a lot of people do)
couldnt find this in the war academy so thought id post


but the easiest way to win militarily and take cities is just to stack up a large number of catapults then trebuchets.
the beauty of this is you can batter the defender down to one hit point before
using your attack troops swordsman etc so it minimizes losses incredibly and means you can keep moving from city to city doing the same thing...

only thing to be careful is that you have enough troops (can be anything even crappy warriors) stationed with the cats so they dont get nicked...
and also important not to be impatient wait til the defenders are down to one hit point before attacking with attack troops. you dont have to take out the city in one turn laying siege and reducing defending numbers each turn also good..
taking out his infracstructure at same time also prevents him from producing more defenders..

sorry if you know this tactic,but for those who dont it will let you move up to higher levels very easily..

 

[Spoonwood]

It definitely falls under what people have written about artillery and combined arms before. You might find this article interesting http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/artillery_effective.php. Artillery proper come as much more effective once you know how to use them, and it's a lot faster.

 

[Argetnyx]

They're also very good to use in an offensive situation, to go along with your attacking troops to provide cover.

 

[bryanwallace]

spoonwood

thanksfor the link and appreciate the tip
however ,artillery etc come along so late in the game its not worthwhile to wait for them ..

agree though that cats are slow to use as auto bombard function doesnt seem to work for them

 

[Jokeslayer]

I've never used auto-bombard, as I assume it's like automate worker (i.e. fairly useless)

IMO, artillery are many many times better than trebs, to the point where it is worthwhile waiting for them (especially as you don't have to wait so long for them to catch up due to the bigger range).

 

[Spoonwood]

Bryanwallace,

It doesn't feel like so long to "wait" for upper level pangea games.

 

[Aegis]

Catapults almost never work well for me. If I throw 20 at 1 city I can harm maybe 5-6 units. The benefit is too low for what I give up in shields. I usually just don't bother with artillery until I can build Trebuchets, which are far more reliable.

 

[Argetnyx]

Catapults almost never work well for me. If I throw 20 at 1 city I can harm maybe 5-6 units. The benefit is too low for what I give up in shields. I usually just don't bother with artillery until I can build Trebuchets, which are far more reliable.

exactly the same for me.

 

[ecuwins]

I almost always build cats. Even if I don't war until until the middle age, that's fine. I just upgrade them with gold.

Coming from vanilla I had an aversion to any kind of artillery for awhile. Once I started using artillery, though, my warmongering got a lot better. I also stopped quitting games when I found no Iron

 

[Argetnyx]

I usually don't have the extra gold to upgrade them all anyway, I almost always go nearly broke when I hit middle ages, exacly the same time that there is no space to build more cities.

 

[Snarkhunter]

I usually don't have the extra gold to upgrade them all anyway, I almost always go nearly broke when I hit middle ages, exacly the same time that there is no space to build more cities.

Which is why Leo's is one of the very few wonders I push for these days.

kk

 

[Argetnyx]

Which is why Leo's is one of the very few wonders I push for these days.

kk

cats are just not useful anyway...

 

[Delphi456]

I feel cats are better for defense then offense. Often I don't get iron, so I'm left with archer and spears. I can knock one point off the sword in my turn, and potentially knock one more point off with defensive bombardment. Now the AI is attacking my fortified spear with a "conscript" sword. I like those odds.

 

[Argetnyx]

Every time I bombard with a cat, it misses

 

[Jokeslayer]

Every time I bombard with a cat, it misses

Build more of them, because they don't miss every time.

 

[Argetnyx]

Thats when I come to the problem of priorities due to support costs.

 

[Taras Bulba]

catapults aren't worth building, IMO. Just make an equal number of offensive units to sacrifice.

Once Trebuchets come along, however, I try to build some for defense, and often use them during smaller offensive campaigns

 

[Ringo Kid]

I think you can never have too many cats. I figure about three of them per defender, so for example, if you expect five defenders in the target city, you better bring fifteen of them or so with your stack. If you read your history you will find that would be conquerors sometimes failed because they did not or could not bring along the siege equipment their eras tech made available to them.

 

[Argetnyx]

Civ is too vague to accurately represent that.

 

[Jokeslayer]

catapults aren't worth building, IMO. Just make an equal number of offensive units to sacrifice.

Once Trebuchets come along, however, I try to build some for defense, and often use them during smaller offensive campaigns

Mind if I ask what difficulty you usually play on?

I don't see the point in building units to sacrifice. My catapults (upgraded, duh) will still be there at the end. I suppose maybe if you're building archers or warriors (short term, 3 warriors>1 catapult; maybe not so sure about archers)