Cavalry and Riflemen in the early industrial era

[auldian]

At the early industrial stage of the game the AI seems to consistently bury me. My American cavalry seem much less effective than the Babylonian's in identical strategies.
Any ideas on taking cities at this stage in the game?
To have a chance to win, I really need to take 2 cities that have 7-12 population. Typically the AI has several rifleman in them but my cavalry almost never withdraw. By contrast, the AI cavalry pretty much go anywhere and do not lose. The Babylonians will gain a huge numerical edge if this war is drawn out because they almost always withdraw or win.

 

[Shujaa]

- Use artillery
- Don't attack across rivers if you can help it
- Utilise high ground where available to discourage counterattack
- Build armies if possible
- Consider getting help from an ally
- Consider cutting off their resources (horses/saltpetre), if strategically viable
- At the end of the day, numbers will win. Keep pumping out those units. You need at least 10 attack units to take out a large city (and then quell resistance)

 

[brennan]

Cavalry are great units out in the open for a variety of reasons. They have good attack, not bad defence and are fast. However at the part of the game you are having trouble with, offensive units rapidly become almost obsolete, as cities become metropolises, defended by first riflemen, and then infantry. (musketmen in city = def 6, rifles in metro = def 12! Infantry = def 20!) The trick to expansion at this stage is to use artillery. You need a stack of Cannon (20-30 is a minimum) with some defenders and cavalry, this is what is known as a 'Stack of Death' or SOD on the forums. Walk this up to an enemy city and bombard it until the defenders are all redlined, then send in the cavalry. This may take a couple of turns. As a rule of thumb, I tend to bombard until cities are reduced to 12 or less as well, that 100% metro bonus hurts! The bigger the city and the more advanced the defenders, the more Cannon you will need.

When you get the opportunity, upgrade to Artillery. They have double the range and higher attack strength. This is funny.

Are the AI attacking you? build rails and use cannon/arty. In the game I am currently playing the Scandinavians declared war on me while about 60 units of berserks/pikes/muskets etc were traipsing across my land. I had 60 Cavs and 80+ artillery and rails linking every city. The Scandinavians were dead by the end of the turn.

The retreat thing; IIRC the chance to retreat becomes higher the better the unit - Elites retreat more than vets etc. Also retreats will only happen if the Cavalry is redlined and the opponent isn't.

 

[auldian]

I'll work with canon then. I've used artillery stacks at later stages in games but haven't considered the canon as viable before; I'll work up 30 or so and try that.
The other aspects of terrain bonuses, city bonuses, etc., I take into account. It's one of those games where no one told the AI though

 

[Lord Parkin]

Personally, I much prefer to use Artillery than Cannons, and therefore will postpone any offensive wars from the late-medieval age on until I get Replaceable Parts. Artillery are just SO much better than Cannons IMHO.

 

[brennan]

I tend to play quite a peaceful/builders game, long periods of improvement and consolidation with short sharp wars when I get upgrades to offensive units, warriors to swords, swords to med infantry etc. During quiet spells I often build catapults or cannon for defences, knowing that when I can get artillery I will upgrade them all and go knocking on my neighbours door...

 

[gunkulator]

Re artillery: it's not their double range or higher bombard strength that makes them so powerful - it's that they have double the rate of fire. You nearly get the effect of having twice as many bombard units: 25 cannons fire 25 times. 25 artillery fire 50 times - huge, huge difference.

 

[The_Unforgiven]

You need at least 10 attack units to take out a large city (and then quell resistance)

In one turn... Agreed.
But if you can allow the siege to last a few turns, you can do with less.

I hope you do not mean that those units are all lost, because you're doing something wrong then. Use artillery as you said, STACKS of it. When I go on a rampage on SID level it is not unusual for me to have 60-80 artillery per city under siege. Sometimes more. Add a few good armies and elites for new armies, and you do not need to lose many units, only a few.

 

[vmxa]

Calv armies are the ticket for rifles in cities. No need to wait for cannons, arties are too late.

 

[gunkulator]

cannons come before cavalry. You should already have a bunch of cannons upgraded from your treb/knight conquering days - in C3C anyway.

I agree about arties. They come way too late.

 

[Empiremaker]

During Rifles/Cavs-Enough cavalry should dominate. 10-12 per city is enough.

Infantry/Cavs- Arty, arty, and more arty. 15-20 arty should redline infantry. 2 cavs then per infantry.

I rarly see rifles in Metros in my games unless the opponets rubber has been pillaged/bombed, since Rep Parts comes before sanitation.

 

[megaclom]

It took a while for this to dawn on me. After riflemen and infantry, the superiority of the defense (a la WWI) is mimiced in the game. Before you discover tanks, offensive with cavalry against infantry and riflemen is very costly. I can't guess how many cavalry I lost in the last war. Bombard all defenders down to red-line, when your cavalry looses (more often than not), ***keep some artillery or cannons there to red line the enemy units again after they become vertran, elite.*** Also, bombard the enemy settlement down to town to lower the defensive bonus. That will happen anyway trying to keep the defenderes redlined. Your attacking cavalry army can be redlined by a single redlined infantry man, so possibly also, this is not the best era to be on the offensive: after infantry/before tanks is the era that favors the defender the most since the very begining of the game.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Yep, absolutely right there Megaclom. But I think that's part of the reason why Artillery become available AT THE SAME TIME AS Infantry - to compensate for this "anti-offensive" period.

 

[Zelda's Man]

In addition to what brennan mentioned, if their cities are built on hills, their units will also get a defensive bonus. Their larger cities have more defense to start with so more units will be required. The number of defensive units in the city is also greater when there is a great wonder in the city. The AI tends to guard their wonder cities more heavily.

From my own experience, I find that veteran calvary retreat more often than regular and elite ones. This may not be fact, but it is my observation.

 

[N3pomuk]

yupp Zelda's Man you're right look in the editor and you'll see under combat experience: 34, 50, 58, and 66% for conscript,regular, veteran and elite respectively for the retreat probabilities. personaly though I like to grind up my infantry. flanking? whats flanking?

 

[Empiremaker]

Think about it-
Infantry in Metro on hill, fortified=27.5
Cav attacking=6
Odds of Cav winning one round=6/33.5=18%
Odds of a 4hp cav losing to a 1 hp infantry=45%
Odds of a 5hp cav losing to a 1 hp infantry=37%

So-roughly every one out of two rounds the cav will die without killing the infantry!

 

[Lord Parkin]

What does the RNG have to say about that though?

 

[Empiremaker]

What does the RNG have to say about that though?

I forgot about that-divide winning odds by two to factor in RNG.

 

[brennan]

I rarly see rifles in Metros in my games unless the opponets rubber has been pillaged/bombed, since Rep Parts comes before sanitation.

Try making Sanitation your first priority, then Steam then Industrialization. With hospitals and Rails your population will absolutely explode and you tear through the Industrial age with a vastly improved economy. And build factories, dont be afraid of pollution, just make sure you have plenty of workers to clear up...

 

[WackenOpenAir]

The beginning of industrial age is a difficult point in the game for the warmogerer. I personally see this issue as a minor flaw in the game.

In the whole game, attackers normally have a bit more attack power than the defenders have defence. (Swords-spears, knights-pikes, cavs-muskets, tanks-infantry. )

Nationalism is however the very first tech that the AI gets, it is a huge favorite for them to research. They get a defender against your cavs that doesn't require any resources.
Cavalry is very usefull against AI with Muskets, but when they get nationalism, cavalry all of a sudden lost most of its power.

At that point, it is best to stay at peace for a bit or take other backwards civs that are still defended by muskets and wait for artillery. When you have artillery, it is game over.

Luckilly, there is plenty to do during this peacefull time. Railroad your entire empire, prebuild the hoover dam and build factories in all your major cities. If you have money for upgrade and your factories are done, you can also build cannons wich you will upgrade to artillery once you get replacable parts.

I would not try to attack to much with the cannons and the cavalry. You don't have good defenders to defend your stack (skip nationalism youself) Just wait for Arty and marines. When you have those, the cavalry are also usefull again since they do very well against redlined rifles and are even acceptable against red lined infantry. Their movement is of course very usefull.

After that, i think bombers are your best bet. I would not invest in tanks. Just get yourself bombers to completely destroy units. If you still have many arties, you might want to redline the units with the arties, then kill them of with the bombers. The cavalry can then use its movement to walk into the empty cities.