Cheating in Combat

[Brentinator]

I'm beginning to believe this game cheats far worse than any incarnation of Civ before. I finally thought I'd attained the right balance between culture building and military strength. I was playing the Romans and then got into a war with the Arabians. It went back and forth for about 100 turns. Then, all of a sudden, on one flank, he'd suddenly be able to ship in about 8 units. I held them off, then 7 more up the middle. Lost a city, but halted the advance. Then, an astounding 15 Camel Archers, all of whom can usually beat my top unit (Musketman), come up on the remaining flank. He only has about 10 cities tops, he's lost a ton of units in combat. No way could he manufacture that many units so fast. Yes, he's slightly larger than me, but come on!

Anyone else feel like this? It's a fun game, but if you can never win....

 

[mechaerik]

No, it does not cheat. You just don't build enough soldiers.

15 camel archers is nowhere near astounding. I've seen stacks with well over 50 units, and they get bigger than that on higher levels.

10 cities is all you need to build a stack like that, just use the whip.


Here's a tip: build/whip cats or trebs, then suicide them on his stack. Follow up with pikes.

 

[jauggy]

If I'm in caste, just before I declare war I try and bribe the AI to switch from slavery to caste. Prevents them from whipping if they are non-spiritual.

 

[Sic Transit Zeb]

No, it does not cheat. You just don't build enough soldiers.

15 camel archers is nowhere near astounding. I've seen stacks with well over 50 units, and they get bigger than that on higher levels.

10 cities is all you need to build a stack like that, just use the whip.


Here's a tip: build/whip cats or trebs, then suicide them on his stack. Follow up with pikes.

Very true. My buddy had the same trouble on Noble. He didn't build enough troops. My words of advice, "when in doubt, build troops". I know, just astounding! lol.

 

[mechaerik]

If I'm in caste, just before I declare war I try and bribe the AI to switch from slavery to caste. Prevents them from whipping if they are non-spiritual.

Plus it puts non-spiritual civs into anarchy for a few turns, which can make an assault that much easier.

 

[Patak]

15 units is noting. Try fighting the Turks. They produce units like crazy. 50 unit stacks with 15+ catapults. Devastating.

 

[binhthuy71]

Heh. Played one game early on where I thought that my modest tech lead (I had rifles, cavalry and cannon vs crossbows,knights and maces) would make up for Alexander's numbers so I landed my stack of eighteen on the enemy shore. A turn or two later I was able to drink a cup of coffee while watching a marathon counterattack by more than fifty enemy units. I "won" the battle because I had perhaps a half-dozen badly wounded units still standing. That my galleons would require ten turns to return with more troops put an end to my dreams of conquest.

 

[Powerslave]

Absolutely nothing can stand up against sheer numbers of ancient units. Siege and mounted units certainly help mitigate the threat, but if you've got 100 impi bearing down on you, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose a city or two, no matter what you do, even if you've got infantry defending your cities.

Or maybe I've just had really, really bad luck with the numbers.

I really hate Shaka.

 

[JujuLautre]

drill is your friend

 

[Powerslave]

Yeah, there's always drill. I love machine guns. They are possibly one of my favorite units, because they're so unique. A siege unit that can defend? If only I could have that in the classical age!

I guess there's always Skirmishers, Cho-Ko-Nu, Hwacha, and Crossbowmen, but none of them are really as awesome as machine guns. I've had an entire SOD turn around and go back home once I upgraded an older unit to a machine gun. Ha. Now, that's what I call a powerful persuasive tool.

I'm well-versed in theory, but I often have trouble with putting it to good practical use. Frequently, I have bad luck, I play too sloppily, and/or I overestimate my chances. I once read that Alexander the Great would impulsively jump into unknown situations, then trust his genius to get him through the problem. I have the same problem, except I lack the genius of Alexander. Doesn't stop the arrogance and overconfidence, though.

 

[Willem]

15 camel archers is nowhere near astounding. I've seen stacks with well over 50 units, and they get bigger than that on higher levels.

I once had a stack myself of over 300 units. 15 is nothing. When you deal with Shaka, he typically has stacks with 50+ units in them.

 

[mechaerik]

I once had a stack myself of over 300 units. 15 is nothing. When you deal with Shaka, he typically has stacks with 50+ units in them.

I tend to eliminate Shaka and others like him long before they become a threat.

Sucks when they're on another continent though (but I've never been that unlucky )

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes the warmonger stacks with like 50 cavalry can be pretty annoying. You actually need a legit stack just for defense then.

OP: to put things in perspective, using the draft you can have more units than you fought against. In 10 turns. On normal speed, cities can be set up to produce 1 unit/turn or at worst 1 unit/3 turns.

Muskets are bad against camel archers anyway. If you're just going up 1v1, use a pike or elephant. Muskets are decent attacking knights/CA along with other units in a stack if you soften them up with collateral. Unlike other units muskets don't have a hard medieval counter (pinch knights are the closest thing, but don't get defensive bonuses and most knights won't have pinch in SP) and have a high enough base strength to clean up fairly easily after siege.

 

[Spectator20]

Drill IV is your friend in situations like that. It also stops collateral from being too much of an issue.
I like Protective civs even if a lot of other players hate them for that reason.

 

[NihilZero]

Speaking of big stacks, my supposed friend Zara Yaqob surprise attacked me with a stack of over 60 units yesterday - about 20 tanks, a dozen marines, ten or so artillery and masses of infantry and anti-tank. He also had a couple of other resepctable stacks which he sent after my vassals. This was on a standard sized map. And he had massed bombers supporting all this.

Earlier in that game Sitting Bull rumbled through my territory with a 41-unit stack of early medieval and classical era units; siege engines, elephants, axes, crossbows, horse archers. My main army was on the opposite side of the map defending against the Persians and I lost a couple of cities and all my tile improvements before I could return and take them back.

 

[mushutoku]

Once I defeated a huge stack of over 60 units (Shaka) just with one of mine...thanks to the world builder, of course!

 

[6K Man]

If you don't like being blindsided by large stacks, play archipeligo maps or other high-water maps. At least the huge stack needs ships to ride on, and with a little effort you can usually see them coming.

Every time I play Pangaea or another mostly-land map, I see huge AI stacks. Even in the early game.

 

[binhthuy71]

At least the huge stack needs ships to ride on, and with a little effort you can usually see them coming.

And sink them! It's always easier to sink a ship than to fight the units it's carrying.

 

[Bei1052]

I once had a stack myself of over 300 units. 15 is nothing. When you deal with Shaka, he typically has stacks with 50+ units in them.

300? The most I had in one stack was like 100'ish.

Anyway, I have seen the computer absolutely ridiculous stacks, though. In a game I played a while back, Qin had a stack of at 60 troops. Lemme' see if I can find the game and picture of it.

Edit: I found it! If I count right, he has a 68 unit stack!

(In case you're wondering, I had about thirty bombers raining fire down from the heavens on that stack. I didn't want Qin to cap Asoka.)

 

[CarlGustaffa]

Do click on TMIT's video links to better understand the game mechanics and becoming a better player. I won't be wonder whoring on my next game, that's for sure. Here is one:
TMIT's Let's play Civ4. I used to think AI was cheating myself. Until I watched this and saw how one can cheat yourself. I never understood how AI was able to pull off stunts like that. Now I do. And I'll try it myself, although I'm still struggling at noble.