Combat trouble

[Lio]

I have a question about combat in Civ 4, I played Civ 3 before. This is my style of playing, I like to build long enough till I have a really big army, and when I am bored then I decide to attack. That is how I all way`s played to keep the game play long. In Civ3 it was easy, in the end I nuked the whole place, and just came in with 1 infantery guy.

But I played now Civ 4, and I started for the second time. I have mayor problems with the combat units. I shall give a some examples from what I saw from the AI.

1 - The AI can often kill my tank with the gunship often, when I want to try it I hardly shoot it down.

2 The AI can all so often kill my gunship with his tank, same issue here it won`t work for me most of the time.

3 When I defend my city, the AI can kill most of my united easy, and most of the time with 1 unit. If the AI is in the city I have a hard time to kill it.

4 I think I have used maby 15 tanks and the all could kill them I think with 3 or 4 uniteds. It suck`s all the time.

I all so try to check if it worked better for me when I am on a hill and the AI is not on the hill, but it doesn`t matter. He shoots me down.


Can someone pls...give me some advice how to kill the AI units better. Instead of sacrefice a lot of your units, and in the end you lose due to the few units.

thx.

 

[Sisiutil]

First off, most enemy units in a city receive a defensive bonus just for sitting there. If they're fortified, it increases. In addition, all cities have a cultural defense bonus.

You need to remove the cultural defense bonus first. You can do this using either siege weapons (catapults, trebuchets, cannons, or artillery) or, in the late game, aircraft (preferably bombers--fighters will do it too slowly). Once the city's defense bonus is gone, then you need to soften up the defenders. Again, use siege weapons and/or aircraft. If it's siege weapons several will probably die, but they'll weaken the defenders. Now you send in your troops to kill the injured city defenders; ideally you want to use units with city raider promotions.

Second, many units receive bonuses versus other units. Gunships have an automatic bonus attacking tanks, for example. So you ideally want to attack a unit, if possible, with the best "counter"--the unit that has the best chance of killing that particular type of unit.

Third, I'd recommend changing your overall playing style. Try going to war earlier rather than building for a long time. Early wars are more fun, in my opinion.

 

[Lio]

First thank for explaining it. I am going to try it out. I hardly use my stealth bombers due they get intercepted by there fighters. But I will make more stealth and try to bomb more. And wait wit giving bonus to my armys, till I reach the point of using it. Like more city attack or jungle/dessert bonus.

lol...the reason why I wait for attack other civilizations is that I don`t want to ruin my land mass. I want to crush them all later.

But I will give it a try, to attack more often. Most of the time I reject attacking other civilization when they ask.

 

[Lio]

First off, most enemy units in a city receive a defensive bonus just for sitting there. If they're fortified, it increases. In addition, all cities have a cultural defense bonus.

You need to remove the cultural defense bonus first. You can do this using either siege weapons (catapults, trebuchets, cannons, or artillery) or, in the late game, aircraft (preferably bombers--fighters will do it too slowly). Once the city's defense bonus is gone, then you need to soften up the defenders. Again, use siege weapons and/or aircraft. If it's siege weapons several will probably die, but they'll weaken the defenders. Now you send in your troops to kill the injured city defenders; ideally you want to use units with city raider promotions.

Second, many units receive bonuses versus other units. Gunships have an automatic bonus attacking tanks, for example. So you ideally want to attack a unit, if possible, with the best "counter"--the unit that has the best chance of killing that particular type of unit.

Third, I'd recommend changing your overall playing style. Try going to war earlier rather than building for a long time. Early wars are more fun, in my opinion.

A question, what is the best building order then??

This is what I build in most of the city`s. Lot`s of tanks, some merc tanks, and some gunship,fighter,stealth bombers.

When I look at your advice. I think I should build much more...stealth and some tanks.

How can you see when the culture/city defense bonus are gone??? And the injured city defenders who are they??? When I look at an enemy city, I see they have lot`s of tanks, merc tanks in it. And they are hard to kill for me.

Do you mean I have to bomb those tanks till they are gone???

 

[DuseCutter]

A question, what is the best building order then??

This is what I build in most of the city`s. Lot`s of tanks, some merc tanks, and some gunship,fighter,stealth bombers.

When I look at your advice. I think I should build much more...stealth and some tanks.

How can you see when the culture/city defense bonus are gone??? And the injured city defenders who are they??? When I look at an enemy city, I see they have lot`s of tanks, merc tanks in it. And they are hard to kill for me.

Do you mean I have to bomb those tanks till they are gone???

The cultural defense is located right above the city name on the world map. It should be the number with the % sign after it. Since you prefer late wars, make some artillery and take it with you when you go to attack a city. It's usually a good idea to have 4 with the accuracy promotion so you can use the bombard ability to remove this cultural defense in 1 turn. You can use bombers to remove this cultural defense as well. Have other artillery units with City Raider and Barrage promotions to break into the stack and hurt the units with collateral damage. You will most likely lose some of these so have replacements being built. You can also use the bombers to weaken the stack but they'll only reduce units to half their strength. The units the bombers barrage won't be completely destoyed.

As for the injured defenders, if you mouse over the city you are attacking, a list of units will show up on the left side of the screen. The numbers next to are the power of the unit. The injured ones will have smaller numbers on the left side of the /. You don't get to choose which unit you attack so to sufficiently weaken the stack, you'll have to make sure all units are weakened before sending in your best troops. This will ensure a better chance of them surviving.

Good luck!

 

[Sisiutil]

First thank for explaining it. I am going to try it out. I hardly use my stealth bombers due they get intercepted by there fighters. But I will make more stealth and try to bomb more. And wait wit giving bonus to my armys, till I reach the point of using it. Like more city attack or jungle/dessert bonus.

lol...the reason why I wait for attack other civilizations is that I don`t want to ruin my land mass. I want to crush them all later.

But I will give it a try, to attack more often. Most of the time I reject attacking other civilization when they ask.

Try attacking with your own fighters first. Enemy fighters and SAM infantry only get one chance to attack your units per turn, so once that's been successfully used up, they can't attack again, and your bombers can attack safe from reprisal.

I'm not sure what you mean by ruining your land mass. The AI is now better at city placement, but it's not perfect, and it may not improve tiles to suit your needs. The later the war, the more likely you'll have some sub-optimal cities in need of vast tile reworking projects. Also, the AI is likely to chop forests that you may want to save for another purpose.

Finally, don't overlook the benefits of joining another civ in a war. You get a bonus in your diplomatic score with the requesting civ for that, even if it's a "phony war" where you never actually attack. Just gauge the risks and benefits carefully and then decide.