Defence scenario - tips for somebody who just doesn't get it

[deanej]

I can't seem to figure out this scenario. No matter what I do, I get slaughtered. I tried it with founding Athens in the grassland just before the forest tiles and got killed by the psycho samurais. Then I tried founding Athens 2 tiles to the east so I would have room for 10 cities and not just 6 but would up with losing 1/2 my army every round and my ranged units couldn't see enemies coming until it was too late.

I just don't have enough gold to build a stack of 100 ranged units capable of actually killing enemy units. This means that they engage my army (usually around 2-5 units not including ranged) but for enemy units in rounds 12-20 their abilities are just so powerful that you will lose the scenario if those units are killed with ranged attack.

Please help. I would really like to enjoy this scenario, but playing the first 11 rounds over and over just to die sometime before or in round 12 is just not fun.

 

[deanej]

Anyone have ideas? This scenario is super hard.

 

[Kelvenor]

I just finish this scenario yesterday; first build cities as fast as possible mostly on hills with corresponding warriors; I had 7 cities, 4 on hils and 2 on grassland and one in the midle of forest

Strategically put units with appropriate terrain, Forest and Juggle warriors;

Use scout (cheap) early to fog bust an latter spythey'e invisible and won’t get kill); dont put spy in cities for some reason u dont get the unites mabe a bug. Explore map for goody huts until the 10-12 wave after place scouts/spy strategically to reveal incomings for trebs and canon bombardments;

Get some hill warrior in hillcities, then expend your defences beyond the mountain ranges so you can bombard from a far places revealed by spies.

Don’t buy all the teck concentrate on more long range units (trebs and canons) and short range archers and musketman

I expended my defences, from near my 7 cities toward middle of the map,

Get one or two horse and get proper promotion for strength and multi-attacks. Once you have multi-attack you can break down stacks with units protecting suicide bombers

At all cost kill suicide bombers with range units otherwise you will lose attacking war/mace/horesman, start by bombarding the stack early to lower strength you can finish units protecting bombmers with horseman with multi-attaks promotion. Finish damaged Bombmers with any range.

Get at least 3-4 maceman strategically position to defend archers , put long-range units one tile the back.

Do not over stack since it lowers your collective strength on unit.

Look were incomings units are coming from and put appropriated defences.

I stop buying tecks after cannon and by more archer/musketman since their cheeper but affective to lower defences so fortified war, latter maceman, could easiler defeate incoming unites. Same for longrange Trebs are cheaper then canon, I had 4 cannon mabe 7-8 trebs.

I moved my longrange units near lake around the 13 wave and latter reinforce with more trebs and canon (they wont get attack since they are not in the path of enemies).

Bombard incommings as soon as units are in range, lower with short range and kill with war/mace and horseman to get strenght and terrain promotions.

Use the pause key offen, at begining of turn, attack unpause, while targetting strongest enemies unpause and cycle trougth your units.

 

[Kelvenor]

I will get pics tonigth...at work now

 

[Kelvenor]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/Civ4ScreenShot0000.JPG

2 Cities, Louisbourg was my Capital...Arcadia second cities...I wanted to named a few cities with Acadian Name but forgot to continue for the rest of Mod hehehe

4 Units:
2Hillwariors
1 Bowman
1Combat Chariot

 

[Kelvenor]

Round 9
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/Civ4ScreenShot0003.JPG

7 cities, (botom two cities) Argos as 2 Tundras Figther, Aracadia 1 Tundras Fingther these were cheeper.

Outside defences units moving toward central map:


2 Forest figther one near Athens and other upermap fog busting
1 Hillfigther protecting 2 Trebs (upermap near forest warrior)
1 Maceman, toward jugle bottle Neck ,
1 Maceman uppermap on hill will come around while fogbusting grassland and getting some kills moving toward bottom jungle
1 Juggle warrior near athens getting some exps of spiders
1 lone bowman on hill that will get out of spidies paths
1 scout fog busting and hunting goody huts

 

[Kelvenor]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/Civ4ScreenShRound10.JPG

Tech Tree Round 10:

My path on the teck tree was as follow

Scouting
Ridder
Trebuchets
Maceman
Spying
Cannons

After that I bougth Catapults and Musketman Techs and nothing more. I concentrated buying more Units, bowman cheap , musketman trebs and canons.

 

[Kelvenor]

Round 12 Bottom Map

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/Civ4ScreenShot0004.JPG


1 Treb moving toward hills on bottom Lake, scout will stay there also to fog bust until reinforcements are comming in.
1 Rider getting some xp off samurai that are lowered by the 2 bowman on desert...these bowman will be move next round on the hills/shore of the lake.
1 Juggle warrior defending on off the lake blocking path of enemies.
2 Maceman blocking mid-map bottle neck, one in jungle one on Hill/Jungle

 

[Kelvenor]

Round 12 Upper Map

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/Civ4ScreenShot0005.JPG

This round I think I bougth Cats teck and a Canon not sure on that

Ok 1 Forest warior fog busting and defending

On upper far Hill, 1 Hill wariror; 1 Canon; 1 Treb

You can see the two Maceman on Bottle Neck and Forest War still protecting Athens...this guy will joint the two mace man and will trade places with the one on Hill/Juggle, that Maceman will fortify on Jungle near grassland.

 

[Kelvenor]

Round 17 Tank and Spank

Bottom Map: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/Civ4ScreenShot0006.JPG

Reinforcement are comming near lake with 2 Trebs, 2 Bowman and 1 Musketman.

Maceman closer to lake will move up and replace the Hill warior protecting upper long range units...this hill is about to get attack.
Maceman on desert edge will wipe up passing tanks.

I bougth a new Rider since I almost max exp my first one, I put the virgin in the line of duty fog busting and getting insane exp off lowered tanks...Get multi attack promo a soon as you can

On fartest hill you can see my little short range stacks, since tank are in fasion now i will move 2 bowmans with the Cannon and 2 Trebs, raising my Maceman strenght. One bowman on Hill lake tile botom of long range units...the 2 reinforcement bowman will join this one and the scout will move on eastern forest hill for some fog busting.

 

[Kelvenor]

Round 17 Tank and Spank Upper Map

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/Civ4ScreenShot0007.JPG


From here on and I bougth all long range units I could

Bottle neck is stile defended by 2 maceman and forest war...switching form time to time to balance xp promotions.

1 canon and 1 trebs by middle lake can hit incomming both upper and lower waves

Hill war will move one hill back by forest war so Maceman (the one by lower lake) can replace him. I will also bring back one steps bowman and musketman keeping 1 canon and 1 musketman on hill with newly arive Maceman.

I bought 1 cats (I was curious ) and it will be brougth back on steps with the hill warior.

 

[Kelvenor]

Final round 20 Bottom Map:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/lower_map_round_20.JPG

and Upper Map:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/upper_map_round_20.JPG

Final teck tree:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/90640/Civ4ScreenShot0008.JPG

There you go, any questions

P.S. English is my second language I know, I'm a terrible speller will clean it up later tired now...but I still want to play some CIV...just one more turn

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I have a very important tip, or rather a bug warning. Don't go into the technology screen and click on a technology unless you're in the "buy mode" before a level. I did that and it became impossible to buy technology and it eventually got to the point where I couldn't win with the starting units.

 

[deanej]

Thanks. I'll have to look in more detail later. Some questions:
1. I read in other threads that the Spying tech was too expensive to justify researching. What was your experience here?
2. Cash: I seem to find that I'm short on it in this scenario. Huts may be the answer, but I usually find 0-1 each round.
3. Is there a benefit to building different types of ranged units (Catapult, Cannon) instead of just Bowmen and Trebuchets?
4. I don't recall if musketmen are ranged or not. If yes, see question 3. If no, is there value in building them with/instead of macemen?

Keep the suggestions coming. I intend to do a couple of games and then revisit this scenario later.

 

[Kelvenor]

1. I read in other threads that the Spying tech was too expensive to justify researching. What was your experience here?

Well they are worth it. I save money one round to buy tech and a spy the following round at the same time. They are invisible, so they won’t get kill, they can patrol unprovoked hunting goody huts and fog busting for trebs and canon these have 6 tile ranges but only 2-3 tile visibility. So you need fog busting units. I had only one spy cause I made the mistake of putting them directly in the cities (bug or something I spend money and no units ). Put the unit outside. You can use scouts but its frustrating when they get kill and you lose to bombardment range advantages. In some round this can be game breaking specially when suicide grenadier are coming.

2. Cash: I seem to find that I'm short on it in this scenario. Huts may be the answer, but I usually find 0-1 each round.

Yes huts are helpful, in the beginning (10-11 rounds) you get a good return out of then 80-110 gold. That’s why I explore with an initial chariot later scout and finally the unchallenged spy.

As for money, in the initial rounds, getting your cities up is a priority...some cities only were defended by a unit the following round of founding them... Diverse your Warriors, the more unit type on the map the more expensive it is to buy that an additional one. My last Bowman cost me around 200 but I had 7 or 8 ones allready.

A well promoted warrior unit with strength and terrain promos can even survive even a samurai rush. Quality over Quantity and you should have enough money to buy the needed tech.

3. Is there a benefit to building different types of ranged units (Catapult, Cannon) instead of just Bowmen and Trebuchets?

Yes Canon and Trebuchets have a range of 6 tiles, they cause collateral damages (target enemies stacks ) they only have a vision of 2.

Catapult, Bowman and Musketman have a range of 3, with only vision of 2 so you need those scouts/spy or Rider when your scouts get killed .
Catapults have a str of 4 and cause collateral damages
Bowmans have a str of 3 and Musketman have a str of 6 but only single target ability

I know str get lowered when staking units but its only for defence, they preserved their initial str when attacking at a range.

Example of usage, tank of 18 str can be lowered below 10 str with 2 Bowman and a Musketman. Its easy picking for your macemans, riders or warriors.

Question 4 see Answer for question 3.

 

[The_Boyce]

With defense its all about money and tactics. You want to get the most money possible at the end of every turn, and find as many huts as you can. In the first lvls where the ememies are easy your priority is to get as many cities up as possible, discover scouting and get some scouts out on the map. By lvl 5 i have enough scouts out to get all 5 huts and by lvl 9 i have all 10 cities built. Purchasing spys is definatly a waste of your money, as you will see with the tactics there is no need for invisible scouters. My last round i lost 14 scouts and had 8 alive at the end for a total of 22 purchased total. At an average of 40gp per i only spent 880gp on scouts. Even if you bump it up to 50gp per i would have only spent 1100gp and that's guarenteed to be high. Once you get to the bombardment stage you need to think of you unit cost too. If it takes 4 longbowmen to drop an enemy below 20% and takes 3 trebs to do the same which is the better purchase? Remember that your cost to purchase goes up based on how many units you have in play. At the last round i had atleast 20 longbowmen, 4 catapult, 10+ treb/cannon and 2 artillery and i had no trouble taking care of anything that came at me.

Tactics....play a few rounds and you will notice the tendencies of the AI. First and most important is the AI always paths towards your first city. Once you get your scouts out there watch how the enemy approaches and plan your defense accordingly. For example, if you put your first city all the way north, then enemies coming from the bottom are going to move along the top of the middle lake gap. If you put it in the south they will move along the bottom of that gap. Take advantage of these path lines and place your units accordingy. 95% of the time enemies will walk right by well placed units on there way to the capital city rather then go out of the way to attack them. For example, just NE of the middle lake is a mountain range. If you put a scout on the west side on the last row of trees, it will never be attacked. AI paths along the north of the mountain and will head straight till it can diagonal between the 2 north lakes. ALWAYS!! I've also noticed that on the east end of the north lake you can safely line up your army men, and put your bombarders above the middle lake with zero risk to the units. As you can see I like to keep my main line of defence in the middle of the map. If an enemy gets beyond the lakes i am not doing my job properly. In the beginning rounds this can be a little tough since all the gold possible is devoted to building cities not units, but once i get all 10 cities going the game is pretty much a wrap, as long as i don't screw up myself. A nice little trick to make the beginning rounds easier is to run a tundra warrior to the very north wall. The very last impassible mountian is a section of tundra. Fortify on it and just let everything walk into you. If you absolutly need to heal move out for a few rounds, but once you get your first few lvls you can leave him there safely until the suiciders and psyco's come. Once I get to these rounds i pull back to the lakes and bombard, bombard, bombard. My middle line of defense is placed at the end of the desert lake. 90% of enemies spawning in the south will move up along the mountain range. Place your longbowmen on the last hill above the lake and a few units on the next tiles east (unstacked of course). Your trebs/cannons/artillery can be placed slightly behind because they have a range of 6 and nothing moves faster then 3. My southern defense is very light. Even with a city in the south only about 10% of the southern enemies will enter the desert. I stack longbowmen on the the SE hill above the lake. They are 100% safe here at all times and are able to reach one square into the desert on the west side. All enemies in the desert will follow the lake on the west side...if they even make it that far. Have a few weak fighters at the end of the desert/start of the jungle to cleanup the leftovers. I should mention that zombies and suicide's path different then anything else you will face. Oddly enough these are the only 2 enemies with a movement rate of 1. AI will always path to your city the fastest way possible, which means anything with a movement rate of 2 or 3 will tend to plains/grassland/desert. They will only enter a hill/forest/jungle on there last movement turn, for the purpose of defense. A movement rate of one means there is no fast way. They take their sweet time. Which means they can come through at any tile on the choke points. As you can imagine with my defense set up in the middle, there is very little land to search for huts. Newly purchased units take care of the area infront on the city's, my forces see most of the middle so that just leaves the snow to search and a few odd little places like the middle trees. If you noticed, on the east wall the north and south are split by a range of mountains. Store 2 or 3 of your scouts along this wall. When you know that the round is going to end soon send the scouts out along the areas where the enemies spawn. When the next round starts have them search there way back to the safety of the wall. This works well until round 15. At round 15 units will just keep coming, no matter how many the counter says there is remaining. If your defenses aren't adequate by this point you don't have a chance in winning. There is no more downtime to rest, or time to walk in reinforcements. A few general notes: NEVER let Psycos or Suiciders attack you. Bombard, bombard, bombard. By lvl 12 i have enough seige weapons in place to take anything down to a manageable lvl and then finish them off with other units. Blitzing riders work well for this, and even macemen have a range of 2 so you can attack and move out of the way of the next group, and a scout will work in a pinch. Pay attention to pathing to make your kills easier and keep your units safe and alive. No defense is perfect, it can always be stronger. If at first you don't succeed, try again.

 

[deanej]

I'm hoping to revisit this scenario soon. I want to get some feedback on this strategy:
-have 1st city just behind the mountains as far out as it can go so the enemy's path doesn't change mid-game
-build 1 city every round until you have placed the maximum number
-1 tech per round - Scouting, then riders, macemen, catapults, trebuchets, musketmen, spying, cannons
-defend from the lower lake with a Jungle Warrior
-have a unit in Athens to defend against units using a different path

I see some problems with this that I don't know how to fix:
-This requires A LOT of gold. A lot more than you can get from cities and huts. The riders tech alone costs 800 gold. There is no way I can have this much and still have enough units to combat the psycho samurais (as you can't just let them suicide into you like you can with every prior enemy, and which is my only war strategy for when I have less units than my enemy)
-If the enemy changes paths, or I can't find its path fast enough, I am dead.

 

[deanej]

Anyone? I would like to have a strategy validated, because I'm tired of losing this scenario! I want to win!

 

[The_Boyce]

Don't be so rigid in your strategy. Set your priorities and try to achieve them, in that order. Mine are in my post. If your tired of losing then run through rnd 1 to 10, evaluate how you did. Stop there and run through it again. Did i do better/worse and why? then start again and see how far you make it. There are suprises that will come up. The only way to beat them is experience. Don't be concerned about winning your first few times out. It took me 2 times to realize that the father away the fight is from the cities the safer they are. Another round to realize you need backup along the way and then another round just to realize you need alot of bombardment. After that it wasn't so hard. Run through it. Learn. Run through it again. Success is acheivable.