Defend Cities against AI Stacks

[thadeej]

So I've got one of my outer lying cities being attacked by Bismark (2 other nations decided to join in after him, fun fun) My defenses are slowly melting away turn after turn as a a few catapults sit in a stack of horse archers and swordsmen.

They have tried attacking but between my pikemen and crossbowman they have no chance. Thing is they keep dropping my defenses with the damn catapults.

My question is, is there a way to isolate and take out the catapults? Do I put together a massive force and exit my city walls for a fair fight?

Or do I just wait turn after turn until my city defenses are low enough that they decide to finally fight like men rather than throwing rocks at me (this will take a long time)?

(Or maybe do i take a bunch of siege units and macemen and take a city or two of theirs and see how they like that?)

Thanks for the tips the germans are annoying the hell out of me!!

 

[GenerallyGreat]

Horse archers with flanking promotions will chew through their siege even if they aren't attacking them directly.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There are 4 approaches you can use to beat an attacking AI stack with basic siege, one of them very late-game:

1. Simply spam enough garrison that it can withstand the collateral and still hold up with favorable odds against the AI attackers. AGG and PRO get a bonus here, especially PRO with its cheap but strong archery/gunpowder (taking CG II or even III).

2. Horse archers -----> flanking damage to catapults until there are no catapults. You'll need a decent amount of HA, and possibly a couple archers (the AI will attack if it loses its siege, and you'll want something with defensive bonuses). Although it takes a good # of HAs to destroy siege via flanking directly (sometimes enough to just kill the stack outright), they do happen to double as ridiculously good offensive units that can snipe cities and are amazing in dogpile situations.

3. Catapults ---> slam the non-siege in the AI stack with collateral. Yes, enemy cats are immune to this, but if everything else is at 1/2 str, they might just defend. If not, you can just kill the stuff that could actually kill your units .

4. Nukes ----> application of these to eliminate an AI stack should be obvious.

Later in the game air power can substitute for siege also.

 

[dworkin]

I've always found the brutal counter-attack the best defense.

With that consider sending in flanking units and cats to mire the german offensive and just have more defenders than attackers in the city square makes their life miserable.

For future strategy emulate ancient rulers and establish kill zones arround your cities. Kill those damn trees/jungles and their nasty +50% defensive bonus.

 

[mirthadir]

I'll toss in two more options, both a bit late game:

1. Air power. Bombing the AI stack will allow you to poach cannons easily with Cav or arty with choppers. Bombers can do enough damage to let you eat the siege and still win on an even unit count.

2. Drill siege. Okay drill pults and trebs blow for defense. But a few other options are not to be discounted. If the stack is mainly outdated siege, drill cannons will let you eat all the siege without taking collateral, drill makes it less likely that a stay pult wil even damage the top defender. Drill Arty are just downright insane vs rifles. The key of the hill here is, of course, the MG. The humble MG can be mass promoted from Xbows or Grens with ease. For a pro or ag civ this provides you with pretty easy high lvl MGs which decimate the enemy. A CGIII/DI MG not only takes no collateral damage, but can eat multiple cavs with zero damage. Even just normal built high dril MGs aren't countered until arty/marines (by which point the latter is suspect as you should have infantry by then).

 

[Jehoshua]

I find a combination of cats and horse archers works well, along with some defending units like swordsmen/axemen/spearmen depending on what enemy units are nearby. The collateral and flanking damage should allow you to kill any remaining units with the defenders and lift the siege.

 

[nullspace]

TMIT gave good explanations of four different strategies that are useful in different situations. In thadeej's game, it sounds like the best option is :

1. Simply spam enough garrison that it can withstand the collateral and still hold up with favorable odds against the AI attackers. AGG and PRO get a bonus here, especially PRO with its cheap but strong archery/gunpowder (taking CG II or even III).

Your pikemen and crossbows are much better on defense than on attack. If you attack with the pikes they'll have to fight enemy swordsmen, and if you attack with your crossbows they'll fight the horse archers. Better to stay on defense so you get the advantageous matchups. And you say that the enemy has only a few catapults, so collateral won't hurt too much.

Here's a possible addition to this strategy: on the turn before you think the enemy will attack, use a few catapults to do collateral damage to his stack. Then he'll have to attack with weakened units, or delay his attack while waiting to heal. And that can buy you time to bring in more defenders.

 

[Yesod]

I think simply putting up a wall and archers/longbows is the most efficient way. You don't need as many as you think. Problem with that is that the AI will pillage the city, and maybe even pass up the city entirely, if you have too many units, so only fortifying enough to repel the force is what I would go for. If you get the right amount, which someone who know the code could probably tell you, having an AI attack you is actually a good thing; free GGs and wasted hammers for them as they just dump soldiers into the meat grinder. I used to call it quits when an AI with 3x my power rating attacked me, but I found out first hand how bad they are at waging wars.

Also remember that unless the odds are ridiculously favorable, they'll bombard your defenses, so if you switch to slavery, you have plenty of time to lay down six to ten archers.

Besides that, you can always build horse archers and siege to take out their units in the field. This is what I do in cottage economies.