Desperate Military Help

[RichardMNixon]

I cannot seem to figure out this new system, it seems like defense always wins. I'm China invading Persia. Parsargadae has 2 archers, an immortal, an axeman, and a spearman. I have 3 axemen, 3 chariots, 5 spearmen (I was expecting a lot more immortals). How can you possibly win against a varied defense? If I attack with an axman, he gets slaughtered by an archer, if I attack with a chariot, he gets slaughtered by the spearman, if I attack with a spearman, he gets slaughtered by an axeman. What can I possibly do? Catapaults? Is artillery even more important now than it was in CivIII?

 

[Penitent]

Catapults are the key to winning as the attacker. Bombard the city defences down to 0% and then send 2-3 catapults in to cause collateral damage on all his units, give them the upgrade which lets them withdraw from combat more often. Your other units should be able to take the city far more easily now. Artillery is very important, even as defender they can make stacks of doom less overwhelming.

 

[Toastedzergling]

Yeah catapult is the way to go, they can bomb down the city defence, and then you suicide 1 or two to weaken the whole enemy stack, and finish them off with axe and swords, if the opponent doesn't have copper or iron, pure axe/swords will do if you can't wait to have catapults

 

[Gufnork]

The attacker need a vast amount of same-type troops while the defender needs a variety. If you vary your troop types as an agressor you're likely to always face your counter unit. I generally sacrifice a bunch of my newbies to damage counters to my troops, once they're gone the city will fall easily. A good rule of thumb is to always bring twice the amount of attackers as there are defenders. The only variety you need as an attacker are a few units that counters your units counters (axemen if you bring horsies etc) in case your opponent decides to attack you while you're approaching his cities (make these guys your medics).

For early warfare nothing beats swordsmen. Once you get few City Raider promotions they're nigh unstoppable. Once you get Catapults warring should be a lot easier and you should ALWAYS bring tons of catapults. No rookies are better to sacrifice in order to weaken a towns defenders. But you must realize that you usually must sacrifice troops to take cities. Even if you have well promoted troops giving you a slight edge in odds I recommend sacrificing rookies to make sure you don't lose your promoted units.