Do you attack up or down the stack?

[Xiao Xiong]

When you move your SoD up to an enemy city, do you attack up or down the stack?

In other words, after you've used up your siege units and possibly mounted units, do you attack from your strongest to weakest unit? Or from weakest to strongest?

I have found that if you attack down the stack you lose fewer units overall, but you are more likely to lose your elite units that way: the early attackers are more likely to die.

If I attack up the stack then a few of my low promoted units die softening up the strongest defenders but by the time I get to my stronger units they have high odds of winning and I rarely lose them.

Moreover attacking up the stack the unpromoted units either die or get promoted, so I see it as kind of an "up or out" policy

Not sure what's more efficient overall.
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[BigTime]

It depends. If you had enough siege, their defence should be crippled enough so you have reasonably favorable odds no matter what. I'm talking 90% and up with a good siege. But, if I had to choose between 50% with a fresh unit or 65% with an elite I'd take the fresh one so I can save my elite.

 

[The Rook]

I think YMMV may apply here.

If my elite unit has 97% success odds, and my rookie has just 60%, then I would risk the elite.

If it's a suicide job, the rookie goes first.

If the odds are good all around, then I prioritise units close to reaching the next level of experience. This has the advantage that you could potentially promote them to save healing time on the next turn.

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

I generally work down the stack and check the combat odds as I go. If I've got a swordsman and the AI has a nearly dead somethingorother that I'll beat, I'll use the lower unit in the hope of an upgrade. Then I give the lower unit the first cross or whatever it's called, so he can heal other units in the stack without the risk of being lost in another battle.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I have found that if you attack down the stack you lose fewer units overall, but you are more likely to lose your elite units that way: the early attackers are more likely to die.

This is so - on the other hand, elite is pretty meaningless if all they do is beat upon scrubs.

I tend to attack with high level units before low level units, but within a level I will usually go with the low XP units while I think there is risk of losing one,

It's not easy to judge the best odds, because it isn't all that straight forward to evaluate the value of different units: is it better to have a 9xp unit and a 6 xp unit, or two 8xp units. By how much? etc.

 

[trc]

Early, I tend to send enough siege that the core attack has pretty high odds. Inexperienced (replaceable) siege first, then experienced siege when retreat odds are +60. These units tend to grow in experience points, making them deadly when when they get upgraded to cannon, etc.

The core troops are typically facing a +90% success rate after a good siege. If there are some strong units left (i.e. well fortified long bow), I'll sacrifice a low unit to take it out, and then build experience for the others, playing with the city.

Assuming a medic, I'll typically take all but one defender, lather rinse repeat. AI seems to favor adding defense to a crippled city (At least at current levels) and pour what it can do defending it, and I'm more than happy to play along.

Focus on the war(s), not the battle. As a war monger, I want to unlock HE, perhaps WP, and a GG to add to my military pump, all to build up a military that has an advantage.

 

[Solon70]

If your elite units only attack when they have 99% odds then you're not really getting much out of your elite units. Another way to look at this is if you don't lose an elite unit once in a while then you're doing something wrong.

Sometimes you want to try and save certain units to be promoted later. A common example is creating as many CR3 maces as possible so they can be CR3 rifles someday. In that case you may try to avoid risking your CR3 units, allowing your lesser units to either die or earn their promotions. But in most cases, I think you do better in the long run to use your highly-promoted units when they can actually make a difference, even though you take a risk of losing them.

 

[DaveMcW]

Attack with your 2nd best elite unit and down.

Your best elite unit needs to survive to unlock the Heroic Epic and West Point.

 

[StrategeryBush]

I look for attacks that I can make with odds from 94% to about 98.5% (I'm not precisely sure what the exact upper limit is) where I can get full experience for the win at fairly safe odds. I much prefer a 98% attack to a >99.9% attack. Units that need 1 xp to make level are the ones I like to use for >99% cleanup. I also like to try to develop and preserve CR3 melee units for later promotion.

I'll use a CR2 with 5 exp (non-charismatic) at medium odds over a 4 exp CR1 unit at low odds, but I'll certainly sacrifice a new recruit at <5% before I attempt a 25% attack with a veteran.

All in all it is very situation dependent. I do admit to giving Napoleon's Old Guard treatment to my elite units; as a result, I don't get as much use out of them as I might, but they are pretty to look at.

 

[Infantry#14]

Really depends. If the combat odd is between 50 and 60%, then the rookie. If the odd 50 and 80%, probably the more experienced. It is very hard to choose whether to send in the 70% elite unit. Probably more suicide siege first.

 

[King Pluto]

I think YMMV may apply here.

If my elite unit has 97% success odds, and my rookie has just 60%, then I would risk the elite.

If it's a suicide job, the rookie goes first.

If the odds are good all around, then I prioritise units close to reaching the next level of experience. This has the advantage that you could potentially promote them to save healing time on the next turn.

Pretty much this. Assuming siege didn't make everything <90% odds, I suicide the rookies on battles less than 70%, use veterans on 70% and up, and prioritize units close to promotion when everything is 90% or better.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Attack with your 2nd best elite unit and down.

Your best elite unit needs to survive to unlock the Heroic Epic and West Point.

Works for barbs.

The easiest way to unlock HE/WP in a normal war is get combat I/medic, 1 cleanup battle (6 xp), then attach a GG for supermedic. 26 XP = WP experience for all leaders, and your supermedic has combat I, medic III, morale so is fairly versatile.

This lets one ignore silly nonsense XP planning and attack "down". Of course, when farming XP from barbs one has to be more careful.

 

[CornPlanter]

Normally I attack with the weakest siege unit first, best siege unit second, all the rest siege units third. <-- thats generalization, not a rule.

When I am no longer allowed to attack with siege, its time to finish off with whatever I happen to have at the moment. In my last game I used some ol' crap like chariots, axes, swords and especially maces against everything up to Infantry (against infantry it was difficult, I admit, but up to riffles - no problems). Whats really important is that your siege is up to date and stack defenders are up to date as much as possible.

 

[IAM]

Often I'll keep a couple of units for stack defense in the feild like maces with combat I & II with shock to protect the stack and they rarely attack cities. Also when I research something like Feudalism I'll produce city garrison II longbowmen to replace most city defenders so the archers will be used as cannon foder to reduce unit maintenance cost and save some of my better units. I work the promotions like several have already stated.

 

[troytheface]

i click stack attack - which i don't know what it does in so far as order- i suspect strongest to weakest judging from the results

that said

in a multiplayer game i noticed the opponent - who was the point leader- (a couple of us left, the rest killed or went crying home to mama compliments of glorious me- which meant the other two had been simply amassing huge armies....)

at any rate he attacked from the weakest- with success -but with siege it is hard to tell if it matters.

i suggest it does not matter

 

[naterator]

elite is pretty meaningless if all they do is beat upon scrubs.

This^^^
Down the stack. My best units should be able to beat the AIs best units after a proper siege, if the odds aren't great, i'll send in more siege. If i screw up and don't bring enough siege, then preferably i'll send in mounted troops with a withdraw chance, then my top soldiers. They are ALL expendable to gain the land in question.

 

[Irgy]

The biggest changes in survival odds occur around equal strength, so the most useful thing elite units do is tip the balance of a difficult battle in your favour.

The rules I follow, in order of priority are:
1. If seige ever has favourable odds, then attack with all of it.
2. If no-one has favourable odds, then attack with seige if available, weak units otherwise (with a preference for units that can withdraw of course). Sometimes using the weakest is a waste of time because they may do no damage whatsoever.
3. If elite units have favourable odds, then I'll attack down the stack, checking they still have favourable odds as I go. If the odds are only just favourable, or if I think they might not stay favourable (e.g. varied strength attackers and a lot of similar defenders), I'll use some seige first anyway. Once I expect to be 70%+ in every remaining battle though I won't waste any more seige at unfavourable odds.
4. Sometimes they have one elite defender who has such good odds against my seige that they take no damage at all (particularly with a lot of drill). In this case, I'll take them out (at least damage them) with something stronger, to clear the way for some of the seige to actually survive.
5. I'll mop up the last few units with whoever needs the most experience. Getting the second withdraw promotion for cavalry units or upgrading a medic for example is a high priority for me.

So a bit of both.

Personally I've never been unable to build HE or WP unless I haven't been at war at all the whole game. So I don't tend to worry about them.

 

[Negator_UK]

It depends on the odds, I'll attack with a less experienced unit if the odds are high to avoid putting the XPs on one, killable unit. Typicall I'll siege a city, then attack with the draftees leaving the experienced combat 1-2-3s for stack defence.

 

[Udey1]

Elite Units go last. At least for aggressive warring you need them to become effective stack defenders.

 

[honcho]

Haven't played above Noble, but my $0.02 I like going up the stack. After using siege, gives you the ability to throw cannon fodder at the city, like Warriors or outdated units that didn't get promotions. All units are costing you the same in maintenance, so I like doing this from an economic standpoint.