Early Game Help

[Miagers]

So im about to be at war with the Egyptians at around 400 BC Ive got two small stacks of 3 catapults, 3 axemen, and 3 swordsmen in each stack. All units have 3 promotions of city raider, strength and double strength, and bonuses vs archery units. Hes got 6 cities with 2 or 3 units garrisoning each city. All cities have one longbowman and a spearmen and some have an additional axemen or swordsman. My first two stacks are attacking cities with just 2 garrisoning units right now and i think i can get to them before they whip or send in help. What do you guys think can that combo take on their longbowmen or am a screwd and need to build much larger stacks?
Thanks for the help.

 

[manu-fan]

Reduce the city defense bonus to zero with your catapults. Then, attack with 1 catapult, probably sacrificing it, but doing the collateral damage that will let your other units succeed easily. Take the city with the Axemen/Swordsmen. You should continue to be building Catapults back home to replace the ones you're going to lose.

Do this with your other stack at another city.

Then re-group and take out the rest.

Cheers.

 

[Miagers]

Thanks for the help thats exactly what my plan was. But I was not sure how much more powerful those longbowmen were they have 1 promotion each. My catapults have the first 2 collateral damage promotions. Sucks that my civ is about 18-30 turns away from his cities though the closes are 18 and his cap is 30. I started building a road that way to cut the time down but its still a bit of a ways away.

 

[Sisiutil]

You've got the right basic idea, but I feel obliged to quibble a bit with your promotions.

First off, specialize your units. City raiders get city raider promotions. End of story. Once they have CR III, then you can start giving them Combat promotions. What you do is include at least one other unit in the stack as a protective, defensive unit with Shock and Combat promotions, so your city raiders never have to defend, only attack. In my early game stacks I usually like to include a Combat I/Shock Axe to counter melee attackers and a Combat I/Medic I Spearman to ward off mounted units.

Longbowmen in a city are formidable defenders, and if the city is on a hill they're even worse, since they get a bonus on top of the hill's +25% defense. Barrage promotions for your Catapults are good, but I like to give my Cats at least one City Raider promotion so they have a better chance of damaging the best defender which they're attacking directly. Otherwise, too often my Cat will do collateral damage to the other defenders while the City Garrison II Longbowman escapes unscathed.

As for the distance, have you considered using some naval units? It might be too onerous in the early game to build many, but a few Galleys might be able to get your troops over to your distant enemy faster than hoofin' it.

 

[lilnev]

Good recommendations from Sisiutil. I usually give my cats CR promotions unless I know they're going up against a stack of 5+. In your particular situation, I'd probably combine those two attacking stacks into one. You're going to be losing some suicide units, and leaving wounded guys behind to heal, and perhaps some guys as garrisons. Plus something unexpected might come up and you need all your firepower together.

Also, I don't normally fight early wars against civs that far away. If I've got that much space I'll be building my own cities. The distance maintainence costs are going to be killer....

peace,
lilnev

 

[cabert]

are you going for conquest?
I hope so, since keeping those faraway cities really seems useless otherwise.

But basically, with 3vs1 forces, you can get them all.
Make sure to have at least one medic in each stack.