Fighting a Technologically Superior Army (Tutorial/Photojournal) [Immortal/Standard]

[paul_soryu]

Hi everyone! A recent question in this post about fighting a technologically superior army inspired me to write a little tutorial/photojournal of my latest game (concentrating mainly on warfare), to show my advices in practice and to discuss the idea in general, learning in the process. I also wanted to share the epic Battle of Stockholm with others I'll copypaste my reply with three advices, and then the photojournal will begin. Some of the screenshots have tactical breakdowns.

I am usually playing on 7th difficulty, and usually the AI looks very intimidating with their initial attack, but quickly (10-15 turns) retreats if you can put some basic defense around the city they are attacking. Well, defending is one thing, but aggression with weaker units can often be just impossible. It depends on terrain, number of units, if you have any UU, and if the target is a militaristic civ. If the target is Tradition on flat lands without too many rivers, it may be an easy target even with a tech disadvantage. If it is Authority Sweden then it is probably impossible, unless you strike them first while they have a very weak army. I was actually able to snipe Sweden out of the game with early Swordsmen attack in 2 of my last 3 games, while in the last game I was fighting them in the Tercio tech (we were tech equal) and it was an absolute nightmare.

1) One thing I learned relatively recently is how powerful roads (and workers overall) are during a war. Before this, for some reason I was always hesitant to actively use workes on the frontlines, I thought of them as purely civil units which connect cities and build improvements. Yes, they consume gold (both workers and roads), but you can save and heal a lot of units if you spam roads and don't push into roadless territories. Play defensively around your farthest road line and build them as you slowly push forward. This works better in the early-game as city borders aren't as huge yet and you usually can build roads up to 2nd city radius. You want to defeat enemy's army in yours/neutral territories where you can benefit from your roads, and only then assault cities. Put Melee units in first row on defense, don't attack with them, and use Bows/Skirmishers/Mounted to deal damage. The terrain can be very disadvantageous for Bows, but you can remove forests/jungles if they are in the way. Roads help Mounted units, but pushing the frontline behind rivers can be very hard. Also building forts for your Melee units isn't a bad idea and can help you push into a difficult terrain.

2) The other thing is saving units and killing enemy units (mindblowing, I know). Calculate if the enemy can kill your unit, or if it can be surrounded the next turn without the escape route, and retreat or switch the unit if needed. I usually retreat/switch if a Melee unit is under 50-40 HP and can be attacked 2-3 times (should also count possible Mounted attacks from out of view). Sometimes, if I have no full HP units to switch places, I retreat the whole army, but that can be dangerous if the roads you built are in neutral territory, as the enemy will benefit from them (you can pillage them and restore later). By killing enemy units you force them to spend production on building new ones, which cripples their development. I don't think you can outright win wars against technologically superior enemy, you usually need to go to attrition warfare for some time to catch up with them. Another good thing is to have lots of spare happiness, so that the enemy goes into unhappiness from War Attrition in a long war, which damages their development quite noticeably and gives -10% CS debuff to units.

3) And last but not least: from my recent experience, Woodman and Amphibious promotions sometimes can be a gamechanger. My problem is that I am very greedy and want to get to other top promotions asap, so I almost never take those two, as they are situational and can be useless in many cases. But if the area is full of forests/jungles or rivers/lakes and you are stuck, they can solve the problem.

For some examples: I was playing as France last time and was attacked by Assyria, which retreated, but got a military tech ahead of mine and started upgrading units (Spearmen/Swordsmen/Horsemen vs. Pikemen/Longswordsmen/Knights, both with C-Bows, additionally Assyria's units already had 2 levels, while mine were level 0). I was gifted a couple of Greek Hoplites (which are very powerful and can be equal with Pikemen, if surrounded by friendly units) by a City-State, and was able to capture a couple of Knights and Assyria's Iron Chariots via France's UA, so that definitely helped. I was able to push Assyria back to their borders using mass roads, but until I had Pikemen/Knights online I was unable to start assaults of big cities.

I am playing here with a Capture+++ mod which gives me enemy's GGenerals (I'll be turning this option off in future games), but I used only a couple of them for non-essential Citadels. Overall, only 2-3 Citadels here were absolutely needed.

Spoiler France vs. Assyria, don't mind glitched fish, don't know why it is that way in screenshots, it is okay in game :

Spoiler Turn 100 :

Assyria attacked, I have almost no units there, I need 4-5 turns to get my army from the north, I don't even have a road between Paris and Orleans yet, but I have good production in Paris thanks to this very rare (at least for me) Marshes+Lakes start.

Spoiler Turn 110 :

It seems Assyria's AI got confused with Vancouver and switched targets from Orleans to Vancouver, but from how damaged my units are you can see that I was defending prior to this. I am starting to build roads towards Assyria's territories. Also first Knight is seen here

Spoiler Turn 120 :

Now I build roads in the neutral territory, if I didn't it would take too long to traverse the hill/jungle range. Assyria upgraded most of their units. A little tactical breakdown: the red plot with my Hoplite can only be attacked by archers from two enemy plot, but the blue hill range makes it equally hard for me to push beyond it, as I can not support my melee units with archers from behind, so my plan for now is to build roads to purple plots and start attacking the city, while defending at the blue hill range

Spoiler Turn 130 :

Roads are completed, with a nice 2-tile width, allowing archers to quickly move in and melee units to retreat not caring about enemy's possible Zone of Control. I researched Pikemen and Longswordsmen, so now I can try to push beyond blue hill range. It is still risky though, as Assyria can benefit greatly from their roads, and I need 2-3 turns to retreat my units to safety. Also, Vancouver is getting assaulted by barbarians, spawning 4-5 barbs each 4 turns, so this slows me down, but also gives me a lot of free units (at the end I probably doubled my army, very beneficial to France) and free XP for my level 0 units.

Here's a little example of why pushing into Nimrud is risky: red tile can be attacked 10 times, but I can only support it with an archer from one blue tile.

Spoiler Turn 140 :

At this point I am winning because I destroyed most of Assyria's units and they were economically unable to replenish losses in time. I conquered all of Assyria some 25 turns later. So the war took me 75 turns. I had a lot of spare happiness as I only had 5 cities and didn't settle the landmass in the north, but most of my unhappiness at turn 165 was from War Weariness.

Later in the game, at Tercio tech (Musketeers for France), I pre-built roads on the border with Sweden and sneak attacked them while they were fighting Venice on the other side.

Spoiler Turn 188 :

Roads, roads everywhere! Notice the red line towards Swedish capital, this road will help me later. Also about the red circle - I was building roads there, but Birka quickly acquired many tiles, which slowed me down significantly and made assaulting Birka more difficult (both desert hills were unclaimed before this). Roads proved to be a little less important in this war, as Sweden didn't have any units on my border, but roads in red circle would still have helped noticeably, because the terrain is desert and desert hills, which cost 3 move points which is how much Musketeers have. Also, without roads it would take me 3 turns just to deploy units in that desert/hill terrain, and would slow me down significantly.

I was able to capture 3 cities, but when Sweden vassalized Venice and got their army back, I was stuck for like 20-30 turns around their capital, even despite my 3 Citadels pushing into it, because:
- It had a hugely disadvantageous terrain of many rivers on a flatland, which made Musketeers' 3 movement points and "ignore of Zone of Control" bonuses almost useless. Crossing a river meant this unit was dead the next turn, and even attacking a unit behind a river was a huge risk.
- Sweden has very good %-based bonuses to unit CS, and it had the Crusader Spirit Reformation belief (+10% against other religions), which also ironically helped Sweden defend by making my Citadels worse (+10% in enemy territory). Those bonuses balanced out Musketeers' +5 CS (30 vs Tercio's 25)
- Hakkapeliittas are not as strong as Caroleans, but still deal huge damage even to Musketeers/Knights and are very mobile.
- Stockholm managed to build Red Fort, which now after the addition of Bastion Fort gives you a free Arsenal from 3 techs later (at Combustion I think), which I don't know if it is intended, but it makes taking such city with Tercio/Cannons basically impossible without completely surrounding it. And as I was unable to start an actual assualt (because I couldn't defeat the defending army or move close enough), the biggest problem of a Red Fort was not its CS bonus, but RCS bonus, with sudden 4 range 75 RCS ranged strike. This meant I needed to retreat my damaged Musketeers a lot more often.
- Sweden had some Musketmen, while I still had Crossbows which were very weak against Hakkapeliittas and Tercio.

Spoiler Turn 195 :

Initially I falsely assumed there would be no units to defend the capital and I didn't recognize how tough the terrain was, so I didn't bring in Workers and didn't build roads, I was teching into Schools and not Fusiliers, I even got my spy out as I expected to take Stockholm quickly. I rushed in with damaged Musketeers to take the city before it completes the Red Fort, but I was unsuccesful. I had to retreat my whole army two times to heal, and you can pillage tiles only ones. As the war was going on in Tundra, I even started thinking this was some historical reenactment of Napoleon's Russian Campaign.

Spoiler Turn 200 :

On the second try I pushed far into the capital with 2 Citadels from the side, so that I was able to build roads there, but still was kicked out. I was very lucky that Stockholm's borders allowed me to place those two Citadels, otherwise moving in this desert and desert hill terrain would straight up be impossible, thus there would be literally no way of moving into the capital, the best way I think would be a tundra hill tile to the west.

Here's how many bonuses Swedish units usually have:

Even with citadels and roads there was no opportunity for me to cross into Sweden's tiles and stay alive, and even attacking across rivers was a huge risk. France's UA was actually a huge help here, as capturing units made the attacking unit not move forward on kill, and if impossible to evacuate, captured units would soak up 1-2 hits, leaving my main units in safety. Eventually I started using captured and healed Swedish Tercios as cannon fodder on highly dangerous tiles, a tactic I never used before, and while it helped grind down Swedish units, it didn't allow me to push forward.

Spoiler Turn 210 :

Red lines are rivers, which stopped my Musketeers, and red stars are desert hills, which did the same (basically prolonging rivers) and additionally obstructed vision of my Crossbows/Cannons in very important places. I was unable to put ranged units in pink tiles, as I needed them to switch my Musketeers in the first line. Notice how this little area of 5 tiles is completely enclosed by red obstacles, getting in or out costs all movement points. I had only a few good tiles for ranged units, marked with blue star. Standing next to city or roads meant a unit would be killed, as it allowed Sweden to use Skirmishers and Hakkapeliittas. Because of rivers and some deserts, moving units to the left side was too slow for me to be able to switch units there. So, I was basically unable to attack anywhere, and my best bet was to allow enemy units into a teal tiles and slowly capture them. And yes Samarkand to the top left was being assaulted by barbarians, just as Vancouver was in the war with Assyria.

Meanwhile, I was able to push forward a "-20%needed to unlock Technologies researched by other player" in World Congress (the AI for some reason very very rarely proposes it, even though majority of them want it and vote in favor of it), so combined with Schools this would allow me to quickly tech into Fusiliers (Japan already has all the techs I need).

Spoiler Turn 220 :

And, finally, on the third attempt I placed a 3rd Citadel (mainly for placing roads across rivers and to get rid of this annoying Bison tile [although Stockholm claimed other annoying tile to the left], not for defense bonus or attack ability), and started building roads all over the border with a plan to let enemy units come a little closer and grind them down from neutral/my territory. This was effective, just as it was in the war against Assyria, but it is only when I got Fusiliers and Field Guns that I was able to start confidently pushing into Swedish territory. It also seems that they were starting to run low on units at that time. Later those roads would continue westwards and serve me well in transportation of units to the western coastal cities of Sweden.

So, it took me some 25 turns to break through Stockholm's defences (the city was completely surrounded and then taken at turn 230, so 35 turns in total of the "Stockholm battle"). I was barely in time to capture their main cities before they got Caroleans online (there were a few already and they were very tough, big CS bonuses and +15 HP heal each turn is very powerful), which would probably even pushed me back out of Stockholm. It was one of the most difficult and thus most interesting battles I ever fought. Without roads and a tactic to save units it would be noticabely more difficult. And if returning to the original question: no, it would be absolutely impossible to attack into Sweden with Tercio/Knights vs. Caroleans/Hakkapeliittas, and without France's UA.

Looking at it now, I think there were a couple of ways to make progress other than researching Fusiliers:
- start building roads around the border much earlier, and fight around it, not inside of Stockholm's borders.
- build a lot more Musketmen, as I had only a few, because I relied on mass Musketeer blitzkrieg + Cannons for taking cities. But I had Salons and Schools to build and I was really gready for science, as I realised I wouldn't make any progress without Fusiliers, and if Sweden got Caroleans first, I would be in huge troubles probably for the rest of the game, and Musketmen wouldn't help me much. It would also set me back compared to Japan which was ahead of me with 5 techs.
- start taking Amphibious promotion for Musketeers. This wouldn't be quick, and would delay other good promotions, but it would let Musketeers regain their maneuverability and chain multiple attacks over rivers while staying alive. Though, I would need to stop the assault of Venice (which also had bad terrain, but not as much units and CS bonuses) to have enough units to rotate the frontline.

But, still, all of it means I would just grind down Sweden's units quicker and damage their economy, not that I would make progress in pushing forward. And if the AI ever learns to build roads for wars it would make wars significantly more difficult. Like, if Stockholm had roads everywhere this would make any Swedish unit more mobile than any of my Knight/Lancer or Musketeer even with Amphibious promotion.

So, sometimes it is outright impossible to defeat not just a technologically superior enemy, but even an equal one. A lot of factors are in play. I was able to push into tech-superior Assyria in neutral lands with roads, but was unable to push into tech-equal Sweden in enemy lands without roads, even with a very powerful French UU and UA + 3 Citadels.

As a bonus, here's two screeshots of how things were going on Venetian front. As Venice lacked units after war with Sweden, it was much easier to fight them, but the terrain was still challenging.

Spoiler Turn 195 :

Red line is a river/lake, and red stars are desert hills. I identified two blue tiles as good for besieging Venice, but the desert in the middle made getting there slow. Also, with Venice having Great Galleases, they could focus my cannons on these two tiles, so that I was forced to retreat immediately after moving onto them and not shooting even once. So I decided to plant a Citadel in the nearby desert and build roads there.

Spoiler Turn 210 :

And here's how it worked out. Venice was taken 5 turns later. If they had a lot more units, this could have taken much longer.

Thanks for reading, if you have any more ideas, please share!

 

[KlHannibal2]

Cool post, thank you. Playing mostly domination on deity, I follow much of the same principles.

Some more strategies I like to use:
Fighting with ships is much easier than with land units at the moment. AIs build few ships, so you can control the sea easily. This allows you to attack land units and cities from the sea, and move your own land units in and out of enemy lands faster than over land.
If I have a large empire and high unit cap, I like to fill the sea with ships, mostly ranged with city attack promotions. This is more useful on Milae's map that I play on than here, since land masses are less massive. But it can still allow you to pick off units on the coast or deny using those tiles. If attacking cities, Ships can also help to get the blockade bonus. Land units (free company going full city attack promotions, then amphibious) do additional attacks on the target city. This deals damage faster than attacking with ships alone. Several of those rotate in and out for healing.
Another strategy with a big empire and good production: spamming knights / lancers. Even if you have musketeers as the core of your army, the cavalry can get extra attacks in or simply occupy tiles quickly to restrict movement. Even if I lose several of those, it can help to speed up your attack. Against Sweden, losses would probably be too high though.

Strategically, I like to take the route of least resistance, if time allows for it. In your situation, I might have first taken the northern half of Sweden's sub-continent and defended towards Stockholm. After taking that, I could have attacked the South with an even bigger army, all across the continent, with fleets of 10+ ships on each side of the continent pushing south. Or just leave the South, as Sweden could probably be vassalised after taking the North. Capitals are no longer needed for Domination victory, if the civ is your vassal.

Next target would be Japan, since it has many small islands and good fleet access.

Something to add to your road startegy: I also spam forts where I can. It seems you did too, it was just not emphasized in the post. Sometimes it is laso worth it to peace out for 10 turns to get a citadel or 2 into heavily contested ground and spam roads and forts around it.