Fighting on Wide Fronts?

[Jhaeman]

I've gotten pretty good with overseas combat to capture small and medium-sized islands (get about 20 of my best offensive units together, take a beachhead city, reinforce, and move on to the next). It's a fairly low-risk style of war because pretty much the worst the AI can do is take back the beachhead city or, perhaps, send an occasional transport to my home continent.

What I'd like help figuring out is how to fight ground wars when you share a long border with an enemy of about the same tech-level (or in my current game, I have a long, spear-like chunk of land that they surround on three sides). That is, I know I can put together an army big enough to take a couple of towns at a time, but the front is so large that I can't predict which cities of mine the AI will counterattack (or pass right by to counterattack someplace deeper in my territory). I could strip down all defensive units from cities deep in my territory to help reinforce the front, but then I worry about that sneaky AI landing a transport or two at my rear to cause headaches and cut supply lines (which is exactly what I'm thinking about doing to them!). I'm generally prefer conservative, low-risk wars and given the difficulty in guessing enemy strength I worry I could underestimate them and get overwhelmed.

Any tips on how to go about this?

 

[ChaosArbiter]

the front is so large that I can't predict which cities of mine the AI will counterattack

The AI does have a few preferences regarding who and where it attacks (for example, I have an AoI game going as Germany, with Austria-Hungary as my ally, and we're at war with Russia):

* The AI likes to attack weaker or unprotected cities - I have at least three units in all my cities, none of which have been attacked by the Russians, and they haven't attacked any of my assaulting stacks as well, despite my having taken six of their cities. They did counterattack one city that I'd just taken and hadn't reinforced well, having only four injured infantry units defending it.

* The AI likes to attack units of yours that are in its territory, but it tends not to like to attack armies.

* It will *usually* attack closer targets in preference for ones farther away, but this may change - for example, if you have a city with no units in it fifteen tiles into your border, the AI will often beeline for it.

I worry about that sneaky AI landing a transport or two at my rear to cause headaches and cut supply lines

The AI isn't usually smart enough to do this in any concerted manner, and if you have Rails it shouldn't matter even if they do, as you can send any combat units necessary to deal with the landing immediately.

given the difficulty in guessing enemy strength

Without Spies ... yeah, it can be. The AI (and the Military Advisor) values Offensive units more than Defensive units, though, and if you have a fairly large number of artillery units, even if you're "Weak" to the AI, you can usually generate a significant firepower advantage, especially once you get Rails.

Any tips on how to go about this?

Make sure you're up to speed on your unit management - don't leave frontline Workers, Settlers, or artillery units unescorted unless you're absolutely certain the AI can't reach them before you can.

Try to draw the AI into a salient - if you're outnumbered, heavily garrison most of your cities, but leave one or two near the middle with smaller garrisons, or completely empty if you're confident enough. The AI will tend to gravitate toward those cities.

Know the approximate strength of the AI's units - not necessarily how many units they have, or how many of each type, but how strong they are. AFAIK, the AI gauges attacks based on how effective it statistically is. If there are Musketmen defending a Town with no Wall, the AI will probably attack with Cavalry, and almost certainly if it has Tanks or Modern Armor. So, figure out how strong you need to make each garrison to make it a reasonable choice for the AI to attack *somewhere else*. You can even make a bit of a game with this, by leaving a weak garrison somewhere, and when the AI gets near it, shift all your units to that city and leave another city nearly empty. If you have Artillery and fast Attackers (Cavalry or other 3-move units), you can waste an entire stack using this or a variant.

 

[undertoad]

Hi Jhaeman

This is a question I've often ended up against.

You mentioned cutting supply lines. That's definitely a good tactic. I don't know what tech level you're at: Bombers off a carrier off the coast can do an excellent job getting rid of rail/roads at chokepoints in the enemy network (+1 Fighter for recon to check whether the AI has repaired your damage). If you're not into Flight yet, landing a defensive+artillery+fast unit combo (e.g. 2xInfantry + Arty + Cavalry) can do the same job, at the cost of taking some time to move to the crucial to-be-pillaged square if it's inland.

I think your problem is the same as the one I've encountered: the enemy's mobility. The CivIII AI is very good at finding gaps in your line which it can slip through to attack that one square you haven't defended very well (e.g. one with a Worker, unprotected artillery, or no defensive unit - even when you have the tech advantage, it's scary what Longbowmen can do to veteran Cavalry!). One tactic I love using is figuring out where the enemy is getting his mobility from, and then denying it. Pillage those crucial Horses/Oil squares and slap a hard-to-budge 2-3xInfantry stack on them before you start a serious campaign, and the AI is reduced to building slow units. (The CivAssistII utility, Miscellaneous view, will show you where the enemy's resources are; of course, you can be unlucky and come up against an AI which has HOrses/Oil right under one of its cities).

By selectively pillaging roads/rail at the front - as opposed to in the rear, as in "cutting supply lines" - you can create "speed-bump" areas which you don't have to defend so heavily: the enemy will take time to move through these roadless areas, and a stack of Arty placed in range of the tile where the AI will have to end its turn can damage anything that comes through: enough for the AI to retreat (it likes retreating red/yellow-lined units), or for you to finish them off. Either way, you're avoiding an enemy breakthrough.

One of the posters here has a Sun Tzu quote in their sig, something about "never completely surround an enemy, always give them one place to go". This is excellent advice when fighting the AI - if you block their movement but leave one invitingly clear route, you can persuade them to concentrate their efforts there. The AI will always go for this. Some more advanced players than I have refined this into a tactic called the "funnel of death/doom" - a narrow 1-tile-wide passage, with slow enough movement (i.e. no roads/rails) to ensure that enemy units have to end their turn in it. It's lined on both sides with heavily-defended stacks of arty/attack units. The AI will throw units into this funnel, and nothing will get through.

handy900 developed this idea even further, deliberately leaving single weak units alone on squares the AI could get to, but just out of range of 1 turn's movement; this makes the AI move its forces away from where they're causing a problem, and the bait unit then escapes on a ship. The "Byzantine Bikini Babe" tactic - it's in this thread, which is a hilarious read anyway.

Another thing to try is to attack everywhere at once. Land some units off transports in their rear areas (just what you're worried about them doing to you). Needn't be a serious metropolis-threatening force, maybe just 2xInfantry+1 Arty in 3 places at once. This can both distract them and hamper their movement.

I'm still learning on this subject - a lot of my Civ instincts are still stuck in CivI/CivII, where all military units exerted control over their surrounding 8 squares, meaning an enemy unit couldn't move past them without getting rid of them. This is no longer true in CivIII. The result is that a really low-risk land-warfare style is very expensive in terms of units. I had a screenie of what i ended up doing in one game: a diagonal line of 18 Infantry, sweeping across a continent in unison, to ensure the enemy couldn't move a unit past or through. (Note the line must be diagonal, otherwise it leaves gaps).

On the other hand, in CivIII losing a city doesn't carry the same penalties (back in those versions, losing a city meant the enemy got one of your techs for free). I'm still figuring out how to fight with this in mind.

hope this is helpful!

 

[Spoonwood]

The funnel of doom ala SirPleb/Bamspeedy actually involves using armies which use their free shot as enemy troops pass by. For wide front skirmishes, perhaps it's better to give away a few towns to another AI, then sign them in vs. your opponent.

 

[da3dalus]

It seems you've gotten some excellent advise already from the other 3 posters, so I'll keep this brief.

It's a fairly low-risk style of war because pretty much the worst the AI can do is take back the beachhead city or, perhaps, send an occasional transport to my home continent.

This depends very much on the form of government you're running. If you're in a government that has high war weariness, this style of war is not exactly low risk. If you landed a stack of 20 on the coast of this island and IBT the AI destroys all or almost all of your units, this can cause severe unhappiness in your cities and can bring production to a screeching halt.

Of course, this style of war is still relatively low risk because there is little risk of a counter-attack, as you mentioned in your post.

Something you could do to manage the size of your front is to conquer some enemy cities in your first turn of the war, and before you end the turn give those cities to a friendly civ. That would effectively put those cities out of the war and reduce the size of your front.

 

[Jhaeman]

Thanks guys, that's some really good advice. I especially like the bit about capturing an enemy city and then gifting it to a neutral--I don't get penalized for razing it, but I don't have to defend it and it denies it to the enemy (and a checkerboard landmass of cities shared by several neutrals is less threatening to me than a continent mostly owned by a single enemy). I tend to avoid artillery, mostly because I like to fight with fast units (knights or cavalry) that have the higher survivability of being able to retreat and battles are usually over before catapults/artillery even makes it to the scene of the fight.

Sometimes I simply find the AI intimidating in terms of the sheer scale of the response I encounter! For example, a random stack like this just walks by:

9 Crusaders
9 Infantry
8 Longbowmen
20 Medieval Infantry
22 Pikemen
20 Riflemen
2 Spearmen

The individual units aren't actually that tough (when the AI has a large tank army handling most of the offensive), but how the heck can they afford to keep 90 random units in a single stack just lying around for a rainy day? I'd be going bankrupt


I wonder if I should just go all out military prep more often. In peacetime, I usually have a standing garrison of three of my best defensive units in each city (getting me the military police benefit w/ monarchy) and then a few stacks of my best offensive units to act as an expeditionary force. How large of a garrison do you guys tend to keep per city?

Also, does the AI have the same information we have in terms of figuring out enemy strength? That is, are they guessing how strong I am by the vague advisor comments and scouting to see what the toughest unit is in a border city or do they not suffer from the fog of war and other limitations to intelligence gathering? I guess what I'm saying is, is there a way to make them think I'm not worth attacking by heavily fortifying the border, even if there's a soft, chewy underbelly behind it?

 

[ChaosArbiter]

I tend to avoid artillery, mostly because I like to fight with fast units (knights or cavalry) that have the higher survivability of being able to retreat and battles are usually over before catapults/artillery even makes it to the scene of the fight.

Sometimes I simply find the AI intimidating in terms of the sheer scale of the response I encounter! For example, a random stack like this just walks by:

9 Crusaders
9 Infantry
8 Longbowmen
20 Medieval Infantry
22 Pikemen
20 Riflemen
2 Spearmen

And things like these are why you have the twenty or thirty spare artillery units - if you tried attacking this with Cavalry, they'd be slaughtered (Defensive Bombard from the Longbows, then up against Infantry? Yikes), and even Blitzing Tanks would take a while to get through them (if you got both attacks and won every battle, you'd still need 45 Tanks to take them all out ... and there are two Spearmen in that stack). Artillery gives you the double effect of increased abililty to kill things (by injuring them before you attack with your faster units) and making those units you don't kill nearly harmless (as stated above, the AI likes to retreat redlined units).

How large of a garrison do you guys tend to keep per city?

Well, I play Republic, so I don't need one ... but I tend to keep one or two units in each rear-echelon city anyway (possibly a holdover from CivII, but more likely because I'm overcautious). Even when I'm attacking, though, I don't use too many units - a Huge Pangaea map, as the Celts (and I'm at war with just about everyone around now) - and my assault stacks are ~30 Artillery, ten or so Infantry, and ~20 Cavalry. That's to take multiple cities.

Also, does the AI have the same information we have in terms of figuring out enemy strength? That is, are they guessing how strong I am by the vague advisor comments and scouting to see what the toughest unit is in a border city or do they not suffer from the fog of war and other limitations to intelligence gathering?

They know what you have, where it is, and how strong you are. That's why the Funnel of Doom works - the AI avoids the Armies (and/or Artillery and/or other ZoC units) and heads for the weak spot where it knows there's a weak spot.

 

[da3dalus]

I tend to avoid artillery, mostly because I like to fight with fast units (knights or cavalry) that have the higher survivability of being able to retreat and battles are usually over before catapults/artillery even makes it to the scene of the fight.

I use artillery extensively. Mobility is indeed a wonderful thing, but I like to send a mixed stack of units supported by lots of artillery. Sure the stack is going to move hella slow, but since you have some knights/cav, your stack has a useful mobile force for reconnaissance, pursuing isolated and weak units and pillaging strategic tiles. The artillery makes it even tougher for the AI to hurt your stack, and in the case you mentioned where that huge stack walks by, you can pursue it and stand a good chance at disabling/destroying it.

I wonder if I should just go all out military prep more often. In peacetime, I usually have a standing garrison of three of my best defensive units in each city (getting me the military police benefit w/ monarchy) and then a few stacks of my best offensive units to act as an expeditionary force. How large of a garrison do you guys tend to keep per city?

I don't garrison EACH city with more than one unit. I usually have 1 unit in my core cities that are far from the front and I feel are secure enough for the risk. For the front I shift those extra defenders from the core cities to reinforce the border cities and occupy the high ground and river tiles. Here is another time where artillery is awesome -- when you're trying to defend a strategic tile you can deny the enemy access without much risk.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

9 Crusaders
9 Infantry
8 Longbowmen
20 Medieval Infantry
22 Pikemen
20 Riflemen
2 Spearmen

The individual units aren't actually that tough (when the AI has a large tank army handling most of the offensive), but how the heck can they afford to keep 90 random units in a single stack just lying around for a rainy day? I'd be going bankrupt

Just have to accept that if given time the AI will always outnumber you, but then the AI is so stupid that that's the only way they could make the game challenging. Sometimes I compare the game to Dungeons&Dragons, its not about a level playing field its about balance and challenge, its your tactics and strategy against the AI numbers.

Sounds like you are pursuing an offensive game before you have railroads. A long enemy boarder is my worst scenario before railroads, and I'll avoid it at all cost. I play a very defensive, suck up to the AI, anything to avoid major war for land until I have railroads.

A lot of good stuff has been covered, I've used forests even nukes to keep a buffer on my border to keep AI troops a full turn away from my cities.

 

[Spoonwood]

On arillery

You only need defensive units in front towns. I don't generally garrison any units, except at front towns. Multiple armies also helps signficantly.

 

[Snarkhunter]

On arillery

You only need defensive units in front towns. I don't generally garrison any units, except at front towns. Multiple armies also helps signficantly.

I do keep "regional reserves" handy in back areas before I have rails, to be able to respond to invasions and such. When I get cavs, I reduce the number of these as they can cover larger areas. And usually I keep a garrison in the capital unless it is far away from any invasion or front.

Once I rail all towns, I generally just let troops pile up where they are built until I need them, as effectively everything is a reserve at that point.

kk

 

[Theov]

post a save, sounds like fun!

You are defending cities that don't need a defense (if it's not military police).
Get them out, because your inner cities won't be attacked if your outer cities are well defended. You're using horses, so mobility shouldn't be a problem when one slips through.

"When in peace, prepare for war." That should be a Civ mantra.
From the original "if you want peace, prepare for war" from "Epitoma Rei Militaris," by Vegetius
The Latin is: "Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."

Not exactly the same, because the first indicates you want war, the former indicates you don't.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Not exactly the same, because the first indicates you want war, the former indicates you don't.

Former does mean first. And the "When in peace, prepare for war" quote generally does mean the same thing as the original translation, though it can mean 'prepare for war while at peace.'

 

[Theov]

Former does mean first. And the "When in peace, prepare for war" quote generally does mean the same thing as the original translation, though it can mean 'prepare for war while at peace.'

the latter indeed.

But the original quote indicates that when you want peace, you need to prepare for war.
The outcome is peace.
Napoleon used it as "I prepare for war, but I lure you into peace.... "
But the thing is, in Civ, that if you want a good war, you'd better prepare for it in peace time.

 

[Optional]

It might not be relevant for this particular situation, but often a front can become wider because of the AI's habit to sign RoP's. You might be watching the border that you're sharing with your enemy, and they'll simply come in through your neighbour's territory, with which they have an RoP.
It's always good if you can keep your warfront small, and that of your enemy big - think alliances.
Already in your expansion phase you should be concerned about the shape of your empire with regards to defendability. You're describing a long spearlike chunk of land surrounded by someone else's territory: a nightmare. Sometimes it turns out that way, but you like to avoid it. Gifting a very exposed town away when it's becoming threatened is indeed a good tactic.

Another thing that the AI likes to do when at war that hasn't been described yet is go for high defense terrain. If there's a mountain conveniently placed next to a town of yours they like to jump on that mountain first, making it awkward for you to attack them. So if you have good defenders you might want to place them on mountains instead of in towns, unless they can can attack a town in 1 turn, of course.

 

[ecuwins]

Build units until you can't afford them anymore, then use them.

 

[da3dalus]

It might not be relevant for this particular situation, but often a front can become wider because of the AI's habit to sign RoP's. You might be watching the border that you're sharing with your enemy, and they'll simply come in through your neighbour's territory, with which they have an RoP.
It's always good if you can keep your warfront small, and that of your enemy big - think alliances.
Already in your expansion phase you should be concerned about the shape of your empire with regards to defendability. You're describing a long spearlike chunk of land surrounded by someone else's territory: a nightmare. Sometimes it turns out that way, but you like to avoid it. Gifting a very exposed town away when it's becoming threatened is indeed a good tactic.

That's a great point, the AI could open a second front by sending units through other civs' territories. This kinda underscores the previous points about defending heavily your border cities in general, not only the ones on the border with you and your enemy.

I generally bribe other civs onto my side in any war to avoid this situation and also to keep my enemy from bribing them into war with me. In my experience your enemy will do this every time you go to war, so you might as well do it first. Even if the civ they bribe into war with you is weak, it will still divert resources you could apply better to the war with your principle enemy.

 

[IvanDolvich]

Already in your expansion phase you should be concerned about the shape of your empire with regards to defendability. You're describing a long spearlike chunk of land surrounded by someone else's territory: a nightmare. Sometimes it turns out that way, but you like to avoid it. Gifting a very exposed town away when it's becoming threatened is indeed a good tactic.

As far as straightening your lines out before the war goes, check out Zerkees threads below where he takes an apparently lost game and turns it around.

Zerksees' second great comeback - If you've seen first one... and this one.
The other thing to remember is you really only have to survive the enemy's initial surge. When war is declared all of those surplus units that the enemy has wandering around will come for you. Put up a tough defense on your outer perimeter (walls/strong defenders) then leave a juicy core city out of their reach wide open for bait. Use your artillery (you will need some to deal with stacks like you mentioned) to pound the ## out of them as they come into your territory. Cover up the core if it gets too vulnerable, and pick off the enemy as they try to get out of your territory to heal.
Once that initial surge is spent, make a stack of death yourself and start razing their towns. Take combat settlers along to speed up the employment of your artillery. If you do have artillery, you can plop a town down two spaces from an enemy city, and then blast them from inside your town.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Is something like this what you would consider a 'wide front,' Jhaeman? (If you've still got questions).

There are actually a few things to note, mainly the terrain:

Spoiler :

* My Northernmost town, Buch die Dunkelheit, is vulnerable to both the Ottomans and the Japanese, but has Mountains bracing it. Should it fall (a near-impossibility, due to the army and Infantry, but I'd been holding it earlier with Pikes), a group of Artillery with defenders sitting on the Mountains can stop enemy units from advancing in good health.

* Likewise with Graf Eisen and Thurisaz - they're pressed against rough terrain (and IIRC, are both built on Hills), so enemy units will have a hard time breaking through. Bonn is a fourth city, and more similar to Buch - the French would likely come down the Forest to the SE of their unit on the Volcano or via the hills near the erupted Volcano; either way, however, it is impossible for them to reach the city on one turn.

* My border with the Japanese seems very wide and open, but just to the east, outside the picture, the desert ends and opens into a bit of Forest and more Mountains, and the Japanese rails (and roads) currently only have one track - not enough to flood against my entire border, only against Buch.

* Farther east (the last four or so Japanese cities on the minimap), is actually a bottlenecked isthmus, three tiles to the north into the main Japanese territory, and another seven into the Dutch area.

If I expand west (attacking the Ottomans, Arabs, and Byzantines in the process), I'll end up lenghthening my border with the French, so if I do that, I want to get them into a war with the Ottomans as well. My forces will engage the Ottoman cities taken from America, while holding onto Buch, and the French will (hopefully) attack the main Ottoman cities north of the mountain chain. I would preferably also get the Japanese to attack the Ottomans, to secure my other flank, but it won't be necessary, as rails and fast units would spell death against the attackers, which won't be able to break into Cities with 3+ Infantry defending. If the Dutch/Koreans go to war with me, I simply hold the pass against them - easy enough, as there are actually *more* mountains in that pass.

So, lets take the best-case scenario: I've managed to absorb the cities to my west, and the French and Ottomans are both worn down from the fighting. At this point, I have a few options - I can attack the Ottomans directly, though it's not something I would want, as it opens up more territory for the Japanese to attack, as well as makes me directly vulnerable to the Byzantines, English, and Arabs. I can make peace with the Ottomans, as they and/or the French may get swallowed by one of their neighbors. I can attack the French - probably the best option, as I would be facing no more new enemies until I reach the Byz/English to the North, and I'll still be 'facing' the same direction. Eventually, attacking the Byz/English, the Ottomans, and the Japanese gives me only one 'front' to deal with - the Arabs.

Worst-case scenario: I am attacked by the French and Japanese as well as the Ottomans. I still hold at Buch, as it's a lynchpin city and the Ottomans and Japanese will both funnel troops into it. Against the French/Ottoman advance, I may have to give way, but there's enough territory to Mobilize and rush Cavalry and Infantry to stop them from breaching my Mountain line. I will have lost half a dozen cities, but the French are badly weakened, and the AI does not recover as well or as quickly as the player does.

 

[da3dalus]

Wow that is a WIDE front.

I think diplomacy would be very important in a war with any of your rivals, because you share a border with 7 other civs you would most certainly have to bribe the others into an alliance to protect your flank so you can concentrate your forces on offense.