Fighting Wars

[May Day 10]

I have always had problems with this since the Civ II days...

Whenever I take on an opponent which I dont have clear domination over, it takes me ages to rid the world of an opponent, even if I am dominating a war.

So what are your strategies for taking on an opponent in the same league as you, and crippling them/ridding the world of them without consuming you're entire game.

 

[ChicagoCubs]

1. Make sure you have the economy to go to war. Let science suffer if you need to, but once you go to war be committed to it.

2. If your goal is to eliminate an enemy, have the forces made ahead of time to do it. Building your attack force while engaged in war is silly. Have overwhelming odds beforehand.

3. If total destruction is your goal, capturing enemy cities is counterproductive. Captured cities suck you economy dry and it takes forces to occupy the captured cities. Selective occupation is better (like the captial city, since it tends to be in a good site). Let the other civs gobble up the land you left behind.

 

[IglooDame]

Attritition is the safest way, with the least cost to your own units (though as you say, the greatest time cost). You might consider sending a balanced force in to raze and pillage resources, it will help make the eventual AI collapse that much sooner.

 

[Sisiutil]

1. Make sure you have the economy to go to war. Let science suffer if you need to, but once you go to war be committed to it.

Yep. Pottery, cottage spam, and get Code of Laws for Courthouses quickly.

2. If your goal is to eliminate an enemy, have the forces made ahead of time to do it. Building your attack force while engaged in war is silly. Have overwhelming odds beforehand.

I respectfully disagree. This could take far too long. Be bold. I go to my first war with about a half-dozen Axemen (and perhaps a Spearman to fend off Chariots or Horse Archers). These guys have no problem capturing my opponent's smaller cities which usually have 2 Archers and a 20% defense bonus. Meanwhile, I keep building reinforcements and sending them to the front and I don't stop doing this until I'm done.

3. If total destruction is your goal, capturing enemy cities is counterproductive. Captured cities suck you economy dry and it takes forces to occupy the captured cities. Selective occupation is better (like the captial city, since it tends to be in a good site). Let the other civs gobble up the land you left behind.

True, but that will likely give you another opponent to clean up and may even cut off access to the few cities you'll keep. You'll also likely have a problem with barbs spawning in the empty areas. I prefer to be selective with keeping versus razing--keep capitals, wonders, holy cities, and decent cities (good pop size, strategically located near resources, and providing a route from your core cities to the best ones you'll capture). Code of Laws helps; just whip away the excess, unhappy population to complete a Courthouse quickly.

 

[May Day 10]

thanks. yeah, I have always kept all cities and have had issues holding on/keeping/fortifying in the cities and spreading culture.

my economy is usually good, but ages of war usually set me so far back in economy and science it is hard to fix. plus by the time its over its in the later stages in the game.

I guess two things I need to do is get enough troops in the beginning to really singlehandedly score the first few cities.... and I should be open to razing some 'worthless' cities. It makes sense.

 

[kjaye]

I always do some scouting beforehand and make sure I know exactly where the enemies strategic resources are.

If you fighting in the early game make sure you know where the enemies iron, copper, horses and ivory are. Mass just outside their borders as close to each resource as possible, sending a couple units by galley works a treat for this.

Then declare war and immediately aim for their resources. These are never higly guarded, a couple units at best usually. Occupy and pillage their essential resources and then you only need to hold out against the enemies initial units before they are exhausted and they can only build crummy archers.

This works like a treat for me every time.

The key is to keep track of what resources they've got and make sure you attack early enough to be able to deprive them of all of them.

The other critical factor is to make sure your army is prepared according to the enemy you are facing.

If they have horses or ivory, build a load of spearmen. If they have neither don't bother with these units.

 

[Sisiutil]

Kjaye's points are valid.

Just be aware that if this war drags on, the AI will bee-line to Feudalism and upgrade/produce Longbows, which require no resources. Longbows can't effectively attack your units, but they're a royal pain to dislodge from cities. Especially if they're on a hill.

When you see Longbows, bring Catapults. LOTS of Catpults.

 

[Esox]

This may be known to the OP already, but since I haven't seen it mentioned yet - gear your civics for war. Do this in the preparation stage. Police State if you have it, Vassalage, and Theocracy if your state religion is widespread. Like Chicago said, your science will suffer in war, and if you change from more powerful civics you will notice the difference also. That's why you need to have an objective when you go to war, and try to stick to it.

 

[The Tyrant]

So what are your strategies for taking on an opponent in the same league as you, and crippling them/ridding the world of them without consuming you're entire game.

Concentration of firepower. Bring a lot of force to bear on a single tile, so much force that it is unstoppable. It is okay to go to war with someone on par with you militarily, or even stronger than you, but make sure that individual battles are decided before they are begun. If you could move two stacks in, but neither is strong enough for a guaranteed win, then don't use two stacks -- use one big one. If you fight even battles, the war could drag on interminably. If you fight one-sided battles in your favor you can win in a much shorter time frame.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Something not mentioned here is stirring up war between the AIs. If you can get your target civ in a war with someone else and force them to fight on two fronts you can score hugely. If there is a big free for all, then your better concentration of forces should see you get most of the spoils. You need a friendly aggressive ally though - the peaceful AIs will fight wars with a token gesture only.

The other area you can score a big advantage is in being the defender. Sending a good army into their territory, taking out resources and then absorbing their counterattack might be better than going on the offensive immediately. If you can score good terrain bonuses for defense and use combined arms to ensure your troops fight with better odds, then can eat up their spare units. Once they are on the defensive and restricting themselves to defending cities, then they are yours as you can concentrate your entire force on one city at a time.

The other thing is knowing when to quit a war. Sometimes I start to run out of steam before an AI is destroyed, but I know they have been weakened. Its OK to call for a truce, rebuild your armies and go back to war with more force. The 10 turn wait is pretty short. I've never had the AI declare war on me in this position - so I get to choose the timing of the next round.

 

[Dagoril]

Make sure you are using catapults/cannons to bombard away the city cultural defense prior to attacking with your melee/gunpowder units. Suicide a cat or 2 on the city once the cultural defense is down to 0%, to soften up the defenders inside. Overwhelming force concentrated on one city is good advice. Take 8+ cats to reduce an ai capital's defense to 0 in one turn, a few more cats if you plan on suiciding some, and then take the city in the same turn.

Don't let an ai talk you into a war you are not ready for.

If you are not quite ready for a war, but you think an ai civ is getting too far ahead of you, go ahead and go to war. Take 2 or 3 cities and offer him peace. Continue building up your forces during the war, and during the peace, and declare war again once you are ready to finish him off.

Choose your enemies strategically. Certain ai civs are much more unpredictable and dangerous (Monty, Tokugawa, Caesar, Alex)...these should be first on your list to eliminate, even if they are currently friendly toward you.

And finally, don't forget to bring adequate force to garrison newly conquered cities, especially if your big stack is going to be moving on to the next city. Razing a city is better than leaving it for the ai to retake, but consider which civ might build a new city in the empty space this leaves. I'd rather take a momentary ding to my economy and occupy a city I don't really need, if it means I'm denying my next target civ some growth. This is very situational but you will get a feeling for when to raze and when to garrison the cities.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Mmm, in my experience the AI throws almost all of its units at you at the start of a war. That is, ones it's not going to store in its cities to never attack. So, if you weather this initial storm it's just a logistics issue of having healed units with proper stack defenders and catapults march up to the next city.

Since that is my experience, I don't really understand how you can claim to be dominating them in war but it taking a long time. Maybe that's just how long wars take? In my first war I usually have one stack, and take a city every 10 turns or so. By macemen I have one or two, and stick with that until the end of the game, taking another city at least every 15 turns on average, including the turns during peace. That's just an estimate.

To increase your rehabilitation after each attack, make sure your stack has a medic. Usually I have a medic sitting in the newly captured city healing units while my second stack leapfrogs ahead. This minimizing the amount of time you have units walking through enemy territory and maximizes the amount of time they spend on neutral tiles, increasing their movement (because of roads).