[HELP] War

[KiTBOH]

I recently got Civ4 BTS and am new to all civ games. (I played Medieval TW2 before, though)

I've tried a few games, default difficulty and speed, and have lost all of them, be it from ~100AD to ~1600AD due to wars.
Looking at Screenshots people on this forum manage to attack cities with no Trebuchets or Catapults or w/e and still win by a very large margin.

Are there any particular tricks to attacking cities, or am i just doing something badly wrong?

Thanks in advance

 

[LiberiGlacialis]

City Raider Aces/Swords/Maces and sacrificial cats.

Or....lots and lots and lots of units.

 

[DanDierdorf]

What level are you playing on? At the easiest two levels you should win fairly easily. It's a good level to learn the basics on. BTW, I'm not talking down to you, I just got the game and am just learning advanced basics myself. Lots of the convos here go over my head, what with all the acronyms and such. Warrior level is a virtual walk through the AI is so easy.

I've played some of the other CIV games and this one is more difficult, though not badly so.

Generally speaking, the map will dictate how soon you have to go to war. If you have a neighbor real close, real early, you're gonna want to rush him. If you have room to develope 6 or so cities without going to war, you'll end up being ahead on the tech tree and have much better military units about mid-game. This is at Chieftom level.

Read the forums for early rush strats, for instance the Romans have a nice early game unit to overpower your neighbors with.

And like the other guy said, it takes a fair amount of units, not only to take a city, but to keep it when it goes into revolt during those first turns after you take it. If you don't leave enough units in the town they'll revolt again. Am still figuring out just how many I have to keep there.


Good luck.

 

[Quotey]

The wars without seige engines are either very early rushes with axes or chariots you have to be lucky and build a lot of unit in, or using (usually mounted) units and spies to reduce city defences to 0% for the turn and just throwing units at the city.

 

[KiTBOH]

ok thanks, i'll have a look around the forums for good guides

Just a few more questions, though

Is rushing early into the game a good idea?
I've managed it once but the losses of having to build so many units to take over a city means that i get gimped Production, Culture, Research etc.

The other thing is, once you've used a trebuchet to reduce the cities is there any way to reduce other stats, i.e. when Archers are stationed in a city, is there any way to reduce their unit benfits to city defense?

 

[LiberiGlacialis]

Early rush good? Depends. It's no good if your isolated or the closest rival is too far away to quickly get a bundle of warriors/chariots/archers/axes to them. It great, however, if you can pull it off. Nabbing workers and sometimes prime land w/out building Settlers and getting gold for it? Woohoo!

Siege Weapons can only reduce a city's defenses. They can't reduce how fortified, say, an Archer is, nor can they reduce a unit's inherent bonuses (Like the Archer's +25% City Defense). They can still attack and weaken units, though, which makes them easier to beat down afterward.

 

[Jaaboo]

Welcome to the forums KiTBOH.

I've found (and I am a fairly new/casual player myself) that unless you have a specific strategy in mind that runs counter to it, a good rush depends on a few things;

* It probably goes without saying but you need a close rival. Close is a relative term, but ideally you want your army to reach their target quickly enough so that the element of surprise is a factor.

* You typically need some tactical resource nearby. Horses or copper are the most common (and fastest to unlock) for chariots and axes/spears. Depending on your civ this may or may not be the case. For example, Montezuma can build swordsmen without iron. Some civs *coughRome* have a very powerful early unit that the extra time to research iron is worth it. Again, speed is your ally here.

* It may be worth considering who your neighbor is when deciding a rush. The Caesars, for example, become dangerous opponents if they get their hands on iron. Shaka, Monty, Boudica and their like are just belligerent. Sometimes its worth a risk to eliminate them. Mansa, however, you can block with aggressive settling, run all over his lands and he'll still trade to you.

 

[Rubbaduck]

Hello. This is one seriously deep game. you don't learn it overnight.

Guidelines to war:
You need siege after the enemy gets longbows 1:1 ratio with normal units.
You need 10+ axemen or swordsmen before that.
Don't go for garbage cities first, they'll reinforce their big cities while you do so.
Avoid sitting your stack on flatlands like the plage.

Also some general guidelines:
Specialize cities, also make sure they have FOOD.
Build cottages, then build some more.
Monty must die, he will kill you.
Mansa must not die, he will help you kill Monty.
Install the BUG Mod, it helps a lot.
Remember to sleep and eat, you need to be alive in order to play.

 

[KiTBOH]

Ah Yeah, I've seen people talking on the forums about this BUG mod.

I'll check it out