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- Thread starter Neo Dar
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Very early wars are best left to after you gain experience in the game as it is risky. Normally you would expand first and fight later.
The level of the game you are playing and the civ you are using are important in how you go about wars. The higher the level the more units they will have and the more likely they will have better units.
If you are on about the same tech level as the one you want to fight and are about the same in terms of towns, then you can out fight them. IOW they will use poor tactics, such as sending out units in low numbers and no supporting bombardment.
You can defeat them with concentrate attacks. Not exposing units that are damaged and eventually having army units.
The level of the game you are playing and the civ you are using are important in how you go about wars. The higher the level the more units they will have and the more likely they will have better units.
If you are on about the same tech level as the one you want to fight and are about the same in terms of towns, then you can out fight them. IOW they will use poor tactics, such as sending out units in low numbers and no supporting bombardment.
You can defeat them with concentrate attacks. Not exposing units that are damaged and eventually having army units.
I am a Regent-Monarch player that recently advanced from Warlord, mostly because of the advice I found here. Read some tutorials and training day exercises - they are very helpful. Here are some things I did to improve my 'war' play:
Very basic – know what the numbers for each unit mean (a/b/c/d) a=attack, b=defense, c=movement left, d=max # of movement point. For c, it doesn’t break down movement over roads that would cost you 1/3 of a movement point, so you need to keep track of that. A large portion of your warring will be based off of these numbers and how you manipulate them through tactics. Each unit also has ‘health’. 2 ‘health’ units is a conscript, 3=regular, 4=veteran, 5=elite. The more health you have, the more likely you are to win.
1. Understand why you are going to war. What do you hope to accomplish. It’s okay to decide to destroy another Civ entirely, but make sure you evaluate the cost of doing so. Most of the time you are after a specific resource, location or wonder. Attacking just because you are bored is usually not a good idea. This ws a big one for me - I thought neighbors existed to be attacked. Allies? Trade partners? Nope. They make better doormats.
2. When you at war, you are using units - that affects how strong you are compared to other Civs. Be careful when expending units that you don’t make another Civ decide to attack you while you are vulnerable, have your reserves drained and your army scattered. The other Civs are constantly comparing themselves to you and will attack if there is an opportunity. Some ways to prevent this is to give the other Civs a reason not to attack (alliances and trading, perhaps?).
3. Terrain. Learn the value of a good position and how to use it against the AI. The AI is stupid when it comes to war and that is your advantage. The AI will try something and continue to try the same thing until their units are dead or they have, by sheer numbers, won. The fact that they have expended three archers at 20 shields apiece to kill one warrior (cost of 10 shields) fortified on a mountain overlooking a 1 population town guarded by a spear means nothing to the AI. They managed to kill the threatening unit, that's all that matters. I recently killed a neighboring Civ on Regent by doing this in several locations when they declared war on me. They killed enough of their units that I rolled over them after a few turns - and most of my warriors actually survived the encounters and promoted. The added bonus was that they were so focused on driving my units out of the mountains that they didn’t attack anywhere else, leaving me to continue my build up undisturbed.
Why did this work? An archer is a (2/1/1) unit. A warrior is a (1/1/1) unit. The warrior is fortified on a mountain (+25% for fortified, +100% for mountain). That makes the warrior a (1/2.25/1) unit in that position. A 2.25 defense will win over a 2 attack more often than not. The fact that they were attacking with regular units (3 health) against my veteran units (4 health) also helped. And if a unit wins 2 battles in the same game turn, it automatically promotes one level (health point).
4. Similarly, if you are attacking, carefully consider your targets. Watch the AI's use of terrain - it will make use of the terrain, though not well. Also remember that cities can provide defensive bonus. Does it have a wall (50% bonus)? Is it on a hill (check terrain, 50% bonus). Is the city larger than size 6 (50% bonus)? Is it larger than size 12 (100% bonus)? Are the units fortified (probably, 25% bonus)? Remember that bonuses stack in many cases - walls disappear when a city grows to size 7 and you only get one bonus for the city size, they are not cumulative. But a size 7 city on a hill with a fortified unit has a 125% bonus. A size 1-6 city with a wall on a hill with a fortified unit has the same bonus. If you are attacking with archers (2/1/1) against a spearman (1/2/1) in such a city, their actual defense is a 4.5. In battle, 2 vs. 4.5 is not promising. Even a fortified warrior has a 2.25 defense.
5. Check your tech level against an enemy. Just because they look small does not mean you will roll over them.
6. A big one for me - don't get distracted or spread out your units trying to pick off every stray. This is one of those annoying tactics the computer actually uses well against lower level players. Okay, not really a tactic but a lack of tactics which leads to a juicy opportunity that the human player has a hard time resisting. Pick a target and march your SOD to it. The exception to this is if you have fast moving units in the SOD that can skirmish and return to the stack to kill off wanderers and redlined enemy units.
7. Skirmishing (units with a movement greater than 1) - units that can retreat can skirmish a stronger army of units that cannot retreat. You will lose some units, but you will wear them down, kills some, and force others to retreat - scattering their SOD so your remaining healthy skirmishers can kill the redlined units and continue blunting their attack. Also works against those annoying fortified city defenders. Skirmish them a bit and when they are weak, hit them hard. Note that a skirmishing unit will NOT retreat from a redlined unit (a unit with only 1 health left).
8. Healing units – most of the time it makes sense to retreat wounded units IF you can get them out of the line of fire (remember not to scatter). Your units (before battlefield medicine) can only heal in your own territory or neutral territory. In the above example, I had warriors moving in and out of the mountains so that my wounded units – recently promoted to elites – could rest and heal while new units continued to play bait.
Those are some basic points. There’s a lot of maneuvering and advanced tactics in this game, but that should get it rolling.
Very basic – know what the numbers for each unit mean (a/b/c/d) a=attack, b=defense, c=movement left, d=max # of movement point. For c, it doesn’t break down movement over roads that would cost you 1/3 of a movement point, so you need to keep track of that. A large portion of your warring will be based off of these numbers and how you manipulate them through tactics. Each unit also has ‘health’. 2 ‘health’ units is a conscript, 3=regular, 4=veteran, 5=elite. The more health you have, the more likely you are to win.
1. Understand why you are going to war. What do you hope to accomplish. It’s okay to decide to destroy another Civ entirely, but make sure you evaluate the cost of doing so. Most of the time you are after a specific resource, location or wonder. Attacking just because you are bored is usually not a good idea. This ws a big one for me - I thought neighbors existed to be attacked. Allies? Trade partners? Nope. They make better doormats.
2. When you at war, you are using units - that affects how strong you are compared to other Civs. Be careful when expending units that you don’t make another Civ decide to attack you while you are vulnerable, have your reserves drained and your army scattered. The other Civs are constantly comparing themselves to you and will attack if there is an opportunity. Some ways to prevent this is to give the other Civs a reason not to attack (alliances and trading, perhaps?).
3. Terrain. Learn the value of a good position and how to use it against the AI. The AI is stupid when it comes to war and that is your advantage. The AI will try something and continue to try the same thing until their units are dead or they have, by sheer numbers, won. The fact that they have expended three archers at 20 shields apiece to kill one warrior (cost of 10 shields) fortified on a mountain overlooking a 1 population town guarded by a spear means nothing to the AI. They managed to kill the threatening unit, that's all that matters. I recently killed a neighboring Civ on Regent by doing this in several locations when they declared war on me. They killed enough of their units that I rolled over them after a few turns - and most of my warriors actually survived the encounters and promoted. The added bonus was that they were so focused on driving my units out of the mountains that they didn’t attack anywhere else, leaving me to continue my build up undisturbed.
Why did this work? An archer is a (2/1/1) unit. A warrior is a (1/1/1) unit. The warrior is fortified on a mountain (+25% for fortified, +100% for mountain). That makes the warrior a (1/2.25/1) unit in that position. A 2.25 defense will win over a 2 attack more often than not. The fact that they were attacking with regular units (3 health) against my veteran units (4 health) also helped. And if a unit wins 2 battles in the same game turn, it automatically promotes one level (health point).
4. Similarly, if you are attacking, carefully consider your targets. Watch the AI's use of terrain - it will make use of the terrain, though not well. Also remember that cities can provide defensive bonus. Does it have a wall (50% bonus)? Is it on a hill (check terrain, 50% bonus). Is the city larger than size 6 (50% bonus)? Is it larger than size 12 (100% bonus)? Are the units fortified (probably, 25% bonus)? Remember that bonuses stack in many cases - walls disappear when a city grows to size 7 and you only get one bonus for the city size, they are not cumulative. But a size 7 city on a hill with a fortified unit has a 125% bonus. A size 1-6 city with a wall on a hill with a fortified unit has the same bonus. If you are attacking with archers (2/1/1) against a spearman (1/2/1) in such a city, their actual defense is a 4.5. In battle, 2 vs. 4.5 is not promising. Even a fortified warrior has a 2.25 defense.
5. Check your tech level against an enemy. Just because they look small does not mean you will roll over them.
6. A big one for me - don't get distracted or spread out your units trying to pick off every stray. This is one of those annoying tactics the computer actually uses well against lower level players. Okay, not really a tactic but a lack of tactics which leads to a juicy opportunity that the human player has a hard time resisting. Pick a target and march your SOD to it. The exception to this is if you have fast moving units in the SOD that can skirmish and return to the stack to kill off wanderers and redlined enemy units.
7. Skirmishing (units with a movement greater than 1) - units that can retreat can skirmish a stronger army of units that cannot retreat. You will lose some units, but you will wear them down, kills some, and force others to retreat - scattering their SOD so your remaining healthy skirmishers can kill the redlined units and continue blunting their attack. Also works against those annoying fortified city defenders. Skirmish them a bit and when they are weak, hit them hard. Note that a skirmishing unit will NOT retreat from a redlined unit (a unit with only 1 health left).
8. Healing units – most of the time it makes sense to retreat wounded units IF you can get them out of the line of fire (remember not to scatter). Your units (before battlefield medicine) can only heal in your own territory or neutral territory. In the above example, I had warriors moving in and out of the mountains so that my wounded units – recently promoted to elites – could rest and heal while new units continued to play bait.
Those are some basic points. There’s a lot of maneuvering and advanced tactics in this game, but that should get it rolling.
Fiddlin Nero
Prince
I beleive in learning the hard way. Start a war and see how it goes. You will probably lose quite a few before you start seeing ways to improve your stratagies and tactics. Best motivator out there is getting whooped by the stupid Aritificial Intelligence of this game.
ChaosArbiter
King
Short Answer: Read the Manual and then read the War Academy.
Simple Answer: Use lots of units with high Attack. Eventually - assuming your Attackers are better than the AI's Defenders - you'll win.
Better Answer: Post a Save showing a typical (for you) attack force. Someone here will tell you whether it's a good ratio of units, whether you should be better prepared, whether you should even be attacking at that point, etc.
Long Answer:
How many units you need depends on who you're fighting, what your comparative Ages are (which dictates unit choice), the size of your empire vis-a-vis your opponent's, terrain, strategy, and tactics. For example, if I'm a Modern Age superpower with Nukes and Modern Armor, I only need to send a few MA against a newborn English AI with only Warriors to defend with. If I'm the Celts facing Persia in a duel to the death in the Ancient Age, I'll want a decent superiority of troop strength - Gallic Swordsmen will probably lose to Immortals if the latter attack, so I'll want the numbers to storm each individual city before reinforcements can get there. If I'm the Russians at the turn of the Industrial Age trying to grab some Coal from a mid-Medieval Iroquois AI, I'll be fairly safe with relative evenness of army size, as Cossacks should be able to deal with the small force I expect to face when taking a single town from the enemy.
The latter examples assume relative equality in Empire size, and all examples ignore the possibility of allies being brought into the war on either side. If you bring allies into the war, you will typically need fewer troops (although your allies probably won't be helping too much, or will help too much), while additional enemies require you to have an advantage of some kind, either in technology, numbers, or terrain.
For example, if you have a small hill/mountain chokepoint connecting you to your enemies, it's a relatively simply matter to fortify only two-three units there with either Forts or Barricades - with the 50% bonus from a Hill, another 50% bonus from the Fort, and a 25% bonus from Fortifying, a Musketman (Defense 4) will be defending with an effective 9 Defense, making him more-or-less safe from everything before Tanks. They are forced to try to sledgehammer their way through your defensive line, and they'll lose a lot of units trying it.
Strategy has to deal with both the units you employ and the way you attack. For example, whether or not you employ Fast units or Artillery is strategy, along with deciding if you want to annihilate your enemy or simply take a few towns. Tactics is the fine manipulation of your strategy - do you use Artillery to bombard a Town down to redlined defenders, no improvements, and 1 size? Do you attack across the river with your 1-move Attacker, or do you cross and attack with a 2-move unit?
If you're not sure if you can win a given war, the best way to continue it (if you decide to continue it - if you can't win it, it might be better to ask for peace) would be to operate defensively, but get all the other AI to dogpile your enemy.
And I'm bored now, so I'll stop.
Hellfiredoom
Warlord
This sounds like my whole experience with Civ3
But actually, I learned tons from reading the forums and war academy. Did much more for improving my game play than trial and error. Still, at some point you simply have to put all you've learned into practice, and "go for it".
