how do i deal with superior numbers?

[tommytoxen]

the AI always seems to have hoards of units whereas my unit supply prevents me from barely having any army. not only that they can seem to always one-hit me, like one hit and my units are dead, but mine can't one-hit them. which makes any kind of invasion impossible.

my tactic so far is to have a navy and just bombard the **** out of them, which works, but then i can't have an army because of the unit supply cap. in my last two games i've always had to choose between having a navy and having an army

how do you tackle superior numbers? deal with the hoards? do you invade with a small army successfully??

 

[crdvis16]

If you want a quick war with quick city capture then you need large military advantages. You're correct that you can't typically have more units but you can have more advanced and better promoted units.

You get better promoted units by not letting your units die so they accumulate stronger promotions- always be very careful with unit placement and never overextend. It can be tempting to over extend in order to finish off the enemy unit but this often leads to you losing your unit too. 1 to 1 trades are hardly ever worth it.

You get more advanced units by unlocking military techs earlier than your opponent, taking advantage of your UU, or having access to units that require strategic resources. The fact that you're getting 1 shot by your enemy while unable to do the same makes me think that he has units that are more technologically advanced or are stronger due to their resource cost or are UUs. It sounds like you fell behind in science, neglected military tech, or didn't secure strategic resources for the stronger units.

There's also the war of attrition style if you're unable to gain the above advantages and are either weaker or close to parity with your enemy's military. In this method you use terrain advantages (rivers to slow him, impassable terrain for chokepoints, hills for your ranged to have line of sight, etc) and mostly play defense to slowly kill his units without losing your own. You also make an effort to pillage tiles and trade routes. All of these actions can increase his war weariness and eventually lower his unit cap, happiness, and ability to replace the units he's losing. Once he's crippled you can then start taking cities even with a relatively small military.

 

[Stalker0]

The trick is, all offensive wars against high level AIs start as defensive wars. You need to let the AI crash against your units, have them lose units while you lose nothing.

Here are a few tricks to do that:

1) pick a defensible spot in your borders. A citadel of course is the best, but forests do a good job as well.

2) fortify your melee units. They will get extra defense and can tank some hits.

3) put a medic I (eventually medic II) ranged unit behind your melee line. This will give your melee guys as much healing as possible, that greatly adds to their staying power.

4) let the enemy press into you. Do not push. Your melee units should never push forward (eventually you will get good enough that you can send your melee forward on occasion, but for now...just don’t do it, no matter how tempting).

5) use your ranged units, skirmishes, and occasional mounted melee unit (if they can hit and get back behind the line) to kill enemy units.

6) if a melee guy cannot take more hits, swap him with another melee guy behind the line. It’s often a good idea to setup a lot of roads in the area to lake this easier.

7) rinse and repeat. If your doing it right, you will constantly have fresh melee guys on your line while the wounded ones heal. By the time the guys in front need to retreat, you will have healed units ready to take their place.

Once you have obtained this state, you are effectively “invincible” in that area.

8) you will start to drain the AI units (and deal WW). Meanwhile your units gain more and more XP.

9) once the AI has exhausted its extra forces,
Then you move out. Not only will the AI have a lot fewer units, but your units will be heavily promoted and can take them down.

10) with the AI army defeated, taking cities is just a matter of patience at that point.

 

[vyyt]

You did not tell us much about your play style.

- do you have a low unit cap, because you have only 3-4 cities?
- what difficulty level are you playing at?
- why are the AIs one-hitting you? Are you behind in tech? Or are you talking specifically about naval invasions? This one seems strange to me, it should not be happening.

 

[tommytoxen]

thanks for the suggestions guys, reading i realise in hindsight maybe im playing a little too aggressive i scrabble an army together and invade, i do have naval support but my army just gets wiped out so easily but you're right i do go straight for the attack and push forwards

i'll play a little more defensively from now and invade much more slowly fortifying units along the way and just holding one little area until its safe to push further.

 

[Stalker0]

thanks for the suggestions guys, reading i realise in hindsight maybe im playing a little too aggressive i scrabble an army together and invade, i do have naval support but my army just gets wiped out so easily but you're right i do go straight for the attack and push forwards

i'll play a little more defensively from now and invade much more slowly fortifying units along the way and just holding one little area until its safe to push further.

I know exactly how you feel. Here read up on a game I was doing very similar things (aka not following the advice I gave you above). You can see my experience and how I had to adapt: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/help-with-a-push-against-the-ranged-sea.646578/

 

[tommytoxen]

I know exactly how you feel. Here read up on a game I was doing very similar things (aka not following the advice I gave you above). You can see my experience and how I had to adapt: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/help-with-a-push-against-the-ranged-sea.646578/

will give a read thanks!
my problem is i played for so long on the easier difficulties, and also used to give myself starting bonuses in advanced setup. but this past couple months i've been upping the difficulty and also set all starting stuff to defaults. so shaking a lot of old bad habits off. i'm finding it a lot more fun, if a little frustrating at times
i get invested in my units, as i like to personalize and name them and everything, sad i know but there ya go hate watching them die xD

 

[tommytoxen]

I know exactly how you feel. Here read up on a game I was doing very similar things (aka not following the advice I gave you above). You can see my experience and how I had to adapt: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/help-with-a-push-against-the-ranged-sea.646578/

wow some excellent advice in that thread thanks for the link, you're right i was playing just like you was! if i saw an enemy with low health i'd have that urge to finish them off because i was desperate just to cut their units down but i'd always lose in counter attack.

i'm in a war of liberation at the moment i'm trying to liberate the netherlands from the celts. the celts completely destroyed him, we were friends but i wasn't in a position to help him as they were on a different continent and i just didn't have the naval support to warrant sending troops i never send troops without support i knew it'd be suicide, especially how quickly he was being destroyed. man boudicca showed now mercy, his cities fell so hard and fast xD anyway i have the navy now and have my troops on my coastal tiles ready.

he only has one coastal city, or had it's the celts now but my plan is to bombard with navy and take that, reviving him making him my vassal giving me rights of passage then land my troops and form a line on his border in defense. i'll gift him a **** load of gold and whatever resources i can spare too so he can produce some units and help. i won't push inland this time and resist the urge to go for those kills. i'm also bringing more artillery than last time i think that was one of my mistakes too, too many melee not enough ranged

incidentally he has a river in front of that city too so i'll be sure to use that to my advantage

 

[tu_79]

will give a read thanks!
my problem is i played for so long on the easier difficulties, and also used to give myself starting bonuses in advanced setup. but this past couple months i've been upping the difficulty and also set all starting stuff to defaults. so shaking a lot of old bad habits off. i'm finding it a lot more fun, if a little frustrating at times
i get invested in my units, as i like to personalize and name them and everything, sad i know but there ya go hate watching them die xD

That's why I'm hesitant to move upwards. I like to be on the offensive. And attrition wars attrite me.