How to defend large territories?

[iamnleth]

The question to the answer which I seek is simple: If you have conquered a big amount of land (around 30% of the map's landmass), how do you defend it so easily?

1. I see online games where the players have only 1 soldier on the majority of their cities. This is the case in most of my games as well, but in an emergency, you're going to be mopped up pretty quickly, right?
2. Naval invasions are (as I see it) especially hard to counter. You can set out sentries in the seas to gain the knowledge of when an enemy will attack, but even then, how do you fight back without building a massive navy to destroy the AI's naval stack or keeping a mini-stack in every coastal city?
   
   I like Obsolete's way of nuking the enemy stacks, but I don't see how (before the era of nuclear arms) to go about coastal defense easily.

The obvious (and my preferred) counter is diplomacy. But nonetheless, there are times when diplomacy fails. A few examples: You're weak and you only have a "cautious" relation with your neighbor. He/she declares. You own an entire continent, but a military-savvy Shaka dominates the other. His massive fleets are unstoppable against your seafood defense consisting only of scattered ships of the line. While you can take down some of his naval stack, most of it pulls through and he lands a ground force.

I'm pretty unexperienced as far as military goes (in the sense that I've only won a few domination wins). While I feel I understand war thoroughly and can easily win a domination on monarch, I always feel unsafe in this particular field of warfare.

 

[A_Hamster]

Okay, I'm only playing on Noble, so this may not apply to higher levels, but have you considered a strong central reserve?

Essentially, mentally divide your new territory into smaller provinces that are well roaded. In the central area of each province, place a large stack of fast troops. Make sure the outlying cities on the frontier have sufficiently large garrisons to hold a turn or two against a serious SoD (feel free to lightly garrison if the city is a no-account fill-in city of little value). When one of the frontier cities is attacked, the central reserve rushes to that city's aid and ideally crushes the besiegers in the open field, hammer on the city's anvil.

Also, use a goodly amount of cats/cannon/artillery for siege suicide to prep the SoDs for the central reserve's attack.

Try not to pull the central reserve out of one province into another unless the situation is that dire or you can see no other invasion fleets are about to unload reinforcements.

(Actually, this is proving overkill even at Noble, but it's still cheaper than maintaining strong garrisons everywhere.)

 

[Artichoker]

I don't like having few units in cities for defense. I will keep at least 3 on each city, because if a rival civ declares war it's not always obvious where the troops will be needed.

After they declare war, I move the troops to where they are needed. So, during peacetime most cities will have 3 units, but during wartime the hotspots have about 10 or so units for defense, and 20 for offense. Whereas the cities that don't need defense will move their 2 extra units to wherever the battle is.

It also helps (whether you are talking land or sea war) to have fast troops such as Knights that can provide help wherever it is needed.

 

[Draknith]

When I play games where I end up controlling a lot of land I will usually still continue to hold at least 3 defender units in the city, with a few artillery pieces, and some cavalry in the larger cities.

What I do incorporate in these games that I don't in smaller games is regions (states, etc). I will break my empire of 20+ cities into smaller sections of about 5-6 cities. Within these smaller sections I'll designate one to be a capital and the other cities will be broken up into whatever specialization they are best suited for.

My border cities will all be reinforced with troops of all types (infantry, artillery, mounted, armor, etc) Usually I will fill in areas with forts here and there to build protection zones, but mainly the capitals of each region are reinforced in case of an attack in that area.

I find though that breaking my land into regions works out great for controling production, worker assignments, defense assignments, and overall ease of playing.

Hope this helps.

 

[bardolph]

The key to your defense is MOBILITY. What you want are small defensive stacks on your borders, with a giant, fast-moving SoD (your strongest mounted unit) somewhere in the middle, connected by roads. If you get attacked, use your defensive stacks to stall the enemy as long as possible, while your big stack of cavalry charges to the point of conflict.

You may need to sacrifice a few units plus a city or two, but once your SoD arrives, you should be able to reconquer anything you lost.

In the modern era, it's a bit different. You'll want an airport for each border region (at least 1 turn away from your cultural borders), so you can quickly airdrop defensive units when you are attacked. Ground units should "cluster up" into medium-sized stacks wherever you have an airport. If you are attacked, you should be able to concentrate your forces through airdrop within a couple of turns. Fast units like Gunships can rely on rail transport to get to the front, while fighters and bombers rebase in a single turn.

 

[Bleys]

So, during peacetime most cities will have 3 units, but during wartime the hotspots have about 10 or so units for defense, and 20 for offense. Whereas the cities that don't need defense will move their 2 extra units to wherever the battle is.

This is what I do also. As the game progresses, I will try to fit in a unit here and there in all cities, especially ones with the standard "single CG I Archer", specifically for parking in that city (as opposed to building units intentionally with an actual plan). 2nd unit is usually another defensive-based guy, Spearman, Musketman, Longbowman, etc etc, and the 3rd is always a more offensive, mobile guy.

This helps two ways. I can "steal" the defensive guy to garrison a newly founded/conquered city in the area, and not have to waste the turns to build one there (or leave one of the attack-force behind, like an injured Axeman or something), or if the war is coming to me, I can mobilize more troops where needed without leaving any cities open.

 

[Si_Lurker]

In MP people will raze cities unless they can hold them in which case you're lost, because reconquering will hardly be an option. In team games if 3 pick on one he/she will loose cities if friends don't come to defence soon, you can then stop the stack

General:
Watch power graph, also note of what enemy army is composed of. A huge horse stack will kill you if you don't have spears. You can usually predict where the attack will come from, ask yourself where would I attack if I were in his place.

Hide your main forces and especially new forces such as maces, grenadiers, keep them few tiles from border and don't put them in city with foreign religion.

In the early game keep sentinels about, warriors, scouts, missionaries (in FFA missionaries are generally useless).

Consolidate territory, try to get to the sea, try to keep your borders short.

Chop all tiles adjacent to city, so that siege cannot heal well, if choked, put out 2 archers, axemen or even warriors on forrest tile, then chop, then retreat.

Try to produce as much culture as possible in border towns so as to have 2-square perimeter, thus they're unable to attack with horses in one turn.

Tactics:
Key is to be able to react as soon as possible:

- Have a huge stack consisting of about half catapults, half ofensive units. Don't forget spears.
- Border towns need couple defenders, couple of catapults. Then also place heavy defenders on hills, and forests and create killing fields by chopping forests
- Have lots of roads, if town is projecting from your territory, you need two roads leading to it diagonally. You also want to road all tiles arround this town, so that you can pull back. Also have the roads from your core in shortest path, don't have reinforcements walk through forrests.
- Road the coast if you can expect naval invasion.

When enemy attacks he will only be able to land his stack one or two squares in your territory. Some attackers will come with two stacks at two cities simultaneously. On the same turn you need to hit them with catapults. If you have two equal stacks with half of catapults the one who strikes first wins. Then mop them up with horses and offensive infantry. Cover your stack with few more defenders. He will hit back but he will have been weakend, next turn attack with fresh units coming from further afar or from other stack and unless he has much more units than you he will loose majority of his atacking stack.

If you have more than one potential enemy you might get backstabbed when fighting on one front. Because of that you need to keep defenders on the other front to repel attack. In such case only send forth about half of your army with mainly obsolete units against weakest neighbour (maces on attack against backwards neighbor, grenadiers stay back to strike highly developed attacker. Think of historic prewar military buildups especially before and during WW2, where sides were amassing troops while leading enemy to believe they are really going to attack elsewhere. Operation Barbarossa comes to mind.


If you couldn't kill his entire stack, turtle in cities, and build reinforcements. generally you can hold city against better neighbour for quite a long time:
- Defensive units are cheaper
- You have shorter path to front (especially with roads)
- You can heal in the city faster
- Before they're about to attack city you can hit and weaken entire stack with 1-2 catapults.

Once you stabilize front, attacker even if better will have little interest to protract war since he looses in research and development and might himself become vulnerable. Don't forget to continue building improvements and researching once the front has been stabilized.

If you see you won't be able to hold city pull out immediately, don't loose units. Mentally asses where you can establish new frontline, pull defenders from inner cities, whip, put workers to chopping forests, switch everything to military production and reorganize defence further inside. Wait for allies to come for help if you have any.

Fast units (Impis, horses...) are a big problem because they are very hard to track, they can pillage and prevent you from sending reinforcements, big stack of them is very hard to kill. Build many counter units and catapults. If you have good road network, you can follow them and see where they are heading. Once you can hit them from the road do it or if they stop square before city, pull units inside. Try to encircle them.

Naval invasions: The key to success is surprise. So, 3 galleys with macemen can take out your holy coastal 2nd city or capital defended by mere archers while your grenadiers are on the front. In galley age have couple on each side/front, if you see 2-3 or more galleys coming whip galleys in close coastal cities and start sending defenders towards place of landing, roads are key. Try sinking galleys before they land and block coast so they must fight if you sink 2 you have already neutered the attack. Make sure city is defended before they can attack from galleys, coastal road is key.

With ocean faring vessels, you need to have sentinels (caravels, submarines...) just outside their line of sight. If you see huge fleet heading your way from their main port you can again prepare yourself, send frigates...

Even if you're playing a peaceful game couple of ships don't hurt. If his naval force is stronger, don't exit ports until you have more attacking ships than he has so as to sink all of them and prevent them from healing. Alternatively you can hit with 2 ships to surely sink at least one and return to port.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

The best defense against a naval invasion is caravels. One of them for each AI that poses a risk. Find their fleet of transports (generally they park them all in one city). And watch it. Every turn. Thats your early warning against a surprise naval attack.

Have a few deeper sea units that can a) consolidate to harrass their fleet and b) find their fleet quickly so you know whether its heading for you or not.

I tend to concentrate my infantry which I will steadily build in my HE city in my coastal and border cities, and place artillery and cavalry back a bit so it can be deployed quickly towards a threatened attack. Late game I will have a few reaction forces spread across the empire (unless I'm already at war in which case they will be forward deployed).

Watch out for cities that can be attacked on a single turn and strengthen their defenses significantly. Other cities don't need a strong defense - as long as you can mobilize rapidly.

I like to always have one of the following civics - Nationalism, Universal Sufferage or Slavery allowing me to rush units quickly to any battle.

 

[Draknith]

Do any of you guys use trent warfare? Let me explain what I mean. This is a tactic I have used since the CIV III days. (Of course in those days you could hold 250 cities and put 25 rows of units of about 100 in each stack.) Anyway, On larger map games where I have the land terrain and army size consistent with some battles say from WWI I will, I will have a portion of my army actually form a line across the front (usually 5-8 troops in a stack). This "front line" will then move according to the battles and so as no holes appear in the line. I then coordinate my actual attacks with larger size stacks (armies; about 15-20 units) whereever the fighting increases and following my pre-war tactics. Every now and then a foreign unit will get into the borders, but can quickly be routed before any actual damage occurs.

I've like using this (even though it's a bit overboard) tactic because it brings a bit more realism to the game, and it helps greatly on securing the front; allowing you to supress any incursion and attack with swift, decisive attacks.