How to get better at warring?

[Evil Beejeebers]

Hey,

I have been trying to win games at prince difficulty I find I can't keep up with the amount of city spam the AI do. What is the best way to practice warring, I had a game as Persia(the white skinned leader), where I managed to rusth monty and Justin in the first 70 to 80 turns and that left my economy in ruins

 

[Windsor]

There's no excuse at all for not out-settling the AI by a massive amount on prince. That's a very clear indication that you have a flaw in your peaceful expansion. It's really just about building enough workers and settlers.

Having an economy in ruins isn't really a huge problem if you've just wiped out two AIs. That's enough land to secure a victory in the long run.

As for practicing warring, it depends a bit on what you actually need to improve. Is it the actual maneuvering of troops during war, or maybe it's about the preparation. Either way, the best way is to play and then reload and try again a few times. A basic rule is that your entire civ should contribute when you're in war-mode(so no building libraries and other "but i just need this") and you keep wars short.

 

[dankok8]

Windsor has some good points!

Keeping wars short is a big one especially as you move later on in the game. War weariness, unit supply and lost trade can hurt your economy significantly and as a result you'll fall behind other civs who stay peaceful. I don't know if you're familiar with these mechanics? Civ 4 is an incredibly complex game and as a 15-year veteran, I can still improve and learn more from better players.

 

[Gumbolt]

AI expansion on Prince is somewhat slow. You can easily build 3 cities pre 2000bc. AI won't match that. Of course you have to be focused. If you start your game building warriors or scouts you won't match the Ai expansion.

Usually ... Worker first, prepare food resources. Grow to size 3 building warriors. Build 2 settlers on the bounce.

You would need to post a save so someone could look. Posting anything past 1ad won't really help.

 

[rah]

Quick wars with a known objective. Lots of siege.

 

[Evil Beejeebers]

Quick wars with a known objective. Lots of siege.

AI expansion on Prince is somewhat slow. You can easily build 3 cities pre 2000bc. AI won't match that. Of course you have to be focused. If you start your game building warriors or scouts you won't match the Ai expansion.

I've noticed my noble game has dipped over the years of not playing. Still a tad too easy for me though. I think my expansion is fast but I lack focus on what to do early game. I normally end up losing the liberalism race on Prince.

Quick wars with a known objective. Lots of siege.

My siege game is especially dreadful. what sort of ratio should I be looking for for a siege army?

 

[lymond]

I normally end up losing the liberalism race on Prince.

You have a lot of work to do. Even with a basic foundation, you should not get remotely close to losing Lib on Prince, if Lib is a factor at all.

My siege game is especially dreadful. what sort of ratio should I be looking for for a siege army?

Not really a defined rule per se, as several factors may be at play. At least 50/50 is a reasonable guideline. However, always think of siege as disposable. You will lose a lot and should have reinforcements in play.

Anyway, this question of how to warfare has come up now and then over the years. My first answer is always the same and it is not directly related to warfare. Not number of units, which units, or how to use said units. The first goal with civ iv is mastering the early game mechanics and concepts. Once you do so then the idea of how to kill peoples builds on that foundation and you’ll have much success.

otherwise, at this stage you are just slamming your little men into their little men and really not gaining much.

 

[Evil Beejeebers]

Yeah that is basically what happens, I throw my little men into their little men and taking too long doing it.

My expansion in CIV4 is dreadful. when should you go from a settler focus to a conquer focus?

I'm feeling quite honoured in this post, Gumbolt, rah and lymond all the heavy hitters out in force.

 

[dankok8]

Yeah that is basically what happens, I throw my little men into their little men and taking too long doing it.

My expansion in CIV4 is dreadful. when should you go from a settler focus to a conquer focus?

I'm feeling quite honoured in this post, Gumbolt, rah and lymond all the heavy hitters out in force.

Settlers vs army depends on the situation. If there is a lot of good free land and non-threatening neighbours, then build settlers. If there is no free land then bust out the armies.

Generally wars last too long because you don't have enough siege although sometimes you can pick the wrong target or wrong time period for warring. Medieval era between Feudalism and either Mil Trad or Steel is the toughest to wage war because defenses are so strong relative to offense. Longbowman + Walls + Castles are very tough to crack. Some AI especially Sitting Bull often just aren't worth invading unless you have a big tech advantage. AI's also can and will bribe other AI's to help them in wars so if you picked a well liked target who has a couple of juicy techs you may find yourself on the wrong end of a 3v1 dogpile. It's critical to build lots of siege to have a good kill/death ratio. It keeps wars quick and also reduces war weariness which is proportional to your casualties. War weariness gets particularly painful in the late game. Early it's a nonfactor.

To summarize:
- build lots of siege
- build units quickly using whip/chop/draft
- try not to war when you're both in medieval era
- try not to war without a military tech edge or at least parity
- be wary of diplomacy
- be wary of other drawbacks of declaring war (ex. if all your trade routes to all civs go through this one AI's land you may experience a huge economic hit or maybe this one AI is your only trading partner and you're behind in tech)

 

[lymond]

My expansion in CIV4 is dreadful. when should you go from a settler focus to a conquer focus?

dankok answers this well, but I'd restate that there is not really a guideline to this. There are so many variable to any given game.

The issue you are having right now is not asking the right questions and putting in the right focus on what there is to learn. It's all right here for you.

 

[Gumbolt]

Post a save so we can see. All this advice will be vague at best till we can see a game.

 

[rah]

A tech advantage is not always required. The AI is pretty stupid so if you don't make a horrendous mistake you can do things like defeat AIs that have infantry and cannons with rifles and cannons. Learn all the mistakes the AI makes when warring. Watch how it shuffles between two threatened targets. Watch how you can bait a SOD to flat terrain by sacrificing a single worker. Learn how to kill all the siege in a stack to one so their stacks will be even more stupid. The AI is dumb. So even with lesser tech, you can still win if you use your siege more strategically than they do. Track their SODs. Learn to bait them. When they're stacked on your border. Weaken the defenses in a city next to their stack and DOW. They will come to you.

But please be advised that many here are much better than I.

 

[Evil Beejeebers]

Post a save so we can see. All this advice will be vague at best till we can see a game.

No problem buddy!

I thought I was doing pretty well in this one, but I am really not. I should perhaps think about taking France who seem like a soft target. My expansion was very poor at the start as I thought the french land was going to be poor.

 

[lymond]

Yep, there's a lot wrong with that game. It really doesn't help you much to focus on getting help with a game at that late stage, as your problems go all the way back to Turn 0. And it is the early game that is so important.

Few observations though:

1) Overall pace/benchmarks are way off compared to what one would expect.
2) Expand way to slowly. I see 4 more cities in immediate area and all should have been built in the BCs
3) Butt ton of units built for no purpose
4) Lots of useless buildings.
5) Not sure what you've done with great people.
6) One way or another all those cottages in Berlin should be worked. Understand what a Bureau cap is and the power of Bureaucracy.
7) Caste/Pac good for a golden age, but no real reason to use it now.
8) Doubt you use Slavery effectively or much at all. Slavery is the single most powerful mechanic in this game.
9) Civil Service allows for chain irrigation which in turn feeds water to dry food resources.
10) At this stage or much sooner you should already be killing people.

Relatively speaking, you are not really behind in this game though. But lack of purpose and focus means this game will likely lead nowhere. Still very winnable though.

Lastly, get in the habit of running 0% or 100% research...not some X%. Accumulate just enough gold to then complete target tech. Make sure you trade for gold and resources for gpt.

 

[Windsor]

My expansion was very poor at the start as I thought the french land was going to be poor.

Yes, your expansion is too slow. Rate of settling:

Berlin 4000BC
Hamburg 2200BC - that's a bit too slow, but not devastatingly so.
Munich - 1920BC - Ok, that's at least quickly after Hamburg.
Cologne 675BC - What happened here? All of a sudden you're WAY behind.
Frankfurt 25BC - 5th and final 25BC. Did you place your empire in Covid-19 lockdown?

Let me just point out that there are 4(!) unsettled Fish resources around you. One in the north, one in the southwest and two in the southeast. Cologne kills the fish in the southeast, but settling on the horse nets you another city. That's 3 extra cities just there.

Now let's look at something else. Berlin have a dry corn and a grasshill sheep. You start with Mining+Hunting so research should be obvious, Agriculture and then Animal Husbandry. But somehow you went BW-TW. That's a massive mistake and I really don't understand your reasoning for doing so.

Then, you settle Hamburg 2nd which picks up a fish and settles towards Mongols. But wait, you settled Hamburg 2200BC, but you still hadn't finished fishing! So not only was Hamburg forced to build a workboat first (not optimal) it even had to wait for you to finish Fishing! That slows you down much more than you realize.

Now I want you to consider the potential spot NE of Berlins corn. Sharing food with capital is something you always should look for. And in this case that city would be able to instantly borrow the corn and work 2 riverside cottages for the capital. When it eventually gets a borderpop you also get the deer and the fish. I'm not telling you that you should have settled this, but the concept of sharing capitals food is always something to consider since you can work improved tiles as soon as the city is settled.

PS. I probably sound very harsh, but it's not my intention to be mean. Sorry

 

[lymond]

Note that EB had huts on, so not sure what free techs were popped. But yeah, BW-TW would not be good. Always think food first.

(EB - note that most around here play with huts and events off)

 

[Gumbolt]

Lots wrong here.
One biggie. You have unit cost per turn of 37! You don't need 5-6 units in each city. 1 is normally ample. With a stack if your going to war. Or an AI is plotting against you.

Pacifism costs you 1 gold support cost per unit. Albeit on Price you seem to get a handicap bonus.With 30-40 units it soon adds up even on prince.

You will need a lot more than a few spears and swords here as the French will have castles. You will likely struggle here.

An HA or phant rush would of worked here early on.. Prince AI would of been really slow to second city.

 

[Fippy]

Also unit balance, you have ~35 melee units and 1 catapult
For wars this should be more like 50-50 (if using siege and not fast moving mounted only), cos Cats, Trebs or Cannons do the hard work.

 

[dankok8]

A tech advantage is not always required. The AI is pretty stupid so if you don't make a horrendous mistake you can do things like defeat AIs that have infantry and cannons with rifles and cannons. Learn all the mistakes the AI makes when warring. Watch how it shuffles between two threatened targets. Watch how you can bait a SOD to flat terrain by sacrificing a single worker. Learn how to kill all the siege in a stack to one so their stacks will be even more stupid. The AI is dumb. So even with lesser tech, you can still win if you use your siege more strategically than they do. Track their SODs. Learn to bait them. When they're stacked on your border. Weaken the defenses in a city next to their stack and DOW. They will come to you.

But please be advised that many here are much better than I.

Good post. Just a couple of days ago I attacked an AI with Riflemen who had about 80% of my power using a horde of Knights and Trebuchets. However, you must lure the enemy stack like you said and expect to lose A LOT of trebs bombarding it down with collateral. I ended up destroying their SOD and capturing a few cities and eventually capping them but the war was a costly slog until I got Cannons a few turns into the war. Only then things started rolling and they capped soon after.

Others did a great job covering the sticky points in OP's game. And like Gumbolt said the Swords aren't even gonna make a dent against Longbows behind Castles. But with Trebs + Maces, it should go better even though medieval wars are painful. Generally better to beeline Military Tradition and Gunpowder for Cuirassiers.

 

[Gumbolt]

The problem here is the OP has been spamming units for a lot of the game when running wealth or research helps push you towards key techs.

Warring is about spamming units when you have an advantage. When you don't you work on diplomacy and try to research fast on a strong economy till you can beat down the local AI.