How to stop the war of attrition?

[bosh_]

Iv had multiple attempts to wining a military victory and always seem to fall short because it decendes into a war of attrition.

Im playing on warlord, standard size map, always as england victoria, and the map with the inland water(bascially means you have one civ either side of you and that its, so you are quite safe.

What i generally do is build up my economy,science and culture until the time i get grenaders and redcoats, and at this point im miles head in technology and culture over the other civs.

I then just build up a couple stacks of musketmen,grenaders,redcoats and catapults and wipe out one of my neighbours. Once they are finished i consoldate for a few turns wait for all the revolts to stop and the workers to start doing there stuff.

i then move round to one or two other civs and destroy them with infantry and artillary and then later tanks, and stealth bombers. By this time i have nothing left to research and am on 100% culture.

Then around this point the other civs have court up militarily and have simular units, and i just lose my ability to advance under a blaze of enemy fighters, gunships,tanks,artillary and collateral damage. Even with the vast prouction capability of my large empire the advance is slow to halted.

What i would normally do in this situation is just pillage every thing and ruin their economy, but there aint enought time to do this for the 2-3 enemies that are left.

Help

 

[culdeus]

If you wait till redcoats to make your first war you won't have enough time. You must take someone on with at least knights+cats.

 

[Batvanio]

yep - you should start to war early on.

to fight ww build jails and Mt. Rushmore plus change to Police state civic

 

[bosh_]

Actually i lied im my last attempt, i conqured my first civ with warrior and catapults.

Is the only way to win to have a technological advantage?

Just i virtually neglect culture on a war stragergy and concentrate on production and science?

Dont jails just reduce war unhappyness?

 

[sillyspheres]

Dont jails just reduce war unhappyness?

Yep and that keeps the citizens in your city working rather than complaining about the constant war.

 

[Greencardman]

One way would be to start the final wars earlier, like when you have bombers and fighters and they have none. So instead of fighting one civ at a time, fight them all. Usually if you have bombers you can destroy anything that comes into your territory, so they'll waste a lot of units. Meanwhile, send a tank or something to pilliage, and make sure to destroy any oil or coal and aluminium. In fact, destroy all resource improvements, including iron and copper. That way, even if the AI finally catches up in tech, they''ll never be able to build the tanks/artillery/fighters to fight you with. I'm finding more and more a modern war is all about destroying the resources of another nation first. Then you just have to fight out the remaining modern units.

P.S.
I'd say this is where spies really come into their element. Despite what people say about them, i think they're an awesome unit. You can build three, so send them on over. There's nothing like destroying that oil well 6 turns ahead of starting a war. And you can keep doing it over and over...

 

[QuikPik]

I'm on my way to a military victory (I think) in my noble game. Like others have said, you have to start wars very early. I'm playing on a large map that has 7 civs, luckily my two nearest neighbors didn't have any metal resources. They were taken out fairly quickly, first one went down when I got swordsmen/axemen. Second civilation went down when I got Knights/War Elephants. I took the third civ out when I got to Cavalry. I'm about to engage in more warfare now that I have tanks. I plan on taking two on at once, they are middle of the road in score. The final plan is to engage the second highest scoring civ after that, I should have modern armor by then.

If you have an overwhelming tech advantage (which I do), I find I do not have to go after their critical resources. But if you are somewhat close, then certainly take out their iron/horses/oil/etc. I'm finding in Civ4 you have to chip away little by little for a military victory. You can no longer just bum rush tanks/modern armor and just overwhlem everyone in less 50 turns like in Civ3.

 

[gibbie99]

I'm just a newb with Civ4, too, but I've found the only way I can take the enemy cities is massive amounts of forces. You could always just raze the cities, and start using nukes (but many times they can get shot down, fair warning). I think it's possible to take a city every 5 turns on a normal empire. I'm sure others could do better.

 

[meink]

Don't underestimate the power of destroying luxury resources also. This is the primary way of generating happy faces, especially early game when you're missing buildings to make up for the loss of them. Unhappy people is how to win the attrition war.

 

[LeSphinx]

For me, It best to attack you rneighboor sooner.
I usually pillage all the great improvement and specially all the military ressource: copper, iron, ... using a mounted fast units! Chariot or Horse archer.
Then, I attack his 3 or 4 cities.
then I started to expand my cities.
Then, I usually make war with Cavalry/Rifleman/Grenadiers and a lot of cannon. I bombard all the cities defense to 0%. Then I sacrified 2 or 3 cannons in order to make collaterage dammage in the units in the cities. Then, I attack using the best unit according to the odds. I chek all the odds with all my units and attack then!!!!!
LeSphinx

 

[Harry_P]

It sounds to me like there is too much of a gap between your Red Coat assault and the final push. Alot of players get bogged down trying to manage all of the territory they've taken after the initial push to knock out a civ. The best thing to do for a warmonger is wipe out one civ with your Red Coats and then declare war on the remaining civs just so you can pillage and set back they're economy to give you a chance to boom past them again. With a huge amount of Red Coats or Cavalry you can probably decimate your enemies economies pretty quickly, then just sue for peace and boom past them to Tanks or Modern Armor or whatever it is you think you need to wait for after you finish your Red Coat assault.

With a standard size map you shouldn't be dealing with too many enemy cities for each civ, depending on how many players you set. It sounds like it's you and 3-4 other AIs so they shouldn't really have more than 15 cities by the time you start your Red Coat assault. At that number you should be able to steamroll more than one civ with your Red Coats, especially if you're using artillery and promoting your units properly.

If you find it too difficult to go after more than one civ at a time or you think you'll get overwhelmed then I would smash the first civ and take a few turns to ruin the others before you sue for peace and prepare the final assault. Just remember that the earlier you attack, the less they'll have. Don't wait until you have 50 Stealth Bombers to go after them, take 10 or 15 Tanks or Modern Armors and some artillery and jump on them as soon as you can. Hitting them before they get to the modern era makes it far easier on the lower difficulty levels.

 

[bosh_]

Im beginging to hate this game....which is sad. Its stupidly addicitive and yet i cant beat it, which for me in a nasty combination as im too stubborn so i just got to keep playing it and playing it till i win.

I had another go last night....same rules as before except on a continent. I just destroyed my first enemy around 1600 i think with swordsmen,capapults and then macemen and crossbowmen by the time i finished.......and it still gets all attritional....and even with cities with high production its hard to get enough units to the front...the supply lines are too long...and science,culture and health suffer because im producing units all the time.

How many attack units should i have before i start a war? i had 8 swordsmen and 2 catapults....and 3 cities producing new units every 4 turns

 

[Nidhögg]

If u just bombard the city down to 0% defence then attack with catapult and thereafter with axemen u shouldnt have a problem conquering the town at that lvl...Just remember to gor for Heriditary/Vasslage/Rel(1 with +2 XP for troops) and u should have almost 3 promotions that for a axemen makes them great attackers which should last until maceman upgrade.

 

[parachute4u]

Make sure to train your troops properly. Have specialists. Anti-archers, anti-cavalry, city-attackers, anti-gunpowder, anti-air. Attack one city at a time. Attack lightly defended cities. Have one strike force for offense (artillery and city attack-specialists (preferably former swordsman, who are left over from classical times)) and one defense squad (elephants for knights, hill-defenders for resources). Keep an eye on AI troop movements. Where is the modern stuff, which cities are heavily guarded. Where is AI offense coming from.
And what is most important: Don't take prisoners.

 

[Trepanated]

How many attack units should i have before i start a war? i had 8 swordsmen and 2 catapults....and 3 cities producing new units every 4 turns

In my experience I would say your ratio of swordsmen to cats is a bit high. You shouldn't really need more than 5 or 6 swordsmen, and the only time you should lose them is when you get pretty unlucky. The catapults, on the other hand, function as your loss leaders. I try to keep a stack of at least 4 of them with me, and that's usually also the focus of my production as well.

A typical scenario for me would be 5 swordsmen, 1 axemen (with medic, among other things) and 4 cats against a city defending with 3 archers (or longbowment, depending on how late it is) plus an axemen. Cats bombard down to 0% defense, then I lose 1 or possibly 2 cats (depending on luck). The collateral damage (make sure you have that upgraded!) will do enough that my swordsmen can mop up without a loss. Promote them straight up the city raider path, for the most part.

Then on to the next city. Rinse, repeat. Good luck.

 

[bosh_]

I hate this game!! Its 1959 and i havent cracked the second enemy. Wasted my force on one of his cities......just got it by the skin of my teeth....he took it back and filled it full of troops.......it then took ages to get a force in his region because of the long supply lines.....i used this force to pillage his land...and that where i am at now.

I must be a ******...this is just too hard