How to use artillery effectively...
- Thread starter Moonsinger
- Start date
I agree that artillery has its uses. And I can see how the settler gambit deal would work. But why do all this? All this "feight city-building for artillery movement" seems to be most inefficient to me when it comes to conquering the enemy.
Let me get this straight, the premise of this thread is to build some cities (and use up settlers) in enemy territory to get around the fact that artillery can move only 1 square at a time in enemy territory so you can hopefully get stacks of great quantities of artillery close enough to an enemy city to blow it to smithereens? Huh? Come again? Really?
First of all, I almost never build artillery. I like to capture artillery in conquest, and that's fine and all. But it's a big waste of turns and resources to actually build artillery. If you want to be successful in warfare, you ought to be building Cavalry or tanks if you're not building city improvements. But not artillery. Give me an army of 20 Cavalry over a stack of 50 artillery any day, which is about the tradeoff you're going to have if you build artillery instead of, say, Cavalry. That would be a really huge blunder.
And when I do have artillery, I always use artillery defensively; that is, to weaken opponent's units in the field before attacking and destoying those units. I eschew using artillery offensively because my conquered cities tend to be so far from my capital, they're one shield cities. And so I need those marketplaces, barracks, etc, that are already there in place, and I darn sure don't want to destroy them by pounding the cities with artillery. Which is exactly why you should build Cavalry or tanks instead of artillery. The object of constructive warfare is to capture the opponent's city along with its prizes. Artillery units can't capture anything. Cavalry and tanks can.
I mean, how long do you intend for your war to last? Dozens of turns or 10 to 20 turns? Artillery based warfare, coupled with building cities in enemy territory for purposes of artillery delivery, is going to keep you busy long past war weariness limits, even with Universal Suffrage, if the attacked Civ has any kind of size at all.
When I use artillery, I use them for warfare support. In fact, about the only use for artillery is to weaken an enemy unit before the unit is attacked and destroyed. That's it. Note that by firing the artillery from within a city, the artillery is better protected since artillery cannot move after they shoot. So do think before you shoot your artillery.
As a final matter, artillery is useless in quelling resistance. So why in the world would you build great quantities of them? They cost money and they sit around doing little to nothing, even in times of war! Plus, you can't even airdrop the units via airports to support warfare on other continents. You've got to transport them via sea units.
Artillery ought to be an afterthought in Civ, and not some huge strategy for conquering rival Civs by building (apparently) dozens of artillery, bringing up settlers and establishing soon-to-be-worthless cities, etc, etc. I just don't see the point. And settlers only get one move in enemy territory also, and must be protected also. So the efficacy of the whole strategy is in question in my mind.
The strategy for successful conquering in Civ3 is simple: build mobile attack units. Lots of them. Tons of them. Want to win the war the quickest possible way? Build Cavalry and then tanks and then MA. Every single time. Not artillery. Never artillery. Hugely inefficient waste.
Now if you want to do the artillery gambit discussed in this thread for "fun," then fine. That's a legitimate reason. I guess some people could drive from Providence to NYC by way of Buffalo because taking in all the sights would be "fun." No problem. Civ3 is made to be "fun."
But if your purpose is to rack up the most points in the game, to win a war as quickly as possible, to conduct efficient warfare, and to conquer productive cities, then the premise of this thread quickly breaks down. Having said this, the thread is nonetheless interesting and worthwhile because it gets people to thinking. And that's a good thing.
JMO.
Let me get this straight, the premise of this thread is to build some cities (and use up settlers) in enemy territory to get around the fact that artillery can move only 1 square at a time in enemy territory so you can hopefully get stacks of great quantities of artillery close enough to an enemy city to blow it to smithereens? Huh? Come again? Really?
First of all, I almost never build artillery. I like to capture artillery in conquest, and that's fine and all. But it's a big waste of turns and resources to actually build artillery. If you want to be successful in warfare, you ought to be building Cavalry or tanks if you're not building city improvements. But not artillery. Give me an army of 20 Cavalry over a stack of 50 artillery any day, which is about the tradeoff you're going to have if you build artillery instead of, say, Cavalry. That would be a really huge blunder.
And when I do have artillery, I always use artillery defensively; that is, to weaken opponent's units in the field before attacking and destoying those units. I eschew using artillery offensively because my conquered cities tend to be so far from my capital, they're one shield cities. And so I need those marketplaces, barracks, etc, that are already there in place, and I darn sure don't want to destroy them by pounding the cities with artillery. Which is exactly why you should build Cavalry or tanks instead of artillery. The object of constructive warfare is to capture the opponent's city along with its prizes. Artillery units can't capture anything. Cavalry and tanks can.
I mean, how long do you intend for your war to last? Dozens of turns or 10 to 20 turns? Artillery based warfare, coupled with building cities in enemy territory for purposes of artillery delivery, is going to keep you busy long past war weariness limits, even with Universal Suffrage, if the attacked Civ has any kind of size at all.
When I use artillery, I use them for warfare support. In fact, about the only use for artillery is to weaken an enemy unit before the unit is attacked and destroyed. That's it. Note that by firing the artillery from within a city, the artillery is better protected since artillery cannot move after they shoot. So do think before you shoot your artillery.
As a final matter, artillery is useless in quelling resistance. So why in the world would you build great quantities of them? They cost money and they sit around doing little to nothing, even in times of war! Plus, you can't even airdrop the units via airports to support warfare on other continents. You've got to transport them via sea units.
Artillery ought to be an afterthought in Civ, and not some huge strategy for conquering rival Civs by building (apparently) dozens of artillery, bringing up settlers and establishing soon-to-be-worthless cities, etc, etc. I just don't see the point. And settlers only get one move in enemy territory also, and must be protected also. So the efficacy of the whole strategy is in question in my mind.
The strategy for successful conquering in Civ3 is simple: build mobile attack units. Lots of them. Tons of them. Want to win the war the quickest possible way? Build Cavalry and then tanks and then MA. Every single time. Not artillery. Never artillery. Hugely inefficient waste.
Now if you want to do the artillery gambit discussed in this thread for "fun," then fine. That's a legitimate reason. I guess some people could drive from Providence to NYC by way of Buffalo because taking in all the sights would be "fun." No problem. Civ3 is made to be "fun."
But if your purpose is to rack up the most points in the game, to win a war as quickly as possible, to conduct efficient warfare, and to conquer productive cities, then the premise of this thread quickly breaks down. Having said this, the thread is nonetheless interesting and worthwhile because it gets people to thinking. And that's a good thing.
JMO.
No, that wasn't the premise of this thread. The premise of this thread is how to destroy an enemy of at least 5 times stronger than us and more advance in tech than us. Imagining that we need to take an enemy city of size 24 or above and they are heavily defended with infantries (or MI) and their city culture boundary is of ring 3 or more at deity level.
Not true! If your enemy is much stronger and can out produce you anytime, you won't be able to win the war with less than 10 turns without using artillery offensively. With artillery, you can fight your war at least twice as fast (just raze a few of their cores and they will be willing to talk within about 6 turns later; if that isn't fast enough than I don't know what else?). Hint: since artillery do not need time to heal, we can use them in every turn. With other units, chances are they won't survive the battle and those that do survive the battle would need time to heal. Now, with artillery to reduce the enemy unit to 1 HP, we would cut our lost at least 1/2. Just remember that we are going against an enemy much stronger than us.
When I use artillery, I use them for warfare support. In fact, about the only use for artillery is to weaken an enemy unit before the unit is attacked and destroyed. That's it. Note that by firing the artillery from within a city, the artillery is better protected since artillery cannot move after they shoot. So do think before you shoot your artillery.Becuase artillery can not move after they shoot and they can move only 1 point in enemy terriory each turn, exactly the reason why we need to use the settler (or engineering team) to support them and to enable them to attack at lightning speed at each turn.No offend, but it seem to me that you miss the point of this article.
Since the enemy culture is at least 10 times stronger than us, we won't be able to prevent them from flipping back to our enemy. Therefore, we may well blow them to pieces and raze the remainder for free worker. Of course, we don't really need to rebuild them because we can just simply keep the outpost that we just build as the replacement for the one we just raze.
They do not sit around doing little or nothing! I don't know about you, but I fire every single one of my 200 artilleries in every turn and I don't rest until the enemy is completely eliminated. That's the only way to make sure that they don't come back and their cities won't flip back.
What's wrong with transporting them by sea?
We are not talking about a couple dozens of artillery here. This strategy will fail if you have less than 100 artillery units. Sure the settler need to be protected, but that is only 1 unit that you need protect. If you lost it, that's really no big deal. The secret is to keep your main attack force (SOD) far away and safe as possible until they are needed. Without the settler, you main attack force must spend at least 1 turn idle in enemy territory (not to mention the cost of WW because the more troops you have in enemy territory at the end of your turn, the higher rate of WW). I don't like to leave my main army sitting duck like that; I like to keep them safe and far away from the battle front until they are needed. And because they are not tied up, I can instantly launch them anywhere - make good use of my little force (just remember that I'm going against an enemy much stronger than mine).
Just one quick question: what level are we talking about here? At deity level, we are out gunned, out produced, and possibly far behide in tech too.
Well, you just have to try and find out for yourself because I'm not going to tell you what kind of high score I usually got in these games.
Xover, you dont read these boards often, do you?
At any time I would play at any level even with all fast moving units disabled (for me) if I could still build artillery. In your case, I would play you without any fast moving units and even give you a 20% shield discount for all fast moving units and still be sure to win.
Before reading Moonsingers strategy I used stacks of 20+ arty. Afterwards, I increased that to at least 100 arty and never lost a game after reaching Replaceable parts.
At any time I would play at any level even with all fast moving units disabled (for me) if I could still build artillery. In your case, I would play you without any fast moving units and even give you a 20% shield discount for all fast moving units and still be sure to win.
Before reading Moonsingers strategy I used stacks of 20+ arty. Afterwards, I increased that to at least 100 arty and never lost a game after reaching Replaceable parts.
anarres
anarchist revolutionary
H'watcha are lame even with lethal bombard. With a bombard strength as in PTW of 12 and with lethal bombard they are still ineffectual against cities. If the city has just 2 Muskets it will take at least 20 to take them down, and I have tried with 35 and still failed in one turn. In this sense the lethal bomard is not a huge 'extra' because of the inability to actually get that far in a city invasion.
In Conquests they are reducing the bombard strength back to the normal 8, presumably to counter balance the lethal bombard. I think this is a big mistake, since even now they are not an amazingly useful unit. With a bombard of 8 you will do nothing to reduce the size of a city or to take out buildings, unless you really do have 100 H'watcha.
One of the main reasons arty works is because they can bombard 2 tiles away, Cannon and H'watcha can't. This combined with the lack of railraids means you are much slower in getting to the enemy. If you can build 100 H'watcha I would recommend you build 60 Cavalry instead, to get the AI before they get Infantry.
In Conquests they are reducing the bombard strength back to the normal 8, presumably to counter balance the lethal bombard. I think this is a big mistake, since even now they are not an amazingly useful unit. With a bombard of 8 you will do nothing to reduce the size of a city or to take out buildings, unless you really do have 100 H'watcha.
One of the main reasons arty works is because they can bombard 2 tiles away, Cannon and H'watcha can't. This combined with the lack of railraids means you are much slower in getting to the enemy. If you can build 100 H'watcha I would recommend you build 60 Cavalry instead, to get the AI before they get Infantry.
Originally posted by alexman
Can you imagine a stack of 100 lethal bombard Hwach'a?
Aparently C3C has given lethal bombard to the Korean UU!
Yes, but the Hwacha's range is too short; therefore, we can't really use it offensively.
In any case, the Hwacha is very good for defensive purpose.
//Edit: anarres beats me to the post.
The point with the smaller cities was not so much to prevent you from taking them, but to slow your takeover by giving you too many targets near your border to get all of them. This would allow me to counter attack with my artillery and offensive units.
SInce I have read this article, I have found using artillery much more effective. However, I find it easier to skip the settler part and just take everything and stack it togeather one square inside emeny territory and attack on the following turn.
Depending on how the AI has set up it's cities, taking the 1st one can easily lead to taking 2 to 3 more in the same turn without using settlers. Also if the offensive units get damaged, they can all park inside a captured city and quickly quell any resistance. Then while the units heal, quickly build either a temple and Library or a cathederal. Either way, the culture will expand in four turns. This gives every one a chance to heal, regroup and plan for the next push.
Using this method, saves having to make settlers, still allows for a fairly rapid expansion, and needs far less units to accomplish. I have used this strategy with great results. Typically I have between 50-60 artillery and around 40 Cav/Tanks/Modern Armor and can take 2-3 cities (sometimes more if they are <6).
My biggest problem is the city being reduced to 2 pop before all the defenders are redlined. All I know is this method works really well for me. Usually I can't wait to build the size of force Moonsinger as I want to reduce the AI's abilities as soon as I can.
SInce I have read this article, I have found using artillery much more effective. However, I find it easier to skip the settler part and just take everything and stack it togeather one square inside emeny territory and attack on the following turn.
Depending on how the AI has set up it's cities, taking the 1st one can easily lead to taking 2 to 3 more in the same turn without using settlers. Also if the offensive units get damaged, they can all park inside a captured city and quickly quell any resistance. Then while the units heal, quickly build either a temple and Library or a cathederal. Either way, the culture will expand in four turns. This gives every one a chance to heal, regroup and plan for the next push.
Using this method, saves having to make settlers, still allows for a fairly rapid expansion, and needs far less units to accomplish. I have used this strategy with great results. Typically I have between 50-60 artillery and around 40 Cav/Tanks/Modern Armor and can take 2-3 cities (sometimes more if they are <6).
My biggest problem is the city being reduced to 2 pop before all the defenders are redlined. All I know is this method works really well for me. Usually I can't wait to build the size of force Moonsinger as I want to reduce the AI's abilities as soon as I can.
CIVPhilzilla
Reagan Republican
Awesome Strat dude, I always hated waiting turn after turn for my artillery to move into position
zerksees
in remission
I want to add a possible improvement to this strategy.
Last night I was attacking an AI American city (Kansas City) that had a much larger cultural border than that depicted in the sample. I captured their second last city (which I will call city A) that was five tiles from the capital. I wanted to eliminate the last city this turn but did not know how. I had plenty of tanks and artillery but could not reach the city in this turn. Here is what I did:
1. I put a settler on the tile directly next to the city A which I had just taken. This settler is four tiles away from Kansas City, but he cant build this turn because city A is there.
2. Raze city A.
3. Build city B with the settler you just placed.
4. Place another settler directly next to city B and three tiles from Kansas City.
5. Raze city B.
6. Build city C.
The borders of City C will open the tile that is two tiles from Kansas City. Now tanks, artillery and MI can reach Kansas City!
The only other requirement is that the tiles have roads or railroads.
This technique obviously costs a few settlers, but can greatly expedite an invasion of well-spaced AI cities. If you are doing it properly each city attack will leave a row of ruins from start to finish. Too bad I discovered it at the end of the war!
(Please ignore if this was already mentioned above. I tried to read it all but may have missed some)
Last night I was attacking an AI American city (Kansas City) that had a much larger cultural border than that depicted in the sample. I captured their second last city (which I will call city A) that was five tiles from the capital. I wanted to eliminate the last city this turn but did not know how. I had plenty of tanks and artillery but could not reach the city in this turn. Here is what I did:
1. I put a settler on the tile directly next to the city A which I had just taken. This settler is four tiles away from Kansas City, but he cant build this turn because city A is there.
2. Raze city A.
3. Build city B with the settler you just placed.
4. Place another settler directly next to city B and three tiles from Kansas City.
5. Raze city B.
6. Build city C.
The borders of City C will open the tile that is two tiles from Kansas City. Now tanks, artillery and MI can reach Kansas City!
The only other requirement is that the tiles have roads or railroads.
This technique obviously costs a few settlers, but can greatly expedite an invasion of well-spaced AI cities. If you are doing it properly each city attack will leave a row of ruins from start to finish. Too bad I discovered it at the end of the war!
(Please ignore if this was already mentioned above. I tried to read it all but may have missed some)
Nice thought!
Unfortunately, it has already been discussed in this thread before (no apology is needed because this is a long thread and I don't expect anyone to read it from the beginning to the end). Anyway, many people would treat this as an exploit because with enough settlers, you could crawl right up to their capital (if you need to destroy their spaceship or capture their king/queen or whatever) within 1 turn. Btw, the correct term for this method is as follows:2. Disband city A.
3. Build city B with the settler you just placed.
4. Place another settler directly next to city B ...
5. Disband city B.
6. Build city C.
7. Repeat as needed.
I replace the word "raze" with the word "disband" because you can't raze your own city.
Well, to be technical, the actual command is 'Abandon City', reached by right-clicking on the city. (Unless they changed it in Conquests, which I don't have yet! )
)
Originally posted by civ_steve
Well, to be technical, the actual command is 'Abandon City', reached by right-clicking on the city. (Unless they changed it in Conquests, which I don't have yet!
You are absolutely correct!
zerksees
in remission
Thanks for the corrections.
Moonsinger, would it be a good idea to add this variation to the original article?
I think it would be handy for war academy readers to know about it, so anyone can make their own decision about whether it is an exploit.
You can describe it as an exploit if you like, but I will use it. It is in the rules of the game. Its not like reloading if the AI sneak attacks you, or to avoid paying for info you get from embassy or spying. To me those are exploits.
Moonsinger, would it be a good idea to add this variation to the original article?
I think it would be handy for war academy readers to know about it, so anyone can make their own decision about whether it is an exploit.
You can describe it as an exploit if you like, but I will use it. It is in the rules of the game. Its not like reloading if the AI sneak attacks you, or to avoid paying for info you get from embassy or spying. To me those are exploits.
anarres
anarchist revolutionary
If you read up you will find the 'settler creep' method of gaining territory has already been discussed in length. 
I agree that the settler strategy outlined by Moonsinger is an an unfair exploit, and entirely unrealistic. This does not mean that if I ever dare play at Diety level I won't use it, but it should not be used in MP in my view. What I do do is settle new settlers on available spaces along the border (during peacetime) to cramp the rival civ's territory, establish barrackses and airbases very close to their cities, and grab territory that, along with providing pop, prod and commerce might be the site of late appearing resources. Most importantly of course is that it gives me control of the roads on those squares and effectively brings my cavalry or tanks within easy reach of their front line cities. This is hardly friendly, but it is not game blowing like the use of settlers to penetrate deep within enemy territory, and it could be counterd by the enemy civ building their own advanced cities or having a strong culture.
jshelr
Warlord
I have not read the details of the "exploit" line of thought, but let me propose that Europeans have for centuries begun wars of vast territorial conquest by first sending settlers and later actual armies. As an American, and thinking about the indians in North America, it is clear that settlers first claimed territory that the troops later were able to use more effectively due to the friendly population in the area. So, what's unrealistic about ethnic cleansing and replacement of indigenous population with your own citizens as part of a strategy of conquest from a European point of view????
Well, one turn in Civ3 could mean up to 50 years in real life.
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