Invading when you're low on culture.

[ainwood]

I tried a different method recently when heavily behind in culture. I was invading an american island, just off the coast from their mainland, and just a few squares from the capital. I only had aorund 2/3's of the culture of the americans, and I wanted to take these cities rather than raze them. This island was also a significant distance from my capital.

I was very aware about the possibilities of culture flips. It was just into the industrial ages, and I was attacking with cavalry, supported by infantry.

I normally station a large group of units in a captured city to end the resistance quickly, then rush a few cultural improvements. I tried a different tactic, which almost has an 'exploit' characteristic to it, but that was not my intent.

After quashing the resistance, what I did was to pillage all the roads into this city, except for a single road on which I stationed a defensive unit and an attacking unit (one cavalry and one infantry). The city was left empty with lots of entertainers for happiness control, although later stationed infantry there.

The empty cities made great targets for the AI, and it would recapture them with cavalry. With the roads gone, they could not move infantry in to defend the cavalry, so the cavalry were very exposed to counter attacks. This also hurried the downsizing of the city, as the pop reduces with each attack. I consider baiting the AI like this a bit exploitive, but it was not my primary focus.

By pillaging and blocking the roads, the city was cut-off from the empire and this meant that in the event of a culture flip, the strongest unit would only ever be a rifleman, or even a spearman in the early industrial age. This was my real goal - expecting culture flips, but ensuring that they were no big deal when they happened.

 

[Qitai]

I always start a invasion by cutting off the civ's resources, by either pillaging or capturing the cities which holds the resources. This is really the same as what you did by cutting off roads to ensure poor free unit. My methods, though has the added advantage that it immediately prevents the AI from producing any good unit, which prevents the war from becoming an attrition war.

 

[WillJ]

Very interesting idea. So I assume that when a city culture flips, you don't mind and just continue on moving to the next city? Then later when the empire has mostly been taken over or weakened with riflemen-only cities, you go on and finish them off?

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Qitai
I always start a invasion by cutting off the civ's resources, by either pillaging or capturing the cities which holds the resources. This is really the same as what you did by cutting off roads to ensure poor free unit. My methods, though has the added advantage that it immediately prevents the AI from producing any good unit, which prevents the war from becoming an attrition war.

I try to do that too, but sometimes it not practical. For example, where they have a large empire with access to many resources or they are spread out over a number of islands. It is also difficult to prevent them from trading for resources.

The basic premise behind this strategy is not trying to make a war easier - there are better strategies than this one, and you eluded to one of the key elements of any strategy. However, this idea of mine can work as part of a wider strategy.

The idea is that culture flips no longer become a major problem in your invasion. You ensure that when (if) the city flips, it can be easily recaptured by the unit stationed next to it, as there is only a poor unit defending it.

Originally posted by WillJ
So I assume that when a city culture flips, you don't mind and just continue on moving to the next city? Then later when the empire has mostly been taken over or weakened with riflemen-only cities, you go on and finish them off?

Sort of. I don't care if it flips, as I leave an attacking unit and a defensive unit (where possible) next to the city, and they can recapture it if it flips. The goal here is to completely wipe out the other civ in reasonable time, so that the chance of flips is eliminated, and that the cities can be made into something productive.

 

[Leha]

Good advice , and i don't think it's exploitive , cause then we could call exploitive everything else .

 

[anarres]

This is a variation on what I normally do - I don't normally use my units to pillage tiles to stop reinfircements, but I tend to find that unless they have huge resources they will never put more than 2 units back in the city.

I guess if you are on Inf and Cav (like in your example), retaking from Inf can be hard and pillaging to stop reinforcement could be useful...

Of course for cities not on the front line 2 offensive units (that can often cover 2 seperate AI cities at once) should be enough - as long as that city has no trade route to the AI capital they will only get a Rifleman at best as a defender when it flips back.