Is this an exploit or a tactic?

[Cabledawg]

My deity games usually end in disgust and me quitting very soon after. Im in one now playing Lincoln that has gone better than most. After getting up 4 cities, I started preparing for war against Hannibal......then the Incans decide they want to war with me. After some good dice rolls and getting to cats first, I roll over them......well that and i got Hannibal in the war with me. Since Hannibal is in my back lines, I decide to take his religion putting me at pleased.

I then target the germans and take 2 cities while razing 2 more......just when Im about to take another, Ragnar declares on me. Hes takes Berlin, the city I just took. I get it back and he wont take peace for squat. I start sending reinforcements to Berlin and he sends a stack of 24 units.

The units I have are mostly CR3 Maces....so I move all the units out of Berlin and let him take it. Ill demolish his stack next turn.

Exploit or tactic?

 

[troytheface]

a tactic used and written about by some, however, surrendering a city and losing buildings for an easier counter attack is not very heroic. I say stand your ground and win or lose and defend the virgins in the temples.

 

[r_rolo1]

The open fort tactic.... I do not consider it a exploit ( mainly because I love to do it as well ), but clearly the somewhat limited AI strat planning makes it clearly borderline in some situations

 

[Rusten]

Did that once, but I haven't done it ever since as it left a foul taste in my mouth. It's almost as bad as gifting missionaries to AIs in theocracy for an AP win, it just doesn't feel right.

 

[Cabledawg]

a tactic used and written about by some, however, surrendering a city and losing buildings for an easier counter attack is not very heroic. I say stand your ground and win or lose and defend the virgins in the temples.

I had the city for about 5 turns...it only had a granary. I didnt lose 1 unit when I attacked his SOD. I would have lost most if not all of my experienced army...not to mention....the axe you see in the pic in my SOD is a woody3 + medic 3 making him a 40% healer....I cant afford to lose him.

 

[Daedal]

Tactic. The AI could raze the city. Or you could get bad dice rolls with your CR3s. And anyway, what's the alternative? You could hold that city to the last man, but no leader in his right mind would do that. It's like trying to hold an open hilltop with SMGs when your enemy is in the surrounding forest with sniper rifles. Anyway.. just because the AI is awful at military tactics doesn't mean you have to drop to its level. The only advantage you have over the AI, especially at deity, is a human brain. Use it.

 

[troytheface]

fear of losing a highly promoted unit and not possessing defensive tactical prowess are cowardly acts, Stalingrad- the turning point of ww2. Draft or slave whip and crash troops to the front in a unit wave of bravado. Hannible defeated huge armies on the field but Rome kept pumping them out. An invasion should not be able to match production unit mass and if they die then cost keeps down and if you lose the city and your glorious warrior then it gives you incentive to destroy the enemy.

 

[r_rolo1]

^^BTW Stalingrad was pretty much this... make suficient stand to atract enemy in to city, then surround and smash. Where is the honor in that ?

And honored ppl do not win wars, except by accident ( Viriato and Jugurta say something to you? )

 

[Cabledawg]

Shouldnt the human player know when to retreat? Had Custard retreated at Little Big Horn, he could have fought another day.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Did that once, but I haven't done it ever since as it left a foul taste in my mouth. It's almost as bad as gifting missionaries to AIs in theocracy for an AP win, it just doesn't feel right.

You know Bhruic made it so you can't do that any more, right .

On topic, it's a tactic. If the AI wants the city with its massive stacks then it takes it and we get to take advantage. The AI sucks strategically. If it didn't it wouldn't need ridiculous production bonuses. He isn't worldbuildering or otherwise breaking game rules, rendering it a perfectly legit move.

 

[Cabledawg]

Same Game. I had capitulated the Germans and was now attacking Wang. I took 3 cities and razed 1. Ragnar declares war again with 40 units....he takes Taejon from me ......I had 2 CG3 Rifles and he only lost 1 unit.......and attacks my stack in the open field. My cannons took the brunt of it even though he didnt use most of his units.

He also has a 15 unit SOD 2 turns behind his main SOD. I cant attack his units on the hill without wasting some cannons. My best option is to retreat to the last city I took and heal up....Ill leave a sentry Knight on a hill to see if he moves his entire stack in the city....if he does, Ill attack immediately.

 

[obsolete]

If that's an exploit, then so is reinforcing a unit on a forested hill. So is any woodsman II promotion for the db movement the AI can not grasp... so is.... well a lot of things.

 

[popejubal]

If that's an exploit, then so is reinforcing a unit on a forested hill. So is any woodsman II promotion for the db movement the AI can not grasp... so is.... well a lot of things.

I'm okay with abandoning a city if you have mostly city attack instead of city guard units in the city, but reinforcing a unit on a forested hill is a known exploit and you should be ashamed of yourself for using it.

That kind of action is like settling all of your great people in a single city (or other clearly broken and overpowered exploits) and you know it!

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

I did this once against Boudica. I just came out of a war with Genghis Khan and had a huge load of CRII/III Tanks, with little else as troops. Boudica comes knocking with huge stacks of cavalry, so I let her take back one of the cities I took from her and made the best use of my army by taking out the cavalry stacks inside cities.

 

[Lexicus]

It isn't an exploit to execute a tactical withdrawal and then counterattack an overextended enemy.

Nor is it an exploit to take the fight to the enemy on the terrain that your troops are best suited to fight on. (City Raiders should be used to attack cities, and creating a situation where they can do so is not an exploit).

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Having elected to proceed with conquest, you've already chosen to hit the AI in the dumb.

You already made the jump. You are within the Dark Lord's terrain at this point. There's no reason to get coy.

Sun Tzu would approve.

I would vote that this isn't an exploit - you aren't taking advantage of a broken implementation (a la the whip exploit), nor are you using tactics that are deliberately out of bounds for the AI (early rush).

I'd call it cheese, though. I'm pretty sure that the game balance is wrong there, and the AI is certainly blind to that possibility, unlike the choice between forested hills and open terrain.

 

[r_rolo1]

I agree.... AI is very prone to this kind of entrappement and to other more nuance stuff ( like what I did in my last game: Sury was the only thing between me and Dom win and I wanted to finish it fast. I had 2 cities captured to Japan ( before Toku had vassalized to Sury ) that were no more than a drain to the budget ( heavily cultural pressured ). I let there a token defense, mainly for getting XP and concentraed my army in the other side. As a clock, Sury SoD marched to take those two cities while my army moved to the relatively lightly defended cities. 4 turns later: Sury ,2 useless and culturally pressured cities won... Me, 6 core cities taken ( including the Khmer capital ) and Dom win )

Oh well, now that there is a Better BtS AI project, maybe we can get some better stuff out of the AI ( atleast Solver already made the navy and the airforce to redeploy if base city is threathened.... )

 

[DMOC]

I do not think this is an exploit. I have used this once.

 

[Bleys]

I would vote that this isn't an exploit . . .

<snip>

I'd call it cheese, though.

This is a good description of this situation, along with many other "tactics" that are not really exploits, but are still pretty cheesy.

IMHO, each player makes his own choices here. I have used this technique myself, and didnt care for the "feel" of it, so I dont use it anymore. But its not an exploit, in the purest sense of that word.

 

[Ultimocrat]

I think it's a tactic. But if you know that the AI will, almost every time, move all of his units into the city, and keep them there without razing it, and without attacking through the city at your stack, then it's pretty cheesy.

On the other hand, it's a trap that I'm sure many armies in human history have fallen into -- capturing a city and garrisoning troops in a place that becomes a death trap upon counterattack. As r_rolo notes, Stalingrad pretty much was this method of battle.