Land battles

[Remorseless]

A question for the experienced pros on this site:
Just how many LAND battles have you/do you fight? By land battle, I mean combat where two or more sides are fighting and NONE are inside a city.
Now, I've had some impressive naval battles in the open seas, and even managed to do some aerial combat, but I can't think of more than a handful of battles I've fought where neither I or the AI was not inside a city.
My caveat here is that I'm on my first game at the King level (not doing too well, but not too bad either). Is it just the skill level, the unskilled player (myself) or the stupid AI?
Admittedly, this isn't the most important question in the world, but as a long-time wargamer (the paper map variety), it occurred to me the other night how few non-city fights I've been in.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

If you have a Civ that typically builds lots of units, you can set up kill zones when fighting them. They will constantly send units into it and let them die, over and over and over again.

Once you go on the offensive, however, the AI will typically defend within its cities. Which is good, becasue the AI doesn't know how to use units properly anyway.

 

[Garvarg]

The reason is that it is just too easy to pick off enemy units over open ground. If you have a long way to go to get to an AI city you've got to build a railroad to get your units there in the fasted possible way. Along the way set up forts with a few strong defence units so they don't get you first.

In open ground you could loose 5, 10 or 20 units if you have them stacked, but in a city, you can strenghten you units with walls, reducing the damage and you only use one uint at a time. Fortunatly the AI's never send 20 or more howies to take out your city.

So no, there are know good ground battles unless you like fightings the barbarians.

 

[Nebula Dragoon]

I've noticed that there are plenty of land battles early in the game while everyone is still exploring.

 

[funxus]

Cleaning out the guerilla after I've captured a city I sometimes do with armors and howies. I also use any unit available to take out barbs. The AI also like to use fortesses, and I have to take out osme of these units to make the way towards a city free. That is not in open fields though.

 

[Marlos]

I try to fight land battles, because its easier than taking out fortified units behind city walls. You need partisans to plug the AI's supply lines and to keep them distracted while you capture the city you have targeted.

Fill the fortifications and mountaintops with one or two good defensive units and one or two good attack units and you can effectively keep even the strongest AI opponent at bay.

 

[Dark Ascendant]

I like to go around the land units and straight for the cities. The AI will always send legions to fight a phalanx on a hilltop in a fortress. I like to reduce their garrisons and pound them with catapults and crusaders. Cutting of my supply lines is the MAJOR risk, not the idiotic AI.

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by Remorseless
A question for the experienced pros on this site:
Just how many LAND battles have you/do you fight? By land battle, I mean combat where two or more sides are fighting and NONE are inside a city.

If you are on the same continent with another civ and cannot wipe them out early, look at the terrain for either chokepoints or killzones. A chokepoint is where the land narrows and you can put just a few units in forts to make a "border" while you build up your cities. A killzone is as Duke said, a great defense point like a mountain where the other civ has to pass by. The AI cannot resist attacking, and will always do stupid things like moving up Catapults without a defense unit to protect them. Just keep your garrison units up to date (say one good defender and one good attacker) and you can have centuries of cheap frontier defense.