Maginot Lines

[The Mass Leader]

Hi there, Civ fans.
I am writing this to start a new subject on this site. It´s about Maginot-like lines of defense.
I just love to build them in the borders of my nations so no one can reach the inner part of the country (in fact, It happens because they have no good weapons).
I do not play Civ using cheats (I play Civ II, for you to know). I like building things by my own, not using any trick there could be. So, Maginot lines are a good choice to avoid surprise raids.

I usually make them with Pikemen (I almost everytime reach a level of development that allows a Maginot line at the middle ages). I make fortress, and as I refres armies in the cities, with pikemen, I send all phalanx to the fortress in the country borders. Then, I build Leo´s Workshop. After several turns, there are lots of Riflemen in fortress along the border, wiaitng to defend the homeland. And there is more: I put Mech Inf. later there.

Let us iscuss defensive lines. How do you form them? How do you manage them? Anyone has anything against them?

Tell.

King Fabio of the French

 

[la fayette]

IMO the best defense is a road network between your cities and a few Elephants or Crusaders ready to run where they are required.

 

[The Mass Leader]

Yeah, I agree counter-attacking a attack force is good. But who stops the enemy spies? I use lines not only for war porpuses, but for other things too. It´s ain the fortresses I build the line, there I put my armors and howitzers too (or other earlier units, before it). When war comes, the units go from the borders to the enemy country and are already prepared and near to the battlefield.

And, there is always the spy, who can be seen trying to pass the defense line, and gently sent back home, or killed, depending on my humor.

That´s it.

 

[funxus]

I agree with la fayette. Wouldn't it be better to just use these resources either to colonize whatever land you are protecting your empire from, or produce offensive units and wage war against any civ living there? The AI don't attack you very often in your core anyway.

 

[Specialist290]

For me, the best defense is a good navy. I enjoy playing on island maps because it allows me to develop my empire in relative peace and safety. If I start on the same continent as another civ, I try to kill it as quickly as possible.

As for enemy Spies, I normally either eject them or, if they're outside my borders, bribe them (nothing like a double agent to help you and hurt them ). I usually spend more energy in building cities than armies anyway, so I try to have a lot of Spies handy.

 

[Hawkster]

I like blocking choke points (ie narrow points) rather than whole borders especially early in the game to prevent AI from settling land I want - spies are no problem esp if you fortify spies in your cities - any enemy attempt using a spy is likely to get caught. Don't forget having lots of units fortified on your borders costs!



edit:typo

 

[Terrapin]

I agree with Hawkster about blocking choke points. A whole maginot line is very expensive. To keep spies out, each fort needs two units, so they cannot be bribed and the forts have to fill in every square along the line, since spies and dips ignore zones of control.

That said, if I have a relatively short, well defined border with another civ, I will put some units in fortresses, spaced every other square. The goal of this is not to block all spies, but to "see" them before they get to my cities and can do real mischief. Also, it keeps the stupid ai from sending its units into my territory and sitting on the spaces in my city square.

 

[The Mass Leader]

I agree with Terrapin. My Maginot Lines are used to "see" the spy, not to block it. Once my riflemen/musketeer/pikemen saw the spy, they kill him, and do not let it come near my cities.

Also, Maginot lines are used as an outpost to put offensive units. When war comes, I can start the attacks without having to wait for my offensive units to go to the front.

 

[SGI Butch]

In civ 2 the game is designed that attack units are stronger then defensive units. Thus it is very difficult to "defend" from an enemy attack so the only defensive option is either seek out the enemys attack units and destroy them or attack your enemy to keep them on the defensive before they attack you. I do agree that it is good to have attacking units waiting on your enemys' border poised to strike though.

 

[Old n Slow]

Ahh the fine art of defense.

On smaller rocks (say 10 city’s worth or less) claim the whole thing.

For the larger rocks, most of the land that I’ve seen tend to offer choke points -- take those of course as well.

Which brings us to the last case. -- wide open territory & too much area to defend “well”. to be honest, I haven’t faced that situation for a long while. I’ll try to claim defensible borders as a very early objective, perhaps committing two of my first five cities to closing some sort of gap to prevent incursions. -- I’ll have a dip or two at or near this border & the two cities will generally have vet units on defense. I may have a horse or two also on the prowl, just to be near their units making sure that they don’t advance, nor force me to retreat. My goal is to avoid the war (until I can afford it), but mostly avoid the loss should the enemy strike.

If the terrain allows it, I’ll set two settlers -- one to start a mine & the second to plant a city on that hill (which in the future will become a mined hill -- two food & three shields in monarchy, an OK site) I don’t care if the city grows too much for a while, but it is a producer and more importantly, a stronghold. Defender, barracks, vet defender, temple, dip, an offender, maybe even a set of city walls later down the road -- that’s my line until I get around to full attention, usually a dozen wonders later. Sometimes I’ll have to have a couple of cities, maybe a fort, but I have yet to set up a defensive line wider than that.

If for some reason a border needs to be wider, then I’ll bite the bullet, get Poly as a tech & push some vet elephants out for an early war -- happens maybe once or twice in twenty of my games. Generally though, I’ll sit behind my choke points until tactics -- then strike.

 

[geofelt]

In general, I don't think much of maginot type defensive lines. If I start world conquest, the line becomes obsolete quickly. If I want to expand in peace, the great wall will let me do it. Only if I plan a spaceship win will I build a defense, and only if there is a reasonable sized choke point. For this, you need to cover every square to keep the ai spies from stealing spaceship techs.

 

[Other]

A Maginot line would be way too expensive when you get the republic. You have to be economical when building units.

 

[The Mass Leader]

I do not think te same way a you. I just spend a lot on building units.
It makes the capacity of building improvements in my cities a bit slower. But, as I put cities in Autobuild mode early in the game, it´s a good way to balance the production speed, so I will not get too much improvements that my income could not support.

I build a large army as a monarchy during ancient and medieval ages. Then, I just upgrade it when new units appear. I don´t play as a republic often. When I do so, I build Women Suffrage, so I can keep the old giant army from the monrachy times.

But most usually, I just leave the monarchy when i discover communism. The royal shield remains there until the industrial age, when it is replaced by the red flag with a sickle and hammer.

I keep communism until my techonology starts to enter the Future tech s. Then, I just change for Fundamentalism.

If a Republic is a bit rare, can you imagine a democracy? I do not remember even once in the lifetime choosing Democracy.

 

[Other]

Do you know that celebrating cities grows +1 every turn in republic and democracy?

 

[Terrapin]

If the board's search engine is up, try searching for "power democracy." Smash, Thunderfall and some of the other village elders have worked out elaborate strategies for building hyper-powerful nations in democracy. Mass L., try your startegy, but somewhere along the way, go into Rep/Dem, max out trade (making sure to have some food surpus) and crank up the luxuries (30-50% is usually sufficient. As other says, each city which celebrates will grow by one per turn, starting on the second turn. In a typical game, I can celebrate 4-8 cities for 5-6 turns. On lower levels, it will work as soon as you can get republic. On higher difficulties, you will need Mike's Chapel to avoid red faces appearing (On hgher levels, I have never found a way to win w/out Mike's anyway!). Adding 20-48 citizens to your empire in a few turns creates an otherwise unprecedented power surge. The resources "wasted" on luxuruies will pay off a hundred times over over the course of the game.

 

[Other]

Correct, and then you get enough money to bribe the opponents units and cities instead. You become the hunter, not the hunted.

 

[Terrapin]

Or if you still want to be a military power, you can just build the SoL and go to fundy. Your much bigger cities will allow you to crush, kill, conquer all the more! Where this startgey really pays off is with trade. Bigger cities mean bigger pay offs. Bigger payoffs mean more money amd more beekers.

 

[Archer 007]

I like the idea. I need to try it out.

 

[Eli the Lich]

I never buid fortress in civ 2, one time I built a fortress in civ 1 , I try to Fortify a setttler . I use settler to build road and new city later to improve the terrain and build Railroad , so AI will steal some technoloogy and lost a lot of city . when I found AI i make as much soldier i can and move to atack my most favorite Wonder is Leanordo Workshop so i have never absolet unit , when Ai become stronger I besiege his city before Atacking it . in a way that most of city Square Are ocupied by my soldier , using Diplomat or spy to get acess to any square. after 2 or more turn that most or all city square are ocupied by my soldier I atack . First with catapult ,canon, artilery (whatever i have) and than the cavalry or legion until the last defender is dead , and conquer it . I can not bother with defending line ,just moving the front all time . my problem is to push the militiry unit Quickly to the Front .
and for this soome settler build ROAD or Railroad to the front ,even to the AI city itself .
for example Last game I have some Alpine trop around AI city , begining a siege, and a settler building A railroad in a Square Adjectant to the city Square . when this was finish 6 unit of artilery move to this square to atack the city 2 artilery dead 3 red . after just move a Cavalry in. ther city is mine . time to prepare for the next city .

 

[ElephantU]

Forts are useful for chokepoints and death traps, as well as protecting interior points of your home RR network.

A suggestion: have you learned about storing Engineer work to instant-build a RR or Fort? Set it to work on anything that takes long, like Transforming a Mountain, let it work for however many turns of work you will need (usually 6-8 is enough), then click it once to "wake it up". It has stored the work it was doing within itself, so you can move it anywhere and give it any other task (except something that takes as long as the original job...) and it will be done immediately.