Military problem

[gettingfat]

The longbowman's first strike nullifies most early attackers, except for macemen which can take a nasty hit and strike back. I've found the only effective unit against them before maces are the crossbowmen, which can also have first strike, and with drill can gain additional first strikes. Drill is an awesome promotion, once you get drill 4 it is quite entertaining to watch your crossbows wipe out enemies. It makes for a great offensive and defensive promotion. Defensive civs can usually pump out drill 3 crossbows with ease, they only need to win one or two battles to get to 4.

Everyone seems all about the city raider promotion, and I've fallen out of favor with it because too many times I've promoted units to city raider only to have them slaughtered before they go to their intended goal, or have them reach a city and decide against taking it for fear of high casualties. For this reason, I like to go with the strength 1 promotion and then branch out to something more effective, such as cover against the longbowmen.

CR series are for..... raiding cities, so you can't rely on these units for field battles. In a typical war at least 30% of units should be combat based units, and if you're the defenders, even much higher.

That's said CR promoted units are much better for attacking cities, not just because of better bonus if you further promoted it. Unlike shock and cover CR2 don't need to match up the defenders right, so a shock axes can't be beat down by an archer hiding another axe defender.

In this particular case, there will be no field battle. It's all about taking out the two remaining cites, so definitely go for the CR1.

 

[lovetramy]

bring some tanks

 

[gettingfat]

bring some tanks

Use spy. Poison water 3 times you will finally get the longbowmen sick.

 

[Bushface]

The O.P. hasn't said exactly what promotions the various units have, but let's assume :-
Longbows with CG2, fortified, in hill city. At full health, strength = 13.2
Catapults with CR2 attacking city. At full health, strength = 7.25
Swords with CR2 attacking city. At full health, strength = 9.3
Consider catapult attack first (I've said CR2, not Barrage, which would cause just slight collateral damage to 1 unit). A hit by the cat does 14 HP damage; 5 hits would reduce the longbow to 70 HP and no more hits would be permitted as one more would bring the longbow below the 75% damage threshhold. At that point the cat would withdraw IF it were to win any following "virtual" combat round, which would actually not take place, but it would still be vulnerable to hits from the longbow until it died or withdrew. The cat's chance of winning a combat round is 0.354 after the first round, which the longbow wins by first strike. But the longbow needs only 4 hits to kill the catapult, and its first hit is certain: it might well kill more than one cat without taking any damage at all. Once longbow #1 has been damaged, #2 will become the defender until it gets more damage than #1 which resumes the defence, and this will continue until one is eventually killed by a sword. The longbows will gradually take more damage and do less as they lose HPs in successive fights, but it's likely to need many catapults to get both longbows down to the 30% limit.
Swords, then. Attacking full-health longbows they would need 7 hits to make a kill whereas 5 from the longbow (one is certain) would kill the sword. But once the longbow is down to only 30 HPs the sword needs only 4 hits for a kill, the longbow 8, and the sword's chance of winning a combat round other than the first become 0.701, the sword's winning odds being then around 90%.
Thus to win needs lots of city-raider catapults and a few city-raider swords, enough to take the city in one turn so that any XPs gained by successful defences by the longbows cannot be claimed and used for further promotions, nor could the defenders have any healing time.

P.S. to gettingfat: (1) You can't poison the water again until the effects of the first poisoning have worn off. (2) Poisoning affects citizens, not units.

 

[TheDS]

@Bushface:
First Strike does not give guaranteed hits. Instead, it is just like any other combat round, with the exception that if the non-first-striking unit scores the hit, then nothing happens.

@Davecam:
Normally, I'd say you need siege units to attack, but as each city has only the two defenders, that's a waste. Your better bet is with a cavalry unit that ignores first strikes and has a high withdrawal chance.

Since these cities are on hills, another good way to hit them is with a Guerilla 3 unit or two. These guys get a reasonable hills attack bonus, but more importantly, they also have a high retreat value, so they may be able to attack without dying.

City Raider promotions work nicely too, and are easier to get than the Guerilla 3 promotion.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

Welcome DaveCam. Civ rocks!

 

[gettingfat]

P.S. to gettingfat: (1) You can't poison the water again until the effects of the first poisoning have worn off. (2) Poisoning affects citizens, not units.

Didn't you see the crazy eye??

 

[ICNP]

It is absolutely key that you dont just keep throwing units at him. You have one turn of attack. If you fail his forces will just be stronger and your forces weaker (not to mention the WW). While a few cats will help I don't think that you need more than maybe 5 to bombard and then collateral. Because he has only a few very powerful units cats are not that major.

I would sue for peace in this situation. It will give you a few good techs and you can come back later with maces and Trebs to knock out his measly L-Bows. This is especially important if any other AI are knocking at your door.

Of course if you insist on going for it, just build 24 Swords and 7 Cats and you may be able to take both cities.

 

[Bushface]

Not 24 swords and 7 cats, but the other way round. I've done a test in WB and on average it takes 7 cats to bring both defenders down to the minimum, then each will fall easily to a swordsman, so you need 2 swords per city. 4 or 5 catapults will die, the others withdraw in a badly damaged state. Plus, of course, enough Barrage catapults to reduce the city defence to zero before attacking the defenders.

P.S. to gettingfat: a crazy eye could mean various things, but I take your point.

 

[DaveCam]

Thanks again to all who replied. I have now wiped out the offending civilization, which made the horrendous error of coming out of the second city (not the one I was intending to storm first) to attack one of my cats. He killed the cat but my other units got him.

I then attacked city two first - only one defender, and the horse archers proved to be key - as many of you said it was the first strikes which were killing me, the horse archer (and even an immortals) nullified this.

Back to the final city, bombarded down the defenses, then in with Horse archers to weaken, (2 also managed to withdraw) then swordsmen to finish them.

Oh, and also I camped all over the good city tiles to prevent re-inforcements.

I think my initial early problems were partly caused by my units having very few promotions - I was producing them from all over and only 2 cities had even barracks! but I'm learning.

All-in-all I think the cats would have been best if there were more defs to collateral - but with only 2 defs, Horse archers to nullify 1st strikes were the way to go.

thanks again for the tremendous response.