DeaExMachina
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2007
- Messages
- 168
As we all should know the best defense is a good offense, however we also know that no matter how often we wish our opponents would just wait for us to invade them the dreaded "Someone has declared war on you!" will always appear sooner or later.
From my experiences in Multiplayer I have seen a lot of people make bad judgments and lose wars against forces they could have defeated. This collection of tips are for players who wish to refine their defensive game plan and see that even 2v1 you can easily survive simultaneous turns with Blazing counter. All it requires is a little bit of skill...
Tip 1: Defensive Siege
The most common and yet rarely headed trick to defending your cities in the Defensive Siege. What I mean by defensive siege is playing siege type weapons such as Catapults in a city that is about to be attacked. The trick to using this is to launch them against enemy forces forces prior to their invasion but NOT before they lower your Cultural Defense Bonus (the little % at your city).
You may be asking why not just hit them as soon as they appear? Because they aren't ready to attack. Now you may be thinking "Wait, don't I not want them to attack?" no, actually you do want them to attack. A good attacker will have at least one unit with a Medic promotion, if you attack them with your cats prior to them lowering your defenses they will just camp there and wait for their siege to lower your cities to 0%. By the time this has been achieved they have probably gotten another one or two reinforcements, become stronger off promotions from killing your defensive siege and healed their units. In effects, its as if you had done nothing. However by using the defensive siege on the turn they are going to attack you force them to launch their attack. The average player will see that your defenses are down and know that by retreating or waiting at this point all they will gain is more defenders on the walls so they are forced to rush your city even with weakened units. This also evens out your troops who will be below 100% from the enemy siege weapons attacking you.
Tip 2: Look for Weaknesses
To some people this is a no brainer, but I can't tell you how often I've seen enemy axemen and cats come in without any other support. Chariots will rip an army like that to shreds and the same is true of a primarily mounted army against Spearman. You need to keep abreast on what your enemy is building prior to their invasion for this to work out best as you can station the most appropriate units near (but not in!) your border cities.
Another thing about mounted units, hitting supply units. Many times if an aggressor feels they have to pinned up they will send units at you individually to reinforce their stack. Your mounted units can use this to your advantage by taking out those reinforcements. This will most likely cause your opponent to send out reinforcements only in larger stacks and that buys you time to whip, recruit and build more units.
Tip 3: Tactical Retreat
Consider this scenario. Rome has declared war on you and is invading you with an army of Praets and Cats, you managed to claim Machinery but only have a small number of X-Bow. You reinforce your city with these X-Bow but you know that the overwhelming odds and the cats will mean your city is lost. You just hope to buy enough time to...wait your making mistakes and the first attack hasn't even been thrown!
Build more troops, but don't reinforce your city. Instead send more troops and siege to the next closest city (along with a medic).
This trick requires counting the enemy siege units. After they have reduced your city to 0% they will attack with their siege. So count their siege units. Wait until they have thrown their siege at you and retreat before the Praets attack and let them have the city. You were going to lose it anyways weren't you? Now retreat your battle weary troops, meet up with your new stack, heal with the medic and bring your troops back to fight the invaders with your siege. Hey guess what, he has no siege, but you do. Now you have your city back and you destroyed the invading army, congrats!
I hope these tips are beneficial to your gameplay, I know as a person who favors Wonder Economies I am often a target of attack in MP for my beautiful capital. However just because I've been attacked doesn't mean I'm going down! And neither should you as long as you remember to not throw units away on bad battle odds, each unit counts and sometimes losing a bit of terrain will win you the war.
From my experiences in Multiplayer I have seen a lot of people make bad judgments and lose wars against forces they could have defeated. This collection of tips are for players who wish to refine their defensive game plan and see that even 2v1 you can easily survive simultaneous turns with Blazing counter. All it requires is a little bit of skill...
Tip 1: Defensive Siege
The most common and yet rarely headed trick to defending your cities in the Defensive Siege. What I mean by defensive siege is playing siege type weapons such as Catapults in a city that is about to be attacked. The trick to using this is to launch them against enemy forces forces prior to their invasion but NOT before they lower your Cultural Defense Bonus (the little % at your city).
You may be asking why not just hit them as soon as they appear? Because they aren't ready to attack. Now you may be thinking "Wait, don't I not want them to attack?" no, actually you do want them to attack. A good attacker will have at least one unit with a Medic promotion, if you attack them with your cats prior to them lowering your defenses they will just camp there and wait for their siege to lower your cities to 0%. By the time this has been achieved they have probably gotten another one or two reinforcements, become stronger off promotions from killing your defensive siege and healed their units. In effects, its as if you had done nothing. However by using the defensive siege on the turn they are going to attack you force them to launch their attack. The average player will see that your defenses are down and know that by retreating or waiting at this point all they will gain is more defenders on the walls so they are forced to rush your city even with weakened units. This also evens out your troops who will be below 100% from the enemy siege weapons attacking you.
Tip 2: Look for Weaknesses
To some people this is a no brainer, but I can't tell you how often I've seen enemy axemen and cats come in without any other support. Chariots will rip an army like that to shreds and the same is true of a primarily mounted army against Spearman. You need to keep abreast on what your enemy is building prior to their invasion for this to work out best as you can station the most appropriate units near (but not in!) your border cities.
Another thing about mounted units, hitting supply units. Many times if an aggressor feels they have to pinned up they will send units at you individually to reinforce their stack. Your mounted units can use this to your advantage by taking out those reinforcements. This will most likely cause your opponent to send out reinforcements only in larger stacks and that buys you time to whip, recruit and build more units.
Tip 3: Tactical Retreat
Consider this scenario. Rome has declared war on you and is invading you with an army of Praets and Cats, you managed to claim Machinery but only have a small number of X-Bow. You reinforce your city with these X-Bow but you know that the overwhelming odds and the cats will mean your city is lost. You just hope to buy enough time to...wait your making mistakes and the first attack hasn't even been thrown!
Build more troops, but don't reinforce your city. Instead send more troops and siege to the next closest city (along with a medic).
This trick requires counting the enemy siege units. After they have reduced your city to 0% they will attack with their siege. So count their siege units. Wait until they have thrown their siege at you and retreat before the Praets attack and let them have the city. You were going to lose it anyways weren't you? Now retreat your battle weary troops, meet up with your new stack, heal with the medic and bring your troops back to fight the invaders with your siege. Hey guess what, he has no siege, but you do. Now you have your city back and you destroyed the invading army, congrats!
I hope these tips are beneficial to your gameplay, I know as a person who favors Wonder Economies I am often a target of attack in MP for my beautiful capital. However just because I've been attacked doesn't mean I'm going down! And neither should you as long as you remember to not throw units away on bad battle odds, each unit counts and sometimes losing a bit of terrain will win you the war.
