New Tactics

fephisto

Warlord
Joined
Jun 16, 2002
Messages
214
That his got posted, but it didn't, don't you hate it when you write a long message and/or essay and it gets deleted?

Anyways.....

These are some general war tactics, to some good players it may seem redundent, but I think they're valuable, including the term "super-unit."

Ok, story behind this is that in real life I noticed a triangle in all sorts of campaigns, between all sorts of ages, and units. Example:

Pikemen->Horsemen->Archers->Pikemen

I then catergorized them between land, navy, air, and seige throughout many eras in time. Eventually I found this pattern.

Heavy Medium->Heavy Fast->Heavy Slow->Heavy Medium

You may disagree with me or not, but either way, I used Civilization 3 as a simulation, finding in Civ3, that instead of the above formula, the one below is a bit more easier to use.

Defence->Offence->Artillery->Defence

Example:
Spearmen->Archers->Catapalts->Spearmen

Of course it's how you use these, you don't attack an archer with a spearman, neither do you leave your catapalts undefended while flailing against a spearman, nor are archers only supposed to attack catapalts.

Typically I fin them used in the following manner against each other: spearmen draw out archers to attack it, catapalts weaken down the spearman first before archers attack or if it's horsemen they outflank and attack, and catapalts under defence weaken the spearman so greatly that you win so completely that it's a lot like the catapalts were the ones to defeat the spearmen.

This may not seem like a great tactical change, but it's much different than the "stack-o-doom" tactic of 50000 archers in a collosal group that just go into straight lines to towns. Which was my tactic.

Using one type leaves you vunerable from another, like coming in with archers, and getting cremated against spearmen.

Using two types, like archers and spearmen, may be better, but you'll still be slaughtered against a city wall.

Using all three into what I call a "super-unit" is a lot better, each takes up for the other's faults, making the whole seemingly invincible.

*It's lunch-time, this seems like a good place to stop for now*
 
Thanks for the tips
I quickly read over your material...not sure if it will work, but i'm gonna give it a try..

Thanks man
 
Ok, the rest......

Anyways, I remember first playing, made a ton of artillery, found out its horrible weakness of not being able to finish off an enemy unit, was crushed, and rarely built them again. But, DON'T UNDERESTIMATE ARTLY! It's an inclusive part of that triangle, the damage they do makes a unit as good as being killed off. Don't forget to bring ENOUGH artillery though.

This can also be used in the navy too, although early in the game, you can't really use it that well. A good example of a naval triangle is the following, only late in the game:

Carrier->Destroyer->Submarine->Carrier

There are also others with the battleship and AEG, but you can get the point with the formula triangle.

*Key point: In civ3, when air attacks other units, it is considered artillery. And with only two aerial types Defence and Offence, fighters and bombers respectively, the triangle becomes this:

Fighters->Bombers

Which even though bombers have more artillery power, fighters are much more versatile. The point of air power is not so much as to use it as artillery, but to rule the skies. All this draws air power into into only being artillery, with fighters.

That's the tactical aspect, the other bit are some tips with logistics.

Healing units is good, healing units is your friend, suicide missions are bad, ok? Suicide=bad. If your units are veteran (which they should be!), and they go down to 2, go ahead and take the time to heal.

Make sure the attrition rate of your force's dying or hopefully just wounded on the battlefield equals the amount of forces you logistically supply, forecasting is your friend.

Keep secure lines of communication LoC, for ease of logistic transport to keep up with attrition.

You have three options (well, not really, as you'll soon see), you can keep the navy superunits seperate from the army superunits, make them one big cohesive super-unit, or you can make a land superunit outfitted with a transport for logistical reasons with another naval superunit. In the end, the third one is your best bet, because the 1st option limits your logistical efficiency, and the second limits the security of your LoCs, the third combines the best of the best.

Having units in reserve is NOT A BAD IDEA, i.e., keeping a reserve superunit out at sea, so that if one superunit is injured or killed; you can replace fresh units, and use that galley to set back home to re-heal/re-supply the galley into a fully-healed superunit reserve. While the other naval superunit/s are out securing the LoC for that galley (i.e., escort).

Last but not least is how to make these things, a super-unit is obviously much more expensive than any regular army. Typically I set my cities to build for production or food/wealth early on to simplify building orders. The food cities give settlers to join production, and production can give "disbanding caravans" to the food/wealth-ies (which can then hurry production). Either way, I set each production city to commission a super-unit for itself, while a production city by the sea makes all the necessary transports for each superunit.


If anyone wants, I could post examples of some of the campaigns I made with these techniques.

THAT'S ALL! WHEW!
 
fephisto said:
Anyways, I remember first playing, made a ton of artillery, found out its horrible weakness of not being able to finish off an enemy unit, was crushed, and rarely built them again. But, DON'T UNDERESTIMATE ARTLY! It's an inclusive part of that triangle, the damage they do makes a unit as good as being killed off. Don't forget to bring ENOUGH artillery though.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
No artillery?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?1?!?!?!!?!?
 
fephisto said:
Healing units is good, healing units is your friend, suicide missions are bad, ok? Suicide=bad.

For the typical city-crawl of conflict I agree, but sometimes suicide missions can be useful. If an overseas enemy tries to invade me, I try to drop a few units with strong defensive values into their territory to pillage. Drop three in, move them in a stack, let one pillage and have the other two fortify at end of turn, try to end your turn on a hill or a mountain.

They'll get picked off eventually, but usually more of the enemy dies fighting me than I lose in the suicide squad and it gives the enemy something to do besides fill boats with units and send them to your shores. If you place your landing well, you can take out a strategic or luxury resource to help degrade their production or happiness management for a little while, hopefully buying you some time to build up forces on your mainland.
 
The Omega said:
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
No artillery?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?1?!?!?!!?!?

Where'd you get that from? I just said to use artillery and don't underestimate it. In fact, I stuck don't underestimate artillery in big bold capitol letters.
 
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