That is untrue. You have control of the terrain within your border, and you can therefore plan your defenses ahead of time. Active defense means that you have a plan for transporting your forces to where they're needed when they're needed there. If you are caught unawares, then you are not tactically inept. You are strategically inept. Every time you move your troops, you can estimate how much time it would take for them to move back.
Once you know the disposition of your forces, planning the terrain to have a defensive line and several fallbacks is a matter of foresight. Use hills to block line of sight against ranged units. Force the melee units to go through open terrain so your guys can slaughter them. Clear forests, even, to generate this fallback point.
I wonder if you are making a effort to not understand me. You don't have all the information of the game and you are not the only thinking actor on it. Given this it is perfectly feasible that you are caught in a situation where you have to rush to defend a spot you were not thinking on defending at that moment ,especially if the oponents are as cunning as you ... you just have to think in a situation like being dowed by some oportunistic shill that would not war you by his own devices , forcing you to do forced marches from one side of your land to the other.
In other words, what you are saying is fine and dandy where you are facing someone you can predict with ease in a 1:1 enviroment. Too bad that civ games are only like that in very narrow circumstances.
Land is not power in Civ IV, and neither is it in Civ V. True power comes from having people, and the more population you have, the more powerful you are. Having land to work is just an initial requirement that becomes more optional as the game progresses. A Civ with more land isn't necessarily more powerful.
Losing cities and land isn't that big of a deal in Civ IV if that city is just a puppet or a non-core city. Sure, you might lose some gold or science, but isn't anything that isn't repairable once you win.
Ceding land to set up your opponent for brutal bombing and shelling is murderously effective in Civ V. You may not even have to lose the city. You just need his units in open terrain around it.
Yup, i could write that about civ IV and be truthful ( except the shelling part ,OFC ). Why do you think i pushed the empty fort or forcing the guy to do forced march in unfriendly terrain ?
My point was that, unlike you were sugesting, that was not a point where civ V had a advantage over civ IV. Your argument is right in the civ V part , surely, but I wasn't arguing that.
I take it that you haven't played with Civ V's battle system much. Probably win all the time through Horsemen or some such.
Defenders have monstrous advantages in Civ V. Quite apart from City Walls, Castles, and the like, you have the Great Wall, Himeji Castle, and preset terrain. You can win in Civ IV with a fraction of the strength of the army that is attacking you, if your dispositions are correct. Given unfavorable terrain, it can be not only difficult, but impossible to unseat a like-strength defender.
Yup, another thing i could say about civ IV ( oh ,wait , I already said it ... ). The diference is that civ IV defense relied not in sticking your guys in one place and wait while the artilery dudes barrage , but on waiting until them were in a good spot for the kill and act accordingly. This works far better in IV than in V and , added to the admitedly inferior static bonuses of civ IV, it still makes defense stronger in IV than V. That was my position and you haven't said anything yet that contradicts it.
Oh, and for the record, you can face enormous armies with little army as well in civ IV. People win OCC AW in civ IV in all levels and it does not get more uneven than that
P.S Try to not call the other players adepts of cheesiness while in a civilized discusssion. I surely didn't called you that ( i only said that you never had to rely in a defensive strat against a equally cunning foe in civ IV, that means only that ( it might even be seen as a compliment )... I haven't called you quechua rusher, havent I ? ) so please keep things civil.
Eh. Defense is defense. The differences are there, you concede, and it makes taking cities harder, allowing the defender to get reinforcements and choose his terrain. 1UPT making it harder for the defender to regroup also makes it hard for the attacker to maintain attack cohesion. The best attack is only just enough and rather fragile - very much like Panzer General, actually. The right strike at the right time brings it all down. Anything less than that isn't a well-enough planned attack.
Yup, and where exactly is the
fundamental diference between civ IV and V in this regard ? Note that you said it was impossible to steamroll like in civ IV, but nothing in your argument is even close of suporting your assumption. it is also hard to maintain attack coesion in civ IV and you can also regroup in civ IV ( probably faster than in civ V even ). The best attack in civ IV is also in the just enough area ( otherwise you lost precious time getting the extra power / you could be using that extra power elsewhere ) and obviously the best attack is the one made in the right time as well ...
So my friend, where is the fundamental diference ? I don't see it, so could you be kind enough to point it ?
