Outnumbered & Outgunned

[KithKhan]

When playing on regeant or monarch level, I always end up outnumbered by enemy civs, and usually with slightly inferior units, and the only strategy I've figured out to deal with it is a defensive one. It works, and I can hold the territory I have with a ridiculous kill-loss ratio, but I can never seem to gain any ground. (I end up winning, it just takes 150+ years)

I like conscripting since I can never build troops fast enough in these crazy world wars, keeping my cities at 7 or 13 population so they get the defensive and production bonuses, and then having fast offensive units like horsemen, cav, or tanks, and about 1/3 as many artillery as offensive. The conscripts sit just within the borders and fortify, and anytime a unit gets down to the red from attacking them, I pick it off with an offensive unit. Additionally, any unit that comes inside my borders gets hit with artillery (all on train tracks, which allow multifront defensive wars without a problem) until it's in the red and gets picked off too.

Obviously, as soon as I go more than a space or two outside of my borders, I can't use my mobility as effectively, can't pick off retreating wounded units, and my inferior troops get slaughtered. Taking enemy cities, even if they've been bombarded to smithereens, is ridiculously hard. What to do (with an acceptable kill-loss anyway?). And getting better quality units... I don't see how it's possible. I tech as fast as I possibly can including trading and buying techs, and I upgrade and build with upgrade in mind, but still usually end up a little behind.

BTW, if you have enough train tracks, bombers are pointless when you already have a ton of artillery (which can be upgraded all the way from catapult, so you'll always have plenty). And ships will stay away for the most part because anytime they get near a city they're instantly in the red. Artillery are so underappreciated. Great to put on the frontline too because anything charging them takes a shot before battling the defensive unit.... just make sure you have redundant defenders so they can't possibly get captured.

Also, watch out for mutual aggression pacts. It seems like it's actually safer to not have an ally, because that's how I usually get involved in these giant wars anyway. It's easier to bribe someone into a strategic alliance after the war has started if you need to than to have the unpredictable standing agreement.

Also, does anyone know how to cancel trade\diplomatic agreements other than declaring war, embargoing, or letting them expire? There ought to be some peaceful way.

Finally, has anyone actually survived on higher than monarch level? I mean, it's just depressing when you super nuke->bombard->mop up over 50 units, wipe out four or five cities with minimal losses, and emplace your sizable defensive units ALL IN ONE TURN, and then still get wiped out in the counterstrike of his still-bigger-than-yours army. Not to mention that you tech so fast that you're fighting with infantry in 1650 AD and you're still way behind on the tech tree. I don't see how it's possible. Mad props if you have, let me know how you did it!

 

[BillChin]

If you find yourself outgunned, I suggest you speed up your building phase. There are two primary methods, hurrying production using the whip, or placing your cities very close together. There are a ton of threads and articles about these methods. Read up, start a few games and experiment with the fastest way to six cities. Abandon these games after the first age, and just work on a faster start for now. You probably can cut your current time in half with a little practice and you will no longer be outgunned on Regent or Monarch.

I prefer a dense build. I build my first two settlers before a granary or temple. The build queue is usually three warriors then a settler. I plant these settlers very close to the capital. One square away on the diagonal or two away on the straight. This core of three cities provides tremendous early production/research/culture. These suburbs can not grow up to be big sprawling cities, but can often support pop 6 to 12 later in the game and can crank out military units all game long.

I play Emperor difficulty, random civ, random map type, standard size map, 8 players. I can also refer you to an article "Three Basic Starting Strategies," in the articles section. Enjoy.

 

[KithKhan]

I think my first three units are settlers, two from the capitol and one from the first city, before I even bother with my first spearman\warrior, which is a little risky if you get hit by barbarians but usually works out. Then I usually make 2x settlers to spearman ratios in all cities except the capitol which is culture and pyramid or oracleing until I run out of land. Pretty dense too, two to three spaces apart not diagonal. Which means that I usually have as much land with a couple more cities on a standard map before the land crunch, but then I still get outproduced. I didn't know about WTLK day for reducing corruption and didn't use luxuries in the domestic advisor last game though, I'll try that. And I went for republic, not monarchy, so maybe I'll try that instead. Good idea on the diagonal and not horizontal vertical though, that makes sense the way their culture expands.

Oh, the reason I can't use the whip is because most of the cities can only grow as fast as they can produce settlers. Most of them don't get above three or four population until the land crunch is over they're so busy. And the land crunch is over by the time I get a gold-hurrying method.

I guess I don't see how to speed things up, I thought I was going fast. Could you please elaborate on this? Also, why build trashy warriors when you can get immediately build spearmen, and later, horsemen, catapults, which upgrade.

 

[Ironikinit]

Because warriors are faster to build. Often your early units are just for exploration or crowd control. Warriors explore as well as any other unit you can build immediately, unless you're expansionist or get lucky with horses and know the wheel, and they keep order just as well as MechInf.

You can tell if you're expanding fast enough by retiring. Watch the replay. If you aren't keeping within 1 city of the AI civs, you're moving too slowly. Granted, they will expand faster, but if you have a decent start position you should be able to nearly keep up with them, and eventually expand quicker. If you run into another civ too quickly so that you don't have the room you need, you should probably go to war, provided you have horses and/or iron. You should if you've expanded quickly.

If you're having tech troubles, I wouldn't recommend monarchy, personally. The republic is a better gov't for research.

Bombers are good for offence, where artillery has a hard time keeping up with tanks.

If you're building settlers right off the bat, you may be suffering delays as the city can't build settlers until they reach a population of 3. Sometimes if my city won't hit 3 until 9 turns from my current turn but can build a settler in 8, I'll have it build wealth for a turn. More warriors don't hurt, either. Rather than build settler, settler, settler, settler, I might build warrior, warrior (one to explore, one to keep order), settler, barracks (or temple), settler, spearman, settler. Some favor granaries, I don't. I don't use the whip much either, which is probably why I'm stuck on monarch. I have to cheat too much when I play emperor level.

 

[BillChin]

You need pop three to make a settler. If the first unit you build is a settler, you waste about 15 turns of production. No wonder you are outgunned. Again the standard start is three warriors then a settler, three more warriors than another settler. Start up a test game and watch the turns to completion for a settler. It gets to one turn to complete, then you have to wait for population to catch up. If this part of the game has escaped you, I am sure a lot of other stuff has also. Please, practice the beginning part of the game, it beats me taking pains to explain every minor detail that I take for granted. Pay attention to the date when you get about six cities and the number of military units you have as well as cities. Then abandon and start another game and see if you can push that date ahead by ten turns.

If you want an early war, I suggest following the Swordsmen Conquest or Horsement Conquest strategies in my article.

The very, very basics:
Swordsmen Conquest
Research Bronze, then Iron. Build four to six cities. Claim Iron. Build 10+ swordsmen. Attack the nearest enemy and claim all their land.

Horsemen Conquest:
Research the Wheel then Horseback riding. Claim a horse. Build 8 to 15 cities. Build 20+ horsemen. Pick one enemy. Bribe the others. Attack in force and crush the enemy. Enjoy.

Again, these strategies work very well on Emperor difficulty, standard size map.

Originally posted by KithKhan
I think my first three units are settlers, two from the capitol and one from the first city, before I even bother with my first spearman\warrior, which is a little risky if you get hit by barbarians but usually works out. Then I usually make 2x settlers to spearman ratios in all cities except the capitol which is culture and pyramid or oracleing until I run out of land. Pretty dense too, two to three spaces apart not diagonal. Which means that I usually have as much land with a couple more cities on a standard map before the land crunch, but then I still get outproduced. I didn't know about WTLK day for reducing corruption and didn't use luxuries in the domestic advisor last game though, I'll try that. And I went for republic, not monarchy, so maybe I'll try that instead. Good idea on the diagonal and not horizontal vertical though, that makes sense the way their culture expands.

Oh, the reason I can't use the whip is because most of the cities can only grow as fast as they can produce settlers. Most of them don't get above three or four population until the land crunch is over they're so busy. And the land crunch is over by the time I get a gold-hurrying method.

I guess I don't see how to speed things up, I thought I was going fast. Could you please elaborate on this? Also, why build trashy warriors when you can get immediately build spearmen, and later, horsemen, catapults, which upgrade.

 

[praestare]

you should adjust your strategy. I usually upgrade my obsolete units, and then I'll have the most advanced units in defense and offence. An infantry can kill many attacking cavalries.

To make money, trade with AIs. Buy the new tech advance as soon as it's discovered, and sell it to other AIs. Be a map dealer; it's very profitable. Also, Sell your redundent lux resources; be careful with the stragegic resources though.

In this way, I have enough money to upgrade and do research throughout the middle age, and maintain the tech leading position. Usually in industrial age, my empire is large enough and I don't need to sell so many techs for money.

 

[KithKhan]

If you start with a grain resource next to your capitol, you expand your first level in 5 turns, the next in 10, and the settler takes 15 or 30 turns to build total, it works out perfectly. I do alternate with spearmen on less effeciently placed cities, I'm aware that it takes a pop 3 to produce a settler and 2 for a worker. (I've also considered having the worker you start with join city so that I can shave a couple turns off the first settler production, but decided this wasn't worth it unless I was trying to rush, which I'm not.) Also, I do milk the diplomacy for all it's worth both in selling maps and resources and to buy techs. I can usually keep my funding around 90% research and still have money to upgrade units and rush temples on border high corruption areas. And like I said, my defensive strategy is working fine in wars, it's only when I try to cross my borders on offense that I get slaughtered by numbers. Like you said, one rifleman can kill many cav on defense. And even worse, there's a huge gap in time between infantry and tanks.

I think I figured out what the problem was in that game though. I wasn't playing the power balance right. I was using one civ to help me beat up on another, and then we'd both end up taking about half the land. Then the civ that I was allied with was the only one that liked me afterwards, so I used it to help again, and again. And one civ on the other continent was doing the same, so it ended up with three superpowers, with my continent being the crowded one, where communist Germany had been so aggressive the whole game that it had a standing army of close to 200 tanks, which is hard to beat no matter how you look at it, nukes included.

Also, I was wondering what the bonuses for terrain, cities, fortifications, and unit experience were exactly, it'd be nice to do the math. I stopped attacking units in mountain squares for starters, hehehe, but just knowing some specific values would help me think it through?

I still don't understand why anyone would want to use warriors either, except to passify unhappy people which if you're culture-ing right shouldn't be a problem anyway. They're not much good in a fight, and with enough map trading it's easy to let the other civs do all the exploring. Just a drain on your unit support in my opinion. Let me know if you disagree, and why.

Also, you can increase unit experience by fighting barbarians, but has anyone actually gotten a leader out of it? Is it worth not pillaging barbarian shacks once all your units are elite, or is it possible to leader?

 

[praestare]

if you have enough money to upgrade units, then you don't need to build so many defensive units. use the saved time to build offensive ones.

I only use the two or 3 movement point unit to offense, because they can retreat. the enemy's border cities are usually two or three square large. then riders can attack from within your land. after you finish the enemy's city, put 1 or 2 swordman on top of the riders, then you won't lose any of them.

I like China best, the Rider is awesome. when it appears, it's the strongest, and with 3 point movement, you almost don't lose any rider in the conqure. I usually use my first rider to trigger the GA, and then build riders in all the cities. at the end of the GA, I can destroy at least two other civs. Best of all, I have expanded my empire large enough to have almost all the resources. The following is like routins, and when cavalry appears, I can upgrade all riders to cavalries, which are a dominant and awesome army.

check out the info center, it has all the info you want.

i never had any leader in fighting barbarians, and i don't think it's possible.

 

[Ironikinit]

Nah, it's not possible to get a leader fighting barbarians.

While it's tempting to sit back and let the AI to do all the exploring, it's more profitable to go out looking around for yourself. Your maps are worth more, for one thing. For another, if you let all the AI civs on your continent meet each other before they meet you, they trade techs with each other. By they come to you, they already have traded the techs you own. So it's important to meet up with them as soon as you can, and that usually means building warriors for scouts.

Also, at emperor level and above you won't have time to build a temple before disorder starts or even a spearman. You need warriors.

Note that warriors can be upgraded to swordsmen. Something I like to do is pull back reg warriors after they make vet. Elite status won't upgrade, so I call them back in. Prior to a war, I like to try to level up swordsmen and horse against barbarians, and as you said, once they make elite, call them in and send out vets.

Maybe, as you suggest, the problem isn't in your early expansion, but later in the game. Successful wars IMO depend on a tech lead after the ancient era. Infantry are a big problem for cavalry, but musketmen aren't. The trick is having cavalry before AI can get advanced defensive troops.