Plans for attack

[Tellos]

My plans shown and explained here are based on the idea that you wanna rule the world without going through UN red tape and don wanna just own most of it.

Method One: Small battles

This method is really more for just expanding in short bursts or steps. I myself often early on crank out tech as fast as I can so I get good military units for the job. Whateber your military you simply put attack and take cities one at a time from carfuly chosen weaker civs. Once they get sick of loosing they often seek peace and that means you can take it and rest for afew turns or however long ya need. Thissorta method widdles your enamies down so by the time you reach the modern era you should have at least 30% to 50% of the world. This takes a long time it's primary weakness is that your not ending it fast you are fighting what ammounts to boarder skirmishes.


Method Two: Blitz Krieg!

This methods not just a lighting war it's a plan of chosing a target and crushing them fast! The goal is to knock cities down within 2 turns each 3 to 5 at tops or you'll get countered. Cavilry are a MUST! Cavilry, Tanks anything that moves fast. Roads and rail roads are perfect to get you masses ready. Next make sure you have quality and quantity, wear your enamies defenses with decently skillled troops who come in these waves that smash aside their defenses. Artilery is great for blasting defenses apart and later air craft are even better. The key is speed, yes I am sure others have posted this method but where mine differs is that the method is meant for later in the game or at earliest the medevil era as anything sooner is better done in the other ways mentioned here. Also in this method DO NOT BURN CITIES!!! You move faster in your boarders and this allows faster arrival of reinforcements to the front a must for you to maintain your momentum. Main weakness is that battling allies can be tricky and others deciding to declare war on you can ruin your plans. This is also an exspensive method!


Method Three: The war to end all wars!

There are really two ways to pull this method off and many sub metods within each of those.

Submethod One: Taking on the world.

This is generaly hard because you can easily bankrupt yourself fast and then find yourself pulling a WWII style defensive war that ends up just delaying your demise. Taking them all on at once is best done late in the game or at earliest I have found 3/5th of the way through or at the earliest times when you can hit them while they are weak. Main weakness is that the whole damn worlds against you literily and so your in a big fight off the bat. Also you can easily overstreatch yourself if your not carful or as stated before bankrup yourself.

Submethod Two: Wading in.

This is my prefered method when I am not mixing them. This method has you start wars and keep going but as time go's on and you keep building up more you attack other nations one at a time or in small groups so that you never fight the whole world at once until you actualy have weakened the bigger/stronger nations. This makes you able to do what others in history never could, sure at some point you will will be fighting everybody most likely but by then you should have preduced enough to fight on this large a scale. Again weaknesses are exspense, overstretching and plain war weariness.


Culture as a weapon: I love this, it allows me to take cities or make my boarders further so I own more and by keeping boarders closed prevents some alliances or at least delays their formation until the two can go around you. and when cities get taken over without war it furthers your overall goals and means you can force a AI to sit there trying to quill a rebellion and not send forces from said city.


Thanks for reading and please questions or comments are encouraged.

 

[James22]

Wading in! I knew it, thats where ive been going wrong from the start!! ;D

 

[Tellos]

Ok the next plan for attack is going to here be based again on the conquest road or at very least domination. With the warlords exspansion some things changed and so this will make some things quirky. However it still isint drastic enough to alter most of my older plans as stated earlier.

Sea domination.

No matter when ya do this it can be tricky. Sea combat has the quirk of being both exspensive in the first place and on some maps just plain pointless unless you found a real road block while moving inland. The main way I found you can rule the seas is actualy by tech and numbers or tech and quality.

Early on you'll want to try and limit your opponents sea movement as much as you can. I find blockading the entire sea possible if I truely have the spare gold and enough costal cities to do this before 50 turns have been pushed through. However usualy this is a waste of resources. No the best way for this to be done is by actualy forcing your enamy to out build your navy. I often use this tactic to make land forces built by the enamy limited because he's building ships.

When carriers and aircraft appears use them because when you have a mobile airfeild you can strike foes in ways they will not be able to counter.

Again feedback is apprecgiated.

Next issue: Defense.

 

[Yeekim]

Hm...just out of curiosity - on what difficulty level you usually play?

I sure mean no offence, but wouldn't it just be easier to write: "Play on Settler and do whatever you like with your opponents who never stood a chance anyway"?

If you are already easily able to deal with entire world from position of strenght, it is perhaps a hint to move up the ladder a bit?

Believe me, it is gonna be more fun when you actually have to worry about your survival rather than just "throw your superior forces at them in waves".

 

[Tellos]

Um usualy I avoid going below my current challange which is deity. This is a plan not a garuntee. I don't succeed always and often get slip ups. But I assume players can fix these on their own. I simply outline the key parts not whole way to play your civ.

 

[slowcar]

they often seek peace and that means you can take it and rest for afew turns or however long ya need

Declaring war nets you a -1 modifier from all civs that like your victim.
Declaring war after 10 rounds of peace nets you another -1.
If you did this for just a few times you are surrounded by enemies, a fact i often lost my first eperor-games to. If the AIs gang up on you you are in trouble. This can easily happen BC if you are playing an early rush.

Cavilry are a MUST!

Unless you are a good share ahead in technology cavalry does not make a very good city attacker as it is countered by riflemen. They are good flanking troops but grenadiers+cannons make the better attackers.

Blitz Krieg! [...] Artillery

You can't blitz with artillery. If the enemy defends with longbows you can blitz with cavalry but normally you have to wait for bombers and tanks.
The bombers do the dirty work and the tanks move in to wipe the floor.

Taking on the world

you can do that when you have won the game already in terms of power. If not its suicide, i don't think its worth mentioning in a guide.

sure at some point you will will be fighting everybody most likely but by then you should have preduced enough to fight on this large a scale

i would love to see this in a, as you say, deity level game. Care to play a story game with some screenshots?


for a guide there is far too less useful information in it, in addition to some false statements, at least in my opinion.

 

[Tellos]

This is just a strategy I have used I never claimed it was perfect. And in my experiance the AI hates fighting. It always prefers getting trade and techs from me not try and run me over and I usualy am slightly ahead in tech. No never by far as keeping my people happy takes alot of effort especialy as you raise up into the higher diffs. Also I mention railroads and stuff obvioulsy artilery in a blitz requires you be in a more modern era. The reason eary blitz's require cavilery is because your not likely to have the faster tanks and your artilry back then won't be at all fast enough. also Cav can have guns too and this means other gunpowder units are not going to slaughter me that easy.

Taking on the world all at once as I said is rather hard and often leads to you just getting pounded. Oh and lastly I never said this always works. I have been laid waste to many times trying these in any deity level game. False statements? Where?

 

[Tellos]

Oh and on another note I havet aken on and beaten the world. It is hard as heck to take it on all in one big war is yes not usualy smart That is why I gave the Wading in idea I find that once an enamy is nearly crushed I don't have issues taking on one more nation of far less power and territory. But in the end take my ideas or leave em I really don't care I just thought it'd be fun to sdhare my methods with others.

 

[TheRealCzar]

The diplomatic penalties incurred in delaring war many times is very sigificant con to your strategy.

The blitzkreig strategy boils down to a brute force "have more units" tank rush, effective when possible, but more like the absence of strategy.

However, a blitzkreig strategy is more interesting when at a significant tech disadvantage, maces versus rifles and the like. One thing I've found in civ, and has been critical in several wars of mine, is that even when the odds are very one-sided (like 10-to-1) the inevitable winner often takes damage out of proportion with the original odds, maybe 50% with a bit of luck. The second thing I've found is that unit at reduced health is drastically less effective, hence two crap often beat one good, with one survivor, so you've both lost a unit, but his was better.

 

[cabert]

2 old beats one new is generally true
I often wage war with cannons and grenadiers vs infantry and artillery.
You lose a lot of units, but if you're the one attacking you lose less than they do (collateral damage)!
Try this : frigates + galleons full of cannons and grenadiers vs coastal high tech city. You attack, they defend (they cannot attack towards the sea!).
This way I vassalized MM, who was 6 to 10 techs ahead of me.
He wouldn't share his techs with me, but he gave me all his money = no more research.

 

[Tellos]

The dimplomatic modfiers never stop the AI from just deciding it can't fight anymore actualy. I find modifer or not they still try to get cease fires and peace treaties after they start losing and the worse they lose the more likely they are to try for it.

 

[MidlandC]

"Wading in" w/o taking on the whole world is very possible at levels 1 and 2. Even at level 3, you'll find the more aggressive opponents will attack you while you are at war with somebody else.

So, best be prepared for a two front war.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Tellos,
Reiterating what slowcar has said, I really don't see anything useful so far in this article. Surely you're not suggesting these "plans" are applicable to the harder difficulty levels, especially Deity? Now I'm no expert at the game (Monarch is the hardest I ever play) but I'm pretty sure plans of attack in deity games are far more involved.

I find blockading the entire sea possible if I truely have the spare gold and enough costal cities to do this before 50 turns have been pushed through.

One word: Wow You must have A LOT of extra gold lying around to do that.

When carriers and aircraft appears use them because when you have a mobile airfeild you can strike foes in ways they will not be able to counter.

Air forces are easily countered by many units. SAM infantry, enemy fighters, cruisers etc. all counter your attacking fighters. But if you're used to fighting AIs on low difficulties, where it's more likely you have a very large tech advantage, I could definitely see you absolutely slaughtering your enemy with fighters and so believing you can use these without being countered.

Could you please post a save where you have used any of these strategies on a high diff? I'm especially interested in the taking-on-the-world one.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Submethod Two: Wading in.

This is my prefered method when I am not mixing them. This method has you start wars and keep going but as time go's on and you keep building up more you attack other nations one at a time or in small groups so that you never fight the whole world at once until you actualy have weakened the bigger/stronger nations. This makes you able to do what others in history never could, sure at some point you will will be fighting everybody most likely but by then you should have preduced enough to fight on this large a scale. Again weaknesses are exspense, overstretching and plain war weariness.

I have never seen this done properly. From what I understand, war weariness would be a HUGE, MASSIVE, RIDICULOUS (did I mention HUGE?) problem. Seriously I find long wars on Monarch against 1 opponent draining enough!
You'd have no one to trade techs or resources with (well in the late part anyway). No foreign trade routes. No allies for battle.
I really want to see a game where you have pulled this off.

 

[Tellos]

heres the thing so far up until this post most of this was on the core game and there where somer balancing issues that I could exploit. Two I tend to be an isolationists as is and spend so much time pumping tech and resources as best I can at first and being very defensive. Your are correct by the time I have air forces I do tend to encounter losses but I actualy found this is fixible by later on using your culture to get you in close so you can build up and sweep over. However when you are constently fighting as I mentioned finding other means of wearing enamies down including artilery works well. yes their slow but theirs ways to make getting them there slightly less hellish. I often use police state to fix most of the war wearyness so it doeisnt go outta control that and police stations. This has changed in BtS cause now I am spending money to counter spys more. So this no longer works as well as if I am not careful it is easy to send revolts my way and really mess me up. Also core game when I started these strategies and this thread I found even on some higher levels my AI foes were very none agressive.

Now the AI is tweeked and I am lucky not to be attacked before I reach the classical age on anything past Prince. So once again reason I likely had alot of success was my enamies didint like fighting and so usualy didint want to keep fihgting once they lost 2 or 3 cities often prefering to get me to stop fighting and just focus on beating mei n the tech race. Also when I go to war I don really do alot of research or spend tonnes on culture I always have to sacrafice something to keep my revenue up.