Preping for war? Any tips?

[Pinstar]

I'm more of a peaceful player than a warmonger, but sometimes I need a strategic resource and must resort to force, and sometimes I just want the whole contenent to myself, durnit

Anyway, wars typically get quite messy for me, I could use a few tips from you warmongering players out there.

I almost never play an "agressive" civ
I almost always wage my wars in ancent/medival eras rather than modern


Here are my questions:

About how many troops do you need to wage a sucessful war? I know "it depends" but what is a good starting point? 7? 10? 20?

I know how to use artillery to soften up cities before attacking them, but how many should i bring?

I know you should mix your troops, but how thick of a mix?

Lasty, what can I do about the enemy having mounted units bursting out from their borders and going on a pillaging spree if I have most of my military concentrated at one of theri cities?

 

[Mujadaddy]

1. Intelligence --- Know your enemy's territory as well as your own. Where is is his Iron? His horses? His oil? (Depending on era, obviously)
2. Objectives --- Are you just trying to get some breathing room, or have you decided to wipe out the entire civ. of your neighbor? In the former case, beware of high-culture cities near the "disputed territory" -- they will make your objectives more difficult.
3. Preparation --- Once your objectives are decided upon, don't prepare halfway. Total commitment to the effort is required. Mass an army. Does the objective city have 6 defenders? Bring 12-18 attackers PLUS Siege equipment. That's right--- 2, preferably 3-to-1 odds NOT counting siege equipment. Preparation part 2 --- Change your civics BEFORE you ramp up production for maximum production and XP/initial promotions...
4. Assault --- Demand something from your opponent first. Make him declare war on you, if you can... then, THE SAME TURN, advance toward your objective. If you're only going for one city or so and you plan on keeping it, rush right up to the gates, bombard the defenses (if this is a multi-turn effort, pillage the roadways leading to the rest of the empire)...assault the city...capture the city... have some defensive units from your empire march in to hold the city, and keep the offensive army, split up now, running through the opponent's territory, pillaging things until the opponent sues for peace.


General answers to your specific questions--- "Mix ratio"-- 80% "your best attacker" 15% "counter-counter unit to your best attacker" 5% "other" <----this doesn't include siege equipment...

"Enemy pillagers while the Army is away"---ignore it. Preparation means that you already have defenders on your vital resources. Ignore any farms or towns that might get damaged. Being distracted from pursuit of your primary objective is a sure way to fail acheiving it.

Hope that helps...

 

[Mujadaddy]

Didn't directly answer this one---"How many siege units" --- enough to take down the objective defense numbers in ONE turn---about 15% per unit, per the manual. So, 60% defense = 4 Catapults.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Im not much of a warmonger myself but there are a few tips i can offer you. First of all, your unit buildup depends on what enemy youre fighting. The more troops the enemy has, the more you need. Second, build units to your purpose. Dont build slow units if all you want to do is sweep in and take one city. Dont build attackers if youre just defending yourself. Third is look at terrain. Use up that extra movement point to get in a better position. The better your position is the better off you are. I have placed units on hills and had the enemy attack me from their city and lose all units allowing me to easily take their city.
Fourth is pillage. If you can destroy their infrastructure, you can cripple them, and their ability to respond to you. If youre fighting an enemy that has resource advantage over you, pillage their links to their resources. Cutt them off in either order of importance or reach.
Fifth is use your units effectively. If you have units that are very good at attacking, pair them with a couple of good defenders. The ( most of the time ) defenders should take the brunt and allow your attackers to oblitirate the opposition. Make sure to have some artillery allong so you can use it to soften up the defenders.

I hope this helps you a bit, it has helped me.
Tip-make sure to not let your infrastructure fall behind, it will hurt you in the long run.

 

[Footen]

I usually bring about 5 catapults and 3-5 axemen, per city, plus a spearman and/or archer for defence. Then I leave some spears behind to deal with his pillagers. If it&#180;s a strong civ, get an ally to declare first so he focus on the other border, or if you&#180;r about to invade your "friend", tell him to start a war with someone else along his border, then stab him in the back.

BTW, fooling your friends into war is a great way to keep them from winning the game.

 

[Vosje]

or if you´r about to invade your "friend", tell him to start a war with someone else along his border, then stab him in the back.

BTW, fooling your friends into war is a great way to keep them from winning the game.

Oh man, that's evil. You just lowered the trust I have in my fellow players.

 

[siff]

About how many troops do you need to wage a sucessful war? I know "it depends" but what is a good starting point? 7? 10? 20?

The first thing you should know is what kind of units does your opponent have. If it's the same as you, you have to have about 3/1 ration to beat him. If you have guns and he mele, 2/1 or even 1/1 with artillery could do.

Stack your units in about 5-10 and surround his cities and pillage everything around them. Remember to station your units in forests and hills as much as you can, this wil preserve your units because they will most likely not be attacked.

A must prerequisite for total war is to spread your state relegion early in the game. This allow you to monitor all the cities using it i.e. see troops movement and count defending units in cities. This will also help you in two other ways with your war:

1. If you can make opponent(s) convert to your state religion, you will receive gold each turn from those cities, so in effect, you can make your enemy pay for your military upkeep while your'e constructing for war.

2. Attacking cities with the same religion is easier than attacking a city with a different religion. The do not defent as well because you are a part of they're culture.

Also, it's much harder to attack big and culturally rich cities than smaller ones.

I know how to use artillery to soften up cities before attacking them, but how many should i bring?

about 2-5 per city, depending on the size of the city.

I know you should mix your troops, but how thick of a mix?

It all depends on what you have and what your opponent has. For ancent battles, a general mix of about 2-3 pikemen, 2-4 catapults, 2-3 mele units and fill up with swordsmen. Hourse archers are quite usefull for pillaging around cities, so you should probably add some of those. Attack the city (when ready i.e. when pillaging is done + 2-6 rounds) with the swordsmen.

Lasty, what can I do about the enemy having mounted units bursting out from their borders and going on a pillaging spree if I have most of my military concentrated at one of theri cities?

As a rule of thumb, if you don't have your own territory defended, you are not prepared for war. What you describe is known as overextension, you want to avoid that at all cost. A bad scenario of overextension is if you are at war with most of your units far away from home and one civ with close borders with you declares war on you, than your'e in it

Make shure you defend before goint to war. Make shure you make lots of units before going to war, and make shure you don't declare war until you have reached the borders of you opponent with all the units you are going to use for the fight.

Another very important side to war is that it has to be swift and come to a early conclution. To make this come true, you should aim at taking about 2 - 4 cities from your enemy, after that, he is ready (in most cases) to negotiate for peace.

Another thing you should keep in mind is if your opponent has powerfull friends, this may develop into a problem sooner than later, especially if his friends dislikes you before you enter into war with him, they are going to hate you after that.

Lastly, make shure you attack a weaker opponent, preferably much weaker. If you are at a mid-score and attack the weakest player, take all his four cities, then you will have increased you own power considerably, and will soon be able to play with the big boys

ps. check out http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=139684
and use the info emphasizing "military production" while making your units and emphasizing "going to war" while at war.

Good luck

Siff

 

[Arkalius]

Didn't directly answer this one---"How many siege units" --- enough to take down the objective defense numbers in ONE turn---about 15% per unit, per the manual. So, 60% defense = 4 Catapults.

Incorrect... You need 7 catapults. 15% of 60 is only 9, 60/9 is 6.6 rounded up to 7. Remember the bombardment amount listed on the artillery is percentage of the defense bonus, not the actual amount of the bonus that will be removed. You always need 7 catapult bombardments to reduce a city to 0, 5 cannons, or 4 artillery... this is assuming you don't have city bombardment promotions of course.

 

[Heroes]

4. Assault --- Demand something from your opponent first. Make him declare war on you, if you can... then, THE SAME TURN, advance toward your objective.

Aha, is this still doable in civ 4? Just by keeping demaning a city, a tech, and so on? But it seems to me that your demanding doesn't influence their attitude. There is no sentence like "I refuse to give you tribute!" when you mouse over.

 

[Heroes]

I know how to use artillery to soften up cities before attacking them, but how many should i bring?

A key thing is that the "-15% city defense" of catapult means its bombardment reduces 15% of the TOTAL city defense, like 15% * 40% = 6% for absolute value. So you always need 7 bombardments to reduce city defense to 0, unless some are promoted with "accuracy". Similarly, 5 for cannon, 4 for artillery. Therefore, I would say to bring 10 cats, use 7 to bomb, 3 to do collateral damage, then attack and capture city in the same turn.

 

[AU_Armageddon]

Learn all about war weariness before you start one so you can manage it. I don't know the answers but it seems that there may be many compounding effects. If your entie empire ends up shut down and starving you may win the war... but you lose the game

 

[MSTK]

In Civ 3 you should bring a 20-unit stack of catapults. I like to do the same in Civ 4, but it's not as necessary...
But the collaterol damage really elms. Suicide run your extra catapults! Pump out catapults, becuase they will be entirely dispensible.

 

[vondiplo]

Well what I generally do is the following:
Gather an army of around 10 soldiers, (best of their time), suspend all building but military units, and one or two fast moving troops, then I just cut off the empire from its resources as soon as possible, the bigger the empire is and the more resources it has I need more mounted units. At this point the enemy doesn't have good units to counter your own so it will take you a few turns to get rid of his best units. Now, the problem is how to get rid of the enemy's best units, I usually leave my cities wide open, make sure I build walls in them before. The enemy sends his melee units to capture the city, I rush some troops from a nearby city and defend behind a bared wall. i don't really use catapults, I rather build more swordsmen instead, though if the city has walls I have no other choice. And... wellI try building colitions to make the enemy divide up his units.

 

[schwanenfeldii]

I'm certainly no warmonger, but I usually end up winning the wars I'm involved in. There really aren't any hard and fast rules. The best way to learn is probably to make a save game right before you start preparing for war. Try one strategy, play twenty turns into the war and then reload and try another strategy. Of course, you shouldn't get used reloading, since it takes the fun out of the game---but it is a great way to compare the effectiveness of different approaches.

I guess I'll take a stab at answering your questions:

About how many troops do you need to wage a sucessful war? I know "it depends" but what is a good starting point? 7? 10? 20?

I know how to use artillery to soften up cities before attacking them, but how many should i bring?

It depends . Not counting the one unit I leave stationed in each of my cities, I will usually have about four units during a time of peace. This force I use to slow down or repel invasions. These units are all produced from a city with barracks, so they are top of the line units that I expect to be involved in any war I fight. If I'm expecting a war, I will probably double the size of this force---say eight or ten units. Then produce five catapults or so before I launch an invasion. Eight top-of-the-line units and five catapults will take out most cities on Noble if used properly. If you run into a city with more than five defenders, then either sit and wait for reinforcements or move on to an easier city (you should probably have about as many catapults as there are defenders in the city, and then at least 1.5 other units per defender---more if your units base strength isn't stronger than theirs).

I know you should mix your troops, but how thick of a mix?

I'll generally take six to eight units with the strongest value I can get (e.g. war elephants), five catapults, and two or three units that are more defensive (e.g. longbowmen). If you run into a number of units that counter your strongest unit, you might be in a bit of trouble. In that case, retreat and build some other units to add to the mix.

Lasty, what can I do about the enemy having mounted units bursting out from their borders and going on a pillaging spree if I have most of my military concentrated at one of theri cities?

Usually, I declare war and let them attack me while I'm building catapults. This way I can destroy most of their more threatening units before I move in. Once my attack force is headed for one of their cities, it's not going to turn around. However, I'm usually building a lot of units in my cities during wars, so it's quite likely I'll have some newly created units to repel plunderers.