squidd
Chieftain
There have been many posts on how to wage an effective war given that on certain levels of difficulty, the AI seems to have that uncanny knack for raising an army that is larger than the human player can put together.
There have also been equally numerous posts on micromanagement and expansion strategies that allow the human to somehow keep up with the AI. However, for those who cannot seem to catch up (like me) kindly allow me to share this philosophy on war called relative superiority.
THEORY
Basically the theory of relative superiority (TRS) presupposes that you are outnumbered. The presupposition may even be extended further that you are outgunned (the AI has more advanced units).
The very core of TRS is tactically selecting a battle where you are at an advantage. To illustrate an extreme point if the enemy has 30 medieval infantry and you have only 20 swordsmen, you are clearly at a disadvantage. However, if you were able to tactically engage only 4 or 5 MI of the AI army and thrown 8-10 of your swordsmen on them, you have an overwhelming advantage in that particular battle. Extending this further, theoretically, for as long as your stack of swordsmen do not engage their MI force-on-force and are able to pickoff their MI 3 or 4 units at a time without suffering considerable losses, you will be able decimate the entire force.
As an aside, this is the very foundation of real life guerilla warfare. A numerically and logistically inferior force engaging a small faction of a numerically and logistically superior force, gaining a small but relevant tactical victory, and then pulling back. The imagery here is of a sharp chisel chipping off a chunk of wood from an immense block of wood at decisive moments and repeating it until the original mass is whittled to an insignificant whit.
APPLICATION
Simple as the theory goes, there are many things that can go awry in the execution. Hereunder are some tips that have been posted on the board by players who have way far more experience and skill than this writer. Some of these tips are collated below relative to how they support the relative superiority strategy.
1. Short Quick Wars. Often you will the other really good players in this forum espouse a strategy where you create a stack of death a single stack of units that are overwhelming on the offensive with a mix of selected defensive units to preserve its integrity. Some espouse two stacks of death. It is said somewhere in this forum that after taking two AI cities, the AI will be forced to negotiate with you (I welcome any verifications on the accuracy of this). From my limited personal experience (at monarch) I have found this to be true. With two such stacks you are able to convincingly take out two cities and have enough troops to immediately quell resistance should you chose to retain the captured cities. In many cases, I have seen the AI send a considerable backup force but before these reinforcements arrive, I am able to sue for peace and even ask for some concessions. Sometimes, I am even willing to give concessions for as long as the monetary and/or strategic benefits of the cities gained through war far outweigh the tribute. In determining the barest minimum for a stack of death, kindly check if the targeted cities are on a hill of if you will be forced to fight from across a river. These must be factored into the mathematical computations to determine if the percentages do in fact say that you have relative superiority.
2. Cutting off the supply lines / Fast units. Part an parcel of relative superiority is ending the war before the far more numerous reinforcements arrive. This can be achieved by using multiple-move units or sacrificing one or two single move units and dedicating them to cutting off selected roads. This requires anticipation of where the backup will come from (usually the bigger, more productive cities). More than just for cutting off roads, fast units can be used to magnify relative superiority. The Chinese riders for example, have three movement points which, within your fully roaded boarders, translates to nine tiles. With two stacks of one-movement-point units backed-up by a highly mobile stack of riders that are swinging from one front to another, you can create the illusion of having more units than you really do. Put another way, you are able to maximize the engagement opportunities of all units at hand.
3. Attacking from a solid defensive foothold. Most often, it is inevitable that some of the AI reinforcement will arrive in time for the fray. This makes it important for us, the attacker, to mix some defensive units (even just a couple will boost the defense of the entire stack) and to use the defensive bonus of the terrain. Mountains, hills, and forest offer varying defensive bonuses. When unable to mix a defensive unit into the stack, the sacrifice of a single unit fortifying itself instead of attacking will also boost the entire stacks defense. Attacking with a river behind you will give you a defensive bonus against reinforcements that are sent to your rear. This fall into the relative superiority paradigm in the sense that we are baiting the AI to waste resources on counter-attacking a well entrenched stash. This drains the AIs manpower and resources which could have otherwise been thrown into an attack force making a beeline for your weakest defended city. I must interject that it is unbelievable, the frequency at which the AI happens to chance upon the humans weakest city and happens to target it for a counter-attack even though it is geographically out of the way.
4. Beyond War. Relative superiority has uses that extend far beyond war. When I go for a one city culture victory, for example, the AI may have an advantage empire-wide (in expansion and military strength) but by concentrating efforts on developing and squeezing out as much culture as possible from a single city, victory is still within reach. Note, however, that there must at the very least be sufficient military to prevent the AI from grabbing the culture victory city. It is also the principle behind a cultural attack. By overwhelming a single AI city with two or three culturally advanced cities of your own, you may induce it to flip even if the AI has a vaster empire. But I believe you will need to have higher culture overall to succeed in this.
I am sure there are many other tips that have already been posted that fit into this paradigm. I hope that in presenting relative superiority in the general sense will help in opening the creativity of players to apply it in specifics.
There have also been equally numerous posts on micromanagement and expansion strategies that allow the human to somehow keep up with the AI. However, for those who cannot seem to catch up (like me) kindly allow me to share this philosophy on war called relative superiority.
THEORY
Basically the theory of relative superiority (TRS) presupposes that you are outnumbered. The presupposition may even be extended further that you are outgunned (the AI has more advanced units).
The very core of TRS is tactically selecting a battle where you are at an advantage. To illustrate an extreme point if the enemy has 30 medieval infantry and you have only 20 swordsmen, you are clearly at a disadvantage. However, if you were able to tactically engage only 4 or 5 MI of the AI army and thrown 8-10 of your swordsmen on them, you have an overwhelming advantage in that particular battle. Extending this further, theoretically, for as long as your stack of swordsmen do not engage their MI force-on-force and are able to pickoff their MI 3 or 4 units at a time without suffering considerable losses, you will be able decimate the entire force.
As an aside, this is the very foundation of real life guerilla warfare. A numerically and logistically inferior force engaging a small faction of a numerically and logistically superior force, gaining a small but relevant tactical victory, and then pulling back. The imagery here is of a sharp chisel chipping off a chunk of wood from an immense block of wood at decisive moments and repeating it until the original mass is whittled to an insignificant whit.
APPLICATION
Simple as the theory goes, there are many things that can go awry in the execution. Hereunder are some tips that have been posted on the board by players who have way far more experience and skill than this writer. Some of these tips are collated below relative to how they support the relative superiority strategy.
1. Short Quick Wars. Often you will the other really good players in this forum espouse a strategy where you create a stack of death a single stack of units that are overwhelming on the offensive with a mix of selected defensive units to preserve its integrity. Some espouse two stacks of death. It is said somewhere in this forum that after taking two AI cities, the AI will be forced to negotiate with you (I welcome any verifications on the accuracy of this). From my limited personal experience (at monarch) I have found this to be true. With two such stacks you are able to convincingly take out two cities and have enough troops to immediately quell resistance should you chose to retain the captured cities. In many cases, I have seen the AI send a considerable backup force but before these reinforcements arrive, I am able to sue for peace and even ask for some concessions. Sometimes, I am even willing to give concessions for as long as the monetary and/or strategic benefits of the cities gained through war far outweigh the tribute. In determining the barest minimum for a stack of death, kindly check if the targeted cities are on a hill of if you will be forced to fight from across a river. These must be factored into the mathematical computations to determine if the percentages do in fact say that you have relative superiority.
2. Cutting off the supply lines / Fast units. Part an parcel of relative superiority is ending the war before the far more numerous reinforcements arrive. This can be achieved by using multiple-move units or sacrificing one or two single move units and dedicating them to cutting off selected roads. This requires anticipation of where the backup will come from (usually the bigger, more productive cities). More than just for cutting off roads, fast units can be used to magnify relative superiority. The Chinese riders for example, have three movement points which, within your fully roaded boarders, translates to nine tiles. With two stacks of one-movement-point units backed-up by a highly mobile stack of riders that are swinging from one front to another, you can create the illusion of having more units than you really do. Put another way, you are able to maximize the engagement opportunities of all units at hand.
3. Attacking from a solid defensive foothold. Most often, it is inevitable that some of the AI reinforcement will arrive in time for the fray. This makes it important for us, the attacker, to mix some defensive units (even just a couple will boost the defense of the entire stack) and to use the defensive bonus of the terrain. Mountains, hills, and forest offer varying defensive bonuses. When unable to mix a defensive unit into the stack, the sacrifice of a single unit fortifying itself instead of attacking will also boost the entire stacks defense. Attacking with a river behind you will give you a defensive bonus against reinforcements that are sent to your rear. This fall into the relative superiority paradigm in the sense that we are baiting the AI to waste resources on counter-attacking a well entrenched stash. This drains the AIs manpower and resources which could have otherwise been thrown into an attack force making a beeline for your weakest defended city. I must interject that it is unbelievable, the frequency at which the AI happens to chance upon the humans weakest city and happens to target it for a counter-attack even though it is geographically out of the way.
4. Beyond War. Relative superiority has uses that extend far beyond war. When I go for a one city culture victory, for example, the AI may have an advantage empire-wide (in expansion and military strength) but by concentrating efforts on developing and squeezing out as much culture as possible from a single city, victory is still within reach. Note, however, that there must at the very least be sufficient military to prevent the AI from grabbing the culture victory city. It is also the principle behind a cultural attack. By overwhelming a single AI city with two or three culturally advanced cities of your own, you may induce it to flip even if the AI has a vaster empire. But I believe you will need to have higher culture overall to succeed in this.
I am sure there are many other tips that have already been posted that fit into this paradigm. I hope that in presenting relative superiority in the general sense will help in opening the creativity of players to apply it in specifics.
