Rope-a-dope strategy: AI war weariness?

[vormuir]

I'm playing my first game at Monarch (yeah, it took over a year. I'm slow.) and am about to embark on my first medieval war.

Playing Montezuma, attacking Napoleon. I have a slight tech edge, and just got Macemen; however, he has War Elephants. He has unit-spammed and probably has more units than I do.

Usually I go for a blitz strategy, trying to cripple the opponent by taking a major city in a few turns. In this case, though, I'm thinking it might make sense to rope-a-dope... let him attack me, whittle down his stacks with catapults and macemen, then counterattack afterwards.

So, my question: does the AI get war weariness the same way we humans do? And if so, is it worthwhile to rope-a-dope in order to kill a lot of his units on my terrain, where they'll add to his unhappiness? Again, monarch level, medieval war.

Thanks in advance,

Waldo

 

[cabert]

Since this strat is not giving you any gain (duh!), it's only worth doing against a really stronger opponent.
I wouldn't recommend it here because :
a) the AI has a really big "discount" on WW.
b) it also has a big discount on unit production
c) macemen don't kill elephants easily in the open field.
d) macemen can get CR promotion and slaughter elephants in cities

If you're worried about your ability to keep a city after cpature, it may be a good move to let the AI reinforce the city (or retake it) after you've killed almost all units in there. This way, your CR promoted units can keep killing units, instead of defending.

 

[Quechua]

If you're worried about your ability to keep a city after cpature, it may be a good move to let the AI reinforce the city (or retake it) after you've killed almost all units in there. This way, your CR promoted units can keep killing units, instead of defending.

Ugh, I've never tried that, but I don't like the sound of it. It takes time to heal, during which the city can be reinforced by longbows or crossbows. And if the city's still standing, you'll be healing in enemy territory instead of neutral or home city territory. You've possibly lost some units the first time, and now you do it all over again just to take advantage of CR? If all you have is maces, and all they have is elephants, this might make sense, but why not just bring some spears and longbows too?

 

[cabert]

Ugh, I've never tried that, but I don't like the sound of it. It takes time to heal, during which the city can be reinforced by longbows or crossbows. And if the city's still standing, you'll be healing in enemy territory instead of neutral or home city territory. You've possibly lost some units the first time, and now you do it all over again just to take advantage of CR? If all you have is maces, and all they have is elephants, this might make sense, but why not just bring some spears and longbows too?

This is certainly situationnal. You can bring a few city defenders (archers or LBs with CG I and II, for example) with your SoD, making the defense easier and this trick useless.
a few points though :
- of course, you need a spearman or 2 (or 3 or 4!). One can be your medic
- units coming as reinforcements won't necessarily be LB or CB. Then again, if you only have maces and the counterattack is a bunch of CBs, you're better in the forest hill outside the city than inside the revolting city.
- healing is easier if you don't move (one healer in the stack outside the city is enough).
- If you can't attack again next turn, it's very likely that you couldn't keep the city anyway. You could have razed it though, but remember that you already have removed all cultural defenses and that the units coming now don't have the fortified bonus (if those unit even can benefit from them), making the next killing round a lot easier.

 

[Quechua]

....If you can't attack again next turn, it's very likely that you couldn't keep the city anyway....

I don't agree with this, I'm perfectly fine leaving units at 2/3 health along with spare defensive units, while I certainly wouldn't attack with them until they're healed. If on the city capture you see a huge stack within range that you won't be able to defend against, you can always just let that last attacker take the fall.

I agree with your other points, but they aren't reasons for letting them reinforce the city. You would still be healing in enemy territory, and longbows get city defense bonuses even after bombardment. The only reason I can see is making use of the CR promotions, which is very situational, as you said.

 

[mice]

A couple of points; the war wariness AI discount has been reduced in BTS. It might be much more effective now to do this strat. Blake posted the figures a long time ago. I can't remember where.

Another thing is to build horse archers to gain the flanking effect on his catapults. You can really knock his seige around with that.

If you can push your edge to getting pikes, then his elephants will charge onto them on forested hills. In this case it will be worth doing. As Cabert said, the maceman defending is not so hot.

 

[Belisar]

I usually don't care about the AI WW, I care about my own WW when I'm the attacker.
By looking at the GNP graph you can identify the war-periods of most games
(at least in the early and mid game where you don't have access to WW-reducers)
Basically, I want my wars very quick, loosing little science/money and gaining as much as possible
(cities, ressources...)

An invasion doesn't begin with the first strike, it begins by planing and building up your forces.
A combined arms tactic is usually recommended for an attacking stack, an amry only consisting
of CR units will always be worse than a balanced approach.
Speaking of a balanced army, there is also the additional option of finetuning within a given unit-type
via promotions, no need for a 1-unit-type 1-promotion type army.
Sitting outside a target city and waiting for the AI to whipe the population to death
while I have to kill all those additional units only to use my CR-promotions does sound like a dubious strat to me.

 

[cabert]

Sitting outside a target city and waiting for the AI to whipe the population to death
while I have to kill all those additional units only to use my CR-promotions does sound like a dubious strat to me.

mostly because you never tried .
I agree it's situational, but I used it to great success on numerous occasions.
The best occasion is when you have some kind of "invulnerability" outside the city, whereas you are pretty exposed inside.
2 examples :
- Amphibious assault, with large numbers of fighters in carriers or open borders with a third civ and bombers/fighters in the neighbouring AI city.
When you know that you have the upper hand at sea, but aren't sure to have it on land, it's often very worthwhile to keep killing units (we're talking of 2 or 3 turns, not more!) before actually taking a foothold.
- forested hill next to a low production city. The city isn't benefiting your enemy a lot, but with my tactic (I think the original idea is from snaaty) it's costing him a lot! If the counterattack hits you on your forested hill, you just need 1 or 2 specialized defenders (like a guerilla 2 archer, or a woodsman 2 axeman) to totally destroy the enemy offensive force.
-

 

[Belisar]

mostly because you never tried .
- forested hill next to a low production city. The city isn't benefiting your enemy a lot, but with my tactic (I think the original idea is from snaaty) it's costing him a lot! If the counterattack hits you on your forested hill, you just need 1 or 2 specialized defenders (like a guerilla 2 archer, or a woodsman 2 axeman) to totally destroy the enemy offensive force.
-

He won't produce a lot of units, he will whip or draft the population and therefore "benefiting" from the city.
While you keep attacking, you are basically killing your future population, get more WW because your war takes longer and lose science/money.
All in all, a loss-loss situation in most cases.

 

[madscientist]

My gut feeling without looking at the game is to play to Monty's strengths which may be shot already. First, you should have sacrificial alters in every city by now, be ready to whip defenders real fast as Napolean approaches, mostly spears and crossbows. If you have any jaguars left send them into the jungles/forrests to defend and slow down Napoelans stacks.

Monty is Agressive, Napolean is not. That means you should be able to spit out combat II, formation spears providing your running vassalage or theocracy. You can also get the same promotions for the maces but they are more expensive than spears against the jumbos.

Horse archers are pretty useless as they will target the elephants in the stacks losing the battle and not doing any flanking damage on the seige engines. Better to slow down the stacks.

I would suggest a very agressive approach with what you have, target one or 2 French cities, razing them if need be to avoid having to man them. Once Napolean sees your attack he probably retreats the stacks a bit for defense.

Finally, Napoelan is charasmatic, so when you do attack make sure it's with enough force to kill the unit that's attacked.

Just some suggestions.

 

[LlamaCat]

I've played a game where the AI war weariness was simply out of control... BTS has definitely reduced the AI bonuses and with enough espionage points you can look inside their cities and see exactly what is going on. I looked in one city and it was like +12 ww and the city was very unhappy

 

[gdgrimm]

...
Usually I go for a blitz strategy, trying to cripple the opponent by taking a major city in a few turns. In this case, though, I'm thinking it might make sense to rope-a-dope... let him attack me, whittle down his stacks with catapults and macemen, then counterattack afterwards.

So, my question: does the AI get war weariness the same way we humans do? And if so, is it worthwhile to rope-a-dope in order to kill a lot of his units on my terrain, where they'll add to his unhappiness? Again, monarch level, medieval war.

I'm not sure about the whole WW part, but I've certainly started to use the 'delayed' attack strategy.

I used to always declare and invade the same turn. Unfortunately, that often lead to my primary army being attacked by his primary attack. All of that leads to whole lot of carnage in his territory, which adds to my WW and is made rather difficult due to his mobility.

Now I've learned to (in many cases), declare the war, and then wait 4 or 5 turns for his main stack(s) to entire my territory. Now the carnage occurs in my terrain, I get the mobility advantages, and get no WW.

After his primary stack(s) are destroyed, then I do the invasion and only have to worry about the city defenders and the trickle of reinforcements.

 

[ice2k4]

Just like to throw in the Statue of Zeus is great for a "rope-a-dope" strategy since noone mentioned it.

 

[mice]

Just like to throw in the Statue of Zeus is great for a "rope-a-dope" strategy since noone mentioned it.

Yes, this and the AI ww combined makes the strat a good idea, and anothr factor is the BTS tendancy to unit spam. If the opposition just hides then it's not going to work. If they send in their big stack then it will.

Bhuric's patch apparently has the big stacks move around and do something. 3.13 "vanilla" apparently still has the stacks hiding in the forest.

I suggest use Bhuric's, build SoZ, and use your strat.

 

[vormuir]

I wouldn't recommend it here because :
a) the AI has a really big "discount" on WW.
b) it also has a big discount on unit production
c) macemen don't kill elephants easily in the open field.
d) macemen can get CR promotion and slaughter elephants in cities

The key point here is the discount on WW.

Macemen vs. elephants: they kill just fine if you soften up the stack with a couple of suicide catapults. I had LIII cats from Theocracy, and gave a couple Drill and Collateral Damage promotions. They died, but that stack was not the same, and my other units were able to clean up with few additional casualties... I think I traded two cats and a Jaguar for three Elephants, four Axemen and a couple of Horse Archers.

Something like 90 hammers spent to kill almost 400. Not ideal perhaps (as you say, it's better to catch the enemy in cities and lose nothing) but it left Nappy unable to do much when my healed, promoted stacks came knocking a few turns later.

And... I won! Baby's first Monarch win!

I know nobody cares but me, but what the hell. It wasn't beautiful (Space Race in 1987 for ~12,000 points), but I've been playing that game at Prince for a year now. Stayed up until 2 am finishing (much to the annoyance of my wife).

Key to winning at Monarch: don't be scared about falling behind! In the early Industrial age I was eight or ten techs back -- Julius got Liberalism as I was just starting Education, and Saladin built Broadway before I had Astronomy -- but once I was big enough, basic empire management let me catch up.

Okay, it did help that the AIs are not very good at winning Space Races. (Has that ever been fixed?)

Anyway, game over. Thanks to everyone for the words of advice!

cheers,


Waldo

 

[lilnev]

Early in the game blitz attacks work better. Sometime around the Renaissance/Industrial era, the balance shifts to where you're often better off luring in his initial stack before going on the offensive. It might be true earlier against an AI that has overbuilt his military as well. The main advantages are mobility (especially allowing your siege units to hit first) and reducing your WW. Although as pointed out, in BtS the AIs WW advantage is reduced, so maybe that's an effective component now as well.

Also note that avoiding WW depends on your cultural value for the tile being over 50%, not whether it's within your cultural borders. If you captured the land from another civ, it's quite possible to have tiles within your borders with less than 50% your culture.

peace,
lilnev

 

[seizer]

I've found that one unit that works very well with this strategy is trebuchets. CR II or III trebs get very nice odds (over 50%) vs fortified longbows as long as the city is not on a hill. A mixed stack of CR macemen, drill or strength xbows, pikes or war elephants and trebs can practically take an entire empire defended by longbows while suffering very small losses.

 

[vicawoo]

I have a feeling protective might have to do something like "rope a dope" in order to maximize its advantage.

I think there was a realms beyond game where the guy could never put points into research, on immortal, and he ended up taking out armies of cavalry with catapults.