siege is sometimes irrelevant

[TheMeInTeam]

I find that the Vassalage-based approach is a good middle-road path between UncleJJ's and TheMeInTeam's near-opposite approaches.

By concentrating mainly on economic infrastructure during the tech progress toward Feudalism, you set up your economy to go full military once you switch to Vassalage. After you start conquering cities, you can still use the tech extortion method to gain extra techs well after Alphabet and Code of Laws.

How do you actually do it? Settle enough cities, manage your production of troops, AND tech to the point where vassalage is meaningful (aka the AI doesn't get xbows when you have mostly melee, then knights mid-war). I can never seem to expand to like 10 cities+ then pull off a medieval war on immortal. They just get too far ahead during that time period, and they have too many hammers at their disposal.

 

[Skallagrimson]

On monarch/emp (winning 60/40 monarch, losing 60/40 emp, so I haven't decided which one I "am" yet), what I do to try to survive is:

1. REX as much as I can into what land the map will give me, which is usually not much. Usually can only settle about 10 cities that way.
2. Turtle up along the borders. Units, units, and units, everywhere, until each border city is nicely defended.
3. When defenses are laid down, 1 city continues with units full-time while the others build the buildings they need.
4. Tech trade with the enemy of the most powerful AI (deliberately bringing on the DoW)
5. Repell invasion, draining the AI of the unit/power advantage.
6. Go on offense, start taking their cities.

Key to this is diplo and finding windows of opportunity, either a tech lead in one area like the first to be able to build Macemen, or when the target AI is at war with someone else.

Usually there has to be a halt to the war for economic and ww repair, and by then the AI is no longer "most powerful", but rather "most manageable". Then on down the list, basically taking the most powerful AIs and knocking them down to manageable size via war, going onto the next, rebuild and repair, and repeat.

So, what you are telling me is, on Immortal, the chop --> axe --> rush approach from the lower levels, becomes viable again? Sure as hell never EVER works for me on Emp. Too much archer spam. And I've tried it with 20 axe stacks.

 

[Artichoker]

How do you actually do it? Settle enough cities, manage your production of troops, AND tech to the point where vassalage is meaningful (aka the AI doesn't get xbows when you have mostly melee, then knights mid-war). I can never seem to expand to like 10 cities+ then pull off a medieval war on immortal. They just get too far ahead during that time period, and they have too many hammers at their disposal.

IMO, the biggest advantage of using vassalage is having 5 XP Catapults, which otherwise are hard to get because of the slow XP advancement of Catapults.

Execution-wise, I think it's OK for the enemy to get crossbows as long as they don't come in excessive numbers. One of the key tactics I have learned is using Catapults to counter crossbowmen. As for Knights, the key is to get them while they are defending, so that they suffer from lack of defensive bonuses.

If you can do this successfully, then you will actually want them to get ahead in tech, because then you can leverage their tech lead to get those techs yourself by signing peace with them.

However, I usually go to war well before getting 10 cities. The expansion to 10+ cities, in my game, is acheived through the war itself.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I see, so you literally meant it as an in-between. You're not boxed in, but you can't REX out 12+ cities, either.

Edit: I'd have to imagine HE and forges to be absolutely critical.

 

[CivCorpse]

I think everyone has forgotten things stated in the OP's post. He didn't have anything to build EXCEPT units. So rather than let his economy tank further or disband them....he went to war. Having a solid economy was NOT an option

 

[Artichoker]

I see, so you literally meant it as an in-between. You're not boxed in, but you can't REX out 12+ cities, either.

Edit: I'd have to imagine HE and forges to be absolutely critical.

Exactly...one way to think of military units is as a substitute for settlers. One main difference, however, is that with settled cities you need to start from pop 1, whereas conquered cities have pop of 1 less than the original pop. This means it's often worthwhile to wait before actually taking the cities, in order to give them time to grow...think of the enemy cities as fruit that need to be ripened. If you pick the fruit too early, it won't be as nutritious or sweet as if you wait until the right time.

Regarding the HE, I believe it depends on how prolonged you want the war to be. For a prolonged war, obviously you will want it up soon. But for a quick war with Vassalage->Bureaucracy in mind, I think whipping from high-food cities will be enough to sustain production for small-scale wars, just big enough to win you a few free techs and wonders.

I think everyone has forgotten things stated in the OP's post. He didn't have anything to build EXCEPT units. So rather than let his economy tank further or disband them....he went to war. Having a solid economy was NOT an option

There is something else to be learned as well...there is strength in numbers. A lack of siege is alarming because it forces you to fight at very weak odds. But if you have sufficient numbers to keep hammering down the enemy units, you can still win battles nevertheless.

Now add in siege, and try to extend that principle even further. A strength in numbers, supplemented by the power of Catapults and the XP of Vassalage, allows you to fight at a tech disadvantage in some cases, and still win decisively.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I can't understand anyone axe rushing on Emperor or Immortal. It just doesn't work for me either - sure I can cripple an AI and take another capital - but I actually get less land than if I had REXed normally and my position relative to the other AIs is poorer than if I had done my normal expansion.

My preferred time to war is at catapults. By then I should have at least six cities. I will have built an academy, built granaries and barracks, developed lots of tiles and have a good team of workers ready to chop out my SOD. With real luck I'll have ivory too, but swords and cats can do the job by themselves.

With construction in the bag, I can tech towards currency, code of laws and civil service (in that order) which will be the techs I need to recover from the rapid expansion thats going to follow. I can use the cash from capturing cities and pillaging if necessary to keep my economy running despite the drastic impacts of rapid expansion and a big army.

Every single tree will be chopped to make catapults, swords, axes and elephants if I am lucky. Every city will be whipped multiple times. The goal will be to have a stack big enough to march straight to the enemy capital taking every city along the way in one turn.

Catapults pay off in that my losses will be smaller - a lot smaller. Probably just one or two catapults per city. More to the point that tech tends to coincide with the time in the game where I have the cities that I want and the remaining areas I could settle are a lot less interesting to me that the green fields of my neighbours.

 

[slobberinbear]

I can't understand anyone axe rushing on Emperor or Immortal. It just doesn't work for me either - sure I can cripple an AI and take another capital - but I actually get less land than if I had REXed normally and my position relative to the other AIs is poorer than if I had done my normal expansion.

Generally I agree with you, but in the game in question, I was Aggressive Alex with copper hooked up early, and I had Augustus fairly close. I wanted him gone before he hooked up iron, and took his four cities (keeping two) with just my first two cities. Having the early UU was also a factor; I consider Phalanxes underrated, because they have no hard countering unit.

Once Augustus was defeated, my settled great general allowed Athens to pump out level 3 units (including the Aggressive Combat I freebie). My economy was really in the tank and my research was running on fumes, so I attacked Saladin with waves of Phalanxes with no siege support.

There is no question that I could have expanded peacefully and then attacked, but my advantages would be largely wasted. As it was, I owned my continent on Emperor in the B.C.s .. yes, with a lot of tech catch-up to do, but with plenty of elbow room to do it. Having captured two capitals and a holy city helped too.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Generally I agree with you, but in the game in question, I was Aggressive Alex with copper hooked up early, and I had Augustus fairly close. I wanted him gone before he hooked up iron, and took his four cities (keeping two) with just my first two cities. Having the early UU was also a factor; I consider Phalanxes underrated, because they have no hard countering unit.

Once Augustus was defeated, my settled great general allowed Athens to pump out level 3 units (including the Aggressive Combat I freebie). My economy was really in the tank and my research was running on fumes, so I attacked Saladin with waves of Phalanxes with no siege support.

There is no question that I could have expanded peacefully and then attacked, but my advantages would be largely wasted. As it was, I owned my continent on Emperor in the B.C.s .. yes, with a lot of tech catch-up to do, but with plenty of elbow room to do it. Having captured two capitals and a holy city helped too.

I had a somewhat similar game once on Emp but not as obvious an excuse to do the rush: I was Brennus jammed up against Justinian, just him and me on the land mass. I had copper just outside my BFC and I "lost it" when I saw he had two scouts eating up goody huts. I DoWed for no good reason other than that his very existence pissed me off. Had nothing but a warrior but he killed both scouts, then went and started the siege on Constantinople. Workers were kept idle that way and his land unimproved, at least. Punched out about 8 to 10 warriors just because, to cover the higher-yield unimproved tiles and deny him that food/hammers while waiting for axemen.

After about 5 or 6 axemen were on scene to set siege I was nearing the Strike zone, and even though I knew this wouldn't be a successful raid, I had to do it to get rid of some unit mx. Killed one archer at the expense of all the warriors and all but one of the axemen. Predicted result, though, so I wasn't too upset. "Let's see what happens next time."

Next time, put about 12 axes downfield before STRIKE started closing in on me, so did another assault. Double the success level: two archers dead, two axemen survived. Killed a few more archers defensively in the woods as he had some CII archers promoted to suicide counterattack.

Third time was the charm. Economy was a little better by then so was able to support about 30 axes raiding a cap that had about 8 archers, and after finally taking it had about 12 surviving axes, mostly CRII, 1 or 2 CRIII, a gg-led super-medic in the making, etc., but with the new city and one barbarian one I took, was back near the strike zone. Had so go into economic repair mode for quite a few turns and delay REXing into the remaining land mass.

The big problem was that I was so far behind when I met the other AIs, I had nothing I could trade with (and trades are my usual way of climbing back up from behind, as there's usually at least some AIs almost as backward as me, and I've gotten pretty good at wheeling and dealing my way to just missing out on 1 or 2 leading techs some others have).

Did a replay study of that same game several times using different strategies, and found that the optimum would have been to build 4 cities with a fairly solid infrastructure (libs, granaries, barracks), DoW the AI, and during the war research Curr/CoL so that when economic repair time comes, it can be more effective. There were more cities to take that way, but I was better able to take them AND KEEP them due to the preparation (and knock down defenses via spies).

 

[vanatteveldt]

although putting a warrior next to a cap is a great way to cripple an AI, it's not always smart if you plan on invading quickly: instead of building workers + settlers and infrastructure, the AI will just keep building military. Plus, why would you object to the AI improving your tiles and building some cities for you?

 

[Skallagrimson]

although putting a warrior next to a cap is a great way to cripple an AI, it's not always smart if you plan on invading quickly: instead of building workers + settlers and infrastructure, the AI will just keep building military. Plus, why would you object to the AI improving your tiles and building some cities for you?

Because for a while at least it's theirs. Although I can see your point about how that would alert the AI to focus on unit builds early.

Again, my test replays did show it was more effective to wait somewhat after a few cities got expanded out (on both sides) and then really ramp up the axemen. The AI was more distracted and by that time I had revolt-supporter spies, the human siege engines. Even though the conquest process had to be repeated for the other cities the AI built, I was better able to do those repeats.

 

[6K Man]

In my current game, I was totally boxed in at the end of a long peninsula by Ragnar. So he had to go as soon as my 3rd city was down. That was a pure axerush, and it killed my economy due to my keeping too many cities. But no worries, right? Whip libraries, run specialists, let the science rate drop to 20 or 10 even.

Except, just beyond Ragnar was Gandhi. And I was again boxed in, and already way behind in tech. A long way from Construction, even, at my pitiful beaker output. But as was noted, those Flanking II Horse Archers can be quite useful against (argh) Gandhi's Longbows.

Anyway... back on topic. Did I mention that I was playing Qin? :evilgrin: No need for siege there... Even those 60% culture cities that Mohandas had could be taken with enough Flanking HAs and Chokonus.

I'll probably still lose (tech lead is Willem and this is a water map... ) but it was an interesting opening game nonetheless.

 

[Ibian]

I dont understand how flanking horses can be in any way viable as a poor mans siege. Even if they survive half their fights against strong city defenders, thats still an entire horse archer plus a mopup unit for every defending unit. Seems to me like you would need to have a larger army than your opponent for this to work. So 4 horse archers, 2 of them dead, plus 4 more units to take a city with 4 defenders or around there? Depending on what you are up against, 4 suiciding CR axes might work just as well and cost about the same amount of hammers...

That said, i would like to thank the people involved in this thread for giving me a little inspiration. Im playing a siegeless game and it looks like it might be my first finished game in months.

 

[6K Man]

The problem with suicide axes is that they, well, suicide themselves. Against longbows (as I was), they'll just die and die and die and die... If you're unlucky, it'll take many axes to whittle them down to where the next axe has a chance of surviving. You can run out pretty fast, and then your offensive grinds to a halt.

Flanking II HAs do die half the time (assuming they're attacking at around 1% odds), but CR axes attacking with similar odds die just about all the time. I'd rather lose half my attackers than all of them. The survivors get promoted, and hopefully do better next time.

And to your other point, you DO need a larger army than your opponent for this to work. Unless you're attacking longbows with Grenadiers or something like that.

 

[Ibian]

But HA are almost twice as expensive as axes anyway, so what does it matter if you lose 4 axes instead of 2 HA? Also, CR axes ought to have better odds than flanking HAs, which also means doing more damage. (combat odds, not survival odds)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But HA are almost twice as expensive as axes anyway, so what does it matter if you lose 4 axes instead of 2 HA? Also, CR axes ought to have better odds than flanking HAs, which also means doing more damage. (combat odds, not survival odds)

Axes have 1 move. Horse archers have two. As they ignore first strikes, HA's have at least as much chance if not more to deal significant damage on the archers (archers are quite poor vs HAs, you can just use combat II guys and even if the city has 20% D they'll still be around 75% win chances).

But back to that 1 move vs 2 move thing. Discounting that is painfully ignoring the greatest advantage of the mounted line. I doubt most people understand what it means when they plan a war.

2 move units literally mean you fight less troops to begin with. 1-2 less per city whipped if you don't use siege with your 1 move guys, but 3-4 less if you do (though siege can then help). If you're attacking (and losing) axes to archers, it's going to add up vs the significant increase in archer #'s. If you are looking at this across conquering four cities or so, the HAs start looking much better - leaps and bounds better than the axes unless you involve siege, but even if you do the outcome of which is better isn't entirely clear and depends on the opposition. Oh and...HAs come way earlier than siege if you prioritize them. The tech even trades decently.

Comparing the two is a little iffy though. The two are at their best in different windows of time. You'd axe rush if you are extremely boxed in but have copper. If you have horses and room for more cities/etc, HAs are definitely superior units. You said long ago that draw goes to the defender, but that's only true if the defender isn't ultimately killed on that turn...otherwise withdraw favors offense! Which unit survives and gets XP? Not the dead archer.

Basically, 4 axes =/= 2 HAs in terms of survival chance. The HA advantage is magnified...and quite greatly...by AI whipping tendencies and the way it spams units out of its cities after war...but only if it still has them.

Oh, HAs are the same hammers as cats too, and tend to survive more frequently. If the city has <4 defenders, and one is pretty tough...well i'll let you do the math.

I can't understand anyone axe rushing on Emperor or Immortal. It just doesn't work for me either - sure I can cripple an AI and take another capital - but I actually get less land than if I had REXed normally and my position relative to the other AIs is poorer than if I had done my normal expansion.

Some maps are kinder than others. The more room you have to grab cities peacefully, the less appealing the axe rush. I can easily describe a few situations where I could/would pull it off on either of those difficulties:

1. Boxed in to 3 cities or less: Not much choice here...you're probably on a peninsula. Hope you have copper.

2. One AI on the continent/landmass, and it's near you: Pretty straightforward too. You kill this AI, and you get 15+ city sites to settle at your leisure with nobody taking them in the anywhere near future. Might as well get that AI out of the way. Maybe it's different on deity, but IMO getting 15+ cities on immortal is game-breaking. A game breaking advantage that soon? I'll take it.

3. You spawn next to a non-protective leader that is virtually guaranteed to attack you: Basically any close-spawn to a warmonger. The war mechanics work in such a way that if you'll be the only civ bordering with one of the monty/shaka/gk/alex type asp-hats, you're going to be attacked. You're the first target they will look at every time they roll their RNG declare-odds. They're likely to roll an attack before you get them to pleased, much less friendly. Note that if they border someone else, getting them to pleased early will make them almost certain to hit someone else. But if it's just you, it's probably going to save hammers to just kill them. It's not like you can settle 0 cities after the axe prep. Sure, you'll have a bigger AI to deal with later somewhat, but hopefully it isn't one of the other PS loving idiots who will also declare (if it is, don't rush if they border you unless desperate, or you're a sitting duck and they will see you as one).

I find I axe rush fairly infrequently now, but I've seen maps that warrant it.

Of course, if you play on marathon, you'll probably want to take advantage of the free heroic epic in every city as soon as possible. The AI buildunitprob is set for each AI regardless of speed - the human's is not. A free HE in all cities means that much of the AI spam advantage can be erased by raising one's own tendency to build units...the AIs just don't take advantage the same way.

 

[Ibian]

Good points. Guess there is still lots of little war tricks i dont know about, what with being a small empire pacifist type. Also i have always used siege until now, which was one of my more annoying issues so im still learning how to go without them.

 

[6K Man]

Don't get me wrong, siege is VERY helpful. Even Chokonu can't knock down cultural defenses. But sometimes, you don't have the option to wait for Construction.

 

[lightsedge]

Like TMIT said, often it makes sense to expand as much as you can peacefully. In my current game, I was on a medium-size landmass with 1 neighbor. I considered rushing when I got copper early, but decided not to. Instead, I expanded fairly quickly, but not at the expense of my economy. I also based my decisions on where to found cities on what the next best city location was, and didn't not rush to block off my neighbor, even though I could have. In the meantime, I traded techs with my neighbor. Once all the good land was peacefully settled, I built an army and continued my expansion through conquest. One big bonus was that I captured 3 holy cities (actually two as one was double holy with two shrines!), and several Wonders.

By leaving the AI civ around, I basically got improved land, improved cities, tech, trade routes, wonders, and holy cities, in return for a hammers on a short war later on (I used espionage to blitz). If I had killed him off early on, I would not get most of this. It took a while to meet other civs as well, so I would even lose trade and tech by essentially isolating myself by eliminating him.

Granted this was a pretty ideal situation for keeping the AI around for a while - peaceful techer AI and fairly isolated from other AIs - but it shows that just because you can rush, doesn't mean you should, with respect to where your civ will be in 4000 years.

Things to consider:
1. Room to grow
2. AI usefulness (tech trading and wonder building) and aggressiveness
3. Distance to AI
4. AI defense (hill cities, protective)
5. Any other AIs? (don't want to isolate yourself)


Back to the main topic - I agree that if you're going to lose units from upkeep, you might as well use them in war if you can get something out of it. And being able to attack without waiting for bombardment does make things faster.

As mentioned before, using siege does give the AI more time to whip and bring reinforcements. I guess that's why the spies + mounted combo is so effective. Not only do you prevent much whipping in the immediate target, a quicker war means their other cities producing less too. This is especially useful if you have a big tech lead, like early cuirassiers.

Generally though, I'd stick with bringing siege units. It's much more efficient hammer-wise, and especially useful against large garrisons. Sometimes, parking your stack outside a city while bombarding will cause the AI to reinforce it with units from elsewhere. This can be to your advantage, as it allows you to destroy many units in one shot, while maximizing collateral damage.

 

[Skallagrimson]

When I have enough EPs, I spy down the city defense and bonk heads with axes/swords. Against archers they do well enough (just minor attrition from bad luck combats). Against LBs on flat land the swords obviously do better than the axes, but the swords are still doing the job (still with minor attrition, losing 1 to 2 per city raid). It's when the AI bring crossbows into their city D that I have to rethink the CR lineup and start to include siege and/or horse. Or get the CR upgraded to Maces.