Some beginner questions about war

[LikeMike]

Hi guys,

I´m not really a beginner in the Civ world - have been playing since the first game (skipped Civ III) and enjoying it very much. But I´m not really good at it... and that`s probably since I don`t really like the war aspect of the game. So I´m playing at low difficulties and winning by a landslide. Now I´d like to move up to Prince (gasp) and have some questions:

1. So I start the game with a scout, monument, worker - and then build a second settler a little later. At what time should I start to build a military? Build barracks and other military buildings in every city first? How many cities should I have?

2. I know that I should try to build the units I have ressources for (Swordsmen, Horses etc.) - but do you have any rule of thumb how the military is supposed to look (like 1/3 melee, 1/3 archers, 1/3 catapults) and how many units I should start with?

3. Keep building units when the war begins, or always retreat wounded units and build other stuff in the cities?

4. What to do with all the units when the war is over? Park them around the empire?

5. How big should an army be, so that the danger of being attacked is low?

Thanks guys!

Mike

 

[Browd]

1. So I start the game with a scout, monument, worker - and then build a second settler a little later. At what time should I start to build a military? Build barracks and other military buildings in every city first? How many cities should I have?

On Prince, for defense (offense is the next question), you can get by with a much smaller military (couple of archers -- eventually maybe 1 per city), your original warrior and your scout. Don't bother with walls or barracks.

2. I know that I should try to build the units I have ressources for (Swordsmen, Horses etc.) - but do you have any rule of thumb how the military is supposed to look (like 1/3 melee, 1/3 archers, 1/3 catapults) and how many units I should start with?

Actually just because you have resources doesn't mean you should build those units. The Swordsman melee line leads through muskets, rifles, GW infantry, etc., so that is a more useful upgrade line than Spearman to Pikemen to Landers, etc. The horse line ends up with tanks, and is certainly useful, but not vital. For defense, ranged units are key. On offense, ranged units are also key. Common mix is 66+% ranged, and 33-% melee. The catapult line is not terribly helpful until you get to cannons (trebs are OK) and not really needed until your cross-bows aren't enough to bring down a city. Seige units are almost always useless on defense (they have low ranged combat strength, with bonus vs. cities--not good on ddefense, even before you factor in their use of one movement point to set up for firing).

3. Keep building units when the war begins, or always retreat wounded units and build other stuff in the cities?

Really depends on what your cities need and whether your existing army can stay intact, keep earning promotions and keep moving on to the next target city. Generally, more highly promoted units you have, the fewer new units you need. Of course, you should plan to replace units that are lost.

4. What to do with all the units when the war is over? Park them around the empire?

If there are still CS barb quests to be satisfied, go hunting. Otherwise, reposition units for your next target. If you have a large army, either use it or endure the maintenance cost.

5. How big should an army be, so that the danger of being attacked is low?

Two responses. First, to just deter attacks, you want to be the middle, or the lower end of the top half, of the miliary demographics screen (but even that depends on who your neighbors are). Second, attacks aren't always a bad thing. They spice up the game and provide opportunities to destroy the invaders and respond with a counterattack to seize a puppet or two.

 

[joncnunn]

Hi guys,

1. At what time should I start to build a military? Build barracks and other military buildings in every city first? How many cities should I have?

2. I know that I should try to build the units I have ressources for (Swordsmen, Horses etc.) - but do you have any rule of thumb how the military is supposed to look (like 1/3 melee, 1/3 archers, 1/3 catapults) and how many units I should start with?

3. Keep building units when the war begins, or always retreat wounded units and build other stuff in the cities?

4. What to do with all the units when the war is over? Park them around the empire?

5. How big should an army be, so that the danger of being attacked is low?

Thanks guys!

Mike

#1 Barracks: I wait until Midevil era before building any.

Number of cities: Wide varity here:
Tall is 4. Semi-tall is 5 or 6 (with intention of growing them) Wide tends to be massive with intention on keeping every city with the exception of the capital small.
There's also the Tall + puppet empire. (Only found 3 or 4 cities but go conquering and leave as puppets)
When to build military? Are you planning an offensive war? Or do you just want to be able to defend yourself? It makes a big difference

#2 A defensive army (one suitable for defending yourself but nothing else) will typically have a ranged unit per city; maybe an extra one is they only have 2 cities. It might also have 1 or 2 melee units and/or 1 or 2 Horse Archers.
An offensive army is a bit era specific. A classical era army tends to add the Sword line. Later on siege weapons would be added and so might Calvary.
A naval task force to take out coastal cities typically builds 4 Frigates (often built as the first ranged naval unit) and 2 to 4 Privateers depending upon how many sea tiles can attack that city.

#3 Best to minimize unit loses; AI has production bonuses at higher levels so best not to get into wars of attrition. The idea is not to have your soldiers die for your country but to force the enemy's soldiers to die for his. Your builds will be situation dependent. Also when it looks like your winning, be sure to build happiness buildings if your planning on conquering (& keeping) cities. Your happiness needs will sky rocket if you take over cities.

#4 When not in use: Ranged units belong in cities; if you have more of this type than cities, then place in tiles that can't be attacked the first turn of the war.
Melee units: Typically in hard terraign near borders (Hills / Forest)
Horse units & Seige units. Usually interior of empire along the road network.

#5 Difficulty level dependent and at some levels is much higher than you actually need to defend yourself. See defensive army above.

 

[budweiser]

The way its setup now the c-bows are your best bet. Try going for the wheel and you can buy/build archers while you get writing/philo and build archers while you research construction. Then upgrade your archers. You need 1 or 2 melee more, try to get your scout in on it too. I had 5 archers out when I hit const last night on immortal. By 650BC I had won 2 wars already including taking 1 capital. I have 4 cities 2 puppets, #1 in score. Pretty much game over.

 

[LikeMike]

Thanks guys - I will try your suggestions out in my next gamne and I will try to go for a conquest victory, to get comfortable with the whole aspect. Any tip for the leader I should take to go full on war this time around?

 

[Browd]

You could pick an Attilla or Genghis or some such leader, but you may be more comfortable with a civ and leader you already know and just adjust your game play to be more aggressive.

 

[budweiser]

If you are going try the archery thing, why not go with China or England so you can turn them into UUs later?

 

[Light Cleric]

If you want to play war with a pure warmonger civ, play Gehngis/Atilla/Wu and blow people up with their ridiculous UUs. Unfortunately they warmonger much differently than most other civs so you probably won't get a lot of general experience out of it.

As far as unit composition goes its hard to say. I generally pack enough enough ranged units to have backup to cycle around when the main attackers get low. For melee I generally only have a few units, they tend to just play meatshields. The exception is if it's someone like Rome(Legions) or Sweden(Caroleans) in which case I'll use them much more aggressively against cities.

Siege is tricky. I ignore Catapaults 95% of the time because their benefits usually don't justify their frailty. For Trebuchets/Cannons I usually bring in 3-4 at the same time and deploy. That way, even if one of them gets shot up, the others still get their shots off, and a handful of shots will be HUGE in taking down a city with the appropriate era siege.

To answer your question about what to do with the army, the answer is go murder someone else with it. For defense, sometimes the AI will end up DoWing you even when you have enough defense to hold them so it's hard to say.

 

[LikeMike]

Well, my first go at it didn`t go well. I picked China and was determined to go the Great Library route to get a head start. But that pushed back my first settler considerably. Wouldn`t be too bad if Monty wasn`t right beside my capital (didn`t notice that at first). He attacked me before I really was ready for it. I had two pikes and 2 archers (and 2 cities) - unfortunately no iron was anywhere near me. I managed to defend myself pretty well and pushed out some more units. But my counterattack was pretty embarassing.

For one thing, I couldn`t attack with my archers from 2 spaces out - I am still not sure on the rules here, there was no hill in the way, just woods. But I didn`t find out about that until I tried. And it takes a really long time to get that defense down with just 3 units adjacent to the city. Well I lost several units, then Monty wanted peace, which I granted. As soon as I saw 2 other civs marching on him, I decided, what the heck, let`s join the party. But pretty soon after that I was alone in there again. And without range units on the outside or siege units, my guys were dropping like flies again.

So, bad strategy on my side again. I guess next time I will concentrate on defense first and then use my archers right. Can you guys help me on that real quick: when can`t I shoot 2 tiles away? Also I hope to get some iron next time to get some better units up there... and perhaps a siege unit or two...

 

[joncnunn]

So, bad strategy on my side again. I guess next time I will concentrate on defense first and then use my archers right. Can you guys help me on that real quick: when can`t I shoot 2 tiles away? Also I hope to get some iron next time to get some better units up there... and perhaps a siege unit or two...

Most units need direct line of sight. * This is blocked by what you expect (hills/mountains/and unless you are on a hill a forest).
(There is a bug involving units with range 3 that still need direct line of sight where for the 3rd ring out the LOS has to go thru a specific tile at 2 hexes.)

* The ones that don't have a promotion "Indirect Fire"; they still require a spotter.

While Archers are great for defense; they really need to be upgraded before they have any business outside your territory. That would be composites if you have a screen / crossbows if you don't.

 

[sufficiency]

IMO all ranged units + a couple of melee (horseman preferred) so you can take cities.

You will run into problems with this setup against opponents on rough terrains (hills + forest/jungle = death). Against those opponents I just wait until dynamite =\.

 

[comatosedragon]

#1 Barracks: I wait until Medieval era before building any.

I'm not intending to hijack the thread, but this makes me wonder about something. I play almost elusively emperor, and I hardly, if ever, build a barracks*. If I were, I would only build it in my production city, but to me it seems like wasted hammers (I play on normal speed). I am able to win most any war (either defensive or offensive) with good placement of units, and a little forward thinking.

Is a barracks really ever necessary? I think pumping out two or three extra units is more favorable, I find the experience from barbs or early border wars (or invasions) more than sufficient.

*(the obvious exception being Russia)

 

[joncnunn]

I'm not intending to hijack the thread, but this makes me wonder about something. I play almost elusively emperor, and I hardly, if ever, build a barracks*. If I were, I would only build it in my production city, but to me it seems like wasted hammers (I play on normal speed). I am able to win most any war (either defensive or offensive) with good placement of units, and a little forward thinking.

Is a barracks really ever necessary? I think pumping out two or three extra units is more favorable, I find the experience from barbs or early border wars (or invasions) more than sufficient.

*(the obvious exception being Russia)

Mine is mostly for Frigates & Privateers. One copy built until I'm about ready to build HE when I go on a barracks spree, build HE it in that city (already having an Armory), and then sell the surplus barracks.

 

[sufficiency]

I'm not intending to hijack the thread, but this makes me wonder about something. I play almost elusively emperor, and I hardly, if ever, build a barracks*. If I were, I would only build it in my production city, but to me it seems like wasted hammers (I play on normal speed). I am able to win most any war (either defensive or offensive) with good placement of units, and a little forward thinking.

Is a barracks really ever necessary? I think pumping out two or three extra units is more favorable, I find the experience from barbs or early border wars (or invasions) more than sufficient.

*(the obvious exception being Russia)

imo Heroic Epic is OP so barracks are great.

 

[Djinn]

I want to attack my opponent. I'm just a bit ahead of him on tech. I'm sure he'll discover aluminum before I can complteley destroy him. He has just two oil resources. Can I rush in, pillage his oil resources and squat on them, thus denying him the ability to produce units dependant on these resources? Trading for them aside.

 

[Browd]

Sure, but your caveat ("Trading for them aside") is the most vulnerable part of your analysis -- if he can trade for those resources, your pillage/squat strat will be ineffective.

 

[Djinn]

So... How can I cut off his trading ability as well? Any suggestions?

 

[Browd]

Essentially unachievable. You could try bribing every other civ that has that resource to DOW him and/or conquer every other civ's city that has that resource. And either ally or conquer every CS that has that resource. And lay claim to any no-man's land that has that resource.

Good luck with all that.

 

[Djinn]

No way to blockade him, and thus cut off his trade routes?

 

[joncnunn]

No way to blockade him, and thus cut off his trade routes?

In Civ V, you can cut his internal trade off via blockade (just the GPT you normally get from trade routes), but not external trades.
This is in sharp contrast to all earlier versions of Civ.