Some thoughts on waging war

[narmox]

Reposting this from another thread as I feel it deserves to be seen in here Some of this stuff is already known, though I feel it bears repeating just in case anyone has missed it.

My take on war so far is that it can be fairly easy early on, but impossible late in the game.

Not true, I waged wars in every era now, and it's possible to wage war in every era successfully. (Noble difficulty level)

Don't throw your knights against pikemen (and too many other examples to give here).

Dont underestimate the use of barracks and the appropriate civics for extra promotions when you build new units.

Dont underestimate that dusty old Samurai with Combat I, II, III and Pinch promotions, who can probably kill a musketman better than a musketman can.

Don't go to war past the classical era without catapults or other siege units, and USE THEM to totally batter down a city's defense bonus then use them up to weaken all units in a city RIGHT BEFORE YOUR CHARGE! Don't wait after using up your catapults or the units in the city will regenerate.

Don't underestimate the medic I and II promotions! A well-placed Pikeman or Rifleman can help heal not only the units on his tile, but the units on the 8 adjacent tiles too! Keep him just behind your lines so he can heal units as they are attacking the city.

Don't put all your units in 1 stack, or that puny enemy catapult will show you a thing or two right before a cavalry charge.

For that matter, don't build only 1 type of unit, or you'll get your *** kicked to kingdom come when his war elephants come to eat your knights for breakfast.

Don't underestimage upgrading units. Yes, it costs money. What else are you gonna do with that money? Pay tribute to your victorious opponent? As a bonus, you get to keep all those promotions your units got in the previous wars, which often makes them much more powerful than units you can churn out in your high production cities! (keep in mind units with more than 10 XP are reduced to 10 XP when upgrading, so maybe wait till they get one more promotion by vanquishing a weakened unit before upgrading it - unless you need that extra firepower NOW of course!)

And finally, very very very important, unlike previous civ games, seriously don't underestimate the value of pillaging! Not only does it give you loads of money (put 4 units in a stack and pillage a town will pillage it down to nothing in 1 turn instead of 4 turns), but you'll also cut off your opponent's resources if you plan it well enough. A few longbowmen with double Guerilla upgrades accompanied by some pikemen with archery and melee bonuses will lay waste to your enemy's iron and copper centers!

With careful planning in fact, you should have a core group of units you build in the ancient era that last all the way to the modern era and get 5+ promotions, waging various wars with the help of newer units and a constant supply of siege units to fuel your city conquests. And thank god for that combat odds calculator which helps you chose the right unit for the right task!

What is war good for? LOADS OF FUN It's just not the mindless affair it was in civ2

 

[Joh]

Nice post. The pilaging point is a good one.

That said, I'm not really too fussed. I remember reading a huge post yesterday somewhere about some guy who wanted to turn it into a proper war game with realistic supply lines and everything, but if I want to spend all my time moving armies around I think Rome: total war is the game to play. Civ 4 is good for strategic warfare.

 

[mrjepson]

You do get something like realistic supply lines in that it costs more unit upkeep for units in enemy territory.

 

[SlayerofDeitys]

Here is a tip that I found to be helpful when waging war. When you are targeting your enemies farms for pillaging or bombing hit the farms that are next to fresh water first. Why? Because after irrigation is discovered all farms that are connected to the initial one by the source of fresh water receive a +1 bonus to food. Take out the first farm and you kill that bonus to all the farms reliant upon it AND stop them from building more farms away from the water (unless biology has been discovered but they still will not receive the bonus).

 

[Good Omens]

If you have the option, don't just pillage, but occupy the enemy squares. This prevents them from working that land, and also from redeveloping the space as well. If you can sit a few units on your opponent's iron resource, for example, you can prevent them from regaining its use later. Of course, this only works until they chase you away, but sometimes it's worth it.

 

[weakciv]

... (keep in mind units with more than 10 XP are reduced to 10 XP when upgrading ...

Now THAT is something I didnt know. I have not seen this yet but I also have not been looking. Ill have to check it out on my current game at home. I am in a war with america (im japan) and have just received a windfall of money (i love great merchants). I was about to upgrade all my units but decided to save and go to sleep.

 

[narmox]

Keep the good tips coming!!

weakciv: Althoug the units lose XP if they have more than 10, they do not lose the promotions! So you must decide between extra firepower and XP, or maybe use the units to finish off weakened enemy units to get that next promotion then upgrade, or just not upgrade some of them at all. Basically consider every unit seperately. I hope you don't have 200

 

[VoxDei]

The other advantage to retaining and upgrading Ancient era units is the City Raider promotion. As far as I can see, you can't give City Raider to any gunpowder units that are built from scratch. However, if you give it to those Warriors, Axemen and Swordsmen right at the start of the game, the ones that survive the ancient era fighting can later be upgraded up to Infantry/Marines. I'm really getting attached to my Infantry with a 45% city attack bonus from City Raider 2.

Just need to be a bit careful with them because they're irreplaceable if you lose them.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

Just a quick tip that I'm sure most people know already. Don't attack units in a city that you aren't prepared to kill that turn. They'll just promote and be that much harder to kill. You can attack a city that has lots of units in it without taking the city in one turn, but when you realize you may not have enough strength on hand to kill the next guy don't keep attacking, wait for reinforcements or health recovery or for relatively undamaged units that were already used that turn to get another shot. The value of siege weapons can also not be underestimated, however in conjunction with the first point, Say you have 7 cats and a assorted units attacking a city and it takes 5 cats to destroy the city defense, wait until the next turn to start inflicting collateral damage so you can use all 7 instead of just 2. Obviously, if you can wipe them out without collateral damage then don't waste the turn or the cats but if it's necessary to weaken their units it's worth the waiting the turn and using them all, 'cause if you just use two and it's not enough damage to allow you to attack then you've just wasted two cats 'cause they'll just heal most of the damage before the next turn.

None of this is rocket science, but both things I learned the hard way in the first game or two and are now pretty much gospel for attacking cities. The only other thing is quite often if you're destroying a civ and you get to their capital last, they mave have "turtled" in their with so many units that you won't be able to take that city. Just pillage everything and make the best peace deal possible and move on to someone else. They're basically toast and you will now be able to out tech them and you can come back later with way better units and finish them off.

 

[remconius]

You do get something like realistic supply lines in that it costs more unit upkeep for units in enemy territory.

Another aspect of supply lines it that you invest siege units to take over cities. So you need to keep a steady stream of new siege units to support the attacking lines.

In order to keep attacking, ie deal with maintenance costs you'll need to have a few well developed cities in the background. They need to produce at least around 40 food (enough for 20 citizen) and have all the rest of the tiles with a lot of cottages to cover the increased maintenance costs.

I planning to try a continued conquest game on a huge map to see if a couple of commerce powerhouses can keep up with maintenance for a while.

These commerce powerhouses would look like this:
Most flatland, plains, grassland, preferable river for extra commerce. Then I build about 6 farms (=~18food), the other 14 tiles produce about 1.5 food on average =(~21 food), which is enough food to support 20 population. So those 14 tiles do not need to produce more food then their base production and can be littered with cottages. When these are fully developed they produce 84 commerce. Which can eventually be more than doubled with grocer, market, and bank. Rivers, trade routes will provide some more.

They should be able to produce 200 gold each in the long run and support the conquest of quite a few cities. I will be doing a game pretty soon to try this out and see if large scale early conquest like this is possible.

 

[jkp1187]

You do get something like realistic supply lines in that it costs more unit upkeep for units in enemy territory.

Really? Does anyone have the math on this?

 

[remconius]

Hover over the unit supply costs in the finance screen and it will tell you the breakdown.

 

[Lorteungen]

Some good advice, but:

Dont underestimate that dusty old Samurai with Combat I, II, III and Pinch promotions, who can probably kill a musketman better than a musketman can.

Useless comparison, a level 4 unit against a level 0. I don't think your samurai would stand much of a chance against an evenly experience musketman with all 3 city defense bonuses + pinch. But it's a moot point of course since nobody builds musketmen anyway, the most useless unit in the game.

Don't go to war past the classical era without catapults or other siege units, and USE THEM to totally batter down a city's defense bonus then use them up to weaken all units in a city RIGHT BEFORE YOUR CHARGE! Don't wait after using up your catapults or the units in the city will regenerate...... Don't put all your units in 1 stack, or that puny enemy catapult will show you a thing or two right before a cavalry charge.

Siege units work both ways, in fact the city will always get the first strike because you have to use a turn to get in position. Also because you generally need such huge armies to take a city you will almost always have close to 6 units in each of those stacks which means your advantage in spreading out is gone.

With careful planning in fact, you should have a core group of units you build in the ancient era that last all the way to the modern era and get 5+ promotions, waging various wars with the help of newer units and a constant supply of siege units to fuel your city conquests. And thank god for that combat odds calculator which helps you chose the right unit for the right task!

You must either save/load a lot or you're simply playing vastly inferior civs with obsolete units. 4 promotions isn't that hard but 5 is and 6 is extremely rare for offensive units that attack cities. How large is this core group of yours?

 

[narmox]

Ahh, here come the counter-arguments. Let me promote to 50% bonus against counter-arguments!

"Useless comparison" level 4 samurai against level 0 musketman was exactly my point! Why not send that level 4 samurai who will waste that musketman, rather than a noob level 0 musketman.

"Stacks get destroyed by siege units": Bring your units who have bonuses against siege units. Use medic units to heal yours faster. Have enough force that you can still take on the city after a bit of damage. Use fast units that can wait in the hills 2 tile away from the city while your infantry units protect them and take the brunt of the bombardment. etc etc etc

I RARELY save/load, and don't play against inferior civs. I plan carefully and don't needlessly throw my units at unbeatable enemies. In fact in my recent wars I even gave up on a city I newly conquered and had my troops fall back within my borders when I saw a stack of 5 elephants + some melee and archery units come my way, just cause my samurai had no chance at all against them and I needed to regroup.

If you are careful (but not to the point where you never fight lol) and use appropriate strategies, you will not lose too many of those core units.

Send in the siege units to whittle down the defenses, send some noob units if necessary to weaken the defenders, then your elite units will finish them off with minimal losses.

Worked pretty well for me on noble for major wars and city conquests.

 

[Arathorn]

I have a swordsman with Combat I, Combat II, Cover, City Raider I, City Raider II, and City Raider III. On Monarch. I'm doing a One-Built City challenge (no settlers, but I can capture cities). I'm aggressive, so the Combat I came free and so did a few xps. But it can be done. And he fought most of those battles pre-catapults (before my opponents had them too). It can be done, if you plan and fight intelligently. (and get a little lucky)

Yep, newb units can be sacrificed. Pults are the best at this, once they come along, since they do collateral damage. I go through artillery units FAST and core units rarely die. I think that's the way to go in Civ4.

As for enemy artillery, you can see them coming and react accordingly, in most cases. Roads only move 2 in the early game. In front of my main stack, I generally have a good "defensive" unit (either an archer with guerilla or an axeman with woodsman) approach the city and see what's defending. If the defenders include a number of artillery...I'll probably just pillage and go somewhere else. No sense risking my units on that. If not, I can see the artillery coming and take appropriate action at that time. A single collateral damage against my stack (which almost always includes a medic) delays the attack, but rarely prevents it. It's multiple artillery (2+) that are scary and those can be tactically avoided, most of the time.

Once the opponent gets railroads, it's much tougher. I generally build two stacks. The initial one is sent in as a diversion, with the second a bit behind. The first stack absorbs the artillery and dies. The second kills off the artillery of the opponent and is now relatively safe. 1:1 for a while but now I have the upper hand. Or I attack from the sea, take the penalty, but know my stack is safe while I get into position.

Arathorn

 

[narmox]

Those are great ideas Arathorn!!!

Sending spies or missionaries can also give the same scouting benefit as sending a unit or stack in advance, without incuring any combat losses. Though sending a stack as diversion can be a great idea. I probably inadvertantly did that by sending a pillaging stack, I pillaged AND created a diversion at the same time

 

[Lorteungen]

"Useless comparison" level 4 samurai against level 0 musketman was exactly my point! Why not send that level 4 samurai who will waste that musketman, rather than a noob level 0 musketman.

I misunderstood you then, my bad.

I RARELY save/load, and don't play against inferior civs. I plan carefully and don't needlessly throw my units at unbeatable enemies. In fact in my recent wars I even gave up on a city I newly conquered and had my troops fall back within my borders when I saw a stack of 5 elephants + some melee and archery units come my way, just cause my samurai had no chance at all against them and I needed to regroup.

If you are careful (but not to the point where you never fight lol) and use appropriate strategies, you will not lose too many of those core units.

Send in the siege units to whittle down the defenses, send some noob units if necessary to weaken the defenders, then your elite units will finish them off with minimal losses.

Worked pretty well for me on noble for major wars and city conquests.

Fair enough, I guess it all comes down to the amount of siege units you want to sacrifice. Generally I never sacrifice much more than 3 or 4 and with contemporate units that's almost never enough to ensure a 'safe' attack for your beefed up units. Still, I will maintain that without loading a game once in a while when you lose a lvl5 unit (nothing wrong with that, I do it myself sometimes when a loss is just too frustrating) to an inferior and wounded unit, those units are very rare and are hard to keep because the game always choses them to defend when they get too good (better than your defensive units).

 

[EridanMan]

I posted this earlier - but My strategy for waging war in Civ IV is a page out of "The Art Of War" - Never fight a battle you're not certain you will win (btw, I don't save-load either)...

I require myself to have a 3:1 advantage (in sheer numbers) on all the defending units in the cities I plan to seize before I even declare war- know your objective, know what you are going to face, and PREPARE FOR IT...

In general - War's in Civ-IV are decided before even the first trumpet sounds- its all who's better prepared... This is why (often) having the AI declare war on you is such a pain in the ass - because the AI knows this (in my experience).

 

[narmox]

Lorte: you're absolutely right, I lose some once in a while. It's unavoidable. And I build lots of siege units and lose them and build new ones and lose them, nonstop during a war. That's the nature of it, that's how the system is built and I adapted to it

 

[Lorteungen]

I have a swordsman with Combat I, Combat II, Cover, City Raider I, City Raider II, and City Raider III. On Monarch. I'm doing a One-Built City challenge (no settlers, but I can capture cities). I'm aggressive, so the Combat I came free and so did a few xps. But it can be done. And he fought most of those battles pre-catapults (before my opponents had them too). It can be done, if you plan and fight intelligently. (and get a little lucky)

I know it's possible, it's just unusual and unlikely to have a whole group of them as your core army. I had a level 8 (without aggressive trait) bowman once, he had something like 65 exp when he was killed. That was on defense of course.