Surprise attack!

[shirleyrocks]

Say you're in a situation where an enemy civ launched an attack on your country which you were not prepared for. You have a light screen of defenders (spearmen, pikemen) along your border cities and that's about it. You can immediately switch the production of some of your stronger, rear cities to some decent offensive units such as calvary...but it would still take a little time to get a sizeable force together.

My question is...do you use this calvary (or whatever...they could be tanks if you want) to blunt the attacks into your territory or should you use your offensive force to launch an attack on HIS cities, possibly distracting him and taking the pressure off of your weak front? I'd love to hear some theory on this.

Uh...of course...remember that this is all hypothetical. Yeah...hypothetical...that's it.

 

[costanza]

I would say not to counter-attack until you are sure you can hold your own border cities. A defensive position is significantly easier to maintain than taking that position offensively. It's that way in real life and seems to be like that in the game.

Point: Don't stretch youself thin by going after their cities if you have a "thin" defense of your own to begin with. Unless of course you have nukes and paratroopers which worked wonders in civ2, has anyone tried this in 3 yet?

 

[deadseasquirrel]

exact thing happened to me about 900 AD. warlord, 8 civs, standard map, playing persia.

french came up to border, walked on over with spearmen/swordsmen and i kindly asked them to not let the door hit them in the ass on the way out. well, they must not have liked the way i asked cuz they declared war.

i had about 3 turns before they were gonna get to one of my cities. and, like you, i didnt have much of a defense in place. and certainly no offense.

but i did have money. and tech.

diplomacy became the answer. and no, not with the french. the wouldn't take my envoy. so i contacted the english, the zulus... everyone around them. offered a tech or two, some cash, maps, whatever and got them to declare war against france.

i got a little help with the distraction and not one of my cities was lost (two came awfully close but i rushed some knights). joan wanted peace about 10 turns or so later. she's still fighting the zulus tho.

dss

 

[Zannhart]

aaaaa

 

[Jay H]

I find the AI very likely to go after defenseless units, like artillery and workers, even when you have hoards of tanks pressing down on them and all they have are infantry. I've had some artillery in automatic move from far away to the front lines, joinging my Panzers (I was Germany) attacking the heart of the French (paris, their capital). He would drag out a unit and capture some undefended artillery but he could not drag them back, nor himself to the city so the next turn, I simply wiped him out with my tanks and recaptured the artillery. Kind of like going fishing for the French. If he knows he cannot go out and back in the same turn, he's wasting his time and opening himself to some unfortified attacks by me...

Jay

 

[Dearmad]

jay H: YES- this problem with the AI should be looked into and fixed ifits possible... bugs me too- I've pulled it enough to understand how to use it as a tectic, so now I don't allow it to myself anymore unless it just happens by chance...