Swords and Rifles - using outdated units

[InvisibleStalke]

Lately I've been experimenting with producing more units on Immortal (thanks Aelf for your unit spam metastrategy thread). One of the things it has done is give me a lot more outdated units - which has changed my method of warfare quite a bit.

My favourite time to go to war is with rifles. Up until now I would have concentrated on diplomatic defense and built enough units to defend myself against surprise attack, but not worried about the Power Graph per se. Because the AI's power is only a limited indicator of how strong their actually attacking armies will be.

But Aelf's thread challenged me to create more units to keep power up. Which meant for me more swords and catapults. Mainly because these are units that could actually be useful later when I went to war. And some muskets and knights later. I didn't see much point in stocking up on an infinite supply of longbows like the AI. Turns out it didn't affect my research rate too badly. But it meant that when I got rifling I probably had a stack of 20-30 swords and 20 catapults/trebs. The catapults/trebs had an obvious role - taking down city defenses. But what about all my outdated units with metal implements?

Some of them had good city raider promotions and were worth upgrading to rifles. But I can quickly draft another 20-30 rifles and even drafted rifles beat swords. And I can't generate enough cash to upgrade all my swords to rifles nearly as quickly.

My solution was just to send them to the front anyway. So instead of my nearly pure riflemen armies of the past, my army was a hodgepodge of new rifles and lots of outdated units. But it was a BIG hodgepodge. And I discovered that those outdated units were really helpful:

1) My stack was BIG. Instead of sending in 30 units I was sending 60. And the stack could just laugh at collateral damage. It was so big the Immortal AI just ignored it and cowered.

2) Collateral counter attacks all but disappeared. The AI would have 10 cats in a city and throw 1 of them at my stack. Just how it expected the other 10 to defend was beyond me.

3) The swords gave my stack a lot more offensive push. After the rifles cleaned out the enemy maces and longbows there were usually a lot of cats, trebs, pikemen and wounded longbows left. City raider swords could finish these off - and if I lost some who cared?

4) Since the swords gained XP attacking catapults etc they reached CR 3. After each captured city I could promote a new CR3 rifle using the cash - and those are excellent. Much better than spending the money earlier when they were only CR 1 or 2.

5) Because my stack was bigger the assault always got completed in a single turn. Which gave the AI less time to bring counter forces into play.

6) Because I could hold back several of my drafted rifles instead of using them to kill the last defenders, I could move a strong defensive force into the city to hold it.

7) Because I attacked catapults etc with a sword rather than a rifle, I get more XP and get my great generals faster. Attacking when it is overkill gets you only 1 XP.

Not a huge tip perhaps, but I'm sending swords out with my rifles every time in the future.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Interesting! I always keep em back as hapiness fillers and in the hope that I will get more cash from the war so I can upgrade them later, but I guess that's only worth it for the CR2+ guys...

 

[vicawoo]

Well, if a 40 hammer unit can win a battle why not. However, they'll cost gold, and i always wonder if i could leverage them much earlier.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Well, if a 40 hammer unit can win a battle why not. However, they'll cost gold, and i always wonder if i could leverage them much earlier.

I usually REX early getting to 10-13 cities - either through early war or peaceful expansion blocking the AI. After that its usually a while before my economy can stand further expansion. I never like warring in medieval - maybe I need a few games with Ragnar or Justinian again to cure that.

 

[UncleJJ]

I have already found this out myself and have written a little bit about it. Well done for starting a thread on the topic. So obviously I agree heartily with you Invisiblestalke (as usual )

In fact although I agree with your idea of combining rifles and swords, I can go one better. It should actually be Cannons and Swords ... and maces and pikes and axes and even warriors YES it's true, I have even used warriors to march with my SoD and promote them to CR3 before upgrading to rifles. Cannons, and now in my Izzy game artillery, reduce the longbow defenders to such a pulped sliver of health that a CR 1 warrior gets a 70% chance against them. If he wins that's 3 exp and with 2 wins like that and he's at CR3 and ready to join the Rifle Brigade. I also use the gold looted from the captured city to upgrade my troops at a steady rate rather than lowering the research / espionage slider.

Concerning the dilution of collateral damage by having a very large stack. That is something I have long used (from Warlords) since discovering drafted janissaries could withstand the AI's desperate defence tactics of sacrificing a few catapults to damage the attacking SoD. That is a tactic which works against other AIs who don't usually have much in the way of healing. But against me with a big stack (bolstered by drafted units, out of date units and the garrison units for the city once captured) and a powerful healer (Medic 3 GG) it means at most a one turn delay while the damage is healed. Usually that time can be used to bombard the defences to zero so I can shrug off the damage.

Good thread topic; offering a fresh insight into one of the finer points of playing this game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The AI is pretty funny at war. It either charges its stack into death traps, or flops around like a fish on land.

Troop spam has helped me out a lot too. In the OP's case, it's not going to cost him much because he has so many cities. More cities + pop = more free-of-upkeep units. Having a high power rating is helpful in a number of ways, which he's done plenty well pointing out already.

For me the optimal wartime seems situational. I don't shy away from war in medieval times. In the middle ages, the ABSOLUTE KEY tech is engineering. You have the all-important CR II trebs available to you, as well as the requisite stack protection of pikes ans xbows. Nothing before muskets can attack a stack of pikes and xbows with any measure of success. CR II trebs attacking longbows will actually be pretty successful unless they're promoted protective lognbows, and even then you'll probably only lose 1 extra on average.

To me, this seems that you'd wage war in the middle ages depending on the game situation. Sometimes it's easy to wait until later for rifles or cannons, but in many cases I can grab that land sooner without any truly taxing losses. This is especially true in scenarios that offer backstab opportunities.

One thing that the AI just can't handle (and has won me some wars vs massive SoDs) is siege cheese. All you have to do is take a city, pull out behind it with minimal garrison, and let their SoD retake it. In the middle ages, this is REALLY effective, as the AI doesn't really send longbows on the offensive. If you've got a reasonable stack with some trebs parked next to their recaptured city, it gets ugly fast. You won't lose many trebs - their best defenders vs them will be knights, which don't have huge odds vs CR II trebs even at full health. Everything else takes collateral and pretty soon their troops are all hovering around 4 str - meaning just CR swords or even the xbows/pikes themselves can clean up easily.

While the above takes a little more effort to set up (you do, after all, need a troop mix), you can see how most of the AI cities won't force many losses on you at parity that way, and you'll be killing their SoD at 5-1 or better, which is spectacular. Any time my economy can handle this and I see an opportunity to do it, I go for it. It leaves 1 less troublesome AI in the game, and you either have a vassal or some more good land to work with (and by medieval times they've usually developed it already...free villages or even towns!).

Troop spam is a pre-requisite to this, and when you hit depends on game situation. I like rifles too actually, though perhaps not as much as the grenade/cannon line.

 

[Iranon]

I use a limited version of this quite often... outdated units tag along, help mop up the wounded AI troops and then stay as crowd control. It seems a shame to leave expensive and highly promoted troops at home.

 

[Dirk1302]

If you war with cannons then all units down to axes maybe even archers are useful, because after the cannon onslaught they take down defenders just as easily as rifles would do. And indeed the bigger the stack the more subdued the AI tends to react.

Edit: I see that Uncle JJ suggested the same, i agree 100 % with him. TheMeInTeam also suggests spamming in combination with trebs.As for attacking with trebs, they're good but from trebs to cannons is roughly 3 techs: gunpowder, chemistry (bulbing) and steel (from liberalism) and cannons are so much better than trebs. Upgrade cost from treb to cannon is very low also.

 

[Johnpecan]

If you war with cannons then all units down to axes maybe even archers are useful, because after the cannon onslaught they take down defenders just as easily as rifles would do. And indeed the bigger the stack the more subdued the AI tends to react.

Edit: I see that Uncle JJ suggested the same, i agree 100 % with him. TheMeInTeam also suggests spamming in combination with trebs.As for attacking with trebs, they're good but from trebs to cannons is roughly 3 techs: gunpowder, chemistry (bulbing) and steel (from liberalism) and cannons are so much better than trebs. Upgrade cost from treb to cannon is very low also.

Also cannons ignore the castle bonus which the AI LOVES to build.
Nothing like sending out trebs with rifles only to be stifled my a longbowman on a hill with 125% defense.
[Your trebuchet has lowered the defense in soandso's city to 121%]
[Your trebuchet has lowered the defense in soandso's city to 117%]
[Your trebuchet has lowered the defense in soandso's city to 113%]

 

[Dirk1302]

^exactly 10 cannons do the job in one turn, often you've 3 to spare so you can take the city in the same turn.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Cannons sounds like a very good alternative. My next game is going to be with Suleiman, so drafted Janisseries plus cannons plus my stacks of swords should be a pretty good combo.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Also cannons ignore the castle bonus which the AI LOVES to build.
Nothing like sending out trebs with rifles only to be stifled my a longbowman on a hill with 125% defense.
[Your trebuchet has lowered the defense in soandso's city to 121%]
[Your trebuchet has lowered the defense in soandso's city to 117%]
[Your trebuchet has lowered the defense in soandso's city to 113%]

Rifles ignore the castles though - so if its a weak culture city you can sometimes just attack immediately.

And I usually have 20 or so trebs and catapults in my stack mainly with accuracy promotions. I can usually reduce the castle defense in two turns.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes, accuracy trebs help alot.

Don't get me wrong, if I went the treb medieval warfare route, I'm going for cannons ASAP. My point is it's not always necessary to wait for them . If I'm warring that much I tend not to win liberalism race (especially going the bottom path heavily in that scenario). It'd be a major reach to hit steel with lib, at least for me. Maybe I war too much early on, but I like doing that.

The AI always has a chance to improve. I'm happy if I'm sticking it to them. Cannons are definitely a priority though, as I see it as one of the most game-changing military techs if gotten even just reasonably early.

I find myself wanting to grab land anytime I can do so without tanking my economy or fighting entirely with wrong age units, and without getting the world to hate me instantly.

BTW - I think it's utterly stupid that rifles ignore castles, but it is indeed true, and if it's in the game it is to be taken advantage of. I'd still like to see an antiquated rifle fire a bullet through more than a foot of stone though.

 

[Dirk1302]

^I beeline for cannons usually so from trebs to cannons is often 10-15 turns for me. If you start warring earlier then chemistry, steel are expensive and trebs will have to carry the day. We're agreed that with good siege you can have alot of mediocre outdated units because everything will go after siege's done, in case of trebs you will need a few good defenders though, pikes come to mind since knights are probably the biggest nuisance, some anti mace crossbows too probably. Interested in what you build here because i've actually never done a full scale trebs attack.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You guessed it outright actually...trebs covered by pikes and xbows. I usually wind up with some other stuff left over from classical times too (CR swords prior to maces are pretty effective here actually, and axes are acceptable also. Once CS rolls around via trade then a couple CR III maces help, otherwise it's just pikes/muskets). Techs like steel and chemistry are way more expensive than the techs before them for someone who's still learning to keep economy humming. Often after a treb war I'll camp and recover to cannons though. Enough land beats everything :/.

Also, if Ivory is available, elephants make good replacements for pikes and I will get them instead in that scenario. Stables and settled GG's open up the possibility for some pretty powerful Wellies.

Abusing the AI war mechanics might be the only thing I'm actually good at in Civ 4...I'm still trying to catch up to you guys who pull 500 BPT in the 1500's and so forth. I win with total crap sometimes .

Before I jumped to emperor some of my better monarch games involved trading a friendly AI for nationalism then drafting muskets like mad from a globe city, using trebs and later cannons to crush defenses. Pikes and elephants, interestingly, are solid against mounted clean up until cavalry, and will still be the top defenders even against those (until you have rifles). It's kind of funny, the AI often cowers from massive stacks even when they could inflict losses.

 

[BurN]

The question is if that was really worth all the upkeep. Less upkeep -> higher slider -> faster to riffles -> more riffles.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The question is if that was really worth all the upkeep. Less upkeep -> higher slider -> faster to riffles -> more riffles.

Whatever you prefer killing the AI with . I honestly don't think it even matters if you can keep the economy going enough. Unless I'm badly behind in tech the AI seems outlandishly bad at fighting.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

The question is if that was really worth all the upkeep. Less upkeep -> higher slider -> faster to riffles -> more riffles.

The less upkeep is fairly debatable - since I am probably have to build military at a rate not too far off where I am doing to avoid attacks and be able to defend myself. I've probably upped my unit construction by about 30% on my traditional rifle beeline. It didn't appear to delay me off when I usually got rifles - but every game you improve your play in other ways so maybe I could have gotten there faster with fewer units.

It has definitely made a difference to the amount of punch my initial attack carries. Its much heavier and it keeps going much more easily. End result is I'm winning more domination / conquest on immortal whereas I was typically winning spaceship before then.

Now there are other ways of doing it I'm sure. I was just pleasantly surprised to discover that an underutilized resource I already had - the outdated units - could be put to such valuable use.

 

[Endure]

This is a very interesting read.

I've already read that it's best to upgrade your units that have experience/promotions and disband the rest to save on upkeep and just build more modern units. Now this is suggesting the opposite.

I have a tendency to use my strongest units in my attacking force, and will only use more obsolete units as garrison troops at best. Next time I have a large group of obsolete units I will certainly have to give this a try.

 

[Everest]

Very interesting, InvisibleStalke.

Unintentionally I did just that tonight - bringing praetorians to my rifle party. They did just fine and now I have way more CR3 rifles than I ever had before. Can't wait to see how they will do against tanks.

I've already read that it's best to upgrade your units that have experience/promotions and disband the rest to save on upkeep and just build more modern units. Now this is suggesting the opposite.

Yes, but you gotta balance it - I upgrade my CR but kill of old unpromoted warriors if my starts to drain.

To sum it up: