The thunder of guns (or why I hate artillery)

[frob2900]

I generally play Monarch and go for domination victories. Invariably there is quite a bit of fighting involved in my games:

-In the classical I do an axe/sword, axe/cata or axe/phant/cata rush.
-In the medieval ages, maces/trebs/pikes.. depending on if I have gunpowder/draft I will also include muskets.
-In the renaissance grenadiers/trebs, gren/cannon, cavalry etc. all the usual suspects..


All of the above work great on Monarch. It is also fun to play, since there is ample room for strategy and tactics; choosing various targets, stack merging/splitting etc.

Now, I try to do all essential warmongering before the advent of the industrial age. The reason for this is simple. If an AI has survived with a sizeable empire and gets its mits on factories and artillery, it becomes ridiculous (or at least very brave) to try and move equally teched stacks any distance at all through their territory.

One merely gets to listen to a few victory sounds overlayed by a bunch of losing sounds, and when the new turn starts the stack is reduced to half size, all hitpoints in the red.

Now, I have tried to develop some strategies to try and overcome this. One is the machine gun/artillery stack, where the MGs are built by my military city and preferably have drill III (or IV for Cha or Pro leaders). My arty then does the attacking and the MGs do the defending.. Another is extensive stack splitting. But I almost never want less than 5 units in a stack (IMHO a stack becomes very vulnerable with too few fresh defenders).

What's the best of dealing with artillery spam? I find that my strategy at this stage needs some revising, since in earlier wars my win/loss ration is very limited compared to the slaughterfest of post-artillery invasion. (I can still generally win, but the war weariness and wasted production gives me a headache).

The timewindow I'm thinking of here is slightly before the advent of bombers/tanks..

I should also point out that I have a slightly irrational bent for very large invasions, trying to grab as much land as possible with a single declaration of war. I suppose a "piecemeal" war, taking a city or two and then going to peace might work. Still, there always seems to be someone I dont want to rack up "-1 You declared on war my BBF" points with..

 

[ABigCivFan]

You can try declare war, sit around and wait for AIs to go to you first. You might need to sacrifice a border city, but you can use it to destroy the inital bulk of AI's artillary+Offensive units.

Then counter attack with Drill MGs+Inf+Arti+1 lvl3 Medic. Dont go deep into enemy territory, take 1 city at a time, heal/reinforce/rail and etc.

After that it would be very hard for AIs to mass artys to deal with your invasion force and your losses will be reduced.

 

[Maydrock]

I like to set up all my front with rock,paper,scissor stacks. Then have one main stack capture a border city with 4 or 5 machine guns. Then sit back, let the MG's do their job, let the border patrol snipe anything that comes across the border. Good way to rack up GW points. Once their intial wave is over, combine the border patrol stacks to take next two cities. Seems to go just as quick for me as an initial 3 stack 3 city assault with less casualties.

 

[civ4legs]

One is the machine gun/artillery stack, where the MGs are built by my military city and preferably have drill III (or IV for Cha or Pro leaders). My arty then does the attacking and the MGs do the defending.

What's the best of dealing with artillery spam?

See: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/units/

MGs are considered siege weapons, and artillery gets +50% vs. siege weapons. That's a BAD combination

Try getting some Marines in the stack, who can at least attack the artillery back @ +50%

 

[frob2900]

Hmm.. I hadn't actively considered that (although I was technically aware of both properties ). I just got hung up on taking drill to reduce collateral damage and protect my arty from infantry attack.

In any case I had been seeing some success with MG/artillery stacks. Probably the drafted infantry reinforcements I sent along with them actually did the defending vs. artillery whereas the (non-collateraled) MGs kept the enemy gunpowder units at bay...

I suppose a mix of drill III/IV infantry would be optimal, but they are so rare (upgraded cream of the crop medieval units) that it really restricts their practical uses. I think I'll try a game as Qin-Shi-Huang

Marines require Industrialism, which of course also opens up tanks. At this point artillery does indeed lose some of its thunder, but its slightly after the timewindow I'm considering. Still I agree with sticking a marine or two in every if I've got 'em

[EDIT] Come to think of it, at Drill III/IV, it's very possible that protection from collateral damage for MGs outweighs the attack bonus of artillery vs. siege. The only think I fear about artillery is the collateral damage, to be honest. Otherwise I could just park on hills to gain a defensive bonus neutralizing the +50%.

See: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/units/

MGs are considered siege weapons, and artillery gets +50% vs. siege weapons. That's a BAD combination

Try getting some Marines in the stack, who can at least attack the artillery back @ +50%

 

[AThousandYoung]

I won a Domination game recently. I used massive amounts of artillery before the tanks came on line. I don't think there's any counter for a stack of artillery.

 

[Plex]

Maybe try using a larger number of small stacks?if your units are spread out over several tiles each artillery shot is going to do less collateral damage. Mix in a few medics and you're good to go.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

If you are fighting with a stack of 5 units in this era, expect to be pummelled. Your stacks should initially be much higher - probably at least 20 units.

I'm learning more and more that you need to let them fight you on your territory first to soak up their extra troops without generating massive war weariness. Then you will only face the odd artillery unit after that. If you fight in your own terrain, then your artillery stack hits their stack and you get to generate the collateral damage.

Other than that, artillery defend pretty well against other artillery. If you have lots of artillery you can laugh off the collateral damage. But promote some of your artillery with combat and drill promotions for defense.

My ideal stack if I had MG / infantry and artillery but not industrial would be:
(1) A lot of artillery city raiders.
(2) A few barrage artillery
(3) A few field artillery with drill.
(4) A few MG with drill (optional but they do pretty well in stack defense).
(5) A few infantry with terrain defense and city defense promotions. Often these will be the main defender and so won't take collateral.
(6) Some CR3 infantry (promoted from maces through grenades/rifles). These will take collateral but they won't be defending.
(7) A medic 3.

 

[frob2900]

Yes I agree. 20+ are almost obligatory at this point, I meant that the idea (which I have seen here and there) of splitting up those larger stacks into lots of smallish (5-10 units) stacks isn't really very good. Those small stacks get completely obliterated due to the lack of fresh defenders.

Artillery vs. artillery is actually another reason why I'm beginning to favour MG/artillery/Infantry stacks. The MGs are the best available gunpowder counter and the artillery/MG combination will do well against attacking artillery.

Fighting on home terrain first is probably something I'll have to start using more. I always use it in the industralism era and onward (because its the only way to deal with those gunship stacks), but I suppose even in the artillery/infantry age its worth the 5 or so extra turns at the start of a war.

If you are fighting with a stack of 5 units in this era, expect to be pummelled. Your stacks should initially be much higher - probably at least 20 units.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Its all very map dependent, but if you have assembly line, then industrialism is only electricity away.

Me, I hold off on wars until factories are built, and go straight for industrialism, and the 3 gorges dam, Power to ALL citiies on that continent means a +25% hammers and massive production upgrade.

As has been stated, Marines get a 50% bonus against Artillery, and you know how the AI just loves the Artillery.

I play Prince level, continents, Vanilla version. So I just LOVE marines ...I make 60% marines, and 15% tanks, 10% Machine guns, and some infantry and Planes/ships etc as the case maybe.

Pre Industrialism, absorb attacks in your own territory, preferably at a border city with or more tiles cultrual boundry, to slow the incoming attackers. Now you hit them with YOUR Artillery *personally I don't even build any*, and follow up with infantry, Calvary etc. Defend stacks with Artillery/machine guns and the odd *very strange*, terrain defender infantry, A medic unit is a must!!!! Preferably a non combat unit, or so low, that if it defends, your stack is dead...lolol.....

P.S. Marines make great defenders too..they attack across rivers NO PENALTY, they have bonus against Artillery 50%, and I allway's give them combat 1, pinch, 25% V's Gunpowder. Against Tanks, they can hold 50/50 roughly and if they make it to combat 3, Heal then becomes available...

This has made me rethink the Navy seal or America's unique unit. Even though its a late game unit, My mass production from factory enabled cities and 3 gorges powered, Means I have a very capable mobile force to attack 1 via Sea or 2 Via land....lolol........

 

[mice]

Does the marine's bonus against artillery count when they are defending?

 

[Phrederick]

Does the marine's bonus against artillery count when they are defending?

No.


One other useful piece of information is that siege units don't take collateral damage, which is one reason why artillery is good against artillery, and also why a machine gun or two are good against the odd gunpowder attacker.

Additionally, I think the entire approach to the problem is flawed. You say you attack in the following timeframes:
Axe/Sword/Cata/Phant
Mace/Treb/Pike
Gren/Treb/Cannon/Cavalry

After that, what's the next time when the momentum is on the attack? If you reach Industrialism before they get Artillery, then you can attack with Infantry/Cannon, and that's all you need. If they have artillery, why not just wait for tanks? It's not that far away, and if you had a massive push with Gren/Cavalry, then you can use that time to rebuild infrastructure and prepare for an overwhelming attack when tanks come out. If you're planning on winning a domination game, you should be able to win with nothing more advanced than tanks, which means you can focus to get there as fast as possible, and not worry about economic techs. I'll often beeline steel, rifling, assembly line and industrialism, and get nothing that's not on those paths. I often can trade for economics, corporation, scientific method, and even physics, which means there's not a whole lot you need to research, and so if the opponents have a comparitive advantage, I'll just hold off on attacking until I reach the next offensive unit.

If you MUST fight artillery before you have tanks, then use a combination of four tactics: First, fight the initial battles on your territories. That means war weariness isn't a problem, and you'll have the intiative in being able to use collateral damage. Second, use stacks big enough not to be wiped out in a massive artillery counterattack. I would agree that 20+ is a good rule of thumb, but it really depends on how powerful they are. Third, be prepared to make tactical retreats into your territory to heal. Often they'll make the attack when you've only advanced 1-2 squares into their territory. If it saves 4-6 turns of healing, it's worth the 2-4 turns of movement. Fourth, consider using artillery and artillery alone as attackers, and defend with a combo of combat infantry, city defense infantry, and machine guns. Even if they send a large stack of artillery at you, if you can get the infantry to defend, your artillery will be undamaged, since siege don't take collateral damage. Since infantry are base strength 20 and artillery 18, it shouldn't be too hard to have infantry take the majority of the defensive duties, and certainly to keep your city raider artillery from having to defend.

 

[frob2900]

After that, what's the next time when the momentum is on the attack? If you reach Industrialism before they get Artillery, then you can attack with Infantry/Cannon, and that's all you need.

I think you mean assembly line. And I agree, this no problem occurs if they haven't got artillery yet.

If they have artillery, why not just wait for tanks?... ...I'll just hold off on attacking until I reach the next offensive unit.

Thats what I usually end up doing. However I must point out that for a reasonably healthy AI empire (which is the only kind which would be difficult to invade, if they are lagging in tech or production then they are pushovers) there is no guarantee that you will reach and have time to deploy new military technology before they have counters (on Monarch+ in any case).

Assuming you will have a sizeable tank invasion before the AI deploys gunships is not always realistic. In any case tanks are not immune to artillery any more than infantry.

The point I was making was that due to the power of defensive artillery the game sometimes ends up in an arms/tech race at that point, since a sweeping offensive that cripples the AI empire in one go is difficult in the infantry/artillery time window due to losses and the consequent war weariness.

Of course, if I get the feeling the AI isn't teching very fast, I'll just grit my teeth and build jails(and rushmore)+switch to police state and slog it out.

If you're planning on winning a domination game, you should be able to win with nothing more advanced than tanks.

I like to think that tanks are pretty late for a domination victory (barring maps that would require a massive naval invasion). On maps allowing only land invasions, I prefer to finish absolutely latest around assembly line (but preferable rather much earlier).

I'm pretty convinced it's the lack of defending artillery that makes grenadiers/rifles and trebs/cannon the golden age of finishing domination/conquest games.

Additionally, I think the entire approach to the problem is flawed.

Do you mean its hopeless to attack in the timeframe after the AI has artillery and before the advent of tanks/bombers/gunships etc.?

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I don't really think Tanks are the answer. Part of the problem is strategic - the best time to fight a war may not always coincide with a particular technology plateau. If you are ready for an attack at Assembly Line / Artillery (this is fairly unusual for me I admit - usually its one or the other) - it may be better to attack then than wait. Maybe the AI is likely to get tanks etc before you. Maybe they don't have both Artillery and Assembly line but will soon.

So given there are some factors that make you want to war at that time (or you are attacked), you need a strategy to deal with artillery immediately.

I also don't think tanks warfare is as close as you think. You also need combustion and an oil resource. So thats three additional techs. More importantly tanks aren't really any more powerful than these other units until you also have bombers which means five additional techs.

Tanks don't defend stacks much better than infantry and are worse on good terrain. Tanks can't bring down high culture cities without that city getting bombarded by artillery or bombers (unless you want to lose a lot of them). So your tanks end up travelling at the same slow speed as the artillery and get hit every turn just the same.

To me tank warfare is a whole generation ahead of infantry/artillery. Tanks can move fast - you don't want to be tied down to a slow moving artillery stack. With bombers softening up cities in advance, you can tear an AI who hasn't teched to Rocketry apart in a very short space of time - thats powerful for a late game domination win.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

1. and definitelly the most important aspect: wait for them to attack; watch the power graph. When they've dropped... ~25% of their initial power it's time to move in.
2. gunships. That's the moment I like best - when I get rid of my old cavalry; you advance your stack in, they get dmged, you send your gunships which are in some border city to cover your stack and then see from there(retreat, advance, etc)
3. another nice tactic I employ in late game(ok, you shouldn't reach artilery if you want a domination win, but...) is naval invasion. Get the 1st city somehow(if they're on the same continent, it ain't a problem), mount your army in the boats, use your cover navy to bombard the defences, use your bombers to trim down their defenders(you need lotsa trimming, since you're attacking from the sea with your old cr3 axes now infantry - so build mass bombers), eventually keep 1-2 carriers which would send in their fighters 1st(so that they get intercepted instead of your bombers - that assuming your land based fighters don't reach that city). Rince, repeat, rush in reinforcements using your airports accordingly.
4. also... raze; at that point, you probably need to kill the last nation needed for a domination. The new cities don't really matter, what matters is the land(it's the last 10-15% you need). So... raze away; without railroads, they can't be that mobile. 1 stack to the left of your group, 1 square ahead, 1 stack to the right, 1 square ahead, raze away... With this, at most, you'll lose one of the raze groups... 2-3 cav., 1 infantry, which shouldn't be such a big deal anyway.

 

[frob2900]

I don't really think Tanks are the answer...

...So given there are some factors that make you want to war at that time (or you are attacked), you need a strategy to deal with artillery immediately. I also don't think tanks warfare is as close as you think. You also need combustion and an oil resource. So thats three additional techs...

..Tanks don't defend stacks much better than infantry and are worse on good terrain. Tanks can't bring down high culture cities without that city getting bombarded by artillery or bombers (unless you want to lose a lot of them). So your tanks end up travelling at the same slow speed as the artillery and get hit every turn just the same.

To me tank warfare is a whole generation ahead of infantry/artillery. Tanks can move fast - you don't want to be tied down to a slow moving artillery stack..

I agree fully with these arguments.

IMHO the artillery/collateral problem remains with the game in all ages after the advent of artillery. Waiting for tanks and higher tech just seems like "upping the ante" so to speak. Assuming tech parity, if a domination/conquest game has dragged on to assembly line I think it's best to end it as soon as possible.

Also, of all the post assembly line military techs I think that flight/radio is somewhat more powerful than industrialism for the reasons you just described regarding tanks.

For me at least, if I decide to postpone war at the point of assembly line I usually go for bomber/infantry/tank/artillery spam, but usually the tanks are special purpose troops for attacking out of stacks and/or razing lower culture/less defended cities.

 

[CivCorpse]

You need a damage spunge stack or two. Use a spy or open borders and get an idea of how many troops you will face in the wave of defenders when you enter their lands. Build some stacks of 10-15 infantry with Guerilla II. Build them in normal cities since they are cannon fodder or in this case arty-chow. Save the more highly promoted units for the attack phase. while tossing in 4-5 drill II MG's for variety and spice, 2-3 Formation Inf work well on the gobs of cavalry the AI has left over. so now you this stack of about 16-23 troops. preferably 2 stacks. Three for larger opponents. Declare war and park them on a hilll in the enemies lands. They will die...they will be missed. But they will kill a pile of artillery. Before the eventual collateral damage and straight combat damage kill them off they should each kill one atrillery unit, then weaken the one that dealt the killing blow. So just based on the infantry alone, two stacks of 15 inf will kill a total of 30 arty and leave 30 more arty neatly stacked for your first whack. That is 60 of them dead. More will come but no longer in waves.
More effective is making the initial assault an amphibious one. You can declare from the endge of the coast then move in your BB's and bomb his city defense. 3-4 arty with amphibious do the initial collateral job then Amphibious Infantry take the city. figure just a little more than 1 for each defender after they have been softened up. The move in your damage sponge stacks. This time with City Defender3. Harder to kill. And since your losses occur in a city wwithing your empire then your war weariness is reduced.

Or you can do things the smart way. The advantage the AI has in that it uses the roads in it's home empire to get the first whack. With some serious long term planning you can steal this advantage for yourself. I usually promote my phants with combat strength promotions. They work great since phants use brute strength rather than specializing. Get some to Combat 4 then take commando and later upgrade to cavalry for the 2 movement points. you will need 5 of them for each stack. Move your stack onto a hill. use the enemy roads to move your commando phants to the 5 tiles surrounding the hill in enemy territory. Three tiles should be in your lands already. pillage the roads then move back to the hill. Arty only have one movement point, they will have to stop right next to your stack without being able to attack. Mince them up as you see fit.
If you don't have any commando troops then use the city approach then offload some cavalry, chariots or knights directly in the city. They have full movement when offloaded in a city. Have them pilliage the roads surrounding the city.

You can use a variation of this in any era to deal with even the nonseige waves. If you don't have any commando units find a hill next to a river running parralel to your cultural borders. Pilliage the roads with 2 move units. The ones you cannot reach should be across the river. This forces the AI to attack across the river with his mobs of units. Really takes a toll on his forces. ....Sorry for being so long winded.

 

[Killroyan]

If you face a civ that loves to hog artillery and which AI doesn't, then concentrate on building a lot of combat/drill artillery (Combat III/ Drill III preferably) in your stack. Since the artillery does not take collateral damage they will become the best defenders of your stack. Tanks will be even taken down to str 14 so your 18 str artillery will take over in time.

Big mistake I made in one of my monarch games was attacking the AI without artillery. Even though I had a stack of 40+ units it was obliterated in the next 4 turns (medic III present) because Roosevelt is really one of those artillery huggers. He had over 20 of them. OUCH! Build another stack with a lot of artillery in it and it was payback time.

 

[cabert]

THe trick against huge stack of artillery is to not let them attack.
They are worth nothing on the defensive side (well, they don't suffer colateral damage, but base strength is low and they don't benefit from defensive terrain).

3 different tricks :
1) (already mentioned) let them come. They move slowly in your cultural territory, so they are vulnerable. 20 drafted infantries can easily kill the 20 artilleries that would pulverize them the other way round. (It's of course easier with tanks that can move away after striking, which the infantry can't do)

2) pillagefest
After taking a city (usually it's doable on turn 1 before getting struck by the arties), you cut of all the roads leading there.
You can even do it without taking a city, provided you use very mobile troops (gunships or commando units). bombing the tiles to destroy the improvements before that makes it easier of course.

3) preemptive strike
Locate the artillery stack (usually there is one big stack) before declaring. target this city first. Not always doable, but if the city is coastal it certainly is doable + marines will do it right . Note that artillery are immune to colateral, but you can still bomb them. Better use fighters for this, since no colateral damages will occur.

 

[Phrederick]

Thats what I usually end up doing. However I must point out that for a reasonably healthy AI empire (which is the only kind which would be difficult to invade, if they are lagging in tech or production then they are pushovers) there is no guarantee that you will reach and have time to deploy new military technology before they have counters (on Monarch+ in any case).

Assuming you will have a sizeable tank invasion before the AI deploys gunships is not always realistic. In any case tanks are not immune to artillery any more than infantry.

It may not always be realistic, but in most of the games I play, I can get a military tech lead by this phase of the game. It may be because I play epic/pangaea/small almost exclusively, but even in emperor games I'm usually able to be at overall tech parity by that point, and through disciplined beelining I can be one military tech ahead usually. I guess I tend to be a warmonger, though, and most games are pretty well wrapped up before artillery makes an entrance on the scene. So I guess I rarely face the initial scenario, which is invading an ai empire that is both at tech parity and at production parity.

As to the point of whether or not tanks are a good counter to artillery, I've several times invaded with a tank/cannon army against infantry/SAM infantry/artillery, and had no real problems. That might just be because I had significantly more land mass and consequently production, but when I have tanks, I personally never really fear artillery.

The point I was making was that due to the power of defensive artillery the game sometimes ends up in an arms/tech race at that point, since a sweeping offensive that cripples the AI empire in one go is difficult in the infantry/artillery time window due to losses and the consequent war weariness.

Of course, if I get the feeling the AI isn't teching very fast, I'll just grit my teeth and build jails(and rushmore)+switch to police state and slog it out.

I think the key is a combination of overwhelming numbers, the willingness to lose a couple units, and keeping a close eye on terrain and research priorities. Back when I was first playing emperor, and when I started playing immortal, I would frequently be playing catchup on both size of military and technology. I learned that when you declare war, it's pointless to invade. They will have so many more units than you, that it's a lot easier to pick apart their invasion, then begin the counterattack after they've spent their non-defensive units.

I like to think that tanks are pretty late for a domination victory (barring maps that would require a massive naval invasion). On maps allowing only land invasions, I prefer to finish absolutely latest around assembly line (but preferable rather much earlier).

I'm pretty convinced it's the lack of defending artillery that makes grenadiers/rifles and trebs/cannon the golden age of finishing domination/conquest games.

I think you're generally right. Most of my games finish with grenadiers, or perhaps grenadiers/cannons/rifles. I tend to aim for grenadiers after macemen, then add cannons. Whenever the enemy gets cavalry, I'll aim for rifles and avoid wars until I have riflery. However, when aiming for domination, you should be able to have a significant percentage of the landmass under your control by early rennaissance, which means that you should be able to outtech/outproduce enough that the rest of the game is just mopping up.

Do you mean its hopeless to attack in the timeframe after the AI has artillery and before the advent of tanks/bombers/gunships etc.?

I don't wait for bombers, I attack as soon as I get tanks. But yeah, if your top units are infantry/cavalry/cannons, don't tangle with artillery. If you also have artillery, than mass those and win through attrition and higher-promoted units.