Redvane the Fox
Chieftain
I found this one out by accident in a recent game. Me (Babylon) was there happily building away when over the horizon come two huge stacks of Persian riflemen and cavalry (plus the odd knight)
I managed to hold them off for a couple of turns, weakening/destroying much of his cavalry force by "hit and run" raids but then needed to start pulling in more defenders from nearby cities to the "front line" which left one city about five squares away undefended. Well blow me down if the Persians didn't just leave off besiegeing Ur and wander off towards the empty city (sure they should not have been able to see it was empty from where they were but I'm not complaining. In moving off the stacks started to break up so with some more bombardment and heroic rushes by my cavalry this massive invasion force dwindled away to nothing ... no-one made it back to Persia alive
Couple of things that made this work for me: I had railroads so were able to move troops and artillery into and out of cities quickly to keep the enemy in the "Killing Zone" and stop them actually taking a city. Having more than one railroad route into a city also means that if the enemy occupies one square of a route in you can still get troops back into the "unguarded" city in time. Even if you haven't got railroads remember the enemy gets no movement bonuses for roads so it might work in earlier era battles but with more planning.
Something to try: This might also work with unguarded artillery or workers - the AI seems to have a nose for these so as long as you position them out of reach of his units for that turn a couple of old redundant catapult might also do the trick.
I managed to hold them off for a couple of turns, weakening/destroying much of his cavalry force by "hit and run" raids but then needed to start pulling in more defenders from nearby cities to the "front line" which left one city about five squares away undefended. Well blow me down if the Persians didn't just leave off besiegeing Ur and wander off towards the empty city (sure they should not have been able to see it was empty from where they were but I'm not complaining. In moving off the stacks started to break up so with some more bombardment and heroic rushes by my cavalry this massive invasion force dwindled away to nothing ... no-one made it back to Persia alive


Couple of things that made this work for me: I had railroads so were able to move troops and artillery into and out of cities quickly to keep the enemy in the "Killing Zone" and stop them actually taking a city. Having more than one railroad route into a city also means that if the enemy occupies one square of a route in you can still get troops back into the "unguarded" city in time. Even if you haven't got railroads remember the enemy gets no movement bonuses for roads so it might work in earlier era battles but with more planning.
Something to try: This might also work with unguarded artillery or workers - the AI seems to have a nose for these so as long as you position them out of reach of his units for that turn a couple of old redundant catapult might also do the trick.