There is no single greatest military unit in Civ3 - ?

[DaveMcW]

Defensive units are the greatest military units in Civ3. Their defense/shield ratio is consistently better than offensive units' attack/shield ratio. And their roads let them outmaneuver horses. It's useless to invade someone with 75% of your production, since defensive power will nullify your number advantage.

The one exception to defensive dominance is Cavalry. They will still lose a 1-on-1 battle against Muskets/Rifles, but their 3 movement is enough to outmaneuver the Rifleman SOD and strike undefended targets. When railroads come online, the Muskets/Rifles get infinite maneuverability and defensive power becomes unbreakable once again.

This obviously only applies to human battles. The AI doesn't understand what a Stack of Doom is, so any decent-sized stack of units will wipe them out. The single greatest improvement I can think of for the Civ4 AI would be to teach them how to command and block SODs.

 

[Tomoyo]

Dave, what you said only applies to AI v AI. The human, using a SOD, would easily overwhelm the defenders because the attackers gets to decide when and where to attack. If the AI had 50 riflemen, only about 10 of them would be in a certain spot, so your 40 cavalry would easily run over them. Then, because there weren't that many Rifles, you don't lose too many cavs and you can keep on moving with 35 cavs and kill another 10 Rifles, etc.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Attackers cost more compared to their strength because of their inherently superior initiative - they decide where and when battle is fought.

I usually use a great more attackers than defenders, because it's attackers that take the battle to the enemy and force decision.

 

[satchel]

Yes!!! Another convert to the greatness of artillery.

 

[Tearor]

defenders also have the advantage of their own territory and its bonuses but the attackers have the disadvantage of not knowing everything about the enemy but the defenders do

 

[Tomoyo]

Attackers know exactly what the defenders have if artillery is used...

 

[Tearor]

true but my artillery usually doesnt survive that long.

 

[xiaoafei]

unlike civ2, in civ3 you need more types of combat units. For example, while tanks could be stopped by some elite riflemen, combined with bombard units such as artilaries and battleships, they can still take cities very easily. the point is, what you need is not several elite units which are enough for civ2 combats, but a whole army composed of different units for different purposes. In my games, i usually have several arrows each composed of 5-6 tanks, 6-7 artilaries, 4-5 battle ships and 6-7 bombers in the modern age combats. When i am at war, almost every city is producing combat unit and sometime just buy them.

 

[Tomoyo]

true but my artillery usually doesnt survive that long.

Err... That's really a problem. Why are you not protecting your artillery?

 

[John Lenin]

LOL, I'm having a very strange game on Monarch at the moment that doesn't seem to want to let me try out any of the pointers given here. Forget about the Always-war games, this is so far almost totally No-war game. It's very odd, as I am easily the largest civ on the map, and am coming from behind after a tech shortfall. Within a few more tens of turns I will be the leading tech civ, and then I expect to be attacked, but so far - nothing. Perhaps I have been lucky in that my territory occupies a privileged position on the map; Imagine a continent like an upraised arm with a clenched fist. My territory is the clenched fist, and all I have had to do to deter attackers is fortify the (narrow) wrist area. There have been a few halfhearted attempts to invade me from the sea, but they were easily repelled and the peace offer came soon after.

Just reached the Industrial age last night and my territory is on the way to being completely railroaded. In anticipation of the great war to come (the AI nations are always at war among themselves while I keep my head down and build, build, build) I am constructing a vast army of artillery and cavalry and riflemen, to roll over the cities just below the 'wrist' in a few turns, hopefully.

Mech Infantry are not a good defensive unit, is my experience from past games on lower difficulty levels. The Civ3 combat is so different from Civ2, where as I said you could more or less count on a couple of units fortified in a city or on a mountain to withstand most of what the AI could throw at them. A couple of AI guerillas, yes guerillas, put paid to three of my mech infs in my last game. Luckily though there was my stack of 40 mech infs waiting a few turns away to pound them.

In the absence of great defensive units in Civ3 I have taken to building these defensive stacks and leaving them in the middle of my railroaded territory, ready to deal with any enemy stacks that get through. The downside of using bombers to reduce an enemy on your territory is that they can wreck your own improvements.

 

[TheDS]

Heh! The best "unit" is hitting enemy units with higher tech units! If you can out research the enemy, you've beat him without a fight. When the fight does come, you have 2 or 3 levels better units and roll through him like he's not there.

While I use artillery, I don't build SODs of them, partly because they don't do much unless you have a lot of them, and then they have this tendancy to destroy only the things you DON'T want them to destroy. (I prefer to capture cities rather than raze them.) If there's anyone left once I've got Tanks, or especially MA, the arty and aircraft just can't keep up! So instead I often have battleships providing fire support when their guns can reach, or occasionally get stalled and therefore have enough time for my arty to catch up to the tanks, but usually not in time to help them.

 

[Olaf_The_Great]

i have Never lost a sipahi or a berserk