Time to change war tactics

[futurehermit]

I'm really impressed with the AI so far in terms of warring.

I'm playing Monarch/Standard Continents/Normal

Three experiences to talk about:

1) First game I played I attacked Suleiman with about 12 swords early in the game. In Warlords I could wipe out an empire sometimes with such an army if I took the capital first. In this game, I got the capital, but that was pretty much it! From there it was a dogfight that was very drawn-out and I gave up. The AI was defending with mixed stacks, lots of units, and was using catapults defensively to soften up my troops. Sweet!

2) Second game I played was going well. However, I decided I would go for my normal renaissance war with cavalry. I got cavalry before Sitting Bull got rifling and I attacked with probably 20 units, mostly cav and some rifles and a couple cannons. I didn't expect to wipe him out with this army, but I expected to sack some cities and do some dmg. I took 1 city, but he obliterated my entire army with HUGE stacks of knights, etc. By huge I mean like a couple 20-unit stacks!!! Sweet!

3) Third game I am currency playing (I didn't finish the first two) and it is going well. I REXed early to 4-5 cities and was peacefully teching when all of a sudden Sulayamanan or whatever his name is attacks me with 2 chariots, 2 axes, and a sword! I was totally shocked because I didn't have him pegged as an aggressor and it was in the BC era still! We didn't have close borders or any negative modifiers. Yet, he comes with a solid quick attack. I had to whip empire-wide to get some units to save one of my cities, which I still almost lost. Fortunately I was able to save my city, drive out his invading force, and eventually get peace. However, I had to pay him a tech to get him to accept peace!!! Sweet!

I think I am going to finish this third game. I haven't attacked anyone yet, but have a strong tech empire with about 6-7 cities with lots of cottages. I was first to liberalism ca. 1000AD and am teching to cav. I'm hoping to hit early enough and have a strong enough army that this time I can wipe out Sulayamanan during the Renaissance.

It certainly isn't easy anymore to do a lot of dmg quickly with warring. I think domination wins will be decidedly more difficult!!!

However, the AI techs quite slowly, so that is one potential thing we can use: e.g., tech quickly to CS and Machinery and try and hit the AI hard before longbows/xbows, etc. Stuff like that!

Share your war-stories

 

[Grimus]

Those were some great war stories.

I started a game on Noble to mess around with as the HRE and am dominating pretty bad, though I was impressed by how the AI was playing. I think I'm gonna up the difficulty and play a real, mean game now, and see what the AI really has in store for me!

 

[Grimus]

Edit: doh! Sorry Future, I meant to create a new post and accidentally posted it as a reply to your thread! How embarrassing...

 

[RedRalph]

I think if youre fighting a war where you dont have a distinct tech advantage you now have to have huge numerical superiority. I played as Bismarck and Boadicia attacked me with somehting like 40 Cuirassiers, Knights etc, but my machine guns were so well dug in I was able to hold the stack off til I could get Cannons over to soften up and eventually obliterate them with Cav. But I got osme fright when I heard the dreaded unexpected war horn and saw the moneter stack coming toward me. If I hadnt been ahead on tech she mayb well have taken 75% of my empire.

 

[Chigau Jiji]

Thoroughly enjoying the warfare in BTS.
As soon as any unit becomes isolated/injured,
the AI is quick to punish you with aggressive defence.
I lost a whole mini stack which got crippled by half a dozen catapults,
then annihilated by weaker but healthier units. Very good.

I've noticed a lot more whipping/drafting,
so that capturing cities is never easy any more.
They always seem to have two or three more units than you expected.

Another aspect I've enjoyed is strategic planning that comes from espionage revealing the enemies' cities and hence most of their troops and locations,
so that any attack becomes a bit more chess like,
rather than just having one SOD that lumbers around.

Particular highlights include:
Misclicking so my six cannons lost their infantry escort.
Out of nowhere, English cavalry charged round my tanks/infantry
and completely destroyed my entire siege force,
so that the attack on London had to be postponed till I'd built some artillery.

Having said that, it seems to me so far
that the AI has forgotten how to pillage
when attacking,
which is usually more scary than any city assault.

 

[Fierabras]

However, the AI techs quite slowly, so that is one potential thing we can use: e.g., tech quickly to CS and Machinery and try and hit the AI hard before longbows/xbows, etc. Stuff like that!

Just what I did with Willem van Oranje on Prince/Continents/Normal. Cottages and cheap libraries gave me an extensive tech lead, but I was still impressed by the defense the AI put up when I went to war with cats and maces. The first 2 cities of conquering an empire is easy, but it looks like it has become more difficult to do a quick walkover.

 

[Brutus2]

I was playing an Advanced Start and going for a Space Victory, now I fully expected the AI to attack when it became obvious that I was going to launch my ship well ahead of anyone else but I was not at all prepared for the massive beating I took.

With only ten turns until victory all I had to do was protect my capital but the AI unleased a major "Shock and Awe" campaign. Nukes rained down from the sky and while I shot down a few he had about a dozen of them. He also very wisely used bombers to take out key improvements, and destroyed my offshore platform (my only source of oil) after taking one of my coastal cities with an amphibious assault.

My civ was an empty wastland full of nuclear fallout and my capital was taken just two turns from victory!! I almost cried when the message came up saying I had lost all progress in the space race.

 

[dh_epic]

At least a few times, the AI has taken one or two border cities. I've had to fight tooth and nail to take it back and offer techs for peace. Makes pursuing victory after that much more challenging. I like it!

 

[Pomp]

The AI seems to be much more of an opportunist in BtS. In my first game, I learned quickly that a lone archer isn't a sufficient BC era defender any more. Two different AI's saw their chance at an easy city and threw a stack at me. We'll probably have to be much more careful to watch our backs when launching an early war.

 

[manu-fan]

Having said that, it seems to me so far
that the AI has forgotten how to pillage
when attacking,
which is usually more scary than any city assault.

Interesting you should say that. With Warlords, I was always of the opinion that the AI was so stupid for pillaging, when it could have taken 1 or 2 of my cities instead. It didn't go for the throat. Now, it appears it does. I think that's a good thing.

I think City assault is WAY scarier than pillaging. Pillaged lands can be re-built easily.

Cheers.

 

[icantdrawanime]

The AI is indeed a whole lot better at war. It also goes to war a lot more often. This is definitely something I'm thrilled about because in vanilla and warlords you would have entire games where no one would go to war and you couldnt even bribe anyone to war with someone else...

 

[eric_]

Interesting you should say that. With Warlords, I was always of the opinion that the AI was so stupid for pillaging, when it could have taken 1 or 2 of my cities instead. It didn't go for the throat. Now, it appears it does. I think that's a good thing.

Yeah, pillaging is good if you want to slow a civ down or are going for conquest (so doing a lot of razing). If you intend to keep a city, pillaging should be limited to strategic resources, imo.

 

[Random Oracle]

I'm playing the Dutch on Monarch difficulty on an Archipelago map and I'm invading the Chinese, who are having some difficulty countering my Infantry with Longbows and Knights and my Transports and Destroyers with Galleons and Caravels.

The problem, however, is that my war weariness is shooting through the roof. My biggest cities with Jails are facing +13 angry faces after capturing only 3 cities and killing a few dozen units. Well, I press on and capture Beijing and suddenly I realize why I had the feeling I was supposed to do something but forgot it: Beijing has the Statue of Zeus (100% war weariness)! I meant to check and see who has it so I don't attack them, at least not before Police State + Jails + Mount Rushmore. Oh well, live and learn...

 

[bonafide11]

The Statue of Zeus is an interesting wonder in my opinion. I like to build it sometimes when I figure I'll be at war a lot, but I never remember if I have built it or not because it doesn't affect me at all, only my opponents, so I don't notice it. So it has potential to be powerful but it's easy to forget about

 

[Random Oracle]

Ah, it seems that the already accumulated extra angry faces disappeared when I captured the wonder. Even so, I think it's time to trigger another golden age and switch to police state + emancipation.

 

[bonafide11]

Back to the original poster's point, I may need to rethink my early game war tactics. I like to steal neighbor's capitols in the early game, but I've found it more difficult in BTS. I now find myself draining my economy because I am so determined to take that capitol that I build twice as many axemen as before. By the time I end up eventually capturing his capitol, my research has slipped below my opponents. Although my economy will recover, I am not sure if it was worth it.

I've played on Prince and Monarch so far. On Prince it seems that I was able to overrun the AI with axes while maintaining technological superiority, but I fell behind on Monarch. I've won easily on Prince now a couple times, but Monarch is quite challenging. Perhaps I need to delay my early rushes until I get catapults so I can knock down the city walls before attacking with hordes of axemen.

Either way, I agree the AI is quite a bit more intelligent with its military. I read somewhere that Blake finds the non-Aggressive AI too peaceful and not willing enough to build massive armies, but if you've ever started near Shaka, or any of the warmonger leaders, they clearly are not afraid to stack a ton of units.

 

[Grohan]

AI builds HUGE stacks in BTS and I'm playing on noble! AI also know how to use combined arms.

But maybe the biggest surprise was that AI can do naval invasions completely out of blue. Like in my current game as Byzantines where Ragnar was pleased with me but then suddenly declares war. He does amphibious attack against Nicomedia which was defended by lone archer. I usually defend my coastal cities lightly because there was no danger of amphibious attacks pre-BTS. I was forced to divert my forces from Mali (I was at war with them) to south. Ragnar almost captured Constantinopole (which was lightly defended too) but I switched to nationhood and drafted troops. Finally the troops from north killed invasion force and were able to take back Nicomedia.

 

[r_rolo1]

My opinion is that the BTS AI was programmed to look more like a human player than the previous versions. We have to get used to that and start to follow MP tecniques ( more Xbows, protect sea cities, no mindless axe rushes, contained wars or all out ones, bomb shelters and SDI ( AI don't auto vote yes in ban nukes resolution anymore.... ),.... ). Well, back into the drawing board...

 

[MrFelony]

man o man. I was playing Gods of Old (i really like it) on monarch and took out my two biggest contending neighbors (on pangea). I also needed to get a religion and am a warmonger so i took inanna (the war god). with a stack of about 6-8 axemen i destroyed one AI, then went over to pillage my neighbor with the remaining/cut off his copper supply while i whipped reinforcements. All went well. captured 2 caps and a city. (In gods of old you found a religion by building a shrine which helps/allows you to expand faster earlier). Then Montezuma (all the way accross the map) atacks me with a stack or 8 or so taking one of the caps i took .

Then the female celt declared war on me and saladin . i got my city back (and a barbarian one that montey captured) and all was well until the other AI's both came at me with about 15 units each...I sued for peace right away giving them a tech a peace :/. unfortunately, the vote for "peace with ben" since i had the apostle palace (or w/e) didnt come until the round after that happened lol

 

[MangleMeElmo]

I'm intrigued. Looks like I'll actually have some difficulty in my domination wins. I'm too used to trouncing AIs now. Warlords is getting boring even though I play on Monarch. The game is tough at the start, but it gets easier with every neighbor conquered.