Two War Strategies

[Fiddlin Nero]

These are more for a late game war where the goal is to significantly reduce or totally eliminate an AI civ.

Static Frontline: You have a well defended or small frontline and you wish to keep it. So you disband cities as you conquer them leaving an ever growing unclaimed patch of land. The advantage of this is you don't have to constantly check for border integrity at the end of each turn. Interesting observation, the AI never seems to build settlers while at war, any they happen to be building or have at the beginning of the war if used will be poorly defended and easily retaken. The challenge is to have enough settlers on hand to get you back in range of the next city to take each turn. I especiously like this when I have a choke point and can setup a funnel of death.

Advancing Frontline: You keep or build new towns as you conquer to maintain border integrity. If you're starting with a long frontline and can move toward a shorter one this may be the way to go. In a Static Frontline you have to minimize units left on the battlefield because they are vulnerable. In an Advancing Frontline you can pretty much leave them unprotected. Its definitely all about border integrity. I don't know how many times I've left a single access point and since I never defend cities behind enemy lines its pretty discouraging when they take a dozen cities in one turn.

Opinions? Other challenges/advantages? Other options?

 

[Elephantium]

Pretty much the only use for "Static Frontline" is end-game wars where you're going for Conquest instead of Domination. Otherwise, "Advancing Frontline" should be your approach -- there's not much point to a war if you're not going to take cities, and if you're not strong enough to take the cities, why'd you go to war in the first place?

 

[Ataxerxes]

Pretty much the only use for "Static Frontline" is end-game wars where you're going for Conquest instead of Domination. Otherwise, "Advancing Frontline" should be your approach -- there's not much point to a war if you're not going to take cities, and if you're not strong enough to take the cities, why'd you go to war in the first place?

I agree. I go to war to get land and resources. The way the game is set up, more cities is always better. Besides, if I eliminate one Civ this way and don't build more cities I know what'll happen. Somebody else will claim all that lovely land and then I'll have a more powerful rival later on. I'd only use static frontline if I wanted conquest without hitting dom first - which doesn't appeal to me.

New settlers cost me 2 population when I build them. It's better to take over enemy cities if they're placed adequately.

 

[CommandoBob]

Static Frontline is great in an Always War variant where you have one or more fronts and you want to concentrate on one of them for a while. Build up that defensive wall, play whack-a-mole with the AI units that come your way and eliminate the other threat/irritant with alacrity.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

I left out the step: When the war is over you then claim the land at your leasure. If I go with the advancing line I don't always like the city placement for after the war. The challenge again is a ready supply of settlers, to beat any civs to the land rush. If you don't have the settlers you obviously go with the advancing frontline.

 

[Raliuven]

I wouldn't necessarily say "obviously". I might raze a city I don't have the capacity to immediately replace for a variety of reasons. In a scientific race, you may chose to 'clear' the land to open it to other civs for settling or just to reduce cultural pressure from a hostile neighbor and collect a few slaves. You could also use it for settler bait. You know the AI will send those settler/spear pairs eventually.

Or, what is more common is that the AI buckles easier than I thought (or the RNG gods smile on me) and the rollover occurs quicker than I expected but not quick enough to make the flip risk negligible. Sometimes I will risk the flip and recapture; sometimes I want to keep the momentum and a flip-risk city is too much of a drain.

In these cases it is often a 'string of pearls' method. I keep the cities in the string that meet my needs and raze everything else. These cities receive barracks and walls and little else This does require that each individual city has adequate protection and is more feasible with rails.

 

[Elephantium]

Hmm, on further reflection -- Static Frontline is also useful in DG/Deity/Sid level games where you have to defeat massive stacks of units before you can conquer cities (otherwise, your conquests get overrun the next turn!).

 

[bigFRANK]

I’m firmly of the view that fighting a war you can win then offence is your best strategy, take the towns and use the population, if your going to struggle to win then get all the other civs into fight on your side and attack somewhere you don’t mind gifting to one of your new allies, takes the heat off, avoids war weariness (assuming that your enemy will try to recapture the city he just lost) and buys you a couple of turns and if necessary you can sue for peace as soon as your enemy will talk.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

In my current game I'm in a war with a static frontline that has the cultural borders and with a couple pillages on my side and the enemies I don't even have to defend any of my cities because the AI can't reach them in a single turn. This is changing the whole pace of the war, before with a advancing frontline I was always rushing and got tired/anxious of warring within 4 or 5 turns. With the static frontline I can relax, pick off a city here or there and take my time. I can easily go the 10 or 15 turns it takes to get communication going for that peace agreement.