war strategies

[tetley]

Oh, but it gets better, man. Put your artillery on your own border, and tantalize the AI with that. Not only will he capture it and overextend his horses, but he'll move the artillery into his own turf, giving you a free move. As soon as you recapture it, you can use it--THAT turn. The artillery never even skips a beat. Otherwise you'd have to take a turn moving the artillery into his turf yourself, guarding it with infantry units.

 

[spork]

Everybody seems to prefer a strategy where you destroy your opponent's roads and rail... but I don't like that. I'd rather use their own infrastructure for my troops once I capture their towns. If you are like me and attack almost exclusively with cavalry, even after tanks are available, you'll quickly see the value: when you have c. 40 of them, you can just keep a rotation, sending the hurt ones by train to heal up, and shipping the healed ones to the front. When combined with artilliery, no defenses can stop my lovely Cossaks. The fact they move one further than tanks usually means they can retreat to safety before a turn is over.

For people who need to fight wars under democracy, a massive cavalry charge is FAR better than tanks; remember that your people will get mad if a war is much longer than three rounds. With Cossaks, I can usually get them "motivated" to negotiate after two. In that time, my Cossaks can often take five or six cities. I see absolutely no point in dragging out a war by spending turns on destroying roads. If you want to curtail their production, destroy their cities! Remember that their most productive cities are their capital and its immediate neighbors. If my attacking force can't wipe out ther civ in one war, I usually leave the capital alone and destroy the cities next to it. That way they're left with one functioning but isolated city and a bunch of corrupt outposts.

 

[Mongol Horde]

Interesting idea whstaff, I'll have to try that one.

 

[Moulton]

I combine my attacks. Cut some roads, or maybe cut at one point only. then when I have the next city, put a captured worker repairing that rail section.
But then, I dont't usually do massive attacks. I should try that. After the first attack, he will send every unit he can spare. Survive that, and the country is yours to take. Then I like to rehome bombers, or ships on his coast, and sever connection to his capitol. This plays havoc with his production, happiness troop movement, etc. and potentially ruins his culture standing.
If it is a surgical strike, I do it and get out. Otherwise, the capitol can wait till I get there, but I have curtailed his production.

 

[lwebb]

I have found the best way to curtail production before an assault is a sneak nuclear attack. Though you should have a strong industrial base with which to defend and then counterattack. Then roll in with the Armor and it is pie. Of course you have to do a beach landing normandy style if you play continents but it is always fun to nuke em good. I personally just finished a war against Germany, Japan, And Britain. It did take about 200 years but i had to fight for the oil and rubber from Britain which took about 150 years because i didnt raize the cities.

 

[majwalrus]

hmm an ICBM should quickly isolate a players capital, even if "buried" deep within enemy territory.

 

[Lord Vigo]

For the reasons stated above, I don't like to raze newly captured cities, but I can't seem to starve cities that I don't want. They usually have enough food in the city center to support one pop. And when I try to make a worker or settler, the game wont let me complete the unit until I have 2 or 3 pop. So I only get down to one.

Anyone have a quick answer?

 

[zebomba]

If you're under republic, monarchy or democracy, of course you can. If not, just wait some turns. Don't you plan to be a communist civ forever, do you?

 

[Thoth]

Originally posted by Lord Vigo
For the reasons stated above, I don't like to raze newly captured cities, but I can't seem to starve cities that I don't want. They usually have enough food in the city center to support one pop. And when I try to make a worker or settler, the game wont let me complete the unit until I have 2 or 3 pop. So I only get down to one.

Anyone have a quick answer?

In order to disband a city you need to get the population down to 2. Adjust the production so that there is no food surplus .
Build your settler. A popup will appear telling you that the city is not growing, build settler y/n. Build the settler, and no more city. This will also work for size 1 cities (build a worker instead of a settler).

 

[godondrugs]

The best time to wage war to when the other major civilisations are fighting too.

When hostilities break out among other civilisations, add fuel to the fire by providing the weaker civilisations with war technology they lack and hinder the movement of the bigger civ like blocking their seaborne route, reinforcement line .... The last time I did it, I gave the Romans (who were finding a war with the Chinese in North America, I was in Asia) Nationalisim to defend themselves against the bigger and more advanced Chinese. The Chinese got themselves in a long drawn and exhaustive war.

Idea is to help the weaker one and build it up to challenge with bigger aggressor (who is your real strategic enemy).

In the meanwhile, pick a weak guy on your border to expand your civilisation. This will not result in you lagging behind in science as your strategic enemy is also fighting a war (and with your behind the scene interference, a tougher war). After a few big cities, I sue for peace and started re-building those cities while the Chinese continued fighting ...

At the end of it, I came up ahead of the pack significantly.

 

[BullHead]

In reply to curmudgeon42's first post:

Here's something that i do that i find helpful. Suprise always give you the upper hand so I always attack the city closest to were my units can get there in less than 1 turn. Always have artillery and bombers nearby. Use carriers w/ escorts if need be...

I start off taking workers if you can, then procede to tear up the ground by pillaging with my units that dont attack well. I usually come in with A LOT of army. I attack with like 20 infantry 10 tanks 10 cavs and w/e i got laying around the empire. Thats why industrious civs are always a plus.

Taking the Capitol is always a good idea. My belife is "once the core is gone there is no backbone for support". The capitol is the center of culture etc. This will keep from having cities depose u and go back to their original nation. ALWAYS destroy the capitol, never keep it.

Anyway, I belive if you overwhelm them u will prevail. Come head on and roll over city by city. Don't take the city farther away over the city that can connect to your empire after u take it.

Overwhelm, overwhelm, overwhelm. Use ships to bombard, use planes, artilery, EVERYTHING. With this strategy you can take an entire continent within 14 turns. I've done it in less.

 

[Lkysam]

I usualy spend everything on tech until I'm a couple ahead then I use my forces to crush the opposing civ until war weariness sets in and make peace. I wait until my captured cities have assimilated and do it again. It's worked well. In ancient times I took out my nieghbors the greeks and romans. Now I am fighting versus the the egyptians but it is'nt working as well now. My cavalry cant make as much progress and it took me a while to "convince" them to make peace so war weariness was killing me for a while. The Republic is my favorite goverment because I am generally peaceful but make war when I get bored

 

[Arrian]

Tips for Civ III warfare:

1) Mobile units
2) Overwhelming force

1 is easy. Build horsemen, make 'em knights once you have Chivalry, and then make them Cavalry once you have Mil. Tradition. Lots and lots of Cavalry. Pre-infantry, that's all you need. You can often beat the AI to Military Tradition, which also usually means they don't have nationalism (riflemen). Cavalry slaughter musketmen.

2 can be more difficult, but can be attain either by build tons and tons of units yourself, or building as much as you can and enlisting an ally or allies in the war you wish to fight. Often, the best scenario is joining a war in progress between two neighbors. Pick a side and pounce - and make an alliance w/the other side, because then they will LOVE you.

I did this last night. The Iroquois attacked Rome. Mounted Warriors fighting Legionaries... it looked like a bloodbath, with the Iroquois eventually winning. First off, Rome and I (Egypt) were quite friendly, and I felt the Iroquois were getting too powerful. Plus, they had the Middle East (world map), and I wanted it. Finally, I was building Sun Tzu and the Sistine, but so were some others, so a Golden Age was just what I needed. My Knights wasted their MW's, and even when they managed to build some knights, it was too little, too late. I now own all of Asia and the northern 1/2 of Africa. The last Iroquois city is in the Azores, off the coast of Portugal. Rome gained nothing.

-Arrian

 

[Sentinali]

As has been said, but it is never done enough, BIG GUNS RULE!

Though they will be captured if not defended take about 6-10 BIG GUNS (ie; Cannon, Artillary ect) about 4 Calvary, and about 2-3 good reifleman. You can pound through just about any city (Monarch level). Usually I shell for 2-3 turns then I attack when the best defended shows one 1 hp. This will dominate infantry no problem.

 

[Random Passerby]

If it weren't for the overwhelming importance of mobility, I'd go for artillery all the way. However, while assisting a battle with the big guns can reduce wounds and casualties greatly, they pose a problem for large-scale invasions--having lots of artillery doesn't do much good when you're trying to make a drive into enemy territory that would take them several centuries to go! Artillery and combined arms and that is awesome if you can get your units to their objectives in short enough time, but otherwise you should pretty much just swarm with your best "cavalry" unit. And if you do a cavalry rush anyways, you're still not really going to be any the worse for it, just need a couple turns to heal up retreating units.

Game balance is REALLY skewed way too much in favor of cavalry and not enough for artillery, although artillery at least retains a unique role.

 

[Vodkafire]

Before the war, stack up a giant front of the current draft unit. Declare war, and just keep moving the front forward, killing everything in your way. Draft as many people as possible as many turns as possible.

Basically, you will loose a lot of people, but you will overwhelm them. Russian style in WW2...

 

[LeroyJr]

I find artillery and the like useless. I set all of my cities to never build it. Simple fact is that it does not move fast enough. If I go to war it is with huge numbers and only mobile units need apply. I LOVED Howitzers in Civ II but the new stuff does not do it for me.

Industrious civs rule once you discover Steam Power and especially Replaceable Parts. Rail right up to their front doorstep and blast them with tanks or cavalry. If you loose a few workers it is no big deal, you will ussually get them back.

I soften them up with Bombers rather than artillery. They really need to do something with the rebase thing though. I was fighting the Persians on a huge map once for some reason. It took 12 turns by transport to get my tanks there and once I took a city I rebased all of my bombers in one year and destroyed the Persians with them. You should not be able to move 100 squares in a year.

Attacking with and Army of Tanks or Mech Infantry is also a good way to knock out defenders.

 

[Moulton]

I agree with that. Ihave used the move-around-the-world-in-one-turn, to rehome enogh bombers to keep the front moving, but it seems unbalancing. I liked theold rule better, where you could fly as far as you could, andthen land in a friendly city. I took awhile to move the bomber fleet, but it was faster than roads or sea. Just had to build bases first...

 

[CivAl]

Always scout out the enemy first - getting a good map is especially important. Capitals usually appear within a cav-move of sea. Even an ancient D-Day landing can be very effective. You'll need a few Galleys, however, and plan the war out in advance. With 16 Knights you can destroy their empire in a turn - 5 Knights on each city on the front, and another 6 landing by their capital with six galleys..

 

[skywalker]

Step 1: Drop one (1) ICBM on each tile of the enemy nation.
Step 2: Land fifty (50) Modern Armor on enemy coast.
Step 3: Sit back and relaxe.