zxcvbob
Emperor
Don't mix towers and rams in the same attack; use one or the other. From what I read in the Civilopedia they weaken each other.
War tactics
- Thread starter The Islander
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sa1vy
Warlord
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Lol, that seems like a dumb mechanic. Through intuition, they should give extra bonuses, not nerfs.
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As I understand it neither gives bonus damage, just rerouted it to wall or city so they just cancel each other so it makes sense in that way. But yes, we pushed the siege Tower forward but the battering ram was in the way, the siege tower fell and smashed both.
I agree though, especially as a Ram takes the gates while a tower takes the walls.
slowcar
King
A single Siege Tower (or Ram) is enough. It can also be embarked, just has to be adjacent to the city.
For quick fights Siege Towers are awesome, for example if you pushed Knights or Cavalry most cities won't survive the second turn.
For fights with more resistance you often need to bring ranged and the Ram will be the best choice then, they also combine with siege weapons. Without the walls the city won't have combat abilities so you can move more freely while dispatching the enemy troops.
I prefer to fight enemy troops on the open field (with a defensive position of my own), then sweep in to take cities with a Siege Tower and fast units.
For quick fights Siege Towers are awesome, for example if you pushed Knights or Cavalry most cities won't survive the second turn.
For fights with more resistance you often need to bring ranged and the Ram will be the best choice then, they also combine with siege weapons. Without the walls the city won't have combat abilities so you can move more freely while dispatching the enemy troops.
I prefer to fight enemy troops on the open field (with a defensive position of my own), then sweep in to take cities with a Siege Tower and fast units.
Use the terrain. As already mentioned, often it is a strong move to force the enemy to attack you - and just take a defensive stance first. But to be effective you need to know how the terrain modifiers work - especially if enemy have stronger troops than you.
If you fortify a melee unit on a forest hill, he will have equal strength to a next generation unit. If you add a river-crossing to that, your warrior will beat a swordsman. When you start attacking and it's a tight call if you're winning or losing, taking advantage of the terrain multipliers plays a big role. In melee naturally but also with ranged attack and defence. And always remember the movement cost - you can save many a unit's life if you don't forget to take advantage of rivers and rough terrain when retreating with low health units.
If you fortify a melee unit on a forest hill, he will have equal strength to a next generation unit. If you add a river-crossing to that, your warrior will beat a swordsman. When you start attacking and it's a tight call if you're winning or losing, taking advantage of the terrain multipliers plays a big role. In melee naturally but also with ranged attack and defence. And always remember the movement cost - you can save many a unit's life if you don't forget to take advantage of rivers and rough terrain when retreating with low health units.
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No-One mentioned support bonuses
While the civic military tactics gives flanking it also gives support bonuses
Each adjacent military unit (be it land or ship or scout or archer) provides +2 support bonus to each adjacent military unit against melee attacks.
Makes you think again about ignoring military tactics as an early civic for a domination player.
BTW, I accidentally discovered a ship counts as a flanking unit for land attacks and vice versa.
While the civic military tactics gives flanking it also gives support bonuses
Each adjacent military unit (be it land or ship or scout or archer) provides +2 support bonus to each adjacent military unit against melee attacks.
Makes you think again about ignoring military tactics as an early civic for a domination player.
BTW, I accidentally discovered a ship counts as a flanking unit for land attacks and vice versa.
Everyone else has covered tactics, so I will talk about logistics/strategy.
The first thing you should consider is whether the cost of going to war is worth the benefit. War is one of the costliest undertakings you can take in Civ. You need to spend production to build a large enough army to defeat your enemy. You need to have gold to sustain that army. You need amenities to keep your captured cities happy. You also have to take into account the warmongering penalties you will gain if you do anything more than defend. All of that production, gold, and reputation loss could be spent on other things, so don't go to war unless you are sure it is a good idea.
If you decide to go to war, the next thing to take into account is timing. If you attack too early, your army will not be strong enough to win. If you attack too late, the enemy may become too powerful to feasibly conquer. The eras that are best for war are Ancient, Classical, Renaissance, and Modern. The earlier eras are good for war because your foes are still weak and there are minimal warmongering penalties. The Renaissance and Modern eras are the last eras you can really rush for war because gunpowder basically nullifies the Medieval defenses that are tough to breach in earlier eras. After the Modern era, nukes make fighting a prolonged war very difficult.
Analyze the terrain you need to cross/fight in. Is it heavily forested? Is it full of hills? Is it a grassland? How far away is the Civ you want to conquer? Are they across the ocean? These factors play a huge role in what kind of units you need to build and how you are going to approach. If your enemy is mostly in grassland, build a cavalry army and take out their army before closing in for the kill. If your enemy is on another continent, build a navy and take/found a coastal city to serve as a staging ground. The more geographical barriers, the harder it is to invade. One handy tip is to send trade routes to the cities you want to conquer beforehand so you have roads to your enemies.
War is very costly, but it can be very effective. It is a good way to make your civ so huge that it cannot easily be stopped by others. It also can diversify your victory options. You might be going for the Science victory, but realize you are going to get beat. If you have taken everyone else's capitals, you could snipe your opponent for the Domination victory. On top of that, it is the best way to hijack the agenda of other players. If they think they are going to end up in WWIII with you, they will be forced to spend production building a larger defensive army. That production could have been going towards a wonder, and the gold could have gone towards Great People patronage. In short, wars are high risk, but very high reward.
The first thing you should consider is whether the cost of going to war is worth the benefit. War is one of the costliest undertakings you can take in Civ. You need to spend production to build a large enough army to defeat your enemy. You need to have gold to sustain that army. You need amenities to keep your captured cities happy. You also have to take into account the warmongering penalties you will gain if you do anything more than defend. All of that production, gold, and reputation loss could be spent on other things, so don't go to war unless you are sure it is a good idea.
If you decide to go to war, the next thing to take into account is timing. If you attack too early, your army will not be strong enough to win. If you attack too late, the enemy may become too powerful to feasibly conquer. The eras that are best for war are Ancient, Classical, Renaissance, and Modern. The earlier eras are good for war because your foes are still weak and there are minimal warmongering penalties. The Renaissance and Modern eras are the last eras you can really rush for war because gunpowder basically nullifies the Medieval defenses that are tough to breach in earlier eras. After the Modern era, nukes make fighting a prolonged war very difficult.
Analyze the terrain you need to cross/fight in. Is it heavily forested? Is it full of hills? Is it a grassland? How far away is the Civ you want to conquer? Are they across the ocean? These factors play a huge role in what kind of units you need to build and how you are going to approach. If your enemy is mostly in grassland, build a cavalry army and take out their army before closing in for the kill. If your enemy is on another continent, build a navy and take/found a coastal city to serve as a staging ground. The more geographical barriers, the harder it is to invade. One handy tip is to send trade routes to the cities you want to conquer beforehand so you have roads to your enemies.
War is very costly, but it can be very effective. It is a good way to make your civ so huge that it cannot easily be stopped by others. It also can diversify your victory options. You might be going for the Science victory, but realize you are going to get beat. If you have taken everyone else's capitals, you could snipe your opponent for the Domination victory. On top of that, it is the best way to hijack the agenda of other players. If they think they are going to end up in WWIII with you, they will be forced to spend production building a larger defensive army. That production could have been going towards a wonder, and the gold could have gone towards Great People patronage. In short, wars are high risk, but very high reward.
zxcvbob
Emperor
I have found that if the enemy is pretty far away it can help to conquer a neighboring city-state first to use as an operating base.
In a recent game, Montezuma declared war on me, and I destroyed his army because he couldn't keep them reinforced because his supply lines were so long. Then I went on the offensive and the same thing almost happened to me. The best thing I could have done would've been to capture that CS neighbor of his that declared war on me instead of peacing-out with them. (I didn't realize that at the time) I could've really used that city for healing/upgrading my units.
In a recent game, Montezuma declared war on me, and I destroyed his army because he couldn't keep them reinforced because his supply lines were so long. Then I went on the offensive and the same thing almost happened to me. The best thing I could have done would've been to capture that CS neighbor of his that declared war on me instead of peacing-out with them. (I didn't realize that at the time) I could've really used that city for healing/upgrading my units.
One thing to consider about the costs of war is that you can potentially gain financial benefits from war. I'm a deity/domination oriented player 90% of the time and my experience is this: Often war gets very expensive particularly in medieval and renaissance eras because you don't yet have enough trade route capacity nor strong enough economic policies. So what I do is this:
I alternate which rival civ I am at war with. Usually I take just one city at a time, then make peace if I can get a good enough peace deal. Often the enemy leader is willing to pay a lot of gold to stop your conquering. Then I attack the other rival civ while I'm getting nice GPT from the first one. Then I make peace with the second civ once I'm able to get good enough GPT peace deal from them. If one of the neighboring civs is especially wealthy, it is worthwhile to conquer some of their rivals' cities just to sell them to them.
By constantly receiving gold per turn from peace deals and by selling cities you can keep your military wheels rolling when gold is otherwise too scarce.
Oh, and I always try to beeline the 'mercenaries' policy before I do any massive unit upgrades. In the earlier eras it can be beneficial to focus on building current era units rather than upgrading the older ones - before you can get the policy that gives 50% price reduction for upgrades. With reduced gold maintenance cost of units, it can be more cost effective to keep the obsolete units sleeping somewhere for a while before you get to 'mercenaries' for an eventual mass upgrade.
I haven't used a siege tower yet. I try to keep two rams around a city. You mentioned their effect can stack, so I will try three.
I prefer taking down walls first. It saves time on healing after, and prevents walls from one-shotting units. Also, with walls down sooner, you can gain xp on your artillery while your melee finish the city off.
Loss of a unit also increases war weariness I believe.
Catapults... you know my plan for catspults. I had one early test, and it appears to be OP. We'll see what happens with civil service vs. bombards.
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Lily_Lancer
Deity
Saying about flanking bonuses, embarked land military units provide flanking bonus to navys, too. Which is a bug needs to be fixed, I think. It is ridiculous that scouts can act as great admirals and providing +2 to nearby navy units.
It makes less sense embarked. Land troops supporting naval ships has historical precedence I'm sure.
Aside from a terrorist or two, and maybe some special forces ops, I don't see a battalion of dudes in life jackets attempting flanking maneuvers on a battleship.
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Nor a swarm of coracles boarding a galley... however it's another use for scouts and a scout is lots stronger in a boat in later eras... hmmm I wonder if my great artists will count as flankers
Eliminator_Sr
Prince
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God of the Forge is extremely useful for early warfare - it can be a game changer. Try building only units at the beginning without expanding at all and see what you can do. I usually aim for a military CS or two for the production boost plus an early encampment. This is especially effective if you have an early source of iron or horses. You can usually capture some settlers along the way. If you have Sumeria or Scythia - just swarm your opponents with early mobile units and try to capture or raze as many cities as possible - it's good fun. If they have walls up then just pillage your way through to the next city (save farms for when you are actually seiging a city though since those heal your units). Archers are kind of weak for capturing cities so I generally try to go with a stronger option if it's convenient, but if not then just build a bunch of them and mix in warriors and it will work well enough. Build a battering ram ASAP and aim for an early Euraka for masonry - this will help you mop up the capitals that you may have bypassed early..
Lily_Lancer
Deity
Yes. In late game you'll have extremely many useless scouts since you have to build lots of scouts at Civil Service for scout+1 amenty policy, then those scouts retired after Mass Media since that policy is no longer available
stinkubus
Emperor
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God of the Forge works like gangbusters with Rome, and you can still get a production bonus on Legions after Agoge is obsoleted by Feudalism.
