War Tips.

[CivIVMonger]

As I make it to monarch I notice that it takes more than peacemongering to edge yourself to victory. It takes war. this is a free thread that I would like to read tips from trial and error. Some of you might say, "This is an impossible question to answer."
But all I want some quick tips on war. Trial and error stories, and mabye a rule of thumb or two.




Sorry for being so pestering lately, but civ is SO fun, I can't stop my fingers from asking these questions. If you know what I mean.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

This is an impossible question to answer.


Sorry. Couldn't resist.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

But all I want some quick tips on war. Trial and error stories, and mabye a rule of thumb or two.

1) Learn how catapults work.
2) Use what you learn.

 

[CivIVMonger]

This is an impossible question to answer.


Sorry. Couldn't resist.

I knew someone could say that!!!

 

[CivIVMonger]

Meh.... I'll just do what makes since... read the war academy....

 

[mboettcher]

whip early and often. Math Chop cats.

Beeline, beeline, upgrade, upgrade, win

Diplomacy is more important in wars I'd say as fighting the right war is more important than optimizing which city you attack or which resources you pillage (note Germany, 20th century)

 

[StrategeryBush]

I am only mediocre at war fighting; however, here are some things that I have learned through trial and error. BTW I play at Normal speed, which affects my thoughts on the matter.

When you go to war, everybody builds units. You need attackers, stack defenders, garrison troops, and replacements for losses. Build units.

Your opponent probably has a stack of doom somewhere, don't split your forces until you have defeated it.

Corollary to the above, bring enough troops to do so.

Cannons own Longbows. Winning the Liberalism race and grabbing Steel is huge.

Keep 'em moving. That Mace with 7.2 health is good enough, you don't have time to wait for him to heal up to 8.

Bring more siege units. I know you think you have enough, bring more.

 

[Jedi_Otis]

Scout enemy territory with spies prior to war. Some civs spam units. Some don't. If they have an SoD somewhere, it's best to draw them into your territory where you get first crack at them instead of just marching into their turf where they get first crack at you.

If feasible, sabotage or pillage vital resources(Iron, oil, aluminum,etc).

Spies can take down cultural defenses with support city revolt mission. Use them in conjunction with mobile troops(Cav, tanks, even paratroopers) to quickly seize cities deep in enemy territory without waiting for slow moving seige and footsoldiers.

 

[mboettcher]

The city revolt strategy is really powerful.

I was playing as Germany in one game and my industrial economy got up really fast. (evener faster than usual with Germany. Maybe I'm just not as bad as last time I played with them). The APlants leveraged into other buildings fast and long before I could get my target of Radio and flight I had 25 panzers with some pinch healer calvary (hint:tank wars means build red cross in calvary producing city for healer/pinch-anti tank protection). With a fast moving stack that couldn't be countered quickly I used spies as replacement bombers to undo cultural defenses (with riots) the turn of attack and would demolish them with my CRIII/CI and DIV panzers from westpoint (I also popped Erwin Rommel in this game so I thought it only fitting to make him the warlord of a CRIII+watever panzer. Very destructive)

With in a few turns I had 8 cities and got an easy peace before the AI's units came back from some other war he was at (yes I attacked an AI with a large army that I had bribed to go fight another war way on the other side of the continent, waited till his 80 cavs and infantry were over there and then backstabbed. Cheap I know.)

 

[Crusher1]

A safe route at any level is to power tech towards Rifles/Steel then own the world. When the timing is done right you can begin the attack before or shortly after 1000 AD when AIs are backwards, even on high levels.

I suggest learning the nuances of GAs, gold, a GM, and upgrades.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Use good diplomacy and attack when you have and advantage? That's pretty standard at any level where you're not just steamrolling.

People have won at all levels w/o using war to expand. War might not fix the holes in your play. I made it to and through monarch via doing nothing but war basically. Once I honed micro a bit I could go 50/50 on emperor that way or cheese AP for a more sure thing. After that you kind of sort of need empire management skills too though. Or a slow speed and a good UU.

 

[champ82]

You've probably heard this but I'll say it any way -

Siege.

Oh you think you have enough? You probably don't.

At least I used to never build enough. Sometimes I still don't. There are some exceptions, but siege should usually consist of 1/3 maybe even 1/2 of your army. This is counter intuitive to many players but it makes such a big difference. On my first emperor victory the continent I was on dogpiled Sitting Bull. I thought "oh great, how am I going to take advantage of this? CG 2 or 3 longbowmen!" But I just produced a lot of siege and took cities with ease.

 

[oyzar]

Have enough troops to do what you want to do when you start the war, don't start the war when you don't have enough troops.

When fighting AI's there are a lot of tricks you can use to smash it to smithereens without it being able to handle you. Scout their stack with a spy or an airship(or similar), place your stack so they are 1 tile from reaching. Often the AI will then go and park their stack next to your stack letting you totally obliterate them with seige instead of the other way around. Often you can keep at big enough stack, at least at the start that the AI will be too "afraid" to attack you. This can leave them holed up in the cities where you again can bring the seige to bear on the masses. Speaking of cities. Once you capture one, the AI will try to take it back. Leave just a token defense in a city and they will take it back and park a whole lot of units there. This can then let you bring the seige to bear(notice a theme yet?). Rinse and repeat this as many times as you need to. A thing that doesn't involve colleteral is surprise naval attacks. The AI likes to hole all their ships in one city. Taking that on the first turn of the war leaves them almost without a navy. You can easily do this if you prepeare correctly. Of course, the easiest way to do this do involve a sort of colleteral weapon, namely nukes and tactical nukes. Nuke a city twice and a transport with pretty much anything can wipe out the remainder of the defenders. Obviously surprise attacks against coastal cities work fine even when there isn't much naval force there, nor you have nukes. Naval surprise attacks is among the strongest tactics against humans as well, due to their tendency to keep less defense everywhere than AI (they just don't have the bonuses to build that many units everywhere).

 

[scothed]

Agree with the comments on seige above. Also, something I've only managed to do a couple of times is to build lots of nukes and load them on subs and then get the UN non-proliferation treaty signed. I then park my subs off the coast of my next target(s) and pound them! I managed to get Alexander to capitulate using this tactic without having to take a single city off him, just because I'd nuked every single one he had

edit: the idea being that you've built nukes before anyone else can!

 

[Inso]

Beeline a tech which enables a military unit your target isn't close to getting for the advantage, go to war when your civ's UU is available, don't stay at war for too long, whip lots (which I'm no good at still).

Siege too, I always neglected this in my early civ days, building a huge amount of units with maybe 2-3 cats. Best to have at least 50% siege, its just such a huge advantage for taking cities whatever units are being used.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Thanks, that's just what I wanted to hear.

 

[muxec]

As for beelining - on water-heavy maps combustion/flight beeline may be more important than rifling. I often have fighters and destroyers while still not having rifles. enemy that can not land can not capture your cities.

Do not be afraid to attack AI with higher power rating and lots of territory. huge territory often means that he has many cities with 3-4 garrison troops and the actual stack is not very big.

City is the least defended tile in wars with lots of siege. Ciege can only be promoted with city raider and the bonus is huge. Also city defences can be bombed, forest can't. Freshly captured cities have no defense. When DoWed at by much stronger AI who does not raze with bigger stack let him capture your city and position his SoD there, than destroy the stack with CR siege and retake the city. Should you defend in the city or in the field without sufficient numbers you would lose.

Do not underestimate +2XP civics, especially with charismatic leader.

 

[Preston85]

If you have open borders... scout! See what they have already, lots of horse/ele's? Bring more spear/ele's to counter. Lots of xbows? Bring more mounted. You can also see what they can possibly build by looking for bronze/iron/horse/ele's on the map. If they only have one and its close to your borders go pillage it and camp the square for easy war of attrition win.

The thing i'm trying to do is war more. I only seem to do it when I want to invade all of the land, but early wars to steal workers, pillage a few tiles for gold (and to hurt the development of the other civ) which makes later wars easier. I think sometimes a civ's UU is more suited to pillaging/defense type roles, attacking units that are protecting resources or moving to attack your invasion stack. I plan to do it more to get more use from UU's that arn't city busters.

Quality vs Quantity? I use GG's for XP rather than +50% production. Units have upkeep/supply costs, quality does not.

Finally, whilst not a "war tip" I would like to point out that a good economy/building plan really helps. I used to rarely use the "Build Gold" or "Build Research" options and just stuck to buildings but now I see how much specialisation right down to Gold or Research helps. Even 10 hammers becomes 10 gold/beakers, a 10% building would only give more if it currently has 100 gold/beakers, nevermind the time to see the return for the multiple building turns lost. Linked to this is building gold in military cities, rather than pump out units that will soon be obsolete or you don't need yet, you can get quite a bit of gold by building it, this can then be used to upgrade units (or up the research if you want).

 

[GenerallyGreat]

Bribe you target into a war then wait a few turns. His stack will be off in another land and will almost never come back. Nothing beats a good backstab.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Does the AI really only have one stack at a time?