Warfare in BtS

[Mack_Jagger]

I posted a bragging thread a month ago that Bts is so much easier than Warlords, and yeah it is, on small maps. Now that I'm playing normal sized maps it's a whole different ball game. It' seems to be just just plain impossible for me to win on monarch. The reason is the AIs tendency to hoard troops on a massive scale and make good use of catapults. My last game is typical, playing as Rameses, sharing borders with Shaka and Julius Caesar. I expanded to three citys and got a little bit wonder crazy, aiming for a specialist economy. But yeah, with neighbours like those it can't be just fun and games and I started to amass war chariots and axe men by the time Ceasar started to demand stuff. I refused and he sent a stack with three praetorians and a catapult which I fended of with ease. Shortly after I were able to switch relegion to buddhism which was the thing of the day on my continent. I bribed Caesar with a tech for peace, and he went instantly pleased with me, since we were sharing religion. And the I started building, building troops, looking to knock either Caesar och Shaka of the continent. Shaka soon evolved to be the main target, for the obvious reason that I began to see impis hovering around my borders, and that he was cautious with me, despite the shared religion. When he attacked I had my three border cities packed with longbows, axmen, cats and crossbows, and on top of that, an attackforce of city raider promoted swords, ready to go.

The first thing i noticed exept the enormous size of Shakas three(!) sods that were attacking simultaniously on my three bordercities was the wast amount of catapults in them. Ha planted his first stack on a wooded hill and started to pound med with the cats, dishing out collateral damage like there was no tomorrow. He cut half of my garrison down in the first attack, without loosing any of his own units. The drama was quite the same on the other battle locations as well. I threw in my city raider swords in panic to get them butchered as well.

This maybe was extreme but in my other monarch games the tendency is that the flood of enemies never dies away. My whole civ goes in to high production, research dying away and even if I don't loose any citys I'm pinched down and can't go on the offence. And when peace finally is achived, with nothing gained, I'm so far behind that the game is allready down the drain. I'm very puzzled over this.

 

[J-man]

I'm trying to make the jump from prince to monarch and I have the same problem with trying to keep up in power rating, as well being rather backward in tech compared to the AI.

 

[madscientist]

You are likely playing agressive AI. Diplomacy counts more unless you can just plain out dominate. THe AI also sends a better mix of units in the stacks making counter attacks more difficult.

I can win on standard maps at marathon speed at BTS monarch. Peacefully of vis the sword.

A few general ideas

1) Diplomacy. Get allies which will go to war for you. You know who they are by this time. People like Washington, LIz, HC generally will not go to war for you, but people like Shaka, Alex, CAtherine, Both Celts can be. USe religion and favored civics.

2) Take out the biggest threat early. If Shaka is close, take him out with axes or at least cripple him.

3) Keep the economy in top shape however you want (SE, CE, shrines), that should eventually win the day.

4) Watch the powergraph and keep up although likely you cannot get to the top.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Moving up from Prince to Monarch, I've noticed that the AI seems to always keep ahead in power rating, even the more peaceful AIs. They still seem to tech fast enough, so I don't know exactly what the deal is.

I've also witnessed a catapault stack of doom. I was 6th on the power charts for a while, when my neighbor Zara Yaqob (who's furious with me after an earlier war where I razed a bunch of his dinky jungle cities) puts a stack of some 20 units in a city close to my borders. I was worried at first before I noticed that the stack consisted of about a half-dozen macemen, a couple of crossbows, six chariots, and then probably about 10 or 15 catapaults. Without any pikemen, the stack succumbed quickly to a few knights.

 

[Verge]

The reason is the AIs tendency to [...] make good use of catapults.

Build more mounted units; in addition to their advantages over catapults, their fast response time on friendly roads make them excellent global-to-local defense-oriented attackers.

 

[Gliese 581]

Moving up from Prince to Monarch, I've noticed that the AI seems to always keep ahead in power rating, even the more peaceful AIs. They still seem to tech fast enough, so I don't know exactly what the deal is.

The AI gets discounts on unit maintenance and research as well as production. IIRC it's an even playing field on prince (or is it noble?) But then the AI gets more and more discounts for each level.

 

[Sjaramei]

You need a different composition in your stack than you had in warlords. With Aggressive AI, close to half or more of your stack should be promoted to be stack defenders since you won't be fighting archers anymore. (Shock axes is the way to go, lots of em) And if you face a huge stack with a considerably smaller one of your own, let them take a city so you can pummel them with CR cats or similar siege. Else collateral and fighting in the open, while moving on hills/forests is the way to go. I never get close to the power rating of the AI's in my games until i get close to domination. Quality of the stack defenders and siege is what wins your war. Good stack defenders and a medic unit makes the catapult attempts from the AI useless. (It is in my games at least)

Walls and castles are great also, whip them in border cities you think the AI will invade. The AI bombards defenses down for a couple of turns if you got a couple of decent troops in it so you can save turns for reinforcements to arrive by getting these. The key to winning is fighting smart (AI is horrendously stupid most of the time)

Oh and Shaka is insane , he has way more troops than anyone else, so if you want to fight him either have tech lead, or superior troops. (or if all else fails, insane amounts of suicide catapults )

 

[Winged Monkey]

You are likely playing agressive AI. Diplomacy counts more unless you can just plain out dominate. THe AI also sends a better mix of units in the stacks making counter attacks more difficult.

I can win on standard maps at marathon speed at BTS monarch. Peacefully of vis the sword.

A few general ideas

1) Diplomacy. Get allies which will go to war for you. You know who they are by this time. People like Washington, LIz, HC generally will not go to war for you, but people like Shaka, Alex, CAtherine, Both Celts can be. USe religion and favored civics.

2) Take out the biggest threat early. If Shaka is close, take him out with axes or at least cripple him.

3) Keep the economy in top shape however you want (SE, CE, shrines), that should eventually win the day.

4) Watch the powergraph and keep up although likely you cannot get to the top.

This is good advice. I can win consistently on Monarch now, and am about 50/50 on Emperor. And I don't even consider myself particularly good. Browsing these forums teaches me new things every day, and the level of thought and advanced strategy some players put into this game I have to admit is beyond me. I will catch up though.

Anyway, the key to my relative success has always been what I'd like to call Intelligent Warfare.

The diplomacy thing is key. I've always found that being on good foot with the crazy warmonger types of leaders pays off dividends. 1) They're less likely to attack YOU, and 2) They're generally prone to being a bit behind in tech so bribing them into wars is usually easy.

However, as madscientist says, if one of the crazy bunch starts really close to you it might be a good idea to wipe him out early. On higher difficulty levels it's hard to stay even in the power graph (and not really desirable either imo - quality over quantity), and close borders will spark tensions. So just wipe him out early and do your rexing that way. Timing is key here. You don't want to axe-rush into a bunch of heavily fortified axemen, or god forbid, longbows. So for the early rush you preferably want copper asap and get enough axes early enough to take out his cities while they're still defended by archers. Got horses? Get chariots or horse archers depending on how much time you've got / tech level. On higher difficulty levels, the window of time is very narrow, so you need single minded determination if you follow this route. The next opening you'll get is cats / war elephants (if you're lucky) with construction. That might be too late.

In this early period of conquest, you also need to balance your economy. Overstretching early with too many cities and too much warfare might leave you crippled for a long time and it'll take too long for you to consolidate your wins. Being financial/organized obviously helps. If you lack either traits, consider razing that marginal fringe city instead of keeping it. Keep it compact until your next expansion phase with cats and macemen...

Finally, you should exploit the AI's ineptitude at warfare. In your case, you let Shaka take the initiative by declaring on you. You let him fight the war on his terms. You always want to be the aggressor. Or well, always is perhaps too strong a word. If you got a good choke point and can lure the AI to suicide his SOD's at you, that's not a bad strategy, but usually, it pays off being the aggressor. PLAN before going to war. Experience will eventually tell you how much force you need to withstand his initial counter-strike. If you can survive this with your forces relatively intact you're basically good to go. In practical terms (in my experience at least) this means taking a few cities early with massive force, and hold them against the AI's onslaught. Beware of leaving cities behind poorly defended if the AI can get to them easily. Try to make as narrow a front as possible. In fact, the width of the front is usually one of the key decisions for me when choosing my next victim. Choking up the AI and letting him run out of steam, usually results in an easy win.

Also notice that the AI tends to gamble on which cities they try to hold. Sometimes they'll put most of their forces in the city right next to you, and leaving open a city behind that can seal them off if you take it. Just skip the heavily defended city and move on to take the city behind it, or go pillage crazy and wait for reinforcements if there isn't any significant advantage to taking on another city. Oh, pillaging. That's really important. If you can cut off the AI from key resources you make it incredibly much easier for your self. I try to avoid pillaging villages/towns if I plan to keep the city they belong to though.

Finally, you can never have enough cats/trebs/cannons/art! Build them early and build plenty even though you're not really planning to attack in the near future.

 

[lilnev]

In BtS, I've mostly shifted away from early wars. The AI uses its troops better, but more importantly it's better at generating vast hordes of them quickly (improved use of slavery, perhaps?). It's not uncommon to attack, take the first city fairly easily, and encounter 14 defenders in the second city. Combined with the seige nerfs, well, I might not even have 14 non-seige attackers!

So these days I often don't fight until maces/trebs, or sometimes not until Rifling (which I can usually get first, and it provides a significant quality advantage, plus they're draftable). I emphasize blocking off territory early so that I can expand peacefully for a good long while.

Of course, sometimes circumstances just beg for an axe-rush, and you should be prepared to oblige.

peace,
lilnev

 

[suspendinlight]

I wouldn't worry a whole lot about the power rating. I almost always have a lower power rating than the top 3 civs (playing with 10-20 civs). I don't know how Civ calculates the power rating but it is not that relevant. I think the calculation puts too much emphasis on the number of units or something. I sometimes have one archer in some of my most interior cities while my frontier cities have riflemen. Meanwhile the AIs are stockpiling musketeers and longbowmen everywhere.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

Thanks for all the input, I'll certainly put all your advice to the test. I was kind of frustrated yesterday. I was a regular monarch player in Warlords and didn't much enjoy getting ripped apart by Shaka and the rest of his psycopathical, homocidal kindreds, (Monty and Alex). I actually aborted a game when I got thoose three knuckle heads on my continent. I rarley lost a fight in Warlords but obviously my strategies don't work in Bts so I have some things to rethink. So thanks a bunch for the tips.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

Short update. In my last game (not yet ended) I diverted from my usual tactic of early war. I usually try to eliminate one of the AI before the ADs, something that has become harder in Bts because of the AIs unitspamming. Instead I started a game with Zara Yakob of Ethiopia and did some pretty sucessfull Rexing and ended up the second largest civ before hitting year zero. Its been a game of diplomacy where my closest neighbour Genghis Khan absolutley love me while wrecking havoc upon the other AIs. Second in score fo the moment (600 AD) with the liberalism race more or less in the bag. The economy is flourishing and the reseaech is set at 70 procent with an overflow of 17 gold each turn. 2000 in the bank which will come in handy as upgrade money since gun powder and Oromoro(?) warriors is close at hand. and when I get my hands on those guys, the peace loving nation of Ethiopia, will finally show it's claws and true colour as it transforms into an awsome warmachine. Ohhh I like it, I really do.

 

[dankok8]

2000 in the bank which will come in handy as upgrade money since gun powder and Oromoro(?) warriors is close at hand. and when I get my hands on those guys, the peace loving nation of Ethiopia, will finally show it's claws and true colour as it transforms into an awsome warmachine. Ohhh I like it, I really do.

Indeed but you want your oromos highly promoted for the extra effect so I'd also build a few .. in my recent game as Zara I used Drill IV Oromo (some of which I drafted) to a devastating effect; I was completely against the wall as I was dogpiled by 3 civs - Aztecs (backwards with only a few cities left but had hordes of macemen and jaguars), Julius (praets, knights, and trebs), and Justinian (cataphracts and trebs/cats mostly). I was outnumbered 5:1 but my 20 Drill IV Oromo just wiped out their entire armies and I even went on a counteroffensive wiped out the Aztecs and then vassalized Caesar. 2 or 3 Oromos reached XP 30+ by the end of it. Oromos kick ass!!!

 

[Mack_Jagger]

Dankok8, you're right Drill IV promotes Ormoro warriors is pretty leathal. I attacked the score board leader Joao of Portugal and he threw a big stack of knights against my Ormoros and they fared pretty bad from that treatment. I forgott about the knights immunity to first strikes but further disasters was easily avoidid with some pikemen tucked in the hoard. Joao is history and I got the biggest landmass of all the Civs and from here on the Ethiopian empire will be a peace loving and prosporous civilisation with their eyes set for space. But in the other hand, thoose level 6 oromoros would be pretty cool to throw around when up graded to riflemen or infantry. But..., no, for once I will not deteriorate to be the tyrant war mongerer. I havent actually won a space race in Bts yet. Would be fun to do i guess

 

[dankok8]

I forgott about the knights immunity to first strikes

Yea .. I fought Cataphracts which replace knights and have 2 extra strength making them very powerful but they have no first strike immunity so that's why I had a field day against those!! If I was facing regular knights, I actually would have fared worse ..