What combination of Units do you attack with?

[Brave Jay]

I was just wandering what combos everyone likes to use when attacking cities. I like about 3 stacks of 5 units each composed of 2 melee and 3 artillery.

 

[Crimso]

In the ancient times, I usually have six to eight catapults (four with accuracy and the rest with City Raider II), two axes, two spears (one of whom is the medic), three archers, two horse archers, and seven swords. I make two of these stacks to conquer another civ whole. Sometimes it's complete over kill and I've wasted time and money, and other times it's perfect. But, it never fails. This game I'm gonna throw in an elephant too.

 

[cleverhandle]

My typical mid-game battlegroup:

- 6-8 raiders - foot troops with Raider promos, e.g. Axes, Maces, Rifles, Infs
- 4 catapults w/Bombard + Accuracy
- 3 siege units (more for heavily defended towns)
- 2 "stack defenders" - whatever current unit can be best promoted to defend against skirmishers against the stack, e.g. Combat I/II Rifleman
- 2 mounted defenders/medics - spears/pikes w/Medic
- 2 garrison troops - archers or foot troops w/Garrison
- 2 mounted units

 

[Brave Jay]

In the ancient times, I usually have six to eight catapults (four with accuracy and the rest with City Raider II), two axes, two spears (one of whom is the medic), three archers, two horse archers, and seven swords. I make two of these stacks to conquer another civ whole. Sometimes it's complete over kill and I've wasted time and money, and other times it's perfect. But, it never fails. This game I'm gonna throw in an elephant too.

Aren't you afraid of your enemies decimating such large stacks w/catapults? I've noticed that the ai doesn't usually have lots of siege weapons for defense, but a human would

 

[Draetor24]

I always use collateral damage upgrades on my cats, the overall damage it does toa city stack of units is better than city raider imo. Then use regular troops like elephants/swords/macemen with city raider to capture the weaker units. Catapults are cheap to build and would rather replace them than other stuff.

 

[hollebeek]

The only thing that can harm catapults is horse archers, and collateral
damage is overpowered.

So the stack you want is six catapults, and two spearman, one with the
+10% healing promotion. Toss an axeman in the stack to really ruin your
opponents day.

 

[Crimso]

Aren't you afraid of your enemies decimating such large stacks w/catapults? I've noticed that the ai doesn't usually have lots of siege weapons for defense, but a human would

First of all, I call it a stack because it's the best word I can come up with; they actually move in two groups! Secondly, I, probably like you, read every article there was on Civ IV before it came out. I've discovered that a few things they mentioned turned out not to be true, like stacks being "decimated" by siege weapons. If I were to split my forces into a slew of smaller groups, then I would loose the advantage of combined arms, a concept that comes in play ten times more often. And how exactly do smaller groups protect me from catapults in the first place? So, when the AI sacrifices a catapult taking 1.2 points of damage off of four of my units, I'm actually a little bit happy, because it's actually fighting back and it's justifying the huge army I just built.

This whole issue is just like how large empires are supposedly "unsustainable."

Finally, the only humans I play Civ IV with are with my friends (Internet play is way too hurried), and even then it's rare. If I were to attempt conquering another person's civ, I would either build twice as many units, or Quechua rush them.

 

[Smeee]

20 stealth bombers
15 Jet fighters

5-7 Modern Armour (mix of City Raider and Colateral damage)
3-4 Mech Inf (holding and mopping purposes)
1-2 SAM Inf (when they eventually get there)

Death from above!

 

[Grogs]

So far, I've been pretty disappointed in the AI's use of seige weapons. I think the best I've ever seen them do is send 2-3 suicide catapults at my stack when it's outside the city. With a medic I unit, most of the units that got damaged by the cats are full health by the time the defenses have been brought down and they're ready to attack the city.

The worst use of cats I've ever seen was in a recent war with Monte. During the early phases of the invasion, while I was far from his capital, I saw he had 6 cats in Tenochtitlan and I thought it would be a pretty rough time taking the city. Nope. He sent them, unescorted and in groups of 1-2 toward one of his cities I had just taken. When the cat would pull up beside the city, one of my macemen would pop out, kill the cat, and return to the city. I don't think his cats did a single point of collateral damage during the entire war.

 

[jazwana]

I too haven't seen the AI use collateral damage effectively. When they do attack a stack next to their city, they never press their advantage either. They can have 6-7 longbowmen defending and instead of coming out and taking out my weakened stack they'll sit in there after throwing away two cats and letting me heal.

 

[Mahatmajon]

I've had a lot of success with 2-3 melee trained axemen (+25% v. archery or melee depending on what the computer is using), 2-3 archers, & 3-4 city raider swordsmen. 1 of the axemen or archers is a medic and the others are just to pick off troops outside of cities.

Catapults are stupid and overpowered. Otherwise the better 'stack' is:
As many catapults as you can carry (2-3 per city to conquer)
A couple of city raider anything (they'll never lose/die after the suicide catapult(s) go in)

I'm having good success though and doing an early raid to take border towns and pillage to the AI's capital. No idea what to do in multiplayer games as I haven't played one yet.

 

[Bain]

First of all, I call it a stack because it's the best word I can come up with; they actually move in two groups! Secondly, I, probably like you, read every article there was on Civ IV before it came out. I've discovered that a few things they mentioned turned out not to be true, like stacks being "decimated" by siege weapons. If I were to split my forces into a slew of smaller groups, then I would loose the advantage of combined arms, a concept that comes in play ten times more often. And how exactly do smaller groups protect me from catapults in the first place? So, when the AI sacrifices a catapult taking 1.2 points of damage off of four of my units, I'm actually a little bit happy, because it's actually fighting back and it's justifying the huge army I just built.

if the siege weapons are trained properly (not city raider or strength, but more collateral and retreat(?) instead, they will hurt you far more than just 1.2 points and they will rarely be killed. Two attacks from a siege on your unit stack and that stack certainly shouldn't attack in next turn.

 

[Brave Jay]

I too haven't seen the AI use collateral damage effectively. When they do attack a stack next to their city, they never press their advantage either. They can have 6-7 longbowmen defending and instead of coming out and taking out my weakened stack they'll sit in there after throwing away two cats and letting me heal.

I think your right. Maybe we should tell firaxis about this ai issue. The AI doesn't appear to fully exploit any advantages concerning siege weapons.

 

[joelzhl]

Pre-Industrial Age:

5-10 (City Attacker) Axe/Sword/Mace with City Raid II +
2-4 (Field Combatant) Axe/Mace with Combat/Melee
2 (Anti-Mount) Spear/Pike with Medic (II)
2-4 (Anti-Melee) Xbow
4 (Siege Units) Cats with Accuracy
3-6 (Pillager) Horse with/aiming for Combat III/March or Combat IV/Commando
1-4 (Combat Engineer Team) consisting of 1x Archer/Longbow + 2 workers

Border cities pump out Archer/Longbows to secure captured land.


Post-Industrial Age

10-20 (City Attacker) Tanks with City Raid II +
20-30 (Field Combatant) Tanks/Infantry with Combat/Pinch/FS
2-4 (Medic) Infantry with Medic (II)
3-6 (Anti-Zerg) Machine Guns with First Strike IV
3-6 (Pillager) Cavalry with Combat IV/Commando
4-8 (City Blitz) Infantry with Combat IV/Commando
4-8 (Combat Engineer Team) Infantry + 2 workers
2-6 (Resource Denial Team) Carrier + Destroyer
1-2 (Amphibious Team) 2 Transports full of Marines
20-40 (Air Support) Bombers
5-10 (Recon) Fighters
5-10 (City Defenders) Infantry/MG sitting at various cities with airport
3-21 ("Liberators") Missionaries with plane tickets

 

[Nestorius]

Three swordsmen, two axemen, two spearmen, a horse archer, and two catapults are fine enough for taking cities in my experience for Prince level up to post-longbow/pre-knight, as long as you can maintain them and defeat the field army.

 

[kb2tvl]

I have went to seige weapons as the workhorse for taking a city and all other units as special purpose defense units. So, I bombard on the first round and attack with seige weapons on the next round. My seige units all have collateral damage as their upgrades.

I may have 2 pike, 2 mace, 2 knight, two cross bow and a number of cats equal to the city size I want to take. I attack with the cats and the rest provide defense.

 

[Zombie69]

Axemen and/or swordsmen. That's it.

 

[Plug]

I had France use about six cannons against a massive stack I had outside his capital city. This wasn't so much a problem with my strategy however. Paris was well-defended, and it was also on a promonotory jutting out into a lake that had a one square land bridge reaching out to it. I therefore had no choice but to place all my units on that one square of land bridge. France then threw all the cannons at me. however, I noticed that he didn't use the cannons he had in his capital. And he didn't have any other units to back up his cannons and ruin my stack.