What stops flank attack?

[ladsud]

I moved a stack to attack an enemy city, I had mixed arms. Knights, maces, pike, bowman, trebs. His stack of knights totally destroyed all my trebs by flanking. What were all my knights doing during this flank attack, sitting back and watching all my trebs be destroyed?

Is there any counter to this?

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

No you cant really counter iit other than a) killing his attackers b4 they get to the stack with your siege or b) bring a TON of siege and hope some of them survive. What can be REALLY annoying is ALL the attacker mounted uinits need to do to cause flanking damage to siege is survive the attack. I have had games where I won EVERY battle but STILL lost ALL my seige cuz enough of the losing attackers withdrew instead of dying grrrr. Only comfort to that sitch is it works both ways so you can do it to enemy stacks as well as the enemy can do it to you.

Kaytie

 

[Junuxx]

At the start of the war, just wait and let them come to you. You're at a great advantage in your own territory, because of greater mobility. And don't forget the extra GG points. Slaughter the cavalry they send at you and then counterattack. Your siege units should be much safer then.

 

[bestsss]

Forts for instance

 

[Dig-Doug]

I moved a stack to attack an enemy city, I had mixed arms. Knights, maces, pike, bowman, trebs. His stack of knights totally destroyed all my trebs by flanking. What were all my knights doing during this flank attack, sitting back and watching all my trebs be destroyed?

Is there any counter to this?

"One word, just one word"

Pikemen!

DD

 

[Jaybe]

Other than pikes, you can approach the city with multiple stacks instead of just one SOD. It tends to confuse the AI. You'll still have to experiment with your siege placement (concentrated or distributed).

The whole Flank Attack concept was implemented so no one would be able to depend on using a siege-predominant force.

 

[NKVD]

woah there is something i dont understand. why on earth were the trebuchets defending and not the others units. flanking have nothing to do with this ?

 

[GrayingGamer]

I'm thinking that there's no direct defense against a bunch of mounted units with the two flanking promotions.

They'll usually (always?) get the 50% withdraw chance, and if they survive the fight (which usually means they just attack some pikeman/elephant and then withdraw) they WILL do some damage to siege units in the stack.

As one of the posters above said, the best defense is to try to draw them out ahead of time, kill them, and then move your stack in.

 

[Polobo]

As others have noted; bring spears/pikes/rifles since flanking only takes affect if the mounted unit survives.

Note to NKVD - the trebs were not defending but received flanking damage when the mounted attackers survived their charge. Kinda like collateral damage.

While in real life having your own mounted forces would allow the commander to counter-flank the attacking mounted units that mechanism has not been implemented in Civ4.

If the siege units are in a fort or city they cannot be flanked.

You need to scout out you opponent and if they have lots of mounted units the city assaults should probably be delayed until you pillage and cover their horse resources and you pick off the bulk of the mounted stack.

 

[6K Man]

Anti-mounted units. Spears counter anything up to Wellies, Pikes will counter anything up to Knights. Riflemen counter Cavalry. If you don't have those, try to promote the occasional level 4 unit to Formation.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If the AI has a SoD, kill it in your territory before entering enemy lands.

After that, bring a couple spears/pikes/elephants and the stray mounted units won't hit your stack, choosing instead to defend in cities.

When that happens, not only do they not flank your siege, they lose to it outright fairly easily.

 

[jim_langdon]

Can someone explain exactly how to flank the enemy? I looked in the war academy docs and couldn't find a description. Historically this was done with at least two cavalry units coming in from the sides of an attacking force... will this work?

 

[peppe1]

Civ IV doesn't have tactical combat. You do not have to position your units. It is all handled in the attack/defense of a stack. When you attack with a unit or a group of units the best attacker is sent and then the best defender is selected (best defender takes into account bonuses vs that attack so mounted units usually face their counter pikes/spears etc).

Some units have flanking abilities in their description. If you look at a knight it should say something like flanks catapults and trebs.

As others mentioned flanking damage is applied to the specified unit type whenever the attacker fights and lives. The attacker does not need to kill its defender. Promoted mounted units can often get high withdrawal chances to retreat before they die. So they often don't kill the defender, but still do damage to the siege line.

 

[lymond]

ladsud - make sure your bring some counter-support units in your stack. Mounted unts are great attackers but before defenders. I always bring some pikes and phants to fend of mounted units up to Knights. Also, throw in some mace with shock promos.

Flanking occurs when a mounted units either kills a unit in your stack or withraws (the flanking promo increases the withdraw chance).

 

[nfw]

I suppose you can literally form a Napoleon era square with majority of the siege in the center, and a few decoys sprinkled along the edge to let enemy mounted exhaust themselves against those first. Never tried it myself though.

Also, don't promote your siege until they are ready to attack, that way they can instant heal even if they took some flanking damage.

Oh, and don't stay on roads inside enemy borders, if there is road, use your own mounted to pillage it, so that it would take at least 1 move point to attack your stack.

 

[Ataxerxes]

I suppose you can literally form a Napoleon era square with majority of the siege in the center, and a few decoys sprinkled along the edge to let enemy mounted exhaust themselves against those first. Never tried it myself though.

Also, don't promote your siege until they are ready to attack, that way they can instant heal even if they took some flanking damage.

Oh, and don't stay on roads inside enemy borders, if there is road, use your own mounted to pillage it, so that it would take at least 1 move point to attack your stack.

Good advice, but I do disagree on one item. If you form the Napoleon square, your decoys get killed. In a stack the best defenders counter, which is a huge advantage. Pikemen separate from a stack are GG fodder for your enemy. In a stack, they're great, being automatically selected to defend against attacking cavalry. It's usually better to have one (possibly two if the AI is dying and you have enough troops) stacks with appropriate counters in it.

OP: A dead horse unit doesn't cause flanking. Pikemen in your stack will kill most horsies, minimizing your damage. Don't go strategic on troop placement, the Stack of Doom is used in CivIV. The AI makes stacks as well, but usually doesn't mix them as well as a human.

 

[babar]

I would just add that if your opponent has a lot of knights, build quite a few pikes or elephants, not just one or two (useful for picking off knight incursions into your own territory too).

 

[AutomatedTeller]

There's a couple of different definitions of flanking in the game:

One is the two promotions (flanking I and II), available to a variety of units, like mounted. These give the unit a (higher) chance to retreat instead of dying when they attack.

The other is the damage that certain units (I think only mounted) do to seige units if they survive combat (either by winning or by withdrawing). Horsearchers do flanking to cats, knights to cats and trebs, etc. Note that chariots don't do flanking damage, horse archers can't hurt trebs

This kind of seems overpowered, but then, seige units are immune to collateral damage from other seige units.

I've gotten to the point where I give flanking I and II to my mounted units before anything else, cause they are just better...

 

[sendos]

Yes, this is one of the most annoying things I've encountered in this game. I'm very used to Alpha Centauri and civ 2, where there is a Zone of Control rule, preventing basic flanking.

The only counter you could adopt would be to follow a Civ 5 tactic: spread your forces out, cover each tile that is exposed to being flanked and slowly move forward to the enemy. Think of it as WWI trench warfare.

 

[Sincro]

Actually, the proper counter has already been given: Let the enemy bring his SoD into your territory and wipe it out there. Then have sufficient anti-mounted units in your own SoD to prevent the smattering of mounted units left from even bothering to attack you in the first place while you roll up on their cities.

-Sinc