When do you use cannon fodder troops?

[slobberinbear]

You're in an early ancient or classical age war, and your axes or swords show up to the target city only to find a slew of archers on a hill, with a wall, etc. You can't pay unit maintenance in a foreign land while you wait to research catapults. Your choices are: choose another target, withdraw and wait for catapults, or mass your forces and storm the walls. I usually take the latter option.

Typically I have 4-8 swords with a CR I promotion and a few other units. Generally speaking, is it better to send in the other units as cannon fodder to soften up the bad guys, to try to land the knockout blow with the swordsmen? Or should I hit with the strongest units first, and use the other units as last-ditch mop-up units?

I have noticed that in really tough cities (or against protective civilizations), you can send in the cannon fodder and do absolutely no damage with them.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Tough call. If I have a lot of units I will only attack with decent promoted troops if I have 70%+ odds for the fight, otherwise send in the noobs and hope they win and get promotions or do some damage and get promoted.

It's wise to have a medic I unit in the mix (spearman or a defensive axe) to help the injured heal a bit.

Other plans you haven't mentioned are pillaging a bit for cash and hope the AI sends some units out the city to deal with them (the AI can be dumb sometimes). Sometimes they do really stoner moves like send 2 archers out of the city with a settler too.

If the city is on a hill it's probably best looking for another target. Barb cities are pretty good training for troops to give them some promos. CR2 promotions are a big step up from CR1 and that's what you really want in this situation.

Try and get open borders before you declare war to have a scout around too.

Less conventional tactics include putting 1 troop on its own next to the city in the hope one of the defenders will attack it and move out of the city.

The worst thing you can do is attack and just weaken the top defenders without killing any, you really need at least 2:1 or better 3:1 units to attack in the first round. Otherwise you just give the defenders an extra CG promotion and that heals them 50%. Better to run away or pillage then.

Flanking chariots work well as pre-catapult defence softening up cannon fodder, they get a chance to withdraw if they would have been killed. Flanking 2 gives immunity to first strikes which are the reason why you can attack defenders and they take no damage.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

In BtS, I find that a Spy will reduce the defence bonus in the city to 0. Then I use my lowest experience troops to soften up their toughest ones. Anything with Flanking will be used first. Haven't built a single catapult in BtS yet. Been using spies to give me the openning...

 

[Dan Quale]

I dont like to use cannon fodder anymore, it creates too much war weariness, Instead I leave the hilltop fortresses until last, You dont need survivors after the was is over, and war weariness doesn't matter after a civ is dead. Also I mainly send my veterans to easy fights and only suicide the unpromoted troops/cats.

 

[Perugia]

Less conventional tactics include putting 1 troop on its own next to the city in the hope one of the defenders will attack it and move out of the city.

I do this quite often especially if I have obsolete units around. Just be sure the opponent can't use roads to kill your unit and retreat back into the city .

You can do a similar thing if you have idle workers. The AI will capture the worker and move it into the city for you saving upkeep. You can then kill the defender in the open and eventually get the worker back when you take the city.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I intended to put "not on a road" when saying that but must have forgot.

In warlords they tend to kill workers they capture, unless it is a worker you have previously stolen from them. Workers can't move after being captured in warlords. So I don't use this tactic unless I have way too many workers (not very often).

 

[gettingfat]

A few may help. But at such an early stage you don't want to destroy all your units, even unpromoted archers. First sending a large army is costly and leads to war weariness. Second it reduces your power ranking (which does not count promotion) and you may get backstabbed. Third keeping some "happy warriors" is crucial if you need to run hereditary ruling.

 

[AThousandYoung]

I usually use them to distract the cannons.