Where are my SOLDIERS?!

[Teddy Bear]

First of all, hey! I gave up something for Lent, and I started playing other games to keep my mind off of it. I started getting addicted to Civilization, and before I know it I'm all the way up to IV, and soon Revolutions! This forum seems like a very interesting place, and it has taught me much so far. I am gaining confidence in my abilities, and I think that after I come over one final crutch that I shall be able to advance significantly in my play.

I know, you're probably thinking that I'm a newbie, so therefore this question must go in "Newbie Questions" sticky. However, after browsing the questions all over there, it seems like it's one of those "One answer, take it or leave it" deals. I'm not saying this is bad, as there are many questions that only require this type of treatment. Excellent job to whomever came up with the idea of the sticky! However, mine requires a bit more help...not trying to sound arrogant here, but I think I honestly need some serious assistance on this matter.

The problem? I don't garrison my cities efficiently.

In Civ I through III, I've always been a warmongerer. I'm that guy that chooses Huayna Capac for his Quecha Rush. However, I'm also the guy that gets those unhappy faces from the lack of military, and the one that gets dogged by aggressive civs. Even Gandhi took my city down! I'm sick of feeling the need to Ctrl-W my way to success. I want to get this puppy of a problem in a kennel before it becomes a bulldog.

For example, in my OCC on PRINCE, I put two archers in my city. That's it. THATS ALL I did for the entire game. I just have this crazy problem where I don't garrison the cities. I'm only advancing in science and trying to win peacefully. I think that if I don't go straight for barracks granary library aqueduct university observatory forge power plant and wonders and EVERYTHING ELSE IN BETWEEN that I will not win this game.

Does anybody have some constructive advice on how I should get into the habit of garrisoning each of my cities? For example, should I put out my best unit for every person in my population that's happy? Should I put enough for my unhappy faces? Or should I just do it so I'm exactly in middle of my power graph?

This is Vanilla Civ IV .

What are your methods of garrisoning? Please, tell me your method that you use for your game...you could even give others ideas to help their games out. I hope this becomes somewhat of a discussion...but I also hope that I get my question answered . Thanks everyone! If I'm way out of line, and should have posted in the sticky besides my previous conceptions, please, moderator or administrator whom it so bothers, PM me and let me know where it was moved .

Help, and discuss away.

-Teddy

 

[J4Ck]

at the start of the game i put 2-3 warriors/archers in every city. Later after feudalism i put 2-3 more longbows in each city and thats it. In coastal, border and important cities that are the most vournable to attacks and that i fear to lose i put 2-3 more units (with garrison promotion). But thats just me!
I also tend to lose some cities to AI also. But I allways have my SOD to recapture 'em later
longbows, musketmen, rifles, (SAM)infantry, muchinegun are best for defense.

 

[absimiliard]

Handy rule of thumb.

One of each type of modern unit each city.

(disclaimered w. "general rules of thumb break down in a lot of specific circumstances where specific options work hugely better.")

-abs

 

[Teddy Bear]

at the start of the game i put 2-3 warriors/archers in every city. Later after feudalism i put 2-3 more longbows in each city and thats it. In coastal, border and important cities that are the most vournable to attacks and that i fear to lose i put 2-3 more units (with garrison promotion). But thats just me!
I also tend to lose some cities to AI also. But I allways have my SOD to recapture 'em later
longbows, musketmen, rifles, (SAM)infantry, muchinegun are best for defense.

This strategy seems like a good one, but I have yet to try it out as I have schoolwork and projects I am required to complete tonight and over the next few days. Might you tell me at what level you play? Prince? Monarch? Emperor+??

-Teddy

 

[J4Ck]

i play on prince. maybe i'll move on to harder level if i don't need calculator for playing it

 

[Teddy Bear]

i play on prince. maybe i'll move on to harder level if i don't need calculator for playing it

Okay...well you're same level as me then. I just need to know these then:

1) How often are you sneak attacked? These are almost always due to a lower power level and low defenses.

2) How are you on the power graph most of the time? High? Middle? Low?

3) Why do you never move up a level?]

-Teddy

 

[grandad1982]

Welcome to the forum!

I usually garrison my cities with 2/3 of my most modern(best) defenders, with more at the borders that I fel wil be contested by the AI. I also like to keep some seige weapons in or near those cities that I feel are likely to be attacked so if an AI stack of doom comes marching my way I can dish out some colateral damage.

One thing I'm not very good at but I know is the best defence is to have some mobile defences so you can stop the enermy before they start pillaging your improvments, and hit them before they hit your cities.

I tend to keep alot of my old defenders hanging around for the happyness under Hereditary Rule. Once I switch out of this I'll upgrade or dispand - depending on my production/money situation, and how well promoted my units are. If a unit is promoted beyond the level you can build it at its quite often a good idea to upgrade it.

As has already been mention though different situations require different strats!

 

[futurehermit]

diplomacy is at least as important as military for avoiding getting attacked.

it is possible to not be attacked on deity with only 1 warrior per city for defenses if you don't have aggressive neighbours and if you have strong diplomacy.

 

[pi-r8]

LOL I usually just put 1 warrior in most of my cities, and I still do OK on emperor.

 

[paulthebug]

Hi Teddy Bear,
Welcome!

If you are under Monarchy, you would want to put at least one up-to-date defense unit (archer, longbow, riflemen, infantry, etc) on your border and coastal cities and as many cheap units like warrior, chariot, etc for happy purpose.

I would recommend you to do a search to find a "no military' demo game in this forum. The guy did not build a single military unit in the whole game and won by diplo. Hilarious read!

 

[J4Ck]

Okay...well you're same level as me then. I just need to know these then:

1) How often are you sneak attacked? These are almost always due to a lower power level and low defenses.

2) How are you on the power graph most of the time? High? Middle? Low?

3) Why do you never move up a level?]

-Teddy

1. i get sneak attack from the AI that I block with my culture.. mostly. But that depends on AI. Aggressive AI tend to attack more.

2. I like to build army more than buildings, so i guess I'm in the middle to high somewhere

3. i like playing prince as its fun and also challenging. When i get bored i'll moved up or just quit the game and start playing 'Blitzkrieg' some game characteristics just annoy me... and as i said: if i would ever need a calculator for playing a computer game i'll rather spend time to program one myself. i'm using calculator far too much for my college already.

I'm not good at diplomacy so i build army, and i don't plan to give out my rifling or assembly line for nothing just to gain pluses as "this is not peaceful game'

.. and welcome to the CFC forums BTW

 

[oyzar]

For an entire game just don't allow yourself to build anything but monuments granariers courthouses and barracks(probably in that order) if you are creative you can skip the monuments. Of course you are allowed to build workers / settlers etc... This should work on most of the lower levels. Of course this is not actually optimally play. As you should learn to specialize cities and not build everything everywhere. However it is pretty effective way to combat builder tendencies and i am pretty sure it works at least up to emperor(probably up to deity with the romans..). This strategy is obviously best with something like the romans or any combination of agressive/expansive/creative/organized leader.

Over garisoning your cities doesn't actually do any good and i have won occ without builing anything but the starting warrior for units. That said sometimes you got to fight, and you need to know when to fight. That is what we have these boards for though. If you don't follow the above advice at least have some cities every game where you don't build any of libraries/markets/grocers/universteties etc and just focus on spamming units, obviously this should be a production city with very few titles that give any decent amount of commerce, but instead a lot of hills and the like...

 

[Melon Head]

I find what wrks well is one warrior/archer per city until I have 3-4 cities, then specialize one city as a military city. It gets a granary + barracks (monument unless I'm creative or have a religion), and builds nothing but the top units available to me. It gets a forge when possible. I try to get it the HE but while that's building I have one of my other cities step up unit production in the mean time.

The unit I build depends - I keep 1 of the most modern defender in each of my cities and then build lots of the top attackers + siege units to create a big deterrent stack. Sometimes I get 2 or so defensive units per city.

Once I get to 7-10 cities, I dedicate a second one to military production.

Of course, if I want to go attack an AI, I have my top 3-4 production cities build nothing but units for 10-30 turns, depending on what I need. This is all on Monarch difficulty, by the way.

 

[vanatteveldt]

I agree with pi-r8: I generally "guard" inner cities with one warrior or archer to combat unhapiness (unless in Her. rule), and only really guard my border cities.

What I find really useful is get a production city up as one of my first cities, and have it do nothing but build granary, barracks, units*. These units go mainly to the border cities, and help keep up my power rating so the AI doesn't attack. This allows your other cities to concentrate on workers, settlers, and infrastructure. Also, settled generals and nat wonders like the Heroic Epic and west point are most useful in this city. In the beginning, it doesn't have to be the ultimate size 20 production city; one food resource and three plains hills make a pretty good city for 13 production at size 4, which is the happy cap at higher levels anyway.

 

[r_rolo1]

You can live with few or none garrisons... as hinted above, there were some really good games without military. The oldest that I can recall ( and in vanilla ) is the Kylearan's Nonviolent Gandhi.... But you'll need to work your diplo nicely to live with few warriors or none as garrisons, because you'll need to make the AI think on something else besides attacking you.

There are some ways:
- The normally doctrined "buddy with the strong , shun the weak" aproach. Take the religion of one of the biggies, gift them money/techs , be a nice wh*re and you'll can normally count with their help. Caution: AI don't compute friendships very well and they can still think that you're a easy picking....

- The "All buddies vs black sheep" aproach... basically you gather a bunch of friends and decide to get a way to get another AI to serve as punching bag... they will not attack you as long as they are in war ( that is not a absolute in BtS, but you're playing vanilla... so for you it is a absolute rule ) and you'll get diplo bonus from shared struggle... most likely that AI will be a friend for the rest of the game

- My personal favourite : the " Set the world on fire" strat.... basically you pull the strings of diplo in a way that you manage to get everyone to hate someone more than you... It requires a lot of work, it not always appliable and it can go wrong pretty badly, but if you can get to there everyone will think on someone else to hate and you can get barely unscrathced of all the mess. I strongly recommend this in games with lots of backstabber AI ( Catherine, Alex,... ), where the above strats are pretty unreliable. PS : And it is fun too

But let's not derail you more than you are ... Follow vanatteveldt advice and set a city to produce only military. It works....

 

[Daedal]

In addition to garrisoning border cities, you should also keep up your active defense. Make sure your cities are connected by roads and locate an SoD centrally even when you're not at war. Attack your enemies before they attack your cities. Make sure you include lots of siege units in that stack. In the late game, build lots of aircraft and bomb incoming stacks before they even reach your territory.

 

[Zanttu]

You can live with few or none garrisons... as hinted above, there were some really good games without military. The oldest that I can recall ( and in vanilla ) is the Kylearan's Nonviolent Gandhi.... But you'll need to work your diplo nicely to live with few warriors or none as garrisons, because you'll need to make the AI think on something else besides attacking you.

Exactly. You can do it with only a few units, but only with relatively peaceful neighbours and good diplomacy. If there's A monty living next door, you better start building that army...

 

[r_rolo1]

^^QTF But there are some AI that simply build only military and you'll never reach their power rating, making the situation a lot like the above discussed..... Diplo is one of the things in Civ IV that is harder to get a grasp in , especially if you start in lower levels and try to move up ( I surely regret having started to play in Warlord... got too many bad habits there and in Noble ) and it is not so level dependant as troop production..... So learning good diplo is a good move... trying to outproduce the AI normally isn't ( unless you have a really big empire )

 

[schwartz]

I'm also a Prince player, I rarely get backstabbed because I'm too busy doing that to others... Also because I've recently found myself WAY ahead on power every game, due to my neglecting econ.. I just won a game (random leader, drew Ramesses) where I was pulling down a sweet 1100 beakers at 1902 when I won conquest
If I play a builder game, the 1100 at 1900 AD is usually more like 3500 (best would be a balanced game with the decent 3500 beaker count)

Diplomacy is definitely more key to preventing sneak attacks than power, though power certainly doesn't hurt..
If a stronger AI civ demands something you're probably best off caving, unless he can't reach you, in which case it'd be a phony war anyway..

 

[Zanttu]

So learning good diplo is a good move... trying to outproduce the AI normally isn't ( unless you have a really big empire )

Agreed. Good diplomation makes your life easier on lower levels, and is absolutely necessary on the higher ones. But of course a respectable defensive force (or at least the ability to build/upgrade one fast in case of emergency) is usually as necessary as good diplomacy.