Win a large battle by using and timing upgrades

My current game is a Huge map, Regent (Trying Japanese for first time) 8 civs. I was mid-way through the industrial ages and most other civs were mid to late middle ages. I still however needed some techs from the middle ages.
Rome declared war on me because I was Japan. I didn't care.
I knew I had an "average" army compared to them according to my advisor.
I landed on the big continent Rome owned except for 5 Greek cities. I took 5 Roman cities in two turns. I then made Greece go to war witht he Romans while I consolidatedmy forces.
As I sent one of my ships around to help the Greeks I saw that the Romans had well over 400(I lost count at 215 with only half counted) attack/defense units! I had a mere 50 units. By I decided I needed to massivly build up my forces. I had samuri (knights) and I was going to get Cavalry in 4 turns. The same turn I discovered Cavalry, the Greeks were wiped out. I tried to upgrade but I needed double what I had for gold. I always upgrade using shift-U for everyone.
So I raised taxes and hoped to hold out long enough to upgrade.
The Romans showed up with close to 500 troops (Legionaires, Knights, Pikemen, and about 25 Musketmen. I had almost 200 mostly Samuri and about 25 Riflemen. I was behind walls and had barracks. I wanted to wait in the city due to terrain.
The Romans moved next to my city. Next turn I attacked with all of my samuri winning over 80% of the battles and retreating 15% and the other 5% died. However most of the survivors were down to 1 or two HPs.
I had one samuri in a different city and then it was his turn. I decided to try and upgrade as I knew I was close and I had lost a few units. I barely had enough. All of the samuri were upgraded.
The next turn the AI retreated some, moved more units into position and attacked my city most of them dying. I lost 10-15 Riflemen. They lost over 75 units and all of thier knights were down to one HP. I then discovered Replacement parts. I had enough to upgrade my Riflemen (I had a lot of tech for gold deals from my zeal to get gold.) So i did that at first. I then went to surmise the damage. To my astonishment, all of my units (about 150) were all at 100%!
If I had of thought about this, it would have worked. I was just caught up in the moment of getting my Japanese butt wiped from the Roman continent. So I thought I would type this out and maybe it will help someone who hasn't made the connection.
In the end I won and still had over 125 units and I wiped out over 600 Roman units. Quality does make a difference but quantity has also been proven in real history. BTW I never got a GL in all of that. That sucked.

 

I guess after thinking about my post, I didn't really explain how someone could use the tip I had.
Simply wait a few turns for your upgrades.
When you are able to upgrade, think about it first.
My tendancy and most peoples is to upgrade ASAP after discovering the tech.
What is the point to that? A spearman costs just as much as a mech-infantry in upkeep.
Until marines come along you will always have a "free" turn to react to an enemy invasion.
In the case of a land based border. Keep those individual cites on the cutting edge of your defense technology.
When you do need to attack, say with tanks. Make sure you can end your turn in a city with a barracks that is connected to the rest of your empire. Keep one tank back and get him to wait until there are no other units. Then do a massive upgrade to modern tanks.
The potential backfire would be if you can't upgrade the unit or you end in a city with no barracks. But those are all things you can control.
What do you think?

 

So does this mean that Shift-U allows you to upgrade units in cities with barracks that have already used up their turn?

That could be useful: attack with a bunch of fast units, move them back into cities (helps if you have railroads), and then use Shift-U at the *end* of the turn for a bunch of free (in time) upgrades, healing them all for the counterattack to boot!

- rev

 

Yup. Even units that have already moved.
I thought it was useful 600 vs 175 units. Even though I was defending at either 6 or 3 they were attacking at 6 or 3.

 

I would think that doing that would result in you losing and giving back all the ground you supposedly gained with the first initial attack.

If the rival civ did the same thing, he could hit you with a massive counterattack.

Seems like a lot of work for questionable gain.

 

Lets assume you only go to war with a set number of goals in mind.

Sometimes you don't want the territory they are in. This could also be used by a pacifist civ facing a large invasion. The pacifist civ might not want the territory. They just might want to destroy the invading army so that the other civ sues for peace. It has happened to me after destroying a major AI counter-attack and then talking some other civs to join the war, the AI wants peace with me thinking it can handle the other AI civs. This takes a lot of pressure of my civ.

All I did in this case was build my force to launch my own invasion.

Personally, I usually fight a very offensive war attacking from two or more opposing fronts so my thoughts on a pacifist civ are mostly speculation as I have to be pacifist at times only because I'm not ready to roll over 'em.

 

Sounds like it was a pretty fun game, though. I have never gone against a civ that had that much of an army. Granted, I have fought civs that were approx. 50% bigger (such as your game), but never someone with 500 units.
It must have been carnage.
Those games can be a blast.

 

Well, Rome declared war on me. So I united the world in going to war on Rome.
It really was exciting. I just amazed me though that I could have a renewed army. Mind you when I upgraded I wasn't fortifying anymore, but I went from having 1 - 2 HPs to full vetern.
I just thought this would be a useful strategy or tip someone could use. Most of us, myself included usually upgrade as soon as we have either the tech or the money.
In this game I was after wonders so I skipped Military Trad. to go for Women's Sufferage and ToE. Rome declared war on me just after I got ToE and so I delayed them using Greece and the large German navy. I got them to declare war as well so I could get the 4 turns needed for Mil. trad. then upgrade samuris into cavalry.
Rome had the biggest military. My advisor told me I had an average army. So I felt I could take on the "stupid" ai. However, I neglected to take into account my 22 more cities I had than the Romans had with 2 people in each one. (44 units unavailable for a war) Plus I had about 115 workers. I now know that Rome did not have that many workers as I had, now that I am taking over cites (I'm going to get Rome in a couple of turns. My how the mighty have fallen ) and I have only captured 4 workers after getting over 15 Roman cities. And I'm trying to get workers so I can build a railway network to speed the invasion now that it is further away. I don't like to import workers from my homeland as they take up space on transports.