Military conquest - single player

[dconner]

Originally posted by BigWilly1974

The point is. I now think an effective strategy for conquering an enemy is to wage the first initial war without the intent of taking cities, but merely to destroy his economy. Kill his commerce, food intake, and hammer production...then go back in a few hundred years once you've totally outclassed him militarily and beat him like a rented mule.

It requires more patience to do this...but based on my current game's results, it seems incredibly effective. They simply can NOT recover. I'm around 1825 now (year), and the Chinese are miles behind even the 2nd last AI in score, power, and size.

I've noticed that the AI can use this approach itself, and in a big way.

In my first couple games, I saw very few wars, and most of them "phony wars" where not much seemed to happen. But in my last game, the Arabs invaded France, conquering or razing several cities. When I got around to inspecting the region with my Spy after peace was declared, the French still had several cities, but literally every single tile in France had been pillaged to nothingness!

[Volstag]

I've been exploring the idea of building a dedicated 10 to 15 unit "city killer" stack. Keep 'em upgraded, keep 'em trained (for taking cities) and keep 'em together.

But, as another poster mentioned, it seems like it's much more difficult to do the sweeping land-grabs that you could in Civ III. It really seems like it's a city at a time. Conquer it, consolidate, let it get on its feet... then move to the next target.

[Arrian]

Volstag - the weakness to the Stack of Doom approach is collateral damage. If the AI has bombard units (I've seen 'em, and seen 'em used), your big stack may get beat up and whittled down. If you stick a medic unit in the stack that will mitigate some of the problem...

-Arrian

[Volstag]

Re: Military conquest - single player

I find in this game the world is fairly static. Civs seem to establish their boundaries and then they don’t change much throughout history.

That's my observation as well. I need more games though... 'cause I've read about games from different players where the AI actually fights other AI, and actually does damage.

[Volstag]

Volstag - the weakness to the Stack of Doom approach is collateral damage. If the AI has bombard units (I've seen 'em, and seen 'em used), your big stack may get beat up and whittled down. If you stick a medic unit in the stack that will mitigate some of the problem...

Yes, of course, but as you mentioned this could be mitigated via medic bonuses, or vs. siege equipment bonuses. I've yet to be on the receiving end of collateral damage, so I'm probably downplaying its significance.

My theory is that you have the units, and the unit upgrades that are specifically tailored to taking cities, and smashing units that you'd typically see deployed in city defense.

[Arrian]

Yep. I just haven't had much success with that yet in the early game. Of course, I haven't been working on it for very long, so I'll get it at some point!

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Still don;t have the dang game...

How does pillaging work for fastmovers? Can you, say, move once onto an enemy road, pillage it, and then move off to somewhere safe from bombardment?

[Mayfield]

Originally posted by Theseus
How does pillaging work for fastmovers? Can you, say, move once onto an enemy road, pillage it, and then move off to somewhere safe from bombardment?

No, but you can go in and pillage in one turn.. retreat is not an option. But sending in a dozen calvary to decimate their economy and create total chaos works.

And on the higher levels you are almost always behind in tech. You will have to concentrate on #1 founding a religion and #2 creating gold sources (towns, gold and silver, luxuries) in order to just keep up. If you are lucky you can research a difficult tech and trade it to the AI to catch up on the easy ones. But so far in one Prince and one Monarch game I have only been able to concentrate on military conquest with inferior troops in high numbers. You can make quick surgical strikes on border cities but taking the entire Civ will be difficult when they are one step ahead in tech.

[glsunder]

I'm on my 5th or 6th game. I'm trying to play each one differently and am now playing as more of a warmonger. Here's a few things that have worked well for me so far:
--Horse archers work very well early on.

--It's easier to take than to expand.

--The "newer" AI cities will be easier to take in an early war. Take them. Also, send in troops to pillage around their capital and older cities that you dont think you'll take right away.

--In the early game, you can't support a huge empire, so you probably wont eliminate your first opponent in the first war. Make sure you pillage around his capital before making peace. He'll be very weak when you attack him later.

--Pillaging brings in a lot of cash. Even if you can't take and hold an enemy's city, you can pillage and make a fortune. It also weakens them, especially if they planted a lot of towns.

--Once catapults are available, use them. I typically have a stack of 4. If they have few defeders, or I have a sizable tech lead, I'll just bombard the defenses and attack. If not, I'll attack with them to do collateral damage.

--Remember, horsemen are faster than catapults or defenders, so you can reinforce your army with them faster.

--Conquer the nearest enemies cities, but send a few troops deep to pillage. Broken roads means slower reinforcements, lack of resources hurt them or their trade, and towns take a long time to regrow.

--Split your forces if their city has catapults. Nothing's worse than having all your troops blown in half by the time you're ready to attack.

I might sound like a broken record on the pillaging, but it's really useful in this game, especially with the amount of time towns take to grow. I wasn't much of a pillager in Civ3, but it seems much more powerful in Civ4.

[CiverDan]

Military tactics depend a lot on what the other guy has. Horses are good IF the opponent does have spears/pikemen. Catapults, etc. are a must for any well defended city. only exception is if they is only on main unit type and you have the counter w/good upgrades.

Game mechanics seem to dictate the rapid conquest is much nore difficult. Upkeep costs/cities are harder to take both factor in.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by glsunder
--Once catapults are available, use them. I typically have a stack of 4. If they have few defeders, or I have a sizable tech lead, I'll just bombard the defenses and attack. If not, I'll attack with them to do collateral damage.

Why would you not attack for collateral damage?

[shennessy]

Why would you not attack for collateral damage?

Because if doing collateral damage means you are attacking with the unit in question.

Attacking with a tank... no brainer for collateral.
Attacking with a cat... usually means dead cat but you did some collateral damage.

Each dead cat of course means you have less to bombard the next city.

[glsunder]

Why would you not attack for collateral damage?

In the most recent case, I had calvary but not artillary yet. The AI had mostly archers, and only about 4 or 5 defenders. In this case, there was a good chance that calvary would win, but the cats wouldnt, so I'd rather save the cats for a more heavily defended city. Also, Calvary move 2x as fast as cats, so it's easier to reinforce with the faster unit.

Of course, it all depends on the situation. I'll be using cannons for collatoral damage when hitting Moscow, which I'm sure is well defended. I lead the opponent in tech, and I'd like to at least take moscow before they get better quality defenders, so I 'm trying to move on them quickly. It's my first attempt at being a warmonger in civ4, and it's turning out well so far.