I thought stacks were discouraged!

[Mujadaddy]

Re: I thought stacks were discouraged!

Originally posted by MasterSlowPoke
http://www.craigsniffen.com/index/images/omgwtfpwn.jpg

You had ONE guy defending that city.

Stacks ARE discouraged.... but so is not defending gigantic border cities....




As far as limits on collateral damage, YES, there are limits... and I believe that it is 6, 7, 8 units for cats/cannon/arty.... It's in the UnitInfos.xml file... also, Cats can only do 50% damage, cannons 60%, and artillery 70% to a unit from collateral damage. (I don't know what the bombers' numbers are off-hand)...

[Firecrak]

Theres definately a limit on collateral damage. I once ran air raid missions with about 10-12 bombers, once the whole stack was at 50% hp, no more air raids where allowed, even though I still had 7-8 bombers available with movement points left over for the turn.

[Quillan]

That's one limit. Units can only be taken down to no less than 50% health by bombing. Since they were all there, it wouldn't allow you to bomb them anymore. However, use the world editor to set up something like this. Place 20 German swordsmen in a stack in a grassland square. Place two of your own artillery next to it. Close the world editor, and attack the stack with only one. When the fight is over, win or lose, look at the stack. Only some of those 20 units will have suffered damage.

[khearn]

Whenever I attack with a unit that does collateral damage, I see a green message sayign that the unit did collateral damage, and saying how many units it did the damage to. No need to even look at the stack afterwards to see that it doesn't always do damage to them all.

[Xarathas]

I need to take a screenie one of these days of those stacks where it actually had too many unit to list (the bottom of that list actually said "...").

It's still defendable though, and collateral damage units makes it much easier. It'd be tougher to defend if he split that into 2-3 stacks.

[MattPilot]

Originally posted by Xarathas
I need to take a screenie one of these days of those stacks where it actually had too many unit to list (the bottom of that list actually said "...").

It's still defendable though, and collateral damage units makes it much easier. It'd be tougher to defend if he split that into 2-3 stacks.

Yea.. I had one of those stacks at my door steps once. I threw all of my artillery at it and moved all units i could find into that city. My best defender was a Modern armor with Drill IV (4-7 first strikes). When the AI's turn came, it killed (i think) 14 units before it became to weak to continue, but it didn't die either - you should of seen the XP it had afterwards


I think the reason for the AI's failure to take my city was that it didn't use its cannons (it had a dozen!!!) until AFTER it threw every single other gun powder unit at me.

[Drachasor]

When you do get armor, I always make sure to get plenty of them with collateral damage. That with aircraft means you don't have to worry about lugging around artillery much anymore. This means your attacks can be much, much faster. Also it means that each tank that attacks makes the job significantly easier for the ones that follow. I usually pair this with City Attack I.

-Drachasor

[Heroes]

If you want to defend your city, isn't it better to keep more kinds of units (like archer + spear + axe, they can counter any invader efficiently) in city than to go outside and do bombard? When you defend, your best unit countering the attacker is automatically selected, which is a huge bonus. When you attack, this turns around. Although your siege weapons can do collateral damage, if you don't have enough units to kill the whole stack, those invaders will just sit down and heal. If you turtle in city and let their healthy units attack, their horse meets your spear, their sword meets your axe, and so on, your odds of winning is great. Of course, if AIs are smart enough, they will use a lot of siege weapons to bombard your city before main attack, which will defeat your combined force in city. -- But are they really so smart? And if they do have such huge production advantage over you, you are doomed anyway. So altogether, I think simply defending city is the best way.

[Artuero]

AI is smart enough to use seige weapons to good effect. Actually I think the AI is pretty good at attacking all things considered.

In my current game (Ghandi, Noble, huge terra, epic, 18 civs) I am at war with Louis XIV and with Catherine. Louis is or was my neighbor and behind in tech, so I trounced him, wiping him off the continent (but he had some small island cities left). However, he had some troop convoys roaming about because he landed a 6 unit force near my western port city. It would have been a much stronger attack but I found his convoy with my battleship before he landed and managed to take down one of his transports, knocking out 40% of the invasion force. Otherwise he might have had a shot at taking my city, as it is I just have to mop up some of his units.

My war with Louis touched off a war with his friend Catherine as well, who has a strong but remote (from me) position in the old world. I kept doing recon for an overland assault but didn't manage to see that she was landing a troop convoy on the very same turn as Louis and it was near a poorly defended city. I think she landed 16 units, about 8 of which were cannon and artillery.

I was impressed with the coordination of the two AIs and the fact that they landed (or would have landed) so many troops and in good measure. Not sure why Catherine didn't wait and upgrade all of her cannon before sending.

In fact, though, their assault is going to fail miserably for two reasons. First, because my battleship killed Louis Transport. Second, because Catherine happened to land at a time when I was moving my army from the west where I had been beating up Louis to the east where I am planning to do her some damage. They just happen to be in the vicinity of her landing force-- had she waited a turn or two she would easily have my lightly defended city. Just bad luck for her. Good for me though, I am looking forward to the promotions my army will get from finding a big stack like that out in the open.

The lesson for me is to not discount the sea assault even if land seems the easier way to strike and to build up the garisons of any city near the shoreline. Also, more sea screening is a good idea-- the AI does escort its convoys pretty well (catherine had three or four destroyers for her four-transport convoy, and Louis guarded his convoy as well but had crappy ships due to tech disadvantage). Even if you can beat the escorts it takes time for you to do so, so having multiple warships in the area would be a benefit.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Heroes
If you want to defend your city, isn't it better to keep more kinds of units (like archer + spear + axe, they can counter any invader efficiently) in city than to go outside and do bombard? When you defend, your best unit countering the attacker is automatically selected, which is a huge bonus. When you attack, this turns around. Although your siege weapons can do collateral damage, if you don't have enough units to kill the whole stack, those invaders will just sit down and heal. If you turtle in city and let their healthy units attack, their horse meets your spear, their sword meets your axe, and so on, your odds of winning is great.

The problem with that is they can always get lucky, and with a stack that can mean the end of your city. Using units with collateral damage on them does force them to heal or fight with damaged units. Either way it is a good thing. If they heal then you have bought yourself more time to gather your forces to take them out and defend your city. Catapults and Artillery are cheap units, so it isn't really a bother at all to lose them.

-Drachasor

[bonscott]

Originally posted by Heroes
If you want to defend your city, isn't it better to keep more kinds of units (like archer + spear + axe, they can counter any invader efficiently) in city than to go outside and do bombard? When you defend, your best unit countering the attacker is automatically selected, which is a huge bonus. When you attack, this turns around. Although your siege weapons can do collateral damage, if you don't have enough units to kill the whole stack, those invaders will just sit down and heal. If you turtle in city and let their healthy units attack, their horse meets your spear, their sword meets your axe, and so on, your odds of winning is great. Of course, if AIs are smart enough, they will use a lot of siege weapons to bombard your city before main attack, which will defeat your combined force in city. -- But are they really so smart? And if they do have such huge production advantage over you, you are doomed anyway. So altogether, I think simply defending city is the best way.

You most certianly want to blast away at the stack, assuming it's right next to the city. Any siege units that survive will be in your city to heal and hopefully you have at least one medic 1/2 unit in the city to further speed the heal for yourself. Then go at the stack with some of your best attackers.

Sure you may not bring down the whole stack but you just wounded most of the stack and killed some of the best units in the stack. The AI will either dig in to heal, attack anyway or retreat (I've seen all 3). Any of these is good for you since you can heal faster in your own city and will have time to bring up more units. Eventually you should destroy them all assuming you prepared well enough.

[Heroes]

Originally posted by bonscott


You most certianly want to blast away at the stack, assuming it's right next to the city. Any siege units that survive will be in your city to heal and hopefully you have at least one medic 1/2 unit in the city to further speed the heal for yourself. Then go at the stack with some of your best attackers.

Sure you may not bring down the whole stack but you just wounded most of the stack and killed some of the best units in the stack. The AI will either dig in to heal, attack anyway or retreat (I've seen all 3). Any of these is good for you since you can heal faster in your own city and will have time to bring up more units. Eventually you should destroy them all assuming you prepared well enough.

Thank you and Drachasor. However, I still doubt that buying time via sacraficing siege weapons is a good thing. You spend hammers to make siege weapons. If you let them attack but can't kill the enemy stack, a large portion of their blood is wasted. If you use the same amount of hammers to train regular units like longbow, rifle, infantry, I guess you have better chance to hold your city, and better chance to kill enemy stack without loss.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Heroes


Thank you and Drachasor. However, I still doubt that buying time via sacraficing siege weapons is a good thing. You spend hammers to make siege weapons. If you let them attack but can't kill the enemy stack, a large portion of their blood is wasted. If you use the same amount of hammers to train regular units like longbow, rifle, infantry, I guess you have better chance to hold your city, and better chance to kill enemy stack without loss.

the thing is if you use bombard units, you don't need to build as many defenders. By using only defenders and no bombards, you pretty much need 1 defender for every offensive unit they have attacking your city. That could mean 20 defenders. That's a lot of shields.

Though because of defensive bonuses, and time constraints, this is the only thing I can do. I sometimes move defenders from other cities into the city being attacked, and I have no bombard units available. I would have been toast if they had bombed my 60% city defenses down. But they did not.

[Heroes]

Originally posted by Dis


the thing is if you use bombard units, you don't need to build as many defenders. By using only defenders and no bombards, you pretty much need 1 defender for every offensive unit they have attacking your city. That could mean 20 defenders. That's a lot of shields.

Though because of defensive bonuses, and time constraints, this is the only thing I can do. I sometimes move defenders from other cities into the city being attacked, and I have no bombard units available. I would have been toast if they had bombed my 60% city defenses down. But they did not.

I don't think you need 1 defender for every invader. According to Arathorn's analysis about combat (in CFC), if your modified strength is bigger than theirs by a tiny amount, your chance of winning will be at least 65%. Your best defender will be automatically selected, in general assure your > 65% chance of winning. Therefore, you can expect a spear can defeat > 2 horses, an axe can defeat > 2 swords, etc. Of course, sometimes some one just gets lucky, but if both you and they have quite a few units, a single singular point won't change the overall result.

[Hauptman]

As far as the OP, all i can say is.... HA HA!

A) you had 1 unit in your border city, You were begging to be attacked.

2) why bother pulling up that cavalry unit...

III) I found in a situation like that, Hand the city over to a friendly. Pull out (its one) defending unit and gift it away, It denises the agressor something they would have taken anyways, and chances are it will culture flip back.



As for the other question of Arty vs. More defending units.

Its all about mixing it up, Longbows are great city defenders but they cant counter attack worth a damn. Axemen are great anti melee but a catapult will take them down or out. spearmen are weak against all but mounted. But for catapults, even though horses get an advantage you cannot avoid the damage to the rest of the stack. In order to make catapults worth there cost you must use them to weaken a stack, AND THEN attack that stack with your other units. By sacraficing the catapults (wich have a chance to withdraw even) You guarantee your main units will survive when you counter attack as they will be fighting weaker units.


Never ever leave a single unit defending a border city, silly. especially when its Tokagawa, read the "Civ leaders you hate" thread.