The middle-age "stack of doom"

[Saurus]

I could use some advice on how to destroy the infameous "stack of doom" during mid-late middleages as this seems to be a constant problem for me.

Very often a warmonger A.I declares war on me during this period and a few turns later he is standing next to my city with this stack of doom.
Catapults are supposed to be the conunter to stacks ... but the problem is that i find catapults compleatly useless when facing Macemen, Knights and War elephants.
Colteral damage is minimal, almost nonexistent, against so powerful troops.
I would need about 5-6 catapults in each city in order to reduce the power of such a stack to, say, 70-75% - witch in any case would not be enough.

How do you deal with theese stacks?

[DeepO]

predict where they will invade, and only reinforce that city (don't utterly neglect others, though, especially with maritime invasions lurking). You don't need 5 cats, 2-3 will do nicely: all units get a ~20 hp damage, so your odds of winning go from slightly in your disadvantage, to squarely in your advantage.

Other techniques is luring, or choking: put a worker just outside of reach of a unit, and it might try to grab it, thus separating from the stack. Or, put a couple of strong defenders on forests/hills in the path of the invaders to absorb some damage. Or, leave a resource just inside reach undefended: units can reach it, but not pillage it, meaning you can again try to take out a couple of units in the open.

Last, make sure you have a good defense: mixed city defenders (not just archers), and mobile defenders: units you can use to counter (e.g. mounted units). Cats alone won't get you anywhere.

DeepO

[Quillan]

You are correct, there is a time period where catapults don't seem to cut it. There is no cure for this, it's simply something you have to deal with. Use upgraded cats. I really like the Drill series of promotions, since it gives them first strikes. Slam the stack with catapults to cause as much collateral damage as you can, then follow it up with powerful attacking units like macemen, knights and war elephants of your own. The cats will face and damage the strongest units of the stack. Then your powerful units will be facing the strongest remaining units of the stack, and continue whittling it down. Even if you don't have enough troops to wipe out the stack, if you reduce it a lot, the computer will either have to attack with the reduced force, pause in place to heal (buying you time to bring up more troops), or retreat. You can make a tech beeline for gunpowder and steel also, to get cannons, but you have to do that before the war starts.

[Saurus]

I think that my problem is also that I always play on pangea witch causes a complex political mess. Potential Threats are virtualy everywhere and may come from any direction and hit any city at any time. Sometimes the enemy even sneaks in from a friends territory (because of open border agreements).
I guess only a functioning network of roads for transporting units quickly is the key to success - and a few catapults everywere.

[heliodorus04]

I'm having a similar problem, what Quillan says about more first strike upgrades, and then your second echelon of troops can face the second strongest troops. I'm going to try all of these, and I think I'm going to try to always have a war going on somewhere to keep promotions rolling in.

One thing that perturbs me about this version of Civ is how expensive all units are to upgrade, and produce. I'm having a hard time managing a standing army, which is completely unheard of for me in Civ games.

[Quillan]

I have the same gripe, Helio. With a standing army far smaller than I usually had in Civ 3 (my typical force in the later part of the game was around 100 infantry), it routinely costs me 10,000-15,000 gold if I want to upgrade them all to mechanized infantry. The current version of the game seems to encourage you to build new ones rather than upgrade existing ones.

[DeepO]

Drill on cats specifically designed for attacking invaders is not the best use of promotions, I'm afraid. Collateral damage, or the combat promotions would be better. Damage done in CD is depending on your modified strength, and Drill is the only promotion that won't augment that.

Now if you have the tech advantage and use cats to deal with axes and archers, Drill is the best promotion, but not when dealing with full strength elephants and maces.

Even on Pangaea, you will find some cities to be far more attractive than others. Roads are critical here, you only need roads for military purposes, but you do need them!

In general, the AI will pick one target, and smash everything into that. Other targets will be mostly decided for the pillaging opportunities (e.g. strategic resources). After the first wave of attackers, you should have spotted where they will strike, meaning you can reinforce selectively. Without sea nearby, you won't have naval invasions, as otherwise you need to watch another side... naval invasions concentrate on one city too, but it might be a different city than on land.

Also, use the terrain. Mountains, lakes, hills/forests surrounding grass land... all nice thing you can use to make sure you battle on your terms, instead of the enemies. A SoD on flatlands is a lot less scary than a SoD on forest.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, upgrades: upgrades are indeed a lot more expensive, but in general gold is a lot more useful than in Civ3. You don't need to upgraed everything immediately, though. Just keep enough reserve around for e.g. 10 upgrades, and once you're invaded, upgrade only those defenses which need it. You need to have some mobile forces ready and upgraded, but not city defenders: they shouldn't be open to attack in 1 turn anyway. And if it takes 2 turns to reach a city, you will have freshly upgraded units in there.

You can't throw away all your units like that, as especially on higher levels you won't have the hammers to spare... gold is easier to come by than hammers, so you don't want to build everything from scratch. Besides, you don't want to lose XP either.

DeepO

[Crossfire]

Ha! I find gold the hardest thing to get. I suppose part of the trick is to turn off researching for a couple turns to gain some gold, but until late game I never have any. Even late game I often have a hard time getting enough gold.

[wardhali]

*puts on flame resistant suit*

i find myself so frustrated at times with the gold that i pop down a Great merchant or two in a faraway city.

*cringes*

[DeepO]

It's a choice. You can choose for more production improvements, or gold improvements. You will lack the other...

This shows in how you've got to play to: by concentrating on hammers, you won't have the gold to spare for upgrades, so you need to build extra units from scratch. These extra's are costing you more hammers, so by focusing on production you need more production too.

The same for commerce: by focusing on commerce, you won't have the shields to build new units. So upgrading becomes more important, and you end up spending more money than average.

BTW, GMs are certainly worth it, 1 or 2 can get you a lot of upgraded units. But long term investments like cottages and religions might be better... if you find constantly lacking for gold, those long term things might be worth looking into.

DeepO

[Hauptman]

3 or 4 catapults are not Useless against the ...stack. quite contrary. Yes they die (90% of the time) but they can withdraw. The collateral damage is all you care about. Defense (and city attack cats) should have all promos put into collateral damage. The cats themselves are not going to save you, its the damage that they do that allows you to counter attack his weakened units with your full strength units, thus letting you win every fight and keep your units alive.

I recently had a run in with the ...stack (stack so large it ends with "...") on a huge map and i was playing with my standard map type army... wow was i scared, but a couple collateral damage units with good defenders plus good attackers my city did not fall even though i was outnumbered 10-1. and my surviving units where well experienced.

The AI is real silly about healing units and moving units off for pillaging... just use that against it.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Saurus
I think that my problem is also that I always play on pangea witch causes a complex political mess. Potential Threats are virtualy everywhere and may come from any direction and hit any city at any time.

A couple of things.

First, check your status from time to time. Build up militarily if you are falling behind in that area. You don't have to be first, but being at the bottom of the pile makes you a tempting target.

Second, Use diplomacy to make your opponents fight each other. Use various bribes when necessary.

From the sounds of it, I think you need to expand more during earlier ages.

[cal_01]

Actually, DeepO, I find that first strike is essential to fighting superior numbers; it allows for the catapult to score more hits and retreat more often.

Moreover, having one or two drill promotions tends to allow a catapult to kill anything in its path.

Elimination of the target with minimal losses/unit survival tends to be the key factors in winning a war of attrition.


My advice during mid-late middle ages: get some walls (or a castle, but I never build it), and spam Longbowmen/Pikemen. I never bother with Crossbows because Longbows are more essential with city defense. OTOH, you could try sniping their Macemen with Crossbows, but I doubt it'll work that well even with their bonus for melee units.

There is one other strategy though: get your own Macemen.

[Yuufo]

Play the Chinese and use Cho-Ko-Nu. They are upgraded Crossbowmen with collateral damage and many first strikes.