War Strategies

[myth42]

I don't usually play a crush-the-world style, but I've been getting bored with the peaceful victory styles. My recent attempts at war have been frustrating. I usually beat the game pretty easily on Noble with peaceful victories, but I'm getting frustrated on even Warlord trying to get the upper hand.

My question is, how soon to start building up my military? It seems stupid to start waging war with anything less than axemen, and then I need dozens of units to even make a dent in my enemies.

Any tips would be appreciated.
Thanks

[Arrian]

It depends on several things:

Civ traits
Resources available
Your UU

1) The aggressive trait lends itself to earlier warfare (axes/swords/etc).

2) Say you have horses. Chariots (with flanking promos) can take down archer-defended AI cities. Or you can use them to soften the defenders and then finish with the more expensive axes/swords. You need a fair number of them, but they're cheap.

3) Some civs have unique units that are quite powerful. The easiest example is the Roman Praetorian. 8 attack, available with ironworking+iron resource.

Most of the time I wait for catapults before I start bonking heads. But I've done early (pre-construction) rushes before, once with chariots, once with Keshiks.

You are gonna need to bring a fair number of guys with you. You should have a city-busting stack. Preferably, one unit in the stack is a medic. If the enemy has horses, make sure you bring spears. If they have axes, bring one or two of your own that have been promoted with "shock" (req. combat 1).

Others who use early rushes can help you more. I tend to build up a bit first.

-Arrian

[Feyd]

I play my "tough" games on Noble and my regular games on Warlord and I think the key is later rather than earlier warfare.

If you really want to fill some bloodlust play Warlord and just build until you reach destroyers/infantry (aka Early Modern). The AI can't keep up with you techwise and you'll annihilate their troops.

In the early game, however, the disparagement of power is not nearly as noticeable. An 8 strength Swordsman vs a fortified, "city garrison" archer (3+25%+25%+25%+city bonus) is hit and miss.

I think the keys to victory are as follows:
-Have a 10+ attack unit before upgrades
-Have a reliable bombardment unit (catapults/cannons/artillery/aircraft) to downgrade a city's defenses
-Use either airstrikes (preferred) or collateral damage units (messy, but effective) to weaken defenders
-Attack with your big attack unit(s)
-Lather, rinse, repeat.

On Warlord the AI shouldn't be anywhere near air power when you get your first fighters and from there the day is yours. Even if you have equal units a 14 strength rifleman vs. a 7 strength rifleman with only upgrades and fortified bonus on his side is pretty much a guarantee.

Finally, don't attack in a spread and don't attack with all your units. Have a "killer stack" which you use to take the first town of your choice. Leave two or three healthy units in the town to defend, rest your damged units, and then move the stack to the next target.

If your problem is naval then I strongly recommend carriers, battleships, and marine transports. Marines are awesome.

Hope this helps and I'll talk to you later...

[gdgrimm]

Start building military right away -- at least enough for barb handling.

Beeline for military technologies. As soon as you get a small edge over an opponent, amass an army and drive that advantage as far as it goes. Once you have one or two civ's conquered, you may not need much of a tech edge, and just use your larger numbers (from your larger empire) to win by shear mass of force.

The other thing you'll need is one (or two) cities driving research hard, so that you can maintain that tech edge.

My AU101 DARP is turning out to be a classical example of this type of play.

I only have the Ancient Era (well, and pre-game thoughts) written up, but the game itself is well into the Renaissance Era, and I'm militarily rolling over each civ one-by-one.

Washington is my Great Person and Research city doing nothing but Science Specialists and making nothing but Great Scientists.

And as an example of beelining -- I just mopped up Bismark using a large army of Riflemen and Cavalry, and I still didn't have a clue as to what "Engineering" is.

Who are those guys in shiney suits with pointy sticks (i.e. Pikemen)?? Why can't I make them?!?

[Bang, Bang go the rifles].

Oh. Well, I guess I don't really care.

[Yosho]

Well, I've had some luck using a early horse-archer rush on an enemy. Basically, you get animal husbandry, and then if you have horses nearby, go right for horse archer. At this point (at least on the noble-monarch games I've been trying this stratagy on), I can usually hit him hard when he probably has nothing better then archers, and horse archers destroy archers. Just make sure he dosn't have bronze working yet when you attack, because if he has any spearment at all, you lose. Hit him hard, pillage everything he has with horsemen and whatever warriors you made early, especally any mines he has and, in order to make sure he dosn't get copper, at least not in time to do him any good.

Sometimes I can wipe someone out early with this stratagy; sometimes I take 2 or 3 cities and then he gets copper somehow (probably from a trade) and starts making spearmen, and then I make peace. Either way is fine by me.

The only thing is , if you're trying this stratagy, watch your back. The AI is pretty tricky in this game, especally on the monarch setting, and one game when I tried this, while I was doing a good job destroying India, somone else who I had good relations with suddenly attacked me from behind...with giant stacks of mostly spearmen and some axemen, while I had most of my hammers tied up in horse archers. Ouch.

[Golden Bear]

Yup, Yosho. I've moved up to Monarch and I am impressed by the frequency of neighbors declaring war shortly after my involvement in a different war.

I've found on Monarch that I need a strong military right from the start just for survival.

My war pattern otherwise is:
1st war is axeman rush - take 2-3 cities and quit.
Sometimes follow with a HA rush. Another pruning war.
Elephant/catapault war.
Knight war if necessary, otherwise jump to Cavalry.
Massive cavalry war. Stop when riflemen become numerous.
Bomber war. Bombers + cav and riflemen against non-air AI is unstoppable. Build about 25 bombers and just go until you are exhausted.

As stated earlier, this is variable depending on resources, opponents and leader.

My best Monarch war moment so far is the Mongols declaring on me the very team that I got cavalry. I had saved my pennies and converted about 20 elephants to cav. They had moved almost all their forces up to one of my cities. I annihilated them and had easy pickings for four of their cities, with unsupported cav. The English declared on me right then and I was able to turn on them and take four cities... then the British rifleman showed up and I took a rest.

[myth42]

Great advice,
Thanks all. Another question form my hitherto unmilitary mind is: which upgrades to use? I like the Shock early, and the Pinch works well mid-game. Also, I always have 2 or 3 Medics with my stack to heal everyone.

[FireWall]

A particularly effective strategy for early warfare that shouldn't be overlooked is the advantage that you receive when you fortify yourself within enemy territory in a fashion that prevents them from removing you. It permits you to pillage early improvements and hault expansion. In multiplayer games, it can be extremely powerful. Unfortunately, it isn't as powerful on higher diffuculty single player games because the AI starts with archers. Furthermore, it only works well if there are forests or jungles near their capital.

The plan:

If you intend to go to war early, build a warrior or two from the very start. Send one or two to your nearest neighbor's territory. Declare war. Enter their territory and place yourself right by their city in a forest or jungle (if there is a hill and forest/junge combination, that is even better). On the higher difficulties, the AI has archers right away, and they will be able to remove you fairly quickly. But if you're playing multiplayer or lower difficulty AI, you'll be a serious nuisance. Your position in their territory will make it difficult for them to work tiles and send out settlers. You'll also be able to keep your eye on them.

It will take at least two or three warriors to remove a single fortified warrior from a hill and forest/jungle combination. And those units take time to build. Your opponent will lose precious turns dealing with you, while you're working on other projects. If you score a source of copper real early, you can make it even worse for them and send an axeman.

Like I said before, this strategy is best for multiplayer. It also works best on smaller maps, but it can be useful on larger ones too.

[DrSpike]

Finding the sweet spot is hard in Civ4, as upkeep costs start to mount and then your research freezes. There are however a few windows, though you need to have a clear goal (ie take those 2 cities then sit back for a while) before you start. All those early open borders help decide.

The first window is the archer rush window. This is a desperation rush window, only to be attempted if you are really boxed in. Two cities, three max, and hit before 1000BC.

Second window is the axe/sword (edit: or horse, be guided by your resources) window, but it's actually tough by this time (unless you get early copper) to get enough troops to power past all the AI archers. Again, figure out how many you need to attain your goal and don't overkill or your research will suffer.

Third window early (ish) game is the construction window. Things get much easier with catapults, and it's best to wait to here if you can as you will use them better than the AI. As long as you can get 4 cities out early game I think here is the best place to strike. Of course, if you are playing on a higher difficulty and getting left behind in research you might not have that luxury.

[mgdpublic]

A lot of it is in the timing. It's always good to monitor your potential prey's tech track to see where they are heading and how far along they are. In early-mid war you want to be sure your foe isn't on the verge of longbowman just as you bring your military to the fore.

It's also important not to overextend yourself. Not only do you increase your upkeep as you move out from your capital but your forces get spread thin. Also, it's always nice to have a weak nation between you and a strong nation to get all the close border penalties.

[joncnunn]

Myself, I like to Calvary window best, because Calvary don't need cat support against Pikes/Maces/Crossbows/Cats the AI has at that time. Mostly because Melee units can't be upgraded to Muskets but instead must wait for Rifles. (This also applies to the French Musketeer UU, effectively nerfing it.)

While your Calvary invasion force gets built as Knights and upgraded.

[joncnunn]

Originally posted by mgdpublic
Not only do you increase your upkeep as you move out from your capital but your forces get spread thin.

Not to mention how your science will slow down if your having to turn up the cultural slider to 30% to fight the WW.

[Hauptman]

If you are about to start a war with a neighboring AI it is actually a good idea to declare war without moving into their lands... wait for them to send their units into your lands, this makes it quite easy to kill off ALL of their excess "attack" units without any suprises...

Once you've killed whatever stacks they send (with liberal use of catapults to soften them up so your main attack units can eat them up for xp with little chance of loosing) you can then promote and heal, then move into thier land as now all he has is his city garisons left.

If you declare war by moving in your entire invasion force it's very possible that you will be the one eaten alive by his attack force. But this only matters when you are fighting a quantitive equal. If you KNOW that they have no roving attack units, then by all means move in for the slaughter.

[myth42]

One thing I noticed in Civ4 is that even when you capture a city, the culture borders of enemies (at least the AIs) remain essentially intact. I know part of this has to do with the resistence factor, but in cases where I capture a border city and the next enemy city is miles away, I don't get any territory. This makes taking the next city monumentally slower, if not impossible. I don't know if it's a glitch or intentional on the programmers' part. However, in cases where I have a nearby city with loads o' culture, I take a nearby city and the enemy's next-closest city is miles away, I shouldn't have to trudge along because I gain little or no ground in cultural territory.

Just a thought.

[ArmaGeddin]

I read in the "Official Strategy Guide" that Culture is reset to zero when a city is taken by an enemy. When you "flip" a city though the Culture is not reset.

I was playing a game last night where I got three Great Artists in a row and placed them all in a border city and popped them for the 4k culture rush. I was able to knock an enemy city down to one square and hold him there for about 10 turns when all of the sudden the city flipped and asked to join my empire. When it flipped it seemed to keep most if not all of it's culture.