That stack of doom ...

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by couerdelion


I find it amusing that you can send catapults against a unit like a musketman or longbow and that particular unit can remain unscathed while others suffer damage. It would rather imply that your catapults are not very accurate

Most of my military budget goes on booze for the catapulteers.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by johnmcd


Most of my military budget goes on booze for the catapulteers.

What's even funnier is that, the more veteran the catapults become, the more their boulders will start hitting military units that they were not even attacking.

btw Under Pacifism, your troops drink even more

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by johnmcd

Personally I always upgrade my catapults on the collatoral path, it's always useful, city attack seems to miss the point for catapults, you aren't building them to kill units you're building them to wound the unit's friends.

Collateral is best for defense, while both city raider and collateral (barrage) are good for city raiding. Build plenty of them, as they're the best investment in the game, for attack and defense. Every front line city should have two or three cats with the ability to bring in more quickly from neighboring cities.

Like Blake says, it's almost not fair to allow stacks of one. It's very hard to defend in this case, simply because cats are useful against stacks, because their collateral damage affects multiple units. It's very hard to defend against roving groups of two or three combined arms.

Alternatively, if the AI has a city without cats, I'll bunch up into a stack, and smile. If I see they have three cats, I'll split up into three combined arms groups. If I see them with 6 cats and 6 longbows, I'll split up into smaller groups, or perhaps walk to another city.

Regarding a big stack having mixed arms, it shouldn't be a big problem, but you need both cats and enough strong units to finish the job. Barrage their strength down to half and take the whole stack down with macemen or hopefully grenadiers, which has no real counter, except cavalry. Macemen have a problem with crossbows, but once they're half strength, it's not a problem.

Also, like Blake says, and I think Sun Tzu would agree, don't attack unless you're assured of victory. The last thing you want is to give them all promotions.

But often times I don't have enough to insure victory, so I just let them have it with a few cats to knock their strength down maybe 20%. Also, I have a few medics in my city. If the AI decides to attack, they can't win against my defenders, not on the first strike anyway. Meanwhile, I'm healing at a much faster rate being in the city and having a medic, while support troops and cats are rushing to the scene, likely there by the next wave of attacks. Fresh defenders, and hopefully another barrage by cats to further weaken them.

Slavery is nice to pop rush some cats or other units, if things look ugly.

In the modern era, I learned quickly not to have a stack of 20 units in enemy territory after watching 5 to 10 artillery weaken my stack to nothing, then finishing it off with modern armor and mech infantry. That's one of the problems with rails.

In the renaissance era, you can't move the cats into place that quickly, so you have to be prepared to be able to bring 5 to 10 cats together quickly.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Shaka II
In the modern era, a stack of 20 is not that unusual, but it's really asking for it with rails and artillery. The front line cities should be capable of taking down a stack of 20 units, having rail links, some air support even.

I hear you on this one. I finally learned to change my modern war tactics after getting repeatedly thrashed when trying to invade my neighbors. I thought "Hey, I have enough ships to land 20 units, including artillery, next to a city with only 8 defenders which are about a tech behind on average, say goodbye to your capital Isabella!" The troops land adjacent to Madrid, I end the turn, and every Spanish unit from Artillery to Catapults attacked my stack. I was laughing off the pitiful damage at first, but they just kept coming and kept coming. I think my last tank was taken out by a Conquistador. Rails are DEADLY.

Now I land in multiple places as well as attacking the city directly with an amphibious invasion if it has a chance - Marines are a lot more useful than they seem.

[Saurus]

Originally posted by PaganPaulwhisky
The fact is, you are complaining because you lost. I get my butt kicked on emperor all the time, but I definitely don't attribute it to the stacks of doom the comp brings. They are annoying, but I can usually handle them up to the point until the AI has more advanced units.

If you're army is three times the size of theirs, there is absolutely no way you should lose that many cities. The comp is very stupid when it comes to attacking and you have tons of options for defeating the stack which many people have already pointed out to you. On emp level, the maximum number of cities I have lost in a single war is two and I am usually able to take them right back (not counting double teams).

I think you just need to practice your military strategy instead of lobbying for uneccesary rule changes.

My awkward English combined with a tendency to write in a careless style seems to provoke people around here. I apologize.

But you are not correct.
I did not start this thread because I lost that game.
Bear in mind that many of the issues I have been complaining about in this thread has been discussed earlier also in other threads and when a less provocative guy than I am starts a thread then many people have agreed that there is a need for a unit in between the catapult and the cannon ... or the cannon introduced earlier since now the cannon is almost instantly obsolted by artillery.

This for instance is something that has been noted often and admitted to earlier - yet not admited by anyone in this particular thread - It appears suddenly this is NOT a problem.

Of course the problem has not gone away anywere...it's just that becouse my style of writing provokes you to just prove me wrong and so this discussion is mainly about tyring to ridicule me and not about discussing the issue I started this thread for.

Expecialy the late medieval age SoD has been discussed many times earlier - and the lack of a real counter to this stack of this given period.

What you and others have proposed is not by any standards bad suggestions - but my point is rather that the "stack-killer"-unit is particulary weak during this period. The catapult is almost useless against grenadiers, knights and macemen.

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by Saurus

What you and others have proposed is not by any standards bad suggestions - but my point is rather that the "stack-killer"-unit is particulary weak during this period. The catapult is almost useless against grenadiers, knights and macemen.

That's not an unreasonable point. Earlier on it is possible to rush catapults and overwhelm stacks and later it becomes possible to do so with cannon. Catapults are less effective against the units you mention.

It's a pretty safe bet that an intermediate unit between the catapult and the cannon will be in an expansion. Until then the best response I know of is to accept the increased costs of running a larger military so that you have enough units that you can sacrifice to make sure you take the stack down.

[couerdelion]

Saurus,

I don’t think people were making anything more than suggestions as to how to deal with a stack of that nature and the case still stands that catapults will at least be the first route to start hitting at the “key defenders” to start letting your elite units start cutting away at the stack.

I can quite understand your arguments about the catapult being weak relative to the units that they attack and they will often do little or no damage against them. I’ve noticed that city busting against longbow or muskets can make catapults look pretty useless but you must also bear in mind that they are at least damaging more than their production cost would imply. The only problem is that those damaged units are then healing and so the attacks turn out to be useless.

For strong defenses/stacks, I might throw one or two catapults first to do some damage to the second tier of units in the stack (grenadier one may be laughing off those Catapult attacks but grenadiers 2-5 won’t be so happy). After a little softening, you might then some stronger units to start taking out the big hitter from the stack and once these are out of the way, the catapults can try again at the next level down. And will have an increasing chance of making a kill.

Certainly, your stack of 40 is quite serious and here I guess the point is that you do not attack unless you can get some serious kills from the stack. This is really the key to breaking these sorts of armies. If you can match, or nearly match the individual units, then you

[Possibility]

I only play multiplayer, and I love it when I get attacked by a stack of doom (well, usually I do). Whenever I see one comming, i just move my siege to the defense city, do collacteral damage, and then mop up the stack with my remaining defenders.

Being on the defense of the SoD gives you a massive advantage if you have the units there to defend with. Since the enemies stack of doom has mixed units, it will only move 1 square at a time, so when it moves next to your city, you should be ready for it and attack it first with your catapults or cannons, and then mop up the stack with your other defenders.

It happens so often in multiplayer, a rookie comes along with a big ass stack completely oblivious to the fact that I am well prepared to deal with it. I totally decimate this massive Stack-o-Dooom gaining tons of experience for my troops, and then counter attack now that he has no army left. And every time his civilization quickly becomes one with my own.

Anyone that cant deal with a super stack is just unprepared and thus completely deserves to die.

Possibility

[Shaka II]

I'm not bringing my stack to your city.

To be honest, a stack of over 20 in the renaissance era is a big stack. it would give me a scare. Was that a standard or large map?

Also, it sounds like you were attacked by multiple AI's Sauron. This is a bad situation, but that's what diplomacy is there for, to avoid these situations, to gain favor. It's not always easy, but I change religion and use tech bribes to gain friends and wage counter attacks. Last game, I asked Isabella if she could spare attacking Montezuma for a good friend. She thought about it a while, and then nodded yes. We are brother and sister of the same faith, and you know what that means to her.

Next time, don't get so many AI's mad at once, and build more catapults.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
So the AI has a stack in your territory and is taking your cities one by one and you can't stop it? Think about the problem here.

If you units are simply going to die defending then what else can they do that is useful?

That's right. Go and pillage the AI's land and raze his cities. You are smarter than the AI and should be able to do it faster. You need to hurt the AI enough to get it to cough up a peace deal, not sit and wait to die.

That's a bad idea, usually.

The AI keeps a ton of units back for defensive purposes; if he's hitting you with a stack of 20 units, he's probably also got 4 or 5 units in each one of his cities, at least. I hadn't really realized this until I ended up in a war with someone who was the religion I started and so I could see all of his cities.

If you're weak enough that you defend your cities, then any force you send into the AI's area will probably get crushed by his defensive forces, without the AI having to pull back any part of his offensive army.

[MattPilot]

Originally posted by Yosho


That's a bad idea, usually.

The AI keeps a ton of units back for defensive purposes; if he's hitting you with a stack of 20 units, he's probably also got 4 or 5 units in each one of his cities, at least. I hadn't really realized this until I ended up in a war with someone who was the religion I started and so I could see all of his cities.

If you're weak enough that you defend your cities, then any force you send into the AI's area will probably get crushed by his defensive forces, without the AI having to pull back any part of his offensive army.

What i noticed in my games is that the AI puts garrison in cities depending on how important it is. 1-3 units for a relatively unimportant city up to 5-8 for more important ones and 10+ in the capital.

Then it has roughly 10 units patrolling in its own territory and usually when at war only ONE stack between 20-30 units.

Thats based on a civ with roughly 80 military units and 8 cities.


So in my current game i'm playing, all i have to do is defeat the AI's stack and the remaining cities are basically just clean up. It ain't a walk in the park, but it ain't a uphill battle either.

As it should be, no? I like it. Kill off the main army and the rest is for you to grab.

[Blake]

Here's the facts from the game (using worldbuilder tests).

When a stack of 10 Barrage II catapults attack a stack of 10 Combat II grenadiers, all the grenadier's will be reduced to 6.0 hp, perhaps one or two will be higher or lower, but on the stack will be approximately halved in strength. (note: using more catapults wouldn't do any more real damage, since catapult collatoral is capped to 50%)
2 or 3 of the catapults will have survived, thanks to the 25% retreat chance.

6hp grenadiers are very, very easily destroyed by knights or musketeers, especially if promoted with pinch. I would say that 10 pinch knights would completely destroy the stack, on average no knights would be lost. And even with non-promoted knights, only 1 or 2 knights would be lost.

So cost anyalsis:
Grenadiers cost 100h each. Catapults cost 40.

7.5 catapults are sacrificed to reduce the grenadiers to mop-up levels - where they can be killed losslessly.

300 hammers worth of catapults were used to destroy 1000 hammers worth of grenadiers.

Having local superiority is alway essential, any good player would not fight without local superiority. The difference is huge, if you JUST attack the stack with 10 catapults and don't mop up, you'll spend 300 hammers worth of catapults to destroy 0 hammers worth of grenadiers (they'll heal back to full, and perhaps have some more promotions).

Catapults rock. They are effective against everything in the game. For example, catapults + cavalry can take out infantry.
I've used catapults to destroy invading stacks of Cossacks, or atleast reduce them to a health level to be easy prey for riflemen.

It's often been argued that they are too good, especially against "superier" forces (ie infantry and better).

[fed1943]

Blake is right.And,even if the enemy is a combinated force,the advice keeps good;there will be one type(horses,spears,infantry)that became weaker,attack with the countered by the now weaker,lose one or two rounds,but then the enemy is unbalanced and will be destroyed;if there are unseen enemies you are just playing roulette.(English is also my 4th language).
Best regards,

[Possibility]

Blake is precise, and states exactly why i love it when a fool attacks me with a big stack. It can be easily killed and you gain a lot experience for the units that do the mopping up after your catapults attack!

I have never yet encountered a stack of doom. I have been attacked by large stacks, but they were always the one in doom So maybe I should call "Stacks about to be Doomed"

Possibility

[drsparnum]

I don't have a problem with stacks of doom. As mentioned, you need catapults and then other units to mop 'em up, but if you've got that you can hurt them way worse than they hurt you. If you've got 60 units fighting a stack of 20 units, and 15 of your 60 units are catapults, I think your remaining 45 units will kill the SOD, and pretty easily to boot. Now, figuring in that on a unit for unit basis catapults are pretty cheap, you can come out way ahead.

I just wish the stacks were more easily understood. For example if a guy comes at you with 5 unit types, 8 units of each type, you can only see the top 20 units. It would be nice to just see something like:

warrior (8)
archers (8)
axemen (8)
catapults (8)
spearmen (8)

Then, if you were interested in individual health and promotions you could just expand those lists in typical windows style. Why wasn't it designed this way??


I would also like another unit between catapults and cannons. I still build catapults, but it seems like they stick around longer than any other unit in the game. How about an in between seige unit (trebuchects (sp?)). We all like more units, right?