What do you defend your cities with?

[Indalecio]

Below is what I've typically used throughout various ages, but I wanted to gauge what other players do, especially late game.

Ancient - 2 Archers core cities, 4 in border cities.

Classical - Crossbowman, 2 in core cites, and in border

Renaissance - Same as above, but Riflemen

Industrial and aboe - Infantry

I've been toying with just using Machine Guns, instead of infantry, and I can't think of a reason not to do it.

Thoughts?

[logicman49]

That's probably why I get killed once I'm attacked. I use 2 archers early, change to 2 musketeers, change to 2 riflemen and then go to 1 rifleman when I start to desparately need troops and then 1 mech inf. I can never afford the maintenance costs.

[Ming]

I pretty much NEVER use archers. In my opionion, if you let the enemy get next to your cities, you have already lost. The trick is to fight them in the field away from your cities... using the extra movement advantages your roads provide within your territory. I always defend with offensive units... units that I can attack out with.

[Shrapnel12]

Originally posted by Ming
I pretty much NEVER use archers. In my opionion, if you let the enemy get next to your cities, you have already lost. The trick is to fight them in the field away from your cities... using the extra movement advantages your roads provide within your territory. I always defend with offensive units... units that I can attack out with.

Don't you have better chances defending in your city?

[Indalecio]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12


Don't you have better chances defending in your city?

I understand where Ming's coming from. You generally don't want the enemy tromping around in your territory, pillaging your improvements. At the same time, you sometime come across superior enemy units, or just multiples of weak enemy units, where you'll want to get the advantage of being in the city.

While I mentioned the units above, i'll generally put together an army that can respond to threats quickly before they get to the city proper.

[Asmodeous]

Usually not a whole lot in the interior, maybe one or two archers or axemen or whatnot.

Border cities generally get a mix (usually a pair of each), of Swordsmen, Axemen/Macemen, Spearmen, and Catapults (for marching out and meeting the enemy en masse), plus a pair of archers "just in case".

....I like to be thorough.

Me.

[snoopy369]

I'm somewhat with Ming, except it depends on the circumstance. Most times I prefer offensive units (although I differentiate between attacking-city offensive units, such as macemen, and defending-city offensive untis, such as chariots). It really depends on whether my main opponent is Barbs, an AI civ, or a Human civ - they require three different types of defense, really.

A human opponent gets the most "defensive" units; assuming I'm not the best player there is, there will be occasionally humans who attack and get into my city territory. I have done well in many games by my ability to resist an attack via proper city defenses actually defending against an attack.

[wodan11]

I don't defend my cities.

I have attack units who happen to be garrisoning at the moment. If an enemy shows up, units immediately move to kill them.

Wodan

[Will9]

I usually have an archer and an axeman in every city in the beginning then upgrade them from there.

[Blaupanzer]

I do tend to use archers early, then longbowmen. However, most of the army is melee units and siege units. In modern times, I spread around a few machine guns, simply because they are not gunpowder units and therefore require different promotions to sucessfully attack. Defense is useful at all times as the real army tends to be out conquering or gathered in response stacks in selected cities. All well and good to swagger about getting the invaders right away in theory, but in fact a back-stab is best neutralized by defending with units specifically designed to make taking cities difficult. Such units also accompany my army on invasions to neutralize counter-attacks. Of course, most of my AI opponents are in no condition to do that once the initial stacks have been destroyed.

[Herreman Jarl]

wodan11 is right, defence units do no good. I use to have only the strongest attackers I can afford in my cities. The enemy usualy pillages the sourrunding tiles instead of attacking the city direct.

If the enemy appeare, I send them out and destroy them fast and return the wounded units back to the city to heal quickly and defend the city.

The rest of the still strong units I send out to take any stray enemy and let them do some counter strikes if possible.

City walls, by the way seems to be a good defence and deterrance for any attacks, I build them very early in new cities.

[Robert]

I defend my cities with offensive units with offensive promotions.
When enemies show up next to my cities I attack them.
That gives me more GG points, more experience, and there's less change that those pesky siege units will downgrade my defense strength first.

[Qwertqwert]

My defenses usually are based on how many I need to keep the happiness up. If I don't need any for happiness, I'll just have 1 or 2.

[onodera]

I usually try to have a combination of archers/shooters for defense (as not many get bonuses against archers) and mounted units for preemptive counterattacks.

[Rockoon]

In my next game I am going to try to defend my cities with continual 10 turns of peace.