Help with BTS getting owned

[pmaura]

So far i am finding this expansion tough. Did they change warfare and units around? I get messages that I am the most advanced and powerful nation, but I get my ass kicked when atacking cities, if I over take one the retribution is immense its like the AI is able to pump units out at a rate and not worry about cost.

Is there a quick strategy or tutorial.

Otherwise just going to keep trying. probably will eventyally figure it out.

[TimeTraveler]

These are mostly guesses, but I think I can see some reasons to why the enemy would send waves of units to take back the city.

1. Your city defense bonuses are pretty much at zero. Unless you have some units with their own bonuses to city defense, attempts to defeat your units would take about as much effort as if the city wasn't there. Except they'd get the reward of having defeated your stack AND getting back their city. If city walls and such aren't destroyed by conquests (I think they are, but I tend not to pay that much attention), this might increase the difficulty they face, if it's that early in the game.

2. They may be able to send a good number of units directly from some of their remaining cities in a single turn. Since all the territory between their cities and the one you just took belongs to them, they can use any and all roads put in place. If they have railroads planted, they can draw out units from perhaps a majority of their empire. If they don't have railroads but do have engineering, they can still send foot soldiers from cities three tiles away and units involving horses from cities six tiles away. Without Engineering, those numbers drop to two and four, so they may spend multiple turns forming their stack of death.

Like I said, these are mostly guesses. I could be wrong about all this. (In which case, it'd be nice to know the right answers.)

As far as a quick strategy or tutorial, there should be a few threads that may help out with that a bit, somewhere around here. As far as stopping enemy forces from taking back a city, I have no idea other than trying to send into your conquest stack as many units as you think you can afford to send out without putting those cities at uncomfortable risk. ...which probably isn't the best strategy out there. Perhaps someone can help answer that for both of us. ^^;

[nbarclay]

What matters in a battle is not the total power of each civilization, but rather is the number and strength of units that each side brings to a battle. If humans concentrate the lion's share of our units on the front lines, we can gain tactical superiority over an AI that has a military that is significantly stronger overall. Conversely, if our units are spread out all over the place, an AI has a real possibility of gaining local superiority.

The most dangerous situations are (1) when an AI has a massive stack near a city you decide to attack, and (2) when an AI can counterattack using units drawn from several different cities at once. The second problem is especially serious when attacking an AI with a rail network.

[snoopy369]

The BTS AI is a lot better at managing finances and cities, and so can produce and support more units. If you're getting consistently beaten due to quantity, it sounds to me like you need to work on your own managing of finances and cities. Build more cities earlier, irrigate them up to the largest size they can support, then start working them on their specialty - hammers, usually, or commerce; occasionally specialists or some such.

[Jaybe]

The improvement in the BtS AI in managing UNITS should not be understated. Compared to vanilla/Warlords they are a much bigger challenge, just in how they conduct the battle (e.g., judicious counterattacks when you are preparing to assault one of their cities).

[snoopy369]

This is also true - for some AI personalities anyway. That's one big difference also, is that the AI has more distinct personalities, so some AI will follow strategies that are much more militarily effective while some will go for culture victories or whatever.

[Willem]

Originally posted by pmaura
I get messages that I am the most advanced and powerful nation, but I get my ass kicked when atacking cities, ...

There's more to the power rating than just numbers of units. Walls, Barracks etc. also add to a civ's overall powere score. You should be keeping an eye on your opponent's actual units more and not relying completely on your power graph. Send in some spies to get an idea of how many units he/she has hanging around.

And yes, thanks to Blake's AI changes BtS is alot tougher than Civ 4 used to be. The other civs are much better now at carrying on a military campaign.

[couerdelion]

WTF does "owned" actually mean? Or perhaps more precisely, why do people say this?

[binTravkin]

You know, when you get a girl laid, you can 'own' her.
Get it now?

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by binTravkin
You know, when you get a girl laid, you can 'own' her.
Get it now?

Makes even less sense. Sounds more like pimping.

[bantams]

Originally posted by couerdelion
WTF does "owned" actually mean? Or perhaps more precisely, why do people say this?

same as pwned If ya know what that means or conquered for the not so down with the Kids Folks

[binTravkin]

Makes even less sense. Sounds more like pimping.

Err, when you go to sleep with your gf you think of yourself as a pimp?

[wodan11]

Couerdelion I think this is what you want:

http://www.netlingo.com/lookup.cfm?term=pwn

Wodan

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by wodan11
Couerdelion I think this is what you want:

http://www.netlingo.com/lookup.cfm?term=pwn

Wodan

Thanks Wodan.

I'd certainly like to know where this comes from though. How would such a strange term become so readily accepted.

p.s. And I agree with the link. It's a horrible word. I'd rather speak French.

[wodan11]

I read an article a few years back... Oh, here... Wiki tells us some of that history...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn

The article I remember gave a lot more detail. The jouralist must have had too much free time or something. Anyway he did a huge amount of research, looking into the first uses, and actually tracked people down, called them on the phone, that sort of thing. The conclusion was basically what Wiki says though he went into a lot more detail of course.

Wodan