Need warmongering advice

[wodan11]

Barrage 3 would be +100% collateral, +10% vs melee, +10% vs gunpowder.

To me the difference is that you have greater chances of your trebs simply surviving to get to that point in the first place. These days, trebs cost a pretty penny.

Wodan

[snoopy369]

But, as I showed above, you have the same chance of getting there, yes? The same 1.6 trebs survive, so either way you have CR3 or Barrage3 trebs.

[wodan11]

What you showed was the impact during the initial battles, using rookie units. Then we'll have some battles with CR2 vs Barrage 2, followed by battles with CR3 vs Barr3.

So I'd be interested in the comparison of experienced units to see how they do throughout the whole war, not just in the first battle.

Wodan

[Yosho]

I would say, attack now, so long as there's not a threat of a third AI jumping you.

Understand that the war is likely to be long, expensive, and he's likely to sneak units in by ships to attack your weak points and do some damage. One thing I would suggest, especally on a long, snakey continent, is to declare war, but then wait for his stack of doom to come for YOU; kill his stack of doom, and THEN begin your attack. You don't really want your stack of doom slugging it out with his in his terratory, because he's constatnly getting reinforcements and your guys aren't healing quickly.

Also, if it's evenly matched between you and him, don't be discouraged if the war stalemates after you take a few cities. If the WW gets too high, don't be afraid to make peace (getting some good stuff from him in the process if possible), consodidate your gains, and rebuild your army before going back to war with him.

[DirtyMartini]

I played just a few turns last night. I decided to just go ahead and attack. It was just as costly as I was expecting -- I think I lost 4 trebs on the first city, and 5 on the second. I decided to go with CR on the trebs, just because that's what I've always done. There are only two more cities I want to take before declaring temporary peace, so despite the heavy losses and slow moving I should get it done as quickly as it can be given the four turns of marching between cities. He must have the statue of zeus though -- the war weariness kicked in pretty hard. I didn't bother to figure out whether he had it or not beforehand because it wouldn't have changed my decision anyway.

[Willem]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
I'm particularly concerned about the second city in line -- 1 CGIII/Drill I longbow, four CGII/Drill I longbows and a dog soldier, on a hill, with walls, fortified. I don't remember all the boni, but it's gotta be like a treb at 8 v. longbow at 15 or so.

Yes, you're going to need alot of siege weapons for that situation. You'll need to bring those Longbows down to at least 2 points or less left or they'll still be able to put up a good fight.

[rah]

Originally posted by Yosho
One thing I would suggest, especally on a long, snakey continent, is to declare war, but then wait for his stack of doom to come for YOU; kill his stack of doom, and THEN begin your attack. You don't really want your stack of doom slugging it out with his in his terratory, because he's constatnly getting reinforcements and your guys aren't healing quickly.

There's also the Issue of WW. Better to have the SOD fight on your territory to minimize the WW. If you take out both his SODs on your territory, you're usually left with just having to clean up his few city defenders. You can take out the entire civ with miminal WW.
Besides the basic theory that he who gets to use his siege engines usually wins in SOD battles and it's much more likely to be the person on who's territory the battle occurs.

[Ming]

Rah mentioned the ole "declare war on them and then wait to fight in your own territory" strategy to me last week.

Traditionally, my usual game plan was more of a Blitzkrieg approach... taking out as much of the enemies cites/units as possible in the first few turns of the war... catching his SOD's in cities where they were easier to deal with. It also limited their ability to updgrade their units, especially if you could kill a few cities on the first turn.

But after our discussion, I tried the declare war and wait strategy. It really works well. Besides the big advantage for WW, it was amazing how easy it was to take out the civ after I had killed the few SOD's that he sent into my territory after I declared war. He had very little left to defend his cities with.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Ming
Rah mentioned the ole "declare war on them and then wait to fight in your own territory" strategy to me last week.

Traditionally, my usual game plan was more of a Blitzkrieg approach... taking out as much of the enemies cites/units as possible in the first few turns of the war... catching his SOD's in cities where they were easier to deal with. It also limited their ability to updgrade their units, especially if you could kill a few cities on the first turn.

But after our discussion, I tried the declare war and wait strategy. It really works well. Besides the big advantage for WW, it was amazing how easy it was to take out the civ after I had killed the few SOD's that he sent into my territory after I declared war. He had very little left to defend his cities with.

Especially effective if you happen to build the GW.

[DirtyMartini]

I've usually been a blitzer as well. I have used the declare and wait strategy a few times when I knew where the attack had to occur (short border or whatever). I think it's particularly useful when your enemy is relatively strong. If the enemy is weak, I don't see much point in waiting.

In the current game that I initially asked about, declare and wait wouldn't have worked. Sitting Bull was a total turtle -- his military was almost all longbows, all highly CG promoted. If i had declared and waited, he might have sent a few annoying caravels and a couple of muskets, but I doubt he would have sent any substantial portion of his garrisons out.

I did manage to more or less finish him off last night. He has a couple little island cities left that I'll take care of once I have enough galleons.

My initial seige I promoted with CRI. A few of those survived the first few cities and made it to CRII. New trebs that I brought in as reinforcements, I made Barrage I. From that point, I attacked with the Barrage trebs first, then the CRII veterans. If any BarrageI trebs survived they got BarrageII. I think this worked pretty well -- whatever promotions I gave them, the first trebs were at 2% odds or less anyway. They weren't going to survive, so they might as well do decent collateral. Once a few barrage trebs had been sacrificed and the garrisons weakened, the CR promotions allowed a higher percentage of the following trebs to survive. By the time I finished off his cities, I had 6 or so CRIII trebs, but all of my Barrage trebs were toast.

[wodan11]

I've focused on this strategy and have it pretty well perfected (enough to suit my purposes anyway). You can usually tell against the AI whether he has the wherewithal to hit you with a SOD when you DOW.

DM mentions that AI personality plays a role... definitely it does. Unless you're an experienced player, however, you're not necessarily going to know which the AI is.

A big tip off you can use against any AI (as well as for random AI personalities) is how long it's been since that AI has been in a war. This keys off the knowledge of how the AI works in general. What it does is assign each unit a role, basically. So, to make up a SOD it needs sufficient offensive/"extra" units, which it will not have if it has been in a recent war.

So, basically, keep an eye on who is fighting who. If your target has been fighting recently, that's good and go ahead with your blitzkrieg.

If, however, the AI has not been fighting in the past hundred+ turns, then I'd suggest to wait and kill off his SOD in your territory (where you get the WW benefit plus you get to use your roads so you have tactical superiority).

Wodan

[Velociryx]

Rules of thumb I use in my own games:

If my opponent is.....

* Roughly my size or bigger, and not "otherwise engaged" in a war: DoW and Wait him out.

* A "Wounded Dove" or other nation in decline: Blitz

* Occupied in a war (or possibly more than one already): Blitz

* If I want to get my declaration in NOW (to take advantage of diplomatic boons--someone else asks me to go to war, and I'm planning to (eventually) kill the target anyway--but I've not yet had time to really get away from my builder blitz and focus on military: consolidate what I have, declare and wait.

As with most anything, both blitz and wait CAN be the best answer...it's just a matter of selecting the right tool for the job.

-=Vel=-

[rah]

Yeah, agreed, if they're occupied or been at war recently, I am usually inclined to blitz. It does depend on the situation.

But in the old days if I noticed his SOD was in a boarder city that touched my culture, I used to just kill it on the first turn of war. (as ming mentined, easy to take care of) But in most cases if you declare war that SOD will step into your territory, making it even easier to deal with, and less WW.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
I've usually been a blitzer as well. I have used the declare and wait strategy a few times when I knew where the attack had to occur (short border or whatever). I think it's particularly useful when your enemy is relatively strong. If the enemy is weak, I don't see much point in waiting.

In the current game that I initially asked about, declare and wait wouldn't have worked. Sitting Bull was a total turtle -- his military was almost all longbows, all highly CG promoted. If i had declared and waited, he might have sent a few annoying caravels and a couple of muskets, but I doubt he would have sent any substantial portion of his garrisons out.

I did manage to more or less finish him off last night. He has a couple little island cities left that I'll take care of once I have enough galleons.

My initial seige I promoted with CRI. A few of those survived the first few cities and made it to CRII. New trebs that I brought in as reinforcements, I made Barrage I. From that point, I attacked with the Barrage trebs first, then the CRII veterans. If any BarrageI trebs survived they got BarrageII. I think this worked pretty well -- whatever promotions I gave them, the first trebs were at 2% odds or less anyway. They weren't going to survive, so they might as well do decent collateral. Once a few barrage trebs had been sacrificed and the garrisons weakened, the CR promotions allowed a higher percentage of the following trebs to survive. By the time I finished off his cities, I had 6 or so CRIII trebs, but all of my Barrage trebs were toast.

This is generally the strategy I use with Trebs, but with the caveat that the last trebs are also Barrage, to get higher Barrage. This doesn't work as well with BtS unfortunately, as Trebs can't win battles... but you can still get a bit of xp that way.

Basically I attack with:
Barrage I - first (all die)
Once CR is at about 50%+ odds, CR
Once Barrage is above 80%+ odds, Barrage again

(until the units are pretty dead).