Planning for war - how do you do it?

[Fleme]

I hardly ever get the chance to "plan" for a war as the AI seems to be uncanny at attacking me just when I've started my military preparations and have my army half ready (no siege, cavalry) and then I'm stuck fighting a defensive war before going on the actual offensive.

Well, as waging war goes, I tend to set a few goals on cities that I want to raze or capture and where do I want to draw the border. Alternatively, I figure out how many cities I need to take in order for the AI to capitulate if that is what I'm after.

If I put too much thought into it the plans always tend to go awry so I've found it best to improvise as I, as mentioned before, often find myself assaulted before I get to make my move. Being attacked is usually no problem since I generally know which AI is going to attack me and from where so I can prepare my garrisons accordingly, even without having a real standing army or an offensive one.

[logicman49]

Balance

This is good and I try to follow most of this but how do you keep your balance between creating troops and building your infrstructure. You still have to make buildings. And while I'm making troops my maintenance goes sky high and then I fall behind in tech. Usually any advantage I had is gone by the time I have enough troops to attack with. Any thoughts?

Steve

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Lord Avalon
ES, do you plan on having several cities specialized for military production from the beginning?

Corrected

[wodan11]

How to plan for war?

Step 1: Build units
.
Step 3: Profit!

Wodan

[Solomwi]

Re: Balance

Originally posted by logicman49
This is good and I try to follow most of this but how do you keep your balance between creating troops and building your infrstructure. You still have to make buildings. And while I'm making troops my maintenance goes sky high and then I fall behind in tech. Usually any advantage I had is gone by the time I have enough troops to attack with. Any thoughts?

Steve

City specialization, CIV's incarnation of comparative advantage. Specializing in general will put you in better shape to begin with, so that troop costs and maintenance aren't such a burden. To your question in particular, designate one city early on to produce military units, only breaking the unit queue to add improvements you absolutely need (barracks, forge, others as the game situation dictates). As you expand, add other suitable cities as unit producers. Once you have a few up and running, it's easier to divert one at a time to a building when the need arises and still keep a steady stream of troop production.

[Tattila the Hun]

Originally posted by wodan11
How to plan for war?

Step 1: Build units
.
Step 3: Profit!

Wodan

Step 2: Seeth thy sword in the beating hearts of thy enemies?


(Or bonk some heads, for the modern wars...)

[wodan11]

Actually it was a South Park joke.

[snoopy369]

I'm confident that joke predates south park by a good bit

[egavactip]

How would you define a good production city? In terms of location, I mean. What do you look for?

[wodan11]

Originally posted by snoopy369
I'm confident that joke predates south park by a good bit

Maybe. But, it's hard to beat having gnomes give the punchline.

Wodan

[Garth Vader]

Originally posted by egavactip
How would you define a good production city? In terms of location, I mean. What do you look for?

Hills and enough food to mine them. Also a lack of good commerce squares means it's a production city by default.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by egavactip
How would you define a good production city? In terms of location, I mean. What do you look for?

Depends on what you define as 'good'.

If you mean 'my #1 production city', I would expect:
* Two food resources, or one food resource and some quality food terrain such as floodplains, or at least several tiles of rivered grassland
* Some combination of:
- hammer resources
- plains hills
- grassland hills
* Forests can also make a decent production city, particularly in the later game, if you haven't torn them down yet.

I'd want my #1 production city to have at least 30+ raw hammers actually used, so something like:

1 irrigated, FW wheat grassland -> 6 food
3 irrigated flood plains -> 12 food
1 mined copper plains hill -> 6 (?) hammers, 0 food
3 mined plains hills -> 12 hammers, 0 food
3 mined grassland hills -> 9 hammers, 3 food
4 forests -> 8 food, 4 hammers
--
15 pop, 32 raw hammers, 31 food, scattered trade (this is all pre-railroad pre-lumber mill pre-biology btw). With RR and lumber mill, that goes up by 15 hammers to 46 raw hammers.

That would be an acceptable #1 production city, though I'd prefer something better than that if possible. Every game you should be able to find something close to that or better, I'd suggest, assuming you conquer say 15% of your enemies by the renaissance era (1 neigbor on a standard map 7 opps). I often have ~40-45 raw hammers in one city, and i've had upwards of 60 before I think (though i'm not 100% sure that's pre-RR).

A 'good' production city, ie a city I would build for the sake of producing things (usually mil units), would be something like:

1. Dry Hill City: This city has hills, but not much food. Windmills are the order of the day here on most hills, and you can mine a couple if you have bonus food available (river-grassland for example). You end up with around 20 raw hammers from these cities assuming you have plenty of hills and some forests. Windmills give you lots of trade, which is nice.

2. Forest Alcove: A city with a bunch of forests is a good production city in and of itself, once you get to lumbermills and railroads; using 10 grassland forests (2/1 base) adds +2 hammers with those, so 30 raw production (at size 10). Of course, irrigate a grassland or two to help you grow up to size. This city does require rushing to Rep Parts to use, as it's only 10 hammers before that (which is not much, but it still produces a maceman every 8 turns which isn't so shabby).

3. Slave Market: A city with a lot of available food (this can be as simple as grassland tiles with rivers); you slave for your production as discussed above and elsewhere (60h/10 turns at minimum, ofter 90h/10 turns). 6-9h/turn is not fantastic production, but it requires a much smaller city to do - size 5 sustainable - than the others (size 10-15).

4. Wet Hill City: A city with some food available as well as hills. This would be the slightly weaker type from the 'optimal' city, producing 20-25 raw hammers (say, take the copper tile away and the food bonus tile away).

Does that answer your question?

[Krill]

TBH, it is usually a good idea to just plan on making every city military city and then work out which ones are going to be the exceptions and why.

[Lancer]

In my war plans I try to determine which of my cities will fall first...