how to defend your cities

[marshall06]

Sorry for the rookie question. I am playing at the noble level. I found it was a bit hard to defend my cities.

I was in a case that "Victoria" was pleased with me at +7. She attacked me with a big stack (mixture of various type of units closed to 10 units) for no reason. All defending cities only have two units. to defend ...

Well, I don't want to spend most of my money building military units. My land is adjacent to at least 6 or 7 other civilizations. Since the AIs can attack anytime even when I have good relationships with them. I don't even know where to place my units, except placing them equally across the border cities in the empire.

Do you expert guys have any tips for me?

[Branded Swine]

Welp... First off you didn't mention what civ you are or what year in game it is or anything else.

From what you've said I would say your pretty much done with losing this game and should start over if all you have is 2 defensive units in each city and a single stack of 10 units is on your border(you can bet there's another stack comming as well). Vicky is not know for being polite once she's made up her mind about hitting you.

1) start a new game.
2) post (this thread) 4000bc save and details about starting conditions.
3) if you have 6-7 civs on your borders just plan on having at least 4-5 defending types and some fast/strong attackers as well in each city(type will depend on civ your going to play).
4) watch the power graph screen to see how your doing with keeping up with other civs. Stronger than you..good chance of hitting you...
5) Lastly don't be sorry for asking questions here. Thats what this place is for...


B.S.

[rah]

Always assume you're going to be attacked.
As I've pointed out in other threads, I've been +17 with a civ when it attacked me. Monty and Izzy and others are going to come after you eventually if you're next to them.

As much as you don't want to build a bigger army, unless you start on an island all by yourself, you need to build a bigger army.

[Blaupanzer]

The questions are fun. Your cities need at least 2 static and one mobile unit when away from the borders and at least four one-square movers and a mobile unit in border cities AND you need a reserve of at least 4 very good units + units = number of civs on the border (i.e.., touching your border or within one move). This reserve should be a complete mix (i.e, including all unit types currently available) plus a couple of the biggest and baddest units currently available. If you are not in one of the top 3 power positions, count on needing a reserve stack as described for each 5 cities in your empire. I know military units seem like a waste of resources, but the AI will kill you if they spot weakness on the power graph, especially if you have resources they don't.

I play with raging barbarians and aggressive AI turned on. You might be able to survive to midgame where unit quality begins to matter as much as numbers if you don't use those settings, but the challenge is less which reduces the fun for me.

[Supr49er]

Keep scouts/chariots/warriors on forested hills along your borders to get an early warning. Notice what units they are bringing.

Move up the countering units (for example, Chariots to hit their Axes) and Catapults.

Try to keep a mobile mounted force to hit the enemy before they get to your city.

[snoopy369]

I would say that the number of defenders varies a lot, based on who you have around you and what tech advantage you have, etc.

Rules:

1. Watch your POWER graph. Keep your power number higher than ALL of the bordering AIs, and if possible all of the one-away AIs (ones one civ away from you). You were attacked for a very simple reason: your power was less than Victoria's, if I don't miss my guess.

2. Keep a mobile defensive force around, with appropriate counters for most current units. It doesn't have to have 2 movers, if that's not appropriate in the current era; but roads make it mobile. If you have a large empire, you need 2 of them (or 3, etc.) Every city that you care about keeping should be within 2 or at most 3 moves from one mobile defensive stack. Keep a lot of siege units in it, as that's usually the easiest way to weaken an attacking force.

3. Keep a decent sized border with enemy AIs, with throw-away cities, as much as possible. Make sure every city you really care about (ie, your core unit-producing cities, your wonder-producing cities, and your key commerce-producing or GP-producing cities) is NOT a border city, or if it is, make sure it has a HUGE cultural border, so you have many tiles' defense against invasion. Distance is your friend in defending, as you can move 3 tiles for every 1 the attacker moves. If you absolutely can't do this (your key city is up against an AI), defend that city VERY well. I generally have cities I'm willing to give up, if it comes to it, in exchange for keeping my key cities.

Generally, though, it comes down to simply keeping your power up. Make sure it's higher than everyone around you, and you will be safe; simple as that. A low power means you'll certainly be attacked; whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you, as a good player can deal with these attacks by being ahead in tech and such, but it's certainly not an easy thing to do.

[Krill]

Kill which ever AIs are necessary to decrease the length of your borders that you have to defend...Then the extra troops that you have can be used to increase the size of the borders again later on

[The Priest]

I agree that you need more, as others have said, but I would add a voice of caution - building up too much military is an unncessarily drain. Investment in development now can lead to a stronger industry and better tech, and thus a stronger army later.

Its surprising how quickly you can produce defenders, under threat. Ten against two isn't good, but ten against six you should win unless there is a tech differential.

So you are only saying you need four extra in that city or a couple more to be sure. That only means that you need two or three from neighbouring cities, one or two rushed and a couple of mobile reserve. Of course you will be stuffed if you are invaded by a number of civs all at the same time. But if it is one civ invading, there is a good chance there will only be one main stack (presumably we are not talking end game) so all you need to be able to do is concentrate enough defenders in the one city it attacks.

At that point it does become sitautional. If you have slavery, you can rush; if other cities are close and you have a good transport system, you can concentrate defenders easily. If you don't, yes you need to expend more resource for military in each city.

[Willem]

Originally posted by marshall06
Well, I don't want to spend most of my money building military units.

Youd don't really have any choice. If you don't build units, the other civs will see you as weak and attack. That's why Victoria declared war on you. I don't believe I've ever seen her do that in any of my games, it's not really her nature. Keep an eye on the Power graph in your demographics screen. Preferably you want to on top but being in the top third will at least make the less aggresive civs, like Victoria, think twice about attacking you. If you only have 2 defenders in your border cities, you're just easy pickings.

[TriMiro]

Offense is the best defense, in most of my games I am on the offense and even if the AI sends a stack of doom (SOD), I can meet it with at least equal force.

That said, if you are looking into a more defensive paying style, try this:
1. One defender in each city in general
2 Build several Stack of Defense. Those should consist of 4 - 6 era appropriate units. Place the SODefense so that if you come under attack, you can reach every city with a SODefense before the enemy SODoom. That means that you probably need to place some entire stacks into the border cities if they can be reached in a single turn.

In general, keep your defense mobile. You may actually have enough defenders to put the war with Elizabeth to a seal-mate, but your defenders may be spread out too thin over cities that don't actually need defending.

[Unimatrix11]

Re: how to defend your cities

Originally posted by marshall06
...She attacked me with a big stack (mixture of various type of units closed to 10 units) for no reason. All defending cities only have two units. to defend ...

Well, You said it there. Excuse me, but for ´veterans´, this is a sentence of smirking contradiction: The reason why she attacked You, is because Your military was too weak (probably).

I, too, like to lull myself into the illusion that good relations with my neighbors ensures peace (in our time ), and that i dont need a big army. That illusion usually comes back to haunt me tho, pretty soon. So: like it or not (i sometimes hate it), you need to check the powergraph from time to time and make sure you are not a vulnerable target for your neighbors (wonder-builders are so especially it seems), since once you are, the AI will attack You, regardless of Your standing with it.

And it does decide to do so at one point, but attacks You at a later one. So it might seem, that after You got behind Your low-point of military strength and they didnt attack You yet, that You are save. Dont count on it. It might well be, that the AI is determined to attack You, from a decision it made, when You were weakest, and has just not finished its prep-work yet, coming for You the next turn.

In short: Arm for peace !

[Colm]

Have catapults and every kind of unit in your border cities. Here's something I encountered a while back:

A civ moved a stack of doom next to a city. After catapulting my defenses to close to zero, I attacked with a few catapults, seriously weaken the stack.
The next turn, the stack attacked. Every single unit of them got defeated without a single unit of mine. The catapults were defeated by my archers, the horses encountered the pointy sticks, the swords encountered my axes etc.

After the attack, the enemy usually does not have much military left and then (after healing) you can move to their cities.

And as said; Always build military units even in times of peace. It may feel like a waste then, but once they attack, you'll be happy you have them around.

[The Priest]

Have catapults and every kind of unit in your border cities.

Sounds like a waste. That is playing like the AI which is so stupid that it can't mount a mobile defence, and concentrate forces, and has to build up defenders in each city. The reason why humans can win on Emperor happily despite all the AI's bonuses is that we can mount a mobile defence and concentrate forces, and so don't need as many.

Its not hard to conquer an AI with only 50% of the units that it has, because it will leave them spread out in the different cities, while humans can concentrate them.

[snoopy369]

On the point of 'I don't want to spend all my money building units', there is one important thing to keep in mind.

If you are playing optimally, you will have many cities. Six, eight, ten, whatever. In that group of cities, if you have just TWO cities producing military units 100% of the time, you will have more military units than you know what to do with - even as an OFFENSIVE force (ie, attacking others). The math is simple:

Military City:
Buildings: Barracks, Forge, Granary. 240h if no bonuses to building these. Courthouse if needed (if it's a far away city). That pushes it to 360h.

Even if you build a 360h military city, that will take something like 30 turns at an average of 12h/turn (your mil city should have 15-18 hammers, minimum, after full growth). Once those buildings are done, you should be simply building military units 100% of the time with those two cities. That will generate a huge military over time, especially if you're a peaceful builder, and you can do what you want with the rest - commerce, specialists, wonders, whatever. You don't have to build a single military unit with any other city, the rest of the game, unless you are going to play an aggressive expansionist.

[marshall06]

Thank you very much for the replies, guys. I read all of them (I just cannot reply each individually - too many ) They are all good advices.