how to defend your cities

[Unimatrix11]

How would You know, if they are good advices ?! Obviously, You never followed them, yet ! (jk - no offense, marshall)

[Krill]

Originally posted by snoopy369
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.

TBH I expect 80%+ of my cities to be able to make 10 hpt by the early ren era, and 50%+ to make 20+ hpt. If you can't do this then you are going to strugle to make a good sized army for the later eras, nevermind city improvements.

[marshall06]

> jk - no offense

Not taken. But those guys who gave the good advices may be offensed. Just kidding also.

Well, they sound good per description and they come from guys that have actually tried them in many games (and work otherwise they won't suggest). I will keep them in mind as I play again.

[RoddToddDurango]

Excellent thread Marshall, et all! Very informative reading for an otherwise boreing workday.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by RoddToddDurango
Excellent thread Marshall, et all! Very informative reading for an otherwise boreing workday.

Hey, welcome to Apolyton RoddToddDurango.

[The Priest]

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

Yes you are right of course, with good specialisation building units doesn't have to be a major drain for most of the game.

My concern is always in the relatively early game (say pre-trebs). Its then that I think building too many units is a waste. Instead you could be expanding more or investiging in infrastructure (workers and bulidings) - indeed getting those two military cities up to full industrial strength. In my experience on most map settings the danger of being seriously attacked then is fairly limited even if you are low on power - the AI has other things on its agenda like expansion itself.

Of course sometimes you migth want to be agrressive in that period - can work a treat - in which case you build military and hope that the land you grab will be worth the slower investment in infrastructure. But if you are being peaceful, you can get away with very very few units for a good length of time while you push out those extra few cities and get the important buildings done. You just have to spot the moment when war starts to be on the agenda ...

[iamfishhead]

I agree with a number of the other replies. It does seem that power is a large (though perhaps not the only factor) in the AI determining how it interacts with you, at least in a military sense. In several games, I've gone from having one of the smallest millitaries (in the bottom 1/3) to having the top or next to the top military. The way the AI reacts to you is often markedly different. With a small military, you tend to get randomly invaded a lot more often then when you have a big one and other civs are more likely to demand tribute from you (as opposed to asking for help). With one of the larger militaries, the countries with smaller militaries are much more likely to ask you for defensive pacts and vassalage. Also, a military expansion early on will tend to pay off very well much later in the game, especially on a crowded map where everyone usually can get 5-6 cities. If you take another civ and have 10-12 after, this puts you at a major advantage once you finish your reconstruction of their cities.

In any case, other civs will tend not to attack if you at least maintain military parity with them. There may be some exceptions to this in BTS. The computer seems to be slightly better at noticing an impending invasion, and may declare war on you if you've massed a large number of troops on their border. I'm not sure of this though. I'll look at the exposed AI code later (since I'm a python and C++ programmer) and see what I can come up with.

[Supr49er]

Welcome to Apolyton iamfishhead.

[rah]

IF someone is looking at the code, check to see if the AI can tell if your troops are inside your border or outside your border. Does that affect you power rating in their eyes. Can they tell you've reduced the defenses in your cap to support a war against someone else. (some may think this paranoid) but just interested.

[iamfishhead]

Originally posted by rah
IF someone is looking at the code, check to see if the AI can tell if your troops are inside your border or outside your border. Does that affect you power rating in their eyes. Can they tell you've reduced the defenses in your cap to support a war against someone else. (some may think this paranoid) but just interested.

Well, the code for all the player AI totals into the tens of thousands of lines of code and the commenting is pretty poor, but from what I could tell by glancing, it seems that most decisions on whether or not the AI starts or stops a war is based on power and leader personality. There is some strategy code that looks at defenses and city values, but it's hard to tell where these interact without too much familiarity with the code.

Just using what I know from coding, from my game playing experience, and from the code I looked at, I'd say it mostly depends on power if it declares war on you or not. AFTER it has declared war on you, it does seem that it does a more sophisticated analysis of defenses to figure out what to do.

The situation you describe sounds like it would be possible though even if the code behaves as I've described above. If you're at war with someone else, usually your power value can fluctuate a bit. On one of the troughs, an hitherto uninvolved AI might decide it can take you on, when it couldn't at the start of the war. It might then declare war on you and happen to take advantage of the fact your homeland isn't well defended. I'd think that if troop production meets or exceeds losses, you'll be safe from other AIs, so long as they're not going into a troop-producing boom.

[smbakeresq]

it seems that Walls and Castles also count towards the power graph and discourage attacks also. If you have access to stone and/or are protective there is no reason not to wall and castle all cities, especially since castles give +1 trade route and +1 culture.

[snoopy369]

Power is a sum of lots of things indeed - military units, technology, walls/castles/barracks/etc. Castles are very useful for the 'peaceful builder' who doesn't want to support much military but wants to avoid attack.

[Julian Delphiki]

Doesn't the population affect to power rating as well?

[Wittlich]

how to defend your cities

From the mouth of the Military Advisor in CivII:

BUILD CITY WALLS!, and other improvements later

[TriMiro]

IIRC in Civ III power was also function of how much land you have. It was possible to win the game with only couple of phalanx and not a single war. Just get a lot of land initially and the AI would not dare fight you (on lower difficulty of course). In Civ IV you are probably going to get attacked at some point og time or another (unless you attack first), but I am wondering if Land is not still a factor (even if lesser one). Also does the mfg make any difference, I would think it should.