Major help needed with waging war!

[TieSolo]

I consider myself decent with strategy games, but when it comes to Civ 4, I suck big time...I mean it, I'm pathetic and I'm reaching out for help!!!

My main problem is that I like playing aggresively, but I don't seem to ever be able to win a war. What happens is that I will construct an army...for instance, 8 swordsmen, four catapults, 7 chariots, some archers etc., and try to attack a much weaker enemy.

The problem is with the city defense. They could have a few units in their city and with the defense bonuses they are getting they tear me to pieces!! What ends up happening is that I spend all my units capturing one city, and by that time my army is down to a few units and even if I have spare units in my other cities, it is not enough to take another enemy city, or other civs, sensing my weakness, declare war on me and now I'm on the defensive.

Also, even if I have all my cities producing units to fund my war machine, that means I'm falling behind in other areas, and by the time this produces a big enough army, the enemy always seems to have strengthened or they tech up and have better units.

Does anyone have any tips for waging war effectively, or is there a guide you can direct me to?

Also, is it just me or is city defense way too high..I mean, shouldn't an army of 20 units be able to take down a city with three units without losing 80% of them?

Please help as at this point I'm ready to give up

[Supr49er]

Have you studied at the War Academy?

http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=265

We need to know what version of Civ (Warlords, BTS, vanilla), which civ/leader you're playing, what map, what difficulty, etc.

If you could post a save you will get more help.

[joncnunn]

Well, your not mentioning what the cultural defense is of your target is, weather or not it's on a hill, and what defenders they have.

Now your 7 Chariots aren't that good attacking cities themselves.

The Cat's can be used to bombard the defense of the city down to zero and then if needed suicide a few of them to weaken the defenders further for your Swords with City Raiders to clean up.

[TieSolo]

I am playing Civ IV with both expansions, patched to the latest version. The difficulty is the one where the AI gets no bonuses...I believe that is noble.

[Tuberski]

If you are making Cats, use them correctly. Bombard the defenses.

ACK!

[jbavon]

Use catapults as throw away units. First bombard the city's defenses to zero and then attack first with your catapults. They will inflict collateral damage to the enemy but you will lose some of them.

If a city has 3 defenders you should easily be able to take it with 3-4 catapults and 5-6 swordsman if the enemy has archers (or equal strength units). If he has Longbowman, you should be bringing Macemen to the fight instead of swords.

Remember war in civ4 is all about sacrificing catapults, trebuchets, and cannons. By the time you have artillery, flight will begin to open up to new (more effective) methods of taking cities.

[Boracks]

Four catapults is not enough. I go with 8 to 10 for offense, with more in the queue. And if its a protective enemy (archers start with City Garrison) and the city is on a hill, be prepared to throw away a couple catapults per defender. (May not need to, but be ready to).

Too many chariots, I only build a couple to take out barbarians and for looking around. Throw some axemen in there to counter their axemen, spears, swords.

For building, I tend to alternate building a unit with building something else in a city. Exceptions are once I determine one or two military cities, they build more units and new cities more buildings.

Enjoy!

[TieSolo]

Thanks for the catapult tips, I definitely was not sacrificing them. In fact, I would bombard the city to 0% and then sacrifice units like swordsmen to weaken them. Dumb I know, but I didn't realize the effect of sacrificing artillery.

I'm playing another game and I'm doing well so far. Captured one of Hannibal's city, and fough a war of attrition with the Aztecs. I have one city that is so efficient it pumps out a musketman every 2 turns so now I'm keeping up my defenses while trying to improve research and go for a space victory!

man I love this game!

[The Priest]

The other thing I would notice is that there are times when the advantage is with the attacker and times with the defender.

Basically, when a new seige weapon comes out, suddenly the attacker has an advantage - trebs, canons, artillery. At the point they are invented, there are no defenders who can match them. Similarly there is a moment of opportunity early on when you get swords and most cities still only have 20% cultural defence and no walls.

So you need to plan to use those moments. If you just wander along and then say 'maybe I should attack someone' the chances are you will have swords and catapults against longbows which will never work. Work out a moment of opportunity which is coming, get the tech, produce the new technology units fast and make the most of it.

It is also worth noticing that the AI very rarely starts a war or even builds up that many units while it feels there is still territory to expand into. The AI's game goes,1. expand with some minimal defenders, 2. when no more room start building up armies, 3. start working out if you are strong enough to take someone on. (only one or two aggressive civs behave differently). So there is a real moment of opportunity if you attack an AI while it still has expansion room. It won't yet have got in the mood for war/unit building.

[joncnunn]

One caution on Cats with BTS they can't kill units when attacking so you need some other units to finish the job. So you don't actually need 8 of them in a stack to attack, 3 or 4 in the front line would suffice. The others are on the way because the ones actually used to attack (as opposed to merely bombarding defenses down to zero) will probably not be available for the next target.

[rah]

And remember, for every two turns you sit outside a city, another defender will be whipped and more support units can show up from other cities (ai usually builds cities every 3-4 squares) So have enough seige units to get the defense down to 0 in at most 2 turns. Any longer and you'll have to kill more units then you probably planned on.

[Willem]

Originally posted by rah
and more support units can show up from other cities (ai usually builds cities every 3-4 squares)

You should also try to set up your stack behind the city and pillage the roads nearby. This will slow down any reinforcements and allow you to pick off any units that come near with your horses.

[rah]

I do that in a few circumstances, but I don't sit outside of cities long enough for that to matter. Besides that take an extra turn to get your troups behind the city. If you use mobile units ahead of your force to do it, they are picked off.

And finally, if you're swing a big hammer, having all the nails arrange themselves in the same place is not always that bad of a thing

[Willem]

Originally posted by rah
I do that in a few circumstances, but I don't sit outside of cities long enough for that to matter. Besides that take an extra turn to get your troups behind the city. If you use mobile units ahead of your force to do it, they are picked off.

And finally, if you're swing a big hammer, having all the nails arrange themselves in the same place is not always that bad of a thing

If the city isn't very well defended then it probably is a waste of a few turns to position your stack. But if it has alot of troops inside and it looks like it might take awhile to break the defences then it would be a good idea to come in from behind.

[rah]

The max turns i want to be outside a city is 4.
1-2 to bring down the defenses.
The next turn to sacrifice whatever seige engines are necessary and attack with all units.
the last turn to sacrifice any additional seige engines (if enough fresh defenders warrant it) and finish off any defenders left. On those very rare occasion where they do get enough reinforcements and i get down to last potential attacker vs last defender, I may wait one additional turn so all unit can move into the city when I capture it.
So coming from the back side doesn't really save me much. Especially if multiple roads go into the city.


If I can't do it that fast, I wasn't planning well enough or I didn't intend to take the city but just positioned that way planning on drawing troops off of more important cities.

Of course if you've just defeated their SOD in your territory prior to attacking, they don't have many reinforcements coming. (unless they're fighting a two front war and are repositioning a second SOD from the other front.