Noble to Prince - unbearable

[wodan11]

Back to OP, Boracks, if you find such a huge disparity in a simple change in level (which is an incremental difference in AI programming, not an order of magnitude or anything major), then I'd say you're going about it correctly. Experiment with totally new strategies, and look at entirely different ways of playing. Use the articles on the board here for inspiration.

[rah]

building an early army a big one at that and making enemies outta everyone you better win, should you lose, you lose. a big army is only detramental to your economy, so like i said you better win , id rather divide and conquer and maybe with an ally or vassal, make it easier plus i play only huge maps so AI's will get big.

I don't totally ignore the diplo aspect of the game. You don't want to be at war with every civ. But due to the unreliability of the diplo aspect, I've learned not to bet my civ on it. And I could say the same for any strategy, you'd better win or you lose.

[brandonjm8]

I don't totally ignore the diplo aspect of the game. You don't want to be at war with every civ. But due to the unreliability of the diplo aspect, I've learned not to bet my civ on it. And I could say the same for any strategy, you'd better win or you lose.

i totally agree, but i often find myself building up my defenses first, its in my nature. only after i have a very strong defense capable of holding anyone at bay, only then will i build an offensive army, that way when i send my SoD i have my defensive units in place in case of a counter attack or sneak attack by anyone else. diplomacy is sometimes great but not always, if your strong and big like i usually am most of the AI's will fear you too much too attack, then you only gotta worry and plan for the next top two to you.

[wodan11]

i totally agree, but i often find myself building up my defenses first, its in my nature. only after i have a very strong defense capable of holding anyone at bay, only then will i build an offensive army

You said this in the other thread too.

More often than not, a good offense is the best defense. Unless an enemy can DOW and reach a city in the same turn, it's a good strategy to have attacking units and siege to attack his incoming SOD before it reaches your city and/or pillages your terrain.

[Boracks]

And here we have another fine art that this game is good for: The art of timing your offensive, going now as opposed to building up a little more, waiting for those next units to arrive, etc., since waiting also gives an opponent time to build up if they suspect you're coming at them.

As a builder from way back, it took me some time to learn. I was always putting off a war waiting for more units to arrive. (I actually won one game without going to war at all, but had the right circumstances for that.)

Now, if I see an opportunity for an early rush with axemen (something I learned from this forum), I go for it. Amazing how not waiting gets you a much better position.

[Baldyr]

Well, at heart I'm really a builder, even if variety helps keep the game fresh. I like to consider building my army just another aspect of creating my perfect little nation.

I recently read a book about the Soviet Army and can't wait to play the RFC mod/scenario as the Russians into the 21st century. Because now I can actually divide my version of the USSR into the various military districts, building several armies for each following the principles of combined arms.

The soviet divisions were divided into four main regiments of motor rifles (mech infantry) and tanks, complimented with an artillery and an SAM regiment, as well as battalion sized detachments of SSM, anti tank, engineering, signal and recon among other things, as well as its own helicopter squadron.

An armored division would then consist of 3 regiments of tanks and one regiment of mechanized infantry. And an mech infantry division would in turn consist of 3 mech infantry regiments and one tank regiment.

This structure would, then, replicate itself in an fractal fashion, so that every mech infantry regiment (regardless if it itself was included in an mech infantry or a tank division) consist of 3 mech infantry battalion and one tank battalion. And every tank battalion consisting of - you guessed it - of 3 tank and one mech infantry. Every regiment would also have it's own company sized missiles, artillery, engineering, signals and recon detachments.

And so forth, up or down the scale from company level up to army or corps level.

The airborne troops, the elite of the Soviet Army, were independent from the combined arms structure though.

[brandonjm8]

You said this in the other thread too.

More often than not, a good offense is the best defense. Unless an enemy can DOW and reach a city in the same turn, it's a good strategy to have attacking units and siege to attack his incoming SOD before it reaches your city and/or pillages your terrain.

sometimes offense is the key, and sometimes its defense. im not saying dont have both but id build a defense first then start building your offense. who cares if your land gets pilliaged, after theyve tried to take over your city and lost then your workers can repair/rework everything, and with all that defending your going to get alot of GG's and start crankin out some heavily exp'd units. say you build your offense for defense but yet your offense loses should they invade, but what if you invade? you have little to no defense should anyone else think of jumping in. with a strong defense you can send your SoD's out to conquer with little fear of counter/sneak attacks cuz you have strong d's, plus strong d's like ive said only add to your power thus making you stronger thus making you safer. we can debate all we want but you need both to win but you cant neglect the other, that will lead to your downfall, you need to find your medium of both or you will be inconsistent.

[wodan11]

who cares if your land gets pilliaged, after theyve tried to take over your city and lost then your workers can repair/rework everything

Only if you're running a SE or the city in question is a production city or your GP farm. Otherwise, it has cottages, and damn straight I don't want my Towns pillaged.

and with all that defending your going to get alot of GG's

Aha, you've hit on my strategy of the Warlord defense. I've never heard anyone else using this (not that I should be entitled to call it "my" strategy as a result, but there you go). Build the Great Wall, play as Imperlialistic (or Charismatic) or both as Cyrus, use your GGs to make Warlords. Fight on your terrain as much as possible. Make even more Warlords. Early game intentionally spread the "wrong" religion to AIs, purposefully anger them and keep them upset, let them DOW and never agree to peace. It's a fun strategy. (But the way I do this strategy is I have a small, tight and powerful army. Why do you need hundreds of units? A small cadre of 10-20 Warlords can kill just about anything. Supplement with siege or a few bombers, and you're golden.

say you build your offense for defense but yet your offense loses should they invade, but what if you invade? you have little to no defense should anyone else think of jumping in.

You're implying it's necessary to intentionally leave yourself weak on other borders. Personally, if I'm relying upon offensive units to defend myself on those borders, then I don't invade somewhere else with all my offensive units.

plus strong d's like ive said only add to your power thus making you stronger thus making you safer

Strong o's do the same thing.

we can debate all we want but you need both to win but you cant neglect the other, that will lead to your downfall, you need to find your medium of both or you will be inconsistent.

If you call only 2-3 defensive units and only in border cities "neglect", then my experience directly contradicts your conclusion.

Massive defensive units is a strategy that can do well, and I play it sometimes (though I never put defensive units in interior cities... well, maybe if the enemy had paratroopers but I don't think I've ever seen the AI build them). But you're saying it's the best way to play and is clearly better than having offensive counter-attack units with a much smaller defense.

Given that you can't be defensively strong everywhere, and that moving defensive units loses fortification bonuses, I'd say it's the other way around: offensive counter-attack units are a better use of limited build resources than to make massive numbers of defensive units.

[wodan11]

You're implying it's necessary to intentionally leave yourself weak on other borders. Personally, if I'm relying upon offensive units to defend myself on those borders, then I don't invade somewhere else with all my offensive units.

To clarify, the D strategy might build 30 D units for defense. The O strategy might build 10 D units and 20 O units for Defense.

Either strategy may now build, say, 25 additional O units for offensive operations invading someone. But it's not correct to say the D strategy will send only 25 on the invasion while the O strategy will send 45 on the invasion.

(Well, the O strategy could do that, but it would be a strategic choice to get the invasion over quicker and with less losses, at the risk of being weak elsewhere. It actually is a flexibility of choice that the D strategy does not even have available.)

[brandonjm8]

well with my building strategy my cities tend to be close to one another so moving troops isnt a problem which is why my "MINIMUM" is 4/city more in border/coastal cities. and yes i agree on having offensive mini SoD's in/or around vulnerable cities, i had 3 stacks of 10 knights/then cavalry alongside my western coast for defense along with my 180+ riflemen for defense within my cities. i agree to always have mini SoD's ready for counter attacks and to stop the invading party from pillaging your land and especially cottages but im just saying whilst building your O dont ever leave yourself vulnerable by not having an strong D too, with the appropriate balance of both you'll be unstoppable, numbers for either will depend on persons playing style, i just prefer to defend what i have before risking it all on trying to capture. i only send out huge SoD's if needed otherwise lower numbers will work for the weaker AI's in your game. to each his/her own though, people will play the way they want regardless and thats fine, my opinion is just simple: "a strong D has more potential to win more battles than a strong O, some defensive bonuses cant be torn down, with the right number of units and promos you can withstand anything." but dont worry i dont neglect the O either i just prioritize the D first for alittle bit then add some O when the foundation has been laid. the right combo of both is "deadly", hehehehe, lol.

[rah]

There's nothing like waiting for just a couple more unit to attack and the turn you start bringing down their city walls, they get feud and all the archers are upgraded to long bowmen. The faster you can attack, the better it usually is.
And needing 180+ riflemen to defend just means you don't know how to defend. Overkill to say the least.

[Ming]

Yeah... that happened to me in my last MP game. I took down the city walls with my last cat, and was waiting for the next turn so I could use them for some collateral damage, and that was the turn three of the archers upgraded to longbowman... I took the city, but lost many of my cats, and the invasion pretty much stalled until I could finally research engineering and move some tribs to the front... a real bummer.

I rarely build a large force of defensive units... I build enough so my SOD's have the combined arms needed to deal with enemy counter attacks. And as far as defending my own cities, I rarely have a city come under direct attack. The best defense is to take the SOD out before they get next to the city. So most of my "defensive" units are really offensive units. That serves two real pruposes... first, it makes it much easier to decide what type of units to build, and it also allows you to shift troops to meet whatever the game throws at you. The real key is to have enough collateral damage units. It doesn't really matter much what unit you use to attack after a stack has been hit by collateral damage units. Heck, even axeman can take out muskets after they've been knocked down to almost nothing

A stack of collateral damage units and flanking units can kill most SOD's. Hit em with the CD units, and then use the flanking units, killing off all their CD units. The trick to combat is to be in the position to use your CD units first. Since you have the advantage of movement in your own territory, defense is far easier for a smart player.

[rah]

Yeah, 20 cannons and some calvary can provide better defense than a stack of rifles.

[Ming]

While you do need to be "concerned" about costal cities and border cities that touch somebody else's cultural border... a stack of cannons and cavalry usually solve most problems The costal cities are best protected by good scouting... because even if you put 5 to 10 units in a costal city, it will need support if a large incoming fleet is headed its way. So I never see a need to station/waste many units in the costal cities. You see the attack coming, and move your mobile stack into it.

[rah]

Yeah but now that you can't use siege off of boats, a handful of defenders fortified might be able to survive the first wave unless bombers are involved. (but usually the army doesn't attack off the boats, they'll land, unless it's the vikings with berzerkers) As long as you can get your counter force their in one turn, it shouldn't be a problem.