Art of war

[Grifonetto]

I need to get stronger in war, bacaus playing at monarch I usually notice that AI is stronger that me.

First of all my typical strategy:
I never start a war in early times.. usually my 1st is in classical age, with axemen, swords adn (if I can) catapults.
But at this age many of my enemies have built defensive walls around their cities. For that reason if I want to capture a city I need a LOT of swordsmen or axes just for fight against 3 archers and a spearmen.
If I try to build many catapults I risk to waste a lot of times and sometimes happens that my most technological opponests got Feudalism.. and that's not good

when I am preparing a war I usually select ALL the cities and I order to build military (using a rally point, so I can manage faster the operation). When I have got 10\20 units (it depends by the era and the opponent) I declare war and I move with this army against the bigger city.

I never use pillage, because i think it can damage also my economy when i conquer the city.. but I don't know how damage the enemies that are waiting for me behing their city walls...


suggestions?

ps:excuse my bad grammar, i'm not anglophone :P

[joncnunn]

Well, the way I see it unless your playing the Romans, your trying to declare the war at the wrong time. (Assuming normal speed).

You either need to play a rush strategy or wait for dominating units. (Normal Swordsmen just aren't a dominating unit against opponents with access to either Cooper or Iron since Axes are adviable so much earlier.)

The standard Sword rush tactic is:
1. Found a city or two.
2. Find an opponent WITHOUT Cooper
3. Make Baracks a much higher priority compared to normal.
4. Discover Iron Working early
5. Build Swords with CR promotions.
6. If your opponent has Iron near them attack BEFORE they can connect it.

10 to 20 units sounds excessive, you just need a big enough stack to take the first target. Dig in there while reinforcement arrive.

[brychan]

Actually it is all a game of numbers. That is the strength you are throwing at a city as individual units and total units. Once you start throwing in defensive modifies for hills, forests. and walled cities things get a little more complex. So, basically you need higher strength units or many more equal strength units, that is until walls get built. NEVER ever cross a river with your forces unless you have to during the attack. Take the long way around while staging your attackers. Seige machines/guns are wonderful things from an attacking and defending point of view. That is, collateral damage is a wonderful thing. A big stack of meanies can be brought down to managable size this way.

[pedrojedi]

Well... At early ages with siege weapons, it's a good mixture to go at the first city with 25-30% of total troops composed of catapults or such. At least another 30-40% of troops should be back-up attackers - meaning, axes and spears that will serve primarily for defensive purposes. The rest - swords, as you can see by yourself - are used exclusively for city attack, and deserve such protection, because you want they to maul your enemy after mashing him with pounds of rocks.

I usually choose a readily acessible city for conquering purposes, and keep it as enemy magnet. Tends to work great, specially if I managed to go with city defenses at the ready.

The rest of the war is much less ordered, but that's the nature of war.

[Wyrda Edocsil]

If you don't rush fast enough, which is usually the case with me, because I take too long to build military, you'll need at least a few siege units (preferably trebuchets) with your army, unless you're sending out a massive army of cavalry, which siege units can't keep up with (you'll need a lot of cavalry if you take that route, though). The defender will always have a slight advantage due to fortification bonuses, so, unless you do a really early rush, you'll need a big stack of units. There's no such thing as an army that's "too big," unless you have no economy whatsoever, in which case they all are disbanded before you can use them.

[Civ 2.5]

Just don't overexpand. Build a couple new cities, slow down and build some garrisons. Build a couple more, slow down, build garrisons and so forth until you have about 10 well defended cities. I find that when I reach about 10 cities, no matter what civ Im playing as, I can reach a critical mass army size pretty quickly and mow down the AI next to me.