Defense of city?

[Grandpa Troll]

Its early on, I love the bombardment feature.

I am however wondering, say later in game a civ surrounds your city, how could one unit possibly defend against say 5 units attacking one after another turn after turn?

Just a thought I been considering as its early on in my game, just to me, cant quite wrap my mind about the concept being successful (on the defensive side that is?


Thanks so much for any/all feedback!


Gramps

[Coeur]

A single unit defending a city in the situation you describe would be useless, and for good reason. With the new 1UPT feature, it would take a number of turns for them to surround you, and you should really react to it quickly. Consider not having a unit garrisoned. There's really little need to, unless you've taken the honour policy and want the happiness.

I will generally run a decent sized army split into either two, or three, batallions, depending on how large a circumference my empire has. Since you should see enemies approaching long before they can reach your city, you should have ample time to mount an effective defence.

Don't defend on your city either. It has a range of two for a reason, form a line in front of it, and shoot over your melee. Then have your other ranged units in, and next to, the city... I've found that almost all my own fighting is resolved in no-man's land. The AI no longer feels the need to settle every tiny space that's free, and having a strip between my borders and theirs suits me as well. Gives me time to react, without land being pillaged.

The Ai is also quite obvious when they choose to attack as well. Apart from massing troops at your border, they will always declare war before attacking (they haven't abused an "open borders" agreement on me yet), and their progress is slowed in my land. Considering you can even delay by purchasing a unit and rushing it to stand a space in front of them... you should have enough time to march your army to the defence. Assuming each unit moves 1 space, in your territory, and that you can only have one unit per tile, it would take them a while to take a city.

First unit would attack its front, second unit has to wheel around first unit to flank, third attacker takes other flank... unless ranged, a fourth attacker would take 3 turns to reach your city. And since razing isn't instant, and puppet/annex makes them unhappy, losing a city isn't even a big deal. Just roll in two turns later and re-take it with minimal penalties.

[pdxsean]

I always try to keep a couple of cavalry available for defense. If you have a good road network they should be able to run up to the city in time, well before it gets surrounded. Those ground forces are worthless if you attack them in the open.

Basically as Coeur said, you should only find yourself surrounded if you're seriously losing or have failed to protect yourself.

You won't find massive armies like in previous games, even in the modern era you'll only be invaded by six to ten units, coming in waves.

[vee4473]

I'm also not certain whether it's better to garrison a city or have the units out in open battle. I had a game that I kept reloading to test it out where Rome would attack one of my cities. I had a few infantry. I tried it with the city ungarrisoned and with one infantry garrisoned. There seemed to be a negligible difference in terms of the city lasting longer.

At first I thought garrisoning meant the same as it always has (your unit fights as normal with a bonus), but turns out garrisoning only bolsters the cities strength. The unit itself is essentially taken out of the fight altogether.

Not sure I like how that works. I think i'd almost always just ignore a garrison and have the unit fight in the open. Given the increased importance and expense of each unit in this version, i'm not yet convinced using a garrison (and taking a valuable unit out of action) is really a good idea.

Of course, I may be misunderstanding the garrison mechanic or simply not using it correctly yet. I guess you could keep a unit garrisoned until the last moment for protection and that pop it out for an attack.

[pdxsean]

I've noticed the same thing vee4473. I try to ungarrison my unit if I think the city is in danger, or at least use it as a sort of suicide attack if I can't pull it out. This happened on a coastal town I lost, and it went pretty quickly despite the unit inside.

One thing the cities are good for is healing. So I like to keep a unit garrisoned, use him to pick off the armies weakened by bombard, and then bring him back to heal up real quick. This works well against AI but I doubt it'd fly in MP what with the choppy combat and lack of taking turns.

[Coeur]

Undoubtedly the best bet is garisoning with an archer unit. I just came from an english pangaea, where the AI decided to declare war in first 30 turns with Aztecs, Songhai AND Turks (Istanbul?) on my poor stretched city's. Managed to fight them all off through archer spamming and very tight defence around my towns... two were on red and burning lol... Trust me, cut down forests around towns... i was keeping them so i could lumberjack them, but the jaguar warriors and spearmen were getting evil defence bonuses in them, so my bombards did 1 damage every time.

Early swordsmen to the rescue.

[yin26]

Yes, the main thrust behind 1UPT is for battles to happen in the field. And, as Coeur notes, archers make good garrisons (which makes sense!). And cannons / trebs / arty are just merciless on offense or defense of cities.

[vee4473]

Yes, the main thrust behind 1UPT is for battles to happen in the field. And, as Coeur notes, archers make good garrisons (which makes sense!). And cannons / trebs / arty are just merciless on offense or defense of cities.

But since a unit loses any ability to use its inherent skills when officially garrisoned, whether melee or ranged, does it really matter if the unit that is garrisoned is melee or ranged? Just trying to understand.

I understand the benefit of having a bunch of archers in the adjacent hexes of a city raining arrows down on invaders (EDIT: or even just sitting in the city tile for an extra bombardment), but as far as the garrison mechanic is concerned I guess i'm missing why an archer would be a better "garrison" than a swordsman given that the archer can't bombard while garrisoned.

[Wyrda Edocsil]

But since a unit loses any ability to use its inherent skills when officially garrisoned, whether melee or ranged, does it really matter if the unit that is garrisoned is melee or ranged? Just trying to understand.

I understand the benefit of having a bunch of archers in the adjacent hexes of a city raining arrows down on invaders, but as far as the garrison mechanic is concerned I guess i'm missing why an archer would be a better "garrison" than a swordsman given that the archer can't bombard while garrisoned.

You can wake it up to bombard. It's beneficial to leave the archer in the city, because it can't defend itself in the open. The city helps to defend the ranged unit, which can bombard nearby attackers. Melee units can defend themselves outside the city, and do much more damage than they would as a garrison if they are attacked.

[MxM]

However, do not underestimate the power of walls and similar improvements. Well fortified city can hold by its own against small group of troops (may be up to 4) and it could be used as immobile unit together with the other units for larger attacker groups. Even when artillery is a range of 3, city still can bombard melee units if they are protecting the artillery by positioning in front of the artillery. If they do not protect artillery by forward melee units, then it is an easy target for your cavalry or even melee units.

[vee4473]

You can wake it up to bombard. It's beneficial to leave the archer in the city, because it can't defend itself in the open. The city helps to defend the ranged unit, which can bombard nearby attackers. Melee units can defend themselves outside the city, and do much more damage than they would as a garrison if they are attacked.

I understand, i'm just questioning the official garrison mechanic and what bonus the city gets from an archer over a melee unit, if any. If you wake the archer, it is no longer garrisoned, so what's the point? You could eliminate the garison mechanic and just have a unit sitting in the city tile. There just seems to be a disconnect or at least no real reason that I can see yet to choose to garrison anything. Yes, it gets the defense of being in the city (but you don't need to garrison for that do you?), but as far as the garrison thing goes and any benefit the CITY itself gets (other than the negligible strength bonus I mentioned earlier), I guess i'm just missing something....

[vee4473]

I guess i'm just wondering why garrisoning a unit takes it out of the fight. Rather than having it give the city a strength boost (as it does now) while at the same time retaining either its melee capabilities as a last line of defense once the city reaches 0 hit points or (if ranged)retaining its ability to bombard without ungarrisonning (is that a word?)..

[pdxsean]

I haven't noticed any difference, city HP wise, if there is a unit garrisoned or not. I know there is supposed to be, but as I lost my previous game I kept a close eye on the health bars of my cities and their relationship to having a garrisoned unit. Nothing seemed to change if I brought a unit in, or took one out. Once a city is damaged, do the HP stay the same if you pull the unit out? If not, shouldn't the health bar change in some way? If there was any difference I couldn't see it.

[Wyrda Edocsil]

The defense rating changes, but not by much. I'm not sure about HP.

[pdxsean]

Oh I get you, I will watch for that. I was under the impression that the HP of the unit added to the HP of the city, but I probably misinterpreted strength as HP. So it seems that having a unit garrisoned before the city is attacked is where you'll get the most benefit. Moving in a unit after the city has been halfway destroyed won't really do much to save the city, unless the attacker is really on the ropes.