Military Tactics

[Spartan_RawB]

This is one of the most underrated concepts that maybe people haven't elaborated on. I will explain it in the hope that it will help people develop good military tactics.

The first of the topics I will cover is road building. Many new players don't build roads, or if they do, they don't know how to use it well. In MP playing, military response has to meet one requirement, and that is the speed at which you deploy your troops on your enemy. I'm talking a troop size that will completely cripple the enemy civ in a single turn of attack.

Building of roads gives a 2x unit a total of 12 movement points in a 2x movement game. That's 12 movement for the troop to get from the place of origin to a rallying point. So this can be done rather effectively and quickly.

Consider it this way. Roads are a way of focussing the power of your production, your entire civ into one source of breaking power. You concentrate your power into a single beam of attack and break through the enemy frontier in his weakest point. This philosophy makes it possible to beat a superior civ. It is not necessary that your civ be the mightiest. It is simply necessary that your attack is focussed and concentrated, that it harness the power of your entire civ, against a weak spot of a supposedly more powerful civ.

I've used roads to harness this philsophy of concentrated attack, and it works wonderfully. I beat out supposedly more powerful civs by using this tactic.

[Spartan_RawB]

The second topic I want to discuss is the embassy. To know yourself and the enemy is key to winning, acoording to Sun Tsu, the military tactician from ancient China.

What I do in most of my games is to explore aggressively to locate the enemy civ. This can be done by using city-guiding. Then I drop a diplomat early to let me keep tabs on the enemy. The benefit of the diplomat are as follows:

1) Wonder production. If you have a tech rate advantage, you can completely shut your enemy of wonder production. You see his tech path, and what wonders it is leading to, and you just build it before the enemy does.

2) Tech information. Gives you information about the enemy's best unit of attack and defense. Many Republic type players don't research feudalism in the hope of getting to Invention, and many don't research horseback riding in the hope of reaching to republic quickly as possible. If I see that the enemy has at best phalanx as defense, I gauge the speed I can mount an crippling attack, and if the speed is appropriate, then I go all-out on war path. Simply put, phalanx is really no defense against either vet crusaders, knights, or catapults.

3) Wonder sabotage. The enemy may gloat and think he may have beaten you to this wonder, but I use the wonder building information to sabotage enemy wonders. I've done this many, many times in multiplayer games to a great effect. Once, a guy was building Mike's Chapel and had used money to finish it off, and my dip destroyed his 400 shields in an instant. He just gave up after that.

4) Core city information. The enemy's list of cities in which he founded them are shown in the city list. I use this information to estimate the core section of the enemy and land a crippling attack to a surprised enemy.

[Spartan_RawB]

The third point I want to cover is limited warfare. In some games, you may want to develop your techs and build cities, but you don't want the enemy to do the same. What to do? Limited warfare.

What I do when I have reached a sizable city count early in the game is to produce two triremes (80 shields) and 3 attack units, either vet elephants or chariots (90 shields to 120 shields) and a vet phalanx or pikeman (20 shields). This is a big investment of potentially 200 shields. However, it can make handsome payoffs.

The enemy, especially the tech loving Republicans, hate to build sizable defensive units early on. Usually he will have warriors or at best non-vet phalanx, one per city. The Republican is interested in expansion and trade routes early on in the game. So I turn the tables on him. And the best thing about this limited warfare, "scouting" party is the complete surprise effect. This party travels together in this one military group from island to island, looking to catch the unsuspecting enemy off guard. Usually I don't attack the first city I see. I give it maybe a turn or two more to look for his core city or capital city, and annihilate it.

I've used this strategy to wipe out 5 or 6 enemy cities with a single party. The surprise effect doesn't give enemy enough time to mount a successful defense to the limited warfare tactics. It is a lovely tactic to counter the tech-loving Republicans.

[Spartan_RawB]

The fourth point I want to discuss is the importance of borders. This is a crucial strategy early in the game when you are looking to expand and limit the enemy's expasion at the same time.

Basically, your goal should be to build an effective border that is difficult to invade, but one that offers an easy entrance to the enemy's territory.

The best way to establish these borders early is by using the horseman. Use his movement points to secure the near mountains (best) and hills (good). Then pump out the warrior units to man the nearest hills and mountains, already occupied by the horseman. Then send the horseman out to secure new territory. Use zone of control tactics to limit the enemy trying to get grips on the borders.

Later on, reinforce these borders by buing cities near or on them, and increase the speed of your military response by linking these forts by road. Also reinforce the more vulnerable points with phalanxes.

If done effectively, sometimes you'll give the enemy a hill or just a forest that separate your rally point from the entry point to his cities. If he has a hill, it's no big problem as several vet elephants can take on phalanxes stationed there.

By using the border strategy, you can expand securely and also limit the enemy's expansion, while at the same time increasing his vulnerability.

[Spartan_RawB]

The fifth point that I want to discuss is defense against seaborn units.

Many feel that the lighthouse is the invincible way to mount an attack, but in the midgame, the enemy navy and amphibious assaults can be effectively countered by the use of strategic positioning of troops.

The goal is simply to refuse the enemy a landing point. Let's say the enemy is mounting an invasion on your capital, which is a wonder-ridden city. What you should do is to pump out units and make forts all around your wonder city that could be used as landing spots. This way, the triemes cannot unload the troops, and it cannot take out the land units with an attack power of 1.

Some players have used this strategy effectively to counter my assaults, and at times it really has been frustrating to invade the enemy. A successful defense in this manner can null a warring effort by the enemy. The opportunity cost for the enemy will have been huge, and a successful defense may have won you the game.

[Nemphis]

Do never forget this: