Does Civ II favour the offence or the defence?

[Alexander's Horse]

Its probably been raised before but its something I still can't make up my mind about.

[shade]

maybe it just doens't favour one of them.and it's just your own playstyle that favours one of them.

Shade

[deity]

Offence

No doubt about it.

You can attack anywhere. You can't defend everywhere....

[-Jrabbit]

In my limited Civ2 experience, the best defense is a strong offense. It's f***ing difficult (well, for me) to take a pure defensive tack, while IMHO it appears that an offensive approach creates enough incidental defense to sustain itself.

That being said, I really think the strength of Civ2 is in its overall balance and the requirement to think and react to the situations presented.

[Scouse Gits]

Apart from the old adage "Attack is the best method of defence", the game favours conquest, which brings the rewards of plunder, science and real estate.

-------------------

SG(2)

[DaveV]

Given comparable units and competent defense, the attacker will lose more units. It's worth it, though, because of the zero-sum aspect of civ: each city you take weakens your opponent and strengthens you.

It's always better to have the war fought on your opponent's territory rather than your own.

[ColdWizard]

i would say offense. in the MP games that i've played, taking a defensive posture always resulted in a loss. going offensive still resulted in a loss, but i lived a lot longer

against the ai, my experience (limited to the lower levels) has shown that you need very little defense whilst using a large force to paste your enemies

[Marquis de Sodaq]

From a statistical point of view, CivII favors the DEFENDER, no doubt about it.

From a strategic perspective, the attackers have some advantages. The highest attack values are higher than the best unmodified defense values. Defenders sit and wait, the attackers actually determine what happens in the game.

[Smash]

It is defense.All the modifiers apply to defense.The only thing available to offense is the sneak attack.This is especially true in MP.

[-Jrabbit]

Reading through this again, it occurs to me that the right answer is -- it depends.

--On lower levels, you can do very well playing as defensive isolationist.
--On higher levels, the AI will tend to win unless you go on the offensive.
--In MP, it's all about your opponents. You do what works (or what you think will work) against them.

Probably most telling of all (to me) is that long-time players like AH, SG, et al. are still posting on this topic. This speaks volumes for the design of the game, which seems to accommodate a wide (endless) disparity of playing styles and strategic approaches.

[Ming]

Yeah... it all depends on the situation... as it should!
I think there is a great balance between offense and defense.

*I can't believe I voted a banana option*

[Alexander's Horse]

I think in single player it favours attack.

In multiplayer the defender has a big advantage.

[Smash]

Especially with those 2x multiplayers building on hills,forests and mountains

[ColdWizard]

i've had some decent success in the last two MP games i've played with early assaults on forest cities

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
Reading through this again, it occurs to me that the right answer is -- it depends.

--On lower levels, you can do very well playing as defensive isolationist.
--On higher levels, the AI will tend to win unless you go on the offensive.
--In MP, it's all about your opponents. You do what works (or what you think will work) against them.

A nitpick: I actually find defensive isolationism the easiest way to win at deity; a rcent favorite stategy has been to secure a small patch of land and model my empire on a metropolis, with my SSC as my "city" and as many other cities as I can put down as "suburbs." Aside from defenders and a wall, the only thing the suburbs build are caravans. It's works wonders...literally!

But really, this thread should just be about MP (which I've never played); the AI is so bad at offense and defense that the SP answer to "what does CivII favor" is "whatever the human happens to be doing."