Middle Game Strategy

[ramses II.]

I'm an average civver, playing deity since feb 2002. In nearly all my games I come to the point where I have to do some difficult decisions. Let me describe the situation. It's similar in most of my games.
I like to play on huge maps (125x80), 7 civs, deity, raging, no restart. Other parameters change.
But let me describe my problems.Im in rep.
My civ is about 20-30 cities, 10-12 of them size 21, the rest different size from 1 to 21.
The bigger ones (>8) have a temple, a col, a market pl, maybe a sewer system.
Wonders: MPE, HG, Mikes, maybe Colossus and Cope's..
The bigger cities have 3 trade routes, the others at least one or a camel is on the way or is ordered to be built, some camels on the way to my bigger cities.
Still no trade routes to AI cities.
In every city at least 2 defenders, the bigger ones have a crusader in addition or, when sited at the coast, an ironclad (5-7 clads together). 3 or 4 galeons or caravels far away from home, filled with diplos or (bribed) NONE-units, exploring the darkness between changed maps.
My next invention will be metallurgy (hope to get demo by my diplos).
One city is going to finish a wonder (Sun Tzu's) in some turns (2-4), 6 camels are stockpiled for the next wonder. Can change the wonder to Leo's or to Magellan's, if needed.

My enemy: Let's say the Sioux, about 20 cities (but none > size 12), building a wonder (SoL). They can change it to Leo's, if they want. They are just researching steam-engine, too. By the way, I'm not a great fan of Leo's, cause this wonder becomes obsolete later, and in well develloped cities you only need 2-3 turns for a good defender or an engineer.
And a lot of my units are veterans (1-2 'clads, about 6-8 crooks and so on).
The Sioux are on a continent about 6-10 ocean squares away.
So now my question:
First, which wonder should I build first - Leo's, Sun Tzu's or Magellan's? Should I attack at once with my small fleet (4-6 'clads)? Or should I wait until a bigger one has been built (but then the enemy will have clads, too).
2nd, how many units should be built? And which? And how shall I combine naval and land attacks? That must be planned carefully - and I don't know how.
I used to solve my problems usings dips. I bribed the cities - but that sort of war lasts very long and it's expensive. It works, but I've heard and read from members of this forum (thx, gentlemen) that war is more fun (and not so expensive).
I know the war in the end game - with stealth fighters and howitzers and hordes of spies - but I don't know the middle-game war.
What would you do if you were me?
Shall I let them build Leo's if they switch to it (no vets guaranteed!) and then conquer the concerning city or should I build it by myself (could build 2 wonders in one turn, if necessary, and another some turns later)?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Set up trade routes with large AI cities!

As for the invasion, use your handfull of ironclads to patrol the route you will sail your troops over. Declare war once everybody is in a position to attack that turn. Which wonder? SunTzu is good only if your invasion force does not consist of veterans. Leo's will be worth your while. The upgrade to superior units is a bit like receiving reinforcements. IIRC, all upgraded units are completely healed, as well. Magellan's will aid your transport speed, but a ship chain will suffice for that.

Target one city to start. Once captured, sail everybody who hasn't yet attacked into the city. They will have full movement points to either occupy fortresses, kill bystanders, or attack another nearby target.

If they have 20 cities, you can expect to see a counterattack of at least that many units (over several turns). Don't forget to send a pile of defenders to hold onto your new conquests! I'd recommend a fairly large invasion force - 16+ units. You'll lose a few capturing your target, use several to defend. That leaves you maybe 8-10 units to continue. Build a pile of reinforcements and ship chain them over.

If the Sioux city building the wonder is your target, attack it the turn after you receive notice that they completed the wonder. Sack the city, send them a thank you note.

[geofelt]

On a very large map, I like magellan's. A transport between continents can make it in one turn if you have appropriate port cities. I like SOL even better. If you can capture a city and get democracy, you could build it yourself. This lets you grow with celebration under democracy, and then switch to fundy for gold, production and war. Communism is good for production and science--balanced--. All the wonders(excepting eiffel tower) have some value and are worth it. I build them all if I can.

[Xin Yu]

you can try to attack now using iconclads, but if you are not so confident, I suggest that you wait till you can build artillery. This guy is very tough since it has 2hp and 2fp.

All 3 wonders can help but you can also do without them. Leo is only useful in that it can upgrade your settlers to engineers, so if you don't have many settlers to upgrade then you can skip this one; Suntzu is useful since for the price of several barracks you can build vet artilleries in all cities, but you sure can do without it; You are only several sea squares away from the AI, so you can move troops via ship chain without the Magellen, however the wonder still helps.

From now on, focus on piling up engineers and get the techs of RR and connect your empire with RRs. Also build some diplos (not too many). Deliver caravans to the AI or within your own cities to get science/money, thus keep one turn per tech while piling up a lot of cash. Then when you discover Machine Tools, you can rush build a lot of artilleries and now is the time to attack. Send all your artilleries, diplos and Engineers to the AI island and build (or occupy one by iconclad bombardment) a beachhead city, then move all loaded ships to the city. Now use the Engineers to build RRs towards enemy cities and use artilleries to attack. AI never build cities on mountains so your artilleries will almost surely win. Make a bee line to the enemy capital and once that is occupied, target the next capital if the AI moves, keep on going until the AI cannot afford to move capital again then your diplos can bribe the rest of cities cheap. The key for fast victory is Engineers.

[War4ever]

Remember, the sioux will turn on you...take 15 attackers, 10 defenders, 5 dips, 5 sets, and the necessary boats (and ironclads) .

find their weakest point, coastal city is best, smash it down with the clads keeping them in range of anything that could launch a counter and drop off the troops.....

ir you really want to make their life hell.....build a ton of horses, gets leos, get , dragoons, and save yourself some coin.

personally i like to attack from two different ends of the continent....give them a pinch and two fronts to worry about.

Remember, even if the war is costly, those 20 cities you take will almost double your city output, or at the least add 50%

Your homeland then becomes nothing more than caravans and infastructure while your new "island" becomes your launching point for more "peacekeeping" missions

rinse and repeat.....

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by ramses II.
So now my question:
First, which wonder should I build first - Leo's, Sun Tzu's or Magellan's?

I would definetly first of all exclude Magellan's from that group of 3 alternatives, because the only benefit it gives you is +1 in ship movement, which is of course useful, but it doesn't (IMO) have that ASAP priority, so you should rather consider building Sun Tzu's so that you get veteran units in a more effective way. Leo's is also an option, but leave it, unless you want to have fancy new units that aren't veterans anymore, unless they regain that status in a battle.

Should I attack at once with my small fleet (4-6 'clads)? Or should I wait until a bigger one has been built (but then the enemy will have clads, too).

Depends much on the Sioux naval strength, but if it's moderate or poor, then just go ahead, but if you have even a tiny little hesitation that they may have naval supremacy (even if outdated ships ( and I don't mean Triremes ) i.e. Frigates), then reconsider an imminent attack. Or do some pinpoint attack against their naval units transports and coastal Settler and Explorer units. And you might success in attacking some weaker cities with those Ironclads. But at least I would prefer that option with a large armada, but I still usually end up using a handful of ships (often due to the fact that most cities have a large production of land units or city improvements).

2nd, how many units should be built? And which? And how shall I combine naval and land attacks? That must be planned carefully - and I don't know how.

Good question, but without seeing the actual up-to-date situation, it's not really possible to describe what you should exactly do next, but I'll try to enlghten to question in a different way.

1. How many units?

There's really now such ammount of units that would be "too much", so you could have 20 units, win the war and still want to have more. But the minimum amount could still be given, and in a such invasion campaign, you need at least (now, I haven't calculated anything based on what units are in use and any ammounts of them) 20 units for the attack, but you could initialize it with the first ones landing from the first ship arriving to the Sioux coast. If we say that they have about the same military techs and about 2-3 units per city (they would then have about 60 units in cities and in field duty), so your invading forces should be strong enough to meet up those figures (this doesn' mean your army should be that large too), so if your strategy is to take one or two cities at the time, then you need about 4-5 (just be sure, less will do too) per city, so each turn about 10 units would attack (losses will be counted too). Then you need backups and scouting and defensive units, so about 20 (or more) units could be nice, but if you increase the amount to 25-30, it's perhaps a better alternative. But as I don't know everything that would be needed to know when planning a such attack, you'll have to figure that out by yourself. But one good way is to produce in the majority of your city different military units (defensive and combat) and send them to the frontier, and reinforce them as needed by sending new troops as more are built.

2. What units?

Build both combat and defensive units, but keep the importance on combat units, as they're the ones who attack. The defense units will be fortfied (as you probably understand) as city defense in those ex-Sioux cities. And do pay attemtion that those defense units are veterans. Build artillery, horseback and standard units with a ratio you choose by yourself, but that's really not so important (IMO).

3. How to combine navy and land units?

Use the naval units to escort your transport of those land units, and take out any scouting or transporting enemy ships. Also doing some naval attacks into their coastal cities a worthy idea, but keep in mind that you still have to use land units to capture those coasta cities. Use those naval units for the first wave of attack that should take the enemy by suprise, and use that turn you do it also for disembarking your first landing troops. Make sure you get your units off the boats ASAP, unless you want to loose them to the enemy's navy.

Shall I let them build Leo's if they switch to it (no vets guaranteed!) and then conquer the concerning city or should I build it by myself (could build 2 wonders in one turn, if necessary, and another some turns later)?

My rule has always been that I build the Leo's, no matter if I want it or not, but so that the AI can't get it. It gives you a certain advantage compared to the AI, because they can't get an easy unit upgrade, but instead they have to build new units ( and as you may have seen, they won't that easily always desband those old ones; Warriors in the 20th century are a fact ).

[La Fayette]

ramses 2
To make it short (military strategy = taking cities, since fighting in the open is no use = you just avoid it if you can)
1) Early game = unwalled cities, best defender phalanx then pikeman = build hordes of VET elephants/knights/crusaders.

2) Middle game = walled cities, best defender musketeer then rifleman then alpine = 3 solutions:

2-1: Diplomats destroy the walls, then crusaders (cavalry later on) rush.
2-2: Walls untouched = your catapults/cannons/artillery inside an instant fortress kill anyone inside, then your warrior (if you have one left) comes in
2-3: Coastal city = walls untouched = your ironclads kill anyone inside, then comes your warrior...

3) Late game = Railroad (instant RR anywhere if many engineers) = artillery, then howies kill anyone outside and inside...

In the situation that you describe (willing to fight a strong Sioux civ overseas), I would advise 2 wars:
war#1 = naval = your ironclads destroy the enemy fleet, then empty all coastal cities (then come your defenders)
war#2 = many possibilities, since you now rule the seas (or at least the Sioux don't = you can grant peace (for a while ), or chase the capital, or play blitzkrieg, or attrition war...up to you.

Winning war #1 means 'hurry up', since ironclads don't like to fight cruisers; they don't like to fight vet musketeers fortified on bonus squares either.
This means that it is much better to send 3-4 ironclads at sea at once than wait until you have built 12-15.
Send them AS A FLEET (never less than 3-4, if possible).
One ironclad all alone might be sent to the bottom by a fleet of 3 fregates, but I have never seen the AI able to beat a fleet of 3-4.
Then make them vet (if they were not built with LH), then try to avoid shooting more than twice in a row, because an ironclad in the red is fragile and takes a long time to recover (especially when faraway from a friendly harbour).

[Straybow]

Often 2 clads (in adjacent tiles) are a sufficient task force against a non-clad navy. The AI doesn't make coordinated attacks. Any AI force divides its attack between them, and 2 (non-vet) Frigate attacks rarely kill a clad.

[La Fayette]

I agree: 2 clads is quite safe
...but 3 is far better, especially if you wish to start bombarding cities.

[War4ever]

heck i dont even send em in parirs....i just get em out there to wreak havoc...and bring in the others when the odds even up a bit....

unless the opponent has something on the seas that can hurt me back

[schweick]

I get the general idea of ship chains, but I'm probably not using them as efficiently as I could. What I do:

-Leave the city with the land units asleep, take ship to its move limit, where it is met by the next ship, which has not moved yet. (adjacent squares)
-Wake the land units and move them onto the second ship. Second ship goes to its move limit.

Is there more? Can you get more than 2 "ship rides" in one turn by having ships on the same square and one ship "unloads" onto the next (and the next, etc) without getting the "all our land units have moed this turn..."

thanks.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by schweick
I get the general idea of ship chains, but I'm probably not using them as efficiently as I could. What I do:

-Leave the city with the land units asleep, take ship to its move limit, where it is met by the next ship, which has not moved yet. (adjacent squares)
-Wake the land units and move them onto the second ship. Second ship goes to its move limit.

Is there more? Can you get more than 2 "ship rides" in one turn by having ships on the same square and one ship "unloads" onto the next (and the next, etc) without getting the "all our land units have moed this turn..."

thanks.

I think it works this way:

You don't move the units from one ship to another physically. What you do is move one ship loaded with units to the end of its movement, where it stops in the same square as another ship (which is unloaded and has its full move). This is usually more efficient than adjacent squares would be, because the units being carried don't use any of their movement going from ship to ship.

You then 'wake up' the sleeping units on the first ship. When you move the second ship, the units go with it (and go back to sleep). In this way you can move the units an unlimited distance, provided you have enough ships positioned correctly.

In my experience, you have to wake up the cargo units for them to go to the 2nd ship. That's what makes this a nuisance. It's even more of a nuisance if the first ship has some movement left, and you move it instead of the 2nd ship. Then you have to move the 2nd ship over the first ship and start the whole process again


edited: to explain difference between ships in adjacent squares and ships on the same square.

[Rasbelin]

So my personal conclusion is that I recommend using a large fleet of transport vessels for shipping those units, instead of "moving them over" to other ships. You can easily save time in the first wave of attack by doing so. All this was IMHO.

[La Fayette]

ship chains

STYOM's description is correct:
1) The shipchain he describes (move ship1 loaded with units to ship2, empty, wake all units, then move ship 2) requires D/d ships rounded up (where D is the distance to travel and d is the movement rate of the kind of ship used). Example: travel 27 squares with transports (movement 5) requires 27/5 = 5.4 = 6 ships.
The transport capacity of this shipchain is 1/2 the capacity of 1 ship. Example: galions (capacity 4) make a shipchain able to carry 2 units/turn (in fact 4 units/2turns).
2) A cheaper shipchain has been described by Ribannah:
if you use caravels, you need 1 caravel/7squares.
I let you find out how it works .

[La Fayette]

SPOILER

Here is the principle of 'Ribannah's shipchain' (for those not willing to spend hours trying to find out )

Instead of sailing to and fro every turn, your ships sail to and fro every other turn.
This can be precious in the early game. Example: 3 caravels needed for 20 squares (instead of 7 = 'normal' shipchain). Transport capacity = 0.75 unit/turn (instead of 1.5)