The Persian Front

[Shiber]

We must prepare proper defenses for our towns near the Persian border before Persia decides to declare war against us and attack those towns.
Currently we have a few population 1 towns that are guarded by a single regular warrior. They don't stand a chance against a serious warriors/archers attack.
Also, in case you haven't noticed, Antioch, a connected Persian city, has iron just outside their borders. Once they expand and build a road to that iron deposit the Persians will have immortals. This is why we must plan in advance!
I have a few suggestions regarding this subject:

First, we should either send some spearmen to those cities or connect them with roads as fast as we can with our workers and upgrade those warriors to spearmen. Of course, spearmen would be better because they can later be upgraded to pikemen which would really show some resistance (a fortified pikeman has a 4.5 defense after the +50% defensive bonus, a spearman/swordsman only has 2.5 defense when fortified).
In addition to that, we should build walls around those towns (yes, before temples). Walls only cost 20 shields and IMHO we can complete them before Persia gets a chance to declare war and send an attack force.
Yes, I know we all want temples so we can take over Munich by culture, but we must defend those towns or else they will be razed! If we build temples and then walls we'll have a very slim chance of finishing them in time for a Persian attack.

Any thoughts on this?

[Guardian]

Personally, I have never built a single wall in Civ3, and it's never been a problem because my enemies have never gotten close enough to attack any of my cities.

[DAVOUT]

Shiber,

As a member of the War Academy you can post under its heading, for easier reference.

Are not warriors upgraded to swordsman ?

[Shiber]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
Shiber,

As a member of the War Academy you can post under its heading, for easier reference.

Done. Sorry I forgot.

Originally posted by DAVOUT
Are not warriors upgraded to swordsman ?

I'd prefer spearmen that can be upgraded to pikemen. First of all, pikemen are a better garrison unit. Second, the only advantage of using swordsmen for garrisoning is that they can counterattack powerfully, but this effect is cancelled in the jungle. We can't counterattack if the attacker is in a jungle tile because this gives him a 100% defensive bonus which would mean even lesser chances of success for us.

Btw, why aren't the warriors in all those new towns fortified?

[UnOrthOdOx]

Warriors dont have the option of becming spears. Walls are going a bit far IMO. That would increase our upkeep, and therefore mean less cash, slower research and a smaller army. I would say, once we are done with swordsmen as offensive tools, we send them to this for defense. Attack the Immortals first, and we wuld have a 3-2 advantage.

[Harovan]

I'd say build 2-3 swordsmen and send 2-3 of our archers as Persian Corps to the eastern border, that should suffice for the first attack. Defend Seeberg, Ubergorsk and the new city with vet spearmen (built in the heartland) and yes, build walls. Actively explore. Send a warrior to the Persian iron and pillage the road. It's not an act of war as far as it's still outside of their borders. Let the warrior stay fortified at the iron, so they can't reconnect it till the city expands. This will slow them down.

[Epistax]

Unless we plan on building walls, there is zero chance at defending against immortals or swordsmen. If people still don't want to, then I'd suggest having swordsmen or archers forified in those cities, posed to attack any hostile units in the area. This wont stop their first attack (as they will probably declare war and attack before we can do anything), but we could destroy their offensive units after that.

Those cities are also very weak to pillaging-- a single square makes them unroaded. This is something city walls can't stop, but a swordsman can. They might do this with spearmen, so I wouldn't suggest archers unless we're looking for a way to kill'm off.

[Shiber]

The Persians will likely station their forces in jungle tiles outside our towns. Jungle tiles give the defender a 100% defense bonus so counter-attacking would not exactly be the smartest thing to do.

[Harovan]

A veteran archer kills a regular spearman in most cases, unless the spearman is on a hill or mountain. Good tactics is necessary. Swordsmen should attack. Archers should kill off injured immortals. Once the Eastern Corps discovers the enemy early and engages him outside of our borders, the coreland shall switch to military units and send them as reinforcement. I expect Ubergorsk to be the main target.

To stick the units in cities is pointless. Let them swarm out, to see sneak attack forces early. You can prevent a war this way, just blocking the attacking stack.

Later, we need much more units for defense though. Offensive units, of course, as a good offense is the best defense.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Shiber
The Persians will likely station their forces in jungle tiles outside our towns. Jungle tiles give the defender a 100% defense bonus so counter-attacking would not exactly be the smartest thing to do.

Afaik its only 25% (don't have the game here to confirm now).

[Jonny]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Afaik its only 25% (don't have the game here to confirm now).

Yes, 25% is correct.

[Shiber]

Correct. I confused jungle with mountains.
(lucky we didn't build our towns near mountains)
Here's the complete list:

Forest: 25%
Jungle: 25%
Hills: 50%
Mountains: 100%
Rest: 10%

[Torkkeli]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Send a warrior to the Persian iron and pillage the road. It's not an act of war as far as it's still outside of their borders. Let the warrior stay fortified at the iron, so they can't reconnect it till the city expands. This will slow them down.

Also send a warrior to take out the road connecting Antioch and Pasargadea to slow them down even more. As with no road to the capitol, the Iron can not be used anywhere else.

[OPD]

I think the Germans are the biggest threat to us ATM they are annoyed with us and IIRC have maximum aggresion levels I think we have more borders with them now.

IMHO diplomatic measures should be taken to improve relations with the Germans in the next turnchat aswell as perhaps defensive millitary measures being taken.

Also in case no ones noticed the Germans are a republic now. But that probably wouldn't stop them declaring war.

[Shiber]

It will have another interesting effect though.
According to my experience, if the Germans declare war against us and we manage to fend them off they will eventually ask us to sign a peace treaty and would even give up some gold and tech just to end their war weariness.