Khufu is his name

[Sheik]

I have wanted an army for a long time.

GO ARMY!

[civman2000]

I say save him for Theory of GRavity. If timed correctly, we could get a crucial science boost over everyone else

[Kloreep]

For lack of any good wonders coming soon, I say army. Hopefully we can fit in one more Cav war before heavy defenses come in to play.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by roadcage
50 Artillery will usually do the trick.

50? I think you have an extra 0 there.

Or at least I HOPE you do.

I hope no poor President or SMC has to worry about moving 50 Artillery around.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
50? I think you have an extra 0 there.

Or at least I HOPE you do.

I hope no poor President or SMC has to worry about moving 50 Artillery around.

Don't worry; there's a great thing called the j key.



It's doing the actual bombarding that will be a killer.

[roadcage]

The 50 Artillery is not a typo. You will need about that many to downsize 4 Infantry fortified in a metropolis. (more if it the city is on a hill)

Moving them with the -Ctrl-J is cool.

Be sure you have animations and sound enabled.

You can almost dance to the repetitive sound as the stack creaks into position.

But as mentioned by others, the actual firing is the pits. Prior to firing, have one of the fast units move in next to the city so you can see the effect. Once the hit points are gone, if you are planning to keep the city, continue firing to downsize the population. This works much faster than starving!

[joncnunn]

I've never seen the AI smart enough to keep a stack of four Infentry together.

The slightest bait presented, and half the Infentry abandon cities and start a wild goose chase.

[roadcage]

I don't bait, I overwhelm. I did the math on 4 defenders because that is what I see more often than not. the AI's rarely send out infantry. And when they do come out, what I see is lower shield cost attack pieces like Longbowmen and rarely Cavalry. Russia is different. They typically have Cosacks and are do not hesitate to commit them. And they usually go for the supply line rather than the stack.

[joncnunn]

Roadcage, which version are you on?

Both me and this game is on 1.21f.

Thinking back, in earlier versions the AI did use Infentry defensely. (In fact, exclusively so)

With 1.21f though as soon as any war starts, something like half the Infentry mode are changed to offensive. Other trigures (fresh meat spotted with no offensive unit around) can also trigure more to switch to offensive.

No Infentry in an offensive mode ever switches back to defensive mode.

Perhaps 1.29f changed this. (I haven't gotten around to geting that huge patch yet; I'll either get it Thanksgiving or Christmas.)

Baiting the AI allows fewer units to be used to accomplish objectives, which is always important for Democracy/Republic. I've always had higher tank / modern armor production under a Democracy than under Communism as well, so I prefer to be in Democracy as much as possible during wars.

Simply beating the AI over the head with more units is more AI-like.

Basically the only time I've seen an efficent use of AI force is when I once saw the Russians land 8 Infentry units from a Transport onto a one city island when I only had 1 Battleship in the area (which killed the Destroyer escort but couldn't attack the Transport in time.)

[Aggie]

Usually for offensives I have about 10artillery that are divided in various way. Usually I'll use artillery to help some calvary attacks and send the tanks on a blitkrieg through enemy territory, massed tankes still overwhelm infantry. Obviously for heavily defended locations I will bring in the artillery to soften up the defenders, even with tanks. Honestly I don't have a strategy for radar artillery because my games never get to that point. I either win before then with diplo or spaceship. Even though I actively use the military I have only won once through domination.
Aggie

[Meshelic]

*aggie for prez!*

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by roadcage
I don't bait, I overwhelm. I did the math on 4 defenders because that is what I see more often than not. the AI's rarely send out infantry. And when they do come out, what I see is lower shield cost attack pieces like Longbowmen and rarely Cavalry. Russia is different. They typically have Cosacks and are do not hesitate to commit them. And they usually go for the supply line rather than the stack.

I have also seen quite a few Longbowmen running around, makes me laugh, but still see infantry in offense along with Cavalry. And most often they avoid your stack as if it were the plague, instead aiming for any cities you have taken.

But, yes, it is not all that uncommon in 1.21 to see a metropolis with 4 Infantry, and maybe even an artillery or two. More often, I run into 2-3 Infantry and 1-2 Spear, though.

[roadcage]

I have not noticed a difference in behavior between v1.21 and v1.29. But that is just my personal observation. To some extent this must be taken with a grain of salt as I have much more v1.21 data than v 1.29 data. Your results may vary.

[Kloreep]

The bug in 1.21f was that any unit with a defensive flag that was upgraded into a unit that could be offensive switched to the offensive flag, even if the unit could also be defense. Hence the swarms of infantry that the AI attacks with in 1.21.

Haven't played 1.29 much, so I don't know how many fast units they build with this bug fixed.