Military Thought on other teams

[Ninot]

Thoughts on Lux

When we were preparring our attack on France, the first time, in the C3DG, Trip was hesitant to go through with the attack, thinking archers were going to fail against spearmen in such "small" numbers.

Of course, he was out of power once the attack started, and we won the Battle of Washington almost flawlessly .

But this may give us some insight on how Lux will prepare attacks in this game. Especialy, if they work how we theorize, in that the popular players will get to make decisions, I think we may expect to see Lux waiting till it has superior units, or a MASSIVE (and theorettically, undefendable) attack force, before it attacks a nation.

This is solely on the basic thought that they will want a fool proof attack, and no chance of failing.

I think the best way to counteract this is to whack at them early, so they dont get time to build this kind of force. If their plans constitute "Stack of 15 swordsmen"(of course we wouldnt know that)... then we should hit at them before they get to the halfway point of 8.

However, we would have little way of knowing if they should have this kind of force or plans. But if they look to be in this kind of posture, we shouldn't let them build, we should take them on ala the current USA and Iraq situation with weapons of mass destruction.

any military thoughts on other teams, and what we might expect strategically?

[Togas]

Our opponents will do the most tactically sound offensives. Defensive tactics that easily rout the AI aren't going to work. If we stack up defenders in a city, they'll just pillage around the city and move onto the less defended one behind it. If we build a fortress on our border they'll use boats to go around it. If we think a stack of 4-6 units is dangerous ... look out. They will drop out of the fog of war with 8-12 vets, travel across mountains, and assault our most precious city.

Ninot's observation, however, is a good one. I do not think that most of our wise and careful strategic enemies will attack with a small force that has a chance of failure. They must be supremely confident before they risk angering a human opponent.

Therefore, their weakness may be in overpreparation. They may also be far too slow and spend far too many resources on units while the rest of their nation's development suffers ... assuming they can make it all up in the peace deal.

I think human opponents will also have a hard time dealing with multiple fronts and offensive groups. They will want numerical superiority on every front, and may be hesitant to throw individual units out to slow down our multi-front advancing squads.

Speed. Surprise. And (most importantly) good Diplomacy will be our keys to success. Numbers, most likely, won't be. We'll have to get the maximum benefit from each of our units.

--Togas

[Arnelos]

I would expect that the optimal strategy would be a mobile stack of defenders, attackers, and artillery that move together and use a good road network to have a powerful mobility advantage. Remember, A DEFENDER GETS THE USE OF THEIR ROAD NETWORK WHILE AN ATTACKER DOES NOT. This is an EXTREMELY powerful advantage when one considers Carl Von Clausiwitz's argument that MOBILITY, more than mass, is the determinant of many military conflicts.

We could use such mobile stacks of combined arms to wear down our opponent in the field while we move large numbers of defensive troops into the cities most threatened by the oncoming invasion.

Meanwhile, we build more OFFENSIVE capability in order to take out his oncoming units (which will have difficulty retreating or being reinforced).

Once again, however I will re-iterate that CITY WALLS remain one of the most powerful (and under-utilized) improvements in the game... one which will be all the more powerful against human players. Most attacking units in the game fair pretty well against an equivalent defender fortified in a town, but hitting towns with city walls is as tough as hittiing those huge cities.

Also, using our defensive mobility advantage, we can force the enemy to attack into or across unfavorable terrain (building walls of defensive units behind rivers or on hills, forests, jungle, and mountaints). Sure, we'll lose units, but we'll ATRIT the enemy units in the process and retain our superior mobility to move any units he didn't attack to block his next step forward.

Ultimately, on a more strategic level, delaying his attack and attriting his forces will make back-stabbing him more and more attractive to other as-yet-uninvolved civs. Also, more broadly, if he's spent all this time building offensive military units (as Togas suggested), our cities and land may be more developed and we can outspend him over the long-haul and turn the war into one of attrition... one which, especially for a HUMAN CIV, he'll want to sign a peace agreement for rather quickly (as he's lost the advantage of overwhelming force and risks being back-stabbed with each passing turn).

The greatest risk to us is not that we've been attacked by 1 civ, but that we may be attacked by an opportunistic 2nd civ (rather than such an opportunistic civ attacking our opponent). Establishing good allies willing to strike anyone who strikes us (rather than striking us themselves) will be very important.

[DAVOUT]

Re: Military Thought on other teams

Originally posted by Ninot
Thoughts on Lux


any military thoughts on other teams, and what we might expect strategically?

Thoughts on Gathering Storm.

Sir Ralph motto :
Strike fast,
Strike hard,
Strike early.

The difference with Lux, is that hard does not mean overwhelming, otherwise it would not be EARLY. But this threat concerns only the civ closest to GS.

[ruby_maser]

I think a well-conceived plan of attack will reduce the number of units needed.

A good offensive will not expose itself to the possibility of being cut off from resupply. And it will likely divide our forces with multiple fronts, diversions, resource denial attempts, feints, etc. all meant to draw units away from the main thrust of an attack.

That said, I am hoping the AI is removed and we end up with a pangea now that the consistency of the game is changing and new teams are coming on board. Precarious borders with our enemies may be a blessing in the sense that we can go on the offensive against them to balance out the threat.

we'll see...

[ThePlagueRat]

This is really interresting. Reminds me of something...
(I'll have to go now, but I will catch up on this )

[History Guy]

My thoughts on our warmongering Celtic foes:

They have already stressed the fact that much of their production will be centered on building purely military units and improvements, as it is their opinion that war is all that life is about. They glory in it. They glory in the...glory of war. However, it seems to me that this sort of behavior will be detrimental in future upon their culture, and upon their production, which will inevitably be slowed by simply pumping out Gallic Swordsman after Gallic Swordsman, and so on. I think that we may well see an industrial, commercial, and cultural crisis occuring there sometime in the future, and despite having a huge army, this could leave them very vulnerable indeed.

Still, I think that it'd be wisest, where the Celts are concerned, to isolate them and contain them at their weakest, and to destroy them before they become too powerful. At least we must keep them away from iron. It'd be a mistake to allow them to thrive for too long, otherwise they will dominate the planet.

Also, did you hear that Brennus takes all of his plans from the decapitated head that speaks to him from his upper shelf? It's true! Sure it is! All those Celts are like that...ignorant savages...

[Thrumble]

Originally posted by History Guy
My thoughts on our warmongering Celtic foes:

I still think they are going to play the Chinese versus the Celts. The way they word their posts as "the C Civ" makes me think it ISN'T going to be the Celts.

That leaves China or Carthage and they seemed to support other teams taking Carthage.

My money is on China.