Siege/city defense

[Sartek]

Maybe it is just becasuse I'm just a /Voob, but I don't find siege very useful. Yeah, they can attack cities from afar, but they rarely hit.

Also, I find that it is too hard to take over a city. I'm still at ancient age (or its equivilant), and one spearman in the enemy city can take on 10 of my archers/warrirors. I throw them at the enemy, but it is essentially tossing them into the meat grinder. Are there more effective units later on, or is there a way to have a group all attack at once?

Thanks for the help

[Willem]

Re: Siege/city defense

Originally posted by Sartek
Maybe it is just becasuse I'm just a /Voob, but I don't find siege very useful. Yeah, they can attack cities from afar, but they rarely hit.

The key to artillery units is to have lots of them. I usually try to have a stack of 10 of them bombarding a city. And they do get better over time. The Artillery unit can be pretty formidable. Also, those types of untis are more effective in open land, against an enemy stack.

[furrykef]

I'm certainly no expert at Civ3 military tactics (although it appears that you don't need to be, unless you're in MP against somebody who is). But the most obvious point that comes to mind is that cities on hills will be much harder to take. Cities with walls will be troublesome, too, but they're uncommon unless the civ has the Great Wall. Not to mention that a size 7+ city will have automatic walls, but it's rare for an AI city to get that big in the early game; if a city is growing enough that it could easily reach that size, the AI will usually be pumping Settlers and Workers from it instead.

Aside from that stuff, cities themselves provide a defense bonus, depending on the size (for instance the aforementioned size 6-12 = free wall), so naturally a city will be more difficult to take. Warriors aren't much good; I usually use them for early game garrisons, mainly for the police ability rather than defense (and also as explorers if I don't have scouts); if the AI attacks me that early then I'm probably dead whether I have Warriors or Spearmen. Archers are best used against Warriors, and possibly to complement Spearmen garrisons in cities that have a chance of being attacked (because of the free bombardment shot). If you want to take on a city that has Spearmen, try waiting until you have Swordsmen or Horsemen, and take a Spearman or two with you in case you get attacked on the way (and if you don't, you can use them to crush resistance). Swordsmen are good for their higher attacking ability, but Horsemen are often better because of their retreat abilities; a failed attack may weaken the enemy and you might be able to get your unit out of there, heal up, and return!

As for seige units, yes, you need a lot to do much good with them, and of course they need to be guarded. It can be worth it, though, because that means that even though you need more units, yours won't be dying off just trying to soften the enemy up. They're a must against strong defensive units like Hoplites. And of course they too can play garrison in peacetime, just in case somebody tries something sneaky.

- Kef

[:) Smiley]

Siege units are also cheap, and have the added ability of doing economic damage on your enemy by blowing up improvements both in the city and on the terrain.

[steven8r]

Most older artilery units (pre Artilery) have fairly low hit percent. Plus if you are bombarding a city with a Barracks, then any units that you wound will be fully healed the next turn.

The trick to making Arty units successful is numbers. You need to have a stack of enough to pummel the defenders all in 1 turn allowing for misses.

A stack of about 40 should do it. Very few things can stand against such bombardment!

Steven

[Bonaparte]

I love using artillery, better still bombers...if you use enough nothing can stand up to it.

[Theseus]

A neat trick for those stacks of 40 Arty, btw:

* Fortify everything except the stack of Arty.
* Position the crosshair cursor over the target.
* Hold down 'b'.
* Slowly click on the target as many times as you want Arty to fire... space out the clicks by one second or a little more.
* Go do something while the damage and destruction ensues.

Voila! Mass Arty fire.

[Sartek]

ok, thanks. I'll try that tonight

[Sartek]

40??? ok, still building up forces

[furrykef]

Well, you don't have to build that many. It depends on your relative strengths (if your enemy has strong defenses and/or lots of barracks, you'll need 40, if not, probably not so much, more like 20). Remember, building up your army gives your enemy time to build up defenses, especially because they'll be watching you.

BTW, a correction to what I said earlier: size 1-6 towns don't give an intrinsic defense bonus. However, the underlying terrain will, and also fortified units get a 25% defense bonus, so you'll still be at a disadvantage as the attacker as far as the numbers go. Of course, you're at an advantage, too, because their homeland is at risk and yours is not.

- Kef

[pedrojedi]

I usually do not build artillery during the ancient ages... But when I did, I made a huge force composed of horsemen, archers, swordmen, spearmen and catapultmen... And then I just moved it from one to another city, replenishing its lost units with fresh new ones that were already coming from my original cities... 2 or 3 of these are a beautiful vision (for me, of course; a frightful one to the enemy!) to see.

Usual numbers -
5 swordmen
5 archers
5 horsemen
4 spearmen
2-3 catapultmen

Of course, throughout the battles, these numbers change, often to up more.

[CerberusIV]

With C3C it is more important to bring 4-6 catapults with you if the target city has walls since you have a pretty good chance of demolishing them before you attack. Otherwise horses or swords are the way to go.

[furrykef]

I think it depends partly on the scale of the attack and how much you can afford to crank reinforcements. A large-scale attack on several cities which may be well-defended is more likely to need some help from the cats, so your horsemen won't die so much (which hurts you because you need to keep cranking reinforcements which can take some time to arrive). The thing with your horsemen is some will die (and some will retreat with 1 HP and have to heal), sometimes just trying to scratch the enemy, while your cats are safe while they weaken the enemy, and you only risk losses when going for the kill.

To summarize, catapults need larger numbers, seemingly having a higher cost/benefit ratio considering what they do...but you only need to build the cats one time. (If they get captured, you're doing it wrong. ) Of course, if you don't think you'll be warring much, then they probably won't pay for themselves.

- Kef

[bongo]

Sartek, one question. When you lost 10 archers/warriors to a single spearman in a city, did you attack with all in one turn? Cause you really should, attacking one each turn is pure waste, unless you get really lucky...

About those siege units, 3 catapults per spearman is usually a good number. Then you are almost sure to injure all of them.

[Sartek]

yeah, but after each skirmish the defender gained health (barracks?) Also, I tried mass catapults and they miss quite a lot...