What do you defend your cities with?

[BillChin]

Garrisons are most useful for their happiness bonus under Despotism and Monarchy. I prefer to mass my troops into attacking stacks. Say a player has a garrison of four units per city and has 20 cities. By cutting each garrison to two, a player gets two attacking stacks of 20 units each. 40 attacking units is often enough to take out an entire Medieval Age empire on a large map!

Ancient age:
1 warrior plus 1 spearman, maybe three of four units if an enemy has forces massed at the border.

Medieval age:
1 Pikeman, border cities get 2 Pikes, add one Knight or swordsmen during war time. Later Musketmen. If the enemy has roaming Calvary or Knights, much more defense is needed, maybe four units in border cities.

Industrial age:
No defense needed for most cities because of railroads. A rapid response force of four tanks or calvary can protect the entire empire. Drafting can make up the gap in the unusual event of huge enemy landing force. Border cities get 1 Infantry or 1 Rifleman + 1 other unit. More than this is usually fluff. It is very hard to take out Infantry without tanks. Mass reinforcements can be sent in if an enemy gets close enough to attack a city. All the rest of the units go on the offense to destroy the enemies ability to make more units.

Modern age:
Same as Industrial age except use Mech Infantry for garrison and Modern Armor for rapid response

[Skanky Burns]

I normally defend with 1 warrior in each city, then begin building veteran spearmen in a few cities for all of them. The warriors then become my spare army units along with some new swordsmen, which then crush a nearby civ and gain me the whole island that I am on.

After that, I normally try to get my cities defended by a second spearman in each city, then upgrade as appropriate.

[Velociryx]

A rusty dagger and a mop bucket....

Actually, I usually only have a single, token defender except in border bases (2 if peaceful, 3 if relations are melting down)

-=Vel=-

[kailhun]

Originally posted by Spectator
I always have 2 units defending my cities (2 best def. units available) but when I hit industrial ages I make that 3. Always.

Spec.

Does the AI declare war on you often?
My theory is that if you are strong militarily (Civ 3 count) the AI is a wimp. Having 2-3 units in every city gives you a strong army and therefore the Ai wimps out a lot.
I usually just have 1 of the best in a city, although in my current game my home island has just 1 spearman in every city while musketmen are available.
There were a couple of Dutch cities on the Island, but they declared war on me after I told them to get their cheesy selves of my Roman soil. Kicked them off the Island, of course. A good thing there are only galleys available.
I am expecting ships to drop of an invasion force soon as the AI bee-lines straight for your weakest city even if they haven't developed spies.

Robert

[Deathwalker]

1 or 2 of the best defenders depending on what the location of the city is

[Tingkai]

I usually leave my interior cities empty once I have railroads and I use the same concept mentioned before of a mobile reponse group.

One thing I've worried about is my coastal cities after the AI civs get marines. Do I need to keep them strongly defended? Has anyone ever had an AI launch a surprise attack with Marines?

[Carver]

amphibious asaults

The AIs with marines keep me up at night too. However, after scores and scores of hours playing I have never had the AI attack me with a marine from the sea. In fact I wonder if the AI is programmed with how to use the marines. I know the AIs build them because I run into the little guys when I invade. Obviously, if the AI does know how to use them, important coastal cities would need to be stacked with the best defenders.

[Arrian]

Interior cities get one defender each, that's all. I suppose I could remove even those, but I often have RoP agreements with neighbors, and I've been sneak attacked before. Border towns often have 2 defenders, sometimes many more, depending on geography/relations. My mobile attackers (horsemen/knights/cav/tanks) generally live in border towns, or one town back, in large numbers. That way, if I get hit, I can respond immediately, with strength.

-Arrian

[Cookie Monster]

I can see that we have two different camps here.

Those who defend all cities with 2 or more units and those who prefer to leave one or no units in cities. Those who do the latter probably are able to juggle mobile reserves around to respond to threats with great skill. The former tend to be of the type who would survive MP better IMHO.

Why you ask. Because humans are unpredictable and therefor heavy defenses in all cities is necessary to counter the wild behaviour of a fellow human.

This begs another question however. Does the person who choses to garrison cities with one defender have more available troops for front line duty? I would think so. Provided you are aware of your surroundings you have more troops available to strike at your foes. However if they sneak forces in a lightly defended sector then you're in trouble.

You can tell a lot about a person from reading their opinions on garrison strengths.

[Solver]

My defense strategy varies somewhat. If I'm the only on the continent, it's 2 defenders per city, 3 in strategically important, and a unit on each strategic resource I got. Of course, I do also have other guys scattered over the territorry in strategic locatons.

If I have a land border with someone, I have lots of defenders in the border cities, and I do also place almost my whole army just behind the border. I've had those wars breaking out with such "friends", and then it was some Apacolypse like fighting.

Also, Bombers are an integral part of my defense strategy.

[Cookie Monster]

Hey, how did "1" who's only a settler get his own custom avatar? Also how is it possible to have registered in 1970?

[Solver]

Date for all those who registered before March 1999 shows as 1970, due to a mistake which happened when we upgraded the forums about a year ago. Since 1 is registered for more than a year, he can get a custom avatar, despite being only a Settler.

[Signa]

Mine...

Ancient Era => I usually use a pair of Spearman right off the bat or a Hoplite. In one game I used Bowman which turned out preatty well. Last is a Legion. But I didn't need them to defend because I was attacking with them. And a firecrew of a few Horsemen. Try and attack first in the ancient era.

Medieval Period => I usually am Greeks so I keep using Hoplites at first, later I get a huge force of Knights. Maybe a force of Longbowmen to stand behind a city on a road for a instand counterattack.

Industrial Age => This is tricky. I usually put a ton of Rifleman on my border and coastal cities at first, and later go all out Infantry to replace them, and move the Rifleman inland. Later on a force of Tanks for firefighting.

Modern Time => Very simple. A pair of Mechanized Infantry in every city first. Second, a line of Modern Armor in the cities behind my border cities for counters. Third, a air force stationed so the border cities are at the extremes of their range. And last a Radar Artillery in every border city.

Overall, the counterattack makes or breaks you day, and a force of powerful counterattackers (Horsemen, Knights, Cavalry, Tanks, Armor) can really be useful as a reserve. And the value of bombardment unit in a city is really underated. The later in the game the easier it is to defend.

[Qilue]

Initially 2 of the best available at the time of city founding with border cities getting 6-8 of the best available along with catapults/cannon/artillery. Later when I have time and gold, I upgrade all those spearmen/pikemen/musketmen into infantry.

When I get steam power, I usually have around 100-120 native workers, so as long as I get a coal resource, the railroads get constructed really fast. Slaves, er captured workes get sold for whatever looks intesting.

I also keep a number of quick response stacks of horsemen/knights/cavalry around my territory until railroads, when I then consolidate them. These are then replaced with tanks as they become available.

Having had undefended cities attacked and taken under a RoP agreement, I no longer leave any city undefended.

[Panzer]

One or two in my core cities. two to three near my borders. If my neighbour is hostile and agressive, I place a lot more troops in those bordercities, usually the best defensive unit available plus some offensive units to take the fight to them when the opportunity arrives. I usually forget to upgrade my core city defenders until Infantry becomes available. So that means that while my borders are well protected with Infantry and Riflemen, my core cities are protected by Warriors and Spearmen.