How to counter the horseman rush

[twilight]

No. It kills instantly most units, but there always few survivors. Because of that I only use two Nukes.

[Hohenzollern]

I just use an insane amount of artillery and bombers, either destroying them or making it impossible for them to reinforce their fronts by wasting their infrastructure

[Zero]

Defense in general has a lot of advantages: closer to centers of production, closer to barracks for healing, fortification/city/terrain defensive bonuses, etc. An attacking force needs to be superior (tech, numbers, strategy, etc) to succeed; only an unprepared defender will fall easily to strike units.

Defense in general does have numerous advantage but offense has the best two advantage IMO, element of surprise and choice of battlefield.

"only an unprepared defender will fall easily to strike units."

Not true. You arent defending a small 1x1 square. What good is defending north when attacker gets to choose south as stage of war? Defense has to waste allocating resource on all accessible locations. Offense can choose to focus his interest in one. Defense cannot afford this.

Do you play Civ 3 much? I think it's better to let them close to your cities where your artillery is protected and able to damage enemy units, while remaining safe inside the city. Outside the city they are toast really easily because of their slow movement.

Defending in cities is preferrable because of city bonus but you generally fight on the field hoping the enemy not to do any domestic damage by pillaging. If I can take a battle to the city, I'll do it as much as I can, but I don't wanna risk any forces slipping in any cutting off cities any pillaging my entire city square, which humans will do better job then AIs now do.

I actually think it depends on when technologically speaking, you are fighting. If its in the age of infantry, and I've got enough artillery, I let their cavalry go straight for my cities, where they get chewed up. But if they have tanks I fly out to meet them on the field, since infantry is crappy against tanks. This kind of switching in tactics happens for me all through histroy, as the progression between slow/defencive and fast/offensive units goes back and forth.

No, It's generally a better idea to attack an attacker unit and avoid attacking defender unit as much as you can. Defender that is not defending against an attack nor attacker that never attacks because it is always attacked first are useless. Of course the simple rule of thumb gets complicated when defender is shielding attacker or defender is closing in and may come in to pillage or obtain territorial control etc.

If your gonna defend against a tank, do it in city as much as you can and get the city defense bonus. Why would you go through the trouble bringing infantry out to defend w/o city bonus unless you meant attacking the tank first. You werent really clear on that part you said "meet"

have one answer to that Randolph...
N U K U L A R - W E P O N Z ! ! !
MUH HA HA HAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAAAAA!!!
BAHHAHA HAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!

You have a problem w/ ur solution..
"N U K U L A R - W E P O N Z ! ! ! "
Nuke is only useful if your on the same level w/ rivaling civ. Assuming both have it, if he is significantly stronger, he will have more so even if bombed first he will retaliate ten fold, if he is significantly weaker than you, you will win conventionally anyway. Nuke will just be another method to kill him off. So only time it really matters is when power struggle is close and you decide to strike first. Assuming you do striek first since if it is close and rival is smart he is probably aware of the same situation. If the rivaling civ doesnt have access to nuke, well then you're technically stronger arent you, cause you have a more powerful weapon. So nuke isnt a real problem solver to anything. Bah.

[Vormaerin]

umm, the 'nukular weponz' comment was just a joke response to the "what do you do against a fortified, radar tower enhanced, hilltop metropolis defending mech infantry unit (with a putative 67 DR)" question of a post or two before.

It was not posted as an insightful strategy response to the horseman rush, as several posters seem to think.

Unless, of course, I'm the one reading the post wrong!

Aloha
Vormaerin

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Vormaerin
umm, the 'nukular weponz' comment was just a joke response to the "what do you do against a fortified, radar tower enhanced, hilltop metropolis defending mech infantry unit (with a putative 67 DR)" question of a post or two before.

It was not posted as an insightful strategy response to the horseman rush, as several posters seem to think.

Unless, of course, I'm the one reading the post wrong!

Aloha
Vormaerin

nukes against horseman is a good stratergy.

[aahz_capone]

A nuke can ruin you entire day.

Enough nukes can ruin anyone strategy.

Defenders can choose battle ground if they get there fast enough and have an advantage using ugly terrain.

A nuke can fix ugly terrain

Well at least in SMAC, God, I miss those planet busters... or maybe not.

[Zero]

we are off topic now... :P

[Demerzel]

ah the joys of using 5 or 6 planet busters to totally blast an enemy faction's homeland back into the sea. It was a joy to behold the way that by the end of your barrage there would just be a big lake where the enemy once stood tall and proud.

one of the best weapons ever for getting revenge on an enemy. classic.

[Anaximander]

You will never beat a horseman rush with 1 move defenders. Give me 2 horsmen and I'll make your life hell unless you have some horsemen of your own.

First of all, if you move your defenders out of the city to engage my horsies, I will just skirt your forces with out engaging. If you leave your defenders in the citys I'll just bypass them with out attacking. Why is this you ask? Because I am off to pillage the interior of your empire!!! Once I cut your citys off and ruin their production they will be easy targets for the second much larger wave of horsies.

And what is the moral of the story??? Build some horseman your self to take that movement advantage away from the enemy!!!

[planetfall]

I don't get it

What's the question? I don't understand where the problem is.

Horse countered by spearman/city location

Knight countered by pikemen/city location/catapaults

Cav countered by rifleman/city location/cannon

Tanks countered by infantry/city/artillery location/radar towers

Modern Armor countered by mechs/location/radar artillery/radar towers

I don't think the question is about individual units but more about techniques to counter.. what? stacks of XYZ? Unethical opponents? weak military vs strong?

Please refine your question: i.e., what is the 2 worst possible situations you expect to be in? Then we can offer some suggestions.

== PF

[Zero]

Originally posted by Anaximander
You will never beat a horseman rush with 1 move defenders. Give me 2 horsmen and I'll make your life hell unless you have some horsemen of your own.

First of all, if you move your defenders out of the city to engage my horsies, I will just skirt your forces with out engaging. If you leave your defenders in the citys I'll just bypass them with out attacking. Why is this you ask? Because I am off to pillage the interior of your empire!!! Once I cut your citys off and ruin their production they will be easy targets for the second much larger wave of horsies.

And what is the moral of the story??? Build some horseman your self to take that movement advantage away from the enemy!!!

It is correct in how you stated the balance between deciding to guard inside or outside of city, but you over emphasize the NEED to have mobile units. Mobile units are important for a great defense system, but it is not necessary since when defending your usually on home turf and you benefit from the monopolizing the road movement (while enemy cant use it).

[Anaximander]

It's true that a road network can be of great help to a defender, however, it is a question of how good your road network will be when I launce my horsie hoard. The AI is usually overwhelmed because they couldn't build an efficient road network with two hands and a flashlight. Humans would be tougher though because they realize the need for a really good road network as early as possiable. However, there will always be week points in you defensive perimeter. That is the beauty of mulitple move units. Give me just an inch and I'll carve myself out a mile. Furthemore, I usually don't expect my skirmishing units to survive!!! If I send two or three horseman deep into your territory they will stay there until they are dead. I'll pillage everything I can until you decide to track them down and kill them. This has a double effect. Not only are the disrupting your empire, but they are also tying up your military reasources.

[Jack_www]

If you sit in your cities with a stack of mech infantry, or what ever defending unit you have, your city will fall. With enough artillery and bombers you can take any city, even if you have to use a stack of 100 of them to do it. You have to take the offensive and not the the enemy reach you cities in the first place. That is how you counter any attack. If you look over time, when has fortifications ever stop a army from invading anther country??? They only slow the enemy down, they dont stop them.

[Anaximander]

If you look over time, when has fortifications ever stop a army from invading anther country??? They only slow the enemy down, they dont stop them.

Well said Jack!!! By not having an offensive force to counter attack with you let your enemy dictate not only the pace of the war, but where and when the battles will be fought!!!

[Zero]

I disagree. It is wiser to take on the defensive as much as possible when chances permit, since defense provides numerous amount of advantages. but you shouldnt give an enemy the edge by relying on the defensive especially since offense chooses the rule for when and where battles are to be fought.

You can take defense all you want, but the attacker has to "agree" in engaging in battle. Attacker has the sole right on where and when battles should be fought. Good defense planners should thus try to maipulate in a way that attackers move in a predictable way or at least make them think they have to fight here and there.