Concentration of force

[johncmcleod]

This is a great thread!

It brings to mind a quote by Patton. "When in doubt, fight." This thread proves that that statement is not a good strategy when you have a smaller army then your enemy.

So, if you have a smaller army then your enemy, how do you avoid fighting with concentrated troops and fight more 1 on 1?

[vmxa1]

I do not want to fight one on one, unless I am using a much better unit. I want to fight 2 bombardment units and two or more attackers on 1.
If you have a much stronger force than they do on the scene, especially in a city. They will tend to send units to pillage improvements. These are in ones and twos often. Better yet you should have arties in the city to blast them with before engaging.

[bongo]

The point of concentrating your force is that you don't have to have a bigger army, you only have to be superior where the actual fighting takes place.

[vulture]

Bingo bongo!



And as vmxa1 says, the AI tends to send out units in small groups to pillage and harrass the cattle. A large, fast squad can take them out one at a time with small losses to you. As long as you can afford to leave their other units alone for a while. This way you can whittle their forces down until you are ready to go on the offensive.

[cumi]

Originally posted by bongo
The point of concentrating your force is that you don't have to have a bigger army, you only have to be superior where the actual fighting takes place.

Yep! Look at the military strategy of US against Japan in the 2nd WW. They took over the islands one-by-one by concentrating their forces. The japaniese didn't knew where the next offense will be, so they couldn't defend only the next target... Please correct me, if my historical knowledge is not adeqat...

[Last Conformist]

Concentration does only pay up to a point; as DaveMcW says above, it'll mean that the excess troops will lose time before they can attack somewhere else. What makes this really bad is that it means that the AI will get more time to build more units, which spells more casualities for you. In addition, the AI is too dumb to deal with multiple invasions one at a time, and will send small counterattacks against all instead of crushing one.

So, the real trick on offensive is balancing between sufficient concentration to break thru and sufficient dispersion to bring the war to a tolerably swift end. This is, of course, particularly important when in Rep/Dem.