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I have played civ1, civ2, Smac, CTP1, and CTP2. I have to say that the combat system of civ 3 is the best of them all, and by a wide margin. I don't understand why I keep seeing comments on this board that the combat system is bad, AI gets cheats, tanks always lose to spearmen, cities can't be defended, bombardment is useless, etc.
I have finished a game on Regent level, standard map, 8 civs, with a domination victory. Only one war was fought in the entire game, and it was me against a coalition of 7 AI civs in the late industrial age (everybody using cavalry, infantry, early tanks, artillery, ironclads, frigates, destroyers, some battleships). I was economically the strongest civ, but all 8 civs had the same techs and units.
I want to write about how it is entirely possible to easily win against technologically equal and numerically far superior coalition AI forces. One word before I begin though, I have disabled all air units because air superiority is broken.
I. Be prepared!
I started the war, and I didn't start it until I was fully prepared. Shopping list for starting a war -
a. Technology. At the start of the war I have all the techs for cavalry, infantry, ironclads, and most importantly, communism.
b. Resources. I have 1 coal, 1 rubber, and 1 oil. All 3 squares had a fort built and 2 infantry protecting each tile. The saltpeter and horse tiles are also garrisoned.
c. Cities. All cities have harbours (where applicable), barracks, and all city improvements I could build. The battlefield medicine small wonder is also built.
d. Improvements. Most tiles had railroads, irrigations, and mines. All the border tiles and fort tiles have railroad access.
e. City garrisons. All cities had 2 infantry units as garrisons.
f. Border fortifications. I have fortresses built along the borders. It didn't cover every square, but it covered all the choke points and weak spots (grassland, deserts, plains). Of course, these forts are all garrisoned by infantry units.
g. Naval patrols. I had about 20-25 ironclads lined up along the entire water border so that no incoming ships will get unnoticed.
h. Invasion army. I had about 20 infantry (in addition to all the garrisons), 15 artillery, and 5 cavalry units near my first intended victim.
i. Spare workers and settlers. I have no intention to take enemy cities except those with wonders (no prisoners
). So I had a few settlers ready to build cities on razed sites. Of course, spare workers are also availble to work the tiles of "new territories". Building roads and forts in new territories is very important.
II. Start the war!
I picked my intended victim (Egypt, the second strongest civ in game) and declared war. The rest of the AI nations declared war on me (expected) because they had inter-locking mutual protection pacts (remember, this post is about how to fight wars. Yes I know its a bad example of diplomacy )
III. Start the offensive!
My invasion army at once set into motion.
HOW TO CONDUCT AN OFFENSIVE WITH MINMUM CASULTIES:
a. Form a solid, continuous line of infantry along the border. By solid and continuous, I mean EVERY SINGLE square is occupied so that absolutely no AI units can move through from ANY direction, including diagonally, without killing your units. Every tile of the wall should contain 2 infantry units. One of the squares should contain the invasion army.
b. The invasion army alone (in addition to the human wall) should consist of at least 12 artillery pieces and NOT FEWER THAN 10 FULL STRENGTH infantry units.
c. Have some cavalry units along the human wall, on top of the infantry units.
d. The whole wall should advance as a whole. At no point should there be any holes in the wall. It must be placed so that no AI units can move through because if there is a hole, the AI will try to get through. Make sure that the AI cannot move through diagonally.
e. If you encounter enemy units in the open fields, start combat by opening bombardment, using artillery of the invasion army. No one should attack unless the top enemy unit has been reduced to a strength of ONE. Yes ONE. even if the enemy unit has TWO strength, wait till the next turn and then bombard him again.
f. Then the cavalry units should attack. After they have defeated the enemy units, they should withdraw. NEVER, EVER LEAVE A CAVALRY UNIT OR TANK OUT IN THE OPEN WITHOUT INFANTRY SUPPORT. They should always stay on top, or behind the infantry wall before or after combat. If you don't have enough cavalry and must attack with infantry, do so with any surplus infantry units you have. Make sure that you still have an intact, full strength, 2 infantry per tile human wall left after these battles. Or if the AI has a stack, you can attack with infantry and only use a cavalry unit to kill the last unit of the stack so that your cavalry will be the only one that advances, and you can move it back.
g. Intact Human wall with invasion army should advance again after getting rid of enemy units in the field. All wounded units should withdraw to the nearest barracks, even if they have only lost 1 strength. Wounded units are magnets for AI units.
h. If the enemy counterattacks so that part of the wall is damaged or collasped, plug in the hole with reinforcements and don't advance until the hole is filled. Withdraw if necessary.
i. Move wall and invasion army right next to intended target AI city. This invasion army should preferably sit on good defensive terrain. Why 10 infantry for the invasion army alone? 6 infantry and any available cavalry will attack the city and will be expected to die/take casulties. THESE UNITS MUST BE ABLE TO TAKE THE CITY WITHIN ONE TURN OTHERWISE THE ENEMY WILL HEAL OR RECEIVE REINFORCEMENTS. 2 full strength infantry will stay behind and protect the artillery pieces and the wounded units. 2 full strength infantry units will advance into the razed/captured city to protect the wounded infantry that first advanced into the city AND garrison the city. Trust me, 1 full strength infantry is NOT enough to protect anything.
j. Open bombardment. The goal is to reduce the population of the city to below 6. If the artillery cannot finish the job this turn, NOBODY ATTACKS. Wait until next turn and don't attack until the population is below 6.
k. Once the city's pop. is below 6 and hopefully the enemy garrison has taken some damage, attack with 6 infantry and any cavalry you have. They should win. If they lose, the human wall should stay where they are until reinforcements arrive to attack the city again.
l. Once they have taken/razed the city, 2 fresh infantry units should advance into the city tile to protect the infantry unit (most likely wounded) that first advanced into the city. If the city is razed a settler unit should move forward and found a city (you do have one waiting for the job, right?).
m. In the next turn, withdraw all wounded units to nearest barracks, and the human wall should resume the advance after getting reinforcements as appropriate.
I conquered the world in this fashion. I had no technological advantage, the AI used the same units as I did. They had a huge numerical advantage, but my units killed a lot more AI units this way than they killed mine.
IV. Defend your homeland (land)!
Most of the time, I was facing 3-4 land "fronts". I only had enough forces to conduct offensive in one of the fronts. All the other fronts stayed on the defense. Here is what I do to conduct an effective defence, by effective, I mean I could kill every invading AI unit while suffering minimum casulties and without losing any cities or resources. These aren't steps, just notes.
a. Again, build a continuous, solid line of infantry to protect your homeland. This time they should all sit on forts. If you are short of infantry (I always was), place 1 infantry in hills/jungle/mountains/forests. All others should have 2.
b. Counterattacking is the key to a good defense, don't just sit there and be slaughtered. In addition to my strategies already mentioned (bombardment before attacking, use cavalry to attack then withdraw, never leave wounded units at the front, never leave cavalry units at th front without infantry support), there are a few things unique to defence to be listed below.
c. In defending, you don't need to counterattack everywhere because you are not trying to gain ground. Attack if the enemy is sitting on bad defensive terrain, don't attack the infantry unit sitting on a mountain, because you don't need to.
d. Lure the enemy in. Deliberately leave a hole of your defence line where there is bad defensive terrain open and watch the enemy pour in. Make sure that all good defensive terrain nearby is occupied so that the enemy units will end the turn in bad terrain. Next turn close the gap (so wounded units can't get out), bombard them and slaughter them. Good for luring in enemy units sitting on hills.
V. Defend your homeland (sea)!
It is not economical to form a wall of ships along the coast. So I used a more fluid form of defence.
a. Have groups of 3-4 ships patrolling the coast and try to spread out the groups to spot incoming ships.
b. If you spot small groups of 1-2 ships coming, use 1-2 ships for bombardment, and then melee attack with the rest. It is not economical to always reduce AI ships to 1 strength, but nevertheless bombardment should always be necessary before any melee attacks. What if they have 2 ships and you only have 3? 2 bombardments and 1 melee attack, or 1 bombardment, 1 melee attack, then bombard the second ship. You can always finish the last ship in the next turn.
c. If you spot large groups of ships incoming, use bombardment to weaken them only. Don't melee attack because the AI loves to attack wounded ships. Weaken them until sufficient reinforcements come.
d. Again, don't leave wounded ships in the open. Always withdraw them if given the chance. Ships are precious and expensive.
e. Always use technologically superior ships to melee attack and weaker ships to scout and bombard.
f. Turn the grid lines on. It really helps to know for sure how many ships you can use in the current turn.
VI. Strategy matters
a. I only built veteran units.
b. Watch production so that you only build the units you need most.
c. Aim for enemy resouces! I think there is only just enough resouces for everybody in the game. My guess is, if there are 8 civs in the game there will probably be only 8-10 oil in the game. That means, if you control 4-5 oil/rubber/saltpetter, somebody else in the game is without them. When I was fighting the Indians they kept using infantry. But when I took a couple of rubber tiles I started to see riflemen a lot more often. When I controlled their last source of saltpetter I began to see spearmen appearing.
d. Shorten the line! Manning the human walls is a huge drain on resources. Don't leave "bulges" as it takes a lot fewer units to man a straight human wall.
e. What if you don't have enough forces to form a wall? Yes, it is entirely possible to just send an invasion army alone deep inside enemy territory to raze a few cities. I tried that but didn't like the results, because if I don't form a wall, the enemy will invade and its ugly. It is impossible to defend everywhere and crisis after crisis pop up here and there as the AI moved 10 cavalry units as a stack. They also love to pillage. By forming a wall, I don't have to worry about defending cities, or losing tile improvements to pillaging. I can also economize troops as I only have to worry about what happens in front of the wall, and everything behind it is safe.
f. NEVER, ever move your city garrisons. The AI doesn't seem to have a combat advantage but it DOES seem to know your entire troop dispositions. It is tempting to finish that lone cavalry unit near the front by using one of the city garrisons, but this will be inviting a naval landing from behind.
g. BE PATIENT. This method takes a LOOOONNG time. I often battled hordes and hordes of AI units in the open fields before my wall could close in to the enemy cities. Attack and defend systemmatically.
h. The first priority should always be conservation of military strength. When in doubt, hold back and don't unnecessarily waste troops. Only attack in the open when you are sure you can win. Only advance into an open tile (grassland, plains, deserts)with at least 2 full strength infantry units. Always withdraw wounded units. Use bombardment. Exercise caution. The only time when massive casulties are tolerated is when assulting a city. This whole game is about production: if you produce more units than you lose every turn, you are winning and you are getting stronger and stronger. If you don't have enough forces to attack, just defend your borders until you have massed sufficient units for attack.
This is what I do. Let's hear how other's do it. But several things are sure:
a. combat is not broken. IMHO its a lot better than combat in civ2. The AI is very, very challenging and is very good at both offence and defence.
b. the AI doesn't cheat in combat. It doesnt' have an advantage, beyond knowing where your forces are.
c. bombardment is extremely useful if used right.
I am playing on Monarch level now, currently building up for another world war
I may have to change some of my opinion then. Who knows.
I have finished a game on Regent level, standard map, 8 civs, with a domination victory. Only one war was fought in the entire game, and it was me against a coalition of 7 AI civs in the late industrial age (everybody using cavalry, infantry, early tanks, artillery, ironclads, frigates, destroyers, some battleships). I was economically the strongest civ, but all 8 civs had the same techs and units.
I want to write about how it is entirely possible to easily win against technologically equal and numerically far superior coalition AI forces. One word before I begin though, I have disabled all air units because air superiority is broken.
I. Be prepared!
I started the war, and I didn't start it until I was fully prepared. Shopping list for starting a war -
a. Technology. At the start of the war I have all the techs for cavalry, infantry, ironclads, and most importantly, communism.
b. Resources. I have 1 coal, 1 rubber, and 1 oil. All 3 squares had a fort built and 2 infantry protecting each tile. The saltpeter and horse tiles are also garrisoned.
c. Cities. All cities have harbours (where applicable), barracks, and all city improvements I could build. The battlefield medicine small wonder is also built.
d. Improvements. Most tiles had railroads, irrigations, and mines. All the border tiles and fort tiles have railroad access.
e. City garrisons. All cities had 2 infantry units as garrisons.
f. Border fortifications. I have fortresses built along the borders. It didn't cover every square, but it covered all the choke points and weak spots (grassland, deserts, plains). Of course, these forts are all garrisoned by infantry units.
g. Naval patrols. I had about 20-25 ironclads lined up along the entire water border so that no incoming ships will get unnoticed.
h. Invasion army. I had about 20 infantry (in addition to all the garrisons), 15 artillery, and 5 cavalry units near my first intended victim.
i. Spare workers and settlers. I have no intention to take enemy cities except those with wonders (no prisoners
). So I had a few settlers ready to build cities on razed sites. Of course, spare workers are also availble to work the tiles of "new territories". Building roads and forts in new territories is very important.II. Start the war!
I picked my intended victim (Egypt, the second strongest civ in game) and declared war. The rest of the AI nations declared war on me (expected) because they had inter-locking mutual protection pacts (remember, this post is about how to fight wars. Yes I know its a bad example of diplomacy
)III. Start the offensive!
My invasion army at once set into motion.
HOW TO CONDUCT AN OFFENSIVE WITH MINMUM CASULTIES:
a. Form a solid, continuous line of infantry along the border. By solid and continuous, I mean EVERY SINGLE square is occupied so that absolutely no AI units can move through from ANY direction, including diagonally, without killing your units. Every tile of the wall should contain 2 infantry units. One of the squares should contain the invasion army.
b. The invasion army alone (in addition to the human wall) should consist of at least 12 artillery pieces and NOT FEWER THAN 10 FULL STRENGTH infantry units.
c. Have some cavalry units along the human wall, on top of the infantry units.
d. The whole wall should advance as a whole. At no point should there be any holes in the wall. It must be placed so that no AI units can move through because if there is a hole, the AI will try to get through. Make sure that the AI cannot move through diagonally.
e. If you encounter enemy units in the open fields, start combat by opening bombardment, using artillery of the invasion army. No one should attack unless the top enemy unit has been reduced to a strength of ONE. Yes ONE. even if the enemy unit has TWO strength, wait till the next turn and then bombard him again.
f. Then the cavalry units should attack. After they have defeated the enemy units, they should withdraw. NEVER, EVER LEAVE A CAVALRY UNIT OR TANK OUT IN THE OPEN WITHOUT INFANTRY SUPPORT. They should always stay on top, or behind the infantry wall before or after combat. If you don't have enough cavalry and must attack with infantry, do so with any surplus infantry units you have. Make sure that you still have an intact, full strength, 2 infantry per tile human wall left after these battles. Or if the AI has a stack, you can attack with infantry and only use a cavalry unit to kill the last unit of the stack so that your cavalry will be the only one that advances, and you can move it back.
g. Intact Human wall with invasion army should advance again after getting rid of enemy units in the field. All wounded units should withdraw to the nearest barracks, even if they have only lost 1 strength. Wounded units are magnets for AI units.
h. If the enemy counterattacks so that part of the wall is damaged or collasped, plug in the hole with reinforcements and don't advance until the hole is filled. Withdraw if necessary.
i. Move wall and invasion army right next to intended target AI city. This invasion army should preferably sit on good defensive terrain. Why 10 infantry for the invasion army alone? 6 infantry and any available cavalry will attack the city and will be expected to die/take casulties. THESE UNITS MUST BE ABLE TO TAKE THE CITY WITHIN ONE TURN OTHERWISE THE ENEMY WILL HEAL OR RECEIVE REINFORCEMENTS. 2 full strength infantry will stay behind and protect the artillery pieces and the wounded units. 2 full strength infantry units will advance into the razed/captured city to protect the wounded infantry that first advanced into the city AND garrison the city. Trust me, 1 full strength infantry is NOT enough to protect anything.
j. Open bombardment. The goal is to reduce the population of the city to below 6. If the artillery cannot finish the job this turn, NOBODY ATTACKS. Wait until next turn and don't attack until the population is below 6.
k. Once the city's pop. is below 6 and hopefully the enemy garrison has taken some damage, attack with 6 infantry and any cavalry you have. They should win. If they lose, the human wall should stay where they are until reinforcements arrive to attack the city again.
l. Once they have taken/razed the city, 2 fresh infantry units should advance into the city tile to protect the infantry unit (most likely wounded) that first advanced into the city. If the city is razed a settler unit should move forward and found a city (you do have one waiting for the job, right?).
m. In the next turn, withdraw all wounded units to nearest barracks, and the human wall should resume the advance after getting reinforcements as appropriate.
I conquered the world in this fashion. I had no technological advantage, the AI used the same units as I did. They had a huge numerical advantage, but my units killed a lot more AI units this way than they killed mine.
IV. Defend your homeland (land)!
Most of the time, I was facing 3-4 land "fronts". I only had enough forces to conduct offensive in one of the fronts. All the other fronts stayed on the defense. Here is what I do to conduct an effective defence, by effective, I mean I could kill every invading AI unit while suffering minimum casulties and without losing any cities or resources. These aren't steps, just notes.
a. Again, build a continuous, solid line of infantry to protect your homeland. This time they should all sit on forts. If you are short of infantry (I always was), place 1 infantry in hills/jungle/mountains/forests. All others should have 2.
b. Counterattacking is the key to a good defense, don't just sit there and be slaughtered. In addition to my strategies already mentioned (bombardment before attacking, use cavalry to attack then withdraw, never leave wounded units at the front, never leave cavalry units at th front without infantry support), there are a few things unique to defence to be listed below.
c. In defending, you don't need to counterattack everywhere because you are not trying to gain ground. Attack if the enemy is sitting on bad defensive terrain, don't attack the infantry unit sitting on a mountain, because you don't need to.
d. Lure the enemy in. Deliberately leave a hole of your defence line where there is bad defensive terrain open and watch the enemy pour in. Make sure that all good defensive terrain nearby is occupied so that the enemy units will end the turn in bad terrain. Next turn close the gap (so wounded units can't get out), bombard them and slaughter them. Good for luring in enemy units sitting on hills.
V. Defend your homeland (sea)!
It is not economical to form a wall of ships along the coast. So I used a more fluid form of defence.
a. Have groups of 3-4 ships patrolling the coast and try to spread out the groups to spot incoming ships.
b. If you spot small groups of 1-2 ships coming, use 1-2 ships for bombardment, and then melee attack with the rest. It is not economical to always reduce AI ships to 1 strength, but nevertheless bombardment should always be necessary before any melee attacks. What if they have 2 ships and you only have 3? 2 bombardments and 1 melee attack, or 1 bombardment, 1 melee attack, then bombard the second ship. You can always finish the last ship in the next turn.
c. If you spot large groups of ships incoming, use bombardment to weaken them only. Don't melee attack because the AI loves to attack wounded ships. Weaken them until sufficient reinforcements come.
d. Again, don't leave wounded ships in the open. Always withdraw them if given the chance. Ships are precious and expensive.
e. Always use technologically superior ships to melee attack and weaker ships to scout and bombard.
f. Turn the grid lines on. It really helps to know for sure how many ships you can use in the current turn.
VI. Strategy matters
a. I only built veteran units.
b. Watch production so that you only build the units you need most.
c. Aim for enemy resouces! I think there is only just enough resouces for everybody in the game. My guess is, if there are 8 civs in the game there will probably be only 8-10 oil in the game. That means, if you control 4-5 oil/rubber/saltpetter, somebody else in the game is without them. When I was fighting the Indians they kept using infantry. But when I took a couple of rubber tiles I started to see riflemen a lot more often. When I controlled their last source of saltpetter I began to see spearmen appearing.
d. Shorten the line! Manning the human walls is a huge drain on resources. Don't leave "bulges" as it takes a lot fewer units to man a straight human wall.
e. What if you don't have enough forces to form a wall? Yes, it is entirely possible to just send an invasion army alone deep inside enemy territory to raze a few cities. I tried that but didn't like the results, because if I don't form a wall, the enemy will invade and its ugly. It is impossible to defend everywhere and crisis after crisis pop up here and there as the AI moved 10 cavalry units as a stack. They also love to pillage. By forming a wall, I don't have to worry about defending cities, or losing tile improvements to pillaging. I can also economize troops as I only have to worry about what happens in front of the wall, and everything behind it is safe.
f. NEVER, ever move your city garrisons. The AI doesn't seem to have a combat advantage but it DOES seem to know your entire troop dispositions. It is tempting to finish that lone cavalry unit near the front by using one of the city garrisons, but this will be inviting a naval landing from behind.
g. BE PATIENT. This method takes a LOOOONNG time. I often battled hordes and hordes of AI units in the open fields before my wall could close in to the enemy cities. Attack and defend systemmatically.
h. The first priority should always be conservation of military strength. When in doubt, hold back and don't unnecessarily waste troops. Only attack in the open when you are sure you can win. Only advance into an open tile (grassland, plains, deserts)with at least 2 full strength infantry units. Always withdraw wounded units. Use bombardment. Exercise caution. The only time when massive casulties are tolerated is when assulting a city. This whole game is about production: if you produce more units than you lose every turn, you are winning and you are getting stronger and stronger. If you don't have enough forces to attack, just defend your borders until you have massed sufficient units for attack.
This is what I do. Let's hear how other's do it. But several things are sure:
a. combat is not broken. IMHO its a lot better than combat in civ2. The AI is very, very challenging and is very good at both offence and defence.
b. the AI doesn't cheat in combat. It doesnt' have an advantage, beyond knowing where your forces are.
c. bombardment is extremely useful if used right.
I am playing on Monarch level now, currently building up for another world war
I may have to change some of my opinion then. Who knows.
). In Civ 2, it was the Armor unit. I'd say the closest thing to a "build lots of these and forget about it" unit is probably the knight, but it seems to me that new effective military strategies in Civ 3 absolutely require the use of mixed units.
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