Surgical Wars

[gachnar]

The main point here, is that if you take out the roads to the strategic resource or luxury (though I dont know of anyone who has fought a war for a luxury), it is still nice to make sure they cant trade and get it.

For instance, if the Germans have oil, and they are friends with the Americans, if I take the Americans oil, they can just trade it from the Germans.

But not if I take out the roads around their capital.

The sad remedy to this strategy is airports. Airport in capital. Airport in a reasonable number of other cities. You have to road-deprive all cities with airports then. And that means a pretty extensive bombing campaign.

[Jason]

Cities with the resource in their radius can use it for certain.

In my recent war against the English I had no rubber and therefore no infantry. Once my army captured the English rubber-town, I could upgrade all my units inside to Infantry. The city had no harbor and no connections to my normal empire, so that until I reconnected it, that was my only way of upgrading riflemen or producing infantry.

[sachmo71]

I love using paratroopers/helicoptors to surround a city before attacking. This always seems to help me when I attack. The only problem is the limited range of the helicoptors and paratroopers, but when they are coming down it sure looks cool!

Resource wars...that's what got the Egyptians killed in my world!

[dexters]

Well, Civ 3 is about strategic wars, not mindless domination victories.

In Civ 2, you can send out armies of spies to conquer and entire enemy civilization. It's a little harder, but you could do the same thing if you sent in an army.

This was a major handicap gameplay wise. Waging war was just too easy in Civ 2. With Civ 3, war is tougher with war weariness, and culture/resistance. So it forces you to pick your targest, make quick strikes, 3 turn wars are more common and I think its closer to reality.

Kind of ironic when you consider all the people complaining how unrealistic Civ 3 is compared to Civ 2.

[dexters]

Originally posted by gachnar
The main point here, is that if you take out the roads to the strategic resource or luxury (though I dont know of anyone who has fought a war for a luxury), it is still nice to make sure they cant trade and get it.

For instance, if the Germans have oil, and they are friends with the Americans, if I take the Americans oil, they can just trade it from the Germans.

But not if I take out the roads around their capital.

The sad remedy to this strategy is airports. Airport in capital. Airport in a reasonable number of other cities. You have to road-deprive all cities with airports then. And that means a pretty extensive bombing campaign.

Agreed. going to war for luxuries will probably fall closer to "war of opportunity" than going to war, risking the stability of your civ, just to capture some luxury.

But I find luxuries are a good secondary object when going to war. Luxuries are sometimes found in close proximity of your main objectives. Sending a detachment to secure it first can raise happiness in your Civ, and help with the civil disorder at home. Call it, a gift to your citizens for letting you use their tax dollars on your military campaigns.

[Dark Hawk]

Originally posted by gachnar
The main point here, is that if you take out the roads to the strategic resource or luxury (though I dont know of anyone who has fought a war for a luxury), it is still nice to make sure they cant trade and get it.

For instance, if the Germans have oil, and they are friends with the Americans, if I take the Americans oil, they can just trade it from the Germans.

But not if I take out the roads around their capital.

The sad remedy to this strategy is airports. Airport in capital. Airport in a reasonable number of other cities. You have to road-deprive all cities with airports then. And that means a pretty extensive bombing campaign.

Hey if you're that far tech-wise, it shouldnt be hard to take out the airport.

Can you say "S-m-a-r-t W-e-a-p-o-n-s?"

[Cavalier_13]

Luxuries and Strategic Resources

All very nice methods and strategies......I myself use a combination of those.....

My very favorite consists of Aircraft Carriers with Bombers/Stealth Bombers and bombing the roads leading to luxuries and strategic resources. I also bomb the crap out of the capital roads so they can't import their goods.

After a few turns, it's very common to see the whole civ in Anarchy or at the very least multiple cities in Civil Disorder. Then, it's a question of Initiating Propaganda and taking the cities I want for a modest fee......then, rush build a temple, library and harbour and voila....

Add seasoning to taste.

Cavalier

[Sytass]

Nice strategies. Being a rather scientific/diplomatic player myself, I usually go to war (except when it is declared on me which is scarce) in two instants:

- I know I can wipe out a civilization and hold the ground
- It suits my current goals

The latter falls into your categories (strategic location of a city/some cities, surgical strike on production center of space ship/wonder, destroying infrastructure).

However, I find it often very useful to enter a "harassment war". This may occur when I have sufficient troops to defend myself well, but insufficient troops to launch an invasion. I form small raiding parties, sometimes not consisting of more than 2 units and set them out to eliminate non-military units (read: workers) and infrastructure (roads, railroads) in enemy territory, disrupting their supply of ressoruces, including mines, or irrigations. Combined with surgical strikes on cities, aiming to take out airports/harbors, this can have an interesting effect on your opponents' economy.

[MarshalN]

I've gone to war for luxuries before. I was English, they were Germans. They had 5 luxuries in two cities (2 furs, three incense). It was in the ancient/early medieval era. I also wanted to stop the Germans from expanding, but the luxuries made me salivate since I only had 4. After I got their cities I have 9 luxuries and a lot of happy citizens. It was definitely worth it in terms of production saved and stress relieved...

[TrailerParkJawa]

I like the idea of quick wars. Managing lots of units at once tends to frustrate me so Id rather concentrate on improving my cities.

Anyway, I like to use Expeditionary forces to harass my enemies.
Drop off 3-4 units and let them tear up some roads, mines, etc then bug out.

Last night I finally got artillery, which made taking cities much easier, defending them too! I still have not made it to the modern age. Last night, I had the tech, but no resources.


One thing I noticed is when operating in enemy territory is to try and channel his movement down know paths. I used my frigates and iron clads to blow up my own "newly captured" roads to the port city I had won in battle.

This made the AI run his units down the remaining roads which I could then focus on with artillery. In essense I created my own chokeoint. However, this did not work vs. his mounted troops. But it still helped.

[greggbert]

This is a great Post.

I often get into these quick wars with about 2 cities in mind for capture/destruction when my government is democracy or republic, becuase I usually don't have my troops in their territory for too long. I think that war weariness is not so much a factor of whether your diplomatic state is war, but instead how many friendly troops you have had inside enemey cultural borders for how long. If you have democracy or republic and you have captured/destroyed what you want, then get out of their borders!!!!! Quick!!!

Also, before you send your main troops into their borders, try this. Some ways away from where you want to attack, have about three artillery and three defensive units cross their border as far as you can get onto a mountain in their territory. These are suicide troops and are designed to lure their mobile defenders away from whre you want to strike. Bombard all improvements ignoring units until your group is destroyed. This will mess up their roads and tick them off so bad they will send the bulk of their mobile troops toward your suicide units. Then start your attack (on the other end of their border), you will find many less knights and cavalry and horesman that you have to deal with as you attack, speeding your assault. Let your artillery suicide units get captured, as they AI doesn't ever use them, and maybe youll get them back later (maybe an exploit).

To get a quicker peace, try to (a) declare war before you violate their territory, especially using a military alliance, this is often the best way to declare war since it helps your relations with other civs AND really waters down the enemy forces as they scramble to both fronts. They seem to hate you if you start the war by territory violation, and (b) get someone else to declare war on them before you sue for peace. Not by mutual protection, by alliance. The AI HATES two front battles, and will be much more willing to make peace with you if they are fighting two or more opponents. I don't know if this is exploiting the AI, but it works.

Finally, after you capture a city, make sure you have a large force just outside to retake it if it rebels, also GET ALL ARTILLERY AND WORKERS out of there unless the city rebels.

Just wanted to add to a great post.

-Gregg

[MaSsConFUsi0n]

if you destroy all roads and rails around the enemy cities, then NO resources or luxury goods are available to that city, unless the city itself is on one (ie, it was built on one). also, make sure you desroy the harbor and airports, as those also allow trade to happen. take out the roads and harbor/airport and the city can only make spear dudes and other ancient stuff.

MaSsConFUsi0n

[Elucidus]

They can make Riflemen, as well.

[Antonin]

Wonderful post, Gachnar! I wonder how many people whining in the 'general threads' about corruption and such are spending any time here in the 'strategy' area, reading things by people who are actually playing the game.

My own style of warfare tends to be of the 'scorched earth' variety. I invade my opponent's territory and destroy ALL of his roads, rather than attempt to just steamroller through his cities.

In my current game its around 1850 and my Persian monarchy has been involved in a long and bitter war with Russia. I've taken Moscow and kept it as a trophy, but razed the two or three other Russian cities I've taken.

Now, using masses of workers, I'm working on a system of fortresses to seal off the Russian territory I've liberated. I wont build cities there myself because of the distance from my capital, but the Greeks have been sending probes into the "scorched" areas and I want to prevent them from following up with settlers. My goal is to preserve any strategic resources in those territories for myself.

Boy I love this game!

[MadWombat]

Originally posted by stiel
TIP: When you are having a longer war do 'Capital Isolation'

Thsi means that if you REALLY want to hurt a civilization your first action has to be a very painful one:

DESTROY ALL THE ROADS THAT ARE DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO THE CAPITAL.

This is a max number of 8 roads that have to be destroyed.

Why?

1. Civ cannot gain any strategic resources (no modern units)
2. Civ cannot gain any lux resources (civil disorder)

The civ will be crippled at the first strike and you'll see it is MUCH MUCH easier to reach your goals.

REMEMBER: DO NOT TAKE THE CAPITAL, JUST DESTROY THE ROADS AND KEEP THEM DESTROYED!!!

Try it and share your opinion about this......


STIEL

Uhm, I tried this. Unfortunately, ou also have to take out the city with Forbidden Palace, otherwise it doesn't work. Just something to remember.