City Defenses

[dojoboy]

I find 25+ size cities impenetrable. I had more units than I can count decimated at the walls of these cities. I learned the hard way that a few turns of bombarding, killing some citizens, helps tons. Also, after war begins waiting a few turns so the AI can draft down his population really helps, drops the defensive bonus given to large cities.

Any other techniques?

[heidlejohn]

Also try to isolate the city by pillaging the roads to it, either with units or by bombardment. You can also place your units on several or all city radius hexes to cut them off their production for that city.

At size 25 it's industrial age so the AI will draft like crazy too which will reduce city size will adding drafted riflemen/infantry. I often try to get the city down to size 5 or less so it loses all built in defenses unless it has walls. Bombardment will usually take out the wall too.

After a reduction to size 5 it's just lots of attacks with armies going after their best defenders like veteran mech inf units.

[alexman]

Re: City Defenses

Originally posted by dojoboy
I find 25+ size cities impenetrable.

It's not only you. A size 25 city with just 6 improvements has about 600% worth of defensive bonus, in addition to any other terrain modifiers...

[rpodos]

Huh?

A size 25 is a metropolis, so that's 100%. Assume the defending units are fortified, so that's another 25%, for 125% total.

Even if on a hill and across a river, the max I can figure is 200%.

Am I missing something?

To dojoboy's point though, that does give a defending Mech Infantry up to 54 defense strength.

R

[Arrian]

To the best of my knowledge, city improvements have no effect whatsoever on defensive units. They do have bombard defense values, but that's for them vs. bombard attacks only.

In other words, rpodos is right.

As for advice... well, if you're fighting infantry, Tanks should be able to handle it in large numbers. If fighting mech inf... I have two suggestions: 1) rethink the war. 2) build LARGE numbers of bombers.

-Arrian

[alexman]

Hmm... looking at the values in the editor, I thought there was a 16% defensive bonus per citizen and per city improvement. These values are listed along all the other (terrain) bonuses, after all. I guess they are for defense against bombardment. My bad!

[rpodos]

Use Armies.

Lots of Armies.

Modern Armor 4-unit Armies.

I'm going to end the damn Roman game I've been on, and just before I go to space I intend to wipe out Egypt and Persia on my continent, and raze through the other world powers using nothing but Modern Armor, with as many Armies as I can build by then. No artillery, although I will soften up the coastal cities with Battleships.

R

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by rpodos:

"Use Armies. Lots of Armies."

What is a lot? I've never had more than four in action at any given time.

[rpodos]

My new goal is all Armies, all the time (late game).

I think the most I have had thus far was 7. 4 older Armies that had been augmented through the millenia, and 3 Tank Armies.

I have been inspired by Zachriel, however...

Right now, as Rome, I only have three Armies... two 3-unit Legions, and one 4-unit with 3 Knights and 1 Cav. I have now built the MA, the Pentagon, and most wealth-creating buildings in almost all of my cities. I feel like Croesus, I've got so much money coming in. And I am Caesar, btw, so Armies I will build.

I'm waiting for Infantry to add to the Legion Armies, and then Tanks and Modern armor for offense.

You know that point in the Modern Age when you've pretty much built all that you can? I'm gonna use that for wealth, Tanks and Armies.

WAG (wild ass guess): I'll have 25 Armies before this game is over. If not in this game, then in the future, but I do want to get to the point, late game, where I only have Armies for offense.

R

sidenote: The last unit in a given Army is obviously the least utilized, if only due to the loss of the last hitpoint. I'm considering using my leftover Legions as the 4th Army unit... they are all elite, so there's a shot of generating GLs. Maybe I'll do it with half of the new Armies.

[Dominae]

rpodos, as a side note, I seriously suggest you use the Editor and make Swordsmen, Immortal and Legionary units upgradeable to Marines. The gameplay difference isn't that big, but the game is a lot more fun. If you enjoy playing Rome, you won't have to add leftover Legionary units to your Armies either!

I know a lot of players are squeamish about making any sort of change to the standard game, but I think little tweaks here and there can add a lot to the Civ3 experience. Just a suggestion.


Dominae

[Ethelred]

I use artillery for cities like that. If its tanks against infantry its possible to take it with the tanks alone but you will lose a lot of tanks. Modern Armour against Mechs is even worse. But if you blow the heck out of it first to bring it down below 13 its not so bad anymore plus some of the defenders will be down on hits.

LOTS of artillery. Sometimes I have stacks of thirty when I don't have to make a sea born invasion. Makes my sub woofer go boom a lot anyway. The desk vibrates.

[Tenchusatsu]

Don't forget that if you are fighting against a culturally strong opponent, the number of foreign nationals in the cities you capture will add to the chance that it will culture-flip back to your opponent.

The more citizens you kill, the less likely it will culture-flip. Brutal, but effective. Oh yeah, and the smaller the city you capture, the fewer resisters you have to suppress. Every resister adds that much more to the chance of culture-flipping.

By the way, why is bombardment so weak in this game? If it weren't for culture-flipping and the defensive bonuses of metropolises (metropoli?), I'd forego artillery altogether.

[randommushroom]

I may be wrong, but it seems like artillery bombardment got weakened in the last patch. Which in a way is kind of good because the AI has no freaking clue of how to use artillery anyway, so it kind of balances the game some from humans being able to use it effectively. Still, I'd prefer if Soren could teach the AI how to use it. It would be far more exciting if the AI could assemble stacks of doom with sufficient artillery to launch attacks and counterattacks. That would be a more exciting balance, than one of weakening a strategy we humans can use.

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by rpodos
My new goal is all Armies, all the time (late game).

Just remember, you only get one army for every four cities. So if you have 60 cities, you can have, at most, 15 armies... (my own pb)

Cheers,

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by randommushroom
I may be wrong, but it seems like artillery bombardment got weakened in the last patch. Which in a way is kind of good because the AI has no freaking clue of how to use artillery anyway, so it kind of balances the game some from humans being able to use it effectively. Still, I'd prefer if Soren could teach the AI how to use it. It would be far more exciting if the AI could assemble stacks of doom with sufficient artillery to launch attacks and counterattacks. That would be a more exciting balance, than one of weakening a strategy we humans can use.

Roger that. Teaching the ai to use arty better would be a good thing. As weak as it is, you still need to use it to soften defenses for a city assault or you're going to have problems. & even though I end up with stacks of 15 or more arty that still take three or four turns of barrage before knocking off any unit hit points, I can't complain too much, because I still end up taking the city. Of course, by that time, it isn't worth keeping & I end up razing it because of the drafting that goes on...

Cheers,