Invasion tactics

[Barfus]

those armies might just be the key. as its a peaceful game thus far, i havent producced but one leader who was gone instantly.

[Tim_Hobbit]

I used to always use my 1st GL or two for Wonders, but have discovered in the last couple of games that building an army has some advantages.
1 - a successful attack by an army allows you to build the two military wonders, that allow more promotions, and to build more armies.
2 - more armies and better promotions = more chance of GLs, which can be used to build Wonders.
3 - build enough armies, ( and you don't even have to attack with them) and you can get the pentigon which will enlarge all the armies to 4 units.

An early army of 3 or 4 spearmen or pikemen on a fortified mountain or better yet a hilltop town with a barracks and distroy litterally hundereds of attacking horsmen or swordsmen. You don't even want to know what a 4 unit army of Mortorized Infantry can withstand in the same position!

[Barfus]

anyone have a quick tactic or a sure fire way to produce a leader? especially early in the game....around pikemans era. i cant seem to get one to save my life. i keep attacking the zulu in the hopes of getting one but to no avail.

[Theseus]

Overall comments:

Attack with large stacks. Start with your least experienced units, and don;t worry if you lose and give the enemy a promotion.

Try to preserve elites... use them to attack weak defenders, preferably in the field, with 3 hps or less.

Try to keep elites closer to home, so GLs can make it back.

When you don;t need a GL, don;t use your elites; try to get all vets promoted.

Get elite+leaders out of the way.

If possible, get an Army and the Heroic Epic ASAP. Don;t use the Army for much but that first win.

[Coracle]

Always have workers ready to rebuild pillaged roads, and have a settler ready to start a new town if one has to be razed or if there is a large distance between your nearest town or city and the enemy town you are attacking so you can have a place for units to heal.

[Barfus]

thanks...large stacks.....right now im on an island and its proving difficult to wage war from that distance...

[Arrian]

Barfus,

GL generation is all about playing the odds. Militaristic civs have the advantage in that they get more (non-leader producing) promotions, which means more elites. More elites = more elite victories = more leaders.... or at least a better chance of leader generation.

Like Theseus said, be careful with those elite units. I usually try to use them as "finishers." They hit beat up units. When I have a leader active (rarely for more than a turn) I attack only with vets in order to get them promoted. The overall key, though, is to do lots of fighting with lots of units.

I'm playing a Chinese game now (no, not mini tourneyiii - which I will get at some point) which I began with an archer strike against England. I took London, and then positioned my 1 elite archer with a spearman defender near their other city. Every couple of turns they'd pop out an archer, which my archer would kill. Sure enough, he generated a GL, which became an army of achers. Since then, I have destroyed the Indians, Japanese, English (they had 4 cities, heh), French, and a goodly portion of America. I'm building Hoover while still a Monarchy (hey, tech in 4 turns with a surplus, people happy, army huge... why switch?). I'm up to my 8th leader.

#1 - army (archers)
#2 - FP
#3 - Sistine
#4 - move Palace
#5 - Adam Smith
#6 - Bach
#7 - army (Cavalry)
#8 - ToE

And counting. I am methodically laying waste to America, and preparing to wheel on the Iroquois (they're my only opponents at this point). I'm just razing away.

I never used to build an army with my first leader, because I didn't feel it was worth the trade (1 leader early on for a couple more later). But that was when I was utilizing horse/sword rushes around 400bc as my first assault. As China, starting with archers right off the bat, it makes more sense. When I began my horse/sword rush, I had the Heroic Epic built. Clearly, it paid off.

Theseus,

I think I have found Ultimate Power (tm)! Seriously, this game is nuts. The cool part is that I remembered to save it periodically (I have 7 different saves) so one can actually follow how it developed.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Nice trick with the archer... I'll be using that.

Mini-III will be UP too.

/wild boasting on

I plan to take over the entire world in one move when I get to Synthetic Fibers.

wild boasting off/

[Artifex]

Tag for future reference

[Theseus]

I hoped no one would remember that!!

I just got to that point tonight, I think. I'm a little bored with it though, and don;t know if I have the patience.

There are 39 cities to take on the main continent, where I have 117 MA, appr. 50+ MI, and 23 Cav. There are another 7 cities on 2 islands. I've got lots of Bombers and Arty too, all on the main continent.

Uggh... I'd rather play new games.

Funny... the first 10-15 games I played, I never went past Cavs or maybe Tanks, because I reached UP (tm), more or less. I've know actually gotten in to the later stages, but there's a point where it's foregone.

My guess is I'm gonna put this one away, but save it for after a humiliating defeat... ego repair.

[Tingkai]

A basic strategy is to wear down the AI units by attacking them where you have the advantage or by forcing them to attack you when you have favourable ground.

One thing I notice with the AI is that it likes to attack with dozens of units in one stack. If that happens I usually try to surround it if I can get a terrain bonus effect (i.e. mountains).

In the game I'm playing now the Iroquois launched a three pronged attack with three stacks. All three stacks came through mountainous areas. I surrounded the stacks and then sat back while they tried to batter their way out of the encirclement.

The only attack I make on the encircled troops is with artillery. Wear them down.

Meanwhile, my offensive units go for cities that can be hit with artillery from my territory.

An alternative strategy is to surround them, but leave one escape route open that goes onto open ground.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Coracle
have a settler ready to start a new town if one has to be razed or if there is a large distance between your nearest town or city and the enemy town you are attacking so you can have a place for units to heal.

Good point. The latest version makes this even easier. You can take an enemy town, move a settler into it, then abandon the enemy town and start up your own town.

[King of Rasslin]

I would wait for nukes if I was going to attack a city of size 13+ defended by mech infantry. Mass artillery might lower it down, but I like using the nuke to weaken the mech infantry.

You will lose a lot of modern armor to mech infantry because they cannot retreat. I would simply attack if the city is less than size 7. If it is size 7-12, you should use artillery or radar artillery. If it is 13+, be ready for a long siege or a nuke.

To protect elite modern armor, which are the first ones to get hit, send mech infantry along with them. You don't need to do this if you can attack their cities in a single turn, but you usually need to send the mech infantry in.

And there is no point to trying to blitz an AI with mech infantry. It is impossible to get modern armor before they get mech infantry in higher difficulties, so don't try it. Just move slowly and try not to lose too many guys.

[Solver]

I have been into this. I was on the same landmass with babylon, a very powerful civ with an army besting that of mine. It was in late Industrial Age, with Marines available, but not Tanks yet (I went for Marines first). Marines are powerful in my mod. babylon had 150 Infantry to my a-bit-over-100, but I had Marines, and more Cavalry. Along the border, Fortresses fortified with Infantry were present. Map: a continent with me occupying the eastern part, Babylon the Western part, and it also had 2 cities in the Easter part.

I declared war on Babylon, and strted off with just bombing their near-border squares. Their turn, I saw them lose some units to my fortifications, and approaching a nice stack of like 50 Infantry to the edge of their border. I responded by ordering the 10 Marines I had then to attack the Infantry stack, and killed 8.

I moved like half of my Infantry into Babylonian borders, with the aim of denying resources. My bombers started targeting cities. Then, for a nice time, it was a stalemate situation. Infantry, Cavalry and some Marines were combatting en masse, I have mobilized my economy to compensate the numeric advantage of Babylon, and was putting lots of Marines and Infantry out.

My fleet got mobilized, and a raw of Destroyers, as well as my first 2 Battleships moved on to bombarding the Babylonian positions from behind, concentrating on one coastal city at a time, and causing some mayhem. Babylon launched a surprise attack by sending troops to my poorly defended cities in the East, gaining more control of the Easter part of the continet. I put some Infantry on nearby mountains, hoping to stall their advance towards the heart of the continet, which I managed to.

Again, we kept producting troops, exchanging artillery fire, and taking each other on in the field. What decided this was was basically one turn. I saw babylon move a giant stack towards the border, and one tile inside my land. I took most of my artillery and bombarded the stack, weakening some units. Then Bombers came in and killed a few units (Bombers got lethal on for me). And the moment came... my Marines all engaged the stack, I had serious losses, but more wins (as I say, Marines are boosted). This turn left many of the Babylonian army dead, so I started to gain advantage in numbers.

Next, I needed to cut their Rubber off, intelligence told they have 3 sources of it. Two sources I somehow managed to dispatch with Bombers and Cavalry raids in the area, but one remained in the Eastern cities of Babylon. But that part of the continent was very well suited for defensive positions, so it was a hard fight. But eventually, I razed the city founded on the last Rubber square for Babylon, though with heavy losses.

Hammurabbi was forced to resort to Riflemen and Cavalry, while I have just acquired Tanks. The first Tanks on the battlefield clearly showed themselves as the new dominating power, so I was very pleased to wipe Babylon off.

Got to be my favorite story thus far .