Slow vs Fast Units in the Ancient Age

[Eli]

What are the tactics for fighting with slow units vs fast ones(and fast vs slow) in the first half of the Ancient Age?

I'm mainly interested in UU wars like Legions or Immortals vs Mounted Warriors, War Chariots, and others. But this should also apply to regular units like the Swordsmen, Horsemen and Chariots.

[joncnunn]

A fast army should take advance of it's mobility be sweeping around the slow enemy's forces and stay out of danger.

A slow moving army in enemy territory should not be distracted by the fast moving enemy units and instead head directly to stationary targets like the enemy's capital.

In both cases, have your reinforcements deal with the enemy's units trying to get into your territory and purposely leave some designated cites with no military units to attract the AI units, getting them away from their towns so you can cheaply take them over.

[Robber Baron]

joncnunn is on the mark here.
Generally speaking, if I'm waging war with slow units, vs. fast ones, I tend to stack my units high, mixing in both offense-oriented and defense-oriented units (at about a 2-1 ratio): e.g., 6 immortals + 3 spear/pike. Try to find avenues of approach crossing rough terrain, for the defensive bonus.
The more damaging mounted attacks become, the more firepower you need massed in your stacks.

[edited: my math sux]

[BRC]

What are the tactics for fighting with slow units vs fast ones(and fast vs slow) in the first half of the Ancient Age?

When using slow units, try to stick to rugged terrain. Always keep your troops covered with spearman, as they are cheaper than swordsmen. Do not leave the cover of your spearman, keep your units together and concentrate their attacks on the same target.

When using fast units, stay on open terrain. Try to draw their units to where they end their turn right next to one of your fastmovers. Then you can attack with 1 move point, and fall back with the other. If you start to lose the battle, your fastmover may retreat. This is why I make sure that I have veterans. Horseman are great to get Leaders with, as they seem to survive a little longer than an archer or even a Swordsman. You want to keep your units fairly close together, so that they can constantly keep reinforcing each other.

Sorry, don't have much experience with Ancient UU's.

[DaveMcW]

I never noticed a big need for tactics in the first half of the ancient age. Just pile all your units into a stack of doom and capture one city after the next.

In the late ancient age the AI mounts a counterattack so things get more interesting. Fast vs. slow still doesn't matter much, the important thing is to always use your unit's best stat. Immortals and MWs wait for units to come to them, Legions and Hoplites advance on defensible terrain and watch attacks bounce off.

[dworkin]

One thing the AI does is attack stragglers and damaged units trying to get where they can heal. A good way to deal with this is to have a supply line of defenders from your nearest city to the one your attacking. The attackers can then shuttle up and down the line safe from annoying oppotunity attacks.

[Eli]

You're all talking about the AI, but what if the opponent is human?

[jshelr]

Eli

I think there was some work done on multiplayer strategy on the new forum. Slow versus fast discussions boil down to terrain differences usually, but I think the other issue is that defense trumps offense in multiplayer. In multiplayer, most people are going to be vultures, waiting for opportunities to stick it to a weakened opponent. The winners in most wars will be the civs that enter last.

IMO, speed is a must for offensive tactics in multiplayer. However, my bet is that civ III gets more like WWI as it goes along in the sense that reasonable human defence on a home country road system should beat offense.

Say, for example, that a stack of immortals trudge across the Siberian plains and finally arrive at Russia who has only swords and horses to defend. Persia will still have a tough time because they have to come to the Russian units who will generally fight with 3 attack to 2 defense or with retreat 2 on 2. A well covered stack will eventually get to a city, I suppose, at cconsiderable cost. But the human defender will concentrate forces using the road system in defensive strongholds better than the AI. What if the city has walls or is size 7 and has a barracks for healing while you don't have battlefield medicine yet. Then you are matching expensive immortals against cheap spears with little to show for it. On the other hand, if the riders from China show up, they are a real problem since they generally will be able to bring their 4 attack to bear and they have enough range to make defensive force concentration more difficult.

Once a human defender has arty and rails in place until modern armor when the blitz possibility gets really interesting and entirely destablizing. Check out the settler trick to use in conjunction with an MA blitz if you have not already.

I like the celts and Iriquois early, the Arabs and China later, and the Ottomans. I believe they are the only civs that really have a good chance to consistently find a way to attack successfully. Even those units won't find the going easy against a human defense one on one. Otherwise, seriously, the best idea may be to march some aztec warriors over on the first few turns and duke it out or play Egypt and flood the map with chariots.



RS

[Zero]

Once you have 10 cities + you cant use all your forces to guard one location. given 10 equal cost units, defender with spearmen cannot possibly defend against 10 stack of archers w/o creating a weakness.

Modern era is the same way. Offense always chooses the stage. Offense always has that edge. Thats why civ engineered defensive bonus to ease out on the balance. If I built 30 Modern armor, do you think my opponent would be able to build 30 mech inf on every single city and strategic tiles?

So, no. Civ3 is not like WWI. Defense never wins.

[ducki]

Originally posted by Calc II
Once you have 10 cities + you cant use all your forces to guard one location. given 10 equal cost units, defender with spearmen cannot possibly defend against 10 stack of archers w/o creating a weakness.

Modern era is the same way. Offense always chooses the stage. Offense always has that edge. Thats why civ engineered defensive bonus to ease out on the balance. If I built 30 Modern armor, do you think my opponent would be able to build 30 mech inf on every single city and strategic tiles?

So, no. Civ3 is not like WWI. Defense never wins.

By the time you have MA and MI, you also have Artillery and Railroads - as noted by jshelr.

You don't need 30 defenders in every town, you just need 30 total, since you can move them to any Railroad-connected point in Zero turns to counter any offensive. Add to that relatively small defense force needed the fact that the defender also probably has some MA and left-over Cavalry for counterattacking - an offensive defense, with the extra bonus of arriving at the battle site without spending any movement points, again, due to Railroads.

Against a much stronger AI, I like to have both an invasion force and a defense force, but my defense force can be much smaller than my invasion force, due to the mobility my transportation network affords and the added benefit of near-instant reinforcements with either cash or pop-rushing or drafting.

Perhaps you meant to say something else, Calc?
The way you phrased it really doesn't carry any weight as far as a human defender goes. In fact, if you are playing a human and find yourself attacking a surprisingly underdefended town, you might be the next contestant on Trap-the-Invader - we all do it to the AI, I bet it's even easier to do the a human.

[FrustratedPoet]

/edit:

sorry, ignore this.

[realpolitic]

At higher levels, its often harder to get a hold of Iron, in game I could not buy it until the Middle Ages, which was particularly vexing since I was the Persians. Horses seem to be always available. Archers, Swordsmen, horsemen all seem to work. Don't wait for the perfect time, just have enough of an advantage to gain some ground.

[DuncanK]

I usually don't seperate my slow and fast moving units unless I want to flank my opponent. I usually fight the AI on the front though. I like to have my horsemen with my slow units so that I can attack their advancing archers and move back to cover. I do that until I'm ready to advance myself. At that time I might also us my horsemen in a flank move. When you are fighting the AI on two fronts they get horribly confused and tend to do nothing especially if you can alternate the attacks and moves. Its pitifull. With humans its always different. You never know what a human palyer is going to do unless you have some experience with them.

[DuncanK]

I usually don't seperate my slow and fast moving units unless I want to flank my opponent. I usually fight the AI on the front though. I like to have my horsemen with my slow units so that I can attack their advancing archers and move back to cover. I do that until I'm ready to advance myself. At that time I might also us my horsemen in a flank move. When you are fighting the AI on two fronts they get horribly confused and tend to do nothing especially if you can alternate the attacks and moves. Its pitifull. With humans its always different. You never know what a human palyer is going to do unless you have some experience with them.

There is one more thing I sometimes do with warriors and chariots. If you go through your opponents territory with your warriors and destroy their roads then attack with chariots (or horsemen when you get them) you can have a great advantage, because they wont have any horses. Of course, eventually you want to take their cities and you will want to build swardsmen. and then you will have to rebuild the roads.