WW1- style war under AU rules

[Chemical Ollie]

I have found the infantry/artillery combination very useful under the AU rules. A little more boring than tanks perhaps, but also challenging. Basically the only thing to do until tanks.

If anyone would like to try, I attach a saved game were the Zulus are in the middle of a WW1-style war against the whole world. The humans have a solid but not overwhelming tech lead over the AI. With Hoover and mobilization, the production of infantry exceeds the casualties. However, slow research due to war weariness.

Monarch, PtW 1.14, AU mod, standard map (IIRC), cultural victory off.

[Inverse Icarus]

very interesting suitation you got yourself into here

[Jaybe]

I personally do not care for the Civ3 orientation of knights/cavalry being the dominant offensive units, with most infantry types being defense only. My perception of historical combat is that while horsed units definitely played a part, most of it is done by the foot-sloggers.

My mod, which is substantially based on AU, also:
1) Gives most infantry types equal attack/defense, based on the concept that in a meeting engagement it's basically a toss-up. AI strategy gets both offensive & defensive flags.
2) Increases Fortified bonus to 50% (from 25%).

[dexters]

Historically, Cavalry have been the most dominant offensive units on the field.

The footsoldiers were the grunts and did a lot of the fighting yes, but in terms of dominance, there are no match for Cavalry.

In the real world, battle is more than just A/D/M, and footsoldiers often made up for what they lacked in offensive capability with their relative numbers compared to cavalry.

Civ3 definately cannot even hope to emulate the battlefield advantage of fast moving mounted fighters. The 6 attack value and 3 movement is a very rough abstraction.

It is, I feel, a little pointless trying to demand Civ3 units behave like the real military units they are based on.

[Chemical Ollie]

This was a long grinding war. I eventually triggered domination when the cultural borders expanded on my home continent. When tanks finally became availabe, I had only the two eastern peninsulas left to conquer, so most was done by infantry and artillery.

The AI in CIV3 plays in a way that you need to set up a front line to stop them from penetreting into your territory for rape and plunder. I used armies of 4 elite infantry to cut off chokepoints. The AI broke through quite often if I only used 3-4 single infantrymen, but they never even tried to attack my armies. Playing the Zulu, I sometimes got several leaders per turn. As all industrial wonders were built and no new would be researched soon, all leaders became armies.

I noticed the AI stopped building cavallery and only built infantry after discovering replaceable parts. That was what I did too.

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by dexters
It is, I feel, a little pointless trying to demand Civ3 units behave like the real military units they are based on.

Agree completely. No matter how nuanced and advanced the game becomes, they are, after all, game pieces. The logical extension of chess pieces, really. In my opinion, completely real military behavior is no more the point than it is in chess.