need help with defending...

[sox73b3]

During classical/medevil age, what is the best way to defend your flanks when you are creating a forward army?

I am looking for the best way to leave my cities defended so I do not have to keep returning from my front line to micro-manage a defense.

Castles? Towers?

Do archers and other ranged units fire when garrisoned inside a tower or castle?

[Skanky Burns]

Castles are rather nifty near the front-lines for destroying enemy armies. People garrisoned inside can increase the firepower of the castle depending on type of unit - archer-types increase it a lot, civilians increase it a bit and others like cavalry don't help at all.

[Signa]

If you quickly click on all your Citizens in the stressed city and call them to arms the city should be able to hold out till you win elsewhere and can move to help.

[tetleytea]

Another poster mentioned earlier that Call To Arms cleans out the Light Infantry rush pretty good. And when your city's down to red, I'm inclined to concur.

[Weltraum Amy]

Doesn't belong here, but anyway... The Machinegunners in Industrial, Modern and Info-Age are the best defenders in towers and forts. One MG gives 2 attack points, all other military units give 1 or 0.5.

[Signa]

But they still suck again vehicle untis and artillery...
The lesson is defend with units and buildings of course.

[Azrikam]

I find I can defend my main cities with a relatively small force, provided I've got:
-1 archer garrisoned in every tower
-lots of towers
-a general in my defending army
-attrition researched (!!!)

It's important to take out enemy generals and supply wagons first.

Worse case scenario, I can usually hold off an attacking army long enough to either bring back my main forces, or build up new defenders from barracks and stables.

I've also toyed with running away from an army when I'm vastly outnumbered. (but not too fast) It cuts your offense to nil, but as long as you keep them in your territory and occupied, attrition and tower archers will take its toll on them until a real defense force can arrive.

[buizzz]

a defense that always work for me on tougher is to garrison 4-6 slingers (or whatever you can upgrade them to) inside the city I want to defend. I build a tower just next to. This way, the attacking army will stand there hacking away at the tower while the slingers inside the city will slaughter them. It goes without saying that attrition is important, at least level 1 is relatively cheap and easy to come by and the effect is good.

If you are in gunpowder age or later the AI will bring cannons and you need to build cannons to counter, this is the only way you can reach this ranged weapon. make sure to have some pikemen or whatever your unit against cavalry is called ready to protect your cannons, because the AI will send his cavalry after your cannons immediately.

Sure, a castle and a lot of towers and a lot of units always helps, but at least on tougher you can't afford that luxury if you want to keep up with the AI.

[tetley]

Towers are worth it if it means you can put off military upgrades.

[Mahdimael]

I generally keep a few towers near my cities (and at least 1 AA, in industrial age) and forts near the front with military buildings behind it. Remember to place some villagers in forts so that they can repair them if they get damaged.

[Aginor]

One Tower per front-line city with two Archers in it, and one more Archer in the city itself will work well. Positioning the Tower so that it doesn't get knocked down by Cannon but can still kill enemy troops is something of an art. British Towers are strong, Mayan Towers are a beating.

Pop the Archer in the City in and out (set up a group with just him) with a flag someplace where the Cavalry will try to come get him, and let the Cavalry get butchered by the Tower force. Pop Archer back in the city, out, in, out, etc. Works even better if there's a river. I know this violates your micromanagement principles, but it works AMAZINGLY well.

Throw a couple Slingers at the City if you can for a bit more garrison firepower.

Research at LEAST first attrition or die. Second attrition is also good, third is fairly pointless if you aren't Russian...

Build your Siege Factory someplace where you can move your artillery into it and out the back door if you have to, and set this up so that other buildings block the cavalry's advance to your siege once they go out the back, using a lake or mountain as the side wall (this is called building a death trap).

Build a Fort near, and slightly behind, your most vulnerable front line city. If you have Terra Cotta, flag it. Research fort techs so you can hit the other guy from there.

Build a Supply Wagon to go with your siege.

Station a Scout with your Siege to kill Spies. Build a few Spies of your own. Bribe Siege and Heavy Cav if the other guy is too dumb to bring Scouts, and turn the Heavy Cav on the Wagons and Siege.

If all else fails, build a Stable and hit him in the butt with your own Cav. Works best in situations where there is open territory behind your enemy (as opposed to a lake or ocean).

These tactics are cheap, but will get you to Gunpowder. At this point you'd better have several Siege engines and turn them into Bombards quickly. Artillery pieces are very, very cheap for the long term firepower they provide. I'm a BIG believer in lots of siege engines, and I basically only build troops and tanks to act as damage sponges to keep my legion of Howitzers safe. Advance slow and leave nothing behind is my philosophy.

[Lord Sun Ce]

Easiest Way? Just build two armies of suffiecient size and power. With a little micro on the offensive and the proper general power here and there, your 50 summad army can easily defeat a 100 summad army- trust me, I've been there. With two armies, you can keep one on the offensive, while you keep the second army within your borders. ALWAYS keep your borders scouted for any enemy activity, for a human opponent will always look for holes in your defense. Don't be shy with lookout towers- in the end, you'll wind up with an impenetrable (spelling?) wall of Ack-Ack, letting you own the skies. If you don't like to defend, then try to hold out and play a defensive/boom strategy (max out econ, while building army) until air power arrives. Place three or four defensive airfields full with fighters, and you don't have to worry about a second army. It all depends on how you like to play. Me?- I love bombers.....

[Signa]

Nukes of course work to if you can get to them first...
A game where you can get Armaggedon to 1 before anyone else gets nukes is sweet indeed...

[buizzz]

Originally posted by Lord Sun Ce
Easiest Way? Just build two armies of suffiecient size and power. With a little micro on the offensive and the proper general power here and there, your 50 summad army can easily defeat a 100 summad army- trust me,

Yeah, well, that wont fly on tougher or toughest. its always easy to recommend tactics that require a lot of resources but the real trick is to plan the defense using minimum resources on building units in the crucial buildup phase to gunpowder age. You want to try and estimate when the AI will hit you the first time and be ready with just enough garrisoned units inside the city to fend off the attack (if you do it well your city will go into red as you kill the last units of the attacking army). In the meanwhile, you channel your incoming resources to tech and expanding resource collection. As you get to the level you want you start diverting resources over to army buildup, and my personal favourite is to time the completion of a sufficiently strong army to just before gunpowder age. While I gather my army and start to send it off, I get all the gunpowder age related weapons upgrade and just before my army hits the AI's first city all units get upgraded.

Rise of Nations is all about optimal usage of resources, not about building a lot of armies spending resources without a care...

[Lord Sun Ce]

Well, of course it won't fly on tough or tougher.... that's why I play on Moderate.... On those difficulty levels, though, you normally can expect the AI to attack w/ a rush at Ancient/Classical, then again with a massive army at Gunpowder/Enlightenment, and then in waves Post-Industrial. You'll need two armies with post-industrial, or follow my other advice and get an air force up- later on in the game, my 50+ armies don't cut it, so I absolve them into one 50 unit army, then build up an air force. Also, you might be confusing one whole unit (three footmen as one unit) with the way I count it- three guys equal three units. That way, the army is small and easy to handle- I don't have that great of micro skills yet. But yes, you are right- RoN is better than AoE in that a bunch of Paladins/Samurai won't annihilate everything- strategy is key. Sorry if I didn't make myself clearer. Maybe I'll use your strategy, Buizzz, and try beating the AI on tough.