29-08-2002 23:04									#1
	connorkimbros 1-turn war strategies. Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

I'm generally a very peaceful player. But I've thought alot more about war in recent games. How to do it right, how to do it effeciently, and how to do it decisively. It varies from age to age, of course, but here's my basic strategies.

Speed is of utmost importance, but not just unit speed. You need speed, because you need to cripple the enemy in the shortest amount of time possible, so as to lessen the effects of war weariness. AND you need speedy units, so as not to lose as many. But to round it out, you need offense and defense as well. I'd rate the importance of those three in that order as well, speed, offense, and defense. Of course cost covers over all three as well, but ultimately, you need the units that you need to get the job done, and if the rest of your game is progressing smootley, cost won't be as big of an issue.

My basic order of battle goes like this.
Pre-war
1) I scout out what cities i want to take. I pay attention to how close their cities are to the border, where the roads/railroads are, and where the borders are likely to fall once i capture the city.
1b) make diplomatic agreements with neighboring civs, if possible.

2) I spent SEVERAL rounds building up a sizable force, and moving all my units into position. You need AT LEAST, bombard units, and speed units. If you have extra production capabilities, then bring along strongly defensive units, and last of all, slow strongly offensive units. I'll cover which units later, but the CITIES I will go for are generally the following things.
a) not going to be captured through culture. if it IS likely going to be, i'll leave it alone, barring other circumstances
b) close to the border
c) likely to push back their borders if captured, in order to make OTHER cities close to the border
d) important for THEIR war-making capability. If possible, take strategic resources whenever you get a chance.
3) Position my military units right along the borders, as close to their cities as possible, but still in my borders. Focus on only a few cities at a time, the most important onces first.
4) The turn right before war, i'll move the stacks of units just inside the border, towards the cites i want to capture. All of them, with one exception. Any units that can bombard will do so first, paying attention to the following things (if they exist)
a) strategic resources. kill all roads leading to them.
b) roads that can bring in reinforcements quickly. get rid of them
c) any fast or strongly offensive military units that are outside of cities.
d)**make sure that you leave enough bombard units left over to move to within range of your target cities for this turn. You need to take out these things, AND position sufficient units outside their cities all on the same turn.

This last step should start the war either that turn (if you bombard anything) or the next turn when the leaders asks you to remove your units, and you tell him to **** off.

WAR
1a) Hopefully all of your bombard units are within range of a city. If not, just like last turn, take out imporant targets surrounding cities, and keep moving them closer. You want some moving closer, and some bombarding. You SHOULD have enough to do both, otherwise, you started the war too early. Remember to keep your bombard units stacked, and several defensive units on top of the stacks. Any speed units can wander around picking off their stray military units/workers that are around (after you've bombarded them a few times)

1b) If you're bombard units ARE within range of a city, then start bombarding the **** out of them. Keep bombing until all the military units are about dead. No mercy. Your goal is to TAKE THE CITY, not for for it to remain a good city. You are making war here, go all out, accomplish the objective.

2) Once you're satisfied, move in with your speed units and take the city. Any roads or railroads within the city radius, you can now take advantage of for new military buildups(or roads and railroads that are now OUTSIDE of borders)

3) Make sure to position enough units inside cities to quell any rebellions, but not enough that a culture flip will destroy your whole army. Position several of your slow, but strongly offensive units OUTSIDE of the city, in case of a culture flip, you can take it back right away.

4) repeat for every target city.

Ideally, you'll have taken all your target cities, in 1 turn. A 1 turn war! Hey, you can quit now if you want, or you can reposition, and keep going. For now, i'll assume you've accomplished all your objectives, and want to quit.

Post war
1) Move any damaged units inside your cities to heal. Keep enough outside to retake cities, if need be. Protect your bombard units with defensive units.

2) Make sure you keep the cities you took! Build temples RIGHT AWAY, buy them if your in a government that allowes that, and you have money.

3) Any large cities should be starved down to size one, and then regrown.

4) If you've got the money, you should buy other city improvements too, as fast as possible. A granery is priority if you need to start growing the city again, otherwise, focus on culture improvements first, and then the rest of the city improvements.

Ok, so having said all that, what are the best units to use? Broke up basically by functions of units, this is what i use.

speed units - horeseman, knights, cavelry, tanks

bombard units - catapults, cannons, artillery. in later ages, you needn't bother with any air or sea units, canons or artillery can get the job done better.

defensive units - spearment, pikeman, rifleman, infantry, mech infantry. (yes, skip musketeers. twice as expensive for a unit that doesn't do a better job of defending.)

One last note. If you want to keep the war going longer than 1 turn keep around extra workers. Build roads/railroads to the new front lines. If you've got enough you can build all new roads/railroads in one turn as well, and you can be taking several cities every turn. If you havn't got enough, then you really shouldn't be prolonging the war. If your not taking cities EVERY TURN, it's not an effective war, and war weariness will get you before you've really gained much.

Remember, war is expensive people, so make it count.

	30-08-2002 00:47									#2
	Inflate your Upload Space

That's a pretty good summary, but I have a couple more points to add:

1. Why to start a war:
- You are seriously behind AIs in either territory, population, or technology.
- You need GLs to build wonders.
- You need resources.
- You need room to expand.
- You want to cripple or weaken your enemy.
- An enemy is close to a non-military victory.

2. Benefits of the war:
- Great Leaders: believe it or not, they can help turn the game quickly around, either by building an Army or rushing a Wonder. In Ancient Age: a Swordsman Army is virtually unstoppable.
- New cities and territories. Resources, population, and Wonders usually come along with them. The earlier you capture an enemy city, the more you can get out of this city, and the heavier the damage you deal to your enemy.
- Techs. A submissive enemy will usually give up all its technologies during a peace treaty negotiation.
- Slave workers.

3. Timing of the war:
There are periods in which offensive operations are not very encouraged because of the strong defensive units. I can list about 3 such periods:
- From Gunpowder to Military Tradition. Musketmen's defense of 4 will take a heavy toll on Knights and Longbowmen.
- From Replaceable Parts to Motorized Transportation. Infantry has a defense of 10 vs an offense of only 6. I think that period was very well designed as it symbolizes the stalemate during the WW1.
- From Computer to Synthetic Fibers. The Mechanized Infantry will check the Tanks.

	30-08-2002 01:07									#3
	Got spare money?

Interesting post you two. Speed is also important as it can allow to crush a civ with out culture flipping.

	30-08-2002 01:45									#4
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Due to how the AI spaces their cities, a movement of 3 is generally required to carry out deep strikes. Only 4 units in this game have this kind of mobility: Chinese Rider, Cavalry, German Panzer, and MA.

In one game, I was able to wipe out an entire Civ in 1 turn. I took 19 cities, committed about 130 MAs and 40 Artilleries, and destroyed at least 100 Infantries during the process.

Riders and Cavalries have a drawback in that they can't attack multiple times in the same turn.

	30-08-2002 02:48									#5
	So where did you keep the horseshoes Full PM-box? Change here!

Lord Merciless,

An impressive feat.

I have come close but with a considerablely smaller force. Took me 3 turns using about 30 MA, 16 Artillery and 1 Infantry per city conquered plus 2 to guard the Artillery. The opposition wasn't quite as tough as 100 Infantry, but about 75 with a few Riflemen. I lost 15 MA in the process, mostly to the Riflemen (!?!)... their damn bayonets kept getting stuck in the treads I guess.

Since I had already been at war with their allies, the Romans, for about 18 turns, I wanted to finish them fast. I managed to wrest 16 out of 20 cities from the Japanese, but I was stopped from finishing the job by War Weariness Riots and that the other Civ's had bombed most of the roads and rail lines before I got there. It's fun to see your empire double in size like that and for once I scored a GL. He let me move my Palace in the middle of the new holdings.

Couple of questions: first what map size, and second how long did it take to produce that many MA and when did you start? I usually don't get to MA's until the 1850's or so on Monarch. And even then at 2-3 turns per unit, that must have taken a while. i almost always use a standard map.

One big problem I have found is that usually Artillery and Bombers are useless once the first couple of cities fall: they can't keep up. It would be nice if the MI and RA had better movement to preserve that combined arms team. I usually need about 8 workers to follow the assualt and put down roads and rails so I can at least bring up Infantry or MI to cover the damaged MA's.


D.

	30-08-2002 03:32									#6
	Put an end to popups!

The game setting I was in is the following:
Emperor level,
Huge Map,
Continent,
50% Water,
16 Civs,
Roman.

The game situation is the following:
Year: 1776AD,
Remaining civs: French, Chinese, Japanese.
Number of my cities: 100+
Total MAs available: 215
MAs ready for battle: ~180
Total Tanks: 24
Total Artilleries: 87
Total Infantries: 180

It's quite obvious that I spent a long time playing the game. One turn took about 45 minutes at minimum.

I actually built only a few MAs, and most of them were upgraded from Tanks. I had about 50 cities that were able to produce Tanks in 2 turns, so it would take only 10 turns to generate that many MAs. Also, I had 20k+ gold in my treasury.

I agree with you that Artilleries become useless after taking the border cities.

	30-08-2002 06:50									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: I agree with you that Artilleries become useless after taking the border cities.

If you've got artilleries, you've got railroads. Using lots of workers to zip railroads to the new frontlines, and those artilleries have no problem keeping up.

	30-08-2002 08:43									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Lord Merciless - From Gunpowder to Military Tradition. Musketmen's defense of 4 will take a heavy toll on Knights and Longbowmen.

If you can get ahead on tech though by the time the AI has the muskemen to make your knights obsolete you will have reached Military Tradition by beelineing for it as soon as you get Chivalry. Not easy past Mornarch level though.

quote: - From Replaceable Parts to Motorized Transportation. Infantry has a defense of 10 vs an offense of only 6. I think that period was very well designed as it symbolizes the stalemate during the WW1.

I used to use that period to START my offensive. A stack or two of artillery can pound the heck out a cities defensive units than the infantry take it from the one hit infantry holding it, assuming the AI has infantry.

Now I don't like using artillery except for defense. I prefer using fast units and taking the city intact despite the somewhat higher loss of units.

quote: - From Computer to Synthetic Fibers. The Mechanized Infantry will check the Tanks.

They sure make it hard anyway. Again in that case the best way to take the larger cities is to pound them till the defense is down to one or two hits each.

	30-08-2002 09:16									#9
	Put an end to popups!

If you are going to keep that city you are attacking, AND you have sufficient superiority of forces, then keep bombardment to a minimum so you don't knock out valued city improvements, such as marketplace. Cruise Missiles can be used because they only target defending units, not improvements (or population). Of course, if you feel the need to reduce the population to take the city (or reduce culture flipping), then bombard to the MAX.

Similar strategies are applied to pillaging, depending on the situation. Either pillage/bombard terrain improvements, do it selectively, or keep the improvements and interdict enemy reinforcements with your ground units.

If you are intending to keep a captured city and there is a threat of culture flipping, then take and RAZE neighboring cities whose cultural borders are impinging on your prize city. If in the modern era you may want to build several obsolete, cheap units (e.g., swords or longbows) to squash the resistance. Longbows can then be disbanded for 10 shields. Another (quick) way to rush improvements is to bring in jet fighters and disband them (25 shields each).

	30-08-2002 09:36									#10
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by connorkimbro quote: I agree with you that Artilleries become useless after taking the border cities. If you've got artilleries, you've got railroads. Using lots of workers to zip railroads to the new frontlines, and those artilleries have no problem keeping up.

If the enemy border is 2 to 3 squares deep, there is no way to carry out a quick Artillery attack deep. What I'm talking about here is an attack that will capture more than 10 cities in a single turn. The quicker the attack, the weaker the counterattack and the chance of culture-flippings. Artilleries are too slow in my opinion. But it's an excellent defensive weapon.

	30-08-2002 22:08									#11
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Jaybe,

Using selective bombardment has been in my bag o' tactics from the start: if I can capture a city almost intact, it saves me some serious coin. The only things I want to destroy are their barracks or walls. If most of the irrigation and roads are gone, I can replace them in a couple of turns.

Captured temples and cathedrals still benefit your populations mood despite having to start producing culture again from zero. I would like to have seen some means for Radar Artillery or Cruise Missles to do some fairly accurate strikes so you could pick off specific buildings or units. That would make it better to use combined arms instread of massed Modern Armour units.

D.

	31-08-2002 10:45									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen Captured temples and cathedrals still benefit your populations mood despite having to start producing culture again from zero. D.

There is no such thing as captured temples or cathedrals. ALL non-Wonders that produce culture are automaticly destroyed when a city is captured, including Small Wonders, Libraries, Universities, and Research Labs(or as I think of them Jello Factories because of the way they look). Wonders are not destroyed but they don't produce culture after capture either.

	31-08-2002 21:04									#13
	Got spare money?

"From Replaceable Parts to Motorized Transportation. Infantry has a defense of 10 vs an offense of only 6. I think that period was very well designed as it symbolizes the stalemate during the WW1."

I agree with ethelred. Artillary makes capturing cities much easier. A stack of infantry and artillary together can usually take a city defended by infantry.

	03-09-2002 03:45									#14
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

As I said before, Artillery doesn't encourage quick offensive operations.

	03-09-2002 06:52									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Artillery for offense is only really usefull for a limited timeframe. As soon as tanks show up artillery just slows things down. Then its time time to use bombers if you still need to pound on a city before hitting it with tanks. That period only lasts till Modern Armour. Then NOTHING that bombards can keep up with the three moves Modern Armour IF the enemy has rails or at least roads and you have the workers needed to rail the way to the edge of your new borders with each town you take.

Of course if you have to build the roads as you go bombers can still be advanced fast enough to support the Modern Armour.