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dexters
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Vancouver, Canada
Nov 2001
time: 05:27
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After the latest PTW patch, I'm not sure sure enemy stacks are as stupid as yoiu'd think they are.
First of all, at least in a border conflict, they no longer stack, and I've seen them spread out into several two man teamswith the offense even doing solo into several directions where opportunities present themselves.
In a recent game, the Aztecs launched a surprise attack and moved in pikeman into my territory, pillaging their way through, while their mobile knights and horsemen would pop in and out of their cities to pick off my forces. The use of a defensive unit to wreck havoc in the countryside is obvious. Their defensive advantage makes counterattacks much more difficult and dangerous for my forces. And in given my forces were stretched, I could ill afford sending my defenders to take out the pikeman units since they'd surely be picked off by the roaming mobile units.
granted this was a very specific circumstance, people really should give the AI more credit.
Last edited by dexters on 29-04-2003 at 11:25
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dexters
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Vancouver, Canada
Nov 2001
time: 05:27
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The AI can do 12 to 16 immortals and more.  Depends on their size, and difficulty setting.
But yeah, against a human player, they are more likely to exploit your weakness. And frankly, I think the best offense in this case is a good defense.
Pile up on Spearman + have a small army of Horseman around. Fortify your Spearman in strategic locations (on hills, key road junctions ( in stacks of 3 or 4 or more) Move your horseman out, to attack, and with their remaining mobility, them move them to your defensive positions in either your cities or your fortified spearman stacks.
This allows you to project your force beyond your cities and still keep them safe. And this will wear down their offense. Remember, while you horseman are in their stacks healing, his immortals aren't. And it may force him to attack your spearman stack, not knowing how large it is. If you can force him to do that, you may loose 1 or 2 spearman to his 3 or 4 immortals possibly more + damaged units. The stragglers are then easy pickings for you.
Just be sure to protect your road system. But frankly, if you are outmatched offensively, don't bother with 1 movement offensive units. Go exclusively chariots or horseman to harass the invaders.
This is not a one size fits all strategy, but you know, it is quite adaptable. The key idea here is to have nodes in strategic locations of your territories where you might not have a city. If you can rush workers to build forts, even better.
He really has only 2 options.
1) Bypass your nodes, in which case he may be forced to attack at a less desirable spot.
2) Go head on into it , in which case his offense will take a loss. The question now is, whether his invasion force and economy is large enough to overwhelm you numerically. If he can overwhelm you, then, it's really a more difficult game for you and you're looking to maybe retreating further inland to set up defensive postions in and around your cities to make it costly and time consuming for them to take it, while you get as many units produced as possible, and stretch their resupply lines.
While this is happening, you may then want to route a small force around the flanks of their attack and see if you can surpirse them.
Taking out fresh troops just as they come in to your territory in a scenario where it may take then 4 + turns to get to your cities will quickly weaken his offensive. He may be forced to withdraw and this gives you breathing room.
Last edited by dexters on 29-04-2003 at 11:56
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CerberusIV
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Defensively you should use catapults. They miss a lot when bombarding enemy towns but seem to have a higher success rate against units in the open. Your border cities should contain at least two to four catapults and as many spearmen, more if you can support them. Bombard aggressively. You can bombard the Immortals after they move next to your city and then will automatically bombard them again as they attack. That can take 2 HP off an attacker. Walls, vet spearmen and barracks to heal quickly will do the rest, plus some horsemen to mop up damaged enemy units.
You can do something similar with fortifications at key points if you have construction. That forces the enemy to either assault your border fortifications or have his units damages as he marches past.
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GarP2
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I've had the most success with hitting the Persians en masse as early as possible, especially if they havent connected to the iron yet. I usually try to make this one of my highest priorities with a minimum of expansion preceding it if I see that I'm located next to them (which seems to happen quite a bit). I've had good luck doing this with the Babs bowmen rush when finding myself on a very small continent with the Persians, but I'll bet that horsemen would work well too.
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MrWhereItsAt
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New Year's Resolution: 2005 is the year of Where It's At - come get some.
Nov 2001
time: 17:27
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I had this problem recently - facing (as the Vikings from another landmass, sans Berzerker!) a strong Persia with Immortals. The combination of the above worked wonders. My captured cities (Carthaginian_ had good road networks, and I quickly use Horses to pillage the connections on their side of the border. Then I massed all my Swords, Spears, Catapults and Horses into a placewhere they travelled through - with one square between my stack and the border.
The Persians would move a stack of as much as 5 Immortals in to my lands. I would hit 'em with my 10+ Catapults and weaken them considerably, usually to 2Hp or more (especially by the time I had 20 Catapults there!). Then the Swords would attack and take as many out as possible, gaining lotsa promotions and the odd GL as they did so. The last Immortal/unit there I would hit with Horses until it died, then the Horse would move back safe to the stack. Even if I felt that I couldn't risk the attack on one or two (non-Immortals), the damage would be sufficient to cause the remainder to withdraw to heal. All that was left was to establish a small crappy city nearby with barracks where my troops could retreat to heal.
This was glorious. I must have taken down 20 Immortals this way, and all the while my troops kept massing there (almost no losses). When the tide stopped for a turn, I marched forward - I lost a unit or two in the counterattack, but with so many there it was nothing. I kept this up until I reached a city, then with so many Catapults it was easy to take it and hold it. Bang! No more Iron city for Persia and they fell to pieces.
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29-04-2003 07:37
), you've got a huge advantage on your side. Attack the Immortal stacks with either horsies or slow-movers, but if with slow-movers, make sure you can destroy / severely damage each individual stack or can defeat the last immortal with a fast-mover who will have moivement points after the attack -- with at most only your final victorious unit advancing - perhaps into a tile bordering additional immortals - you leave very, very few units subject to counterattack the next turn. As Arrian and others point out, fighting a "2" immortal (defense value) is a much better proposition than fighting a "4" immortal (attack value).
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