Siege/city defense

[Sartek]

Maybe it is just becasuse I'm just a /Voob, but I don't find siege very useful. Yeah, they can attack cities from afar, but they rarely hit.

Also, I find that it is too hard to take over a city. I'm still at ancient age (or its equivilant), and one spearman in the enemy city can take on 10 of my archers/warrirors. I throw them at the enemy, but it is essentially tossing them into the meat grinder. Are there more effective units later on, or is there a way to have a group all attack at once?

Thanks for the help

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sartek
Maybe it is just becasuse I'm just a /Voob, but I don't find siege very useful. Yeah, they can attack cities from afar, but they rarely hit.

The key to artillery units is to have lots of them. I usually try to have a stack of 10 of them bombarding a city. And they do get better over time. The Artillery unit can be pretty formidable. Also, those types of untis are more effective in open land, against an enemy stack.

[furrykef]

I'm certainly no expert at Civ3 military tactics (although it appears that you don't need to be, unless you're in MP against somebody who is). But the most obvious point that comes to mind is that cities on hills will be much harder to take. Cities with walls will be troublesome, too, but they're uncommon unless the civ has the Great Wall. Not to mention that a size 7+ city will have automatic walls, but it's rare for an AI city to get that big in the early game; if a city is growing enough that it could easily reach that size, the AI will usually be pumping Settlers and Workers from it instead.

Aside from that stuff, cities themselves provide a defense bonus, depending on the size (for instance the aforementioned size 6-12 = free wall), so naturally a city will be more difficult to take. Warriors aren't much good; I usually use them for early game garrisons, mainly for the police ability rather than defense (and also as explorers if I don't have scouts); if the AI attacks me that early then I'm probably dead whether I have Warriors or Spearmen. Archers are best used against Warriors, and possibly to complement Spearmen garrisons in cities that have a chance of being attacked (because of the free bombardment shot). If you want to take on a city that has Spearmen, try waiting until you have Swordsmen or Horsemen, and take a Spearman or two with you in case you get attacked on the way (and if you don't, you can use them to crush resistance). Swordsmen are good for their higher attacking ability, but Horsemen are often better because of their retreat abilities; a failed attack may weaken the enemy and you might be able to get your unit out of there, heal up, and return!

As for seige units, yes, you need a lot to do much good with them, and of course they need to be guarded. It can be worth it, though, because that means that even though you need more units, yours won't be dying off just trying to soften the enemy up. They're a must against strong defensive units like Hoplites. And of course they too can play garrison in peacetime, just in case somebody tries something sneaky.

- Kef

[:) Smiley]

Siege units are also cheap, and have the added ability of doing economic damage on your enemy by blowing up improvements both in the city and on the terrain.

[steven8r]

Most older artilery units (pre Artilery) have fairly low hit percent. Plus if you are bombarding a city with a Barracks, then any units that you wound will be fully healed the next turn.

The trick to making Arty units successful is numbers. You need to have a stack of enough to pummel the defenders all in 1 turn allowing for misses.

A stack of about 40 should do it. Very few things can stand against such bombardment!

Steven

[Bonaparte]

I love using artillery, better still bombers...if you use enough nothing can stand up to it.

[Theseus]

A neat trick for those stacks of 40 Arty, btw:

* Fortify everything except the stack of Arty.
* Position the crosshair cursor over the target.
* Hold down 'b'.
* Slowly click on the target as many times as you want Arty to fire... space out the clicks by one second or a little more.
* Go do something while the damage and destruction ensues.

Voila! Mass Arty fire.

[Sartek]

ok, thanks. I'll try that tonight

[Sartek]

40??? ok, still building up forces

[furrykef]

Well, you don't have to build that many. It depends on your relative strengths (if your enemy has strong defenses and/or lots of barracks, you'll need 40, if not, probably not so much, more like 20). Remember, building up your army gives your enemy time to build up defenses, especially because they'll be watching you.

BTW, a correction to what I said earlier: size 1-6 towns don't give an intrinsic defense bonus. However, the underlying terrain will, and also fortified units get a 25% defense bonus, so you'll still be at a disadvantage as the attacker as far as the numbers go. Of course, you're at an advantage, too, because their homeland is at risk and yours is not.

- Kef

[pedrojedi]

I usually do not build artillery during the ancient ages... But when I did, I made a huge force composed of horsemen, archers, swordmen, spearmen and catapultmen... And then I just moved it from one to another city, replenishing its lost units with fresh new ones that were already coming from my original cities... 2 or 3 of these are a beautiful vision (for me, of course; a frightful one to the enemy!) to see.

Usual numbers -
5 swordmen
5 archers
5 horsemen
4 spearmen
2-3 catapultmen

Of course, throughout the battles, these numbers change, often to up more.

[CerberusIV]

With C3C it is more important to bring 4-6 catapults with you if the target city has walls since you have a pretty good chance of demolishing them before you attack. Otherwise horses or swords are the way to go.

[furrykef]

I think it depends partly on the scale of the attack and how much you can afford to crank reinforcements. A large-scale attack on several cities which may be well-defended is more likely to need some help from the cats, so your horsemen won't die so much (which hurts you because you need to keep cranking reinforcements which can take some time to arrive). The thing with your horsemen is some will die (and some will retreat with 1 HP and have to heal), sometimes just trying to scratch the enemy, while your cats are safe while they weaken the enemy, and you only risk losses when going for the kill.

To summarize, catapults need larger numbers, seemingly having a higher cost/benefit ratio considering what they do...but you only need to build the cats one time. (If they get captured, you're doing it wrong. ) Of course, if you don't think you'll be warring much, then they probably won't pay for themselves.

- Kef

[bongo]

Sartek, one question. When you lost 10 archers/warriors to a single spearman in a city, did you attack with all in one turn? Cause you really should, attacking one each turn is pure waste, unless you get really lucky...

About those siege units, 3 catapults per spearman is usually a good number. Then you are almost sure to injure all of them.

[Sartek]

yeah, but after each skirmish the defender gained health (barracks?) Also, I tried mass catapults and they miss quite a lot...

[Plotinus]

Originally posted by bongo
attacking one each turn is pure waste, unless you get really lucky...

This is exactly the thing. One spearman can, if he's lucky, pick off as many archers as you choose to send his way, if they're all heading there in a line and attack one by one. He will defeat one and heal in time to take the next. You need to send your forces so they all arrive *at the same time*. Then, the spearman may defeat the first attacker, but he'll lose health and your second attacker will be more likely to kill him. Or the third. Take as many along as you can. If some arrive before the others, make them wait while the troops arrive. If you're worried they might get attacked while they wait, send some spearmen or other defenders along with them to protect them. You'll need defenders anyway, to defend the city when you take it.

[mrmitchell]

yeah, but after each skirmish the defender gained health (barracks?) Also, I tried mass catapults and they miss quite a lot...

Do you mean you did attack in one turn orr you didn't? If they gained health immediately after an attack without a turn inbetween, that means they were promoted (from Regular to Veteran or Veteran to Elite).

The reason to attack all in one turn is that inbetween turns, units can heal. So a 4/4 Archer can die against a 4/4 Spearman after reducing it to 1/4. But inbetween the turns, the Spearman can recover, and bam next turn you have a 4/4 unit to kill again. Whereas in one turn you could've sent an archer that died bringing it down to 1/4, and then a second archer that was already there could've finished it off.

It makes realistic sense, too. Imagine that, during WWII, instead of fast and immediate strikes, Germany lazily sent one or two tanks to the frontlines at a time. The defending nations would have picked them off easily, and then recovered the slight damage they might have suffered (it would be less anyway, as it's easier for 10 tanks to defend against one than 10, right?)

There's no "rule of thumb" for how many offenders to take for every defender the enemy has, because that also depends on what types of units they are (Cavalry, Rifleman, Infantry, Knight?), their HPs, and the defensive bonuses the terrain gets. The best solution is to gather as much force as possible, and attempt to quickly crush them so fast they won't know what just came and kicked their ass.

[Sartek]

does having all of your archers in the same tile mean they will all attack? It doesn't look like it does extra damage, but the white lines at the lower left of the units (showing the # of units there) move w/ it

[Plotinus]

Any given unit will attack only if you directly order it to do so. As long as no unit is moving out of the tile, the white lines showing the numbers there shouldn't change. Of course, if a unit is killed whilst in the stack - perhaps because of an unsuccessful attack on another unit - there is one less in the stack and the white lines will change accordingly. Similarly, if a unit in the stack successfully attacks an enemy and moves onto its tile, there will be one less in the stack.

The point is that you order one unit to attack, and then the next, and so on in quick succession until the enemy is dead (this advice is taken from "Advanced Military Strategies" (c) General Hannibal Barca, Carthage Miltary Manuals Publications 200BC).

[furrykef]

Originally posted by Plotinus
(this advice is taken from "Advanced Military Strategies" (c) General Hannibal Barca, Carthage Miltary Manuals Publications 200BC).

Hmm...I think that copyright might have expired...
But then with the actions of the U.S. Congress to keep extending copyright, who knows?

- Kef

[gunkulator]

Make sure you take advantage of the ancient era's unique offensive advantage: The 3 attack swordman plus the 2 attack w/ retreat horseman vs. the 2 def spearman in a town. Once the Middle Ages start and everyone puts in aqueducts and pikemen, you need a higher ratio of attackers to defenders to win.

In summary: Go to war once you hook up iron and horses.

[bongo]

:hmm: taking a city defended by 1 spearman with 10 archers will work *almost* all the time.

About that white lines under units. You got one per unit, when you attack with one of them it will *look* like all move at once, they don't. Only one unit will attack at a time, unless you have put them in an army.

[steven8r]

Originally posted by Sartek
yeah, but after each skirmish the defender gained health (barracks?) Also, I tried mass catapults and they miss quite a lot...

A couple of observations here:

After attacking/being attacked twice in the same turn, a unit will advance in rank (regular - veteran - elite) thus gaining a few extra health and more 'health available'.

Also, the city/stack defends with the highest defense unit available. If an enemy 'stack' is out in the open, you can rt-clk on the stack and see the number/type of units in the stack. If the units are within an enemy city, only the 'current' defender will show on the list. It is possible for a city to contain many Spearmen (or whichever defending unit), but you will only see 1 at a time. When that 1 gets weakened by your attack, the next best defender will show-up. If the case w/ several Spears, it will look like the Spear gained health, when in fact, it's just a new Spearman taking-on the Defense Duty.

If the town/city has a Barracks in it, all the wounded Defenders will be fully healed the next turn.

Yes, Catapults do miss frequently. That's why you need lots of them to be successful. Assuming the Cat-attack was successful, the 'wounded' defender will 'go to the back of the line' and the next best defender will emerge. You have to have enough Arty units to seriously weaken ALL defenders within a city on the same turn. Then, use your Archers/Swords to attack the 'weakened' defenders.

Trebuchets are better than Catapults, but Artillery doesn't really become awesome until the 'Artillery' unit becomes available at Replaceable Parts. After that point, Arty really ROCKS!!! (Radar Artillery is just more icing on the cake sweetness).

Steven

[:) Smiley]

Catapults can also hit the barracks, thus stopping the annoying full heal. Though, the enemy units will still heal one point per turn.

[MrWhereItsAt]

That is true about Artillery of some kind hitting buildings like the Barracks, but in Conquests the Artillery targets 1. Walls 2. Units of more than 1hp left 3. Improvements in that strict order. If there are still units in the city with more than 1 hp, you will not destroy any improvements except Walls (should there be any).

There was one bug associated with this in v1.00 C3C (any ideas if this was fixed in 1.12 or 1.13?) - if the Great Wall is owned by the civ you are attacking, as that means it looks like the city you are attacking has Walls, the game will try to kill the Walls first. If the GW is there, this will be the first thing destroyed. Moreover, if the GW is elsewhere, Artillery will systematically destroy every improvement in the city (including Wonders, the Palace and FP) trying to get the Walls that aren't really there. Losing the Palace appears not to actually do anything, however.

I have found that 3-6 Catapults is what I send in, and I will usually have to bombard for a few turns before I strike the luck I need to take off enough hp to believe it is worth it. Huge stacks like those mentioned above are certainly useful, but if you can only manage to get a few Artillery units in then that can be worth it too. I couldn't possibly have the patience to deal with more than 40 units of ANY kind at a time in a stack, let alone of Artillery alone. My most powerful Arty stacks have been 20-odd in the Industrial Era, and I have found this will be plenty on Monarch level.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sartek
40??? ok, still building up forces

40 might be a little extreme, but you should have at least 10. The more you have, the more effective they become. Just make sure they're well defended, or you'll lose them all. This is were an Army comes in handy, the AI will seldom attack a stack of artillery units that are defended by one.

[bongo]

Originally posted by Smiley
Catapults can also hit the barracks, thus stopping the annoying full heal. Though, the enemy units will still heal one point per turn.

Units in friendly or neutral territory will heal one hp per turn, units in cities will heal two hp per turn, units in cities with barracks will heal completely in one turn,(armies will heal a max of 4 hp per turn) units in enemy territory will not heal at all unless you have built battlefield medicine, in which case they heal as in friendly/neutral territory. To heal you will have to skip an entire turn(being fortified count as skipping)

This is vanilla civ3/ptw rules. Things are a bit different in c3c, armies heal faster(twice as fast as before I think, except in cities with barracks where they heal completely) I don't know what other changes have been done.

[Capt Dizle]

I just don't find that cats are worth building. I would just go with mounted units. Artillery is a whole new ballgame and if by some quirk I haven't finished the conquista by replaceable parts I'll build a hundred of them.

[Willem]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
I just don't find that cats are worth building. I would just go with mounted units. Artillery is a whole new ballgame and if by some quirk I haven't finished the conquista by replaceable parts I'll build a hundred of them.

The thing is that Bombard units are the cheapest to upgrade, and if you manage them properly, the Catapult you build early in the game will become the Artillery later on. It's probably cheaper to upgrade than to build a bunch of Arty from scratch. It's certainly a lot quicker. By building them right off the bat and continuing to do so throughout the game, you'll have a sizable force by the time you reach Replaceable Parts.