The Evolution of Conquest

It seems to me that blitzkrieg warfare is particularly difficult in the early days. It is more than just the lack of railroads. I have sent invasion forces of catapults and other such units to take down an enemy city. If that city has an enemy wall, it is impossible.
If the opponent gets gunpowder, its beyond impossible. Although the game may make them seem like contemporaries, the cannon is not a match against the musketeers.
It seems like, as in real history, you have to lay siege to your enemies cities, and then later after you get railroads and flight, the blitzkrieg comes in. That is the time when you can wipe out an entire civilization in a single turn. Before that, success is far more doubtful. What does everybody else think? Has anyone ever made blitzkrieg effective in early times?

I've come close in the Alexander the Great scenario. Although the cities with walls did slow me down. I would have to put a couple of catapults in hills or mountains next to the city with good defensive units like archers. But I've had decent success with knights on the roads against cities with no walls. I was able to conquer the world in that scenario. I also used tiremes to quickly move my force accross to the other continents. But of course that is far from a howitzer/armor attack with stealth fighter support .

------------------
Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people like me who've been there.

[Ming]

Walls... a problem... nah... That's what diplos are made for.

And army of vet crusaders and diplos can cover ground fast and even take out musketeers. Sure, you lose a bunch of them, but that's war. I see the race to Mono as more than a race for the happiness wonder. I see it as a race to see who get a real mobile army on the board first.

Even an army of vet knights and diplos can be very effective early... you just lose a lot more of them.

If you are willing to take losses, you can take cities.

Actually, I pulled a nice little maneuver before gunpowder just now. I was the Aztecs going up against the Souix. Thankfully, I saw where i could make my attack. There was a mountain RIGHT next to the city. If I moved in with catapults too hastily, they would have picked them off one by one, so put about seven catapults on the mountain, which i had to send in by Trireme. Then when they told me to move it, i declared war. Granted it might have cost me some in reputation, but i figured the Great Wall was worth it since it had kept me from taking the cities they had built in my area. So i guess its possible.

[Smash]

use preworked settlers.They are a god send against walls or The Great Wall.Usually no problem working them into position against the ai

[tobyr]

Hannibal3,
If you like early blitzkreigs, you should consider trying the ToT fantasy game. The seven tribes develop unequal capabilities early in the game, and there are interesting attacking possibilities.

The Infidels, with a small army of elephants, can overwhelm a walled city that is not heavily defended. The stygians can sometimes get out a devastating bunch of barrow wights early in the game. It is also possible to bribe powerful barbarians that are not stopped by walls.

- toby


------------------
toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[DaveV]

The earlier you attack the AI, the less likely you are to see city walls. In my experience, most AI cities have only a couple defenders. For AI cities within one square of a coast, a couple triremes loaded with elephants or crusaders will do the job. If you have to attack over land, you can usually "borrow" the AI's road network. Alternatively, you can put musketeers on some good defensive terrain next to the city. The AI will attack out of the city with any units it thinks are attackers, thinning out its defenses.

[Matthew]

The big disadvantage to early warfare is that time and energy going into attackers could have been spent on settlers.It only takes 60 shields and a bit of time to irrigate to build a city on a mountain, complete with pikeman. Throw in another 40 for a catapult or legion to attack siegers. If you can knock the city off for less than 120 shields, you are very fortunate. Problem is, the nice new city is probably going to have yet another pikeman in it before too long, so you`d better hurry. Oh, and don`t forget the dips. Vet pikemen on mountain tops can be a b%$&%^ when they are behind walls.

[Steve Clark]

Vet Knights and Diplomats is a good way to go against larger (size 6-8) walled cities. Sending in all of the Knights against Phalanx/Archers is suicide. What I did was to send in three Diplomats in one turn, the first sabotaged the Legion it was building, the second took out the temple and the third took out the walls. The next turn, the fourth Diplomat bribed the city since it was now in disorder and thus, instead of costing 1048 to bribe, it was 524, which I had. The Knights hovering around the perimeter (two spaces away) also helped in sending the city in disorder.

Yeah, diplomats are a necessity. Once you take out the walls, theres little chance for the city if you have catapults (provided they don't have musketeers). But I've seen one invasion strategy simply involving a few dozen catapults. I played a game with my uncle once-a Civ I vet- and it was the first time he played Civ II, but he managed to build a massive army of just catapults with several legions behind, and he took out everybody except me before the discovery of gunpowder. Of course, its a lot easier to focus on military when you have another human player focusing on tech and stuff like that. That was also the first time I saw a randomly generated map with a world-encircling continent. So blitzkrieg is possible early on, but its almost never a one-turn war (which are my favorite because its usually my turn)