Suicide Wars
After having nearly been wiped out by the Germans and the Russians in my latest game (random everything, standard size, played as the French, Regent) I noticed that it was more effective to not let the enemy get small, new cities. After all, if you don’t own it why should the comp? Not only do these act as troop building centers, they also let the comp bring troops there and use them as staging centers for a war. If you have a barracks in the city, the enemy can even upgrade those units. What happened to me was this (I came in a close third in overall ranking, behind Russia and Germany) I started on a small continent with the English to the north, wiped them out early on, they only had one city, then went up the tech tree to map making, got the great light house built a galley, crossed over to another continent started my empire there. My homeland turned out not to have any resource other than horses so I was screwed in that. Later I did get coal but only in one place and it ran out shortly thereafter. The new continent I had settled had the Germans and Russians on it I didn’t find the other civs until later on and they didn’t bug me. After I had some eight cities on the continent- Middle ages me three techs ahead of everyone else, had +80 a turn (science at 90%) they allied and got a military alliance against me. After they had three cities, I noticed that all they built were troops. so next time one of my cities was about to be conquered (my biggest and best one on the continent, pop. 8) I sold every improvement and moved all my units out. I had them pillage all the tile improvements. Since I had lots of money to spare I rushed a settler and got away quite free. Now it was a pop. 6 city with nothing The comp still got the city but I lost no troops and managed to hold on to my other cities. That way the comp didn’t get any decent advantage and eventually I absorbed the city through culture. This approach doesn’t work if you need the city intact and plan to conquer it back in three turns but if you don’t want the comp to get a production warehouse do what I did. You’ll also get the city back through culture a handful of turns later plus whatever garrison the comp put in. if you are really close to losing a small city try rushing settlers and workers until the game asks you whether or not you want to disband city. That way u get the pop in units and can move it elsewhere. Sell improvements before moving pop so that you get extra gold. Especially important is to sell temples and other culture buildings so as to let the neighboring cities convert the city u just lost with great ease. Also, move out troops if you absolutely know that you’ll lose the city. The units will be best of protecting some other city. I generally garrison with swordsmen 3.2.1 because they’re just as good as spearmen in defense and can actually counter attack. Middle ages its knights 4.3.2, then its infantry in the industrial 8.12.2 or earlier it’s riflemen 3.6.1, paratrooper 8.10.1 or more likely the marine 10.8.1 (see the picture), modern its always either mech infantry 12.20.3 or the modern armor (more likely) 24.16.3. This will work really well in multiplayer (if those SOBs at Firaxis get a multiplayer patch or something.)
