Is anybody using formations and maneuvers?

[rpodos]

I don't know if it's just me, but so far all I have tended to do is send 1-3 stacks directly at enemy cities, troop clusters, or resources. Maybe I use combined arms depending on the situation.

I'm thinking of more sophisticated strategies, including flanking, encirclement, attack from defense, feints, etc.

Think Agincourt... Gaugamela... Salamanca... Beersheba...

Anybody got good ones?

R

[DrFell]

I use more advanced tactics in MP... with the AI there's no real need, as they don't respond intelligently to any maneuvres anyway.

[petey]

One strategy that I've found that works is to send an injured unit or worker out on its own. The AI will send its forces to attack that guy and you won't have to worry about your offensive units getting hit and worn down before they can attack.

Although this isn't technically a strategy and more an exploitation of a programming error, it still works.

[hitchikingalaxy]

i have found that workers are ai military magnets. even if i have 20 modern armors and mech infantary surounding their city, if i let one worker leave my army they will always send out a force to get that worker.
i usually wipe that force out and then continue to pillage, destroy, loot, all in the name of civilization and manifest destiny of course.

[Thrawn05]

I just head for the nearest enemy city like a bungling idiot.

I just send one stack of 30 legionaries to the enemy territory, and destroy them, one city at a time.

[Kuciwalker]

This is my formation: one giant blob of Modern Armor Armies

[DrFell]

Funnily enough, no one would have said this in civ2. No stack kills has just taken some of the intelligence and tactics out of the game.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by DrFell
Funnily enough, no one would have said this in civ2. No stack kills has just taken some of the intelligence and tactics out of the game.

I thought they did, but they just called it "army"?

[Unregistered]

I use formations (mostly for my naval units) & some tactics. But as Dr Fell observed, the 'ai' tactics consists of putting all the offensive units that belong to that civ into one pile & sending them all out in a group to do battle. It is not difficult to defeat this 'tactic'. It was funny the first few times I watched an ai civ march an army of 60 modern armor - primarily vets with maybe 20 elites - through mountains for seven turns to attack a barbarian encampment of two conscript warriors. After that it became sad.

In one game the Chinese declared war on my Germans. I thought I might actually have a fight on my hands as they had about 80 modern armor & 90 cities all on the biggest continent on the map. I had about 50 modern armor & around 60 cities scattered over four seperate land masses. At the start of the war I only had two cities & two colonies on the big continent, and maybe 20 modern armor. One of the cities had an airport, so I started airlifting units into it & filling transports with artillery & cruise missiles to support what I was sure was gonna be a fight that was gonna end up with me muscled off the continent. Well, the bulk of the Chinese offensives were running around in the mountains, maybe 8 moves away from my colonies. The two cities were on the opposite end of the continent, with the entire Chinese empire between them & the colonies. So the entire Chinese offensive army starts heading for my colonies. (I should note that at the start, the Chinese offensives were only two or three turns from reaching their own territory, and through that, my measly two cities) Anyway, to make a long story short (I hope), the Chinese offensives spent about six turns heading for my two colonies. During those six turns I sent three transports of mech infantry, modern armor & artillery over to reinforce the colonies & stripped everything else I could spare from the rest of my empire & airlifted them over to the city with an airport. With this force in those first six turns I took roughly half of the Chinese cities. After those six turns had passed, the Chinese offensives turned away from my colonies & started marching back towards their empire. After six or seven more turns, while all the Chinese modern armor was still marching through the mountains, I took all but one of the remaining Chinese cities that was greater than 5 pop. This left them with around twenty cities. When they finally agreed to see my envoy, they gave me all their cities but their capitol for peace. During the entire war I never directly engaged their main force, so at the end they had one size 6 city supporting an army that included 80 modern armor. The whole mess was disappointing.

I guess the short answer is, yes, I do use tactics, particularly combined arms, but most of the time I'm left with the feeling that it isn't really necessary. As for sophisticated strategies, well...

There must be some simple tweaks that could be made to the ai code to 'smarten' it up a bit more. Even a change along the lines of "No more than 10 (20?) units (offensive??) per tile might help some of this. Of course, that would ideally include giving the ai the ability to focus on more than one objective at a time, which, while not required, would help even more. Of course, I could be wrong.

Anyway, this is about four times longer than I intended, and veering dangerously ot, so I'll shut up now.

Thanks,

[Arrian]

The AI does have trouble recognizing what actually constitutes a threat, and trouble picking targets. Part of the problem is that it's coded to avoid tough fights. This prevents the old CivII "attack the fortified mech inf. in a mountain fort over and over and over" syndrome. At least the CivIII AI will actually threaten you. Sure, the attack is simplistic - a large stack of units that goes straight at a weak city of yours - but it's infinitely better than the CivII AI.

As for tweaks... simple, small things - like if the AI has a bombard unit fortified in a city, and I roll up with a stack of troops, that bombard unit should activate and bombard my stack. Right now they only engage when I attack. If I show up with a large, powerful stack of troops and march toward the AI's core cities, it should attempt to bring all bombard units to bear and then throw everything it's got at the stack. Right now, it looks at that stack with fear, and doesn't do anything about it. So, it loses cities one by one.

-Arrian

[Inverse Icarus]

i often have 4 or 5 large blobs and usually attack all at once, taking 5 cities in one turn. it's fun.

[Kuciwalker]

Another fun strategy involves 60+ ICBM's and is known as AD: Assured Destruction.

[Zachriel]

I use tactics in every game, during war and during peace.

Here is an example on defense:

http://www.crowncity.net/civ3/Defense.htm

And one on attack:

http://www.crowncity.net/civ3/Attack.htm

[rpodos]

Zachriel,

Excellent.

On Defense: What was the trap? I see the kill zone, but what enticed the Aztecs to enter it? The wounded Musketeer? Also, why did attack from the tile to the northeast of Lyons, as opposed to the east, where you already had an elite Musketeer? My guess is that you were unifying forces from Lyons and the mountain fortress, but why didn't you simultaneously launch the attack on Atzcapotzalcoo? Lastly, do I see a Maginot Line?

On Attack: Did you keep the entire stack together, or break into strike teams? If the former, you should also take advantage of the slight defensive benefit provided by forests (and jungles), and moved the stack northwest from the coal, as opposed to west.

I see you are an Army fan... so am I. I'll start a separate thread for that discussion.

R

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by rpodos
On Defense: What was the trap? I see the kill zone, but what enticed the Aztecs to enter it? Lastly, do I see a Maginot Line?

There is a Maginot Line, and instead of attacking it directly, the enemy was looking for a hole, which was conveniently available.

On Attack: Did you keep the entire stack together, or break into strike teams?

A single rifleman took out the iron mine. The rest took Nanking.

I see you are an Army fan... so am I. I'll start a separate thread for that discussion.

I use armies every chance I get.

[rpodos]

So the trap is both the wounded Musketeer and the hole in the line?

R

[Dom Pedro II]

Personally, I never found that the Stacked Kill made strategy any more important in Civ 2. I just found it irritating. It was totally unrealistic. Not to mention the fact that when the AI actually mustered a concentrated attack force, which was almost NEVER, I could just wipe it out with one unit. Not altogether difficult. The only thing the Stacked Kill made me do was usually break the army into two attack groups, which 90% of the time I do in Civ 3 anyway.

[Ninot]

well, my modern formations are VASTLY different from my ancient ones...

mainly because my ancient ones need more structure to work... cuz the units are less able?

As i go to war mostly and only as the Romans in the ancient era, all of my offensive attacks are 3 legionaries in a line, with who knows how much to each stack.

This does two things for me.

1: When a legionary gets hurt, he goes behind the line, and only a flanking horse attack will kill him (that is, if there are no roads).

2: When at the outside of a town, all squares occupied by my troops are denied to the town for food/production/gold.

So, i can heal up any units that are attacked, and deprive cities of whatever i want.


But, in the modern age, i attack mostly only with high speed offense, so Cavalry or Tanks. The defense stays at home, or moves up to cities only after i conquer them.

so in the modern age, i have almost no feeling i must defend retreating units.

so my modern age strategy is to stack as much as possible, so i dont lose a piece of land i want to attack from

however, i still follow step 2 to ancient age attacking. When i get close to a town, i will send out a few units to start choking a town of its food and production. Basically, if im not gonna take the town quickly, i want it to suffer more while im there.

As for how i back up my offenses, well... i might send in a defensive unit guarding some artillery, but they will stay behind the lines (ala ancient era healing units) or move up to the furthest distance neccesary for bombardment.

[Aeson]

I was doing a little history for a game over at CivFanatics. Against the AI there are different tactics you can use to give yourself an edge. In the Ancient Era, Scouts are very valuable...

The Japanese Iron War

[Goatguy]

...When i had my "Carrier battle groups" all around the world. They consisted of 2 carriers(1 w\ bombers, 1 w\ fighters), 8 or 9 battleships, 7 or 8 destroyers, 4 subs, and 2 trasnports loaded w\ tanks!! hehe...try and stop me now! Too bad the aircraft dont work the way that they did its hard for complete airial domination...MUWA HA HA HA

[rpodos]

GG: Yeah, I miss that too. The sheer power. Capturing Moscow and cracking Russia in half. I mostly play early games now.

Aeson: I salute you. That is great... exactly the kind of maneuvering I am trying to learn. I still don;t understand how you deny resources with Scouts.

Ninot: I, too, am learning the power of Rome. Same thing, a skirmishing line of three stacks abreast. Effectively, we are re-creating the phalanx. It's unstoppable. You can run but you can't hide. I'm now trying it across the diamonds, with gaps in between and a trailing force of executioners. This is what Alexander did at Gaugamela. Enemy units won;t attack your primary stacks, and try to slip through to get at the wounded. Bad idea.

R



R

[Giovanni August]

Aeson

That was GREAT

I hope one day I will be be able to do something like that

Saluti

[DrFell]

To deny resources with scouts: cover the resources early on, if you get onto the resource before they get a road on there you can sit in their territory almost indefinitely on top of the resource. They can't get to it without declaring war, which they often won't do. They will whine about your troops being in their land, but that's no big deal and they wont ask you to leave or declare war. I think occasionally they do demand your units to move but you can just head back in there and sit back on the resource. Using this tactic you can stop them from getting say, iron, for long enough for you to build up for a big attack on them, guaranteeing you will only face spearmen and archers at best.

[rpodos]

OK, I get it.

I'm surprised however that the AI doesn't put a unit on the resource while you are gone.

In any case, it sort of feels like an exploit... doesn;t it?

R

[DrFell]

Not really, they can always go to war and claim the resource, anytime (because the scout will be killed by any unit). They won't get many opportunities to get control of the resource as you will be sitting there most of the time - I heard from one person that about once every 20-40 turns they demand you leave, if at all. Either way, every turn your scout is firmly planted on that resource, is a turn your enemy is hurt.

[Inverse Icarus]

Aeson: did the japs actually ACCEPT that peace offer? it seems a bit weighted to me

[Aeson]

Yes they did accept it. There was even another city and some gold per turn in the deal. It was weighted in my favor because of the ratio of my power to theirs. At that point I had destroyed almost all of their army and the city count was ~70 to 12 in my favor. It wasn't a bad a deal for them considering the circumstances.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by rpodos
I'm surprised however that the AI doesn't put a unit on the resource while you are gone.

In any case, it sort of feels like an exploit... doesn;t it?

I think it's an exploit, and have said so in several posts where I've mentioned it. As it isn't against the CivFanatics HOF rules though, I'll use it to increase my score. I definitely don't use it in cases where I'm playing just for fun.

The AI will eventually demand the Scouts removal, but it's not soon enough. On average I would say 40 turns, but that's assuming the player has the power lead as I almost always do. The weaker the AI is in relation to your civ, the longer they seem to let the Scouts stay. When the AI demands the widrawal, they will send a Worker to hook up the resource. Often times the Scout can get back in position before the Worker can get there.

In any case, 40 turns is long enough to get ready to take out an Iron deprived civ.

[DrFell]

Originally posted by UberKruX
Aeson: did the japs actually ACCEPT that peace offer? it seems a bit weighted to me

If you start an early war and beat the AI down to a few cities you can often get all their techs, all their gold, maybe 1 small city, and some gold per turn - I had a one city American empire giving me 20 odd gold per turn (not sure how a size 3 city generated that much). This strategy is what I use to catch up with the AIs on deity as not only does it take out an opponent, but it also strengthens you considerably.

[rpodos]

And here we have yet ANOTHER reason for early war!!

In the Roman game I am currently playing, I finally went on a true punishing campaign with Egypt (up to now I;ve just been oscillating on them).

Cleo had built maybe 20-25 cities at this point, and I had maybe 30.

I razed 5 of her key cities, denying her access to iron and dyes. I wanted to turn my attention to Persia, but when I tried to make peace, she kept refusing to see me.

The problem is, I didn;t change the relative power of our civs ENOUGH.

In very early war, capturing or razing a couple of cities has a much bigger impact on relative power.

So send out those warriors!!

R