Post by friedrichpsitalon on Nov 11, 2005 17:35:51 GMT -5
The Fine Art of the Siege – Of Defending and Capturing Cities
One of the most common complaints issued about combat in CIV to date is that cities are much harder targets to capture than in C3C. This is, in part, a true statement – for a novice player, cities are much more challenging in CIV. In C3C, there was a simple bonus – the town was either there, or on a hill, or behind a river, and either size 6, 12, or 24. No magic to it. A simple, single bonus – walls or no walls, qualified by size or not, end of discussion. Defeating such a town was also a very simple task – build a single, massive stack of units, drive directly towards the city, hammer it down, and you’re done.
As many players have discovered in CIV, such a strategy gains you the title of “The Butcher” and amuses the defending nation greatly. While combat as a whole is more complicated and deep in CIV, the art of the siege is even more complicated still. This article, then, focuses on the fine art of taking what isn’t yours – or on keeping your neighbor’s mitts off your hard-built cities.
Of Advantages and Disadvantages
In considering the whole question of siege, we should probably examine all the factors involved in the equation.
Attacker’s Advantages
When one launches an attack against an opponent, there are certain significant advantages/major bonuses it is important to consider and capitalize on. These include:
- City Attack promotions
- Bombardment
- Collateral Damage against a single tile target
- Ability to choose the time and place of your attack
- Ability to split your forces as needed
- Initiative and Surprise
Now let us consider how to make the most of each of these unique advantages.
The City Attack promotion change is absolutely vital for anyone planning a siege on a major target. An aggressive group lacking these promotions, faced with an opponent who is using the City Defense promotions, is certain to take grisly losses that could have been avoided. Consider the knight with his strength of 10: with City Attack 3, he strikes with a value of 17.5; better than an unpromoted cavalry! That same knight, though, with Combat 3, only strikes with a value of 13. The difference between those two values can easily shift a battle from defeat to victory.
Bombardment is largely mandatory for any player who is facing a “hard target.” A city with Walls is bad enough, but a major cultural center or a Castle-guarded town is tremendously difficult to take without bombardment. (Consider a Longbow’s base value behind a castle – 15 – before any City Defense or other promotions!) Siege units (catapult, cannon, artillery) and bombers are capable of lowering this value by bombardment, thankfully. In fact, over the course of two turns, four or five properly promoted catapults could reduce the defensive bonus of that Castle to nothing at all! Much like the City Attack promotions, players without catapults are simply throwing a potential advantage away when facing a city with a major defensive bonus.
Collateral damage is a major advantage to a properly prepared attacker. Along with their bombardment ability, siege units and bombers can actually attack a stack of units to great effect – they are able to damage more units in the tile than simply the one defending. The trade-off here is that siege units are low strength units for their era of development, and so quite likely to lose while inflicting their collateral damage. For that reason, some players favor Combat promotions (so you can use them in the field with better success rates), and some favor City Attack promotions (more likely to survive.) Many players accept the probable loss of the unit, however, and place their promotions into Barrage – thereby increasing the collateral damage done. Since you can be certain that your opponent is going to have units stacked in the single city tile, using Collateral Damage units is a vital part of any strategy which involves a city with many defenders.
Never forget that an attacker has the advantage of knowing what he actually plans to attack; this is not the minor point of trivia that many players think it to be. Many players make the mistake of assuming that once you have begun an attack, you are committed to finishing it. This is not the case; if you can see that the attack is clearly going to fail, consider your options. Can you still reach the safety of neutral territory? Would it be better to pick a tile near your target and fortify until reinforcements arrive? Can you divert to another target? Simply smashing in a suicidal manner into a target that turned out to be too hard is foolish. Also consider the value of feints and redirection – if your opponent reacts with great force to a quick-moving pillager group on one end of his empire, he may be ill-prepared to stop a major assault at the other end. It may also be possible to simply march past one town, if it is too well-fortified, for another, weaker town. Remember that defenders can move from town to town, but fortifications cannot: a defender with 5 archers in a hill-and-wall town is extremely imposing to 5 swordsmen. Those 5 archers, if forced to defend a new town on the open plains because the swordsmen marched past the hilltop town, would fare much more poorly.
An intelligent attacker will also realize that collateral damage works both ways, and that if he attacks with one “superstack,” his own forces may be seriously menaced by siege gear. Unlike the defender, though, who must remain tied to his city, the attacker can split his forces as needed. Instead of one major force, bring two. Have a force march across hilltops, guarded by Archers/Longbows with the mountaineer promotion, and another force moving through the forests, guarded by units with the Woodsman promotion. The defender will be forced to commit his siege attacks to one stack or the other, and while one stack suffers damage, the other will be completely unharmed. If the defender strikes at both stacks, he does so in weaker quantities, and your units will be able to heal while resting and waiting for your own siege equipment to batter down the enemy fortifications.
Finally, an attacker should not underestimate the value of keeping the initiative and surprising your enemy. Unless your goal is to grind down the enemy units (perhaps to weaken a foe for a teammate’s assault), it is much better to strike unexpectedly. An assault generally goes through five phases, and it is important that you not be detected until the proper time.
Phase 1 Scouting
In the first phase of an attack, an aggressor is simply scouting out his foe – perhaps a scout, explorer, or twice-terrain-promoted unit is exploring the enemy land, avoiding fighting as much as possible. Here, your goal is to get a feel for the enemy’s defensive composition – are they using axes, archers, mounted units? What do they appear to be guarding with? Is there a road network which will need to be pillaged or accounted for? Obviously, it is impossible to avoid detection in this phase (save perhaps for submarines or spies) but scouting for a major assault can be interpreted as many things; pillaging, even simple harassment by an obsolete unit. Whenever possible, try to keep your scouting unit alive as long as possible into the later phases; throwing away a unit is never wise, and the longer your information about your opponent remains “up to date” the better your position will be.
Phase 2 Development
This phase is all internal. This may involve the changing of civics or the construction of a barracks before beginning unit buildup, but the main function of this timeframe is simply to gather as many units as is possible in a reasonable timeframe. The two most important factors to consider during this period are the composition of units, and the length of time available for the buildup. The longer you spend building up, the more likely you are to be detected, and the more the threat of your troops becoming obsolete looms. Many new players make the grave mistake of putting their stack of units on the border of their empire as they are assembling it – resist this temptation! If your opponent is doing any scouting of your lands, or even simply exploring your borders, the sight of your stack will completely ruin any surprise, and may even provoke a counterattack before you are ready.
Typically, it is a good idea to make sure one or two units in your stack carry the Medic I promotion (reached by Combat I) to help counteract damage in the field. Additionally, a player should try to include one unit of each type to ensure some protection exists against all forms of counterattack. Then, based on what you discovered in Phase 1, assemble a force most suited to defeating your opponent’s forces. Axe-heavy defense forces (popular for repelling barbarians) are very vulnerable to mounted attacks, while ranged-heavy forces are in danger from melee units – especially swords. Although facing a defender with a purely one-type defensive force is quite rare, it is entirely possible to “slant” one’s force composition to match a foe. Use the Power graph to judge when you have a large enough army, remembering that your own defensive forces are contributing to your power numbers as well. Typically, 1.5 times the number of expected hostile units is enough, although you may wish to vary this number up or down based on the promotions carried by each side.
Phase 3 – Approach
If your opponent has not discovered your stack of units during its construction, this phase is crucial. Send a vanguard before your army – one or two units at most – to scan ahead for sentinels. (Your scouts from Phase 1 can also serve this purpose if they have survived long enough.) The purpose of the vanguard is to clear any sentinels out of the way (or allow your stack to avoid being discovered altogether) for your army. Ideally, escaping detection is best, since a player may not even realize an attack is coming. If evasion is impossible, it is far better than the defending player see one or two units killing his sentinel than the full force that is coming; he may again simply assume that harassment is going on, and respond poorly, if at all.
There are several ways to use a vanguard – perhaps the best among these is a mounted unit with sentry; often these units can see opposing units at longer ranges than the opposition. They can then skirt around using their superior mobility and find a way past the sentinel. If your stack is moving down the coastline, a single boat can perform this function (again, sentry is an ideal promotion), but take care to remember that sight is longer on coastlines for both the vanguard and the sentinel. Less ideal is a unit with woodsman or guerilla II, since they can still move swiftly, but only on specific terrains. If you have no other choice, a standard walking unit will do – but you will have to accept being seen by the sentinel as certainly as you see them. This is still preferable to having one’s main force detected, however.
Phase 4 – Invasion
A player has two potential options when actually entering enemy territory with an invasion force. One can strike quickly and with maximum surprise, or strike from such an angle as to obscure one’s target as much as possible. Both attacks should begin the same; moving into enemy territory with as little warning as possible and along favorable territory. A quick strike should start as close to the target city as possible, ideally allowing siege within 1-2 turns of invasion. Quick strikes are preferable when the opponent’s road network is very strong and there are considerable reinforcements available, given enough time. (A player with 3 units per city can easily pull two of them from every other city to reinforce a threatened one, given enough time.)
An obscure attack usually starts at the midway point between two potential targets, ideally no more than 3-4 turns from either. This attack is best when your opponent’s road network is poor and he has compensated for this by loading a great deal of their troops into forward cities. By forcing your opponent to defend two possible targets as long as possible (by not committing to one or the other, and staying midway between both while advancing) you split the defensive reinforcements in half. If their road network is poor, when you finally commit to attacking one city, the defenders in the other will not be able to respond in time.
Phase 5 – Siege
Presently, you will arrive at your target, with your forces more or less intact. (Hopefully, anyhow.) If you have moved in with two forces, it is important that they arrive at the same time – or that the force containing your siege equipment arrives early. As soon as possible, begin knocking down the defensive bonus the town enjoys. Ideally, your units outside the town may be able to rest while the siege units are working for a turn or two – which is excellent if you have a unit with Medic I around. Many times, though, opposing units (possibly collateral-damage enhanced catapults) will be hammering at your stack, and the Medic I is useful to keep your units near “break-even.” If you have fast-moving units to spare at this point that would not be great for attacking the city (mounted units or perhaps a longbow with a terrain promotion) send them around to try and cut roads leading to the city; anything you can do to stop reinforcements from arriving is a good idea. Hopefully after no more than three turns, the defense value of the opposing city has been cut to zero or close to it. At this point, you are ready to actually attack and capture the town. Whether you choose to attack first with your catapults to soften the enemy units (and risk losing the catapults) or proceed directly with the main assault using City Attack units is up to the player, but judgment should be exercised. If you expect a large reinforcement force coming, use your City Attack units first and save the catapults for collateral damage against the reinforcements. (City Attack units, after all, enjoy no bonuses defending a city!) If the town is imposing with the number of defenders, or all reinforcements have already arrived, consider striking with your catapults first, so that your City Attack units have an easier time, and can potentially strike again immediately the following turn.
Defender’s Advantages
With everything available for the attacker’s use, one could start to wonder if the task of defending one’s cities is possible at all! The key to a proper defense, much like a proper attack, is intelligent, careful use of the tools available for your protection. Many players make the mistake of assuming that defense is simple because the most basic strategy – throw lots of units at the problem – is a lot more successful for a defender than an attacker. As we have seen above, though, attackers have quite a few dangerous options available, and defenders must be equally cunning to survive. The tools available to a defender include:
- City Defense promotions
- Collateral Damage counterattacks (healing time)
- Cultural/Structural defense bonus
- Superior Reaction/Reinforcement Time
- Intelligent City Sites
- Perfect Reconnaissance Information
Just as City Attack promotions favor an attacker, City Defense promotions are a very important “first line” for defending units. These promotions are higher in value than City Attack, because most units that have this promotion available are lower in strength value than the corresponding City Attack units. (Archer 3/Sword 6, Longbow 6/Macemen 8, etc.) These promotions are the reasons specific units are favored for defense roles – an axe with his best defensive promotion (Combat) is not as effective with the same number of promotions as an archer is (City Defense) with his own.
Unless the attacker is being truly maniacal, he probably has his units built into one or two stacks. These units are ripe for being struck by collateral damage units. (This is one reason that attacking China in the early medieval period can be suicidal.) Hammering a few siege units into an oncoming stack as it enters your territory can be quite beneficial. Your units that survive can retreat and heal; enemy units advancing do not heal at all (unless they have March) and even then, they heal very slowly compared to friendly units sitting inside a city. Having a small reserve of siege equipment, even if you have no interest in going to war, is always wise – it can seriously blunt an oncoming attack, especially if you have already eliminated any vanguard that may be coming. Take care, though; besieging an oncoming stack too soon may actually lead to it retreating and healing before coming back. Be ready to chase down and finish off injured units if your spoiling attack with siege equipment is a little too successful.
One of the largest bonuses a defender enjoys – though also the most fragile – is the bonus that comes from either a cultural or structural presence. Cultural defense bonuses are probably not something that can be hurried except in unusual circumstances, but they are effective against all units, pre-and-post gunpowder. Structural defense bonuses (walls or castles) can be put together very quickly, but every unit from gunpowder on ignores this bonus. Remember, though, that you either enjoy the cultural bonus OR the structural one, whichever is higher, and not both! The only exception to this is the wonder Chichen Itza, which adds 25% to the highest value, whichever it may be. The culture/structure bonus can be a tremendous asset if your opponent fails to bring siege equipment to bring it down. An longbow behind castle walls will easily crush a knight, while a longbow in a naked city might not survive at all. It is imperative, then, to try and stop siege equipment from reaching your towns. If an opponent is moving in two stacks, and guards his siege equipment poorly, strongly considering counterattacking the siege stack before they both arrive – many attacks that would be dangerous if your defense bonus was gone are jokes if your defense bonus is completely intact.
Many players realize the importance of road networks, but strangely, players fall all the time because of a lack of proper road infrastructure. This does not mean simply having a road from your capital to every city in your empire, in an asterisk fashion. This means having an empire with roads like a wheel – spokes leading into the center, and roads on the outside edge, connecting outer cities to one another. If a neighboring city is under attack, but reinforcing units have to travel to the capital to get on the proper road to get to the city that is threatened, it is quite likely that the units will arrive too late! Being able to reinforce swiftly is one of the biggest advantages a defender has; while the attacker has only the invasion force he brought with him (unless the battle is for a border city and the attacker has excellent infrastructure), the defender has the ability to reinforce quickly with brand new units. Again, not being able to send these units on the fastest possible route to the conflict is a grave waste of defender’s advantage. Similarly, it is important that an intelligent defender lay roads a tile or two beyond his cities in the direction of the frontier. This gives them the ability to strike out from a city at an approaching opponent and retreat safely to the city to regroup before the main assault; something which can be critical for whittling down an imposing foe, or smashing exposed catapults.
One of the most useful techniques a defender has in protecting his holdings comes from a defensive consideration that must have taken place long before actual conflict takes place; a wise defender will make sure that his cities have been cited with defensive considerations in mind. The best defensive placement for a town is on a hill, but there are many other factors that make for an excellent site for a city. Having a river directly before your city does more than provide a health bonus; units attacking across it will suffer a significant penalty, one that no amount of siege equipment can remove. Workers can also take care to remove all forest and jungle from tiles facing towards a possible attack; this makes certain that attackers will have to cross the worst possible terrain for an aggressor – flat, open land. If possible, setting your in such a location so that there are few tiles leading to it (such as a bottleneck) is also an excellent idea; thereby cutting down on the number of squares for an attacker to strike from, increasing the effectiveness of defensive catapults.
Last – and certainly not least – never take into consideration the advantage that perfect reconnaissance information grants the defender. An attacker only knows what his units in the area can tell him, and this may not be much. Take advantage of this fact; you may be able to bait an attacker into attacking a city with much stronger fortifications (structural/cultural) that shows very few defenders, only to move a large garrison force into place in the final moment. Your “ambushed” attacker now faces an unpleasant decision – attack this city with its strong fortifications and numerous defenders, or leave for another city location, risking more attacks to the his units and potentially even more battles ahead at the less-fortified city site. Knowing the exact composition of the attacking force is a very handy tool, one that the attacker cannot duplicate unless you allow him to see your entire force; something only to be done at the final battle, after the baiting and dancing has come to an end.
It has been said many times, and this will not be the last: the nature of combat in Civilization IV is vastly different than C3C; far more than it would appear on the surface. Random, raging hordes will be butchered, but careful, intelligent, surgical combat will be rewarded. The reckless days of C3C combat are over – the cunning days of CIV combat are begun.
One of the most common complaints issued about combat in CIV to date is that cities are much harder targets to capture than in C3C. This is, in part, a true statement – for a novice player, cities are much more challenging in CIV. In C3C, there was a simple bonus – the town was either there, or on a hill, or behind a river, and either size 6, 12, or 24. No magic to it. A simple, single bonus – walls or no walls, qualified by size or not, end of discussion. Defeating such a town was also a very simple task – build a single, massive stack of units, drive directly towards the city, hammer it down, and you’re done.
As many players have discovered in CIV, such a strategy gains you the title of “The Butcher” and amuses the defending nation greatly. While combat as a whole is more complicated and deep in CIV, the art of the siege is even more complicated still. This article, then, focuses on the fine art of taking what isn’t yours – or on keeping your neighbor’s mitts off your hard-built cities.
Of Advantages and Disadvantages
In considering the whole question of siege, we should probably examine all the factors involved in the equation.
Attacker’s Advantages
When one launches an attack against an opponent, there are certain significant advantages/major bonuses it is important to consider and capitalize on. These include:
- City Attack promotions
- Bombardment
- Collateral Damage against a single tile target
- Ability to choose the time and place of your attack
- Ability to split your forces as needed
- Initiative and Surprise
Now let us consider how to make the most of each of these unique advantages.
The City Attack promotion change is absolutely vital for anyone planning a siege on a major target. An aggressive group lacking these promotions, faced with an opponent who is using the City Defense promotions, is certain to take grisly losses that could have been avoided. Consider the knight with his strength of 10: with City Attack 3, he strikes with a value of 17.5; better than an unpromoted cavalry! That same knight, though, with Combat 3, only strikes with a value of 13. The difference between those two values can easily shift a battle from defeat to victory.
Bombardment is largely mandatory for any player who is facing a “hard target.” A city with Walls is bad enough, but a major cultural center or a Castle-guarded town is tremendously difficult to take without bombardment. (Consider a Longbow’s base value behind a castle – 15 – before any City Defense or other promotions!) Siege units (catapult, cannon, artillery) and bombers are capable of lowering this value by bombardment, thankfully. In fact, over the course of two turns, four or five properly promoted catapults could reduce the defensive bonus of that Castle to nothing at all! Much like the City Attack promotions, players without catapults are simply throwing a potential advantage away when facing a city with a major defensive bonus.
Collateral damage is a major advantage to a properly prepared attacker. Along with their bombardment ability, siege units and bombers can actually attack a stack of units to great effect – they are able to damage more units in the tile than simply the one defending. The trade-off here is that siege units are low strength units for their era of development, and so quite likely to lose while inflicting their collateral damage. For that reason, some players favor Combat promotions (so you can use them in the field with better success rates), and some favor City Attack promotions (more likely to survive.) Many players accept the probable loss of the unit, however, and place their promotions into Barrage – thereby increasing the collateral damage done. Since you can be certain that your opponent is going to have units stacked in the single city tile, using Collateral Damage units is a vital part of any strategy which involves a city with many defenders.
Never forget that an attacker has the advantage of knowing what he actually plans to attack; this is not the minor point of trivia that many players think it to be. Many players make the mistake of assuming that once you have begun an attack, you are committed to finishing it. This is not the case; if you can see that the attack is clearly going to fail, consider your options. Can you still reach the safety of neutral territory? Would it be better to pick a tile near your target and fortify until reinforcements arrive? Can you divert to another target? Simply smashing in a suicidal manner into a target that turned out to be too hard is foolish. Also consider the value of feints and redirection – if your opponent reacts with great force to a quick-moving pillager group on one end of his empire, he may be ill-prepared to stop a major assault at the other end. It may also be possible to simply march past one town, if it is too well-fortified, for another, weaker town. Remember that defenders can move from town to town, but fortifications cannot: a defender with 5 archers in a hill-and-wall town is extremely imposing to 5 swordsmen. Those 5 archers, if forced to defend a new town on the open plains because the swordsmen marched past the hilltop town, would fare much more poorly.
An intelligent attacker will also realize that collateral damage works both ways, and that if he attacks with one “superstack,” his own forces may be seriously menaced by siege gear. Unlike the defender, though, who must remain tied to his city, the attacker can split his forces as needed. Instead of one major force, bring two. Have a force march across hilltops, guarded by Archers/Longbows with the mountaineer promotion, and another force moving through the forests, guarded by units with the Woodsman promotion. The defender will be forced to commit his siege attacks to one stack or the other, and while one stack suffers damage, the other will be completely unharmed. If the defender strikes at both stacks, he does so in weaker quantities, and your units will be able to heal while resting and waiting for your own siege equipment to batter down the enemy fortifications.
Finally, an attacker should not underestimate the value of keeping the initiative and surprising your enemy. Unless your goal is to grind down the enemy units (perhaps to weaken a foe for a teammate’s assault), it is much better to strike unexpectedly. An assault generally goes through five phases, and it is important that you not be detected until the proper time.
Phase 1 Scouting
In the first phase of an attack, an aggressor is simply scouting out his foe – perhaps a scout, explorer, or twice-terrain-promoted unit is exploring the enemy land, avoiding fighting as much as possible. Here, your goal is to get a feel for the enemy’s defensive composition – are they using axes, archers, mounted units? What do they appear to be guarding with? Is there a road network which will need to be pillaged or accounted for? Obviously, it is impossible to avoid detection in this phase (save perhaps for submarines or spies) but scouting for a major assault can be interpreted as many things; pillaging, even simple harassment by an obsolete unit. Whenever possible, try to keep your scouting unit alive as long as possible into the later phases; throwing away a unit is never wise, and the longer your information about your opponent remains “up to date” the better your position will be.
Phase 2 Development
This phase is all internal. This may involve the changing of civics or the construction of a barracks before beginning unit buildup, but the main function of this timeframe is simply to gather as many units as is possible in a reasonable timeframe. The two most important factors to consider during this period are the composition of units, and the length of time available for the buildup. The longer you spend building up, the more likely you are to be detected, and the more the threat of your troops becoming obsolete looms. Many new players make the grave mistake of putting their stack of units on the border of their empire as they are assembling it – resist this temptation! If your opponent is doing any scouting of your lands, or even simply exploring your borders, the sight of your stack will completely ruin any surprise, and may even provoke a counterattack before you are ready.
Typically, it is a good idea to make sure one or two units in your stack carry the Medic I promotion (reached by Combat I) to help counteract damage in the field. Additionally, a player should try to include one unit of each type to ensure some protection exists against all forms of counterattack. Then, based on what you discovered in Phase 1, assemble a force most suited to defeating your opponent’s forces. Axe-heavy defense forces (popular for repelling barbarians) are very vulnerable to mounted attacks, while ranged-heavy forces are in danger from melee units – especially swords. Although facing a defender with a purely one-type defensive force is quite rare, it is entirely possible to “slant” one’s force composition to match a foe. Use the Power graph to judge when you have a large enough army, remembering that your own defensive forces are contributing to your power numbers as well. Typically, 1.5 times the number of expected hostile units is enough, although you may wish to vary this number up or down based on the promotions carried by each side.
Phase 3 – Approach
If your opponent has not discovered your stack of units during its construction, this phase is crucial. Send a vanguard before your army – one or two units at most – to scan ahead for sentinels. (Your scouts from Phase 1 can also serve this purpose if they have survived long enough.) The purpose of the vanguard is to clear any sentinels out of the way (or allow your stack to avoid being discovered altogether) for your army. Ideally, escaping detection is best, since a player may not even realize an attack is coming. If evasion is impossible, it is far better than the defending player see one or two units killing his sentinel than the full force that is coming; he may again simply assume that harassment is going on, and respond poorly, if at all.
There are several ways to use a vanguard – perhaps the best among these is a mounted unit with sentry; often these units can see opposing units at longer ranges than the opposition. They can then skirt around using their superior mobility and find a way past the sentinel. If your stack is moving down the coastline, a single boat can perform this function (again, sentry is an ideal promotion), but take care to remember that sight is longer on coastlines for both the vanguard and the sentinel. Less ideal is a unit with woodsman or guerilla II, since they can still move swiftly, but only on specific terrains. If you have no other choice, a standard walking unit will do – but you will have to accept being seen by the sentinel as certainly as you see them. This is still preferable to having one’s main force detected, however.
Phase 4 – Invasion
A player has two potential options when actually entering enemy territory with an invasion force. One can strike quickly and with maximum surprise, or strike from such an angle as to obscure one’s target as much as possible. Both attacks should begin the same; moving into enemy territory with as little warning as possible and along favorable territory. A quick strike should start as close to the target city as possible, ideally allowing siege within 1-2 turns of invasion. Quick strikes are preferable when the opponent’s road network is very strong and there are considerable reinforcements available, given enough time. (A player with 3 units per city can easily pull two of them from every other city to reinforce a threatened one, given enough time.)
An obscure attack usually starts at the midway point between two potential targets, ideally no more than 3-4 turns from either. This attack is best when your opponent’s road network is poor and he has compensated for this by loading a great deal of their troops into forward cities. By forcing your opponent to defend two possible targets as long as possible (by not committing to one or the other, and staying midway between both while advancing) you split the defensive reinforcements in half. If their road network is poor, when you finally commit to attacking one city, the defenders in the other will not be able to respond in time.
Phase 5 – Siege
Presently, you will arrive at your target, with your forces more or less intact. (Hopefully, anyhow.) If you have moved in with two forces, it is important that they arrive at the same time – or that the force containing your siege equipment arrives early. As soon as possible, begin knocking down the defensive bonus the town enjoys. Ideally, your units outside the town may be able to rest while the siege units are working for a turn or two – which is excellent if you have a unit with Medic I around. Many times, though, opposing units (possibly collateral-damage enhanced catapults) will be hammering at your stack, and the Medic I is useful to keep your units near “break-even.” If you have fast-moving units to spare at this point that would not be great for attacking the city (mounted units or perhaps a longbow with a terrain promotion) send them around to try and cut roads leading to the city; anything you can do to stop reinforcements from arriving is a good idea. Hopefully after no more than three turns, the defense value of the opposing city has been cut to zero or close to it. At this point, you are ready to actually attack and capture the town. Whether you choose to attack first with your catapults to soften the enemy units (and risk losing the catapults) or proceed directly with the main assault using City Attack units is up to the player, but judgment should be exercised. If you expect a large reinforcement force coming, use your City Attack units first and save the catapults for collateral damage against the reinforcements. (City Attack units, after all, enjoy no bonuses defending a city!) If the town is imposing with the number of defenders, or all reinforcements have already arrived, consider striking with your catapults first, so that your City Attack units have an easier time, and can potentially strike again immediately the following turn.
Defender’s Advantages
With everything available for the attacker’s use, one could start to wonder if the task of defending one’s cities is possible at all! The key to a proper defense, much like a proper attack, is intelligent, careful use of the tools available for your protection. Many players make the mistake of assuming that defense is simple because the most basic strategy – throw lots of units at the problem – is a lot more successful for a defender than an attacker. As we have seen above, though, attackers have quite a few dangerous options available, and defenders must be equally cunning to survive. The tools available to a defender include:
- City Defense promotions
- Collateral Damage counterattacks (healing time)
- Cultural/Structural defense bonus
- Superior Reaction/Reinforcement Time
- Intelligent City Sites
- Perfect Reconnaissance Information
Just as City Attack promotions favor an attacker, City Defense promotions are a very important “first line” for defending units. These promotions are higher in value than City Attack, because most units that have this promotion available are lower in strength value than the corresponding City Attack units. (Archer 3/Sword 6, Longbow 6/Macemen 8, etc.) These promotions are the reasons specific units are favored for defense roles – an axe with his best defensive promotion (Combat) is not as effective with the same number of promotions as an archer is (City Defense) with his own.
Unless the attacker is being truly maniacal, he probably has his units built into one or two stacks. These units are ripe for being struck by collateral damage units. (This is one reason that attacking China in the early medieval period can be suicidal.) Hammering a few siege units into an oncoming stack as it enters your territory can be quite beneficial. Your units that survive can retreat and heal; enemy units advancing do not heal at all (unless they have March) and even then, they heal very slowly compared to friendly units sitting inside a city. Having a small reserve of siege equipment, even if you have no interest in going to war, is always wise – it can seriously blunt an oncoming attack, especially if you have already eliminated any vanguard that may be coming. Take care, though; besieging an oncoming stack too soon may actually lead to it retreating and healing before coming back. Be ready to chase down and finish off injured units if your spoiling attack with siege equipment is a little too successful.
One of the largest bonuses a defender enjoys – though also the most fragile – is the bonus that comes from either a cultural or structural presence. Cultural defense bonuses are probably not something that can be hurried except in unusual circumstances, but they are effective against all units, pre-and-post gunpowder. Structural defense bonuses (walls or castles) can be put together very quickly, but every unit from gunpowder on ignores this bonus. Remember, though, that you either enjoy the cultural bonus OR the structural one, whichever is higher, and not both! The only exception to this is the wonder Chichen Itza, which adds 25% to the highest value, whichever it may be. The culture/structure bonus can be a tremendous asset if your opponent fails to bring siege equipment to bring it down. An longbow behind castle walls will easily crush a knight, while a longbow in a naked city might not survive at all. It is imperative, then, to try and stop siege equipment from reaching your towns. If an opponent is moving in two stacks, and guards his siege equipment poorly, strongly considering counterattacking the siege stack before they both arrive – many attacks that would be dangerous if your defense bonus was gone are jokes if your defense bonus is completely intact.
Many players realize the importance of road networks, but strangely, players fall all the time because of a lack of proper road infrastructure. This does not mean simply having a road from your capital to every city in your empire, in an asterisk fashion. This means having an empire with roads like a wheel – spokes leading into the center, and roads on the outside edge, connecting outer cities to one another. If a neighboring city is under attack, but reinforcing units have to travel to the capital to get on the proper road to get to the city that is threatened, it is quite likely that the units will arrive too late! Being able to reinforce swiftly is one of the biggest advantages a defender has; while the attacker has only the invasion force he brought with him (unless the battle is for a border city and the attacker has excellent infrastructure), the defender has the ability to reinforce quickly with brand new units. Again, not being able to send these units on the fastest possible route to the conflict is a grave waste of defender’s advantage. Similarly, it is important that an intelligent defender lay roads a tile or two beyond his cities in the direction of the frontier. This gives them the ability to strike out from a city at an approaching opponent and retreat safely to the city to regroup before the main assault; something which can be critical for whittling down an imposing foe, or smashing exposed catapults.
One of the most useful techniques a defender has in protecting his holdings comes from a defensive consideration that must have taken place long before actual conflict takes place; a wise defender will make sure that his cities have been cited with defensive considerations in mind. The best defensive placement for a town is on a hill, but there are many other factors that make for an excellent site for a city. Having a river directly before your city does more than provide a health bonus; units attacking across it will suffer a significant penalty, one that no amount of siege equipment can remove. Workers can also take care to remove all forest and jungle from tiles facing towards a possible attack; this makes certain that attackers will have to cross the worst possible terrain for an aggressor – flat, open land. If possible, setting your in such a location so that there are few tiles leading to it (such as a bottleneck) is also an excellent idea; thereby cutting down on the number of squares for an attacker to strike from, increasing the effectiveness of defensive catapults.
Last – and certainly not least – never take into consideration the advantage that perfect reconnaissance information grants the defender. An attacker only knows what his units in the area can tell him, and this may not be much. Take advantage of this fact; you may be able to bait an attacker into attacking a city with much stronger fortifications (structural/cultural) that shows very few defenders, only to move a large garrison force into place in the final moment. Your “ambushed” attacker now faces an unpleasant decision – attack this city with its strong fortifications and numerous defenders, or leave for another city location, risking more attacks to the his units and potentially even more battles ahead at the less-fortified city site. Knowing the exact composition of the attacking force is a very handy tool, one that the attacker cannot duplicate unless you allow him to see your entire force; something only to be done at the final battle, after the baiting and dancing has come to an end.
It has been said many times, and this will not be the last: the nature of combat in Civilization IV is vastly different than C3C; far more than it would appear on the surface. Random, raging hordes will be butchered, but careful, intelligent, surgical combat will be rewarded. The reckless days of C3C combat are over – the cunning days of CIV combat are begun.