Positioning to conquer a city

[Campo]

I'm looking for advice on how to handle this situaiton:

I'm on a conquest trek, with musketeers and cannons against the AI's pikemen and knights. It's no problem conquering a city once I get positioned to attack.

However the AI cities are strung out along a fairly thin strip of land, and I'm having trouble with the next one in line. It's surrounded by plains and grassland, and as soon as I move a unit within two squares of it, an AI knight comes out of the city and kills it. The knights beat even my vet musketeers.

I could defeat the city if I could get next to it, but I can't survive the knights' attacks. So I have an overwhelming army three spaces away from the city but unable to attack it.

I tried bribery but it would cost about 4 times more gold than I have.

I could maneuver around the city but that would be slow (one-move units on unroaded terrain) and they'd be susceptible to continued attacks. I could ferry them around with ships, but again that would be slow -- and for all I know the next city in line might have the same problem.

I don't have engineers yet, so I can't build instant fortresses.

Any other suggestions?

[pandj]

Try moving multiple musketeers onto the same square, that way if the knights kill one or two of your units, you still have some that much closer.

If you wish to spend just a little time to spare, you can disband some of your musketeers, so that you canbuild some dragoons. There movement is 2, so you should be able to move, then fortify in the same turn.

[Smash]

pre work a settler.Problem solved.

[debeest]

If there's no road in the square, a pre-worked settler still has to spend a whole turn moving into it, right?

If you move multiple musketeers onto the same square, they'll all die at once, right?

At this point in the game, you may find that crusaders are much more powerful attackers than musketeers, if you don't have dragoons yet.

My recent inquiry about early conquest got some answers that you may find useful.

[Xin Yu]

If you have access to road then it is easy. Move several settlers via road to two squares from the target city then build a city. Add the remaining settlers to the city then move your attacking force into it. The city will be able to endure several rounds of attack without being destroyed if you have enough setters added to it. Then the next turn you can launch an attack with 2/3 of strength from cannons. However if you don't have road access then you should choose another landing spot. Build a couple of coastal cities and rush build ships in them. Ferry your forces to a place which has access to road then start from there.

[Smash]

You move in with a cease fire.The ai is easy to do this to.MP, just forget it.Bypass.Its just too easy to defend in such a situation.

There is no simple solution for stubborn cities.Bribing is easiest but not always possible.You'll watch lots of dragoons lose to muskets if they are vets and/or walls with barracks.If the city is on a river....well...even cavalry will have a tough time.You need to tear down the walls and/or use cannons.

Spys can be useful with such a city with repeated sabotage and poisoning...but thats not until Espionage.

[Campo]

Thanks for the suggestions. As debeest indicated, I don't think the first couple will work. Without a fort, stacked musketeers would all be killed together. Unless you meant I should move units in different squares all around the city, hoping that the AI wouldn't have enough knights to kill them all. That might work, though it would be costly. And with no road adjacent to the city a pre-worked settler would be killed before it could build a fort.

Xin Yu's idea should work, though that will be costly too. I think I'll try Smash's cease-fire suggestion if the AI will accept it. I'll just have to be sure I break the cease-fire before the AI or I'll lose a big stack of attackers. Seems a little underhanded but then again the AI breaks cease-fires all the time.

(Edited to correct the spelling of "debeest". Where does that name come from?)

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Having no 2-move units in your attack force kind of limits your options. Naturally, unless the AI has an unlimited number of knights, moving 2 or 3 musketeers onto different squares should eventually give you the chance to fortify one. But if you have dragoons or crusaders, why not use those to pick off the knights when they venture out of the city? If there's no road (which was my impression), the AI knight will use one movement point to leave the city and another to attack, leaving itself exposed...

Of course if the AI knight is moving on a road, well, then you're going to have to suck up some losses... move 3 or 4 musketeers into position, fortify them on separate squares, and then build fortresses under the fortified units... you know the rest.

STYOM

[-Jrabbit]

This thread addresses a nearly identical issue to one I faced last night (MGE, deity -- the only level I've yet to win at). I already have a city 3 spaces from the enemy city, which is at a chokepoint, forcing me to attack one at a time. No engineers yet (about 1100 AD). Built several diplos but can't afford to bribe the city. Looks like they're dumping Knnights into the city from behind, so I don't think I can overpower it. (I have crusaders and catapults as best offense.) Now, a couple questions --

1. What's an Instant Fortress and how do you execute that? (I suspect this is one of my missing keys to winning at deity.)

2. Should I go ahead and build another city between mine and theirs? I don't have a lot of settlers to spare...

3. Better to build a fleet of triremes to circumvent the chokepoint? I'm thinking the cities supplying those knights might be far easier to take. But again, it's a lot of resources to dedicate to a Maybe....

4. WHAT'S A PRE-WORKED SETTLER? How do you create one and what's it good for? This sounds like another Missing Concept in my game knowledge.

Thanks for any sagacious hints you can supply.

[Campo]

There aren't any roads adjacent to the city, so you're right that the knights are exposed after they kill my musketeer. I don't have any two-movement units with me (probably a mistake on my part, but I had to ship my army across an ocean on caravels so I went with the best defenders and attackers).

Anyway I don't think a two-movement unit would help in this case. The city is surrounded by a one-square ring of grassland and plains. Around that (at least on the sides I can get to) is a ring of forest and swamp. Even if I had a two-move unit behind a musketeer it would only be able to make one move onto the swamp/forest square, still unable to attack the knight. And then the knight would kill it the next turn.

I guess the cease-fire or multiple-square musketeer sacrifice strategies are the only options for this city. Either that or I ferry around this city and hope the next one has an adjacent hill.

[Cyrion]

Jrabbit, about the Pre-worked settler:

you assign a task to a settler (or engineer) and you interrupt him just on the turn before he is finished. The next time you make him do something, the turns already done (aka pre-worked) will be taken into account.

And now about the instant fortress : suppose you did pre-work (as above) a fortress by a engineer (2 moves...): you can now on the same turn move him into place (in this case next to the city) and finish the "pre-worked" fortress (if the movement rate of the terrain allows for it, of course). And you could do it with a settler as well on a river, a road or RR.


And for your other questions, well... it depends...

Hope this can be of help...

[Campo]

Like Jrabbit, I believe the city I'm trying to take is getting reinforced with knights from the cities behind it. I could sacrifice a lot of musketeers because of that. I guess I should at least ferry a couple around to the other side to try to block that.

Jrabbit - I had started to answer your settler/fort questions but I see that Cyrion beat me to it.

There's a great thread on settlers and engineers somewhere around here. You really should read it. Does anyone know the link?

[-Jrabbit]

Found the Time 2do Tasks thread for engineers and settlers in the Great Library (under Engineers) while poking around. I knew it was there, but didn't know what it was good for.

I think I've decided to flank them with ships and probe for an underdefended city on the other side of the landbridge.

I always figured the work stayed on the square, never imagined it could move with the settler/engineer!! Is this considered a design feature or a programming error??

Now I have even more reason to build move settlers than previously seemed necessary. They're Seabees!

[Campo]

Jrabbit:
I always figured the work stayed on the square

That's the reasonable assumption but not the way it works. It makes settlers/engineers a powerful military support unit. All my invasion forces include a few to lay down forts.

I don't think it's a programming error, at least not in the sense of it doing something the programmers didn't intend. I suspect it was a programming shortcut -- they had to retain info about each unit anyway, so might as well hold the "work" info there.

In any case it's widely considered a feature. There's been plenty of discussion about various techniques and very few people consider it a cheat.

[Smash]

I think of it as a tactic.Defense is pretty easy so an attacker needs all the help they can get.....especially in MP.

It takes time,
..resources,
there is risk

not my definition of a cheat.

[-Jrabbit]

I now regard this as a key nugget of info in my campaign to win at Deity.

I think one of the things that makes Civ2 so cool is the unpredictable mix of logical and anti-intuitive features. (Logical -- poytheism leads to montheism. Anti-intuitive -- members of a democracy can't be bribed.)

One step closer to "getting it"...

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Campo
There's a great thread on settlers and engineers somewhere around here. You really should read it. Does anyone know the link?

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=20497

[geofelt]

Bribery might be the best way. Demand tribute of the other civs and see how much gold you can get. Go to 80% taxes in fundamentalism, and you can get lots of gold in a hurry. Use a ship to deliver a diplomat.
If the target is a republic(or democracy) then you could lay siege to the shields needed to support the defenders. In one move(if you can) put a single unit on every square that can produce a shield. If you get them all, only one shield will be left to support a defender, and that defender will not attack.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Campo
Anyway I don't think a two-movement unit would help in this case. The city is surrounded by a one-square ring of grassland and plains. Around that (at least on the sides I can get to) is a ring of forest and swamp. Even if I had a two-move unit behind a musketeer it would only be able to make one move onto the swamp/forest square, still unable to attack the knight. And then the knight would kill it the next turn.

Maybe I'm missing something... if there is swamp/forest two squares from the AI city, your musketeers should be able to survive knight attacks while on swamp/forest, more often than not, even unfortified! (Hopefully they're vets).
Put musketeers on 3 separate def+50% squares, and at least 1 or 2 should survive. Next turn, fortify them. Turn after that, you can put a settler on the same square(s) and build a fortress. Then put a couple more musketeers in the fortress and watch the AI throw away attackers trying to kill them.

STYOM

[Campo]

Unfortunately my musketeers aren't vets, and the knights must be, because they kept killing me even with my 150% defense bonus.

The reason my musketeers weren't vets is because I have Leo's and they were promoted from warriors and phalanxes; they start out without vet status. I also have the War Academy so my units would become vets if they ever win a battle, but they weren't getting the chance.

And to answer a previous suggestion, fundy wasn't an option because it wasn't available yet. I did get tribute from other civs but not enough to bribe the city.

What I ended up doing was ferrying enough of my units around the problem city to block reinforcements and conquer a middle city. From there I was able to follow roads and river to put down instant forts.

The only bad thing was that the delay took several turns and in the meantime one of the other civs discovered gunpowder, so I'll face stronger defenses after I mop up this one.

Thanks for everyone's help. It's nice to see continued interest in Civ2. I don't have Civ3 yet, and even when I eventually get it I suspect I'll want to play some Civ2.

[-Jrabbit]

I'm not threadjacking here, just joining in with Campo to feast on the wisdom of this forum. Will move to a new thread if that's considered the PC thing. Anyway...

I finally took out those pesky Spanish, and didn't have to flank them to do it.. They kept foolishly sending their Knights out for me to wipe out with catapults unitl they were nearly defenseless. That opened the floodgates for my gathered forces -- took out their last 3 cities in relatively short order. Got the capital, Madrid (dips to take out walls) first, then bribed the last 2.

This seemed to trigger the "secret treaty to contain Carthaginians" sequence. Just about everyone remaining seems to be allied against me.
QUESTION: Is there any way to stop this sequence, or do I need to switch my tech path to prepare for a total war footing?

I got SOL and went commie so I could continue to wage war without happiness issues. (Have only the Germans left to take out before I fully own the main continent.) The Germans have 3 cities left and seem vulnerable.

Still leading in techs, but the Persians (a republic) seem to be catching me, mostly through GL and tech trading with their allies. I have about 25 cities and we're in the 1780s.

My current goal is to get RR/Darwin (2 techs away). I have a SSC (well, not that super, but it has the 3 trade wonders). Didn't get HG, but do have Mike's Chapel.

QUESTION: Do I work toward an AC win (play defense and concentrate on techs) or switch over and head for tactics (still 3 techs short since I've been using Crusaders) and ironclads (available)? Getting cannons/coastal defense next. Currently getting a tech every 6 turns.

Deity, 7 civs, raging. Have destoyed Spanish and Sioux, with Germans on the run. Celts and Zulus are on nearby continents and warlike. Celts not too strong, Zulus tougher. The Persians are distant but strong and have "secret treaties" with the others to contain my "aggression." (Hey, they started it!)

I'm at the point where my quest to win at Deity usually gets submarined by the "one good civ" that I've had minimal contact with. Any advice from y'all, especially regarding tech path, would be most welcome.

Thx.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

IMO (and I'm sure others will disagree), but if you wanted to conquer them, you'd need more cities by this point to spew forth attack units. Usually at the point I'm getting RR, I have about 40-50 cities. I'm not a true ICSer, but I like having a lot of cities... easier to macromanage 50 than to micromanage 20, IMO again.

If you spend your time knocking off the local AIs, the Persians will beat you to AC, especially if they're trading techs actively and almost at the same point you're at now, techwise. If you focus on AC, you should trade more, get those science bonuses going and fill up your treasury. Better tech will mean better defenders, and you'll also have the money for bribes if you need it. Lots of caravans and then a minimal, fast spaceship. You'll breeze...

STYOM

[-Jrabbit]

Cool. So once I've rid "my" continent of the Germans, I concentrate on AC techs. Does that mean that I should be prepping to switch to Democracy at that point? Or can I do this in Communist (which seems low mainentance and thus easy to manage)?

I've never really played as a Democracy, so I'd need advice on how to structure my cities and military to maintain sufficient happiness (temples everywhere?) and defense (how many militia per city? build defensive improvements?) while maximizing my arrow production (many trade routes, harbors, etc.).

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Well, Demo is really the best for getting the science and cash you need to reach AC, so I'd advise that over Communism.

1) Yes, you will need happiness wonders or improvements. JSB Cathedral if it hasn't been built yet is helpful, since you have Mike's Chapel already. Otherwise, you will need Temples or Colosseums. And a luxury setting of around 2, I find. Bear in mind that marketplaces and banks do for happiness what they do for income, so if you have lots of those already, you may be in good shape.

The other thing you can do in a democracy is increase luxuries temporarily to jack up your population fast. Bigger pop=more arrows!

2) I usually like to have at least 1 good defensive unit per city with some mobile defenders spread around. And diplos/spies are good to take care of any random AI attacks via bribery. With all the trading you're going to do, you'll have the cash.

3) Basically, you have to run a democracy like you'd run a business. Cost effectivesness is the key. Every trade route you establish adds something to your future trade, as well as the onetime cash/science bonus. So search out those cities demanding your goods. If you can get peace (which may be hard to do, now), you can build a ship chain (see GL for details) to a nearby civ to keep the money rolling in.

There's no hard and fast rules, but a typical build order for me would be temple, harbor, aqueduct, library, marketplace. With happiness improvements added as needed, and military units for defense as needed. My rule is that if a new improvement won't add at least triple it's maintenance cost (i.e. 3 coins for a marketplace, or 3 beakers for a library), I don't build it. Build a caravan or settler instead.

YMMV, of course.

STYOM

[-Jrabbit]

Thanks, STYOM --

Hmm. Don't know if JSB is still there, will check when I et home tonight.

Most of my cities have 2-3 defensive units (musketeers) already, so looks like I'll be building tons of caravans. Is that too much military for a democracy to support?

Guess I'll have to get used to having a Luxury rate. In my Monarchy-Commie path, I never had to bother...

QUESTION -- On trade routes in a hostile world, doesn't it make more sense to just trade within your own empire? You get "both ends" of the deal (even though the immediate payoff bonus is obviously far less).

I've been told elsewhere that, unless the supply/demand exists within easy reach, to just establish dozens of trade routes to your SSC. Any thoughts on that?

And aren't ship chains really a huge project to set up (and subsequently easily sabotaged)? Sounds very rewarding but very high-risk to me.

[Campo]

Jrabbit -

The first thing you should do in a diety game is decide at the beginning whether you're going for conquest or AC. It's possible to change mid-stream but more difficult. The really good players can do it easily, but someone trying to win his first diety game should decide early on.

I should mention that I am NOT among the "really good players". I can win consistently by conquest at diety -- sometimes easily, sometimes with difficulty. I've won diety by AC a couple times but usually don't have the tolerance for it. Once you get a lead, and especially after flight and space flight, the AI attacks non-stop with military units and diplos/spies. It's very difficult to keep the spies from stealing all your tech lead, and once a decent AI civ has the techs they'll probably build a spaceship faster than you. I've done it, but I find it more difficult than winning at conquest.

Six Thousand Year Old Man's advice is sound if you're going for AC. Give it a try and keep us posted.

[Campo]

Jrabbit -

The first thing you should do in a diety game is decide at the beginning whether you're going for conquest or AC. It's possible to change mid-stream but more difficult. The really good players can do it easily, but someone trying to win his first diety game should decide early on.

I should mention that I am NOT among the "really good players". I can win consistently by conquest at diety -- sometimes easily, sometimes with difficulty. I've won diety by AC a couple times but usually don't have the tolerance for it. Once you get a lead, and especially after flight and space flight, the AI attacks non-stop with military units and diplos/spies. It's very difficult to keep the spies from stealing all your tech lead, and once a decent AI civ has the techs they'll probably build a spaceship faster than you. I've done it, but I find it more difficult than winning at conquest.

Six Thousand Year Old Man's advice is sound if you're going for AC. Give it a try and keep us posted.

[-Jrabbit]

OK, so it's now 1800. Just took out the German capital and their two remaining cities are mine as soon as I rush a couple more diplos there to bribe them. (They don't have the cash for a new Cap.) this will make the main continent all mine.

So I save-gamed there and will now play it out twice -- one going for AC, the other for military victory. I'm currently Commie (via SOL) with Darwin's coming available in a few turns. Leading in techs, new one every 5 turns currently. I have around 30 or 35 cities, all on the main continent. Biggest ones are just 7's. (I know, I have a lot to learn...)

Quickie post-Darwin plan --

For space race, will pump trade, maintain tech lead, go democracy, and play defense. (Need to research the best tech path to Apollo and know how to deploy my numerous troops to avoid happiness probs in cities).

For conquest, will stay commie and build the army until I reach Tactics, then go Fundamentalist. Leonardo's should make this a formidable force, yes? Then, we'll convoy troops to foreign shores and go for it.

Suggestions and comments are more than welcome...

[Campo]

I like your idea of playing it out twice.

For AC definitely, and probably for conquest too, I suggest you take a few turns to grow your cities using "We Love" days. Are you familiar with that? You'll have to be in Republic or Democracy, you'll need aqueducts and surplus food in the cities, and you'll need a high luxury rate -- between 40% and 70% depending on temples, trade, and happy wonders.

Whatever happened with JSB? For AC you'll want to get it if still available.

Are you familiar with the Odeo years government change? It lets you time revolutions to minimize anarchy; it's very important in preventing waste.

Using "We Love" for eight turns or so (assuming you laid the groundwork with surplus food and aqueducts) will grow most of your cities to size 12. That will give you a solid base for either approach.

Which are you going for first, AC? We should taylor our suggestions to the one you're playing at the time.

[Edward]

-Jrabbit,

Welcome.

A question, have you won by AC before? Since you're having trouble with Deity, I'd suggest not using a strategy (AC via democracy) that you haven't been able to employ on easier levels.

While Democracy is very powerful trade-wise, if you haven't played a few games as a republic/democracy, it can be quite a shocker.

To win by AC you should read up on the Super Science City (SSC) strategy. (Curiously I couldn't find reference to it in the Great Library. Basically you put all the trade & science wonders in the same city. You also make that city as large and grandiose as possible. You can expend just a few resources (one aqueduct, one marketplace, one library, one city's worth of irrigated land, etc.) and reap huge benefits due to all the wonders multiplying the produced trade arrows. To try and match the SSC's science output via building up all your cities just a little bit would cost dramatically more in time and resources.)

We Love the Leader Day will give you a population boost in a republic/democracy but it isn't easy to set up to take advantage of your first few tries.

The two big problems you'll encounter when switching to a republic/democracy are unhappiness and starvation.

You get unhappiness not only from having military units outside your cities, but also (and this is a big one) from units in cities no longer enforcing martial law.

You can prepare for unhappiness by having a lot of happiness wonders and by having temples and marketplaces in your cities. A little prep work here goes a long way to reducing the "dark ages" of unhappiness that often follow a late switch to republic/democracy. You'll probably need to make entertainers and temporarily crank up the luxury rate until you can get enough happiness improvements in your cities to lower the luxury rate back down (to 0%-20%). (Note that in a Democracy, courthouses give you an extra happy face - and they're a lot cheaper to maintain than a coliseum (in fact they're free with Adam Smith). Also note that "money" improvements give you as many luxury chalices as they do money coins.)

Until you get fortresses on your borders, you'll want to pull in your military units so they don't cause unhappiness. If there's danger of the AI sending settlers into your land (to found unwanted cities) or danger of the AI sending diplomats to steal technology, I've had some luck stationing my own diplomats on my borders as temporary guards. Of course they can't withstand a sneak attack - but cleverly placed they'll make it hard/impossible for the AI to get by without declaring war. And they give you early warning of enemy diplomats. And they're pretty cheap to build and free (coin & happiness -wise) to maintain. Of course this is only a temporary solution until you can set up fortresses on your borders but within city radii. Such fortresses can be manned without happiness penalties. A well thought out network of such fortresses will force diplomats/spies to stop next to a fortress before reaching your city. You may need to combine fortresses with forests built by terraforming to accomplish this. You may also have to carefully plan your roads to the outside (so they run through fortresses as opposed to being accessible from the "wilderness").

(Another trick is to home military units that need to be wandering outside cities in the city which has Shakespeare's Theater.)

The second problem is starvation. If you're already a Communism then you won't be hit as hard as the Monarchy -> Republic switch. (Unlike monarchy settlers, republic/democracy/communist settlers eat 2 food.) Even from Communism -> Republic/Democracy can be a little rough as you'll probably end up losing food to entertainers until you get your happiness in order. Harbors in coastal cities help as does enough irrigation set up ahead of time.

The best way to crank up your research to reach AC (other than the SSC) is to build lots of caravans. It's almost impossible to build too many. Once your democracy is running smoothly they're about all you should be building. At first, don't concern yourself too much with meeting supply/demands. A steady stream of undemanded caravans is very powerful (not only for the immediate science boost but also the continued trade arrows).

In answer to your question, there's no amount of military in your cities that would be "too much to support" happiness or shield -wise. However it may be more efficient to have only one defender in your interior cities (to save on shields). Armies in the field however are a different problem. A few units chasing down barb leaders are ok, but if you're in an offensive war you should not be in a representative government.

I totally agree with Campo in that you should decide early on which path (AC or conquest) you're going to take. Your early decisions on wonders to build and techs to research depend so heavily on your overall goal. To change your mind mid-game sets you back centuries in development.

p.s. there's no way to stop the sequence of the AI signing treaties and ganging up on you (except playing OCC ). They'll do it after a certain deadline if you're in or near the lead. However engaging in an offensive war in this situation is not necessary if your defenses are strong enough.