I got thoroughly pounded attacking a Capital

[Drasca]

and I am very glad I did. The computer can defend itself after all, even on Noble difficulty.

Late-game, my ally and second most powerful nation the Malinese, had a heads up on me building his space ship. Oops. Don't want that to happen. Sure, I work on building a spaceship too, as space elevator (+50% speed to space ship building) hasn't been built yet and I have a great engineer saved up...

But this game I decided I wanted to take a more military route. Upgrade galleys to transports? Check. Destroyer escorts? Check. Panzers and infintry loaded outside his territory? Check. Knowledge where his capital is? Check!

Time for a backstabbing!

His Capital, as computer likes to choose non-coastal cities, was on the 3rd tile inland, and surrounded by all railroads. No problem.... I think. time.

Declare war, unload military units. Watched faster units reach the city's border, slower ones just behind them. I'm set to attack in two turns, right? Hit end turn.

Ooomph. Artillery from everywhere shows up, do collateral damage, stacks of my infantry and artillery begin to fall left and right. My supposed capital quick strike ended in dismal failure... Woohoo! The computer can fight back. Stacks of Supposed doom don't quite work.

What should I have done? My spies were successful in keeping important resources disconnected, that allowed me to wear the Malinese down later on... but air support has just become far more important. Coastal cities seem very easy to take down due to destroyers and battleships doubling from escort duty to siege weapons. You also now have a trade-off between coastal harvesting vs vulnerability from sea-attack, which is a good thing. So... what should I have done? Loaded some marines, stolen a coastal city, relocate dozens of air planes and start pounding city defenses to dust via combined arms air strikes and fast strike tanks.

I'll do that next time. Still, I like the fact the computer can fend off an ill-thought out invasion. Plenty of units, but all taken down via collateral artillery then mopped up by infantry.

I like this. Don't you?

Additionally, the computer's submarines raided all my offshore oil platforms and fishing nets. Lucky I had land-based oil and uranium , but this means you must patrol your own coasts! Watch out! Them civvies are after your shrimping boat!

[Jester]

So... even if Bubba survives the war, he'd better watch his back down home?



-Jester

[Sirian]

I like this. Don't you?

Yep. Lots of things are working nicely now.

- Sirian

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Stacks of Supposed doom

Thanks for that!

I like this. Don't you?

Yep, I do. By now, I've experienced the improved AI myself, on Monarch. Very nice!

-Kylearan

[vmxa]

One thing I do when I attack a town is to not have one big stack, but to spread them out cut down on the collateral damage.

Early I keep my 2 move units back one tile and cover the cats with something like macemen, just enough to prevent the defenders from coming out after them.

[Snaproll]

I wanted to add a bit to this and to once again complement the game (and all who helped) on the AI. In my case, I didn't get pounded attacking a city, I simply got pounded.

I was trying to run through a quick builder's game and get a cultural victory, just to try out some of the new aspects of great leaders and religion, etc... I learned many things during the game (my strategy ended up revolving almost exlusively around generating great artists), but none was more telling than the way the game finally ended. For reference, the game was on a small map, Monarch level, inland sea. I was Frederick.

The game proceeded nicely. I had 5 nice cities and a few half-cities close to the border of the map. I was last in score most of the way, but had managed to stay on par in tech and build a sizeable millitary (consisting of longbows, pikes and muskets, primarily) for defense. I was had about 15-20k culture in my three cities, but was falling behind in tech as the other civs got universities and observatories online. I figured that all I had to do was keep working on culture and turtle up to win.

Then the Aztecs decided to attack. But, unlike Civ3, when the AI attacks, they MEAN it! I was assaulted first by literally hordes of knights, muskets, and cats, and they pushed well into my empire, razing one of my half-cities and spent several turns beating on the walls of my culture cities. They used bombardment, suicide catapults, the works. I nearly lost that city then, but managed to hold out thanks to many city garrison promotions on my longbows. I did sign another country to declare on the aztecs too, which alleviated the pressure somewhat. After 10-15 turns or so I finally got the Aztecs to sign peace, hoping that they would leave me alone until I could finish up my culture.

Not 20 turns later, they came after me again, this time with riflemen, grenadiers, knights, and again, more catapults. Bombardment, collateral damage, the works. Again, a huge army. I never had a chance. And, I remember thinking to myself, "that's how I would've done it". In fact, I just recently finished a domination win on Prince, and I used nearly the same army composition and tactics that I saw from the AI.

I'm very impressed. I think the harder levels are going to be more difficult to crack in Civ4, and not just because of "bonuses". The AI is better, and can attack well. It make for a much more enjoyable game. While I wasn't happy about losing the game, I sure did learn a lot, and I think that it was probably one of the only gaming experiences I've ever had where a loss was so enjoyable and so exciting, forshadowing the challenges ahead.

[Sirian]

Way cool, Snaproll. Hope to see you in some tourney games. I'll try to dish out interesting scenarios. 8)

- Sirian

[Kylearan]

Hi,

In my case, I didn't get pounded attacking a city, I simply got pounded.

Indeed, the AI has greatly improved! I've played some games on monarch now too, and I'm impressed by the combat AI myself. What I especially like is how the AI often uses a combined arms stack: A siege weapon, units who are good against mounted units, units against melee, and units good at defense in one single stack. Regardless with what you're trying to attack that stack, you'll always face a defending unit especially designed against your attacker, *very* nice.

What they're not so good at yet is taking rivers into account. When someone declares on me, I can very often soften up their forces by fortifying a unit or two in a forest behind a river, and instead of just ignoring it and moving around it, they're trying to kill it, often losing twice or more units in the process.

-Kylearan