Chapter 5 - Military

Focus your unit promotions on the unit’s task, environment, as well as what units your enemy trains.

This section offers a collection of tips on training an army and using it to defend your civilization or aggressively conquer a rival civilization.

• Early town defense is important, especially on higher difficulty levels. Those barbarians are a sneaky bunch! Escort your workers and settlers with warrior (or greater) defenses and be sure to station units within your cities to protect from an easy barbarian grab.
• Use unit promotions that take advantage of the unit’s chosen purpose. If you plan to keep the unit within your city walls, upgrade the city defense promotion. If your city is surrounded by forests and jungles, use the woodland promotion. If you’re using the unit to attack cities, upgrade the city raider promotion. Specialization can be powerful. Instead of simply upgrading a unit’s base strength, consider its purpose. Also consider what your rival civilizations (especially neighboring or "hostile" civilizations) are producing. Use promotions to help counter your enemy’s forces.
• Develop a strong military with the combination of civics, wonders, and buildings. For instance, choose an aggressive leader for the promotion bonus for melee and gunpowder units. Construct a Barracks in the city so each trained land unit receives an experience boost upon creation. Add the wonders West Point, Pentagon, and Heroic Epic. Use the civics Vassalage and Theocracy. You could also use Police State to increase production and to aid in keeping your citizens happier during war (the Mount Rushmore wonder also helps in that regard). With those structures, wonders, and experience point civics you could train promoted units (Combat III+ and with a Medic promotion potentially) straight from your city. Basically once you have them available, you should always be creating military units under Vassalage and Theocracy rule. Likewise, keep an eye out for civic changes of your rivals. Your neighbor just switched to Vassalage or Theocracy rule? Get ready!
• Siege weapons are invaluable. Use them to inflict collateral or splash damage against a group of enemy units or the city defenses of a rival civilization’s town. Whittle down the defenses with your siege barrage before moving in your other forces. When attacking a rival city, use siege weapons to lower city defenses to 0% before moving in with other forces. Once defenses are lowered, that siege weapon should attack defending units. It’ll likely perish but the collateral damage inflicted will provide a boost to your remaining attackers--you will be attacking weakened enemy defenders.
• Consider your units’ strengths and weaknesses, such as a pikeman’s bonus against mounted units. These bonuses are especially important when attacking a single enemy unit. When attacking a unit group, your pikemen may go up against archers instead of those mounted troops. Against unit groups or stacks it’s better to weaken with siege before assaulting in full. The defender utilizes its best "defender" so you could very well be up against your counter (attack with cavalry, you’re up against spearmen). Scouting the enemy and its unit groups will be very important in deciding what units (and what promotions) to use for your own forces.
• Many times pillaging your rival’s terrain improvements will be just as damaging (and rewarding to you) as crushing a group of units. Also, when conquering a rival city, consider the ramifications of occupying or simply burning down that city. Occupying the city means dealing with the revolt as well as the maintenance cost once that city comes under your fold. It may be more headache than benefit. You may want to simply destroy the city and move on to the next one, especially if it’s far from your other city’s and difficult to protect from a counterattack.
• Roads build a trade network between your cities but they’re also important in shuffling your military units quickly between your cities (for defense) and even a rival’s city (for attack). Construct some road’s toward a rival civilization and you can get your troops to the front line as quickly as possible.
• As stated, the defending unit group has a distinct advantage: it sends its best defender against your attacker. Therefore you may need to overwhelm your enemy group to defeat the defenders. Try to avoid "close" battles. Be sure you have a huge advantage before conducting the battle. Soften the enemy group up with artillery. Even if you lose the artillery, it’s worth that extra damage for when your real troops move into the fight.