[Freeciv] Re: newbie needs help capturing a city

["Jim C. Nasby" <decibel@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Couple things...

Remember that if you don't have full movement points, you stand a much
bigger risk of losing. So a good tactic is to plant a good defensive
unit (well, actually a bunch in different squares) to provide a place to
launch attacks from. Let the AI pound on those for a while, because if
you've got favorible terrain you're more likely to win. Plus you don't
want to risk offensive units until you know the AI is unlikely to
attack. When ready, roll in the catapults.

Or, better yet, just 'buy' the cities away using diplomats. I generally
find that to be much easier.

On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 05:03:30PM -0700, Joseph J. Strout wrote:
> I just downloaded FreeCiv recently, and for the first time, got to 
> the point where I have lots of units and need to start picking off 
> these piddly little cities the AI keeps plunking down in my 
> territory.  But I frustrated by my apparent inability to capture a 
> city, no matter how many units I throw at one.
> 
> The AI has about the same technology as me, or slightly less; I have 
> gunpowder and am attacking mainly with catapults, riflemen, and 
> legions.  He seems to have mainly archers and horsemen.  The city I'm 
> attacking is size 3 or so, and does not have walls.  At one point, I 
> threw about 20 units (including at least half a dozen catapults) at 
> this city, and as far as I can tell, I didn't even make a dent.  Many 
> of my units were killed as soon as they stepped up to the city, 
> before they got a chance to attack.  The rest died, invariably, when 
> they attacked.
> 
> Even outside the city, it seems hopelessly unbalanced towards 
> defense; my catapults (attack 6) died attacking settlers (defense 1) 
> more than once.  I recall this happening *occasionally* in Civ 1, but 
> unless I just had an awful string of bad luck, it seems far more 
> routine in FreeCiv.  The percentages shown when I center-click on the 
> unit I'm about to attack say things like "98%" yet I'm losing WAY 
> more often than 2% of the time.
> 
> All of this leaves me much less than eager to continue playing.  It 
> seems as though your best strategy is to never attack, since 
> attackers almost always lose.  But if I don't attack, I have no way 
> to stop the cursed AI from plopping its cities right next to mine -- 
> and it also makes for quite a dull game.
> 
> So, what am I missing?  Is defense really so much stronger than 
> offense?  Are the dice weighed in favor of the AI?  Is the app 
> misbehaving in some strange way on my machine (I'm running the 
> precompiled binary for OS X)?  Or should I really plan to spend 40-50 
> units or more for every dinky little city I want to capture?
> 
> Thanks,
> - Joe
> 
> -- 
> 
> Joseph J. Strout
> joe@xxxxxxxxxx
> 
> 

-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Database Architect                decibel@xxxxxxxxxxx 
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