Civilization II Hints

Attacking Your Enemies

• Attacking Your Enemies
  
  Even if you decided to try to win in the more peaceful way, by the colonization of Alpha Centauri, you will still come into situations where you need to attack your enemies occasionally.
  
  If you choose to win by world domination then you must be good enough on the offense to eliminate all of your rivals before the time the game ends.  When attempting to conquer a rival, don't spread yourself too thin. Usually I find it works well to attack a rival from two sides and then close in.  You will have to develop strategies of your own depending on the size, strength, and position of your forces.  Below I have listed several rules-of-thumb that it may help you to consider.
  
  --> Don't stack your offensive units since they usually have a low defense.
  
  --> Attack cities from the best defensive terrain available, so that if your enemy decides to fight back he has less of a chance for victory.
  
  --> Send a strong defensive unit to act as protectors for your offensive units.  When you reach the city you wish to attack, fortify your defensive units on the highest defensive terrain adjacent to your target and attack from these positions.  For long sieges you may even want to consider building fortresses in these spots.  Always make the best use of empty enemy forts in this way.
  
  --> If your enemy does not yet have Flight and you are using both Bombers and ground units to attack, have your ground units attack from the same square as your Bombers (which should each always attack from different squares).  This way, your ground units cannot be attacked at all because the enemy's ground units cannot attack a square with an air unit.
  
  --> Whenever possible, construct roads and railroads out to your battle front to make it much quicker and easier to move troops there to help attack and/or defend these cities.
  
  --> If you have enough troops, try fortifying some of them on your rival's most resourceful lands. This will at the least slow production; at best it will cause civil disorder which will halt production altogether and also make the city cheaper to bribe with a spy or diplomat.
  
  --> If you are attacking a city from a railroad and have less than one move left, back away along the railroad to a terrain type which will provide a better defense.
  
  --> If there are roads or railroads connecting your target city to other enemy cities, destroy at least one section to slow any enemy military units from getting to your target.  If attacking with air units, attack from over roads or railroads to achieve the same results without having to damage what will soon be your land.
  
  --> Consider sending in a spy to destroy a city's walls. This is easy enough to do and will make capture much, much simpler.
  
  --> Rest ground units damaged into the red at least one square away from their target city or send them to friendly barracks if they are only one turn away.
  
  --> Always rest or repair air units damaged into the red; they are just too costly to throw away.
  
  --> When you capture your first city on a new continent, build or buy (if possible) an airport as soon as you can.  This will allow you not only to air lift in units to help defend newly captured cites, but it will also help you send out offensive units to replace the ones you lose in combat.
  
  --> Paratroopers and helicopters are prime units for city occupation. If you use missiles or air units to bring a city to its knees, you still need a unit to occupy it. Helicopters can do this from up to six squares away and paratroopers can drop in from as far as ten. Use these combinations to their fullest extent.
  
  --> I do not recommend the use of nuclear units.  Not only are they very costly (160) to build for only one time use, but they also leave you with a lot of pollution to clean up once you occupy the city.  It is better to use several cruise missiles.  For the cost of one nuclear unit you could almost make three cruise missiles which would level almost any city without destroying half the population, several improvements, and leaving a mess of pollution.
  
  --> I prefer to use subs rather than carriers to transport missiles. Although they do have less movement (3 vs. 5), they have a higher attack strength (10 vs. 1) and cannot be seen coming.  To top all that off, they cost considerably less to build (60 vs. 160).  If you do already have a carrier outfitted with a fighter or helicopter to defend it, then you may want to use it, but don't build carriers just to transport missiles; build subs.
  
  --> Marines are more than just good ground units.  Make sure you take advantage of their special ability to attack cities directly from transports.
  
  --> Never unload too many ground units from your transports onto the same square.  Whenever possible, unload onto different squares or, if you must stack, do it on the best defensive terrain.
  
  --> When you capture a city, pick off the partisans as quickly as possible with the rest of your offensive forces.  Typically, the first unit to occupy a city is a high attack unit and usually one with a low defense. Partisans have a chance to defeat such a unit, so either destroy them or protect the city better.
  
  --> Whenever possible, capture the capitals of your enemies.  This is the only time I would recommend the use of nuclear weapons.  Be sure to have spies ready after you take out an enemy's capital because this will send most of his cities into civil disorder, making them much cheaper for you to bribe.  If you destroy the capital of a significantly large civilization it may split the civilization into two factions, effectively creating a new civilization out of half of the original one.  It isn't uncommon for these two factions to begin to fight amongst themselves, making your job of destroying them both an even simpler one.
  

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