Attrition through fire.

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Attrition warfare is a military strategy in which a belligerent attempts to win a war by wearing down its enemy to the point of collapse through continuous losses in personnel and materiel. The war will usually be won by the side with greater such resources. The Vietnam War is typically used as the primary example of a war of attrition: American strategy was to wear down the enemy until it lost its "will to fight."

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You are to have such a long standing war with your enemy where nothing get done and they are tired of being in a cold war along their borders with you that they are willing to give up money and cities just to end it.

Objectives: Win while doing almost nothing, be in a constant cold war.

Do's: Always accept terms of peace only if you gain something in the end. Use allot of spies and assassins, do underhanded warfare. Use mercenaries no matter how expensive, remember, the dead cost nothing.

Don'ts: Try not to attack allot use the cold war strategy of not doing anything forcing the enemy to divert troops away from a certain front causing a pain in the rear.


The last of my strategies for the night.

Very nice, are you getting your information from Wikipedia? How many of these are you going to post?

As for this strategy, right up my street. Yes, I will be attempting this. Does it actually work in the game?

Seems to me it would be impossible to win through attrition, i.e. by killing so many of the enemy troops that the losses become unsustainable, without actually invading their territory. If you win a battle and annihilate an enemy army, then if you don't capitalise on the victory by taking enemy territory then surely you are actually at a disadvantage, since you must still pay upkeep on your surviving troops, whereas for the enemy, as you observed, "the dead cost nothing".

So surely this strategy will always put the faction which takes the lower casualty rate at an economic disadvantage, the exact opposite of the aim of attrition?

As the above poster said, this tactic will not work in the M2TW engine. If they take more losses, they pay less upkeep, and can build more units as a result.

If you want to fight an effective war of attrition, you must raid enemy settlements. Whenever you see a settlement poorly defended, rush an army to it and put it under siege. If you have a small army yourself - retreat. All cavalry armies are good for this, as their higher movement points allow them to move away effectively. The enemy has still lost one turns income in the settlement under siege, that could be a few thousand Florins down the drain. If you feel you have enough force to take the settlement, then do so. Either sack the place for your own benefit, or exterminate the place to really make it useless for the enemy if they take it back. Then simly pull your forces out, raze all the buildings if you want, and then let the enemy march back in. If you can, you may even want to let the place rebel before they attempt to take it back. That way you will wear down an enemy.

If you do not give the settlement back immediately, then make them pay for it next time you meet for negotiations.

Even planting a large army of yours on their land will cause that province to suffer 'devastation', and will take out a large chunck of its farming income. Try to park on a road to cut off their trade. Blockading ports with armies is particularly good for cutting off trade. Remember though, that army is probably costing you more than whatever damage it does to the enemy through devastation etc. Make sure it is forcing the enemy to keep armies in the area, otherwise you may as well take the settlement and use the above strategies. The nice thing about this is that it forces the AI to attack you, giving you the advantage.

I've never made a point of playing a campaign using this strategy alone. Although I may have a go with it as one of the Iberian peninsula teams, since this sort of thing was common there.

EDIT: It may be an idea to practise these strategies in M2TW, as they may prove very useful in ETW considering all buildings are represented on the campaign map and can be occupied without taking the main settlement...

A 'cold war' will cause your relations with a nation to rapidly fall to abysmal, and once they are that low the enemy will not usually accept a ceasefire or any other diplomatic offer, even if you were the one offering it. Heavy use of assassins will also cause your global reputation to decline, which will make it doubly difficult to get any offers.

The game just isn't designed to allow this to work.

:egypt:

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The Vietnam War is typically used as the primary example of a war of attrition: American strategy was to wear down the enemy until it lost its "will to fight."

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That was hardly an effective strategy. In fact, it backfired.



Wars of attrition are far more effective against invading armies. It's long been a Russian defensive tactic. If we had supply lines to contend with it would make sense to try this out, as disrupting this is one of the keys to a proper war of attrition.

I just want to see how many more modernday strategies could have worked back then, but also i thought that when recruiting large pools of units it takes away from a towns population, but maybe im mistaken.

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Originally Posted by Jkarinen

i thought that when recruiting large pools of units it takes away from a towns population, but maybe im mistaken.

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It did in RTW but not in M2.

I applaud your efforts of trying to find ways to make the game more enjoyable by emulating historic tactics, but the ideas just don't seem to fit the game very well.

PS You would like 'How Wars Are Won' by Bevin Alexander (2002, Three Rivers Press). Subtitle "The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror"

Chapters:
1. The Revolution in Warfare
2. Striking at Enemy Weakness
3. Defend, then Attack
4. Holding One Place, Striking Another
5. Feigned Retreat
6. The Central Position
7. Employing a Superior Weapon
8. Driving a Stake at the Enemy's Heart
9. Blocking an Enemy's Retreat
10. Landing an Overwhelming Blow
11. Stroke at a Weak Spot
12. Caldron Battles
13. Uproar East, Attack West
14. Maneuvers on the Rear

I now have 4 books to get, Sun Tzu's art of war, How Wars are won, Thirty-Six Strategies, and book written by napolean about military strategies, its name escapes me right now

dont forget Karl von Clausewitz " On War" typically known as THE premiere source of modern military doctrine.

Hey hes Prussian... he should know right?

Strangely enough I cannot see WHSmith having these books on the shelf. Apart from online where do I go for these? Waterstones? Borders? (UK)

Many strategies do not work against the AI because it is an AI. Most effective stategies and tactics involve The Indirect Method whereby you screw with the enemy's mind by doing the unexpected. That is why board war games are so much fun; you get your opponent to whine or even concede a battle before he's even really lost it.

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Originally Posted by Old Geezer

Many strategies do not work against the AI because it is an AI. Most effective stategies and tactics involve The Indirect Method whereby you screw with the enemy's mind by doing the unexpected. That is why board war games are so much fun; you get your opponent to whine or even concede a battle before he's even really lost it.

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In RTW when I play online I usually do that. Most of the time they are winning then they throw up the GG and quit. It's quite fun but yeh, if only the ai of the world was good enough to understand that its winning but thinks its losing, or screwing with the ai. Put all your power units in the center and half way to the enemy split in half and flank.... I prefer human opponents.... to win against an AI that stands at 100 yards and gets raped by the archers is what I call... stupid.

What version are you playing, Jkarinen? I thought that since 1.2 (or is it Kingdoms) the AI has been charging archers after the second volley. I even have the AI charging out of the town square to attack archers and ballistae.

Its been a while since i played I am updating to 1.3 right now. But I was playing 1.0 for a long time since it would never let me update then i re installed and it updated and im like...ok... onto 1.3!! and then i played for a little while longer then I was like ok need more HD space, uninstall. Now its time to re install.

I am sure you will appreciate the changes, especially in retrofit.

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Originally Posted by Brave

Strangely enough I cannot see WHSmith having these books on the shelf. Apart from online where do I go for these? Waterstones? Borders? (UK)

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Waterstones and Borders have several of them - look in military history section or even in the classics section (sometimes Art of Ear is there).

I purchased On War last weekend from Indigo/Borders.. they had a paperback (Penguin House) copy for only 12$ CAD

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Originally Posted by Don Esteban

(sometimes Art of Ear is there).

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.....OMG!!! everytime I read this I think about the crazy ear thing in solaris... shudder...and shudder some more...or maybe a pygmy using 1 as a blanket.... :help:

I'm sorry but this will never work, the game just will not accept this as a reason to fail. It would be good though.