I'm having problems conquering enemy cities. I'm playing the Germans with Prince difficulty against the AI and have masses of panzers and artillery in my use. I've not discovered flight yet so no bombers are available.

And here is the problem. As you know artillery is slow moving especially on enemy ground (1 tile / turn) and it can not keep up with the panzers. I could attack the city with my panzers alone, but the losses would be *huge* without any artillery support (I get <10% combat odds against the city). In order to get the artillery support my artillery (and therefore the panzers too) have to wait 1 turn in the tile adjacent to the enemy city because the artillery can not attack the city on the same turn if it has already moved. So the AI does just what I would do in the same situation - a massive artillery attack against my artillery/panzer stacks causing maximum collateral damage. And when the next turn begins all my units are beaten up so badly that they cant attack the city anymore.

Any ideas how to solve this problem without huge losses? I know the bombers would solve this but as I said they're not available for ~20+ turns and I can not wait that long. I'm getting frustrated as the AI just "sits" in the city and I cant do anything about it.

I'm afraid that before flight you are going to loss an important number of units trying to conquer a new city. You can try to move in the same turn your troops in order to have them in as many positions beside the city as you can, and so one artillery only will be able to damage one group... Also you can try to do the promotion of your tanks with collateral damage, and use them as "kamikazes", so you will lose the first tanks, but the others will roll over the city...

Dont put them all in one stack. Try 3-4 stacks, just enough to get the altillery over to the intended sites. Instead of moving your panzers along, move throwables like infantries or machine gunners. Panzers can wait until the Altilleries/Infantries/Machine Gunners are in position and ready to bomb the cities before coming in for the kill.

Also if it's not a Pangea, move in battleships to bombard the coastal cities. This way your altilleries can concentrate on taking on the defenders instead of city defense itself.

Thanks for your tips. I'm already using 3 stacks when attacking, but unfortunately the AI has enough artillery (~10) in the city to give all the stacks a bloody nose. I can not use much more stacks as there is a quite small time window for me to attack the city as the AI is bringing in reinforcements. If I spend, lets say 3-4 turns flanking the city from every corner with slow units like infantry / machine guns, the AI reinforcements will make it there in time and the opportunity is gone. Also I can't wait for the bombers because my war weariness is growing alarmingly.

Even more frustrating is that I'd be ready to negotiate peace immediately after I get that one city (it's a bottleneck for getting more oil) and I'm pretty sure the AI would accept the peace too.

So I guess the only way is to pay the price in "blood". I'll also try the collateral damage promotion for couple of my panzers and see what happens.

Give at least one infantry unit in each of your stacks the promotion vs Artillery (don't remember what it's called), plus any defensive bonus that might help. If they get a high-enough bonus, the AI might not send the artillery in to do collateral damage.

Wodan

Thanks for your tips. I'm already using 3 stacks when attacking, but unfortunately the AI has enough artillery (~10) in the city to give all the stacks a bloody nose....

Hmm, my guess is if they have so much at the one city, then pick a different city until you get bombers, and in the mean time pillage without care. I know attacking one of those ...more cities can be a royal PITA, maybe it's better to leave it and perhaps even encourage them to leave the city (by positioning some defensive units on hills around the town).

Also, by doing that in the "fat cross" you will eventually starve him out of the city...

Learn the art of logistics! Have artiliry work with your tanks over the span of many military operations.

Have "groups" of artiliry (5/7 per city) escourted by infantry/marine/Gunship advance on enemy cities, while your main tank army hits the cities that your artiliry armies have already hit....

That is, if you have 3 "artiliry Armies" advanceing on different cities, have your tanks advance on the citiy that will be struck first, by the time they capture the city your other artiliry armies should have hit thier targets.

Also, try and minimize suisideing your artiliry, use bombard as much as you can... if you come across a particulary hard city to capture use a few up, but try to keep your numbers controlled.

This strategy takes a while to master, but the speed you can gather is phenominal. Yes you might lose an artiliry army here and there but if you keep hitting them eventually their war machine will collapse.

The trick with your tanks is to not park them next to the city you are attacking if you're having problems with defending artillery. Move in the artillery first (with defending units as mentioned in other posts), they can bombard the defenses just fine depsite any collateral damage they take. Keep the tanks at least one tile away so the defender would have to leave the city to hit them. Then, when the city has been bombarded, move the tanks in and attack with them.

Alternatively, build more tanks and fewer (if any) artillery so you can absorb the losses you will suffer. In the end it should work out about the same anyway, unless you hit a particularly hard city.

Have "groups" of artiliry (5/7 per city) escourted by infantry/marine/Gunship advance on enemy cities, while your main tank army hits the cities that your artiliry armies have already hit....

I think you missed his problem. His problem is this:

Turn -2: Moves stack towards enemy city
Turn -1: Moves stack next to enemy city; enemy attacks stack with artillary (he says about 10, but even 5 artillery will rip up a stack pretty bad)
Turn 0: Bombard city; enemy retaliates with another artillery attack on the attacking stack
Turn 1: Most attacking artillery and/or Panzers (or other defenders) are either dead or severly weakned; attacker lacks the strength to complete the attack on the city.

The real problem is that his artillery is being bombarded by enemy artillery before he can use the artillery against the city. The weakened artillery is then so much easier for the defenders in the city to defeat, and does less damage in an attack.

While your idea of breaking the attack into stages will preserve the Panzers, the escorted artillery will still suffer the same result.

I think the main problem here is that the city that is being attacked has a rediculous number of (offensive) units defending it. Give the computer time to roll them out to do something "offensive" (i.e. no city bonus, maybe attacking an entrenched unit 2 squares away) and you will have an easier time.

Ahhh, Nazi Germany encountered the same problem in the lead up to World War II. Tank technology had developed to the point where powerful, rapid movements were possible, but it became clear that artillery support couldn't keep up with the Panzers. Without artillery support advances became much more difficult. Germany solved this problem greatly reducing the importance of artillery in an offensive, replacing it with bombers and aircraft. They termed this strategy of powerful armored offensives along a narrow front, supported by dive-bombers and aircraft "Blitzkrieg" and it screwed Europe up pretty good.

Basicly, artillery can't keep up with tanks. With this in mind, I reccomend two possible strategies. One option, the Blitzkrieg, is you use bombers to reduce city defenses, instead of artillery, and attack with tanks afterwards. The other option, the "Naked Armor Rush" is where you basicly just make as many tanks as possible, split them between City Attack and Collateral Damage promotions and rush em in there. This one is good if you've neglected flight to get tanks early (which you probably did).

If you're at a point where you don't have enough tanks to take a city without artillery, then a war right now probably won't be very profitable. Either build more tanks, or wait for bombers.

I think the main problem here is that the city that is being attacked has a rediculous number of (offensive) units defending it. Give the computer time to roll them out to do something "offensive" (i.e. no city bonus, maybe attacking an entrenched unit 2 squares away) and you will have an easier time.

I think you missed what i was saying...

Attack with Multiple armies of artiliery... that is say, 3 groups of 5/7 artilery (WITH escort) and advance them toward multiple cities... Place them on a good defensive tile and bombard (not attack) the enemy cities.

Then have your tanks atack the cities in order that best suits your artilery movement. say, if group one will reach its city in 4 turns and group two wil reach its city in 2 turns... head for group two first, then advance to group one... The key is tempo, you dont want very much down time between attacks... Tempo is the heart of logistics.

I think you missed what i was saying...

Attack with Multiple armies of artiliery... that is say, 3 groups of 5/7 artilery (WITH escort) and advance them toward multiple cities... Place them on a good defensive tile and bombard (not attack) the enemy cities.

Then have your tanks atack the cities in order that best suits your artilery movement. say, if group one will reach its city in 4 turns and group two wil reach its city in 2 turns... head for group two first, then advance to group one... The key is tempo, you dont want very much down time between attacks... Tempo is the heart of logistics.

This works for me.

Stack 1 : The artillery stack.
Mission : bombard city defense to 0. Don't sustain too many losses. Don't attack the city.
Composition:
7 artillery (Barrage I + Accuracy)
2 Marines with Combat I, II and Charge (this gives them 10% + 10% +25% = +45%vs artillery)
1 infantry with Combat I Pinch and medic (+60% vs gunpowder)
1 infantry with guerilla I and II (+75% when on a hill, 100% if the hill is forested)
1 machine gun (drill I,II,III) - keep the pesky infantry away + 50% vs gunpowder
1 Machine gun Combat I, Medic I - backup medic
2 Panzer (they get +50% vs armour) Comabt 1, Combat 2, Ambush - total of +95% vs armour

Find a nice hill. next to the city if possible. get attacked. Survive. bombard city. Collatteral CANNOT kill units. There is a minimum health below which artillery cannot damage a unit. Your artillery can bombard while damaged, so mission accomplished. The idea is thay you never attack with this stack, make them come to you. You have examples of the most extreme bonuses against all the major threats, so the enemy attack is going to cost them.

Stack 2: The panzer city killers
5 suicide panzers - first in, mostly they die : Barrage I,II (and III if you can pump out that many level 4 units)
10 Raiders - often they die : Panzers City Raider I,II (and III if you can)
5 finishers - rarley they die : Panzer with drill I,II,III,IV,V (just keep on propomting them :lol:
1 explorer (only 40 hammers) with Combat 1, medic I

This stack does not approach with 1 tile of the city until its assualt time. Launch from 2 tiles away so the defending artillery is more interested in suiciding on youe artillery defense stack than hitting the tanks, so you crush the city with a fresh assault force.

Move in, rape, pillage, redo the decor, heal, move along to next victim.

Note: Tanks, including panzers, do not get defense bonuses (from terrain, for instance). Marines, or even Infantry, can be useful to cover Artillery. The best defense, however, is to arrange somewhere else for those enemy units to be via diplomacy...

:satan:

Give at least one infantry unit in each of your stacks the promotion vs Artillery (don't remember what it's called)

Wodan
it's called "Charge"

I know that Seals have a bonus vs. artillery built in, do Marines as well?

I know that Seals have a bonus vs. artillery built in, do Marines as well?
Yes, but it's only when attacking, read carefully :)

The "charge" promotion is against siege units (unlike the marine bonus it is for attacking and defending) so it includes machineguns if that ever becomes an issue for you when attacking cities.

Well another thing is, if you are only attacking one city, pillage all roads leading to that particular city. Starve it, make sure no reinforcements can get in. The good thing with moving in Altillery and Infantries first is that your tanks would get shielded from fire. Altilleries die like flies anyways, and Infantries arent gonna do much fighting, besides defending. Once you suicide your Altilleries, the full HP tanks can get in and mop up.

I finally conquered the city! I did just what some of you already told me to do: backed up from the city, made a (fake) attack far away from it, which swung the balance on the front to a completely different spot. 2 turns later AI starts emptying the city I wanted to rush its units to this new (fake) focus point. The AI also diverted it's reinforcements which were earlier directed to the city I'm trying to get to this new spot. Another 2 turns later I attack the city with the stacks I pulled back earlier and now the city has only 2 artillery units and some weaker infantry in it. I conquered the city and lost only 2 units doing that.

:goodjob:

Those WW2 blitzkrieg guys were geniuses! I'll check the bookstore for "Blitzkrieg for Dummies" next week ;)

Nice work, Biratets! This type of maneuver can work on any scale. The AI seems to be smarter about it than in past versions, where you could just put a unit on a mountain in enemy terrirtory and would atttract continuous attention regardless of its actual threat or the AI's extremely low odds of winning against it. But the "feint" still works wonders if you give the AI a juicy target that they will pay attention to.

Is it my imagination, or is the AI also more capable of attacking us using this type of mutiple front strategy?

I just finished conquoring an AI city with a bunch of catapults defending it. My situation was a bit different since there were catapults, and I had muskets, which generally beat catapaults, but the same could be done with swordsmen/macemen/axemen.

I had one axeman stand outside the city I was going to attack, and the AI attacked my unit. It generally took 2 cat's to take out one defender (actually, with the musketeer it was 4). When the first one died, I replaced him with another, while my main attack stack was out of reach behind them.

Once the cat's were either all damaged and/or dead, I moved in and started my regular assault. The AI's aggressiveness worked against them as they attacked single units rather than stacks and had a higer attrition rate.