Hi there!

So, when playing on this Arch. map, I was on a large island (more like a snaky continent if you ask me). My enemy has 7 cities on the island and I had captured one before my attack stalled and I had to sue for peace to get ready for a better run.

I decided that rather than try to invade over-land (whilst fighting off his naval counter attacks) I would prepare an invasion fleet for all six of his remaining cities. I figured that if they all fell, he would capitulate. One quick slice to the head, you know?

Well, I prepared 12 east indiaman ships, 24 artillery, 24 invasion units (mix of older calvary, infantry, and newer marines). I didn't have more powerful units because I didn't have oil yet (on his side of the island too... all the more reason to invade).

While I was preparing this hoarde, he used the AP to take back the city from me, so now he had 7 cities gain. However, the 7th city was much reduced in strength and power, so I ignored it for the time being.

So, I got all my ships in place and launched the attack. I had underestimated a couple of his cities just a little bit, but I completed the conquest of the continent (all 7 cities) in 5 turns. I conquered two cities on the initial attack, two more on the next turn, then the last three on three turns later.

While I didn't get it quite right, it was still pretty cool to just wipe out the biggest, and most powerful cities of his in (almost) one blow.

(As a side note, he didn't capitulate yet... I had to capture one more city on another island)

Any of you guys done this? What's the biggest simultaneous attack you have ever tried? Land or sea is fine, but what is the largest number of cities you have attacked on the turn you declared war?

Playing Incas I managed to gather 36 units in one tile :) just to get one
Chinese city. His defense was really strong but I managed to break it.
After that it was much easier to conquer the rest of his country because
AI focused on defense of border city.

I considered to pass his well defended city and sneak inside his country to
destroy his other cities first. But I was afraid that he will move his army inside my country :) On the other side, AI tends to be very flexible on his defense and it is always easier to defend than to attack, because you have the movement penalty on foreign teritory. So AI can reorganize his defense much more faster than you.

So far I learned that all the invasions have to be prepared very well. Logistics,
variety of units and a plan are basic features of all attacks. In later stages, when you can get stealth bombers it is becoming much easier to capture cities if you reduce his defense to 0% and weaken his units by 50%.

Right, I've done a lot of massing units to attack 1 city, but I want to know how many cities other gamers have attacked on the first turn of war. Obviously, this implies either a tech lead (as I had) or unit-amassing on a grand scale (which I guess I did a bit of too).

Anyway, I'm hoping for some records here. So, again, how many cities have you attacked simultaneously on the first turn of a war, and how many units did you build up for the attack?

-- SJN

Right, I've done a lot of massing units to attack 1 city, but I want to know how many cities other gamers have attacked on the first turn of war. Obviously, this implies either a tech lead (as I had) or unit-amassing on a grand scale (which I guess I did a bit of too).

Anyway, I'm hoping for some records here. So, again, how many cities have you attacked simultaneously on the first turn of a war, and how many units did you build up for the attack?

-- SJN

Two.

Coastal attack force: carrier, 3 planes, sub, 5 destroyers, 8 transports with 12 marines, 10 infantry, 10 tanks

Land Army: 20 tanks, medic, 10 infantry, 2 machine guns, 5 grenadiers, 4 workers, 10 cannon.

Huge Map/Marathon...

In the early days of BTS (when the ai built sometimes crazy amount of troops), I decided to Hit Isabella overseas as soon as I got Astronomy....
First Built a massive amount of galleys to upgrade.

3 stacks to hit 3 cities the same turn 14 galleons in each stack, all full of assorted Knights, Maces, Pikes, Longbows, Trebs and Cats.

42 galleons total, 126 assorted land troops, landed simultaneusly in a 3 -pronged attack....then I crossed my fingers and hit return....

I took half her 20 odd cities in about about 15 turns before she captulated, fun event, even though it temporarily financially crippled me :)

But hey its in the rules:-

Rule No1:- Izzy must die ;)

One Ragnar game I played on archipelago, I was able to hammer the Persians with a total of 5 invasion fleets, and 5 captured cities on turn zero of the war. I called my little carrier groups "Berserker Brigades" and they featured:

1 Carrier
- 3 Fighters
1 Battleship
3 Destroyers
3 Transports
- 3 Marines
- 3 Tanks
- 6 Infantry

I also was able to use land based bombers to help soften up 2 of the tougher cities, as I had island bases just to the north and south ends of his continent, I think I had 5 bombers in each base. Was pretty cool actually, but the only way I had such a massive military was from a pretty much non-stop grinding island war I started as soon as I had done mass upgrades of my Triremes->Frigates and Berserkers->Grenadiers. The Persians were the only opponent with any semblance of tech parity, but when you get hit that hard in 5 places at once, there's not a lot you can do. Other than the few ships he had out in the ocean when I attacked him, I must have destroyed like 30 ships in the ports I captured on Turn Zero of the war. Those invasion fleets work like a charm though, because other than cities with massive culture, the ships bombarding alone will usually reduce the defenses to 0 in one shot, allowing your fighters (and bombers, when available) to use tactical strikes. After that if there's still an undamaged defender or two, hit with a marine or two next to ensure decent odds, but then switch to the tanks with their collateral damage promo as soon as you can get fair odds with them, and they'll ensure that even the infantry are able to storm the beaches because the defenders are all so worn down from all that collateral damage. I suppose you could use artillery too, but that's a tech I usually skip as I'm beelining for Flight and then Radio for my collateral damage and city bombardment needs.

It was quite a thing of beauty though to totally cripple my only serious rival in one turn like that. The early wars had been relatively easy as I had a tech lead, but still very time consuming as I was first dealing with galleons, and by the time you pop Flight and then Industrialism you have soooo many new units you've got to build (cause nothing upgrades to carriers, battleships, marines, or tanks) that the first chance you get to attack someone you're dealing with pretty small numbers and can only really deal with one city at a time. Once that 3rd carrier rolls off the slip though, it's time to start splitting your fleet into battle groups and showing the world what blitzkrieg means.

AAAAA This is just the tread for quite easily the best series of moves I have EVER:king: :king: managed to PULL OFF :goodjob:

I was in the progress of planning a multi prong attack on Ragnar, playing on Monarch , large & small with Wolfshanze 1850-1920 mod:goodjob:

Had 1 mega stack max 2 turns from the Ragnar coast which I spilt up into 4 large stack aimed at 4 cities each with approx
Naval
3 x battleships or Dreadnoughts
2 x Missile Crusier (loaded)
1 x heavy Cruiser
2 x escort Cruiser or destroyer
2 x attack subs
5 x Transports (carry 5 units)

Land Army per city
2 x Mobile Arty
5 x Marines
5 x Heavy Tanks
3 x Mech Inf.
10 other assorted units (inf, cav, helo, anti tanks) basically ones I could not afford to upgrade


Just about in attack position when a scout, attack sub spots a Viking :eek: very large Invasion fleet heading somewhere, as my landmass is the only real possible destination my heart nearly stops :cry: :cry: quickly I pull of some escort ships, subs, missile crusiers and close in and re-position land based aircraft to cover the expected landing area.

Then I Declared war on Ragnar before he did it to me , his Invasion fleet got hit with cruise missile approx 20, then attack subs with high chance of withdrawl a few heavy ships, managed to sink quite a few escorts and damaged lots in the stack he was still more than 1 turn away with his transports to my coast and was going to get hit with planes before landing.

My remaining DoD then attack the 4 cities, ships bombard, missiles hit, arty suiside barage tanks attack, took all of them and razed leaving Ragnar with no coastal cities on that side of his landmass, after that his remaining invasion stack got mauled by my naval wolfpack, land based aircraft and he only managed to land 5 units on my landmass nice pratice targets for the planes .

Basically took out his whole invasion fleet before he got to my shores except 5 units, sunk all ships as they did not have a base to retreat to and could not defend themselves as they were battered from the initial strike. Took out 4 well established cities and removed his coastal access and managed to get my troops loaded back on transports back to safety.

All in all it was a graet series of moves

Basically took out his whole invasion fleet before he got to my shores except 5 units, sunk all ships as they did not have a base to retreat to and could not defend themselves as they were battered from the initial strike. Took out 4 well established cities and removed his coastal access and managed to get my troops loaded back on transports back to safety.

All in all it was a graet series of moves

Nice work. I'm gonna have to try this sometime I think. simultaneously destroying all coastal cities of a rival would effectively knock them out of the game. They would have no ability to project power overseas and no overseas trade routes. Any cities they did rebuild would be small and could be blockaded, improvements bombed etc to prevent them from ever become a naval power again. I like it! It wouldn't matter how many million land units they built, they'd be stranded :lol:

Hi

When I FIRST started playing civ4 back in vanilla and warlords I would make TONS of mini stacks instead of one huge stack just because it sounded better because of col dam. But then I learned that SoD's are STiLL better than small stacks so I went to that. Sometimes I make 2 big SoD's or split up the SoD's if it can takle more than one city but still now I usually just make one big stack and try to keep it together. Maybe sometimes sending out a smaller stack to get a weak city thats waaaay out of the way.

Actually my BEST coordinated attacks were in civ2. In that game you could use enemy roads and RR's so pretty much soon my idea of war was sending in engineers to RR their way to each city, using spies and partizans to get past ZoC's and then spread the spies and partizans around each cities BFC so as few partizans would appear as possible after a city is taken and especially not on mountains or hills. Then send in howitzers to take out each city garrison one by one and doing that meant you could take out 10 15 and even over 20 plus cities whiping out the ENTIRE civ in 1 turn hehe.

I still wonder why after CiV2 they wont let you use enemy RR's anymore hehe :P

Kaytie

From original post above

It was a great feeling getting it to finally come together, the worst part was the buildup and positioning and hoping no surprize attack before you are ready.

I don't think Wolfshanze will mind but anyone who likes a bit of naval action should look into his mod which adds ships to the game in the period of late 1850 to early 1930 along with WW2 type planes and tanks. It just feels a bit more polished than jumping from ocean faring wooden frigates to modern destroyer.

A tactic i've used that has served me well is this: since i'm usually a builder going for an SS win I try to create several stacks od doom and strategically place them to strike fast at whatever AI might attack me. In the modern era I'll create several transports and escorts, load them with marines, tanks, infantry and artillery (whatever my most lethal modern units are) and stage them off of the coasts of my percieved enemies. (but not within their cultural boundaries).

Its worked more times than its failed. In one game Kublia khan got uppity and we ended up pounding on each other at our borders for several turns...until five of his coastal cities suddenly got the smackdown when my attack fleets swooped in.

You can fool the AI with Para's too, drop 2or outside different AI cities and attack next turn - the AI doesn't know where to reinforce or concentrate units, leaving you to batter the 1 or 2 cities you were intending to anyway only with more success!

anyone else done this?

If only one could paradrop tanks........

Oh yeah, the AI is really easy to trick like that. I often do that with Immortal rushes if the enemy has built up too many defenders in a city... Just back my stack of immortals away from the city, leaving some fog of war to lull it into a sense of security. Next thing you know, half the defenders head out on a foraging party thinking the siege is lifted and BAM you kill them in the open where they're weak, then hit the city and take it easily the next turn. Feels kinda lame though, so I only do it in risky situations like ancient wars pre-siege weapons.

I actually took 3 cities with 1 SoD on turn "0" of the war. I was USA, had tons of battle ships and transports with literally boatloads of SEALS. Bombard defenses off, hit with SEALS until you capture it, leave enough to garrison, move to next city.

Most i've ever done otherwise is a 3 pronged attack in the middle ages, but usually if I'm not massive SODing it's a 2 pronged attack, usually designed so the AI can't easily flank around me and pillage me.

Right, I've done a lot of massing units to attack 1 city, but I want to know how many cities other gamers have attacked on the first turn of war. Obviously, this implies either a tech lead (as I had) or unit-amassing on a grand scale (which I guess I did a bit of too).

Anyway, I'm hoping for some records here. So, again, how many cities have you attacked simultaneously on the first turn of a war, and how many units did you build up for the attack?

-- SJNThis is the strategy I used in my RB Epic 4 game. Read about it here (http://ruffhi.atspace.com/Epic4-5.html) ... note that this is page 5 of the report so you might want to go back 1 (or more) pages so that I can set the scene.

It's been a while since I've done that. I love it though. If I have the production available, I like making 4-5 invasion forces and taking 4-5 enemy cities in one or two turns.

I routinely attack/raze every coastal city on a continent/island in one turn with marines/battleships. It normally results in a pretty quick capitulation and I can proceed to the next continent/island. I'm not sure what the most I've done is...maybe ten or so in one go (5 stacks taking out 2 cities a turn sounds about right).

On a huge hemispheres map with 4 continents, I conquered one of the equally-size contients (~30 cities) in twenty turns. I used:

- Two coastal invasion fleets, each containing (approximately) 12 marines, 10 artillery, 25 infantry, a medic III, 3 battleships, 4 destroyers, 2 aircraft carriers, and 6 fighters, and however many transports were required.

- Two inland forces, each consisting of approximately 12 paratroops with fresh bombers flown into conquered cities each turn.

- A dozen tanks and a dozen artillery for mop-up work.

And quite a few other random units (mostly infantry for garrison) airlifted in as required.

I took four cities in the first turn.

Once, as the Vikings, I gathered 6 galleons filled with berserks for a first turn pwnage of the Khmer (6 cities).