Modern warfare in civ 3 can be quite a frustrating experience, since the gameplay changes entirely, but i have played games and found some unique ideas that work in Industrial and Modern age wars.

At the begenning of the industrial age, Riflemen suddnely make a great deal of units obsolete and is the first unit that shows the signs that charging on cities will not work. One of my games I sent 10 Vetrean Riflemen into a city with 1 regular rifleman, I lost 7 of those riflemen and the 8th one was in the red. This can be irritating and can get people to say " this is bull@#$%, " but in reality this is extremely accurate because at this point its trench warfare, not open fields where you can send thousands against a few and still lose because of defenses.

But what can be used against these kind of defenses? Cavalry are ok against Riflemen, but still have issues. When you get infantry, it gets much worse and only the tank will be able to defeat the Infantry regularly. The key for wars may be different, but most of the time it is for pure expansion. if that is the case, there are much better ways to wage a WW1 style war. Artillery pieces become probably your best tool, if not cavalry. Artillery can fire on roads and key recources while cavalry can rush past lines, pillaging all they see. Your opponent may see this and kill your cavalry and artillery despite guards, but these blows are worse and can get a country bankrupt really fast if used effectively. I played a game in the modern age when i stormed a enemy city with tanks(I had no cities nearby, i was passing through allied territory), only to load it with paratroopers and land all across theyre land (I had helicopters to lift them). Once helicopters are in the war and you have stormed an enemy city, you will have the upper hand by taking the opponents economy while yours is probably unthreatened.

While wars can be controlled through these quick attacks and pillages on the enemy's economy, you still wont prove your point to the AI, (in play the world, I expect that a human player would want to surrender if they saw their economy sent straight to @#$%). How do you prove your point and take the " impenetrable " cities? Artillery and Air Raids are this answer, although air is a bit less effective for it (better for pillaging), they still help take enemy HP down then you can make a frontal attack while they are weak.

As far as the navy is concerned, you probably wont have mass naval battles, and the ones you come across wont be against fortified bases, so you can ultimately prevail/lose a sea war, which can be a key for the war. on cross-continent wars the sea is the most important area of war. Your goal is to guard every transport you have going to the enemy shores, and to harrass enemy shores.

On cross-continent invasions lots of people land theyre men as soon as they get there...BAD. you should wait until lyour whole force is collected for you to make a strike on an opponents shore, a quick landing can lead to bieng surrounded, your goals for the assault are to secure at least 1 city where you can ship in forces by loading it with units, then when resistance is gone, force building an airport, form there your true invasion can begin...

Perhaps these quick tips can help some people in their quest to become a master of modern warfare in civ 3.

in my latest game i took out england, persia babylon and zulu, the germans and chinese were extreminated by those i extreminated there is only civ left, india. india is also in the modern age but there is a huge frigging difference between their miltary force and mine. RUBBER. i own all the rubber on the map and they cant even make infantry, artillery, Mech. inf., moderm armor, no tanks, no ground forces that pose a threat to me at all, at best they can make a big navy and air force, since both have limited range their only alternative is nuclear weapons and i cans top that in a BIG hurry. since they are the only civ left i dont have to worry about other civs delcaring war on me if i nuke ghandi back to the stone age. india has 17 mech. inf. and i have 140 mech inf. they have NO tanks, i have about 100 MA. why not just invade them you ask? because i like to let them come to me, letting them commit and stretch their forces out before i even make a move against them. the best they can build is a cruise missle and of course they didnt use them correctly in the last war against me.

he who control the rubber controls the war. hard to take cavalry and riflemen against MI and MA.


rubber is easy to control, it never runs out so you never have to worry about it moving into an enemy civ's territory.

i have india by the short and curlies:goodjob: :lol:

There are also those kinds of wars, but I was merely tyring to make ease assuming your opponent was well stockpiled with recources and was fully mobilized for war. Defense is reasonably easy, especially if you make fortifications along borders and put men in them with no way around it (the french maginot line is NOT a good example) and you can hold against an opponent. But I can see why someone would fight a defensive war, I myself like to at some times when i never wanted war to begin with. This was written to give some tips about attacking, you can do whatever you want, but some things are more efficient than others.

P.S. if you are on a planet with 2 nations, nuke them as much as you want, see if you can beat WW2's death toll (approx. 60 Million):nuke:

The best strategy is never try to take the cities full on. Reduce ALL defenders in the city to 1 hp with artillery and then attack, you will win the majority of the time. This will also provide mimimum losses.

My best plan is build a massive navy with Battleships and Aircraft carriers. then get a load of transports full of infantry and other troops/units bomb all roads leading out of the shoreline cities and move the transports in. Planes can be used to defend as well, e.g. a tank moves on ur new city u send ur bombers onto the tank reducing it to 1hp which u destroy with whoever was garisoned in the city.:tank:

Good Ideas, as they naturally work every time.

Cavalry will take down riflemen just fine if you have enough of them and don't mind some casualties. It's a fair fight, essentially: a 6 attack vs. a 6 (modified for fortification and terrain bonuses) defense. Obviously, cities (7-12 pop) will hurt.

Cav/Infantry vs. Infantry is brutal, and requires quite a bit of artillery support. It can be done, but it's slow and painful.

I try to do most of my fighting prior to the AI's discovery of nationalism. After that I may use my Cavalry against a poor and weak civ, but will wait for Tanks to take on a stronger one.

Also keep in mind the "nutcracker" power of armies. Armies full of Tanks will crack open cities defended by infantry pretty easily.

-Arrian

In my humble opinion, after nationalis war are different but still easy to wage. March around a stack of Rifelmen/cannons or Infentry/artilery and you are set. Since the AI does not handle bombardment well you can crush a city with 1-4 rounds of bombing and then send in your men. The primary difference is that until tanks come along, fast units are not the key. Having the firepower of cannons/artilery is what matters (with there 1 movement). Fight wars between Riflemen and tanks is simply this.

Once you reach the modern age build nothing but modern armor. They are fast and the losses you take by not waiting on bombard units is more than made up for by sheer numbers of them you can have by producing them exclusively.

I like to use lots of bomber in carrier and marines amphibious attack. 1-2 hp infantry are easily kill by marines. raze city and no more troops in enemy cultural border ( war weariness under republic or democraty).

Originally posted by Arrian
Also keep in mind the "nutcracker" power of armies. Armies full of Tanks will crack open cities defended by infantry pretty easily.


I've never found Armies to be particularly effective, esp the way the AI uses them.

That 'set' of 3 tanks will only engage 1 or 2 defenders (depending on movement made that turn), where as 3 separate tanks, they would have 3 or 6 (again depending on movement).

Where they can be effective is versus a superior force, ie an Army of 3 tanks versus the only or last MA or MI in a city. With the MA/MI gone the lesser units can duke it out but arty would do almost as well and possibly lead to some GLs. But thats not how they tend to use them.

which is why you use combined arms, mass something only is effective if you outnumber your opponenet 10 to 1 and/or ur massin modern armors. and Tanks may crack infantry, theyt still will have issues, but fewer than most...

There are basically 2 approaches to modern wars of conquest, as I see it: combined arms and blitzes of obscene proportions.

1. Combined Arms: Build infantry, artillery, and tanks in proportions of roughly 2:2:1. Send grounds of infantry into the most defensible border positions with minimal artillery support; if the enemy doesn't knock them off, dig in and bring up the bulk of your artillery (preferably workers too; for a lengthy siege you may want to fortress your units, and you will DEFINITELY want a road under them if there isn't one to begin with). Pound your objective into rubble, then when the defenders are softened have your tanks punch through and take the city. Use the territory you gain, hopefully with railroads or at the very least roads, to have a group of infantry leapfrog to the next assault point(s), and repeat the process (leaving a rear guard to clamp down on the captured city, which will probably eventually become the spearhead of the next drive down the line).

Pros: Your main assault force is practically invincible; you can often size 25 cities defended with half a dozen veteran infantry with no losses. Most of the units involved can be built early in the game and upgraded. Actually feels vaguely like fighting the way an actual war is fought.

Cons: Takes a long time. The gain you get from having an invincible main assault stack is illusory, because you lose units elsewhere to attrition each turn and it takes lots of turns to conquer any sizeable stretch of territory.

2. Blitz of obscene proportions: Build lots of tanks/modern armor. Drive them into things all at once. Vroom. Bang.

Pros: Level entire continents in a couple turns.

Cons: Painfully unrealistic. Costs a lot of shields in lost armor, although still very cost-effective overall.

Both require hefty initial investment, but given the fact that the only real con with the latter method is that it feels silly, I think it's pretty clear which one is better if you just want to win.

This is old news and most of you might know about it already, but it's really really cool. Since all trade moves through the capital, to completely eradicate your opponent's capability to wage war with modern units, all you have to do is remove all roads surrounding the capitol, and then wait until the very last to take it. This way, all your enemy can do is produce ancient units that won't stand a chance against your modern armor...

I build 16 warriors expressly for this purpose when fighting the Germans. I had a ROP with them and could place all my warriors around his capital and move all my forces to the right locations, and then I wiped them out in four turns. Not one modern unit met my forces.

that...could also work, but what if youre opponent has a massive empire? you have to set your goals. not everything can be accompished with just one action.

I attached a save game to this, as a good example of a modern age war. I play the Americans or Terran Dominion (I like Starcraft), Its 1954 and france has a guy in your land, they will attack if you tell them to get out, or they will attack if u surround the unit. There are several pacts, and america has pacts with almost everyone. america however DOES NOT have aluminum and has severe production problems with a navy. ( this was my first game that i finished, so its on cheiftain, and i really sucked, you will probably spend alot of time disbanding units and fixing the economy and stuff like it, but overall there are few other problems).

Lynx -> Yes well, of course this is just one part of the strategy... an important part, but still... And I was a great deal more powerful than the Germans in this game. But it is a great way to open up a war, you have a great chance of really wiping out his forces quickly.

Originally posted by Rammstein
This is old news and most of you might know about it already, but it's really really cool. Since all trade moves through the capital, to completely eradicate your opponent's capability to wage war with modern units, all you have to do is remove all roads surrounding the capitol, and then wait until the very last to take it. This way, all your enemy can do is produce ancient units that won't stand a chance against your modern armor...

I build 16 warriors expressly for this purpose when fighting the Germans. I had a ROP with them and could place all my warriors around his capital and move all my forces to the right locations, and then I wiped them out in four turns. Not one modern unit met my forces.


Not necessarly. That would only be if they are trading for the resources. As long as a city is attached to a resource it can use it, regardless or being attached to the capital or not.

It works, But you also have to figure out that to make a pillage attack work, you have to take at least one of their cities if they are far from your borders, otherwise drop the troops and let the looting and burning begin!:D

just burn the cities then they dont get anything

Originally posted by Lynx


As far as the navy is concerned, you probably wont have mass naval battles, and the ones you come across wont be against fortified bases, so you can ultimately prevail/lose a sea war, which can be a key for the war. on cross-continent wars the sea is the most important area of war. Your goal is to guard every transport you have going to the enemy shores, and to harrass enemy shores.




I know you don't really get alot of Naval battles but I got one in this one game where I was the Indians and I was fighting the Zulu's and the Babalyonians. I had a huge fleet consisting of about 8 Carriers and 15 battleships along with a of number of destroyers. and when I was transporting my transports across to invade in true Normandy style they attacked. They had a much smaller fleet than I but they still knocked out quite a fair bit, I also lost half my carriers, which were filled with Stealths, which was mightily annoying. The only real reason I'm tell you all this is cause it was such a cool game and I was wondering if anyone else has had such a game?

I like to attack an ROP friend... Am I trustworthy or what!?

makes note not to allow RoP to ramm when paying PTW

Naval battles , are less common than land battles, but if you have to fight cross-continent, then you will have a few...provided you have the navy to support a normandy style invasion. You should always protect your carriers and transports, as they are vital to your success.:)

Another thing on carriers---

I've seen one too many bombers drown as the carrier was crossing the ocean. REALLY irked me that ironclads killed not only a carrier, but 3 bombers and a fighter. 5 units lost to those (I thought) obsolete SOB's.

Now, I keep the planes at home until the carrier is almost in position. Re-base ht eplanes when I'm 1 turn away from the goal--and the escort has taken care of any remaining defense. Fewer losses. Dig it.


Later!

--The Clown to the Left.

I sometimes send in a crack force to take out resources - investigating the cheapest city of an enemy is an easy way to see what they have and what they are importing. Obviously this must be done before you attack...

Mostly I just blitz them through an ROP abuse. Strange that other civs will _still_ allow you to do the same to them, even if they are a little more suspisous - just give them a tech or two and they let you straight in!

Good point about the carriers, but thats why you have them guarded by destroyers and subs, If you are waging cross-continental warfare, you cannot just send an unguarded carrier into a war zone unguarded. You would be asking for them to be attacked, ( and Ironclads are not obsolete against unguarded carriers ).:wallbash: :tank:

Tank Warfare and the Blitzkrieg:

I decided, since i havent really covered tank warfare in the article i wrote, i decided to write a few notes on it.

For one, once tanks enter the picture, technology has handed you the counter to infantry (it took them long enough...) and you can now break out of the WW1 style trench wars, and go to the mobile, WW2 style warfare. ' Blitzkrieg ' may be the first thing that occurs to you when you have just gotten your panzers/Tanks, and you are in a war. the keyts for it are not a mass-attack, but an armor push with heavy bomber support and infantry coming to fill those cities you take. Modern armors are basically the same, except you have jet fighters and mech infantry by now, ready to use the tactics of blitzkrieg, (just dont forget about the paratroopers!!!).:soldier: :tank: :ar15:

Speaking of paratroopers, I actually don't really know what to do with marines and paratroopers. Tips, anyone?

First thing, you don't listen to those that say they're useless.

Paratroopers: Send a squad in to land on an enemy resource--I.e.: oil, aluminum. Fortify to hold that resource until the bigger guns arrive. This unit has the greatest range into enemy territory. How it's useless I can't figure out.

Take city. Rush airport--to airlift in MI. Garrison with paratroopers to quell resistance. Airdrop to next objective from acquired enemy city after substantial MI has been airlifted IN to no longer require their services.

Marines: snatch AI workers on the coast, hit costal/island cities defended by obsolete units. Use to quickly sever land bridges. Consider expendable. Resource blockade with these as you would paratroopers. Fortify with air/naval bombardment support, if available.

Later!

--The Clown to the Left

Yes, marines are a very useful unit. They are 8/4/1 I believe? So they have a greater attack power than a Cavalry. I keep restarting my games, so I don't have an incredible amount of experience with cross continent wars in civ3 (however Ive fought plenty of cross continent wars in civ2)... I've tryed 2 approaches with civ3.

The first approach I tryed was just to rush to get a navy and then attack coastal towns, which I felt was 'natural' :) (a favorite civ2 strategy of mine was to rush to ironclads and take cities with crusaders). Usually I played these games very peaceful up until getting cavalry and ironclads, although Ironclads aren't really good for this purpose in civ3 I've found, best to wait for something else. Marines are _very_ useful in these situations, especially in Civ3 because you can never reduce a garrison to zero like could be done in civ2. Marines have a greater attack power than infantry/cavalry (It says so in the manual but these stats are very wrong, but I'm pretty sure this statement is accurate) so they take less losses, not that this is a big deal as losses to units in the red are negligable. I still almost prefer this method of initiating cross continent warfare as opposed to my second method, which is to find hills and mountains on the coast and station stacks of Infantry and Artillery and bombard their cities to pop1 (basically trench warfare). The first method requires more tech and isn't always worth waiting for, and the second method usually offers me a much greater, and much more stable presence on the other continent. I very much enjoy the naval game so I prefer the first method for most games. :)

But in short, I love marines for the purpose of augmenting a great navy.

Here's an interesting one. Eight civs left. Aztecs far and away better than everyone else. I am Roman. I get tanks and find myself at least two techs ahead of everyone else. Then the Great War starts. Everyone goes to war with the Aztecs and China. I go in and anihilate the Aztecs with my tanks, razing cities as I go. Still, nobody has tanks except me. I accidentally (heh) raze a couple of Aztec cities that used to be Indian and Ghandi freaks out. I'm at war with the Indians now. Meanwhile, stil - nobody has tanks. This is going on from 1600-1850. I was only two or three techs away. Granted, I'm not doing that great advancing either being at war all of this time, but still...What on earth are these guys doing being so far behind?

Clown is absolutley correct, paratroopers are essential fopr modern warfare, and can wreak havoc on enemy resources. The Germans in ww2 lost for many reasons, but one was that they had their oil cut off, ( no Panzers, No Luftwaffe Bombers or fighters, just skme infantry). :soldier: :hammer:

Originally posted by Clown2TheLeft
Another thing on carriers---

I've seen one too many bombers drown as the carrier was crossing the ocean. REALLY irked me that ironclads killed not only a carrier, but 3 bombers and a fighter. 5 units lost to those (I thought) obsolete SOB's.

Now, I keep the planes at home until the carrier is almost in position. Re-base ht eplanes when I'm 1 turn away from the goal--and the escort has taken care of any remaining defense. Fewer losses. Dig it.


My God!

It's simple, yet so effective. I'm punching myself for not having thought of this earlier.

Up until now, I've been having my ships travel in huge clusters (naval SOD's) to protect my bomber-laden carriers. I wasn't too happy about this, since it crippled my ability to strike multiple points on the very first turn of war. I'll definitely be using your strategy from now on.

The plan can work, yes, but if your carrier is destroyed, then thats a big waste of effort. better to protect them since you save them and you can get free kills. becuare, after all, im not going to have to protect my carriers even if it has nothing in it!:rolleyes:

By the way, about the clustering, that isnt a good idea anyway. you only need 2-3 destroyers and or battleships to protect your carriers for a cross-continental war. Since i make on average in my modern age games more than 50 of each, i can easily make many groups (i have at least 20 carriers in a game as well, with close to 75 subs) to assault an opponents shore line with bomber supports to take oe of their cities, once i do, i load it with ground troops, clear resistance, get an air field, airship my men in. Then i let the killing begin... :D :ar15: :soldier: :sniper:

Instead of making 50 battleships, make 50 transports loaded with units, take the city with marines, and unload your units in the captured city with full movement points. You can wipe out half their empire the same turn you declare war.

Hehe, I do that too. thanks for reminding me to mention that. :goodjob: :cool:

I play on chieftain and had a game with modern warfare on it.

Unless the AI is much smarter in higher levels, what I did was parked a lot of MAs along the borders that I shared with the AI I was at war with. When stacks of Longbowmen, Mechanized Infantry, and Modern Armor kept on moving towards my border, my Modern Armor took out whole stacks of them. Saved a lot roads from being pillaged.

About paratroopers: if the ai attacks with a modern armor, isn't it done for? What I've seen is the ai goes after things in huge unit stacks. I had an injured modern armor and there was a stack of eight longbowmen right there. City was taken a turn later.

thease is something i use called 'Carpet Dropping' that is used for paradrops in the case of an opponent who is heavily mobilized and powerful. I usually dont drop in stacks, but drop individuals across a large area, large enough so that all of them will live long enough to take out roads. soon enough, your opponents will be cut off and damaged, just use some patience.

In addition to the carpet dropping idea, you need to have at least 75 para's for the best results.

And you have to have big groups of them...

Boring but hard to defeat:

1. Prior to tanks/MA build infantry and increase production capability {this will be for military units soon}

2. prior to war build military academy and have
4-8 leader only armies ready to go.

3. After you have about 10 armor units, you can
start loading armies.

4. After armor, build ratio something like this:
in core cities
improvement 10%, armor 80%, inf/art 10%

in other cities
improvement 90%, inf/art 10%


5. Only change in above is change armor to navy/air if you need to do a landing. Minimum needed if AI has average navy:
5 transports
3 carriers
12 jets
3 bombers
6 BS
6 DS or BS
1 SSN

6. City attack order:
normal unit {inf/mech} -- tank/MA
elite unit {inf/mech} -- army of 4 tanks/MA
If mechs, use art 1st before army.
If inf, army will do it but better if art/bomb first as typically full strenth tank army will drop to 1..4 HP. Occassionally will lose an army.
Carefully watch terrain bonuses.

elite unit {not inf/mech} -- tank/MA

Most tanks get wounded but not lost. Only lose 1..2 per 12+ city.

Use wounded armor and inf to pacify captured city. Move armor back to frontline after recapture city.

Ok, why use tank armies. Tired of 1) waiting forever for art/bombers to weaken city, and 2) lose too many tanks if used singularly. It is not unusual for elite inf to take out 2..3 tanks before it turns black. With armies, units are red but still alive and can be rebuild. Basically play leaf frog with tank armies. Attack--red status--recover to full strength-- repeat, repeat.

7. If playing PTW, knock out those radar towers before you lose too many units.


== PF

But you always need an alternate plan, what if you dont get armies so easily?

I have found using tank armies extremely frustrating, because of how hard it is to take over cities. They also heal very slowly, taking quite a few turns to be fully healed. And they at most kill one to two defenders at a time.

Alternate plan: liquidate cities with radar artillery and/or cruise missles, then run over them easily. That is pretty easy, and better for those who don't get leaders.

Agreed, tank armies suck.

By the time you produce, move into postion, and use all those cruise missles and artillery. My modern armor armies will have the enemy completley eliminated.

Originally posted by hbdragon88
I have found using tank armies extremely frustrating, because of how hard it is to take over cities. They also heal very slowly, taking quite a few turns to be fully healed. And they at most kill one to two defenders at a time.

Alternate plan: liquidate cities with radar artillery and/or cruise missles, then run over them easily. That is pretty easy, and better for those who don't get leaders.

Alternate plan:
1. takes longer to play
2. requires more defensive units (to protect the RA and captured city)
3. allows AI to drag out warfare by giving more time to build/rush military.

Don't get leaders? You only need one. After the first build army. With this first army and attach either a wounded unit, warrior or archer. You want to guarantee a win. Once the army has one you can build the military academy.

Takes too long with tank armies? Why, are you only using 1..2 armies? By the time you get to the modern age you should have 12-16 armies and the pentagon. Then it is your choice:


Tank Squad A-- attack, 4 armies of 4 tanks
Either A) one large powerful city with all 4 armies, or B) 2 average cities with 2 armies each.

Tank Squad B-- move in position for attack next turn
Tank Squad C-- healing in barracks
Tank Squad D-- healing in barracks.

You will have RR so each turn you can wipe out 3-4 strong defenders {elite infantry or mechs}. The rest just keep rolling.
Turn X, attack with Squad A
Turn X+1, attack with Squad B
Turn X+2, attack with Squad C
Turn X+3, attach with Squad D
Loop as many times as you need.


My guess is your problem with tank armies is you don't have enough of them. This method works well with my standard preference. I have a 2 HP separation between veteran and elite with the idea that elite status is 1) gained in battle , and 2) is a difference in ability like the difference between conscript and veteran. Come to think about it, I don't really use tank armies. I use MA armies. We are talking about a lot of MA before I start the modern war:

about 60 in 16 armies, Maybe 2 of these armies are old tank armies. Rest are MA armies.

About 80 free MA/tanks for hitting regular units.

I don't always wait for the full build up before I start the modern war. Often I will start modern war with only 3 armies and create the rest during the campaign. Keys to being effective are really really simple:

1. from creation of first Leader create army. Put Military Academy in city with high production. Be pumping out new army every 4 turns when you hit modern era. Before modern, put army general aside and Freeze him. Let him study. You don't want to give him cav's when you can give him MA's.
{Some over at poly recommend changing Military Academy's requirements so leader is not required. Player1 and others.}

2. your military production war machine must be ready to A) pump out more units than AI, and B) have all happiness/production improvements in core cities completed before start modern campaign. {Well with the exception of manu plant. First build nuke power and then MA. A good goal is to be able to have 6-12 MA's come on line each turn. This means you need 12 excellent war production cities that can pump out a new MA in 1-2 turns.}

More questions?


== PF

One, I'm not big on cities. In one mod, you could build a military academy w/o a victorious army, but armies cost more to build to balance that out. In that, I only had 4 armies, and then 6 when I conqered France, starkly less than 12-16.

Yeah, Player1 was a player who tweaked the game and the Civ3.com site has his mod on it.

The 4-5 army thing hinders my progress, I guess that's why armies aren't effective for me. Everything has to be in mass number, everything...

I like the idea, and I might use it when I have the chance.

yeah, i got a bug that i must always have a designated number of units. 5,10,25,50,75,100, etc...

heheh i don't have that bug but however i got this bug, i must have 100+ unit in each catalogory before i even consder war :)

i often average 300-600 units per war heh then again almost all of my war are in the late peroids after you get modern armor and mech infanty, and a majority of them are ICBM and Tatical Nukes, when i go to war i often nuke every single civ cities multiple time, best time to do this is right before they get the intereged defense cos after that then u will need what 125% more units to get though those darn defense.

*shungs* i personaly love war of obscute proporation, i always have a obscute amount of units ready to invade every single nation in the game, its actualy quite funny to watch 8 or 9 nation within a few turn vanish from the map :)

its on regant btw. probably will go to monarchy soon.

I like modern wars too...which is why i wrote this article here and posted it for the world to see. hehe:D

heh i actualy rarely ever use or need artillery, often when i go to war its the end game war :) which mean nuke time. its ammazing how a couple of well placed nuke can turn the whole game.

A good example was in this game, an isle syle game, but anyway what i did was basically postion several transport full of modern armor and couple of battleship for defense, i only had about 20 ICBM, all of the 10 nation put together, had 50-60ish icbm. So what i did was use esplogue to id and inspect which cities required a nuke to soften it up, i selected a few, primarly the ones which had a large quality of ICBM in them or was heavly forthessed. When i had identifyed those cities that was the largest threat to me, most of the time those was the captal or the core/near core cities so i hit em, then i moved in my force, and four turn later the game was over :)

if i didn't nuke them it would had taken waaaay more units to take them down, as it was i only required a mere 80 modern armor, i usualy attack with 150-200+ modern armor. But this game i decided to take a chance that the AI might nuke me first, and build up a modest stockpide of nuke, just enough to take down the most dangerious cities so i could swarm and put a end to the ai quickly, i'm talking about 10 separe civization :D

then again it was sort of the perfect time, the world was sort of winding down from their 6th world war, it seems that onice every century or so the world exploded into world wars. heh i only got attacked onice, and i basically allied everyone on the azetics and they well sort of ah quit attacking me and that was pretty much the end of it :)

looks like its time to move up to monarchy level like i said earler

I usually build yp a huge nuke stockpile ASAP since i seem to like bombing people out, and it eventually turns into nuclear war and i make sure I have the biggest nuke stockpile. Usually around 50-250 Nukes:nuke:

Its somewhat amusing to see a nuclear war for some reason, because they spent all that effort building, then it gets wiped out...

hehe espically if its the AI :D

if its me i just get pissed and do a massive retribution strike and wipe out the ai off the face of earth :)

In the days before the first patch for the original civ 3 when there was that glitch that if you were at war and you made piece with them and asked them for 999999999 gold per turn and they would accept any deal you made with them along with it ( make them give you all their cities, all their techs, etc ) i rush built about 500 nukes and ICBM's and i torched the planet...literally :D :nuke:

Rammstein lists an excellent strategy.... no matter how big the enemies empire might be.
If you cannot destroy the roads surrounding the city then get the next radius of roads... and always destroy as many roads near the enemy capital as possible.

Against human players this won't be effective... except on mountain roads where calvary or riflemen can probably last long enough to destroy any key mountain roads.

yeah, I make dozens of bombers to burn out every road they have, because you dont get the benefits of enemy roads when youre on them as far as movement...night as well burn them all and kill their people. but this is only if you dont plan on resettling the regions. but i usually bomb all the roads anyway.

My american game I have, I had to have 100 bombers, 200 Infantry, 150 Artillery, 100 marines, 100 Workers, 50 Cavalry, 25 Battleships, and 25 Subs just to fight a world war. hey! I won!

in these last 24 hours i have made more than 100 posts and i just hit 300, cool!

Originally posted by Lynx
in these last 24 hours i have made more than 100 posts and i just hit 300, cool!

Which is cutting it close to spam with 1-liners and sometimes inflamatory posts. Nothing to be proud about. Please use more content in your posts. Anymore spam, and you'll have 3 days without a post.

On second thought, seeing that you spammed in other forums as well, I am giving you 3 days right now AND your postcount is reduced by 80 posts.

Lynx, you posted this in strategy articles too. Why did you post the same htread twice? Its good, but you dont need to have two of them.

I totally agree with lynx's 1st post, but before i land my army i either:
1)saturation bomb/bombard A.I. land
2)nuke A.I. land
3)combination of 1+2

and the its MA spearhead(10-20) then tank rush(40-60), w/ air support, battleship support, and artillery support; with possibly some SLBMs.

SLBM's? what are those? do you mean ICBM's?

i believe SLBM stands for Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile.

It is Submarine Lauched Ballistic Missile

The rest are:
ICBM InterContinental " "
IRBM Intermediate Range " "
ALBM Air Launched " "

I prefer to get into the enemy's countrysid ewith Cav (mounted, armour, anything that moves quick) and run roughshod over resources troops and workers. Take those workes and use them to fortify key positions. Bombard the cities from the land, sea, and air. As you weaken a unitkill it until the city has only one unit - then your bombardment will be more effective against the population. Also use that roaving force to quickly take down smaller cities, the enemy will have less money less population and they will also lose out on the ease of movement - your RR and roads don't work for them. I then move in settlers to those one and two population cities to add loyalist and keepthem from flipping. Also by quikly building temples and libraries, you culture in that city will grow and further hinder the enemy's movement.

thanks, i was wondering what that meant. Speaking of ICBM's I just played a game where i was the americans and t was into year 150 of WWIII. I was the only nuclear power in the world with 50 tacticals and 100 ICBM's. Korea drops a ICBM on me, i drop 64 ICBM's on korea...:nuke:

amphibious landings can be really irritating, since once your guys hit the beach, you are going to have some serious problems breaching their lines.

I agree with that sarevok. i get banned right before i go to europe, and i truly respect them for cutting more than 100 of my posts when they said 80 :rolleyes: . nevermind that, i just finished my chinese game where i launched a cross-continental blitzkreig. i think ill write an article on it sooner than later.

I know how you feel lynx. i told the moderator that, but they could care less. Either way, I am curios to see what that strategy is.

I think these strategies are aimed more at graphics and fun than efficiency. This is a game, so fun is the object, but they wont work beyond warlord. Once you get to higher levels you don't have the luxury of drastically outnumbering your opponent or having huge tech leads. You have to win wars against armies twice your size and equally or more advanced. Sadly it is all a matter of statistics. There are numerous threads in here that explain them far better than I could. I recomend going to the war academy.

A few pointers.
1. Paratroopers are a joke. They cost 100 shields and have an A/D/M of 6/8/1. In the same period, Mech Infantry costs 110 shields and has an A/D/M of 12/18/2. Modern Armor costs 120 shields and as an A/D/M of 24/16/3. It doesn't take calculus to see all you should build in the modern error is MA. (granted Mech Infantry are marginally cheaper and better at defense but the MA's huge advantage in movement and offense makes it the only time in civ that one unit is all you need) According to the combat calculator (http://www.columbia.edu/~sdc2002/civulator.html) If MA attacks a fortified Paratrooper it will win 92% of the time. If a Paratrooper attacks a fortified modern Armor it will lose 96% of the time. Even if the paratrooper is fortified on a mountain MA will win 65%. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a paratrooper's drop radius is only like 4 squares. That means the modern armor could get to wherever you drop the paratrooper in two turns (even if the drop radius is 6 squares).

2. Use defensive units for defense, offensive units for offense.
In the very first example Lynx posted, he referenced attacking riflemen with riflemen. Riflemen are defensive units. They should not be used to attack other defensive units. I realize you probably know that Lynx but the reference could confuse others. A rifleman attacking a fortified rifleman of the same strength will lose 85% of the time. I would only use them to finish off a wounded offensive unit (i.e longbowman or cavalry). I agree with the fact that Calvary are also not ideal against rifleman. A veteran cavalry only beats a fortified veteran rifleman 34% of the time. Calvary are only effective in large numbers. Half will retreat before dying so you can use them another day.

3. Use artillery to get the odds in your favor
The secret of even warfare (cavalry vs rifleman or tank vs infantry) is artillery. I know it is slow and sometimes boring, but if you can knock two hitpoints off of a fortified veteran rifleman, a veteran cavalry will now win 70% of the time (more than twice as often.) The case is even greater when attacking a city. a city adds something like 50% to the defender. So a veteran cavalry will only win 20% vs a fortified veteran rifleman in a city. But if artillery knocks off two hitpoints the cavalry wins 57%, and 70% of the time if 3 points are knocked off. If the artillery kills enough citizens to knock the city back to town status, Calvary wins 70% vs a 2 hit point rifleman and over 80% vs a 1 hit point rifleman. You need at least 20 pieces of artillery to do this, 50 to 80 works much better. (btw all these odds assume the defender is not on a hill, mountain or acrosss a river)


Artillery is even more effective as defense, especially when combined with railroads. Initiate your war, maybe take one or two cities and then sit back and wait for the counter assault. The AI will throw everything it has into your territory. Make sure your artillery is on your RR and zip it to where you need it to cut down all the AI's troops to 1 or two hit points. Send your cavalry/MA out to wipe out the entire wounded force (veteran cavalry will beat a 1 hitpoint unfortified tank 80% of the time) And riflemen are great against 1 hitpoint cavalry or bowmen. In two turns you will wipe out the majority of the AI's military while sustaining almost no losses. Then march in and do as you please. I find this is less time consuming than bringing the artillery into enemy territory at 1 square per turn. After this you will have the number advantages even on medium level games so you don't need artillery necessarily. I would only use artillery for cities and metropolis once I wiped out the AI's military. Hell you could even use paratroopers at this point.

I know this works up to monarch. AI might get smarter above there.

1. the paratrooper radius is more like 6 squares, and you need a scout in order to find weaknesses. you can hit them behind their lines, but MA do make the paratrooper a bit less effective or usefull.
2. lynx specifically said that those wars are suicide, but once you pound a position with artillery, then you overrun it with riflemen who takee and defend the new lines they have claimed.
3. Lynx also said specifically that artillery are to be used for offense and that they are the key to breaking enemy lines. I myself use at least 120 pieces of artillery in ww1-2 style wars. In addition attacks on moving troops is a good idea and if Lynx didnt already mention it, then I will. You attack assault forces headed for your lines to cause as much damage to them before they attack. If you kill them, good. If not, thewn you at least have done damage, and your defense will take care of the rest. both lynx and I play diety, so we know full well how to fight wars.

lynx, where is your article? it should be up soon right?

Im not done with it, i was actually playing some Baldur's Gate and warcraft III (dont you remember, we just played online earlier today!) so i have not played attention to civ3. I beat BG in 3 days at about 6 hours of game time (for a 50-100 hour game...HOLY SH*T!!!) it might come soon though...if i care enough to write it up.

What's with stealth bombers in PTW? Either I am very unluckly or they fail to perform 9 times out of ten. My bombers seem to do much better. Is ther some nuance I'm missing on these units?

If we are talking overseas assults then it is a must to have at least 4 carriers with you fully loaded with bombers or s-bombers. They can really damage the infastructure and afterwards support your invading force :goodjob:

very true, but i have had games when i have well over 30 carriers for an assault, but thats usually if im making my initial landing on another continent in diety.

I have noticed that too actually, staelth bombers screw up alot.

very true, I almost always shun stealth bombers, (actually, i shun ALL air forces when I got 200 ICBM's, hehe :nuke: )

Originally posted by peace_frog
I think these strategies are aimed more at graphics and fun than efficiency. This is a game, so fun is the object, but they wont work beyond warlord. Once you get to higher levels you don't have the luxury of drastically outnumbering your opponent or having huge tech leads. You have to win wars against armies twice your size and equally or more advanced. Sadly it is all a matter of statistics. There are numerous threads in here that explain them far better than I could. I recomend going to the war academy.

A few pointers.
1. Paratroopers are a joke. They cost 100 shields and have an A/D/M of 6/8/1. In the same period, Mech Infantry costs 110 shields and has an A/D/M of 12/18/2. Modern Armor costs 120 shields and as an A/D/M of 24/16/3. It doesn't take calculus to see all you should build in the modern error is MA. (granted Mech Infantry are marginally cheaper and better at defense but the MA's huge advantage in movement and offense makes it the only time in civ that one unit is all you need)



MA are more efficient than MI in a 1:1 basis but if my city produces 110 shields Ill always build a MI over a MA. If the city will take 2 turns to build a MI and 3 to build an MA Ill ususally build an MI. The same can be said about most units. I let how many turns it will take to determine what unit I build and therefore use my cities more efficiently.

This allows me to use combined forces bombard the crap out of the enemy first with well over 100 untis then send in over 100 MA's. Never raise cities and use their RR network to invade several lines of citys in 1 turn. Sometimes I dont even need to starve the cities as the war is over before their is a chance for the enemy to respond.

A continental invasion doesnt make it to much harder just invade them enemy with several waves of marines preceeded by naval and air bombarment. I usually invade from both sides of the continent maybe more and have my MAs on the transport to keep the invasion going. First turn and the enemy has lost half his country.

Or mabye ytou send waves of marines into an enemy coastsal city, put your whole army in there, quash the resistance in 1 turn, rush an air port, then you let the rienforcements just flow in.

ive tried that, and i have found it to work etremely well.

I used it when i invaded greece, who was halfway across the map, i stormed with 16 units only, rushed an airport, then i had over 200 units the next turn. hehe.

i had 1000 in my invasion of Russia on Diety (i needed all of them!)

Hey, has anyone tried doing any of the old doctrine strategies?

I guess noone even knows what doctrine strategites are. you know? Static Defense, Deep Area Defense, Operational Manouever Warfare (hehe), or Unlimited Submarine Warfare?

Another thing about paratroopers is that you can use the same airport multiple times to parachute in the troopers, unlike an airdrop, which can only be used once.

Another use for the paratrooper, is to take out those barabarian camps that you haven't dealt with just yet, on an underdeveloped civ continent you've captured, or a fairly large island that no one has settled on yet.

Pity the helicopter can only carry one unit, as it would have been better for it to carry at least 2 or even 3 units per go!

Originally posted by Lynx
I have noticed that too actually, staelth bombers screw up alot.

Well, I always used stealth bombers with Smart Bomb.
with carriers and stealth bombers around 20, you can make in single turn the city to be in chaos, and in the next turn reduce the city to less than 6 in population. But I always target the next city which I am going to overrun, so i don't missed any turn when my tanks come to the chaos city. The only problem is, I hope someone can answer it, Bombard the improvments using smart stealth bomb and reducing the city size to 1, does it make my rep. hit or not?

i dont thik so. its natural populatin stuff, so most probably wont care. its when you burn it down then you get people pissed off.

Originally posted by Lynx
very true, but i have had games when i have well over 30 carriers for an assault, but thats usually if im making my initial landing on another continent in diety.
Yes, carriers are exceptionally useful on a large land based invasion (from the sea). They help to destroy the infrastructure of their rail system, and bomb the crap out of the target city.

I used this strategy on a recent game, where I (Rome) was playing a 'revenge game' against Persia, for wiping me out twice in previous games.

Basically I got together 3 fleets together; two were carrier groups, consisting of 2 carriers per group, filled with bombers, and positioned on opposite ends on their continent (large map, and not a particularly large continent). With the usual battleships and escorting destroyers plus patrolling subs to take out any enemy ships. The third fleet contained all the transports, three in all, one packed with marines and the other 2 with MA and MI units. This invasion force was tasked to take a city on the coast where oil was within it's radius, and therefore kill 2 birds with one stone. :D

To cut a long story short, I hurried an airport in the captured city and then marched all over their land, eventually wiping THEM out, completely.

Note, that usually I am a builder type, but the Persians pissed me off so much that a revenge game was on the books next time round. Served them right too! :)

I usually use my Stealth Bombers to take out enemy ships, units caught outside of their cities, mostly focusing on taking out those Radar Towers the AI puts up everywhere. I usually stay away from bombing cities and rails as long as I still have the armored power to capture them, just so I don't have to worry about rebuilding all that stuff I break. :p

Air Borne also will allow you to interdict enemy troops. Drop them in and by your invasion time to get up to speed. Land them and move them into fortified positions or defendable terrain. It is somewhat like the use of ABN units in D-Day.

which was a pretty good strategy.