Early Industrial Railroad Intrusion

Ive no idea if this has been posted before or not, apologies if it has, but it worked well for me in a recent game played at Regent level. At the start of the Industrial Age I virtually crushed my two strongest neighbours in 1 turn.

Wars in the modern era, when the world is covered in railroads and you have stacks of Tanks or MA's, can be very quick. You can travel long distances taking may cities in a single turn. This stratagy aims to emulate this at the beginning of the Industrial era, using roads and Cavalry instead of Railroads and MA's. Its a 3 step tactic to erecting a very long path 20 or 30 tiles deep into the enemy's territory, virtually wiping them out and stealing their capital or Wonders, all in 1 turn!

INGREDIENTS -
- Lots of workers
The number of these you need depends on many things(see STEP 2 below). I usually use between 80 or 100 on a 8/10 city, 25-30 tile Intrusion.

- Lots of Cavalry
Depends on level, i use about 40-50 for a 8-10 city Intrusion on Regent, thats usually enough to get what you want - their capital and wonders deep in their territory.

- Must be connected by road with the enemy your Intruding.
- Enemy must have at least a basic inter-city road system.
- A few spare defensive units for the final stroke of the Intusion.


REQUIRED TECHS
Military Tradition
Steam Power
Replaceable Parts helps, but is not essential.


You also need either -

The workers and cavalry all stacked next to the border of the enemy your performing the Intrusion on
..or...
A good enough rail system for you to move units fast around your territory.


EXECUTING THE INTRUSION

STEP 1
Attack the nearest enemy city to the border with your cavalry and take it!

STEP 2
Your territory has extended to include the city just taken. Move a worker onto the first bit of road in your new territory, start building railroad. Do this with as many workers as it takes to force-build the railroad right away that turn. The number of workers it takes will depend if they are workers or slaves, whether or not you have Replaceable Parts, what government type you have, and the terrain. It will take differing amounts, but on any grassland, plain, desert or tundra, it doesnt take that many. Even hills and forests are possible to force in 1 turn, especially if you have Replaceable Parts.

STEP 3
Repeat step 2 in the direction of the border nearest the next enemy city(which must be within hitting range of your Cavalry). When you have built railroad right up to the border again, repeat Step 1



THE FINAL STROKE
When you have taken as many cities as your stash of workers and cavalry will allow, use your spanking new Railroad connecting all your shiny newly captured cities to move defensive units up to them to defend the inevitably feeble retailiation, if there is any retaliation at all after such a pounding.


LIMITATIONS
If there isnt an enemy city within firing range of your cavalry, the Intrusion stops.
If you run out of workers, you cant force build any more railroads and the Intrusion stops.
If you run out of cavalry, you cant take any more cities and the Intrusion stops.
If there is a break in the road, meaning workers cant move and begin building railroad in the same turn, the Intrusion stops.

Nice strategy, fret. Wipe out a whole civ in one turn! Although it does require a huge force of workers! I guess you would join most of these to the cities that built them (or newly captured ones) after conquering the enemy civ?

I think there is one missing ingredient from your list though: A significant tech lead. If the enemy cities are defended by riflemen or even worse, infantry, then your 40-50 Cavalry would not nearly be enough for an 8-10 city intrusion. On Emperor/Deity levels that kind of a tech lead is either very brief, non-existant or happens when you have virtually conquered the whole map anyway.

As you said though, it should work well for Regent level and probably Monarch too if you have lots of knights ready to upgrade to cavalry. The ottoman civ from PTW would also be especially suited to this tactic since they have siphai (8 rather than th 6 attack of standard cavalry) and are industrious to allow for quick railroad improvement.

Nice one. I use that one myself. However, I keep atleast 3 defenders with howevery many workers it takes to build a railroad in 1 turn (on both sides of the city). I then move my artillery/defender stack, along with my cavs into the next immediate city radius. There have been similar strategies and variants on this posted, too.

Moved to the strategy articles section.

Its a good idea to be in democracy for this one - so that your workers build the railroads faster.

Wow! Never tried that one... what a great idea! :thumsup: Thanks fret!!

ummm... that's

Originally posted by Kangaroo Boy
I guess you would join most of these to the cities that built them (or newly captured ones) after conquering the enemy civ?

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I tend to hold of doing that until I have mega-infrastructure in place, especially when milking. Once youve built up a large army of workers its amazing how quick you can railroad/irrigate the entire map.

I think there is one missing ingredient from your list though: A significant tech lead. If the enemy cities are defended by riflemen or even worse, infantry, then your 40-50 Cavalry would not nearly be enough for an 8-10 city intrusion. On Emperor/Deity levels that kind of a tech lead is either very brief, non-existant or happens when you have virtually conquered the whole map anyway.

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A slight tech advantage is good, I dont think you need a significant lead, but it helps to get replaceable parts just as the enemy is starting with railroads and stuff. I have done this strat succesfully against riflemen and it didnt take too many more cavs, probably an extra 25% or so, although yes, it would be a real struggle against infantry. The key is to do it before the enemy starts getting hospitals. I dont play emporer or diety so i'm a little niave as to whether this strat would possible at those levels, I doubt it would though - tech advantage being the reason.

As you said though, it should work well for Regent level and probably Monarch too if you have lots of knights ready to upgrade to cavalry. The ottoman civ from PTW would also be especially suited to this tactic since they have siphai (8 rather than th 6 attack of standard cavalry) and are industrious to allow for quick railroad improvement.

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Thats a fantastic idea about the Ottomans but unfortunatley I dont have

I like doing this with Industrious civs as well, I first did it with the Americans, but non-industrious civs are still good as long as your not using 100% slaves.


Thats good advice from ainwood as well, Democracy gives you another good advantage, do they work at 150% in Democracy?

@CHieftess, thanks for putting it in the right place!, I wasnt sure where to stick it

Good strategy. There's also been a lot of variants of this posted here.

Originally posted by fret
Thats good advice from ainwood as well, Democracy gives you another good advantage, do they work at 150% in Democracy?

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Yep, and not only that, there's also a good reason for an ultra-quick war as opposed to a more drawn out (with reinforcements, etc.) one: war weariness.

This can be done in deity too, if you can get the tech parity or advantage. I have done it many times.

Aren't you suposed to have a lot of artillery or cannons to bombard the cities you are trying to take? With enough Artillery preparation, taking the cities doesn't require all that much cavalry, typically one per defender, if each defender is down to one hit point from bombardment. The rail roads make it possible for the artillery to move and then bombard.

I guess it is a matter of choice whether you attack with Cavalry or something else with multiple moves. There are other units with a 3 move radius that would work, if the enemy to be attacked were weakened by bombardment. (Conquistadores?) The bombardment can come from the air or sea, if you have the right units and position and can't or don't want to use artillery.

@boa: Well, the main point in this strategy is that it goes by quickly, and considering artillery only have one movement, using them would be impossible with this strategy.

However, I'd say that using artillery and possibly taking many turns longer is better (especially if you're behind in tech), unless you're in democracy (and maybe republic).

Maybe I don't remember Moonsinger's strategy well enough, it may have involved combat settlers or special situations where you could move the artillery or other bombardment units in range of enemy cities on your own rail lines, or rail lines just built in territory you just took.

With rails, and enough artillery, you can move artillery by rail through the newly acquired railroaded former enemy territory and former enemy cities, or newly built (by "combat settlers") friendly cities in enemy territory, and bombard the enemy.

You only get one (or two) shots at the same target with the same piece of artillery, but if there are only a few defenders you can knock the enemy down to one hit point with a limited number of shots, and move other artillery to engage the next city. I could be wrong (I am likely wrong) but don't the AI's mostly have a hard outer crust and limited garrisons in most interior cities, which is why the capture lots of cities in one turn is relatively easy?

This could be compared to ROP rape, but without moving under a right of passage. The AI just can't react fast enough to do anything about your attacks if they all happen on one turn.

Maybe this is a reason not to use the strategy?

Artillery is OK if the next city your attacking is within range without having to leave your territory

Bombing from the air though is for later in the game, not really applicable to a strat that occurs early industrial- i.e. you can start this strat having only researched 1 Ind tech if so desired, its made easier by getting Replaceable Parts for fast workers and artillery within 3 techs.

To use planes though it will take at least 7 techs/28 turns to reasearch flight, and thats if you make a bee-line for it foregoing evertything else(if you want Rep parts also then thats 9 techs to research!). Then youve got to build a sizeable fleet of bombers to make a significant impact in a single-turn blitz - by the time youve done that, you may as well be sweeping continents with Tanks.

Maybe I don't remember Moonsinger's strategy well enough, it may have involved combat settlers

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Yes it did, it involved moving a settler with suitable defence into enemy territory, then the following turn, placing a temporary 'Outpost' from which to launch your artillery bombardment.

Maybe this is a reason not to use the strategy?

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Look out!, Its the fun police!

@barron of ideas: Moonsinger's strategy dealt with a situation of the AI having railroads all over. This strategy deals with a situation of the AI having roads all over.

I've done, and still do, use type of attack currently. One thing that I keep running into is that the cities typically aren't close enough to allow me to get too deeply on a single turn. When I take my first city I'm usually only securing the immediate nine tiles around it. The path to the next city may be 2 or more tiles away. If I'm using Knights that's pretty much the limit on movement. If I'm using Cavalry I'll get a bit farther, however, it won't be long before I run out of steam.

Another thing to be careful of is be sure not to leave your workers or artillery exposed. It doesn't take much for the bad guys to send their own horsemen, scouts, guerillas, etc. in for a quick kill.

:ripper:

maurym - you must hold the record for the longest amount of time between registering an account and your first post


I wouldnt enter into this stratagy while only having units with a movement of 2 to attack with, having Cavalry and attacking from the diagonals is critical to the success of it. A Cav should be able to attack any city from a diagonal that has culture of upto 999, as long as they dont have to travel through forests, hills etc of course.

What level are you playing on maurym? I play mostly on Monarch, and at that level I find I can usually get very deep into enemy territory using this stratagy, most times getting to the capital as well. If your playing at the higher levels then maybe the AI's culture is more advanced.

I've been playing Amer Army..just started this again. I play at Monarch level. My point was in a single turn you can take out a few cities, but you will run out of steam especially with hills, mtns, forest, etc. What dictates how deep you can get is also based on how far apart the AI cities are....sometimes they may be to far apart to allow you to get too deep.

My question is, if you're going to make all that time and effort to gather (build units) and prep all these workers, what is your opportunity cost?

Maybe I'm just biased, but a oscillating war where artys/bombard units are used and you nip at your enemy and take away strategic cities (to you) and go back to peace to consolidate your gains seems more appealing to me.

My feeling on this is that if you can't use artys in this lighting war strategy, you've essentially raised your casualty count and that means even more units.

Also, level of success depends on what sort of units your enemy has. An enemy still stuck with rifles while you've got tanks can be blitzed with little effort, and in fact, I've done variations of what you've said on a smaller scale and with a relatively smaller force. Maybe 15 to 20 tanks in a standard map backs with arty and combined arms. If on the other hand your tanks are going up again well entrenched infantry in size 12 cities with no arty support (and its probably too early to have air at this point) I'm not sure how you're going to pull that off. You need a long time to build so many units.

This might be workable after you get flight,. But now, you have to build your stack of bombers and hope the AI doesn't build any AA or fighters. (ok this post was made pre-C3C) but post C3C air is more important and the AI does put increased emphasis on building air units and defenses.