Takes a Long Time to Kill AI Infantry

What does it take to kill an AI infantry?

I attacked with FOUR stealth bombers and TWO stealth fighters, as well as nailing him with my battleship.

And the infantry still had one guy left.

I honestly don't understand it.

And when I finally kill it, he sends another infantry unit and repeat the cycle, and I have to heal my air force.

Shouldn't all those bombers and fighters take out one single infantry unit?

I am playing Prince. AI jerk in question is Greece (as per usual).

He was probably fortified on rough terrain with cover I/II. That would make him extremely resilient to anything you could throw at him. If he was also on a citadel, then that's another 50% more defensive bonuses.

You think Alexander is a douche? His douchebag boy toy fellow warmonger Napoleon is just as annoying.

Along with what Unresolved said, you should draw them sons of <snip> infantry out into open territory if you can.

I don't know. I can't kill any of Greece's units. But his great war bombers can wipe out my modern armor units from 10 tiles away. And I can't even kill one single unit of his with a half dozen stealth bombers and jets? And rocket artillery?

Greece has wiped out half my army (and I'm playing defensively now as I'm going for science victory). Two of his SAMs just killed off a modern armor unit AND a helicopter of mine.

And dont' get me going on citadels. They ain't working in this game. Alex's troops stand beside it and drink beer and eat pizza. And one units sits inside the citadel and probably watches porn.

I've never had a game where I've had to use almost a dozen stealth bombers/fighters, rocket artillery, mech army, modern armor, etc. to kill or two AI units.

Greece even had a unit at half health in a lake, and I swooped in with three stealth bombers. I received damage, and he lived.

Does he have any AA guns or fighter planes?

Greece had SAMs and for planes, he only had great war bombers and fighters.

I had modern armor, and he had tanks.

I was doing well with my rocket artillery, and he had cannons. And then suddenly he must have upgrade his cannons to rocket artillery.

HE was the leader so far military (he was number one, and I was second).

I guess I can't believe he was able to attack from a grey area (i.e., no line of sight). His GW bombers were able to wipe out my rocket artillery, modern armor, and mech infantry. And I can't even touch him?

I did end up winning (which I knew I would).

And the AI does cheat. There is now way that it took me that many stealth bombers and fighters to take out one unit, and the AI can wipe out my battle ships with cannons. Or a mobile SAM takes out a modern armor unit all by itself.

I've never had a game like this.

NOTE: I'm on a Mac, so this has nothing to do with the patch.

I'm not exactly sure how Evasion on SB's work since I've never reached that technology before, but if a SAM is near the unit you're bombing, you won't do much damage to it while hurting your bomber a lot. And Stealth bombers only have 90 attack compared to an Infantry's defense, so it'll take 3-4 shots to take one down. If he's fortified on rough terrain, then it'll take 4-5 hits. I would need to see a screenshot to know what happened to your units, but airplanes will eat through unguarded Rocket Artillery since they have low defense values.

The missing keys here seem to be promotions and the terrain. All those stack up if you have the right combination
of effects going on.

First, before attacking someone you can see all the bonuses that they have.
You should check those and see if that those infantry have several stacked effects like promotions, fortifications, terrain bonuses, generals, belief bonuses and so on.
What happened to you is actually not impossible if there's a lot of those, I experienced the same in several occasions.

Second, being attacked from a grey area is absolutely possible and has happened several times to me.
It's easy if they are on a hill and you are in the middle of a forest. They can see you, but you can't see them. The reverse is also true, but of course you don't notice that because you can't tell what they see.

docbud said:

But his great war bombers can wipe out my modern armor units from 10 tiles away.

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Okay, I get that you're angry, but there's no reason to falsify information, because that's literally impossible. His bombers have a maximum range of 8, including the range upgrade.

I can't help thinking that Stealth Bombers are nowhere near comparable to their real-world counterparts. For a start, the evasion factor should be absolutely massive - it isn't without promotions. Secondly they don't pack enough punch. When you consider how far up the tech tree is needed to be able to build them, I don't feel the reward is justified. I have to admit that I don't get as far as stealth very often, but the times I do it really bugs me how relatively weak non-promoted units are.

Usually, when I go for a science victory, once I get rocketry, I focus on getting techs that get me parts, so I skip over stealth, so I don't really know what you're talking about with the stealth bombers. I can say that in my current game, I had a hard time taking out ethiopia's UU with Infantry, because of all their modifiers.

tomtom5858 said:

Okay, I get that you're angry, but there's no reason to falsify information, because that's literally impossible. His bombers have a maximum range of 8, including the range upgrade.

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Okay. Then it was eight. I probably counted the tiles wrong.

Consider the possibility of successive promotions through the eras following successful wars. That would explain your predicament. If he had (and possibly did if he is the leader in the game) warred a lot his troops would have stacked a lot of promotions.

@Killbray: How do I check to see what bonuses/promotions the AI has? Do I mouse over them? I thought I tried that, and I didn&#8217;t see anything. But then again, I was getting frustrated.

@Cahillicus: I play on a lower level, so I never rush to a victory condition. I enjoy playing through all the eras, and getting all the various weapons. I was building the spaceship parts while still researching. And I knew Alex was going to be a threat, as we had been friends (which is weird) the entire game. Then I got warnings he was going to attack, and he sure did.

@pilot00: Yeah, his troops must have had some pretty good bonuses. It sucked that it took so many units to kill just one of his, and once it was killed, the next turn he moved in another. I was pretty much wasting all my turns killing one unit at a time.

One bad part was that I didn&#8217;t know which cities of his had the GW bombers and fighters. All his cities were in unshaded territory, so I didn&#8217;t know which city had what.

Also gang--what&#8217;s the deal with citadels? It looked like one of mine was not working properly. Also--can the AI just park a unit in my citadel without it suffering damage. Alex was putting Mobile SAMs in it, and I had to keep taking them out. I also couldn&#8217;t keep any troops in it because a CS was also at war with me (an ally of Alex), and his city would fire on any troops I had in it or near it.

As a note: The citadel had not been pillaged or anything.

docbud said:

@Killbray: How do I check to see what bonuses/promotions the AI has? Do I mouse over them? I thought I tried that, and I didn’t see anything. But then again, I was getting frustrated.

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check this screenshot for example.

Here the human player is going to perform a ranged attack with a battleship against an enemy infantry.

On the bottom left corner you see a battle report with a forecast of the outcome.

Under "ranged attack" the menu is split into two boxes showing "your strength" and "their strength".

Directly below the modifiers to both strengths are listed. In this case the defending unit has a -33% terrain modifier making it weaker.
Note that the infantry's strength is supposed to be 36, but the menu reports 24,12 meaning that what you get there is already the modified strength due to various bonuses.

You should always take a look at those values. Next time you try to kill an infantry pay attention to their modified strength and compare it to your own. Then you'll know why sometimes they never dies and why sometimes they die so quickly.

docbud said:

@Cahillicus: I play on a lower level, so I never rush to a victory condition. I enjoy playing through all the eras, and getting all the various weapons. I was building the spaceship parts while still researching. And I knew Alex was going to be a threat, as we had been friends (which is weird) the entire game. Then I got warnings he was going to attack, and he sure did.

Click to expand...

Well, late-game warfare in this game is grueling and ugly, so expect that if you're not shutting down your enemies before air and nukes come online.

I personally agree with you that bombers tend to be useless agains AI units whereas AI bombers can wipe my units off the map. It has always been this way for me, even though other forum users refer to bombers as strong units I find fighters on interception + tons of artillery way more valuable.

Concentrated artillery fire will kill the AI's unit. Artillery doesn't take damage so you can kill the next unit the turn afterward. Have extra roads in your territory so you can move your artillery around. Knock out all the land units with artillery and keep fighters on interception to kill the AI's planes and then take their cities.

Try not to plant citadels in enemy city fire-range unless it gives you control of a road to said city and you are following through to actually conquer said city. Citadels can either be defensive or aggressive, in other words, but not both.

GhostSalsa said:

Concentrated artillery fire will kill the AI's unit. Artillery doesn't take damage so you can kill the next unit the turn afterward.

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I think I know where's the problem.
You shouldn't build bombers in whatever city. By the time you get to flight you have barracks, armory, and military academies at the very least. You should make it a priority to get Brandebourgh gate too and Heroic epic in the same city if possible.

That way you can get bombers with "repair" from the get go and you'll be able to get logistics if you keep accumulating exp long enough.

That's where the Bombers truly shines.
In my games by the time the artillery get in firing position the city has been already devastated by bombers. Even rocket artillery are too slow in comparison.

I think those two dont count for air units.

The Brandenburg Gate definitely counts. I've done it several times to get level 3 bombers .

As for the screenshot, what mod are you using? The attack values are different than a standard game. But either way. if you check the attack/defense values, your battleship is 36 attack and the infantry has 32 defense. That's only a 4 point difference. I'm surprised you're even doing a third of his health in one shot.