help needed to conquer persia

I'm playing now with China. I've researched now every possible tech, and so did my fellow Xerxes. We both have the SDI Defence against nukes and I want to take Xerxes down. But theres a big problem. A problem bigger than I thought. According to my spies, Xerxes has 400 modern armors, 400 mech infantry, 100 jet fighters, many naval units and some other units, while I only got 300 of modern armors and mech infantry and 70 stealth bombers. We both have the same amount of nukes, like 70 ICBM and tact. Nukes.

What I want is help to conquer Xerxes continent, but I already attempted some attacks, but all failed, because before I attack a city and after landing in their soil, my units just die. So I need some help from you experts out there . I'm open to any ideas.

It would be helpful if you could show a zoomed out map with the mini map as well.

Ideally you want enough bombardment power on the first turn to take out the railroads south of those mountains so that they cannot counter in one turn and then any attack force would be out in the open. You also need artillary to go with your attack force so that the stack can defeat other stacks much easier. A possible strategy would be to use marines on the same turn to take a city behind your main stack. Probably the size 6 one.

If no nukes, then I would take as many armies of MI and MA as I could muster. A settler and a bunch of arties and the rest MI's.

Drop all on a hill that was ideally three tiles from the next city. The ai will leave the stack alone. Then found the city rush a barracks and fort all units.
Now with stand the counter attacks until they were delpleted as much as they are willing to lose and then go on attack.

You should be able to rush an airport during that time and send over more MA's. Then go on the attack and raze cities.

Since you let it go to the nuke stage, you will need to dispurse you units and launch a nuke fest. Sent icbms to the same target until three succeed. Then pick another target.

Targets are icbm building metros, large stacks of units and use bombers to cut uranium sources. I would first steal plans and locate as many icbms as I could take down.

Once all nukes are used or destroyed, send the invaders. All cities are on troops builds or nukes at this point. Spread out workers so they can spring into action to clean up mess and rail all tiles lost. Once they finsih add some back to the cities that were nuked. Good luck.

Could you give a picture from the eastern penisula? It seems a good landingpoint to me.
What to do: if you have 300 modern tanks and 300 mech. then you need about 75 transports, and couple more for arty. and atleast one transport full of marines. Then you need carriers for your bomber's.( I know, this will take long to build). When you have ur 600 units in transports, move outside the city you want to attack. Bombard it's defenders to death and if anyone survives attack with marines. You take the city. Then,(now comes the best part), move your transports inside the city and unload, you'll be able to attack at the same turn. Conquer all cities you can in one turn, then bring your mech's to defence, and after this make the nuke attack. If you don't have nuclear sub's for your tacticals then build those allso. you need all nukes you can get. It's allso preferable to destroy "some" of their tanks with nukes, so their counterattack will be smaller. Good luck.

post a save! My Idea is to drop about 100 mech Inf's in that 4 tile mountain range South East of Sardis. Use those mech inf's to absorb their attack before you move on to attack Sardis! Oh and never forget, ARTILLERY IS GOD!!! With enough arty you could decimate a large force, use arty counterattack fall back, use arty counterattack fall back, ect...

Well arties cannot land on mountains and vs many hundreds of modern units, you would need a lot.

He has a lot, but to bring say 60 takes 10 transports. Those would be better used for MI and MA units. At least until you have all of them over, then bring arties. firing 50 arties each turn is quite a chore.

The ai will not attack that stack if it has armies, so you want to land on a hill with a settler. Found the town and rush a barracks. With stand the attacks. This is why units are better than arties, they can take an attack. That is more important than the chance of removing a HP.

It is numbers, if you have 300 units and they send 600 units, you need to have a fresh unit to put up after one dies. Even better after one is dropped to 1 HP. If you have 200 units and 100 arties, this will be much less likely.

If you have ever invaded modern age or even very late IA civs on sid, you will get a taste of this action.

Oh and do bomb all the roads you can to that stack. You do not want all attackers to show up on the first attack wave.

Here's what I would do:

1) Use your stealth bombers and shore bombardment to destroy all the roads in the area near your target city. You can leave the roads that are directly adjacent to the city, but destoy the roads in the next two rings at least. This bombing can take several turns.

2) Bombard the target city with ships and planes, and capture it with marines in one turn. Move as many ground units (including many artillery) as you can into the city and fortify them. Since the roads approaching your city have been destroyed, enemy modern armor will not be able to attack you.

3) Take out enemy modern armor as they approach your city. Since they have to stop in ithe bombed out no-man's-land, you should be able to do this with very little losses. Hit them with artillery and bombers then your modern armor, and retreat back to the city.

4) That will destroy their standing army. Also destroy their production ability. Use bombers and nukes to take out all their oil or all their rubber. Removing either one of those will prevent them from building new modern armors and mechanized infantry. Hit their good cities if you have any nukes left over.

5) After that, they're pretty much beat. The best troops they can build are TOWs. Just conquer their cities one by one.

Well MA can move three so all normal tiles will be just a 1 move cost. While you try to gain access to the land the AI will pound your ships with its bombers and may use its nukes.

If you land, it will still use its bombers and may use its nukes. This is why I went over the concept of spreading out and getting the nuke fest going. So it will not have much in the way of nukes to hit any stacks you have, either on land or at sea. You can recover faster than the AI, it will probably be short on workers at this point.

Stealing plans may allow you to cut down on the bombers in the process, remember bombers are leathal in C3C. They will sink ships, so have lots of covering ships. They can be the cheapest ones you can muster such as emtpy transports.

The two big ideas is that you can recover faster than them after GTNW (global thermal nuclear war) and you will sustain less damage. This is because you will be smart and
a) focus on citis until 3 hits from icbm
b) dispurse your units and workers to lower loses.

BTW consider going into mob after the nuc fest once you have any structres going in damaged cities. You can short rush to get them up asap.

What government are they in? The AI likes democracy, so it may be worthwhile to bomb them into anarchy before invading. I'd rely more on battleships and bombers than artillery until you have a secure beachhead. And of course, pillaging oil/alluminum is a must if at all possible. Remember in a conflict like this the loser will be whoever runs out of troops faster.

Also, your first goal should be to raze all the costal cities. Bombard all the defenders down to 1 hp then let several transports full of marines loose on them. This way their modern armor are utterly useless.

Did you consider a ROP rape (of course you'll have to make peace, but it would leave some time to build the things needed by the other strategies) ? It would help you get rid of his nukes with selective MA attacks.

what difficulty level is it?

direct assault is :suicide:

i see radar towers by every city, each one probably has a civil defense, and each unit is fortified, so a mech infantry would turn to about a 54 defending in a metro. thats not counting the terrain under the city, which could be hills. i'd use moonsingers strategy of getting 100 (but in this case, 200) radar artillery. get a settler and set up a base in between four cities, so the arty is in range of each one (you'll need to rop rape, it will be difficult to do this when you're at war).

i think bombers are a waste of time and shields. 200 radar arty is more than enough to red-line every unit and destroy civil defenses, reduce pop to town size, and pillage radar towers. the bombers will most likely get shot down, the lethal bombardment may kill a few units, but 30 modern armors is more than enough. if you use bombers, you'll need jet fighters to bomb them so it will wound or maybe even kill defending aircraft. don't forget the carriers needed. that's too tedius (it's not worth the 2 or 3 units you kill from lethal bombardment.

about rop rape. just incase you are in trouble, need to sign peace, but the rop rape ruined your rep. how do you attack. thanks to bamspeedys excellent idea, you sign an rop, put units in territory, demand a tech (or something) until he's furious, then attempt some espionage mission for the cheapest and least likely outcome price. if it fails, he might declare war on you, so you're rep is still ok. if he dosen't, he'll be mad, so try it again.

I tryed some tactical moves, and Own is completly right. Even with a RoP I dont get far, either my units are moved automatically out of the Persian territory or they declare war - because I refused to remove them - and strike my units and kill em all. Even with 30 nukes launched in the lands near my landings point didnt worked much. My bombers are quite useless, if 75% of them are brought down by enemy jet fighters.

I'm playing on prince, lower aggression.

Remember arty is your friend with your core cites pump arty out with as many armies of mi guarding it underneath all that have at least five armies of MA to attack. you then have a wall of death. move from city to city conquering as you go keep this one stack. if you keep his railroads you could achieve a domaination victory first turn you land there. although this would require lots and lots of units.

any way i give you goo luck i never liked persia if I wasn't playing them anyway...

GeneralZed, I started to look at this closer to make a real plan, but I see much work has not been done.

You only have 18 workers with many metros and plants, you can expect pollution. You have a number of cities that are not growing, some are under size 10 and have a hospital?

Give some to the lux slider, you do not need to put away 1100gpt, you do want to grow those cities that can make production.

You have more land, but are smaller in pop?

Persia was allowed to make ToE, Hoovers, Internet that is a no no. If you let the game go that long, you must build them, unless you are close to whacking them and you are not.

You have an MGL sitting around?

You have MA's that are regulars, I never seen that before, why?

Did you know you are in danger of a culture loss?

Here is a common sight: Koyoto,
making a factory and only nets 3 shields. Has a hospital and is size 8 and not growing. It could only make 24 food as not configured anyway. After irrigation of the 4 mines, it could get to size 14. Not worth a factory.
When capturing cities with hospitals, it is often wise to raze them and plant a new one.

No need for marines, you are not going to get enough of them and transports to take and hold a coastal city. It is too slow and marines are not going to over come MI's. As it is you would be hard pressed to get them in range any how. Make xports in coastal cities, you need all you can get.

Why make peace with Persia when they have a number of ships and untis on your teritory that should have been destroyed first. Not to mention a city to capture or raze.

Why is a worker planting a forest on a grass tile that is never going to be worked, nor have troops cross it? In fact you need a ciity to get that tile in its borders, so plant one (city that is). In fact you have many spots that should get a city founded.

You could and should make Apollo and get pre builds to launch and win this game. Be prepared to sabotage their builds. NO armies, no pentagon, I could not find the Mil Acad, but it should get cracking or build.

A number of cities are in disorder, why? You have over 30K in gold, use it to rush cath if needed.

Wow reading this makes me feel like a real noob O_o

For everything theres a reason. I checked some game objectives off like cultural victory. I never win that afterall.

Should I first improve my cities and launch an attack when all stuff is ready and see how my cities are nuked after I nuked Xerxes?

Well my plan now would say go ahead, but make 10 or more workers the next few turns. Once you have say 50 workers, then go after them.

I want my units spread out as best I can. I want to hit the cities with the most units first with my nukes. You may lose most of them, if they have SDI. You have it right?
Anyway fire at the same city until it manages to get three hits and then change targets.

After they hit you, use your work force to put the roads and rails back and then add some workers to the city to build it back up. Rushing cannot be done as you are in a forced labor governament.

Just wondering why you have no slaves? Note some cities are making offshore platforms and have zero citizens working coastal tiles? Always evaluate to see if it will make sense. This means you get 1 shield for each pop on water tiles. You need to net at least 3 to break even, after corruption. So most cities will need at least 4 pop, many more than 4. So I would only go with those that have 5 or better and then only if I can get it done in 3 or 4 turns and the town produces few other shields. It would need shield boosting structures as well (fac/plants). So it is hardly ever worth it, especially if war is near. Build workers, xports instead.

I have 5 metros targeted, but I doubt you will have enough nukes to hit them. If this was Sid, it would be wise to hit the three UR tiles, but not at low levels.
The reason is that at sid, I can expect they will not have any workers to hook them back up and I could then cut off from any more nukes.

Cutting off their lux and dusting a few metros will toss them into longer times for building them anyway. I would not trade them luxs at this stage.

Toledo would be my prime target as it makes a good landing spot. You have three hills and can cut the rails to the area to slow them down. If you manage to really damage the city, you can attempt to assault it with your Marines and raze it.

That way they will not have a safe city to load in arties to pound you with. Bring as many Mobile Sams as you can muster. Time the attack so your fleet is ready to hit the city and land on those hills. Be darn sure to raise a number of armies. At least 5 with 4xMI's. Do not worry about MA armies to attack with, get the AI to kill off most of its units on your new town.

Use the transports that landed to rush a Rax first. If you get a leader, and have dropped the bombers down to a small amount you can leader rush an airport, otherwise use any slaves you get to make a field and put some MI's on it to allow reenforcements.

Try to find targets with bombers to raze. Use investigate city to find some.

Did you make any progress? I discovered that you do not have SS allowed. I also found that you never had a victorious army, so you could not build the MA. This is a huge concern.

You should have gotten the MA and the Pentagon build long ago with conquering that massive contient.

Once you knew you had another very large land mass to tackle, you would need lots of armies to do it.

An issue I have with a no WW government is you cannot do much rushing. So here you are with 30-40K and no real ability to rush stuff. The only time I would be in Monarchy, is on Sid or maybe Deity. You can get away with it as on sid I won't have any money, because I will use it to steal.

I do not need to rush a great deal and will be in war for prolonged periods of time. Now you cannot even rush a temple in new towns (no pop). You cannot speed up the build of armies, once you get the MA built as that would kill the production in that city.

Now had I got so late in the game as to be research SDI, I would have a prebuild going. I would have been first to the tech and then once I got it, finish the SDI and launch all my nukes. Why let them get an SDI first?

Anyway, I was working on the attack and prepared to launch the next turn when they declared. They did not launch nukes. I made an MI army with the leader and got a victory and built the MA the next turn.

Launched all ICBM's and had fair results. I expected 1 in 7 and got 22 hits out of about 100. That is much btter than I hoped although watching the first 13 miss was scary. They countered with about 50 icbm's and 10 tacticals and got 18 hits, that is very very good for them.

They only hit two large cities and I had cleared them of units. I lost maybe 10-15 units, I did not count them. They lost ~ 400 units, not counting all the icbm's used. I busted 7 major cities, probably all filled with 40 or more units.
Their capitol is disconnected and those cities will not being doing anythig for some time.

I was understaffed with only 50 workers or so, as I did not exoect them to do so well. No problem as I will get 5 cities online the next turn and the others in two more. Those are all nothing cities anyway.

Cleared off the land mass and the shared islands as well. Sunk all visible ships they had out and many subs (nukes). I had all the subs out for sentry duty in prep for the attack.

Hazed them with some pillaging via bombers on irrigated tiles for a little added rioting or starving. They have very few bombers left, but lots of jets. Their Navy is half gone and they only have 9 transports left, so they will be no danger to the mainland.

In short you could either build up armies and invade or pile up more nukes to hammer them down some more. You can surely make more ICBM's than them and will be able to rebuild any towns quickly. I would drop 20 more workers to use as pop boosters, if you went nukes. Oh 40 tacticals are still available as they had no targets in range.

I would probably gather the subs to load them and the rest into transports (if they load, not sure as I don't build them). Transport near new beachhead and after it is up rush them in and launch them on any stacks or metros.

So you would be in a fight where you break a bone on them and they give you a minor cut. The longer the fight goes on the worse for them. In short you cannot lose.