Combined approach to costal cities

Am I the only one to do this?

To take a costal city in one turn in late eras...

1) bring enough ship to lower city def. a few battle ships and destroyers
2) bombard with planes
3) use marines or mech inf (with aphibious upgrade) to take out those half-strengh units

Can take a major city even before the enemy can react. Wonderful!!

EDIT : The point here is to use AMPHIBIOUS units to avoid landing next to a city and lose a turn. In the railroad era, a turn is sufficient to bring in units and artillery to reinforce a city and weaken a stack.

Bombers are essentiel . Especially when mech inf with amphibious will be facing mech inf with city garrison. Weakening them will put the balance in your favor. So, the city must be in the bomber range, which can be tricky since you can't load bombers on a carrier. Remember you can use open borders city to land bombers in them.

With a little luck, you can take a large city, even the capitol, without losing a unit . Hmmm... Maybe a bomber after jet fighters appear, or a attacker when mech inf guard guard cities.

Then repeat on another large city .

The good thing is that you navy force do get exprience fast when attacking well defended cities, making them more fearful. And they do heal when moving on transport.

To hit fast and hard .

Napo981 said:

Am I the only one to do this?

To take a costal city in one turn in late eras...

1) bring enough ship to lower city def. a few battle ships and destroyers
2) bombard with planes
3) use marines or mech inf (with aphibious upgrade) to take out those half-strengh units

Can take a major city even before the enemy can react. Wonderful!!

Click to expand...

I haven't done that yet. It's a great strategy, but I'm usually only doing that kind of logistic operation when I'm forced to.

im always kind of upset the AI doesnt seem to do it back on prince and below. I always completely ignore the defence of my coastal cities and the AI never punishes me for it.

jeremiahrounds said:

im always kind of upset the AI doesnt seem to do it back on prince and below. I always completely ignore the defence of my coastal cities and the AI never punishes me for it.

Click to expand...

I've seen some nasty attacks by the A.I. at my coast cities, it is possible. It probably depends on which leader it is. Some leaders build way bigger armies then other and also some build a lot of ships while others hardly build them.

i hear roosevelt and washington are notorious for their marine rushes, from sea

Napo981 said:

Am I the only one to do this?

To take a costal city in one turn in late eras...

1) bring enough ship to lower city def. a few battle ships and destroyers
2) bombard with planes
3) use marines or mech inf (with aphibious upgrade) to take out those half-strengh units

Can take a major city even before the enemy can react. Wonderful!!

Click to expand...

No you're not the first to do this. It's called combined arms, and the AI, as well as many skilled players, do it all the time. I've been doing variations of this since CIV1.

baboon said:

I've seen some nasty attacks by the A.I. at my coast cities, it is possible. It probably depends on which leader it is. Some leaders build way bigger armies then other and also some build a lot of ships while others hardly build them.

Click to expand...

Yep,
they don´t use the tactics described in the OP,
but they are good at declaring war and landing huge stacks of units next to your coastal cities.
Sometimes even in the same turn where they declared war on you
(by having a fleet of warships and filled transport ships located just 1 tile outside of your borders before declaration of war)

spiceant said:

i hear roosevelt and washington are notorious for their marine rushes, from sea

Click to expand...

baboon said:

I've seen some nasty attacks by the A.I. at my coast cities, it is possible. It probably depends on which leader it is. Some leaders build way bigger armies then other and also some build a lot of ships while others hardly build them.

Click to expand...

I often see the CPU land two or three transports next to a costal city, but never I saw them using amphibious unit.

Anyone saw the CPU use marines????

1) bring enough ship to lower city def. a few battle ships and destroyers
2) bombard with planes
3) use marines or mech inf (with aphibious upgrade) to take out those half-strengh units

I make a step more.

2.5) Atack with tanks with extra colateral damage so i bring the defending units even lower before i atack with marines or infantry.

I usually don´t mind loosing a 25% on atack or a 50% as my tanks usually have 2x flanking or given the case i train them to be anfibious... the point is bringing a nº of unit = to the units defending and have enough bombers but i wont try this in multiplyer ever [easy to sink transports loaded with troops and such numbers of troops are dificult to hide and are a clear declaration of intentions]

Agree with your strategy. Quite useful in a modern war.

In addition, I've used ships to bombard coastal cities early in the game, to avoid having to camp my army outside while my cats knock down the walls. It saves you 2-4 turns, and also pretty much prevents any reinforcements from coming in time.

Basically, sea power can be used to good advantage in the early and midgame, just as the late game. Yes, you don't have bombers or amphib units, but you don't have to face defending mech inf, either.

Wodan