MP commando tactic

[benjai]

Does cammando work with railways? If so, I was thinking, you could potentially have a small group of strong commando units (how you would get more than a few, I don't know) and rush straight into your opponents capital. Since most people only have a couple of units (probably obsolete as well), you should be able to take it over pretty easily.

Is this feasible?

[benjai]

Also consider using the chicken pizza wonder for the defense bonus since you'll probably get swarmed pretty quickly.

[Palantir30]

If they have railroads, they're probably to the point where chitzen itza is obsolete, so you dont have to worry about that.

You still have to worry about regular city tile defense and cultural defense though. You also have to be able to reach their capital from two squares beyond their borders in a single turn, because your units promotions are visible to them, and if they see a commando group they can use thier own railroads to redistribute defenses to cover the soft spots.

So basically, this tactic can only be used effectively on an opponent who is far behind you in tech to the point where their defenders + defense bonus is still smaller than your attackers (since you cant get commando on Artillery units), and who also has a small empire, and you have had a long series of successful engagements already.

If you have these conditions met, you can probably eliminate him with much more efficient means than sacrificing a couple 5-promoted units in the hope that the third one wins.

[cabert]

It still is interesting enough to be tryed out. Benjai was talking about MP. This strat could make him tumble on completely unguarded cities.
I don't play MP myself but i read quite a few comments about unguarded (or very lightly guarded) core cities. Good targets indeed!

just to push a bit more : possible actions to make it even more efficient
* if you attack with 2/3 commandos those culture wielding cities, you can very effectively capture the border cities. No more cultural pressure on them. I mean if you take out the border city and in the same turn send your commandos to the core city, all your units could benefit from the roads / railroads since there wouldn't be foreign culture on it. thus, you could bring some defensive units to the easy prey.
* you even could gift those "easy preys" to a third player, not currently at war with your opponent, with whom you have opened borders, this way you wouldn't have to defend them.

[cabert]

i tried commando tactic on SP, and had quite some success with my few cavalery commandos. Most positive use, was "double attacking" :
- one or more stacks goes to a border city, including the commandos =>all the best defenders goes into it for defense, making the next core city easy prey.
- normal units bomb/assault the border city. if needed, the commandos can help to finish the defenders. If not, the commandos rush to the less defended core city and take it in the smae turn!

=> next turn(s), you can bring normal units in both cities while the commando rest in the core city.

Gain? One city and fast movement for you (not only commandos!) in the next turns. After revolt has ended in border captured city, you also gain control of more tiles, but in the meantime you're already killing the rest of the cities, so not so much a gain...
It was very efficient on the first assault against every AI. After this, the commandos have to rest (until they get march!) and the rest of your troops as well, so it doesn't change much after that first assault.

[Samson]

If you have air power I can see this being very powerfull, if you can reach the enemy capital in 1 turn and with bombers you would have a great chance to take it. That could save your space race.

The problem for me would be to get enough units with 17 experience points (if aggresive) without using up any promotions on usefull things like Pinch. I guess with West point, Pentagon, Vassalage and Theocracy you would only be 3 exp. off it, but quite a sacrifice.

[cabert]

Originally Posted by Samson

If you have air power I can see this being very powerfull, if you can reach the enemy capital in 1 turn and with bombers you would have a great chance to take it. That could save your space race.

The problem for me would be to get enough units with 17 experience points (if aggresive) without using up any promotions on usefull things like Pinch. I guess with West point, Pentagon, Vassalage and Theocracy you would only be 3 exp. off it, but quite a sacrifice.

i didn't have airpower to start with, but against my second victim I had

"enough units" is very much situation dependent. I was playing Prince, and 2 cavalry commandos were strong enough to take longbowmen even with culture% (first victim) and then pre-bombed grenadiers (last ones).

It's true you have to follow combat I,II,III,IV,commando, wich needs quite a lot of fighting.
With just barracks, west point and the pentagon, you can come up with combat III units, but that's quite far in the game (pentagon comes too late to be really useful for this). you can also achieve combat III just with barracks, west point and the right civics.

You have to plan it very early and sacrifice most useful early promotions. In fact, you have to build a lot of units, with barracks, west point if you can, ... and send them to fight some strong opponents (fast Xp) until they come near the limit, those who achieve combat IV can be used as finishers to climb to commando.
I had one upgraded unit, so it already was 15XP when becoming a cavalry. The others came out with combat III right off the bat. Not every candidate becomes a commando, you have to fight strong opponents to get enough XPs.
I also sent a few ones on pillaging campaign, and they sometimes had to defend against 2/3 attacks in one turn! Fast XPs too! those who survive get back home to rest, and come back with just one level to climb.
In the late game i tried it on tanks. Blitz allow fast XP too, if you follow the dual line: strong opponents for a first fight (fast xp), double-finisher after combat IV. Got very fast tank commandos (didn't have time to use them much, though).

[KillerCardinal]

Originally Posted by Samson

The problem for me would be to get enough units with 17 experience points (if aggresive) without using up any promotions on usefull things like Pinch. I guess with West point, Pentagon, Vassalage and Theocracy you would only be 3 exp. off it, but quite a sacrifice.

I tend to avoid unit specific promotions anyway, to be honest. Since I normally attempt to husband my units throughout the entire game I generally have a lot of legacy promotions, so the way I generally feel is that choosing a specific promotion will probably hurt me in the long run. Thus I generally stick to combat, medic, city raider, drill, march, and flanking. So by late in the game, if I've been warring a lot, I'll have a lot of units with at least combat 3 if I'm not aggressive, and combat 3/march if I am. I suppose it might be worthwhile to change a little bit so that I get combat 4, and head directly for commando instead.

As a side note, I think that one of the best promotion combinations that you could manage to get a unit like a cavalry to have is flanking 1,flanking 2, combat 1, medic, march. Unfortunately, this obviously requires a lot of experience, so it doesn't happen often. Note that if you have red cross, then this isn't too terribly hard to get, since you can get this at 10 xp instead of 26.
The reason I like it so much though, is that I find that the flankers are the units that end up needing the most healing, as their withdrawal is ALWAYS activated only when they are at deaths door, so a surviving cavalry will really benefit from the extra time to heal, especially if you are on a mission to kick somebody's but quickly.

[Oggums]

Let me put it this way. Sending in Commandos makes them vulnerable to retaliation. So...

If your enemy doesn't have enough units to destroy your Commandos, you probably didn't need the Commandos in the first place.

[KillerCardinal]

Originally Posted by Oggums

Let me put it this way. Sending in Commandos makes them vulnerable to retaliation. So...

If your enemy doesn't have enough units to destroy your Commandos, you probably didn't need the Commandos in the first place.

Well, for this strat I think that I agree, unless you have somehow managed to get a decent amount of the commandos. However, another use for commandos is that a foot soldier with commando can keep up with a cavalry, or tank charge as long as there are roads available. This does the exact OPPOSITE of leaving units vulnerable to retaliation, as it allows a fast moving stack that normally gets no defensive bonuses, to be defended.

[cabert]

Originally Posted by Oggums

Let me put it this way. Sending in Commandos makes them vulnerable to retaliation. So...

If your enemy doesn't have enough units to destroy your Commandos, you probably didn't need the Commandos in the first place.

true, but that's not a reason not to use it

In fact, you can speed up very much the conquest of a weak opponent.
Making the choice attack the big ones or the weak ones in favour (hum, favour isn't the best word ) of the weak ones because :
1) you can conquer cities with commandos only if you have a really big advantage
2) you need XPs to get more commandos, XPs are easier to get from weaker opponents (when you already have lots of XPs, you don't want to die before reaching commando)


and just one more thing : i still don't know if commandos use enemy railroads!