Counter-tanks strategy

[Feofilakt]

Hello everyone! I need counter-tanks strategies. Have googled nothing. My friend get ahead of me in science and culture, beelined tanks and preparing to attack me with corps (maybe even armies) while beelining modern armour. I have decent production and gold but not close enough to modern unit's techs or army civic. Also have great general (industrial - modern), few hussar corps. Its life or death question.

 

[Patine]

Hello everyone! I need counter-tanks strategies. Have googled nothing. My friend get ahead of me in science and culture, beelined tanks and preparing to attack me with corps (maybe even armies) while beelining modern armour. I have decent production and gold but not close enough to modern unit's techs or army civic. Also have great general (industrial - modern), few hussar corps. Its life or death question.

There should be tank destroyers, AT guns, and/or LAW's in game that are anti-tank like anti-cavalry units earlier on are to cavalry.

 

[E.man]

Isn't there some sort of anti tank units?

 

[Feofilakt]

Yes, there are AT, but they require as hard research as tanks themselves. As I said, I'm behind in techs.

 

[DeckerdJames]

Oil - his (superior units) strategy depends on it. Disrupt his oil production if possible. Buy up as much as you can from other players. Sell oil to his adversaries.

Make Alliances with Civilizations that border his or will be able to help distract him or hinder his approach to your territory.

Buy up all excess amenities if you have the GPT to deplete the market, if extra amenities will give his cities boosts.

If he is ahead of you in advancement, he is possibly ahead of you in GPT, so watch out for the the same diplomatic strategies being used against you. Make friends with your neighbors and others in a position to join the fight against you.

If he must cross substantial water to invade, build navy units, especially naval raider units like the submarine, and inflict heavy damage on any embarked land units without an escort. Naval raiders are invisible to non-raiders unless they are seen while attacking or they are adjacent to a unit.

Get the strongest ranged units to garrison your most important and possibly vulnerable cities. Get the garrison promotion and eventually the emplacement promotion.

Build the highest level walls in your most important cities.

If you have several cities, build entertainment district(s) in a large pop city or cities to increase the loyalty pressure on captured cities within range. Use Amani with the Emissary promotion to further increase pressure.

Build encampments to house extra garrisons and for extra city strikes.

Consider taking Victor for the extra city strike.

Send all your spies to his lands.

If he razes a city, try to get as many AI to declare on him as possible, immediately.

Longer term, gain air supremacy.

Consider researching steel. That will unlock Urban Defenses and make walls obsolete but gives all cities an automatic fortification and the ability to bombard.

Use envoys to become Suzerain of strategically located city states or city states of preferable types and use gold to levy their military. Use them to help defend or counter attack.

Identify probable paths of reinforcement and assemble a force to disrupt and slow it after the war has begun.

Pillage roads in unclaimed territory and in your own territory that will speed up his attack. (I just checked this and although I thought roads could be removed or pillaged in our own land, it doesn't seem so now).

Place units and unit groups for the purpose of attrition between your civilizations. Contest terrain that is good for mobility. Recon units with promotions can be good for attrition, if they can fight in patches of rougher terrain (theory).

 

[Patine]

Oil - his (superior units) strategy depends on it. Disrupt his oil production if possible. Buy up as much as you can from other players. Sell oil to his adversaries.

Make Alliances with Civilizations that border his or will be able to help distract him or hinder his approach to your territory.

Buy up all excess amenities if you have the GPT to deplete the market if extra amenities will give his cities boosts.

If he is ahead of you in advancement, he is possibly ahead of you in GPT, so watch out for the the same diplomatic strategies being used against you. Make friends with your neighbors and others in a position to join the fight against you.

Ah, yes, the OPEC dominance strategy.

 

[Feofilakt]

If he must cross substantial water to invade, build navy units, especially naval raider units like the submarine, and inflict heavy damage on any embarked land units without an escort. Naval raiders are invisible to non-raiders unless they are seen while attacking or they are adjacent to a unit.

Get the strongest ranged units to garrison your most important and possibly vulnerable cities.

Consider taking Victor for the extra city strike.

Send all your spies to his lands.

Consider researching steel. That will unlock Urban Defenses and make walls obsolete but gives all cities an automatic fortification and the ability to bombard.

Use envoys to become Suzerain of strategically located city states or city states of preferable types and use gold to levy their military. Use them to help defend or counter attack.

Already in process. Other mostly had failed or not applicable in current situation.

Pillage roads in unclaimed territory and in your own territory that will speed up his attack. (I just checked this and although I thought roads could be removed or pillaged in our own land, it doesn't seem so now).

Tried and failed too. Maybe it had changed in last update, or some other reason. Also not sure if its even possible to pillage road under district.

Buy up all excess amenities if you have the GPT to deplete the market, if extra amenities will give his cities boosts.

Brilliant. Not applicable now but good advise in general, I see its great potential in some cases. Strange how I never considered such class of tactics that require useless investments but can possibly damage an opponent. Must was some mental block.

In fact, there are already some tanks at my border on the eastern front (some are approahing to the western front), but I dont know if he'll attack or will wait for modern armour upgrade. Most likely there will be reconnaissance in force to check if I can fight against tanks or they need to be upgraded. So I need to defend against two waves - first with tanks and second with modern tanks.

 

[DeckerdJames]

You can raise the fighting strength of units in a city with Victor and his promotion.

If you have the legacy card for oligarchy it can be used.

A great general can raise it.

The bastion card can help.

Look at what city state he had suzerainty of. Some military city states can help him a lot.

Some dark age policies add combat strength.

The governor Moksha has a level 2 ability called Laying on of hands that might help if you are playing the Gathering Storm set. I have not used it personally but it claims to heal all units in the city tiles fully each round.

Use support bonuses. You can add +2 defense to adjacent units or double that for anti Calvary with the right promotion. If you position a strong ranged unit like field cannon and above on a good defense tile, possibly in a fort, out on the third ring of a city, and then encircle, or partially encircle it, with fortified melee units, you might be able to snipe incoming siege units before they are in range of the city, or at least slow the advance. With two such groups spread apart in the direction of the advance and the zone of control, it might help buy some time.(tanks ignore zone of control though)

Artillery with an observation balloon could be helpful. The observation balloon adds +1 to range and it can see over terrain features. Artillery gets -17 bombard against land units but if you could get a couple built and protected by melee or anti Calvary, it could soften up incoming ranged and other units. They get promotions that give back the 17 points against land units. You might even be able to hide them in or behind terrain features like woods and hills. If you have a line of anti Calvary with ranged and artillery w/observation balloons behind it, the ranged can attack melee units that approach your line and the artillery can hit enemy ranged units that move into range of your front line melee units.

Of course, getting all these units is the real trick and you may just not have time. The modern armor might just punch through everything too fast without AT to counter it. I think a combined arms military is something that has to be built from the beginning and having an updated military is the best deterrent. It is something I want to improve at doing too.

 

[Feofilakt]

The governor Moksha has a level 2 ability called Laying on of hands that might help if you are playing the Gathering Storm set. I have not used it personally but it claims to heal all units in the city tiles fully each round.

Yes, when units are healing, the value increasing to full HP instead of 15/20/....

Use support bonuses. You can add +2 defense to adjacent units or double that for anti Calvary with the right promotion. If you position a strong ranged unit like field cannon and above on a good defense tile, possibly in a fort, out on the third ring of a city, and then encircle, or partially encircle it, with fortified melee units, you might be able to snipe incoming siege units before they are in range of the city, or at least slow the advance. With two such groups spread apart in the direction of the advance and the zone of control, it might help buy some time.(tanks ignore zone of control though)

Field cannons barely scrath him. I will try to build a couple more and form corps but not think they will be a crucial factor. Was thinking of spam cannons strategy (for dealing damage without half-dying) but they are quite expensive.

 

[DeckerdJames]

Yes, when units are healing, the value increasing to full HP instead of 15/20/....


Field cannons barely scrath him. I will try to build a couple more and form corps but not think they will be a crucial factor. Was thinking of spam cannons strategy (for dealing damage without half-dying) but they are quite expensive.

Yes. Sorry about all my late edits too. It is a bad habit of mine. I added a bit about artillery.

 

[E.man]

Levy units from cities you are Suzeran of.

 

[Feofilakt]

I won a battle. Key factors were privateers preventing further coast invasion, great general, Victor for +5, logistics policy and a LOT of units. Field cannons turned out quite useful too despite they can be one-shooted if not in city/encampment. It also seems that its relly hard to both fast rush tanks and making a lot of them simulteneosly.

 

[DeckerdJames]

I won a battle. Key factors were privateers preventing further coast invasion, great general, Victor for +5, logistics policy and a LOT of units. Field cannons turned out quite useful too despite they can be one-shooted if not in city/encampment. It also seems that its relly hard to both fast rush tanks and making a lot of them simulteneosly.

Excellent. Will you record your further efforts here and what you find that works and what doesn’t? It can only help us get better.

 

[Feofilakt]

There are no further efforts, we had agreed to a draw.