On Amphibious Warfare in BTS
Flying Pig
Flying Pig
This is my second BTS article; I touched on the topic of amphibious warfare in my last article; On Modern Warfare in BTS, and so I have decided to write an article which covers it in all ages. The article as of yet open to updates; anyone with comments is welcome to give them. Thanks to everyone who gave comments on my last article.
What is Amphibious Warfare?
Amphibious Warfare is the art of combining troops and ships to make quick attacks on coastal cities by-passing land-based defences. It carries the natural disadvantage of giving your troops a lower strength on the attack (unless you get the Amphibious promotion) but means that when you do hit your units will be at full strength, as they will not have needed to fight their way to the city.
Now, I understand that almost every reader will be thinking: “What is this man writing this massive article for? I never do this!” To this I reply that although you don’t do it yet, it is so awesomely useful and there are few maps in which it will never be useful unless you are lucky enough to not see any war-happy leaders; and so with understanding of how to do it you can improve your game massively.
In the Modern Age; it takes another twist; you can use Airports to move men across the sea very quickly. This method is not strictly amphibious, but it is very interesting and useful to carry out. I will discuss this in the Appendix section, right at the very end.
A Few General Points
• You need to have specialist units to make it work. Since you have a natural disadvantage, you need to have a big advantage over the enemy; so predict what will be in the enemy city and act accordingly with promotions. You can, of course, get Amphibious to negate their advantage totally; Aggressive leaders with their free Combat I promotion and a Barracks will find this very easy.
• You can make ships move faster in three ways; being the first to circumnavigate the globe, getting the Navigation line of promotions, and by researching Refrigeration. To ‘circumnavigate the globe’, all that you actually need to do is to have a continuous line on your map around the world, so you can buy this if you are canny.
• Never dither. If you can attack in one turn, it is very rare that you will want to attack in two. The exception is when attacking more slowly actually leads to an advantage in surprise.
• Transport ships should never go unescorted. With the new Triremes in Beyond the Sword, every age has a transport and at least one fighting ship, and later there is a massive difference in power between the transports and the escorts.
When to make an Amphibious Assault
• When you have superiority at sea; or at least you control the sea better than you control the land. It is easier to sink the fleet than it is to kill the army, so if you are better on land than at sea then don’t bother setting sail
• When the enemy has valuable coastal cities. If there is nothing to gain or no cities on the coast, there is no point spending the money on an invasion fleet
• When the enemy lives on another continent, therefore there is no alternative. However, since early ships can’t cross the ocean, this is going to have to wait
The Ancient and Classical Ages
I have chosen to lump these two together because the art is not much used in the Ancient age; you need technology to produce more units both on land and the sea. As such, the strategy is the same for these two eras; you are very unlikely to be landing troops before you reach the Classical Age.
You have two types of ship at your disposal; the Galley and the Trireme. The Galley is a light fighting ship which can carry two units, and the Trireme is a heavy ship, with no carrying capacity and a bonus against Galleys. Neither ship is able to leave the shore or friendly waters, which makes the routes you can take much more limited. The two have the same Strength of two, so a Trireme against a Galley has strength 3; so a three-to-two odds of winning. They should be used to escort the transport-Galleys, which can also take a stand if they are promoted. A ratio of 2:1 Triremes to Galleys is good; as a lot of Galleys will be needed as they only can carry two units. Both vessels have a movement of two; the same as a cavalry unit; and therefore the wisdom of attacking with them is questionable.
To make a Galley move faster, remember these tips. First, if you position the ship touching the land tile then the unit on board can essentially make a three-tile move to attack; which can give you the initiative as opposed to risking interception. If you use City Raider- promoted Axemen, then running them along the coast to attack lightly defended coastal cities doubles their speed; worth bearing in mind. You can also attach a Great General (The Great Wall of China gives +100% emergence inside national borders) and get Morale and Navigation II; giving it a total movement of five; nearly triple its original, and a side effect of a decent withdrawal chance.
You can give yourself an unfair advantage by building a 'culture bridge' to the enemy continent; if your two landmasses are close together then get a coastal city as near to the enemy as possible, wait for it to expand once (easy with the Stonehenge wonder) and then move in a Great Artist (you get one free if you are the first to research Drama) and use the Great Work command; you will have a sea-lane which only you can use! It is best to do this a small distance from the enemy's culture to avoid getting pushed back, or in a place where he is not likely to be able to expand; on the borders of a Legendary city, for example (but if they are around by now, he's going to win).
If you are going to go ahead; follow the advice below:
You need to load the ship with troops to fight the minute they disembark; so moves count for nothing. You will almost certainly be attacking from the ships; seeing as landing gives the enemy the chance to attack you and your units will only have one move per turn.
There are a couple of Unique Units who can help here; the Praetorian; Rome’s Swordsman. the Bowman; Babylon’s answer to the Archer, the Phalanx; the Greek Axeman and the Sumerian Vulture, which replaces the Axeman.
The Praetorian should be used as a Swordsman but it is much stronger, with an extra two points of strength on its rival. There is no real finesse to using this; just bash the enemy walls and watch them as they start tumbling down!
The Bowman gets +50% against melee units, which is not much good as Archers are for negating other Archers, but means that it can possibly be used as a melee-sniper, but seeing as you have the Axeman it doesn’t have any advantage over the Archer, except that it is marginally better at protecting the city when you do take it.
The Phalanx is, in my opinion, a useless Unique Unit. It gets a bonus against Chariots – but you will almost certainly not see one in the defence, so they serve no propose above the normal Axeman. As with the Bowman, they are marginally better at protecting your conquests, but still not worth a mention.
Last of the Unique Units in this age is the Vulture. It is like the Praetorian but it replaces the Axeman; it has 6 points of strength in place of the Axeman’s value of 5 but retains the Axeman’s bonus against melee units; however it lacks the bonus against cities that the Swordsman enjoys. Use it as an Axeman, but remember that it is a bit stronger.
Playing as the Inca, you can whip Quechas and a Galley from your cities with Bronze Working and Sailing, so you can make rapid invasions very early on in the game. This is worth bearing in mind, as you can do a lot of damage before the enemy can prepare for you.
I suggest thinking carefully about what you are bringing along. You should have a few categories of unit: Swordsmen with the City Raider and Cover line of promotion; to allow them to attack cities with Archers in (common; as Archers get bonuses in cities and First Strikes), Axemen with the City Raider and Shock lines to beat melee defenders (you can get a free Shock promotion by an event) and Archers with Cover and Drill to wear down enemy Archers by negating their First Strikes and then using the Cover to their advantage. Catapults are also useful to cause a great deal of damage via Collateral Damage; but not to bombard. They should have the Accuracy and City Raider promotions if possible. Any unit which can get Amphibious should take it immediately. Horse Archers, if you have access to horses, also work as counter-Archer measures, since all cavalry are immune to First Strikes; they are even better when they have Combat II .
Now, you have no bombarding ships, but you are not able to bombard the city with artillery (otherwise you ruin the point of it). Therefore, you need clever tricks to reduce the city’s defences, which will be high because they have Walls, giving +25% Defence, and you do not have Gunpowder, which would negate these. It is possible for a city with Chichen Itza to be at 125% defence, making a lowly Archer based there have his full fortification bonus (25%) and bonus to defend the city (50%); giving it in total +200% - a massive 9! Considering that your units will be weaker because they come from ships, you have almost no chance with his First Strikes.
Luckily, there are ways around this; the best of which is to send one Galley which just has Spies in it. Now, you need to make sure that you have as much Espionage against the target as possible; so build Courthouses to make Spies, and if you get a Great Spy then build Scotland Yard and make that city the centre for Spy production. This means that you can make Espionage most efficiently. You also need to run the Espionage weighting at 100% towards your enemy before you declare war, so that when the storm hits you will have plenty of Espionage Points. If you can, cut the Research slider to boost the Espionage slider to 10%, or use any money that you have; it will only need to stay up for one turn after you declare war.
You need two Spies, loaded into one Galley which you don’t mind losing. This ship should go along with the fleet until the turn before it hits, so that the main army will land one turn after them. Before they arrive, check out the size of the defence. If it is equal to or less than your force take one unit (in case they whip in more men) then proceed, if not an invasion is impossible (you may want to consider doing this before the invasion with Spies, if you can). When they arrive, they must ‘Support City Revolt’ which will put the defences down completely for one turn. Depending on your Espionage ratio with the enemy; you may need more than one Spy Galley. While the defences are down, attack with all units before they can recover.
You should make sure that you attack in order. If you have followed my previous advice, you will have a number of specialists who can operate against certain enemy units, so use them. If you have brought along Catapults, fire them in attack first to soften up the entire enemy; then look at the defenders carefully. If they have Archers, send in the Cover Archers to weaken them, and then send the Shock Axemen if they have strong melee units or the Swordsmen if they have weak melee infantry or anything else. If they have no Archers (or not immediately apparent Archers) but they have strong melee units, be sure to send the axes in to beat them, and then look at the rest of the defence; send your Archers and then your Swordsmen to beat their Archers; and your Swordsmen to beat anything else.
The Medieval Age
Regrettably, you are still stuck with the hopelessly primitive ancient Navy, but by now you may have Navigation promotions on some ships. This means that you may be moving three tiles per turn, but remember that every convoy moves at the speed of the slowest vessel; if one ship has Navigation, then load it with the Spies, but ensure that until that last jump it keeps in formation. The only difference between the fleet that you landed with when you were running a barbarian tribe and the fleet that you will land as king of a medieval empire is experience. It will probably have most of the same ships in as well.
The exception to this: at last, a new ship! Unfortunately, it’s the Caravel, which cannot carry soldiers (unless you are Portugal, more below) but it moves three tiles per turn and can explore the ocean – meaning that you finally have a decent chance at circumnavigating the Earth – and thereby unlocking faster movement for all ships. It can carry one unit, which must be a Great Person, a Missionary, a Scout, an Explorer (a new unit, described later) or a Spy.
This ship can be used first to get around the world, especially if you have a tech lead. You need to get Caravels the Navigation I promotion, which needs Flanking I. They are also good for exploring the enemy coast before you declare war, since moving into enemy territory is not a hostile act as they can’t carry troops and for carrying Spies to do what spies do in enemy cities as you still need to cause revolts to remove the defences.
For Joao II; the Caravel is far better because he gets the Carrack, which cannot explore enemy territory freely but can carry two of any unit; this means that in this era the Portuguese can make naval assaults over the ocean; it has strength 3 and three movement points, and so is better than a Galley or a Trireme, and if you have them promoted they are good ships for ocean attacks, but they should still be escorted as they only have the strength of a Caravel. When you play as Portugal, get the ocean attacks going soon before the enemy get Chemistry and Astronomy, and you will have a massive advantage. They are also good ships for sending Settlers, but I digress…
Also, you are lucky enough to have a few new land units, which are good. You can have the Crossbowman, which has a strength of 6, a first strike, and +50% against melee units, the Longbowman who is almost useless in this situation; being a Crossbowman without the counter-melee bonus and +50% Hills defence, the Maceman, with strength 8 and +50% against melee units, Knights (later on), with a mighty strength 10 and a flank attack against siege units and the Pikeman, who has a +100% bonus against mounted units and strength 6. You also have the Trebuchet to replace your ageing Catapults.
At this point I should mention some Unique Units: one is the best amphibious assault unit in the game, another one of the most deadly melee soldiers, another is the force that kept the Romans going through the Dark Ages, and the other is the most devastating non-siege unit to a stack. They are the Viking Berserker, the Japanese Samurai and the Cho-Ko-Nu. I will talk about them in order:
The Berserker replaces the Maceman and starts with Amphibious, and keeps all of the original’s bonuses with a juicy +10% against cities added on; and Ragnar is Aggressive so they get a free Combat I promotion; +10% strength. The result is a unit which can go ashore with no penalties which is based on the best city attacker in the age; so can tear the defence apart. Build lots of these and use them like the Vikings did to terrorise the world. In addition, the Viking Unique Building gives all ships a +1 movement bonus and never obsoletes, so if you use the Great General tactic above then you have a Galley moving at three times normal speed - worthy of the moniker.
The Samurai replaces the Japanese Maceman, and is far more deadly. It gets the normal benefits and two First Strikes, and it gets the Drill I and the Combat I (due to Tokugawa’s Aggressive trait) promotions for free; giving it capacity to remove archery units like nothing else, and it is able to defeat melee units as well with the lethal First Strikes. Shock Samurai are duellists; they can fight any melee unit that they come up against, especially with City Raider promotions, which are standard for your Macemen anyway.
The Cho-Ko-Nu is the Chinese answer to the Crossbowman, and is definitely one of the things that they got right. They can deal collateral damage to up to five units; which can make the attack a lot easier. If you take them along, you need not take any artillery units at all, because they can weaken the enemy and kill a few of them too.
The Cataphract is the Byzantine replacement for the Knight. As with so many Unique Units, it has a strength boost of two points, meaning that it represents a glimmer of hope for those who want generalist Knights; upgrade it to have Combat promotions or specialist counter-combat promotions (the latter is more effective, but less versatile) and then use it to batter through the strong enemies that face you the minute you disembark.
As before, you need to anticipate the enemy. I do not recommend an attack on any Chinese city because of the Cho-Ko-Nu who can reduce your killer stack to rubble easily, but for anyone else the basic principles of the earlier ages hold; check out the enemy before you go in, then get the city to revolt, and then swarm in at speed. Let’s look at the units for the job:
A note on Explorers: they bear nationality, so are not good once war has begun, but they are a better version of Scouts, so if the enemy is on the same continent then send them out to see where his cities are. They can travel on Caravels as well, but are liable to be killed if you are at war; so send them in when you are friends then get them out before a fight starts. A unit on a ship with Sentry can use his Line of Sight; so if you have an Explorer with Sentry on a Caravel with Flanking II and Navigation II you will have a scout ship with few equals, which can go anywhere to spy on the enemy.
The Maceman is like the Swordsman crossed with the Axeman, they both upgrade into it. As such, they need to be used to attack units without First Strikes, and have two lines of promotion: the City Raider and Shock, which mean that they can deal with other Macemen and Pikemen as well as being useful in any attack on a settlement. The Berserker works in exactly the same way, except it is far stronger because it can attack easily over the water; but it is possible to have a veteran Maceman with the same promotion, and then he will have Combat III, giving substantial benefits in its own right. City Raider III gives it 20% + 25% + 30%, or +75%, against the city, along with Cover (+25% against archery units) or its natural melee bonus (+50%) and the Shock promotion; it means that it has 16 strength against archery units, and 18 against melee units if it has City Raider III and the relevant promotion. As such, specialise each Maceman to either way and make sure that you only send them in to fights which they are prepared for.
The Crossbowman is useful against Archers (if they are still around), Longbowmen and Crossbowmen and if it has the Shock promotion is good against melee units; as it then has +75%, or a total of 10.5 – more than a Pikeman even when fully fortified, and just 0.5 higher than a fortified Maceman, not counting the tile’s defence bonus. They cannot get City Raider promotions, so their best use is arguably to take the Cover and Drill promotions and then be used to eliminate the best of enemy marksmen, negating their First Strikes. If you use the Cho-Ko-Nu, then send them in first to soften up the enemy, then your specialist Macemen depending on which units the enemy has.
Unless you have intelligence that the enemy have Knights or other cavalry, I would not suggest bringing Pikemen to the action; they are specialists, and their area of expertise is to kill aggressive Knights, not to make attacks. You may, however, see them in defence. If you use them, take the City Raider (or course) promotions and Formation, giving an extra bonus against mounted units to a total of 125%; making 12.5 in total against mounted units, which as Knights get no defensive bonuses, is likely to beat them easily.
The Trebuchet is an improvement on the Catapult; and it is a big improvement. It can deal both a lot more raw damage to the unit it hits, is more likely to actually win the fight in the first place, and also it can do more collateral damage to other units in the city. Use it just like you have used the Catapult in the past with the same promotions, and you won’t go too far wrong.
The Knight is a tank, simply put. It is aggressive, as it has a high strength (10) and does not receive defensive bonuses. If you give it the promotion to deal with a certain sort of unit; such as giving it the Shock promotion or Cover, along with the Combat promotions (cavalry cannot get City Raider promotions) it will be able to work as a specialist, destroying archery units or melee units; but as it lacks Raider promotions it is unlikely to work as a generalist in the way that Macemen can.
On the order of March – bring your artillery or Cho-Ko-Nu troops in first; as then the whole defence will be weaker, and then if you have Amphibious units send them in so that your best match his best, unless he has strong archery units in which case deploy Crossbowmen or Samurai. Then, send in Knights if you have them, the specialist Macemen depending on which units are present. If at any point he has Knights, send in the Pikemen; else keep them until the end to fight his weakest troops. As with all ages before the Industrial age and Military Science; you don’t have Blitz so check out how big the enemy garrison is before even setting sail.
, a few little things though 
rush an airport. The huge air supremacy you will have in the area will make wiping out an AIs entire counter attacking army extremely easy, while providing an aerial point to reinforce your attacking army, or allow gathering before the war (avoids lots of unit supply costs too yay!!). You don't actually need an airport in the new city to use airlifts to reach it either.
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. This will make it as effective as 2.5 galleys if moving troops over a long distance is all your doing (reinforcing garrisons, or attack forces on another island). Can also be used to strike deep into enemy territory quickly making it possible to quickly cut off metal resources and road links.
the culture bridge can only go into the first ocean tile after the coast (Cntrl Y yields will show where they are, the sea tiles that give 1 
) and can't extend any further than that, they are however still useful.
shows how much I use them. Ridiculously they need 4 promotions though, as combat 3 unlocks sentry for scouts/explorers. On the other hand water carried sentries seem to have potential even after optics, covering a total area of 49 squares of open ocean as opposed to the 20 a normal caravel can see or a sentry carrying galley can (theoretically) see.
the unit that is currently in the build queue and the overflow hammers will drop into the Caravel when Optics is discovered and the Trireme in your queue turns into a Caravel in your Queue. There's a decent chance that those overflow hammers plus the hammers you put into the Trireme will be enough for you to get the Caravel on your next turn.
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