Changing the rules for D-day invasions

[AEP]

When invading an enemy continent in civ III it is useful to land your troops on a mountain, thereby giving them extra protection against enemy counterattacks.
However, historically the majority of landings have been carried out on flat land. I suggest therefore that landings should only be allowed on grassland, plains, deserts and tundra.
This gives the defender an advantage (historically exact) and therefore makes considerations before an invasion much more interesting from a tactical point of view and would require a more intimate co-operation between different arms (naval support, air cover...). Also, this would give paratroopers an opportunity to step in, since they would be able to land anywhere and establish a bridgehead...

 

[Loppan Torkel]

True, good thinking.

 

[dh_epic]

I really like that idea. Adds to the strategy, in my opinion.

 

[sir_schwick]

What about giving the defender the option of scrambling any land/air units he/she has if you could see the fleet coming in(holes in survellaince would be very important)? All units in one-turn range of possible landing sites could be moved. This way attackers would be forced to attack into terrain with weak defending bonus or incur heavy losses. Even if they were relatively unopposed on landing, they might get a lot of indirect fire as they land.

 

[Stid]

couldnt agree more, something needs to be done

 

[ners23]

as a worker action you should be able to build bunkers protecting your beaches or something. like they had at normandy as the allies landed.

 

[Red Ant]

Definitely agree with that!

 

[sir_schwick]

The big reasons that beachheads are so bloody is that the defender always has some kind of prep time, besides the obvious terrain advantage. You can build fortresses on beaches now, but they are not drawn as beach fronts(which would be nice). I think allowing the defender to scramble would force you to divert his military elsewhere, like with OVERLORD.

 

[Pirate]

This seems like an unnecessary restriction. Some islands might be invincible if they were ringed with mountains. To protect your coastal mountains just protect them with some artillery and rifles before the enemy lands on it then rain hell down on them from the high ground.

 

[Evie]

No, mountains should be very hard to take EVEN if undefended. Just having your troops end their turns on a mountain square to protect them from enemy counter-attacks should NOT be a viable tactic - wether when landing or otherwise.

Best way to handle that would be to change the following :

1)Terrain bonuses are ONLY given once a unit is fortified. This is pretty accurate anyway ; to benefit from a terrain's defensive value generally DOES require positioning your forces to keep the tactical advantage, which is not something you have the time to do while on a forced march (ie, expending all your move points to actually move).
2)Moving to a mountain square consumes enough MP that virtually anything that's not an explorer immediately end its turn when doing so, therefore meaning that they can't fortify and defend at normal defense value - until the next turn start anyway.

 

[sir_schwick]

I personally think allowing defenders to scramble for beach-landings would solve that problem better by forcing attackers to accept ultra-heavy losses or go for more open terrain. The Pacific campaign of WWII was one of the bloodiest because much of the fighting involved multiple amphibious landings on very mountainious islands.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm not sure the practical solution, but it does seem to me as though there should be some tricky benefits to having that coastal defence. And I'm not talking about a city improvement.