Continents map, invasion of 2nd Continent

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Here's my input on invasion of the 2nd continent.


SINGLE PLAYER, as I can't think quick enough for multiplayer.

Continents, no tech trading, Prince level, Marathon speed.

1. I NEVER pillage the inferstructure, mine, towns, plantations etc.
2. Use marines to invade, planes on a carrier 2 if available.
3. Use Battleships to reduce cultural defences, 4 will bring a 100 city down in 2 bombardments, plus defend your invasion fleet, 1 transport has medic promotion.
4. Attack using marines only, but be careful to leave 1 defender in the city, don't take it immediately.
5. Attack multiple cities, either at once if sufficent troops/ships, or sequentially, leaving 1 defender in each city, before moving on to next.
6. Once you have hit all costal cities in patch you want to take, leaving the one defender, a number of things may happen.

a) computer will reinforce the city, so attack again, leave 1 defender move onto next city.
b) City has only 1 defender, well take it, put in your defence troops, move onto next city to take

By doing this your effectively, bleeding the computer of counter attack troops, and hopefully killing off the most effective counter attacking troops. Now you head inland for the key city for the enclave, taking that should now be easy.

Thus you've established your foothold, develped cultural enclave, proberly have few if any workers, so with existing improvements, they should pay for them selves.

Now just follow usual route, build broadcast towers, and airports, rush buying if you have to/should do so. fly/ship in your land invasion army, keep pushing till you've achieved your goals. Stop occassionally with a cease fire/ peace treaty as suits self.

I've found this to be my usual stratergy, I play continents, huge map's, so by time I've conqured my home continent, I'm up to rifling/combustion. Played at prince level, which is proberly my peak level.

Oh yes, build LOTS OF MARINES...I MEAN LOTS. Great for defence, Strength 24, and great for offence, not only off ship, but OVER RIVERS INLAND. Thus you negate 25% of the counter/pre emptive counter attack, and retain 100% of your offence, cannon, 2 slow but keep up with marines *I don't bother with artillery*, or Bombers to reduce cultural defence, bomber to soften up, sucide cannons, then send in the MARINE over the river. Granted a treed hill, next to city if best @ 75%, next is a forest/jungle 50%, but how often you get that, rivers, much more so.

Also eventually, defensive marines will be upgraded to Mech infantary, and a mech with amphibious promotion, is a great attack vechicle, along with a wadeing tank, or a bristling bomber.

Notes;

I usually have 1 continent to devote to building invasion force, if 1/3 of cities are just to hold land/junk cities, I am still able to mass produce troops.

Comments and recomendations are welcome.

P.S. I suck at the research, constantly omit going for astronomy and observatories, too close to universites I feel, so I forget them.
Comp seems to love going for frigates/galleons and rifling, omitting chemistry/combustion to later.

 

[cabert]

i never wait for so much techs to start invading!

The keys unlocking invasion are astronomy (obviously, if you can't bring troops, you won't invade!) and chemistry (for grenadiers and FRIGATES!).

- Frigates can bomb down cultural defense just as good as battleships
- galleons can bring 3 cannons/catapults or 3 assault units.

Best situation i can think of is bribing 1 AI vs another and invading the third. * For target definition, weakest is better, but i usually look at "geography" first: they had milleniums to build up culture, so you don't want to conquer a city that will revolt to another civ as soon as it comes out of revolt.

* My personnal strat is to whip away the weakest "end of continent" civ, keeping cities out of cultural range of third party cities.
* The tactic is situation dependant. In every situation The frigates bomb defenses down to 0. About assault :
- if the target has good power, i will send cats/cannons/grenadiers from the boats, to avoid preemptive counterattacking. I start war on cities i plan to raze (nothing to defend!)
- if the target is low on troops, I unload troops on good defensive terrain. they get hit by colateral damaging troops, but this contributes to lowering the target's power. If i'm really wounded, i load again on the boats and wait in neutral water while they heal (with a medic, it's fast).

* Next phase depends on how much land i need for domination. Just a few tiles = culture slider at 100%, artists everywhere. 5% or more, i go for a second intercontinental AI. Best target is the one getting the lower hand in the fight you bribed them into . It's very easy to conquer usually, but you need to defend the already captured city = reinforcements are needed.

 

[Rast]

A successful strategy that's never failed me, though it does take place later in the game, is to get a few airports, load up 3-4 transports with tanks with Barrage I promotion, and build a fleet of 8-10 bombers.

Run in with the tranports and take the easiest city. Barrage I tanks are their own artillery, even though they can't beat down the culture bonus 12 Barrage I tanks is plenty to take even a moderatly defended AI city.

Fly in the bombers next turn to take care of the inevitable counterattack and start airlifting in garrison units and reinforcements. As soon as your SOD is healed up they can move out with heavy air support.

I dislike cross-continental attacks without the ability to fly in air support - you need a huge SOD + constant reinforcements as the AI loves to show up with mass cats or cannons and rip up your initial SOD drop.

 

[cabert]

i don't wait until flight because it gives the AI too much time to get a strong defense.
Basically, if you build transports, you can also build destroyers. Destroyers can bomb down the defenses. There is no point giving 60% bonus to the defenders if you can avoid it without loss + you need defense for your transports.

 

[Wlauzon]

I find early kills boring, so I nearly always wait until 1800 at least to start a war.

With that, one of my favorite tactics is to find a spot on the far side of their continent (as soon as I get a ship that can cross oceans) where they won't get to you for a while, and get a settler there ASAP and start a city. Get that city up as fast as you can, even if it means cutting back on research some to buy improvements faster. Make sure that it is well protected and fortified.. and then let it grow. You make more cities from that if you want, but the distance penalty can get rough at higher levels.

Stand back and wait for it to grow, meanwhile make a concerted effort to get airports. That city will basically do nothing but make military units and related improvements.

Once you get airports, airlift tons (I have had well over 200) of military into the city. Usually about this time, the other civs will be bumping up against your borders.

When you think you have about 3x as many units as you will need, attack.

I have taken down civs that were in first place with this in just a few turns, but it DOES require a lot of planning ahead - such as saving up some gold to keep the units upgraded. And your tech may suffer for a while.

 

[cabert]

Wlauzon, did you notice you were playing the exact same way some AIs do?

 

[Rast]

After resoundingly winning continental domination today on Monarch (last game for me, next one's emp., but I digress...), I now recant my earlier post as any game that lasts long enough to get Flight a domination win usually isn't in the works and you're better off going for a space race win.

Instead I will now endorse cabert's method as it works very well, except I would suggest only bringing enough frigates to escort your galleons and bringing cats or cannons, simply because on a continents map most cities (espeically the AI, who loves to build 1 tile from the coast) are not coastal cities. By all means, use your frigates to bombard coastal cities just don't depend on them.

Also, get open borders with your target after you've decided to attack them but before you're ready to go to war. Send a single, fast unit (like a knight, or cavalry if you have them) over and scout out their cities. Find a good city for your initial attack and keep a close eye on it. I would suggest the city with the biggest stack of cats, simply so you can take them all out right at the start. Cats have always been the doom of my cross-continental attacks before and finding a way of dealing with them was a big part of my successes recently.

Next thing I would suggest is to split your stacks. You will get mobbed by siege units and even strong pre-industrial units (like cavalry) can't hold on very well after their stack just got battered by five (or more!) cats. Usually you *will not* get the first hit in as you have to unload, and then attack (unless you want a -25% penatly for attacking from the sea). You must survive the initial attack (esp. if you just deliberatly unloaded near the biggest cat stack they have) in good enough shape to take that first city.

Keep a steady stream of galleons crossing the ocean with reinforcements. The AI will throw everything including the kitchen sink at your initial wave. Holding on is not good enough, you have to push forward through the AI's counterattacks and take more territory. After you get a couple of cities you will have destroyed most of a typical AIs army and they won't offer much more real resistance.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. Hope it helps you.

 

[cabert]

about bringing in catapults or cannons, i agree with you!
After all, you need the collateral damage, too

 

[UncleJJ]

You need to inflict collateral damage so cannons, trebs and catapults are great for an early inter continental invasion (in the era of galleons and grenadiers). Also remember that siege equipment is immune to collateral damage itself. One strategy for dealing with enemy collateral damage is to have a stack of grenadiers, pike etc to absorb the enemy attack and use trebs and cannons to take the cities.

Collateral damage can never take your troops below 50%, so if some troops in your stack have good defensive promotions (combat, guerilla, woodsman etc) and if you occupy a hill or wood and best of all a wooded hill, then their counter attack will be absorbed by these troops. After the enemy attack you can often use cannons or catapults (unharmed) to destroy any enemy mounted or catapults that retreated from combat. After a couple of rounds you will have destroyed the main attacking force and be able to attack the enemy cities.

I find spreading troops out into small stacks does reduce collateral damage but it also increases losses as the AI will often concentrate attacks on one stack until they wipe it out and the others can't help. However, if all troops are in a big stack then the best type of troop (often least damaged) always faces the enemy and losses are reduced. There will be more healing required but it does kill enemy troops at the expense of healing yours. If the attacks will be too fierce next round then retreat the surviving troops onto your galleons that should wait offshore just in case.

The main problem with this strategy is the war weariness, each attack in enemy territory costs you ww. But it is less expensive in ww terms for units to be attacked and survive than be attacked and killed. So in the end it's better to keep your troop together and in big stacks.

 

[Naismith]

Also, get open borders with your target after you've decided to attack them but before you're ready to go to war. Send a single, fast unit (like a knight, or cavalry if you have them) over and scout out their cities. Find a good city for your initial attack and keep a close eye on it.

Always a good idea for any war.

I would suggest the city with the biggest stack of cats, simply so you can take them all out right at the start. Cats have always been the doom of my cross-continental attacks before and finding a way of dealing with them was a big part of my successes recently.

I prefer to take a weak coastal city first, so I have a place to heal my units, and a base for absorbing counterattacks. Let those cats come to you in the counterattack. Arrange your seige weapons, etc. to wipe them out in one turn as they approach the city you've just taken.

Next thing I would suggest is to split your stacks. You will get mobbed by siege units and even strong pre-industrial units (like cavalry) can't hold on very well after their stack just got battered by five (or more!) cats. Usually you *will not* get the first hit in as you have to unload, and then attack (unless you want a -25% penatly for attacking from the sea). You must survive the initial attack (esp. if you just deliberatly unloaded near the biggest cat stack they have) in good enough shape to take that first city.

If you are able to pick out a weak coastal city, the -25% penalty is no big deal. Sure, you may lose a couple of extra units taking that city, but if you declare war, appear out of nowhere to take that first city in one turn, and immediately move in a stack of strong units, you never expose yourself to an attack until after you've taken the city. The counterattack will take a couple of turns (at least) to arrive, and you will move any damaged units into the city the next turn, and maybe even heal some of the them before any counterattack shows up.

 

[Wlauzon]

Late game Domination on continents is not impossible, but very difficult at higher levels. I have done it a few times on Noble, but only once on Prince out of about 80 games. There is a lot of luck involved, like getting a lot of goody hut techs and good resources.

The problem is not firepower so much as just the logistics of moving enough units fast enough into the right place.

If you have a backdoor city with airlift, you can usually take down one civ, but it i pretty hard to have a backdoor city for every civ - I usually just pick the most hatable one, which is usually Alexander. The one game that I won I did so by trading another civ some tech for a small city he had on another continent - but civs very rarely offer cities for trade, even if they are in a really bad location.

Lately I have been trying for a cultural win, with about the same results. I find that with more than 4 civs, it is almost impossible to get enough wonders etc to get the culture generating wonders.

I probably lose about 90% of my games, because I keep trying new tactics, most of which don't work out - but I learn a little each time.

When I first started playing at Prince, I was losing by huge amounts, but now I am least usually able to stay in the top 3. Unfortunately usually in 2nd or 3rd - it seems like there is usually one AI that takes a commanding lead. What I am trying to figure out now is why and how they do that.

 

[Vizzini]

Modern Era D-Day Operation:

Two carriers, at least 3 battleships, as many destroyers as you happen to have handy, and you should already have a sub or two on their coast (you did send your spies over first, right? )

4 Transports: 8 (4 Barrage, 4 Drill) Tanks, 4 Gunships, 2 Artillery, 2 Marines. You do not need tons of Marines. Tanks > ALL.

Make sure your transports and carriers were upgraded with Combat I followed by Medic. This makes your invasion fleet a large floating hospital.

Perqs: If you happen to have a great artist handy and scads of cash, take the GA with you.

If their capital city is on the coast, that's my first target. Taking out their oldest and presumably "best" city with the first blow wins the war right then and there - even if turns out you can't hold the city.

Bombers within range to drop the defending stack to 50% is nice, but not required. Push comes to shove you can use your carrier based fighters for that. If no bombers within range, bring an extra carrier.

Declare war and move in beside thier city. Battleships/Destroyers blow the cultural defense down. Bombers/Fighters drop all defending units in the city to 50%. (Make sure you have enough bombers for the job - you did have a spy there right?)

First unit off the Transport? Suicide Artillery piece (Barrage upgrades of course) Use just one for this city unless then have more than 10 defenders. You will lose this unit almost guaranteed (but I've had the odd 1% chance-to-win victories ) That's enough to take a lot of the defending units down a big chunk.

Second unit: Barrage tank unless there are more than 10 defenders. If 10+ send in the second artillery piece. If you've done everything properly even with the -50% penalty for amphibeous attack this tank is probably going to see no worse than 40% odds against anything short of Mech Infantry. You've got a good chance that this unit will win this fight.

Third and follow-up units: Depends on the number of defenders, but start using Drill tanks. First Strike vs heavily damaged units means the Drill tanks will likely win their fights without taking -any- damage at all, despite the -50% penalty. Try not to use any Gunships to take out defenders. When the very last defending unit is left is when you send in the marines. One marine captures the city. DO NOT CAP WITH A TANK.

One Marine takes city. Fly in an Infantry or Mech Infantry unit and move the fleet into the city. Disembark the Gunships - which now have all 4 (5 with upgrades) movement points left and any tanks you didn't use in the assault will have 2mps.

Any leftover fighters or bombers attack nearby cities. Damaged units usually don't get pulled out from cover by the AI to counter-attack, so this weakens the SOD the AI is sure to send at you.

Send the Gunships out to zap any nearby workers or strategic resources. Leaving strategic resources hooked up to the enemy trade network is silly - pillage them. The rest of the improvements you can leave alone, but ALWAYS pillage Iron, Horses, Oil, Aluminum, and Uranium. Yes the AI may have other sources at their disposal, but usually they're trading their spare resources to other civs - other civs you may soon be at war with. PILLAGE them and make another AI mad at your target. (And you may be able to contact that AI and sell that resource to them yourself on the next turn)

If the opportunity presents itself to use the Gunships to cut the rail line to the city - take it. You can Move, Pillage, Move, Pillage. Remember that your tanks also can move out one tile and pillage, but won't have the MP to move back unless you culture bomb, so don't expose your tanks to defeat in detail unless the prize is worth the loss of that tank.

If you have a Great Artist along, culture bomb the city (revolt ends, culture border expands) which usually cuts off the attacking SOD's ability to hit you on the next turn since they now have to slog a turn through your culture wall) If you culture bomb, don't forget to also rush an Airport.

If this isn't a smash-n-grab then unload as many of your units into the city as you think you need to hold it against a counter attack and then MOVE your fleet back out. If you don't have the movement points on your fleet to move in, unload, and move out again then unload your units from outside the city and lose their movement points. Under no circumstances should you leave your fleet inside the city. Nothing sucks harder than losing your entire fleet because you underestimated the strength of the expected counter-attack.

If this is the first city you've attacked and are at all unsure of the counter-attack strength, do not re-base bombers to this city until after the next turn. You lose a turn of bombing ability but you don't risk losing your entire stack of bombers to a counter-attack SOD.

Anyway, that's some of the stuff I do. Gunships are wonderful to bring along on an attack as it means that on the very same turn you take the city you can strike -very- deeply into the enemy culture zone, taking out strategic resources, targets of opportunity, and especially enemy workers. I don't need to bring along scads of Marines. The two Marines I brought along on my last Modern Era war lasted the entire war (taking about 6 cities) and the upside is they were quite heavily promoted... but by then I also had a 45+ xp GG Tank and a 30+ xp Artillery piece along with several 10 to 17xp Gunships. That fleet was unstoppable and surprisingly lightweight considering the amount of damage they dished out.

Last reminder: Do not be afraid of the -50% amphibeous penalty! With sufficient prep-bombing and a lead-off seige piece that -50% doesn't slow you down as much as you might otherwise think. Try it some time. You'll be amazed at how fast you cut through even-tech defenders while taking ridiculously light losses to do it.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I tend to invade as quickly after chemistry as well.
build lots of cannons and use up your left over cats.
pick the end of continent civ that likes you the least and get a middle of continent civ, bribe them with techs to go to war with the civ about 5-8 turns before your attack. Hit the Civ on the opposite side of its prexisting war. You do not need to attack amphibous because his units are too far away. Take a hill city in turn 2. Get a good set of defensive units in there as your base of operations. Expand from there.
I will use excess Cats to take down culture or non coastal cities and sacrifice cannons to weaken defenders.
Also on higher levels bee-line to artilary after chemistry and you can give them city raider in take out a civ that is technicaly more advanced from you.
moat important thing though is to get the civ into a war before you attack.

Also good to declare war the turn after a civ changes goverments if it is big as it will not be able to make new units for a couple of turns.

 

[Chode]

Drill tanks? I thought first strike was bugged and should never be chosen. Am I wrong?

 

[cabert]

Drill tanks? I thought first strike was bugged and should never be chosen. Am I wrong?

I though it was fixed now

 

[Ace4nyC]

From my experince, it's better to create an open-border act with one of nations, on the other continent and relocate your invasion force there. (the main inland SOD and defensive forces. while your navy drops of marines on coast. Thus you split the computer in half and it will start to defend.

 

[pigswill]

In the first Trash game (see SG thread for details) I mounted a continental invasion with gren and cannon by landing a stack on a friendly civ and marching them to the border of my target (close to the enemy capital), declared war and simultenously landed another stack on the far side. Knocked out the capital in first five turns and easy after that.

 

[svv]

If you're planning on invading a distant continent after flight, it can help if you first secure a city on a nearby island or something. While your transports are en route, you can be airlifting more units to your island cities. Then after your transports dump the initial invasion force, they can rush back to the island city and get the reinforcements, and then bring them along.