Cruise Missles or Radar Artillery?

[hbdragon88]

I've been having a hard time deciding which to use. Radar Artillery seem to fail a lot; I had a hard time kicking butt against Paris and Orleans. Radar Artillery kept on failing and i was sending in cruise missles all the time to try to take them out before they drafted.

I had to hold Orleans and Paris under siege for at least 20 turns each before I overtook them.

So I was wondering what the best unit to use in this kind of combat - modern combat.

Assume that you have already reserached Rocketry and Robotics - which would you choose and why?

Thanks a lot.

 

[Jaybe]

Cruise Missiles are a special-purspose unit:
have RoF of 3 to Radar Artillery's 2;
can KILL units;
and target only defenders in cities, not improvements or civvies.

If I want to take (not raze) a city I prefer to use Cruise Missiles to avoid destroying marketplaces, etc. If I am going to just raze the city, I'll use other bombardment methods if it's important to avoid losses to my ground combat units.

If an enemy naval unit is fool enough to be within range of my coast and my own navy isn't present, there is another use for cruise missiles.

 

[Shabbaman]

I don't really have a choice. I always have lots of artillery, which could be upgraded to RA. But I can't tell 'cause I have never got that far, and my style of play is that I go for either the UN or the spaceship, and not a modern age domination. Late wars have way too much 'micromanagement' imho.
I do keep some cruise missiles to pick on ships.

I don't get it though, hbdragon. If you've got an artillery stack of sufficient size, you should reduce any city to rubble within two or three turns. As long as your opponent doesn't have SZ he won't have a barracks by then either, so it should be a walk over.
What went wrong?

Oh yeah, I tried bombardment with cruise missiles once (in GOTM 10), but that wasn't a great succes. The main reason was their limited movement. Okay, it's the same movement as artillery, but you don't have to bring in new artillery every turn...

 

[Rammstein]

I go for RA, since CMs are awfully underpowered. The good thing about them is that they can kill units, so it's good to have them around as well. A mix of both.

 

[Karstedt]

I'm the guy that voted, "what?". Here is why... aside from the fact that I rarely get robotics.

Artillery are usually sufficient, and so I don't waste much money upgrading them. I usually have around 60-80 artillery by this time, and haven't noticed much benefit from having radar artillery. I also use cruise missiles mainly to destroy ships along my coastline after my artillery beats them up. They are way underpowered and fairly useless to me. I didn't know they wouldn't destroy imporvements though... but if I want to take a city, I usually need to knock down thier population, so they wouldn't help me much there either.

 

[Jaybe]

I have had RA on occasion. Of course, it's easier when you have delayed being able to finish the Spaceship until after Integrated Defense...

 

[hbdragon88]

I don't get it though, hbdragon. If you've got an artillery stack of sufficient size, you should reduce any city to rubble within two or three turns. As long as your opponent doesn't have SZ he won't have a barracks by then either, so it should be a walk over.

Of sufficient size. I was using six to seven radar artillery. I am not one that uses them crazily, though I might have to change that...

I was curious because with the small stack I had, cruise missles were the one that was easily knocking loose the conscript units.

 

[The Last Conformist]

A CM has very decent chance of simply wiping out a Conscript unit, whereas a RArty can't possibly do better than knock of one HP.

If you need twenty turns to properly siege those cities, I got to wonder why you didn't simply amass a pile of MA and run over the things? A Veteran MA has a decent chance of killing off a Conscript MI even if the later's fortified in a metro.

 

[Karstedt]

Who needs 20 turn to siege a city? 30-60 Atrillery will pretty much demolish any city to the point of having low population and severly damaged defenders so my weak units can roll over them all. That way, I can leave me stack of modern armor sitting fortified on a mountin somewhere.... you know, those things are expensive to operate. I like using up my Infantry and Gurillas.

Anyway, Conscript units are easy to take out without MA. They are simply poo. Marines can take out conscripts with no casualties... unless the not-so-RNG feels grumpy.

 

[Perfection]

Cruise missles come in handy when your being invaded, since they don't harm your cities it can help reclaim whats rightfully yours in a better condition than if you tore through it with RA's

 

[steviejay]

Originally posted by Jaybe
If an enemy naval unit is fool enough to be within range of my coast and my own navy isn't present, there is another use for cruise missiles.

anyone remember good old Civ2 when you couldn't put a Battleship close to an enemy border or it just kept getting hit with cruise missiles? or was that just me

 

[hbdragon88]

In a game the stupid AI kept on bombarding my battleship with artillery. I had to retreat, and took Lyons with a ground assult.

 

[tankrush]

Cruise Missles are way better since radar artillery won't target health. I've had a cruise missle kill a ragular mech infantry in a city I just walked into, but RA only target improvements that will probably be destroyed when you take the city anyway.

 

[Karl_t_great]

I vote for RA.
(Radar) Artillery is the key to modern warfare, because You can do damage with (almost) zero loss. Artillery benefit is all about turning the combat odds to be able to destroy more enemy shields he makes per turn.

Take for example tank vs. MI, shoot the MI down to 1hp and the typical odds are like 1:5 - 1:10 in Your favor. Choose a location and let them come. Loosing 100 shiels for every 500 wasted by the AI means that after some time You are sure to gain military hegemony.

To run succesfull artillery strat takes a lot of artillery, 1/3 of total is good, and the pile them in stacks of 20. Besides the AI seems to have missed the (anti-)artillery tactics cource entirely. It is allmost an exploit, You can only loose if It happens to send a pile large enough to destroy all Your defenders at Your gunning fortress.

 

[MTheil3508]

I like a mix of both. RA is reusable, but cruise missles destroy units.

I tend to use RA to deminish a units health and then use cruise missles to finish it off. This works well with those enemy ships strolling up and down your coast, just were you don't have any ships.