Democracy At War

[Xin Yu]

If you are at war with an AI and don't want the senator to force you into a peace treaty, you can try to place bombers in front of occupied cities to block enemy units so that they cannot talk to you. This method will be a lot easier to implement if the AI civ does not have the techs for getting partisans when you occupy its cities.

Actually bombers do not need to go back to cities every other turn. If you have enough engineers, you can fly the bombers to their targets, then build an airbase under the bombers, then order the bombers to attack. This way the bombers can keep going until battle damage makes them too weak to attack again. Before the AI can get fighters, this is the best way to wage a war -- almost no casualties.

 

[Old n Slow]

Sneaky ; great ; I like it!

Starlifter, the GOTM rules allow airbases for tactical reasons -- and this certainly qualifies. I can see the bomber/airbase (hopefully with a spy to deter bribes) as the new improved roadblock of choice! :scout: I wonder how well the bomber/fighter/ airbase (assuming that fighters will scramble from airbases as well as cities) ‘trick’ will work after the ai has flight…

 

[Xin Yu]

Old n Slow, fighters won't scramble in an airbase so if you want the best defense you can
1)move the bombers to position,
2)build airbase beneath them,
3)order bombers to attack,
4)build fortress on top of the airbase
5)put a couple of defense units in the fortress.

This is sort of mimic my 'X-pack' strategy.

Please note that the two paragraphs of my previous post were dealing with different things.

 

[funxus]

But if you're able to move in landunits, you might as well move in howitzers, spies and armors, they are cheaper and have more attacks per turn

 

[Old n Slow]

Xin Yu,

Ah too bad/just as well regarding scrambling fighters & airbases.
The bomber airbase trick looks to be a great ‘plug’ on the off front of a multi-front war. It also looks good as a unit suppressant for an interior city (similar to an ironclad or cruiser outside a port).

Related question (since I haven’t put this trick into my portfolio yet): in an otherwise peaceful situation, how does the fresh airbase with a non attacking bomber (or fighter, I guess) with guest non military ground unit (to avoid dip purchase), say an engineer or dip, affect the ai who normally asks units to leave? Will the bomber not register & thus the ai is pinned without recourse?

 

[Xin Yu]

funxus, howi's are much later than bombers, and tanks do not ignore city walls. spies are always good.

Old n Slow, my impression is that if the AI does not have other units in contact with your land units, then they will not talk to you to ask you withdraw (that is, you need to avoid land contact and do not initiate talk). But I have never tested this.

 

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
Second, with BACH you can build several size 2 cities to support your troops. A size 2 city near a shield resource and has shield improvements can usually support 20+ units each. With the BACH wonder the city will never go unhappy. Just make sure to put workers to forrests and hills so that the city does not grow to size 3!

Why do you use only just size 2 cities?

 

[Xin Yu]

BACH can make two citizens content, so if a city has only 2 citizens the BACH will make it content, no matter how many out-of town troops it supports.

 

[duke o' york]

4)build fortress on top of the airbase

But it's impossible to have a fortress and an airbase on the same square so you'll lose your bomber after the second turn. Or have I not understood this properly Xin?

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by duke o' york
But it's impossible to have a fortress and an airbase on the same square so you'll lose your bomber after the second turn. Or have I not understood this properly Xin?

Look here for more detail on the x-pack.

The key is that you have enough engineers to rebuild the Airbase and the fortress every turn, so the planes think they have a full movement allowance each time.

 

[duke o' york]

Thanks Tim! I'm pretty sure I wasn't on holiday when that was posted but for some reason I didn't post in the thread. It certainly cleared up a few issues with what Xin Yu posted here.
I doubt that I'll bother to try it though because it's just not worth it against the useless AI.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by duke o' york
I doubt that I'll bother to try it though because it's just not worth it against the useless AI.

I've never tried it either. Like you said, it's overkill and probably too slow against the AI. I think it's more an MP thing. I can imagine it being pretty demoralizing to see this Stack of Death moving toward you one square at a time, with nothing to do to stop it. (other than planting trees!)

 

[starlifter]

JS Bach is applied after unhappiness caused by units away; that is, in line five of the happiness computation (city status window).

However, the city will not grow with this setup, as Xin Yu pointed out. You can support a similar number of units with a large democratic city & police station/Women's Suffrage. In a Republic with PS/WS, unhappiness due to units away is eliminated.
IMHO, this strategy will exploit the Human in most situations, since the Human is keeping a city small and weak instead of large and powerful. It takes work to re-home 20 units... and long term commitment to repressing the city. If it is ships (or possible bombers), and a mistake is made, you will lose some mighty expensive units.... the Navy is often far away from being able to duck into a friendly port and do an emergency re-homing. Of course, you can drop out of Democracy... but that is a real killer too.

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Problems.

For GOTM players: this can be added to the Civ2 GOTM Techniques thread if somone wants (make a post & link, and I'll put it in the list). It's not a cheat for GOTMs (and not even really an exploit, since there is a big downside, e.g., cost, to employing it), but could be of interest to some players that do not realize how JS Bach works.

 

[starlifter]

The X-Pack is probably best used in MP, as there are usually more efficient ways of dealing with AI civs. Xin Yu, one of the most original thinkers in Civ 2, is the originator of the X-pack BTW. I'm not an MP-er, but if I had an X-Pack creeping up on me in MP, I'd be thinking something like "Resistance is Futile! I'm going to be Assimilated!"

The X-Pack is not specifically covered in the Techniques thread, since it's a variation of #16 (the bomber stack). As usual, if any GOTM Players want the X-Pack added, make a post here.

by Old n Slow:

Starlifter, the GOTM rules allow airbases for tactical reasons -- and this certainly qualifies.

No one will (should) begrudge you an airfield to assault an enemy city in a GOTM. Have at it! Personally, I don't build bombers at all, since I prefer completely different tactics. But if I was a bomber builder, this might be one way to use them.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Originally posted by Dendar
Since people in this thread have picked up the subject of mass invasion, I'll seek advice on carriers. In some of my earlier games, my invasion strategy was to get a huge navy, including carriers (loaded with 3 fighters, 4 bombers, and a helicopter) and submarines (loaded with CMs and nukes ), sail over, and just bomb the heck out of my enemies. It's really fun, especially when the AI doesn't have fighters or is too dumb to attack your bombers.

However, due to poor planning, I never had enough land units to back up my air raids. I wound up having to occupy cities with helicopters, which just got killed later. And under democracy, bombers may not be worth it... Does anyone else use air attack? :enlighten because I haven't heard them mentioned...

Air power strategy is my pet subject, so here goes:

Scrap the helicopters. As ye say, their only redeeming feature is that they can take cities. But they cannot hold them.

Use spies to determine what the enemy garrisons are, and then 'create' an 'air tasking order', ie Nottingham has 7 units, plus 2 Nukes, therefore it will require X fighters/and or bombers, depending on the unit type.
You can fit many, many more stealth fighters onto your carriers. If you are playing power democracy, employ them in the absolute main, with minimal stealth bombers from Shakespeare's Theatre city, and one from each other city.
Then, knock out all the enemy units in one turn with the airpower.

Next, you need a few transports of ground occupation forces. i go for mech inf or armor, as they are mobile. They won't be fighting anyone anyway. Then maneuver them to the edge of the enemy cities, taking advantage of their railroads and roads, and then take out the civ/continent in one turn. This will eliminate partisans, or if they stay, mop up with SFs.
It is as Starlifter said: Proper Planning. Deploy more force than necessary in terms of aircraft, so all contingencies are covered. It is a simple blitzkrieg strategy. The AI is utterly unable to counter such an assault from the sea, and from the air.

 

[starlifter]

Use spies to determine what the enemy garrisons are, and then 'create' an 'air tasking order'

That is almost exactly what we do in real life! We "spy" on the enemy, determine what they have, figure what we need to do the mission, and create an ATO (Air Tasking Order)!



I really love Vet. Stealth Fighters because they have multiple attack, and can be used to help defeat a series of cities on one turn, even with one hit point left.

 

[AGRICOLA]

Several contributors have mentioned that with Bach you can develop size 2 cities that are immune to unhappiness caused by the military units they support. Actually, by adding a courthouse the city size can be increased to 3, and with supply squares that produce trade arrows size 4 is possible.

You can build unhappiness-proof cities under any conditions, ranging from when you have none of the helpful wonders to when you have both Bach and Cure for Cancer. There is a fairly complete discussion of the possibilities in the attachment to the thread "Democracies CAN have huge arrmed forces" in this forum.

 

[Kamilian]

Yes Democracy is quite good in a war. And, yes, planning is required. I like to have Republic before Democracy. I get Statue of Liberty and revolt into Democratic gov't. If, as a Republic, you had relative stability economically, scientifically, and socially (unrest-wise) then Democracy should be little problem. A Power Democracy should have tons of trading cities - ur own cities trading in between each other as well as foreign empires - for a strong, tough economy. Scientific wonders of the world and civ improvements help alot. Make sure that you can afford to get Colosseums, Cathedrals, Courthouses, etc. before you enter a war as a Democracy - unless its a short war. The longer the war ius and more cities u take the more chances there are of a revolution. If you lose cities, you might also find ur infrastructure falling into jeopardy. If you have Corporation, then you can use Capitalization to get back on ur feet. ALso, Women's Suffrage, or Police Stations in most or all of ur cities will likely prevent revolution as the former gives Police Stations to all ur cities at no cost for the upkeep and the latter prevents disgruntled citizens if their unhappiness is caused by military units that are on the military campaign against ur enemy. Also, make sure you have city walls, SAM missiles batteries in the later game, SDI in the later game when Manhattan Project is built, and Coastal Fortress when you get Metallurgy in ur coastal cities. The latter, however, dont get unless the civ ur fighting or a different civ that isnt so friendly to u is a naval power. Otherwise, ur wasting time and money - time because u could b building Factory, Transports, and/or military units to invade successfully, and money because of the cost if u rush it and of the upkeep that could kill ur economy if u cant Capitalization ur cities because ur enemy is finding friends that want to fight u as well in secret "pacts" that are meant to "contain [insert ur civ name here] aggression" that meant hat if u break the cease-fire/treaty, then the pact will b ativated and the other civ goes to war against u - even if u have a peace trety w/ them, too. yOU MIGHT need to constantly build military units and transports for a relly successful invasion - sometimes its better to attack in one big onslaught rather than separated waves of invasions. I should know. I had a large Power Democracy empire, wanted to fight a smaller, but technologically slightly superior civ. I invaded their only continent in separate waves of Cavalry for offense and Riflemen for defense. They were usually taken out by the enemy. I had to fortify them in fortifications and wait for the next military teams to arrive to began the attack.

 

[Kamilian]

Also, if the war isnt going that good for u, there is unrest and u have to relieve people off work in the fields to make entertainers to appease the dissidents, u might consider switching gov't. However, if you have a large empire, do NOT switch back to any of the ancient go'vt - Despotism, Monarchy, Republic - because all the corruption will make unhappiness and disorder in even just one or two cities will completely cripple ur economy - might even cause a major depression - and you wont make any scientific discoveries for decades!!! Also, watch out for Communism. Its a quite good war gov't, but as soon as u switch to Communist, your economy will be crippled. And in Fundamentalism, its perfect to get your economy back if you have built lots of happiness city improvements in ur Democratic or previous days. However, make sure you have enjoyed a solid scientific prosperity while in Democracy and that you have tons of science improvements because Fundamentalists are probably like "anti-evolutionist extremist creationists". THey kick out half the scientists becuase their science might blaspheme their religious beliefs. All in all these two are the best gov't besides Democracy. Make sure you watch out so that your economy and/or science dont completely collapse or you'll be running to your enemy BEGGING for a peace traety, or at least cease-fire. ANd then if they wouldnt want it cause they knew you were collapsing then you'd be screwed. And then that would make you a puppet state of theirs - you'd have to comply to their every whim - just so that they wouldnt declare war and crush you.