Guerilla/Insurgent Tactics

[nick0515]

I'm looking for ideas on how to represent guerilla/insurgent tactics in Civ 3. Please give me any ideas you have.

So far I'm thinking:

- Use of treat all terrain as roads and/or ignore movement costs in certain terrains
- Car bombs (cruise missiles)
- Molotov cocktails (cheap but weak cruise missile or an artillery unit)
- Snipers (invisible, stealth attack against infantry units)
- Recruiter (can enslave new recruits who can be upgraded to a guerilla - not very happy with this idea as I doubt most guerilla forces recruit from enemy forces, rather they recruit from the general population who is being mistreated by enemy forces)

 

[Steph]

You can imagine that when you enslave a unit, you are in fact destroying it, but seeing victory is possible, people are joining your cause.

Just change the script. Instead of "we have enslave unit X", use "Our victory over unit X has decided guerilleros to join our cause!"

 

[nick0515]

Thanks Steph, that solves my unhappiness completely!

 

[Steph]

Except you shouldn't use "recruiter", but perhaps give the option to most of your insurgent units.

This could counterbalance their lack of tanks / aircrafts.

If they win, they can have a bigger and bigger army of insurgent.

It could work well for your scenario.

Loyalist : have good troops, but recruit slowly.
Insurgent: can't build the best troops, recruit guerillero when winning

 

[nick0515]

Yeah I've been thinking about that. I am a bit worried that you might end up with too many troops but I guess they would be a lot weeker than the troops of the state and so would die in large numbers. But as you say an ever increasing army of insurgents is pretty realistic. That is I guess what happens in successful insurgencies or revolutions. Would give the state player a big inscentive to squash the insurgency quickly before their numbers increased too much. Thanks again Steph, I think I'll try this out.

Also I forgot to mention in my first post another unit for insurgents is the RPG. I'm not sure whether to make it an artillery unit or make it an offensive unit with large attack and maybe bombard as well.

 

[Steph]

The best would be offensive unit with good attack and stealth attack vs tank.
Your tanks could have a relatively weak defense to allow RPG to destroy them.

About the guerilla: don't forget enslavement does not work every time!

 

[nick0515]

The best would be offensive unit with good attack and stealth attack vs tank.
Your tanks could have a relatively weak defense to allow RPG to destroy them.

About the guerilla: don't forget enslavement does not work every time!

Ah, I didn't think of giving them stealth attack against tanks. That's a great idea. Does the AI use stealth attack effectively?

Yes a 1/3 chance shouldn't produce too many new guerillas I guess. And I'm thinking that Barracks will not be available. The revolutionaries will have perhaps just a few small wonder 'training camps' that they can build and use to upgrade the new recruits to fully fledged guerillas.

The state civ will be able to conscrip lots of units too to counter large numbers of guerilla's if they need to, but it will make them unpopular with their own population.

 

[Virote_Considon]

I'm pretty sure the AI knows how to use stealth attack.

 

[Big Rob]

Guerrillas might not have barracks, but they do have training camps. They also have the ability to hit hard and then run away safely, disappear like ghosts.

Also,guerrillas just aren't modern. Steph, I read where one of Napoleon's downfalls in Spain was the guerrilla actions against his troops.

Instead of recruiting, could you draft out of AI cities ? By propaganda ?

 

[nick0515]

Guerrillas might not have barracks, but they do have training camps. They also have the ability to hit hard and then run away safely, disappear like ghosts.

Yes as I said I'll have training camps but I don't want too many so I'll make them small wonders. This is for a particular scenario I'm working on, which, as yet, has no progress thread. I do want them to work as you said, but bear in mind the main goal will have to be to capture cities not just destroy enemy units. Capturing cities, is, after all, usually the main objective in Civ.

Also,guerrillas just aren't modern. Steph, I read where one of Napoleon's downfalls in Spain was the guerrilla actions against his troops.

True, but my scenario will be modern so I'm only thinking about modern stuff.

Instead of recruiting, could you draft out of AI cities ? By propaganda ?

Not quite sure what you mean. You could use draft in cities already controlled by by you but this would cause unhappiness amongst the population, and I envisage the Guerrillas as trying to win over the general population rather than brutally conscript them (that's the job of the state ). I've never actaully used the propaganda aspect of espionage missions, but I assume it is used to steal cities. I might use this. Or did you just mean that I could think of the conscript feature in terms of recruiting through propaganda?

Thanks for your responce.

Thanks Virote, that's good. So the AI actually might try and use the RPG's to knock out tanks.

EDIT: I just read a wee bit about Espionage Missions which I am very unfamiliar with. And have a questions. Can you plant spys when already at war with a faction? Particularly if you are in a locked war?

 

[WildWeazel]

Definitely give them fast-moving units that can withdraw and ignore movement penalties. Stealth attack is good too.

There is a bug that causes a unit with Hidden Nationality and 0 defense to be immune to attack. Units of other nationalities can enter its tile but the unit remains there unharmed along with the foreign unit. These units can only be killed by losing an attack or being attacked in a city (or presumably, being nuked). I don't know what if anything the AI would do with it. There are some obvious problems with having a bunch of these units running around, but it's something to consider.

 

[nick0515]

Definitely give them fast-moving units that can withdraw and ignore movement penalties. Stealth attack is good too.

There is a bug that causes a unit with Hidden Nationality and 0 defense to be immune to attack. Units of other nationalities can enter its tile but the unit remains there unharmed along with the foreign unit. These units can only be killed by losing an attack or being attacked in a city (or presumably, being nuked). I don't know what if anything the AI would do with it. There are some obvious problems with having a bunch of these units running around, but it's something to consider.

Thanks weasel Op. That's worth thinking about. I could always make two biqs one for the AI controlling the Guerrillas and one for Human control with more features that the AI couldn't use.

 

[Virote_Considon]

You can plant spies whilst at war with the opponent.

 

[nick0515]

You can plant spies whilst at war with the opponent.

Is it more difficult though than when you're at peace?

 

[Virote_Considon]

I'm not sure. I never really get much luck either way!