Help with warfare across oceans

[CDegeyter]

Would someone please direct me to an article or good succession game/story which will help me to learn warfare on different landmasses? I can win at will on Noble with whichever winning condition I choose if I play on a Pangaea map. But If I play on any other maps I can pretty much give up any thoughts on domination or conquest. Please help!! (Note, I had the same problem way back when I played CivIII and ended up semi-decent but never felt I mastered the art of war on or over oceans I guess I have something against water. )
Thanks for any help

 

[PieceOfMind]

This strategy article is fairly new, and I haven't read it all yet but it looks pretty good.
On Amphibious Warfare in BTS - Flying Pig

 

[troytheface]

remember an old civ3 article that referenced sun tzu and talked about biting the tail and the head of the dragon (or tiger or whatever animal metaphor with teeth)

while the mechanics are different, the general advice remains relevant-which is to say have duel landings- the AI races to one spot - hopefully not two.

forested hill landing point- then either direct assault or another landing. and spies.

course nukes with a unit in a transport is easier later on.

 

[r_rolo1]

Hey, troy, that is a really old one ( I remember it quite well ) But I agree that landing in 2 spots with some lag between is a good way to lure the AI out

 

[vanatteveldt]

I think the "dual landing" strategy is especially good in the railroads era if the opponent has a chokepoint: land on one side (the decoy site) wait till he moves all his units to the decoy site, pillage the chokepoint using spies/gunships/..., and land at the proper site. It should take a number of turns for the main force to come back to the target site, enough to establish a proper beachhead. You can repeat this as soon as the AI main force moved to the target site to establish a second beach head at the previous decoy site.

You can also try using a decoy landing to lure all his troops to one spot, then suicide and/or withdraw and the same turn nuke the decoy site to kill his main army, then invade somewhere. This allows you to kill a lot of troops with a single nuke, preferably on a location without useful resources and SDI...

 

[troytheface]

"You should never just attack from one point. You must assess his land and find 2 points of attack. The attack points must not be adjacent. They must be far enough from each other to divide his forces, but close enough so that when your campaign ends, the cities you conquer should be adjacent to each other.

Your first point of attack will be called the "Head of the Tiger." This attack site should be close enough to some large city. You want to pick an area of his border that is near something you want, and near something he will defend. If you can, this site can be close to his capital, or close to some large city (usually the AI builds wonders in their capital, or in large cities). You can also select your attack Head by his resource placement.

Your second point of attack will be called the "Tail of the Tiger." This attack site should be closest to your prize. Whatever it is that you've identified that you want to gain from this war, mark that place as the "Tail of the Tiger." It is your primary target, and your secondary point of attack"

Warfare: Attacking & Defeating Enemy on Another Continent
Civilization III Strategy By RaMesh at 2002-08-06 00:00

must have either made sense or was well written or whatever to have stuck in my mind. Of course Sun Tzu is a bit dated compared to the likes of a Bobby Fischer or an Attacko.

 

[dorkynorky]

If you've made it to amphibious units, a good tactic is to locate the other civs naval base and take it out on turn 1 via bombardment and amphibious assault. This has the two fold benefit of reducing the amount of protection reinforcing convoys need as well as causing the enemy's coastal cities to spend time making naval rather than land units.

If the enemy has a coastal capitol, its useful to have a small stack of current naval vessels pillage its seafood and then blockade. This can shut down trade routes that may be bringing in strategic resources and cripple what is often a main production city, reducing its ability to turn out defending units.

 

[futurehermit]

1) Bring along enough units to take and defend a beachhead at the very least. The number of units may surprise you. Often you may need at least 60 units to get the job done.

2) If possible, bring along a great artist to culture bomb your beachhead city to immediately bring it out of revolt. This will help with city/culture defense for your units when counter-attacked and also give you some cultural room to breathe.

3) Try to prioritize researching flight for airports. When your beachhead city comes out of revolt, rushbuy or whip an airport while you also rushbuy/whip airports in as many cities as possible back home. This allows you to airdrop many units per turn to your beachhead city and allows you to more easily conquer outwards without waiting for your ferries to get back and forth. Combine with 2) for greater effectiveness.

4) As always, try to hit the capital/big cities first to cripple your opponent. Coastal capitals should be prioritized.

5) Yes, if you can strike from two points at once this can be a powerful move. However, remember "divide and conquer" as well. Make sure at least one of your stacks, and preferably both, is sufficient to get their job done.

6) I find having a tech advantage helps a lot, especially if you are fighting before airports and an airforce. Fighting at tech parity (e.g., early renaissance) increases the numbers of units you need to be bringing along and can make it harder to wait for your ferries to bring reinforcements. If your first stack does not succeed in taking and holding a beachhead, your war just became much, much more difficult.

7) Try and consolidate your own continent back home so that you can speed things up overseas by taking vassals. If you are able to vassalize an opponent this gives you the peace and time necessary to ferry in reinforcements and to prepare for your next assault.

EDIT: 8) Make sure to bring along enough warships for naval stack defense and for bombarding coastal city defenses. Your land-based siege are not useful for bombarding coastal cities.

9) One thing I like is to bring along marines, if at that stage of the game, and to have them go with my navy to sack coastal cities (since they have amphibious promos) while my land-based, city-raider army (usually tanks/bombers at that stage of the game) proceeds inland.

10) Another thing I try to do from time to time is to bring along a couple aircraft carriers with (jet) fighters. This air support can be helpful for collateral damage, bombarding cities, stack defense, and so forth.

 

[Yxklyx]

If you have a tech advantage get Physics and start building Airships, 4, 8, or 12 will do. You can rebase these from anywhere in the world in 1 turn. They'll knock your enemy's strength down just enough so that you'll win most if not all battles. Bombard->Airstrikes->Siege Engines->City Raiders. Go for Flight and upgrade them to Fighters (80 gold each) - now you can do more damage and can take out resources as well as Bombard. Send a couple of spies right before you attack to destroy their strategic war resources (Horses, Iron, etc...). You can also use Spies to take away all Cultural Defenses for 1 turn (City Revolt). Cannons rule, other than a good defensive unit you don't need strong units, Macemen will do just as well as Riflemen as long as you bring enough Cannons.

 

[Deckhand]

Lots of good advice. Here is some more.

If invading a continent with several civs, get open borders with one and stage your forces thru them. Preferably someone that doesn't like your victim.

Attack the weakest overseas civ first. Overwhelm them and you are established.

2) If possible, bring along a great artist to culture bomb your beachhead city to immediately bring it out of revolt. This will help with city/culture defense for your units when counter-attacked and also give you some cultural room to breathe.

careful, if city has high culture and is in the cultural border of neighbor cities, then your culture bomb might fizz. You will bring the city out of revolt, but it won't have enough land to work and its citizens will starve (whip them to produce culture buildings). <my bad - c bomb will still work for stated purposes> (I love culture bombs, but have been disappointed a couple times when they "fizzed")

3) Try to prioritize researching flight for airports. When your beachhead city comes out of revolt, rushbuy or whip an airport while you also rushbuy/whip airports in as many cities as possible back home. This allows you to airdrop many units per turn to your beachhead city and allows you to more easily conquer outwards without waiting for your ferries to get back and forth. Combine with 2) for greater effectiveness.

IIRC, my experience is that you can only airlift one unit into a city per turn. (still an excellent way to transfer units from old world to new; and can move air units up to city limit in one turn)

Question: can you airlift one unit from airport to city if target doesn't have airport? - and unlimited numbers if it does? or does receiving city have to have an airport to receive any?

 

[grace1760]

10) Another thing I try to do from time to time is to bring along a couple aircraft carriers with (jet) fighters. This air support can be helpful for collateral damage, bombarding cities, stack defense, and so forth.

Apologies if this is slightly off-topic, but I've been thinking about jet fighters a lot lately, given I am in the midst of a long, drawn-out war with multiple civs who are as advanced as I am in the modern era. I'm going for conquest, but with only a dozen turns left may be forced to go for domination.

My question is related to Jet Fighters abilities to intercept air attacks. Does it help to have multiple fighters in the defending area? does it matter how close or far the fighter is relative to the attack (or the base of the attacking bomber/fighter)? Any insight into the mechanics/strategy of air defenses would be appreciated. Happy to read up on my own if there's a good article out there as well.

 

[grace1760]

Never mind, I found a good article here

 

[Yxklyx]

...


IIRC, my experience is that you can only airlift one unit into a city per turn. (still an excellent way to transfer units from old world to new; and can move air units up to city limit in one turn) ...

If the destination city has an airport you can airlift any number of units in. So, rush build an airport on the new continent and fly an army in.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If the destination city has an airport you can airlift any number of units in. So, rush build an airport on the new continent and fly an army in.

It would be nice if the game actually told us such things.

Do waypoints work for this?

I usually wind up with a waypoint at the tip of one continent and a transport shuttle system (once you have this going, the rate of new units is the same, it's just a longer outlay to drop the first load)...but usually I bypass airports because I'm frequently using wooden ships and am a long way away from flight.

If you can airlift infinite units INTO a city from 1/other city, AND waypoints actually function, I would use this feature. I did notice that my missionaries on auto religion spread were airlifting, which I found interesting...so maybe?

It's been rare that I wanted to airlift en masse but if it's this easy I'll think about it.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It would be nice if the game actually told us such things.

Do waypoints work for this?

I usually wind up with a waypoint at the tip of one continent and a transport shuttle system (once you have this going, the rate of new units is the same, it's just a longer outlay to drop the first load)...but usually I bypass airports because I'm frequently using wooden ships and am a long way away from flight.

If you can airlift infinite units INTO a city from 1/other city, AND waypoints actually function, I would use this feature. I did notice that my missionaries on auto religion spread were airlifting, which I found interesting...so maybe?

It's been rare that I wanted to airlift en masse but if it's this easy I'll think about it.

Maybe this is something to consider for the BUG mod?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If BUG did more things like that I'd actually be willing to use it.

 

[futurehermit]

Lots of good advice. Here is some more.

If invading a continent with several civs, get open borders with one and stage your forces thru them. Preferably someone that doesn't like your victim.

Attack the weakest overseas civ first. Overwhelm them and you are established.


careful, if city has high culture and is in the cultural border of neighbor cities, then your culture bomb might fizz. You will bring the city out of revolt, but it won't have enough land to work and its citizens will starve (whip them to produce culture buildings). <my bad - c bomb will still work for stated purposes> (I love culture bombs, but have been disappointed a couple times when they "fizzed")


IIRC, my experience is that you can only airlift one unit into a city per turn. (still an excellent way to transfer units from old world to new; and can move air units up to city limit in one turn)

Question: can you airlift one unit from airport to city if target doesn't have airport? - and unlimited numbers if it does? or does receiving city have to have an airport to receive any?

When using a great artist to culture bomb, the city will always come out of revolt. Yes, it may starve, but, honestly, who cares at that point? The point of the culture bomb is to activate city/culture defense and give you the ability to immediately whip/rushbuy an airport so you can airlift in an army en masse, which brings me to the next question: Yes, you can only airlift in one unit/turn IF you do not have an airport in that city. However, as has been mentioned, if you DO have an airport, then you can drop in as many units as you want.

Also, a trick someone mentioned that I read on these forums is as follows: If you sack a city from a naval assault, then you move the ships--NOT the great artist--into the city, then you can select the great artist and use a culture bomb the SAME turn that you sack the city, thus immediately bringing it out of revolt and giving you the option to whip/rushbuy the airport on the same turn that you sack the city. This helps A LOT when expecting a counter-attack immanently.

 

[Deckhand]

... then you move the ships--NOT the great artist--into the city, then you can select the great artist and use a culture bomb the SAME turn that you sack the city, thus immediately bringing it out of revolt and giving you the option to whip/rushbuy the airport on the same turn that you sack the city. This helps A LOT when expecting a counter-attack immanently.

Cool.

Are the airlift source cities limited to one unit per turn?

 

[PieceOfMind]

Cool.

Are the airlift source cities limited to one unit per turn?

Yes. Moreover the unit they airlift has to have not moved at all during the turn. It makes for micromanagement because you have to spread out your force to be airlifted across every one of your cities that have airports.!

 

[futurehermit]

Just rushbuy/whip a unit in each city across your 30+ city empire back home. That means you are reinforcing your army with 30+ units every couple of turns. That should be enough to ensure your victory.