How to beat high-level AI in modern war
Hey guys.
I have been playing civ for about five months, and have gotten resonably good at it. Right now I am in a game year 1878 with Deity difficulty on giant map, and I thought I would share some of the wisdom I have gained through this war that I am engaged in now.
I am one of three nations on a huge continent, and at the start of this war I was the weakest one. I had actually been planning for this war for a long time so, while my opponent ravaged the entire continent of all other civs, I turned my cities into modern armor factories that could pour them out every one or two turns. What this meant was that when my cities had factories, manufacturig plants, offshore platforms, and hydro dams, the Zulu had Factories (sometimes). The moral of this is that although the Zulu had at least three times as many cities as me, I actually had 5 or so more that actually made a difference in the war effort. What I mean by this is: Once you get to this point in the game, it doesn't help you if you have a city without a factory that loses all its shields to corruption and can make a modern armor in fifty turns. The only cities that even make a difference in the war are the group of ten or so metropolises around yor capitol with minimal corrpution and 60 shields or above. This means that you can beat a much larger civilization in a war, if you can withstand his original attack. All you need to do is fight a war of attrition and take advantage or your superior shield production.
Now this may come as a surprise to all you experienced players, but I found that artillery was not necessary at all. This is not to say that it was not useful, just that when it came to the actual taking of enemy cities, the artillery just wasn't necessary. So, my advice is this: Use artillery for defense of your cities and damaging enemy units in your territory. This works better because you can move the artillery anywhere in your territory (via railroads) and still hit the enemy. If you are trying to take an enemy city, moving your artillery into range will take a turn, thus wasting time and making it more likely that you will not have taken full advantage of the war before your people get pissed off at you for it.
At the start of the war, I had saved up about 120 Modern Armor, and every turn I pumped out eight or so more. I would take three or so cities a turn, simply by attacking recklessly and losing about ten modern armor for each one. What I found is that, once you get your nations cities getting 90 or so shields, you can afford to lose twice as many men as the AI and still come out the winner. This is because of the nature of AI and how it plays. I don't know much about the lower difficulties, because I don't play on them too much, but from my experience, when a Deity-level AI declares war on you (or vice versa) you can be sure of three weaknesses that you can take advantage of:
1. He will always use his bombers to attack rescource squares near to his territory, so set up interceptors with air superiority around the cities that he will be targeting. Even if he loses three bombers or more to your jets, he will continue to attack until the job is done. This is a wasteful use of rescources because it will take him at least 15 turns to get all the bombers back, and your workers can rebuild the road in one or two.
2. He will send modern armor armies with mech inf support by themselves, which makes them easyt targets for you to destroy. Use Radar artillery to take the armies down to one hit point, then finish it off with a modern armor. Also, it is exteremly important after this that you do not let the mech inf escape back to a city. They get an obscene defensive bonus for just being in a city, so take them out with your artillery and modern armor before they escape.
3. He will stack the majority of his army on one territory, and move into your territory to take your fringe cities. This may scare you at first but this actually puts them in a very vunerable position. Because their guys are all stacked, they will slow down (modern armor to wait for mech infantry) they will move very slowly in your territory, taking at least two turns before they are in a position to attack your city. You must take full advantage of these two turns to bombard them with everything you have. Take a group of about twenty mech infantry and radar atrillery into firing range, and blast them. If they attack your artillery and mech infantry, they will get destroyed. If they ignore them and go on to your city, my the time they get there, all of the units will have at least one hit point gone, and will be easy for your mech infantry (which you moved into the city because they were not needed anywhere else) to finish them off. Or, if worst comes to worst, they have a bloody battle, take the city, and lose the war because that was their whole army.
Keep in mind, these strategies only work when all players are fully teched, near the end of the game. I Would like any input that you have for my plan, please post me back.
JR
Hey guys.
I have been playing civ for about five months, and have gotten resonably good at it. Right now I am in a game year 1878 with Deity difficulty on giant map, and I thought I would share some of the wisdom I have gained through this war that I am engaged in now.
I am one of three nations on a huge continent, and at the start of this war I was the weakest one. I had actually been planning for this war for a long time so, while my opponent ravaged the entire continent of all other civs, I turned my cities into modern armor factories that could pour them out every one or two turns. What this meant was that when my cities had factories, manufacturig plants, offshore platforms, and hydro dams, the Zulu had Factories (sometimes). The moral of this is that although the Zulu had at least three times as many cities as me, I actually had 5 or so more that actually made a difference in the war effort. What I mean by this is: Once you get to this point in the game, it doesn't help you if you have a city without a factory that loses all its shields to corruption and can make a modern armor in fifty turns. The only cities that even make a difference in the war are the group of ten or so metropolises around yor capitol with minimal corrpution and 60 shields or above. This means that you can beat a much larger civilization in a war, if you can withstand his original attack. All you need to do is fight a war of attrition and take advantage or your superior shield production.
Now this may come as a surprise to all you experienced players, but I found that artillery was not necessary at all. This is not to say that it was not useful, just that when it came to the actual taking of enemy cities, the artillery just wasn't necessary. So, my advice is this: Use artillery for defense of your cities and damaging enemy units in your territory. This works better because you can move the artillery anywhere in your territory (via railroads) and still hit the enemy. If you are trying to take an enemy city, moving your artillery into range will take a turn, thus wasting time and making it more likely that you will not have taken full advantage of the war before your people get pissed off at you for it.
At the start of the war, I had saved up about 120 Modern Armor, and every turn I pumped out eight or so more. I would take three or so cities a turn, simply by attacking recklessly and losing about ten modern armor for each one. What I found is that, once you get your nations cities getting 90 or so shields, you can afford to lose twice as many men as the AI and still come out the winner. This is because of the nature of AI and how it plays. I don't know much about the lower difficulties, because I don't play on them too much, but from my experience, when a Deity-level AI declares war on you (or vice versa) you can be sure of three weaknesses that you can take advantage of:
1. He will always use his bombers to attack rescource squares near to his territory, so set up interceptors with air superiority around the cities that he will be targeting. Even if he loses three bombers or more to your jets, he will continue to attack until the job is done. This is a wasteful use of rescources because it will take him at least 15 turns to get all the bombers back, and your workers can rebuild the road in one or two.
2. He will send modern armor armies with mech inf support by themselves, which makes them easyt targets for you to destroy. Use Radar artillery to take the armies down to one hit point, then finish it off with a modern armor. Also, it is exteremly important after this that you do not let the mech inf escape back to a city. They get an obscene defensive bonus for just being in a city, so take them out with your artillery and modern armor before they escape.
3. He will stack the majority of his army on one territory, and move into your territory to take your fringe cities. This may scare you at first but this actually puts them in a very vunerable position. Because their guys are all stacked, they will slow down (modern armor to wait for mech infantry) they will move very slowly in your territory, taking at least two turns before they are in a position to attack your city. You must take full advantage of these two turns to bombard them with everything you have. Take a group of about twenty mech infantry and radar atrillery into firing range, and blast them. If they attack your artillery and mech infantry, they will get destroyed. If they ignore them and go on to your city, my the time they get there, all of the units will have at least one hit point gone, and will be easy for your mech infantry (which you moved into the city because they were not needed anywhere else) to finish them off. Or, if worst comes to worst, they have a bloody battle, take the city, and lose the war because that was their whole army.
Keep in mind, these strategies only work when all players are fully teched, near the end of the game. I Would like any input that you have for my plan, please post me back.
JR
(you just have to admit the overpowered utility of offensive artillery 
)
