How do you use artillery effectively ?

[bewareofgnomes]

In my current game, i am playing on monarch as persians. i rolled over korea, zulu, and germany with immortals. (used a few calvary for couple of german cities) the iroquoise have a pretty big chunk of the continent after conquering rome. i have a larger lower half. i am leading in productivity and mfg goods. i am up electronics and radio. i have tanks and had for about 10 turns before he did. i have 30 artillery and 60 infantry (i have alot of cities to protect) i have about 5-6 cities producing tanks every two turns. i know i have more tanks then he does (around 20) and i tried a special ops mission to take out his oil, but so far it isnt going well. but back to the question. all my tanks are runnong ahead of my tanks and i cant bombard with them because they are always trying to catch up. any suggestions on what i should build or do?

 

[ltcoljt]

Go to the war academy and look at moonsinger's article on how to use artillery effectively.

 

[bewareofgnomes]

i already looked at that and i dont tthink it will work. i guess i can try, but more suggestions would be helpful. i can post the save if you would like.

 

[DaveMcW]

i am leading in productivity and mfg goods. i am up electronics and radio. i have tanks

Pile your tanks into one stack of doom and march through their land, crushing everything in your path.

Artillery will be obsolete when bombers come around in a few turns. If you don't have enough workers to support offensive railroads, you might as well wait for bombers.

 

[cromagnon]

In multiples of 10.

Get a big stack of 20 or more, defend them with an Infantry Army (or at least 3 infantry). Walk them within 2 squares of the target city. Laboriously order each to bombard the city (or if you have PTW, Auto-bombard). In the meantime, move your Cavalry or Tanks up to the city. Once the city drops to population 6, and you have damaged all the defenders within, move your troops in for the kill. It's slow, but you take much fewer losses than if you were to charge in without softening up the target.

 

[bewareofgnomes]

ok, so i should just wait for bombers. i have tons of workers. (i seized the oppurtunity when the iros had 15 workers in my territory. i told them to leave and they declared wr. good thing i stayed in republic) speaking of which, should i just let WW kick in, or should i go full steam ahead.

 

[Trev]

I try to expand my cultural borders closer to an enemies cities, so that I can using my railways move within 2 squares of an enemy city without movement cost.

This expansion can be done by building temples and libraries in existing cities or building a new city against the cultural boundary, pushing the boudaries closer to their cities

If this is done then artillery can be effective immediately, but in some situations it may be necessary to move defended artillery 1 move into enemy territory before attacking, this still allows effective attack by the artillery ahead of tanks

 

[Pal {UI}]

I always focus my artillery on the strongest cities that will take a few turns to take, while any takes take out the weaker border cities by themselves first, before joining the arty after a few turns.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by bewareofgnomes
i already looked at that and i dont tthink it will work. i guess i can try, but more suggestions would be helpful. i can post the save if you would like.

In order for it to work, you must have at least 100 artilleries. 30 of them isn't enough to do anything.

Personally, I think bombers are pretty much useless. I built only a few of them to take out enemy resources; other than that, they aren't much good for anything else. First, they are more expensive and come much later than artillery. Second, in order to use them, we must re-base them then wait for the next turn; therefore, they can't move as fast as artillery. Third, they offen get shot down by enemy fighters; on the other hand, I have never lost an artillery unit. Fourth, in democracy, it's best to minimize lost as much as possible; the lost of a few bombers may not seem important, but they are in the mind of the peace protestors; they will hurt the stability of the democratic government in the long run.

 

[bewareofgnomes]

well, here is an update. i started a new game because stupid old gnomesy deleted the save file while clearing stuff out. i now have the best start ever. so many bonus grassland. its amazing. but newayz, i took out the celts and koreans before they made contact (i love the no rep hits) so i got the entire continent. i just built a HUGE economy. got a big lead, took out the fledging aztecs, japaneese, and arabs with tanks (no need for artillery) then i sped through the MA with 4 turns research! by the time i had 107 stealth bombers, 25 carriers, about 30-40 subs and 140 modern armors, the English and the indians were down flight, mass production, and elictricty(crazy commi's) . all of their cities were abot size 2 or 3 by the time i attacked them. 107 and stealth bombers is really effective.

btw, peresopolis was producing 246 spt WITHOUT a manufacturing plant. that was due in 1 before the dominitaion victory (after i took 11 of 16 english cities)