How long does it take to complete a major Military operation

[Galen Dietenger]

Im looking for a few example of how long it takes some of you to complete major conquests and what those objectives would normally consist of. For my example I was playing earth large as Rome, and was able to secure and settle NA wo any interuptions. The Germans were to the south in central Northern SA and Britain controlled the Bulk the SA Below the Middle of SA. Now the germans didnt take too long to finish off A few decades, less than a century. The British OTOH, had many more cites and most of the time to 1700's+ to develop there empire. Now I set for myself the Goal (1st) of fortress NA, then add all of SA to my empire. Once I engaged the British It was a Long, drawn out slugfest of build forces, lose forces-crawl thro there ZOC at a snails pace, capture one of there (many) citys-repeat. At a pace far I found frustrateing at times. By the time all was said and done, SA was not fully secured till the mid 1900's. Centuries of constant warfare and stuggle. Modern units came availbale near the end of my battles in Argentina, and played a minor role. Most battles were fought with Cavalry and Infantry.


How does this compare to your Large scales Conquests?

 

[Mnus]

Well, I would have to say that a question like "How long does it take to complete a major Military operation" can be interpreted in so many ways that it's virtually impossible to come up with an objective standard to answer by, so I'm not going to give a direct answer like "XX years". Instead, I'll try and go by the situation you describe.

Generally, at least until you get a superior technological advantage, war is going to be a pretty slow process, consisting of many cycles of attacking, loosing some troops while gaining some ground, and then being naturally forced to a defensive position as you fortify the new ground, heal troops, build more for the next wave/move more in. You can't expect for horsemen/warriors to have the strength to continually stomp over a large expanse of land like South america, all in one foul swoop. It sounds like you've found this out. Thiers a lot of reasons for this:

- Obviously, the more combat you get in, the more damage you take. Even with battlefield medicine, at least a few turns will be spent idle as your troops heal. Without it, it's only a matter of time until they eventually fall.
- As your troops spread out farther into enemy territory, reinforcements (from your home base) are likewise getting farther and farther away. Even if you continually churn out new units, it just takes longer for them to get where the action is.
- Likewise, as reinforcents arrive, they typically aren't in the densely packed "army format" that your first wave probably was. They are in random pockets of indivual units. Easier to pick off by enemy forces
- last of all, the longer war lasts and the farther your troops get from your borders, the more war weariness starts to take effect.

My point in all this is that war SHOULDN'T be a matter of "start war, don't stop until I take over SA." Ideally, or at least how I ideally see it is you mass some troops up close to your border. The first few turns of the war can also be the most advantageous as you can choose what terms you fight on, and wait for a weakness in your foe. You declare war, and as quickly as possible you just pound the Tar out of them. Think along the lines of 3-4 turns here. take some cities, but do it QUICK. And then stop. Don't get too greedy. Try to go for peace, maybe get another city out of the process. And spend that peacetime Immediately building up temples, culture stuff, etc., or else you may lose those cities without a shot even being fired. Build your railroads right up to your new borders, so you have the mobility to attack quickly once again when you are ready. Even a small setback like this to the enemy can seem to put a huge dent in thier score. It may also be enough to give you a the cities to start churning out the technology.

So, doing this, how long does it take to take over South america? probably a pretty long time. But at least you can do this while continuing to expand culture, do research, build improvements, etc.

Now, thing is, I just got TANKS. This things are friggin awesome. I'll still do the strategy as listed above, the only thing is that instead of taking 1-2 cities over every 20 turns, I'm taking over about 10.

:tank:

Once you get these things, I would suspect ( assuming no one else has them) that, given a well timed attack, you could easily take over SA in under 20 turns. Makes all that struggling you did seem kinda pointless, huh?

 

[Blitz79]

What about Sea power? Use it for reconnaisance, use it to move reserves, and most importantly use it to attack the centre of your enemy's Empire.

Expanding from the centre out into the provinces is SO much faster than systematically grinding through miles and miles of unroaded, resisted, devastated countryside.

A swift war requires swift, decisive blows. You could start a war in the North to draw enemy forces to the borders, then take the centre from the Sea.

Course, you will have culture problems, but that's another story.

 

[costanza]

The answer to your question: a long time.

Major is the key. Earlier in the game, almost all military conquests will be very minor: 3 or 4 cities at a time at the most. If you can consistently pull that off, then you're going to do great.

But things change as you can't just sweep through everyone like you used to. There is no more of Alexander the Great sweeping through Persia in 7 years or Hitler going across Europe in 4.

A sustained campaign is almost always bad. One technique that I've used for later in the game requires that you are already ready for war (units already built and in a resonable postion). I switch from Democracy to Monarchy. Yes, you lose the time during anarchy and you lose a buttload of production once the switch is made, but the people are a lot less ticked while you are at war. It also seems to make keeping the newly conquered cities easier to keep from a culture standpoint. I guess it's because they won't revolt so fast.

My recommendation for you is this: be patient and use your military for maybe 2/3 of the cities you want to take. Then build those cities up, sit back and wait for your influence to take a few more. It really does work and it's always a nice suprise to be doing something else and have that screen pop up and tell you that you just got a free city. It might take a while, but it's worth it to save on production and also get some extra time to build up your newly conquered cities. BTW, this works best if you fight for some new cities, then go for peace or else you'll be wasting a lot of time watching your improvements get pillaged.