How to invade continents?

[pat4]

Hi. I'm a warlord player and I play on meduim map continents. I normally take my continent and surrounding islands during the middle ages or before. I never win by democracy because I only get to the modern age by the year2000. I never win by culture because my Empire is not big enough. The only way I feel Ican win is by retirement ( which I think is cheating ) or conquest. When I go to war with another civ on a different continent I find little happens. They send over a couple of knights/cavalry fail to take a city and repeat in 10 turns. I try to build a large varied force and invade there continent. But befre Itake the third city they always get one or two back by culture. How do I invade continents succsesfully

p.s. I don't have any expansion is it important to get one

 

[zerksees]

To reduce the culture flip, you can raze their cities and build your own.

Get military alliances with others on their continent so they will have fewer units around to attack you.

Make sure all yur cities are connected by railroad so when they land they can't take your cities - since your units can get over there and take them out before any damage is done.

1 worker per city and make sure you road all tiles your citizens are working, and in general irrigate plains and mine grasslands.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Hi pat4! Welcome to CFC!

Try looking at the invasion the other way around....

The AI is unskilled at D-Day style invasions; they never bring enough
troops or co-ordinate their strike. You, on the other hand, can
fill up 4 galleons (or better, transports) with an invasion force and
kick some butt. Bring approx 60-70% offensive units (cavalry,knights,tanks)
and 30-40% defensive units (riflemen/musketmen/infantry), and land
them all on a hill or mountain next to an AI city. Your defense should
hold against the AI counterattack, esp. if it has not yet built RR.
Take the city, rush-build a barracks, and bring in another boatload or two
of reinforcements.
If the AI does not have RR, the full force of its counterattack may take
a couple of turns to hit you, so don't try to take too many cities too quickly.
Be sure you can hold what you take. However, the AI nearly always sends
its best forces at you first, so once you've weathered that, you can
march on the next few cities.
Mass your forces, keep shipping in reinforcements, and bring bombard
units when you can. To reduce the chance of your newly-conquered cities flipping,
keep them out of disorder. Turn some of the citizens into entertainers,
even if they hungry entertainers. Then cash-rush a library or temple,
whichever is cheaper. A little culture and no disorder will go a long way.

 

[vmxa]

Hi. I'm a warlord player and I play on meduim map continents. I normally take my continent and surrounding islands during the middle ages or before. I never win by democracy because I only get to the modern age by the year2000. I never win by culture because my Empire is not big enough. The only way I feel Ican win is by retirement ( which I think is cheating ) or conquest. When I go to war with another civ on a different continent I find little happens. They send over a couple of knights/cavalry fail to take a city and repeat in 10 turns. I try to build a large varied force and invade there continent. But befre Itake the third city they always get one or two back by culture. How do I invade continents succsesfully

p.s. I don't have any expansion is it important to get one

Last question first, do you mean expansion pack? If so I would go with Conquest. It includes PTW as well, but the interface alone in C3C make a big difference. As long as you can find it or complete for a real good price.

Now on to invasion. They are always a chore at any level. I use a beachhead town. I send other my units and a settler. Drop them on a hill, ideally, and the next turn found the town and fort all units.

If I have the ability to bust roads to the site, I will. Sometimes ships can do some of the work, other times I may have a calv army or two that can step out to pillage and come back.

My best location is one where there are two tiles in all direction on land that cannot be crossed if unroaded. IOW hills, moutains, jungles. Now I can get an extra turn to set up.

Depending I what I am going to face, I will rush a wall, then a barracks, then a temple or harbor. I want the wall and the hill for defense. I want the barrack to heal fast, if C3C.

The landing is best done with one or more armies. The AI will not attack the landing stack, if it covered by an army, unless it has bombers.

So I am sending over a settler and as many armies as I can, then my best defenders. If I still have room, then my best attackers. If I should have more room, then bombardment units.

Frankly if I have so much shipping that I can send bombardment, why did I wait so long.

Many will advise to send bombardment in the first wave, but that is only a good idea, IF you are bringing superior units or more than they can handle. IOW that is for low level games.

If you can only bring say 20 units and expect to get more than 20 attackers, you are not wise to bring cannons or whatever as they cannot defend.

Now if I get my druthers, I have landed, cut roads and made a town. Rushed a wall and then forted units. I have sent the ships back to bring those bombardment things now.

I let the AI toss as many units as it feels like at me and if I can hang on, I probably get a leader and make another army. Once they seem to have slowed down, I then go on the attack.

Of course any opportunity to kill off a straggler without risking a loss, I take.

All cities captured are razed or abandon, no exception. I just abandoned one with 4 wonders including Leo and Newtons. what good are they if they flip? In fact what good are they period, ok maybe Leo. I am not going to get any beakers out of this town to speak of anyway and I would have to sit on it like a hawk.

On my second wave I try to bring over settlers, so I can combat settle. That is I will capture, slip in a settler using their old road/rails and then abandon. I tend to only do this when rails are available.

So no flips as no cities are captured, until I have them down to the last one or two towns. This can be relaxed on Eperor or less, maybe DG. No way can you do it on Sid, especially if this the top civ for culture. Too risky in my book.

Invasion are like AW games, it is all about the kill ratio. That means no risky moves. No units left out to be picked off. If they cannot get to a safe spot, wait.
It is a lot harder to bring units over than it is for them to send them up from the rear. No need to be in rush.

 

[pat4]

thanks alot

 

[gmaharriet]

A few other things I find helpful... If you have room in your boats, send a few workers to build roads/rails until you can capture enough slaves to do the work.

I only play at Monarch level, so I'm usually ahead of the AI in tech. If you've learned Flight, you can use one of your workers to build an airfield on the other continent, and build several airfields on your home continent (only 1 unit at a time can use the outbound airfields, but many can land on a single one). Most units can then be airlifted to support your invasion, but NOT armies, settlers or artillery...those still need to be shipped by boat.

 

[vmxa]

Seems to me you will be a very long time waiting till you can put out any worker to do any task. Airfields and workers are going to need to be protected and that is not something I would want to be doing until I had gone on the offense.

Even when I go on the offensive, I need my troops to attack and defend new lands. I cannot do any worker task, till no units of theirs can reach those workers/airfields. By that time I will surely have some slaves.

I just dropped on the last civ in a deity game and evn though I was way ahead in tech, I needed to wait till I had three cities under control to start improving tiles.

The only reason I was in the modern age and they were still in very early industrial is they were the last civ I took down and they were on a large island alone. All the others civs were even or ahead of me when I came for them.

The point is that even then they could send scores of units to attack, more than I cared to defend against in the new towns and also to cover workers.

By the way I do bring 6 native workers at times. This is only on Sid. What that does for me is to let me add them in right away and get to the city defense. Now I can rush a barracks and I do not need a wall. Not something I can afford to do all the time though.

 

[gmaharriet]

Seems to me you will be a very long time waitomg till you can put out any worker to do any task. Airfields and workers are going to need to be protected and that is not something I would want to be doing until I had gone on the offense.

Even when I go on the offensive, I need my troops to attack and defend new lands. I cannot do any worker task, till no units of theirs can reach those workers/airfields. By that time I will surely have some slaves.

I understand your points, vmxa, but you usually play at Deity level where the AI has a huge advantage. I play at Monarch and am usually an entire age ahead of the AI's by the time I've taken over my own continent and invade another. They may not yet have rails or even rifles, and I can out-produce them.

I'm about ready to try playing at Emperor and I'm sure a LOT of things will change for me, but Pat said she is playing at Warlord. My advice will apply only if she can out-research the AI...something it takes awhile to learn to do.

 

[FlowKey]

Before posting any specific tips, I'd like to stress that launching a large scale invasion is a difficult operation that takes a lot of careful preparation ... but hence also very satisfying when succesful.

In addition to the previously posted tips:

* Study the continents physical and social geography extensively: where do I start the invasion? Where can I establish a bridgehead? How can I cut of enemy reinforcements?

In an ideal situation, the continent has a defendable (hills/mountains) peninsula with one city at the tip: start your invasion here and conquer the city before the enemy can launch a full scale counterattack. You now have your bridgehead.

Another favourable situation is an island near the coast: conquer and defend this island first. This allows you to bring your invading force up to strenght in several runs if you're short on galley's/caravel/galleons. This makes it easier to supply fresh troops to your force on the mainland, ferrying between island and mainland.

*Like with all big military operations: plan ahead. In which order do I conquer the cities? Which are my must-have goals, my like-to-have goals and my nice-bonus goals?

* Make sure your invading force is strong enough to conquer the full continent, or a large defendable chunk of it, in one war. Even if not everything goes according to plan: do not stop before you have established at least some dominance over the enemy civ on the continent. Otherwise you will be back to where you started in no time.

Good Luck and remember: if your first D-Day turns into your Waterloo, you will still have learned a lot.

 

[vmxa]

gmaharriet you are correct in that i have not played a Warlord game in some time, other than posted saves. The game I finished yeserday was a deity contients, but the final invasion was against a civ that was a whole age behind me and I landed 7 armies the first wave and brought over 20 in the next two turns.

Still they managed to send scores of troops and I could not afford to have workers out working tile right after landing. I was able to spare an army to cover workers soon after, but I think that is not going to be the norm.

It happened that the island was only two tiles from the contient. So bring things over was a snap. At any level some invasion will be done prior to rails and some won't.

In any event, I suspect that player of Warlord that have not done any invasions are not going to be an age ahead. Maybe they will. I just do not invision anyone having so many ships to send that they can spare room for any workers on the first run, especially since they can get some from their host.

The tactics I mention will work if you are much stroner or they are. Most of my invasions are against Sid civs and so as you say I am rarely going to have any edge on tech. No matter who is ahead, they will have massive troops counts and there is no way I can bring more to the fight than they can.

No way I can resupply faster than they can. Actually I am never ahead in tech, but I have invaded where it was early enough that they did not have better units, due to lack of resources.

Now an island bound civ will have lots of troops at any level as they have little else to do. They do not need lots of settlers or workers as they have little land. They are able to get the structures up as they have limited numbers of towns. Their default is to make as many troops as they can support.

Anyway there are probably any number of strategies that can suceed under some conditions. I am not sure how many can work under all probable conditons.

 

[vmxa]

FlowKey

"In an ideal situation, the continent has a defendable (hills/mountains) peninsula with one city at the tip: start your invasion here and conquer the city before the enemy can launch a full scale counterattack. You now have your bridgehead."

Note that cats cannnot land on mountains, they need roads.

Also as gmaharriet mentioned levels matter. Capturing a city is not going to be easy on most levels. It is much safer to bring your own settler and found your beach head. That way you get to pick your location.

"Make sure your invading force is strong enough to conquer the full continent, or a large defendable chunk of it, in one war. Even if not everything goes according to plan: do not stop before you have established at least some dominance over the enemy civ on the continent. Otherwise you will be back to where you started in no time."

This sounds like a very tall order. Now at Warlord, you may be able to wait while building up such a large force, but some where around Emp that is going to start to be a hard nut to crack.

While you are building up they are making progress. More tech, more units, bigger cities. More roads/rails and so on. This is why I like the beachhead and hunker down plan.

They are going to toss all of their attackers at me and I will whittle them down and eat all of the new units they make. Soon I will have enough to go on the offense and keep the land I take. Be it raze or capture. Capture is the one huge difference in levels.

At Warlord that is surely an option at Deity and Sid that is not an option. As long as they do not have flight, I can take land at any pace that makes sense. They will have lost their best chance to dislodge me and as I take land from them, it gets harder for them to out produce me.

That is another large difference in levels. They won't be out producing me at all in a Warlord game. At Sid they can produce a late IA unit every turn from all of those cities. A 100 shield unit cost them 40, 50 cost them 20.

In the IA that Warlord civ will be something like 4 turns or more to make that 80 shield unit. Longer for more shileds and that is only in a few cities. So it will not be resupplying all that fast.

So I am not seeing any need to have the ability to sweep the land with just my invasion force. I do not want to wait that long to get them.

 

[Corwin of Amber]

I like to use bombers to cut their rail lines if i can, which delays the arrival of their troops. Then they'll come staggered, giving you time to heal and reinforce, instead of all at once. This can work against you as you advance, but sometimes if you have a real specific objective it works very well.

And, don't underestimate the power of terrain. I had a tank on a hill with one hit point left stand up to about six attacks from cav and the like.

 

[vmxa]

Invasions are going to have to be dealt with differently, once flight comes in. everything I have said applies to preflight.

Hills grant 50% defense. So a tank with 8 (vanilla) is now 12. If it is fortified it get an addional 25% and 25 more if they have to attack across a river. so all in all it could be double or 16. So at least 12 and up to 16 defense.

An attack 6 Vs tank of 1HP should loss none the less. Just a freaky rng thing.

 

[gmaharriet]

Anyway there are probably any number of strategies that can suceed under some conditions. I am not sure how many can work under all probable conditons.

Yes, learning flexibility is important. Believe me, I study your advice more and more closely as I s l o w l y move up the levels, knowing that my tactics will no longer work at some point. I admire your ability.

 

[vmxa]

Thanks, you are too kind.

 

[siphai]

successful as worlord,keep on losing as regent.any help please

 

[madviking]

Another tip*- bring a slave/worker and build an airfield (after discovering flight) on your continent and the other continent, much faster way to transport troops over seas.

(*this has probably been said, I don't wanna read all the posts)

 

[vmxa]

successful as worlord,keep on losing as regent.any help please

I would suggest you start your own thread and give some information on what is the game and setting and what you are seeing. Saves are helpful as well.

 

[FlowKey]

@vmxa

I agree I may have exagerated a bit, but this was only to make a specific point.

Note that cats cannnot land on mountains, they need roads.

By a city on a defendable peninsula to establish a bridgehead, I was referring to a city toward the tip, preferably with a few flat squares around it and 1-3 hill/mountain-tiles sealing of the peninsula

Also as gmaharriet mentioned levels matter. Capturing a city is not going to be easy on most levels. It is much safer to bring your own settler and found your beach head. That way you get to pick your location.

by words like 'capturing' or 'conquering', I mean 'taking over', as in: to do whatever seems fit given the level, your civs traits and strategy.

This sounds like a very tall order. Now at Warlord, you may be able to wait while building up such a large force, but some where around Emp that is going to start to be a hard nut to crack.(...) So I am not seeing any need to have the ability to sweep the land with just my invasion force. I do not want to wait that long to get them.

I agree that total or near conquest of an entire continent in one go is nearly always impossible at emp and up. My particular point was: do not go in with just enough troops to conquer a city + a normal garrison. Come with enough force to really destabilize the enemy for at least a few turns by taking over enough cities and strongholds within a few turns, while having reinforcements on their way. Plus I meant: do not make peace after conquering one city, thinking 'oh, I'll start the war again once I am strong enough again'

 

[IronJeff]

I like to do it incrementally. For example while I am still busy wrapping up my continent I will often send a settler to the next continent and found a beachhead town. Try and pick a point where the continents are near each other. Over time one trimene can haul alot of troopies when it can get there in one turn. I hate wasting gold on a big useless navy. Even battleships are of limited use, they never seem to be where I need them.

I also make peace alot. Take a couple cities, sue for peace. Regroup for a turn and hit it again, If the peace deals are favorable you can wear them down with that.

I dont worry too much about flips if you are winning the war its just a small setback to go back and retake the flippers. If you want to be sure they don't flip, starve them down to one or two population. One good way is with pop rushing. A despot can pop rush a city of 12 down to 1 in a few turns. if you poprush culture buildings (temple, library,cathedral, univ) you reduce the flip chance even more.