intercontinental amphibious invasions could I have some tips?

[Hamilton321]

I have some questions about intercontinental war. First I would like some general tips, second what, where and who should I attack first? Third is it better to wait for overwhelming force or invade sooner? I recently had a game in which I attacked later than I should have. I won a domination victory but I could have won the game earlier had I not waited to gain overwhelming force.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Im not sure there are that much to say other than you need some transport ships. A good invasion tend to be something like riflemen + cannons + galleons (for transport). In general the goal should first be to capture your own continent first before you invade oversea. If you control a whole continent you should have the resources to invade the next one and win without too much trouble.

Who to attack first. I would say the strongest civilization is the best target because they are the biggest threat. But if you are too weak you should maybe target a weaker civ to gain more cities and more power so you can take on bigger civs later on.

 

[Lennier]

It also helps if you can get an OB with someone on the "other" continent to stage your invasion force to n your first target. Otherwise you need to have enough transports to get your whole initial invasion force at once.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Naturally, you need a larger force than usual. Depending on when, machine guns can help you with the initial landing, and taking a city so you can put balloons will help with further invasions. Machine guns utterly shred masses of backwards units and also provide anti-air later on.

For these reasons it's often best to go after the weakest target first so you can use them for airbases and to ship units over safely. If you end up with no oil or something, you'll have to do this. You can also gift obsolete units to this vassal.

if you're invading later in the game, carriers and fighters are very powerful and getting the refrigeration tech for more movement is highly useful.

Use submarines or caravels to give you info about the shore you're going to invade. Note that while it's nice to get cities to secure a landing, you also don't need to hold onto every city-- burn down the ones you think you can't hold. Sneak attacks with air units and marines can help. It doesn't help the AI that it likes to keep tons of ships in port but if you can annihilate that fleet in port on turn one, it'll be great.

Of course, in the very late game, the best way to quick annihilation is to always have submarines with tactical nukes off their shores ready before the war starts.Sometimes this can be faster than building a large army.

Also don't forget drydocks with steel; sometimes I forget about that but that really helps makes those ships. If you can get a vassal to research military science so you can build an academy in a coastal city that would also be nice.

 

[lymond]

Well, OP, "overwhelming force" is relative. What you or I think an overwhelming force is may be different. Generally, I would first look to have some sort of military tech advantage, and certainly I would want a sufficient amount of units. But also the right units. Timing of the attack is important too. What era are you in? I've played lower level games for HOF or GOTM where I got an early circa 1AD Astro and attacked with classical units. Or you are attacking later with medieval, renaissance or later units.

Generally a fight in two modes: fast mounted warfare or melee/siege warfare. For amphibious also I tend to prefer melee siege - like rifles cannons are whatever, but mounted can work certainly depending on the time. The reason for melee/siege preference though is for defense and the fact that the boats are your "speed". The key is to bring enough siege, and also enough units as you need to a) take the cities b) keep the cities. From there, it really boils down to experience to get a feel for what you need in certain cities. And keep in mind that you can always scout the target first to see what units they have and where the main stacks are located.

Also, I like a shock and awe approach to naval warfare. Usually involves hitting multiple coastal targets at once and either avoiding the heart of the army or eliminating it immediately..which ever is suitable for the situation. Furthermore, attacking multiple targets (same for land warfare) tends to confuse the AI.

So as when to invade, it really boils down to what you are comfortable with. Earlier is generally always better than later. You just want to make sure you are prepared for battle.

(Another little trick to overseas attacks is ship-chaining. Once you move your armada/army overseas, you can start to set ships up in a chain across the ocean - each ship should be able to reach the tile of the next ship that turn to offload units - and ship over units to a city in one turn).

 

[SnipedSoul]

I generally pick off the weak civs before I attack the other strong leaders. The reason I do this is that I generally don't invade a strong civ without machine guns. They usually have massive stacks by that point and it takes too many rifles to hold a city. I use my rifles to take out some weak civs while teching railroad.

I agree with Lymond that hitting multiple coastal targets at once is a good strategy. You can move your army around very quickly using ships and frigates can bombard defenses. The AI will send their stack to recapture a city, at which point you can wipe them out with siege and then start pushing inland.

Late-game, carriers with fighters and transports full of marines can capture islands and coastal cities extremely quickly. Once you have a beachhead, use tanks, bombers, and paratroopers to run over the mainland. If you don't care about the state of cities after you get them, nukes + paratroopers is probably the fastest way to capture cities.

US rush-buy is very good for intercontinental invasions. Once you have a few cities out of revolt on the other continent, you can just buy units over there rather than ship them from your own continent. Airports are good for moving troops as well.

 

[elitetroops]

I generally pick off the weak civs before I attack the other strong leaders. The reason I do this is that I generally don't invade a strong civ without machine guns. They usually have massive stacks by that point and it takes too many rifles to hold a city. I use my rifles to take out some weak civs while teching railroad.

Dealing with AI stacks by holding a city is the worst way to do it. A captured city has no cultural defenses and their units often have CR promotions. If you're gonna take their stack on the defense, then it's much better to land on a forest hill to take the initial attack. Better still is to take their stack on the offense using siege. Instead of holding a city, just let them retake it and move in their stack, then you can obliterate it with your CR siege.

 

[SnipedSoul]

Dealing with AI stacks by holding a city is the worst way to do it. A captured city has no cultural defenses and their units often have CR promotions. If you're gonna take their stack on the defense, then it's much better to land on a forest hill to take the initial attack. Better still is to take their stack on the offense using siege. Instead of holding a city, just let them retake it and move in their stack, then you can obliterate it with your CR siege.

It must be the mods I use, but the AI pretty much never attacks me on forested hills. I do like the idea of letting them recapture a city and then smashing them with CR siege.

 

[Anysense]

It must be the mods I use, but the AI pretty much never attacks me on forested hills. I do like the idea of letting them recapture a city and then smashing them with CR siege.

It depends on the AI's courage. Some are rather timid, others attack even with very low odds.

 

[Hamilton321]

Some are rather timid, others attack even with very low odds.

That actually happens? I thought I saw some leaders like Napoleon and Alexander being quite aggressive with their units, and others such as MM be very cautious.

 

[SnipedSoul]

It depends on the AI's courage. Some are rather timid, others attack even with very low odds.

I've noticed that if I park my stack in a forest on my border that the AI will suicide into it when they DOW with high frequency. If we're already at war, they're much more likely to avoid my defensive position.

 

[Hamilton321]

Sometimes the ai will march in a straight line towards a city. If you put a fort on this path and defend it with your troops the ai will attack the fort.

 

[dankok8]

Generally if invading another continent, it's most efficient to use ships (Frigates, Destroyers, or later Carriers) to remove city defenses and then simply attack amphibiously from ships. One problem is that siege can't attack directly from ships and cause collateral damage so you need to use units as cannon fodder to wear down the defenders. Luckily if you pick your target well, you can attack a core city that doesn't have many defenders. Units with Amphibious promotion like Viking Berserkers or later Marines do well in these attacks. Another problem with intercontinental invasions is that if your enemy has technological parity, your fleet will likely be attacked and won't be able to bombard unperturbed and you should have a very sizable escort for your transport ships and expect to lose many because the AI loves to spam ships. Note that both Galleons and Transports which carry troops cannot bombard. You can always unload and then use siege to bombard and for collateral which makes taking cities easier but you need a large force to hold a beachhead especially if the enemy has railroads and can send virtually all of his excess units to attack you in a single turn! If you're not on defensive terrain, you could suffer catastrophic casualties. It's helpful to bribe your enemy to attack someone on their continent to occupy their army or use their neighbor's territory as a launchpad for attack and then it simply becomes a land war.

By the way if you have tech superiority in a naval war, make sure to blockade enemy cities. It can literally bring their economy to its knees and it stops them from using their water tiles so many cities could starve. The same hold true for defending your own coasts as much as you can. Wait in your cities and when enemy ships come, sink them and go back into the city so they can't counterattack you. Heal and repeat!

 

[Gumbolt]

Nothing wrong with cuirs and galleons? Chaining units too. If you can reach astronomy super early (1ad or so) why not mace, treb, xbow and knights?

Why people seem to want to wait for transports/destroyers and modern units is beyond me. The Ai only get stronger the longer you leave your attack.

Overall get a tech advantage and attack when you can. Also gain control of your continent early on. Sometimes it's useful to have Ai to trade techs. Other times you just have to take land to tech faster.

 

[6K Man]

The key, for me, is having a foothold on the other continent, rather than landing in enemy territory from ships. This foothold doesn’t have to be a vassal; it can be any nation with which you have open borders. If that foothold-state has a border with your target, you can build up an overwhelming invasion force over several turns, before declaring war, without having to build more than a few transport ships. If the game has progressed to the Industrial age, you can base aircraft in your foothold-state’s cities, too (but make sure you leave a unit in those cities to protect your planes). And finally, if your foothold-state has decent culture, you may be able to attack your target’s cities on land on the same turn you declare war, if the target city is right on the border.

Pure amphibious assaults – attacking directly from boats – are seldom a good idea unless you have overwhelming force, or can deploy air power against your target. Sure, Marines can work against Rifles, but they come pretty late and Infantry eat them alive. And once you have made your landing, a force made up of Marines is suboptimal for when you push into the enemy’s interior.

Tips:
- Have one ship with a medic promotion, which can be used to heal stacks at sea or in harbour
- Save a movement point on your transports – you can move them into a newly captured city and unload garrison units, even if these units have no movement points left

 

[Hamilton321]

Sure, Marines can work against Rifles, but they come pretty late and Infantry eat them alive.

I always promote my marines with combat I pinch since infantry is their main stumbling block. I recently did a game as Boudica of Rome. She can actually get ambush marines fairly easily, making marines even effective against tanks.

 

[Hamilton321]

I recently took 7 cities in four turns in an amphibious invasion.

 

[Hamilton321]

I would like some help with one other thing. Is it better to get a technology with which you can promote your uu's to something else or get a technology with which you cannot promote your uu's to something else but can get another more powerful unit with?

 

[elitetroops]

I would like some help with one thing. Is it better to get a technology with which you can promote your uu's to something else or get a technology with which you cannot promote your uu's to something else but can get another more powerful unit with?

There is no general answer to this. What is your UU? What are the options you consider? What opposition are you facing?

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Chain transportation for reinforcing after your initial amphibious landing. This trick was a total game-changer for me when I moved to normal speed.

Take the first city across the ocean but make sure it's a coastal one and fortify in there. While taking the city, send your transport ship stack as far as they would be able to move from inside the city in 1 turn but no farther (count tiles if you have to). Next turn, leave 2 ships behind and move the rest of the stack towards your home continent but only as far as they can move in 1 turn. Repeat this process until your ships are adjacent to home coast and can still reach the last ships you left behind in 1 turn. In effect, you will have a chain of transports crossing the ocean.

Reinforcing works thusly:
Load one transport that is on your home coast with fresh units. Move that transport to meet up with the next nearest ships in the chain. Select the units and click the Load Units button and choose one of the other ships that have movement. Even though your land units are out of movement, they can still be transferred to the other ships that still have movement points! Now move the newly loaded ship to meet up with the next in the chain and repeat. The last step is to move the last ship in the chain into the captured city on the new continent, select the units and click Unload button. They will be inside the city now. This all happens in 1 turn. Next turn, move the ships back into position and repeat with the other set of ships that you didn't use this time.

By leaving 2 ships at each link in the chain, you can reinforce every turn. This reduces overseas warring time multiplicitively long before airports. It even works with galleys in classical era! It also allows you to go heavy on siege and city raiders in your initial attack and bring over city garrisons and siege reinforcements very quickly afterward. The AI will never have a chance