Late-game warfare

[futurehermit]

I've been messing around with lategame warfare lately. It's something I never ever used to do since I would either try to win by dom in the renaissance or else stop warring for space in the renaissance.

But my new strategy is to tech to late industrial/early modern and then wipe out a pile of backwards AIs ftw. It means I am winning later, but it is quite enjoyable. Last game I conquered my continent while building space parts in my IW city. Once I launched I used the remaining 11 turns to nuke the other continent into oblivion. Fun times

Ok, here is the strategy I've been employing:

Army:

Tanks later upgraded to modern armor
Bombers later upgraded to stealth bombers
fighters later upgraded to jet fighters
Gunships (possibly upgraded from cavalry)
Machine guns later upgraded to mech infantry
Optional: Mobile artillery (a powerful unit!)
If necessary: Mobile SAM infantry

Navy:

Transports
Battle ships later upgraded to Missile cruisers
Carriers
Optional: Destoryers later upgraded to stealth destroyers
Optional: Subs outfitted with tactical nukes

My strategy is this:

Jet/fighters go on carriers and go along the coast. They get the range promotion if possible. They are used to do fly-by strikes on city defenders to weaken them. The stealth/bombers go in the nearest cities to the enemy and teleport in to newly captured cities as I go along. They are used to tear down enemy defenses. The tanks/modern armor are used to take the cities (city raider promos). The gunships are a sensational unit for taking out enemies in the open field because of high-movement rate (they only fear SAM-type units). Finally, machine guns/mech infantry are airlifed in from an airport city to newly-conquered cities for defense allowing the army to keep moving.

Using this strategy, I am able to zip through enemy empires. Everything moves at a very fast pace. No need to bring along any 1-move units at all! It's pretty fun.

 

[frob2900]

Tanks+bombers. The joys of blitzkrieg

The fun gets pumped up another notch if you are imperialistic and/or have the Great Wall and have a military city with a bunch of instructors.

You can then have special purpose stacks such as commando tanks which can wreak havoc on the AI (also very useful to add one or two special units to each main stack, such as, obviously, one medic II unit per stack or a visibility +1 unit, which is useful if your airforce is overstretched so that recon is impossible in some sector). Interception mech.inf. might also be relevant.

Teams of 3-4 workers following the main SoDs to lay down railroads can also come in handy for biltzkrieg type warfare.

 

[dozenlong]

Have you had many late game wars where you are at tech parity or even slightly behind? I have encountered this, and in BTS it seems (happily!) there are a LOT more counters to traditional SOD tactics, both from a unit perspective and AI behavior perspective.

 

[futurehermit]

No, tbh I haven't encoutered much tech parity by that point in the game. From a unit perspective, I would just add more of a mixture to my stacks (including mobile artillery, mobile SAM, mech inf, subs w/tactical nukes, etc.) and more units if necessary. From a behavioural perspective, the stronger the challenge the better imo. I love developing strategy and tactics, so if the AI throws stuff at me all the better. But so far they've been too backwards to compete really. I may move up full-time to emperor but am waiting to see currently if things get patched up at all.

 

[MrCynical]

I haven't seen much tech parity either. About the closest I got was a largely naval war, when I had missle cruisers and the AI had (unbelievable numbers of) battleships. No bonus in direct combat at least made it a relatively fair fight, and since I didn't have oil, my airforce was a bit limited. Didn't stop me dropping a tactical nuke on them when they were stupid enough to sail a stack of 30+ battleships and 30+ transports in range.