Modern warfare

[steviejay]

Originally posted by Lynx


As far as the navy is concerned, you probably wont have mass naval battles, and the ones you come across wont be against fortified bases, so you can ultimately prevail/lose a sea war, which can be a key for the war. on cross-continent wars the sea is the most important area of war. Your goal is to guard every transport you have going to the enemy shores, and to harrass enemy shores.

I know you don't really get alot of Naval battles but I got one in this one game where I was the Indians and I was fighting the Zulu's and the Babalyonians. I had a huge fleet consisting of about 8 Carriers and 15 battleships along with a of number of destroyers. and when I was transporting my transports across to invade in true Normandy style they attacked. They had a much smaller fleet than I but they still knocked out quite a fair bit, I also lost half my carriers, which were filled with Stealths, which was mightily annoying. The only real reason I'm tell you all this is cause it was such a cool game and I was wondering if anyone else has had such a game?

 

[Rammstein]

I like to attack an ROP friend... Am I trustworthy or what!?

 

[Sgt.Hellfish]

makes note not to allow RoP to ramm when paying PTW

 

[Lynx]

Naval battles , are less common than land battles, but if you have to fight cross-continent, then you will have a few...provided you have the navy to support a normandy style invasion. You should always protect your carriers and transports, as they are vital to your success.

 

[Clown2TheLeft]

Another thing on carriers---

I've seen one too many bombers drown as the carrier was crossing the ocean. REALLY irked me that ironclads killed not only a carrier, but 3 bombers and a fighter. 5 units lost to those (I thought) obsolete SOB's.

Now, I keep the planes at home until the carrier is almost in position. Re-base ht eplanes when I'm 1 turn away from the goal--and the escort has taken care of any remaining defense. Fewer losses. Dig it.


Later!

--The Clown to the Left.

 

[anarres]

I sometimes send in a crack force to take out resources - investigating the cheapest city of an enemy is an easy way to see what they have and what they are importing. Obviously this must be done before you attack...

Mostly I just blitz them through an ROP abuse. Strange that other civs will _still_ allow you to do the same to them, even if they are a little more suspisous - just give them a tech or two and they let you straight in!

 

[Lynx]

Good point about the carriers, but thats why you have them guarded by destroyers and subs, If you are waging cross-continental warfare, you cannot just send an unguarded carrier into a war zone unguarded. You would be asking for them to be attacked, ( and Ironclads are not obsolete against unguarded carriers ). :tank:

 

[Lynx]

Tank Warfare and the Blitzkrieg:

I decided, since i havent really covered tank warfare in the article i wrote, i decided to write a few notes on it.

For one, once tanks enter the picture, technology has handed you the counter to infantry (it took them long enough...) and you can now break out of the WW1 style trench wars, and go to the mobile, WW2 style warfare. ' Blitzkrieg ' may be the first thing that occurs to you when you have just gotten your panzers/Tanks, and you are in a war. the keyts for it are not a mass-attack, but an armor push with heavy bomber support and infantry coming to fill those cities you take. Modern armors are basically the same, except you have jet fighters and mech infantry by now, ready to use the tactics of blitzkrieg, (just dont forget about the paratroopers!!!).:soldier: :tank:

 

[Rammstein]

Speaking of paratroopers, I actually don't really know what to do with marines and paratroopers. Tips, anyone?

 

[Clown2TheLeft]

First thing, you don't listen to those that say they're useless.

Paratroopers: Send a squad in to land on an enemy resource--I.e.: oil, aluminum. Fortify to hold that resource until the bigger guns arrive. This unit has the greatest range into enemy territory. How it's useless I can't figure out.

Take city. Rush airport--to airlift in MI. Garrison with paratroopers to quell resistance. Airdrop to next objective from acquired enemy city after substantial MI has been airlifted IN to no longer require their services.

Marines: snatch AI workers on the coast, hit costal/island cities defended by obsolete units. Use to quickly sever land bridges. Consider expendable. Resource blockade with these as you would paratroopers. Fortify with air/naval bombardment support, if available.

Later!

--The Clown to the Left

 

[coup d'etat]

Yes, marines are a very useful unit. They are 8/4/1 I believe? So they have a greater attack power than a Cavalry. I keep restarting my games, so I don't have an incredible amount of experience with cross continent wars in civ3 (however Ive fought plenty of cross continent wars in civ2)... I've tryed 2 approaches with civ3.

The first approach I tryed was just to rush to get a navy and then attack coastal towns, which I felt was 'natural' (a favorite civ2 strategy of mine was to rush to ironclads and take cities with crusaders). Usually I played these games very peaceful up until getting cavalry and ironclads, although Ironclads aren't really good for this purpose in civ3 I've found, best to wait for something else. Marines are _very_ useful in these situations, especially in Civ3 because you can never reduce a garrison to zero like could be done in civ2. Marines have a greater attack power than infantry/cavalry (It says so in the manual but these stats are very wrong, but I'm pretty sure this statement is accurate) so they take less losses, not that this is a big deal as losses to units in the red are negligable. I still almost prefer this method of initiating cross continent warfare as opposed to my second method, which is to find hills and mountains on the coast and station stacks of Infantry and Artillery and bombard their cities to pop1 (basically trench warfare). The first method requires more tech and isn't always worth waiting for, and the second method usually offers me a much greater, and much more stable presence on the other continent. I very much enjoy the naval game so I prefer the first method for most games.

But in short, I love marines for the purpose of augmenting a great navy.

 

[zeeter]

Here's an interesting one. Eight civs left. Aztecs far and away better than everyone else. I am Roman. I get tanks and find myself at least two techs ahead of everyone else. Then the Great War starts. Everyone goes to war with the Aztecs and China. I go in and anihilate the Aztecs with my tanks, razing cities as I go. Still, nobody has tanks except me. I accidentally (heh) raze a couple of Aztec cities that used to be Indian and Ghandi freaks out. I'm at war with the Indians now. Meanwhile, stil - nobody has tanks. This is going on from 1600-1850. I was only two or three techs away. Granted, I'm not doing that great advancing either being at war all of this time, but still...What on earth are these guys doing being so far behind?

 

[Lynx]

Clown is absolutley correct, paratroopers are essential fopr modern warfare, and can wreak havoc on enemy resources. The Germans in ww2 lost for many reasons, but one was that they had their oil cut off, ( no Panzers, No Luftwaffe Bombers or fighters, just skme infantry). :soldier:

 

[Bismarck]

Originally posted by Clown2TheLeft
Another thing on carriers---

I've seen one too many bombers drown as the carrier was crossing the ocean. REALLY irked me that ironclads killed not only a carrier, but 3 bombers and a fighter. 5 units lost to those (I thought) obsolete SOB's.

Now, I keep the planes at home until the carrier is almost in position. Re-base ht eplanes when I'm 1 turn away from the goal--and the escort has taken care of any remaining defense. Fewer losses. Dig it.

My God!

It's simple, yet so effective. I'm punching myself for not having thought of this earlier.

Up until now, I've been having my ships travel in huge clusters (naval SOD's) to protect my bomber-laden carriers. I wasn't too happy about this, since it crippled my ability to strike multiple points on the very first turn of war. I'll definitely be using your strategy from now on.

 

[Lynx]

The plan can work, yes, but if your carrier is destroyed, then thats a big waste of effort. better to protect them since you save them and you can get free kills. becuare, after all, im not going to have to protect my carriers even if it has nothing in it!

 

[Lynx]

By the way, about the clustering, that isnt a good idea anyway. you only need 2-3 destroyers and or battleships to protect your carriers for a cross-continental war. Since i make on average in my modern age games more than 50 of each, i can easily make many groups (i have at least 20 carriers in a game as well, with close to 75 subs) to assault an opponents shore line with bomber supports to take oe of their cities, once i do, i load it with ground troops, clear resistance, get an air field, airship my men in. Then i let the killing begin... :soldier:

 

[DaveMcW]

Instead of making 50 battleships, make 50 transports loaded with units, take the city with marines, and unload your units in the captured city with full movement points. You can wipe out half their empire the same turn you declare war.

 

[Lynx]

Hehe, I do that too. thanks for reminding me to mention that.

 

[hbdragon88]

I play on chieftain and had a game with modern warfare on it.

Unless the AI is much smarter in higher levels, what I did was parked a lot of MAs along the borders that I shared with the AI I was at war with. When stacks of Longbowmen, Mechanized Infantry, and Modern Armor kept on moving towards my border, my Modern Armor took out whole stacks of them. Saved a lot roads from being pillaged.

About paratroopers: if the ai attacks with a modern armor, isn't it done for? What I've seen is the ai goes after things in huge unit stacks. I had an injured modern armor and there was a stack of eight longbowmen right there. City was taken a turn later.

 

[Lynx]

thease is something i use called 'Carpet Dropping' that is used for paradrops in the case of an opponent who is heavily mobilized and powerful. I usually dont drop in stacks, but drop individuals across a large area, large enough so that all of them will live long enough to take out roads. soon enough, your opponents will be cut off and damaged, just use some patience.